Drape Expectations

by Karen Rose Smith

  More presents, another piece of cake, and a second cup of coffee. The group was engrossed in animated conversation as Patches, Lady, and Dylan slept together near the fireplace hearth.

  Seth stood and extended a hand to her. She had promised to give him a few minutes alone so they could talk. But as she stood, Grant touched her elbow. “Are you leaving?”

  She looked around at all the guests who had come to celebrate with her. “No, I’m not leaving.”

  He nodded. “Good, because I want to talk to you about having dinner later in the week.”

  He obviously wanted to spend more time with her. She wanted to spend more time with him.

  “I won’t be too long,” she said, giving him a smile. She knew Seth would be leaving ... as he’d left before.

  Since everyone else was gathered in the living room, she and Seth meandered into the foyer and through the dining room into the kitchen, passing through the cooking area. They stood near the kitchen table in the eat-in area.

  This had been the room that Caprice probably had the fondest memories of. It was painted pale yellow above the white wainscoting. Gingham curtains graced the windows. She remembered helping her mom make pie dough at this table, squabbling with her sisters and brother, doing homework under her dad’s guidance while her mom graded papers. They’d played board games here—Candy Land to Scrabble—and card games—Crazy Eights to poker. The gray Formica-topped table had been smeared with finger paints, as well as tomato sauce. The ladder-back chairs had been caned and recaned, one by one, by an old friend of her dad’s. This room always brought back a deluge of memories, which she welcomed.

  Now, standing here with Seth, she didn’t know what was coming next.

  He looked serious. “I know canceling plans for the weekend was a big disappointment.”

  “Yes, it was.” More than a disappointment, really. A reality check.

  “I don’t want either of us to be disappointed again like that, but my career is a fluid life choice, and I’m going where the flow takes me. So I have a question for you. When my fellowship is ended, would you go with me, wherever I take a job?”

  That question shocked her. Exactly what was he asking her? “Go with you as—be in the same city with you? Live with you?” This was the time to ask the hard questions.

  “I haven’t thought way ahead,” he admitted. “But we could live together.”

  Live together, she mentally repeated. Those words didn’t bring to mind a lifelong commitment, vows, a wedding veil, and babies. “Living together” was an interim thing, a placebo when you didn’t know what you wanted. Caprice wanted more than living together with a man—even a man as handsome and sexy as Seth Randolph. She wanted more than having plans dashed, appointments canceled, and celebrations denied. Maybe the whole problem was, she’d been infatuated with Seth. Today she’d realized that she loved Grant. Her heart was telling her what she needed to do and where her future lay. Her future was here in Kismet with her family and friends ... and Grant. She couldn’t live on a romantic notion and maybes.

  As if Seth could see the decision in her eyes, he frowned. “You don’t want to leave your family and ... what you have here.”

  “Seth, I’m sorry. I’ve loved the time we’ve spent together.”

  “But I can’t make a commitment to anything but my career, and you need more than that.” He sighed. “I understand that, Caprice, really I do. I wish only the best for you.”

  “And I wish only the best for you.”

  Seth wrapped his arms around her in a huge hug. Then he gave her a gentle good-bye kiss on the forehead. A door led outside from the kitchen to the porch.

  “I didn’t bring a coat,” he said. “I can leave from here.”

  He gave her one of those smiles that had convinced her to date him, a smile that could reassure patients and give them hope.

  As he went out the door, Caprice felt as if she’d been through a storm, and she stood there for a very long time.

  She’d made the right decision. She wanted to explore what she and Grant could have.

  While she was catching her breath from a variety of emotions, her cell phone played. She automatically plucked it from her pocket. When she read the caller ID displayed on the screen, her heart thumped. She answered, not knowing what to expect. “Hello?”

  “Miss De Luca?”

  “Yes.”

  “This is Diane Duncan. I think we should meet.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  The party was winding down when Grant placed his hand on Caprice’s shoulder. “Can we talk?”

