Secret Lives (51 page)

“No.”

“See? If he were a child molester, he
wouldn't be able to help himself. If the opportunity is there, he
has to take it.” Sam's voice rose and beads of perspiration dotted
his forehead. He stood up abruptly and paced to the sink and back
again. “It's like a drug addict. A force outside himself takes over
and he's helpless to stop it.”

“But there can be isolated incidents, can't
there? I mean, he may have hurt Bliss but would never—”

Sam slammed his fist into the table and she
jumped. “He did not hurt Bliss.”

Eden leaned away from him. She felt a little
fear. Irrational. Still, she wished Kyle and Lou were home.

“I've got to be everything to Bliss now,” Sam
said, pacing again. “Uncle and father. Jeff is useless. I can't
stand the sight of him. He and Sharon include us in a lot of things
for Bliss's sake—we're going over there for a barbecue tomorrow
night—and I have to sit there and watch his smug face as he enjoys
everything Ben worked for and no longer has.” Sam pulled his
handkerchief from his pants pocket again and mopped at his
forehead. Then he turned to face Eden, hands on his hips. “And
you've certainly done a lot for Ben, haven't you? With your
goddamned public condemnation of him?”

“Please lower your voice. I don't want Cassie
to—”

Sam's face was flushed; the tendons stood out
in his neck. “It would have been bad enough if you'd just broken up
with him. He was so hung up on you that that would have devastated
him quite enough. But to make him look like a liar, a user, when
the truth is, you used him, right? I had your number all along. The
superstar needed some entertainment while she was stuck out here in
the country. He was good-looking, good in bed. You could—”

She stood up quickly, nearly knocking over
her chair. “I think you'd better go.”

He looked at her, stunned, as though he'd
surprised himself with his words. “God, I'm sorry.” He shook his
head tiredly. “I'm very sorry. It's just that I don't see what's
left for him.”

She thought of telling him he'd better worry
about himself for a while. He seemed close to the breaking point.
But she knew her concern would not be welcome.

He glanced toward the living room. “Let me
see that dollhouse before I go,” he said.

She stood trembling against the sink,
listening to Sam chat with Cassie. Hearing his voice from the next
room, she would have sworn he was Ben. In a moment he was back in
the kitchen. He opened the door for himself, and the sound of
driving rain filled the room. He turned to look at her one last
time.

“I'm angry with you because I'm angry with
myself, Eden. You're not the only person in this room who's
betrayed Ben. Think about that, will you?”

She frowned as she watched his car disappear
behind the curtain of rain. Then she walked into the living room,
where Cassie had every stick of furniture out of the dollhouse and
on the floor.

“Let's put this away, Cassie,” she said. “We
need to straighten up before Aunt Lou and Uncle Kyle get home.”

Cassie was quiet as she knelt in front of the
dollhouse, helping Eden move the furniture inside the little rooms.
“I don't like Ben's brother,” she said after a few minutes of
silence.

Eden could certainly understand that. Sam was
more than a little scary. She wondered what he was like with a
fragile child like Bliss. “Why not, honey?” she asked.

“He's creepy. And he touched me in a bad way,
Mom.”

She looked up indignantly and Eden's hands
turned to ice.

“What do you mean, he touched you in a bad
way?”

“He pinched my bottom.”

“He did?” Calm, Eden, calm. “When did he do
that?”

Cassie pushed the little sofa against the
back wall of the living room, the room Ben had wallpapered with
tiny yellow daisies. “When he was going away he did it with his
stupid old hand.”

Eden clapped her hand over her own mouth. “Oh
my God,” she said. “Oh my God.”

Cassie looked frightened. She leaned over to
hug her mother. “I'm sorry, Mommy.”

“No,” Eden said. “You have nothing to be
sorry about. You're such a good girl to tell me.”

You're not the only person in this room who's
betrayed Ben.

“You're so smart to know a bad touch from a
good one.”

Think about that, will you?

She called Maggie DeMarco to ask her to watch
Cassie for a while. Then she looked up the address she needed in
Kyle's phone book. She left a note for Lou and Kyle, ran with
Cassie through the rain to her car, and headed out of Lynch
Hollow.

