Читать книгу The First Wife - Tara Quinn Taylor - Страница 9

“JANE, TALK TO ME.”

Jane’s heart pounded as Brad’s gaze met hers. Pressure, rising like a tidal wave from within, strangled her throat and throbbed behind her eyes.

She had enough to handle without Brad Manchester adding to the mix.

Sitting on a log in the wilderness in Illinois, part of a two-hundred-acre plot of land Brad had purchased with plans to someday build a cabin on it, Jane just wanted a couple of hours away from all the stress. The basket and water bottles, remains of their picnic lunch, still lay on the blanket spread a few feet away. Brad sat with them.

They’d left their homes in Allenville, a suburb of Chicago, only hours ago. Right now it felt like days.

The rough bark dug into the backs of her thighs through her jeans. A twig poked just behind her right ear. Strands of chocolate-brown hair hung loose from the clip holding her twisted bun. She’d sweated off most of her makeup—she never left home without it on—an hour into the day-long hike.

Her employees would look askance if they could see her now. As the editor of a new national women’s magazine, with only initial backing and the threat that if they failed they’d be left in the dust, Jane prided herself on being always professional and well put together.

She didn’t usually let her hair down.

Except when she was with Brad. He was her buddy. Safe.

Usually.

“You’ve been distracted all day,” Brad said now.

Jane nodded, not quite meeting his eyes.

“We’ve been friends what, two years?”

“About that.” Long enough to see the countless women who flitted in and out of his life almost as frequently as he changed his underwear. And to share in many, many court triumphs with him as he represented abused women seeking freedom.

“I’ve seen you happy, worried, angry and exhausted, but I’ve never seen you look so…lost.”

She felt lost. And utterly alone.

“Obviously something serious has happened. What I can’t figure out is why you aren’t talking to me about it.”

At her silence, his expression intensified.

“I thought we could tell each other anything.”

Not quite. But almost.

“Have I done something to…”

“No! Oh, God, no, Brad. You… I… You’re my best friend.”

“You sure about that?”

“Yes.”

“Okay, then, why don’t you tell Uncle Brad what’s got you so distracted that you completely missed my last three attempts at conversation?” His words, while cloaked in levity, increased the tension tightening her chest.

Funny how one phone call could undo years’ worth of moving on.

“I’m sorry,” she said, trying to recall anything he’d been talking about during the lunch stop.

“Don’t be sorry. Just tell me what’s wrong.” He sat forward, feet on the ground, his arms resting on his knees.

“Did your doctor say something? Are you sick?”

He knew she’d been for her yearly physical a few weeks before.

“No.” She shook her head. “I’m in perfect health.” Physically, at least. And she was determined to be so mentally and emotionally, too. She’d fought too hard to let someone else win now.

“You got another threat, then,” he guessed. It was a testament to how rattled she was by the call she’d received that morning that she hadn’t thought once about the threats. She’d received a couple of pieces of anonymous mail at work, one each for the past two weeks.

Do what’s right or else.

Until this morning, the threats had occupied her thoughts almost constantly. She’d read the words countless times, trying to figure out what they meant. What they referred to.

And hated that she came up blank.

“No,” she said. “Though I got a call from the police yesterday. They found no fingerprints other than mine and Marge’s on the letters. The envelopes had been handled by so many people they couldn’t identify any thing. They’ve talked to everyone and didn’t find anything.” Which hadn’t been a surprise to her. She knew her staff. If any of them had a problem with her, they’d talk to her face-to-face.

“So what happens now?”

“They’re running a search for similar crimes on other magazines, particularly those dealing with women’s issues. They’re also checking into relatives, spouses and ex-spouses of the women at Durango.”

Jane wasn’t all that upset by a check on the women’s shelter where she and Brad both volunteered. Extra police protection wasn’t a bad thing when you were afraid for your life.

“What about you? Do they think it’s safe to continue going into the office?”

“I can’t not work.”

“That’s not what I asked.”

