“Ronnie?” Ben’s voice sliced the momentary silence. “Finish your thought. If Mitch did something to your sister, then what?”
She swallowed and met his gaze. She’d become such a hell of an actress over the past year. “Mitch sometimes fixates on the morbid. Often, when we’d go hiking around the reservoir, he’d tell me that if he ever had to hide a body, that’s where it would be.”
Sally tilted her head up at her. “In the reservoir?”
“Yes.” Ronnie lowered her voice to a whisper. “He said there’s a hill that leads right into the water. He’d just roll a car right down and wait for it to sink.”
Sally visibly swallowed. “Do you think... Would you be willing to show the police that spot?”
Ronnie nodded gravely. “Yes. Yes, of course I would do that. For my sister.”
She saw the prosecutors exchange a loaded glance, and smiled to herself. Finding the body would be easy, and watching Mitch take the fall would be the best part of all.
* * *
“So?” Ben started up the car and reached for his seat belt. “Thoughts?”
“She knows exactly where her sister’s body is.” Sally clicked her own seat belt into place, her eyes still fixed on the Kruger house. “She’s decided to punish Mitch for something. Let him do the time.”
“You think she was involved in the murder?”
“Don’t you? The evidence was all over her face, right down to the fake tears and betrayal of her husband when we gave her a way out.” Sally shook her head. “The house reeked of bleach. She’s come home, and all she can think about is her crime, and she’s trying to scrub it from her memory.”
“Maybe’s she’s just a neat freak.”
Sally gave him a look. “She was bleaching her hardwood floors, Ben. No one in their right mind does that. And why do you always need to argue with me?”
“I’m not, I promise. Just playing devil’s advocate. And look, I happen to agree with you. If she didn’t do it herself, she was at least involved.” Ben inched the car through the neighborhood, speeding away once he reached the highway. “Let’s get back to the office and call Dan. We now have Ronnie saying she’s willing to show us where she thinks Mitch would have dumped Mary Ann’s car. That could be enough to spark their interest.”
Sally responded by pulling a tube of lip gloss from her handbag and swiping the tip slowly across her lips, leaving behind a trail of something wet, shiny and, from the smell of it, strawberry flavored. His collar tightened. “You can’t do that to me.”
She spun to face him. “What?” Her eyes were wide, her shiny lips open.
He shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “I said, you can’t do that to me. Put on lip gloss in front of me, or before you see me.” He shot her a glance from the corner of his eye. “I’m trying to be professional and to respect boundaries, but now all I can think of is your mouth, and you using it to do wicked things to me.”
She sat perfectly still, watching him. He was acutely aware of his heart throbbing in his chest and the growing erection in his pants. The woman affected him like no other, tested every inch of his self-control. Then she said in a breathy whisper, “What kinds of things?”
A bead of perspiration started on his brow, even as he willed himself not to tell her. “You don’t need to know the details. Let’s just say that in my mind right now, you are being very, very naughty and enjoying every moment. You’re doing something colleagues shouldn’t do to each other when they’re trying to be professional.”
“You’re enjoying it, though? In your mind.”
That was it. He was fully aroused. He pulled his coat down to cover the evidence. “Yes. Very much.”
She sat back in her seat, and he hoped she was feeling as conflicted as she looked. He hoped she’d reconsider—
“Ben, could you stop here?” She pointed to a bakery on the side of the road. “I need to run in for a minute.”
His forehead tensed. She was clutching her stomach. “Hey, you all right?”
“If you could just stop the car.”
He shot into the parking lot and had barely stopped when Sally opened the door and jumped out. Without a word, she ran inside.
Ben sat stunned, wondering if it was that flu Sally had been talking about. She’d seemed okay otherwise, but these things could come on suddenly. When she didn’t come out right away, he turned off the car. Then when more time passed, he opened his door and paced the parking lot. Finally, he saw her emerge from the bakery, her face pale and streaked with tears. “Sally, what happened?”
She paused before him, her chin trembling as she fought to retain control. “I need you to take me to the hospital.”
Chapter 14
She’d managed to stop crying, but as they waited in the hospital emergency room, every cell in Sally’s body continued to vibrate. Ben held her hand sandwiched between his own, but otherwise he didn’t speak or ask questions. She was grateful for that.
A doctor in light blue scrubs and a white coat pulled open the curtain to the little waiting area to which Ben and Sally had been directed. He had dark brown hair tinged with gray at the temples, but he didn’t look much older than them. He introduced himself, but the name didn’t register and Sally blurted out, “Is my baby all right?”
There had been so much blood, just like when she’d lost the first baby. She felt weak from the sight of it, as if she was barely holding up. Ben’s grip slacked momentarily, but he didn’t let go. Sally no longer worried about secrets. All that mattered was knowing that her child was safe.
“We’re going to check right now, Ms. Dawson. You said you’re about eight weeks along?”
“Yes,” she murmured.
A nurse entered then and said with a gentle smile, “Lie down, honey.”
