Dangerous Games

Cole truly doubted either of his parents liked anyone, not even themselves. But that wasn’t the issue here. “No, I was thinking about the person who’s trying to frame you.”

The simple statement hit Eric with the force of an exploding bomb. “You think that’s it? Somebody’s trying to frame me?”

Eric’s fingerprints had been found all over Kathy’s apartment. More damning was the ring that had been found in Eric’s apartment. The ring with Kathy’s blood on it. An impression of it had been left on her face where he’d hit her. Something else Quinn told him that Eric didn’t recall. His brother’s memory of the night in question was filled with more holes than a package of Swiss cheese and he’d claimed to have given Kathy the ring because she’d admired it weeks ago.

“Well, it’s either that, or you did it.” He saw Eric drag his hand erratically through his hair. Nerves? Fear? Was he wrong? Had his brother killed the woman in a fit of jealousy? He felt clear down to his bones that Eric wasn’t capable of something like that, but maybe he was letting the past color his vision. “Eric, is there something you want to tell me?”

Eric covered his face with his hands. “I don’t remember.” When he looked up, panic lit his eyes. “Cole, I don’t remember. I get these…” He licked his lips, as if they were too dry to produce the words he was looking for. “Blackouts the doctor calls them…”

Cole never took his eyes off his brother’s face, trying to read every movement, every nuance. Looking for answers to questions that hadn’t been formed yet. “You’ve been to the doctor about this?”

Eric’s head bobbed up and down. “Last May. Dad insisted.”

Cole frowned. So there was someone to testify in a court of law that Eric had periods where he blacked out, where he didn’t remember what he did. Cole felt as if he was staring down into an abyss.

“Cole, is it bad?”

Cole folded his hands in front of him. “I won’t lie to you, Eric, it’s not good.”

Eric bit down on his lower lip to keep from whimpering. A tiny bit of noise escaped anyway. “Then I’m screwed?”

“No,” Cole said firmly, “you’re not.” If his brother was innocent, he was going to prove it. Even if he had to resort to the proverbial movement of heaven and earth to do it.

Eric grasped his hand between both of his. Eric’s hands were clammy. “You’re going to get me out?”

Cole gave one of Eric’s hands a squeeze, trying to infuse a little courage into his brother. “I sure as hell am going to try.”

Eric’s eyes shone with a sudden onset of tears. “You’re the only one, you know, the only one who cares what happens to me. You always were.”

Any minute, Eric was going to go to pieces. He knew all the signs. Like the time there’d been a locker search and the principal had found a nickel bag of marijuana in Eric’s locker. The only way to save his brother was to say that he’d been the one to leave it in Eric’s locker. But this was a great deal more serious than a three-week suspension.

“Don’t fall apart on me, Eric. I need you to focus, to keep it together. Try to remember what happened that night, what you did and, more important, who saw you do it. Work with Holland, he might be a friend of Mother’s and Dad’s, but he’s also one of the best lawyers around.” Cole saw that none of this was getting through to Eric. He looked like a frightened rabbit. “I’m going to see what I can come up with on my end.”

Eric brightened. “You’re my only hope, Cole.”

Truer words were never spoken, Cole thought, leaving the rest unformed even in his mind. “We’ll get through this, Eric. We always have before.”

As Cole rose, his brother suddenly leaped to his feet. Coming around the table, Eric threw his arms around him and embraced him.

Cole had never been a demonstrative man by nature. He’d been through too much, seen too much at home to leave the door to his emotions unlocked. It was the only way he had managed to survive. But this was his brother and he loved Eric beyond any rhyme or reason.

After a beat Cole closed his arms around his younger brother and gave him what he knew Eric needed most at this moment. He needed to have someone love him.

For a long moment Cole did nothing, said nothing, only hugged him.

“I’m scared, Cole,” Eric sobbed against his shoulder.

