Marla started for the bed, but, as if she sensed the movement, Cissy opened her eyes and whispered angrily, “Just leave me alone, okay?”
“Honey, pleaseâ”
“Don't, Mom. Just . . .” She dashed away her tears with the back of her hand, leaving dark smears of mascara on her cheek. “Just . . . go.”
Marla didn't. She couldn't. Not yet. When the rift between them was growing wider by the minute. She sat on the edge of her daughter's bed and smoothed Cissy's bangs from her eyes. The girl stared out the window at the black night, turning her head and lifting a shoulder, silently ostracizing her. Marla plunged on, vaguely aware of Nick waiting on the other side of the threshold. “I know this is hard. For you. For me. For Dad . . . but I'm trying, honey, I'm trying really hard, and soon things will be better. I've been remembering things. Just today I remembered James's birth.”
Cissy stiffened. “Did you?” she sneered, still clutching the stuffed animal and staring out the window.
“Yes.”
“What about mine? Did you remember that, too? I was your first.” Gold eyes dared her to deny the truth.
Marla felt a jab of guilt and wanted to lie, but didn't. Cissy would see right through any fabrication and it would only make things worse. “Not yet.”
Cissy sent out a short disgusted breath. Her lips twisted as if at some private, painful irony. “You probably won't. Not ever,” she said.
“Of course I will. Just give me time.” Marla touched Cissy's cheek again but the girl winced as if she'd been burned.
“You know you came running in here a little while ago. You . . . You were like some kind of maniac, acted like you'd seen a ghost or something and scared the crap out of me.”
“Oh, honeyâ”
“And then,” Cissy cut in, her voice rising an octave, “and then . . . and then . . . I found you in the hall puking and crying and . . . Mom . . .” her voice suddenly cracked.
Marla's heart bled. She wanted to gather her daughter in her arms and hold her fiercely and promise never to let go, but as she reached for Cissy's arm, the teenager scooted to the far corner of the bed and Marla, sighing, rolled to her feet. She was getting nowhere with her daughter, was only making a horrible situation worse.
Nick was waiting for her, one shoulder propped in the doorway to Cissy's room. He fell into step with Marla in the hall.
“She hates me,” Marla whispered as he walked her to the elevator.
Nick held the door open and Marla stepped inside to sag against the back wall of the small car. “She's a teenager. You're her mother. All teenagers act like they hate their mothers.” He pressed the button for the first floor.
“No, it's more than that.”
“Don't worry about it tonight.” He touched the bottom of her jaw with one finger and lifted her chin, forcing her eyes to his.
“You think I have more important things to do?”
“Concentrate on getting your memory back.”
“Believe me, there's nothing I want more.”
He glanced down at her lips and for a second she thought he might kiss her bruised mouth. The air in the little car was suddenly thick, hard to breathe. The elevator stopped. Nick dropped his hand.
The door opened and Eugenia stood waiting in the foyer. Bony fingers fiddled with the strand of pearls at her neck. She glanced from her son to Marla and censure tightened the corners of her mouth. “I've called Lars. He'll drive you.”
“I'll handle it,” Nick insisted, helping Marla with a raincoat from the front closet.
“But he's already got the car warmed up andâ”
“I said I'm taking care of it,” Nick stated more forcefully, then threw on a battered leather jacket, helped Marla into a long coat, then, with a strong hand on her elbow guided her out the door and along the brick walk to the circular drive where his beat-up truck, an old Dodge that probably leaked oil and God-knew-what-else, was parked.
“What is it with you?” Marla asked. “Why are you such an outsider?”
One side of his mouth twisted up. “That's the way I want it.” He helped her into the cab, then climbed behind the wheel. With a flick of his wrist and a double pump on the gas pedal, the old engine sparked to life.
“You like being the outlaw.”
“Love it.”
“Why?”
He eased to a post supporting a keypad, pressed a series of numbers and the electronic gates hummed as they opened. “I never was one to follow the beaten path.”
“The black sheep. Rogue. Maverick.”
He shrugged. “Whatever. Never thought about it much. Just did my own thing.” He sliced her a look. “It seems to piss people off.”
“I imagine.” The truck's cab seemed suddenly too close. Intimate. The glass fogging to block out the rest of the night, the rest of the world.
“How're you feeling?”
“Like hell and don't tell me I look worse. I know.” Aching all over, Marla cast a glance over her shoulder and through the back window to the house. A golden patch of light streamed from the sitting room windows and Eugenia's dark silhouette was visible. Two floors above, in Cissy's room, another light burned but the window remained empty. Marla's daughter didn't bother to watch them leave and Marla wasn't surprised. Their relationship was tenuous at best. What kind of mother was she? Why couldn't she remember a child who had been a part of her life for nearly fourteen years?
God help me.
Resting her head against the passenger-side window, Marla sighed. Her jaw ached, her head pounded and she was alone with Nick. Again. He shifted the gears, his thigh, so close to hers, flexing as he pushed in the clutch, the fingers of his right hand gripping the gearshift and nearly brushing her leg.
He was near enough to touch. But she didn't. Would never. Or so she told herself as Nick maneuvered the truck, changing lanes on the shimmering wet streets. Raindrops splashed the windshield, the wipers slapped them away, and some kind of country music wafted through the speakers.
“So what was it that made you get sick?” Nick asked as he shifted down and braked on the steep grade that cut between skyscrapers and smaller buildings, the lights of the city blazing bright. Pedestrians hurried in the rain, traffic rushed through puddles and a deep mist seemed to creep through the alleys.
“I don't know. Bad soup? Nerves?” She lifted a shoulder.
