woman.
She was everything
No. She wasn’t. That was a crazy thing to think. There were parts of her hidden right now. She might be sitting on her rock as if she desired nothing more in the world than to wiggle her toes in the water and watch dolphins at play, but behind her was money and corruption and a sleaziness that he couldn’t begin to comprehend. She’d been drugged when she drove the car that killed Grant.
She was all things to all people, he thought savagely. She came here and she acted as a competent doctor-a competent pathologist-and indeed she was. But put her back in the city and she’d fit right back into her social milieu and heaven help any poor sod that got in her way.
She wanted to be a schoolteacher instead of a forensic pathologist? An ordinary person? That was a joke. She just wanted to play at life, as she always had.
‘Aren’t you coming?’ She was turning to him, laughing with the delight of the moment.
‘I’ll watch from here,’ he told her, and watched the shadows shutter down on her face. It had been a verbal slap and she’d felt it.
Damn, he felt a rat. For no good reason. What was he supposed to do-court her?
Her pleasure had faded but she was still looking determinedly bright. ‘Can I swim out to them?’
That was easier. ‘Of course you can swim out to them.’
‘Won’t there be sharks?’
‘Sharks don’t like dolphins. You don’t need to worry.’
‘How perfect.’ She stood, took a deep breath, and hesitated just for a moment before she dived in.
And he had to agree. She was perfect.
Or not completely perfect. He frowned-just a little-noticing something for the first time. There was a long, jagged scar running the length of her left thigh. On anyone less lovely than Sarah it might not be noticed, but on Sarah…
No. The scar would be noticed anyway. It must have been caused by a major trauma.
Had that happened in the car accident when Grant had been killed? He frowned again, trying to remember. He’d hardly enquired as to the extent of Sarah’s injuries.
There’d been no need. It had seemed such a minor accident. He remembered the call-Grant ringing to tell him about it.
‘Sarah’s smashed my car,’ Grant had told him. ‘Dratted women drivers. I should never have let her take the wheel in the first place. And it’s a pain because I’d promised to come home and see the oldies this weekend for Dad’s birthday. Tell them I can’t come, will you?’
It had been yet another excuse for Grant not to visit their parents, Alistair had thought. It had sounded really minor, but he’d also known enough of Grant’s lack of concern for others to enquire further.
‘What sort of smash? Was anyone hurt?’
‘Sarah’s got a bit of concussion and minor lacerations,’ Grant had told him. ‘Nothing serious. Hell, she deserves something. She drove like a maniac on a road with ice on it, so maybe it’ll teach her to slow down in the future. I’ve got a bit of a stiff neck but that’s all.’ He’d laughed down the phone, as he always had when trying to brush things aside. ‘As far as I can tell the tree Sarah hit doesn’t even need stress counselling. But my gorgeous car… The passenger side’s crumpled all along the wheel base. It’ll take weeks to repair. Tell Mum and Dad it’ll be a month before I get home.’
‘Did you get your neck X-rayed?’ Alistair had asked-only because he was a doctor and it was an automatic reflex where head and neck injuries were concerned. But Grant had laughed again.
‘Hey. I’m the older twin. I’m supposed to do the worrying. It was a slight bump that’s not about to give me grief.’
So Alistair hadn’t worried-until the next morning when Grant’s cleaning lady had found him in bed. Dead. He’d refused advice to have his neck X-rayed-there’d been a party he was late for and he couldn’t be bothered-and during the night an undisplaced fracture of the vertebrae had shifted.
Death would have been instantaneous. End of story.
And all Alistair’s attention had had to be on his distraught parents. Alistair hadn’t gone near Sarah. He’d read the police report, stating there were drugs present in Sarah’s blood, and he’d been so angry he hadn’t gone near.
But what had Grant meant when he’d said minor lacerations? He gazed across at her lovely tanned legs with their marring white streak and thought, This was never a minor laceration.
At the funeral Sarah had been on crutches.
So was he supposed to feel sorry for her?
No. He couldn’t. But as her long, lithe body slipped seamlessly into the water and she started stroking out towards the dolphins he thought suddenly that he’d very much like it if he could.
He left her alone. It was the only thing to do.
Alistair swam by himself for a little, and then made his way up the beach to the picnic basket. Sarah joined him five minutes later, flinging herself down onto the sand and rolling like a sensual puppy in the sun-warmed sand. She rolled and rolled and then she pushed herself up and grinned.
‘It stops sunburn,’ she told him, correctly interpreting his look of astonishment. ‘I coat myself like a rissole and, hey, cheap sun protection.’
‘Have some lobster,’ he said faintly, and she smiled and took a dollop of the lovely white flesh straight from the shell.
‘Yum. Heaven.’
It was all he could do not to stare. She was growing lovelier and lovelier.
‘Wine?’
She shook her head. ‘Nope,’ she said. ‘I don’t.’
‘You don’t drink?’
‘No.’
‘Not wine?’
‘Not alcohol,’ she told him. ‘My mother had a problem. There’s heaps of medical research saying alcoholism is a genetic trait. I figured early I could do without the risk.’
‘You went out with Grant but you didn’t drink?’ More and more he was feeling stunned.
‘That’s right.’
‘But you used other things to make up for it,’ he said, and her hand stilled in the process of taking the lobster meat to her mouth.
There was a moment’s silence while she appeared to consider how to answer him. And finally she forced her hand onward. Forcing herself to relax. Seemingly forcing herself not to slap him.
‘This lobster isn’t as good as I thought it would be,’ she said. ‘I think we should finish it fast and go home.’
She showered and went straight to her bedroom, and he didn’t blame her. He’d messed it. He shouldn’t be sorry, he decided-after all, her actions six years back were unforgivable and she should never be allowed to forget them-but all the same…
He showered himself, and did a ward round, and tried to do some paperwork, but all he could think of was the look of blind pain as he’d accused her.
It had been an appalling thing to say.
It was the truth. She’d killed his twin.
No. Grant had been in it up to his neck. The accident report had said that Grant had obviously been drinking. They hadn’t breathalysed him because he hadn’t been driving, but it had been clear. That was probably why he hadn’t had the sense to agree to X-rays, and it was certainly why he’d been stupid enough to allow a clearly drug- influenced Sarah to take the wheel.
Could he ever stop thinking about it? He must. He had work to do.
He had a life to live.
