Understanding crept into her eyes, and then they turned moist. “Does it mean that much to you?” she asked.
“Yes.”
She looked down. “Everything’s changing. My whole life…”
Sam put his arms around her to quiet her fears. “It’s all right,” he said again.
Head down, Marcie nodded her acquiescence. When she silently undressed, then lay beneath him on her stomach, Sam was gentle.…
She shivered as he pushed inside her, and then he stilled her with both hands, his hips thrusting harder, deeper. Her throat trembled with silent sobbing.…
He was so careful that Marcie barely made a sound.…
Her deep, convulsive shudder became his; as he climaxed, filled with primal joy and terrible fear, his teeth clenched against the sound of his own outcry. Her tears were his as well.…
Pressed against her back, Sam shuddered with release. Marcie did not move or speak.
Slowly, he withdrew. “Marcie?” he asked.
She did not answer. Then he rolled her on her side, and saw what he had done.…
“I want to see your face,” Sam murmured. When she turned, looking up at him again, tears came to Sam Robb’s eyes.
“Thank you,” he said. “Thank you.”
* * *
Marcie dressed hurriedly, distractedly. “We need to talk,” she said in a dispirited voice. “That’s why I asked to see you. Not for this.”
Sam froze, feeling the sting of her dismissal. “What is it?”
Marcie touched his shoulder, looking down. “I’m pregnant.” Her voice was sad, lost. “I’m going to have your baby.”
Sam had no words. Suddenly he saw the tidal wave of consequence—the loss of Sue, his job, the respect he had worked so hard for.
Marcie seemed to sense his horror. “No one knows it’s you.…”
Sam felt hollow. “Not yet. In the end, your father will beat it out of you.…”
“I haven’t told Janice. What makes you think I’d tell him?”
The sound of her own anger seemed to deplete her. She laid her head on Sam’s shoulder, clinging. “Just hold me, okay? I’m so scared.…”
Stiffly, Sam embraced her. “We’ll get an abortion.”
He felt Marcie shake her head. “I can’t. I just can’t.…”
“You have to.” His voice rose. “What’s more important to you—me, or a baby that will ruin things for both of us?”
Marcie pulled back, staring at him. “The baby didn’t choose.”
“Neither did I. I’m not a sperm donor, Marcie.”
Marcie folded her arms. “You’re the father of my baby,” she said. “I came to say that I’ll protect you. Both of you.”
To Sam, her adamancy was slighting, then infuriating. “If you loved me…”
“If you loved me,” she shot back, “you’d give me a little comfort.” Her voice trembled with emotion. “You’d say, ‘I love you, Marcie.’ Just like you did when you were coming in my bottom.”
Sam felt the blood rush to his face. “You wanted it.…”
“I did it for you.” Suddenly each word was laced with contempt. “Because I thought I was special, and that you were a man. But you’re acting like any selfish teenage boy, and now all you care about is that everyone will know about you.…”
Sam slapped her.
The crack of his hand across her face shocked him. Her head snapped back. Shaken, Sam gaped at her.
Sam heard the sharp intake of her breath. Then the light revealed her china face, the widening of her eyes.…
Marcie stared as though she saw right through him. Then she slid against the door, jerking it open. In a tremulous voice, she said, “Don’t come near me. Ever…”
Suddenly she was gone, running into the night.
Sam ran after her.
The night was chill. In faint moonlight, filtered now by clouds, Sam saw Marcie Calder running toward Alison’s house.
It would be fate that decided for them, Sam knew suddenly.…
If she had not done this, perhaps he could have let her go. But they could not know who he was.
Sam ran faster, fear and anger and whiskey racing through his brain.
Her footsteps whispered in the grass. He could see her lengthening strides, the speed that he had helped to give her. His chest and lungs heaved.…
She was closer now, to him, and to the Taylors’.…
“Marcie,” he called out.
Turning, she stumbled, fell. Rolling on her back, she stared up, frightened and pale, as he approached. Sam slowed to a walk.
“Marcie,” he said softly.
