Читать книгу His Perfect Family - Patti Standard - Страница 10

Chapter Two

Cutter ladled gravy into the crater he’d made in a mountain of mashed potatoes. “So if I bring that three-quarter-inch copper across for the tub, I’ve got to drill through the joists.” He reached across to his father’s plate and poured a spoonful onto his similar mound, then carefully set the gravy boat with its delicate rose pattern on the tablecloth next to the peas.

“Sometimes that’s just the way it is with a remodel,” Peter Matchett told his son, waiting patiently while his wife cut his roast into bite-size pieces and buttered him a roll. “Reinforce it with plywood and it should be all right.”

“Who is it you’re doing this bathroom for, dear?” Mary Matchett asked as she bent over her husband’s plate.

“Her name’s Adrianne Rhodes, and she works at that bank over by the mall. Her husband was killed in a car crash last fall.”

“Well, now, that’s too bad.” His mother looked up, all innocence behind her gold wire glasses. “Is she nice?”

“Mm-hmm.”

“And how old is she?”

“Younger than me.”

“Do you like the daughter? Does she — ?”

“Mary!”

“Mother.”

Both men interrupted her at once. Cutter didn’t want his mother thinking along those lines at all. As if he could stop her. And as if his own thoughts hadn’t returned several times that evening to Adrianne Rhodes. It was hard not to remember her wide eyes when the gravy was the same rich, golden brown shade, and the butter melting in a pool on his roll looked as soft and yielding as her hair, and...

Ah, forget it, he was just hungry, he told himself with a mental shake as he attacked the potatoes. His head had been turned by a pretty girl before, and he had two very short, very crummy marriages to show for it. He wasn’t interested.

“I’m glad you’re keeping busy, that’s all,” his mother said, sliding into her own chair. “I was just telling your brother the other day... You know they made him produce manager over at the supermarket?”

“Yeah, you told me.”

“Tom’s been with them seven years, it’s about time they gave him his own department. Especially with Lucy expecting again. I swear, I always say it’s a good thing he works at a grocery store with all those mouths to feed.” She picked up her husband’s fork and helped him wrap his twisted fingers around the handle. “Anyway, I was telling him with business so good, it looked like you would probably stay around awhile —”

“Mom, I keep telling you, I’m not going anywhere.” Cutter kept his voice gentle. They’d been through this before. “I’ve been back two years now.”

“Goodness, has it been that long? Two years. My, my.” She shook out a napkin and draped it across her lap, protecting a dress sprinkled with a rose design almost identical to the gravy boat’s. “When’s the last time you stayed in one spot for two years? That city in Germany, wasn’t it, the one with the wall?”

“Berlin, Mary, for pete’s sake,” his father said gruffly.

“Well, of course I know it was Berlin. The name just slipped my mind, that’s all.”

Cutter smiled, savoring his mother’s pot roast and his father’s advice in equal measure. He’d missed both during those years in Berlin and Prague, Warsaw and Moscow. His mother was grayer now, and plumper, but she still cooked like an angel, dressed like June Cleaver and lived for her grandchildren, now that he and his brother were grown.

His father looked the same as ever, whip thin with a full head of coal black hair, wearing the matching khaki pants and shirt that had been his uniform for as long as Cutter could remember. His eyes were different, though. Years of pain had etched deep lines around them, drawing them back into his skull as if they could hide from it that way. And, then, of course, there were his hands.

Many a mission, as Cutter had raced against the clock to hot-wire a jeep or set the delicate timing device on an explosive, he’d remember his father’s capable hands. Hands that turned a screwdriver with swift, deft strokes to repair a toaster, hands that fixed a bike’s slipped chain or banged in just the right spot to get the old furnace wheezing again. Big, strong hands that patiently teased slivers from grimy small-boy fingers. Caring, loving hands that had fixed Cutter’s world.

And all the time, as Cutter slunk through the alleys of those ancient capitals, he’d thought he was fixing something, too. He’d thought he was saving the world for democracy, making it a better place. The meat in his mouth turned dry, as tough and hard as he felt inside. His eyes flicked to his father’s gnarled fingers, the joints swollen and twisted, so tortured by arthritis they couldn’t even pick up a screwdriver, let alone use it. As useless in the end as Cutter and all those dark alleys.

