“I don’t,” she said, her voice muffled by the pillow.

  He took his hand off her hair.

  “Go find somebody easier. Give her the ring.”

  “Easier? There was never anything easier in my life than falling in love with you.”

  “That’s sweet,” she said, but her expression didn’t soften. “You do know how to sweet-talk.”

  He didn’t have an answer and didn’t want to touch her, so he did nothing. What else could he do?

  “I’m so tired,” she said. “Please let me sleep.”

  “Would it be all right if I lie here beside you? I won’t touch you.”

  “It’s your apartment.”

  “It’s our apartment. Would you rather I slept on the couch?”

  “Yes.” She sniffled, somewhat mollified.

  “All right. Call me if you need anything.” He started to kiss her, but settled for whispering, “Good night, sweetie.”

  He couldn’t go to sleep. Of course. He couldn’t stop his mind from going over and over the same thoughts, none of them at all helpful. The only comfort was that, at least for the moment, Desi was in the next room.

  ****

  Eric thought he hadn’t been asleep at all, but more time had passed than he expected when he checked the clock. It was three a.m., and he had heard a sound—from the bedroom?

  Desi screamed. “No, no, please, don’t!” she cried. “No! Eric!”

  He leapt off the couch and ran in, heart pounding. He groped for the switch and turned on the light.

  Desi sat straight up in bed, staring, eyes wide with horror.

  “It’s okay,” he said. “It’s me.” She gasped and clutched at her collarbone.

  “You were dreaming,” he said. He approached her tentatively, careful not to spook her.

  Her lips were pressed together, and tears stood in her eyes. “It hurts,” she said.

  “Your collarbone? Yes, you sat up too fast. Can I get you something—an aspirin?”

  “What?” She was still disoriented, half asleep. “Are they…? Did you…? Were they really here?”

  “No, it was only a bad dream. Would you like an aspirin? Hot milk? A glass of water? Anything?” What he meant was “I love you so much. Please let me help.”

  “My purse,” she said, calmer now. He glanced around and found her handbag beside the closet door. She opened it, fumbled inside, and came up with a prescription bottle. Eric filled a plastic tumbler with cool water in the bathroom rather than leave her long enough to go to the kitchen. When he returned, she had two pills in her hand and popped them into her mouth before she accepted the tumbler. “Thank you,” she said and then, speaking more distinctly than she had yet, “Those bastards!”

  He felt too much to say anything. He put the tumbler and the bottle on the nightstand where she could reach them and helped her lie down again on her left side. “Would you like another pillow?” he asked. She shook her head and closed her eyes. “Yell if you need me,” he said. She didn’t answer.

  Chapter Four

  When Eric got up in the morning Desi was still asleep. He checked on her before he showered and dressed and retrieved the newspaper from the front steps. He started the coffee maker and spread the paper out on the table while he waited. The headlines contained nothing remarkable, but on the second page under the Crime Watch heading were black-and-white pictures of two bearded men.

  The article was stupid, incomplete, and garbled. Desi wasn’t named, and Leidheldt was misspelled. The dark-haired man was Guy Andrews and the other Fraser McHenry. Eric was reasonably sure the picture of McHenry was the one he had hesitated over in the interrogation room. He had barely absorbed the few facts offered when he heard Desi in the hall. He quickly folded the paper and turned to greet her. “Good morning,” he said with exaggerated cheerfulness.

  “Morning.” She looked a little better, the pain lines smoothed out. She was still in the nightgown with the brown stain down the front, but she had combed her hair.

  “What can I get you?” he asked.

  “You don’t have to wait on me,” she said. She opened a cupboard and took out a box of instant oatmeal packets.

  “Desi, please… You’re not really going to leave, are you?”

  “I was never good enough for you in the first place,” she said. She struggled to open the box and extricate a single packet.

  “That’s ridiculous.”

  “No, it isn’t. Your parents—”

  “I don’t care what my parents think.” He moved in to help, but she fended him off.

