“Ah.” Rachel joined Michelle at the window. Outside, the growing dusk had robbed the hillsides of color and detail and reduced them to a series of gentle scallops that surrounded the farm like the crust of a pie. “And you don’t want children?”
“He can’t understand why. I work with children, I love kids. He can’t understand why I don’t want a houseful of my own.” Michelle paused. “But you understand, don’t you?”
Their eyes met, and again Rachel felt the ghost of Judith Goddard hovering between them. Respected psychologist, secret child snatcher. Tall and auburn-haired, looking so much like Rachel that no one had ever doubted they were parent and child. But this moment of shared memory felt shockingly different, because Michelle seemed to be offering something she had always before stubbornly withheld: an admission that Judith had done irreparable damage to her life as well as Rachel’s.
“I’d be such an overprotective mother that my kids would hate me,” Rachel said. “I’d be constantly terrified that I couldn’t keep a child safe. I might get distracted or turn my back for one minute…”
“And the child would be gone,” Michelle finished in a whisper. “Gone forever.”
Like us. And children weren’t safe even after they reached young adulthood. A girl of twenty-two could still disappear, could end up murdered, discarded like trash along the road.
They stood in silence, looking not at each other but out the window, into the darkening afternoon. The momentary closeness between them tasted bittersweet, purchased with painful memories. Rachel knew she was risking this delicate connection, but she had to ask, “Does Kevin know? Have you told him yet?”
Michelle flinched and she seemed to pull into herself, hunching her shoulders and wrapping her arms tightly around her waist, like a small animal under attack. She shook her head.
“Oh, Mish,” Rachel said. “You have to. You’re married to him. Don’t you think he has a right to know? It might help him understand why you’re reluctant to have children.”
“He thinks he knows who I am. How can I tell him—”
“It’s not as if you’ll change into a different person,” Rachel said. “You are who you are, regardless of who your parents were.”
“Then what’s the point of telling him some sordid story about being kidnapped? What if I told him and he insisted that I have to go to the police, I have to hand them the solution to this old crime that everybody’s forgotten about? Rachel, I know Kevin. That’s how he would react, I can promise you. I can’t face it, you know that. You aren’t going to tell him, are you?”
“No, of course not. It’s between you and Kevin. I would never interfere.” If Michelle was right about the way he would react, Rachel could only be relieved that her sister planned to keep her husband in ignorance.
“Does Tom know?” Michelle asked, throwing the question at Rachel like a challenge.
“Yes, he does. Not every single little detail, but the basic facts. I told him before I moved in with him.”
“He’s a policeman,” Michelle said, her voice tinged with alarm. “Doesn’t he want you to bring it out in the open?”
“He wants me to do what feels right to me.” Rachel’s mind jumped to their real family, the ordeal they had suffered, the uncertainty she and Michelle had deliberately chosen not to end. “I told him about going to see Barbara. Our…mother. I told him I didn’t like her, I didn’t feel any connection to her. And I think—I know, I remember—that she was a lousy mother to us. If she hadn’t neglected us, Judith couldn’t have taken us. I don’t want her in my life, and Tom understands that. I don’t have a mother. That’s just the way it has to be.”
Michelle startled her by sliding a hand into hers. “Does Tom want to have children?”
Oh god, yes. Desperately. Rachel saw it in his face every time they were with his little nephew Simon. But instead of answering, Rachel deflected the question with a forced laugh. “Tom and I aren’t even married. It’s a little premature for us to talk about having children.”
“Are you going to marry him?”
“I don’t know.” Why were they talking about her and Tom getting married and having babies? Michelle was the one with the problem. Yeah, right. And everything in my life is perfect. Rachel added, “People around here are pretty conservative, and I guess it would be easier for Tom if we got married. With him running for sheriff, I mean.”
“Oh, Rachel, you can’t marry him just to help him get elected sheriff.”
“No, but—”
“Don’t let him push you into anything.”
