By Blood Written (34 page)

This felt awful, every bit of it, every moment of it. She was adrift, in ways she had never been adrift before.

“Are you going to go with me?” Michael asked, out of the blue, that Thursday night.

“Where?” she asked, looking up from her plate of untouched food.

“I was just telling you,” he said. “Weren’t you listening?”

She shook her head. “I’m sorry, dear. I was—I was someplace else, I guess.”

Michael sighed and looked away from her. “I’m going to be someplace else, too, and very soon. And my question was whether or not you were going to go with me.”

“Okay, tell me again. What did Abe say?”

“I’m supposed to book a flight into Nashville for Monday morning and be at the police station by noon. The lawyer in Nashville negotiated an arrangement where I wouldn’t have to report before then. If I’d gone tomorrow, I’d have had to spend the weekend in jail before a bond hearing. This way, I’ll go before a judge maybe even Monday afternoon.”

“And they’ll let you make bail, right?”

“Talmadge seems to think it’ll work out, that I’ll only have to spend a few hours in booking.”

“And then we can come home, right?”

Michael smiled, then leaned over and took her hand.

“We’ll be on the next plane out. Trust me. I’m not going to spend a minute longer there than we have to.”

Taylor let Michael hold her limp hand. He squeezed it, then with the thumb of his hand he rubbed her palm. She stared down at the two hands together as if they were separate from their bodies, two detached objects on the table in front of them doing a strange and unreal dance.

She looked up at him. “How long will it be before the trial begins? How long will we have to wait this out, to get some sort of resolution?”

“Abe says it could take months. A lot depends on what happens during discovery. If their evidence is weak and circumstantial, which it will be because I’m innocent, then we’ll push to go to trial quickly. They could stall, but for only so long.”

She looked away. “This is going to cost a fortune, isn’t it?

All that money you made, that money you worked so hard for. It’s all going to be gone.”

He shrugged. “I’ve been broke before. Have most of my life, in fact. The thing about money is, you can always make more.”

“Let’s hope so,” she said, her voice flat. “No one knows how your readers are going to react to this.”

“Well,” he said slowly, “one can always make the case that in my business, the kinds of books I write, a little notori-ety never hurt anybody. Who knows? When this is over, the books may sell better than ever.”

She looked down, suddenly feeling very tired and heavy.

“That’s assuming you’re around to write them,” she said, in a voice strained by the weight on her chest.

“Hey, hey, what’s that?” He reached out, touched her chin, and raised her head to face him. “Let’s not bring any negative energy in here, okay? This is going to work out. I promise. I’ll beat this.
We’ll
beat this. As long as we stay together.”

Taylor felt the tips of his fingers on her chin like someone touching her with the handle of a wooden spoon. They didn’t feel like flesh, like people touching. Nothing felt like people touching.

“Trust me, this will be fine. I promise.”

Taylor slept all weekend, the phone unplugged, the television and computer off. Michael stayed in, reluctant to go out in case there were any other reporters still stalking the building. The initial rush of publicity had died down, like a storm surge that had broken over the banks, done its dam-age, and then receded back into the ocean.

And Taylor slept, slept like she’d never slept before. She turned the heat down to where her bedroom was practically frigid. She bundled up covers, quilts and comforters and blankets, so that she could feel the weight of the fabric on her, pressing her down, insulating her from the rest of the world. She came up for water or for bathroom breaks, or for a bite or two of food before her stomach roiled inside her and she could eat no more. Friday night melded into Saturday morning. The afternoon went by unnoticed and the night fell over her like a layer of mist. Michael periodically stuck his head into the bedroom, concerned. She tried to reassure him that she was all right.

Sunday afternoon, she dragged herself out of bed and took a long, hot shower. That seemed to wake her up, to get her blood flowing again, and she felt briefly reenergized.

Michael had slept in the other bedroom, the bedroom where she’d caught him with the blond what seemed like ages ago, that Saturday night when she threw the party to celebrate his success. He had found success, found it in ways he never imagined. And now it had come to this.

She went downstairs. Michael was nowhere to be seen.

