Public Secrets

by Nora Roberts

  matters to any of us.”

  “I killed him,” Emma murmured. “Did they tell you I killed him?”

  Over his daughter’s head, Brian’s shocked eyes met Bev’s. “It’s—it’s over now.” He rumbled for Emma’s hand again.

  “I wouldn’t listen to you. Didn’t want to.” Curling her fingers into his, she held on. “I was angry and hurt because you thought he only wanted me to get to you.”

  “Don’t.” He pressed his lips to her fingers.

  “You were right.” The words came out on a long, weary sigh. “He never wanted me, or loved me. Not me. And when having me wasn’t enough to get him what he wanted, he began to hate me.”

  “I don’t want you to think about it now,” Brian insisted. “All I want you to do is rest, and concentrate on getting well.”

  He was right, Emma thought. She was much too tired to think. “I’m glad you’re here. Da, I’m so sorry for pulling away from you all this time. For shutting you out.”

  “We were both wrong, and it’s done.” He smiled at her then. “We’ve all the time in the world now.”

  “We’d like you to come home when you’re better.” Bev reached across the bed to touch Brian’s cheek. “With us.”

  “Both of you?”

  “Yes.” Brian lifted a hand, linked it with Bev’s. “We have a lot of time to make up for. All of us.”

  “When I woke up this morning I didn’t think I’d ever have a reason to feel happy again,” Emma said. “But I’m happy for you. I need to think about the rest.”

  “There’s no hurry.” Bev leaned over to kiss her cheek. “We’ll let you get some sleep.”

  “KESSELRING.” IT WAS noon when McCarthy found Michael in the hospital lounge. “Jesus, did you move in here?”

  “Coffee?”

  “Not if it’ll make me look like you.” He tossed Michael a bag. “Fresh clothes and shaving stuff. I fed your dog.”

  “Thanks.”

  McCarthy changed his mind about the coffee, grumbling about the packaged cream. For the most part, he enjoyed giving his partner grief. At the moment, he thought old Mike had all he could handle. “How’s she doing?”

  “She’s in a lot of pain.”

  “Dwier wants a statement.” McCarthy referred to the acting captain with a sneer in his voice.

  “I’ll take care of it.”

  “He knows you’re…friends with the victim. He wants me to get it.”

  “I’ll take care of it,” Michael repeated, dumping sugar in the coffee for energy more than taste. He’d stopped tasting it hours before. “Did you bring a stenographer?”

  “Yeah. He’s waiting.”

  “I’ll see if Emma’s ready.” He chugged the coffee like medicine, then tossed the cup away. “How about the press?”

  “They want something by two.”

  Michael checked his watch, then went to change. Fifteen minutes later, he went into her room. P.M. was with her now. Like the rest of them he looked a little worse for wear. Shocked, travel rumpled, and heavy eyed. But he’d made Emma smile.

  “P.M.’s going to be a daddy,” Emma said.

  “Congratulations.”

  “Thanks.” It was awkward, standing beside the bed, trying to think of the right things to say. The things not to say. Stevie had flown over from London with him, and they’d seen the paper at an airport newsstand. They’d barely known what to say to each other, much less what to say to Emma. “I’ll be on my way.” He kissed her, then paused and kissed her again. “We’ll be back around tonight.”

  “Thanks for the flowers.” She lifted a hand to the violas on her tray. “They’re lovely.”

  “Well…” Heartsick, he stood for a moment, then left them alone.

  “It’s uncomfortable for him,” Emma murmured. “For all of them.” Her fingers worked restlessly at the bedsheets, then moved to brush at Charlie. “It’s hard to see their eyes when they first walk in. I suppose I look pretty bad.”

  “That’s the first time I’ve heard you fish for a compliment.” He sat beside her. “People have been going in and out of here most of the day. You haven’t gotten much rest.”

  “I don’t really want to be alone. You stayed with me all night.” She held out a hand. “I heard you talking to me and I knew I was still alive. I wanted to thank you for that.”

  “I love you, Emma.” He dropped his forehead on their joined hands. There was no response from her as he fought to pull his raw emotions back in line. “Wrong time, wrong place.” With a sigh, he rose and paced the room. “I guess you’re going to have to think about it since I said it. Anyway, if you’re feeling up to it, we’d like to get your statement.”

  She watched him roam restlessly around the room. There was nothing she could say, not now when she could barely feel. If things had been different…She wondered, if things had been different, if she would have reached out, if she could have trusted enough. But things weren’t different.

  “Who do I have to talk to?”

  “You can talk to me.” The control was back when he turned to her. “Or I can get a female officer if you’d be more comfortable.”

