Chapter Nine

Sunday, February 24: Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf hails first day of allied ground offensive as “dramatic success.”

Sunday morning Jenna slept late, ate a big breakfast, and took a leisurely stroll along the harbor. No painting would be done today, and much of San Ignacio was in church. Would it shame them into more charitable views or give them another gathering place for gossip? Rick had said “not today” when she asked if he attended church—would he go today and meet hostile stares and awkward silences? Had anybody told him what she couldn’t?

She was walking slowly back to the house when Nancy came running over as so often before. She looked unhappy. Still sulky about the way Jenna had spoken to her? Or angry about something else? Something else. “Stupid old war,” she grumbled. “There’s nothing else on TV—all day and all night.” She fell in beside Jenna, and they continued toward the house. “Boring!”

“Yes,” she agreed, although it wasn’t exactly the right word. The very idea made her skin crawl. Strong, healthy young men, expensively trained, the best of their generation, killing each other for no good reason—no reason was good enough.

“The ’raqis are running away.”

“That sounds very smart of them. What have you been reading?”

“Nazis,” Nancy said succinctly. She stopped in the path and waited for Jenna to turn back to face her. Her face was flushed, her eyes wary. She was unsure of what the reaction would be to the news she was bursting to tell.

“What?” Jenna asked. She had a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach, as if she knew what was coming.

“Danny’s father is in jail.”

She didn’t even consider whether it was true before she asked, “Where’s Danny?”

Nancy shrugged. “He wasn’t in Sunday school.”

“Come on. I need to talk to your mother.” She took the girl’s hand, and they walked up the hill to the Hayes house. Rosalie might relish gossip, but she could also have facts. She was on good terms with Vince Allan.

Nancy led her in through the back door. The TV was on in the living room, a blur of serious words. Larry was slumped on the couch, staring at the screen. He glared at her resentfully and said nothing. He looked haggard and miserable, and the flickering images threw an unhealthy light on his face. Mike was watching too, leaning forward, elbows on knees.

Rosalie mildly reprimanded Nancy for repeating gossip and sent her back outside before she drew Jenna with her into the kitchen, away from the war talk. Rosalie was calm and sympathetic, no light of malice in her eyes. “He’s not in jail,” she assured her. “He wasn’t arrested. Vince took him in for questioning, that’s all.” Not “asked him to come in,” but “took him in,” which sounded much more ominous. Or had she been careless in her choice of words or exaggerated for effect? Had Violet been “taken in” when she was questioned about the cabin?

“And—”

Rosalie shrugged. “That’s all I know.”

“Did he question anybody else?”

“Not that I know of.”

“So why Rick? Why Rick first?” Anger was building in her. “Was there a reason? Evidence? Or was it the stupid gossip? The police aren’t supposed to act on rumors!”

“Sit down. I’ll make you a cup of coffee.”

But Jenna couldn’t sit down; she didn’t want coffee; she didn’t want to stay. She was so angry and so deeply, deeply sorry she hadn’t warned him, hadn’t given him a chance to defend himself. She rushed home and sat down in the outdated kitchen of her freshly painted house and wept.

****

It was after dark when she heard the pickup in the driveway. She didn’t know what to think—her body was immediately thrown into crisis mode, her heart pounding. She hurried to the door, and Rick came up the steps. The moon, only days from full, made the porch light unnecessary. “Don’t unlock the screen,” he said. “I don’t want to scare you.” It seemed a very strange beginning. “I just wanted to ask you a question—one question.”

“What is it?”

“Do you believe I killed Barbara Raymond?”

“No,” she said and was glad of the conviction in her voice.

“Then why do they?” He wasn’t asking her; he turned away, asking himself. Out of everyone in San Ignacio, he had come to ask her this question, as if her opinion held great weight.

“Rick!” She reached for the latch. “Don’t go. Come in—please.” Smart choice, Jenna, let the killer in. Was it vampires who couldn’t come in unless you invited them?

“No, I—”

“Please. We should talk about this.”

He took a few seconds to decide, but he came back up the steps. She opened the door and led the way into the kitchen.

“Sit down,” she said. “I’ll make coffee.” She didn’t suppose either of them would sleep much tonight anyway.

He didn’t sit down. “Do you know what happened?” he asked.

She shook her head, not sure what the question covered. “Where’s Danny?” she asked.

“Heather Kelly is babysitting,” he said. “He was scared, but he’s okay.”

“I’m sorry,” she said, as if she were personally responsible for Danny’s anguish. “Sit down, please.”

“I was blindsided,” he said, and Jenna winced. She should have told him—she couldn’t imagine what the conversation would have been like, but she shouldn’t have been such a coward.

“Rick,” she said. “Sit down.” He took a seat at the kitchen table, and she paused to light the burner under the teakettle.

“Vince Allan was nice about it,” he said. “He said there was no evidence yet; it was all speculation, but everybody was talking about it. I guess he had to…go through the motions. It seems I was the last to know. Did you know?”

“Yes,” she confessed.

“And you didn’t tell me?”

