Pillow Stalk (A Mad for Mod Mystery) (22 page)

THIRTY-FOUR

When I came to, I was on the sofa. Richard pressed a bag of ice against my kneecap. I pulled away, on alert. I couldn’t feel my leg. I was scared, more scared than I’d ever been. And the pain rivaled the pain of the skiing accident still fresh in my memory.

“Madison, I’m sorry I scared you. Andreev’s been after me for a while. He thinks I have a reel of a Doris Day movie he stole from AFFER. But it’s not
Pillow Talk
, it’s something else. Something he hid decades ago.”

“Richard?” I uttered.

His voice dropped to an urgent whisper. “Where is it, Madison? Where did you hide it?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. Any of it.”

“He knows you have it. If you just tell him where it is, he might go away and not hurt us.”

Sounds of someone tossing my kitchen like a Waldorf salad filled the background. Richard was more gullible than I took him for. Four murders, countless attacks, threats, breaking and entering? Popov wasn’t going to let us go no matter what he found in my cabinets, and I still didn’t understand exactly what he thought I had.

“Richard, listen to me. There’s a cop, out back, sitting in a Jeep next to the dumpster.”

“No there’s not, Madison. I saw him on my way in. I knew he would stick around if I couldn’t get rid of him.”

“What did you do?”

“I told him Hudson James was at The Elbow Room getting drunk. He thanked me and took off. That’s how Popov got past him.”

I stared at the ceiling, not wanting to believe Richard. Catching Hudson was the one thing more important to Tex than my safety. Tears stung my eyes, and I fought to sit up.

“Listen to me, Richard. That man is not going to let us go. We have to get out of here and I can’t walk.”

“Please, Madison, tell him where you hid the film reel.”

“I don’t have a film reel. I didn’t hide anything. I don’t know what you think I have, but I don’t have anything you don’t see.”

“Think. Thelma Johnson had it and you are the only person to take anything from her house. You must have taken it, even if you don’t know that you took it.”

Pans crashed against the linoleum floor. My downstairs neighbor would hear that if anyone was home. Where were the rest of my tenants? Why wasn’t anyone coming to check on the noise coming from my apartment?

Popov came out of the kitchen. “Are you sure you don’t want to save me the trouble of searching the apartment, missy? If you just give it to me, I’ll get out of here. Get in my car and get to the airport and on the next flight back to Russia. I could have been home years ago but first them, then you. You were more stubborn than everybody else. The rest of them got scared. You lived like you had nothing to lose.”

“What is so important that you were willing to kill four people?”

“My reputation in my country. My Russian citizenship. My life. Here I’m an old man. There, I was an astronaut. A legend. I stole the evidence they had of my infidelity to my country. Thelma Johnson—she screwed everything up, she thought it really was
Pillow Talk
, thought it had a scene with her in the background. When she found out the truth, that the only interest I had in her was in the film reel, that I had killed her daughter over it, she came after me with a knife. I should have destroyed the film when I had the chance. But that woman hid it. She knew its value to me and how dangerous I was. A man without a country. Because of the mission to Mars, because of what I knew, because of what I told. It’s the only evidence that I sold secrets of our space program, that I sacrificed the Soviet strategy for money. They’ll have no proof I’m a spy and they’ll have to let me back into my country, to formally apologize, to celebrate me as a hero once more.”

Andreev Popov was crazy. He was not going to allow either one of us to walk out of there alive, even if I had been able to walk at the moment.

“I’ll tell you where it is if you let Richard go,” I said boldly.

“Madison, no!”

“That’s the arrangement you made with him, years ago, when you approved his application to film school, right? When you first saw the letter campaigning to destroy all Doris Day movies? You knew somehow you could use him. You thought you’d create an ally,  even an unwitting one. You sent his letter to AFFER. You even mailed it with his name on the envelope, so he’d be under suspicion if anything happened to
Pillow Talk
.”

“He wanted to cooperate at first.”

I looked at Richard. The bravado had left him and all that was left was the shell of a man in a grimy, sweaty, rumpled T-shirt. Even Klaus Kinski’s Nosferatu looked less threatening than he had earlier.

“It was a highly competitive program and I wanted an edge,” Richard said. “That’s why I wrote the letter in the first place. And when Mr. Popov taught my class on documentaries he asked for volunteers to help with a project. I wanted a good grade. I thought it would make a difference, you know, have a solid reference on my resume. He was supposed to be teaching us how to get good footage, how to get past the people that try to keep you away from the truth. How to get inside, you know?”

