Married to a Stranger (26 page)

N
ATALIE’S EYES
were alight. “You really didn’t know, did you? He kept our secret. You didn’t know that he was mine. That he loved me.”

The door to the bedroom banged back and a young man in a sweatshirt stood framed there, his eyes black with rage. He had taken off his Eagles cap. Emma saw the shock of magenta, the third eye. “Stop it,” he cried. “Stop talking about him like that. He’s not yours. He’s gone. He’s nothing to you anymore. You have me. I’m the one who loves you. What about me?”

“Kieran.” Emma stared at him.

“Get out of here,” Natalie said.

“You’re mine. You said so. You said you were mine. Why do you have to keep talking about him all the time? He’s not here to help you. I’m the one who’s here.”

“Calm down. Let’s talk out there,” Natalie said.

Kieran’s eyes were frantic. “What do I have to do? I’ve done everything you wanted me to do. I’ve done everything. Why do you have to torture me? I thought we were going to end all this and get away from here. You said so. You promised me. Why did you let her in? Why did you have to tell her?”

“She needs to know. She thinks I’m lying. Tell her, Kieran. Tell her how you saw us together at my house. You saw what a real man does. You must have enjoyed it. You stayed to watch, even when I didn’t know you were there.”

Kieran clapped his hands over his eyes and shook his head. “I don’t want to remember,” he said, wailing like a wounded child. “You said you were through talking about him. I’m not helping you anymore.” He flung himself into the other room.

“Kieran,” Natalie cried, rushing after him. “Baby, don’t.”

Emma could hear the sound of their voices rising and falling from the living room. She strained to make out the words. “Of course I do, baby,” Natalie crooned. Their voices grew quiet, and Emma did her best to decipher what they were saying. Strained to hear David’s name. To punish herself by catching every reference to him, to imagine him in bed with Natalie, betraying her.

“Ah shit,” Kieran wailed. “I’ve had enough. I can’t stand it anymore. When will it be over?”

Suddenly, it was quiet in the other room. What’s going on? she thought. When will what be over? And Kieran? That misguided, messed-up kid. Had he known all along that Natalie was alive? And kept her secret? Now that she thought about it, she remembered his tortured lyrics, his loneliness. She remembered that he used to show his lyrics to Natalie.

How had they gotten from there to here? From cookies and gentle criticism to this godforsaken hovel in the woods? Emma remembered him saying that he planned to die for love. Now she understood that it was for the love of Natalie, a woman pretending to be dead. Emma’s head was reeling from the unexpected, but one thing she knew for sure. This situation was volatile and dangerous. They were keeping her tied up. They saw her as a threat, and obviously the two were living in some kind of alternate reality where faking one’s death was all right. It was a reality Emma did not dare remain in. The first order of business was to get away from them. As far away as she could.

Use your head. There was no way to get to the phone. It was in her purse, in the other room where it had fallen when Natalie pushed her over. Besides, when she’d tried to use her phone outside, there had been no reception. So calling for help would not be an option. She tried not to allow herself to dwell on that grim possibility. She looked around the room, trying to figure out a means of escape. There was one grimy, multipaned window, which looked as if it had not been opened in years. Otherwise, there was the door into the other room, and that was not a possibility.

First things first, she thought. You have to get out of these ropes. She took a deep breath and she thought of her baby, not yet born, who needed to live. I will not let them kill us, Aloysius. I will not let you die at their hands. She tried to concentrate on the ropes. Just as she had pulled them apart when Natalie was tying them, she now contracted every muscle and pulled her arms close together. She could feel them loosen, but not by much. She did the same thing with her legs, trying to find room between her legs and the chair. How long will this take? she thought. How long do I have?

She began to work the bonds as best she could, expanding and contracting her muscles to create wiggle room. It was slow and painful, and she kept one ear on the murmurs and shouts that were coming from the other room. She thought of shouting herself, but it seemed futile. The nearest house was the Zamskys’ and there was no one there. So she worked her bonds and she prayed. And all of sudden, she had an idea. Maybe if she looped the rope on her wrists around one of the dingy brass knobs on the low bedposts, she could use the knob to pry loose the ropes. It was worth a try. It meant that she had to move the chair to the bed and do it quietly. Hunching her shoulders, she leaned forward and lifted her butt until the legs of the chair came off the floor. Balancing the chair on her back she scuffled over to the bed, trying her best to minimize the number of times a chair leg struck the floor with a thwack. Finally, she reached the bed and was able to lean back and set the chair down.

