Chapter Fourteen
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"He doesn't believe me." Reaction set in the minute the door closed behind her. All the anger and righteousness jittered away into fear.
"I'm not so sure of that," Josh murmured and navigated her out of the interviewing area. He could feel her body vibrate through the hand he held to her back. "But what matters is they don't have a case. There isn't enough to take to the DA, and Kusack knows it."
"It does matter." She pressed a hand to her churning stomach. Not the ulcer this time, she hoped. But that was little comfort when the alternative diagnosis was shame and fear. "It matters what he thinks, what Bittle thinks, what everyone thinks. However much I don't want it to, it matters."
"Listen to me." He turned her in the corridor to face him, kept his hands on her shoulders. "You did fine in there. Better than fine. It might not have been the exact route I would have recommended as your attorney, but it was effective. The records in your Filofax open up a whole new area of investigation. Now consider who led you to that."
"You did." When he shook his head, she drew her brows together. Because Josh expected it, she ordered herself to think clearly. "He did. Kusack did. He wanted me to tell him I had the code written down somewhere."
"Somewhere where it could be accessed." Josh's hands gentled on her shoulders. "Now I want you to put this aside. I mean it, Kate," he continued even as she opened her mouth to protest. "Let Kusack do his job, let me do mine. You have people behind you. That's something I don't want you to forget again."
"I'm scared." She pressed her lips together, wanting her voice to be level even in the admission. "The only time I wasn't scared was when he made me mad. Now I'm scared all over again. Why did he bring up my father, Josh? How did he know about it? What reason would he have for looking that far into my background?"
"I don't know. I'm going to find out."
"They have to know at Bittle." Despair was a stone sinking in her gut. "If Kusack knows, so do the partners. Maybe they knew about it before, and that's why—"
"Kate, stop."
"But what if they never find out who did it? If they don't find out, then I'm always going to—"
"I said stop. We will find out. That's a promise—not from your lawyer but from your big brother." He drew her close, kissed the top of her head, then spotted Byron striding down the hall. He recognized barely controlled fury when he saw it and decided it was just what Kate needed to take her mind off the interview.
"By, good timing. You'll run Kate home, won't you?"
She spun around, confused and embarrassed. "What are you doing here?"
"Laura tracked me down." He shot a look at Josh that clearly stated they would talk later and began to usher Kate down the hall. "Let's get out of here."
"I need to go back to the shop. Margo's alone."
"Margo can handle herself." He towed her down the steps, past the desk, and outside, where the sun was blinding bright. "Are you all right?"
"Yeah. A little turned around inside, but okay."
He'd driven his 'Vette, the sleek, streamlined two-seater in muscle-car black. Settling inside a thirty-year-old car only made the entire day all the more surreal.
"You didn't have to come all the way down here."
"Obviously." Despising the impotency, he gunned the engine viciously. "You'd have called if you'd wanted my help. Now you're stuck with it."
"There wasn't anything you could do," she began and winced at the molten look he shot her before he cruised out of the parking lot. "They didn't charge me with anything."
"Well, it's our lucky day, isn't it?" He wanted to drive. He wanted to drive fast to dissipate some of the bubbling anger before it boiled over and burned them both. To cancel any possibility of conversation, he flicked up the volume on the car stereo, and Eric Clapton's angry guitar licks scorched the air.
Perfect, Kate thought, and shut her eyes. Mean music, a muscle car and southern-fried temper. She told herself the migraine brewing and the highly possible visit by her old pal Mr. Ulcer were enough to worry about.
She found her sunglasses in her purse and put them on before dry-swallowing medication. Through the tinted lenses, the light seemed calmer, kinder. The wind whipped, cooling her hot cheeks. She had only to lay her head back, raise her face, to see the sky.
Byron said nothing, but sent the car slashing up Highway 1 like a bright black sword cleaving through sea and rock. It tore through a low-lying cloud, burst out of the thin vapor, and roared back into the flash of sun.
He'd been battling feelings of impotence and hot fury since Laura's call. The police took Kate in for questioning. We don't know what they're going to do. A detective came to the shop, and he took her.
The jingle of fear in Laura's usually calm voice had set off a violent chain reaction in him. The fear had been fueled by hurt. Kate hadn't called him.