“You didn't feel it coming on?”
“A little. I thought it would go away.”
He sent her a look that called her a dozen kinds of fool. “So you just woke up andâ”
“No.” She stared at the taillights of a minivan as it rounded a sharp corner. She decided to tell him the truth. “I didn't wake up because I felt ill. There was more to it.” She slid a glance in his direction, saw his fingers tighten on the steering wheel. “I woke up because I thought I heard something.”
“What?”
In for a penny, in for a pound, she thought fatalistically. “I know this sounds completely wackoâparanoidâbut I woke up because I felt, I mean, I thought someone was in the room with me. A man. He was hovering over the bed and he said something like â
Die, bitch!
' ”
“
What?
Jesus Christ, Marla, are you serious?” His head jerked and he stared at her hard. He took a corner too fast. The back tires slid before catching. “There was someone in your room?”
“It's crazy, I know, I know,” she said quickly. “Of course no one was there when I turned on the light and I walked, well, ran around upstairs, checked on the kidsâthat's what Cissy was talking about. But I didn't see anyone, so I told myself it was all part of a bad dream and went back to bed.” Goose bumps rose on her skin as she remembered the terror she'd felt, the conviction that someone had actually gained access to her bedroom. She cleared her throat and stared through the windshield. “I told you it sounds paranoid.”
“You should have called down to me.” The lines around his mouth and eyes grooved deep.
“I said I thought I was dreaming. Anyway, when I was in the nursery, I had a breakthrough. I
remembered
having the baby.”
“You did? Anything else?”
“No . . . not yet, but I felt like it was going to happen, that I was going to regain my memory, so I held the baby for a while, then went back to bed, still feeling pretty awful. The next thing I knew I was throwing up.”
“Jesus,” Nick whispered.
“I think everything will come back. Soon. That's one reason I didn't want to go back to the hospital. I didn't want to backslide. I don't want any drugs that might slow this down.” She reached for his arm then. “I have to remember and soon. Or I will lose it.”
“Can't say as I blame you.”
She dropped her hand, leaned back in the seat.
“We're almost there.” He cranked on the wheel, turning down a side street. A car rounded the corner from the opposite direction. Headlights blazed bright. Harsh. Blinding.
Just like before! On that mountain road!
Marla's heart stopped. The air was suddenly trapped in her lungs.
A jagged piece of memory sliced through the lining of her mind. In a flash she remembered other twin beams, right ahead of her, blinding her. In her mind's eye she relived the horrifying moment. Witnessed the impact. The windshield shattering into a million blazing shards, a woman screaming as if she was being tortured, the sound of screeching, wrenching metal.
“The accident . . .” she whispered, shaking. Horror tore through her. She relived that terror-riddled moment and tried to step on brakes that didn't exist. Vividly she replayed the scene, saw the semi careening down the hillâfaster and faster, roaring down Highway 17 and out of control. She screamed. The eighteen-wheeler swerved wildly, catching a man in its headlights.
NO! OH, GOD, NO!
The man would be crushed.
Marla's eyes slammed shut and she was breathing, panting, crying . . . Again she saw metal wrenching upon metal, sparks flying . . . No! No! No! The guardrail gave way and the tires blew. The car hurtled down the embankment and . . . and then hit. Then there was blackness . . . nothing . . .
“Marla!” Nick's voice was strangled with fear. A hand was on her shoulder, shaking her. “Marla!”
Her eyes flew open. She was in the pickup in San Francisco. With Nick. Trembling and sobbing. “I . . . I . . .” Tears rained from her eyes as she turned to Nick. “I remember the accident,” she said. “It was horrible . . . there was something . . .” She squeezed her eyes shut, remembered Pam. “Oh . . . oh . . . No, don't die, don't die!”
Nick stood on the brakes. He cranked on the wheel and nosed his truck into a loading zone on a side street. Marla was barely aware of him cutting the engine, but she felt his arms wrap around her and didn't resist when he dragged her close to him. “Shh. It'll be all right,” he said, though she knew he was lying.
He kissed her crown of short hair, folding his arms tighter around her.
“I killed her, Nick,” she said, her soul scraped raw as she remembered the horror of Pam's body flying into the windshield. The blood. The screams. The darkness. She clutched Nick's jacket in one fist and cried brokenly, gasping and sniffing, trying to find some bit of composure as she remembered being blinded by headlights . . . but there had been no car driving in her lane . . . or were the headlights from the truck that had suddenly rounded the corner? Was she confused? Her memory contorted? Her head throbbed, her jaw ached.
But the image painted in her mind was vivid. There had been a man in the road. A dark figure in the glare of her lights, and then suddenly, as if he'd pulled a switch, he was ablaze in light, harsh, blinding, painful light . . . shining so bright that she couldn't see . . . And she'd swerved, just as the truck had rounded the corner and caught the man in its bright headlights.
Now, in the safety of Nick's arms, she drew in deep ragged breaths. She realized how desperate she'd become, how she was clinging to Nick's jacket, and slowly she uncurled her fingers and tried to push her body from his. Strong arms held her fast. “It's all right,” he said again. “Now, what is it? Tell me what's going on.”
“Please . . . let me go.”
“Is that what you want?” he asked, his voice low and she looked into eyes as dark as midnight. Somewhere deep inside she felt a stirring, a want, a need to connect, but she swallowed hard and nodded.
“Yes.”
His grip loosened and she extricated herself. Leaning back against the seat, she ignored the feel of him still lingering on her skin, the musky scent of him, the need she felt for his strength. Her blood was racing, her heart pounding, her nerves tingling with a million conflicting emotions.