Bed of Lies (6 page)

He knocked on the door, then walked in. "Ready?"

She nodded.

She had been uneasy all week, worried he'd call the whole thing off, despite how it would look to cancel at this late date. Of course, he could always break the engagement later. Even once they were married, she now realized, she might well still not ever truly feel safe. Marriages ended all the time. She just wanted one place in the world where she could feel safe. She'd thought that place would be with him.

"Steve, I just want to be a good wife to you," she said finally. "I want to make you happy."

"No more surprises?" His hands closed over hers at the words.

"No more surprises," she promised.

* * *

It went well.

She smiled and nodded as she walked through the crowd on Steve's arm. He introduced her to everyone, a hint of what sounded like pride in his voice. With a champagne toast, Steve's parents made the formal announcement, which surprised no one but was a nice touch. She gave Steve a quick kiss, then touched her champagne to her lips. She never did any more than that. Some fears never went away.

Which had her thinking of her mother, first a simple
if only she could see me now,
followed quickly by relief that her mother wasn't there. She'd be drunk by now.

She and Steve made one more round of the room, accepting congratulations. When he slipped away to deal with a business associate, Julie walked onto the terrace. The path through the extensive formal garden was discreetly lit and looked inviting. She needed a moment to herself, but hadn't gone five feet when she heard footsteps behind her. Sighing heavily, she braced herself for making nice to one more person.

Then she turned around, and there was Zach.

"Julie." He took her by the arm, steering her more deeply into the garden and away from the house.

She stopped on the other side of a six-foot hedge and snatched her arm away. "What are you doing here?"

"Relax. I didn't even go inside the house, just followed the path around to the terrace. I was sure you'd come outside sooner or later."

"If Steve sees you, he'll have a fit. Do you really want to ruin this for me?"

"Of course not. I just needed a minute. You didn't give me your phone number, and it's not listed in the book. I thought about coming by the store, but Steve works there, too, right? I guess I could have left a message for you at the store, but I really didn't think you'd call me back. So here I am."

"Why?" she asked.

"I need to tell you one thing. That's it, and I won't bother you again, okay?"

She looked at him warily. "Steve and I are engaged now. It's official."

"Good for you," he said.

But already, she felt like everything she'd ever tried to run away from was grabbing at her, like a dozen unseen hands.

"Hey, nobody died or anything like that." Zach took her hand between his, and no matter how much she didn't want him there, for a moment his touch felt like the kind of anchor she'd always needed in her life.

"Then don't tell me," she said. "Do you think anyone back there's wasted a moment worrying about whether I'm okay?"

"I don't know, but I think you're better than them."

Trust Zach to find just the thing to say to get to her. Still, she was determined. "I'm done trying to fix their messes. I've been doing that since I was eight or nine years old."

She'd made excuses and apologies by the hundreds. Lied like a pro. That's where she'd learned how. When things were good she worried about keeping things running smoothly and her mother and stepfather sober. When things were bad she tried to figure out how to make them good again. She never let herself relax.

"I'm afraid your mother's been working at one of the local banks and some money turned up missing," he blurted out.

"She stole money from a bank?"

"Looks like it." Zach frowned, hands shoved deeply into his pockets.

"Sorry."

"Why? You didn't take the money."

"Force of habit, but it still doesn't matter. That's the beauty of being a woman from St. Louis who has no family."

"Julie, the evidence shows your stepfather was involved, too. I know the county attorney. Let's just say I know things I shouldn't about the case. They're headed for an arrest, and when that happens..."

"Oh." She got it now. Julie spotted a stone bench a few feet away and went to it, sinking down on the cool, hard surface. "What's going to happen to Peter?"

"That's why I felt like I had to tell you. Stealing from a bank is no small thing. Getting them out of jail is going to be expensive, if they can even make bail. And in the meantime... Peter."

"Where will he go?"

"I don't know. I thought you might," Zach said. "Is there anyone else? A relative somewhere?"

"There must be. Not on my mother's side of the family, but on my stepfather's side somewhere. But I don't remember names or where anyone was from."

"If they can't come up with anybody, he's looking at foster care. Who knows? Maybe he'll get lucky. I know social services would try, but..."

"But there aren't a whole lot of foster kids who end up as lucky as you."

"That's for damned sure," he said.

"Sorry. I didn't mean to imply you were lucky for what you went through."

"No, I was better off. I consider myself very lucky. But Peter..."

"What about your parents? Are they still taking in foster kids?"

"From time to time. Unfortunately, they have two little girls right now. Sisters. A sexual abuse case. It was a cousin of theirs not much older than Peter who did it. Social services won't allow them to take a boy of Peter's age into their home now. It would be too difficult for the girls."

"Well, there has to be someone..."

She willed herself not to picture her brother's face when he was little and scared. When her parents had done something crazy or the house had been in an uproar. When he was crying and looking to her to make it better. There'd been times when he'd clung to her, like she were the only solid thing in his world. She'd dried his tears, cuddled him close and lied to him, telling him everything would be okay.

And then she'd just left. Years of trying to hold everything together had worn her down. She couldn't do it anymore, and Peter... Well, things had changed between them. By the time she left, he hadn't thought of her as his savior anymore, and she hadn't been capable of saving anyone but herself. Surely there came a time when she was allowed to do that. To save herself.

