If I Can't Have You (7 page)

She’d get rid of him herself. She’d get rid of the officer, too.

“Are you all right, ma’am?” the officer asked.

She was staring across the room but seeing nothing as she rubbed her arms, trying to rid herself of the cold and her fear. She sighed deeply, trying to regain her composure. “I’m sorry, Officer. I should have called back when I realized I’d made a mistake.”

“Mistake?”

She laughed lightly, taking a brief moment to think of a story to tell. “I heard noises. I thought a burglar might have been in the house, but I hung up as soon as I realized who it was.” She nodded toward the stranger, then leaned close to the officer, and whispered, “He drinks too much. I’ve tried to tell him to stop, but he won’t.”

She smiled sweetly, trying her hardest to make the officer believe. She’d seen so many movies, surely she could draw on the acting talents of hundreds of
stars to make her story sound believable.

For one brief moment she wondered if she was doing the right thing, but she glanced at the stranger again, at his hauntingly familiar brown eyes, and knew she couldn’t turn him in.

“I know I shouldn’t indulge him,” she continued, “but when he’s in this condition he’s afraid to go home to face his wife. It’s not the first time this has happened. The last time I wasn’t home, so I gave him a key, just in case it happened again.”

She was talking too fast.
Slow down,
she told herself,
or the officer will sense your lie.

“He says he knocked, but all I heard was someone wandering around out here. When I thought there might be an intruder, I called 9-1-1.”

“You don’t mind having a drunk in the house?” the officer asked, frowning as he looked at the stranger.

“I mind, but he’s a friend.”

The officer raised a skeptical eyebrow. “You’re sure?”

She nodded, hoping she’d put on a good enough show.

He looked at her arms again, his gaze trailing all the way down to her hands. “What about your wrists? Did he do that?”

He had, and he might do it again.
No,
she told herself.
He won’t do it again.
She’d seen the horror in his eyes when he’d pushed her against the wall. He’d been frightened, just as she was frightened.

“I was wrestling with a friend,” she answered, trying to laugh it off. “We got a little carried away.”

The officer grunted out a laugh and shook his head in frustration. He poised his pen over his clipboard. “I need a few details for the record.”

“This information isn’t given to the newspapers, is it?”

“T
hey’ve got access to it.”

“Names, too?”

“It’s just a log of incidents. No names at all, but I suggest you and your friend here play a little less rough in the future. Then you don’t need to worry about calling for help or having people you don’t want to know find out.”

Trevor quietly watched the scene playing out across the room. Warner Bros. would pay a mint to have someone with that woman’s acting skills on contract. She was doing a damn fine job deceiving the officer but, hell, couldn’t he see the fear deep in her eyes?

Trevor saw it plain and clear, and couldn’t help but wonder why she was making up stories about what had happened when she seemed so frightened. Why didn’t she have him arrested? He deserved it, considering the way he’d pushed her against the wall.

He looked across the room, watching her gently massage the redness around her wrists. They’d be black-and-blue tomorrow. God, she didn’t deserve what he’d done to her any more than he deserved her help.

He finished his whiskey, keeping his head tilted toward his glass, hoping no questions would be directed at him, but his concentration and gaze remained fixed on the woman and the policeman.

Too many minutes dragged by as she answered questions. He suffered the brutal looks from the officer, and, finally, the woman closed the door when the policeman departed.

Silence stood between them for long moments until the headlights backed away and disappeared.

“I’ve helped you all I can,” the woman said, her hand still wrapped around the door knob. “Leave. Please.”

“And where do you propose I go?” Trevor walked to the bar and leaned against the polished wood to
steady himself. “This is the only home I have.”

“It’s my home,’ she corrected.

“Of course. I’d almost forgotten,” he said sarcastically. Hell, why didn’t he just apologize to her and leave?

He filled his glass again and raised it to his lips. This time his fingers trembled on their own. He tried to steady his hand. He’d never shaken before; not like this.

The tremors were bad, but even worse was the way the woman stared at him. He wasn’t a drunk. This wasn’t delirium. Some hellish thing was happening.

He slammed the glass on, the bar, and it shattered, spraying shards of glass and amber liquid over his hand, the shrunken length of his sleeve, his unbuttoned jacket, and wrinkled shirt.

He felt the sting and stared at the trickle of blood on his fingers, grabbed the towel from the bar, and gripped it tightly to stop the flow.

Looking up, he saw the woman’s frightened eyes. He wanted to grab her, hold her, tell her he wasn’t a madman. He wanted her to believe him because maybe, if she believed, he might believe he was sane, too.

He plowed his fingers through his hair, then turned around and looked at his own bloodshot eyes in the mirror over the bar. His cheeks were hollow, his chin and jaw coated in heavy black whiskers. The circle of skin below each eye was dark and swollen, his face red and blotchy.

Dear, God! What had happened to the Trevor Montgomery he normally saw in the mirror?

Turning slowly, he looked at the woman at the door and took a deep breath. “I have no memories of your time, your present,” he said in a low, hesitant voice. “Apparently I have no home any longer,
and if the things I read in that book are true, I doubt I have any friends.”

She opened the door wider. “I think you’d better go.”

He had no energy to argue. It wouldn’t do any good, anyway. She’d already formed an opinion about him, and she wasn’t about to change her mind.

He grabbed a full decanter of whiskey and walked toward the woman, hoping she would offer some sympathy, a helping hand, or at least ask him to stay. He needed someone to talk to, someone to help make sense of this lunacy happening around him. He needed to stay in his own home, the only place that still seemed sane.

