The Secret Hour

by Luanne Rice

  But just as he flipped open his cell phone to dial her number, it rang in his hand.

  “Hello?” he asked. His heart was pounding, as if it might be Kate Harris, as if their Fairhaven magic was working again, and they'd found themselves in the same place at the same time.

  “Johnny? It's Billy.” Billy Manning, his voice deep and filled with excitement. “Just breaking every rule in the book to give you a heads-up. You'd better get down to Point Heron right away—the breakwater.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “We have a copycat working—”

  “A body?” John asked, blood rushing into his head.

  “Yeah. Jammed into the breakwater.”

  “Recently?” John asked, his voice a croak, thinking that if it was Willa, if Greg had killed her, she would have to be all bones by now, praying that Billy hadn't found bones . . .

  “Very recently,” Billy said. “She was under for no longer than one tide cycle. He left her there before dawn, for the incoming tide. Just like Merrill, John. And the new guy knows the signature.”

  “Good,” John said quietly.

  “Good?” Billy asked. “Are you crazy? Get down here, why don't you, before you miss the chance to see what we have. And don't tell anyone who called you.”

  “On my way,” John said, starting to drive. Point Heron was about forty-five minutes from Providence, just east of Silver Bay.

  Good. His comment had had nothing to do with the copycat knowing Greg's signature.

  Good, because no bones meant that it wasn't a body six months dead, that it wasn't Willa Harris; good that Kate wouldn't have to face that horror. Nothing else: there was nothing else good about what Billy had called to tell him.

  Nothing at all.

  A crowd had gathered to watch the police activity.

  Vans from the State Police's Major Crime Squad blocked the sandy parking lot. Yellow crime scene tape had already been stretched out across the rocky promontory. Low black clouds scudded across the sky, making the afternoon seem like night. Camera flashes illuminated the scene; approaching white headlights and departing red taillights were reflected in the flat silver wash of each retreating wave.

  John parked his car, walked over to the yellow tape, and looked for Billy Manning.

  “Hey, what are you doing here?” one of the other cops asked. “You ambulance-chasin' another one?”

  “Drop it,” John said wearily, watching his friend walk in from the breakwater, his leather shoes slipping on the wet rocks.

  “You lawyers got an uncanny sense for where your next meal's coming from,” the cop said. “There's got to be a better way than getting rich on death.”

  John ignored him, but the words made his chest hurt. He could see the crowd gathered out at the end of the breakwater. Detectives, the medical examiner, a cop videotaping. It was getting darker; the tide was coming in. A young officer, dispatched for the black body bag, grabbed it from the back of the coroner's van.

  Peering out the breakwater, when the crowd broke up for a moment, John saw in a flash the woman's arm—crooked, raking the sky, fingers splayed. The arm looked thin and hard, like a stick of driftwood bleached by the elements. The water rose higher, and the team set about removing her before she was covered by waves.

  Staring, John didn't even hear the person come to stand beside him.

  “Dad?”

  It was Teddy, dressed in jeans and a jacket, wearing sandy sneakers, holding a soccer ball. He stared up at his father, eyes shadowed with worry and pain.

  “What are you doing here, Ted?” John asked.

  “I saw her, Dad,” Teddy said. “Bert, Gris, and I were playing soccer on the beach. Some lady was walking her dog, and the dog went scrambling over the rocks. Next thing, we heard the lady screaming . . .”

  “Did you go out there?”

  Teddy shook his head, his face pale. “No. We wanted to help, but the lady said the girl was dead—for sure. The cops came, and then you came . . .”

  “I'm glad you didn't, Teddy,” John said, giving his son a hug. It was sheer impulse, and he almost immediately pulled back, realizing how embarrassed Teddy must feel. But Teddy actually hugged his father harder, not letting go right away. The feeling choked John up. He closed his eyes, wondering how far he would have to go to take his family away from all the horrors of the world.

  “What're you playing here for,” he asked, “instead of at the field?”

