Cast a Pale Shadow(34)

"I'm fine," was all that squeaked out of her. She had the brief, preposterous notion that that was all he wanted from her, to see she was all right, to know that she still lived, and could go on living without his help. She wished it were that simple.

"I saw your report card. They mailed it to the house. You must be working hard."

"Yes. May I go now?"

"Go? I thought you'd come with me. We could go to lunch. I need to talk to you." He exuded that hypnotic charm that fooled all the women. Like a snake just before it struck.

"I can't. I already ate. I have an assignment to turn in this afternoon."

His teeth showed white, but it wasn't a smile. With deliberate slowness, he drew his thumb down the path of his scar, a trail that ended with his palm flattened over his heart. "Oh, but sweetheart, this is your father. Assignments can be made up."

The cross hatches of his scar burned into her eyes, like the flashing afterimages of the track she'd fled along. She closed her eyes and willed them away. The effort made her voice thin and tremulous. "I'm not your sweetheart. And as far as I am concerned, I have no father."

"See, I knew this would happen if we let this little misunderstanding between us fester into something worse. We have to talk things over, put them behind us, so we can go on." Never once did his cool, measured tone falter. Only the narrowing of his eyes revealed his growing impatience with her resistance. He reached out to take her arm. She ducked away from him.

"It could not get any worse and talking won't make it any better. I won't go with you today or ever. I have a new life now." She should have turned and fled from him then, denied him once and for always.

"Yes, your advisor, Miss Royal, told me all about your Uncle Pete. I didn't tell her I knew of no such relation. You didn't cool those round heels of yours long, did you, girl?" This time when he reached for her, he made sure he had her backed against a wall. There was no escape. He gripped her arm so tightly it brought tears to her eyes.

"Whoever this Romeo of yours is, I'll find him. And when I do, I'll teach him not to kidnap and seduce girls away from their families. And when I'm through with him, the police can have what they can scrape off the sidewalk. Do I make myself clear, Teresa Marie?"

"Yes, sir."

"Now, I'll give you a chance to prove yourself and perhaps save me and your boyfriend from a little unpleasantness. Come home tomorrow after you're finished here, but don't go in the house. Your mother and I are not currently residing together. You have succeeded in tearing apart a marriage of thirty years with your foolishness.

"But if you and I can settle some things, it could all work out fine. I'll meet you in the alley. If you are not there by five, I'm coming after you. Do you understand?"

"Yes, sir."

Trissa watched him leave, wishing him dead. Then she took herself to the nurse's office and threw up. Afterwards, she couldn't relinquish her grip on the cold porcelain. She didn't trust her legs to hold her up without that support. Mrs. Rowan, the health aid on duty, offered to call for a ride. Trissa had to dig in her purse for Augusta's number. She was too rattled to remember it.



*****



Augusta's voice held brittle cheer when she called Nicholas with the message. Trissa had come home sick from school, but not to worry, a little stomach upset was all. She had sent her off to bed with tea and Saltine crackers. Nicholas hung up the phone and repeated the words to himself. They had sounded politely false, like an excuse used to turn down an invitation to a dull party. When Ben came in a few minutes later to work on the books, he asked him if he could leave for the day. It was no problem, Wednesdays were slow, and it was just an hour to closing.

He smoked three cigarettes on the way home, letting the smoke drift heavily through the car, hoping the soft haze would dull his worry. Over the past two weeks, his constant yearning for Trissa played like a screeching melody on the taut bowstrings of his restraint. It was a tune that was both sweetened and sharpened by her presence.

Every morning, "I love you, Trissa" was his first waking thought, never voiced, while the soft, creamy shell of her ear was cuddled so close to his lips that she would have heard him, however faint the words. She seemed to regard his arms as extra pillows, seeking him out to nestle in them, no matter how far he edged to his side of the bed. If she woke before him, as she often did, she would wake him with a kiss that gave him pain to feel and know that it was all he could allow. He'd have to crash away from her, muttering a grumpy good morning, and shuffling off to the bathroom where he drew his bath as numbingly cold as he could stand it.

