Marriage In Jeopardy

by Anna Adams

  Lydia laughed at Evelyn’s patient tone, but Evelyn poked her in the back.

  “I think you’re foolish to do this. I’m only coming with you because someone’s going to have to hold those boys off you if they did this and they think you know.”

  “I wasn’t at the school last night. I know nothing about the fire.”

  “That will make all the difference to two teenage boys who are furious because their parents apparently didn’t want them so they beat up a door with a bat—and then—for all we know, set the place on fire.”

  “Don’t scare me.” Lydia didn’t want the boys to be guilty, but she couldn’t help wondering if she might have been able to recognize them. A little better than she’d claimed.

  Juries had to be sure. Shouldn’t a possible witness be, as well? If someone had made a guess about what Vivian Durance was going to do and said nothing, Lydia would have considered that person as guilty as Vivian.

  WHAT KIND OF IDIOT let his wife march into danger because she felt guilty for doing too much and not doing enough all at the same time?

  “Damn,” Josh muttered at the television. “Who gives a—who cares about the freakin’ corn queen of Iowa this morning?”

  Specialty features, one after another, including a fascinating story about a garden hose that wouldn’t freeze, even in a Maine winter, paraded across the screen.

  “What’s up, Josh?”

  His father hadn’t ever slept so late. At least not that Josh knew. “Someone burned the school science lab, and Mom and Lydia have turned into vigilantes.”

  His dad yanked the television to face him. “You saw them on here?”

  “No, before they left. They wouldn’t let me go with them.”

  “Let you? Are you out of your mind?” His dad’s hands were already at the tie to his robe.

  “Wait. They were right. Two women, milling in the crowd aren’t as threatening as even one man. If you and I go down there, eyeing the Dawson twins as if they were Frank and Jesse James, Lydia could look like a witness.”

  “So we wait here?”

  “As long as we can stand it.”

  “Let’s paint the barn.”

  Josh swallowed his frustration. “This is one time when work won’t distract us, Dad. I’ll call Mrs. Dawson.”

  “And ask her if the boys—”

  “No, to talk to her about Mom’s building.” Josh pulled a sheet of notes toward him and then stood up to get the phone.

  “You’re willing to let your mother and Lydia wander around in that mob,” he pointed to a shot of the school, complete with fire trucks and anxious parents and students, “without either of us to protect them?”

  “You think there aren’t cops in that crowd?”

  His dad leaned in, to see the picture better. “I don’t see Simon. Wait, there was a patrol car.”

  “Dad, I’m worried. It’s irrational, but considering what happened before…”

  He dialed Geraldine’s number. It rang and rang and rang. And then it rang some more.

  “She’s not home.” He eyed his father as he hung up the phone. “Doesn’t mean she’s at the jail, right?”

  “I don’t care if we have to put on false beards. I want to make sure my wife is safe.”

  His father’s panic heightened Josh’s. He’d been sensible before, and Lydia had gotten hurt.

  “Come on, Dad. We won’t let Mom or Lydia or anyone else see us.”

  THEY WERE EVEN wearing the same clothes they’d worn the day they’d tried to beat the door in. Twin boys, as tall and as dark-haired as those boys had been on Saturday, hovered at the edges of the crowd.

  Lydia didn’t have to ask if they were the Dawsons. She pretended she hadn’t seen them at all.

  “Recognize anyone, Lydia?”

  She jumped. Simon Chambers had surfaced at her elbow. He walked like a spy. The better to catch recalcitrant teenagers or unwilling witnesses, she supposed.

  “Do you have someone in mind?”

  “Since I don’t have proof, I won’t taint the process, but you have to admit this isn’t a coincidence.”

  “Yeah.”

  “What are you saying to my daughter-in-law, Simon?”

  “Not a thing, Evelyn. What are you doing here? You’re not Lydia’s watchdog?”

  Evelyn laughed. Lydia had to force herself not to gape in awe. The world had been robbed of a high caliber actress.

