Prospect Street (17 page)

 

By early afternoon most of what the family needed was in reach and a number of boxes had been repacked, marked and
stored. With their furniture in place and most rugs down, the house was homier than Faith had expected.

Upstairs, Alex was trying to “build a better mousetrap.” Before she could stop him he'd disassembled the cage that Pavel had loaned them and set to work on making the trigger more sensitive. Someday the world might beat a path to Alex's door.

Remy was on the telephone with Megan and had been for most of an hour. Faith knew better than to quibble over small things like too much time on the phone. Besides, after Remy's generosity that morning, Faith was feeling hopeful. One muffin and she had almost convinced herself Remy had returned to her sweet, uncomplicated self. Faith was well practiced in the art of denial.

She was standing at the front window trying to talk herself into a break before she tackled the kitchen when she saw a familiar figure gliding between houses. Dottie Lee had come to call.

She opened the door and greeted her warmly. Dottie Lee stood on the stoop and got immediately to the point.

“I see you've met Pavel Quinn.”

“Dottie Lee, don't you want to come in?”

Dottie Lee shook her head. She seemed vaguely agitated. “I can only stay a moment.”

Faith figured that since the subject had been broached, she ought to milk it a little before Dottie Lee disappeared. “I met him on moving day. What do you know about Pavel? He seems nice, but I could use a warning if one's needed.”

“Warning?” Dottie Lee pulled a purple chiffon shawl embroidered with scenes of an elephant safari around her frail shoulders. “What should I warn you about?”

Faith wondered. What could one person warn another about? Would she have believed anyone's assertions that her husband was gay?

Dottie Lee elaborated. “Pavel is perfectly safe to spend time with, if what you're talking about is safety. I've known him for years. No one has a bad word to say.” She paused. “Of course, no one knows him well.”

Faith wasn't certain she liked the sound of that. “A lot of serial killers could be described the same way.”

“Murder isn't in Pavel's repertoire. You of all people know that anyone of his stature is under constant, informal surveillance.”

“Stature?”

Dottie Lee raised her penciled brows. “You don't know who he is, do you?”

“He said he works with computers. The Internet, I think.” Faith remembered that early in last night's conversation he'd also said something about working for himself. “Does he own some sort of company?”

“My dear, not just any company. He's the president and founder of Scavenger.”

Even Faith, who was hardly computer literate, knew about Scavenger. It was a worldwide search engine, one of the more popular, with offices in Northern Virginia just around the corner from America Online.

The man who had given her lists of bargain-basement contractors, who had stayed up late creating new plans for her kitchen, the man who had crawled under her sink, was most certainly a millionaire many times over.

She didn't know what to say. “He told me he did all the renovations on his house himself.”

Dottie Lee peered over her shoulder toward her own house, as if she needed to get back home. “He's certifiably eccentric, our Pavel. A populist at heart. A more informal man doesn't walk the face of this earth.”

“But he drives a Subaru. An old one.”

“Pavel has no patience with status symbols or the people who care about them.”

“Then what's he doing in this town?”

“I think I know why he never married,” Dottie Lee said, ignoring the question.

Faith hated to admit to that much interest.

“I can see you're curious,” Dottie Lee said.

“Oh, all right. Why not?”

“At heart he's the most private man you'll ever meet.”

“Pavel?”

“Yes, surprising, isn't it? But under that St. Bernard exterior beats a heart that keeps to itself. He'll deny it, of course, but it's true.”

“Do you know why?”

“Only theories. Lots of theories, and not worth the time it takes to share them.”

Before Faith could question her further, Dottie Lee raised a hand in farewell and headed back home. Faith wasn't sure which had been more extraordinary, Dottie Lee's information or the way it had been dropped on her doorstep.

Pavel Quinn, not just a successful businessman but an icon in the computer world. Dottie Lee Fairbanks, mysterious consort of the rich and powerful. Faith thought that after blocks and blocks of soccer moms, Georgetown was going to take some getting used to.

 

By six the only boxes in the kitchen were small ones that held dishes and cutlery they might need in the coming weeks. Faith had taken Pavel's advice, emptying the cabinets of the few things she had put away and moving almost everything into a corner of the dining room. Once the electrician began his work, the kitchen would be history.

She was just about to call the children to make dinner plans when she saw a Lincoln Town Car scrambling for a place to park in front of the house. The car and the driver were too familiar.

Joe Huston had come to call.

Faith's hands went to her hair, and she smoothed it as she watched her father emerge and come around to the curb. She hadn't spoken to him since the night he had come to McLean to talk her out of the move, and she doubted the intervening days had brought about a change of heart. As a father and a senator he was implacable.

She greeted him, and once inside, Joe leaned over to brush her cheek with his lips. He had never been affectionate. An arm around her shoulders and a brief squeeze were a monumental sign of approval. Now the simple kiss indicated a skirmish ahead. Her father was in rare diplomatic mode.

“You look tired, Faith. Thin.”

She didn't correct him, although she wasn't a pound thinner. She had eaten more, not less, since David's departure, her own response to depression. “Moving's a bear. I'm glad the worst is over.”

He didn't answer. His eyes roamed the room, and his expression said it all. In Joe's opinion, the worst had just begun.

She trotted out her best manners. “I can't offer much, but we do have some cold drinks in the cooler. Would you like a Pepsi?”

“The cooler?”

“We've ordered a refrigerator.” She started toward the kitchen, and he followed. In the doorway he made a sound low in his throat. She remembered that sound too well from her childhood. Clearly once again she had not lived up to Joe's expectations. One disapproving gargle and she was five again, silly and loud and relentlessly imperfect.

She didn't apologize for the state of the kitchen, and she didn't ask what he thought. She took a glass from a box, opened the cooler and popped the tab on a can of Pepsi. She handed him both without a word.

