15
"YOU'RE NOT LEAVING, Sally. I can't let you leave."
She gave him a look that was so immensely damning of what he was and what he'd done, he couldn't stand it.
"Listen, Sally, please. I'm sorry. I did what I believed was right. I couldn't tell you, please understand that. You were coming to trust me. I couldn't take a chance that you'd react the way you're reacting now."
She laughed. Just laughed. She said nothing at all.
Dillon rose, saying, "I'm going for a walk. I'll be back to make dinner in an hour."
Sally watched him stride down the narrow trail toward the water. She supposed he was a fine-looking man, not as fine-looking as James, of course. She didn't like all his bulging muscles, but she supposed some people did.
"Sally."
She didn't want to turn back to him. She didn't want to speak to him anymore, give him any of her attention, listen to his damning words that made so much sense to him and had utterly destroyed her.
No, she'd rather watch Dillon, or the two boats that were rocking lazily in the smooth evening waters. It would be sunset soon. The water was beginning to be the color of cherries.
"Sally, I can't let you leave. Besides, where would you go? I don't know where you'd be safe. You thought you'd have a refuge in The Cove. You didn't. Your dear auntie Amabel was in on it."
"No, that's impossible."
"Believe it. I have no reason to lie to you. David and I both visited her after I got on my feet again. She claimed you'd seen me unconscious and decided to run away. She said that you had probably run to Alaska, that you couldn't go to Mexico because you didn't have a passport. She said that you'd been ill-in an institution-as a matter of fact and that you were still unstable, still very weak in the head. My gut Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
tells me that your auntie is in this mess up to her eyeballs."
"She welcomed me. She was sincere. You're wrong, James, or you're just plain lying."
"Maybe she was sincere at first. But then someone got to her. What about the two murders in The Cove, Sally? The woman's screams you heard that Amabel claimed were a result of the wind, that or the result of you being so bloody nuts."
"So you used those old people-Marge and Harve, who drove to The Cove in their Winnebago and then disappeared-as your, what do you call it? Oh, yes, your cover. The sheriff believed you completely, didn't he?"
"Yes, he did. And what's more, the investigation will open again, since a whole bunch of other folk have disappeared in that area as well. Being a PI hired by their son from L.A. was my cover. It worked. After the murders happened, I didn't know what to think. I knew it couldn't have anything to do with you directly."
He stopped, plowing his fingers through his hair. "Damn, we're getting off the subject, Sally. Forget about The Cove. Just forget Amabel. She and her town are three thousand miles away. I want you to try to understand why I did what I did. I want you to understand why I had to keep silent about who I really am and why I was at The Cove."
"You want me to agree that it was fine for you to lie to me, to manipulate me?"
"Yes. You lied to me as well, if you'll recall. All you had to do was scream your head off when your so-called father called you, and I was manipulated up to my ears. A beautiful woman appealing to my macho side. Yeah, I was hooked from that moment."
She was staring at him as if he'd lost his mind.
"Jesus, Sally, I came flying into the room like a madman to see you on the floor, staring at that damned phone like it was a snake ready to bite you, and I was a goner."
She waved away his words. "Someone was after me, James. Nobody was after you."
"It didn't matter."
She began to laugh. "Actually there were two someones after me, and you were the second, only I was too stupid, too pathetically grateful to you, to realize it. I'm leaving, James. I don't want to see you again.
I can't believe I thought you were a hero. God, when will I stop being such a credulous fool?"
"Where will you go?"
"That's none of your business, Mr. Quinlan. None of what I do is any of your business anymore."
"The hell it isn't. Listen, Sally. Tell me the truth about something. When Dillon and I got into your room at the sanitarium, there was this pathetic little guy who looked crazy as a loon sitting on the bed beside you, looking down at you. Did he ever hurt you? Beat you? Rape you?''
"Holland was there in my room?"
Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
"Yeah, you were naked and he was leaning down over you. I think he'd combed and straightened your hair. Did he rape you?"
"No," she said in a remote voice. "No one raped me. As for Holland, he did other things, that Beadermeyer told him to do. He never hurt me, just-well, that's not important."
"Then who the hell did hurt you? That bloody Beadermeyer? Your husband? Who was that man you told me about in your nightmare?"
She gave him a long look, and again that look was filled with quiet rage. "You are nothing more to me.
None of this is any of your business. Go to hell, James."
She turned away from him and walked down the wooden steps. It was chilly now. She wasn't wearing anything but that too-small shirt and jeans.
"Come back, Sally. I can't let you go. I won't let you go. I won't see you hurt again."
She didn't even slow down, just kept walking, in sneakers that were probably too small for her as well.
He didn't want her to get blisters. He'd planned to go shopping for her tomorrow, to buy her some clothes that fit her, to- damn, he was losing it.
He saw Dillon standing near the water line, unaware that she was walking away.
"Sally, you don't know where you are. You don't have any money."
Then she did stop. She was smiling as she turned to face him. "You're right, but it shouldn't be a problem for long. I really don't think that I'm afraid of any man anymore. Don't worry. I'll get enough money to get back to Washington."
It sent him right over the edge. He slammed his hand down on the railing and vaulted over it to land lightly only three feet away from her. "No one will ever hurt you again. You will not take the chance of some asshole raping you. You will stay with me until this is over. Then I'll let you go if you don't want to stay."
She began to laugh. Her body shook with her laughter. She sank slowly to her knees, hugging herself, laughing and laughing.
"Sally!"
She stared up~~at him, her palms on her thighs. She laughed, then said, "Let me go? You'd keep me if I didn't
want to leave? Like some sort of pathetic stray? That's good, James. I haven't known a single person for a very long time who cared one whit about anyone, including me, not that it mattered. Please, no more lies.
"I'm a case for you, nothing more. If you solve it, just think of your reputation. The FBI will probably make you director. They'll kiss your feet. The president will give you a medal."
She gasped, out of breath now, hiccupping through the laughter that welled up from her throat. "You should have believed my file, James. Yes, I'm sure the FBI had a very thick file on me, particularly my stint in the loony bin. I'm crazy, James. No one should believe I'm a credible witness, despite the fact that Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
you want very badly to have someone to lock up, anyone.
"I won't tell you anything. I don't trust you, but I do owe you for rescuing me from that place. Now let me go before something horrible happens."
He came down on his knees in front of her. Very slowly, he pulled her arms to her sides. He brought her forward until her face was resting against his shoulder. He rubbed his hands up and down her back. "It's going to be all right, I swear it to you. I swear I won't fuck up again."
She didn't move, didn't settle against him, didn't release the terrible rage that had been deep inside her for so long she didn't know if she could ever confront it, or speak about it, because it could very well destroy her, and the sheer magnitude of it would destroy others as well.