  “Yes, you do. You have to.”

  “When they get to know you—”

  “You don’t know me. What did your father say when you called him about the lawyer?”

  “I don’t remember. It doesn’t matter. This is just between you and me.”

  She swore under her breath as she held the packet awkwardly in her right hand and tried to rip it open with her left. “Nothing is ever just between us,” she said. “Other people matter, and now I’m damaged goods.”

  “Damaged—? That is a medieval idea.”

  “Oh, is it? Ask around. You’ll find out it’s still alive and well.” She put the packet down and opened the cupboard where the bowls were kept.

  “I told you it doesn’t matter what other people think.” More gently, he asked, “Do you feel damaged?”

  She kept her eyes on the cupboard. “I feel…destroyed.”

  “Oh, sweetie.”

  She turned around and cut him off with an emphatic gesture. “Don’t. That makes me feel about six.” She glanced at the newspaper, and Eric instinctively moved it away from her, which of course only made things worse. She gave him a dirty look and snatched the paper out of his hand. She unfolded it and spread it out on the table, no easy task with one hand. Desi glanced at the first page and then at him.

  “Don’t,” he advised, but she turned the page. She studied the pictures for a long time with a distant expression that chilled him. She sat down very carefully.

  “Don’t you want to know if I killed them?” she asked.

  He hadn’t expected that. “I want to know whatever you want to tell me.”

  She made real eye contact for the first time. “Coward. You were afraid to ask.”

  “I thought I knew the answer. Did you?” He tried to say it lightly.

  “Yes,” she said in an odd, dreamy tone. “I remember…the axe… It was very sharp. It went in so easily…like slicing butter.”

  “Desi! God!” He leaned over, hands flat on the table, shaken to the core.

  “See, you didn’t know me after all.”

  “Did you tell the police this?” He dropped into the chair across from her.

  “I don’t remember.”

  He raised his eyebrows. “You don’t remember if you told the police you killed two people?”

  “Oh, they already knew. I don’t remember if I told them about the axe. I think I just remembered it now. I thought there would be more blood. Their brains were oozing out. The axe was very heavy.”

  He had thought his life had been blown apart before—now the pieces were too small to gather up. He would have to call the lawyer and ask if they should plead guilty to manslaughter. No, manslaughter meant you didn’t mean to kill them. Can you sink an axe into the back of a man’s head, hard enough to make brain tissue ooze out, and not mean to kill him? What other course did they have? Self-defense? Justifiable homicide? Diminished capacity?

  “I’m going to take a shower,” Desi said abruptly. As soon as she was out of the room, Eric got up, folded the paper again, and threw it in the wastebasket. When the shower went on and he knew she couldn’t hear, he grabbed a chair and banged it down hard a few times. It wasn’t much relief for his feelings, and he had probably dented the tile.

  She had left the oatmeal packet on the counter, and he got a bowl and fixed it the way she liked it, with milk and raisins. What did your father say? He did remember. “You mean the little Mexican girl?”

  His parents had never taken his engagement seriously. His mother had actually said, “Darling, let him amuse himself. He’s young.” His father kept referring to her as Mexican even though he had repeatedly told him she was French Canadian. What would they say now? We told you so? What did you expect from a girl like that? A motherless urchin from the wrong side of the tracks who grew up without family, stability, education, class. Never mind that Desi was bright and honest and had worked her way through college waiting tables and now had a good job as a paralegal with a nonprofit. His parents considered her lack of family a terrible handicap, but considering what he and Desi put up with from his family, he thought she was the lucky one.

  Their brains were oozing out. He shuddered.

  Distancing himself from her had never occurred to him.

  He put the bowl of oatmeal in the microwave, ready to heat as soon as she returned, and set the table for two. When she came in, he punched the microwave buttons and said, “I’ve been thinking. You said you were going to crash with friends?” She was wearing a clean nightgown—jeans would have taken too much effort.

