Birthday Girls (29 page)

She studied the rough stone wall that ambled along the driveway, built a century or two ago when families were families and divorce rates were negligible and best friends did not simply disappear. But it was no wonder she’d forgotten that one of her sons was going away. Abigail or no Abigail, Maddie had not been right since Parker had left. She’d not been right at all.

“Well, at least we get one son for the holidays,” Sophie continued. “It’s a good thing you had twins.”

For the thousandth time Maddie tried to convince herself that this was fine, that everything was going to be fine. It didn’t matter that Parker would be on the other side of the ocean for ten days; he would have to come back, she would have to see him again, because he’d have one of their sons. She held her hand to her head and tried not to think that he might send Bobby back—alone—with the announcement that he and Sharlene had decided to “patch up their differences” and live permanently in Paris, that he was moving
Our World
over there. That she would never see him again.

She took a deep breath as they pulled into the garage. “What time will Parker be here?”

“Why, Maddie,” Sophie asked, “don’t you remember? His driver was coming at one o’clock. They’ll be long gone by now.”

No. She had not remembered that either.

“You were
Abigail’s friend,” Edmund said to Kris as they stood in his study. Most of the other guests had departed; he had asked to have a few words with her before she, too, left the manor. “My wife didn’t have many friends.” Apparently she had not told him that Kris no longer was one. He raised his shoulders and paced to the window. “She had lots of acquaintances, of course. Mostly people who wanted things from her. Or of her.”

Kris nodded. Larry came to mind. She wondered how much—if anything—Edmund knew about Larry’s lame-brained plan. “It was difficult for Abigail,” she said. “Being in the spotlight.”

He turned and faced her. “She was like that long before she was famous. I tried to get her not to be so damn serious, but I don’t think she really liked people.”

“Or didn’t trust them,” Kris added. She turned her face so as not to see the tears that had formed again in his eyes. She wondered if Abigail had any idea how much this would hurt him. She assumed that Abigail already knew how much the not knowing was hurting her.

“I’d like you to stay,” he said abruptly.

She blinked. “Excuse me?”

“I can’t handle the media, Kris. The phone has been ringing nonstop since the … accident. Christ, some of them have even camped out at the entrance to the estate. I
thought, as Abigail’s friend, and, well, you know how to deal with the press …” His face looked forlorn, filled with despair.

“Well, I’m not sure …”

“Please, Kris. For a few days? It would be such a big help.”

“What about Larry? Surely he’d be better qualified to answer their questions …”

Edmund shook his head. “I don’t want Larry hovering around here. He drives me crazy. He always did. The way he followed Abigail like a lost soul.”

So he didn’t know. Abigail had never confided to Edmund what she’d learned about her assistant. Nor did it seem that she’d told him about Kris and her grandfather. Kris wondered if Edmund had ever really known his wife at all.

She looked at the rows of books—art books—that lined the wall behind Edmund’s desk. If she stayed, maybe she could find out more information about the “death” of her friend. Maybe it was a place to begin. And she could always take Edmund up on his offer of helping her with a plot involving an art thief. Maybe she’d set the story in Khartoum after all. If she stayed it might help Edmund take his mind off his grief, while Kris decided where to put hers, if any was necessary.

God, she’d give anything to be thirty or even forty again, when life was uncomplicated, when one rarely bothered to consider its fairness or the lack thereof. Kris bit her lip against the uncomfortable feeling that now she, too, was bemoaning her age. The reality of time past. The coming of fifty.

She leaned against the desk. “Edmund,” she said, “I owe you an apology. About Thanksgiving weekend …”

“Please, Kris,” he replied with a wave of his hand, “it was a strange moment for both of us.”

“It hurt Abigail …”

“Not really. She was angry at me, not at you.”

“But I’m the one …”

He held up his hand. “No, Kris. It was nothing. Now please, won’t you stay?”

