Obsession

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

RAUL DROPPED her arms so abruptly Emma almost lost her balance. He turned and walked into the living room before she could stop him.

“Don’t do this. I don’t want you here.” Following him into the room, she spoke, the lie sticking in her throat. She didn’t know how, but she managed to say it without choking. She had to; Raul’s very existence depended on it.

“I know that’s what you want.” Halting in the center of the room, he radiated pent-up energy.

“But it’s not going to happen until I say what I have to. I’m going to tell you why I’m here, what I’m doing, and how ruthless this man is. When I’m finished, you’re going to hate me, but at least you’ll understand. And maybe, just maybe, if you’re lucky, you’ll survive this.”

She stared at him, her heart thumping. “What makes you so sure William Kelman’s my problem? I could have a situation at work, or my kids could be in trouble, or…” She threw her hands up in the air. “Anything could be going on with me. Why do you think-”

“I don’t have to think. I know. I know because he ruined my life.” His pronouncement was flat, totally without emotion. “I spent five years in a federal prison because of William Kelman.”

The words fell like stones at her feet. She felt faint, and for a moment she thought she’d throw up. “Wh-what are you saying?” she asked. “I don’t understand.”

“He destroyed my life over a woman. And I didn’t even love her. Not like I love-” He broke off abruptly and shook his head, a gesture filled with regret and something else, something that darkened his eyes to a shade she’d never seen before.

“Her name was Denise Murphy, and she came up to me in a D.C. bar. I’d just ended a relationship with someone else, and I wasn’t at my best. Denise said she’d seen me around town and wondered who I was.” He shrugged. “She was gorgeous-a tall brunette with a perfect body-and I took her home with me that night. It was the biggest mistake I ever made.”

Emma’s nausea grew. It took up all the space inside her and forced its way up into her throat.

“Denise Murphy was living with William Kelman at the time, but she was looking for a way out. I provided her with the excuse. She left him and we had a brief affair. I didn’t know all this until she visited me in prison to explain.”

“To explain? Explain what?”

“Kelman ruled the local DEA office like he was some kind of king. He was making a fortune by working with the dealers, tipping off the agents on the minor ones and taking payoffs from the big ones when the raids went down. His bosses had no idea what he was doing. Denise only knew because she lived with him.

“She said he hadn’t always been that way, but his wife had left him a few years before, and it seemed to push him over the edge.” Raul paused for a second, then continued, “When Denise did the same thing-left him-he saw himself as a two-time loser. He couldn’t believe it’d happened again, so he took care of it.”

“Took care of it?”

Raul nodded. “He planted drugs and a gun in my car while I was out of town. I was stopped, and the rest, as they say, is history.”

She had a vague understanding of how Kelman had arranged things here, but how could he do the same thing in the States? It didn’t seem possible. “But how did he get the officer to stop you?”

“He was told to by a DEA agent. Kelman had something on the agent, and offered to let the guy off the hook if he took me down. All the cop had to do was catch me in a traffic violation-I turned right without signaling. That gave him cause to pull me over, and he held me till the DEA agents got there-they were in it, as well. They asked if they could search the car, and I had no reason to refuse. One of them opened up the trunk and pulled out a plastic bag of coke I’d never seen before. And a nickel-plated.45.”

“Kelman planted them,” she said faintly.

He nodded. “I’d left my car at the airport and flown to the Bahamas for a weekend. He did it while I was gone.”

“But five years. My God, why so long? Did he own the judge, too?”

“He didn’t have to. There are guideline sentences for drug violations in the federal system. Whatever number of years you’re sentenced, you serve eighty-five percent of it, regardless. I was a first-time offender, but it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered. The evidence couldn’t be disputed, and I was tried and convicted in very short order. I was sent to Cumberland, Maryland.” In a hard tone he spoke again. “I lost my home, my savings and my license to practice law. Everything.”

