Naked Once More (33 page)

“Don’t exaggerate.” Jacqueline smoothed her ruffled hair. “You were a trifle put out; I can’t really blame you, I shouldn’t have led you on and then slapped you down with a flip remark. But I doubt you would have done anything drastic. Bruised me a little perhaps… Sit down, Paul. I could use that drink now.”

He dropped onto the couch beside her and hid his face in his hands. “I’m sorry. You’re right; I never would have… But you couldn’t know that.” He lowered his hands; the white imprints of his fingers blazed on temples and cheeks before the blood rushed in to erase them. “You think I killed Kathleen.”

“I never said that!”

“She thought…” He couldn’t finish; the words choked him.

“That’s why I came, to discuss what Kathleen thought. You should feel a lot better now that you’ve gotten some of that out of your system,” Jacqueline went on, deliberately ruthless. “Here.” Seizing a bottle at random, she splashed some of its contents into a glass.

“I don’t need that.”

“Maybe you don’t, but I do.” Jacqueline suited the action to the words. “That was a really mean thing you said about my mouth.”

His tight lips relaxed. “You are something else, Jacqueline Kirby. The only thing that’s wrong with your mouth is the verbiage that comes out of it. In all other ways it leaves absolutely nothing to be desired.”

“That’s nice. I’d like to think it was pure lust that made you kiss me, not an insulting attempt to prejudice my opinion of you.”

“Lust had a lot to do with it.” Paul let his head fall back against the cushions. Now that he had let his guard down she could see how tired he looked, gray smudges of sleeplessness under his eyes and sharp shadows framing the bones of his face. “You are a desirable woman, Mrs. Kirby—in your own unique way. And… ‘I have been faithful to thee, Cynara, in my fashion.’ ”

“For seven years?” Jacqueline thought it, but she didn’t say it. For Cynara, read Kathleen, of course. For “in my fashion,” read… anything you like.

“It must have been difficult,” she said. “Especially since you discovered that Kathleen was still alive. How did you find out?”

His eyes closed. The thick, bristly lashes were black in the hollow eye sockets. “The same way you and other strangers found out, I presume,” he said. “She wrote me a letter.”

“I get a lot of letters. From a lot of demented people, a surprising number of whom seem to believe what isn’t true. How do you know it was Kathleen who wrote?”

“Internal evidence.” Paul’s thin lips twisted mockingly, but he did not open his eyes. “I wasn’t always a gardener, you know. I have a degree in history from Duke, and I did editorial work in New York for several years. I know all those technical terms, like ‘internal evidence.’ I suppose you want to see the letter.”

“Not yet. I want something to eat. Or didn’t you bother to prepare a meal? Strangling your guest before dinner does save so on housework.”

Paul opened his eyes. She had not underestimated his intelligence, or the strength of his will; weary amusement, not rage, brightened their gray. “I’m beginning to catch on to your methods, Ms. Kirby. Am I permitted, by the way, to use your first name? Strangling your guest before dinner ought to create a certain aura of familiarity.”

“You can call me Jacqueline, Jake, or Kirby. Anything but Jackie.”

“Thank you.” He lifted himself to his feet with a smooth economy of motion. “Come out to the kitchen. We will proceed in the orderly, rational manner you are endeavoring to promote.”

Like the living room, the kitchen contained the bare minimum of necessary appliances and furniture, but all were of excellent design. Jacqueline sat down at the table, which was already set for a meal, and watched in silence while Paul moved from the stove to the fridge to the table. The main course was a hearty beef stew flavored with wine and spices and topped with biscuits. A salad was the only other dish. Jacqueline tucked into both with her usual appetite, and complimented Paul on his cooking.

“I’m a man of many talents, my dear. I even wrote a book once. How about that?”

“What was it about?”

“It was one of those typical adolescent whines,” Paul said. “Inspired by
Catcher in the Rye
and strongly influenced by Thomas Wolfe. It was a lousy book. But it taught me a lot about writing, and about myself.”

“Then why are you so bitter about the demands of a writer’s profession? You of all people ought to understand—”

“And you, of all people, ought to understand. I was in love with her. I wanted all of her. Every thought in her mind, every moment of her time. I wanted her to leave the lot of them—that greedy swine of a brother, her selfish, demanding mother, her crook of an agent. Even her sisters. Among them they were driving her crazy with their incessant, unending needs. She wasn’t one of your casual hacks, who can dash off a chapter between lunch and tea.”

