Embers (24 page)

"
Oh, boy,
"
she said, staring down at her folded hands.
"
Oh, boy,
"
she repeated, overwhelmed.

He laughed under his breath.
"
My thought exactly,
"
he said.

Neither one of them spoke for a moment. Then Tom leaned forward and cupped his hand under her chin, and lifted her face to his.
"
Hey. There
'
s an explanation for this. Let
'
s just take our time and work through it.
"

He seemed unbelievably tender to her just then: gentle, and reassuring, and absolutely confident that there was a rational explanation for her behavior. But she let her chin droop anyway, to hide the tumult she was feeling.

"
Meg, listen to me,
"
he said.
"
You mentioned that you
'
d been researching Gordon Camplin earlier, didn
'
t you? Besides which, you
'
d also heard Orel Tremblay
'
s version of those last hours. It wouldn
'
t take a psychic to imagine a scenario like the one you just acted out. Hell, I was halfway there myself. Blame it on the dollhouse. It doesn
'
t mean you
'
re bewitched.
"

She wanted so desperately to believe him.
"
You don
'
t understand,
"
she said, her lip trembling.
"
I
don't
speak a word of French.
"

"
Not
...
a word?
"

It was a blow, she could tell, but he only nodded and said,
"
Okay. Okay, we
'
ll start right there. Does anybody in your family speak French?
"

She shook her head, then said,
"
Maybe my dad, when he was a kid. I could check.
"

"
Do any of your friends?
Their
relations? Did you take French in high school?
"

"
No to all of it. Oh, Tom
...
this is
...
what
'
ll I
...? O
h, Tom,
"
she said, balancing on the edge of hysteria.
"
You don
'
t have
any
idea what I actually said when I spoke in French? Is it possible it was just French-sounding gibberish?
"

"
I don
'
t think so. You spoke very fluently
—
and with a damn good accent, at least to my ears. But then, I only took a semester of French in college. I caught the words
'
two
'
and
's
ons
'
and that
'
s about it. Maybe Zenobia knows French.
" 
He gave Meg a smile that she wrapped around her battered psyche like a thick blanket.

But Meg needed more. Shivering, she said,
"
M-maybe Zenobia can tell me how
I
happen to know French.
"

"
Unlikely,
"
he said flatly. He lifted a droopy lock of Meg
'
s hair and tucked it behind her ear in a simple gesture that left Meg more weak-kneed than before.

"
Meg
...
look, memory is a mysterious and complex thing. Medical and legal experts have their hands full trying to explain it. The issue seems to come up for us all the time, especially in childhood abuse situations. People do funny things with their memories: repress them, alter them, enhance them, distort them. Who knows what your father told you when you were young? What
he
remembered from when
he
was young?
"

"
I think I would
'
ve remembered if my father and I had ever conversed in French,
"
she said testily.

"
And I
'
m telling you I
'
ve seen cases where far more sensational facts were repressed for a
lifetime
by all the parties concerned.
"

"
Really?
"
She took some comfort from the thought. But it was such small, fleeting comfort. She leaned her head on the back of the chair and stared at the cobwebby, open-beamed ceiling of the shed. A tear rolled out the corner of one eye. She let it roll.
"
My grandmother was raped, wasn
'
t she,
"
she said dully.

"
We don
'
t know that.
"

"
And left for dead.
"

"
We don
'
t know that.
"

"
I thought he strangled her or something.
"
She lifted her head.
"
But this seems so much worse.
"

"
Meg, you
'
re putting yourself through hell for nothing,
"
Tom said, his voice becoming taut.
"
Don
'
t do this to yourself.
"

"
You track down murderers for a living, Tom,
"
she said, gathering herself together, forcing herself to look straight into his blue-gray eyes.
"
Do you think we have a case against Gordon Camplin?
"

He shook his head.

She wasn
'
t willing to accept that.
"
It
'
s not just the memory —
repressed or whatever,
"
she said
doggedly
.
"
There
'
s more. When I was setting up the furnishings in the dollhouse, I knew where
every single item
went. I never once had to stop and think. Piece after piece, room after room
...
it was almost as if
—
"

She took a deep breath and said,
"
—
as if I
'
d been haunting the dollhouse for quite some time.
"

He turned to look at the enchanting toy.
"
Quaintly put,
"
he allowed himself to say.

"
There
'
s nothing quaint about it!
"
she flashed, impatient with his patience.
"
Do I look lik
e the type to fly through foot-
high rooms? Do you think I enjoy telling you this? I
'
m just trying to be
—
"

"
I know, brutally honest,
"
he said, standing up.
"
It
'
s your great charm.
"
He took her by her hands and pulled her to her feet.
"
Time for bed, m
'
lady. Do you have something you can take to fall asleep?
"

"
What, you mean, like pills?
"
Pills were the same as alcohol in her mind; she had an irrational aversion for both.
"
I don
'
t take pills just to sleep,
"
she said curtly.

He seemed genuinely surprised.
"
Really? My wife did. I thought all women did.
"

Snorting, she shook her head.
"
Where did you live before you got married, Lieutenant? Under your desk?
"

"
Funny you should say that,
"
he said amiably.
"
I got razzed a lot at the office for my workaholic ways. Okay, it
'
s true. Before I married I never dated all that much. It was a pain, making dates and then having to break them. But it
's not as if I
had a choice:
i
t
'
s on Saturday nights that we do our best business,
"
he said ironically.

"
I wouldn
'
t like that,
"
she admitted, frowning.
"
I wouldn
'
t like you to stand me up all the time.
"

"
No,
"
he said with a look more thoughtful than amused.
"
You
'
re too committed to the ones you love.
"

She felt the blood rush to her cheeks.
"
That doesn
'
t mean I don
'
t sympathize with you,
"
she said quickly.
"
You must
'
ve had to make some agonizing choices when you were married.
"

"
I never did get the balance right,
"
he admitted.

And in the meantime, Meg
'
s hands were still in his. The phrase
"
circle of joy
"
popped into her head, but immediately she put the thought aside. Wrong time. Wrong place. Wrong, wrong man.

"
Well,
"
she said, looking at their joined hands and shrugging guiltily out of his grip. The spell, like all true enchantments, broke at once.

"
Meg
—
"

She looked up into his questioning eyes.
"
You
'
re right,
"
she whispered.
"
I
am
ready for bed.
"

That didn
'
t come out quite right. She thought of the time she
'
d teased him with the exact
same phrase, and she blushed:
for then, for now, for every t
ime she'd seen him in between.
She
'
d been fighting the idea of
him from the day she first saw
him on her front lawn. And
only now was she beginning to
understand why: because right from the s
tart, he'd been as irresistibly
attractive to her as he was to Allie.

But there were two of them, and there was only one of him.