  “Yes.” Determined not to be waited on, she poured coffee for both of them.

  “I’m your friend too,” he said. “Let me help. Even if you don’t want to be with me, I still care about you.”

  “You care too much.” She set the carafe back in the coffee maker, her back to him. “Maybe Cathleen would let me stay with her. She can help me with things you can’t. I want to take a bath, but I don’t think I could get out of the tub alone. It’s so hard even to put my underwear on.”

  “I could help you. I could braid your hair too. You didn’t let me try.”

  “I don’t want you to touch me,” she said.

  “Why are you mad at me?”

  “I’m not.” The microwave dinged. He put the oatmeal on the table. She sat and sampled a tiny mouthful. “You were so cold to me, though,” she added.

  “Cold? When? What do you mean?”

  “At the beginning. All you wanted to do was make me say I was raped and let some doctor grope me.”

  “For your own good. I… You thought I was cold? Wait a minute—you calmly tell me you killed two people, and you complain because I was cold?”

  “They were filthy animals.” Her voice was raw with emotion.

  He couldn’t argue. He took a deep breath and tried to calm himself. He sat down and sipped his coffee while he reviewed what he had said and done on that fatal Saturday. Well, you just washed away the evidence. That was pretty cold. But how did you show warmth to a woman who avoided your gaze and wouldn’t let you touch her? “I’m sorry,” he said. “I guess I was in shock or something. I’m sorry. I love you.”

  “Okay, whatever. I’ll stay with Cathleen until I can go back to work.”

  “Desi… You won’t be able to go back to work.”

  She turned, surprised, and met his eyes. “I’ll be all right in a few weeks.”

  “If you killed those men…”

  “Oh,” she said.

  “Yes, oh. You said the police already knew. They always pretend to know more than they do, but if your fingerprints are on the axe…”

  “Eric, I can’t eat these raisins.” She put down her spoon. “Talking hurts enough. I can’t chew at all.”

  “Sorry,” he said automatically. He thought about picking out the raisins, but instead he pulled his chair close to her and nudged her face toward him with gentle fingers.

  “Don’t touch me,” she snapped.

  “I’m sorry, but I need you to focus. Look at me.” Reluctantly she made eye contact. “You are in serious trouble. You need to get a grip here. We’ll have to sit down with your lawyer and figure out what to do. Maybe he can arrange a plea bargain. A jury might be sympathetic, but a trial will be hell to go through. You’ll have to describe everything that happened to you to a roomful of strangers. And right now, you can’t even tell me.”

  “Strangers would be easier,” she said. She sipped her coffee and winced. “I wouldn’t have to look at them afterward.”

  He ran a hand through his hair. “The prosecutor will tear you apart.”

  “You don’t think that’s cold?” she asked.

  He leaned closer. “Desi, I love you. I love you. Help me help you. Fight. You are a strong, intelligent woman.”

  “You mean I was,” she whispered. “I’m not anymore.”

  “I need you, Desi.” He raised his hands in a gesture of appeal. “You’re wounded, but you’re still you.”

  “Am I?” Tears stood in her eyes.

  “Yes. You are. You’ve been badly hurt. And it will take time to recover, physically and mentally. But you’re already making progress. I don’t want you to leave me because of something that isn’t my fault.” He was on the edge of tears himself. “If you need a woman to help you, we can hire a nurse’s aide or something. We’re a great team. Don’t break up the team. Please.”

  “What if they put me in prison?” she asked.

  “I’ll visit you as often as they’ll let me. I’ll wait for you. But we have to work together to make sure we don’t have to wait too long.”

  “You really are crazy, you know.”

  “I know. Crazy for you.”

  “What if I can’t ever let you touch me?”

  “Let’s not worry about it now. We’ll go one day at a time. First, we have to try to keep you out of prison. Did you tell Mr. Barnes you killed them?”

  “No, I don’t think so.”

