by Edie Claire
"So I didn’t do anything. We just went on. I pretended. I was determined that I could make things work out—that I owed that to her."
Adam looked at Sarah. Her eyes were moist. What he was saying was affecting her, though he wasn’t sure how.
"I’m sure she must have known," she offered, her tone mild.
He turned his own eyes away. "I think she did know," he replied soberly. "But she pretended, too. She couldn’t deal with it any more than I could."
He stiffened. "We both just went on, hoping against hope that things would get better. The days turned into years. First we were busy with seminary, then with our jobs. But a few years ago, it came to a head. Christine told me she wanted a baby."
He blinked, remembering the scene. It still hurt. He had always cared enough about Christine that her pain seemed like his own. "I realized then that my resolve to make things work wasn’t as strong as I thought. If I were truly committed, having a child would be the next logical step. But I didn’t want that. I didn’t want it because in the back of my mind, I was still holding on to the possibility that the marriage might not be forever. I had been leaving the back door open, and I knew that starting a family would close it for good. I would never leave Christine if there was a child involved. She knew that."
He paused again.
"So you told her no," Sarah offered softly.
He nodded. "But I didn’t tell her the truth. I just kept making up excuses. We weren’t in the right place in our careers; we needed more money first. I knew it hurt her, but she never argued. She said that we both had to be ready. Yet she kept bringing it up. Every time she did, I knew I should be honest with her. I wasn’t sure I would ever be ready, and if that was the case, she had a right to know. I should have made a decision, one way or the other. I should have either committed to her wholeheartedly or let her go."
"But she didn’t want to go."
"No," he replied, his voice cracking. He made haste to strengthen it. "That’s why she didn’t push me any more than she did. She just kept hoping I would change my mind. She knew I’d always wanted children, and I think she was convinced that a child would change things between us—make things right."
"It wouldn’t have."
"Of course not. But Christine wanted a baby. Being a mother meant everything to her." Adam stood up. He couldn’t bear to look at Sarah. He was telling her things he’d never told anyone—not even the wife he’d shared his life with. But though the words were painful to say, he knew they would also be liberating. Perhaps for both of them.
"She could have gotten pregnant ‘accidentally’ if she wanted to," he admitted. "But she didn’t do that, because that’s not the kind of woman she was. She put her own desires aside and respected my wishes, and that selflessness cost her dearly. She developed a brain tumor, and she died. She died without ever having the chance to be a mother." His voice turned solemn. He had—at long last—forgiven himself, and the bitterness he had once felt was gone. But the sadness would always remain. "She died without ever even knowing what it felt like to be loved by her own husband. I did that to her, Sarah."
She was watching him, her eyes intent, her voice firm. "It wasn’t your fault that she died so young, Adam. You know that."
"No, her illness wasn’t my fault. But I believed that everything else that went wrong in her life was. I lived with that guilt every day of our life together, and after she died, it became unbearable. I let that guilt bury me, Sarah. I wasn’t interested in forgiveness. I wanted to suffer. I’d made her suffer; why shouldn’t I? What right did I have to go on and lead a happy life, after the way I had ruined hers?"
His pulse went back to pounding. He had said the words, released the demon. The bitter memories had brought back plenty of pain, but the feeling was tempered by something new—an invigoration he hadn’t felt in years. The confession had helped him immeasurably, but he hadn’t done it just for himself. He was convinced he could use his own experience to get through to Sarah. And at this moment, he had her right where he wanted her.
She rose and faced him. "You have every right," she asserted, her blue eyes blazing. "You never intended to hurt her. You were young, and you made a mistake in judgment. But so did she. She chose to hang on to you when she knew you weren’t happy. She chose to play the odds and hope for the best, because she would rather be with you, knowing that you didn’t love her, than be without you. That was her choice, Adam."
Sarah’s voice turned gentle, soothing. "She was probably suffering from some guilt of her own at the end. If she told you that she wanted you to be happy after she was gone, then you have to believe she meant it. She wouldn’t want you to stay miserable, brooding over the past."
He caught her eyes and held them. His breath came fast and heavy. "No, I don’t believe she would," he said slowly. "Nor would your sister want you to."
Sarah drew back. Her eyes narrowed. "We weren’t talking about me."
He caught her arm. "We are now. You feel guilty about what happened in Alabama. You don’t think you deserve to overcome it. You made a promise to your sister and you’re determined to keep it, no matter how much it ends up costing you."
She looked at him as if he were some sort of seer—the sort that gathered power from the dark side. Her gaze hardened.
Adam pressed on. "What you’re doing is wrong, Sarah. And if your sister loved you as much you loved her, she would tell you the same thing I’m going to. She’s gone now. She’s been gone for a very long time, and nothing that happened back then can possibly hurt her anymore. But you are alive, and keeping these secrets is tearing you apart. Dee wouldn’t want that. She would want you to get past it. She would want you to do whatever you had to do to be happy."
All color had left Sarah’s face. Adam stepped closer, half fearing she would collapse again. But her eyes remained alert. They seemed at first wondering, then crestfallen. When she had been trying to help him, she had garnered strength. But now she was drained again. Drained, and weary.
