Beyond the Quiet: Romantic Thriller

by Brenda Hill

  Trying to think like an investigator from one of my favorite novels, I searched everything again, even taking each drawer out to see if something was taped on the bottom. I dismantled light fixtures and looked under furniture. Nothing. I even braved the cobwebs in the garage to paw through old jars and cans. Still nothing.

  Just as I was ready to give up, I suddenly had an idea where to look.

  Chapter Fourteen

  After washing the grime from my hands, I carried the step stool to my closet and climbed to the back shelf where Shanna had placed her father’s greeting card collection. Two boxes sat next to each other, one holding cards from Shanna and me over the years and the other filled with mementos from his office. If there were any clues to Mac’s betrayal, I felt sure they would be in one of those boxes. I took them to the wing chair by the bed.

  The first box, a Father’s Day present to Mac from Shanna, was just short of a foot square and made of polished mahogany. Although beautiful with the word Father inlaid with onyx on top, I felt the familiar tightening when I held it. Shanna had saved her allowance for months and insisted on picking out his gift by herself. Mac had loved it, of course, and I’d been proud of her, but things had changed that day and I became the outsider.

  That Father’s Day celebration had begun like any other holiday, with a special dinner followed by Mac’s favorite, devil’s food cake and chocolate chip ice cream. Shanna climbed on his lap to sit while he opened his presents. I remember saying something to Shanna about being careful not to spill her milk on both of them, and Mac, carefully emphasizing each word in a sing-song voice, repeated the warning to Shanna. Then, pointing their fingers at me, they laughed together as if I’d just told the best joke in the universe. Mac said I was an ol’ fuddy-duddy and Shanna joined in by repeating it.

  Funny how that could still sting. Shanna was supposed to have been the one person on earth I could love freely and who would love me in return, but after that day, nothing was ever the same. No matter what I did in the years following, her attitude toward me, especially when she was with her father, wavered between long-suffering tolerance and ridicule.

  Oh, Shanna, what happened to us? Why did loving your father mean turning from me?

  Was I really a shrew, an uptight stick-in-the-mud who insisted on order and control? I suppose I was, even though I’d always wanted to be able to relax, to allow any feelings I might still have to spring free. But it was too late for me. Even now I was stuck in my rigid mold. I might’ve had a chance with Terry, but I’d made a conscious decision to cut off anything that might be happening between us. And my relationship with my daughter was so deep in the pits I didn’t know if I’d ever climb out.

  I hadn’t talked to Shanna since that last disastrous conversation, and I didn’t know what to do about it. Even before then, whenever I’d call, she’d used that impatient tone, making me feel as if I were intruding on her life. The only time she had treated me differently was during the last few months that Mac was ill. Then, she became the loving daughter I’d always wanted and needed. But after the funeral, and now, especially after I’d refused to drop everything and move to Minnesota, our relationship had really taken a dive and I didn’t know how to save it. I could only hope Shanna would call again.

  When the phone rang I was so startled that I dropped the box. Thinking about fate, I picked up the cordless phone, but hesitated to answer. What if it were Terry?

  “Lisa?” Terry’s voice spoke to the answering machine. Warmth flooded my chilled soul at his voice, and I wanted nothing more than to talk to him, to pour out everything I was feeling. But still, I held back.

  “Are you there?” he asked. “I’m sorry I missed you again. Honey, what’s wrong? Is it my illness? If so, let’s get together and talk about it.”

  For the first time, I heard uncertainty in his voice and knew the pain I was causing him. Oh, God, what should I do? My hand was on the phone, but I couldn’t make myself speak.

  “Okay, Lisa,” he went on, his tone defeated, “you win. You know how I feel about you. If you can’t handle my illness, I’ll understand. But before you decide not to see me, know that you’re turning your back on a chance to be with someone who truly loves you, no matter what. We may only have a few short years, but isn’t that better than a lifetime of nothing?”

