Savages

22

KERRY

She didn’t know what to do with herself.

For a while she worked on her computer, but there just wasn’t much for her to do from home. It was make-work anyway. Jim Carpenter and Miranda Doyle were covering her accounts; she gave them input on concepts, copy, art, TV and radio spots, but time pressures meant that they were the ones responsible for most of the creative refinements and for organizing the campaigns. What she was given was already-completed work for her rubber-stamp approval. Her function since she’d taken the leave of absence was mainly advisory.

She read a couple more chapters in The Magic Island. Interesting enough, if a stretch of credulity, but her mind kept wandering. Hyperactive lately, thoughts and ideas piling up, tumbling against one another. Part of it was cabin fever. But it was more than that, too. She had already broken through the shell of fear and anxiety she’d been trapped in for the past three months. The medical ordeal was finished; the tumor and the cancerous cells were gone; the prognosis was favorable. She felt fine aside from the soreness and stiffness from the radiation burning, and even that wasn’t nearly as bad as it had been during the last few treatments. Her stamina was coming back; she didn’t need daily naps anymore; she was sleeping well and had energy most of the time. Her sex drive hadn’t quite returned, but the fact that she was thinking about it again, and had discussed it with Bill, meant that it was only a matter of time. Lovemaking, for a while, might not be very pleasant; there was bound to be some awkwardness and probably some discomfort. But that wasn’t going to prevent her from doing it. For her own sake as well as his.

Next week sometime. And next week she would be back at Bates and Carpenter full-time-resume that important part of her life as well. She’d already talked to Jim Carpenter about it. He was just as eager for her return as she was.

Bill thought it was premature. He felt she ought to stay home another couple of weeks, rest, continue to build up her strength. He’d been a rock throughout this damn crisis, she couldn’t have gotten through it as well as she had without him, but he couldn’t seem to let go of his concern for her. He was still afraid, and she loved him even more for that, but you can’t keep existing in a constant state of anxiety and fear. She wasn’t any longer. She couldn’t say exactly when she’d emerged, but it had been before the end of the radiation therapy. Woke up one morning and she was no longer afraid-fear today, gone tomorrow. In its place was the growing, driving need for normalcy, to be in control of her life again, to be whole and live whole. He said he understood how she felt, but he didn’t, really. You had to experience it to understand it fully. And please, God, don’t ever put him in that position.

Thinking about him made her feel tender. He was so many things, most of them good, a few bemusing, one or two annoying. Like all men, she supposed. He probably felt the same about her, about all women. Women are from Venus; men are from Mars-true enough. She still hadn’t quite forgiven him for keeping the knowledge of Cybil’s wartime rape from her, or the now-disproven possibility that that bastard Russ Dancer and not Ivan Wade was her father. Hadn’t quite forgiven Cybil, either, for that matter, though she could understand her mother’s need to keep the secret all these years. The woman thing again. But she’d never been able to stay angry at Bill for long. Even if he wasn’t justified in circumventing her right to know, he’d done it for the same basic reason Cybil had-to protect her because he loved her, didn’t want to see her hurt. You couldn’t really fault him for that. Part of what made him a good husband, wasn’t it? Part of what made a good marriage. Caring combined with love, desire, friendship, understanding, a little mystery, and spiced with a clash of wills and attitudes every now and then. By those standards, theirs was just about the best you could ask for.

It was after one now and she still hadn’t had lunch. She’d thought about going out to eat, driving over to Larkspur and taking Cybil out or calling Paula to see if she was free. But she wasn’t quite up to a long solitary drive yet or in a mood for Paula and her new voodoo passion, and the prospect of a restaurant meal alone didn’t appeal to her, either. She made herself a green salad with tomatoes and avocado and strips of leftover chicken. While she ate, she considered her options for the rest of the afternoon.

Too restless to sit around here. She needed to get out somewhere for a while. A walk in Golden Gate Park would be nice, but it was foggy and cold again today and even if she bundled up, it probably wasn’t a wise idea. No, but she could still go to the park-visit the de Young. She hadn’t been in some time, since shortly after the museum’s architecturally controversial new home had opened. She’d enjoyed the visit to Brookline Gallery on Sunday, the exhibit of T. R. Quentin’s paintings, but as good as Quentin’s work was, it was neither fine art nor as stimulating.

Settled. Check her e-mail again on the slim chance that something pressing had come in from the agency, and then she was out of here.

Shameless followed her into the spare bedroom, hopped up on her desk, and peered at the screen as if he were also trying to read her messages. Nosy animal, but good company just the same. Nothing from Jim or Miranda or anyone else at Bates and Carpenter. But there was one e-mail of interest, from Tamara, sent at Bill’s request: Nancy Mathias’s diary entries over the last six months of her life. Tamara had picked out the ones that struck her as meaningful, but he probably wanted to have a look at the entire batch himself. Even as technologically challenged as he was, he could manage to open a computer file and scan through the contents.

So could she, with a lot more ease.

Better not. The idea of peering at a dead woman’s private thoughts still struck Kerry as ghoulish. And she and Bill had always been respectful of each other’s privacy-no interference in personal or professional business matters. Then again, they had no secrets from each other, and he’d let her go through Nancy Mathias’s private papers with him, hadn’t he? Involved her in the investigation? And last night, before they went to bed and without her asking, he’d volunteered a full report on his meetings with Brandon Mathias and Anthony Drax, what he’d learned from the elderly neighbor in Palo Alto and from Philomena Ruiz. No earthly reason why he’d object to her looking at the diary entries.

Oh, hell, go ahead, she thought. It may be ghoulish, but you can’t help being curious. Or wanting to play detective.

She opened the file and began to read.

Painful experience. She’d been prepared for it, or thought she was, but a linear paging through day after day of loneliness, misery, and reported abuses by the son of a bitch Nancy Mathias had married was not the same as being presented with a capsule summary. Poor woman. Some of her suffering had been brought on by her own weakness, her inability to walk away from that hellish relationship. But she’d been under tremendous psychological pressure and it’s not always easy to know what to do under those circumstances. Control freak Mathias was responsible for most of her pain, yet it was clear that something else, some other force, was affecting her as well. Did that force, whatever it was, have anything to do with her murder? If it was murder. Tamara was right: there was nothing in the diary entries, no matter how you looked at them, that suggested a motive.

Kerry read to the final entry, sighed, and looked at the time in the upper corner of the screen. Already 1:30; she’d better hustle over to the de Young before it got any later.

She started to close the file so she could shut down. And stopped herself, frowning, staring at the screen. The final entry stared back at her.

Time. Date and time.

September 9, 10:05 P.M.

WHY ADHERE?

Something there that didn’t seem quite right…

Yes, it did. Now it did.

Of course!

Excited, she picked up the phone and called Bill’s cell.