He’d picked up the occasional hint of unhappiness in the St. Bride marriage, and it had come as no surprise when she had told him that her husband wanted a divorce. Cameron St. Bride had been a major red flag and the only downside of managing Cat Courtney; he could have happily drop-kicked the man off a high cliff for getting her pregnant before a major tour. Not that singers didn’t get pregnant all the time, usually at the most inopportune times, but she had told him at the beginning that she and her husband did not plan to have any more children. Accidents happened, but she had seemed nervous and tense and not at all excited about having a child – strange, considering how she doted on her daughter and they had to arrange everything around Meg. It was as if she had known her pregnancy was doomed.
Even her decision, right before 9/11, to go to Virginia had not been unexpected. Her reticence about her background had been another red flag during that first meeting. Something about her had seemed familiar…. He’d been her manager for over a year, with “Francie” and “Persephone” already part of the Cat Courtney legend, when he had read a Toronto newspaper article about a local production of Electra, directed by Dominic Abbott, and the man’s picture had rung a bell. He had looked up the old stories about Renée Dane and the murder trial in Dublin, and he never doubted that he had found Cat Courtney’s father and Laura St. Bride’s past.
He had never told anyone, even his wife.
He had worried about his girl after 9/11, and more than one person had expected her to pull out of Rochester. But she had soldiered on, and he’d hoped that this sojourn back to her roots would give her time to relax and heal so that she could give the upcoming tour her all. After that – she hadn’t asked to schedule anything, so perhaps she’d make her polka album and he’d retire and write that book after all.
She had always respected his family time, so he was startled when she called him on vacation and asked for help. She sounded apologetic. Someone had robbed her house and totaled her car. No, she was all right, Meg was all right, but while the insurance company worked things out, did he know anyone who could drive Cam’s Bentley to her in Virginia? “The title came to me in the estate,” Laura said. “I called SBFA, and Jean has the keys. It’s in storage. I’ll be more than happy to pay someone to bring it up here – I don’t have the time to fly down there and bring it back.”
Dell volunteered his son, who had graduated from college without a job and needed something constructive to do besides lie around and watch TV. “Anything else before Monday?”
“No.” She sighed. “This is such a mess, Dell. I’m trying to figure out what I need to do. I don’t have my Kurzweil or my laptop. I’ve got to go out this afternoon and buy all new equipment.” She stopped. “Oh, I’m moving – a friend is loaning me his house for a few weeks.”
A friend. A male friend. He knew how to listen for clues, and he heard plenty now in her voice. She sounded like a woman talking about a man she liked very much.
Interesting. And to be expected. She’d been a widow for almost a year. She needed to move on. He felt a fatherly interest in her; she was only a few years older than his daughter, and she deserved some happiness after the trauma of the last few years.
“Who’s this generous friend?” he asked in a teasing voice, and was not at all surprised when she evaded his question.
“Oh, just someone I knew when I was a kid.”
A childhood sweetheart. Even more interesting.
He switched gears. “Better give me that number too,” he said briskly. “In case your cell’s down and I need to reach you.”
She gave him the number without hesitation. They talked for a few minutes longer. He gave her the news about the sellout, and she vetoed a second night. “My sister will kill me,” she said cheerfully. “But no way.” They firmed up plans for his arrival on Monday and plotted out their work week.
When they disconnected, Dell Barnes called his daughter’s husband, a police officer in Kentucky, and asked him to run the telephone number of Cat Courtney’s generous childhood friend. His son-in-law called back within fifteen minutes. And Dell sat down at his laptop and prepared to find out all he could about Richard Ashmore.
Within two minutes, the third red flag of his career as Cat Courtney’s manager went up.
~•~
At Edwards Lake, Julie Ashmore and Meg St. Bride worked side by side in sullen silence to pack up Laura’s belongings, which, Julie’s father informed Meg’s mother, he was not going to let her burn. Dry clean, yes, burn, no. No need to waste perfectly good clothing, he said, his eyes on the peach silk slip. Each girl, as she worked, was stiff with outrage with the same thought going through her mind: the world as she knew it was coming to an end, and she did not like it one bit.