“I’m just glad Cutter’s home where he belongs,” his mother said. “You know, sweetheart, your father and I aren’t getting any younger.”

“Speak for yourself, old woman. I’ve still got some kick in me yet” His father wagged his thick eyebrows at her. “In fact, I’ve got my eye on one of those exercise contraptions that’ll give you abs of steel in only six weeks. Oprah had a whole show on ’em. Abs of steel, that’s what it said.”

His mother sniffed. “That’s just what you need, all right.” She laid down her fork and steepled her fingers in that way she had. “But I wanted to talk to Cutter about...” She hesitated.

Cutter stopped eating with a strange sense of foreboding. “What is it, Mom?”

“It’s just things are getting to be a bit much for your father and me.”

“Now, Mary, this isn’t the time to be going into all that. Let the boy eat his meal in peace and quiet.”

“Take this house, for instance. The yard went to rack and ruin last year. I couldn’t seem to keep on top of it — that’s all I’m saying.”

“You know I’ll be glad to help out,” Cutter said. “Why don’t you write up a list of chores that are bothering you and I’ll get started on them this week?”

“That’s sweet of you, dear, but your father and I have been thinking about —”

“What’s for dessert?” his father interrupted with a joviality so forced Cutter wondered whom he thought he was fooling. “I’ve been smelling apple pie all afternoon.”

His mother’s smile was thin as she pushed back her chair. “Tom brought over some apples this morning that the store marked down. They had some bruises but were still nice and sweet.” She got up and moved toward the kitchen.

His father had obviously won this round. Now, if Cutter only knew what war he was in the middle of. He ate his pie, all the time watching his parents carefully, his unease growing. He didn’t like mysteries this close to home.

Adrianne had offered to run errands, and he took her up on it, sending her after parts the next morning — from a lumberyard on the other side of town. It would take her two hours to fight her way across the city and back, and he used that time to finish his search of her bedroom — before she started her cleaning frenzy in there.

He’d never seen anyone clean like she did, as if there was some dark purpose besides the cleaning. As if she was on a mission. It was unusual behavior, and anything out of the ordinary was automatically added to his mental file. It could be important in the end.

By the time he heard her minivan pull into the driveway shortly before noon, he’d sifted through every dust bunny and, except for a dime under the bed, hadn’t caught so much as a whiff of money.

“Brought you some lunch.” Adrianne stuck her head into the pantry. “Hey, you got the bathtub in! It looks great.”

“So does that,” he said, pointing to the sack she held, golden french fries sticking from the top. And so did she, he thought, liking the way her T-shirt fit tight and her cotton shorts fit even tighter. “Thanks.”

“No problem.”

She’d been extremely polite to him that morning, trying to be friendly, although it was obvious she was uncomfortable around him. She’d caught him by surprise yesterday, liberally, and he’d been gruff in his disgust with himself and his shock at how attractive he found her. But now he was steeled and ready. Beautiful women often made the best agents. You looked, you touched, you forgot all about why you were there. But he knew better. So he pasted on a smile and prepared to be friendly, the world’s friendliest carpenter. They would chat, she would tell him things, they’d be bosom buddies.

She divided up hamburgers and fries while he washed his hands in the kitchen sink.

“So,” she said with a smile as they scooted their chairs into the table a few moments later, “I’m really pleased with the way things are going. How long have you been a carpenter, anyway?”

Yup, best bosom buddies.

“Two years, since I retired from the military. But my dad was a builder, so I grew up in the trade.” Chat, chat, chat. He looked up to make some friendly eye contact and found himself fascinated as she dipped a fry in ketchup and brought it to her mouth. The oil glossed her lips, and little crystals of salt clung to them.

“What branch?”

He took a large bite of his hamburger, chewed determinedly, and swallowed. “Navy.”

“A career man, huh?”

“Twenty years.” His eyes followed her tongue as it slid across her bottom lip, catching a drop of ketchup at the corner of her mouth. He swallowed twice more, hard.

“Well, that certainly explains the posture.”

“And the haircut,” he ageed.

