The Senator's Wife (10 page)

The urge to move, to explode screaming from beneath the bed in a frantic run for the door, was almost overpowering. To put a quick end to this torment, this terror, this blood-freezing, horror-movie-esque scene, would be a relief.

It would also be stupid beyond words.

He would catch her. There was no way she could get out from under the bed, run across the bedroom and living room to the door, get it open, and escape. Not in such close quarters.

Her only hope for survival lay in being as still and quiet as a log beneath the shelter of the bed.

There was a creak as the mattress sagged near the center. Marla stopped breathing.

He was sitting on the bed
.

Something hit the floor with a soft thump. A pillow, denuded of its case. A corner of it nosed under the dust ruffle, its pink-and-white ticking stripes silent testimony to what was happening.

Bedspread, blanket, and sheets hit the carpet in a wadded heap. Marla could see them through the opening created by the pillow.

The bed shook. Something substantial hit the floor. The mattress.

Would the box spring be next?

Of course it would. If he was searching for something, and there didn’t seem to be much doubt about that, he would not forget the box spring.

And if he lifted the box spring, he would see her. There was no doubt about that either.

A ripping sound made her eyes widen. Through the gap created by the pillow, she could see the edge of her quilted, gold-colored mattress, which was now standing on end. She could see a foot clad in a black sneaker, the leg of a pair of navy blue trousers from the knee down—and a hand in a pale rubber glove, wielding a knife.

The knife sliced through the heavy mattress cover as easily as if it had been a sheet of paper.

That same knife would slice through her flesh with just as little effort.

Marla heard a faint, unfamiliar clicking sound, and realized that it was her teeth chattering with fright. She
clenched her jaw, grinding her teeth together so tightly they ached.

If a miracle didn’t happen in just a few moments she was going to die.

Marla didn’t believe in God. She hadn’t since her mother died when she was ten, despite all her childish prayers to an Almighty that her pain-wracked mother had embraced with her whole heart. She hadn’t believed for fourteen years. She didn’t believe now.

In this moment of extreme terror, her instinct was to pray. It was a remnant from her childhood, she knew, when her mother would drag her to church twice a week and supervise her prayers every night.

But she was an adult now, not a child, and she knew that prayers were never answered. There was no one to pray to.

He finished with the mattress. Marla knew because it slumped to the floor, its once-slick brocade surface cut to shreds.

The dust ruffle was yanked away. It went sailing, to land in a wad in the corner near the closet.

Marla could now see everything in the bedroom up to a height of about two feet. She could see the bedclothes, the mutilated mattress, the contents of her dresser drawers, which had been dumped in a heap.

She could see two black-sneakered feet attached to two legs in navy pants, standing beside the bed.

She could see her own reflection in the pair of full-length mirrors that covered the closet’s sliding doors.

No!

Horror numbed her.
All he had to do was turn around and he could see her too
.

The phone in the living room rang. Its shrillness was
so unexpected that Marla started. It rang twice, three times.

Then the answering machine picked up.

Susan had recorded the message. It was both eerie and eerily comforting to hear her familiar voice on the tape. There was a grinding sound, a pair of clicks (their answering machine had never worked smoothly) and then the beep.

The intruder moved into the living room, the better to hear any message.

Marla’s heart leaped again. This was her chance. Maybe her only chance. She slithered out from beneath the bed, elbows and heels digging deep into the thin carpet, and scrambled on hands and knees across the few feet that separated the bed from the closet—the only other possible hiding place in the room—as the caller left a message.

“Susan, this is Paul. Where were you Saturday night? I waited till ten. Call me. Bye.”

Paul was a guy Susan had been dating. A nice guy, which was probably why she never had been really interested in him. Susan had been like that.

Reviewing her own history with men, Marla wondered if all women were like that. Was there something about assholes that drew women to them?

There was a click as Paul hung up. Marla shut the closet door another few inches. She dared not close it all the way for fear he would remember it had been partly open.

Quick, soft footfalls told her that the intruder was returning to the bedroom.

Marla felt her stomach lurch. Her throat closed, and
her hands clenched into fists at her sides. Stay calm, she warned herself. Stay calm.

