Walking away from him was like pulling tape off tender skin. “Thanks for this stuff. I’ll get it all back to you in a couple of days.”
“There’s no hurry.”
She felt the pressure of his gaze on her back. Call me back, she thought fiercely. Tell me you still want me. I know you do. It isn’t too late. Call me back. Don’t let me go, you bastard.
“Sarah.”
She turned to face him, her mouth dry, wondering if she should drop the tools and rush across the grass that separated them, into his arms.
But his arms were folded tight against his chest. “Sarah, I’m glad you came by. I know it’s hard . . . I’ve felt you’ve been avoiding me, and I never wanted that. I know you have every right to be angry, to hate me, but I want us still to be friends.”
Her throat and stomach hurt. She couldn’t even swallow.
“I just want you to know that if you need anything, you can always come to me. I hope we can be friends.”
She waited for something more. Surely he knew what she needed from him. He wouldn’t have been able to express such pious sentiments if she had been standing close enough to touch him. Suddenly she was furious with him. She shrugged, her throat still too tight for speech, and turned and walked to her car. The weight of the tools she carried made her stagger slightly, but Brian did not come rushing after to offer his assistance. From the car she watched him go back into his house. Tears blurred her vision for a moment.
“I can’t be your friend,” she muttered. “I don’t want to be. Because I don’t like you. I just love you.”
There was a dead bird at the foot of the steps.
It had been a big, black grackle, now silenced forever. It had been violently killed, the head nearly wrenched off, and feathers speckled the pale, dusty ground, dark as spilled blood.
Sarah stared down at it. Another death, she thought. What did this one mean?
She looked around uneasily, feeling watched. But if there were eyes glaring at her out of the tall weeds at the side of the house, she could not see them. Was the dead bird a warning? Had Jade gained new strength from this act?
She leaned the shovel against the house and cradled the crowbar and hammer awkwardly in one arm. As she let herself into the house she was tense, already anticipating some attack.
But the house felt empty. Sarah went through it nevertheless, holding the crowbar like a weapon as she looked inside closets and peered under furniture. But she was being silly, she thought, looking for some physical danger. It was being alone that made her so nervous. If Brian were here—
She remembered how he had looked at her, and how he had avoided looking at her. The thought of that sleepy, seductive glance and the sound of his voice saying her name made her weak with desire. She leaned against the bedroom wall. She remembered how charged the atmosphere between them had been, and she cursed the missed opportunity. Why had she waited? I could have had him, she thought. He wanted me.
She wondered if he was thinking of her now. She could almost see him as he must be, still in his bathrobe, slouching on the couch, his coffee grown cold while he brooded.
It would have been so easy, she thought, there in that apartment where shared memories conspired to bring them together, to forget the recent past and heal all the hurts by the movement of their bodies together.
Dazed, half in a dream, Sarah walked slowly into the kitchen and stared at the bright red telephone. It wasn’t too late. He would come if she called him.
Call him. Call him now. Get him over here.
Swallowing hard, Sarah crouched by the telephone. She had to call Brian. He could make things right. He wouldn’t reject her again, he couldn’t, not here in her own house. Here, she would be the strong one, and she had desire enough for both of them. She knew how to please him, she knew what to do. And she would do anything, say anything to have him again, to be able to wrap her arms and legs around him, and feel him inside her, their two bodies straining to become one, just as it had been before, as it should be now.
All she had to do was to get him over here. Sarah drew a long, shuddering breath and picked up the telephone and dialed the well-remembered number.
The telephone rang in her ear.
She tried to think of what she could say: something plausible, not too threatening.
“Hello?”
“Brian,” she said. Her mind had gone blank. She couldn’t even remember why she had called him.
“Oh, Sarah, hello, is anything the matter?”
“I wondered if you’d help me. You said you’d help me.”
“Sure,” he said cautiously. “What did you want?”
“I need you . . .” Her imagination balked, and she couldn’t think beyond that simple fact.
“Sarah? Are you all right?”
“Yes, of course. Why?”
“You sound strange.”
“Could you come over?”
“Why?” There was a sharp note of suspicion in his voice.
Sarah balanced the receiver between chin and shoulder and wiped sweaty palms on her jeans. “Look, I can’t really explain on the phone . . . if you could just come over . . .”
“Can’t you give me some idea of what you want me to do?”
She chewed her lip with frustration. “Look, I need you to help me. It’s complicated to explain . . . I need to knock in a wall.”
“Wow, does your landlord know?”
“I don’t want to get into all that—I told you, I’ll explain after you’re here. It’ll be easier.” When he did not reply immediately she said, “You did offer to help.”
He sighed. “All right. When . . .”
“Now.”
“Now? Oh, look, Sarah, I’ve got a class this afternoon . . .”
“That’s hours off. It won’t take long.”
“I could come over tomorrow afternoon, or Saturday morning . . .”
“I want to do it now.”
“Well, I’m sorry, Sarah, but—”
“Brian, please.” Her frustration, her sheer physical need blazed out of the word, and across the distance Sarah sensed his withdrawal.
“I just can’t manage it today, Sarah.” A door had closed.
“Oh, Brian, please, please.” She was crying. “Please let’s try again. I can’t stand it without you. I’ve tried, and I can’t.”
“Sarah, don’t. You’re just making it harder.”
It was hopeless. The telephone was the worst possible connection: it allowed him a safe distance, and deprived her of all weapons except naked words. She didn’t have a chance. She hung up without saying goodbye.
Trembling with frustration, Sarah remained sitting on the floor, staring at the telephone. If only she’d kept her cool, she thought, she might have had him, she might have tricked him into coming over.
With a sudden, shocking sense of dislocation, Sarah saw her thoughts as if they belonged to someone else. Why this desperation? Why such a frantic need for Brian here, in this house, immediately?
Reason shone with a cold, hard light. It wasn’t she who wanted Brian that badly. It was Jade.
It was Jade who wanted Brian here, who wanted them to make love within these walls, to fill the air with sexual tension and sexual satisfaction, providing the power he needed. He had failed with Pete, and so he was using Sarah even more deviously, still trying to turn her desires to his own benefit. If she had been successful, how would Jade have used that power, she wondered. Would it have provided the last key he needed to unlock Sarah’s mind, to allow him to possess her utterly?
Sarah shuddered and stood up, appalled by how willingly she would have gone to her doom. Even now her body wanted Brian, and would have risked all Jade’s terrors for him, would have risked hell.
But she wasn’t going to. She was going to destroy Jade now, forever. She picked up the hammer and walked into the living room. At the sight of that oddly jutting wall came the image of a carved statue wrapped in silk, hidden beneath a loose brick—it was so vivid that for a moment Sarah almost thought she had already found it. But no, it was waiting for her, waiting to be found.