All That Lies Broken (Ashmore's Folly Book 2) (62 page)

Later, when she had asked to go to college, he had not hesitated even though he was plowing most of his profits back into St. Bride Data, still a private company scrambling to make its name in the brave new world of the information superhighway. Even with Cam’s generosity – and he had never been stingy with either her or Meg – she hadn’t forgotten that, growing up, she’d worn hand-me-downs, and she’d attended private school only because Philip Ashmore had “found” scholarship money for the Abbott girls. She hadn’t needed a scholarship to go to college, but she’d been cautious. She’d shopped the sales; she’d bought used books; she’d made do with a studio piano.

And then life had changed. The IPO had catapulted them into the financial stratosphere. They’d moved to the most upscale neighborhood in an upscale bedroom community. Cam had bought her the world’s largest concert piano (as he had joked) and himself a Bentley. Later had come the Gulfstream and other money-no-object toys. But even so, they hadn’t been unduly extravagant. They’d restricted Meg to an allowance. They’d been selective in their gifts to each other, until the Jaguar; their Christmases and vacations had been no more lavish than those of their neighbors.

But, she acknowledged now, they had relied on money, unseen and unheralded, to insulate them. The security consultants, the satellite phones, the GPS locators, the shell corporations, the acreage around the St. Bride house and the perimeter surveillance cameras, the rigidly enforced confidentiality agreements, the first-class travel and later the private jet – all that had conveyed the reassurance that money could hold the world at arm’s length.

Maybe safety was an illusion in this September 12 world. She had thought that Cat Courtney would give her privacy and anonymity, and instead it had brought down a destructive and frightening crime and given her sister a way to expose her to the world. Cam had thought that money bought safety, but in the end, breakfast at an exclusive restaurant and monthly maintenance checks to her father had doomed him. Richard had thought that his land provided the necessary fortress to keep his life private, but land and a security system hadn’t kept his estranged wife from breaking into his peace.

Maybe it was time to stop looking for safety.

But – she felt violated down to her soul. And so she allowed herself the luxury of mourning a car that she hadn’t wanted in the first place.

~•~

After a while, Laura dipped under the water to wash the tears from her face. She came to the surface, her face cool again, and slid onto her back. She floated aimlessly, feeling the water lap at her sides, staring up in the night sky. Time to stop carrying on. Time to look forward, make some plans.

She was strong. She could do this.

Time to figure out how to handle their new living arrangements. She didn’t discount the ruffling of teenage feathers. Julie was clearly torn between a desire to please her father and a desire to get rid of the St. Brides. What was the perfect daughter to do when her father had thrown wide the door to the invaders? Even worse, when her father, who hadn’t let his daughter meet any other woman in his life, had stopped Julie from putting Laura’s bags in one of the spare bedrooms? “Laura will be using the master suite,” he had said. “I’m moving out.”

Julie’s face had been a study in horror.

Meg had decided to be at her Meg-worst – cynical, smart-aleck, and determined to impress upon Richard the impossibility of living up to the legend of Cameron St. Bride. By mid-afternoon, even Laura had gotten tired of
Dad said to do this
and
Dad always said not to do that
. Richard had taken it in stride, but even so, he had begun to get testy by the time Meg started waxing lyrically about her father’s Marine Corps service – having first ascertained that Richard had never served in the military.

“And Dad said it’s really important to serve your country, to fight and defend her—”

Cam had spent his Marine years defending the shores of San Diego and writing computer games to sell on BBS boards. Laura had tried to distract her daughter by sending her to pick up an extra USB cable, but Meg was not to be deterred. She had launched into a detailed history of Cam’s military career, ending in an off-key rendition of “From the Halls of Montezuma.”

Julie – probably still stinging from the master suite comment – had finally said, “Gosh, Meg, I’m surprised you sing so flat. All the other Abbotts sing on pitch.”

“Oh,” said Meg, and beamed at both Ashmores, “I don’t take after my mom’s family. I’m tone-deaf. I have a terrible voice. I figure I get it from my father’s side.”

Peggy had always said that Philip couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket, not that Richard needed to connect that with Meg.

What he
was
clearly connecting with Meg was the idea of corporal punishment. By the time they’d replaced the Kurzweil and the laptop, Laura could read his thoughts as easily as if he had put them in neon lights: that Meg could do with a good spanking, and he’d be first in line to give it to her.

“I’m sorry,” she had whispered to him, as he hauled the box with her new laptop out to the Lexus. “I’ll talk to her. I don’t know what’s gotten into her.”

He had merely given her a look. “I know what she’s doing,” he had said, and his tone had signaled that he did not wish to discuss it.

And then Julie had started to sulk, complaining that she needed to go home and practice a piece for music camp. The sulking had lasted until her father pulled her aside for a few terse words, and for a few moments, peace had reigned. Then at the music store, while Laura looked at electronic keyboards, she and Meg had started to snipe at each other, the sort of sniping that only teenage girls did well.

“It’s so sad you didn’t take after Laura, Meg. She’s so pretty and talented. I mean, with the singing.”

“I’ll bet you’re really artistic, Julie, what with an architect dad and all. Oh, really? Too bad.”

“Wow, I can’t believe the airline let you travel by yourself, Meg, don’t kids your age have to wear that card around their necks?”

“How do you stay so skinny, Julie? Do you have to diet all the time? Me, I have to drink these special protein drinks so I don’t lose more weight.”

They bestowed cold-blooded smiles on each other. “Like cobras,” Richard muttered beside Laura, and tried to ignore them by reading the specs for a high-end keyboard.

“It’s a shame you have to go back to summer school and do your math, Meg. I’ll send you lots of emails from camp to cheer you up.”

