by Edie Claire
"I can’t tell you what a wonderful sense of peace that revelation brought me," he continued. "And I owe that to you."
Her smile broadened. "Well, I’m glad I’m not totally worthless."
He threw her a meaningful look. His voice dropped lower. "You’re anything but worthless, Sarah. I tried for a decade to fall in love with Christine, and I couldn’t do it. I tried not to fall in love with you, and it happened anyway. So if you think you’re going to ruin this whole love thing for me on account of your own petty problems, you can forget it. For all I know, you’re the only woman on earth who’ll ever have this effect on me. I like this love business, I intend to indulge myself in it, and I’m not going to let anyone—including you—mess it up for me. Got that?"
Sarah’s brow furrowed with confusion. Either he had lost his mind, or she had. Had he heard a word she’d said earlier? Had she only imagined saying it?
"I killed a man!" she cried, her voice catching in her throat. "Didn’t you hear what I said?"
"I heard every word," he answered calmly. "And I still love you. Deal with it."
Sarah’s mind raced. What had she not told him? "You don’t know everything that happened," she began anxiously. She couldn’t bear to believe what he was saying, only to have him retract it later—when the full horror of it finally penetrated. "You can’t possibly love a murderer."
"I should be able to," he said without humor. "But you aren’t a murderer, Sarah. You know that."
"Do I?" she blurted, her voice rising. "I hated him!"
The door opened. Melissa hurried in, took a quick look at Sarah, and studied the paper strip on the bedside monitor. "You need to stay calm, Sarah," she said firmly, even as she threw Adam a look of desperation. "EMS should be here any minute."
"I’m not going," Sarah repeated.
Adam cleared his throat. "She’ll be ready, Melissa."
The doctor’s eyes held his. She pressed a hand on his shoulder, then walked out.
Sarah started to speak, but Adam shushed her.
"Don’t talk anymore; don’t relive it," he ordered. "When you’re better, we’ll talk through everything. We’ll find a good defense attorney and we’ll figure out where we stand. But right now, none of that matters. All that matters is getting you healthy again."
Sarah stared at him, still disbelieving. The confession she had resisted making so strenuously, for so long, had left her feeling oddly transparent. Hollow. As if a large part of her had been ripped forcefully from its cocoon, dragged out and exposed to the light of day, to shrivel. She felt weak without it. Unnatural.
She was silent for a long time. Adam sat quietly beside her, her hand still clasped in his.
"Do you really believe I’m worth saving?" she asked slowly, her voice barely above a whisper.
When Adam said nothing, she caught his eyes.
His answer was there.
Sarah looked away. She didn’t deserve what he was offering her; she didn’t deserve him. Accepting his help, his love, seemed somehow dishonest.
Was it really what he wanted?
She met his gaze. "You still don’t know the whole story, Adam. There could be worse things I haven’t said yet—things that would disturb you even more." But were there? In her heart, she doubted it. She had told him the worst already—without even explaining all the circumstances. "I just don’t see how you can be so sure about me. How you can be so sure that I—"
She struggled for the right words. "That I’m worth it. I’m not convinced of it myself. How can you be?"
His dark eyes moistened. There was a twinkle behind them.
"I know," he answered, "because the boss man told me."
Sarah’s brow furrowed. Then she got it. Adam would bring everything back to religion, wouldn’t he? She supposed that was allowable. After all, it was who he was.
"I see," she returned with a grin. "And I suppose you have a direct line?"
He smiled back. "Of course. Everyone does."
Sarah could picture it clearly—on the desk in Adam’s office. An old-fashioned rotary telephone, complete with metal bell. Bright red, naturally. "God" written across the dial—punched out with plastic label tape.
Despite herself, she chuckled.
"What are you laughing at?"
She met his eyes. She knew he wasn’t teasing her; he had meant exactly what he said. There was an undeniable light in him, a strength, that she had never quite been able to qualify. A vitality that kept him running strong, no matter what blindsided him. Through all the sadness and guilt he had suffered over Christine, all the torture and frustration she herself had put him through—it had always been there.