  Dulcina and Isaac had left and her family was milling about. Her stomach did a flip-flop as she gestured toward the library. “Let’s go in here.”

  Once in the library, Grant stuffed his hands into the pockets of his black jeans. “I was surprised to see Seth here.”

  “So was I.” Her heart beat faster as she tried to read Grant’s face and what was coming.

  “He left abruptly.”

  “Yes, he did. He had to get back . . . to his patients. To his career.” She plunged in, eager to tell Grant all of it. “He asked me if, after his fellowship ended, I’d follow him to wherever he practiced.”

  Grant’s brows drew together, his gray eyes stormy. “What did you say?”

  Taking a deep breath, she jumped without a net. “I told him I couldn’t leave Kismet . . . that my family was here . . . and my future.” The world stopped spinning as she waited for Grant’s response.

  “Am I in that future?”

  “If you want to be.”

  All of a sudden, Bella came sweeping into the library. “Mom wants to know if Grant would like a piece of rum cake to take along.” Glancing from one of them to the other, she asked, “Did I interrupt something?”

  Caprice blew out a breath. Sometimes her sister could be so tactless.

  But Grant just smiled at Bella. “I’d appreciate a piece of rum cake.”

  Bella winked at Caprice and tossed over her shoulder, “I’ll tell Mom.”

  Caprice muttered, “We won’t get time alone here.”

  “We’ll have time alone ... soon,” Grant promised. “You enjoy the rest of the evening with your family. Not everyone can have this much caring around them.”

  Just then Megan and Timmy ran into the living room with the dogs and settled near the library’s doorway.

  With another sigh, Caprice said, “I suppose not.”

  Grant ran his finger down her cheek.

  Caprice wanted to close her eyes and simply think about her future with Grant. But she did have something to tell him. “Diane Duncan called me. I’m meeting her early tomorrow morning.”

  “Alone?” Grant asked with concern.

  “I’ll see if Nikki can go with me.”

  “Carstead didn’t call you yet?”

  Caprice shook her head.

  “After your meeting, go straight to the police station and talk to Detective Jones if you have to.”

  Realizing Grant was right about this, she assured him, “I will.”

  “And if Nikki can’t go with you tomorrow, call me. I’ll rearrange appointments.”

  “Thank you.”

  He looked as if he wanted to kiss her again. But with Megan and Timmy sitting right outside of the room ...

  Caprice’s dad called to her, “We’re going to play charades. As the birthday girl, you can go first.”

  Anything personal between her and Grant would have to wait.

  But a future with Grant was worth waiting for.

  Caprice had set up the meeting with Diane Duncan at a park in York. Nikki waited in her car . . . and watched as Caprice approached the bench where Diane sat.

  The woman didn’t look at Caprice when Caprice took the bench beside her, but rather stared straight ahead.

  “I bring my daughter here a lot,” she said.

  “Tell me about your daughter,” Caprice prompted, leading into the conversation.

  “Before I do that,
I have to know what you’re going to do with this information.”

  “That depends. If it directly impacts the murder investigation, I’ll have to tell Detective Carstead . . . or you will.”

  Diane’s face practically crumpled, and Caprice felt sorry for her. “I suppose secrets can’t stay secrets forever,” Diane said.

  “Secrets between adults are difficult enough, but when they involve a child, somehow they have even more impact.”

  After biting her lip in an obvious emotional dilemma, Diane revealed, “I can’t tell you about my daughter without talking to you about Alanna.”

  “Alanna’s secrets are possibly the reason she was killed,” Caprice responded softly, remaining calm although she might soon have the answers she needed to solve this murder.

  Diane seemed to absorb what she’d said. “Do you know about Archer Ford and Barton Goodwin?”

  “I know that Archer is supposedly his illegitimate son.”

  Diane nodded, winding her fingers together in her lap. “After Archer came forward to make contact with his father, he and Alanna formed a friendship. Barton Goodwin wasn’t always kind, and I think a woman always has need for kindness. So her friendship with Archer became more than friendship. They had an affair and Alanna got pregnant.”

