Missing Marlene (13 page)

On the screen, Audrey moaned and her eyes rolled back in her head. A thin film of sweat glistened on her forehead and upper lip.

How could this be—?

Who could—?

The camera moved back to the younger woman, who now rose up on her haunches and turned toward the camera with a triumphant smile.

It was Marlene.

She winked at the camera, tossed her hair the way she did, and returned her attention to Audrey, now running her hands slowly up Audrey’s torso and caressing her breasts, taking one of Audrey’s nipples in her mouth . . .

With a sudden movement Jane pushed the
EJECT
button on the VCR. Then she turned it off. The TV screen went sky blue. She turned it off too.

Her heart thudding, she sat on the carpet where she had fallen, staring into nothingness.

Audrey and Marlene—
lovers?

Jane could see why Marlene wouldn’t have wanted anyone to see this video. But who had made it? Vernon? Had Audrey known she was being taped? Clearly Marlene had known, as evidenced by her conspiratorial wink at the camera operator.

From the front of the house came the soft rumble of the Corolla. Jane looked at her watch: 2:30. Florence must have finished the grocery shopping early and come home to unload before picking up Nick.

Jane pulled herself together, or tried to. She got up from the floor, straightened her clothes, and shook back her hair. Florence wouldn’t know she was in here, though she might notice the closed doors and wonder. Jane slipped the videocassette into her skirt pocket. She hurried to the kitchen, went to the back hall, and opened the door to the garage. Florence was leaning into the Corolla’s trunk, reaching for a bag of groceries. When she straightened and saw Jane standing in the doorway she jumped.

“Oh, missus, you startled me!” Her face broke into its beautiful white grin. “Home so early? Just in time to help with these.”

“Yes, of course.” Jane took the bundle from Florence.

Florence was watching her. “What’s wrong, missus?”

Jane looked at her sharply, forced a smile. “Wrong? Nothing. Why?”

“You’re as white as flour.”

“Am I? Oh, dear, I must need more makeup.” Jane laughed. “Pasty old me.”

Florence shrugged, clearly unconvinced but aware that Jane had no intention of disclosing what was troubling her. “It’s okay, missus. I’ll do these. You can go do your manuscripts.”

“Don’t be silly.” Jane carried the bag into the kitchen, deposited it on the counter, and moved around Florence to return to the garage for another bag. Within a few minutes all the bags stood lined up in a row.

“Now I’ll go do my manuscripts,” Jane said, “but at the office. I’ll see you around five-thirty.”

“Very good,” Florence said, stacking cans in the cupboard. She looked over her shoulder at Jane, concern in her eyes. “You need anything, you be sure to come to Florence.”

Jane smiled gratefully. “Thank you, Florence. I appreciate it—I really do.” Perhaps one day their relationship would be such that Jane
could
confide in her—though she would never be able to confide in her about what she’d just found.

Jane went out through the garage but walked right past her car. She wouldn’t go to the office just yet.

First she had to talk to Audrey, much as she dreaded it.

She crossed the street toward the majestic house that seemed to glare down on her in haughty defiance.

It was Elliott who opened the door. “Well, say, beautiful, looks like you’re off today, too!”

Smiling and animated, he wore gray wool slacks and a red V-neck sweater over a crisp white shirt open at the collar. His hair was a mass of glossy black curls; clearly he’d just showered.

“Come in, come in. Business slow today?”

“Not really, no. I just wanted to talk to Audrey about something.”

“Audrey’s doing laundry, and I’m on my way to play some racquetball with our mutual friend Roger.”

Then Roger had said nothing of recent events to Elliott. If Roger had, Elliott was one hell of an actor. But then, what reason would Elliott have to pretend he didn’t know? Embarrassment? Maybe—men were like that.

“Aud!” he called. “Jane’s here.”

“What?” Audrey called from the back of the house.

Elliott rolled his eyes. “Excuse me.” He jogged off and returned a moment later with Audrey in tow. She wore a little scowl of irritation that vanished when she saw Jane, a huge closemouthed smile taking its place.

“Janey, howdy there, doll! What brings you here today?”

“I wanted to chat with you about something,” Jane said, wishing Elliott would leave already.

Audrey looked puzzled. “Chat?”

“Yes. Can we have some coffee?”

“Sure,” Audrey said.

“I’m out of here.” Elliott took his coat from the closet. “You two stay out of trouble, now, you hear?”

“Yes, darling,” Audrey said, and kept her smile pasted on only until he was gone. “He took today off, as you can see.”

Jane nodded. “Racquetball.”

“Mm,” Audrey said. “Let’s go in the kitchen. I’ve got coffee just made.”

In the kitchen they put everything on a tray, and Audrey carried it to the living room. She set down the tray on a cocktail table between two plump periwinkle sofas.

“So,” Audrey said, pouring, “what did you want to chat about?” She handed Jane her cup. “Jane, you look positively terrified.”

“Audrey, I ... I found . . . I don’t know how to say this . . .” Finally Jane gave up and reached into her skirt pocket for the videocassette.