She glanced at the door, but there was no sign that anyone had heard her. She could hear the murmur of voices again from the other room. Now, she thought. She turned her back to the bedpost and raised herself up, chair and all, from the floor, at the same time lifting her tethered hands to swing them over and around the brass knob, so she could work the ropes loose, riding them against the knob. That was her plan, but because she could not see behind her, when she lifted her arms to bring them down around the knob and leaned forward, she missed and toppled over, chair and all, to the floor. She lay there on her side, still tethered to the chair, wanting to cry out, every muscle in her body aching from the pain of her fall.

The voices in the other room stopped momentarily as she came crashing down. She could hear the bedroom door open, though she could not see it.

“She fell over,” she heard Kieran say.

“Leave her like that,” said Natalie.

Emma felt tears spring to her eyes, both from the pain and from the hopelessness of her situation. Clumps of dust from under the bed tickled her face and seemed to suffocate her. She stared, unseeing, at a mound of dark clothing that had been stuffed or kicked under the bed. A fleece hood, pant legs, and sleeves were visible sticking out of the dark jumble, and so was something else. It took Emma a moment of staring to recognize it. It was a knitted ski mask. Black. With red rims around the eyeholes.

Emma jerked back and stifled her own scream.

The clothes of her attacker. The same attacker both here, in the Pinelands, and at the train station.

I did everything you asked me to do, Kieran had said.

What did you do, Kieran? Was it you who tried to kill me? Or Natalie? What about David? she thought, confused. One of them wore those clothes and came at me with an ax, and, when that failed, tried to push me in front of a train.

She thought of the two people conspiring in the other room. One she had called a patient, the other, a friend. Emma felt weak and sick to her stomach at the thought of that much hatred aimed at her from the people she had cared for.

You did nothing to deserve that hatred, she reminded herself. Don’t let them defeat you. Think of your baby.

Using her feet, she pushed herself away from the bed, scuttling backward across the floor, like a crab turned sideways. When her chair hit the wall, she was jarred from head to toe. She began to rock backward carefully until the chair felt anchored, and then slowly, painstakingly, she shifted her weight and worked the chair upright again. It was painful and difficult, and when at last she was seated, still tied, in the corner of the room, she was gasping for breath, her heart pounding.

From outside of the house, she heard a faint, familiar sound. A whinny. Not once. But several times. Was the horse just making noise, or could he possibly be alert to someone else in the area? Could the police have somehow found their way to her? Or was she just grabbing at straws, trying not to see the hopelessness of her own situation? Hoping against hope, she turned her head and looked over her shoulder, knowing that all she would see was the black night outside the window.

She almost screamed. A man looked back at her, his face pressed to the grimy pane, his sad, hazel eyes filled with horror at the sight of her.

“S
TOP,”
Joan Atkins cried. “What the hell is that?”

Audie Osmund, summoned by his dispatcher from the awards dinner for his grandson, had joined in the search. Gathering up half a dozen men, he had met up with Joan Atkins and Trey Marbery at the service station that Emma had described. When they had entered the minmart to make inquiries, the bleached blonde behind the counter said with a disinterested shrug, “Maybe the lady had a reason for wanting to ditch the husband.”

“She sure was in a hurry,” the attendant had added, pointing out the back door to them. And so they had begun to hunt for Emma.

Audie ordered his men to fan out from the back door of the minimart, feeling sure she must have left a trail. How far could she get in her condition—an injured, pregnant woman on foot?

“She’s probably wearing that woolly cape,” Joan had offered. “Surely it will get caught on branches and bushes. Use that to track her.” Several officers started out on foot, but Audie, who knew the dirt roads around here, offered to drive. Now Joan sat tensely beside him in the front seat of his truck while Trey had folded himself into the narrow space behind the front seat. With the headlights on bright, they began to drive through the woods, Joan still fretting aloud that they might have been better off on foot. Every ten seconds, she would try again to get through to Emma’s cell phone, but to no avail.

And then, all at once, Joan saw something. “Over there,” she cried.

Audie frowned. “That’s the road to the uncle’s place,” he said.

“Don’t you see something up there?” Joan insisted.

Audie peered up the road toward the Zamskys’. Through the darkness of the trees, he did think he saw something. “A light?” he said.

“Is that from the house?” Joan asked.

Audie shook his head. “Too faint for that.”

“You’re right,” said Joan. It was even fainter than the glow of a flashlight in the night. And unlike a flashlight, it was fixed. It had about the intensity of a single, weak bulb. “Let’s go see about it,” she said. “It will only take a minute to check it.”