“Fuck you.” Her voice was tight, scared, angry. “I don’t care what happens to you now. This baby’s more important—”
“No,” she said, turning her face. “I don’t want you.…”
At her feet was the rock she had tripped on.
Sam jerked her to her feet, grasping the rock with one hand.
“Don’t move,” he whispered. “Don’t make a sound.…”
Marcie struggled in the crook of his arm. “You’re crazy—” she began, and then he covered her mouth.…
He could feel the pulse in Alison’s throat, hear the sound of her choking.…
In a spasm of fear and anger, Sam brought the rock down hard on Marcie’s head.
Shock ran through his forearm. Her eyes popped open; slumped in his arm, she shuddered, twitched.
The next two blows were to stop this. Only with the last did he feel the blood touch his face, fine as mist.
* * *
Sam stood in an open field, gazing across the dark expanse of Taylor Park, Marcie Calder caught in his arms. In his shock and disbelief, he could not seem to move.
“Alison…”
Tony’s voice came to him, as if in a dream. Turning, Sam had no sense of distance, place. The night was a morass.…
Sam turned toward the lake.
Beneath the moon, the lake, deep black, met the cloudy smudge of sky. Its sound was rolling, low.
Marcie’s body twitched against him.
Shaken, Sam dragged her toward the lake, rock clutched in one hand.
The park felt vast and silent. At any moment, a car, pulling into the parking lot, might catch him in its headlights. Sam was damp with sweat; the sound of his panting breaths seemed to come from a great distance, as though from someone else.
Marcie did not twitch again.
Her body was awkward, heavy. Sam slung her against his hip, carrying her in the crook of his left arm. Her hand, spilling toward the ground, looked glossy in the moonlight.
At the edge of the grass was a patch of mud, the bluff. Sam dragged Marcie Calder the last few feet; staring at the darkened beach below, he felt the boulder in his right hand, the ache of his tendons as he clutched it.
Sam threw the boulder as far as he could. It made no sound.
Both hands beneath her arms, Sam lifted Marcie above the precipice, staring into her face, frozen in shock. His eyes shut; slowly, he bent his cheek to her mouth, listening for her breath. There was no sound, no warmth on his skin.
Moist-eyed, Sam looked into her face again, as if to be sure. Then he hurled her into the darkness. As she vanished, he could hear her body skidding down sheer cliffside, the victim, now, of a fall.
As if in a trance, Sam walked toward the bower of trees.
Kneeling beside the car, Sam wiped his hands on the moist grass. Then he peeled off his sweat clothes, turning them inside out, and put them on again. When he got in the car, it felt strange that Marcie was not next to him.
He could not go home, Sam knew.
He drove from the trees, headlights off, looking for other cars, or a transient like Donald White. As the car crept across the field, Sam’s nerves tingled; only when he reached the macadam lot did Sam switch on his lights.
Turning, he headed for the mouth of the park.
Sudden headlights blinded him. Squinting, Sam slowed his car; as the sedan cam
e closer, he saw the roof light of a Lake City police car, patrolling the park.
Sam’s breath caught in his throat.
He drove slowly, fingers tight on the steering wheel. The patrol car slowed as well, perhaps to note the make of his car, his license plate, even his face.…
Passing, the police car was two feet away. Sam released a shuddering breath, watching its red taillights recede in the rearview mirror. Then his mind went cold.
Before anyone saw him, he must become Sam Robb again.
* * *
The teachers’ lot was empty. Parking, Sam checked the digital clock. It was ten twenty-six. Marcie’s parents would be waiting for her; Sue would be waiting for him.
Hurriedly, Sam left the car and went to the side door to the gym. Inserting his key, he hesitated, and then let himself inside.
The gym felt vast, dark. The hardwood floor creaked beneath his feet.
The basketball hoops, the wooden stands, were shadows. Somewhere on the wall above him, a banner recorded the names of those who had become the Athlete of the Year.
Beneath the basket, Sam turned toward the locker room. It felt strange for this place to be so dark, so silent.…
Like the gym, the locker room was dark. Fumbling his way to the sinks and mirrors, Sam switched on the light. In the mirror was a man with soft jowls, graying temples. There was blood on his face and hair.
