The worst part was being with her in the same house and not knowing what the hell was running through her mind. She'd go about doing things like always--emptying the dishwasher, watching the "Today" show--but she had this knack of looking right through him. She said she didn't want to get rid of him, but he was beginning to feel that the only reason she wanted him around was to punish him.
He told himself that he was the one who had been the asshole, and she had a right to her distance. He told himself that if he wanted to put Mia into a beautiful, frozen memory and not let the past months disturb anything else about his life, he had to show some signs of humility. He just wasn't very good at walking around with his tail between his legs.
Allie had said she loved him. She'd come around.
He was bent over the water fountain when he felt a hand on the collar of his shirt which pulled him up and slammed him hard against the wall. "If I didn't think I'd be booked on assault and battery," Jamie said through clenched teeth, "I'd break your nose."
He released Cam as suddenly as he'd grabbed him, leaving the bystanders and the security guards to wonder if they had imagined the confrontation. "I guess Allie told you," Cam said, embarrassed that this man would know so much about him.
"You're an idiot. You don't know what you've lost."
Cam stared at Jamie, thinking of what he had not mentioned during his testimony--Jamie's story about his wife's illness, the trip to Quebec, the gentleness with which he had touched the corpse after he'd pushed Zandy out of the way. And he realized that strangely enough, this man might be the one person to understand. "You don't know what I had," Cam said quietly.
At his cousin's tone, Jamie took a step back. "Temporary insanity?"
"I guess that's what some people would call it."
Jamie stared at him. He did not speak, but his message was clear: Or were you only doing something that you knew had to be done? Even if it broke all the rules?
Cam nodded down the hall, to a spot that was less crowded, and they walked there in silence. Then Cam leaned against the brick surface, one leg bent at the knee with his foot against the wall, and tilted his head back. "How did you do it?" he asked, his voice thick. "How did you make yourself let her go?"
Jamie wouldn't meet his eye. "I just sort of accepted the fact that it would kill me a little bit every day for the rest of my life."
Cam considered Mia, her hair bouncing over the collar of her oversized coat, and wondered if she was feeling that, wherever she'd gone.
"I don't think I've given you enough credit," Cam said. Jamie looked at his cousin, at the pristine cuffs and corners of his regulation shirt and the brass and buttons that winked from it. He thought of what Cam had just admitted, and then of Allie; and he knew that even if it all worked out in the end, her heart was still the one that would be broken.
Jamie turned away. "I think I gave you too much."
Ellen and Allie sat across from each other in an empty room upstairs from the court. They were sipping cups of coffee bought from a noisy vending machine.
"I think the jury likes Jamie," Allie said, hoping to keep the conversation away from Cam.
"I think the woman with the beads in her hair does," Ellen agreed. "The art teacher, right?"
"Nursery school aide," Allie corrected. "But she was on our side to begin with."
Ellen looked intrigued. "How can you tell?" "Hang around Graham and it becomes an instinct," she said. She had her face turned toward the window. It was raining, and between yesterday's thaw and today's downpour practically all the snow was gone. The world looked completely different than it had just days before.
Ellen wrung her napkin in her lap. She had heard about Allies garage sale; who hadn't? In fact, along with Hannah at the station, she'd been responsible for finding who had what of Cam's. Hannah had used the phone; Ellen had dowsed. "Cam did well today," she said, and she saw Allie visibly flinch.
The rain reflected on Allies cheeks in hideous boils and spots that ran together. When she turned, Ellen was taken aback by the distortion. "Allie," she confessed softly, "I knew." "You knew," Allie repeated, "or you know?" "Does it make a difference?" Allie turned away again. "I'm not sure."
There was so much negative energy burrowed into the girl that
Ellen thought she could dig and dig and maybe never unearth its core. And she had to try; people had burned up from the inside because of this kind of thing.
"I don't want to talk about it," Allie said tightly, but then she looked at her mother-in-law and sighed. "You can't blame yourself. He's your son."
