The Shadow Box (24 page)

Fallon set his jaw. Just once, he told himself, leave well
enough alone. Let her go.

She reached the front entrance, put her hand on the
latch, then hesitated. She leaned her forehead against it.

“Michael . . . believe me. I don't need this either.”

“Then why did you come?”

She spun to face him. “And anyway, screw you,” she
blurted angrily. “You think that was
my
idea of a good
time? Why did
you
have to come to my boat?”

He had told her why he came. Because he was intrigued.
Because from what he'd heard, he thought she was some
one he might like. But that was before he learned that
there were two of her.

Her eyes seemed to soften as he had these thoughts. It
was almost as if she could hear them. And now she cocked
her head slightly and her eyes glazed over as if she were
trying to hear more. Her eyes narrowed slightly. She
looked up at him.

“You came again, didn't you? You came again this weekend.”

Say nothing, Michael. Not a word.

“This morning,” he told her. “Your boat was gone.”

Jesus,
Michael.

She looked away. ”I needed some time alone. I
...
sailed down to Newport yesterday.”

Fallon sensed a certain pregnancy in that announcement.
“Newport. Should that mean something to me?”

She flicked a hand, waving the subject off. “Michael, you went there again for some answers. Do you want to
hear them or not?”

“Okay, answer this. Can you read minds?”

“No.”

“No, or only sometimes like I think you just did?”

”I can't read minds. No one can.”

“And yet you knew that I went back to see you.”

An exasperated snort. “If you're asking if I'm percep
tive, yes. More so than most? I wish to God I wasn't. Do
I know that you
do
want to hear this?
Yes.
Do I know
that you don't really want me to leave? That you wish
there was a way in hell that we could try to be friends?
Yes.
That doesn't make me a fucking witch, Michael.
Those girls who walked past us knew that much.”

She was pacing the room. She spoke slowly, haltingly.

“That first day, I said that you were dangerous. You
are.”

She had made him promise that he would say nothing.
Not a word until she indicated that he could speak. He
was already having difficulty.

He busied himself stoking the fire. He had opened the
wine. It was a decent Chablis. She said that reds do not
do well on boats. Megan took the offered glass and set
it aside.

”I felt violence all around you, Michael. Even when
you were being nice. I also felt terrible pain. It was fading,
it had started to ease but it was all still there.”

She looked at the wine glass, decided she could do with a taste.

“These feelings I had
...
a thousand other women
could have had them. They'd meet you and think,
“
This
guy is really smoldering. He's carrying a lot of baggage.
I don't need this in my life right now.”

Fallon had drained his first glass. He poured a
second.
Except for the violence part, he'd had exactly those
thoughts about her.

“But  here's  where  I'm 
not
like  a  thousand  other
women. When you stepped off my boat . . . when I
reached out and touched you
...
I felt so much more . . .
awful things . . . things that frightened me.”

Fallon grunted. Dead bodies, he remembered. Hundreds
of dead bodies.

“I'm not always right,” she went on as if she'd heard
him, “even when I feel it that strongly. So I came here
that night to make sure. The best way to do that is to
touch. But for that to work
...
it's not a trance but it's
like a trance. Everything has to be blocked out. Everything
that's me, I mean.”

She squeezed her eyes shut. She hugged herself as she
paced.

”I sure as hell touched you, didn't I, Michael?”

Megan covered her face with her hands. He could see
that she was mortified. She needed a moment to collect
herself. She swallowed hard and continued.

“Have you ever, like the next day, said, 'I can't believe
I did that’? Just shake your head or nod.”

He nodded.

“Were you disgusted with yourself? You can answer.”

”I . . . wondered about myself.”

“If it happened often enough, not every day but still
too often, you might decide you'd be better off living
alone. I did. Did you, Michael?”

“Something like that.”

“You didn't want anyone else hurt.”

“Hold it. Who says anyone was?”

She chewed her lip. “It's all around you,
Michael. Peo
ple hurt. People dying. Some of it is through violence and
that's the part that's clearest. But most of it . . . many
people
...
all kinds of people . . . was not violent, exactly.
I want to say poison. People who were poisoned.”

“U
m
. . . Megan.”

She waved him off. She stopped pacing and sat, still hugging herself.

“Megan . . . I know nothing about lots of people dying.
Poisoned or any other way.”

She rocked in her chair. Eyes closed. She seemed to be
struggling. “Yes, you do,” she blurted. “Or you should.
Or someone thinks you do. Or
...
oh, Christ, I hate this.”

Fallon pushed to his feet. He walked to her chair and lowered himself in front of it. For an instant,
she seemed
frightened of him. He backed away.

“Megan,” he said gently. “That part is nonsense. It
just didn't happen.”

Silence. Tears welled in her eyes.

“Okay,” he said wearily. “Let's say it did. I either
know about it, I should know, or someone thinks I do.
Which is it?”

The tears spilled over. ”I think you know.”

He took a breath. “And if I swear to you I don't, will you believe me?”

”I do believe you. But you
do
know.”

They had finished the bottle.

Michael sat on the carpet by her chair. She had asked
if she could touch him again but only with her fingertips. She did, but she could feel nothing else. Michael hadn't
thought she would. There was nothing to this poisoning
business. Megan said it herself. She was not always right.

Wait a second.

”I work
...
I
did
work . . . with a number of drug
companies. When you talk about a poisoning, about all
these people dying, could you be talking about
...
I don't
know
...
a manufacturing error? A bad batch?”

“Has that happened?”

“In this country? Not that I know of. And I
would
know. Everyone in the industry would know.”

She pursed her lips, then shook her head as if to say,
“Then that can't be it.”

“Why, by the way, did my pills upset you?”

She looked away. “They just did.”

“Megan, I'm looking for a connection here.”

“Michael . . .” She flared at him. '
I
just don't like
pills.”

Uh-oh.

“They numb the mind. Why do you take them?”

”I stopped, actually.”

“Then get rid of them.”

He whistled inwardly. What was she? he wondered. A
former addict? Suicide-prone? Or maybe psychics just like
to keep all their circuits clear. Whatever. Her reaction had
been extravagant and she knew it. She turned her head
and gave a jerky little wave as if asking for a moment's
grace. The hand settled on his arm.

“Michael . . .” She squeezed it. “Go sit over there.”

“Why?”

“Because you're going to be mad at me. Go sit.”

Fallon obeyed.

He thought that he was about to hear what she had
against pills. Perhaps some clue to what made her the way
she is. But she had shifted gears entirely.

She began by telling him that on the night she rushed
out of there, she had never intended to come back, hoped
never to see him or speak to him again. When she came
to
...
realized what she'd been doing . . . she was so
humiliated that she ran all the way down to the Edgartown
dock, started her engine, and nearly plowed into a forty-
foot Bertram.