Audrey, blond brows knitted, watched Jane in bafflement. Then, when the tape was completely visible, her face underwent a terrible change. Her brows relaxed and her jaw dropped and her eyes widened and she drew in her breath as if she were looking at a hideous monster. “Is that . . .”

“Yes.” Intently Jane studied her coffee, deeply embarrassed.

Audrey put her hands over her face. “I knew it. I knew it. She gave it to you, the conniving bitch.”

“She didn’t give it to me. I found it.”

“You found it? Where?”

“Under the mattress in Marlene’s room. Well, Florence’s room now.”

“Under the mattress? Why would she have put it there?”

“So no one would find it, obviously.”

“Well,
obviously,
Jane. What I mean is, why did she leave it there?”

“Good question. Not one I have an answer to yet.” Jane reached for her coffee, made a business of adding milk and sugar. “Do you have any answers for me, Audrey? Answers you didn’t share with me before?”

Audrey let her shoulders slump, thoroughly defeated. “I’m ashamed, Jane. I’m really ashamed. I can’t imagine what you’ll think of me.”

Jane said nothing, waited.

“All right,” Audrey said bravely, “I will tell you. I might as well, right? I can’t shock you any more than you have been.”

She gazed down at the tray. “Not long after Marlene got to Shady Hills, she started to ... flirt with me.”

“Flirt
with you?”

Audrey nodded quickly, her eyes beseeching Jane to believe her. “There was no mistaking it. The first time was when you sent her over here with that money you owed Cara for baby-sitting. Remember?”

“Yes.”

“We were right over there in the foyer. She held out the money, and as I took it, her hand stroked mine and she looked me straight in the eye and her eyebrows went up a little.

“I can tell you,” Audrey said with a shocked laugh, “I was thrown for a loop. I—I didn’t know what to make of it. I figured, well, that’s what she is, and I left it at that. Highly inappropriate of her, but it won’t happen again.

“But it did happen again. This time it was at the Labor Day picnic. Right there on the green! Remember, Marlene and I were both helping with the little kids’ games. It was during the egg-and-spoon race. We were near the bandstand. Somebody’s egg rolled underneath, and I knelt down to reach for it. Next thing I knew, Marlene was kneeling beside me, and she—she touched my breast. Then she gave me that look again.

“Jane, I’ll be completely honest with you and say this time I wasn’t horrified—I was interested.” She looked straight at Jane, as if in defiance. “Think what you like, but I couldn’t help it. Marlene is probably the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen. I’d never had thoughts like that before, but now I did. Her wanting me was—
flattering.
It was just nice to be wanted.”

Jane looked at Audrey in surprise.

“I know what you’re thinking, Jane. She’s got Elliott, the rich, handsome cardiovascular surgeon who’ll probably be executive director of NJRI, who treats her like a queen. He treats me like a queen, all right—he never touches me!”

Here her voice broke and she started to cry. “We haven’t had sex in over a year, Jane. He’s screwing one of his nurses; I know it for sure. That’s where he’s going now—not to play racquetball with Roger. But Roger covers for Elliott. You know, male solidarity and all that bullshit.

“So I was flattered—and interested, damn it.” She took a napkin from the tray and used it to dab at the corners of her eyes. “Think what you want—I don’t care. I wanted to see what it was like. So the next time it happened—this time it was when she brought over a letter that had been delivered to your house by mistake—the next time she gave me that look, I smiled and gave her a look right back. She said I was beautiful and that she’d wanted to make love to me since she met me.

“We agreed to meet a week later at a motel—one of those dumpy by-the-hour places on Route Forty-six.” She shook her head. “I’ve never been so scared as I was that week. But I met her. It was in the evening. I told Elliott and Cara I had a meeting about some school event I was helping with.

“When I got to the motel and Marlene and I went into that room, I thought my knees would give out under me. But we—we did make love, and, well”—she looked away—“you’ve seen the tape—you know I enjoyed it.”

Audrey threw out her hands. “I thought that would be the end of it! We’d gotten it out of our systems. I told her it couldn’t happen again. She said she was disappointed but understood.” She laughed ruefully. “She’d had no intention of repeating it. You have in your hands the only reason she came on to me in the first place.”

“But
why?”
Jane asked.

“Why do you think?” Audrey knocked twice on the side of her head. “M-O-N-E-Y. Blackmail. Two days later, she came over here with the tape and played it for me. I thought I would die. Truly. My heart was beating so fast I really thought I would have a heart attack.”

“But who took the video?” Jane asked, baffled.

“I have no idea,” Audrey said, and then her eyes narrowed as she said, “But I know
how
it was done. I remembered there’d been a big armchair right next to the bed. When I entered the room, Marlene had already taken the bedspread off the bed and folded it and draped it over the back of the chair. Someone was hiding under there with a video camera. They had to be. You saw how close up the tape was.”

“Yes,” Jane admitted.

“Your little nanny wanted money. A lot of it. And fast.”

“How much?”

“Ten thousand dollars,” Audrey said.

“Ten thousand dollars!” Jane cried.

Audrey nodded.

“And you gave it to her?” Jane faltered.

“What was I supposed to do? It was the only way she’d give me the tape. She said if I didn’t give her the money, she would make the tape public, send it to the local news.

