“The investigator is finished with Mrs. Roberts. She wants to talk to you before she leaves for the hospital to be with her husband. She’s in the kitchen waiting for you.”
Carl stepped back as Chase rose slowly to his feet.
“Did you know about her problems?” he asked the other man as he nodded to Moriah.
Carl sighed heavily. “I’ve had to cover several incidents for her. Her dad’s old college buddies with the chief. You don’t say no when that happens. Besides, she was a good kid when she wasn’t crazy.”
Yeah, when she wasn’t crazy.
Shaking his head, Chase moved through the apartment and into the sunlit kitchen.
Annalee Roberts sat at the kitchen table. Her face was ravaged by her tears and her pain. He had never liked her, but right now he felt sorry as hell for her.
“Thank you for coming, Chase.” Her voice was rough, hoarse from her tears. “I gather you and Cam heard the entire event.”
He nodded sharply. He wasn’t thinking about it right now. He couldn’t. If he was going to hold onto his control and keep from strangling his baby brother, then he had to forget, at least for a little while, the information he had learned.
Annalee nodded slowly. “Moriah’s at peace now.” She swallowed tightly. “Her parents have feared an episode like this for years. It’s why I’ve been careful to stay away from her as much as possible. She was becoming very possessive of me.” Her face twisted with grief.
“She knew about that night with Jaci. Did you tell her?” He needed to know where to place the blame. He had to find someplace for it, to be able to deal with it.
But Annalee shook her head slowly. “I would never have told her. She wasn’t strong enough to handle it. Until today, I was unaware that she even knew of the reasons for the animosity between Jaci and me. When she called, she said Jaci had told her, and wanted to meet with us to discuss it.” She shook her head as she pressed her fingers to her lips. “Once we arrived she was enraged. She said she had known all along. That she had overheard Margie and I discussing it years before. And that we were to take care of it this time or she would. Sweet God, she told Jaci we had molested her.” Annalee broke down again. She lay her head on the table, sobbing pitifully as Chase moved beside her and sat on his haunches by her chair.
“She wasn’t sane,” he said softly. “You can’t blame yourself.”
She shook her head in the cradle of her arms. “I blame myself. I always shall. I tried so many times to help her, to love her, because she was like my own.” She lifted her head and stared back at him desperately. “I can’t have children. So I loved Moriah like my own child. And I tried so hard to do what was best. All I did was destroy her.”
He shook his head and rose to his feet once more. “Her insanity destroyed her, Annalee, not you. Dry your face and go to your husband. You can help him now. Moriah’s at peace. You don’t have to help her any longer.”
He walked away from her. He had to. He could feel the rage and pain growing inside him, the pure, fucking fury, a red-hot lance of it driving into his brain, as he thought of the years his brother had lied to him.
Lied to him. To his face, over and over, lied to him.
He left the apartment, feeling something akin to pure, icy, blood fury burning inside him.
Fifteen. That demented bitch of an aunt of theirs had sold his brother to her depraved friends—had somehow forced him to allow her to whore him out for sex. And not once, not one time had he come to Chase. He hadn’t asked for his help. He had never goddamned asked him for help.
He bolted out of the apartment house and stalked to the car Cam had left behind. He tried to tell himself his brother was an adult. He couldn’t just beat the shit out of him for being a fucking bastard, and not asking for help. Could he?
He slammed the car door behind him and stared through the windshield. Fuck that. Hell yes, he could beat the shit out of him, and that was exactly what he would do.
Jaci forced herself to stop crying before they reached Cam and Chase’s home. She dried her face and stayed in Cam’s arms—and refused to speak the thoughts on her mind.
When the limo pulled into the garage, she let him lift her from the car, safe in his arms, and she let him carry her up to the apartment. She didn’t want him to let her go. She was terrified that if he did, then he would never hold her again.
He got the door open while she kept her face buried in his shoulder. She felt weak. She felt as though she should be on her own two feet, rather than depending on him, but she couldn’t. She couldn’t let him go. She had to hold onto him.
And he didn’t seem inclined to let her go. He moved into the apartment, the door closing softly behind them as he moved to the couch.
“Here.” He placed her on the couch, but she didn’t let go of him. She couldn’t.
“It’s okay. I’m not going far. I promise.” He forced her arms from behind his neck, pulled back, and turned away. She shivered.
The ice was still in his eyes, despite the gentle tone of his voice, and the sight of it had a shiver racing up her spine.
She couldn’t take her eyes off him. She watched him miserably as he moved across the room to the kitchen, opened the cabinet, and dragged out a fifth of whisky and two glasses.
When he returned, he sat down beside her, poured a small amount into a glass, and handed it to her. When he turned to the next glass, he seemed to give it a second thought—then he pulled the bottle back and tipped it to his lips.
He didn’t even grimace. Then he lowered the bottle and held it loosely between his thighs.
“I haven’t seen you drink whisky since I’ve been here,” she whispered, her voice raw.
She had only seen him drink beer, and he rarely finished those.
He brought the bottle up, tipped it again, and took a long drink before lowering it and staring at the label thoughtfully. “I used to drink a lot of it.” He finally shrugged. “Sometimes I drank too much of it.”
