Authors: Patricia Paris
Abby bit her lip. "I can't do
that, Gage."
"Why? I've got to work
tomorrow, but we'll have tomorrow night. I can move my meetings on Sunday back
a couple of hours so we can spend the morning together. You can be back in
Philly Sunday evening."
"I can't just fly to Chicago. Besides,
Detective Simms told me not to leave town."
"I doubt Simms will care if
you let him know. I told you I don't think he considers you his prime suspect
anymore."
"I can't, Gage. I know what
you're doing, but it's not necessary. You need to focus on whatever business
required you to be in Chicago.
Besides, my mom's been threatening to disown me because I haven't gone for a
visit in so long. I thought since I didn't have other plans, I'd soothe my
guilt about being such a horrible daughter and have dinner at my parents'
tomorrow night."
A pleasure boat cruised past the
site. She heard Gage sigh. Come back, she thought, tempted to shout into the
phone.
I need you so badly. I'm not really all right. Come back.
She
closed her eyes again and wrapped her free arm around her waist.
"Listen, sweetheart, we just
pulled up to the terminal. Since it's obvious I'm not going to win this one,
I'll call you when I get to Chicago."
"You don't have to call. I
told you I'm fine, and I'll probably go to bed early tonight. We can catch up
when you get back to Philly."
He was silent a moment. "Give
me back to Matt," he said briskly, and she wondered at his ability to
switch back to business mode so abruptly.
"Okay, good luck with your
meetings this weekend." She walked over to where Matt stood talking to the
foreman and extended the phone.
"Mr. Faraday wants to talk to
you again." After handing it over, she wasn't sure whether to stay where
she was or if Matt would prefer she give him some privacy. She glanced at him
and was surprised to see him studying her.
He looked away and started to pace.
He moved further from her, his conversation with Gage low and muffled. He
glanced in her direction several times. She reached up to make sure her hardhat
wasn't on crooked. She glanced down, but didn't see anything obviously wrong
with her suit.
Matt ended the call and walked back
toward her, clipping the cell on his belt.
"I'm afraid we'll have to cut
the tour short," he said with a casual air that made her wonder if she'd
imagined he'd been scrutinizing her for the last several minutes. "Gage
needs me to look into a security problem."
"Nothing serious, I
hope."
"No," he assured her.
"I've got to run over to see Grace so I'll drop you off at your office on
the way."
"Oh, thanks, that's sweet, but
I'm not going back to the office. I've got a bit of a headache, and I thought
I'd just go home from here. I can grab a cab."
He hesitated. "No problem.
I'll drop you off at your place."
Abby managed a smile. "You
don't have to do that, Matt. It's out of your way."
He stuck his tongue in the corner
of his mouth and glanced away. With a sigh he turned back to her. "Gage
told me to make sure you got wherever you were going from here.
If that means home, then that's the way I'm going."
She thought about protesting, but
if she refused a ride, Gage would probably ream Matt out for not following
orders. She put her hands on her hips and frowned.
"What about having to go see
Grace?" she asked with an arched brow.
He smiled sheepishly. "I will
be stopping by the office, but Gage asked me not to make it obvious he wanted
me to look after you."
"I don't need looking
after." She started to walk toward the site entrance. Matt caught up to
her, and she glanced sideways at him. "You can tell
him
I said
that."
He nodded. "You got it."
She doubted it. His boss wanted him to
babysit
her,
he'd
babysit
her. She felt too miserable to argue.
Between the cops, the reporters,
and
GFI's
security team, there wouldn't be a parking
spot to be had within three blocks of
~~~
"Do you have any idea what a
spectacle you're making of yourself? Have you stopped once to think about the
effect your behavior is having on your mother and me?"
Abby set her glass of water down
and stared at her father across the kitchen table. She should have known better
than to accept her mother's invitation to dinner with everything that was
happening.
"Stop it, Walter. You're
upsetting her."
