I'll Walk Alone - Mary Higgins Clark [23]
At three o’clock, ghastly pale, he finally arrived at the office. Without asking, Rita made a cup of tea for him. “You should have stayed home, Ted,” she said matter-of-factly. “I promise I’m not going to say another word about it, but there is one fact that you should keep in mind. Zan adored Matthew. She would never hurt him.”
“Notice you use the word ‘adored,’” Ted snapped. “That’s past tense in my book. Now where are the Celeb proofs of Melissa?”
“They’re gorgeous,” Rita said reassuringly, as she took them from an envelope she had laid on his desk.
Ted stared at them. “To you they’re gorgeous. To me they’re gorgeous. But I can tell you right now that Melissa is going to hate them. There are shadows under her eyes, and her mouth looks too thin. And don’t forget I was the one who told her she ought to accept posing for that cover story. Good God, can it get any worse?”
Rita looked at her boss of fifteen years with compassion. Ted Carpenter was thirty-eight years old but he looked years younger than his actual age. With his thick hair, brown eyes, firm mouth, and lean frame, she always believed that he was better looking and had a lot more charisma than many of the clients he represented. But right now he looks as if someone attacked him with a machete.
And to think of all the pity I’ve wasted on Zan these two years, Rita thought. If she’d done something to that darling little boy, I honestly think I could shoot her myself!
17
Zan blinked, opened her eyes, and closed them again. What happened, she asked herself. She wondered why she was sitting in the chair, why even though she was wearing the bathrobe, she felt so chilled, why her whole body ached.
Her hands were numb. She rubbed them together, trying to get feeling back into her fingers. Her feet were asleep. She moved them in a circular motion, almost unaware of what she was doing.
She opened her eyes again. Matthew’s picture was directly in her vision. She could tell that the bulb in the lamp next to it was still on, even though dim, cloud-filled light was filtering through the partially drawn shade.
Why didn’t I go to bed last night? she asked herself as she tried to get past the dull throbbing in her head.
Then she remembered.
They think I took Matthew from the stroller. But that’s impossible. That’s crazy. Why would I do that? What would I have done with him?
“What would I have done with you?” she moaned, as she stared at Matthew’s picture. “Can anyone seriously believe I could harm you, my own child?”
Zan sprang to her feet, then in quick strides crossed the room to grab Matthew’s picture and hug it against her body. “Why do they think that?” The question was now a whisper. “How could those pictures be of me? I was with Nina Aldrich. I spent that afternoon in the new town house she bought. I can prove it. Of course I can prove it.
“I know I didn’t take Matthew out of his stroller,” she said aloud, trying to control the quavering tone of her voice. “I can prove it. But I can’t let what happened to me last night happen again. I can’t have those blanks in my memory, the way I did after Mom and Dad died. If there is a photo of a woman picking up Matthew from the stroller, it would be the first real break in trying to trace him. I’ve got to think like that. I can’t let myself retreat again. Please, God, don’t let me be overwhelmed again. Let me hang on to the hope that there may be something in those photos that will give some clue,