Guilt by Silence

by Taylor Smith

  “You bitch! I’m gonna kill you!”

  She slipped her hands down the broom handle and shoved it sideways at him, knocking him off balance for a second. He stumbled, then regained his footing and threw the broom aside.

  Leaping back, she grabbed the glass coffeepot off the counter and hurled it at him. He ducked and it smashed against the wall, coffee and glass shards flying.

  Mariah turned to the door to the garage, yanking at the handle. The door started to open, but he threw himself against her back and it slammed shut again. She gasped, the wind knocked out of her. He held her for a moment, pinned to the door.

  Then she felt him grab her hair at the crown. He yanked so hard that she lost her balance, falling backward against him. She felt him start to go down with her, then he slipped his body out of the way and she hit the floor with a bang on her tailbone.

  “Get up!” he growled, still pulling on her hair. He grabbed her sweater with his free hand and dragged her across the floor. When he stopped, he let go of her sweater, but before she could move to try to loosen his grip on her hair, he yanked her head back farther. She felt his knee in her spine and the blade at her throat.

  “You’re dead, lady!”

  “Don’t! Please!” She winced as he pulled her hair harder, but he hesitated. “I have a child,” Mariah pleaded breathlessly. “She needs me—she doesn’t have her father anymore. I’ll do whatever you want, but please don’t kill me.” She closed her eyes, chest heaving, praying that his rage would subside. He loosened his grip slightly but the blade stayed at her throat.

  “Get up!” he said finally.

  He held on to her as she scrambled awkwardly to her feet, the knife nicking her throat. She closed her eyes and waited, shaking uncontrollably, feeling a warm trickle of blood slide down her neck and into her sweater.

  He slammed her up against the table. His hot breath was on her neck, coming hard and fast, his body pressed up behind hers. Even without seeing his face, she knew he was looking over her shoulder at the photos.

  “Upstairs,” he rasped in her ear. “Now—in the bedroom. And if you try anything else, I’ll kill you.”

  He yanked her back and turned her toward the hall, pushing her ahead of him up the stairs.

  When he heard the siren behind him and saw the red light flashing in the rearview mirror, Paul Chaney glanced at the speedometer. He was doing almost eighty. “Damn!”

  He took his foot off the accelerator and applied the brake, pulling onto the shoulder of the beltway when his speed had dropped to a safe level. He turned off the ignition and reached for his wallet, glancing in the mirror as the police car came up behind him and the patrolman got out. Chaney lowered the window and removed his sunglasses.

  “’Afternoon, sir,” the officer said, ominous behind his own black shades. “May I see your license and registration, please?”

  “Right here, Officer.” Chaney held up the wallet.

  “Take your license out of the wallet, please. And pass me the registration papers, as well.”

  “The car’s rented. I think the papers are in the glove compartment.”

  “Get them, please.”

  Chaney nodded, withdrawing his license and passing it over, then leaned toward the glove compartment. He rummaged around and found the rental folder. As he sat up once more, he noticed the officer was standing with one hand on his hip. No, Chaney thought, not on his hip—on his gun, the eyes behind the dark glasses no doubt watching his every move. What a job these guys had, never knowing when some wacko might pull a gun on them.

  “Sorry, Officer. Guess I was going a little too fast.”

  “Yes, sir. I clocked you doing eighty-one miles an hour.”

  “Eighty-one? Really? I didn’t think it was that fast. Speedometer must not be working right.”

  “The limit’s fifty-five, sir,” the cop said dryly. Chaney sighed and nodded. “Wait in the car, please.” The patrolman returned to his cruiser to check the computer for priors.

  Chaney leaned back in the seat and rubbed his eyes. What else could go wrong? he wondered.

  His meeting to discuss his next assignment with Mort Rosen, CBN’s news and current affairs VP, had been postponed the previous day. Then Rosen had called Chaney early that morning at his hotel and asked to meet for breakfast. He had headed to the restaurant, confident that Rosen was going to offer him the Washington bureau chief job that he’d been lobbying for. Instead, Rosen had dropped a bombshell. They were letting him go.

