His hand stilled. “You waited until you were, what…twenty?”
“Well, I was Cincinnati Maddie, remember? But once I moved out of my aunt’s house and went away to college, I dropped sixty pounds by virtue of being so poor I didn’t have money to spend on food. In those days, I used to work out a lot too. So much so that I burned myself out, and now I refuse to work up a sweat on anything that is painful and boring.” She ran her fingers up the thin line of hair on his belly.
“You don’t need to work out.” He slid his hand down her back to her behind. “You’re perfect.”
“I’m too soft.”
“You’re a woman. You’re supposed to be soft.”
“But I’m—”
He rolled her onto her back and looked down at her. “I look at you and there isn’t anything I can tell myself that makes me not want to be with you.” His gaze moved over her face. “I’ve tried to stay away. Tried to keep my hands off you. I can’t.” He looked into her eyes. “Maybe after tonight I can.”
Maddie’s breath got caught in her chest. She didn’t want one night. She wanted several nights, but he was Mick Hennessy and she was Maddie Jones. She would have to tell him. Soon.
“We better make it good, then.” She slid her hand to the back of his head and ran her fingers through his short hair. “And tomorrow you can go back to being mad at me, and I’ll go back to be ing celibate. Everything will go back the way it was before tonight.”
One corner of his mouth lifted. “You think?”
She nodded. “Neither of us is looking for love, nor even a commitment beyond this room. We both want the same thing, Mick.” She brought his mouth down to hers and whispered against his lips, “No strings. Just a one-night stand.” Since it was the last time she figured she’d have sex before she jumped back on the wagon, she made sure it was memorable.
She left him long enough to turn on the jetted tub and pour mango-scented bubble bath into the water. Then she took him by the hand and led him into the bathroom. They played within the foamy bubbles, and when it was time, she rode him like a seahorse. This time when she hit her peak, she made sure she called out his name.
Once it was over and Mick flushed the last condom, she fell asleep with her back pressed against his chest and his hand on her breast. He’d been talking to her about something, and she’d nestled her bottom against his groin and passed right out. She’d meant to put on a robe and walk him to the door, but it had been a long time since she’d let herself feel safe and secure and protected. It was an illusion, of course. It had always been an illusion.
No one except Maddie could keep her safe and secure and protected, but it had felt so good.
When she woke in the morning, she was alone. Just as she wanted. No strings. No commitment. No demands. He hadn’t even said good-bye.
She rolled onto her side and looked at the morning shadows playing across her wall. She placed her hand in the indent on the pillow next to hers and curled her fingers into a fist. It was better this way.
Even if she never told him who she was, if she just left town and never set eyes on him again, he’d find out eventually. He’d find out when the book hit the stores.
Yes, it was better that he’d left without a good-bye. One night was bad enough; anything more would be impossible.
Chapter 12
The voice of Trina Olsen-Hays filled Maddie’s office as she scribbled notes on index cards in an attempt to try and make some sort of order out of the taped conversation. Once she finished transcribing the pertinent information, she would shuffle and mix them with other cards she’d made in order to make a timeline she would then pin across her office wall. She’d learned after her first book that it was easier to move things around if they were written on cards as opposed to a straight line.
After an hour of writing notes, she turned off the tape and leaned back in her chair. She yawned and knitted her fingers together on the top of her head. It was Sunday and she figured the citizens of Truly were just getting out of church. Maddie hadn’t been raised in any one religion. As with most everything else while she was growing up, when Maddie had attended church, it had been totally arbitrary and dependent on her aunt’s fickle whims or one of her “programs.” If Great-Aunt Martha saw a 60 Minutes episode about religion, it reminded her that she might be falling down on the job in the God department, and she’d drop Maddie off at a random church and reassure herself on the way home that she was being a good guardian. After a few Sundays, Martha would forget about church and God and move on to something else.
