Greg Iles - Sleep No More

“He could sell a lot of equipment on his own.”

“Yes, but the real money in your company is in oil production. Correct? The monthly runs, and the reserves you hold. I assume those are worth millions of dollars?”

“Yes.”

“And I’m sure you’ve held on to a lot more production than Cole has.”

“Yes.”

“You see what I’m getting at?”

Waters did. “It would take Lily’s help for Cole to sell off my existing production.”

“I know this is a painful line of thought, but we have to look at the facts. Last night, Lily acted in a manner that furthered your belief that Mallory Candler has somehow returned to haunt you. What logical explanation could there be for that? Does Lily have any romantic history with Cole?”

“No.”

“She was three years behind Cole and me at St. Stephens?”

“She was a freshman when you guys were seniors.”

“Did she and Cole ever date?”

“Not at St. Stephens.”

“What about Ole Miss?”

Waters felt strangely uncomfortable. “They did have a few dates there. Two or three. We always laugh about it when it comes up. Lily despises Cole.”

“Let’s talk about Ole Miss for a minute.”

“There wasn’t anything to that, Penn. Nothing sexual, anyway.”

The lawyer didn’t look convinced. “Cole doesn’t strike me as the kind of guy who’d spend much time with a girl who didn’t put out in college.”

Waters felt his face coloring.

“I’m not trying to piss you off, John. I’m trying to make you look at things objectively.”

“I hear you. But I really think Lily would have told me if she’d slept with Cole.”

“Women are funny about their sexual pasts. So are men, for that matter. They say that when a man gives you his number of conquests, you should divide by three, and when a woman does, you should multiply by two.”

Waters tried to think about it without emotion. “Okay, what if they did sleep together in college? What you’re suggesting now is that they’ve revived that relationship, and they’re using their knowledge of my past to drive me insane or send me to prison. That’s crazy.”

“It may sound crazy. But you find yourself in extraordinary circumstances. So extraordinary that you’ve attributed them to a supernatural cause rather than face potentially painful facts.”

“We don’t have any facts. Only circumstances.”

“Highly suggestive ones.” Penn stopped beside a complicated wooden play set, reached over his head, and closed his hands around a horizontal ladder. “You have to be strong, John. Your freedom is at stake. Maybe even your life.”

“I know it is. I don’t want to lose my wife and daughter.”

Penn dropped his hands from the ladder, sat in a swing, and looked up at Waters with sadness in his eyes. “You’re still not grasping what I’m telling you. You may already have lost your wife. I want you to drop all your preconceptions and try to answer a truly terrible question.”

“I’ll try.”

“Is it possible that Lily hates you? Secretly, I mean.”

“What?”

“You heard me.”

Waters was stunned by the anger he felt at his old friend. Penn seemed to be trying to make him suffer as much as he could, and for no good reason. “You’ve got to tell me why you asked that.”

Penn swung slowly back and forth. “I’ve been trying to look at this situation without making any assumptions whatever. Just analyzing what’s happened so far. And I’ve tried to think like a woman. Perhaps a mentally disturbed woman.”

“You mean Lily?”

“Yes. Does Lily know about Mallory’s abortions?”

Waters thought about it. “I told her about the first one. To explain Mallory’s fixation, you know? Why she was a threat.”

“Could she know about the second one as well?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Did Cole know about both abortions?”

“Yes. What the hell are you getting at?”

“Your wife lost two children to miscarriages. One was very traumatic. I think it’s possible that Lily blamed you for those miscarriages. Not in some vague subconscious way, but very specifically. That she believed you caused them, and that she hates you for it.”

“Why would she blame me for that?”

“In a state of grief and clinical depression, she might be quite capable of deciding that her miscarriages were some sort of karmic payback for Mallory’s abortions. You basically forced Mallory to kill the children you conceived with her, and Lily might think you were owed some sort of divine punishment for that.”

Waters was outraged by the suggestion. “That’s the most twisted thing I’ve ever heard!”

“But not outside the realm of what a grief-stricken mother might seize on as a reason for her suffering.” Penn stopped swinging, his eyes somber. “Tell me the truth. After Lily lost those babies, did you never feel-even for a moment-that what you had forced Mallory to do was somehow the cause of it?”

Waters stood with his mouth open. Though he wanted to deny it, he could not.

“Guilt is a powerful thing, John. Especially in a man like you, with a highly developed conscience. I know, because I’m the same way.”

Waters walked over and sat in the swing beside Penn. He had to cling to the chains to hold himself steady. “If your goal was to blow my mind, you succeeded. I’m willing to consider your theory. You say Lily and Cole are in this together. Sleeping together. But Lily doesn’t even like sex. After she lost those babies, we basically went without it for four years.”

“Maybe that should tell you something.”

“Like what? That she’s sleeping with my best friend? A guy whose sexual habits she despises?”

“After Lily lost the baby, were you patient with her about resuming sex? Very careful and considerate?”

“Of course!”

“Maybe that wasn’t what she needed. Maybe that made her think about it too much. Maybe she needed someone to just take her and be done with it.”

“No way.” Waters struggled to control his temper. “That’s not Lily. I know my wife.”

Penn reached out and touched his shoulder. “None of us really knows anyone. Not even our own parents or siblings. And last night, Lily showed you that she has a lot more sexual knowledge and skill than you ever suspected.”

“This is bullshit. ” Waters got out of the swing and kicked it against a wooden post. “I can’t even remember what it felt like to be normal!”

“The normal man is a fiction,” Penn said. “There is no ‘normal.’ Not for women either. Your life is on the line now, John. You have to face reality, no matter how terrible it might be.”

Waters had heard all he wanted to. He got out his keys and started walking back toward the house.

“Where are you going now?” Penn called.

“The office. I want to talk to Sybil.”

“About Cole and Lily?”

“Maybe. I don’t know.”

“Be careful. Call me if you find out anything important. And let’s talk later today in any case.”

“I’ll call you.”

“Don’t forget.”

Waters gave him a dispirited wave and walked around the side of the house to the street.

Sybil Sonnier walked into Waters’s office wearing a Black Watch skirt and a forest-green blouse. He had buzzed her the way he normally would, and she stood waiting as though expecting a request for photocopies. He wasn’t sure how to begin. He’d never gotten to know Sybil very well, and her mood had not been the best for some time. As the silence dragged on, her dark Cajun eyes widened, and she gave him a look like Am I in trouble?

“Is this about my work?” she asked finally, making Waters realize he’d been sitting there like a department store mannequin.