“But he obviously feels comfortable enough to pass out on your couch. And you obviously feel comfortable enough to let him.”
“What choice did I have?”
“I couldn’t answer that.”
“Neither can I,” Jess admitted.
“What does he do?”
Jess could hear the strain in Don’s voice from trying to sound casual, and was touched by it. “He’s a salesman.”
“A salesman?” He didn’t bother to hide his surprise. “What does he sell?”
“Shoes.” Jess cleared her throat. “Don’t be a snob, Don,” she said quickly. “There’s nothing wrong with selling shoes. My father started out as a salesman, you know.”
“Adam Stohn seems a little old to be starting out,” Don said.
“He likes what he does.”
“So much that he has to drink himself into a drunken stupor and pass out?”
“I don’t know that one thing has anything to do with the other.”
“Why do
you
think it happened?”
“Objection. Calls for a conclusion.”
“Objection overruled. Witness will answer the question.”
“I’m not in love,” Jess stated.
“The witness may step down,” Don said, and Jess bowed her head in gratitude.
“So, what’s it like these days in the prestigious law firm of Rogers, Donaldson, Baker and Shaw?” she asked, picturing Adam Stohn as he waved good-bye to her from the doorway of her apartment that morning.
“It’s all right.”
“You don’t sound very enthusiastic.”
“The place has changed.”
“Really? How?”
“Well, when I first came on board, there were only ten of us,” he explained. “Now, there are over two hundred. That’s quite a change right there.”
“But you always wanted the firm to grow, to be the biggest and the best,” she reminded him.
“The best, yes. Not necessarily the biggest.”
“So bigger isn’t necessarily better?”
“That’s right. Haven’t Masters and Johnson taught you anything?”
She laughed. “Did you know they got divorced?”
“Masters and Johnson?”
“Shocking, isn’t it?” Jess, wondering how they got on the subject of sex, stared out the window at the steady downfall of heavy snow. “So, aside from the size, what else about your firm aren’t you happy with?”
“Everything’s far more dollar-oriented than it used to be, which I guess is only natural these days,” he began. “Nobody really cares about anything except getting their dockets out. I think the personality of the firm has changed over the years. Not for the better.”
Jess smiled. What he was really saying was that the firm no
longer reflected his own strong personality, the way it had in the beginning, when he was one of ten, not two hundred.
“So, how would you change things?”
Don lowered his chin against his chest, the way he did whenever he was giving a matter serious thought. “I don’t think they
can
be changed. The firm’s too big. It’s a law unto itself at this stage. The only way to change it would be to leave it.”
“Are you prepared to do that?”
“I’ve been thinking about it.”
“What would you do?”
“Start up again,” he said, his voice warming to the idea. “Take a few of the top guns with me, recruit a few others. Form a small firm in a family neighborhood, you know the kind with interior brick walls and plants hanging from stucco ceilings. A couple of secretaries, a couple of bathrooms, one small kitchen at the back. You interested?”
“What?”
“I may have just talked myself into a very interesting idea. What about it, Jess? How does Shaw and Koster sound to you?”
Jess laughed, but only because she wasn’t sure what else to do.
“Think about it.” Don stood up and walked to the window. “It doesn’t look like we’re going to be able to get out of here this afternoon.”
“What?” Jess was instantly on her feet behind him. “The snow’s not letting up at all. If anything, it looks like it’s getting worse. The wind’s picking up. I’d hate to get caught in a whiteout on the highway.”
“But I have to get back.”
“I’ll get you back. Just not this afternoon. We may have to wait until after dinner.” He walked toward the large open pine kitchen to his left and opened the freezer. “I’ll defrost a couple of steaks, open up another bottle of wine, and call the highway patrol, find out how bad weather conditions are on the roads. Jess, stop worrying,” he told her. “Even if worst comes to worst and we can’t get out of here tonight, I’ll have you back in time for court in the morning, I promise. Even if I have to carry you back on snow-shoes. Okay? Does that set your mind at rest?”
“Not really,” she told him.
“That’s my girl,” he said.
Jess spent the rest of the afternoon on the phone.
The medical examiner had nothing new to report. The autopsy on Connie DeVuono hadn’t been completed; it would be a few days until they could interpret all their findings.
