Carmen closed her eyes. “How horrible,” she said.
It was a moment before Delores continued. “Rob was in shock after the fire. They took him to the hospital. Frank and I went with him—I didn’t want him to feel as though he was completely alone in the world. He didn’t cry or rant and rave, or anything along those lines. He was like a zombie, sitting there in the emergency room, saying over and over again, ‘I killed my family, I killed my children.’”
“He blamed himself?”
“Yes.” Delores nodded. “And he wasn’t the only one. The police were suspicious to begin with because he was out of the house at the time of the explosion, and having him sit there saying he killed them wasn’t helping his case very much.”
“That’s ridiculous.” Carmen scowled. “He was in shock.”
“Of course it’s ridiculous. It still infuriates me that anyone could have thought it was anything but an accident. All they’d have to do is talk to people who knew him to know what a good man he was.”
“Yes.” Carmen nodded. “Yes.”
“The fire investigation people said they couldn’t figure out what he’d been working on down there, but they were certain it was something he shouldn’t have been doing in a residential neighborhood. They were going to charge him with criminal negligence.”
“And did they?”
“They didn’t get the chance. We took Rob home with us that night. He had no place else to go, and I wasn’t going to leave him alone. He simply wasn’t himself. Who would be?”
Carmen shook her head.
“Well, he disappeared sometime during the night.” Delores raised her chin and smiled. “God love him. Of course, that made him look even guiltier in the eyes of the police. They said he was afraid to face their questioning, but I know he was really afraid of facing the emptiness where his life had been.”
Carmen looked out the window in the direction of 780 Meridian. “Do you have any idea where he went?” she asked.
“No, and I’m glad I don’t. They found his car in Pennsylvania, and since he’d crossed state lines, the FBI got involved. Why they want to waste their time going after someone like Rob is beyond me. A man loses everything he cares about. Isn’t that punishment enough?”
Again, Carmen nodded.
“They still haven’t found him, and you know what I hope?” Delores asked. “I hope they never find him. I hope that somehow he’s able to find happiness somewhere else.”
CARMEN MANAGED TO MAKE the 4:30 flight back to San Diego. She had a copy of the videotape in her purse. She’d asked Delores if she could borrow the original to have a duplicate made, and although the woman looked a bit taken aback by the request, she produced a copy she already had. Carmen wasn’t certain what she would do with the tape. Right now, she wasn’t certain how she would handle any of the information she’d just learned. She only knew that, for the time being, she would tell no one, not even Chris, the truth about Jeff Cabrio.
They’d been in the air only a few minutes when she pulled out her notepad and began writing down everything she remembered of the information Delores Harvey had given her. She wrote for two hours, knowing that she now had the ability to put a lock on Sunrise. If she wanted it, the show was most certainly hers.
When she finished writing, she closed her notepad, covered herself with a blanket and tried to sleep. But each time she shut her eyes, all she could see was Rob Blackwell kneeling in front of his burning house, clutching the lifeless body of his daughter in his arms. She wondered if she would ever be able to safely close her eyes again.
IT WAS TEN O’CLOCK when she pulled into the driveway at Sugarbush. After two rainless days, the air was dry and filled with the scent of eucalyptus, and the glow of an enormous round moon lit up the adobe. She had retrieved her suitcase from the trunk and was headed toward the door when Jeff’s black Saab pulled up next to her car. She stopped and waited until he got out.
He closed the door to the driver’s side and met her gaze over the roof of the car. He looked tired. There was a question in his eyes, a question he didn’t need to put into words.
And she needed to say nothing in return for him to know the answer.
46
AT FIRST, MIA COULDN’T get her bearings. Was it the moonlight that awakened her? It poured through her bedroom window in a silver-white pool, so bright that she had to turn her head away when she opened her eyes.
It took her a moment to realize that Jeff was beside her. He’d still been at the warehouse when she went to bed, but he was here with her now. He had pushed her nightshirt up to her hips, and his thigh was planted firmly between hers.
