by Sandra Brown
“The north, I think. I’m not sure. We took a lot of turns.”
“Huh.”
A short silence ensued then Grange said, “Since we now know for certain which trail you were on Saturday morning, several deputies have been dispatched to see if they can retrace your steps.”
“Why?”
“In the hope of locating this man who took care of you,” Knight said. “To thank him and such.”
She didn’t believe for a moment that was the reason they were trying to retrace her steps. Her heart began to thud. “I don’t think he would wish to be thanked.”
“How come?”
“He impressed me as someone who would shun the limelight. He was…shy.”
“Huh.”
Knight’s repetitive use of that single syllable was most eloquent. It implied he wasn’t believing what he was hearing.
Grange was more direct. “You perceived a character trait like shyness, but you aren’t clear on his height or general body build?”
She divided a look between them. “Why are you so interested in him?”
“No reason in particular,” Knight said. “Just seems strange that after he sheltered you for four days and nights, took such good care of you, that he’d just drop you on the side of the road instead of delivering you into the arms of your husband or turning you over to an officer of the law.”
She scrambled for an answer which, if not probable, wouldn’t stretch plausibility too far. “You referred to the circus at the service station,” she said. “He realized that my reappearance, my reunion with my husband, would result in exactly that kind of scene. Obviously this man values his privacy. He’s reclusive and wishes to remain so. I think everyone should respect that and leave him in peace.”
“So he knew that you had a husband crazy with worry over you.”
She looked at Grange, realizing that she’d trapped herself. She truly was a dreadful liar.
When she didn’t speak, the deputy continued. “Even if the roads were frozen over and too hazardous to drive on, why didn’t he at least call somebody to let them know you were safe?”
“Perhaps his phone was inoperable.”
“He had yours, Dr. Charbonneau. It was working this morning.”
She couldn’t think of anything to say, so she wisely said nothing.
“Why didn’t you call your husband?” Grange asked.
“Until this morning, I was drifting in and out of consciousness.”
“But you had intervals of lucidity.”
“I wouldn’t call it lucidity. I was awake, but my thoughts were hazy.”
“Too hazy for you to make one phone call?”
“It crossed my mind, of course. But fleetingly. In the abstract. I didn’t act on it because my phone was out of reach, and I didn’t have the wherewithal to ask for it, or to get up and retrieve it.”
“He had your ID. He knew who you were, where you lived. But he never offered to make a call for you?”
“Maybe he did and I don’t remember. But again, I—”
“You have hundreds of numbers programmed into your phone,” Grange said, pressing now. “A couple of taps on the screen, and he could have notified someone that you were still alive.”
She lowered her gaze. For the longest time, neither of them said anything, but she could feel their stares boring into the crown of her bowed head.
Knight was the one to break the tense silence. “You’re not being quite up front with us, are you, Dr. Charbonneau?”
“I’ve told you what I know.”
“Well, what you’ve told me and Grange bothers us.”
She raised her head and looked at him. “Why? I’m back. I’m fine. Isn’t that all that matters?”
“Well, it would be. Except we’ve got an individual who interests us. He passed up a sizeable reward and dodged being thanked for his hospitality. We’re thinking there was a reason he ducked the media and wanted to remain anonymous, that maybe he wasn’t such a Good Samaritan.
“We think maybe your concussion wasn’t caused by you falling, and that possibly he didn’t find you on the trail, but that he assaulted you on the trail, banged you on the head, and then, for reasons only he knows, he chickened out on killing you.”
The rock.
You weren’t supposed to see that. I knew seeing it would upset you.
Chapter 23
When she didn’t speak, Knight leaned forward and propped his forearms on his thighs, inspiring her confidence. “Emory—can I call you Emory? You need to tell us if this man, uh, compromised you in any way.”
You sorry yet?
“No, he didn’t.”
“I understand it might be too painful for you to talk about it to us,” Knight said. “If that’s the case, we can get a female officer to come over and take your statement. But we need to know if a crime was committed. No matter what he threatened to do if you reported it, you—”
“Sergeant Knight.” She held up her hand. “I must stop you there. I was not his victim.”
“We’ve had whack jobs hide up in these mountains before, you know. Good territory to get lost in. Remember the guy who bombed the Olympics in Atlanta?”
“The man in the cabin was perfectly sane.”
“See any porno lying around? Videos, magazines?”
“No.”
“Women-grabbers often—”
“He wasn’t like that.”
“Not creepy then?”
“No.”
“Any rants against the government?”
“When he spoke at all, he was reasonable and soft-spoken, certainly not ranting. I would describe him as taciturn.” She glanced toward the foot of the bed. “Like Sergeant Grange.”
“Huh.” Knight turned and looked at his partner as though assessing him for the first time. Coming back to her, he took a rubber band from his shirt pocket and began winding it around his fingers. “Did you see anything that looked like bomb-making materials?”
“No.”
“Did he have guns?”
“I’m certain he did.”
He raised his eyebrows. “How do you know?”
“A deer head was mounted above the mantel.”