“He isn’t pushing me.” Not quite the truth. But Michelle made Rachel want to defend Tom, defend her relationship with him. She pulled her hand from Michelle’s grasp.
“You have to do what’s right for you,” Michelle said. “And so do I. Even if it means…”
Michelle didn’t finish her thought, but her fear of losing her husband was clear enough. As if signaling an end to the discussion, she grabbed the cord on the blinds, snapped them shut, and yanked the curtains closed. She brushed past Rachel and stepped around the bed to the window on the other side.
“Hey,” Rachel said, “you haven’t had any more of those phone calls or e-mails since this morning, have you? That’s something to be glad of.”
“No, not a one.” Michelle moved to the double window that looked out onto the front yard and closed the blinds and curtains there. She tried to grin but didn’t quite manage it. “You were so ferocious on the phone this morning. Maybe you scared him off. You put the fear of Rachel in him.”
“Ha. I wish it were that easy to stop him.” How could they stop somebody who never showed himself, who seemed able to come and go at will, a shadow that could walk through locked doors, leaving no trace of himself behind?
Chapter Seventeen
“So he did follow me. He’s here.” Michelle dropped her fork onto her plate with a clank and turned accusing eyes on Rachel. “Why didn’t you tell me he got into your office? Why didn’t you tell me this morning, when you saw what he’d done? Why do I have to hear about it from Tom?”
Rachel reached to lay a hand on her sister’s arm, but Michelle shook it off. “I wanted to be sure first,” Rachel said. “I didn’t want to upset you unnecessarily.”
Michelle’s hands curled into fists on each side of her plate. “Will you stop protecting me? Stop treating me like a child, Rachel. This concerns me more than anyone else. Me. I have a right to know.”
Rachel huffed a sigh and muttered, “When will I ever learn?” She wadded her napkin and threw the rumpled cloth on the table. “All right, you’ve got it. I won’t spare you a thing from now on.”
“Look,” Tom said, “there’s no point in arguing over this. Let’s look at the facts and go on from there.” Before either of them could speak, he told Michelle, “I don’t know how he caught up with you so fast. Maybe he was watching your house when you left and tailed you out here. That level of stalking indicates we’re dealing with somebody dangerous. Anyway, the call you got this morning came from inside Mason County. We’ve only got one cell phone tower, the one outside Mountainview, and the signal originated nearby.”
“Was he watching me through the window when he called?” As Michelle grew more agitated, blotches of red bloomed on her pale cheeks. “Can you tell how close to me he was?”
“No, we can’t pinpoint a location. All we have is the information Sergeant Murray got from the service provider, and it’s not that detailed.”
He could be anywhere at any time, Rachel thought. He might be a man on the street, the driver of a passing car. She caught herself before she plunged headlong into panic. She might be annoyed as hell with her sister right now, but the lifelong instinct to protect Michelle was too strong to stifle. She had to stay calm and reassuring. “You’re never alone, Mish. He’s not going to get to you.”
“Sergeant Murray wants to talk to you tomorrow,” Tom told Michelle. “And he wants to take a look at that e-mail message.
We’ll do everything we can to stop this. Meanwhile, as long as you’re careful and stay around other people, you’ll be safe.”
Unless this lunatic has a gun, Rachel thought. Tom had to be thinking the same thing, and she was grateful he didn’t say it aloud.
With trembling fingers, Michelle lifted her napkin from her lap and folded it in half, then in quarters, then eighths. When she tried to force it into a tinier fold, Rachel touched her hand and murmured, “Mish.”
Michelle jerked away as if Rachel’s fingertips had burned her skin. Breathing audibly, she tucked the wad of cloth under the edge of her plate and pushed back her chair. “Thank you, Tom,” she said, her voice tight. “I know how busy you are, and I appreciate your taking the time to look into this. Excuse me, please.” She left the room with her head high and her back rigid.