He took the glass and poured his drink, but he didn't raise it to his lips. “You can't live like this. What are you thinking?”

“I'm thinking things will get better quickly. I already have plans for redoing the kitchen. Would you like to see them?” She held up Pavel's designs.

He waved them away. “Independence is one thing. This is something else entirely.”

“I don't want to argue with you.”

“Because you know I'm right.”

“No, because I plan to do what I think is best. Not because
I'm stubborn or stupid, but because I need to learn to trust myself again.”

Joe assessed her. He was looking for the woman she had been, the one who had lived to please everyone else and thought she was happy doing it. He was trying to find that woman again, some tiny piece of her he could appeal to.

“You've been through a difficult time,” he began.

She smiled to soften her words. “And I'm not out of the woods. But they're
my
woods, and I'm beginning to make friends with them.”

“I haven't been as much help as I should have been.”

She was instantly wary, too long his daughter and too old to be fooled by crumbs of regret. “You've done everything you could. Now it's up to me.”

“In the long run, perhaps, but I have a solution for the short haul.” He smiled. “Will you listen and not make up your mind right away?”

“I'll certainly listen.”

It wasn't the answer he wanted, and the smile wavered. “I know you need to be independent. I don't know why I didn't realize it before this. You need a job and a place of your own.”

“I have the second.”

“You said you would listen. I've just lost one of my aides, and I need to replace her immediately.”

She nearly laughed. She respected her father's devotion to his job and his constituents. A million things could be said about Joe Huston, but never that he didn't take the trust placed in him seriously. Still, she would go into partnership with Alec the Can Man before she worked for Joe. He'd been hard to please as a father. As a boss he would be impossible.

“The job pays well enough,” Joe was saying. “And there's room for advancement.”

“You'll be accused of nepotism.”

“A clear case can be made for hiring you. You're intelligent, knowledgeable—”

She folded her arms. “I can't believe you want me that close
to you every day. I know this whole situation with David is difficult. We aren't a model family anymore, and I'll be a reminder to your colleagues, the press—”

“The press doesn't need any reminders.”

“What do you mean?”

“You didn't see yesterday's paper?”

Faith had been a little busy for a leisurely go at the Sunday
Washington Post,
daunting under any circumstances. “What did I miss?”

“Abraham Stein is writing a series on gay rights. Your husband's lover is making waves that could lap at the foundation of Capitol Hill. There were some unattributed quotes that probably came from David.”

She knew the rest. Abraham Stein had never kept his sexual orientation a secret, but new notoriety was bound to stir up more talk about David's outing and their relationship.

“I don't understand,” Faith said. “This will probably revive talk about David and me, at least for a little while, and you want me sitting in your office where any reporter who stops by can get to me?”

“The vacancy is in Roanoke.” He held up his hand to stop her. “In my office there. You'll be handling problems my constituents bring you. You're a good listener, and you've watched me long enough to know how to get things done. You know how the system works. You'll be a natural.”

She would be a natural, all right, a natural living more than two hundred miles away. Out of sight, in a strange city where D.C. gossip was comfortably muted.

Before she could protest, Joe ticked off the benefits. “Living expenses in Roanoke are half what they are here, and it's a lovely part of Virginia. You'll be secure. Your mother and I will loan you the down payment for a house in a section of town where the schools are good. I get down there frequently, and your mother can visit whenever she has time. You can make a new start.”

Joe wanted to wave his magic wand and render her invisi
ble; Faith was as sure of that as of anything in her life. Her father did not want her living in Georgetown, where so many of his colleagues had homes. He didn't want the scandal of his daughter's marriage to merge with the scandal of Hope's kidnapping. And he didn't want David to have easy access to his children. By offering this job, Joe could tuck Faith, Remy and Alex safely out of sight and still look like a good guy.

Faith was angry, but she knew better than to say so. The tenuous ties that bound her to her parents could easily be severed, and she had already lost too much.

She chose her reply carefully. “No matter what you think of him, the children need to be close enough that David can visit. And this area's their home. They need at least something familiar in their lives. We're going to stick it out right here and take whatever comes. I appreciate the offer, but I'll find a job once we're settled in.”

“Just like that? You're turning me down without even giving the idea a chance?”

“I've just made the
only
move I intend to make for a long time.”

“Have you thought about what it does to your mother to have you living here? To be forced to face the past every time she visits?”

Faith didn't point out that Lydia actually seemed warmer and more relaxed in this house. She didn't understand it herself, and she doubted Joe would believe her.

“I can't do what you want,” she said. “Please trust me to know what's best for the children and me.”

He was clearly furious. “Why should I? Your track record is abysmal.”

He was a master at twisting the knife, so she had been on guard. But his words still hurt. She lifted her chin, much as he often did. “No,
my
track record is impeccable. I can't be blamed for something David hid from all of us. You included.”

“
I
wasn't sleeping with him.”

“I certainly hope not. That would have been a real scandal.”

His eyes narrowed, but she forced a conciliatory tone. “You'd better go before one of us says something that really can't be taken back.”

“You're not going to think about this?”

She took his arm to propel him out of the room. “I hope you find someone perfect for the Roanoke job.”

He reined himself in enough that they got through their goodbyes without another scene. But the moment he backed out of his parking space, Faith fell apart.

“Damn it!” She kicked a small area rug that was still rolled up in the corner, then kicked it again for good measure. It was too soft. She looked around for something else, but nothing presented itself. She stormed into the kitchen, her depressing, outdated, fire hazard of a kitchen, and slammed her palm against the farthest wall. Since it was only thin drywall that had been added to partition off the back stairwell, it shook noticeably. When she hit it again—her palm stinging from the abuse—it shook harder.