Adrianne smiled in response to the mocking curve of his lips. He seemed more approachable today, and she relaxed a little. This wouldn’t be so bad after all. Now that he mentioned it, he definitely looked ex-military. Tough and hard and very, very competent. To last twenty years in the service, he’d need to be. Bosnia, Somalia, the Gulf... She paused with a fry halfway to her mouth. “Vietnam?”

He froze for a brief moment, then calmly reached for his drink. “Just missed it.”

“Not a very popular move, I bet, enlisting right after the war.”

“No.”

She waited, but he didn’t say anything else, just finished his hamburger in three more efficient bites and wiped his fingers with a paper napkin. He looked too big sitting there at her kitchen table, too male, too... She didn’t know what, but whatever it was it made her shift uncomfortably in her chair. She wasn’t used to testosterone, if that’s what was soaking into her air. Any pheromones she encountered in the course of her day were safely cloaked in dark suits and wrapped in ties, camouflaged with aftershave, sanitized by a wedding ring and photos of kids on the desk. He must have felt her stare because his dark eyes lifted to hers — cool again, emotionless, as detached as that predatory cat’s.

“Intelligence.” She voiced her thought without thinking.

His thick brows rose. “Now and then.”

That initial spark of approachability was fading fast. It was back to name, rank and serial number, she thought, exasperated. She was trying to make polite conversation, for goodness’ sake, not pry state secrets out of him. She still had half her burger to go — they had to talk about something. “That must have been an exciting time,” she continued, “being in the service at the end of the cold war, knowing you played a part in tearing down the Berlin Wall —”

“Nobody needed to tear it down.” His fingers tightened on the napkin, wadding it into a ball. “It would have crumbled into ruins in a few more years anyway, just like the rest of the Soviet bloc.”

“But —”

“Failing factories and ancient farm equipment brought it down, not naval intelligence. All we had to do was wait for the rust.” He stood abruptly, stuffing his wrapper and napkin into the paper sack. “I better get to work. Thanks for lunch.”

Well! She stood, too, and took the sack he held out to her. Her fingers brushed his, and she started at the tiny current that sizzled the length of her arm. Completely unexpected. Completely unwanted.

Completely arousing.

Her gaze flew to his face, her fingers still touching the back of his as if pressed there by a magnetic field, unable to withdraw. She was aware first of his hand’s warmth, then of its thickness and strength, so large compared to hers, then of an excruciating embarrassment at the thought that he might sense her reaction to him. But he returned her startled look with no sign he was affected in the least.

She jerked the sack from him, breaking the contact that could be measured in milliseconds, yet had felt like aeons. “I think I’ll get some lasagna ready for supper and bake a cake for Lisa. She likes a sweet after school” She flashed her best polite smile, trying to keep the edges from cracking, a thank-you-for-stopping-by smile, but he simply nodded and turned toward the pantry.

Cutter flexed his fingers, massaging away the residual heat left by her soft touch. Big mistake, touching was. Big mistake. There’d be no more of that, he warned himself. Friendly didn’t mean stupid. And the feelings her touch had set off in him were the kind that led men to do stupid, stupid things.

He heard cupboards banging in the kitchen as Adrianne prepared Lisa’s “sweet.” The last thing that girl needed after school was a piece of cake, he thought caustically as he levered himself through the hole in the floor into the cool, dark crawl space. A couple of times around the block would do her a hell of a lot more good. Obviously Adrianne didn’t see the connection between meeting her daughter at the door with a full platter and the size of the girl’s thighs.

Not his problem, he reminded himself as he lay on his back in a fine layer of dirt and began to connect the bathtub to the existing drainpipe. None of his business. He flexed his fingers again. Definitely none of his business. Besides, it wasn’t like he had any answers. If he’d learned one thing in his twenty years in the service, it was that he was not one to fix things. He’d learned that the hard way.

He remembered how proud his parents had been when he’d enlisted that summer day the week after he’d graduated. His father had been in the navy and recollected his two-year stint with a hazy fondness. Cutter was going to follow in his footsteps. Change the world. Well, in twenty years, the world had changed, all right, he thought as he gave a fierce twist to a piece of pipe, but it had nothing to do with him. Communism had crumpled with barely a whimper, and he and all his cohorts had stood there in their wrinkled trench coats with their suddenly obsolete codes and just as obsolete lives.

