Shocking Pink (16 page)

Thistledown, Missouri
1998

D
r. Andie Bennett sat across from her patient, listening intently. The woman, Martha Pierpont, had been a patient of Andie’s for nearly a year. She had come to Andie seeking a cure for her sleeplessness and anxiety; it had taken months for the woman to admit the real cause for her unhappiness—her husband’s cruelty.

It didn’t help that Mr. Pierpont—Honest Edward Pierpont—was Thistledown’s very popular mayor. As far as influence and power went in this little burg, Ed Pierpont wheeled what there was to be had. Breaking free of a lifetime—in this case, twenty-two years—of fear and intimidation didn’t happen overnight. For some it never happened at all.

Andie smiled encouragingly at the pretty, gentle-natured woman. “And what about your daughter, Martha? Where was she during all this?”

“Patti?” The woman wrung her hands. “You know teenagers. She was in her room. She didn’t hear a thing.”

“Are you sure?” Andie laid her hands on the notepad in her lap. “After all, you say he was shouting. That he shattered a mirror. How could she not hear that?”

Martha shredded the tissue she had clenched in her hands. “She wears those things, you know, those headphones. All the time.”

“Martha,” Andie said gently, “we’ve been through this before. Patti hears everything. She knows what’s going on between you two. She knows how he treats you. She always has.”

“I know we’ve talked about this, but you’re wrong. Those headphones…that loud music. She never takes them off.”

“Why do you think that is, Martha? Is she trying to drown something else out?”

Martha glanced down at her skirt and made a sound of dismay. The navy linen was covered with bits of the damp, white tissue. “Look what I’ve done!” She began to pick them off, her hands visibly trembling. “Sometimes I just don’t think.”

Andie recognized Martha’s avoidance technique. She had seen it, or a variation of it, many times. Martha’s only child was a subject the woman refused to discuss. Honestly, anyway.

“I don’t know why I wear navy, I always make such a mess of myself. The only thing worse, of course, is black. I bought the prettiest black silk dress last week, and now I wonder—”

Black silk.

Andie could never hear those two words together and not remember that awful summer of 1983. Much had happened in the fifteen years that had passed since, but she hadn’t forgotten it. Not Mrs. X’s unsolved murder—she still thought of Leah Robertson that way—not her guilt over her friends’ punishment for her actions, not her shock at learning Raven’s terrible secret. She still recalled clearly how it had felt to lose the anchor of her family, how it had felt suddenly to be the focus of the town’s nastiest gossip, and most of all, what it had been like to lose the people she cared about most.

It had all been fleeting: the gossip had died away, her family had adjusted, and as they had promised one another, she and Raven had been reunited, this time at the University of Missouri, best friends forever.

What a terrible, confusing time of her life that had been. She wouldn’t go back to that year for a million bucks.

She smiled to herself. And yet, that summer had brought her to her work, which she loved. Those shocking events, one after another, like physical blows, had sent her scurrying for answers. For a way to make sense of what had happened to Mrs. X and Raven’s mom, to her own family. She had needed to understand why people did some of the things they did.

Her friends gone, Andie had buried herself in the library and read book after book. The more she had studied and learned, the more fascinated she had become with human behavior and the workings of the mind. And the more she had read, the more determined that someday she was going to help people who were confused. Or hurting. Or so lonely they thought they couldn’t go on.

She had always wondered if Leah Robertson would be alive today if someone had been there to help her.

“…received another one of those letters.”

Andie’s thoughts snapped back to the present and Martha. “What?”

“Edward received another one of those threatening letters. This one really rattled him.”

Andie frowned. “That makes three so far, doesn’t it?”

Martha nodded. “The first couple he shrugged off, but this one…” She lifted a shoulder. “I’ve never seen him so unnerved.”

Andie sat forward. “What did it say?”

“That they were going to ‘get’ him. That when they did, he would be sorry. Not that much different from the others.”

“He took it to the police?”