But she did nothing but step back and give him plenty of room to walk through the door.

Trevor stopped at the threshold. “I wanted to die,” he said, looking into her eyes that held many emotions, especially contempt. “I would have, too, but something went wrong. I don’t know how. I don’t know why.” He looked past her to the inside of his house one last time. “Thank you for not telling the officer about me.”

“I didn’t do it for you. I did it for me,” she said. “What was I supposed to do, tell him you’re Trevor Montgomery?” She laughed lightly. “He would have thought I was crazy.”

Trevor smiled, shaking his head. “I’m the one who’s crazy. Not you.”

“Please leave,” she repeated.

He owed her his freedom. The least he could do was grant her request, although he had no idea where he’d go.

“I’m sorry for what happened,” he said as he stood in the doorway.

She didn’t acknowledge him, though, she just looked over his shoulder and out at the night sky.

He smiled softly and stepped through the door. She closed it tightly, and he could hear the sounds of bolts and chains locking him out of the only place where he had thought he might be safe.

oOo

Leaning against the door, Adriana stared across the room to the bar where the intruder had stood, drinking her whiskey, gazing at her with bloodshot eyes that looked vaguely familiar.

He’d implied that he was Trevor Montgomery. She didn’t believe it. It wasn’t possible, but the stranger had sounded like someone she knew.

Was it the fear of photographers and having her picture in the papers that had kept her from turning him in, or was it the familiar voice and eyes?

Any other man—or a man who’d had a so-so smile and dull, boring eyes—who had broken into her house, shoved her against a wall, bruised her wrists, or made her think she was going to die would have been on the way to jail by now.

She supposed her intruder should have been on his way there, too.

How could she have let her fear of gossip and those piercing brown eyes that begged for help keep her from telling the truth?

She pressed her fingers to her temples, confusion making her head ache.

It wasn’t just the fear of photographers, or his eyes or voice that had made her lie. It was the disheveled hair and that one single lock that hung over his forehead in spite of the many times he’d brushed it back with his fingers. She’d seen Trevor Montgomery practice that gesture again and again in the movies.

What was she thinking
? The intruder didn’t look like Trevor—not at all like the man she’d idolized, the man whose flawless features had graced the movie screen.

Trevor Montgomery would never have worn a
rumpled white dinner jacket, or been attired in clothing at least a size too small.

Trevor Montgomery would never have hurt her, either.

She should have turned him in. If he came back, if he touched her again, she’d call Stewart and let him deal with the intruder. There had to be some way to keep him away from her and keep her safe from the press, too.

She crossed the room, sweeping the bloodstained towel and broken pieces of glass from the bar into a wicker trash basket, taking the decanter he’d emptied into the kitchen.

Flipping on the light over the sink, she turned on the hot water and shoved her icy hands under the stream. But not even the heat could take away the trembling in her fingers.

She meticulously scrubbed the crystal with dish soap, took a linen towel from a drawer and dried it till it sparkled. She wiped away all traces of the man, wanting to forget he’d ever been in her house.

She turned off the light, and through the window she saw him standing near the garage. He held the decanter he’d taken with him in one hand. His other hand was tucked into his pants pocket. He was gazing toward the window. Had he been watching while the light was on? He couldn’t see her now, not in the dark, but she could see him clearly. His familiar stance. A well-known profile when he turned from the window and looked toward the ocean.

She watched as he tilted the decanter to his lips and took a drink. How could he continue to drink that way? How could he possibly stand? That container had been full when he’d left the house, and he’d downed part of another while he’d been inside.

Rumor had it that Trevor Montgomery drank hard liquor every night—all night. Rumor had it, too, that no one had ever seen him pass out, and that he’d
always been the first to show up on the movie set in the morning. He may have had a drinking problem, but it hadn’t interfered with his work.

He was a consummate professional. Every book, every old friend had said the same thing.

The man standing outside couldn’t possibly be Trevor Montgomery. Yet, beneath the whiskers, behind the bloodshot eyes, was a familiar face. He’d spoken few words, but his tone had the same resonant qualities as Trevor’s—part British, part upper-crust Chicago with a touch of bad-boy charm thrown in when he laughed.

And that smile. How could she possibly turn him in after she’d seen that smile? She’d seen it so many times in the movies. It was Trevor’s smile.

But there was no way Trevor Montgomery could disappear on July 4,1938, and turn up in her living room on July 5,1998—without aging a day.

She set the decanter on the counter instead of returning it to its rightful place at the bar, and watched the man for just a few more moments.

The Trevor Montgomery she’d imagined, heard about, and studied in pictures had been more self-assured. He’d stood a little straighter, laughed and smiled more.

Adriana touched her reddened wrists. They’d be bruised tomorrow. She’d seen dozens of movies starring Trevor Montgomery, and never, not even once, had he ever hurt a woman.

But that was in the movies, where life went according to script. Maybe she didn’t know as much about his real life as she’d always imagined.

The man outside might bear some resemblance to Trevor Montgomery—like the model she’d seen at Sparta—but they definitely weren’t one and the same. Besides, if Trevor Montgomery were still alive, he’d be over ninety years old. The man standing outside couldn’t be much more than forty.

The man outside was a stranger, an intruder, and Adriana planned to put him out of her mind.

But she couldn’t, not with him staring at the window where she stood.

She continued to watch as he took another swig of liquor, ran his fingers through his hair, and walked across the lawn toward the sea. He could walk for miles once he got to the beach. Maybe an early-morning fisherman would find him and take him in. Maybe the police would find him, think he was a vagrant, and arrest him for being drunk in public.