by Jodi Thomas
Blaine felt a sudden coldness even through the sweatshirt.
Why would anyone want to kill her, Mark Anderson’s wife?
Twelve
Blaine walked, trying to think. Yesterday she’d been in too much pain and shock to do more than breathe, but today she knew she’d better start to act, if she wanted to stay alive.
The worry over how she’d tell Mark about the baby if she turned out to be pregnant seemed so small today. They hadn’t talked about kids for years. She’d told him she couldn’t have them on their third date and he’d said he had goals in his life that were far more important than children. He wanted to change the world, make it a better place for the next generation, not just worry about his own children. She believed in his dreams and now, somehow when she wasn’t looking, when she’d blinked, the world had changed and she might be the one who’d destroyed those dreams.
Despite all the worry and danger, a hollowness entered her. When she was young, she’d been afraid to dream or plan. She was organized, she remembered details, but no overwhelming need drove her other than the one to step out of the poverty her parents had lived in. When she’d met Mark, she’d found someone to help. He had enough dreams for them both. But lately, even before the fear that something was wrong inside her, she knew there should be more to her, but she had no idea how to find that more.
Now fate had slapped her back to poverty, but something had changed. She had changed. She had to figure out how to climb back to where she belonged, and somehow she had to do it without putting Mark in danger.
Late in the afternoon, she noticed the old man called Shakespeare slumped into a doorway of a boarded-up coffee shop. The smell of whiskey thickened the air around him. He clenched a bottle partly hidden in a brown bag. “Hello, my friend,” he mumbled as though he didn’t expect her to answer.
Blaine hesitated only a moment before grabbing his lapel and pulling the little man up to a sitting position. “Are you all right?”
“‘Life doth drip from me as pure as frost’s early thaw and just as coldly,”’ he mumbled.
“Can I get you something?” She pulled one of the breakfast bars from her bag. “Have you had anything to eat today?”
Accepting the gift, he nodded his thank-you and placed it in his pocket, then patted a bag beside him. “‘I’ve enough to drink my way into sleep. That’s all I ask from the world this night.”’ He glanced at the paper under her arm. “However, if you will loan me your paper, I would be grateful.” His words tumbled over one another. His eyes were bloodshot and heavy.
With shaking fingers he took the paper from her grip. “I like to read my horoscope. Just to see if there is ever a good day coming.” He closed his eyes and whispered, “‘Would that morning dawned bright, for I’ll not mourn the passing of this night.”’
“Oh, Shakespeare you need a place to sleep. You need help. You’re not well.” It suddenly occurred to her that the people passing wouldn’t allow an animal to suffer so, but they didn’t even see the shell of a man dying in front of them.
He nodded, “’Tis true, I’ll be meat for the worms soon, but I’ll breathe free air ’til I die, not the air of charity or prison. As for a hospital, the odds are not with you there. Better than ninety percent of folks die while in a hospital. Appears to be a place to avoid with all haste.”
She almost laughed. She’d only been on the streets a few hours and already she was becoming as paranoid as Shakespeare, worrying that there might be a plot to kill her because she was the wife of someone thinking about running for office. Now that she’d probably been an idiot and let him know she was alive, he might try to get to her if he had another chance. After all, he got to Frank Parker. Or did he?
Blaine shook her head. She needed time. Every puzzle had an answer and she was good at puzzles. Only, in this game, her life balanced with the answer.
“You can’t stay here in this doorway.” Blaine wanted to help but knew of no way.
“Augh, but I can,” the old man answered. “You see, I know the man who owns this establishment and he has given me permission to be in this passage anytime I like.”
Blaine doubted his words, but guessed he thought they were true. The coffee shop had long wood-framed windows ten feet tall running across the street side, but the entrance was down a passage to a door set back several feet. The location offered Shakespeare not only a porch to watch the street traffic unnoticed, but also a square near the door that was covered and sheltered from the wind. No one passing would notice the space tucked away in the shadows of the passage.
