Cam nodded. "Yes." In his mind, he saw Jamie sitting in his pickup truck, tension creating a blue fugue around his body, asking if Cam was indeed Cameron MacDonald, Laird of Carrymuir. He remembered that what he had noticed about Jamie was his height and the MacDonald red hair, plus the three parallel scratches on his left cheek. Cam had seen Jamie that very morning before driving out to Pittsfield for the grand jury hearing, as per the conditions of Jamie's bail. There were no scratches anymore, a full month later; there weren't even faint white lines. Cam thought that Jamie would have welcomed a scar.
"Chief MacDonald?"
Cam looked up and realized that the ADA had asked him a question he had missed. "I'm sorry," he said. "Could you repeat that?"
"I wanted to know about the confession the defendant signed." She waved a paper in her right hand, which Cam recognized as the voluntary confession statement of the Wheelock police.
He sighed. "I took the defendant into custody and he told me the circumstances leading up to the death of his wife, which involved a long and protracted illness--cancer, in several forms. He also said that his wife had asked him to kill her, although he didn't have any proof."
Audra smiled, and Cam was amazed at how predatory she could look. He fleetingly thought of Graham MacPhee, and hoped the attorney had been sharpening his pencils. "Did you advise the defendant of his right to counsel?"
"Of course."
"Was there any coercion used to get the confession?"
Cam scowled at her. "That's not a practice at the station."
"Did the defendant sign a statement to that effect?"
Cam sat up. "Look, you've got the damn thing in your hand." He stood up, glorying in the fact that Audra Campbell's face turned a deep shade of red. "I've given you all I can. He confessed. Period. And I've got other things to do."
Audra pinned him with a glare. "Mr. Foreman, could you direct the witness to answer questions only when asked?"
A short fellow with a nose turned so high Cam could see right up his nostrils smiled apologetically. "Chief MacDonald, please answer only when you're directed to do so."
Cam sat down and glared at Audra. She tossed him a glance over her shoulder. "No further questions," she said.
Usually, when Cam yelled at her, it was because Allie was the closest thing to him. In a way, she supposed it was an honor. She knew that he was not truly angry with her--it was a prisoner rubbing him the wrong way, or a case he was working on--he simply felt comfortable enough with her to let down his guard. So it wasn't the things he was saying that morning that had affected her, but the way he looked when he'd said them. He had been staring at Allie as if he really did not like her at all.
She glanced at her face in the bathroom mirror for another few minutes, searching for something that might justify Cam's change of heart. "You're being stupid," Allie said out loud. "You're reading into this."
She slipped out of her heavy terry-cloth robe--a navy one embroidered with metallic stars that Cam had given her for her birthday, with a cute note about being able to move the heavens and the earth for him. She did not have much lingerie--the entirety of her collection was courtesy of her bridal shower five years and seven pounds back. But she remembered that the emerald satin robe, which reached to the knee, had once been Cam's favorite. She remembered making love with it spread beneath them, cool and shifting under her skin.
She hadn't worn her lingerie since her honeymoon--it was sort of pointless to look sexy for the same man who saw you throwing up with the flu and picking up the trash that raccoons had scattered across the front lawn. The satin felt wonderful against her shoulders and back, clinging lightly with static and skimming over her hips. Allie picked up her spray bottle of perfume and put some on her wrists and behind her ears, and as an afterthought, behind her knees. She had always seen women do it in the movies, although she didn't really understand why. What man spent time sniffing around rhere?
With a sharp tug at the lapels of the robe, she covered her breasts and walked out of the bathroom. Cam was in bed, his legs drawn up, the latest issue of Field and Stream open in front of him. He glanced at her when she stepped into the bedroom, and rubbed his eyes with his thumb and forefinger to show he was tired.
Allie sat down on the edge of the bed. He hadn't spoken to her much, except for the necessities, since he'd stormed out of the house that morning. "Hi," she said.
Cam couldn't help it; he smiled. "Hi."
"I don't want to fight."
