Moonlight Man (17 page)

She came to an abrupt halt as the knowledge slammed into her.
He was the lawyer who had requested this information. He was, of course, Jean-Marc St.-Clair.
As she gazed at the name the distant unease was replaced by a flood of memory. Mentally, she deleted his beard, shortened his hair, deducted several inches of muscular shoulder development gained over six years of manual labor, and she had it.

My God! Jean-Marc St.-Clair was a man who had been accused of murdering his own wife and child, then was let go for lack of evidence!

She clenched her fingers on the fax, staring at the name, feeling again the horror she had felt at the time, remembering how bitterly aware she had been of the notorious case of the fine, upstanding crown prosecutor accused of such a heinous crime, the swirling controversy, the innuendo, the shock and disgust when he was set free. It had meant more to her than to most people because of the precarious position she was in herself. Why hadn’t she recognized him? Now that she knew, she could see him as he’d looked six years ago, clean-shaven, neatly dressed, face drawn with weariness or grief—or possibly fear. She had followed the story as it unfolded, watching it on the news, reading it in the daily papers, and then, suddenly, it was all over.

Case dismissed at the preliminary hearing because of lack of evidence.

She had, she told herself, not expected anything different. Men could beat their wives and get away with it. It happened every day. That she knew all too well.

She wasn’t the only one horrified by that abrupt summation of the case. The rumors began to run rampant; there were editorials that hinted slyly and suggested artfully that justice had not been done.

The accused was an officer of the court. His father, two brothers, and one sister carried on the tradition of the old, prestigious family law firm, of which he had been a member before accepting the position of crown prosecutor. His grandfather was a retired supreme court justice. One of his uncles was a senator. The St.-Clair family was solid establishment, wealthy and well-known. Was it any wonder, asked people on the streets, that he had been released for “lack of evidence”? Evidence against a man such as Jean-Marc St.-Clair could easily be suppressed. An ordinary man would have gotten life. A wealthy St.-Clair got off.

And this, she knew, as sickness rose up to choke her, was what Marc was going to tell her about.

“No,” she whispered, unaware that she had crumpled the paper in her hands. “No, I don’t want to hear it. I don’t want to know!” As she grabbed up the coat she had left on the brass hall stand, the ball of paper fell to the floor. Without seeing it, without seeing anything, she let herself out of his house, closing the door as quietly as she had opened it.

If he was innocent, why didn’t he tell her long ago? she wondered. If he was innocent, why did he run as he clearly had? Why hadn’t he stayed and fought the innuendo? Instead, he’d become a wanderer, drifting around the world, afraid to go home again, afraid to face up to his accusers because … Because in spite of the findings of the court, the rumors were true? If he hadn’t done it, who had? No other killer had ever been found!

Sharon reached into her coat pocket and grabbed her keys, tore open her car door, and flung herself behind the wheel, jamming the ignition key in and starting the engine. She backed out of his drive recklessly, swung onto the street, and laid rubber half the way down the block of her nice, quiet residential neighborhood.

Marc jerked open the door and stared after her, wondering what in the hell was going on. Then he stooped and picked up the crumpled piece of paper from the floor.

He smoothed it out, read it, and sat down hard in a chair. Burying his face in his hands, he groaned. “Sharon, oh, Sharon,” he whispered after a few minutes, tilting his head back and staring blindly at the ceiling. “Why couldn’t you have believed in me, love? Why did you have to be like everyone else? We aren’t strangers! You know me! Why couldn’t you wait and hear what I had to say?”

But he knew the answer to that. He’d known it all along: Sharon had no reason to trust and every reason not to. Wearily, he got to his feet and went upstairs.

It was time, he knew, to move on.

“What am I doing?” Sharon asked herself just under an hour later. She was miles away from home, far up the highway, heading north and still going. She slowed, pulled over to the side, and leaned her head against the wheel. “I ran. I panicked and I ran.” Presently, she drove on again, found a place to turn around, and headed back. What had she done with the fax she’d read? She frowned, trying to remember, but all she could recall were the words, the name that suddenly triggered a memory, those dreadful feelings of fear and betrayal. She thought she’d probably put it back in the basket where it had appeared. She must have. So Marc wouldn’t know she’d been there. He wouldn’t know she’d read it, realized who he was, and fled because of that.

