Part 19 (1/2)
”I suspected, but I thought I was wrong. I just couldn't believe Jonathan would...I just couldn't believe he could do something so...horrible.”
”You covered for him because you loved him, didn't you, Abby?”
Horrified, she raised her hands to her face and looked at him over her fingertips. Shame uncoiled in her chest like a sharp piece of metal snapping free, cutting her from the inside out. ”No.”
”You lied to the police to cover for him. In doing so, you incriminated yourself, and he framed you, didn't he?”
”Stop it.”
”Didn't you?”
She stared at him, shaking inside. ”I don't want to discuss this.”
”The police realized you were lying. Only they thought you were lying to save yourself, didn't they? They didn't know you were lying to protect that son of a b.i.t.c.h Reed.”
Abby felt sick inside. She felt stupid and gullible and shamed for having made such a terrible mistake. For loving a man who'd reciprocated by destroying her.
Pressing her hand to her stomach, she turned away from Jake. A sob tore from her throat as the pain broke free. Pain she'd kept secret and tucked away in a place deep inside her.
”I can't talk about this,” she whispered.
”We all make mistakes, Abby. We fall down. We get back up. It's not the end of the world.”
”Not you, Jake. You don't make mistakes. Not like me.”
He laughed then. Not cruelly, but with an honesty that caught her and wouldn't let her go. ”You're kidding, right? You really believe that about me?”
She nodded. ”You're not gullible.”
Jake couldn't believe she had so much faith in him, and so little in herself. ”I wrote the book on gullible.”
”Did not.”
It surprised him that he could smile about it now. At the time it had felt as if he were having his heart ripped out. ”I asked a woman to marry me three years ago,” he began. ”There was a forest fire up on Elk Ridge. Took out half a dozen homes. The RMSAR team and I worked in conjunction with the smoke jumpers. A woman and her boy were left homeless.” Jake could still see Richie's face on occasion. Still thought about him. Still loved him when it didn't hurt too much to acknowledge it.
”Her husband had deserted her a few months earlier. I couldn't see a mother and her son homeless, so I invited them to stay at my cabin with me until they could find a place to live and get on their feet again.” Remembering how naive he'd been, Jake sighed. ”I...ended up getting involved with this woman, Elaine. I was crazy about her. Crazy about her kid, Richie.”
”What happened?”
He looked over at Abby, saw the solemn look in her face. He hadn't wanted to open up to her, hadn't wanted to reopen these old wounds, but he needed her to trust him and figured if he shared some of his own past mistakes with her, she would be more likely to do so with him.
”I asked her to marry me after knowing her only a month. By then we were sleeping together. It didn't even cross my mind that she wasn't what she appeared.” Humiliation sc.r.a.ped at him, but he shoved it back. ”The day after I asked her to marry me, I came home from work and she was gone.”
”Oh, Jake...I'm sorry.”
He raised his hand. ”She didn't just walk away, Abby. She took everything I had that wasn't nailed down. Cleaned out my bank account.” He cut Abby a hard look. ”I'm a cop. You think I checked up on her?” He shook his head. ”I had so much faith in my ability to read people, it didn't even cross my mind.”
”Did the authorities catch her? I mean, did she get away with taking your money?”
”I figured the money was my own d.a.m.n stupid fault, so I didn't pursue it. My main concern at the time was for Richie. I had a h.e.l.l of a time trying to decide how to handle it.” He looked over at her, felt the kins.h.i.+p between them grow even as he questioned his own judgment for the second time in his life. ”I called Child Protective Services, filled them in on what happened and left it in the hands of someone who knew what the h.e.l.l they were doing.”
”I'm sorry,” she said.
”So, you see, Abby, you're not the only one who's made mistakes. Everyone makes mistakes. Even me, and I'm a cop.”
She looked down at the water swirling around her, looking as lost as anyone Jake had ever seen.
”Are you going to talk to me?” he asked.
She didn't answer, didn't even look at him.
”Abby, did you know what Reed had done?”
”Not at first.”
”How did you find out? What did you see?”
”I saw him inject a patient once. I knew he'd been alone with the other patient, too. I knew he'd performed a late-night surgery in the old wing of the hospital. A wing that was no longer used for surgery.”
”You confronted him about that?”
”I asked him about it later, but he said he'd only given the man a B-12 shot. That the surgery was actually an autopsy observed by some interns and that I'd misunderstood what I'd seen.” She risked a look at him. ”I believed him.”
”Did he ask you not to tell the police?”
”Yes.”
”So you didn't?”
She nodded. ”I didn't say anything about it until after Reed took the stand in court and testified against me.”
”Oh, Abby.” Jake ran a hand over his face. ”Were you sleeping with him?”
The question went through her like a bayonet. Shame and humiliation bled freely from the wound deep inside her. ”Yes.”
”That's why you covered for him, isn't it? That's why you lied to the police...to protect him, isn't it?”
”He asked me not to tell them.”
”Weren't you worried about yourself?”
”I was innocent. I had nothing to hide.” She looked across the water, at the snow and the trees through the steam. ”It never crossed my mind that he'd done something improper. Or that he would frame me for it.”
”He turned on you, though, didn't he?”
”Yes.” She was crying openly now, her sobs echoing hollowly within the frozen branches and the rising steam. She knew she was losing it, her emotions, her dignity. But Jake had pushed her too far and she couldn't stop the long-denied emotions from pouring out.
”He came to me when I was out on bail. Came to me with roses and promises. He said it would all be over the next day. That my case would be dismissed. He had a dozen lawyers working on it around the clock. High-dollar lawyers who would see to it that I was exonerated.” A bitter laugh choked out of her. ”He seduced me that night. With his lies. His promises. He used me. I was stupid enough to-”
”No.”