first."
"Meaning?"
"Meaning, be certain you have substantial evidence
and not just a petty grudge. Don't cause us
both a lot of time, effort, and embarrassment just because
you're pissed off at me for being hard on you.
I would never be convicted. In your attempt to spite
me, you'd only be spiting yourself."
Hammond's fingers had turned white and were
aching from gripping the telephone receiver so hard.
"Your phone is cutting out. Goodbye."
Ignoring the rain, Alex had decided to go out for a
run. Through the downpour, her legs pumped at a
steady pace. Adherence to her exercise regimen
seemed essential when the rest of her life had been
pitched into chaos. Besides, after seeing rescheduled
patients late into the evening, it gave her a physical outlet for cerebral overload. It cleared her head and
allowed her mind to wander freely.
She worried about her patients. If and when it became
public that she was a suspect in a murder case,
what would happen to them? What would they think
of her? Would it change their opinion of her? Naturally
it would. It wouldn't be realistic to hope that
they would disregard her involvement with a murder
investigation.
Maybe she should begin as early as tomorrow trying
to place them with interim therapists so there
would be no suspension of their treatment if she were
to be incarcerated.
On the other hand, finding replacements for them
might not become her problem. When they learned
that their psychologist had been accused of murder,
they would probably leave her practice in flocks.
As she ran past a car parked at the curb only a half
block from her house, she noticed that the windows
were fogged, indicating that someone was inside the
vehicle. The motor was idling, although the headlights
were out and the windshield wipers were still.
She ran another twenty yards or so before glancing
back. The car lights were now on. It was turning onto
a side street.
Probably nothing, she told herself. She was just
being paranoid. But her apprehension lingered. Was someone watching her?
The police, for instance. Smilow might have ordered
surveillance. Wouldn't that be standard operating
procedure? Or Bobby could be watching her to
make certain she wouldn't abscond with "his
money." It hadn't been his convertible she'd just
seen, but he was resourceful.
There was another possibility. One much more
threatening. One that she didn't want to entertain, but
knew it would be foolish and naive not to. It hadn't
escaped her that she might be of interest to Lute Pettijohn's
murderer. If it got out that she had been identified
at the scene, the killer might fear she had
witnessed the killing.
The thought made her shiver, and not strictly because
she feared a murderer. Her life was presently
out of her control. That's what she feared most--that
loss of control. In its way, that was a death more real
than death itself. Living, but having no choices or
free will, could be even worse than being dead.
Twenty years ago, she had determined that her life
would never again be given over to someone else to
manage. It had taken her almost that long to convince
herself that she was finally free of the bonds that had
fettered her, that she alone would chart her destiny.
Then Bobby had reappeared and everything had
changed. Now it seemed that everyone around her
had a say-so in her life, and she was powerless to do anything about it.
After a half-hour run, she let herself into the house
through a door off the piazza. In the laundry room she
stripped off her drenched running clothes, then
wrapped herself in a towel for the walk through her
house.
She had lived alone all her adult life, so when by
herself at home, she was never afraid. Loneliness was
more frightening to her than the threat of an intruder.
She didn't feel the need to protect herself from burglars,
but she steeled herself against the emptiness
felt on holidays when even the company of good
friends didn't compensate for the lack of a family.
Solitude didn't make for coziness even when sitting
in front of the fireplace on a cold night. When she
was startled awake in the middle of the night, it
wasn't because of imagined noises, but because of
the all-too-real silence of living alone. The only fear
she had of being by herself was of being by herself
for the rest of her life.
Tonight, however, she felt slightly ill at ease as she
switched out the lights on the lower floor and made
her way upstairs. The treads creaked beneath her
weight. She was accustomed to the protests of the old
wood. Usually a friendly sound, tonight it seemed
ominous. On the second-floor landing, she paused to
look down the shadowed staircase. The hallway and
rooms below were empty and still, exactly as she had
left them when she went out to run.
As she continued on into her bedroom, she blamed
her nervousness on the rain. After days of oppressive
heat, it was a relief, but it was almost too much of a
good thing. It was coming down in torrents that
pelted windowpanes and hammered against the roof.
It spilled over gutters and gushed from the downspouts.
Opening a door onto the second-story piazza, she
stepped out to drag a potted gardenia bush beneath
the sheltering overhang. Below, in the center of the
walled garden, the concrete fountain was overflowing.
Flower petals had been beaten off their stalks,
leaving the vegetation looking bare and forlorn. Returning
inside, she secured the door, then moved
from window to window to close the shutters.
The rainfall was enough to make anyone nervous.
The Battery had been deserted tonight. Without the
usual joggers, bicyclers, and people walking their
dogs, she had felt isolated and vulnerable. The large
trees in White Point Gardens had seemed looming
and menacing, where usually she thought of their
low, thick branches as being protective.
In the bathroom, she draped her towel over the
brass bar and leaned into the tub to turn on the
faucets. It took a while for the hot water to travel
through the pipes, so she used that time to brush her
teeth. When she straightened up out of the sink, she
caught a reflection in the medicine cabinet mirror and
whirled around.
It was her robe hanging on a hook on the back of
the door.