Audrey gave a bright artificial smile, eyebrows raised.

“Can’t you just picture it? Wife of prominent surgeon stars in lesbian porn flick with neighboring nanny! I truly believe she would have done it.” Her face darkened with hatred. “She was like that, Jane—spiteful. And if she had, it would have ruined everything; it would have destroyed my life. I would have lost Elliott, this house, Cara, everything.” She nodded. “Oh, I know what you’re thinking. Elliott’s a jerk and he’s not much interested in me anyway. But we’re a good team. We’ve worked hard to get here. I wasn’t going to let some cheap slut take it all away.”

“But ten thousand dollars....” Jane began.

Audrey shrugged. “That’s not a lot for us, Jane. The hard part was getting it quickly, and in such a way that Elliott wouldn’t find out.”

“And did you do it?”

“Yes. I liquidated some of my own investments. I got the little bitch her money. I called her, and we agreed on a time when I would give it to her.” She looked straight at Jane, her eyes bulging. “But when she got here, she didn’t have the tape. When I asked her where it was, she said she’d decided she hadn’t asked me for enough money, that for rich people like Elliott and me, ten thousand dollars was nothing. She wanted twenty thousand more.”

“Good heavens!” Jane cried.

“I should have told her no. But I believed that would be the end of it. So I went back to the bank and got the money. I’d already made arrangements to liquidate more of my assets, and the people at the bank had it ready, though I can’t imagine what they were thinking.

“When I got home, I called Marlene and told her to come over with the tape.
That
was why she was here, Jane.” She lowered her gaze. “I’m sorry I lied to you.”

“So what happened?” Jane asked.

“Marlene came over, took the money,
and still refused to give me the tape!
She said she’d decided to extend her payment program for a while and would be back for more.

“Well, Jane, I saw red.” Audrey was practically growling now, as if reliving those moments. “I grabbed her, called her horrible things. I told her I’d tell you everything she’d done, and she dared me to do it. I was so scared and frustrated. That’s why I slapped her across her smug face, not because of any Lladro—another lie. She ran out of here in a fury, and on her way out she said she’d show the tape to Elliott and send it to the news.”

Audrey shook her head and leaned forward now for some coffee. “I didn’t know what to do,” she said, tearing open two packets of Equal. “I paced and cried and paced. Then I realized there was only one thing I
could
do. I had to tell you everything. You were responsible for her. You needed to know what she’d been up to. I prayed you’d understand. If you thought badly of me, well, that would be my problem, but I was going to tell you—right in front of her, if need be.”

She stirred her coffee, sat back with the cup. “I thought you were home, because when I’d come back from the bank, I’d seen Roger’s Jaguar parked up the hill and I figured he was visiting you. Of course, if he’d still been there, I would have waited until he was gone before I told you.”

Audrey sipped her coffee, then went on. “When I went outside, I looked up the road and saw that Roger’s car was gone. I was glad—that simplified matters. I started to cross the road, but as I did, a different car pulled up in front of your house. A grotty old gray sedan. I stepped behind a tree and watched. A big heavy girl with a dark braid got out of the car and went up the path to your front door. I could see her through the space in the hedge. She rang the bell. Marlene opened the door. I figured the girl was a friend of Marlene’s.

“It was then I noticed that
your
car wasn’t there, Jane. Not in the driveway or the garage. I assumed you’d left when Roger did. I was terribly disappointed. I’d worked up the courage to tell you everything, and you weren’t home.”

“You could have called me at the office,” Jane said. “You could have come to see me there.”

Audrey looked shocked at this suggestion. “No, it wasn’t something to discuss downtown, Jane. I promised myself I would just tell you later, when you got home.”

“But you didn’t,” Jane pointed out.

“No. I was going to the next day, but I lost my nerve and swore I’d do it the next day. Then I heard Marlene had left. That made sense. She knew I wouldn’t give her any more money, so she got out while the getting was good. That made things easy for me.” Her face grew worried. “Of course, there’s no telling when she’ll come back....”

Jane shook her head, smiling sympathetically. “You don’t have to worry anymore, Audrey. It’s highly unlikely she’ll come back.” Jane got to her feet and laid the videocassette on the tray beside the coffeepot. Sadly, she gave Audrey’s hand a reassuring pat. “Your secret is safe.”

Jane took the long way back to the office, taking Lilac Way up the hill to Christopher Street, then following it to where it intersected with Packer Road. She needed quiet, away from the phone, to think about what Audrey had told her.

To a woman like Audrey, there was no darker secret than the one she had just been forced to reveal to Jane. According to Audrey’s story, the last time she’d seen Marlene was when the girl stormed out of Audrey’s house in a fury. Could Audrey be lying? Audrey herself had explained to Jane how much was at stake, how much Audrey stood to lose if Marlene didn’t keep quiet.

And in the end, Audrey had refused to pay any further blackmail money to Marlene. Marlene had promised to go public with the tape. Audrey now claimed that she’d intended to put a stop to Marlene’s game by confiding in Jane and enlisting her help. That was what Audrey said
now,
now that Jane had found the tape.