Before I Sleep Read online

  WARNER BOOKS EDITION

  “Lawrence,” “They Tell Me Snow,” and “Today I Heard,” copyright © 1998, Christian Brown. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

  Copyright © 1999 by Sue Civil-Brown

  All rights reserved.

  Cover design by Diane Luger

  Cover illustration by Nick Gaetano

  Hand lettering by David Gatti

  Warner Books, Inc.

  Hachette Book Group

  237 Park Avenue

  New York, NY 10017

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  www.HachetteBookGroup.com

  A Time Warner Company

  The Warner Books name and logo are trademarks of Hachette Book Group, Inc.

  First eBook Edition: July 1999

  ISBN: 978-0-446-55033-8

  Contents

  DEDICATION

  FOREWORD

  PROLOGUE

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  EPILOGUE

  PREVIEW FOR AFTER I DREAM

  PROLOGUE

  “WE MADE A LOT OF MISTAKES, DIDN'T WE?”

  “Every one in the book.” He looked at her mouth. “Are we about to make another one?”

  “I don't give a damn.” And right now she didn't. She had been needing him for five long years, and she wasn't about to let fear of tomorrow stand in her way now. There was something to be said for the Scarlett O’Hara approach to life.

  If he smiled, she never got the chance to see it. He seized her mouth in a deep, ferocious kiss, as if by will alone he could make the past and future vanish, leaving them with now and only now….

  “A journey into Tami Hoag/Karen Robards territory.”

  —Publishers Weekly on A Fateful Choice

  “Gripping. … Action-packed. … Anyone who enjoys fast-paced romantic intrigue will want to be caught by Ms. Lee's terrific tale.”

  —Harriet Klausner, Amazon.com

  (Web site review) on Caught

  “Rachel Lee is a master of romantic suspense.”

  —Romantic Times

  To Helen Breitwieser,

  for working so hard to give wings to my dreams.

  Your friendship is priceless.

  Sincere thanks to newsman Roger Schulman for an inside look at the studios of WFLA Radio in Tampa, and for generously answering so many of my questions.

  Deep appreciation to my beloved spouse Cris, who once hosted as Rick Burbage, for vetting my talk-radio scenes, and for giving me so much insight about what it's like behind the microphone.

  Prologue

  John William Otis took the news with his usual calm. He had been on death row for nearly five years, and all his appeals had failed. It wasn't exactly a shock.

  But it filled him with a great sorrow for opportunities lost, and he sat for a long time thinking about the things he would never be able to do now. He sat thinking about the people who had died, the only people on earth who had loved him. And thought about the fact that everyone believed he had killed them. He hadn't killed them, but everyone else thought he had, and he was resigned to his fate.

  He picked up a battered copy of A Tale of Two Cities, and read his favorite lines, on a page he had turned to so often that its edges were worn off almost to the print “It is a far, far better thing I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to, than I have ever known.”

  He thought about that, too, for a long time, then reached for his Bible with its torn, cracked cover, and opened to another of his favorite passages. “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.”

  They fed him meat loaf for dinner, and he ate, though it seemed pointless now. They took him to the yard for a brief walk, giving him a cherished taste of the evening sun on his skin, watching him carefully because now that it was final, they feared he might do something stupid. But they were nice about it. He liked his guards, and they him, and at times it seemed as if they were all members of a select fraternity. He would miss their camaraderie.

  Back in his cell, he picked up a composition book on which he had carefully lettered: The Poems of John William Otis. He looked at it for a while, thinking what a poor legacy it was to leave behind, and thinking of all the poems he would now never write.

  Then he opened to a blank page, picked up the stubby wooden pencil they let him use, and began to write.

  “Today I Heard”

  Today I heard that I will die,

  and then I went to dinner.

  It should be more, somehow.

  Solemn, ponderous, thunder,

  Pomp, circumstance, flourish,

  Marking the moment of enforced mortality.

  But no.

  It might have been mail call,

  with a letter from my brother,

  whom I will never see again,

  Or the library man,

  with a book of Keats,

  which I will never finished,

  Or the laundry man,

  with fresh, clean sheets,

  which I will stain with sweat by morning.

  But no.

  Just a quick visit from the warden.

  And three weeks hence, more visits,

  another dinner,

  fresh clothes,

  a haircut,

  a shave,

  a short walk,

  And then I will be no more.

  But no.

  They will ask me to repent,

  To say that I am sorry,

  and I am sorry,

  for everyone who hurt.

  But I will never speak of this,

  for love is sacrifice,

  and I must prove my love.

  But no.

  Today I heard that I will die,

  and then I went to dinner.

  Meat loaf, potatoes, carrots, corn bread,

  And icy cold milk were my counselors.

  Marking the moment of enforced morality.

  But no.

  CHAPTER 1

  22 Days

  “You just don't get it,” Sam from Clearwater said.