“Just like the others. But whoever’s writing them has been really careful. They haven’t left any prints or anything. Other than the Thistledown postmark, the police don’t have a clue.”

“What about the handwriting? Can they determine anything—”

“This was done the same way as the others. Letters cut out of the newspaper and glued down to make words. Like you see in movies.” Martha looked away, shuddering. “The police think it’s just some crank, but what if it’s not?” She met Andie’s eyes again. “What if it’s someone really dangerous? What if they break in and hurt Patti?”

That was, indeed, terrifying to contemplate, though Andie thought both Martha and Patti had more to fear from Ed Pierpont than some letter-writing stranger. At first, because of Ed Pierpont’s grandstanding and nonchalance, it had even crossed Andie’s mind that he had sent the letters to himself, as some sort of perverse, attention-grabbing, election-year stunt.

Andie brought the subject back to the reason Martha was there. “Let’s talk some more about the other night.”

“Do we have to?”

“Of course not.” Andie crossed her legs. “Is there something you’d prefer to discuss?”

Martha shook her head and looked away. “It was bad, worse than it’s been in a long time. I knew it was going to be by the way he was watching me.” Martha brought a hand to the strand of pearls at her throat. Andie saw that her hand trembled. “I felt his gaze on me through the entire party. As if he was assessing my every move, my every word. At one point I had to go into the bathroom because I couldn’t breathe, my heart was pounding so hard.”

Andie made a note. “Why was that?”

“I knew what was going to happen when our guests left. I knew I had done something terribly wrong. I’d made him angry.”

“But had you, Martha? It sounds to me like you were the perfect hostess.”

“I know the things that…incite him. I know, but I…forget.” She looked at Andie, her expression begging for understanding. “I smile at someone without thinking. I say or do the wrong thing. I don’t mean to, it just…happens.”

“Like what, Martha? Do you remember?”

She lifted her gaze to Andie’s, full of shame. “I remember smiling at George Wimberly. He told me I looked lovely, that’s all. That wasn’t disloyal, was it? To smile in thanks?”

“Of course not. You received a compliment, you said thank-you. That’s good manners.”

“Ed didn’t think so.” She caught her bottom lip between her teeth. “When everyone left he…he started in on me.”

“He called you stupid? And worthless?”

“Yes. And other things. Worse.”

“Whore?”

“Yes.” She bowed her head. “And he slapped me.”

Andie tightened her fingers on her pen, maintaining an outward calm. “And then what?”

“He…he…” She struggled, Andie saw, to say the words. “He forced me down onto the…onto the bed, and he…dragged my legs…apart.”

“He raped you.”

“No. He’s my husband, so it’s not, he couldn’t do…that.”

“He penetrated you against your will?” The woman nodded. “Husband or not, that’s still rape.”

Martha shook her head, eyes brimming with tears, too steeped in denial to admit what she suffered at the hands of her husband.

“What he did to you, how did you feel about that, Martha?”

When the woman only gazed blankly at her, Andie tried again, not about to let her wriggle out of the question. “When your husband calls you stupid. When he tells you you’re worthless, how do you feel?”

Martha looked away; Andie waited, letting the silence awkwardly fill the air around them. Every other time she had asked Martha
How do you feel?
her patient had denied her feelings. She had made excuses for herself, for her husband, his behavior. Even so, Andie asked the question every session, as often as she could.

One day, she hoped, Martha Pierpont would face the truth.

“Martha, did you hear my question? How do you feel when he belittles you? When he calls you ugly names and laughs at you?”

The woman froze, her face flooding with sudden, hot color. She flexed her fingers, as if with extreme agitation.

“Martha,” Andie pressed, excited, feeling Martha was close to a breakthrough, “tell me how you feel. When he calls you stupid. When he slaps you and forces you to have sex with him, how do you feel?”

“I want to kill him!” Martha burst out, leaping to her feet, trembling with rage. “I want to kill him, and kill him, and kill him!”

