Partners

by Nora Roberts

  “You knew about this.” Laurel watched Marion’s eyes, pale gray like her brother’s.

  For a moment Marion said nothing, then the only sound she made was a sigh. “Yes,” she said at length. “I knew. It would’ve been impossible not to see by the way the man looked at her. Anne was confused.” Her hands lifted, linked, then fell. “She confided in me because she just didn’t know how to deal with it. Anne would never have left Louis,” she murmured as her fingers unlinked to knead the material of her skirt. As the nervous gesture continued, her eyes remained level and nearly calm, as if her hands were controlled by something else entirely. “She loved him.”

  “Did Louis know?”

  “There was nothing for him to know,” Marion said sharply, then struggled to regain her composure. “Anne only spoke to me because the man upset her. She told her sister that he made her nervous. Anne loved Louis,” Marion repeated. “What difference does it make now?” She looked at both of them with suddenly tormented eyes, her fingers clutching the filmy material of her skirt. “The poor child’s dead, and rumors, nasty rumors like this, will only make it more difficult on Louis. Laurel, can’t you stop this? You must know what this continued pressure does to Louis.”

  “If things were just that simple,” Matt began, breaking in before Laurel could speak. “Why do you suppose someone sent Laurel a warning?”

  “Warning.” Marion shook her head as her nervous fingers finally stilled. “What warning?”

  “Someone left a box on my doorstep,” Laurel said with studied, surface calm. “There was a dead copperhead inside.”

  “Oh, my God! Oh, Laurel.” She stretched her hands out to grip Laurel’s. They trembled ever so slightly. “Why would anyone have done something so nasty? When? When did this happen?”

  “Late yesterday afternoon. A few hours after we’d left Heritage Oak.”

  “Oh, my dear, you must have . . . Anne was bitten by a copperhead,” she murmured, as if she’d just remembered. “You think—Laurel, you don’t believe that Louis would do such a thing to you. You can’t!”

  “I can’t—I don’t want to believe it of Louis,” Laurel corrected. “We thought it best if both of you knew about it.”

  With a steadying breath, Marion released Laurel’s hands. “It must have been dreadful for you. My own nerves—Louis’s . . .” She broke off with a shake of her head. “Of course I’ll tell him, you know I will, but—”

  “Miss Marion?”

  Distracted, Marion looked over her shoulder to the doorway. “Yes, Binney.”

  “Excuse me, but Mrs. Hollister’s on the phone, about the hospital charity drive. She’s insistent.”

  “Yes, yes, all right, tell her I’ll just be a moment.” She turned back, playing with the collar of her dress. “I’m sorry, Laurel, about everything. If you’d like to wait here, I’ll take care of this and come back. But I don’t know what else I can say.”

  “It’s all right, Marion, go ahead. We’ll just let ourselves out.”

  “Once you put your teeth into it,” Matt commented when he was alone with Laurel, “you chomp down nicely.”

  “Yes, didn’t I?” Without looking at him, she picked up her bag and rose. “Professional hazard, I suppose.”

  “Laurel.” Matt took her shoulders until she looked up at him. “Stop doing this to yourself.”

  “I would if I could,” she murmured, then turned away to stare out the window. “I didn’t like the way Marion came apart when I mentioned Brewster.”

  “She knows more than she’s saying.” He touched her hair, and would have drawn her back against him.

  “Louis is outside,” Laurel said quietly. “I want to talk to him alone, Matthew.”

  He took a step back, surprised that such an ordinary request would hurt so much. “All right.” When she walked out the French doors, he stuffed his hands in his pockets and moved closer to the window. Without the least compunction, he wished Louis Trulane to hell.

  The heat outdoors was only more stifling after the coolness of the parlor. The air tasted of rain, but the rain wouldn’t come. What birds bothered to sing, sang gloomily. She smelled the roses as she passed them, and the scent was hot and overripe. As she came closer to him, Laurel could see the damp patches on Louis’s shirt.

  “Louis.”

