I could not help but wonder about Abby Turnbull. How much of this did she know? Had Mrs. Harvey leaked something to her? Was this the true nature of the book Abby was writing? No wonder she suspected her phones were being bugged, that she was being followed. The CIA, the FBI, and even the President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, which had a backdoor entree straight into the Oval Office, had very good reason to be nervous about what Abby was writing, and she had very good reason to be paranoid. She may have placed herself in real danger.
The wind had died down, a light fog settling over treetops as Wesley closed the door behind us. Following Mark to his car, I felt a sense of resolution and validation because of what had been said, and yet I was more unsettled than before.
I waited to speak until we left the subdivision. “What’s happening to Pat Harvey is outrageous. She loses her daughter, now her career and reputation are being destroyed.”
“Benton’s had nothing to do with leaks to the press, any sort of ‘setup,’ as you put it.”
Mark kept his eyes on the dark, narrow road.
“It’s not a matter of how I put it, Mark.”
“I’m just referring to what you said,” he replied.
“You know what’s going on. Don’t act naive with me.”
“Benton’s done everything he can for her, but she’s got a vendetta against the Justice Department. To her, Benton’s just another federal agent out to get her.”
“If I were her, I might feel the same way.”
“Knowing you, you probably would.”
“And what’s that supposed to mean?” I asked, as my anger, which went far deeper than Pat Harvey, surfaced.
“It doesn’t mean a thing.”
Minutes passed in silence as the tension grew. I did not recognize the road we were on, but I knew our time together was nearing an end. Then he turned into the store’s parking lot and pulled up next to my car.
“1’m sorry we had to see each other under these circumstances,” he said quietly.
I did not reply, and he added, “But I’m not sorry to see you, not song it happened.”
“Good night, Mark.”
I started to get out of the car.
“Don’t, Kay.”
He put his hand on my arm.
I sat still. “What do you want?”
“To talk to you. Please.”
“If you’re so interested in talking to me, then why haven’t you gotten around to it before now?”
I replied with emotion, pulling my arm away. “You’ve made no effort to say a goddam thing to me for months.”
“That works both ways. I called you last fall and you never called me back.”
“I knew what you were going to say, and I didn’t want to hear it,” I replied, and 1 could feel his anger building, too.
“Excuse me. I forgot that you have always had the uncanny ability of reading my mind.”
He placed both hands on the wheel and stared straight ahead.
“You were going to announce that there was no chance of reconciliation, that it was over. And I wasn’t interested in having you put into words what I already assumed.”
“Think what you want.”
“It has nothing to do with what I want to think!”
I hated the power he had to make me lose my temper.
“Look.”
He took a deep breath. “Do you think there’s any chance we can declare a truce? Forget the past?”
“Not a chance.”
“Great. Thanks for being so reasonable. At least I tried.”
“Tried? It’s been what? Eight, nine months since you left? What the hell have you tried, Mark? I don’t know what it is you’re asking, but it’s impossible to forget the past. It’s impossible for the two of us to run into each other and pretend there was never anything between us. I refuse to act that way.”
“I’m not asking that, Kay. I’m asking if we can forget the fights, the anger, what we said back then.”
I really could not remember exactly what had been said or explain what had gone wrong. We fought when we weren’t sure what we were fighting about until the focus became our injuries and not the differences that had caused them.