Ghosts that Haunt—19
Furious, Casey stared at them, one by one, dropped them on the growing pile in his lap. Just to be sure, he checked his bank balances, and then he went through the statements again. Each one had a zero balance, but neither his checking nor his savings accounts had budged.
She'd even paid off the goddamn ring.
Most people would be surprised to realize Casey wasn't quite the Neanderthal he was generally believed to be when it came to women. Admittedly, he occasionally fostered that image. Making women believe it tended to mean he was largely left alone by all but the truly persistent. He had no problem with the idea that his wife might work or even with the notion that she was a hell of a lot better off financially than he. It did, though, irritate the hell out of him that she thought she had to pay his debts.
He supposed he ought to be glad the payment on the Vic hadn't been due.
Heaving an angry sigh that was more of a grunt, he flung the pile of zero-balance statements on the coffee table—that she had paid for. Remembering that little fact had him giving it a hard enough stare it should have spontaneously combusted. Casey considered for a moment the satisfaction he would get if it did exactly that.
If he had any sense, he would recall Bartowski from his mission, tell him to take back what he could and cancel the rest.
Then he considered all the possibilities for revenge in what he had set in motion.
By the time Bartowski returned, Casey had achieved an outer calm. He thanked the kid before he sent him on his way. Then, he started setting the stage to teach Riah a lesson.
It took most of the day to slowly set the scene, mainly because the casts got in the way and made moving around both difficult and tiring. By the time Riah's shift was over, Casey had the table set, the champagne in the bucket, and the dinner the restaurant delivered warming.
For a moment, he reconsidered. For a moment, he thought about Riah's probable reactions. Then, he weighed his options to achieve his aim, decided the probable outcomes involved acceptable risks, and chose to proceed.
When she arrived home, he was where he was most evenings—in his chair with his leg elevated. Casey looked up from the data files he carefully read through. Beckman had him doing analysis on military targets while he was sidelined, a task Casey didn't mind and suspected Riah had arranged.
Riah looked at the table, then at him.
"Change, and come back down," he said when she walked to him and kissed him. "Dinner should be ready by then."
Eyes narrowed, he thoughtfully watched her climb the stairs. He knew what she'd see when she reached their room, and he wondered what her reaction would be and whether or not she'd take the hint or if she'd decide to ignore what lay across their bed.
The online catalog called it a playsuit. It had two triangles of fabric that would cover her breasts, another set that would cover the other parts of her that he wasn't certain actually needed covering and tie at her hips. The two pieces were joined by strips of fabric in a kind of one-piece bikini.
He would have enjoyed taking it off her. Might still, he decided, and then he realized what he intended would likely be more painful for him than for her. The garment would live up to its name, if Casey had his way, but it wasn't going to be very satisfactory for either of them.
If she was wearing it when she came back downstairs, he couldn't tell. She'd dressed casually, apparently taking her cue from him. She waved him at the table when he got up to get dinner, did it herself. He opened the champagne one-handed and wondered if he could hold his temper long enough to eat.
Once he held her chair then hobbled over and took his own, Riah studied him. "What's the occasion?"
He could hear suspicion in her voice. Casey shrugged. "I realized I was being an ass," he paused a moment, remembered what she'd said Christmas when he offered that up by way of explanation, "—and I thought I'd do something nice for you."
That didn't disarm her distrust, he noticed, and he wondered if Riah would let it go for the sake of harmony. It occurred to him then that he was, apparently, trying to lull her into a false sense of security before he fired the first shot, and once more he considered whether or not to simply bring it up, get the inevitable argument over with, and move on to more pleasurable pursuits.
It wasn't until that moment when he finally figured out that this could go wrong in more spectacular ways than any other argument he'd ever had with a woman. In the past, the stakes had rarely been high, and he hadn't been very invested in the relationship—with one exception. This time, though, they were very high, and letting her walk away wasn't an acceptable option for him. In addition, she rarely intimidated, so it was quite likely, given he'd driven her to frustrated anger more than once since he'd come home, that she might just decide to cut her losses.