“Jeff?”
“Shh.” He quieted her with his lips and his tongue, his kiss so deep and long and breathless that she felt herself rising up, floating above the bed, still half in sleep. Was she dreaming? Or maybe it was actually morning. Maybe the moon was the sun.
She could see the clock on her dresser. Ten-twenty-eight. He kissed her again, and when she closed her eyes, the green digits of the clock still floated in front of her. When he drew back, she ran her fingers over his face—over his chin, his cheekbones, his temples, as if he were clay—and there was the satisfaction that what she felt beneath her fingers was identical to what she had created in miniature.
His hands slipped under her nightshirt. There was an impatience in him; his usual gentleness was missing. If she hadn’t known him, if she hadn’t trusted him, she might have been afraid. The heat and the moonlight and his hunger made her restless herself. She threw the covers off, not even thinking of how her chest would look in the bright pool of light from the window. When he began nuzzling her breast, she arched her back, straining against his thigh where it pinned her to the bed, struggling to move, to bring him closer.
“Please,” she said.
He shifted on the bed until he could slip inside her, thrusting into her with a groan. She moved with him, running her hands over his shoulders, the small of his back, his hips. She couldn’t lose the ethereal feeling of this lovemaking, as though they were touching each other in their sleep, as though when she woke up she would be alone, with just a hazy, not-quite-real memory of his closeness.
Afterward, she shut her eyes and saw the white disc of the moon behind her eyelids. Jeff started to lift himself from her, but she closed her arms around him to keep him there. Against her ribs, she felt both their heartbeats; she couldn’t separate his from hers, and she was nearly lulled back to sleep by their rhythm. It was only when the coyotes began to howl that she sprang fully awake, the world outside her bed suddenly real and intrusive. She felt the entire length of Jeff’s body stiffen above her, and she knew then. She understood the reason for his rushed and wordless lovemaking, for the urgency in his kisses and the desperation in his touch.
“No, Jeff,“ She’d planned to be strong for him. She had gone over and over in her mind how she would handle it when he told her he was leaving, and in her lucid, waking moments, she could see herself reacting bravely, supporting him wholly in what he needed to do. But she had expected him to tell her in words, not this way. Not in some dream-like rush that left her drained and defenseless. She swung her head from side to side on the pillow. “No, no, no.”
He raised himself to his hands and slipped out of her, then sat next to her on the bed, stroking her cheek with one warm hand.
“She knows, Mia. I have to go.”
She pressed his hand tightly to her cheek with her own fingers.
He gave her his old half-smile. “Have you finally figured out that you are a very desirable woman, and that there will be other men for you?”
“I don’t want other men,” she said, but she knew he was right. There could be others if she wanted them. For a moment she couldn’t even remember why she thought there wouldn’t be.
“And when you meet one you want, wear the damn chemise for him, okay? You’re alive now, Mia. You’ll look great in it.”
“Shh.” She pressed her fingertips
to his lips.
“I brought the cat over.” He nodded toward the window where she could see the slender dark silhouette of his still nameless feline. “You’ll take care of him for me?”
“If you’ll stay till morning,” she bargained.
He shook his head. “If I leave now, I can be a few hundred miles away by daybreak.”
A few hundred miles! She clutched his arm, the reality of his leaving suddenly hitting her. “In which direction? Please, just give me an idea of where you’re headed. At least give me the comfort of being able to picture you someplace.”
He shook his head again. “No, Mia.”
She sighed and bit her lip.
“Do you know how strong you are?” he asked.
She shrugged. She didn’t feel strong at the moment.
“You’re one of the strongest people I’ve ever met,” he said.
“Then why do I feel like I’m five years old and I’ve gotten separated from my parents at the zoo and all the animals are about to be let out of their cages?”
“And they haven’t been fed in weeks?”
“Right.”
