by Неизвестный
She felt the tightening in him at her words.
"Here, I'll hold the glass for you."
She drank her fill, then lay back and sighed. "I'll be back to normal in about ten more minutes-at least that's my best guess. James, who is that man I spit on?''
"He's a good friend of mine, name of Dillon Savich. He and I got you out of the sanitarium last night. Dillon, come and say hello to Sally."
"Ma'am."
"He said he was a hero, just like you, James."
"It's possible. You can trust him, Sally."
She nodded, such a slight movement really, and he watched her eyes close again. "You're not ready to eat something?''
"No, not yet. You won't leave, will you?"
"Not ever."
He would have sworn that the corners of her mouth turned up just a bit into a very slight smile. Without thinking, he leaned down and kissed her closed mouth. "I'm glad I've got you again. When I woke up in David Mountebank's house, my head pounding like a watermelon with a stake in it, he told me you were gone. I've never been so scared in my life. You're not going to be out of my sight again, Sally."
"That sounds good to me," she said. In the next moment, she was asleep. Not unconscious but asleep, real sleep.
Quinlan rose and looked down at her. He straightened the light blanket over her chest. He smoothed her hair back on the pillow. He thought of that little man they'd found in her room and knew that if he ever saw him again, he'd kill him.
And Beadermeyer. He couldn't wait to get his hands on Dr. Beadermeyer.
"How does it feel to be the most important person in the whole universe, Quinlan?"
Quinlan kept smoothing down the blanket, his movements slow and calm. Finally he said, "It scares the shit out of me. You want to know something else? It doesn't feel bad at all. How much credit am I going to have to give you?"
That evening, the three of them were sitting on the front veranda of Quinlan's cottage, looking out over Louise Lynn Lake. For an evening in March, it was balmy. The cottage faced west. The sun was low on the horizon, making the water ripple with golds and startling pinks.
Quinlan said to Sally, "It's narrow, not all that much fun for boaters unless you're a teenager and like to play chicken. And you can see at least four different curves from here. Well, the sucker has so many curves that-"
"So many curves that what?" Dillon asked, looking up from the smooth block of maple he was carving.
"We are not a comedy routine," Quinlan said, grinning to Sally. "Come on now, the lake has so many curves that it very nearly winds back onto itself."
Dillon said, as he watched a curling sliver of maple drift to the wooden floor, "You sometimes don't know if you're coming or going."
"You're very good friends," Sally said. "You know each other quite well, don't you?"
"Yeah, but we're not going to get married. Quinlan snores like a pig."
She smiled. It was a good smile, Dillon thought, not a forced smile. Now, that showed she knew she was safe here.
"You want some more iced tea, Sally?"
"No, I like sucking on the ice. There's plenty."
Quinlan lifted his legs and put his feet on the wooden railing that circled the front veranda. He was wearing short, scuffed black boots, old faded blue jeans that looked quite lovely on him-it was surely a shock that she could even think of something like that-and a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up to the elbows.
He was also wearing a shoulder holster, and there was a gun in it. She hadn't realized that all private investigators wore guns all the time. He was comfortable with it, like it was just another item of clothing. It looked part of him. He was long and solid and looked hard as nails. She remembered how she'd hauled his face down to hers when she'd come out of the drugged sleep. How he'd let her. How he'd kissed her when he thought she was asleep again. She'd never met a man like him before in her life- a man to trust, a man to believe, a man who cared what happened to her.
"Has your head cleared?" Dillon asked. She turned to see him gently rubbing his thumbs over the maple, over and over and over.
"Why are you doing that?"
"What? Oh, it warms the wood and it makes it shine."
"What are you carving?"
"You, if you don't mind."
She blinked at him, swallowed a piece of ice she was sucking, and promptly fell to coughing. James leaned over and lightly slapped her between her shoulder blades.
When she got her breath, she said, "Why ever would you want to immortalize me in any way? I'm nothing at all, nothing-"
"Dammit, shut up, Sally."
“Why, James? Someone wants me out of the way, but that doesn't make me important. It just makes what I appear to know of interest to someone."
"I guess maybe it's time we got to that," Dillon said. He set down the piece of maple and turned to face Sally.
"If we're to help you, you must tell us everything."
She looked from Dillon to James. She frowned down at her hands. She carefully set the glass down on the rattan table beside her.
She looked at James again, nodding at his shoulder holster. “I was just thinking that I never realized that private investigators wore guns all the time. But you do, don't you? Another thing-it looks natural on you, like you were born wearing it. You're not a private investigator, are you, James?"
"No."
"Who are you?"
He was very still, then he looked at her straight in the face and said, “My name is James Quinlan, just as I told you. What I didn't tell you was that I'm Special Agent James Quinlan, FBI. Dillon and I have worked together for five years. We're not really partners, since the FBI doesn't operate that way, but we're on a lot of cases together.
