Mean Streak(71)

Knight was smiling, but Emory noticed that he’d kept open-ended the option to prosecute. “To the best of my knowledge,” she said, “I fell on the Bear Ridge Trail. I hit my head, sustained a concussion, and lost consciousness. When I came to, I didn’t know where I was, and a combination of unpredictable circumstances prevented me from getting back. I owe my life to the kindness of a man who remains a stranger. After a few days of rest, I should be fully recovered. That’s the statement you should give the media.”

Essentially it was the truth.

They seemed to think it over. Knight looked over at Grange, and Grange said, “It’s the best we’ve got.” As though to soften his obvious dissatisfaction, he politely asked if she would continue her marathon training.

“Not right away.” She looked at her injured foot and said ruefully, “I won’t be ready for the upcoming one.”

“That is a shame,” Knight said. “Jeff told us how hard you’ve worked organizing it, making it an event.”

She wondered if they knew about their heated argument on that topic but saw no point to mentioning it now.

Knight stood up, signaling an end to the interview. “Well, don’t want to tucker you out.”

“Will I see you tomorrow before Jeff and I leave for Atlanta?”

Knight said, “Prob’ly not.”

“Then I’ll thank you now. I know you put a great deal of time and effort into finding me.”

“It’s our job.”

“Even so, thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

As he and Grange were about to leave, she said, “Would you do me one final favor? Would you please ask Dr. Butler to come in?”

“Remind me which one that is.”

Grange nudged his partner toward the door. “The woman.”

When the doctor came into the room a few moments later, Emory was glad she came unaccompanied. As she neared the bedside, Emory reached out and clasped her hand. “First of all, thank you for dropping everything and driving up here today.”

“Everyone at the clinic has been frantic with worry. The office staff, nurses. Even patients. Suffice it to say Neal and I have been at wit’s end. You’re the heart and soul of the clinic.”

“I don’t know about that.”

“No false modesty allowed. The practice was your vision, your initiative. Besides that, we all love you.”

“As you demonstrated by offering the reward,” she said huskily. Then, “Lord, I need another Kleenex.” She popped one from the box and dabbed at her eyes.

“Are you sure you’re as all right as you let everyone think?”

“I’m all right. I just need to ask you to do something for me, and it’s rather sensitive.”

“Of course, Emory,” she said, moving closer. “Anything.”

“Please bring me some morning-after pills.” Emory saw her initial shock turn into alarm.

“He raped you? The man in the cabin? Have you told the deputies? Did they prepare a rape kit in the ER? What about Jeff? Have you told—”

“I wasn’t raped.”

Emory’s quiet but emphatic tone stopped her. She actually swallowed audibly.

“We were intimate, but the sex was consensual. It was—” Emory stopped before submitting to the sob pressing against the back of her throat.

Rendered speechless by the disclosure, the doctor sank into the chair recently vacated by Sam Knight and for a time simply stared at Emory. Finally finding her voice, she said, “The story you told the detectives, was it all a fabrication?”

“Not the backbone of it.” She didn’t expand on what had been half-truths and evasions and what had been complete falsehoods. The lies had to be hers alone.

“I remain flabbergasted. I don’t know what to say.”

“There’s nothing to say.”

“I beg to differ. It’s so…so un-Emory-like to—”

“Have unprotected sex?”

“To have any kind of sex with a stranger. He was a stranger, wasn’t he?”

“He was four days ago.” She smiled wistfully. “Not so much of one now.”

Unable to bear her friend’s mix of compassion and bewilderment, she turned away and looked toward the lavish bouquet of white calla lilies that Jeff had brought to her room shortly after she was checked in.

“It’s not as out-from-nowhere as you might expect. I’m almost certain that Jeff is seeing someone and has been for quite some time. I could use that as justification for what I did, but that would be disingenuous and unfair. I didn’t do it to punish Jeff. The fact is, I didn’t take Jeff into account at all. I wanted to be with this man, and he wanted to be with me, and that was all that mattered.”

“Will you see him again?”

“No.”

You outdid yourself on the memories, Doc.

They’d exhausted themselves and had been lying spooned, fitted tightly together like two pieces of a puzzle, limbs entwined, hands clasped against her breasts. She’d been on the verge of sleep when he’d rubbed his face in her hair and whispered those words.

Then, Would have been easier if you hadn’t.

Probably he hadn’t intended for her to hear that annotation, or the bleakness that underscored it. He must have felt, as she did now, doomed never to be entirely happy again.