“And Tillie is ….?”
“Jake’s mother. She was my mother’s friend.”
He grinned at her. “Another oil-change neighbor?”
“Not this time,” she chuckled, taking the napkin to wipe her cheek. “She and Jake lived with us for years back east. When we moved to California, they came with us. While I was growing up, she’d show me how to make things in the kitchen.”
“After school, when you weren’t busy learning Russian.”
“I knew you were a smart guy.”
“Aunt Adelia would say smart aleck, but I’m sure you would be too polite to agree.”
When she simply sat with a sweet smile on her face, he looked crestfallen. “Well, I’ve been put in my place, haven’t I, and by someone I thought was on my side. My sins have come home to haunt me.”
She laughed. “Woe is you! Can one say, ‘woe is you’?”
“Don’t woe-rry about it.”
“And he starts with the puns. Isn’t it about time for your appointment?”
He took her hand to pull her up off the wall and absentmindedly forgot to let go. “The museum’s not far and we still have ten minutes. Let’s walk the long way around.”
As they strolled the several blocks, enjoying the sun-filtered shade, Jen told him about a job she’d once had.
“It was a summer job. The man wrote to me about it personally and his handwriting was so bad, I thought he’d written poultry farm, so I didn’t take anything with me but jeans and mud boots. When I got there, it was a printing firm.”
“I can see the fashion magazine cover now,” he chuckled. “What the well-dressed businesswoman will be wearing this season.” They had almost reached the museum. “I guess I’d better give you back your hand since I’m going to have to introduce you as Miss Colson, but it fits so nicely into mine.”
Jen felt herself blushing and bent her head to brush off her slacks and straighten her jacket. “There, am I presentable?”
“Yes,” he flicked her cheek lightly, “and that delicate shade of pink becomes you.” The blush deepened and he grinned. “Come along or I’ll be late.”
The director unlocked the door for them, shook hands with Jen and invited her to look around while he and Rick went to his office.
It was fun having the museum all to herself. She wandered slowly through the rooms, delighting in the fine paintings, lovely furniture, folk costumes and displays of art pieces in ceramic, wood, metal and cloth. She’d been moving from piece to piece for almost an hour when, in one corner toward the back, an open door caught her eye. Beyond it was a workroom with a young man wearing thin gloves and working at a long table.
“You’re cleaning that painting, aren’t you?” she asked. “May I watch for a while?” She saw startled recognition in his eyes, but he was too polite to call her by name, or it might have been that he was too engrossed in his work to be distracted.
“If you’d like to, of course. From time to time, the museum acquires old oil paintings as donations or bequests. This one was stored in an attic for years.” He was gently daubing a cotton swab on a quarter-inch section of the darkened canvas. An array of small bottles sat at his elbow. Throwing the swab aside, he took a clean one, wet it lightly from a tiny cup, and went back to his quarter-inch.
She picked up the swab and smiled, seeing dirt but not a hint of pigment. “There’s a fellow in Kalispell who uses a sharpened chopstick with cotton wrapped around it.”
“I’ve heard of him, and I’ve seen pictures of some of his work. It’s excellent.”
Jen watched his painstaking movements. “It’s varnished.”
He nodded. “I’m going to clean away the grime first before I decide whether to remove it or not.”
“What you’ve done so far is very good, but I think the varnish will have to come off.” She pointed. “The skin tones aren’t true.”
He leaned back to view the partially cleaned face of the portrait, then stood up to adjust his light and take a step back, his eyes narrowed in concentration. “I see what you mean.”
He looked up, and Jen turned to see Rick in the doorway. “Are you ready, Jennette?”
The young man gave her a self-conscious look. “You really are…?”
“Yes, and I apologize for interrupting your work.”
“Not at all. It’s a pleasure to meet you. And thank you for the advice.”
“Oh, I don’t really know what I’m talking about. One of my friends restores paintings and I got interested listening to her explain what she does. I’ll leave you to get back to it.”
