by Angela Hunt
“Hello, luv.” His stubble scrapes her cheek.
“Hello, Dax,” she answers, her voice flat. She allows him to pass, then checks the sidewalk to be sure no paparazzi are hiding in the shrubbery.
“Something smells great,” Timothy calls, heading toward the kitchen. “I hope you didn’t put yourself out for us.”
“No problem.” She closes and locks the front door. “This dish is easy.”
Her dinner—a tossed salad and a cranberry chicken entrée—waits in the middle of the kitchen table, with three plates set on three place mats. She watches, disbelieving, as Dax takes the middle seat. Does the man always expect to be the center of attention?
If the movie star’s choice bothers Timothy, he gives no sign of it. He slides into a chair and sniffs at the chicken. “Smells delicious, Bri. I hate that you went to so much trouble.”
She moves to the cupboard for glasses. “I didn’t mind.” Not for him, at least.
Dax plucks a cherry tomato from the salad bowl and pops it into his mouth. “So.” He grins at her as he chews. “Timothy tells me you’re a lawyer. Any juicy cases lately?”
She forces a smile as she fills three glasses with ice. “I don’t like to bring my work home with me.”
“My girl’s not a gossip,” Timothy says. “And she doesn’t read the tabloids.”
“Then maybe she’ll like me.” Dax laughs, looking to Briley for approval of his joke. “I’m glad you don’t read that trash.”
Now she can die happy. Briley sets a glass in front of Timothy. “What would you like to drink? Tea? Soda?”
“I’ll grab a diet soda from the pantry. Dax will have the same.”
“Right,” Dax says, his British accent much softer than in the movies. “Nothing alcoholic for me—our Tim’s a stickler about such things. When I’m around him, I have to be letter perfect in my sobriety.”
“That’s why you hired me.” Timothy hands him a diet soda. “You wanted someone who would be tough.”
“Yeah, but even a tough guy can have a moment of weakness.” Dax winks at Briley. “Isn’t that right, Bri?”
“It’s Briley,” she corrects him. “And Timothy’s right—if you hired him to do a job, you should be glad he’s conscientious about it.”
“I’m glad, all right. If not for my conscientious sober companion, I’d probably be sitting in a bar, drowning my sorrows and on my way back to rehab.”
Briley pulls two bottles of salad dressing from the refrigerator and sets them on the table, then looks around. Silverware, napkins, dressing, and drinks—has she forgotten anything?
“You’re going to be fine,” Timothy tells Dax, his voice calm as he pours diet soda into his glass. “You just might have to find a few new friends.”
Dax turns wide eyes on him. “I like you a lot, Tim, but I don’t think I can settle into your idea of a social life. People expect to see me out and about with starlets on my arm, not—” he waves his drink toward Briley “—eating home-cooked dinners with bookish lady lawyers.”
Briley freezes behind her chair. She’s reasonably sure she should be offended, but how is she supposed to react?
“Now I’ve done it.” With a wince of phony remorse, Dax pats her hand. “Didn’t mean anything by that, luv. I’m sure you’re a good solicitor and a marvelous cook.”
Briley sinks into her chair, picks up the serving fork, and stabs the entrée. “Timothy, would you please pass me your plate?”
He gives her an apologetic look, then offers her his plate. She drops a chicken breast onto it, then drops another onto Dax’s plate. The movie star stares at the cranberry-glazed meat, then picks up his knife and gives it a tentative poke. Finally, he looks at her. “I’m sorry, but I don’t usually eat this sort of thing. Do you have any sprouts?”
Briley forces a smile. “Are you vegetarian?”
“No. But the things I’m usually served are…leafier, I suppose. And the meat is chopped into little bits.”
“Then why don’t I teach you?” Briley lifts her knife and fork. “This is a knife.” She brandishes the blade before Dax’s startled gaze. “You use it to slice the meat. You use the fork to lift the meat to your mouth. It’s actually a simple procedure.”
Across the table, Timothy muffles a laugh.
“Sorry.” Dax picks up his own silverware. “Didn’t mean to offend.”