The anger welled once more, and he thought snidely that at least he wasn't out the thirty grand on her finger.
That had been the wrong thing to remember, he realized, because Riah's eyes narrowed, and he wondered what he'd done to give his game away.
"Alright, John," she said, and sat down her fork. "Let's hear it."
"Hear what?" he growled.
"Whatever I've done to piss you off."
Why not? Nothing had ever gone as he intended with this woman, so why should any petty revenge—because he now saw that's exactly what he'd intended.
"You paid my bills."
Casey watched in disbelief as she frowned, and then he realized she had no idea why that could possibly be wrong.
"You told me to," she said in a flat, puzzled voice. "Well, you sent me a letter that told me to," she amended.
"Out of my accounts, Riah, not yours," he bit out.
To his amazement, she seemed confused by that. He was stunned when she finally asked, "Why does that matter?"
How could she not know? How on earth could she possibly believe she could pay his debts and it wouldn't piss him off?
Before he could say a word, she frowned and added. "I always pay my credit cards off each month. Don't you?"
Under normal circumstances, he generally did, but that one bill would have been paid out over months. That was when he realized that for him this was about the ring more than anything else. It didn't stop him from doggedly sticking to his point: "It doesn't matter what I normally do, Riah. They're my bills, and I pay them. You are not going to settle my debts for me."
She sat back, and Casey watched her brows slowly ride up. "We're getting married."
If she thought that excused it, she was wrong, he thought as his temper went from simmer to boil. "Maybe not," he bit out, at that moment not at all sure he didn't want to stay single if she couldn't get the fundamental fact that he paid his own way. "I will not be bought by you."
Her arms crossed over her chest, and a dark flush ran up her cheeks. Her eyes arced hot blue. "I didn't buy you, John," she said with a clipped precision that made the fine hairs on his body stand up. "I paid a set of bills you added my name to." She shrugged stiffly. "So I did it out of my funds. I hadn't signed the paperwork at your bank when they came due. It never once dawned on me that you would have a problem with that." Her eyes slitted. "You should have been more explicit in your instructions, John. I didn't hear—or read—an order about which account I was supposed to use, and believe me, John, I remember precisely your exact instructions regarding direct orders."
Oh, he remembered that conversation over the furniture and following orders, and he remembered why he had avoided entanglements with women. Every misstep meant all his sins were enumerated. Two could play that game. "Stupidity doesn't suit you," he echoed tightly, "and any imbecile would have known I meant you were to pay those bills from my account."
Her chin shot up, and those eyes went dark. "You know, John, marriages are partnerships. I don't do yours, mine and ours."
"We're not married," he shot back without thinking.
She stood slowly, set her napkin on the table, and looked at him. "And we're not going to be." She pulled the ring off her finger, walked around the table to him. "I don't tolerate unreconstructed, sexist assholes." She smacked the ring down next to his plate. Riah sailed out the door before he could even react.
For the first two hours, he was furious. Then, he worried. He cleaned up the uneaten meal, and wondered how to find her. She, like Bartowski, was a walking target, and she didn't need to wander around alone and unarmed. She'd gone out that door with nothing—not even her keys. Her phone was probably upstairs, so using it to find her would do no good.
Casey checked the Bartowski feeds, but she wasn't there. He rolled back the surveillance on the courtyard and watched her leave. Wherever she had gone, she had gone on foot. He doubted she had had any money on her, so she couldn't have hired a cab. He decided he should go look for her when there was a knock on the door.
It was just Bartowski.
He gave a frustrated growl and hobbled away from his open door. The kid took that as an invitation to come inside, but Casey had no interest in doing the lady feeling thing.
"So why does Mariah want to shoot you?" Bartowski asked without preamble and just a hint too much cheerfulness for Casey's tastes. "You had a romantic night planned, but she came out of here mad and offering up some pretty creative ways to kill you and dispose of the body."
