by Lucy Gordon
“I came because I had to,” he said. “I can’t just leave things like this.”
“Why? Because you’ve been suspended? I’d say that you’d come by your just deserts and things should be left exactly like that.”
With her brown eyes blazing at him, he remembered that as a model she’d been called Tiger Lady. She was rumored to have a short fuse and an explosive temperament, which had counted against her at the trial.
He remembered his first sight of her, three years ago, glamorous in a silk evening dress and velvet cape, her face skillfully made up. She’d been working for an escort agency and had just returned from a date when he’d called to “ask a few questions” about the violent death of her landlord, Henry Grainger. He’d made a professional note of her extravagant beauty, but it hadn’t moved him. His heart had died exactly two months, three weeks and two days earlier—the day his wife had been killed by a drunken driver.
If he’d felt anything about Megan’s looks it was antagonism at the expensive trappings that showed them off. The trappings were gone now. She wore no makeup, and her face was pale. The glamorous clothes were gone, too. Her plain cotton nightgown was mended in a couple of places, and her feet were bare. Yet an irreducible beauty remained. It was there in the high cheekbones and curved mouth, in the large, haunted eyes.
“Mrs. Anderson,” he said at last, “I know you find this hard to believe, but I swear I wasn’t corrupt. I didn’t suppress evidence.”
“Don’t take me for a fool. You had a witness who’d seen me ten miles away at the time Grainger was killed, and you buried his statement because it would have ruined your case. How lucky for you that the constable who took that statement left the force and went to Australia. You must have thought everything was working out wonderfully. Only he came back and started asking awkward questions, and that was lucky for me because you were exposed for the cheat you are. The only thing that amazes me is that you contented yourself with hiding the statement. Why not destroy it while you had the chance? Or would that have been too dangerous for you? I suppose you prefer your corruption to be nice and safe.”
“Stop this,” he said desperately. “I didn’t hide the statement because I didn’t know about it.”
She looked at him derisively. “You can do better than that. Constable Dutton handed it to you himself.”
“Maybe he did. I don’t know. I only know that I have no recollection of it.”
“And I suppose you have no recollection of scribbling something on it? It was your handwriting.”
“Yes, but—”
“And the way it got conveniently lost—hidden away in a file belonging to another case. I suppose you have ‘no recollection’ of that, either?”
“None at all. When it was found in that file I was as amazed as anybody, I swear it.”
She actually smiled with incredulity that he should try to fool her with such a feeble story. “I don’t know why you came here, but you’re wasting your time,” she said firmly.
“I came because I have to know the truth.”
“Has the truth suddenly become important to you after all this time?” she asked sarcastically. “What use is it to tell you the truth? You don’t believe it when you hear it. You really came because you want me to confess, then you’d feel all right, wouldn’t you? And the force might take you back.”
“It wouldn’t make me feel all right to know you’re guilty,” he said harshly. “That would mean I’d made my case so clumsily that a murderess was freed too soon. Did I do that? Or did I jail an innocent woman? Either way, it’s just as bad.”
“Your arrogance is beyond belief,” she snapped. “‘Just as bad’? It may make no difference to you which way it turns out, but what about me? I don’t matter, do I? To you I’m just part of an academic exercise in finding out which way your guilt lies. But I’m not. I’m a human being, and you’ve ruined my life. I didn’t kill anyone, but because you made it look as if I did, they took my son away. Because of you I can’t get to see him, even now. If my ex-husband has his way, I’ll never see him again, and it’s all because of you.”
Her voice rose to a scream as her nerves finally snapped, and she flew at him. For three dreary years she’d longed to inflict on him a fraction of the pain he’d caused her, and now he was here. She lashed out blindly, striking, clawing at his face, driven by uncontrollable fury.
Daniel backed up, raising his hands as a shield. What he saw in her face appalled him. Through his job he was used to witnessing despair and misery, but this was worse. It was as though Megan was too demented with anguish to know what she did. Some instinct made him stop trying to push her away and pull her against him, tightening his arms around her so that she was trapped. “Let me go,” she screamed.
“I will when you stop trying to attack me,” he said, speaking breathlessly for she was still thrashing about. “I just want us to talk.”
“The only words I want to say to you are words of hate,” Megan snapped. “Is that clear enough?”
But she was too exhausted to keep it up. The roller coaster was at work again, carrying her to the peak of rage only to plunge her back down into the depths. Suddenly she went limp in his arms and started to shake, not with anger but with grief. Daniel felt the violent trembling of her body against his own and it went through him like a pain. He knew what it was like to suffer like that, to curse heaven in bitterness and misery, and realize that cursing changed nothing. The loved one had gone, and the world was still a dark, barren place to be endured.
Sounds were coming from her, not weeping, but a kind of half-gasping moan, like the keening of a distraught animal. And again his own experience showed him the answer. That sensation of being an animal, feeling the loss of one’s young like an agony in the flesh. How well he knew it. He was a man with a bitter sense of irony, and it wasn’t lost on him that, of all the world, he was the best placed to empathize with her, yet there was no one whose help she wanted less. But then irony fled and he felt nothing but an overwhelming desire to calm her storm of grief. “Megan,” he pleaded. “Megan...let me help you....”
