Twisted Justice (3 page)

Without hesitation Kim nestled against him, closer and closer. Then reaching up, she turned his head to hers and pulled him to her so that their lips touched. Steve did not push back, but let his lips explore hers as he drew her more tightly into his arms. When she pressed her lips more insistently, Steve could feel the warmth of her breasts against his chest. Steve momentarily jerked back. What was happening? Was Kim coming on to him?

“Shit, I'm sorry.” Kim pushed Steve back with both hands. “I shouldn't have done that.”

“It's okay, it's okay,” Steve murmured. He reached for her hands and pulled her firmly against him, urgently covering her mouth with his own.

The metallic blue station wagon was the only car on the road at three thirty in the morning as Laura pulled out of the “Doctors Only” lot and headed for home. Approaching the sole traffic light on her route, she glanced up as she habitually did. The brightly illuminated billboard above featured her husband and his sultry colleague, smiling down on Tampa from their news desk. The familiar caption: T
HE
D
YNAMIC
K
IM AND
S
TEVE
, C
HANNEL
E
IGHT
N
EWS
T
EAM AT
E
LEVEN
.

That her husband was a television personality, Laura still found incredible. She'd never envisioned that employment scenario fifteen years ago when she'd married the serious, reticent college student. But since they'd moved from Detroit to Tampa, Steve had changed dramatically. That had been seven years ago. No longer the dedicated inner city social worker, Steve had had morphed first into a field news reporter, and then hit the top — the coveted anchor spot.

Stopping at the flashing red traffic light, Laura took a last glance at the billboard. She managed a tired smile. Her husband certainly was attractive. And articulate. And becoming arrogant, even egotistical. Steve had changed so much, but hadn't she too?

A grimace replaced her faint smile as she thought of the pressure George Granger was putting on Steve. Channel 8's ratings were slipping. She realized that George wanted Steve to succeed as a gesture of gratitude to her. Laura was no expert when it came to communication, but she was worried that Steve came off too
remote on camera. Too much like a robot reciting the news. She couldn't sense any passion or compassion, like he really didn't connect with the news he reported, most of it tragic. Maybe viewers felt this way too. If so, how long could George keep him as anchor? The thought of Steve losing his job make Laura shudder. Not so much for the money. They could live on her income, but it would shatter his ego.

As Laura pulled up to her two-story stucco home with its red tile roof and wrought iron balconies, she switched off the headlights and parked in the driveway instead of the three-car garage. This was her routine, not wanting to risk waking the housekeeper or the kids at night with the rumble of the garage door. She let herself in through the kitchen, dark except for the luminescence of the microwave clock. She intended to head directly upstairs, but as she rounded the corner into the foyer, she noticed light seeping beneath the family room door. Surprised that her frugal housekeeper had left it on, Laura turned the door handle. She opened the door and without entering reached in to hit the dimmer switch.

Laura heard shuffling inside before she saw them. She blinked and stifling a gasp, adjusted her glasses. Knowing she was at the brink of exhaustion, she squeezed her eyes shut. Steve and Kim on that billboard had thrown her. She had to get a grip. But when she opened her eyes, she groaned. “Oh, no,” escaped before she clamped her mouth shut and started grinding her teeth. The real Steve cringed in front of her, hair tousled, blue eyes flashing with panic. And Kim was real too and half naked.

Laura's hand flew to cover her mouth. Too shocked to speak. Too paralyzed to even breathe, she remained locked in that position. As for Steve, he just stood there, his chest bare, her favorite afghan clutched around his hips. Kim was the first to move, turning away from Laura, bending down to pick up her bra and sweater. The bra she stuffed in her purse. The sweater she pulled over her head as she struggled to adjust the tight skirt she must have pulled on in haste.

Still Laura had not moved. Hands over her mouth, her eyes focused
on Kim as she smoothed her short black hair. From where she stood, she blocked the doorway. No words had been spoken.

Steve was the first to break the silence as Kim shifted her gaze from husband to wife and back. “Laura, let Kim leave, okay?”

