Art-Crossed Love

by Libby Rice

  Looking troubled but resigned, Trevor disappeared into the kitchen and returned with his own long neck. “You win. Today.”

  Which Kent recognized as code for, Don’t be surprised when your fridge is miraculously free of animal fats and alcohol come morning.

  The veiled promise brought no shock. Trevor had always been the fixer. Even tempered and methodical, he dismantled life’s emergencies the same way he decided what to wear each morning. Hack the CIA? Check. Build a thriving company based on said hacking? Check. Maintain a superhero body? Check. Look after his grieving brother, his ailing uncle, and his angry wife? Check, check, check.

  Trevor needed to shake his preternatural calm the same way Kent needed to relax. Might as well start now. “How come Cole’s so sure you never slept with Kate?”

  The thick muscles banding Trevor’s shoulders lurched.

  “I mean,” Kent drawled, “your brother went from incensed to accepting overnight. To this day he has zero reservations about your loyalty. Why is Cole so sure you never touched Kate, while Rhea remains positive you did?”

  For a long time, Trevor stared at the sweating bottle in his hand, giving Kent the chance to devour a few more bites. Then, staring at the fire instead of Kent, Trevor said, “Cole believed me when I swore fidelity.”

  No one had to explain that Rhea believed the exact opposite. But why?

  Kent shook his head. “Without any kind of proof?”

  “No, I had proof, of a sort.”

  “Like what?”

  “Cole had this rabid idea that I’d holed up with Kate at the St. Julien. A Southwest boarding pass put me at thirty-thousand feet about the time I was supposedly engaged in nefarious seduction. That pass didn’t prove my complete innocence. I could have got my hands on Kate some other time, but I handed it to Cole and swore on Mom and Dad’s grave that I’d die before touching my brother’s wife. All he said was, ‘Jesus, what have I done?’”

  Trevor closed his eyes and went on. “I’ll never get his realization out of my head. Cole knew he’d crossed a hard line, knew he and Kate would never recover. I still don’t know how the first inklings of suspicion sprouted, and I’m not sure he does either. Two weeks later she was gone.”

  The hidey holes in Kent’s head buzzed to life. The St. Julien. “Your promise wasn’t enough for Rhea. All the world’s boarding passes wouldn’t have mattered.”

  “Exactly,” Trevor conceded. “Yet she’s the one who drove my truck that day. Of all people, she knew I never set foot in that damn hotel.”

  Again, the St. Julien.

  There were no flashes of light, no searing pain. Kent didn’t see stars or wince at the onslaught of new information. His transition from not knowing to knowing came gently.

  An inaudible click.

  “I know.” The words flowed naturally, as though the knowledge had been there all the time, waiting. “Did this alleged rendezvous with Kate take place on the day Cole fired his initial adultery salvo?”

  Trevor nodded.

  “I saw Kate and Rhea together that day. At the St. Julien.” Kate and Rhea had shared a late lunch at the hotel’s swanky restaurant, Jill’s. Out for his daily walk, Kent had seen the two of them through the window. After stopping on the sidewalk, intent on a wave, the details went fuzzy.

  Kent recalled a vague sense of surprise, not at seeing the two women enjoying an afternoon together—that was common enough—but at the way… The information highway Kent had pried open slammed shut. Nearly seized memories slipped through his fingers, fading beyond a shrinking, unnavigable vortex.

  A blurry visage moved into Kent’s peripheral vision, and Kent hauled his attention back to the present—a winter’s night full of unanswered questions. Trevor had knelt next to the chair, tense and attentive. “You saw Rhea and Kate together that day?”

  “I guess I didn’t attach the sighting any significance since they were together all the time. I was out for my walk.”

  “You talked to them?”

  Kent bristled at the challenge but shook his head. “If I did, our conversation continues to elude me.”

  Trevor bared his teeth and stood, eyes narrowing on Kent. Suddenly he disappeared into the kitchen and returned with—what do you know?—a second round. He popped the caps with his keychain and handed over a fresh IPA, brewed and bottled just down the street.

  When Kent sent him a questioning look, Trevor shrugged, as if to say, A little beer never killed anybody.