Ellen did not hesitate. "Every bit as much as you're my daughter. And I wouldn't have taken well to a substitute."
Allie tried to smile, but instead she turned back to the rain and tried to count the drops that were chasing each other to the edges of the windowpane, as if there were some kind of censure in standing alone.
Ellen dropped her coffee all over her own lap. "Oh, Lord. I can't believe I did that." She began to mop ineffectually at the runny brown puddle with her single, drenched napkin.
Allie jumped up. "Did you hurt yourself? I'll get some more napkins." As she ran out of the room toward the ladies' lounge, Ellen quickly opened her purse and drew out a small vial of ground ignatia. This cure she had made without Allie, but she hoped that her teaching had rubbed off. It was the remedy for grief, for anger, and for disappointment that your own soul could not shake.
By the time Allie came back, the ignatia had been stirred into her coffee. She helped Ellen pat the mess on the front of her dress and clucked over the damage. "I'll be fine," Ellen said. "What's a little dry cleaning?" She spread her legs a few inches and waved the filmy material in the air, hoping to dry off before court went back into session.
She watched her daughter-in-law take a sip of her coffee. "Finish it," she urged when Allie pushed it aside. "God knows you need to replenish your energy."
Finally, Allie turned the cup upside down. One tiny drip rolled onto the conference table. Ellen smiled at her. She wondered how long it would be before the herb took effect. "How much did you get for Ian's old fly rod?"
Allies mouth dropped open in disbelief. "Sixty bucks."
Her mother-in-law nodded. "All in all," she said, "I couldn't have done better myself."
*
The prosecution rested. Court was adjourned until the following morning. Ellen told Angus she would not take him home until he buttoned his entire coat, and Jamie and Graham left the courtroom with their heads bent together, discussing the strategy of the day.
"Want a cup of coffee?" Cam said to Allie. "I just had one with your mother."
She started to walk out of the courtroom but Cam was only a step behind. "Dinner," he pressed. "You've got to eat sometime."
"But not at four-thirty." She flipped her hair over the collar of her coat; Cam watched it spill over her shoulders. "Begging doesn't suit you."
"I'm negotiating."
Allie ignored him. "I'll catch up with you later at home."
She started to walk toward her car, but was stopped by Cam's carrying voice. "No, you won't. You'll be there, and I'll be there, but we most certainly will not be together."
He had yelled across the parking lot, and although she thought that the people they knew were all gone by now, she could not be entirely sure. She walked toward him again quickly, stopping just a foot away, her face turned up to his in anger. "It has been two days," she hissed. "Two lousy days. How dare you."
A raindrop caught her in the eye, making her vision blur without the heat of a tear. Until then, she hadn't noticed it was still raining.
It had rained every single day of their honeymoon. In Aruba, where it never rained.
"I know what you're thinking of," Cam said, a smile spreading across his face, a big shit-eating grin that she wanted to slap fight off him. "I always think about it, too, when it rains this hard."
"I don't remember."
Cam caught her upper arm. "You remember. You ma
y be mad as hell at me but you can't just throw out everything that led up to the last few months."
Allie blinked the moisture from her eyes. "Why not?" she asked. "You did."
NINETEEN
The first motion Graham made was a general one for dismissal. He and Audra stood hip to hip in front of Judge Roarke's bench, jockeying for better position like two cubs aiming for the same teat. Roarke pulled off his eyeglasses and rubbed the corners of his eyes with his thumb and forefinger. It was only nine in the morning. "Why, Counselor?" "Insufficient evidence." Audra laughed.
Graham had told himself it wasn't going to work; that the only reason he was even throwing motions at the judge before the defense testimonies began was because it was standard procedure. Insufficient evidence? Well, maybe it didn't really apply to this case, but it was the most common grounds for dismissal.
"Motion denied," Judge Roarke said. "Is that all, or do you want to waste more of my time?"
Graham squared his shoulders. He could feel Jamie's gaze from the defense table, burning a small warm spot in his back. "It's essentially wrong to try James MacDonald the same way you'd try a sniper who goes nuts and shoots thirty people at a fast-food restaurant. This is a completely different sort of case."
