I heard Brian turn on the TV in the living room and wondered if I should show him the note. Would he have any better idea what to do about it than I did? I let out a heavy sigh and closed my eyes. This was Mr. By-The-Books I was talking about. His natural reaction to seeing this letter would be to call the police. He and I rate on opposite ends of the cynicism scale. Most likely, he’d believe the police could actually help in this situation. Myself, I believed the police would get those kids killed. Which meant I couldn’t tell him.
Your Mr. By-The-Books helped me arrange your father’s death, Lugh’s voice whispered in my mind, and it was all I could do to suppress a groan. Obviously I was reaching stress overload, since my subconscious firewall appeared to be failing me.
Stay out of my head, Lugh, I thought furiously at him. I had the faint impression of laughter, but he didn’t otherwise respond. Maybe that had been just a momentary fluke, a glitch in my defenses.
He was right about the tarnish on Brian’s suit of shining armor. But that didn’t mean Brian wouldn’t go to the police about this. He’d helped Lugh with my father out of a desperate desire to save me when all other hope had failed. In this situation, he was much more likely to put his hope in the police than in me.
The TV clicked off, and I heard Brian’s footsteps approaching. I guess he’d gotten tired of waiting. Wishing I could calm the racing of my heart, I folded the photographs back into the letter and stuffed the letter into the envelope just as Brian rounded the corner into the kitchen.
We engaged in a long staring contest that ended in what I interpreted as a draw. Brian’s eyes were shadowed with pain.
“You’re not going to tell me what this is all about, are you?” he asked, and the hurt in his voice was almost more than I could bear.
“I’m sorry,” I said, my voice thick with genuine regret. I wished I trusted him enough to tell him the whole story. It seemed patently unfair, even to me, that I should love him this much and still not be able to give him my trust. But part of what I loved about him was his basic goodness. I loved that he was always willing to do the right thing, even when it wasn’t in his own best interests. I loved his sense of honor and decency, even though sometimes I cursed him for it. I loved his faith in mankind’s goodness, even though I didn’t share it.
Brian’s gaze dropped to the kitchen floor, and he shook his head. “Why do I bother hoping?” he muttered to himself, and the words hurt like a stab to the heart.
“Brian—” I started, reaching out to him, but I couldn’t think of anything to say to make this better.
He twitched away from my reaching hand. I flinched at the rejection, then flinched again when he put on his damn lawyer face. Even so, I forced myself to meet his eyes.
“I guess I know you better than you know me,” Brian said.
I frowned in puzzlement. “What the hell does that mean?” I asked, hoping to come off angry instead of hurt. I think I succeeded, but if Brian knew me as well as he claimed, he’d see right through it.
He folded his arms over his chest, still meeting my gaze, still hiding his feelings behind his lawyer face. “Was it because you were trying to ‘protect’ me again, or was it because you’re afraid I’ll go to the police? I couldn’t decide which it would be.”
I’m capable of being pretty dense at times, but now I had no trouble figuring out what he meant. The fake anger turned into real anger.
“You opened the letter, you asshole!”
Brian unfolded his arms, then covered his eyes with one hand as he barked out a bitter laugh. “You’re absolutely priceless, you know.”
“What?”
“It’s amazing how you can turn any situation into an opportunity to get mad at someone no matter what you yourself have done.”
I scowled at him. “If you’re just figuring this out, then you don’t know me as well as you claim.”
He nodded sagely. “Right. So we’re going to have a big blowup about me reading the letter, and we’ll just gloss over the fact that once again you decided to shut me out of your life.”
I love Brian to death, but right now, I wanted to smack him. “Don’t be a drama queen about this. There are a couple of children whose lives are in imminent danger, and you want to argue about the lack of openness in our relationship? Get a sense of proportion already.” He puffed up indignantly, and no doubt if I’d let him get a word out he’d have put me right in my place. So I didn’t let him get a word out.
“I didn’t want to tell you because yes, I was afraid you’d want to go to the police, and yes, I think that’s a piss-poor idea. If I’m wrong and you’d never dream of calling the police, then by all means please, continue to tar and feather me. Otherwise, stuff a sock in it.”
His lips quirked into a grin that seemed completely out of place given the situation. “May I use your stove?”
“What?” I asked, wondering if he’d suddenly misplaced his mind.
“To heat up the tar.”
I opened my mouth to say something, but my brain went on strike and refused to feed me any pithy replies.
“Here’s my suggestion,” he said, and I swear even though he was pissed at me he was enjoying my discomfiture. “Since you’re such bosom buddies with the Director of Special Forces, you call him. I suppose technically that’s calling the police, but he’ll probably be able to make a better judgment on whether to take this on in an official capacity or whether to keep it off the books.”
Once again, I couldn’t think of a good reply—unless it was duh! Maybe the sleep deprivation had stolen more brain cells than I realized. Or maybe I’d just been picking a fight, because hey, I’m ornery that way.
“You still shouldn’t have read it,” I said, but there was no heat left in my words.
“Are you going to call Adam, or aren’t you?”
I wanted to ask what he would do if I said no, but I was too chicken. I was pretty sure he’d say he’d call Adam himself, and that would lead to more arguing. For once, I wasn’t up for that.
“Yeah, I’ll call him.”
CHAPTER 21
I should have known better than to expect Brian to trundle on home like a good little lawyer. I hoped he was sticking around for the reason he stated—that he wanted to help me—not because he didn’t trust me to make the call. Not that I had any room to throw stones where trust was concerned.
I hated the idea of calling Adam when he and Dom were in the middle of their own personal crisis—assuming Adam had done as he’d said and let Dom know about the crisis. But Claudia Brewster’s daughters couldn’t wait until the love boat sailed on smooth waters, so I picked up the phone and dialed his number.
No one answered, and this wasn’t exactly the kind of message I could leave on an answering machine. I figured he was probably at work, so I called his cell phone, but that went straight to voice mail. I bit my lip. It seemed silly, and maybe even a bit hypocritical, to worry about Adam. If there was anyone more capable of taking care of himself than Adam, I didn’t know him. I left a terse message for him to call me ASAP, then decided to try his office number. I hated calling his office. Everyone who’d ever answered the phone there was an asshole—including Adam, now that I thought about it—but I called anyway.
“He called in sick today,” said the man who answered the phone. He had a nasally voice that made everything he said sound like a whine, though so far he’d been perfectly polite.
I held the phone away from my face for a moment and stared at it as if it were somehow responsible for the crap I’d just heard. “He’s a demon,” I said with forced patience when I decided the phone wasn’t to blame. “Demons don’t get sick.” One of the fringe benefits that went with being possessed, though giving up your entire life seemed a bit too much to pay.