Brass Ring (48 page)

THE BED IN THE
guest room was cold, and she shivered as she slipped beneath the covers. She missed Randy’s warmth and the comfort of his arms around her, but she knew she couldn’t have continued the intimate side of their relationship much longer. It had never felt right to her. And after tonight, she wouldn’t sleep at his house again.

She couldn’t fall asleep. Slowly, very slowly, the panicked confusion she’d felt while talking with Vanessa crept over her once more. She thought of how, when she’d had trouble sleeping, Jon would relax her with images of the carousel. Randy could never have done that. Even if she had told him what to say, it wouldn’t have had the same effect.

Maybe she could learn to paint those serene and calming images for herself?

No. What was the point? After today, she doubted that thoughts of the carousel could ever bring her peace again.

WASHINGTON, D.C.

VANESSA STOOD IN FRONT
of the dresser mirror in her hotel room, stroking color onto her cheeks, smudging the liner beneath her lower lashes. She could see Brian’s reflection in the mirror, and she watched as he shoved their room service trays to one side of the glass-topped table and spread out the Washington Post on the other. He made no comment about the fact that she hadn’t touched the breakfast he’d ordered for her. He should have known there would be no way she could eat this morning.

In an hour, she would be meeting with Starla Garvey. How much detail would she be asked to provide? She was as ready for this as she would ever be, yet she wished she could simply talk about the AMC programs from the safety of her role as a physician.

She had decided to be somewhat cryptic in the facts she offered. She would say she couldn’t remember her abuser’s name—if indeed she’d ever known it—and she wouldn’t mention the carousel. The man was simply someone who had helped out on her grandparents’ farm from time to time. She would stick to the facts that were important—those that would get her a slot in testifying in front of the committee the following day.

Her stomach was churning, and the makeup couldn’t mask the pallor of her skin. The pale green suit looked crisp and cool in the mirror, though. A good choice. She turned to face Brian.

“How do I look?” she asked.

He lifted his eyes from the paper and smiled. “Incredible,” he said, and she had to laugh.

“Great, but I’m trying to look
credible
this morning.”

“You’ve failed miserably, then.” He stood up and started walking in her direction when the phone rang. Her first thought was that the attorney was canceling their meeting. Tensely, she picked up the receiver from the dresser.

“Vanessa Gray,” she said.

“Vanessa, this is Claire.”

She gave Brian a look of distress. She should have expected this call. After riding away from her sister’s apartment, she’d wondered why the hell she’d given her the name of the hotel.

“Hello, Claire,” she said. “I only have a second. I’m on my way out.”

Brian grimaced when he realized whom the call was from and took his seat at the table again.

“I need to see you,” Claire said. “I could come into D.C. for lunch tomorrow, or we could arrange to meet at some other time if you’d prefer. But please, Vanessa, let’s get together.”

Vanessa sighed and leaned against the dresser. “There’s no point to us getting together,” she said. “I’ve learned to exist without family and—”

“Maybe I could be a support for you while you’re going through this thing with the hearing.”

“Thanks, but my husband’s with me.” She looked at Brian, whose hazel eyes were wide and encouraging. “He’s all the support I need.”

There was hesitation on the line. “Lately…something happened to me a couple of months ago,” Claire said. “I witnessed a tragedy, and since then I’ve been remembering things from our childhood. I always thought that everything was wonderful for us growing up. But I began to remember things that weren’t so great, and I—”

“You’d better go, Van.” Brian looked at his watch, and Vanessa missed some of what Claire was saying. She was interested, in spite of herself.

“It would help me so much to talk to you,” Claire said. “To see what you remember. To compare and—

“Claire, I really have to go. Maybe I’ll get back to you.”

She heard Claire’s exasperated sigh. “I made a mistake, Vanessa, I know that,” she said. “But I was ten. I didn’t know what Zed Patterson wanted. I guess I figured it was something I should avoid, but when I sent you out to the barn, I didn’t know for certain that something terrible was going to happen to you. And I’m not responsible for our father taking you away that day. I feel as though you’re blaming everything that happened to you on me.”

