OVER HER DEAD BODY: The Bliss Legacy - Book 2 (30 page)

Erica snorted. She didn’t want to hear any more about Weaver and her idiotic phone calls.

Christiana ignored her and went on doggedly. “Based on what Mary said, and your own evidence, my gut tells me a lab will only confirm what we already know.”

Erica turned away. The woman was probably right, but damned if she was going to admit it.

“Look, I don’t want to interfere in your life—but I am curious about …”

The way her words trailed off caught Erica’s attention, and she turned to look at her. God, she was going to ask about their father, the no good son of— “When are you due?”

Erica blinked, too surprised to speak.

“I know it’s none of my business, but in the last few weeks, I’ve gone from having no family—my adoptive parents died a few years ago—to discovering a sister, a brother”—she shrugged as if to lend a casual tone to her words—“and apparently a mother who’ll arrive on the scene any moment.” Her gaze lingered on Erica’s breadbasket of a stomach. “And now either a niece or nephew.”

Erica twisted her lips in lieu of words. She didn’t want to talk to this woman, and her pregnancy was none of her business. She should tell her to get lost; instead she heard herself say, “One of each.” She patted her tummy. “Twins.”
Okay, so a little brag felt good.

To say Christiana’s eyes lit up would have been the understatement of the millennium. They shone. Jesus, it looked as if she were going to cry. Erica couldn’t think what to say, didn’t know why she’d told her in the first place. She sure as hell wasn’t looking for prenatal girly talk. Erica didn’t go in for that, never had the chance. Paul did his best, better than most men, but he was still a man.

“That’s wonderful,” Christiana said.”You must be thrilled.” She said the last so softly, so reverently, you’d have thought they were at a church funeral.

Erica said nothing. If she said anything else, the woman would probably never leave.

“When?” she asked, her gaze riveted on that part of Erika’s anatomy that she and Paul had come to call
the babies
.

“Seven, eight weeks, maybe.”

“Twins often come early, don’t they?”

“So I’m told.”

When she didn’t add anything further, Christiana smiled and let out a breath. “I’ll leave you alone now.” She gestured with her chin to the babies. “Good luck.”

When she was almost out the door, Erica—for God knew what reason—said, “What about you?”

“Me?” She stopped in the middle of the doorway.

“Yes, you. Do you have any kids?”

For a time it looked as if she weren’t going to answer. “No,” she finally said. “No kids in the past and none in my future. Not my own, anyway. I can’t have any.”

Erica looked at her, knew she should say something, but had no idea what, and it didn’t seem the time to get into a discussion of medical advances in fertility—which she didn’t know shit about, anyway. “Tough,” was the best she could do.

“Yeah,” she said, adding, “I had a hard time with it when I found out for sure, a few years back, but I’m reconciled, I guess you’d say. And there are a lot of kids out there who need parents. I’d have adopted by now if—”

“The right man had come along?”

A ghost of a smile crossed her face, then disappeared. “That’s how I figured it at first. I always thought a child needed two parents, so I’d planned on establishing myself in my work, meeting the right man—” She paused. “I’d have leveled with him about my not being able to have kids, of course.” She stopped again, as if uncertain what to say next, then added, “I thought I was being all grown up, terribly smart and rational about the whole thing, but now I think naive is a better description. I’ve wasted a lot of time.”

“Things didn’t go as you planned.”

This time her smile was wry. “Do they ever?”

Erica tapped her chin. “Let me guess which part didn’t work out. The ‘meet the right man’ part?”

“You got it in one.” She glanced away, then back, looking a bit embarrassed. “Relationships with men are where I make my finest mistakes.”

Erica nodded, taken aback by her honesty. “Me, too.” She again patted her tummy. “The last time I saw the babies’ father was the day I found out I was pregnant Not that I told him that.”

“Why not?”

“Because it was also the day I found out he was married.” Her stomach curled. “Bastard.”

“Ouch. What did you do?”

“Showed him the door. What do you think? No way was I playing second fiddle to another woman, especially some apron-wearing suburbanite.” Erica didn’t like to remember that day, the hole he’d left in her heart—and her pride. It was the same day the Starrier loan was called. She couldn’t do anything about losing her man, so she’d turned all her efforts to saving the company.

Christiana nodded, but she had an odd look on her face, when she said, “Men. Who can figure them?”

