Karen Rose - Scream For Me

But Daniel only locked the door, reset the alarm, and started up the stairs, not even looking back to see if she followed. His command to do so was implicit in his body language, so she did. When she got to his bedroom her shopping bags were on his bed and he stood at his dresser, yanking at his tie.

“What happened?” she asked quietly.

He shrugged out of his coat and his shirt, flinging them to a chair in the corner, before turning, bare-chested, his fists on his hips. “Frank is being investigated by the state attorney’s office.”

“As well he should be,” she said, and he nodded.

“Thank you.” His chest expanded and fell. “He’s angry with me. He blamed me .”

“I’m sorry.”

“I don’t care.” But it was obvious he did. “What made me mad is that he used our friendship to try to get me to influence the SA. Friendship. Biggest crock of bullshit I’ve heard in years.”

“I’m sorry,” she said again.

“Stop saying that,” he snapped. “Stop saying thank you and I’m sorry . You sound like Susannah.”

His sister, who had her own pain, he’d said. “You talked to her?”

“Yeah.” He looked away. “I talked to her. For all the damn good it did.”

“What did she say?”

His head whipped up and his eyes bored into hers. “ ‘I’m sorry, Daniel. Good-bye, Daniel.’ ” Pain flashed in his eyes, so intense she felt it press against her own chest. “ ‘You were gone, Daniel,’ ” he added in a snarl, then dropped his head, and his shoulders sagged. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be yelling at you of all people.”

She sat on the edge of the bed, too tired to stand. “Why not me of all people?”

“Everywhere I turn, I see lies and betrayal. The only one who’s done neither is you.”

She didn’t agree, but wouldn’t argue the point. “Who did you betray?”

“My sister. I left her in that house. Where we grew up. I left her with Simon.”

Understanding dawned, and with it a pity and tenderness that made her ache for both Daniel and his sister. “Not all Simon’s victims went to the public school, did they?” she asked, remembering how he’d tensed at Talia’s words in the afternoon meeting.

Again his head shot up. He opened his mouth. Closed it. “No,” he finally said.

“You didn’t do it, Daniel. Simon did. It wasn’t your fault any more than it was my fault my mother decided to take on Craig herself. But we think it’s our fault, and that’s not going to be easy for either of us to get through.” He narrowed his eyes and she shrugged. “Shooting lots of bullets at that paper man gives a person a certain clarity of thought. I was only sixteen, but my mother was an adult who’d stayed with Craig Crighton entirely too long to begin with. Still, I gave her information that pushed her to the edge. Logically, it’s not my fault, but for thirteen years I told myself it was.”

“I wasn’t sixteen.”

“Daniel, did you know Simon was involved in the rapes of all those girls?”

He hung his head again. “No. Not when he was alive. Not until he died.”

“See? You didn’t find the pictures until he died, less than two weeks ago.”

He shook his head. “No, when he died the first time.”

Alex frowned. “I don’t understand.”

“Eleven years ago my mother found those pictures. We thought Simon had been dead a year.”

Alex’s eyes widened. Eleven years? “But Simon wasn’t dead. He’d left home.”

“True. But I saw the pictures back then. I wanted to tell the police, but my father burned them in the fireplace. He didn’t want the bad publicity. Bad for his judgeship.”

Alex was starting to see. “How did you find them in Philadelphia if he burned them?”

“He would have made copies. My father was a careful man. But the point is, I didn’t do anything about it. I didn’t tell a soul. And Simon went on unchecked for years.”

“What would you have told, Daniel?” she asked gently. “ ‘My father burned some pictures, so I can’t prove anything’?”

“I suspected for years that he was dirty.”

“And he was a careful man. You really wouldn’t have been able to prove anything.”

“I still can’t prove anything,” he snapped. “Because men like Frank Loomis are still covering their own asses.”

“What did you say to him tonight?”

“I asked him where he’d been all week. Why he wouldn’t answer my calls.”

“And where was he?”

“He said he’d been looking for Bailey.”

Alex blinked. “Really? Where?”

“He wouldn’t tell me. He said it didn’t matter, that she wasn’t in any of the places he checked. I told him if he wanted to make things right, he’d help us find her versus running around half-cocked himself. I told him that if he really wanted to prove himself, he’d make right what he did thirteen years ago. He’d set the record straight on Fulmore and come clean on who he was protecting back then. Of course he denied he was protecting anyone, but that’s the only way I can square what he did in my mind. Frank set a man up for murder. That whole trial was one colossal cover-up.”

“And you’ll show that, when you get all Simon’s friends in a room and they all start pointing their fingers at each other. It’ll fall like dominoes.”

He sighed, most of his rage spent. “I can’t get them to turn on each other until I know who’s doing this killing now. And I can’t move on that person without giving a warning to Simon’s group of degenerates. I’m in a catch-22 from hell.”

She went to him then and smoothed her hands across his chest and up his back. “Let’s sleep, Daniel. You haven’t had a full night’s sleep in almost a week.”

He rested his cheek on the top of her head. “I haven’t had a full night’s sleep in eleven years, Alex,” he said wearily.

“Then it’s time to stop blaming yourself. If I can, you can.”

He leaned back and met her eyes. “Can you?”

“I have to,” she whispered. “Don’t you see? I’ve lived my life just skimming the surface, never digging deep enough for roots. I want roots. I want a life. Don’t you?”

His eyes flashed, intensely bright. “Yes.”

“Then let it go, Daniel.”

“It’s not so easy.”

She pressed a kiss against his warm chest. “I know. We’ll deal with it tomorrow. For now, let’s go to sleep. In the morning you’ll be able to think clearly. You’ll catch this guy, then you can put all Simon’s friends in a room and let them tear each other apart.”

“Will you stitch them back together after they tear each other apart?”

She lifted her chin and narrowed her eyes. “No way in hell.”

He smiled his half smile. “God, you’re sexy when you’re ruthless.”

And that quickly she wanted him. “Let’s go to bed now.”

His brows lifted, detecting the change in her voice. “To sleep?”

She wrapped her arms around his neck. “No way in hell.”

Atlanta, Thursday, February 1, 11:15 p.m.

Mack lowered his camera with its telephoto lens when the shade on Vartanian’s bedroom window came down. Damn, just when it was starting to get interesting. He wished he could have heard the conversation between Vartanian and Alex Fallon, but his listening device had a range of only a hundred yards and didn’t let him listen through walls. Two things were clear-Vartanian was still furious with Frank Loomis and Vartanian and Fallon were about to be joined at more than the hip.

The evening had been most illuminating. Mack hadn’t expected to see Frank Loomis waiting in front of Vartanian’s house. Apaprently, Vartanian hadn’t expected to see Loomis there either. Loomis was under investigation and worried about it. So worried the high and mighty sheriff had swallowed his pride and asked Daniel to intercede on his behalf. Mack rolled his eyes. Daniel, of course, was too ethical to do such a heinous thing, but he was just loyal enough to have been tempted.