Her mother said, “Your aunt, my sister—the only sister I have—wants it to be over. But now it’s being raised again and you know she’s not a strong woman. If you went about it differently, I could see, but you always seem to make a mess of things. Celia tells me that you’ve even dragged some man into this.”
“I didn’t drag him into it.” She took another deep breath. The last thing she wanted was to discuss Matt.
“Well, how did you meet him?”
“Actually, he saved my life.”
Face flooding with anger, her mother glared at her. “Not this again.”
The look her mother gave her—eyes narrowed, lips pressed into a white line—together with the high-pitched tone in her voice stopped her cold. A rush of memories from her childhood flooded her. The details were a blur, but not that terrible suffocating feeling that resulted from being on the receiving end of her mother’s anger. She felt it now in the crushing pressure on her chest, as if a ton of rocks had fallen on her.
Emily turned away, squeezed her eyes shut. She wasn’t going to cry. No way.
The telephone rang in the kitchen. Scowling, her mother sprang up, went off to answer it.
Emily took a deep breath and looked around. She hated this room. Growing up, she’d only been allowed in to be reprimanded. The furnishings had changed over the years. Now it was starkly modern, everything white, including the pickled white stain on the floors.
Ten minutes later, her mother came back. “That was Harold. He’s stopping by.” She walked to the window, looked out onto the street. “Perhaps you could stay to say hello.”
“All right.” It was safer with people around. Usually, but not always, the harshest rebukes were saved for when her mother had her alone. “How is he?”
“He’s fine, busy.” Hesitating, she pinched the skin on her neck. “I may as well tell you, we are planning to be married. But please keep that under your hat for the time being.”
“I’m happy for you, Mother.”
Sitting down, her mother crossed her legs. A bitter smile played across her lips. “Yes, well, we can’t set a date until this business with Amber is finished.”
An awful, sinking feeling puddled in Emily’s stomach. She was to blame for messing her mother’s life up once again. Her mother stared at her, waiting for her to say something. Emily stood up. “I’m going upstairs for a minute. There are some clothes in the closet I’d like to take.” She took a few steps before turning around. “By the way, the friend Celia mentioned is coming by to pick me up.”
“Boyfriend?”
“He’s just a friend.” In the hallway, there was a large painting on the wall, a sort of abstract expressionist work with squiggly black lines, layers and layers of them, on a stark white canvas.
Her mother called out from across the room, “I just bought it at an auction. It cost a pretty penny. I’m not sure I like it, but it’s an investment.”
Walking upstairs, she wondered if her mother saw her as an investment. As a daughter, she was a flop, but there was still some value in her as a chef.
Going away to college had been one of the best things she’d ever done; coming back to work for her mother had been a big mistake.
* * *
Mona Blackstock answered the door when Matt returned an hour after he’d dropped Emily off. She introduced herself with a stiff smile, led him into the living room, where Emily stood by the window, her arms crossed tightly in front of her. He wanted to go to her, but Mona gestured to a pair of sofas set up across from each other in front of a tiled fireplace.
“What exactly is it that you do?” she asked after she had sat down across from him, her back to her daughter. “Emily didn’t say.”
He shot a glance at Emily, but she’d turned to look out the window. Something had happened before he had arrived. Tension hung in the air. “I work with a company in Boston, building houses.”
“Really, how interesting.”
Her tone suggested about as much interest as a six-year-old might have in a plate of mashed turnips. “Emily tells me you’re in the hotel business.”
“I own the Carleton, near the downtown. Have you been?”
“Haven’t had the chance yet.” He wondered if the hotel had a similar decor to this room. Everything white, it had all the warmth of a dentist’s waiting room and a peculiar smell, too, like furniture polish mixed with disinfectant.
The room suited its owner. It wasn’t hard to see where Emily had gotten her looks, but Mona gave off a chilly, hard-edged composure that made him sit upright in his seat.
