Close Encounters (21 page)

He remained perfectly still. She appeared almost childlike as she tried to explain what she’d gone through.

“I’m not the same person anymore,” she went on. “Not since that night. Everything is different. And I’m scared, because…”

“You’re scared because everything is just a little bit off balance. You feel like the world stopped, and when it started again, after the shooting, you were in a different place.”

Carol blinked. “That’s right.”

Lee stared at the floor, almost embarrassed. “Just about everything looks different. What used to be important isn’t.” He looked at her. “Is that what you were going to say?”

“Yes,” she said quietly.

Lee clasped his hands. “There was a time when I could talk myself into believing I could do no wrong as a cop. No questions asked. I gave everything my best shot…” He closed his eyes.

“No pun intended,” she said wryly.

“Sorry. I didn’t mean it that way.”

“A month ago, you might never have realized what you were saying, let alone apologized. Now you’re accountable. What do you think happened?” she asked seriously.

Lee shook his head, spread his hands. “I don’t know.”

“Dad?”

Startled, Lee jumped up from his seat. He took a deep breath before turning to face his daughter.

“Sorry, Ricca. We’re just…”

“I know. Going over what happened to Ms. Taggart.” Erica stood next to her father, looking at Carol. “My dad said you were in an accident and he’s investigating.”

Carol nodded, avoiding eye contact with Lee. “That’s right.” She stood up. “I was just filing an… unofficial complaint,” Carol said dryly.

“Oh. Can we go now?” Erica asked her father.

“Yes, you can,” Carol answered for him. “It’s almost time for me to leave for the museum anyway.”

“We’ll drop you off,” Lee offered.

“No.” Carol shook her head. “I can take a cab.”

“You don’t mind, do you, Ricca? It’ll only take a few minutes.”

“All right,” she muttered.

Lee’s cellular rang. “Excuse me,” he said, opening the unit and walking into the hall for privacy.

Erica stood awkwardly next to Carol, looking covertly at her yellow slippers.

“Are those ducks?” Erica asked.

Carol wiggled her toes, causing the ducks to nod. “Yes, aren’t they cute? My neighbor gave them to me as a welcome-home gift.”

Erica was curious but hesitant. “Welcome home from where? Were you on a trip?”

“No. The hospital. I was there for several days after my… er… my accident.”

Carol excused herself and went into her bedroom to exchange the fanciful slippers for a pair of low boots. She picked up her purse and keys from the dresser and returned to the living room.

“What happened to you?” Erica asked, not missing a beat.

“You mean, why was I in the hospital?” Erica nodded, wide-eyed. “I was attacked. On the street.”

“Yeah? Do you know who did it?”

“No, I don’t.”

“Well, did they, like… you know…” Erica fumbled.

“Try to rape me? No. It wasn’t that kind of attack,” Carol said carefully. She glanced in Lee’s direction, but his back was turned to them while he spoke on the phone. “Your father and I were just going over some of the details for his report.”

Erica nodded, losing interest when the details weren’t forthcoming. “Are you going out to dinner with him?” Carol asked.

“I don’t know,” Erica said, shifting restlessly. “My dad is always so busy. Maybe he’ll get a call to a crime scene or something. He’s probably just going to take me back home.”

“Oh,” Carol said thoughtfully, lowering herself to the arm of the chair. She looked closely at the girl as she began to talk about her father, mostly with obvious pride, but also with an element of complaint. While Carol listened and nodded, another consideration suddenly came to her.

When she and Matt were married she’d never seriously thought of having a baby with him. Perhaps because they had been more or less raising each other. It wasn’t because she didn’t like children, or didn’t want them. She knew now that to some extent she’d been afraid. What if she was a terrible mother? What if her child didn’t love her? The what-ifs had been endless.

Carol observed that Erica looked like her father, but her features were finer, more feminine. She had a sudden curiosity about what a child of hers might look like. She had no way of knowing what traits were hidden in her gene pool from her unknown biological family, or which of them would appear in a child of hers. If she had children, Carol realized, it would be like starting a whole new lineage.

