Into The Darkness

by Kathy

  "After he rapes me, or before?" Meg inquired.

  "Why, after ... I mean, before. . . . Are you smart-mouthing me, young lady?"

  "I wouldn't dream of it. Goodbye, Mrs. Henderson. Have a nice day."

  Mrs. Henderson's quavering voice followed her as she strode away; Meg caught the words "uppity" and "too smart for your own good."

  Nothing like a flood of adrenaline to cure a headache, she thought—and nothing so satisfying as settling an old score. She realized she was humming softly, and smiled as she recognized the tune: "Here's to you, Mrs. Henderson. . . ."

  Riley might be capable of embezzlement, but Meg seriously doubted that he had assaulted Candy, on or off the counter. It wasn't funny, though. Mrs. Henderson had a mind like a sewer and a mouth like a rattlesnake, but so did other people. If hers was the common belief, Riley was in trouble—and so, Meg realized, was she. By the time Mrs. Henderson got through embroidering and spreading the report of their conversation, half the town would think she and Riley were doing it on the counter.

  The first raindrops spattered down as she passed the hardware store and she broke into a trot, arriving at the store breathless and damp around the shoulders and head. Nothing nasty on the threshold; she paused to check, though the lights inside were on and the "Open" sign was displayed. Riley was nowhere to be seen, but the office door was ajar, and she heard his voice, accompanied by an odd, whining sound like a lathe cutting through metal.

  "How often do I have to say it, Debbie? I can't do it."

  "You could if you wanted to. You're in charge now—"

  "No, I'm not. And if I were, I still wouldn't do it. Tom is already suspicious. . . . Damn it, can't you shut that kid up?"

  Tommie's whine took on words. "I wanna go. I wanna lollipop. I wanna—" The unmistakable sound of a slap cut off the noun, and the child's voice rose to a scream.

  Meg had been holding the door open. Now she let it close. Glancing up, she saw that the chimes were missing. Bad luck for Riley, she thought, advancing toward the office. He must not have expected Debbie or he wouldn't have removed the warning signal.

  Debbie was trying to calm her writhing, shrieking son. The baby had added her voice to the uproar, forming a soprano obbligato. Riley had retreated behind the desk. His face was as cold as a plaster death mask. It didn't change when he saw Meg.

  It would have been impossible to make herself heard, so Meg didn't try. Instead she went back to the register, got a couple of lollipops, and shoved one under Tommie's nose. The screams stopped instantly, and Debbie, avoiding Meg's eyes, began to wipe her son's scarlet face with a tissue. Not that it was needed; Tommie hadn't shed a tear. He couldn't have been hurt much, Meg decided. And he is a thoroughly detestable brat. Even so, Riley had no business hitting him.

  Debbie's cheeks were as red as Tommie's. "I guess I better go," she muttered. "I'm sorry."

  "You're out early," Meg said.

  "Yes, well, Tommie has a dentist's appointment, so I thought I'd stop and talk to you, but you weren't here, so I—uh—I asked Mr. Riley about a job."

  "And he turned you down." Might as well let them know she had overheard part of the conversation—let them guess how much.

  "Well. . . ."

  "It wouldn't work, Debbie," Meg said. She was still furious with both of them, but the other woman's woebegone countenance—and that damned pathetic patched hole in her shoe— made her add, "We need someone with experience. Selling antique jewelry isn't like selling oranges and carrots, you have to know something about the subject so you can answer questions intelligently."

  Debbie didn't argue. She seemed to be more concerned with getting herself and the children out of the store as quickly as possible. Meg accompanied her to the door and then turned to Riley, who had followed them out of the office.

  "What happened to the chimes?"

  He had been braced for another question. It took him a few seconds to make the mental switch. "Uh—you kept saying they sounded funny, so I decided to have a look at them. One of the bells was dented, so the clapper didn't swing freely. I fixed it. Thought I'd let you listen to them before I put them back up."

  "How did it get dented?"

  "Somebody threw something at it."

  Candy or Debbie, or some other infuriated female admirer? Meg didn't ask. "Let's hear them," she said shortly.

