The Comfort of Secrets (A Sweet Lake Novel Book 2)

by Christine Nolfi

  Frances was ready. She swooped the parasol downward lest her friend take this too far.

  En garde!

  Fifty years since her last fencing class, she still recalled the basics.

  Chapter 3

  Partially hidden behind the drapes, his mother watched the street like a general in spandex.

  Knotting his tie, Ryan D’Angelo paused between the piano she no longer played and the couch, where she spent too much time watching movies. She still favored sappy flicks glazed with undying love, the type of fare with absurdly soulful guys named Stefan or Colt. Why didn’t she prefer movies about vengeance-seeking heroines besting evil men?

  On the plus side, a love affair with aerobics got her out of the house on a regular basis. He needed to find the right moment to suggest adding a mild weight-lifting regimen. It worried him that she looked like a ten-pound chicken in neon athletic wear. Add some padding to her bones, and she’d stop resembling undernourished poultry.

  The drapes swished. The pink tennis shoes beneath tiptoed sideways. A school bus rolled past, the kids inside jumping up and down. Swinging the binoculars in a slow arc, Julia D’Angelo followed the bus until it disappeared into the morning glow. A high-pitched yip, yip, yip caught her notice. Opening the drapes wider, she peered in the direction of the white ranch house next door.

  On the sidewalk before the house, an old man with a goatee studied the dazzling pinks and blues streaking the morning sky. Unaware of the surveillance, he scratched himself in unspeakable places. His miniature schnauzer stopped barking at the cars rolling past, choosing instead to curl onto its haunches to drop a stink bomb.

  Breaking the silence, Ryan said, “If the guy doesn’t bag the turd, arrest him. Twenty days in the county lockup.”

  The comment threw his mother against the picture window with a thud. Outside, the vigilant schnauzer began yipping with gusto. The drapes fluttered as Julia pushed off the glass.

  Righting herself, she spun around. “Ryan, what’s wrong with you?” Her mossy-green gaze landed on him with a brew of affection and irritation.

  “Sorry. Didn’t mean to scare you.”

  She rubbed her elbow, and he winced with sympathy pains.

  “Well, you did. Don’t creep up on me.”

  “Tall men don’t creep. Mostly because we move with the grace of water buffalo.” He hesitated. “Mind explaining what you’re doing?”

  Sandy-brown curls mixed with silver fell around her troubled eyes. “That must be a rhetorical question since you know what I’m doing.” She gave the curls a hasty swipe, pushing them off her forehead.

  “I’d like to haul you away from the window. What are my odds?”

  “Not good.”

  “C’mon, have breakfast with me.”

  “You don’t eat breakfast, although you should. Most important meal of the day.” She returned to her inspection of the street. “Go to work. Miri’s about to give birth at her desk. She can’t run the place without you.”

  He wasn’t headed to Adworks, a fact not worth mentioning given his mother’s behavior. “Miri’s fine. She has another three months before her due date.” He pulled on his sport coat. “Pity she isn’t having twins. She’s made a run through every baby store in Cincinnati.”

  “Good for her.”

  Against his better judgment he asked, “Where’d you get the binoculars?”

  “Amazon—where else? They were delivered yesterday.” She nodded at the wall clock above the TV. “Are you planning to be late?”

  There was more than enough time for the road trip, another salient fact not worth mentioning. With his mother acting like an edgy watchman, he felt less comfortable about starting his day. Purchasing binoculars without his knowledge sure didn’t fill him with optimism. She hadn’t displayed this level of paranoia since his bashful teens—a lifetime ago, and he wasn’t prepared for a replay of those dark years.

  Ryan suffered a dose of self-recrimination. When the reporter had called, he should’ve turned down the interview. The boost to his career—not to mention the benefit of national exposure for Adworks—had been a selfish consideration. He should’ve factored in the impact on his mother.

  From the kitchen, the scent of coffee bloomed. He hungered for a quick jolt. The SOS from Miri still hadn’t sunk in, and he chafed at the notion of an hour-plus drive into the boondocks. An account he didn’t want, and a client sure to dislike him taking over.

