CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Tom thanked Zoey "for being honest and brave." He gave his head a quick shake in the direction of the door. He wanted to go.

I looked at Jamie.

"I'm staying with Zoey." His tone discouraged argument.

"We weren't going to be together the night before our wedding." Zoey was still clinging to the idea that somehow, some way, she could salvage the wedding she had imagined.

"I'm staying," Jamie repeated.

"Of course," Tom said, and we left. Without talking about it, he and I slipped across the hall into the room I'd saved for him and sat on his bed. He wrapped me in his arms and held me tight.

"What now?" I asked from under his chin.

"You're going to bed," he answered. "You can sleep here. I'm going down to relieve Pete. It's late. It'll keep until morning. No one is leaving."

"Okay." He was right. We were exhausted and couldn't be bothering the guests any longer. I doubted I would sleep. Adrenaline was surging through my body, not least from Zoey's revelation about Kendall Clarkson's alleged identity. "I'll just go get my toothbrush and something to sleep in."

"I'll wait in the hall while you do. Then I'll walk you back, and you'll lock this door."

But as we crept along the hallway, Constance Marshall's door opened. "I heard Zoey crying."

"Jamie's with her," I assured her.

Constance ran her tongue around her lips as if they were dry, opened her mouth to speak, hesitated, and then opened her mouth again. "I have something more I need to tell you." She was looking at Tom, and I gathered that, whatever it was she had to say, it was in his official capacity.

"Of course," Tom said. "Let's not stand in the hall." He took my elbow as Constance backed up, and we made our way into her room.

We returned to our former positions, Tom on the desk chair, me on the bed, and Constance in the easy chair. The bed was still made. She'd evidently been sitting up since we'd left her, not trying to sleep.

She folded her hands in her lap.

"You had something to tell us." Tom spoke softly, as if coaxing a reluctant animal.

"Yes." Constance stopped, then began again. "You, really, but it's okay for Julia to be here. I wasn't fully honest with you before. I told you Kenneth Clark and I had lived together, long in the past. But I didn't tell you something important. When he left, he stole every penny I had." She stopped, searching both our faces. Tom's expression was one of sympathetic concern. I actually felt that way and hoped it showed.

"I was a young schoolteacher. I had a tiny savings account, enough money in checking for the next month's rent and groceries, and a ten-year-old car. Not much to take, but when he left, he took it all."

"He didn't own a gallery where he could show your paintings," I said.

"He did not. I'd known that for several months. He didn't have a job. He was always on the phone in my apartment. No cell phones in those days. He was wheeling and dealing, trying to buy and sell artwork. His big break was always just around the corner."

"What made you decide to tell me?" Tom asked.

"Two things, really." Constance tossed a long hank of gray hair back over her shoulder. "I want you to understand the character of the man whose murder you're investigating." She stopped, searching Tom's face to make sure her words had sunk in. "And I knew that, in the coming days, you would find out what happened, and it would make me look bad because I hadn't told you."

"How would I have found out?" Tom asked.

"I reported him to the police."

"I see." Tom's head pulled back as he raised his eyebrows. "Was he arrested? Was there a trial?"

Constance shook her head. "Neither. He was never found, as far as I know. My car was. It was returned to me months later. It had been abandoned on the other side of LA, where it was stripped. By then I had a new one."

"What did you do," I asked, "when this happened to you?"

"I was too embarrassed to tell anyone. My girlfriends, my parents. I told my dad my car had been stolen, and he loaned me money for a down payment on another one. I was able to pay my rent, though it was late. It was late for months, but my landlord was good to me, and eventually I caught up and got back on my feet."

"Is that why you and Clarkson were having heated words at the cocktail party?" I asked.

"Yes. I recognized him instantly. A rage I thought had left me long ago bubbled up inside. And then when he claimed he didn't know who I was! This person who had changed my life forever, made me fearful, caused me not to trust men until it was too late to have a family or a life of companionship. And it was all so little to him that he didn't remember me!"

"Did you kill him?" Tom asked it almost casually, but my breath caught in my throat. It had never occurred to me that Constance would have called us in to confess.

"No. I would have liked to kill him in that moment. I suppose I might have stabbed him with a toothpick from the shrimp cocktail, but I had no other weapon handy. I didn't know he'd be here."

"Have you talked to Zoey about this?" I asked.

