Guilt (13 page)

Omigosh, Annie thought, when he actually got down on one knee.

“Here's the thing. I never thought I'd find someone who felt right, the way you do. I mean, who else would be up in the middle of the night, feeding a baby kangaroo?”

He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a small silver box with a white ribbon around it. “Always and forever,” he whispered, and held the box out to Abby. “Will you marry me?”

The words were pure Hallmark, so why were Annie's eyes misted over and suddenly it felt like someone was sitting on her chest?

Abby's hands trembled as she reached for the box. She slid off the ribbon and opened it. Inside was a black velvet ring case. She opened it.

“I…” Abby looked over at Luke.

Now the entire restaurant was watching. Jeez, this guy had guts. What if she turned him down?

She didn't. Abby drew Luke up and threw her arms around him. “Yes,” she said. “Yes! Yes! Yes!” The room erupted in applause.

Luke took the diamond solitaire from the case and slid it on Abby's finger. They kissed.

Annie hugged Abby and then Luke. Peter shook Luke's hand. The waiter appeared with a bottle of champagne and four champagne flutes. He uncorked the wine and poured.

“You had this planned, didn't you?” Abby said.

“You weren't going to get any if you said no,” Luke replied, grinning.

Peter got his glass in the air first. “I'd like to propose a toast,” he said. “To Abby and Luke…”

As Annie listened to the toast, she tried to remember when she'd seen Abby this happy. Maybe when she got married the first time. Up to that point, it had been Annie who did things first. Getting her period. Smoking. Driving. Cracking up the car. Annie had broken their parents in, so it had been a whole lot easier when Abby came along. Abby had been nineteen when she'd tied the knot. That had one-upped all of Annie's firsts.
There but for the grace of God go I,
Annie remembered thinking, and thanking her lucky stars that she wasn't the one walking down the aisle. She so wasn't ready. Here was Abby gearing up to marry a second time and Annie
still
wasn't ready.

Everyone was clinking glasses. Annie held up her glass.

“To the two of you,” Annie said, and took a sip. Then a swallow. The bubbles must have gone down the wrong way because she was choking. She tried some water but it didn't help. She doubled over, coughing into her napkin, tears streaming down her face.

She got to her feet and excused herself. Abby asked if she wanted her to come along. “No, I'm fine,” Annie told her, and stumbled, half-blinded, to the ladies' room.

Annie held on to the edge of the sink, coughing and gasping, still unable to catch her breath. Finally, the coughing stopped. A blurry image stared back at her from the mirror. People said that she and Abby had the same eyes, but it was their mother's eyes that stared back at her now. Annie shivered.

She splashed her face with water and leaned forward. Thirty-five years old and already she had crow's-feet. She ran her fingers through her hair. No gray at least. Not yet.

Annie looked down at the naked ring finger on her left hand. Damn. She didn't need a man to complete her. Really she didn't.

When she got back, Peter reached for her hand under the table. His raised eyebrows asked if she was okay. She tried to smile. It
did
feel good to have his hand to squeeze back. She picked up her champagne glass and drained it.

After dinner, Peter and Annie went back to Annie's apartment. He followed her up the stairs to her place on the third floor. She fumbled for her keys.

“Annie,” Peter said. He was looking at her, his eyes full of questions. With his fingertips, he traced her forehead, down her face and jaw. Annie closed her eyes, savoring the gentleness of his touch. He put his hand behind her neck and massaged.

“You okay?” he asked.

Why did he have to keep asking? She opened her eyes. His face was inches from hers. She pulled away.

“I already told you. I'm fine.” It came out sharp and strident. “But…”

Peter held on. “But what?”

“But I … I don't know what I want.”

He drew her into an embrace and they kissed. She wanted to melt into him, but she couldn't. He nuzzled her neck. Her knees went weak and she found herself holding on to him, weeping uncontrollably. What the hell was going on?

One thing she knew for sure: she didn't want to be alone tonight.