“They’re running extra patrols around the office, and around my house, too. And they suggested I hire someone….”

“And did you?”

“Marge made some calls. Found a guy who’s going to be starting on Monday at Twenty-Something.”

“What about at home?”

“In the first place, I can’t afford a round-the-clock private bodyguard,” Jane said. “In the second place, the danger is clearly at the office—even the police think so. I haven’t received any threats at home. And in the third place, I couldn’t stand to have someone shadowing my every move. I’d rather take my chances.”

Brad didn’t look entirely convinced. “So why couldn’t you tell me about this?”

“I just forgot….” As soon as the words slipped out, Jane wished she could take them back. Brad would’ve been satisfied with the threats as the reason for her unusual mental absenteeism.

Brad stood up. “Forgot?” He shook his head. “What’s going on, Jane?”

As Jane thought about the phone call from the Ohio prosecutor, she tried to figure out what she could tell Brad. Brad Manchester might be determined to live footloose and fancy-free, but he was also one of the most decent men she’d ever known. He truly cared.

And while he dated a lot of women, maybe because there were so many of them, Jane was the one he turned to when he needed a friend.

He wanted to return the favor.

She didn’t blame him. She didn’t blame anyone.

Maybe that was the problem. Maybe she should blame her creep of an ex-husband. Or the woman who’d stolen him away from her.

Except… Lee Anne was… And James was… Jane did blame herself.

When she could stand the internal cacophony no longer, Jane jumped up, stepping over the backpack she’d worn on the hike. She stopped a couple of feet from the ledge directly in front of them. It wasn’t a sharp drop, but it was the high point of the property. It seemed as though they were in heaven up here. At the top of the world. And for as far as she could see there was nothing but green, trees, hills, brush, grass and wildflowers. Wilderness.

No pavement. No cars. No people.

No subterfuge.

Sometimes, looking into Brad’s deep brown eyes was a lot like standing there at the top of the world. They’d managed to rise above life’s complications to form a bond that was near perfect.

He was the truest friend she’d ever had.

“I’ve never trusted anyone like I trust you,” she blurted.

Her career she had down pat. But not this.

Not being emotionally vulnerable. Or out of control.

Jane continued to survey the world. “I… This is just something I have to handle on my own.”

“You sure about that?”

Hell, no. She wasn’t sure about much of anything at the moment. Except that she had to be strong, had to take care of herself.

“This is me you’re talking to, Jane. I’m on your side, remember?”

There really was no reason to panic. She’d had a phone call. A blast from the past. Nothing that affected the woman she’d become. Nothing that affected her life today.

And the threats—she’d hired protection for herself and her staff. The police were working diligently on that investigation.

“Maybe I can help.” Brad was just a few feet away.

Her only close friend. A lawyer. The best.

“I got a call this morning.” The statement could have been random.

“Who from?” He’d come closer.

“A prosecutor. In Ohio. Chandler, Ohio.”

“That’s where your ex moved after your divorce, isn’t it?”

“Right.” It didn’t surprise her that he’d remembered a detail he’d heard only once—one night when they’d shared a bottle of wine and exchanged divorce horror stories. “James has been charged with murder. They want me to testify.”

Two short sentences. Manageable.

“What!” Brad turned her around, brought her back toward their blanket. His hands were surprisingly gentle on her shoulders. Odd that she’d even noticed. He’d touched her before. A hand on her back as she preceded him into the theater. Or a restaurant. And she’d never reacted. Brad meant nothing to her in the physical sense, no matter how attractive other women found him.

“Who’d he kill?” His fingers slid from her shoulders, but the warmth of his touch lingered. “And why would they think you know anything about it?”

Another surge of panic swept over her.

Jane wasn’t a complete stranger to court. She volunteered at Durango, a Chicago women’s shelter, helping battered women with professional writing like letters and résumés, and helping them gain healing through personal writing, too. She’d been asked to be a supportive shoulder during domestic abuse trials several times. That was how she’d met Brad. He offered free legal advice at the same shelter.