“It’s temporary,” he said. “A temporary setback. A normal reaction. In a day or two your resilience will take over, and you’ll be fine.” He lay down next to her. “I’ll stay until you fall asleep, all right?”
“Then I won’t sleep at all.”
“Yes,” he said. “You’ll sleep.”
And although she fought the lure of her dreams, when she next opened her eyes, the overcast light of a rainy day filled her room. She had wrapped her arms around Jeff in such a way that she thought he could never get free, but he was gone. She was alone. Only the cat keeping watch at the window let her know he had ever been there at all.
47
THE VIDEOTAPE RESTED ON Carmen’s lap as she drove through the early morning rain to the station. Dennis had called her late the night before to tell her he wanted to see her this morning. He wanted to find out what she’d learned, he’d said, to figure out the “best way to use it.” He’d coughed toward the end of that sentence, and for a moment she thought he’d said “exploit it.” So, she thought to herself, what’s the difference?
In her still-numb state the night before, she’d told him she had a tape that would explain everything.
“What’s on it?” he’d asked, clearly ecstatic.
“You’ll see.”
He’d laughed like a child enjoying a game she’d invented expressly for him. “Well, at least tell me if you have what you need to wrap up this story.”
“Yes.” At the very least. She could wrap up this story, solve an FBI case and ruin Jeff Cabrio’s life, all in one fell swoop.
“That’s what I like to hear,” he said, and she could picture him rubbing his hands together. “Tired from your flight?”
“A bit.”
“Get a good night’s sleep, then, Carmen, and I’ll see you early in the morning.”
Sleep, of course, had been impossible. As she lay in bed, she could see the videotape on her dresser, propped up against the mirror. When she closed her eyes, scenes from the tape ran through her mind—the terrified child in the window, Jeff’s panicky voice calling for Leslie, the hulking fire fighters huddled over the little girl. Three times she got out of bed and walked around the house, trying to free herself from the fiery, full-color images. She regretted ever having asked for the tape—it made it her responsibility. Worse, she regretted telling Dennis that she had it. That had been stupid, but she’d known how gleefully he’d respond to that news. She’d known how good it would make her look in his eyes, and she was easily—too easily—seduced by his professional respect for her these days, a respect that still felt new and fragile.
Chris had spent the night with her. Whether he decided to move into the house or not, she knew they would be sleeping together from now on. She didn’t tell him what was disturbing her, although he tried to pull it from her. His fear for her was touching, and she had to reassure him several times that she was all right, that she wasn’t about to harm herself in any way. At least not physically.
More than once during the night, she thought of showing him the tape. At least then she wouldn’t be alone with the images that haunted her and the horror of what she’d learned. That would have been unfair, though. She let Chris hold her during the night, but that was all the comfort she allowed herself to take from him. “You’ve saved me from every other problem I’ve had in the past decade,” she told him. “This one’s mine alone.”
Sometime very early in the morning, she heard a car pull out of the driveway, and she knew it was Jeff’s. She knew, also, that he wouldn’t be back. She cried then, quietly, not wanting Chris to wake up and ask her to explain her tears. She thought of Mia, left behind. She remembered Delores Harvey’s hope that Jeff could find happiness somewhere after what he’d been through. Was it her fault that he hadn’t found it here in Valle Rosa?
Perhaps. Undoubtedly she’d forced him to leave Valle Rosa sooner than he would have liked. But no matter how many names he assumed, no matter how many miles he traveled from his home, Robert Blackwell would never be able to keep a low profile. He would stand out wherever he went. Sooner or later, he was going to be found.
DENNIS WAS WAITING FOR her in his office. He stubbed out his cigarette when she walked in.
“Okay, Carmen.” He gestured toward the chair next to his desk. “Tell me what you’ve got.”
She sat down. “I can’t talk about it,” she said. “Not yet.”
He leaned toward her, bushy eyebrows raised. “Uh,” he said, with an annoying attempt at sarcasm, “you work for me, remember?”
