'Let me call Scott. He can come and get you. Where are you, Sally?'
'You never called him Scott before, Monica. You didn't like him, remember? You used to call him a jerk when you knew I was listening. You wanted to protect me from him. You used to tell me he was into power and that he was trying to separate me from all my friends. Don't you remember how you'd call after Scott and I were married and ask me first thing if Scott was gone so we could really talk? You didn't like him, Monica. Once you told me I should kick him in the balls.'
There was utter silence, then, “I was wrong about him. He's been very concerned about you, Sally. He Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
came to me hoping you would call and that I would help him.
'Scott's a good man, Sally. Let me call him for you. He and I can meet you someplace, we-'
Sally very gently punched the off button on the portable phone.
To her surprise James was grinning. 'Hey, just maybe we've got your husband's lover. Am I jumping too fast here? Yeah, probably, but what do you think? Maybe he's a real stud, maybe he's got both Jill and Monica? Could he do it, do you think?'
She'd been thinking that hell couldn't feel worse than she felt now, but he'd put a ridiculous twist on it, like the best of the spin doctors. 'I don't know. She's certainly changed her tune, just like Jill. Two? I doubt it, James. He was always so busy. I think his deals were more exhilarating to him than mere sex.'
'What kind of deals?'
'He was in my dad's law firm, something I didn't know until after we were married. That sounds weird but it's true. He didn't want me to know, obviously, until after we were married. He was in international finance, working primarily with the oil cartel. He would come home rubbing his hands together, telling me how this deal or that deal would impress everybody, how he'd gotten the better of such and such a sheikh and had just brought in a cool half million. Deals like that.'
'How long were you married to him?'
'Eight months.' She blinked and fiddled with the leaves of a healthy philodendron. 'Isn't it odd? I don't count the six months in the sanitarium.'
'That's not a very long time for a marriage, Sally. Even mine-a semi-unmitigated disaster-lasted two years.'
'I realized right after we were married that my father was as much a part of the marriage as we were. I'm willing to bet he offered me up to Scott as part of a deal between the two of them.'
She drew a deep breath. 'I think my father put me in the sanitarium as revenge for all those years I protected Noelle. I'm willing to bet that another part of the revenge was to get Scott to marry me. He got to Scott, and Scott did what he was told. All revenge.
'When I told Scott I wanted a divorce, he told me I was crazy. I told him that he could marry my father if he wanted a St. John so badly. Maybe two days after that, I was in that sanitarium-at least I think it was two days. The time still gets all scrambled up.'
'But he had a lover. Perhaps Monica, perhaps Jill. Perhaps someone we don't know at all. How quickly were you sure about his affair?'
'About three months after we were married. I'd decided to try to make a go of it, but when I found a couple of love notes, unsigned, and two motel receipts, I didn't care enough to try. Between that and my father, always in the background, I just wanted to get out.'
'But your father didn't let you get out.'
'No.'
Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
'Obviously your father knew everything about your marriage. Scott must have told him immediately when you asked for a divorce for your father to take action so quickly. Who knows? Maybe it was Scott's idea. Do you want to call anyone else?'
'No, that leaves just Rita. I don't think I could take it if Rita started on me about calling Scott. This was enough-much too much, as a matter of fact.'
'Okay, no more work today, all right?'
'That was work?'
“Certainly. We just filled in another piece of the puzzle.'
'James, who knocked both of us out in The Cove and brought me back to Doctor Beadermeyer's?'
'Beadermeyer or a henchman. Probably not Scott. It was probably the guy who played the role of your father that night in your bedroom window. But now that you've got me, you don't have to be depressed at the number of bad people in the world.'
'They all seem to have congregated around me. Except Noelle.'
He wanted to ask her to go over everything with him, from the day she met Scott Brainerd to now, but he didn't. Give her the day off, make her smile. Maybe they could make love in front of the fireplace. He wanted to make love to her very much. His fingers itched remembering the feel of her, the way she moved against his fingers, the softness of her flesh. He tried to focus on his African violets.
That evening she pulled her hair back tight, securing it with a clip at the nape of her neck. She put on a big pair of dark sunglasses. 'No one would recognize you,' Quinlan said, coming up behind her and putting his hands lightly on her shoulders.
'But let's get a wig anyway. You know something? Your father was killed, what, three weeks ago or so?
It was splashed all over TV, all over every tabloid, every newspaper. You, the missing daughter, got the same treatment. Why take the chance on someone recognizing you? I have to tell you, I like you in those sunglasses. You