If Maddie had to choose a religion, she’d probably choose Catholicism. For no other reason than the stained glass, rosary beads and Vatican City. Maddie had visited Vatican City several years ago, and it was definitely awe-inspiring. Even to a heathen like herself. But if she was Catholic, she’d have to go to church and confess the many sins she’d committed upon the body of Mick Hennessy. If she understood confession, she should feel repentant, but she didn’t. She might get away with lying to a priest, but God would not be fooled.
Maddie stood and moved into the living room. She’d had a great time with Mick last night. They’d had sex. Good sex, and now it was over. She knew she should feel bad that she hadn’t told him her mother was Alice Jones, but she didn’t. Okay, maybe a little, but probably not as bad as she should feel. She might feel worse if she had any sort of relationship with Mick, but she didn’t. Not even a friendship, and if she felt bad about anything it was that she and Mick could never be friends. She would have liked that. Not just for the sex, but because she liked him.
She moved to the French doors and looked out at the lake. She thought of Mick and his sister and his insistence that she not speak with Meg. Why? Meg was a grown woman. A single mother who supported herself and her son. What was Mick afraid would happen?
“Meow.”
Maddie looked down at her feet. On the other side of the glass door sat a small kitten. It was pure white and had one blue eye and one green. Its head looked almost too big for its body, like maybe it was inbred or something. Maddie pointed at it and said, “Go home.”
“Meow.”
“I hate cats.” Cats were nasty creatures. They shed all over your clothes, shredded the furniture with their claws, and slept all day.
“Meow.”
“Forget it.” She turned and walked through the house and into her bedroom. Her sheets, pillowcases, and duvet cover lay in a heap on the floor and she carried them to the laundry room off the kitchen. She needed to get all reminders of Mick out of her house. No indents in her pillows. No empty condom wrappers on the nightstand. Mick was like cheesecake, and she just couldn’t have anything around to remind her how much she liked and missed cheesecake. Especially when it was so good she’d just gorged herself into a coma the night before.
She stuffed her sheets and pillowcases into the washing machine, loaded it up with soap, and turned it on. As she shut the lid, the doorbell rang, and her stomach kind of got light and heavy at the same time. There had only ever been one person who rang her doorbell. She tried to ignore the feeling in her stomach and the sudden spike in her heartbeat as she moved toward the front of the house. She looked down at her green Nike T-shirt and black shorts. They were old and comfy and not the sort of clothes to inspire lust, but neither had the sweatshirt and pants she’d had on last night, and Mick hadn’t seemed to mind.
She looked through the peephole, but it wasn’t Mick. Meg stood on her porch wearing dark sun glasses, and Maddie wondered how Meg knew where she lived. Maybe from Travis. She also wondered what Meg could possibly want on a Sunday afternoon. The obvious answer was she wanted to talk to Maddie about the book. But Meg looked so much like her mother that another answer came to mind; she’d come over for some kind of confrontation. Maddie wondered if she should break out her Taser, but she’d hate to shoot Meg with fifty thousand volts if she’d just come over to talk about what had happened twenty-nine years ago. That wouldn’t be very nice, and would
be counterproductive, since she wanted to hear what Meg had to say. She opened the door.
“Hi, Madeline. I hope I’m not disturbing you,” Meg began. “I just dropped Pete off next door, and I was wondering if I could talk to you a moment or two.”
“The Allegrezzas are back so soon?”
“Yes. They came home this morning.”
A slight breeze played with the ends of Meg’s dark hair, but she didn’t appear agitated or crazy, and Maddie stepped back. “Come in.”
“Thank you.” Meg pushed her sunglasses to the top of her head and stepped inside. She wore a khaki skirt and a black short-sleeved blouse. She looked so much like her mother it was spooky, but Maddie supposed it was no more fair to judge her by her mother’s behavior than it was for people to judge Maddie by hers.
“How can I help you?” Maddie asked as the two moved into the living room.
“Was my brother here last night?”
Maddie’s footsteps faltered a fraction before she continued across the living room. While she’d been wondering what brought Meg to her porch, it hadn’t occurred to her that Meg was here to talk about last night’s debauchery. Perhaps she’d need the Taser after all. “Yes.”
Meg sighed. “I told him not to come here. I’m an adult and I can take care of myself. He’s worried that if I talk to you about Mom and Dad, I’ll get upset.”
Maddie smiled with relief. “Please sit,” she said and indicated the couch. “Would you like something to drink? I’m afraid I only have Diet Coke or water.”
“No, thank you.” Meg sat and Maddie took the chair. “I’m sorry that Mick felt he needed to come to your house and order you not to talk with me.”
He’d done more than that. “Like you, I’m an adult, and I don’t take orders from your brother.” Except for when they’d been in the spa tub, and he’d looked at her through those gorgeous eyes of his and said, “Come over here and sit on my lap.”
Meg set her purse on the coffee table. “Mick isn’t a bad person. He’s just protective. Growing up, he had it rough and doesn’t like talking about our parents. If you’d met him under different circumstances, I’m sure you’d like him.”
She liked him more than was wise under the current circumstances. She didn’t even want to think about how much she might like sitting in his lap if he wasn’t a Hennessy. “I’m sure that’s true.”
A frown wrinkled Meg’s brow. “There’s a rumor going around town that a movie is going to be made out of your book.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. Carleen came into my work yesterday and told me that Angelina Jolie is going to play my mother, and Colin Farrell my dad.”
Colin Farrell made a little sense because he was Irish. But Angelina Jolie? “I haven’t been offered a movie deal.” Hell, she hadn’t even told her agent about the book. “So you can tell everyone that there isn’t going to be a film crew arriving anytime soon.”
“That’s a relief,” Meg said, then turned her attention toward the French doors. “Your cat wants in.”
“It’s not mine. I think it might be a stray.” Maddie shook her head and leaned back into her chair. “Do you want a kitten?”
“No. I’m not really a pet person. I’ve promised my son a dog if he behaves for a month.” She chuckled. “I don’t think I’ll have to make good on that promise anytime soon.”
When Meg laughed, she looked a bit like Mick. “I’m not really a pet person either,” Maddie confessed and wondered if Meg had come over for a chat about pets or to talk about her parents. “They’re a lot of bother.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t mind that. I’m not a pet person because they die.”
As far as Maddie was concerned, that was the only good thing about cats.
“Growing up, we had a poodle named Princess. She was mostly Mick’s dog.”
Mick had a poodle? Not only could she not see Mick owning a poodle, she couldn’t imagine him naming it Princess. “Did he name her?”
“Yes, and she died when he was about thirteen. The only time I’ve seen Mick cry was when he had to bury that dog. Even at our parents’ funeral, he was a stoic little man.” Meg shook her head. “I’ve had too many people die in my life. I don’t want to get attached to a pet and have it die on me. Most people don’t understand that, but it’s how I feel.”
“I understand.” And she did. More than Meg would ever know. Or at least know for now.
“You’re probably wondering why I stopped by instead of waiting for you to contact me.”
“I assume you are anxious to talk about your mother and father and what happened on that night in August.”
Meg nodded and pushed her hair behind her ears. “I don’t know why you want to write about what happened, but you do. So I think you should hear it from my family, and Mick’s not going to talk to you. That leaves me.”
“Do you mind if I tape-record the conversation?”
Meg took such a long time to answer, Maddie thought she might refuse. “I guess that would be okay. As long as I get to stop if I feel uncomfortable.”
“That’s perfectly fine.” Maddie rose from the chair and walked to her desk. She popped a new cassette into the tiny recorder, grabbed a folder and pen, then returned to the living room. “You don’t have to say anything you don’t feel like saying,” she said, although it was her job to get Meg to spill it all. Maddie held the recorder in front of her mouth, gave Meg’s name and the date, then set it on the edge of the coffee table.
Meg looked at the tape recorder and asked, “Where do I begin?”
“If you feel comfortable, why don’t you talk about what you recall of your parents?” Maddie sat back in her chair and rested her hands lightly on her lap. Patient and nonthreatening. “You know, the good times.” And after Meg talked about those, they would get to the bad.
“I’m sure you heard that my parents fought.”
“Yes.”
“They didn’t fight all the time, it was just that when they did…” She paused and looked down at her skirt. “My grandmother used to say that they were passionate. That they fought and loved with more passion than other people.”
“Do you believe that?”
A wrinkle furrowed her brow and she clasped her hands in her lap. “I just know that my dad was…bigger than life. He was always happy. Always singing little songs. Everyone loved him because he just had a way about him.” She looked up and her green eyes met Maddie’s. “My mother stayed at home with Mick and me.”
“Was your mother happy?”
“She…she was sad sometimes, but that doesn’t mean she was a bad mother,” Meg said and proceeded to talk about wonderful picnics and birth day parties. Big family gatherings and Rose reading bedtime stories that made the family sound like one big Hallmark card of happiness.
Bullshit. After about thirty minutes of listening to Meg cherry-pick her stories, Maddie asked, “What happened when your mother was sad?”
Meg sat back and folded her arms across her chest. “Well, it’s no secret that things got broken. I’m sure Sheriff Potter told you about the time my mother set my father’s clothes on fire.”
Actually, the sheriff hadn’t mentioned it. “Mmm.”
“She had the fire under control. There was no need for the neighbors to call the fire department.”
“Perhaps they were concerned because this area is a forest and it doesn’t take much to start it on fire.”
Meg shrugged. “It was May. So it wasn’t likely. The fire season isn’t until later.”
Which didn’t mean the fire wouldn’t have caused serious damage, but Maddie figured it was pointless and counterproductive to argue, and time to move things along. “What do you recall of the night your parents died?”
Meg looked across the room at the empty television screen. “I remember that it had been hot that day and Mom took Mick and me to the public beach to swim. My dad usually went with us, but he didn’t that day.”
“Do you know why?”
&nb
sp; “No. I suspect he was with the waitress.”
Maddie didn’t bother reminding her that the waitress had a name. “After you went to the public beach what happened?”
“We went home and had dinner. Dad wasn’t home, but that wasn’t unusual. I’m sure he was at work. I remember we had ‘whatever night,’ meaning we could have whatever we wanted for dinner. Mick had hot dogs and I had pizza. Later we ate ice cream and watched Donny & Marie. I remember what we watched because Mick was really mad that he had to watch Donny and Marie Osmond. But later he got to watch The Incredible Hulk, so he cheered up. My mom put us to bed, but sometime around midnight, I woke up because I heard her crying. I got out of bed and went into her room, and she was sitting on the side of her bed and she had all her clothes on.”
“Why was she crying?” Maddie leaned forward.
Meg turned to Maddie and said, “Because my father was having another affair.”
“Did she tell you that?”
“Of course not, but I was ten years old. I knew about the affairs.” Meg’s gaze narrowed. “Daddy wouldn’t have left us for her. I know he wouldn’t have really done that.”
“Alice thought he was going to.”
“They all thought that.” Meg laughed without humor. “Ask them. Ask Anna Van Damme, Joan Campbell, Katherine Howard, and Jewel Finley. They all thought he was going to leave my mother for them, but he never did. He never left her and he wouldn’t have left her for the waitress either.”
“Alice Jones.” Maddie had almost felt sorry for Meg, rattling off the names of her father’s lovers.
“Yes.”
“Jewel Finley? Wasn’t she friends with your mother?”
“Yeah,” Meg scoffed. “Some friend.”
“Did something happen that day out of the ordinary?”
“I don’t think so.”
Maddie put her forearms on her knees, leaned forward, and looked into Meg’s eyes. “Usually when you see an otherwise sane woman kill her husband and then herself, there is something that has added stress to the relationship. Usually it’s the belief that the person feeling the most stress feels powerless, like she’s losing everything and therefore she has nothing else to lose. If it wasn’t your father’s infidelity, then it had to be something else.”
Tangled Up in You Page 15