"You don’t understand," she whispered, almost too low to hear. "It’s not just about Dee."
He pulled her to the couch and sat her down again. "Then make me understand. What is it about?"
She was quiet for a long time. Her voice, when it returned, was pleading. "It’s about me. No one else. I know you want to help me, and I thank you for that. But you can’t. And I care about you too much to keep dragging you down. I meant what I said before. You’d be better off without me. Please believe that."
Discouragement threatened, but he beat it down quickly. Nothing was going to break his resolve—not this time. "Sorry," he told her firmly. "No sale." He stood. His gaze panned the room, then fixed on a location.
Sarah’s voice quivered with panic. "What are you doing?"
"I already told you," he explained. "I’m going to stop this."
In a few long strides, he was at her bedroom door.
"No!" she screamed, leaping up after him. "Stay out of there!"
He moved quickly. He wasn’t worried about her thwarting him, but he was worried about upsetting her. He had no idea how much agitation her heart could take. But he knew things couldn’t get better until they got worse.
"Adam! Stop it!"
His eyes rested on the stack of books on her bedside table. He reached them and extended a hand. Watership Down. He’d liked that one, too. Road Construction Fundamentals. He had seen that one before. All three of these. What he wanted was whatever book, fax, or printout she had made a special trip to the library to pick up yesterday. What she had hidden from him in that ridiculous briefcase.
"Adam, No!"
Sarah’s hand reached out and grabbed his arm. Her short fingernails scratched his skin, but the pain had no effect on him. All he could see was the bottom book in the stack. Guide to Underwater Investigations.
Sarah’s hand left him. She sank down onto the bed, silent.
Adam’s brain seemed to shift into slow motion. He slid a hand into the book and
opened it to a random page. Postmortem Physiology. He shut it again. His mind flashed a picture of Sarah after her flight through the field, nervously fingering a survey stake…
The pond.
His breath left his lungs. He turned to look at her, but her face was hidden behind her hands.
Not that. No.
There could not be a body in the Landers’ pond. That was insane. Not for all these years. She would have to have known about it all along, thought about it sunk there in the muck, decomposing…
He looked at her again. She hadn’t moved. Her sides shook as her breath came in in heaves.
It was true. It was worse than he’d thought. Whatever had transpired at that farm, at the end of it, somebody had died. And that somebody’s body had been in a watery grave ever since. Drowned? Shot? What the hell had Sarah’s sister gotten her into? Had Dee actually killed a man? Could that be the real reason behind her suicide? How dare she swear her little sister to secrecy, then leave her to deal with such a mess alone!
Good God.
He sank down on the bed beside the huddle that was Sarah. He wrapped both his arms around her and held her tight. "It’s all right," he murmured, having trouble finding his voice. "It’s going to be all right."
Her own voice came back low, but surprisingly steady. "No, it’s not," she protested bitterly, her hands still covering her face. "It can’t be, now. You’ve ruined everything."
He didn’t think he could feel any more shock, but he was wrong. He stared at what he could see of her. "I have?"
"Yes," she returned, her voice terse. "I was trying to protect you, and you wouldn’t let me. You had no right."
He withdrew his arms and pulled her hands from her face. She wasn’t making any sense to him, but that was nothing new. "You don’t need to protect me from anything. No matter how bad this is, I promise you, it will be all right. I told you already—I know that you’re a good person. Whatever happened is not going to change my mind about that." He forced her gaze to meet his. "I know you, Sarah."
She sprang up as though he had struck her. "You don’t know me!" she said harshly, stepping away. "You don’t know me at all. And I don’t want you to!" She glared at him, and her tone turned venomous. "I’m only going to say this one time, Adam. I want you to leave. Now."
She was turning pale again, despite her agitation. A flash of fear shot through him. Her getting this upset had to be risky.
"Take it easy, Sarah, please," he said softly. "If you really want me to go, I’ll go."
She held open the bedroom door. "Go!"
He rose slowly, then moved through it. Leaving her alone now was the last thing he wanted to do. He wanted to hold her, to comfort her. He knew that she was angry with him, but she wouldn’t stay angry. As hard as this was for her, it was still a step forward.
"Get out of here!" she cried, her voice faltering.
He swallowed, then hastened his steps. He couldn’t be stupid. Sarah needed to calm down. He would leave and send Rose over. There was more to talk through—so much more he wanted to say, to know. But there would be plenty of time for that later.
He reached the front door and opened it. "Take care of yourself," he said over his shoulder, softly. "Please."
She made no response.
He walked out the door and closed it behind him.
Chapter 31
The cab pulled to a jerky stop in the parking lot by Melissa’s office. "You want me to wait?" the unkempt, middle-aged woman driving it barked.
"No, thank you," Sarah answered, handing over the fare. She jumped out quickly. Another thirty seconds of the odor of cigarette smoke mixed with pastrami breath and she would lose what little she had choked down for breakfast. The cab rolled off, and she headed toward the office door.
Her steps were anything but lively. She had no desire to be here, facing what was sure to be a thorough berating by her doctor. Calm, professional Melissa had sounded nothing less than furious on the phone. She had demanded that Sarah come to the office immediately, and she had refused to even estimate for how long. If Sarah cared about her health, she would be shaken. But she didn’t care.
