Perfect Timing (31 page)

“I can’t believe it. What the fuck is that bastard doing here?”

From behind wire-rimmed glasses, Strobe’s milky blue eyes peeled wide. Rick strained his neck, peering into his waist-high point of view. Halfway back from the restroom, Carrie staggered to a halt, holding on to Jack as if he were holding her up. A hand rose to her mouth as she looked past her daughter’s head. Isabel turned toward the maze of mourners. It was like lightning cutting into earth as Aidan made his way through the crowd. There was still a shock factor, but not quite as stunning as the first. The ball cap was gone, Aidan wearing a conservative but well-fitted suit. Even so, the rock star in him oozed out. No tie—just like the gala. But the focus tipped like a teeter-totter as Rick came into Aidan’s line of vision. Any trouble reading him at the radio station was corrected, Isabel recognizing the livid look on his face. She rushed toward him.

“Let’s go outside.”

“What the fuck is that son of a bitch doing here?”

“Funny, they said the same thing about you. Aidan, please. I can’t have a scene here. Don’t do this. Please come outside with me.” Isabel looked across the crowded room, relieved that Patrick was not in sight. Regardless of any wheelchair, Aidan was intent on finishing what he started back in Catswallow. Her hands pressed against his chest, shoving him in the opposite direction. It was like pushing against a locomotive. His glare shifted between Rick and Isabel, seeing the rest of the room.

“Fine,” he hissed, retreating.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

T
HERE
WAS
A
SIDE
DECK
TO
THE
RESTAURANT
. N
ORMALLY
,
IT WOULD BE PACKED
. But it had grown cooler, a typical late-summer Boston day. “Over here,” Isabel said, coaxing him from the street where she assumed the stares and interruptions would only increase. Isabel turned, speechless. Her arms jerked through the air, slapping against the fabric of her dress, stinging at her thighs. “I don’t know where to start.”

“Start with what’s most important. How are you? How was the funeral? I’m sorry, Isabel, so sorry about your father.”

Her head shook with questions, or maybe frustration. Either way, it was a hallmark reaction to Aidan that she was no longer used to. “I might buy that if you hadn’t disappeared at the hospital.”

“I wanted to give you some time. I didn’t want to make things worse, not in that moment. My being there upset Patrick. We talked while you were in with your father. Or I should say he talked. Circumstances aren’t . . .” He hesitated, his eyes glossing over her. “Something demanded my immediate attention and I had to fly back to L.A.”

Fingertips pressed to her forehead, Isabel blinked, bringing the present-day Aidan into focus. “Emergency fan club meeting?” His mouth opened, though he didn’t offer any further explanation. He was oddly aloof, this being the man who’d dismissed her for another life. “Aidan,” she said, hands curling into fists. “What, for the love of God, are you doing here? I don’t get it. You blatantly, and not so nicely, excused yourself from my life a long time ago. And now, in the middle of this, you want to what, resurrect a friendship?”

There was misplaced laughter, Aidan’s hand rubbing over his square jaw. “Trust me; friendship is the furthest thing from my mind. If you would just—”

“Seriously,” she said, peering toward the restaurant. “This is bold even for you. If you felt that bad, you could have just sent the world’s largest floral arrangement. I certainly can’t have you and my mother and Rick Stanton in the same room. The police dropped the charges years ago. But Rick and Trey, they believe that you’re responsible for—”

“Well, you and I know that I’m not.” The two of them traded the confounded look anchored to that night, Isabel almost telling him what Strobe had alluded to. But Aidan moved on to other things. “Besides, I could give a shit what either of them thinks. More to the point, Isabel, would you mind telling me what Stanton is doing here? Don’t tell me you’ve made peace with what happened, because God knows I haven’t.”

