Ties That Bind (18 page)

He held her ankle, caressed it really. “There were so many good times, Kate.”

She didn’t shrink from the touch or the remark this time. Placing a hand on his shoulder, she whispered, “I know. We forgot about them during that last year.”

Sighing, he held her gaze a bit longer, then he finished up with her shoes. He stood and put out his hand. “Come on, let’s eat. I brought stuff.”

“Ah, a man after my own heart.” She placed her hand in his before she realized what she’d said. And how that statement had once been so true.

o0o

REESE STUCK THE Brie in the microwave and cut the bread, but let Kate mix the salad. He could only keep her down so long, and it was an easy task she could do from a seat at her bar. “So,” she asked, “what’s the picture we have of Anna Bingham?”

“A bad girl, prone to leaving trouble in her wake.”

“Which means she might have made a lot of enemies.”

The microwave beeped and Reese brought the cheese to the breakfast nook. “But enough for someone to kill her?”

Kate slid off the stool and carried the salad over to the table to join him. “Maybe not. Maybe it would be enough to make her so unhappy that she’d kill herself.” She thought for a moment. “On the off chance that it’s a homicide, why on earth would a fellow inmate implicate us? How would they even know us?”

“I can’t answer that, Kate.”

On that disturbing note, they sat and dug in. After a while, Reese shook his head. “They say prisoners form their own support groups. They get each other through their downtime. If she couldn’t do that, didn’t have those connections, maybe she would be depressed enough to kill herself. Which will put us up the legendary creek without a paddle.”

Kate shook her head. “Parks said she was the belle of the prison, Reese. These records don’t show that.”

“Parks lied?”

“Good thing to note.”

He grabbed the legal pad he’d brought with him and jotted the point down.

“And if she was always in trouble with the guards, wouldn’t it go to pattern that there would be fights with other inmates, too?”

“I’d guess.”

“But there were none in the Incident Reports. Put that down.”

“Done.” He scribbled some notes, then said, “What we’ve done in our first line of investigation is her internal world.” He bit into the Brie, enjoying its tart taste. As he took an apple to dunk in the cheese, he said, “This afternoon maybe we can do the external world. Visitors, mail, phone calls. If it wasn’t suicide, those will be really indicative of what was going on.”

Kate nibbled on a pear. “When we meet with her other lawyers tonight, we’ll get more information.”

“Um, we’re not.”

“Not what?”

“Meeting with her lawyers. I canceled it.”

“What? Why did you do that?”

“You’ll be exhausted by then.”

He could see pique deepen the brown of her eyes. The reaction happened when she was aroused, too. “Reese, don’t presume to make these decisions for me. You no longer have a right.”

“A fact which I’m beginning to regret again. Unfortunately.” He didn’t mean to say it, but it slipped out.

Her face, even with the bruises, drained of color. She just stared at him, then shook her head. The curls were back today and fell into her face. “Don’t go there.”

“All right, but leaving things unsaid doesn’t make them disappear.”

She sighed. He noticed her hand shook when she put down the chunk of bread she’d just dipped into the Brie. “Tyler was angry about last night. That you stayed.”

“Don’t I know it. I still have the skid marks from this morning when he confronted me.”

“He…found us together.”

“I’m sorry, that was my fault. I dozed off, was just about to leave at two and you had a nightmare.”

“You stayed because of that?”

“And because you asked me.” He thought, what the hell, “And because I wanted to.”

Her gaze darkened. “This isn’t good, Reese.”

He raked a hand through his hair. “I know. Dray was hurt.” He stared hard at Kate. “She asked if I was having renewed feelings for you.”

“Now that’s a question I’d like to hear the answer to.”

Both Kate and Reese startled. They looked up to see Sloan in the doorway. Neither had heard him come in.

Kate slumped back in the chair. Damn, she didn’t need this today. She said, “I didn’t know you were coming here for lunch, Tyler.” She indicated the cartons he carried. Looked like lover boy had brought her lunch, too. Why in hell did Reese feel triumph that he’d beat the guy to the punch?

Sloan was none too pleased, either. He nodded to their food and snarled, “I guess I didn’t get the memo on this tête-à-tête, either.”

Kate shook back her hair. “We’ve been working all morning.”

