The Night In Question Read online

  She looked up at him. Slowly she shook her head.

  “No, Babs doesn’t know me anymore. But she knows Willa better than I do now, Max. What if she’s right, and she can give her a happier childhood than I can?”

  “She can’t, Jules. I don’t think Willa will ever be completely happy without you, and that’s not just my opinion.” Releasing her, he raked his hand through his hair indecisively and then sighed. “Since Willa’s a minor the Agency bears some responsibility for her. She’s under our protection program, after all, and uprooting a child from everything familiar in her life isn’t usually our first choice. We insisted on having one of our child psychologists meet with her every couple of months to monitor her emotional wellbeing. Wait here a minute.”

  He left the room, and a moment later she heard the sound of a metal cabinet being opened in the small ante-room at the end of the hall that Max seemed to have converted into a pocket-size office, judging from the passing glance she’d given it the first night she’d arrived. She sank down on a chair, her gaze fixed on the discarded teddy bear lying on the table in front of her.

  They had gone through this before, she thought unhappily. She couldn’t blame Max for not understanding why her doubts had come flooding back, because she hardly understood why herself. But today when she’d seen herself through Barbara’s eyes—Barbara, who’d once been her friend, Barbara, whose timidly soft voice was so seldom raised in anger—she’d felt as if she was once again being judged and found guilty.

  Barbara knew about the agreement she’d signed. Julia squeezed her eyes shut and let her head drop into her hands. When Willa had been born she’d made a desperate promise to herself and the newly born baby girl in her arms that Willa would always know she was loved—loved so much and so totally that nothing could ever take that away from her.

  I thought I’d given her that much, at least, she thought hopelessly. But what if Babs is right, and Willa is happier with her?

  “Then you’ll have to give her up,” she whispered to herself, raising her head from her hands and staring sightlessly at the teddy bear in front of her. “If Willa sees Babs as her real mother now, you’re going to have to give her up…because sometimes the last gift that love can give is letting go.”

  Returning from his office, Max saw her tearstained face and his jaw tightened as he laid three sheets of paper down on the table. “Dr. Rowe specializes in art therapy. These are some of the pictures Willa drew for her, and although Dr. Rowe couldn’t get her to talk about what they meant she told me she found them disturbing images for a child that age. They probably should have gone in the official file, but I just couldn’t bring myself to do it.”

  Slowly, Julia drew the pictures closer. Even at first glance it was obvious they all were variations on a similar theme, and as she picked the nearest one up and studied it her hands began to tremble. The paper, stiff with dried poster paint, made a faint crackling noise.

  “I’m no expert and Rowe admitted there could be any number of ways to interpret what Willa’s trying to express with these, but she said if she was forced to guess she would see this as some kind of visualization of terror. The most she could get out of Willa is that the small bird in the black cloud is her.”

  He pointed to a tiny crimson shape in the bottom right-hand corner of the paper, almost obscured by the heavily scribbled black circles surrounding it. A chrome-yellow dab that had to be the bird’s beak was portrayed as jabbing at the blackness. Julia tried to speak past the thickness in her throat, but nothing came out. Max went on, his tone edged with concern.

  “But Rowe says this is the part of the image that really worries her—this threatening symbol trying to break free of its own cloud and get at the Willa-figure. It’s hard to tell what it’s supposed to represent, but from these jagged rows of teeth Rowe says it’s a classic fear hieroglyph.” He shrugged tensely. “Rowe assured me this is almost a textbook symbol. The one thing she’s sure of is that this is Willa’s way of sending out some kind of message.”

  The poster paint was daubed on so thickly that Julia could feel its ridges and lumps under her fingertips as she lightly traced the two figures in the picture. Willa had painted this, she thought shakily. Her daughter had painted this—and she’d painted it knowing that only one person in the whole world would ever be able to look at it and see at once what it meant.

  It looked like a picture. But although the good doctor had misread everything else, she’d been right about one thing. It really was a message—a message sent by a little girl who didn’t know where her mother had gone or if she was ever coming back. And by some miracle the message had found its way to the person it had been meant for.

