Tess Gerritsen - Presumed Guilty

And Chase.

No, that wasn’t possible. His shout of warning had saved her life. If not for him, she would be lying right now on a slab in Ben LaPorte’s Funeral Home.

That thought made her shudder. Hugging herself, she burrowed deeper into the couch cushions, seeking some safe little nook in which to hide. She heard the kitchen door open and shut again, then footsteps creaked into the living room and approached the couch. She looked up and saw Chase.

Weariness was what she read in his eyes, and uncertainty, as though he hadn’t quite made up his mind what should be done next. Or what should be said next. He’d shed his windbreaker. His chambray shirt was the comfortably faded blue of a well-worn, well-loved garment. That shirt reminded her of her father, of how it used to feel to nestle her face against his shoulder, of those wondrous childhood scents of laundry soap and pipe tobacco and safety. That was what she saw in that faded blue shirt, what she longed for.

What she’d never find with this man.

Chase sat in the armchair. A prudent distance away, she noted. Keeping me at arm’s length.

“Feeling better?” he asked.

“I’ll be fine.” She kept her voice like his — detached, neutral. She added, “You can leave if you want.”

“No. Not yet. I’ll wait here awhile, if that’s okay. Until Annie gets here.”

“Annie?”

“I didn’t know who else to call. She said she’d be over to spend the night. You should have someone here to keep an eye on you. Make sure you don’t slide into a coma or something.”

She gave a tired laugh. “A coma would feel pretty good right now.”

“That’s not very funny.”

She looked up at the ceiling. “You’re right. It isn’t.”

There was a long silence.

Finally he said, “That wasn’t an accident, Miranda. He was trying to kill you.”

She didn’t answer. She lay there fighting back the sob swelling in her throat. Why should it matter to you? she thought. You, of all people.

“Maybe you haven’t heard,” he said. “The car belonged to your neighbor. Mr. Lanzo.”

She looked at him sharply. “Eddie Lanzo would never hurt me! He’s the only one who’s stood by me. My one friend in this town.”

“I didn’t say it was him. Lorne thinks the driver stole Mr. Lanzo’s car. They found it abandoned by the pier.”

“Poor Eddie,” she murmured. “Guess that’s the last time he leaves his keys in the car.”

“So if it wasn’t Eddie, who does want you dead?”

“I can make a wild guess.” She looked at him. “So can you.”

“Are you referring to Evelyn?”

“She hates me. She has every right to hate me. So do her children.” She paused. “So do you.”

He was silent.

“You still think I killed him. Don’t you?”

Sighing, he raked his fingers through his hair. “I don’t know what to think anymore. About you, about anyone. All I can be sure of is what I saw tonight. It’s all tied in, this whole bloody mess. It has to be.”

He looks so tired, so confused, she thought. Almost as confused as I am.

“Maybe you should move out of here for a few days,” he said. “Until things get sorted out.”

“Where would I go?”

“You must have friends.”

“I did.” She looked away. “At least, I thought I did. But everything’s changed. I pass them on the street and they don’t even say hello. Or they cross to the other side. Or they pretend they don’t see me. That’s the worst of all. Because I begin to think I don’t exist.” She looked at him. “It’s a very small town, Chase. You either fit in, or you don’t belong. And there’s no way a murderess could ever fit in.” She lay back against the cushions and stared at the ceiling. “Besides, this is my house. My house. I saved like crazy for the down payment. I won’t leave it. It’s not much, but at least it’s mine.”

“I can understand that. It’s a nice house.”

He sounded sincere enough, but his words struck her as patronizing. The lord of the manor extolling the charms of the shepherd’s hovel.

Suddenly annoyed, she sat up. The abrupt movement made the room spin. She clutched her head for a moment, waiting for the spell to pass.

“Look, let’s be straight with each other,” she muttered through her hands. “It’s only a two-bedroom cottage. The basement’s damp, the water pipes screech and there’s a leak in the kitchen roof. It’s not Chestnut Street.”

“To be honest,” he said quietly, “I never felt at home on Chestnut Street.”

“Why not? You were raised there.”

“But it wasn’t really a home. Not like this house.”

Puzzled, she looked up at him. It struck her then how rough around the edges he seemed, a dark, rumpled stranger hulking in her mauve armchair. No, this man didn’t quite fit on Chestnut Street. He belonged on the docks, or on the windswept deck of a schooner, not in some stuffy Victorian parlor.

“I’m supposed to believe you’d prefer a cottage on Willow Street to the family mansion?”

“I guess it does sound — I don’t know. Phony. But it’s true. Know where I spent most of my time as a kid? In the turret, playing around all the trunks and the old furniture. That was the only place in the house where I felt comfortable. The one room no one else cared to visit.”

“You sound like the family outcast.”

“In a way, I was.”

She laughed. “I thought all Tremains were, by definition, in. ”

“One can have the family name and still not be part of the family. Or didn’t you ever feel that way?”

“No, I was always very much part of my family. What there was of it.” Her gaze drifted to the spinet piano, where the framed photo of her father was displayed. It was a grainy shot, one of the few she still had of him, taken with her old Kodak Brownie. He was grinning at her over the hood of his Chevy, a bald little gnome of a man dressed in blue overalls. She found herself smiling back at the image.

“Your father?” asked Chase.

“Yes. Stepfather, really. But he was every bit as wonderful as any real father.”

“I hear he worked for the mill.”

She frowned at him. It disturbed her that Chase was obviously acquainted with that detail of her life. A detail that was none of his business. “Yes,” she said. “Both my parents did. What else have you heard about me?”

“It’s not that I’ve been checking up on you.”

“But you have, haven’t you? You and your family have probably run my name through some computer. Criminal check. Family history. Credit report—”

“We’ve done no such thing.”

“Personal life. All the hot and juicy details.”

“Where would I find those?”

“Try my police record.” In irritation she rose from the couch and moved to the fireplace. There she stood focused on the clock over the mantelpiece. “It’s getting late, Mr. Tremain. Annie should be here any minute. You’re free to leave, so why don’t you?”

“Why don’t you sit back down? It makes me nervous, having you up and about.”

“I make you nervous?” She turned to him. “You hold all the cards. You know everything about me. What my parents did for a living. Where I went to school. Who I slept with. I don’t like that.”

“Were there that many?”

His retort struck her like a physical blow. She could think of no response to such a cruel question. She was reduced to staring at him in speechless fury.

“Don’t answer,” he said. “I don’t want to know. Your love life’s none of my business.”

“You’re right. It’s none of your damn business.” She turned away, angrily clutching the mantelpiece with both hands. “No matter what you learn about me, it’ll all fit right in with your image of the mill worker’s daughter, won’t it? Well, I’m not ashamed of where I came from. My parents made an honest living. They didn’t have some trust fund to keep them in caviar. Like some families I know,” she added, leaving no doubt by the tone of her voice just which family she was referring to.