All That Lies Broken (Ashmore's Folly Book 2) (63 page)

“Just relaxing.” Thank heavens the dusk had gathered. Meg couldn’t see any remnants of her breakdown on her face. “I needed to be alone for a while.”

“Huh,” said Meg, failing to take the hint. She plopped down at the side of the pool, slipped off her flip-flops, and plunged her feet into the water. “Oh, wow, that feels great. Hey, there’s a jet.” She moved over a couple of inches. “So, Mom – how long are we staying here?”

“I don’t know.” Laura put her hands on the stone side and lifted herself out of the water. Meg thrust her bathrobe at her. “I haven’t gotten that far. But it doesn’t matter – you’ve still got summer school, remember?”

She had known that she was in for a master sales job; Meg wouldn’t have run away without an elaborate plan. And now she heard it – the faxed homework, the video conferencing over the Internet (thanks to St. Bride Data’s donation of equipment two years before), the two hours of daily study, the offer to give up TV until summer school was over. The teacher’s agreement, after Meg had told the woman that she was being summoned to Virginia by her mother. “But I told her you were really anxious about me finishing, Mom, so she agreed to do the lecture in the VC room.” Of course the woman had agreed. Meg knew better – she’d been told before not to ask for special favors. People were often too ready to ask how high when a St. Bride said to jump.

“Please, Mom.” And now Meg’s tone turned beseeching. She scooted over to sit by Laura, and – oh, here it came, the touching plea for maternal sympathy – snuggled her head against Laura’s shoulder. “I know I shouldn’t have run away, I know it was wrong, but please don’t send me back,
please
. I missed you so much. I felt so lonely down there with Emma and Mark.”

Laura glanced down at the dark hair spread oh-so-appealingly against her terrycloth sleeve, and stifled a laugh. What an act. Meg was even more pathetic than usual. But maybe – just maybe – the tiniest kernel of truth lurked in that pitiful wail. Emma had never been anything but loving to Meg, but had her dislike of Laura poisoned their relationship? And Mark – had he overstepped his bounds with Meg, trying to fill Cam’s shoes? And the worst was over anyway – Richard and Meg had met, and nothing had happened.

If she let Meg stay, what would be the harm?

Except, of course, that Meg would get away with her escapade.

Laura made her tone stern. “I’ll think about it.”

“Oh, great,” said Meg in disgust. “That means no.”

“No, it means I’ll think about it. Don’t push me, Margaret Mary.” Meg ought to take the hint;
Margaret Mary
was never a good sign. “I’ve had a bad day, and your behavior has been—” she hunted for the right word— “reprehensible. If you stay –
if
I let you stay – you are not to be rude to Julie or Richard again, do you understand?”

“She started it—”

Laura interrupted her. “No,
you
did. And you are not to talk to your uncle like that again. He has a very low tolerance for rudeness.”

“He thinks I’m a brat. I can tell.”

“And you did what to change his mind?”

Silence.

“Because of today,” might as well get this over with, “no allowance for the next two weeks.”

Meg uttered a pained cry. “
What!
But I’m broke—”

“Tough.” She made her voice flat and intractable. “You can think about your behavior while you’re pinching pennies. And you’re not getting your card back, either.”

“Oh, BFD! So I wasn’t little Miss Mary Sunshine. This is
so unfair
.”

“No more swearing, young lady.” Now she was falling back on
young lady
. The stress began to build behind her eyes.

Her daughter turned mocking. “Oh, Meg, isn’t it all just so
wonderful?
Dad, you’re so perfect – oh, Aunt Laura, you’re so pretty and talented, oh, I am
such
a suck-up—”

Laura said coolly, “Want to make it four weeks? Or six, if you prefer.”

Dead silence. Then Meg let out a sulky sigh. “
Whatever
. Is that it? That’s all my punishment?”

She needed aspirin. “For right now. I’ll let you know what else in the morning.”

She wasn’t surprised when Meg ended the cute cuddly act, kicking her feet in the water and splashing their legs. Meg had never taken kindly to having her will thwarted; temper tantrums had been par for the course when she was younger, but these days she usually came around. She was too much the strategist to carry on a losing battle. In the meantime, for the next few weeks, Laura was going to be twenty-dollared to death.
I need toe shoes, Mom… I gotta have that top, Mom
….

Laura got to her feet and belted the bathrobe around her waist. The night breeze had risen, chilling her wet hair against the back of her neck. “I’m going to bed,” she said, and wasn’t surprised when Meg’s shoulders barely lifted in response. She wasn’t going to give an inch, was Meg. “Don’t stay out here for too long.”

A sullen “Huh.”

“Come in and say good night before you go to bed.”

In the master suite, she got ready for bed. No long silky nightgown tonight; her old cotton T-shirt had to suffice. She had been embarrassed half to death the night before when Meg had seen that nightgown and lifted an expressive eyebrow. She pulled clothes out of her suitcase for the next day – Richard had cleared space in his closet and drawers, but she felt reluctant to encroach – and crawled into the king-size bed.

Immediately, memory assailed her.

That afternoon, she had watched Richard pull shirts from his chest of drawers, moving efficiently and economically to make good his getaway, and she had tried not to remember the way his hands had moved over her on this bed so few hours before. No efficiency or economy of movement then. They hadn’t been two parents mindful of four suspicious eyes watching their every gesture. They had been – oh, lovers, soul mates, two people pushed beyond their emotional endurance.

She wanted last night again. She wanted her love affair.

“Kids,” Richard had said on his way out the door. “The great romance killer.” And she was afraid he was right. She’d had so little romance in her life – surely it wasn’t too wrong to yearn for time in an enchanted bubble with her lover, without the weight of everyday life upon them?

