Finger Prints

by Barbara Delinsky

  Through dinner, he kept a close watch on her, talking softly with her during those times when the judge on her other side felt obliged to eat. As for herself, she barely tasted the filet mignon before her.

  “You’re not eating,” Ryan whispered at one point. “Don’t like the fare?”

  “The fare’s fine,” she replied as softly. “It’s the table I don’t like. Why is it that the head table is always long and straight, and on a stage, no less. Everyone else has a lovely round table. I feel like we’re on display.”

  “We’re important people,” he teased, feeling incredibly buoyed by the events of the day.

  She plucked at a minuscule piece of lint on his sleeve. “I’d rather be less important. You didn’t tell me we’d be stuck up here.”

  “I didn’t know. Smile. They’re all looking.”

  She plastered a smile on her face. “When do you speak?”

  “Right after this course, I think. Relax, babe. It’s not that bad.”

  “Aren’t you nervous?”

  “Nah. I’ve spoken before groups larger and more important than this one.”

  She passed an eye over the crowd, then ran her gaze down the length of the head table. “This kind of thing always reminds me of The Last Supper.” Stifling a shiver, she looked out at the throng. “Wonder who’ll play the part of Judas?”

  “No Judas. They’re friends, Carly.” Beneath the table, he ran his hand along her thigh and leaned closer. “I doubt any of the Apostles were thinking what I am now.”

  A more natural grin softened the lines of her lips, and she met Ryan’s gaze with the warmth he would always inspire. “You have a dirty mind, Ryan Cornell. What do you think they—” she tossed her head toward the crowd “—would think of that?”

  “They’d be jealous. They are jealous. You may not have noticed, but a number of my illustrious colleagues have been staring at you covetously,” he drawled, squeezing her hand when a nearby gavel rapped.

  Swept up in the excitement of Ryan’s imminent speech, Carly thrust his words into the recesses of her mind. Meanwhile, in a far corner of the room, one of those colleagues was indeed staring at Carly, not with covetousness but the intense curiosity of one trying to place a face. Again and again, as Ryan spoke, the man’s gaze returned to her. When recognition finally dawned, it was followed by puzzlement. Not until the address was over, several other speeches and awards given, dessert downed and the dinner adjourned, did he make his move.

  The crowd milled in large groups. He wound his way through them to the front of the room where, off the stage now, Ryan stood with Carly by his side. They were surrounded by people. He waited, studying Carly intently, biding his time until the crowd thinned.

  Glowing with pride both in Ryan’s speech and in his audience’s enthusiastic reception of it, Carly didn’t see the onlooker at first. Her smile was more relaxed than it had been all evening as she listened to Ryan graciously accept congratulations and thanks and comments on the points he had made. Only when two lawyers moved aside to make way for several others did her gaze bounce off the man waiting several yards away. With Ryan, she turned her attention to the new-comers. But something had jarred her. Her smile faded. For an instant her mind flashed the image of another place, another city, and she felt a sense of unease.

  Puzzled, she let her eye wander. Within minutes it settled on the face of the man who stood watchfully to the side, and her pulse lurched. For as long as she lived, she would remember that face along with every detail of the Chicago trial. It was that of Mancusi’s assistant, the young associate who had sat at the defense table on the far side of one Gary Culbert.

  “Uh, Ryan?” she whispered, tugging at his sleeve, heedless of what she might be interrupting. “I’m going to run to the ladies’ room. I’ll be back, okay?”

  A flicker of concern crossed his face at the sight of hers drained of color. But she managed a smile, and he accepted the fact that she might simply be fatigued. “Sure, babe. We won’t stay much longer. Why don’t I meet you at the door?”

  So much the better. “Okay.”

  Without another glance at the man whose presence terrified her, she turned and wound her way through the crowd, finding relief for her shaky legs on a cushioned stool in the powder room. She took several deep breaths, raised a trembling hand to her forehead, propped her elbow on the counter and closed her eyes.

  Back in the ornate dining room, Ryan had neatly wound up the conversation and was about to make his escape when a man approached and extended his hand.

