The Perfect Husband

by Lisa Gardner

  SCRATCHING RESONATED ON the roof.

  She lunged across her bed, yanked the receiver from the phone, and stabbed the touch-tone buttons.

  Lieutenant Lance Difford would pick up, she’d murmur the code, and the police would descend if they hadn’t already spotted Jim on the roof.

  It would be all right.

  Except the phone had no dial tone.

  “Waiting for me, wife?”

  She looked up.

  And her husband stepped out of her closet, wearing his Berkshire County police uniform and looking like a young Robert Redford. He was hefting a baseball bat, and she could see dark smudges and loose hairs matting the end.

  She leapt for the nightstand, her ragged fingernails sliding ineffectively across the smooth surface, as Jim lunged forward and wrapped his hand around her ankle.

  “No! No!” she cried hoarsely, clawing at the mattress.

  He yanked her onto the floor. She landed hard, the breath escaping her with a painful whoosh.

  “Where is Sam?”

  “You’ll never find her!”

  “Didn’t they tell you what I can do, Theresa? Didn’t they tell you exactly how I like to inflict pain?”

  She bucked forward, but his fingers merely dug into her ankle. Then she felt the hot whisper of his breath as he leaned over her back and pinned her neck against the carpet with his forearm. He spoke. His voice drifted over her like velvet, soft, heavy, and suffocating her word by word.

  “You helped them, Theresa. You told them things about me. Did you think it would go unpunished?”

  Jim curved his hand almost lovingly around her exposed throat. Her pulse leapt like a captured mouse against the base of his palm. He slowly started squeezing the air from her lungs.

  He told her to fight him. He liked it when they fought him.

  She squirmed, her heels searching for traction against the old carpet. She knew he would asphyxiate her slowly, then revive her and do it again, and revive her and do it again. Somewhere along the way, he would rape her and torture her. And then, when he finally tired of the sport, he would pick up the bat and she would be grateful that it was ending.

  Her fingers flexed and unflexed above his grip. Her hips writhed desperately.

  In her mind, she kept calling for the police. She was so sure they would figure out what was going on. That any minute they’d bang down the front door. They’d save her. No one came.

  Spots appeared before her eyes, white and dizzying. She felt herself spinning away, sinking into a dark, whirling vortex of nothing. She was dying and a part of her was too frightened, too overwhelmed to care.

  If you don’t fight now, she thought dimly, you will die and years from now your daughter won’t even remember your name.

  “I know what you’re thinking,” Jim whispered in her ear. “You’re looking deep inside yourself, trying to find the will to defy me. You don’t have it, Theresa. I took it from you. I’ve known you since the day I met you, and I’ve turned you inside out and climbed inside of you and now there’s nothing left of you. Every bit of you, every last thought you have, really belongs to me. I made you. I’m inside your mind. I own you.”

  The lights grew brighter behind her eyelids. The burning spread from her lungs to her whole chest. Her fingers moved feebly, then stilled.

  His hands slipped from her throat. And she slammed her fist into his nose.

  He fell back with a guttural cry and she didn’t wait. Her flailing hand reached for the lower drawer, scrambling with the handle.

  “You bitch!” He rolled off her. She heard the heavy swish of air as he raised the baseball bat.

  “Please, please,” she whispered hoarsely, and ripped the drawer from the nightstand.

  A sharp sound, a whistle. She ducked and rolled, and the floor shook with the force of the bat hitting the carpet.

  “I’m going to kill you!”

  She was crying and rolling and crying and fumbling with the damn drawer, scrambling through the contents and praying for one last miracle to save her.

  Another whistle.

  The bat came down on her thigh.

  She heard a loud crack, then felt a red-hot bolt of pain fire through her leg. And suddenly she wasn’t frightened anymore, she wasn’t exhausted. She was just really pissed off.

  She tried to leap to her feet, but the blinding pain toppled her. Savage, fierce, stabbing agony that ripped up her leg and brought tears to her eyes. She sensed more than saw the autographed Louisville Slugger arch and suspend.

