She resented the implication that the events years ago had progressed in a predictable pattern—lust, rejection, and violence. From disliking Rosemary, she had come to view the girl as a victim in more ways than just the manner of her death. Flora and Terrell had spoken of the young woman in a condescending tone, as if by verbalizing her actions they could supply her motivations—fit her into a manageable category. Yet, Abigail had also recognized a hint of jealousy since, in maintaining her privacy, Rosemary had insured that her true essence still eluded them.
Flicking a bread crumb from the tablecloth, she said, “Psychopath? All we know is that he had a violent temper. How about you, Ross? If our waiter spilled wine on your suit, would you sue the restaurant or punch him in the nose?”
He blinked and ran his hand through his hair, a gesture that made her fingers itch to stroke the short strands to see if they were as silky as a kitten’s fur. “Is this a trick question? Like, have I stopped beating my wife?”
“Have you? I mean, have you ever been married?” She willed herself to treat his answer with casual interest, but curiosity about the mysterious Olivia was suddenly uppermost in her mind.
He didn’t elaborate. “Yes to the second question. My turn. Are you still unfaithful to your husband?”
“Touché!” Abigail felt her cheeks burn. “It’s just that we know so little about each other…”
As soon as the words were out of her mouth, she wished she could recall them. He was treating this conversation as a game with complex rules known only to himself and his smile meant she’d just handed him a trump card. The scarlet candle sputtering in a glass bowl in the middle of the table dappled shadows along his jawline and lit tiny flames in the pupils of his eyes.
“I know a wonderful way to get acquainted.” His hand reached out to cover hers, but Abigail pulled free, determined not to play any longer.
“Do you mind another personal question?”
“It depends.” He rested his chin in his hand. “If you want to know whether I prefer mint- or cinnamon-flavored dental floss, that’s getting into a sensitive area.”
“When you prosecute an abuser, are you punishing your father?”
With the sudden impact of an avalanche, her question smothered the atmosphere of intimacy he’d been trying to establish, and his nostrils flared in disdain. “Let me guess—you took a few psychology courses in college.”
She reined in her temper and returned his sardonic gaze. “If we’re going to work together, I need to know the answer to my question.”
“Why? As long as I get results, are my motives relevant?” He shifted in the chair, his tone defensive.
“I sense a lot of anger in you, Ross, unhealed wounds from the past…”
Her voice trailed away as he leaned forward, spacing each word. “I prosecute those who break the law. I may have a special empathy for those battered women and children who are trapped in the snake pit of violence, but I fought my way out. I survived.”
Ross spread his hands on the table. “You’re asking me to turn out my emotional pockets, but your fists remained bunched in your own. Communication is a two-way street, Red. You shy away from disclosing anything personal but keep shoving me under the microscope, pricking me and waiting for me to bleed.”
She stirred the bisque again to hide the nervous tremor of her hands. The ruffled surface of the bisque reminded her somehow of quicksand—and the hidden pitfalls of this conversation. If only this game contained a set of truth cards so she could force him to answer the question that burned in the back of her mind: Did you send me that bouquet with its hateful message and the poor crushed rose? But the man was as impossible to read as a good poker player with a full house. After the quick flare-up, he’d subsided into watchfulness, his emotions back on a tight leash.
She tried again. “We’re working to solve a murder. We can’t allow our own personalities to intrude—”
He was shaking his head. “We don’t have a murder. Just an unexplained death that might have been an accident. Rosemary sounds like a woman who loved to dance on the rim of the volcano—not surprisingly, she fell in and was consumed by the flames. But more important, you evaded me again. Who are you, Abigail James? Do you like dancing on the volcano’s rim, bubbling lava licking at your feet, hot ash searing your lungs?”
The air seemed thinner, as if the two of them had been transported to the top of that volcano. The stripe of Ross’s tie against the lightness of his shirt was red. Narrow and red. But did it represent the scarlet of passion, the crimson of pain, or the vermilion hue of betrayal?