A bedroll lined one corner, a few leaves had whirled in on the wind, but otherwise Shakespeare’s home was orderly, no trash, no empty bottles.
“If you will pardon me, Mary, my dear, I think I’ll have a nightcap and retire for the evening.” He finished off the last of the whiskey in the bottle and laid back, using her paper as a pillow.
She heard his snoring before she left the passage, heading back to the street. “Good night,” she whispered, wishing he’d been sober enough to talk to. He might have helped her find a place to hide. By now the shadows were long and the air had turned damp with rain.
She spent one dollar and change to buy a large juice when she neared the cemetery. Hurrying in before the gates closed, she placed the juice beside one of the headstones where she’d seen the boy playing. If the kid came back to the cemetery tonight, maybe he’d find the juice. Glancing at the offices, she thought of trying to sneak in there for another night, but the odds were not with her.
She needed to find somewhere that wouldn’t get her arrested if she were discovered. Someplace where she didn’t have to worry about the bomber finding her. She told herself one last time that he may not have recognized her, but she’d seen the truth in cold gray eyes.
She hurried out the cemetery and turned toward downtown. The library was a possibility, but again, there would be too many questions if someone stopped her.
When she passed the downtown gym, several people rushed past her obviously in a hurry to work out and go home. Blaine blended with them as they hurried through the door, down the stairs and into the lobby. She pulled out her card, holding it as though ready to swipe it across the scanner. But a man behind her pushed her forward and Blaine passed the desk without registering her name in the computer.
She kept her head down. The young people on duty were paying far too much attention to one another to notice only five of the six people passing had used the required ID card.
Blaine hurried to the dressing room thankful to find a rest room. Within minutes she’d slipped her swimsuit on and found a towel. A shower would be great, but Blaine wanted to relax her muscles in the pool first.
She floated alone in the pool for what seemed like hours. All the water-aerobics classes were over and it was too late for the mothers-with-tots swim. An old man came in, swam two laps, then climbed out without even saying hello. Blaine didn’t care, she just drifted in the warm water, letting the chlorine sting slightly on the cuts that hadn’t healed.
When Blaine finally made herself get out, she wrapped the towel around her and went back into the dressing room. Only the cleaning lady was there, picking up towels members couldn’t bother to toss into a bin.
The cleaning lady couldn’t have been many years older than Blaine, but with her fifty pounds of extra weight, she moved slowly. The woman took one look at Blaine’s legs and cried out, “What happened to you, lady? You’re black and bluer than I ever got when my first husband beat on me regular.”
Blaine looked down at the bruises across the exposed flesh of her legs. “I fell,” she said, trying to think of something that would explain away the marks. “I took a tumble down the stairs at home.” She stood so that the scab from the cut on her left leg would not show.
“Are you sure you’re all right? They got a first-aid kit at the desk.” The woman frowned. “I’ll go get it if you like.”
Blaine shook her head. “No, but thanks. All I c
an do for bruises is to let them heal.” She didn’t dare lower the towel, for there were bound to be more marks she hadn’t noticed.
The woman finished her cleaning as Blaine grabbed her bag and slipped into the shower stall. By the time Blaine had hot water, she heard the door close and knew she was alone. She used half the container of soap mounted on the wall to wash her body and hair.
Without any cream rinse or conditioner, her hair was beyond all help. She pulled the pair of scissors from her bag. They’d only been used to cut paper at the library, but they would have to do. As water steamed around her, Blaine cut handfuls of her hair and lay it across the soap dispenser. When most of the length was gone, she measured the section that had been burned to within two inches of her scalp, then slowly moved around her head cutting the remainder of her long blond strands to the same length as the burned spots. Inch by inch, her hair drifted atop the water and disappeared down a huge drain a few feet away.
Finished, she shampooed the short mop once more and then dried off, listening to make sure she was alone before venturing from the shower stall. It was late. On weekends people might work out after ten, but on weeknights few did. They were mostly the walkers or joggers and they didn’t bother with the dressing rooms but went home to their own shower.
