going to see her, see your mother walking toward me. Because the day I stop believing in that is the day I stop breathing. She was my life, Rayne, my every breath. My mistake was in not letting her know that.”
A smile played along her lips. “You don’t make mistakes, remember?” And then, breaking down, Rayne embraced him. “God, Dad, I hope that someday someone loves me just half as much as you love Mom.”
For a moment he held her to him, just as he had when she was small. A lot of time had gone between then and now. “They will, Rayne, they will. Or I’ll personally fillet them.”
He was rewarded with her laugh. Andrew stepped back, glancing over his shoulder. He saw three men walking in their direction.
“Okay, dry those tears, here come your brothers and Patrick.”
Straightening, she wiped away the telltale signs of rebellious tears before turning around to face the approaching threesome.
She tossed her head, her hair bobbing about her face like golden springs. “You’re late,” she declared with no small amount of glee.
It earned her a shove from Clay.
“There’ll be no fighting at the grave site,” Andrew informed them.
“Yes, Dad,” Clay and Rayne dutifully chorused before they grinned at one another.
Chapter 3
It was a room that reeked of desperation and despair. Furnished only with two chairs squared off on either side of a scarred metal rectangular table, its gray walls—the hue of an old buffalo nickel—provided the only color within the small area. There were no windows, only a single door. A door with a guard standing on the other side.
Cole watched as his younger brother was brought in. Clad in a faded orange jumpsuit, Eric rubbed his wrists the moment the required handcuffs were removed.
He looked bad, Cole thought. A mere shadow of the laughing, carefree boy he’d once known.
Anger welled within his chest. Anger at his parents who should have stopped this years before it happened. Anger at Eric for choosing the path of least resistance, for squandering his life and allowing himself to be devaluated this way.
Cole had pulled strings to see his brother inside this room. Ordinarily the room was used only by lawyers for consultations with their jailed clients. Anyone else was required to meet with prisoners in a communal area with a soundproof length of glass separating them and words echoing through a phone line.
He knew Eric. Eric had trouble dealing with restrictions. The very thought of bars around him fed his claustrophobia.
It surprised him to see how old Eric looked. He’d left a boy behind. The person standing uncertainly before him was a hollowed out man.
They’d always been worlds apart, he and Eric. He’d been born old. Eric, he’d thought, was destined to be eternally young. His brother was more childish than childlike, but it had had its appeal, especially among the kinds of women Eric gravitated toward.
For Kathy Fallon, the appeal had apparently worn thin. Cole knew without being told that Kathy’s leaving had been difficult for Eric to accept. His brother was accustomed to people liking him, seeking him out for a good time. Eric always had an endless supply of money and loved parties.
There was no party for Eric here.
There might not be one for a very long time if all the wheels he was trying to put into motion ground to a halt, Cole thought.
The expression on Eric’s face was equal parts surprise and relief when he looked at him.
Cole pulled his own chair out and nodded toward the other chair, indicating that Eric do the same. The metal legs scraped along the floor. Eric fell limply into his chair. His eyes looked eager as they fastened themselves to Cole’s face.
“You came.”
“You’re my brother,” Cole replied simply, hiding the fact that a wealth of emotions, too many to count, were tangling up inside of him.
It had been that way ever since Eric’s lawyer had called to tell him that Eric had been arrested and was asking for him. He’d booked the next flight out of New York and spent most of the time on the phone, planning, gathering what information he could. By the time he’d landed late last night, Cole had had as much of a handle on things as he could.
Long ago, he’d learned to rely first and foremost on himself.
Eric’s knuckles were almost white as he clenched his hands into impotent fists in front of him on the cold table. “I didn’t do it. I swear I didn’t do it.”
His brother’s voice was almost quivering as he begged to be believed. Cole shook his head. “I’m not the one you have to convince.”
Eric’s eyes widened. The brown orbs were badly bloodshot, a testimony to the recreational drugs that had found their way into his system. He was in withdrawal and it was taking a toll on him.
“Then you believe me?”
Cole knew his brother was many things, many of them unflattering, to say the least. But a murderer wasn’t numbered among them. He’d known that even as he’d listened to the lawyer’s recitation of the police report. “Why do you look so surprised?”
“Because everyone thinks I did it.” Eric’s voice nearly cracked with hopelessness. “Mother and Dad think I’m guilty.”
Cole hadn’t been by to see his parents yet. He was putting off a visit until it became absolutely necessary, or until he had the stomach for it. Other than giving their seed, neither Lyle nor Denise Garrison had ever been parents in any real sense of the word.
He didn’t have to see them to know how they felt about all this. If there was any doubt in his mind, the fact that neither had put up bail for Eric was proof enough.
“They only think you’re guilty of bringing shame to the almighty Garrison name.” An ironic smile twisted his mouth. “Something great-great-granddad beat you to in his youth, but they don’t want to acknowledge that.” The fact that the family money had been accrued by a robber baron was never spoken of. Cole took a deep breath, bracing himself. “So, what happened?”
Shoulders that were far less broad than Cole’s rose and fell haplessly beneath the orange jumpsuit. “The police arrested me.”
“Before then.”
The expression on Eric’s face was tortured as he tried to remember. “I was at a party. I think.” Frustration ate away at the thin veneer of his confidence. “I don’t know, I passed out.”
“At the party?”
Eric looked as if he was taxing his brain. “No, alone I think. There was this girl—but she wasn’t there when I came to,” he concluded helplessly.
“Where did you come to?” Cole enunciated each word slowly. In a way, he thought, he was dealing with a child, a child that was too frightened to think. Whenever Eric became afraid, he made less and less sense. He remembered that from their childhood.
Eric
