"A miraculous job?" Bett shook her head, felt her eyes swimming with tears. "Oh, I don't think so."
Dr. Peters said firmly, "Why, if every mother cared for her children the way you care for Megan I'd be out of business."
"Do you really think that?" she asked in a choked voice. The tears were coming fast now. But she wasn't the least embarrassed. Not in front of this man. She could tell him anything, she could do anything. He'd understand, he'd forgive, he'd comfort. She said wistfully, "Too bad Megan doesn't think so."
"Oh, but she does." He frowned in confusion.
"No, no . . . there's a letter . . ." She glanced toward her purse, where the girl's horrible note sat like a puddle of cold blood.
"The detective told me about it. That's the main reason why I wanted to see you. Alone, without your husband here." He took the wineglass from her and set it on the table. Then he sat forward, took her hands in his. Looked at her until she was gazing into his dark eyes, nearly hypnotized. "Listen to me. Listen carefully. She didn't mean what she wrote you."
"She--"
"She. Didn't. Mean. It. Do you hear what I'm saying?"
Bett was shaking with sobs. "But what she wrote, it was so terrible . . ."
"No," he said in a firm whisper. "No." He was completely focused on her. She thought of the other men in her life with whom she'd had serious talks. Tate was often elsewhere--thinking of cases or trying to dissect what she was saying. Brad would smother her with an adoring gaze. But Dr. Peters was looking at her as a person.
"Here's what you have to understand. Your letter doesn't mean anything."
Oh, please, she thought, please explain how this happened. Please explain to me why I'm not a witch, please explain how my daughter still loves me. She thought of an expression she'd heard once and believed was true: You'd kill for your mate; but you'd die for your child. Well, I would, she thought. If only Megan knew that she felt that way.
He squeezed her hands. "Your daughter hates your husband. I don't know what the genesis of that is but it's a very deeply ingrained feeling."
Bett felt the impossibility of compressing seventeen years into a few minutes. Her eye went to a board game, Monopoly, sitting dusty on the shelf. "There were so many things she wanted from Tate . . . Megan wanted us to play games together, Tate, her and me. But he never would. And then--"
"It doesn't matter," the doctor interrupted. "The fact is that she was the child and he was the parent and he failed her. Megan knows it and she hates him. The anger inside her is astonishing. But it's only directed at him--I guarantee you that. She loves you so much."
Shaking with tears. "But the letter . . ."
"You know the Oedipus and Electra principles? The attractions of sons and mothers and daughters and fathers?"
"A little, I guess."
"In Megan's subconscious her anger at your ex-husband makes her feel terribly guilty. And directing it only at him is intolerable. With the natural attraction between fathers and daughters she either had to write no letter at all or write you both. She was psychically unable to point her anger only at its true source."
"Oh, if I could believe that . . ."
"During our sessions she was always telling me how proud she was of you. How she wants to be like you. How hard a life you've had. I promise you, without a doubt, she regrets writing that letter to you. She doesn't mean it. She'd give anything to take it back."
Bett lowered her head and put her face in her hands. Why was the room swimming so badly? His arm went around her shoulders.
"You okay?"
She nodded.
"Will she be coming back?" Bett asked.
"I don't doubt it for a minute. It might be awhile--your husband's caused some serious damage. But nothing that's irreparable. Megan knows that she couldn't ask for a better mother in the world. You've done everything right. She loves you and misses you."
Bett sagged against his chest, felt the muscles in his arms tighten as he held her. Oh, when was the last time she'd felt this good, this easy, this comforted? Years. She felt his hot breath on the top of her head. She smelled a faint aftershave.
"I feel so light-headed."
Did she say that? Or think it?
She wept and she laughed.
The doctor's hand went to her forehead. "You're so hot . . ."
He hugged her harder and his hand slid downward, fingers encircling her neck. An electric chill went through her and then her arms were snaking around him, pulling him to her. Her head was up and she pressed her cheek against his.
No, no, she thought. I can't be doing this . . .
