Tell Me No Secrets (31 page)

But she didn’t lose consciousness.

She didn’t die.

She wasn’t even going to throw up, she realized with growing amazement, feeling a gradual loosening at her chest, the giant snake slowly losing interest and slithering away. A few minutes later, the numbness vanished and her breathing retumed to normal. She was all right. She hadn’t died. Nothing had happened to her at all.

She’d gone with her panic, flowed with her anxiety, and nothing of any consequence had happened to her. She hadn’t thrown up all over herself. She wasn’t paralyzed. She wasn’t dead.

She’d won.

Jess sat for several minutes on the striped couch without
moving, savoring her victory. “It’s over,” she whispered, feeling suddenly confident and happy, wanting to wake Don, tell him the news.

Except she knew it wasn’t Don she wanted to tell.

Jess pushed herself to her feet and rummaged gently under the blanket for her socks. She found them, put them on, then quickly slid into her jeans. She walked to the window and stared out through the darkness at the bluff beyond.

“Jess?” Don’s voice was full of sleep.

“It’s stopped snowing,” she told him.

“You’re dressed.” He propped himself up on one elbow and reached across the rug for his watch.

“I was cold.”

“I would have warmed you.”

“I know,” she told him, an unmistakable note of melancholy creeping into her voice. “Don …”

“You don’t have to say anything, Jess.” He slipped the watch over his wrist, snapped it shut, massaged the back of his neck. “I know you don’t have the same feelings for me that I have for you.” He tried to smile, almost succeeded. “If you want, we’ll just pretend that last night never happened.”

“The last thing I ever wanted to do was hurt you again.”

“You haven’t. Honestly, Jess. I’m a big boy. I can deal with last night if you can.” He paused, checked the time. “It’s only four o’clock. Why don’t you try to sleep for a few more hours?”

“I wouldn’t be able to sleep.”

He nodded. “Do you want me to make you a cup of coffee?”

“How about I make you one back at my apartment?”

“Are you saying you want to leave now?”

“Would you mind very much?”

“Would it matter?”

Jess knelt on the rug beside her ex-husband and gently stroked his cheek, feeling the early-morning stubble. “I
do
love you,” she said.

“I know that,” he told her, placing his hand over hers. “I’m just waiting for
you
to figure it out.”

It was almost seven o’clock in the morning before they arrived back in the city. The drive home was slow and treacherous. A couple of times, they’d slid on a hidden patch of ice and almost veered into a ditch. But Don hadn’t panicked. He’d merely gripped the wheel tighter and continued resolutely on, although it often felt to Jess as if she could have walked back to Chicago faster.

She was on the phone the instant she arrived back in her apartment.

“Anything?” she asked Neil instead of hello.

“Jess, it’s seven o’clock in the morning,” he reminded her. “The clubs don’t even open till ten.”

Jess replaced the receiver, watched Don as he tidied up the remains of the breakfast Adam had prepared for her yesterday. Was it really only yesterday? Jess wondered, thinking it felt like so long ago. “You don’t have to do that,” Jess said, taking the dish Don was washing out of his hand and laying it on the kitchen counter.

“Yes, I do. There isn’t a clean dish in the place.” He lifted it off the counter and ran it under the tap.

“There’s already coffee,” Jess said, shaking the coffee pot “I can just pop a couple of mugs in the microwave.”

Don took the coffee pot out of Jess’s hands and poured its muddy brown contents down the sink. “You and your
microwave,” he said. “Now get out of here.
I’ll
make the coffee;
you
take a shower.”

Jess walked into the living room. “Hello, Fred,” she said, bringing her nose up against the narrow bars of his cage. “How are you doing, fella? I’m sorry I didn’t come home last night to cover you up. Did you miss me?”

The bird hopped from perch to perch, oblivious to her concern.

“Why don’t you get a dog or a cat?” Don called from the kitchen. “That thing doesn’t care whether you’re here or not.”

“I like Fred. He’s low-maintenance,” she said, thinking of the black vinyl boots she had purchased from Adam. Definitely a worthwhile investment, she thought now, seeing them by the front door, the snow melting off their toes onto the hardwood floor. No salt rings. No watermarks. Satisfaction guaranteed or your money back.

