The Cruel Ever After (25 page)

This was the second time she’d taken Dusty out in the last few days. She thought about Steve’s comment, that babies needed to be exposed to germs to help them develop their immune systems. Conflicting information, especially when it came to children’s health, seemed to be the norm. It was probably just something Steve had made up because he wanted to go to a restaurant and wolf down a steak while he tried to convince her to come back home.

Not only was it impossible for her to return to Apple Valley, but she couldn’t stay at the old family house another minute. Earlier in the evening, Irina had seen the same truck drive past the house three times in the space of ten minutes. She called to Misty, told her come look, but as luck would have it, once Misty had joined her at the window, the truck never came by again. She eventually gave up trying to convince her sister that they weren’t safe, that they should both leave, and instead she’d gone into the bedroom and packed up her suitcase and Dusty’s diaper bag, then crept out the back door. She’d lifted her mom’s key fob from Misty’s purse on the way out. Misty’s rattletrap Cougar, with the ashtray filled to overflowing and the ripped, dirty seats, was the least hygienic place in the northern hemisphere. Her sister would be angry when she learned what Irina had done, but in a few days she’d be able to buy five Audi Roadsters if she wanted them.

Arriving at the marina shortly before ten, Irina drove through the security gate and then began her search for a parking space. Her mother rented a liveaboard slip, which meant that the boat was moored on one of the outer fingers. After finding a spot reasonably close to the walkway, she unstrapped Dusty’s car seat and lifted the entire seat onto the pavement next to her. Then she grabbed her suitcase, hung the diaper bag over her shoulder, and lugged everything—and everyone—to the far side of the marina.

Under a starry sky on the aft deck, she unlocked the door to the first-floor salon. A night-light that her mom always kept on in the galley burned at the back of the large, open room. She loved the feel of being on the water, although this wasn’t exactly a normal boat. The two-story floating mansion was sixty-two feet long, custom-made to her mother’s specifications, using only the finest-quality materials—teak, ebony, mahogany, leather, glass block, and polished marble. She wasn’t sure how much it was worth, but she would learn tomorrow when she and her sister met at the lawyer’s office to go over the trust documents. She couldn’t stand the idea of having the boat trashed by Misty and her sleazy friends. She intended to buy her sister out. Misty would inherit stocks and the house in Merriam Park. Irina would get the gallery, more stocks, some bonds, and her mother’s condo in Woodbury. Misty had been the black sheep in the family forever, but still, Irina thought the bequests were generous.

Irina spent a few seconds checking the refrigerator to see if there was any food on board. Her mom normally spent the weekends here. It struck her as achingly sad that her mom would never come here again, a place she’d loved so much. Tears formed, but she fought them. She would have the rest of her life to mourn her mother’s passing. For now, she had to stay focused on keeping herself—and Dusty—safe. Finding that the refrigerator shelves were stocked with cheeses, fruit, champagne, and even a slice of pâté and a paper carton of crab and corn chowder from Surdyk’s, she turned back to her son.

“Let’s get you upstairs to bed,” she said, carrying him and everything she’d brought with her up the staircase. She moved quietly down a hall lit by more tiny night-lights, bumping the wall with the suitcase, past the guest cabin and one of the four bathrooms. Standing at last in the master suite, she wondered for a moment if she should run back downstairs and find the cleaning supplies, scrub the room down before they spent the night. It seemed too much, even to her. One night in a room she hadn’t inspected from top to bottom, but one that she knew was cleaned regularly by a professional service, would probably be okay. She could open the sliding glass doors that led out to the foredeck if she wanted fresh air.

Irina set Dusty’s car seat in a chair and pulled it over next to the bed, where she sat down with a tired thump. It was times like this that she truly loathed the people in her life. Where was their support for a young mother with a sick baby? If it took a village to raise a child, her village was full of nothing but slackers and critics.

Irina gave Dusty a quick bath in the master bathroom. She dressed him in a clean Onesie and then gave him his bottle. He fell asleep on her shoulder as she walked around the darkened room, patting his back and humming softly. She held him in her arms for a long time, just looking down at him, smelling him, kissing his cheek, marveling at how beautiful and sweet he was, and how grateful she was that she’d finally been able to cary a child to term.

