Countdown - Iris Johansen [69]
“Shh.” Her fingers touched his lips. “You made a mistake and you have to live with it. But the guilt is Grozak’s and you have to accept that too.”
“It’s hard.” He sat back on his heels and closed his eyes tightly. “I feel like I should be crucified.”
He was being crucified, she thought. He was blaming himself with the same passion with which he’d earlier blamed Trevor. “Then get busy. Block it out. I felt guilty when my friend Mike was killed. I went through all the scenarios of what I could have done differently that might have saved him. But in the end you have to put it on the back burner and get on with life. It will creep back in the middle of the night sometimes, but the only thing you can do is endure and learn from it.”
His eyes opened. “I’m being a child. You don’t deserve this.” He forced a smile. “But I’m glad you’re here.”
“So am I.”
He shook his head as if to clear it and got to his feet. “Now get out of here. I need to go back to my room and take a shower.” His lips twisted. “Isn’t it strange how instinct tells us that if we get our bodies clean it will somehow cleanse our soul?”
“Shall I come back?”
“Not right away. I’ll be down later to talk to Trevor.” His gaze went to the desk. “But I have to get back to work. It’s not going to be easy. I’ll keep remembering why— I may only be able to do a few lines, but it will be a start. What is your phrase? Getting back on the horse that threw you?”
She nodded.
“It’s a good phrase.” He turned away. “I feel as if that horse broke all my bones. But he didn’t, and he won’t. Maybe my heart . . . But hearts heal, don’t they?”
“So I understand.”
He glanced back at her. “All that wisdom you’ve been spouting and you don’t know the most important thing? I can tell you’re not Italian.”
It was almost a joke, thank God. The pain was still there, but he was not quite as devastated as he had been. She smiled. “I realize that’s a great handicap.”
“Yes, it is, but you’re exceptional enough to overcome it.” He paused before he added, “Thank you, Jane.”
He didn’t wait for a reply before he left the room.
She slowly rose to her feet. She had gotten what she needed from Mario, but it had been an experience that was painful for both of them. And she had seen something in Mario that last few minutes that had surprised her. It was as if she had witnessed a rebirth or a coming of age or . . .
She didn’t know. It could be imagination born from the emotional state they’d both gone through today. Personality changes seldom came with such rapidity.
But changes were rarely initiated by such shock and horror.
And hadn’t her attitude toward Trevor been clarified by that horror too? Life around her was shifting, moving as Grozak and Reilly pulled the strings.
It had to stop.
11
How is he?” Trevor asked as she came into the library ten minutes later. “Still hating my guts?”
“No.” She grimaced. “Hating himself. But he’s going to give you what you want. He’s going to go back to translating this evening.”
“You must have cast a spell.”
She shook her head. “I told him the truth, but I think he would have come to it anyway if we’d given him a little more time. I believe you’re going to find he’s . . . different.”
“How?”
She shrugged. “I’m not sure. But I don’t think I’ll be tempted to call him a ‘nice boy’ anymore. Judge for yourself. He’ll come down to talk to you later.” She changed the subject. “Did you find out anything from Venable about Wickman?”
“He’s going to get back to me. He sent a man to talk to Eduardo Donato’s sister, and she said she hadn’t seen him since yesterday morning. Eduardo called and told her he was going to take a job acting as a guide for a tourist he met in a coffeehouse.”
“Did he tell her his name?”
He shook his head. “He was interrupted in the middle of the conversation and hung up quickly.”
“Can we get a photo of Wickman from Venable?