“Well, that makes it all better then, your not meaning to.” He kept his eyes on his lap a few more moments, and Sadie had the impression of someone pulling on a mask. When he faced her he looked confused and hurt, but there was something winking behind his eyes. “I waited for you for a year. A year of letting you tease me, pretend one day I’d be good enough for you, one day I’d be worthy, just ‘not tonight.’” Putting the words in air quotes. “I can’t believe what a fool you made of me.”
“I never meant to. I never meant to tease you.”
He ignored that, but his tone softened and became almost plaintive. “Are you sure about this, Sadie? Really sure? Because once you tell me to go, I’ll go and not come back.”
It was an invitation more than a challenge, Sadie knew, a subtle bump to steer her in the right direction. Pull out a nice ribbon of excuses—I’m tired, I have my period, I feel sick—and keep the game alive.
“I’m sure,” she said.
The petty spite that had been concealed behind his mild exterior blazed out now. “A year. A year for this. Everyone told me you were cold, but I thought there had to be fire, a spark, something inside of you. News flash: There’s not. You’re just a manipulative bitch who likes attention and thinks she’s too good for everyone.”
After Ford’s anger, after everything she’d seen, Pete’s tantrum was more sad than scary. “Agree to disagree,” she said.
He stared at her. When he didn’t seem to be making a move to leave, she said, “Do you want a ride somewhere?”
He shook his head. “I mean it. When I leave today, I never want to hear from you again. Ever. Not even a big apology.”
“Okay, bye,” she said, willing him out of the car.
It still seemed to take forever for him to get his seat belt off and get out. When he finally did, his big exit line was “Have a nice life.”
“I think I just might,” she told him.
She should be sad, she thought. But instead, as she walked around to the driver’s side of the car, she felt a soaring sense of relief.
She put on the radio and was about to turn into her driveway when a news bulletin said, “A spokeswoman from Central Hospital has issued a statement saying that millionaire Mason Bligh, who inherited the Bligh chemical fortune when he was twelve, has been transferred out of intensive care and is currently in critical condition. Bligh was found unconscious near the former France Stone quarry late Wednesday evening after the Range Rover he was driving exploded. The identity of the second victim in the wreck has not been released.”
Sadie dialed her mother’s cell phone. “I’m going for a drive to clear my head,” she said, the lie coming without any compunction at all.
“Of course, dear,” her mother answered.
Sadie was surprised by how little time it took to get to City Center.
CHAPTER 31
She had never seen him in person before. It hit Sadie as she was approaching Mason’s room at Central Hospital. She was going to see Ford, on the outside, for the first time, and she felt giddy and terrified at once.
Mason was asleep on the bed and Ford was dozing when she walked in. It took all her self-control not to touch him. Even in the dim light filtering through the hospital room blinds he was spectacularly handsome: dark hair, slight stubble, wide shoulders, his hands broad and strong and—
For a split second she saw that last moment after he’d shot Willy, when Willy’s face became James’s, saying “You?” and she felt a shiver of fear. What if he really wasn’t what she thought? What if—
There was an explanation. There had to be. It was an old memory that got looped in at the wrong time, an accident of the light, something.
He woke up and caught her standing there, staring at him. His eyes opened halfway at first, then all the way. He stared at her with what looked like alarm and said something she couldn’t catch.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you,” she said.
He shook his head, a frown replacing his alarm. “Who are you?”
His voice sounded different than when she was inside his head, but still nice. Still familiar.
“I’m a friend,” she answered quickly. “He’s going to live, isn’t he? Mason? What happened to B— to the other passenger?”
His eyes were taking her in carefully, and she wondered what he was thinking. Had his vision dimmed when she said she was Mason’s friend? Did she merit even a flutter from the drums? It was so strange not to know what was going on inside his head.
He narrowed his eyes. “Are you a reporter?”
She’d planned her approach in the car, but seeing him had already made her go completely off track. “Actually,” she said, giving up on the script, “I’m here to see you.”
That made him alert, but not in a good way. “Why? Who sent you?”
“No one. I sent myself.” She doubted the hospital was bugged, but it seemed wise to be circumspect. “I—I saw what happened when you went to church on Thursday.”
“What are you talking about?” He was on guard, cagy.
She almost laughed, thinking, Seriously, now is when you’re going to start exercising restraint? Today is the day you start thinking before you speak? But they didn’t have time for that. “I know what you did. I understand. I wanted to ask you some questions.”
Ford put up his hands. “Lady, miss, whoever, thank you for coming, but it’s time for you to go.”
“Where did you get the gloves and—the other thing?”
He looked truly baffled. “Do you need a nurse?”
“Are they somewhere safe?”
“I think you might be on the wrong floor.”
“Where is he?” she whispered urgently. “Did you leave him there, or did you take him somewhere?”
“I bet someone in the psych ward is missing you. Why don’t we find a nurse and—” He stood.
Sadie wanted to scream with frustration. “I want to help you, but you have to let me. We don’t have much time. I have to tell them everything in two days.”
“Okay,” he said, nodding like he was trying to keep a crazy person calm. “Go ahead. Good luck.”
He didn’t seem to be pretending, Sadie thought. Maybe he really had no idea what she was talking about. Maybe he’d completely blotted it out. His mind had been strange, and it was definitely traumatic. Maybe if she asked him about something that happened before he snapped, some detail…
“You can tell when people are bluffing at poker by how they move their fingers. That’s how you were able to play blindfolded and win at the Castle.”
That got his attention. He took a step toward her. “What are you—”
She gave up on caution. “Willy asked you how you did the trick. You lied to him.”
He took another step toward her. “How can you know that?”
“I told you, I was there.”
He took another step and stopped, two feet from her. He looked into her eyes. Their gazes met, locked.
It was there, the connection, more powerful, a shocking surge through both of them. Sadie reached toward him.
He jerked back, away from her. His eyes weren’t tired now, they were angry. Angry like they had been when he smashed the mirrors. “In my head. It was you?”
She swallowed hard and tried to get past the anger, make him hear. “I want to help you, Ford. But I need to know some details.”
“It knows my name,” he said, rocking backward with an agonized sound somewhere between a moan and a laugh. “Of course. Of course it knows everything.”
“Please, if you would just—”