Knees weak, she leaned against the pedestal sink
and ordered herself to stop this silliness. It was so unlike
her to jump at shadows. What was wrong with
her?
Bobby, for one thing. Damn him. Damn him!
Silly or not, she allowed herself the same weaknesses
she would have advised a patient to allow
himself. When one's carefully constructed world begins
to fall apart, one is entitled to a few natural re
actions, including bitter anger, even rage, certainly
childlike fear.
She remembered being a child afraid. The bogeyman
had nothing on Bobby Trimble. Very capably he
could destroy lives. He had nearly destroyed hers
once, and he was threatening to destroy it again.
That's why she feared him, now even more than before.
That's why she could be startled at bathrobes, and
lie, and do irresponsible things such as involve a decent
man like Hammond Cross in something ugly.
But only at first, Hammond. Only at the start.
She stepped into the tub and pulled the curtain. For
a long while, she stood beneath the spray, head
bowed, letting the hot water drum against her skull
while the rising steam swirled around her.
A Saturday night in Harbour Town had seemed
like such a safe lie. It placed her a credible distance
from Charleston, in a crowded place where it was
plausible that no one would remember seeing her.
Damn the luck!
What she had told them about the pistol was the
truth, but there was little chance of them believing
that story now. Having been trapped in one lie, everything
she said thereafter would sound untrue.
Steffi Mundell wanted her to be guilty. The prosecutor
hated other women. Alex had determined that
the instant they met. Her studies had covered personalities
like Mundell's. She was ambitious and shrewd
and competitive to a fault. Individuals like Steffi
were rarely happy because they were never satisfied,
not with others, but especially not with themselves.
Expectations were never met because the bar was
continually being raised. Satisfaction was unattainable.
Steffi Mundell was an overachiever to the extreme
and to her detriment.
Rory Smilow was harder to read. He was cold, and
Alex had no doubt he could be cruel. But she also detected
in him an inner demon with which he constantly
struggled. The man never knew a moment of
inner peace. His outlet was to torment others in an effort
to make them as miserable as he. That kernel of
discontent left him vulnerable, but he battled it with
a vengeance that made him dangerous to his enemies
--such as murder suspects.
Between the two of them, it would be hard to
choose whom she feared most.
Then there was Hammond. The others thought of
her as a murderer. His opinion of her must be even
lower than that. But she couldn't dwell on him or she
would become immobilized by despondency and remorse. She had no surplus time or energy to devote
to regretting what might have been had they met at
another time and place.
If ever a man had a chance of touching her--her
mind and heart, the spot in her spirit where Alex Ladd
really lodged--it might have been him. He might
have been the one allowed to relieve the self-imposed
loneliness and solitude, fill the emptiness, relieve the
silence, share her life.
But romantic notions were a luxury she couldn't
afford. Her priority must be to get out of this predica
ment with her practice, her reputation, and her life intact.
She squeezed fragrant gel into a scrubbing sponge
and used the lather liberally. She shaved her legs. She
shampooed her hair. She rinsed for a long time, letting
the hot water ease her muscles even if it couldn't
ease her anxiety.
Eventually she turned off the faucets and sluiced
off excess water with her hands, then she whisked
back the curtain.
Never one to scream, she did.
CHAPTER
21
Bobby was in the chips again.
He considered it only a temporary setback that he
hadn't yet collected his money from Alex. She would
produce. She had too much at stake not to.
In the meantime, however, he wasn't without
funds. Thanks to the two coeds with whom he had
spent the night, he was several hundred dollars richer.
While they lay snoring in his bed, he had packed his
belongings and sneaked out. The experience should
teach them a valuable lesson. He had felt almost altruistic.
Finding other accommodations was a minor inconvenience
when weighed against the reward. As
soon as he was settled in another hotel across town,
in a room with a river view, he ordered an enormous
room-service breakfast of eggs, ham, grits and tasso
gravy, a short stack, and an extra portion of hash
browns, which he hadn't particularly wanted, but ordered
just because he was feeling so flush.
Next on his agenda was a shopping expedition. A
new suit of clothes wasn't an extravagance. It was a
business expense. If he paid income taxes, he could
have counted his wardrobe as an allowable deduction.
In his line of work, one had to look sharp.
He had spent the remainder of the afternoon
lounging around the hotel pool, working on his tan.
Now, decked out in his new suit of cream-colored
linen with a royal blue silk shirt underneath, he entered
a bar that had come highly recommended by a
cabbie. "Where can I find some action?"
"Action?" Then, sizing Bobby up in the rearview
mirror, the taxi driver had drawled, "You're hustling
pussy, aren't you, sport?"
Flattered, Bobby smiled in reply.
"I know just the place."
The moment Bobby entered the bar, he realized
the driver knew his stuff. This was a place for prime
pickings. The music was blaring. Lights flashing.
Dancers sweating. Waitresses scrambling to fill the
drink orders being placed by people on a desperate
quest for fun. Lots of single women. Fair game.
It took him two watered-down drinks before he
homed in on his target. She sat at a table alone. No
one had asked her to dance. She smiled a lot, to
whomever happened to be passing, evidence that she
was feeling self-conscious, conspicuous, and in need
of someone to talk to. Best of all, she had glanced his
way several times while he pretended not to notice.