  His head jerked up when she called him, and he stopped. There wasn’t any welcome in his face or in his stance, nor was there the cool indifference she’d seen the day before. He was furious. “What’re you doing here?”

  “I have to talk to you.”

  “There’s nothing to say.”

  “Louis.” She took his arm when he started to go on without her. Though he stopped again, he spun back to her with a look that made her drop the hand.

  “Leave us both with a few decent memories, Laurel, and stay away from me.”

  “I still have the memories, Louis, but I have a job to do.” She searched his face, wishing there was something she could do, something she could say, to prevent what she knew could be the final breach between them. “I don’t believe Anne went into that swamp freely.”

  “I don’t give a damn what you believe. She’s dead.” He looked over her head, out to the edge of the north lawn, where the marsh took over. “Anne’s dead,” he said again, shutting his eyes. “That’s the end of it.”

  “Is it?” she countered, hardening herself. “If there’s the slightest possibility that someone lured or frightened her into that place, don’t you want to know?”

  He broke off a thin branch of crape myrtle. Laurel was reminded forcibly of Brewster’s hands on a pencil. “What you’re saying’s absurd. No one did—no one would have a reason to.”

  “No?” She heard the quiet snap of wood between his fingers. “Someone doesn’t appreciate our probing into it.”

  “I don’t appreciate your probing into it,” Louis exploded, tossing down the mangled wood and blossoms. “Does it follow that I murdered my wife?” He spun away from her to stare at the edge of the north lawn. “For God’s sake, Laurel. Why do you interfere in this? It’s over. Nothing can bring her back.”

  “Does my interference bother you enough that you’d leave a dead snake on my doorstep?”

  “What?” He shook his head as if to clear it. “What did you say?”

  “Someone sent me a dead copperhead, all done up nicely in a box.”

  “A copperhead—the same as . . .” His words trailed off as he slowly turned back to her. “A nasty joke,” he said, tossing the hair back from his face in a gesture she remembered. “I’m afraid I haven’t been up to jokes of any kind lately, though I hardly see . . .” He broke off again, staring down at her. His expression altered into something she couldn’t quite read. “I remember. Poor little Laurel, you were always terrified of them. I nearly strangled that cousin of mine the day he stuck a garter snake under your nose at one of Marion’s garden parties. What were you? Nine, ten? Do you remember?”

  “I remember.”

  His face softened, just a little. “Have you outgrown it?”

  She swallowed. “No.”

  “I’m sorry.” He touched her face in the first gesture of friendship. She found it hurt more than his angry words. “You never liked the swamp because of them.”

  “I never liked the swamp, Louis.”

  “Anne hated it.” His eyes drifted back. “I used to try to tease her out of it—just as I used to tease you. Oh, God, she was sweet.”

  “You never let me meet her,” Laurel murmured. “Why didn’t you let anyone meet her?”

  “She looked like Elise.” His hand was still on her face, but she knew he’d forgotten it. “It stunned me the first time I saw her. But she wasn’t like Elise.” His eyes hardened, as slate gray as the sky. “People would’ve said differently just by looking at her. I wouldn’t tolerate it—the comparisons, the whispers.”

  “Did you marry her because she reminded you of Elise?”

  The fury came back at that, so sudden a
nd fierce Laurel would’ve backed away if his hand hadn’t tightened. “I married her because I loved her—needed her. I married her because she was young and malleable and would depend on me. She wasn’t a woman who’d look elsewhere. I stayed with her through the year we had so that she wouldn’t grow bored and discontent, as Elise claimed she had in that damned note.”

  “Louis, I know how you must feel—”

  “Do you?” he interrupted softly, so softly the words hung on the stagnant air. “Do you understand loss, Laurel? Betrayal? No,” he said before she could speak. “You have to live it first.”

  “If there had been someone else.” Laurel moistened her lips when she found her mouth was dry. “If there’d been another man, Louis, what would you’ve done?”

  He looked back at her, cool again, icy. “I’d have killed him. One Judas is enough for any man.” He turned, walking away from her and the house again. Laurel shivered in the sticky heat.

