refrigerator and took a quick look out on the patio. Clare was still
on the chaise and he wondered if she’d fallen asleep. Her head was
turned away and her hair in the ponytail glinted in the sunlight.
Despite her pallor and the fragile look about her, he’d been struck
by the beauty of her green eyes and reddish hair.
He’d noticed her last night the moment he walked into the
church hall. During the evening, he’d made several attempts to
approach her. Either she’d been talking to people or Erika was
vying for his attention. There was something about her he found
extremely appealing and hoped that his rudeness on the phone
hadn’t put her off.
“I found the notebook,” Erika said, returning to the kitchen.
“She must have dropped it on the porch.”
“Excellent. You can give it back to her when we go back outside. It’ll give you an opening to make your apology.” “Oh, Dad.”
“Don’t ‘oh, Dad’ me. Even if you don’t like someone, you
need to be polite.” Although Erika’s face darkened as if she wanted
tocomment, she apparently thought better of it. “Would you get
the sugar bowl out and fill it?”
She nodded and opened the cupboard beside the sink. In surprise he noted that she didn’t need to stretch to reach anymore. He hadn’t realized how much she’d grown in the last year. Both he and Rebecca had been tall and he could see that Erika would be too. He’d been so involved in her emotional changes of late that he’d failed to notice how much her body had changed. He had a tendency to think of her as a child, but looking at her objectively he saw that she was beginning to lose the straight-bodied look and
gain some actual curves.
Thank God she looks more like Rebecca, he thought. Her
skin was clear and her features were well shaped. She wore her hair
long and it fell straight and full, a streaky almost white blonde.
When she wasn’t sulking, as she was now, she had an incredible
smile. As he looked at her, it struck him that she was going to be
a beautiful young woman.And how unprepared I am to handle
that, he thought.
“All set?” he asked as she put the sugar bowl onto the tray.
Looking out the window, he could see that Clare was finally stirring.
Hearing the French door opening, Clare rose to her feet.
Relieved that she knew what had caused her fainting spell, she
breathed in the fresh air, letting it clear the last of the fuzziness
from her brain. The peaceful scene did much to calm her, and she
was able to face Nate and Erika with some equanimity. “You look as if you’re feeling better,” he said, as he set a tray
on the glass-topped table. “You actually have some color in your
cheeks.”
“I’m fully recovered,” Clare said as she crossed to the table. “Here,” Erika said, thrusting Clare’s notebook toward her. “I
found this on the floor.”
“Thank you, Erika. I forgot all about it.” She smiled at the
girl as she took the notebook and set it on the table. “It seems like
I’ve totally bungled this interview. Hardly professional to faint on
your doorstep.”
“I find it disarming to say the least.” Nate pointed to a pitcher
of tea and two glasses on the tray, beside a dish of lemon slices and a sugar bowl. “Please help yourself. I’ll join you, but Erika has a
project to finish before her knitting class.”
He nudged the girl who stood awkwardly beside him. “It was very nice meeting you, Miss Prentice,” she said. “I’m
sorry if my story about the murder upset you.”
Shespoke as if she’d rehearsed the words and Clare couldn’t
help smiling at the lack of contrition in her voice.
“I quite enjoyed learning about the bell and the moon symbols over the door. I hope I’ll see you again.”
“Me too.”
Erika looked up at her father, nodded curtly then retraced her
steps into the house and closed the French doors. Clare braced for
a slammed door and apparently so did Nate because he sighed
when it closed gently.
“The next thing we will hear is music blasting in her room.
Eleven is a very difficult age,” he said. “She’s usually not quite so
. . .”
“Territorial?” Clare suggested.
Nate laughed although there was little humor in the sound.
“That’s the word I was looking for. It’s just been in the last year
I’ve noticed this.”
“Erika’s growing up and you’ve been a twosome for a long
time now. It’s only natural.”
Clare poured tea into the glasses, adding lemon to hers. She
walked across to the stone wall edging the flagstone patio that ran
along the entire back of the house. The house was set at the top of
asharp rise, sloping up from the lakeshore. The lawn was mowed
down to the dock so the view of the lake was unobstructed.
Despite that, the house felt secluded since it was bounded on
either side by thick woods. The deck was in shadow and comfortable despite the heat from the late morning sun.
“It’s beautiful here and totally peaceful. I almost fell asleep
just looking at the lake,” she said.
“I think it’s one of the best views in Grand Rapids. I prefer
being above the lake rather than down at the water’s edge.” Nate added lemon and sugar to his tea as Clare came back to join him. She sat down in one of the metal deck chairs beside the table. He took another chair, swinging it around so they were both facing the lake. Music emanated from the house, loud enough to
be heard outside but not too intrusive.
