Leaning back in her chair, she gazed at him with a mixture of disdain and frustration. “I don’t believe for one minute that he killed anyone. Now, let me ask you something, Mr. Richardson.” Ignoring Ted’s warning squeeze on her knee at her combative tone, she said, “Put yourself in my place and assume for the sake of rhetoric that I took you as a hostage and you managed to escape from me. You hide from me, but I think you’ve fallen into a deep, icy creek. From your hiding place, you watch me run down to the creek and dive into that frigid water. I dive again and again, calling your name, and when I can’t find you, you watch me stagger out of the creek and collapse in the snow. But I don’t get back on my snowmobile and go home. Instead of that, I give up. I open my soaking shirt so the cold will kill me faster, and I lean my head back and close my eyes and stay there, letting the falling snow cover my head and face . . .”
When Julie went silent, Richardson raised his brows. “What’s your point?”
“My point is,” she said tersely, “would you, after seeing that, believe I actually murdered someone in cold blood? Would you try to wheedle information out of me that could only get me shot down before I could prove I didn’t kill anyone?”
“Is that what Benedict intends to do?” he demanded, leaning forward.
“It’s what I would do,” she evaded, “and you didn’t answer my question: Would you—after you knew I tried to save your life and wanted to die when I thought I failed— try to wheedle information out of me so you could get me captured and probably killed in the process?”
“I would feel compelled,” Richardson retorted, “to do my duty and help see that justice was done to a convicted murderer who also happens to be a kidnapper now.”
She looked at him for a long moment and said quietly, “In that case, I can only hope that you find a donor heart because you obviously don’t have one of your own.”
“I think that’s enough for today,” Agent Ingram intervened, his voice as pleasant as his smile. “We’ve all been up since last night when you called.”
The Mathison family shoved to their feet in various stages of sleepless stupor. “Julie,” Mrs. Mathison said stifling an embarrassed yawn, “you’ll sleep here in your old room. You, too, Carl—Ted,” she added. “There’s no point trying to get through all those reporters again, and besides, Julie may need you with her later today.”
* * *
Agents Ingram and Richardson lived in the same condominium complex in Dallas; they were friends as well as co-workers. Locked in thought, they rode in silence to the motel on the outside of town where they’d been staying for a full week. Not until David Ingram pulled their sedan to a stop in front of their rooms, did he finally venture an opinion. He gave it in the same disarmingly pleasant tone that had fooled Julie into thinking he believed everything she said. “She’s covering up something, Paul.”
Paul Richardson frowned at the peeling white numbers on the door of his room, then he shook his head, “Nope. She’s on the level. I don’t think she’s hiding a thing.”
“Then maybe,” Ingram said sarcastically, “you’d better start thinking with your brain instead of the organ that took over as soon as she looked at you with those great big blue eyes of hers.”
His head jerked around. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“It means,” Ingram said in disgust, “that you’ve been developing an obsession with that woman ever since we got here and you started checking her out with the local citizens. Every time you learned of some new good work of hers, you got softer, every time you talked to another one of those handicapped kids she teaches, and whose parents adore her, you got in deeper. Shit, when you found out she also tutors illiterate women and sings in the church choir, you were ready to nominate her for sainthood. Tonight, every time she looked disapproving of your voice or your question, you lost your momentum. You were already biased in her favor when you only had her picture, but when you saw her in the flesh tonight, your objectivity went straight to hell.”
That’s bullshit”
“Really? Then suppose you tell me why you were so damned desperate to find out if she slept with Benedict She told you twice that he didn’t rape her or force her in any way to have sex with him, but that wasn’t enough for you. Why the hell didn’t you just come out and ask her if she let him screw her. Jesus,” he said in disgust, “I couldn’t believe it when you asked her if she could describe the bed linens on his bed for us, so we could try to trace the manufacturer and locate the owner of his hideout that way!”
Richardson shot him an uncomfortable look. “Was it that obvious?” he asked, opening his car door and getting out. “I mean, do you think the family noticed?”
