Envy (39 page)

"Irrelevant."

"I don't think so. I think it's not only relevant but key to how you progress from here."

Parker went back to his keyboard.

"Excuse me. I'm trying to write."

"Fine. Turn your back on me. Stare into that blank screen. Count the ticks of the cursor till hell freezes over, for all I care.

Delude yourself into believing that you're writing. We both know you're not."

Parker came back around, angry now.

"Obviously you've reached a conclusion that you're just dying to share. So spit it out. Get it out of your system. God knows I won't have a minute's peace until you do."

The older man refused to take umbrage.

"I'm not going to fight with you, Parker," he said evenly. "But yes, I will tell you something you need to hear." Ignoring Parker's roll of the eyes, he went on. "You resurrected yourself when, for all practical purposes, your life was over.

I was there to help. I needled you and badgered you along. But you did it. It was a heroic effort.

You're to be commended for overcoming incredible obstacles. You beat overwhelming odds. Beyond putting your life back on track, you have thrived."

"Yea, me."

The caustic interruption went ignored and Mike doggedly continued. "Your body has healed, but not your soul. The damage done to it was a thousand times worse than the injuries to your legs.

Your soul is more twisted than they ever were. Pins and plates hold your bones together, and new skin patches the places where there was no skin left, but your soul hasn't been mended. It's still raw and bleeding, and you snarl at anyone who extends a

#hand to help you heal it." ###############679

"That's what I've been trying to tell you for years, Mike," he said sweetly. "I'm a lost cause."

"You're not a lost cause, you're a coward,"

Mike shouted angrily. "It takes far less courage to cling to the past than it does to face the future."

"Very good, Mike. I should write that down.

What was it again? Ìt takes far less--`was

"Sarcasm? Good. If I'm pissing you off, at least I know I have your attention." Mike's lined features softened and turned earnest.

"Parker, consign Noah Reed to God. Or to the devil. Let them haggle over who's to be his judge and what his punishment is to be.

"Then go to Maris. If you can get her to talk to you, lay open your heart. Explain everything.

Start at the beginning and tell her all of it.

Tell her Noah's part. Confess yours. She may forgive you. She may not. But either way, you'll be rid of it. For the first time in fourteen long years, you'll be free of everything that happened in Key West. You will have saved yourself. Again. And in the only way that really matters."

Parker's heart was pounding hard and loudly against his eardrums, but he kept his expression passive. "Good sermon, Mike. Honestly.

Very moving. But I'm going to stick to plan A."

"And throw away a chance to be happy with a woman you love?"

"Love?" he scoffed. "Who said that?"

"You did. Every time you looked at her."

"Have you been sneak-reading romance novels again?

They're not good for your blood pressure."

"Okay, be funny. Deny you're in love with her. You're only wasting your breath. Maris hit you like those drugs you used to take. The night she came here, you got high on her, and after that you couldn't get enough. She's--was

"She's Noah's _wife."

Parker felt his control snap like the string on a tennis racket that had been whacked one too many times.

"She is Noah's `dearly beloved, we are gathered herè bride. That's the important thing.

That's the _only thing," he yelled, slicing the air with his hand. "Nothing else matters. Not how I feel about her, or how she feels about me, or even how they feel about each other.

###"She is Noah Reed's wife, and ###681

I had her. But good. She was finger-fucked, and tongue-fucked, and mind-fucked. By _me!" He pounded his chest with his fist, his eyes shimmering with tears spawned by the white-hot rage that consumed him whenever he thought of Noah's treachery. And now by the agony of his own guilt.

Mike's features surrendered to gravity and settled into an aged mask of profound disappointment. "Perhaps you're right, Parker. Perhaps you are a lost cause. Your cruelty to her goes beyond reprehensible. All you care about is this revenge plot of yours."

"That's right. Now you're catching on."

"What's the next chapter?"

"Well, since Maris threw the manuscript at me, I don't think I can count on her to get it to Noah. So I guess I'll have to send it to him myself, registered and receipt requested, along with a cover letter saying that _Envy is being simultaneously submitted to every publishing house in New York. If that doesn't give his short-and-curlies a smart tug, then perhaps a postscript about his wife's talent for giving head will."

