“Of course not! I’m not a ninny, Kent, although sometimes you treat me like I don’t have any sense. But I can’t help thinking about it. Celeste was eight. Daniel is almost eight. It’s just… eerie.”
“Eerie! What in the name of God is eerie about two children turning eight? Most children do, you know. Sharon, what’s the matter with you lately? You’re jumpy; you’re suspicious; you fly off the handle over the least little thing. I know you’re unhappy about my working so much, but I can’t help it. I always expected to be head of Farr Coal Company one day, but I didn’t expect it to be dropped in my lap when I was in my twenties. I’ve had to work twice as hard as anyone else would to prove myself. But it’s work that keeps me away from you and Daniel. Not another woman.” Sharon’s eyes narrowed. “That’s what you think, isn’t it? That I’m a chip off the old block? That I have another woman on the side?”
“I am not even going to discuss that subject.”
“Thanks for your trust in my fidelity,” Kent snapped. “I feel so much better knowing my wife believes I’m faithful.”
He knew from the look on her face she was about to come back with a scathing remark, but instead she drew herself up and gazed at him coolly, as if she were making all the sense in the world and he was being irrational. “Kent, how do you think this Roscoe Lee Byrnes business is going to affect Daniel?” Sharon asked softly.
“Roscoe Byrnes! Talk about changing the subject.” Nevertheless, Kent stiffened. “Daniel doesn’t know anything about Byrnes recanting his confession. Why should it affect him?”
“Daniel doesn’t know anything about it, but other people do. If they don’t mention it to him directly, they’ll talk in front of their children and the kids will hit him with it.”
“I guess that’s true,” Kent said thoughtfully, “but there’s nothing we can do about it except leave town, and I can’t take off from work right now. We’ll just have to explain the situation to him before he hears it from anyone else.”
“Explain what, Kent? That his grandfather and his stepgrandmother were murdered in their bed? That a girl just a few months older than Daniel was stabbed and could have died?” She paused, then added emphatically, “That everyone believed his aunt Teresa had committed the murders?”
“Not everyone believed that!” Kent sat up, threw off the sheet, and headed for the dresser. Sharon knew he was going for a cigarette. “You didn’t believe it; I didn’t believe it; your father didn’t believe it—none of the people Daniel knows and trusts believed it. I think their opinion is going to mean more to him than that of a bunch of strangers.”
“Or he’ll be smart enough to know that no one who knew and cared about Teri wanted to believe it.”
Kent had struck a match but let it burn almost to his fingertips without touching it to the cigarette between his lips. Finally, he said with an almost threatening quiet, “What I can’t believe is what you just said.” His tone frightened Sharon a bit and she sat still, hands folded, her eyes focused on Kent’s chest, not his face. “Sharon, tell me the truth,” Kent said coldly. “Were you just pretending to believe Teri was innocent back then?”
Sharon swallowed. “There was so much tension in that house. Even you can’t deny that Teri hated her father and Wendy for what they’d done to Marielle. To make things worse, Teri had to live with Hugh and Wendy and she’d just found out they were going to have a baby.” Kent stared at her stonily. “And finally,” Sharon forged on, “in the afternoon, before the murders, no one saw Teri. She said she’d stayed in after she’d fallen and gotten that split lip. Yet she said she was out that night and she came in late.”
“If you had a split lip, would you have gone out in the daylight? And you never came in past your curfew?”
“Well… I guess I wouldn’t have wanted everyone to see the split lip, and yes, I guess I did stay out late a couple of times, but my circumstances were different. I had the ideal family. Mom adored Dad and Dad thought Mom walked on water. Even though she’s been dead for four years, he’ll never even look at another woman. Never!”
Kent looked stunned as her volume rose. “Sharon, if you’re hinting that I’m involved with someone else—”
“Dad and Mom were perfect for each other—perfect—and the three of us got along wonderfully,” Sharon went on. “I was a happy teenager from a happy home—”
“Sharon, we have a happy home—”
“You’re gone nearly all the time and Daniel is away from me more and more. I don’t like it! And Dad doesn’t even come around as much as he used to, especially in the evenings—”
“Daniel is growing up, Sharon. You have to accept it that he’s not going to cling to Mommy like he did when he was younger. As for your father, it’s his month off the boat. Maybe he’s visiting with friends or—”
“Or what?” Sharon glared at Kent. “Or what?”
