Judith McNaught (73 page)

"We'll stay," James Mathison said, putting his arm around his wife.

"You'll both go home and get some sleep if you want some free medical advice," Dr. Delorik said firmly.

"You look exhausted. Mary, I don't want to have to admit you to the hospital with your heart kicking up over all this stress."

"He's right," Ted said with absolute finality. "You two go home and get some rest. Carl, you and Sara go

to work and come by tonight if you want to. I'm off for the next two days anyway, so I'll stay here."

"No way!" Carl argued. "You haven't slept since the day before yesterday, and besides, you sleep like the dead. If you're sleeping, you won't hear Julie if she needs you."

Ted opened his mouth to try to dispute that, then came up with a better solution. "Katherine," he said, turning to her, "will you stay here with me?

Otherwise, Carl and Sara will lose a half day of work arguing

with me. Or do you have something else you have to do?"

"I want to stay," Katherine said simply.

"That's settled then," Reverend Mathison said, and the family proceeded down the hall to Julie's bedroom, while Katherine went into the kitchen to make Ted a light breakfast.

"Julie, honey, it's me, Dad. Mother's here with me."

In her drugged dream, Julie felt something touch her forehead, and her father's voice whispering from very, very far away, "We love you. Everything's going to be just fine. Sleep tight." Then her mother's voice was there, tearful and soft. "You're so brave, darling. You've always been so brave. Sleep well."

Something bristly brushed her cheek and made her wince and turn her head away, and Carl's gruff laugh touched her ear. "That's no way to treat your favorite brother, just because I haven't shaved yet… Love you, honey." Then there was Ted telling her in his teasing voice, "Carl's full of it!
I'm
your favorite brother. Katherine and I are right here. If you wake up, just call us, and we'll wait on you hand and foot."

Sara's gentle voice whispered, "I love you, too, Julie.

Sleep well."

And then the voices receded, sinking into the darkness to mingle with all the other strange sounds and

disturbing images of people running and shouting and shoving, guns and swirling lights and icy eyes like

golden daggers stabbing her, and airplane engines roaring and roaring and roaring.

* * *

Katherine heard the front door close as she put toast, jam, and a glass of orange juice on a tray. As he'd promised to do yesterday, Ted had called her as soon as he got Julie home, this morning, but when Katherine arrived, the family had already gathered, so all she really knew about what had happened in Mexico City was the brief, undoubtedly diluted, version that Ted had provided to his worried parents.

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Carrying the tray, she headed into the living room, then stopped at the sight of Ted, sitting on the sofa, hunched forward, with his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands. It was a posture of such unparalleled despair that she realized instantly it came from much more than weariness.

"It was bad in Mexico City, wasn't it?" she asked quietly.

"Worse than bad," he said, rubbing his hands over his face as she put the tray on the coffee table and sat down at the opposite end of the sofa. Propping his arms on his legs, he turned his head to her and said harshly, "It was a nightmare. The only tiny blessing was that Julie was so hysterical, so overwrought, before it even began that I know she didn't register half of what was going on. Also, Paul Richardson managed to keep her where part of her view was blocked by the chaos, so she couldn't see well. I, however," he said grimly, "had a ringside seat with a clear view, and I was not hysterical. Jesus, it was worse than anything I imagined…"

When he didn't seem to know how to begin to explain, Katherine said, "Do you mean Benedict was violent? Did he try to get at her and hurt her?"

"Violent?" he repeated in an embittered voice. "Hurt her? I almost wish to God he'd tried! It would have been so much better, so much easier on her."

"I don't understand."

With a harsh sigh, he slumped back against the sofa, staring up at the ceiling, and gave a grim laugh.