“If that’s aimed at me, I can accept it,” Jacqueline said equably. “There are writers, and there are people who write for a living. But Jane Austen dashed off paragraphs between visits from her relatives, and they all dumped on dear Aunt Jane.”

“Kathleen wasn’t like that. I was trying to help her.”

“So you dumped another set of demands on her. Is that your idea of love, Paul Spencer—total possession?”

“Spare me the lecture, Jacqueline.”

“I will. Not that you don’t deserve it, but we have more important things to discuss.” Jacqueline pushed her plate away. “That was good. Now. Let’s start with the accidents.”

“I won’t even ask how you found out about them.” Paul leaned back and studied his plate moodily. He had not eaten much. “I tried to use them, you know, for my own purposes. I told her they were signs of increasing stress. I increased the pressure. I wanted her to marry me, leave her family, let me handle her affairs. I thought I had convinced her. Now I realize she only agreed to shut me up—to gain a little peace before she…”

“But you didn’t know that at the time. You still don’t know it.”

“I don’t know anything about anything, Jacqueline. After she disappeared… I went insane, I think. I searched those mountains for weeks. There wasn’t a rock I didn’t move or a thicket I didn’t chop down. Finally I—I ended up in a hospital. Complete breakdown, mental and physical. If you’re looking for a homicidal lunatic, check with the shrink I saw for years afterward.”

“When did you come to the conclusion that someone had killed—or tried to kill—her?” Jacqueline’s voice was deliberately matter-of-fact.

“The psychiatrist said that was part of my sickness. I couldn’t accept the fact that Kathleen found life so unendurable she wanted to leave it, and me. I preferred to believe someone had taken her from me.” Paul leaned forward, lips tight. “I still believe it, Jacqueline. Those accidents were too fortuitous. She wasn’t clumsy or careless; for all her diminutive size, she was a healthy, competent woman. The incidents form a pattern, a pattern that ended in that clearing. Three failed attempts, and a fourth that succeded. Only—only apparently it didn’t. How—”

“We’ll get to that in due course. Why would anyone want to kill Kathleen?”

“That was the doctor’s strongest argument, of course,” Paul admitted. “I couldn’t think of any reason. I still can’t And believe me, I’ve spent seven years trying to find one.”

“What about St. John’s questionable past?”

“He was my favorite suspect, as you might suppose.” Paul’s smile was purely predatory. “For a while I thought I’d just kill him on general principles, he’s such a slimy little toad. But I couldn’t dig up anything particularly damaging. His business career was a joke, as you might expect; he was running one of those mail-order weight-reduction scams, and the postal authorities were closing in on him. I’m pretty sure he was cheating Kathleen too, but in his own way—petty stuff, a little here and a little there. That wouldn’t have bothered her. She was too loyal to her family to turn one of them in, and too savvy to trust St. John with full financial control.”

“Leave that question, then,” Jacqueline ordered. “No motive that anyone can find. She disappeared. The world assumed she had suffered a fatal accident, or had committed suicide. You assumed the killer had succeeded. Seven years later…”

“I got a letter.” Paul’s face reflected the remembered shock of it. “It came the week after the papers announced that you had been chosen to write the sequel. Just seeing her signature on that piece of paper sent me into a tailspin, but my first reaction was that some nut had learned to imitate her handwriting. There are plenty of examples of it kicking around. I had read about people who take on false identities. Hell, the asylums used to be full of them—Napoleon, Hitler, Marie Antoinette.”

“You know one of them,” Jacqueline said.

Paul’s heavy lids lowered. “Jan doesn’t really believe it. It’s a fantasy, something to play with. She… Do you want to know about the letter, or don’t you?”

“Go on.”

“I crumpled it and threw it away. I sat here shaking and swearing.… And then I remembered some of the things it—she—had said. Accusations, mostly. I fished it out of the wastebasket and read it again. One paragraph burned into my mind. ‘Wasn’t it enough that those I trusted should try to take my life? Now they want to take my book as well. No one else can write it. No one else will write it, I’ll see to that.’ ”

“Any of your normal emotionally disturbed people might say that,” Jacqueline remarked. “What convinced you it wasn’t one of them?”