Cam looked at her. In the soft light of the reading lamp, Allies eyes were deep and dark, and triangular shadows danced a pattern down the side of her neck and throat. "Neither do I." He reached for her hand, the one that nervously stroked the tie of her robe. Her fingers were strong and curled naturally into his own. "Come here," he said, patting the space beside him.
In a flash of leg, Allie crawled over his body. She fir herself neatly to him, her face in the curve of his neck, her arm stretched across his middle, one calf slipped between his own. How many times had they lain like this?
He felt himself stirring, blood rushing heavy into his center. He thought of Allies body, spread in front of him like a banquet, and he grew harder. He wanted her to touch him. Now.
He wondered how someone so comfortable and familiar could make him as excited as someone mysterious and unknown.
Cam took Allies hand and settled it over his boxer shorts, sucking in his breath when her fingers slipped through the opening to brush his skin. She moved her hand up and down, alternately stroking and cupping him.
There was a pattern to their lovemaking. He felt his balls tighten and he rolled to his side, pushing Allie onto her back. He kissed his way up the insides of her thighs, moving her legs onto his shoulders, all the while thinking of unrelated matters--baseball, world news, duty rosters--to keep himself from going over the edge.
But when he came into her, he ceased thinking. His body reacted by itself, thrusting so hard Allies head knocked against the headboard. He rubbed his cheek against the L of her neck. He spread his hands in her hair and pinned her to the bed.
He knew she did not feel any pain--no more than he noticed the bites and the scratches on his shoulders and back that Allie tried to soothe, like a mother cat, when it was over. It was always like this, always had been, with Allie. He considered the nights he had spent with Mia, where lovemaking had lasted hours and had been slow and gentle, a series of increasing, rippling shocks.
Within minutes he could feel the guilt, pressing up around him from the mattress like a featherbed that threatened to swallow him whole. He was guilty of thinking about Mia when he should have been thinking only of Allie; he was guilty of having sex with Allie when he knew he loved Mia; he was guilty of wanting them both.
"How come it isn't like this in the movies?" Allie murmured, her lips against his throat.
His arms tightened around her waist. "Like what?"
He could feel her smile. "Like they're trying to kill each other."
Cam thought of what he'd felt with Allie in the kitchen that morning. And he wondered if that hadn't been his very motive after all.
With a flourish, Audra Campbell opened the courthouse door, smiling with confidence at the collection of media representatives waiting for the outcome of the grand jury hearing.
"Ms. Campbell," a reporter called. "Can you tell us what happened in there?"
She turned a beaming smile in the direction of the nearest television camera, wondering how many channels she'd be able to videotape that night. "In the case of the State of Massachusetts versus James MacDonald, the grand jury has voted to indict the defendant."
A voice spiralled up through the crowd. "Was this something you expected?"
"Naturally," Audra said, "since he's charged with murder." She glanced around at the people gathered before her, hanging on her words and furiously writing them down for posterity in tiny white notepads. "And I'm very confident of a conviction when we go to trial." She waved--a dismissal--a
nd stepped down several stairs, parting the crowd of reporters.
If she had her choice, Allie would have picked a funeral any day over a wedding. When she did the floral arrangements for the foot and head of a casket, nobody complained, and she didn't have to worry about ruining someone's day with a wilted rose or drooping alstroemeria. On the other hand, a bride only got to do it once. If the stephanotis wasn't wired quite right, it could flop out of the trailing bouquet halfway down the aisle, and no one wanted that on their videotape. If the flowers didn't make it to the church on time, there would be no second chances.
Cam had dropped her off at the church with her buckets of flowers and raffia and Oasis and spools of florist's wire. The tall arrangements were in place on either side of the altar, but she still had to drape a flower garland down the pews that were reserved for family. Allie would have been able to do these ahead of time too, but she had been up all Saturday night doing the bouquets and boutonnieres for the ridiculously large bridal party.