"No, he didn't get violent. The instant he knew what was going down, he froze, he didn't try to move or duck or run, he just stood there without struggling and stared at Julie and shook his head, warning her to

stay away and hide. He didn't flinch or say a word, not even when they slapped the cuffs on him and threw him against the wall to frisk him. The Federales—the Mexican police—don't have any compunction about using what we call 'undue force,'

and they roughed him up but good under the pretext of frisking him. One of them clubbed him in the kidneys, another one nailed him behind the knees, and he

never ever struggled or fought them or made a sound. God, I've never seen a man act like that when he

was busted in my life, not when things get violent. It was as if he was so desperate to keep things calm that he didn't care what they did to him. Julie couldn't even see most of what they were doing to him, and

she was still screaming at them not to hurt him."

"Drink this, before you tell me more," Katherine said, handing him a glass of orange juice. He straightened and took it with a brief, grateful smile, as if he'd wanted it all along, but didn't have the strength to reach for it. "Was that the end of it?" she asked when he'd finished most of the orange juice.

He shook his head and resumed his former posture, arms on his knees, shoulders hunched forward, and rolled the glass between his hands, staring into it.

"No," he said caustically, "that was just the
good
part."

"What was the bad part?" Katherine asked, her voice filled with dread.

"That came a few minutes later when they were dragging Benedict out. Hadley, the warden from Amarillo State Penitentiary, who also happens to be a sadistic son of a bitch, stopped to congratulate Julie right in front of Benedict."

"Why does that make him sadistic?"

"You had to see the smile on his face to understand.

With Benedict standing there, Hadley deliberately made it sound like Julie had conceived the entire plot to join him in Mexico just so she could trap him and

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turn him in."

Katherine's hand went to her throat and Ted nodded agreement at her unconsciously defensive gesture.

"You've got the picture, and Benedict got it, too.

Jesus, you should have seen the look on his face. He looked … murderous, that's the only word I can think of, and that doesn't even describe it. He tried to get at her or maybe to turn away, I'm not sure, but either way, the Federales used it as an excuse to start beating the shit out of him right in front of her.

That's when Julie went crazy and attacked Hadley.

Then

she fainted, thank God."

"Why didn't Paul Richardson do something to stop all that from happening in the first place?"

Ted frowned into his glass, then he put it down.

"Paul's hands were tied. So long as we were on the other side of the Mexican border, he had to work within their system. The only reason the FBI was involved in the first place was because they had a federal warrant out against Benedict for kidnapping.

The Mexican government honored that warrant and agreed to cooperate with surprising speed in the deal at the airport, but the Federales have complete jurisdiction over Benedict until they hand him over at the

American border."

"How long will that take?"

"No time at all in this case. Instead of driving him to the border, which is what they'd normally do, Paul talked them into flying him to our border in a small private plane. His plane took off about the same time ours did. Before we left the airport, the Federales developed a belated social conscience," he added sarcastically. "They went around, confiscating all the film they could get their hands on from whomever had cameras. Paul got ahold of a couple videotapes they overlooked, not because he cared about the Federales, but because he was trying to protect Julie from being seen here in the films. I saw one of the tapes they obviously missed on a newscast in the airport, but the camera was on Benedict nearly the entire time. That's one small blessing, at least."

"For some reason, I assumed Paul would come back here with her."

Shaking his head, Ted said, "He had to be at the Texas border to take Benedict into custody from the Federales, then he'll hand him over to Hadley."

Katherine studied his face for a moment. "Is that everything that happened?"

"Not quite," he said tautly, "there was one more detail, one more death blow to her that I left out."

"What was it?"

"This," Ted said, reaching into his shirt pocket.

"Benedict had this on him, and Hadley presented it to her

with great enjoyment." Opening his fist, he dropped the ring unceremoniously into an unsuspecting Katherine's outstretched hand, watching her eyes widen with shock and then fill with tears.

"Oh, my God," she whispered, staring at the diamond circlet sparkling in her palm, "he obviously wanted

her to have something very special. This is exquisite."

"Don't go all sentimental," Ted warned, but his own voice was gruff. "The man's a maniac, a murderer."

She swallowed audibly and nodded. "I know."