  Carissa Stover smothered a sigh and leaned back a little from the microphone. Outside, the night was dark, and on the windowpane beside her she could see the silvery shimmer of rain. She was getting very tired of this particular discussion on her show.

  “No,” she said to the caller, “you don't get it You can't buy an acquittal in the criminal-justice system. No way.”

  The caller wasn't going to surrender that easily. “But a ten-million-dollar defense—”

  “A ten-million-dollar defense comes close to buying a level playing field,” she said forcefully. “So what if the defendant had five lawyers and six investigators working for him. The state had the entire city police force, the state police, the state crime lab, a whole staff of state-paid prosecutors—and a lot more than ten million dollars to spend on the prosecution. In fact, the state outspent the defense in this case by two to one.”

  “But—”

  “No,” Carissa said flatly. “Jonas Bellows did not buy an acquittal. He bought a level playing field.” She punched the button that cut off that caller and continued to speak into the microphone. “Come on, folks, we've beaten this horse to death every night since th
e verdict came down. Let's talk about something new before I go home.

  “You're listening to the Talk of the Coast, 990 WCST, Tampa Bay's number one talk radio station. This is Carey Justice, and our subject tonight, and every night, is the law. How does it affect you and me? When does it screw up? When does it do right? If you've got a story to tell, we want to hear it. Our phones are open right now, and taking calls at 555-9900 in Hillsborough, 559-9900 in Pinellas, and toll-free at 1-800-555-9990.”

  She punched the next blinking green button as she read from the screen in front of her. “Sarah from Largo, you're on the air.”

  “Carey?” a woman's voice said uncertainly.

  “Yes, this is Carey. “You're on the air, Sarah.”

  “Oh. Well, I saw in the paper that that twelve-year-old boy who skinned that dog alive is going to get probation. Why can't they just send him to jail?”

  “They could, actually. For maybe five years. And I kind of agree with you, Sarah. This kid sounds like a serial killer in the making to me.”

  “Yes. Yes, he does! And how anyone could do that to a poor little dog….”

  “But he's still a kid, Sarah. A juvenile. We like to believe that kids are still young enough to learn from their mistakes. We like to give them second chances to get their act together and grow up. Don't your kids ever make mistakes, Sarah?”

  “Well, of course they do, Carey. But nothing like this!”

  “I agree this kid's a monster. But I don't see how sending him to prison is going to make him any better. Do you?”

  “It might scare him into behaving.”

  “If he's scarable, this conviction and probation ought to do the job.” She cut Sarah off and continued on a subject that was sure to light up her phone lines.

  “Think about it, folks. It's easier to do prison than probation and community control. You think not? Try it sometime. See how long you can go without being able to run out to the store to get ice cream or a six-pack. See how long you can behave if you're allowed to go out of the house only to go to work, and if you detour for fifteen minutes on the way home to get gas and milk… the next thing you know your probation officer is charging you with a violation and dragging you back into court.

  “I'm telling you, probation and community control are set up to make people fail. And when they fail they go straight to prison. Caller, you're on the air.”

  A few minutes later she cut to the news and commercials, which gave her a much-needed breather. She leaned back in her chair and stared at her reflection in the dark, silver-streaked glass of the window.

  She saw the shadowy face of a pretty enough woman with dark hair and hazel eyes. The face of a woman who was as disillusioned as it was possible to be.

  Rising from the chair, she took off her headphones and allowed herself a full-body stretch that made her spine pop. Then she went to hunt up a can of soda. Caffeine. She needed caffeine if she was going to make it through the next hour.

  She pushed change into the vending machine down the hall from her studio and opened the drink, downing half of it in one thirsty gulp. When she was on the air, she drank bottled water, but right now she wanted to get hyped on caffeine and sugar. It meant that when she went home in an hour she probably wouldn't be able to sleep, but what the hell. There was no reason to get up early in the morning.

  The newsroom intern joined her. Dale Jennings was a pretty young woman of about twenty-four, with blond hair and blue eyes big enough to sail a destroyer in. She seemed to live and breathe radio the way Carissa had once lived and breathed law.

  “The phones are hot tonight,” Dale remarked. “Everyone seems to want to talk about Bellows, though.”

  Carissa shook her head. “A half million listeners, and every one of ‘em wants to put in their two cents about that case. It wouldn't be so bad if they weren't all saying the same thing.”

  “They believe Bellows is guilty.”

  “Too bad. The jury said he's not.”

  “I know.” She was holding a piece of paper, and now she passed it with shy eagerness to Carissa. “Here's something that just came in on the news wire. I figured you could use it to shift the topic to something else.”

  “Thanks.” Carissa took the paper and scanned it quickly.

  Then she froze. Her heart slammed, then seemed to stop beating altogether.

  The governor had signed the death warrant for John William Otis.

  Hot honey.

  Those were the words that always came into Seamus Rourke's head when he heard the low, smooth voice of Carey Justice coming out of his radio.

  And he heard it every weeknight, unless he was working. Tonight he walked through his front door, ditched his shield and his gun on the coffee table, then yanked his tie off with one hand while he turned on the radio with the other.

