"All right, thanks. Let me try to get to the bottom of it."
I glanced back over my shoulder. From far off, I could hear Ann rummaging around the kitchen. I tried Alex"s number once again. This time he picked up on the third ring.
"Hey," he said. "Sorry I missed your calls before. I was just about to phone you."
"I can"t really talk now," I said, "but I need to update you. Are you going to be around later?"
"Everything okay?" he asked, his tone concerned.
"I just learned something pretty disturbing." There were footsteps behind me. "I"ll call you back. I need to sort this out."
I dropped the phone back into my robe pocket as Ann reemerged onto the patio, carrying a fresh bottle of wine. On her way to her lounge chair, she scooped up our winegla.s.ses from the table. Don"t overreact, I warned myself. I needed to hear her explanation.
"Are you feeling too anxious to stay out here?" Ann asked, catching my expression.
"It"s not that," I said, keeping my voice even. "Someone called with some very strange news."
"About Vicky?" she asked. Before she sat down, she leaned her chair on the back wheels and angled it slightly so she"d be able to see me better.
"About you, actually," I said. "You were responsible for that gossip story about the survey. The one I believe they so cleverly t.i.tled "Cruzin" for a Bruisin" "?"
Ann forced a smile. "Okay, guilty as charged," she said. "I thought the survey was a chance to score a nice plug for you, but that moron of a reporter turned it into a Vicky-bashing item. I should have told you I planted it, but I felt too embarra.s.sed when it backfired a little."
"You really thought that item would be good for me?"
"To have you presented as the rising star of the network? Of course I a.s.sumed it"d be good for you. I"ve always done everything to make you shine."
"But you knew Potts had accused me of seeming overly ambitious. That write-up surely didn"t help my case."
"Potts talks out of both sides of his mouth," she said dismissively. "He likes keeping everybody"s ego in check, but he also wants all the publicity he can lay his fat hands on."
She was trying to justify her motives, but her defense stunk.
"And didn"t you consider how Carter would react to an item about me being the show"s real star? He was furious." A thought took shape in my mind even as the words tumbled out. "Though maybe that"s what you were actually hoping for. You were always so eager to make sure we didn"t hook up."
"I was right, though, wasn"t I?" she said. "Look at how that ended up hurting you with Potts."
I shook my head slowly, thinking. "It was more than you trying to protect my career," I said. "You seemed to dislike the sheer idea of me with Carter. What have you got against the guy?"
"I was looking out for you, Robin. That"s what friends do."
You"re not my friend, I thought. A friend wouldn"t have shared the survey info. "Who told you about me and Carter?"
"No one," she said. She"d picked up the belt of her terry-cloth robe and was rubbing the end between her thumb and forefinger. "I figured it out on my own."
"Oh, come on," I said. "We hardly left a trail of bread crumbs through the forest."
"I"m not a fool, Robin," she snapped. "I"d watched all the back-and-forth on the air. And then one day in the hall, I could tell just by the way he looked at you. He was practically stripping your clothes off with his eyes."
A memory stirred. Carter talking about his ex-girlfriend, Jamie. She hadn"t liked the way he"d looked at me, because deep down she was jealous as h.e.l.l.
My brain was like a lock with the tumblers falling open one by one: Ann always warning me away from Carter; Alex revealing Carter had been sleeping with someone at work months ago; Ann"s reluctance to meet men this year.
"You"re involved with Carter, aren"t you?" I said, shocked by the words even as I said them. "Or at least you were."
Ann looked off, deliberating, and then back at me, her gray eyes dark as slate in the candlelight. "Is that so difficult to imagine?" she said. "Just because I"m not all s.e.xy and witty, like you are?"
"Of course it"s not hard to imagine. You"re a beautiful woman, Ann."
I felt a pang of sympathy, because she"d been wounded. And yet she"d planted the item to make Carter turn against me. "When did things start with the two of you?"
"In March, before you"d ever laid eyes on him."
"When the show was being developed?"
