Wedding Ring (45 page)

“I have seen the light—the flashing red light on the ambulance that took our daughter’s body away!”

He let long moments pass before he spoke again. “Do you want me to hire somebody else, then, until Barry’s staff can go back to doing surveillance nightly? Are you willing to compromise and try for three times a week?”

He expected her to lash out again. But after giving it some thought, she folded her hands, as if forcing them to be still.

“What nights will they cover?” she asked.

“Barry suggested Fridays and Saturdays, since those are typically party nights. That’s where we left it, starting this week, but I could try for Tuesday, too.”

She was silent again. Just as he thought she wouldn’t agree, she gave a brief nod. “Will you let me know if they can’t do Tuesday?”

“Is it a deal breaker?”

“No, I’d just like to know what’s going on.”

She still sounded angry, but he thought she was struggling to be reasonable. He told himself it was a good sign, that if she could be reasonable about this, it meant she might be loosening her grip on the past. He had never officially set the end of the summer as the deadline for their personal moment of truth, but he could feel that moment coming the way he could feel the cool breeze changing one season into another.

They could not go on as they had, but he didn’t know if Tessa was willing or able to go on any other way.

She got to her feet. “Are you coming upstairs?”

“Do you want me there?”

“More than I want you out on these roads on the Saturday night of a holiday weekend.”

She had neatly turned a question about their relationship into another indictment of drunk drivers. He couldn’t let it go.

“Will there ever be a point in our life again, Tessa, when everything won’t be about Owens? When who we are and what we feel about each other comes first?”

For a moment she looked ashamed. Then she shook her head. “If I had the ability to see the future, Mack, I never would have let Kayley walk to school that morning.”

“By now you should have figured out that there are things we can’t control. And things we can.”

“Which is why I started watching the Owens house in the first place.”

He stood, too, tired of verbal swordplay. “I’ll be leaving early in the morning. I hate to wake you. I’ll just sleep on the couch.”

She held out her hand. “Sleep with me.”

He took her hand and let her lead him upstairs. But in the double bed where they had made love after the Claiborne party, they slept with their backs to each other. And just after dawn, he left without waking her.

T
essa jumped when a car door slammed across the street from Robert Owens’s house. She had debated whether to come here tonight. Last night she’d tossed and turned beside Mack, asking herself if she could let go of her quest to trap Robert the way Mack wanted her to. She needed to move on. She could see that as clearly as he did. Life was too precious to waste on revenge.

Yet here she was again. This morning she had taken Biscuit for a marathon hike over the hills instead of their usual roadside jog. This afternoon she had unearthed a hand-cranked ice cream freezer in the root cellar and helped her father churn a gallon of ice cream made with the Claibornes’ final peaches of the season.

Labor Day Sunday. A
day
for barbecues, for Frisbee matches and watermelon seed spitting contests.

Labor Day Sunday, a
night
for beer kegs and wild parties with no fears of hangovers or punching time clocks the next morning.

Labor Day Sunday, and she was no closer to moving on than she had been at the beginning of the summer. She was a prisoner of her own need to put Robert back in jail.

The dashboard clock claimed it was only a little past nine, but Tessa was sure it had to be later. She was exhausted. She had slept very little the night before, and the long drive to Manassas had stripped away any lingering energy. The Owenses’ street was busy, with people pulling in and out of parking spaces, carrying sleepy children to cars and calling goodbye to family and friends after the day’s festivities. She half expected someone to rap on her window and ask why she was sitting there. But no one paid any attention.

The Owens house was quiet. A lamp burned in what was probably the living room. The family car was parked in the driveway, and she was sure she’d seen movement behind the sheer curtains. She wondered if she had come all this way just to keep tabs on Robert’s mother. There was certainly no guarantee Robert was here. For all she knew, he might have spent the day with friends. If so, how long could he resist the enticement to drink? The icy cold six-packs, the colorful Jell-O shots? How long would he resist driving himself to and from these parties?

Her eyelids were heavy, and the car was growing warmer. When the air got too hot, she would turn on the engine and run the air conditioner. But for now the temperature simply made her sleepier.

She turned on the radio and found a political talk show. She settled back to listen to dual pundits discuss the presence of air marshals on all flights leaving Reagan National Airport. And before they had decided whether it was a good idea, she fell fast asleep.

She awoke to the sound of a car starting. For a moment she didn’t know where she was or why. She forced her eyelids open and struggled to focus. She felt as if she were swimming toward a distant surface, her lungs bursting. The air in the car was stifling, and there was a saxophone wailing on the radio.