When Michelle was gone, Tom said, “She’s right, you know. You need to stop trying to protect her. She can’t deal with this if she doesn’t have all the facts.”
“I know, I know.” Rachel leaned her forehead into her palm. “It’s a reflex I can’t seem to control.”
“She might be stronger than you think, but you’ll never find out if you don’t take off the kid gloves. Well, she knows now that the guy is close by. It’s better for her to be aware of the danger than to think she’s outrun it.”
“This is awful,” Rachel said. “And I probably made it worse this morning.”
“What are you talking about?” Tom’s voice took on an all too familiar edge of apprehension. He frowned. “Rachel, what did you do?”
She couldn’t look at him while she told him about grabbing the phone when the stalker called and launching into a rant.
“Oh, good god,” Tom groaned. “That’s the worst thing you could have done. Promise me you won’t do it again. Don’t engage him in any way.”
“I realized at the time that I was making a mistake, but I was so angry I couldn’t stop myself.”
“This is a bad time for me to go to Fairfax County.” Tom pushed his plate away and dropped his napkin onto the table.
“You don’t have to change your plans,” Rachel said. “You wouldn’t be watching over us every second even if you were here. We’ll be at the clinic all day, and Ben’s coming for dinner tomorrow night. Then Brandon will be here until you get back. What could possibly happen?”
Tom looked doubtful, but he said, “I can’t ignore the fact that Shelley disappeared in Fairfax County. And my gut is telling me Fagan missed something when he talked to the people who knew her.”
“I wouldn’t be at all surprised. He does have that tendency. Go and do your job. We’ll be fine.” Rachel tried to tamp down her own uneasiness and keep Tom from seeing it. Everything she’d said was true, after all: Michelle would be as safe with Tom gone as she would be if he were here.
“I’ll be back sometime during the evening, probably pretty late,” Tom said. “By the way, I postponed that civic club dinner we were supposed to go to. They’ll schedule it for later on.”
Rachel grimaced. “I wish we could cancel the damned thing. I hate being on display. I hate having to smile at people who think my soul needs to be saved because I live with a man I’m not married to.”
“There’s an easy fix for that, you know,” Tom said with a grin. “All you have to do is say yes.”
Why was he making a joke of it? Did he think he could jolly her out of her bad mood? Rachel pushed her chair back and stood. “Do you think it’s funny when people tell us how to live our lives? Oh, wait. They don’t hold it against you, do they? I get all the criticism. They think you’re a good man and I’m the scarlet woman leading you astray.”
“Rachel, for god’s sake.” Tom rose to face her. “Don’t you think you’re making it sound worse than it is?”
“I am not exaggerating.” Or was she? Maybe Tom was right and she was being overly sensitive. But no. Since she’d moved in with Tom, she’d had to put up with personal questions and disapproving attitudes from people who had no right to meddle in her life. She started clanking dinner plates and bread plates together on the table in a haphazard pile. “I’m tired of people I barely know asking me if we’ve set a date yet. What business is it of theirs?”
“None,” Tom said. “But people in a small community are nosy. It comes with the territory. And with me running for sheriff, well, it’s going to be worse for a while. I’m sorry about that. There’s not much we can do except put up with it.”
Irritation flared into anger, and she turned it on him. “Why should I put up with people prying into my life? Don’t you know how I feel about that? And just so we’re clear about it, I won’t let you pressure me into getting married just so a bunch of small-minded people will elect you sheriff.”
As soon as the words left her mouth, Rachel felt stupid, selfish, cruel. How could she say such a thing to him? “Oh, god, Tom, I’m sorry.”
He looked as if she’d hit him. Shocked. Hurt. “Is that what you think? That I expect you to marry me because it’ll help me get elected to an office I don’t even want?”
“No, no, of course not.” She stepped closer, laid a hand on his chest, pulled it back when his frown deepened.
“Where did that come from, Rachel? It didn’t even sound like you, but you wouldn’t have said it without a reason.”