She grew still and he thought he’d gotten through to her. “It’s cold in here,” he said. “Haven’t you got a dressing gown? And something to put on your feet?”
“When you’ve gone, I’m going to bed,” she said tiredly. “I wish you’d leave now. Just go, and I’ll be all right.”
He realized that he hadn’t gotten through, after all. She was simply too tired to argue anymore. “How can I walk away and leave you like this?” he demanded.
“The same way you walked away and left me in prison. I’m not your problem.” She pushed against him and he reluctantly freed her. “Please go.”
“Look—”
“Go.” She went to the door and pulled it open. “Go away now, and don’t come back.”
Her head was turned toward him, so she didn’t see what was outside the door. She saw only the sudden look of tension on his face, and when she turned, it was too late. The little crowd of men and women surged into her room, all babbling at once and taking pictures, blinding them both with flashbulbs.
“Mrs. Anderson have you anything to say?”
“...I’m authorized to offer you.”
“...exclusive...”
“Why aren’t the police looking for someone else?”
“Your story...if you’d only—”
“Go away,” she screamed. “Go away and leave me alone!”
Instead of leaving, they pressed in on her further, forcing her to back away from them. But she suddenly stopped and plunged forward between them, forcing them to part. By the time they’d recovered from their surprise, she was out the door and racing down the stairs toward the front door. They raced after her, baying like hounds in pursuit.
Daniel hesitated, torn between two opposing instincts. He wanted to intervene and get them off her track, but if they recognized him, they’d have an even better story, one that would make them pursue her ev
en more mercilessly. At last he followed them down and out into the street and saw that Megan had vanished. The pack poured into their vehicles and tore off in pursuit. He gave them a moment to get clear before going to his own car. He didn’t think he’d have far to look for her. She was bound to be hiding nearby.
But an hour of combing the streets produced nothing. He checked her apartment in case she’d returned, but all he found was a journalist who’d had the same idea and looked set to wait out the night.
Cursing, Daniel got back into his car and began the search again. But it was useless, and at last he had to face the fact that Megan had vanished into the pouring rain wearing only a thin nightgown and nothing on her feet.
Two
Megan didn’t stop running until she was out of breath. She clutched something nearby and stood there heaving, trying to fight off a pain in her side. Gradually her head cleared enough for her to realize that she was holding a tree. She looked around and found herself in a large park that seemed empty except for herself.
She was unfamiliar with this part of London and she didn’t know where she was. She’d fled blindly, and now she had no memory of entering the park and no idea of how to get home. But the dreary little apartment had never been home, and now it wasn’t even a refuge. They’d found it and would be watching for her return. Her feet were bruised and bleeding and she was shivering with cold. She wondered why she’d ever thought things would be better once she’d left jail. They were worse. She was as much a prisoner as ever, but now she was a prisoner on the run, with nowhere to go.
To her surprise she discovered she wasn’t cold anymore. Heat was stealing pleasantly through her limbs and all over her body, although the icy rain was still pouring down, plastering her hair over her eyes. She brushed her hair back, but it was still hard to see through the curtain of water that surrounded her. She began to stumble about, seeking an exit, although what she would do when she found one she didn’t know. The whole evening seemed like just a dream. She’d dreamed that her enemy had come to call, just as she was dreaming now that she could hear his voice through the lashing of the rain.
She came to another tree and stopped to rest against it. But something in the pattern of the knots seemed familiar, and she realized that it was the same tree as before. How long had she been wandering around in circles? She had no notion of time.
“Megan.” The voice was there again in her dream, and Daniel Keller mysteriously appeared through the curtain of water. “Megan. Thank God, I found you.”
She regarded him without hostility, but without interest. He was no more than a shadow in her overheated consciousness. “Go away,” she said indifferently. “I’m fine, really I am.”
He put his hand on her forehead and swore. “You’re burning up with fever. Come on.” He picked her up and ran with her in his arms to where he’d left his car. He almost threw her into the backseat, wrenched off his jacket and wrapped it around her before getting into the front and starting up.
As he drove, he used his car phone to call his doctor, who was also a good friend. “I need a home call urgently,” he said. “Can you be there in ten minutes? Thanks.”
Dr. Angela Lang was there before him. She stood by his front door, a reassuringly motherly figure, as Daniel hurried up the path with Megan in his arms. “Help me put her to bed,” he grunted as he carried Megan inside and passed Dr. Lang on the stairs without waiting for a response.
In the guest room, he stripped off Megan’s sodden nightgown and dried her fiercely. “Good grief!” Angela exclaimed in sudden shock. “Isn’t she—?”
“Yes, she is,” Daniel said urgently. “Never mind that. Do something for her feet while I try to stop her getting pneumonia.”
“The best thing is if I get her admitted into the hospital—”
“No!” Daniel said explosively. “She’s had enough of institutions and people staring at her. She needs peace and privacy.”
