Convicted (22 page)

"Oh, my God," she said, stunned.

"Something wrong?"

Lisa pushed forcefully away from him, sliding down onto the floor. With one hand she reached beneath the bed again, dragging out what had so shocked her. It was her purse.

"No," Deacon said. "Lisa--"

"Don't you talk to me." She took the bag and flung it onto the bed. Tears sparked her eyes. She simply could not believe it.

"Lisa, it's not--" He reached for her hand, tugging it.

"Shut up!" She didn't care if the entire world heard her. She yanked her hand away and slapped his cheek to get free. Through tear-blurred vision, she scrambled for her clothes, pulling on her shirt and panties without bothering to find her bra. "Just shut up!"

She fumbled into her skort and managed to find her sandals. The bag she snatched up from the bed. Lisa felt as though she might just fall.

Deacon did not move except to sit on the edge of the bed. His face had grayed with shock, but Lisa did not want to hear him speak. That she'd been about to let him make love to her suddenly made her nauseous.

"Don't tell me it wasn't you," she said. "Because this time I know you're lying!"

He said nothing, as if he could tell there'd be no convincing her. Lisa fairly ran to the door, pausing only long enough at the top of the stairs to be sure she wasn't going to tumble down them headfirst and break her neck. At the bottom, she flung open the front door and ran out into the night, clutching the stolen purse to her chest like it was a wounded bird.

Lisa ran and ran, the stitch in her side like a knife stabbing her. Through the dark streets, past the statue of the Holy Virgin in somebody's yard, her hands raised in eternal supplication. Ahead of her was the police station, a single light burning above the door.

She paused long enough to smooth her hair and straighten her clothes. There'd be no help for her tear-stained cheeks and swollen eyes. Lisa scrubbed at them briefly, knowing she still looked a mess.

She climbed the stairs, her sandals clanging on the metal. The building still smelled new, like paint. The scent tickled her nostrils and she wanted to choke.

She pushed open the door on the second floor and faced the empty desk. Behind the glass panel she could see a chair and some filing cabinets. It looked a lot like the ticket window at a movie theater except there was no tantalizing smell of popcorn to tempt her. The sign pasted on the glass informed her that if the desk was empty, she should ring the buzzer.

She did, shifting from one foot to the next. Without the running to occupy her, she'd begun to feel stupid. What was she doing here anyway? Terry didn't want to see her. He'd made that perfectly clear. She couldn't automatically turn to him just because she was afraid.

But I could,
Lisa reminded herself, hearing the sound of footsteps approaching from down the corridor. He was a police officer. No matter what his feelings toward her were, and no matter what had passed between them, he would do his job.

The uniformed officer who swung open the heavy door was not Terry, but she recognized the woman. "Hi, Karen."

Karen fixed Lisa with a look that was at once both professional and cool. "Can I help you?"

Word got around fast. "I need to talk to Terry."

"Officer Hewitt isn't on duty right now," Karen said. "If it's something personal, you'll have to try him at home."

"It's not personal," Lisa said, though in a way, it was.

"One of the other officers can take your statement or help you with your problem, if you need assistance," Karen said formally, as though she and her boyfriend Jake hadn't double-dated with Lisa and Terry dozens of times.

Lisa didn't want to talk to one of the other officers. "No, that's okay."

Now Karen's reserved façade softened. "You don't look good, Lisa. What happened?"

Lisa pulled her purse closer to her body noticing the way Karen's trained gazed flicked over her. Assessing. Noting, Lisa was certain, her mussed hair and lack of bra.

"I just needed to talk to Terry," Lisa mumbled. "I'll try him later."

"He's on duty at eleven," Karen offered, though her face made it clear she didn't want to give the information.

"I'll try later," Lisa repeated, turning to go.

"Lisa, what happened?" Karen asked again. "And I don't mean tonight, though if something did happen, I think you need to tell me. But what happened with you and Terry? I thought you two were so happy together."

Lisa tilted her head to keep tears from bursting from her eyes. "Just...leave a note for Terry, okay? That I was here?"

