Covet

Chapter 26

The St. Francis Hospital complex was laid out with all the logic of an ant farm. Reflecting an iterative architectural philosophy, like so many medical centers of its kind, the buildings that covered its acreage were a hodgepodge of styles, and they were positioned where they could be squeezed in, like round pegs shoved into square holes. On the campus, you had a little bit of everything from Gothic brick, to institutional steel and glass, to sprawling be-columned stone, with the only commonality being that everything was cramped.

Jim parked his truck in a lot next to a fifteen-floor high-rise, and figured this big daddy was a good bet to start with, as it was where he'd been admitted as an inpatient from the emergency room. Cutting through the rows of cars, he crossed the lane and went under the porte cochere, entering the building through a set of retracting glass doors.

At the information desk, he said, “I'm looking for Devina Avale.”

The hundred-and-twelve-year-old blue-hair manning the station smiled up at him so warmly, he felt like an asshole for reducing her to nothing but her age. “Let me find her room for you.”

As her twiglike fingers did a hunt and a peck over the keyboard, he thought of how much faster his own had been back at his apartment. He'd figured the name Devina was unusual enough in the modeling trade that if he Googled it on his laptop, he'd find Vin's girlfriend—and what do you know, it wasn't tough. Although she went by her first name in her professional trade, she and Vin had been photographed together at a fund-raiser for the Caldwell Courier Journal about six months ago, and there it was, Avale.

“She's in twelve fifty-three.”

“Thank you, ma'am,” he said with a little bow.

“You are so welcome. Just go up on those elevators by the gift shop.”

He nodded and strode over to the lifts. There were a bunch of people waiting in a group, all of whom were tracking the little number displays over the three doors, and he joined the fray.

Seemed to be a race between the one all the way on the right and the one in the middle.

The center elevator won, and he piled in with the rest of the people, joining the scramble of reach arounds as he punched in his floor and then oriented himself facing the digital number readout above. Bing. Bing. Bing. Doors opened. People shuffled. Bing. Doors opened. More shuffling.

He got out on twelve and did not say anything to anyone at the nurses' station. It had been easy to get this far, maybe too easy, and he wasn't volunteering for any bottlenecks. Hell, it wouldn't surprise him to find a CPD uni outside 1253…but there wasn't. There also weren't any family or friends milling around the closed door.

He knocked softly and leaned in. “Devina?”

“Jim?” came the quiet voice. “Hold on a minute.”

As he waited, he glanced up and down the corridor. A cleaning cart was parked in between Devina's and the room next door, and an upright cupboard on wheels was coming down toward him— which given the smell of wax beans and hamburgers as it passed, meant it was lunch. Nurses were walking here, there, and everywhere, and down at the far end, a patient was taking baby steps in his johnny, his hand on his IV pole.

Looked like he was taking the thing out for a walk so it could pee on the doorjambs.

“Okay, come in.”

He stepped into a dim room that was exactly as his had been: beige, stark, and dominated by the hospital bed in the middle. Across the way, the curtain that was drawn against the daylight was moving ever so slightly, as if she had closed it—maybe so he couldn't get a clearer picture of her face.

Which was a mess.

So much so, he paused for a moment. Her beautiful features were distorted by swelling on the cheeks, chin, and eyes; her lip was split open; and the purple bruising on her pale skin was like a stain on a wedding gown—ugly and tragic.

“It's that bad, isn't it,” she said, raising a shaking hand to shield herself.

“Jesus…Christ. Are you okay?”

“I will be, I think. They held me over because I have a concussion.” As she tugged up the thin blanket that covered her, Jim eagle-eyed her hands. No bruising on the knuckles.

Which meant she didn't do this to herself and didn't—or more likely couldn't—fight back.

Staring at her, Jim felt his resolve shift around like it was trying to find level ground. What if…no, Vin couldn't have done this. Could he?

“I'm so sorry,” Jim murmured, sinking down onto the corner of the bed.

“I shouldn't have told him about you and me…” She snapped a Kleenex out of a box and carefully dabbed under her eyes. “But my conscience was killing me and I…didn't expect this. He broke off the engagement, too.”

Jim frowned, thinking last he'd heard, the plan had been for the guy to break up with her. “He asked you to marry him?”

“That's why I had to tell him. He got down on one knee and asked me…and I said yes, but then I had to tell him what had happened.” Devina sat forward and gripped his forearm. “I'd stay away from him. For your sake. He's furious.”

