The Soon-To-Be-Disinherited Wife

by Jennifer Greene

  Stop this, he mentally ordered himself. He pocketed his cell phone, climbed out of the car and strode up to the front door of Bunny Baldwin’s mansion. He didn’t want to stop thinking about Emma, but he still had miles to go this day. Obsessing about Emma wasn’t helping. Until he got those tasks done, he couldn’t see Emma anyway.

  He knocked on the door, waited. Moments later, a tidy gray-haired woman answered. “Can I help you?” she asked.

  “You’re Edith Carter?”

  “Yes.”

  “Mrs. Carter, I don’t need to come in. I realize you don’t know me, but I was told you were Bunny Baldwin’s housekeeper for years.” The gentle-eyed woman nodded. “I’m Garrett Keating.”

  Immediately she relaxed. “Of course. I know the Keating family. For a moment, I was afraid you were another one of those reporters, trying to dig into more of Mrs. Baldwin’s private life.”

  “No, honestly. I only stopped because I hoped there was a chance you might know something about my sister, Caroline Keating-Spence. She’s been in the hospital. I’ve been trying to put together a picture of what happened in the weeks before she got so sick, and no one seems to know anything. I heard Caroline was often over here-”

  Edith nodded, looking thoughtful. “Yes, she was. She and Abby-Mrs. Baldwin’s daughter-were friends. The whole group of Debs came over quite often. Bunny loved having the girls around.”

  “Did you happen to hear anything about my sister? Any gossip or bad news, anything at all?”

  “You sound so worried, Mr. Keating,” she said compassionately. “I wish I had some information for you.”

  “But you don’t?”

  Edith hesitated. “I don’t know if you knew my Bunny, but she was interested in everything happening in Eastwick. Some said she was nosy, but the truth was that she simply cared about everything and everyone. I don’t know where she got all her news, but by and by, she just seemed to know everyone’s secrets. That’s how she came to write the Eastwick Social Diary.”

  “Yes,” Garrett said, wishing this had to do with his sister but not seeing how.

  “Well, the thing is, now all those diaries are missing. Her daughter, Abby, thinks there was information in those journals that someone might have killed her mother for. The police are looking into it. There’s no proof. Yet. But…”

  Garrett waited.

  “I’m just saying, Mr. Keating, that if those diaries would just surface, you might find something about your sister…or someone related to your sister. Something that might be the source of her problem. Because if something was going on in Eastwick, Bunny knew it.”

  “But right now you don’t know where those diaries are.”

  Edith shook her head. “I’m sorry. No one does.”

  Once warmed up, Edith went on and on. She’d obviously deeply cared about her employer and needed to tell someone how traumatized she’d been by Bunny’s death. Apparently Bunny had been only fifty-two, healthy and full of energy. Although she’d loved gossip, she’d never been vicious.

  “Never, Mr. Keating,” Edith vowed. “Yes, she dished the dirt on the well-heeled. But she never told a lie, never invented or embellished. She only told the truth. And personally I think she made a huge effort not to hurt anyone who might have been innocent.”

  “I’m sure she did,” Garrett agreed, although he was starting to feel desperate that he was ever going to escape. He’d hoped he’d hear something, anything, about his sister Caroline, but Edith seemed fixed on the night her employer had died.

  “I found her, I did. Still haven’t gotten over the shock, probably never will. In my head, I still see her lying there. I was right upstairs, putting away linens in the upstairs closet, when I suddenly heard this thud. As if a chair had been knocked over. That kind of thud-”

  “I understand,” Garrett said swiftly.

  “Well, that thud was my Bunny. Lying on the floor in the study. It just didn’t make sense.” Tears welled in Edith’s eyes.

  “It sounds horrible.” Garrett tried to sound sympathetic.

  “Oh, it was, it was. I can’t get it out of my mind. And I’ve stayed on in the house because Abby asked me to. Abby’s her daughter, of course, I think I told you that-”

  “Yes, I knew that.”