She thought about Adam, wondered what he was doing now, where he’d gone after he left her apartment. What he’d made of the morning’s confusing events. What he’d say if he knew about last night.

Jess shook her head as she headed down the hall toward her bedroom, trying to shake loose such disconcerting thoughts. She’d started the day by almost making love to one man, and ended it by making love to another. One was little more than a stranger, a man she knew virtually nothing about; the other was her ex-husband, about whom she knew virtually everything. One was here now, was always here when she needed him; the other dropped by whenever he felt the urge.

Was that what she found so appealing about Adam Stohn? she wondered. The fact that she was never sure
from one moment to the next when, or even if, she might see him again?

The room was as she’d left it, the bed unmade. Jess hated unmade beds, the way she hated anything left unfinished. She quickly set about making it, fluffing the pillows and tucking in the corners. Then she went into the bathroom and ran the shower, pulling off her sweater and jeans, tucking them neatly in the closet, selecting her gray suit and pink blouse for today’s appearance in court, laying them neatly across the white wicker chair.

She pulled a pair of skin-colored panty hose from the top drawer of her dresser, along with a fresh pink lace bra and panties, laying them carefully on top of her suit, about to discard the underwear she had on when she noticed a rip in the crotch of the pink lace panties. “Great. How did that happen?” she asked, examining the uneven tear that split the crotch of her panties from seam to seam.

She tossed them into the wastepaper basket, retrieved another pair from the top drawer, casually looking them over, her eyes quickly fixing on the jagged tear at the crotch. “My God, what’s going on here?” With growing panic, Jess examined all her underwear, discovering all her panties had been slashed in exactly the same way. “My God! Oh my God!”

“Jess?” Don called from the other room. “What are you muttering about?”

“Don!” she cried, unable to say anything else. “Don! Don!”

He was instantly at her side. “What is it? What’s the matter?”

Wordlessly, she handed him her torn underwear.

“I don’t understand.”

“They’re ripped! They’re all ripped!” She scrunched the delicate fabric of the panties in her hand between trembling fingers.

He looked as confused as Jess felt. “Your panties are ripped …?”

“All my panties are ripped,” she said, finally finding her voice. “Every last one of them. Look. It’s like they’ve been slashed with a knife.”

“Jess, that’s crazy. They must have gotten torn in the washing machine.”

“I wash them by hand,” Jess snapped, losing patience. “Rick Ferguson’s been here, Don. Rick Ferguson did this. He’s been here. He’s been in my things.”

It was Don’s turn to lose patience. “Jess, I can understand your being upset, but don’t you think you’re flying a little fast and loose with the assumptions here?”

“Who else could it be, Don? Who else
would
it be? It has to be Rick Ferguson. Who else could get in here as easily as if he had a key?” She broke off abruptly.

“What?” Don asked.

Adam had borrowed her key, she thought. Borrowed it when he had gone out to buy groceries while she’d been asleep. Had he had another key made? Had he used it to get back into her apartment when she was away?

“It had to be Rick Ferguson,” Jess continued, immediately pushing aside such unpleasant thoughts. “He broke into Connie’s apartment without any problem. Now, he’s broken into mine.”

“We don’t know who broke into Connie’s apartment,” Don reminded her.

“How can you keep defending him?” Jess demanded.

“I’m not defending him. I’m just trying to get you to be reasonable.”

“He used to work in a locksmith’s shop!”

“A summer job. When he was a teenager, for God’s sake.”

“It explains how he’s able to get into apartments without any sign of forced entry.”

“It explains nothing, Jess,” Don persisted. “Anyone could get into this apartment without much trouble.”

“What are you talking about?”

He led her back toward the front door. “Look at this lock. It’s useless. I could pick it open with my credit card. Why don’t you have a dead bolt, for God’s sake? Or a chain?”

Hadn’t Adam asked her almost the same thing? Why don’t you get a peephole? Or a chain? he’d asked as she stood before him, gun in hand.

Her gun! Jess thought, almost knocking Don over as she raced back toward her bedroom. Had whoever broke into her apartment and slashed her underwear also stolen her gun?

“Jess, for God’s sake, what are you doing now?” Don called after her.

The goddamn gun, she thought, pulling at the bedcovers she had recently tucked in. Had he stolen her gun?