Jane also volunteered as a receptionist one night a week for a local Victim Witness program, a government-funded project that provided free support to victims obtaining protection orders.

She was seasoned. The call that morning, while disturbing, shouldn’t be debilitating her.

“They say he killed Lee Anne.” She couldn’t understand it. Couldn’t seem to focus on anything but the words. They just repeated themselves, again and again, in her mind.

“My God. Lee Anne’s dead?”

Brad sounded as though he’d known the woman, rather than just having heard about James’s second wife from Jane. She nodded. “What happened?”

“She was found at the bottom of a cliff.” Jane shuddered, glancing back at the expanse below them. Standing atop the cliff—looking out—could seem like heaven and could quickly become hell. “Her hyoid bone was broken, which could point to strangulation, but there was no obvious bruising there. But there was some on her back.” Jane rattled off the facts as though reading a finance report. They seemed just as distant, just as impersonal. “Lee Anne apparently told a friend that she was going to meet James for lunch. But they never made it to the restaurant she’d said they were going to. Her car was found at the base of a trail leading up to the cliff. James’s truck was spotted in the same area and there were footprints his size at the cliff. Broken foliage and dirt patterns indicated a struggle. His fingerprints were found inside her car and when questioned, he’d said he was at home that morning, alone. They told him his truck had been seen near the cliff. After which he admitted to being in the woods with her, to being in her car, but he claims that they talked and that she was still sitting in her car, perfectly fine, when he left.”

“How long ago was this?”

“Six weeks.”

“They’ve had enough time to go over the body, then. Did they find anything to indicate that she’d been pushed?”

“The prosecutor, a Sheila Grant, said that the coroner found fingerprint-shaped bruising beneath the skin on her back.”

Brad practiced family law these days, mostly representing abused women, but he’d also done a stint as a prosecutor, so he was familiar with the challenges Sheila Grant could be facing. From everything Jane had heard, he’d been a great prosecutor. And he’d been stifled by politics and people above him who were apt to seek convictions and sentences based on factors other than the severity of the crime. Especially if there was an election or a point to prove.

A breeze blew through, rustling leaves and cooling clothes still damp from the sweat she’d worked up on their hike. Chilling her skin.

“What exactly does Ms. Grant want from you?”

And that’s where her throat froze up.

“Jane?”

“She wants me as a character reference.”

Brad studied her from below his lowered eyebrows and she could almost hear that talented brain of his whizzing along. A prosecutor would only seek character testimony from someone who had information that would support the murder theory.

“Did you tell her you would testify?”

“Yes.” And then she quickly added, “But I don’t know what good I’m going to be. It’s not like I expected something like this. I’m in total shock. The James I thought I knew was weak and selfish, but he wasn’t a murderer.”

“Very few people have any idea someone they loved is capable of murder,” Brad said, taking her hand in another unusual show of physical support. Something she rarely needed.

She let him link her fingers with his and held on.

“I come up against it again and again,” he was saying. “The shock. The disbelief. You know this as well as I do. With all of the articles Twenty-Something has done, your volunteer work and the editorials you’ve written, you’re as much an expert on domestic abuse as I am. I’m sure you can quote statistics.”

Probably. Being the CEO of a start-up magazine focusing on issues facing today’s young women did have its benefits. And what she hadn’t gleaned from her work on Twenty-Something, she’d learned through her years of volunteering.

Domestic abuse. Brad’s words, couched in generalities, lay between them. She’d told Brad her ex-husband had been unfaithful. His infidelity had been the reason for their divorce.

She’d told him the truth. At least, as much of it as she’d known.

“Sheila Grant told me this morning that James is a bigamist. And that I’m one of his victims.”

A victim. Jane hated the sound of that. The feel of it. As though she’d been branded.

Brad leaned back, staring at her. “You’re still married?”

