Dark Water

by Sharon Sala

  Sarah rolled her eyes in appreciation. “I can’t wait to taste.”

  “Sarah owns her own restaurant,” Tony added. “So be prepared for some serious judging.”

  “Tony, stop it,” Sarah said. “I’ve promised him a special dessert, but if he doesn’t behave, I’m reneging.”

  “I’ll be good,” Tony said. “Just don’t stop feeding me.”

  Moira looked at Sarah. “You must be quite skilled as a cook.”

  “Why?” Sarah asked.

  “Because at Tony’s level in Chicago society, the good life is taken for granted. If he says your cooking is good, it must be outstanding.”

  “She’s an amazing chef,” he said. “As for me living the good life, any way besides the way I grew up would be an improvement.”

  “You’re just being modest,” Moira said. “I remember you when you were just a young man.”

  “Yes, so do I,” Sarah said, and smiled at Tony, who gave her a wink.

  Moira saw the looks and the wink that passed between them and sighed. Oh, to be young again. As soon as they entered the living room, introductions began.

  “Tony, I think you know everyone here. Everyone, this is our own little Sarah Whitman, all grown-up. Sarah…Tony…these are some of my dearest friends. Tiny Bartlett and her husband, Charles. He’s a very successful C.P.A. Marcia Farrell is the redhead on the sofa. She’s one of our most prominent citizens, active in all sorts of charity works. The gentleman beside her is Paul Sorenson, president of Marmet National Bank. Annabeth Harold is by the fireplace. She works for a law firm, and the man to her left is Harmon Weatherly, retired from the bank.”

  Sarah’s gaze went straight to Harmon Weatherly. She smiled warmly.

  “Mr. Weatherly and I have already met.”

  “Really?” Moira said.

  Harmon volunteered the information. “I met Sarah yesterday outside the supermarket.”

  Sarah added. “He’s being modest,” she said. “He actually came seeking me out. It seems he’d been saving some of my father’s memorabilia all these years, and he made a point of giving them to me.” Then she glanced over the chair where Harmon was sitting and pointed to a picture on the wall. “There was one just like that in Daddy’s things.”

  Moira nodded sadly. “Everyone in the picture received a copy. It was taken, I believe, for the bank’s seventy-fifth anniversary. I remember being the one designated to serve punch to the customers that day, and Emma Toller’s miniature poodle jumped out of her arms and into the bowl.”

  Everyone laughed at the story, including Moira’s footnote about the fact that it took months for the red color of the punch to wash out of the dog’s white fur.

  Marcia Farrell moved closer to the picture, then pointed to a young, fair-haired man standing to the right of a much younger Harmon Weatherly.

  “Look, there’s poor Sonny Romfield. I haven’t thought of him in years.”

  “What happened to him?” Sarah asked.

  “He was killed in a car accident only days after your father’s…uh…disappearance.”

  “It was a sad time for the bank,” Harmon said.

  “He had a wife and two young children,” Tiny said. “I wonder what ever happened to them?”

  “They moved right after the funeral,” Moira said.

  “Rather quick, don’t you think?” Annabeth noted.

  “They were in the midst of getting a divorce,” Moira added.

  “I didn’t know that!” Tiny squealed. “You never told us!”

  Moira frowned, then shrugged. “Goodness me, it was so long ago. Why would I even think about the Romfields one way or the other?”

  Sarah listened intently, although she couldn’t help noticing that Paul Sorenson had not contributed to the conversation at all. Curious, she turned, fixing him with a pointed stare.

  “Are you in this picture?” she asked.

  Sorenson pointed. “That’s me to the right of your father.”

  “That’s when you still had all your hair,” Annabeth said, and patted his nearly bald pate affectionately.

  Sorenson scowled as the others chuckled.

  “There are worse things than losing your hair,” Sarah said.

  The laughter trickled to a few nervous giggles. It seemed that no matter what Sarah said, they all took it as judgment against their belief in Franklin Whitman’s guilt.

