Kathleen Creighton - Lady Killer

“When you’re a woman alone, you learn to find ways of doing things that don’t rely on brute strength,” Brooke told him after they’d wrestled the cougar’s cage back through the compound gate. She dusted her hands and paused to catch her breath. “Of course,” she added, smiling at him, “I never say no to brute strength when it’s offered.”

“Just out of curiosity,” Tony said when they were back on the outside of the compound and Brooke was locking the gate in the chain-link fence. “Where were you going to take her? Do you have any idea how big a wild mountain lion’s range is?”

“I do, actually.” As she so often did, she laced her fingers through the chain-link and gazed beyond it, to where the cougar now lay relaxed in the shade of the oak tree, seemingly without a care in the world. He saw Brooke’s eyes squint a little and knew it wasn’t from the brightness of the sun. “The truth is, I didn’t know exactly where I was going to take her.” Her voice roughened. “Just knew I had to try and save her from Lonnie. Somehow.”

She threw him a look, and the wistful longing in it kicked at his heart. “It was my big dream. I wanted to turn this place into a refuge for big cats. We’re crowding them off the planet, you know. I have the room. The part you see here, the house, barn, pens and pasture-that’s only about five acres. I have another twenty over there.” She made a sweep with her arm. “That’s all mine. I could do it-thanks to my parents’ will, I have the money-but I don’t suppose it’s possible now. Not after this. Especially if I go to-” She swallowed convulsively, and it hit him suddenly-not a little kick, but a wallop that took his breath away-what she was facing and how terrified she must be.

He said gruffly, before he could stop himself, “Look, don’t give up. And don’t do anything stupid, okay? Holt and I-please, just give us a little more time.”

“Holt.” She turned to look at him, still holding on to the chain-link fence with one hand. “That would be…”

“The guy I’ve been sharing a room with-yeah. He’s-”

“Obviously not a traveling salesman.” She said it with a hint of a smile on her lips, but no humor at all in her eyes.

Tony felt a sickening dropping sensation in his stomach. He knew it was finally here-the moment he’d been dreading, the moment he’d known would have to come. And he knew it was going to be worse than he’d imagined, even before she said the words, in a voice that chilled him to his core.

“So, who is he, Tony? And while we’re at it, who are you? And why are you really here?”

The amazing thing, Brooke thought, was that she felt nothing. Except for a strange quivering in her stomach, she was numb. She remembered she’d experienced much the same sensation the day they’d come to arrest her for murder, so she understood that this was some kind of shock, and that it would wear off eventually, and when it did, the pain would bury her. She could only hope she’d be alone when it happened.

In the meantime, in the calm and unreal world she lived in now, she watched Tony’s face, and it seemed to flicker and shimmer like the images on an old-time movie screen.

“I’m exactly who I told you I am,” he said in a voice that seemed unnaturally calm. Then he paused, and his eyes flared golden for an instant before he closed them. “As for why I’m here…”

“Who’s Holt?”

He let the breath out with a hissing sound. “A private investigator.”

“A private investigator.” The shivering inside her was spreading through her body, and she wrapped her arms across herself in a futile effort to contain it. “So, who’s he investigating? Me?”

“Not exactly…”

“Who hired him? Was it you?”

“No! Brooke, listen to-” He reached for her, and she threw up her arms to fend him off and stepped back, violently cringed away from him.

“So, what then? Let me guess. He hired you to come out here and spy on me, right? Who put him up to it, the sheriff? The state’s attorney?” Now her voice had begun to shake. The shell was cracking. She gathered its remnants around her as best she could and whispered desperately, “You better tell me, Tony. Right now. Who, dammit?”

“It’s nothing like that. It’s got nothing to do with Duncan, or what happened here the day he was killed. It’s-” He ran his hand over his scalp, something she’d never seen him do before, and his face contorted with what looked like pain. “Look, it’s complicated. Can we go someplace-”

“No. I want you to tell me now.”

“Brooke-”

“Now, Tony.”

He reached for her again but pulled his hand back before it touched her and jammed it into his pocket instead. He frowned, then cleared his throat, as if in preparation for a profoundly important declaration. “Okay. You know you were adopted, right?” He grimaced, as if in pain. “Of course, you do. Okay. So…what do you know about your birth parents?”

“Only that they’re both dead. What’s that got to do-”

“Hold on. I told you it’s complicated. What about siblings? What do you know about them?”

