“The jury could be out for days,” Clint told Grayson in a voice that denoted the calm before the storm. “I’m not going to be kept here. I want to get back to Sherry. She must be out of her mind worrying.” He paced back and forth before the black tinted window and tried to dispel the feeling that he was smothering. He needed air, and quiet, and an hour in which this trial didn’t hang foremost in his mind. Sam’s quiet scrutiny told Clint that he, too, dreaded the verdict.
“Don’t you care about the outcome of the trial?” Grayson asked. He sat at his desk, going back over his notes, trying to second-guess the twelve men and women who held this situation in their hands. But Clint had the suspicious feeling that that wasn’t Grayson’s real concern.
“Of course I do. But it won’t surprise me if Givanti gets off. The last eight months of my life have been like something out of the theater of the absurd, anyway. A big farce. Might as well end it accordingly.”
“I disagree. I think the jury will bring in a guilty verdict. Meanwhile, I’d like to keep you here.”
Clint stopped and pointed a warning finger at Grayson. “You can’t make me stay,” Clint warned. “I’m going back to Sherry.”
Grayson’s face reddened, and he thumped his forehead with an index finger and compressed his lips.
“Look, I did what I was supposed to do,” Clint continued. “I don’t regret it, no matter what comes of it. But I’m not going to put my life on hold any longer.”
Grayson got up, shrugged out of his coat, and hung it over his chair. A slash of perspiration beaded over his lip. “I’m just asking you to wait a little longer. Until we can be sure that things have settled down.”
“Settled down?” Clint’s laugh bordered on hysteria. “Are you kidding me? You think I don’t know that Givanti will get revenge? That’s why I want to get back to Sherry!”
“That’s why I want you here!” Grayson bellowed, slamming his hand on his desk. “I’m trying to protect my daughter! I’m trying to protect you! Don’t be blind, man!”
“I’m not blind! But I want to protect Sherry too. She’s probably sitting there thinking the danger’s here. But if I were Givanti and wanted to get revenge, I wouldn’t send my goons to the courthouse to make an example of the witness. I’d teach him a lesson by taking it out on the person who means the most to him. I’d—”
“Exactly what I’m getting at!” Grayson cried. “And the closer you are to her—”
“The more protection I can give her. I have to be there to make sure that she’s safe and doesn’t get careless. You can’t be there, and those guards barely even know her.”
Sam, who had sat quietly in the corner rubbing his jaw, stood up. “Let him go back,” he said. “I won’t let anything happen to them. I haven’t so far, have I?”
“By the grace of God, no,” Grayson admitted. “But I don’t like it.”
“There is no safe place,” Sam pointed out dolefully. “Not really. Beef up security some more. Pack our cars full this time. All we really have to do is wait to see if we’re right about Givanti’s little ring being small. Frankly, I think it is. But while we’re waiting for the verdict, there’s no use making everyone suffer more.”
“But some lunatic is still out there. The one who tried to blow you up on the way here.” Grayson’s voice broke. “What if—”
“I don’t care! I’ve got to be with her, Eric. You owe that to us!”
Eric Grayson stared at Clint, his eyes misting with doubt and uncertainty. “All right,” the man said, sinking down into a chair and looking suddenly much older than his years. “All right. Go ahead. I’ll be there as soon as the verdict comes in. For Pete’s sake, man, be careful.”
“I’ll die before I’ll let anything happen to Sherry,” Clint said.
Grayson looked up at him and managed a smile. “Well, how about if we keep both of you alive? I’d sort of like to have grandchildren.”
“You’ll get them,” Clint promised him, his own dark eyes sparkling at the prospect. “You have my word on that one.”
The President of the United States could not have boasted more security than Clint had as they left the courthouse that evening. The men again donning their hooded jackets, this time they had twenty police officers accompanying them in four sedans with tinted windows. On a dark, empty side road they changed from the cars into the trailer of an eighteen-wheeler and finished the journey, catching up to a convoy of unsuspecting truckers with which they blended nicely.