He thought of Lowenstein and Rush and Cadenza, all the agents killed over the years in the name of freedom. Freedom! His teeth clenched. Communism imploded from its own weight, making a mockery of all their cloak-and-dagger operations. All they’d had to do was wait, kick back on the deck of a ship in the warm waters off Guam and wait. He’d seen the signs during those last years; he’d tried to tell his superiors that if the Russians couldn’t manage gas for their cars or bread for their bellies, how were they supposed to launch a nuclear war?

Cutter heard the sound of the oven door shut and then water being drawn into a bucket in the sink. He followed the thump of Adrianne’s determined tread up the stairs and knew she was about to attack another room. So much for their friendly little chat. He’d had in mind pumping her for information, not the other way around. He didn’t expect to have to talk about Berlin or a war the world referred to as cold, a war he knew was the exact temperature of freshly spilled blood.

He’d come home when he could manage it, and each time he’d been shocked by the new twist to his father’s fingers, the increased swelling, the number of pain pills. Bit by bit, he’d given up fighting the system, slowly, assignment by assignment — and visit by visit, he’d watched arthritis wrench his father’s big, strong hands into helpless, painful knots. Then one day he’d returned to Little Rock after a frustrating assignment teaching formerly despised enemies, now esteemed colleagues, how to upgrade their navigation system. And that night, he’d stood helplessly by while his mother cut his father’s food into bite-size pieces. The man who had once fixed Cutter’s world could no longer fix his own food — and Cutter decided he was through trying to fix things, as well.

The world could get along just fine without his help. He’d turned in his commission that day and had since spent his time forming raw slabs of wood into coffee tables, buffets and bookshelves. Oak could be shaped, planed, sanded, slowly guided in the direction he wanted it to go.

Nothing else could.

Adrianne heard the front door slam in that aggravating way Lisa had of announcing she was home from school. She took a last swipe at the top shelf of her closet, then stepped off the chair she balanced on and dropped her rag into the bucket of cooling water. Blanche’s voice was audible from below, a high little laugh followed by Cutter’s deep, rumbling answer.

She started down the stairs, bucket in hand, in time to hear Blanche saying, “Oh, yes, I stop by almost every evening. I feel it’s important to eat supper here with my family.” She lowered her voice confidentially. “I’m a widow, you know, and now that Adrianne’s lost her husband, we need to support each other. We’re all the family we have left.”

Here she goes again, Adrianne thought. Her mother wrote her revisionist history as fast as it happened. She couldn’t help the sardonic snort that escaped as she turned the corner into the kitchen. “Mother, you eat supper with us maybe twice a week, if we’re lucky,” she said. “The rest of the time you’re busy with your committees and meetings — and your gentlemen friends.”

Lisa had taken a tub of frosting from the cupboard and was slathering it on the cake that cooled on the counter. Blanche stood in the center of the kitchen, teetering on the four-inch heels she insisted on wearing. Cutter leaned against the doorjamb to the pantry, a cordless drill in one hand, sawdust caught in his dark hair, looking extremely masculine—and sexy as all get-out, she realized with a start He smiled at her, and her stomach did an odd little flip-flop.

Unnerved, she crossed to the sink and emptied the bucket of gray water. “Mother doesn’t sit here crocheting with us in the evenings like some grieving widow, believe me.”

“Don’t exaggerate, darling.” Blanche sounded testy. “Widowhood is an extremely difficult state for a woman, and well you know it. Are you married, Cutter?”

He shook his head. “Divorced.”

“Ah. That can be difficult, as well.” She picked up her handbag from the table. “I hate to let you be right, Adrianne, but I do have a dinner engagement with Samuel Wagner this evening. A business dinner, of course.”

“Of course.” She turned the bucket upside down in the sink and draped the frayed tea towel she was using for a cleaning rag across it. “But I wish you’d given a call. I’ve got an enormous pan of lasagna ready to go in the oven.”

“sorry, love, I promise I’ll eat leftovers three nights in a row. But don’t try to make me feel guilty. You know you adore cooking and baking, all that grating and mixing and measuring. You’d do it whether I ate a bite or not.”