  “Frank Pritzak, Mr. Cornell. That was a very impressive talk.”

  Ryan nodded, noting that this man seemed more somber faced than the others who’d come by. “Thank you.” He frowned. “Pritzak. That’s an unusual name. I’m sure I would have remembered it if I’d heard it before. You don’t practice locally, do you?”

  “Chicago.”

  A tiny alarm went off in Ryan’s mind, but he schooled his expression to one of calm. “Chicago.” He nodded. “Are you with a firm?”

  “Mancusi and Wolff. We handle mostly criminal work, just as you do.” He went quickly on. “I was curious about the woman you’re with. She looks very familiar.”

  “Oh?”

  “Has she spent time in Chicago?”

  “She’s from San Diego.”

  “Has she been here long?”

  “Long enough.”

  He stared off in the direction Carly had gone. “She looks very much like a woman who testified in one of our cases last summer. She was on the other side. State’s witness. I believe she was relocated by the government after the trial. But—” he straightened “—if your woman’s been here, I must be wrong.”

  Ryan stood, heart pounding, waiting for the man to go on. When he did it was on a note of perplexity.

  “Funny. I was sure it was her. I suppose the hair’s different. The woman I knew had long straight hair. And the eyes. She had blue ones.” He chuckled. “Never could mistake those. They stood out across that courtroom like nothing else.” He shook his head in admiration. “She was one tough lady, Robyn Hart. It was an arson trial. She’d been a reporter investigating the story for the local paper. Before that, she’d lost her own husband in a fire.” As though realizing he was rambling, he cast an apologetic smile Ryan’s way. “She was a beautiful woman, even if she did screw up our case. Your woman’s just as beautiful.” He clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth and narrowed one eye for a moment longer. “Same face. Hmph. I guess I’m just a sucker for the pretty ones.” Then, with a philosophical shrug, he relaxed his features and stuck out his hand. “Anyway, enjoy her.”

  It took every bit of self-control Ryan possessed to shake the other man’s hand with a semblance of composure. His limbs felt stiff, his insides frozen. Even his “Thanks” sounded wooden.

  Turning, he headed for the door, where he scanned the lobby until at last Carly appeared. He wasn’t sure what to say or do; his hands felt like ice. He retrieved their coats and silently led her to the car.

  Unaware of the conversation that had taken place in her absence, Carly breathed a sigh of relief as Ryan drove off. “You did well,” she said. “They loved you.”

  “Good crowd, for lawyers.”

  There was an edge to his voice that she might have easily attributed to sarcasm had she been listening. But she wasn’t. Her thoughts were dominated by her own attempt to recover from what had to be the closest call she’d had with true and utter exposure since she had assumed the identity of Carly Quinn. Hands clasped tightly around her purse, she turned her thoughts to what she had to say to Ryan as soon as they got home. After what had happened tonight, it was all the more imperative that she tell him. As each revolution of the wheels brought them closer to Cambridge, the terror she had felt at seeing a face from her past slowly turned to apprehension.

  Amid her own tension, she was oblivious to Ryan’s. They drove, then arrived home, in silence. Only at Carly’s open door did Ryan speak, hi
s tone one of well-modulated nonchalance.

  “Listen, I’m going down to my place to make one or two calls. I’ll be up a little later.”

  Simultaneously disappointed and relieved, she nodded and watched him retreat down the stairs. Her gaze clung to his dark head, bowed in concentration, and she wondered, fleetingly, what calls would be so important at an hour like this.

  Closing herself into her apartment, she glanced at her watch. Ten o’clock. Not that late at all. The better part of the night was ahead.

  Stomach knotting, she changed into a pair of jeans and one of the sweat shirts Ryan had left in her closet, then sank into a chair in the living room to await him. Fifteen minutes later he hadn’t come. Heading for the kitchen for some tea to settle her stomach, she wondered what the outcome of the night would be. He would be angry and hurt. But if he loved her….