  The chimes were antiques, a set of silver bells that had once adorned the collar of a sacred cow in India. At least that had been Dan's story. Riley lifted them with his big scarred hand and swung them back and forth. "That's much better," Meg said.

  "Better? If they're not right—"

  "They're perfect."

  "I'll put them back up then."

  "Need any help?"

  "I got them down all by myself, didn't I?"

  "All right, all right. Don't be so grouchy!"

  Returning to the office, Meg sat down at the desk and reached for the telephone. Thanks to Riley she was now in the proper mood to deal with her soon-to-be former boss.

  His reaction was exactly what she had expected—a howl of rage and a torrent of reproaches—but instead of feeling apologetic and defensive Meg focused her anger and waited for a chance to let fly.

  From the shop came a muted jingle of bells and Riley's heavy footsteps. From the receiver at her ear came a torrent of profane reproach. How could she do this to him? She couldn't do this to him. Quitting without notice was unprofessional. And ungrateful. After all he had done for her. . . .

  "Finished?" she inquired, when the curses faltered.

  "Hell, no. The least you can do is get your ass back here for a month while I train your successor."

  "My ass is fine where it is, thank you." There was a loud, startled peal of the bells, and Meg grinned. She went on, "You've been training my darling assistant Kimberley for weeks, on the couch in your office. Don't tell me my job wasn't part of the payoff. Tit for tat, if you'll excuse a bad pun. As for giving notice, I'm giving you the same you gave Danny Bernstein and Joe DeMerritte and half a dozen other people since I've had the dubious pleasure of working for you. I don't owe—what was that? Why, Jack. That's no way to talk to a lady."

  A thud and a crash from the room beyond gave her an additional reason to hang up the phone. She went to the door. The ladder lay on its side. Riley, his back to her, was in the act of righting it.

  "Are you sure you don't want me to hold the ladder?" she asked sweetly.

  Riley swung around to face her. "I didn't hit the kid."

  "Oh? I mean. . . . Oh."

  "He's a spoiled brat, but I don't hit children. Or little old ladies."

  She didn't understand why it mattered so much to him. He must know he had been accused of worse things than slapping a naughty child. "Or women?" she inquired.

  "Not unless they hit me first."

  "Or offer to help you."

  "Yeah. I'm sorry if I was rude. I don't—I'm not very good at accepting favors."

  "Oh, yeah?"

  This time it didn't work. Riley's eyes shifted; he scooped the ladder up, one-handed, and backed away. "There's something wrong with this thing, it wobbles. I'll put the chimes up later."

  Meg hesitated for a moment, but she didn't feel capable of continuing that peculiar conversation, so she let him go and returned to the office.

  He had overheard everything she had said on the phone, as she had meant him to, and he was too intelligent to have failed to comprehend how her decision would affect him. Why hadn't he asked her point-blank about her intentions regarding the store, instead of bringing up the inconsequential issue of whether or not he had slapped Tommie? If he cared that much about her opinion of him, he should be just as concerned about her reaction to his relationship with Tommie's mother. His personal life was none of her business, but if he couldn't keep his women out of the store it became her business.

  He had some cause for resentment, though. She had told almost everyone about her decision except the person it most concerned. S
ince their first exchange on the subject of the store she and Riley had avoided the subject. Her own feelings had changed, but there was no reason to suppose he felt any differently, nor would it have been fair to expect him to read her mind, as her friends and family had done, anticipating her decision before she acknowledged it herself. She had better have it out with him, man-to-man and face-to-face. And the sooner the better. Touchy as he was, he might think she had allowed him to overhear the phone call as a subtle and insulting method of breaking the news.

  It took her some time to work out her strategy. The arrival of the mailman was a welcome distraction; after filing the bills, receipts and checks that had arrived, she went to the intercom. "I've got a couple of errands to do," she announced. "Back in half an hour."

  The response was not encouraging. A grunt.

