 |
 |
|
| E-mail this page to a friend | Tell me when this page is updated |
| IMPOSTER BY MARIQUA |
CHAPTER 97 |
Part Ninety-seven continued:
All the way up the stairs she had both dreaded and relished the moment that she would face Todd's nemesis again. Like Pete, Nick was more than formidable. Unlike Pete, she sensed that he was not as threatening, but she didn't know if that would hold true if he was backed into a corner. Her heart had pounded like an echoing alarm as her feet hit the soft, worn surface of the carpet, and each step brought her closer and closer to the man she loved...only he was no longer that man.
Slider did know what he was doing. He had waited to send her up last, and she knew that he was counting on her to bring everything together. Doubting thoughts clustered in her mind as she weighed the obvious obstacles and possible consequences. Can I do this? It's all so unpredictable...Nick is unpredictable...but then...so is Todd...
I always thought I could get to know him...understand him...but he had so much more darkness controlling him than I could have ever imagined...
Slider, I'll try...I will...but Nick is so...crafty....he'll thwart me...what can I do...what can I possibly do to defeat him?
As her foot hit the last of the steps to climb, her rising fear suddenly gave way to such a powerful rush of relief that her last step was slightly unsteady. I do know...I know how to stop him!
Edwards' back ached from the rigidity of his stationary position against the wall, but he still didn't move a muscle. Todd Manning was very much alive and well as he had already suspected. He had his confirmation of that fact when one of the men standing at the head of the stairs detached himself from the group and walked down the hall toward the dark-haired woman, making himself visible to him. It was all beginning to make some sort of sense in a wild, outlandish way...Todd Manning was not Todd Manning anymore...he was some guy named Nick. Another one...another one of Manning's crazy alters.
I could call Sykes...no...forget it...there's more I have to know and he would ruin it...
When she heard his well constructed lies as her foot hit the top step, Tea's relief instantly turned into a hard knot of pain and then into molten anger. "In name only...no real marriage...Todd couldn't even bring himself to touch her"...thank you, Nick...thank you for making it easier to insert the key into the lock...the key that Todd handed me to seal your fate!
Tea Delgado Manning...
Nick appraised her appearance with stunned surprise registering in his volatile eyes as she stood there like some small, belligerent warrior ready to do immediate battle with him. Toddy's "Delgado"...a woman who came from nothing and clawed her way up the ladder...except not fully accepted by the cream of society. You always went for the women who had to fight for their place, didn't you, Toddy...no different from you...money couldn't make you a prince nor her a princess...
And...finally...all your cards are on the table, eh, Slider...she's your ace in the hole, isn't she? The others were just to get me riled up, but she's the live stake to drive into my poor, unsuspecting heart...really thought you'd come up with something better for the big climax...unfortunately, you're screwed...
"Well, Tea...won't you join the party?" Nick asked with dignified politeness as if extending a formal invitation. "Welcome...I guess you are the mystery guest for the evening."
Tea's eyes flitted over to the faces of Slider, Viki and Sam who were waiting so expectantly for anything she would say. She read their eyes and knew that they had already done their part, and that she was indeed to be the last participant in this bizarre drama.
For a second as she stared back at his highly intelligent, piercing eyes, she realized how tightly intertwined the mind of one man was with another's. Where did one begin and the other end? Would she be jeopardizing the sanity of a man in order to rid him of the mental parasite who had dominated his life? Santa Maria...hear my prayer...please...please, protect him!
They're face to face now and everything is as it should be. Slider felt a sharp twinge of satisfaction that his plan had made it to this point, but peppered with that feeling was another one of intense desperation.
You're all I've got left, Tea...the others have dented his strength but only so much. We've all been Todd's protectors in one way or another, but Nick has been his strongest protector...you're going up against the man who has probably challenged your love for him at every turn...
Now that you know he exists, you'll have to outwit him...it has to be you ...
"Well, go ahead," Nick prodded her as if he were dealing with a child, "...you had something to say...we're all listening."
Sherry's eyes had not left the face of the woman who had startled everyone with her forceful words and sudden appearance. My instincts were right all along...even in that elevator...I knew this woman was close to him...
I'm going to hear this out...every last bit of it...I have to...he's caught me in some kind of emotional web...and I need to look for any means to escape...