“No!” Shaking her head, she squeezed his hand. And still didn’t let go. She’d been hanging out with Brad for a couple of years now and this was the first time they’d held hands. “My divorce is perfectly legal,” she said. “But it hadn’t happened yet when he married Lee Anne. He wasn’t just having an affair with her—he’d taken her to Vegas and married her.”

“Then, he wasn’t really married to her at all.”

“Apparently he’d asked her for a church wedding, complete with an Ohio marriage license, after our divorce, still without telling her about his first marriage. It was for their anniversary. He told her the Vegas wedding didn’t feel legitimate enough.”

“What a guy.”

“Yeah and it gets worse. He married a third time, about eighteen months ago.”

“Let me guess, he didn’t bother divorcing Lee Anne first.”

“Right.”

Brad frowned, taking on the look she’d seen him wear in the courtroom. His thinking face. “If he doesn’t want her around anymore, why not just divorce her?”

Jane relayed what Sheila Grant had told her about the triangle in Chandler, Ohio. Some supposition. Some not. Brad seemed to agree with the prosecutor’s blackmail theories, but Jane didn’t know what to think. The whole thing—James being a bigamist, her not knowing that her husband was lying to her in such a fundamental way—was just too unbelievable.

A lot of men could pull off an illicit relationship on the side. But a second marriage? And she hadn’t even suspected?

Where was the strong, capable woman who’d been given the chance to head up a new national magazine? Who stood at the head of a Chicago boardroom and justified spending thousands of dollars on copy and cover art, layout and gloss? Who, in her spare time, helped vulnerable women find their feet?

Could the real Jane Hamilton please stand up? A mental version of the old television show To Tell the Truth played in her brain. Or should that be, Could the real Mrs. James Todd please stand up?

She was spiraling out of control. Didn’t know herself. Didn’t know what—

“Did he hit you, Jane?”

Brad’s softly spoken question broke through her internal torment.

“No! Of course not.” She’d have known what to do about that.

They stood there, peering into each other’s eyes. She tried to smile at the man who’d become such an important part of her life.

“But he hurt you.”

Of course he had. He’d been unfaithful to her. He’d been her mentor. Her professor. And then her friend and lover and husband. She’d looked up to him. Learned so much from him. And…

Was she really so pathetic that she’d overlooked enough lies that he’d been able to hide a second family? Had she been that desperate to keep James in her life?

Brad was watching her and the idea of him seeing her as a helpless victim felt far too threatening.

For no reason. Her sense of self-worth came from within.

Still she broke away and dropped down to the blanket. She held the container with the fruit they hadn’t yet eaten, but didn’t open it.

“I wasn’t abused.” The constriction in Jane’s throat lessened. “There were a couple of accidents that were blown out of proportion. That’s all. Sheila Grant got hold of some old police reports.”

Brad sat down beside her, his long frame seeming to take up far more of the blanket than it had earlier.

“You called the police?”

She shook her head. “I told you, they were accidents. Which the doctor in the emergency room felt compelled to report. The police asked some questions, and they left. No charges were filed.” Holding the container of fresh strawberries in her lap, she glanced up at him. “God knows, I appreciate the law that requires medical personnel to notify police whenever they see something that suggests abuse, but in my case, those calls just caused a lot of embarrassment. James was a professor at the local university. Well liked. Respected. He was not a wife beater.”

Brad’s expression remained completely focused. “Do you have any idea why Ms. Grant would be interested in the reports?”

“Apparently they were filed with suspicion.”

“Meaning that while no one was charged, the investigating officer wasn’t convinced a crime hadn’t been committed.”

Right. So Sheila Grant had explained, though that morning had been the first Jane had heard of any suspicion.

“What happened? Tell me about the accidents.”

“I fell down the stairs once and before you say anything, yes, I’m positive I tripped. James did not push me, though the doctor, and the cop, too, for that matter, kept trying to get me to say he did.”

“So James was there.”

“Yes, we were going downstairs together. And no, we weren’t fighting.”

