Chasing Venus (24 page)

She pulled open the
door and tried not to appear breathless, for exertion or any other reason.
 
“Hi.”

“Hi.”
 
Reid stepped inside, dipping his head
slightly as he always did as if the lintel were too low for him to enter at his
full height.
 
He did dwarf the
space, that was true, so much so that whenever he left, an enormous black hole
replaced him, a chasm Sheila could never quite fill.

He handed her a
delicate paper bag from her favorite bakery.
 
“Macaroons,” he explained.
 
“I know you like them.”

“Thank you.”
 
She bustled into the kitchen to set them
on a plate.
 
In happier times she’d
handfed him a few.
 
She doubted it
would come to that this afternoon, though deep inside a tiny hope stirred.
 
He’d brought her sweets and he was
visiting on a weekend, with no big work project in the offing.
 
“Tea?” she called over her shoulder.

“Please.
 
Darjeeling,” he added, which did annoy
her slightly, for by now he should know she’d memorized all his favorites.

He was on the loveseat
when she returned, sitting the way men do, leaning forward with their knees far
apart and their forearms resting on their thighs.
 
He accepted the cup and saucer she
offered but didn’t meet her eyes or say a word.
 
She knew instantly that he was gearing
up to something, and her hope snuck out from its cave and raised its head
toward the sun.
 
She folded her legs
beneath her on a big overstuffed chair and remained silent, sipping her own
tea.

Finally he spoke.
 
“I’ve been thinking about something and
I want to ask you about it.”

“Sure.”

“It’s a hypothetical
question.”

She gestured as if to
say
No problem
.
 
Indeed that was how she felt, especially
if the hypothetical were something like:
If
I were to ask you to try again with me, might you consider it?
 
But quite a different series of words
soon flowed from his mouth.

“What would you do if
you found out that someone on our staff was harboring a fugitive?”

She frowned.
 
“What would I do?
 
But why in the world would anybody do
such a thing?”

 
“Let’s not get into that just yet.
 
Let’s talk about what you would do in
such a situation.
 
I mean, can you
imagine any scenario where such a thing might be understandable?”

“No.”
 
She set down her cup and saucer with a
clatter.
 
“Somebody on the show
harboring a fugitive?
 
What would
give them the right?”

“Well, imagine there
was proof that the fugitive was innocent.”

“Proof the authorities
didn’t have?”

Reid nodded as if
pleased by her progress.
 
“Yes,
exactly.”

“Well then maybe that
proof should be given to the authorities so the fugitive wouldn’t be wanted
anymore.”

His expression of
approval faded.

She went on.
 
“I can’t see why it would ever make
sense.
 
What if something like that
got out, that one of us was sheltering a wanted criminal?
 
Our credibility would be shot.
 
It would go against everything
Crimewatch
stands for.
 
It would jeopardize everything we’ve
built.”

“But isn’t
Crimewatch
all about helping
victims?
 
And isn’t somebody who’s
unfairly accused a victim?”
 
Reid
rose from the couch and began to pace her living room as if it were a court of
law.

Sheila had heard this
opening statement before, though, and didn’t really care to hear it again.
 
Particularly when she had hoped for a
declaration of an entirely different sort.
 
She let out a frustrated breath.
 
“Why are you bringing this up now
anyway?
 
I don’t get it.”

He shrugged, though he
didn’t seem nonchalant.
 
“I just
wanted to know what you’d think.”

“Why now all of a
sudden?”

He was silent.
 
Then, “But do you agree with me?
 
That, bottom line, the most important
purpose of
Crimewatch
is to help
victims?”

She threw out her
hands.
 
“This is ridiculous, all
this hypothetical talk.
 
Reid, we do
help victims but we also capture criminals.
 
And it’s not ours to decide that
somebody isn’t a criminal when the police say that they are.”

She stopped, and heard
her own words float in her apartment’s patchouli-scented air.
 
It’s
not ours to decide that somebody isn’t a criminal when the police say that they
are.
 
She stared at Reid, who
met her gaze.
 
Who didn’t blink, who
didn’t deny, who did nothing but stare back.

Her hand flew to her
throat as puzzle pieces slid into place in her mind, finally creating a picture
that made sense.
 
“You didn’t.
 
You aren’t.”

He moved closer.
 
“I need your help, Sheila.”

She unfolded herself
from the chair, her heart pounding an erratic rhythm.
 
“How long has this been going on?”

He waved a dismissive
hand.
 
“All that matters is that we
step up and help someone who is being victimized.
 
It’s what we do,” he reiterated.

She turned away.
 
She got it now, why he’d been acting so
oddly.
 
Going AWOL.
 
Delaying shoots.
 
And no doubt this also accounted for how
distracted he’d been, how he kept getting a faraway look in his eyes when he
was unaware that she was watching.

Of course, he was oblivious
to her much more than she liked.
 
And maybe lately it was because of a dangerous fascination he’d
developed for a woman who was an accused killer.
 
While he passed over Sheila Banerjee,
Sheila who loved him, Sheila who would never hurt a fly.

She shook her head,
anger mixing with disappointment spiced with fear.
 
“You’re throwing away everything we’ve
worked so hard for.
 
For years,
Reid.
 
Do you remember how tough it
was in the beginning, when we hadn’t help catch anybody yet and most people
thought we never would?
 