  An unpleasant day ahead. Still, he couldn’t deal with the problems until he talked his mother off a ledge.

  Treading carefully, he said, “There’s no one outside. Well, other than the old fart and his schnauzer.”

  Beneath the green tank top, her back stiffened. “There’s nothing wrong with checking to make sure.”

  “You’re mixing up the days. The feature is in the newspaper tomorrow.”

  Distress flickered across her face. “You’re certain?”

  “No, I’m taking a guess. Tossing a dart blindly, hoping to hit a target.”

  “Don’t be glib.” Clearly he’d struck a nerve with that last comment; her voice was testy. “A half-page spread in the Money section of USA Today with big photos of your smiling face—why don’t you see the problem?”

  “Because there isn’t one. The world will see a successful ad executive, nothing more.”

  “What about your father?”

  They hadn’t discussed George Hunt in years. “If you’re genuinely frightened, I’ll do my best to locate him. I assume he’s still in Idaho, or he’s drifted back out to California.” Hunt, a mechanic, was a ghost in cyberspace. The odds of finding anything new on him were remote in the extreme. “Keep in mind I don’t give a damn where he is. If it’ll make you feel better, I’ll pay someone to find him and keep tabs.”

  The suggestion planted fear in his mother’s eyes. “I don’t want you anywhere near him. Go poking around in his life, and he’ll find out.”

  “Then let this go,” he suggested, refusing to debate.

  She set her mouth in a stubborn line. “I can’t.”

  “At least promise you won’t spend the day staring out the window. You’re dressed for the gym, so go. There’s nothing coming our way I can’t handle.” He glanced longingly toward the kitchen. “Need coffee? I’ll pour you a cup. Might help with the senility.”

  The light mockery brought her chin up. “Senility doesn’t run in our family.”

  The comment unleashed the frustration he’d learned to suppress. “Now, there’s an insight. How would I know what runs in our family?” Her life before she’d spirited them to safety remained a taboo subject.

  “Ryan, please. Let’s not do this. I don’t expect you to understand . . .”

  Sorrow overtook her features as she traced the moon-shaped scar beneath her right eye. An unconscious habit, an echo from a past still playing beneath their normal lives like background music. The evidence of brutality never failed to hollow out his heart. In a gruesome coincidence, he bore a nearly perfect replica beneath his left eye, the marred skin a reminder of all they’d endured.

  Only fragments of that fateful day remained. Ryan carried a dim memory of waist-high grass tickling his arms, and the dappled shade of the forest sending tendrils of darkness toward the glaring sunlight.

  At the forest’s edge, a man shouted. His rage became a startling complement to the discomfort Ryan struggled against, the hard press of his mother’s fingers digging into his shoulder in a failed attempt to push him to safety. A bottle swooping through the air. A crack of sound as the lower half met a tree’s knotty trunk. In a perilous moment of wonder, he escaped his mother’s hold. Shards of glass exploded skyward like stars bursting to life in the lonely field.

  His fascination came at a cost. Ryan didn’t see the bottle’s jagged upper half become a weapon.

  Running from the memory, he came across the living room. Softly he said, “Mom, how long has it been since you used binoculars? There’s nothing to gain by reviving old hab
its. The feature in USA Today won’t change anything. We’re safe.” He rested his palm on the narrow bone of her shoulder. “We’ve been safe for years.”

  “Only because I’ve kept us hidden,” she reminded him.

  Love for her rolled over him in an inexpressible wave. “You did a good job.”

  “Not at first. What about Twin Falls?”

  Another memory from his unhappy childhood, more unsettling than the forest, accosted him. “We survived,” he said, pushing it away.

  “Barely. You act as if your father can’t find us again. Have you stopped to consider if you’re taking the news coverage too lightly?”

  A remote possibility, and he searched for the right words to offer reassurance. A difficult prospect—she carried other, equally dark memories he couldn’t guess at. Couldn’t bear to guess at, if he was honest with himself. Given the injury to her psyche, it was blessing enough that she’d managed to live a relatively normal life.

  He did his best to drum up a reassuring smile. “I’m sure he’s somewhere on the other side of the country. He probably remarried, found someone else to abuse. After all this time, he’s forgotten about us.”