Nate grinned, raising his glass in salute toward the house.
“Erika’s mother died when she was two. I had pretty much been
an absent father. My first book was out and there was a lot of publicity on the movie. It was a pretty heady time.”
“I can imagine.Field of Reedswas a wonderful book. There’s
always been a lot of interest in Egyptology and your book tapped
into that perfectly. The movie didn’t do it justice.”
Nate turned his head and stared at her as if assessing whether
she was making a joke. His tight mouth indicated his annoyance. “It was never intended as a thriller. It was designed as a scholarly comparison of cultures and an in-depth analysis of theBook of
the Dead.”
“I actually trembled at the muscular build of Harry, your —
can I say — hero?” Clare fluttered her eyelashes as she grinned at
Nate.
“God Almighty, can you imagine anyone in his or her right
mind casting that ex-wrestler in the part. As you know the character’s name was Horus, which means distant one. He was seventyfour and an astronomer, for God’s sake.”
Seeing his fingers tighten around the iced tea glass, Clare realized that he found little humor in her comment. “I’m sorry, Nate,
I shouldn’t have kidded you about it. It must be incredibly difficult to see your work mangled.”
“You’d think I’d be used to it by now. Especially since it was
thesuccess of the movie that enabled me to quit my job and stay
home with Erika after Rebecca died.” Once more he turned to
study her, his eyes narrow and less than friendly. “I forgot you were
doing an interview.”
Clare took a long swallow of her iced tea and then set the
glass on the table. She could
understand his quandary. She felt they
hadmade some sort of weird connection and now he was worried that if he spoke freely to her, what he told her would appear in the magazine article. She knew from talking to her editor that Nate had little faith in the media and knew there was only one way to
convince him she could be trusted.
“Before we go any further, I need to tell you something.
Please hear me out before you jump to any conclusions.” “Now you’ve got me curious.” Nate turned his chair so that
he was facing her more directly. Although his tone was light, his
eyes studied her with an unsmiling intensity. “Don’t tell me you
also work for theNational Enquirer.”
She tried to smile around the lump in her throat. She was still
in such an emotional turmoil that it was a leap of faith for her to
confide in this man whom she had just met. When she arrived at
the house, she had been convinced that she would thoroughly dislike him. Yet in such a short time she found she was totally comfortable in his presence. Maybe having read his books and
researched his background it was like meeting an old friend. “My name is not Clare Prentice.” She raised her chin as the
muscles in his jaw rippled in anger. “My name is Abigail Clare
Newton.”
The widening of his eyes indicated that he recognized the
name.
“I am the daughter of the woman who Erika says was murdered in your house.”
“That’s just not possible.”
Clare pleated the material of her skirt across her knees. Even
asa child she’d done it, if she were nervous or tense. The steady
motion of her fingers was soothing.
“It’s true. I just recently discovered that I was adopted and
eventually came here to find my birth parents. I’m staying in Ruth
Grabenbauer’s cottage closer in to town. She was the one who discovered my real name.”
“I don’t know what to say.” Nate reached across and covered
her hands with one of his. “No wonder you almost passed out. I
gather you had no idea that this was the house you lived in.” “No. I’d seen a picture before it was renovated but when I
arrived it looked so different. It was only when the screen door
squeaked and I saw the angel that I felt peculiar. However when
Erika talked about the murder then I connected the dots.” “I’m so very sorry.” His blue eyes held steady on her face and
hetightened his grip on her hands. “I’m sure Erika will feel dreadful when she knows she upset you.”
“Please don’t tell her,” Clare said. “I’d rather no one in
Grand Rapids knew. I’m hoping to find out about my parents and
if people know who I am, I’m afraid they won’t feel free to tell me
the truth. All anyone will think is that I’m here to do an interview
with you and to do some research on a long-ago murder.” “Yes, I can see the sense in that.”
He squeezed her hands as if to reassure her, then released his
clasp. Strangely Clare felt bereft at the loss of physical contact. To
cover her awkwardness, she reached for her tea and took several
swallows. Nate sat quietly beside her, not seeming in any need to
rush her. She closed her eyes and leaned back in her chair. The
breeze off the lake filled her senses with the smells and sounds of
summer.
A calm settled over her and she began to tell Nate about the
last five months and her trip to Grand Rapids. Occasionally he
asked a question, but for the most part he just let her talk. When
she finished with her arrival at the house, he smiled across at her. “Quite a journey of discovery you’ve had. I’m sorry this part
was so rocky.”
“There was no way you could have known. I had no clue I’d
lived here.”
“How much do you know about the murder?” he asked. “I’ve read the clipping file that Ruth brought home from the
library. I think I have a pretty good idea of the broad strokes of the
case.”