  When Trevor finally spoke, his voice had dropped to a lurching growl. “All this time I thought Rhea had parked at the hotel. Parked and then walked elsewhere.” Trevor drank deep. “Why didn’t my own wife mention she’d been with the woman I was accused of having sex with at the exact time I was supposedly having sex with her?”

  Kent flicked his eyes to the wedding ring Trevor never removed. A crippled frontal lobe was an impediment, but a capricious one. Certain details of Kent’s past were white noise, while others had patches of clarity interspersed with gaping holes that couldn’t be reasoned through. Yet his mind rolled the demise of Kate and Rhea’s friendship like a movie. The two had crashed to Earth the day Cole had accused Kate of sleeping with Trevor. Ever since, Rhea had been a picture of the shocked, aggrieved wife.

  The focus had always been on Kate and Cole, especially after Cole’s accusations and Kate’s quick death. But someone else had paid a price.

  Trevor had lost Rhea on that first day, and he’d never gotten her back.

  “I think,” Kent said, “the bigger question lies in why your wife pretends to believe the sex happened in the first place.”

  Chapter 24

  Lissa slept late the next day, determined to drowse away the black emotions Cole pulled from her psyche. After the stunt in his truck, he’d wanted to talk. Since she’d wanted to stab, she’d put him off until a semblance of reason could take hold.

  She still felt optimistic about stabbing, so their talk couldn’t occur just yet.

  The late-to-rise strategy worked as far as avoidance went. By the time Lissa dressed and wandered downstairs and into the kitchen, only a snoring Sasha gave the house a voice.

  Kneeling, she patted the dog’s deep, vibrating chest. “Morning, darling.” He didn’t move through the stroking, but when she stood up, he jerked awake, sending one floppy ear askew. He saw Lissa above him and stretched his front and hind legs to a full six feet, yawning in a high-pitched whine that nearly unhinged his jaw. Suitably conscious, Sasha lurched himself off the floor and in the direction of his bowl.

  Even Cole’s dog knew a few underhanded tricks.

  All these con artists under one roof.

  The dog had eaten. Lissa knew that much. Yet every newcomer to the kitchen would get the same show. More than once she’d caught Kent or Trevor passing out a second breakfast. They knew, too, but who could hold out on two-hundred pounds of fur and soulful brown eyes the size of coasters?

  And Sasha could have a full conversation with those eyes. What? he projected, loud and clear. I haven’t eaten today. Yesterday either! Look at me, wasting away like this.

  Lissa wouldn’t double him up, but she wanted to. “I know he fed you, beast.”

  A cocked head. You wound me with your distrust.

  “Not falling for it, beast.”

  A nudge of the bowl. You like bacon?

  “That’s it,” she chided, “you’re fat, not fluffy, and I will not fold.”

  All fat dogs go to heaven.

  Shaking her head against the inevitable second feeding, Lissa went for the fridge to see about her own calories. Digging through piles of neatly labeled Tupperware and baggies of Sasha’s crispy bacon—Cole couldn’t boil water, but he had bacon microwaving down to a science—she dug out a yogurt and an apple.

  “Lissa.”

  Lissa jolted and spun to face Rhea, who suddenly stood on the other side of the island. Apparently that revolving door to the dining room could be completely silent when warranted. Dressed in her fav
orite fluorescent jacket, Rhea held a spade and a tiny handheld rake. The grip to a mini broom peeked from under the crook of her arm.

  Cole had asked Rhea to stay away. Now the woman stood in his kitchen with gardening tools. “Before you play lookout for my brother-in-law,” Rhea started with a glance toward Sasha, who remained fixated on his empty bowl, “I know Cole’s not here. When he heads out alone, he always tells Trevor where he’s going. Trust me. Your man won’t be back for a while.”

  Her man. Oh, the wit on this woman. Lissa’s cheeks burned at the thought of her ruined painting upstairs, at how she’d willingly abandoned her project in lieu of a few moments of Cole’s affection. The only parts of Cole that belonged to Lissa were his disdain and the various physical attributes he employed while expressing it.

  Before Lissa could ask exactly where Cole had gone in order to more aptly plan her day of avoidance, Rhea cut her off. “Appears you drove him away.”