  Another fifteen minutes passed and she grew restless. It was the waiting that was so bad. She half wished she had blurted it all out in the car on the way home, but Ryan had been as quiet as she. She assumed he’d been preoccupied thinking of the dinner. Perhaps he’d been thinking about something one of those people had said. What had they said? She tried to remember, but realized that she’d been concentrating solely on Ryan.

  Sipping her tea, she shifted in her chair, then stood and wandered around the apartment, waiting, wondering. Who was he calling? Another glance at her watch told her it had been forty-five minutes since he had left her at her door. It wasn’t like him to stay away for long. For that matter, it wasn’t like him to need to use his own phone. Hers had been more than adequate from the start.

  A small smile curved her lips as she thought back on those first encounters. She had been intrigued by him then, if a little frightened. But he had quickly put her at ease, taking things ever so slowly and gently, as was his style. This morning, ah, this morning she had seen a side of him she would rather forget. He had been cold and angry, but it had been her fault. She shouldn’t have kept things from him for so long. He was too intelligent, too perceptive not to sense that there were some things she never discussed, some things she kept hidden from him.

  She sighed. As soon as he arrived, she would tell him.

  But he didn’t arrive. The slim gold hands of her watch rotated slowly. Eleven. Eleven-ten. Eleven-fifteen. Eleven twenty-five. She told herself to be patient, but her nerves didn’t listen. They jumped and jangled, jolting at any tiny sound. There was no sound, though, of a key in the lock. Finally, unable to bear the suspense any longer, she hurried to the kitchen and dialed his number.

  The phone rang. And rang. Nine. Ten. Eleven times. She hung up. Maybe he was in the bathroom. Maybe he was, at that moment, on his way up. Crossing to the door, she put her eye to the viewer and watched in anticipation, heart pounding, palms pressed flat to the cold metal expanse.

  When enough time had elapsed to eliminate the possibility of his having been en route when she’d called, she raced back to the phone and tried again. By the eighth ring she wondered if something was wrong. Heedless of the safety factor that three months before would have kept her cowering behind her locks, she left the front door wide open and, barefoot, dashed down the stairs. She knocked on the door, then pounded more loudly, then pressed a finger to the bell in a nonvocal cry for help.

  After what seemed an eternity, she dropped her hand and, turning, slowly made her way back upstairs. She locked the door, set the alarm, then slumped in utter disbelief against the wall.

  She didn’t understand. Ryan would never run out without telling her. He knew she was waiting. He’d said he would be up. After his delight when she’d said she loved him, the flowers, embraces filled with such promise, it didn’t make sense.

  All she could do was to wait, which she did, huddled in a corner of the sofa as midnight passed and one o’clock became two, then three and four. By dawn she was frantic. It had been one thing when she’d been able to tell herself that a legal emergency had called him out, though she had no idea what kind of legal emergency would do that at such an hour, and she had even less idea why he wouldn’t have let her know. But with the passage of more than eight long hours and still no word, she had to assume that something was wrong. It was then, with the first rays of light spilling onto the rug, that her imagination went to work.

  Her first thought was that there had been some family emergency that had taken him out so suddenly. Perhaps one of his parents was ill. Perhaps Tom was in trouble again. In either case, he would surely have called. He would never have left her alone and expecting him momentarily. Especially now, when he knew that she loved him.

  Her second thought, one that filled her with sudden dread, was that he knew more about her than that she loved him. She recalled the something that had been bothering him, the something he had passed off as a vague “nothing.” What if he’d little by little put the pieces together, what if he’d purposely left her, what if, what if he’d finally given up. What if—her blood froze—the man at the dinner had said something.

  Trembling, she pressed a fist to her mouth to stifle a cry, for there was a third possibility, coming fast on the second. If, indeed, Ryan had somehow learned the truth about her, he might be in danger. If one of Culbert’s men had been following her, Ryan might have been snatched up as a hostage, or a source of information. She imagined him suffering unspeakable tortures and ground her head against her knees to force the thought from her mind.

