Beyond the Quiet: Romantic Thriller

by Brenda Hill

  “This is not going to work.”

  He leaned forward to study me. “You’re shaking. Let me drive.” We changed seats. He kept staring at me as I moved like a zombie.

  On the way home, he kept apologizing, telling me that he was doing everything for Betty that he could, but I couldn’t forget her stricken face. No matter how I tried to sort the situation, it just didn’t seem right.

  When he opened his apartment door, I stood looking at what I had thought was my piece of heaven. But now I felt remote, as if I were looking at an old picture of something I had once treasured, but that was no longer part of my life. Standing there, with Terry hovering behind me, I could feel Betty’s anguish, could hear the echo of her tears.

  How could I possibly be happy when my very existence made another woman miserable? I couldn’t help but be affected. I couldn’t speak, and I couldn’t meet Terry’s eyes.

  “Lisa, you’re scaring me.” He shook me.

  I wanted him to shake me, wanted him to shake away the terrible emptiness I felt. I wanted him to take away the memory of Betty’s eyes.

  “Oh, honey, please, please,” he said, taking me in his arms.

  He held me close to him, but I felt nothing. I only knew that I had to leave these few rooms where I now felt a trespasser on someone else’s life.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Shrugging out of Terry’s arms, I stumbled to the closet for my suitcase and stuffed clothes from my dresser drawers into it.

  “Lisa, what are you doing? Honey?” Terry blocked my way.

  When I turned around to go to the bathroom for my toiletries, he hurried to step in front of me. I pushed past him.

  “Please,” he said, “stop and talk to me.”

  I couldn’t look at him, couldn’t listen to his voice. I forced myself to concentrate on my clothes, had get my clothes together.

  And then he watched, silently, as I piled clothes on the bed and threw them in the suitcase. When there was no more room, I still had shoes to pack. Standing in the middle of the bedroom floor, I held one pair of black pumps and glanced at the full suitcase, then to clothes still piled on the bed. I couldn’t think what to do. Standing in the middle of the bedroom floor, I held those damn shoes, immobilized, trying to figure out a solution. We had broken the moving boxes down to store them in the apartment garage for our move to the house. Oh, God, the house . . .

  Suddenly my mind was racing. I couldn’t live in that house, not now. But what was I to do? To try to back out now would put everyone in a mess. HUD had approved my contract and had removed the house from their list. The mortgage company had begun the process of a new FHA loan. Fees were involved. Even if I could legally back out now, I’d lose my deposit. Perhaps I could continue the process until closing, and then sign it over to Ben. But then, I would be an investor instead of an owner/occupant. Would HUD penalize me as a fraud?

  “For God’s sake, Lisa.”

  Terry took the shoes from my hands and pulled me down on the bed.

  “Honey, let’s talk about this,” he said. “I’m so sorry this happened—”

  At last I was able to face him. “Did you see her eyes?” I asked.

  “Of course I did. That house was the last hold she had on me and now that it’s selling, she now realizes the marriage is truly over. She’s upset and that’s understandable, but you can’t let that stop us from living our own lives.”

  “But you don’t understand,” I told him. “I’m the other woman.” I laughed, an agony-filled sound. “Of all people, I’m the other woman.”

  “This is crazy, Lisa. You’re no such thing. It wouldn’t matter if we’d been divorced for day or a lifetime. She’d still live with the hope that I’d come back to her.” He tried to pull me into his arms, but I was unyielding. No amount of hugs could fix this.

  “I can’t do it, Terry. I can’t build my happiness on someone else’s tragedy.”

  “Tragedy? Something’s not right here.” He rose and paced back and forth. “You’re saying I should go back to Betty, throw away all chance of happiness in my own life and live with her because it makes her happy?”

  He was right. Something was off but my numbed brain couldn’t figure it out.

  “What about all those years I spent doing the right thing?” he continued when I didn’t respond. “How much of my life am I supposed to sacrifice for someone else? Aren’t I entitled to a life?”

