Presumed Guilty & Keeper of the Bride (18 page)

She clung to the solid anchor of his chest. “He’s there—in the cottage—”

“Who?”

Suddenly, through the darkness, they both heard it: the slam of the back door, the thrash of running footsteps through the brush.

“Get in the car!” ordered Chase. “Lock the doors!”

“What?”

He gave her a push. “Just do it!”

“Chase!” she yelled.

“I’ll be back!”

Stunned, she watched him melt into the night, heard his footsteps thud away. Her instinct was to follow him, to stay close in case he needed her. But already she’d lost sight of him and could make out nothing but the towering shadows of trees against the starry sky, and beneath them, a darkness so thick it seemed impenetrable.

Do what he says!

She climbed into the car, locked the doors and felt instantly useless. While she sat here in safety Chase could be fighting for his life.

And what good will I do him?

She pushed open the door and scrambled out of the car, around to the rear.

In the trunk she found a tire iron. It felt heavy and solid in her grasp. It would even the odds against any opponent. Any unarmed opponent, she was forced to amend.

She turned, faced the forest. It loomed before her, a wall of shadow and formless threat.

Somewhere in that darkness Chase was in danger.

She gripped the tire iron more tightly and started off into the night.

The crash of footsteps through the underbrush alerted Chase that his quarry had shifted direction. Chase veered right, in pursuit of the sound. Branches thrashed his face, bushes clawed at his trousers. The darkness was so dense under the trees that he felt like a blind man stumbling through a landscape of booby traps.

At least his quarry would be just as blind.
But maybe not as helpless,
he thought, ducking under a pine branch.
What if he’s armed? What if I’m being led into a trap?

It’s a risk I have to take.

The footsteps moved to the left of him. By slivers of starlight filtering through the trees Chase caught a glimpse of movement. That was all he could make out, shadow moving through shadow. Heedless of the branches whipping his face he plunged ahead and found himself snagged in brambles. The shadow zigzagged, flitting in and out of the cover of trees. Chase pulled free of the thicket and resumed his pursuit. He was gaining. He could hear, through the pounding of his heart, the hard breathing of his quarry. The shadow was just ahead, just beyond the next curtain of branches.

Chase mustered a last burst of speed and broke through, into a clearing. There he came to a halt.

His quarry had vanished. There was no movement, no sound, only the whisper of wind through the treetops. A flutter of shadow off to his right made him whirl around. Nothing there. He halted in confusion as he heard the crackle of underbrush to his left. He turned, listening for footsteps, trying to locate his quarry. Was that breathing, somewhere close by? No, the wind….

Again, that crackle of twigs. He moved forward, one step, then another.

Too late he felt the rush of air, the hiss of the branch as it swung its arc toward his head.

The blow pitched him forward. He reached out to cushion the fall, felt the bite of pine needles, the slap of wet leaves as he scraped across the forest floor. He tried to cling to consciousness, to order his body to rise to its feet and face the enemy. It refused to obey. Already he saw the darkness thicken before his eyes. He wanted to curse, to rail in fury at his own helplessness. But all he could manage was a groan.

Pain. The pounding of a jackhammer in his head. Chase ordered it to stop, demanded it stop, but it kept beating away at his brain.

“He’s coming around,” said a voice.

Then another voice, softer, fearful. “Chase? Chase?”

He opened his eyes and saw Miranda gazing down at him. The lamplight shimmered in her tumbled hair, washed like liquid gold across her cheek. Just the sight of her seemed to quiet the aching in his head. He struggled to remember where he was, how he had gotten there. An image of darkness, the shadow of trees, still lingered.

Abruptly he tried to sit up, and caught a spinning view of other people, other faces in the room.

“No,” said Miranda. “Don’t move. Just lie still.”

“Someone—someone out there—”

“He’s gone. We’ve already searched the woods,” said Lorne Tibbetts.

