The Midnight Hour

by Karen Robards

  “Please. Call me Grace,” she said with a smile as she held out her hand, determined not to betray any embarrassment. “It was kind of your mother to invite Jessica and me.”

  Dominick took her hand in his big, warm one and almost snorted. “Kind of her? She’s been dying to get a look at . . .”

  He broke off abruptly, dropping her hand as he apparently got an elbow in the ribs from the petite brunette at his side.

  “Oh, ah, yeah, this is my wife, Jenny,” he said, casting a guilty glance down at the round-faced, pretty, brightly smiling woman beside him. The top of her head didn’t quite reach his shoulder, she was wearing strawberry-pink slacks and a striped blouse, and her dark brown hair was just a tad too bouffant for fashion, but Grace liked her instantly. She had laughing brown eyes the warmth of which matched her wide smile, and a pronounced motherly air.

  “We’re all glad you could come, Grace,” she said smoothly. “And Jessica, too. The kids were excited when they found out they were going to have some fresh blood among them today.”

  “Especially since they heard she plays a mean game of basketball,” Dominick chimed in, nodding his head at the paved area in front of the detached garage, where Jessica was already playing H-O-R-S-E with the others. Wondering where they had heard any such thing, Grace turned a questioning gaze on him. But before she could ask, Tony was beside her.

  “Mama’ll skin me if I don’t take you in and introduce you,” he said easily.

  “In?” It was a delaying tactic. But Grace couldn’t help it. Now there was no almost about it: she did feel shy. She felt like a new girlfriend being vetted by the family, when she was no such thing, not really. Her involvement with Tony was only slightly personal, just a few kisses exchanged under stress. It was not the type of relationship that all the interested glances and whispered remarks seemed to imply.

  “She and Granny are in the kitchen. They do the cooking,” Tony explained.

  “She won’t let her daughters-in-law anywhere near the stove on occasions like this,” Jenny added with a smile. “She tries to make us think it’s because she wants to give us a break. But the truth is, none of us can cook like she does and she knows it.”

  “You’re a good cook,” Dominick protested loyally.

  “I’m glad you think so.” Jenny’s smile widened as she looked up at him. Love shone out of her eyes, and she placed an affectionate hand on his arm.

  “Catch you two later. Come on, Grace.” Tony’s hand curved around her elbow, and before she could say anything else she was being pulled by him, willy-nilly, toward the back porch.

  Her nerve failed her. “Oh, I can’t,” she said faintly, and stopped just as they reached the foot of the steps. They were momentarily alone, with the milling family some twenty feet behind them and Mama still to be faced beyond the porch.

  “What?” He stopped, too, and looked at her, frowning. “Why not?”

  “They all act like they think I’m your new girlfriend. They’re . . . checking me out. Your mother—I’m worried that she’ll think the same thing.”

  He studied her for a moment in silence.

  “You worry too much,” he said finally. He caught her hand, pulling her, not exactly willingly but without any further overt resistance, up the stairs and after him into the house.

  Chapter

  35

  “MAMA, GRANNY, THIS IS GRACE.” Tony still held her hand as he pulled her after him into the hot, humid environment that was his mother’s kitchen. Clinging to that warm, strong hand as though to a lifeline, Grace was immediately assaulted by an olfactory cacophony of smells—rich, savory smells tinged with garlic and spice—from a quartet of pots bubbling on the stove and from what looked like at least a dozen steaming casserole dishes lined up on dish towels spread out over the sturdy pine table.

  “Tony!” His mother turned from stirring a pot on the stove to embrace him, and he dropped Grace’s hand to enfold her in a great bear hug. Her hand felt suddenly cold, and Grace herself felt almost as if he had abandoned her, which was ridiculous, she knew. When his mother finally let him go, he was hugged by his grandmother, while his mother turned to look at Grace.