She felt sick again, but this time because she had let the past overshadow the present. She knew Marc. She loved him and trusted him implicitly. He was not Ellis. He did not hit women and children. He had not killed his wife and son. The lack of evidence against him surely proved that. The fact that no one else had ever been charged meant simply that no suspect had ever been found. It had likely been one of those weird, random killings with no motive other than thrill seeking. She remembered that there had been some talk of devil-worship cults, or secret initiations, all nebulous, all completely unprovable just as the charges against Marc had been.

A glance at her dashboard clock showed her it was long past the time when he’d been expecting her. She’d got off work early, but not that early. What must he be thinking? He’d be frantic, wondering where she was. By now he’d have called the police, all the hospitals, likely gone out and searched himself. She glanced at her speedometer and took her foot off the gas. Getting ticketed for speeding would only slow her down. Should she stop and phone him? Yes. Of course!

Pulling into the next service station, she listened to his phone ring and ring and ring. He wasn’t home. Poor Marc. He was out looking for her, as anxious as she would be if he had failed to show up for an important appointment at the right time. What was she going to tell him to excuse her lateness? She sighed. The truth, of course. He deserved that from her. It wasn’t going to be easy, but she’d have to do it.

It seemed to take forever to get home, and when she did, his truck wasn’t there. She went to his house to see if he’d left a message, but the door was locked.

On her own back door she found what she’d been looking for, and tore the sealed envelope open eagerly, wondering why he’d bothered to seal it. Leaning against the door, she stared at the words, turning the paper so the porch light shone on the page, trying to make sense of some very plain words, words that kept blurring before her eyes. No. No. She was reading it all wrong. That wasn’t what it said.
It wasn’t! It wasn’t! It wasn’t!

O
NLY … TIME PROVED THAT IT WAS
. Marc was gone. It wouldn’t have taken him long to pack. As befitted a drifter, a man ready to wander away at moment’s notice, he’d had very little that wouldn’t fit into his camper.

The next week, a For Sale sign appeared on the lawn next door, and by that time the cat, which he had never named, had made the transition to being fed at Sharon’s house, sleeping curled in a small box just inside the basement window.

“You have to do something, Sharon.” Jeanie, who was visiting with Max for the weekend, paced around the living room. She stopped at the side of her sister’s shrouded harp and glared at it. It hadn’t been uncovered in weeks.

“I know,” Sharon said evenly. “I’ve been doing it. I’m … getting over him. It’s not going to be easy, and it won’t happen overnight, but there’s nothing else I can do that I haven’t done already. Ads in every daily paper in every major city in North America haven’t brought a response. I’ve been in touch with the law office in Toronto that sent the fax. They either don’t know where he is, or won’t tell me. It’s been over a month. If he wanted to get in touch, he would. He knows where I am, Jeanie.”

Jeanie knelt before her sister, looking intently into the dark, sorrowful eyes. “Once, not so very long ago,” she said slowly, “you sent me after the man I love. I went, scared stiff-and-spitless that he might send me away. But I had to do it. I took your word for it that it was worth the chance. Why don’t you do the same, Sharon?”

“I would! Oh, Jeanie, believe me, I would if I knew where to start looking! But don’t forget, this is a big world, and he could be anywhere.”

Jeanie sighed and nodded. “I’m going to find something good to eat, something incredibly sweet and sticky and calorie-rich. I know, I know,” she said as Sharon followed her. “I’m going to look like a whale before this baby is born!”

Sharon said, “I’m going to look like one soon, too, and I’m not even pregnant. Why is it, when you were pining for Max, you wouldn’t eat? Now that I’m pining for Marc, all I want is chocolate.”

Jeanie pulled a tub of Oreo ice cream from the freezer, set it on the table and stuck two spoons in it. “The brain,” she said, “thinks chocolate is a substitute for sex.”

“The brain,” Sharon commented sadly, “is out of its mind.”

“And so are you, if you go on pining, instead of taking some kind of action.”

“Sure. But … what action?”

“That, sister-dear, is something you’ll have to figure out for yourself.”

“Jeanie! Max! Wake up!” Max flung open the door with a robe dragged half on. Jeanie followed him, crowding past him. “Sharon, what’s wrong?”