She was talking about the hotel. “It’s a lovely old building. We are very proud of it, aren’t we, Emily?” She didn’t wait for a response. “It has just six floors but one hundred and seventy-seven rooms. It’s certainly a lot of work.”
The doorbell rang. Without turning around, Mona said, “That will be Harold. Emily, be a dear and get it.”
Emily shot him a smile as she walked across the room to the hallway. The conversation died. Behind Mona, a huge frame stood against the wall. There was nothing in it, and it looked antique, although he suspected it wasn’t really, but had been beaten with chains and painted a dozen times to make it look old. It would have looked better if it had something in it, preferably something very colorful. But that was just his opinion. What did he know?
Emily returned with a tall, barrel-chested man in his early sixties. Salt-and-pepper hair and a neatly trimmed mustache gave him a distinguished air. Harold MacDonald exchanged introductions with Matt, who stood to greet him, leaned down to kiss Mona on the cheek, and sat beside her. Emily joined Matt on the sofa across from Mona and the judge.
The judge asked him about home construction. His questions were knowledgeable, and he explained he had recently moved into a custom new build on a five-acre plot of land on a small mountain a few miles north of town. From the description, it sounded very big and very expensive.
Mona, waiting for a break in the conversation, turned to Matt. “Emily and I just had a discussion, and I think we agreed on the importance of not overreacting.”
Emily stiffened beside him but said nothing, so he said, “I don’t know what you’ve discussed, but I haven’t seen Emily overreacting to anything. I’m concerned for her safety, in fact.” He reached over, squeezed Emily’s hand. Her delicate lips lifted in a small smile and when she returned the squeeze his heart did strange things in his chest.
Mona said, “Really? You don’t know Emily like I do. In fact, how long have you known her?”
“A little while.” She threw out the word “really” a lot, in a way that implied she severely doubted the veracity of what he said. He said, before she could say more, “Do you know why Jason Hatt is a suspect?”
Shaking her head, she looked in the judge’s direction. “Harold, do you?” Looking back at Matt, she added, “Harold is a judge. He sometimes knows about such things.”
MacDonald shrugged. “Sorry, no, I haven’t kept up on that case.” He looked at Emily. “But if you believe there are valid reasons to be concerned for your own safety, you shouldn’t ignore them. I once got a threatening letter from somebody I sent to prison. It wasn’t pleasant.”
Mona said, “Harold’s new home has a very expensive security system. It even has a safe room. It’ll be harder to break into than Fort Knox.”
“I don’t know about that, but it certainly gives peace of mind.” Stroking his moustache, he seemed pleased. He glanced at Emily, then Matt. “Do you want me to see if I can make some calls, maybe pull in some favors and get you some police protection?”
Mona’s lips turned inward. “I guess it’s better to be safe than sorry. If Emily really thinks she needs it, I suppose we should pay attention.”
An angry looked flashed from under MacDonald’s bushy gray eyebrows. “You make it sound like she’s at fault, Mona.” He had raised his voice, and seemed to have realized it, because he softened his tone and the anger disappeared. “Like you say, it’
s better to be safe than sorry.”
Two red splotches appeared on Mona’s cheeks. “Be careful, dear, your blood pressure.” She put a hand on his arm. “Do you want coffee? Emily, could you put the coffee on?”
Emily left the room, and MacDonald looked at him, waiting for an answer to his question, so he said, “That’s very kind of you, but I think we should be okay.”
MacDonald raised his eyebrows. “Are you sure that’s wise? Do have security training?” He twisted a gold Rolex on his wrist.
“We’ll be okay,” Matt said, getting the feeling that the judge wasn’t the type of person who was used to being turned down. “But thank you.”
Mona said, “I’m sure you will be. Emily always comes out all right in the end. I did my best, really I did, but it wasn’t easy being a single mother. There were times when I struggled, but I think I did pretty well.”
Sitting back, he said nothing, wondering if she really thought this was true. Some things about Emily were beginning to make sense.