Her expression went from enraged to stunned. She brought her hands to her mouth as if in doing so she could take back the words or deny that she had uttered them.

“It’s all right, Martha.” Andie held out a hand. “They’re your feelings, you have a right to them.”

“No, it’s not all right. I don’t.” She sank to the couch. “I’m sorry,” she whispered, though Andie knew, to no one in particular. “He’s my husband, he…”

Martha broke down then, sobbing into her hands. “How can he treat me that way? How? I’m his wife. The mother of his child…”

Andie went to the woman and held her while she wept. This was a major breakthrough for Martha, it was wonderful, though Andie knew that wasn’t the way it felt to Martha. Anything bottled up that long was bound to be bitter, foul even, when it came out. It was going to hurt.

But not as much, not as irrevocably, as what Martha had been doing for all these years, how she had been living.

Denying pain always did more damage than experiencing it.

Andie held her patient until Martha’s tears subsided and she slowly regained her control. Before she left, Andie again asked her how she felt. And for the first time in all their months working together, Martha’s smile was spontaneous, an easy smile, one unfettered by shadows.

“I feel good,” she answered, voice husky from crying. “Really good.”

Andie felt as though she could walk on air. The woman exited, and she picked up the phone and dialed Raven’s number, needing to share the experience with her best friend.

“Rave Reviews. May I help you?”

“Raven, it’s me. This a good time?”

“I’m just walking a client out. Can you hold?”

“What’s more important,” Andie teased, “your best friend or some client?”

“Thank you,” Raven murmured, amusement in her tone, “I’ll be right with you.”

Andie heard her friend schmoozing her customer right out the door. She smiled to herself. Raven had come back to Thistledown despite bad memories, despite her fear that because of her family’s notorious past, her interior design business would fail to take off.

Instead, it had taken off like a rocket. Her renown had brought people in; her talent had brought them back. Now she had the state’s most successful interior design firm outside St. Louis.

Raven returned to the phone. “You’re never going to believe this, that was Sonia Baker just now. She wants me to redo their house.”

“Again? I thought they just did it?”

“Two and a half years ago. And she wants the full deal, not just an updating. What can I say? Rich people.” Andie heard the snap and hiss of a pop top opening. Raven was addicted to Diet Coke; she drank them all day long. “So, what’s up with you, Dr. Bennett?”

Andie smiled. “A patient had a breakthrough this morning. This person has really struggled, and to see them open up that way, it just… I’m ecstatic.”

“You get too involved with your patients.”

“Says you.” Andie laughed. “That’s my job, silly.”

“I mean it. I worry what you’d do if something bad happened to one of them. I worry you’d freak, or something.”

Andie laughed again. “You’ve been trying to take care of me since I was what? Nine years old?”

“Eight, I think.” Raven made a sound of amusement. “The breakthrough, anybody I’d recognize?”

“I can’t tell you that, and you know it.”

“Sure I do.” Raven chuckled. “But I keep trying anyway. Just like to know which nut job my best friend’s spending her day with.”

Andie shook her head. “You’re the one who’s crazy. Always have been.”

“Is that your professional or personal opinion, Doctor?”

“Both.” She grinned. “We still on for dinner?”

“Wouldn’t miss it.”

“Great. Look, got to run. A patient’s due in two minutes. See you at five-thirty.”

R
aven beat Andie to the restaurant. She went to their table, ordered a glass of wine and sat back, thinking of Julie. She had been trying to reach her friend for several days now with no luck. Today a recorded message had informed her that the number was no longer in service.

Julie was in trouble again.

Raven sighed, knowing it was true from so many times before. It was that bastard she had married. The prick had an aversion to work and the last time they’d talked, Raven had heard the edge of desperation in her friend’s voice. The same edge she’d heard the other times, just before Julie had come running home, her job or marriage or whatever in shambles, her life in shreds.

Silly, weak-willed Julie. Didn’t she realize that Thistledown was where she belonged?