  “No.” Her restless fingers began to pluck at the violas. “No, I can talk to you.”

  “There’s a stenographer waiting.”

  “All right. We can do it now. I’d like to get it over with.”

  It wasn’t easy. Somehow she’d thought it would be, with her emotions so deadened. But there were enough left, just enough to bring on the shame. She didn’t look at him as she spoke. As time dragged on she told him everything. She hoped that by talking about all the fears, the shames and humiliations, she would be purged of them. But when it was done, she only felt tired.

  Michael dismissed the steno with a nod. He couldn’t speak, didn’t dare.

  “Is that all you need?” Emma asked.

  He nodded again. He needed to get out. “We’ll have it typed up. You can read it over when you’re feeling up to it, and sign it. I’ll check back later.”

  He swung out of the room and started for the elevators. McCarthy stopped him. “Dwier wants you back at the station ASAP. The press is foaming at the mouth.”

  “Fuck the press. I need to walk.”

  BACK IN LONDON, Robert Blackpool read the newspaper report. It amused the hell out of him. The Fleet Street stories were the best. All that murder-of-passion and death-of-a-dream nonsense. They’d gotten hold of a couple of pictures as well. They were grainy, a bit out of focus, but immensely satisfying. Emma being wheeled into an ambulance. Her face was a mess, and that pleased Blackpool very much.

  He’d never forgotten the way she’d turned on him.

  He thought it was a pity that Latimer hadn’t beaten her to death. But then, there were other ways to pay back.

  Picking up the phone, he called the London Times.

  Pete was livid when he read the article the next day. Robert Blackpool, expressing deep sorrow at the death of a talented young artist like Latimer, related an incident that involved himself and Emma. From his slant, she had shown vicious jealousy over his relationship with her roommate. When her attempts at seduction had failed, she had tried to attack him with a pair of scissors.

  The headlines were bold.

  THIRST FOR LOVE DRIVES EMMA TO VIOLENCE

  It didn’t take long for people to gobble up the reports. Opinions were now torn as to whether she had acted in self-defense or in a jealous rage when she had shot her husband.

  Grabbing the phone, Pete dialed.

  “You fucking lunatic.”

  “Ah, and good morning to you.” Blackpool chuckled. He’d been expecting the call.

  “What the hell do you think you’re doing, spreading a story like that? I’ve got enough of a mess to clean up.”

  “It’s not my mess, mate. If you ask me, little Emma got just what she deserved.”

  “I’m not asking you. And I’m telling you to back off.”

  “Why should I do that? I can use t
he publicity. You’re the first one to say press sells records, aren’t you?”

  “I’m telling you to back off.”

  “Or?”

  “I don’t care to make threats, Robert. Just take me at my word when I tell you that scrounging up nasty secrets isn’t healthy for anyone.”

  There was a long, humming pause. “I owed her this one.”

  “Perhaps. That isn’t my concern. Your numbers have been slipping the last couple of years, Robert. Record companies are notoriously fickle. You wouldn’t want to have to go digging about for a new manager at this stage, would you?”

  “We go back, Pete. I doubt either of us wants to break up an old friendship.”

  “Remember it. Keep stirring things up and I’ll drop you like a dirty sock.”

  “You need me as much as I need you.”

  “Oh, I doubt that.” Pete smiled into the phone. “I doubt that very much.”

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  MICHAEL PACED THE corridor, stabbed out his cigarette, then paced again. “I don’t like it.”

  “I’m sorry you feel that way.” Emma took her breathing carefully. After three weeks, her ribs still tended to twinge if she moved the wrong way. “It’s what I want to do, and what I feel is best.”

  “Holding a press conference the same day you’re being released from the hospital is just stupid. And stubborn.”

  “I’m better off making a formal statement than trying to dodge them.” She spoke lightly, but her arms were ice-cold under her linen jacket. “Believe me, I know more about this than you.”

  “If you’re talking about that bullshit Blackpool started, it’s already blown over. He did himself more damage than you.”

  “I don’t care about Blackpool, but I do care about my family and what these last few weeks have put them through. And I want to have my say.” She started to walk into the conference room, then stopped and turned back. “The police investigation ruled it self-defense. I’ve spent the last three weeks convincing myself of the same thing. I want my record clear, Michael.”

  It was useless to argue. He’d come to know her well enough to understand that. But he tried anyway. “The press has been behind you ninety-nine percent.”

  “And that one percent makes an ugly stain.”

  He relented enough to cross to her and brush a thumb over her cheek. “Have you ever wondered why life gets so screwed up?

  “Yes.” She smiled. “I’ve begun to believe that God really is a man. Are you coming in with me?”

  Sure.