Sam had brought along a transistor radio. When a news bulletin interrupted to say that the jury had just delivered the verdict on the Givanti trial, he quieted everyone.
Twenty men held their breath collectively as the anchor’s voice said, “Givanti was found guilty on both charges …”
A loud cheer of approval sounded throughout the dark trailer, with each man patting another on the back, but Clint was quiet. Givanti had been found guilty because of his testimony, but somehow he didn’t feel that the nightmare was over. Somehow it just seemed to be entering a new phase.
Sherry stepped out of the bath and pulled Clint’s robe around her. He was on his way back to her, and she wasn’t going to think about the fact that he might not make it.
Quietly, she padded into the bedroom and got dressed, then went down and began to busy herself cleaning the house. She wouldn’t think about fear or death tonight, she thought. She wouldn’t think about the possibility that Givanti would go free. And she wouldn’t think about Gary Rivers.
Gary, who had only wanted to protect her. Gary, who had died protecting Clint, after she’d had so little trust in him. Despite his efforts to get her back, in the end, he had given his own life to protect Clint.
It was meant to be, she told herself, lifting her chin. God was in control. She had to keep remembering that.
She wouldn’t feel guilty that she hadn’t argued for Gary when he’d wanted to stay with her. She wouldn’t feel guilty that she had wanted him to go. And—God help her—she wouldn’t feel guilty for being safe and alive when so many others had suffered.
She would simply prepare this house to be a haven for the man she loved. He would need it when he came back to her. He would need peace. He would need love. And he would need for her to understand the sorrow and grief and self-incrimination etched on his heart for the rest of his life.
Just as it was etched on hers.
Madeline’s shouts interrupted her thoughts. She ran into the room with the television. “What happened?”
“The verdict!” she proclaimed. “Givanti was found guilty! It’s all over!”
Sherry smiled, but her smile was less jubilant than Madeline’s. It wasn’t over. Not really. To her, the worst part could be just beginning.
Here they come!” Madeline darted out the door as the headlights of the huge truck bumped down the road toward the house.
Sherry followed her into the night, her heart fluttering. She wouldn’t relax, wouldn’t be able to allay this cold sweat she was in, wouldn’t be able to stop trembling, until she was in Clint’s arms again and could feel that he was safe.
The door to the trailer was opened, and a loud, cocky voice wafted across the breeze singing “Duke of Earl” offkey. “Duke-duke-duke, duke of Earl, duke-duke, duke of Earl …” Sam appeared at the doorway to the trailer, dancing like a fifties’teen idol with an imaginary microphone.
When he saw Madeline, he sped up the tempo and hopped down, and took her in his arms to pirouette her and then do a mock, rock ‘n’roll waltz across the yard. “Duke-duke, duke of Earl …”
Madeline’s giggle rang across the night, lending a note of unreality to the tragedies that had transpired today. It was as if she believed it was all over …
Clint came to the door and jumped out, his eyes immediately connecting with hers. Sherry felt the love and relief in his look, and suddenly the events of the day fled her mind as well. He was here. He had come back.
Through the men milling around them, he came
to her, and she buried herself in his arms.
“I was so afraid,” she choked.
“I was so worried,” he breathed.
“You’re all right,” they said together.
His kiss was ambrosia, warm molten joy, a fragment of heaven. The taste of salt tears brought his head back, and he kissed them away, clutching her like a treasure that he would guard with his life.
“Oh, Clint,” she whispered. “Don’t ever leave me again. Don’t ever let me go. Promise me.”
“I promise, baby,” he said. “I promise.” His eyes narrowed painfully, and he pulled back to look at her. “Sherry, Gary’s dead. He—”
Sherry’s eyes welled into glittering blue halfmoons, and she set her fingers over his lips. “Don’t … don’t say it. I already know.” She caught her breath on a soft sob. “Please. Let it just be us. Let’s not talk about …” Her voice trailed off, and she couldn’t go on.
