Part 23 (1/2)

Which, Temple thought, would make it all the harder to seek out Sophia and kill her.

That was the answer, the only answer. Temple felt a dull ache where his heart should have been, a pressure, a pounding, an unpleasant, unfamiliar lack of feeling. If he took his story to the F.B.I. he had no doubt that Charles, Sophia and whoever else worked this thing with them would be caught, but he, Temple, would find himself with a lifelong, unslakable emotional thirst. He had to quench it now and then feel sorry so that he might heal. He had to quench it with Sophia's blood ... alone.

He found her a week later at their lake. He had looked everywhere and had about given up, almost, in fact, ready to turn his story over to the police. But he had to think and their lake was the place for that.

Apparently Sophia had the same idea. Temple parked on the highway half a mile from their lake, made his way slowly through the woods, golden dappled with sunlight. He heard the waters gus.h.i.+ng merrily, heard the sounds of some small animal rus.h.i.+ng off through the woods. He saw Sophia.

She lay on their sunning rock in shorts and halter, completely relaxed, an opened magazine face down on the rock beside her, a pair of sungla.s.ses next to it. She had one knee up, one leg stretched out, one forearm s.h.i.+elding her eyes from the sun, one arm down at her side.

Seeing her thus, Temple felt the pressure of his automatic in its holster under his arm. He could draw it out, kill her before she was aware of his presence. Would that make him feel better? Five minutes ago, he would have said yes. Now he hesitated. Kill her, who seemed as completely Lucy as he was Temple? Send a bullet ripping through the body which he had known and loved, or the body that had seemed so much like it he had failed to tell the difference?

Murder--Lucy?

”No,” he said aloud. ”Her name is Sophia.”

The girl sat up, startled. ”Kit,” she said.

”Lucy.”

”You can't make up your mind, either.” She smiled just like Lucy.

Dumbly, he sat down next to her on the rock. Strong sunlight had brought a fine dew of perspiration to the bronzed skin of her face.

She got a pack of cigarettes out from under the magazine, lit one, offered it to Temple, lit another and smoked it. ”Where do we go from here?” she wanted to know.

”I--”

”You came to kill me, didn't you? Is that the only way you can ever feel better, Kit?”

”I--” He was going to deny it, then think.

”Don't deny it. Please.” She reached in under his jacket, withdrawing her hand with the snub-nosed automatic in it. ”Here,” she said, giving it to him.

He took the gun, hefted it, let it fall, clattering, on the rock.

”Listen,” she said. ”I could have told you I was Lucy. If I said now that I am Lucy and if I kept on saying it, you'd believe me. You'd believe me because you'd want to.”

”Well,” said Temple.

”I am not Lucy. Lucy is dead. But ... but I was Lucy in everything but being Lucy. I thought her thoughts, dreamed her dreams, loved her loves.”

”You killed her.”

”No. I had nothing to do with that. She was killed, yes. Not by me.

Kit, if I asked you when Lucy stopped, and ... when I began, could you tell me?”

He had often thought about that. ”No,” he said truthfully. ”You're as much my wife as--she was.”