Her face flushed with heat. “I—”

“No, no, I get it. I haven’t been your favorite person.” Yet he had sought out her opinion. Because she was new here, the outsiders sticking together? “Jenna, come here—sit.”

“The coffee…”

“Never mind. Sit down, talk to me.” She left the cups on the counter and sat down across from him. “I didn’t even know Barbara Raymond,” he said. “I met her at the barbecue. We didn’t exchange two sentences. I didn’t know her from Adam—she was nothing to do with me. Why the hell does everybody think I killed her?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know who started the rumor.”

“Vince asked me if I’d slept with her. He said she’d had sex, apparently consensual, before she was murdered. Whoever that was—he might not have been the killer—it sure as hell wasn’t me. Vince asked if I’d take a DNA test.”

“That will clear you, won’t it?”

“Yes, but the samples have to go to a lab in Sacramento. It takes weeks. In the meantime, my…neighbors believe this, and a fancy new forensics test won’t change their minds. And Vince took my knife, my best carving knife.”

Jenna thought of the sleeping kitten on her bedside table and bristled. “Did he have a warrant?”

“He didn’t need one. I have nothing to hide.”

“Do you have an alibi?”

“Only my son, who was asleep. Vince might have questioned every guy at the barbecue; sooner or later he would have gotten around to me—but he didn’t. I was first on the list.” His eyes met hers. “Tell me why. Tell me what they said.”

“Oh, a lot of things, stupid things. You were both from L.A. I can’t remember them all—I couldn’t believe they were serious. What you said about her at the barbecue.”

“What did I say?”

“You don’t remember?”

“I remember you ladies were taking her apart. Maybe one of you killed her.”

“You said, ‘She’s too beautiful. Women like that are nothing but trouble.’ ”

“And so she was,” he said. “What else?”

“What does it matter? It was just stupid gossip, rumors. They’ll be ashamed when they come to their senses.”

“But they believed it—all of them, everybody. My so-called neighbors.”

“Not everybody,” Jenna protested. “I didn’t. Rosalie said she didn’t. Even if they repeated the rumors, it doesn’t mean they believe them. I’m sure there are others who don’t. The Kellys, if they let Heather babysit.”

“She said they didn’t want her to come, but she wouldn’t disappoint Danny. He likes her to read to him. I was supposed to play poker with Harvey and Phil and Jeff, and they cancelled.” So the damage had gone beyond words. The life he had made here was unraveling. Three years of living and working with these people, growing more confident of belonging here, and now the door had been slammed in his face, and he was an outsider after all.

“Heather must not have believed it.”

“I didn’t ask her. She’s a kid. She’d been crying. Other people are getting hurt in this. Tell me why.”

She shrugged. “You know them better than I do.”

“I thought I did. Nobody told me what was going on. They talked to you—”

“I don’t know why, Rick. They’re just scared.”

“Yes, of me,” he said. “Do you know how that feels, to have people distrust you for no reason?”

Was he talking about racism now? If he wasn’t, she was when she said, “It must have its uses, though—nobody will mess with you.”

“They’re messing with me now,” he said. “Who did you talk to?”

Jenna shook her head; she didn’t want to be responsible for directing his anger toward anybody in particular, although she might have cheerfully thrown Charlene Dickens to the wolves. “Does Gabe Burrows have something against you?” she asked instead.

“No,” he said. “He just doesn’t like anybody very much. He would be the first to believe anything negative, and he might repeat it, but he wouldn’t have started it.”

“You know who might have?” she said. “The real killer.”

“Which means it’s somebody we know,” he said. “Not a stranger from L.A.”

“I asked who started the rumors,” she said, “but nobody knew—or cared.”

“What else did they say?”

She tried to think. “Oh—somebody said they’d seen your pickup at her cabin.”

“Right,” he said. He seemed almost relieved. Here was something concrete, something he could defend himself against. “I fixed her broken window, but I dealt with Violet, not the renter. I never even saw the Raymond woman. My fingerprints would only be around the window and the front door. What else?”

“I don’t remember,” Jenna said, searching her memory. “You don’t wear a wedding ring…”

“Oh, that’s a good one,” he said. At least he hadn’t lost his sense of humor.

“No, it was…” She caught her breath. She hadn’t meant to get into this. She was afraid to say it, physically afraid.

“What?” he asked. “Tell me.”

“They—they said you killed your wife.”

“Oh, my God,” he said, and his tone was not at all what she had expected—not shock, outrage, grief, or guilt, but simple contempt for such credulity. “How long have they believed that, when they could have found out the truth so easily? Did you believe it?” he asked.

“No,” she said. “Nancy—she was repeating something she heard at school—she said Danny’s mother was murdered, and Rosalie said it wasn’t true.”

“Oh, it’s true,” he said. “She was murdered. Yes, Danny’s mother was murdered. It’s not a secret; it’s public record. But I was never a suspect. There wasn’t any mystery about who did it, believe me. The police knew who it was. They knew exactly what happened, because the bastards confessed.” He stood up, shoving the chair aside.

“You don’t have to…” she began. She didn’t want to hear.