Mike shook his head with disgust. "And then what, Parker?"

"The gripping climax, of course."

Mike subjected him to a long, hard stare, then turned and picked up two suitcases, which had been left in the kitchen and up till now out of Parker's sight. "Going somewhere?"

"Away from you. I won't be a party to this."

Mike was walking out on him? That shook him up more than he let on. "You helped get her here, don't forget. You played along."

"For which I am now very ashamed. In any case, let this serve as notice that my participation is over."

"Fine. G. Have a nice trip."

"Will you be all right?"

"Not your problem anymore, is it?"

He spun his chair around and faced his blank computer screen. A few moments later, he heard Mike leaving through the back door. And he was truly alone.

CHAPTER 31

Afterward, Maris could barely remember her

#return trip to New York. She had ##683

operated in a dreamlike state, except without the subconscious surety that it was unreal and that she would wake up soon. Parker's inexplicable behavior and her father's death had been a double-barreled assault. To protect itself, her mind had put conscious thought and reasoning powers on autopilot and allowed her to function only by rote.

Discreetly Mike Strother had alerted the flight attendant to her bereavement, so she had been treated deferentially, basically left alone. She passed the flight staring vacantly out the window, unaware and uncaring of what was going on around her.

Noah was at LaGuardia to meet her. She wasn't happy to see him, but he relieved her of the arrival hassle at a major airport.

Her baggage was reclaimed with dispatch. He had a car and driver waiting.

As the limo wended its way through heavy traffic into Manhattan, he somberly filled in the details that he hadn't told her over the telephone. Daniel's body was still in Massachusetts, where the autopsy would be conducted. There could have been a contributing health factor that caused him to fall, Noah

explained. Pulmonary embolism. Cardiac arrest. An aneurysm that hadn't shown up during his last physical.

"Most probably," he told her, "Noah simply lost his balance on the dark staircase."

Daniel's cane had been found in his

bedroom. It was believed that he was ascending the stairs. Without his cane for additional support, he had tripped.

"He'd also had more than a few drinks,"

Noah added reluctantly. "You know, Maris, we had feared something like this would happen."

He informed her that following the autopsy the body would be transferred to New York. He'd made preliminary funeral arrangements but was awaiting her approval before finalizing them. Knowing she would be particular about the casket, he had held off making a selection until her return.

She commented on how expeditiously he had handled everything.

"I wanted to spare you as much unpleasantness as possible."

###He was solicitous, soft-spoken, ####685

obsequious.

She couldn't bear to be near him.

She deplored even having to breathe the same air as he and instructed the chauffeur to take her to her father's house. Accepting a friend's offer to help in any way she could, Maris sent her to her apartment with a list of clothing and articles she wanted brought to her. If she could help it, she would never return to the residence she had shared with Noah.

She moved back into her old bedroom in Daniel's house. For the next three days, when she and Maxine weren't receiving people who came to pay their respects and offer condolences, they comforted one another. The housekeeper was disconsolate. She blamed herself for letting Daniel go to the country house without her, as though her presence could have prevented the accident. Maris tried to assuage her feelings of partial responsibility, all the while empathizing with them. She suffered similarly.

Her father had died while she'd been making love to Parker.

Each time her thoughts drifted in that direction, which was frequently, she halted them abruptly.

She refused to wear a mantle of guilt for that.

Daniel had urged her to return to Georgia.

She had been there with his blessing. The last thing he had said to her was that she deserved her happiness and that he loved her. His death had nothing to do with her sharing Parker's bed.

Nevertheless, the connection between the two had been made, and she would never think of one without recalling the other.

She learned that a death in the family was a time-consuming event, especially if the deceased was a person of Daniel Matherly's standing. He was the last patriarch of the publishing dynasty; he was one of New York's own. His obituary made the front page of the _New _York _Times.

Local media covered his funeral.

Maris endured the day-long affair with a steely determination not to crack under pressure. Dressed head to toe in black, she was photographed entering the cathedral, exiting the cathedral, standing at the grave site with her head bowed in prayer, receiving the mayor's condolences.