The gun was exactly where she’d left it. She pulled it out from underneath the mattress with a deep sigh of relief.

“Jesus Christ, Jess! Is that loaded?”

She nodded.

“You’re sleeping with a loaded gun under your mattress? Are you trying to kill yourself? What if you moved funny and the damn thing went off? Are you nuts?”

“Please stop yelling at me, Don. It’s not helping.”

“What the hell are you doing sleeping with a loaded gun under your mattress?”

“I usually keep it in the drawer.” She indicated the night table with a nod of her head.

“Why?”

“Why? You’re the one who gave me the damn thing in the first place. You’re the one who insisted I have it.”

“And you’re the one who insisted she’d never use it. Would you put the damn thing away before you shoot somebody!”

Jess deposited the gun gently in the top drawer of her night table. “I’ve been threatened,” she reminded him, closing the drawer. “My car’s been vandalized and destroyed. I’ve received strange letters in the mail. …”

“Letters? What kind of letters?”

“Well, just one letter,” she qualified. “Soaked in urine, full of pubic hair clippings.”

“Jesus, Jess. When was this? Did you call the police?”

“Of course I called them. There’s nothing they can do. There’s no way of proving who sent the letter. Just like there’ll be no way of proving who slashed my panties or broke into my apartment. Just like they couldn’t prove who broke into Connie’s apartment, or who killed and mutilated her son’s pet turtle.”

“Jess, we don’t know that there’s any connection between the break-ins at Connie’s place and yours. We don’t even know that there
was
a break-in here,” he said.

“What does that mean?” Jess asked, anger swelling her throat, making it hard to speak.

“Who is this Adam Stohn anyway, Jess?”

“What?” Had he been able to reach inside her brain, read her most secret thoughts? Tell me no secrets, I’ll tell you no lies, she thought.

“Adam Stohn,” Don repeated. “The man who passed out on your sofa Saturday night. The man who was making you breakfast Sunday morning. The man who could easily have gone through your things while you were sleeping, maybe had a little fun with one of your kitchen knives.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Jess protested, trying not to remember he’d also gone into her purse, borrowed her key.

“He’s the wild card here, Jess. Just who is this man?”

“I already told you. He’s a guy I met, a salesman.”

“A shoe salesman, yes I know. Who introduced you?”

“No one,” Jess admitted. “I met him at the shoe store.”

“You met him at the store? Are you saying you picked him up when you went to buy shoes?”

“It’s legal, Don. I didn’t do anything wrong.”

“Not wrong, maybe. But certainly stupid.”

“I’m not a little kid, Don.”

“Then stop acting like one.”

“Thank you. This is just what I needed this morning. A lecture on dating by my ex-husband.”

“I’m not trying to lecture you, goddamnit. I’m trying to protect you!”

“That’s not your job!” she reminded him. “Your job is defending men like Rick Ferguson. Remember?”

Don slumped down on the bed. “This is getting us nowhere.”

“Agreed.” Jess plopped down on the bed beside him, scattering several pairs of panties to the floor. “It’s so hot
in here,” she said, realizing she was still in her underwear. “Jesus Christ, the shower!”

She hurried into the bathroom, steam escaping the small room as she fought her way through the rush of hot water to turn off the taps. She returned to the bedroom, sweat pouring off her face, her hair wet and dripping into her eyes, her shoulders slumped forward in defeat. “How am I supposed to go to court looking like this?” she asked, near tears.

“It’s not even seven-thirty,” Don told her gently, “so you still have lots of time. Now, first things first. The first thing we’re going to do is call the police.”

“Don, I don’t have time to deal with the police now.”

“You can tell them what happened over the phone. If they think it’s necessary, they can come over later and dust for prints.”

“That won’t do any good.”

“No, I don’t think it will. But you have to report the incident anyway, you know that. Get it on the record. Including your suspicions about Rick Ferguson.”

“Which you don’t share.”

“Which I
do
share.”

“You do?”

“Of course I do. I’m not a complete idiot, even where you’re concerned. But suspicions are one thing, assumptions are another.” He underlined his words with a nod of his head. “The second thing I want you to do,” he continued, “is take your shower and get dressed. Forget the underwear for the time being. I’ll call my secretary and have her drop something off for you before you go to court.”