No sooner had she opened the door to the waiting room than the receptionist caught her eye and leaned forward. "Ms. Landers? Dr. Gardner wants to see you right away—in her office."
Sarah nodded, then followed the designated assistant blindly through a maze of narrow hallways and doors. She felt numb.
When she had awakened before dawn this morning, it had taken some time for her to remember what had transpired the day before. The pall of hopelessness she had arisen with could have come from another nightmare, but it hadn’t. Its source was all too real. Adam knew about the body. He might not have figured out the specifics before he left, but he would soon enough.
She couldn’t bear to see him again. She had fallen into an exhausted sleep early yesterday, thanks to more of Rose’s ministrations, and she had slept straight through to the wee hours. At first light she had left a note for Adam on her front door, then taken a cab to the library. She had been attempting to bury herself in work when she had received the dire call from Melissa.
The assistant opened a door and ushered Sarah inside a nondescript office. A mahogany desk dominated one corner, a cluster of comfortable chairs occupied the other. "Just have a seat," the girl said pleasantly. "The doctor will be with you in a moment."
Sarah obliged. The "moment" turned out to be five seconds. Melissa stormed through the door and plopped her stout body into the chair beside Sarah, one edge of her white lab coat stuck out and pinned to the armrest.
"I really wish," the doctor began without introduction, "that you had bothered to tell me about collapsing again on Friday."
Sarah didn’t relish having upset anyone. But she was too apathetic to feel embarrassed. "I’m sorry," she said dully. "I didn’t know if it mattered. It was just like the others. I figured it would show up on the monitor."
Melissa was clearly struggling to control her temper. "Oh, it did," she replied curtly. "There’s no question about that. I only wish I had got the results back prior to an hour ago, so that I could have done the competent thing and admitted you to the hospital ASAP."
The doctor’s tone and words were ominous. Sarah supposed she should care. "So, what did the results show?"
Melissa took a deep breath. Her patient having been properly admonished, she now went into comfort mode. "You have an arrhythmia, Sarah," she announced. "An episodic malfunction of the heart that causes it to beat very rapidly. The technical term is paroxysmal supraventricular tachycardia."
Sarah tried to focus. "That’s what you suspected, right? You said there were treatments."
The doctor leaned forward. "Yes, there are. I’ve already contacted a cardiologist. You’ll be admitted to the hospital today; he’ll finish the work-up and recommend therapy—most likely a procedure called radiofrequency catheter ablation. It’s essential that we locate the source of the arrhythmia and eliminate it as soon as possible. Do you understand?"
Sarah’s mind drifted. Hospitalization. Alone in a bed, surrounded by strangers. Maybe she would go home healthy afterward. It would be nice to drive again. Or maybe she would never go home at all. Maybe the detective would track her down at the hospital, and she could be cured just in time to go to prison.
"Sarah?" the doctor prompted. "I know you must have questions. Just ask them."
Sarah looked up. "This arrhythmia—how serious is it?"
The doctor put a hand to her chin. "For most people, not life-threatening. But your case isn’t typical. You’ve lost consciousness four times in two weeks, and the latest monitor reading showed several irregularities. The cardiologist can tell you more, but suffice to say, we need to address the problem immediately."
The fog in Sarah’s brain showed no signs of lifting. But as she listened to Melissa’s words, a ray of brightness did appear in its midst. "Do you mean that if I don’t have the treatment…"
The do
ctor’s lips pursed. "We don’t know what would happen, because we don’t yet completely understand what’s causing the arrhythmia. I don’t mean to scare you, Sarah, but with symptoms this severe, there is a risk—small, but still significant—of sudden death. There is absolutely no reason to take a chance with something like this."
Sarah sat, silent, as her weary brain ruminated over what lay before her. The best that could happen would be for her to be cured, and for the investigation over Rock’s death to be closed without incident. But even if both those things happened, her life here was still over. Adam was relentless; he would figure out what she had done. What she was. And once he and Rose knew the truth, they would want nothing more to do with her. Living so close then would be torture. She would have to move again; start all over. Alone.
And if the investigation wasn’t closed? If the detective realized she was lying? She could be prosecuted for murder. She hadn’t set out to kill Rock Rockney, but in light of everything that had happened afterward, why should anyone believe that? Why had she not called an ambulance? Why had she not, at the very least, come to her senses later and informed the police?
Guilty.
Sarah closed her eyes. She was woefully ignorant on the topic of criminal law, a weakness she now regretted. Despite her boasts of having read about everything, violent crime and its repercussions were subjects she had never been able to stomach. She could not even watch second-rate TV dramas without nausea. What had ever made her think she could stand up to such a nightmare in real life? Trotting off in handcuffs with resignation, content in the knowledge that justice was being served?
"Would you like me to call Adam?" the doctor asked, her tone softer now. "He can come and pick you up, then you can collect some things and check in to the hospital."
Sarah’s brain flashed the dreaded image—the one that threatened more, with every passing second, to tear her in two. Adam’s beautiful brown eyes looking at her, not with their usual tenderness, but with repulsion.