Thinking back on the guy's expression when he'd been talking about Devina's blue dress smelling like another man's cologne, it wasn't hard to imagine that was true. But there were parts of this situation that just didn't compute—although it was hard to think like that, looking at Devina's face…and her arm.

Which had a series of bruises that formed the shape of a man's hand. “When are they letting you out of here?” he asked.

“Probably this afternoon. God, I hate that you're seeing me like this.”

“I'm the last person you should worry about.”

There was a silence. “Can you believe where we ended up?” she said softly.

No. On so many levels. “You got family coming to pick you up?”

“They're due here around one when I'm supposed to be discharged. They're really concerned.”

“I can understand why.”

“The thing is, part of me wants to see him. I want to…talk this through. I just don't know…And before you judge, I'm aware of how bad that sounds. I should just walk away, put as much distance as I can between us. But I can't let go that easily. I love him.”

The defeat in her was as hard to bear as the condition she was in, and Jim took her hand.

“I'm sorry,” he whispered. “I'm so damned sorry.”

She squeezed his palm. “You are such a good friend.”

There was a sharp knock and then a nurse came in. “How're we doing?”

“I'd better go,” Jim said. As he got to his feet, he nodded to the nurse and refocused on Devina. “Is there anything I can do for you?”

“Can I have your number? Just in case…I don't know…” He gave her the digits, said another good-bye, and took off.

As he left the ward, he felt the way he had on many of his military missions: Conflicting information, incomprehensible actions, unpredictable choices…he'd seen it all before, with only the vocabulary of names and locations changing.

Sifting through what he knew to be true, there were a lot of blanks to be filled, and more questions were raised than solid answers found.

As he got on the elevator and watched the numbers decrease until the readout showed an L, he fell back on training and experience: When you didn't know what was doing, you gathered information.

Back at the help desk, he approached the little old lady and pointed to the double doors he'd come into the building through. “Is this the only way out for patients?”

She smiled in that warm way—which gave him the impression she might make really good Christmas cookies. “Most of them leave from here, yes. Especially if they're getting picked up.”

“Thanks.”

“You're welcome.”

Jim went out and scoped the front of the building. There were a number of places to sit down and watch the exit, but the little benches between the bald trees that ran along the sidewalk didn't have enough cover. And there were no corners to duck behind.

He looked past the overhang of the porte cochere to the parking lot, wishing like hell he could find a spot—

At that very moment, an SUV backed out of a space that was two down from the ones marked with blue-and-white handicapped signs.

Three minutes later, Jim pulled his truck into the empty slot, killed the engine, and trained his eyes on the inpatient center. The fact that he had to look through the window of the minivan next door was the perfect camouflage.

He'd learned long ago that the information you got when you gathered in secret was likely to be the most helpful.

“Are you ready?” Marie-Terese called up from the kitchen.

“Almost,” Robbie shouted down.

Checking her watch, she decided a more hands-on approach was needed to get them out of the house on time. Mounting the carpeted stairs one by one, her flats were quiet on the blue-and-maroon zigzag pattern. Like the rest of the decor, the runner was nothing she would have picked, but understandable for a high-traffic area in a rental house.

She found her son in front of his mirror, trying to get his mini-man tie to hang straight.

For a moment, she was overcome by maternal extrapolation: In a flash, she saw him standing gangly but strong on his way to his senior prom. And then proud and tall at his college graduation. And even later, in a tuxedo at his wedding.

“What are you looking at?” he said, fidgeting.

The future, she prayed. A nice, normal future that was as far away as possible from what the last couple years had been like for them. “Do you need help?” she asked.

“I can't do this.” His hands flopped to his sides and he pivoted to her in capitulation.

Coming forward, she knelt down before him and loosened the off-kilter knot. While she worked, he stood with such patience and trust, it was hard not to think of herself as at least a halfway decent mother.

“I think we're going to have to get you a bigger blazer.”

“Yeah…it's getting tight in the top part. And look…see?” Putting out his arms, he frowned at the way the sleeves rode up halfway to his elbows. “I hate it.”

She made quick work of the short strip of navy blue and red, not at all surprised he approved of the jacket's fit. Her son always liked dressing up in suits, and he preferred his shoes, even his sneakers, to be scuff-free. The same was true about everything he had: Open his drawers or his closet and the clothes were all arranged and hanging neatly; his books were lined up on the shelves; and his bed was never unmade unless he was between the sheets.

His father had been the same, always particular about how his clothes and his things were.

Her son also had Mark's dark hair and dark eyes.