  A snort escaped through Lissa’s compressed lips. “Unfortunately, I doubt it.” Cole never hinted at cutting her loose. Perhaps he found the drivel game too much fun.

  Seemingly pleased with the exchange, Rhea walked toward the back door like she belonged at Melina, almost like she owned the place.

  “Excuse me?” Lissa took a juicy bite of her apple and purposefully spoke with a full mouth. “Where’re you going?” She almost hated to help Cole with his Rhea ban, but apparently being a do-gooder died hard.

  The other woman stopped but didn’t turn around. “You’ve seen how we take care of the place.”

  “Correction. I’ve seen how you bring food to the place.”

  After a miniscule pause, “I manage the grave.”

  Lissa stopped chewing. “You care for Kate’s grave?” How about that? Rhea, hater of all things Kate, had volunteered for perpetual Memorial-Day duty.

  The world was full of surprises.

  Rhea sighed like Lissa was the worst sort of simpleton. “Always have. Maybe Cole thinks the weeds pull themselves, and the snow simply blows away. I’ve never fielded any questions.”

  Probably because Cole believed Trevor or Kent took care of such things. Or perhaps he thought the grave was simply low maintenance. Lissa had taken a passing glimpse, and Cole hadn’t lied in describing Kate’s final resting place as a rock garden. To Lissa, a careful smattering of rocks didn’t demand much.

  “Fine,” Lissa conceded, “but why you?”

  “I own a nursery. For plants.”

  So Lissa had been told. “Not for rocks?”

  Rhea turned around, and behind her stoic look, vulnerability wavered. For the briefest second, she looked lost before the roughness returned. “Why do you care? I help out. Cole’s gone for the day. I saw my chance to remove the snow. Big deal.”

  Uh huh. Lissa put her hands in the air in the classic surrender pose. “Fine, go save the grave.” I’ll be right behind you.

  Once Rhea had gone, grudgingly, as though she knew Lissa’s questions hadn’t run dry, Lissa allowed ten minutes of peace. Ten minutes for Rhea to think she’d be alone with Kate’s consecrated ground.

  Watching the clock, Lissa licked her spoon clean of a final dollop of strawberry Yoplait. “Time’s up,” she whispered.

  Fetching a piece of bacon, she fed Sasha a distraction and slipped out the back door. The dog meant well, but he was more PA system than partner in stealth.

  A worn and now familiar footpath meandered away from the back of the house. Fresh tracks marked the way. A few minutes’ walk through pines heavily laden with snow and Lissa rounded a bend to find Rhea on her knees, surrounded by a smattering of rocks the size of Sasha. Cole’s sister-in-law crouched in front of the largest, the one with an inscription. The words had taken up permanent residence in Lissa’s psyche after her first glance several weeks ago: “Katherine Elaine Rathlen. Loved.”

  Loved.

  Period.

  Lissa got it. Kate had loved and been loved and was loved still. A more elaborate outpouring would simply diminish emotions both offered and received.

  Cole had devised the tribute, Lissa knew. That kind of statement, the simple type that left zero doubt in the recipient’s mind, was his trademark. He used the skill to convince, criticize, demoralize… tantalize.

  Where Lissa commanded too many words to convey a point, Cole only required one. While Lissa looked to color and imagination to make a work of art, Cole relied on what was already there.

  Good for him. Really.

  But what would Cole think of this? Rhea sat so still she might have blended in if not for the bright jacket that interrupted the natural lines of Kate’s tombstone. Well, not a tombstone exactly, more like a massive boulder cut straight from some faraway ground and deposited here. From the looks of it, Rhea had cleared the snow from all the rocks during her alone time. Wispy, trailing lines left by the miniature broom announced the redhead’s movements through the harsh angles of the garden.

  Blanketed in white, the summer and fall flowers long gone, Kate’s cemetery-for-one looked cold, all rough edges that did little to blunt the blow of her passing. Rhea fit right in. It was the pink coat—usually blending into an endless supply of fluorescent workout gear—that looked out of place, like an inappropriate and unwelcome Band-Aid of cheer.

  Rhea huddled within the bright material. She looked small, as though her focus on the grave marker had sapped her considerable strength. Then, from that bunched spot on the ground, she reached out and traced Kate’s inscribed letters with a gloved fingertip.

