You’re safe now, she told herself in an attempt to quiet her jittery heart, and vowed not to leave the hospital again that night. She immediately squelched an urge to call Scott and tell him what had happened. Nothing had happened, she reminded herself, except that a white SUV had been in two of the same places she had been. Following her? Possibly. Just as possibly not.
Calm down. The last thing she wanted to do was upset her mother. I’ll look up the license plate number later.
“I used to—love tennis,” Martha said wistfully as Lisa, doing her best to put the incident out of her mind for the time being, dropped a quick kiss on her thin cheek.
Andy grinned. “You used to look mighty good in those little tennis skirts, too.”
“I did—didn’t I?” Martha smiled back and then turned her attention to Lisa. “So, how was—your day?”
By the time she and her mother had caught each other up on the (edited, in Lisa’s case) events of their respective days, Andy was long gone. Claiming that she’d been able to find no other place to park, Lisa had asked him to move her car from the time-restricted spot outside the emergency room, which he had done, returning her keys to her before leaving for the night. Mrs. Wettig, a friend of her mother’s, stopped by for half an hour, and an orderly came in to set up Lisa’s bed. Only then, when she and her mother were finally left alone, did Lisa turn to the subject that had been bothering her since lunch: Barty’s reaction to Katrina.
She did her best to approach it delicately.
“Do you remember one of my dolls, a big one with black hair and blue eyes and a blue velvet dress? I named her Katrina.”
Lisa was sitting beside the bed, in the chair Andy had vacated earlier. Her mother was once again holding the remote, and the two of them were watching the news and talking over it. The thought of bringing Katrina in so that the sight of the doll might jog her mother’s memory was tempting, but she was afraid Martha might find in Katrina’s singed and battered state a distressing reminder of the fire, even if the doll meant nothing else to her.
Martha frowned. “You had—so many—dolls. It’s hard to—remember one in—particular. Why?”
“I just wondered when I got her, is all. I can’t remember.”
“You got dolls for—your birthday—and Christmas—always. Every time—someone asked—what you would like—I always said—a doll. You—loved them.”
Lisa smiled. Birthdays and Christmases when she’d been a child had been magical. Her mother had worked hard to make each special occasion truly special. At the time, she had taken it for granted.
“I was spoiled rotten, wasn’t I?”
Martha smiled, too. “Not rotten. Maybe a little—spoiled. But—I loved—spoiling you.”
Lisa hesitated. Bringing Barty into the conversation wasn’t something she wanted to do. She and her mother rarely spoke of him, because Lisa didn’t like to think about him in general and her mother’s reminisces of the brief time they had been a family invariably made Martha sad. But tonight, because of Katrina, Lisa needed answers.
“Did—my father”—Martha hated it when she called him Barty—“ever give me any dolls?”
Martha smiled. “He was always—giving you dolls. He was—crazy about you.”
Her words smote Lisa to the heart. She felt them as an actual physical blow.
“So, what happened? Why did he leave us?” The questions were out before Lisa could stop them. She had never before asked her mother why Barty had so thoroughly dropped out of both of their lives. She was too proud, and to even acknowledge her father’s abandonment enough to ask about it brought too much pain.
“Oh, Annalisa.” Her mother regarded her with so much compassion that Lisa ached inside. Gritting her teeth, she did her best to will away the hurt. “It wasn’t you—he left. It was—me.”
“He left me, too. He left both of us.” Lisa had to fight to keep her voice steady, but she managed it. “He left our family.”
