Obsession

by ROBARDS, KAREN

  And those pudgy fingers.

  I can’t do it, she thought, panicking for real as, instead of entering the apartment with them, Starkey and Bennett stayed in the hall. Only Ed followed her inside.

  “Make me a drink, would you?” he asked, loosening his tie as he walked toward the couch. “Everything you need’s in the kitchen.”

  Katharine looked at his broad back in despair. His favorite drink was a martini, and she knew just how he liked it, but still she had to force herself to obey. Walking into the small galley kitchen, she realized that her hands were shaking. The cabinets were, indeed, well stocked. As she found what she needed, she watched out of the corner of her eye as Ed pulled off his tie and shrugged out of his coat. Clearly, he was getting comfortable, settling in for the long haul.

  Mind racing, she took as long as she possibly could to make the drink. Could she plead the age-old feminine excuse of a headache, which in her case had the advantage of being absolutely true? How about exhaustion? Bubonic plague, anyone?

  “What’s up with that drink?” Ed called to her impatiently. He’d turned on the TV and was flipping through the channels.

  Her heart lurched. Her stomach churned.

  Time’s up.

  “On its way,” she answered with false cheeriness.

  I can’t do this, she thought again as she picked up the martini. Her hand trembled so badly that the liquid sloshed in the glass. The thought of what was likely to happen when the drink was consumed made her want to run screaming for the hills.

  Think, think, think.

  But besides coming right out and saying Not in this life, pal, she couldn’t think of anything else that was guaranteed to work. And given Ed’s nature, even such a blunt rejection might not be enough. In fact, she suspected that he would react to it very, very badly.

  Exiting the kitchen on legs that were by now pure jelly, she walked slowly toward the couch, casting a speculative glance at the door to the hallway on the way. Starkey and Bennett were probably still right outside. If she bolted, they’d catch her, and Ed would be pissed, and her situation would suddenly become so much worse. Anyway, she couldn’t run. She shouldn’t want to run.

  This guy was her boyfriend.

  Anything to please Ed.

  But not this. Not this.

  He wasn’t watching her; his attention was all on the TV.

  “Here you go.” Her tone was bright. A smile was pasted to her lips. Her heart beat like a trapped bird’s.

  “Thanks.” He took the glass from her, patted her ass in thanks, then spared her a glance. “You’re not having one?”

  “I left mine in the kitchen,” she lied, then turned and fled back to the kitchen and another few minutes’ respite. Gripping the edge of the counter with both hands, watching him through the wide rectangular doorway that separated the kitchen from the living and dining areas as he sipped at the martini—“It’s a little dry, babe”—she felt like vomiting. She was that nauseated, that panicky.

  Then she had an epiphany.

  She would flood the bathroom.

  The one adjoining the bedroom. Stop up the toilet good and tight, then flush, flush, flush until water was pouring over the bowl.

  Lots and lots of water. A torrent, if she could manage it. Noah and his ark would be right at home.

  Yes.

  At the very least, Ed would have to call in Starkey and Bennett. If she did it right, it would be a job for a plumber.

  And she meant to do it right.

  As God was her witness, there would be no getting it on for anybody in that bedroom tonight.

  With her courage in hand—and a couple of small dry sponges she’d spotted under the sink tucked into the waistband of her skirt to start the planned activities off right—she started for the bathroom.

  Ed looked around at her. He was already, she saw, more than three-quarters through his drink.

  “Come ’ere, babe,” he said, and patted the couch beside him invitingly.

  She smiled at him. It was one of the hardest things she had ever done in her life, but she did it.

  “I’ll be right back. Just give me a minute to freshen up.”

  He seemed to accept that, because he grunted and his attention returned to the TV. She was hurrying across the bedroom when his cell phone began to ring.

  His ringtone was the William Tell overture. That she hadn’t known, either.

  “Barnes here,” he answered, and then she didn’t hear him say anything more because she had reached her destination and her pulse was pounding like a kettledrum in her ears.

