The Darker Side of Goodness Read online

  But, was Christian’s intent evil? Could he be trusted? Was he only trying to help, as he’d said? Could it be that he was trying, on this one night of the year, to make good happen, instead?

  “What good can come of any of this?” Jack shouted. “Answer me!”

  “I can’t. I’ll have to show you, instead. You’d never believe me, otherwise, Jack.” Christian stood where he was, waiting. After a few seconds, Jack walked toward him, his steps hesitant at first, then gaining speed and certainty the closer he got.

  “All right, then.” Jack couldn’t quite manage to control the tremor in his voice. He took a deep breath and blew it out slowly. Then, he moved forward, taking control of his destiny.

  ****

  Christian took the lead as Jack followed. Then, he came up beside the demon. “This is about Ashley, isn’t it?”

  Chris glanced at him, surprised. “No,” he said after a moment.

  Jack could see the guarded amusement in his eyes. But there was something else there. A flash of pity.

  Jack’s chest clenched. What could possibly make a demon feel pity for him or anyone else?

  “No, this is all about you, Jack.” Christian’s voice was quiet, his speech slow, as if he might be debating with himself as to how much to say.

  Jack fought the urge to ask for more details. He’d surely learn them all soon enough. There was no rush to know exactly how his world was going to crumble, and from the earlier expression on Chris’s face, that was exactly what was about to happen.

  They walked in silence down the deserted street, unhurried.

  Finally, Jack said, “You never told me how you wound up…the way you did.”

  A grim smile touched Christian’s mouth, twisting it, momentarily, in a grimace. “Bad decisions. Remember?”

  But Jack shook his head. “You made a case study out of me, Christian. It’s hardly fair that I know nothing of you.”

  “You’re a teacher, Jack. It’s important to you to learn about things—to know how things work, why they happened like they did. I don’t normally go into my background, because like I told you, this is about you—no one else but you.” His steps slowed.

  They had reached the city park. There were benches near the sidewalk, and Christian stopped before one of them, then sat down. Jack sat beside him, turning to hear the rest of what the demon had started to tell him.

  “I was raised in foster homes growing up. I began to run with a wild crowd at a young age.”

  “You joined a gang?” Jack guessed.

  Chris nodded. “My initiation was to kill a police officer.”

  “Did you?” Jack breathed.

  “Of course.”

  They were both silent, then Jack said, “Regrets?”

  Christian gave a short laugh. “Not really. Felt bad about it for a long time, but I got over it.”

  Jack shook his head in disbelief. “How? How do you ‘get over’ killing someone? Especially someone who’s sworn to serve and protect the rest of us—who maybe has a family at home—”

  Christian gave him an amused grin, stopping his questions. “‘Everything we see or seem is but a dream within a dream.’ Poe said that.” He became serious. “Nothing is really as it seems, Jack. But your idealism keeps you from recognizing that. I told you, no person is all one thing or another—bad or good.”

  “A police officer…you know, my father was a policeman. I never knew him, though.”

  Chris nodded. “Yeah…seems like this guy I killed, being a cop, he’d be a regular knight in shining armor, doesn’t it? But the truth was, he was cheating on his wife. They’d only been married two years. Had the cutest twin boys you’d ever want to see.”

  Slowly, Jack’s head came up. He met the demon’s eyes—eyes that seemed to glitter in the darkness with an understanding that Jack was only now beginning to realize.

  “You killed my father? My father?”

  “I did you a favor,” Christian answered coldly. “Your old man was the dirtiest cop that ever lived. On the take from everyone, and cheating on your mother, who is clearly destined for sainthood, by the way, not to mention all the other dirt he was involved in.”

  “That wasn’t up to you, to take him out of our lives!”

  “Clearly, it was. I did it, didn’t I?”

  “You sorry son of a—” Jack jumped to his feet, his fists balled at his sides.

  “Listen to me!” Christian stood quickly and turned to face him. “That happened twenty-eight years ago! Since then, your mother re-married and gave you a step-father that was a hundred times the man your father was. You had a good life. Up until you—” He stopped abruptly.