Whatever it was, it worked for him.
Who was she to argue with results?
"I can’t promise you a life with no problems, Sarah," he continued. "There may be repercussions from what happened in the past. Making things right might not be easy. But I’m asking you to take a chance. On life. On how much better it could be. Living openly, without the guilt and the fear. Feeling free to love—and be loved."
The exam room door flew open. Melissa stepped inside. "EMS is here," she announced.
Adam squeezed Sarah’s hands.
A chance.
It could be one chance in a hundred million.
She considered.
She squeezed back.
"All right," she proclaimed, feeling suddenly, oddly, hopeful.
"Let’s do it."
Chapter 34
Sarah drifted in and out of consciousness. Something was trying to make her wake up, but she didn’t want to. She wasn’t ready yet.
There was water all around her, and it was murky. She couldn’t see more than a few feet before her face, where wispy green vegetation swayed in rhythm with the motion of her arms. She was rapidly running out of breath. Cool, clear sunlight filtered through the water above her head, and she swam anxiously toward the surface. But something had hold of her ankle.
It was Rock.
"Adam!"
Her eyes flew open. She took in the unfamiliar ceiling, walls, and doors as if one nightmare had been switched for another. Where was she?
"I’m right here, Sarah."
Adam was beside her, taking her hand. She was awake. She was in the hospital.
She let out a breath of relief. Her heart rate slowed.
"Are you all right?" he asked anxiously.
"I’m fine," she responded. "I just had a nightmare, and…I got confused."
"You called me."
Sarah struggled to clear her head. His voice sounded faintly amused. "What?"
He was grinning at her. "I said, you called me. I like that."
Sarah tried to smile back, but the nightmare still had a hold on her. Rock still had a hold on her. Pulling her down.
"It’s about time you woke up," Adam continued, still smiling. "You were less than coherent when they brought you out of recovery last night, and then you slept straight through till this morning."
She surveyed his rumpled shirt and unruly hair. Had he stayed here, with her, all night?
"The procedure went perfectly," he continued. "The cardiologist believes they were able to ‘ablate’ whatever was causing the arrhythmia. He anticipates a full recovery."
Sarah absorbed the news slowly. "Just like that?"
"Just like that."
She could think of nothing else to say; cold pond water continued to cling about her.
"What was it about?" Adam asked.
She blinked.
"The nightmare," he clarified, sitting down on the edge of the bed. "Do you want to tell me about it?"
His nearness chased away some of the chill. But he wasn’t near enough. She wanted him to crawl under the covers, lay down beside her, pull her to him…
She tried to concentrate on his question.
She had never told anyone about the nightmares. She had always suffered through them alone. Yet here he was, asking. He knew the worst already, and he was still here.
> Her eyes teared up. She prided herself on not being a crier, but perhaps she could blame the anesthesia.
The events of the last twenty-four hours had rocked her from the inside out, and she knew it was for her ultimate good. But along with her newfound willingness to hope had come a vulnerability she hadn’t expected. She could scarcely remember a time when her loathsome secret had not been the bulk of her, defining her every move, her every reflection. Now that core of her was gone. What she was left with was naked. Fragile.
She wanted to hide her tears; she wanted to be closer to Adam. In one motion she sat up and wrapped both her arms around his neck, straining the leads on the monitor wires attached to her chest. He held her as she was for a moment, awkwardly, then he moved to sit alongside her instead, maneuvering carefully around the wires until he could wrap his muscular arms around her middle. She nestled eagerly into his side, savoring the feel of him—his warmth, his strength, his tenderness.
"Talk to me, Sarah," he urged, his voice soft in her ear.
She swallowed, willing herself not to tremble. Her heart was fine now; the time had come. She needed to get it out—to get it over with. Being held, yet not having to face him, was nice. It would be easier this way.