Apparently not.

But one of these days she would. Maybe this time.

The waitress brought her wine, and Raven sipped. From the corner of her eye, she caught the interested glance of a man she recognized from the health club. She turned, met his eyes and smiled. For a moment he looked stunned, then he returned her smile, stood and sauntered over.

With her blond hair, still naturally platinum, her nearly six-foot height and the subtle scar that curved over her cheek, attracting men wasn’t a problem for Raven. She had left behind the label Bride of Frankenstein and freak a long time ago. She looked good, she knew it and didn’t mind using it. She figured there was nothing wrong with a little harmless flirtation, as long as she never lost sight of what was really important in life.

“Hi,” he said, stopping beside her table. “Don’t I know you from somewhere?”

Great line. Original.
“The gym, I think.”

“That is right. I didn’t recognize you in clothes.” She arched an eyebrow, and he laughed, sounding almost giddy. “Street clothes, I mean.”

He couldn’t be more than twenty-two. Pretty but dim, she decided. Not good for much but sex. She caught sight of Andie crossing the restaurant. She smiled and handed the boy her business card. “My friend’s just arrived, you have to go now. But you can call me sometime.”

He looked almost faint. He took the card, mumbled something and walked away.

A moment later, Andie slid into the booth. “Who was that?”

“A very pretty boy.”

“He’s too young for you.”

“You think?” Raven met Andie’s eyes, then laughed. “I know. I couldn’t help encouraging him though. Did you see his ass in those jeans? Buns of Steel.”

Andie shook her head, a smile twitching at the corners of her mouth. “No, I didn’t notice.”

“Your loss.” Raven lifted her wine. “You get tied up with a patient?”

“Mmm.” The waitress came over, took Andie’s drink order, then walked away. “Somebody called in a crisis. I had to make the time.”

“Of course you did.” Raven trailed her index finger along the rim of her wineglass. “Have you talked to Julie lately?”

“Not in a week. Why?”

“I’ve been trying to get her. Today I learned the phone’s been disconnected.”

Andie frowned. “Do you think this means—”

“I do. Marriage number three is over.”

The waitress delivered the glass of cabernet; Andie murmured her thanks. “I’d really hoped he was the one.”

“Andie—” Raven shot her a disgusted glance “—you’re a shrink, for God’s sake. You thought her
third
husband in five years was going to be the one?”

“I know, I know.” Andie made a sound of frustration. “It’s just, I can’t help thinking that one man is better than an endless string of many.”

“She’s got a problem,” Raven said. “There’s no doubt about that.”

“I wish there was something we could do to help her. I wish there was something I could do. But she refuses to get into therapy.”

“I miss her.” Raven turned her gaze to the window. “She should just come home.”

“Thistledown’s not her home anymore.”

“Yes, it is.” Raven met Andie’s eyes once more. “It’s more her home than California. She just doesn’t realize it yet. She’s out there searching for something, and it’s right here. We’re right here.”

“Hello, Raven.”

Raven turned to the man who had come up to their table, silently groaning when she saw who it was.
Trouble. With a capital T.

She smiled pleasantly, pretending not to notice the angry glint in his eyes or the muscle that twitched in his jaw. “Jason. How nice to see you.”

“Bullshit.” He glanced at Andie, then back at Raven. He leaned closer. “I just want you to know, you’re a coldhearted, class-A bitch.”

Unfazed, she arched an eyebrow. “Really? I’m a bitch? What’s the matter, couldn’t your ego take a
tiny
dose of the truth?”

Spots of color bloomed in his cheeks. “Fuck you.”

“Sorry.” Raven picked up her glass, ignoring Andie’s quick, shocked breath. “But a girl has to have some standards.”

His face mottled, a muscle worked in his jaw. For a moment, she thought he might try for a stinging comeback, then he turned on his heel and stalked off. Raven watched him walk away. “What a jerk.”

Andie had watched him go, too. She turned to Raven. “Wasn’t that the new hotshot forensics guy from St. Louis?”