Pulling the truck off the road, Audie hopped out and retrieved his own flashlight from the trunk while Joan and Trey jumped out of the cab and began to walk up the rutted dirt path toward the faint light.

“Emma!” Joan cried out. “Can you hear us?”

Audie caught up with them, gripping his brightly lit, long-handled flashlight like a weapon. The light source was just past a curve in the dirt drive. They rounded the curve, and then they saw it.

A car was stopped in a clump of pines, along the edge of the road, tipped nearly on its side off the sloping dirt shoulder. The front door on the passenger’s side hung open, branches hanging over and around it, and the open door had caused the inside car light to come on. There was no passenger or driver visible. The car looked empty.

Joan approached the car cautiously, drawing her gun There was definitely something ominous about this abandoned car with an open door. Who would leave it there? Why would anyone be on this road anyway? All of a sudden, from the direction of the empty car, she heard a faint sound. A human voice, groaning.

Emma, she thought.

Wielding his flashlight, Audie began to run toward the car.

“Who’s there?” Trey cried. “Who is it? Mrs. Webster, is that you?”

The car was a gray, late-model Lexus. In the back window was a parking sticker for the Wrightsman Youth Crisis Center. As they approached the car, Trey suddenly exclaimed, “I think I know that car. It belongs to Dr. Heisler. The director of the Wrightsman Center.” As they reached the vehicle they realized that the car door was being propped open by a human body that had fallen halfway out, and was wedged between the open door and the low-lying branches of the pines that crowded the edge of the road.

Ignoring the potential damage to her well-tailored pantsuit, Joan pushed away the branches and climbed in, lifting the man’s upper body, out of the tangle of branches. Burke Heisler’s face was barely recognizable for the blood, and his half-closed eyes had a milky gleam.

“Dr. Heisler,” Joan cried. “What happened to you?” If Joan hadn’t heard the groan, she would have presumed the man was dead. It looked as if he had been beaten savagely and propped up in the driver’s seat. Judging from the dried blood everywhere, he had been in the car for some time, and the weight of his slumped body must have finally pushed open the door. Or he had somehow managed to open it himself in an effort to escape.

Audie unhooked his radio from his belt and began to call for help.

“Help is coming, Dr. Heisler. Hang in there. They’re on their way,” said Joan.

There was no response, and Joan wondered if the psychiatrist was unconscious. His breathing was extremely shallow. “What happened to you?” she said softly, not really expecting an answer.

Burke’s eyelids fluttered, and Joan saw the glazed stupor in his eyes. “Natalie,” he whispered.

“That’s his wife,” said Trey, who was on the other side of Burke, helping Joan keep Burke propped up until the ambulance arrived. “The one who killed herself.”

Joan shook her head. “Poor guy,” she said.

“Alive,” Burke whispered.

“No, sir,” said Trey gently. “Your wife died. Do you remember?”

“Alive,” Burke whispered again. “In these woods. Help her. Help Emma.”

E
MMA SWALLOWED
the cry that rose to her throat. David, she thought. He brought a finger to his lips, warning her to be silent. She pleaded with him with her eyes, and he nodded slightly. He had come back. Why? What could have made him come back? She nodded back to him, and then turned her head quickly, looking to the bedroom door, which had begun to scrape against the floor.

Her heart hammered as she saw them enter.

“What are you doing? How did you get over there?” said Natalie with a frown.

Emma glared at this woman whom she had loved and then mourned. “I looked under the bed. I saw the clothes,” said Emma. “The ski mask and the hoody.”

Natalie did not try to pretend that she did not understand. “I should really throw them away. I won’t need them again.”

“Burn them,” said Kieran.

“It was you,” Emma said. “You’re the one who tried to kill me.”

Natalie did not bother to deny it.

“Why?” Emma said.

“So that you would die, and he would have to go to jail for it. Call it my parting shot. For the traitors.”

“You and David were the traitors. You betrayed me. And Burke,” Emma said.

Natalie shrugged. “You weren’t satisfied with being a little rich girl. You had to try and take what was mine. David was mine.”

“Don’t say that,” Kieran muttered.

Emma gazed at Natalie in disbelief. “And Claude Mathis who tried to save me. And the nurse who was taking care of me. Why did you have to kill her?” Emma cried.

“Kieran killed the nurse,” Natalie said.

“Don’t tell her,” Kieran cried.

“Why not? She won’t tell. She won’t be alive to tell. Kieran was supposed to kidnap you and bring you to me. But the nurse answered the door instead. He panicked and hit her. And then he found out you weren’t even there. Not very smooth, but…”

“You were glad I did it,” he protested.

