“Alex?”
“Yes?”
“Do you think lies are … a combination of elements?” Her voice was empty, dead, like that of a torture victim. “Fiction combined with repressed truth? That when we lie, what we’re really doing is taking truth and changing its temporal context—bringing it forward from the past to the present?”
I said, “It’s an interesting theory.” Then, “If you feel up to it, I’d like to hear about how you and Sherry finally met.”
“A couple of days after Uncle Billy visited me, Paul came by and told me she was ready.”
“Back to his house.”
“Yes. He put me up in my room and told me to meditate, be sure to get a good night’s sleep. The next morning he brought me down to the living room. Everything was set up with big soft pillows and dim lighting. He told me to wait, and left. A moment later he reappeared. With her.
“When I saw her a jolt of electricity shot up my spine. I couldn’t move. She must have been going through the same thing, because both of us just stared at each other for a long time. She looked exactly like me except she’d dyed her hair platinum-blond and was wearing sexy clothes. We started to smile—at precisely the same moment. Then we started giggling, then laughing out loud, threw out our arms and ran toward each other—it was like running into a mirror. A few minutes later and we were talking away as if we’d been best friends all our lives.
“She was funny and sweet—nothing at all like Paul had described. Not selfish or spoiled the way Uncle Billy had implied. It was obvious she wasn’t highly educated, which surprised me because I knew she’d grown up rich. But she was bright. And well-bred—her posture, the way she crossed her legs. She told me she was studying to be an actress, had already starred in one film. I asked her the title but she just laughed and changed the subject. She wanted to know all about grad school, all about psych, said she was so proud that I was going to get a Ph.D. We really hit it off, discovering that we liked the same foods, used the same toothpaste and mouthwash and deodorant. Noticing little mannerisms we had in common.”
“Like this?” I tugged on my earlobe.
“No.” She laughed. “I’m afraid that’s all me.”
“Did she talk about her home life?”
“Not much that first time—we really didn’t want to talk about anything but us. And she hadn’t been told about Joan yet—Paul said she wasn’t ready for that. So we concentrated on just the two of us. We stayed in that room all day. The first time I had a hint of anything negative was when we got on the topic of men. She told me she’d done lots of men, so many she’d lost count. She was sounding me out—wanted to see if I approved or disapproved. I wasn’t judgmental, but told her I was a one-man woman. She refused to believe that at first, then said she hoped he was one hell of a man. That’s when I told her all about you. For a moment a scary look came into her eyes—predatory. Hungry. As if she hated me for loving. But then it disappeared so quickly that I thought I’d imagined it. If I’d known better, I would have protected you, believe me, Alex. Protected us.”
“When did it start going bad?”
Her eyes moistened. “Soon after, though I didn’t realize it at the time. We were supposed to go shopping together, but she didn’t show. When I got back to Paul’s house, he told me she’d packed her bags and left town without telling anyone. That it was her pattern—she had no impulse control. Not to worry, it wasn’t my fault. She finally came back, two weeks later, in terrible shape—bruised, groggy, unable to remember anything that had happened other than that she’d ended up in a bar in Reno. From that point on, that’s what it was like—drop in, drop out. Fugue states, drug abuse.”
“Jana. Your dissertation.”
That jolted her.
I said, “I read it. I was interested—in you. Whose idea was it?”
“It started out as a joke. I’d just been through a rough month with her—a couple of overdoses, lots of verbal abuse. And I was under pressure, needed to come up with a dissertation topic or apply for an extension from the department—my second one. I was unloading on Paul about how much she frustrated me, how hard she was making it for me. That it would have been easier to be her therapist than her sister. He laughed at that, said being her therapist was no picnic either. We talked about the loss of control that comes from dealing with people like that. Then he said, why didn’t I put myself in the therapist role—as a means of establishing some sense of control in the relationship—and write it all down.”
“Working it through.”
“Paul said she owed it to me.”
“Sounds like Paul was angry at her too.”