  “You can’t fire me!” Chaney had protested incredulously. “I’m one of the best reporters on this network. I’ve won more awards than you can shake a stick at and have one of the highest recognition factors in the business.”

  Rosen had shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “It’s a boardroom decision. I’m sorry, but they want to rethink the look of the network.”

  “The look? What the hell are you talking about, Mort?”

  “There are new people running things these days. They’ve got different ideas about the news and current affairs lineup.” Rosen glanced up from the napkin he was wadding in his hand. “Look, Paul, this isn’t my idea. I wanted you for the job but I lost the battle.”

  Chaney’s eyes narrowed as he studied the other man’s face, lined and drawn from too many years of bureaucratic wrangling. “Who did I piss off this time?” he asked.

  “I’m not sure. But you must have done something a lot bigger than some of the stunts you’ve pulled in the past.” Rosen grinned. “Like that time you were supposed to be covering the environmental conference in Vienna and the next thing we knew, we were getting video feed from Tunis—you with Yasser Arafat.”

  “Yeah, but I was the first reporter he saw after he was nearly killed in that plane crash. I had the contacts and I got the scoop. We beat every other network and newspaper in the world.”

  “I know,” Rosen said. “You’ve pulled a few good ones out of the hat. But it wasn’t enough to save you this time.”

  “This stinks, Mort. I want to know what it’s all about.”

  “Paul, do yourself a favor. Take the severance money they’re offering,” Rosen advised, naming a figure that made Chaney whistle. “Move on to another network. They’ll be fighting over you when word gets out.” He sighed wearily. “It’s not as much fun around CBN these days, anyway. It’s not about good journalism anymore—it’s all about profit margins and politics. Get out while you can.”

  I’ll go for the moment, Chaney thought grimly as he waited for the patrolman to come back. But I know there’s more to this than just network image. He glanced at the seat beside him, where he had the previous day’s Washington Post and the latest issue of Newsweek—the latter featuring the defiant features of Angus Ramsay McCord smiling from the cover.

  The patrolman’s voice at the window made Chaney jump. “Here you are, Mr. Chaney. I didn’t recognize you. I see you on the news all the time. Hell of a job you did, covering the Gulf War. Flak was really flying over there, wasn’t it?”

  “Sure was. Thanks,” Chaney said, retrieving the license and car rental papers the man held out. He grimaced up at the big cop, backlit by the sun. “You’re still going to ticket me, though, aren’t you?”

  “’Fraid so, Mr. Chaney. Sorry,” the cop said, ripping the ticket from his pad and handing it over with a broad smile.

  Chaney didn’t think the patrolman was sorry at all.

  This can’t be happening, Mariah thought as Burton pushed her though the doorway into her bedroom. The sunlight was streaming in at the window and she could hear the laughter and shouts of the neighbors’ kids playing street hockey outside, their sticks slapping the concrete as they chased the ball up and down the road.

  “Hold it,” Burton growled.

  She froze in the center of the room, her stomach tightly knotted. The knife came up against her throat again, and she felt the heat of his body close behind her as he slipped his free hand under her arm and around her waist. She closed her eyes, fi
ghting down disgust as the hand moved up to her breast and began to knead it.

  “I saw you, Mariah,” he whispered hoarsely. “I watched you. You thought you’d gotten away, didn’t you? You shouldn’t have done that—you shouldn’t have run from me.”

  His breath was hot and moist in her ear as he pushed his groin against her back. His hand slid down her stomach and reached between her legs, pulling her tighter against him, groping and exploring. Suddenly, she felt his tongue in her ear, and then his lips moved down on her neck, wet and sucking. Only the cold steel on her throat held her rage in check. I can’t die, she told herself. Please don’t let me die. I’ll let him do anything he wants, but please don’t let him kill me. Let me be with my little girl.

  She felt him begin to grind against her back, his free hand abandoning exploration in favor of holding her tight to him as he moved. “Hell!” he breathed. “You got me so worked up, I can’t wait.”