Neil Strayhorn had contacted Barbara Cohen and Detective Mansfield. They had managed to find the names of two archery clubs in the Chicago area and another four within a hundred-mile radius of the city. The police were already on their way to question the management. Luckily, all the clubs were open on Sundays, although two had closed early because of the storm and couldn’t be reached. Messages had been left on their answering tapes to call the police first thing in the morning. Neil would call her as soon as they had any news.
Jess went over in her mind the list of questions she had prepared for Terry Wales. Don was right, she acknowledged, watching him as he busied himself in the kitchen preparing
dinner. She was as ready as she was ever going to be. She didn’t need her notes. She’d already memorized her questions and the likely responses they’d elicit. The only thing that she had to do now was show up in court on time.
“The radio just said they expect the snow to stop by midnight,” Don told her, depositing a glass of red wine in her hand before she could protest the news. “I say we stay here overnight, get a good night’s sleep, and head back around six. That way we’re in the city by seven-thirty at the latest, and you still have plenty of time to get ready for court.”
“Don, I can’t.”
“Jess, I don’t think we have any choice.”
“But what if the snow doesn’t stop by midnight? What if we can’t leave here in the morning?”
“‘Then Neil will ask for a continuance,” Don said simply. “Jess, the weather isn’t your fault.”
“And if we leave now?”
“Then we’ll probably spend the night in a snowbank. But if that’s what you want, I’m willing to gamble.”
Jess stared out the back window at a blizzard in full rage. She had to acknowledge the insanity of trying to go anywhere in weather like this. “How soon till dinner?” she asked.
“That was Detective Mansfield,” Jess said, pushing the phone off the white shag rug, absently watching the flames as they danced, like cobras ready to strike, in the fireplace. “None of the four archery clubs they were able to contact has any record of Terry Wales being a member.”
“Did they show his picture around?”
Jess nodded. “No one knew him.”
“That still leaves a couple of places, doesn’t it?”
“Two. But we can’t reach them till morning.”
“Then there’s nothing to do but get a good night’s sleep tonight.” Don, sitting beside Jess on the floor, reached over to twist the long wire cord of the telephone around his fingers, returning the phone to the small pine table between the two couches.
Jess followed the motion of his hands, mesmerized by the slow, circular movement. When she spoke, her voice was equally slow, as if emerging from a deep trance. “Did I tell you that the coroner said the wire was twisted around Connie’s neck so tightly she was almost decapitated?”
“Try not to think about that now, Jess,” Don said, wrapping his arms around her. “Come on, you’ve had a good dinner and some excellent wine, and now isn’t the time to. …”
“It’s my fault,” she told him, feeling the wire as it sliced its way into Connie’s throat.
“Your fault? Jess, what are you talking about?”
“If I hadn’t convinced Connie that she had to testify, she’d still be alive.”
“Jess, that’s ridiculous. You can’t know that. You can’t blame yourself.”
“It must have been so awful,” Jess continued, a shudder racing through her body, pushing her tighter into Don’s arms, “feeling that wire cutting into her neck, knowing she was going to die.”
“Jesus, Jess …”
Jess’s eyes overflowed with tears which spilled down her cheeks. Don quickly moved to brush them aside, first with his fingers, then his lips.
“It’s all right, baby,” he was saying. “Everything will be okay. You’ll see. Everything will be all right.”
His lips felt gentle, soothing against her skin as he traced the line of her tears from her cheeks to the sides of her mouth, then followed the tears as they ran between her lips, his mouth softly covering her own.
Jess closed her eyes, picturing Adam as he’d reached across her dining room table to kiss her, felt herself respond, knowing she was responding to the wrong man, but unable to stop herself.
It had been so long, she thought, her arms moving to encircle Adam’s waist even as Don’s hands disappeared under her red sweater, tugged at the zipper of her jeans. It was Adam’s caresses she experienced as Don’s weight fell across her, Adam whose fingers and mouth knowingly, brought her to a gentle climax even before he penetrated her.
“I love you, Jess,” she heard Adam say, but when she opened her eyes, it was Don she saw.
