The Novels of Nora Roberts, Volume 4

by Nora Roberts

  She drew herself back up. “When Jimmy died, I’m not ashamed to tell you I felt some relief. As if my boy was finally free again, to be again, and walk and laugh. But what was left in my Jim just shriveled. Jimmy was his reason for being, even if the being was bitter. He snapped, that’s all. The weight of it all, it just broke him. I’m begging you, don’t send him away to prison. He needs help. And time to heal. Don’t take him, too. I don’t know what I’ll do.”

  She covered her face, her shoulders shaking with sobs. Out of the corner of her eye, Cilla saw a movement. As Ford came down the stairs, Cilla held up a hand to stop him.

  “Mrs. Hennessy, do you know what he did yesterday? Do you understand what he’s done?”

  “I know what they’re saying, and I know he hurt you yesterday. I shouldn’t have told him you came. I was upset, and I started on him, how he had to let it go, leave it, and you. How I couldn’t take you coming to the house that way. And he went storming off. If I hadn’t riled him up—”

  “What about the other times?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t know about other times. Can’t you see he needs help? Can’t you see he’s sick in his heart, his mind, in his soul? I love my husband. I want him back. If he goes to prison, he’ll die. He’ll die there. You’re young. You have everything ahead of you. We’ve already lost the most important thing in our lives. Can’t you find enough pity to let us try to find our peace?”

  “What do you think I can do?”

  “You could tell them you don’t want him to go to jail.” She reached out to grip Cilla’s hands. “The lawyer says he could ask for a psychiatric evaluation and time in a hospital. That they could send Jim to a place where they’d help him. He’d have to go, isn’t that punishment? He’d have to, but they’d help him.”

  “I don’t—”

  “And I’d sell the house.” Her hands squeezed Cilla’s harder, and her desperation passed from skin to skin. “I’d swear it to you, on the Bible. I’d sell the house and we’d move away from here. When he’s well enough, we’d move to Florida. My sister and her husband, they’re moving to Florida next fall. I’ll find a place down there, and we’ll move away. He’ll never bother you again. You could tell them you want him to go to the psychiatric hospital until he’s better. You’re the one he hurt, so they’d listen to you.

  “I knew your grandmother. I know she loved her boy, too. I know she grieved for him. I know that in my heart. It’s that Jim never believed it, and he blamed her, blamed her every time he looked at our boy in that wheelchair. He couldn’t forgive, and it made him sick. Can’t you forgive? Can’t you?”

  How could she hold against such need? Cilla thought. Such terrible need. “I’ll talk to the police. I can’t promise anything. I’ll talk to them. That’s all I can do.”

  “God bless you. God bless you for that. I won’t trouble you again. Jim won’t, either. I swear it to you.”

  Cilla closed her eyes, then closed the door. With a tired sigh, she walked over to sit on Ford’s steps. She leaned her head on his shoulder when he stepped down to sit beside her.

  “There are all kinds of assaults,” he said quietly. “On the body, the mind, and on the heart.”

  She only nodded. He understood she felt battered by the visit, by the pleas, by the tears.

  “It’s about redemption, isn’t it?” she said. “Or some part of it. Me coming here, bringing her house back. Myself back. Looking for her in it, for the answers, the reasons. She never recovered from Johnnie’s death. Was never the same. And most people say she took her life because of it. Couldn’t you say Hennessy didn’t have that luxury? His child was still alive, but so damaged, so broken, so needy. He couldn’t turn away from it, and had to live with it every day. And that broke him.”

  “I’m not saying he doesn’t need help,” Ford said slowly. “That mandatory time in a psychiatric facility isn’t the answer. But, Cilla, it’s not him who’s asking for pity or forgiveness. It’s not Hennessy who’s looking for redemption.”

  “No, it’s not.” And there, too, she knew he was right. “I’m not doing it for him. For whatever good it does, I’m doing it for that desperate and terrified woman. And more, I’m doing it for Janet.”

