Brass Ring (27 page)

“Where were you tonight?”

She swallowed hard. “Dancing,” she said.

“
Dancing
. You always said you didn’t care about dancing.”

She sat down at the table and, with a tired gesture, swept her hair back from her cheek. Her coat fell open, and he could see that she was wearing the violet dress he’d bought her the year before,

“I don’t care about dancing,” she said. “It’s not that important to me.” She shut her eyes and drew in a breath. “That’s not exactly true,” she said. “It’s not a big deal, Jon, but I’ve always said I don’t care about it so you wouldn’t think it mattered to me that we couldn’t do it.”

He had an urge to pick up the glass from the counter and throw it at her, hard. “And what else have you lied to me about over the years?” he asked. “What else can’t I do that you’re yearning to do, that you want to do so much you’d do it behind my back?”

“Oh, Jon.” She knelt down next to him, her hand on his arm. “Please, please, let’s stop this. I’m sorry.”

He could see the soft, inviting place where her breasts met under her dress, and he recoiled at the thought of Randy having that same view of her. Worse, of touching her there. He brushed her hand from his arm.

“Your apologies are starting to have an empty ring to them,” he said.

Claire stood again, then said softly, “I’ll sleep in Susan’s room.”

Sometime during the night, he felt her slip into the bed beside him. She lay next to him, weeping softly, those tears as rare as diamonds, and there was no way he could cast her out again. Almost reflexively, his arms moved to encircle her, to draw her to him, and her body shaped itself to his as he pulled her closer.

“I’m scared,” she whispered. “What’s happening to us, Jon?”

He shut his eyes. “What’s happening is that you seem to be getting involved with someone else.”

She didn’t speak for a moment. “I know it must seem that way to you,” she said finally, “but my interest in him is not romantic. I swear it.”

“What is it then?”

She hesitated. “It’s…remember I told you about those little flashbacks?”

“Yes.”

“Well, I’m sorry, but I’m still having them. They’re worse, actually.”

“Oh, Claire.” He buried his face in her hair. She was apologizing the way a sick person might for being a burden. “Why haven’t you told me?” he asked.

“I think you’d rather not hear about them.”

He ran his hand over her hair. “Why do you say that?”

“Because you want me to be cheerful and happy, and right now that’s impossible for me.”

It was true that he would give anything to have his beautiful, effervescent wife back. But he pulled this scared, sad woman closer to him. He took in a long breath, let it out. “And so, you and Randy talk about the flashbacks?”

“Yes. For some reason, he brings them out in me, and I don’t feel so afraid of them when I’m talking to him. He tries to get me to think about what they mean. Where they’re coming from.”

You asshole, Donovan
. The man had no idea what he was getting into.

“Try telling
me
about them, Claire,” he said bravely. “Give me a chance to listen.”

For a long time, she said nothing. When she finally spoke, her voice was halting, not her own. “Well, there are the ones I told you about. The bloodstain and the mirrors. And at work the other day, I kept seeing a robin. A drawing of a robin, like from a coloring book, and…Oh! ‘Let Me Call You Sweetheart.’ I heard it in a music box and I—”

“You mean, from the carousel?”

“The carousel?”

“That was one of the songs your grandfather had on the carousel, wasn’t it? Didn’t you tell me that, or maybe Mellie—”

“Yes, you’re right. But why should that upset me?”

“Oh, Claire, hon, I don’t know.” He hugged her. “All this is tangled up in your head, and somehow it’s gotten linked to Margot and the bridge and Randy.”

She said nothing.

“Why open the past?” he asked. “I’ve heard you say that to people more times than I can count.” Claire had no tolerance for therapists who mucked around in their patients’ childhoods. He didn’t completely share her philosophy, but right now, he felt desperate to have her heed her own message. “Focus on the here and now,” he said. “That’s what you always say, isn’t it? Leave the past alone.”

“But it won’t leave
me
alone.” She pulled away from him, punching the mattress as she spoke. “I mean, I don’t remember any of it, but if you look at the facts—Vanessa getting dragged away from her mother and sister forever—if you look at that one fact alone, it’s enough to make my childhood look hideous.”