She sat down in the quiet aisle of the church and wired a stem of mimosa. She had done this so often she did not have to be an active participant. For the thousandth time she wished that Mia had not gone off to her emergency, or that she'd come through the door now and roll up her sleeves and help.
The bride was going with a traditional white wedding, accented with some autumn lilies in rosy shades of crimson. Allie had talked her into this. It was a Halloween wedding--well, two days before--and the bride had wanted a garish black and orange. Worse, the guests had been invited to come in costume. In fact, Allie had met the brother of the bride on the front steps of the church, dressed as Napoleon.
Now he came through the door of the church and stood beside her. Allie looked up and saw him--an unreasonably tall Napoleon, she thought--with his hand stuffed into his coat. "Doesn't bother you if I'm here, does it?" he asked.
Allie shook her head. "I can't chat, though. I'm pretty busy."
"I'm supposed to make sure the minister gets here." He smirked. "I thought they just lived under the pulpit when they weren't preaching."
Allie carefully wrapped a second stem of mimosa. Delicate white flowers, they trembled at her touch. "I take it the minister hasn't arrived yet?"
The man shook his head. "Nope."
Allie glanced up. "I can keep an eye out for him. What's he coming dressed as?"
He looked down at her as if she was crazy. "A minister," he said, "what else?"
At the sound of feet, Allie looked up, panicked. It was only eleven; she had two hours left before the ceremony, but there were guests. At least she assumed they were guests--a medievally dressed lady, a court jester, and Elvira, Queen of the Night. "Hey!" Napoleon shouted, waving. "Aunt Anne! You look great!"
He went to talk to his relatives for a few minutes--during which time Allie made one entire garland of ivy--but returned as if his presence was a help. "They're early," he announced to Allie. "They misjudged the traveling time from New York."
Allie nodded and plucked a lily out of one of her buckets. The lilies would be at the head of the garland, fastened to the top of the pew, and then the mimosas would be wired to cascade down in a soft, white fall.
"Nice flowers," Napoleon said. He crushed one of the mimosa flowers between his fingers, making Allie grimace. "Smells good."
"Mimosa always does. Watch." She picked the stem of the flower away before he could do any more damage and brushed her fingertip lightly against another bud. The petals retracted slightly, as if they were shy. "That's why it was traditionally used at weddings. People used to say if a girl passed this plant in a state of sin, it would shrink back like it was being touched by something evil."
Napoleon laughed. "So much for my sister's storybook wedding." He waved his hand over the half-finished garland. "The whole thing'll curl up and die. She's been living with Pete for a year now already."
Allie hung the first garland up as a terrorist, Shirley Temple, and a hippie came into the church. They sat down behind the other guests and began to talk quietly. "I'm never going to finish," Allie murmured to herself.
"Hey," Napoleon said, standing. "I heard a car. It must be Reverend Allsop." He started down the aisle, his Hessians muffled by the long white runner.
She gritted her teeth when she heard the man's voice again, pitched against a different voice, higher and soft. "I found someone who was looking for you," Napoleon said, and Allie glanced up to see Mia standing just behind him.
Her face broke into a smile. "You couldn't have staged a better entrance. Give me a hand, will you?"
Mia had already flung her knapsack, which was meowing, into a pew, and crouched beside Allie to wire a lily stem for the next garland.
Allie gestured to a completed garland and held the top of it against a pew, pulling a nail from her apron to peg it into place. "Just drape up the bottom half," she instructed.
Mia picked up the long chain and walked backward. She touched her fingers to one flower, which had become twisted in the process of movement. The mimosa's petals shrank away, as if it were embarrassed. And then the next one closed, and the one next to that, and so on, until all the buds had retreated, shaking and modest, and there was no beauty at all.
TWELVE
Why is it that only in the very beginnings of a relationship are you aware of the heat coming from inside a person, of the number of inches you would have to move for your shoulders to brush as if it were an accident?
Cam kept his eyes on the road. Funny, how he could bump into Allie forty times a day--in front of the refrigerator, or near the bathroom sink--but he was never aware of her proximity, never felt as if all his nerves were reaching just a tiny bit farther. He wondered if, years ago, he had sat beside Allie in a car thinking of ways to press his leg up against hers and blame it on the frost heaves in the road.
