Notorious

by Iris Johansen

  “There’s nowhere to run that you can’t be found.”

  “That’s what I mean. Back then there were … havens. Places and times where you could set real life aside and live for a while in blackberry winter.”

  He looked down at her, his face half-shadowed in the darkness. “Blackberry winter?”

  “I grew up in the city, but my mother’s people were farmers. I spent several summers on their farm in North Carolina when I was a child. I always remember the blackberry winters.”

  “What the devil is a blackberry winter?”

  “In May there’s usually a last cold snap before the heat of the summer comes. That’s when the blackberries ripen.” Her voice softened. “Dear Lord, how I loved that time.”

  “Better than spring?”

  She nodded. “It was a time apart. The hues of the flowers seemed more brilliant, the air was fresher, sharper, and when the early mist wreathed the fields, it was as if the earth had just been born.” The wind was rising and caught a silky strand of her hair, splaying it over her cheek and mouth. She paused to pushed the strand back before she went on. “My grandfather used to say the blackberry winter was to remind us how beautiful the spring had been and how wonderful the summer to come was going to be. But I thought it was something more, a special gift that was all the more precious because it lasted such a short time and then was gone.”

  Sabin stopped in the middle of the runway. “I wish I could see your face.”

  “Why?”

  “Because my instinct tells me something is damn wrong with you.” His hands cupped her cheeks. “Why are you talking about havens and blackberry winters?”

  “No reason.” She hesitated. “I’m lying. There is a reason.” She went into his arms and burrowed her head in his shoulder. He felt so strong and alive and here. “I think you need a haven, Sabin. I just hope you find it someday. I hope all your days are filled with springtime and your nights with the songs of summer.”

  He was silent a moment, his arms slowly tightening around her. “You’re scaring the hell out of me. I don’t give a damn about your havens or your seasons,” he said huskily. “All I want is what we have together now.” His lips covered her own with a passion that held an element of desperation.

  Now. The present. No future. Just the poignant, vivid beauty of this time apart from the rest of their lives. She could feel the tears sting her eyes and was glad of the darkness as her arms slid around his neck.

  “Let’s go back to the trailer,” he muttered between hot, hard kisses. “I want you …”

  But only for the length of the blackberry winter.

  Mallory blocked out the thought as the bittersweet pain swept through her. “Yes, let’s go back now.” She stepped back and turned to retrace her steps, reaching out blindly to grasp his hand. Every touch, every word, was precious now. She clung to his hand as they swiftly moved across the tarmac of the runway past the silent, ancient planes of yesterday.

  NINE

  A KNOCK SOUNDED on the door of the trailer.

  Mallory tensed, her hands clenching on the pair of slacks she had been about to toss in the suitcase. Sabin?

  No, it couldn’t be Sabin. He had only left forty minutes before to go to the hospital to see Carey. And besides, Sabin wouldn’t knock. She dropped the slacks on top of the other clothes she had hurriedly thrown in the suitcase and strode across the trailer to open the door.

  James Delage grinned up at her. “How about taking pity on a stranger in a strange land and going to lunch with—” He broke off as he saw her brilliant eyes and tear-streaked cheeks. “What’s wrong?”

  “I’d rather not talk about it. Okay?” She smiled tremulously. “It’s good to see you, James. I’ve been meaning to call you but—”

  “Cut it out.” James climbed the steps, his wide brow furrowed in a frown. “We’ve been friends too long for you to be polite to me. If you don’t want to talk, that’s fine, but no polite chitchat.” His glance fell on the open suitcase on the couch. “You’re going somewhere?”

  She nodded. “Home. I finished up my part in the picture yesterday, and Handel told me this morning the rushes were fine.” She closed the suitcase and snapped the lock. “So, it looks like I’ll be seeing Gerda before you do. Do you have any messages for her?”

  “You’re leaving today?”

  “The one o’clock flight to New York.” She lifted the suitcase from the sofa and set it with the other two on the floor beside the telephone. “I just have to turn in my trailer key and then call a taxi.”