“And talking about personal things, I gather.” He straightened. “Tell me. Are Dray and I are going to have any say in all this, or are you two going to decide arbitrarily where these relationships go?”

Kate stood and anchored her hand on the chair. “No decisions are being made without you and Dray. Nothing’s changed.”

Sloan watched Kate, then arched a brow at Reese. “I don’t hear a denial from you.”

“I don’t have to answer to you, Sloan.”

“Like hell.” He set the food he carried down hard on the counter and swept the area with his hand. “How long do you plan to continue this?”

“I cleared my schedule for the afternoon.” Reese raised his chin. “And tomorrow morning.”

“I’ll just bet you did.” Sloan sent him a furious glare. “I want you gone by supper.”

“You don’t get it, do you? We’re no longer just trying to save our careers. We’re looking for a reason why Kate was attacked.”

“The police can do that.” The other man’s voice rose a notch. Reese was determined to keep his cool.

“Tyler, please, calm down.”

“Yeah, okay.” He took his keys out of his sports coat. “I’ll be at work until seven, and all day tomorrow.” He held Kate’s stare.

She said, “I’ll call you.”

“You do that.”

He stalked out of the room. Kate sank onto the chair again. She said nothing, just stared after Sloan.

Reese let the emotion hang in the air. Then he asked, “Are you in love with him?”

Her gaze swung to him. “As I said before—”

“Yeah, I know. That’s not a question I get to ask.”

Looking very weary, she briefly closed her eyes. “We need to regroup here, Reese. This is all getting way too personal. I want a pact that we won’t rehash the past, we won’t talk about it. And that we won’t get into what either of us is feeling now.”

Standing, he felt the old anger bubble inside him again. It had been squelched for a while, but now it was back. “Yeah, whatever.” He gathered the dishes and took them to the sink, then faced her. “I’m going out for a walk to clear my head. I’ll be back in a bit. Go on upstairs and rest for a while, then we’ll continue with the papers on Bingham.”

“Reese—”

“Drop it, Kate!” His voice rose and his tone was clipped. “I’m feeling none too stable myself right now. We’ll just concentrate on Anna Bingham today.” He left her gaping. But he had to get away before he said something he regretted.

o0o

ALLISON PETERS, A friend of Sofie’s from Westwood, caught up with Sofie in the hall where she was on the way to her American History class. She smiled anxiously. “Hey, Sof, hi.”

Sofie smiled back. She liked Allison, who was as normal as apple pie. “Hi. What’s up?”

Allison frowned. “I take it you didn’t see today’s Herald?”

“From Westwood?”

“Yeah, remember my mom got me a subscription?”

They started to walk to class. “Something interesting in it?”

Her friend’s face scrunched up. “Um, yeah.” Stopping, she handed Sofie the paper, folded open to a section. Sofie glanced down. The headline leaped out at her. “Beleaguered Judge Attacked in Garage.” Her heart started to gallop. She read further. Her mother had been attacked in a parking garage by a mugger. Judge Renado was doing fine…out for a few days to recover from bruises. Sofie clapped a hand over her mouth. “Oh, no.”

Allison grasped her arm. “I’m sorry, Sof. I thought they would have called you by now.”

Shaky, Sofie fished out her cell. It was off. When she got it booted up, she found two messages from her dad. Stumbling to a bench in the hall, Sofie punched in his cell. No answer. She punched in her mother’s. No answer. She called her mother’s house. Same. Then she tried Jillian Jenkins, her mother’s best friend. Nobody was home anywhere!

“Damn it.” Tears formed in her eyes.

Allison sat beside her. “The newspaper says she’s all right.”

“I know.” She bit her lip. “But I…how do I…” She closed her eyes. “I need to see her.”

“Wait till you call your dad.”

“No.” She glanced at her watch. “I’m going home.”

“Okay. Let people here know, first. So you don’t get in any more trouble. “

“You do it for me, okay?” Sofie was already turning away. She hurried to the front of the school to catch a bus to the train station; on her way, several things haunted her.

Her mother had been attacked.

No one was home.

Her father wasn’t available.

And they had kept things from her before.

o0o

“I STOPPED BY the police station and got their report.” Chase Sanders’s tone was matter-of-fact, soothing Kate. That, and because she’d slept for an hour, made her ready to take on the afternoon. And sane enough to be with Reese again.