The import of what he had said filtered through her thoughts and she stiffened, jolted by anger. “Is that how you see Rosemary? As deserving of what she got? Do you also think a prostitute deserves to be beaten by her pimp or a battered woman is asking for abuse? That your mother begged to be slapped around by your father—”
She covered her mouth with her hand, appalled at her own words as Ross flushed to the roots of his hair. “That’s enough!” He slammed his fist down on the table. “Leave her out of this!”
But Abigail was in the grip of a strong emotion she couldn’t stop to analyze, fired by a righteous wrath that drove her to continue trampling across sacred ground. “Everyone, Flora, Connie—even your aunt—blames Rosemary in some way, has given me the impression that she brought disaster upon herself. But I believe she posed a threat to those around her because they couldn’t control her—or control themselves around her.”
“What has this got to do with us?”
“You’re trying to control me. You’re demanding openness. You say with such pride that you survived—you fought your way out. People have different ‘snake pits’ than violence, Ross, and some pits are so deep and so treacherous that you can’t fight or claw your way out unaided.” She sank back, trembling, the odors of food and wine suddenly overpowering her and tears of frustration and tension very close to the surface.
“The bisque is not to your liking, madame? May I bring you something else?”
Their waiter had floated out of the dim corridor linking the tables and his questions brought him an angry glare from Ross and a shake of the head from Abigail, who didn’t trust herself to speak. The man retreated, after a sharp glance at Ross.
She was exhausted, limp in her chair, muscles aching as if she’d been physically battered. This bout between unequally matched opponents had gone too many rounds and she tried to stop the contest by explaining her outburst. “Sometimes a person needs a helping hand to escape, Ross. No one reached out to Rosemary. They just watched. Watched her fall into the volcano, watched her burn, watched her die.”
He unleashed a body punch, a sneer twisting his lips. “A vestal virgin sacrificed to appease someone’s gods? You have no proof it wasn’t an accident.”
“An accident? The newspaper is censored, the coroner goes through the motions, and the records are sealed. And who had the influence to gag the paper and buy the coroner? Lawrence Kyle!”
“You’re tossing accusations around like flower petals, Ms. James. A dead man—guilty of bribery and murder! An easy conviction. Doesn’t it bother you that in the process you’ll crucify his son?”
“A girl was murdered. They all killed her and buried her under a conspiracy of silence. Doesn’t that bother you?” Each breath rasped across a dry throat as she stared at him, her eyes pleading with him to nod, speak, give any sign of agreement.
“My mother loved my father. I don’t know why she wouldn’t leave him…” Naked, helpless anguish throbbed in his voice.
She heard the words left unsaid—he’d offered succor to his mother and it had been refused. A woman had chosen her husband over her son. Continuing this discussion was hopeless—they were talking at cross-purposes.
With a cough and a sweeping look of condemnation at the untouched food, the waiter presented the bill on a silver tray. Ross signed for it and rose, each action the careful, muscle-testing movement of a much older man.
>
As they walked down the steps, only inches apart but separated by a wide emotional chasm, Abigail debated whether to go back into the restaurant and call a taxi or risk the ride home with Ross. Any chance of working together had been shattered by their last exchange, and now, in the muggy air of a summer evening, she wondered at her heated defense of Rosemary. Somehow her relationship with Ross had become entangled with past pain and losses, the conflict intensified by the underlying thread of sexual tension present since their first encounter.
Her attention was caught when someone gasped and exclaimed, “Ross!” The speaker was a blond woman emerging from the car idling at the curb.
Ross descended the last step and took up a bracing stance, his feet spread apart and hands behind his back before he responded. “Good evening, Olivia.”
Olivia. Abigail’s first impression was of a heart-shaped face and the cheekbones of a fashion model, until she noted the shadows under the eyes and the pinched mouth that the artfully applied makeup failed to conceal.
The woman in the shimmering blue dress ran her tongue over her lips. Her next words startled Abigail. “Have you hurt her, too?”