  He’d seen enough. Matt crossed to the French doors and, fighting the urge to go after Louis and vent some of his frustration, went to where Laurel still stood, looking after him.

  “Let’s go,” he said briefly.

  She nodded. The mood—hers, Louis’s, Matt’s—seemed to match the tightness in the air. A storm was brewing in all of them. It wouldn’t take much to set it off. In silence, they walked across the neatly trimmed lawn to Matt’s car, then drove away from Heritage Oak.

  “Well?” Matt touched the car lighter to the tip of a cigarette and waited.

  “Binney was right about his mood,” Laurel said after a moment. “He’s on edge, angry, with nothing to strike out at. He still dismisses Anne’s death as an accident. The way he looked out at the swamp . . .” Laurel glanced up at Matt, seeing the hard, set profile that wasn’t so very different from the expression Louis had worn. “Matthew, I’d swear he loved her. He might’ve gotten involved with her because of her resemblance to Elise, even married her with some sort of idea about having a second chance, but Louis loved Anne.”

  “Do you think he always kept them separated in his mind?”

  “I told you before, I’m not a psychiatrist.” Her answer was sharp, and she set her teeth. Nothing would be accomplished if she and Matt started sniping at each other again. “I can only give you my own observations,” she said more calmly, “and that is that Louis loved Anne, and he’s still grieving for her. Part of the grief might be guilt—that he’d teased her about being afraid of the swamp,” she told him when he sent her a quick look. “That he didn’t take it seriously enough.”

  “You told him about the box?”

  “Yes.” Why doesn’t it rain? she thought as she pulled her sticky blouse away from her shoulder blades. Maybe the rain would wash everything clean again. “He didn’t put it together at first, then when he did, I’d say he was more disgusted than anything else. Then . . . then he remembered I’d always been terrified of snakes. For a couple of minutes, he was just like he used to be. Kind, warm.” Swallowing, Laurel looked out the side window while Matt swore, silently, savagely.

  “I asked him why he hadn’t let Anne meet anyone. He said he didn’t want the comparisons to Elise he knew would crop up. He kept close to her because he didn’t want her to grow bored and—”

  “Look elsewhere,” Matt finished.

  “All right, yes.” Laurel’s head whipped back around. “Aren’t you forgetting about those glass houses now, Matthew? Haven’t you any compassion at all? Any understanding as to what it’s been like for him?”

  He met her heated look briefly. “You’ve got enough for both of us.”

  “Damn you, Matthew,” she whispered. “You’re so smug, so quick to judge. Isn’t it lucky you never lost anyone you loved?”

  He hurled his cigarette out the window. “We’re talking about Trulane, not me. If you’re going to start crusading again, Laurel, do it on your own time. Not when you’re my partner. I deal in facts.”

  She felt the rage bubble up and barely, just barely, suppressed it. Her voice was frigid. “All right, then here’s another one for you. Louis said he would’ve killed any man that Anne was involved with. He said it with a cold-bloodedness I’m sure you’d admire. Yet Nathan Brewster still works for him.”

  “And here’s another one.” Matt pulled into a parking space at the Herald and turned on her. “You’re so hung up on Trulane you’ve made some kind of Brontë hero out of him. You refuse to see him any other way. He’s a ruthless, bitter man capable of cold violence. His first wife chose his younger brother. Haven’t you ever asked yourself why?”

  She jerked her arm out of his hold. “You know nothing about love and loyalty, Matthew.”

  “And you do?” he tossed back. “If you’d grow up, you’d see that you don’t love Trulane, you’re obsessed with him.”

  She paled, and as the blood drained from her face, her eyes grew darker, colder. “I do love him,” she said in a low, vibrating voice. “You haven’t the capacity to understand that. You want things black-and-white, Matthew. Fine, you stick with that and leave me the hell alone.”

  She was out of the car quickly, but he had her by the shoulders before she could dash into the building. “Don’t you walk away from me.” The anger spilled out, with something very close to panic at the edges. “I’ve had enough of Louis Trulane. I’ll be damned if I’m going to have him breathing down my neck every time I touch you.”