“She’s got you there, Mom.” Lisa had more chocolate on her fingers than she did on the cake. Big chunks of the moist top had pulled loose to mix with the frosting, and she was trying to pat the crumbs into place with the back of a spoon.

“Okay, you’re right.” Adrianne went to the stove and turned the knob to preheat the oven, aware of Cutter’s eyes on her as she moved. “I’m guilty. I love to cook. You know, I remember when your father was alive, I’d make these big theme dinners and we’d all sit down and —”

“When was this?”

Adrianne turned her head to stare at her daughter, shocked by the cynical, too old tone of her voice. “Well, lots of times. We’d —”

“When was the last time we all sat down?”

“Why, it was —”

“Besides Christmas, I mean.” Lisa threw the sticky spoon into the sink. “Daddy was out of town so much the last couple of years we never ate together — maybe once a month.”

Adrianne could only blink in surprise. Had it really been that long since they’d been happy together? A family doing family things? Didn’t Lisa remember those early years, before Harvey had started taking so many out-of-town clients, before things had gotten so very, very bad?

“I...I guess you’re right,” she said, stumbling over her words. “I must have been thinking about when you were little.”

Lisa shrugged. “Whatever.” She licked a blob of frosting from her thumb, then looked up, her green eyes, so like Harvey’s, ingenuous. “By the way, did they ever find that money?”

Adrianne froze. Even Cutter, who’d turned to go back to work, stopped short in the doorway. Blanche put a hand to her chest and gave an audible gasp. The moment lengthened, past the point of no return, but Adrianne did her best to pretend those sharp green eyes didn’t see right through her.

“What do you mean, dear?” She walked quickly to the refrigerator and bent to pull out the heavy dish of lasagna.

Lisa’s tone was casual, which made Adrianne even more worried. “A man came to see me at school. He said one of Dad’s clients was missing some money. He asked a lot of questions.”

Dear God. She’d had no idea.... “We’ll talk about this later, okay?” Adrianne flicked an eye toward Cutter, who’d crossed his arms over his chest and watched them all from under those hooded eyes, unnaturally still and tense. “Now, why don’t you —”

“No. I want to know what that man was getting at. He said —”

“Lisa!” Blanche’s voice was shrill, matriarch in outrage, center stage. “This is neither the time nor the place to be discussing such things.”

Lisa glared at her grandmother, mutinous. She started to protest, then snapped her mouth shut Her shoulders slumped. “No, it never is, is it?” She spun on her heel and stomped from the room.

Cutter saw the way the color had drained from Adrianne’s face at the mention of the money. She was still pale, standing with a pan of lasagna clutched in her hands.

“Adrianne. Darling.” Blanche reached for her. “I just meant —”

“Not now with the theatrics, Mother,” Adrianne said. She pulled away from the offered hand to open the oven door and slide the casserole onto a rack.

Blanche’s voice lowered to a barely discernible murmur, her head bowed close to her daughter’s, and Cutter slipped from the room, following Lisa upstairs.

He found her at the computer, strawberry blond hair swinging forward to block her face from view. He rapped at the open door with a knuckle.

“Lisa? I need to know what height you want the counter on the vanity.”

Her stubby fingers worked the mouse like a virtuoso, and brightly colored images flashed across the screen. She shrugged, not looking up. “I don’t care. Whatever you want.”

“Look, this is your bathroom.” He stayed by the door, giving her space. “Some people like the counter a little higher so they don’t have to bend over so far — but it’s whatever you want.”

“Yeah, whatever I want. What a joke.” She swiveled her chair around to face him, flipping her hair back with an impatient motion. “You know what I want?”

“No.”

“Well, neither do I.”

Her smile was bitter; his was gentle. “That’s typical for your age.”

“Nothing about me is typical.”

He thought that was probably true.

“I mean, how many girls do you know who have an embezzler for a father?”

She glared at him defiantly, but he could see the hurt—and the fear. Her freckles stood out in blotchy spots, and her eyes were beginning to redden from held-in tears. He’d have to be very careful. She wasn’t the mark—she was a child. “What are you saying, Lisa?”

“Hey, that man wasn’t exactly subtle. He asked if I’d gotten any new clothes or expensive stuff lately. Asked me if I’d seen my father’s briefcase the day he died. Stuff like that.” She wiped at her nose with the back of her hand. “It didn’t take a genius to figure out he thought Dad had ripped off this client.”