God…she wished there were no part of that man in him, but biology was biology. And the stuff she really worried about, her ex's temper and meanness, had never been apparent.

“There, you're good to go.” As he turned around to inspect, she fought the urge to hug him hard. “Look okay?”

“It's much gooderer than I did.” She glanced over at him. “Sorry, berrer than I did.”

“Thank you.”

Staring at his reflection, she thought about the cost of new blazers…and shoes…and winter coats and summer shorts and tried not to panic. She could always waitress, after all. It wouldn't bring in nearly as much as she had been making…but it would be enough. It would have to be enough.

Especially when she moved them to a smaller city where rents were less.

God…she didn't want to leave Caldwell, though—she truly didn't. Not after last night with Vin.

“We're going to be late, come on,” she said.

Downstairs, they coated and gloved up together and then got in the Camry. The morning was chilly, which meant the garage was an icebox, and the engine wheezed and sputtered.

“We need a new car,” Robbie said as she cranked the key again. “I know.”

She hit the garage door and waited as it revealed the drive and the world beyond. Backing out, she K-turned, punched the remote again, and took off for St. Patrick's.

By the time they got to the cathedral, there were cars parked all along the street, stretching for blocks. She drove around, checking out the illegal options, and settled on a corner slot that put the butt of her car in the breeze. Getting out, she walked around and measured how far her bumper was over the yellow-curbed no-parking zone.

'Bout two feet. “Damn it.”

As the cathedral's bells started to ring, she decided she was going to hope that if a policeman drove by he or she was either a good Christian or color-blind.

“Let's go,” she said, holding out her hand to Robbie, who'd come over. As his palm slid into hers, she started walking fast and he clipped right along next to her, his little loafers having to go twice as fast over the bare sidewalk.

“I think we're late, Mom,” he said breathlessly. “And it's my fault. I just wanted my tie to be right.”

She glanced down at him. As they rushed along, the top of his hair flopped to the same beat as his navy blue pea-coat did, but his eyes were unmoving: They were locked on the pavement and he was blinking too fast.

Marie-Terese stopped, tugged him to a halt, and sank down on her haunches. Putting her hands on both his arms, she gave him a little shake. “There's nothing wrong with being late. People are late all the time. We do our best to be on time for everything and that's all we can do, okay? Okay? Robbie?”

The cathedral's bells went silent. And a moment later a car eased by them. Then off in the distance a dog barked.

This had nothing to do with being late, she realized.

“Talk to me,” she whispered, putting her face in the line of his vision, even though she practicaly had to lie down to do it. “Please, Robbie.”

His words exploded out of his mouth: “I liked my own name better. And I don't want to move again. I like my babysitters and my room. I like the Y. I like…here and now.”

Marie-Terese sat back on her heels…and wanted to kill her ex-husband. “I'm really sorry. I know this has been so hard on you.”

“We're leaving, aren't we. You came home early last night and I heard you talking to Quinesha. You told her you might have to make other arrangements.” The word arrangements came out mermangements. “I like Quinesha. I don't want other arrangements.”

Again with the mermangements.

Looking at her son, she wondered just exactly how she could tell him that they had to move because she had the unshakable conviction that “the bad times,” as he'd called them, were definitely back.

The car that had passed them before came around again, having evidently failed to find a place to park.

“I quit my job last night,” she said, getting as close to the truth as she could. “I stopped waitressing where I had been because I wasn't happy there. So I'm going to need to get another job somewhere.”

Robbie's eyes lifted to hers and he measured her face. “There are a lot of restaurants in Caldwell.”

“True, but they might not need help right now and I have to make us money to live off of.”

“Oh.” He seemed to be thinking the whole thing over. “Okay. That's different.”

Abruptly, he relaxed, as if what had been bothering him were a helium balloon that he'd just released into the wind.

“I love you,” she said, hating that precisely what he'd been worried about was in fact happening. They were leaving for reasons other than her “job.” But she didn't want him having to carry that burden.

“Me, too, Mom.” He gave her a quick hug, his little arms not reaching even halfway around her. Still, she felt the embrace through her whole body. “You ready?” she said roughly. “Yup.”

They fell back into hustle mode, jangling their way over to the cathedral and up its broad stone steps; then sneaking in through its massive door. Inside the vestibule, they removed their coats and she took a program from the greeter who was positioned in the narthex. At the man's urging, she and Robbie headed for one of the side doors and ghosted down to a pew that was fairly empty.

Just as they sat, the call for children to come forward for Sunday school went out. Robbie stayed right with her, though. He never went off with the other kids—had never asked to and she'd certainly never suggested it.