Chase settled back on the couch. He knew where he was now. Miss St. John’s cottage. He recognized the chintz fabric, the jungle of plants. And the dog. The panting black mop sat near one end of the couch, watching him. Or was it? With all that hair, who could say if the beast even had eyes? Slowly Chase’s gaze shifted to the others in the room. Lorne. Ellis. Miss St. John. And Dr. Steiner, wielding his trusty penlight.

“Pupils look fine. Equal and reactive,” said Dr. Steiner.

“Take that blasted thing away,” Chase groaned, batting at the penlight.

Dr. Steiner snorted. “Can’t do much damage to a head as hard as his.” He set a bottle of pills on the end table. “For the headache. May make you a little drowsy, but it’ll cut the pain.” He snapped his bag shut and headed for the door. “Call me in the morning. But not too early. And may I remind you—all of you—I do not, repeat, do
not
make house calls!” The door slammed shut behind him.

“What wonderful bedside manner,” moaned Chase.

“You remember anything?” asked Lorne.

Chase managed to sit up. The effort sent a bolt of pain into his skull. At once he dropped his head into his hands. “Not a damn thing,” he mumbled.

“Didn’t see his face?”

“Just a shadow.”

Lorne paused. “You sure there was someone there?”

“Hey, I didn’t imagine the headache.” Chase grabbed the pill bottle, fumbled the cap off and gulped two tablets down, dry. “Someone hit me.”

“A man? Woman?” pressed Lorne.

“I never saw him. Her. Whatever.”

Lorne turned to Miranda. “He was unconscious when you found him?”

“Coming around. I heard his groans.”

“Pardon me for asking, Ms. Wood. But can I see that tire iron you were carrying?”

“What?”

“The tire iron. You had it earlier.”

Miss St. John sighed. “Don’t be ridiculous, Lorne.”

“I’m just being thorough. I have to look at it.”

Without a word Miranda fetched the tire iron from the porch and brought it back to Lorne. “No blood, no hair,” she said tightly. “I wasn’t the one who hit him.”

“No, I guess not,” said Lorne.

“Jill Vickery,” Chase muttered.

Lorne glanced at him. “Who?”

The pain in Chase’s head suddenly gave way to a clear memory of that afternoon. “It’s not her real name. Check with the San Diego police, Lorne. It may or may not tie in. But you’ll find she has an arrest record.”

“For what?”

Chase raised her head. “She killed her lover.”

They all stared at him.

“Jill?”
said Miranda. “When did you find this out?”

“This afternoon. It happened ten, eleven years ago. She was acquitted. Justifiable homicide. She claimed he’d threatened her life.”

“How does this fit in with anything else?” asked Lorne.

“I’m not sure. All I know is, half her job résumé was pure fiction. Maybe Richard found out. If he did—and confronted her…”

Lorne turned to Miss St. John. “I need to use your telephone.”

“In the kitchen.”

Lorne spent only a few minutes on the phone. He emerged from the kitchen shaking his head. “Jill Vickery’s at home. Says she was home all evening.”

“It’s only a half-hour drive to town,” said Miss St. John. “She could have made it, barely.”

“Assuming her car was right nearby. Assuming she could slip right behind the wheel and take off.” He looked at Ellis. “You checked up and down the road?”

Ellis nodded. “No strange cars. No one saw nothin’.”

“Well,” said Lorne, “whoever it was, I don’t think he’ll be back.” He reached for his hat. “Take my advice, Chase. Don’t drive anywhere tonight. You’re in no shape to get behind a wheel.”

Chase gave a tired laugh. “I wasn’t planning to.”

“I can take him up to the cottage,” said Miranda. “I’ll keep an eye on him.”

Lorne paused and looked first at Miranda, then at Chase. If he had doubts about the arrangement, he didn’t express them. He simply said, “You do that, Ms. Wood. You keep a
good
eye on him.” Motioning to Ellis, he opened the door. “We’ll be in touch.”

Twelve

L
ight spilled from the hallway across the pine floor of the bedroom. Miranda pulled down the coverlet and said, “Come on, lie down. Doctor’s orders.”

“To hell with doctors. That doctor, anyway,” growled Chase. He sat on the side of the bed and gave his head a shake, as though to clear it. “I’m okay. I feel fine.”