  Her head turned. She stared at him as he stood tall and majestic in an icy sliver of moon, his fake blond hair waving over his forehead, his smooth, hairless chest like sculpted marble.

  And she thought that no one had ever told her the devil would be so beautiful.

  The bat came down.

  Her hand curled around the gun she had sought.

  And she moved through the pain, screaming her terror and agony and fury as she rolled over her cracked femur bone and raised her trembling arms.

  The bat slammed into the carpet.

  She started firing the gun.

  “YOU HIT HIM,” J.T. said at last. She was into the fourth beer now and swaying a bit. Her eyes were flat and glassy.

  “Yes.” Her gaze fixed on the shimmering water of the pool. “I hit him in the shoulder, enough to take him out. The police heard the gunshots, Difford came bursting through. They took him away. It was over.”

  “But you never stopped being afraid.”

  “No. He was right. I couldn’t get him out of my mind. I sold the house, took Sam and we ran. For two years. New names, new towns. I go by Tess Williams now, but Samantha only calls me Mommy. She can’t keep track of the names and she’s always scared she’ll get them wrong. So she doesn’t learn names anymore, she’s too frightened. It’s a horrible thing to do to a child.”

  “You did what you had to do.”

  “It wasn’t enough. I dreamed about him every night, and every night he was coming after me. A man like that . . . he shouldn’t be left alive.”

  “No. He shouldn’t.”

  “He killed two prison guards last week. Beat them to death. He’s very strong, you know. I wish Massachusetts had the death penalty.”

  “Angela—”

  “You might as well call me Tess.”

  “No, I don’t think I should. You’re using an alias to protect yourself. From everything you’ve just told me, that’s an excellent idea. But, Angie, Marion took your fingerprints. She faxed them through the Nogales Police Department to the FBI. That’s how I found out your real name.”

  She was silent, minute turning into minute. “Oh.”

  J.T. found himself reaching out and taking her hand. It felt cold. “She was just doing her job. She knew you were lying and she wanted to check up on you.”

  “I understand.”

  “She knows she screwed up. Given Beckett’s background, it’s understandable that you wanted to keep your identity secret even from the law. Well, that ship has sailed. Marion would like to bring you in now. She’ll escort you back to Quantico personally, set up a safe house, and provide round-the-clock protection.”

  “Didn’t you just listen to the story I told you?”

  “The police made a mistake the first time, but they’re smarter now—”

  “It doesn’t matter!” She yanked her hand from his and stood. “Don’t you get it? He’s a cop. He’s knows their procedures, he thinks like them. As long as I’m with them, I’m not safe, because let’s face it, cops operate with rules and Jim has none. He can anticipate them, outmaneuver them, and I’m the one who ends up alone, facing a baseball bat. I won’t go through that again. I won’t sit around like a stupid mouse waiting for the cat to pounce.”

  He looked at her silently.

  “I’m staying here,” she stated. “Even if the Nogales police know who I am, Jim has no contacts in Arizona, right? And the FBI agents in Quantico who called Marion, they can be told to keep
their mouths shut, right?”

  “I’ll speak to Marion about it.”

  “Fine, then it’s settled. You don’t understand, J.T. You think you do. You watch me try to swim and shoot at hay bales and you think I’m helpless. But there is one thing I’m good at. I know how to think like Jim Beckett.” Her lips twisted. Her eyes were shiny with a glaze of tears. She brushed them away with the back of her hand. “I’m staying. If he does find me here, then I’ll deal with him. Or you’ll get to deal with him. You may not like it, you may not agree with me, but I was smart when I came here. If there’s any person fit to take on Jim Beckett, it’s an angry, arrogant asshole like you.”

  Christ, she looked like something. She looked strong and she looked fierce. He wanted to yank her down onto his lap and kiss her until her fingertips gripped his shoulders and she roared his name with need. He wanted to feel her quiver as she came.