His head slightly lowered, Brad watched her with a sideways glance. “And you’re sure there’s no way he pushed you.”

“It would have been physically impossible. I was behind him. As a matter of fact, he helped break my fall.”

“And the other time?”

“We were playing tennis. We had one of those machines that shot balls over the net to us. He was demonstrating. I ran into his swing and caught his arm with my nose.”

“How were things between you then?”

“He was wonderful, picked me up and ran me to the car, not caring that I was dripping blood on his new upholstery. He rushed me to the hospital and was everything any wife could want in a loving husband.”

“I meant before the incident. How were things between you on the tennis court?”

Oh. Jane thought back, her chest getting tight again. And then she reined herself in.

“I think we were fighting,” she said slowly. “Or had been. It’s hard to remember. There were so many times we were at odds there toward the end.”

“And he never lifted a hand to you?”

“Not once. Ever. He never backed me into a corner, or even touched me in anger.”

Brad moved and Jane jumped. Reaching toward her, he tucked a wayward strand of hair back behind her ear. “If the suspicions are false, why was it so hard for you to tell me about it?”

“Do you have any idea how humiliating it is to know that I considered myself in love with a man who was so not in love with me that he was actually married to someone else at the very same time he was married to me?”

Brad frowned and she continued, “After Sheila Grant first called this morning, I started thinking about my marriage. Looking for signs James might have given of what he was doing, clues that I missed. Something to restore my faith in my judgment. And it took me right back to square one. Before, I thought I’d only missed the signs of him being unfaithful—having a girlfriend. That kind of thing happens all the time. But bigamy? I missed the fact that James was someone else’s husband at the same time that he was mine. Why didn’t I see it before? And how do I know I wouldn’t miss something that big in the future? How could I ever trust myself to know? The phone call also confirms that I wasn’t such a great wife. Not only did my husband seek sex elsewhere, he sought a wife elsewhere, too.”

How much of that had been Jane’s fault? James had obviously loved her at some point—he’d wanted to marry her. What had she done to cause him to lose interest?

“By all accounts that man is sick, Jane. His choices are no more a reflection on you than they are on the other two women he lied to.”

“Which doesn’t negate the fact that I didn’t see what he was doing. Didn’t even suspect. I was an easy target.”

“You were a young woman, a student, who trusted her mentor. And later her husband.”

“I trusted an untrustworthy man.” Jane hated being unsure of herself. It reminded her too much of her life with James.

Her life before Twenty-Something.

“The way Emily trusted me.”

Emily. Brad’s ex-wife and his biggest scar.

“That woman adored me,” he continued. “And you know I say that with shame, not ego. I loved her, but not any more deeply than I’d loved other people.”

He’d told her all about his guilt over drinks after their first time in court together with a Durango resident.

“I cared enough about Emily that I stayed, even after it became obvious to me that our relationship had run its course. I kept trying to be as happy in our marriage as she needed me to be. As happy with her as she was with me during those times when she believed I loved her. She stayed because she kept hoping that, with time, our relationship would grow and we’d find the closeness she craved. I hung on for several years trying to fall in love with her as much as she loved me. A lot of people were hurt over my inability to give up. I robbed her of several years of happiness, of the chance to find someone who could love her more deeply than I could. And still Emily hung on, waiting. Believing in me, in the vows we took. Does that make her somehow less?”

“No.” Jane got his point. But she wasn’t Emily. “There’s a major difference here, Brad.”

“What’s that?”

“She was married to a good and decent man who was trying to love her the way she needed him to.”

“And you thought you were, too.”

“Right, but the guy I was married to was apparently a two-bit schmuck.”

“His problem. Not yours. It sounds to me like you were a faithful wife, committed to the marriage. Nothing more.” With his arms resting on his bent knees, Brad glanced straight at her again. “Unless there’s more. Sheila Grant seems to think so…”

“Why are you trying so hard to paint me abused?” He hadn’t actually said as much, but she knew what he was implying. She could tell he didn’t believe her. Indignation was good for the soul. Or at least for distracting her from her own weakness.