“Kieran, why do this to me?” Emma pleaded. “We’ve talked so many times at the center. In the group.”

Natalie laughed. “He killed Burke too. He does whatever I tell him.”

“Burke!” Emma felt as if her heart was being shredded. “Not Burke!”

“Somehow Burke began to suspect I wasn’t dead. I don’t know how.”

Immediately, Emma thought of the autopsy report lying on the front seat of Burke’s car. Somehow he
had
come to suspect….

“Burke was poking around up at the Zamsky house when I stumbled across him. Imagine my surprise. Luckily Kieran was there to help.”

“You don’t care what happens, do you, Natalie?” Emma asked.

“She cares. She cares about me. She and I are going away together,” Kieran said. “And never be apart.”

Emma looked at him sadly. “Oh, Kieran, you don’t believe that, do you? She’s just using you and then she’ll throw you away.”

He was holding the knife in his right hand, and Natalie was edging in behind him, an excited smile in her eyes and on her lips. He turned and looked at Natalie. His young eyes were full of pain. “That’s not true,” he said.

“She’s just stalling,” Natalie observed. “She knows she’s going to die.”

“It’s not too late for you, Kieran. Don’t do what she says,” Emma pleaded.

“I have to. She’s everything to me,” he said.

“The police are coming. You won’t get out of this.”

He did not meet her gaze, but she saw his eyes. There was a flicker of fear there. Just a flicker, but it gave her a moment’s hope.

“She doesn’t love you, Kieran. She doesn’t love anyone,” Emma insisted.

“She does love me. From the first time I showed her my songs, she realized I was a genius.”

Emma looked into Kieran’s eyes, and instantly she saw what she had to do. It was cruel, but she had no other choice. No other weapon. Divide and conquer. “Kieran, I hate to tell you this, but she made fun of your songs. She said they were simple and pathetic,” Emma said reluctantly.

Kieran’s eyes widened, and when he turned them on Natalie, his face seemed ragged with doubt. “You told me I was a genius.”

“She’s making it up. Don’t listen to her,” Natalie said. “We know the truth.”

Kieran turned and slapped Emma’s face. Emma’s head jerked back.

“You’re a liar,” he said.

Emma’s face burned where he had slapped her. “I’m not lying,” Emma insisted.

“What are you waiting for?” Natalie cried. “Don’t listen to her.”

“Did you say that? Did you say my songs were pathetic?”

Natalie snatched the hunting knife from his hand, jabbing it in the air, threatening both Kieran and Emma.

“Natalie, for God’s sake,” Kieran said. “Give that to me.”

“If you can’t do it, I will. You can’t do it, can you?” Natalie cried. “You can’t kill her.”

“I can and I will,” Kieran said. “Give me the knife.”

Natalie raised the knife with both hands. “Are you too weak, Kieran?”

“Of course not,” he said, trying to reach for her, to embrace her.

Natalie held him off, jabbing the air around him with the knife. Kieran ignored the blows she was trying to inflict on him and grabbed at her wrists. “Of course not. I love you,” he cried. “I have no life without you, Natalie. Of course I’ll kill her for you.”

Natalie lowered the knife warily. His back to the door, Kieran reached for her and pulled her close. Natalie allowed him the embrace, encircling his ungainly body with her own arms, the knife still in her hand. Kieran pressed his defaced forehead into her shoulder.

Eyes wide open, Natalie looked past him to the doorway. “David,” she exclaimed.

Kieran stepped back, eyes blazing, and threw off her embrace. The knife fell from her hand and clattered to the floor. Kieran grabbed her by the neck with both his hands and began to throttle. “No,” he cried. “Stop it. Stop wishing I was him.”

David sprang across the room, wielding a tire iron, and whacked it across Kieran’s back. The boy’s grip on Natalie loosened. He staggered and cried out.

David did not hesitate. He struck a blow at Kieran’s shoulder that then glanced off the side of his head. Kieran crumpled to the floor.

Natalie was staring at David.

David crouched down and pushed the boy over, picking up the knife. Kieran was unconscious, a bruise blackening the side of his face. David stood up. Emma watched him, her heart in her throat. He looked at Natalie. Then he turned and cut the bonds that tied Emma to the chair and handed the knife to her. In that instant, Natalie understood. She threw herself at him, clawing at his face, pummeling him with her fists. Screaming.

Ignoring her rage, David lifted the tire iron and held it up.

