"Because ..." She waved toward the drawing room. "Is it all right if we go in there? I need to sit down."
"Of course."
His irritation had vanished. He was once again the warm, concerned Ward she knew.
Once they were seated in front of the fireplace, Kelly placed the book on her lap.
"How did it happen?" Ward asked. It was obvious he was now more interested in Kelly's recent ordeal than in her reason for being in Cecily's study.
"A car tried to run me over." Kelly saw the look of horror in his eyes.
"I had just left my mother's restaurant and was about to cross
"Are you sure it was intentional? It's been snowing rather heavily.
Couldn't the car have spun out of control?"
"It was intentional."
"You should have called the police. In fact--" he rose "--if you won't,
I will. It's not too late to catch whoever--"
"No!" She took another breath. "Please, Ward, don't call the police.
Hear me out first."
He sat down again.
"This attempt on my life tonight ... it wasn't a total surprise."
"What do you mean? Have there been other attempts?"
"No, but I've been receiving threatening notes.
Two, exactly.
The first was put in my mailbox on Tuesday, in broad daylight, the second just two nights ago."
"Who would want to do that?" He frowned.
"Unless it was the same woman who tried to burn your house last night?
Nicole Santos?"
Kelly shook her head. "No. Nicole is a likely suspect, but it wasn't her."
She glanced at the book on her lap while Ward waited patiently for her to continue. She couldn't bring herself to look at him, to tell him that the wife he loved so much, the woman he had been married to for thirty years, might be a cold-blooded murderer.
But even Ward's patience had its limits. "Will you at least tell me what you were doing in Cecily's study?" He looked at the book on her lap.
"With a book of nursery rhymes?"
"The notes ..." She felt miserable at the thought of the pain she was about to cause him. "The notes were written in the form of nursery rhymes."
He stared at her for a few seconds and she could tell from his blank expression that he hadn't immediately made the connection between her statement and the book on her lap. Then, as the meaning of her words finally sank in, he shot out of his chair. "What are you saying? That Cecily wrote those notes? That she's the one who tried to kill you tonight?"
"No, I ... I'm not accusing anyone. I only came here for answers."
"How could you suspect Cecily of doing something so vile?" he continued.
"So cold-blooded?
She's never done anything but show you and your family the deepest affection. And this is how you repay her?"
"I just want to hear what she has to say, that's all." She glanced down at the book again, this damn book she wished she had never found.
"For your information," Ward said a little stiffly, "this book does not belong to Cecily."
"No." Ward squared his shoulders. "It's mine."
Kelly felt her mouth hang open. And then it hit her. He was covering for Cecily. He was taking the blame for something she had done, knowing damn well what the consequences would be. "I don't believe you."
"That's your problem," he said brusquely.
"I'm admitting nothing of the sort. Finding a book of nursery rhymes that I've had since
Remo
She didn't have to. Ward drove
a silver
BMW, not a black Lexus. "This book isn't yours. Ward."
"How do you know?" She opened a page.
"Because it has a 1996 copyright.
You couldn't possibly have had it when
"Then I must have bought it for Phoebe."
She studied his face for a moment, trying to read his expression. What if all this was an act? What if Cecily and Ward were accomplices and he was just trying to confuse her?
"Aren't you curious about the car that tried to run me over?" Kelly
asked,
her voice shaky. "Or whether I was able to read the license plates?"
"No. But I did recognize the make of the car. It was a Lexus.
A black Lexus."
Ward's throat constricted as he swallowed. "There must be dozens of Lexus in the
"The driver was a woman with long, blond hair."
Ward's shoulders slumped. In the space of a few minutes he had aged ten years. No ordinary man could be that good of an actor. "Dear God," he murmured.
In the back of the house, a door opened then closed. Quick footsteps clicked against the marble floor. Kelly and Ward looked up. Cecily, wrapped in a black wool coat with the collar turned up, stopped when she saw them. She started to smile.
"
"What's going on?" She removed her gloves. "Ward, what is it? You look ghastly."
"Sit down, Cecily."
Looking mildly bewildered, she tossed her gloves on a chair, shrugged out of her coat and
lay
it on that same chair. "
"She's fine," Ward said dully. "So is Phoebe."
Cecily's gaze returned to Kelly, who hadn't said a word. "Kelly? Would you mind telling me what you're doing here, looking so morbid?"
Without a word, Kelly turned the book of nursery rhymes over so Cecily could see the cover. The reaction was instantaneous, and so unmistakably finger pointing that Kelly had difficulty taking her next breath.
"Where did you find that?" Cecily asked.
Cecily glanced at her husband, who was watching her intently. There was a look of total resignation about her now. "Yes," she said in a whisper.
"I do."
Cecily took a moment to answer. When she looked at Kelly again, her eyes were bright with tears. "I never meant to carry out those threats, Kelly, you must believe that. I didn't know what to do. You wouldn't stop that damn investigation and frightening you seemed like the only way to make you back off, but that's all I meant to do."
"Why, for God's sake?" Ward asked. "Why would you do something so irrational, so potentially dangerous?"
"Because I was scared.
