The Heart Has Reasons (42 page)

“Is
that what
you
think?”

Palm
itching with the urge to slap him, she abruptly stood, signaling an end to the
conversation.

Doctor
Harris continued to regard her placidly.  “There’s nothing for you to be
ashamed of.  In times of great emotional turmoil, the body secretes an
excess of adrenaline, which can have the effect of heightening one’s sexual
response.”

“I’d
like you both to leave.”

“Ms.
Santos, I assure you that what you experienced was completely normal.”

“
Now
.”

As
Doctor Harris got to his feet, Jarvis raised a placating hand.  “Ms.
Santos—”

“I
won’t tell you again.”

He
reluctantly stood.  “Very well, we’ll go.  You probably need time to
consider the ramifications of everything we’ve discussed.”

At
the front door, Doctor Harris handed her his card.  “After all you’ve been
through, you’ll likely find yourself suffering the anxiety and depression of
post-traumatic stress disorder.  If you need someone to talk to, please
call me anytime, day or night.”

Like
hell.  Harris was much too perceptive, and she’d already said way too
much.

Jarvis
regarded her solemnly.  “We’ll be in touch.”

“Yeah,
be sure to call me when you catch the
real
kidnapper.”  She slammed
the door in their faces.

Massive
chains draped her shoulders, their ponderous weight dragging her down. 
Letting her eyes close, she wearily leaned her forehead against the door. 
Was she really suffering from some stupid syndrome?  Was that where her
feelings for Chase stemmed from?  Was that why the sex between them had
been so incredibly good?

Outside,
two car doors thumped shut, and an engine started.

Maybe. 
Maybe not.  But she hadn’t been imagining that Chase was an inherently
good person.  He really
was
a good person, albeit a person who had
made a huge mistake.

Harris
claimed that the apparent kindnesses of captors were essentially
self-serving.  Had that been the case with Chase?  Had he pretended
to be a nice guy in order to control her?  Had she simply imagined his
compassion?  Had she so desperately wanted him to be a decent human being
that she’d fostered the characteristic on him when it didn’t really exist?

Had
he been laughing at her gullibility all along?

No,
he hadn’t.  From their very first night together, it’d been clear he was
attracted to her.  So why hadn’t he used his kindness and charm to seduce
her, instead of displaying such remarkable self-restraint? 

And
above all, after he’d turned her over to Sparrow, why had he taken such a risk
in coming back?

Jarvis
and Harris could both go screw themselves.  They were wrong about Chase,
and they were wrong about her.

But
what if they weren’t?

* * * * *

As Agent Harris steered the vehicle away
from the curb, Jarvis remarked, “Well, doctor, that went well.”

“I
warned you she’d be resistant to accepting.  They always are, at first.”

Jarvis
scrutinized the middle class neighborhood.  The slightly run-down, but carefully
tended small homes presided over neatly landscaped, postage-stamp front
lawns.  Tidy beds of bright annuals and luscious roses created splashes of
color.  The vivid, papery blossoms of bougainvilleas embellished several
small porches.  Along the street, Spanish moss dripped from the sinuous
branches of oaks.

“Doctor,
in your opinion, who seduced whom?”

Harris
kept his eyes on the road.  “Hard to say.  But Ms. Santos certainly
would have realized the advantage
in having her
abductor develop an emotional attachment to her.”

When
his cell rang, Jarvis glanced at the caller ID before flipping the phone
open.  “Emily, I could use some good news about now.”

One
of the many things he appreciated about Emily Sengupta was that she never
wasted time on idle chitchat.  “There’s a pharmacy just half a fucking
block from the alley where the altercation occurred.”

“Please
tell me they have security cameras, and that they were working that day.”

“Oh,
they were working just fine.  Unfortunately, O’Malley’s not on any of the
footage.”

Jarvis
bit back a curse.  “I’m hoping there’s a
but
.”

“
But
,
at approximately the same time the altercation took place, a vagrant made a
purchase from the pharmacist.”

“Let
me guess.  An asthma inhaler?”

“You
got it.  O’Malley’s one slick son-of-a-bitch.”

“So
your trip wasn’t a total waste of time.  Have you put a BOLO on the
vagrant?”

“No
need.  I walked out the pharmacy door and, lo and behold, there he was,
holding up the wall of the adjacent liquor store.”

“Hallelujah. 
Please
tell me he ID’ed O’Malley.”

“In
regards to buying the inhaler, his memory was perfectly intact.  But when
it came to remembering who sent him in for it, he initially drew a complete
blank.  Even though I came down hard on him, he stubbornly stuck to his
claim of amnesia.  But when I changed tactics and offered him a twenty,
his memory suddenly returned.”

Jarvis
released the breath he’d been holding.  “You did well, Emily.”

“You
think so?  Guess what our suspect looks like.  He’s a five-fucking-foot-tall
Mexican.”

Despite
his frustration, Jarvis was unable to suppress a chuckle.  “I assume you
weren’t forthcoming with the twenty.”

“Fuck
no.  When I threatened to arrest him for lying to a federal officer, his
mood perked right up.  Apparently these bums look forward to going to jail
so they can get a shower and some clean clothes.”

“Not
to mention three hots and a cot.  Did you arrest him?”

“And
have him befoul the backseat of my vehicle?  I sent him on his merry
fucking way.  What the hell is it with O’Malley that everyone’s willing to
lie for him?”

“Keep
me apprised, Emily.”

As
he disconnected, Harris glanced over at him.  “I take it that wasn’t good
news.”

“That
big thud you heard?  That was us hitting yet another brick wall.”