The silent expressions of grief were the ones she appreciated most--a small squeeze of

#her hand, eye contact that conveyed #########687

sympathy and understanding. Most people said too much.

Well-meaning folk told her to take comfort in the fact that Daniel had lived a long and productive life. That he hadn't suffered before he died. That we should all be so lucky to go that quickly. That at least he hadn't withered and died slowly. That a sudden death is a blessing.

Statements to that effect sorely tested her composure.

However, no one surprised or offended her more than Nadia Schuller. Noah was speaking to a group of publishing colleagues when Nadia sidled up to Maris immediately following the grave-site observance and gripped her hand.

"I'm sorry, Maris. Terribly, terribly sorry."

Maris was struck not only by Nadia's

audacity in attending the service, but also by her convincing portrayal of shocked bereavement. Maris pulled back her hand, thanked Nadia coldly, and tried to turn away. But Nadia wouldn't be shaken off. "We need to talk. Soon."

"If you want a quote for your column, call our publicity department."

"Please, Maris," Nadia said, leaning closer. "This is important. Call me."

She pressed a business card into Maris's hand, then turned and walked quickly away. She had the decency not to lock eyes with Noah before she left.

He was the worst part of Maris's endurance test.

She tried not to visibly flinch each time he came near her. Yet he seemed determined to be near her. At the reception following the funeral, he was never far from her side, often placing his arm around her shoulders, pressing her hand, demonstrating to their friends and associates a loving affection that was grossly false. The act would have been hilarious if it weren't so obscene.

Dusk had fallen before the house cleared of guests. Maxine refused to retire to her room as Maris suggested and instead began supervising the caterers' cleanup. That's when Maris approached Noah. "I want to talk to you."

"Certainly, darling."

His ingratiating manner set her teeth on edge. He was thoroughly repugnant. It seemed that the two years she had shared a home, a bed with

#him had happened to another woman in ######689

another time. She couldn't fathom doing so now.

Her only saving grace, her only reasonable excuse, was that he was an excellent role player. He was an adroit liar. She and Daniel had fallen for an act he had

perfected.

"You can drop the pretense, Noah. No one's around except Maxine, and she already knows that I've left you."

She led him into her father's study. The room smelled of him and of his pipe tobacco. It smelled of his brandy and the books he had loved.

The room evoked such poignant memories for her, it was claustrophobic and comforting at the same time.

She sat down in the large tufted leather chair behind Daniel's desk. It was the closest she could come to being hugged by him. She had spent the past four nights curled up in this chair, weeping over her loss between brief and restless naps in which she dreamed of Parker moving ever farther away from her as she screamed his name. No matter how

desperately she tried to touch him, he was always beyond her reach. She would wake herself up sobbing over the dual loss.

Noah pinched up the creases of his dark suit trousers and lowered himself into an easy chair. "I had hoped your second visit south had mellowed you, Maris. You're as prickly as you were before you left."

"Dad's death didn't change anything between us.

Nor did it change your character. You're a liar and an adulterer." She paused a beat before adding,

"And possibly those are the least of your sins."

His eyes sharpened. "What does that mean?"

She opened the lap drawer of Daniel's desk and took out a business card. "I came across this in Dad's day planner while I was looking up addresses for acknowledgment cards.

It's an innocuous card with a scarcity of information on it. Only a name and telephone number.

Curious, I called. Imagine my

surprise."

He stared at her, saying nothing, then indolently raised his shoulders in silent inquiry.

"I spoke personally to the man Dad had retained to investigate you," she told him.

"Mr. Sutherland conveyed his sympathy over

#Dad's passing. Then I asked him how ##691

his business card had found its way into Dad's day planner. He was very discreet, extremely professional, and finally apologetic.

"Ethically, he couldn't discuss another client's business, even a late client's.

However, he said, if I had access to Dad's files, he was sure I'd find his report among them. If I wished to continue the investigation that wasn't yet complete, he would welcome me as a client and offered to apply the advance Dad had paid him to my account."

