He got up to pour coffee from the pot into two mugs. “And that's why you feel you can't let go of her now that she's dead? You feel some sense of obligation?”
“We were a team. As close as sisters. She was all I had for a long time. And now she's gone.” Phila felt the familiar burning sensation at the back of her eyes. She seemed to cry on the slightest pretext lately. She found this new tendency extremely annoying. This morning she refused to let the tears fall.
There was a long silence before Nick spoke again. “Come to Port Claxton this summer, Phila. Find out what the families are like and what really happened while Crissie was with them.”
“What if no one in the families will talk to me, let alone answer questions?”
“They'll talk to you.”
“How do you know?”
“Because you'll be with me. They'll have to be polite to you. Besides, you said yourself, you need a vacation. The coast will make a nice change from Holloway, I guarantee it.”
Phila wondered if he was even remotely aware of the arrogance in his words. She downed the last of the egg sandwich and brushed crumbs off her turquoise pants while she tried to think.
There were several advantages to the strange, unexpected offer. Going to Port Claxton would get her out of Holloway, and after last night's meeting with Ruth Spalding that seemed more desirable than ever. And Nick was right. It would give her a chance to meet the people Crissie had thrust herself upon last year. It would give her a chance to learn what she could about the long-lost family Crissie had discovered. Phila knew she would be better equipped then to make her decision about what to do with the C&L shares.
But with her usual perception she sensed that Nicodemus Lightfoot rarely did things for altruistic reasons. He had an angle. She wondered what it was.
“Why are you doing this, Nick?”
“I told you.”
“You mean that garbage about allowing me to put my mind at ease? I don't buy that for one minute. You're looking for a way to get those shares back, aren't you? Until you find one you figure it might be a good idea to keep an eye on me.”
“It's your decision, Phila.”
“It would be impossible to get a summer place on the coast at this late date,” Phila said slowly, still thinking it through.
“You could stay at my family's cottage. Plenty of room.”
“Not a chance,” Phila answered instantly. She knew he was right about the room. Crissie had described the “cottages” the Lightfoots and Castletons had built side by side in Port Claxton, Washington. From all accounts they qualified as mini-mansions by most standards. Still, she had no intention of taking up residence in either of them.
Nick paid no attention to her response. He just reached for the phone on the wall. He got directory assistance, obtained the number he requested and then he dialed it.
“Harry, it's Nick Lightfoot. Yeah. A long time. Listen, Harry, I'm coming to Port Clax for a while and I've got a friend who needs a place to stay. What have you got available?”
Phila glowered as the conversation continued for a few more minutes. Nick saw her expression, and his brows rose in polite inquiry.
“The old Gilmarten place sounds fine, Harry. We'll be there on July fourth. Any problem? I didn't think so. Thanks, Harry. See you on the Fourth.” Nick tossed the receiver back into the cradle. “That settles it. You've got a nice little place near the beach. Not far from the family cottages, in fact. Fully furnished. How does that sound?”
“It sounds too good to be true. What poor soul got evicted?”
Nick shrugged. “Some couple from Seattle will be given another place when they arrive next week. They'll never know the difference.”
“I take it good old Harry owed the families a couple of favors?”
“I've known Harry for years. Dad and I used to go fishing with him.”
“Sure. So now you can casually pick up the phone, and Harry rearranges his whole schedule of summer rentals. Just like that.”
Nick smiled blandly. “Not much point in being a Lightfoot if you can't throw your weight around once in a while.”
“'Evenin', sir. I just finished building the martinis. How was the golf game?” There was more than a shade of deepest, darkest Texas in Tec Sherman's accent, but after years of self-discipline it had become overlaid with standard military drawl.
“Not bad. Won fifty bucks off Fortman.” Reed Lightfoot sauntered over to the small bar where Tec Sherman was using a swizzle stick with crisp authority. A row of large green olives stuffed with pimientos was arranged nearby. Reed tossed ice into a glass and helped himself from the pitcher of martinis. “The poor, benighted fool landed in the goddamn trap on the sixteenth hole, and by the time he got out he was dead meat.”
