To her credit, Laura listened to his entire plan, a haphazard, half-formed idea that had been inspired by Rachel herself. “It does things to a man, that farm. If there was just some way to get Nick released to my care, I could vouch for him. I could be responsible for him.”
Laura shook her head. “That’s not how it works, Mr. O’Leary. No matter how many lentils you grow.”
“But they do it all the time, order people to go to rehab instead of jail. I’m telling you—this farm is a kind of rehab. It’s exactly what young men like Nick Peterson need. Jail isn’t going to do him any favors. This will.”
Laura blew out a long breath, locking Michael’s gaze the whole time. Without looking down, she shoved aside a glass hedgehog paperweight and grabbed a business card. “You’re the one posting bail tomorrow, right?”
“Yes.” Michael took the proffered card. “Absolutely.”
“I’m not a cheap lawyer, you understand. I bill at a heck of a lot more than those Kmart Dockers you’re wearing.”
Michael sat up straighter. “Got it.”
“Then I can give you this and an appointment next week. It’s probably too late to do anything for your friend Nick, but if you’re serious about turning your farm into a boy’s home, I can help you from a legal standpoint.”
“I am serious,” he said, knowing the words were true. The second Nick was released from whatever sentence he got, Michael would have the farm up and running. He’d have a place for him to go. It wasn’t too late, and everyone deserved a second chance.
“I’ve never been more serious in my life.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
False Face
Rachel had never seen Molly in such a state.
Her sister, always the first to scream at a scary movie, the first to hide when there was an unknown bang at the door, the first to burst into a pool of tears at impending disaster, was doing none of the above.
Sammy and Pris swung their legs from the stools at the kitchen island, the pair of them digging into a single bowl of fruity cereal. Rachel wanted to take the conversation to the living room, out of sight and sound of little ears, but Molly had turned herself off.
Off to Rachel, anyway.
Her sister moved efficiently through the kitchen, grabbing items that might appeal to small taste buds, humming a tune under her breath as though she hadn’t a care in the world.
“Are you even listening to me, Molly?” Rachel asked. “You can’t assume the sole responsibility for these kids. You can’t just move into the man’s house.” She tried to keep her voice down, but both girls looked up and studied her intently before resuming their snack. It was like they knew things—saw right through her. She shivered.
Molly slapped a package of cookies on the counter, breaking every last one, finally acknowledging Rachel standing there.
“Is that a fact?” she asked, her words running hot and cold through Rachel’s spine. “You think I should just chuck these kids into the welfare system after you’ve ruined their father’s life? That’s who you are now? That’s who you’ve become?”
Rachel felt a roll of nausea move through her, one that made it difficult to draw a deep breath or move her hands without them shaking uncontrollably. It wasn’t the first of such moments that day, and she doubted it would be the last.
This isn’t how it’s supposed to go.
Eric’s folder not only confirmed all of her worst fears, but it went above and beyond them. He didn’t have a criminal record, but his employment record was scattered with sketchy bits, a stint as a bouncer here, a questionable amount of time spent in Mexico there. The documentation from a bitter custody battle for his girls had brought up questions of drug use and abuse. And worst of all had been an artist’s sketch, malingering in some forgotten police file in Bonner’s Ferry, Idaho. It was the spitting image of Eric Peterson, looking more like a thug than she’d ever seen before. Wanted. He and his brother had beaten a man into a coma and then fled the scene of the crime, saved only by the lack of resources in the tiny town and the fact that no one had been willing or able to positively identify the two Peterson brothers.
That kind of history went beyond Molly’s feelings and romantic illusions, and Rachel’s phone call to the police was more than a moment’s irritation or anything vindictive.
There was no pretending anymore: Eric Peterson had a past. He was a criminal. He was violent. The law was on her side, and she’d merely notified the proper authorities. In any other situation, it would be called being a good citizen.
But the way Michael had looked at her when the police came had almost turned her to stone on the spot. It wasn’t the hatred or the anger that affected her most—she was used to that.
No. It was the disappointment that hurt so much it was a physical ache lodged somewhere in the region of her heart.
There was no use pretending she could take any joy in her victory today. Molly had what could only be termed a severe case of Stockholm Syndrome, and Rachel should have been doing whatever she could to get her sister out of Peterson’s almost supernatural grip—not feeling as though the ground were so slippery underneath her that the only way she could move forward was to fall on her hands and knees and crawl.
“I’m sorry for them, of course,” Rachel said, avoiding the pair of wide, seeing eyes. She had to stick to what she knew to be true. “But it’s not my fault if Eric was hiding from the law. I didn’t commit the crime. You have to see that it’s better to know now, rather than after you’d gone through with it and married him.”
“Oh, I’m still going to marry him, Rachel. Don’t think you’ve accomplished anything here other than making me hate you.”
Now the ground tilted, and she was sliding backward into a pool of something dark and murky. “You can’t be serious!”
Molly’s eyes flashed with something Rachel recognized. The two of them would never be mistaken for twins, were barely acknowledged as sisters, but in that moment, Rachel saw her own eyes looking right back at her. They were judgmental and cold and angry all in one brilliant burst.