"Yes. Since Carter was going to be the linchpin, Potts wanted me to work with him. We couldn"t keep our hands off each other. But with the launch, we realized we needed to cool things down for a bit. We had every intention of getting back. Until you decided you wanted him."
"What about Jamie?" I said. "Carter was dating her half the summer."
"I endorsed that idea," she said. "She was just a decoy. And then you had to go and wreck everything for me."
I thought I saw a tear swell in her eye. Carter, I realized, was an even bigger sleaze than I"d thought. He"d gladly let her groom him for bigger success and then strung her along.
"Ann, I never would have slept with Carter if I"d known you were involved with him," I said.
"Oh, please," she scoffed. "You don"t expect me to believe that, do you? No matter what, you"d always feel ent.i.tled to bed the star of the show. You feel ent.i.tled to everything."
"Ann, that"s not true." I was stunned by the harshness of her words. "I"ve never felt that way."
"Of course you do, Robin. It"s always about you being on top."
"In case you"re forgetting," I said, "I spent a year and a half off the air, with no one interested in hiring me. And the only gigs I was offered then were infomercials for juicers and mattresses."
"And you spent that entire time bemoaning your fate as if you"d been wronged. It"s never enough for you. You snag the book contract, but you want that and a show. I help hook you up with the subbing gig, and you immediately start nosing around for what might be in development. The minute you caught a whiff of Carter"s show, you started jockeying for the job. And still it wasn"t enough. You had to f.u.c.k his brains out."
I"d never had a clue to her bitterness. It was like one of those scenes in a sci-fi movie when a character"s face splits open and there"s a hideous, snouted alien underneath.
And had it gone beyond pure resentment?
"Did you mention to Vicky that I was seeing Carter?"
"Why would I do that?" she said. Her expression seemed truly perplexed. "You know I loathe the woman."
"Someone clued her in," I said. "I ate the brownie because it appeared to be from Carter. As far as I know, you were the only one who knew about us at that point. Maybe you told her in order to stir things up, just like you tried to do with the item."
She stared at me, holding her head very still, as if afraid of jostling something free. I looked down at my plate, at the blueberries oozing beneath the crumbly topping. Ann, the devoted cook and baker. There it was-the truth.
"You left the brownie, didn"t you?" I said, my heart pounding hard.
"Oh, please," she said.
"No, you did," I said. I shook my head, trying to make sense of it. "I told you at lunch that I"d heard Vicky talking about Ambien. So you made the brownie with it and left it for me. You knew I"d think it was one more of Vicky"s dirty deeds. You didn"t realize she was in Washington that night."
"All right, fine," she said, pure triumph in her voice. "But you"ll never prove it."
"Why, Ann? Why would you hurt me that way?"
"Because I could stand you having almost everything in the f.u.c.king world, Robin, but not Carter, too. He was supposed to be mine."
I thought of the formula that had sprung into my head on my run: The person who left the brownie had also killed Sharon.
"You murdered Sharon, didn"t you?" I whispered.
I wanted to s.n.a.t.c.h the words back but it was too late. Terror squeezed my chest, cutting off my breath. As Ann stared back at me, I tried to calculate the distance between my chair and the sliding gla.s.s door behind me. Would I have time to get inside and lock her out-or should I jump up and start to run? I thought of the houses so far across the field.
"You must be feeling frightened right now," Ann said, her voice flat.
"A little," I said. Calm, I warned myself. Don"t freak her. "I also know how smart you are, and that you probably want to dig yourself out of this before it grows any worse."
She bent her head so I couldn"t see her face. I knew she must be gathering strength, preparing to strike. My legs were limp with fear, but I slowly swung the right one off the chair, lowering my foot to the ground.
Ann glanced up. Tears were streaming down her cheeks. "I do want this all to end," she said softly. "I can"t take it anymore. Can you help me, Robin? Please?"
"Of course," I said. I needed to keep the talk going. "Why don"t we call someone? Not the police. But a lawyer, someone who can advise you best."