“The kid did good, too. I gave him an A,” the Russian said with a laugh. “I could have assembled an army on the power of a grade in those days.”

I still didn’t know where this supposed film reel would be, and I’d just offered to give it up to save Richard. Running through my head, along with the fear and the pulsating rush of blood, were snippets of conversation Hudson and Tex had shared with me independently.
It was in her wardrobe
. But I’d seen the wardrobe. It had been destroyed. The table leg, sitting off to the side, told me Hudson had been there. Hudson needed to find the film reel, too, to show there was a clear motive for murder between someone else and Sheila Murphy, between someone else and Thelma Johnson.

But the fact remained that Popov thought I had it. And what if I did? What if the best items I’d taken from Thelma Johnson’s wardrobe included whatever we were looking for? That whatever we were all looking for was now in my wardrobe? Was it possible that between polyester pant suits and vintage cotton dresses hung proof of a Soviet espionage ring, secrets that people would kill for?

I tried to stand, but pain shot through my leg. I collapsed back onto the sofa. I was dizzy and nauseous. And then I remembered Mortiboy.

“Popov, it’s in the closet. On the top shelf.”

“Madison!” cried Richard.

Popov moved like a mountain lion stalking prey in the wild. His shoulders hunched and his sleeves, pushed up to expose the hair on his forearms, tensed with muscles that had never atrophied under his eighty-year old skin. I realized he’d been at the pool so many times but had never been in a bathing suit. I’d never seen his physique, never knew he was a solid and menacing mass of muscle, now coated in the stink of desperation.

I pushed at Richard. “Get out of here. Now!”

“I can’t leave you with him.”

“Get help. Fast.” I could only speak in short words, the pain interrupting my ability to breathe. Richard stood up and looked in the bedroom. Popov was bent over, moving the piles of shredded laundry that Mortiboy had left on the floor after yesterday’s climbing session. He would soon turn his attention to the closet. Mortiboy had been trapped in the closet for almost a day. He would be one pissed off cat. At least, that’s what I was counting on.

Popov didn’t notice Richard move toward the front door. He flung the sliding closet doors aside in a grand gesture. Mortiboy jumped out of the closet at him, clawing his face, his neck, his arms. Popov screamed.

I pulled the bandana off my head and wound it around my knee. While Popov wrestled with Mortiboy, I pulled the metal rod of the broken pink and brass lamp from under the sofa and angled it like a cane.

And then I heard the crash.

I looked in the bedroom. Popov was on his knees, holding his face. Streaks of blood on his cheeks indicated Mortiboy’s damage. But as he knelt on a pile of clothes, with blood-covered hands pressed against the wounds on his face, a stack of hatboxes settled into a pile on the floor in front of him.

And it wasn’t the turquoise felt trilby that caught my attention. It wasn’t the brown and white rabbit fur cap that buttoned under the chin. I hadn’t looked at either since buying them years ago and tucking them away on the top shelf of my closet, where I’d stacked the hat boxes I’d brought home from Thelma Johnson’s house.

It was a reel of film that fell out of the bottom box and landed by Popov’s knees. A reel of film that Thelma Johnson had hidden in a hatbox years ago.

Popov grabbed the reel with bloody fingertips. I stood, balanced on one foot, and stared at him. I had to get out of there while I had the chance, but I couldn’t walk. Popov tore a pillowcase from its case and threw the reel into it, then held it shut the way a miser would clutch at a bag of gold coins.

“You stupid girl. You had it all along. So many people dead. So much wasted time.”

He moved toward me, a sharp kitchen knife in his hand, his eyes bloodshot with fury. His hair, a comb-over, stood on end and fell down longer on one side than the other. I put the weight of my bad knee on the pole of the lamp and mustered up the strength to fight him, yet even if I had two good knees I couldn’t win this battle. I couldn’t run away, could barely stand. Mortiboy had been my ace in the hole and he’d done his best, but now, like so much of my life, I was on my own. I was about to become victim number five.

My fingers closed around the pink metal pole. I pressed my back against the wall of the living room, hearing Popov’s footsteps getting closer. I could smell the rancid odor coming from his t-shirt as he approached. Just as I saw the toe of his shoe, I yelled as loudly as I could and swung the broken lamp with all of my might. The weight of the lamp caused it to arc low, knocking the knife from his hand. The metal connected with his kneecap. He fell onto all fours and cursed in hard, guttural words.

