“I did,” she whispered brokenly. “But I didn’t.”
Ben would have given anything to hold her right now, but instead he stayed where he was, squatting in front of her. “You did the right thing,” he repeated.
But God almighty, he wished she hadn’t had to.
After a minute he took his hand back from her knee and scrubbed it over his face. He rose to his feet and looked at Gray.
“Can you take Faith and Don home with you?”
“I planned to,” the other man said, in a way that told Ben exactly nothing about what he was thinking.
From the doorway behind them, someone said, “Chief Wheeler?”
He turned his head. The medical examiner, whom he had met only a couple of times since he’d taken over as police chief in West Fork. “Just a minute,” he said, then told Gray, “Watch her for symptoms of shock. She needs to be kept warm.”
Gray surprised him then by reaching out and gripping his forearm. One hard squeeze that felt like…sympathy. He’d seen too much, Ben realized.
“We’ll take care of her. I assume you’ll be by in the morning?” Gray asked.
“Count on it.”
“Don’t worry about Faith,” Gray said. “Do what you have to do.”
Ben nodded, allowed himself one more look at Faith’s face, white and shell-shocked, and made himself turn and walk out of the room.
CHAPTER FOUR
“I’LL STAY WITH YOU,” Char offered, hovering beside the blown-up air mattress in Gray’s library. She offered a wavering smile. “Sleepover.”
Charlotte had demanded her own bedroom when the twins were ten years old. In the years after that, however, sometimes one sister or the other desperately needed to talk or just to have this one person in all the world close. “Sleepover?” she’d suggest, and they would share a double bed the way they had when they were young. In the trauma of the past couple of months, they’d done that a couple of times. Just the soft sound of Char breathing beside her was a comfort to Faith.
Tonight, Faith wanted no one.
An image of Ben flashed into her mind, and she remembered the way he’d held her cradled on his lap, his hand on her nape, pressing her face against his shoulder. His throat had been so temptingly close, she’d inched her face over to warm her cold nose against his skin and breathe in his scent, soap and sweat and man.
No. She didn’t want him, either. But a stricken feeling inside told Faith that she might not have been able to resist him if he’d actually been here.
Faith shook her head. “No, please. I’m not sure I can sleep, and…I need to be alone.”
“Are you sure?” Char kept hovering.
“Yes. Please,” Faith repeated.
Wearing a pair of flannel pajamas borrowed from Gray, cuffs and sleeves rolled, she sat on the edge of the bed. Despite the hot, sweet tea Char had plied her with, Faith was still cold. She felt chilled to her marrow.
At last her sister nodded reluctantly and hugged her. “Wake me up if you want me, Faith. I mean it. Okay?”
Faith nodded because it was expected of her. “Good night.”
Gray, she saw, waited in the hall. He looked as worried as Char did. Faith wondered vaguely what they saw that scared them so. Dad, thank goodness, must have already gone to bed in the guest room. Still recovering from his injuries, he’d needed the better bed.
It was a huge relief when Gray and Char withdrew, turning off the overhead light. She heard them go down the hall to their own bedroom, but there was no click of a door closing—they wanted to be able to hear her. She should have felt reassured, but she didn’t. She didn’t feel much at all, or at least nothing…normal. There was a hollow place inside her that was new. It was like an ice cave, terribly cold, a place where her breath might freeze.
When Faith lay back on the mattress and pulled the covers over herself, she left the bedside lamp burning. She’d never minded the dark before, but she had a feeling it would be a long time before it would seem comforting to her again.
If ever.
Despite the comforter and the blanket Char had added, Faith shivered.
I’m so cold.
She couldn’t seem to tear her eyes from the open door to the hall. When she closed her eyes, she saw the dark rectangle of the doorway to her own bedroom, and then the deeper shadow of a man within it. Her eyes snapped open again.
At last she got up and shut the door. After a minute, she dragged a chair away from the desk and braced it at an angle under the knob. At least nobody could get in without making a lot of noise. She hoped Char wouldn’t try and become alarmed.