But she was thinking these words from a very different place, very remote. And it was impossible for her to release her grip on the man who'd repaired her bleeding soul. He thinks I'm a good mother, he thinks I'm a good mother, he thinks . . .
He leaned down and kissed her tears.
The light touch of his lips felt so good . . .
She was so giddy, so happy . . .
Stretching out, getting comfortable . . . The room was hot, the room was wonderful . . .
And what was this? she thought like an excited high school girl.
He was kissing her on the mouth. Or am I kissing him? Bett didn't know. All she knew was that she wanted to be close to him. To the man who'd found her single worst fear and killed it dead.
"No," he protested. But his voice was a whisper.
But she was not letting him go. She knew she should stop but she couldn't. She pulled him down next to her on the couch, refusing to let go, arms fixed forever around his neck. The room filling with heat, spinning, orange lights, yellow lights . . .
Kissing harder now.
Hands on her belly, then her chest. She glanced down and wasn't surprised to see her blouse was undone. Her bra up, his fingers cupping her breast. This seemed completely natural. A pop, the snap of her jeans opened. Had he done that, or had she? It didn't matter. Getting close to him was all that mattered, hearing him whisper whatever he would whisper in her ear as he lay on top of her. That was what she wanted, hearing him speak to her. The sex wasn't important but she'd gladly give him that if only he'd keep reassuring her, keep speaking to her . . .
She opened her mouth and kissed him hard.
And then the world ended.
The front door was swinging open. And a familiar voice was crying, "Bett . . . why, Bett!"
Gasping, she sat up.
Dr. Peters backing away, a shocked look on his face.
Brad Markham stood in the doorway, his face a horrified mask. His key to her house dropped to the floor with a loud ring. "What . . ." He was breathless. "What . . ."
"Brad, I thought . . ."
"I was in Baltimore?" he spat out. He shook his head. "I was. A policeman called and told me about Megan. I drove down to be with you . . . Your daughter's missing and you're fucking somebody. You're cheating on me?"
"No," she said, feeling faint and nauseous from the wine and shock. Tears coming again. Tears of horror. "You don't understand. I didn't mean it. I didn't know what I was doing."
"I'm sorry." Dr. Peters looked horrified. "I didn't know you had a boyfriend. You never said anything."
"Boyfriend?" Brad spat out. "We're engaged."
"You're what?" The doctor stared at Brad. "I'm so sorry. She never said anything."
"How could you?" Brad spat out, raging at her. "After everything I've done for you? And Megan? How could you?"
"I don't know what happened . . ."
Brad stalked outside leaving the door open.
"No!" Bett cried, sobbing, pulling her bra down and buttoning her blouse as she stumbled toward the door. "Wait."
Through her tears she saw Brad's car squeal off down the street.
Leaning against the doorjamb, sobbing, sinking to the floor. Close to fainting, wishing to die . . .
"No, no, no . . ."
Then the doctor was standing next to her, crouching down. His mouth close to her ear. When he spoke the
voice was so different from the soothing drone of ten minutes ago. It was flint, it was ice water. "What I told you Megan said about you? That wasn't true. I only said it to make you feel better . . . All she told me was that you were a selfish whore. I didn't believe her. But I guess she was right." He took a final sip of wine. "What a pitiful excuse for a mother you are."
The doctor rose, set the glass on the table and stepped over her, out the door. It seemed he was smiling, though Bett was blinded by the tears and couldn't say for certain.
*
Tate Collier hung up the phone. Sighed.
No, man, Josh still isn't home. I don't know where he is. You called, like, three times already. Maybe we'll give it a rest now? Okay?
Well, where the hell was Megan's boyfriend?
Konnie too was still out of the office. And it irked Tate that the detective hadn't returned his page.
He fed the Dalmatian and paced up and down his front porch, looking at the clear early evening skies and the dusting of April growth over his fields.
No more Dead Rebs that he could see.
Again his eye settled on the dilapidated picnic bench in the backyard. Remembering Bett unhooking the Japanese lanterns, feeling the odd heat of that fall so many years ago, feeling the residual exhaustion from the funeral. Sweating in November, the hot wind pushing crisp, curled leaves over the shaggy grass.