There was that timbre to his voice, the one that sent her reeling back to their wedding night. She turned, walking to the other side of the deck.
Don’t do it! Don’t trip on something so out of sync with the here and now! He has a life. More important, you have a life, and it has nothing to do with him.
Isabel turned back, grasping Aidan’s anger. It was nothing more than pride, an old wound. The boy who came to her defense and came away feeling he didn’t do everything he should have. Some other person was walking around with the knowledge and pleasure of having shot Rick Stanton. “No, Aidan. I haven’t forgotten and I haven’t forgiven him. But there is Jack to think about. He didn’t ask for any of this.”

“Your half-brother. He’s what, about six?”

“Six, last winter. And if I can have any influence on his life, counteract Rick and his good-ol’-boy thinking, I’m willing. Jack is a great kid, despite his paternal DNA.”

“I don’t know how you do it, face Stanton.” His hands slipped into his pockets, his focus dropping onto mildew-covered floorboards.

“Strobe is a lot of help. He’s not like his father.”

“Still, I don’t know how . . .” Aidan’s voice trailed away, Isabel seeing the teenage boy who was never as confident as his audience imagined, and this tugged at her heart. “Yes I do. Isabel the capable,” he said as if this should be her tattoo. “You’ll do whatever is necessary to keep someone you love on the right track.”

“Maybe . . . something like that,” Isabel said, knowing what she was prepared to do to keep him on the right track. “But you’re right. Anytime I visit them, it doesn’t bring back a lot of pleasant memories.”

“Me included?”

The answer to that was too complex and she was grateful when a voice interrupted, grateful until she turned and saw Trey.

“Interesting how this worked out.”

“How what worked out?”

“Roycroft being here,” he said, studying Aidan. “If you think I’ve gone a day without considering what you did. And here you are, in plain sight, without one bodyguard or handler to see to Aidan
Royce’s
safety.”

“I can take care of myself.”

Years had passed, but clearly Isabel didn’t believe it, taking a bold step in front of him. “Go back inside, Trey. You’re drunk.”

“Royce,” he snorted, ignoring Isabel. “Like some uptown vehicle, shiny and worth a million bucks.”

“More like a hundred million,” Aidan offered. “But who’s counting.”

Trey narrowed his eyes. “You don’t deserve a dime of it. You’re nothing but trailer trash from Catswallow. The only thing you deserve is a seven-by-ten cell, maybe a boyfriend not near as polished as the one inside.” Isabel lunged, Aidan pulling her back. “Aw, my apologies, Bella. I ain’t got no beef with him,” he said, jerking a shoulder toward the restaurant. “Long as he keeps his hands to himself.”

“You stupid ignorant ass! You’re disgusting, Trey! Get out!”

“Not yet. We have unfinished business. Roycroft gets away with attempted murder, wins a lottery ticket life while my daddy gets to spend his in a wheelchair. There’s got to be some justice. And here you are,” he said, a sour look spilling over Aidan. “’Course, you’re probably right at home, being morals got no place in your world. Rumor has it you lead your own depraved life.”

“Whatever my life,” Aidan said, “I definitely prefer it to the hate and ignorance in yours.”

He sneered, a dumb grin crossing his lips. “Did you think it wouldn’t catch up with you?” Trey circled around, and as he did Aidan turned too, forcing Isabel behind him.

“What is it you want, Trey?”

He raked a hand over the stubble on his chin, a beard that seemed to sprout hourly. “That’s a great question. I wasn’t anticipating an opportunity. Not today. But then I thought on the unique circumstance. And, well, it’s a good thing I’m always prepared.” He placed his hands on his hips, pushing his jacket back to reveal the gun he carried. Isabel was startled but not surprised. For Stanton men, wearing a firearm was like wearing Fruit of the Looms—you wouldn’t leave home without them. Isabel scrambled to get back in front of Aidan. But now she was standing behind the locomotive, and it wasn’t budging. Aidan’s hands locked around her wrists, holding her there. His voice was calm, incredibly steady.

“Isabel, I’ll let go if you promise me you’ll go inside.”

“I will not either!”

He gripped tighter, mumbling, “Thick as ever . . .”

