Exposure

by Susan Andersen

  She hugged her knees tighter and met his eyes again. "Questions like that have haunted me ever since I laid eyes on the first tape. But that's not the worst of it, cher. I mean, let's face it, I haven't had the most sheltered of upbringings; I've knocked around a bit. When it comes right down to the wire I can usually take care of myself perfectly well. Had this concerned only me, then I might have stuck around to confront Grant about it."

  Elvis snapped upright. "You mean . . . ?"

  "Oh, oui. I told you they were in chronological order? Well, the most recent one was in a brand-new location. It was taken in Gracie's room."

  * * * * *

  Ruby stopped by Emma's table and studied her critically. "You've been looking a little peaky lately," she commented, giving the barely touched fruit and muffin plate in front of Emma a censorious look as she refilled her coffee cup. She straightened up and stood with her free hand on her hip, watching until the younger woman broke off a tiny piece of muffin and popped it into her mouth. Ruby gave a nod of approval and then stated unequivocally, "What you need is a nice night out to take your mind off your troubles."

  "What I need," Emma replied sourly, raising her voice slightly to project to where Elvis stood at the counter having his coffee cup filled, "is a sheriff who keeps his promises."

  Elvis' shoulders stiffened. Saying something low to Bonnie, he turned and strode across the room, stopping in front of Emma's table. Ignoring the few interested patrons, he planted his hook and the knuckles of his right hand on the tabletop and leaned on them heavily, bending over until they were eyeball to eyeball. "I never promised that you could leave," he said flatly. "Not once did I do that.

  And I'm getting damned sick and tired of hearing you call me a liar all over town."

  "Ly-oo, ly-oo, pants on fy-oo," Gracie's voice floated up from under the table and Elvis' eyes flared wrathfully, more intensely blue than usual with the wild burn of emotions that scudded across their surface. Like lasers, they focused on Emma with an intensity that pinned her to her seat. He looked furious. More than that, he looked betrayed.

  Well, Mon Dieu, she thought in disgust, as if I were the one who broke faith with him. The man sure as hell doesn't lack nerve.

  And yet ...

  "That's enough, Grace Melina," she said sternly, bending sideways to peer at her daughter who was lying on her stomach on the floor beneath the table, using her sidewalk chalk to decorate the backside of a paper placemat. "Neither Sheriff Elvis nor I were talking to you." Straightening, she returned her attention to Elvis. "And as for you, Sheriff, oui, it is true you did not promise me in so many words that my bebe and I could leave once I told you about . . ." Her voice dropped off as she glanced significantly at the tabletop that blocked Gracie from view but not from hearing. "You know." Her volume then returned to normal as she leveled a look at him. "But you certainly understood that I thought we had a bargain. And you did nothing to enlighten me to the contrary."

  "What am I—a damn mind reader?" he demanded coolly, but it was hard to put any real feeling into denying the charge when in fact that was exactly how he'd played it. "Look, why don't we move this conversation over there," he suggested, jerking his head in the direction of the hallway. He didn't mind fighting with her; as usual it made him feel all revved up and alive. But he hated having her fight with him within earshot of the kid.

  "That won't be necessary," she retorted dismissively. "This conversation is at an end as far as I'm concerned."

  Gracie scooted out from under the table and climbed up onto her chair. She slapped her artwork down on a clean spot on the table. "Look!" she commanded to the table at large.

  "Oh, that's pretty, cherie," Emma said.

  "Interesting use of color," agreed Ruby, who had seated herself at the table to enjoy the latest installment of the Elvis and Emma Show. Rocking her chair back on two legs, she reached for a clean cup from a neighboring table and settled back to pour herself some coffee.

  "Nice work, Beans," Elvis offered. He studied it from three different angles but decided against asking her what it was supposed to represent.

  Gracie stepped onto Emma's thighs and hooked an arm around her neck. She walked the fingers of her free hand up and down her mother's upper chest and shoulder as she swayed gently back and forth. "How come you wanna go fwom Pote Flannewy, Maman? I yike it here."