  “We’re back on the shooting range tomorrow, Angela. You can put your money where your mouth is then, because, sugar, from here on out, I’m going to push you hard.”

  “Good!”

  “You might want to leave now, Angela, or I’m going to rip your clothes off and take you on the patio.”

  “Oh.”

  “You’re still not moving.”

  “It’s just the beer,” she assured him hastily as she remained in place. He shifted forward and she finally jolted to life. She scurried across the patio, thrust open the sliding glass door, and ran into the house. He could already picture the lock on her bedroom door slamming shut.

  He remained sitting in his garden, listening to the crickets, thinking about her story, and staring at the two unopened cans of Michelob.

  FOURTEEN

  THE SUN WAS straight up, no longer fierce but having gentled through the course of the week to a kindly benefactor. It caressed Tess’s cheeks and arms, trying to infuse her skin with a hint of color.

  The rest of the desert, however, remained acrimonious. The saguaros looked grim and mocking, the sagebrush shuddered in the breeze. A gray roadrunner darted by. In the distance the bleached-out hills sat glumly, weighted down by rickety shanties and hundreds of lines of drying laundry.

  The world was muted gold, dried-out brown, and sun-sapped green. Tess stood in the middle of it, wearing a worn white tank top with khaki shorts and feeling just as insipid and plain as her surroundings.

  “Are you going to shoot ’em or sculpt ’em?” J.T. quizzed dryly. He’d stripped off his T-shirt to catch a little sun. Clad in ripped denim cutoffs and beat-up sandals, he looked more like a California surfer dude than a desperado. After two hours of watching Tess miss the targets, he also looked bored.

  Marion had stopped by the first hour to lend her expertise. Like J.T., she insisted Tess needed to find the zone.

  “Concentrate,” the agent had told her again and again. “Visualize your hand extending to the target, touching the bull’s-eye, and sending a bullet through the brain.”

  In case that didn’t work, J.T. had been modifying her .22, decreasing the trigger pressure for a smoother pull, and trimming the grip so the gun would fit more comfortably in her hand. There were six fundamentals to shooting: position, grip, breath control, sight alignment, trigger squeeze, and follow-through. Tess was now trying to focus on all of them at once. She had a headache.

  Tess adjusted her earplugs and rolled her shoulders. Her hands and forearms throbbed dully. It took a lot of strength to pull a trigger repeatedly. Marion had shown off her own forearms, roped with long lines of wiry sinew. To become an agent, a cadet had to be able to pull a handgun trigger twenty-nine times in thirty seconds. A lot of female cadets couldn’t do it, but lean, mean Marion could, and she had the muscles to prove it.

  Tess was beginning to believe that there was nothing the Dillon children couldn’t do.

  She just didn’t like the gun. She didn’t like its weight, its feel, its noise. In her mind the gun remained inherently evil, too vicious and too powerful. And maybe she feared more than anything that once she became comfortable with it, she would turn a corner in herself and never be able to go back. She’d permanently become part of the violence. She would never escape.

  You are part of the violence, she reminded herself. Your options are to control it or be victimized by it.

  She took a deep breath. She told herself the gun was her friend. She’d used it before and it had saved her. She would master the fear and she would master the weapon.

  She adapted the stance J.T. had taught her and leveled her arms.

  Okay, Tess. You’re a lean, mean killing machine. Align, inhale, hold it, squeeze.

  She pulled the trigger. It boomed. She jumped and closed her eyes.

  She was an idiot.

  She finished out the clip fatalistically. When she was done, she turned to J.T.

  He shook his head as he’d been shaking it all afternoon. “Tess, why are you so afraid of an inanimate object?”

  “There’s nothing inanimate about a gun!”

  “Then you’ve been watching too many Disney movies.”

  He took a step forward and clasped her wrist. He ran one callused finger up her bare thigh, brushing the bottom of her khaki shorts.

  She flinched. She blanched. She blushed.

  “What are you doing?” she asked furiously.

  “Nice scar,” he said. “Didn’t you learn anything from it?”