Cutter didn’t have to ask for a description of the man who’d questioned her. Someday — soon — he was going to choke the very life out of Jonathon Round. He said, “And what do you think?”

She shrugged again. “I don’t know. Daddy was gone so much....” Tears welled up and spilled over. “You know, sometimes I can’t even remember what he looked like. He’s only been dead six months, and sometimes it’s like he was never here at all.”

He didn’t go to her. He was a stranger. He had no comfort to give her. “I think I’ll make that counter a little higher.”

Lisa nodded. “Okay.” She twisted her chair back to face the computer screen, and her fingers began to move again, holding on to the mouse like a lifelike.

He paused on the way downstairs. The house was arranged so he could stand out of sight on the stairs yet still hear every word coming from the kitchen.

Blanche was saying, “This is going to be so hard—raising Lisa by yourself. At least you were out of high school before your father died. I don’t know what I would have done without him all those years when you were growing up.”

“I don’t remember him being a very involved parent,” Adrianne said dryly.

Blanche immediately protested. “Maybe not in the touchy-feely way men are supposed to behave today, but he always provided for us. He was a good man. A good father.”

A drawer was shoved in place, a sharp crack of wood slamming against wood. “He was a drunk.”

There was a long silence, and Cutter shifted uneasily on the stairs.

“Well, I’m going to be late for supper if I don’t get going.” Blanche’s voice was crisp and businesslike. “I don’t want to keep Samuel waiting. We do a lot of work with his title company.”

“All right, Mother.” Adrianne sounded resigned, as if she’d expected Blanche’s nonresponse. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Cutter made a show of coming down the remaining stairs, turning the corner into the kitchen just as Blanche headed toward the front door.

“Goodbye, Mrs. Munro.”

She nodded and smiled pleasantly, her heels clicking briskly across the vinyl entryway. Lord, that was one tough cookie, he thought as she let herself out. A drunken husband, an embezzling son-in-law, yet not a hair out of place. Reality wasn’t going to come along and mess up her plans. No sir.

Adrianne was another matter. She stood at the counter, a knife poised over the now frosted cake. Yet she made no move. Her back was stiff with tension, and as he came quietly up behind her, he could see her knuckles were white around the metal handle.

He reached out and laid a hand on the back of her neck. Little wisps trailed from the knot of hair on top of her head and curled over his fingers. Internal alarms rang a warning, told him to back off, hands to himself. But her skin was soft, smooth and warm, and he told himself this was all part of the job, gaining her trust, working the mark. “What is it?” he asked, keeping his voice soft, soothing.

For a moment, it seemed as if she pressed back, toward the contact, but then she shifted imperceptibly away, and he dropped his hand.

“It’s nothing, really.” She sliced into the cake. “It’s just Mother and I have such different memories of some things. It’s weird. I was there, she was there, yet it’s like we were in one of those Star Trek parallel universes or something....” She gave a little allover shake. “Anyway, why don’t you have a piece of cake with me? Comfort food.” She reached into the cupboard above her head and took down two plates. “We can spoil our appetites together.”

He took the plate she handed him with a huge piece of chocolate cake leaning in the center, and sat down at the table. If she knew anything about the money, he had to take advantage of these opportunities to talk with her. But if she was going to ply him with food every time, he’d be loosening his tool belt a notch by the time he found it. And he damn well better start thinking with what was above that belt, not below it.

Adrianne sat across from him and picked up her fork. She poked absently at the frosting with the tines, marring its smooth surface with four evenly spaced creases. “I guess you’re wondering what that was all about—with Lisa, I mean.”

“It’s really none of my business. You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to.” Tell ’em not to talk, and most people couldn’t wait to start. He tried to ignore the guilty twinge in his gut as she raised those fragile, golden brown eyes to his.

“It’s all blown over now, thank God,” she said. “It seems one of Harvey’s clients had some money siphoned from an account, twenty-five thousand dollars, actually, and naturally they questioned everybody they could think of. Since they couldn’t ask Harvey, they had to ask me, of course, but how could I help? Harvey was a one-man office — he didn’t even have a secretary. He kept his own books, made his own appointments, filed his own files....”

