by Nora Roberts
were there. “Do you think a man, a perfectly normal man, with a family, a job, a house in the suburbs, a man who plays catch with his son on a Sunday afternoon and brings his wife roses on a Wednesday evening, could have another side? A cold, dark side that no one sees, a side that’s capable of doing something unspeakable, then folding back into itself so he can root at the Little League game on Saturday and take the family out for ice cream sodas afterward?”
Brian got the colander out for the shrimp and set it in the sink. “You’re full of odd questions this evening, Jo Ellen. You writing a book or something?”
“Can’t you just tell me what you think? Can’t you just have an opinion on a subject and say what it is?”
“All right.” Baffled, he tipped the lid to the pot to give the shrimp a quick stir. “If you want to be philosophical, the Jekyll and Hyde theme has always fascinated people. Good and evil existing side by side in the same personality. There’s none of us without shadows.”
“I’m not talking about shadows. About a man who gives in to temptation and cheats on his wife one afternoon at the local motel, or who skims the till at work. I’m talking about real evil, the kind that doesn’t carry a breath of guilt or conscience with it. Yet it doesn’t show, not even to the people closest to it.”
“Seems to me the easiest evil to hide is one with no conscience tagged to it. If you don’t feel remorse or responsibility, there’s no mirror reflecting back.”
“No mirror reflecting back,” she repeated. “It would be like black glass, wouldn’t it? Opaque.”
“Do you have any other cheerful remarks or suppositions to discuss?”
“How’s this? Can the apple fall far from the tree?”
With a half laugh, Brian hefted the pot and poured shrimp and steaming water into the colander. “I’d say that depended entirely on the apple. A firm, healthy one might take a few good bounces and roll. You had one going rotten, it’d just plop straight down at the trunk.”
He turned, mopping his brow again and reaching for his beer when he caught her eye. “What?” he demanded as she stared at him, her eyes dark and wide, her face pale.
“That’s exactly right,” she said quietly. “That’s so exactly right.”
“I’m hell on parables.”
“I’m going to hold you to that one, Brian.” She turned back to her grating. “After dinner, we need to talk. All of us. I’ll tell the others. We’ll use the family parlor.”
“All of us, in one place? Who do you want to punish?”
“It’s important, Brian. It’s important to all of us.”
“I don’t see why I have to twiddle my thumbs around here when I’ve got a date.” Looking at her image in the mirror behind the bar, Lexy fussed with her hair. “It’s nearly eleven o’clock already. Giff’s liable to just give up waiting and go to bed.”
“Jo said it was important,” Kate reminded her. She fought to make her knitting needles click rhythmically rather than bash together. She’d been working on the same afghan for ten years and was bound and determined to conquer it before another decade passed.
“Then where is she?” Lexy demanded, whirling around. “I don’t see anybody here but you and me. Brian’s probably snuck off to Kirby’s, Daddy’s holed up with his shortwave tracking that damned hurricane—and it isn’t even coming around here.”
“They’ll be along. Why don’t you fix us all a nice glass of wine, honey?” It was one of Kate’s little dreams, having her family all gathered together, cooling off after a hot day, sharing the events of it.
“Seems like I’m always waiting on somebody. I swear, the last thing I’ll do to keep the wolf away from the door when I go back to New York is wait tables.”
Sam ducked his head and stepped in. He glanced at Kate with amusement. That blanket never seemed to grow by much, he thought, but somehow or other it got uglier every time she dragged it out. “You know what the girl’s got on her mind?”
“No, I don’t,” Kate said placidly. “But sit down. Lexy’s getting us some wine.”
“Sooner have a beer, if it’s all the same.”
“Well, place your orders,” Lexy said testily. “I live to serve.”
“I can fetch my own.”
“Oh, sit down.” She waved a hand at him. “I’ll get it.”
Feeling chastised, he lowered himself to the couch beside Kate, drummed his fingers on his knee. He looked up when Lexy held out a brimming pilsner. “Guess you want a tip now.” When she arched a brow, he nodded soberly. “Recycle. The world is your backyard.”
Kate’s needles stilled, Lexy stared. As color crept up his throat, Sam stared into his beer.
“My God, Sam, you made a joke. Lexy, you be sure to remind me to mark this down on my Year-at-a-Glance calendar.”
“Sarcastic woman’s the reason I keep my mouth shut in the first place,” he muttered, and Kate’s laugh tinkled out.
She patted Sam’s knee affectionately while Lexy grinned down at them.
That’s what Jo saw when she came in. Her father, her cousin, and her sister sharing a moment together while Kate’s laughter rang out.
Her heart sank. It was an image she’d never expected to see, one she hadn’t known could be so precious to her. Now she, and the man who stood behind her, could destroy it.
“There she is.” Kate continued to beam, and when she spotted Nathan, her idea of what Jo had wanted the family to hear took on the hint of orange blossoms and bridal lace. Fluttering, she set her knitting aside. “We were just having some wine. Maybe we should make it champagne instead, just for fun.”
