Perfect (Second Opportunities 2)

"Oh, but it doesn't have to be like that. I mean, the police or the district attorney or whoever is in charge could be made to check out the new evidence."

"The legal authorities," he contradicted scornfully, "decided Zack was guilty and they arrested and prosecuted him. I hate to shatter your illusions, but they are the last people who'd want to reopen the case and make themselves look like fools by revealing that they were wrong. If we uncovered incontrovertible proof that Austin or someone else was guilty, I'd take it to Zack's lawyers and the media before I'd hand it over to the authorities so they could try to bury it. The problem is that we don't have much chance of finding out more than we have. We've already exhausted every avenue trying to find out who the woman with Austin was. Austin denied there was such a woman. He said the bellboy was mistaken, and whatever voice he'd heard must have been a television program." Matt softened his tone as if by doing that, he could somehow soften the blow he was about to deal her: "Zack understands all that. He knows the chances are ninety-nine percent now that Austin is the murderer, and he also knows the legal system isn't going to do a damned thing about it, unless he or I can give them one-hundred percent of the proof, and I'm afraid that's impossible. It's important you understand that, too, Julie. I only told you what we've learned because you're determined to go to him, and I thought it might help you, in case you ever begin to doubt his innocence."

Julie rejected his fatalistic logic with all her heart. "I'll never stop hoping. I'll pray and hope and badger God until your investigation turns up the proof you need."

She looked ready to take on the entire world for Zack, and Matt impulsively pulled her against him for a brief hug. "Zack finally got lucky when he met you," he said tenderly. "You go right ahead and pray," he added, releasing her. "We can use all the help we can get." Reaching into his pocket, he took out a pen and a business card, then he wrote two phone numbers on the back of it and an address. "These are our private phone numbers in Chicago and Carmel. If you can't reach us either place, call my secretary at the number on the front of the card, and I'll give her instructions to tell you where we are and how to reach us, no matter where that may be. The address on the back of the card is our home in Chicago. I was also supposed to give you this check from Zack."

Julie shook her head. "He told me what the check was for in the letter. I won't need it."

"I'm sorry," Matt said gently, "that there isn't anything more I can do. Truly sorry for you and for Zack."

Julie shook her head. "You've been wonderful. Thank you for telling me what you did."

When he left to wait in the car with Joe O'Hara, Julie held out the clothes she'd worn home from Colorado to Meredith. "I noticed Matt is the same height and build as Zack, and I'm about two inches shorter than you. Because of that and some other things I learned tonight, I have a feeling you might recognize these." When Meredith nodded, Julie held them further out and said, "I had to wear these home, but I've had them dry-cleaned. I intended to mail them back to the house, but I never found out the address."

"Keep them," Meredith said softly, "for the memories they hold."

Julie unconsciously cradled them protectively to her chest. "Thank you."

Swallowing over the lump of emotion in her throat she felt at the revealing gesture, Meredith said, "I agree with you that Zack will contact Matt very soon, but are you absolutely certain you should go through with this? You'll surely be breaking some law, and they'll hunt for you both. If you're lucky, you'll live the rest of your life in hiding."

"Tell me something," Julie said, meeting her gaze unflinchingly. "If it were Matt somewhere out there, all alone, loving you—if it were Matt who wrote you the letter you read tonight, what would you do? Honestly," she added, sensing that her new friend might try to dissemble.

Meredith breathed a ragged sigh. "I would get on the first plane, boat, car, or truck that would take me to him." Wrapping Julie in a tight hug, she whispered, "I would even lie and tell him I was pregnant so he'd let me come to him."

Julie stiffened in alarm. "What makes you think I'm not pregnant?"

"The expression on your face when Matt first asked you if you were and the fact that you started to shake your head no before you stopped yourself."

"You won't tell Matt will you?"

"I can't tell him," she said with a sigh. "I haven't kept a secret from him during our marriage, but if I tell him this one, he'll tell Zack. He'll do it to protect both of you, because even though he hides it, he's desperately afraid of what you want to do and what it may cause. So am I."

"Then why are you helping me do it?"

"Because," Meredith said simply, "I don't think either of you are going to have any life at all without each other. And because," she added, managing a real smile, "I think you would do the same thing for me if our positions were reversed."

Julie waved good-bye to them from the front porch, then she went back into the house and got Zack's letter. Sitting down in a chair, she read it again, letting the words warm and thrill her and reinforce her courage.

I love you, Julie. Christ, I love you so much. I'd give up all my life to have one year with you. Six months. Three. Anything… I never thought of sexual intercourse as 'making love' until you… I won't send another letter to you, so don't look for one. Letters will make us both hope and dream, and if I don't stop doing that, I will die of wanting you.

She thought again of his last words to her in Colorado, his condescending amusement when she told him she loved him: "You don't love me, Julie. You don't know the difference between good sex and real love. Now be a good girl and go home where you belong." And then she compared that with the real truth in his letter: I love you, Julie. I loved you in Colorado. I love you here, where I am. I will always love you. Everywhere. Always.

The sharp contrast between the two made her shake her head in awed amazement. "No wonder," she whispered tenderly to him, "you won an Academy Award!"

Julie got up and turned off the living room lights, but she took his letter with her to her bedroom so she could read it again. "Call me, Zack," she ordered him in her heart, "and put us both out of this misery. Call me quickly, darling."

* * *

Next door, the Eldridge twins were up unusually late, too. "He said to call him," Ada Eldridge pointed out to her balky twin sister. "Mr. Richardson said to call him in Dallas, no matter what time it is, if we noticed any strangers or anything unusual around Julie Mathison's house. Now give me the license number of that car that was parked out there half the night, so I can read it to him."