  “A naive assumption.”

  “No, a realistic conclusion. You’re blowing this out of proportion.”

  “A man doesn’t forget when his son is taken from him. We were lucky in Idaho. It doesn’t mean your father has given up.” She followed up the disturbing comment by adding, “What about the family resemblance? You can’t erase genetics.”

  The observation made Ryan flinch. Although the topic remained off-limits, she knew about his unfortunate discovery.

  Last spring, after breaking off another casual romance, he’d stumbled across the truth. While cleaning the garage to work off his gloom, Ryan found the photo album high on a shelf behind a box of forgotten Christmas decorations. In an era when digital images were parked in the cloud, the evidence of his mother’s former life gave a quaint, if dark, answer to the questions he’d stopped posing long ago.

  Plumes of dust curled through the air as he flipped from one page to the next—his mother during childhood standing in a group with other kids at a carnival or an amusement park. A much later photograph of her striding toward a jewelry store in a suit of the palest pink, the San Francisco skyline shimmering in the background. Several pages with the photos torn out, the gaping rectangles edged with grime that had seeped in from the dusty perch where she’d hidden the album. Next a flurry of images depicting a red-cheeked toddler born into a treacherous world his mother finally abandoned to save them both.

  He was returning the album to its hiding place when three photos dropped out.

  Tendrils of mounting paper stuck to the back of each. The photographs depicted a man in his prime—standing on a wharf, inside a car dealership beside a Mercedes, seated at a restaurant sipping a glass of wine.

  Bringing the last image close, Ryan’s hand shook.

  The uncanny resemblance sent dread rolling through him. Raven hair and eyes greener than California’s foxtail pine. The strong, angular features and the rangy, muscular build. The images jolted Ryan to his core.

  Five months later, the awareness he’d grown into his father’s carbon copy haunted him still.

  Dismissing the memory, he drew his mother from the window. The wish, so familiar he wore it like a second skin, caught him unawares.

  On their first day in Ohio, why hadn’t she destroyed the photos?

  Chapter 4

  Yellow streaks formed ghoulish spatter art on the Beemer’s windshield.

  Thirty minutes outside the city, Ryan made the mistake of opening the window for three unnerving seconds. Enough crap flew inside to make him wish he’d tossed insect repellant in his briefcase.

  The sheer volume of airborne creatures swarming the countryside disgusted him. Mosquitos, gnats, bumblebees as big as his thumb, and a prehistoric monster that dive-bombed his head while he swatted vainly, risking a collision with a truck as his car veered dangerously out of the lane. A bucket of sudsy water wouldn’t have removed the jellied corpse from the passenger seat.

  He reached his destination with the windows rolled up and the AC blasting. Indian summer in Ohio was in full swing; with grudging respect, he regarded the autumn colors painting the trees. He drove around Sweet Lake Circle with its center green filled with picnic tables sitting lonely in the leafy shade. Half of the buildings enclosing the circle lay vacant, the brick structures growing moss. Rechecking the GPS, he took a boulevard that wound ever higher. At the top, the golden sandstone mansion perched near the glittering lake.

  He estimated that the walk from the inn to the lake was an easy stroll for guests staying at the Wayfair. According to Miri, the town derived its name from the honeysuckle growing in abundance around Sweet Lake. The beach appeared empty with the exception of a couple strolling in the surf.

  The Wayfair’s parking lot was about one-third full. Not bad for a country inn past the peak tourist months. Cutting the engine, he hoped Miri would remember to transmit her notes. They’d chatted during most of his drive to familiarize him with an account he didn’t want. On a nasty wave of retching, she’d hung up abruptly.

  Morning sickness. Not a fun price to pay for motherhood.

  Gravel crunched beneath his feet. He paused to survey the long, sloping lawn and the workers farther off, clustered around the foundation of what he presumed was the south wing.

  “No solicitations, buster. Whatever you’re selling, they aren’t buying.”

  The old geezer’s warning came from behind.

  Turning, Ryan blinked. A wrinkled individual of indiscriminate sex marched across the lot. Plaid shirt with nothing beneath to provide a clue, until he took note of the unruly white braids snapping across her shoulders.

