Grand Avenue (13 page)

“Yes,” Vicki said, afraid to say more.

“When?”

“Soon after it happened. She needed someone to talk to; I happened to be there. She swore me to secrecy. Said she didn’t want to create any problems for the family. She especially didn’t want to hurt your mother.”

Paul Moore shook his head. “I don’t believe you,”
he said, although the sudden appearance of tears indicated otherwise.

“Settle this out of court, Paul.”

“You’d really use this? Something my wife told you in confidence nearly eight years ago? Something no other lawyer would be in a position to know? That can’t be ethical.”

“It’s perfectly ethical. How I obtain my information is not relevant.” That word again.

“Neither is what my father might or might not be guilty of. He had every right to cut my sister out of his will.”

“A judge might disagree,” Vicki told Paul plainly. “It’s a crapshoot, of course. A judgment could go either way. But do you really want all this to come out? Do you want it aired in open court? Settle, Paul. Settle this before it goes any further, before anyone else gets hurt.”

Paul Moore’s head slumped against his barrel chest, almost as if he’d been shot. He stood this way for several minutes, Vicki monitoring the ragged rise and fall of his shoulders for signs he was still breathing. Then, without saying another word or even looking in her direction, he spun around on his heels and walked out of the room.

“Are you all right?” Michelle asked timidly from the doorway after he was gone.

“Get Adrienne Sellers on the phone for me,” Vicki instructed her secretary by way of a reply. “Oh, and did you have any luck with Chris’s number?”

“Still busy.”

Vicki shook her head as Michelle left the room. Who the hell could Chris be talking to all this time?

“I have Adrienne Sellers on line one,” her secretary informed her minutes later.

“Adrienne,” Vicki said, a sudden rush of adrenaline pushing her shoulders back, her head high. “I think I might have some good news for you. Looks like we might be talking settlement.” Then she took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and laughed out loud.

S
omeone was laughing.

Or maybe it was shouting. Shouting her name. Chris tried turning her head, but a sharp pain at the base of her neck warned against further movement. She opened her mouth, tried to speak, but the only sound she heard was a low, ragged wail. Someone’s in terrible trouble, she thought, wondering why she couldn’t make out who it was. “Chris!” she heard from a distance, someone pulling on her arms, as if she were a rag doll. “Chris, open your eyes. I know you can hear me. Please, baby. I’m so sorry. You know I didn’t mean it. Please, Chris, open your eyes. Stop playing around.”

Playing around? she repeated, strange arms tugging her this way and that, adjusting her shoulders, slapping gently at her cheeks. What was she doing? What kind of game was she playing? Why did her head ache? Why couldn’t she see anything?

“Please, Chrissy, open your eyes,” the voice pleaded.

The voice was growing increasingly desperate, and
Chris struggled to obey. But her eyes refused to cooperate. All Chris saw was darkness. It must be her brother. He’d locked her in that old chest again, and even now he was sitting on its lid triumphantly, refusing to let her out.
Let me out of here!
Chris hollered, though no sounds emerged from between her swollen lips.

What happened here? Chris wondered, bringing a hand to her mouth, feeling something sticky against her fingers.

Gerry, you let me out of here right now!
Chris yelled, swatting at the air.
When I get out of here, you’re going to be sorry. You’re going to be very sorry
.

“I’m sorry, Chris,” someone was saying. “I’m so sorry.”

What was happening? Why couldn’t she open her eyes? Why did her shoulders ache and her jaw throb? Had she been in some kind of accident? Had she fallen? Hit her head? Been hit by a car? Think! she told herself, trying to gather together the thoughts that were bouncing wildly around in her brain. Try to piece together what’s happening. Try to get it together, she repeated, her head lolling off to one side, eyes blinking open, seeing nothing, before rolling back in her head.

“Don’t pass out on me again, Chris,” the voice begged, panic underlining every word.

She felt a strong kick to her stomach, and then another. From the inside, she realized with growing horror. Somehow, someone had reached inside her body, was pummeling her from the inside out. Chris tried to scramble to her feet, to run, to get away, but her ankles only twitched and her legs went nowhere. She couldn’t get away. She was going nowhere.

