Tell Anna She's Safe (32 page)

She stared at him. Her heart began to pound. In five hours her troubles would be over. She could hardly believe it.

She couldn't concentrate on work. She kept looking at the clock. Counting down the hours.

In three hours she would be celebrating. They would be celebrating. With three hours to go, with Torrence actually on the road, she could buy a bottle of Champagne. That wouldn't jinx it. It would be perfectly chilled by the time he arrived. They could
all
celebrate.

She arrived back from the liquor store with her brown-paper bag. She had splurged on the real thing: Pol Roger, thirty-five dollars. One one-thousandth of the amount they were going to receive.

Tim was sitting at the kitchen table. He looked up when she came in. His face said it all. “They got as far as Kingston. His wife took sick. Real bad. She was hemorrhaging. They had to go home. She's got cancer.”

No. He was not coming. Nothing else registered. The room began to go black at the edges. She almost dropped the bottle.

“He's going to come as soon as he can. But he's gotta look after his wife first. He said maybe in another week.”

Another week.

She made herself breathe.

Okay. She could wait another week. For thirty-five thousand dollars, she could wait one more week.

She put the Champagne in the fridge.

*

QUINN TOOK A LONG SWALLOW
of Scotch and set the snifter down. He looked at me. “After he didn't come, Brennan changed his story to say that Torrence was going to wire the money instead. It was probably Lucy who planted the idea in his thick head—asking why he couldn't simply wire the money. But the wire, of course, never came either.”

“What was she planning to do after the money arrived? My sense was she was trying to leave.” I didn't mention my sense was from one of my first dreams.

“Brennan, of course, maintains they were going to live happily ever after, that there were no problems, that he had no reason to harm her. But we found evidence that he was, in fact, going to be moving out. Probably at Lucy's insistence.”

“Evidence? What evidence?”

Quinn grinned. “One of the neighbours had the foresight to sneak over to Lucy's house in the middle of the night and take a green garbage bag Tim had put out for collection the week after she went missing. He brought it to the police and we sifted through it. And voila, we found the torn-up copy of a lease, signed by Tim and witnessed by Lucy. It was dated the nineteenth, the Wednesday before she went missing.”

“That's brilliant. Amazing Tim didn't think to burn it.”

Quinn snorted. “That would take more brains than Stupid has in his head.”

“And what about the forged cheques? Where do they fit in?”

“The cheques.” He nodded. “First there were a couple of cheques he wrote on her account in January and February. She'd taken him off her account shortly before Christmas, so he obviously stole the cheques. They were for something like seven thousand and five thousand dollars. Enough to get her line of credit up over the twenty thousand mark.”

“But what were they for?”

Quinn shrugged. “He claims his truck crapped out on him, that he needed a new one right away to keep up with his snowplowing contracts. He's also claiming Lucy knew about them. It's all bullshit—they've determined her signature was forged. Then there were the Kyle Smythe cheques. The day before Lucy went missing, the Friday, her bank called to say her account was overdrawn, that the cheque she'd received from a Kyle Smythe for a thousand dollars had non-sufficient funds. Lucy told the manager she'd never received such a cheque—didn't even know a Kyle Smythe. But the bank manager said her signature was on the back of the cheque.”

“Tim had forged it again? But I don't understand. Who's Kyle Smythe?”

“A friend of Brennan's. He had Smythe write a bogus cheque, deposited it into Lucy's account at one machine, and withdrew six hundred dollars from another one. We've questioned Smythe. He says he got fifty bucks for his trouble. Lucy must have realized Tim was behind it because she told the manager she'd take care of it.” He took another sip of Scotch and continued. “She probably confronted Brennan, and he probably held the carrot of the Torrence money out to her yet again. He'd been doing it for weeks. That last week, Lucy was calling the bank every day, asking if the wire transfer had been made yet.”

Oh hi, Ellen, I'm on the other line with my bank manager and it's taken me ages to get through
.

“She didn't know before she died that there was a second cheque from Smythe,” Quinn continued. “Also with her forged signature on the back. Brennan had taken out more money against it. That one bounced the following week. So her line of credit ended up being around the twenty-two thousand mark.” He shook his head and muttered, “I hope they hang him.

“Now,” he said, changing the subject. “I can see you're going to stew about Blair all weekend. Believe me, he's not worth it. All you need to do is listen to his questions carefully. Be wary any time he says, ‘May I suggest that….' Or he may not even start a question that way, but may try to get you to agree to something that goes along with a scenario he's trying to paint. Don't let him get under your skin.” He smiled. “You'll be fine. You could have a support person in the court with you, you know.”

I shrugged. “I'd prefer not to.” I didn't want anyone else hearing me being taken to pieces and shown to be a flake.

“Well, I'll be there. Look at me whenever you need to.”

I wasn't sure that would help, but I gave him a smile.

Quinn's expression changed somehow from one of professional interest to personal. “You and what's 'is name never got back together, I hope.”

“No, what's 'is name and I did not get back together.” I was annoyed.

“Sorry. I'm not trying to be insolent. I just can never remember his name.” His smile was cajoling. “How
have
you been? You haven't got anyone new in your life, have you?” His eyes willed me to say no.

“No, I'm enjoying being on my own.” I was not going to sound like I was waiting. I was suddenly not sure I should be. It was obvious now that he had been humouring me about my dreams and visions. I was back to my confused state: attraction, repulsion, mistrust, desire. What
was
it with this man?

