Ronnie glanced from one to the other, perceived impending nuclear war, and got lithely to her feet. With a quick jump and a couple of steps she was across the creek and beside Tom. Placing a hand on his shoulder, she rose on tiptoe to kiss his cheek. It was warm, smooth-shaven, and smelled of something very nice.
“Hello, Tom,” she said again, a shade pointedly.
Tom glanced at her then, and the muscles in his face relaxed a little as he smiled at her.
“Hello, Ronnie.” His arm came around her waist and he hugged her against his side, but he didn’t kiss her. His attention moved back to Mark, who met Tom’s inimical gaze with an identical one of his own, and got to his feet. Give Mark just a couple of more years to grow, Ronnie thought, assessing him, and he and Tom would be pretty much the same size.
“If my son said anything unforgivable, I apologize for him,” Tom said, his arm around her waist and his eyes on Mark. “He’ll apologize too.”
“He didn’t.” She leaned closer into his side. Anything more physical than that was out with Mark’s
watchful gaze on them. She wanted to win Mark over, not alienate him. “Actually we talked. He’s got a point, Tom. This whole thing has been pretty embarrassing for everybody. You and I can keep a low profile. He can’t.”
“I’m sorry about it, but he still has to go to school. He’s just going to have to learn to live with the smutty headlines, because it doesn’t look like they’re going to go away anytime soon.”
“It’s not dying down?” Ronnie looked up at Tom with a pained grimace. Since before she had been at Tom’s mother’s house, the only time the scandal had really touched her was at Lewis’s funeral. Ronnie realized suddenly that she hadn’t seen a newspaper or even watched TV since she’d been Sally’s guest. No doubt she was being shielded.
“Not yet.” Tom’s clipped reply gave Ronnie to understand that the scandal was as big and bad as ever. She winced.
“Okay, I’m sorry.” Mark had been watching them. His apology to his father was abrupt. “I take back everything I said about—you know—okay?”
It didn’t take a genius to deduce that Mark’s “you know” referred to her, Ronnie thought. She smiled at him.
“Okay.” Tom seemed to relax fractionally. Ronnie could feel the easing of the hard muscles against which she leaned. “But if you ever take off with my car again without permission, I’ll ground you until the cows come home, pal.”
“Sorry. I was mad.”
“Yeah.”
Father and son exchanged measuring looks.
“Since you’re here,” Ronnie stepped hurriedly into the breach once more, speaking to Tom, “why don’t we all go down to the house and have lunch? I’m starving.”
Tom glanced down at her. The smile that touched his lips and warmed his eyes told her that he knew exactly what she was trying to do.
“Me too,” he said, his tone perfectly cheerful now. Then he looked at his son. “Come on, Mark, let’s go eat.”
Mark nodded, and stepped across the creek to join them.
Chapter
44
September 19th
2:00
P.M
.
M
ARLA WAS IN THE BEDROOM
with Jerry when a knock sounded on the front door. They had just finished up a very nice nooner, and Jerry was getting ready to go to the grocery store where he worked as a part-time security guard.
“I’ll get it,” Jerry said, tying his shoes and straightening as the knock sounded again. Dressed in his dark-blue guard’s uniform, Jerry looked much like the cop Marla had first met. She found men in uniform attractive, as she had already told him. In fact that revelation had led to their nooner.
Pulling on her own clothes, Marla heard Jerry open the door, and then the low murmur of voices. She wasn’t especially curious; she had grown accustomed to the comforting monotony of existence at Jerry’s house. But she needed to use the bathroom, and anyway Jerry had invited his visitor inside. She headed down the hall, made the necessary pit stop in the only bathroom, and then glanced into the living room on her way to the kitchen.
Jerry was standing in the middle of the living room
talking to a cop. The cop’s back was to Marla, but there was that uniform.
“My girlfriend must’ve called,” Jerry was saying.
“You understand there’s a lot of pressure on us to solve this case,” the cop said. “The victim was Charlie Kay Martin’s daughter, and he’s putting all kinds of heat on the department to find out who killed her. If your girlfriend knows anything about what happened, like she told the lawyer, I sure would appreciate it if she would pass the information on to me.”