Raven nodded. “Creepy, huh?”

“A little.” Andie glanced over her shoulder again, then looked back at Raven. “He’s only been in town two weeks, and you’ve already managed to break his heart? What happened?”

“Mr. Teeny-Wienie couldn’t take a little constructive criticism, and now I’m a bitch. Some men are so sensitive.” She opened her menu and scanned it. “What are you going to have?”

“Raven—” Andie nudged aside the menu and looked her friend in the eyes. “Did you tell the man he had a small penis and didn’t know how to use what he did have?”

“Not just like that. But you get the basic picture.” At her friend’s horrified expression, Raven rolled her eyes. “You’re about to tell me that wasn’t very nice, aren’t you?”

“Well, it wasn’t.” Andie drew her eyebrows together. “Every man is not your father. You have to stop lashing out at them in an attempt to punish—”

“Don’t try to shrink your friends, Andie. It’s a bother.”

“You don’t see a pattern here? You haven’t noticed the bodies of the bloodied and bruised men you leave in your wake?”

“Look,” Raven said, narrowing her eyes, “I fucked him once. The experience left a lot to be desired. I told him so. You don’t think he would have done the same to me?”

“No, I don’t. Not if he was a decent man.”

“So, I’m not a decent person?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“I think you did.”

“Let’s not fight.”

“No, let’s. And as long as we’re talking about men, let’s talk about you, Dr. Bennett.”

“What about me?” Andie picked up her menu. “I’m fine.”

This time it was Raven who nudged aside the menu to look into her friend’s eyes. “The problem is, there are no men. None. No relationships. No nooky at all.”

“I date sometimes. Besides, we’re not talking about me.”

“Of course we’re not. Headshrinkers never talk about themselves.”

Andie tossed aside the menu, exasperated. “I don’t need a man. I don’t want one. I love my work. I have my friends, I have you and Julie and…” She made a sound of impatience. “Okay, so I’m a little hesitant about getting involved in a relationship. So I’m a little nervous about being hurt. Big deal.”

“So I’m a little rough on my men. Big deal.”

“Point taken.” Andie reached for the breadbasket and broke off a piece of a bread stick. “What kills me is, these guys know your reputation, but they follow you around like puppy dogs anyway. Talk about a study in male psychology.”

Raven grinned and reached for the half bread stick Andie had left behind. “It’s a macho thing, you should know that, Doc. They all think they’ll be the one to break the mighty Raven.”

“Break?” Andie arched an eyebrow. “Interesting choice of words.”

“You’re shrinking me again.” Raven took a bite of the crunchy stick. “Any romantic prospects at all?”

“No interest at all.”

“I could fix you up.”

Andie made a face. “With one of your armed-and-dangerous types. No, thanks.”

“You’d rather mild-mannered and malleable? Someone less likely to trample your heart?”

“You know me too well.” She shook her head, fighting a smile. “What would I do without you?”

“Sink into a pit of psychobabble bullshit. I’m the only one who tells you like it is.”

“Ditto, girlfriend.”

They laughed, and Raven lifted her menu again, suddenly starving. And completely satisfied. The truth was, she didn’t need anybody but Andie, either. All the guys were just larks, diversions, ways to pass a little time.

The waitress came and took their orders, and while they waited for their food to be delivered, then while they ate, they talked about Raven’s business and Andie’s family: her brother Pete’s new baby, Daniel’s promotion to V.P. of marketing at the radio station, and her mother’s “significant other.”

As they finished up, Raven met Andie’s eyes. “My dad contacted me again.”

Andie’s expression was sympathetic. “Another letter?”

“Mmm.” Raven wrinkled her nose with distaste. “Begged me to come see him. Spilled his guts about how he loved and missed me. I’m his ‘everything,’ he said. He pleaded for a picture, for anything.”

“Oh, Rave, I know how tough this is for you. What are you going to do?”

