CHAPTER 7.

"I want to go home tomorrow," Leigh told her physician when he stopped in to see her at five that afternoon.

He peered at her over her chart, his expression as implacable as hers. "That's not possible."

"But I was able to get out of bed several times today, and I walked down the hall this afternoon. I'm sure I don't need this neck brace. I'm fine," Leigh insisted.

"You're not fine. You had a serious concussion, you have fractured ribs, and we don't know yet if you need that neck brace."

"I'm hardly in any pain at all."

"That's because you're being given powerful painkillers. Have you looked at your body beneath that hospital gown?" he demanded.

"Yes."

"Have you seen your face in a mirror? "

"Yes."

"How would you describe what you see?"

"I look like I've been in an accident."

"You look like a living eggplant." When her expression remained stubbornly determined, he changed tactics. "Reporters and photographers have been hanging around downstairs, hoping for a look at you. You don't want anyone to see you looking like this, do you? You have a public image to preserve."

Leigh was in no mood for a lecture on the importance of her public image. It was already Wednesday, and the helicopters wouldn't be able to fly tomorrow if the weather didn't improve. She wanted to help the police narrow down the search by finding the spot where her car went over the embankment. She could not endure another day of helpless inactivity and enforced bed rest. Her body hurt everywhere, but her mind was clear and she needed to be able to act.

Her doctor mistook her silence for a.s.sent. "You know I only have your best health interests at heart. You simply are not well enough to be discharged."

"Let's pretend I'm an ordinary blue-collar worker," Leigh proposed smoothly.

"I have a family to support and no money to cover what my HMO policy won't pay. If that were true, Dr. Zapata, when would you discharge me?"

His gray brows snapped together.

"Would it have been yesterday?" she prompted.

"No," he said.

"Then when?" she persisted.

"This morning," he said. "You've made your point, Mrs. Manning."

Leigh instantly felt like a witch. "I'm very sorry. That was rude of me."

"Unfortunately, it was also completely on point. I'll sign your discharge papers after I stop in to see you in the morning-provided you agree to leave here in an ambulance."

As soon as he left, Leigh tried to call Brenna, but her secretary had already started for home. With an hour to waste, Leigh made her way slowly and painfully to the chair opposite her bed. She eased herself onto it and began leafing through the magazines and newspapers she'd gotten earlier from a volunteer who was pushing a cart with reading materials. Leigh was trying to rebuild her strength.

At six-thirty, she put the newspapers aside, crept back to her bed, and called Brenna at her home number. "I have a favor to ask," she began. "It's a little out of the ordinary-"

"I don't care," Brenna interrupted swiftly. "Just tell me how I can help."

_ "I'm being discharged in the morning. Could you bring me some fresh clothes?"

"Of course. Anything else?"

"Yes, rent a four-wheel-drive vehicle and drive that up here. Park it somewhere close to the hospital, then take a cab the rest of the way. I'm required to leave the hospital in an ambulance," Leigh explained, "but I'm not going to stay in it. We'll let the ambulance go as soon as we get to the rental car."

"And then what?" Brenna asked uneasily. "I mean, if you need an ambulance in order to leave the hospital, shouldn't you stay in it back to the city?"

"We're not going directly back to the city. The police can't follow my map, but I should be able to find the place where I went off the road. The cabin where I was supposed to meet my husband has to be very close to that spot."

"I understand," Brenna said, "but I'm really worried about you, and-"

"Brenna, please! I need your help." Leigh's voice broke with exhaustion and fear, and when Brenna heard it, she capitulated at once.

"I'll take care of everything," she promised fiercely. "Before you hang up,"

she added, "there's something I want to say. I hope you-you won't take this in the wrong way."

Leigh leaned her head against the pillows and braced herself to hear something she didn't want to-the normal outcome, in her experience, of any statement that began with someone suggesting that the listener not take it the wrong way. "What is it?"

"I haven't worked for you very long, and I know you have hundreds of friends you could turn to, so I'm very pleased... well, flattered... that you're counting on me... when you have so many other people..."

"Brenna," Leigh said with a weary smile, "I hate to disillusion you, but I have hundreds of acquaintances I can't trust, and only a few true friends I can completely trust. Two of them are on the other side of the globe, and one of them is lost in the mountains. Everyone else-casual friends, acquaintances, and people I've never even met-are already under siege from the media. The newspapers are full of misinformation, speculation, and wild innuendos, and they're getting that stuff from my so-called friends and close acquaintances."