Inside, the closet was a mess of clothes that had been yanked from hangers, and shoes, purses, and other miscellaneous items that had been dislodged from the overhead shelf. Marla burrowed down beneath a pile of some of her favorite summer outfits, made herself as small as possible, and closed her eyes.

A sliding sound and a thump from beyond the door made her shiver: She was as sure as it was possible to be without actually looking that he was lifting the box spring.

Chapter
11

Friday, August 1st
TUPELO

“…N
O
, I’
M NOT PERFECT
. But then, I’m asking you to elect me to the United States Senate, not nominate me for sainthood.”

A gust of laughter followed that closing line, as it had countless times over the two-plus weeks since the Big One, as the campaign staff called the hooker thing, hit. Ronnie’s own public-relations disaster, the paint-throwing incident, had been totally eclipsed by the Big One, which had broken in the
Globe
five days later. By that time Quinlan had her so programmed about what to say, she could have spewed out her lines in her sleep.

Standing at the podium, his tanned face wreathed in a broad smile, Lewis waved in response to thunderous applause and headed toward his seat, shaking hands on the way with the governor and the other politicians on the dais.

Ronnie felt as if her face might break from the rigidity of the smile she forced on it. Seated on the platform beside Lewis’s empty seat, she was on full public view. Her job was to watch worshipfully as he spoke, clap
enthusiastically when he finished, and smile, smile, smile.

What she really wanted to do was puke. It was all so fake. He was fake.
She
was fake.

The embryonic strategy that Quinlan had hatched on that blistering July afternoon had worked perfectly. He and Kenny Goodman and Lewis and Marsden and a gaggle of staff and consultants had honed it to perfection: Admit the fault, and it had no power to hurt.

They called it pulling a Clinton.

The president had shown how it was done, and by God, the technique was successful, they all now agreed. Lewis was having to work for his money for a while, pressing the flesh across the state at a pace he hadn’t felt the need to adopt in years, but the challenge suited him. He was at his best in a tough campaign.

The party line was this: So he had slept with a Washington hooker while his lovely second wife was busy tending the homefires in Mississippi. So what? What it all boiled down to was not a question of character, not a matter of morals, not a betrayal of trust. He had simply made a mistake. Hell, it only proved he was human like everybody else. Boys will be boys, and all that. The tale was good for a poke in the ribs and a knowing chuckle from the men, most of whom seemed to harbor a sneaking admiration for his prowess with the opposite sex. His young wife was a babe, and he had women on the side to boot—for a sixty-year-old grandpa, that wasn’t too bad. In certain circles it made him seem more vigorous, more manly. Of course the wife was a little mad at first, but she was over it now,
and their marriage was the stronger for having been tested.

Or so went the spin.

The whole sordid episode was rapidly being reduced to nothing more than fodder for jokes. Lewis was even poking fun at himself in his speeches.

To which Ronnie listened with smiling support, while inside she felt—what? Not even angry any longer. Just—empty.

Lewis sat down beside her. Ronnie’s hand was in her lap. He reached over, caught it, and raised it to his lips. His twinkling hazel eyes—the eyes that she had once thought promised such honesty and integrity—met hers and he smiled. The kiss he bestowed on her fingers was a public-relations gesture, Ronnie knew. Her stomach knotted. But they were on the dais, the cynosure of all eyes, the Senator and his wronged wife.…

Ronnie smiled back at him. Adoringly. While her body went as rigid as if it had turned to stone and her stomach churned.

What she really wanted to do was spit in his face and walk out. Forever.

Yes, she had the life she had always wanted—but the price was growing increasingly hard to pay.

By the time the dinner at the private club was over, and she had worked the room at Lewis’s side, it was ten o’clock. Her face felt frozen into its perpetual beaming smile. Her head whirled with the inanities she had uttered. Her fingers ached from being squeezed.

“You’re handling this just beautifully,” the wife of one of Lewis’s supporters whispered in Ronnie’s ear as she grasped both Ronnie’s hands and leaned forward
to kiss her cheek. The woman was the wife of a judge, what was her name? Ah, JoAnn Hill. Easy to remember because she was so buxom.
JoAnn Hill had twin hills
. Once before, when they had met, Mrs. Hill had been cool to the point of coldness.

