Passion (26 page)

Of course. She was interested only in his plans for the immediate future. She didn’t care what he might be doing five years
or ten or twenty from now, because she wouldn’t be around to know. “I’m going to prove to you that everything I’ve said was
true,” he replied, wrapping his fingers tighter around the steering wheel.

“And how are you going to do that?” She was using that cautious tone of voice again, the let’s-not-upset-the-crazy-man-and-make-him-do-something-rash
voice. Christ, how he hated it!

“You have access to Rebecca’s files. I can tell you Simon Tremont’s career in detail, and you can verify it. I can tell you
things that no one but Simon, Rebecca, and the people at Morgan-Wilkes could possibly know. I can give you figures and dates.
I can tell you which clauses Rebecca negotiated in which contracts. I can tell you what changed between the proposal and the
final manuscript of each book and whose idea it was—Rebecca’s or Candace’s or mine. I can tell you everything Rebecca has
on Simon Tremont.” He glanced at her. “Will that be enough to convince you?”

Miles passed as Teryl stared out the window, looking for an answer to his question. She wanted to say yes, and not just to
pacify him, not so he would stay calm and not lose his temper. Some part of her
wanted
to believe him. She wanted to believe that this was a lucid, rational man to whom crazy, irrational things were happening.

In the beginning, she had been one hundred percent convinced that he was insane, but since then, he had created a
few doubts, and he had the potential if she took him into the agency—if she went through the records with him, if he could
do everything he’d just claimed he could—to create many more. But would it be enough to convince her?

“I don’t know,” she replied honestly. “I’d like to believe you—”

“Why? Because you think it’s your best chance for getting out of this alive?”

She looked at him. He was watching the road and the traffic ahead, so all she got was his profile, but it was enough. Enough
to see how tense he was. Enough to know that his jaw must ache from being clenched so tightly. Enough to notice all over again—damn
her eyes—how handsome he was. “Are you going to kill me if I don’t believe you?” she asked, keeping her voice even through
sheer will.

He scowled and tightened his hold on the steering wheel a few degrees more. “Of course not. You know that.”

Oddly enough, she
did
know. She honestly believed that he wasn’t going to hurt her. If that had been his intention, he’d had plenty of chances
in the last four days. He could have killed her at any time, could have dumped her body anywhere along the hundreds of miles
of highway they’d traveled and driven away. Because they weren’t supposed to even know each other, no one ever would have
connected him to her. It would have been a perfect crime.

But the only crime he was interested in was the one he insisted the fraudulent Simon Tremont had cooked up, and it was far
from perfect. If everything John said was true, Simon had made a major mistake in not making certain his victim died in the
explosion. If
she
had been in Simon’s place, she would have planned for the remote possibility that John might escape. She would have been
tucked away behind some cover up there in the mountains with a high-powered rifle and a scope, and the instant she saw him
come out the window, she would have shot him, then somehow maneuvered the body back inside for the flames to at least partially
dispose of.

The trail of her thoughts made her shiver. She didn’t like
thinking about murders, attempted or otherwise. It was too grisly a subject for playing would-have, should-have.

“When I get home, I’ll call Rebecca,” she said. “I’ll see if I’ve overestimated her opinion of me and if I still have a job,
and I’ll arrange to introduce you to her. She can go through the files with you. She can recommend a good hotel, too, and…”
Her voice trailed off. He was giving her a curiously still look. She knew long before he started to speak exactly what he
was going to say. She was even prepared for the apology in his voice.

“It doesn’t end that easily, Teryl. Rebecca isn’t going to help me. She’ll be even more skeptical than you are, and she’s
got a lot to lose if I’m telling the truth. It wouldn’t do much for her reputation if it came out that she released a client’s
royalties to a total stranger simply on his claim that he
was
the client. She’s worked a long time to make a name for herself. She would sacrifice anything—including me—to protect it.”

She would like to dispute that, but she wasn’t sure she could. Rebecca’s reputation
did
mean a lot to her. The agency was the center of her life. It came before all else. Even her marriage had placed a sorry second
after business in her priorities. She had survived the breakup of the marriage, but Teryl wasn’t sure she could survive the
breakup of the agency.