  “Well, no one knows what’s going to happen to the Baldwin mansion yet. So it still needs caretaking. And right now I don’t think anyone else would want to live here because of what happened. I hardly do myself, because everywhere I turn, I remember her lying in the study like that. She was more than an employer, you know. She was a friend. A fascinating person. It’s unbelievable that someone would kill her. Actually murder her. I keep trying to imagine what kind of secret she knew that was that bad-”

  He turned the key on his car engine, grateful to be free. Yet listening to Edith had put an edgy beat in his pulse. He’d never personally known Bunny Baldwin, was hard-pressed to invest interest in a woman who’d lived for gossip. But the secret business worried him, because his sister was obviously hiding some kind of secret that had caused her depression-and her feeling of guilt.

  He’d checked out Edith, knowing that woman was a long shot, but he was starting to get damned desperate. No information seemed to surface about his sister. He needed to help Caroline, needed to know she was safe, before he could possibly move back to New York.

  Instead he seemed to be getting more and more embroiled in Eastwick-which he swore he’d never do.

  Halfway down the street, he pulled off to dial Emma again.

  Still no answer. That didn’t mean she wasn’t there, of course. She could have turned off the ringer, simply because she had a busy day. He now had a good idea how busy she really was, how crowded her life was.

  Still, he wanted to hear her voice. Wanted to talk to her.

  Wanted to know she was okay after making love.

  Wanted to know how he was going to react after hearing her voice again.

  Garrett told himself he was just frustrated he hadn’t reached her, not worried. One way or another, he was determined to contact her today, though, even if he had to track her down all the way to Timbuktu.

  More immediately, though, seeing his sister had to be his first priority. Caroline was getting sprung from the hospital-against his better judgment.

  He found her still in her hospital room but sitting up, all dressed and chomping at the bit. “You said you’d be here by three!”

  “And it’s a quarter to.”

  “I know, I know. But I started to worry that you wouldn’t come. I just want to go home, Gar.” She wrapped her arms around his neck for a hug and promptly started crying. Hell and double hell. She felt skinnier than a reed, and he hated it when his sister cried. He always wanted to fix the problem. Right now. Yesterday.

  “Would you quit it?” A guy could talk to his sister that way. When she didn’t immediately quit-Caroline had never listened to him-he patted her back, over and over. And over.

  Finally she quit snuffling and stepped away. He handed her a tissue-she never had one. “Get me out of here,” she begged him.

  “I will. But you have to do the wheelchair thing.”

  “That’s stupid. I’m not sick.”

  But her spirit was sick. He could see the darkness behind her eyes, in the nervous way she moved, in the exhaustion in her posture-even when he was wheeling her downstairs and bundling her-and five million flowers-into the car.

  “Griff’s due home tomorrow,” she told him.

  “I know. The parents told me,”

  “I don’t want him to know…about the suicide attempt.”

  At least she was using the word now. “Caroline, come on. You surely realize that Mom and Dad already told him. They had to give him a reason to cancel his trip and fly home.”

  “But I didn’t want him to do that! And they should have asked me before calling him!”

  Garrett didn’t try arguing with her. The subject was too sticky to begin with. Truthfully, their parents had
n’t asked Griff to come home for their daughter’s sake so much as they’d hoped Griff would do something about Caroline to stop all the talk. God forbid anyone in Eastwick should discover that Keatings had troubles just like everyone else.

  “The thing is, I want Griff to hear about this from me. Before he hears it from strangers or the Eastwick gossipmongers-Wait a minute. Who’s that woman? What’s going on?”

  “That woman,” Garrett said, “is Gloria.” As they walked through his sister’s front door, Garrett braced for trouble as he introduced his sister to the woman he’d hired. Gloria was dressed to look like a housekeeper, but essentially Garrett had hired her as security until Caroline’s husband actually arrived home and took charge.

  No matter what Caroline said or thought, there was no way he was leaving her alone. Not after a suicide attempt. Period. As far as Garrett was concerned, that was the end of the argument-but a half hour later, Caroline was still giving him grief.