  Closing and locking the bathroom door behind her, wishing vainly for a chair or something else large and unwieldy to wedge beneath the lock for insurance, she turned an assessing eye toward the toilet.

  It sat in its corner, gleaming white, innocently doing what toilets do, which is nothing, with no inkling of what she was getting ready to do to its innards. Pulling the sponges out from under her skirt, she moved toward it.

  What sounded like a fist banging on the door stopped her in her tracks. She whirled, a sponge in each hand, her heart leaping into her throat.

  “Babe.”

  Eyes wide, pulse racing, she stared at the white-painted panel.

  "Y-yes?”

  “Got to take off. Something’s come up. I probably won’t make it back tonight.”

  Her breath left her body in a near silent whoosh.

  “Okay,” she called.

  “Love ya, babe.”

  “Uh . . . me too.”

  The tension left her body like air escaping from a balloon. Her knees went weak with relief. Sinking down on the edge of the tub, a sponge still clutched in each hand, she listened to his retreating footsteps until she couldn’t hear them anymore. Then she dropped her forehead to her knees.

  It was the phone call, she thought, that had done it.

  Talk about saved by the bell.

  She cried at Lisa’s funeral. The lily-draped coffin, the grief etched onto the faces of Lisa’s parents and two sisters, the weeping of the hundreds of mourners packing the church, wrung her heart. With Bennett—introduced as “a friend from work”—stone-faced beside her in the pew, she wept like her heart would break. As the minister said, it was so, so sad that such a promising young life should have been cut so brutally short. And that it had happened because of her absolutely killed her.

  Afterward, as she mingled with Lisa’s family and friends, some of whom were her own friends, too, from college, she was still so overcome with sorrow that she could barely talk.

  Which was just as well, because she couldn’t remember anyone there.

  She felt like she had been beamed into an alternate universe. Some of the faces—a handful of Kappa Delts—she vaguely recognized. Everyone else, even women of her own age who came up to her and hugged her and wept on her shoulder, women who clearly recognized her and knew her, were strangers to her. She could recall nothing about them at all.

  Not that anyone caught on. She hugged and cried where appropriate, and made small talk where appropriate, and in general conducted herself just as she would have if she had belonged there. But she didn’t. She didn’t.

  It was a terrible, surreal feeling.

  Her brain damage was back.

  By the time she—and Bennett, her silent, stoic shadow—boarded the plane that would take them back to D.C., she was worn out with the whole thing. But she had come to two conclusions: Whatever was happening was clearly connected with her work and Ed, and, hey, she didn’t need the job that badly, and her boyfriend now creeped her out. Time to lose the job and the guy. And, she needed to see a doctor. As in a psychiatrist, to see what was up with her head.

  Because something was clearly very wrong with her.

  When the plane touched down at National, Starkey was there waiting for them. Katharine took one look at him and felt like she was suffocating. Her chest constricted, and she had to work to keep her breathing even. Her nails dug into her palms with th
e effort she made to stay calm.

  Her mind was going a thousand miles a minute. She kept her expression carefully serene.

  As she got into the back of the Mercedes, which Starkey had brought to pick them up, and Bennett closed the door behind her, she felt like an animal caught in a trap.

  If she never saw either of them—or Ed—again, it would be way too soon. The problem was, she knew as well as she knew the sun would rise in the morning that they wouldn’t just let her say buh-bye and walk away.

  Whatever it was that was going on here, she was in way too deep for that.

  “I want to go to the town house,” she said clearly from the backseat when they were on the access road and it became obvious, as Starkey, who was driving, changed lanes in anticipation of turning right, which would lead into D.C., that they were probably heading for the apartment again. “I need to get some fresh clothes.”

  Starkey and Bennett, in the passenger seat, exchanged glances. Bennett shrugged. Starkey glanced in the rearview mirror at her.

  “Sure,” he said, and changed lanes again. Minutes later they were heading toward Old Town.