  “When you put it that way, it doesn’t make sense.”

  “Well then, stop this craziness and let’s forget this ever happened.”

  “But it did happen, Terry. That’s the point and I can’t forget.” Picking up the dropped shoes, I stood. “I don’t know the answer. I just know I can’t be the cause of another woman’s heartbreak.”

  Leaving the shoes abandoned on the bedroom floor, I picked up the suitcase and went to the front door.

  “You’re determined to leave?” he said, putting his hand over mine as I reached for the knob.

  “I have to. I think you know that I have to,”

  “I wish you wouldn’t do this, Lisa.” Terry took the suitcase from me. “But I can’t stop you if you’re determined. But remember this. If you go, you’re throwing away the rest of our lives. Certainly the rest of mine.” He disappeared out the door.

  Placing my key on the end table, I crossed the threshold, leaving behind the one place on earth I had truly loved, the only home where I had ever felt truly loved.

  Terry was silent as he put my suitcase in the back seat of my car. When I said something about sending for the rest of my things, he asked me where I was going to go.

  “A hotel, perhaps,” I told him numbly. “I don’t know.”

  “Will you at least call me when you get there? Let me know where you are?”

  “What good would it do?” I asked, turning the key in the ignition. After I eased out of the driveway and turned the car around, I couldn’t look back.

  ***

  It wasn’t until I had checked into the hotel that I remembered Rick. As much as I dreaded making the call, I had to let Terry know.

  Gripping the phone, I waited for him to answer, eager to hear his voice one more time, knowing it would just prolong the agony.

  Why did this have to happen? Why did I have to see Betty’s pain? I should have been able to guess what she must have been feeling after so many years of marriage, even if they had divorced. But I had been so wrapped up in loving a man completely for the first time in my life that I had refused to think of her as an actual person.

  Was that how Jenna had felt?

  No, that was different, wasn’t it? Mac and I had been married and were living together. Terry and Betty were divorced. But could I live happily with Terry knowing how Betty felt?

  The phone was ringing now but there was no answer. Where was he? I felt desperate to hear his voice just one more time, even though I knew I shouldn’t.

  But I had to tell him about Rick. And then we had to talk about the new house.

  When he answered, I blurted out, “If you hadn’t met me at the open house, do you think you would have eventually gone back to Betty?”

  He said nothing. The silence stretched and I heard the faint static on the line.

  “Lisa,” he finally said, his voice sounding resigned, hopeless. My heart ached for him, for both of us. “I’ve told you in as many ways as I possibly can that I don’t love Betty, but right now, I don’t know that it would make any difference. I can understand why you feel the way you do but it doesn’t make it any easier.”

  “But she—”

  “Honey, I love you more than I thought possible to love anyone, and I wanted nothing more than to spend what I have left of my life with you.”

  “Terry—”

  “I want to say this, Lisa, I want you to understand.” He paused. “I had been condemned to die, but because of you, I had hope for the future. Some of my dreams were finally coming true. I dreamed of talking you into a motor home and tr
aveling together, seeing and doing some of the things I’d always wanted. When you left tonight, you took away my dreams.”

  The pressure in my chest was too much. I tried to hold back the tears but I must have made a sound.

  “I’m sorry you’re feeling so bad, Lisa,” Terry said, “but right now I can’t help you because I can’t even help myself.”

  And then he hung up.

  The tears came, deep, unstoppable, wrenching sobs that left me breathless. I fell across the bed and lay in the dark, neither awake nor asleep. From the corridor, I heard a man and woman talking, their laughter alive with love for each other.

  I turned my face to the wall and closed my eyes.

  ***

  Over toast and coffee at Denny’s the next morning, I braced myself for another call to Terry. I didn’t want to make the call, didn’t want to put him or myself through more anguish, but he needed to know about Rick. At least in a public place, I would be certain to hold myself together.