In her peripheral vision, she was aware that Ross had stiffened, but she was mesmerized by the choked whisper and the anguish in Olivia’s eyes as she raised a cupped, slender hand in supplication—a fair maiden pleading with a cruel king for clemency.
After a moment, the hand dropped to her side and Olivia turned her haunted gaze on Abigail. “Don’t let him hurt you.”
Ross sucked in his breath between his teeth. “Please—no, Olivia!” The words were almost a groan.
Her escort signaled the parking valet not to drive off, but Olivia ignored his hand as her companion tried to lead her back to the car.
“Tell her what you did to me,” she demanded, swaying slightly, the streetlights winking off the glittering panels of her gown.
Abigail caught a whiff of liquor on the other woman’s breath and felt a rush of pity, but Ross stood silent, making no attempt to stem the bitter flow.
When she spoke again, however, Olivia’s voice had an eerie musical quality that sent shivers chasing up and down Abigail’s spine. “He let our baby die.” She drooped, a blond madonna hanging her head in sorrow. “He broke my arm. Our baby’s dead and he hurt me and hurt me and hurt me.” The voice rose in a crescendo of liquid, crystal pain. “Tell this girl the truth, Ross. Tell her!” She lunged forward, using her nails to rake his face.
He didn’t flinch under the attack, but Olivia smiled when blood welled out of the scratches and stained Ross’s shirt collar with dark blots. “Confess, Ross. Weren’t you alone in the house when our baby died? Didn’t you break my wrist?”
A hoarse croak. “Yes, Olivia.”
She inhaled, a shuddering breath. “You see? He admits his guilt.”
As though someone had drawn a veil across her face, the triumphant smile vanished. Her shoulders slumped and the slim body swayed again. Her companion swept her up in his arms, carried her back to the bronze Continental, and the door whispered shut, but not before Abigail heard the thin wail of a child as Olivia shrieked, “Please, make him stop hurting me.”
After the car had roared away, Abigail turned to Ross, but his gaze was still directed at the empty space where it had stood. The unkind moonlight revealed lines chiseled deep around his mouth and eyes and winked off the drops glistening in the parallel gouges, the brand of Olivia’s fury.
“Ross?”
“Happy now, Red?” he said coldly. “Now you know that I didn’t crawl out of that snake pit of violence. How about giving me a hand up? You heard my confession, now grant me absolution for my sins.”
His voice, the words were hard and ugly. Shocked and confused, Abigail took a step back.
“Scared? I told you I beat up my old man. Don’t experts say that domestic violence is a vicious circle that’s difficult to break? So it naturally follows that I slapped my wife around, destroyed Olivia emotionally. Like father, like son.”
“I don’t believe you.” She wanted him to deny Olivia’s accusations, ached to hear from his lips that he was innocent of his ex-wife’s charges. Everything else was forgotten in her sudden conviction that the man who’d spoken so feelingly of the desolation wrought by his father’s brutality was incapable of abusing Olivia.
But he stood motionless, his body braced as if to withstand yet another attack, a beautiful marble man who would always remain untouched by the elements, by pleas or tears. She hesitated, her thoughts in turmoil.
His harsh laughter struck Abigail like a blow. “I can see doubt written all over that exquisite face of yours, Red. Better get away before I hurt you. Run away like my mother, like Olivia did.”
The anguish in his voice seemed to explode into the still night air. Abigail found herself shrinking from Ross and turning away, her faltering feet putting distance between her and the man who seemed bent on extracting such a costly emotional toll.
“Red! Come back!” He sounded like a man whose grip on the lifeline to safety was weakening.
She looked back and saw that his hands were outstretched. Hating herself for her cowardice, Abigail averted her eyes and kept walking, leaving him alone and vulnerable on the sidewalk under the cold eye of the remorseless moon.
Chapter 22
Helen had spent the afternoon in the attic sorting the contents of a ribbed wood and brass chest with tarnished buckles. When her hands were busy, she found it easier to avoid thinking about Darlene’s threats. Yellowing lace-scalloped bonnets, report cards, a jar with three baby teeth rattling around in the bottom, a pair of broken roller skates—a fascinating, jumbled scrap-book of her children’s lives. The air in the upper room was stiflingly close; sweat beaded her forehead and soaked her stomach as she folded a pair of ancient gym shorts.
