Six

Kate woke the next day but she didn't get out of bed. The sun was peeping through the white plantation shutters in little gold slivers. She was in Florida! The state that late-night talk-show hosts liked to ridicule, but people dreamed of going to. Palm trees and alligators, lots of Cuban cheek kissing, people who'd never seen snow.

She could hear voices in the house, so the others were up and about—and she wanted to see them. She was still marveling at her aunt Sara. Not at all as she'd expected! And Jack... Laughter and tears. Far from boring.

When she heard a pan clatter, she got up. Last night Tayla had sent an email saying that the reporters were still surrounding the office. She thought it would be better if Kate stayed away until after Tuesday, when this matter would be closed.

They'd been looking at Sara's excellent photos on the giant TV and had taped some photos on the walls. Kate read the email aloud.

"Ask her why the hell she thinks it's going to end by Tuesday." Sara's harsh tone made Kate blink in surprise.

Kate sent an email to ask Tayla if she'd heard anything about the case closing. The reply came right away. Tayla said that the sheriff had decided to bury the skeletons at 10:00 a.m. on Tuesday. She said there would be a short service at the grave site and anyone who wanted to attend could. The two women would be buried at county expense.

The date of "closure" seemed to be proof that there was going to be no further investigation into the murders.

Kate replied to Tayla that she'd be there Wednesday morning, then clicked off her phone. The news had seemed to take the heart out of all three of them. They'd turned off the TV and separated to go to bed.

As Kate dressed in leggings and a tunic this morning, she remembered that they'd declared they were going to investigate the murders. But how? Where did a person start? The only police files they had—and all they were likely to get—just about declared that the late Roy Wyatt had killed the women. And that he was a hero who had been defending his young son.

Kate took a few minutes to look at the suite of rooms Aunt Sara had put her in. Her clothes didn't fill even a quarter of one of the two closets. Her bed had a linen headboard, and the sheets and pillowcases were Porthault. The living room was divine, all blue and white, with silver accents. After last night she knew that the pictures on the walls were Sara's photos. Kate's favorite was a sunrise over temples. It must have been taken from a hot air balloon.

She opened the doors into the house. Jack was sitting on a bar stool and eating breakfast, while Sara was moving about the kitchen. The smell of bacon was delicious.

"Good morning," Sara said. "Want some eggs?"

"Sure," Kate said. "Anything I can do to help?"

"Stay out of her way." Jack pushed forward a plate of what looked to be bacon wrapped around cheese sticks.

"Too many calories for me." Kate took the stool next to him.

For a moment they were quiet. Last night's news was hanging over them. Did they let the burial take place and go about their everyday lives? Or did they... Do what? Where did they begin?

"What I want to know..." Jack picked up his crutches and went to the coffeepot. He held it up toward Kate and she nodded. "Is who tore the house apart. When I saw it, it was a mess. Even their toaster was gone."

She took the cup of coffee he handed her, then nodded when he got a carton of milk out of the fridge. "What was the house like inside usually?"

"It was nice. Very clean." Smiling, he sat back down. "The only time I saw Cheryl in jeans was one Saturday morning when I got there early for our newscaster session. She—"

"How much early?" Sara asked.

He gave a sideways grin. "Three hours. Or so."

"Cheryl was a saint to put up with you," Kate said. "Go on."

"I knocked but no one answered. I was about to leave when she opened the door. I thought she was like a spy because she looked around to see if anyone was watching. Then she grabbed me by the collar, pulled me in and shut the door." Jack ate two more bacon-and-cheese pieces and kept on smiling at the memory.

"And?" Sara asked impatiently.

"Nothing. I thought she looked really pretty."

"As opposed to the way you usually saw her?" Kate asked.

Jack looked from one woman to the other, both staring at him. "That day, she looked different. That's how my eleven-year-old mind saw her. Younger. More like a kid."

"I bet she didn't have any makeup on," Kate said.

