I promise I won't leave you in your present condition," she said.
Implying that you will leave once my condition improves."
"Don't put words in my mouth."
Well, everything You say is so damn oblique, I try and fill in the blanks."
"The blanks will fill themselves in when your mind is ready.
The doctor's hypothesis was that you might be blocking your memory subconsciously. You don't want to remember."
He folded his hands around his coffee cup and looked directly into her eyes. "Is that right, Kendall?"
that was the first time he had called her by name. Hearing it from his lips unnerved her for a moment she lost her train of thought 'Is he right? she repeated. "Only you can answer that."
"If I can't remember anything, how would I know what I have chosen to forget? ' He swore, plunging his fingers into his hair. But he had forgotten his stitches, and the impatient gesture Pulled at them. "Ow!
Careful! Here, let me look." She moved to his side and PUlled his hands out of the way. Peeling back the gauze bandage She examined the wound. "No sign of infection. The Stitches are intact. No damage has been done that I can see."
"It's beginning to itch,, he said irritably.
"That means it's healing."
"I guess. She was still standing close. He glanced up at her. "Where'd you get the money for the groceries?"
"I told you, I
"Earned it by Doing what?"
She hesitated, balancing the pros and cons of telling him, and finally deciding that he would pester her about it until she did. "I'm a lawyer.
He barked a shots laugh. "Your lies are getting more elaborate."
"I'm a public defender." He looked at her as though he still didn't believe it. "It's the truth," she insisted.
"Tell me about it."
"What do you want to know?"
"Were you any good? I'll bet you were. You lie so well."
She smiled. "That's what Ricki Sue said, too."
"Who's that?"
"My best friend."
"Hmm." Mindlessly, he munched on the last slice of bacon.
"How good a defense lawyer were you?"
She stalled by pouring herself a cup of coffee before taking a chair across the table from him. "I believe I was fairly good.
More than adequate. If nothing else, I deserved an A for effort.
"I wanted to be good," she said. "The people who hired me thought they were taking a huge risk by awarding the position to a woman. Consequently, I had a lot to prove. Overall, my win/loss ratio was respectable. Naturally I didn't win every case."
He assumed a listening posture that prompted her to continue. "One defeat was particularly bitter. At first the case seemed routine, but it wound up being . . . rather terrible."
"What happened?"
"I advised a sixteen-year-old boy to plead guilty to a shoplifting charge, to throw himself on the mercy of the court. Since it was his first offense, I expected the judge to be lenient.
Instead, he used this boy to humiliate me." With little inflection in her voice, she recounted for him the courtroom scene.
"There's a postscript, right?"
"During the trip to Columbia, there was a terrible accident.
He was handcuffed, you see, and somehow, when they stopped to take a break, the cuffs got caught on something and his arm . . ." She paused, swallowed with difficulty. "His right arm was severed at the shoulder, literally yanked off as though he had been drawn and quartered. He went into shock and almost bled to death. They were able to save his life, but he'll never fully recover, physically or psychologically."
That Sunday morning when Kendall heard about the accident, she had been assailed by dismay, guilt, and outrage. It continued to haunt her. Billy Joe was certainly no angel. But the accident had destroyed any likelihood that he would become a law-abiding, contributing member of society. Maimed and embittered, he would hold the world accountable for his misfortunes. He would blame his defense attorney in particular.
His family certainly had.
"Hell of an accident," he remarked. He had sat quietly, giving her time to reflect on the disturbing incident and its repercussions.
Was taking this discussion further a good idea? Was she telling too much? But it felt good to unload the misgivings that had burdened her for months.
"I have my own theory about it," she said.
"Which is?"
"That it wasn't an accident at all."
"Interesting." He leaned forward. "Did you have someone check into it?"
"At the time, it didn't occur to me to do so."
"Did you get the boy's account?"
"I tried to. I went to the hospital to see him, but was told he was still recovering and couldn't have visitors."
"Didn't that raise your suspicions?"
"It shoul d have, but at the time it seemed reasonable. For weeks he was in critical condition. Then, before I even re quested it, I was sent a copy of the accident report. It was a detailed account of what had happened. Everything looked official and in order. It wasn't until much later that it occurred to me that this 'accident' might have been staged. Billy Joe was a targeted victim."
She combed her fingers through her hair. Whenever she was reminded of her naivete, it distressed her. "By the time I realized that he'd been victimized, it was too late to do anything about it. I had already" She broke off before saying too much.
"You'd already what?"
"Nothing."
"What?"
"I think I hear Kevin crying." She jumped to her feet.
"You can't get off that easy. He's not crying. Sit down."
"I'm not a dog. I don't sit on command."
"Why don't you want to finish your story?"
"Because I . . . I . . ."
"What, Kendall? What are you running from? From me?"
"No," she replied in a gruff voice.
"You'll never admit it, but you had every intention of leaving that hospital without me. If I hadn't caught you sneaking out, you'd be gone, vamoose, whereabouts unknown. Don't bother denying it, because I know I'm right.
"Then you bring me to a place where there's no telephone, no TV, no radio that works. That's right," he said when she gave away her surprise. "I tried the one you hid in the closet. Did you break it on purpose?"
"I knew it was broken, so I put it up out of the way."
His disbelief was apparent. "We have no communication with the outside world. There aren't any nearby neighbors, at least none that I can see. You've deliberately isolated us.
"There's something you're not telling me. There's a lot you're not telling me about my past, your past, our marriage. If there is a marriage."