  My heart ached for him, for us both, but I said nothing. I desperately longed to tell him to come and get me, to tell him that I wanted him just as much as he wanted me, that I had tried hard to forget him and thought, until the moment that I heard his voice again, that I had succeeded. That I loved the tingles I’d felt when hearing his voice, and I wanted more. I wanted the chance to feel alive.

  But I said nothing.

  “I’ll wait to hear from you,” Terry continued, and now his voice was flat, expressionless, a voice I had never heard him use before. “It’s now up to you to decide how our lives are going to go. You can answer and we’ll live to the fullest in the time we have together, no matter how long or short that may be, or you can stay away, and for the rest of our lives, we’ll both wonder what we’d missed. I hope for my sake, you’ll choose me.”

  Feeling an extreme sense of loss, I quietly set down the phone.

  With Terry, I might’ve escaped my emotional prison and allowed myself to feel, to truly live and rejoice in the wonders of simply being alive. I’d read about such things in novels, had occasionally seen the evidence in other people and had desperately wanted it for myself. With Terry, I might have had the chance.

  But his illness was too much for me. I simply couldn’t handle it, mot after what I had gone through with Mac. If only we had met in another time.

  I must have dozed, because a short time later, I woke groggy and with a raging headache. This had to stop. How could I forge ahead in my life if I continued to feel sorry for myself? I had to get back to the box of cards and search through them, to look for something, anything, to tell me why my husband had betrayed me.

  But first, I needed coffee. And aspirin.

  Fifteen minutes later, fortified with aspirins, hot coffee, and dry toast, I felt ready.

  Rummaging through the cards, I opened each one and inspected every envelope, even checking behind the box’s red velvet lining. But there was nothing. I don’t know why I was surprised. Surely Mac wouldn’t have kept a note about a secret bank account mixed in with mementos from his wife and daughter.

  Instead of moving to the next box, I picked up some of the cards and glanced through them. Some dated back twenty years. As I read one after another and noticed Shanna’s signature change from uneven block print to a fine script, I thought, what a wonderful history of a life this was. Perhaps I’d scan the cards onto the computer and make a scrapbook of her changing signatures.

  But reading them, I began to notice a subtle difference in the cards Shanna had given him and the ones from me. Hers featured flowery prose about how much she loved him and what a wonderful influence he was in her life. Mine were shorter. They mentioned love, of course, but never anything about his influence on my life. I couldn’t remember consciously picking cards with such limited verse, but now I thought it odd. Hadn’t I felt, as Shanna clearly had, that Mac was important to me? I’d always thought so. Certainly I had given him credit for everything.

  During our marriage, he’d taught me everything I needed to know to survive in the world. Growing up as I had with an alcoholic stepfather and a mother who cowered before his abuse, I’d had no training for the simple things most everyone seemed to take for granted. I had never felt an attachment to a home. Even though Mom had worked all her adult life, there was never enough money for rent and we’d moved every few months. Certainly Mom never had a chance to save, so when we’d go to the grocery store, we could only buy a few staples—beans, potatoes, flour. Occasionally, she’d buy a roast with potatoes and carrots, and sometimes for Christmas, we had a small turkey. Oh, what a celebration that had been—until my stepfather weaved home from the bar.

>   When I left home at seventeen, I hated to leave my mother in that situation, but I had to get out. Even though I rented a studio apartment and managed to get an old car, I knew nothing about budgeting or thinking beyond a few weeks. Always worried I wouldn’t have enough money to pay rent the first of the month, I never filled the gas tank or bought good clothes. I always shopped at the near-new shops and I never thought it odd when things didn’t quite fit or when I wore winter clothes in the summer.

  Mac had been my personal fairy-tale hero come to life. Because he had a steady job, we opened bank accounts and I learned how to write a check. I passed the state board for my real estate license, and each month I added to our savings account. We made a down payment on our own home; never again would I have to live with the constant threat of eviction. For the first time in my life, I bought dishes and pots and pans, real leather shoes, feeling so safe, so secure, like the luckiest woman in the world. I had adored him.

  So why hadn’t I let that admiration show in the cards I gave him?

