Kiss (10 page)

“You don’t like him.”

“I’m making
namprik num
now. A dipping sauce. You might want some.” She withdrew a can of green chilies, set it on the counter, and applied the can opener to it as forcefully as if it were a car tire and she were removing the lug nuts.

“What is it you dislike about Wayne?”

Khai took a deep breath and returned the can opener to its drawer. “He has been very attentive toward you.”

“You don’t like him because he’s nice?”

“I mean that my feelings toward him should have no bearing on yours.”

“You have a run-in with him?”

The woman shook her head, picked up her clean knife, and began chop-ping. She shrugged. “I don’t trust him.”

“Why?”

“I just don’t. I have a sense of people.”

“Well, he’s been better to me than any of my own family.”

Khai chopped until Shauna was sure the chilies had been pulverized.

“How long have you worked here?” Shauna asked.

“Since July.”

“Did you know me before I came to the house Thursday?”

Khai shook her head and repeated the process of washing her knife. “No. I saw pictures. Never saw you visit.”

“But you knew Wayne.”

“He visited once.”

“Without me.”

“Business with your father. I’m not sure.”

“Wayne and I were dating?”

Khai looked at Shauna. “You don’t remember?”

“I don’t recall much of the last six months or so. I need some answers about . . . what I might have been doing then. All the circumstances surrounding the accident . . . People are saying some things.”

Khai didn’t ask her to elaborate. She slipped the clean knife back into the block next to the sink.

“What do the other house staff say about me?”

“That you keep to yourself.”

She did, in fact, keep to herself, but in her experience, seeking isolation only fueled rumor mills. “I’m sure gossip flies on this property just as freely as it does downtown.”

“I don’t give much ear to gossip.” The housekeeper sealed the bowl of vegetables with plastic wrap and stowed everything in the refrigerator.

“It’s that bad, huh?”

“Not what I meant.” Khai frowned at her over the open refrigerator door. Those duotone eyes unnerved Shauna. Which one was she supposed to look at? “You kept your distance from this place. From the senator, they say.”

“Did you ever hear anything about my trying to undermine Land—the senator’s campaign?”

Silence.

“What sort of things does Patrice say about me behind my back?”

“Nothing she hasn’t said to your face, I’m sure. That woman doesn’t hold her tongue.”

Shauna sighed and leaned her forehead against the cool glass of the window. She closed her eyes. Sorting out everyone’s reticence involved nothing less than beating her skull against the wall. If she kept hitting her head hard enough, maybe it would crack open and the memories would pour out—

“You’re bleeding,” Khai said, causing Shauna to flinch. The petite woman was standing right next to Shauna, pointing to the front of Shauna’s bright blue shirt.

She looked down. A rosebud of partially dried blood blossomed at her waist. Shauna lifted the cloth and found a larger stain expanding on her layered T-shirt, below her ribs where she’d been hurting. She examined her skin next. A gash looked to have been oozing awhile.

“Oh.” She looked around for a paper towel and snatched one off the roll on the kitchen counter.

“Wait,” Khai said, heading into her bedroom. She returned with a tote, which she set on the table. Shauna threw away the paper towel and accepted an antiseptic wipe.

“I should do this in the bathroom.”

“No need. Let’s look at it.”

“It’s just a cut. I’ve got dozens of these. From the accident.”

“A lot of blood for such a small cut. These should be healed by now.”

“I can clean this up.”

“Let me help.” Khai withdrew a wad of gauze from the bag.

“Do you have gloves or something?”

A pair of latex gloves came out too. “Lots of practice with first aid,” Khai said.

She used the gauze to apply pressure to the wound, and Shauna felt a sharp pain. She bit her lower lip.

“That hurts?”

Shauna nodded and Khai withdrew the gauze. A thread of it snagged on something.

“Ow!”

Khai moved her into the morning light coming through the kitchen window, then fumbled around with one hand through her first-aid kit, with-drawing tweezers.

“Hold still.”

Khai bent over the cut and in seconds held the bloody tweezers up to the sunlight.

“What’s that?” Shauna wrapped her hand around Khai’s wrist to see.

The tweezers clasped a thin piece of metal, wet with Shauna’s blood, shaped like a boat sail but no larger than a pencil eraser.

Khai shook her head. “Not something that should be in your body.”

“Maybe I bumped into something.”

“Not if your clothes are any indication.”

True. Though her shirts were bloody, they were not torn.

“This is like shrapnel,” Khai said, depositing the piece on Shauna’s out-stretched palm. “This came from inside of you.”

“Probably something from the accident.”

“You’d think that would have shown up in an X-ray.”

Shauna lifted the metal and held it to the light of the window. “You’d think.”

Shauna rapped on Wayne’s door, three quick hits. It was nearly nine, and she’d been waiting. She needed his help. And his soothing company. She’d gone to the house to see Rudy again, only to be turned away at the door, again. The forced separation from her brother had caused her to pace the bungalow porch for half an hour.

Wayne appeared, one hand on the knob and the other tugging the hem of his T-shirt over the waistband of his jeans. He grinned at her.

“Morning,” he said.

“How long will you be able to stay in Austin?” she asked.

Wayne laughed at that and took her hand, pulling her into the room and toward a love seat against the wall. “How long do you want me to stay?”

She dropped onto the seat, and he sat opposite her on the corner of his unmade bed, leaned forward with his elbows on his knees.

“That wasn’t what I meant to ask,” she clarified. “I was wondering if you have time to show me around.”

“Around Austin? You’re more familiar with it than I am.”

“Around places you and I have been. When we’d go out. If we went out. To places, I mean.” She exhaled a balloon’s worth of air. “What I’m trying to say is I want to get my bearings again. I feel so shut out of my old life. Literally. I thought maybe if I go somewhere. With you. Someplace we used to go. Maybe that would trigger something. Give me a start.”