She was a contemporary, and acquaintance, of Eleanor’s.

In the silver-lining department, at least the scandal had served to shift some of the women to Ronnie’s side. They seemed to regard her with a degree of sympathy now. The politicians’ wives, especially, had been supportive. Ronnie wondered if they dealt with similar hypocrisy in their own lives. Probably on a daily basis, she decided. Politics, as someone wiser than herself had once said, was a dirty business.

At least now, in the words of Quinlan’s other, ongoing attempt at spin, she was one of
them
. A woman struggling with problems like all the rest.

Taking leave of their host, John Heyden of the processed chicken fortune family, Lewis shook his hand warmly, while Martha Heyden bestowed the requisite social peck on Ronnie’s cheek and gave voice to the expected pleasantries, none of which Ronnie really heard. Their ritual leave-taking from political functions was so familiar to her by that time that she could put herself on autopilot and still manage to make appropriate replies.

“You keep them from gettin’ carried away with that inspection crap, you hear, Lewis?” Heyden said, clapping Lewis on the back as the senatorial party turned toward the door.

“That’s what I’m headin’ down to Arkansas for, John.” Lewis was all affable charm, a big, warm,
man’s man who had never met a stranger. At least that was the impression he gave. And it was true, Ronnie had to admit. What the world didn’t know was how shallow the man was behind the charm, and how incapable of sustaining any kind of real relationship.

With Lewis, what you saw was all you got. The man had no emotional depth.

No wonder he had never initiated a divorce from Eleanor. The situation he’d found himself in with her must have suited him down to the ground.

Finally they were walking out the massive oak doors, across the porch, and down the stairs to the waiting cars. Parked at the head of the driveway under the supervision of Lewis’s security detail were two big black limousines, the first of which would whisk Lewis to the private jet that would take him to Little Rock for the all-important chicken-business meeting. The second was for Ronnie. She was scheduled to speak in the morning, to a breakfast gathering of university women, and then be interviewed by the local paper and TV station. That meant spending the night in Tupelo. Rooms for her and her entourage were booked at the Hyatt.

“I’ll call you tomorrow, honey.” At the foot of the steps Lewis stopped to give Ronnie a quick kiss on the cheek. His lips were warm, the arm he slung around her shoulders strong. Yet it was all for show. The public gesture of affection was typical of him. It meant nothing, though Lewis seemed more pleased with her since the scandal hit than he had been for some time. She had subjected him to no ranting, raving, or screaming. No threats of divorce. No scenes. Just silence in private, and in public a smile.

Just as she smiled now, and said a brief, “Have a good flight.”

“You boys take care of my wife now, you hear?” Lewis said in friendly fashion to Tom and Kenny, who would be staying the night at the Hyatt, too, along with Thea, to be on hand for the interviews the next day. Lewis turned away with a wave and, accompanied by his own entourage, entered his limousine. The door shut and seconds later the car pulled away from the curb.

The door to the second limo was open and waiting. A uniformed driver stood holding it. Ronnie walked over to it and slid inside, leaning her head tiredly back against the soft leather and closing her eyes as the others joined her.

“Are you all right, Ronnie?” Thea asked softly. Her press secretary had been a source of support over the past weeks, and Ronnie was grateful to her for it. As a woman, and a friend, she had sensed some of Ronnie’s discontent, though Ronnie had been careful to show the same stoic face to her staff that she showed to the public. One never knew who might talk to the press, and under what circumstances.

“I’m just tired.” Ronnie didn’t bother to open her eyes. If she did, she would have to converse with the lot of them, and she didn’t feel up to it. She knew it was irrational, but she felt almost more hostile toward Quinlan than she did toward Lewis. It was Quinlan who had come up with the “spin,” after all. Quinlan who had sold the lie she was living to the world, and persuaded her to go along with it. Quinlan who had trotted out polls telling her how to dress,
what issues to tackle in her speeches, even what pet name the embattled spouses should call each other in public.