Silent Scream (14 page)

“Thank you.” Puzzled, David led her back to his empty spare bedroom and closed the door. “What the hell, Paige?” he asked,
all pretense of politeness gone.

She jabbed her fists to her hips. “You
used
me. You jerk.”

“How did I use you?”

“Olivia came into the gym this morning. Really early, so she could avoid me.”

David winced. “It’s been a while since she’s been to the gym.”

“Which you know because you’ve been reading the sign-in sheets. Rudy told me. He also told me you’d asked about Olivia and
that he told you we were old friends.”

“Rudy’s a weasel,” David muttered and her ruby lips twitched, but just once.

“That’s what Olivia said this morning because Rudy told me she’d come in.” Her expression darkened. “Goddammit, you
know
her. And I mean that in the
biblical
sense. You knew I knew her and you never said a word. Did you join my dojo just to use me to get to her?”

In the biblical sense
. Based on his vague recollections, that was quite possibly the truth. “It’s not what you think.” He sighed. “I met Olivia
at a wedding.”

“I know. Her sister Mia’s wedding two and a half
years ago. After which the biblical knowing ensued.” Her voice rose. “After which you never called her.”

“Quiet,” he hissed. “My mother has ears like a damn bat. I met Olivia at the rehearsal dinner. I was sitting on the steps
of the church, putting off going inside.”

Her eyes narrowed suspiciously. “Why?”

“Because it was one more wedding I’d leave alone.”

Paige’s look turned skeptical. “Now you want me to believe you have trouble getting a woman. You? Mr. Perfect, who’s too nice
to possibly be true? Please.”

His laugh was mirthless. “Look at you. You’re gorgeous. You’re nice. Usually. Do
you
have a good man?”

Her shoulders sagged. “Point taken, thank you very much. But
I’m
fucked up.”

“Well, honey, you’re not the only one,” he said bitterly. “We all have our issues.”

She considered this. “Fair enough. So why did you glom onto me? Why me?”

“Evie took your self-defense class and she said you were good, so I came to the dojo to meet you. I liked it there, so I joined.
I didn’t know you knew Olivia, not at first.”

“Olivia recommended my class to Eve,” Paige said and he could see she believed him. “So we’re caught up in a circle of friends.
But then you went all spy-guy. Why?”

“I saw Olivia’s name on the sign-in sheet at the gym and was surprised, so I asked Rudy. He said she came in regularly, that
the two of you are friends. So I let things go where they would. I kept an eye on the sign-in sheet and Rudy kept me filled
in.”

Her brows lifted. “He really is a weasel.”

“I prefer ‘confidential informant,’” he said and her lips twitched. “What?”

“That’s what I said to Liv. So you met her at a wedding, were obviously taken with her, you two did the horizontal shuffle,
and then you don’t
call
? That’s not nice, David.”

“She left me,” David protested. “I woke up and she was gone. No note, no nothing. And I did call, but the number I found in
the online phone book had been changed.”

“She moved right about that time. You could have asked her sister for her number.”

David thought about Olivia’s sister, Mia, who was one of the few who’d known how hopelessly he’d fallen for someone else.
“That was… complicated.”

“You slept with Mia, too?” she asked, her voice rising to a shriek.

“Goddammit,” he hissed. “Be quiet. I did not sleep with Mia, too. I may not even have slept with Olivia. Whatever happened
between Olivia and me is our business. I hoped she’d call and figured when she didn’t that she regretted what happened.”

“Which she says she does.”

David lifted his brows. “And does she?”

“You’ll have to ask her. Why did you come to Minneapolis? I want the truth.”

He sighed. “Evie needed help fixing her roof. I’d been looking for some kind of… I don’t know, a sign or something. I get
here and Evie gets attacked, then I get run off the road by that psycho and Olivia’s the cop on the case.”

“Hell of a sign,” Paige said.

“Yeah. I should have left Chicago a long time ago. There was a woman named Dana…”

Her mouth drooped sadly. “She died?”

“No. She met someone else.” And he’d thought he’d never live through it.

She sighed. “Been there, done that. And?”

“And nothing. Dana was happy with this other guy. She never knew how I felt, and she never felt the same. I walked away. Just
not far enough. Our families are all… connected. Birthdays, anniversaries, holidays. I had to see her all the time.”