"I'm upsetting her! I can't
even hold my goddamn head up when I go into town. It was bad enough she caused
a public scandal by driving Dick away. Now the police think she killed him.
You'd think she'd have enough sense to lie low, but no, not our daughter."
Abby's father glared at her.
"She has to jump into bed with that playboy and show all the world what a
tramp she is."
"I'm not a tramp." Abby
shot back, coming out of her chair.
"Of course you're not,"
her mother said, rising as well. "Your father didn't mean that, He's
just—"
"And I didn't drive Dick
away!" Abby said, wanting to scream at him. "He cheated on me, Dad.
He cheated on me!" She poked her chest.
"He wouldn't have strayed if
you'd put a little effort into your marriage."
"Oh, is that what he told you?
I can't believe this!" She pushed her hands through her hair. "He
humiliated me. Doesn't that bother you? He was sleeping with other women even
when we were together. He was the tramp."
Her mother put an arm around Abby's
shoulder. She took a slow breath. "I can't believe you're defending him.
Or are you more upset because you can no longer claim the senator's son for a
son-in-law?" she asked, afraid she already knew the answer.
Her father narrowed his eyes.
They'd never been close. Still, she'd convinced herself deep down he must care
about her. Had she been fooling herself all along? Was his social standing
really more important to him than she was? Please prove me wrong, Dad, she
thought. Don't destroy what little love I've tried to salvage for you.
"I told that detective who
called that you'd made up all that smut in your diary. Damn it girl, your
husband hasn't even been dead a month, and you're creating another scandal
throwing yourself at that bastard Faraday again. I should have pressed charges
against him when I had the chance."
Abby started to shake. Her entire
body vibrated with anger and disappointment.
"Walter, please," her
mother said, "she's been through enough the last few weeks." She
squeezed Abby's shoulder. "Why don't you sit back down and eat your
dinner, sweetheart." She shot Abby's father a warning glance.
"Walter, sit down and let's have dinner as a family."
"It's okay, mom," Abby
said, "I have to go. I've got some work to catch up on tonight."
"But you only got here an hour
ago, and you haven't eaten anything yet."
"Let her go. That's what she
always does when she doesn't want to face up to things."
"How would you know?" Abby
turned toward him, firming her chin. "You probably know more about your
caddy at the country club than you do about me."
He looked at her as if waiting for
her to make a point.
"I sent you a birthday card
last month," she said. "Did you get it?"
"I got it. What's that have to
do with anything?"
"Do you know when my birthday
is, Dad?"
"January," he said,
crossing his arms.
"Close.
February third. At least that's what it says on my birth certificate."
"Abby," her mother said.
"Don't worry, Mom, I'm done.
I really do have some things I need to do." She kissed her on the cheek.
"I'll call you in a couple of days."
She retrieved her sweater from the
back of her chair. She folded it and laid it over her arm, smoothing it once
before she turned to go.
Halfway across the room she
hesitated. "Goodbye, Dad," she said, and waited a second. He didn't
respond. She swallowed and walked out of the kitchen, across the thick Persian
rug in the dining room, past the framed print of John Singer
Sargent's
Daughters of Edward
Darley
Bolt
in the foyer, and out of the house. She closed the front door, and
another one shut in her heart. One less key to carry around she told herself,
and dashed the tear from her cheek.
CHAPTER
FIFTEEN
"
W
hy don't you open a
bottle of wine while I get the phone?" Abby picked up the cordless handset
and took it back to the stove so she could keep an eye on the onions and garlic
she was cooking for the marinara sauce.
Sweating
, she thought. Her
mother would say she was
sweating the onions
, cooking them just until
they became clear without letting them brown.
She wasn't much of a cook. Pasta
marinara was the one thing she'd learned to make from her mom, and everyone
told Abby it was the best they'd ever tasted. She'd mastered it. It was her
standby if someone came to dinner and she cooked. Squirt some bottled dressing
on a bag of mixed lettuce, add some bread, some wine, and presto, you had a
respectable meal.