Back in bed, she pulled the heavy weight of covers up to her chin and lay still, listening to the silence. Gray’s house, which he’d designed himself, was new and lacked the old farmhouse’s sounds of settling. The silence seemed even denser because the multilayered house was built literally into the bluff, so that this lower floor not only had earth beneath it but behind it. The highway was too far away for her to hear the scant evening traffic. Houses on the river bluff were set far apart, all on at least five acres, with woods in between to muffle any sound of barking dogs, voices or cars coming and going. Faith couldn’t decide if the quiet would be soothing or unsettling long-term.
Not that she’d be here for very long. She had to go home soon. Preferably tomorrow. If she put it off, she might lose her nerve. Faith wasn’t sure she could ever sleep in her bedroom again, though. She thought she might move into Char’s. Char had only been spending the occasional night anyway, and then only because she was anxious about Faith.
For better or worse, Char could quit worrying about Rory.
A shudder gripped Faith, one that rattled her bones.
Oh, God. I killed him. I pulled the trigger.
Even though her eyes were open, she saw his face in that moment, rage transformed into astonishment at the sight of the gun leveled at his chest. And then…and then, fear and pain. Blood blossoming. Him stumbling. Because his momentum continued to drive him forward, she’d shot again. And again, she thought. At least three times. Her ears rang with the crack, crack, crack.
Her fingernails bit into her palms as she felt the gun jump in her hands again. So powerful. So lethal. So much more terrible even than she had imagined. Death dealing. Like a movie, images kept running through her mind, inescapable. Blood spurting. The light going out of his eyes even as he stopped abruptly, then dropped, shaking the bed as he toppled against it. Thump. The heaviest, darkest sound she’d ever heard.
Faith gasped, shook, clutched the bedcovers with desperate hands. She stared blindly and thought, What if he came only to threaten me? To try to frighten me into going back to him?
What if he had never intended to kill her?
She couldn’t imagine how she would ever know the answer to that question. How she could live without knowing it.
Faith wasn’t absolutely sure whether Char and Dad and Gray and Ben really did think she’d defended herself the only way she could, or whether they were just saying that because there was no going back from what she’d done and they were determined to reassure her.
What would she have done if she hadn’t had the gun beneath the pillow?
Screamed and thrown herself off the bed. Grabbed for a weapon, any weapon. The chair, perhaps, or she would have likely kept the baseball bat close at hand.
Would she have made it off the bed, if the force of the bullets slamming into his chest hadn’t slowed Rory’s momentum? Shivering, shivering, she didn’t know.
She kept replaying it, from the moment she heard the shush of something brushing the wall outside her room. What could she have done differently? But it was too late to change anything. Tonight, she had killed. She’d chosen to shoot dead the man she had once believed she loved. The man she’d married.
What about your wedding vows? Do you ever think about what you promised?
She curled into as small a ball as she could manage, hugging herself. Yes! she wanted to scream.
How could she forget them?
But Rory had made promises, too. He was supposed to cherish her, and he hadn’t. He’d hurt her, over and over. Terrified her, stalked her, assaulted Char. Faith wanted, oh, she wanted so much, to believe she’d been right to defend herself in such a final way.
But what if it was all bluster? The time he had almost killed her, his fists rising and falling, slamming into her until she was like Raggedy Ann, bouncing and flopping, her consciousness seeping away, that time he had been in a towering rage. He’d lost all control. He’d wept the next day, she had been told, and said over and over, “I never meant to hurt her. I never meant it.” Slipping into her house tonight had been planned, which was different. Yes, he’d punched Char the other time, and even lashed out with the knife and cut her, but Charlotte was Charlotte, taunting him. Tonight, he’d had a plan. He had been moving in silence, in the cloak of darkness. What if he had intended only to sit on the edge of the bed, leaning close until an awareness of the mattress dipping awakened her. He might have touched the tip of the knife to her throat while he whispered of his anger. He might have left her eventually, with perhaps a last, near soundless reminder that he could come back any time, that no mere locks would keep him out. That she was his.
Faith shook harder. Her teeth chattered now.
