Читать книгу The Night In Question - Harper Allen - Страница 12

“You smell like a party, Mommy…”

Julia felt Willa’s hair brushing against her neck as her small daughter gustily breathed in the scent of Dior. She tightened her hold on her, praying that the tears she could feel prickling behind her eyelids would remain unshed for these final few moments. But Willa’s attention was on something else, she noted thankfully. She felt tiny fingers touch the luminous pearl studs she’d defiantly fastened to her ears earlier that morning.

“You look like a princess, Mommy.”

“Do I, kitten-paws?” Even as she used the endearment her throat closed in pain. She couldn’t do this, she thought desperately—she couldn’t go through with it. If she packed a bag for Willa right now they could be at the airport before anyone started looking for her. She could get them on the first flight leaving the country—she could find a job, change their names, make a new life for the two of them—

Except that she didn’t have a passport. And within minutes of her non-appearance at court, all airport and border crossing personnel would be on the lookout for a woman and a little girl.

She couldn’t do this. But she had no choice.

She opened her eyes as Maria stifled a sob a few feet away, and the housekeeper’s tearful gaze met hers. Thomas, the chauffeur who’d driven her on countless shopping trips and frivolous outings, stood by the door awkwardly twisting his cap between his hands.

It was time to go. And even though it felt as if her heart was being ripped from her body, she had to make this final parting as normal as possible for her child’s sake.

Julia pressed a desperate kiss to the flaxen head, gave Willa one last too-tight hug and set her back on her feet. Round blue eyes looked up at her in slight alarm as Maria came forward and placed her work-worn palms on the small, OshKosh-clad shoulders.

“Why are you crying, Mommy?”

Because when I walk into court today I’m pretty sure I’m not going to walk out, honey. Because twelve people who don’t even know me are probably going to find me guilty of doing a terrible thing. Because you’re my life—my sun and my moon and my stars—and I’m so very, very afraid I’m never going to see you again.

She forced a smile and saw the worry in her daughter’s eyes disappear. “Because pearls are for tears, silly. It’s the rule. Now, go back into the kitchen with Maria and finish your toast, okay? See you then, red hen.”

“See you later, alligator,” Willa giggled. “Love you trillions.”

Before the rest of their ritual could be completed, the sturdy little legs were skipping down the hall to the breakfast room with Willa’s usual exuberance.

Julia said it anyway.

“Love you trillions,” she whispered, the tears finally spilling over completely as her hungry gaze imprinted this last precious image of her daughter on her memory. Willa reached the end of the hall and turned the corner.

“Trillions and jillions,” Julia breathed hoarsely to the empty hallway. “And forever and ever, kitten-paws.”

Slowly she turned to where Thomas was waiting for her, and the endless pain began….

JULIA HUGGED the damp pillow tightly, willing herself not to awaken. Sometimes the dream would repeat itself. And despite the wrenching anguish she relived night after night at the end of it, it was worth it to hold, even in her imagination, that small wriggling body, press her face against that silky topknot of blond hair, breathe in the sweet, milky, little-girl scent of Willa’s skin. But this time it was no good. Tiredly, she opened her eyes to the unfamiliar room around her.

The next moment she was sitting up abruptly, her heart crashing against her ribs as full consciousness returned.

She wasn’t in prison anymore. She was free. She was free!

Swiftly flipping back the thin blanket that had been covering her, she swung her legs over the side of the bed, her bare feet impervious to the chill of the linoleum floor. Joy so pure it felt like a physical element tore through her. No matter that she was in the cheapest room of the cheapest flophouse she’d been able to find last night—she was free, she thought, trembling with excitement. There had been times that she’d thought this moment would never come.

Free meant she could start looking for Willa. She could hardly believe it was true, she thought faintly. No wonder she was shaking like a leaf. She let her breath out in a ragged exhalation.

“You got out,” she whispered. Across the room her reflection wavered at her from a smeared dresser mirror, and she met her own gaze.

“There were times in there you weren’t sure you were going to make it, but you did,” she told the woman staring back at her. “They said you were too pampered, that you’d never survive. They were wrong. They didn’t know how much you had to live for.”

Slowly she got to her feet. Drawing closer to the mirror, she stared at her reflection in it, her palms flat on the dresser’s surface, her arms braced.

She’d slept in the cotton bra and the utilitarian briefs that were all the underwear she owned. Against the pallor of her skin the bra straps looked dingy from too many washings, and she felt a brief flicker of humiliation.