Audra's lips drew back in a poor imitation of a condescending smile. She had put on her blush badly this morning; to Graham it seemed as if she had clown dots on her cheeks. "Tell that to your elected official," she said. "As of right now, murder is murder. It happens to be the law."
Graham looked back at the judge. "A common-law crime suggests the absence of consent of the victim."
Roarke nodded. "Yes, but unfortunately that's the way the statute still reads. You aren't planning to overturn the foundations of the legal system in this little courtroom, are you, Mr. MacPhee?"
Graham took a deep breath, his last-ditch attempt. "This case involves the right to die, not the taking of a life."
Audra smirked. "That's touching, Graham, but it isn't a legal defense."
Judge Roarke rapped his gavel with more force than he intended. "Enough. All motions denied. Trial will resume after a ten-minute recess."
Graham walked back to the defense table, reminding himself that motions for dismissal were a technicality, and that a denial was what he had expected all along. But as he raised his eyes to Jamie's hopeful face, he realized what it truly meant. You made motions for dismissal so that you could cover your ass in the event of an appeal. Which meant that on some level, Graham had already accepted the fact of defeat.
He was an idiot to bring her flowers. Not only had Cam bought X X them from one of her competitors, but seeing so many blooms coveting her dresser and the vanity and the bedroom floor made Allie think of her shop, which made Allie think of Mia.
There were mums and daisies and gladioli, amaryllis and gentians and fuchsia. There were lilies and cyclamen and a big bunch of pearly everlasting. Cam seemed to have gone to the trouble of finding every color in the rainbow, and bringing it into her room.
She had awakened while he was sneaking in with another vase to set beside her hairbrush. "What are you doing in here?" she asked, sitting up abruptly.
Cam smiled at her, and instead of placing the flowers on the dresser, held them out like a presentation bouquet. "Isn't that obvious?"
He had slept on the couch again last night, she supposed, because she wasn't about to let him into the bedroom. "It's not my birthday."
Cam sat on the edge of the bed, and Allie instinctively moved an inch away. "I know."
She glared at him. "You can't buy a clean conscience."
A flash of black flared in his eyes for a second, but disappeared behind a set mask of self-control. He forced a smile.
Allie knew she was being spiteful. She had told Cam to stay, but she knew that if she'd had to put up with the bullshit she was tossing Cam's way she would have left long ago. And yet, she couldn't help it. She'd open her mouth to declare a truce and this horrible thing that had taken up residence inside her would spew out a reel of its hate.
She wondered how long it would take her brain to convince her heart that this was no longer a contest. Cam had won, hands down. No matter what verbal weapon she used, Allie could not even begin to hurt Cam as badly as he had hurt her.
"Do you know where she is?"
Allie heard the question fall from her own lips, shocked she had uttered it. Cam's face reddened, then drained. "No," he said. "And if I did, it wouldn't matter."
"How can you say that? That didn't stop you before."
Cam stared at a spot just to the left of Allies shoulder. There was a mark on the wallpaper. It had been a mosquito last summer; one night he had swatted it in the dark, mashing it up against the wall. He had been making love with Allie, and it had landed on her shoulder, drawing blood. "This is where I'm supposed to be," Cam said simply. "With you."
"Where would you rather be?"
I don't know. Cam stood up, took the flowers from Allie, and set them on her nightstand. "Look. You have to give me some credit. You have to give me a break."
Allie folded her arms across her chest. "I don't have to give you anything," she said, but her voice broke over the words.
Cam left the room a minute later. Allie could hear the water running in the shower, the quick zip of cotton as he pulled a T-shirt over his head and skimmed out of his shorts. She got out of bed and wrapped her big bathrobe around herself and padded down the stairs.
Cam had folded the blanket and sheets and stacked them on one end of the couch. His equipment belt was draped, as always, across the dining room table. His boots were sitting beside the TV.