“No, wine’s fine.” Her nerves screaming, Jo hurried in. “Don’t get up, Kate, I’ll get it.”
“I hope this won’t take long, Jo. I’ve got plans.”
“I’m sorry, Lexy.” Jo clinked glasses together in her hurry to have it done.
“Sit down,” Kate hissed, rolling her eyes, wiggling her brows to try to give Lexy a hint. “Make yourself comfortable, Nathan. I’m sure Brian will be right along. Oh, here he is now. Brian, turn up the fan a little, will you? This heat’s just wilting. Must be cooler at your place by the river, Nathan.”
“Some.” He sat, knowing he had to let Jo set the pace. But he looked at Sam. They’d spent twenty minutes together that evening, outlining plans, discussing structure and form. And all the while Nathan had tasted the bitter tang of deceit.
It was time to open it up, spread it out, and accept the consequences. “I’m sorry?” he said, realizing abruptly that Kate was speaking to him.
“I was just asking if you’re finding it as easy to work here as you do in New York.”
“It’s a nice change.” His eyes met Jo’s as she brought him a glass of wine. Get it done, he asked her silently. Get it finished.
“Would you sit down, Brian?” she murmured.
“Hmm.” She’d interrupted his daydream about wandering over to Kirby’s shortly and waking her up in a very specific and interesting manner. “Sure.”
He settled into a chair and decided he’d never been more relaxed or content in his life. He even gave Lexy a quick wink when she sat on the arm beside him.
“I don’t know how to begin, how to tell you.” Jo took a bracing breath. “I wish I could take the chance and let sleeping dogs lie.” She caught Brian’s eye, saw the flicker of confusion in his. “But I can’t. Whether it’s the best thing or not, I have to believe it’s the right thing. Daddy.” She walked over, sat on the coffee table so that her eyes were on a level with Sam’s. “It’s about Mama.”
She saw his mouth harden and, though he didn’t move, felt him pull back from her. “There’s no point in stirring up old waters, Jo Ellen. Your mother’s been gone long enough for you to deal with her going.”
“She’s dead, Daddy. She’s been dead for twenty years.” As if to anchor them both, she closed a hand over his. “She didn’t leave you, or us. She didn’t walk away from Sanctuary. She was murdered.”
“Ho
w can you say such a thing?” Lexy surged to her feet. “How can you say that, Jo?”
“Alexa.” Sam kept his eyes on Jo’s. “Hush.” He had to give himself a moment to stand up to the blow she’d delivered. He wanted to dismiss it, slide over or around it. But there was no evading that steady and sorrowful look in her eyes. “You’ve got a reason for saying that. For believing it.”
“Yes.”
She told him calmly, clearly, about the photograph that had been sent to her. The shock of recognition, the undeniable certainty that it was Annabelle.
“I worked it out a hundred different ways in my head,” she continued. “That it had been taken years later, that it was just a trick of the camera, just a horrible joke. That I’d imagined it altogether. But none of those were true, Daddy. It was Mama, and it was taken right here on the island on the night we thought she left.”
“Where’s the picture?” he demanded. “Where is it?”
“It’s gone. Whoever sent it came back and took it while I was in the hospital. But it was there, I swear it. It was Mama.”
“How do you know? How can you be sure of that?”
She opened her mouth, but Nathan stepped forward. “Because I’ve seen the photograph. Because my father took it, after he killed her.”
With a storm raging in his head, Sam got slowly to his feet. “You’re going to stand there and tell me your father killed Belle. Killed a woman who’d done him no harm, and then took pictures of it. He took pictures of her when he’d done with her, and showed them to you.”
“Nathan didn’t know, Daddy.” Jo clung to Sam’s arm. “He was just a boy. He didn’t know.”
“I’m not looking at a boy now.”
“I found the photographs and a journal after my father died. Everything Jo told is true. My father killed your wife. He wrote it all down, locked the journal and the prints, the negatives in a safe-deposit box. I found them after he and my mother died.”
When the words trailed away there was no sound but the whisk of the blades from the ceiling fan, Lexy’s weeping, and the harsh breaths Sam pushed in and out of his lungs.
He could see her now, shimmering at the front of his mind, the wife he’d loved, the woman he’d cursed. All the lights and shadows of her shifted together to form rage. To form grief.
“Twenty years he kept it to himself.” Sam clenched his fists, but there was nothing to strike. “You find out and you come back here and put your hands on my daughter. And you let him.” He burned Jo with a look. “You know, and you let him.”
“I felt the same way when he told me. Just the same. But when I had time to think it through, to understand ... Nathan wasn’t responsible.”
“His blood was.”
“You’re right.” Nathan moved so that Jo no longer stood between him and Sam. “I came back here to try to find a way through it, or around it, or to just bury it. And I fell in love where I had no right to.”
Brian set Lexy aside so that she could weep into her hands instead of on his shoulder. “Why?” His voice was as raw as his soul. “Why did he do it?”