“You can’t figure them. All you can do is manipulate them with whatever tools you have.” The voice came from behind them, and Erica and Christiana turned in unison to see a blond woman standing casually in the open doorway.

There’d been enough close-ups on the disk for Erica to recognize her instantly. “How’d you get in without Keeley sounding a trumpet?” Erica said, more inclined to sneer than smile.

“Some skinny girl let me in.” She glanced around. “There’s no one downstairs, so I decided on a trip down memory lane.” She shuddered theatrically. “Though Nightmare Alley is a more appropriate description, I think.”

Erica glanced at Christiana. “Meet your mother, Fordham. The great Icy Cream herself.” She turned her attention back to Dinah Marsden and gave her the once-over.

The woman was tall, beautiful, and seriously stacked. The years and the surgeon’s knife had kept all front-line body parts sag free, clear, and smooth. She didn’t look much different from the twenty-something girl in the movie. She was also as icy as her stage name implied, because Erica’s using it had no visible effect on her composure.

“In the flesh,” she said, then moved her gaze, studying one woman, then the other. It stopped on Christiana, who looked as though someone had inserted an iron rod in her back. “I sure hope you’re Christiana, because if that one”—she gestured at Erica—“was my daughter, I’d have to drown myself in my own gene pool.”

“I’m Christiana,” she said, sounding stiff and formal. “Which gives you the advantage. You know my name.”

Erica was fascinated, but her back hurt as much as her feet, so she lowered herself into a chair near the window. A front-row seat.

“Dinah Marsden,” the woman said. “Now we’re even.”

Erica put a hand on her heart in case it suddenly stopped beating.

Dinah Marsden …

It took less than a nanosecond for her to place the name. Huge, extremely ugly divorce. Maybe twelve or so years ago. Front-page tabloid fodder. Big, big money on the line, with most of it going to the poor abused wife. Shit! She knew there was money, she knew it!

Dinah turned cold eyes on Erica. “That makes you Jimmy Stark’s daughter, the owner of a bad porn movie and, according to Gus, a wannabe blackmailer.”

“Seemed like a good idea at the time.” Erica met her gaze with one equally as cold. “Maybe still is. We still have the master.”

“No. It’s a bad idea—a very bad idea. There’s only one thing I value more than my good name”— she half smiled, but it was as chilly and hard as her eyes—“and that’s my money.” She walked deeper into the bedroom. “If you had managed to get your little plan off the ground, believe me, sweetheart, you’d have lost.”

She glanced again at Christiana, and this time her expression turned wary. “You’ll want to talk, I presume.”

Christiana, who hadn’t taken her eyes off Dinah since she’d shown up at the door, said, “Yes, but not right now. I need to catch my breath.” She took a step toward the door and stopped abreast of Dinah. “Before we talk, there’s the matter of Mary Weaver’s confession.”

“Confession. What confession?”

“She said she killed Erica and Paul’s father—and apparently my own. We’ll want to know your part in that.”

“Hear, hear,” Erica said. Hell, it turned out Christiana wasn’t such a softie after all.

“My part?” Dinah ignored Erica and fixed a brittle stare on Christiana. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Cut the crap, Dinah.” Gus stepped into the open doorway.

Marsden stepped back, seeming startled by his sudden appearance, then said, “Just because you dragged me here, Gus, it doesn’t mean—”

He cut her off. “Something happened here, and someone named Jimmy Stark dropped off the face of the earth because of it. We’ll start there.” He gestured with his head to the hallway behind him. “Keeley’s downstairs waiting.” He looked at Erica. “Get Paul, would you? And Christiana, your ‘catching your breath’ time will have to wait.”

Christiana nodded and strode out of the room without looking back.

Gus gave Dinah a steely look. “Dinah is going to tell us everything she knows about what happened. When that’s done, you”—he transferred his attention to Erica—“will make arrangements to transfer every reel, frame, copy, or still taken from the movie into Dinah’s hands.” He stopped. “If none of that happens, we call in the boys in blue.”

“Not too bad at the blackmail yourself, Hammond,” Erica said, but she knew when she was beaten.

Apparently so did Marsden, because after giving Hammond a look both hurt and angry, she nodded abruptly.

Erica remained sitting and glanced between Dinah and Gus. “You two know each other.”