Wayne nodded his way through her request. Then he straightened and scratched his head.

“You’re upset over that reporter, what he said about a third person in your car.”

How did he know that? She hadn’t even realized that was at the heart of her request, not until he’d said it. She nodded slowly. “Among other things.”

“That guy was up to no good, babe,” he said. “Reporters like him, they’ll cook up anything to get you talking. It’s how they get their scoops.”

“You think he’s lying?”

“I know he’s lying. I was at the scene—and so were several other people. No one saw anybody but you and Rudy.”

“Maybe you could take me down to the bridge where the accident happened.”

Wayne’s eyes widened.

“And we could go to my old loft. Any of those things will jog my memory. Do you have a copy of the accident report? I’d like to read it.” It was the first bright idea she’d had.

Wayne held up his hands as if he were police and she were a rush of oncoming traffic. “Whoa whoa whoa. One idea at a time.”

She sagged against the love seat. “I know that’s all a lot of trouble.”

Wayne moved to sit next to her, his body touching hers from shoulder to knee. He tipped her chin up to look at him.

“What is it you want to get back?”

She thought of yesterday’s kiss and dropped her eyes. “I want Patrice to be wrong, and I want Rudy to be the way he was. I want my life back. I want Landon to . . . to tolerate me at least.” She risked a look at him.

“Remembering won’t really get you any of those things, will it?”

Of course not.

“Maybe it’s better not to know, so you don’t get hung up on things you can’t change.”

“But I need to remember, Wayne. I don’t even know how to talk to Uncle Trent’s attorney about all this. How can he help me with the trial if I don’t have any information to give him? I might as well plead guilty—I can’t defend myself.”

Wayne rested his hand on her knee. “He understands what’s going on. Give yourself time to pull out of this. Give your body time to recover.”

“This is all taking too long. I’d like to remember you sooner than later.”

“You will. No hurry. But I think it would be good to get you out of here today.”

“Where can we get a copy of the accident report?”

Wayne rubbed his eyes. “I’m sure we can get one from the attorney. How about something more pleasant for starters? I liked your idea of me taking you out, like old times.”

“What is it we used to do?”

“Stereotypical stuff, I’m afraid.”

“Dinner. Movies.”

“Right. You came to Houston a few times—”

“I’m pretty sure I’m not supposed to leave Travis County right now.”

“True. So we need to stick to Austin.”

“Also, I have an appointment with Dr. Harding today.”

Wayne stood and walked to the window, his back to her. “You like to swim in Barton Springs.”

His claim surprised her. She had disliked swimming in public since she was a teen. “Really? I haven’t gone swimming there since I was a kid.”

“Well, this summer we went more than once.” Wayne’s voice sounded surprised, maybe embarrassed, but he didn’t look at her.

Shauna’s skin tingled with goose bumps as if she had stuck her feet into cold water. “I don’t think I want to swim.” She cleared her throat. “The muscles aren’t up for it yet.”

“Maybe it would be enough to see it.”

“Maybe. What else?”

“We went to the indie theater up near the university. Saw
Faded Humor
there in July, and
Eons
in August.”

Never heard of them. Surprise, surprise. “I like indies?”

Wayne finally turned around, shoving his hands into his pockets. He avoided her eyes. “I do. I think you mostly just indulged me.”

“Or maybe you showed me how to enjoy them.”

“I can find out what’s playing tonight,” he said.

“That’d be great.”

A pool. A movie theater. Shauna didn’t hold out much hope for those. They didn’t sound like her. But at the very least, they’d get her out of this place.

9

Shauna held Wayne’s hand as they took the long way into Town Lake Park, toward the three-acre spring-fed pool that was Barton Springs. The October weather was mild enough, and dry today, to lure a few faithful swimmers into naturally warm waters. With an astounding nine hundred feet of pool to swim in, everyone had plenty of elbow room. The green waters were clear, almost clear enough for Shauna to see the natural gravel-and-limestone bottom.

Wayne spread out a blanket under an ancient pecan tree. The hundred-foot lacy-branched shade trees were a common sight in Austin, most older than the city itself.

The view brought back nothing more recent for her than memories of her childhood, doing cannonballs here with Rudy. They’d come in the spring when the towering cottonwood trees were starting to let go of their white fluff, and the tiny clouds would sink through the air and dot the water. She stopped swimming sometime in her teens, self-conscious of the burn scars under her arms.

On the opposite side of the pool, Shauna watched as a sturdy, fit man in a lightweight green jacket, blue ball cap, and sunglasses found a place for himself on the grass, facing them.

Wayne sat down next to her and squeezed her hand. “Anything?” he asked.

She shook her head. “Tell me about you. There’s still so much I don’t know.”

Wayne talked, and she listened to the way the waves of his voice rose and fell in the telling. He reminded her a bit of a news anchor, a bit more mellow than the animated prime-time talking heads. But even her attentive ear couldn’t bridge any of the gaps in her mind.

“Born and raised in Tucson. Hardworking blue-collar dad, drunk mom. Track star in high school, high achiever, a military stint after college.”

She wished she were a journal keeper. She might have written down what she had first seen in him. That first spark.

The man in the green jacket pulled a large pocketknife out of a sheath on his belt and began using it to pry divots out of the grass. Shauna found the pointless damage to the grounds mildly disturbing.

“Went off to Oregon after I served my four years, got a civilian job in corporate finance, then got called up on reserve duty when the Iraq war started.”

Wayne took a breath and stretched out his legs.

“Went on two tours, was honorably discharged after an injury, spent a year abroad in Thailand, and met Mr. Wilde on the flight back to Washington, D.C.”