“There’s no reason that can justify it,” Nathan said wearily. “Nothing she’d done. He ... selected her. It was a project to him, a study. He didn’t act out of anger, or even out of passion. I can’t explain it to myself.”
“It’s best if you go now, Nathan.” Kate spoke quietly as she rose. “Leave us alone with this for a while.”
“I can’t, until it’s all said.”
“I don’t want you in my house.” Sam’s voice was dangerously low. “I don’t want you on my land.”
“I’m not going until I know Jo’s safe. Because whoever killed Susan Peters and Ginny Pendleton wants her.”
“Ginny.” To steady herself, Kate gripped Sam’s arm.
“I don’t have any proof of Ginny, but I know. If you’ll listen to the rest of it, hear me out, I’ll leave.”
“Let him finish it.” Lexy sniffed back her tears and spoke in a voice that was surprisingly strong. “Ginny didn’t just run off. I’ve known that in my heart all along. It was just like Mama, wasn’t it, Nathan? And the Peters woman, too.”
She folded her hands in her lap to compose herself and turned to Jo. “You were sent photos here, to the house, pictures taken here, on the island. It’s all happening again.”
“You’re handy with a camera, Nathan.” Brian’s eyes were hot blue slits.
It stung, coming from a man who had been friend in both the past and the present. “You don’t have any reason to trust me, but you have plenty of reason to listen.”
“Let me try to explain it, Nathan.” Jo picked up her wine to cool her throat.
She left nothing out, picking her way from detail to detail, question to question, and leading into the steps she and Nathan had agreed upon taking to find the answers.
“So his dead father’s responsible for killing our mother,” Brian cut in bitterly. “Now his dead brother’s responsible for the rest. Convenient.”
“We don’t know who’s responsible for the rest. But if it is Nathan’s brother, it doesn’t make Nathan culpable.” Jo stepped up to Brian. “There’s a parable about apples falling from the tree someone told me recently. And how some are strong enough to roll clear and stay whole, and others aren’t.”
“Don’t throw my own words back at me,” he said furiously. “His father killed our mother, destroyed our lives. Now another woman’s dead, maybe two. And you expect us to pat him on the back and say all’s forgiven? Well, the hell with that. The hell with all of you.”
He strode out, leaving the air vibrating in his wake.
“I’ll go after him.” Lexy paused in front of Nathan, studied him out of red-rimmed eyes. “He’s the oldest, and maybe he loved her best, the way boys do their mamas. But he’s wrong, Nathan. There’s nothing to forgive you for. You’re a victim, just like the rest of us.”
When she slipped out, Kate said in surprised admiration, “You never expect her to be the sensible one.” Then she sighed. “We need some time here, Nathan. Some wounds need private tending.”
“I’m going with you,” Jo began, but Nathan shook his head.
“No, you stay with your family. We all need time.” He turned to face Sam. “If you have more to say to me—”
“I’ll find you right enough.”
With a nod, Nathan left them alone.
“Daddy—”
“I don’t have anything to say to you now, Jo Ellen. You’re a grown woman, but you’re living under my roof for the time being. I’m asking you to go to your room for now and let me be.”
“All right. I know what you’re feeling, and just how it hurts. You need time to deal with it.” She kept her eyes level with his. “But after you’ve had that time, if you still hold to this stand, you’ll make me ashamed. Ashamed that you would blame the son for the father’s deed.”
Saying nothing, he strode past her.
“Go ahead to your room, Jo.” Kate laid a hand on Jo’s knotted shoulder. “Let me see what I can do.”
“Do you blame him, Kate? Do you?”
“I can’t get my mind clear on what I think or feel. I know the boy’s suffering, Jo, but so is Sam. My first loyalty is to him. Go on now, don’t pester me for answers until I can sort things through.”
Kate found Sam on the front porch, standing at the rail, staring out into the night. Clouds had rolled in, covering moon and stars. She left the porch light off and stepped quietly up beside him.
“I have to grieve again.” He ran his hands back and forth over the railing. “It isn’t right that I should have to grieve for her again.”
“No, it’s not.”
“Do I take comfort that she never meant to leave me and the children? That she didn’t run off and forget us? And how do I take back all the hard thoughts of her I had over the years, all the nights I cursed her for being selfish and careless and heartless?”
“You can’t be faulted for the hard thoughts, Sam. You
believed what was set in front of you. Believing a lie doesn’t make you wrong. It’s the lie that’s wrong.”
He tightened up. “If you came out here to defend that boy to me, you can turn right around and go back inside.”
“That’s not why I came out, but the fact is that you’re no more at fault for believing what you did about Belle than Nathan was for believing in his father. Now you’ve both found out you were wrong in that belief, but he’s the one who has to accept that his father was the selfish and heartless one.”
“I said you could go on back inside.”
“All right, then, you stubborn, stiff-necked mule. You just stand out here alone and wallow in your misery and think your black thoughts.” She spun around, shocked when his hand shot out and took hers.
“Don’t leave.” The words burned his throat like tears. “Don’t.”