“He was frustrated—all those years, and she kept getting worse. Deteriorating. Toward the end she was downright paranoid, near psychotic.”
“Paranoid about what?”
“Everything. The last time she came back—the time she wrecked my practice—she was convinced I was out to get her, that I was revealing her personal secrets to my patients, humiliating her. It came from her own pain, but she was projecting it onto me—blaming me, the way she’d done years before.”
“Tell me about that.”
“It was a long time ago, Alex.”
“I’d still like to hear about it.”
She thought for a while, shrugged and smiled. “If it’s that important to you.”
I smiled back.
She said, “It happened after she got married—to Italian nobility, a marchese named Benito di Orano whom her mother introduced her to. Ten years younger than her, suave, handsome, heir to some sort of shoe company—another impulsive thing—they’d only known each other a week, flew to Liechtenstein and had a civil ceremony. He bought her a Lamborghini, moved her into his villa overlooking the Spanish Steps. Paul and I hoped she’d finally settle down. But Benito turned out to be a sadist and a druggie. He beat her, doped her up, took her to the family palazzo in Venice, crammed her with dope, and gave her to his friends—as a party favor. When she woke up, he told her he’d had the marriage annulled because she was trash, then kicked her out. Literally.
“She crawled back to the States like a worm, burst into my office in the middle of a session, screaming and bawling and begging me to help her. I called Paul. Both of us tried to calm her down, persuade her to admit herself. But she wouldn’t cooperate and she wasn’t a clear and present danger, so there was nothing we could do, legally. She stomped out, cursing both of us. A few days later she was the old Sherry again—foul-mouthed, popping pills, back on the road, constantly on the move. From time to time I heard from her—middle of the night phone calls, postcards that tried to be friendly. Once or twice I even drove out to the airport to see her between planes. We’d chat, have drinks, pretend everything between us was okay. But her rage hadn’t dissipated. The next time she came back to L.A. to stay, she got close to me again, then started in with her follow-up visits. God, I loved my work, Alex. Still miss it.”
“What brought things to a head?”
“The party. She loved parties as much as I hated them. But Paul wanted me at this one—ordered her to stay away. She argued, threw a fit. He told her that both of us couldn’t go and I’d be the one. This was for psychologists. Professionals only. A special occasion for him and he wouldn’t see it ruined by her acting-out. That set her off—she attacked him, tried to stab him with a pair of scissors. The first time she’d ever gotten physical with him. He overpowered her, gave her a large dose of barbiturates, and locked her in her room. Saturday night, right after the party, he let her out. Told me she looked calm, was actually pleasant—remorseful. Forgive and forget.”
“How did you handle the party?” I asked. “Meeting Mrs. Blalock’s friends.”
“For them I was Sherry—smiling and looking sexy. It wasn’t that hard—there wasn’t much substance to her. For all the psych people I was me. The two groups didn’t mingle at all, and mostly I stayed with Uncle Billy.”
Magpies and swans …
“Forgive an
d forget,” I said. “But she’d done neither.”
She stared at me. “Must we go further, Alex? It’s so ugly. She’s gone now, out of my life—out of our lives. And I have a chance for a new start.”
She raised my hand to her lips. Licked the knuckles.
“Hard to begin without ending,” I said. “Closure. For both of us.”
She sighed. “For you,” she said. “Only for you. Because you mean so much to me.”
“Thanks. I know it’s hard, but I really think it’s best.”
She squeezed my hand. “I got your message on Sunday. I was disappointed, but I could tell from your voice that it wasn’t farewell. You were nervous, had left the lines open.”
I didn’t argue.
“So I was thinking about whether to call you, or wait until you called me to set up another date. I decided to wait, let you move at your own pace. You’d been on my mind all day and when the knock on my door sounded, I thought it was you. But it was her. All covered with blood. And laughing. I asked her what had happened—had she been in an accident? Was she okay? And then she told me. Laughing. What she’d done—the horror of it and she was laughing!”
Sharon burst into tears, began shaking violently, doubled over and held her head.