  According to the clock in the dashboard, it was eight-twenty -one p.m. by the time the Mercedes nosed into one of the parking spaces beside the garages that were allotted for visitors. On a Tuesday in August, though, that meant that Old Town was still thronged with tourists. It didn’t get fully dark until almost ten, and the long, golden evenings were the best time of the day. The temperature had, as was usual as night approached, dipped from sweltering to pleasantly languid. While the main thoroughfares were crowded with visitors, the alley and backyards around the garages were full of neighborhood people barbecuing and playing with their children and walking their pets and taking out trash. The cheerful sounds of happy people at play made her unhappily aware of how very on edge she felt. The scent of grilling meat—her sense of smell was definitely back—hung in the air. Katharine realized that she was hungry. Her last meal—airplane food—she had left almost untouched.

  Food, however, was not on the agenda for the moment. Fishing in her purse for her garage door opener, Katharine opened the overhead door, walked through the garage past her car—thank God it’s here—and up the walk toward her back door. The backyards nearest to her own were empty. A squirrel in the maple tree chattered, presumably at the barking golden retriever down the block. Starkey and Bennett formed a solid wall of silent suits behind her. Unable to help herself, she cast a quick look at Dan’s town house. The curtains were closed. There was no sign that he was at home.

  Her head started to pound. She was not supposed to think about Dan.

  Unlocking the new back door, refusing to allow her mind to stray from the present to Lisa’s death in front of the previous door, she walked on across those accursed tiles and headed toward the stairs.

  “I’m going to take a shower before I do anything else,” she said, pausing at the bottom of the stairs to look at her expressionless twin shadows, who were right behind her. By this time, she was thinking of them as wardens rather than bodyguards. “Why don’t you sit down in the living room and make yourselves comfortable? I’ll be down when I’ve changed.”

  The two exchanged looks. Starkey shrugged, and then they both headed toward the living room. Barely suppressing a relieved sigh, Katharine climbed the stairs. Forget taking a shower: She’d already had one that morning. Forget changing clothes, too: She didn’t have that kind of time. Anyway, the black Armani pantsuit she was wearing with a white T-shirt and pumps worked fine. Shed the jacket, and she was casual. Keep it on, and she could go anywhere. It was a nice, versatile outfit to run for her life in.

  Because that was what she meant to do. If she stayed, at the very least she was going to have to deal with Ed. He wasn’t going to be happy when she dumped him, but that was just too bad. She knew something had changed with her, knew her mind wasn’t where it had been even a week before, but then she supposed a brush with death tended to do that to a person. In any case, her personal relationship with Ed was over.

  No way was she ever, under any circumstances, sleeping with him again.

  The very idea made her want to heave.

  Once she gave Ed the boot, her job was probably history, too. Certainly, he would no longer want her as his personal assistant. Anyway, the idea of spending even one more day sucking up to a powerful man—any powerful man—was less than appealing. She wanted more than that from life.

  Plus, there was the whole somebody-was-trying-to-kill -her thing. Without Starkey and Bennett—who would be gone with Ed—she was vulnerable. She didn’t kid herself about that.

  They’d come after her twice. What was that saying about the third time being a charm?

  The simple, obvious solution was to do what she had meant to do from the first moments after she had regained consciousness in the hospital: get in her car and drive far, far away.

  She grabbed a clean set of underwear and a fresh, pale blue T-shirt from her bedroom, stuffed them and her shoes—clattering around in heels was never a good idea when one was trying to sneak out—in her purse, and crept back down the stairs.