  IN CILLA’S EXPERIENCE working with a good crew in construction meant no coddling because you happened to be female. She got questions, concern, anger and disgust on her behalf, but no more than she’d have been afforded as a man.

  And she got plenty of jokes and comments about being a ballbuster.

  It helped put her back on track so she could spend the morning hanging trim.

  “Hey, Cill.” One of the laborers stuck his head in the living room as she stood on the stepladder nailing crown molding. “There’s a lady out here, says she knows you. Name’s Lori. Want me to send her in or what?”

  “Yeah, tell her to come in.” Cilla shot in the last nails, started down the ladder.

  “If I’d been through what you went through yesterday, I’d be lying in bed, not climbing up ladders.”

  “It’s just another kind of therapy.” Cilla set the gun aside and turned to her Good Samaritan. “I was going to come by later today or tomorrow, thank you again.”

  “You thanked me yesterday.”

  “Not to diminish what you did, but I’m always going to have this image of you running down the road with a portable phone in one hand, and a garden stake in the other.”

  With a laugh, Lori shook her head. “My husband and I took this week off, short holiday week, to putter around the house and yard. He was off with our two boys buying peat moss and deer repellant while I restaked the tomatoes. I can tell you, if he’d been home, he’d likely’ve beat that idiot over the head with the stake, even as he went down.”

  With a sympathetic smile, she studied the bruise on Cilla’s temple. “That looks painful yet. How are you doing?”

  “Not too bad. I think it looks worse than it feels now.”

  “I hope so.” She looked around the room. “I confess, while I did want to see you, I’ve always wanted a look inside this place.”

  “It’s in major transition, but I’ll give you a tour if you want.”

  “I’d love a rain check on that. This room’s very nice. I love the color. Well, let me just wind my way around to the point. Of course I know who you are, and who your grandmother was. We moved here about twelve years ago, but Janet Hardy’s legend looms large, so we knew this had been hers. It’s good to see somebody finally tending to it, which is not the point I’m winding to.”

  “Is something wrong?”

  “I don’t know, because while I know who you are, and feel a particular interest in you now, I don’t know you. I’ve had two reporters call me this morning, wanting quotes and information and my account of what happened yesterday.”

  “Oh. Of course.”

  “I told them I gave my account to the police. In both cases, they got pretty insistent, and that put my back up.”

  “I’m sorry you’re being bothered by this.”

  Lori tossed up a hand, waved that aside. “I stopped by to let you know that someone’s been talking to reporters. For all I know you might’ve talked to them yourself, though I can see now that’s not the case.”

  “No, but I’ll have to. I appreciate you letting me know.”

  “We’re neighbors. I’m going to let you get back to work.” She glanced around. “I think it’s time to go nag my husband about painting the living room.”

  Cilla walked Lori to the door, then went back and sat on the stepladder. She considered the cleanest, most direct way to get out a statement. She still had contacts, and even if tapping any of them was dicey, the Hardy name would ring the bell. She needed something brief and concise, carefully written. She’d been taught not to duck a story but to confront it, spin it and ride it out with class.

  She pulled her phone off her belt when it rang, then closed her eyes as she answered. “Hello, Mom.”

  “Cilla, for God’s sak
e, what’s going on out there?”

  “I had some trouble. I’m handling it. Listen, could you contact your publicist? You’re still using Kim Cohen?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “Please, contact her and give her this number. Ask her to call me as soon as she can.”

  “I don’t see why I should do you any favors after the way you treated—”

  “Mom. Please. I could use some help.”

  There was a beat of silence. “All right. I’ll call her right now. Were you in an accident? Are you in the hospital? Are you hurt? I heard some crazy man thought you were Mama’s ghost and tried to run you over with his car. I heard—”

  “No, it’s not like that. I’m not hurt. I need Kim to help me straighten it out, get out a statement.”

  “I don’t want you to be hurt. I’m still mad at you,” Dilly said with a sniff that made Cilla smile. “But I don’t want you to be hurt.”

  “I know, and I’m not. Thanks for calling Kim.”

  “At least I know how to do a favor,” Dilly said, and hung up.