  Me, Julia thought, oblivious to the tears spilling down her cheeks. This is to tell me she hasn’t forgotten me. This is to tell me that she knows I haven’t forgotten her, that she knows I would never, ever stop trying to find her again. And she’s telling me to hurry up and bring her home.

  “Tell me something, Max.” Carefully she set Willa’s picture down on the table and looked up at him, a hiccuping little laugh belying her still-streaming tears. “Dr. Rowe doesn’t have any children, does she?”

  “She’s not married, but what’s that got to do with it? She’s one of the best in her field.” Swearing suddenly under his breath, he hunkered down beside her chair and took her hands in his. “Dammit, I knew showing you these was probably a mistake. Don’t cry, Jules. For God’s sake—Rowe could be all wrong on what she thinks they mean. She said herself that only Willa really knew what she was trying to say with these drawings.”

  “Only Willa and her mom,” Julia corrected him, smiling through her tears. “That red bird is a hen, Max. And that—what did Rowe call it?—that hieroglyph, I’ll have you know, is an alligator. It’s supposed to be me.”

  “I don’t get it.”

  His smile was no more than a brief quirking of his lips, as if he was trying to humor her. He probably was, Julia thought, giving up all attempts to wipe away the tears, and simply letting them fall. He probably thought she was crazy. Dr. Rowe would probably think so too if she could see her.

  She didn’t care. In fact, what she was about to say was going to sound even crazier, until she explained it to him.

  “See you later, alligator,” she whispered unsteadily. “See you then, red hen. That’s what we used to say to each other, Max. Those are the last words I ever said to my little girl before I went away.”

  “SO YOU’RE TRYING to tell me that steak doesn’t just naturally come shaped in triangles?” Max frowned in heavy suspicion and pulled her closer to him on the sofa.

  “That’s right,” Julia said dryly. “Of course, the down side, as you saw tonight, is that you have to use real plates and real pots and pans.”

  “Yeah, I think Boomer was pretty surprised when he didn’t get his usual aluminum trays to lick clean.” At the mention of his name the dog at their feet looked up. Julia stretched out a bare foot and rubbed the furry haunch. “It was a great meal, Jules.”

  “I felt like celebrating,” she said simply. “Oh—I forgot something.”

  Hopping off the sofa, she padded softly into her bedroom and came back again a moment later. Max squinted at the object in her hand.

  “A hot dog?” he asked dubiously.

  “A squeaky hot dog,” she elaborated, demonstrating. “Here Boomer. This is for you.”

  The Lab’s softly folded ears had pricked up as she’d squeezed the thing. Now as she dropped the rubber chew-toy between his front paws he sniffed cautiously at it. Gently he took it in his still-strong jaws, and as he closed his mouth around it it squeaked again. He dropped it, the expression of surprise on his face almost human.

  “I get the feeling we’ll be hearing squeaking all night long.” With a smile, Max watched the old dog firmly take the toy in his mouth again and clamp down on it. Julia gave him a disapproving look.

  “I know my voice gets pretty high when I’m in the throes of passion, M
ax, but really—squeaking?” She gave him a small jab in the ribs with her elbow. “Just for that you have to bring in the coffee.”

  It was only silly banter, she thought as he gave her a mock salute before getting to his feet and going out into the kitchen. But she’d never been able to be silly with anyone before, and it felt good. A picture from the past flashed into her mind: Kenneth and herself being driven home by Thomas from yet another excruciatingly dull Tenn-Chem function. Kenneth had spent most of the drive on his cell phone barking out orders to some hapless minion on the other end of the line, and for the rest of the ride he’d sat silently a full arm’s length away from her, his mouth tight with tension and his eyes staring straight ahead.

  He’d been a cold and ruthless man. But he hadn’t deserved to be killed by a member of his own family, Julia thought as Max set two thick mugs of coffee on the table in front of her.

  “I hope you wanted brandy in yours,” he said offhandedly as he sat down. “I put a hefty slug in.”