She made herself a cup of soup and turned on the television. She turned to one of the cable stations that showed old movies without commercials. She watched an MGM black-and-white movie from the forties, one with Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland. The images moved and gyrated in front of her with no logical connection or narrative that she could figure out.

Hours later, Michael returned. Taylor was about to go back to bed.

“Where’ve you been?” she asked. “I was starting to get worried.”

He seemed quiet, subdued. “I had some last-minute business to take care of.”

There was a long silence, before Taylor said: “Last-minute business on a Sunday?”

“I had a couple of things to take care of and I hit an ATM

for some extra cash.”

“Oh,” she said blankly. “Okay.”

“Have you packed?”

“No, I thought I’d go get started. How long will we be down there?”

“I made a reservation at the Crowne Plaza for two nights, with the option to extend. A couple of days, we should know which way this is going.”

Taylor nodded. “Okay. Guess I’ll go pack.”

She hated herself for feeling this way, this tired, this passive. She realized as she climbed the steps that this was just the way she felt when Jack died. Then it had taken her months to feel awake and alive again. Maybe a year …

But this was different. Michael needed her; Joan needed her. She was an adult with responsibilities and obligations.

She had to pull herself together. She had to find a way out of this, to become focused and useful and productive again.

She took a deep breath and began packing.

The flight to Nashville left LaGuardia at seven-twenty A.M.

She and Michael got up at four—after neither of them having slept much—then hailed a cab and arrived at the airport around five forty-five. They got through security much faster than expected and sat in a crowded airport fast-food place and ate tasteless bagels washed down with tepid coffee. It didn’t matter anyway; she hadn’t really tasted anything in a week.

Taylor had never learned the elusive art of sleeping on air-planes. This flight was no exception. She was so tired, her eyes burned, her muscles ached as she sat there crammed into the tiny seat. To make matters worse, she’d gotten the middle seat, squeezed in between Michael on the window and some guy in a black cowboy hat, tight jeans, and T-shirt, who was badly in need of a shave and shower. Michael shifted in the seat and curled toward the window and drifted off. The cowboy tried to chat her up, but had sense enough to realize after a few cold looks that she wasn’t in the mood.

She lost track of time, her mind a blank, until the plane started to descend. Michael awoke abruptly, as if he couldn’t remember where he was, then opened the shade over the window just as the plane banked steeply. Taylor leaned over and looked out the window. Below them, the rolling Tennessee hills seemed like blots of color, alternating between browns and greens and strange colors she didn’t recognize.

Then the jet passed over a sprawling lake, a dirty kind of murky mixture of brown and green that looked like it had been sprayed across the landscape palette in a completely haphazard fashion.

Taylor had never been to Nashville before, had never spent much time in the South. She felt her stomach knotting at the thought that this strange and foreign place held her life in its hands.

The jet leveled out and descended rapidly. Taylor felt queasy as the plane approached the runway, then lifted its nose in the flare and settled down onto the concrete with a thump. Then it seemed to taxi forever before finally pulling to a stop at the gate. Taylor left the plane first, with Michael a few people behind her. He wore a pair of dark sunglasses and kept his head down.

The Nashville airport was bigger than she expected, was newer and more modern, and not very crowded. Taylor looked around, caught Michael’s eye, and then began walking down the concourse to the baggage claim area by herself. Taylor looked around nervously and was relieved to find there were no reporters to be seen anywhere. They’d booked this flight at the last minute, and as part of the negotiation with the district attorney for Michael’s surrender, no word had been leaked of their arrival.

Taylor walked between a row of uniformed guards out of the secure area. In the waiting area just in front of the security checkpoint, a young woman in black trousers and a white dress shirt held a small sign with the words “Ms.

Robinson” scrawled on it.

Taylor walked up to the young woman. “I’m Taylor Robinson,” she said quietly.

The woman smiled at her. “Hi, I’m Carey. I work for Mr.

Talmadge.”

Michael walked up to them, and the three of them stepped out of the way of the disembarking passengers, off in a corner behind a bank of newspaper vending machines.

“Looks like we made it,” Michael observed.

“I’ve kept my eyes open,” the young woman said. “I haven’t seen anyone. And there aren’t even any news vans in the parking lot.”