But once started, he couldn’t seem to stop, the words spilling out in a rush, vivid and frightening. He wasn’t looking at her. “They confessed,” he repeated. “Hell, they bragged about it. There were two of them. Two big, ugly, stupid, skinhead sons of bitches. One of them was an off-duty cop. They were stinking drunk. They ambushed her in the parking lot. They raped her, and she fought—she broke one bastard’s nose. And they…” He gestured with his right hand as if he held a knife. “They cut her. They stood there and watched her bleed to death and they called her…whore, spic whore… She was a good person, a strong, beautiful woman, somebody’s wife, somebody’s mother, and the best they could think of to do was to waste her life and let her know before she died that they thought she was nothing. I will never be able to forgive them.”

“Why would you even try?” Jenna asked tearfully. Who had suggested he should? He did look at her then, and she must have looked as horrified as she felt.

“Oh, God, I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to—” He turned to the stove and shut off the burner under the whistling teakettle. Jenna hadn’t even noticed the sound. He took a few steps toward the door. Was he leaving?

She got up and approached him, thinking she should give him a quick, neighborly hug, to comfort him, to keep him there, to say—what? Some stupid cliché, “I’m sorry for your loss”? Instead she put both hands on his chest as if to push him away or to steady herself. He was still short of breath after the rush of words. What was her excuse? He was warm and solid and real under her fingers. It was not a dream, then, this feeling. Somehow her hands were on his shoulders, and she lifted her face to his.

This time the kiss was very mutual. Was it just sympathy, or had this powerful attraction existed all along? Either way, she was not stupid enough to think this was a good idea, but she let him take her face in his hands. His fingers explored as a blind man’s would and brushed across her lips.

He kissed her again, a deeply sensuous kiss, and his hands caressed her neck and shoulders. He touched her breasts, lightly and through two layers of fabric, but it was enough, and Jenna felt both a shiver of pleasure and a stab of claustrophobic panic. She stiffened and caught her breath sharply.

“Do you want me to stop?” he asked, his voice husky.

“No,” she said, but faintly. Yes. God, yes.

“Just tell me,” he said. “Now would be a good time.”

“No.” She was glad he had asked, though. She wasn’t about to be raped by Barbara Raymond’s killer. No, she wasn’t afraid of what he would do, but of what he could make her do—or feel. She didn’t want to be hurt again as Patrick had hurt her.

Rick was holding her close now, kissing her sweetly. He paused as if to get his bearings, and then they drifted toward the bedroom, not in a hurry, but with a calm inevitability. In the doorway she heard herself whimper in protest. She didn’t want to make love in her grandparents’ antique four-poster. Yes, she did, but she didn’t want to lie awake afterward and regret it.

The shutters were open, the room half flooded with moonlight. She was trembling with desire and with fear. He was a stranger, so unfamiliar in her arms, so overwhelmingly not Patrick, and yet here he was in her bedroom, undressing her. His hands were sure and gentle, and he took his time, not fumbling with buttons or hooks, all part of a silent ritual, with no need for words. He didn’t seem to want any help, but when he had his boots off, she unbuttoned his shirt with fingers made clumsy by haste. He was in no hurry at all.

She lay back on the bed, and he approached her with gentle confidence. She took his head in her hands, stroked those beautiful cheekbones, and ran her fingers through his thick hair. “Enrique,” she whispered. Another delicious, thrilling kiss, and his hands were on her face, her throat, her breasts, and still, even though his breathing was unsteady, every motion was calm and purposeful.

Hadn’t she known, since the first time she saw him smile at Danny, that he was capable of this tenderness, of awakening this tenderness in her? Now he was kissing her bare skin and oh—oh, God!—touching her in ways she had never been touched, making every nerve end in her body stand at attention.

She was beyond ready when he said, “Jenna?” softly, awaiting her mute assent, and he was inside her, part of her, and everything was as easy and natural as breathing, as if they had always been together. She hadn’t known this was possible—this patience, this generous sweetness. His mouth was on hers, and she was letting go of fear, beginning to trust him, and her thoughts scattered into pure feeling.

Revelation: Making love—it was not a euphemism after all; this was what the words meant—lovemaking, the making of love…

****

Jenna awoke in her grandparents’ bed in the silent darkness. Without consulting the clock, she knew it was nowhere near morning, and Rick was gone. Disappointment chilled her, but it was not as if he had chosen not to stay. He had Danny; he had to take Heather home. What she had missed most about marriage was simply being held, warm and comfortable, in bed. Would she ever have that again? Hadn’t he kissed her before he left and said—what? No words would come. Was it all a dream?

Perhaps it was better that he had gone. She needed to be alone, to think, to sort out her feelings and put this in perspective. She lay awake for a long time, her mind a tangle. She felt as if she had been sleepwalking for the last few months and now she was awake. Ah, yes, Sleeping Beauty, with Rick Alvarez cast as Prince Charming. She might be happier if he left town right now and didn’t spoil everything with words or second thoughts. Would he do that, let them run him out of town? Was she even a person in this, or had he merely sought comfort in the nearest warm body? She had known him less than two weeks. Did she know him? Would she never remember that middle-of-the-night impressions were always disproportionate?