As the priests and the choir got the service rolling, she took a deep breath and let the balmy warmth of the church seep into her. And for a split second, she imagined what it would be like to have Vin sitting with her and Robbie, maybe on the far side of her son. It would be nice to look over Robbie's head and see a man she loved. Maybe they would share a secret smile as couples did from time to time. Maybe Vin would have been the one to help with Robbie's tie.

Maybe there would be a daughter between the bookends.

With a frown, Marie-Terese realized that for the first time in nearly forever, she was daydreaming. Actually fantasizing about a pleasant, happy future. God…how long it had been? In the beginning with Mark…that was how long.

She'd met him at the Mandalay Bay casino. She and her girlfriends, who'd all turned twenty-one the same year, had flown to Las Vegas for their first girls' weekend out of town, and she could remember how ready they'd all been for their taste of truly grown-up freedom.

As she and her friends had futzed around with one-dollar bets on the cheap side of the velvet rope, Mark had been at a high rollers' table in the VIP section. After he'd caught sight of her, he'd sent a waitress to invite them into the deluxe section—where the drinks were free and the lowest you could wager was twenty dollars.

At first, she'd assumed it was all about Sarah. Sarah had been, and no doubt still was, a six-foot-tall blonde who somehow came across as naked even while fully clothed. That girl had been a man magnet, and given how many candidates she had to choose from, she'd had very high standards. And what do you know, someone who could afford high stakes was definitely up her alley.

But no, Mark had had eyes only for Marie-Terese. And he'd made that clear when she had been seated at his elbow and Sarah had been left to fend for herself.

Mark and his two associates, as he had referred to the pair of suits who were with him, had been nothing but gentlemen that night, buying drinks, talking, being attentive. There had been a lot of kissing dice and shiny chatter, the kind of thing that made you, when you were young enough to believe in glamour, feel like a celebrity.

It had been the perfect start to the weekend: To be twenty-one and in the exclusive part of the casino, surrounded by men in expensive suits, was everything that she and her friends had hoped for, and after three or four hours, they'd gone up to the suite Mark owned. Not the brightest move, maybe, but there had been four girls and three men, and after they'd all spent time together on a collective winning streak, the illusion of friendship and trust had been created.

But nothing bad had happened. Just more drinks and chatter and flirtation. And Sarah ending up in a bedroom alone with the taller of the two “associates.”

At the end of the night, Marie-Terese had gone out onto the balcony with Mark.

She could still remember the feel of the dry, hot air blowing over the sparkling view of the Las Vegas strip.

It had been ten years ago, but that night was still as clear to her as the moment it had become memory: the two of them out on that terrace, high above the man-made city, standing side by side. She had been looking at the view. He had been staring at her.

Mark had swept her hair aside and kissed her on the nape of her neck…and in that soft contact given her the best sexual experience of her life.

That was as far as it went.

The next evening had been much of the same, except Mark had taken them all to see a Celine Dion concert and then they had gone back to the tables. Glittering. Fancy. Exciting. Marie-Terese had soared on the heated gusts of promise and romance and fairy tale, and at the end of the second night, she had gone back to that suite and kissed Mark on that terrace again. And that was it.

She'd been disappointed he hadn't wanted more, although she wouldn't have been able to sleep with him. She wasn't hard-wired like Sarah, capable of meeting a man and going to bed with him hours later.

How ironic she'd ended up where she had.

The next morning, they'd had to leave and Mark had had his limo take them all to the airport. She'd been crushed, assuming that was the end of it: a fun forty-eight hours—just what the travel agen had promised and exactly what they had paid for.

As she and her friends had been driven away from the hotel, she'd hoped Mark would come running out and wave them to a stop, but he didn't, and she'd guessed that the last she'd ever see of him was him kissing her hand at the hotel room she and her friends had all stayed in together.

The crushing weight of back-to-normal had brought tears to her eyes. Compared to Las Vegas, her life at home, with her job as a secretary and her night school for college, had seemed like a kind of death.

When the limo had pulled up to the terminal, the driver had gotten out and opened the car door as a redcap had come along and started unloading their nothing-special luggage. Marie-Terese had stepped out onto the curb and turned her face away from the others because she didn't want to be razzed about being sad.

The chauffeur had stopped her. “Mr. Capricio asked me to give this to you.”