And two
years ago, when
Crimewatch
came so
close to getting cancelled?”
 
She
balled her hands into fists to try to keep them from trembling.
 
“But we always survived.
 
This, though, this could kill us.
 
If this gets out, your reputation would
be mud.
 
Viewers would lose every
bit of faith they ever had in you.”

His expression was
fierce.
 
“They’d have greater faith
in me once they understood the whole story.
 
They’d know I did as much as I possibly
could to help an innocent victim.”

Several phrases came to
Sheila’s mind to describe Annette Rowell but “innocent victim” wasn’t one of
them.
 
Instead she felt like the
victim here, her work, her reputation on the line because this man was being
hoodwinked by a woman who, in the space of a few weeks, had stolen his heart as
well as his common sense.
 
The
realization cut her like a blade.

“Reid, you’re
destroying the show.
 
You’re
destroying yourself.”
 
All the
months, the years of thwarted love gathered like soldiers behind her, pushing
her toward a front line from which she couldn’t retreat.
 
“And you, you’re the one doing it.
 
For some—”
 
She threw out her hand, searching for an
appropriately damning epithet.
 
“—murderous slut who’s convinced you she’s as pure as the driven
snow.
 
Honestly, how much of an
idiot can you be?”

She would not wait for
an answer.
 
Nor would she stand by
and watch him destroy everything they’d both worked so hard for.
 
She spun on her heels and headed for the
phone.

*

Annie, strolling, did
her best to blend in with the crowd.
 
The rational part of her brain knew she did not stand out among the
runners, hikers, and dog walkers enjoying a Saturday afternoon on Runyon
Canyon, a chaparral-covered hillside a few miles west of the Hollywood
sign.
 
Yet with her
blonded
hair, unfamiliar makeup, and new Gap jeans, she
felt like a neon advertisement screaming
Look
at Me!

Reid had left her off
an hour before at the Mulholland Drive entrance to the park.
 
“Just hang out.
 
Hike, take in the view, do what
everybody else is doing.
 
Don’t take
off your cap and don’t talk to anybody unless you have to.
 
I take a walk there every once in a
while so nobody will think it’s odd when I show up.
 
If I’m not at the overlook by seven, you
know what to do.”

Please let Reid show up
.
 
Annie walked on, tugging on the bill of her baseball cap and mouthing a
silent prayer to any and all angels keeping watch over lone women being
unjustly accused.

Though at the moment
she couldn’t care less about it, she forced herself to look at the vista that
the overlook afforded.
 
The Los
Angeles basin sprawled obscenely, a gaudy metropolis of low-slung white and
beige and gray buildings interspersed with the occasional six-story-tall
billboard.
 
Late afternoon sun
glinted off the rooftops through a shimmering layer of haze.
 
In the far distance she could see the
ocean, and the soft mound of Catalina Island.

She glanced at her
watch and tried to keep a grip on her nerves.
 
5:07 PM.
 
Reid was due within two hours.

She understood the
strategy he had mapped out.
 
It was
risky but there was risk whatever they did.
 
She agreed that she couldn’t simply stay
put while he approached his colleague Sheila.
 
If Sheila decided to blow the whistle,
SWAT teams would descend on Reid’s home and truck and office and Annie would be
done for.
 
This way at least Annie
had a chance to escape.

She had to wonder about
Sheila.
 
Reid had been tight-lipped
about her.
 
All he’d divulged was
that they’d worked together from
Crimewatch
’s
pilot episode and that he trusted her to come through for him.
 
Annie didn’t care to probe how that deep
trust might have been forged.
 
Clearly the two of them shared a powerful bond if he was willing to
confide in her on a matter of this magnitude.

Annie was allowing
herself a morbid interlude in which to imagine just how intimate Reid and
Sheila’s connection might be when she noticed that someone was standing at her
left staring at her profile.

It was a young
man.
 
She looked toward her right,
intending to ignore him.

Then he spoke.
 
“That baseball cap isn’t working.”

She forced herself not
to react.
 
She had a vision of him
pointing at her face screaming
You! You!
You’re the killer!
—after which she’d be wrestled to the ground by an
irate mob.

“I’d rather be alone,
if you don’t mind,” she said, still looking away.

“No such luck.
 
I know who you are.”

Sheila had barely
grabbed up the kitchen phone when Reid was suddenly beside her.
 
He lay his hand over hers and forced her
to push the receiver back into its cradle.
 
“Sheila, listen to me.”

His voice was soothing
but she was too enraged to be lulled.
 
“No.”
 
She tried to shake him
off but he had her by the shoulders now, he was holding her back against that
body of his, he was calling up all the memories she treasured, the fantasies
she still held dear.
 
Still in his
arms, she twisted around.
 
Rage rose
within her like a geyser, loosening her tongue.
 
“Are you sleeping with that woman?”

Apparently she’d
shocked him, for his eyes flew open and he let her go.
 
“What?”

“You heard me.”

She thought for sure he
wouldn’t answer, and part of her wasn’t really sure she wanted him to, but then
he looked away and said, as if to himself, “I guess you do have the right to
ask that question, since you need to know that I’m thinking clearly about all
this.”
 
Then he looked again at
her.
 
“No, I am not.”

It felt like a small
victory.
 
Annette Rowell had not
gotten that out of him at least.
 
In
that regard, if in no other, she and that manipulator were on a level field.