That stalled Casey's fury a moment. He hadn't seen her speak to Chuck on her way out—and a tiny part of him was curious what methods she suggested to the kid.
"I ran into her on the street," Bartowski explained.
"Where'd she go?" Casey asked.
The kid shrugged. "I loaned her the Herder."
So she could be anywhere, though he'd bet she ran to Ellerby. He had the number to the consulate, but this late, he doubted the two women were still there. He could, though, trace the Herder.
"So what happened?" Bartowski asked.
Casey wasn't answering that, and he made his way to the desk and the computer there to see if she was safe and where.
He had a lock on the tracking system when he heard the kid say, "Oh."
Looking around, he saw Riah's ring held between Bartowski's thumb and forefinger.
"Put it down before I break something," Casey growled.
The Herder was parked in the garage of the Canadian consulate's building. Ellerby would take care of Riah and with any luck, talk some sense into her.
"You know, Casey," Bartowski began, but Casey didn't want to hear it. The kid was a walking advice column, and Casey didn't need anyone to tell him he'd been an idiot when he opened the door for Riah to do what she'd done. The important thing now was to get her to come back and shout it out with him.
As a result, he gave the kid a hard glare and ground out with extra menace, "We're not talking about this, Bartowski."
"Yes, we are," the kid shot right back. "She loves you, you love her, and if there's one thing I've managed to figure out about you, Casey, it's that you don't have the first idea what to do when a woman walks away from you."
"And you do?" he sneered. "Near as I can tell, you can't keep a fish hooked when it isn't even wriggling."
Bartowski didn't quite react the way Casey expected. There was no outrage, no babble to correct him. He did open and then close his mouth like a landed fish, but he remained suspiciously silent. The kid must be coming down with something. As Casey watched, Bartowski made himself comfortable, put his feet on the goddamn coffee table. Casey bit back an order to put them on the floor. "This isn't about me, Casey, and I do fine."
Casey crossed his good arm over the one in the cast. That probably would have been more effective without the cast, but he couldn't help that. He could still do the glare, and he watched Bartowski pale.
"Okay, I suck at relationships, too," the kid said, "but Mariah loves you enough to generally overlook your constipated emotions. Not many women would, buddy."
"I'm not your buddy," Casey bit out, "and my emotions aren't constipated or even your business. If you're here to play Dear Abby, there's the door." He pointed with his chin.
Bartowski didn't budge. "Nope. No Dear Abby, but let's face it, Casey. You're about the only person I know who can get a woman to walk out on you in two-point-five seconds by just being yourself, especially when you are apparently trying to be romantic."
Perversely, Casey thought of another contender. "Barnes."
"Jeff's more like zero-point-one seconds," Bartowski corrected. "Whatever you did, Casey, you need to find a way to undo it." The kid sighed. "Don't be like me."
Casey dropped his good arm. "Like you?" It was genuine curiosity that drove the question, though it irritated Casey that he actually asked it. Women liked Bartowski. Hell, men liked Bartowski. Just because Chuck and Walker couldn't get their act together didn't mean they wouldn't figure it out at some point.
"Jill dumped me for Bryce." Bartowski grimaced. "So did Sarah, for that matter."
Casey grunted somewhat sympathetic agreement, hobbled to his chair and dropped into it. He would never figure out what Walker saw in that particular amoral moron. Bartowski was a far sounder bet and one who likely wouldn't betray her if she'd simply learn to trust him.
"Lou dumped me," Bartowski added morosely, and Casey nodded, though the kid couldn't really take a lot of the blame there. Being the Intersect would likely always play hell with the kid's love life, especially since the government was going to take an extreme interest in any woman Bartowski chose. She'd be discouraged from dating Bartowski if not outright driven away. Even if she weren't, even if she cleared the deep background checks, any woman interested in Bartowski would always be lied to, and sooner or later, she would realize it. The kid wasn't good at dissembling, and he was downright lousy at lying, despite Casey and Walker's attempts to teach him to do it better.
For a split second, Casey realized he had his own set of lies, things he should tell Riah before they married that could well change everything—and not in a good way.