Nothing? Well, it may have seemed like that to him, but Kris knew better. And if it would help ease her guilt—and Edmund’s distress—the least she could do was help him now. “Okay,” she said. “I’ll stay until things quiet down. I’m sure Devon can have some of my things sent out here.”

His face seemed to brighten. “Thank you. I just can’t seem to think straight these days.”

“I understand.”

He gave a half-laugh. “I wish everyone did. I wish the police did.”

“The police?”

“They’ve been driving me crazy. They keep showing up, asking all sorts of questions.”

Kris didn’t understand. “What questions?”

“Did she have any enemies, was she happy, and could I produce samples of her handwriting that they could check against the note.”

The suicide note
, Kris thought. Left on the dashboard, just as they’d planned … unless, of course, it had been left there for real.

She glanced at her watch. It was too late to make a phone call tonight. But first thing in the morning, she would find out for sure.

With a small snort Edmund added, “The police even asked where I was the night she disappeared. If I didn’t know better, I’d think they suspected me of murdering my wife.” He turned his back to Kris and lowered his head.

She opened her mouth to speak, then quickly closed it again. She could not tell Edmund that she knew either Abigail
killed herself, or she did not. She could not tell him that she knew there was no way he’d been involved. She could not tell Edmund.

And she could certainly not tell the police.

Tomorrow
, she thought,
could not come quickly enough
.

Devon
rummaged through the giant closet in Kris’s bedroom/dining room, wishing he’d sent Claire over to do this—women’s work, despite the coming new millennium. Working quickly he filled a duffel bag with the requested wardrobe: sweats, sweaters, leggins. She had not asked for miniskirts; he had no intention of adding any. As far as he was concerned, the less people saw of those magnificent legs, the better.

He opened her suitcase from Khartoum and started to transfer her undergarments: long socks; bras with nothing to them; and panties, all lacy and shiny, soft to the touch. And all black. Holding one pair in his hand, suddenly he stopped. He glanced around the closet as though someone might be there, someone who might see. But no one was there. There was no witness to his chore, no peeping Tom to his task. Slowly, he drew the panties close to his face. He rubbed his cheek against the smooth satin, breathing in the scents of her cleanness, her freshness … her.

Closing his eyes, Devon remembered. He remembered the weeks and months they’d shared the same bed. He remembered her passion, her heat. And then the small ache that formed inside reminded him of the night she’d told him she could no longer sleep with him, that she would not be his—or anyone’s—wife.

He opened his eyes with the piercing realization that it was a good thing Abigail’s grandfather was already dead, or Devon Reynolds would be up for murder one.

He dropped the panties into the duffel bag and zipped
it shut. Why Kris had agreed to stay out at that estate was beyond him. She said she’d be helping Edmund and doing some research as well. Well, she owed them nothing … not Abigail’s husband, not dead Abigail.

Dead—missing-and-presumed-dead—Abigail. Missing-and-presumed-dead. Disappeared from the face of the earth.

A sick feeling rose in Devon’s stomach.

Disappeared
.

As in a new name. A new identity.

He gripped the handle of the duffel bag as only two words came into his mind:
Mo Gilbert
.

“Don’t tell
me he’s ‘out of the country,’ ” Kris barked into her cellular phone the following morning. “I need to speak with Mr. Gilbert, and I need to speak to him now.” She was in the guest room in the west wing, the room where she’d been when she last saw Abigail. She was far from sight and sound of Edmund: She’d been cautious to use her own phone, for the police may have tapped Edmund’s lines. Kris had done enough research for her Lexi Marks books to know that legalities often didn’t matter. Especially where the prospect of murder was concerned.

“I’m sorry, Ms. Kensington, but he is not expected until after the new year.”

If she’d had a regular phone she could have slammed it into its cradle. Instead, Kris snapped it shut and shoved her fist against her mouth to suffocate her scream.