Ingram got out, too. “Of course they noticed!” he snorted “Nice little Mrs. Mathison was fantasizing about smothering you with some of her cookies. Paul, use your head. Julie Mathison is no angel, she’s got a juvenile arrest record—”
“That we wouldn’t have known about if a copy hadn’t been left in the files from the Illinois foster care authorities instead of being destroyed years ago, like it should have been,” Paul interrupted. “Furthermore, if you want to hear the truth behind Julie’s petty rap sheet, then call Dr. Theresa Wilmer in Chicago like I did, and let that shrink chew your ass off. She thought—and still thinks—that Julie is as straight and as fine as they come and always was. Be honest, Dave,” he said as they walked side by side up the path to their adjoining rooms. “Have you ever in your life seen a pair of eyes like Julie Mathison’s in your life?”
“Yeah,” he said with a derisive snort, “Bambi had ’em.”
“Bambi was a deer. And his eyes were brown. Hers are blue—like translucent dark blue crystals. My kid sister had a doll with eyes like that once.”
“I do not believe this conversation!” Ingram exploded in a low voice. “Listen to you for God’s sake!”
“Relax,” Paul sighed, raking his fingers through his hair. “If you’re right—if she helped Benedict in his original escape or if she gives us any reason to believe she’s concealing information about him now—I’ll be the first one to read her Miranda, and you know it.”
“I know,” Ingram said, shoving his key into the lock and opening his door while Richardson did likewise. “But Paul?”
Paul leaned back from his own doorway. “Yeah?”
“What are you going to do if the only thing she’s guilty of is sleeping with Benedict?”
“Find the bastard and shoot him myself for seducing her.”
“And if she’s innocent of that as well as collusion with him, then what?”
A slow smile tugged at Paul’s mouth. “In that case, I’d better find myself a heart she’ll approve of and get myself a transplant. Did you see the way she looked at me earlier tonight, Dave? It was almost as if she knew me somehow, as if we knew each other. And liked each other.”
“There are women all over Dallas who know you in the biblical sense of the word, and they all like your great big—”
“You’re just jealous because that gorgeous blonde who used to be married to her brother won’t give you a second look when she comes over to the house,” Richardson interrupted with a grin.
“For a dinky little town,” Ingram reluctantly agreed, “there are some highly unusual women here. Too bad they don’t have a decent motel.”
45
I DON’T BELIEVE WE HAVE to go through this just to have some peace and privacy!” Julie cried in helpless exasperation late that afternoon as Ted flipped on the revolving lights and siren on his patrol car and floored it, racing away from her parents’ house beneath the banner stretched across Main Street that read WELCOME HOME, JULIE, with the press in hot pursuit. “How am I ever going to teach my classes when I go back to work on Monday? When I went home today, I got mobbed by reporters before I could get inside the house. While I was in there, the phone never stopped ringing. Flossie and Ada Eldridge are in seventh heaven with all the excitement to watch and gossip about next d
oor,” she added tiredly.
“You’ve been back for over twelve hours without making a statement,” Ted said, watching the cars that were tailing them in his rearview mirror.
Twelve hours, Julie thought. Twelve hours without a moment to spare to think of Zack, to review the bittersweet memories, to recover her strength, to try to put her mind into some semblance of order. She’d slept badly and when she got out of bed, the FBI agents were already waiting in the living room to question her, and they hadn’t finished until two hours ago. Katherine had phoned to suggest Julie come there, and they were on their way now, but she had an uneasy feeling Ted and Carl both intended to ask her questions at Katherine’s that they hadn’t wanted to ask in front of their parents. “Can’t you get rid of those reporters,” she said crossly. “There must be a hundred of them, and they’re surely violating some sort of city ordinance.”
“Mayor Addelson said they’re arriving at the courthouse in droves now that word is out that you’ve returned, and they’re demanding a statement from you. They’re taking full advantage of their liberties under the first amendment, but they aren’t breaking any city ordinances that I know of.”