  L. O. V. E. D.

  Lissa swallowed a gasp and took a quick step back, then another, and another. Rhea either didn’t hear, or she refused to acknowledge a second presence.

  Lissa faded back down the path, leaving Rhea to trace those soulful, painstaking letters over and over again. From now on, Rhea could spit gallons of distrust and dislike. She could snipe about betrayal and smile over Kate’s death. She could get herself banned from Melina twenty times over and swear she couldn’t understand how the dead woman engendered such loyalty. Rhea could grit her teeth and bemoan the number of people who’d loved Katherine Rathlen.

  And Lissa would still know that Rhea had been one of them.

  ******

  Nursing her discovery, Lissa made her way toward the house. She started at a sudden buzz in her pocket. Thankfully the sound muffled against her hip and probably wouldn’t carry back to Rhea at the gravesite. When she saw who was calling, she debated the single swipe it would take to send the call to voice mail.

  Cole.

  If he’d really wanted to talk, he wouldn’t have left in the first place. Yet, one more ring, and curiosity won. Resolving to confront the lingering sting of yesterday’s outing, she picked up.

  As in she employed technology to connect his phone to hers. Other than that, Cole didn’t deserve a pleasant hello. “I’m told you’re gone for the day.” Her voice didn’t sound properly flippant, filtered as it was through her hurt and resentment.

  “Was,” he said evenly. “Came back.”

  That piqued her interest. Had he seen? “So you know Rhea’s on the property?”

  “Even I can spot an extra car in the driveway.” His tone gentled before he went on, almost sounding hesitant. “I got here, and you weren’t in the house. I worried.”

  “That, what, I’d left?” She couldn’t even if she wanted to. They’d returned her rental car during the first week, realizing the SUV would only sit at the house for a hefty price tag that neither the grant money, nor her newly frugal self, would cover.

  “Yes.”

  On second thought, she could probably get into Nederland and then catch a bus to Boulder and on to the airport, but that would be too easy.

  For him.

  Despite the fact that Cole held a chunk of her heart in his hand and was currently squeezing the last of its blood, the project remained… too valuable. In general, Lissa sucked at personal preservation, always girding her loins a second too late. She’d become part
icularly careless in the face of—if Cole’s obvious talent provided any indication—a near guarantee of success.

  Guarantees were good. “I didn’t leave. Been outside”—creeping on your cracked sister-in-law—“clearing my head.”

  “Will you come in?” The tentative, guttural edge in Cole’s tone said he cared deeply about her agreement. If she said no, over six feet of pure life-force she had an abysmal track record of resisting would be in hot pursuit. “Can we talk?”

  An answer might have been nice, but ultimately, it was unnecessary. She’d arrived. Lissa threw the back door open, figuratively stripped bare, ready to make demands that Cole would heed or… She stopped cold.

  Scarlet Leore-almost-Blake of the New York Leores stood in front of her, wrapped in a cream Armani trench coat. The diamonds her friend rarely went without glittered at Scarlet’s ears, and a warm smile curved a pair of perfect lips painted Dior red. As always, Scarlet looked slightly out of place—only the most gilded of surroundings let a style statement like hers blend naturally—and like the most natural thing in the world, all at the same time.

  Lissa loosened all over. Previously tense muscles elongated, almost reaching out in physical welcome. Cole’s unstable relatives and his tendencies for sabotage were immediately forgotten. To her, Scarlet looked like home.

  Behind Scarlet’s extravagant stillness, their mutual friend Brian—a lawyer colleague of Scarlet’s who’d snarked his way into Lissa’s graces long ago—paced back and forth with an eye to the ceiling as though he wanted to make sure the crown molding was up to snuff. He wore a pair of charcoal slacks and a black button-down with a smattering of purple stars on the chest. The sleeves had been rolled up, most likely to show off his seventeen-thousand-dollar watch.

  “Nothing too excessive,” Brian liked to say, “just a modest gift to myself as a reward for another year of three thousand billable hours.”

  As the scene came into sharp focus, Lissa’s eyes lifted to Cole, who leaned against the inland counter opposite both Scarlet and Brian. Still technically on a call with her, he leisurely drew the phone from his ear and slipped it into a pocket.