She read between the lines easily. He had been so wild as a young man, so filled with bitterness and hatred—and whisky.
She sat the glass carefully on the table before them, and stared at the amber liquid in it. She didn’t want the drink. She didn’t want to dull the pain raging through her, or the sickness that roiled in her stomach. He had lived his life, survived it, and now he was being forced to reveal it. She wasn’t going to dull her own emotions, she wasn’t going to dull the love and aching grief she felt for him.
He took another long drink, then set the bottle on the table.
“The whisky stopped working a long time ago,” he finally said. “When I realized it was going to take something stronger to dull the pain, I picked up a pistol, got in my pickup, and drove out to the most deserted place I could find at the time.”
Her heart leapt in her throat.
“The day you were on the back road of the farm,” she whispered.
He nodded slowly, his lips pursing. “I’d had enough. Enough sick shame, enough banging my head against a wall, trying to hide what was happening and trying to find a way out at the same time.”
She couldn’t cry again. Not yet. He would stop talking if she did, and she needed to know, to understand.
“Then you showed up.” He reached out and caressed the dark label of the whisky bottle with the back of a finger. “And there was this innocent little face and pretty eyes. And you told me you would take the pain away. I almost believed you could.” He shook his head at the thought. “You were just a kid, but the only person in that fucking town that seemed to believe in me, besides Chase. And hell, all he wanted was answers. Answers I couldn’t give him.”
He pulled his hand back and wiped his hand over his face before he let it hang with the other between his spread knees.
“He loved you,” Jaci whispered, “just as I did.”
He lifted his head and stared across the room, his expression so distant, his eyes so cold she wanted to scream out at him. She wanted to hit him. Wanted to rage at him for carrying this alone for so damned long.
“I went to the sheriff the next day,” he finally said. “You see, Jaci, I almost killed one of those old bitches. They insisted I spend the night, that they lie against me. One night, I messed up. I dozed. And I felt her touch me. The next thing I felt was my hand around her throat.”
He looked down at the hand he clenched slowly, then shook his head tightly again.
Jaci had to force back a cry of pain. Eighteen. He had been eighteen. Too young to face such violence inside himself.
“Anyway,” he breathed out roughly, “I went to Sheriff Bridges. I told him what happened.” He jerked the bottle up, tilted it, and consumed an amount that had Jaci covering her mouth again to hold back a tortured cry.
When he put the bottle down again, it thumped on the table.
“Right after my aunt arrived at the house, she drugged me with some shit. It messed up my head. Made me horny as hell. No matter what she did to me. And she did like to play with those adult toys she had. She pushed as many of them as she could inside me and took pictures of it. Enough pictures, enough poses, that it looked like I was enjoying the hell out of it.”
Jaci was going to throw up. She had to force back the gagging reflex as she thought of the horror, the humiliation he must have felt.
“And here was the deal,” he continued. “I could do what she told me to, when she told me to, or she would make sure Chase got those pictures. Chase and every friend I had. See, she wasn’t in the pictures. And who would believe sweet Davinda Morris had done something so vile?” His laugh was bitter, furious. “The fucking bitch.”
Her soul was writhing inside her, shrieking with pain, as she somehow managed to stay silent. Managed to hold back her screams of agony.
“I went to the sheriff and I made him swear on Dad’s grave to keep the secret I was about to tell him. He and Dad were friends.” He shrugged again, his voice nearly a monotone, cold and unemotional. “I told him what happened. He came to the house, found the pictures, and forced her to leave. But I had to tell him what happened.” His jaw bunched then. “I had to sit in front of a man that loved my father like a brother, and I had to tell him what I allowed to happen. And I saw the pity in his eyes. The pity and the shame. And I swore I’d never see that in another living soul’s eyes again.” He turned to her, stared at her. “I was a whore, Jaci. For three years. Now, do you feel any better knowing?”
The tears slipped from her eyes. “I love you, Cam. I love you no matter what. I don’t pity you, and I don’t feel shame. You survived.” Her voice broke as she reached out to touch him. His strong jaw, the corners of his icy eyes. “You waited for me.” She had prayed he would.
A grimace twisted his face as he turned his away from her again, and he reached for the whisky once more.
“You don’t need the whisky.” She slapped his hand back. “Does getting drunk make it easier to face, Cam?”
“Getting drunk?” He flicked her a harsh look. “That shit doesn’t do anything to take my mind off the fact that I fucked up,” he snarled, that edge of fury showing again. “I fucked up, Jaci. I let her use me, and I was too damned brick-dumb to stop it. And too fucking weak to kill the bitch.”
“Try too fucking filled with false pride to live!” Chase’s voice was demented with anger, and it echoed through the sudden silence of the apartment as Jaci and Cam both jumped to their feet and turned to him.
And Jaci knew he had heard it all, as Cam stared at the keys in his brother’s hands before lifting his gaze to the fire burning in Chase’s eyes.
“Find another entrance in,” Cam said coldly. “I’m fucking sick of you sneaking in this house and butting your nose in my damned business.”
