“I’m fine. It’s just a little trip. I think it’s a good idea,” she cried.“What’s wrong with it?”
“I can’t,” he said. “I have an appointment with Dr. Stover tomorrow.”
“I’ll reschedule it,” said Keely.
“Mom, I’m tired,” he complained. “I don’t want to take a trip.”
She knew he was tired. There were dark circles under his eyes, and he’d been listless ever since he’d gotten home. But she had to get them away from here. “You can rest in the car. We’ll take your medication with us.”
“Thanks a lot, Mom. Always thinking of my welfare.”
Tears rose to her eyes at his bitter sarcasm. “I’m trying to do what I think is best,” she said hoarsely.
“What’s the matter?” he asked, frowning.
“Nothing’s the matter. Hasn’t enough bad stuff happened around here that I might just want a change of scene?”
Dylan folded up the cord on his headset and turned off the power on the CD player. “You never did this before,” he said.
Keely wiped her eyes quickly with the side of her hands and sniffed.“Did what?” she asked.
“Ran away,” he said.
She was about to protest his description, but then she stopped. She couldn’t.Put it another way,she thought. “Look, Dylan. I’m not asking you to go to Alaska,” she said. “A quick little road trip to Washington, D.C. Is that too much to expect? I know you’re tired. I wouldn’t ask it if I didn’t think it was important.”
“Why?” he said stubbornly, staring out the window. “Tell me why and I’ll go.”
“I told you why.”
“You’re lying,” he said.
Keely was about to lash out at him for his insolence. Then she stopped herself. He was right. How could she scold him for that? She took a deep, shuddering breath. “Okay,” she whispered. “Something terrible is about to happen. To someone we . . . know. I don’t want to be involved in it. I don’t want any part of it. I want to be far away.”
“Who?” Dylan asked. “What’s going to happen?”
“I don’t want to get into it. I don’t want to say any more about it. Believe me, you’ll know soon enough.”
“Just tell me who it is,” he insisted.
“Dylan . . .”
“Come on, Mom.”
Keely hesitated. She recognized that implacable expression in his eyes. She had seen it in the mirror often enough lately. He was not going to let her off the hook.All right,she decided. Hiding it would just postpone the inevitable. He would know soon enough. It couldn’t take the police long to put it together. “It’s Lucas,” she said. “Okay? It’s Lucas.”
“What’s going to happen to him?”
“I think he’s going to be arrested,” she said.
“Is that why the cop was here?”
“No,” she said. “That was . . . something else.”
“So why is he going to be arrested? Is it serious?”
“Very serious,” she said.
“What did he do? Some legal fraud or something?”
“No, Dylan. This is a matter of life and death. Okay? And that’s it. That’s all I’m going to say. Now, I want to leave, as soon as possible. Can you do it without an argument? Can you trust me? Just this once. Trust me and pack a bag.”
Dylan sighed. “All right,” he said. “I guess so.”
ABBY FELL ASLEEPin her car seat almost the moment they hit the highway. As for Dylan, Keely let him play whatever CDs he wanted, as long as the noise didn’t wake up his sister. It kept him occupied. There was no need to talk. Every so often, she would point to the map and he would look at the passing signs and tell her when to expect the next intersection of roads. Otherwise, they rode in silence.
The Dolly Madison Motor Lodge was in a quiet area outside of Washington, D.C., and it was dark when they pulled into the parking lot. Keely read the sign. “This looks nice,” she said. “Restaurant, indoor pool, Jacuzzi, cable, cocktail lounge with live music.”
“Cool,” said Dylan. “Four old fat guys playing ‘Stranger in the Night.’ ”
Keely responded with a thin smile. “We’ll skip cocktails,” she said.
“There’s nobody here,” Dylan observed, turning down the volumeon the CD player and glancing around at the sprinkling of vehicles in the parking lot.
“Well, it’s not exactly high season,” Keely agreed. “What do you think?”
“Whatever,” he said with a shrug.
“Okay,” she said, switching off the engine. “I’ll go get us a room. Watch Abby.”