Julie twisted around in her seat and saw that most of the cars tailing them were staying even with Ted. “Pull over and give the whole bunch of them speeding tickets. We’re going ninety miles an hour and so are they. Ted,” she added, feeling suddenly limp with weariness, “I don’t know how I’m going to stay sane if people don’t leave me alone for a while so I can think and rest.”
“If you’re going to spend the night at Katherine’s,” he said, glancing in the rearview mirror, “you’ll have plenty of time to sleep there after Carl and I hear what you have to say.”
“If what you and Carl have in mind is another interrogation,” Julie said shakily, recoiling from this indication that both brothers wanted more answers than the ones they’d heard at the dining room table last night, “I’m warning you, I’m not up to it.”
“You’re up to your ears in it, lady!” he said in a sharp tone he’d never used on her before. “I know it and so does Carl. So probably do Ingram and Richardson. I decided to have our talk at Katherine’s today because she happens to live in the only house in Keaton with electric gates and a high fence to keep out our friends back there.” As he spoke, they rounded a bend in the road, and he hit the brake, swung the steering wheel, and sent the squad car jolting and bumping up the Cahills’ private drive, racing between the trees for the gates that were already opening up ahead, controlled from the house where there was a remote camera. Behind them, the cars loaded with reporters sailed passed the turnoff, but Julie was too unnerved by Ted’s attitude to feel relieved. Carl’s Blazer was already parked in the circular drive in front of the Cahills’ sprawling brick mansion, but when Julie started to get out, Ted stopped her with his hand on her arm. “I think we’d better have part of our conversation now, in private.” He turned toward her and stretched his arm across the back of the seat. “As your attorney, I cannot be forced to repeat anything you tell me. Carl doesn’t have that immunity and Katherine certainly doesn’t.”
“Attorney? Did you pass your bar exams?”
“I haven’t heard yet,” he said curtly. “Let’s just assume I did and consider lack of notification as a technicality for now.”
Julie felt a chill that had nothing to do with the fact that he’d turned off the car’s engine. “I don’t need an attorney.”
“I think you’re going to.”
“Why?”
“Because you didn’t tell the whole truth last night. You’re a lousy liar, Julie, owing no doubt to your inexperience with it. Stop glaring at me. I’m trying to help.”
Julie shoved her bare hands inside the sleeves of her fleece-lined jacket to warm them and studied a speck of lint in her lap.
“Let’s hear it,” he ordered, “the part you didn’t tell the FBI.”
She’d loved him so well and for so long that she dreaded to see disapproval on his face for the first time in all these years, but she lifted her chin and met his gaze. “Will you give me your solemn word never to tell anyone what I’m going to tell you?”
Her insistence on that made him lean his head back and swear under his breath: “You’re in even deeper than I thought, aren’t you?”
“I don’t know what you thought, Ted. Do I have your word or not.”
“Of course you have my word!” he said savagely. “I’d walk through hell for you, Julie, and you know it! So would Carl.”
Trying to control the poignant tug on her heart from his words, Julie reminded herself of her vow not to shed any more tears and drew a ragged breath, “Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me, just talk to me! What lies did you tell to the FBI last night?”
“I wasn’t blindfolded. I know how to find the house in Colorado.”
She saw the effort it took him to stop his face from betraying any reaction to that. “What else?”
“That’s all.”
“It’s what?”
“That’s the only thing I actually lied about.”
“Then what did you lie about by omission? What did you leave out?”
“Nothing that’s anyone’s business but my own.”
“Don’t play games with your lawyer! What did you leave out? I have to know so that I can either protect you or find an experienced lawyer to do it if it’s over my head.”
“Are you trying to find out if I slept with him?” Julie snapped back as her exhaustion and tension suddenly erupted in anger. “Because if you are, then don’t play the same coy games that Richardson plays with me. Just ask me!”