She peered over Aidan’s shoulder. “What are you going to do, Trey? Shoot Aidan Royce on the deck of the Back Bay Bistro? The spot may be private, but I’d make a pretty good witness.”

“Could always shoot you both and disappear,” he said as if the deck were a deer stand and they were venison stew. “I could be out of here in a heartbeat. It’d go unsolved, just like my daddy’s shooting.” He pulled the gun from his waistband, but didn’t point it at them, examining the small silver revolver. “It would be fitting. You’d go down in your glory, in your prime. Hell, I’d be doing you a favor. There’s nothing sadder than an aging rock star. Forever young, like the ones before you: Hendrix, Morrison, Jackson . . .”

“They died of drug overdoses.”

Trey pointed the gun at him. “Okay, Lennon then.”

For one wild second Isabel believed he was going to shoot. She jerked her arms, but Aidan’s grip had turned to handcuffs. Otherwise, he was amazingly sedate, so different from the teenager that pummeled Rick. “You’re not going to shoot me, Trey. You’re too much of a coward. If that’s what you wanted, you could have hunted me down years ago. You’re nothing but a lot of bullshit—just like your daddy. Unless, of course, the prey happens to be smaller . . . weaker.”

“Aidan, shut up,” she hissed from behind.

“Then you might take advantage to prove your manhood. Now put the gun away, Trey, and go sober up.”

“Yes, put the gun away,” Carrie said, coming up behind Trey. “Are you insane? Would you like to spend the rest of your life in a Massachusetts prison?”

He didn’t respond; it was a standoff of wills. “You ready to let him walk away, Carrie, after what he did? I can’t believe that. Because of him,” he said, wiggling the gun at Aidan, “my daddy will never walk again and you get to spend your life with a cripple. The police refused to bring him to justice. You don’t want even a little revenge? Maybe I can just aim good enough to return the favor. I might be willing to do that kind of time.”

Isabel squirmed from Aidan’s grip, pivoting in front of him. “Don’t you dare!”

Aidan shoved her aside as Carrie yelled, “Isabel, don’t!” She looked toward Trey. “Put the gun away!” But Isabel could see it in his eyes; he wasn’t about to take direction from a woman, particularly his stepmother. She was only agitating him, the point proven as she took a step forward and he cocked the trigger. “For God’s sake, Trey, he didn’t do it! Aidan didn’t shoot Rick—I did.”

Three gaping stares volleyed in Carrie’s direction. “What . . . what the hell are you talking about?” he asked, his aim wavering. “We all know who shot him!”

“No,” she insisted. “You don’t. I know . . . your father knows.”

“My father knows you shot him?”

“Yes, he does. He’s well aware.” She glanced at Aidan’s and Isabel’s slack-jawed faces. “It’s, um, it’s complicated, and I think it’s best if you heard the whole story from Rick. Strobe was just getting him into the van. Go and help, unless, of course, it’s your intention to shoot me.”

As real as Trey’s threat was toward Aidan, no one believed he would shoot his stepmother. It seemed particularly unlikely after informing them that Rick had known of her culpability since the night in question. Carrie Stanton didn’t physically disarm him, but she raised enough doubt to make Trey put the gun away. Isabel exhaled, realizing that Aidan’s arm was tight around her. She pushed it away, the two of them trading a bewildered gaze.

Trey exited to the parking garage, Carrie telling him to go ahead without her. She’d take a cab back to the hotel. Then she looked between Aidan and Isabel, motioning to a bench. “You’d better sit.”

CHAPTER THIRTY

N
EITHER
A
IDAN
NOR
I
SABEL
SAID
A
WORD
DURING CARRIE’S EXPLANATION
, Isabel erasing the laundry list of scenarios she’d accumulated. The most satisfying centered on a victim payback theory. Surely other women had suffered what Rick promised Isabel that night. She’d imagined one of them stumbling upon the already beaten predator. She understood how the chance at revenge would be too tempting. But Isabel never could conjure up a premise as to how one of them showed up on cue. Of course, her most realistic conclusion involved Strobe. Maybe a bloodied and beaten Rick called his lesser son after first calling Trey who was either A) in bed with the woman of the week, after wooing her with the vehicle of the month, or B) on a shooting range, honing his manhood and aim. Perhaps Strobe rushed to his father’s aid, but after seeing his injured imperious father, he chose retribution over medical assistance. It would have been poetic justice, the physically frail Strobe deciding to take his father’s testosterone level down a notch.

