A REASONABLE MAN
Gabriel paced the living room, checking the locks and the security system, looking out the window, then sitting on the edge of the couch, hoping to settle in for the night, only to be compelled to get up again.
He’d given Olivia the bedroom. He felt better being between her and the front door. The chances of Morgan breaking in were as infinitesimal as the chances that Gabriel had somehow failed to engage the locks or arm the security system, but taking the couch helped dull the edges of his gnawing anxiety.
He should feel better about the situation. He and Ricky had come up with a rational plan for dealing with James Morgan. The problem was that Gabriel was becoming increasingly convinced they were not dealing with a rational man.
He’d had two e-mails from Morgan today. The first had come late morning. A photograph with the subject line “Thought you might want to see this.” Which had told Gabriel he almost certainly did not. He’d cautiously opened it on his phone, getting the smallest possible preview before realizing what it was, deleting it, and going into his trash and removing it from there, too, on the off chance he might somehow stumble over it later.
It’d been a picture of Ricky and Olivia. Ricky had told him Morgan had interrupted him and Olivia kissing behind the diner. While Gabriel hadn’t seen much before he deleted the picture, he was quite certain “kissing” didn’t quite cover the situation. That was not an image he wanted anywhere in his brain.
But it raised the question: What kind of man purposely walks in on his ex-fiancée with another man and takes a photo of them? And sends the picture to someone else? The levels of incomprehensible behavior were too much for Gabriel to even process.
He was looking out the window when he caught a noise from the bedroom. He walked to the closed door and listened, and then reached for the knob. He stopped himself. Yes, there was a bedroom window—fifty-five stories up without even a balcony to climb on. Most likely, Olivia was using the bathroom. His brain whirred through everything she could find in there. The most damning items—the weapons and the money—were gone, though. He’d removed them earlier that day. With Chandler’s death, the defense attorney in Gabriel had finally overruled the little boy who needed his security blankets, and he’d stashed them in an untraceable storage locker he kept.
Still, he shouldn’t have insisted Olivia take the bedroom. It wasn’t about putting her in a safer spot, he realized. It was about giving her a better place to sleep as a way of saying, “I’m sorry for how monumentally I fucked up tonight.”
When she’d insisted he stay out of the prison visiting room, he’d racked his brain for what he’d done to deserve the rejection. Whatever the cause, he hadn’t taken the snub well. Not until he’d stood at that visiting room door, seen the tears streaming down her face, and all he could think was, Thank God I’m not in there.
It wasn’t that he didn’t want to deal with her emotional breakdown. He wanted to fix it. To make her feel better. And he didn’t know how.
Olivia knew whom to turn to for comfort. She’d wanted Ricky. And he’d talked her out of it. He’d been hurt and, yes, jealous, unwilling to acknowledge that someone else could help her when he could not. So how had he handled the situation? By making it worse.
His intentions had been good. He could tell she wanted a drink, so he’d taken her to a bar where they could talk about the visit. Except he’d inadvertently chosen a place where they couldn’t talk about anything. When she said that was fine, again he’d felt relief. He could get her a drink and be spared the necessity of conversation, which would save him from failing to make the correct response.
He’d watched her mood drop ever lower, and he’d known he’d made a mistake. Then Ricky had called, and he’d had the chance to repair the damage. Admit Olivia was not fine and Ricky would be there within the hour. Problem solved. Olivia’s problem solved. By someone else. Which meant there was no way he could bring himself to say, “She’s not fine.” Three simple words. One crushing admission.
“If you have any reason to think Liv needs me, say the word and I’m on the way.”
“She’s fine.”
“Okay, then. I trust you to make that call.”
Another sound from inside the bedroom. He rapped softly enough that it wouldn’t wake her, but when she didn’t answer, his anxiety grew.
He eased the door open. The room was pitch-dark, Olivia having pulled the blackout blind. He pushed the door so that the living room light shone through, and then he scoured the familiar room for anything unfamiliar. Nothing.
Olivia was still asleep, tossing restlessly, making the bed creak. He eased the door farther open, light illuminating the bed. That’s when he saw her, really saw her. She lay on her side, head on his pillow, her nightshirt riding up around her waist, her legs bare . . . more than her legs bare.
Olivia. In his bed.
The image was as unwelcome as the one Morgan had sent to his phone, but he didn’t delete this one. No, he stood, and he watched, and he thought, considered, imagined—
He closed his eyes, but it didn’t do any good. He could still see her there, in his bed . . .
Where she should not be. Not in his bed. Not in his apartment. What the hell had he been thinking? What was he doing, not just bringing her here, but any of it, all of it?
I’m sorry, Olivia. I understand you’re going through a difficult time, and if you need my help as your lawyer, I’m quite happy to give it, but otherwise . . .
Otherwise . . .
Otherwise, he should extricate himself from the situation. Completely and thoroughly. He’d been wrong to make this his problem, to get wrapped up in the madness, to get wrapped up in her.
He thought of leaving and felt pain. Physical pain in his gut, as if someone had sucker punched him and left him gasping.
I don’t want to leave. I don’t want her to leave.
But you need to. Leave before she does, because you know she will. You’ll drive her away. You’ll do something or you’ll fail to do something, and she’ll give up on you.
Olivia whimpered in her sleep, and when he looked, she’d doubled over, her head down, legs drawn up as if she was the one in pain.
I can’t help her.
Yes, I can. Maybe not with what happened tonight, but there is something I can fix.
He took out his phone and flipped to the second message from Morgan.
We need to talk. I’ll be home all night and the house will be otherwise empty, so we can discuss this in private and, I hope, come to an understanding. You’re a reasonable man, Walsh. I think we can reason this out.
A reasonable man. By that, Morgan meant that Gabriel could be bought off. The spark of indignation lasted only a second before cold reality snuffed it out. He had been bought by Morgan once, and there was no reason for the man to suspect it wouldn’t work again. That would not happen, of course. Whatever impulse Gabriel had to extricate himself from this situation had been crushed by the determination to prove he could fix this, he could help her, he could be what she needed.
Gabriel dropped his phone into his pocket, eased from the room, and headed out of the apartment, arming the system as he went.