She’d gone into that place wearing a teal-blue designer suit, handmade Italian heels, satin and lace lingerie. She’d come out almost two years later in a shapeless polyester smock, her own clothes somehow having been mislaid, she’d been told. In the smock she’d felt as conspicuous as if she’d had her inmate number stencilled across her back, and the first thing she’d done when she’d gotten out yesterday was to spend a few of her precious dollars in a secondhand clothing store.

She’d left the hated smock balled up on the floor of a change room, and for an hour or so she’d just walked aimlessly down one street after another, not noticing the April chill but finding herself trembling instead with nervous exhilaration. Around her streetlamps and neon signs and car headlights had begun to come on, piercing the blue Boston dusk, and gradually she’d started to feel at ease among the stream of humanity flowing around her on the sidewalks.

Then a tall figure had detached himself from the passers-by and had stepped in front of her, blocking her path.

As easily as that, Max Ross had ripped away any delusions she might have had of putting her past behind her. At the sight of him she’d felt immediately exposed, as if everyone around them knew what she was and where she’d spent the last twenty-three months.

He’d meant her to feel that way.

But he’d made one vital miscalculation, she thought with a spark of cold anger. He’d thought he’d been dealing with Julia Tennant—the Julia Tennant he’d seen two years ago, the Julia Tennant he’d helped put behind bars. That woman might have accepted his warning.

That woman didn’t exist any longer.

She raked her hair straight back from her forehead, and narrowed her gaze at her reflection in the mirror. “You tipped your hand, Ross. That wasn’t smart,” she said softly. “You shouldn’t have let me know how much you hated me, because now I’ll be watching out for you.”

Despite her words, a sudden tremor ran through her as she recalled their briefly antagonistic meeting the night before and saw again the hostile implacability in his expression.

He would do anything he could to stop her. Sick fear washed through her. In the mirror, her reflection swayed slightly, and she squeezed her eyes shut.

Sometimes the dream went on, the rest of the memories, less vivid but still unforgettable, tumbling through her mind like a collection of spilled photographs. The faces of the jury members as they’d filed back that final time into the courtroom, the electric excitement from the press section as the verdict had been delivered, the blank expressions of the court officers as they’d moved toward her after she’d been found guilty. Her own confused hesitation as to what was expected of her until she’d seen the handcuffs one of them was unfastening from his belt.

And just as she was escorted out, the flash of pity, instantly erased, that had crossed Max Ross’s features while he’d watched from a few feet away.

Abruptly she straightened, blocking out the images in her mind. She’d imagined that, she told herself. Pity wasn’t in Ross’s repertoire. If the man had any humanity at all, he certainly didn’t intend to waste it on the woman he thought of as a black widow spider.

As she’d learned over the past few weeks, he wasn’t alone in that attitude.

“Your sister-in-law only testified against you after the authorities guaranteed her safety,” Lynn Erikson had told her in prison. “Do I think you’ve got a good chance of having your conviction overturned with what we’ve found out about the search of your summer home? Absolutely.”

Lynn had shrugged, and in the small gesture it had been possible to see a ghost of the arrogant and high-powered attorney she’d once been before a cocaine addiction had raged out of control, destroying her life and robbing her of her freedom.

“They didn’t need a search warrant for the house that had been your husband’s, but the summer place on Cape Ann had always been in your name only. The wiring and the chemicals they found there should never have been allowed into evidence, and without them, all the state has is Barbara’s testimony of seeing you hand the package over to Kenneth just before his flight. That’s not enough to prove you knew what was in it.”

She’d shaken her head wearily, as if to forestall Julia’s hopes. “But it doesn’t change the deal Barbara got, or the fact that permanent custody of Willa was given to her when you got sent here. Oh, maybe after a lengthy court battle you might win your daughter back, but I doubt it. Even if your sister-in-law didn’t have the Tennant fortune backing her, she’d still have the sympathy of any judge. Her own husband was on that private jet—who’s going to take a child from the arms of a victimized widow and find in favor of the woman who got away with killing both her husband and her brother-in-law?” Lynn’s husky voice had softened. “You say Barbara always adored Willa. At least you know your little girl’s being raised by someone who loves her, Julia. A lot of the women in here don’t even have that to hold on to.”