“Congratulations, sir.” Tec Sherman paused expectantly.
Reed took a healthy swallow of his martini and eyed the other man. William Tecumseh Sherman was built like a slab of beef. He was an ex-Marine who managed to give the impression he was still in uniform, even though he habitually dressed in garishly patterned aloha shirts and loose cotton slacks. Sherman was in his mid-forties, bald as a billiard ball, with huge, bushy brows and a chronically pinched expression around the mouth. He had worked for the Lightfoots for years and he was as loyal as the rottweilers that guarded the front gate. Reed would have trusted Tec Sherman with his life.
“Something wrong, Tec?” Reed finally inquired.
“No, sir. Just heard the good news, sir. Wanted to tell you I was damned glad. It's about time.”
Reed wandered over to the window and gazed out toward the sea. Through the trees he could see the Pacific. It was steel blue today under a sun still high in the early evening sky. “You know something I don't know, Tec?”
Tec cleared his throat and clasped his hands behind his back in a parade-rest stance. “I heard about Nick, sir. That's all. Saw Harry in town today. He told me about it, sir.”
Reed went still. “What the devil are you talking about, Tec?” he asked very softly.
Sherman coughed slightly. “Sorry, sir. Assumed you knew. Harry said he talked to Nick on the phone the other day. Nick told him he was comin' home on the Fourth. Bringin' a friend with him. A lady friend, sir. Needed a place for her to stay. Harry's lettin' 'er have the Gilmarten place down the road.”
Reed's martini sloshed perilously close to the rim of the glass. “Nick's coming home?” He turned his head to pin Tec Sherman with a piercing gaze. “He told Harry he was coming here to Port Clax?”
“Yes, sir. Like I said, thought you knew.”
“No, I did not know.” He wondered if Hilary did. It would be just like her to keep the information a secret until the last minute. Hilary liked games of one-upsmanship, and she was very good at them. “Nick hasn't seen fit to notify his family yet.”
Sherman turned a dull red. “I'm sure he will real soon, sir. Probably wanted to line up the Gilmarten place for his, uh, lady friend first before he made his plans.”
“This lady friend. Is she by any chance named Fox?” Hilary, Darren and Eleanor had been nagging him about Philadelphia Fox for weeks. So far he'd been ignoring them.
“I believe so, sir.”
“Philadelphia Fox?”
“I believe that's what Harry said, sir.”
“Goddamn it, what is Nick up to now?” Reed asked under his breath.
“Sir?”
“Never mind, Tec. I was just wondering what the devil is going on.”
“Beggin' your pardon, sir, but sounds to me like Nick got word the families had gotten themselves in a bind and he decided to do somethin' about it. It's just what you'd expect of him, sir.”
“You have a lot of faith in my son, Tec.”
“Known him a long time, sir, under some interestin' conditions. He's a Lightfoot. When the chips are down no Lightfoot is gonna stand by and let the families get into trouble.”
Nick was coming home. Something that had been frozen for a long time began to thaw ins
ide Reed. The sensation was almost painful. He looked out toward the distant horizon, and for the first time in nearly three years he permitted himself to think seriously about the future.
Until three years ago a sense of the future had been the guiding force in Reed Lightfoot's life. The need to create something substantial that could be handed down through the generations had kept him going during the lean years when Castleton & Lightfoot had struggled to survive and gain a foothold in the competitive world of high-tech electronics. It had sustained him even in the dark time seven years ago, after his first wife's death.
But Reed's passion for the future had begun to wither and die in him the day Nick had walked out. It had vanished altogether when Hilary had lost the baby.
But now, with a few simple words, he could feel the embers rekindling within him.
Nick was coming home.
He warned himself not to put too much stock in the event. Nothing had really changed. The past could not be altered. Everything that had occurred three years ago still stood locked in time. They all had to live with it.