  “Give me the key. I’ll run it over to the commissary and drop it off with someone there while you finish packing.”

  Mallory searched in her handbag, brought out the key, and handed it to him. “Thanks, James, I’m very grateful. Everything seems too much to cope with today.”

  James smiled and said lightly, “I’m just being selfish. I hate traveling alone.”

  She looked at him in bewilderment.

  “I just dropped by to take you to lunch and say good-bye. I wound up my business with Sedikhan Oil yesterday. I was going to fly out tomorrow but now we can go together.” He turned and opened the door. “We’ll drop by my hotel and pick up my luggage on the way to the airport.”

  She frowned. “Are you sure you’re not inconveniencing yourself because you think I need a shoulder to lean on? It’s time you stopped playing big brother to me, James.”

  He glanced over his shoulder. “Don’t be silly. I told you I was just being selfish. Finish packing while I bring the car around from the parking area.” He smiled. “Don’t worry. You’ll feel much better once you’re on the plane and leaving this place behind. You don’t belong here any more than I do. Once I get you back to New York, you’ll see how your perspective will change. You’ll stay with us for a few weeks, and Sedikhan will fade into a bad dream.”

  “I can’t stay with you,” Mallory protested. “You and Gerda don’t have the room.”

  “We took a cottage for two months by the sea with the money from your legal fees. There’s plenty of room.” He made a face. “If you can stand Gerda’s guitar playing.”

  “I can stand it.” Mallory’s eyes filled with tears. Leaving Sabin was proving to be agonizingly difficult, and it was good to know she wouldn’t be alone in New York. “You’re a very nice man, James.”

  “Certainly. Why else would Gerda have married me?”

  He didn’t wait for an answer but ran down the steps.

  “You’re officially sprung.” Sabin propelled the wheelchair into Carey’s hospital room. “I see you’re already dressed. Hop out of that bed and into the chariot. That dragon at the nurse’s station won’t let you leave the premises under your own steam.”

  “In a minute.” Carey covered the mouthpiece of the receiver with his hand. “I’ve got the office on the line. They’re checking on something for me.”

  Sabin grinned and shook his head as he saw the scrawled notes on the yellow legal pad on the table beside the phone. “I’m the one who’s supposed to be the workaholic. How many times have you told me I should relax when I’m away from the office?”

  “This is different.” Carey’s expression was surprisingly serious. “Did those witnesses identify the make of the car that hit me?”

  Sabin’s grin vanished. “I haven’t called the police yet this morning. Why?”

  “Because I think it would be a damn good idea to check. I got bored lying here doing nothing last night and started to add things up. We may not have—” He broke off and spoke into the receiver. “You’ve got it? Good. Read it to me.” He listened, scrawling more notes on the pad in front of him. “Okay. Thanks, Heidi.” He hung up the receiver.

  “What’s this all about, Carey?”

  “Call the police.” Carey picked up the receiver again and handed it to Sabin. “Then we’ll compare notes.”

  Sabin hesitated, then took the phone and made the call. A few minutes later he hung up. “A Renault. Both witnesses final
ly agreed on the make.”

  Carey nodded. “A navy blue Renault.” He picked up one of the slips of paper on the bedside table. “A 1989 two-door Renault. License 248J3. It’s a rental car, rented at the airport to James Delage.”

  Sabin stiffened. “What the hell are you saying?”

  “I’m saying that my accident had nothing to do with you.” Carey paused. “And everything to do with Mallory.”

  “Mallory?”

  “It didn’t fit,” Carey said. “Delage said Sedikhan Oil refused to pay his wife’s expenses to Sedikhan, and it bothered me. You know I can’t let something go when it bothers me.”

  “A bulldog,” Sabin agreed, frowning.

  “And he wasn’t Gregory Peck. He was a very on-edge Anthony Perkins.”

  “You’re not making sense. Tell me.”

  “He was jealous,” Carey said simply. “He saw me in Mallory’s trailer and thought I was sleeping with her. He didn’t know I was standing in for you. If he’d seen you that night with Mallory, you’d have been the one run over by that Renault.”