  “Then, that’s the first thing we have to do. I’ll call him and make an appointment, and maybe Cathleen would come here and help you get dressed.” He reached for her bowl. “Do you want me to pick out the raisins?”

  “No, I think I can handle it.” She gave him a little smile, the most of the old Desi he’d seen yet. “Will you try braiding my hair, if I tell you what to do?”

  “Yes.” He wanted so badly to touch her hair and give her a comforting, encouraging kiss, but restrained himself. “I’ll do whatever you want me to. If you don’t feel comfortable with Barnes, we can get somebody else. I don’t like him much myself. We can get a woman if you prefer.”

  “He’s not so bad,” she said. “I didn’t like being alone in a room with him, but if you’re there…”

  “I can understand why you’d be scared…”

  “I’m not scared,” she said. “I’m not afraid of you either. Just…uncomfortable. When you touch me. I don’t want to feel that way, but…”

  ****

  Eric didn’t do a very good job on Desi’s hair. The result was nothing like the neat, pretty braid she usually wore, but at least her hair was out of her face. She managed to put on her underwear and a wrap-around skirt and let him help her into a blouse. She wasn’t wearing a bra. Her breasts, which in other circumstances could make him dizzy with desire, were bruised, and the area around her collarbone was every shade of black and blue.

  Swinging an axe down on somebody’s skull was a very good idea.

  Although neither of them mentioned it, when they left the apartment for the lawyer’s office, she was wearing her engagement ring.

  Chapter Five

  John Barnes was not surprised by Desi’s confession. The police were certain enough to charge her with murder, and the only other reasonable explanation was that she lied to protect Eric.

  And her fingerprints were on the axe.

  They sat at a small conference table, Barnes on one side with the case file, and Eric as close to Desi as he dared on the other. “What we have to do,” Barnes explained, “is build a defense that you were not legally responsible for what you did, because of what they did to you. If we have to go to court, you will have to be very specific about the sexual assault, but for now I just want you to walk us through how events led up to the deaths—we won’t say murders.” He laid a blank sheet of paper in front of her. “Can you draw an outline of the cabin?”

  The question was incredibly stupid, but Desi said patiently, “I’m right-handed.”

  “I’ll do it,” Eric said. “It’s my uncle’s cabin. I’ve been there many times.” He was no kind of artist, but he quickly sketched the rooms, indicating the doors and windows and the fireplace.

  “How was it furnished?” Barnes asked.

  Eric added rough outlines of the furniture in the combined living room and kitchen and the bed and closet in the bedroom.

  “The chest,” Desi prompted, her voice even.

  He drew a small rectangle to represent the large cedar chest under the bedroom window.

  “Okay,” Barnes began, “You were outside, a short distance from the cabin, when you first encountered the men. Tell me about the confrontation.”

  “It wasn’t a confrontation,” Eric said. “The dark-haired one—Andrews?—said something, very friendly, and we didn’t even have time to answer.”

  Desi picked up the narrative. “He hit Eric with the axe, the flat side, and he fell on the ground unconscious, and then he—the man with the axe—grabbed me and threw me over his shoulder.” She was sitting very straight, her left hand cradling her right arm.

  “Did you try to run?” Eric asked without thinking. He was trying to visualize the scene.

  Desi, with a very grim expression, said, “Yes…too late.”

  Because she had been concerned about him, of course, and now Eric had made it sound as if he blamed her for not getting away. He kept his hands together on the table so he wouldn’t be tempted to touch her.

  “I was yelling and kicking,” she continued. “I wasn’t even thinking about what he would do to me.” She took a deep breath. “I was so scared Eric was badly hurt or dead. He took me inside—”

  “Did Andrews still have the axe?”

  “I… I don’t think so. No, he couldn’t have. He had both hands on me. He went in—”

  “Show me,” Barnes prompted. She indicated the door with her left hand and traced a line through the living room and into the bedroom.

 

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