The Perfect Husband (32 page)

You're weak, stupid. You couldn't even stand up to your father. What did you do when he hit your mother? Watch? And what did you do while he hit you? Wait?

“Tess! Dammit, don't do this!” J.T. grabbed her shoulders and shook her hard.

For a moment she lolled like a rag doll. She couldn't find her strength. She had no mass, no muscles, no bones. She had no spirit.

“Tess?” J.T. whispered roughly. “Sweetheart, please…”

The dam broke. She began to sob, her throat burning, her shoulders heaving. So many tears. J.T. sat down beside her on the ugly rug. He wrapped his good arm around her shoulders and cradled her against his chest. She cried against his T-shirt, big, messy tears that soaked through to his skin and made her feel worse. He stroked her hair.

“Shh. Shh. I'll help you. We're going to find Sam, sweetheart. I promise you, we'll find Sam.”

She cried harder. He rocked her against him.

“It's okay, honey, it's okay. I know. I know.” He kept murmuring against her hair. She pressed her shivering body against him.

Hold me, hold me, hold me. Don't ever let me go.

“I know,” he whispered. “I know.”

“WE SHOULD ICE your arm.” It was an hour later. She'd sobbed, J.T. had smoked. Now they both sat on the edge of the too-soft bed, looking worse for wear. “Can… can I look at it?”

He shrugged and pursed his lips around the thin white cigarette. The pungent smoke stung her eyes.

“Can you stop smoking?”

He arched one dark brow.

“In return for my health services,” she negotiated.

“I thought you didn't know much about first aid.”

“I know better than to smoke, so I'm obviously more qualified than you.”

He didn't give in right away, but after a few moments he ground out the cigarette. “Self-righteous Tess,” he murmured.

She ignored his comment and sank to the brown carpeting before him. His knees parted, allowing her closer. His thighs brushed her shoulders. She placed her fingers on his arm and heard his harsh breath.

She had told him the truth earlier. She had no idea what she was doing. In her mother's house she'd learned to put makeup over scrapes and bruises, not Bactine. She'd learned to mend broken bones with carefully scripted lies to health care professionals. She'd learned how to pretend most of the beatings didn't hurt.

Now she examined J.T.'s injured limb helplessly. His left forearm appeared furious — beet red, swollen, and hot to the touch. She risked a glance up, her fingers still resting delicately on his skin. His face had gone pale. Sweat beaded his upper lip. She could tell he was biting the inside of his cheeks to keep from making a sound.

“I think you need a real doctor,” she said quietly.

“Do what you can, Tess. Or I'll fix it the old-fashioned way.”

“Amputation?”

“Bourbon.”

“Oh.” She poured ice into a towel and placed it to bring the swelling down. He could wiggle his fingers a little, but not a lot. Did that mean it wasn't broken, just badly sprained, or did that mean something worse? She had no idea.

Finally she gave him a couple of aspirin from her purse.

“Two? My arm's been pulverized by a baseball bat and you hand me two aspirin?”

“You're right.” She doled out six. He swallowed them as a single handful.

She sat on the edge of the king-size bed, her knees not far from him. They had been through a lot, but neither of them knew how to put it into words. She'd slept with him, but she didn't know how to ask him to hold her. She'd cried on his shoulder, but she didn't know how to offer him comfort.

“Are you going to stare at me all night?”

“Maybe.”

“You're giving me the jitters.”

“Why did we come to a hotel? Why didn't we go straight to the police?”

J.T. was silent for a moment. “Because they're the police.”

“You don't trust them?”

“No, I guess I don't. Big Bad Jim seems to know how to run circles around them. We're better off on our own.”

“Your arm is busted, I almost died. Care to say that again?”

“And we both lived to tell the tale. So far that puts our records way ahead of the police.”

“J.T., he has my daughter.”

“We'll find him.”

“How?” She could hear the hysteria in her voice. “Place an ad in the yellow pages? Read tea leaves?”

“I don't know.”

“
You don't know
?” She was screaming at him now. She didn't mean to scream.