  Sorenson’s heart felt as if it would leap out of his chest. Every time Sarah Whitman looked at him, he feared she would denounce him for the fraud that he was. God, after all this time, to be afraid for someone to find out he was nothing but an aging queen. He’d heard the rumors that she harbored great hate. If that was so, he was a prime target for her venom, even though his secret had nothing to do with her father’s death.

  Tony offered Sarah a canapé. When she opened her mouth, he obligingly popped it in, then pointedly licked his own fingers. Again, the intimacy was not lost on the guests.

  When Sarah turned around, she surprised herself, as well as Harmon, when she hugged him.

  “Mr. Weatherly, I can’t tell you how much I treasure the contents of that box. I don’t know why you decided to hold on to them all this time, but I’m profoundly glad you did.”

  “It’s nothing,” Harmon said, but his smile was proof of his pleasure.

  Tiny Bartlett fidgeted in the chair where she was seated and, when there was a break in the conversation, quickly piped up. “How nice for you to have some keepsakes.”

  Judging from her expression, Sarah obviously wanted the topic to change, so Tony took it upon himself to do so.

  “Among other things,” he said cryptically, and then picked up a second canapé from a tray on the sideboard, put it on a napkin and offered it to Sarah. “May I pour you a glass of wine?”

  She took the canapé and nodded. “Whatever you’re having is fine with me.”

  “What other things are you talking about?” Annabeth asked.

  For the first time Sarah really looked at the people around her, separating them from the whole that she’d taken in upon her arrival. She remembered Annabeth Harold. She’d been holding her mother’s hand when Annabeth had asked her to resign as chairman of the Fall Festival.

  “I remember you,” Sarah said.

  Annabeth smiled.

  “You fired my mother as chairman of the Fall Festival after Daddy disappeared.” Then she looked at Moira. “This canapé is delicious. What is it?”

  Tony stifled a grin. Good for Sarah. She’d agreed to dine with these people, but she didn’t have to be polite.

  “Uh…I believe that one is smoked salmon on a rusk of rye, with a bit of dilled yogurt on top.”

  “It’s very good,” Sarah announced. “I can’t wait to try your entrée.”

  “Sarah owns and runs her own restaurant in New Orleans,” Moira said, desperately searching for a new topic of conversation.

  “Indeed?” Paul Sorenson asked.

  Sarah looked at the aging man over the rim of her wineglass and nodded. “Indeed.”

  He flushed. She remembered! He could tell by the way she was looking. He wondered how rude it would appear if he pretended to take ill and just up and left. The moment he thought it, he discarded the thought. What if she talked about him after he left? He would have no way of knowing that he’d been outed until the gossip began to spread. Before he could make a decision, the doorbell rang.

  “That would be the last guest,” Moira said. “Excuse me for a moment.”

  “Who else has she invited?” Marcia asked. “I thought we were all here. Now we’ll be uneven.”

  “We can always get Dunn or Farley to sit in to even things up,” Sarah said, and then chuckled at her own wit when the others looked properly horrified.

  “Oh, do hush all the fussing,” Sorenson said. “We’ll find out soon enough.”

  Within seconds, Moira was back with a tall, elegant woman of indeterminate age at her side. The woman was dressed in black silk to match her obv
iously dyed hair, and the glitter at her neck appeared to Sarah to be real diamonds.

  “Everyone, you know Laura.” Then she turned to Tony and Sarah. “This is Laura Hilliard. Sarah, you might remember her as Laura King.”

  The woman ignored Sarah and extended an elegant, manicured hand toward Tony, smiling seductively.

  “Silk, darling, it’s been a while.”

  Tony smiled. “Laura, I didn’t know you’d moved back to Marmet.”

  “Oh yes…I have a house just across the lake. In fact, I can see the lights of your house from my bedroom. Surely you’ve noticed my place?”

  Sarah stared. “The house with the red roof.”

  Laura turned, eyeing Sarah slowly, then nodded and smiled.

  “Yes. I see you’re quite an observant woman.”

  “Never doubt it,” Sarah said. “I’m sorry, but I don’t remember you at all.”