He remembered:
Bett looking down at him. Asking, "What is it?"
Alarmed, as she gazed at the expression on his face.
What is it, what is it, what is it? . . . A simple question. Yet simple words can't convey the answer--that two people who were once in love no longer are.
He'd closed his eyes. "I don't want to be married to you anymore," he'd said.
Good-bye . . .
Tate now looked away from the bench and glanced impatiently at the cordless phone, sitting on the porch swing. Why wasn't--
It rang. He blinked and snagged it from the cradle.
"Hello?"
Silence for a moment. Then: "Tate?"
"I'm here, Bett. What's wrong?" His heart went cold at the sound in her voice.
"I'm on my way to Baltimore."
"You are? Why?"
More silence. "Brad left me."
"What? At a time like this?"
"It's not his fault. I did something stupid. I don't know . . . I don't want to go into it. It's . . . Oh, Jesus, it's a mess."
"Bett, you sound terrible. Are you crying?"
"I can't talk about it. Not now."
"When'll you be back? What about Megan?"
"I don't care."
He heard utter defeat in her voice. "What do you mean?"
"Oh, Tate. We've blown it. There's nothing we can do. We've ruined her life, she's ruined ours. Maybe she'll come back, maybe she won't. Let's just let her go and hope for the best. I don't care anymore."
"This doesn't sound like you."
"Well, it is me, all right? It was stupid looking for her, it was stupid getting together like this, you and me. We should have kept our lives on different sides of the universe, Tate. What've we got to show for it? Just pain."
"We're going to find her."
"She doesn't want to be found. Don't you get that? Let her go and don't worry about it. She's part of the past, Tate. Let her go. The phone's breaking up. I'm coming to a tunnel. Good-bye, Tate . . . Good-bye . . ."
Chapter Twenty
Bait.
That's me, yes sir. That's me.
He's on to you, Crazy Megan says. Move, move, move.
She went to the right and Peter Matthews went to the right.
Left and left, straight and straight.
Getting closer all the time.
Whispering, "Megan, Megan, Megan."
Other words too. She wasn't sure but she thought he was muttering, "I want to fuck you, I want to fuck you." Or maybe "cut you."
Megan was part of his fantasy now. She was a victim from those disgusting comic books. The tentacles, the monsters, the purple dicks, the claws and pincers . . .
And was nothing more than a game to the boy--if you can call a six-foot, two-hundred-pound thing a boy.
As she moved up and down the corridors, gripping the handle of her glass knife in her right hand, which stung fiercely from the blisters, she had all sorts of terrible thoughts: why the father had brought her here, for instance. As a bride for his son. Jesus . . . Maybe Aaron Matthews had wanted grandchildren. Maybe Peter'd been at Jefferson High--they had a special ed department--and he'd gotten obsessed with her. That might be it. And his father had kidnapped her to be a present for his son.
Down the corridor toward the kitchen.
Scuffling, muttering, but no sight of him.
Down the corridor that led past the door to the basement. The lock looked flimsy but not that flimsy. Breaking it open would make a hell of a noise. And what was down there anyway?
No, Crazy Megan tells her. Stick to your plan. He's gotta go down.
Well, one of us does, thought the less confident half of the duo.
Keep going, keep looking for him. Up and down the dim halls.
It didn't seem that late but the hospital was in a valley and the sun was behind a mountain to the west. The whole place was bathed in cold blue light and she was having trouble seeing.
She stopped. The boy's footsteps were getting closer.
This is it, Crazy Megan says. Just stab the fucker in the back and get it over with.
But Megan reminded her that she couldn't do that. As much as she hated him, she couldn't kill.
He wants to fuck you. He wants to pretend he's one of those insect monsters and fuck you till you bleed. You have to--
Be quiet! I'm doing the best I can.
Closer. The steps got closer. The sound coming from around the corner. She didn't have time to get into the main corridor--he was too close.
She stepped into a little nook. Trapped.