"The nightmare was about Rock," she said quietly. "I’ve had the same one a million times. But I don’t want to talk about that. What I need is to tell you what really happened."
Her limbs trembled.
Adam’s arms tightened around her. "I’m listening."
She took a breath and began her story with what was closest to her heart: her sister. Dee’s journals, her emotional problems, her promiscuousness. How Sarah had loved her dearly, despite everything. With a cracking voice, she went on to explain what had happened when Rock Rockney came to their house that night. The horrific scene that met her eyes as she walked down the stairs into the living room. Dee’s clothes, crumpled on the floor. Her mouth, stuffed with cloth—his handkerchief. Her eyes, fraught with terror, seething with hate. The muffled whimpers that were meant to be shouts of outrage, or pain.
Sarah told how she had screamed at Rock to stop, slapped him, pulled at him. But he was too strong. He had thrown her off with one apelike arm, her frail presence no more worrying to him than a gnat. Her eyes had come to rest on the elephant statue. Her hands had snatched it up…
Her voice trailed off.
Adam waited a moment before speaking. Up to now, he hadn’t uttered a word. "You hit him to defend your sister," he said gently. "You didn’t intend to kill him."
She shook her head. "But when I did it, I hated him—I told you that. I wasn’t paying attention to how hard I hit him. I didn’t care if he did die. When I saw him crumple, I was glad—"
"Well of course you were!" Adam broke in, his voice rising. "How could you feel anything but rage toward a man who was—at that very moment—raping your sister? If it had been my sister, don’t you think I would have pounded him into the floor?"
Sarah tensed. Adam’s flares of temper didn’t disturb her—in fact, she found his particular brand of righteous indignation charming. But the images his outburst provoked were hard to see.
Adam let out a remorseful groan and softened his voice. "For heaven’s sake, Sarah, you’re only human. As for your not caring whether the man died, I don’t believe you. If you had the chance to choose between his dying by your hand or spending a decade enjoying the company of his own kind, he would be behind bars right now. You never chose to kill him. You chose to strike him in defense of your sister. His death was an accidental consequence."
She shook her head again. "I could have done more. Once Dee was out of danger, I could have called an ambulance."
"So why didn’t you?"
"Because…" the horrific scenes pounded her mind mercilessly, and she let them out in a rapid tumble of hastily chosen words. "Because when he fell, I honestly thought I’d only knocked him out. All I cared about was Dee. She was hysterical. Screaming. Throwing things. I tried to calm her down, but she wasn’t hearing me. She started kicking him as he lay there on the floor, in the face, in the ribs…everywhere. Then she was jumping on him, pummeling him. She beat at him with her sandals, the brass picture frame from the coffee table, the art books—whatever she could grab. She was wild—I couldn’t get her to stop. She kept striking out at him until she was exhausted. Then she was crying, sobbing, and I was trying to comfort her. I don’t know how much time passed before I even thought about him. When I did, my only concern was what he might do to us when he woke up. I was afraid of him; I wanted to call the police. But Dee wouldn’t let me—she didn’t want anyone to know what he’d done to her. She wanted to drag him outside the front door and just leave him there, on the lawn. But he—"
Her voice gave way.
"He didn’t wake up," Adam finished.
"No," she replied hoarsely. "And when I finally got the nerve to check for a pulse, there wasn’t one. When we realized he was dead, everything changed. Our roles reversed. I was the one who broke down. I guess I cried—I don’t even remember that part of it clearly. What I do remember is that Dee took charge. All of a sudden, she was my big sister again. She kept telling me I hadn’t killed him, that she had—that it was her beating that did it. She was saying that because she wanted to spare me—and perhaps because she hated him enough to want it to be true. But I didn’t believe her. There was so much blood in his hair, on the floor…I knew it was my blow that killed him.
"I still wanted to call the police—at one point I had the phone in my hand—but I let Dee stop me. She kept saying that she would go to jail—that Rock was unconscious already when she attacked him. That unlike me, there was no excuse for what she’d done. Mainly, she was ashamed. She didn’t want anyone to know about the rape. She just wanted to make Rock Rockney and everything that had happened that night go away."