  Ruby and Elvis looked at Emma speculatively, wondering how she would get out of this one. They both knew she didn't like to tell her daughter lies. They also knew that in this case she could hardly tell her the absolute truth. Not, at least, without a long, involved explanation which the child would probably not understand, concerning as it did the man Gracie considered to be her grandfather.

  Emma was caught unprepared, and she stared at her daughter in dismay. "Because it doesn't have a McDonald's," she said off the top of her head.

  Gracie looked thoughtful. "Tha's twue," she said, and for a moment Elvis feared that the lack of the golden arches was all it would take to turn the tables. Damn. He'd have to fight both of them, then, and God knew he didn't want to do that. Then Gracie brightened. "But it has a Daiwy Fweeze," she said.

  "So I guess what you're sayin' is that you think we should stick around for a couple more days then, huh?" Emma asked, and Gracie nodded enthusiastically. Then she lost interest and jumped down from Emma's lap. Begging a new placemat and retrieving her box of chalk, she trotted over to table seven and sprawled out on the floor beneath it to execute a new work of art.

  Elvis pushed back from the table. "Well, I gotta get to work," he said. Raising his voice he called, "Bonnie! Can you warm that coffee up for me?" and walked away, stopping at the counter to pick up his order.

  Ruby watched him go and turned back in time to see Emma doing the same. "Why are you so hard-nosed with the man?"

  The wistfulness faded from Emma's eyes. "Because he deliberately led me to believe something he had no intention of following through on," she retorted. "In essence, he lied."

  "He didn't lie," Ruby contradicted her, "he omitted." She gave a careless shrug. "And, really, even if he had lied, big deal. You plan on running for the rest of your life, Emma? Trust me, hon, you'll be safer staying right here where Donnelly can take care of you."

  It didn't surprise Emma to realize that the entire island apparently knew about her troubles. The exact specifics might not be general knowledge, but everyone seemed to grasp the basic concept—that she was being pursued by a powerful relative who threatened her child, and that Elvis Donnelly was preventing her from fleeing the island.

  Emma gave the waitress a narrow-eyed look. "Since when have you become an Elvis Donnelly cheerleader?" she demanded sarcastically. "There's somethin' drastically wrong with this picture, Ruby.

  If I didn't know better I'd say the Pod People substituted you for the real Ruby Kelly. They've probably got her wrapped up in a chrysalis and stashed under a bed somewhere."

  Ruby shrugged. "Hey, he's an excellent sheriff—I've always said that. Besides, he's . . . different . . . since you came to town. More real somehow. And you can't deny he's crazy about that kid of yours.

  If anyone can keep her safe, it's Donnelly."

  "I don't believe this," Emma muttered, shaking her head.

  "Yeah, well, it kind of surprises me too," Ruby agreed. "But there you have it. I just don't think your leaving is such a great idea, okay? If you ask me—"

  "Which I haven't."

  "—your urge to run is based more on instinct than intellect. I don't think you've really thought this through, Emma." Ruby picked up the abandoned coffee pot and tested its side for warmth. Finding it still reasonably hot, she freshened both their cups. "Say, for the sake of argument, that by leaving the island you do shake this guy who's watching you. Then what, Emma? Sooner or later he's bound to catch up with you again, and what if it's in some town where you don't know a soul? Who you gonna turn to?

  At least here you've got people who'll look out for you. And having the law o
n your side is a definite plus—anywhere else you're going to have to talk a strange cop in a strange town into believing your story before he'll even consider taking any action. And just how long can you run, anyhow? Gracie should be playing with kids her own age, but where you gonna stop long enough to enroll her in a preschool? Where—"

  "Okay, okay; cher; I get the picture." Emma buried her head in her hands. "Dieu. This is such a mess." Hands, rising, fingers still linked, to the top of her head, she peered up at the older woman. "Ruby, do you think for just an itsy-bitsy little nanosecond we could talk about somethin' else?"

  "Sure, no problem. Here, eat your fruit." Ruby pushed the plate back in front of Emma. "As for a new subject, how about this? Let's you 'n' me go to the Anchor tomorrow night, chug a few beers, do a little dancin'. Like I was saying earlier, hon, I think what you really need is a nice night out."

