Mortal Fear (45 page)

And hes gone.

If there is one
. A sudden memory sends a chill across the back of my neck. I am sitting in the New Orleans police station telling the FBI that I know who the killer is: David M. Strobekker. And I have the strangest feeling that this New York doctor Baxter thinks hes about to arrest or take out will turn out to be as dead as Strobekker was. But of course he cant be.

Baxter said they have him under surveillance.

Blackness explodes into light and pain, a burst of brightness cored with shimmering dark. I spring up from something soft, sure Im in a nightmare until the light resolves into a figure standing in a doorway with one hand on a light switch.

Drewe.

Are you okay? she asks.

I rub my fingers hard through my hair to get the blood flowing. Im on the den couch again. I guess I fell asleep. I dont even remember how I got in here.

She smiles tightly and moves down the hall toward the kitchen. Still disoriented, I follow and sit down at the table. Drewe stands at the sink, drinking water from a glass. Theres an aspirin bottle on the counter. With a quick movement she puts it back into the cabinet over the sink.

Headache?

She nods but doesnt speak.

Bad day?

She opens the refrigerator and takes out a diet Dr Pepper. Looking at the drink can, she says, Is Miles still here?

No.

So he wouldnt tell the FBI anything.

Thats not it. The police showed up right after you left this morning. He barely got away.

Shes looking at me now.

It doesnt matter anyway. The FBI called. Theyve identified the killer. Theyve probably arrested him by now.

Really? Marginal interest.

Hes a doctor, just like you guessed.

She nods, looks back down at the Dr Pepper can.

Drewe, whats the matter?

She shakes her head silently.

Drewe?

The sight of my wife bowing her head into her hands to hide tears is something I havent seen in a very long time. I come to my feet, my stomach churning with anxiety. Whats going on? Did somebody die? Is it your parents?

She shakes her head violently.

What then?

She drops her hands from her wet face and stares at me as though pleading for an explanation. Patrick beat up Erin.

What?

Patrick hit Erin! Last night. More than once.

But... why? What happened?

She wont tell me. I stopped by their house on my way out of Jackson. I saw the bruises the second she answered the door.

I cannot think. White-hot rage blots out all reason. Before I know what Im doing, Ive snatched Drewes car keys off the counter and started for the hall.

Where are you going? she asks, grabbing my arm.

To rip that son of a bitch a new asshole.

Harper, dont! Thats not the way!

It isnt?

What would it solve?

He wont hit her anymore.

You dont know that. If I wanted revenge, Id tell Daddy what happened and hed drive to Jackson and blow Patricks head off. Then where would Erin and Holly be?

I stop trying to pull free. Where
is
Holly? Is she okay?

Drewe drops her arm and retreats back into the U of the kitchen. Patrick wouldnt hurt Holly. You know that.

I dont know anything. Where is she?

Home, Im sure.

Is Patrick there too?

I assume hell go there after he finishes his rounds.

Drewe, what the hell is going on?

I dont
know
. They had an argument last night, the worst yet, but she wont say what it was about. All I know is that Erin believes the beating was her fault.

Nothing justifies beating your wife.

Drewe meets my eyes with a piercing gaze. Erin says she deserved it.

How quickly anger can give way to fear. This can only be about one thing.

Harper, she says quietly. I think shes having an affair.

I have stopped breathing. My effort to look normal is wasted. Drewe has turned away and begun poking listlessly through the refrigerator, seemingly oblivious to the thunderclap reaction in me.

Did she tell you that? I ask.

No, but its the only thing that makes sense. We all know how she used to be. A plate of leftover chicken rattles on the counter. The only thing I can guess is that after three years of trying to be faithful, she found she couldnt. What else could make her feel guilty enough to stay with Patrick after he beat her?

You dont want to know
.

Drewe shakes her head again. Still... Patrick is the last man I would expect to lose control over something like that.

I nod like a robot.

Harper....

Jesus
.

I want to ask you something.

I am looking straight into the most vulnerable expression I have ever seen on my wifes face.

Are you sleeping with Erin?

The directness of the question almost breaks my composure. For three years I have prayed this suspicion would never be voiced; now it cleaves the air between us like the blade of a guillotine.

What the hell are you talking about?

Im sorry, she says quickly. You dont have to deny it.

You think I
am
having an affair with her? How can you even ask that?

Drewes face is pale. Its the only thing I can see making Patrick mad enough to hit Erin! Once the thought got into my head, I couldnt make it go away. And you and I havent been making love because of... of me getting off the pill.

Jesus, Drewe! Im not sleeping with your sister.

I know shes attractive. Sexually, I mean

Drewe!

Dont lie to me, Harper. Her lower lip is quivering. Thats all I ask. Just dont lie.

Just dont lie
. How many times have I heard that phrase, and from how many women? Drewe is poised like a teacup on the edge of a table. The slightest touch will shatter her into irrecoverable fragments. When I answer, I enunciate each word, my voice filled with the conviction of an apostle.

Im not sleeping with Erin, Drewe. I wouldnt screw her if she climbed naked into my bed at three in the morning.

Like sunlight burning through fog, belief lights Drewes eyes. She bows her head again and wipes away new tears. God, I dont know what Im saying. I think seeing those bruises just about did me in.

I hesitate, then lean forward and hug her as tightly as I can. Its going to be all right, I murmur, rocking her gently. Theyll get it straightened out.

I dont know. Whatever it is, it may have gone too far.

Please God no
. You cant do anything about it tonight. Why dont you take a Valium or something from your bag? Just climb under the covers and blank your mind.