She owed her freedom to Lynn, Julia thought, turning from the dresser mirror and staring unseeingly out of the grimy window. Maybe the sensible course of action would be to take the disbarred but still brilliant attorney’s advice and accept that Willa was lost to her forever.

But she didn’t accept that. Because if she ever did, there would be no reason to go on living.

The teal-blue suit she’d worn that last morning when she’d said goodbye to Willa hadn’t been found when she’d signed for her belongings upon leaving prison. Her heart had been in her mouth as she’d waited for the rest of her possessions. When the clerk had brusquely told her that her leather handbag had also gone missing, and would be forwarded on to her if and when it was found, she’d feared the worst.

“There was a pair of costume earrings,” she’d told the woman, forcing a meek note into her voice. “They weren’t worth much, but they had sentimental value. Are they still here?”

The clerk had exchanged a dry look with the guard behind her. “Sentimental value?” She’d snorted disbelievingly. “Were they a present from your late husband, honey? Here they are.”

Carelessly she’d rolled the huge pearls across the counter, her hostility barely veiled. But Julia was used to it. Most of the prison personnel had made it clear they disagreed with her release. She’d said nothing as the woman went on.

“Honestly, I’ve seen less tacky fakes in a gumball machine. I’ve heard you rich bitches never wear the real thing, but couldn’t you at least have bought decent copies?”

Through the grime of the hotel room’s window Julia could see a knot of pedestrians waiting for the light to change on the street below. For a moment she thought she recognized Max Ross standing a few feet away from the group, and she froze. Tall. Broad shoulders. Dark hair. Then the man glanced impatiently up at the red traffic light and she relaxed as she saw his face. It wasn’t him. She was safe for the time being.

Her jeans were slung across the back of a chair, and she went to them. Feeling inside the front pocket, she withdrew two tissue-wrapped objects. Carefully she nudged aside the nest of tissue and stared at the pair of earrings in her palm.

Willa had called them her princess earrings. Kenneth had bought them for her as a wedding present, and had insisted she wear them whenever they were out in public together. He’d told her once that he enjoyed displaying his impeccable taste—in jewelry as in women.

Appearances had been vitally important to him. She hadn’t known until too late that his gifts and attentions to her were as empty as their marriage had soon become, and it was even later that she’d realized his daughter meant just as little to Kenneth Tennant. She and Willa both had existed only as accoutrements to him—part of the background that he’d felt necessary for a man of his station in life.

He’d been the coldest human being she’d ever known—as emotionless in his personal life as he was in his business dealings. She’d always been privately convinced that the latter had led to his death. Some rival he’d destroyed, some executive he’d ruined—it had to have been someone like that who’d found a way to kill him and make it look as though she’d been responsible. But even though that unknown enemy had robbed her of two years of her life, she had no intention of trying to discover his identity. She was only interested in one thing, and it wasn’t revenge.

If Kenneth had still been alive, the wife he’d thought of as a possession would no longer have attracted him, Julia thought without self-pity. But the baubles she’d once been adorned with had kept their value. They were South Sea pearls, exquisitely matched and rimmed with diamonds. They were going to get her back her child.

“I’m going to find her, Ross,” she said softly to the empty room. “I want what your people took from me—my daughter, my life, my freedom—and I’m going to get it. And when I do, we’re going to disappear so completely that you’ll never see us again.”

“YOU WHAT?”

Julia stared at the overweight young man sitting in front of her. He hit a key and spoke over his shoulder at her.

“I said it only took me a couple of hours to do the job after you left on Tuesday. You should have given me a number where I could reach you.” He tucked a greasy strand of hair behind his ear. “So you’ve been in the joint, huh? What for—dealing?”

There was absent curiosity in his tone, but most of his attention was focused on the computer screen in front of him. He typed in another command without waiting for her reply. She wasn’t about to tell him the truth anyway, Julia thought wryly.

She’d gotten his name from one of the women in prison.

Since the morning she’d sold her pearls to yet another shady connection she’d learned of in prison she’d been on tenterhooks, wondering desperately if Melvin Dobbs would be able to find Barbara’s and Willa’s whereabouts with the medical data she’d given him.

It had been three days of knowing that Max would be on her trail, three days of looking over her shoulder and half expecting to see him there, even though she’d stayed in a different place every night.