Before she could pull all her thoughts together, someone rapped on the passenger side window. She drew a startled breath. A palm slapped the window, making more noise.

“Tessa!”

She recognized Mack’s voice. She fumbled for the button that would unlock the side door, but as she found it, she saw a car careen out of the Owenses’ driveway. She caught a glimpse of Robert at the wheel.

Mack opened the door and dropped into the passenger’s seat. “Follow him.”

Tessa was fully awake now. She already had the engine running and the car in gear. She screeched out of the parking space before Mack had his seat belt buckled.

She tried to make sense of her husband’s presence. “What…?”

“Just drive.”

She turned the corner in pursuit of Robert and saw him just ahead. He was driving at least fifty in a twenty-five mile-per-hour zone, and she struggled to keep up along the narrow development streets. “Get my cell phone. In my purse. I’ve got a local cop on speed dial. First number. He knows the situation. Tell him where we are and what’s happening.”

She had to concentrate on driving, but beside her she heard Mack fumbling through her purse; then, as she turned another corner on to a wider road, she heard Mack explaining the situation.

Mack gave directions; then he spoke to her. “He says to keep Owens in sight if you can without taking any unnecessary chances. He’s in a patrol car not too far away, and he’s calling it in on the radio. I’ll give him updates if I can.”

“What are you doing here?” she demanded.

“I promised you coverage every night.”

“But you said—”

“I know what I said, and I know what I promised. And whether I think this is a good idea doesn’t matter. You need coverage. I decided to make sure you got it.”

At that moment, everything in her marriage seemed to fall into place. She had been right about Robert, but she could just as easily have been wrong. Despite this, Mack had seen her need, and despite his own misgivings, he had tried to fulfill it.

She saw how much Mack loved her and exactly how much that love meant. And she saw how close she had come to throwing it away.

“You were right about him,” Mack said.

She felt no exultation, although she had expected to. “The way he’s driving, he’s going to kill somebody else.”

Mack, who rarely cursed, let forth with a torrent of blistering profanity.

She turned another corner. Robert was farther ahead of her now, weaving from one side of his lane to the other. She wondered if he knew he was being followed. He was clearly drunk. He had to be drunk to be driving so erratically.

“I don’t know if I can drive fast enough to stay with him,” she said.

Mack finished updating the cop again before he spoke. “Just concentrate on the road. I’ll tell you if he turns. But don’t drive any faster than you’re comfortable with. The police will get him. We just have to keep him—”

She swerved just in time to avoid a dog who stepped into the street from the curb, even as the man who was walking him tried to haul him back.

She struggled to straighten the wheel. She heard Mack’s breath catch as she nearly hit the opposite curb. Perspiration glazed her palms and forehead. She was breathing too fast, and her heart was as loud as a jackhammer in her ears.

“Slow down, Tessa.”

Some part of her wanted to; a larger part knew that she couldn’t. “I’m not going to have another death on my conscience. If somebody else dies because Robert gets away, it will be my fault!”

“Slow down!”

She saw Robert’s car on the next block, making a sharp right turn on to a four-lane street. There was no one else between them. She was beginning to accelerate again when she heard a siren coming up behind her. If she was stopped, Robert would get away. Panicked, she pressed harder on the accelerator, but the cop was faster, and not in pursuit of her. He passed her.

She touched the brake gently, pressing slowly and carefully until she was going a safe speed.

“They’ll get him,” Mack said.

She was gulping for air. She felt as if she were strangling.

Mack touched her arm. “You said
another
death on your conscience.”

She was trying to breathe slowly, but she was not successful. She could see the police car just ahead and Robert farther in the distance. “She was my baby,” she gasped. “I should have seen what would happen. I should have known. I should have protected her. I owe her this!”

“Tessa…”

She heard tears in his voice. She was nearly crying, too. She wondered if she would be whole now, if she would be absolved of her guilt. Robert Owens would be going back to jail tonight. For the remaining years of his sentence, he could not kill again.

With growing despair, she realized she felt no pleasure and no absolution.

“He’s not stopping,” Mack said. “He’s ignoring the siren.”

“He’s scared.” Drunk or not, she knew the young man must be terrified. He deserved to be, yet some part of her could understand his panic, his desire to flee, his vision of a future behind bars. She wished now that she had been wrong. She wished that he had changed, that the time he had spent in prison and in rehabilitation had really turned his life around. For the first time she realized that on some level she had been wishing for this all during the past weeks, even as another part of her had hoped for the worst.