  Laurel stared up at him, eyes dry. “You’re a fool. Maybe you’d better take a good look at the facts again, Matthew. Now leave me alone.” When her voice broke, they both swore. “Just stay away from me for a while.”

  This time when she turned from him, Matt didn’t stop her. He waited until she’d disappeared inside the building before he leaned against the hood of his car. With the heat shimmering in waves around him, he drew out a cigarette and tried to pull himself together.

  What the hell had gotten into him? He’d attacked her. Matt dragged a hand through his hair. An emotional attack wasn’t any prettier than a physical one. The heat? He shifted his shoulders beneath his damp, sticky shirt. That might be part of it, it was enough to set anyone’s nerves on edge.

  Who was he trying to kid—himself? Matt blew out a long breath and watched the smoke hang in the thick, still air. The crux of it was, she’d spent the night with him, giving herself to him, bringing him all the things he’d needed, wanted . . . then he’d seen Louis put a hand to her cheek.

  Idiot. Laurel couldn’t have cursed him more accurately than he did himself. He’d let jealousy claw at him until he’d clawed at her. He hadn’t been able to stop it. No, he corrected, he hadn’t tried to stop it. It’d been easier to be angry than to let the fear take over. The fear that he’d had for her since he’d looked in the box on her table—the fear that he had of her since he’d discovered he was hopelessly in love with her. He didn’t want to lose her. He wouldn’t survive.

  Maybe he’d sniped at her hoping she’d back off and let him take over the investigation. If he’d found a way to prevent her going with him into the swamp, she wouldn’t have been hurt.

  Maybe he’d used Louis as an obstacle because he’d been afraid to risk telling Laurel how he felt about her. He’d planned things so carefully—he always had. Yet things had gotten out of hand from the moment he’d started to work with Laurel on this story. How was he supposed to tell her that he loved her—perhaps on some level had loved her from the moment he’d seen that picture propped against Curt’s books? She’d think he was crazy. Matt crushed the cigarette under his heel. Maybe he was.

  But he was still a reporter, and reporters knew how to follow through, step by step. The first thing was to give Laurel the space she’d demanded. He owed her that. In giving it to her, he could do a little digging on his own. The next thing was to find a way to apologize without bringing Trulane into the picture again.

  The last thing, Matt thought as he crossed the parking lot, the last thing was to get it into her thick head that he loved her. W
hether she liked the idea or not.

  Chapter 10

  Laurel considered it fortunate that she’d been sent back out on an assignment almost immediately after coming into the city room. She was able to grab a fresh pad, hook up with a photographer and dash out again before Matt was even halfway up on the elevator.

  She didn’t want to see him, not until the anger and the hurt had faded a bit. The three-car pileup at a main intersection downtown, with all the heat, noise and confusion it would generate, should distract her from her personal problems. Temporarily.

  He was being unreasonable, she told herself with gritted teeth while the photographer cruised through a yellow light and joined a stream of traffic. Unreasonable and unyielding. How could anyone be so utterly lacking in compassion or empathy? How could a man who had shown her such unquestioning support and comfort when she’d been frightened feel nothing for someone who’d been through what Louis Trulane had? Didn’t he recognize pain? How could she love someone who . . . That’s where she stopped, because no matter how or why, she loved Matt. It was as simple as that.

  Because she loved him, his lack of feeling and his words had cut that much deeper. To accuse her of being obsessed by Louis. Oh, that grated. Any rational person would understand that Louis Trulane had been her childhood hero. She’d loved him freely, with a child’s heart and in a child’s way. In the course of time, the love had changed, not because Louis had changed but because she had.

  She still loved Louis, perhaps not quite objectively. She loved Louis the way a woman loves the memory of the first boy who kissed her, the first boy who brought her a bouquet. It was soft and safe and passionless, but it was so very sweet. Matt was asking her to turn her back on that memory. Or to dim it, darken it with suspicion.