“Listen, Sally, please. I’m sorry. I did what I believed was right. I couldn’t tell you, please understand that. You were coming to trust me. I couldn’t take a chance that you’d react the way you’re reacting now.”
She laughed. Just laughed. She said nothing at all.
Dillon rose, saying, “I’m going for a walk. I’ll be back to make dinner in an hour.”
Sally watched him stride down the narrow trail toward the water. She supposed he was a fine-looking man, not as fine-looking as James, of course. She didn’t like all his bulging muscles, but she supposed some people did.
“Sally.”
She didn’t want to turn back to him. She didn’t want to speak to him anymore, give him any of her attention, listen to his damning words that made so much sense to him and had utterly destroyed her.
No, she’d rather watch Dillon, or the two boats that were rocking lazily in the smooth evening waters. It would be sunset soon. The water was beginning to be the color of cherries.
“Sally, I can’t let you leave. Besides, where would you go? I don’t know where you’d be safe. You thought you’d have a refuge in The Cove. You didn’t. Your dear auntie Amabel was in on it.”
“No, that’s impossible.”
“Believe it. I have no reason to lie to you. David and I both visited her after I got on my feet again. She claimed you’d seen me unconscious and decided to run away. She said that you had probably run to Alaska, that you couldn’t go to Mexico because you didn’t have a passport. She said that you’d been ill—in an institution—as a matter of fact and that you were still unstable, still very weak in the head. My gut tells me that your auntie is in this mess up to her eyeballs.”
“She welcomed me. She was sincere. You’re wrong, James, or you’re just plain lying.”
“Maybe she was sincere at first. But then someone got to her. What about the two murders in The Cove, Sally? The woman’s screams you heard that Amabel claimed were a result of the wind, that or the result of you being so bloody nuts.”
“So you used those old people—Marge and Harve, who drove to The Cove in their Winnebago and then disappeared—as your, what do you call it? Oh, yes, your cover. The sheriff believed you completely, didn’t he?”
“Yes, he did. And what’s more, the investigation will open again, since a whole bunch of other folk have disappeared in that area as well. Being a PI hired by their son from L.A. was my cover. It worked. After the murders happened, I didn’t know what to think. I knew it couldn’t have anything to do with you directly.”
He stopped, plowing his fingers through his hair. “Damn, we’re getting off the subject, Sally. Forget about The Cove. Just forget Amabel. She and her town are three thousand miles away. I want you to try to understand why I did what I did. I want you to understand why I had to keep silent about who I really am and why I was at The Cove.”
“You want me to agree that it was fine for you to lie to me, to manipulate me?”
“Yes. You lied to me as well, if you’ll recall. All you had to do was scream your head off when your so-called father called you, and I was manipulated up to my ears. A beautiful woman appealing to my macho side. Yeah, I was hooked from that moment.”
She was staring at him as if he’d lost his mind.
“Jesus, Sally, I came flying into the room like a madman to see you on the floor, staring at that damned phone like it was a snake ready to bite you, and I was a goner.”
She waved away his words. “Someone was after me, James. Nobody was after you.”
“It didn’t matter.”
She began to laugh. “Actually there were two someones after me, and you were the second, only I was too stupid, too pathetically grateful to you, to realize it. I’m leaving, James. I don’t want to see you again. I can’t believe I thought you were a hero. God, when will I stop being such a credulous fool?”
“Where will you go?”
“That’s none of your business, Mr. Quinlan. None of what I do is any of your business anymore.”
“The hell it isn’t. Listen, Sally. Tell me the truth about something. When Dillon and I got into your room at the sanitarium, there was this pathetic little guy who looked crazy as a loon sitting on the bed beside you, looking down at you. Did he ever hurt you? Beat you? Rape you?”
“Holland was there in my room?”
“Yeah, you were naked and he was leaning down over you. I think he’d combed and straightened your hair. Did he rape you?”