  Instinctively she had known that to tell Ryan the truth would be to risk his safety. There had been good reason why neither her father nor her brothers had been told where she lived; the less they knew, the less they would have to offer an evil-minded hunter. But Ryan knew just about everything to do with her present life, and if he also now knew about her past….

  For a moment she thrust aside that possibility and focused on his returning to her with a viable excuse for his absence. Perhaps her secrets were better kept, for his safety if nothing else. But that was self-delusion, she knew. Ryan was endangered by simple association with her, whether he knew the truth or not.

  With a helpless shudder, she conjured up all kinds of terrifying thoughts. In one, they would be trapped inside her bedroom while deadly gas poured in through the heating vent. In another, their car would be rigged to malfunction when it reached a certain speed on the highway. It would easily pass as an accident. She could see the headline now: “Prominent lawyer and girlfriend killed in freak accident on the Massachusetts Turnpike.”

  A car bomb would be very effective, as would an ambush on a deserted country road some peaceful Sunday afternoon. They wouldn’t have a chance.

  Then her eye caught the flicker of sunlight on the frame of the picture that stood on the lacquered shelf against the living-room wall. If they were armed with machine guns of their own, they could protect themselves, or try, as Bonnie and Clyde had done. But Bonnie and Clyde had died.

  With a cry of despair, she jumped from the sofa and slammed the picture face down. Shaking all over, she thrust her fingers into her hair, closed her fist and tugged, as though trying to pull from her mind every ugly possibility that lurked there. But it was no use. Ryan was gone, and she didn’t know what to do.

  She knew what she wanted to do, but she waited. To call Sam and dump her tale of woe on him, given the distinct possibility that Ryan had simply left on his own, seemed premature. Unsteady, she brewed a pot of coffee and waited. And waited. And waited, until even that particular humiliation seemed nothing compared to the possible danger Ryan might be in.

  Sam was home, as she had prayed. “Hello?”

  “Sam?” Her voice was tremulous.

  “Carly? Is that you?”

  Tears suddenly filled her eyes. “Yes. Sam….”

  “What is it, hon? A problem about tonight?” He had been frankly surprised that Ryan had agreed to their dinner date so readily. “Listen, we could make it another—”

  “No. It’s not that. Well, it is, I guess—” Her voice cracked and she bro
ke. “Oh, God, Sam! I don’t know where Ryan is! We went to a dinner last night and got back here and he went downstairs to change and said he’d be up after he made a couple of calls and he never came.” Her soft sobs filled the line. Sam had to wait until she’d quieted to speak.

  “Did you argue about something?” he asked gently.

  “No. Well…in a way…yesterday morning. But we patched that up. And he brought me flowers. And it was going to be all right because I was going to tell him everything.” She began to cry again.

  Sam tightened his grip on the phone. “Take it easy, hon. I’m sure there’s some explanation. Want me to come out?”

  She sniffled. “I hate to ask you. I know it’s Saturday. But I’m so worried. I keep imagining all kinds of terrible things. I don’t know what to do.”

  “I’ll be there, Carly,” he said firmly. “Just stay put. And, please, hon, don’t worry. We’ll find out where he is. There’s got to be some explanation.”

  That was what she kept telling herself for the forever it seemed to take Sam to arrive. By the time he did, she had composed herself enough to tell him everything, from the events of the day before and the startling presence of that face from Chicago, back to smaller things, things of a more personal nature that might help him help her. She spared nothing, from Ryan’s growing frustration, to his wanting her to have his children, to her fear that he had simply dumped her.

  “I won’t believe that until I hear it from the horse’s mouth,” was Sam’s forceful response. “I saw the way he looked at you the other day. The man’s in love. A love like that doesn’t just go away.”

  Carly crossed the room and picked up the photograph she’d turned over earlier. Looking at Ryan’s image, so manly, so strong and protective, she felt the deep pain of yearning. “I hope you’re right.”

  “I am. There has to be some explanation for all this. We’ll try to get something on the guy from Chicago, but you say Ryan didn’t talk with him.”