Wicked Burn(78)
Author: Beth Kery

“Niall never told me in detail how she felt about you. As you probably know by now, that’s not her style. But I’ve worked with her for years. There was something in her face when she used to talk about you, something in her smile . . . I think she’d forgive me for talking to you about her past, even though she is an incredibly private person,” Kendra said soberly.

Vic didn’t speak, but he’d gone very still when Kendra picked up the picture. He suddenly knew exactly whose photo was in the frame. It struck him as strange that he’d never noticed any mementos of Michael before, but then he recalled how Niall’s residence at Riverview Towers was a temporary one. She’d always said that she’d never unpacked the majority of her personal items.

When he held out his hand, Kendra passed him the photo without comment. Vic stared for several long seconds and abruptly set the frame back on the desk.

“Did she tell you about him?” Kendra asked, still studying his reactions closely.

“She told me that she had a child named Michael who died,” Vic replied hoarsely. The vision remained glued behind his eyelids of that beautiful little boy’s face with Niall’s smile and her big, hazel eyes. “Forrester just told me how he died, though.”

Kendra sighed and sagged back in her chair. “Well, that’s something that she mentioned Michael, that she even said his name, to be honest with you. I guess from your reaction to Forrester, though, she never said anything about Matthew Manning or how her husband, Stephen, went off the deep end during Manning’s trial?”

“What do you mean went off the deep end?”

Kendra grimaced. “I’m not saying it in the figurative sense, Vic. Stephen started drinking heavily after Michael’s murder and eventually vacated the world of reality and moved to an insane one. He’s been there ever since, and as far as I know, he doesn’t appear to have any plans on returning,” Kendra added sarcastically. “Sorry,” she amended after a moment. “I don’t mean to be judgmental against someone who is obviously mentally ill and can’t control his actions, but if you had seen the hell that Niall’s been through . . .” She shook her head.

“I remember what Niall said to me once when I was mouthing off in a particularly bitter fashion about Stephen’s reaction to Michael’s murder. She said, ‘No one really knows how they’re going to react when something awful and unexpected happens to them. Stephen has reacted in the only way that was available to him.’ ”

“She defended him?”

Kendra nodded. “Always. Even though Stephen became so whacked out that he was violent toward her on several occasions. Niall has never said anything to me—not that she would—but I suspect he tried to kill her, maybe more than once. He’s suicidal in addition to being homicidal, so at least he’s an equal opportunity lunatic,” Kendra said, anger lacing her tone despite what she’d said about Niall’s defense of her ex-husband.

Vic leaned forward in his chair as the ringing alarm bells in his brain notched up to a clanging clamor. The idea of Niall—his Niall, that warm, honey-voiced, delicate-seeming woman with a backbone made of steel—being subjected to all of this meaningless violence and horror had him feeling cornered and desperate.

“I want to know it all, Kendra. I want to know everything about Niall that you have to tell me. But before you go into it, just tell me this. Do you think there’s a chance that Niall is at Joliet to attend Matthew Manning’s execution today? Because there’s no way in hell I’m gonna let her go through something like that on her own.”

Almost an hour and a half later Vic finally turned onto I-80 West, toward Joliet. He checked the digital clock anxiously before he pressed the accelerator to the floor. He’d stayed around long enough to pluck the relevant highlights of Niall’s history out of Kendra before he’d grabbed a newspaper, gotten in his truck, and left town in a hell of a hurry. Traffic had been bad only around the city, thank God, or else he’d never have had the slim chance that he wobbled on precariously at the moment.

Kendra had been shocked by his question about whether or not Niall would attend Matthew Manning’s execution. She apparently didn’t read the paper as meticulously as Forrester, because she hadn’t even realized that it was scheduled for today. Vic had found out by reading the paper at stoplights while he was still in the city that Manning’s execution by lethal injection was scheduled for three o’clock that afternoon.

Vic only had about forty-five minutes to make it to Joliet Prison. He didn’t know what the hell he was going to do when he got there. He doubted they’d allow him to enter the maximum security prison, but he had to do something. The idea of Niall being there all by herself on such a god-awful errand was just untenable. For what felt like the thousandth time that day, he tried to call her cell phone, but for the thousandth time was thwarted by the sound of her recorded voice.

All of his doubts about how useful he was going to be once he got to Joliet Prison were immediately reinforced once he arrived. If he’d been speaking Swahili to the stony-faced guard at the single entrance gate, he’d have been just as effective in gaining admittance. Vic couldn’t even get the uniformed stiff to say if Niall Chandler had recently entered or if he’d ever heard of Niall Chandler . . . or Matthew Manning, for that matter.

Vic found himself waiting in the small parking lot outside of the prison, wishing he could see through walls so that he might at least be able to locate Niall’s car and know if she was there or not. Sitting all by himself in his truck certainly gave him time to think about what he wanted to say to Niall when he saw her. But just like a plague of writer’s block, nothing came to him. The only thing that he experienced at that moment was an overwhelming need to hold her . . . to protect her.

The feeling was a familiar one. It had cropped up often enough last year, all those times when he saw the sadness in Niall’s eyes, every time she awoke from her nightmares, trembling and damp with sweat. He closed his eyes briefly in remorse when he considered what she must have been dreaming about . . . seeing Michael shot down in cold blood as if they were soldiers on a battlefield instead of a young mother sending her four-year-old boy off to preschool with a cheerful good-bye.

Stuff out of nightmares all right, except that for Niall the dream never ended.

He cringed inwardly with guilt when he recalled how he’d admonished her just yesterday for being dishonest with him. You said that you wanted to tell me back then, but you didn’t, despite the fact that I wanted to be there for you. I wanted it a hell of a lot, Niall! Now you want to talk, but I’m no longer ready to listen.