“You can text me. Huh? You don’t have a cell? How does your boyfriend call you?
You don’t have a boyfriend?
”

“Laura says,” said Julie loftily, “you shouldn’t get too involved when you’re young.”

Richard gave Laura a look. Oh,
now
Julie chose to listen to her.

“That’s true,” Meg agreed. “My dad always said it wasn’t a good idea to get married too early.” Thoughtless of Cam, considering his wife had been eighteen on their wedding day. “So, you’re sixteen, right? And your dad is thirty-seven – gosh, he got married before he even got out of college! You’re
right
. You shouldn’t get involved too young. You can end up having kids too early.”

“Like your mom,” Julie shot back.

Excuse me, Julie, I am standing right here.

“Like your dad!”

At that, Richard had taken them aside. They listened with stone faces. Laura would have loved to flatten them both, but she had begun to feel the flickering of pain behind her eyes. She wanted nothing more than to get the shopping over with so that she could go back to Ashmore Park and take a nap. Failing that, fix herself a stiff drink. Or take one of the tranquilizers the doctor had prescribed for her,
and
have that drink.

“If you didn’t bring a bathing suit, Meg, I’ve got an old one I used to wear in third grade.”

“It must be great to be so tall, Julie. I’ll bet you’re the tallest one in your whole class. Like a model.” Meg had pretended to consider. “But don’t worry about not having boobs. Some guys like that flat-chested look.”

At that cooing comment, made with one watchful eye on him, Richard had taken off his glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose. And no wonder – Diana and Francie had always taken care to keep their animosity out of hearing. Laura had called a halt to the shopping. “We’re tired. Let’s go home—”

“Yes,” said Julie sweetly, “let’s go home. Oh, I mean
my
home, of course not your home, Meg, it’s so far away. I hope you don’t feel homesick. I’ll bet you can’t wait to get back.”

Back at Ashmore Park, Richard, lucky man, had packed and made good his escape. Leaving her to a huge master bedroom with a sybaritic bathroom, a kitchen to die for, and two cobras. Dumping Julie on her without giving her any guidelines about how far she could go to neutralize the venom.

Well, at least she had no such boundaries with Meg, who was not going to get her credit card back for a long, long time.

A breeze blew across her face and washed a tiny wave along her cheek.

She’d work it out. These weren’t Diana and Francie reborn, but two only children correctly reading the tea leaves and registering their opinions:
forget it
. Julie had said she didn’t want a stepmother, and not for a minute did Laura believe that she might be the exception. Julie did not want a stepmother. She did not want her father to have a girlfriend. She did not want a rival for her father’s attention, period.

And Meg. Meg, who had seemed fine until she had actually met the Ashmores.

Meg, who had faced so much in the last year, who had said – just four days ago? – that she understood if Laura had a boyfriend.
It’s okay, Mom. I know you miss Dad.
Saying it wasn’t the same as living it. She was obviously not ready for a new man in her mother’s life.

Laura turned over and set out for the other side of the pool.

How would Meg react if she moved here and bought a house?

She couldn’t help the tight feeling in her stomach.

Cam had always said that, when Laura got stressed, she made lists. Her bullet points, he had teased her, until two months after the Christmas miscarriage, when he had found her pro and con list about their marriage, and then her habit had no longer seemed so amusing.

She started a list now in her head: Insist that Meg be polite to the Ashmores. Keep the peace until Julie went to camp. Hold her breath in hopes that Lucy wouldn’t take one look at Meg and say, “Oh,
please
.” Plead with any saints necessary to intercede for her that Julie wouldn’t tattle to Diana about her new housemates. Hope against hope that someone didn’t say, “When’s your birthday, Meg? How old are you?”

Get through the benefit concert, and return to London. Enroll Meg in the Kensington school for the year. (And what was she going to do with Max? She couldn’t foist him on Dell again – Dell would be with her in Europe all fall.) Get the tour over and done with. She could do little until she was out from under the obligation to put on her wood nymph gowns, plaster a mystical look on her face, and go out on the stage and perform, night after night.

Break the news to Meg that they weren’t returning to Texas to live. Buy a house to move into next summer. Find a ballet master for Meg – that would cure nine-tenths of Meg’s worries. Get Meg into their old school – Richard was on the board of governors; surely he could pull a string or two. Buy a new car – she wasn’t driving the Bentley around for long.

Somewhere in there, nurture her relationship with Richard. Throw a baby shower for her sister. Settle on the outskirts of his life until that stupid divorce was final.

Oh, and record that blasted album still remaining on her contract. Figure out what to do with Cat Courtney – ditch her altogether, send her into seclusion for a few years, turn to full-time composing, start writing stories and poetry again.

And minimize Mark’s influence in her life.

She let herself go as limp as she dared in the water.

Too many bullet points
, Cam would have said.
Pare them down into a workable plan.

What was that stress index all about – that a person could take only so much in one year? Surely she had met her quota. The doctor had told her flatly that there was nothing physically wrong with her. He had written her two prescriptions for painkillers and tranquilizers, but her real solution, Dr. Stewart had said, was to alleviate the stresses in her life. 9/11 was enough to deal with, he had said, she should reschedule the tour. But she couldn’t. The tour promoters had invested a lot in this; they’d already sold out the first half of the tour. Dell had assembled the tour staff and hired an orchestra. People were depending on her.

She could do it. She had to.

“Mom!
Mom!
You there?”

Laura lost her concentration and sank beneath the surface.

“Mom!”

She came up gasping for air. “Down here.”

She wiped the pool water from her eyes and struck out for the side of the pool. Meg came tripping down the terrace steps, a small dark ghost against the lighter stone of the house. “I finished my workout, but I couldn’t find you. What are you doing?”