by Lili Evans
“And their children are suspects too.”
“Exactly.”
Dylan hesitated. “Did the police mention Dani?”
“What?”
“It’s been five years today since they found her body.”
“I know what day it is,” Nadia shot back. “No, I don’t think they believe it’s connected. Why, do you?”
“I have no idea,” Dylan sighed. “It was just a thought.”
“Well, let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Dani’s murder is unsolved. It’s probably just a coincidence.”
“You’re right, they’re probably not connected,” Dylan sighed and wished he hadn’t asked. “There were enough people there with possible motives, right?”
“I guess so.”
“Or Mom and Dad had a fight.”
“He wouldn’t have killed her,” Nadia’s voice rose. “He never would have done that.”
Dylan didn’t want to argue. How could anyone possibly know what another was capable of?
“Will you come?” Nadia asked after a moment. “I mean, the police have questions.”
“I think I’d better,” Dylan told her. “I’ll get myself organized.”
“Okay,” her voice sounded small and relieved.
“Nadia,” he didn’t want to ask her but didn’t feel right not saying anything. “Are you okay? I mean, they were more your parents than they were mine.”
“I’m trying to be,” she replied. “I’m just trying to take things one step at a time.”
“Is there anything I can do?” he asked her awkwardly. They weren’t close. What did you offer to someone at a time like this who was little more than a stranger?
“I don’t know,” she sighed. He waited patiently while she considered. “Do you have Marianne’s phone number, by any chance? Troy’s was easy to find. He married the Carlton heiress – hotels – so I was able to get an urgent message through them.”
“I didn’t know any of that.”
“They run in similar – if different – social circles. We have mutual friends with the Carltons, so we heard about it when he was married.”
By “we” Dylan knew she meant their parents. “That must have pleased Dad.”
“I think he was proud,” Nadia agreed. “You know, in his own way. Of course he never said as much.”
“Of course,” Dylan agreed. He knew only too well that prying a compliment out of William Halingsford required a crowbar. But then Nadia had been his favorite. She had never experienced the magnitude of his criticism. “I have Marianne’s number here somewhere,” he told her as he searched for it. He read it out to her, listening when she repeated it back to him.
“Thanks.”
“I’ll be there as soon as I can,” he told her and hung up.
Turning, he laid the cordless phone down on the counter, then blinked as the kitchen light flashed on. Looking at his wife standing in the doorway, arms crossed, he knew she’d heard everything.
****
Troy listened carefully as his youngest sister broke the news to him. She had begun calmly, almost clinically, until she’d realized he wasn’t going to hang up on her. Then, her emotions had taken over and she’d spoken rapidly, stumbling over the details, her voice trembling through her tears.
Troy paced the sitting room of his condo, not saying anything, letting her talk, and trying to rationalize everything she was saying. It was late and it had been a long day. The hotel party had gone until midnight and he’d enjoyed several glasses of champagne. He and Phoebe had only just gotten home, and had opened the door to the phone ringing.
“Let me stop you,” Troy said finally. “The police are suggesting that Dad killed Mom, then either took a substance that caused a heart attack, or had a heart attack after he shot her?”
“They aren’t saying much of anything,” Nadia’s voice was so quiet he had to strain to hear her. “I overheard two police officers talking. They aren’t ruling anything out. It’s too early in the investigation. The only thing they know for sure is that Mom was shot. It’s a homicide. They have a lot of questions.”
“And Dylan is coming for the funeral?”
“That’s what he said. I mentioned that there will be an investigation and he could come home or the police could come to him. He said something about his wife not knowing his past. I guess he didn’t want her to find out from the cops.”
“That makes sense,” Troy mused. “He’s diffusing the situation as best as he can.”
“Something like that,” Nadia’s tone was disinterested. “What are your feelings about this?”
“About what?” Troy glanced over as Phoebe came in. She still wore her evening gown and diamond jewelry. Barefoot, she curled onto the armchair next to him and listened.
“About everything,” Nadia specified. “Mom being killed, Dad dying, the police. I just wondered if you planned on attending the funeral. You haven’t been here in years and I wasn’t sure if this changes things.”
“There’s no need to get aggressive,” Troy’s voice remained calm and controlled. “Dylan is trying to face the police on their own turf so I will too. I’d rather not have people asking questions about me in LA.”
“And about Mom and Dad?” Nadia seemed to shrink into herself. Her voice became smaller, weaker, over the telephone line.
“They were your parents, not mine,” Troy became dismissive. “He disowned me when I left. He said I would be cut from the will and disinherited. My father-in-law has been the only inspiration I’ve had, the only one who has helped me become who I wanted to be. Dad was as much of a disappointment to me as I was to him. As for Mom,” he trailed off considering. “She wasn’t strong enough to keep us together as a family. So we aren’t one.”
“It’s that simple for you?” Nadia asked him. “It’s that straight forward?”
“For me it is. We aren’t a family. They aren’t my parents any longer, but if the police have questions, I’ll co-operate.”
“Then I’ve done my job in notifying you,” Nadia replied briskly.
“You have,” Troy told her. “Thank you for that.”