  Good God! He’s going to come right here in the middle of the floor, Mariah thought as he pounded against her backside. Through fear and disgust, she felt an irrational, almost irrepressible urge to mock his squalid ineptitude. But then she felt the cold blade and remembered his deadly fury in the kitchen. She bit her lip and clenched her hands, waiting. He moved a few more times, then shuddered and was still, his hand still wrapped in her slacks as he panted into her neck.

  Please, let him leave now, Mariah prayed, knowing that he wouldn’t.

  Chaney watched the police cruiser pull onto the beltway and speed off. Sure, fella, he thought, frowning, go get some other sucker. Make your day.

  He waited for a couple of cars to pass, then moved the car out onto the road, reminding himself to watch his speed. A moment later, a green overhead sign announced the McLean turnoff.

  He was sneaking up on her again, he realized. He didn’t mean to, it just always seemed to happen that way. Today he needed to talk to her badly—not the bloody answering machine that she would ignore, anyway, if she heard his voice on it. Needed to talk to her, he thought ruefully. Wanted to, as well.

  How many women are there in the world, Chaney? he asked himself. Couple of billion, maybe? Eliminate the underage ones. That leaves maybe a billion—and more than one of them had shown an interest. God knows, he’d made a valiant effort to research the alternatives. So why did he have to fall in love with the wife of a friend and the one woman who always looked at him as if he were something she should scrape off the bottom of her shoe?

  He hadn’t planned it that way. The first time they met had been at a large dinner gathering hosted by a British diplomat in Vienna. She was there alone. Later, Chaney had found out that David had had a conflicting engagement that night, attending an IAEA reception. The two of them were newly arrived in Vienna.

  Chaney had found himself seated next to her at dinner. She was attractive and he knew the woman at his other elbow to be a tedious gossip, so he had decided to occupy Mariah’s attention before the evening turned into a total disaster. He had picked up the place card beside her wine-glass and read the name.

  “Hello, Mariah Bolt,” he said, holding out his free hand. “My name’s Paul Chaney.”

  Mariah glanced at him and at his hand, then took it in hers. “Yes, I know. How do you do?”

  “You’re American?” She nodded. Chaney took a closer look at her features. “You look familiar. Have we met before?”

  Her eyebrow rose. “Now, there’s an original line,” she said, her mouth turning up at the corners.

  “No, I’m serious. You look like someone—a picture of someone. Who?” He puzzled over the place card in his hand and then slapped his forehead. “Of course! Benjamin Bolt.”

  The wry smile vanished from her face, a frown replacing it as she turned to take up her napkin. A server appeared at her elbow with a bowl of soup. When he had finished serving her and Chaney, and had moved on down the table, Chaney turned back to Mariah. She was stirring her broth slowly, appearing to be intensely focused on the swirling vegetables in the bowl.

  “Are you related to Benjamin Bolt?”

  Mariah pushed a carrot around the bowl with her spoon for a moment, then sighed and put it down. She looked around the table but the other guests were engrossed in different conversations. She turned a reluctant gaze back to Chaney. “I’m his daughter.”

  “His daughter? That’s terrific! I read his books in college—they’d just been discovered. The critics were raving about the lost member of the American Beat Generation. Some of them thought his work left Jack Kerouac’s in the dust.”

  Mariah nodded. “I remember.”

  “They were right. His work was powerful. I used to carry Cool Thunder with me everywhere I went.” Chaney grinned. “Women loved it—it was better than walking a puppy. Talk about opening lines—that book was the best conversation opener I ever saw. A girl saw you reading Cool Thunder, she’d gravitate right to you.”

  “How nice for you.”

  “I also appreciated it for its literary merits,” Chaney said sheepishly. He watched her as she took up her spoon and began to pick at her soup again. “I didn’t know he had a family. I thought he was living alone in Paris when he died.”

  “He was.” Mariah put down the spoon abruptly and fixed him with her cool gray eyes. “Could we change the subject, please? I never really knew my father and I have no interest in discussing him.”