Then again, Kathleen was unlikely to come back to haunt him, and Riah already knew about Ilsa. Those would be the two he figured would wound worst. The other lie, the one even Casey refused to acknowledge, well, it would take an unusual, catastrophic event for that to ever come to light. All things considered, it was probably best to let the dead remain so—events as well as people.
Bartowski's, "So where is she?" brought him back from dark thoughts.
"Canadian consulate."
The kid's surprised expression cheered Casey. He knew Bartowski figured he had no idea where Riah had run to ground.
"So there was an ISI emergency?"
Casey noted Bartowski's relieved expression. "No," he said tersely. "It's where she could find a sympathetic ear." That relieved expression went baffled, and Casey explained the relationship between Riah and Mona Ellerby. Bartowski, predictably, flashed on Ellerby's name.
"She's friends with her dad's mistress?" The note of panic amused Casey.
"V. H. and Ellerby are friends," he corrected. "Despite rumors to the contrary, they've never been lovers." Ellerby was far from Adderly's type, and while the other man was fond of the woman, he knew better than to ruin a good friendship. Adderly needed Mona Ellerby, and while she was undoubtedly in love with V. H., that particular affection was not returned in the way in which she might hope.
A frown creased Bartowski's brow. "So the Intersect can be wrong?"
That stopped Casey a moment. He'd never really considered it before, tended to blindly trust that the intel coded in Bartowski's head was right. If the intel was wrong, though, then obviously the Intersect was, too. Casey considered the ramifications of that, the impracticability of double checking it in the field, of double checking it even when they weren't. Urgency often had to override caution on this detail.
Bartowski didn't need an answer, though. The kid returned unerringly to Riah. "So why don't you go get her?"
Casey didn't dignify that with an answer. He wasn't driving anywhere—though he considered for a moment that he might be able to since his right arm and leg were fine. "She'll come back," he said when Bartowski continued to give him that expectant look. He raised his brows at the kid's skeptical expression. "Her stuff's here."
It took some doing to get rid of Bartowski. Casey was touched the kid worried about him, but that was far outweighed by his irritation over Chuck's desire to provide advice for how to win Riah back. Casey was pretty sure he could do that on his own. He would simply have to get her to hear him out, and he'd have to tell her he was sorry when he really wasn't.
The reality was, her shot about yours, mine, and ours had been a direct hit. There were just some things about which Casey was unwilling to yield. Paying for her engagement ring was at the top of the list. Letting her pay debts he'd acquired before she agreed to marry him was another. He could support them, any children if they had them, but he didn't expect her to support him.
He had no expectation that they would keep separate accounts or that they would split everything down the middle. No, the issue was deeper rooted than that, and while he felt, instinctively, it was his job to provide and to support, she had assets of her own that should, probably, mostly stay her own.
To his irritation, he was back to being on Ariel Taylor's side. They were going to have to revisit the prenup issue.
Casey brooded over that. He was still doing so when Riah let herself into the apartment.
She didn't look a bit less angry than she had when she stormed out earlier.
As a result, Casey paused, and that gave her a chance to get upstairs before he could struggle to his feet to follow her.
Not that he needed to since she came right back down.
She walked over to where he was still seated and dropped a thick pile of files in his lap. She sat on the edge of the coffee table in front of him. "Right. These are my financial records," she bit out. She made a gesture, and he opened the top file to see her most recent bank statement. Rich, apparently, didn't quite cover it. The next neatly labeled file contained her American stock portfolio. The next three were investments in Canada and Great Britain. After that were copies of deeds to houses—she owned four: two in Canada, one in the American South, and one in Monaco. There were five apartments scattered across Canada and one in London where her mother kept a home. She also owned investment property: apartment buildings, commercial buildings, and, curiously, a factory.