When she and Rick were outside, he raised an inquisitive brow. “You certainly sounded like you knew what you were talking about. That friend wouldn’t be you, would it?”
“If you don’t stop coming up behind me like that,” she laughed, “I’ll have to stand with my back permanently against a wall.” The brow stayed up and his head tilted as if to say, ‘I’m waiting’. She looked up at him and sighed. “The job I had right before the accident that landed me in these shoes was at a gallery. They’d bought all the paintings in an estate sale and needed someone to clean the inexpensive oils. I got the job because I’d cleaned an old one of my father’s and put it down on my application at the temp agency.”
“In other words, you’re a professional art restorer, as well as a typist, chef and lab assistant.”
“That’s me, chief cook and bottle-washer,” she joked. “I liked working at that gallery. It lasted almost five months, one of the longest jobs I’ve had.”
“You really are a … an unusual girl.”
“You were going to say weird, and you’re also going to know my entire life history if you keep this up.”
As he turned away, he said very softly, “I might just make it my life’s work.” But she had heard.
“We should be going, Rick.”
He swung around and took her hand again. “We have some time before we have to start back, and I want to show you something.”
He led her along several streets to a lovely garden. It was bright with colorful flowers and in one corner was a gazebo, its pointed roof of weathered grey shingles shading a little platform that looked out over grass and trees. Rick held an imaginary door for her and waved her in. “I bought you a memory of your trip to Solvang, but I have to give it to you here.” He took a chain from his pocket and held it up so that she could see the little gold gazebo hanging from it. Unhooking the clasp, he reached around her neck to fasten it.
She lifted it to see the fine detail of the tiny pointed roof, then smiled. “Thank you, Rick, it’s perfect.” Standing with his arm around her, she listened to the quiet as she breathed in the garden’s sweet scents on the warm breeze. “This is a place for romance, so peaceful and private.”
“I’m glad you said that, Jen, because it’s exactly what I had in mind.” She looked up as his other arm came around her. His eyes were a warm, tawny brown and his tousled hair fell over his brow in a curl that she reached to push gently back.
She forgot who she was and who she was supposed to be. There was only Rick and the garden and the moment. She lifted her face and his lips moved to softly cover hers. It was a long, loving kiss and when it ended, she was breathless. “Wow,” she whispered, and he chuckled deep in his throat.
“That was nice, and I’d like another taste of your lipstick.”
“There’s none left after that, I’m sure.”
The moment had ended. She was herself again and stepped regretfully back. “The sun may be shining, but it’s almost midnight and Cinderella’s coach will turn into a pumpkin if we don’t leave soon.”
“An orange Jeep,” he smiled, “would be something to see, but we could stay a while longer.”
“Oh, no.” She shook her head with a determined look, then pulled her hat down over her ears. “Time for me to get back to being Jennette. She shouldn’t be letting you romance her, and Jenet has a couple of boyfriends who’d be happy to hand you your head if you get fresh again
.”
He grinned at her fierce look. “Bring ‘em on. I’ll fight ‘em with one hand behind my back. With both hands behind my back. I’ll fight ‘em standing on one foot. I’ll –”
“All right,” she laughed, “I get the point, but we really do have to go.”
As they left the garden, she tipped the brim of her hat down to shield her face and slipped on her sunglasses to hide her eyes from the strolling tourists … and from him.
Once in the Jeep and out on the highway, she turned to sit sideways in her seat. “This is the first time I’ve had a really good time since before I totaled the Jag and I hate to have it end, but reality intrudes and my death as Jennette is something I’d like to avoid.”
“I hate to have the afternoon end, too. It’s the best day I’ve had since … in a long time. But reality intrudes.”
As he drove, she studied his profile, so much like David’s and yet so different. “I keep coming back to David. He’s the residual beneficiary of Anna’s trust. Under its terms, if she dies, the Kenting stock reverts to him.”