He knew that. Knew, too, that he was scared for him. But that was something he wasn’t about to admit out loud. Eric needed to think that his older brother was a rock. Confident. Unafraid.

So he perpetuated the illusion. As he always did. “Hey, it’ll make for a good story once it’s behind you. And it’s going to be behind you,” he promised with conviction. Eric pulled his head back and Cole saw a hint of a shaky smile forming. “It’ll give you something to impress people with.”

Ever since Eric’d been in elementary school, his brother had been a weaver of stories, colorful stories that drew the listener in and bonded him with the teller. It was his one gift.

Eric nodded, fighting more sobs. “Yeah,” he mumbled, trying to muster up feeling, “a good story.”

Crossing to the door, Cole knocked once. The next moment, it was being opened and the same guard that had accompanied Eric into the room stepped inside. He was holding handcuffs.

“I’ll be back soon,” Cole promised. He fought a sinking feeling as he saw Eric being handcuffed again. Unable to watch, Cole walked quickly out of the room.

Rayne pulled up the hand brake on her secondhand Honda. It’d been a gift from her father when she’d graduated from the police academy, coming to her with more than forty thousand miles on it. She intended to keep it until it was pronounced dead by Joe, the mechanic they all used.

The lot behind the restaurant was crowded and it had taken her two passes before she’d found a spot to park. Getting out and locking the door, she wasn’t completely sure what she was doing here.

She supposed, as she made her way to the large red entrance doors, that it was curiosity that brought her. That, and the fact that she felt as if she were taking a dare. She wasn’t the kind to back away from a challenge. Ever. And there’d been a challenge in Cole Garrison’s deep blue eyes.

The cold and noise of the outside world faded the instant she crossed the threshold. A soft, subdued murmur of voices greeted her as did a petite Asian hostess dressed in what Rayne took to be authentic Chinese garb. The menu the woman held in her hand was almost half as large as she was.

“Table for one?”

“No, I’m supposed to be meeting someone.”

Rayne looked past the woman’s shoulder and scanned the subtly lit room. She spotted Cole sitting in a corner booth located just beyond an incredibly large fish tank. An array of lights broke through the water, shining on a variety of saltwater fish.

But her mind wasn’t on fish, it was on the man she’d come to meet. Setting down his menu, he sensed her entrance and looked in her direction.

Even at this distance, his eyes seemed to lock with hers.

“Him,” Rayne told the woman, pointing Cole out.

The woman inclined her head, turned on a very high, very thin, heel and led the way to the rear of the dining area.

Cole half rose as she approached the table and remained that way until she’d taken her seat. Old-fashioned manners. Who would have thought?

“Sorry I’m late,” Rayne murmured, accepting the menu from the hostess without looking.

He wore the same clothes he’d had on earlier, except for the coat, and looked as crisp and relaxed as if he’d stepped out of some magazine meant for the discerning man. Obviously his day had gone better than hers. In between her trip to the cemetery, she’d wrestled with a mountain of paperwork, then got called away to investigate a shooting at a convenience store. If she had her way, all convenience stores would be outlawed. Or at the very least, renamed inconvenience stores.

She was more than half an hour late. It was obvious by the set of his jaw that he didn’t like waiting. His tone did little to mask his shortened temper. “I was beginning to think you’d changed your mind.”

“I don’t leave people dangling,” she informed him crisply. “When I say I’m going to do something, I do it. Just not always in the allotted time frame,” she added after a beat.

She didn’t like being late, she really didn’t. Whenever possible, she went out of her way to try to be early. But most of the time it was as if the forces of nature conspired against her, by either causing her to sleep through what was the loudest alarm she could find, or by conjuring up extra vehicles on the freeway, or by arranging things so that they went awry.

“Admirable quality.” He saw his waiter approaching their table. “Do you want to order?”

Rayne nodded. She knew exactly what she was in the mood for and gave her choice to the waiter, passing on the drink. Cole, she assumed, had already ordered. “Been waiting long?”

“I was here at six.”