I was convinced that Jonathan was involved in something illegal. I still am. I was afraid of what that news, if it came out, would do to all of us."
"So you decided that the only way to stop me was to kill me," Kelly said.
"
Wo
Of course not. I told you I had no intention of carrying out those threats. Oh, Kelly, how could I ever kill you? You're like a daughter to me."
"But you did try to kill me, Cecily.
This evening, as I was coming out of my mother's restaurant."
Despair vanished, replaced by shock. "Me?" She shook her head in
disbelief
.
"No, Kelly, no.
You're wrong. I was at a meeting, my DAR
meeting
in the city. My God, how could you think that I--"
"The car that tried to run Kelly over was a Lexus," Ward said, his voice so flat, so devoid of intonation that Kelly could barely recognize it.
"And the driver was a woman with long blond hair," he added.
Cecily gave him a horrified look. "You believe it, too." Her hands flew to her mouth. Her eyes, wild now, went from Ward to Kelly. "And you. You both think I tried to kill you." She shook her head, blond hair flying.
"I didn't. I was at my meeting. Go ahead, call
Melvina
.
She'll tell you."
"Where was the meeting held?" Kelly asked.
"Same place as always, the Union League."
The Union League was on
"Were you there all night?"
"I ...1 left early, when I realized it had begun snowing."
"Then you should have been home long ago," Ward pointed out. "What kept you?"
"The roads were slippery. I couldn't drive much more than twenty miles an hour. And I had to stop for gas."
"I don't know! I can't remember. Kelly, you must stop this. It's insane.
Ward, make her stop."
"Because the Lexus that almost hit me scraped a minivan that was parked at the curb.
There should be some damage to your car, a dent, a scrape, something."
Ward had also risen. "Kelly, can't that wait until morning? Cecily is
exhausted
--"
He was still trying to protect her, even now, knowing what he knew. "I'm sorry. Ward. Believe me, I hate this as much as you do, but it's my life we're talking about." When no one moved, she spoke more firmly. "I have to see the car.
Now."
Cecily sighed. "Let her see the car. Ward. It's in the garage."
Ward threw Kelly an angry look, then went ahead of them, his mouth set in a tight line.
In the oversize garage, all three vehicles were impeccably aligned--the Land Rover Cecily and Ward used on weekends at the far end. Ward's silver BMW and Cecily's black Lexus, still wet from the snow, closest to the door. Kelly walked around the car, took a deep breath and released it slowly.
There was no dent on either fender, or a scrape. Not even a blemish.
Only a perfect, unmarred, glistening surface.
Thirty-Two.
Cecily was already seated at a small, secluded table when Kelly arrived at the Four Seasons the following morning. She had called
Cecily's face was pale, her gaze steady, as Kelly made her way across the room, but underneath that perfect poise was a despair only those who knew her well could recognize.
She waited until Kelly sat down before asking, "You haven't changed your mind, have you?"
"About not telling the police about the notes?"
Kelly picked up the silver coffeepot on the table and filled her cup. "No. I gave you my word I wouldn't."
"Then why are we here? What do you want?"
"Answers."
"Kelly, I've told you--"
"You told me that your reason for not wanting Jonathan found was that you feared a scandal. That you were afraid the Norton board of directors would ask you to resign. I don't believe it, Cecily. You're much too valuable for them to dismiss you over something that is totally out of your control. At the very most, you might suffer some embarrassment, but that's it."
"You don't know the Norton board."
"No, but I know how the system works. And I know when I'm being lied to.
I let you off the hook last night because of
"I'm not hiding anything."
"Yes, you are. You don't want Jonathan found because you are afraid and I want to know what it is that you're afraid of. I'm not trying to be nosy, Cecily. The reason I'm pushing is because I have a nagging suspicion that what you're hiding could be related to Jonathan's disappearance. And I'm not leaving here until I find out if I'm right."
This time Cecily didn't look away, or play with the accessories on the table, or try to distract Kelly in some other way. She just sat there, with that same resigned look she'd had last night. "Jonathan was blackmailing me."
"Maybe 'blackmail' isn't the right word. Let's just say that he knew something about me and threatened to use it."
Imagining Jonathan as a blackmailer was even more difficult than imagining him as an adulterer. "Threatened how? What did he want?"
"For me to stop interfering in his marriage, to accept him for what he is and to stop treating him like a second-class citizen.
Those were his exact words."
"Is that all?" Kelly thought of the hundred thousand dollars he had tried to borrow from Ward. "He didn't ask for money?"
Cecily shook her head. "No. He was only interested in family harmony.
He claimed that my negative feelings toward him were upsetting
"You make it sound as if he'd asked you for some monumental favor," Kelly commented.
"I just don't like being blackmailed. A woman in my position shouldn't be subjected to such humiliation."
Kelly could see why Jonathan had jumped at the chance to take Cecily down a peg or two. She was a good woman, but when she put some effort into it, she could be sickeningly obnoxious. "If the two of you reached an agreement, why were you afraid I would find him?"
"It's the nature of what he knows that worried me. Jonathan is not terribly sophisticated, you see, and to my knowledge, he's never kept a secret from