  “Look at me,” Evelyn said, emphasizing her smallness. “She’d be better off with a puppy.”

  “You’ll let me know if you see anyone who disturbs you,” Simon said.

  “Sure.” Lydia borrowed some of Evelyn’s skill. “You’ll let me know if you have any proof before you have me identify a suspect?”

  “You’ve been hanging out with Josh for too long.”

  “Thanks.”

  “I’m going to visit Mrs. Dawson.”

  “You leave her alone,” Evelyn said, breaking character.

  Simon searched her face. He glanced at Lydia, who tried not to look as shocked as she felt at Evelyn’s aggression.

  “My turn to thank you,” he said to Evelyn.

  He faded into the crowd. Evelyn grabbed Lydia’s arm. “What did I do?”

  “You just took up for a friend.”

  “And put her in the police frame.”

  “They’re not going to frame Geraldine or anyone else.”

  “I guess—I don’t trust them.”

  “I can understand.”

  “Let’s go see her, too.”

  “She might not be home,” Evelyn said. “Would you wait around in your house for the cops to come get you if you thought your grandsons might be responsible for a crime like this?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t even know what I should do.” Lydia turned toward the square. “Let’s walk down there. Maybe we’ll find Geraldine doing some business research.”

  Before they’d gone far, she spied Josh, a head taller than the men around him, hanging back on a corner near the church. About ten feet away, his father was trying to blend into a telephone pole.

  CHAPTER NINE

  “EVELYN, we’ve been followed.”

  “Huh? The cops?”

  “Worse. Husbands.”

  “Where?”

  Lydia nodded. “Toward the church. They’re obviously trying to look inconspicuous.”

  Evelyn laughed out loud. “They worried about us. Don’t laugh when we get to them. They can help us look for Geraldine. She may need Josh anyway if those boys have been up to no good.”

  “For once the idea of Josh defending someone doesn’t turn my stomach.”

  “Did you see them back there at the school?”

  “See who?” Lydia asked blandly.

  Evelyn didn’t bother to answer.

  THEY DIDN’T FIND Mrs. Dawson on the square. She wasn’t in her office. She didn’t answer her home phone. Josh suggested they might be overreacting, and they finally gave up. After lunch in a lobster roll shop, they went back out to the house. Josh and his dad tried to clean the kitchen they’d left filthy, but his mom pushed them out. She liked having things done her way.

  Afterward, she suggested Lydia might like to learn her cookie recipe. Lydia jumped at the chance.

  More of his mother’s plan? To show him his wife, all fifties homemakerish, churning cookie dough in a massive bowl?

  “Dad, that barn’s waiting for a coat of paint.”

  “It’ll wait until tomorrow.”

  “Isn’t that why we decided not to take the boat out today?”

  “Yeah.” His dad was the son, being dragged to an onerous task.

  Josh was already up a ladder, applying paint, when his father showed up. “When are you going to get sprayers, Dad?”

  “When I don’t like to take a week to do the job right.”

  “You don’t know how to use a sprayer, do you?”

  “No, and I don’t want to learn.” Another ladder banged against the wall beside Josh. �
�What’s got you up here slapping my barn as if you’re on a vendetta?”

  “Just getting the job done. Lydia’s doing pretty well. We may go home soon.”

  “Home?”

  “To figure out where we’re going next.”

  “Son, are you quitting your job?”

  His father should not be the first person he told. Lydia must already know he wouldn’t let her leave him over a job. But she didn’t know he could be wholehearted in his need to be with her.

  “I’d rather talk about the barn, Dad. I don’t think I have the patience for one more lecture.”

  “Some people don’t look on paternal advice as a lecture.”

  “I do.”

  “Then let me point out, you’re skipping spots on my barn.”

  “Good tip.”

  He painted better and faster, frustrated with himself for giving in, but more because he’d been truly afraid for Lydia this morning. All those years she’d worried about him—about them—was this how she’d felt?