“I know that name,” Paige said. “Dana was in the wedding, too. I saw her picture.”

“She was Mia’s matron of honor. I was glad I didn’t know Mia’s fiancé well enough to be asked to be the best man.”

“That would have sucked.”

Paige had a way with understatement. “True,” he said. “I’d been looking for a way out of Chicago for a while, but my job was
there. My family. Evie gave me the shove I needed to make the move.” She’d dared him to stop hiding from the world, to stop
watching other people be happy. And she’d been right.

“So after two years, you moved here. Why didn’t you call Liv for seven months?”

“Because Olivia was digging bodies out of that psycho’s lime pit, informing all those families. Evie would tell me how withdrawn
Olivia was becoming, so I watched her for a few weeks. I wanted to see if she looked better, less stressed. I wanted to walk
up to her front door and”—he drew a breath—“take up where we left off. But she looked worse as the weeks passed, and there
was never a good time. Look, Evie told her I’d
bought this place. I figured if she didn’t call, she didn’t want to take up where we’d left off. So I waited. I could be patient.”

“Seven months?” Paige shook her head. “Not even you’re that patient. I want the
truth
.”

He closed his eyes. He wasn’t certain he could handle the truth. “The truth is, I don’t remember much of that night.”

“Yeah, right. You remember everything you’ve ever seen or read. You have a photographic memory. How could you possibly not
remember that night?”

“I had too much to drink at the reception. I never get drunk. Never.” A memory jabbed at him. He hadn’t gotten drunk since
that night nearly twenty years ago. A night that ruined so many lives. A night for which he’d done penance ever since, but
all the good deeds in the world would never bring the dead back to life. “I don’t know why Olivia ran.
I don’t know what I did
.”

“Can I give you some advice?” she said softly.

He opened his eyes, found hers warm again. “Why not?”

“Olivia can take whatever demons you’ve got burning you from the inside out. Tell her the truth. Let her decide if you can
take up where you left off. David, you can’t take care of everyone. By trying to protect her, you did the exact opposite.
You hurt her.”

“I never meant to. She said she’d talk to me.”

“Good. Don’t fuck it up again.” She leaned up and kissed his cheek. “Good luck, David. Trust yourself.”

He shook his head. “I can’t. It’s too important.”

“You have to. I’ll see you tomorrow at the dojo. And don’t worry.” She made a locking motion across her lips. “I won’t tell.
Gotta get back. My lunch break is over.”

Monday, September 20, 12:15 p.m.

Y
ou are batshit crazy,” Albert said, backing away, palms out. “No fucking way.”

Mary sat on the grass in front of the library, her eyes red-rimmed. “Eric, Joel’s dead. How can you even suggest such a thing,
now of all times?”

Joel’s death had actually given him the argument he needed to convince the others to help him torch the texter’s target.
Just this one
, he thought.
Tomorrow, we run.

When do you tell them about the video so they know they need to run?

Tonight. After the job is done.

The warehouse belonged to a guy named Tomlinson who sold plumbing fixtures but who had to have done something bad to be a
target of blackmail and arson.

“Albert, come over here and stop pacing like a tiger. People will notice.” Eric sat down next to Mary and patted her hand.
“Look, Tomlinson’s warehouse was next on Joel’s list.” Which was so totally not true, but fortunately Joel was not there to
refute it.

“He sells plumbing fixtures. What does he have to do with wetlands or habitat?” Mary asked. “Joel never mentioned Tomlinson
to me.”

“He mentioned him to me, lots of times,” Eric lied smoothly. “Tomlinson’s an investor in KRB, Inc. One of the bigger investors,
in fact.” Of course he was not. But he didn’t expect either Mary or Albert to know how to double-check him. “If KRB goes forward
with their project, it’ll be with money this guy gives them.”

“You’re batshit crazy,” Albert mumbled again. “Doing another one, after last night?”

“It’s the perfect time,” Eric said. “Look at it this way. Who knows what Joel told his parents or what they may have suspected?
He goes home upset. He’s been going on about saving the wetlands and there’s a fire. You all took showers, but his clothes
still smelled like smoke. The Fischers aren’t stupid. If we never do another, they’ll think Joel did the condo fire. If we
strike again, they’ll know Joel had nothing to do with it.”

“They’ll suspect you,” Albert said stonily. “You were his friend.”

