All That Lies Broken (Ashmore's Folly Book 2)

by Forrest, Lindsey

  Oh, this had to be nostalgia talking – however strange it was to hear Richard Ashmore, the most logical of men, making excuses for a girl he shouldn’t have been involved with in the first place.

  She took a hard tack. “Are you saying we should overlook what she did because of her terrible childhood? Middle child and all that?”

  He gave her a sharp look. “I don’t know that I buy into the birth order theory, but let me pose this to you. Suppose your mother hadn’t left you with us? Or suppose, when Dominic demanded you back, Mom had said fine and handed you over? How do you think you’d have done, sandwiched between two talented sisters, fighting for every bit of attention you got?”

  Unsettling, his words dovetailing into her earlier thoughts. “No one thought Laurie had—”

  “Oh, yes, they did,” he interrupted. “Francie did. If Diana had ever paid the slightest attention to Laura, which she didn’t, she would have. I guarantee you Dominic knew. I never bought into that myth that Cat Courtney surprised him. He didn’t like Laura’s success, he resented the hell out of it, but it didn’t surprise him. That’s merely the legend we’ve all repeated to make Diana feel better about herself.”

  She wanted to protest that he was wrong, that he was trying to whitewash someone who didn’t deserve it, but memory stopped her. Dominic demanding that Laura practice on, telling Francie to wait. Dominic punishing Laura when he deemed her practice inadequate, letting Francie’s slapdash practice slide. Dominic encouraging Francie to apply to music schools around the country, decreeing that Laura remain at home with him, under his control.

  Dominic playing favorites? Had he replaced Diana with Laura, and they hadn’t seen?

  Did Diana see now? Did that explain her brutal exposure of Cat Courtney?

  He said quietly, “You didn’t know her. I shouldn’t have, but I did, and I can tell you she had a massive inferiority complex. Laura may not always show a lot of self-confidence, but inside she has a bone-deep strength – like Dominic, much as it pains me to say that. Francie didn’t have her inner resources. From what I’ve heard about the mother, Francie seems the most like her.” He paused. “I can easily see her falling into despair.”

  He stopped, maybe remembering his contribution to that despair. Lucy settled back against the sofa. What if she’d been a regular part of the Abbott household, instead of the honored guest every other weekend? What would it have been like to grow up second banana to Diana, the golden girl, when she had so little innate musical talent herself? Probably not great, she had to admit. Dominic had skipped the chapter in the parental handbook about not playing favorites.

  Was she guilty of overlooking Francie? Dismissing her as a troublesome brat whose look-at-me! look-at-me! was to be quashed at every opportunity? Richard hadn’t. Even given the sorry condition of the Ashmore marriage, something in her must have drawn him in – something that allowed him, even now, to treat Francie’s shooting him as negligible. He seemed more concerned with what Francie had tried to do to Diana and Laura than what she had actually done to him.

  She asked, “Why are you defending her? You seemed angry enough at her last night.”

  “I was. I am.” He was typing on his keyboard, giving him an excellent reason to avoid her eyes. “But I owe her, too. I did a lot of damage to her. She had dreams and plans – she wanted to get away from Dominic, chart her own course, and I destroyed that for her through my stupidity.” He did look up then. “If I hadn’t gotten involved with her, she wouldn’t have run away, pregnant and dependent on Laura earning less than minimum wage. She wouldn’t have worked herself up to go after Diana.”

  She wouldn’t have shot you.

  He added, “And she wouldn’t be out there in Seattle under St. Bride’s thumb – I wonder if she knows he’s dead.”

  Lucy said, startled, “Why do you say that?”

  He shrugged. “If they weren’t in regular contact, she may not know. He was one of thousands that day.”

  She had to think this through. Might Francie not know that she could now come in from the cold?

  Richard’s tone said that he was finished with introspection. “Ready to get to work?”