Sarah told the rest without stopping. The bungee cords. The motorcycle. Those few horrific moments underwater. The scrubbing and the cleaning; the trips to the county dump. The silence in the house. The empty bottle of antidepressants beside Dee’s bed. The realization that she was completely, finally, alone.
When she finished, she felt limp. Exhausted.
But also strangely empty. Happily, blissfully empty.
Adam said nothing for a long time. When he did speak, his voice was even. Strong.
The very tone of it comforted her.
"Thank you for telling me," he said slowly. Then he shifted position to face her.
"What you have to realize, Sarah, is that your view of events is distorted. You’re still seeing everything through the eyes of a traumatized, panicked adolescent. But what I see—what any objective adult would see—is different. You made some serious errors in judgment, that’s true. Not calling for help was a mistake. Hiding the body was a mistake. Certainly keeping it a secret all these years has been a mistake. But your actions are more understandable than you seem to realize. You were only a teenager—a teenager who had been orphaned just days before. You were put in a terrifying situation, you reacted rashly, and then you panicked. Losing your sister on top of everything else was too much—it no doubt put you in some kind of shock."
She had turned her face away from him, but with a hand under her chin, he brought it back.
"You thought I would be horrified, Sarah, and I am. But not because I misjudged you. I’m horrified by the thought of your spending the last nine years suffering through such tremendous guilt. Believing you were some kind of monster, living in constant fear of being discovered and punished—"
"I’m still scared," she exclaimed. "You know that I could go to prison."
His gaze locked on hers. "That’s not going to happen, Sarah."
"You don’t know that!" she argued, her voice thin. "You can’t. What Dee and I did after I hit him will make us look guilty of murder, even if we weren’t. And I lied to the police, just the other day. I told them that Rock left the house that night and that I never saw him again."
/> A flicker of distress crossed Adam’s eyes. Sarah could tell that the admission worried him, even as his voice remained steady. "I’m no expert on the law," he replied. "But I suspect the police might overlook that lapse if you come forward with the real truth voluntarily—and immediately. You are not guilty of murder. You can’t even be sure that you did kill him, Sarah! The fatal blow could very well have come from Dee; after this much time, there’s probably no way of ever knowing. As for whatever lesser crimes were committed, you have to remember that you were only a juvenile, and there were certainly extenuating circumstances. Not to mention statutes of limitations running out."
Sarah said nothing. Her mind seemed, suddenly, a blank.
Adam pulled her against him and hugged her tight.
"You don’t have to suffer through this alone anymore. And we don’t have to speculate. We’ll hire an attorney and we’ll take his or her advice. Maybe we’ll have a fight on our hands; maybe we won’t. Maybe the authorities will be happy enough just to put a lid on the case and let it go."
Sarah shivered. If the detective had believed her lies, he would not be letting it go right now—he would be pursuing Tommy Martin. Even if she had nothing else on her conscience, there would always be that. Yet it was within her power to clear him completely.
If she were strong enough.
"Whatever happens," Adam continued, "we’ll deal with it. You, me, Rose… and whatever other friends and family you’d like support from."
Friends and family. Support. The words had an almost whimsical ring to them.
Sarah had accepted her isolation along with her guilt, but she hadn’t enjoyed being alone. Not really. She realized now that she did want other people around her. That she needed them. To love and be loved, just like her father had always said—
An alarming thought penetrated her brain, and she pulled away from Adam with a start. "You didn’t tell Rose?!"
"I most certainly did," he said sternly. "She was here, you know. During the procedure. She told me she would be back this morning."
Sarah stared at him, unbelieving. "She’s still…she doesn’t—"
"Better watch what you say," he chastised. "She’d be furious if she knew you gave her so little credit. Of course she doesn’t hate you, Sarah. There’s no reason why she should. If anything, she’s irritated at you for being so hard on yourself."