  Cilla couldn’t deny it as the publicist called within twenty minutes. In another twenty, they’d refined a statement between them. By the time Cilla hung up, she knew she’d done the best she could.

  “I’M NOT MAJOR JUICE,” Cilla said to Ford as they drove from the doctor’s office to the appointment with the Realtor. “But there’s always some ripples when there’s any sort of violence or scandal. And the Hardy connection may give it a little more play. But the statement should cover most of it. There won’t be much interest.”

  “There will be locally. It’ll be big news around here, at least for a few days. And if it goes to trial. Did you get in touch with the cops?”

  “Let’s hope it doesn’t—and yes. I know Wilson thought I was the crazy one for asking if they’d consider Hennessy’s emotional and mental state.”

  “What did he say?”

  “Psych evals are already in the works. One from the defense, one from the prosecution.”

  “Dueling shrinks.”

  “It sounds like it.”

  “I’d say it’s going to be pretty clear to both that Hennessy downed a big bowl of crazy.”

  “Yeah. I guess the upshot depends on what the prosecution’s guy has to say as to whether or not the DA holds on the charges, makes a deal or recommends a psychiatric facility and treatment. The house is coming up on the left. The little Cape Cod there.”

  “Huh?”

  “Red compact out front. She’s already here. Vicky Fowley. It’s a rental—empty—the owner wants to unload. And Vicky’s anxious to get it off her list.”

  Ford looked at the overgrown, weedy front yard and the small brown box of a house sitting on it. “I can’t imagine why. Could it be the extreme uglies?”

  “Perfect attitude. Keep that up, seriously.” She gave his hand a bolstering pat. “And let me do the talking.”

  TWENTY-TWO

  Ford knew he had a strong imagination. He considered himself to be a man of some vision. As far as Cilla’s “little Cape Cod” went, he couldn’t imagine how anyone could define it, however loosely, as a house, and could only visualize it being mercifully razed.

  Stains of a suspicious and undoubtedly unpleasant nature stamped and streaked the carpet in the pint-sized living room. He could only be grateful he’d let Spock play job dog again, otherwise Spock would’ve been honor bound to re-mark all the previously marked areas.

  Either an animal or an army of rodents had gnawed on the baseboard. The ceiling, also unpleasantly stained in one corner, was bumpy with what Cilla called popcorn.

  The kitchen was a truly ugly hodgepodge of mismatched appliances, torn linoleum and a rusted sink. The stingy counters carried the round burn marks of pans carelessly set on blue-speckled white Formica. Grime, and God knew what else, lived in the corners.

  In his mind’s eye he imagined cockroaches flooding out of that rusted sink, armed with automatic weapons, driving tanks and armored vehicles to wage war against spiders in combat gear firing bazookas.

  He found it easy to let Cilla do the talking. He was speechless.

  The second floor consisted of two bedrooms scattered with the debris of former tenants and a bathroom he wouldn’t have entered while wearing a hazmat suit.

  “As you can see, there’s work to be done!” Vicky showed white, white teeth in what could only be a pained, somewhat desperate smile. “But with some elbow grease and sweat equity, it could be a little dollhouse! Such a cute starter home for a young couple like yourselves.”

  “A couple of what?” Ford said and got the fish eye from Cilla.

  “Vicky, would you mind if we just looked around on our own for a few minutes? Talked about it?”

  “Of course not! Take all the time you want. I’ll just step outside and make some calls. Don’t rush on my account!”

  “Why does she say everything in exclamation points?” Ford asked when Vicky was out of earshot. “Is it fear? Excitement? Does she have multiple, spontaneous orgasms?”

  “Cute.”

  “Cilla, I think that pile of what may have once been clothing in that corner just moved. There may be a body in there. Possibly an army of cockroaches waiting to ambush. We should leave. And never come back.”

  “If there was a body, it would smell a lot worse than it does in here.”

  “How much worse?” he muttered. “And have you ever actually smelled a body?”

