“Well, in this day and age, I think it’s the greatest luxury you can give a kid—a mother to be there whenever you need her. And even when you don’t. I can speak with authority on this subject.”
She knew what he meant. His parents had died in a boating accident when he was only four years old, and he hadn’t been adopted by Lucas and Betsy Weaver until he was sixteen. His stories of the years in between reminded her of something out of Dickens.
“I just worry that it gets lonesome for you here sometimes,” he continued. “You don’t know anyone. You’re kind of isolated out here . . .”
“It’s true,” she said, thinking wistfully of the easy camaraderie she’d had with her fellow teachers when she taught school back in Michigan. “Sometimes I feel a little bit . . . cut off from people. But it’s only temporary. And this is a gilded cage, I must admit.” She would not have believed, in those dark days after Richard’s death, that she would ever end up living in a house like this one, with a new husband and a baby. She had been steeped in guilt, blaming herself for failing Richard, for not preventing him from taking that ultimate, drastic step. She shuddered at the memory and then banished it, looking around with satisfaction at the beautiful old kitchen, discreetly renovated to suit the most demanding chef, and then glanced out the bank of windows at the rolling lawn, still green in the September twilight, at the elegant patio and the pool. Through the locked gate that surrounded the pool, she saw the familiar shape of Dylan’s skateboard, resting near the edge. Her frown returned.How many times do I have to tell him?she thought, exasperated.
“What’s the matter?” Mark asked.
Keely shook her head and extricated himself from his embrace. “Oh, it’s Dylan. He left his skateboard out by the pool again. I’ve toldhim time and again that it’s dangerous to leave it out there. It goes in the garage when he’s not using it.”
Mark refrained, as ever, from criticizing his stepson. He never tried to make her feel that she was somehow remiss in the raising of her son. It was something Keely appreciated, although she often felt a sense of helpless frustration at the changes that had come over her boy these last few years. “He’s got a lot on his mind. Where are you going?” Mark asked as she walked away from him.
“I’m going to call him to come down. He’s still got to do his homework.” School had started only a few weeks ago, and they were all adjusting to the new schedule and the constant assignments that had to be finished.
“I’ll help him with it,” Mark said.
Keely regarded him fondly. “You are a patient soul,” she said.
“Hey, I was fourteen once. I still remember what it was like to be at the mercy of all those raging hormones. I got into all kinds of trouble in those days. It’s a wonder I didn’t drop out of high school.”
“Especially since you didn’t have anyone to help you,” Keely observed sympathetically. Keely was constantly amazed at how Mark had managed to become such a success in life, considering his childhood. If anything, it only seemed to make him more compassionate when it came to Dylan.
“I wasn’t completely on my own. A couple of people helped me,” he insisted. “I had a couple of teachers who tried to make things better for me. And all my foster parents weren’t bad. And, of course, there was Lucas.”
Keely nodded. Lucas Weaver was Mark’s hero—a self-made man from a rugged background who had seen something worth saving in Mark, a known juvenile delinquent whom he’d representedpro bonoin a vandalism case. Lucas and his wife, Betsy, ended up adopting the troubled boy. Lucas shepherded Mark through college and law school and finally, when he passed the bar, invited Mark to join his law firm. Mark was ever mindful of his enormous debt to Lucas, who had perhaps seen a reflection of himself in Mark and discerned that there was something worth saving in the rebellious teenager.
Mark kissed Abby’s head again and gazed out the windows at the deep turquoise of the pool, the manicured lawn of his property. “Without Lucas, I probably would have ended up in prison or dead somewhere by the side of the road. When I think about what he put up with from me . . . it seems little enough to be patient with Dylan. Besides, all these changes haven’t been easy for him. I know that.”
“Not every man would be so forgiving,” she said. “I really appreciate it, Mark.” The fact was that ever since Dylan had realized that the lawyer who was helping his mother was also courting her, he had been difficult to live with. “I know it’s not easy living with those moods of his—especially when he’s not even your kid,” said Keely apologetically.
“Don’t say that,” said Mark. “Heismy kid. I think of him as mine. And I wouldn’t trade places with any man in the world. I have exactly what I want in life.”
“What is truly strange,” she said wryly, “is that I know you mean it.”
“More every day,” he said seriously.
He had pursued her with the single-mindedness that he brought to his legal cases. The moment he’d set eyes on her, he’d seemed to know exactly what he wanted. Looking back on it, she wondered how he could have been so sure, so quickly. She’d been a wreck when she’d met him. She had brought Richard’s body back here, to his home town of St. Vincent’s Harbor, Maryland, for burial. Richard’s widowed mother had been too distraught to travel all alone to Michigan, and besides, it had seemed the right thing to do. Mark, who had been friends with Richard in high school, had attended the funeral. He was one of many people who had turned out on that sad occasion. Keely didn’t even remember meeting him that nightmarish weekend. But he remembered it all perfectly. He often said that he’d made up his mind before the funeral service was over that she would be his wife. What made his determination even more surprising was that he’d been engaged to another woman at the time.