  Sabin felt as if he’d been punched in the stomach. “Lord, you mean Delage …”

  Carey nodded. “I had Heidi call Sedikhan Oil. They never heard of James Delage.” He reached for the legal pad. “And I had her dig up that file that Randolph’s Detective Agency sent us. It was just filed away since you said you weren’t interested in more than the current information. Delage entered the Markhan Home for the Mentally Ill near Columbus, Ohio, when he was only sixteen. He had stabbed his ex-girlfriend and beaten up her then current boyfriend. The girl lived, and he was released at eighteen—supposedly completely cured.” Carey lifted his gaze to meet Sabin’s. “He was diagnosed as schizophrenic and extremely violent when he entered the asylum.”

  Sabin sat down on the edge of the bed. “Lord.” His gaze lifted to Carey’s. “Ben?”

  Carey nodded. “I think it’s likely he formed an attachment for Mallory and murdered Ben to free her. Then he came to her rescue by acting as her attorney, but Mallory never saw him as anything but the husband of her friend. He must have been seething with frustration and jealousy. That’s why he made all those telephone calls and hung up when she answered.”

  “What telephone calls?” Sabin asked sharply.

  “Mallory asked me not to tell you,” Carey said sheepishly. “She had been receiving nuisance calls ever since Ben died.”

  “If you’d seen fit to inform me, you might not be in the hospital now,” Sabin muttered. “She got a phone call in the middle of the night two days ago. I answered it.”

  Carey gave a low whistle. “And Delage thought it was me.”

  Sabin nodded. “He’d never heard my voice before and probably assumed you and Mallory—” He broke off and shot to his feet. “Come on, let’s get back to the trailer. Mallory …”

  Carey tossed the legal pad aside, hopped off the bed and into the wheelchair. “You think she’s in danger?”

  “Delage killed one man and tried to kill another for her,” Sabin said grimly as he pushed the wheelchair toward the door. “How do you think he’s going to react when he confronts her with his feelings for her, and she rejects him?”

  “James, it’s perfectly charming.” Mallory peeked over the edge of the balcony extending over the cliff’s edge. The light from the bedroom behind her beamed out over the night dark ocean, and she could barely discern the white curl of the surf as it crashed against the rocks two hundred feet below. “And you call this a cottage? The setting reminds me of that seaside mansion in Rebecca. I half-expect to see a brooding Mrs. DeWinter lurking somewhere in the background. However did you manage to afford a house like this?”

  “I struck it lucky. The previous tenant had an unexpected death in his family and had to give up his lease and leave suddenly.”

  “Gerda’s station wagon wasn’t in the driveway. Where do you suppose she is?”

  “Maybe she’s communing with nature on the beach.” James smiled. “She’ll be back all sandy and wind-tossed, swearing at the top of her lungs, because I didn’t let her know we were coming today.”

  “That sounds like her.” Poignant loneliness swept through Mallory as she gazed out into the darkness. What was Sabin doing now all those thousands of miles away in Sedikhan?

  But she mustn’t think about Sabin. It hurt too much. She turned her back on the sea and leaned back on the balcony balustrade to look at James. “You’ve been wonderful. I know I wasn’t very good company on the flight from Marasef.”

  “You’re always good company. You don’t have to entertain me, Mallory. I understand you. I’m the only one who does understand you.” He turned away. “Just rest and forget all about Litzke while I bring up the luggage. There’s a robe in the closet you might like to slip on.”

  “I’ll wait to unpack.”

  “No!” His voice was so sharp it startled her. “Put on the robe, Mallory. You’ll spoil everything if you don’t.”

  “What do you mean?”

  The door shut behind James.

  She stared at the door. The expression on James’s face had been … strange. Mallory moved slowly across the room and opened the door of the closet.

  The robe hanging in the otherwise empty closet was white, filmy, extravagantly lovely, and had a designer label.

  “Do you like it?”

  Mallory whirled around to face James who was once again standing in the doorway. “You didn’t knock.”