Conversation turned once more to home construction, but when Emily returned with coffee a few minutes later, Mona said, “Emily was always so dramatic.” She added cream to a cup and handed it to Harold. “I remember once, she was three, I think, and she was locked in a closet. She was hysterical.”
Emily steadied the coffee cup she’d just picked up with two hands. “How did that happen?”
Mona shrugged, turned to her daughter. “I don’t remember. It was that closet under the stairs—we’ve since had it converted to a half bath—well, anyway, you started screaming.” She took a sip of coffee. “Eventually, you fell asleep.”
Emily said, “I’ve never heard that story before.”
“Really?” Mona’s tone was both surprised and pleased. She glanced at MacDonald, who cleared his throat and shifted in his seat.
“I recall the incident, but what I mean is that I haven’t heard you tell the story before. I didn’t realize it happened here.”
“I would have thought you’d remember. You always did have a thing about being in tight spaces. But you’ve gotten over it, haven’t you?”
Not answering, Emily gaped at her mother for a moment before putting down her cup. Standing, she turned to Matt. “Shall we go?”
Mona said, “I hope we’ll see you both on Saturday.” Her light tone suggested obliviousness to the unease in the air.
The judge rose, brightening. “It’s Mona’s fiftieth birthday. We’re having a small get-together here, about twenty people, very casual. I wanted to have it at my place, but it isn’t ready yet.”
Emily was noncommittal. “I’m sure you’ll have a very nice time.”
Her mother said, “You have to come. You can’t not come to my special day.” She shot a glance at her boyfriend. “Harold has been working so hard that I’ve been feeling neglected.”
Emily glanced at him, but Matt kept his face expressionless. It was up to her. “Perhaps for a few minutes,” she said in a strained voice.
“Good, that’s settled.” Mona stood up. “I was hoping you could help in the kitchen. Most of the planning is done, but we could use an extra hand. It’s going to be very low key, nothing formal.”
He stiffened, a retort on the tip of his tongue but a look from Emily silenced him. She said, “Saturday? That’s the day after tomorrow, isn’t it? It’s not very much time to prepare.”
“Really, if it’s too much to ask, just say so.” Mona pressed her lips together. “I just thought we needed some happiness after what has happened to this family. Should I try to look for someone else?”
“That’s okay.” Emily’s tone was remote, as if she was thinking about something else. “I can be an extra set of hands.”
Mona’s lips lifted into just a suggestion of a smile. “Good, we’ll see you this weekend.”
* * *
Emily grabbed a small plastic bag of clothes from the backseat of the rental car and followed Matt into a ground-floor room at the Prince Inn, the motel Matt had checked them into earlier. Five blocks north of the downtown core, it was sandwiched between a service station and an empty parking lot. Across the street stood a large grocery store.
Inside, a peculiar smell, as if somebody had tried to mask cigarette smoke with a heavy-duty odor remover, greeted her. Two double beds hogged the floor space. Emily walked to the farthest bed, tossed the bag on the flowery satin bedspread, and sat down.
“You didn’t want more clothes?”
“That’s all there was, aside from a winter coat.” She shifted back on the bed, leaned against the headboard. “My mother must have gotten rid of the rest. She told me she was going to do it. She hates clutter.”
“So I noticed.” Smiling, he sat down on the other bed, facing her.
An attempt to return the smile failed. Her mind was full of an image of herself as a terrified little kid locked in a closet. It was an actual memory, not something she’d conjured up. She said, “I get so angry at her. Does that make me a bad person?”
“I think you have remarkable restraint.”
A chuckle escaped her lips. “That’s the sort of thing Amber would have said. She called me a world-class expert at tiptoeing around my mother. Amber said my mother gave me a role in our family. I was the misfit. As long as attention focused on what I did wrong, the real issues didn’t have to be faced.”
“And those issues were?”
“They’ve changed over the years, but I know she’s very lonely. Which brings me to another point. She told me that she and the judge are getting married, although it’s all very hush-hush.”