"Okay," she said. She wiped the tears away, using both hands. "I need someone who can understand and not hate me. You have to realize I didn"t mean it. Everything-it just flew out of control."
"How did you even know about Sharon?"
"From Vicky. Someone from the stupid station in Albany told her that Sharon was headed to New York to expose what had happened years ago. Vicky didn"t come right out and admit she"d done all those things to you, but she implied she did. Said you were too big for your britches. She told me I had to find out where Sharon was staying and talk sense into her. That day I brought you the flowers, I"d followed you to the building earlier, the one where Sharon was staying. I went back afterward and kept hitting b.u.t.tons on the intercom until I found Sharon. I told her I was working with you and needed to talk to her."
"I don"t understand," I said. "Why would you feel the need to aid Vicky?"
"She found out about the brownie. I don"t know how, but she did. I was in a panic, thinking she"d go to Potts. Then I realized it was just going to be something she had on me and could use when she wanted. She wanted to make me her b.i.t.c.h."
"Did she also send you to Westport to check on me?"
"No. Carter took the night off, and I thought he was with you. Keiki knew where you were staying, so I drove there."
"Okay, I understand," I said. I could barely hear myself over the thumping of my heart. "I know how desperate you must have felt. Vicky made me desperate, too."
She started to cry again. "The woman"s a monster. She told me that if she was caught, she"d bring me down, too, that I had to sort it out. I tried to reason with Sharon. I even offered her money, but she wouldn"t listen. She told me to leave, that it was over for Vicky. I couldn"t let that happen."
"A good lawyer will understand. I"ll help you find the right one."
She took a deep breath and dabbed at her tears with the end of her belt. "I need tissues," she said.
"Just use your napkin," I said. I felt a new surge of panic.
She bounded up and quickly skirted around the back of her chair and then mine. I started to rise, but before I could move, she was behind me, thrusting her hands in front of my torso. I saw a flash of the belt from her robe. She had it stretched in front of me, and she pulled it toward me, pinning my arms and chest against the back of the chair.
"What are you doing?" I yelled.
She tightened the belt, and I could feel her tying it behind me.
"Please, Ann, no," I yelled. I tried wiggling to free myself.
She yanked the chair back on the rear wheels and began rolling it across the patio toward the pool. I swung my legs over the sides, trying to grip the ground with my feet, but I couldn"t reach it. We were at the edge of the pool. I felt one more push from behind.
And then I was toppling over sideways into the deep end.
chapter 28.
The chair seemed to freeze on top of the water. I held my breath, willing it to just stay there. But then, quickly, it began to sink. I thrust my head up, gasping for air, and in seconds I was underwater, being sucked to the bottom of the pool.
I pressed my lips tight and struggled to free my arms. The belt was wet, and it felt like I was glued to the chair.
My lungs started to burn from holding my breath. I was going to die.
Then there was an explosion of sound and a force torpedoing through the water toward me. Someone had plunged into the pool. It"s Ann, I thought. She"s going to hold me down.
I could feel hands tugging on the belt. I was free suddenly, and the swimmer"s arm was around my upper torso, dragging me through the water. My lungs were searing, desperate for air. Against my will, my mouth opened and filled with water.
Then I was above the surface and being hoisted onto the patio. I spat out water and gasped for air. A man was holding me. It was Alex. He was panting and dripping wet. He leaned me farther forward, patting my back. More water spurted from between my lips.
"Can you breathe okay?" he asked.
I couldn"t answer. My throat felt raw, and I had started to shiver.
"Yes, I think so," I said finally. "Where is she?"
"Over there," he said, jerking his head. "She came after me, and I punched her. I knocked her out. I need to restrain her, though."
Alex scrambled up and ran across the patio. He tore off his belt and used it to secure Ann"s wrist to the base of the grill. She started moaning, not fully conscious yet.
"Robin, where"s your phone?" Alex called out. "Mine"s ruined."
I felt for it in the pocket of the robe. "Ruined, too," I said. "There"s a landline in the house. In the kitchen."
"Yell to me if she moves," he said.