~•~
At Oak Bend Regional Airport, Lucy Maitland swept her damp hair back from her face and sneezed. She was no stranger to digging around in dusty records – one of her first assignments out of law school had been to review several thousand documents for a bank case – but the airport took lax recordkeeping to a new low.
She hadn’t encountered any resistance, once she identified herself as Philip Ashmore’s daughter and Richard Ashmore’s sister. Enough people had seen her with both men over the years that they hadn’t hesitated to show her to the unused hangar where they kept the old billing records. The airport hadn’t gone online until five years before; all billing had been done with index cards. “It’s kind of a mess,” the assistant manager had said apologetically. “Call if you need help.”
Kind of a mess! She’d never curse a sloppy client again.
She’d started through the boxes, hoping to find the records quickly and get out. No such luck. They did nothing so mundane at this place as file by flight date or pilot name. No, they filed by tail number. Tail number! Who besides the pilot knew the tail number? Both Richard and Philip had changed planes over the years, and, she quickly learned, any cross-reference from 1991 was long gone. So she pulled up a box and started to go through the records, one by one by one.
Each takeoff and landing was recorded on a separate card, dated and signed by the pilot. After a few thousand, she thought she’d go crazy. Scan for date, scan for name, replace. Scan, scan, replace…. No one had been in these records for years. She sneezed and prayed that she wasn’t exposing her baby to toxins.
Wait till I get my hands on you, Richard Ashmore. You are so dead.
She had gone through most of the boxes when she ran across Philip’s signature. She jotted down the tail number and then sat down, cross-legged, to go through his cards. He’d been an active pilot; he and Peggy had flown most weekends until he had finally admitted that his eyesight wasn’t what it had been. She went through a couple hundred cards – nothing was in order by date – and then, suddenly, it was.
August 6, 1991. He had taken off at 3:30 p.m., Ash Marine Inlet, VA, as his intended destination. He had returned to the airport at 10:46 that evening.
Over seven hours. Lucy put the card aside slowly and pulled up the next card.
She felt a chill go across her shoulders.
But shouldn’t she have expected this? Cameron St. Bride’s wife had been lying in a hospital. Of course, he’d rushed up here to be with her. But why – why was his landing card with Philip Ashmore’s billing records?
She swallowed hard and looked at Cameron St. Bride’s record.
He had landed at 11:09 p.m. that day – only twenty-three minutes after Philip’s return. He had paid for the landing with a credit card; the carbon of the receipt was still attached, complete with bold black signature. He had paid also to put his plane in a hangar – same hangar as Philip – for three days, after which time he had paid again for a takeoff. Destination: McKinney, TX. Passenger: 1.
She put the card down with Philip’s and felt the unwelcome sting of tears. You knew, Dad. God damn it, you knew where she was. You knew her name. And you said nothing to us all these years.
She picked up the next card. The day after his seven-hour trip
, Philip had left, bound for Ash Marine, at 10:30 in the morning. Passenger: 1. He had returned at 12:48 p.m. Passenger: 0.
She stared at that one for a long time and then laid it with the other cards she had pulled out.
Next card. For the third day in a row, Philip had left for Ash Marine, this time at 9:15 a.m. He had returned three hours later. No passengers, coming or going.
She numbly paged through the rest of Philip Ashmore’s billing cards but found nothing out of the ordinary. She turned to the next to last box.
And then a wave of exhaustion swept her over. Damn it, she was tired. She was hot and thirsty and dusty and pregnant. She was sick of it all – her family, her foster brother and her older sister, her younger sister and the mysteries surrounding her. She had better things to do than sit in a dirty hangar, going through index cards. She should be at home in her little sitting room, feet propped up, sipping something cool and herbal, doing nothing but growing her baby.
Lucy closed her eyes, took a deep breath, squared her shoulders, and opened the box.