  Caprice had already pieced some of this together on her own . . . or at least suspected it. It was good to have it confirmed. “How do you know this?”

  “She told me her story when we met, so I’d understand her situation and what she had to do.”

  “Did she tell Barton?”

  “She did. I don’t know if she told him out of spite, out of resentment, or if she wanted him to be jealous. But she did tell him. She never expected he’d give her an ultimatum—either a divorce or an abortion.”

  “He was a hard man,” Caprice murmured.

  “Alanna was a strong woman. Most of all, she was a negotiator. In spite of her affair, she believed her husband really loved her. She told him she could never abort the baby, but she didn’t want a divorce, either. She promised him she’d give up the baby for adoption and never look back.”

  “Never look back? Never know what happened to her child? I don’t understand how a mother can promise that.”

  “She wasn’t thinking in terms of being a mother then, just a woman who wanted to hold her marriage together. That seemed to be her main purpose.”

  “She didn’t tell Archer about her pregnancy?”

  “No. Under Barton’s instructions, his lawyer, Jeremy Travers, arranged for a private adoption. Alanna went to an undisclosed getaway and had the baby. She told me she set the wheels in motion for gossipmongers to spread the word she was in Europe, but she really went to a clinic in New England. Barton’s lawyer set up a trust fund for the baby and the transaction was supposed to be over with once the child was born.”

  “How did Alanna or the lawyer find you?”

  “I had once worked with Jeremy Travers as a paralegal. We remained friends even when he left the firm. He was sort of like a mentor to me. I couldn’t have children because of a severe case of endometriosis and he knew that. He also knew a boyfriend had left me because of it. I wanted a child and I talked to him about possibly finding an unwed mother who wanted to give up her baby. When Alanna needed a mother for her child, he called me about the situation. After Sherry was born, Alanna wasn’t supposed to have any contact with me or her.”

  “But Alanna didn’t stick to her end of the bargain,” Caprice guessed.

  “What mother could?” Diane asked, sounding as if she understood perfectly. She took out her phone, tapped the gallery app, and showed Caprice a photo. “That’s the first picture I took of Sherry a week after she was born. What mom would walk away and not want to know exactly what kind of life she had?”

  Caprice studied the photo of the baby.

  Diane was silent a few moments. “I think regrets got the best of Alanna. When Sherry was a year old, Alanna called me. She said she didn’t want to interfere in my life, but she needed to know how her daughter was. So every now and then, I’d send her a photo. That was the new agreement between the two of us. I’d keep her informed and e-mail her photos, but she wouldn’t have contact with Sherry.”

  “What changed?” Caprice was sure something had.

  “I mailed her Sherry’s recital photo, the one you had with you at the dance studio.”

  “It’s a beautiful photo. You have a lovely daughter.”

  Diane smiled. “It has less to do with me and everything to do with Sherry. She’s a sweetheart, and all I want to do is protect her from life’s bumps and from emotional trauma. But I didn’t know how I was going to do that anymore. Last month, Alanna called me and tried to convince me to let her reveal the truth to Ace Richland before she married him.”

  “Were you going to let her do it?”

  “I was so torn. I eventually was going to tell Sherry who her birth mother was. But after Alanna called me, I was scared. She had a lot of money. If she married Ace Richland, she’d have even more than that. She could pull strings. She could possibly get Sherry back. I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know whom to confide in. I was still trying to decide, and then I heard she was murdered.”

  What a powerful motive for murder for Diane. Of course, she was going to have to tell Detective Carstead about this. Of course, Diane would have to talk to him herself.

  She had one more question for Diane Duncan. “Did you try to run me off the road on Friday?”

  Diane’s shock looked genuine. “Of course, I didn’t.”

  Could Caprice believe her?