Clint scooped her up in his arms and pushed through the men and into the house, oblivious to the crowd and the questions and the cheering. She laid her face against his neck and wept quietly, so grateful for his warmth, his compassion, his strength. He swallowed and sought out the source of the slow, sweet violin concerto that filled the room.
“I found a tape player upstairs,” she whispered. “They had Bach.”
“Bach.” The word was murmured in a cracked voice, and his black eyes shone with a luster that would forever brighten her heart. He set her on the couch and sat down next to her. “And a couple of hours ago I thought it would take months for me to feel peace again.”
“For now,” she whispered. “We have it for now.” In her timorous voice was an unspoken plea not to think about the demons of fear and hazard that lurked only a heartbeat away.
Chapter Twenty-Five
The smell of impending rain feathered up on the breeze, and the water seemed restless. The activity inside had settled as each man found a way to make himself useful, and Madeline suddenly found herself outside alone with Sam—that is, as alone as was possible with twenty guards alert for battle.
Sam had danced her to the bank of the lake, the inky water reflecting the clouds in the sky and the partial moon that cast an eerie glow.
“So when do you get to go home?” she asked tentatively, quietly.
“Soon, I hope. I’ll have to go into my apartment with a sandblaster to get rid of the cobwebs.”
“Is it in Shreveport?”
“Yep.”
“I could help. I’m great with cobwebs. I once helped with some of the animation on Charlotte’s Web.”
“I’d like to see it,” Sam said. “Do you do self-portraits?”
Madeline grinned self-consciously and gathered her hair back to keep it from slapping into her face. “A self-portrait seems a little pointless.”
“That all depends on whose self it is,” he said, matching her grin. “I wouldn’t mind having a framed sketch of a pretty face to wake up to every morning.”
She couldn’t believe she was blushing. “Would you settle for a sketch of Khaki Kangaroo?”
He touched her nose, let his finger glide over its tip and settle on her lips. “I said self-portraits. I want your face on my wall.”
Letting her smile fade and her eyes widen, Madeline straightened his collar and looked up into his sterling eyes. “I’ll tell you what. I’ll give you a snapshot, if you’ll give me one of you. That, and a recording of ‘Duke of Earl.'”
Sam’s fatuous grin was all over his face. “Sure. I can make you a copy from my album.”
“No,” she said, her voice lowering. “I want your voice on the tape.”
His smile was incorrigible. “I don’t know about that.”
“No tape, no picture,” she challenged softly.
“I’d rather see the real thing, anyway,” he said. His lips lowered to hers, and as he kissed her, Madeline vowed that this attachment would not end in misery.
Sherry heard the sound of a car coming up the road, and as if the doom she dreaded had at last arrived, she got up and peered through the curtains. Some of the guards met the car. Even in the darkness she could see her father’s large form unfolding from the car. “My dad,” she told Clint.
“Go easy on him, Sherry,” he whispered. “He’s a good man with a tough job. And he loves you.”
Sherry leaned back against the wall, dejection in every line of her body. “Yeah, well, I have a few things to say to him about the way he loves,” she said with soft scorn. “He had no right to manipulate our lives the way he did.”
“He also had no choice. It would have happened whether he had been in charge or not.”
“There were better ways, Clint.” The judgment was uttered on a weary sigh.
Clint strode toward her and threaded his fingers through her hair. “And what were they? I’ve asked myself a million times, weren’t there better ways? I’ve never been able to come up with any.”
Sherry looked out the window again, and Clint’s hand slid to her shoulder. Her father was coming toward the house with the imperial posture of a king returning victoriously from war. She could refuse to talk to him, but she had too much to say. Too much rage to vent, for the war had cost too much. “Well, I have,” she said, and started for the door.
Clint followed her.