She was in luck. She had only gone through a third of the box when she ran across Richard’s signature – that precise signature that she’d know anywhere. It was for the wrong time period, but at least she had found his tracks in the sand. That discovery, minor as it was, gave her a second wind, and she pressed on through another third of the box.
Then she hit pay dirt. She found a number of cards for the spring of 1988, all signed by Richard with Ash Marine or Charlottesville as the destination. On each card for Ash Marine, in the box for passengers: 1. Her eyebrows shot up. Not Diana, that was for sure. And this was the spring that he and Francie – okay, so now she knew how and where they had been meeting. She knew dates. Each landing was brief, just long enough to pick up or drop off a passenger, and maybe enough time for a couple of hot kisses.
Maybe I will knock your block off. What were you thinking? Were you thinking?
These she definitely needed to keep. Here was concrete evidence of the affair with Francie, and she couldn’t risk Diana getting curious and asking to go through billing records.
On through the next three years. Richard had been busy establishing himself in his new career; he hadn’t had that much time to fly, even on the weekends. She went through the cards quickly until she ran across two cards clipped together.
One for August 6, 1991. A takeoff. Signed by Richard Ashmore at 11:20 a.m. Destination: Ash Marine Inlet, VA.
The other, same date. Landing at 2:05 p.m. But the signature—
His name, but in handwriting that could scarcely be called that. The letters were shaky and ill-formed, and the ink from his pen had smeared across the top of each letter. It looked as if someone had dragged something across the top of his signature. It reminded her of the time when Tom had sprained his writing arm playing tennis.
Even more interesting, he, or someone, had whited out the signature line, so that his shaky signature lay on top of something else. She ran a fingernail lightly along the edge of the white-out, and a few flakes fell on her lap.
And the 2 in 2:05 looked different from the 2 in 11:20. Richard’s numbers were neat and precise, the printing of an architect. The 2:05 had an ornate tail.
Someone else had filled out that card, and he had signed it.
She shoved her discoveries – Richard’s cards, Philip’s cards, even Cam’s – into her shoulder bag and replaced everything else in the box. She made a note of the box number in case she needed it – you never knew – but she doubted she’d be back. She had found what she needed.
On the way out, she grabbed some bottled water. She must have swallowed a gallon of dust.
~•~
By early afternoon, Emma St. Bride had run out of tears.
At least, Brian Schneider hoped she had. He had never seen a woman cry so long and so hard. Not that she didn’t have every reason to cry. The identification of Cameron St. Bride’s remains had come without warning and had hit hard; he gathered that the family had been resigned to his obliteration. “They only found his wedding ring,” Emma sobbed. “And she took it.”
It seemed to Brian that a man’s wife had more right to his wedding ring than his sister did, but he didn’t voice that opinion. Emma clearly was in no mood to be reasonable. He shelved any thought of gently questioning her about her sister-in-law and spent a couple of hours comforting Emma on the huge sofa in the family room, a two-story room almost as large as his house.
Then they moved up to her bedroom, and he comforted her some more.
They were resting when Laura St. Bride called and left a message. How Emma didn’t feel him snap to was a mystery; maybe she was also dozing off from the last round of comforting. He forced himself to breathe normally as the voice of the elusive Mrs. St. Bride came over the speaker phone. “Emma? Emma, I need to talk to you. Please call me on my cell when you get this. Thanks.” If his editor could hear Laura St. Bride’s voice, then listen to Cat Courtney’s CD, no question could remain. Her speaking voice was a soft Southern, but the tones and timber were the same as her singing voice: a certain clarity, an interesting lilt that spoke of that Irish background.
“Oh, God,” said Emma. “That’s the last straw, hearing from her today! I wonder what earthshaking crisis she’s got now?”
Brian said, “Perhaps someone’s called her. Isn’t it possible—”
But three orgasms still had put Emma in no mood to listen to reason. “She wouldn’t be calling me, I promise you! She’d be crying all over Mark’s shoulder. No, she probably needs a lipstick sent to her, or some other crucial thing that can’t wait.” She turned on the pillow towards him. “You can be sure she won’t care Cam’s been found. I never met a colder bitch in my life. She was like ice at Ground Zero. Never turned a hair.”