It was dark and the rain had finally let up
by the time she found the house. She recognized it from the picture
Ben had shown her, but it was more imposing in reality, with its
long, clean lines and huge angular windows. She parked the car in
the street and walked up the curved sidewalk to the front door.
Although she'd spent the last few hours rehearsing what she would
say, she was nervous.

She knew that the woman who answered her
knock was Sharon, although her hair was shorter and blonder than in
the pictures Eden had seen of her. Sharon obviously recognized her
as well. She stood behind the screen door, lips pursed.

“What are you doing here?” she asked.

“I need to talk to you, Sharon.”

“You've been intrusive enough already. That
whole ruse about visiting Bliss's classroom—I thought that was so
nice, Eden Riley taking time out to read to a bunch of little
kids—until I found out that you were seeing Ben. He put you up to
it, didn't he? Sent you to spy on her? He just can't leave her
alone.”

“No, Sharon, it was my idea. Please give me a
few minutes. It's very important.”

Sharon glanced behind her, then opened the
screen door and stepped out onto the front steps. She was very
pretty, her skin pale and lightly freckled. She folded her arms
across her chest and looked stonily at Eden.

“I may be out of place,” Eden began, “but I
have to tell you that I think it was Sam who hurt Bliss.”

Sharon laughed. “Oh, brother. Now you're
really reaching. I thought you were through with Ben? The paper
said he lied to you and—”

“I'm the one who lied. I lied to the press to
save my own skin. And I was beginning to worry that he might be
guilty. But today Sam came to see me.”

“Does Sam really strike you as an
abuser?”

“Did Ben strike you as one?”

Sharon's expression flattened. “I've gotten
used to thinking of him that way.”

“Sam touched my daughter.”

“What do you mean?”

“She told me he pinched her bottom.”

“Maybe she…misinterpreted.”

“Maybe Bliss misinterpreted.”

Sharon was quiet and Eden continued. “He told
me he's betrayed Ben. What else could he mean?”

“He means he feels guilty he hasn't been able
to help him. It plagues him that he can't do more.”

“Maybe that's not all he feels guilty about,
Sharon. I think he wanted me to figure this out. He gave me enough
clues, and he said he was absolutely certain it wasn't Ben. How
else could he be so sure?”

Sharon shrugged. “He adores Ben. He's never
been able to accept the fact that his own brother could do
something like that.”

“When I saw Bliss at Green Gables she told me
her daddy still visits her at night sometimes.”

“She's dreaming.”

“I think Sam is still abusing her.”

Even in the dim light, Eden could see
Sharon's cheeks flame. “You really have no right to come here and…”
Sharon brushed her hair from her forehead and looked out toward the
street. Eden could see her mind working. “Ben has got to be
guilty,” Sharon said. “If he's not…I couldn't live with the
knowledge that he's paid so much for something he didn't do.”

A man appeared at the screen door. He was
very tall and broad and his hair was red, something Eden had not
expected in Jeff. “Everything all right out here?” he asked.

“Yes, Jeff. I'll be in in a minute.” Sharon
waited until Jeff had walked away from the door. “How is Ben?” she
asked, and the tone of her voice told Eden that she had once loved
Ben very much. Eden felt like crying again. Everyone had lost
something in this game, not just Ben and his daughter.

“I haven't seen him in a few days,” she said.
“But my uncle says he's not good. He's depressed.” Eden looked up
at the house. “He told me the two of you designed this house.”

“Yes.”

“Right now he lives in a cabin about the size
of your garage. With no air-conditioning or—”

Sharon narrowed her eyes. “Did he ask you to
come here?”

“He doesn't know any of this, Sharon. He
doesn't want to see me. This really has nothing to do with Ben. I'm
here because I'm a mother too and if someone thought my child was
in danger, I'd want them to tell me. Sam said he was coming over
here tomorrow night. If I were you, I wouldn't leave him alone with
Bliss.”

–
45–

Ben was just outside Annapolis and no closer
to figuring out why Sharon wanted to see him than he'd been when he
left the cabin. She'd called him just as he got in from the site to
eat lunch. She was crying on the phone, crying so hard he could
barely understand her, and he thought something must have happened
to Bliss. “Bliss is all right,” she reassured him. “That isn't it.”
But she needed to see him. Right away. He told her he could be
there by three—it was nearly that now—and asked where he should
meet her. He tensed when she said to come to the house.