The frosting was crisscrossed with deep slashes by now. “Anyway, the police and this insurance man made my life hell for a while, but finally they went away. I haven’t heard any more about it, so that’s the end of it, I guess.”

“It must have been tough. All the questions —”

“How long had we been married? What kind of husband was he? Had I noticed any unusual behavior?” She dropped the fork and shoved her plate away, glaring at him as if he were the one asking the questions. “How dare they! Harvey was a brilliant accountant, I told them. A wonderful husband! We were married fifteen wonderful years. We were high-school sweethearts—I dropped out of college to marry him, for God’s sake. He was the love of my life. How dare they ask about...about the things they did! He was a good man. A good father.”

She used the same words her mother had used to describe her own father — and didn’t realize it, Cutter saw with amazement. And judging by the grim determination in her voice, he doubted they were any more true about Harvey Rhodes than they’d been about her father. Lisa certainly didn’t think so. Poor Lisa thought she was in her own Star Trek episode.

After twenty years, he could tell a truth from a lie any day of the week. Her ardent defense of her husband rang so false it set his teeth on edge. He’d bet his life something had been wrong with her marriage, but as for the money? Did she have it or know where it was? Of that, he couldn’t be so sure. Not yet.

Adrianne watched Cutter take the last bite of cake. Her stomach twisted in on itself, too sick with nerves to eat. She’d had no idea Lisa knew anything about Harvey and the money. Why in God’s name had Lisa chosen now, in front of Cutter, to ask about it? She focused on Cutter’s strong, broad fingers holding his fork, remembered the comforting feel of them on the back of her neck. Maybe Lisa had felt it was safer to bring up the subject with him there as a buffer. Something about Cutter seemed safe and secure — maybe it was the military posture or those steady eyes that told you he knew all about secrets.

For that matter, why had she talked to him about Harvey? She’d told no one except Blanche about the money, the police, the questions.... “You want to stay for supper?” she asked, suddenly dreading the conversation she’d have to have with Lisa. Sometimes it was a good idea to have a stranger around after all. “I’ve got enough lasagna to feed an army.”

“No, thank you,” he said politely. “In fact, I’d better call it a day.”

After Cutter left, rolling his cords and neatly stacking his tools, Adrianne wandered around the kitchen, stomach churning. Lately, whenever her mother insisted on recalling some wonderful memory of her childhood, she felt this mixture of sadness and anger, of rage too close to the surface. She’d thought she’d dealt with all the baggage of an alcoholic father years ago. She’d thought she’d come to terms with the past and the way her mother chose to handle it.

Blanche conveniently managed to forget the fights, the broken promises, the disappointment when her father had chosen the bottle over them. In Blanche’s southern-to-the-core world, the only appropriate response to How are you? was Fine, just fine.

Depression dragged her down while anxiety wound her up, a double-edged feeling that had been her constant companion these past months. Longer than that, she corrected herself, staring unseeing out the window over the sink. Ever since that first phone call with its soft breathing that never answered her hello. She’d asked Harvey about that one, and the next and the next. But after that, she’d just smiled and said everything was fine, just fine.

She turned from the sink and walked with quick determination up the stairs — the whole time wishing she wouldn’t. But it was like picking at a scab. It hurt, but you couldn’t leave it alone. She passed Lisa’s door and went quietly into the spare bedroom. Bending down, she opened the lid of the cedar chest pushed against the wall and took out a plastic bag, Little Rock. Police Department stamped across it in smudged blue ink.

She carried the bag into her bedroom, shut the door behind her and sank down on the bed. She really didn’t want to look again. Unzipping the plastic seal, she reached inside, ignoring the wallet, the comb, the tie clip, and pulled out an airline ticket folder. She didn’t want to see it again, neatly typed in the destination line. Dallas — Fort Worth International Airport.

One-way.

Unable to stop, she reached into the bag again and took out the sandal. Red. Siren red. Slender, very high, spiked heel. Wispy straps across the toes, one around the heel. She kicked off her loafer and, careful to keep her sock on, slipped her foot into the shoe. She lifted her leg and examined it hanging from her toes.

It was two sizes too small.