Erica was becoming uncomfortable under Carol’s scrutiny. “What are you staring at?”

“You’re not thinking of running away, are you?”

Erica’s mouth opened and closed. “Run away? Why… why did you say that?”

“I’m just guessing. You sound like you might want to.” Carol shrugged. “It’s a terrible idea.”

Erica unconsciously betrayed herself when her gaze darted toward her father. “How would you know?”

“I ran away when I was nine years old,” Carol informed her.

“I don’t believe you,” Erica said dismissively and turned away.

“I lasted about six hours. Then I got tired and hungry and scared. And it got dark.”

“What did you do?”

“Sat down someplace and cried. My brother found me about three miles from my house.” She grinned brightly at Erica. “Our picture was in the local papers. My sister was very jealous.”

Carol went to a closet just inside the front entrance. She took a scarf from the top shelf and, standing in front of the mirror on the inside of the closet door, began to pull on a black velvet beret.

“I tried again when I was fifteen. Your age, I think. That time I was gone almost a week.”

“So what happened that time?” Erica asked, still skeptical but obviously interested.

“Nothing much. Quite frankly, it was boring. I was trying to hitchhike to San Francisco, but I didn’t make it. I got tired of worrying about getting food to eat and finding a place to sleep. And it was lonely. I went to a police station and they called my folks. My parents had made up flyers with my picture on them, and the precinct had one. Mom and Dad came to get me.”

“Were they mad at you? Did they miss you at all?”

Carol wrapped the scarf around her neck and adjusted the hat, remembering the incredible fear and pain she’d seen on her parents’ faces when they were escorted into a waiting room. “They were afraid they would never find me. They were hurt. Deeply hurt.”

Lee returned to the living room to find his daughter staring moodily at the floor and Carol getting into her coat. He liked the beret. It framed her face in a beguiling and attractive way. She turned to him.

“Look, I’d like to finish our… discussion, if it’s okay with you,” he said to Carol. “I need to make sure I understand a few things.”

She was curious, but nodded. “All right.” As she prepared to leave the apartment she heard Lee in conversation with his daughter.

“That was your mother.”

“What did she say?”

“She found your knapsack in the family room and figured out that you didn’t go to school today. She got nervous and called me.” Lee lowered his voice and looked pointedly at her. “I apologized for not letting her know that you and I were going to spend the day together. We’ll get something to eat somewhere and talk. Then I’ll take you home.”

They left Carol’s apartment and headed for the elevator, each wrapped in his own thoughts. Lee hoped that his report of his ex-wife’s anxiety over not knowing Erica’s whereabouts would give his daughter a moment’s pause. Carol hoped that Lee didn’t blow his relationship with Erica, who clearly loved him. And she wished there had been more time to talk about what they were both going through. At least now she knew she wasn’t alone.

They boarded the elevator and the door slid closed.

“Did Mom start screaming that everything was your fault?” Erica asked her father on the descent.

“That conversation is between your mother and me. But maybe you and I need to spend more time together. Do you have any plans for this weekend? It’s short notice, but I’m not on duty.”

“Are you serious?” Erica asked, obviously excited by the possibility.

“Sure. What would you like to do?” he asked as they exited at the main floor.

“I don’t know. It doesn’t really matter,” Erica said. She added reflectively, “It’s got to be better than running away.”

Carol was in the lead as they headed out of the building, and neither Lee nor his daughter saw her smile.

C
AROL LEFT ONE GALLERY AND
began to meander through another. She was getting tired. During most of the past two hours she’d been distracted from her work by the constant mental replay of her conversation with Lee in her apartment and thoughts of how their relationship had been developing over the past few weeks. She found herself questioning,
what
relationship? What were they to each other?

On the ride over to the museum there had been something about being next to him in his own car, with his daughter sitting behind them, that had made her feel as if they were an impromptu temporary family.

She’d glanced at his profile as he drove, noticed how alertly he watched everything going on around him. He had an easy control of the car, like someone who spent a lot of time in one. She liked his hands, and suddenly she remembered the way he’d held her with one hand pressed against the back of her head, his fingers massaging her scalp through her hair. The gesture had been not only gentle but knowing and sensitive to her pain. Just thinking about it made her feel a little giddy.