He looked across at her. "If we get married, those are yours, too," she bit out. "But let's get one thing straight, John. I'm good at this. I was trained from a young age to understand money and how to make it. Most of that I've acquired on my own rather than through inheritance. I understood simple interest, nominal interest, and cumulative interest and how interest is compounded before I was six. I understood the stock markets by eight, and I made my first investments without adult guidance at ten. The money was given to me: I've done the rest."
His jaw ached from keeping it clenched. He let her finish.
After trying, apparently, to stare him down, she finally said, "If you can't live with that, fine."
That, though, made him respond, mainly because he definitely didn't like the sound of that. "What the hell is that supposed to mean?"
Riah eyed him, and then she took a checkbook and pen out of her pocket. "If you can't accept that I have money, money that will continue to grow, then I'll give it away. Who should I write the checks to?"
For a moment, he thought he hadn't heard that correctly. She could not be serious about giving away the kind of wealth the files in his lap documented. "You're kidding."
Apparently, she wasn't. "Wounded Warrior Project? Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America?" She shot a brow up. "Sorry, but I draw the line at the NRA." Holding the pen over a blank check, she added, "You choose, John. I'll liquidate the other assets, though I intend to keep the house in Newfoundland and my apartment in Ottawa. I'll give the proceeds to those away, too."
Casey stared, but it was obvious she was deadly serious. "It's yours, Riah. Do what you want with it."
"I told you, John," she said in a lethally angry tone, "I don't do yours, mine, and ours. If you've got a problem with the wealth I bring to this relationship, then let's give it away."
Temper drove him to ask, "Doesn't that mean you do ours?"
"No, John," she told him, this time in an uninflected voice. "It means I'm not going to be like my mother. You won't have your accounts, I have mine, and then we have yet a third account to which we both contribute, adjusted for our varying incomes, in order to pay our living expenses. I'm an all or nothing kind of girl. It's ours, yes, but not selectively ours." She bit her lip, studied him. "My mother ruined more than one relationship trying to keep what was hers hers. It poisoned the well, John, led to resentment, and I won't live like that. If what I have makes you this angry, this upset, then I'd far rather give it to good causes. What I won't do is let it sit there and do no one any good."
"I'm not a charity case, Riah," he ground out, "and it was my responsibility to pay for your engagement ring."
It wasn't hard to see her confused surprise. Casey couldn't understand why she simply couldn't get that he needed to do that. "It's a symbol of what I feel for you, of my intent. At one time, it was a symbol of ownership, Riah, but I never intended it that way," he finally said. The last might edge on a lie, he realized, since he'd been more than willing to exploit that final meaning with Kavanaugh. "More importantly, it's a gift—only you paid for it, so it isn't even that."
She had no answer for that.
He sighed. "Maybe your mother was right about the prenup," he groused.
"She sure as hell wasn't," Riah ground out. "If money is going to be a problem for us, then holding separate accounts will only make things worse." She stood, took back her files. "I'm sorry you're angry I paid the bills, John. Feel free to pay me back if it bothers you that badly."
He watched her go upstairs and fumed. After a few moments, he heard a door close, noted it wasn't a slam, and then curiosity got the better of him. She hated enclosed spaces, rarely closed bedroom doors and usually got antsy when he did. He pulled himself to his feet, scooped up her ring, and shut off lights and locked the door before heading up after her.
Riah had taken refuge in her old room, which sent his temper up again.
They had resolved nothing, and she'd apparently decided to shut him out rather than hear him out. He supposed she intended to do another of her silent routines, the ones where she went through the motions without speaking to him for several days until she finally got over it.
Like hell.
He turned the knob and shoved the door open. She stood, bent over her bed as she turned the covers down. "You had your say, now it's my turn," he bit out as she straightened.
She wore one of those nightgowns, this one red and clinging, and for a brief moment, he wondered if she'd known he would follow her.
"I knew you were rich, Riah, but that wasn't why I asked you to marry me. Frankly, I don't give a shit what you do with your money, except," he snapped to stop her response, "when you pay my debts."
An angry growling noise came from her, and she actually stamped a foot. It set parts of her jiggling in ways that caught Casey's attention. He made himself focus on her words: "As far as I'm concerned, I paid our debts."