  She gave him the fish eye again. “Cockroaches may be a factor, however. If the seller had any brains, he’d have cleaned this place out, ripped up this incredibly smelly carpet. But his loss could be our gain.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding. The only thing we could gain from this place is a rampant case of typhoid. Or bubonic plague.” He kept a wary eye on the pile of rags. He wasn’t entirely sure it hadn’t moved. “Cilla, this place has no possible redeeming value.”

  “Because you don’t know where to look. Deal was, you don’t want to risk it, you don’t. But let me give you the idea first. There’s hardwood under this carpet. I checked when I went through before.”

  She walked over, crouched to pull up a loose corner. “Random-length oak, and in surprisingly good shape.”

  “Okay, it’s got a floor.”

  “And a good foundation, a nice-sized lot.”

  “That looks like a minefield. Probably booby-trapped by the atomic spiders.”

  “New sod,” she continued, undaunted, “some plantings, a pretty little deck on the back. Gut the bathroom.”

  “Wouldn’t it be more humane to bomb it?”

  “New tub, new sink, a nice ceramic tile. For a room that size, I could probably find enough of a discontinued style, neutral color. All the carpet goes. Replace the closet doors, add shelves. Redo the ceilings, paint. You’ve got a couple of nice kids’ rooms.”

  “And where would the parents sleep?” He slid his hands into his pockets rather than risk accidentally touching something. “In a hotel if they have any sense.”

  She crooked her finger. “This wall moves out fifteen feet.”

  “It does?”

  “It will and, running the width of the house, will hold the master suite, overlooking the backyard. Walk-in closet, attached bath with soaking tub and separate shower. Double sinks, granite countertop. Maybe slate tile. Have to price that out.”

  “What holds it up? Hopes and dreams?”

  “The new kitchen/great room.”

  “Oh, that.” But oddly enough, he began to see it as she did.

  Or as he thought she did.

  “Horrible carpet treads out, oak treads in,” she said as she started down the steps. “Replace skinny banister. Carpet goes, ceilings redone, new trim, some crown molding. New windows throughout. Gut kitchen.”

  “Thank the Lord.”

  “Half bath and laundry room here. Kitchen, dining area and family room, open floor plan, breakfast bar for the casual, family meal, all leading out through atrium
doors to the nice little deck. Exterior paint in a cheerful color, replace the cracked concrete walkway with pavers, plug in some plants, a little dogwood tree. And that’s about it.”

  “Oh, well, that’s hardly anything.”

  She laughed. “It’s a lot, but it’ll be a lot. Poor, sad thing. Sixteen weeks. It could be done in twelve, but not with juggling, so I’d say sixteen. With the top offer I’d make and materials and labor, mortgage payments for, we’ll say, five months, and the market value after improvements in this neighborhood, you could see between forty and forty-five K in profit.”

  “Seriously?”

  “Oh yeah. Depending on the market when it’s done, that could be closer to sixty thousand. The neighborhood’s on an upswing.” She began ticking items off on her fingers. “Younger couples, small families moving in, prettying things up. It’s in a good school district, only about ten minutes from a shopping center. Master suites, kitchens and baths—that’s where the sales are made and you get your biggest return on your investment.”

  “Okay.”

  “No, you have to be sure. Take a little time to think about it. I’ll draw up some floor plans.”

  “No, I’m sold. Let’s go make Vicky’s day.” And get the hell out while the cockroaches and spiders have their moratorium.

  “Wait, wait. We need to let her suffer more. You’re going to steal this place, Ford.” He found the sly delight on her face infectious. “It deserves to be stolen because the seller couldn’t even be bothered to make an attempt. We’re going to tell her, very unconvincingly, that we’ll think about it. Then we’re going to walk away. In a week, ten days, I’ll call her back.”

  “If somebody buys it in the meantime?”

  “When it’s been sitting here for over four months, even with two price reductions? I don’t think so. We’re going to go give Vicky the disappointment she’s expecting. Then I want to go home, soak in your hot tub and relax.”

  RELAXING PROVED PROBLEMATIC because of the half-dozen reporters camped at her wall.