Help me!
she called toward a group of women
watching from the shadows.
Please do something. Get me out of here. Tell me what’s happening
.

The largest of the silhouettes stepped forward.
He keeps track of your periods?
Susan asked, round face pushing through the darkness.

Barbara was immediately at her side.
Maybe you should go home. They’ll be coming for me any minute now. There’s no reason for you to stay
.

You were calling me?
Vicki asked, pushing her way in front of the other two.

Yes, I was calling you, Chris answered in her mind, fighting to remember why. She’d been at the hospital. With Barbara. Without Tony. Oh, God. Barbara having some surgical procedure. Me there to lend moral support. Tony out of town on business. Oh, God. The baby kicking. Feeling queasy. Coming home. Tony away on business. Oh, God. No car in the driveway. Montana at school. Wyatt with Mrs. McGuinty. The house empty. The phone call to Vicki. Need to know my options. Tony’s reflection in the window. Oh, God.
Hang up the phone, Chris
. Oh, God.
What’s the matter, Chris? Aren’t you happy to see your husband?

Oh, God. Oh, God. Oh, God.

“Wake up, Chris. Please, honey, open your eyes. Goddamnit, Chris!”

Chris saw Tony’s fist flying toward her, braced herself for the wallop of his knuckles as they smashed against her jaw, was surprised by a splash of cold water instead, filling her nostrils and seeping into her mouth. Her eyes shot open as she sputtered into full consciousness. “What’s happening?” she cried, feeling the baby inside her trying to push her to her feet.

“It’s okay, babe,” Tony was saying, an empty glass in his hand. “You’re gonna be fine now. Everything’s gonna be okay. You just had a little accident.”

“An accident?”

“You know I didn’t mean it, sweetheart. You know I’d never do anything to hurt you or the baby.” His hands were all over her. On her face. In her hair. On her stomach.

Chris tried pushing his hands away from her, but they kept coming back, as if she’d stumbled blindly into a spider’s web. “Don’t touch me.”

“Oh, please, baby. Don’t be like that. I’m just trying to help you, sweetheart. You know I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

“You hit me, Tony.” Chris struggled to stand up, teetering on knees that threatened to give way. “You knocked me unconscious.”

“It was an accident. You know that.”

Chris stumbled into the bathroom, stared at her battered face in the mirror over the sink, Tony right behind her, his reflection hovering over hers in the glass. Who are you? Chris asked the frightened woman staring back at her. Who is this pathetic lost soul?

I vaguely remember you, one set of eyes cried out to the other from atop a jaw that was scratched and discolored, cut and swollen lips dripping blood onto the white collar of her navy sweater, her hair dripping with the water Tony had flung in her face to revive her. What’s happened to you? What happened to the feisty little girl who used to chase her older brother around the house, who regularly caught him and wrestled him to the ground? Where had she disappeared? “Oh, God.
How could you do this? You promised me it would never happen again.”

“How many times do I have to tell you it was an accident?” Anger suddenly replaced the concern in Tony’s voice. “It never would have happened if you hadn’t lied to me.”

“Lied to you?” Chris was incredulous. What was Tony talking about? “When did I lie to you?”

“You lied to me about going to the hospital.”

“I never lied to you.”

“You said you wouldn’t go.”

“You said you were going out of town.”

“What difference should that make?”

“You weren’t here,” Chris argued, trying to turn around, to escape the confines of the small bathroom. “I didn’t see the harm.”

“You didn’t see the harm?” He spun her back toward the mirror, forcing her face toward her bruised reflection. “You didn’t see the harm? Do you see it now? Do you?”

“Tony, please,” Chris whimpered. “You promised after the last time you wouldn’t hit me anymore.”

Immediately Tony dropped his hands to his sides, walked from the room, began pacing back and forth in front of the bathroom door. “Why do you make me do these things? You know I don’t want to hurt you. Why can’t you just leave well enough alone?”

Chris said nothing, running some cold water from the tap, applying a wet compress to her lips, trying to make the thin red lines of blood that were etched into her skin disappear.

“Didn’t you agree not to go to the hospital with
Barbara?” Tony asked, refusing to let the matter drop. “Isn’t that what you decided?”

“You
decided.”