“You may be right about Rebecca. But
she’s
the one who can help you, not me. I have no power. I have no authority. I don’t—”

“You have her respect,” he interrupted. “If you tell her that something’s wrong with this whole Tremont situation, she’ll
listen to you. She may not agree, but she’ll hear you out, where she would probably simply throw me out.”

“But I can’t tell her that something’s wrong.”

“You can after I convince you.”

Teryl thought—but wisely didn’t say—that, short of getting the man she knew as Simon to admit that he was a fake, there wasn’t
anything she could think of offhand that could totally convince her.

“All right,” she said, shifting restlessly. “Let’s say we go
through the files and you know all the particulars of Simon’s career.
I
know all the details of my mother’s life, but that doesn’t make me her.”

Once again he scowled. “That’s different. You know your mother; you’re her only natural-born child; you lived more than half
of your life with her. Of course you know everything. But
I
don’t know the man who says he’s me. Before Tuesday afternoon at the TV station, I’d never laid eyes on him.”

Maybe,
she thought.
Or maybe not.

“You don’t believe that, either.” He muttered a bitter curse. “What do you think, Teryl? That I did somehow know him? Maybe
we were neighbors or old buddies, or maybe I worked for him. Maybe that’s how I learned so much about him. Or maybe I broke
into his house and stole his records so I could familiarize myself with every aspect of his career. Maybe
that’s
how I learned so much about him. And then maybe I burned my own house and sliced open my arm to explain why I have no proof
of my identity, and then I followed him to New Orleans. Wouldn’t that have been a little foolish—risking being seen there
by him?”

“You didn’t risk that, though,” she pointed out in a soft, hesitant murmur. “You didn’t come into the studio until just before
the interview started, you stayed in the shadows, and you left the minute it was over. The next morning you were in the hotel
lobby while he and I were talking. You were watching us, but you never came close enough to be seen. You never got close to
him, never got close enough for him to notice you.”

His expression darkened. Had he expected her to not notice his disappearing act Tuesday afternoon? Had he thought she would
write off both that and the reappearing act Wednesday morning as just coincidence or the luck of timing?

“You’re right,” he said at last. “I did want to avoid being seen by him. The man was in my house, for God’s sake! He tried
to kill me! There were photographs in the house, pictures of me with my brother and sister. I didn’t know if he’d seen them,
if he had taken the time to nose around before or
after he rigged the bombs, but I wasn’t taking any chances. If he had seen them, then he would have been able to recognize
me; you saw for yourself that I haven’t changed a whole lot in the last seventeen years. And if he did recognize me there
in New Orleans when he thought I was dead… It wasn’t a situation I wanted to deal with just yet. I want proof before I confront
him.”

His explanation made sense, she admitted; then she choked back a derisive laugh.
Nothing
in this whole mess made sense. Absolutely nothing.

As they drove into the city of Richmond, the relief she had expected to feel was noticeably missing. She had kidded herself
into thinking everything would be all right when she got home, that she would be safe and free, that John Smith would no longer
be a part of her life, that his claims would no longer concern her. But it wouldn’t end that easily, he’d warned.

How much of a prisoner would she be? Would he insist on sleeping in the same room? Would he allow her to keep her car keys
now that her car would be parked right outside the house? Would she be able to go to work Monday morning? To call her mother
and tell her she was home? To visit with D.J. the way she always did on weekends?

Would he expect to keep her bound in her own home?

She could kick up a fuss. She could refuse to tell him where she lived. She could develop a little backbone and simply say
no.
No, you’re not going to stay at my house. No, I’m not going to help you. No, I won’t be your prisoner anymore.
She could try again to escape. The first time he stopped for a red light or in traffic, she could jump out of the Blazer
and run like hell. She could scream bloody murder. She could get him arrested. She could get him locked away for a long, long
time.