The sound of a powerful engine brought her to her feet, baby bonnet in hand, and over to the spinning wheel window. In the driveway below, her daughters were emerging from a maroon Cadillac. Darlene, with her father’s determined chin and china-blue eyes, was in the lead while plump Paula, in contrast to her sister’s lean grace, walked with mincing steps on size-four feet.
By the time she had made her cautious way down the attic steps, Darlene was turning her key in the lock. Helen knew changing the locks would be a useless gesture—a locked door affected her daughter the way a new peak challenged a mountain climber. Paula was panting; the short journey to the front door had worn her out.
“Mother, we have to talk!” Darlene raised her voice to be heard over her sister’s wheezes.
“I didn’t expect this was an early Mother’s Day surprise.” Helen followed her eldest child’s march into the living room.
Paula collapsed into the armchair, her round pink mouth open as she gasped for air. She looks like a goldfish, Helen thought. Poor Paula had probably been coerced into showing a united front and would rather be home with a glass of wine and the television set.
“You’ve written another check, Mother. One for two hundred dollars to a Cliff Dell. Explain who he is and where I can get our—your money back.”
Helen braced herself. “Mr. Dell is going to paint my house,” she replied. “He needed a down payment for paint and—”
“A painter? From Lincoln City? I’ve never heard of him.” Darlene chopped off her words and they lay between the women like crisp carrot slices on a cutting board.
Helen tried to explain. “He’s not a painter—he used to work at the bottling plant until he was laid off last fall.”
“You hired an amateur to paint your house?” Darlene was appalled and even Paula managed to summon the energy for a disapproving look before letting her head fall back to the cushion.
“Mr. Dell needs the money. Mr. Fraizer down the road hired him to paint a garage and he did a nice job.”
But Darlene wasn’t listening. Anger that her mother was being taken advantage of and the fear of seeing her potential inheritance drained battled for supr
emacy across her features. Greed won.
“I don’t make idle threats, Mother.” The square black stones in her necklace rivaled the obsidian hardness of her gaze. “You’re throwing away the money Dad left. All I have to do is call my lawyer and he’ll set the wheels in motion to have the court declare you incompetent.”
Helen’s mouth was dry. Her gaze focused on Darlene’s pointing finger. Lose her home? Be labeled senile? She could never have conceived, carried, and nurtured a child who could utter a threat so monstrous.
Paula stirred, straightening her crumpled linen jacket. “Do you have any wine, Mother? I’m dreadfully thirsty. Your house is always stuffy and I’m sensitive to the heat.”
Helen grimaced at the fretfulness of her tone, remembering when Paula was a gurgling, happy baby, and she was a proud mother.
“Just orange juice or iced tea,” she replied, nursing the forlorn hope that Paula’s craving for a drink would drive them away.
“I need a drink,” Paula began to whine, but Darlene cut her off with an upraised hand.
“Shut up, Sis. This is important. Mother, we’re going to get this straight if we have to stay here all night.”
“Darlene, this is an inconvenient time—”
“I drove over here to explain exactly what will happen if we go to court and you’re going to listen to me, Mother!”
Helen held herself erect and tried not to listen to the parade of hateful words: trial, incompetency, publicity, nursing home, judge…After what seemed like an eternity to the beleaguered woman, they departed, with Paula still bemoaning her thirst and Darlene’s crisp reminder that “You’d better toe the line, Mother, or I’ll be back with a judge behind me.”
The car left in a cloud of dust. Helen tried to block out the unpleasant encounter as she refilled the bird feeder and put out nuts and corn for the squirrels. With shaking hands, she unclipped the clothespins and took down the towels and linens drying on the line, but the fear and restless anxiety had begun to build again, a tiny cloud swelling in size, drawing her back to the past.
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