  “Up until what?” Jack snarled.

  “Ashley. She’s been a bit of a problem.” Christian’s gaze was mesmerizing. “Don’t deny it, Jack. You thought things would be different with her, didn’t you?”

  The anger slowly evaporated. Everything the demon was telling him was true, wasn’t it? His father had had a reputation as a dirty cop, a womanizer, an unfaithful husband. The anger that had washed over him wasn’t so much directed at his father’s killer as it was at the bald truths Christian had flung out at him, pelting him with them like a schoolboy with a stash of rocks.

  Jack and his brother, James, had tacitly agreed not to discuss the things they’d learned about their father. To hear them brought out into the open so freely had been a shock. But no more so than to know Christian seemed just as intimately acquainted with Ashley and the details of the frayed relationship Jack had tried to cling to.

  Finally, he nodded. “Yes. I thought…everything would be different. I thought Ashley truly loved me.” His eyes were unfocused, looking into the chilly darkness. “But it seems like she—she’s changed since we got married. She thought everything would be different, too, I guess. She really cared for me in the beginning.”

  “Did she?”

  Jack’s head snapped up, his gaze coming to bear on the demon. “Are you saying otherwise?”

  Christian shrugged. “Would you like to know the truth, once and for all?”

  The truth. The truth wasn’t always good. But dammit, he’d been living a lie with her for two solid years. Was he supposed to just continue on like this? Live with the belittling and the insults forever? Why did he feel that he needed proof, anyway? Wasn’t the awful ache in his chest enough? Wasn’t it obvious with each passing day that whatever love there had been between them had flown out the window? He shook his head at his own thoughts. Ashley may not love him any longer. Maybe she never had. But he still carried a torch for her and for what might have been. Would he ever be able to make himself let go of that dream if he didn’t see it crumble before his eyes?

  No. He’d always continue to excuse her behavior somehow. Painful as it may be, he needed to know, to see the proof of whatever her true feelings were…and to know why.

  He squared his shoulders. Somehow, he felt he was standing on the edge of a cliff, preparing to jump. But there was no way in hell he could stop himself.

  “I’m ready, Chris. I need to know.”

  ****

  Why had he chosen Jack this year? Out of everyone in the entire world he could have done something for, he’d come back once more to the Daniels family. A wry grin touched his lips. He’d been a demon even when he was living—killing Dwayne Daniels as he’d done…or maybe—maybe, he’d been an angel. If he hadn’t murdered Dwayne, things would have continued on their miserable way for his wife, Shelley, and her two boys.

  But coming back all these years later to Jack—maybe that was a mistake. No. It wasn’t as if he was trying to make restitution…was it?

  Indecisiveness was unfamiliar, and Chris hated it. He pushed it from his mind. Soon, this day would be over and he would be done with the ‘darker side of goodness’ for yet another year. But for now, he needed to do what he’d come to do—show Jack exactly what kind of person Ashley was.

  “Let’s go, then,” he muttered, turning away from Jack. He s
uddenly wondered if it might have been better to have let him find out on his own about his dear conniving bitch of a wife. But, if he did nothing, it would be too late by the time Jack found out. Everything would be too far gone to call back, and Jack, bless his trusting heart, would be swindled out of everything.

  They walked for more than a city block before Jack said, “This is where we should turn to go—”

  “We’re not going to your house, Jack. We’re going to Alexander’s. Your best friend.” Chris couldn’t keep the bitterness from his tone. Loyalty meant everything. He’d learned that as a fourteen-year-old boy, living on the streets when he’d run away that final time. Alexander Sullivan had been Jack’s best friend since grade school, but tonight… He shot Jack a quick glance. Jack was looking at him uncomprehendingly.

  “Why?”

  Chris remained silent.

  “Are you telling me Ashley—and Zander—” Jack stopped walking, his eyes disbelieving. “No. No. I don’t believe it. I won’t believe it!”