“You said the kid and the woman both had a rare allergy to wasp stings, so I ran a cross-check on prescriptions for the antidote that had been ordered in adult and child strength from the same pharmacist.” Dobbs hit the Enter key and sat back as the glowing blue screen in front of him rapidly filled up with lines of type. “There were several matches, but only one where both the adult and the child were females. By the way, they’re still in the state.”

For a moment Julia wondered if she’d heard him correctly. “They’re still in this state?” she repeated stupidly.

At his casual nod her hand flew to her mouth, stifling a choked-off sob. She felt the hot prickle of tears in her eyes, but thankfully Dobbs’s attention wasn’t on her.

Dear God—they were still in Massachusetts! For two years she’d imagined Willa as being thousands of miles away from her, had ached with the certainty that between her and her daughter were rivers, mountains, countless cities as barriers—and all the time only a few hours at most had kept them apart.

She could see her today, Julia thought, her mind racing. She wouldn’t do anything rash or foolish—she wouldn’t do anything that might jeopardize her goal—but if she was careful she might be able to catch a glimpse of Willa in a park or a playground. Just one quick look. Surely that would be safe enough.

And then I’ll figure out a way to have you with me forever, sweetheart, she thought tremulously. I still don’t know how I’m going to do it, but we’ll be a family again, you and me.

She fixed her burning gaze on Dobbs’s computer screen as the lines of type scrolled downward and then stopped.

“That’s the one.” He grunted and reached over to a nearby printer. “I’ll run off a copy for you to—”

“She was in prison for killing the girl’s father and the woman’s husband, Dobbs. And unless you shut down that computer right now, you’re looking at hard time yourself.”

Shocked, Julia spun around at the sound of the harsh voice coming from the doorway. Her appalled gaze met the coldly assessing glance of the man standing there.

“Hullo, Tennant,” Max said with a tight smile. “Looking for something?”

“This is harassment, Ross.” She dragged in a constricted breath, and willed her voice to remain steady. “I warned you to leave me alone, and I meant it. You’re interrupting a private business transaction here, so get the hell—”

“I said shut down the computer, Dobbs. Do it,” Max ordered, not taking his eyes from Julia. “Right off the top of my head I can come up with at least two charges that can be laid against you unless you cooperate. Endangering the life of a child is the first one. Being an accessory to kidnapping is the second. Shut it down.”

But Melvin’s fingers were already flying over the keys, and even as Max delivered his ultimatum and Julia turned back to the computer, she saw the lines of type flicker and disappear from the screen. Her eyes opened wide in denial.

“Bring it back up, Dobbs,” she commanded unsteadily. “I paid you for that information. He’s got no authority to—”

“He’s a fed.” Flicking a switch at the side of his computer, the hacker jerked his head at the open ID wallet that Max was negligently displaying. “That’s authority enough for me.” Dismissively he turned away from Julia to the man behind her. “I didn’t know why she wanted it. Just get her out of here and let’s pretend this whole thing never happened, okay?”

“No! No, it’s not okay, dammit!” Her hands balled into fists at her sides, Julia looked wildly first at Dobbs, and then Max. “Damn both of you—that’s my daughter’s address you’re keeping from me. I have the right to know where she is!”

“No, Julia, you don’t.” Max had been standing a few feet away, but now he took two swift strides toward her. Behind the coolness of his gaze heat flared, and was immediately extinguished. “And if I even suspect that you’ve persuaded our venal friend here to change his mind and tell you where she is, I’ll have her relocated so fast you won’t get within a hundred miles of her. For a while after she was moved she was a sad and lonely little girl, but now she’s started to adjust. She’s in kindergarten now. Do you really want to be responsible for uprooting her all over again?”

“She was sad and lonely because her mother was taken away from her, for God’s sake!” Julia hissed at the implacable face only inches from hers. “You were responsible for that, Ross!”

“And I’d do it all over again in a heartbeat.” His voice was ice. “She’s got a shot at a normal life. She wouldn’t have that, growing up with the woman who killed her father, her uncle and two innocent bystanders.”

“You keep forgetting something.” He was so close she could feel the warmth of his breath on her parted lips, and she realized with a small shock that it had been years since there had been this little distance between her and a man. Julia thrust the thought aside and continued. “They had to let me go, Max. They couldn’t prove their case. I’m an innocent woman.”

“You got off on a technicality, Tennant!” As if she’d goaded him into action, he grasped her arms just above her elbows, and pulled her closer, obliterating the last few inches of space between them. His jaw was set and his grip on her felt like steel. “You got off, but that doesn’t mean you’re not guilty. The only innocent one in this whole damn mess is that little girl, and I intend to keep her safe—from you. Do we understand each other?”

