Low Pressure

“To Steven. To Allen Strickland.” Squeezing her eyes closed, she asked in a frightened whisper, “Did I see her do that?”

“Stop it, Bellamy. This is crazy. You can’t force yourself to remember things that didn’t happen.”

She pulled her lower lip through her teeth, but now it didn’t look sexy. It was the gesture of someone in torment. “Rupe Collier thought it possible.”

“He was only trying to get a rise out of you. You know that.”

“I think Daddy suspects.”

“What?”

“It’s occurred to him. I know it has.”

“What in God’s name are you talking about?”

As she recounted their conversation of the day before, Dent became increasingly agitated. “Be reasonable. If he thought you’d done it, he sure as hell wouldn’t have asked you to grant his dying wish and expose the murderer.”

Past listening, she threaded the fingers of both hands through her hair and held it off her face. He could practically see her mind wildly spinning. “When we were with Moody and I described the crime scene, you got nervous. You were biting the inside of your cheek. You looked tense, tightly wound, like you were about to spring off the bed.” He tried to keep his expression neutral, but she was too perceptive.

“You thought that if I told too much I would incriminate myself. That’s why you got anxious, isn’t it?”

“Bellamy, listen—”

“You think I killed her and couldn’t live with what I’d done, so I blocked my memory of it. That’s what you think.”

“It makes no difference what I think.”

“Of course it does!”

“To who?”

“To me!” she shouted. “It matters to me that you think I’m a murderer.”

“I never said that.”

“You did.”

“I said that it had crossed my mind.”

“Which is as good as.”

“No it isn’t.”

“Thinking that, why would you want to go to bed with me?”

“What does one have to do with the other?”

She looked at him, aghast, speechless, and horrified.

He took a breath, blew it out, then said, “Look, after what Susan said about you, I wouldn’t have blamed you for driving a stake through her heart. I don’t believe you choked her, but if you did, so what? I don’t care.”

She hugged herself even more tightly. “You’ve said that repeatedly. You didn’t care about your dad’s indifference. You don’t care what my parents think about you. You left the airline uncaring of people’s opinion. You don’t care if Moody blows his brains out. You don’t care if I took my sister’s life. You. Don’t. Care. About anything. Do you?”

He remained stonily, angrily silent.

“Well, your not caring is a big problem for me.” She held his gaze for several beats, then went to the staircase and started up. “I want you to go now, and I don’t want you ever to come back.”

Inside the master bedroom closet, Ray Strickland was beside himself. He’d overheard everything.