As it turned out, it was none of those things, Isabel never suspecting Rick’s wife and caregiver. It took Carrie a while to explain it. Chances were she didn’t come to her ex-husband’s funeral expecting to confess to the current one’s shooting. But as Carrie pointed out, they’d all moved on, and the time had come for her to do the same. She never used the word
lie
, but an
agreed-upon omission of facts
. She’d been called in to work, just as Rick told Isabel when she arrived at the trailer. Two hours into the emergency shift, Carrie decided to go home. Apparently, morning sickness could occur anytime of day or night. She was flabbergasted to find the trailer torn apart, Rick lying on the floor, a tooth nearby, bleeding. He was semiconscious, not completely out of it but not coherent enough to lie. “In a two-minute span I considered everything from a random intruder to a political rival with an ax to grind.” From there Carrie asked a woozy Rick to tell her which one it was. He shook his head, sputtering, “Roycroft . . . Aidan Roycroft, he was all over Bella.” To Carrie, this was plausible, making it easy to head down the same path that the Catswallow police would. “Rick, he was the hero. What other explanation could there be?” Then solemnly she said, “I’m sorry Aidan, but you’ve no idea how badly I wanted to believe that.” A guilty gaze washed over her face, and she went on to admit that her initial conclusion didn’t add up. “As I knelt beside him, I realized Rick smelled like every drunk I’d ever x-rayed at two a.m., reeking of blood and booze. I’d seen him that drunk once or twice. I knew he could be . . . aggressive. Then,” she said softly, “I saw the greater physical evidence of what had happened. His, um, his belt was unbuckled, his pants unzipped, and I knew. I knew because of what I saw; I knew because you tried to tell me as much before the gala. There were faint sirens coming; they were nothing compared to the one in my head. I picked up the gun. I told Rick to focus, to look at me. He did, and I pointed it in his face. I said, ‘Tell me what you did to Isabel or I swear I’ll shoot you dead regardless.’ He grabbed my wrist. He wasn’t as out of it as I’d assumed. He cautioned me to think it through—Rick said we had a promising future, a baby on the way. Did I really want to put a bullet in him over one,
attempted
, regrettable act? We struggled for the gun. I won. While shooting him was a fine idea, I did hesitate. I did consider the whole circumstance. I would still be pregnant with his child and certainly not in his will. I’d have a teenage daughter, a baby on the way, and a single wide full of broken furniture—just like we spoke about that night, Isabel.” Nodding, she recalled the vivid scene. “The sirens were getting closer. I had seconds to make a lifelong choice. I struck a deal with myself. I’d make Rick pay and I’d make sure it never happened again. I’d been abandoned by one man. I wasn’t interested in a repeat performance. So in the end, I chose an altered state of promise. I’d seen enough bullet wounds. I had a good idea about the angle. Enough to make my point, not quite enough to kill him.”

Exchanging a round of stunned looks, Isabel murmured, “You shot him?”

“I did,” Carrie said, as if she’d done no more than slap his face. “Rick passed out. I left seconds before the ambulance arrived. I went out the back way and returned to the hospital before anyone missed me. The back way,” she repeated, reminding them that the back way would have taken her past the farmhouse. “I stopped when I saw Aidan’s truck. I knew the two of you were together.” As Carrie spoke, the scene inside was repainted, giant images of two young lovers shadowing the old farmhouse walls. Isabel felt Aidan’s glance. His hands were knotted, curled into two white-knuckled fists. Carrie cleared her throat for all of them, moving on. “When Rick regained consciousness, I made sure mine was the first face he saw. I laid it out for him. I told Rick to think it through. He was lucky not to be handcuffed to the bed and he was luckier still to be breathing.” She looked squarely at her daughter. “He never recanted. He never once said, ‘Carrie, you’re wrong. I didn’t try to rape your daughter.’ In my life,” she said, glancing at the door of the Back Bay Bistro, “I’ve lived with things I didn’t want to know. This was, by far, the worst,” she said, her chin tipping high.