Blaine gathered up the long strands she feared might plug the drain and ran to the toilet. As she flushed them, she felt as if a part of her life was circling down. It had taken several tries for her to learn just how to color her hair. Somehow, when she was blond, she was wearing a mask. Her father hadn’t cared enough to stay around, her mother hadn’t loved her enough to say goodbye, but even in her teens Blaine knew she was a survivor. She’d reinvented herself slowly, like a warrior of old preparing for battle. Blaine realized she’d prepared for life. She hadn’t liked the person she’d started out to be, unwanted, unloved, so she’d molded herself to perfection. Blond hair, slender. She had pushed the world away until she thought nothing could hurt her. Until now. Until the bombing.
Blaine smiled. She had been a survivor then, and she would be now.
Pulling on her clothes, she stepped in front of the mirror with her comb. For a moment she wasn’t sure who looked back. Some of the tiny scabs were gone, leaving her face blotchy. Her damp hair curled over her skull like a cap around her thin face.
She paid two hundred a month to keep her hair colored, straightened and styled. Brown roots showed and natural curl overpowered the straighteners she’d used. It had been time for her appointment two weeks ago, but Blaine had had other things on her mind. Now she was glad she had canceled the last appointment, for with the cut and the curl returning, she looked even younger.
She moved her fingers over her abdomen. Had it only been a few days ago when worry over whether she had a baby inside her had almost driven her mad?
The beginning of a plan began to form. Blaine glanced at the clock. If she moved quickly, she’d have enough time to get to the drugstore and back before the gym closed. She shoved her money in her pocket and hurried out, leaving her bag tucked out of sight beneath the sinks. If someone stopped her sneaking back in, she’d simply say she forgot her bag. Chances were, no one would ask, but if they did, she had the proof.
Thirteen
Opening one eye, Mark glanced at the clock.
Eleven a.m.
He bolted upright, knocking Tres off the foot of the bed. He took another look at the time. Not since his college drinking days had he slept past seven. He was a morning person, often running in the foggy predawn light.
Today, it appeared, he had missed most of the morning. Briefly he wondered if Miss Lilly had put something in her chicken spaghetti besides green beans last night. Sleeping pills? Shots of tequila?
Mark smiled. Surely not. She was eccentric, but not crazy.
Like an old man, he rolled from bed and moved toward the bathroom. His bones ached from sleeping in one spot. When he reached the mirror, he wasn’t sure he knew the man who looked back. His dark brown hair stood up in every direction like some kind of porcupine/ human mutant. Three days’ growth of stubble darkened his jaw and a thin layer of white stuff resembling watered-down Elmer’s glue dripped from one corner of his mouth. He was a young man looking every bit as though he should be checking into the nearest nursing home.
Mark hit the shower without allowing time for the water to heat.
He thought he heard the phone ringing while soaping his hair for the second time. He almost yelled for Blaine to get it and tell the office he’d call them back. Then memory settled over him like lye soap, stinging his eyes, burning his nostrils, prickling him with a fact that wouldn’t go away. Blaine wasn’t there, she never would be again. She’d been a part of his life for forever and he wasn’t sure he could go on now.
Bracing against the shower wall, he let the hot water run over him, trying to steady himself. He felt like an addict with the shakes. If he could just hold Blaine one more time. If she were alive and in his grip just for a moment, he’d hold tighter this time. Somehow he hadn’t been watching. Somehow this was his fault. But if he had a second chance, he’d hold so tight she wouldn’t slip away.
The water turned cold and a question gnawed at the corners of his mind. Why had she been at the clinic? He told everyone she was volunteering, but he couldn’t lie to himself. She’d had a reason. Something she planned to talk to him about. But what? Though she talked about her volunteer work, she never felt the need to discuss with him what she did on her days off and lunch breaks. He knew she liked working with children and guessed most of the projects had something to do with literacy.