“Natalie,” he shouted, making himself heard over her cries. “Don’t make me kill you. I promise you, if I hit you with this thing, I will kill you.”

Natalie stopped for a moment and stepped back, eyes wide. Emma raised the knife, ready and willing to plunge it into Natalie if she came one step closer, but Natalie did not notice. She was gazing at Emma’s husband.

“How did you know I was here?” Natalie asked.

David returned her gaze coldly. “I was searching for Emma. When I came to the door, I knew there was something familiar about the boy. I was driving away and I kept thinking I had seen his face. Trying to place him. It was the hat that threw me off. Hiding the pink hair and that ugly-assed eye on his forehead. Mentally, I tried to remove the hat. And then I remembered. The boy with the three eyes. From the Wrightsman Center. Emma’s patient. She was so kind to that kid. What did you do to him?”

Natalie ignored his question. “I told Emma about us, David. She didn’t know.”

David’s face reddened. “There’s nothing to tell,” he said dully.

“Really?” Natalie asked. “Nothing to tell?”

Emma saw the guilt in David’s eyes and she knew that it was true. He and Natalie were lovers. It was not some figment of Natalie’s fevered imagination.

“There was no reason to tell her. It was a meaningless affair. Especially, when I thought you were dead…”

“Meaningless? You loved me,” she cried.

“I never loved you,” David said.

“You did,” Natalie cried. “You did and you know it. Don’t bother to deny it for her sake.” Natalie looked at Emma with loathing. “He couldn’t get enough of me.”

“I don’t want to know,” Emma said dully.

“Don’t talk to my wife,” said David. “Spare her your venom.”

Natalie glared at David. “Did you mourn for me?” Natalie cried. “Did you weep over my grave?”

David shook his head. “Weep for you? Hardly. I thought it was justice, although you took the coward’s way out. You ran over that old man. You got out of the car to make sure he was dead and then kept on going.”

“Were you with her when it happened?” Emma cried, horrified.

David shook his head. “No. I didn’t even know about it until the guy with the videotape contacted her. I had already met you and broken it off with her, but she called me and pleaded with me. Said she had a horrible problem and only I could help.”

“So you went to her again.”

David was staring at Natalie. “I went to her. She told me everything and begged me to help her.”

Natalie glared back at him.

“And you helped her?” Emma asked.

“I told her to turn herself in,” he said. “Or I would.”

“You didn’t give a damn about helping me,” Natalie said.

“You killed a man, Natalie,” said David.

Natalie shook her head. “You make it sound so righteous. Tell the truth, David. You wanted me out of the way so you could marry this heiress for her money. But I wasn’t going to give you the satisfaction. Did you think I would just go away quietly and let you get away with that? Did you think you wouldn’t have to pay for your crimes? I asked you for help and you betrayed me. Whose crimes are worse?”

Outside the house, cars were roaring into the clearing and doors were slamming. Emma looked toward the window. She could hear Chief Osmund on a bullhorn, yelling for his men to shoot to kill if necessary. And Joan Atkins was urging caution in a cool but insistent tone. Emma knew she should feel elated, but all she could feel was numb.

“The police are here,” Emma said.

David looked sadly at Emma, who turned away from his gaze. Then he looked back at Natalie. “Your crimes are worse. But tell that to my wife, who will not look at me. And to my best friend whom I did betray…”

“Burke is dead,” Emma said dully. “They killed him.”

“NO,” David protested.

“That’s what they said,” said Emma.

David blanched and seemed to sway slightly. “He was never anything but good to you, Natalie. He did everything in his power to help you.”

“He kept me a prisoner in his little well-ordered world. With his theories and his medications and his
KISS THE COOK
aprons. I was dying slowly living there with him. I told you that the first time we were together. Remember?”

“David,” Emma said, recoiling. “My God.”

“I remember,” said David. “I remember thinking at that moment that my friend Burke was too good for you. That I should walk away from you and never look back.”

“But you didn’t,” she cried triumphantly. “Did you?”

Emma held her breath for a moment. Wishing he would deny it. Say it wasn’t so.

David shook his head. “No, I didn’t.”

There was a pounding on the door. “Police,” yelled Audie Osmund.

“Come in,” Emma cried, gripping the knife tighter and holding it high, ready to strike if she had to. “We’re in here.”

“Save me,” Natalie whispered to David, stepping over Kieran’s limp body on the floor. Her cheeks were flushed, her alabaster skin beaded in sweat.

Emma looked at him, wondering what he felt, wondering how she could have known him so little. His face was expressionless.

“Never,” David said. “Not even if I could.”