  I picked up the box from the office—another lifetime of cards and memos—and it held the many letters of recognition Mac had earned over the years. Most of the signatures were familiar, but there were a few I hadn’t seen before. Several cards were from one woman in particular—Jenna Yearwood. She must have hired on right before Mac’s illness. Funny that Mac hadn’t mentioned her. But something flashed in my consciousness about that name, something just out of reach.

  The next card was about his retirement, and everyone at the office signed. Except for Jenna Yearwood. Hadn’t she been there? Along with the card, the gang at the office had presented Mac with a figurine of a mountain man. He’d treasured it, and I’d given it to Shanna. But I wondered why Jenna’s name wasn’t on the card.

  I kept digging through the pile, and, in the process, discovered nineteen cards from that woman. Nineteen! Some were dated as far back as ten years. At first she had signed her full name and then simply “Jenna.”

  Trying to ignore a growing sense of unease, I read each card. While there were no declarations of love, each message, although brief, became progressively more risqué. The last one was entirely inappropriate to send a married man, picturing, as it did, a woman in a black bustier smiling seductively, the invitation clear. That one was signed with a huge, elaborately scrolled ‘J.’

  Although I refused to acknowledge what my instincts were shouting, my hands trembled. No, not Mac, not my hero. I thumbed through them again, pausing to study each card, and I knew.

  That woman and my husband had been lovers. And, if the cards were any indication, the affair had lasted for a very long time.

  My heart raced and I couldn’t catch my breath. Trying not to panic, I inhaled to the count of seven, exhaled to the count of eight and repeated it until I could breath normally.

  I dropped the cards.

  My husband was a cheat. All those years I thought he was the wisest, the most honorable man I had ever known, and that the emptiness I’d felt inside was because something was lacking in me.

  Then the questions started. How long did it last? Had his illness ended the affair? Or had it ended before Mac was diagnosed?

  And now that he was dead, did it matter?

  Yes, damn it, it did matter! I wanted to know. Tomorrow I’d call David at the plant and ask about Jenna, to see if she still worked there. I’d make it a casual thing so he wouldn’t get any ideas. I could even say she had loaned Mac a book and I wanted to return it.

  That night in bed, I couldn’t shake the feeling I’d seen that name somewhere outside of Mac’s office. Giving up on sleep, I got up and checked our address book, and of course there was nothing under the Js or Ys. Where had I seen that name? Could she have been a client of mine? Impossible. Or was it?

  Retrieving my appointment book from my briefcase, I took it to the sofa and browsed the pages, going all the way back to the beginning of the year. Sometime later, not finding the name, I closed the book.

  But I knew that name. And somehow, finding out everything I could about her became almost as important as finding the missing money.

  I had to know why my husband had abandoned our marriage for her.

  Chapter Fifteen

  “Jenna Yearwood? Of course I remember her,” David Greyfoot told me on the phone the next morning. Keeping my impatience in check long enough for him to fumble his way through condolences, I steered the conversation to Jenna, telling him I wanted to thank her for her beautiful sympathy card but couldn’t find her address.

  “She was a dish,” he went on, “I’ll tell you that.”

  “What do you mean, was?”

  “She worked here about eleven years, but after her kid was born, she went on part-time. Then, can’t recall just when, she just up and quit.”

  “She has a child?” A band was tightening around my chest. “How nice,” I managed, trying to sound casual. “How old?”

  “Let’s see...her kid’s about my grandson’s age, seven. I remember ‘cause she and my daughter were expecting at the same time.”

  “Was it a boy or girl?”

  “Can’t remember.”

  “Was she married?” I kept my voice as expressionless as possible.

  “Na,” David said. “That’s the hell of it. Times have changed, I tell you that. Not always for the better.”

  I gripped the phone so tightly that my knuckles turned white. “Do you have her number?”

  “Strangest thing...she lived in this apartment in Riverside all those years, but last year she suddenly up and quit work. I heard she moved. But she didn’t leave her new phone number or forwarding address, and I haven’t heard from her since.”