Anger flamed up inside her. “Look, Claire, you don’t know what I went through. I can’t expect you to know or to understand. But you’re a reminder to me of the most horrific time in my life. I don’t need that, all right?” She hung up and stared at the phone for a few seconds as if waiting for Claire to try again, but the phone didn’t ring.

Brian was at her side, squeezing her shoulders lightly. “Are you sure you want to burn that bridge?” he asked.

“I feel no love for her,” she said. “I haven’t had a sister in thirty years. I still don’t have one, as far as I’m concerned.”

He rubbed her arms through the suit. “I liked what you said about me being your support.”

“And I meant it,” she said softly. “You’ve been terrific.” She tried to hold his gaze, but couldn’t. She pulled away from him and walked over to the mirror to run the comb through her already well-combed hair. In the mirror, she caught the bewilderment in Brian’s face as he sat down behind the table again. She simply couldn’t talk to him about support right now. He wouldn’t support her if he knew the full extent of her plan.

As she climbed into the cab in front of the hotel, she recalled what Claire had said about her newly found memories. It wasn’t so much the content of Claire’s words that played through her mind as the confusion in her voice. The pain.

While riding to Claire’s apartment the day before, she’d wondered how she would be able to confront her sister face-to-face. She was afraid that seeing the grown-up version of the little girl she had once adored would force her to soften her words to the point of losing her message. But it hadn’t been a problem. There was so much of Mellie in Claire—so much denial and false cheer—that Vanessa had been able to quickly discard her, the way she’d discarded all memories of her mother. Mellie had been useless as a mother. Self-aggrandizing. Ineffectual. She had done nothing to protect her from Zed, and she’d done nothing to prevent Vanessa’s father from dragging her away from her family and her home. Worse, she’d done nothing to track that little girl down, not until Vanessa was fully grown and well past the point of needing or wanting her mother. Equating Claire with Mellie, Vanessa had been able to let her sister have it with both barrels.

Yet, although she had said all she’d wanted to say to Claire, all she’d waited years to say, she hadn’t felt quite as free and clean leaving her sister’s apartment as she had expected. And now Claire was talking about unearthing old memories, and her voice was full of hurt.

So, as Vanessa rode in the cab through the streets of D.C., anticipating the interview that frightened her more than anything had frightened her in years, it was her sister she was thinking about and not herself.

Starla Garvey’s office was sparely decorated, with no show of money or power, and that relieved Vanessa as she waited in the reception area. She might be able to like this woman after all. Starla was an unpaid adviser to the committee; she must truly be dedicated to the importance of these hearings. It would be all right.

She’d been waiting ten minutes when a tall woman with teased, bleached-blond hair and heavily made-up eyes emerged from one of the inner offices and offered her hand to Vanessa.

“Dr. Gray?” The woman smiled.

“Yes.” Vanessa shook her hand. “Are you…?”

“I’m Starla Garvey. Please come in.”

Vanessa walked into the office in front of Starla Garvey, pleased to have a few seconds to wipe the surprise from her face over the attorney’s appearance. She sat down on one side of a long conference table while Starla lowered her tight-skirted derriere into a seat opposite her. A tape recorder rested between them on the table.

“All right.” Starla glanced at her watch. “As I think I mentioned to you on the phone, I already have my quota of witnesses. I understand, though, that you offer a different perspective—the needs of the adolescent, correct?”

Vanessa nodded. “The adolescent who was abused when she was younger.”

“Right. So, I’m willing to hear what you have to say.” Starla gave Vanessa a smile that was hard to read. “Are you ready?”

Vanessa nodded again, and Starla pressed a button on the recorder. “Go ahead, then. Tell me your story.”

Vanessa wanted to slow things down. Talk about the weather. Anything. She locked her hands together in her lap. When she finally began to speak, her throat felt dry, as if her voice might fail her any minute, and she kept her eyes focused on the slow, steady circling of the tape.

She told Starla about the farm and how much she enjoyed her summers there with her grandparents. She felt happier during the summer, she said, because her father was with them only on weekends, thereby reducing the amount of time he and her mother were able to fight.