  By then he’d installed her on the couch in the den with the remote, a cup of tea and a frantically lonesome bichon frise with the ghastly name of Bubbles. Garrett disappeared from sight for a few minutes while Caroline and Gloria started talking, giving them a chance to get to know each other.

  As he wandered around, he remembered how much he’d always loved Caro’s place. She loved rich, deep colors-burgundies and emeralds and teals. She always chose furniture a guy could sink into, made things comfortable. He never had to kick off his shoes, never had to fret if he was going to spill anything. She was flexible in so many ways, but man, when she played the stubborn card, it was damn hard to budge her.

  When he had her alone in the den again, the same fight started up-but this time Garrett dug in his heels. “Look, Griff’s coming home, which means you’re out of time, kiddo. It’s got to come out, whatever the hell trouble you’re in. So out with it-and this time I mean it. I’m not leaving until you talk.”

  She shook her head, the tears already welling up. Her crying made him feel lower than mud. “Caro. This is stupid. What could you possibly have done to feel so guilty?”

  He racked his brain for the kind of shameful thing that was so big she couldn’t tell him. “A gambling addiction, something like that?”

  “For heaven’s sake. Of course not.”

  He frowned. “Could you have stolen something-?”

  “Oh, for God’s sake, Garrett. You know I’d never do that.” Finally he pestered her enough that she came out with it, although her tone had lowered to the most painful of whispers. “I had an affair.”

  He sank down on the ottoman next to her, relieved to finally have the secret out in the open. “Okay. That’s lousy. About the last thing I’d expect you to do, knowing how strongly you feel about fidelity. But all the same…I still don’t understand how you get from a mistake to feeling driven to a suicide attempt.”

  Her eyes started glistening again. “Because I’m in love with Griff. My own husband. How crazy is that?”

  Garrett wished Emma were here. She’d know how to handle a conversation like this. He sure as hell didn’t. And now that Caroline had turned on the faucet, she finally willingly spilled more. They’d had trouble in their marriage, which Garrett already knew. But they’d mended the breach. And now they were like newlyweds again. In love. Deliriously happy.

  “I would never cheat on him now, Garrett. But at the time, I thought we were separated. Fighting. I was certain we were headed for divorce court. It was still a stupid thing to do, sleeping with someone I barely knew, but-”

  Garrett didn’t need any more details. “So this was when you two were separated-”

  “Exactly. But if Griff finds out…” She shook her head. “I know how he’ll feel. Everything we’ve built back up will be destroyed. We’re both trying hard, and it’s working. But if there’s a trust issue like that, I know I’ll lose him.” Out poured the tears again.

  “Wait a minute, wait a minute,” Garrett said. “Why does he ever have to know?”

  And then, finally, came the crux of the crisis. “Because I’m being blackmailed. That’s why I took the pills. Because I can’t keep paying. And I can’t let Griff know. So there’s no way out of this, Garrett.”

  Shock locked his tongue-but only for a second. “The hell there isn’t. Who’s blackmailing you? Who, Caroline?”

  She either didn’t know or she wouldn’t say. Garrett wanted to focus totally on the blackmailer but realized damn fast that that wasn’t an option. Right now his sister’s frail mental state was more important.

  “Caro,” he tried to tell her, “Griff knows you. He knows your background. Our parents were hardly role models for a loving relationship or a marriage, now, were they? I think Griff will understand. He sure as hell won’t like it. But if he knows you at all…if he loves you any way it matters…it’ll be all right.”

  She seemed calmed down before he left. But by the time he was walking back to his car, the sun was dipping in the west, a shivery breeze chilling the air.

  It was true, what he’d said to Caro. Their parents had been rotten role models. Neither he nor Caro had felt loved or protected as kids. Their parents were devoted to each other on the surface, but their values were all tangled up with influence and affluence and what others thought of them. It wasn’t the kind of love Garrett had ever wanted-in fact, he’d always associated marriage with a more painful loneliness than being alone.