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He glanced from the ring in her right palm to the enormous rock on her left finger. "It's tiny compared to

that boulder you're wearing."

She laughed chokingly. "Size isn't everything, and besides, he couldn't have let her wear a ring like this, because it would have drawn attention to them wherever they went. So he got her one like this instead,"

she speculated softly.

"It's just an ordinary diamond wedding band."

Katherine shook her head in denial. "There's nothing ordinary about this ring. The band is platinum, not gold, and the diamonds go all the way around it."

"So what, they aren't very big," Ted said bluntly, but he was as relieved as she obviously was to digress for a moment from their former subject.

"Size isn't everything," she said again, turning the ring in her fingers. "These stones are exceptionally fine,

and they're a very expensive cut."

"They're square."

"Oblong. The way they're cut is called 'radiant.'" In a suffocated voice she added, "He has … beautiful taste."

"He's insane and he's a killer."

"You're right," she said, laying the ring on the table, then she looked up at him and Ted gazed at a beautiful face that used to mesmerize him and numb his mind. She was different now … older, softer, sweeter … concerned, instead of self-absorbed. And five times as desirable. "Don't start blaming yourself for Julie getting hurt," she said gently. "You saved her from a life of hell or worse. Julie knows that."

"Thank you," he said quietly, then he stretched his arm across the back of the sofa, leaned his head back, and closed his eyes. "I'm so damned tired, Kathy." As if his body was reenacting a memory without the approval of his exhausted mind, his hand curved around her shoulder and he drew her close.

Not until her cheek came to rest against his chest and her hand splayed over his arm, did he realize what he'd done, but even then it seemed harmless enough.

"We were so lucky, you and I," she whispered. "We saw each other, we loved each other, we got married. And then we threw it all away."

"I know." The aching regret he heard in his own voice made his eyes snap open in annoyed surprise, and

he tipped his chin down, staring at her. She wanted him to kiss her, it was written all over her somber face.

"No," he said tautly, closing his eyes.

She rubbed her cheek against his chest, and he felt his resistance begin to crumble. "Stop it!" he warned,

"or I'll get up and go to bed in the other room." She stopped instantly, but she didn't pull back in anger or lash out at him, and he held his breath, wishing she would. A minute ago he'd been limp with

exhaustion;

now his mind was numb but his body was stirring to life and his voice seemed to have a will of its own.

"Either get up," he warned without opening his eyes,

"or else take off that ring you're wearing."

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"Why?" she whispered.

"Because I'll be damned if I'll make love to you while you're wearing another man's ring—"

A billion-year-old diamond, appraised at a quarter of a million dollars, bounced unceremoniously onto the coffee table. His voice came out in a half-laugh/

half-groan. "Kathy, you're the only woman in the world who would do that to such a diamond."

"I'm the only woman in the world for you."

Ted leaned his head back and closed his eyes again, trying to ignore the truth of that, but his hand was already curving around her nape, his fingers sliding into her hair, tilting her face up. Opening his eyes, he gazed down at her, remembering the months of hell that had been their life together … and the cold emptiness that had been his life without her and he saw the tear trembling at the corner of her eyelid. "I know you are," he whispered, and bending his head, he touched his tongue to the salty tear.

"If you'll give me another chance, I'll prove it," she promised fiercely.

"I know you will," he whispered, kissing the second tear away.

"Will you give me another chance?"

He tipped her chin up and gazed into her eyes, and he was lost. "Yes."

Chapter 63

Still a little disoriented from the drugs she'd been given twenty-four hours ago, Julie held her hand to her

aching head and walked unsteadily from her bedroom into the kitchen, then she stopped short, blinking at

the unbelievable sight that greeted her: Ted and Katherine were standing near the sink, locked in an embrace that looked definitely passionate. Her mind was a comfortable, fuzzy blur at the moment, and she smiled at the cozy, domestic picture. "The water is running," she said, startling all three of them with her dry, croaking voice.