A few minutes later, Keely returned with keys to two connecting rooms. She drove the SUV around to the back of the motel. She pulled into a spot right in front of their rooms, then gave Dylan his key. Despite his reluctance about the whole trip, he liked the idea of having his own hotel room, and he was eager to try it. He opened the door to his room, dumped his duffel bag, and then came back to the car to help Keely unload Abby’s things into the adjoining room. Keely unfolded a blanket on the floor and placed Abby down on it with some of her toys. Then she sat down on the bed. Dylan sat down on the bed opposite her.
“How’s your room?” Keely asked.
Dylan shrugged. “Exactly like this one.” He got up and opened the connecting door. “Want to see?”
Keely shook her head. “Not right now. I’m a little weary. I’ll look at it later.” Dylan nodded and closed the door between the rooms. He looked sympathetically at his mother. “You want me to go get us some sodas and some ice?”
Keely nodded at him gratefully. Suddenly he looked so grown up to her, standing there ready to help. “That would be great. Do you know where the ice machine is?”
“I’ll find it, Mom,” he said impatiently.
“Do you need money? Look in my purse.”
Dylan shook his head. “I’m fine. I’ll be back soon,” he said.
Keely took his hand as he edged past her. “Thank you, honey. Thanks for everything.”
Dylan brushed off her gratitude. “I’m going swimming when I get back. I want to try out that indoor pool. And the Jacuzzi.”
“Those things are full of germs,” said Keely.
“You’re right, Mom. I’ll probably get a fatal disease.”
“Go,” she said, smiling. “Get your sodas. Don’t forget your key.”
Dylan muttered in teenage exasperation and closed the door behind him. Keely lay back on the bed and closed her eyes as Abby played contentedly on the blanket between the beds. It was a good idea to come here, she thought. It was peaceful here, and she couldn’t be sucked into this mess, asked a million questions. Forced to admit to the police that her friend, her father-in-law, her stalwart protector, was probably a murderer. The thought of it made her feel sick to her stomach.How long will it be?Keely thought.How long before the police realize?It couldn’t be long.
Lucas, she thought. She had always admired Lucas. Always thought of him as the best of men. But the instant that Phil Stratton had said the word “insulin,” it was like a code that had suddenly cracked. Her first impulse had been to call Lucas, to confront him with it. But she found that she couldn’t do it. She couldn’t bring herself to say the words. Couldn’t stand to hear any more lies, from Lucas this time.
Keely’s head was throbbing. She could still picture Lucas on that day when they had entered Prentice’s apartment and confronted that dreadful mess. The look of horror and dismay on Lucas’s face as he waded through the debris of his son’s life. He had been so pale and sweaty and shaky that he’d had to clear a chair to sit down and give himself an injection. She could still see, in her mind’s eye, the compact little kit containing the hypodermic and the vial of insulin that he removed from his coat pocket. She could still picture him sitting there on the chair, matter-of-factly rolling up his sleeve and swabbing his arm to take the needle. She had turned away, not wanting to look. She didn’t want to look at it now, but there was no turning away.
Now
she couldn’t stop picturing Lucas—kind, generous Lucas.Why,she thought?What would make him do it?Stabbing Maureen with that needle. Dressing her up and putting her into the car. Turning on the engine. That was the part that was hard to come to terms with—the ruthlessness of it. God knows, there’d been no love lost between her and Maureen Chase. In a way, Keely had hated Maureen and everything she had done. But still . . . she was a human being and she didn’t deserve . . . Maureen’s tortured life was her own. Her killer had acted as if it was his to end as he chose.
Keely crossed one arm over her eyes as she lay there. At least they were away from St. Vincent’s Harbor. She might not be able to help Lucas, but at least she didn’t have to stand by and watch as the police figured it out and then picked him up. It couldn’t be long before someone in the police department or the court system remembered that Lucas was a diabetic. Before they found the papers on Josie Fiore’s desk and talked to Julian Graham and Veronica’s name surfaced. That was all related to Mark’s death, too. She didn’t know how, but somehow, it was all related. She was sure of that. Ifshecould see the connections, surely the police would. They would connect the dots, which would lead to Lucas. Surely Lucas must have known that he would be suspected. He was an attorney. He understood all about the chain of evidence. The trail that leads to a suspect. And yet he did it anyway, as if he didn’t care what happened, as long as he killed her. But why?