He crawled toward me like an animal.

“This ends here, Popov,” I said, and tried to move backward.

“You’re right, missy, it does.”

He grabbed at my knees, forcing them to buckle. I lost balance and fell to the floor. My head ricocheted off the corner of the low wooden coffee table but I fought to stay in the moment. He knelt down on top of me, his kneecaps piercing my thighs, pinning me to the floor. His breath, hot and spicy, blasted my face. My leg was underneath me, bent at an unnatural angle. Popov set the reel next to my elbow and reached behind him for a pillow from the sofa. He pushed it into my face. The last thing I saw were his white knuckles.

My scream was lost in the fabric.

THIRTY-FIVE

The blood pumping through my ears drowned any sounds from outside. I couldn’t get air. I felt my hands along the rug, searching for something, anything. My fingers threaded through the metal film reel. I pushed it over my head and hoisted it, then slammed it down. Popov’s body went limp on top of me.

I pushed him off me and gasped for breath, huge gulps of air that did little to calm me down. I blinked several times to clear my vision and pushed at his body, kicked at him with my right foot, trying to get out from under him before he started to move.

That’s when I heard my name.

My reaction to Tex was less than graceful. Tears clouded my vision, streamed down my face. My nose was running. Blood ran from an opening on my hand. I didn’t know I’d cut it when I’d picked up the broken lamp. Tex pulled me up onto the sofa and put his arms around me. I cried into the soft fabric of his shirt. And then I heard barking.

Sloppy wet kisses covered my cheek. Rocky wriggled next to me on the bed, trying his best to elicit a response. When I moved and reached out to him, he yelped with the happy announcement that I was awake. I looked around, trying to figure out where I was. The walls were white, the bed was white, the unfamiliar nightgown I wore was white.

This wasn’t home.

People in scrubs moved around a white room with peach and green paintings framed in white-washed wood. A man I didn’t know sat in a folding chair next to the door. He flipped through a dog-eared golf magazine.

“She’s awake,” he announced to whoever was listening from the hallway.

Tex came into the room. For a moment he stood by the foot of the bed and looked at me.

“Night, you sure know how to prove a point.”

Rocky snuggled into the nook of my arm. His nose prodded the right side of my ribs. I curled my arm around him until he was against me like a teddy bear might have been for a child.

Tex sat on the edge of the bed and put a hand on Rocky’s head. “I should have been there like I said I would.”

“It’s not your fault.”

“It’s my fault that it got as out of hand as it did.”

“Popov…” my voice trailed off as I auditioned the different questions I had against the priority of how to start.

“Popov isn’t a threat to you anymore.”

“He’s dead?”

“He’s in jail, and based on what we know and what I think we’ll find out after talking to you, he’ll be convicted of four murders, along with whatever is on that spool of film. And after the home run you hit against his kneecap, I doubt he’ll be able to go anywhere.”

Ironic, I thought.

“I don’t get it. He’s been after that spool of film for twenty, thirty years?”

“The preliminary info is still coming in, but we know that Andreev Popov was an astronaut in Russia while the MIR space station was still operating. He was convicted of selling secrets to other countries. He compromised his country for money. The proof is on that footage.”

“But how does it all tie in with Doris Day?”

“That’s the weird part. He actually showed some promise as a filmmaker while he was working on the space program and had contacts in the States. He arranged for someone to send American movies to their mission base. It made him popular, important. The guy who could procure entertainment from behind the Iron Curtain back when very little was getting there. We weren’t racing to partner with Russia, and Russia wasn’t racing to cooperate with us. The only race anybody knew about was part two of the race for space.”

“The race for space was in the late sixties and Popov isn’t that old. I’m not following.”

“He had movies sent in to his camp. Doris Day movies were easy to come by. It was the mid-eighties, and people were fascinated with movies of the sixties. He arranged to see
Pillow Talk
and
The Glass Bottom Boat
.”

“What does this have to do with anything?” I asked.

“Scenes were filmed outside of NASA in
The Glass Bottom Boat
. That’s when he got the idea, a way to send secrets out of Russia. He spliced footage from his own camera into a reel of the movie loaned to them, and sent it back. This reel is from
Pillow Talk
. Only, it isn’t
Pillow Talk
. It’s footage from the Buran space program. Photos, schematics, plans. Projections. Timetables and formulas.”

