Allison Brennan - Love me to death

Lucy walked quietly down the hall, not knowing what to expect. She didn’t like surprises or unexpected visitors. Through the open double doors she saw Kate sitting rigid at one end of the long, formal table, and a man and woman in business attire sitting across from each other, the woman’s back to Lucy. By their clothes and demeanor, Lucy pegged them as federal cops. She eyed the female agent’s holstered gun on her waist and the files on the table in front of her partner.

Lucy caught Kate’s eye as soon as she stepped through the doorway. Her face fell. Kate was a master of the straight face, but something had upset her enough to let her emotions show.

The two agents looked at Lucy, and she straightened her spine. Something was up-this wasn’t a friendly chat. Was it Dillon? Her bottom lip quivered before she could bite it, and she feared something had happened to her brother while he was at the Petersburg Federal Penitentiary, where he was interviewing a death-row inmate. But she couldn’t ask.

Kate said, “Lucy-,” then she was at a loss for words. Kate was never at a loss. But she wasn’t crying; it wasn’t Dillon. It couldn’t be. Someone else she cared about? Or maybe it had nothing to do with her. It was an FBI meeting. Nothing to do with her or her family.

“I’ll let you finish your work,” Lucy said. “I’ll be upstairs.”

The male agent rose to his feet and nodded a greeting. He was about six feet tall, with conservative-cut light brown hair and a square jaw. “I’m Special Agent Noah Armstrong. My partner, Special Agent Abigail Resnick. Lucy Kincaid?”

“Yes.” She glanced from Agent Armstrong to Agent Resnick. Her blond hair, a shade or two darker than Kate’s, was long and pulled into a tight ponytail, making her fine features sharp and edgy. “Is this about my application?”

Noah Armstrong looked surprised. “No, it’s not.”

“Oh-then do you need me for something?” She glanced at Kate, keeping her face impassive though her gut instincts told her that something was very wrong.

Please not Dillon. Not Jack. Not Carina. Not anyone I love! Her family meant more to her than anything, but they all worked dangerous jobs. Cops. Mercenaries. Private investigators.

“Please sit down,” Armstrong said.

Lucy didn’t want to sit, she wanted to know why these two agents were in her house, why Kate was so worried that she kept tucking her hair behind her ear, and what it all had to do with her.

She shrugged off her coat, draped it over a chair, and sat at the opposite end of the table from Kate. She pulled off her gloves and tried to make her face a blank. She took heart that Kate’s eyes weren’t red, that maybe no one they cared about was hurt.

Agent Armstrong said, “Roger Morton was shot and killed last Friday.”

Lucy blinked several times, completely confused and caught by surprise. Roger Morton was dead-she let that sink in. The base of her skull tingled as shame filled her, not in remembrance of what Morton had done, but in her quiet rejoicing over his death.

“Why does the FBI need to deliver the news in person?”

“We’re investigating his murder, Ms. Kincaid.”

Lucy glanced at Kate, who had her mouth firmly shut. It was obvious Kate wanted to say something but felt she couldn’t.

Apprehension grew along with Lucy’s confusion. “I don’t see how I can help in your investigation, Agent Armstrong. I can assure you I never visited that man in prison. Is it customary to interview a convict’s victims?”

“In these circumstances, it is.”

“I must be missing something, because I haven’t been in Oregon in years-in fact, the only time I was ever there was on a family trip when I was about nine.”

“Mr. Morton was killed at the Washington Sailing Marina.”

She knew she hadn’t misheard him. Her voice was hardly more than a whisper, as if the wind had been knocked out of her. “In Alexandria?”

Agent Armstrong nodded. “He’s been on probation since July first.”

Lucy stared at the agent, who was observing her closely. Too closely. Her skin heated as the truth hit her.

“Probation?” Her voice cracked.

Roger Morton had been cut loose? That couldn’t be right. And he’d come to D.C? Had he been looking for her? To hurt her again? Rape her?

No! You wouldn’t let him get that close to you. You’re smarter now. You can defend yourself. He cannot hurt you. He’s dead .

“You didn’t know?”

“Know?” Her mind was running full speed in multiple directions: Morton on probation, Morton in D.C., Morton dead. Her body quivered, but she didn’t feel it, almost as if she were detached and watching the conversation from the sidelines. She saw the tremble in her hand but barely comprehended it was hers.

She looked at Kate. Her sister-in-law couldn’t keep the pain and the guilt from her eyes. She realized Kate had already known about Morton’s early release.

“You didn’t tell me?” she asked, letting the anger in because anger conquered pain. The pain would come-of betrayal and fear and regrets-but she wanted to be alone for that. Needed to be alone to protect herself.

“I’m so sorry,” Kate said. “I wanted to, Lucy, but at the time, six years ago when he made his deal, you were-” She let the sentence drop.

Lucy knew exactly what she was six years ago. Disconnected from everything and everyone as she ever so slowly came to terms with what had happened during the unspeakably heinous twenty-four hours when she’d been held captive by Adam Scott and Roger Morton. She’d told her brother Patrick everything, because then Patrick was in a coma and he didn’t look at her with pity and fear and worry. He didn’t tell her she had to eat, that she should sleep, that she needed to talk to a professional. It was the only way she could cope. Some days she hadn’t left his room, preferring his even breathing to the concerned whispers filling every corner of her home, friends and family all worried about Lucy. That Lucy had been raped. That Lucy had been humiliated online. That Lucy had killed a man and showed no remorse.

“And later? When he was released?” She paused. “Six years ago-how did you know he’d be paroled six years ago?”

“Probation,” Agent Armstrong corrected. “The terms of Morton’s plea agreement were that after six years in prison he’d be released on lifelong probation with severe restrictions, including no contact with his victims and, in fact, he wasn’t allowed to leave Colorado without permission from-”

Lucy slapped her palm hard on the table, startling both the agents and herself. She didn’t care one iota about the restrictions placed on Morton; he’d been freed. The truth turned her stomach into a bubbling vat of acid. In the back of her mind, a small voice tried to tell her this couldn’t be happening, it wasn’t true, but she quashed the weak emotions of denial. It had happened and she’d face it head-on.

Her comments were for Kate alone. “Six years? For what he did to me? To the others? To your partner? Six years? And you agreed to that? Without even telling me-then or even later, when he was let out?”

“I didn’t want to take the agreement, but it wasn’t just my call. And lives were at stake! Yours. Dillon’s. Adam Scott had made it clear that he wasn’t going to go away without taking you with him. Morton gave up Scott and Trask Enterprises-bank accounts, records-we had no choice.”

“There’s always a choice. But six years-why not seven? Ten? Or one? Why put him in prison at all if he was so fucking cooperative?”

We had no choice .

“Dillon knew,” Lucy whispered. The air rushed from her lungs and she could scarcely breathe. Everyone knew-everyone except her.