  “We were supposed to practice at Riverdale today, for the indoor soccer league. But Mr. Jenkins said Mr. Phelan—the Riverdale coach—couldn't get the gym for some reason. Basketball practice, I guess. We're going to do it tomorrow, but Bert and I wanted to get started. So we came to the beach.”

  “Why Point Heron instead of Silver Bay?”

  “'Cause Bert's mom drove us here. She has a new boyfriend . . . he lives in that glass house,” Teddy said, gesturing at the new, modern house perched above the beach. An old 1930s cottage had been bulldozed to make room for the starter castle; turning to look, John saw Sally Carroll and a man standing on the deck. Sally was watching him with binoculars.

  When John waved, she swept the glasses out to the action on the breakwater instead, pretending not to see him. John and the man stared at each other, and suddenly John recognized him. He'd been at Teddy's soccer game, the one Kate had gone to.

  “Peter Davis, right?” John asked.

  “Yes. I think he went to Hotchkiss with Mr. Phelan, and he's friends with him and Mr. Jenkins. It's his gym we all went to, to work out with weights. Who's the dead lady, Dad? The victim.”

  “I don't know, Teddy,” John said.

  “Is it true, what the cop was saying when I walked over? That you're here because you want to represent the killer?”

  John shook his head, watching as they moved the woman's body out of the rocks, into the heavy black bag. Her skin looked so dull and pale in the fading light. Her brown hair hung lank, like a bunch of rockweed. John watched until she was secured on the stretcher, and then looked into his son's eyes.

  “That's not the reason I'm here,” John said. He could have explained about conflict of interest, how he couldn't be the lawyer for a criminal copying Greg Merrill, how he wouldn't even if he could.

  “Then why, Dad?” Teddy asked.

  John watched the team slowly bear the woman's body the length of the slippery breakwater, waves of the rising tide licking their feet, splashing their ankles. He thought of Kate, and he thought of Willa, and he refused to take his eyes off the thick black bag.

  “For a friend,” John answered finally, aware of his son's eyes on him. “I came because of a friend.”

  chapter 17

  Kate had heard through the grapevine that Andrew Wells had masterminded Senator Gordon's trip to China by way of increasing his national profile, enhancing his reputation as a foreign policy expert. It was looking more and more like his latest boss, Senator Gordon, would challenge the President in the next election.

  It was Monday, Thanksgiving week. Knowing that the delegation had returned that morning, she knew exactly where to find the senator's jet-lagged chief of staff. At her old home, in the Watergate.

  Walking through the neighborhood of Foggy Bottom from her office, she barely felt anything. Darkness had fallen, and dampness was in the air, surrounding the streetlamps with globes of soft silver haze. This had been her beloved route just over six months ago. She had loved the small brick houses, the feeling of a village, the proximity of the Kennedy Center . . . both she and Andrew had been mad about opera, had had season tickets.

  She used to walk home from work every day. She would buy tulips at the flower shop, to put on the hall table, a symbol of how she wanted her life to be. On November nights like this, feeling the Potomac chill, she would hurry past the shops and cafés, eager to be home. Hoping Andrew would be home for dinner that night.

  But now she numbed herself to all the sights and emotions.

  The signs had been
everywhere, about a year and a half before Willa had worked for Andrew; as soon as Kate had started noticing them, she'd begun feeling off—worried, doubting herself. Kate would swear he'd been faithful till then; she couldn't believe he'd been fooling her all that time.

  Gradually something between them shifted, and the signs were everywhere: his late hours, the business trips when she called his hotel room and he wasn't there. One time she even found lipstick on his collar. When she confronted him with it, she was trembling. He had put his arms around her, danced with her by their window to soothe her.

  “Katy, you know I'm never in my room. I'm out working the crowd, the last one in bed . . . I got your message, but it was so late, I didn't want to call and wake you.”

  “But lipstick, Andrew . . .”

  A teasing laugh. “What color lipstick? If it was red, it must have been Jean Snizort's . . . or if it was pink, it had to be Vicky McMahon's . . . you know they can't keep their hands off me when they're dogging me to get the senator to pass their bills! It's just a game.”