"I came to The Cove to find you."
"You're wkh the FBI?" Just saying the words made gooseflesh ripple over her arms, made her feel numb and cold.
"Yes. I didn't tell you immediately because I knew it would spook you. I wanted to get your confidence and then bring you back to Washington and clear up all the mess."
"You certainly succeeded in gaining my confidence, Mr. Quinlan."
He winced at her use of his surname. He saw that Dil-lon would say something, and held up his hand. "No, let me finish it. Look, Sally, I was doing my job. Things got complicated when I got to know you. And then there were the two murders in The Cove, your dear father calling you on the phone and then appearing at your bedroom window.
"I decided not to tell you because I didn't know what you'd do. I knew you were in possible danger and I didn't want you running away. I knew I could protect you-"
"You failed at that, didn't you?"
"Yes." Damn, but she was angry, it was sharp and clear in her voice. He wished he could change things, but he couldn't. He just had to try to make her understand. If he didn't get her to come around, then what would happen?
She rose slowly to her feet. She was wearing blue jeans that looked like a second skin. Dillon had misjudged and bought her a pair of girl's jeans at the Kmart in the closest town, Glenberg. Even the blouse was tight, the buttons pulling apart.
The look on her face was remote, distant, as if she really weren't standing on the old veranda any longer, between the two of them. She said nothing for a very long time, just stared at the lake. Finally she said, "Thank you for getting me out of that place last night.
He wouldn't leave my head clear enough so I could figure out how to escape again. I don't think I would ever have gotten free. I owe you both a lot for that. But now I'm leaving. I have a good number of things to resolve. Good-bye, James."
15
"YOU'RE NOT LEAVING, Sally. I can't let you leave."
She gave him a look that was so immensely damning of what he was and what he'd done, he couldn't stand it.
"Listen, Sally, please. I'm sorry. I did what I believed was right. I couldn't tell you, please understand that. You were coming to trust me. I couldn't take a chance that you'd react the way you're reacting now."
She laughed. Just laughed. She said nothing at all.
Dillon rose, saying, "I'm going for a walk. I'll be back to make dinner in an hour."
Sally watched him stride down the narrow trail toward the water. She supposed he was a fine-looking man, not as fine-looking as James, of course. She didn't like all his bulging muscles, but she supposed some people did.
"Sally."
She didn't want to turn back to him. She didn't want to speak to him anymore, give him any of her attention, listen to his damning words that made so much sense to him and had utterly destroyed her.
No, she'd rather watch Dillon, or the two boats that were rocking lazily in the smooth evening waters. It would be sunset soon. The water was beginning to be the color of cherries.
"Sally, I can't let you leave. Besides, where would you go? I don't know where you'd be safe. You thought you'd have a refuge in The Cove. You didn't. Your dear auntie Amabel was in on it."
"No, that's impossible."
"Believe it. I have no reason to lie to you. David and I both visited her after I got on my feet again. She claimed you'd seen me unconscious and decided to run away. She said that you had probably run to Alaska, that you couldn't go to Mexico because you didn't have a passport. She said that you'd been ill-in an institution-as a matter of fact and that you were still unstable, still very weak in the head. My gut tells me that your auntie is in this mess up to her eyeballs."
"She welcomed me. She was sincere. You're wrong, James, or you're just plain lying."
"Maybe she was sincere at first. But then someone got to her. What about the two murders in The Cove, Sally? The woman's screams you heard that Amabel claimed were a result of the wind, that or the result of you being so bloody nuts."
"So you used those old people-Marge and Harve, who drove to The Cove in their Winnebago and then disappeared-as your, what do you call it? Oh, yes, your cover. The sheriff believed you completely, didn't he?"
"Yes, he did. And what's more, the investigation will open again, since a whole bunch of other folk have disappeared in that area as well. Being a PI hired by their son from L.A. was my cover. It worked. After the murders happened, I didn't know what to think. I knew it couldn't have anything to do with you directly."
He stopped, plowing his fingers through his hair. "Damn, we're getting off the subject, Sally. Forget about The Cove. Just forget Amabel. She and her town are three thousand miles away. I want you to try to understand why I did what I did. I want you to understand why I had to keep silent about who I really am and why I was at The Cove."
"You want me to agree that it was fine for you to lie to me, to manipulate me?"
"Yes. You lied to me as well, if you'll recall. All you had to do was scream your head off when your so-called father called you, and I was manipulated up to my ears. A beautiful woman appealing to my macho side. Yeah, I was hooked from that moment."
She was staring at him as if he'd lost his mind.
"Jesus, Sally, I came flying into the room like a madman to see you on the floor, staring at that damned phone like it was a snake ready to bite you, and I was a goner."