Then Molly turned away and smiled brightly, clapping her hands and transforming into Mary Poppins.
“Okay, girls! Are we ready to go to the park? Coats and hats, please!”
Rachel stared at them as they clamored out of the house, all feet and giggles and toothy smiles. No one turned back to acknowledge her standing there, and no one offered her one of their smiles.
The silence that descended over the house the moment the door came to a close behind them was almost painful in the way it filled her ears and her chest.
“Thank goodness,” her mother said, sauntering into the kitchen in a satin robe with a feathered trim. She had an empty glass in her hand and some kind of shiny facial scrub to hide behind. “Hand me the vodka out of the freezer, will you, dear?”
Rachel complied wordlessly.
“They remind me so much of you girls at that age. So much noise. So much trouble.” Indira smiled wanly and patted Rachel’s hand. “I’m glad you decided not to bother with any of that love and family stuff. How I wish I’d been half as smart as you are.”
The ice tinkled in her glass as she swept broad strokes with her arm. “You remind me of myself at that age, you know. I was prettier, though. I expect that’s hard on you girls.”
Rachel blinked, impervious to her mother’s insult but not at all to the compliment. She’d never felt so sick in her life.
Her copy of The Shakespeare Review arrived that afternoon.
She opened it with surprisingly calm hands, unsure what to expect. It was midweek, so there hadn’t been any shows lately, no reason to talk to Dominic about what he may or may not have heard about the upcoming article.
She preferred to read it alone, of course. News of this kind—whether good or bad—was always better received by herself, so she knew how to school her features the next time she was in public. But sitting in the empty kitchen, a few spilled pieces of cereal on one side, her mother’s empty g
lass on the other, only made her feel worse.
Her face, covered in Cleopatra’s makeup, just inches away from Michael’s, covered the front page of the article. Her heart thumped, and she began to read.
The Odyssey Theater, historic home of the once-great Indira Longfellow, current seat of Shakespeare’s bastardized, smut-filled orgy of a production, is once again on the map as the place to go for post-modern art that stirs the soul as well as the loins.
She read the text quickly, turned the pages even more quickly, the words a blur that didn’t sink in until after she shut the cover. They were good words, complimentary words, even if there was a scathing undercurrent that indicated Peter Bloom wasn’t exactly thrilled to be giving their show positive marks.
She knew the feeling. Dominic was a genius, if a bit of a pervert.
The article also didn’t hesitate to lay the praise where it was due. Dominic, Mary, Molly, Rachel and even Michael got commendations. It wasn’t effusive—Peter Bloom rarely was—but it was enough. All she had to do was slip the article into her portfolio and she could land an audition anywhere. New York. London. This was it. It was everything she’d been working for and done on her own. Other than the theater reference, there wasn’t a mention of the connection between mother and daughters anywhere.
She heard the front door open and shoved the magazine into the first drawer she came across.
“I forgot a few things,” Molly said, standing at the entrance to the kitchen. She had her coat on and didn’t look at all compelled to stay and chat.
“Do you—do you need me to help?”
“No.”
She tried again. “Will I see you at the show on Thursday night?”
Molly shrugged. “I don’t know. I might ask Jillian to step in from her understudy role. You know, while Eric—”
Rachel nodded, her throat tight.
“What about Michael?” she asked before she could stop herself.
“What about him?”
“Is he still going to finish?” The thought of standing across from him, sharing that onstage kiss, looking into his eyes for almost a full two hours each night…
She shifted uncomfortably.
“Why don’t you ask him?” Molly turned on her heel and went upstairs to gather whatever it was she’d forgotten. She didn’t even bother to say good-bye after she was done.
“I can’t ask him,” Rachel announced to the closed door, the empty house.
She was alone.
It was both a relief and a kind of torture. The relief came from being able to lay her cheek on the cool surface of the kitchen countertop, letting her whole body become part of the granite.
The torture was everything else—but most especially the realization that she deserved every bit of her loneliness and despair. Molly might have just closed the door on Rachel, but Rachel had practically slammed it in Michael’s face.
And she doubted she’d ever be able to open it again.
“I told you this would happen.”
Rachel forced her way into Nora’s office, ignoring the box of tissues the woman held out. Rachel didn’t need tissues, and she didn’t need the support, because she was walking taller than ever before. That was what had to be done. Keep walking, keep your head held high. The moment you let them see weakness was the moment the weakness began to exist.
That kind of thinking was a hundred times more effective than tears. In fact, it was the only way she’d been able to leave the house at all.
“I don’t want a lecture right now, okay? What I want is advice.”
“Apologize.”
Rachel bit down on her tongue. “I haven’t even told you what I want advice for.”
“Yet my answer remains the same. Apologize.”
Fine. “I’m sorry, Nora. You were right, and I was wrong.”
Nora’s laugh, normally something Rachel looked forward to, went on much longer and much more painfully than it needed to. “Oh, honey. I didn’t mean me.”