“I stayed. I stayed so I have a responsibility to those of you who didn’t.”
“You’ve never forgiven us for leaving, have you?” Troy asked her. “Dad never did.”
“Mom never got over it,” Nadia replied. “It ruined her.”
“They brought it on themselves,” Troy answered. “Of course you only heard their side of it. You were too young to remember what it was like.”
“That’s easy to say, isn’t it?” Nadia retorted. “It’s easy to say that I was too young and I don’t understand. Where were any of you to help me understand? You were all too selfish, too busy leaving to have your own lives to remember your baby sister.”
“That’s one way of looking at it,” Troy told her. “I’d love to be in the room when you accuse Marianne of that.”
“Marianne is different,” Nadia began but was cut off.
“Why? Because Dani was her twin? That’s bullshit. She was our sister too.”
“But Marianne loved her more!”
“You can tell yourself that,” Troy told her quietly. “But you’re lying to yourself or you’ve blocked it out. Dani’s death destroyed us all.”
“You left me behind,” it was almost a whisper.
“We did,” Troy agreed. “But you stayed there willingly.”
“I guess so,” Nadia said finally. “I’ll see you for the funeral, then.”
“You will,” Troy agreed. “Should I book a hotel?”
“I wouldn’t make you do that,” Nadia replied defensively.
“I don’t know anything about you,” Troy told her. “That’s why we aren’t a family.”
“You’re right, you know nothing about me,” Nadia answered. “And I have more calls to make.”
Troy stood in the middle of the room staring at his wife as the dial tone sounded in his ear. He felt like an asshole. He wasn’t the on
ly one who had left home after Dani’s death and he certainly hadn’t thought about Nadia when he did it.
She feels you abandoned her.
It was amazing how one situation could be perceived so differently by two people. He had left to get away from his parents. To stop fighting and competing with his brother and sisters. Nadia had never been a factor. Nadia had never really been the problem.
The bastard’s dead and he never knew I made it.
That was the bitch of it, Troy decided. All of this time he’d wanted to show his father he didn’t need him. More than anything he had wanted his Dad to know that he didn’t need his influence or money to help him along. And it was too late now. Now he’d never know.
“They’re both gone?” Phoebe asked.
“Tonight,” Troy told her. He went to the chair opposite her. “Now he’ll never know I made it without him.”
“Of course he knew,” Phoebe’s hazel eyes were bright and clear.
“Don’t lie to make me feel better,” Troy rubbed his face. He was tired but he knew he couldn’t sleep now.
“I’m not,” Phoebe smoothed her hair back. It was short, a little brown cap of hair that often made her look younger than she was. It was having that effect on Troy as he studied her. “You never called him and asked him for help. You never begged to be taken back. Just because he didn’t know the details doesn’t mean he didn’t know that you didn’t need him.”
Troy considered for a moment and then leaned down to kiss her forehead. “I’m going to call and see about a flight.”
“I’ll let Daddy know what happened.”
“You know, if your family hadn’t taken me on board, I wouldn’t be this successful,” Troy told her. “I owe this to you.”
“You wouldn’t be this successful in hotels,” Phoebe replied. “But I’m convinced you would have been in something else.”
“What makes you so sure?” Troy asked her.
“I just know these things,” Phoebe rose from her chair. “You chose me and the opportunities I brought to the table. If you hadn’t picked me you would have picked someone else. Your life would be different.”
“Worse?” Troy pressed her.
“Just different,” Phoebe repeated. “Better or worse doesn’t matter. You’ll never know. But give credit where credit is due. Daddy didn’t promote you just because of me. If you didn’t have potential he wouldn’t have bothered.”
“I love you, Phoebe.”
She shot him a look over her shoulder as she left the room. “I know,” she said.
****
There was a headache throbbing at the base of her skull. More annoyed by it than in pain, Rachael jabbed her thumb over the spot, pushed and rubbed to relieve some of the pressure. It had been a long day, and, as she had predicted, she hadn’t been able to leave at the end of her shift.
She rummaged in her purse for some aspirin. She would get these and some water into her system first, use the bathroom, and then do another walk through before seeing if she could go home. It was almost midnight and although she was tired, hungry, and had had to pee for hours, Rachael didn’t want to leave.
She didn’t want to go home.
First things first, she decided downing the aspirin. She chugged a bottle of water as she stood upright in the break room. It never ceased to amaze her how unhealthy it was to be a doctor: there wasn’t time to eat regular meals. Coffee filled those voids instead. There wasn’t enough time to take bathroom breaks, either. Dehydrated, malnourished, hyped-up on caffeine and hospital food that couldn’t really be called nutritious, she made her way through each patient, each day, overworked, pushing herself on too little sleep, and loving the adrenaline of it. Living for the adrenaline of it. Her life outside of the hospital, the one waiting at home for her, she didn’t want to face.
That realization bothered her. It bothered her so much that she went back into the emergency room looking to see if they needed another pair of hands.
“No. No way,” she was told firmly. “Go home. It’s way past your shift. We appreciate you for staying but you need to rest.”
“I’m fine, really,” Rachael said but they didn’t care.