  “Then if I drop off in the middle of a sentence and start snoring with my mouth open, I hope you’ll close it for me. I’m not an amorous drunk, Max, I just fall asleep.” She smiled over the rim of her mug at him and took a sip. “You think Noel did it, don’t you?”

  If her conversational change of gears took him unawares he didn’t show it. “I don’t know. But he lied to us, Jules—lied twice, and I’d like to know why. Like I said when we left his apartment, the man’s definitely keeping secrets.”

  “One of which is that he’s gay.” She wrinkled her nose. “In this day and age that strikes me as sad.”

  “Sad or not, he still had the opportunity and the motive.” Max shook his head, frowning. “I phoned the office while you were making dinner and asked them to verify Babs’s story about him being the real power behind Tenn-Chem, but I’m sure it’ll check out. If it had been set up this way at the time of the initial investigation Noel would have been a suspect from the first, but as it was…” He let his words trail off. She finished his sentence for him.

  “As it was, I seemed to be the only one who benefited from Kenneth’s death,” she said quietly. “And I was the last person to handle that package. You just collected the evidence, Max—it took a jury to decide that I was guilty. Don’t beat yourself up over it.”

  “But two years, dammit!” His eyes darkened. Taking a deep breath and leaning forward, he loosely laced his fingers together between his knees. “You say everyone saw you wrapping that present for Willa?”

  “Babs and Robert, the two brothers and Olivia.” She nodded. “The usual merry Tennant gathering, with Robert the newest member of the family. But he was so self-effacing around Kenneth and Olivia his presence didn’t really change the dynamics much.”

  “Van Hale came up through the Tenn-Chem ranks, didn’t he? Then he married the boss’s sister,” he said thoughtfully. “Everyone always describes him as ineffectual, but that sounds pretty damn smooth to me.”

  “I thought it was pretty smooth at the time myself,” she admitted with a shrug. “But you’ve got to understand that Barbara wasn’t looking for romance when she married him. She just wanted to start having babies, and she was afraid that in a few more years it would be too late.”

  She sipped reflectively at her coffee, her smile a little sad. “She’s a pretty woman with a warm and loving heart, and I’m sure the Tenn-Chem millions didn’t put too many suitors off. But Babs was so shy, especially around men, that she never even had a boyfriend. So she saw Van Hale as her last chance, and she grabbed at it.”

  “Except he was killed before he could give her what she wanted.” Max, still leaning forward, looked over his shoulder at her. “Warm and loving, Jules? Even after today?”

  “As you said, she’s come to see me as the bogeyman—The Porcelain Doll Bomber.” She spread her hands in a helpless gesture. “That’s the way I was portrayed at the trial and in the media. It sounds as if Olivia’s encouraged that notion too.”

  “The grande dame of Tenn-Chem, who now has to submit reports on her management of the company to the son she once turned her back on. That must sting.” Max gave her a hard grin. “Are you up to meeting with her tomorrow?”

  “After today I’m up to anything,” Julia said wryly. “And this time I won’t be going into it with any false hopes. Olivia didn’t object to me as a daughter-in-law, but we were never close. She approved of the fact that I’d given her a granddaughter, though.”

  “Maybe she liked the idea of the next Tenn-Chem generation being female again, despite Kenneth wanting a boy. God, what a convoluted family.” Max sat back, his arm going along the back of the sofa behind her. “Look at that crazy old dog,” he said with rough affection. “He’s gone to sleep with that hot dog between his paws.”

  “Is he in much pain, Max?” She voiced the question tentatively, but still she saw a shadow cross his features. “The pills are for his heart, aren’t they?”

  “Yeah, but the pills aren’t working the way they used to.” He lifted his shoulders tightly. “The vet tells me he’s good for another few weeks before it gets too bad to bear. It’s—it’s going to be hard taking him in that final time.”

  He cleared his throat. “But he’s just a dog, right? Maybe I’ll get another one. Anyway, about our meeting with Olivia tomorrow—”

  “I saw the video, Max. I know you got him for Ethan. I know Boomer’s not just a dog to you.”