Brenna fell silent, obviously trying to think of another explanation, but there was none. "That's very sad," she said softly.

It was also the least of Leigh's worries. "Don't dwell on it. That's simply the way life is for people like me."

"Thank you for trusting me; that's all I wanted to say."

Leigh closed her eyes. "Thank you for being-for being you."

When Brenna hung up, Leigh gathered the last of her strength and made her final phone call of the night. It was to her publicist, Trish Lefkowitz. She gave Trish a quick, unemotional update on the situation, and once Trish had offered words of sympathy and encouragement, the publicist got straight down to business: "Do you feel up to giving me some instructions about how you want me to handle the press? Up until now, I've been winging it."

"That's why I'm calling. I'm going to be discharged in the morning, but I'm not going directly home, and I don't want reporters following me. Brenna and I are going to drive up into the mountains to look for the place where I had my accident."

"That's crazy. You can't possibly be well enough-"

"If I can find it, it will help narrow down the search."

"Men!" Trish exploded. The publicist's long string of unsatisfactory relationships was turning her into an outspoken man-hater. "Logan is probably camping out in some cozy s...o...b..und cabin, with a farmer's wife baking him cookies, while we're all going crazy with worry and you're trying to rescue him."

"I hope you're right," Leigh said.

Trish sighed. "Me, too, Now, let me think, how can I distract the media so you can make your getaway... ?"

Leigh waited, picturing the publicist pushing her shoulder-length black hair behind her right ear, then slowly twisting the end of a lock and tugging on it while she contemplated the situation. In happier days, Leigh had teasingly warned her that the entire lock of hair was going to drop off in her hand one day.

"Okay, here's the best way. I'll call the hospital's spokesman-his name is Dr.

Jerry-something. I'll have him notify any members of the press who are hanging around the hospital that you're being released in the morning and will be leaving by ambulance to come home. Then I'll arrange for an empty ambulance to leave the hospital, and hopefully, they'll chase it all the way back to New York City.

How's that sound?"

"It sounds good. One more thing-notify the media that I'll give a press conference at home tomorrow tonight."

"You're kidding! Do you feel up to that?"

"No, but I need their help and cooperation. A police artist is working up a sketch of the man who found me after my accident. We can hand out the drawing if it's ready. I also want to try to put a stop to the rumors I read in two newspapers tonight that Logan's disappearance is merely the result of some sort of marital squabble. The NYPD has volunteered to get actively involved in the search, but newspaper articles like those will make the police look-and feel-foolish."

"I understand. Can I ask how you look?"

"I look okay."

"No bruises on your face, or anything? I'm thinking about cameras."

"I need a public forum; it doesn't matter how I look."

Trish's silence on the other end of the telephone punctuated her adamant disagreement with that statement, but she sensed it was useless to argue. "I'll see you tomorrow evening," she said.

CHAPTER 8.

The telephone calls had exhausted Leigh, but they had also kept her mind occupied. However, when she turned off the lights and closed her eyes, her imagination took over, tormenting her with the horrors that might have befallen Logan. She saw him tied up in a chair being tortured by some demented stalker... She saw him frozen to death in his car... his lips blue, eyes glazed and staring.

Unable to endure the agony of those images, Leigh tried to draw strength and hope from memories of the past. She remembered their simple wedding in front of a bored justice of the peace. Leigh had worn her best dress and a flower in her hair. Logan had stood beside her, managing to look elegant, handsome, and self-a.s.sured, despite the fact that he was wearing a threadbare suit and their combined a.s.sets amounted to eight hundred dollars.

Leigh's grandmother hadn't been able to sc.r.a.pe together the cost of an airline ticket to attend the wedding, and Logan's mother was so opposed to the marriage that they hadn't told her about it until the day after. But despite all that-despite their virtual poverty, the absence of friends and family, and the uncertain future ahead of them, they'd been happy and infinitely optimistic that day. They believed in each other. They believed in the power of love. For the next several years, that was all they had-each other and a great deal of love.

Images of Logan flipped through Leigh's mind like slides in a projector...

Logan when they met, young, too thin, but dashing, worldly, and wise beyond his years. He'd taken her to the symphony on their first date. She'd never been to the symphony, and during a pause in the music, she'd clapped too soon, thinking the piece was over. The couple in front of them had turned and given her a disdainful look that doubled her mortification, but Logan hadn't let the incident pa.s.s. At intermission, he leaned forward and spoke to the older couple. In that polished, disarming way of his, he said congenially, "Isn't it wonderful when we're first introduced to something we love? Remember how good that felt?"