A knock at the door made Keely jump, and then she realized it was probably Dylan, his arms too full of sodas and the ice bucket to use the key. She got up to let him in, stepping over Abby’s toys. Then she remembered that the woman at the desk had promised to send someone from housekeeping to the room with a crib for Abby. It might be housekeeping, actually. She walked to the door and opened it.
Halogen lights illuminated the dark parking lot, making a flat, silvery glow in which Keely could see a mist of quiet rain. Lucas stood outside the door, leaning on his stick, the collar of his raincoat turned up against the drizzle. Unsmiling, he reached his other arm out and held the door ajar. “Keely,” he said. “May I come in?”
44
Keely stared at her visitor. The expensive clothes, the perfectly combed white hair, the broad smile that didn’t match the expression in his keen, wary eyes. His gnarled fingers were closed, white-knuckled, over the head of his cane. She felt as if she had never really seen him before. “Lucas,” she said. “What are you doing here?”
“Getting wet at the moment,” he said squinting up at the dark, drizzly sky. “May I . . . ?” He indicated the inside of the hotel room with his cane.
“How did you find me?” she asked.
“I followed you, actually,” said Lucas.
The idea of his following the SUV was chilling. She had to pretend that she was not threatened by his strange behavior. “Well. My goodness. What could be so important? Am I in some kind of trouble?”
“No,” he said. “Not you.”
“Not Dylan,” she said.
Lucas shook his head.
Keely glanced back over her shoulder into the hotel room. “Well. What else is there? Is Ingrid all right?”
“As far as I know,” he said, “Ingrid’s fine . . .”
“Is it Betsy?”
“I need to talk to you,” he said.
“Lucas, I’m flattered. But couldn’t it wait until I got home?”
“Keely,” he said in a chiding tone, “Surely you have a moment for a friend. I had to come a long way to talk to you.”
“It’s just that . . . we came here to get away for a while.”
“It’s very important,” he said. His face still wore that ingratiatingexpression, but for the first time, Keely saw a flash of steel in his smile.
There was no reasonable explanation for his being here. He had to know. But how could he know? She hadn’t spoken to anyone but Dylan after Phil Stratton came by. Maybe the best thing was just to feign ignorance and speak to him, and then he would leave. “Well, I guess for a minute,” she said reluctantly. “But when Dylan gets back, we’re going to go down to the pool.”
Lucas edged past her into the room and smiled at Abby who was playing on the floor. Abby looked up at him, wide-eyed.
“Where is Dylan?” Lucas asked.
Keely closed the door, as Lucas sat down on the edge of one of the beds, resting his hands on the head of his stick.
“Excuse the mess,” Keely said, automatically picking up scattered belongings and putting them out of sight in drawers and closets. “Dylan went down to the . . . uh . . .” Keely lost her train of thought as she picked up her bedroom slippers, suddenly remembering Maureen, in that grotesque combination of wedding gown and bedroom slippers. Her so-called suicide arranged by . . .
“Where?” Lucas asked. Keely shook her head to rid it of that image, then looked at Lucas.“I’m sorry, what?”
“Where is Dylan?” he asked.
Keely closed the closet door. “He went to get some ice and some sodas. He’ll be right back. He’ll be so surprised to see you.” Anxiously, she remembered what she had told Dylan—that Lucas was about to be arrested. What if Dylan blurted it out? Then, there’d be no pretending that she didn’t know, that she hadn’t figured it out. She looked anxiously at the door.
“Well, it will be good to see him,” said Lucas. “How did the return to school go?”
“Fine,” said Keely. “It went fine.” She thought of how vehemently Lucas had defended Dylan from Maureen Chase’s persecution. How they had leaned on him. It couldn’t be, she thought. Lucas was a champion of the law. He believed in justice and fairness. “Dylan’s the reasonwe came down here, actually. He needed to do a paper on the Supreme Court. I thought it would be fun for him to actually visit the court.”