He used the table to lever himself up. "I'm drowning in confusion and you're my only link to whatever my life was before the accident. Help me out. Enlighten me before I go crazy. Tell me what I want to know. Please."
She gripped the back of her chair so tightly that her knuckles turned white. "Okay, what do you want to know?"
"For starters, what did I do to piss you off?"
"Who says I'm pissed off?"
"It's easy enough to deduce. When you saw an unexpected but convenient way to dump me, you took it, and almost got away with it. Secondly, you claim we're married, but the signs it I read clearly say that we're not. Why would you make such a claim?"
"What signs?"
"I've seen you naked. I've touched you naked. But whenever we're close, I don't get a sense of . . . of familiarity between us.
"Why do you say that?"
"Because it's too exciting."
She shifted her weight uneasily. "It might seem so. But only because you don't remember being close to me."
"Then what's your excuse?"
She dropped her gaze to the white ridge of her knuckles and said nothing. She couldn't.
He went on, "You lay beside me all night, but you were careful not to touch me, not even accidentally. I was restless and awake enough to realize how carefully you avoided making contact skin to skin."
"That's not so. We kissed good night."
"I kissed you, you didn't kiss me. And I'm positive that I've never kissed you before."
"How can you be positive?"
"Because I can't remember it."
She laughed softly. "That only means that my kisses aren't memorable."
"Hardly. Just the opposite."
The quiet raspiness of his voice drew her eyes up to meet his.
Her face grew hot, as though his invasive stare were emanating heat. Since she couldn't think of a clever comeback, or a solid argument, she prudently remained silent.
After a moment he picked up where he'd left off. "Assuming for the sake of argument that we are married, were we estranged at the time of the accident?"
"I never said that."
"You didn't have to. What caused our marital rift? Did I resent the time you spent pursuing your career?"
"Not inordinately."
"Were we compatible?"
"We got along okay."
"Did we argue over the baby? I have fleeting flashbacks to arguments over having kids."
Kendall's response was unguarded. "Really?" she asked, surprised.
"Did I want a baby?"
"Of course."
He looked perplexed, troubled, and stroked his forehead.
"I don't think so."
"That's a terrible thing to say!"
"I'm being brutally honest. Which makes it one out of two here."
He silently appealed to her for a truthful explanation, but, in self-defense, Kendall kept her expression remote.
"Was our fight over money?" he asked.
"No."
"Sex?"
She looked away and shook her head.
"Sex," he said, drawing his conclusion from her reaction.
"There was nothing wrong with that aspect of our relation ship."
"Then come here.
"What for?"
"Come here." The repeated command was soft but no less compelling.
If she stood her ground, he might mistake her stubbornness for cowardice. And even if that was partially true, she couldn't let him know that she was afraid of him. So she moved around the table and stood directly in front of him.
"Is this a test?"
He said, "Sort of."
He covered her breast and pressed it warmly.
She gasped.
He whispered, "You fail."
It was as difficult to hold her ground now as it had been last night when he had touched her, but she knew she must or jeopardize her credibility. "It's been a long time, that's all."
"How long?" He lightly ground her nipple with his palm.
"Since before Kevin was born."
"Then it's no wonder."
"No wonder what?"
He moved closer, and when his middle made contact with hers, his meaning became obvious.
Lowering his head, he brushed her lips with his, and it caused her to tingle all over. Then he kissed her in earnest, his mouth mobile and open and sweet. He pushed his tongue against hers.
Breathless, she pulled away. "I can't."
"Why not?" His lips slid down her throat.
"I'm full."
"Full?"
"I'm lactating." She pushed his hand aside and stumbled backward several steps. Self-consciously she touched her damp, throbbing lips, her neck. Her hand made a pass over the wet spots on her T-shirt. "Under the circumstances, I don't think we should . . . do anything."
"How come?"
"It feels awkward."
"Why?"
"Because the amnesia has made us practically strangers."
"You claim that we're married."
"Yes."
"We've had a child together."
"Yes."
"But we're practically strangers? Explain that, Kendall. And while you're at it . . ." He reached behind his back and whipped something from the waistband of his shorts. "Explain this."
With a flick of his wrist, he aimed the pistol straight at her.
"My name is Kendall Burnwood."
She laid her briefcase on the table and extended her right hand to the woman seated alone in the interrogation room.
Her hair wasn't as lustrous as before. The exotic face was distorted by swelling and bruising. Nevertheless, Kendall clearly recognized the woman she had seen only once in church.
"I know who you are. I'm Lottie Lynam."
She shook Kendall's hand with a notable lack of enthusiasm.
Kendall noticed that her hand was dry, not damp with nervous perspiration. Her voice was steady, her gaze level. Under the circumstances, one would expect more emotion.
She appeared amazingly composed for a woman who had recently killed her husband.
"Can I get you something, Mrs. Lynam?
"You can get me out of here."
"I'll go to work on that right away. What did you tell the arresting officers?"
"Nothing."
"It's essential that I know anything you said while in police custody, even if it's something you consider insignificant."
"I didn't tell them anything except that Charlie beat me up and raped me, and that I wanted a lawyer with me before I was questioned about how he died."
"That's good. That's very good."
"I watch a lot of TV," she said wryly.
"What time were you arrested?"
About four A.M.
"When did the doctor see you?"
"They brought me straight here."
Kendall checked her wristwatch. It was almost seven.