Low Pressure (15 page)

“That’s right.”

“Is it?”

She wiggled forward on the seat of the swing, trying to reach the ground with her toes. “Let me down.”

Instead, he moved in closer, using his body to hold her in the swing and the swing off the ground. “Did you find Steven? Were you able to warn him to seek shelter?”

“No.”

“You’re sure of that?”

“Of course I’m sure. That’s why I was alone when they found me in the rubble.”

“You didn’t go after Susan? You didn’t see her after she left the pavilion?”

“No and no.”

“Did you also testify to that under oath?”

“I didn’t have to.”

“Because?”

“Because no one ever asked me. Until
now
,” she said with vexation.

“So if you didn’t swear otherwise, you might’ve followed her and Allen into the woods.”

“But I didn’t.”

“No?”

She set her chin stubbornly and refused to answer.

He joggled the chains of the swing. “A.k.a?” he said in a singsong voice. “Cat got your tongue?”

“Why are you bullying me about this?”

“I’m only trying to get to the absolute truth.”

“I’ve told you the absolute truth.”

“You didn’t chase after Susan.”

“No.”

“I’m not convinced.”

“Too bad.”

“Why does this point trip you up?”

“It doesn’t.”

“Yeah. It does. How come? There’s gotta be a reason.”

“Let me down, Dent.”

“Did you run after Susan?”

“No.”

“You didn’t?”

“No!”

“Bellamy?”

“
I don’t know!
”

She gasped in stunned surprise at her own admission, and for several seconds they stayed frozen, their faces inches apart, staring into each other’s eyes. Then her head dropped forward and she repeated miserably, “I don’t know. And that’s the absolute truth.”

He’d pressured her for clarification, but hadn’t really expected it to be this consequential. If he had it to do over again, he might have relented sooner. As it was, he needed to get a grasp of the worrisome implications.

He pried his fingers from around the chain and, with that hand, tipped her head up. Tears were sliding over the freckles on her cheekbones. Her eyes were wet, deeply troubled, haunted.

“I can’t remember,” she said hoarsely. “I’ve tried, God knows. For eighteen years I’ve tried to bridge the gap. But that span of time is blocked out in my memory.”

“Specifically, what
do
you remember?”

“Specifically? I remember going down to the boathouse and seeing Susan drinking with her friends. Specifically, I remember her coming back, dancing with Allen Strickland, and making a spectacle of herself. I remember watching them leave the pavilion together.”

She looked at him and said helplessly, “But it’s like . . . like the broken center line on the highway. Sections of time are missing where I don’t remember what I did, or what I saw.”

She hiccuped a soft sob. “Yesterday I told you that I wrote the book so I’d be able to throw it away and forget it. But that was a lie. I wrote it in the hope of
remembering
.

“And what I think . . . what I’m afraid of . . . is that someone read the book, and knows what I left out. He knows whatever it is that I can’t remember. And he doesn’t want me to.”

D
ent wished he could dismiss her fear, but he’d come to the same unsettling conclusion. Someone was afraid that the constant retelling of the story would unlock a memory that had been sealed deep inside her subconscious for almost two decades.

Bellamy the child with a faulty memory hadn’t represented much of a threat to that individual. But Bellamy the woman with a best-selling book definitely did.
You’ll be sorry
now seemed less of a warning than a vow.

Also Dent feared that this elusive memory she so desperately wanted restored was one better left in the vault of her subconscious. Her psyche had blocked it for a reason. She might later regret learning why she’d been protected from it.

But he had selfish reasons for wanting her to recapture it, primarily his own vindication. So for the time being, he would keep his concerns to himself and continue to help her.

With the pad of his thumb, he wiped the tears off her cheek, then, using his thigh to hold the swing steady, cupped his hands in her armpits, lifted her off the seat, and lowered her to the ground. Even then, he withdrew his hands with reluctance.

He took a cautious look around. It had been five minutes since the lovers had come up for air. Paw-Paw and his wife had given up on the ball toss and had packed their grandson into their van and left. A forty-something man in shirtsleeves and slacks had parked his dusty sedan, gotten out, and walked straight to a picnic table, where he sat down and immediately opened up both his collar and his cell phone. While talking into his phone, he ogled the cheerleaders, who were doing flips. Dent figured the guy had timed his visit to the park when he knew they’d be there.

No one was interested in him and Bellamy.

Coming back to her, he asked, “Who-all knows about your memory block?”

She looked at him with an expression that spoke volumes.

When he realized what she was telling him, his jaw dropped. “You’re shittin’ me.”

“No,” she said softly. “You’re it. I never told anyone. My parents were so upset over losing Susan, over everything, I didn’t want to add to their anxiety. When Moody talked to me, I told him the version that I ultimately wrote in the book, and for all I knew that was true.

“I tried to remember. I swear I did. But then Strickland was arrested. Moody and Rupe Collier were confident that they’d solved the mystery, so it seemed less important that I recall everything.

“During Strickland’s trial, all I was required to testify to was how suggestively he and Susan had been dancing, and I could truthfully answer those questions. I couldn’t point the finger at Strickland and positively identify him as Susan’s killer. Nor could I deny that he was. But neither could anyone else in that courtroom.”

“He was convicted with only circumstantial evidence.”

“A preponderance of it.”

“But no physical evidence.”

“They matched his DNA,” she argued.

“A couple strands of his hair. Susan’s clothing also had traces of Mr. So-and-So’s dandruff and Mr. What’s-His-Name’s skin cells. She’d danced with a lot of men. She was crawling with DNA from a dozen or more people.”

“But Strickland’s saliva—”

“He admitted to kissing her open-mouthed and that his mouth had also been on her breasts.”