When she was eight years old, a young man from a neighboring town spent the summer helping her grandfather with work around the farm. One morning, he asked Vanessa’s sister to help him in the barn, but her sister told Vanessa to go in her place, and the man raped her on the floor of the barn.

Starla surprised her by asking for a description of the inside of the barn.

“The floor was covered with hay,” Vanessa blurted out, although she had never seen anything resembling hay in her grandfather’s pristine barn. Yet it was the first thing that came into her mind, and now she could see the counterfeit image clearly—light pouring through the barn windows onto the golden hay, a pitchfork standing in the corner. The lie made it easier to describe the details of the rape. None of it seemed real now. She spoke clearly and factually, her eyes fixed on the hypnotic turning of the tape reels.

“Why didn’t you tell anyone what happened?” Starla asked.

“He threatened me with further harm if I told,” she answered honestly. She went on to describe how, later that day, her father split up the family and took her with him to Seattle. She didn’t see her family again.

She raised her eyes from the tape to Starla, who was taking notes, despite the running of the recorder. This had been quite simple, she thought. Not nearly as hard to talk about as she’d anticipated. Maybe because she was not telling the complete truth, and that made it seem almost like someone else’s story.

She described her emotional and physical suffering from the trauma. She talked at length about how, as a teenager, she began hurting herself and sleeping around and using alcohol and drugs to try to erase the memories of the abuse.

Starla Garvey continued to listen attentively, nodding, her face solemn beneath the heavy makeup, and Vanessa knew, without Starla saying a word, that she had been there, too. There was a bond between the lawyer and herself. It made Vanessa wish she could be more honest with her.

Starla began questioning her about her work, and Vanessa slipped with relief into the role of the knowledgeable director of an AMC program.

When Vanessa had said all she could think of to say, Starla hit the button on the machine and smiled at her. “You’re going to be excellent,” she said.

“Then you’ll use me?”

“Oh, absolutely.” Starla leaned over her notes. “Now, here’s the way this works. I’ll prepare a transcript which you will then read at the hearing. I’ll—”

“A transcript?” Vanessa hadn’t counted on having to read her statement. But of course. That was the way these things were done. She should have anticipated it.

“Yes. It’ll make it much easier on you, and copies of it will be distributed to the committee members, so they can follow along with you.”

Vanessa forced herself to nod, to keep her face from giving away the fact that this was an unexpected development.

“Now”—Starla looked thoughtfully at her notes, rapping her knuckles lightly on the table—”ordinarily, your testimony would be vetted. You know, I would verify the facts of your story. I realize in your case we don’t even know the identity of the perpetrator, but I’d usually check on the other facts to gain you credibility.”

Vanessa’s heart thudded miserably in her chest.

“Given your credentials, however, and the fact that we are in a major time crunch here”—Starla winked at her—”I think we can safely dispense with the vetting process, if you have no problem with that.”

Vanessa shook her head. “No problem.” She could barely get the words out.

“Fine.” Starla stood up. “One more thing you should know is that the hearing will probably be televised, at least in part, on one of the cable channels. You’ll barely know they’re there, though.”

Televised. Lord. “All right,” she said.

She stood up and followed the attorney to the office door, where she turned to ask her, “What compels you to do this for no pay?”

Starla looked briefly surprised, then offered a small smile. “You know very well why I’m doing it,” she said. “I’ve been watching you watching me, and I can tell that you know. It’s just that you and your fellow witnesses have more courage than I do. I’m doing the little bit I can to contribute.”

Oh, she liked this woman! Vanessa squeezed the attorney’s hand instead of shaking it. She only hoped that Starla would be able to forgive her the following day, when she changed her story once again.

WASHINGTON, D.C

VANESSA KNEW SHE WAS
losing weight. She stood with Brian in one of the wide hallways of the Senate office building, waiting to enter the hearing room, and she felt as though the skirt of her green suit was merely hanging from her hips. She’d managed to get down half a baked potato at dinner the night before, but that was all she’d eaten since her meeting with Starla yesterday morning.