“Then you know that my father was the Chief of Police at the
time?”
“Yes. Ruth told me he died several years ago.”
“A heart attack. He was eighty. He’s badly missed.” “At a guess, the protagonist inGuardian of the Scaleswas
modeled after your father.”
“Yes. Much of what he was is in that book. Much of what I’d
like to be.”
“It was a wonderful book. No doubt as to why it won the
Pulitzer.”
“It’s ironic considering the fact that the theme of the book
was how fame is the ultimate corruptor.” His laugh was harsh.
“Sometime I’ll tell you how my early brush with fame and fortune
impacted my life. My father warned me. He was the one who got
me interested in Egyptology and the idea of theBook of the Dead.
He felt that not only did it teach how to get over the obstacles in
the afterlife, but also it made you search for ways to live your life
in balance while you were alive.”
“I’m sorry I never met him. It sounds as if I’d have liked
him.”
“Most people did, despite the fact he was chief of police. He
was a fair man. He didn’t talk often about the murder, but it was
definitely on his mind. He kept the case files in his office and went
through them frequently, especially toward the end of his life.” His eyes widened as he stared at her.
“What is it?”
“You’re Abby,” he said as if discovering the fact for the first
time.
Clare nodded. “I gather that’s what I was called.” “What an idiot I am,” he said, slapping his forehead with the
palm of his hand. “I don’t know why I didn’t put it together
immediately. My father left something for you. I forgot about it
until just now. Wait here.”
He leaped to his feet and hurried into the house, leaving the
door open in his eagerness. Clare sank against the back of the
chair, her chest tight as she tried to imagine what Nate’s father
could have left for her. She could feel the tension in her muscles
andopened her clenched fists, laying them palms down on her lap as she focused on her breathing. No point in anticipating anything, she thought. She closed her eyes, resting her head against the back
of the chair. It seemed a long time until Nate returned. Placing a small cardboard box on the table beside her, Nate
returned to his seat. He was holding a plastic bag, but she
couldn’t see what was inside.
“After my father died, I found these things in his office. The
box had a note on it that said it was to be given to Abby Newton
if she asked for it. I had no way of knowing how to contact you
and, quite frankly, I’d really forgotten all about it. When we
rehabbed the house, most of Dad’s things were put in storage.
Even after you told me who you were, I didn’t immediately connect you with Abby.”
Clare stared at the box but she made no attempt to touch it.
So much had happened since she arrived at the house that she was
totally bewildered.
“It’s mine to take?” she asked.
“Yes, of course. I don’t know what’s in it, but it definitely was
to be given to you.”
“Would you think I was terribly rude if I didn’t open it?” “Not at all. I realize this has all come as a shock, and
I want
you to know that I have no intention of intruding on something
like this that can be very personal.” Nate reached out and patted
the back of her hand. “Take it when you leave and open it at your
leisure.”
“Thank you for understanding,” Clare said. “I tend to be a
private sort of person and I don’t know what’s inside or how it will
affect me.”
“You don’t have to apologize. I’m just glad that the box
finally got to its rightful owner. “ He lifted the plastic bag in his
lap. “I do know what’s in this however. After Jimmy Newton died,
his effects were sent to my father since he was the chief of police.” “Items that were found with his body?” she asked, feeling
chilled by the thought.
“Yes. This is Jimmy’s wallet and the gold chain he was wearing at the time of his death. Because of the amount of money in the wallet it was kept in my father’s safe. After he died, I found the bag and a note that said to give it to Jimmy Newton’s heir. I knew he had a daughter, but I had no idea how to contact you. Now that
you’re here, as next of kin it is yours to keep.”
He extended the bag to her and, after a momentary hesitation, she grasped it with shaking fingers. She placed it in her lap,
unwilling to open the bag and touch the objects inside. “I’m sure this is a lot to process, but once you have a chance
to catch your breath it will all seem less overwhelming.” “Did you talk to your father about the m . . . murder?” “Yes. At the end of his life he used to spend a great deal of
time going over some of his case files and this one he seemed to be
more personally involved with. Your father had been a friend of his
and he also knew your mother. I knew them too.”
“You actually knew them?” Clare’s hands tightened around
the plastic bag and she leaned toward him in her eagerness. “What
were they like?”
“The murder took place in July nineteen eighty-two. I would
have been twelve since my birthday is in August. At that age I
didn’t pay much attention to adults. Your father occasionally
stopped by or I’d see your parents at church. I remember your
mother was a very pretty woman. She was shorter than you and
had beautiful blonde hair. Strangely I can remember her voice. She
looked sort of fragile so it was a surprise that her voice was strong
and very precise when she spoke.”
Conspiracy of Silence Page 10