“I feel the same way,” Keely said, and it was true. In the early days of their relationship, she sometimes thought, secretly, that she was turning to him out of weariness and a fear of being alone. But each day that passed only made her more sure that she’d made the right decisionin marrying him and had done so for the right reasons. “Well, let me go get Dylan,” she said.
Keely walked out of the kitchen and through the dining room toward the foot of the stairs. The French doors at the end of the dining room were open out onto the patio. Keely automatically walked over to them and closed them. It wasn’t safe, with Abby mobile now, to leave them open. Even with the pool gate locked, it made her uneasy.
This old stone house was elegant and beautiful, and she had fallen in love with it the minute she saw it. But Keely had been willing to forgo it when she saw that it had a pool. Mark didn’t know much about children. He didn’t realize how fast a toddler could get around. And what was worse, he didn’t know how to swim. The boating accident that took his parents’ lives had traumatized him so much that he never went into water any deeper than rain puddles. But once Mark saw how enchanted she was by the house, he’d insisted that they buy it, and nothing could dissuade him.We’ll be careful,he’d assured her.We’ll keep the gate locked.She’d tried to pretend that she didn’t like the house all that much, but he was not fooled. He saw that she loved it, and that was enough. He would have given her the world if he could. He made no secret of it.
The renovation of the house had taken most of the last year, and they’d finally moved in during the month of June. The project had been costly. They’d be paying off the contractor’s bills for quite a while. And it had been exhausting and time consuming as well. Loads of decisions, most of which Mark had left to Keely. But now that they had lived in the house for several months, it all seemed worthwhile.I’m a lucky woman,she thought.I thought my life was over and now . . .She sighed as she reached the bottom of the stairs. She put one hand on the walnut banister and called up the stairs. “Dylan . . .”
There was no answer for a few moments. Then his voice drifted down to her, the tone slightly irritable, as usual. “What?”
“Come on down here, sweetie. You haven’t done your homework yet.”
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He muttered something she couldn’t decipher.
“Right now,” she said. “Come on.”
Mark walked slowly by on his way to the living room, with Abby tottering in the lead. Keely smiled and followed them in, leaning against the archway. The living room also had French doors at the end, leading to the patio. “We’d better close those doors, honey. I don’t want Abby getting out there.”
“Don’t worry,” he said. “I’ve got my eye on her.” Mark sat down on the floor in his suit pants and let Abby clamber on top of him, pretending she knocked him over onto the oriental rug. “Oh, you’re strong,” he told her. So she did it again.
“Your pants will be ruined,” Keely chided him gently.
“These pants can take a joke,” he said.
“I hope so,” she said doubtfully. But she didn’t really mind. In fact, she kind of liked the way he was so cavalier about his belongings. He bought expensive clothes because he needed them for his job. He enjoyed having this house, and a nice car, but she truly believed that none of it was that important to him. It was a trait she had noticed early in their relationship and, considering the deprivation of his childhood, she found it rather admirable. She suspected it was an attitude he’d picked up from Lucas, who had amassed wealth but seemed indifferent to his possessions, other than his beloved collection of Western memorabilia. Lucas retained a boyish enthusiasm for everything having to do with cowboys and the Wild West.
Keely had not known what to make of Mark at first. After she and Dylan returned to Michigan, after Richard’s funeral, Mark had turned up at her door, ostensibly in town on a business trip, offering to help her with the many legal problems surrounding Richard’s death—for the sake of his old friendship with Richard, he had explained. Looking back on it, she hadn’t really questioned his appearance at her door. She had taken it as an answer to her prayers.
The very first task Mark tackled for her was to go head-to-head with insurance investigators over Richard’s life insurance policy. The company hadn’t wanted to pay because Richard had indeed purchased the gun himself, and the police had described Richard’s fatal wound as self-inflicted. Knowing Richard had committed suicide, and feeling guilty because of it, Keely had not been inclined to fight.
She could still picture Mark standing in her living room, brandishing the policy in his fist and shaking it at her while she and Dylan huddled together on the sofa. “Of course they are going to pay,” he had said, indignant on her behalf. “Haven’t you both suffered enough? You have a son who has to go to college. I’m going to make sure that they pay.” Mark had outlined his strategy like an enthusiastic coach explaining a game plan. “There was no suicide note. Therefore, they have no proof of Richard’s intentions.” Keely tried not to let Mark see how much that fact upset her. How could Richard leave them like that, without even a word of regret or farewell? Mark continued with his pitch. “There have been a string of burglaries in the neighborhood this past year. I will convince them that Richard bought the gun to protect his family. And perhaps, because he was inexperienced with guns, he shot himself with this defensive weapon by accident. Self-inflicted, yes—but accidental. Before I’m through, they’ll have to pay you twice the value of the policy. Double indemnity, for an accident.” Keely knew she should fight, but all she felt at the time was numbness and despair. Mark told her not to worry, that he would fight for her.
When he returned, after his meeting with the insurance investigators and executives, and announced that they had recommended that the company pay, she was stunned. It was as if Superman had swooped in to take care of her.