“Let’s get out of here as quick as we can,” Michael said.

“What’s the plan?”

The three began walking down the concourse as casually as possible, with Carey between the two of them.

“We head downtown,” she said. “I drop you off at Mr.

Talmadge’s office and you’ll go straight up to him. Then I’ll take Ms. Robinson to your hotel and check the two of you in.

Mr. Talmadge reserved the room in his own name and put it on his credit card. You’re booked in as Mr. and Mrs. Jackson of Seattle, Washington.”

Michael smiled. “You ever think we’d get married in Nashville, Tennessee?”

Taylor turned to him. “Not funny.”

“Then I’ll bring Ms. Robinson back to the office, pick you and Mr. Talmadge up, and we’ll head for the police station.”

“Will there be lots of news people there?” Taylor asked.

The young woman turned and looked at her. “Yes, ma’am,”

she said politely. “Lots of them. You might want to prepare yourself.”

The black Lincoln Town Car sped out of the airport and onto the dense traffic of Interstate 40 West into downtown Nashville. As Carey maneuvered the big car in and out of the herd of cars, rarely dropping below seventy miles an hour, sometimes inches off the bumper of the car in front of her, Taylor found herself growing increasingly nervous.

The traffic slowed as they neared a construction zone.

Cars that had been racing along at breakneck speed slammed brakes and were suddenly inching through at barely walking speed. Taylor’s stomach lurched. She turned to Michael, saw him blanch as well, then smiled and reached across the backseat and took his hand.

“This all feels so strange,” she said.

Michael turned back to her. “It
is
so strange.”

Minutes later, they got through the construction and were back up to eighty. Then Carey raced across three lanes of traffic, worked her way into a long line of cars, then slammed on her brakes as they hit the exit ramp.

“Excuse me,” Michael asked from the backseat.

“Yes, sir?”

“Does
everybody
drive like a bat out of hell here?”

Carey turned and smiled. “Yes, sir,” she said. “State law requires it.”

The Lincoln worked its way into the downtown area, through a maze of streets and what seemed to Taylor like traffic at least as thick as Manhattan’s. Carey pulled the car up to a building on Third Avenue at the top of a long hill and double-parked.

“This is where Mr. Talmadge’s offices are,” she said. “Go up to the tenth floor. Roberta, the receptionist, knows you’re coming. She’ll take you straight back.”

“Okay,” Michael said. He turned to Taylor. “You’ll be back soon?”

Taylor nodded. “Yes, as quick as we can.”

Michael hesitated for a moment, as if unsure of what to say next. “I’ll miss you,” he said.

Taylor smiled, leaned over, and kissed him lightly on the cheek. “I’ll miss you, too. But we’ll be back in a few minutes. As soon as I check in.”

Michael squeezed her hand, then pushed the car door open and stepped out onto the sidewalk.

As the Lincoln pulled away from the curb, the young woman turned and faced Taylor. “Ma’am, while we’re taking care of this, is there anything else I can do for you? Anything else you need?”

“Make this all go away,” Taylor answered.

Carey smiled and faced forward. “If I could, I’d be glad to. I can’t. But if there’s anyone that can make this go away, it’s Wes Talmadge. He’s the best.”

Taylor eyed her. “Really? Tell me, how do you know?”

“Because,” Carey replied, “he’s my father.”

Just under two hours later, Taylor and Carey in the front seat, with Wesley Talmadge and Michael in the backseat, drove around Capitol Hill and approached the Metropolitan Nashville Criminal Justice Center from the back way, through side streets. While the area around James Robertson Parkway was new and well-groomed, home to government buildings and high-rises, the area behind the hill and the parkway seemed considerably more run-down. Every other building sign, Taylor thought, seemed to be for a bail bonding agency.

As they turned a corner, Taylor saw the road ahead was blocked with a mob of reporters, cameramen, news vans, and trucks of every type, with microwave towers jutting into the sky for live feeds.

“Jesus,” she muttered. “Look at that.”

Wesley Talmadge, a thin, graying man in a dark suit, spoke up from the backseat. “You two know the drill, right?