He stared at the ceiling as he stroked her hair. He wished he could pull her back from the path she was on, but already it seemed too late. She’d started a journey—one he knew in his heart she needed to make—and it had no shortcut. If she wanted to see it through to the end, there was nothing he could do to put a stop to it. Nor did he have that right. But couldn’t she continue the journey without Randy Donovan?

“Is it platonic, Claire?” he asked.

She seemed to catch her breath. “How could you think anything else?”

“Well, to start with, you lied to me.”

“I shouldn’t have lied. It’s just that I knew you’d be upset.”

He sighed. “You and I are in trouble here. Our marriage is in trouble, and—”

“Don’t talk that way. Please. We’ll be fine.”

He pressed his lips to her hair. He wanted to believe her, but these days, Claire’s assurances had lost the ring of truth.

“I have to ask you for something,” he said. “I don’t ask a lot of you, Claire, but this is very important to me.”

She raised herself up on her elbow to look at him, and he was relieved when he saw the love in her eyes. “Anything,” she said. “You know that.”

“I want you to stop seeing Randy.”

She didn’t respond, but lowered her head to his shoulder again, slowly.

“Claire?”

“It’s not fair to ask me to do that.” She was sniffling. “Please, Jon. Please don’t give me ultimatums.”

He lay very still for a moment. He could think of nothing more to say. He was gentle as he let go of her, even managed to brush his lips across her cheek before he turned on his side, away from her.

She touched his shoulder. “Don’t pull away,” she said. “Please. Talk to me.”

But he shut his eyes, and after a moment, her hand slipped from his shoulder.

So, she would spend her time with Randy Donovan. She would slip further from her marriage, further from him. And she would chip away at the memories of a childhood that, Jon knew, was far more hideous than she could ever imagine.

SEATTLE

VANESSA SPENT THE EVENING
in the library, surrounded by congressional directories and microfilm reels of newspaper articles. She had to make some sense of this. How did Zed Patterson go from being the deputy sheriff of a little farming community in Pennsylvania to a state senator? And how did he come to have an interest in victims’ rights, of all things?

The network was gleefully courting him. Terri Roos was no longer the only one in regular contact with his office. Everyone seemed to be taking delight in their stimulating chats with the compassionate Mr. Patterson.

“But he really wants to talk to
you
, Vanessa,” Terri had told her the day before. “Your name keeps popping up in his conversations with other people, so he’s figured out that you’re our guiding force. Do you have time to give him a call?”

Vanessa forced herself to consider it. Patterson wouldn’t know, she thought. He couldn’t possibly figure out that Vanessa Gray was, in reality, Vanessa Harte. And even if he heard her childhood name, she doubted he would make the connection. He probably didn’t remember her at all.

But she begged out of calling him once again, and this time she sensed Terri’s impatience. “Some people are upset that you’re not being a team player on this, Vanessa,” Terri said. “They’re saying we should proceed without you.”

Vanessa bit her lower lip, hurt. She was hungry to join her colleagues, hungry to lead them in this fight. She wanted to see this thing through, but that was impossible. Not as long as Zed Patterson was going to walk with them every step of the way.

“Terri, please don’t leave me out,” she said. “I can’t give you my reasons for not being more fully involved right now, but my heart’s still where it’s always been. I’m committed to the AMC programs, you know that. I just can’t work through Patterson. It’s…it’s political.”

She could almost hear Terri’s brain cells swirling, trying to make sense of Vanessa’s words. “You mean, you’ll get in hot water with the hospital or something?” Terri asked.

“Something like that. You can consult with me. You can use me any way you want. But I can’t deal directly with Patterson’s office. All right?”

Terri had accepted her refusal to participate with reluctance. She was sure to pass Vanessa’s cryptic message on to other members of the network, and they would concoct theories to explain her unwillingness to deal with Patterson. But even the most inventive among them would never come near the truth.

Brian was her balm, her shelter in the midst of the storm surrounding her. In three weeks, they would be married. She had told no one because it seemed unreal to her. Until the justice of the peace pronounced them husband and wife, she wouldn’t believe it. She wanted it, though. She wanted that bond with Brian and felt very certain that he wanted it, too. She would be safe; he wouldn’t leave her.