  The TV was on. She could hear it. She could even see its reflection in the glass fronting the sunset painting in the entry hall. The reflection wasn’t clear enough to allow her to make sure Starkey and Bennett were plopped on the couch in front of it, but she had to assume they were. Holding her breath, heart tripping like a drunken frat boy, her stomach tightening with every step, she made it all the way down to the entry hall and sidled around the newel post, her eyes glued to the living-room door. The TV was loud; they were watching a baseball game. That was good. With every nerve ending she possessed on high alert, and the sounds of a TV crowd cheering for God-knew-what filling her ears, she crept toward the kitchen, her bare feet soundless on the hardwood floor. She saw at a glance that the kitchen was empty, and scuttled across it like a crab on hot sand. Slipping through the laundry room, her heart in her throat now, she risked a quick glance back over her shoulder—nothing—and eased open the back door. Every click and squeak was as excruciating as a shout.

  Nothing happened. Nobody came. Closing it behind her—carefully, carefully—she fled down the steps and along the walk to the garage, her keys already in her hand, casting fearful looks over her shoulder all the way. The soft, golden evening and happy sounds and good smells were lost on her now. Every bit of her focus was on getting away.

  Almost there.

  Heart racing, breathing far too fast, she opened the access door to the garage, closed it behind her, raced to her car, and got in, locking the doors behind her. With a quick exit in mind, she had left the overhead door up. Hands shaking, she put the key in the ignition and turned the engine over.

  Then she was outta there.

  Oh my God, I made it. I made it.

  There were too many people out and about for her to gun it like she wanted to. The alley was too narrow, the pavement too uneven. The kid hitting a tennis ball against the side of a garage down the street did not deserve to be roadkill. Neither did the little old lady struggling to push a wheelbarrow loaded with plants to her neighbor’s yard. She might be sweating despite the blasting air conditioner, her hands might be gripping the steering wheel so tightly that her knuckles showed white, but still she had to keep only light pressure on the accelerator.

  At least until she got out of the damned alley.

  When at last she reached Wilkes, she had to wait what felt like forever for a break in the traffic, and then, pulse racing, biting her tongue in an effort to stay calm, she shot out through the tiny hole in the slipstream and turned left toward the expressway.

  And made it about half a block before getting stuck in traffic.

  The narrow, cobbled street was packed. Katharine saw that a bright red local bus was making its leisurely way along, stopping at various shops to let some people off and others on. The line of traffic caught behind it, which included her, was moving at a snail’s pace—whe
n it moved. A lot of the time it didn’t. There was no way to pass; the other lane was equally busy. And the sidewalk—yes, she even considered driving up on the sidewalk to get around—was full to bursting with shoppers, folks sitting at small, round tables scarfing down pizza in front of tourist fave Ye Olde Pizzeria, and a ghost walking tour. She knew that was what the moving clump of approximately thirty people was, because the costumed guide was holding up a sign.

  If traffic didn’t start moving soon, she thought, she would have a heart attack, and then she could be one of the ghost tour’s featured attractions.

  Her pulse raced. Her stomach twisted itself into a knot so tight it was almost painful. But there was nothing to do. Her only option was to just sit there, crawling forward as conditions permitted. She didn’t even honk her horn.

  Then the whole line of traffic came to a stop, for a good cause this time as the bus, swinging wide, slowly, ponderously turned right at the intersection at the top of the hill.

  There was a sharp tap on the window beside her head.

  She almost jumped through the roof. Her head jerked around, and to her horror she found herself looking straight at Bennett, who was glaring at her through the glass.

  19

  Katharine almost had a mini nervous breakdown right there.

  Busted. Oh, God, think fast. What to say?

  In that instant, while she was still gaping at Bennett, while her heart was doing calisthenics and her pulse was shooting up through the stratosphere, her mind went into overdrive. She could refuse to roll down the window, and as soon as the cursed bus got out of the way—which would, hopefully, unclog the traffic—put the pedal to the metal and scoot on out of there.

  With Starkey and Bennett behind her, and the rest of the Agency pretty much at Ed’s command, the chances of getting away without being tailed and/or actually stopped were just about nil.

  She could jump from the car and try to lose herself among the crowds, even in a pinch appealing to shopkeepers, tourists, everyone and anyone to protect her from the big, bad men who were after her.