She looked around the garden and up toward the house, all the twinkling lights and soft voices. She'd made a place for herself here. It was the best place she'd ever known.

"There's nothing I can do, Zach."

"Sure there is," he shot right back. "You can go back there and see him through this."

"No, I can't."

"What's stopping you? The guy you think you want to marry?"

"He thinks I don't have any family. I can't tell him now that I do and that they're embezzlers." She could imagine how that would go over with Steve and her future in-laws.

"Tell him whatever you have to, Julie. Lie if it comes down to it. You're good at that."

She flinched as she stared up at him. He had never been cruel before.

"Shit, I'm sorry. Really, I am. I had no right to come at you that way. Kids being abandoned, no one to help them... That sort of thing has always gotten to me," Zach admitted. "I know this is everything you've tried to get away from all these years, Julie. I understand that. But Peter... Can you really turn your back on him now?"

"I wouldn't be any good for him," she said. "I don't know anything about taking care of a kid. Plus, I might as well be a stranger to him. He probably hates me for leaving him all alone with them."

"He won't be in a position to turn you away. He won't have anyone else."

"I'm sorry," she said. "I can't go back there."

He laughed, a humorless sound. "So am I."

They stood staring at each other. When she couldn't take the disappointment in his eyes for one more moment, she turned to leave, but hadn't taken three steps when she ran right into Steve.

She stopped short, staring at him. Zach came around the corner, nearly running her over. The two men glared at each other. Steve had her arm in a punishing grip, and she was practically sandwiched between the two men once again, as she had been in the restaurant.

"You're going now, I assume?" Steve said.

Zach hesitated, glancing pointedly at Julie and then her arm. "You going to be okay?"

"She'll be fine," Steve answered for her.

"I will," she reassured him. Steve would never intentionally hurt her. His hold was loosening already.

"All right," Zach said. "I guess that's it. Bye, Julie."

"Steve," Julie began as Zach disappeared into the night, "I can explain."

"Not now. We have guests. We're going to the house and pretend nothing happened out here—"

"Nothing did."

"And when everyone's gone," he said, his voice turning harder and even more unforgiving, "you can say whatever you want, and I suppose I'll listen. But right now I don't want to hear a word about it."

So she pasted on a smile and pretended nothing was wrong, as she'd done so many times in her life. The party turned interminable. Her feet ached. So did her head. She'd have a bruise on her arm, she feared, but it wasn't like she'd never had one before. It had just been a while. She'd forgotten how it felt. The way you carried the mark around with you, feeling it and then seeing it long after the argument was over. The way it made you remember, when you wanted to forget. The way it made it harder to pretend.

Finally, the party was over. She and Steve said good-bye to his parents, and walked together to his car. He opened the passenger-side door for her and, once she'd climbed in, shut it behind her, a display of courtesy she found ridiculous at the moment.

She sat in the plush leather seat and hung her head. This kind of control scared her a bit. She wasn't sure what lurked beneath it. She and Steve had seldom disagreed about anything.

Without a word, he drove her to her apartment, parked and cut the engine.

"I'm sorry," she began. "He just needed to tell me something."

"And he had to do that at our engagement party?"

"I didn't even give him my phone number, Steve. It's unlisted. He said he thought about coming by the store, but he knew that would upset you—"

"So he thought sneaking around in the dark at our party would be better?"

"Something happened to someone I used to know. And Zach thought I needed to hear about it."

"Something?" he repeated. "To someone you can't tell me about?"

"Does it really matter? It's all in the past—"

"Right now it's very much in the present. It's our engagement party. I found you hiding in the dark with your hands all over another man."

"I..." She had to think. What had they done that he could have possibly misconstrued? "He held my hand for a minute. I was upset. Then he started to walk away, and I stopped him by putting my hand on his arm. That was it. Steve, I've told you. Those people... They're nothing to me. I haven't been back in eight years. Nothing could drag me back to Ohio again—"

"Ohio?" He zeroed in on that. "What the hell is in Ohio, Julie?"

She gaped back at him.

This was beneath a liar of her caliber.

"I don't..." What could she say? No little lies sprang to mind.

Julie was practically struck dumb. It was the Zach curse. He seemed to short-circuit that instinctive skill she had at evasion and deception. All her wires got crossed, and it took a while before they straightened out again. She should just hide after talking to him and give herself time to get back to normal.

"What's in Ohio? Zach, right?" he asked.

Give it up, Julie.

Zach had said that to her so many times.

What was the use in fighting it now?

"Yes. He's never lived in St. Louis," Julie admitted. "And neither have I."

Steve laughed again. So many people were laughing tonight who were clearly not amused.

"I just... It's just a place where I lived, Steve. That's where I knew Zach and his family. But I don't want to have any ties to that place anymore, and I liked saying I was from somewhere else."

It had been false security, at best, but she'd take any sense of security she could find.

"I'm sorry," she said.

Steve nodded. "Me, too."

"Can I... Would you like to..."

"Get out of the car, Julie."

"But—"

"What I'd like is for you to get out of the car. Now."

* * *

He hadn't asked for his ring back. She thought about that later as she lay in bed, curled up into a miserable ball. Of course, he might ask tomorrow. Or the next day. Or the next.