  “Love's not a game . . .”

  “I don't love them—I love you.”

  Kate had felt his arms around her, wanting to believe him. Because she loved him, because trust was better than doubt. She'd been raised that way on Chincoteague: with a positive, trusting attitude, believing the best about people—and she wanted to believe her seven-year-old marriage was a good one.

  But after a while, believing his stories began to take too much effort. Kate would get a stomachache as soon as he started to talk—as if her body was willing to know the truth before her mind. A young woman staffer would call the house, and she would have to fight the urge to throw the phone through the picture window into the Potomac River. One day came when Kate smelled perfume on his shirt, and couldn't even bear to ask.

  Walking into the Watergate complex now, she took a deep breath and said hello to Frank, the doorman. He hesitated, before asking whom she wanted to see. She knew it must be uncomfortable for him, after so many years of greeting her as a resident, to now stop her at the door, treat her as a visitor.

  “I'm here to see Mr. Wells. Don't worry, Frank,” she said, smiling sadly. “I don't live here anymore; I know you have to call up.”

  “I wish you were still here, Ms. Harris,” he said, shaking his head. “We miss you here. We all do.”

  “Thanks, Frank.” Her smile faltered; his words meant so much, and she knew they were genuine.

  Andrew must have given the green light, because Frank let her into the elevator. She hadn't known what to expect; hadn't called ahead, because she hadn't wanted to be told she couldn't come. Stopping at the eleventh floor, she walked down the hallway and into the open door.

  Andrew stood just inside, wearing jeans and a blue cashmere sweater. His blond hair was messy, rumpled from sleep; there were pillow wrinkles on the left side of his face. Kate knew all his habits. She remembered that, upon returning from an overseas trip, he drank a quart of orange juice to quench his thirst and replenish his vitamin C. She knew he showered and crawled into bed as soon as he got home. He would pull the quilt up high, over his head, to block out all light and sound.

  She knew all these things, and although she stared into his hazel eyes and couldn't quite look away, her heart felt nothing. Her emotions were dull, as if they'd been smashed to bits by the man who stood before her, and never reawakened.

  “Hi, Katy,” he said.

  “Andrew . . .”

  “What brings you h—” He stopped himself, shook his head, and smiled. “I nearly said ‘home.' Isn't that funny? I must be jet-lagged. This hasn't been your home in six months.”

  “Nearly seven,” she said softly. “Since I caught you in bed with my sister.”

  “And you started the divorce the next day. . . .”

  She nodded, staring at him as if he'd just stated the obvious.

  “We could have worked it out, Katy.”

  Kate sighed, gazing into his marsh-colored eyes. There was a time she had wished—with all her heart—that that was true. But she didn't believe it.

  “You know,” he said pleasantly, sounding more like a politician than ever, “your wrath was totally deserved—but do we have to keep going through it? Who wanted the divorce, after all? Who couldn't forgive me, who wouldn't go to counseling?”

  “Me,” she said.

  “Fastest divorce in District history. Bang, bang—my friends are all asking how it happened. They've been tied up in depositions and interrogatories for years.”

  “Ours wasn't hard.”

  “Because you didn't ask for anything. We'd been married long enough. You could have gotten half the assets.”

  “I didn't want your money,” she said.

  “Didn't want me, either,” he said, never taking his eyes off her. “I would have tried to change.”

  “When you love someone, you're not supposed to want to change them. My mother always said that. You accept them as they are. But I couldn't accept what you were doing.”

  “But you love me?”

  “Loved, Andrew.”

  “I could have changed . . .”

  Kate glanced away. She didn't believe that was possible. Her view of marriage had been so different from his. One man, one woman, loving each other forever. She couldn't comprehend the idea of cheating, even once—never mind all those times with all those women. Including Kate's own sister.

  She stood, looking around the room. It was beautiful, with a view of the Potomac. The bridges were lit up, the Lee Mansion illuminated across the river in Arlington. The graceful leather sofa, the white chairs and ottomans, the sand-and-gold checked rug, were still there. The Dutch landscape paintings were spot-lit from above.