His voice held no emotion, but Emma could see his pain, smell it, even taste it. She hadn’t moved since he’d begun to speak, and now she walked away from him. She had to put some space between them, had to escape the agony she knew he felt. Crossing the room, she stood in front of the window that looked out on her garden. The walled area was serene and quiet in the morning sun, a total contrast to the chaos raging inside her.

She let it storm, giving no hint of how she felt. After a few minutes, through the confusion, a thread of understanding began to take form. He’d had everything that was important to him taken away-just as she had. From a woman’s point of view, nothing meant more to her than her children, but a man’s priorities were different, especially a man who didn’t have a family. He judged himself by what he could do with his career, with his ability to make a living.

Kelman had taken away the very essence of who Raul was. And he’d replaced him with a far different man.

Emma turned slowly and looked at Raul. The planes of his face, the angles of his body, even the way he held himself-how different was he now? She could only imagine. Not understanding at the time, she’d sensed his former self, sensed a far different man when they’d made love and when they’d visited the orphanage, but the core of who he was no longer existed. It’d been changed forever, lost forever.

Except for one detail.

His determination.

The realization didn’t come to her in a flash. It wasn’t like the movies where all at once the heroine understood. This was completely different. The truth formed itself slowly and opened up only after she examined it closer. He waited patiently, as if he understood what she was dealing with, then finally, when the thought was fully constructed from the pieces he had given her, she spoke. Carefully. Slowly.

“You came to Santa Cruz because of Kelman. You followed him down here.”

“That’s right.”

“And the money in your account…”

“It’s from a slush fund the State Department manages. The woman who was with me at Candelabra arranged it. She’s…an old friend.”

Dust motes danced in the tense silence between them. “You’re not an importer.”

“No. I’m not an importer.”

“You have no business here, other than tracking down Kelman?”

“That’s right. Denise knew he would come here, and Wendy told me when he arrived. She had the passports checked.”

Emma looked at him, her heart locking into place with a click. She knew the answer to the question, but she had to ask it, anyway. She had to hear his reply. “And my role in all this is…?”

“I came here to stop him. And to do that, I had to get next to the person he’d need the most. That was you.”

Her heart kept beating, her lungs kept working, her brain kept going, but something inside Emma died. She actually felt the passing and mourned the emotion before she knew what it was.

After another moment, she understood what was leaving her; it was the hope she’d had, the hope she hadn’t even been able to acknowledge until now, that they might have some kind of future together. That Raul might say, “I love you,” and she would say the same thing. That he’d help her get her children and they might be a family. That her life might start again. All those possibilities were gone forever now.

Raul’s voice reached her through a fog. “Kelman didn’t pick Reina out of the blue to be his real-estate agent, Emma. He chose her because he knew she was friends with you. He knew when he said he needed a banker, she’d arrange an introduction. He manipulated the situation to get what he wanted-you-just like he always does.” Raul paused as if to gather himself. “You’re the best banker in town, Emma. He knew to come to you. All I had to do was watch and wait.”

“You son of a bitch.” Lifting her head, she spoke quietly, the fury behind her words almost anticlimactic. “You acted as if you cared for me, and all along you knew he was going to destroy me! How could I have been so dumb?”

“I didn’t act as if I cared for you. I do care for you,” he said softly. “More than you know. And I wasn’t going to let him destroy you. I did everything I could to protect you. I would have done more if you’d told me what was going on. Please, Emma…” He took a step in her direction, then stopped when she held up her hand.

“No. No.” She laughed softly, a bitter sound that echoed in the tension-filled room. “Don’t tell me that now. Not now. I might fall for it once, but twice? No way. I’m not that stupid.”

“None of this is important right now,” he said, interrupting her. “All that matters is stopping Kelman.”

She held up her hand again, an angry flush burning its way into her cheeks. “Are you crazy? He’s threatened my children! Do you know what that means? Do you have any idea?”

“Whatever he’s done to you, Emma, I promise I’ll make him pay for it. I promise.”

“You promise!” She mocked his words then shook her head in disgust. “My God. I trusted you. With my body, with my secrets, with my heart. You wooed me. You told me to believe in you and I did.”