She saw his quick mind turning over the fact. “Impossible. He’d never endanger his daughter, not for all the money in the universe.”
“Anna sneaked onto the boat. He couldn’t have known she’d be there.” Rick shook his head and Jen continued. “But Brad might not have cared. Only one of them has to die, Jennette or Anna, to put the needed votes into David’s hands.”
“Brad’s clever, a first-rate attorney. Would he take such a chance?”
“The accidents have been cleverly planned. He has the technical skill, and I found out from Tony that Jennette had intended to take Anna with her on a drive down to La Jolla the morning after the explosion.”
“So, if she had decided not to go up to the cabin and that plan had failed, both she and Anna would have been in the Jaguar the next day.”
“And if she’d died from the gas, the killer would simply have unsabotaged the car.”
He glanced at her with a smile. “I don’t think that’s a word, Jen.”
“Whatever.” She grinned and pointed at the slow-moving truck in front of them.
“Sir, yes, sir!” Giving her a sloppy salute, he turned the wheel to pull out into the passing lane. “It still doesn’t have to be either Brad or David, you know. Anyone with the necessary skill and determination could have set up the accidents.”
“I do know,” she shrugged, “but, unfortunately, that doesn’t let very many out. Everyone in my life is technically skilled one way or the other. We all work in films or in construction.”
“Not Thelma and certainly not Aunt Adelia.”
“She did work in construction with your Uncle Dan years ago, and just because she’s old doesn’t mean she couldn’t show Thelma what to do. Or she could have someone we don’t know about who’s helping her.”
“My bet’s on Aaron.”
“That’s just because he looks better in a tux than you do.”
“What d‘ya mean, woman? I was gorgeous at the benefit!”
“Beau Brummell you weren’t,’ she smiled, “but I have to admit that you did look pretty spiffy.”
They spent the rest of the trip trading flippant remarks and atrocious puns, leaving the somber subject of anticipated danger for another time and place.
Rick stopped the Jeep in the driveway, and they sat talking and laughing for a few minutes. Then she jumped down, waved as he drove away, and ran lightly up the back steps, humming a little tune. David stepped through the glass doors onto the terrace, but before she could speak, his cold words stopped her.
“Where have you been?”
“Rick and I –”
“Yes, you and Rick. Where have you been?”
She looked at him, perplexed. “We went for a drive.”
“In the time you’ve been gone, you could have driven into Baja and back.”
“How do you know –?”
But he cut across her question. “I called the studio. Colleen told me that he had picked you up this morning and that you hadn’t returned.”
Her chin came up defiantly. “I’ve never known you to check up on my movements before.”
“Perhaps I should have begun long ago.”
“David! How dare you imply –”
“Don’t bother,” he said shortly. “I’ve no time for a melodramatic scene of injured virtue. You have not yet returned the papers you were to read, and several of the issues have reached critical proportions while you’ve been … dallying. Please put them on my desk before I return from my dinner meeting in town.”
She moved silently out of his way as he brushed past her and walked stiffly to his car. She had, in fact, completely forgotten to return the contracts and other papers to him. Angry at his insulting tone and feeling guilty about the case, she waited for him to leave, then ran quickly out to her office, retrieved the case from under her desk, and carried it back to the house. She heaved it onto his desk, but her angry push against its weight slid the large blotter across the smooth surface and as she started to straighten it, she saw the corner of a dirty looking envelope. It was so out of place that without a twinge of conscience she pulled it out and opened it. It contained a single sheet of equally dirty paper.
“Dear God …” she whispered as she read the unsigned scrawl.