  “So, you've come back to berate me a little more?”

  “No, Andrew. That's not why.”

  He invited her to sit down, and she did. She looked at the piano, raising her gaze. Only then, for the first time, did she feel the first deep stirring of emotion.

  The painting Willa had done of Kate flying a plane still hung there. It was a beautiful portrait, catching details Kate never saw in herself: a gentle humor, a warmth in her eyes, a childlike concentration—lips parted slightly, white scarf flying out behind as she flew the plane. When she had left this house seven months ago, Kate had been too angry at Willa to take the portrait with her.

  “You still have that painting up,” she said.

  “It's a lovely piece of work.”

  “I thought you would have taken it down by now . . .”

  “I love beautiful things,” Andrew said.

  Kate's stomach tightened. He had loved Kate, and then he had loved her younger sister— Tearing her gaze away, she tried to catch her breath. Beautiful things . . . Artist and subject.

  “You can have the painting,” Andrew said. “If you want it.”

  “Thank you. I'll take it when I go. But first . . . I wanted to ask you . . .”

  “What, Kate? I've told you everything I can. What good is rehashing what happened? Do other couples have to go through this? One of them makes a hugely stupid mistake, gets divorced, and has to go on answering for it the rest of his life? How many of our friends were idiots with secretaries or Senate interns or someone they met in a bar? Do you think they're still paying for it?”

  “Willa wasn't a Senate intern,” Kate said, her heart beating hard in her throat. “She was my sister. She was twenty-two years old. And she's missing.”

  Andrew exhaled. He looked more and more jet-lagged by the moment. His eyes looked old and tired, and Kate noticed he'd gotten more, deeper lines around his eyes than she had first seen.

  “She's hiding somewhere, I'm telling you,” he said. “Remember how we used to call her ‘Will-o'-the-wisp'? She's an artist . . . bohemian as they come . . . offbeat, off-center . . .”

  “Is that what you liked about her?” Kate asked. “How bohemian she was compared to me?”

  “Don't start, Kate! You're a biologist,
and you know how much I respect you. It was a fling. A goddamn stupid, midlife-crisis, idiotic mistake. This is Washington—temptation everywhere. I'd made mistakes before, and we always got through them. I knew you knew—I hated myself for hurting you, swore I'd never do it again. . . .”

  “But you always did.”

  “I know. I felt you slipping away—I knew you were getting tired of it. Of me. And then Willa came to work—I know I shouldn't have. I never would have planned it. . . . She reminded me of you. It's sick, I know, but it felt like going back in time, back to when we were young.”

  Kate clenched her fists. “It's no less horrible,” she said, “hearing it now, than it was hearing it the first time. You slept with my younger sister to recapture the passion you used to feel for me. . . .”

  “Katy . . . please.”

  “She was only twenty-two—we raised her. You preyed on her.”

  “Don't say that,” he said, covering his eyes. “I can't stand to hear you say that.”

  Kate stared at him, seeing the misery in his whole bearing. She had loved Andrew for the way he'd treated Willa when she was young. She had never imagined anything like this could happen, and, she had to believe, neither could Andrew. Their divorce was final. After this visit, they didn't have to be in each other's lives anymore.

  “You're tired, I'm upset. Let's not fight anymore, okay?” she said.

  “Yeah. Okay. Why don't you tell me what you came here for?”

  Looking up, she knew her eyes were blank again. She'd felt the emotions spinning out of her, as if he had just pulled a plug and set them all free. Andrew's face was so familiar. His voice was very kind; he worked for a senator known for his liberal views and compassionate stands on human rights and environmental issues—Senator Gordon had chosen Andrew for his like views, his open heart. Because Andrew, for all his personal faults, was a good man.

  Kate stared into her ex-husband's eyes.

  “Because I need to feel close to her,” she whispered.

  “What?”

  “Willa . . . I miss her so much, Andrew. I tried to talk to Matt, but he wouldn't hear it. See, I went up to Connecticut. Then to Massachusetts—the gas station where her card was last used.”