  Waiting for him to answer, I could barely draw a breath. Was I having an anxiety attack? Breathe in to the count of seven, out to the count of eight. It was so strange . . . I was desperate to hear his voice, yet didn’t know if I could stand hearing it.

  I heard a click, then his voice mail. Was he standing by, silently listening as I had once done? Disappointed yet relieved, I left a brief message about Andrea seeing Rick.

  “Andrea thought he had been in an accident, but I think Jack must have visited him.” Then, after a pause, “Whatever happened, I think Rick is even more angry and may do something stupid. So please, watch out for him. And Terry, I’m going to talk to Ben about the house. With things the way they are, I can’t buy it. No way could I live there without you.” Tears choking me, I clicked off the phone and rushed to the car.

  About fifteen minutes later, still sitting in my car at the restaurant parking lot, I called Ben and asked if he was going to be in the office this morning.

  “Come on in,” he said. “I have some good news about the house.”

  Oh no. From his cheerful tone of voice, he must have heard from the lender with a closing date.

  And if he had, could I tell him I couldn’t buy the house?

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  On my way down the corridor to Ben’s office, I felt like a condemned person walking that last long mile. Ben was liable to be so upset he’d fire me. And even if he didn’t go to that extreme, he’d certainly have to go to a lot of trouble to get one of his realtors out of a mess.

  “We have a closing date, two weeks from today,” he said, giving me a fatherly hug. He certainly looked the part with his neatly combed white hair and twinkling blue eyes. “But before we talk about that, I want to know about the problem you’re having with Rick.”

  At Ben’s concern, I slumped into my chair. Where should I begin? Feeling overwhelmed, I glanced around Ben’s cozy office, gathering strength from the familiar surroundings—his long cherry wood desk, the sheen from its polished surface reflecting the glow from his green desk lamp. The ivy plant that wound its tendrils around the gold-framed picture of his wife and grandchildren. How terrible it would be if this were the last time I sat there with my old friend. And yet I knew that it was a distinct possibility.

  “What’s the matter, Lisa?” Ben said. “I’ve never known you to be so silent for so long. You aren’t having second thoughts, I hope.”

  He’d given me the opening I needed, but still, I couldn’t begin. I looked behind him at the wall, covered with family pictures and the certificates he had earned over his long career. Then it hit me. I was acting as nervous as Betty had been at our first meeting.

  Betty . . .

  The minute I thought of how she had looked at me, I began to cry.

  Ben took a box of tissues from his drawer and moved around his desk to sit in the chair next to me.

  “What is it, Lisa?” His voice was gentle. “Can I help?”

  When I had calmed down enough to speak, I told him everything, from the post office notice in the mail and Jenna, to meeting Terry, and my complete happiness since. I told him about the friction that had always existed between Rick and me, and what had happened when Rick had been waiting for me at the vacant house.

  “Why that dirty sonofabitch,” he said. “Why didn’t you tell me? I would’ve made sure he spent the night in jail.”

  “I thought about it, but too many other things were happening. Now I know I should have said something.” I brought him up to date by telling him about Andrea’s message from Rick.

  “I checked into a hotel,” I said, “but I think Rick might be following me.”

  “You should consider a restraining order. I have friends in the department and I’ll help you. And I can certainly make sure he doesn’t step foot in this office again.” Ben sat back, his hands folded on his stomach, fingers tented. “I hate that you’re having to go through all this, especially with a former employee of mine. I feel responsible.”

  “Oh, Ben, you’re not. I didn’t even tell you what was happening. But what should I do about the house?”

  “That’s the easy part. You let me take care of that. I haven’t been in business for fifty years without knowing some people in power. But Lisa, be sure this is what you want to do. I can’t cancel the deal now, and then later go back and say, well, fellows, it was a mistake. So think hard. Are you absolutely sure this is what you want to do?”

  “I can’t live in that house without Terry.”

  “Are you sure it’s over? From what you say, he seems like a perfect match for you.”

  “He is a perfect match. Perhaps more so because we didn’t have that much time.” I told him about Terry’s disease.