  The press was waiting. Cameras, lights, microphones at alert. Flashes went off the moment she stepped up to the podium. Murmurs accompanied them. She was very pale so that the healing bruises showed in vivid contrast on her skin. Though no longer swollen, her left eye was a mass of ugly fading colors that spread to cheekbone and hairline.

  When she began to speak, they quieted.

  She gave them only the facts, and not her feelings. She had learned that much. What she felt inside was hers alone. It was a brief statement, just over eight minutes. As she read, she was grateful that Pete had helped her refine it. She ignored the cameras and the faces that studied her. When she was done, she stepped back from the mike. It had already been established that she would not take questions, but the questions came.

  She had turned away, her hand on Michael’s arm when one penetrated.

  “If he had abused you all those months, why did you stay?”

  She didn’t intend to answer, but she looked back. They were still hurling questions. Only that one lodged in her mind.

  “Why did I stay?” she repeated. The room fell silent again. It had been easy to read the statement. She almost knew it by heart. It was just words printed on paper, and they hadn’t touched her. But this, this one simple question drove straight into her heart.

  “Why did I stay?” she said again. “I don’t know.” She fumbled, forgetting not to look at the faces, not to see them. It seemed vital that she answer the question. “I don’t know,” she said again. “If, two years ago, anyone had told me that I would allow myself to be brutalized, I would have been furious. I don’t want to believe that I chose to be a victim.” She sent Michael a quick, desperate look. “And yet I stayed. He beat me and humiliated me, but I didn’t leave. There were times when I could see myself walking away. Getting in the elevator, going out to the street and walking away. But I didn’t. I stayed because I was afraid, and I left for the same reason. So it makes no sense. It makes no sense,” she repeated, and turned away. This time she ignored the questions.

  “You did fine,” Michael told her. “We’re going to get you out the side here. McCarthy’s got the car waiting.”

  They drove to Malibu, to the house on the beach that her father had rented. Emma rode in silence, with that one question echoing over and over in her head.

  Why did you stay?

  SHE LIKED TO sit on the redwood terrace in the morning, watching the water and listening to the gulls. If she tired of sitting, she could take long walks along the shore. The outward side of abuse had healed. Her ribs still troubled her occasionally and there was a thin scar just under her jawline. It could have been repaired easily enough. But she discarded the idea of a plastic surgeon. It was barely noticeable. And it reminded her.

  The nightmares were another legacy. They came with daunting regularity and were a montage of old and new. Sometimes she walked the darkened hallway as a child. Others as an adult. The music always came, but it was cloudy, as if it played underwater. At rimes she heard Darren’s voice clear as a bell, but then Drew’s would layer over it. She would freeze, child or woman, in front of the door. Terrified to open it.

  Then as her hand closed over the knob, turned it, pushed, she would wake, sweating.

  But the days were calm. There was a breeze off the water, the scent of flowers Bev had planted in tubs and window boxes. And always music.

  She’d been given the chance to see her father and Bev start again. That soothed the most raw of her wounds. There was laughter. Bev experimenting in the kitchen, Brian in the shade playing guitar. At night she often lay in bed, thinking of them together. It was as if they had never been apart. How easy it had been once the step had been taken, for them to bridge the gap of twenty years.

  And she wanted to weep, for she could never be a child again and fix the mistakes that had been made.

  They waited six months, though Emma knew they were both anxious to get back to London. That was their home. She had yet to find hen.

  She didn’t miss New York, though she did miss Marianne. The months she had lived there with Drew had spoiled the city for her. She would go back, that she promised herself. But she would never live there again.

  She preferred to watch the water, to feel the sun on her face. She’d been alone in New York. She was rarely alone here.

  Johnno had visited twice, staying two weeks each time. For her birthday he’d given her a pin, a gold Phoenix rising out of a ruby flame. She wore it often, wishing for the courage to spread her wings again.

  P.M. married Lady Annabelle, detouring to L.A. on their way to a honeymoon in the Mexican Caribbean. Watching the way the new Mrs. Ferguson doted on her husband nearly restored Emma’s faith in the possibilities of marriage. Though plump and pregnant, Annabelle had worn a white leather mini to her wedding. P.M. was obviously delighted with her.

  Even now they had company. Stevie and Katherine Haynes had arrived the night before. Long after she’d gone to bed, Emma had heard her father and Stevie playing. Like old times, she’d thought. The music had made her wistful for the days during her early childhood, when, as though she had been Cinderella, Brian had come to take her to a never-ending ball.

  “Good morning.”

  She turned and saw Katherine holding two cups of coffee. “Hello.”

  “I saw you out here and thought you might like a cup.”