14

T
HE NEXT
morning, Peter left Annie sleeping. Neither of them had gotten a good night's sleep. After they left Pulcinella's, Annie had snapped at him when he asked if she was okay. At her place, they took a shower together. That usually relaxed them both. But afterward, Annie paced the floor like a nervous feline. Reluctantly, he gave up trying to entice her into bed.

When he woke up in the middle of the night, Annie was in the living room sitting on the couch, her arms hugging her knees. She still didn't want to talk. Peter sat beside her, put his arms around her, and stroked her head. She relaxed into him and they made love. After that, Peter sat up and watched her sleep. He thought about how simple and straightforward their relationship had once been.

He'd have liked to sleep in the next morning but he'd promised to meet Jackie Klevinski early. He left Annie sleeping soundly, tangled in sheets like she'd been fighting with them all night.

Jackie was at his office waiting for him. He ushered her in and set up the video camera. Then she sat there, her eyes wide and watchful, as he explained how he'd be hypnotizing her. “Hypnosis is really pretty straightforward. There's nothing supernatural about it.”

“I believe in the power of the subconscious. Don't you?”

The question stumped him for a moment. He had a pretty good idea that his notion of the subconscious and hers were slightly different. Better to err on the safe side and answer with a simple “Yes, I do.”

“Annie said she told you about my visitations.”

“The hypnosis might even help some.”

“You mean make them stop? But I don't want them to stop.”

“It's been happening more?”

“It happened yesterday night again.” Jackie's eyes were shining. “I was watching TV, dozing off, kind of, then I heard my name. It was Mary Alice's voice. All I could see was a shadow, but I could tell she was holding something out to me, a dark bundle, like that backpack she had on the law school steps. I knew she wanted me to take it from her, and I thought,
That's
my
bag she's holding. I must have left it somewhere and she found it.
I wasn't scared or anything, I just kept thinking,
It's my bag she's holding and she needs me to take it.
” Jackie looked puzzled. “Sounds weird, doesn't it?”

If she'd been Peter's patient, he'd have asked her to talk more about “weird,” to explore what she was feeling, to think about what might be in that bag. Grief and guilt, Peter suspected, were at the core of these visions.

“Not so weird,” Peter said. “You've been through a lot. The mind sometimes takes strange paths to get to the truth.” He needed to push on with the business at hand. “You ready to get started?”

It had taken fifteen minutes to get Rudy Ravitch into a trance state; Jackie was there in five. Peter took her back to the day of the law school bombing, up the steps of Storrow Hall, and to her meeting with Mary Alice Boudreaux.
Let her set her own
course,
Peter reminded himself. Anything she comes up with should be the product of her memory, not her imagination fueled by his inadvertent suggestion.

“Where are you?”

“I'm sitting on the bench.”

“Tell me what you see.”

“Miss Boudreaux. She's wearing a nice suit, it's kind of a tan color. Her nails are a real pretty shade of pink. She's got her briefcase open on the floor. She's showing me the papers, reading them real slow, but I can't follow what she was saying. I'm thinking about Joe. He'll go ballistic when he sees them.”

“Now look around some more. Listen.”

Jackie cocked her head. “They're laughing. In one of the classrooms. The door is open and I can hear someone, a woman, saying something. I can't hear what. A man, answering. There's a hushy, kind of squeaky sound. Sneakers. It's a man going into the men's room across the hall.”

“Good. What happens next.”

“Miss Boudreaux gets up. Says she'll be right back. She's got someone waiting outside to help with the paperwork. I can hear her heels on the floor, getting quieter, gone. I'm there alone. I look at the papers and I'm afraid. Why am I doing this? It's crazy. I start to get up, to get out of there quick, but Miss Boudreaux is back.”

Jackie went through how she'd signed the papers and the other woman left. People started coming out of the classrooms.

Jackie straightened in her seat, her face tense. “I got scared. I knew it didn't make any sense, but I thought,
What if Joe is in one of those classrooms? What if he's hiding down the stairs, or in the men's room.
I put on my scarf. I had to get away.” Her look clouded over.

“You feeling all right?” Peter asked.

She gazed off in midair in front of her.

“What do you see?”