“Tess, I'm not fucking Superman! I don't have all the answers. I'm making it up as fast as I can.” J.T. slammed out another cigarette and promptly snapped it in two. “Shit,” he said, and reached for another. “What time is it?”

“Three A.M.! He has had my daughter for over twenty-four hours. Twenty-four hours and we have nothing!”

“We know he's in the area. We forced him to take a risk returning to the crime scene. Sooner or later he'll screw up.”

“Oh, that's a fine strategy. The police have been using it for the last three years with such success as well.”

“Fine, Tess.” Now his voice was cold. “What do you suggest?”

“I… I…” She didn't know. She just wanted Jim dead. And she wanted to hold Samantha in her arms again.

She closed her eyes. She took a deep breath and raked her hand through her hair. Suddenly she was too tired to think. The pain ran too deep, sapped all the strength from her until she was simply a hollow husk. Her daughter was out there alone. She was sitting in a cheap roadside motel, not knowing what to do. Her head hurt unbearably and J.T. was right, he was not Superman. She was foolish and silly to expect so much from him.

You have to learn to stand on your own. You have to be strong. You have to pull it together and get your daughter back.

She stood and held out her hand. “Come to bed.”

J.T. snarled, “Well, sweetheart, I do try hard to be accommodating, but even my talents are limited by the loss of an arm.”

“I didn't ask you to fuck me,” she said bluntly. “I know you're not angry enough to do that.”

His black eyes widened, then narrowed dangerously. “If I screw you out of anger, what makes you so hot for me?”

“Lust. Pure lust. Isn't that what you want to hear?”

He didn't reply. And he didn't accept her out-stretched hand. She shook her head, disgusted with them both. Why couldn't he understand that for a woman like her, there was no such thing as simple lust. Even when she wished there was.

She grabbed his right hand because she knew he'd never take hers, and with a fierce jerk she brought him to his feet.

He towered over her, his face no longer passive and no longer unreadable.

“I changed my mind,” he murmured. “I'm angry enough after all.”

“Like hell.” She pushed him back on the bed. “You're going to lie there, keep that ice on your arm, and do exactly as I say.”

She placed both her knees on the bed, the mattress sagging dangerously. J.T. was still watching her through heavy-lidded eyes. She reached across to the bedside lamp and snapped it off.

“I prefer seeing,” he commented.

Her breasts were brushing his chest. She drew back carefully, not wanting to prolong the contact but not wanting to disturb his arm. “Sleep.”

“Sleep?”

“It's as good a skill as any, remember?”

“Only until eight A.M.”

“Fine. Only until eight.”

“HE'S GOTTA HAVE someone watching Sam,” J.T. was insisting. “A relative we don't know about. An old friend. An unwitting accomplice. He couldn't just leave her alone to return to Difford's house.”

“I don't know,” Tess said. She was straddling his lap, examining his arm. It looked even worse in the morning light. Now he couldn't move his fingers at all.

“Think, Tess.”

“I have thought about it! I'm telling you, his family is dead, he never had friends, just associates, and now there's no logical person for him to turn to. On the other hand, he picks up women like that.” She snapped her fingers. “Maybe he has a steady girl these days. I don't know.”

“Where did he hide last time?”

“I don't know.”

“He disappeared for six months and the cops still don't know how?”

“I'm sorry, J.T., but once he was caught, he didn't exactly volunteer all the information. That only happens in the movies.”

“Where did they search last time?”

“In the beginning, everyplace, just like they're doing now. His picture was posted, a hotline established. They issued a warrant throughout New England. As time wore on, however, the task force grew smaller, the effort less intense. Police departments don't have the budget to maintain that level of manpower and diligence for six months.”

“Which Jim knows. So he waited, the number of officers working the case slowly dwindled down, and soon there's you, sitting in your old house with only a couple of cops working each watch shift.”

“We weren't even sure he'd come back,” she whispered. “Quincy just thought it was probable.”

J.T. was silent. His skin was an unhealthy color. His forehead felt like he was running a fever. “He could do that again, you know.”

“He has Samantha.”