  It was raining hard. Meg had to borrow an umbrella. There was always a random assortment of them in a Chinese vase behind the door. Some had been forgotten by customers, others acquired by Dan in his forays around town; he had a habit of borrowing things like pens, umbrellas and books, and never returning them. The one Meg selected was a woman's, pale pink nylon with printed pansies. She wondered to whom it had belonged. It looked like Candy's style, but Candy wasn't likely to have left anything behind.

  When she got back she carried her parcels into the office and then buzzed Riley. "Let's do lunch."

  Another grunt. This one had a rising inflection, so she interpreted it as a question.

  "I said, let's do lunch."

  "I brought mine."

  "So did I."

  A long pause. "Are you suggesting we eat our sandwiches in the same room?"

  Meg rolled her eyes heavenward. "The phrase 'do lunch' has certain connotations, Riley. I'd like to talk with you."

  Another pause. "It's not time for lunch."

  "At your convenience," Meg said.

  "Twenty minutes."

  "Thank you."

  There was no reply, not even a grunt.

  Meg went to the case in which Riley's jewelry reposed and took out the silver pendant. It's worth it, she told herself, running a reverent finger over the sensuous silver curves. I hope.

  Exactly nineteen minutes and thirty-five seconds later Riley emerged, and in spite of her exasperation Meg was amused at the wariness of his expression, which suggested he would have felt safer holding a chair and a whip. His hair was damp; he must have slicked it down with his hands. They had been scrubbed until they looked raw, especially across the knuckles.

  His eyes went to the door. "You closed up?"

  "It's Monday and it's raining. There hasn't been a customer all morning. Besides, I don't want to be interrupted."

  At her gesture he followed her into the office. Meg had taken some pains with the arrangements; both chairs faced the desk, which was covered with newspapers and spread with the food she had picked up that morning. The tall, slim wine bottle stood like a sentinel in the midst of the waxed-paper wrappings. Riley stared at it as if it had been a cobra raised to strike. "What are you celebrating?"

  Meg took a deep breath. She felt ridiculously nervous. She seized the back of the chair to hide the fact that her hands were shaking. "I hope we'll both be celebrating, Riley. Our partnership."

  Riley transferred his horrified stare from the wine to her face. "Don't look at me as if I had suggested we rob a bank," Meg said. Now that she had taken the plunge her nervousness was gone. She sat down, arranging her skirts gracefully, and gestured at the other chair. "It might not be so bad, you know."

  Riley didn't so much sit as fall into the chair. "I don't understand."

  "No? Then I'll spell it out. Dan always wanted me to become involved in the business. I turned him down because . . . well, I had my reasons. I should have known he wouldn't give up that easily—that he would use any means, even his own death, to force me to do what he wanted. And the worst of it is. . . ." Meg had to stop and clear her throat. She had almost lost sight of the fact that Riley was there; he was as silent and rigid as a piece of furniture. "The worst of it is, Dan was right. This is where I belong. This is what I want to do. Damn the old devil anyhow—wherever he is, I'll bet he's gloating."

  Riley shifted position. "You really mean it."

  "Yes, I really mean it. Have a sandwich." Meg reached for one at random and bit into it.

  "Okay." He wasn't accepting her offer of a sandwich, he was acknowledging her sincerity. "Dan always said you were fighting him out of pure bullheadedness, but I figured maybe he was indulging in wishful thinking. I guess he wasn't. You can buy me out."

  Meg felt as if her jaw had come unhinged. "What. . . . What are you. . . . You still don't get it, Riley. Seeing your work was my catharsis, my moment of truth." She put her sandwich down and leaned forward, holding his eyes with hers. "You have an extraordinary talent. The fact that I can see it, thrill to it, doesn't give me the right to buy it, or you. You can walk off into the night with your nose in the air. But you'd be a damned fool to do it. I'm offering you. . . . No. I'm asking you to let our partnership stand. I'll run the store and market your work. You do your own thing your own way. Maybe do some of the repairs, until we find another goldsmith to help you. We can work out the details. We can talk about it. What do you say?"

  "We." The word came slowly and with difficulty. "Riley and Mignot?"

  "Oh, no. Mignot and Riley."