Kent shrugged. “I don’t know. Fishing?”
“Don’t be foolish! And don’t try to steer me away from the topic of Teri. When she was a teenager, she wasn’t like me. Not that I blame her for being depressed and upset over your mother and Wendy and that whole mess, but Teri can be so volatile—”
“Volatile? More volatile than you lately, Sharon?”
“And she hated your father.”
“If I remember, you weren’t my father’s biggest fan then, either. You detested him for trying to prevent us from getting married, especially because you were pregnant.”
“Be quiet about the baby!” Sharon hissed. “And don’t forget that you were furious with your father, too. You just weren’t around. You were at school in Virginia. And I’m—I’m me,” Sharon said as if this explained everything. “But Teri is different. I’ve always thought Hugh gave her the split lip. You saw it. I saw it. She wouldn’t tell me anything, of course, but I’m sure she confided in you.”
“She has never told me Dad hit her. She said she fell.”
“Which I’m sure you believed. I know you suspected your father hit her, and I’m certain of it.” Sharon took a deep breath. “Considering how mad she was at him already, just how furious do you think Teri was the night of the murders?”
“She never said Dad hit her,” Kent repeated mechanically.
Sharon looked exasperated. “Kent, have you forgotten the punch on the jaw your father gave you when he said you were not going to marry me and you said you were? It took five stitches to close the cut he left with that gaudy ring of his.” She walked over to Kent and closed her cool hands around his arms. “Your father was a vicious, selfish, controlling man, honey. And you of all people know just what he was capable of driving someone to do, particularly someone who already had a huge amount of resentment and rage built up against him.”
Kent ran a finger over the scar still visible along his jawline. His father had tried to knock him unconscious, and he’d hit Kent with that damned elaborate ruby ring Wendy had bought him on their honeymoon—bought for Hugh with Hugh’s money.
Kent remembered the rage that flooded through him that night as he caught himself on the edge of his father’s desk and managed to remain standing. He remembered the fury as well as the stony determination in his father’s small, mean eyes. And Kent remembered realizing beyond a doubt that as long as Hugh Farr was alive he would never manage Farr Coal Company and have Sharon and their baby, too.
CHAPTER EIGHT
1
TERESA WOKE UP BEFORE the alarm went off and sat up in bed, swept by a feeling that something important was about to happen. She jumped up, ran to a window, parted the draperies, and threw open the window. Cool, crisp air hit her in the face. A lemon yellow sun shone in a cloud-studded cerulean blue sky. Josh and Gus were already exercising Eclipse and Caesar. Caesar. That’s why Teresa had awakened with an air of expectancy. Daniel was to begin his riding lessons today.
Sierra lay on the bed, carefully watching her mistress, but too tired to rise after all the excitement last night over the night-light. Who could have left it
? To her frustration, Teri had asked herself that question a hundred times after she’d gone to bed, keeping herself awake. She wanted to look bright-eyed and confident today, not red-eyed and tired. Or worried. Sharon could pick up on worry at a hundred feet, and Teri did not intend to mention the Peeping Tom or the night-light.
Teri stepped in front of the mirror and groaned. She’d put in another rough night and it showed. Astringent drops helped her sleep-deprived red eyes. Blush and concealer as well as peach-toned lip gloss also improved her looks. Twenty minutes later, wearing jeans, a turquoise blouse, and even a pair of shining silver and turquoise earrings, she decided she could pass for being well rested. If not well rested, at least colorful.
As she passed her office door, though, she caught herself looking almost fearfully at the fax machine. Its strident tone hadn’t alerted her to any incoming faxes this morning, she thought thankfully. Still, she couldn’t get the words of yesterday’s fax out of her mind: “NO ESCAPE NO ESCAPE.” As she descended the stairs, she caught herself saying them aloud, wondering who had sent the fax, written the note she found in her car, and, worst of all, come right up on her porch to leave the night-light of a child who’d almost been murdered. Who would want to scare her so badly?