She regarded his battered, unshaven face. “You look like a truck ran over you.”

“The brutal truth!” He laughed. “Are you always so damn honest?”

There was a silence. “Yes,” she said quietly. “As a matter of fact, I am.”

He looked up at her.
What do you see in my eyes?
she wondered.
Sincerity? Or lies, bald, dangerous lies?

It’s still not there, is it? Trust. There’ll always be that doubt between us.

She sat beside him on the bed. “Tell me everything you learned today. About Jill.”

“Only what I read in the press file from San Diego.” He reached down and began to pull off his shoes. “The trial got a fair amount of coverage. You know, sex, violence. Circulation boosters.”

“What happened?”

“The defense claimed she was an emotionally battered woman. That she was young, naive, vulnerable. That her boyfriend was an abusive alcoholic who regularly beat her up. The jury believed it.”

“What did the prosecution say?”

“That Jill had a lifelong hatred of men. That she used them, manipulated them. And when her lover tried to leave her, she flew into a rage. Both sides agreed on the facts of the killing. That while her lover was passed out drunk she picked up a gun, put it to his head and pulled the trigger.” Exhausted, Chase lay back on the pillows. The pills were taking effect. His eyelids were already drifting shut. “That was ten years ago,” he said. “An era Jill conveniently left behind when she came to Maine.”

“Did Richard know all this?”

“If he bothered to check, he did. Only the last half of her résumé was true. Richard may have been so dazzled by the whole package he didn’t bother to confirm much beyond the last job or two. Or he may have found out the truth only recently. Who knows?”

Miranda sat thinking, trying to picture Jill as she must have been ten years ago. Young, vulnerable. Afraid.

Like me.

Or was the prosecution’s description a more accurate image? A man hater, a woman of twisted passions?

That’s how they’ll try to portray me. As a killer. And some people will believe it.

Chase had fallen asleep.

For a moment she sat beside him, listening to his slow and even breaths, wondering if he could ever learn to trust her. If she could ever be more to him than just a piece of the puzzle—the puzzle of his brother’s death.

She rose and pulled the coverlet over his sleeping form. He didn’t move. Gently she smoothed back his hair, stroked the beard-roughened cheek. Still he didn’t move.

She left him and went downstairs. The boxes of papers confronted her, other bits and pieces of that puzzle. She separated them into files. Article files. Financial records. Personal notes from M, as well as from other, unidentified women. The miscellaneous debris of a man’s life. How little she had known Richard! What a vast part of him he had kept private, even from his family. That’s why he had so jealously guarded this north shore retreat.

In the fabric of his life, I was just a single, unimportant thread. Will I ever stop hurting from that?

She rose and checked the doors, the windows. Then she went back upstairs, to the master bedroom.

Chase was still asleep. She knew she should use the other room, the other bed, but tonight she didn’t want to lie alone in the darkness. She wanted warmth and safety and the comfort of knowing Chase was nearby.

She had promised to look after him tonight. What better place to watch over him than in the same bed?

She lay down beside him, not close but near enough to imagine his warmth seeping toward her through the sheets.

Sometime during the night the dreams came.

A man, a lover, was holding her. Protecting her. Then she looked up at his face and saw he was a stranger. She pulled away, began to run. She found she was in a crowd of people. She began to search for a familiar face, a pair of arms she could reach out to, but they were all strangers, all strangers.

And then there he was, standing far beyond her reach. She cried out to him, held her hands out for him to grab. He moved toward her and her hands connected with warm and solid flesh. She heard him say, “I’m here, Miranda. Right here….”

And he was.

Through the semidarkness she saw the gleam of his face, the twin shadows of his eyes. His gaze was so still, so very quiet. Her breath caught as he took her face in his hands. Slowly he pressed his lips to hers. That one touch sent a shudder of pleasure through her body. They stared at each other and the night seemed filled with the sounds of their breathing.

Again, he kissed her.

Again, that wave of pleasure. It crested to a wanting for more, more. Her sleep-drugged body awoke, alive with hunger. She pressed hard against him, willing their bodies to meld, their warmth to mingle, but that frustrating barrier of clothes still lay between them.

