The student moved away, ambling toward the magazine section. I got my first good look at Laura Scott. Paul had said she was painfully shy and withdrawn, that she disappeared, like a shadow. My first thought was: Is the idiot blind? Truth was, I took one look at her and felt a bolt of lust so strong I had to lean against the nineteenth-century English history section. How could he say that she was nondescript? She was slender, tall, and even though her suit was too long and a dull shade of olive green, it simply didn’t matter. She’d look great in a potato sack. Her hair was made up of many shades of brown, from dark brown to a lighter brown to an ash blond. It was all coiled up and smashed close to her head with lots of clips, but I could tell that it was long and thick. Lovely hair. I wanted to throw all those clips in the wastebasket under her desk. I understood how Paul had taken one look at her and lost his head. But why had he said she was plain? Had he said it so she’d hold no interest for me? So I’d dismiss her?
Actually, Laura Scott looked restrained, very professional, particularly with her hair scraped back like that, and she shimmered. I leaned against the English history section again. Shimmered? Jesus, I was losing it. Was her unremarkable presentation to the world calculated? To keep men in line around her? Well, it evidently hadn’t worked with Paul.
It wasn’t working with me. I said to myself three times: She and Paul betrayed Jilly. I said it a fourth time to make sure it got through.
I waited until the high school student in his low-slung jeans disappeared behind an orange shelf, a magazine in his hand.
I approached her slowly and said, “High school students today—sometimes I just want to grab their jeans and give them a good yank. It wouldn’t take much. That boy you were speaking to, I think if he coughed his jeans would be around his knees.”
Her face was smooth and young and she didn’t change expression for about three seconds. She just stared at me blankly, bland as rice pudding, as if she hadn’t heard me. Then she looked to where the boy was leaning down to pick another magazine off the shelf, the crotch of his pants literally between his knees. She looked back up at me and after another three seconds, to my surprise, she threw back her head and laughed, a big full laugh. That laugh broke through the silence like a drum roll.
The Middle Eastern guy at the circulation desk looked over, his mouth opening, his surprise evident even from across the room.
What was coming out of her mouth wasn’t at all a nondescript laugh. It was full and deep and delightful. I smiled at her and stuck out my hand. “Hello, my name’s Ford MacDougal. I’m new in town, just started teaching at Willamette University. Political science, primarily Europe, nineteenth century. I just wanted to see what sorts of public resources the students had off-campus. I like the orange shelves and the turquoise carpeting.”
“Hello. Is it Mr. or Dr.?”
“Oh, it’s Dr. MacDougal, but I’ve always thought that sounded phony, at least off campus. To me, a doctor means doing proctology exams. I can’t handle that thought. I’d much rather talk about the Latvian drug wars.”
Again, she didn’t move, didn’t change expression for a good three seconds. Then she opened her mouth and a short ribald laugh came out. This time, she clapped her hands over her mouth and just stared up at me. She got herself together. “I’m sorry,” she said, nearly gasping with the effort not to laugh. “I’m not like this, normally. I’m really very serious. I never laugh.” She cleared her throat, straightened her suit lapels, and said, “Very well, I’ll just call you Mr. MacDougal. My name’s Laura Scott. I’m the head reference librarian here.”
“You’ve got a great laugh,” I said as we shook hands. She was strong, her hands narrow, her fingers long, nails well manicured.
“How long have you worked here?”
“Nearly six months. I’m originally from New York, came out here to go to Willamette. I graduated with a degree in library science. This is my first job here on the West Coast. The only bad thing about working here is the less-than-princely salary they pay me. It barely keeps me in cat food for Grubster—he’s my sweetheart alley cat. There’s Nolan too. He’s got quite an appetite. Oh, he’s my bird.”