“Same as always, nothing. I haven’t seen him yet, why break a record?”

Andie was quiet a moment, a frown tugging at her mouth. When she met her friend’s gaze again, Raven knew what was coming. She was right. “At the risk of being accused of shrinking my B.F.—”

“B.F.?”

“Best friend.” Andie grinned. “I know how much you hate him, but it might be good for you to see him. Just once. It might give you closure.”

Raven held up a hand. “First of all, you can’t imagine how much I hate him. Second of all, I have closure. Believe me. I had closure when I was fifteen years old. Mr. X gave me that.”

“Hear me out, Rave. Whether you realize it or not, in your mind your dad’s still the authority figure. You were fifteen when he went to jail, twelve when he killed your mom. Just a kid. He was bigger than life. All-powerful. He held your whole life in his hands. Those dynamics are changed now. If you went to see him—”

Raven reached across the table and caught Andie’s hands. “I don’t need to see him, and I won’t. I have closure. I left behind the notion of him having any kind of power a long time ago. Okay?”

Andie hesitated, then nodded. “Okay. It’s just that I care about you. And I worry.”

“I know. Thanks.” She smiled. “Let’s get out of here. We have to work in the morning.”

They paid the bill and left the restaurant, walking out into the mild night.

“It smells like spring,” Andie murmured, crossing the parking lot to their cars, parked side by side. “My azaleas are already blooming.”

“It’ll be summer and hot as hell before we know it.” Raven glanced up at the starless sky. “This time of year always makes me think of Julie.”

Andie smiled. “Me, too. If you hear from her—”

“I’ll call.”

“Good.” Andie unlocked her car and climbed in. “Talk to you tomorrow.”

Raven waited until Andie’s car had disappeared around the corner of Main before she climbed into her own car, a BMW Z-3. She took a deep breath, the delicious scent of new leather filling her head.

Good old Aunt Katherine, Raven thought, smiling to herself. What would Raven have done without her?

She started the car, backed out of the parking space and headed home. Except for missing Andie and Julie and the abominable hours of therapy her aunt had forced her to endure, living with her mother’s sister had been a breeze. A delight, even.

A widow, her aunt had been left quite well off and had spoiled Raven rotten. She had given her anything—and everything—she had desired. She had sent her to college, allowing her to attend U of M because that’s where Andie was going, even though they could have afforded much better; had allowed Raven to make as many long-distance calls to her friend as she wanted; had dressed her only in the best.

Until then, Raven hadn’t had a clue what having a lot of money was like. It hadn’t taken her but a couple of weeks to learn that it was very, very nice.

When Aunt Katherine had passed away six years ago, Raven had become a wealthy young woman. She had bought and renovated a house in Thistledown’s oldest and most exclusive neighborhood and had opened her design firm without having to worry about turning a profit for years to come.

Luckily, she had begun turning a profit almost immediately.

All this and her father was still rotting in prison, no chance of parole in sight.

Life was good. Almost perfect.

Raven pulled into the driveway, her headlights cutting across the front gallery as she did. Someone sat huddled there on the front steps, waiting for her. She caught her breath, realizing, as if her thoughts had conjured her, who it was.

Julie had come home.

Raven drew the car to a stop and threw open the door. She climbed out and started across the lawn, not taking the time to go the couple extra steps to the walkway.

She reached the porch and stopped in front of her friend. Raven saw that her every worry had been justified. Julie looked exhausted, physically and emotionally. She looked as if she had endured the ravages of hell.

Julie smiled, the curving of her lips bittersweet. “Hello, Rave. Got room for a long lost friend?”

“Silly question.” Raven caught her friend’s hands. “I always have room for you.”

Julie’s eyes filled with tears; Raven saw that she fought them spilling over. “My marriage, it—” She lost the battle and began to cry. “Rick kicked me out. I didn’t know where else to go.”

Raven took Julie into her arms and held her. Julie needed her. “You did the right thing, baby. You came home.”