“But I heard that movie reel was a little,” I sought the best word, “provocative.”

“It is. Aside from the information about the Buran missile, it also shows a young Andreev Popov having sex with a blonde secretary in a restricted office. That’s what made this particular reel so valuable. It wasn’t just footage of their mission. It was the footage that ID’d him as the spy.”

“And that copy of
Pillow Talk
ended up at AFFER. Are you telling me that Popov came to the states and has been looking for it since he left Russia?”

“The woman came forward. Told her story to the media, told what he was doing. He denied any involvement in the spy scandal. His cover story was that someone stole his camera and made the footage inside the space station. The Russian media didn’t believe him, so he fled, but he knew he had to find that film and destroy it if he ever wanted to return. Once in the States, he made a name for himself as a,” he paused for a second, “documentary filmmaker, all the while searching for that reel of film.”

He tipped his head to the side and stared out the window. “He knew what he was doing when it came to filmmaking. Russia had no proof he was the spy, unless they came into the possession of this reel, but they were unforgiving. His career was over. He knew this reel of film was in the US so he went about finding it. Madison, he’s not a dopey old man. He’s a spy. A successful spy, who sold his country’s secrets for money. He was smart. But he was vain, too. He used his charm and his wits to get into the beds of women along the way—Thelma Johnson being one of them, and in the end, that was his undoing.”

“You found the connection between Popov and Thelma Johnson.”

“From what we can determine, Thelma Johnson knew she had something very valuable in that film reel. We’ll never know if she knew what it was, but she realized early on that as long as she had it and told no one where it was, she was safe from Popov’s rage. He wouldn’t dare hurt her without knowing where she’d hid it.”

“What about Sheila?”

“We’re still working on that.”

“I think I can help you out.” I told Tex what Popov said, about Sheila finding him searching the house. Tex had known she was a wild child, but he hadn’t realized she was capable of blackmail.

“After Sheila died, Popov must have convinced her mom that Hudson was guilty. She never considered anything else, until one day twenty years of bottled up rage and frustration over the fact that he still hadn’t found the reel caused Popov to snap. Thelma must have realized he killed her daughter. Before she could do anything, he killed her, too.”

“What about Hudson?” I asked.

“He’s not involved.”

“Does he know you know that?”

“If he doesn’t, he will soon enough.”

“You should have listened to me.”

“Night, don’t go there.”

The funny thing was, despite what Tex thought, I didn’t want to go there either. Too many what ifs fluttered around us: what if he’d stayed at my apartment building instead of going on Richard’s wild goose chase after Hudson? What if I’d been better at asking for help? What if Hudson had cooperated with Tex long ago instead of hiding? What if Popov had had a few more seconds to hold that pillow down over my face?

Tex moved his hand from Rocky’s head to my thigh and I didn’t push it away. It reminded me of how long it had been since I’d let someone touch me. And it wasn’t just physical touching I craved.

I put my hand on top of his. “Where’d you find Rocky?”

“In the dumpster. I wasn’t the one who found him. It was Donna.”

“Who’s Donna?”

“Officer Nast.” He said her name differently than before, softer. “She’s the one who gave him a bath. He didn’t smell so good when we fished him out. Someone in your building likes tuna. Or doesn’t, considering how much we found in the dumpster.”

“And the cat?”

“We found a black cat in your kitchen cabinet, next to an old popcorn popper. You never told me you had a cat.”

“I don’t. I’m watching him for a friend who had to get lost for a couple of days.”

This time Tex was silent.

“So it’s over,” I said.

“Mostly,” he answered.

“Mostly?”

“There are still a couple of loose ends.”

“Like what?” I asked.

“Rest, Night. We had a guy look at your knee, and you’re going to need surgery, most likely, though you’ve proven me wrong before. Anyway, we’ll get into the other stuff later.”

Officer Nast came to the doorway. Her long brown hair was loose. Soft waves framed her face and hung off to one side. She was out of uniform, and dressed the way Pamela used to dress when she wasn’t posing for a real estate flyer. Thin white T-shirt, low-rise jeans, hoop earrings. She tossed her hair behind her shoulders.

“Allen, you coming?” she asked. Her green eyes sparked from across the room. I looked at him then her, and tried to figure out what had changed, and when.

He sat on the bed, our fingers entwined. An IV was hooked up to my arm, and the liquid from a pain-killing drip made tiny plinking noises. Otherwise, the room was silent.