  ~•~

  Two hours later, they were ready to throw in the towel. Amy’s brother thought that the woman he met might have been called Francie. “It’s been a while.” Lucy searched the professional databases where Maitland & Maitland had a subscription, and Richard logged into the knowledge bases used by Ashmore & McIntire, all to no avail. No trace of Francesca Dane turned up anywhere but on the banker’s association web site. Even a search through an Internet people finder yielded only a “close match” – a woman named Frances Dane in Spokane.

  “Spokane?” said Lucy. “Could she commute?”

  “Doubt it. There’s a mountain range between Spokane and Seattle.”

  “Oh, this is frustrating.” Lucy fell back against the sofa arm and clutched a cushion to her chest. “How can you exist in this day and age without a trace? What are we not seeing?”

  Richard leaned back and closed his eyes. Lucy thought he looked exhausted. “We know she’s married – or was three years ago. We know where she worked. That’s a start.”

  Lucy peered at him from around the pillow. “You think I should go to SeaWest?”

  “I don’t see an alternative.” He tapped a couple of keys. “We don’t know where she lives. Even if we did, it’s not a good idea to confront her at home, if she has a husband or small children. The husband may know nothing about this.” And then he stopped. “Oh, Lord, that’s it.”

  “What?” But he had straightened up, and the exhaustion had flown. She saw the wheels turning.

  “We forget who we’re dealing with here. St. Bride orchestrated this.” At her bewildered look, he said impatiently, “Think! Why couldn’t we find Laura all those years? Because he built a wall between Laura St. Bride and Cat Courtney, and he never permitted a breach. Laura hid behind that wall. Who’s to say Francie isn’t doing the same thing?”

  Lucy sat upright slowly. “A wall between her professional life as Francesca Dane and her personal life as Francie whoever. Wouldn’t that be difficult to pull off?”

  He looked at her levelly. “Laura did it,” he said, “and if St. Bride wanted Francie out of the way, he could have used the same game plan. She might not have liked it, but he was holding something over her head, so she had an incentive to do it his way.”

  “Okay.” The more she heard about Cam St. Bride, the less she liked him. “She might be using her maiden name for business. I thought about it myself, but I wanted to get rid of Dominic’s name.” Not to mention that Tom had some old-fashioned ideas on that score. She sighed. “Once I find her, I need to figure out a way to get in to see her. I can’t just waltz in as Lucy Maitland. She probably knows my name. She could refuse to see me.”

  “See if Amy can help,” said Richard, as a buzzing cut through his words. He glanced down at his phone.

  “Strange. Meg. How’d she get this number?” Then into the phone, “Yes—”

  And then he broke off. Lucy heard an excited female voice on the other end, and saw Richard’s quizzical look fade into consternation. He said once, “Julie, slow down,” and then, “Where’s your aunt?” and then stopped at another outpouring of words.

  He finally broke through. “Julie! Listen! I’m on my way.” Another voice – Meg’s? – and he said, “Don’t move until I get there.” And then, “No. Absolutely not. You stay put, do you understand?”

  “What’s going on?” Lucy followed him to the door.

  “You won’t believe this,” he said.

  ~•~

  Drive. Drive. Drive until you are too tired to think.

  The Lexus flew north along the Colonial Parkway towards Yorktown. Laura relaxed at the wheel, letting the powerful car wind its way beneath the canopy of trees, savoring the lack of traffic, feeling the peacefulness of the ancient countryside draw a soothing touch across her heart.

&nbs
p; In the back seat, her dry cleaning. In the CD player, Chopin. In her shoulder bag, the phone she had deliberately turned off.

  She couldn’t stay gone for long. Richard would want his car back; Lucy would want an explanation of what she had witnessed earlier. The whole clan would be sitting around the dinner table, looking at her expectantly. And she still hadn’t touched the piano or done her voice exercises for the day.

  But, oh, the tranquility of the river, glimpsed through the trees on her left. The shy charm of the deer in the forest on her right. The lovely feeling of being alone in the world. No Meg at her most difficult; no Julie at her sulkiest; no lover, interrogating her about words she regretted, memories she did not want to face.

  No feeling this profound horror at her core.