“Exactly. An even better reason for him to lie low. He has a place — maybe a person. Let's just assume that for now. He used it last time he disappeared and he's using it now. You're right. He keeps a low profile, and six months from now the task force will be half the size. They'll start thinking he slipped through the net unseen, men will get called onto more active cases. Yeah, if he can be patient, it can work.”

“Then we find him,” Tess said simply. “I'm not leaving Samantha in his possession for six months or a year.”

“I'm not arguing. But we have to have a starting point. We need information.”

Tess took a deep breath. “You're absolutely right, J.T.”

The tone of her voice gave her away. He was immediately shaking his head. “You can lead a horse to water, Tess, but you can't make him drink.”

“I'm not playing with a horse. I'm talking about you and your sister and my daughter, who needs you both!”

“Trying to play matchmaker?”

“I'm trying to do what's best for Samantha.”

He stiffened, letting her know she'd struck deep. He rolled off the bed and stood, putting plenty of space between them. “Marion might not be willing to help. Not given the way she feels about me right now.”

“She doesn't hate you any more than you hate her.”

“Get that out of your crystal ball?”

She walked up to him and placed her fingertips on his collarbone. She wasn't willing to accept his distance, and she wasn't willing to let him push her away. “You were just a little boy, J.T. She must understand that you couldn't have saved her any more than you could have saved yourself.”

“Save her? Tess, she won't even admit it happened.”

“I know. It's not uncommon for incest survivors—”

He flinched at the word, his face shuttering.

“You can't even say it, can you?” she whispered.

“I don't… I don't… It's an ugly word.”

Her gaze remained on his face, her fingers rubbing his shoulders.

“I still see it all so clearly,” he muttered. His shifted beneath her touch, his body wired with tension. “She tells me it never happened, but I can still remember every detail of it. All the times he beat us. All the times she stood at the foot of my bed and begged me to save her—”

He pushed away from Tess.

“J.T.—”

“Stop it!” His right hand raked his hair. “It happened. We grew up in spite of him. And I hope he rots in hell.”

“But you still love your sister,” she said softly.

His hand balled into a fist. His jaw worked. “Yeah,” he said, staring out the window. “And she still thinks I'm a loon.”

“I don't think so, J.T. I think she's beginning to think you're right, and that's what scares her so much.”

She took a step toward him, reaching out. He flinched. “Don't.”

She faltered, stung by the rejection. She forced her hand down to her side, her gaze never leaving his face. He hurt, she knew he hurt. She could see it in the remoteness of his expression.
Let me in, let me help a little bit if I can
.

But he remained unyielding. She didn't know anyone who could be as hard as he could be hard.

She took a deep breath. Her eyes stung.

“All right,” she said quietly. “I'm going to shower. You do… you do what you think is best.”

“Yeah, I'll do that.”

“You're the professional.”

THE MINUTE THE bathroom door closed behind Tess, J.T. retrieved a cigarette. He paused long enough to open the window and get hit by the solid New England chill. Then he brought the cigarette to his lips, lit it clumsily, and inhaled gratefully.

The open air was cold, the sky gray but bright enough to hurt his eyes. He stood there anyway, squinting, exhaling out the window and smoking the first cigarette down to a nub. Then he lit a second.

And then he picked up the phone.

His finger shook when he punched the number. He told himself it was the nicotine. Marion picked up on the third ring. For a minute he couldn't find his voice.

“Hello? Hello?” She already sounded angry and she didn't even know it was him. He contemplated hanging up, but didn't.

“Hello, Marion,” he said at last.

She was silent. He used the opportunity to drag deeply on his cigarette. On the other end of the line, was she doing the same? That was a pretty picture — a brother and sister who couldn't carry on a thirty-second conversation, but boy could they smoke.

“Are you speaking to me or not?”

“Give me one reason why I should.”

“It's about Beckett.”

“Beckett?” She sounded suspicious. “What do you want, J.T.?”

“I'm not asking for me, Marion, I know better. Tess is asking. And let's not forget that this is the kind of case that could build a career.” He couldn't keep the edge out of his voice.

“You have two minutes to state what you need, or I hang up.”

“Information.”

“Information?”

“Beckett returned to Mass. He killed the cop who was watching Tess's daughter and kidnapped her.”