I’d heard every word she’d said. Grubster and Nolan. I liked pets. It was just that I couldn’t keep from looking at her mouth. She had a full mouth, a bit of red lipstick left, beautiful. I cleared my throat. I was acting like a teenager. “You’re right,” I said, “money’s always a bitch. Lucky for me, since I eat a lot, I don’t have to share my Cheerios with a Grubster or Nolan. I just have to worry about feeding myself. The university is hard up too. My office has a view since I came in as a full professor, but the heating system is so antiquated you can hear the steam whistle when it comes out of those ancient pipes.”
She blinked this time, rapidly, at least half a dozen times. She didn’t burst into laughter, but she did giggle. I’d made her laugh. It felt good. Evidently, she found me amusing.
I’d come here ready to play a role, to get the truth out of this woman, to charm her, whatever. Instead, I wanted to scoop her up and take her to Tahiti. I hated this.
“Do you have plans for dinner?” At her pause, I added, “As I said, I’m new here in town and don’t know a soul. I realize you could be worried that I’m another Jack the Ripper from London, so maybe we could just stay around here. That way I couldn’t kidnap you or mug you or do anything else to you that you might not think appropriate. You know, fun stuff that isn’t supposed to happen when you’ve only known someone an hour. How about the Amadeus Café I saw on the lower level?”
She looked over at the large institutional clock on the wall just above all the medieval reference books. She smiled up at me and nodded. “I know a great place just down the street. Not the Amadeus—I eat there everyday.”
An hour later, after a solitary tour of the Salem Public Library, we walked down Liberty Street to the Mai Thai, which turned out to be an excellent restaurant even though it was so dark and dusty I was afraid to order any meat dish off the menu.
She’d taken her hair down before we’d left the library. I wanted my face and my hands in her hair. She was leaning toward me, her long hair falling over her left shoulder. Laura Scott hadn’t shown me a single shy, withdrawn bone. She was open, responding to me with laughter and jokes, making me feel like I had to be the most fascinating guy in the known universe. She’d just turned twenty-eight in March, she said. She was single, lived in a condo right on the river, played tennis and racquetball, and loved to horseback ride. Her favorite stable was just five miles out of town.
She was at ease with me. I didn’t want that to stop.
For myself, I made up a wonderful academic life, replete with stories that friends and siblings had told me of their college experiences over the years. She was down to the last few bites of her chicken satay when I knew the party was over. I was here for a reason, not to flirt and start a relationship with this fascinating woman. I said easily, watching her as closely as a snake watches a mongoose, “I have relatives down in Edgerton, a little town on the coast of Oregon, just an hour from here.”
She kept chewing her chicken, but I saw the change in her, instantly. Shit, I thought. Her eyes, to this point rather vague and soft, were sharp, attentive behind her glasses. But she didn’t say anything.
“My cousin—Rob Morrison—is a cop. He says everyone calls the town The Edge. He’s got a little house very close to the cliffs. You look out the window and think you’re on a boat. If you keep staring at the water, pretty soon it feels like you’re really on a boat rocking back and forth. Have you ever heard of the place? Do you know anyone from there?”
Would she lie?
“Yes,” she said, “I have, and yes, I do.”
I nearly fell out of the booth I was so surprised she’d admit it, to me, a perfect stranger. Well, maybe that was why she’d admitted it—I was a perfect stranger. There was no reason to distrust me.
I said, “Do you know my cousin?”
“Rob Morriso
n? No, I don’t believe I’ve ever met him.”
“You wouldn’t forget him if you had—he’s a triathlete, a hunk.”
She sighed deeply, her hands over her breast, and rolled her eyes. No one in the known universe could ever believe her to be nondescript. She sparkled. “No, sorry. I know the Bartletts—Jilly and Paul Bartlett.”
“Small world,” I said, wondering if my voice was shaking. “I know them as well.” I took a bite of coconut soup and said, “You’re a bit younger than Jilly, so you didn’t go to school together. How did you two meet?”
“We met about five months ago when she was here in Salem, at the library. We got to talking. She was looking for articles on infertility. I asked her about using the Internet, offered to show her how to go about it in the library, but she said that computers were beyond her. I saw her once or twice a week ever since then, sometimes here and sometimes in Edgerton. I met Paul about three months ago for the first time.”