He moved closer, paused. Maybe hearing her.
Maybe smelling her. He'd stopped whispering her name. Which scared her more because he knew he was close to his prey and didn't want to be heard. He was sneaking up on her. He was playing the invisible monster; she'd seen that story in one of the comic books. Some creature you couldn't see snuck into girls' locker rooms and raped stragglers after gym class. The comic had been limp, as if Peter'd read that one a thousand times.
He moved forward another few cautious steps.
Her hand started to shake.
Should she jump out into the corridor and just run like hell?
But he couldn't be more than ten feet away. And he'd looked so big in the photographs! He could lunge like a snake and grab her by the throat in two steps.
Suddenly a flash of pain went through her hand--from one of the blisters--and she dropped the knife. Gasped involuntarily.
Megan froze, watching the knife tumble to the floor. It can't break! No . . .
Just before the icy glass hit the floor she shoved her foot under it, waiting for the pain as the tip of the blade sliced into the top of her foot.
Thunk. The knife hit her right foot flat and rolled, unbroken, to the floor.
Thank you, thank you . . .
She bent down and picked it up.
Another two footsteps, closer, closer.
No choice. She had to run. He was only three or four feet away.
Megan took a deep breath, another. Jump out, slash with the knife and run like hell toward the trap.
Now!
She leapt out, turned to the right.
Froze. Gasping. Her ears had played tricks on her. No one was there. Then she looked down. The rat--a large one, big as a cat--standing on his haunches, sniffing the air, blinked at her, cowering. Then indignantly it turned away as if angry at being startled.
Megan sagged against the wall, tears welling as the fear dissipated.
But she didn't have much time for recovery.
At the far end of the dim corrido
r a shadow materialized into the loping form of Peter Matthews, hunched over and moving slowly. He didn't see her and disappeared from view.
Megan paused for only a few seconds before she started after him.
*
The Shenandoahs and Blue Ridge keep the air in northwest Virginia clean as glass in the spring, and when the sun sets, it's a fierce disk, bright as an orange spotlight. Newscasters report on "sun delays" from the glare at various places on the highway.
This radiant light, behind Tate, lit every detail in the trees and buildings and oncoming cars as he sped down I-66 at eighty miles an hour.
He skidded north on the parkway, then east on Route 50, pulled into the county police station house and climbed out of the car. He practically ran into Dimitri Konstantinatis as he too happened to arrive, carrying two large Kentucky Fried Chicken bags.
"Oh-oh," the detective muttered.
"What oh-oh?"
"That look on your face."
"I don't have a look," Tate protested.
"You had it comin' into my office when you were prosecutor and you needed that little bit of extra evidence--which'd mean I'd lose a weekend. And you've got it now. That oh-oh."
They walked inside the building and into Konnie's small office.
"You didn't call me back," Tate said.
"Did so. Ten minutes ago. You musta left. What's that?"
Tate set the letter Megan had written him and the knucklebone he'd found in his house that morning, both in Baggies, on the cop's desk.
"Prints," Tate said.
"A prince among men--yes, I am. So, what's going on?"
"I want you to run the letter through Identification. Something's up. Bett's acting funny."
"You complained about that when you were married," Konnie pointed out. "Crystals, mumbo jumbo, long distance calls to people'd been dead a hundred years."
"That was cute funny. This's weird funny. Witnesses've been disappearing and not calling back and it's just too much of a coincidence. And I think I know who's behind it."
He also told Konnie about his run-in with Jack Sharpe.
"Ooo, that was bright, Counselor, and you were packing your gun to boot?"
Tate shrugged. "Was your idea for me to get one."
"But it wasn't my idea to threaten an upstanding member of the Prince William mafia with it. Grant me that at least."
"I've been on his bad side since I routed his lawyers at the injunction hearing last week."
"What's wrong with a nice theme park 'round here, Tate? You'd rather have what we got now in Manassas? A track fulla big wheels slugging it out in a mud pit. I'd vote for Disneyland, with them fun rides and cotton candy and knock-the-clown-in-the-water shit."