  She hadn’t been interested in discussing much else with him, either, Chaney thought as he pulled up to a stoplight, remembering how she had soon turned her attention to the dinner companion at her other elbow. By the end of the meal, after one or two more fruitless attempts to engage her in conversation, he had her neatly pigeonholed in his mental classification of female types. She was the Ice Maiden: attractive, intelligent and frosty as hell. Pity the poor bastard who married that one, he had thought when he noticed the wedding band on her finger.

  And there it would have remained if he hadn’t become friendly with David Tardiff, hadn’t seen her when her guard was down. Hadn’t heard the soft laughter that David could evoke in her. Hadn’t seen the gentle touch she had with him and their daughter. Hadn’t learned that her smiles were breathtaking in their warmth, even if she only doled them out very selectively. Hadn’t begun to sense that behind the reserved exterior, Ben Bolt’s daughter was a shy and somehow wounded woman—a woman who came to haunt Chaney’s daydreams and undermine his own grim determination never to be vulnerable again.

  “Take off your clothes,” Burton ordered.

  He had turned Mariah around to face him and was holding the knife against her stomach while his other hand gripped the back of her neck. He pulled her head toward him, his breath sour when he kissed her lips. Mariah squeezed her eyes tight, repelled by the feeling of his tongue as he forced her lips apart and began exploring her mouth. Finally, she could stand it no longer and turned her head away, his lips smearing across her cheek. She winced as the point of the blade pricked her skin through her sweater.

  “C’mon, Mariah,” Burton growled. “You better cooperate if you know what’s good for you.” He pulled her close again and nuzzled her neck. “Think about those pictures—about that broad. She was hot. I wanna see you just like that. Understand?”

  “Shut up!” she cried, pushing at him. He looked up in surprise, holding the knife ready as he watched her face. “Shut up, you bastard! Don’t you talk about those pictures!”

  “Who’s in them?”

  “None of your business!”

  He stared at her and then slowly nodded as the realization sank in. “Your old man—is that it, Mariah?”

  “Shut up, I said!” She closed her eyes and stood, swaying, her body racked with shuddering fear and pain. “Leave me alone,” she cried. She opened her eyes and looked at him, pleading. “Please, go away.”

  He held up the knife and touched her with its wicked point, running it lightly down the knit ridges of her sweater from her breastbone to her groin and then back up again. “’Fraid I
can’t do that, Mariah.”

  She caught her breath as a slow grin rose on his lips. She knew then that he wasn’t going to leave her alive.

  11

  Chaney stood at the front door, leaning on the bell. He knew she was home—the garage door was open and her car was there. He put his ear close to the door, listening, then rapped on the wood paneling. “Come on, Mariah, open the door!”

  But the door remained stubbornly closed. He turned around on the front porch, glancing at the sidewalk. A couple of teenage boys were walking by, snapping each other with towels. The pool, he thought, that’s where she’d been the other night. David had once said that she was a serious swimmer.

  “Hey, guys! Are you going swimming?”

  The boys stopped their horsing around and stared at him suspiciously. “Yeah. So?”

  “So nothing.” Chaney cocked his thumb at the house. “I’m looking for a friend, figured she might be there. Where’s the pool?”

  The teenagers relaxed visibly. “Down this way,” one of them said, pointing. “Follow the path—you can’t miss it. It’s in the rec building.”

  Chaney’s eyes followed the direction the boy indicated. “Thanks,” he said.

  “Sure, man.” The kid and his buddy headed off down the path, towels snapping once more.

  Chaney went down the front steps and out to the walkway.

  At the first ring of the doorbell, Burton had shoved her against the wall and clamped his hand over her mouth. He leaned his body into hers and put the point of the blade to her throat. “Not a sound,” he hissed. Mariah blinked and they stood, frozen, while the bell rang several more times. “Who is it? Who were you expecting?”

  Mariah shrugged and shook her head as best she could. The sweaty hand he had clamped over her mouth was also blocking her nose and she was having difficulty breathing. As the sound of banging on the front door drifted up the stairs, her lips under his hand wanted to smile at the welcome persistence. But she looked at Burton and realized it was making him extremely nervous—the mismatched eyes were flitting around the room. Please, she prayed, just let him run.