Free Silent Witness by Collin Wilcox Page B

posters of airplanes and lions and sharks in the sea, it had seemed as if he was back in the house at the winery. It had been dark then, too. Something had awakened him. The sound of voices, the sound of something crashing. The sounds—the voices—had come from upstairs. His father’s voice, and another voice. His mother? Someone else?
    Had he been awake? Or still asleep, and dreaming?
    His eyes, he remembered, were closed. Was he pretending sleep, or was he really asleep? If he’d been awake, really awake, wouldn’t he have opened his eyes when he heard the footsteps on the stairs? Had there been whispers, too? Soft, urgent whispers?
    Had he opened his eyes? Had he seen them?
    Sometimes he had dreams. And sometimes, when he woke up, it seemed like he was still dreaming. Sometimes, when the dreams were bad, he’d still been frightened, even when he was awake. So when he felt his father’s hand on his shoulder, shaking him, he hadn’t known whether he was awake or asleep. Not until he saw his father’s face, so close, and smelled his father’s breath, and heard his father’s voice. But it was a harsh voice, a stranger’s voice. And his father’s face had been twisted into a stranger’s face. The face of fear, fugitive from nightmare memories, one face beneath another face, one of them hidden.
    The same face he’d seen at the funeral. A stranger’s face, beside him.

11:30 P.M.
    “S O WHAT’D YOU THINK? ” Paula asked.
    In the bedroom darkness, his naked body touching hers, both of them companionably sated—erotically sated, in passion’s afterglow—Bernhardt chuckled.
    “What do I think about what?
    “About Janice’s—” She hesitated. After their six months together, Bernhardt thought he could account for the hesitation. Paula was searching for a less dramatic word, to finish the sentence. Whenever possible, Paula opted for understatement. But the word she sought failed to materialize. So: “About her suspicions.”
    “I’ve no idea. She’s right about Price. He’s a horse’s ass, no question. And Price definitely doesn’t want anybody questioning John. But whether there’s any more to it than that—” He moved closer to her, put his hand on her stomach, just below the rib cage. It was a good stomach, a flat stomach. Like everything he’d discovered about her body, he approved.
    Had it only been six months since they’d first met?
    “If there’s more to it than that”—he stroked her stomach, felt her navel beneath his fingertips, felt himself quickening—“I’ve got no idea.”
    “Janice is pretty level-headed. Pretty smart. Very smart, in fact.” Unlike Bernhardt’s voice, lowered to a huskier, intimate note meant to suggest that, since it was Friday night, they might consider making love for a second time, her voice was clear and starchy. Paula wanted information.
    “Janice doesn’t imagine things,” she said.
    “I’m sure she doesn’t.”
    “You sound—” Once more, she paused. Then: “You sound condescending.”
    “That’s not true. Or, at least, I certainly don’t feel condescending. She’s obviously an intelligent, effective person. I’m surprised she never got married.”
    “It’s a soap opera plot,” she answered. “Sad, but true.”
    “How do you mean, ‘soap opera plot’?”
    “Did she tell you about their parents—how they died?”
    “It was a boating accident, she said. Connie survived—and felt guilty about it, ever since. A classic case of childhood guilt that never went away, apparently.”
    “Their parents were wonderful people,” she answered, her voice softened by the recollection. “It was one of those—those perfect families. And then, in seconds, it all ended.”
    In seconds …
    Suddenly the images returned: the policeman’s knock at their door. Jennie’s body, on a stainless-steel tray, her shattered head wrapped in green cloth.
    Perhaps because she sensed his sudden pain, Paula went quickly on: “Connie was ten years old