  Last year. When Mac became so ill? Or last year when he took all our money?

  After we hung up, I was trembling with rage, breathing so fast I wondered if I were hyperventilating. A mistress and a child. No wonder all our money disappeared. After all the years I’d spent thinking I didn’t live up to his standards. The sonofabitch.

  If I had a shovel handy I’d personally dig Mac up and slap him.

  I ran through the breathing exercises, and when the vise in my head eased a bit and I could think again, I wondered where Jenna lived now. It could be anywhere in the country or out. But, if I’d had a child by a married man, I’d stay around him—even if he were dead. That’s what women in love do. I know. I had been a woman in love once, and I had done all sorts of foolish things, like believing everything my husband had said, whether it hurt or not. Like never venturing out of my safe world, because the few times I forgot myself and did something entirely spontaneous, a single frown from him could crush me. But I had needed him—or thought I did, and I’d always wanted to be near him.

  I’d bet Jenna felt the same, and if I were right, she’d still be in the area. I just had to find her. Maybe I couldn’t slap Mac, but I sure as hell could slap her.

  Grabbing the Inland Empire phone book, I browsed through all the names like hers in the area and didn’t find a thing. Next I logged onto the computer and did an online search. Nothing came up. I even called information. Still nothing.

  I dialed my office. When Nina answered, I asked if by any chance, Jenna’s name sounded familiar.

  “Hmmm,” she said, thinking. “Jenna Yearwood. I’ve heard that name, but can’t think....”

  I perked up. “You’ve heard—“

  “Wait a minute! Isn’t that Jenna, The Jerk?”

  Of course! How could I have forgotten? It had started over ten years ago, when a woman had made appointments with me and then failed to show. Sometimes we made the appointment for the office to browse other listings; other times we were to meet at an address. But she never turned up, and the call-back numbers she left were never valid. We dubbed her The Nutcase and I quit taking her calls. She stopped calling for a while, then she started again a few years later. Finally I decided I’d give her one more chance and arranged to meet her at an address in Redlands. But once again she hadn’t t
urned up. After that, I wouldn’t take another call from her, and if I happened to answer a random call and heard that husky voice, I hung up.

  Could it have been seven years ago when she’d started calling again? Somehow I knew it was.

  So Mac and this woman had a child together and she’d wanted to tell me. To gloat? To threaten me somehow? To tell me my life was a lie? All the times I had been trying my damnedest to please Mac, he was out screwing this woman, making a baby with her.

  They say that when you’re about to die, your life flashes in front of you. Well, I wasn’t about to die, but suddenly a review of Mac’s and my love life—if it could be called that, passed before my eyes. And it wasn’t pretty.

  The first few times we had made love I’d wanted him so much that my entire body ached with desire. I hadn’t been frigid then. One look from his half-lidded bedroom eyes and I would be ready for him. Joyously I’d head for the bedroom, anticipating the feel of his body covering mine, loving his thoughtfulness in how he supported his weight on his elbows so he wouldn’t crush me.

  Then I began to notice that as soon as sex was over, he’d rush to the bathroom and wash his hands. After that came the shower. But the hands had to be scrubbed as though I had contaminated him.

  I’d loved him so much, was so grateful that he’d taken me in his protection and provided a home that I never wanted to offend him in any way. When he introduced me to oral sex, I’d never even imagined such exquisite pleasure—until he recommended a certain douche. After that I showered and douched every day just to make sure I wouldn’t offend him.

  But I could never be certain. Some nights I felt too tired to keep up the routine so I avoided the bedroom, preferring to read in the living room and not climbing into bed until Mac was asleep.

  Did Jenna smell nice and sweet? Mac must have thought so; he’d made a baby with her. I was more determined to find her, needed to see what my husband preferred to me.

  I almost ran to the file cabinets where I kept old records, copies of the contracts I’d written, and old appointment books. Pulling them all out, some dating from fifteen years ago, I carried them to the kitchen table. Every instinct led me to believe that yes, the second series of calls had begun about seven years ago, about the time David said Jenna’s child was born.