  “Are we racing?” his father asked after about half an hour.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” But they hardly spoke and they finished one end of the barn by dark.

  Josh’s arm ached as he helped his father clean the brushes. “You know, this is a waste of time. How many catches are you handing off to some other guy while you’re on a ladder? A sprayer would get you back to work in record time.”

  “We did all right, and I like the process of it. You can see where you’ve been, where you’re going, what you’ve accomplished.” His dad washed his hands one last time and patted Josh’s shoulder with more force than Josh could have done with. “And my son and I accomplished painting one whole end of this barn that’s been in our family for over a hundred years.”

  “This building?”

  Bart nodded. “I don’t mind admitting I’m a romantic. I like the history. I love the continuity of doing this with you.”

  Josh wanted to be like his father. It was one of the strangest, strongest moments of his life. “Dad, I have to finish here. Could you ask Lydia to come out?”

  “Sure.”

  In a few minutes, Lydia slipped inside the double doors at the other end of the barn and hurried toward him. “What’s wrong?”

  It wasn’t like her to expect the worst. Time to try to help her change their lives for the better. “I wanted to talk to you.”

  “You’re sick of painting barns and catching fish and strolling Kline streets?” She paused for a breath. “You want to go back to Hartford?”

  He wiped his hands and arms on one of his father’s scratchy “work” towels and threw it into a hamper beneath the sink. “No,” he said. “I want to find a new place to live, somewhere you can be happy and I can still find challenges in my job without frightening you.”

  Lydia’s eyes widened. She curved her mouth in half a smile, but then looked serious again. At last, she sagged against the stool at his father’s workbench. “What?”

  “When you left today, I knew you were safe. Deep down, I don’t believe two boys—or any boys would hurt a grown woman who happened to pass by a school when they were doing something they shouldn’t.”

  “What if they torched it?”

  He stopped. “You saw them?”

  “I may have seen the boys from Saturday. They were twins, and they were hanging around the school today.”

  “That doesn’t make them guilty.”

  “No,” she agreed. “But it doesn’t clear them either. Why did all this change your mind about Hartford?”

  “I thought I was being paranoid. I was so worried about you I couldn’t concentrate on anything else. I got a taste of how you felt. I’m sorry I couldn’t just see what you were trying to tell me. Apparently, I’m a thoughtless clod who had to be in the same situation before I could understand.”

  “But you do understand?”

  “You haven’t changed your mind, Lydia?”

  “I’d never set foot in that town house again if I could avoid it.”

  “I’ll take care of selling it.”

  “I’m not letting you do all the work,” she said and suddenly she sprang off the stool and wrapped herself around him. “We’re getting out of there?”

  When he’d finally left the foster care system, he’d sworn he’d never run scared from anyone or anything again. But he’d run to keep Lydia safe. Staring into her eyes, feeling as if parts of himself were disappearing, he set her back on the stool.

  “Josh.” She held on as if they’d both fly apart, into the air if she let go.

  With a finger beneath her chin, he raised her face. Her mouth opened with anticipation. He knew it from her quickened breathing, the deep light in her eyes. He kissed her. He claimed her back from darkness and fear that had taken her away from him.

  She kissed him as she hadn’t in years, with passion and certainty—not a desperate need to forget—that he only now recognized.

  At last, he let her go and they clung to each other, breathing hard.

  “That’s been a long time coming.” Lydia grinned. “I have to call the office and tell them I won’t be coming back—make sure they can find someone to take my place.”

  He laughed, surprised at such an unexpected store of happiness. “I can’t believe leaving will be so easy for you, but I’m glad we’re going to be okay,” he said in the soft strands of her hair.

  A noise roused him. A car, approaching at speed on the gravel driveway before he’d had time to remind her he was still going to be a defense attorney. Easing away from Lydia, Josh leaned into the nearest window. “I’m not that surprised. It’s the police.”

