Chapter Twenty-Eight

“The only thing to fear is fear itself.” Franklin D. Roosevelt

Kate hadn’t heard from Gideon again after the call that morning. She presumed nothing bad had happened, though the possibility hung above her like a huge pregnant cloud about to burst.

She’d resisted asking Auspex anything else. She didn’t think knowing the odds would help. But she had called her mom on a secure line to check she was okay. Telling Kate about Stella seemed to have opened the floodgates, and she spoke some more about that time, purging her system. Maybe it would clear some of her bitterness and allow her to move on. If she got the chance, but Kate didn’t dwell on that. One thing at a time.

Now, she sat in front of her dressing table with the array of makeup she’d bought after the makeover for her “pickup Gideon” evening. She had the feeling she needed some sort of mask in place.

Just the thought of coming face-to-face with Harry made her stomach churn.

She had to find a way to put it behind her. Just for tonight, in order to get through the evening without giving away her hatred. She had a job to do.

She smoothed foundation over her face, waited for it to dry, then added another layer—hopefully, that would hide any flushes. Plus, she had a habit of going deadly pale when she was angry, which made her freckles stand out like measles.

She circled her eyes in black, added mascara and the false eyelashes. Then pink lipstick that clashed with her hair, but hell, no one would be expecting a fashion model. Most of the people there tonight knew her at least through her family. It would look odder if she did appear like some sort of supermodel. What she needed was to look like a woman in love. Or at least a woman infatuated.

She pinned her hair in a loose knot on top of her head and slipped into the black dress she’d picked up on the way home. While not very party-like, it wouldn’t seem so odd considering her only sister had just died…probably murdered by Harry. No, black seemed very appropriate.

It suited her. Very plain, it was sleeveless, high at the front but dipping almost to her ass at the back. She wasn’t risking high heels in case she had to run, which wasn’t a total impossibility. So she’d bought a pair of flat black pumps with a diamanté design. She looked…as good as she got.

The doorbell rang at precisely seven o’clock, just as she was putting a few essentials into the matching black diamanté clutch bag. She hurried from her bedroom to open the door.

And nearly swooned.

Gideon leaned against the doorjamb, hands in his pockets. He was wearing his army uniform and looked pretty good.

When he’d been younger, he’d almost been too perfect. Now the scar added a hint of reality, not to mention danger. Then she noticed something else. “Have you been fighting?” Reaching out, she stroked a finger down over his cheek, where she could see the faint mark of a bruise beneath the skin.

“A little saying-hello-party from some of the guys at work.”

“Bastards.”

“Don’t worry, they came out somewhat worse than I did.”

“Good.” Without thinking, she stepped closer, went up on tiptoe, and kissed him on the cheek. His hands clasped her shoulders holding her steady, but he didn’t try to deepen the embrace. Probably for the best.

She sighed and moved back, pulling free easily—he didn’t try and hold her.

“You want to come in? I take it you didn’t drive. I can call us a cab.”

“I thought we might walk for a little while, then pick up a cab on the road. We can talk.”

Did he think that a cab might be bugged? Were they both getting paranoid and seeing conspiracy theories around every corner? But she knew the threat existed. It wasn’t paranoia.

“Let me grab my bag and a wrap.” While the night was warm, she didn’t want to wander the streets half naked.

They walked side by side, close but not touching. There was a checkpoint up ahead, only a hundred feet from the house. They passed through it, the officer giving Gideon a friendly nod. “Have a good party, sir.”

“He knows you?”

“My boss took a film of the fight.” He reached up and touched his cheek. “Had it streamed around the office. If he didn’t know me before, he does now.”

“He seemed to like you.” She’d never noticed that before. They’d always treated him with scrupulous politeness, but tonight there had seemed genuine warmth.

“I don’t think my two opponents were very popular.”

“Two? You fought two men? That’s not fair.”

“Life’s not fair.”

“Are you hurt anywhere else? Broken ribs?” She didn’t know a lot about fighting.

“I’m fine, but it’s nice that you care.” He slipped a hand through the crook of her arm. “So, I get the impression you have something to tell me.”

She didn’t know where to start. “I told you I was meeting Mom last night?”

“Yes.”

“Well, she told me something about Stella that I hadn’t known. I still can’t believe I didn’t know. That Stella never told me. She kept it to herself all those years.”

“What?”

She licked her lips. She had no clue how Gideon was going to take this. While she suspected now that he’d never been in love with Stella, he had cared for her. She swallowed. “Harry raped Stella when she was fifteen.”

He stopped walking. With his hand on her arm, she was pulled to a standstill as well. She looked up at him. His face was a rigid mask of hard lines. “Say that again.”

“Harry raped Stella. There’s more. Aaron found her afterward. Did you know they were childhood sweethearts?”

“I knew they were close, but they seemed to draw apart when Aaron was…sixteen. Christ. He knew about it?”

“Yes. He took her home. Apparently he wanted to go to the police, but my father persuaded him not to. Stella was in no state to argue. My father said it would be the end of our family and probably yours as well.”

…

Gideon tried to get his head around what she was telling him. He wanted to deny it could have happened, but it made sense of so many things. Releasing his grip on her elbow, he took a step back to give himself some distance. He pressed his fingers to his forehead, then shook his head in disbelief. While Aaron had been a little wild when he was younger, he was never in trouble; he’d been a good boy. Then he’d changed, become bitter and withdrawn. Gideon had tried to talk to his brother, but he’d shut him out. He remembered it had been summer when it had started. Gideon had been working a summer job at the White House that his father had organized. He’d spent a lot of time with Harry Junior. How had he not seen?