  * * * * *

  "Emma." Elvis' deep voice was the last one she expected to hear. "I want to talk to you for a minute."

  She gave a long-suffering sigh, raised her upper body out from under the hood of Mavis Blackerton's Ford, and wiped her hands on a rag. "What now, Sheriff?"

  Almost immediately she regretted her tone of voice. Having put a great deal of consideration into Ruby's earlier conversation, she had privately decided that any future encounters with Elvis should be handled in a less confrontational manner than the past few had been. Without agreeing with Ruby's assessment one hundred percent, Emma was willing to concede that maybe—just maybe—there was a little bit of value in what Ruby had said. Waving an erasing hand, she said, "Let me begin again," in quiet apology for her snippiness. Peeling off her surgical gloves, she faced the large sheriff. "What is it that I can do for you, Elvis?"

  For his part Elvis manfully suppressed the urge to offer her a truly hot and nasty suggestion. Even in dressing him down, that low, Southern drawl of hers got to him, and to his disgust, he had found her antagonism the past few days downright arousing. "I, uh . . ." He cleared his throat. "We gotta talk about those tapes. I know they're personal, Em, but I'd like to see them."

  "You can't, they're gone." For the first time she was glad of it. She went hot all over merely at the thought of Elvis seeing some of the material that had been caught on those videos. Dieu, part of that stuff involved moments in her life so private . . .

  He snapped upright from his indolent lounging against the car fender. "They're what!? "

  "Gone. I told you that, Elvis. Oh, no, I guess I didn't, did I?" She shrugged defensively. "Well, I was going to ... but then you went and announced that unilateral decision you'd made to keep me 'n' Gracie from leaving your oh-so-hospitable island, and I guess I forgot about it."

  "You forgot? Christ, Emma, how the hell does someone forget something like—?" He shook his head. "No. Never mind; let's not get into that." He let out the deep breath he'd just drawn. Then through clenched teeth he commanded, "Tell me what happened to them."

  "When I got back from the Mackeys' the other night— the fourth?—I discovered them gone. They were on the closet shelf before the parade, but when I went to check on them they were no longer there." She raised her head and gave him a level look. "Which means one of Grant's flunkies got into my room to recover them for him. Does this sort of give you an idea of why I no longer feel particularly safe here?"

  "Had the lock been forced?"

  "No."

  "And nothing else had been taken?"

  "No. It was an object lesson, Elvis," she said in exasperation. "Grant wanted me to know that when it comes to playing games with him, I can't win. So I packed up and ran." All right, she was already packing to run when she'd discovered the tapes missing, but it was a minor detail—and one she knew would play better with Elvis than the other way around. "Don't you see, Elvis—"

  "Forget it—you're not leaving," he interrupted. God, he could read her like a book. "Your chances of keeping both you and the kid safe are a lot greater if you stay here where there are people who are willing and able to lend a hand if you need one. Dammit, Em!" He raked his hair back in frustration.

  "I wish I could make you see that running away isn't the way to handle—"

  "Okay," she interrupted him wearily.

  "Huh?"

  "I said okay. I won't fight you on this anymore; me and Gracie, we'll stay." She met his eyes, and her own—normally such a clear, deep brown—were cloudy with uncertainty. "God help us all, though, Elvis, if you and Ruby turn out to be wrong about this. If anything happens to my bebe I will never forgive you."

  * * * * *

  "You've never forgiven me for not saving Evan, have you?" Sam asked out of the blue one evening.

  Clare looked up in shock. They had been sitting in the living room, companionably she'd thought, she reading, he staring out the window at the view while he listened to Clint Black sing that the lights were on but nobody was home. It caught her flatfooted, to be suddenly hit with this.

  "That's not true," she said in distress. "I know there was nothing you could have done to prevent him from dying!" She could still hear him yelling at Evan to stay away from the edge of the cliff, to get back. She could still see him running flat-out to intercept their son before Evan could reach the unfenced edge; could hear his howl of rage and despair as the undermined ground gave way beneath Evan's slight weight; could picture his futile dive for the body that tumbled out of sight over the edge.

