Kay David - Obsession

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Her voice was harsh and painful. “And I don’t appreciate the way you just barged in here, either. Please leave, Raul. Right now.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” he answered. “Not until you tell me the truth.”

“I…I don’t have anything to tell you.” Blinking rapidly, she compressed her lips and brought her hands to her throat to pull the edges of her collar closer.

That’s when he saw her wrists. They were scraped and raw, scarlet with scratches.

His stomach turned over, and he reached out and grabbed her forearms, raising them to eye level. She flinched, but he didn’t release her. “Nothing happened? Then how do you explain this?”

She stared at him, a stubborn determination coming into her eyes, alongside the pain. She wasn’t going to give away her secrets; she’d die before she did. That was when he understood what it would take to get her to talk. It was the last thing he wanted to do; it meant not just the sacrifice of everything between them but of his one and only goal, as well. But it was the only thing that would work.

He’d have to tell her the truth.

RAUL DROPPED her arms so abruptly Emma almost lost her balance. He turned and walked into the living room before she could stop him.

“Don’t do this. I don’t want you here.” Following him into the room, she spoke, the lie sticking in her throat. She didn’t know how, but she managed to say it without choking. She had to; Raul’s very existence depended on it.

“I know that’s what you want.” Halting in the center of the room, he radiated pent-up energy.

“But it’s not going to happen until I say what I have to. I’m going to tell you why I’m here, what I’m doing, and how ruthless this man is. When I’m finished, you’re going to hate me, but at least you’ll understand. And maybe, just maybe, if you’re lucky, you’ll survive this.”

She stared at him, her heart thumping. “What makes you so sure William Kelman’s my problem? I could have a situation at work, or my kids could be in trouble, or…” She threw her hands up in the air. “Anything could be going on with me. Why do you think-”

“I don’t have to think. I know. I know because he ruined my life.” His pronouncement was flat, totally without emotion. “I spent five years in a federal prison because of William Kelman.”

The words fell like stones at her feet. She felt faint, and for a moment she thought she’d throw up. “Wh-what are you saying?” she asked. “I don’t understand.”

“He destroyed my life over a woman. And I didn’t even love her. Not like I love-” He broke off abruptly and shook his head, a gesture filled with regret and something else, something that darkened his eyes to a shade she’d never seen before.

“Her name was Denise Murphy, and she came up to me in a D.C. bar. I’d just ended a relationship with someone else, and I wasn’t at my best. Denise said she’d seen me around town and wondered who I was.” He shrugged. “She was gorgeous-a tall brunette with a perfect body-and I took her home with me that night. It was the biggest mistake I ever made.”

Emma’s nausea grew. It took up all the space inside her and forced its way up into her throat.

“Denise Murphy was living with William Kelman at the time, but she was looking for a way out. I provided her with the excuse. She left him and we had a brief affair. I didn’t know all this until she visited me in prison to explain.”

“To explain? Explain what?”

“Kelman ruled the local DEA office like he was some kind of king. He was making a fortune by working with the dealers, tipping off the agents on the minor ones and taking payoffs from the big ones when the raids went down. His bosses had no idea what he was doing. Denise only knew because she lived with him.

“She said he hadn’t always been that way, but his wife had left him a few years before, and it seemed to push him over the edge.” Raul paused for a second, then continued, “When Denise did the same thing-left him-he saw himself as a two-time loser. He couldn’t believe it’d happened again, so he took care of it.”

“Took care of it?”

Raul nodded. “He planted drugs and a gun in my car while I was out of town. I was stopped, and the rest, as they say, is history.”

She had a vague understanding of how Kelman had arranged things here, but how could he do the same thing in the States? It didn’t seem possible. “But how did he get the officer to stop you?”

“He was told to by a DEA agent. Kelman had something on the agent, and offered to let the guy off the hook if he took me down. All the cop had to do was catch me in a traffic violation-I turned right without signaling. That gave him cause to pull me over, and he held me till the DEA agents got there-they were in it, as well. They asked if they could search the car, and I had no reason to refuse. One of them opened up the trunk and pulled out a plastic bag of coke I’d never seen before. And a nickel-plated.45.”