  “Don’t you mean you can’t believe it?” Chris asked softly. “I know it’s a shock, but you need to see it for yourself.”

  “Why?” Jack’s voice cracked, and he put his hands to his face. After a few seconds, he said, “You’re creating this, aren’t you? There’s no other explanation. Zander would never do this…”

  “But Ashley would, wouldn’t she, Jack? And that’s what we’re here for. Not to see what Alexander might do, but to find out what Ashley will.” Chris took another slow step. “They’ll be home shortly.”

  “She took him to the party? But how? She didn’t know I wasn’t going.”

  “Oh, Jack! Can’t you see how she manipulated that argument between the two of you? She pushed you into saying you weren’t going! Then she called Zander and told him what an ass you’d been.”

  “But I wasn’t! I was just—” Jack fell into step beside Christian once more.

  “Fighting back. I know that.” Christian turned away impatiently. This was hard business, helping someone watch as their world slipped away from them, piece by wretched piece. “Come on. We need to be inside when they come home so you can hear everything, and see this for yourself.”

  “I don’t have a key to his place anymore.”

  “Yeah,” Chris said knowingly. “He had the locks changed last month.”

  “Because he got broken into. There was a burglary—”

  Christian shook his head. “No, Jack. That wasn’t the reason.”

  Jack swallowed hard. “This has been going on quite a while between them.”

  Longer than you can imagine.

  “Here we are.” They stopped in front of a small white shotgun-style house, and Christian grasped Jack’s wrist as they walked up the front steps. “We don’t need a key. Just stay close to me.”

  “But—hey, wait a min—” Jack’s words were cut off as together, they walked through the front plate glass window, through the old blue couch, then the coffee table, and stopped in the middle of the living room.

  Jack gave Christian a startled look, then glanced around at the shabby furniture as if to make certain he was really in Zander’s place.

  “You okay?”

  “Yeah. I’m okay.” Jack took a step, then another. There was no sound. “Can they hear us? See us?”

  “No. You can stand as close as you want. You can speak to me, and I to you, with no danger of them overhearing. But tears, Jack—they can see those, feel them, even.”

  “Don’t worry about that,” Jack said. “I doubt there’ll be any crying on my part.”

  Christian didn’t respond. They all thought that way when they were angry. But when the heartbreak of betrayal slapped them, the tears always came.

  ****

  There were steps on the front porch, and the sound of laughter. A key turned in the lock, and the door opened slowly. For an instant, Ashley and Zander were framed in the moonlight as they kissed, long and slow.

  Jack took an involuntary step toward them, but Chris laid a restraining hand on Jack’s arm.

  “Just listen, and watch,” he whispered from behind.

  Ashley stepped out of Zander’s arms and he flipped the light switch on, as she walked over the threshold, shivering.

  “Cold in here, Zander!” She pulled off her black wig and threw it on the couch carelessly.

  Zander shut the door and locked it again, smiling. “We’ll heat things up in a minute, Ash.”

  She giggled. “I’m ready when you are, my count.”

  Jack’s stomach rolled as he saw that his best friend was wearing the Dracula costume that he’d bought for himself earlier that month when the party invitation had come.

  “Let’s have another libation or two, shall we, my dear?” He waggled his eyebrows and went to the liquor cabinet to pour their drinks.

  “‘Libation’? Can’t you just say ‘drink’?” Ashley chided. “Living with a bookworm like Jack, I hear all the big words I’ll need for a lifetime.”

  Zander took a drink of his whiskey, then turned to Ashley, handing her a shot glass of tequila. “Better get used to it and store them up while you can m’dear. It won’t be long until dear old Jack is out of the picture completely.”

  Ashley kicked off her shoes as she took a sip of the tequila. She gave him a feline smile. “I can’t wait. He grates on me like no other, with his crazy ideas about having a family. Like anyone would want a bunch of squalling brats running around.”

  “Well, you fixed that problem, didn’t you, love?”

  “Fixed myself, you mean.” She shuddered. “It’s not just Jack. I never want children at all.”