“She didn’t do it by herself,” I said. “Who helped her?”
She shook some more.
“Was it D.J. Rasmussen?”
She looked up, tear-streaked, mouth open. “You knew D.J.?”
“I met him.”
“Met him? Where?”
“At your house. Both of us thought you were dead. We came there to pay our last respects.”
She tore at her face. “Oh, God, poor, poor D.J. Until she told me what she’d … what they’d done, I’d never known he was one of her … conquests.”
“He was the only one she held on to,” I said. “The most vulnerable. The most violent.”
She groaned and straightened, pulled herself to her feet and began circling the room, slowly, like a sleepwalker, then faster and faster, tugging her earlobe so hard I thought she’d tear it off.
“Yes, it was D.J. She laughed when she told me that, laughed about how she’d gotten him to do it—using dope, booze. Her body. Mostly her body. I’ll never forget the way she put it: ‘I did him, so he’d do them.’ Laughing, always laughing, about all the blood, how Paul and Suzanne had begged. And poor Lourdes, so sweet, leaving, on her way out, when they caught her coming down the stairs. Sunday was her day off—she’d stayed late to help tidy the house. Laughing, about how she’d tied them, watched as D.J. did them—with a baseball bat and a gun. Him thinking all the time that it was me he was doing it for—me who’d used him.”
She ran over and sank to her knees. “That’s what amused her the most, Alex! That he’d never known the truth—all the time he thought he was doing it for me!”
She took hold of my shirt, pulled me to her, to her breasts. “She said that made me a murderer too. That when you really got down to it, we were one and the same!”
I helped her up, then lowered her back to the bed. She lay down, curled fetally, eyes wide open, arms wrapped around her trunk like a straitjacket.
I patted her, stroked her, said, “She wasn’t you. You weren’t her.”
She uncurled her arms and put them around me. Drew me down, bathed my face with kisses. “Thank you, Alex. Thank you for saying that.”
Slowly, gently, I drew myself away, still patting. Saying, “Go on. Get it out.” The therapist’s prompt …
She said, “Then her laughter got crazy—weird, hysterical. All of a sudden she stopped laughing completely, looked at me, then down at herself, all the blood, and started to tear off her clothes. Coming down hard. Realizing what she’d done: By destroying Paul, she’d destroyed herself. He was everything to her, the closest she’d ever come to a father. She needed him, depended on him, and now he was gone and it was her fault. She fell apart, right before my eyes. Decompensating. Sobbing—not play-acting now, real tears—just wailing like a helpless baby. Begging me to bring him back, saying I was smart, I was a doctor, I could do it.
“I could have calmed her down. The way I’d done so many times before. Instead, I told her Paul was never coming back, that it was her fault, she’d have to pay, no one would be able to protect her from this one, not even Uncle Billy. She looked at me in a way I’d never seen before—scared to death. Like a condemned woman. Started in again, begging me to bring Paul back. I repeated that he was dead. Said the word over and over. Dead. Dead. Dead. She tried to come to me for comfort. I pushed her away, slapped her hard, once, twice. She backed away from me, stumbled, fell, reached into her purse and took out her daiquiri flask. Drank it, slobbering and crying, letting it dribble down her chin. Then out came her pills. She took handfuls of them, began gobbling them down. Stopping every few seconds to stare at me—daring me to stop her, the way I’d done so many times before. But I didn’t. She lurched into my bedroom, still carrying her purse—stark naked, but with the purse, she looked so … pathetic.
“I followed her in. She took something else out of the purse. A gun. A little gold-plated pistol I’d never seen before. My new toy, she said. Like it? Got it on Rodeo fucking Drive. Broke it in today. Then she pointed it at me, tightened her finger on the trigger. I was sure I was going to die, but I didn’t beg, just remained calm, looked her straight in the eye, and said, ‘Go ahead, spill some more innocent blood. Get filthier, you worthless piece of scum.’ ”
“Then the strangest look came onto her face. She said, ‘I’m sorry, partner,’ put the gun to her temple, and pulled the trigger.”