I sat back against the dark red vinyl of the booth. I picked up my fork and fiddled with it. Jilly told Laura that she didn’t know anything about computers? Why had she told Laura that lie? Jilly was a whiz at computers, always had been. And what was this about infertility? Finally, I said, “So Jilly was your friend.”
“Yes.”
“You weren’t Paul Bartlett’s mistress?”
She cocked her head to one side, sending her beautiful hair spilling over her left shoulder nearly to her plate. “What is this, Mr. MacDougal? Did Jilly send you here? What’s going on?”
“Ms. Scott, I lied to you. I’m not a professor at Willamette University. I don’t know a thing about Latvian drug wars. I came into the library specifically to meet you. My name is Ford MacDougal; I didn’t lie about that. I’m Jilly’s brother. She’s in the Tallshon Community Hospital, in a coma.”
She dropped her thick-bowled white spoon into her soup. She turned perfectly white. I thought she was going to pass out. I was halfway out of the booth when I managed to stop myself. She was fine. I was the one who was the mess.
“I’m sorry I lied to you but I’d do it again no matter what I felt about you.” If my boss heard me say that, he’d have laughed his head off.
She got hold of herself. “My God, Jilly’s in a coma? That’s crazy. No, it’s impossible.”
“Why?”
“I just saw her Tuesday night over in Edgerton.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
I hadn’t felt so stupid since my high school English class when Mrs. Zigler told me Wuthering Heights wasn’t a fancy district of London.
I stared blankly at Laura Scott, and eventually my mouth moved. “You were with Jilly and Paul on Tuesday night?”
“Yes, it was a party of sorts, at least that’s how they billed it. I had to leave so I don’t know what happened after I was out of there.”
“Who all was at this party?”
“Well, it was just Paul, Jilly, and I. I understand that other people were supposed to be coming by. When I left it wasn’t very late. You see, Grubster—my cat—is on medication and I had to get home to give him a pill. But that’s not important. Tell me about Jilly. What happened to her? Is she going to be all right?”
“She’s in a coma. No one knows much of anything about her chances for recovery.”
“But what happened?”
“She drove her Porsche off a cliff, landed in twenty feet of water, and a cop managed to pull her out. She told me a short time ago that you’d betrayed her. What did she mean by that?”
She shook her head, sending her hair perilously close again to her chicken satay. “What a strange thing for her to say. That’s why you came to meet me? To see if I’d somehow betrayed your sister? I don’t know what you’re talking about. I just don’t know.” She was suddenly very still, staring down at her dinner plate. “It just doesn’t make sense. She was an excellent driver. I can’t believe it. She was laughing the last time I saw her. Did someone force her off that cliff? Was it an accident? Was she hit by someone?”
Even I, the cop, hadn’t first thought that someone forced her off the cliff. Why had Laura? “No, she went flying off a cliff some ten miles north of Edgerton just before the junction east back to 101. It would appear that she was trying to kill herself.”
“How could she possibly have survived that?”
“As I said, a cop saw her go over and managed to pull her out before she drowned. No one disagrees that it was a miracle.”
Laura Scott slowly rose and stared down at the platters still piled high with Thai food. She shook her head and stuck her hand in her purse. She pulled a fifty-dollar bill out of a very fat wallet and dropped it beside her soup bowl. She said, not looking at me, “She was always driving that car too fast, hooting and hollering, yelling at the top of her lungs. She liked danger, she told me. She said driving the Porsche at a hundred miles an hour was like flying, only without having to wear a parachute. Jilly wouldn’t try to kill herself. She lost control of that damned Porsche. I want to see her. You said she was in Tallshon?”
“Yes, that’s where she is.” I rose to stand beside her. I lightly touched my fingers to her forearm, holding her still for a moment. “Before we go anywhere, tell me the truth, Laura. Are you or were you sleeping with Paul?”