“I’m not sure,” he said, as frank with her as ever. “Maybe because I’ve seen that frightened look a hundred times before but never in your eyes.”

The compassion in his voice brought her close to tears. “Why are you doing this?”

“Doing what? Being a friend?”

“Climbing inside my head.”

“I don’t know,” he said again. After a moment of silence, he added, “You’re struggling. And I care.”

She needed him to care and was glad he did. But he was pushing. And they didn’t pressure each other. It was part of what made their unique friendship so successful.

“It occurs to me for the first time—” Brad paused, and Jane braced herself “—that things about you fit the profile of an abused woman.”

They did not. He was just wrong about that. If she fit the profile, he’d have seen that before today. “Like what?”

“Like the fact that in the two years I’ve known you, you haven’t been on a single date.”

“Come on, Manchester. It’s a new world out there. One where a woman doesn’t need to have a man to be complete.”

“No, but she doesn’t generally need to avoid them, either.”

“I’ve been busy getting a magazine off the ground, in case you haven’t noticed.”

“You stay busy, and yet you’re the most isolated person I know. You have a lot of acquaintances, a lot of people who look up to you and care for you, but none, that I know of, other than me, with whom you’re really close. You help them, but who helps you?”

“I’ve always been a bit of a loner. And a nurturer. I know what I want and that’s okay.” She knew herself. Liked herself. Was overall happy with who she was and where she was in her life. “There’s nothing wrong with being different as long as you’re happy that way. Look at my mom.”

Jane’s parents hadn’t been married. Brad not only knew the story, he’d met her mother once.

Her dad, a professional military man, had traveled constantly, moved all over the world, and her mother, a small-town girl, hadn’t been able to sign on for that kind of life. They’d continued to love each other, to see each other occasionally, until he’d been killed in the Gulf War when Jane was twelve.

Later, her mom married a local man, a single father with one son a few years younger than Jane. Her husband had eventually retired from the manufacturing firm where he’d worked all his life and taken her to Alaska to live with him on a fishing boat. Jane heard from them a few times a year, when they were in port.

The important thing was, they were happy. They’d all been happy.

“Besides, you’re one to talk. I don’t see any real relationships in your life, either. And I’m not calling you abused.”

“I hurt a sweet woman very badly,” Brad reminded her. “I can’t even think about getting serious with anyone unless I’m positive that I can give her my whole heart.”

Jane stared at him. “So you do want to marry again someday?” She’d been worried about him. Worried he was going to waste his life on one-night stands. Which would have been fine if it made him happy, but it didn’t seem to. He tried too hard to stay busy—as though he was outrunning his dissatisfaction.

Brad’s mother had been killed in a car accident when he’d still been too young to remember her. And his father had passed away four years before, from a massive heart attack.

Aside from a few distant cousins, he was alone in the world.

“I want a family, sure,” he said. “But not unless I meet someone I know I can love forever.”

So maybe his constant dating was more than she’d realized. Maybe he was searching…

“Do you think that really happens?” Jane asked, curious—and also relieved to be talking about something besides her.

“I like to believe it can,” he said and then sent her a grin. “I’m certainly doing extensive research on the topic.”

That was more like the Brad she knew. “Well, spare me the details, but do tell if you find a definitive answer.”

And then, just like that, his face grew serious once again. “I’m more interested in finding answers for you, right now,” he said. “I’m concerned about you, Jane.”

“And I’m telling you there’s no reason to be. The phone call shocked me today. I need some time to get used to the idea of having been a bigamist’s wife. But I’m fine. Really.”

“Okay, but I want you to think about something for me.”

“What’s that?”

“Durango’s number one profile characteristic of an abused woman.”

The list was posted in the main gathering room at the shelter. Jane knew it by heart.

And at the top:

She lives in denial.

Damn him.