The box had been about the size of a coffee mug and done up in red tissue with a white bow—and she'd opened the thing right then and there, litter-bugging the wrapping paper and the length of satin. Inside had been a delicate gold chain with a gold pendant in the shape of an M. There had also been a slip of paper, the kind you'd find in a fortune cookie. The message had read: Please call me as soon as you get home safe.

The number had been instantly memorized and she'd beamed all the way back to home.

Such a perfect start. There had been no signs in the beginning of the way things would go— although looking back on it, she saw that the M pendant had been a mark of ownership, a kind of human dog tag.

God, she'd worn that necklace with such pride—because she'd wanted to be claimed back then. As a woman who had grown up with a harried mother and a father who wasn't around, the idea that a man had wanted her had been magical. And Mark hadn't been some middle-of-the-road, middle-class type—which would have been a step up for her anyway. No, he was the VIP section, whereas she was more like the janitor's closet.

And over the next couple of months, he'd played her perfectly, seducing her carefully and with calculation. He'd even told her he didn't want to have sex before they were married—so he could introduce her to his Catholic grandmother and mother with a clean conscience.

They were married five months later, and things had turned on a dime after the ceremony. As soon as she'd moved into that hotel suite with him, Mark had controlled her as tightly as a fist. Hell, when her mother had died, he'd insisted his chauffeur accompany her back to California and be at her side from the second she stepped off the plane to the moment she put her foot back in the suite.

And the sex-before-marriage thing? Turned out that hadn't been a big sacrifice for him because he'd been sleeping with his various mistresses—and she'd learned this when one had turned up with a belly the size of a basketball about a month after the ink was dry on the marriage license.

Coming back to the present, she got to her feet with the rest of the congregation and sang words from the hymnal that Robbie held in his hands.

Considering what the past had taught her, she worried about the fairy tale she'd spun in her head about Vin.

Optimism wasn't for the faint of heart. And daydreams could get you in troubnle.

He sat behind her and she never knew it. Which was the beauty of disguises. Today he was wearing his churchgoer one, which meant blue contact lenses and wire-framed glasses.

He'd waited in the back of the church for her to come in with the son, and when the two didn't show up, he'd figured they were missing the service for once and still back home. He'd left and gone to his car, but as he'd been driving away, he'd seen the two of them on the sidewalk, talking intently. Circling the block, he'd watched them talk together until they had run into the cathedral and disappeared through the big doors.

By the time he'd reparked his car, he'd missed half the service, but he'd managed to sit right behind her and the son, slipping from the shadows and lowering himself into the pew.

She spent most of the service staring up at the frescoes that were being cleaned, her head tilted to the side so that the angle of her cheek was especially lovely. As usual, she was dressed in a long skirt and a sweater—today they were a deep maroon—and she had a pair of pearl earrings on. Her dark hair was coiled up in a loose bun and she was wearing light perfume…or maybe it was just that laundry detergent or those dryer sheets she used?

He'd have to go to the supermarket and sniff the Tides and Cheerses and Gains and Bounces, to see which one it was.

Sitting in the pew, she looked like such the Good Mother, helping her son find the right pages in the hymnal, bending down from time to time when he had a question to ask her. No one would even have used the word slut within hearing distance of her…much less apply it to her: She seemed to be one of those women who had immaculately conceived her child.

It made him think about the guy he'd beaten with the tire iron. Not the part about killing him, although evidently that hadn't gone as planned, as the fool was just in a coma—another reason disguises were so very necessary. No, he thought about the expression on the man's unbusted face as he'd come out of that dirty, filthy bathroom at that dirty, filthy club.

What a lie her illusion was.

Rage boiled in him, but it was so not the right time for that, and to distract himself, he stared at the delicate muscles that ran up the nape of her neck. Soft curls formed around the gentle curve, and more than once he found himself leaning forward as if he would touch them…

Or maybe wrap his hands around her throat.

And squeeze until she was his and his alone.

He could just imagine what it would be like to subdue her struggles and claim her as his…could picture the rapture in her eyes as she died.

As he got wrapped up in the future, he nearly acted on his impulse, but fortunately, the singing parts of the service helped to break his furious concentration and occupy his hands. He also looked over at the son from time to time to keep his obsession from locking on her in a place that, if things got away from him, he'd lose everything.

The son was so well behaved. So grown-up. A little man of the house, no doubt.

She never released him to go with the other children to Sunday school, keeping him instead right by her. Which was a little frustrating, although she was wise not to let him out of her sight. Very wise.

But she shouldn't worry. The little boy was going to be with his Father very soon…and she was going to be with her forever husband.

The perfect future was mapped out for them all.