In the two
days that followed, Kris stifled more screams. With banal questions and phone calls from countless reporters and sympathy messages from hordes of well-wishers,
she smiled small smiles and nodded tight nods and tried to pretend that everything was under control.

Maddie sat
in her bathrobe and nibbled on Sophie’s re-creation of Abigail’s cranberry phyllo puffs—a misleading name, for they seemed more wilted than puffed. Still, she praised her mother for how wonderful they tasted. It was, after all, Christmas Eve. Even though they were Jewish, it was the night they had chosen years ago to celebrate Hanukkah—the one night they were assured of all being together.

In honor of Christmas-slash-Hanukkah now, Maddie was determined to try and relax, to not think about Parker, to not think about Abigail or the fact that Kris hadn’t called with any news.

She sipped her cranberry shrub with the floating ball of lime sherbet and watched Timmy open his gifts.

“Mom!” he exclaimed when he opened his “big” present—registration to a two-week summer photography camp on Plum Island, Maine. “You are
exceptional
!”

Maddie laughed and accepted his hug while Sophie winked at her from the chair by the fireplace. It had been Sophie’s idea that Timmy go to the photography camp. “The boys will be sixteen this summer,” her mother had said. “They’re old enough to start exploring the world on their own.”

So Timmy would be off exploring his passion, and Bobby would explore his at astronaut camp in Houston—though Maddie knew that for Bobby space travel was just a passing fancy, probably one of a thousand he’d have before discovering the one thing he wanted to make into a career. Or, as his father had done, before finding a woman who would do all the work, open all the doors, then enable him to pretend he’d done it himself.

At seven o’clock the phone rang.

“Merry Christmas, Mom,” Bobby said from three thousand miles away. “Thanks for my stuff. I can’t wait for Houston.” Maddie was glad that Sophie had remembered to tuck Bobby’s gifts into his suitcase. She sighed and hoped that at least until summer he would still want to be an astronaut. Both camps had been expensive: Sophie had squeezed out some of her savings to help. Even she did not know about Maddie’s secret stash.

“It’s from your grandmother, too,” she said with a little guilt. “Are you having a good time in Paris?”

“Yeah, sure. It’s okay.”

“Well, we miss you.” She wanted to add that it didn’t really feel like the holidays without her family together, but before she had a chance Parker was on the phone.

“Maddie,” he said, “Happy Hanukkah.”

A lump rose to her throat. “And to you.”

Silence hung over the Atlantic.

“Yes,” he finally said. “Happy Hanukkah.” He paused again, then asked her to put Timmy on.

She handed the phone to Timmy and looked back to the fire, not knowing what she’d expected or why she’d hoped he would have said more.

“Madeline,” Sophie said, “I could use your help in the kitchen. We’re having roast chicken with homemade cranberry chutney. Then we’ll light the Menorah.”

Following Sophie to the kitchen, Maddie wondered what Parker was having for dinner—and if Abigail was having any holiday dinner at all.

At Windsor-on-Hudson
, Edmund had told Kris he wanted Christmas Day to go unnoticed. He urged her to go into town, to spend the day with Devon and his family.

Kris wanted to protest. She didn’t want or need “family” this year. Family: that too-raw reminder that she was who she was—alone, childless, and facing fifty.

But Edmund had insisted, and Kris didn’t know how to say no without telling him the truth. She was not about to do that.

Devon’s kids went wild over their Sudanese dresses: even hard-to-control Jarrod joined in the fun as the kids donned their new outfits over their flannel pajamas.

Curled on the sofa in their cozy family room, Kris looked around at the jovial group and suspected that no matter what problems invaded a family, when it came to holidays—Christmas especially—that little bit of magic of the blood-bond returned. Even if it was only for the moment, it returned. She wondered if, as a child, Abigail had ever been part of such magic, or if she had remained an outsider, an observer, as Kris did now. Even with Abigail’s grandfather and Louisa, perhaps the little girl never really felt she belonged.