In his dreams, he held her and loved her as if the shadows of her past were long forgotten. But in his waking, reasoned thoughts, he knew that they were not, and he feared that he would damage their tenuous hold on the moment if he went too far, too fast. He must count on time to heal her.

Time, his old enemy. And more so now than ever. Augusta's phone call had set the clock ticking loudly, knocking at his brain like a visitor that would not be denied entry. A little stomach upset, she said. Why must he torment himself with the suspicion that she was hiding something more?

Augusta greeted him at the back door, and he knew his suspicions were true. She stepped out of the kitchen where Ruth chopped onions at the sink to talk to him privately.

"Nicholas, I'm so glad you came home. She wouldn't let me tell you anything more than I did. But I'm afraid there is something terribly wrong." Augusta reached out and grasped his hand urgently.

"Did you call a doctor?"

"It's not like that. I mean, I don't think a doctor could help."

"But she was sick?"

"Anxiety, I think. I checked on her a bit ago, and it's clear she's been crying, probably ever since I left her." Her hand fluttered to her forehead to flick at a wiry strand of hair. "Oh, Nicholas, I'm so worried. She looks as if the world might end, and she might welcome it."

Panic welled in him like a seeping wound. An image of Trissa's face as she knelt on the railroad tracks harrowed him. "And you left her alone?" He pushed past her into the kitchen and bolted up the stairs.

"She wouldn't let me stay," Augusta called after him. "I'm sorry."

Trissa had locked the room, as she almost never did. She had told him once that real families had no need of locks. Nicholas fumbled in his pocket for his keys, cursing the delay. From inside, he heard the bath water running.

"Trissa! Trissa, answer me!" But there was no answer. When at last, he got the bent, old key to do its work, he opened the door to find the room a shambles. Every drawer was yanked out. The closet door stood open. Empty hangers littered the floor. Trissa's old record player lay smashed on the floor, her precious 45's dumped out of their case and into the waste can.

"Trissa!" The bathroom door was ajar, but no light was visible. The room was silent, too silent. He pushed the door open. Balanced on the closed toilet seat was her suitcase, filled with all her belongings, her brush and combs, her cosmetics and hair dryer all a jumble on the top layer. Otherwise, the room was empty, or seemed that way.

"Trissa?" The total silence that answered him nearly broke his heart. But just as he turned to leave the room he found her there, in the space below the bottom shelf, curled into that small space, kneeling on the tile floor. When he reached for her hand to pull her out, her face was puffy and red from crying.

"You weren't supposed to find me." Her voice was barely audible, as if she could hide herself inside it.

"Oh, Trissa, what's wrong?" He helped her to her feet and gathered her into his arms.

"Everything. Nothing." She cried and clung to him with a tangible desperation.

Nicholas freed one arm from her tenacious hug and led her out of the bathroom. "What were you doing? Why were you packing?" He sat on the bed and pulled her into his lap. "What is this?" A purplish-red bruise banded her left arm. Half moon gouges broke the skin where fingernails had dug in. "Who hurt you like this, Trissa?"

"He came to school. They called me down, and he was there," she said in a dull monotone, as if all hope had been stolen from her.

"Who? Your father?"

She nodded her head against his chest, and his grip tightened so suddenly, she gasped then relaxed, burrowing deeper. "He says I broke up the family. He wants me to come home. I can't. I won't."

"This is your home now. We are your family." Nicholas eased his hold on her, rocking her gently. He didn't want to frighten her with his growing rage. Left unchecked, it might boil out of him while the object of his anger was far out of his reach. He had to quell it with action. He stood and she slid from his lap to stand.

"Augusta is very worried about you. Should we go down after you change? The kitchen is warm and sunny. The teakettle's bubbling on the stove. The whole crew will be coming home soon."