A lot of people, she thought. A lot of people had believed her a depraved murderess before Roscoe Lee Byrnes confessed. Now that he’d recanted that confession, those same people probably had snatched up their previous belief with a triumphant “I told you so” air and thought she was getting well-deserved torment she’d escaped for eight years because some mental case had decided he wanted attention.
But that didn’t explain who had gotten possession of Snowflake. The house had been vacant for years. There had never been a break-in, but it was possible that anyone to whom the realtor had shown the house could have taken it. It didn’t explain how that person would have known Teresa had given it to Celeste and decided to unnerve her completely by “giving” it back to her eight years later.
“Oh, for God’s sake,” she said aloud. “I’m like some little kid trying to scare herself.” She looked at the dog standing beside her at the foot of the staircase. “We need some fresh air and sunshine, Sierra.”
Without even bothering to fix her usual morning coffee, Teri hurried out of the house, which suddenly seemed small and almost airless. Sierra ran along beside her, joyous to be out romping on a beautiful summer morning, as Teresa walked to the ring where Gus brushed a docile Caesar. “Getting him all glamorous for Daniel?” she called, climbing up on the fence and sitting on the top rung.
Gus looked at her and smiled. His short ash-blond hair was heavily laced with gray and his skin was weathered, but he was as slim as his son, and his smile just as broad and welcoming. He must have looked just like Josh when he was younger, Teri thought. He would have been a heartbreaker. At fifty-six, he still was. His wife, Sarah, had died last year after a two-year battle with cancer, and to Teri’s knowledge Gus had never seen another woman socially after Sarah’s death. Teresa had no doubt that within the next few months Josh would leave the cottage he’d shared with his parents much longer than he’d wished, first because of Sarah’s illness, then because Gus didn’t want to be all alone.
“Mornin’, Miss Farr,” Gus said with a broad grin.
“I wish you’d call me Teresa. Or even Teri.”
“It just doesn’t seem right, what with you being my employer and a lady and all,” he replied. “Josh said you had some unwelcome company last night.”
“Yes.” Teri’s stomach tightened, but she managed a nonchalant, “Probably just a Peeping Tom.”
“Maybe.” Gus turned back to Caesar and began working gently with his fingers on a tangle in the pony’s tail. “Josh said you recognized that little thing left on your porch, though. A night-light?”
“Yes, at least I thought I did. Then a friend of mine reminded me that a store in town had sold dozens of those night-lights the year I bought one. It probably wasn’t the one I’d given as a present.” Teri surprised herself at how easily the lie flowed from her. “So, does Caesar seem to be in a good mood this morning?”
“He’s always in a good mood.” Gus began brushing Caesar’s tail with long, flowing strokes. “He’ll be a good horse for little Daniel.”
“I think so, too. Daniel’s mother worries me, though. She’s not in favor of him taking lessons. They were Kent’s idea. Kent’s and Daniel’s.”
“But when she sees how well the child does on the horse—and I’m sure he will—she’ll change her tune.”
“I’m not so sure, but I can always hope. Daniel is really excited about the lessons.”
“Josh is going to give the lessons, and you know what a way with children he has. That boy is going to make a fine father someday.”
“I agree.” While Sierra sniffed assiduously at the grass, Teresa took a deep breath of the clean, warm air. She decided it couldn’t be more than seventy-five degrees, although the sun was climbing in the sky, and the humidity was low. “I should take a ride on Eclipse today,” she called to Gus. “I haven’t exercised her for almost a week.”
He nodded. “Fine day for it. You’d enjoy it. So would she.” He turned and gave Teri a gentle smile. “You know, you’re a born rider, Miss Farr. Just like your mother was. She never looked happier than when she was riding her horse.”
Teri went stone still. “My mother?” Gus nodded. “You knew my mother?”
“Seems like a lifetime ago. It was back before she married Hugh Farr.” Gus didn’t look at her. He simply wet his brush in a bucket of water, then began to brush Caesar’s mane to the right. “I worked at the Point Pleasant stables. That’s where I met her. We went riding together a few times. Then to some movies, and had a dinner or two.”