But no matter how hard he tried to maintain a realistic view of his son's return, Reed could not prevent an overwhelming sense of relief from surging through his veins. Nick was coming home.
It looked as though he owed that fact to that brassy blond troublemaker who'd landed like a bomb in the Castletons' laps last year. Reed wondered if the Fox woman was going to prove equally explosive.
No need to worry, he told himself with gathering satisfaction. It sounded as if Nick already had her under control. When Nick bothered to exert himself, he could handle anything. He was a Lightfoot.
“Hello, Reed, I suppose you've heard the news? It's all over town.”
Reed turned at the sound of the cool, beautifully modulated voice. His wife was gliding through the doorway, dressed in flowing silk trousers and an artfully draped blouse that framed her elegant throat. As always, his eyes went once, briefly, to the gold band he had put on her finger.
“Tec just told me.” He kept his voice perfectly neutral. He found himself doing that a lot around Hilary. It was as if he took some petty pleasure in not giving her whatever reaction she wanted or anticipated.
“Trust Nick to make his reappearance in a suitably spectacular fashion. He'll probably parachute onto the lawn in a blaze of fireworks. Pour me a drink, please, Tec.”
“Yes, ma'am. The usual?” Tec's voice was more clipped than before. It was always that way when he spoke to Reed's second wife.
“Of course, Tec.” Hilary did not look at him. She concentrated on her husband while Tec prepared a martini straight-up for her. “I suppose Nick's return has something to do with those shares?”
“Sounds like it,” Reed said quietly.
“I wonder what he thinks he can do.” Hilary picked up her martini and toyed with the spear holding the olive. “Harry referred to the Fox woman as Nick's lady friend. You don't suppose Nick is trying his hand at seducing those shares out of her, do you?”
“Beats me.” Reed wasn't about to give her the satisfaction of speculating aloud about his son's intentions, although privately he was wondering the same thing. He sighed inwardly at his own pettiness. This was what it had come down to between himself and his beautiful, young wife. A grim, silent battlefield had been carved out between them, a battlefield where the fighting was done not with words but with a chilling display of courtesy and a total lack of outward emotion.
“Harry says Nick made it clear the Fox woman was staying alone at the Gilmarten place. How quaint. Imagine Nick worrying about the proprieties. Oh, well, I suppose that means we'd better prepare a room for him here.”
“Goddamn right,” Reed muttered, some of his control slipping for an instant. “Of course he'll be staying here. This is his home.” He swallowed the rest of the martini in a single, numbing gulp.
The small towns of eastern Washington all had a certain similarity about them, Phila had often thought. Her job had taken her to a number of them. Hardworking and unpretentious, they were generally oriented toward the farms and ranches that surrounded them.
Holloway was no different. There were more pickup trucks than anything else on the main street. The down-town shopping district consisted of three banks, a couple of gas stations, two fast-food places—including an old-fashioned drive-in hamburger joint—and a variety of small shops.
The shops sold such things as yarn, hardware, work clothes and real estate. Most of the stores looked vaguely depressed, and with good reason. The new mall in the next town had siphoned off the majority of Holloway's down-town business.
The landscape around Holloway was also typical of this part of the state. The endless vista of arid desert, which always astonished visitors who thought of Washington as a rain forest, were broken by acres of lush farmland. At certain times of the year hot, dry winds cut a swath through the area, raising dust that hung suspended for hours in the air. When the wind blew, the effect was similar to a snow-storm. Traffic came to a halt and people stayed indoors.
But today the air was still. The sky was clear, cloudless and free of dust, a vast blue bowl that stretched over the desert to the jagged peaks of the distant mountains.
There was nothing wrong with Holloway, Phila thought. She had been raised in towns just like it. She knew them intimately. But she realized suddenly that she would be very glad to leave this place.
She sat at a table that was sheathed in chipped, gray Formica in Emerson's Four Star Café, a cracked mug full of coffee in front of her. Outside on the hot sidewalk a few people hurried from their cars to the nearest air-conditioned business establishments.