"Wrong!" he shot back. "They were from before I even asked you to marry me. You're not responsible for those."
She breathed in deeply, turned her eyes toward the ceiling and made a hard sigh. "Is this going anywhere? Any new ground you'd like to cover? Would you like me to contact your credit card companies and retract the payments I made?"
The strap on her nightgown slipped, and Casey was distracted by the exposure of her upper breast. "Yes."
"First thing in the morning," she promised, "or should I do it now?"
He nearly asked her what, which was easier when he pulled his eyes off her chest. "If I insist on paying the cost of your ring back, what will you do with the money?"
She hiked the strap back up and then crossed her arms. A funny little smirk lifted her lips, which should have warned him. "Donations in your name to the National Organization for Women, Planned Parenthood, the Global Fund for Women, and, just for fun, the Canadian group, the National Action Committee on the Status of Women. The last lost their government funding and could use the cash."
There was a moment of horror followed by the certainty that she was joking. Then, he finally saw the humor in this, though he was careful not to show it. If he'd thought he could win this one, he had been wrong. They could play petty games over money, or they could figure out what to do in a rational manner. Right now, he wasn't rational, and he measured her temper. She still had that pissed off look, but he wasn't certain whether she was still genuinely angry or not.
"Communist," he deadpanned.
She snorted. "I'm Canadian, John, not Cuban."
"Socialist, then."
She laughed this time. "Damn straight." She dropped her arms. "Are we done?"
Casey didn't make the flippant answer he was tempted to make. Instead, he asked, "Define done."
"Finished with an argument neither of us is going to win if we keep at it while ruining a relationship that has mostly worked."
That seemed a fair summary. He nodded. "Done."
Riah rounded the bed, stood in front of him. "If I asked for the ring back, would you give it to me?"
"Depends," he told her. She cocked her head. "Do you want it back because you paid for it, or because you want what it means?"
"If we can scratch ownership from the list of meanings, then yes, that."
He dug it out of his pocket, and then he realized he had a problem. "You'll have to hold your hand out." She smiled and did so, and he slipped it on her finger with a little help. Then, he kissed her.
It wasn't a satisfactory ending to the argument, and while he was certain there would be a round two—maybe twelve rounds—based on her response to that kiss, he was willing to take an intermission.
"Can we move this to the bed I paid for?" he asked when her hands burrowed under his shirt.
"Don't quite know when to leave well enough alone, do you, Major?" she asked. Thankfully, she began backing toward the door. Casey followed. She helped him undress, and then she tilted her head. "I really don't want to hurt you, John."
"Trust me," he told her fervently, "you won't."
She shimmied out of the red gown, and God bless her, she didn't have any underwear on. For a moment, he wished she'd put on what he bought her, and then he realized it was nowhere in sight. He was about to ask, but she stopped him, a blush staining her cheeks. "I took it back off." He gave her a little whine. "I could put it back on," she offered.
Unwilling to wait, he told her, "Another time," and pulled her closer with his good arm.
It took some maneuvering, and it took some coaxing on his part since she apparently really was worried she'd hurt him. He'd have thought she would have realized he wasn't as fragile as she thought by now, but once she was on top of him, once she began to move, he wondered if it might not kill him after all. It wasn't painful, but he worried about disappointing her. Fortunately, she seemed aware enough to stop now and then and let him get himself back under control—either that or she was getting her revenge for the argument by stopping short of his completion. Either way, Casey was pretty happy with the end result, and when Riah leaned down and kissed him very thoroughly afterward, he suggested they go again later.
They did.
A week later, a thick envelope came addressed to him from a law firm in Chicago. Inside were a number of forms adding Casey's name to Riah's accounts and to the deeds on the properties she owned. He knew Ariel would go ballistic if she knew, and he hesitated to sign them. Riah, when she arrived home, told him that if he didn't want to sign them, he didn't have to. In that moment, he realized she really did trust him. Then he worried whether she really should.