  Jack turned to look at Christian disbelievingly. “She cries every month when she realizes she isn’t pregnant!” But the pitying look in the demon’s face told Jack that Ashley had only been acting for his benefit. She’d said it herself—she never wanted children.

  Zander came to sit close beside her on the couch. “I can’t wait until we get that money, Ash. You sure Jack doesn’t know?”

  “No.” She took another sip of the liquor. I’ve been lucky so far. Since I’m home before he is, I get the mail. All the correspondence about the trust is in my little ol’ file cabinet.” She laughed. “He sits right beside it every day when he’s on the computer and never suspects.”

  “In just two days our worries will be over for good, Ashley. November second is our magic day. Jack will be thirty years old. And set to inherit a million dollars.”

  “She’s holding out on him, too, Jack,” Christian said softly. “It’s so much more than that. Your grandmother provided well for you and James, but your mother died before she could tell you about the family trust that had been set up for the two of you.”

  Ashley set her drink down and snuggled next to Zander. “I bless his dear old grandmother every day. And his mother. Thank God, she passed on before she told him about what his grandmother had done.”

  “And thank God he was the older of the twins, or it would have all gone to James instead.” There was an ugly smirk in Zander’s tone that Jack had never heard before.

  “I hate James.”

  Zander leaned over to kiss Ashley. “But not as much as you hate his brother.”

  She smiled up at Zander. “No. Not nearly so much as that.”

  “I think it’s time you had a new husband, Mrs. Daniels.”

  The smile fled to be replaced by an icy coldness. “Don’t call me that, Zander. As soon as I get that million, I’m changing my name back, first thing.”

  Zander gave her a hurt look. “No, love. You’ll be Mrs. Alexander Sullivan, first thing. Remember?” He kissed the tip of her nose, restoring her good humor.

  “First things first, Zander,” she answered coyly. “First, I have to get rid of Jack. And I have to time it just right. He has to turn thirty…and then, he has to die.”

  ****

  Jack’s body was stiff, the tension thrumming through him as he stood next to Christian. The demon could, b
y now, not only read Jack’s mind, but anticipate his actions, as well.

  This was a lot to take in, Chris knew. Jack had learned much in the last few hours, and all of it had been painful.

  Humans were all so different. Because of his own rough beginnings that had become even rougher as the years progressed to adulthood, Christian knew he would have seen this scenario differently than Jack. Christian would have expected betrayal at every turn. He’d never had a best friend, never had a woman he loved like Jack had loved Ashley, never been cherished as Jack had been by a loving family. All this would’ve been a big “so what?” in Chris’s world. But in Jack’s…it was a soul bender. A heart breaker. A world rocker.

  When Jack half-turned to look at Chris, he could see Ashley and Alexander had killed him already, just as surely as if they’d put a gun to Jack’s head and pulled the trigger.

  “I don’t want to see any more, Chris.” Jack’s voice was desolate. He was hurt even more than Christian had expected he would be. But was it enough? There must be no chance of forgiveness on Jack’s part—no easy feat, Christian knew, from observing Jack’s open generosity and understanding spirit.

  And there must be no regrets, either, except for one: What might have been. Sooner or later, even that one could be extinguished.

  Before Christian could reply, Ashley reached up to turn off the light as Zander leaned over her to kiss her again.

  “I want to make love to you,” Zander whispered in the darkness. He stood up, silhouetted in the filtering light from the windows. Ashley rose beside him and he kissed her again.

  “It’s about time somebody did,” she teased.

  “What about Jack?’

  She giggled and started for the bedroom in the darkness. Zander followed her down the hallway. Her voice floated back to where Jack and Chris stood. “Jack? That’s just sex. And not very good sex at that. Now, you and me…”

  The bedroom door closed behind them.

  ****

  Christian knew what would come next. The disbelief, the heartbreak, sometimes even tears were shed by men who were much more physically imposing than Jack Daniels. A shattered heart knew no limitations—anyone could be broken, if the circumstances were right. Then, the anger would come.