Laura dropped her hands and took a step backward. Tears had sprung to her eyes. Her voice sounded hoarse. “How could you?”

Kim grabbed her spike heels and carried them in her hands as she passed by Laura in the hall and sped toward the front door. The door clicked shut. The turn of a car engine penetrated complete silence.

“Honey, I don't know what to say,” Steve began, stepping toward Laura. “Kim came by because —”

Laura held up her hands to stop him. “Not out here.” Tears now streamed down her face so violently that she choked on her words. She pointed toward the family room, still strewn with Steve's clothes. The bottle of Scotch and the two glasses, one smeared with brilliant red lipstick, made her want to slap him.

How could he do this? To her? To the kids?

Laura let her body sink into the plush chair facing the sofa where Steve positioned himself; the sofa where he and Kim had obviously been together. Still wrapped in the pale blue afghan that he'd grabbed to conceal his naked chest, Steve reached sheepishly for his clothes which he folded clumsily and set on his lap.

He cleared his throat. “I can explain.”

Laura blinked away nonstop tears. “You can?”

“It's not — Kim followed me home after the program. She needed to talk.”

Laura got up, walked across the room and pulled out a wad of tissues. She blew her nose and dabbed vigorously at her eyes. “Is that right?” she said, returning to sit on the arm of a chair. She wished she could think of something more relevant to say, but her mind felt paralyzed.

“Yeah,” Steve blurted. “The guy she's seeing beat her up pretty bad, and she needed a shoulder to cry on. We didn't mean to — it just happened.” Steve's fair skin looked ghastly pale. He
leaned forward in his seat, wringing his hands. “Laura, honey, it shouldn't have happened, but it did. I'm sorry. It never happened before and it will never again. I swear. You mean the world to me.”

When Steve stood, his clothes dropped from his lap onto the carpet. He took a tentative step toward Laura, but she held her hand out to stop him. Tears had refilled her eyes and she wiped them away with her other hand. Slowly, she rose off the arm of the chair. Like a robot she headed toward the staircase. What else could she do right now? Check to make sure the kids were asleep? Go to her room — no longer “their” room? Lock the bedroom door? Yet as she passed by the front door, she did not round the corner toward the stairs. Instead she opened the front door and walked out of the house.

Laura couldn't think. She couldn't feel. Without premeditation, she started up the station wagon and drove to the hospital. This all must be a nightmare. Too much fatigue. A full surgical load. Five active kids. Maybe tonight hadn't really happened. She'd wake up. The Ruiz girl would be stabilized in the recovery room and she'd return home to find Steve snoring in their king-size bed.

Laura parked at the entrance to the emergency room. Talking to no one, she walked through the trauma bays. She rode the elevator to the fifth floor and headed directly to the tiny, drab on-call room the hospital kept reserved for her. Just enough room for a narrow cot, made up with white sheets and a cotton blanket and a sink, shower, and toilet. And, of course, a nightstand upon which sat the telephone. Nothing on the walls, not a speck of color or cheer in the room. Still, she felt the familiar sense of comfort that hospitals brought to her.

All night long, Laura lay between starched sheets, trying to accept the jarring reality that Steve had had sex with Kim Connor right there in their house. All of their children had been upstairs. Could he be in love with Kim? For some reason, she was unable to accept that he loved another woman. Wouldn't she have known?
And hadn't he said it was the first time? But could she believe him? Should she have suspected this? Did she deserve this betrayal?

The hospital's pulse had been imprinted on Laura from the early days of her medical training, and this morning she felt it take over as she lay in the small, dark room. It had taken all night but in the eerie silence of the morning lull, she began to come to grips with reality. Finding Steve and Kim had not been a dream. She would have to figure out how to deal with it. She forced herself to get beyond the hurt just long enough to focus on the past few years of her life with Steve.