“Enjoy your day off tomorrow. Today. It’s after midnight. It’s six hours past your shift.”
“I know.”
“Go home.”
Rachael sighed. Was it time to start thinking about why she didn’t want to?
She never knew what she was going home to, Rachael thought as she walked through the hospital parking lot toward her car. Grant wanted them to be a family. The kind that spent time together, ate dinner together, and talked to one another. That didn’t fit with Rachael’s career as an on-call doctor who worked long, often unknown, hours. Grant had made it clear during multiple conversations that he wanted that to change. Rachael didn’t know if she wanted to spend less time at the hospital and more time at home. She had worked so hard to achieve her goals and she loved every minute of what she did.
The sticking point, Rachael decided, was that she had no problem with him wanting to be home to look after his daughters. But she felt he had no right expecting her to give up time to be with them or have a child of her own. She pulled out of the parking lot, annoyed by it all over again. Grant working from home had only become an issue when they had begun living together and sharing the same space. It was only a problem now that he expected it of her too.
She had even gone so far, during a fight, she recalled, to suggest that if she did consent to having a baby, that he should stay home with it. He had been furious with her. He didn’t understand how she could be so career-driven, so self-centered. She, in turn, had called him an asshole for wanting her to change her entire life for something only he wanted. The fight escalated quickly then, she remembered, turning to money and power, because she was a doctor and he was a journalist who worked primarily from home.
“Do you think this is what I wanted?” he had shouted at her. “I was going to see the world. I was going to go to war-zones and report on life and death situations. I was going to do something important.”
But because he was a single father, none of that would happen, Rachael thought. He had chosen a wife and children over his career. Which was fine, in Rachael’s mind, as long as you prioritized and made the distinction. Her parents never had. They had tried for appearance-sake to do both, to have both, and had only fucked their children up in the process. Grant had chosen family. Rachael had chosen career. She knew she could not have both. She knew she didn’t want both.
So what was she doing?
She was no closer to an answer when she pulled quietly into the driveway and shut off the engine. The house appeared dark and quiet. Rachael hoped they were all asleep. She was too tired and confused to deal with them now. Her relationship with Grant had held a certain appeal for her because he already had kids of his own. It had been easy to fall in love with him knowing they both had what they wanted and he wouldn’t expect anything more from her. Now she felt as if she was losing control of the entire situation.
Inside, she shut the door quietly and slipped off her shoes. She tiptoed upstairs and into their bedroom but Grant wasn’t there. The bed was made. She glanced toward the bathroom desperately wanting to shower, then eat a hot meal before bed, but she knew she had to find him. There was a very large possibility that he was pissed that she was home late again, and as usual, hadn’t had time between patients to call.
He was sitting on the back deck, a beer in his hand, looking out over his garden. He had bought the house when he had married his late wife, before their daughters were born, and took great pride in what he had done with the space. It was still weird for Rachael to look around the house and see traces of his wife everywhere. Her face was in pictures, her porcelain figurines on tables, and her choice of paint colors on the walls. Sometimes Rachael felt like she had moved into someone else’s house and stepped into their ready-made family.
She slid open the glass doors and ste
pped out on the deck. Grant didn’t look up as she made her way toward him.
“I’m sorry I’m late,” she began.
“I called the hospital,” he drank from his bottle. “They said you were busy.”
“You know that Friday nights in the city are crazy,” Rachael explained. “There was a bad accident and they needed the extra hands and I didn’t want to leave.”
“I’m not mad,” Grant looked over. “About that.”
Rachael felt herself stiffen. She was too tired to have another fight about how she was failing as a stepmother to his daughters.
“You did miss an important phone call,” he continued. “Sit down.”
“I think I want to stand,” pride kept her on her feet.
“Your sister called,” Grant paused. “You never told me you had a sister.”
“We don’t speak often,” Rachael tried to brush him off. “Short emails, maybe two or three times a year. I didn’t want to talk about my family so I didn’t mention her.”
“But she knows how to contact you,” Grant said frankly. “At my house. Yet I haven’t ever heard about her.”
“Your house,” Rachael murmured. “It’s still your house six months after I moved in.”
“You know what I mean,” Grant scowled. “And you’re changing the subject. You kept this from me. I told you about my family.”
“I didn’t want to tell you about them,” Rachael tried to control her voice. The last thing she needed was his daughters coming down and taking his side.
Grant stood. “I’ve confided in you. I told you all about dealing with my wife’s death. Every grim detail.”
“She was your wife! We live in her house with your children. I’ve distanced myself from my family, it isn’t the same thing,” Rachael said.
“Then why do you email your sister?” Grant asked. “She told me you emailed her this number.”
“I don’t often,” Rachael explained. “She’s the only one I talk to. She was never a problem for me. It was the rest of them who were and I don’t want to talk about them.”
Grant stared at her as if she was a stranger. “Yet she said that she’d already spoken to Dylan and Troy but that Troy only had your cell phone number. Who the fuck are Dylan and Troy?” His face was grim, his mouth set in a straight line. “I know we have our problems and your job dictates that you work long hours but I won’t tolerate infidelity.”