  She stopped at the roundabout near the battlefield, overlooking the York River, and leaned against the car door to let the breeze blow across her face. Even in the heat of a humid Virginia day, the river brought its own cooling gentleness. She listened to the river sounds, ignored the occasional car behind her, and closed her eyes.

  And sank beneath a weight she could no longer carry.

  She knew shame deep within herself, her soul collapsing inward, shuddering away from the blackness she’d hidden for so long. Because, she saw now, she had used Richard’s supposed culpability to salve her conscience and avoid her own guilt. She had clung fast to that mantra for eleven years: Richard wanted to kill his wife – because anything, anything was better than admitting that the hand glistening with blood was her own.

  It had been all right to shoot him, her subconscious had whispered. Admirable, even. He’d deserved it. He’d been a wannabe wife-killer. A man who could kill once could kill twice. Self-defense. Any court in the land would acquit her.

  We’re going to kill her.

  Maybe she had misinterpreted Francie’s words. Maybe, in light of that hour at Ash Marine, she had cast them in a malevolent light to whitewash her own guilt.

  No, there was no misunderstanding those words, ringing clearly across the years: We’re going to kill her. She would never forget that moment, Francie standing in her Dallas apartment, a Meg-like smile on her face, a deadly sparkle in her eyes. No, Francie had said it, and she’d meant it.

  She was as sure of that today as she had been those years ago.

  But only those words had ever linked him to the plots Francie was spinning up. She had not challenged Francie. She had not said, I don’t believe you, because she had found it too easy to believe. She’d trusted Francie; she’d learned not to trust him. She’d see him take and break marriage vows. She’d heard him promise to love Diana forever and freeze her out of his heart. He’d been the unfaithful husband, the tarnished knight, the hero fallen grievously from the pedestal.

  He’d been the lover who had worshiped her with his body, turned on her, threatened to tell—

  He called me a whore.

  She swallowed hard and lifted her hand to brush her hair from her face.

  In his car, his voice swift and urgent: Don’t you ever call yourself that again.

  But, eleven years before, not knowing about San Francisco, he had branded her in truth. Not a single word he’d flung at her on Ash Marine had been false. She’d cheated on her husband. She’d slept with another man even as she carried her husband’s child. She’d reached out, as greedy as Francie, and grabbed a man she was not entitled to. She’d tricked him into an action that had destroyed the self-respect he had so painfully rebuilt. And then she had tried to kill him.

  And, to make it all better, she had justified it. He wanted to kill Diana. He made it possible for Francie to die. He was going to tell Cam and make her lose Meg.

  “Oh, God,” and she heard the words in horror. “Oh, God, forgive me, please.”

  She’d gone to confession as a child. Every single Saturday, because Dominic and Peggy were of the pre-Vatican school that mandated lining up and confessing every white lie, every naughty thought, every sassy word, to make the soul squeaky clean for Mass the next morning. She’d even confessed to letting Neil Redmond touch her breast and endured a lecture from the parish priest that made her shrink in shame in the dark anonymity of the confessional.

  But she’d never confessed her real sins. Bless me, Father, for I have sinned… I have wanted my sister’s husband since back before I remember… I sold myself for two hundred dollars… I married a man I didn’t love… I kept a man’s child secret from him… I lied to him, I made love to him, then I shot him… I left my sister to die….

  She’d taken Meg to Mass every Sunday, every Easter and Christmas, because Peggy had taught her that was what a good Catholic mother did for her child. She’d watched her daughter take her First Communion. But she hadn’t gone to Communion herself, and she hadn’t gone to confession, for fear of what the priest might say to her. By now, her soul had to be blackened beyond redemption, like that antique silver pitcher that no amount of elbow grease had ever shined up again.

  No matter what you’ve done, it’s not irretrievable.

  Maybe. Richard had discovered that, in those years of struggle.

  You’re not irretrievable.

  But, first, she had to confess. She had to ask forgiveness. And then – she felt sick – she had to do penance.

  Five Hail Marys wouldn’t suffice for these sins. She would have to accept whatever penance he doled out. If he ordered her off Ashmore Park, so be it. If he threw her out of his life, so be that too.