"Sure," Karen said, the small slip into camaraderie replaced with professionalism again. "Sure, I will."

"Thanks," Lisa whispered as she let herself out the door to the stairwell again. For a moment she paused on the other side of the door, holding the purse to her and fighting back sobs.

She realized she hadn't even checked to see if anything was missing. With trembling fingers she opened the clasp and fumbled with the contents.
Lipstick. Gum. Eye drops
. She pulled out her wallet and snapped it open.

Nothing was missing. The money--a twenty and two tens--still nestled in the bed of receipts and coupons. Her credit cards were untouched. She touched the plastic accordion folder that held her pictures, looking at the one of her and Terry. Taken last summer, it showed them holding hands and smiling.

"What did happen?" she asked aloud, her voice echoing grotesquely in the empty stairwell.

Then she was running again, pell mell down the stairs and out into the night. Running home. Her feet slapped on the pavement and her breath began to come in labored gasps. Still, Lisa pushed herself, running through the dark to get to her house.

By the time she reached the side door, she was out of breath and her feet were numb from misuse. She leaned against the handrail and tugged off her ruined sandals, then tossed them immediately into the nearby trash pail. The pretty shoes had been made for dancing, not running.

She waited there a moment, her head hanging. Spots flashed in front of her vision, and her tongue clove to the roof of her mouth. Lisa wondered if she might actually faint.

A few more minutes of sucking in the cool night air and she felt much better. Now her feet, no longer numb, began to throb. Her entire body ached. She needed a hot bath.

Instead of going inside, Lisa sat on the porch steps. The houses on either side of her were dark, as they often were. Her neighbors were all elderly and went to bed early. It was peaceful to sit in the dark letting her body recover from the abuse she'd just put it through.

It was calming to breathe the sweet night air and rest her face in her palms. Thinking. Why had Deacon taken her purse, but left the contents intact? If not for the money inside, why take it at all?

The small groan she heard was her own. Lisa bit her lip. She'd been about to make love to him. Why hadn't she learned?

Terry was right. Once a thief, always a thief.

Worse than a thief. A liar.

She shook her head, disgust rising in her throat. The man had lied to her and used her, and she'd let him touch her. Kiss her. She'd let him start making love to her...

She stood so fast the stars tilted and she had to grasp the railing again to keep from falling. She would file a report against Deacon first thing tomorrow. She would settle this once and for all, and this time, she would feel no guilt about the matter.

Her key stuck in the door and she jiggled it. The house and all its doors were old and warped. The locks were tight, stairs creaky, drawers sticky and unyielding. Normally none of those things bothered her, but tonight the stubborn lock worked on her nerves worse than a pair of yapping dogs.

She finally burst into the kitchen with a muttered curse and tossed her keys onto the counter. The light flickered when she flicked the switch, but at last came on. The bulb was probably loose.

The rest on the porch had calmed her. Slowed her breathing. Lisa ran the cold water in the sink and splashed her face with it, washing away some of the sweat that coated her skin.

Instead of a hot bath, maybe she'd take a refreshing cool shower. Lisa bent to splash more water against her skin. Then suddenly, she was weeping.

She bent her head to the sink gripping the counter with both hands. Everything was turning and twisting beneath her, and without something to hold on to, she thought she just might fly away. Her sobs came easily like they had when she was a child and not afraid to cry. Her nose ran and her eyes burned. Her forehead ached from pressing against the sink's cold metal rim, but she didn't move. The water running from the faucet grew colder as the minutes passed, wetting her hair and drowning out even the sound of her crying.

He couldn't have done it. Not Deacon.
But if he hadn't stolen it, how had her purse gotten under his bed?

Her thoughts whirled, back and forth. She trusted him. She didn't. She believed in him, and then she didn't. What was going on?

She thought she might have stayed that way for an hour, but when she finally forced her back to straighten, Lisa saw by the wall clock it had only been a few minutes. She peeled her hand from the counter with a grimace. She'd been holding on so tightly her fingers were tingling. She closed the faucet, and the silence that filled the kitchen when the water ceased its sputtering was enormous.