“Nothing! Nothing! But … will you take the kids with you when you leave in the morning? It’s spring break, and I’ve already talked to Zinnie. She said they can stay with her and Harry.”

Jeanie said, “Sure, but … where are you going?”

“I’m going to Montreal.”

Jeanie breathed a sigh of relief. “Marc! You’ve heard from him.” She laughed happily and said, “When did he call? What did he say? Where has he been?”

“He didn’t call. But I woke up knowing where he is!” She didn’t tell her sister that Grandma Margaret had told her in a dream. She knew Max thought the whole thing about their Gypsy ancestor was a crock.

“What?” Max shook his head. “How could you—”

Jeanie interrupted, eyes full of light. “Never mind. She knows.”

“Yes.” Sharon’s conviction shone in her face. “Where would you go if you were hurt, if you’d gone everywhere else in the world and not found peace?”

“Here, of course,” her sister said with full understanding. “I wouldn’t even try every other place in the world. I’d come home to you.”

“That’s what Marc has done. I’m sure of it. He’s gone home. He must have. But even if he hasn’t, his family will know where he is. I’m going to them. I’ll make them tell me where he is, and then I’m going to bring him home!”

Behind her, Jason rubbed sleep out of his eyes and said, “Yeah! Go for it, Mom!”

Jeanie repeated the phrase as she hugged her sister. “Damn right! Go for it, Mom …”

Max gave a long-suffering sigh. “But there is absolutely nowhere you can go at three o’clock in the morning except to bed. Does anybody mind?”

Sharon laughed and shooed her son toward his room. “You guys go ahead. I have to pack a bag.” Then, biting her lip, she looked at the others with consternation. “I wondered why Zinnie had such a hard time understanding me at first. I guess I woke her up. Oh, my goodness, I hope she’ll forgive me!”

“What she wouldn’t forgive,” Max said, laughing, “is not being made a part of this expedition of yours. I’m sure she was thrilled to get a call in the middle of the night if it would further the course of true love. Now, good night, dear sister-in-law.
Please
. Good
night
!”

A filthy scum of used snow lay at the side of the street. Naked trees cast lacy shadows on the sidewalk, and floating clouds interspersed with blue patches of sky reflected in puddles where slush and ice had melted temporarily. Sharon stood and watched the taxi drive off, and then she was alone except for a mailman far down the long block, heading her way. She gazed at the tall, wrought-iron gates set into the gray stone walls surrounding the ancient, massive house.

It was a forbidding place, this St.-Clair family home, even though one side of the gates stood open and the drive was neatly plowed, even dry in spots, with wisps of steam arising, as if the fitful spring sun had been enough to warm it. She had no idea who actually lived there, if it was Marc’s grandparents, or his parents, or perhaps all of them. She had thought about making an appointment with one of his brothers or his sister at the law offices, but this was a personal, not a business matter, and a personal approach was the right one. And surely whomever she found within that stone pile of a house would know where Marc was. The question, however, was would they tell her?

A uniformed maid answered the door, and Sharon blinked with surprise. Nobody she knew had a uniformed maid! This was going to be harder than she’d anticipated. In rusty French, she asked to speak to “Madame,” hoping that was a logical request. What if no one lived there but Marc’s grandfather?

To her relief, the maid stepped back and said, “This way, please. You are expected.” Sharon thought she must have been mistaken. It was a long time since she’d spoken or heard French. Except, she thought with a stab of pain, the love words Marc had whispered to her in the endless nights they’d shared.

The maid took her coat and gloves, placed them in a huge armoire, and then led the way across an entry hall that was almost as big as Sharon’s entire main floor. It had an elegant, sweeping staircase leading up to a gallery, and it was this way the maid took her. The stairs were marble with a deep red runner held in place with solid brass rods. As she followed the woman down a corridor leading off the gallery, Sharon felt as if she had entered a museum. Dark wainscoting seemed to eat up the light cast by bulbs recessed into an extraordinarily high ceiling. Suddenly, a sense of unreality came over her. She was completely out of her element. If this house was indicative of Marc’s background, it pointed out only too sharply the differences between them. He was exotic South Pacific shells; she was sand dollars from the Lantzville beach. She didn’t belong here any more than she’d have belonged at Buckingham Palace.