His wallet and pocket change were on top of the VCR. Allie touched the leather billfold with one finger. Then she opened it, feeling her heart pound, listening with half an ear to the sound of water still running through the pipes upstairs.
Seventeen dollars. A driver's license. An organ donor card. She fiddled with the tight pockets, pulling out a CPR certificate, a Visa card, and an American Express Card. Some bank receipts; a charge slip from a restaurant in Pittsfield. An ATM card.
There were no hidey-holes in the wallet; she knew, because she had bought it for him two Christmases ago. She did not come up with a scrap of paper that had an unfamiliar address on it, or a note with a telephone number and a scrawled "M" beside it. There was no condom tucked into the back pocket of the wallet, no picture of Mia creased and weathered from handling. There was no evidence that Cam had lied about anything he'd just said.
She knew how you went about falling in love; she did not know how you went about falling into trust. Disgusted with her own curiosity, she snapped the wallet shut.
During the ten-minute recess, Judge Roarke's daughter broke her leg falling from a jungle gym. Frazzled and hurried, he dismissed the jury with an apology and stated that the trial would resume at nine o'clock the following morning. Jamie grinned from ear to ear. "This is good," he said to Graham. "Don't you think this is good?"
Graham glanced at him over the files he was shoving into his briefcase. "How so?"
"I figure if the jury has a whole day away from this courtroom, whatever the prosecution said won't be fresh in their minds."
"Jamie," Graham said, "never prejudge a jury."
Allie leaned over the rail that separated the spectators from the rest of the court. "Well, I think Jamie's right. The longer the trial drags out, the further away all the prosecution's testimony is."
Graham smiled. "You forget, Audra gets to do a closing statement, too." He clasped his briefcase and checked his watch. "You going back to Wheelock, Allie? I have a plea bargain I've got to work on; I think I'll head to the law library." Allie nodded. "I'll take Jamie."
Jamie turned toward Graham. "You have other cases besides mine?" he said, smiling a little.
Graham grinned. "A good lawyer makes you feel like you're the only one on his docket. Of course, in your case, it's pretty close to the truth." He started off down the aisle of the c
ourtroom, holding up a hand in a half-wave.
Allie took a deep breath and smoothed her hands down the front of her wool coat. "Well. Are you hungry?"
Jamie shook his head. "Graham won't let me outside the town lines until I've had a good breakfast." He took Allies elbow and guided her out of the courtroom, ducking past the growing throng of local media. "I'm up for a quiet ride," he said. "I'll try to get some sleep this afternoon." ,
Allie unlocked Jamie's side of the car first, and watched him fold himself into the tiny space and then push back the passenger seat so that his legs could stretch out. She started the ignition; a thick blast from the heater blew her bangs from her forehead. "It's hard to believe that yesterday it was fifty degrees."
Jamie made a noise at the back of his throat. "It's getting hard to predict anything these days."
Allie glanced at him before making the right-hand turn out of the superior court. His eyes were bloodshot and the skin beneath them looked puffy and tender. Jamie felt her staring and turned her way. "I know. I look three shades shy of dead."
"Not sleeping much?"
Jamie shook his head. "I slept better than this after I killed Maggie," he said wryly. "If I knew the way the jury was going to fall, I think I could take anything that bitch Campbell dished out at the trial. Even if they said I was going to jail for the next five forevers. It's the not knowing that's driving me crazy."
Allie nodded. "It's like that for me, too. I can't imagine having Cam walk out of my life, but I have nothing to say to him when he's there. I wish someone would hold up one of those little photo key chains you used to get at amusement parks and say, 'Here, look. This is your future. This is the way it's going to be.' "
Jamie turned his face out the passenger window and watched a bird--who knew what kind, since it was late January--keeping pace with the car. "You're not getting along with Cam, then?" he asked quietly.
"That would be a nice way of saying it."
"Him, or you?"
Me, Allie thought. A horrible piece of myself that I can't cut away. "I can't help it," she said. "I say things I don't even want to say. I don't recognize myself anymore when I'm in the same room as him."