T
he dream began as it always did, in the waiting room of the doctor’s office, the doctor handing her a phone, telling her her mother was on the line.
“I’m starring in a movie,” her mother told her. “I want you to come and see me. I’ll leave tickets at the box office.”
“I’ll be there,” Jess assured her, arriving at the theater within seconds, asking for her tickets from the gum-chewing ticket taker.
“No one left any tickets for you,” the girl told her. “And we’re all sold out.”
“Are you looking for a ticket?” Mrs. Gambala asked, handing her one. “I can’t go. My daughter swallowed a turtle and she died, so I have an extra ticket.”
The theater was dark, the movie about to start. Jess located an empty seat on an aisle, sat down, waited. “I found a lump in my breast,” her mother was saying as Jess looked toward the screen. But a huge pillar totally obstructed her
view. No matter how frantically she tried, how stubbornly she persisted, Jess couldn’t see around it.
“It’s my fault,” she whispered to Judge Harris, who was sitting beside her. “If I’d gone to the doctor with her that afternoon like I promised, she wouldn’t have disappeared.”
In the next instant she was on the street, about to climb the front steps of her parents’ house when a white car pulled up at the corner and a man got out and started walking toward her, his face in shadows, his arms outstretched. He was right behind her as she raced up the stairs and tore open the door, her fingers frantically searching for the lock. But the lock was broken. She felt the tug at the screen door, felt her fingers losing their grip, knew that Death was only inches away.
Jess sat up with a start, her entire body bathed in sweat, her breath coming in painful, uneven gasps.
It took her a moment to assess where she was. “Oh God,” she moaned, seeing Don sleeping peacefully beside her on the white shag rug, the remains of the once grand fire flickering meekly behind the black wire mesh screen. “Oh God,” she whispered again, throwing off the blanket he had obviously covered them with. She gathered her clothes around her, wondering how she could have allowed what had happened between her and Don.
“I love you,” she could still hear him say.
I love you too, she wanted to tell him now, but she couldn’t, because she didn’t, not in the same way he loved her. She’d used him, used the feelings for her, his deep commitment to her, used the love he felt for her, the love he’d always felt for her. For what? So that she could feel better for a few minutes? Feel less alone? Less frightened? So
that she could hurt him all over again? Disappoint him anew? The way she always hurt and disappointed everyone who’d ever loved her.
Her hands shaking, she slipped into her panties and bra, shivering now, straining to breathe, as if a giant boa constrictor had wrapped itself around her and was slowly tightening its coils. She staggered to her feet, pulling her sweater over her head, trying desperately to get warm.
Falling back onto the chesterfield behind her, she brought her knees to her chest and hugged them, an uncomfortable numbness seeping through her body. “No,” she cried softly, not wanting to wake Don, selfishly wishing that he would awake on his own and surround her with his arms, make her demons go away.
Take deep breaths, she told herself, as the invisible snake continued its deadly embrace, extending its wide coils from her toes to her neck, cutting off all hope of air. She stared into the snake’s cold eyes, saw its jaws open in eager anticipation, felt a final squeeze at her rib cage.
“No,” she gasped, fighting to keep from throwing up, struggling with her imaginary tormentor. “No!”
And suddenly she saw Adam’s face and heard his voice. “Don’t fight it,” he was telling her. “The next time you have one of these attacks, just go with it. Let yourself go.”
What did he mean?
“What’s the worst thing that can happen?” he’d asked.
“I’ll throw up,” she’d answered.
“So, you’ll throw up.”
I’m afraid, she thought now.
“I think what you’re afraid of is death.”
Help me. Please help me.
“Go with the flow,” he was saying. “Don’t fight it. Just go with it.”
The same advice, Jess realized, as her self-defense instructor had given her.
When faced with an attacker, don’t fight him, go with him. Strike when you get there.
“Go with it,” she repeated over and over. “Go with it. Don’t fight it. Go with it.”
What’s the worst that can happen?
So you’ll throw up.
So you’ll die.
She almost laughed.
Jess stopped fighting, letting the panic fill her body. She closed her eyes against the dizziness that enveloped her, threatened to send her sprawling to the floor. She felt lightheaded and sick to her stomach, sure that at any second, she would lose consciousness.