"I agree." Sara cracked eggs into a bowl. "Please tell me she didn't wear her newscaster face to school."

Jack shrugged. "Don't know, but she always looked perfect."

Again Sara and Kate just stared at him, waiting for him to go on.

Jack put down his coffee. "Cheryl never looked like the other girls. She didn't wear the same clothes as they did. And don't ask me what she wore. You'll have to get someone else to explain that. My point is that on that Saturday, Cheryl was cleaning her house."

"Where was her mother?" Sara asked.

"I have no idea. I never saw her."

"Not once in the whole summer?" Kate asked.

"She was there, I guess. A couple of times Cheryl said we had to be very quiet because her mother was sleeping. But Cheryl always ran me off when it was time to wake her mother."

"Sleeping during the day because of her night, uh, job," Kate said.

"I guess so." Jack quit smiling. "So back to my original question—who tore the house apart? Who took the toaster that Cheryl had just bought? The pillows off the couch?" He took a drink. "All her clothes were gone. They even took her red makeup case and that was precious to her."

Sara's head came up. "What did it look like?"

"A little suitcase." He motioned with the size.

"Ah, that would be an old-fashioned train case," Sara said.

"Cheryl loved that case. It had all her makeup in it. She bought it at a garage sale and she called it by some man's name."

"Mark Cross," Sara guessed.

Jack grinned. "That's it. She'd say, ‘Go get Mark' and I'd take the case to her and she'd fix her face."

Sara and Kate looked at each other.

Kate spoke first. "Why would a mother make her teenage daughter dress up like a...a...all the time? Was she preparing her to follow in her, uh, footsteps?"

Sara put eggs in the skillet. "You ever see that early Brooke Shields movie, Pretty Baby? She was a beautiful child and she was literally offered up on a platter to the highest bidder. For her virginity."

"Maybe that's why Cheryl never went on dates with guys her own age," Kate said. "She was being ‘saved.'"

Sara grimaced. "Her mother would have had to keep strict control. With testosterone-laden boys all around and Cheryl's teenage hormones, she wouldn't last long."

Kate nodded. "She'd have to—"

"Stop it!" Jack said in anger. "You two sound like Salem witch hunters. You're ready to burn mother and daughter at the stake." He glared at Kate. "Now who's blaming the victim?" He didn't wait for an answer because the doorbell rang and he hurried to answer it.

Sara put a plate of scrambled eggs in front of Kate and lowered her voice. "We're going to have to be careful with what we say around Jack. First loves can do no wrong."

"Cheryl's mother was supplementing her income with prostitution. That had to have an effect on her daughter. And Verna slept all day. Drugs maybe? Or alcohol?"

"Possibly. But maybe it was just exhaustion."

"Lucky her," Kate mumbled and Sara laughed. "I was thinking that whoever killed them probably left town. How would we find them?"

"That won't be a problem. If our investigation leads to someone who now lives in Montenegro or wherever, then we'll go there." She looked at Kate. "Then you and I will go shopping in Venice."

"Oh," Kate said, wide-eyed. They heard a man talking to Jack. "Who's that?"

"Gil."

"The foreman?"

"Yes." Sara smiled. "Good memory! I can never remember names. I'm good with faces, but names elude me."

"When you have as many relatives as I do, you have to memorize lots of names."

Sara frowned. "Are your uncles still as obnoxious as they used to be?"

"They get worse every year." She paused. "They want Mom and me to move in with them."

"And let me guess. Your mother's income—and yours—would go into the community pot."

"Exactly," Kate said.

"I think I'm seeing why Ava let you come here."

"It was my decision," Kate said defensively.

"Anyway, Jack texted Gil last night. He thought Gil might have been in the same class as Cheryl and he was. Gil said he'd come over as soon as he got the men started on the job. He—"

She broke off when Jack entered with another man and introduced him.