“In these parts, there are deer heads mounted above nearly every mantel.”
“Precisely.”
She had scored that point. Following a lull, Grange asked, “Did he demonstrate any violent tendencies?”
“Not toward me.” She envisioned Norman and Will Floyd lying where they’d landed, bloody and misshapen, moaning in misery. She also thought of the gallantry extended to Pauline and the wrenching concern for Lisa. “The truth is, gentlemen, this man remains as much a mystery to me as he does to you.”
Knight popped the rubber band against his fingers several times. “Guess that says it all. Unless you can think of anything else.”
She shook her head. “I’m sorry.”
“That doesn’t leave much for us to tell the media,” Grange said.
She’d momentarily forgotten the upcoming press conference, and she was grateful she wouldn’t be called upon to make a statement. “Please keep the explanation to a minimum. I didn’t suffer any physical or emotional trauma. I really don’t owe anyone an explanation—”
“Well, see, you sorta do,” Knight said. “Faking your disappearance. Causing a false public alarm. Those are crimes, Emory.”
Her lips parted in surprise. “I didn’t fake my concussion.”
“No, no, we saw the CT,” Knight said. “That part’s factual. The rest…” He frowned and seemed in no way forgiving.
She took a swift breath. “I realize how many people were involved in the search for me. An undertaking like that costs time and money, and I intend to donate funds to each county involved to help them recoup that expense. Perhaps to the school systems or to the public health departments.”
“Well, that’s awful generous of you. A gesture like that would go a long way to keep you in the public’s favor. An
d nobody feels inclined to press charges against you at this time.”
Knight was smiling, but Emory noticed that he’d kept open-ended the option to prosecute. “To the best of my knowledge,” she said, “I fell on the Bear Ridge Trail. I hit my head, sustained a concussion, and lost consciousness. When I came to, I didn’t know where I was, and a combination of unpredictable circumstances prevented me from getting back. I owe my life to the kindness of a man who remains a stranger. After a few days of rest, I should be fully recovered. That’s the statement you should give the media.”
Essentially it was the truth.
They seemed to think it over. Knight looked over at Grange, and Grange said, “It’s the best we’ve got.” As though to soften his obvious dissatisfaction, he politely asked if she would continue her marathon training.
“Not right away.” She looked at her injured foot and said ruefully, “I won’t be ready for the upcoming one.”
“That is a shame,” Knight said. “Jeff told us how hard you’ve worked organizing it, making it an event.”
She wondered if they knew about their heated argument on that topic but saw no point to mentioning it now.
Knight stood up, signaling an end to the interview. “Well, don’t want to tucker you out.”
“Will I see you tomorrow before Jeff and I leave for Atlanta?”
Knight said, “Prob’ly not.”
“Then I’ll thank you now. I know you put a great deal of time and effort into finding me.”
“It’s our job.”
“Even so, thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
As he and Grange were about to leave, she said, “Would you do me one final favor? Would you please ask Dr. Butler to come in?”
“Remind me which one that is.”
Grange nudged his partner toward the door. “The woman.”
When the doctor came into the room a few moments later, Emory was glad she came unaccompanied. As she neared the bedside, Emory reached out and clasped her hand. “First of all, thank you for dropping everything and driving up here today.”
“Everyone at the clinic has been frantic with worry. The office staff, nurses. Even patients. Suffice it to say Neal and I have been at wit’s end. You’re the heart and soul of the clinic.”
“I don’t know about that.”
“No false modesty allowed. The practice was your vision, your initiative. Besides that, we all love you.”
“As you demonstrated by offering the reward,” she said huskily. Then, “Lord, I need another Kleenex.” She popped one from the box and dabbed at her eyes.
“Are you sure you’re as all right as you let everyone think?”
“I’m all right. I just need to ask you to do something for me, and it’s rather sensitive.”
“Of course, Emory,” she said, moving closer. “Anything.”
“Please bring me some morning-after pills.” Emory saw her initial shock turn into alarm.
“He raped you? The man in the cabin? Have you told the deputies? Did they prepare a rape kit in the ER? What about Jeff? Have you told—”
“I wasn’t raped.”
Emory’s quiet but emphatic tone stopped her. She actually swallowed audibly.
“We were intimate, but the sex was consensual. It was—” Emory stopped before submitting to the sob pressing against the back of her throat.
Rendered speechless by the disclosure, the doctor sank into the chair recently vacated by Sam Knight and for a time simply stared at Emory. Finally finding her voice, she said, “The story you told the detectives, was it all a fabrication?”
“Not the backbone of it.” She didn’t expand on what had been half-truths and evasions and what had been complete falsehoods. The lies had to be hers alone.
“I remain flabbergasted. I don’t know what to say.”
“There’s nothing to say.”
“I beg to differ. It’s so…so un-Emory-like to—”
“Have unprotected sex?”
“To have any kind of sex with a stranger. He was a stranger, wasn’t he?”
“He was four days ago.” She smiled wistfully. “Not so much of one now.”