  “It’s not surprising,” Laura drawled. “I used to work out of town.”

  Tony offered to pour Laura a glass of wine. Someone across the room muttered the word hooker, but it was said so softly, Sarah couldn’t tell who’d said it. She stifled a grin. It seemed Moira Blake had invited quite an eclectic mix of guests for her dinner party.

  “Who brought the two bookends standing guard outside?” Laura asked.

  “They’re with me,” Tony said.

  Laura eyed him curiously; her glance slid to Sarah.

  “I see,” she said, and took a sip of her wine, then lifted her glass to Sarah. “I heard about your troubles. Please accept my condolences.”

  Sarah eyed her coolly. The sympathy didn’t sound sincere, and she wasn’t in the mood to pretend.

  “Dinner is ready,” Moira said. “Please follow me.”

  “Sarah, you’ll be sitting between Paul and Tiny,” Moira announced.

  Tony slipped a hand beneath Sarah’s elbow.

  “No, she’s sitting with me. Paul won’t mind trading places, I’m sure.” Then he shrugged an apology. “It’s either that, or the bookends will be sitting at the table with Sarah.”

  “Really!” Laura drawled, as she gave Sarah a more serious look. “She must mean more to you than I thought.”

  “Someone tried to kill her,” Tony said. “I take no chances with people I care for.”

  There was a communal gasp among the guests and then a twitter of indistinguishable words that all amounted to the fact that they’d already heard, but were just now finding a way to express their dismay. After that, there was a moment of pregnant silence, and then Moira giggled nervously.

  “Of course you must sit beside Sarah. Do whatever makes you comfortable. After all, you are the guest of honor,” she said, and gave Sarah’s arm a quick pat. “This way, please.”

  The group followed Moira toward an array of enticing scents, and so the evening went.

  It wasn’t until they were waiting for the dessert to be served that Charles Bartlett became anything more than the man on Tiny Bartlett’s left.

  “So, Silk…I hear you’re building a second club. How is it progressing?” he asked.

  Tony looked at Charles and nodded.

  “Yes, actually, it’s almost finished. It will open before Christmas, but I’ll have the grand opening on New Year’s Eve.”

  Bartlett barely managed to stifle a sneer. “Always chasing the almighty buck. When will you have enough?”

  There was an embarrassed lull in the conversation as everyone looked uncomfortably from Tony to Charles and then back again. But it was Sarah who took the burden of answering away from Tony.

  “Charles…I’m curious as to what you consider enough. You have a most charming and attractive wife, and from the conversation, I gather you’re quite successful. You’ve come a long way over the past twenty years yourself. Are you not happy with your life?”

  Charles was pinned, and he knew it. He lifted his glass to Sarah and grinned wryly before covering Tiny’s hand with his own.

  “On the contrary, I am extremely happy. With a woman like my Tiny, who could ask for anything more?”

  “Exactly,” Sarah said, and then impulsively lifted her glass and made an impromptu toast to Tiny.

  “To happy marriages,” she said softly.

  “To happy marriages,” everyone echoed.

  “What did I miss?” Moira cried, as she came back into the room with a towering chocolate cake dripping with fresh raspberry sauce.

  “Just a toast,” Annabeth said, and tried not to feel left out of the fact that she had no husband—ex, deceased, or otherwise—to toast.

  “Who wants dessert?” Moira asked.

  All hands went up except Laura’s. “I never indulge,” she said, and ran her hands down her svelte figure.

  Sarah didn’t like Laura Hilliard. It had taken less than five minutes for her to come to that decision, and she was honest enough with herself to realize that part of it was because she suspected Tony and Laura had some kind of a history. While she wasn’t one to be jealous, she was also aware that she could match Laura curve for curve with a good twenty years of youth on her side. Besides that, she was sick of her snide remarks.

  Smiling sweetly, she let her glance linger just a bit longer than proper on Tony’s face before answering.

  “I’ll have some. I always indulge,” she said, and then pretended great interest in the cake Moira was cutting.