The couple turned in their seats, and their frowns became smiles, which they directed at Leigh. "I didn't like the symphony at first," the man confided to her.

"My parents had season tickets and they dragged me along. It took quite a while to grow on me." The couple spent intermission with Leigh and Logan and insisted on buying them a gla.s.s of champagne to celebrate Leigh's first symphony.

Leigh soon discovered that Logan had a particular way of dealing with sn.o.bby, standoffish, critical people, a way that disarmed them and converted them into friends and admirers. Logan's mother often said that "there is no subst.i.tute for good breeding," and Logan had it in abundance-a natural, unaffected kind of good breeding.

For their second date, Logan suggested Leigh choose how they spend the evening. She decided on a little known off-Broadway play by a new young playwright named Jason Solomon. Logan closed his eyes and dozed off during the third act.

Because Leigh was a drama student at New York University, she'd been able to get backstage pa.s.ses. "What did you think of the play?" Jason Solomon asked them when Leigh finished the introductions.

"I loved it," Leigh said, partly out of courtesy and partly out of her all-encompa.s.sing love of everything related to the theater. In truth, she thought most of the writing was excellent, but the acting was only fair, and the lighting and direction were poor.

Satisfied, Jason looked to Logan for more praise. "What did you think of it? "

"I don't know much about theater," Logan replied. "Leigh is the expert on that. She's the leading drama student at NYU. If my mother had been here tonight, you could have asked her opinion. It would be more meaningful than mine."

Instantly insulted by Logan's lack of enthusiasm, Jason lifted his chin and eyed Logan scornfully down the length of his nose. "And you think your mother's opinion would carry weight because she's-what? A successful playwright? A theater critic?"

"No, because among her circle of friends there are several influential patrons of the arts."

Leigh didn't realize it at the time, but Logan was dangling the slim possibility of a financial backer under Jason's hose. All Leigh knew was that the playwright became slightly ingratiating, but was still resentful. "Bring your mother to my play," he said. "Let me know when you're planning to come, and I'll see that you have front row tickets."

As they left, Leigh said, "Do you think your mother would enjoy his play?"

Grinning, Logan put his arm around her shoulders. It was the first time he had touched her in a personal way. "I don't think my mother would set foot in this theater unless the city of New York was on fire and this was the only fireproof building."

"Then why did you let Jason Solomon think she might?"

"Because you're a gifted actress and he's a playwright who is badly in need of people who can actually act. I thought you might want to drop in here next week, if the play doesn't close before then, and volunteer your services."

Warmed by his praise and distracted by his touch, Leigh nevertheless felt compelled to point out the truth: "You have no way of knowing whether I can actually act."

"Yes, I do. Your roommate told me you're 'gifted.' In fact, she said you're some kind of prodigy and you're the envy of the entire drama school."

"Even if all of that were true-which it isn't-Jason Solomon wouldn't hire me. I don't have any professional credentials."

Logan chuckled. "From the looks of this place and the quality of the acting, he can't afford to hire anybody with professional credentials. And, I said 'volunteer' your services-free of charge. After that, you'll have credentials."

It wasn't that easy to break into the business; it didn't work that way; but Leigh was already falling in love with Logan Manning, and so she didn't want to debate with him about anything that night.

Outside the theater, he hailed a taxi, and when the driver was absorbed with midtown traffic, Logan put his arm around her shoulders again, drew her close,, and kissed her for the first time. It was an amazing kiss, filled with all the deep infatuation Leigh was feeling herself, an expert kiss that left her feeling not only dazed and overheated, but also uneasily aware that in this, as in most everything else, Logan Manning was a lot more experienced and worldly than she was.

He walked her to the dingy apartment building on Great Jones Street, where she shared a one-bedroom apartment on the fifth floor. Outside her apartment, he kissed her again, longer and more thoroughly this time. By the time he let her go, Leigh felt so euphoric that she knew she wouldn't be able to sleep for hours.

She waited just inside her apartment, listening to him bounding down the flights of stairs to the street level; then she opened the door and dreamily walked down the same stairs he'd descended.

Logan hadn't taken her to get anything to eat after the play, which was an omission she would wonder about later, but at that moment all she knew for certain was that she was deliriously happy and ravenously hungry. The grocery market on the corner was only a few doors away, and it was open all night, so Leigh went there.