He reached for her T-shirt. Slowly he pulled it up and over her head, let it drop from the bed. She was not so patient. Already she was undoing his buttons, sliding back his shirt, fumbling at his belt buckle. No words were spoken; none were needed. The soft whispers, the whimpers, the moans said more than any words could have.

So did his hands. His fingers slid across, between, inside all the warm and secret places of her body. They teased her, inflamed her, brought her to the very edge of release. Then, with knowing cruelty, they abandoned her, leaving her unsatisfied. She reached out to him, silently pleading for more.

He grasped her hips and willingly thrust into her again, but this time not with his fingers.

She cried out, a sound of joy, of delight.

At the first ripple of her climax he let his own needs take over. Needs that made him drive deep inside her, again and again. As her last wave of pleasure washed through her, he found his own cresting, breaking. He rode it to the very end and collapsed, sweating and triumphant, into her welcoming arms.

And so they fell asleep.

Chase was the first to awaken. He found his arms looped around her, his face buried in the sweet-smelling strands of her hair. She was curled up on her side, facing away from him, the silky skin of her back pressed against his chest. The memory of their lovemaking was at once so vivid he felt his body respond with automatic desire. And why not, with this woman in his arms? She was life and lust and honeyed warmth. She was everything a woman should be.

And I’m treading on dangerous ground.

He pulled away and sat up. Morning light shone through the window, onto her pillow. So innocent she looked, so untouched by evil. It occurred to him that Jill Vickery once must have looked as pure.

Before she shot her lover.

Dangerous women. How could you tell them from the innocents?

He left the bed and went straight to the shower. Wash the magical spell away, he thought. Wash away the desire, the craving for Miranda Wood. She was like a sickness in his blood, making him do insane things.

Last night, for instance.

They had simply fallen into it, he told himself. A physical act, that was all, a chance collision of two warm bodies.

He watched her sleep as he dressed. With each layer of clothes he felt more protected, more invulnerable. But when she stirred and opened her eyes and smiled at him, he realized how thin his emotional armor really was.

“How are you feeling this morning?” she asked softly.

“Much better, thanks. I think I can drive myself back to town.”

There was a silence. Her smile faded as she took in the fact he was already dressed. “You’re leaving?”

“Yes. I just wanted to make sure you got out of here safely.”

She sat up. Hugging the sheets to her chest, she watched him for a moment, as though trying to understand what had gone wrong between them. At last she said, “I’ll be fine. You don’t have to wait around.”

“I’ll stay. Until you get dressed.”

A shrug was her response, as if it didn’t matter to her one way or the other.
Good,
he thought.
No sticky emotions over last night. We’re both too smart for that.

He started to leave, then stopped. “Miranda?”

“Yes?”

He turned to look at her. She was still hugging her knees, still every bit as bewitching. To see her there could break any man’s heart. He said, “It’s not that I don’t think you’re a wonderful woman. It’s just that…”

“Don’t worry about it, Chase,” she said flatly. “We both know it won’t work.”

He wanted to say, “I’m sorry,” but somehow it seemed too lame, too easy. They were both adults. They had both made a mistake.

There was nothing more to be said.

“It’s not as if any of this is incriminating,” said Annie, flipping through the notes from M that were arrayed on her kitchen table. “Just your routine desperate-woman language. Darling. If you’d only see me. If only this, if only that. It’s pathetic, but it’s not murderous. It doesn’t tell us that M—whoever she is—killed him.”

“You’re right.” Miranda sighed, leaning back in the kitchen chair. “And it doesn’t seem to tie in with Jill at all.”

“Sorry. The only M around here is you. I’d say these letters could cause you more damage than good.”

“Jill said there was a summer intern a year ago. A woman who got involved with Richard.”

“Chloe? Ancient history. I can’t imagine she’d sneak back to town just to kill an ex-lover. Besides, there’s no
M
in her name.”

“The
M
could stand for a nickname. A name only Richard used for her.”