Gus didn’t answer; his full attention was on Dinah. “I’ll get your bags,” he said. “Then show you to your room.” When Gus left, Marsden followed. No doubt about it, the woman had the hots for him. Erica wasn’t surprised, couldn’t imagine a woman not hot for a guy put together like Hammond. The guy might as well have a tattoo on his forehead:
Fabulous in Bed.
If she were in fighting trim, she’d have a go at him herself.

Erica decided to do what she was told for a change and get Paul. She hefted herself out of the chair. Starrier might be going broke, but at least they’d been given free tickets to a good show.

Marsden, Gus, and Keeley in the same room promised interesting staging. Because unless the Marsden woman was deaf, dumb, and blind, no way could she miss what was going on between Gus and the nun.

Erica was certain she wouldn’t like what she saw. A small vengeance, but all she had.

Keeley waited for Gus and her odd collection of houseguests to assemble in the kitchen, but she couldn’t sit still, could barely breathe. She went out onto the back porch, a cup of rapidly cooling coffee in her hands, and stared into the raw dampness of the night. Rain hovered; she could sense it. She shivered, brought the tepid coffee to her mouth, and tried to make sense of the events that had overtaken her since her return to Mayday House.

She couldn’t. All she could think about was Mary, murder, mothers and long-lost sisters. The jumble of thoughts about each of them refused to line up.

“What are you doing out here?” Christiana stepped up beside her, rubbing her upper arms against the cold. “It’s freezing.”

Keeley looked at the sky. “It’s going to rain.” She finished the last of her coffee and poured the dregs outside the porch rail. “In more ways than one.”

“You’re thinking about Dinah Marsden.”

“Yes, and I’ll bet you’re doing the same.” Keeley gave her a sidelong glance. “She’s nothing like you expected, is she?”

“No. She’s beautiful, but—”

“Not exactly a milk-and-cookies mama.”

Christiana laughed softly. “No, so it’s a good thing I’m long past the milk and cookies stage.” She stopped.”I didn’t get the impression Dinah’s in the market for a daughter, so I’m not going to push myself on her.” Keeley took her hand and squeezed it. “Are you going to be okay?”

“Yes. I’ll be okay. Confused, but okay. I want to know everything, but I don’t. It doesn’t make sense.”

“It makes perfect sense. I feel the same way.” She paused. “It’s not easy having your history rewritten.”

“No. It isn’t.”

The thread of the conversation dropped, Keeley and Christiana each lost in their own thoughts. Keeley listened as the first pellets of rain hit the roof. In the dim yellow of the porch light, she watched the drops slowly paint the steps a wet-dark, the arrhythmic drops, coming faster now, closing in on each other, merging to form a solid brackish black.

“Do you think she did it?” Christiana finally asked, her tone hushed, and still hugging herself against the cold. “Mary, I mean. Do you think she killed Jimmy Stark?”

“I don’t want to, but two confessions? One to you and one to Paul Stark?” She let the hand holding the empty mug drop to her side, then shook her head. “I don’t know…” Her throat constricted against her suspicion and disloyalty.

Silence.

Keeley gave herself a mental shake, fed up with her broody mood and the non-conversation she was having with Christiana. The truth would come out and she’d deal with it; they’d all deal with it. And they’d be better for it. She hoped. Then she’d get on with running Mayday House and seeing where these new feelings surrounding Gus would take her. Would take
them
. It was the only warm thought on a frigid night.

She turned to Christiana. “Where is everyone, anyway?”

“I left them in Erica’s room. Gus is getting Dinah’s bags, getting her settled. Erica was going to get Paul. They should all be down soon.”

“How did it go with Erica?”

“You mean other than her hating me and wanting to push me off the nearest bridge?”

“Other than that.” Keeley pulled her old sweater around her.

Christiana looked past her and into the rain, now falling steadily. “The weird thing is, while I’m not too crazy about the, uh, business she’s in, I … don’t mind her. She’s tough, says what she means, and stands up for herself.” She paused. “I think she’s also overwhelmed right now. Afraid.”

“Afraid?” Keeley had trouble accepting that one. “Of the changes in her life, the family”—she grimaced—“business, the babies. All of it. The ground is shifting under her feet and she’s scared.”

“Not the best excuse I’ve ever heard for hatching a blackmail scheme, but I suspect you’re right.” Keeley stopped, then added, half in jest, half seriously, “Maybe you two can get together, and you can soften some of those hard edges of hers.”