As Dax dutifully cuts his meat, Briley eats in silence, resenting the fiasco her dinner is becoming. She and Timothy should be sharing confidential details about their day. She is dying to tell him about her frustrations with Franklin, and she wants to hear about his trials as a celebrity chaperone. She doesn’t want to experience those trials firsthand.
She is about to stand and serve dessert when the doorbell rings. She glances at Timothy. “Are we expecting anyone?”
He shakes his head. “I’m not.”
“That’d be the girls.” Dax swipes at his mouth with his napkin and pushes away from the table. “I gave them the address in case they wanted to drop by.”
Briley watches in amazed horror as the star strides to the front door, flips the dead bolt, and throws the door open. Two young women stand on the porch, a blonde and a brunette, both of them looking as though they have been spray painted with iridescent spandex. They greet Dax with squeals and kisses, then the blonde pulls a bottle of champagne from her bag.
“That’d be my cue,” Timothy says, moving toward the door.
Briley blinks back tears of frustration as the threesome invades her living room. Dax moves to the CD player and changes the radio station from soft rock to rap, then cranks up the volume. Timothy confiscates the bottle of bubbly, but not before the blonde has popped the cork and proclaimed her readiness to party.
Timothy had better check her designer bag—no telling what else she has stashed inside.
Briley turns her back on the living-room rave and focuses on cleaning her kitchen. Her perfect evening has been ruined, all because Timothy doesn’t know how to maintain boundaries between his personal and professional lives. Her father had the same problem—he was always bringing home strays, feeding them at the table, and bedding them down on the sofa. Briley remembers a childhood filled with ringing telephones, urgent summonses, and strangers—one of whom ended up taking her father’s life and reputation.
Her heart has already been broken once. She may not survive if it is shattered.
Chapter Twenty-Six
A do-gooder in a jingling Santa hat stops outside the Division Four interview room and catches Erin’s eye through the reinforced square window. The round-faced woman has been visiting inmates for the past week, distributing travel-size bottles of shampoo, conditioner, and body lotion. A month ago, Erin would have disdained the offer of a one-ounce sample of an off-brand shampoo. Now she’s tempted to stop her interview and beg on her knees before the volunteer’s squeaky cart.
She shakes her head, ruefully and wordlessly explaining that she can’t step out and partake of the Christmas bonanza. She has to sit here and have her psyche analyzed, first by her lawyer’s psychologist, then by the prosecutor’s.
She crosses her arms and shifts her gaze to the petite Asian doctor who has been interviewing her for the past hour. She knows it’s important to cooperate, but though Dr. Pamela Lu is pleasant and professional, her questions are beginning to irritate.
“My childhood?” Erin says. “I’ve already told you about my parents.”
“And now I’d like to talk about you. What do you remember about growing up on the West Side? What was your childhood like?”
Erin lets her gaze rove over the painted cinder-block walls. “I’d say it was fairly normal. I mean, every family has its share of quirks, right?”
The doctor’s left brow shoots skyward. “What were your family’s quirks?”
“Oh…alcoholic mother, deceased father, retarded brother, lonely daughter. No dog, only a couple of stray cats that mostly lived under the house. No cable television, which
meant my cultural education was limited to school and the major networks.”
Dr. Lu scratches on the notepad in her leather folio. “Any regular visitors to the home? Uncles, neighbors, maybe older cousins?”
Erin shakes her head. “Not even an Avon lady. My dad died when I was three, and Mom didn’t stay in touch with her family. I had friends at school, of course.”
Dr. Lu hesitates, then folds her arms on the table and leans forward. “You know you can be honest with me, right? I’m working for your benefit.”
“But you’re preparing a report for the court. So it’s not like what I tell you is confidential.”
“Unless I’m called to testify, I’ll be sharing my opinions with your attorney, not the court. Everything you tell me is attorney-work product and is privileged. Do you understand?”
Sighing, Erin nods.
“Now, I need to know something personal, and you needn’t be worried or embarrassed to admit it. Do you recall any time in your childhood when you might have been touched by an older person in an inappropriate way?”
