Catherine Coulter - The Cove

He stopped, plowing his fingers through his hair. "Damn, we're getting off the subject, Sally. Forget about The Cove. Just forget Amabel. She and her town are three thousand miles away. I want you to try to understand why I did what I did. I want you to understand why I had to keep silent about who I really am and why I was at The Cove."

"You want me to agree that it was fine for you to lie to me, to manipulate me?"

"Yes. You lied to me as well, if you'll recall. All you had to do was scream your head off when your so-called father called you, and I was manipulated up to my ears. A beautiful woman appealing to my macho side. Yeah, I was hooked from that moment."

She was staring at him as if he'd lost his mind.

"Jesus, Sally, I came flying into the room like a madman to see you on the floor, staring at that damned phone like it was a snake ready to bite you, and I was a goner."

She waved away his words. "Someone was after me, James. Nobody was after you."

"It didn't matter."

She began to laugh. "Actually there were two someones after me, and you were the second, only I was too stupid, too pathetically grateful to you, to realize it. I'm leaving, James. I don't want to see you again.

I can't believe I thought you were a hero. God, when will I stop being such a credulous fool?"

"Where will you go?"

"That's none of your business, Mr. Quinlan. None of what I do is any of your business anymore."

"The hell it isn't. Listen, Sally. Tell me the truth about something. When Dillon and I got into your room at the sanitarium, there was this pathetic little guy who looked crazy as a loon sitting on the bed beside you, looking down at you. Did he ever hurt you? Beat you? Rape you?''

"Holland was there in my room?"

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"Yeah, you were naked and he was leaning down over you. I think he'd combed and straightened your hair. Did he rape you?"

"No," she said in a remote voice. "No one raped me. As for Holland, he did other things, that Beadermeyer told him to do. He never hurt me, just-well, that's not important."

"Then who the hell did hurt you? That bloody Beadermeyer? Your husband? Who was that man you told me about in your nightmare?"

She gave him a long look, and again that look was filled with quiet rage. "You are nothing more to me.

None of this is any of your business. Go to hell, James."

She turned away from him and walked down the wooden steps. It was chilly now. She wasn't wearing anything but that too-small shirt and jeans.

"Come back, Sally. I can't let you go. I won't let you go. I won't see you hurt again."

She didn't even slow down, just kept walking, in sneakers that were probably too small for her as well.

He didn't want her to get blisters. He'd planned to go shopping for her tomorrow, to buy her some clothes that fit her, to- damn, he was losing it.

He saw Dillon standing near the water line, unaware that she was walking away.

"Sally, you don't know where you are. You don't have any money."

Then she did stop. She was smiling as she turned to face him. "You're right, but it shouldn't be a problem for long. I really don't think that I'm afraid of any man anymore. Don't worry. I'll get enough money to get back to Washington."

It sent him right over the edge. He slammed his hand down on the railing and vaulted over it to land lightly only three feet away from her. "No one will ever hurt you again. You will not take the chance of some asshole raping you. You will stay with me until this is over. Then I'll let you go if you don't want to stay."

She began to laugh. Her body shook with her laughter. She sank slowly to her knees, hugging herself, laughing and laughing.

"Sally!"

She stared up~~at him, her palms on her thighs. She laughed, then said, "Let me go? You'd keep me if I didn't

want to leave? Like some sort of pathetic stray? That's good, James. I haven't known a single person for a very long time who cared one whit about anyone, including me, not that it mattered. Please, no more lies.

"I'm a case for you, nothing more. If you solve it, just think of your reputation. The FBI will probably make you director. They'll kiss your feet. The president will give you a medal."

She gasped, out of breath now, hiccupping through the laughter that welled up from her throat. "You should have believed my file, James. Yes, I'm sure the FBI had a very thick file on me, particularly my stint in the loony bin. I'm crazy, James. No one should believe I'm a credible witness, despite the fact that Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

you want very badly to have someone to lock up, anyone.

"I won't tell you anything. I don't trust you, but I do owe you for rescuing me from that place. Now let me go before something horrible happens."

He came down on his knees in front of her. Very slowly, he pulled her arms to her sides. He brought her forward until her face was resting against his shoulder. He rubbed his hands up and down her back. "It's going to be all right, I swear it to you. I swear I won't fuck up again."

She didn't move, didn't settle against him, didn't release the terrible rage that had been deep inside her for so long she didn't know if she could ever confront it, or speak about it, because it could very well destroy her, and the sheer magnitude of it would destroy others as well.

It bubbled deep, that rage, and now with it was a shattering sense of betrayal. She'd trusted him and he'd betrayed her. She felt stupid for having believed him so quickly, so completely.

Sally marveled that she felt such passion, such a hideous need to hurt as she'd been hurt. She'd thought he'd drained such savage feelings out of her long ago. It felt incredible to feel rage again, to feel sweat rise on her flesh, to want to do something, to want vengeance. Yes, she wanted vengeance.

She just lay against him, thinking, wondering, calming herself, and in the end of it all, she still didn't know what to do.

"You've got to help me now, Sally."

"If I don't, then you'll take me to the FBI dungeon and they'll give me more drugs to make me tell the truth?"

“No, but the FBI will get all the truth sooner or later. We usually do. Your father's murder is a very big deal, not just his murder but lots of other things that are connected to it. Lots of folk want to be in on catching his murderer. It's important for a lot of reasons. No more crap about you not being credible. If you'll just help me now, you'll be free of all this evil."

"Funny that you call it evil."

"I don't know why I did. That sounds a bit melodramatic, but somehow it just came out. Is it evil, Sally?''

She said nothing, just stared ahead, her thoughts far away from him, and he hated it. He wanted to know what was going through her mind. He imagined it wasn't pleasant.

"If you help me, I'll get your passport and take you to Mexico."

That brought her back for a moment. She said with a quirky smile that she probably hadn't worn on her face in a very long time, "I don't want to go to Mexico. I've been there three times and got vilely sick all three times."

"There's this drug you can take before going. It's supposed to keep your innards safe from the foreign bugs. I used it once when I went down to La Paz on a fishing trip with my buddies and I never got sick and we were on the water most of the time."

"I can't imagine you ever getting sick from anything. No bug would want to take up residence inside you.

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Too little to show for it."

"You're talking to me."

"Oh, yes. Talking calms me. It makes all that bile settle down a bit. And just listen to you, talking to the little victim, trying to soothe and calm her, gain her trust. You're really very good, the way you use your voice, your tone, your choice of words.