"Never. Why should I talk to her about something that happened before she was born? It would have been a most unprofessional thing to tell a student. And even after our relationship extended into her adulthood, Zoey always looked to me for stability, for the small bit of mothering she got. I wouldn't have told her about my biggest mistake. It's not something I'm proud of." Constance rubbed her hands together, then looked at the window at the black night sky. "When I saw him here tonight, I had no idea who he was to Zoey. I wasn't going to ruin her beautiful party. And then, the next thing I knew, he was on the floor, gasping for air. And then you told me he was murdered."

When we left Constance, Tom thanked her and told her she should try to sleep. As she saw us to the door, she still looked exhausted, but somehow lighter. I thought she might at last be able to take his advice.

* * *

Back out in the hallway, Tom leaned against the wall. I thought it might be the only thing holding him up. My knees were rubbery, and everything I saw in the dim hall light was blurry, like I was swimming in a fishbowl.

"What does it all mean?" I asked.

"Our victim is a very, very bad guy who did very, very bad stuff to a lot of people. It caught up to him here on this little island."

"At his daughter's wedding."

"We don't know she's his daughter." Tom motioned toward my apartment door. "I'll wait for you while you get your stuff."

I didn't protest.

My living room was dark, but a light shone from the bathroom around the corner at the far end. I crept down there and entered the little passage between the bathroom and the bedroom. With the light on in the bathroom, I could see Zoey on her side on the bed, still in the bride pajamas. Jamie was behind her fully dressed, his arm protectively over her midsection.

I'd started to back up as quietly as I could when Jamie sprang up off the bed, as if poked by a prod. "What?" he demanded. Seeing it was me, he advanced into the hall. "What's happened?"

"I'm so sorry," I whispered, backing into the living room. "I didn't mean to wake you. I'm just getting my stuff."

"I'm glad you came. You stay here." He was slipping into his shoes, which had been left in the living room.

"No, you stay. I'm going to sleep in Tom's room. He's gone downstairs to send Pete and Sonny to bed."

"No," Jamie insisted. "I want Zoey to wake up in the morning with you. I want some part of her wedding day to be as she imagined it."

That stopped me in my tracks. "Jamie, I'm not sure there can be a—"

He put a hand up to stop me. "I know, I know, I know. But I'm not going to give up on it until someone tells me I have to. The storm has stopped." He gestured to the windows on the other side of the room. The night was silent except for the creak of tree branches and the steady drip of water falling from the leaves. "That's obstacle one. We'll see what the morning brings on the other."

"I understand." I felt so bad for the guy. "Tom's in the hall. Tell him I'm staying here."

Jamie strode across the room. "Lock the door behind me."

I did. I put as much spin on it as I could so I was sure Tom could hear it turn on the other side. I went to the L. L. Bean tote on the far window seat that held my maid of honor pajamas. They were blue but otherwise matched Zoey's except for the exuberant label. Let her wake up in the morning seeing what she had wanted to see. I brushed my teeth and ran my hands through my hair. Eloise, the unsuspecting hairdresser, was at this moment sleeping in Busman's Harbor, thinking she was booked all morning to do the hair and makeup of the bride and her attendants. With a sigh that almost turned into a groan, I went to the bed and climbed into the spot that was still warm from Jamie's body. I put my arm around Zoey's middle, right where Jamie's had been.

"What's happened?" Zoey asked in her normal tone of voice.

I threw off my arm and turned on my back, bouncing us both on the mattress. "You're awake! You almost gave me a heart attack. Have you slept at all?"

"Not a wink, but I figured if I faked it, maybe Jamie could get some sleep. You didn't answer my question."

I told her Constance Marshall's story. It felt like a violation of Constance's privacy, but everything would be known in the morning. I thought Zoey had a right to know, if anyone did.

"He is my father." Zoey was sitting up, her back against the headboard.

I was cross-legged at the bottom of the bed. "Not proven. I believe Constance that Clarkson or Clark was her lover and stole her stuff, but that doesn't make him your father."

"But it does, don't you see? My mother had a type, and he was it. Horrible men who stole from her."

"Did your father steal from your mom? I thought she didn't have any money."

"Constance didn't either, from what you say. My mother gave him an apartment to stay in. I assume they got food somehow. Not bad if you're hiding from the police."

"I'm not sure the dates match up."

"If he wasn't hiding because of Constance's complaint, it was something else. He was in prison by the time I was born. He is definitely my father."

Her eyes were bright and shining, her body tensed. I reached across and took her hand. I couldn't imagine she would sleep tonight, which meant, like a good friend, neither would I.