“I didn’t know you at that point. You were a stranger and I didn’t care. But now I do.” His jaw tightened. “Let me help you, Emma. If we work together, we can stop him.”

The decision was an easy one. She looked him straight in the eye. “I don’t trust you. I’d never ask for your help.” She held up her hand again to stop him from speaking. “I don’t need it, either.

I’ll make William Kelman pay for what he’s done by myself, like I’ve done everything else in my life. All I want from you is to leave. Right now.”

“I can’t do that.”

“Oh, yes, you can.” She pointed toward the entryway. “You walk out of here, close the door behind you, and forget you ever knew me. It’s easy.”

“It’s not easy, and I wouldn’t do it even if it was. Just let me help.”

She closed the space between them with two angry steps. Energy burned inside her and fueled her anger. She wanted to strike him, but it wouldn’t have done any good. “You’re here to help yourself, Raul, and no one else. You don’t give a damn about me and you never have. All you want is revenge.”

“Emma, please…”

Her heart split open, the pain too much for it to hold. She wheeled around and faced the window, her arms wrapped around herself as if to contain the agony. “Get out,” she said thickly, her back to him. “And shut the door behind you.”

HE TOLD HIMSELF it didn’t matter. Moving down Emma’s walkway, Raul ignored the ache in his chest. All that was important was Kelman, he repeated. Nothing counted but him.

He passed through the broken gate, the words of staunch determination fueling his departure. If she wanted to fight the devil on her own, then by God, let her.

Raul would spend the rest of his life tracking down Kelman, and if he wasn’t able to stop him here, then he’d stop him somewhere else. It didn’t matter where. Raul wouldn’t quit until he’d visited the same pain on Kelman that the other man had visited on him.

Emma Toussaint was disposable. When he’d used her up, Kelman would move on to his next victim, and she’d join the list of people he’d screwed. Raul couldn’t care less.

Nothing mattered. She didn’t matter, and everything they’d shared didn’t matter. She’d been a chance he played, and it hadn’t worked out. He strode down the sidewalk without looking right or left, his anger contained within the tiny kernel where he kept all the rest of his emotions.

By the time he climbed into the truck and started the engine, he knew how badly he was lying to himself. By the time he got to the end of the block, he knew he could go no farther.

He did care. He cared so much it scared the hell out of him. And he was a bigger bastard than he thought if he left Emma to face Kelman on her own.

Raul pulled up to the stop sign and sat, the truck idling beneath him in the hot sunlight. A sweep of anger came over him, a sweep so intense, so powerful, that it blinded him, and he began to pound the steering wheel in frustration.

It was happening all over again! Kelman was taking away the only thing Raul cared about.

The warm hazel eyes, the silky blond hair, the skin so soft and tender. Couldn’t Kelman see what kind of woman Emma was? Didn’t he know how much her kids meant to her? Or her job, her friends? She was the woman every man spent his life searching for, and she deserved much more than she’d gotten so far. If Raul had had half an idea of the kind of woman she was, he would never-never-have let this happen as he had. He hadn’t known, though. Now things were different.

He’d held her in his arms and made love to her. He knew who she was and what she represented. And it was up to him to keep her safe from Kelman, even if she didn’t want his help. Even if she hated him and never wanted to see him again.

He loved her, he realized with a jolt. And love meant so much more than revenge…

EMMA WENT UPSTAIRS and straight to her desk. Raul’s revelation had sliced her like a razor, but the fierce pain brought with it a sudden clarity. She knew exactly what she had to do. She couldn’t allow herself to think about anything else, but most of all she couldn’t think about the fact that she’d let him into her heart when he’d only been using her. She simply couldn’t face it. Not now.

She picked up the phone and punched out the numbers to bring up an overseas line. When she heard the familiar buzz, she dialed the rest of the digits. Todd answered almost immediately.

“I’ve got something to tell you.” She spoke with no preliminary when he said hello. “Don’t ask any questions-just listen to me carefully and do exactly what I say.”