Lucas nodded. “Good idea. It will give him a real feeling for the place. I argued before the Supreme Court once, you know.”
“Oh?” she said. Her face was a mask of polite interest as her brain worked feverishly, trying to assess the situation they were in. Was he dangerous to them? It wasn’t possible.
“Oh, yes,” Lucas continued. “I was almost paralyzed with fear. It’s quite a feeling to stand in that courtroom as those venerable old justices come in and take their seats. You never forget it.”
Keely looked at him, feeling perplexed—and suddenly protective of him. He had had such a successful life.How could it have been Lucas?she argued with herself. There were lots of diabetics. For a moment, she couldn’t remember why she had assumed it was Lucas. There was no reason to think it couldn’t have been someone else. “You’ve had such a fantastic career, Lucas.”
“Yes, well . . . I always had a kind of simple-minded belief in truth and justice and all that. Always thought the good guys would win in the end. The outlaws would end up behind bars. Just like in all the old westerns. I grew up on those, you know. When I was a boy, you could sit in the movies all day. Watch the serials, the westerns. Even poor as we were, my dad would manage to scare up the money for my brother and me to go to the pictures while he and my mom were working in the store on Saturdays. That was a happy time in my life. I didn’t even know we were poor then. Not till my dad died when I was eight. By then, I was already hooked. I was gonna wear the white hat and save the day.”
For a moment, Keely was distracted as she thought she heard the door open and shut in the room next door.No,she thought.It couldn’t be Dylan. Dylan would come in here first.He was bringing the ice to her. He had sodas for them both. Besides, Dylan would turn the TV on the moment he came in. The TV was like life support for a teenager. She didn’t hear its tinny drone through the wall. She sat down carefully on the other bed. “And you did, Lucas,” she said. “You did. You always did. Mark always said—”
“Mark,” Lucas said. “Now there was a hero—”
“Where’s Betsy tonight?” she interrupted brightly, desperately.
A muscle twitched in Lucas’s wrinkled cheek, and he worked his fingers restlessly on the top of his stic
k. “Oh. At home,” he said ruefully.“With no idea—”
“No idea where you are?” Keely interjected. “Why don’t you call her and tell her you’re here and you’ll be back soon? You know she always worries about you.”
Lucas stared blankly in front of him. “The police are probably there by now,” he said.
Keely’s heart thudded at the mention of the police.Don’t tell me,she thought.I don’t want to know.“Always some defendant needing your help,” she said weakly. She picked up a colorful plastic ball with a bells in it that had rolled away from Abby. She handed it back to the baby, then stood up, wringing her hands. “I wonder what’s keeping Dylan with that ice,” she said. “Maybe I’d better go look for him.”
Lucas looked up at her from under his thick eyebrows, still dark, despite his white hair. “You’re nervous,” he said.
Keely stared back at him like someone caught at a crime. Suddenly, she felt calmer. Defiant, almost. It was as if Lucas was imprisoning her in this little room. She wanted to throw him out, but she didn’t dare.“He’s my son. I nearly lost him once,” she reminded him.
Lucas nodded slightly. “That’s what it’s all about,” he said. Then he sighed and looked around the room. “Where are all his things?” Lucas asked. “It doesn’t look as if a teenage boy is staying here.”
Keely didn’t want to lie, but she didn’t want to tell him that Dylan’s room was next door. She felt as if the simplest thing, the most innocuous truth, was somehow dangerous. But she didn’t dare lie, even about something so seemingly minor. There was a volatility about Lucas tonight that frightened her. It was as if he were holding a bomb on his lap. “Actually . . .” she began.
The connecting doors between the rooms opened, and both of them jumped. Keely looked up and saw Dylan standing in the doorway. He was wearing a pair of faded color-blocked cotton jams from the summer and a T-shirt. The wound on his neck looked discolored and painful, but no longer raw.
“Dylan,” she cried. She wanted to warn him—Don’t say anything. Don’t mention what I told you about Lucas—but she didn’t dare.
Not Guilty Page 35