She reached into her bottom desk drawer and pulled out a bottle of scotch. Pouring a good two inches into a coffee cup, she added, “And for the record, that apology sucked. If I was pissed at you—and you’re lucky I’m not—that would have only made things worse.”
Nora offered the cup to Rachel, but she shook her head and downed it herself. “I forgot you abstain. Afraid of falling too close to the tree, the sins of the mother and all that. How’s that working out for you?”
“Very funny,” Rachel muttered. Only Nora could sit there, cracking jokes while all the world fell down around her. “What I want is advice of a legal nature. I need to know what sort of charges Eric is facing and what the potential outcomes might be.”
“Stop right there.” Nora held up a hand. “I have officially taken you off my list of clients.”
“What? You can’t do that!” Panic skittered through her chest. “You were the one who put all that information in the file and then pretended like it didn’t matter. Aren’t you obligated to report crimes to the police or something?”
“I’m neither a doctor nor a priest. I’m paid to keep my mouth shut.” She finished her drink and placed the cup carefully on the table. “I also told you there was more to the story than what I found. You were supposed to talk to one of them first. Come on, Rachel—what’s wrong with you? Why would you do something like that to your friends?”
“Eric Peterson is not my friend,” Rachel said.
“No. But your sister and Michael O’Leary are.”
Rachel’s eyes burned, but she refused to blink. “Not anymore.”
Nora leveled her with a stare that, at any other time in her life, would have had her screaming for the hills. But so much hatred from so many people had deadened her to scorn. She was a rock. Their cruel words meant nothing.
If she said it to herself enough times, maybe it would even become true.
Without losing eye contact, Nora pulled out another manila envelope, this one thin and all the more ominous because of it.
“I thought you said you won’t take me as a client now,” Rachel said, mocking her friend’s earlier tone.
“I won’t. This is your file.”
“You have a file on me?” Rachel reached for it, but Nora held it just out of her grasp.
“I have a file on everyone who asks me to do a job for them. I learn a lot more about a case once I know who I’m dealing with. What this contains, my dear, is what you’ve been after all this time—my professional opinion.”
Rachel’s stomach knotted. That didn’t sound like good news. She racked her brain, trying to think of what she’d done in the past that might show up and reflect poorly, but there was nothing. She’d always walked the right side of the law, done what she was supposed to do, taken care of everyone else. That was probably why the file was so thin.
“Does this one come with stipulations too?”
“Nope. It’s yours.” Nora pushed herself away from her desk. It was her signature, her this-interview-is-over-you-may-go-now move. “Read away. And Rachel?”
She was almost afraid to hear it. “Yeah?”
“I’m leaving work at six tonight. You know, if you need to talk. Or drink. Or cry. Strictly off the books. And I meant what I said before…about apologizing. You’d be surprised how many issues can be resolved that way.”
Rachel nodded and left, clutching the folder to her chest. But she didn’t open it. She couldn’t.
It was like a scab, festering on the car seat next to her as she drove away. Leave it alone or rip it open? It didn’t seem like it would heal either way.
Rachel pulled into the driveway of Eric’s house, trying not to let the sight of the scattered toys in the yard and the artwork taped to the front windows deter her from her goal. She tossed the envelope, unopened, under the seat and pulled open the car door. She didn’t need a professional file to tell her that Molly probably needed help right now. As much as Molly might like to pretend she was capable of instant-mother mode, there
was a reason they didn’t have a dog and their household plants were taken care of by a gardening service. Things didn’t like to live in their house. It was as though they sensed the maternal instincts of the Hewitt women and simply gave up.
As she got closer to the house, she could hear screams—of delight or death, she wasn’t sure. But she didn’t bother knocking.
“Molly?” she called. The house had every sign of being a daycare, with toys and bright colors and homemade artwork everywhere. At each new indication of domesticity, Rachel’s shoulders dropped. “Hello?”
The younger of the two girls shot around the corner, latching on to Rachel’s legs and squealing. The sounds were delight, then. That, at least, was a relief.
“Don’t let him get me!” she cried. “Don’t let the big, bad monster get me!”
Rachel twisted and tried to free herself, but she heard the low rumble of a man’s voice coming around the corner.
“Fee, fi, fo, fum,” he called, stomping his foot in time to each word. “I smell the blood of a little one!”
The girl shot out like a bullet in the opposite direction, leaving Rachel standing there, feeling oddly bereft, as Michael turned the corner. He was hunched over and looked rather like a giant bent on consuming the flesh of little girls.
Then he saw Rachel. He straightened and scowled, transforming into a giant bent on consuming her flesh instead.
“What are you doing here?” they asked at the same time.
“I came to see if Molly needed help,” Rachel said, trying hard not to notice how unhappy Michael was to see her. It had to be the first time since they’d met that he’d offered her anything but that huge, charming grin of his.
It really was over between them.
“She did need help,” he replied tersely. “That’s why I’m here.”
“Oh.” There didn’t seem to be anything else to say.
“His case looks good, if you care at all.” Michael said. “It’s his first arrest, so they’re not even going to bother with the extradition.”
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