Mark swallowed hard. She loved children. Whenever she was around them, she couldn’t stop watching them. He’d thought about asking her to go to a doctor once their income was stable. Maybe the reason she couldn’t get pregnant could be fixed. If so, at some point, when they were ready, he had no objection to having maybe one child. Mark wasn’t sure he knew how to be a father, but Blaine would be a good mother.
Would have been, he corrected his thoughts. Would have been a good mother.
He dried and rummaged though the junk on his desk until he found her note, trying to find a clue as to why she’d been at the clinic. He read the slip of paper once more, hoping he hadn’t overlooked something in the two lines. Gone to clinic for some answers. What answers had she been looking for? He didn’t even know the question. Then she had added, We have to talk tonight. As though there was a problem between them. Something he knew nothing about.
Mark folded the note, remembering what an old law professor had said about handling divorce cases. He’d commented that eighty percent of the time the husband didn’t know there was anything wrong with the marriage until the wife told him.
Had there been something Blaine wasn’t telling him? And why the clinic downtown? Why hadn’t she gone to her usual doctor who was also a friend of theirs? Surely she could have talked to him. He would have worked her in between patients. Had her questions been so small that she’d just stopped by the clinic between her gym workout and her job? Or had they been so huge that she’d feared the answers and had not wanted anyone to know?
Mark dressed, deciding he would go crazy if he didn’t get some resolution, but he wasn’t sure where to look. The newspaper might be a start. The office had insisted he take the rest of the week off, which was probably for the best since he seemed to have lost track of time. He ran through the days in his mind. The bombing happened on Monday morning. Tuesday was a fog. He’d spent Wednesday trying to work out the details of getting Blaine cremated and then he’d had dinner with Miss Lilly. This was Thursday and, thanks to sleeping, the day was already half gone.
He skipped shaving, but out of habit, Mark slipped on a tie. He was halfway through folding the knot when he realized he didn’t need to wear a suit.
Turning toward the closet, Mark almost tripped over Tres spread out in his path like a rug. Stumbling, as he tried not to land on the cat, Mark hit his knee on the dress
er and stubbed his toe on the corner of the bed frame.
Tres didn’t bother to move. She simply stared at him as if he were doing some kind of strange dance she had no interest in learning.
Before either could swear at the other, the phone rang.
Mark winced and forced himself to walk toward the living room without limping. He didn’t want to talk to anyone, but he hurried, thinking it might be the office and they needed him to come in. He had several cases waiting for trial and unpredictability ruled in a law office. Maybe if he could wrap his brain around a case, he could get a grip on what he would do with the rest of his life.
“Hello.” He tossed his tie over the nearest chair and reached for a pen.
“Mark Anderson?”
Mark couldn’t place the clipped, official voice. “That’s right. Who is this?”
There was a pause before the man on the other end said, “This is Lieutenant Randell. I’m a detective with the Austin Police Department. I—”
“Has there been a break in the case?” If they had a suspect, Mark would be in his car within seconds driving toward the station. It was about time the police had something. A man couldn’t simply bomb a building in downtown and walk away without leaving some clues.
“No, nothing yet,” the policemen hurried to add. “I just need to ask you a few questions.”
“Look, Randell.” Mark didn’t bother with the title. He had little patience with the police on a good day and this was not shaping up to be a good day. “I’ve already given you guys a statement. There is nothing else we have to talk about unless you have a lead on the bomber. I can’t be of any help. I didn’t even know my wife was at the clinic until I read her note when I left work about six.”
“I know that, sir,” Randell said. “But there’s something I want to talk to you about. If you’re going to be home for a while…”
“Can we do it on the phone? My time is limited,” Mark lied. He tried to remember if he’d talked with a cop named Randell that night at the hospital, but the name didn’t seem familiar. He had no desire to rehash every question. Blaine’s death was already on constant rewind in the back of his mind.