  After Caprice’s meeting with Diane, she found messages from Detective Carstead and Twyla on her phone. The detective had been out of town at his sister’s wedding. He’d be at the station all morning. Twyla had made the decision to return to Mississippi. She thought it best to pull out the rental furniture and empty the house. Caprice would return her call when she had time to discuss it all.

  Nikki’s foot was heavy on her accelerator as she drove Caprice to the police station. Her meeting with the detective went as expected. He disapproved of her pursuing the investigation. He went stony-jawed about the police report of her accident. Still, he listened and jotted down Diane’s number.

  After her visit to Carstead, Caprice insisted Nikki take her home. She’d care for her furry family, then drive herself where she needed to go in her van. She didn’t need a chauffeur. She’d be careful.

  She just hoped Don Rodriguez could restore her Camaro to its beautiful condition before the accident. He’d assured her he could.

  Breaking into Caprice’s thoughts, Nikki said, “Promise to call me every couple of hours so I know you’re okay.”

  “I will,” Caprice promised. Certainly, a visit to see Barton’s lawyer couldn’t be considered dangerous.

  At three o’clock on the dot, Caprice sat outside the office of the general counsel of Goodwin Enterprises. She hadn’t exactly told him what this was about when she’d called asking for a meeting. She’d simply said she was looking into Alanna’s background for the murder investigation and she needed to talk with him. He hadn’t asked about her credentials.

  A tall, thin, long-necked man—her vision of Ichabod Crane—opened the door and nodded to his secretary.

  “Miss De Luca?” he asked.

  Jeremy Travers’s wire-rimmed glasses were high on his narrow nose. He might look like a gangly character from literature, but she spotted quick intelligence and an alertness in his hazel eyes, which she’d expect in a lawyer.

  He beckoned her inside with one thin arm.

  Although he gave her a cursory once-over, he didn’t linger on anything about her appearance, her tie-dyed shirt or her pleated skirt and saddle shoes. That meant he was all business. Good. She could be as well.

  He motioned to the leather chair in front of his desk. “It’s good to meet you, Miss De Luca. Alanna told me you were staging her house. You have a reputation in this part of the cou
ntry for doing a bang-up job of that.”

  A bit of flattery to get them started. She couldn’t do the same for him because she didn’t know him, or his position in Alanna’s life. So she asked, “Were you Alanna’s confidant?”

  He studied her for a few moments before rounding the desk and lowering himself into the high-backed, cushy-looking, wheeled office chair. “Are you asking out of curiosity or because you’re hoping to solve a murder before the police do? I’ve read the articles on you.”

  “This isn’t a competition, Mr. Travers. If I discover anything of importance, I’ll be calling Detective Carstead, the lead detective on the case.”

  “Oh, I know him. He’s already interviewed me regarding Alanna’s position on the board.”

  “I’m not here about Alanna’s position on the board.”

  Ichabod’s, or rather Jeremy’s, eyebrows arched. “If I was a confidant, I would claim lawyer-client privilege.”

  “Alanna’s dead, Mr. Travers.”

  He seemed to go a shade paler. “Believe me, I know that.”

  She should just get to the point. “I know about the adoption. I know you were Barton’s lawyer and handled it. I learned the whole story from Diane Duncan.”

  He seemed appalled at that. “How did you find out? How did you ever find Diane?”

  Caprice basically explained about the photo she’d seen in Alanna’s hands and tracking down the dance studio, as well as the child and her mother.

  “You should be a detective,” he muttered. “Or maybe a PI.”

  “I don’t want to be either. Ace Richland is my friend, and he wants to know what happened to Alanna. He needs to know, and I would like to clear his name. So, will you answer a few questions for me?”

  “I suppose there’s no harm in hearing what they are,” he agreed reluctantly.

  “You arranged the adoption, correct?”

  “How do I know you really did talk to Diane?”

  “Because she showed me this.” Caprice took out her phone, found a photo in the gallery, and presented it to Jeremy Travers. It was the baby picture of Sherry that, on Caprice’s request, Diane had texted to her.