  “You're listening to the Talk of the Coast, 990 WCST, Tampa Bay's number one talk radio station….”

  Sometimes he heard those words in his sleep. Sometimes he heard Carey's voice in a silent, empty room-in the dead of night. Even after five years, she still haunted his dreams.

  Listening to the radio with only one ear, not really caring what she said, or what her callers said, just wanting to hear the soft, sweet honey of her voice, he walked into the kitchen and pulled a bottle of water out of the fridge. It used to be beer, but he hadn't touched alcohol since the accident.

  He jerked his thoughts back sharply from that precipice, knowing how steep the fall was on the other side. There was a whole area of his memory staked out with a warning sign: There be dragons. He skated around it as often as he could, sometimes teetering right over the brink. Tonight he couldn't face it. Tonight he refused to let his past poison his present.

  Not that it was much of a present. He could almost have laughed at himself, a thirty-eight-year-old police detective whose entire life consisted of work and an evening radio talk show. It wasn't always that way. There'd been a time when he'd actually had a whole goddamn life.

  He looked at the bottle of water in his hand and figured the only thing missing from this dramatic, self-pitying self-image was a beer or a shot of whiskey.

  Carey had gone to commercials and the news, so he turned the radio down to cut out the blabber and annoying jingles. Nor did he want to hear the news. He saw entirely too much news on the street, when it was happening or had just happened.

  The doorbell rang. Seamus stared at it in disbelief. His doorbell almost never rang anymore. Figuring it had to be some kid trying to sell him the local paper, he flung the door open with as pleasant a smile as he could muster.

  The smile died when he saw his father standing on the threshold.

  “Seamus,” said Danny Rourke.

  “Dad,” Seamus said, his eyes traveling from the old man's face to the duffel bag he held in one hand. “What's -this?”

  Danny regarded him from bloodshot eyes. “The IRS took my boat, boy. They took my boat and every damn nickel I had. I got no place else to go.”

  Seamus probably should have been more surprised than he was. Mostly all he felt was a sense of inevitability. Life had a way of rubbing your nose in the very things you most wanted to avoid. “It's the drinking, Dad.”

  Danny sighed. “I know. I know. Believe me, if there's any place else I could go …”

  “Fuck it. Get in here. But if you want to stay, you're by God going to go to AA.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” said his father, dropping his duffel on the floor beside the door.

  Seamus closed the door behind him and locked it. Danny smelled like a brewery, which was hardly surprising. He'd probably spent whatever money he'd had left in his pocket in some bar while he tried to figure out how to avoid turning to his son for help.

  “I was just going to make dinner,” Seamus said when the silence seemed to grow too long. WCST was still reading the news, and rather than chance hearing it, he reached over and turned off the radio. The silence took on depth and breadth, fining the room until he felt he almost couldn't
breathe.

  “I could do with a bite,” Danny said finally. “I'll help.”

  “Why'd the IRS seize your boat?”

  Danny shrugged. “I don't know for sure. I maybe forgot to file a return? All I know is they sent me a bill a few months back. I ain't been making money the way I used to, boy.”

  Of course not, Seamus thought. Not when two beers in the evening had turned into an endless all-day drinking binge.

  Danny shook his head. “They say I owe ‘em damn near thirty thousand dollars in taxes and then there's penalties. No way I got that kind of money. So, they took the boat.”

  “The boat's worth a lot more than that.”

  “I don't reckon they care.”

  “Well, go put your stuff in the guest room and take a shower while I make dinner. You know where everything is.”

  There'd been a time when his father had been an honored guest in his home. No more. He'd be more willing to pull a wino off the street and invite him in. At least the wino wouldn't have a history he couldn't forget.

  Danny shuffled down the hall, looking shrunken and weak compared to the big, burly man Seamus remembered from his childhood. He ought to feel some sympathy, but he couldn't He couldn't feel anything at all except the one fleeting, angry thought that Edgar Allen Poe must be writing the script for his life.

  He cast a glance toward the radio, but left it turned off. No more hot honey tonight. Christ, when had he become such a masochist?

  The thought seemed to clear his head, and he marched into the kitchen to pull some chops out of the fridge.

  One of these days, he told himself, he had to find a way to get his head out of his ass.

  Carissa stepped out the station door into the parking lot and felt the heat and humidity hit her like a fist It was eighty-six, drizzling, and as utterly miserable as Florida could get.

  She always wore jeans and sweaters to work because the station was air-conditioned to iciness, probably on the theory-that people would stay more alert Or maybe it was just that Bill Hayes, the station manager, liked it cold. Either way, the contrast always hit her hard.

  Her sweater was plastered to her skin in moments, from sweat more than rain, and it prickled like a hair shirt. She could hardly wait to get home and rip it off. Usually she wore a T-shirt beneath, so she could shed the sweater when she left, but tonight she'd been late leaving for work and had forgotten it.