Sally obliged, swinging her legs onto the gurney on which she was sitting, and leaning back until her head hit the thin pillow. The nurse inched Sally’s pants lower and applied a layer of cold blue jelly to her abdomen. As the doctor lifted a wand from the machine, Sally turned her head to look at Ben.
His eyes, blank and unreadable, were fixed on the monitor of the ultrasound machine, but his grip on her hand was strong. He’d offered to wait somewhere else, but she’d asked him to stay. It seemed important that he be there. She squeezed his hand. He looked at her, gave a sad smile that touched something at the bottom of her heart, and squeezed back. Sally felt the wand on her belly. She held her breath.
“Here it is,” the doctor finally announced, positioning the monitor so Sally could see better. “That little ball right there is the baby, and see the blinking? That’s the heartbeat.”
Her baby’s heartbeat. Sally’s eyes began to tear up. “Is it okay?”
“The heartbeat is strong,” the doctor assured her, his focus on the monitor. “Everything looks great.”
“Then why... What happened?”
“It’s not always clear. We’ll have to take a wait-and-see approach, but right now I don’t see any reason to panic.” He consulted the chart he’d rested on the counter beside him. “You’re a negative blood type, right? O negative?”
“Yes.”
“It may be that your baby has a positive blood type, and we want to prevent you from developing antibodies against the child.” He removed the ultrasound wand, and the nurse stepped in and efficiently wiped Sally’s abdomen dry. “We’re going to give you a shot as a precaution. Otherwise the heartbeat is good and strong, and the baby is measuring correctly. All looks good.”
Ben helped Sally to sit upright, placing one hand against her lower back. “My baby is going to be okay?” she asked.
The doctor smiled warmly. “Nothing is certain, but I’m cautiously optimistic. The nurse will be back in a few minutes with that shot.” He placed a warm hand on Sally’s knee. “Deep breaths,
Ms. Dawson. Healthy babies need oxygen.”
She bit her lower lip and nodded. As quickly as they’d come, the doctor and nurse disappeared behind the curtain, leaving her and Ben alone. Sally looked down at their hands. Then she began to sob.
His arms wrapped around her shoulders, strong and reassuringly warm. The sharp smell of his cologne had mellowed, and now, far from turning her stomach, he smelled clean and familiar. Sally clutched him, not caring about what he might think of her now that he knew the truth. At that moment, as he stroked her hair and held her while she cried, Ben felt like a long-lost friend, and her heart melted against his.
When she finally broke the contact, his shoulder was wet from her tears, but he didn’t seem to notice. His gaze locked on her face, his brows pulled with concern, and he stroked one hand down the side of her cheek gently, as if he feared she might break.
“You’re pregnant,” he whispered.
“Yes.” Her reply was choked. She removed her hands from his muscular arms and brought them to rest, self-consciously, on her lap. “It’s not yours.”
“I figured that much.”
There was a twinge of injury in his voice. “It’s not anyone’s,” she interjected hastily. “I used a donor.” She saw the questions in his deep blue eyes. “I want a family, Ben. I’m thirty-five years old, and it’s not like I have any prospects—”
“I’m not judging you,” he said. “What right do I have to judge you?” But he eyed the floor, looking as if he had something more to say. He stepped away from her as the nurse returned to administer the shot. “I’ll wait outside,” he said.
Before she could reply, he’d ducked behind the curtain and vanished.
* * *
The night he’d wrapped his car around a tree, Ben had the sense that the obstacle had appeared out of nowhere and walked into the middle of the road. Fractions of a second later, his face had slammed against an air bag and his muscles had tightened reflexively as he gripped the steering wheel, and when it was all over, he couldn’t breathe. His chest constricted as if squeezed by an unseen hand, and he sat for what seemed like forever, trying to understand what had just happened. The shock was preferable to the reality that settled in, bit by bit, as time dragged on. The reality was that his fiancée was unconscious and bleeding, and his muscles felt as if they’d been pummeled raw. That was kind of how he felt right now, as he pulled into Sally’s driveway: emerging from shock, and feeling raw.
He knew he had no claim to her, no right to tell her what he thought, and still he wanted answers. Not that he wanted to control her, but because he wanted to understand how everything he’d thought was happening between them could have been so wrong.
Sally was pregnant. The night they’d shared together had seemed like so much to him, and all along she’d carried this secret. Here he thought they’d been standing beside each other, but only because she had been concealing a chasm between them.
She was quiet on the ride, still anxious about the baby. She hadn’t wanted to stop for dinner, and neither had he. The antiseptic smell of the hospital lingered in his nostrils, and he had no appetite. He put the car in Park and cut the engine.
“Thank you,” Sally said.
“I’ll walk you to the door.”
“You don’t need to.”
“I want to.”
He got out of the car and walked to the passenger side, offering her his arm. She looked weakened and tired, as if she’d just been through hell. Any protectiveness he’d felt for her before was only magnified now that he knew she was expecting a child. She lived alone, she’d spent all afternoon in the emergency room and her car was still parked at the office. What if she had another emergency tonight?
“I’d like to stay with you,” he said.
Her gaze flew to him in alarm. “That’s not necessary.”