Her mother sighed. “He left—me,” she repeated firmly. “We’d been married for—six years—when you were born. We both wanted—children. I kept—trying and trying—to have a baby—but it didn’t happen. By the time—I—finally got pregnant—with you—it was like—a miracle. He was a—congressman by then—you know. He was—running for the—Senate. It was such an—exciting time. Sanford was his—campaign manager—and Jean—Sanford’s first wife, she’s been dead now for—fifteen years, poor thing—was pregnant too—with Joel. She and I—stayed together—in the house in—Silver Spring—while they flew back and forth—campaigning. Then—you were born. You were premature, a seven-months baby. I was so—worried about you—that I—took you home—to Grayson Springs. Mama and Daddy were—still alive then—and they took care of—both of us. But Bart—didn’t like it—that I—ran home to—my parents. That caused—trouble between us. Daddy—didn’t like him. He said Bart only—married me for my money. At the time I—thought he was wrong—but later I—wasn’t so sure. Then Bart—lost the election. He was still a congressman—still traveling back and forth—between Washington and Grayson Springs. But I could tell he—felt like—a failure. And—he changed. He and Daddy—couldn’t get along at all. Bart wanted me—us—to move back to—the house in Silver Spring. But Mama—was ill. I couldn’t leave her. And so—you and I stayed. Bart and I—saw each other—less and less. By the time—Mama and Daddy died and—Bart lost his congressional seat—and moved back to Grayson Springs—our marriage was—over. We divorced—the next year.”
“But he never came to see us after the divorce.” Now that the wound had been reopened, Lisa could not keep at bay the hurt she had denied for years. It welled up inside her, corrosive as acid. And instead of “us,” she was ashamed to admit, what she really meant was “me.” He never came to see me.
“I know.” Martha wet her lips. Her eyes were infinitely sad, and Lisa knew that the sorrow in them was for her. “He’s behaved—badly—to you. But I think—it’s because—to see you he had—to deal with me. By the time we—divorced—he’d gotten to where—he couldn’t stand—me.”
It was no excuse for never visiting a daughter, and the ache in Lisa’s heart intensified. But then the familiar anger Lisa always felt when she thought of Barty welled to the surface. She welcomed it as an antidote to the sudden stinging rawness inside her.
“He’s a very stupid man, then.” Lisa’s voice was firm; her head was high.
Her mother smiled. “I’ve thought that—for years. Lucky you—take after me.”
Lisa had to laugh, and as she did, the hard little knot inside her chest eased.
“Lucky,” she agreed.
Then she allowed the conversation to move on to other, less fraught, topics, until they were interrupted by the nurse, who appeared like clockwork with Martha’s sleep medication. By the time Martha finally fell asleep, Lisa was too tired to do anything but curl up on the cot and go to sleep herself.
At least in the hospital, in the midst of so many people and so much activity, she felt safe. If she had been sleeping in her hotel room, as her mother had urged her to start doing, she knew she would never have been able to close her eyes. Being alone right now was the last thing she needed.
Fear had crept into her life, tainting everything.
The next morning, while Martha was in rehab, Lisa used a computer program from work that was installed on her laptop to run the white SUV’s plate. It was registered to a company called Diurnal Plastics, with a post office box address. When she ran the company name through all the usual databases, though, she hit a brick wall: There was no information on it. Which meant one of two things: Either Diurnal Plastics was too small and too new to have left digital fingerprints or it was a sham company meant to hide the true ownership of the SUV.
It was impossible to be sure, but if she was voting, she would go with the latter.
The knowledge set her nerves on edge.
Because it was the Fourth of July and a national holiday, there was only a skele
ton staff at the hospital. After that single rehab session, Martha had no further tests and nothing to do except chat or listen to music or read or watch TV. Because she expected to be out until the wee hours of the morning, Lisa had made arrangements for Robin to spend the night at the hospital with her mother while she slept in her hotel room. Now that the idea that someone might be following her had planted itself in her brain, staying at the hotel all by her lonesome seemed less and less attractive.
You’re being ridiculous, she told herself. Have Joel walk you up to your room and stay while you check it out, then say good night and lock the door behind him. You’ll be safe as houses.
She knew she was right. Still, when Robin arrived at seven and Lisa drove back to the hotel to get dressed, she was jittery the whole time, despite the fact that it was still full daylight and there were all kinds of people out everywhere celebrating the holiday with parades and picnics and preparations for the fireworks displays that would explode all over the city as soon as it was dark. But although she looked in her rearview mirror every five seconds and kept a wary eye out all around, there was no sign of the white SUV. Or of any other vehicle that could possibly be suspected of tailing her, either.