* * * * *

Larissa stood before the window and
watched the two FBI agents drive off in a black, late-model SUV.  They’d
barely rounded the corner when a very large van with a satellite dish on top
and the logo of a local news station emblazoned on the side rumbled to a stop just
behind her Corolla.

She
scrambled back from the window.  It was too late to close the blinds on
the front-facing windows, but she still had time to close the blinds and
curtains on the sides and rear of the house.

Two
years ago, after the police had found the body of the murdered doctor,
reporters had swarmed her.  She’d politely answered all their questions,
regardless of how moronic, and had even been a guest on a local morning
television show.  The brief notoriety had brought her a multitude of new customers
at a time when, just starting out as a hair stylist, she’d needed the business,
so she hadn’t really minded the intrusions into her privacy.

Of
course, there’d been very little to tell.  After all, she’d simply
awakened to shoot an intruder, who’d then fled.  End of story, from her
point of view.  In a little over a week, the media had forgotten her.

She
closed the curtains on the west side of the house.  As she stepped into
the kitchen, the doorbell chimed.

But
now there was a lot more to the story.  Not only had a man kidnapped her
from her home, he’d transported her across the country over a period of five
days.  She’d ostensibly killed a serial killer with who-knew-how-many
bodies buried on his porn star aunt’s property.  There were a thousand questions
to be asked and answered and the more she talked the more likely it was that
she’d trip up on her story.   The media’s feeding frenzy might
continue for weeks and the last thing she needed was a glaringly public
spotlight illuminating the darker nooks and crannies of her life.

The
doorbell chimed again.

More
importantly, although the media might misinterpret her silence, they certainly
couldn’t misquote it.

As
she closed the final bedroom curtain, the phone rang.  The caller ID
displayed an unknown number, so she perched on the edge of the bed and
waited.  The phone rang and rang and rang, as nerve-wracking as a fire
alarm while, down the hall, the doorbell chimed insistently.

After
nearly thirty rings, the phone fell silent.  She immediately snatched the
receiver and dialed the salon.  Brendon answered on the second ring.

She
kept her voice just above a whisper.  “Brendon, it’s Larissa.”

“I
was just about to call you.  How’re you feeling this morning?”

“Like
I’ve been run over by a truck.”

“Is
that your doorbell I hear?”

“There’s
a news van here.  I’m pretending I’m not home.”

“I
hope you realize you’re gonna be trapped in your house.”

“Since
I look like I went several rounds with Mike Tyson, I wasn’t planning on going
anywhere.”  The doorbell continued to chime intermittently, and the
phone’s call-waiting feature suddenly beeped.

“Other
than wolves at your door, are you all right?”

She
heaved a great sigh.  “Agent Jarvis was here earlier.”

“The
FBI agent from California?  Are you in trouble for leaving?”

“He
didn’t seem upset about that.  I’d rather not go into detail on the phone,
but he brought a shrink with him.  I got upset and threw them both out.”

“Larissa!”

“I
didn’t appreciate the things they were saying.”

“I
could come by this evening after the salon closes.”

“I’d
like that, but once the reporters know for sure that I’m really home, they’ll
never
leave.”

“Are
they watching the alley?”

“I
don’t think so, since my car’s parked out front.”

“I’ll
pretend I’m visiting Yumiko.  She and I bonded while you were missing, so
I know she won’t mind.  I’ll slip out her back door and into yours.”

“I
never realized you were so cunning.”

“It’s
a skill one develops while still in the closet.  The phone and doorbell
are going to drive you crazy.”

“I’m
going to mute the phone’s ringer so, if you call, leave a message and I’ll get
back to you.  Then I’m disconnecting the doorbell.”

“Do
you know how to do that without getting electrocuted?”

“Who
do you think installed it?”

“You
know, for a beautiful, sexy, and very feminine woman, you’re awfully butch.”

“Thanks. 
That’s the nicest thing anyone’s said to me all day.”

Once
they’d said their goodbyes, she considered what Agent Harris had said about
adrenaline heightening one’s sexual response.  That would certainly
explain why the sex had been the best she’d ever had.  The overload of
adrenaline had simply intensified her response.  Chase hadn’t really been
that good.  The realization brought with it a sense of relief.

Then
her shoulders slumped.  Who the hell was she trying to kid?  The
unhappy truth was that — adrenaline or no adrenaline — Chase
had
been
that good, no question about it.

What
if, despite all her denials, a jury convicted him?  Kavanaugh had said he
could get twenty-five years.  Twenty-five years was nearly her entire
life.  To serve such an enormous amount of time for a stupid freaking
mistake was simply unconceivable.  How old was Chase?  Thirty? 
Thirty-two?  In twenty-five years he’d be nearly sixty.

To
distract herself, she padded  through the depressing gloom of her
apartment, got her toolbox, and went to work on the doorbell.  Once she’d
disconnected the ringer, she finally broke down and turned on the television,
tuning to CNN and keeping the volume barely audible.  Sure enough, the
combination of a serial killer and a porn star was enough to attract the
attention of the national news.

She
muttered a soft “Crap” as her own face gazed back at her from the television,
footage from two years ago.  The male newscaster informed viewers that the
FBI was questioning a ‘person of interest’, but didn’t mention Chase by name.

Her
throat suddenly constricted painfully as a photo of the first identified victim
— a young, pretty brunette who bore an unsettling resemblance to herself —
filled the screen.  Not wanting to hear any grisly details about how the
poor woman had died, she stabbed the OFF button on the remote control.

Swirling
like a whirlpool, despair sucked her down into its black depths.  What
sort of person was she that she could feel so pathetically sorry for herself
while this lovely young woman and several others as well had died at Sparrow’s
hands?