  He didn’t know that had changed until coming home. Until reunited with Emma. Until being with Emma, really being with her like last night.

  Through all the stresses and strains of the day, a handful of maybes kept whispering in his mind. Maybe he could be more than a moneymaking machine. Maybe he could have a private life, be successful in a relationship, create a different kind of marriage…with the right woman.

  It was crazy to hope, but there it was. Being with Emma had put the seed in his mind, his heart, and damned if he could stop it from growing.

  The instant he got behind the wheel and started the engine, he dialed her cell phone again. This time, finally, he caught up with her.

  He didn’t waste time on greetings or chitchat. Just said swiftly, “Thank God I finally reached you. I’ll be there in ten minutes, fifteen max, Emma.”

  And then he shot out of his sister’s driveway and into the night.

  Nine

  Garrett turned the corner toward Color and felt his stomach drop. Although it wasn’t that late in the evening, he assumed the gallery would be closed and he’d be able to catch Emma alone. Instead, every light in the place seemed to be blazing.

  As he strode up the walk, it was pretty damn obvious there was some kind of major event going on. When he pushed open the front door, he suffered an immediate guy panic attack.

  The gallery lobby was packed with women, most of them dressed up and exuberantly waving around wineglasses. The scents of heavy, expensive perfumes were enough to choke a guy. A few said hello, but most were too intent on their gabfest to pay any attention to an intruding male-which was fine by Garrett.

  Initially he couldn’t figure out what the big to-do was about, but once he threaded past the clutch of hard-core drinkers at the wine table, he could see the gallery was hosting some kind of perfume display. At least, there were old perfume bottles all through the front parlor and lobby.

  He debated escaping-Emma obviously needed him around right now like she needed a hole in the head. But this couldn’t last forever. It was nearly nine, and the gallery normally closed at eight. Besides which, Emma had to be dead on her feet after yesterday’s incredibly long hours, so he figured she could use some TLC when this shindig was finally over.

  He stuck his hands in his pockets, eased as far away as possible and feigned interest in the perfume-bottle displays. After a few minutes, he didn’t have to fake it.

  He just checked out a few. Arden Blue Grass, 1934. Myon Coeur de Femme, 1928. Gabilla La Violette, 1912. Lavin L’Ame, 1928.

  The price tags made him wonder
why he bothered with investment banking when a bunch of old bottles were worth so much. As far as art went, he liked finger painting more-but clearly that opinion was in the minority in this crowd. He ambled farther, just looking and poking around, until he finally spotted Emma.

  Damn, but a single look and his throat went whiskey-dry.

  How she could still be on her feet and looking this good confounded him, but she was a tender feast for his eyes. She wore a long skirt, some fabric with a sheen, claret in color with some gold-threaded design near the ankles. He didn’t normally notice stuff like that, but somehow with her, he found himself noticing everything, because every detail was so much a part of her. The white blouse was simple, billowy, open at the throat to show off a triple strand of pink pearls. She’d left her hair loose, just brushed it back with a pearled clip on one side. She’d smudged a little satiny stuff around her eyes, used a ripe plum color on her mouth. If she was going for a peasant effect, it sure failed. She not only looked beautiful and striking but also elegant to the bone.

  In the few minutes he’d wandered around, he’d figured out some things. Not just that old perfume bottles sold well. But also that the crowd was buzzing less about the event than about Reed.

  So the vultures had come to peck about the broken engagement-at least when Emma was out of sight. The next time she ambled through the lobby, she spotted him immediately.

  The look in her eyes put a hush in his pulse. She surged toward him as if thrilled to see him…but then he saw her swallow and noticed her posture tense with anxiety.

  Something was wrong. Very wrong. But before they could connect, she was distracted by Josh, who was apparently leaving for the night. And then a phone call snagged her attention. One way or another, it seemed as if everyone wanted a piece of her.

  He’d been in such a hot rush to tell her about Caroline. Still was. Still wanted her perspective on the whole blackmailer mystery as soon as he could get it.