He reeled to his bathroom and threw up in the toilet. Amidst the sound of his own retching, there was one certainty Sam clung to.…
Sam’s retching echoed in the locker room.
Pale, Sam washed the blood and vomit from his face. His hands were trembling: this man, this stranger, could not be him.
The janitors would be working now, perhaps would hear him. Perhaps one might wander in to take a leak.
Hurrying to the shower, Sam stripped off his clothes and shoes, then washed the blood from his hair.
Inside his locker was a second pair of sweat clothes, a new pair of tennis shoes. Sitting on the bench, Sam dressed with clumsy fingers.
Tony stepped down from the bench before they could applaud, embracing the players who stood nearest him. But when he got to Sam, he said only, “Where are our girlfriends hiding?”
Panicky, Sam towel-dried his hair, stuffed the bloody shoes and sweat clothes and towel into his gym bag, and crossed the locker room to turn out the lights. Gym bag in one hand, he cracked open the door to the gym.
More lights struck his eyes.
The head janitor, Mike Griggs, was cleaning the floor with a mop. Heart racing, Sam shut the door. Its click was loud.
Fearful, Sam wheeled in the dark.
Half smiling, Sam spun the football on the end of one finger like a world globe, watching it with great concentration. “The parking lot,” he answered, and flipped the ball back to Tony.…
Sam rushed to the other door. He pushed it open, and then the night air hit his face.
The public parking lot was beyond the football field. It was dark; Sam could barely see the goalposts. Blindly, he began running toward the lot.
As Sam reached the parking lot, he slowed, searching his memory.
The storm drain was at the corner of the lot, Sam suddenly remembered; after Tony had left him at the pier, he had driven here and sat beneath the goalposts, drinking, before he threw the empty bottle down the drain.
Stooping, Sam pushed everything between the slots of the metal drain: clothes, shoes, towel, the bag itself. It was beginning to drizzle; Sam could hear the water flowing through the hollow pipes below.
He was sober now, himself.
Rushing across the field, he got in his car and drove away. It was 10:55.
Composing himself, he stopped at a pay phone to call Sue. That she did not answer was both worry and relief. The four minutes to his home felt endless now.
His house was silent, dark. He climbed the stairs, to the room next to his parents’, and crawled into his bed, still dressed. The night was surreal, a dream.…
Sam opened the bedroom door.
Sue was in bed, filing her nails, half listening to the eleven o’clock news.
“I tried to call you,” he said.
She looked up at him, incurious. “I must have been in the shower,” she said, and then frowned. “Broke another nail—my hands look like a washerwoman’s.”
Somehow this made Sam want to kiss her. But he stopped himself; he did not know what behavior might seem odd, or repentant. He changed into his boxer shorts and crawled into bed.
“I’m tired,” he said, content to tell the truth.
* * *
Sue had noticed nothing.
Now she slept. Sam lay next to her in the dark, torn between horror and disbelief. Over and over, he saw a man in a car, caught in headlights. A man who could not be him.
Closing his eyes, Sam listened to the rise and fall of Sue’s breathing, as if it were his own.
Tomorrow he would be himself again.
Perhaps, then, he should go to the police: when Sam was himself, people had always believed him. Even Tony.
SIX
Across the bedroom, Tony looked into the face of the man who had raped and strangled Alison Taylor, who had changed the course of his life, and then had used him, so many years later, to escape the consequences of killing Marcie Calder.
His voice was soft. “It doesn’t matter, you said. I could tell you if I murdered Alison.”
Sam’s fingers still grazed the drawer. “You could have, Tony. But I could never tell you.…”
“Could I have murdered Sue, then? Would that have been all right with you?”
Sam drew himself up. “You slept with her, then lied to me, and I forgave you. Do you think I couldn’t see what happened that night, or couldn’t tell how different she was when I touched her? It made me crazy, but I let it go. For both our sakes.”
