I set her drink on the table and gently squeezed her shoulder before I moved back to my chair.
She told me what I expected to hear, and I just looked at her sadly.
“I don’t deserve your sympathy,” she cried.
“You’ve been hurt much more than I have.”
“Everybody has been hurt. You. Pat Harvey. The parents, friends of these kids. If the cases hadn’t happened, I’d still be working cops. At least I’d be all right professionally. No one person should have the power to cause such destruction.”
I realized she was no longer thinking about Clifford Ring. She was thinking of the killer.
“You’re right. No one should have the power. And no one will if we don’t allow it.”
“Deborah and Fred didn’t allow it. Jill, Elizabeth, Jimmy, Bonnie. All of them.”
She looked defeated. “They didn’t want to be murdered.”
“What will Cliff do next?”
I asked.
“Whatever it is, it won’t involve me. I’ve changed all my locks.”
“And your fears that your phones are bugged, that you’re being followed?”
“Cliff’s not the only one who wants to know what I’m doing. I can’t trust anyone anymore!”
Her eyes filled with angry tears. “You were the last person I wanted to hurt, Kay.”
“Stop it, Abby. You can cry all year and it won’t do me any good.”
“I’m sorry . . . .”
“No more apologies.”
I was very firm but gentle.
She bit her bottom lip and stared at her drink.
“Are you ready to help me now?”
She looked up at me.
“First, what color was the Lincoln we saw in Williamsburg last week?”
“Dark gray, the interior leather dark, maybe black,” she said, her eyes coming alive.
“Thank you. That’s what I thought.”
“What’s going on?”
“I’m not sure. But there’s more.”
“More what?”
“I’ve got an assignment for you,” I said, smiling. “But first, when are you returning to D.C.? Tonight?”
“I don’t know, Kay.”
She stared off. “I can’t be there now.”
Abby felt like a fugitive, and in a sense she was. Clifford Ring had run her out of Washington. It probably wasn’t a bad idea for her to disappear for a while.
She explained, “There’s a bed and breakfast in the Northern Neck, and – ”
“And I have a guest room,” I interrupted. “You can stay with me for a while.”
She looked uncertain, then confessed, “Kay, do you have any idea how that would look?”
“Frankly, I don’t care at the moment.”
“Why not?”
She studied me closely.
“Your paper has already fried me in deep fat. I’m going for broke. Things will either get worse or better, but they won’t stay the same.”
“At least you haven’t been fired.”
“Neither have you, Abby. You had an affair and acted inappropriately in front of your colleagues when you dumped coffee in your lover’s lap.”
“He deserved it.”
“I’m quite sure he did. But I wouldn’t advise your doing battle with the Post. Your book is your chance to redeem yourself.”
“What about you?”
“My concern is these cases. You can help because you can do things I can’t do.”
“Such as?”
“I can’t lie, hoodwink, finagle, cheat, badger, sneak, snipe, snoop, and pretend to be something or somebody I’m not because I’m an officer of the Commonwealth. But you have great range of motion. You’re a reporter.”
“Thanks a lot,” she protested as she walked out of the kitchen. “I’ll get my things from the car.”
It was not very often I had houseguests, and the bedroom downstairs was usually reserved for Lucy’s visits. Covering the hardwood floor was an Iranian Dergezine rug with a brightly colored floral design that turned the entire room into a garden, in the midst of which my niece had been a rosebud or a stinkweed, depending on her behavior.
“I guess you like flowers,” Abby said absently, laying the suit bag on top of the bed.
“The rug is a little overpowering in here,” I apologized. “But when I saw it I had to buy it, and there was no place else to put it. Not to mention, it’s virtually indestructible, and since this is where Lucy stays, that point is important. ” “Or at least it used to be.”