“Well,” Jerry said. “I guess you could talk to her.” His gaze met Marla’s over the cop’s shoulder. “Marla …”
The cop turned so fast that Jerry stumbled back a pace. For a moment he and Marla locked eyes. His were icy gray, the dominating feature in a nondescript face.
It was the man who had ransacked her apartment, the man who had trailed her to the hotel—the man who loomed far larger than Freddy Krueger in inhabiting her worst nightmares.
Terror exploded in her veins.
“Jerry, it’s him, it’s him!”
Even as she screamed the warning, Marla darted for the kitchen. The man leaped after her. Jerry tackled him.
Terror gave her a speed and agility she had never before possessed. Flying across the kitchen, she was pursued by the sounds of a scuffle and then a crash. She ran for her life, exploding out the screen door and across the backyard, thanking God with every step that Lissy was playing with the little girl around the corner. Otherwise she would have been in the backyard,
and the two of them together could never have gotten away.
As she burst through the backyard gate into the alley that ran behind the house, she heard the screen door bounce back on its hinges behind her. A quick glance over her shoulder showed her the intruder charging across the yard after her.
Jerry must be unconscious—or dead.
But Marla couldn’t think about that, couldn’t think about anything except saving her own life. Bolting down the alley, she realized that on a straightaway he would overtake her in seconds. She scurried around the corner of a garage—all the houses around Jerry’s had detached garages, most of them ramshackle wood-frame structures, a few modernized with aluminum siding—and saw a side door. A quick twist of the knob proved that it was unlocked. Opening it, leaping inside, she quietly closed and locked the door behind her. The quiet, dusty gloom of the garage made a stark contrast to her own wildly pounding heart.
Panting, Marla leaned against the wall. She didn’t kid herself that he wouldn’t find her in here sooner or later. At best she might have bought herself a little time.
Be calm, be calm, Marla
told herself. Panic would not help her now.
It was Mrs. Diaz’s garage, Marla saw. Mrs. Diaz was an elderly woman whose grocery shopping Jerry sometimes did. Her car was an ancient Chevy Nova, a small, brown rusty car that appeared not to have been driven in years.
The keys were in the ignition.
Blessing life in small-town Mississippi, Marla got behind the wheel.
Be calm
.
The first thing of course was to make sure the car still ran. It was covered with dust, and she personally had never seen Mrs. Diaz leave her house.
If
it ran, then she would get out, open the garage door, and drive away, slowly enough so as not to attract attention.
Something, Marla didn’t know what, made her glance at the side door. The doorknob was turning, jiggling—and then the door opened.
All Marla needed to see was a hand and part of a profile. She
knew
who was coming through that door.
Turning the key in the ignition, she prayed as she had never prayed in her life.
He was leaping for the driver’s-side door.
Please God. Please God
.
The engine roared to life. Marla slammed her foot down on the accelerator with all her might.
The Nova shot forward, bursting right through the rickety garage door.
Chapter
45
September 20th
10:00
A.M
.
R
ONNIE KNEW THAT SOMETHING
was up the minute she walked into the kitchen.
Tom had left her bed before dawn. She had gone back to sleep, smiling a little as she thought about how many trips he had made to and from his mother’s that day. After lunch he and Mark had stayed until nearly five. The three of them had messed around on the farm for a while, until Ronnie had gone in to help Sally finish up preparations for the potluck, leaving Tom and Mark to muddle about on their own. Then Mark had come in, and Ronnie had gone out. She and Tom had been sitting on the swing when Sally had appeared with a pitcher of iced tea. In the end all four of them had sat out under the silver maples, drinking iced tea and talking about nothing, really, until it was time for Tom and Mark to go.
It occurred to Ronnie as she watched both cars back out of the driveway that she and Tom had never before had a couple of hours to just idle away together.
She wondered how many people went through their
whole lives without ever discovering just how precious time was.
