Sandra Brown - Low Pressure

“Did you actually see Susan leave the pavilion with him?”

“Yes.”

“Did you follow them?”

“No.”

“Okay…” He drew out the word in the form of a lead-in.

She continued swinging, going a little higher on each arc. “Okay, what?”

“What did you do?”

She started to speak several times before words actually formed. “I headed for the boathouse.”

“Why the boathouse?”

“I… I think I went to find Steven.”

“You think you went to find him?”

The swing made several pendulous cycles before she said, “The sky was getting darker. I’d seen Steven walking toward the lake and wanted to make certain that he was aware of the approaching storm. I thought he should come back to the pavilion.”

“But neither of you made it back to the pavilion in time. The funnel dipped out of the cloud, you both got caught at the boathouse and had to take cover there.”

She nodded.

“What about Susan?”

She turned her head toward him as the swing sailed past. “What about her?”

“You weren’t worried about her, too?”

“Of course I was.”

“But you didn’t chase after her.”

“She was with Allen.”

“All the more reason to check on her.”

“Maybe I did. I—”

“You said you went to find Steven.”

“Yes, yes, just like in the book.”

“Forget the friggin’ book.”

He set his swing to rocking crazily when he quickly abandoned it. He stepped in front of Bellamy’s swing and grabbed hold of the chains, bringing it to an abrupt halt and wedging his thigh between hers to hold the seat high off the ground.

“What are you doing?”

“More to the point, what are you?” he asked. “This makes twice today that you’ve stalled there. Why? How come your memory is so detailed about what you wore and shoulder straps that kept slipping down, but you go all vague and sputtery when recounting what you did and where you were between the time you saw Susan return from her drinking binge at the boathouse, to when they dragged you from beneath the collapsed roof of it?”

She gazed back at him, wide-eyed and apprehensive. “I testified at Allen Strickland’s trial that I went in search of Steven. I was in the boathouse when the tornado struck. I wasn’t that badly hurt, but I was traumatized by fear, in shock. That’s why I was one of the last people to be accounted for, hours after the storm, even after Susan’s body had been recovered. I heard people—my own parents—frantically calling my name, but I couldn’t respond. I was literally frozen from fear.”

“That follows what you wrote in your book.”

She bobbed her head once.

“So why don’t I believe you?”

Her chin went up a fraction. “Believe me or not, that’s your problem.”

“You’re damn right it is. I’ve got somebody trashing my airplane all because of you and the can of worms you opened. And this is a big, fat, juicy, squiggly one. You falter every time I ask whether or not you followed Susan and Allen Strickland.”

“I didn’t.”

“You’re sure?”

“No. I mean—Yes, I’m sure. No I didn’t follow them. You confused me before and you’re trying to now. When I left the pavilion I ran toward the boathouse.”

“Okay, so why did you choose to warn Steven of the storm, and not your sister?”

“I didn’t make any such choice,” she exclaimed.

“But you did, Bellamy. You just said so. You went toward the boathouse because you’d seen Steven going in that direction.”

“That’s right.”

“Is it?”

She wiggled forward on the seat of the swing, trying to reach the ground with her toes. “Let me down.”

Instead, he moved in closer, using his body to hold her in the swing and the swing off the ground. “Did you find Steven? Were you able to warn him to seek shelter?”

“No.”

“You’re sure of that?”

“Of course I’m sure. That’s why I was alone when they found me in the rubble.”

“You didn’t go after Susan? You didn’t see her after she left the pavilion?”

“No and no.”

“Did you also testify to that under oath?”

“I didn’t have to.”

“Because?”

“Because no one ever asked me. Until now ,” she said with vexation.

“So if you didn’t swear otherwise, you might’ve followed her and Allen into the woods.”

“But I didn’t.”

“No?”

She set her chin stubbornly and refused to answer.

He joggled the chains of the swing. “A.k.a?” he said in a singsong voice. “Cat got your tongue?”

“Why are you bullying me about this?”

“I’m only trying to get to the absolute truth.”

“I’ve told you the absolute truth.”

“You didn’t chase after Susan.”

“No.”

“I’m not convinced.”

“Too bad.”

“Why does this point trip you up?”

“It doesn’t.”

“Yeah. It does. How come? There’s gotta be a reason.”

“Let me down, Dent.”

“Did you run after Susan?”

“No.”

“You didn’t?”

“No!”

“Bellamy?”

“ I don’t know! ”

She gasped in stunned surprise at her own admission, and for several seconds they stayed frozen, their faces inches apart, staring into each other’s eyes. Then her head dropped forward and she repeated miserably, “I don’t know. And that’s the absolute truth.”

He’d pressured her for clarification, but hadn’t really expected it to be this consequential. If he had it to do over again, he might have relented sooner. As it was, he needed to get a grasp of the worrisome implications.

He pried his fingers from around the chain and, with that hand, tipped her head up. Tears were sliding over the freckles on her cheekbones. Her eyes were wet, deeply troubled, haunted.

“I can’t remember,” she said hoarsely. “I’ve tried, God knows. For eighteen years I’ve tried to bridge the gap. But that span of time is blocked out in my memory.”

“Specifically, what do you remember?”

“Specifically? I remember going down to the boathouse and seeing Susan drinking with her friends. Specifically, I remember her coming back, dancing with Allen Strickland, and making a spectacle of herself. I remember watching them leave the pavilion together.”

She looked at him and said helplessly, “But it’s like… like the broken center line on the highway. Sections of time are missing where I don’t remember what I did, or what I saw.”

She hiccuped a soft sob. “Yesterday I told you that I wrote the book so I’d be able to throw it away and forget it. But that was a lie. I wrote it in the hope of remembering .

“And what I think… what I’m afraid of… is that someone read the book, and knows what I left out. He knows whatever it is that I can’t remember. And he doesn’t want me to.”

Dent wished he could dismiss her fear, but he’d come to the same unsettling conclusion. Someone was afraid that the constant retelling of the story would unlock a memory that had been sealed deep inside her subconscious for almost two decades.

Bellamy the child with a faulty memory hadn’t represented much of a threat to that individual. But Bellamy the woman with a best-selling book definitely did. You’ll be sorry now seemed less of a warning than a vow.

Also Dent feared that this elusive memory she so desperately wanted restored was one better left in the vault of her subconscious. Her psyche had blocked it for a reason. She might later regret learning why she’d been protected from it.