  ~•~

  The afternoon had waned by the time she drove through the gates of Ashmore Park.

  An unfamiliar car sat in the usual spot in the circular drive, behind Lucy’s. So Lucy was still here, but she would not take that as a reprieve. She drove into the porte cochère by the kitchen, parked, and sat there for a moment to steel her nerves before she had to go in to face him.

  But even the few minutes of solitude she needed for courage were ripped away. As if he had been watching for her return, the side door to the kitchen opened, and Richard came down the steps.

  She scarcely had time to regroup before he came around to the driver’s side, opened her door, and held out his hand to her. She automatically let him help her out of the car, and then she got a good look at his expression, and her blood froze.

  “We’ve been waiting for you,” he said. “You’ve got—”

  She couldn’t hold it in any longer. “I need to talk to you.”

  A second of silence, and then he said, “All right. It will have to wait—”

  “No.” She couldn’t put this off. Her resolve might weaken. “We need to talk right now.”

  Her persistence took him aback. “That won’t be possible. You have a visitor.”

  Of all that he might have said, she hadn’t expected that. “How does anyone know I’m here?”

  “Good question.” He closed the car door. “I want to know that myself.”

  She let him guide her in through the mud room, but instead of turning into the kitchen proper, he turned and headed towards the formal dining room beyond the butler’s pantry. At the door, he stood back and let her precede him. It took a few seconds to adjust her vision to the shadowy reaches of the blue room, and then she saw Lucy leaning against the wall in the entrance hall, arms crossed, expression deliberately neutral. Julie stood at the open French doors between the hall and the library, and Meg – strangely, Meg seemed to be hiding behind Julie.

  “Meg?” Her uneasiness escalated. “What are you doing?”

  Just beyond the arched entry to the dining room, she saw a man’s arm move, closing a briefcase.

  “I’ll ask you the same question, Laura.”

  “Mark!” She scarcely believed her eyes. Mark St. Bride stood there in the entrance hall of the Folly, and from the look of him – clothes rumpled, face drawn and gray – he hadn’t slept. She’d forgotten that he was due back today from Japan. “What are you doing here—”

  And then he cut right across her words. “I have the je
t standing by. I am taking you and Meg home. Go back where you’ve been staying and pack your things. We’ll send for your car later.”

  “What?” Had she heard correctly? But no, she hadn’t mistaken those words, spoken in a voice bordering on belligerent. “I’m not going anywhere. Where did you get that idea?”

  “You are.” His voice was flat. “Your little rebellion has run its course. Perhaps your sister will be kind enough to send your animal home on a commercial flight. I can’t have it in my plane.”

  Her little rebellion. She stepped back at the sheer nastiness of that.

  “Mark.” She hated her conciliatory tone even as she heard herself falling into the familiar pattern of appeasement to avoid a confrontation with a St. Bride male. “I’m sorry you’ve come out of your way – you must be exhausted after your flight. You can see, we’re fine. Are you upset about the burglary?” But he shouldn’t know about that yet, unless someone at SBFA had called him. “We’re perfectly safe. You don’t need to worry about us.”

  “Burglary!” He crossed the hall to her and put his hands on her shoulders. She couldn’t help her instinctive flinch. “What burglary?”

  “Her house got robbed,” Julie volunteered, and then quailed at her father’s frown.

  Oh, thank you, Julie, just what I need.

  “And her car got totaled,” Meg chimed in, loathe to let Julie get one up on her.

  Beyond Mark’s shoulder, Laura saw Lucy scowl at Meg and put a shushing finger to her lips.

  “Totaled!” Mark’s fingers tightened. She tried to shrug him off before he left bruises. “Were you hurt?”

  She saw Richard move to intervene and tried to signal him with her eyes to stand back.

  “No.” Laura managed to disengage herself. “Someone took my car and wrecked it.”

  Mark processed that for a few seconds. “How did a thief take your car? Did he hotwire it? Did you leave the keys inside?”