A Lady Under Siege(55)

“I didn’t say I practice what I preach,” he smiled. “I’m a human being. We’re all liars and hypocrites.”

“Not always,” she protested. “Sometimes we’re good. Thank you for asking about her. I’ll tell her you did.”

“Whatever. Is that it?”

“No. There’s something else. Thomas has spoken to me. He spoke to Sylvanne, exactly as I asked him to.” She hesitated, searching for the right tone. “It was very cute. He was amazed you brush your teeth.”

“Jesus Christ. He’s going to have to do better than that.”

“Oh he did, he did. He’s smart enough to figure out tooth brushing isn’t all that rare and exotic in this day and age, so he moved on to something else he saw you do yesterday. You went to visit your mother, because your sister asked you to. She was worried because your mom didn’t recognize her anymore.”

Derek raised an eyebrow.

“Your mom’s only seventy-seven, but she must have some kind of early-onset dementia. Her memory is going. She lives in some kind of home. A big building with lots of floors, lots of elderly folks.”

“Uh huh.”

“And when you got to her room, she was thrilled to see you, and you were quite relieved that she recognized you—and then she called you Thomas.”

Derek’s open face turned thoughtful. “Know what?” he said. “This is getting weird.”

“That’s what Thomas said too—he looked at your mom and was shocked at how much she looked like his mom. But he felt a connection when she looked at you—at him—and then when she said his name he knew she felt the connection too. He just knew it.”

Derek studied her face carefully, looking for some hint that this might still be an elaborate practical joke. If not, what was it? She met his gaze, and they locked eyes.

“What is your game?” he asked.

“It’s not a game.”

“Whatever it is, it’s pretty good,” he said. “Except for one thing. There’s an orderly on her floor named Thomas. As we walked to the elevator she said hi to him. Did your Thomas tell you that?”

“No, he didn’t. Don’t tell me you’re still holding out on me, Derek! That orderly is irrelevant, he wasn’t in the room when you spoke to your mother. No one was, except you and her. Now how could I possibly know all the intimate details of a conversation that only you and your mother shared? How could I know what your sister said to you on the phone?”

“I don’t know. You’re not the type to hack a phone line, you wouldn’t have the skill set. But you could have hired someone—tapping into a cordless is easy as tuning into a radio. Or you could listen in by putting your ear to our common wall here—I’m loud when I’m on the phone, and I pretty much repeated the conversation to my sister when I got home. Or maybe you’ve drilled a hole through the wall, or hidden a mini-cam. Maybe you’ve hired a private detective to stake me out, tail me across town. I’ve seen the movies, I know what lengths an obsessive female will go to, to ferret out a man’s secrets.”

“What reason could I have to obsess about you?” Meghan cried in exasperation. “Have you looked in the mirror lately? Have you looked at how you live? Have you looked at where you live? You know what this room screams to me? Three things—cockroaches, bedbugs, and head lice. All harmoniously coexisting in perfect, squalid harmony. I’m sorry, Derek, squalor is not attractive, to me or to any other woman on the planet.”

“I have no trouble finding women, thank you very much.”

“Right. You bring them in at two a.m. and they’re out by three. But this is all beside the point. The point is, I came over here with what I thought was clear and obvious proof, thinking you’d finally have to accept the truth—why can’t you face up to it?”

“Put it this way,” he said. “I’d prefer if you turned out to be just plain old-fashioned nuts. It’s not even pejorative. More like welcome to the club.”

“I’m not nuts,” she answered. She took a deep breath. “Look, I’m sorry I got my back up. I’m the guest here, the one intruding into your space, your life, and it’s not my place…” She hesitated, like a high jumper staring at the bar, visualizing what it would take to make the leap. After all the cutting things she’d said to him just now he stood before her without malice. He still looked upon her with an open, unguarded face, willing to hear her out. She felt her nerve almost fail her, and then she spoke. “In your mother’s room there’s a photo. Of your wife and child. They’re dead.”