“I told you. I have a twin sister.”

“Well-” he whooshed out a breath…dragged in another…gave a small laugh “-actually, you have more than that. You also have a brother.”

He watched the blood drain from her face. She seemed to sway, and she put out a hand to grope for the support of the chain-link fence as she whispered, “I have…a brother?”

“Three…actually.” He tried to smile. Air seemed in short supply suddenly, and gulping it didn’t help much. “The way I understand it is, you were all separated when you were children, after your parents died. You and your sister were the youngest, just toddlers at the time. So you probably don’t remember at all. But your oldest brother, Cory-well, a couple of years ago, he hired Holt Kincaid to find you-the four of you. He finally located your brothers early last summer. He’d just found out where you were and was coming into town to see…uh, to talk to you, when…all this happened. He got here the day of your bail hearing.”

He stared at her and she stared back, not saying anything. Her eyes were like chunks of obsidian.

He threw up his hands. “Well, jeez, Brooke, what was he supposed to do? He didn’t know you from Adam. For all he knew, his client’s baby sister was a cold-blooded murderer! Both your brother and his wife were unreachable at the time-another long story-so he called me, since I happen to be a good friend of both Cory and Sam’s, and…so, here I am.”

“Spying on me.”

“Ah, hell, it wasn’t-”

“It’s just like I said, isn’t it? This Holt person hired you to check me out. You gave us that lion story so we’d let you get close to us. You lied to me, Tony. You lied to Daniel. That whole thing about saving Lady-we trusted you. I trusted you.” She made a wide sweep with her arm, one that took in the dog, who was napping, oblivious, in the shade of the pickup truck. “Even Hilda trusted you. I gave you my-” And now the gesture she made was small, a brief touching of herself in the general area of her heart.

Then she wrapped her arms around herself again and looked away. She was crying, tears welling up and pouring from her eyes in a way that was all the more devastating by being utterly silent. To Tony, watching in helpless anguish, it was as if her very soul was bleeding.

“Brooke,” he whispered, “it wasn’t like that. We-Holt and I-we just wanted to help you. Lord knows, I never meant-” To fall in love with you.

There-he’d said it. Only in his mind, but still. He’d admitted it, what he’d known for a while. Now, finally, when it was too late. I love this woman. I love her child, too. And I’ve screwed things up badly and probably lost both of them.

“Why couldn’t you just have told me? Once you knew I wasn’t-before I-before we…” The look she gave him, the hurt and accusation in those shimmering indigo eyes, tore at his heart. “Or,” she whispered, “is that why you didn’t tell me. You still think I’m a murderer?”

“God, no! Brooke, you know I don’t.”

“But that’s just it-I don’t know. I don’t know you. I thought I did, but now…How can I ever know whether you’re lying to me or not? How can I ever trust you?”

“I didn’t lie.” His voice felt like crushed rock in his throat. “Not about the important stuff. Brooke, I-”

“No.” She held up both hands, a wall between them. “I want you to leave. I want you gone.”

“Brooke-”

“Now. Before Daniel gets home. I don’t want him to see you.”

Something inside him shut down. A kind of fatalistic calm descended. “All right. Okay,” he said. And walked away.

Halfway through the barn, he met Daniel, still wearing his backpack from school. When he saw Tony, the boy’s face lit up with a smile was like an arrow in his heart.

“Hey-Tony. Where’s-” And Daniel, too young to have gotten so good at reading catastrophe in adult faces, halted, and the smile vanished. “What’s wrong? Where are you going?”

Tony wanted to rush on by without explanation. Pain was writhing and coiling all through him, and the last thing he wanted to do was break another heart. Then he thought, You jerk-you brought this on yourself. You owe this kid. Be a man, for God’s sake.

So he paused, put a hand on the boy’s shoulder and took a deep breath. “I have to go.” He put up a hand to stop Daniel’s stricken “No!”

“Son, I’m sorry. I haven’t exactly told you and your mom the truth. She-well, I guess I’ve kind of screwed things up. So…I have to go now. I’m sorry.”

This time walking away was like ripping himself in half and leaving the torn and bloody remnants behind.

“Mom! What did you do?”

Brooke straightened, brushing at her cheeks, and turned to face her son. He’d halted a few yards away, breathing hard, his face flushed and furious.