  “So you’re the one I talked to on the phone, in Tony’s house.” His mother’s gaze moved over Grace from top to toe, her eyes narrowed critically. She was about Grace’s height but built along queenly lines. Her iron-gray hair showed occasional black threads, rather like Tony’s in reverse, and Grace realized that his hair would look like that in twenty years’ time. She wore it in a curly, chin-length style that, at the moment, was pushed back behind her ears. Her face and features bore a remarkable resemblance to Tony’s, which meant that she was handsome rather than pretty. Her skin was more olive than his, without the bronze he had acquired from time spent outdoors, and it was relatively unlined. Her eyes were a rich chocolate brown, set beneath winged brows as gray as her hair. She wore a loose black dress of indeterminate age that hit her at midcalf, with an apron—gray with dancing fruit—tied over all.

  “It was nice of you to invite Jessica and me to come today, Mrs. Marino,” Grace said politely. Though she was nervous—the woman was openly studying her—Grace was determined not to let it show.

  “You are welcome, Grace.” Mrs. Marino’s rather stern face relaxed into a smile, and suddenly she looked so much like her son that Grace blinked. “Do you mind if I call you that? Dominick says you are Judge something, but that seems very formal to say.”

  “Judge Hart, Mama,” Tony supplied. “Grace, this is my grandmother, Rosa Marino. My mother is Mary.”

  Unlike Mary, Rosa was a tiny woman, slightly stooped, with snow-white hair drawn back from her face in a bun. She had to be in her eighties, Grace figured, and she looked it, with a pale crumpled face and bony hands, though she still had the bright curious dark eyes of a bird. Like Tony’s mother, she was dressed in a midcalf-length black dress, with an oilcloth apron tied around her middle.

  “I hope you like good food”—Rosa Marino said to her, and Grace recognized Tony’s twinkle in her eyes—“because that’s what we have, and plenty of it.”

  “And now is the time to eat it, while it is hot,” Mary Marino concurred, turning to Tony. “You! You may make yourself useful and start carrying out these dishes. Call your brothers in to help, too.”

  “I’ll be glad to help.” Along with Tony, Grace turned toward the table, eager to grab a dish and escape from the kitchen. She felt uncomfortable under the weighing eyes of his mother and grandmother, rather as if she were partaking of their hospitality under false pretences. After all, their obvious conclusions to the contrary, she had not come as Tony’s date.

  “No, no, those dishes are heavy and hot. Let Tony carry those. You may carry the bread, Grace, if you will.” Mary Marino handed her a pair of handleless baskets piled high with bread and covered with cloth napkins, as Tony, laden down with casserole dishes, thrust a head out the back door and bellowed for his brothers, who came running to help.

  A short time later, chaos had quieted into relative calm as the entire family sat down to eat. Grace was seated some distance from Jessica, who was grouped with the teens. The food, as advertised, was wonderful, though Grace could sample only a small portion of what was offered. Veal and chicken dishes and various kinds of pasta and salads, vegetable casseroles, garlic bread and plain bread and rolls, two kinds of homemade cake and an apple pie, all vanished at an amazing rate. Unable to monitor what Jessica was eating, Grace gave up trying and concentrated on her own meal. Tony consumed enormous amounts of food, she saw, and clearly enjoyed bantering with his brothers and their families. At his side, Grace said relatively little but listened with some amusement to the round-robin of family stories that most often cast one or the other of the brothers as goat.

  Later, after the dishes had been cleared—Mary’s prohibition on daughters-in-law in the kitchen did not extend to the washing up, it seemed—Grace sat on a folding lawn chair at the side of the paved area by the garage watc
hing as Dominick, Tony, and Rick—the three oldest brothers, who made up one team—went down in defeat to the team of little brothers Kyle, Mike, and Robby in the championship game of their cutthroat basketball competition. Jessica, whose team had been knocked out in the previous round—she, Joe, and Jamie made a surprisingly good team, defeating everyone except the older Marino males—played fetch with the dogs nearby. Rosa sat down in the chair next to Grace, which had just been vacated by Jenny, who had jumped up to console a crying child.

  “It is good for Tony that you are here, Grace,” Rosa said earnestly, after a few preliminary remarks that mainly concerned the astounding ability of her grandsons with a basketball. “You must not mind if we all seem to be very interested in you. It has been hard for him, you see. Very hard. You are the first real sign that he is coming out of it.”