  It was a good thing she was sitting down. Not a smile this time, a full-fledged, spontaneous grin that curved his cheeks and brightened his eyes to topaz. "Yeah, right. You're crazy, you know that? For all you know, I could be a serial killer."

  Meg felt light-headed. "Mrs. Henderson says you're an embolizer."

  "An. . . . Oh. As in embolizing money?" The grin faded. "That's one thing I haven't done. But it's probably the least of the crimes this town thinks I've committed."

  "I don't care what the town thinks. Well?"

  Riley's heavy eyebrows lowered. "I'll think about it."

  "That's damned condescending of you," Meg said.

  The deep mellow sound was so unfamiliar she looked around the room seeking its origin before she realized what it was. Riley was laughing. "Give me the wine," he ordered. "Most people can't open wine bottles without breaking the cork."

  After Riley had gone back to the shop Meg tidied up the desk, crumpling crumbs, uneaten food and miscellaneous wrappings into the newspaper tablecloth and putting the wine bottle aside. They had each had one small ceremonial glassful. He didn't drink to excess, at least not on the job. . . .

  Mignot and Riley. Most people can't open wine bottles. . . . He hadn't said "Women can't." He could laugh. He had offered to walk away, without a fight, and leave her in control. . . .

  In the "Oh, my God, what have I done?" reaction that follows the burning of bridges, Meg was counting Riley's virtues, such as they were, in an attempt to reassure herself. She didn't need to count the entries on the negative side of the ledger; she was only too well aware of them. So he didn't hit children. Good for him. Apparently his reputation as a Don Juan was based on something more than idle rumor, though at first glance he seemed an unlikely candidate for the role. No doubt some women found his dour manner a challenge, and there was no denying the appeal of that unexpected smile. Even those big hands of his, so clumsy-looking but capable of the most delicate touch. . . .

  Watch it, lady, she told herself, stuffing the newspapers into the wastebasket. Relationships of that kind were fatal in business, especially for the woman, who got screwed in every sense of the word. There was nothing wrong with an erotic fantasy or two, but she didn't want Riley's hands on her—she wanted them on the tools of his trade, turning out masterpieces to make the name and fame of Mignot and Riley.

  The name tasted good, as smooth as chocolate melting in the mouth. She'd be trading to some extent on Dan's reputation, but it couldn't carry her all the way; if she failed it would be her failure, if she succeeded, her own triumph.

  And Riley's. But h
e needed her, or someone like her; he didn't know how to sell himself, he was too prickly, too suspicious, too innocent to survive in the dog-eat-dog world of business. Meg settled herself behind the desk and stared at the papers in front of her. Innocent. ... It was a strange word to associate with Riley. More likely she was the innocent one, hoping to win his loyalty simply by playing fair. It was not a recommended technique for survival, much less success, in the ordinary world.

  So why did she think it would work with Riley? He was the most obvious suspect in the matter of the rings. If he had sent them it could only be because he was trying to drive her away. Yet just now he had said she could buy him out. It might have been a lie designed to disarm her, but it had been unnecessary and oddly without guile—too good to be true, too noble not to arouse suspicion. Meg shook her head despairingly. None of it made sense. The anonymous phone call and the attack of the deadly pickup truck didn't mesh with the affair of the rings. She had a sense of two different minds at work, one direct and threatening, the other more subtle. And neither of them fit Riley.

  The day dragged on, dreary with rain, inactivity and a sense of letdown. Waiting for customers who never came, Meg kept glancing at the closed door of the shop. Was he sitting idle, staring at nothingness as she had done most of the day? She hadn't expected him to fall down and kiss her feet, babbling with gratitude, but some demonstration of increased goodwill would have been welcome.

  Late in the afternoon Darren called to ask if she wanted a ride home. "It's still raining, and I noticed you didn't drive to work. You should get in the habit, Meg, that's a rather lonely stretch of road between the edge of town and the estate."

  "How do you know I didn't drive?" Meg asked.

  "Your car wasn't in the lot or in front of the store. Why don't I come by in, say, half an hour?"

  "Because I'm not going home tonight. I have an engagement for dinner."

  "Oh?"

  Shame on you, Meg told herself. "With Mike Potter."