“Kelman planted them,” she said faintly.

He nodded. “I’d left my car at the airport and flown to the Bahamas for a weekend. He did it while I was gone.”

“But five years. My God, why so long? Did he own the judge, too?”

“He didn’t have to. There are guideline sentences for drug violations in the federal system. Whatever number of years you’re sentenced, you serve eighty-five percent of it, regardless. I was a first-time offender, but it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered. The evidence couldn’t be disputed, and I was tried and convicted in very short order. I was sent to Cumberland, Maryland.” In a hard tone he spoke again. “I lost my home, my savings and my license to practice law. Everything.”

His voice held no emotion, but Emma could see his pain, smell it, even taste it. She hadn’t moved since he’d begun to speak, and now she walked away from him. She had to put some space between them, had to escape the agony she knew he felt. Crossing the room, she stood in front of the window that looked out on her garden. The walled area was serene and quiet in the morning sun, a total contrast to the chaos raging inside her.

She let it storm, giving no hint of how she felt. After a few minutes, through the confusion, a thread of understanding began to take form. He’d had everything that was important to him taken away-just as she had. From a woman’s point of view, nothing meant more to her than her children, but a man’s priorities were different, especially a man who didn’t have a family. He judged himself by what he could do with his career, with his ability to make a living.

Kelman had taken away the very essence of who Raul was. And he’d replaced him with a far different man.

Emma turned slowly and looked at Raul. The planes of his face, the angles of his body, even the way he held himself-how different was he now? She could only imagine. Not understanding at the time, she’d sensed his former self, sensed a far different man when they’d made love and when they’d visited the orphanage, but the core of who he was no longer existed. It’d been changed forever, lost forever.

Except for one detail.

His determination.

The realization didn’t come to her in a flash. It wasn’t like the movies where all at once the heroine understood. This was completely different. The truth formed itself slowly and opened up only after she examined it closer. He waited patiently, as if he understood what she was dealing with, then finally, when the thought was fully constructed from the pieces he had given her, she spoke. Carefully. Slowly.

“You came to Santa Cruz because of Kelman. You followed him down here.”

“That’s right.”

“And the money in your account…”

“It’s from a slush fund the State Department manages. The woman who was with me at Candelabra arranged it. She’s…an old friend.”

Dust motes danced in the tense silence between them. “You’re not an importer.”

“No. I’m not an importer.”

“You have no business here, other than tracking down Kelman?”

“That’s right. Denise knew he would come here, and Wendy told me when he arrived. She had the passports checked.”

Emma looked at him, her heart locking into place with a click. She knew the answer to the question, but she had to ask it, anyway. She had to hear his reply. “And my role in all this is…?”

“I came here to stop him. And to do that, I had to get next to the person he’d need the most. That was you.”

Her heart kept beating, her lungs kept working, her brain kept going, but something inside Emma died. She actually felt the passing and mourned the emotion before she knew what it was.

After another moment, she understood what was leaving her; it was the hope she’d had, the hope she hadn’t even been able to acknowledge until now, that they might have some kind of future together. That Raul might say, “I love you,” and she would say the same thing. That he’d help her get her children and they might be a family. That her life might start again. All those possibilities were gone forever now.

Raul’s voice reached her through a fog. “Kelman didn’t pick Reina out of the blue to be his real-estate agent, Emma. He chose her because he knew she was friends with you. He knew when he said he needed a banker, she’d arrange an introduction. He manipulated the situation to get what he wanted-you-just like he always does.” Raul paused as if to gather himself. “You’re the best banker in town, Emma. He knew to come to you. All I had to do was watch and wait.”

“You son of a bitch.” Lifting her head, she spoke quietly, the fury behind her words almost anticlimactic. “You acted as if you cared for me, and all along you knew he was going to destroy me! How could I have been so dumb?”

“I didn’t act as if I cared for you. I do care for you,” he said softly. “More than you know. And I wasn’t going to let him destroy you. I did everything I could to protect you. I would have done more if you’d told me what was going on. Please, Emma…” He took a step in her direction, then stopped when she held up her hand.