“You agreed. Didn’t you?”

“Yes.” What was the point in saying anything else?

“But you lied.”

“I didn’t …” Chris stopped. “I didn’t mean to.”

“You never mean to do anything,” Tony said with a shake of his head.

“You lied too,” Chris heard herself say, the words out of her mouth before she could stop them.

“What?”

“You said you were going away on business. Why did you do that?” Chris realized she was genuinely curious.

Tony leaned against the doorframe, his body filling the doorway that separated the bedroom from the bathroom. “I had my suspicions. Thought I should check them out.”

“Suspicions about what?”

“What do you think?”

“About me? Why? What have I ever done to make you suspicious?”

“Oh, I don’t know. How about ignoring your children to go off gallivanting with your friends?”

“I’m not ignoring my children. Montana’s at school,” Chris said, trying to inject some logic into the proceedings, “and I only left Wyatt with Mrs. McGuinty for a few hours so that I could be with Barbara at the hospital. That’s hardly gallivanting. Wait.” Chris stopped, trying to retrace the path of the conversation. “How did you know I went to the hospital?”

“What?”

“You said I lied to you about going to the hospital. How did you know that’s where I was?”

A smile slid across Tony’s face, settling into his eyes and mouth. He said nothing.

“You followed me?” Chris asked, although she already knew the answer.

“Saw you and the Barbie doll get in a taxi, watched you smile sweetly at the driver. Black guy, wasn’t he? I hear they’re very well endowed.…”

“Tony, for God’s sake.” Chris could feel Tony’s anger building in the pit of her stomach. This was Tony’s pattern, the way such scenes always played themselves out. Anger. Violence. Contrition. Kind words becoming false accusations until suddenly it was all her fault. Always her fault. Her fault she walked into his fist, her fault she tripped over his feet, her fault she was covered with bruises.

“It’s the same old story,” Tony was saying. “Your friends are more important to you than your family. Susan and Vicki mean more to you than your own kids. And Barbara. She’s the worst. She calls; you jump. What is it with the two of you anyway? You got something going on you want to tell me about?”

“She was scared, Tony. Scared about the operation. Scared she won’t be able to have more children.”

“So you volunteered to give her one of ours.”

Chris gasped, fell back against the sink, the full impact of his words hitting her as strongly as his fist had earlier. So, her instincts had been correct after all. He’d been right there in the corridor with them, right beside them, for God’s sake, right under her nose. She
tried to conjure up the busy hospital corridor, saw people marching purposefully back and forth, patients trailing IVs, doctors conferring, nurses scurrying, an orderly hunched over a set of charts, a man down the hall mopping the floor, another man buried behind an old magazine, visitors disappearing in and out of patients’ rooms. Which one had he been? How long had he been watching her?

“That’s right, Chrissy,” Tony said, as if he’d heard her. “I was right there. I heard every word you said. I heard you offer to give our baby away.”

“I was joking,” Chris whispered, her hands trembling at her sides.

“Yeah, you were having a high old time, weren’t you, babe? Laughing and joking with the Barbie doll. And how about that handsome young doctor I saw you cuddling with?”

“What?”

“You didn’t think I’d miss that one, did you? No, I saw the two of you making a spectacle of yourselves in the hall.”

Chris fought to remember what man her husband was talking about. What doctor had she been cuddling with? “I don’t know—”

“Come on, Chris. Nice-looking guy. Real tall, just the way you like ’em.”

The image of the young doctor leapt before her eyes. “Tony, he was just giving me directions to the bathroom.”

“Escorted you there personally,” Tony corrected. “Took hold of your arm.”

“He was just being nice.”

“A little overly familiar, wouldn’t you say?”

“Absolutely nothing happened. You saw that.”

“I saw a man with his arm around my wife.”

“He touched my elbow.” Chris stopped. This was crazy. Tony had been right there. He knew exactly what had happened. Why was she defending herself?

“What’d he say to you, Chris? What plans did the two of you make?”

“We didn’t make any plans. This is ridiculous.”

“Did you slip him your number? Tell him your husband was out of town?”

Chris shook her head, said nothing. Tony wasn’t interested in answers. He was interested only in terrorizing her.