“Any of your normal emotionally disturbed
homicidal
types might say that.” Paul’s heavy brows drew together. “Aren’t you slightly concerned about your own safety? Jan told me about your accidents.”

“All in due time. You don’t want to tell me, do you? Was it something private and personal?”

“It was private. Something that happened between us, something no one else could have known. It has no bearing on what befell Kathleen. But those accidents of yours—”

“Will be discussed at the proper time.” Love words, sweet nothings whispered in the night… Maybe. Jacqueline decided not to press him on that point, at least not now. “So what’s your theory of what happened in that clearing seven years ago?”

“It’s pretty clear, isn’t it? The killer tried again. He or she drugged her and drove her there, then left her to die. Maybe he…” Paul’s throat worked convulsively. “Maybe he shot her or stabbed her, but there was no blood on the seat of the car, and a direct attack of that sort wouldn’t fit the pattern of the other attempts. Only she didn’t die. She had strength enough to strike off into the woods, preferring the dangers that might await her in the wilderness to the certain danger she knew about. I thought then that she had finally collapsed and died, never to be found. Now…”

“She didn’t say, in the letter?”

“No.”

“But there’s only one possibility. She got to a road, or a house, and found help.”

“Don’t look at me. This house wasn’t here then. There was no one living within three miles, even as the crow flies. She could have hitched a ride, I suppose. But why did she conceal her identity? Why didn’t the person who found her tell the world?”

Jacqueline shook her head. “I can think of an infinite variety of possibilities, Paul. But there’s one question you haven’t asked yourself, and it’s the one that casts serious doubt on our theory. After the fourth attempt Kathleen must have known the identity of the killer. Why didn’t she denounce him—or her? Why has she remained hidden all these years?”

“I can think of an infinite variety of possibilities,” Paul said, in wry parody of her own statement. “But surely the most likely answer is that she didn’t know, even then. Suppose she was drugged or knocked unconscious, and then put in the car and driven to the clearing. When she came to her senses—and don’t ask me how that could have happened because I have no idea—all she knew was that the killer had tried again.”

Jacqueline gestured helplessly. “This sort of speculation is a waste of time. She did survive, she did communicate with you—and, I think, with others. So what is she planning to do now? The accidents I have had duplicate hers. Is she capable of committing them?”

“She was the gentlest person I ever knew,” Paul said.

The past tense was significant. Kathleen Darcy might have been incapable of harming a living creature seven years ago. Even Paul was unwilling to commit himself as to what she might have become.

He shifted position, sat up straighter. “You weren’t hurt, Jacqueline.”

“I don’t insist that it was Kathleen who perpetrated those tricks. There are other suspects, including the person who arranged her accidents seven years ago. I think you’re right, Paul. She still doesn’t know who it was. That’s why she has been in hiding and why she remains anonymous. She’s afraid.”

“Don’t you think I know that?” Paul stood up, so suddenly that his chair tipped over and crashed to the floor. “I haven’t slept for a week. She’s afraid of me. Me! I’d give my life to guard her and protect her, and she thinks… But you have no reason to believe me. You wouldn’t tell me where she is.”

“The red spark of madness shone in the depths of his storm-gray eyes. Ara faced him unflinchingly.…” Jacqueline Kirby braced her feet on the floor, ready for a quick getaway. “I don’t know where she is, or whether you are putting on an act. But I’m willing to give you the benefit of the doubt. After all, you refrained from choking me, and I admit there was some provocation.”

“Thanks.” Paul began pacing, up and down the length of the room. “If only there were something I could do! It’s the inactivity that’s driving me out of my mind.”

Jacqueline watched him, torn between sympathy and doubt. There were things he and she could do, singly or together, and an ally of Paul’s caliber would have been invaluable. But she couldn’t risk telling him what she suspected, not when Kathleen Darcy’s life might be the price of a mistake in judgement.

“I’m worried about Jan, too,” Paul said, retracing his frantic steps. “I’ve known about her little fantasy for a long time, we’ve joked about it, in fact. It seemed so harmless. But now I’m beginning to wonder. She called me yesterday after you had talked to her. I’ve never heard her sound like that. It seems to have been your accusation of me that set her off.”