answer, Cole leaned forward across the table. “Did you?”
Like a child caught doing something he knew he shouldn’t, Eric hung his head and stared down at his hands. “Before I went to the party.” Then his head jerked up. “But she was alive when I left her. She was screaming at me.”
“That’s because you weren’t supposed to come around anymore,” Cole reminded him. “She’d gotten a restraining order against you.” It had happened less than two months ago, after Kathy had broken it off with his brother. Quinn, the detective he’d hired, had told him that Eric hadn’t been able to reconcile himself with the fact that they weren’t together anymore.
“I didn’t think she meant it.” An urgency rose in his voice as he tried to make Cole understand. “This is the first woman I ever really cared about. I loved her, Cole. And then just like that, she said it was over.” Color flooded his cheeks. “It couldn’t have been over. I didn’t want it to be over. Why did she have to call in the police?”
“You were stalking her, Eric.” Quinn had been very thorough in his summary, faxing him the details rather than wasting time with a phone call.
“I wasn’t stalking her, I was trying to win her back. I don’t have any practice with that,” Eric lamented. “I never wanted anyone back before.” He hit his chest with his outstretched hand, the reality of it all not making any sense to him. “This was me, Cole, everybody likes me.”
Eric honestly believed that, Cole thought. In some ways, his brother was still very much an innocent, not realizing that what most people gravitated toward was Eric’s money, not his company.
“Not everybody, Eric,” he said quietly.
A storm cloud filtered over his face. “You mean, Mother and Dad?”
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