“You aren’t feeling well, and you don’t have a car. Who would you call if something happened? Do your parents even know you’re pregnant?” He waited for her response, but it never came. He sighed. “I didn’t think so. Let me sleep on your couch. It will make me feel better.”
She swallowed. “I’m not helpless. I’d rather be alone tonight.”
They reached the front step, and he released her arm and turned to face her head-on. “Are you pushing me away because you don’t want me to be here? Or because you think I don’t want to be here? Because I sure as hell want to stay with you.”
“I’m not your obligation.” Her tone was defiant, but he sensed that beneath that proud lift of her chin, she was feeling just as drained by the evening as he was.
“Dammit, Sally, I care about you. I sat in the emergency room with you for five hours. I held your hand, and now I’m offering to stay here and take care of you.” He gritted his teeth and balled his fists against his thighs. She made everything so damn complicated. “If I left you alone right now, I’d be the biggest bastard who ever lived, and I’m not. No matter what you thought of me at one time, I’m different now.”
How foolish to imagine he could have ever proved such a thing over dinner. Here he was, prostrate under the burden of his desire for her, and she’d forged her impression of him long ago. To Sally, he would never be anything more than the jerk who’d betrayed her, and that infuriated him.
She pressed her key into the lock, avoiding his eyes. “You can sleep on the couch,” she mumbled. “But only because it’s late.”
He fought the urge to snap back a sarcastic comment about how gracious she was, and instead followed her into her home. In the darkness, it was just like his own, reverberating with a tomblike silence. He couldn’t say he’d ever considered having a child as the answer to loneliness, but in that instant he thought that maybe he could understand. Like him, Sally had resigned herself to being a relationship leper, but that didn’t mean she wanted to spend the rest of her life alone. She wasn’t punishing herself for past wrongs the way he was.
“I’ll get you a blanket and some pillows,” she said, her tone weary.
He waited until she returned from the bedroom, clutching two large pillows and a wool blanket. Ben met her halfway across the room. “Thanks.” He lifted them from her arms. “Are you feeling any better?”
“I feel physically exhausted,” she admitted. “Every part of me hurts.”
He could see the pain written across her expressive face, the way she twisted her mouth into a grimace. “I know you don’t need me to stay, but I’m here tonight to help you. If you need anything, you let me know.”
She nodded. “Okay.” Then she turned and walked toward her bedroom. She hadn’t bothered to turn on many lights, but he could see her hesitate in the moonlight that streamed through the large windows overlooking the lake. “It’s nothing personal, you know. We tried to make it work in law school, and we both ended up miserable.”
Speak for yourself, he wanted to say. “I was never miserable with you, Sally. When we dated in law school, it was like being brought back to life. I can’t take back what I did to you, but you should know that. You made me feel alive.”
The words sounded painfully ineffective to him, but he didn’t have any words that would undo her years of hurt, of believing herself to be unworthy of love. She’d told him she loved him, and he’d gone and scorched the earth. He deserved whatever he got.
“I saw my baby’s heartbeat today,” she said, turning to him. “I can’t even explain how powerful that was.”
“I can imagine.”
“Can you? Then you’ll understand when I say that I have other priorities right now and other people to think about. I don’t want to complicate things by engaging in a relationship that has no future. I want to be happy, Ben.” Her voice cracked with emotion. “Every time I look at you, I feel that hurt all over again. We can be colleagues, and partners, and maybe even friends, but I hope you understand if I have
to protect myself from falling in love with you ever again.”
“The thing is, I don’t understand that.” His voice bounced off the walls, and he felt like a fool, standing in the middle of her living room, clutching a blanket and two pillows. He no longer cared. “I don’t understand how you can walk away from something that has been consuming me since the moment I saw you again. Every day I go to work with a smile on my face because I know you’ll be there. I watch for your car, and I listen for your laugh in the hallway. I came back to civilian life expecting one thing, and instead I found you, and I’m damned if I know what to do about it if you can just turn your back on me.”
Beyond the pounding of his blood in his ears, he heard her breathing in the darkness. Time stretched on forever as he waited for her response.
Finally, she cleared her throat. “It’s been a long night, and I’m tired.”
With that, she turned and walked into her bedroom, closing the door firmly behind her. He stood in the center of the room looking after her, feeling more naked than he’d ever felt, and entirely alone.
Chapter 15
The car was right where Ronnie had said it would be, and the body of Mary Ann Hennessy was locked in the trunk. She’d been shot twice, once in the left shoulder and once almost square in the heart. The medical examiner concluded that the manner of death had been shooting, and ballistics traced the gun in the trunk to one registered by Mitch Kruger.
A coincidence if I’ve ever seen one, Sally thought wryly as she sifted through the photographs of the evidence recovered from Mary Ann’s car. Ronnie had practically shown them where the body was hidden, and yet investigators couldn’t find a darn thing actually linking her to the murder. So much time had passed that detectives would have difficulty finding an eyewitness who would testify that Ronnie, and not Mary Ann, had taken the flight to San Diego the night in question—after all, they were sisters, and the resemblance was striking.
The Burden of Desire Page 21