  She hadn’t meant to tell him like this, Julia thought, feeling him stiffen beside her and seeing him glance automatically at the shelf of videotapes over the television. But last night their relationship had reached a new level—and she wasn’t thinking solely of the physical closeness they’d shared, she told herself. Maybe it was time to let him know that she’d seen the other half of him—the half he swore didn’t exist.

  “As long as he’s alive, a little part of your son is still with you, isn’t he?” she said softly, her hand reaching out to rest on his.

  Slowly he turned to her, and suddenly she knew she had made a mistake. His eyes, their green dulled almost to hazel, were shuttered and unreadable, and his voice when he spoke was completely toneless.

  “I never had a son, Jules. If you saw the video then you know Anne was pregnant when she was killed in that accident, but even if her injuries hadn’t been what they were, there was never any possibility of the baby surviving outside her womb. I lost a wife.” His tone was final. “I didn’t lose a son.”

  She stared at him in consternation, taking in the grim set of his mouth, the tightness in his jaw. She shouldn’t have brought this up, she thought tremulously, but now that she had there was no going back.

  “But you did lose a son. He was alive—very much alive, Max,” she insisted with shaky stubbornness. “He had a name. You bought him a puppy. You talked to him, and you knew he could hear you, for heaven’s sake! Maybe he never had the chance to come into the world, but he was alive in your heart, and you know it. You loved him and he was taken from you, and every time you visit his grave it must tear you apart. Why won’t you admit that?”

  “I go to the cemetery twice a year, on Anne’s birthday and the date of our anniversary.” He got up abruptly and walked over to the living room’s picture window, its heavy drapes closed now against the night. He stood there with his back to her, his posture rigid. “I put flowers on her grave. Her name’s the only one on the headstone, Julia.”

  Her eyes widened in appalled disbelief. “You—you didn’t even have his name put on the headstone? There’s nothing there to show he even existed? But, Max—he was your—”

  “I never had a son, Jules!” He swung around to face her, his movements jerky and somehow mechanical. The natural tan of his skin had ebbed to a grayish tone, and only his eyes seemed to have any life in them. “What the hell do you want from me? If you want me to admit Anne’s death was tragic, you’ve got it. It was tragic. I did grieve for her. We probably never should have gotten married in the first place, and th
e last thing she really wanted was to be pregnant, but we did get married—way too young and for all the wrong reasons. And she did get pregnant.”

  The fire in his eyes died as instantly as it had flared up. His ramrod posture seemed suddenly to sag. “She stopped taking her birth-control pills without telling me, because three months after the wedding I already knew it wasn’t going to work out between us. We were never right for each other.”

  It was the closest to personal he’d ever allowed himself to be. Julia chose her words with care. “Then why did you get married?”

  His laugh was nothing more than a sound issuing from his throat. “That’s just it. I married her because she told me she was pregnant with my child. Two days after the wedding it became obvious she wasn’t, but she always insisted it had been an honest mistake.”

  He shook his head and his voice softened. “I couldn’t hold it against her. In a lot of ways Annie wasn’t much more than a child herself, and I think she just thought I could give her the security she needed so badly. She wanted to hang on to that so much she let herself get pregnant for real. But she was terrified of becoming a mother.”

  “Maybe that would have changed,” she said hesitantly. “Maybe she just hadn’t grown up enough.”

  “Maybe.” Shoving his hands in his pockets, Max looked down at Boomer. “And maybe I let her down. God knows I’m no one’s idea of a white knight.”

  He looked up at her, and at the raw bleakness in his expression Julia felt a lancing pain shaft through her heart. “You know how the accident happened, Jules?” He gave her a tight smile. “I was working late, trying to catch up on some paperwork at the office. I was so new at the Agency I was still on probation, and I was determined I wasn’t going to screw up. Anne had been at the movies, and she phoned me to come and pick her up because it was snowing and she didn’t want to wait for the bus. I told her to take a taxi home.”