“Gideon?”

He shook his head. “I was thinking back.” They were standing in the middle of the street, getting some curious glances from the passersby. He looked around and spotted an iron bench a few feet away. She didn’t object as he took her hand and pulled her to the bench, then pushed her gently down with a hand to her shoulder. He took the seat beside her and sent his thoughts back to the summer Aaron had been sixteen and everything had started to unravel. “Jesus. Aaron changed so much that summer.”

“My mom said he kept coming around, trying to see Stella. They’d been in love since they knew what love was, but my parents had made Stella wait until she was sixteen for them to date. Of course, that never happened. She refused to see him alone, and she pretty much cut him in public.”

“Poor Aaron.”

“Poor both of them. Harry didn’t just rape her, he hurt her. He broke her. And he got away with it. What else has he gotten away with?” They were silent for a minute. Her hand crept into his. “They didn’t tell out of fear that it would hurt our families, but all of us were hurt in the end.”

“Why didn’t he talk to me?”

“Maybe he thought you would be on the other side. That you wouldn’t rock the boat.”

“Never.” The word came out fierce, and her eyes widened. “I would never have condoned rape. Don’t put that on me.”

“I’m sorry.” Her hand slid into his and she squeezed. He was still trying to get his head around it. This was the catalyst that had set everything in motion. From that point forward maybe there had been no way to turn aside the catastrophe waiting to happen. But the two people most guilty—Harry who had perpetrated the crime, and Stella’s father who had insisted on keeping it hidden—were the two people least affected by what had happened. He said as much, and she didn’t try and deny it.

“My mother has been on drugs since, unable to face her part. Aaron vanished. God knows where he is now. Your father died, and your life was ruined. Maybe if they’d gone to the police, it might have all come out in the open. If they’d made enough noise.”

“Harry would never have been president.”

“And maybe Stella would be alive. I can’t help thinking that she wasn’t killed for anything other than that she hated Harry, and he knew it.” Her eyes were bright with unshed tears, and she sniffed. “I can’t cry. I’ll smudge my makeup. I knew there was a reason I never wear it. Except until recently, I never ever cried, and now I seem to do it all the time. Pathetic.” She sniffed again. “In all this, I was probably the only one unaffected, with my head firmly shoved where I couldn’t see what was happening around me.”

She was wrong. She’d been a sensitive twelve-year-old in a happy family, and suddenly everything and everybody had changed, and she had no clue why. It must have been terrifying.

“Think about it,” he said. “Maybe the reason you avoided real life was because of what was happening around you. A mother on drugs, a father probably ridden with anger and guilt, a sister who’d closed herself off to everyone. It was no wonder you withdrew into a world of your own.”

“I hadn’t looked at it like that,” she mused. “It’s funny, isn’t it? How one decision made in a moment can have such cataclysmic effects? I wonder if my father regrets his decision.”

“Probably.” Though he wasn’t so sure. Phillip Buchanan was an ambitious man. So what had made Aaron run? At a guess, his brother becoming engaged to the girl he loved had something to do with it. That had maybe tipped him over the edge. “He left after I got engaged to Stella.”

“That was the one time she actually spoke to him, but only in the presence of my mother. She told him it was for the best and he should forget her. That marrying you would make them all safe. He didn’t want to be safe. My mother said he begged her to run away with him. Somewhere clean. She told him to leave her, that nowhere was clean.”

He exhaled, slumping a little on the seat. Was she right? Had they gone beyond the point where they could make things right? Did they actually have the world they deserved?

He looked around him. The light was fading. There were people walking the streets, going about their business. They all looked content; well-dressed, well-fed. Most likely ignorant of what was happening beyond their small worlds.

Once he’d believed that was what they were aiming for. Just not at any price.

Justice? Freedom? Some control over your own life?

Did they matter more than a comfortable existence?

For him, yes. And, he suspected, for the woman beside him.

Humans were deeply flawed, but on balance there was more good than evil—he had to believe that. The real problem was apathy.

He remembered what Kate had said.

The thing that allowed evil men to prevail was good men doing nothing.

“There’s something else,” Kate said from beside him.

“There is?”

“I asked Auspex what would happen if someone killed Harry. It turns out that’s the one thing that might just save us from nuclear annihilation.”

He tried to get his head around that. He realized that he still hadn’t accepted that Auspex was right and that they were hovering on the edge of a nuclear war. “That doesn’t make sense.”

“Nothing about this makes sense. But I want it to be me. I want to kill him. For Stella and for everyone he’s hurting.”

If there was any killing to be done, he would do it. He wouldn’t mention that right now, because he was pretty sure she’d argue. Kate was no killer. He’d known many in his time, men and women who could stand face-to-face with someone and pull the trigger without a qualm. Kate was not one of them.

Maybe that’s what drew him to her. She was a good person. In a world gone to decay, she shone.

All the same, in one way she was right. Harry had to die. The man was evil. How many other lives had he ruined? But maybe there was a way to do it from within the system. Hopefully, whatever information Stella had had would help them decide their next move.

He stood up and held out his hand to her. Kate slid her palm into his, wrapping her fingers tight around him, and got to her feet. She took a deep breath. “Let’s go party.”