She’d stopped taking her pills, hesitant about it at first. It was the wrong time for her to get pregnant, she’d said. She was still having nightmares, and her days were filled with anxiety over the AMC program and the dilemma she was in—the person who could best help her and the program was someone whose name she couldn’t utter without an attack of nausea.

Brian shot her arguments down, one by one, and she secretly welcomed the loving words of persuasion coming from his lips. She’d cried after they made love last night, the first time since she’d stopped the pills. She’d cried not out of regret or fear but because he would be leaving again this morning, and for the first time she felt as if she couldn’t bear the separation. That was when he suggested she spend her evenings researching Zed Patterson’s personal and professional life. Make sense of it, Brian had said. Get control over it.

She started with the Congressional Directory. Walter Zedekiah Patterson had been born in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, on June 3, 1935. He’d been president of a social fraternity in college, then served two years as deputy sheriff of Jeremy before being elected to the office of mayor. He had a law degree from the University of Kentucky and was first elected to the Senate in 1977. He married Elizabeth Gregg on April 7, 1963, and was divorced from her in 1965, with no children. He married Penelope Carter in 1985 and had a son, Kevin, born 1987 and a daughter, Kasey, born 1989.

She hadn’t pictured him with children. The thought disturbed her, and she stared at their names for a long time.

She scrolled through a series of newspaper articles about him. The articles covered legislation but gave her little insight into the man. There was one photograph, gritty and in profile, and she scrolled through it quickly. She had no interest in seeing Zed Patterson’s face.

It was nearly closing time in the library, and she was so tired that she almost missed the headline in the Seattle paper: Molestation Charge Filed Against Senator. Sitting up straight in her chair, suddenly wide-awake, she hunted for a date on the paper. The article was from this past December, just two months ago.

She scanned it quickly the first time through.

The Patterson family had taken a baby-sitter along with them on their vacation to a Delaware beach the previous summer. The babysitter was a thirty-year-old woman who was accompanied by her eleven-year-old daughter. The girl was claiming that, on two occasions when she was not feeling well and had stayed home from the beach, Senator Patterson had come into her bedroom, sat on the edge of the bed, and fondled her. On a third occasion, he kissed her on the mouth when she was going to bed and no one else was around. The girl apparently told her mother about the incidents only the week before, after the mother had complained about the senator not paying her on time.

There was a direct quote from Patterson as he swept aside the girl’s allegations: “This is a disturbed young girl who, already at the age of eleven, has been in trouble with the police for shoplifting as well as with the school system for truancy My wife and I knew she had problems when we allowed our sitter to bring her with us to the beach, but her mother is an excellent child-care provider—beloved by, and very responsible with, our children—and we felt that perhaps by allowing this young girl to spend time with our family, we could help her. We all had an excellent week together at the beach. I’m perplexed and saddened by her allegations.”

Acid rose in the back of Vanessa’s throat. She read the article three more times, then hunted through other papers for more information on the girl and her accusations but found nothing. She made a copy of the article, ignoring the librarian who was telling her the library was closed and she would have to leave.

The instant she got home, she called Terri Roos, not even bothering to sit down or unbutton her coat.

“Are you aware that molestation charges were filed against Zed Patterson?” she asked Terri, pacing back and forth across the kitchen floor.

Terri yawned. “Yeah. By a very screwed-up-sounding kid.”

“Terri.” She was appalled that Terri would use those words to describe a child. Terri’s devotion to Zed Patterson was blinding her. “You knew this and didn’t mention it to me?” she asked.

“He didn’t do it, for Christ’s sake.”

“You mean, they cleared him?”

“Not yet. They had a preliminary hearing, and the trial’s next month. But it’s cut-and-dried, Vanessa. The kid is a very disturbed little girl he was trying to help.”

Vanessa was squeezing the receiver in her hand. “Listen to yourself,” she said. “You run a program for kids who were abused. You know, better than ninety-nine percent of the population, how kids can be discounted when they report this stuff. And you’re willing to say he’s innocent without even—”