Tony felt the slow, sick anger overcome him again. “I guess that made us even, didn’t it. That made it all right for me to get you off when you killed a second girl. Especially if I slept with Sue again.” Tony’s voice quivered now. “What was the best part, Sam? Asking if I was ‘fucking’ Sue? Or manipulating your smart friend Tony, so blinded by being accused of killing Alison that I resolved all doubts in your favor?”
Sam was pale now. “You make it sound like a game.…”
“Alison, Sue, this trial—it was all a game we played, wasn’t it. Except you were the only one who understood the rules.” Tony paused, edging closer. “It must have been fun to have me back again. For one last round.”
Sam slowly shook his head. “That was Sue’s idea, not mine. I didn’t mean for any of it to happen. Sometimes I felt like it never really had.” His voice fell. “I competed with you, sure. But you were part of me. There were times—even now—when you were more important than anyone.” Sam’s face contorted in pain. “It wasn’t easy to tell you, pal. When no one knew, it wasn’t real. Now I look at you, and I know it’s real. Because you do.”
In the trapped silence, Tony forgot everything but the man in front of him, and what he had done to Alison. “It won’t be just the two of us much longer, Sam. If Stella reads the report, she’ll see what I saw.” His voice was taut with anger. “Were I Stella, I’d charge you with both murders in a single trial. Which would make it pretty hard for you to blame Ernie.”
Sam’s eyes grew hazy; with a savage pleasure, Tony watched the knowledge of Sam’s own ruin overtake him. Reflexively, Sam said, “You’re my lawyer, Tony—”
“You mean there are rules?” Tony cut in. “That I can’t do this to you? That it isn’t fair? Then let me explain to you how the rules are going to work with Alison.
“I found her strangled. That makes me a witness, Sam. As well as a suspect.” Driven by rage, Tony took another step forward. “But even if I weren’t, there’s nothing to stop me from asking Stella to run those tests. And you know what a clever woman she is.”
Sam’s eyes glinted with an anger of their own
. All at once, Tony saw the humiliation, the sense of betrayal, that could drive Sam Robb to kill. “I can’t let you fuck me over, Tony.”
Tony fought for self-control. “You’re a double murderer,” he said softly, “and you’re still saying you’re not like that. This needs to end.”
Sam reached into the drawer. Tony felt his mouth go dry. “It’s too late, Sam.…”
Silent, Sam drew out a black revolver.
The reality of a gun aimed at his chest struck Tony like a blow. He thought of Christopher, of Stacey. Though Sam was flushed, his gaze was cold and level, as if the balance between them had been restored. Then Tony saw them in the mirror.
“Look at us.” As he nodded toward the mirror, there was a tremor in Tony’s voice. “Can you really do that, Sam?”
Sam glanced at them: two men—one with a gun in his hand; the other, perhaps, about to die. His hand trembled slightly. “I never thought it would come to this, Tony. You were my friend.”
Tony watched the revolver. “If you were the ‘friend’ I used—twice—would you just let it go? Would you want to risk having another girl die, a third pair of parents on your conscience?” Tony could not keep the bitterness from his voice. “That is, if you were me.”
Sam looked him in the face now. Quietly, he asked, “But what if you were me?”
Tony drew a breath. “I’d know that the game was over. That Sue will know, that the town will know, that everyone will know. That if you murder me, cold sober, you’ll know. And you’ll know that you made my wife and son suffer like the Taylors, or the Calders.” Tony’s voice was soft again. “Are you like that, Sam? Is that what you want me to die knowing?”
Eyes moist, Sam took two steps forward. “I can’t let you turn me in, Tony.”
Three feet separated them now: taut, Tony prepared himself to lunge at the gun in Sam’s hand. “What about Sue?” Tony asked. “Do you want her to know this?”
Sam’s face filled with anguish. “Don’t talk about Sue,” he said. “Don’t use her on me anymore.”
Tony swallowed. “Then you’ll have to decide.”
When Sam raised the revolver, gently placing it to Tony’s forehead, Tony found that he was surprised, after all. He could not move. “Jesus, Sam. Jesus…”
Slowly, Sam nodded, tears running down his face. “It has to be one of us, Tony.”
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