He’d looked better after his walk, too, though he was still tense.

Now he sat across from Sanders, his ankle crossed over his knee. “Do they have any suspects?”

“Nope, and don’t expect any. They’re running the judge’s description, and dusted everything for prints, but no luck.” He sighed. “Think it’s related to this stuff?” He indicated the files on Anna Bingham that Reese had gotten from the bedroom, along with the easel, and set up in Kate’s den.

Steepling his hands, Reese scowled. “We don’t want to believe that. But we have to look at everything objectively. If I were on the outside of a situation like this, I’d definitely consider the possibility. Actually, it would be good news.”

Sanders took a long look at Kate’s bruises, making her self-conscious. Her face was more swollen this afternoon. “How do you figure?”

“If the attack is related to this case, it confirms we’re on the right track. It gives credence that Bingham was either lying or murdered in prison and somebody else lied about us, though we can’t fathom why.”

Kate tried to keep a lid on her emotions. “I do have enemies, Mr. Sanders.”

“You need to start making a list He glanced from her to Reese. “And at some point, you’re gonna need to start thinking about any client you defended in your law practice who would have it out for the two of you. Go back into those files.”

“Hell, we haven’t even dented that pile.” Reese nodded to the Anna Bingham’s papers.

Kate could see the restlessness brewing in him. In the past, at about this point in a case, he’d get frustrated at the lack of progress. He’d start to pace, move about, coil up tight inside like he was ready to spring. Sometimes, they’d made love to get rid of his tension. She banished that image.

Glancing at his watch, Sanders said, “I got an hour. I can help.”

“Good.” Kate picked up some files. “We’re going to look at her external world. Visitors, mail and phone calls.” She glanced at Reese. “We can each take one section.”

By four, they had more lists. These Reese had typed into his laptop so they could cross-reference them on the computer. His fingers flew across the keys. When he finished, he ran off the document on Kate’s printer.

They studied the stats.

“Jesus, she was one popular broad,” Chase said.

“Lena Parks told us she had a lot of male visitors. Look at these two men. They came often, she phoned them each twice a week, and got mail from them regularly.”

Shaking his head, Reese sighed. “She kept two guys on a string from prison? Doesn’t sound likely to me.”

“Musts been good in the…” Chase stopped his comment and shot glances at both of them.

Kate chuckled. “Yeah, but nobody had sack time for six months. Maybe when she was out, though, she kept up the relationships.”

“So why would she violate probation, if she had such a great sex life?” Typical male response from the private investigator.

“Sex isn’t everything,” Reese said, his gaze straying to Kate. “Sometimes, people just can’t solve their issues outside of bed.”

Kate was bombarded by a memory. Of a time she and Reese had sex. It was angry sex, months after the abortion and the discovery of his affair. They’d both known the end was near…

Holding her under him, gripping her shoulders hard, he’d thrust inside her; she’d groaned. Not in pain. “How could you give all this up?” he asked, fury in every movement of his body.

She clenched her inner muscles around him. “I didn’t. You gave up on us.”

He’d growled, bit her shoulder. She raked his back with her nails.

He’d made her come three times, before he finally let himself go…

“Kate,” he asked. “Are you all right? You’re flushed.”

She cleared her throat. “I’m fine.”

Sanders stood. “I gotta book. Can I get a copy of these records? I’d like to read through everything myself.”

“Already done. I left it in my car.” Reese stood, too. “I’ll walk you out to get it.”

Sanders crossed to Kate and stood over her. “I’m sorry, Judge. Try to get some rest.”

“Call me Kate. And thanks.”

Kate watched the two walk out of the den to the foyer. And was shocked, after Reese opened the door, to hear him say, “Sofie? What are you doing here?”

Then came a shaky voice. “Is she okay?”

“Yes, honey…”

Her daughter appeared in the doorway. Her lithe form wavered a minute, and then she flew across the room. “Mama,” she said stopping in front of Kate.

Kate opened her arms, and, just like when Sofie was a little girl, she fell into them. “Shh, baby, it’s okay. I’m okay.” She kissed Sofie’s hair, overwhelmed with emotion.

Kate had the fleeting thought that all the aches and pains and ugly bruises on her face were worth it if they brought her child home, really home, even just for a little while.