Still, by the time Lisa let herself into her hotel room, her palms were sweating.
There was just one more thing she had to do before she could take a shower and dress for the party: check to make sure Katrina was safe.
Sliding back the closet door, opening the lid on the box, she discovered that she was holding her breath and deliberately let it out. Of course Katrina was there, just where she had left her, lying in the box with her eyes closed, looking for all the world like a corpse in a coffin. The image bothered Lisa so much that she couldn’t leave the doll in that position. Instead she picked her up—Katrina’s eyes flew open unnervingly—then hesitated, unsure what to do with her. Putting her out in the bedroom was a nonstarter, but keeping her shut away in the closet wasn’t much better. Either way, Lisa realized to her chagrin, the doll had her thoroughly spooked.
A glance at the clock by the bed told her that she had an hour until Joel was supposed to pick her up. No time to do anything, really, except shower and dress.
Lisa was reluctantly putting Katrina back in the box when a mark stamped into the sole of the doll’s foot caught her eye.
Eyes widening, she ran the ball of her thumb over the mark’s raised lines, then lifted the doll so that she could look at it more closely.
A heart with the letters MBF inside it. After all these years, it was worn and faint but still just legible enough for her to make it out.
The mark did not ring a bell.
Another glance at the clock confirmed it: She did not have time to turn on her computer and research the mark. Unless she wanted Joel to catch her in the shower—and she didn’t—she needed to hurry.
Locking the bathroom door behind her as, she realized, a protection against the malevolent and mobile Katrina she could not help imagining more than from any possible human intruders, she showered and did her hair and makeup. When she emerged, cautiously, she slid into her underwear and hurried to the closet with one eye on the clock. The box was still closed—what, had she expected something different?—which, she hoped, meant Katrina was still inside. Shaking her head at her own idiocy, she fought the urge to check. She didn’t have time to worry about the doll at the moment. Her eyes fell on the scarlet dress Nola had given her. Taking it out, she slipped it on, then looked at herself in the long mirror on the closet door.
She looked good.
The deep red wasn’t a color she usually wore, but it suited her, as did the style, sleeveless and slim, with a short skirt. The matching heels, which she wore without hose, made her legs look long and shapely and very tan. It was a lovely dress, a siren’s dress, and as she looked at herself in it, Lisa felt a flutter of excitement. Butterflies took wing in her stomach. Her heartbeat quickened.
All because she was anticipating the effect the way she looked would have on a certain man, she realized with some chagrin, even as a knock on the door announced Joel’s arrival.
Making a face at herself, Lisa abandoned her mirror image to pull the door open.
“Yowzers,” was Joel’s most gratifying reaction as his eyes slid over her, and then as she smiled at him he bent to drop a quick kiss on her lips.
Even with his lips on hers, her pulse didn’t budge. Her heart didn’t speed up. Her stomach didn’t flutter.
Disagreeable as it was to acknowledge, Lisa had to face it: The man whose possible reaction to her appearance had made her go all jittery inside wasn’t Joel.
It was Scott. Who would be coming to the country club as Nola’s date.
21
She was wearing red, and she was so beautiful that just looking at her made his body tighten.
Nola was at her sexy best, leaning against him, giving him an eye-opening view of her ample assets all but bared by the halter top of the slinky little dress she wore, her blond curls brushing his shoulder, her bare thigh pressing meaningfully against his under the table with only the thin cloth of his charcoal suit pants separating her skin from his, her flowery perfume drifting around his head.
His for the taking, as she’d made abundantly clear.
And yet he had eyes only for Lisa.
Who was threading her way through the crowd toward where he and Nola and two other couples sat at one of the glass-topped garden tables ringing the pool, responding to greetings from acquaintances right and left, her slender body as graceful as the smoke curling skyward from the flickering tiki torches that lit the darkness, her legs looking two yards long as they flashed beneath her short skirt, her long, loose hair blacker even than the night sky and rippling like the surface of the water just a few feet away as, smiling, she turned her head to say something to the man behind her.
