Page 167 of Untouchable

Caleb stared at the recorder. For some reason, he didn’t want to see Kelly’s face as she listened to the conversation about her father.

Then she hit Play again. The first voice, again, was his. “Did you know what was going to happen?”

“Of course not.” That was Vinnie’s voice. He assumed Kelly would recognize it too. “What do you take me for?”

“Well, someone knew. Someone arranged it.”

“We both know who that someone was.”

“So what are we supposed to do now?” Caleb didn’t like the crack in his voice. He didn’t like how young he sounded.

He didn’t like that he felt even more helpless and betrayed now.

“Nothing. We do absolutely nothing.”

“But—”

“There’s nothing to do. What? Are you thinking about speaking out for truth and justice? What kind of an idiot are you? You’d be even deader than he is by the end of it. This is hardball. If you want to be in the game, you have to play by therules. These are the rules. So keep your mouth shut and do what you’re supposed to do. There will be plenty of rewards for all of us at the end of it.”

That was the end of the second tape. Then there was nothing but deep silence in the room.

Caleb still couldn’t look at Kelly’s face.

“It was Roman,” he said. “He made the call. Roman arranged it after my mom told him what was going on. He had your father killed. Vinnie and I found out after it happened. We went along with it—I’m not saying we were guiltless—but we aren’t responsible.”

“I saw the memo Vinnie wrote to your dad. It said the plan was yours.”

“He was talking about my original plan, which didn’t include anyone dying. It was kept because it made me look guilty. They knew I had these recordings. They wanted to use the memo as leverage so I’d never do anything with these.” He shook his head and looked down at the tapes. “I never did.”

Caleb finally turned his eyes to Kelly’s pale face. “I didn’t kill your father.”

She made a kind of choking sound and stumbled backward.

Ridiculously, his instinct was still to reach out and help her.

But she jerked away from his outstretched hand and staggered back several more steps.

Then she whirled around as if something had possessed her and ran out of the office.

He followed her instinctively, without thinking it through. Their conversation wasn’t over yet. Their business wasn’t finished.

She’d still utterly betrayed him, and she wasn’t going to get away from him so easily.

She was fast—faster than he would have expected—and she was moving at a dead run, like she was being chased by demons.She knew her way through his house and grounds. He had to sprint to keep up with her, and even so he didn’t catch her until she’d gotten outside and was halfway across the lawn.

He grabbed her arm and whirled her around, trying to make her stop, and she pushed out at him with her free hand.

He huffed from the impact, but he didn’t let go. The force of the momentum caused both of them to tumble to the cool grass in a tangle of limbs and emotion.

She kept struggling to get away from him, but he was tired—tired of all of this—and held her still with his weight.

“Damn it, Caleb,” she gasped, almost sobbing in her attempt to get away. “Are you supposed to be vindicated by this? You still knew about my father’s death and did nothing. You didnothing.”

“I know it. I know it.” His voice was rough and uncontrolled, exactly as he was feeling. Her body was soft and strong and shaking, and his body knew hers as well as his own. He held on to her, couldn’t let her go. “But you were wrong about me, so don’t act so victimized and self-righteous. Think about what you did yourself. You used me. You betrayed me in the deepest possible way. And then you went and fucked some other?—”

“I didn’t fuck him,” she burst out, tears streaming from her eyes. She’d stopped struggling and lay on the grass beneath him, like she’d finally, finally broken. “I didn’t fuck him. I wanted to do it. To you. You would have deserved it, but I… I couldn’t. That’s what you’ve turned me into. I should hate you. I always should have hated you, and yet you made me… you made me love you anyway. How the hell do you think that makes me feel?”

His heart exploded at her words, disintegrated completely, and this time it didn’t get put back together. “And why the fuck should I believe anything you tell me now, after all the lies you’ve told me?”