“Will Bliss be there?” he asked.

“No. I'll make sure she's out.”

He was afraid to see the house, afraid of the
feelings it would elicit in him. He turned now onto Gracey Court
and pulled over to the side of the road. He could see the house
from here, set in a curve about a quarter mile from his truck.
They'd looked for that lot for over a year. He could still remember
their excitement when they first set eyes on the long, gentle arc
of land backing to the thick blue-green forest and the river
beyond. The house looked the same, the natural wood a rich brown.
Sharon's blue Accord was in the driveway. He turned his pickup back
onto the road and drove slowly toward his old home.

Sharon answered the door. Her eyes were
puffy, cheeks wet. She was a reluctant weeper and it frightened him
to see this much pain in her face.

She reached for him. “Ben.” Her arms circled
his neck and he held her, his heart pounding. It was Bliss. It had
to be Bliss. Something horrible had happened that Sharon hadn't
wanted to tell him over the phone.

“Is she alive?” he asked. “Sharon, please,
just tell me she's alive.”

“Yes, yes, she's all right.” She moved away
from him and in that moment he saw the stretch of his pool in the
backyard through the glassed living room wall, the lush curtain of
pines behind it.

“Sit down, Ben. Do you want something to
drink?”

“No. I want you to talk to me.”

She sat at the opposite end of the sofa, as
pale, as fragile-looking as he'd ever seen her. She put her hand
over her mouth. “I know you're innocent,” she said.

“It was Jeff,” he said, feeling a surge of
fresh hatred for the man who'd taken his place.

“No.” She shook her head and one tear, then
another, slipped down her cheek. “I don't know how to tell you
this, but…It was Sam, Ben.”

Ben laughed. “Oh, come on.”

Sharon moved closer to him and rested a cold
hand on his arm. “We set him up last night,” she said. “He and Jen
came over for the evening, and after Bliss went to bed Jen and I
went shopping for baby clothes. Jeff told Sam he had to run to the
store. But he didn't go. Instead he watched Bliss's room through
her window, and when Sam went in Jeff went back in the house and
confronted him. At first Sam said he was just checking on her, but
then he broke down and admit-ted it had been him all along. The
police took him in last night.”

Ben stared at her as an icy chill settled
into his blood. “There must be a mistake,” he said.

Sharon kneaded her long pale hands together
in her lap. “I'm the one who made the mistake when I didn't believe
you. Oh God, Ben, I'm so sorry.”

“This is crazy.” He stood up, running his
hands through his hair. “Why would you suspect him in the first
place? Why would you even think to set him up?”

“Eden Riley figured it out.”

“What?”

“Something Sam said to her made her
suspicious. She thought he wanted to get caught. She came to warn
me. I thought at first that you'd put her up to it.”

Ben closed his eyes, pressed his fingers to
his temples. Eden had come here. She'd seen his house, talked to
Sharon. But she hadn't spoken to him.

“Maybe Sam just said he did it to get the
heat off me,” he said.

Sharon shook her head. “He's sick, Ben. Jen
is devastated. The baby would have been here in a few months, and
this will put an end to that.”

Ben sat down again. He'd thought he knew his
small world and all its players, whom he could trust and whom he
couldn't. This made no sense at all.

“I can't believe Sam would let me go through
all this. He let me go to jail and lose my job He looked at Sharon.
“And my marriage.” He knew he sounded childlike, hurt and
bewildered, and when Sharon moved next to him and wrapped her arms
around him he couldn't stop himself from letting out the tears.

“All this morning I've been thinking about
what you've lost,” Sharon said. “I can't stand it, Ben. I don't
know how I can ever make it up to you. I never stopped loving you,
though I felt guilty. I thought, what's wrong with me that I can
still love this man who hurt my daughter?”

He pulled away from her. “Our daughter, and I
never hurt her. I want to see her. Where is she?”

“They won't let you see her yet. She went to
her counselor this morning, who said they have to prepare her a
little more before she sees you.”