  Not understanding, Grace frowned. “What has been hard for him?” she asked carefully.

  The old woman shook her head. “Losing Rachel, of course. Oh, it was a terrible thing! We all wept a thousand tears. But Tony—his mother feared he would die. It has been over four years now, and he has been alone all that time—except for the chippies who come and go, of course, the little cheap women, for he is a man after all—always alone in his house, always alone when he comes here to his family. Alone in his life, and that is not good for a man, especially one like Tony who has the gift of love and laughter as all the Marino men do. You are the first decent woman he has shown an interest in, the first woman he has brought to meet his family, since then. We are very glad to know you for that reason.”

  Grace’s hands rested on the chair’s armrests. Rosa patted the one nearest her clumsily.

  “You musn’t read too much into my being here,” Grace cautioned. “Tony and I—we’re not—that is, we don’t really have a relationship, as such. I . . .”

  Rosa laughed, and patted her hand again. “Dominick has told his Mama all about you and Tony, don’t worry. He knows his brother well, and he could see what was happening. It made Mary very happy to know that Tony was finally moving on from the terrible thing with Rachel.”

  Grace swallowed, but with the best will in the world she could not keep herself from asking the obvious question. “Mrs. Marino—”

  “You must call me Rosa.”

  “Rosa, then. Who is Rachel?”

  Rosa gave her a sharp look. “So he has not told you about Rachel.” She shook her head, looking troubled. “You must ask him, then. Rachel is the key to Tony, and he must tell you about her himself.”

  Rachel. The name seared itself into Grace’s mind. Who was she? A former girlfriend? A wife? Tony had said he was not married, but had he been? Rachel is the key to Tony. Whoever she was, her relationship with Tony had obviously been serious.

  As illogical as it was—and she knew it was illogical, when she herself had been married and divorced and she and Tony had no relationship as such—she did not like to think of Tony just getting over a previous, extremely serious relationship. With a sense of shock, Grace realized that where he was concerned, she was starting to feel—possessive.

  She was still brooding over the discovery and its implications when they left.

  They arrived home at twilight, dogs and all. As soon as the car pulled into the driveway, it was as though a dark cloud had fallen over the previously merry party. Even the dogs were subdued as they sniffed around the yard and house. Tony immediately became all business, turning on all the lights and checking out the rooms one by one while Grace and Jessica stayed, not quite huddling together, in the kitchen until he gave the all clear. With a sense of waiting for the inevitable other shoe to drop, Grace was tense as she moved through the house. Jessica was openly crabby, ostensibly over the need to do her homework but really, Grace thought, simply because just being in the house where so many frightening things had occurred was now so stressful. When Jessica went upstairs to give herself her shot—the supplies were kept in her room—Grace automatically went with her. Jessica had not been in her room since the horror of the previous night, and Grace did not want her to face it alone. To her distress, she realized upon entering the room that Godzilla’s cage still stood in its accustomed place. Determinedly matter of fact, she removed the cage and set it out in the hall, then completely stripped and remade the bed, even turning over the mattress. Meanwhile Jessica rolled the vial of insulin in her hands to warm it, filled the syringe, and injected herself in the thigh.

  Later, Tony made some phone calls to verify the next day’s arrangements for their protection, after first having discreetly removed all reminders of Godzilla from the house, at Grace’s request. Grace and Jessica sat at the kitchen table reviewing Spanish vocabulary. Then, taking heart in the company of the dogs, who followed her wherever she went, Jessica chose to brave her room alone to do her algebra in the familiar environs of her desk. Grace, cup of coffee in hand, stepped out on the front porch for a breath of fresh air, preparatory to going upstairs and meting out punishment—extended grounding, she supposed—to Jessica. The house she had once loved so much felt almost claustrophobic to her now.