  “Apparently not enough,” she shot back, unable to meet his gaze. He stood too close to her, and she wasn’t prepared for the intense desire to lean forward and press her lips against the scar snaking down his chest.

  “How . . . how did you get your scar?”

  “Guatemala. I think.”

  He was still standing before her. His hand was still on her thigh. “You think?”

  “Could’ve been El Salvador. After a bit, all jungles look alike.”

  “So you were fighting?”

  “Over a beautiful woman, I’m sure.”

  “Of course.” She had a feeling that with him, there had truly been a lot of beautiful women.

  “It’s true. I think.”

  “I see. After a bit, all beautiful women look alike?”

  “Sure. Just taste different.”

  She pulled away, trying to cover the motion by retrieving spent shells, but obviously not covering it well enough.

  “I offended you?” he said after a moment, his voice emotionless, his arms crossing over his chest.

  “After a week of your company? Hardly.”

  “Now you’re shockless? You’re that tough?”

  “I’m a fully functional bad ass,” she assured him.

  “Good,” he said. “Then you’ll have no problem firing the gun.” He smiled at her grimly. “Again, Tess. We’re not leaving here until you get this right. The gun is a tool. Learn to use it.”

  He yanked her around and she came up hard against his chest. “We’re going to try an experiment,” he murmured. His whiskered cheek nuzzled back her hair until his lips were on her ear.

  “Okay,” she whispered. She was licking her lips.

  “Pick up the gun for me.”

  “Okay.”

  “Put in a fresh clip.”

  “Okay.”

  “Sight the target.”

  She straightened her arms and assumed the Weaver stance. He smoothed his palms down her arms, encircling her wrist with his fingers. “Tess, you’re getting some muscle tone.”

  She started shivering. He misinterpreted. “Chiquita, you don’t even have the safety off yet.”

  “I’m just . . . What are you doing?”

  “I’m going to shadow you. You shoot, I’ll correct. Relax against me. Come on, sweetheart, relax.” He nudged her arms. She stiffened further. “Tess,” he murmured. His teeth found her earlobe and bit down gently. “Relax.”

  “Oh, my Lord,” she said, and melted into him.

  “I always knew that trick would come in handy.” His body shifted, assuming the correct s
tance and seeming to mold hers. She let him mold her. She could feel his leg hair and his chest hair, his raspy twelve-hour beard.

  “Focus on the target,” he told her. “Fire.”

  She did as she was told. She pulled back the trigger, and her arms leapt spasmodically. He caught them right as they bobbed down and forced them up.

  Finally receiving proper guidance, the bullet fired straight and true. It buried itself into the outer ring of the target.

  “Oh, my God, would you look at that!”

  “See,” his voice rumbled in her ear. “It’s not so hard.”

  She whispered, “Again.”

  She emptied the clip. Each time, his body contracted around hers, halting her natural flinch, compensating for her mistake. They went through another clip, and the hay bale took a beating.

  “Good,” J.T. said. He stepped back, but his hands remained on her shoulders. After a moment his fingers squeezed her stiff muscles, rubbing her down like a star athlete. She closed her eyes and let her head fall forward. He made her feel relaxed, he made her feel loose. He made her feel as if she could do anything.

  “All right,” he said. His hands fell away. She tried not to moan. “Now it’s time to try solo. It’s just like before. Stay relaxed. Point and shoot. The gun is just a tool in your hand.”

  “A tool,” she repeated obediently.

  “A tool. You own it, Tess, you control it. It doesn’t control you.”

  She took a deep breath and exhaled through her nostrils. She positioned her feet and raised the gun. She closed her eyes.

  The gun was a natural extension of her hand. Her tool, for her to control, for her to use. She didn’t have to pull the trigger unless she wanted to. That was strength. The power to choose.

  She chose to pull the trigger. One, two, three, four, five.

  And the paper target went flying.

  She stared. She was so stunned, she couldn’t even move. And then she turned to him, and she smiled with one thousand watts of triumph.