At the entrance to the museum Lee helped her out of his car and escorted her to the door. He wanted a few moments alone with her out of earshot of his daughter.

“Do you want me to come back for you?” he asked.

Carol recognized that the question was complicated. The tension in her stomach was not from fear but anticipation. One possible answer was too dangerous, the other a lie. She compromised.

“I’ll take a cab. I have no idea how long this is going to take. But thank you for the ride.”

Lee only smiled briefly, squeezed her arm, and went back to his car, where Erica was waiting.

Carol had her own regrets as she watched the car pull away. The thing is, was the shooting the kind of barrier that they could bridge? Afterward, crossing back to the world as they’d known it might not be possible. Perhaps it was even unwise to cultivate any kind of relationship under the circumstances, except that what stood between her and Lee was also the thing that they both had in common.

In the galleries of the small museum Carol did her research by rote, identifying objects that she wanted to use in her class. She intended to talk about artifacts and symbols of culture, especially how men and women were portrayed through different animals or objects. Afterward the classroom work would eventually evolve into an assignment to visit this museum to make five specific drawings of their findings.

While seated in a quiet corridor, Carol idly leafed through her sketchbook and notes. The pages fell open to one particular drawing, one of several attempts to capture Lee’s image. In each successive drawing she could see more of his personality emerging, mostly through his eyes and mouth.

She jumped when a guard appeared to announce the closing of the museum. She gathered her things together in her tote bag and put on her coat in preparation for leaving. Out of nowhere she began to feel an overwhelming sense of isolation. The silence and emptiness of the museum were daunting.

Outside a few minutes later, she stood for a moment in indecision. Once more she was out in the cold, by herself in the dark. There would not be the welcoming warmth and bulk of Max to greet her at her door. There was Matt, but that was temporary. She began walking toward the curb in hopes of finding a taxi. She’d gone only a few feet before she realized that someone was standing to her left, watching her approach. He began moving toward her, and for an instant she was afraid. When he got close enough she recognized that it was Lee. Relief flooded through her. There was the reassurance of the familiar—as well as a profound longing.

Here he was, maybe not so unexpectedly, to give her what she needed. She wanted to believe that their continuing encounters were part of a plan.

“What are you doing here?” she asked in wonder. “I told you I’d get a cab home.”

“I know, but I didn’t want you to have to do that. Not alone.”

Carol watched him closely, and in his face she could see that he also had doubts, but she was pleased that he was here. She didn’t want to be the only one trying to figure out what was happening between them.

Without saying a word or asking her permission, he took her hand and led her to the passenger side of his car. Carol found herself enjoying the protectiveness of his fingers closing around hers. It felt incredibly intimate. Lee released her when he held the door open for her.

In fact, Lee had known as soon as he’d walked away earlier that he had to come back. There was unfinished business between them, not the least of which was his awareness of how Carol had unconsciously tensed up when he’d driven south from her building in the direction of the museum. He had caught her sudden wide-eyed stare, as if the world was too big, too overwhelming. It had taken him a while to realize that she had not been in that particular neighborhood since the shooting.

“Is Erica okay?” Carol asked as she gazed out her side window, distracted.

“For now. It changes from week to week.” Lee took a quick look at her profile. “We stopped for a bite to eat. I took your advice and tried to talk to her, tell her that she isn’t the only one trying to make adjustments. But I also promised I’d speak to her mother.”

“Is that going to be hard?” Carol asked.

“Probably,” Lee said dryly. “But I have a feeling that Erica may also be overdoing the woe-is-me routine.”

“Probably,” Carol agreed. “But still, you can’t afford to take her concerns for granted.”

Lee slowed down as he approached a corner, considering the direction he would take. He glanced at Carol again and made a decision, turning right. At the next corner he turned again. Lee felt Carol’s body stiffening next to him. He could see the interest and alertness that kept her attention focused outside the window. She drew in a sharp breath.