He raised his eyebrows. “When is this happening?”
“She said she’s waiting for this business with Amber to be over.” Closing her eyes, she massaged her temples. “In other words, her happiness is being delayed because of me.”
“That’s pretty unfair.”
“It’s funny, I know she wants desperately to get married, but it’s not a subject we could ever discuss. So in a way today was progress.”
He watched her closely, eyes attentive. “The story your mother told about the closet, that was the first you’d heard of it?”
A big lump in her throat made it hard to speak. After a minute, she said, “When she said that, it all made sense. But I still don’t know how I got in there.” Looking straight ahead, aware of Matt in her peripheral vision, she said, “I’m not sure I really want to know, or that it even matters. But in a way, she had a point. I shouldn’t have been screaming.”
“You were three years old.”
“Well, I should have gotten over it by now.” She wiped a tear, waited a moment before she continued. “Don’t get me wrong, I’m really angry at my mother. But I love her. I love her a lot.”
“I can see that.”
“I guess I’ve been stuck between being angry at her and loving her for a long time. You get numb after a while.” He nodded and she continued. “I used to get angry and upset a lot. But it’s safer when she doesn’t know I’m mad. She can’t mess with my head if she doesn’t know what’s going on inside it.”
Matt opened his mouth to say something, but stopped. She really liked him for that, for not launching into a vicious attack on her mother. It felt good that he understood, and that he had defended her. That hadn’t happened a lot. Everyone seemed to love her mother. They just saw the charming businesswoman. Amber was the other exception. Sometimes Emily thought she never would have survived her childhood intact if it hadn’t been for Amber.
He said, “Do you want to cancel your kitchen duties for Saturday?”
“It’s her birthday. If I have to go, I’d just as soon be in the kitchen. Her parties aren’t my kind of thing, but I agreed because I thought we might be able to find something out. It’ll give us another chance to talk to Celia.”
“I can be your personal security detail, if that’s all right.”
She smiled. “I would feel a lot better.”
“Better as in safer, or would you lik
e to have me around?” A smile softened the question but his eyes smoldered with intensity and there seemed to be heat radiating off his body.
She let herself look at him for a long moment, her heart fluttering in her chest. “I’m not used to having anybody around, as you call it.”
“You sound proud of that, like you’re ‘uncatchable.’”
“Shouldn’t I be?” She put her head down, not sure she could control herself if she looked at him, and picked at a loose thread on the bedspread.
“Are you kidding me? It’s not a crime, you know, to have someone.”
“I know. I’m just used to taking care of myself. I’ve had to do it for a long time.” Swallowing hard, she looked up. “And everything is so mixed up right now. It’s hard to see past that.”
Especially when it came to him. He wasn’t even her type, but that calm, confident way he had about him, together with those rugged good looks, made her heart beat like a drum. When he touched her, kissed her, even held her hand, her body came alive. And the way he looked at her, with raw heat, as if nothing else mattered, he couldn’t be faking that, could he?
He didn’t say anything to that, just nodded. “Do you want to get something to eat?”
“I’m not hungry. But you go ahead.” What she really wanted was to have a shower, then crawl in bed.
Preferably with you.
Feeling the heat rise in her cheeks, she looked away, thankful she hadn’t said that out loud. “But you go ahead. I’ll be fine here.” If he left, she could try to get her raging feelings under control before it was too late.
“How about take-out?” When she nodded, he said, “I almost forgot. The pictures look too dark and far away to give us anything useful, but the guy said he’d see what he could do. He’s got some sort of computer program that he’ll run them through.”
Emily frowned. “So where do we go from here?”
“You don’t give up, do you?” He smiled. “Tomorrow, we’ll go see the boyfriend. I don’t want to call him to set something up. He might refuse to see us.”
“We just show up?”
He nodded. “I found out where he lives. We’ll see if we can get a feel for whether he’s lying about that alibi.”
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