“I haven’t quite figured out how I’m going to present it.”
“Well, how about you tell me what it is, and I’ll tell you how to present it.” He looked at her empty hands. “And where’s the tape? Let’s put it on so I can see—”
“I left it home. I figured there wasn’t much point in me bringing it over because I got it under slightly false pretenses. I won’t use it until I get permission from the woman who made it.”
“Carmen.” He was beginning to sound exasperated. “We’ll get the okay. Whatever it takes, we’ll get it.”
She shook her head. “It would ruin my credibility with her to ask her right now. Then she’d never come on the Sunrise special and—”
“There won’t be a Sunrise special unless you handle this right.”
She moved her hands to the arms of the chair. “Look,” she said, “you’ve trusted me so far to know what information to release and when to release it. And it’s worked out pretty well, hasn’t it?”
“I have to admit you’re right there.” He couldn’t help a smile at the thought of News Nine‘s inflated ratings. Then he sighed. “Well, you always were a controlling woman, Carmen. Always wanted a hand in everything, didn’t you? I’d almost forgotten what a pain in the ass you could be.”
He wasn’t joking, and for a moment she felt afraid. She didn’t want him to remember anything negative about her tenure on Sunrise.
She tried smiling at him. “I was a perfectionist, yes, but maybe that was why my ratings were always through the ceiling.”
“You understand we can’t firm up an agreement on Sunrise until you come through with your end of the deal.”
“I know. That’s fine.”
He stretched back in his chair. “Well, in case things move according to plan and we have that kick-off Sunrise special— which we should do the second we announce you’re back on the show—I want to get the names of the people you interviewed. We’ll get in touch with them and make them an offer. I want to try to get the old man on the show, too.”
“Jeff’s stepfather?” She pictured the wheezing, frail old man who knew nothing about the loss of his grandchildren or the trouble his son was in. She would never put him through this. “I don’t think that would be possible,” she said. “He’s in for the rest of his life.”
Den
nis waved a hand through the air. “We’ll persuade them to let him out for the show. Good behavior or compassion or whatever. If they won’t agree, we can send you there with a crew for an interview and run that on the show.”
“I don’t want to disturb him again.”
He narrowed his eyes at her. “Don’t go soft on me, Carmen. Not now that I’ve just about got everyone sold on you doing Sunrise.”
The phone rang on his desk and he picked it up. “Ketchum,” he barked into the receiver. He looked at her, something like suspicion in his eyes. “Hold on a second, Frank.” Then to Carmen, “Rumor has it Cabrio left town this morning.”
She shrugged. “I didn’t notice him at Sugarbush, but he’s usually at the warehouse by the time I get up.”
“Check it out,” Dennis spoke into the phone again. “Make some phone calls. Call that Smythe guy, and get back to me right away.”
He was growling when he hung up the phone. “Look, Carmen, at least give me enough of what you’ve got so we can run a teaser throughout the day. You know, ‘Carmen Perez at last reveals the truth about Valle Rosa’s mysterious rainmaker.’”
“Don’t run teasers, okay?”
“No, not okay. How about, ‘The drama of Jeff Cabrio’s life climaxes tonight on—’”
Carmen groaned. “That’s revolting. If you have to run a teaser, just say Carmen Perez concludes her story on Jeff Cabrio tonight at six.”
“Hmm.” His face reflected his disdain. “Real catchy, Carmen.” He lit a cigarette.
“He’s a human being,” she said, “not some brand of toothpaste you’re trying to sell.”
He took a drag on his cigarette, eyes narrowed at her again. “What the hell did you find out?”
She was relieved when the phone rang, and he turned his scrutiny away from her. “Yeah?” he said. “Are you sure—shit.” He hung up the phone, and she knew what he’d learned even before he told her.
“Your ticket back to the top just slipped out of town,” he said. “You’d better pull out all the stops tonight, girl. We’re counting on you.”