Brian glanced over at her, shocked. He had never seen a woman show less empathy. So Laura St. Bride was reserved? If she were Cat Courtney, she’d had years to learn to control her emotions in public. She had probably had plenty of practice – an unwed mother suddenly made a daughter-in-law, a girl with a hidden background married into this judgmental family.
Not to mention that Laura Abbott had the look of someone who had only ever had herself to rely on. She’d probably learned to keep her feelings under wraps and her thoughts to herself.
What had the St. Brides thought, when their son brought home his much younger wife and their baby? Had they judged her the moment she walked in? Had she faced this harshness throughout what seemed like a miserable marriage?
No matter that the judgmental-St. Bride-in-chief had laid her cheek against his chest, her breath a warm brush against his skin. When she got on the subject of her sister-in-law, she was thoroughly disagreeable. And, Brian decided, he didn’t like her this way, crazed mink between the sheets or not.
He said clearly, “That’s not fair, Emma.”
Emma lay still for a moment, then lifted her head. She looked stunned. “What?”
“Your attitude.” He sat up, drawing away from her. “I don’t know your sister-in-law, and I really don’t get your relationship with her, but you don’t show an ounce of compassion for her. For God’s sake, the woman lost her husband in the most horrible way anyone could imagine. It was probably all she could do to keep herself together at Ground Zero. Most people would have been freaked out of their minds. Cut her some slack.”
Emma stared at him, her mouth open. For the first time since he had met her – two days ago? seemed longer – she looked her full forty years. Hadn’t anyone ever taken the St. Bride queen down a peg? Held up a mirror to her, shown her how truly unattractive she could be?
She might be well put together, but she was a shrew inside.
He gave her a brief look, swung his legs to the floor, and reached for his clothes.
From behind him, he heard a small “You’re not being fair, Brian.”
“I think I am.” He pulled on his pants. “You’re hypercritical, Emma. You don’t like the way your sister-
in-law runs her life, not that it concerns anyone besides her and your brother, and he’s not around to have any say-so. You don’t like that she mourns differently from you. You just flat don’t like her. So, tell me, what—” he sat down again to pull on his socks— “gives you the right to sit in judgment on her?”
“Hold on there.” Emma had found her voice again, and she sounded shrill. “Since when are you such an expert? You don’t know her. You didn’t have to put up with her at Thanksgiving dinner for all those years like I did. God! You don’t know. Just that stupid mysterious silence of hers, and that deferring to Cam all the time, when you could see in her eyes she wanted to slug him. That woman is a gold digger, and she got her gold. She saw a sure thing in him, she got pregnant and made him marry her, and then she took him for everything—”
“Oh, really?” He turned around and looked at her straight. “I doubt that. I doubt that very much, Emma. I don’t think she needed your brother at all. I bought one of her CDs this morning. Oh, yes,” he said at her shock, “I know. You all but handed it to me on a silver platter. Cat Courtney didn’t need your brother. If she stayed with him, it’s because she wanted to. She either loved him, and why I don’t know, because he sure as hell didn’t qualify as husband of the year, or she wanted her child to have her father. Either way, those were damn good motives.”
“My God.” Emma’s hand went to her throat. “How did you – no, I didn’t, what do you mean, I handed it to you—”
“Give me a break.” He didn’t care how scathing he sounded. “Little Miss Cat? Copyrights? Francie? That piano? The career in Europe that no one seemed to know about?”
“You – you—”
“What did you expect, Emma? I’m a journalist. This is what I do. I put things together. You handed me a story, and I went after it. You wouldn’t believe how easy it was, once you put me on the right path.”
He buttoned his shirt and looked around for his tie, then remembered stuffing it in the pocket of his jacket, downstairs.
“You bastard.” Emma barely got the words out. She had gone completely pale, except for her swollen eyes. Impossible to cry buckets of tears and not leave some traces. “You – you used me, you came here for your story, is that it? On her?”
All That Lies Broken (Ashmore's Folly Book 2) Page 41