  Anger surged, but Laura hid it admirably. Being reminded of her fading youth by some insignificant woman from the South did nothing to make her fate any less inevitable.

  “You’ll pay for it one day, trust me,” she said.

  Remembering Maury Overstreet’s warning to Tony, Sarah started to laugh.

  “Oh…I’ve already been warned, and by someone much more daunting than you. But I’ve got a hole card, you see.”

  “Really,” Laura asked. “If it’s not a big secret, I’m sure we’d all love to know what it is.”

  Now it was Tony’s turn to save Sarah from answering. He was already chuckling when he put an arm around her shoulders and gave her a quick hug.

  “Oh, I can tell you that,” he said. “She was recently told by an expert in the field that when she loses her face and figure, she’ll never lose her man, right, honey?”

  Sarah grinned.

  “And why not?” Laura asked.

  “Because she can cook like an angel, and when it’s all said and done, we know that the way to a man’s heart is truly through his stomach.”

  Laura smirked. “Unless of course you have the money to pay for fine gourmet chefs. Then you could have it all,” she told Tony.

  “That brings up an interesting question,” Sarah said.

  Tony held his breath. The moment Laura had mentioned money, he’d known what was coming, and for a moment, he almost felt sorry for her.

  “And that question would be?” Laura drawled.

  “You said you used to be a working girl?”

  Laura flushed angrily. “I said I used to work out of town.”

  “Oh. Right. Sorry,” Sarah said, but she wasn’t. “About that money…exactly where did you get yours?”

  A slight gasp rose around the table. In fine circles, it was extremely rude to speak of money, although Charles had skirted the issue briefly already.

  “I can’t see as how it could possibly be any of your business,” Laura said.

  Sarah leaned forward, her gaze raking the guests at Moira’s table.

  “There’s a million dollars still missing from the bank where my father worked, and we all know he damn sure didn’t take it or spend it. So…I am extremely interested in anyone in Marmet whose circumstances have improved since that time.”

  Tiny gasped. “And you suspect one of us?”

  “In my eyes, no one is innocent until Sheriff Gallagher finds the person responsible for what happened to my family.”

  “I heard you were on some quest for revenge,” Sorenson said.

  “It’s not about revenge, Mr. Sorenson. It’s ab
out justice.”

  Then she smiled at Moira, who had just served her a piece of cake. “It looks marvelous,” she said. “I can’t wait to taste.”

  Moira managed a smile and then sighed. It served her right. She should have known better than to try to bring peace to people when the continuity of their lives had been broken by a murder and a lie.

  “I thought that went well,” Sarah said, as Tony took the last curve in the road toward his home.

  He rolled his eyes. “Now I know what the straight man feels like,” he said.

  Sarah grinned. “Why? Did you feel as if I was ignoring you? You were my dinner partner, and I’m sorry if I was rude to you in my efforts to cause strife and concern to all assembled.”

  He laughed aloud. “God, Sarah, remind me never to make an enemy of you.”

  “I can’t think why you would even say something like that to me,” she said primly.

  “You’re incorrigible, and you know it, so don’t play innocent.”

  She looked at him, her face lit by nothing but the dashboard light, and still he could see the wanting in her eyes.

  “I’m not an innocent,” she said. “I haven’t been for a long, long time.”

  “Is that an invitation?” he asked, his voice suddenly husky.

  “Take it any way you like.”

  “Oh, trust me, sweet thing, I most definitely will.”

  The promise of what was to come was there on his face for her to see. She shuddered suddenly, but from longing, not fear. She’d spent the day with Tony, but when it got dark, she wanted Silk in her bed.

  “As soon as you put Frick and Frack to bed, you know where I’ll be,” she said.

  “They don’t sleep,” he said.

  “Vampires?”

  He rolled his eyes.

  She grinned. “Okay, I was just teasing.”

  “I should have qualified that statement by adding…at least not at the same time.”

  “Just keep them off the second floor, okay?”

  “Why?” Tony asked.

  “Just because.”

  “Good enough for me,” Tony said, and took the turn into his driveway in a skid.

  Fourteen