Gilbert Underhill was shorter than Jack and as pale as Jack was dark. Gil was young but he had little hair, and for all that his T-shirt showed muscle, he had a round, almost cuddly look to him. Kate liked him immediately.

Jack looked at Gil and Kate smiling at each other. "She's taken. Alastair Stewart has stolen her eternal love. She has room for no other man."

"Not true. I'm free for whatever life holds." Kate nodded at the book in Gil's hand. "Is that a yearbook?"

"It is."

She motioned to the stool beside her, the one Jack had vacated.

With an eye roll at his seat being usurped, Jack poured Gil a coffee and got the sugar bowl. It looked like something he'd done before. He took the stool on the end and Sara sat beside Kate.

Jack flipped through the yearbook to Cheryl's class. "There she is!"

Kate and Sara peered in disbelief at the girl he had his finger on. She was quite plain-faced, with frizzy hair and a look of "Woe is Me, the World is an Awful Place."

"That's Cheryl?" Kate asked.

"No, of course not." Jack turned the pages. "Here's Cheryl."

All the other photos looked like regular kids with bad hair, but Cheryl Morris was perfect. Hair, makeup, smile, pose. Flawless. And old. She looked to be in her twenties.

"Wow," Kate said. "I wish I looked that good now."

"I like red hair." Gil didn't look up from the book.

"Do you? You don't think it's too loud? It's my natural color but I was thinking of putting some blond streaks in it. What do you think?"

"I like it just the way it is." Gil turned to look at her. They were very close.

"Do you have to flirt with every male?" Jack snapped. "Stewart, Flynn and now Gil?"

Before Kate could reply, Sara spoke loudly. "So who's the first girl you pointed out?"

Jack looked back at the book. "Last night I remembered that one day when I was there Cheryl was washing some girl's hair. I told Gil and he found her."

"Ah," Sara and Kate said in unison.

"Not like that!" Jack's teeth were clenched. "Gil, help me out here. These two think only bad of Cheryl."

"That's not true," Sara said. "Her mother, yes, but not Cheryl."

Jack threw up his hands. "What is with you women? You'd be more forgiving if you found out Verna was an ax murderer. But—"

"I do tend to admire Lizzie Borden," Kate said.

Jack shot her a look and continued. "But screwing men for money and you act like she's the devil incarnate."

"She's stealing our strength," Sara said. "She's giving men what they want so other women can't use it to threaten them to take out the garbage. Loose women undermine the only real power women have over men."

Jack started to protest, but then he saw the twinkle in Sara's eyes. "So this is about garbage?"

Sara looked at Kate, then back. "More or less."

When Jack laughed, Sara grinned at Kate. Gil turned back to the book and the plain girl. "Elaine Langley. She married Jim Pendal. They moved away and I haven't seen either of them since high school."

"I knew his dad," Sara said. "Very nice family. I guess. They seemed to be."

Gil turned the pages to show Jim's photo. He was a handsome young man.

No one said what they were all thinking: that girl and this boy were not a physical match.

"Elaine was real smart," Gil said into the silence.

"I think he is the smart one," Kate said. "A man who can look past the exterior is brilliant."

"Then why are you so worried about the color of your hair?" Jack shot back.

"Because most men aren't smart," Kate said.

"I think—" Jack began.

"What do you remember about Cheryl?" Sara loudly asked Gil. "And let's move to the couches."

When they were settled, Gil said, "I haven't thought of anything else since Jack called me. Cheryl and I were in the same class, but she was above my league."

"That's hard to believe," Sara said. "You were a football star and your parents live on the west side of town. Cheryl lived—" She waved her hand. "You know."

"Sometimes in school things like that get lost. Cheryl was smart and the teachers loved her. And she wore nice clothes all the time. It was like she lived in a world all her own. She was different from the rest of us."

"Who were her friends?" Sara asked. "In my experience, high-school girls travel in packs. Snarling, sneering, dangerous little packs."

