Night Hunter (47 page)

For all she knew, John could be the assailant. It made sense that he’d try to steer her in another direction. He’d been the number one suspect in Corinne’s case. He had lied about knowing Corinne. If he lied once he could lie again and again. He could be the informant, as well. He could have planted the butcher tape at Tammy’s house and then again in the Corde’s freezer. She hadn’t been there for any of it. It was John, after all, who’d pointed a finger at Amelia and Kincade. And perhaps he’d continue to point fingers, as long as they were pointed away from him.

“
Stop looking at me like that,” he said. “Christ, Regina, surely you don’t suspect me?” She continued to stare silently at him. He turned and walked several feet into the room. “Are you going to let me explain?”

She nodded, once.

He sat on the arm of the couch. “I didn’t tell the truth about Corinne —it is Corinne we’re talking about here, isn’t it?”

“
Yes. Unless there was something else you lied about.”

“
I figured if you knew Corinne and I had been friends—”

“
You were
lovers,”
she said.

“
All right. I was afraid if you knew we had been lovers and that I was a suspect in her assault, you wouldn’t trust me.”

She opened her mouth to protest, but he put up a silencing hand.

“
I wanted you to get to know me first. To realize I was incapable of doing something like that to a woman I cared
about,
to any woman, for that matter.”

“
I got to know you. My God, I went to bed with you,” she said vehemently. “How much time did you need?”

“
I know. But it just never seemed to be the
right
time.”

“
Why are you involved? Why is it so important for you to solve this case now, twenty years later?”

“
To clear my name. To avenge Corinne. To ...”

“
Go on.”

“
To protect you.”

“
I was in just as much danger then as now.”

“
I wasn’t in love with you then,” he said softly.

Regina stared into his eyes. There was no teasing glint. They were serious, brooding. Something twisted slowly inside her.

“
What about Wilma. Did you and she ... ?”

“
We shared a bed and that was it,” he answered. “We’re friends.”

“
And the Hungarian girl?”

“
There’s nothing to tell you about her. She--”

“
Oh Christ!” Regina said in exasperation. She whirled around, grabbed the knob, had the door halfway open before he, bounding across the room, slammed it shut again. He pulled her away and blocked the door with his body.

“
I saw you two,” she said. “Do you hear me, I saw you two walking, like lovers, down the street after you’d stood me up.” She paced to the couch, turned and came back, pushed at him. “Get out of my way.”

“
I know you saw us. I didn’t lie to you about walking Ilona home. I just didn’t mention it. Regina, Ilona could have been attacked that night. Right here in my apartment. Attacked by him, the one we’re looking for.”

“
What are you trying to pull now?”

“
Ilona was taking a bath. I had no idea that she was here in my apartment, in my tub. I was with you, remember. I always leave my door unlocked and she came in and made herself at home. When I came down to get the wine I heard her calling my name. He bushwhacked me —that’s how I got this.” John rubbed the bruised lump on his forehead. “Then he ran out. And that’s not all. The night Donna Lake was attacked, I saw someone prowling around this apartment house.”

“
Why didn’t you call the police when he broke into your apartment and hit you?”

“
And implicate myself even more? This is my apartment. Ilona had no idea what had happened. She saw only me.”

“
Why didn’t you tell me?”

“
I didn’t want to scare you. If you’d known he’d been this close ...”

Regina tried to swallow and found it difficult to do so. She cleared her throat and tried again.

He reached out to touch her face, she pulled away.

“
Regina, what can I say or do to make you believe me?”

“
I want to see Corinne,” Regina said.

He stared at her for several long moments. “I don’t think she’ll be receptive to a visit.”

“
I want to try.”

“
When?”

“
After today’s show.”

He nodded. Their eyes met and held. “Regina ...” he moved in, his mouth coming forward to brush against hers.

She turned, opened the door and rushed out of his apartment.

Regina arrived at the station at two o’clock, two hours before airtime. Though she hadn’t seen them yet, she knew that Nolan and Amelia were together somewhere in the studio, ready to take over.

At 3:20 she got the call to see Max.

“
Shut it,” he said when she entered the office.

An eyebrow went up, but she said nothing as she closed the door.

“
I feel like a ref at a tag-team match.”

“
Only I don’t have a teammate,” Regina said.

“
You got Tom. And you got me. He dragged deeply on his cigarette and forgot to blow the smoke out. “This is a helluva note. Donna wants you, and Nolan wants Amelia. Donna usually does what Nolan wants. But everyone does what I want.” The smoke finally came out, reminding Regina of the worm with the water pipe in
Alice in Wonderland.
“What do
you
want, Regina?”