“Daniel, are you mad? If you want to save your career, this woman is dynamite.”
“I know that,” he said through gritted teeth.
“So what the devil is she doing in your house, unconscious and naked?”
“You’re right,” he said quickly. “She needs something warm to wear.”
“That wasn’t what I—” But Daniel had vanished, returning a moment later with a pair of his own clean pajamas. Angela gave up arguing and tended to Megan’s bleeding feet.
“She isn’t going to get pneumonia, is she?” Daniel asked when Megan was dressed and wrapped up under an electric blanket.
“I don’t think so. Probably just a feverish cold, but if she gets worse, call me at once. Are you a good nurse? She’ll need a lot of attention at first.”
“Don’t worry,” he said with bleak humor, “I’ve got nothing else to do.”
* * *
The heat that had comforted Megan in the park had given way to violent shivering. She was burning up with fever, yet at the same time she was like ice. Somebody was piling blankets onto her, but it was no use. Aches and pains chased themselves through her limbs. She wanted to sleep but she felt too ill.
Then she was being raised to a sitting position and a mug was being pressed to her lips. “Drink this.” She vaguely remembered the man’s voice but she couldn’t place it. “It’s hot milk and whiskey, and it’ll do you good,” he added.
She obeyed, and took the tablets he gave her. But when she lay down she was still restless and began tossing about, throwing off the blankets. He piled them back onto her and she threw them off again. He seemed to have inexhaustible patience, because no matter how often it happened he was always there to push her back against the pillows and soothe her. She tried to fight him off, muttering, “I’ve got to...got to...”
Got to what? She didn’t know. She only knew that some terrible problem was going unsolved while she lay here, and nobody else understood.
But it seemed that he did understand because he murmured, “It’s all right. Everything’s going to be all right. Just sleep and let me do the worrying.”
After a while she stopped struggling and lay there, her hand in his.
Daniel stayed quite still until he was sure she’d fallen asleep, then he gently tucked her hand under the blanket. He rose and stood looking down at her flushed face on the pillow. The strain was smoothed away from it now, but the dark shadows around her eyes told the story of inner torment.
“What have I done?” he murmured. “Dear God, what have I done?”
* * *
In the limbo between sleeping and waking Megan found herself experiencing a new sensation. Suddenly there was nothing to worry about because someone was taking care of her, someone strong who could shoulder all her burdens until she could cope with them again herself.
That had last happened when she was a child. Her parents had died when she was only sixteen, after which she’d had to fend for herself. She’d capitalized on her height and slender beauty to become a model, and for a few years she’d been in the front rank.
Then she’d met Brian Anderson. At first she’d been charmed by him, but the charm had faded as she’d realized he’d had only one priority—success. He’d been an accountant in a high-profile firm, and he’d adored her because she was successful and well-known. He’d enjoyed being seen with a beautiful woman on his arm, but she’d gradually become convinced that his feelings went very little deeper than that. She’d been on the verge of breaking off the relationship when she’d found out she was pregnant.
She’d never even considered an abortion. She’d wanted her baby, and Brian’s eagerness to marry her had warmed her heart again. Perhaps his child would make him see the world in less monetary terms. But it had had the opposite effect. Money and success became doubly important. He was furious when she’d abandoned her career because she couldn’t bear to be apart from her adored little son.
When Tommy was a year old, Brian had broken away from his firm to start up on his own. Megan had been an asset t
o him, presiding over dinner parties where every detail was perfect, including her own impeccable appearance. But the socializing had meant nothing to her. The guests were invariably people who might be “useful” and afterward Brian would discuss them entirely in terms of their money and the business they might bring his way.
The gap between herself and her husband had yawned wider every day, but she’d made the best of it for Tommy’s sake, and would have continued doing so, if Brian hadn’t gone too far. Trying to land a hugely rich but personally repellent client, he’d instructed her to “be nice” to him.
“Just how ‘nice’ do you want me to be?” Megan had asked in an icy tone that should have warned him.
Brian had shrugged. “He’s worth millions, he’s got no family and his hobby is speculation. Work it out.”
Their own physical relationship had been over for a year at that point, but it was still a shock to discover that he’d respected her so little that he could suggest such a thing. When Brian returned home from work that evening, he’d found Megan and Tommy gone.
He’d tried to starve her back to him, refusing to allow her a penny even for the child’s upkeep. So she’d returned to work, taking the kind of low-ranking modeling jobs that would once have been beneath her, and supplementing her income with escort work. In comparison to the luxurious life-style she’d left, they were hard up, but she was happier than she’d been for a long time—until the sky had fallen on her.
In all those years there’d never been anyone to murmur “It’s all right...let me do the worrying.” But now someone had said it, and the words had given her ease.
She opened her eyes and found herself in a strange room. It was large and shabby but comfortable. It didn’t surprise her that she recognized nothing. The events of the past few days had made the unfamiliar familiar, and the unexpected, the norm. She was hot and achy all over, and her head felt as if it was stuffed with cotton wool.