Peyton, of course. The jerk even had his hand on her waist.
Scott’s hand tightened around his glass. If it had held anything stronger than ginger ale with a twist, he would have knocked it back about then. Unfortunately, it didn’t.
“There they are.” Nola spotted the newcomers and waved at them. The others at the table—Macy and Thornton, Alexis and Ben, all possessing last names he couldn’t remember—joined in, waving and calling hello as Lisa and Peyton approached. They were all old friends, everyone at the table. They were all scions of elite Bluegrass families, all long-standing members of the country club, all regulars at this Fourth of July extravaganza. All except him.
One of these things is not like the others. . . .
“Sorry we’re late.” Lisa made the smiling apology to the table in general as she and Peyton reached it. Her eyes just touched Scott’s as she dropped down into the white wrought-iron chair opposite his that Peyton pulled out for her.
“Get lost?” Scott couldn’t help it. The gibe, muttered half under his breath and directed squarely at Lisa, came out before he could stop it.
Her eyes held his as Peyton settled into the chair beside her.
There were eight of the deeply cushioned chairs around each of the sixty or so tables ringing the pool. Another layer of tables for eight were positioned around the outer layer of the pool deck. A third section of larger, family-style tables circled the nearby kiddie pool. All were full, with tuxedoed waiters and black-dress-and-white-apron-clad waitresses weaving deftly between them. A tented buffet and bar had been set up between the two pools, and a line of women in cocktail dresses and men in suits snaked away from both. The smell of grilling meat mixed with the faint scents of citronella and chlorine. Laughter and the sounds of many voices all talking at once filled the air. Another vast white tent covered the brick patio directly behind the antebellum mansion that served as the clubhouse. The patio had been converted for the night into a dance floor. It was lit by thousands of twinkly white lights that covered the interior ceiling of the tent, swirled around the tall support poles, and wrapped the nearby trees and shrubbery. More white lights
festooned all the outdoor seating areas, including just above where they sat. A live band played “Margaritaville” with verve, and a few couples already danced energetically to it. Beyond the tent, the golf course stretched, black as velvet in the darkness. According to the card on the table, at eleven-thirty p.m., which was still an hour and a half away, it would be the site of a fireworks display. As befitted the ultra-exclusive nature of the establishment, it was billed as the largest in the region.
“I stopped by the hospital to show my mother my dress. I always wear pants, and I knew she’d like to see me in it.”
In contrast to his, Lisa’s voice wasn’t lowered. Or edgy. Her eyes met his blandly. That very blandness—so un-Lisa—told him that she hadn’t missed that he was in a piss-poor mood. He was also aware that she undoubtedly had a good idea of the cause.
They knew each other too damned well, was the problem.
“I knew that color would look great on you.” Nola beamed at Lisa. Her gaze slid to Scott. “Doesn’t she look great?”
“Beautiful.” He spoke the truth without inflection. His eyes switched to Nola, who was, after all, his date, and he dredged up a smile. “So do you, in case I forgot to mention it.”
“You did, but I forgive you.” Nola crinkled her nose coquettishly, and he smiled at her again. He liked Nola, found her attractive, was amused by her forwardness, but he already knew that nothing was going to come of this night except this one date. So, he suspected, did she.
Hell, the sad truth was that he’d accepted only to needle Lisa, because of the horrified look on Lisa’s face when Nola had invited him. If he had not been fairly certain that Nola had pretty much known the score going in, he would have been feeling ashamed of himself about now.
“Anyone else want a drink?” Peyton looked around the table as he signaled a waitress. “Lise, the usual?”
Scott discovered that he didn’t enjoy learning that Peyton called her “Lise.” Or that he knew her “usual,” whatever the hell it was. When she was with him, she pretty much stuck to iced tea. Or a soda or coffee. Something nonalcoholic.
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