“How's the new place?”

“I love it.”

He was shaking his head. “I still can't believe you moved just down the road from where you found the car. I suppose you're communing with Lucy's ghost or something.”

“Or something.” I tried to keep my tone light.

“How's work going?”

“Fine. I work more from home now. And I'm doing some writing on my own.”

“You
must
be communing with Lucy's ghost,” he teased. “You're sounding more and more like her.”

I started.

He seemed not to notice. “There's one way you're not the same though.” The teasing note was gone.

“What's that?”

“If you got into an abusive relationship you'd leave.”

I met his eyes. “I don't know if I would.”

Quinn glared at me.

I shrugged. “I've learned not to make assumptions—even about myself.”

“You wouldn't stay. You'd fight back. You'd get out.” His vehemence took me aback.

“Well, I can say this much.” I kept my voice calm, if not my thoughts. “I believe I wouldn't get into an abusive relationship in the first place.”

Quinn was nodding. “That I believe.
You
are not going to end up in a pine grove near Masham.”

His words shook me. But I kept my voice calm. “Exactly where were Lucy's remains found, anyway?”

“You mean you've never gone to the site?”

“How could I? I've never known where it is. I've been wanting to go, but—”

“You and I will go. After the hearing.”

My adrenalin started pumping.

“Or.” Quinn raised his eyebrows as if struck by a sudden thought. “What are you doing this weekend? Tomorrow say?”

My pulse sped up even more. It made sense for Quinn to take me. I wanted to go. I didn't want to go alone. He knew the spot. And he was offering.

“Sorry. Stupid of me,” Quinn was saying. “What you need this weekend is to relax—not go on a morbid hike in the woods. We'll go after the hearing. Whenever you're ready.”

“No,” I said, “I'd like to go tomorrow. But,” I looked directly at him. “Are you free to take me?”

Quinn met my eyes. “I'm free.” Then he looked away.

*

THE DOORBELL WAS RINGING. SHE
lay in bed, spaced out from the sleeping pill, too aching to move. Let Tim get it.

Through the floorboards, she could hear voices. Male voices.

Bill. Bill Torrence had arrived.

She eased her body out of bed.

A minute later Tim was calling down from the top of the stairs. “Lu. I need you up here.”

She pulled on her housecoat. She climbed the stairs as fast as she could.

A short balding man almost skinnier than she was sat in the cold living room. Papers lay on his briefcase on the coffee table. Legal-looking papers. Relief seeped into her aching bones.

But the scene wasn't right. It was Tim who was writing the cheques.

The man got to his feet and held out his hand. “Hi, I'm Vaughan Hendricks.”

She looked from Mr. Hendricks to Tim. Tim didn't pause in his writing. “Mr. Hendricks is renting me the apartment. He needs you to witness the lease.”

From relief to disappointment back to relief in seconds. She eased herself into a chair in the chilly room.

She watched Tim hand over the cheques to Mr. Hendricks. She didn't ask him if there was money in his new account to cover them. Vaughan Hendricks was here. He was real. The apartment was real. And Bill Torrence was real too. The money was coming. And then there would be more than enough money. And then she would be free.

Tim handed her the lease agreement and the pen. She signed him over to Mr. Hendricks. She signed him out of her life.

*

THERE WAS A PHONE MESSAGE
waiting for me when I got home. Curtis. He'd been home for a few weeks now, he said. He'd come home to a subpoena. He assumed I had one too. He'd been trying to avoid contact, but…. “Hell, I missed you, McGinn.” I could almost see his slow smile as he said the words. “Come up for dinner tonight if you get this message in time.”

I called ahead. I let Curtis feed me a Spanish omelette and pour me a glass of wine. We assumed our usual places at each end of the lime-green couch.

“I don't want to talk about the hearing,” I said. “I want to hear about Easter.
Last
Easter.”

“Easter,” Curtis repeated, with a sigh. There was a silence while he brought Easter back. Then he spoke. “She called me the Thursday before Easter. She needed a break. I invited her to come up to the cottage. She said she'd bring the wine.”

*

THEY CLIMBED UP THE LADDER
to the tree-house. From under the wide canopy of pine branches the lake, still frozen white, was just barely visible. Lucy sat in the bamboo bucket swing—her seat. She wore her navy pea coat against the chill of the April air and held her wine glass in gloved hands. Curtis sat on the wide railing.

She watched his easy posture and his sexy body in his jean jacket with appreciative eyes.

She didn't tell Curtis that Tim didn't know where she was—exactly. She'd left a note that she was driving up to the Gatineaus to go for a walk. That she would be back by six for dinner.

“So did the money come yet?”

“No. Can you
believe
it?”

“Yes,” laughed Curtis.

Lucy watched his beautiful smile and ignored his skeptical reply. She didn't want to talk about her life. She asked questions instead. About how he was doing, about his work, his family. She could see he was taken aback. Impressed that she had made some progress out of her self-absorption.

Lucy was impressed too: at the way he expressed himself, at his serenity, his confidence. Why had she given this up? She knew why. She hadn't been able to appreciate him then. She had been too busy trying to meld him into her idea of who he should be. But the chemistry was still there—patently there. Who was to say that when Tim was out of her life…. They could take it slow this time. Maybe she could rent a cottage nearby….

No.
She pressed down hard on those thoughts. There was no going back.

But couldn't they go on?

She didn't know. She didn't have to know.