Mean Streak(81)
“Okay,” Alice said slowly, clearly mystified.
“How did Jeff know my glasses had broken when I fell?”
Alice took time to think it over. “You repeated your story several times throughout the afternoon. You must have mentioned the sunglasses at one time or another.”
She gnawed her lower lip. “I don’t think so.”
“Are you implying… What are you implying?”
“Just hear me out, please. Since our reunion this morning, Jeff has been like a different person. He’s hovered. He’s been protective, loving, even contrite. Not at all like him, as you know.”
“Emory—”
“I know what you’re going to say. You’re going to say that would be normal penitential behavior for a man who’s been having an affair.”
“That’s exactly what I was going to say. In light of your close call, he feels truly rotten and wants to atone for straying.”
“That makes sense, and I would agree, except that his coddling feels phony and forced. Like he’s putting on an act. I don’t feel comfortable around him. He’s made me very ill at ease. I know it sounds crazy.”
“It doesn’t sound crazy. It does, however, sound like it’s coming from someone who took a hard blow to the head. Did they give you a sedative tonight? It could be affecting—”
“This isn’t medication talking. I’m not delusional. I’m not hysterical.”
Alice’s silence on the other end indicated that perhaps she did sound hysterical. She rolled her lips inward to prevent herself from saying anything that would affirm it.
Alice said, “Let me be sure I understand. You’re suggesting that Jeff was there, that he had a hand in the injury that caused your concussion?”
“If he didn’t, how did he know about my sunglasses?”
Alice took a deep breath. “All right, say he did incapacitate you. Then what? He left you for this mountain man to kidnap? Do you think Jeff and he were in cahoots?”
“No. Impossible.”
“More impossible than what you’re alleging?”
“I’m not alleging anything. I’m just—” What was she doing?
“Have you told the two detectives about this?” Alice asked.
“Not yet.”
“You should.”
“I considered calling Sergeant Knight, but I wanted confirmation about the sunglasses first. I hoped you would tell me yes I definitely referenced them, or no I definitely did not.”
Softly Alice said, “You didn’t. Not in my hearing.”
Emory expelled her breath in a gust. “Thank you.”
“But how many times had you told the story before Neal and I arrived?”
“Several. Fragments of it anyway.”
“Can you absolutely swear that you didn’t at some point mention your sunglasses?”
When she looked back over the day, it was a jumble of incomplete impressions, as though someone had made a jigsaw puzzle of it, then tossed all the pieces into the air and let them fall.
She’d been suffering the impact of her reentry into normal life and concentrating so hard on not trapping herself in a lie, perhaps she had referred to her sunglasses and simply didn’t remember doing so.
“No,” she admitted softly. “I can’t absolutely swear to it.”
Alice waited several moments, then said, “I believe you took something Jeff said in passing and blew it out of proportion.”
“I’d like to think so. Truly I would. But I have such a strong gut feeling that something isn’t right.”
“May I offer a couple of explanations for why you feel that way?”
“Please.”
“You’ve been through an ordeal that packed a wallop, emotionally as well as physically. You suffered a brain injury, a mild one, but a brain injury nonetheless. You slept with a stranger. In terms of Emory Charbonneau’s comfort zone, that’s outside the stratosphere. Naturally, you’re feeling a bit fragile, insecure, even frightened.”
“I hear what you’re saying, Alice. But when have you known me to let my imagination run wild, or to go all aflutter in a crisis situation?”
“Never. But this was no ordinary crisis. This was your crisis.”
She sighed. “All right, that’s one explanation. You said you had a couple.”
“Guilt, perhaps?”
Emory thought about it. “I’m finding fault with Jeff to assuage my own guilt for sleeping with another man?”
“I’m no psychiatrist, but that kind of transference seems logical, doesn’t it?”
“I suppose.”
“You don’t sound convinced.”
She wasn’t. She had done the exact opposite by resolving not to blame Jeff for her adultery. “It’s not entirely unthinkable that Jeff was somehow involved. The detectives suspected him.”
“He was cleared.”
Yes, Emory thought, but only because I showed up alive.
Alice was saying, “Jeff isn’t the warmest individual, and, in fact, he can be a self-centered son of a bitch. But during one of our conversations while you were still missing, he told me he wanted to be an ideal husband to you, the kind that you deserve.” She paused, then added in a heartfelt whisper, “I swear to you, he couldn’t have harmed you.”