On the other hand, Mia was sitting so close beside him he could smell the wool of her sweater. At red lights, from the corner of his eye, he could see the pulse beating behind her left ear.
He hadn't said much to her at all since he'd come to pick up Allie at the church and found Mia working beside her. It had shocked the hell out of him; seeing her bent over a bucket of tiny white daisies, her hair twisted on her head and knotted with a strategically speared pencil. Cam had stood in the aisle of the church, feeling something swell up inside him that might have simply been relief, but that felt like a rush of heat, an explosion of hope.
"Hey," he had blurted out. "You're back. How was your aunt?" The words tumbled out onto the bride's white runner before he realized that he had just fabricated a level of detail he should not have known.
Allie had been stuffing her floral wire and Swiss army knives back into the little red toolbox she used for transport. Her hands, chafed and green-stained, fiddled with the catch that closed the box. "How'd you know it was her aunt?" she asked, and then she stood and kissed his cheek.
He looped his arm around Allies waist only because it was expected. "It's always an aunt," he said, looking to Mia for help.
"She's fine," Mia replied, and with her eyes she threw back the thread of the lie, knowing it would soon be a net as big as those on a shrimper's boat, and equally as easy to become entrapped in.
Allies car was in the repair shop for a broken tail-light, which was why Cam had dropped her off at the church in the first place, and why he was now driving her and Mia back to Glory in the Flower. Bur he'd had to take the unmarked car, whose trunk was full of boxes containing pamphlets and Tshirts and caps to promote the DARE program at the area schools. Which meant that the extra buckets of flowers and the mound of supplies had to ride in the back seat, while he and Allie and Mia shared the front.
Mia was doing her damnedest to stay on Allies half of the front seat--Cam wondered how she had wound up in the middle, anyway--but every now and then a bump in the road would throw her up against him. Cam noticed the smell of Mia too, the woody pine of her hair and skin mixing with Allies light apple perfume to make him slightly
sick.
"Six-two-one to four," the radio crackled. Cam looked down to see it cutting into Mia's thigh. He reached down and pulled the unit free. "Four to six-two-one," Cam said, followed by a string of other letters and numbers. Finally he set the receiver back against Mia's leg. "I've got to go," he told Allie. He stepped on the gas so that the car raced a little faster, and pulled into the parking lot of the flower shop. "Can you handle this stuff?"
Allie nodded. "I'm an old pro." She slid out of the car and reached into the back seat to grab two buckets of flowers.
"I'll give you a hand." Mia reached in as well, refusing to meet Cam's eye. Allie started up the walk, juggling the buckets so she could reach into her pockets for a key.
"You came back," Cam said quietly.
Mia nodded. She tugged at Allie's toolbox, but it was stuck on some part of a seat belt and would not come free. "When can I see you?" Cam asked.
Mia glanced up. "You can't." She tugged on the handle of the red box again.
Cam twisted from the driver's seat and covered Mia's hand with his own. With a sharp yank the toolbox came flying forward, opening its latch and spilling floral wire, Oasis, scissors, and knives all over the back seat. "Shit," Mia murmured, bending to retrieve a length of ribbon that had worked its way beneath the seat.
Cam's hand pulled her up again. He tugged her forward until she was kneeling in the back seat and then he kissed her. Right in the middle of Main Street, with Allie on the other side of an open door. His mouth moved over hers until her stomach knotted up and her sigh became Cam's next breath.
When Mia heard the first footstep, she pushed herself away. Cam's face was red and his mouth had a rough ring around it. Mia had no doubt she looked much the same. She bent her head so that her curls hid her cheeks and felt around the car's mealy carpeting for the spilled tools.
Allie opened the other rear door, the one behind Cam, and took one look at the paraphernalia which covered the back seat. She fished a spool of floral wire out of one of the remaining buckets of flowers. "What happened?"