Questions ricocheted through Isabel’s brain. She tried to put them in order, get them out of her mouth. Aidan asked the first one, wanting to know at what point Rick and Carrie decided to hang him for the crime.

“That, in large part, is why I’m sharing this. When I saw you today, Aidan, I knew it was time.” She looked at Isabel. “Maybe it was your father whispering in my ear,
‘Here’s your chance, Carrie . . . make it right.’
But consider things from my point of view, Aidan. What was going on inside that farmhouse, it only reinforced my conclusions. I wasn’t about to let Isabel become an Aidan Roycroft casualty. I think we all recall how you went through girls faster than guitar picks.” And Isabel watched the clenched fists unfurl, his arms folding tight against his chest. “Friends? Fine. But Isabel wasn’t going to become
one of them
. Not if I could help it.” Isabel’s jaw slacked, amazed by their mutual unspoken objective. “I lived through those very feelings, inconsolable hurt and rejection. Back then, Aidan, she was so completely in love with you.”

“Mom . . .” Isabel gasped, the rush of embarrassment no less had Carrie announced it when Aidan came through the door on the night of the gala.

Isabel felt him bristle at her side, Aidan clarifying, “Back then.”

“As soon as the police learned you were responsible for the beating, they concluded that you shot Rick too. We never corrected their conclusion. It was that simple.

“For a while, I let it ride. I nearly convinced myself that Aidan had shot Rick and it was all . . . meant to be. But then Rick started talking about bringing Aidan to justice as if he did pull the trigger. I took a long look at the charge, knowing I was responsible. By then you were out of Isabel’s life, and I wished you no further ill will. I was prepared to come forward. I’d gone to Rick’s rehab to tell him that. I found two men with him. One was definitely a lawyer; he did most of the talking. I listened at the door. The other seemed like a slick businessman on a mission; he said that they were there representing
Aidan Royce’s
interests. It was the first time I’d heard your new name, the life that had fallen squarely in your lap. In exchange for a retraction, a hefty donation would be made to Rick’s campaign for state senator. Rick was trying to adjust, figure out his life, we all were. Knowing full well that you hadn’t shot him, he was willing to use his influence to see that the charges were dropped. He took the cash, ready to throw himself into a renewed campaign. It didn’t sound like an awful solution to me. Rick was satisfied with the outcome—”

“And your guilt was absolved,” Aidan said.

“Trust me. You have no idea about my guilt.” She stared for a moment, Isabel stunned by her precarious choices. “And that part did manage to work out fine. Surely you can’t disagree. You and Isabel went your separate ways, and things turned out exactly as they should.”

“Exactly as they should,” he repeated.

“Not to sound stalkerish, but it’s hard to miss your life, Aidan. I’ve seen the magazine covers, heard the stories. Seems you moved on from a town to a planet. I was right to protect my daughter. Isabel, she has a wonderful life. In fact, she was just telling me how serious things are between her and Nate—”

“Mom!”

There was restless movement from Aidan. Isabel was unable to detect a lazy shift of indifference to her love life or if it was a reaction to the fact that she had one. “I’m only saying that you have a very full life. I’m not proud of what I did to you, Aidan. You came to Isabel’s rescue that night. Rick was drunk, he did a very foolish thing,” she said, downplaying her husband’s role of predator. “I’m grateful it didn’t end worse. Please try to understand . . .”

Standing, striding to the opposite side of the deck, Aidan stared at a snaky tributary of the Charles River, Isabel suspecting he didn’t.