“Go. It’s easier this way,” I whispered.

He avoided eye contact and I knew. I knew neither one of us was in the right place to take on a challenge.

He took two steps toward the door, then turned back around, his blue eyes clouded. He was going to move on, and I almost didn’t blame him.

“It’s easier this way,” I repeated.

“Maybe it’s time I stopped taking the easy way.” He walked out of the hospital room and left me alone with my puppy.

A week later I was out of the hospital. My knee was still my knee. A replacement might be in my future but as long as they could make do with what God had given me, I wasn’t going to fight it. They wanted me to use a cane. I didn’t. They won. Taking Rocky for a walk was trickier now that one hand had to stay on the wooden prop.

For the time being, my apartment was a household of three. Rocky, Mortiboy, and me, though I knew Hudson would soon come to collect his charge. He sent me a letter, explaining he had to go away for a while, but would be back. I knew he had sent a similar letter to Tex because the lieutenant told me, though I hoped the tone of that letter differed slightly from the tone of mine. But each day, when I got up to feed the cat and take Rocky for his morning walk, I looked up and down the street for a heavily primered blue pickup truck.

Speaking of cars, my Alfa Romeo was returned, neatly backed into my space. I didn’t ask who had driven it over. The driver would have needed a ride getting home and there was a good chance that this was one project Officer Nast could do with Tex. It bothered me that the idea of them together bothered me. It made me think I was starting to feel things again, and that bothered me most of all.

Rocky was out front, peeing on the lawn, when Tex’s Jeep pulled up and parked along the curb in front of the no parking zone. The perks of being a cop, I guess.

“Night, we have to talk.”

“I didn’t know our relationship had progressed to the point where that sentence was due,” I said, and immediately wondered about the casual manner with which I’d said ‘relationship’.

He seemed not to notice, preoccupied with something else.

“How’s your schedule today?”

“Mostly open. I have an appointment with a new client at two and I’m doing a walk through with the Duncans at four-thirty, but other than that, nothing. Why?”

He stopped about ten feet away from me and stood there, his face taut. I could see his teeth clenching, not because they were bared but by the subtle movement of his jaw.

“What’s wrong, Lieutenant?”

“Remember when we searched your car?”

I nodded.

“We found something. I couldn’t say anything until we figured out what it meant. Turns out it didn’t have anything to do with Popov or the Doris Day murders.”

The Doris Day Murders
. That’s what the press had been calling Popov’s killing streak. The Doris Day Murders committed by The Space Case, as the disgraced Russian had been labeled. It represented the fundamental flaw with creative license, that when it came to things like murder, there should be a journalistic rule against being too clever.

“So why are you telling me? My part is done. I sacrificed my knee to help you stop a killer,” I said, trying, and failing, to keep my voice light.

“Can you come with me? Now?” he asked, ignoring my tone.

“Sure. Come inside and I’ll get my things.”

Tex was more in emotional lockdown than he’d been since I’d met him. I wondered what had caused this shift. Was it Officer Nast? Or had all of the flirtation, all of his attention, really been about the murders? Had I simply been a means to an end?

Inside the apartment I put Rocky in his crate and lifted my white wicker handbag. My uniform post injury had been a full skirt, boat neck T-shirt, and ballerina flats and today was no different. The fabric of the skirt swirled around my knees, covering the black Velcro brace I’d taken to wearing 24/7.

I followed Tex to the Jeep and got inside. He drove up Gaston, continued up around the bend and turned left again on Lakeshore Drive. Two miles later he swung the Jeep into the Mummy parking lot. I looked at him, no words spoken, but questions evident in my expression.

“We found something hidden by your spare tire. Did you put anything there, keep anything there?”

“No.” The hair on the back of my neck bristled. “What did you find?”

“One of our forensic guys found a reel of film when he went over your car. About six minutes’ worth. We thought it had something to do with Pamela Ritter’s murder.”

“How did she get a reel of film into my trunk?”

“She didn’t. It’s been there for awhile.

“You’ve known about this all along? What’s on it? I mean, you watched it, right?”

He looked away. “Yes, I had to. It turned up before we connected Pamela’s murder to Sheila’s. I was still on the case, and I had every reason to believe it was part of my investigation.”

“But I’m guessing it didn’t, and I’m guessing it had something to do with me. That’s why I’m here, right? I can tell you I didn’t hide any film in my car, for what it’s worth, and I hope by now my word counts for something.”