"Were you part of one?" Jack asked.

Sara smiled. "Not at all. I'm an outsider and I've always been one." She looked at Kate in question.

"Sorry. I had lots of friends. Very much not an outsider." She looked at Jack but he said nothing. But then, she already knew. Good-looking, athletic boys ruled high schools everywhere.

"Those girls used to scare me to death," Gil said. "But I don't think I ever saw Cheryl with anyone else."

"What about in a couple?" Kate asked. "Boyfriends?"

"Definitely no." Gil looked a bit embarrassed. "Unfortunately, there was a lot of locker talk about her. She was so damn pretty. And that body! I had—" He cleared his throat. "I had a dream or two about her."

"Any actual conversations with her?" Sara asked.

"Only once. I was about fifteen, and we'd had a late football practice. I went to the front of the school to meet my dad. Cheryl was there waiting for her mom to pick her up." He paused. "I was always awkward around girls, but it was just us there. I asked her if she'd go to the school dance with me that weekend." He smiled. "She was really nice. She said she wasn't free, but if she were, I'd be the boy she most wanted to go out with. She said, ‘You're my second favorite.' That's when her mother showed up."

Gil shook his head. "Now, there was a hard-core mom. She looked at me as if I'd tried to rip her daughter's clothes off. She got out of the car and marched over to me like she was going into battle. I swear that if she'd had a gun, she would have shot me. But then, at fifteen I was six feet tall. Bigfoot in person."

Sara laughed. "What exactly did her mother say?"

"The usual, that she knew boys my age had only one thing in mind and that I'd better never get near her daughter."

"What did Cheryl say?" Kate asked.

"Not a word. I still remember my shock at it all. I don't want to brag, but mothers were usually nice to me."

"Why not?" Sara asked. "You were a catch—star athlete, smart, salt-of-the-earth personality."

"You make me sound dull," Gil said.

"You're a single father who works hard," Sara said. "Nothing dull about that."

"Another saint," Jack said. "Tell them about Cheryl's mother. They're interested in her profession."

Gil's face turned a rosy pink.

"It looks like you know about Mrs. Morris's, uh, ‘outside job,'" Sara said.

Gil nodded.

"What do you know about it? Especially who," Sara said.

"I didn't know about her until later, but back then, my dad told me to stay away from both of them."

"Both of them?" Jack said. "What does that mean?"

"I don't know. If Dad were alive, he could tell us, but he's not, so..."

"But you have no idea who she...associated with?"

"None at all." Gil looked at Jack. "I think you should know that there's a lot of gossip around town."

"I know. It's about Roy."

"We were told that he's the suspect, but we don't think he's guilty," Sara said. "But how do you get an alibi for twenty years ago?"

Jack leaned back against the couch. "I bet Grans knows where her precious son was on every day of his life." He looked at Sara. "Why don't you pop over to her house and have a chat?"

"Got a flamethrower I can take with me?" Sara's upper lip was curled.

Kate looked over to Jack, who shrugged. It didn't take much to put together that Sara wouldn't have a close relationship with the woman who was married to the man she loved.

"I think that's my cue to leave," Gil said. "Keep the yearbook as long as you need it, but I don't think it'll be much help. There's just the one posed photo of Cheryl. It doesn't show her. When she used to hurry down the hallways, every male in the building would stop to watch her. She really was an unusual girl."

Sara leaned forward. "She had all that male attention but she always said no?"

"If she was dating, I don't think it was anyone in Lachlan."

"Who you knew about," Sara said. "On the videos, she could have passed for thirty. Maybe there was an older man. Or a married one."

"I don't think that Verna would have allowed that," Gil said.

"Maybe not," Sara replied. "I wonder if Verna wanted something, and that's why she worked so much."

"Yeah," Gil said. "She wanted her daughter near her forever."

At that, they all drew in their breaths. It was what had been given to both of them.