Erin recoils, arching away from her interviewer. “No.”
“Are you positive? These experiences are often repressed—”
“Look, Doctor, I know what you’re getting at, but I was not molested. Just because I lived in a poor neighborhood doesn’t mean you can assume I was a sexual victim.”
The petite woman stares thoughtfully at Erin, then looks down to make another note. Erin can’t help feeling that she’s somehow disappointed the psychologist.
“Your invisible friend,” Dr. Lu says, moving on. “You told your lawyer about Lisa Marie. Do you still hear from her?”
“From my lawyer?”
“From Lisa Marie.”
A flush heats Erin’s cheeks. “If you’ve talked to my lawyer, then you know I do.”
“Let’s discuss that for a while. When you hear this voice—”
“I never said I heard a voice.”
“How, then, do you know she’s still with you?”
“I dream of her.” Erin looks away, knowing her heated face must be as red as a tomato. “I see and hear her in my dreams, but they’re not like ordinary dreams. It’s usually just her and me, on a swing or maybe sitting across from each other at the kitchen table. That’s when we talk.”
“What does Lisa Marie look like?”
“Like me, I suppose. But she wears her hair shorter.”
“Why?”
“Why does she look like me?”
“Why does she prefer short hair?”
Erin blushes, knowing the doctor must think her dense, dull-witted, or both. But when every word has the potential to shape your future, you have to be careful with what you say. “I…Because Jeff liked long hair, I suspect.”
“Which do you prefer, longer or shorter hair?”
“I really don’t care!” Erin laughs to cover her annoyance. “In this place, it’s safer to have short hair. Nobody can drag you by your hair if there’s nothing to grab on to.”
The psychologist makes another note. “If it’s safer to have short hair, why are you still wearing yours long?”
Erin stares across the table, at once hurt and astounded. “Because I want to get out of here! Because I didn’t kill my husband and I don’t belong in jail.”
The doctor doesn’t seem at all perturbed by Erin’s outburst. “When you talk, what sort of things does Lisa Marie tell you?”
Erin shifts her position. “She used to warn me about Jeffrey, tell me not to get him upset. A couple of times she told me to leave him, but…I couldn’t.”
“Does Lisa Marie ever become angry with you?”
“I don’t know. She used to shout at me, but then she’d calm down and tell me that things were going to be okay. She said she wouldn’t let him hurt me—not if she could help it.”
“And yet Jeffrey did hurt you, didn’t he?”
“Not seriously.”
“You don’t call broken ribs serious?”
“He never hurt me as badly as he could have.” She holds the doctor’s gaze, determined to make her point. “I knew he wouldn’t dare leave any visible marks when we had to be out in public. No black eyes, no broken bones, nothing permanent. He’d have a hard time explaining that to the press.”
“So he…what? How did he abuse you?”
Erin crosses her legs and struggles to get comfortable in the hard plastic chair. “Can we take a break? We’ve been at this a long time.”
“Do you need to use the restroom?”
Erin hesitates. She’d say yes just to get out of this chair, but that’d mean calling a guard, putting her wrists in handcuffs, being escorted to the toilet….
“I think I need to stretch my legs.”
“By all means.” Dr. Lu gestures to the space around the table. “You can talk and walk, if you like.”
Erin stands and faces the door, hoping for a glimpse of the woman in the Santa hat. If she concentrates, maybe she’ll be able to hear that squeaky cart approaching.
“You were about to tell me how Jeffrey abused you,” Dr. Lu says, her voice slow and patient.
Without looking at the doctor, Erin tucks her hair behind her ear. “Verbally, of course, but only in private. When we were alone, he called me every name in the book, things I wouldn’t call my worst enemy. He’d punch me in the stomach or slap my face with the flat of his hand. Sometimes he’d punch the back of my head…. I guess he figured my hair would cover any mark, and his fist wasn’t hard enough to fracture my skull. I think he enjoyed knocking me off my feet.”
“Did you tell anyone about this abuse? Your mother, maybe?”