  The crisp afternoon was gone. The night was dark, and cold, and smelled of lingering dampness. A light wind had arisen, gusting through the trees, rattling the leaves of the snowball bush, setting the wind chime dancing. Shadows shifted and blended, came together and separated. Something seemed to move in the far corner of the yard.

  Grace froze and then had to laugh at herself as a piece of someone’s Sunday paper, abandoned to the elements, blew close enough to be identified.

  But she did not step into the yard to pick up the paper, which she once would have done without thought.

  It was this that had been taken from them by the creep who was preying on them, Grace thought. Their sense of security, hers and Jessica’s. Where once the small world they inhabited had seemed familiar and safe, now everything, even the home they had lived in for years, was a strange and frightening place. Little things like a sheet of newspaper blowing across the yard in the dark had the power to send her heart leaping into her mouth.

  Grace shivered and went back into the house, taking care to lock the door behind her.

  Thank God Tony was there. The knowledge caused her tense muscles to relax a little. Until the creep was caught, she and Jessica were protected. She did not like to think how she would have felt if they had been alone.

  She still could not get the thought of Tony’s Rachel out of her mind.

  Grace went upstairs, reluctant but resolute, and found Jessica sprawled out on her bed fast asleep. Both dogs were curled up next to her, lying together right against her side. They lifted their heads as she entered, but did not bark and made no move to jump off the bed.

  Lips tightening with disapproval—how sanitary could it be to sleep with dogs? didn’t they all have fleas, or something?—Grace looked the animals over, wondering how to shoo them from the bed without waking Jess in the process. They looked like brown-and-white dust mops cuddled close beside her daughter, Grace decided as they lowered their heads to their paws again. Watching them seemingly prepared to sleep the night away at Jessica’s side, Grace felt a sudden, totally unexpected rush of appreciation for them. After all, their presence had made what would have been a hard day much easier for Jessica. Their presence had emboldened her sufficiently to do her algebra in her room. And their presence had comforted her enough so that she could fall asleep in her bed. Not only that, but they would guard her while she slept.

  A few fleas were a small price to pay for all that.

  Grace withdrew a small quilt from Jessica’s closet and gently covered her with it. The dogs never moved, and when she was done Grace rather clumsily patted each one on the head.

  The puppy licked her wrist.

  Rubbing the damp spot against her pants, not sure whether to be pleased or disgusted, she turned off the light, closed the door, and went downstairs.

  The dogs stayed where they were.

  It was after ten now, an
d Grace’s usual practice was to be in bed no later than eleven. Before she could retire, though, she had a case full of briefs to look over, clothes to lay out for the morrow, a shopping list to make, and several loads of laundry to do.

  Instead of doing any of that, she went looking for Tony.

  He was in the family room, lounging comfortably on the couch, his feet in their white athletic socks crossed at the ankles and resting on her coffee table. He had taken off his sweatshirt—the house was warm—and wore only the snug white T-shirt tucked into his jeans. His gun lay on the end table beside him, next to the lamp which, besides the TV, was the room’s sole source of illumination at the moment. The remote control unit was in his hand, and he was casually flipping channels. He looked up as Grace entered the room.

  “Your idea about dog as bribe is beginning to grow on me,” Grace said by way of a greeting, crossing the room and sitting down in the rocking chair. His gun, black and lethal looking, lay on the end table between them. “Would you really let Jessica have the puppy?”

  “Sure.” He smiled lazily at her and turned the volume down on the TV. “She was a big hit with my nephews, by the way. They were impressed.”

  “Probably because she’s got a heck of a jump shot,” Grace said with a lurking smile of her own.

  He laughed. “Well, that, too.”

  “I liked your family. Everyone was very nice to a couple of strangers in their midst. And the food! Your mother and grandmother are wonderful cooks. They should open a restaurant.”

  “I’ll tell ’em you said so. They’ll love you for it.”

  “All your brothers seem to have made very happy marriages,” Grace ventured.

  “Yeah, they all picked out nice girls.”

  “Except you.”

  He cast her a sideways glance. “Except me,” he said agreeably.

  Grace took a deep breath. Obviously, if she wanted him to answer her question, she was going to have to ask it first.