Silence.
“I just sat there looking at her for a while. Watching her bleed, her soul pass out of her. Wondering where it was headed. Then I called Uncle Billy. He took care of the rest.”
My chest hurt. I realized I’d been holding my breath and let it out.
She lay there, gradually loosening, getting dreamy-eyed. “And that’s all there is, my darling. An ending. And a beginning. For us.”
She sat up, smoothed her hair, loosened the top button of her dress, and leaned forward. “I’m cleansed now. Free. Ready for you, Alex—ready to give you everything, to give myself in a way I’ve never given to anyone. I’ve waited so long for this moment, Alex. Never thought it would come.” She reached for me.
Now it was my turn to get up and pace.
“This is a lot to handle,” I said.
“I know it is, darling, but we’ve got time. All the time in the world. I’m finally free.”
“Free,” I said. “And rich. I never thought of myself as a kept man.”
“Oh, but you wouldn’t be. I’m really not an heiress. Mr. Belding’s will says the money stays in the corporation.”
“Still,” I said, “with Uncle Billy administering everything—the way he feels about you, life’s bound to be pretty luxurious.”
“No, it doesn’t have to be. I don’t need that. Money was never important to me—not for its own sake, or for the things it could buy. That was her thing. When she found out who she was, she freaked out, started screaming at Uncle Billy, accused him of ripping her off and threatened to take him to court. Such greed—she already had more than she needed. She even tried to get me to go along with her, but I refused. That really made her vicious.”
“How far did she go with the threat?”
“Not far. Uncle Billy managed to calm her down.”
“How?”
“I have no idea. But let’s not talk about her anymore. Or money, or anything negative. I’m here, with you. In this wonderful place, where no one can find us or soil us. You and me and Shirlee. We’ll make a family, be together forever.”
She came toward me, lips parted for a kiss.
I held her at arm’s length.
“It’s not that simple, Sharon.”
Her eyes went big. “I … I don’t understand.”
“There are problems. Things that don’t make sense.
”
“Alex.” Tears. “Please don’t play games with me, not after what I’ve been through.”
She tried pushing against me. I held her fast.
“Oh, Alex, please don’t do this to me. I want to touch you, want you to hold me!”
“Sherry killing Kruse,” I said. “It wasn’t about the party—that may have been the final straw, but she’d been planning it, paying off D.J. Rasmussen for at least two weeks before then. Thousands of dollars. Priming him for the big job.”
She gasped, reversed her movements, trying to free herself from my grasp. Still I held fast.
“No,” she said. “No, I don’t believe that! As bad as she was, that’s not true!”
“It’s true, all right. And you know it better than anyone.”
“What do you mean?” And all at once her face—that flawless face—was ugly.
Ugly with rage. Empathic failure …
“What I mean is that you set it up. Planted the seeds. Sent her a six-year-old dissertation and confirmed her worst anxieties.”
Her eyes went wild. “Go to hell.”
She twisted, tried to free herself.
“You know it’s true, Sharon.”
“Of course it isn’t true. She didn’t read. She was a stupid, stupid girl, didn’t like books! And you’re stupid for even saying something like that!”
“This is one book she would have struggled through. Because you’d been priming her for it—using the same techniques Kruse used on you. Verbal manipulations, hypnotic suggestions. Things you suggested to her while she was under, then ordered her to forget—about Kruse and you, his liking you better. She was borderline from the beginning, but you pushed her over the border. The sad thing is, you’d gotten over there yourself, first.”
She snarled, turned her fingers into claws and tried to sink her nails into my hands. We wrestled, panting. I managed to get both of her wrists in one hand, used the other to hold her fast.
“Let go of me, you bastard! Ow, you’re hurting me! Fuck you, let go!”
“How long did it take, Sharon? To break her, turn her on Paul?”
Four Classic Alex Delaware Thrillers 4-Book Bundle Page 46