Hell of a friend. I gave the order to have him killed
. “No, they won’t suspect me,” he said flatly. “Mr. Fischer used to say I had no imagination. No passion. Just a number cruncher.
He’d laugh about it. Say I was the one safe person to have around Joel. That I kept him from running off half-cocked to do
his causes.”

“How could this happen?” Mary lamented. “Joel was upset when I dropped him off last night, but he wasn’t… you know.”

“No, what?” Albert asked.

“Suicidal,” she said. “The road was dry. It was daylight. I think he ran off the road deliberately. If I’d thought he’d hurt
himself, I never would have left him.”

Eric didn’t dare look at Albert. “It was an accident,
just like the girl. Nobody meant for the girl to get hurt. It was an accident.”

Mary covered her face with her hands. “I can’t watch the news. I couldn’t stand knowing her name. I keep trying to forget
her, but I see her there, screaming.”

A shiver slithered down Eric’s spine. The image hadn’t left his mind either. But at least Mary wasn’t watching the news, so
she hadn’t heard about the guard yet.

“Mary, listen. Think about what had Joel so fired up. What had you fired up. Those wetlands. Our earth. We wanted to keep
one corner of our earth… safe.” He oozed sincerity. He was choking on it. Yesterday he’d believed every word. Today he just
wanted it to be over. “We stopped them, but only temporarily. With Tomlinson’s money, they’ll rebuild. Bigger, maybe. That
means all of our sacrifice was for nothing. Joel would have died in vain. You don’t want that, do you?”

Mary shook her head. “No,” she whispered.

“He would have wanted this,” Eric murmured. “You know it. We owe it to him.”

She went very still. “What do we do?” she whispered.

Eric wanted to blow out a relieved breath but kept it in. “Meet in the parking lot, same place as before. Tomlinson has a
guard dog. We’ll need to bring some steak with some sleeping powder on it. Just to make him sleep, Mary,” he added when she
flinched. “I had some muscle relaxants, but they expired a long time ago.”

“I have some sleeping pills,” she murmured. “Just to make him sleep.”

“Absolutely,” Eric assured her.

She squared her shoulders. “Joel’s burial is tomorrow.”

Eric’s brows rose. “Tomorrow? Oh yeah. That’s some Orthodox rule, right?”

“Burial within twenty-four hours. I want to go, but if I go alone his parents will freak. You’re going, right? You’ll go with
me?”

If I’m still in the country
. “Of course. Get some rest. Don’t watch the news.”

He watched her go, then turned to Albert. “You in?”

Albert looked straight ahead. “What does he have?”

“What does who have?”

A muscle twitched in Albert’s taut jaw. “The guy who shot the guard. He saw us. He’s making us do this stupid crime.” His
accent became more pronounced, as it always did when he became emotional. Usually Eric found it a turn-on. Not today. “That’s
the only explanation for this ridiculous charade. So what does he have on us?”

What was there to say? “Video. The whole thing. Close-ups of our faces and of the girl’s face in the window. You smacking
Joel and us dragging him away.”

“So we are now his bitches?” Albert asked bitterly.

“Either that or we run.”

“Where would we run? The world is a very small place.”

Eric attempted a small smile that fell painfully flat. “France? They don’t extradite if there is a possibility of the death
penalty. And you do speak the language.”

Albert did not smile. “This is Minnesota. We’d just go to prison for life.” He turned only his head, spearing Eric with his
eyes. “When did you plan to tell me,
mon ami
?” What had once been an endearment was now a soft snarl.

“Tonight. After we were finished. I needed some time. If you refused, he’d show the video and I’d be trapped.”

“I, I, I,” murmured Albert. “You took a lot on yourself. When did I get to choose?”

“What would you have done differently, Albert?”

For a moment Albert said nothing. When he spoke, his voice was cold. “I wouldn’t have kept it from you. I’m not going to run.
This person, how does he contact you?”

Eric took the cell phone and MP3 player from his pocket. “He texted me on my cell, then told me where to find these.”

“Tomlinson is not a KRB investor.”

“No.”

“That was not a question, Eric. Did you think I was too stupid to check on this myself? Before I agreed to this arson scheme
of yours, I wanted to be sure you would remain unhurt. I checked the condo investors to be sure your father’s company was
not among them, that they would take no financial loss. That in your zeal you would not bite the hand that feeds you.”