My superhero,she thought, smiling at the sight of him now, crawling around the rug with the baby. It hadn’t been long after his confrontation with the insurance company that he had dropped the pretense of helping her out for the sake of Richard’s memory and admitted his intention to win her heart. For a while she had resisted him, insisted that he leave her alone. She needed time to heal. But finally, his persistence won her over. They were married two years after Richard’s death, and she was pregnant with Abby within the next year.
The ringing of the phone cut into her memories, and she turned back toward the kitchen. “I’ll get it,” she said, as she walked over and picked up the phone.
“Mrs. Weaver?” asked an unfamiliar woman’s voice at the other end.
“Yes?”
“My name is Susan Ambler. My son, Jake, is in your son’s class at school.”
Uh, oh,Keely thought. She felt a tightening in her stomach as she carried the phone into the kitchen. “Yes?” she asked warily.
The woman on the other end sighed. “Well, Jake came home today with a bike. It’s a really beautiful new bike, and he claims that your son, Dylan, sold it to him for fifty dollars. Now, this is no fifty-dollar bike . . .”
Keely closed her eyes and shook her head. Mark had gone out himself and bought the bike for Dylan’s birthday. It was an Italian racing bike far more expensive than what she would have bought. But Mark insisted that he needed it out here, far from the center of town where the streets were peaceful, where it was too far to walk to playgrounds or stores or to the homes of friends. Not that Dylan had really made any friends yet.
“Frankly, I’m . . . worried,” said Susan Ambler, “that my son might have stolen it. Has Dylan mentioned it to you?”
“He didn’t say anything about it,” said Keely stiffly, knowing that the bike hadn’t been stolen. That wasn’t the kind of thing Dylan would neglect to mention. “Let me talk to him, and I’ll get back to you.” She took down the woman’s address and phone number and then hung up.
She heard someone come in, and when she looked up, Dylan was standing in the kitchen doorway, his backpack dangling from one hand. He was dressed in a black Korn T-shirt and droopy denims that showed the waistband of his underwear. His head was shaved and his complexion was pale and blemished around the jawline. He wore a gold earring in one ear. His face seemed to be growing more angular by the day as his body morphed into adulthood. “I’m going to do my homework up in my room,” he announced.
Keely folded her arms across her chest and looked at him with narrowed eyes. “Not so fast, buddy. I want to talk to you.”
“What?” he asked defensively.
“I just got a phone call from Jake Ambler’s mother,” she said.
He glanced at her, and then squinted out the windows, shrugging his shoulders. “So?” he said.
“Don’t you ‘so’ me,” she said. “You know what she was calling about, don’t you?”
Dylan shifted his weight and moved the backpack from one hand to another, meeting her gaze with his chin stuck out. He did not reply.
“She was wondering,” said Keely, “if her sonstoleyour bike by any chance. She found it hard to believe his story that he had purchased your brand-new Italian racing bike from you for fifty dollars.”
Dylan chewed on the inside of his mouth and looked away, a bored expression on his face.
“Well?” she demanded.
He looked back at her, still not replying.
“Did you sell him your new bike for fifty dollars?”
“It’s my bike,” he said. “I can sell it if I want to.”
Keely felt the blood rushing to her cheeks. “Dylan, what is the matter with you?”
“Nothing,” he said. “What’s the big deal?”
“Oh, no you don’t. Don’t you take that attitude with me. I want to know what is going on here. You know perfectly well that Mark went out and bought that bike for you because he knew it was exactly what you wanted.”
“Idon’twant the stupid bike,” Dylan retorted.
Keely came up close to him and pointed a finger at him. “Stop it, Dylan. You are acting like a brat, and I won’t have it. I will not let you hurt Mark like this. He didn’t do anything to deserve this except to be kind to you.”
Dylan stared straight ahead and did not flinch at the proximity of her finger.
“Now
you march upstairs and get that fifty dollars,” Keely ordered. “We are going to go over to Jake Ambler’s house and get your bike back.”
“It’s my money,” Dylan protested.
Keely’s blue eyes flashed with anger. She saw the defiance waver in his eyes.
“If you know what’s good for you, you’ll go up there and get it, right now,” she said. “And keep quiet about it. I don’t want Mark to know anything about this.”
Dylan curled his lip and tossed his backpack on the table, where it landed with a loud thud. “It’s not in my room,” he said. “It’s in here.” He fished in the front pocket of the backpack and pulled out a handful of bills. “Here.”
“You hold onto it,” she said, grabbing the car keys from a peg beside the door. “You made the deal. Now you can explain to Jake’s mother exactly why you have to take the bike back. Let me just tell Mark we’re going.” She walked into the dining room and called out, “Honey, I have to go out for a while.” She walked back to where Dylan waited. He was wearing his favorite garment—a worn leather bomber jacket that had once belonged to Richard. The lining was faded and ripped in the pockets, despite her constant mending. “It’s warm out this evening,” Keely said.
“I’m wearing it,” said Dylan through gritted teeth.
Keely sighed and shook her head. “I hope he didn’t already notice the bike was missing.”
Mark came into the kitchen holding Abby. “What’s going on?” he asked.
Not Guilty Page 2