She looked up at me like I’d lost my mind. “No,” she said, “of course I wouldn’t sleep with Paul. That’s ridiculous.”
I realized I was still touching my fingers to her forearm. I didn’t stop. I didn’t want to lose the connection to her. “Paul says you were his lover up until last month. Then he said he broke it off. And Jilly told me you had betrayed her.”
She shook off my hand. I thought for a moment that she was going to smack me, but at the last moment she held herself back. “No, I didn’t sleep with Paul. He lied. Why? I don’t know. As for Jilly claiming I betrayed her, I don’t know what she meant.”
“Why would Paul lie?”
“Ask him, damn you. I’m going to see Jilly.”
“I’ll drive you.”
“No,” she said. “You’ve done quite enough.”
I couldn’t believe it. Laura was here, standing beside Ford. I saw her as clearly as I saw Ford. I couldn’t believe it was that betraying bitch, Laura. But it was. She was here and I saw her. She was saying something to Ford. What was she telling him?
I felt my flesh crawling, felt bile rise in my throat, felt the fear begin to wash through me, and yet I felt nothing at all. I was apart from her now and she couldn’t hurt me. She was coming closer, and she was saying my name over and over. Why did I still feel the fear so strongly?
I wanted to scream that I would kill her, but I couldn’t. Why in God’s name was she here with me? How could she still have the power to terrify me? It shouldn’t be happening. She should have been long gone by now, nothing more than a stupid memory. She was reaching out her hand to touch me as she spoke to Ford. I couldn’t stand it.
“Her eyes are open. Look at that. Her eyes are open!”
“They usually are,” Ford said. “It doesn’t mean anything.”
I felt her fingers touch my shoulder. Her fingers were cold as death.
I screamed.
I whirled around so fast I nearly landed on my butt. My heart was pounding out of my chest. I was at Jilly’s side in an instant, shouting over my shoulder, “Laura, get the nurses, quick. And the doctors too. My God, hurry! Move it!”
I gathered Jilly up in my arms and pressed her tightly to me, trying to hold her steady. She was heaving against me, flailing her head from side to side, and she was screaming—screams that came out like low harsh bleating sounds. It sounded like someone was torturing her. She ran out of strength fast and slumped against me. I was reli
eved because I was afraid she would hurt herself. Very gently, I laid her back against the pillow. “Jilly,” I said as I leaned down and kissed the tip of her nose. “No, don’t close your eyes. Keep looking at me. Stay awake. Don’t fall back asleep. You might not wake up again. Jilly, you’ve got to stay awake. Do you understand?”
“Yes, I can hear you, Ford,” she said to me. Her voice was wispy, thin as a piece of paper, almost too faint for me to hear.
I patted her cheek, stroking my fingers through her hair. She felt alive, solid, back with me. I felt ready to burst with relief. “Good.” I leaned closer. “Listen to me, Jilly. You were in a coma for four days. You’ve come out of it. You’ll be just fine now. Jilly, keep your eyes open. Blink at me. Yes, that’s good. Can you see me clearly?”
“Yes, Ford. I’m so glad you’re here.”
Her brain was all right, I was sure of it. Jilly was back with me, all of her. There was awareness in her eyes and she was staring hard at me, willing herself to be here, and she was. “You’re the only one who still calls me Ford,” I said, and kissed her cheek.
“You’ve never been Mac to me. I’m so thirsty.” I quickly poured water from the carafe into the small glass on the table beside her bed and held her up while she sipped. I wiped the water off her chin when she finished drinking. She cleared her throat, swallowed a couple of times, and said, “When you first walked through that door I couldn’t believe it. You were real, unlike all the others. To have you here was wonderful. I felt so alone.”
I wasn’t really surprised that she’d seen me, that she’d heard every word I’d said, seen the expressions on my face. Actually she could have told me what I’d eaten for breakfast, that she’d tasted it right along with me, and I wouldn’t have doubted her for a moment. I said only, “I was real? Unlike the others? What do you mean exactly?”