“Going to be a hot one today,” Thelma Anderson announced as she slid into the seat across from Phila.
Phila smiled faintly at her friend and former supervisor. “You've been living here too long, Thelma.”
“What makes you say that?” the older woman demanded, her dark eyes snapping.
“It's a sure sign you've been in Holloway too long when the first thing you mention is the weather.”
“This is farming country,” Thelma pointed out casually. “Farmers always talk about the weather. I'm just trying to blend in. How's the coffee?”
“As bad as ever.”
“Good. I'll have a cup.” She signaled to the waitress, who nodded to her from the other side of the counter. Then Thelma turned back to Phila with an assessing eye. “So you're really going to do it, huh? You're going to quit for good? I can't talk you into coming back to your old job?”
Phila shook her head. “No. But I'm going to miss you, Thelma.” And she meant it. She would miss her friend's short, no-nonsense haircut, her functional navy-blue skirts and white blouses and serviceable walking shoes. Thelma, who knew all the secret methods of shoving paperwork through an overburdened system that periodically tried to choke itself to death on forms and multiple copies and reports done in triplicate.
Thelma was dedicated and she was good at what she did, but somewhere along the line she had learned the trick of detaching herself enough emotionally from her work to ensure her own survival. Phila knew after the Spalding trial that she herself would never be able to develop that detachment. She was finished as a social worker.
“I have to get out, Thelma. I need a change.”
Thelma regarded her soberly. “Yes, I think you do,” she said finally. “You've been through hell. It takes awhile to recover. Feeling any better?”
“Some.” Phila smiled again, realizing it was the truth. She had been feeling better, more focused, since she had made her decision to go to Port Claxton.
“A summer on the coast will be good for you. You always did like the ocean. Can you handle it financially?”
“Yes, thanks to Crissie's insurance policy. It wasn't much but together with my savings, it will keep me going for a while.”
“How did you manage to get a place near the beach at this time of year?” Thelma demanded. “Port Claxton summer houses are always booke
d months in advance. I know, I've tried to get in once or twice, myself.”
“Someone I know pulled a few strings for me.”
Thelma grinned. “A man?”
“Uh huh.”
“Well, good for you. Just what you need to take your mind off that trial and your friend's death. It's time you put it all behind you, Phila.”
Phila shrugged. She did not want to explain to Thelma that Crissie's death was still very much on her mind and that she was far from letting it go. “You'll keep in touch, won't you, Thelma?”
“You know I will. We won't be forgetting you around here anytime soon, Philadelphia Fox. If it hadn't been for you we never would have nailed Elijah Spalding. You're a heroine in the office.”
“You'd have gotten him sooner or later.”
“Later, maybe.” Thelma sounded skeptical. “After a lot more kids had been abused and psychologically scarred for life. Later would have been too late for a lot of them.” She shook her head. “Cases like that are so blasted frustrating. Everyone in the office knew what was going on, and no one could prove a thing. Every time we sent the sheriff out to the Spalding farm things were in apple-pie order. The kids were too frightened to talk, and Spalding's wife was useless.”
“Ruth was as frightened of him as the children were. She was also desperate to hold on to him. In her own way, she loved him.”
“A sick kind of love, if you ask me.”
“We see that kind of love a lot in this business, don't we, Thelma? The sick kind.”
“Well, Spalding's in prison now, and he'll be there another year and a half. Thanks to you. Too bad it had to happen the way it did, though. You could have been seriously hurt or even killed. I shudder every time I think about how close it all was.”
“So do I,” Phila admitted. And sometimes she did more than shudder. Sometimes she dreamed about it. And woke up in a cold sweat.
“I heard you had a run-in with Mrs. Spalding last night at the diner. True?”
“It's true. She's hurting, Thelma.”
“I think she could be dangerous, Phila. Watch yourself around her, okay?”
The Golden Chance Page 6