  “Jesus, what a ball buster. Excuse the word.”

  “Oh, Ben, it is a ball buster. It’s worse. He divorced his wife of thirty years and she’s a wreck. I don’t know if I can live with that. It was different before.”

  “Before what?”

  “Before I saw her.” I couldn’t speak for a moment. “What should I do? I can’t even think logically anymore.”

  “It depends. Can you live with yourself if you deny him the gift of your love?”

  “Gift?”

  “One thing I’ve learned in all my years of living, is that love, true love is rare. It’s a gift to the right person, something to be treasured, cherished. And Lisa, I may not know Terry very well, but it didn’t take long to see that he loves you.”

  “But that’s not the issue. His former wife is suffering because of me.”

  “Ah, but were you the cause of their martial problems? It sounds to me as if his desire to live life to the fullest in the short time he has left was the cause. And yes, his ex-wife is suffering, but would she suffer any less if he hadn’t met you?”

  I hadn’t thought of it that way, and when I did, it was as if the clouds had opened and I could see the sun again.

  I wasn’t the cause of Betty’s suffering!

  What a revelation. The joy was immediate and overwhelming. I jumped up and gave Ben a hug.

  “I love you, old friend. Thank you!” I dashed for the door. I had to get to Terry.

  “What about the house?” Ben called after me.

  “Later!” I called back over my shoulder, in too much of a hurry to stop.

  In the car, I punched Terry’s number, impatiently counting the rings.

  “Come on, answer the damn phone,” I said. But it rang again and again, and then went to voice mail. “If you’re there, pick up,” I said. “I love you and I’m coming home.”

  A patch of clouds covered the sky and traffic was heavy. Feeling an urgency to get home, I barreled through yellow lights. Needing to make a right at the red light, I cut through a strip-mall parking lot instead of waiting behind a line of cars. Anything to keep moving. I couldn’t lose a second.

  Pulling in front of his apartment, I scanned the parking area for his car, but it wasn’t there. No, I thought, my heart lunging to my toes, he
couldn’t be gone. I punched in his number again. This time he answered.

  “Yes?”

  “I’m home!” I told him. “Where are you?”

  “Lisa, I love you more than I could ever say, but I can’t take this kind of agony.”

  “There won’t be any more agony. Not for us.” I was babbling, but I didn’t care. “I love you and I’ll never leave you again. Come home, sweetheart, I’m waiting.”

  ***

  Standing outside the apartment building, I felt as though it were an eternity before I spotted Terry’s car. When I saw that Lexus turning in, a beige car like thousands of others, a curious thing happened. The sun broke through the clouds, sending a brilliant ray to caress the car with sparkling gold. Squinting at the sudden glare, I saw, for a nanosecond in time, the car bathed in golden radiance as if it were a celestial coach floating in an aura of light. It was beautiful. And frightening. I shivered with a sudden chill.

  Clouds covered the sun again and with one final flash, the sparkle disappeared and Terry’s car appeared normal. When he saw me, he stopped the car and got out. I took off running and threw myself into his arms, knowing he would catch me. Holding him close, I showered his face and neck with kisses, not caring who saw us. All I cared about was this wonderful man and showing him how much I loved him.

  “I’m so sorry, Terry,” I said between kisses, drinking in his clean soap smell. “Can you forgive me?”

  He took me into his arms. “Please don’t ever do anything like that again,” he said fiercely. “I’d rather face an inferno than life without you.” When he kissed me, my knees turned to jelly. Locking arms, we took the elevator to his apartment.

  When he opened the door, I gave him one more kiss, then we crossed the threshold into the living room. That stark little apartment, its white walls barren of pictures and the coffee and end tables empty of all the little items that gave a room color and interest, was the center of joy for me. Dropping my handbag, I closed my eyes, held out my arms, hummed “The Blue Danube” and danced in circles as if embracing the very air.

  “Want to dance with me?” I asked. “We’ve never danced together.”