Squeezing her eyes shut, she could see Steve as a young college sophomore. She'd met him at the bookstore at Michigan State. He'd been stocking shelves, and she'd been looking for the freshman English text. He'd introduced himself and offered to give her his copy from the previous year, so she'd gone with him to his dorm room. To this day she could still feel the thrill of his touch when he'd reached for her hand to guide her along the path. Once there, they'd listened to some music and discovered they were both Elvis fans. She'd offered to buy him coffee, and he'd smiled that dazzling smile of his. After that they'd been inseparable. Imagine, she, a girl who had never even dated in high school — except for proms and football games — having a college boyfriend before classes even began. They had a whirlwind of fun and as Laura looked back, maybe mistook infatuation for love.

Or maybe things had just gone too fast. Within four months Steve had proposed and, despite her parents' misgivings, they were married at the end of her freshman year. Living in Spartan Village — student housing for married couples — they'd made ends meet with her part-time library job and his in the bookstore. She had scholarships; his parents took care of his tuition. She was nineteen, he was twenty-one. Within fifteen months they'd had their first child, and three years later, their second. In those early years, they'd been happy and successful, Steve with a degree in social
work and she with a biology degree. Then it was on to the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor for a Master's degree for Steve and to University Medical School in Detroit for her. With a surge of sorrow, Laura's thoughts drifted back to Detroit. Moving there was when things started to go wrong. Med school was so demanding and there'd been three more children. But when —

No. Suddenly Laura threw off the top sheet and climbed out of bed. Stop thinking about what happened in Detroit. Not after finding Steve with Kim last night. Things were so different in Detroit, and that was so long ago. Concentrate on now. Life with Steve — all aspects of it. Things hadn't been right between them for some time. And the children: what was right for them?

Trying to sleep was hopeless, so Laura showered and donned surgical scrubs. Each morning brings to any hospital an abrupt transition as nursing shifts change, X-ray techs and lab technicians juggling baskets of needles and blood tubes crowd the corridors, and trays of food arrive. Teams of doctors converge at nursing stations to write new orders that send the nursing staff scurrying. Laura, in tune with this rhythm and without a flicker of sleep, prepared to face her patients by making early rounds. Then she'd go home and face Steve. But what would she say to him? As she dried her hair, a knock on the call room door interrupted her struggle to figure out the rest of her life.

“Come in,” she called, anticipating the cleaning staff.

“Hey, what are you doing here so early?” Roxanne asked. Her hair, tucked away all night in a surgical cap, now sprang out in every direction, giving her a wild look even though she had changed into a neatly pressed gray plaid shirtsleeve dress and black flats. “The desk said they saw you come back in.”

“I couldn't sleep,” said Laura, avoiding her friend's gaze as she went back into the tiny bathroom to hang up the damp towel.

“Sorry to hear that. Remember we said we'd speak to Mr. Ruiz together.”

The words blurred. Wendy Ruiz. Only once last night did
Laura even think about that devastated family — she was too focused on her own. She felt selfish, guilty. Her problems were nothing compared to Mr. Ruiz's losses of his wife, baby, Wendy. What about the other kids? Had they survived surgery last night? And the father's injuries? How severe were they?

Laura finally faced Roxanne with red-rimmed eyes and a swollen face.

“Oh no, what's wrong? Here, sit down.” Roxanne pointed to the cot. “Tell me, what is it?”

Laura's voice was husky. “I … I don't know what to do. I found Steve last night … with a woman.”

“Last night? I thought you were going straight home?”

“Roxie, it was Kim Connor and yes, it was in my family room.”

“No! Has he been seeing her?”

Laura choked back a sob. “I don't know. He said no, but you know things haven't been good between us. Not that we fight a lot. It's just that we hardly see each other. What with the kids, his late-night job, my crazy hours at the hospital. Maybe if I'd stayed home. No, that's ridiculous. I just don't know.”

Roxanne nodded slowly. “So what are you going to do?”

“I don't know. I don't see how we can stay together after last night — and it's not just that.”

“I know. Laura, I'm your friend. I could tell that you haven't been happy for some time.”

“Even so, the kids. I have to think what's best for them. My God, he had sex right there, with five kids right upstairs. What if they'd seen it? What if he does it again?”