Unable to bear her friend’s mix of compassion and bewilderment, she turned away and looked toward the lavish bouquet of white calla lilies that Jeff had brought to her room shortly after she was checked in.
“It’s not as out-from-nowhere as you might expect. I’m almost certain that Jeff is seeing someone and has been for quite some time. I could use that as justification for what I did, but that would be disingenuous and unfair. I didn’t do it to punish Jeff. The fact is, I didn’t take Jeff into account at all. I wanted to be with this man, and he wanted to be with me, and that was all that mattered.”
“Will you see him again?”
“No.”
You outdid yourself on the memories, Doc.
They’d exhausted themselves and had been lying spooned, fitted tightly together like two pieces of a puzzle, limbs entwined, hands clasped against her breasts. She’d been on the verge of sleep when he’d rubbed his face in her hair and whispered those words.
Then, Would have been easier if you hadn’t.
Probably he hadn’t intended for her to hear that annotation, or the bleakness that underscored it. He must have felt, as she did now, doomed never to be entirely happy again.
“Who was he, Emory?”
Roused from the bittersweet recollection, she whispered, “I don’t know. I wasn’t lying about that. I don’t even know his name.”
“But you slept with him.”
“Yes. And I don’t, nor ever will, regret it.”
She became aware of the tears rolling from the corners of her eyes and hastily wiped them away. “But there are practical matters that must be addressed. As you know, I went off birth control pills six months ago, when I thought that perhaps having a child…”
She stopped and rethought what she’d been about to say, which would have sounded like she was laying blame on Jeff. Whatever else, she must never deceive herself into believing that he was responsible for what she’d done last night.
“The future of my marriage being uncertain, I can’t risk adding the complication of a pregnancy.”
“No precautions were taken?”
“Precautionary measures, yes, but nothing…scientific. Or reliable.” Her face grew hot as she remembered his groaning, Christ, this is torture, averting danger with no time to spare.
“Can you bring me the pills? I can’t ask the hospital staff here because I can’t trust their discretion. I know I can trust yours.”
“I’ll get them for you, of course. But you know that emergency contraception isn’t one hundred percent effective.”
“I understand. But the sooner I take the first pill, the better. Which is why I’m asking you to get them for me right away, rather than waiting until tomorrow when I could buy them for myself.”
“I’ll go now.” She stood and headed toward the door, but Emory stopped her.
“Alice?”
She turned and looked back toward the bed.
“Thank you.”
Alice shook her head. “It’s nothing.”
“No, I’m thanking you for your confidence and for being my friend.”
Chapter 24
Rebecca Watson, undaunted by the downpour, walked straight to the driver’s side of Jack’s rental car and rapped on the window.
Lowering it required starting the motor, which took all of five or six seconds, but the delay seemed to make her even angrier. The window came down. Rain blew in. She practically hissed at him.
“Special Agent Connell.”
“I didn’t know if you would remember me.”
Her glower dismissed that statement as ludicrous. “If you had come to notify me that my brother is dead, you would have been straightforward and rung the front doorbell. You wouldn’t have been hunkered down here half the night or spent all day spying on me. So what brings you he
re?”
The fact that she knew about his surveillance told him that she kept vigil herself. She watched for people watching her. He said, “Can we talk?”
“Fuck off.”
“Good. You’re willing to cooperate.”
She gave him a drop dead look.
“I’ve come all this way. Please?”
She remained unmoved.
He glanced in the direction of the house. “Is he living with you?”
“Have you lost your mind?”
“Is he in this region? Residing nearby? On the next block?”
She didn’t say anything.
“If he’s not around, then what’s the risk in talking to me?”
She didn’t say yes, but she didn’t say no, and she didn’t tell him to fuck off again, so when she turned and walked away, he cut the car engine, got out, and followed her back to the house.
She didn’t offer to share her umbrella. He covered his head with his jacket again. When they reached the porch, he shook off what rain he could. She went in ahead of him, but not before getting her mail out of the box.
“There’s nothing here for you to get excited about, but knock yourself out.” She thrust the handful of mail at him. He caught it against his wet jacket. Without looking at any of it, he neatly stacked it on the foyer table.
She folded her arms across her midriff. “Okay, you’re here. What did you come all this way for?”
“Can I use your bathroom?”
She studied him for a moment, as though trying to figure out whether or not he was joking. Deciding he wasn’t, she said, “Sure,” and motioned for him to follow her down a central hallway to a tiny powder room tucked beneath the staircase.
Going in ahead of him, she lifted the lid off the toilet tank. “See? Nothing in there but the balls and cock, or whatever they’re called.”
“Ballcock. One word.”
She replaced the lid with a clatter of porcelain and pointed to the framed mirror above the basin. “No medicine cabinet for you to inspect. You’re free to tear out the plumbing underneath the sink, but if you do, you’ll have to put it back together or reimburse me for a plumber.”
“You’ve made your point, Rebecca.”
“Be sure to wash your hands.” As she went out, she pulled the door closed with a bang.