Oh God oh God. She couldn’t have kept living like that, waiting for him to come back. Even if she’d fled to Phoenix or Tampa Bay, the way she’d sometimes imagined, he could have followed her.
He had no right, she told herself fiercely. She would almost rather have died than go on that way, fear hunched beneath her breastbone and rising to clog in her throat. She simply couldn’t have borne it.
It was his fault. All his fault that she’d had to kill him.
But she was the one who had to live with it.
Sleep was not going to come to Faith, not now, when only the lamplight held off the darkness, and not later, when the pale light of dawn crept around the edges of the blinds.
How can I ever sleep again? she asked herself, and didn’t know the answer.
TELLING A MOTHER that her son had been shot dead was a hell of a way to start a morning. Especially when Ben hadn’t made it back to bed last night.
He wasn’t surprised when Michelle Hardesty collapsed, wailing. He had to catch her and half carry her to the chintz sofa in the front room of the ranch-style house where she’d raised Rory, her only child.
Thinking that she’d done a helluva bad job didn’t keep him from feeling pity. He’d seen enough grief to guess that losing a child might be the worst thing that could happen to a person. Ben had known a cop whose sixteen-year-old daughter had been killed by a drunk driver. Thirty years later, Noah’s face still changed when he saw a girl that age. The grief had still been there, and would remain, undulled, for the rest of his life.
Ben was eventually able to determine that she had a sister in Mt. Vernon, whom he called. She was able, thank God, to come immediately, although he had to wait the half hour it took her to drive there. She took over kindly and efficiently. When he left, she was rocking her sister in her arms and murmuring, “Oh, Chelle. I’m sorry. So sorry. That’s it, cry. It’ll do you good. Cry.”
Profoundly relieved to have escaped, Ben got in his car but didn’t start the engine right away. He’d need to come back and talk to her, see if she might be more forthcoming about her son’s whereabouts this past six weeks once she got over the shock. He knew damn well she’d been hearing from Rory. Defiance had made her chin jut when she lied to him every time he had talked to her.
Yeah, he’d be back, but he would have to give her a day or two. Maybe longer. The only urgency now was inside Ben.
He’d try talking to the sister, too, he decided. Maybe they confided in each other. Maybe she knew where her nephew had been lurking since he drove away from his job and apartment in West Fork. With a little luck, she wouldn’t be as eager to excuse his behavior.
But he wouldn’t be able to tackle Fay Bishop for a day or two, either, since her sister would need her.
His eyes were gritty and a headache rose up his spinal column to wrap his skull. There wasn’t anything else for him to do right now. With a homicide case, he might have attended the autopsy, but cause of death was no mystery here.
The biggest mystery had been how Rory had gotten to the farm; his truck was nowhere to be found. A couple of hours ago, however, they’d discovered a car that turned out to be stolen. It had been left in a turnoff designed for farm tractors a few hundred yards down the highway. Easy walk for Rory.
Ben’s stomach was roiling. He’d get something to eat to settle it, he decided, and then he would go see Faith.
Had she slept at all?
Knowing the answer, he grunted. He remembered too well the hellish doubts and second-guesses that had kept him awake the two times in his career he’d had to shoot to kill. He’d been vindicated in both cases, but that hadn’t kept him from trying to figure out what he could have done differently. Violent death was always ugly. Even cops and soldiers were haunted by what they saw and what they’d done. A pretty kindergarten teacher who’d never wanted anything but to stay in her hometown and raise a family with her husband was ill-equipped to live with the sight of violence. He dreaded finding out what the act of killing would do to her.
With a sigh he started the car. A few minutes later, when he walked into Clara’s Café, conversations stopped and everyone, waitresses and customers alike, turned to look at him. Oh, hell, he thought. Word of last night’s happenings at the Russell farm had obviously spread like wildfire. Plus, here he was unshaven, wearing jeans and yesterday’s T-shirt, his sockless feet in athletic shoes, when people were used to see him wearing his crisp blue uniform.
Should have gone with the drive-through at McDonald’s instead. Or just gone home. His cupboards were pretty bare right now—he ate out a lot—but he could have found something.