  "Intellectually, maybe," Sam said. He tore his gaze away from the view and turned to face her, his eyes moody. He hadn't intended to have this conversation. But they'd been sitting there for the past hour like two distant relatives, amiable enough but basically apart, and it had just sort of burst out of him. It was a subject that had haunted him for over a year. "Emotionally though . . ." He let it trail off and shrugged. "It's doubtful you've accepted it emotionally."

  "That's bullshit, Sam. Complete and utter bullshit."

  "Is it? Then why the hell did you lock me out?" He looked at her fiercely. "Huh? Why did you turn away from me during the one time I needed you most? During the one time when I needed you to need me? "

  "God, Sammy, why not ask a blind woman to describe the nuances and shades of a Monet painting?" She pulled her knee up on the couch cushion as she swiveled to face him. "How am I supposed to explain what I don't even understand myself?" she demanded. Nevertheless, she made the attempt.

  "It hurt to be touched by anyone, Sam. God"—her fist clenched on her thigh—"it hurt so bad. When Evan died it was like someone had skinned me alive. They left me breathing, but every single inch of me was one big exposed nerve ending that screamed in agony at the slightest contact. I couldn't live with that kind of torment, so I grew a shell. A nice, thick, foam-rubber outer covering that cushioned the pain and layered it with numbness."

  She reached out a hesitant hand to brush a lock of hair from his forehead. "But I never meant to add to your grief," she said in a low voice. "I simply didn't consider your suffering; I was too busy staying attuned to my own. It was selfish, Sam, selfish, plain and simple, and I'm sorry." More than anything she longed to be pulled into his arms and held by him, but he made no move to reach for her and she felt she had forfeited any rights to make demands on him in this marriage. Girding herself to make the first move anyway, she was just straightening in her seat to offer a hug when he surged to his feet.

  Sam shook a cigarette out of the pack on the coffee table and struck a match. Lighting up, he paced restlessly to the fireplace and tossed the spent match into the grate. "Are you as tired of these four walls as I am?" he demanded, coming back to stare down at her where she still sat looking up at him from the couch. He had to get them moving before he did something that she was clearly not ready for. "Let's go honky-tonkin'," he demanded. At least at the Anchor he'd have a legitimate excuse to hold her in his arms.

  Clare stared up at him. Cigarette clamped between his teeth and blue smoke curling up from its tip to screen his narrowed eyes, she couldn't tell what he was thi
nking as he returned her look. But she liked the idea of going dancing with him. Anything to bring a little physical contact back into this marriage.

  She rose to her feet.

  "That sounds like fun. Let me just go get changed."

  * * * * *

  "Fun," Emma muttered to herself. "Fun. I don't even know what that word means anymore." She lifted up Gracie to let her press the doorbell. Setting her back on her feet, she barely straightened before the door opened. "I don't know about this, Ruby," she said uncertainly to the woman standing before her. "I'm not sure this is such a hot idea."

  "It's a great idea." Ruby ushered Emma and Gracie into her house and closed the door behind them.

  "It's exactly what the doctor ordered—for both of you." She turned to Gracie. "Hiya, kiddo."

  "Hi, Miss Wuby! I gots my jammies."

  "Good girl. Why don't you put your bag down over there on the couch, honey. Mary's been looking forward to having a pajama party with you ever since I mentioned it, haven't you, hon?" she inquired of her daughter, who had walked into the living room.

  "You betcha. Hi, Emma. You look really pretty. Hiya, squirt." Mary squatted down in front of Gracie. "We're going to make a pizza tonight, and I rented us a couple a Disney flicks to watch. Or I've still got my old doll collection, if you wanna play with those." She looked up at Emma. "You just go on out and have a good time with my mom. I'll take real good care of the squirt here."

  "Oh, chere, I don't know . . ."

  Ruby made a disgusted noise deep in her throat and snagged Emma's arm. She dragged her into the kitchen and swung her around until Emma was up against the counter. "Now, stop that," she commanded. "Here. Have a beer. Try to lighten up." Stepping back, she looked Emma over assessingly and nodded with approval. "At least you paid attention when I suggested what to wear. You look great."