After getting him settled back in the car seat and tucking a blanket around him, she stretched out on the bed, feeling another wave of sadness wash over her—this time, for Chess. He would never know the joy of having a son, and Dusty would never know his father. It seemed pretty clear to Irina that Chess had taken off. She’d been afraid he’d do something like that all along. He hadn’t returned any of her calls. Unless he was lying dead in an alley somewhere, a victim of whoever was searching for the bull, there was no other reasonable explanation for his silence. He was gone. In many ways, she didn’t blame him. They’d gotten in way over their heads, with no exit strategy. She didn’t have a gun anymore, but she did have an ace in the hole if the thugs came after her again. She intended to stand her ground, refusing to flee as Chess had done, but she wouldn’t allow herself to be a sitting duck, as she had the other night.

Had she ever really loved Chess, she wondered, or had he simply represented a way out of an unworkable life with Steve? She might be greedy, and she might have been attracted to the idea of a secret romance, but she was also a practical person—maybe too practical for her own good. She was a little surprised that she could think this clearly at such a stressful time. Yes, as she mulled it over, she did want to marry Chess, but not at any price. The fact that he’d run off without so much as a phone call meant she was expendable. The biggest error she’d made was not telling him about Dusty. If she could do it all over again, she wouldn’t make the same mistake.

Back in the galley, Irina removed the champagne from the refrigerator, noting that it was French and expensive. She found some crackers in the cupboard and returned to the master cabin, where she disrobed, opened up the sliding doors to the foredeck, removed the hot tub cover, and climbed in. The heat felt good against her chilled skin. Above her, a yellow half-moon floated peacefully in the night sky. She drank directly from the champagne bottle, feeling the alcohol ease the knots in her tired muscles.

It had been a long day. She’d spent most of the morning arranging the funeral. She’d driven to the funeral home, picked out a casket, arranged for flowers, and contacted the church and talked to the minister who would officiate at the service. He was a man she’d never met before, but he seemed to understand her desire to keep things simple. There would be two eulogies, one delivered by her uncle, her mother’s brother, who would be flying in with his family from Pittsburgh, and the other by her mother’s best friend, a woman who lived in town.

In the afternoon, Irina had called all the relatives and friends her mother would have wanted to come. For some on the list, she’d left messages. Those were the easy calls. Many of the others had wanted to talk. It seemed to Irina that they were, tacitly but unmistakably, asking her to make
them
feel better instead of offering her comfort. The entire day had been exhausting and confusing.

Misty, of course, felt she deserved time off for good behavior because she’d babysat Dusty for several hours while Irina was off taking care of the funeral business. And frankly, it was fine with Irina if Misty left the house. When she was around, so were her friends. Irina planned to confront her sister and Steve about their cozy embrace last night, but not until after the funeral. Her emotions were already on overload, and at the moment, it was more than she wanted to know.

Lying in the tub, with the jets turned off, drifting to sounds of the quiet lapping of the waves against the hull, Irina began to wonder about mold. Boats were in contact with water, which was a perfect environment for mold to grow. It didn’t smell moldy inside the houseboat. If anything, it smelled like lemon oil and eucalyptus. Still, it might not have been the best idea to bring Dusty here. With every decision she made, she was compromising his health. She pushed up out of the water and sat on the edge of the tub, naked, alone, half drunk. She was a miserable excuse for a mother. She didn’t deserve such a wonderful son. She started to cry, unable to stop herself this time.

An odd feeling—perhaps a sensation of movement or a shifting in the boat’s balance, something almost but not quite perceptible—caused her to look back into the cabin. She climbed out of the water as quietly as she could manage and grabbed her bathrobe from the bed, sure as she could be that she was no longer alone on the boat. Standing in the darkness, with moonlight streaming in through the sliding glass doors, she listened, hoping with all her might that she was wrong.