The phone rang and Abby picked it
up, hoping it might be Gage to say he'd be home Monday night instead of
Tuesday.
"Oh, hello,
Detective Simms."
She turned to look at Rachael, who rolled her
eyes and smirked. Abby shook her head. She didn't understand her friend's
reaction to the man.
"I apologize for bothering you
on a Sunday evening," the detective said, "but I wonder if you could
just answer a couple of questions."
"If I can," she said.
"Was there anyone other than
you or your ex-husband who had a key to the property in Florida?"
"I suppose my parents had one,
but other than that I don't think so."
"Did either of you ever offer
anyone the use of the place for a vacation? Someone you might have given a key
to and forgotten about it?"
"No, at least I never have. I
don't know if Dick did, but I doubt it."
Rachael finished filling the
glasses and set the bottle on the counter. She held one up and Abby nodded.
"Most of the people I know
wouldn't consider it much of a vacation destination," she explained.
"It was relatively secluded, so unless you were looking to escape and do
nothing, it didn't have much to offer. Why are you asking?"
"Because he's sadistic,"
Rachael mumbled close to her other ear as she handed her the glass of wine.
"He enjoys messing with people's minds."
"Stop it."
"Stop asking you
questions?" Simms said.
"Oh, no, sorry, I didn't mean
you. My friend Rachael's here. She came over for dinner. I was talking to
her."
Simms was quiet for a moment.
"I apologize for interrupting your meal."
"You don't have to apologize.
We were just having a glass of wine. The sauce isn't ready yet."
"Like he cares about the
sauce,"
Rach
said with a snort.
Abby gave her a look that said
behave
yourself
. "Will you open that can
of tomatoes and pour them in there before my onions brown?"
"Sorry,
Detective, Rachael again."
"I'll let you get back to your
dinner," Simms said. "If you think of anyone else who might have had
a key, would you give me a call?"
"I will, but like I already
said, I'm pretty sure no one else did."
"Goodnight, and tell your
friend I said hello."
Abby slid a glance to Rachael.
"Umm, okay. Bye."
Rachael put a hand on her hip.
"What was that all about?"
"He wanted to know if anyone
other than Dick or I had keys to my grandmother's house in Florida."
Abby poured the linguini from the
box into the pot of boiling water. "This whole business about Dick selling
the property is weird. I mean the police said they talked with the developer,
who swears he met with Dick in Florida
and that Dick had told him he was there on vacation for the week."
Wondering what extra keys could
have to do with it, she leaned a hip against the counter, holding the wooden
spoon in the air. "I suppose it's possible he could have gone down for a
couple of days, and I wouldn't have known, but why would he? I don't know,
maybe he got wind someone was going to be developing all the land around there
and realized he might be able to trick me out of it."
"Why do you think Simms is so
interested in the Florida
property?"
Abby shrugged. "I don't know,
and he wouldn't say, but Dick did sell it for a lot of money. Maybe Simms
thinks somebody else could have found out about it and tried to blackmail Dick
or something."
"What would they blackmail him
with?"
"I don't know; I'm just
speculating." She set the spoon on the counter and crossed her arms.
"I don't understand anything that's going on, or why." She blew out
an exasperated sigh. "I'll just be so glad when all this over."
"He didn't harass you, did
he?"
"No, he was fine." Abby
turned back to the sauce, added some more oregano, and turned the dial to
simmer. "Gage doesn't think I'm their main suspect anymore. He met with
Simms at the Roundhouse the other day, and the detective said he'd been able to
corroborate most of what I told them."
"Good." Rachael sipped
her wine. "Maybe now he'll call his dogs off."
"He said to tell you
hello."
"Did he?" She twirled her
glass. "Well, the next time you talk to him you can tell him
I
said
I'd like to buy his proctologist a drink."
"I don't even want to
know," Abby said, raising a hand in the air to cut off any explanation.