But she had wanted the life with him that Diana had thrown away, and fate had handed her a chance to glimpse that life. Too bad it came equipped with two hissing cobras and a solitary bed.

But not entirely solitary. Max jumped up on the quilt, sniffed around, and then circled around looking for the perfect place to plunk his furry self down. Once settled, he snuggled in and gave out a loud sigh.

She heard Meg come in, slamming the French doors for good measure, but her daughter never came to say good night.

~•~

“I need to talk to you,” Lucy said. “Tonight. I’ll bring takeout.”

It took thirty minutes to pull her notes and herself together. She dressed carefully, eschewing her comfortable drawstring pants, going for the most conservative and buttoned-down outfit she could put together for a casual Saturday dinner. Sharply pressed slacks that she had to pour herself into, a severe long-sleeved oxford shirt, even hose and loafers instead of sandals. She looked at herself in the mirror and wondered how it was possible to feel both professional and miserable at the same time.

Dress is part of the game
, Mr. Spencer had said when she had joined his law firm.
When you walk into that courtroom, you are an actor on a stage, a gladiator striding into the arena. Dress the part, or you will have no credibility.

All very well and good, but most gladiators weren’t three months pregnant and barely able to button the waistband. She undid the button and breathed, but still… and it was Richard, after all. Surely she could dispense with the hose. She would have to rely on her own skills and their long history to prosecute her case tonight.

It took another thirty minutes to pick up the takeout order and drive to the Williamsburg business district, and she spent those thirty minutes getting tenser and sicker than she had in a long time. She was walking into this arena alone. Tom had gone to a baseball game with his brother; Laura was recovering from what sounded like a hellacious day. Diana was no doubt drinking her way through the profits at the Tavern and thinking up new idiotic means of extracting money from Richard.

She would face Richard by herself.
Just you and me, big brother.

She had to know. Not because she made everybody’s business her business. Not because she had appointed herself judge, jury, and executioner for those who violated her sense of morality and justice. But because Diana, innocent, stood accused of murder.

And Diana deserved a defense. No matter what she had done, she deserved that. Wasn’t that the basis of the law Lucy had sworn to uphold, that everyone was entitled to a day in court?

For this crime, no one would ever stand trial, but Diana deserved justice nonetheless.

Advocate to Diana, prosecutor to Richard. And jury – she wasn’t sure yet.

She parked beside Richard’s Lexus in the deserted parking lot, picked up her folders and the bag of takeout, and went into the building she knew as well as her own.

Ashmore & McIntire occupied the entire second floor of the three-story office building. She and Tom had almost leased offices on the first floor until they had found offices more suited to a law firm a few blocks away. Too much glass here, not enough stately wood paneling, and the rent had been lower. Maitland & Maitland didn’t have the credit line that Richard and Scott had.

She stopped before the double glass doors with their shadowed lettering, ASHMORE & MCINTIRE, ARCHITECTS AND DESIGNERS. The office was dark, but the glassed-in conference room straight ahead had one solitary light, giving Richard just enough light to concentrate on his laptop. On the long conference table stood the model of the Charleston project that the modeler had delivered that day.

She rapped on the glass, and his head jerked up. Within a couple of seconds, he opened the door and took the bag of takeout from her.

“Good grief, Luce. Did you order everything on the menu?”

“I’m hungry.” She followed him into the conference room. “I thought you might be too, after your day. How’s Laurie? Is she still freaked out about being robbed?”

“She seemed all right when I left.” He put the bag on the table, vanished for a moment into the dark reaches of the office suite, and came back with two bottled waters. “She took it pretty well after the first shock. You should call her tomorrow. She’ll need a break from the terrible teens.”

That did not sound promising, but then the phone call she’d received from Julie hadn’t sounded any too positive either. Asked what she thought of her cousin, Julie had only said, “All right, I guess,” in a tone that conveyed profound loathing.

She was dying to know his reaction to his “niece,” but she had known him too long not to tread carefully. She took a neutral tack. “The model looks good. Have you photographed it yet?”

“I have the digitals from the modeler.” Richard nodded at the laptop. “I’m editing the report before it goes to print Tuesday. Will you have time Monday to review it?”

“I think so.” Lucy opened the bottled water. “Tom took a call from a reporter who wants to meet with me Monday morning, but that shouldn’t take more than an hour.” She opened the bag and started to set out cartons. “So what is Laurie doing tonight? And – um, how do you like cohabitating?”

He knew her too well to snap at the bait. “Going to bed early, I hope, after what she’s been through. And we are not living under the same roof. Don’t even joke about that. I don’t need Diana blowing up over this.”

If that wasn’t the truth. Lucy spooned out some rice onto a paper plate. “All right, give. What do you think of Meg?”

“She’s tiny.”

She hadn’t expected to hear that. “Tiny? What do you mean?”

Richard held out his hand about mid-chest high. “Tiny. She can’t be more than five feet.”

“Really?” Intriguing. “Wonder where she got that?”

Richard shrugged. “Not from me. I don’t know how much anyone knows about the girls’ mother’s family. Dominic was no shrimp.”

No, but he hadn’t been as tall as the Ashmores. She was proof positive of that. “I don’t know. Di never talks about their mother. So – what else? What do you think of her?”

He looked into a carton of fried rice, taking that moment he needed to consider his answer. She felt a frisson of alarm. Did he dislike Meg? “She’s a dainty little thing. I saw her working out this morning, and I don’t know that much about ballet, but she seemed remarkable for someone that age. Very focused, very disciplined. Has a mouth on her, though. Never stops talking.” He sent her a pointed look. “Wonder where she got that?”

“Hey, don’t look at me. I had nothing to do with her.” Lucy hesitated. “So – stop beating around the bush. Do you like her?”