Creeping to the edge of the door, she looked down the hall. A light snapped on in the salon, throwing a shadow against the stairway.

She backed up and looked around for something to use as a weapon, but unless she wanted to smother the intruder with a pillow, or smack him with a lamp, she was out of luck. That’s when she remembered her knitting needles. She’d brought along the tiny blue sweater she was making for Dusty. Easing over to her suitcase, she dug through her clothes until she found them. She pulled several free and tested them by poking them into her palm. It was a puny effort, but if she could get close enough without being seen, she could do some damage.

Standing behind the door, she waited, taking shallow breaths, praying that Dusty wouldn’t wake and start to cry. The wood stairs creaked under the weight of heavy footsteps. A second later he was in the hall moving toward her. She couldn’t see him, but she had the sense that he was big. And then he stopped. Just stopped.

She pulled her head back as a light burst on in the bathroom. A slice of brightness slid across the cabin rug. She watched, feeling eerily calm, as the shadow moved into the doorway. Her hand tightened around the knitting needles. She was sure of only one thing. She would kill to protect her son.

The shadow hovered.

She could hear his breathing, feel his nearness.

Without warning, the door slammed back at her, driving the needles against her stomach. She cried out in pain, lost her balance, and fell back against the wall.

The overhead light flipped on. She found herself staring up at Majid. “What … what are you doing here?”

His black eyes swept over her, taking in the cabin, the open suitcase, her clothes tossed over the bed. He zeroed in on the car seat. His expression was inscrutable.

“Here,” he said, extending his hand. “Let me help you.”

Continuing to hold the knitting needles in her fist, she righted herself and stood up. “How did you get in? Did you break the lock?” She would call the police, have him arrested.

“No,” he said, scrutinizing her face. “I have a key.”

“You stole it?”

“No, of course not. Your mother gave it to me.”

“Why would she do that?”

“Someone got into my apartment this afternoon, tossed it good and proper. Probably the same people who murdered Morgana and ransacked the gallery. The police told me I couldn’t stay there, so I drove out here thinking I’d spend the night.”

“The police?”

“I called them, reported what happened. It’s a crime scene now.”

“But why would my mother give you a key to her houseboat?”

He walked over to Dusty and stood looking down at him.

“Answer me.”

“Did you happen to look in the closet?”

“The closet?”

“I stay here a lot. Your mama and me, we were lovers. More than that. We loved each other. Check out the closet, you’ll find my bathrobe, my shirts and slacks. My shaving kit is in the bathroom.”

She gripped the knitting needles tighter. “Get away from him.”

He turned, a look of pain crossing his face. “I’m grieving, too, Irina. You’re not the only person who lost someone important.”

“You should be ashamed of yourself. Seducing a woman so many years older than you.”

“It wasn’t like that. It happened so slowly that we almost didn’t realize it until one night when we were working late and … we had to face our feelings.”

“That’s disgusting. She was old.”

“Not to me.”

A thought seized her. “Do you expect to be included in the trust?”

“Why do you hate me?”

“Get out. Get out of here or I’ll call the police.”

Holding up his hands as if she were pointing a gun at him, he moved toward the door. “Just calm down, okay?”

“I’m very calm.”

“Great. Fine. I’m leaving,” he said.

“Give me the key.”

“What?”

“The key to the downstairs door. I want it. I don’t want you coming back in here in the middle of the night.”

“To do what?”

“I’ve never trusted you.” She held out her left hand, her right hand holding the needles like a dagger.

“I’d never hurt you. You must know that.” He dipped his hand into his pocket and pulled out a key ring. Unscrewing the end, he took off several keys until he came to the right one.

Irina recognized it and took it from him. “Now, get off the boat and don’t come back.”

With one last glance at the baby, he turned and walked back down the hall.

Irina stepped out on the foredeck and watched him move silently back up the walkway to the parking area. When he was out of sight, she ran back down to check that he’d locked the door. Throwing the double lock, something she should have done right away, she went into the kitchen and began removing the Lysol, the Ajax, the 409, the rags and scrub brushes. She’d never get to sleep now. She might as well clean.