  Lydia slid off the stool and almost fell. He caught her.

  “Don’t be afraid,” he said. “Unless they found fingerprints on an accelerant, they were bound to be suspicious of two boys who’ve apparently done small things like rolling the courthouse lawn and soaping all the police patrol cars before now. Simon has to wonder if they’ve graduated to breaking into their school.”

  “Oh my God, and all because I went to the police.”

  “I thought you weren’t sure enough to identify them, Lydia?”

  “The boys I saw today had on the same clothes as the kids I saw Saturday.” She turned toward the doors. “Do I have to talk to them?”

  “If you don’t, it’ll look worse for the Dawsons. Just tell the truth.”

  “Most of the kids in this town probably have those same high school sweats.”

  “High school sweats?” Josh pushed her toward the door. “I’d even advise you to think twice before you identify someone based on the sweats they all wear if they’re in organized sports.”

  “I’m not trying to get them off, Josh, even though I am thinking of what could happen to their family if the police take them in for this. Geraldine seems so fragile. It wouldn’t take much to hurt her badly.”

  “Getting them off wouldn’t help them,” he said. “If they’re the ones, they have to make some kind of reparations. But I can see you’re worried they are guilty, even if you’re not positive. Knowing Geraldine shouldn’t change your decision to speak up or be cautious.”

  “Okay.” She started toward the doors. “I’ll talk to them.”

  Simon was coming to the barn as Lydia opened the door. “What’s going on?” he asked.

  “Nothing. How about with you?”

  “I’d like to talk to you.” He held out his hand to Josh. “Good to see you.”

  Josh acted as if he was just as pleased to see his old schoolmate. “Come inside. Mom always has a fresh pot of coffee.”

  Lydia was glad to stand back as he led the way to the mudroom door. Josh caught her hand at the steps.

  “It’s going to be fine. Tell him what you believe. Just don’t lie.”

  She veered her glance upward.

  He grinned. “I’ve never known you to lie. Let’s move it before they think we’re out here talking over your testimony.”

&nb
sp; “Easy for you to make light. You’re not on the verge of ruining some kids’ lives.”

  “They probably beat on a door. That won’t ruin their lives.”

  Simon looked up from stirring the coffee Evelyn had put before him at the counter. “Glad you two could join us.”

  “Come on, Simon. My wife never deals much with the police. She told you she’d seen a problem, and now you’re here to question her when she doesn’t know anything about that fire last night.”

  “We’re not in court, Josh.”

  “Fire away, Simon.” Lydia went to a seat across from Josh at the table. She didn’t want to seem as if she needed his backup.

  “Did you see the boys from Saturday by the school today, Lydia?”

  She resisted a strong urge to look at Josh or his mother. This family—her family—had suffered before and after the system took over and tried to correct the problems in this house. Josh’s life with his foster family loomed uppermost.

  “If I were positive I wouldn’t hesitate to say so. I saw a lot of boys who looked like the ones I saw on Saturday, but no one I could point out to you without a shadow of a doubt.”

  “That’s the standard for a jury in a murder trial. I’m looking for suspects in a school arson case.”

  “I can’t help you,” she said.

  “This is a small town. I’ve already had to talk to them about some cute things they’d done,” Simon said. “Even I can see the humor in soaping patrol cars, but burning down the school…”

  “Even if they were the ones who tried to break in, I can’t say a thing about this fire.” Lydia did glance at Josh. Deep in his eyes she saw admiration. “I wasn’t at the school last night.”

  “I just want to talk to them, Lydia. They may not be the ones. You might be helping me clear them.”

  “I can’t do anything for you.”

  Josh stood. “I’ll walk you to your car, Simon.”

  “Just a minute.” Simon sipped his coffee, offering Lydia plenty of time for second thoughts. “How are you going to feel if you don’t tell me the truth about these kids, and they hurt someone with their next so-called prank? You can see they’re getting more dangerous.”