  “I couldn’t wait any longer. I knew you wouldn’t be able to resist looking at it.” He leaned against the doorjamb, a pleased smile on his face. “I had to see your face when you saw my first present to you.”

  “Present? James, that robe cost a great deal of money. I know you and Gerda can’t afford—”

  “Stop talking about Gerda,” he said pettishly. “You know Gerda has nothing to do with this.”

  Bitter disappointment sank through her as she thought she began to understand. Lord, a pass from James. “Where’s Gerda, James?”

  “At home. She won’t bother us. Don’t worry, I took care of everything.” He stopped and shook his head. “I tried to talk to her, but she didn’t understand.”

  “Neither do I.” Mallory closed the closet door. “But I’m beginning to get a glimmering of what’s going on. I paid you your legal fees, James, and I have no intention of giving you a tip in the form of a one-night stand.”

  “Oh, no,” he said softly. “This isn’t a one-night stand. This is eternity, Mallory. I’ve forgiven you for Ben and for Litzke, but now you’ve got to understand your unfaithfulness must end.”

  “Litzke?” Mallory felt a chill run down her spine. This was the second time he had mentioned Carey, and she was beginning to suspect something more terrible than she wanted to admit even to herself. “Why are you talking about Carey?”

  “I had to punish him, Mallory.” James smiled. “No one must ever have you again but me. The first time Gerda brought you home, I knew you and I were meant to be together.”

  “No!”

  “Yes.” James took a step forward, his eyes glittering wildly in his taut face. “I dream of you. You make me dream of you, and then you pretend you don’t know. It has to end.”

  “I never intended…” She shook her head dazedly. “You ran Carey down. You could have killed him.”

  “You made me do it with your infidelity. Just like you made me kill Ben.”

  She closed her eyes. “Dear Lord, Ben too?”

  “I knew you were unhappy. I knew Ben was keeping us from what we could have together.”

  “James.” Her eyes opened, and she tried to speak slowly and clearly. “There is nothing between us. You were only my friend.”

  “I was your lover. I dreamed it every night. Why do you keep saying—”

  “No!” She bolted past him, evading his clutching hand, reaching out to grab her as she passed him. She flew out the door, down the hall, and down the steps.

  “Mallory!” James’s
utterance was a howl of rage. “Stop! Come back to me!”

  She could hear his footsteps on the stairs pounding behind her.

  “I’ll punish you!” James screamed. “Do you think I’ll ever let you leave me? We have to be together. You can’t leave me.”

  Her breath was coming in harsh, painful gasps as she flew out the front door and ran down the path bordering the cliff. The night was moonless, starless, and she could see nothing in the darkness.

  “Mallory!”

  He was closer.

  She kicked off her high heels and darted toward the edge of the cliff. Perhaps there was a path or—

  She collided with a man’s solid body. Strong arms closed tightly about her, holding her captive.

  She screamed!

  “Shh, it’s all right.”

  She struggled wildly, kicking at his shins, trying to get away.

  “Mallory, dammit, it’s me.”

  Sabin!

  Her knees gave way, and she collapsed against him. “Run! I don’t—Sabin…” Her hands clutched at his arms. “James. He killed Ben. He’s not—”

  He smoothed her hair back from her face. “The police have Delage.”

  “No, he’s right behind me.”

  “If you turn around, you can see the officers taking him to the police car.”

  “I don’t want to turn around.” She shuddered, her arms tightening around him as she remembered James’s glittering eyes. “I don’t want to see him.”

  “Mallory!” James’s voice was shrill with despair. “You can’t leave me. We belong together.”

  Mallory hid her face in Sabin’s shoulder.

  “I’ll kill you! I won’t let you leave—”

  “Stop him!”

  Mallory whirled to see James breaking away from the uniformed policeman holding him.

  She froze, gazing at the man running toward her in horror.

  “Don’t shoot!” Sabin yelled at the policeman. “You’ll hit Mallory.” He muttered a curse and pushed Mallory behind him as he turned to Delage. “You don’t want to kill Mallory. It’s me you want, Delage. You made a mistake, it was never Carey. I’m the one who’s taking her away from you.”