“There’s another cop coming.” Mack pointed and she saw another patrol car turning in from a side street, lights blazing and siren splitting the air.

Robert turned again, followed closely by both patrol cars now. She fell back, not willing to be involved in a high-speed chase, but she kept them in sight and made the same turns they did. She needed to know the ending, to see Robert led away again so that she could finalize this chapter in her daughter’s death.

Then she saw an attractive brick building and saw the sign for Prince William Hospital.

“He’s slowing down,” Mack said.

She saw he was right. Robert was turning into the entrance. As she watched, he stopped and almost before the car stopped shuddering, he was out and running around the side.

The first patrol car caught up with him and, with lights still flashing but sirens off, pulled up beside him. The driver got out. She thought she saw Robert waving his arms.

“Is he giving himself up?” She couldn’t tell.

“I don’t know. Pull into the parking lot.” He pointed. “We might as well see this through to the end.”

She was already turning. She pulled to a stop in the lot across from the main entrance. She and Mack got out at the same time. She was trembling and her legs felt weak. As if he knew, he came around to help her.

“I feel sick.” For a moment she thought she was going to vomit. She lowered her head, and he rubbed her back.

When she straightened at last, Mack’s head was bowed, his fingertips against his forehead.

“I’m okay.”

He opened his eyes. “They just took someone inside.”

“Inside?”

“The E.R. The cop got somebody out of the passenger seat.”

She didn’t understand.

“I think he was bringing somebody here to the hospital, Tessa. When I got to his house, I saw your car. I pulled into a spot down the street and started toward you. That’s when I saw Owens backing out. I didn’t see anything up to that point. I didn’t see anyone else get into the car. Did you?”

For a moment she couldn’t speak. “His mother?” she asked at last.

“I don’t know.” He held out his hand. “Let’s go.”

She couldn’t move. If what Mack said was true, she had been terribly wrong. This had
not
been a drunken escapade. “I can’t believe it,” she said.

“Let’s go find out.”

“But if that’s what this is, then I reported him for—”

“Don’t second-guess yourself. We’re going to go in and find out and face up to whatever we’ve done here.”

She couldn’t take his hand. She had involved him enough. He might say “we,” but both knew which of them had been determined to spy on Robert and catch him in the act.

She followed him around the car, through the lot and, at last, into the emergency room. Two police officers in dark pants and familiar blue shirts were at the reception desk. The young man Tessa had never wanted to see again was sitting not far away, his head in his hands.

She could hear Mack take a deep breath, a man preparing for battle. Tears scratched her throat. She wished she had given in to the impulse to be sick in the parking lot. She felt dizzy and ill, and knew it was too late to indulge either.

Mack approached the policemen. “I’m Andrew MacRae. I called this in.”

The policeman, an African-American with wide shoulders and the physique to go with them, turned and sized him up. “The boy’s mother collapsed. Might be a heart attack. They’ve got a team with her.”

The second cop, white, portly and at least fifteen years older, turned to Tessa. “I’m Diana’s friend. She warned me you might be calling.”

Robert looked up then. He didn’t seem surprised they were standing there. Tessa supposed the second cop had already told him why they’d caught him driving and followed him here.

“You’ve been watching my house, haven’t you?” he demanded. “Waiting for me to make a mistake.”

She wasn’t about to lie. She gave a short nod.

“Somebody had to drive her here,” he said. “She was dying. She looked to me like she was dying. I’d do it again.”

Tessa closed her eyes for a moment, but his face was still there. Not a handsome face, or even a particularly appealing one. Just the face of a boy who was terrified he was going to lose the one person who had always believed in him.

“She’s the only reason I’m still here,” Robert said, his voice catching. “I wanted to die once I realized what I’d done that morning. I see your little girl’s face in my dreams. Every damned night I see it. Don’t you know that? I would die right now if I thought it would do somebody some good.”

His sorrow wasn’t an act. It wasn’t a well-rehearsed scene being played before a judge. Tessa saw that it was the simple truth.

She looked away. Something died inside her, and she knew it was the need for revenge. Because what could she do to this young man that he hadn’t done to himself? What punishment was worse than the one he would undergo for the rest of his life? In this, they were companions. Neither of them would ever forget that terrible morning. In some vitally important way, they would never move beyond it.