She was vaguely aware of Melvin Dobbs, sitting frozenly a few feet away from them. But on a deeper, more visceral level, she suddenly felt as if nothing and no one had any solid reality except the man in front of her.

His grasp on her arms was tight enough that it should have been uncomfortable. Instead she felt ridiculously as if it was all that was keeping her from falling into a terrible void and plummeting to her own destruction. He was strong, she thought disjointedly, but his strength wasn’t merely a matter of muscle and sinew. It was a strength made up of conviction and a bedrock foundation of personal honor. He meant what he said. He cared enough about a child he hardly knew that he would go the limit to keep her safe.

Under different circumstances, she and Max Ross might have found themselves on the same side, she realized with a small shock. She would have liked that. He was a man a woman could count on.

And if she were honest with herself, in those alternate circumstances there might well have been more than just cooperation between them. Even now, facing each other as enemies, there was a suppressed undercurrent flowing beneath the surface of their anger and antagonism.

She distinctly remembered the first time she’d noticed him, although, as she’d learned during her trial, he’d been involved in the investigation from the first and had actually spoken with her an hour or so after the explosion on the night it had happened. She didn’t recall the encounter, but that was understandable. She’d been in shock those first few days, and then had come the nightmarish realization that the authorities saw her as their prime suspect. From then on her world had unravelled so swiftly she hadn’t taken in much of anything.

Besides, Max was the original invisible man. Obviously that was an asset in his line of work, and she supposed he’d cultivated that ability he had of unobtrusively melting into the background, but she still didn’t know how he did it. Granted, there was nothing about him that was jarringly noticeable, unless the casual observer happened to look directly into his eyes. They were a dark, clear green, and in the tan of his face they looked like chips of arctic ice. But his hair, dark brown and cut fairly short, was ordinary enough, and his features, although harder than the average, were regular.

Still, it seemed impossible that a big man with such a—she searched for the word—such a solid presence could go unnoticed in a crowd whenever he wanted to. Which meant that at her first remembered meeting with him, he’d wanted her to know he was there.

It had been on the first day of her trial, and she’d been walking into the courtroom when she’d become aware of him standing a few feet away. His gaze had been steady and assessing, his expression carefully blank, and she’d suddenly known that the privileged shield of wealth and beauty and social status that had protected her for so long had been ripped away from her. She hadn’t realized who he was at that point, but she knew that the man watching her didn’t see her as Julia Tennant, the attractive young widow of a wealthy and powerful man. Those green eyes had seemed to be looking straight through her, as if they were trying to read her very soul.

And even as he’d continued to stare at her, his attitude impersonally professional, she’d seen a hard edge of color rise up under the tan of his cheekbones. He’d turned away immediately, and during the rest of the trial he’d been careful not to meet her eyes again.

But as she’d told him in the coffee shop, she’d known he’d been watching her. And, if she were honest with herself, the undercurrent she was feeling right now had been there from the start, on her side as well as his.

Except that wouldn’t make any difference to him, she thought with renewed despair. Max Ross might have his alternate realities just as she did, and his might even be more urgent than hers, but even if they included sweat-soaked sheets, total satiation, and every dark desire he’d ever had, he would never let them interfere with real life.

He was the law. She was an ex-convict. They weren’t on the same side and never would be, as far as he was concerned.

She gave it one last try, knowing it was futile.

“She’s my daughter, Max.” Her voice was husky. Her gaze on his, she tried desperately to make him see it her way. “I love her—surely you believe that? Even if everything else you thought about me was true, you must know that I love her too much to ever put her in danger. I’m her mother. She needs me.”

Just for a second she thought she saw him waver, and her heart leapt. Then he shook his head and the irrational hope died.

“If you love her you’ll give her up, Julia.” His voice was as low as hers had been, and it had lost its edge. “What kind of a life could you give her, even if you did find her? Her aunt has legal custody of her now, and that would make you a fugitive. You and Willa would be on the run, never putting down roots, never being able to give her a secure home. Is that what you want for her?”

He stared at her for a long moment. Then he let go of her arms, and his own dropped to his sides. His eyes darkened with something that could have been compassion. “I think you’ll do the right thing, Julia. I think you’ll let her go.”

And looking at him, she knew with sudden despair that he was right.