Lisa ran her hand across her face, feeling the puffiness around her eyes. Her skin was hot, and she was sure she looked like a wreck. But she felt better. Not a whole lot better by any means. Only time would do that for her. But better than she had a while ago.

She didn't remember tossing the purse onto the table, but when she turned to face the kitchen that was where it was. A simple leather bag, not expensive. Nothing she could not have lived without. The money inside was minimal and the credit cards easily replaced. She could have lived without finding it again.

But she had found it, and everything had changed.

"Damn it," she said aloud to the kitchen. "Damn him!"

She'd trusted Deacon, the lying bastard. She'd broken off her relationship with Terry for him. She'd gone against her family's advice to trust him!

A chill tickled her spine.
Had they all been right about him being a thief?

Had they been right about the other things as well?

Could Deacon have been behind the strange things happening to her lately? The email, the phone calls, the missing laundry.

Her glance flew to the kitchen door, still standing open as no protection against the night. Lisa crossed the kitchen in a few lengthy strides to slam it shut. Then she locked it.

There had been all those other things, too. The mess in her bathroom. The unscrewed light bulbs. She'd blamed poor Allegra, but perhaps they hadn't been her sister's doing at all.

Had they been Deacon all along?

Lisa rubbed her bare arms, uncomfortably aware that the cold water and her own nervousness had urged her nipples into iron-hard bumps. She'd forgotten she wasn't wearing a bra. She looked down and saw her feet were dirty and scratched from her careless flight through the streets of St. Mary's.

She looked once more around the kitchen, taking comfort in the familiar. This was her home. She would not be afraid in it any longer.

Lisa went to the living room to check the front door, too.
Locked.
The room was dark and silent, and it was difficult to see after the harsh brightness of the kitchen. Menacing shadows lurked in every corner. Lisa rattled the front door again, and without looking back, started to climb the front stairs.

The light coming in from outside had been turned a dull, bloody red from the stained glass in the stairway's circular window. Not very reassuring. She fiddled with the hall switch, grateful but unwilling to admit it when the light came on upstairs. She wasn't in a horror movie, for crying out loud.

The hall bath door was closed. Had she done that? She couldn't remember and pride forced her to stop trying. Lisa ducked into her bedroom, closing the door behind her and laughing when she saw that her hands trembled.

"Fraidy cat," she whispered to herself in the dark room. Unlike the living room or the stairs, the dark in here was comforting. Welcome. Normal. She often kept the shades pulled tight to prevent early morning sun from waking her on the weekends. The dark in here wrapped around her like a warm blanket.

Even so, because she was afraid, she turned on the light. The only one hooked to the switch in here was the lamp on her dresser. It lit the room with a soft amber glow not strong enough to dispel all the shadows, but it would be enough.

"Shower," she said. "Pajamas. Bed. In that order."

She expected to find something when she stepped into her tiny bathroom. She didn't know what, but something bad. The crumpled pile of her bathrobe became a dead body for ten horrifying seconds until her mind allowed her eyes to see it for what it truly was.

Lisa let out a shaky laugh, blowing sticky strands of hair from her cheeks. She crossed firmly to the clawfoot tub and twisted the faucet handles. Water spurted out, hissing and spitting like a bag full of cats before smoothing into a heavy stream. It bonged against the tub's cast iron sides.

Lisa suddenly thought of that horror movie with George C. Scott--
The Changeling
--with the little boy drowning in the old iron bathtub. He'd flailed his hands against the sides, banging away, sending the same bonging sound throughout the old house while George wept in his bed for the wife and daughter who'd died.

In
The Changeling
, there was also a scene where they taped a séance, playing back the tape later to hear the little boy's ghost whispering his name. Joseph. The thought of it now sent the hair springing up on the back of Lisa's neck, and she shuddered.

"Lisa."

She yelped and spun away from the tub, slipped on the old linoleum floor and landed hard. Her shoulder hit the pedestal of the sink, her head the bottom of the sink's bowl. Pain bloomed in both spots at once, and she rubbed them to take away the sting.