Or she could help him. She could do what he wanted and get him out of her life. Although she still thought he was emotionally
unstable, she wasn’t afraid of him now, not really. He’d passed up too many chances to hurt her. For the most part—except
for those few miserable minutes each night—he had treated her well. He had fed her, had allowed
her as much freedom as he realistically could. He hadn’t kept her tied up any longer than was necessary, he hadn’t gagged
or blindfolded her, hadn’t assaulted or raped her. He hadn’t even taken advantage of the sex she had offered.

It sounded crazy—incredibly crazy—but she believed she could trust him, at least to some extent. She didn’t believe he would
kill her. She didn’t believe he would hurt her. She didn’t believe he was capable of hurting anyone, with the possible exception
of Simon Tremont.

She could help him. She could go along with his plans, could let him stay at her house, could take him into the office tomorrow
when no one was working. She could let him try to convince her that his fantastic story was true. When he couldn’t prove his
claims… She wasn’t sure exactly what he would do, how he would react, but that would be a good time to take whatever steps
were necessary to get him out of her life. Maybe she could get in touch with his sister; maybe Janie could arrange private
help for him so they could avoid bringing the police into the matter. At this point—home and feeling reasonably safe—she wasn’t
interested in seeing him arrested or involuntarily committed to some psychiatric hospital. The idea of John—haunted, wounded,
and all too human—locked up with all the other crazies was one she didn’t want to face. She didn’t want to be in any way responsible
for it.

And what if he
did
prove his claims? What if he
did
convince her that he was Simon Tremont and the man in New Orleans was the fraud, the crazy, the criminal?

What a story that would be, worthy of the number one slot on the
Times
list for the next five years.

“Which way to your house?”

She twisted in the seat to face him. “If you’re going to stay with me, if I’m going to help you, we have to have a few ground
rules.”

He gestured for her to go on.

“I’m not going to be a prisoner in my own home. I have to be free to go to work. I have to have access to my car and to the
telephone. I have to be allowed to live my life. You trust me, and I’ll treat you the same as any other guest in my
home.” She finished, then remembered the most important thing. “You won’t tie me up anymore. You can’t. I won’t allow it.”

“I thought I made it clear last night that it wouldn’t happen again,” he said evenly.

She remembered his solemn offer of the knife so she could cut the telephone cord to ribbons. She hadn’t looked beyond the
tremendous relief she’d felt at knowing that that particular wire couldn’t be used against her again. She hadn’t realized
that, for him, the gesture had been symbolic, inclusive of all bonds.

“Do you agree with the rules?”

He nodded.

She glanced around to see where they were, then spoke again. “Take the next exit. My house isn’t far.”

As he changed lanes, she blew her breath out in a heavy sigh. She was committed now. She had agreed to providing him with
a place to stay and to helping him prove—or disprove—his claims. She prayed she wasn’t making a mistake.

John followed her directions through a commercial district and into one of Richmond’s older neighborhoods. The houses there
were gracious, large, and old, most of them built seventy-five to a hundred years ago. There was lots of money in this neighborhood,
although, according to Teryl, none of it was hers. When she directed him to turn off the wide, winding street, it was onto
a brick drive that passed between two massive brick columns. The gate was ornate, wrought iron with curlicues and lace that
formed a fanciful G on each half. A quarter mile in, he turned into her driveway, a broad lane, not quite wide enough for
two cars, that wound back a few hundred yards before ending in a clearing at the back of her house.

From the front it was a plain little house, beige stucco, two small stories with a red tile roof, arched windows, and a little
square stoop tiled with terra-cotta. In back, there were more arches—over the windows, around the door, and supporting the
second-floor balcony that ran the length and the
width of the house and shaded the patio on warm summer days.

There was also a courtyard, now doing duty as a parking court, and a fountain, lavishly decorated with thousands of small
mosaic tiles in no particular pattern. There was no water in the fountain, though. It had been filled with rich, black soil
and served as a planter for lush, red geraniums divided through the center with a swath of white petunias. There were other
flower beds nearby, other plantings—vines that snaked their way around the arches and up to the roof, compact trees that were
perfectly proportioned to the house, ivies and begonias, periwinkles and lots of roses in red, yellow, pink, and white.