Eric Grayson’s seasoned, handsome face lit up at the sight of his daughter. The light died, however, when she stood before him, bitterness and rage battling for a forum in her eyes.
“Hi, honey.”
Sherry propped her elbow on the banister and sent her father a dull, impassive gaze. “You got what you wanted, Dad. I don’t think we have anything more to say to each other.”
Grayson sighed heavily and reached for her. “Honey, I know you’re upset. It’s been trying for all of us.”
“Has it?” Sherry stepped away from her father’s touch. Vicious heat started at her neck and rose to color the rise of her cheekbones. “Did you get stabbed? Did anyone try to blow you up? Did you have to give up eight months of your life for a cause?”
“Sherry, you have to under—”
“Did anyone lie to you, and tell you that the person you love most in the world just decided he didn’t want you anymore and took off for new horizons?”
“I did what I thought was best. I followed my judgment.”
“Well, your judgment stinks!” Her voice hurled hoarsely across the room, knocking the wind from the older man. His face seemed to turn gray under her look.
“Don’t you think I paid?”
“No. I think you gained a lot more than we lost. I think you’re the hero now. You got your conviction. So what if people had to die for it?”
“A lot more people might have died if I hadn’t! Including my daughter!”
She came toward him, her eyes like daggers. “Your daughter did die! When she thought the man she was going to marry had abandoned her. When she thought he was a criminal to run from. When she found out that his life might not last another day. I’m still dying, Dad! Because I know that whoever tried to blow Clint up in that ambulance today is probably not going to give up until he succeeds. Was your conviction worth it, Dad? Was it?”
“Sherry, stop it!” Clint’s order rang out, slicing through her anger. “No one forced me to be a witness. If you have to lash out at someone, lash out at me for seeing what I saw. Lash out at Paul for making a mess of all our lives. Lash out at Givanti for killing Anderson. But don’t lash out at your father for being put in the position of having to do his job. If he’d handled it any other way, one or both of us might be dead right now. You know it and I know it!”
Sherry clutched her head. “It’s such a mess!” Her voice broke, and she started for the door. “I just want to get away from it. I just want it to end!”
Sherry burst out into the night, leaving the two men behind. She didn’t want a moment alone, she realized as she saw Madeline and Sam beside the water and went the other way. She wanted a moment without fear, a
moment with laughter, a moment with no bitterness. There was no place to go in this madness. No place where they weren’t watched and stalked and threatened. No place without cops and guns and memories.
Clint caught up to her and swung her around to him. “Calm down, baby. Calm down!”
She jerked away from him, intent on heading for the boat house where no one could watch her fall apart. Clint followed her into the musty structure and closed the door behind him. He flicked on the light, a dim yellow lantern attached to a beam on the ceiling, making the room into a graveyard of tall, deep shadows.
She set her foot on one of the boats docked there, bobbing with a calming rhythm that made her lower her voice. “I can’t be calm anymore, Clint. I’m so angry. I’ve never been so angry.” She turned around and leaned over a tackle box set on a table against the wall. “I feel used and manipulated and so scared right now. It’s his fault, and I can’t sit still and listen to how he did the honorable thing.”
“What would you have done?” Clint’s voice was stern. Sherry breathed a great sigh and pulled up onto the stool beside the table. The water made a lapping noise against the boats, and a soft breeze blew in from the open wall facing the water, ruffling her hair. Behind her was a workbench, covered with tools and fishing poles. Someone actually came to this lake house to find peace and relaxation, she mused. “I’m asking you a question, Sherry. What would you have done if you were the U.S. attorney and your daughter’s fiancé came to you with what I saw?”
“I don’t know,” she said quietly.
“That’s too easy, babe. I want you to think about it. I want you to see that you would have done the same thing.”
“I wouldn’t have.”
“Okay, let’s see. Your daughter’s fiancé comes to you and says he saw a local businessman commit murder. So you contact the police. Would you do that?”