Teresa felt as if she had opened the door to an unexpected room. “You dated my mother?” She realized she sounded unflatteringly shocked. “I mean, I’m surprised because I’ve known you for years and you’ve never mentioned it.”
“I know you still grieve for your mother—didn’t want to bring up bad memories for you, but considering what that Byrnes guy pulled yesterday, she’s been on my mind because of her disappearin’ at the time of the murders. I figured she was on your mind, too.”
“She has been.” Teresa’s eyes filled with tears and she blurted, “Oh, Gus, you’re not one of those people who think my mother killed Dad and Wendy, are you?”
Gus almost dropped his brush and whirled to face her. “Marielle? Murder somebody? That’s about as likely as the moon droppin’ right on our heads some night. The Marielle I knew was just about the kindest, most gentle person I ever knew. I don’t mean any disrespect to my wife, Sarah—she was a good woman—but she did have a short temper. I guess some people would’ve called her domineering. Not like Marielle.”
Sarah—Gus’s stern, whip-thin wife, whose dour face and harsh voice vanished only in the presence of her son, Josh, on whom she doted. Teri looked back at Gus, gently brushing Caesar’s mane. She felt almost dizzy from Gus’s revelation that he had once dated her mother, and as Teri sat on top of the fence, her mind teemed with a hundred questions. Finally, she picked one and tried to ask it casually. “You said the Marielle I knew. What was that Marielle like?”
“Well, beautiful, of course.” Gus turned, looked at Teresa, and smiled. “Just like her daughter.” Teri smiled back, but Gus had already turned away and was shaking the water from the brush before he placed it on the base of the pony’s neck and ran it down the mane, smoothing the long hairs. “Marielle was real shy at first but amiable. After I got to know her better, I saw that sometimes, especially when her parents weren’t around, she seemed content. Oh, not joking and buoyant, but sort of quietly happy, especially when she rode her horse.”
“Good heavens, Gus, I didn’t even know she had a horse.”
He turned, surprise showing on his craggy face. “You didn’t? It was a fine horse—an Arabian like yours. I thought that was why you’d go
tten an Arabian for yourself.”
“No,” Teri said vaguely. “No, it was just a coincidence, I guess.” She paused. “What did Mom name her horse?”
“Let’s see… Cassandra! Like the woman in the Greek myth who could tell the future.” Gus shook his head. “Too bad Cassandra couldn’t tell Marielle what she had in store for her if she married Hugh Farr. But that’s sour grapes talkin’. I shouldn’t be sayin’ things like that with Hugh bein’ your father and all.”
“You can’t insult me about my father, Gus,” Teri said dryly. “He was a complete jerk.”
Gus burst out laughing so loud that Caesar started in surprise. Gus put a calming hand on the pony and began murmuring to him. She’d seen Josh do the same thing to skittish horses and they always immediately calmed. Carmen was wrong—Josh isn’t the only horse whisperer, Teresa thought.
When Caesar had quieted and Gus began putting the finishing touches on his mane, just as if the pony were going to a competition, Teri spoke again. “May I just say one thing and ask one question about Mom before I stop bothering you?”
“Fire away,” Gus returned.
“First of all, I think she would have been so much happier with you than with Dad.”
Gus turned around. Even from a distance, Teri could see that he was touched. “Well, that’s about the nicest thing anyone ever said to me.”
“I mean it. Maybe you weren’t in love with her.…”
Gus grinned. “You sure don’t have the gift of second sight like Cassandra, Miss Farr, or you’d know I was in love with her. I just never had the nerve to tell her.”
While Gus was looking at Teri, he seemed unaware of Josh leading the gray Connemara pony Cleopatra from the barn. Josh had clearly overheard his father, and although he never broke stride, he shot a narrow-eyed look at Gus, then at Teresa, his jaw so tight she could see the muscle flexing beneath his skin. He already knew, Teri thought in shock. Josh already knows his father once loved my mother and he resents it like hell.
If You Ever Tell Page 14