He gave a vague nod of general acknowledgment and showed himself to the first empty booth he saw, the middle-aged waitress following with the coffeepot and a menu. He scanned it while she poured, and ordered immediately in hopes of hurrying things along. If only he could render himself invisible.
“Chief Wheeler.” The hearty voice belonged to Harvey Dexter, chiropractor, current president of the West Fork Chamber of Commerce and, to Ben’s private dismay, member of the city council. Dexter had stopped at Ben’s booth, his gaze deeply concerned. The look was one he’d perfected, probably a stock in trade when he contemplated his patients’ neck and back problems. Sixtyish, graying but fit, he also exuded good health, likely another necessity in his trade. “Heard we had a real tragedy last night,” he said.
We? Ben thought with a savagery that took him aback.
He unclenched his teeth. “Gossip is making the rounds, I gather.”
“Is it not true, then?”
Ben met his eyes. “I don’t know what’s being said.”
“That Faith Russell killed her husband.”
His mood deteriorated further. “Ex-husband. The divorce was final over a year ago. After he nearly beat her to death.”
To his credit, Dexter seemed chagrined. “Sorry. I knew that. I’ve also heard that he, uh, didn’t want to accept their marriage was over.”
“Stalking a woman is one way to express the sentiment, I guess. Putting her sister in the hospital is another one.” Goddamn. He wasn’t helping matters here. Ben rubbed his forehead for a moment and said, “Hardesty broke into the Russells’ place last night. She heard a creak in the hall or she wouldn’t have woken up in time. He had a knife lifted to stab her when she shot him.”
“No question it was self-defense, then?”
“None,” Ben said flatly. “She’d be dead if she hadn’t had the guts to buy a gun and learn to shoot it.”
Dexter frowned. “I hope Don didn’t get hurt.”
Ben made himself relax. He didn’t much like Harvey Dexter, but it seemed the man actually was concerned abo
ut the Russells. Chances were, he’d gone to high school with Faith’s father.
“No, he’s fine. Pretty shaken up, of course. He and Faith went home with Van Dusen last night.”
“Good, good. It’s been one thing after another for Don.” Dexter looked as though he meant to say something else, but instead he nodded. “Faith’s a nice young woman. I’m real sorry it came to this.”
“Me, too.”
The waitress arrived with Ben’s breakfast, and Harvey went on his way. Ben hunkered down and ate as quickly as he could without giving the appearance of gobbling. He hoped that his hunched shoulders and grim mien held off any other curiosity seekers.
In the end, despite hushed voices, no one else worked up the courage to approach him. He didn’t wait for the check, instead tossing down more than enough money to cover the bill and tip, and strode out with a sense of relief.
Definitely should have chosen the drive-through.
Part of him wanted to go straight to Faith, but he made himself detour by his home to shower, shave and change. He wouldn’t be able to do anything about the tiredness that gave him a hollow-eyed look, but he couldn’t imagine she’d find him reassuring the way he was.
In the shower, he bowed his head and let the hot water pound down on the back of his neck. Not until the water was starting to run cool did he turn off the shower, step out and towel himself dry.
He hesitated, almost reaching for his uniform, but he thought it would put some distance between them, remind her that he was there in his professional capacity, not as a friend.
Friend. He gave a sardonic grunt. Who was he kidding?
Okay, forget friend. Still, he didn’t want her to see him only as a cop. He’d tried that, having spent the past six weeks doing his best to convince both of them that their relationship wasn’t and couldn’t be personal. He’d convinced her, to the point where she just might hate him. He’d utterly failed to convince himself, however, despite his best intentions.
Damn it, she was too good for him. Too gentle, too pure, too unsophisticated. Nothing in his life, neither his childhood nor his career, had made him the right kind of man for her. He’d made too many mistakes, unleashed his temper too often, despite his duty as a representative of the law to remain dispassionate. No surprise that he seldom slept without a nightmare. From the moment he’d met Faith, he’d been afraid he would taint her if he let himself succumb to temptation and get too close.
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