Catherine Coulter - The Edge

"Your story to me about meeting Jilly at your library- she was looking up articles on infertility of all things, you told me. I don't buy that, Laura. To the best of my knowledge Jilly only realized she wanted to get pregnant about six months ago, at the outside. She wouldn't even have started to worry there was a problem yet, would she?"

She rose slowly to her feet. She took a hard breath, her face set. "I'm not lying to you. That's exactly how I met Jilly. I don't personally know much of anything about infertility. How long does it take for someone to become concerned about not conceiving? I haven't a clue. Maybe she's been trying for quite a while and just didn't tell you. That's certainly possible, isn't it? Jilly might not have been very well educated, but she wasn't stupid."

"You really believe Jilly was uneducated?"

"That's what she told me. She said she barely scraped through high school, said that one of her teachers wanted to get in her pants and so he passed her, helped her graduate. She was always talking about how brilliant Paul was, what a genius he was, and how she was content to just be in the background and take care of him. I thought that was ridiculous, but it was what Jilly really believed, evidently what she really wanted. She said she wanted his child. She asked if I could begin to imagine how bright his child would be? Then she'd shudder and say that if the kid had her brains and her no-talent they'd all be in big trouble. I didn't tell her that I think Paul is too skinny, doesn't take proper care of himself, that he's losing his hair, and that I hope he doesn't pass that along to a kid."

If she was lying, I'd never in my life heard anyone better. I said, "This is all pretty strange, Laura. I guess then Jilly never told you that she's a scientist, a researcher with a master's degree in pharmacology? That she'd completed all her course work for her Ph.D. but put it on hold because she was more interested in the projects she was doing than writing a silly thesis, her words?

"Why would she lie to you? Why would Paul back up her lie when you were with the both of them?

Come on, Laura, if someone saw you last night, you'd better dredge him or her up because, frankly, I don't believe you. There's no proof of any crime yet, no proof that someone took Jilly from the hospital against her will, but as far as I'm concerned, I'd say you need an alibi."

"Wh-what?"

I thought Laura was going to pass out. She turned utterly white and leaned at the last minute against a white wall, barely missing a mirror with a brightly colored frame. She was shaking her head slowly, back and forth. The thing was, I wanted to comfort her, to hold her and pat her back. I wanted to bury my face in that long straight hair of hers.

"Squawk."

She looked wildly over at Nolan and spread her hands in front of her. "No, you're making that up, Mac.

Jilly told me she was a housewife, that she didn't have a single skill. I always just laughed at her when she went off on those self-bashing kicks of hers. She was so very beautiful, you see, and she had this natural confidence that made everyone respond so eagerly and positively to her. She was bright, well spoken. I can't believe it. A scientist? A master's degree?" She looked suddenly as if she was going to cry. She was still shaking her head, her hair swinging. She looked shaken and confused. It couldn't be an act, I told myself. No one was this good.

"I was sleeping all evening, all night. I was alone. Why did Jilly lie to me?"

I said, "Paul told me there was no party at all last Tuesday night, the night of Jilly's supposed accident. He said that they ate dinner alone. He said that Jilly left at nine o'clock to drive around in her Porsche and he was in his laboratory, working.

"He also admitted, finally, that he hadn't slept with you, that he'd wanted to but you weren't interested."

She looked like a blind person, feeling her way along the back of two chairs until she finally collapsed onto a section of the sofa. She lowered her head to her hands, her hair falling forward. "This is crazy," she whispered through her hands. "I don't understand any of it."

"That makes two of us. But the fact remains that Jilly is gone. Vanished." I had to attack straight on, I thought, whether I liked it or not. "I want to know where she is, Laura. I want to know how you convinced her to leave with you. I want to know how you managed to get out of the hospital without anyone spotting you."

She looked up at me, eyes focused and hard. Her voice was fierce. No more shock or palpitations out of her. "Listen up, Mac. I didn't lie to you, about any of it, the party included. I told you I had to leave early to give Grubster a pill. If there turned out not to be a party, that has nothing to do with me or with what Paul and Jilly told me."

"Where is Grubster?" I asked, looking around. Who would have a cat around when Nolan was sitting quite at his ease on the back of a chair, looking at my coffee cup?

She shook her head as she rose from the sofa. "Now you don't even believe I have a cat." She left the living room. I heard her light steps up the stairs. When she returned a couple of minutes later she was carrying a huge tiger-striped cat. "This is Grubster. As you can see, he likes his food. He weighs eighteen pounds. He doesn't move very quickly, unless it's a matter of food. He's nearly eight years old. He just looks at Nolan and yawns. Sometimes they just have staring contests. Sometimes Nolan even deigns to sit on his back and dig around behind his ears with his beak."

"Squawk."

Laura looked over at the bird. "Come here, Nolan, and say hello to Grubster."

The cat yawned and curled up next to Laura on the sofa. The mynah bird hopped from chair back to sofa section until he was finally looking down at the cat. Grubster cocked an eye open and regarded the bird with complete indifference.

"Would you like some more coffee, Mac?"

I just nodded, staring from Grubster to Nolan. Someone was hanging me out to dry. Someone was playing a very big game with me and I didn't have a notion yet about the rules. I didn't know where the game left off and reality kicked back in. I also had no clue where Jilly had gone. Laura's claim that she'd had a bad headache and slept throughout the night was a good one, one I couldn't check out.

Laura handed me a new cup of coffee. Steam was snaking off the top of it. I took a sip. It was delicious.

Maybe she'd tossed in a dash of Amaretto. I drank some more, trying to get my brain back on track.

She handed me a chocolate chip cookie. She couldn't have known they were my favorite. I ate two, to help soak up the dash of alcohol in the coffee, then said, as I watched her drink her own coffee, "When you were at Jilly and Paul's last Tuesday night, what did you do after dinner?"

She took another drink of her coffee. "Very well. There were just the three of us. I got there about six-thirty. Jilly wanted fish. Paul made a salad, spinach, I think. I sliced and garlicked some bread. We ate, then listened to some music. Jilly and I even danced a couple of numbers. Paul drank a good bit. Jilly knew I couldn't stay late because I had to work at the library the next morning and because Grubster needed meds. She told me that some other people were coming, but later, so I'd have to meet them another time. We'd have another party in Edgerton real soon, she said."

I leaned forward in my chair. "Is this the truth, Laura?" She remained silent for a long time. I sipped more of my coffee, watching her.

"There's more, isn't there?"

She looked down at Grubster and began to scratch behind his ears. I could hear the cat purring from where I sat.

Finally she nodded. "Yes, there is more. I really don't want to talk about it, but Jilly's gone, and I know you won't be happy until you know everything, even if it doesn't have anything to do with what happened to Jilly." She sucked in a hard breath. "When Jilly went to the kitchen, Paul grabbed my breasts and pushed me down on the sofa. He started kissing me, tried to shove his knee between my legs. Then he heard Jilly call out something from the kitchen, and he jumped back away from me. He was breathing real hard. I looked at him and told him he was a creep.