Erin laughs and walks toward the door. “Are you kidding? I can’t think of anyone less equipped to help. Even if Mom had wanted to take me in, she wouldn’t have been able to stop Jeffrey from swooping down and dragging me back home. Mom was afraid of the Tomassis. She said they had connections with organized crime. She was terrified of ending up in some back alley with her throat slit. She used to say the Tomassis didn’t get mad, they got even.”
“Your mother honestly believed your in-laws might kill her?”
“Believe me, she wasn’t exaggerating,” Erin answers, her tone dry. “My father-in-law has always been kind to me, but I’ve seen him in the company of men who looked like they chewed glass for breakfast. Maybe I have an overactive imagination, but I knew not to ask about certain things in the family. I felt it in my bones.”
“Did you ever see evidence of illegal activity?”
“No. But that doesn’t mean there wasn’t any.”
Dr. Lu remains silent as she scratches on her notepad. “Did you ever feel threatened by other people in your life? Neighbors, authority figures, teachers?”
Erin shoots her a black look. “I’m not paranoid.”
“I didn’t say you were.” The doctor smiles. “Let’s move on to a more pleasant topic. What was your major in college?”
“Business, with a minor in psychology.”
“I might have guessed. When you undertook the study of psychology, were you hoping to find a reason for Lisa Marie?”
Erin frowns. “What do you mean?”
“Obviously—” the doctor gestures in a sweeping motion “—you are being haunted, in a sense, by this figment from your childhood. Lisa Marie seems to play the role your mother should have played. She warns you, she guides you, she comforts you. As you studied all the ways the human mind attempts to smooth out the bumps in life’s road, did you ever think that Lisa Marie might be a mother-substitute?”
Weary of pacing, Erin drops back into her chair. “She is nothing like my mother. Besides, she’s not real.”
“She’s real to you, isn’t she? If she’s not real, what is she?”
“Look.” Erin’s voice goes hoarse with frustration. “I don’t know what she is. What I do know is I didn’t kill my husband and Lisa Marie says she did. If that means I’m crazy, then maybe I am.” She turns to the wall as a lum
p rises in her throat. “What if I am? Could I be doing things and not even know I’m doing them?”
Dr. Lu says nothing for a long moment, then she closes her notebook. “Erin,” she says, “before the night of your husband’s death, did Lisa Marie ever mention killing Jeffrey?”
Erin flinches. “No.”
“On that night, did you know she intended to kill—”
“I would have argued with her.”
“Why? She was trying to protect you.”
“But murder is wrong. And killing is never the answer. Look at me—I’m in jail because she killed him.”
“The morning after, when you woke up—did you suspect that Lisa Marie had killed Jeffrey?”
Erin’s heart contracts with anguish. “I told you, I didn’t know anything about Jeffrey’s death at first. I only knew I didn’t kill him. I couldn’t.”
“Because you were asleep.”
“Yes.”
“But when you sleep…isn’t that when Lisa Marie comes out?”
Erin claps her hands over her ears as a low wail rises from someplace deep within her. She can’t do this anymore; she can’t give answers she doesn’t know. If they can’t believe her, they won’t believe her. So why is this woman asking the same questions over and over again? She’s trying to confuse things, to make her say something they can use against her in court, and that pale-faced defense attorney who hired this shrink doesn’t have the slightest clue about what she’s doing….
“Relax, Erin.” Dr. Lu props her arms on the table. “That’s enough for now. You look tired.”
Erin wipes her tear-splashed cheeks. “I don’t claim to understand it,” she whispers, her voice breaking. “But I didn’t kill Jeffrey. I couldn’t kill anyone.”
“Just tell me this…” Dr. Lu leans forward as if to share a confidential whisper. “Has Lisa Marie ever acted to help you before?”
Erin covers her mouth with her hand. “I—I don’t know.”
“Do you think she might have?”
For the briefest instant, the image of a face appears in Erin’s mind—a pale man with blood running from a wound in his forehead. “There was some trouble at college…and I’ve always wondered. But I don’t think so.”