"Yes," Tea nodded and realized that she might as well be in a courtroom pleading her case to an imaginary judge with every eye in the make-believe jury glued to her and every ear hanging on her words.
"...I do have something to say...a rebuttal, if you will. You've testified to this woman, and everyone here, Nick, that Todd and I never had a relationship of any kind...that it was all "smoke and mirrors"...I believe that's what you said, isn't it? The big mystery here is how you could make a statement like this when there are two witnesses to the fact that we did indeed have a relationship...not only a mental, emotional and spiritual one...but a sexual one as well."
"Two witnesses?" Nick's eyes reflected smug contempt as he listened to her.
"You're not talking about Sam and Viki here, are you? They never had full knowledge of anything going on between Todd and Tea."
"I knew plenty, pal!" Sam's voice exploded, but Tea shook her head at him.
"No...no," she continued in a voice she had used many times in the past to counter verbal attacks. "Viki and Sam are not the witnesses I'm referring to. I think you're going to have to draw on a little more of your memory, Nick...the witnesses I'm speaking of are you and I."
Nick's face tightened and paled, and he resisted the urge to dispel her declaration with a full dose of verbal venom. You've got guts...I'll give you that...so what's your game, Tea?
"Hmmm..."you and I"..sorry to disappoint you, but there was never any you and I..witness or otherwise."
Swinging his long legs around on the barstool, Del looked down at the gleaming Italian tile and shook his head. He had made every effort to help her...made every attempt to see her through this horrible period in her life. You say that I "mothered" you to death, chiquita, but I guess I tried to be everything to you...what you never got from them. Do I just let you go? Family is so strong with me...it should be for you, too. I already know that he has put you at risk again...but this will be the very last time that he does it.
Standing up with a degree of ceremony, he brushed off his suit with his fingers and let the resolve passing through his veins harden into immovable steel. It really makes no difference anymore...I'm doing what I have to do...
No "you and I"...
Tea's mind jerked back to the past year...a year so filled with tumultuous conflict and yet somehow filled with so much love that she could not really conceive it. From a rocky beginning which offered only financial reward with the bleakest hope of any kind of real feeling, she had seen the evolution of something that had shaken her up to the depths of her soul and seemed to withstand even the test of time. Over and over she had been turned inside out for one man, and over and over she had gone back to see it through -- knowing that she had no certainty that there was any real commitment there. Commitment...backing off...
All those times he had looked at her in that calculated manner...pushing her away...knowing that he felt the power of their bond but that he deliberately ran from it. The expression that Nick was giving her now...she'd seen it...she knew it...
You were there all along, Nick...fighting me...
That night at the Bayberry...you were warming my hands...one side of you wanted me more than anything else in this world...one side kept you from me...
The same thing the night of the snowstorm...you said "look at me"...as if you were trying to show me another personality...a personality that only you knew about...
"You don't know a damn thing about me"...I remember how you always said that..was it because of Nick's hatred of me? Nick must have known that I was the one person who could come between you and him...
"There may have been no "you and I" in the romantic sense, Nick," she said at last, her large eyes bright and direct, "...but you were there...every single step of the way in Todd's relationship with me...except..," Tea stopped and a realization dawned on her causing shivers to paralyze her skin. "except for one night."
Nick's face blanched even paler than before. There was that blackout ...right after we got rid of Pete...what is she saying, Toddy?
"Don't you remember, Nick?" Tea's voice rose as she walked toward him. "You claim to know everything that goes on with Todd...did you miss something?"
I don't like it...I don't like the way she's looking at me as if I were about to become chopped liver...if you still value her, Toddy...you'll tell me!
A memory poured slowly into his mind...fragrant grass...deep, cobalt sky littered with sparkling stars...warmth...touching...mindless lust...wild, uninhibited abandon...the flashes of imagery and feeling continuing to drip down into his cortex -- spreading out into all his consciousness...
Sinking down to his knees his entire body seemed to implode from within -- his head rolling back like a limp sackcloth while his eyes shut tight in a desperate attempt to squelch the rapid escalation of overpowering sensations battering through him.
Nooooo....you insipid traitor! You kept this from me...you and Tea...you did it!!!
To Be Continued