She wanted to spend all her time with Tom, and she couldn’t, so every minute became something to savor.
Then the realization sprang full-blown into her mind: I’
m not married anymore
.
She was free.
She could almost hear the sound of the shackles falling away from her soul. Her spirits lifted as if they’d suddenly been shot full of helium.
Lewis, God rest his soul, was dead. She didn’t owe him anything anymore.
She and Tom had all the time in the world.
As soon as the ridiculous allegations about her killing Lewis were cleared up, they could be together whenever they wanted.
There was no one and nothing to stand in their way
.
Or so she thought, until she came downstairs to find Tom sipping coffee in his mother’s kitchen.
He was wearing a suit and tie, the charcoal one she liked and the tie that made his eyes look as blue as Sedgely’s pool. His face looked drawn and tired as he talked to his mother. When he glanced up to find Ronnie standing in the kitchen doorway looking at him, his expression turned positively grim.
“What?” Ronnie asked, knowing that it was bad news.
“Sit down, dear, and have some breakfast. Tom, let her eat breakfast first.” Sally started to stand up.
“What?” Ronnie said again, demanding this time, her eyes never leaving Tom’s.
“Oh, dear.” Sally stood still, glancing from one to
the other of them. Distress was plain to read in her face.
“Dan wants you to meet him at his office at noon.” Tom paused, but Ronnie wasn’t misled. Tom was not looking at her with
that
expression on his face over an appointment with her lawyer. She said nothing, just waited. “He’s going to drive you to the police station. The DA called him this morning. They are going to arrest you for murdering Lewis, and instead of them coming out and hauling you away in handcuffs, Dan has arranged for you to turn yourself in. They want you there by one.”
“Oh, my God.” It was a whisper, and for a moment Ronnie did not realize that it had come out of her own mouth. She leaned weakly against the doorjamb, feeling as though all the blood were draining out of her head.
Tom got up from the table and walked over to her, pulling her away from the doorjamb and wrapping his arms around her. Ronnie leaned against his chest. Her hands slid around his waist beneath his coat, and she clung.
If he had not been holding her up, she would have collapsed.
“Will I—have to stay long? At the police station? I mean, is this some sort of formality and they’re going to let me right back out again—on bail?” she asked haltingly after a moment.
“I don’t know.” Tom was holding her close, not kissing her but just holding her, in a way that told her that this was as hard for him as it was for her. His voice was low and rough, and stirred the hair just above her ear.
His answer frightened her.
“I didn’t kill him, Tom.”
“I know that, darlin’. I know it.”
Ronnie shivered as the full, hideous realization hit.
“When I go in there today, I might not come out for months. Or—or even years. How long does a trial take? Remember O.J.? The
trial
took longer than a year. He was in jail that whole time, wasn’t he? And if they find me guilty …” Her voice broke. “Oh, God, Tom.”
“But you’re not guilty. We’ll prove it. We’ll find out who really did it, and …” His voice trailed off. Looking up at him, Ronnie saw that he stopped talking because he couldn’t go on. She saw, too, that his eyes, like hers, were wet with tears.
Chapter
46
September 20th
11:50
A.M
.
T
HEY HAD SPENT
an uneasy night in the car, because Marla didn’t have any money for a motel room. Fortunately Lissy had a couple of quarters in the pockets of her shorts, and Marla had found an ancient-looking dollar bill under the driver’s seat. That had been enough to buy doughnuts, and milk for Lissy. Marla had drunk water.
She didn’t know what they were going to do.
After escaping from the garage, she had driven around the corner, dragged a protesting Lissy out of the yard where she had been playing, and hightailed it out of town. There had been no sign of pursuit—the last she had seen of the intruder was in the garage—yet she knew he would come after her.
On the road to Jackson she had stopped only once, just long enough to call the police and report a murder at Jerry’s address.
Now, parked at a service station near the new capitol building, she was out of money, out of gas, out of luck. Mrs. Second Wife and her high-powered lawyer
were her last hope. If they couldn’t help her, she was going to have to go to the police.