“Muffin? Marvelous?” Laughing, Annie rose to her feet. “I think we’re beating a dead horse. And I’m going to be late.” She went to the closet and pulled out a warm-up jacket. “Irving hates to be kept waiting.”

Miranda glanced with amusement at Annie’s attire: a torn T-shirt, scruffy running shoes and sweatpants. “Irving likes the casual look?”

“Irving
is
the casual look.” Annie slung her purse over her shoulder. “We’re sanding the deck this week. Loads of fun.”

“Will I ever get to meet this boat bum of yours?”

Annie grinned. “Soon as I can drag him to shore. I mean, the yachting season’s gotta end one of these days.” She waved. “See ya.”

After Annie had left, Miranda scrounged together a salad and sat down at the kitchen table for a melancholy dinner. Irving and his boat didn’t sound like much in the way of companionship, but at least Annie had someone to keep her company. Someone to keep away the loneliness.

Once, Miranda hadn’t minded being alone. She’d even enjoyed the silence, the peace of a house all to herself. Now she craved the simple presence of another human being. Even a dog would be nice. She’d have to think about getting one, a large one. A dog wouldn’t desert her the way most of her friends had. The way Chase had.

She set down her fork, her appetite instantly gone. Where was he now? Probably sitting in that house on Chestnut Street, surrounded by all the other Tremains. He’d have Evelyn and the twins to keep him company. He wouldn’t be alone or lonely. He would be just fine without her.

In anger she rose to her feet and slid the remains of her salad into the trash. Then she started for the door, determined to get outside, to run around the block, anything to escape the house.

At the front door she halted. A visitor stood on the porch, hand poised to ring the bell.

“Jill,” whispered Miranda.

This was not the cool, unflappable Jill she knew. This Jill was white-faced and brittle.

“Annie’s not here right now,” said Miranda. “She…should be back any minute.”

“You’re the one I came to see.” Without warning Jill slipped right past into the living room and shut the door behind her.

“I—I was just on my way out.” Miranda edged slowly for the door.

Jill took a sidestep, blocking her way. For a moment she stood there, regarding Miranda. “It’s not as if I haven’t been punished,” she said softly. “I’ve done everything I could to put it behind me. Everything. I’ve worked like a madwoman these last five years. Built the
Herald
into a real newspaper. You think Richard knew what he was doing? Of course not! He relied on me.
Me.
Oh, he never admitted it, but he let me run the show. Five years. And now you’ve ruined it for me. You’ve already got the police shoveling up old dirt. You think the Tremains will keep me on? Now that they know? Now that everyone knows?”

“I wasn’t the one. I didn’t tell Lorne.”

“
You’re
the reason it’s all come up! You and your pathetic denials! Why don’t you just admit you killed him? And leave the rest of us out of it.”

“But I didn’t kill him.”

Jill began to pace the room. “I’ve sinned, you’ve sinned. Everyone has. We’re all equal. What sets us apart is how we live with our sins. I’ve done the best I could. And now I find it’s not good enough. Not good enough to erase what happened….”

“Did Richard know? About San Diego?”

“No. I mean, yes, in the end. He found out. But it didn’t matter to him—”

“It didn’t matter that you killed a man?”

“He understood the circumstances. Richard was good that way.” She let out a shaky laugh. “After all, he himself wasn’t above a little sinning.”

Miranda paused, gathered the courage for her next question. “You had an affair with him, didn’t you?”

Jill’s response was a careless shrug. “It didn’t mean anything. It was years ago. You know, the new girl on the block. He got over it.” She snapped her fingers. “Just like that. We stayed friends. We understood each other.” She stopped pacing and turned to look at Miranda. “Now Lorne wants to know where I was the night Richard was killed. He’s asking
me
to come up with an alibi! You’re casting the blame all around, aren’t you? To hell with who gets hurt. You just want off the hook. Well, sometimes that’s not possible.” She moved closer, her gaze fixed on Miranda, like a cat’s on a bird. Softly she said, “Sometimes we have to pay for our sins. Whether it’s an indiscreet affair. Or murder. We pay for it. I did. Why can’t you?”