“
I want what Donna wants.”

“
Any problems, other’n those created by Nolan and that woman?”

“
You mean with the show?”

“
Course I mean with the show. Since when have I started butting in on your personal business?”

“
No problems.”

“
Ratings are up. I can’t argue with that.”

Regina looked down at her hands in her lap.

“
Well, go on and do whatever it is you have to do before airtime. If Nolan gives you any trouble, tell him to come to me.”

“
Thanks, Max.” She rose.

“
What’s your opinion of that Corde woman? Do you think she’s got screen appeal?”

“
She looked good on the tape.”

“
Looked good, huh?”

“
Max, I--”

“
Oh, don’t fret, I’m not thinking about her for host on ‘City Gallery’. She’s too tightass for that. I was thinking about that two-minute beauty spot at the end of the show.”

“
You’re hopeless, Max.” She laughed lightly. “No, I wouldn’t have a problem with that.”

“
Yeah, well, it was just a thought.”

He crossed to the door and opened it. Regina was about to go out when she heard raised voices coming from the control booth. She and Max exchanged puzzled looks, then followed the voices. Nolan and Tom were facing each other, their bodies rigid with anger.

“
You stay away from my wife,” Nolan said to Tom. “Just stay the hell away from her or I’ll have your ass.”

“
Look, you sonofabitch, Donna may be your wife, but you damn well don’t deserve her. How can you do that to her? She’s given you two hundred percent of herself. She’s off the show temporarily and you panic, start latching onto what you see as another meal ticket. You’d toss away a wonderful woman like Donna for a handful of power?”

“
Mind your own business, mister,” Nolan shot back, pointing a finger at the director. “What I do is none of your damn concern.”

“
If Donna wasn’t so blind with love for you, she’d see you for the crud you are. The only reason I haven’t told her about you and that woman is that it would break her heart. And God knows she’s suffered enough.”

“
So tell her. You think she’s going to believe you? It’s obvious to her, and everyone in this studio, that you want her for yourself.”

“
You’re damn right I want her. I love her. Hear me?
I
love her. That’s more than you can say.”

“
You’re pathetic, Gansing. She’s feeding off your sympathy. Do you think she would have had anything to do with you before she got her face messed up
by—”

Nolan’s words were abruptly cut off by Tom’s fist to his jaw. Max ran into the room and pulled Tom away.

As Regina turned sharply to leave the room, she caught a glimpse of Amelia ducking back into Nolan’s cubicle.

John wondered how Corinne would react to a visit from him after all these years. She had adamantly refused to let him see her after the tragedy, and when he had called her after Donna’s assault, she had told him never to call again. He doubted that anything had changed. Maybe he hadn’t been as important to her as she’d been to him. After all, at eighteen he was little more than a street kid, no job, a school dropout, into booze, low-level drugs, and fighting to get and keep what he wanted. The only thing he’d wanted that he hadn’t been able to fight for had been Corinne, and only because she herself had turned him away.

He picked up the phone in his apartment and dialed her number. After a dozen rings the phone was answered. The voice that spoke a lethargic greeting was deep and hoarse.

“
Corinne, it’s Jack. I have to talk to you.”

There was a long silence before the voice, a raspy whisper, said, “Stay away.” Then she said no more.

After many minutes, with John gently coaxing her to speak to him, the line was disconnected.

As Donna looked at her two sons that Saturday afternoon she felt a great emotional rush of pride and love. So handsome, both of them. She had missed them terribly these weeks in the hospital.

It was 5:20. The three of them had watched ‘City Gallery’ on the elevated TV and now both boys were engrossed in cartoons about transformers. Junior, the oldest, sat across the room in a club chair. His brother, Nigel, was curled up on the bed beside Donna, his fingers rubbing absently at the satin trim around the sleeve of his mother’s bed jacket.

Donna thought of Tom and she felt a poignant stirring in her stomach. Tom was so sweet and caring. It was obvious he loved her. For the first time since she’d known him, she allowed herself to think of him in a way other than a good friend and co-worker. She remembered how his hands had held hers tenderly, squeezing affectionately, and she had squeezed back. When he left, he had bent down to kiss her forehead, as was his usual departing gesture, and she had surprised herself by lifting her face until their lips met. The kiss was brief, chaste, yet filled with wonder and excitement.

She smiled.

At the commercial Nigel turned to his mother. “How long do you have to stay in this place, Momma?”

“
I can leave tomorrow, I hope.”

“
Will you be as good as new. Like before?”

Donna smiled. “Not quite. Better than now, of course. I have to heal first. Then the doctors will fix me up
almost
as good as new.”