“Don’t knock Richardson,” Ted shot back. “He is the only reason that Ingram hasn’t read you your Miranda rights already. Ingram knows you’re hiding something—maybe a lot of somethings—but Richardson is so dazzled by you that he’s letting you wrap him around your finger.”
“Richardson is rude!”
“And you’re oblivious to the effect you have on men. Richardson is frustrated,” Ted emphasized with absolute finality, “and infatuated as hell. Poor bastard.”
“Thanks,” she said ungratefully.
“Are we going to continue this adolescent sparring, or are you going to tell me what else you’re keeping from the FBI?”
“Has it occurred to you that I might be entitled to some privacy and dignity—”
“If you want dignity, don’t shack up with escaped convicts.”
Julie felt as if he’d hit her in the stomach. Without a word, she got out of the car and slammed the door. She was reaching for the doorbell when Ted jerked her arm away. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
“I’ve already told you the only thing I lied about that could get me into legal trouble if it were known,” Julie said, jabbing at the doorbell. “Now I’m going to tell Carl and you at the same time what you’re obviously dying to know. After that, there’s nothing to tell.”
Carl answered the doorbell and Julie marched passed him into the slate foyer and spun around. Oblivious to Katherine who was already halfway down the winding staircase, she glared at a stunned Carl and said bitterly, “Ted tells me the two of you have figured out that I’m lying about everything. He tells me if I want dignity and privacy, I shouldn’t ‘shack up’ with escaped convicts, and I’m sure he’s right! So here it is, the whole truth: I told the FBI that Zack did not physically abuse me in any way, and he didn’t! He risked his life trying to save mine, and not even you two, who obviously despise him no matter what I say, can twist that into ‘physical abuse.’ He did not hurt me. He did not rape me. I slept with him. I slept with him and I would have gone on sleeping with him for the rest of my life if he’d have wanted me to! Are you satisfied now? Is that enough for you? I hope it is, because that’s all I have left to tell you! I don’t know where Zack is! I don’t know where he’s going! I wish to God I did—”
Carl pulled her into his arms and glared at Ted. “What the he
ll is the matter with you, anyway, upsetting her like this?”
Ted was so stunned that he actually looked to his ex-wife for support, but Katherine only shook her head and said, “Ted is very good at making women who love him cry. He doesn’t mean to, he just can’t forgive us when we break his rules. That’s why he’s a cop and that’s why he’s going to be a lawyer. He likes rules. He loves rules! Julie,” she said, taking her arm, “come into the library with me. You’re exhausted, which neither of your brothers seem to realize.”
Following behind them, Ted glared at Carl and said, “I did not intend to upset her, I simply told her not to hide anything from me!”
“You could have tried using a little tact instead of demanding answers and making her feel like a tramp!” Carl bit out as he strode into the library with Ted beside him.
Julie sank into a chair and gaped in guilty surprise as an unprecedented family feud suddenly erupted in full force with Katherine in the lead: “You both have a lot of nerve prying into Julie’s personal life and sitting in judgment on her,” she informed them angrily as she marched over to a mahogany liquor cabinet and poured wine into four glasses. “Of all the monumental hypocrisy! She may think you’re both saints because you’ve always made sure she thinks that, but I know better.” She picked up Julie’s glass and her own and left the other two sitting on the cabinet “Ted, you took my clothes off in this very room before we had our first official date, and I was only nineteen years old!”
Julie automatically accepted the wine as Katherine pointed at a burgundy leather chesterfield and indignantly reminded him, “You took off my clothes and you made love to me on that same sofa! As I recall, you were very pleased and surprised when you realized I was still a virgin. An hour later, you made love to me again in the swimming pool and again in—”
“I remember!” Ted snapped, stalking over to the liquor cabinet and picking up the other two glasses of wine. He thrust one of them into Carl’s hand and said, “Unless I miss my guess, you’re going to need this in about ten seconds,” just as Katherine confirmed his prediction and rounded on his hapless elder brother: