“I guess.” His expression asked what she was getting at.
“It was a difficult time.” She looked away, trying to find the words. “It’s hard to explain.”
“No, I get it. I mean, he was married to you, and having a kid with her—”
“He didn’t necessarily want to be cut out of your life. He went along when your mom asked him to promise not to contact her or try and see you. It seemed best for everyone at the time.”
“But he knew I lived in Wyatt, you said. When did he find out?”
“A couple of years ago, when Ruth hired your mom, they got to talking one day, and your mom mentioned her degree from U of H and the internship. She talked about you, too. You were the right age.” Ruth had actually asked Sandy about children. She had wanted verification of what she had begun to suspect. I was stunned, Ruth had said, relating the details to Libby later over the phone. But I didn’t let on. I’m such an actress. I could win an Oscar for my performance. You should have been there. Libby had hooted.
“So, Ms. Crandall knew who my real dad was, too, two years ago?”
“Yes, but it wouldn’t have been her place to tell you.”
“She didn’t let on to my mom.”
“No.”
“But she told you.”
“Yes.” Until Ruth’s discovery, Beck hadn’t known the outcome of Sandy’s pregnancy, whether the child was a girl or a boy, but Libby saw no reason to tell Jordan that.
“You moved here anyway.”
“We’d started looking for land out here by then. We didn’t see a reason to change our plans.” Beck had been unsettled about it, but more on Libby’s behalf. What would she do, he had asked, if she met Sandy face-to-face? Say hello? Libby had joked.
It wasn’t that she hadn’t struggled with it. Ruth’s discovery had made the fact that Beck had a child in the world real for him. He’d conceived a kind of hunger, a need to know the son he’d fathered, if only from a distance. Mothers who gave up their children for whatever reason often felt that way. Family members who had fallen out, fallen apart, were always seeking one another, trying to find their way back to one another. Libby might have resented it; on some level she supposed she did. But she had loved Beck more than she had wanted to cling to old bitterness.
“So he really did want to meet me?”
“He did. He wrote to your mom about it.”
“When?”
“Two years ago, when we started looking at land and knew for sure we were going to build out here.” Libby glanced at Jordan over her shoulder.
“She never told me.”
“I didn’t think she had. He never heard from her.”
“It pisses me off,” Jordan said.
“I can understand why it would, but maybe give her a chance to explain.”
“Oh, she did that already. She said Dad—Emmett—got it wrong when she told him she was having a kid, that he thought I was his, and she let him. She thought he’d leave her if he knew the truth, because he’d done it before.” Jordan’s disgust was shot through with impatience, notes of disbelief and self-righteousness. He would have handled it better.
Libby remembered when she thought she’d had all the answers, too. She waved the knife, making light of it. “Well, there. You see?”
“I was eighteen two years ago, old enough to make my own decision about it. And what about Emmett? I know he feels like the biggest chump. Anyway, he did leave her, right after he found out, when I was in the hospital. He’s still not home.”
Libby stowed the lunch makings back in the refrigerator. She’d heard the talk around town. That Emmett had left to take care of his mother, who was recovering from heart surgery. But some said it was no time for running home to Mama, sick or not. Others said, who could blame him? His kid had killed his nephew, and that was a hell of a thing. The one aspect they agreed on was justice for Travis. Jordan had to pay. You do the crime, you do the time—that was the consensus. Ruth said she’d never seen anything like how folks had turned on the Clines. They’d always been well liked.
Beck would hate it, Libby thought, all the gossiping.
“I’m sorry,” Jordan said. “About your husband, I mean. I wish I could have known him.”
“He would have liked that very much.” Libby cut the sandwiches in half, put them on plates, and brought them to the table. She ladled fruit salad into two berry bowls and served that, too. She offered iced tea.
Jordan shook his head. “Water’s fine.” He wrapped his hand around the bottle she’d given him earlier. His fingers were strong, his nails flat and square, and bitten to the quick. They were nothing like Beck’s. He’d had beautiful hands.
“You should probably pay attention to your heart.” She sat opposite Jordan.
He was biting into his sandwich but paused to give her a questioning look.
“Beck—” She had almost said “Your dad” and wondered what Jordan’s reaction would have been if she had. But the whole concept of dad seemed confounding to him. He referred to the dad he’d grown up with as Emmett, and his birth dad was “your husband.” She said, “Beck had a heart attack, and it was completely unexpected. He never had heart trouble.” She took a small bite of the sandwich and set it back on her plate. Preparing food was all right, but eating it was problematic. She had no appetite.
Jordan said he’d read online about what had happened. “He was driving back here from Houston, wasn’t he?”
“Yes. He’d gone there for a news conference. You read about the lawsuit, too, I guess.”
Jordan said he had. “It’s pretty terrible, the way that balcony fell, but the architects had nothing to do with it.”
“That was the reason for the news conference. They were hoping to get the word out, to somehow reach whoever is killing the animals down there and leaving them around.”
“Some sicko,” Jordan said.
Libby made a noise of assent, dismissing the urge that surfaced in her mind to tell Jordan about the slaughtered animals she’d found around the property here.
He wiped his mouth with his napkin.
She said, “It happened fast—Beck’s heart attack. The coroner said he didn’t suffer.” She stopped. Technically, it hadn’t been a heart attack but a sudden cardiac arrest that had caused Beck’s death, and it had occurred with so little warning, the coroner had said, that there’d been almost no chance for survival. Libby glanced at Jordan. “I’m glad for that—that it was quick, I mean.” The part that was hard to bear was that he’d been alone, and his death on a rural county road had gone undiscovered for more than a day. A farmer passing on his tractor had spied the truck poking out of the underbrush that verged on the asphalt; its tailgate and a bit of the bed had caught the light of a blazing afternoon sun, and he’d stopped to investigate. He’d nearly had a heart attack himself on finding Beck’s lifeless body slumped over the wheel. “What makes no sense—to me, anyway,” she continued, “is the location where he was found. Why was he so far south of here? He was almost to San Antonio.” She toyed with her fork. “The coroner said Beck may have been confused, that he might have been trying to drive himself to a hospital.”
“You don’t think so?”
“I don’t know.” It was the simplest explanation, and she badly wanted to be satisfied with it. The alternative was to go along with Mia. Beck’s sister had come from Las Vegas to stay with Libby over the week of Beck’s funeral, dragging her usual black cloud, weeping and shouting to anyone who would listen that her brother had been murdered by the same maniac who was killing the animals. The killer had escalated, she said. Beck was only the first human victim; there would be others. Everyone associated with the collapsed balcony, even Libby, was at risk. Mia had worn everyone out with her harangues, slurring her words, gushing tears at random moments, making a fool of herself.
Libby thought—and she would likely go to hell for it—it had to be one of the more cruel tricks of life that Beck, who had sworn off drinking, who had been gentle
and kind, who as an architect and genuinely good human being had contributed beauty to the world, was dead, while his sister, a drunken, unemployed drama queen, was alive, if drinking one’s days away could be called living.
Still, Mia’s theory continued to run a restless circuit around the walls of Libby’s brain. The similarity of the incidents—in Houston and here at the cottage—was undeniable, and if you added in the timing of Beck’s death, which Libby couldn’t keep her mind from doing, it seemed suspicious. Suppose the person behind the animal killings had followed Beck from Houston and run him off the road? An autopsy would never show it—Beck’s autopsy certainly hadn’t—but his heart, giving up the way it had, that might have been brought on by panic all the same.
There had been other animal killings in Houston since Beck’s partner, Robert, found the entrails of a dead raccoon spread over the hood of his car, and in a city like Houston, animal killings were newsworthy, a cause for alarm, but out here, gutted animals were business as usual. Kid hijinks, Sergeant Huckabee had insisted when Libby called to report the hummingbird. She was wary of him now. The note that was left on the counter at the time she’d found the tiny, fallen bird—I thought I told you to keep your doors locked—was nearly the same advice the sergeant had given her twice before, the day he stopped her for speeding and again when they’d discovered the hog hanging from the limb of the cedar tree. She’d never mentioned the note to Huckabee; she wasn’t sure why. He had followed through and made contact with his cop friend in Houston, but it had come to nothing. He’d agreed with Huckabee that the slaughtered animals here were acts of small-town malicious mischief, unrelated to the balcony collapse or anything else going on down south in the big city.
Libby couldn’t buy that it was simple vandalism. Someone had defiled her property; they had possibly run her husband off the road to his death.
They had been in her house.
She glanced at Jordan. What was she doing, letting this stranger in here? So he looked like Beck and said he was Beck’s son. He could be anyone. The world was full of schemers, charming people who would ingratiate themselves, and once they had you in their thrall, they’d take everything you had, including your dignity. Widows with their senses dulled by grief made the best victims. Wasn’t that what everyone said?
A knock at the door startled her; she was aware of Jordan bolting upright.
“I have no idea who that could be,” she said, going to the door.
“I should go.” Jordon got up, began gathering their dishes.
She peeped from the window and glimpsed Sergeant Huckabee, standing with his back to her, on her front porch, and even as she announced this to Jordan, even as she said with some dismay, “It’s Sergeant Huckabee,” she saw Jordan’s glance darting around as if he were hunting an escape route. But she had no time to puzzle it out. She’d already opened the door.
The sergeant turned, smiling, and Libby saw he had brought what she assumed was his family with him. He urged a young woman and little girl forward, introducing them: “This is my wife, Coleta, and my daughter, Heidi.” He beamed down at the child. “Say hello to Mrs. Hennessey, Heidi.”
She ducked behind her mother.
“It’s nice to meet you, Heidi,” Libby said. “And you as well, Coleta. I’ve heard a lot about you.”
Coleta dropped her gaze. Her thick lashes were dark against her skin, which was flawless. The rose blush blooming across her cheeks was in pretty contrast to the café au lait shade of her complexion. Libby thought of Ruth’s description of her, that it hadn’t captured how truly lovely Coleta was. She was like a china doll, fragile looking and vulnerable, self-effacing in a way that made you feel she had to be protected. Ruth had finally given in and hired Coleta against her better judgment. She can scarcely speak English, Ruth had said. What am I thinking? Ruth would never admit it, but she was a softy.
“Come in.” Libby widened the door.
“Oh no, senora.” Coleta lifted a casserole dish swaddled in a blue-checked dish towel, and in halting English, she said, “We come, bring you this. Tamale. I make.”
“Best you will ever eat. I promise,” the sergeant said.
Coleta said, “No. He is—” She broke off, looking for the word, frustrated when she couldn’t find it. Blushing, she looked up at her husband, who towered over her, for help.
“She thinks I’m prejudiced,” he said, and Libby knew it was true and that it made him happy. She thought how when he had stopped her for speeding, she had found him patronizing, a little menacing. Even on his subsequent visits out here, he’d been brusque, every inch the cop. It was disconcerting now, this soft glow of affection emanating from him, this glimmering pride. But she guessed he wouldn’t last long on the job, showing this side of himself in the course of enforcing the law.
“Won’t you all come in?” Libby repeated her invitation, and this time he shepherded his little family across the doorsill, asking if she would call him Len or Huck, whichever she preferred.
Libby took possession of the still-warm casserole dish, and said, “Okay, then, I’m Libby.”
Heidi peeped from behind her mother’s skirt.
“You are adorable,” Libby told her. She found Coleta’s gaze. “Bonita.” She tried the word, thinking it was the right one. “Muy bonita.”
Coleta’s smile was pleased; she dipped her chin, shielding it. “Gracias.” Her offering of thanks came on a murmur of air.
“How old are you, Heidi?” Libby asked, smiling down at her.
The little girl held up four fingers, spreading them wide like rays of the sun.
“Almost four,” Huck corrected her gently. He glanced at Libby. “She’ll be four in September.”
“Ah,” Libby said. “You’re getting to be a big girl.”
“We can only stay a moment,” Huck said. “We’re taking Heidi swimming at Lake Hershey in Ten-Mile Park. Just up the highway,” he added, and Libby thought it was because she was a newcomer and might not know. But she did know it.
“Beck and I hiked there not long ago.”
Huck’s eyes went loose with apology. He hadn’t meant to rake up a memory that caused her pain. As if she didn’t remember every moment. “It’s all right,” she said, and then quickly, she said, “I’ve been thinking I might stay here in the cottage.”
“I wondered if you would, in view of the vandalism—” But now he caught sight of Libby’s first visitor, and his demeanor hardened. “Jordy Cline. What in the hell are you doing here, son? I hope you didn’t drive out here.”
His voice was hard; it was his cop voice, and Libby deplored it.
“No, Sergeant, I didn’t drive. I hitched. ”
Hitched? Libby thought. Had it really meant that much to him to come here?
“You know, I’d think you’d tone down the attitude given the circumstances, but, hell, that’s just me. I’d like to know what you’re doing here, what your business is with Mrs. Hennessey.”
“I’m not required by law to explain that to you, am I? You can’t revoke my bail if I don’t, right?”
Huckabee, to his credit, Libby thought, didn’t take the bait.
“He’s doing some work for me,” she said, in an attempt to defuse the situation. It wasn’t a total lie. She realized, too, that she didn’t want the true nature of Jordan’s visit exposed any more than she wanted to see him create more trouble for himself. “That’s all right, isn’t it?” Libby addressed the sergeant. “He can work, can’t he?”
“As long as he can get himself around without driving,” Huckabee answered, and while he seemed less formidable now, Libby sensed he was alert, watchful in the way that’s characteristic of lawmen, of bullies. In her mind there was a fine line between the two. She remembered how he’d followed her, closely, from the shoulder of the road for a short time after stopping her for speeding. She had felt threatened by him in those few moments. She felt wary of him now, although she realized he was only doing his job, that his advice was spot-on, and warran
ted, and very likely well meant. Still, the undercurrent of authority remained, as lethal and menacing as the duty weapon he strapped on his hip before beginning a shift.
He said, “Everybody’s got eyes on you, Jordy. You mess up, somebody’s bound to see. I’m telling you for your own good, okay?”
Libby looked at Jordan, at the storm fuming in his eyes. She sensed the effort he was making to keep a grip on the hot words she could only imagine were boiling on his tongue.
“Len?” Coleta edged Heidi toward the door, her gaze darting between Jordan and her husband and back to Jordan. She was clearly worried, as if she didn’t understand what was happening, or perhaps, Libby thought, Coleta understood all too well that there were grounds for her apprehension.
Huckabee seemed not to hear her, though. His focus was on Jordan.
“I know you’re hurting, son. Losing Travis, your best buddy, knowing it’s your fault—it’s one hell of a hard thing. I’ve been where you are. I can tell you the pain never goes away entirely, but it’ll get better. Tolerable, anyway. You’ll get past the worst of it, and you’ll make some kind of life. If you don’t screw up more than you already have, you can learn from this.”
Libby waited for Jordan to object, but he only looked at the sergeant with something like derision riding in his eyes. Libby sensed he wasn’t buying Huckabee’s speech, which had sounded to her almost fatherly, in a pointed way.
And yet she couldn’t quite trust it, either. She didn’t know what bothered her. Huckabee seemed to care. Augie and Ruth said he was a good guy, a good cop. Fair. Even tempered. What did she know, anyway? Everything the sergeant said matched the facts: Jordan had driven a car drunk and caused an accident that had killed his cousin and left a young woman in a coma.
Libby took a quick step to the kitchen table and set the casserole down, and turning, she found Coleta’s glance. “Thank you for the tamales.”
“Sí, senora. De nada. You are welcome,” she added, her translated English halting and unsure.
“Yes, perfectly said.” Libby couldn’t resist encouraging her.
Coleta smiled, glancing at her husband.
Faultlines Page 14