“Miss Boudreaux. She looks … she doesn't look right. Her aura. Maybe it's the light.”

“Tell me about her aura,” Peter said.

“It's usually bright yellow with a pale-blue energy band next to her skin. That's what's wrong. The blue isn't there, just a band of red. I start to say something to her, I want to tell her to be careful, but there's people all over the place and I don't like staying there. He could be watching.

“I go outside.” Jackie blinked her eyes. “It's hot. Sunny. And it's late. I've got to get a sandwich and get back to the office. There's kids on the steps. One in a gray T-shirt and jeans looks up at me. What a jerk. Doesn't bother to move his leg, so I step over him. People are coming the other way. I'm out on the sidewalk. I run to make the light but I only get halfway across to the traffic island before it changes.”

Jackie's head jerked up. “She's calling. Miss Boudreaux? She's there at the top of the steps holding something, a black bag, there's a strap dangling from it. She's waving.”

“Who is she waving to?”

“I can't see. There's lots of people on the steps and out in front of the building. A bus is going past…” Peter could almost smell the swirl of diesel exhaust as Jackie recoiled and paused for a moment. “It's gone now. I try to get her attention. She lowers the bag. She sees me. She waves back. Then—” Jackie tilted her head to one side, her brow creased with confusion. “There's a flash, right there where she's standing.” Jackie's cheeks were wet with tears. “I feel like someone's shoving me hard, throwing me into the traffic. Then it's like time stops. I'm in the middle of the street. The cars are stopped. I've gotta get away from there.” She sobbed. “I know I should have told her about the aura. I should have warned her.”

It was hard to watch her in so much pain. “I know you feel terribly sad about this, maybe even guilty, and it's difficult to replay it. Just take your time. There's no rush.”

Jackie swallowed and wiped her eyes with the back of her hand.

Peter waited a few moments more for Jackie to collect herself. “Do you think you can continue?”

“I want to go on.” She shifted in her seat and set her shoulders.

“Good. Okay then, I'd like you to go back to the moment when Miss Boudreaux is on the steps. Concentrate on the people standing opposite her.”

“There's so many people.”

“She's holding up the bag. Who's she showing it to?”

Jackie squeezed her eyes shut. Peter hoped it wasn't a mistake to press.

“Could be that man. Dark jacket. He's getting a … a bike. He's rolling it over the sidewalk, over the grass.”

“Does he look familiar?”

“I can't see his face. He's wearing a hood.”

“Skin color?”

Jackie shook her head. “He's got gloves on. Black gloves. He's riding over the curb. He takes off—” A little noise escaped from her throat as she stared out in front of her, as if surprised. “His hood blows back and I can see…” Lines of anxiety etched her forehead. She flinched. “There's a bus going by and I … it's blocking my view.” She covered her ears. “It's so loud, harsh-sounding.” Slowly she lowered her hands from her ears. “What the…?” she said, looking puzzled. “He's gone.”

Peter was on the edge of his seat. If only for an instant, Jackie may have caught a glimpse of the bomber. He tried to keep his voice calm.

“The man you saw on the bike. Go back to that moment when his hood blew back. Try to see. What does he look like?”

“Glasses. He's wearing glasses. Dark hair. And”—she squinted—“maybe a short, dark beard.”

“Is he a big man?”

She shook her head.

“How old?”

“I don't know. Not old-old. Thirty or forty.”

“Can you describe the bike?”

“It's fancy. White. Handlebars. A big light in the front. The wheels are kind of small.”

*   *   *

“Small wheels and a big light—what the hell kind of bike is that?” MacRae asked later that morning at the police station after Peter showed him and two other detectives the videotape. MacRae had been equally unimpressed by Jackie's description of a dark-haired, not big, not small, not young, not old, hood-wearing guy with glasses who might or might not have had a beard.

They were in the meeting room at the police station, where the pizza smell had been replaced by the smell of stale coffee, and the room had a whole new crop of dirty Styrofoam cups. Peter was only mildly tempted by the lone, semisquashed, glazed donut that sat looking forlorn in the box on the table.