Wicked Burn

“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.

“Sanctimonious asshole,” Vic muttered under his breath.

He knew all too well that there were times in the beginning of their relationship that he had consciously chosen to ignore Niall’s emotional wounds, preferring to focus on the sexual aspect of their relationship.

Sure, toward the end he’d changed his mind about that. He wanted to have her trust by that point. But it had been his own distrust . . . his own scars from his relationship with Jenny . . . that had made him initially pull away from her when he witnessed her pain.

Wasn’t it likely that on some level Niall had sensed his unwillingness to share her history and grief? Kendra had told him today how Niall’s parents had judged her for finally choosing to divorce Stephen. Hell, there were probably loads of people who would do the same thing without understanding the circumstances, without comprehending the fact that in his own way Stephen had abandoned Niall when she needed him most—and long, long before Niall made the decision to end their marriage.

Vic had been one of those judgmental people.