She spread her arms across the top of the desk.

"I've searched for the mentioned report, Noah.

It's not here. Not in any of Dad's files here, or at the office, not in the personal safe upstairs in his bedroom closet, or in his safe-deposit box at the bank.

"Coincidentally, you spent time in here the morning before you left for the country. While Dad was upstairs packing some last-minute items, you told Maxine that you had calls to make and came in here, ostensibly to use the telephone. You closed the door behind you. She thought it odd at the time, since you typically use your cell phone, but she thought no more about it. Not until I asked her if you'd been snooping around in Dad's personal things that day."

He shook his head and laughed softly.

"Maris, I have no idea what you're talking about. I might have come in here that morning.

Frankly, I don't remember if I did

or not. But since when is this room off limits to me? From the time we began dating, I've been in this room hundreds of times. When I make private calls I usually close the door.

Everybody does. If this is about Nadia--was

"It isn't," she said tersely. "I don't give a damn about Nadia or anyone else you sleep with."

He gave her a look that said he seriously doubted that. She wanted to strike him, to pound the conceit out of his expression. "I also spoke to the authorities in Massachusetts."

"My, my, you've been a busy girl."

"I questioned their ruling that Dad's death was accidental." She hadn't struck him physically, as she would have liked to. All the same, her statement rid him of a measure of arrogance. His smile grew a little stiff, as though

#it had congealed. His spine straightened. ####693

"Honoring my request, they've agreed to reinvestigate. This time they'll be looking for evidence."

That brought him to his feet. "Evidence of what?"

"We have an appointment with Chief of Police Randall tomorrow to discuss their findings," she informed him coldly. "I suggest you be there."

The burg's police department had a staff of six--one chief, four patrolmen, and a clerk who also served as dispatcher and official town gossip.

The department handled minor emergencies such as broken-down snowplows and lost pets, parking tickets when tourists passing through stayed too long in an antique shop, and an occasional DUI.

By big-city standards, the gossip wasn't all that scandalous. It might revolve around who had recently gone to New York City for a

face-lift, who was selling their country house to a movie star who futilely wished to remain anonymous, and who had checked their

daughter-gone-wild into drug rehab after a tempestuous family intervention. Residents could safely leave their homes and cars unlocked because thefts were rare.

The last homicide in the county had occurred during Lyndon Johnson's administration. It had been an open-and-shut case. The culprit had confessed to the killing when police arrived at the scene.

The department's lack of experience as crime solvers worked in Maris's disfavor. But it worked to her advantage in that a murder investigation stimulated more enthusiasm than tacking up notices of a lost kitty or setting up bleachers for the Fourth of July concert and fireworks display.

The officers had approached the investigation of Daniel's death with a zealous desire to sniff out the ruthless killer of an esteemed citizen, even if he was a weekender.

She and Noah drove up in separate cars.

The exterior of the ivy-covered building looked more like a yarn-and-woolens boutique than a police station. Maris arrived a few minutes ahead of Noah. As soon as he got there, they were ushered into the chief's office. Both declined an offer of

#coffee and sweet rolls from the local ####695

bakery.

Chief Randall, a ruddy-faced man with a bad, blond comb-over, sensing her desire to cut to the chase, kept the pleasantries to a minimum and settled behind his desk. He seemed more disappointed than relieved to report the outcome of his department's investigation.

"I'm afraid I haven't got all that much more to tell you that wasn't in the initial report, Mrs. Matherly-Reed. My people went over the house with a fine-toothed comb. Didn't find a thing that suggested foul play."

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Noah complacently fold his hands in his lap.

"The officers think, and I concur, that your father simply fell down the stairs. There were some bloodstains on the floor where he was found, but they're explained by the gash on his scalp. It split open when his head struck the floor."

She swallowed, then asked, "What about the autopsy report?"

He opened the case file and slipped on a pair of reading glasses that were too narrow for his wide face. The stems were stretched and caused the glasses to perch crookedly on his nose. "The contents of his stomach verify that he ate only minutes before he died, which is what Mr. Reed had assumed." He peered at Noah over the eyeglasses.