It came from my sister. I’m letting her infect my mind, my life. “I’m sorry,” she said again. “I’m totally stressed out because of this thing with Michelle. But that’s no excuse.”
“Are you sure it’s just Michelle? Are you having second thoughts about me? About being with me?”
“No. Please don’t think—” Rachel broke off, sank back into her chair. She couldn’t find words to describe the darkness that lived inside her, the fear that wounds inflicted in the past would bleed into the new life she had created. Most of the time that fear floated along the outer edge of her consciousness, but Fagan’s visit coupled with her sister’s presence had energized it, and now it beat frantically inside her, bat wings flapping against cold black air.
“Rachel?” Tom sat down again across the table. “What’s really got you so upset?”
He wanted a coherent explanation, something concrete he could point to as the trigger for her agitation. He would think she was crazy if she let him glimpse the depth of the turmoil inside her.
She gave him what he wanted, simple cause and effect. “Detective Fagan paid me a visit today. He came to the clinic at lunchtime.”
“Aw, for god’s sake. I wish the bastard would go back where he belongs. What did he want? What did he say to you?”
“He wanted to be sure I knew he’s been digging around in my past. My family’s background.” Rachel pushed the stacked plates aside, clasped her hands on the tabletop. The words shuddered out of her. “He knows everything, Tom. He said he’d keep it to himself, but I don’t have any reason to trust him. Right now, I don’t know who scares me more, Fagan or the guy who’s stalking my sister.”
Chapter Eighteen
It was too damned early in the morning to have to deal with this crap. Tom grabbed a couple of notebooks and fresh pens from his desk drawer and slammed the drawer shut. “You stay the hell away from Rachel,” he told Fagan. “You crossed the line, and I won’t let you do it again.”
“Look,” Fagan said, verging on exasperation, “I thought I was doing the right—”
“She doesn’t want you deciding what’s right for her. She feels like you were threatening her.”
“Threatening her?” Fagan laughed. “Look, I’m sorry, but that’s paranoid. I never implied—”
“Don’t call her paranoid.” Tom pointed a finger at Fagan. “Stay away from her. Don’t go to the animal hospital, don’t even speak to her if you pass her on the street, and you’d sure as hell better stay away from our house.”
“Okay, okay, I hear you..” A red flush of anger crept up Fagan’s face. His hands dove into his pants pockets, and he started jingling his keys.
“We’ll go together,” Fagan said. “I’ll take you around—”
“I’d rather work on my own. Whether you go back home or not is up to you. Just stay away from Rachel.”
“I’m going to collect my stuff, then I’ll be right behind you. I’ll see you in Fairfax County, Captain.”
***
On the long drive northeast, Tom tried to collect his thoughts, organize the questions he wanted to ask Shelley’s friends and her coworkers at the Virginia Innocence Project, but his mind slid back to Rachel and the situation he was leaving behind in Mason County. He’d found no fingerprints on the frames in Rachel’s office except those of Rachel herself, but that proved nothing. Anybody who was savvy enough to get into a locked building without leaving evidence of a break-in wouldn’t handle objects with his bare hands.
He passed the turnoff to Roanoke and drove through rolling farmland toward Lexington, feeling more uneasy with every mile he put between himself and home.
Tom understood why the Montgomery County Police hadn’t pursued Michelle’s complaint after they found no hard evidence. But he knew Rachel wouldn’t concoct a story like this. If she believed someone entered the animal hospital while it was closed for the weekend, that was good enough for him. Last night she’d demonstrated, using pictures in their bedroom, the way the frames in her office had been repositioned. It couldn’t have happened accidentally, and the cleaning woman wouldn’t have done it.
The report from Michelle’s phone provider clinched it: the stalker had followed her to Mason County. He’d been in Rachel’s office once and might do it again. He could show up at the house in search of Michelle. So why the hell am I on my way to Northern Virginia?
Bleeding Through: A Rachel Goddard Mystery (Rachel Goddard Mysteries) Page 14