It seemed a pretty minor thing, a random loose end for him to use to visit me. Especially after the way I’d seen him interact with Officer Nast in the hospital. And it dawned on me, what this was. An excuse to see me.

“Damn it, Lieutenant, you didn’t have to try so hard. Life isn’t really like a sixties sex comedy where you have to create an elaborate ruse to get my attention. If you wanted to come see me, just come see me.”

“Let’s go inside.”

He got out of the Jeep and came around to my door, helping me get out. A week ago, I would have shaken off his assistance. With effort, I anchored the cane in the dirty driveway.

We walked, slowly, into the theater. “Go inside and take a seat. I’ll be with you in a second.”

“Tex?” I asked, wanting some kind of reassurance. He had no words to offer.

The lobby was empty. So was the theater.

“Take a seat, Ms. Night,” said an unfamiliar voice.

I looked around, side to side, then up to the balcony. A short man in a rumpled coat stood by the projector.

“This is for your viewing only. Technically what you are about to see belongs to the Pennsylvania police department, but Lieutenant Allen informs me that it pertains to you, so, as a courtesy, we will show you this footage. Once. It is his assumption you have not yet seen it.”

“What’s this all about?” I asked.

“Take a seat, Ms. Night,” said the booming voice again.

I felt like Dorothy, commanded by the invisible Wizard of Oz. Tex stood next to the white-haired stranger and nodded at me. I slid into the end seat of the sixth row of the theater.

A grainy image filled the screen. At first I didn’t know what I was watching. And then his face came into focus, staring into the camera, sitting in a brown leather chair that had at one time been my favorite chair. Leaning forward, elbows on his knees, converse sneakers with his navy blue windowpane suit and light blue polo shirt.

Brad Turlington.

The married man I left behind in Pennsylvania.

As his voice fed through the theater’s speaker system, my stomach turned with the cruel humor of making me watch him, larger than life on a twenty-foot screen. I wanted to get up and run out of the theater, but on so many levels, I couldn’t. I was paralyzed—no, crippled—both emotionally and physically, and this was the person who’d inflicted the deepest pain of all.

Hudson had come face to face with his past, and Tex had his resolution, too. Maybe, just maybe, it was time for me to face my own demons.

“Madison, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I can’t believe I lost you over this. You’re the only woman I’ve loved, honestly, truly. I’ve never known a woman like you. I wanted to tell you, tell you everything. I wanted to be honest with you from the minute we got back together but you were too perfect and I was in too deep. I was afraid to jeopardize everything.”

The film crackled and every couple of frames it faded to orange but it was more riveting than a blockbuster. As much as I’d wanted to run only seconds before, now I was caught in the tractor beam of Brad’s charisma.

“I’m sorry I lied to you. I wanted to tell you the truth so many times. I was going to tell you at the top of the mountain. But I saw them—they were there. When we went to the Poconos, when we got out of town, I thought we were safe. I told you I wanted us to get away from it all, and I meant it. I didn’t know they’d followed me. Us. And I knew if I told you, I’d bring you into it. I couldn’t do that to you. You were, are, the only thing that mattered. The only person that mattered.”

He’d said these words before, but they were tainted. Tainted with the knowledge I wasn’t his one true love. His wife was. He’d said as much right before I’d skied away from him and the limited engagement he offered me. It had taken every ounce of self-respect to leave the one person who made me feel complete, but I was not willing to be a part of the relationship equivalent of a time share.

He held his head in his hands. His shiny black hair, gelled into place with Top Brass, barely moved. He took his square glasses off and turned them over and over in his hands. It was a nervous gesture I’d seen him do before.

I’d denied him the opportunity to apologize to me when I left. I’d cut off all contact with him. These were great lengths he’d gone to, to communicate his apologies on a piece of film he’d hidden in my car. It was selfish on his part to inflict this on me after I’d fought so hard to get over him.

He put the glasses back on and stared directly into the camera. “Madison, listen to me carefully, because I can only say this once. I am not married. I never was. But I got myself involved with some bad people. I had to keep you safe. When I saw them at the top of that ski slope I knew they would come after you if they knew how important you were to me. Lying to you was the hardest thing I’ve ever done but it was the only way to drive you away. I knew it would take you out of my life. I didn’t know you would hit that tree. It almost killed me not to be able to console you while you were in the hospital. But it was the only way—”