  “Good morning,” he said. The woman scowled, and he hastened to add, “I’m not selling anything.”

  “You’re not a guest, with your fancy briefcase and no luggage.” Hostility simmered on her features. “This is private property.”

  He wondered if Sweet Lake had an overly zealous neighborhood watch. “Ma’am, I have an appointment with Cat Mendoza.”

  “Why?”

  None of her business, but he wasn’t usually rude to the elderly. “I’m with Adworks, the agency she hired.”

  Her brow collapsed in a webwork of scrutiny. “You’re not a woman.”

  “Not today.”

  “Cat hired a woman, some hotshot she whored around with at Ohio University. College,” she muttered, emphasizing her distaste by spitting. Repulsed, he took a step back. “Parents spending thousands of dollars just so their children can make whoopee with strangers. What brainiac dreamt up coed dorms? When I was young, you finished high school and got your butt into the workforce.”

  “A nobler era,” he remarked dryly.

  Evidently she’d been alive when Sinatra ruled the airwaves. Or earlier, like the colonial era.

  “What would you know about noble eras?”

  “Not much, I suppose.” He held out his hand. “Ryan D’Angelo.”

  The peace offering was ignored. “Ruth Kenefsky.” She hitched her thumbs in the pockets of her oversize jeans. “You pushed Cat’s BFF aside to horn in on the job?”

  “No need to horn in. Miri’s puking in a garbage can.” He’d had enough of the woman’s sass.

  Ruth grunted. “Heavy drinker?”

  “Pregnant.”

  “Gave you the account fair and square?”

  “I’m in charge.”

  “Tell Cat the Sweet Lake Sirens want an answer by sundown. We can’t practice our speeches until we get this wrapped up.”

  Requesting clarification was a chancy move. Finding his gambling spirit, he asked, “You’re one of the Sirens?”

  “Are you stupid?”

  Apparently, since he hadn’t walked away. “You’re speaking at the inn?” A plan he’d derail at his earliest convenience.

  “We’re hosting talks for t
he guests.”

  “Why?”

  She gave a look implying he’d left the functioning half of his brain in the car. “As a perk for staying at the inn, why else?”

  “Ah, I see.” He held up his briefcase. “Hold off on the rehearsals. I have a number of projects to discuss with Ms. Mendoza.”

  “Get in line, pal. We’ve already got an appointment for our beauty shots.” She swiveled her head to lend a profile view. “Can’t decide which is my better side. If you’ve got an opinion, let’s hear it.”

  “Outside my area of expertise, I’m afraid.” Her profile gave an unsavory impression of the FBI’s most wanted.

  His distaste went unnoticed. “I’ll ask Tilda,” she said, kicking gravel with her sturdy boots. “She found the photographer. Nice boy over in Fairfield. We’ll get the photos to you once they’re ready.”

  The implication being she expected publicity. Not a chance. His boss had accepted the Wayfair account out of misplaced loyalty. Miri didn’t like saying no to anyone. While Ryan was agreeable to helping out in a fix, he refused to flame out by promoting Ruth and her friends.

  “Ma’am, your desire to help is laudable,” he said, loading his voice with deference. “From what I’ve seen, the Wayfair is the only draw in Sweet Lake. Why wouldn’t you want to pitch in?”

  “You’re telling me to push off?”

  “No, ma’am. Merely assuring you that I’ll take it from here.”

  A threatening silence bloomed between them. Scouring his face with disdain, she tilted slightly forward.

  Then she reached behind her back.

  Ohio was an open-carry state. Ryan wasn’t into hunting; he didn’t see the point in harming Bambi, and he detested any place not lathered with concrete and shadowed by skyscrapers. But this was the country, the red-blooded backbone of the US of A. Presumably folks propped their rifles by the door and kept a pistol handy for target practice. What if Ruth toasted his ass with a Saturday night special? It would serve him right for shooting down her ideas.

  From her back pocket, she whipped out a dried gourd on a stick. The apology froze on his lips. Her weapon of choice looked like an oversize baby rattle. Swirly African designs covered the gourd’s knobby flesh.