--- Now that she’s feeling good, she’s up to her old tricks again. She’ll screw anything in pants, including that good-looking cousin of yours, and laugh at you behind your back, you fool. She got the only thing she wanted from you when she married into that snooty family of yours, so she gets what she needs warming the sheets with any stud she can find. I warned you. ---
There was more, crudely explicit, and Jen sat staring at the disgusting letter, unable to believe that anything could be so vile. The envelope was addressed to David at the estate. It had been postmarked from Los Angeles and was dated the past Saturday. The awful scene in his bedroom was suddenly there in her mind. But that had been weeks ago.
Shifting the case, she lifted the blotter. There were four others.
She quickly shut the door, then returned to sit in his chair. The first had arrived in February, the next in March, the third and fourth in late April and early June. Each one was more vulgar and even more vicious than the next. The second one also contained two snapshots. On the back of one was the same scrawl.
--- Ask her about Palm Springs and that raunchy young actor. They weren’t just rehearsing a scene. ---
The color photos showed her with a man. She was easily recognizable in one, the other showed the two in an intimate embrace. She couldn’t make out his face, but the motel sign in the background was clear and damning.
With shaking hands, she put the letters back and carefully squared off the blotter along the edge of the desk. When she was sure that everything was neat, she carried the case to the conference table and left it there.
Slamming the door of her bedroom, she walked to the far corner and back again, furious, her mind churning. How could someone write such filth. Throw it like a knife at David’s heart? It’s despicable! Pacing back and forth, she fumed until she wore herself out and sank onto the edge of the bed.
Her eyes filled with tears and she sat there, letting them fall unheeded. She wasn’t like that. She wouldn’t do those things – she knew it. But David had believed those letters. They were cruel ugly lies about his own wife, and he believed them. Should she go to him and admit that she’d found and read them? She could try to convince him he was wrong, but if he refused to believe her? She lay back on the pillow and cried.
It was late when she heard him drive his car into its garage bay. She was standing by the open window in her room looking out across the field as she waited for him to come upstairs. She had to talk to him. The sound of the front door was unexpected. She saw him walk through the front garden and down to the pond. Hesitating only a moment, she picked up her long skirts and hurried out.
He was standing surrounded by water a
t the far end of the dock, moonlight frosting his hair to silver, his silhouette dark against the sparkling ripples beyond. He turned at the sound of her feet on the boards and waited for her to join him.
“David, we need to talk.”
“What is there left to talk about?” He hunched one shoulder. “What I thought was Eden is merely paradise lost.”
“That’s not true.”
“You are so fair and yet so false,” he said, looking at her intently. “If that isn’t Shakespeare, it should be.”
“You’ve been drinking, haven’t you.” It wasn’t a question.
“Only enough to dull the pain, my dear, like a broken tooth that you worry at until your lips are raw.”
“Please, David, you must believe me.”
“Wounded innocence, again? I’ve been an admirer of your acting talents for too long, Jennette, to be taken in by practiced lines and affecting gestures.”
“Then how can I make you understand? If I swear I love you, you’ll reject it as a lie.”
“And if I tell you that you are my wife in name only, you will weep and cling, playing me a scene from some silent movie.” His voice was harsh. “My name … you’ve taken everything else I’ve given you, except that.”
“What can I say to convince you of the truth? What do you want from me, David?”
He straightened and took a step nearer, looming over her in the moonlight. “I want Jennette Colson’s signature on that proposal. I want your vote at the meeting.” He had wrapped his fingers around the chain of her necklace, and Jen felt it tug at the back of her neck as his grip tightened. “The land is too valuable to sit doing nothing for us and I’ve worked too long and too hard to see this deal fall apart. I want those shares voted aye, Jennette, and one way or another I’ll get what I want.” She stiffened as his hands came up around her throat and moved to push him away, but he merely pulled the chain loose. “I seem to have broken it. I’ll have my secretary buy you another.” He walked away down the length of the dock, but at the bank he turned. “Watch your step, Jennette.”
Her heart jumped. “What do you mean?”
He waved one elegant hand. “The boards are rotten, my dear. Remind me to tell Luke to see about replacing them.”
A Dizzying Balance Page 21