He sputtered something, but she ignored it. “I’m in trouble down here. There’s a man who’s trying to blackmail me, and he knows about you and the children. You have to take Sarah and Jake away from there. Today.”

As she gave voice to the words, the enormity of what she was doing hit her. She should have been crying, should have been hysterical, but there were no more tears and no more emotions left in her heart. She’d just handed Todd a loaded gun and pointed it at her head.

To protect her children, she had to destroy any chance she might have in the future of getting them back.

“What kinda crap are you pulling now?”

She cut through his drawl. “I’m serious, Todd. This guy is for real, and he’s dangerous. He has photos of the kids, photos he had taken this week. I want you to leave and get them somewhere safe.” Her heart cramped. “I don’t want to know where you’re going, either. I…I can’t know.”

“Are you drinkin’ again, Emma Lou? This is crazy talk!”

“I’m telling you the truth! The kids are in danger. You have to leave, Todd.”

“What’d you do?”

She started to explain, then stopped. He’d never believe her, and what did it matter, anyway? “I didn’t do anything, but it’s not important,” she said. “Nothing is but getting those kids hidden, okay?”

“Emma, honey, get a grip. We can’t just up and leave here. Jake’s got a ridin’ lesson this afternoon, and Sarah’s goin’ to a birthday party…”

“Todd.” Emma said his name, then waited until he stopped talking. “I am not crazy. I am not kidding. And I am definitely not drunk. If you don’t believe me, then you’re putting yourself and the children in jeopardy.” Understanding she’d have to tell him more to get him to comply, she explained what Kelman wanted as quickly as possible. “This guy is ex-DEA, and he knows how to work the system,” she said when she’d finished.

“He’ll make it look like an accident, but something will happen, okay? Something very bad. Believe me-I’ve had a taste of it already, and you do not want to go through that.”

In a subdued voice, Todd asked her several more questions, and she answered them, praying the whole time he would believe her. Finally she heard his chair squeak as he tilted it upright-a sure sign he was beginning to take her seriously.

“Why don’t you just call the police?”

“That’s not how it works down here.”

“Well, there’s got to be someone who could help you. Your boss, a friend…somebody, surely.”

Raul’s black gaze flashed in front of Emma’s face, but she closed her eyes-and her heart. “There’s no one,” she answered. “I’m in this alone. I can handle it, though, if I know the kids are safe. That’s all I care about.”

He didn’t speak; he was thinking about it, she realized. She pushed him. “It won’t be for long. The committee meets next week. I can have everything in place by then.”

“What are you going to do?”

She lied. “I’m not sure yet, but I can’t do anything unless Sarah and Jake are hidden. I have to know they’re all right.”

“I guess Mother would take them for a while-”

“No! Not there!” Todd’s parents were very well-known, their bayou house, Belle Rive, a showcase. Kelman’s man could ask anyone in town, and they’d point the way-or even worse, take him straight to the place. Emma gripped the edge of her desk. “He could find them there, Todd. That’s too easy. You’ll have to hide them. You’ll have to take them somewhere unexpected.”

“But Belle Rive has great security! No one can get through those gates-”

“Todd. Todd! You aren’t listening to me. This man has people who can do anything. He’s got cops in his pocket, okay? The children would not be safe at Belle Rive. Trust me on that.”

Another pause, this one longer, then he spoke. “Well, then how about the place where-”

“Don’t tell me,” she interrupted, the shreds of what was left of her heart turning to ashes. “I don’t want to know, okay? It’s better that way. Just make sure it’s safe-really safe-then take them and hide them. If everything works out, I’ll call you when it’s over. If I don’t call…well, I guess you’ll figure it out.”

“Emma, I…I don’t know what to say. Isn’t there anything I can do to help you?”

For a second, his offer sounded genuine, and she wanted to believe him, wanted to desperately. Then she realized he wasn’t the man she wanted to believe in. She wanted to hear those words-and trust them-from Raul.

She shook her head and closed her throat to the tears that were building inside. “There’s only one thing you can do,” she answered thickly. “Kiss the kids for me and tell them I love them.”