“What you’re saying is that you think Allen Strickland killed her.”

“No. I’m only saying that he was Moody’s best guess. But if Allen Strickland
was
the guilty party and sent to Huntsville to contemplate his sin for twenty long years, justice was served, right? Why, then, is somebody terrifying the hell out of you for bringing the world’s attention to it? And speaking of . . .” He placed his arm over her shoulder and brought her close to his side as he turned around and started walking away from the swing set. “I wonder who the guy in the pickup is.”

“What guy? Where?”

“Don’t look.” He hugged her tighter to keep her facing forward. “Just keep walking.”

“Someone is watching us?”

“Can’t be sure. But the same truck has driven by twice in the last few minutes. I wouldn’t have thought much about it except that he’s now coming by for a third pass. This is a pretty park, but I don’t think he’s admiring the duck pond or the gazebo. He doesn’t look the type.”

“What type does he look like?”

“I can’t make out his facial features, but his truck screams bad-ass bubba. Lots of bumper stickers, skull and crossbones on the mud flaps, get-the-blank-out-of-my-way tires. I’d bet money there’s a gun rack in the cab.”

“You noticed all that?”

“I’m used to searching the horizon for aircraft I must avoid, which usually look like a moving speck. One pickup roughly the size of my apartment is easy to spot. Do you know anyone who drives a truck like that?”

She shot him a look.

“I didn’t think so.” He stopped and bent down as though to pick a dandelion, and in the process glanced down the street in time to see the pickup round a corner a few blocks away. “Gone.”

Bellamy looked in that direction, but was too late to catch a glimpse of the pickup. “It could have been anybody.”

“It could have been, but I’ve come down with a bad case of paranoia.”

“I think we’re both being paranoid.”

“Don’t try to bullshit a bullshitter, A.k.a. You had a meltdown a few minutes ago. You’re scared, with reason. You said yourself that our guy doesn’t want you to remember what really went down.”

“I said that, yes, because I know about my memory loss. He doesn’t.”

“Which makes him even more desperate to learn what you’re up to, why you’ve stayed silent till now.”

“If I’d known something crucial to the case, I would have come forward with it during the investigation. I would have told everything I saw.”

“Not if what you saw scared you senseless.” He looked deeply into her eyes and said what she probably knew but hadn’t had the courage to acknowledge, even to herself. “Like witnessing your sister’s murder.”

She recoiled. “But I didn’t.”

“Someone thinks you might have.
I
think you might have.”

“Well, you’re wrong. I would remember that.”

“Okay,” he said, not wanting to add to her distress. “But we need verification of everything you do remember, or think you do. We need someone who was there to fill in the gaps that you and I can’t.” He hesitated. “We need to talk to your parents.”

“About this? Absolutely not, Dent.”

“They need to know.”

“I won’t resurrect the worst time in their lives.”

“You already did.”

“Well, thank you for reminding me of that,” she snapped. “When I began writing
Low Pressure
, I didn’t know that it would be published when Daddy was fighting for his life.”

“You may soon be fighting for
yours,
and they would want to know that.”

“You saw a redneck in a souped-up truck, like that’s a rarity in Texas. But suddenly my life is in danger? You’re blowing this way out of proportion.”

“Oh, denial now. That’s healthy.”

She had the grace to look away in concession.

“Your parents need to know about the potential danger.”

Adamantly, she shook her head.

“Howard’s got money. He could hire a bodyguard for you.”

“Have you lost your mind? I’m not going to have a bodyguard.”

He backed down from that. “Tell them, Bellamy.”

“No.”

“Talking about it with them could shake something loose.”

“I said no! And that’s final. Drop it.”

He hadn’t counted on getting her to agree, but her insistence was aggravating. He placed his hands on his hips and exhaled. “Okay then, Steven. And before you butt in with all the reasons why not, hear me out. You and he were at least in the same general vicinity when the tornado struck, which coincides with the time your memory goes kaput. He’s the next logical choice of who we should talk to.”

Reluctantly, she mumbled, “Probably.”

“Did he help supply you with missing facts when you were writing the book?”

“We met once in New York for lunch.”

He waited expectantly to hear more, but when she offered nothing, he said, “I’m not interested in what you ate.”

“Steven wasn’t very forthcoming with his impressions of that Memorial Day.”

“Why not?”

“He wasn’t very forthcoming about that, either.”

Dent frowned.

“Don’t read anything into it,” she said. “That was a terrible time for him, too. It’s in his past. Over. Buried. I don’t really blame him for not wanting to talk about it.”

“You said he went back east when he left Austin. Where?”

“He’s in Atlanta now.”

“Atlanta.” He checked his wristwatch, then resumed walking, but at a brisker pace. “If we hurry, we can make the four-thirty nonstop flight.”

“How do you know there’s a—”

“I used to fly it.”

Ray Strickland drove away from the park and out of Bellamy Price’s neighborhood. He didn’t believe he’d drawn her and Denton Carter’s notice, but he didn’t want to. He wanted to wait until he was ready to make his move. Then they’d notice him, all right.

Heeding his growling stomach, he stopped at a 7-Eleven on the access road off the interstate and bought a burrito and a Big Gulp. He returned to his truck and, as he ate seated behind the steering wheel, he ruminated on what he’d witnessed and what his next course of action should be.

The bitch was no longer hawking her book on his TV every time he turned the damn thing on. But did that matter? Not really. To Ray’s way of thinking, the damage had been done the day the book went on sale. It was still out there, being read by thousands of people every day.

Viciously, he tore off another bite of the burrito.

She’d made his big brother look like a patsy at best, and a killer at worst. She had to die for that. But, not wanting to make it too easy on her, he’d planned on playing with her for a while before he killed her.