She waved away his words. "Someone was after me, James. Nobody was after you."
"It didn't matter."
She began to laugh. "Actually there were two someones after me, and you were the second, only I was too stupid, too pathetically grateful to you, to realize it. I'm leaving, James. I don't want to see you again. I can't believe I thought you were a hero. God, when will I stop being such a credulous fool?"
"Where will you go?"
"That's none of your business, Mr. Quinlan. None of what I do is any of your business anymore."
"The hell it isn't. Listen, Sally. Tell me the truth about something. When Dillon and I got into your room at the sanitarium, there was this pathetic little guy who looked crazy as a loon sitting on the bed beside you, looking down at you. Did he ever hurt you? Beat you? Rape you?''
"Holland was there in my room?"
"Yeah, you were naked and he was leaning down over you. I think he'd combed and straightened your hair. Did he rape you?"
"No," she said in a remote voice. "No one raped me. As for Holland, he did other things, that Beadermeyer told him to do. He never hurt me, just-well, that's not important."
"Then who the hell did hurt you? That bloody Beadermeyer? Your husband? Who was that man you told me about in your nightmare?"
She gave him a long look, and again that look was filled with quiet rage. "You are nothing more to me. None of this is any of your business. Go to hell, James."
She turned away from him and walked down the wooden steps. It was chilly now. She wasn't wearing anything but that too-small shirt and jeans.
"Come back, Sally. I can't let you go. I won't let you go. I won't see you hurt again."
She didn't even slow down, just kept walking, in sneakers that were probably too small for her as well. He didn't want her to get blisters. He'd planned to go shopping for her tomorrow, to buy her some clothes that fit her, to- damn, he was losing it.
He saw Dillon standing near the water line, unaware that she was walking away.
"Sally, you don't know where you are. You don't have any money."
Then she did stop. She was smiling as she turned to face him. "You're right, but it shouldn't be a problem for long. I really don't think that I'm afraid of any man anymore. Don't worry. I'll get enough money to get back to Washington."
It sent him right over the edge. He slammed his hand down on the railing and vaulted over it to land lightly only three feet away from her. "No one will ever hurt you again. You will not take the chance of some asshole raping you. You will stay with me until this is over. Then I'll let you go if you don't want to stay."
She began to laugh. Her body shook with her laughter. She sank slowly to her knees, hugging herself, laughing and laughing.
"Sally!"
She stared up~~at him, her palms on her thighs. She laughed, then said, "Let me go? You'd keep me if I didn't
want to leave? Like some sort of pathetic stray? That's good, James. I haven't known a single person for a very long time who cared one whit about anyone, including me, not that it mattered. Please, no more lies.
"I'm a case for you, nothing more. If you solve it, just think of your reputation. The FBI will probably make you director. They'll kiss your feet. The president will give you a medal."
She gasped, out of breath now, hiccupping through the laughter that welled up from her throat. "You should have believed my file, James. Yes, I'm sure the FBI had a very thick file on me, particularly my stint in the loony bin. I'm crazy, James. No one should believe I'm a credible witness, despite the fact that you want very badly to have someone to lock up, anyone.
"I won't tell you anything. I don't trust you, but I do owe you for rescuing me from that place. Now let me go before something horrible happens."
He came down on his knees in front of her. Very slowly, he pulled her arms to her sides. He brought her forward until her face was resting against his shoulder. He rubbed his hands up and down her back. "It's going to be all right, I swear it to you. I swear I won't fuck up again."
She didn't move, didn't settle against him, didn't release the terrible rage that had been deep inside her for so long she didn't know if she could ever confront it, or speak about it, because it could very well destroy her, and the sheer magnitude of it would destroy others as well.
It bubbled deep, that rage, and now with it was a shattering sense of betrayal. She'd trusted him and he'd betrayed her. She felt stupid for having believed him so quickly, so completely.
Sally marveled that she felt such passion, such a hideous need to hurt as she'd been hurt. She'd thought he'd drained such savage feelings out of her long ago. It felt incredible to feel rage again, to feel sweat rise on her flesh, to want to do something, to want vengeance. Yes, she wanted vengeance.
She just lay against him, thinking, wondering, calming herself, and in the end of
it all, she still didn't know what to do.
"You've got to help me now, Sally."
"If I don't, then you'll take me to the FBI dungeon and they'll give me more drugs to make me tell the truth?"
“No, but the FBI will get all the truth sooner or later. We usually do. Your father's murder is a very big deal, not just his murder but lots of other things that are connected to it. Lots of folk want to be in on catching his murderer. It's important for a lot of reasons. No more crap about you not being credible. If you'll just help me now, you'll be free of all this evil."
"Funny that you call it evil."