You know I never take sedatives.

Maybe today rates an exception.

She shakes her head and pulls back enough to look into my eyes. You know what would make me feel better?

What?

If youd sleep with me. Forget about those damned murders and just curl up with me.

I feel about as sleepy as a strung-out addict, but I am not stupid. Thats the best suggestion Ive heard in a
month. Go on and wash your face. Ill be there in a minute.

Shouldnt we eat something?

Ill make some sandwiches and bring them to the bedroom.

She smiles.

As she walks down the hall, I sag back against the counter. For the first time, calling the police after Karins death feels like a mistake. Though I see no connection, it seems that my involvement in the hunt for Brahma somehow accelerated the implosion of Erin and Patricks marriageto the point that I stand here now in fear that my own will not survive the week.

Just dont lie to me
. That line should be added to the Three Biggest Lies in the World. All women say it, but none of them mean it. They
think
they mean it. But what they really mean is that they want there to be nothing for you to have to lie about. More sobering still, this plea forms the rationale for a very dangerous act. Just come clean, says your conscience, confess now, and everything will finally be all right. The way it used to be.

But it wont.

Women are human beings, and its not human nature to forget any more than it is to forgive. Once the soft circuits of human memory are inflamed with carnal images, they can never be erased. More often they grow and metastasize until they take on more passion than mortal bodies could ever experience, and flay the soul of the betrayed with pain as unbearable as any physical torture.

Of course, keeping back a guilty secret has its own consequences, as I know too well. It is a slow poison, and thorough. Yet it does its work primarily on the betrayer. If one bears up under the strain, almost everything can be salvaged.

My reasoning is simple. Every time in my life I ever confessed anything, no good came of it. The truth was known, hallelujah, and everybody was miserable. The lesson was plain: deny, deny, deny. And two minutes ago, when put to the test Ive feared so long, I held true to my belief. I did the best thing for everybody.

So why do I feel like shit?

***

Drewe and I never finished our sandwiches. We never even started them. When I climbed onto the bed with the plate, she pushed aside the covers and without words pulled me under them with her. She was naked, she quickly made me that way, and for the first time in months I had not the slightest suspicion that her desire had anything to do with her quest to become pregnant. All I sensed was a desperate flight from everything conscious, a willful narrowing of the external world, a plunge into the only fire that can truly expunge grief and pain.

Drewe was not Drewe. She was a woman who looked like Drewe, yet moved and urged and cried out without any of the baggage Drewe carries through everyday lifeduty and self-reproach and second-guessing and obligation to familyonly wide green eyes and pale smooth skin and the unruly auburn hair she was born with. All through it, I knew that this intensity so long withheld, this energy repressed, was what I had always been drawn to in her, had believed that I could bring out in time. But I never did. It took the shattering of routine to do it. An eruption of violence and fear into her rigidly defined existence. A shock sufficient to cut her moorings and force her into uncharted water.

And it will not last. For all the power of her latent passion, Drewe is a creature of equilibrium. Even now, her regular breathing fills the room like the sound of an organic clock measuring the half-life of dreams.

Ive rested fitfully, in desultory lapses of consciousness that never quite dissolve into sleep. A while ago, I had an absurd dream. I was a young whale thrashing in the shallows near a volcanic beach, kicking and rolling toward deeper water, yet unable to reach the ledge of the great rock shelf and drop into the blue-black haven of peace and forgetfulness. Im only thankful the air conditioner is holding its own against the night heat.

The ring of the phone stuns me like a klaxon, and I grab for it, hoping to keep it from waking Drewe.

Cole?

Yes. Whos this?

Daniel Baxter.

What is it? You got Brahma?

Brahma?

The killer. The UNSUB.

No. We didnt.

I sit up on the edge of the bed, a strange buzzing in the back of my head. Drewes clock reads two a.m. You missed him?

No, we got the guy we were watching. He was the wrong guy.

But you said you traced the plane.

We did. And it was owned by this doctor. Right identification numbers, everything. Only this plane hasnt been off the ground for six months. This guys a classic doctor. Takes up a new hobby every six months, buys all the best equipment, then gets bored and moves on to the next one. Right now hes into high-tech scuba diving.

Youre sure its the wrong guy?

Absolutely. We nailed him as he was walking up to a house. Turns out he was best man at a wedding inside. His brothers wedding. He had alibis for every single murder. Hes also got one of the best lawyers in New York, and hes already said publicly that hell sue for wrongful arrest.

I dont get it. What explains the plane?

Heres what I think. The UNSUB has his own plane. He wants to use it to get to his killing sites, but he doesnt want it traceable to him. He could try using fake registration number decals, but in real life that kind of stuff never works. So he asks around, and eventually he finds a guy who has the same model plane he does, but doesnt fly much. Like a doctor. Then he finds an out-of-the-way airstrip to house his plane. The first time he takes it there, its already painted with the numbers of this doctors plane. Not only that, hes dummied up a license in the doctors name as well. See? Once the original scene is played, he doesnt have to fake anything. Whenever he goes to that strip, hes Doctor So-and-So, not himself. You there, Cole?

Fully awake now, I speak softly so as not to wake Drewe. I can see that working. But cant you just search airports until you find another Beechcraft with those
numbers? Or trace every sale of that model for the past twenty years?

Were trying now. Im calling because my people say you never faxed us the printouts of your sessions with the killer.

I feel a wave of confusion like the one I felt when Drewe startled me awake in the living room. Jesus, Im sorry. When you told me you practically had the guy, it just knocked out all the tension of the past week. I crashed.