All That Lies Broken (Ashmore's Folly Book 2) (73 page)

She detected a definite chill the moment Laura pulled in by the kitchen door and began unloading the entire inventory of the grocery store. Richard called Julie and Meg downstairs to help him carry in more bags than it seemed possible to fit in the Lexus. Laura started putting things away while she, Lucy, sat in lovely, gestating splendor at the kitchen table, taking it easy, sipping a cool lemonade, and observing the dynamics of the Ashmore-St. Bride mix.

“I feel so bad I can’t help,” she chirped.

Richard sent her a look. “Sure, you do.”

What a lovely mood he was in. So
we’ll survive
didn’t mean
we’re getting along swimmingly, thank you very much
. Interesting.

And Julie and Meg – ah, a fascinating combination. The two daughters of Richard Ashmore circled each other warily, sticking knives in each other even as they competed for Daughter of the Year. As unalike as Dominic’s daughters had been, they were peas in a pod compared to these two – the
please-don’t-mind-my-existence
Julie, the
I’m-the-best-thing-since-sliced-bread
Meg.

Meg. Daughter of two sisters. She saw both in Meg, darting back and forth with staples for the butler’s pantry. Like Francie, a ball of energy, the life of the party. But thoughtful, too, and genuinely loving toward her mother. Francie would have never come up, as Meg did, to bestow an impulsive hug before dancing off to her chore. But then Francie had never known the touch of an affectionate parent, touching her hair, giving her a
just-us-girls
smile.

A thought there, a wisp of an idea….

She saw something else, too. Julie watching the short interplay between Meg and Laura, a quickly stifled look of envy on her face. Julie who also hadn’t known a mother’s casual caress, who must thoroughly resent this sparkling girl with her easy confidence.

Her nieces. Her sisters’ children. Her baby’s cousins. Blood of her blood. And now – if Francie had been pregnant three years ago, somewhere she had another niece or a nephew, as unknown as Meg only a few short weeks ago.

Let Richard think she was still interested in justice. She no longer cared. She was going to use his money to bring Francie back into the family fold.

She let the conversation wash over her.

“Mom, did you get the protein mix? I’m almost out.”

“Are these grapes seedless?” asked Julie.

“No chocolate ice cream?” Richard, as bad as his daughters, foraged through the grocery bags. “Peach? Who eats peach?”

“I do,” said Laura, and Lucy grinned at her sister.

“Too healthy, Laurie. You know better. The Ashmores and their sweet tooth – Mom used to make us sundaes after school.”

“That’s the problem with this kitchen.” Laura was stacking half the butcher’s counter in the freezer, and Lucy noticed the sidelong glance she gave Richard, still rummaging through the bags. “It’s a nutritional disaster area.” And then she stopped, her eyes resting on him as he pulled out a register receipt as long as his arm. “What are you doing?”

Her voice had sharpened. Lucy watched.

“I’m looking for—” He paused, obviously stunned by the total. “Whoa. Let me get my checkbook. I’ll write you a check.”

The room came to a standstill.

Ah, Richard. First in his class, brilliant in his field, dumb as a rock when it came to women, or at least this woman. How could a man be this clueless? Even the girls stopped skirting around each other –
after you, Meg – no, after you, Julie
– and froze.

“Touch that checkbook,” said Laura sweetly, “and you are a dead man.”

So they’d already tussled over money, had they? Had Richard finally realized what everyone else had known for days – that his entire net worth was a drop in the bucket to his lady love?

For a moment, their eyes locked, their witnesses forgotten.
Déjà vu
all over again, Lucy thought, Richard wanting to be the one who gave more, Richard resisting the notion that, not only did Laura love more, she could give more too.

Triple-time clueless.

The silence dragged out. Neither looked willing to back down, and Richard, Lucy knew, was entirely capable of keeping this going until he won. But Laura wasn’t conceding – not like the Laura of old, who would have rushed to soothe his ruffled feathers, apologize for her defiance, and assure him of her complete acquiescence. Lucy noticed the rapid rise and fall of her blouse, the high color in her cheeks.

This one Laura wanted to win.

You are in big trouble, friend. Get out while you can.

Richard saw that desire too, and irritation gave way to something suspiciously like amusement. Lucy saw him press his mouth in a line to hold back a smile.

“I know better than to take on a lioness,” he said. “Sheathe your claws.”

He gave Laura one last look, and turned back to the chore at hand.

Lucy felt the palpable sense of relief in the room. Laura opened the freezer. Julie broke her paralysis by dropping a can on the floor. Meg immediately said, “Watch it! You almost broke my toe!” Lucy turned back to her drink, her hand shaking.

She was relieved when Richard suggested that they go to Ashmore Minor to work.

“What’s with you two?” she asked, after they had walked down the road in complete silence.

She didn’t really expect him to tell her, and, indeed, he didn’t surprise. “To quote my niece, MYOB,” he said, and led the way into the smaller house where they had lived with Philip and Peggy until his grandfather died. “I’ve got dial-up. Where do you want to start?”

“Let me see what you’ve got first.” Lucy settled down on the sofa and paged through his printouts. “So Francie has been using the Dane name? How in the
world
did we all overlook that?”

Richard carried his laptop over to a recliner and booted up. “Because Dominic dropped Dane from the girls’ names after the trial, but he couldn’t do anything about their birth certificates.” He shook his head. “The devil’s in the details.”

“No kidding.” How blind they all had been. Dominic had so thoroughly eradicated Renée Dane from her sisters’ lives that everyone had forgotten they had a mother. “Francie a banker. If that isn’t one of the stranger twists in life – I guess we can thank Cameron St. Bride for that.” She laid down the web page of the banking association and tapped her cheek. “You know, Laura mentioned Francie worked for the St. Bride bank. Don’t tell me it was as simple as him arranging a job transfer.”

“Again – details.” Richard hit a few keys, and she heard the high-pitched whine of the modem.

“Richard—” She hesitated. “I never asked. Did
you
think she was dead?”

He took a moment to answer, and she saw it then, unexpected and unwelcome. He might disavow his actions of the past; he might insist that Francie answer for her crime. But, deep down, Richard Ashmore still felt something – maybe nostalgia, maybe gratitude for the warmth and affection she had given him. It hadn’t been all sex with him.

“I figured she was,” he said finally. “I knew she hadn’t died at Ash Marine, but I did think she might be dead. I never thought Laura was lying about that – she just wasn’t honest about the particulars. I wondered if—” He stopped.

She said gently, “What did you wonder?”

“I thought,” he seemed careful, “she might have killed herself.”

She hadn’t heard him correctly. “
Francie?
Are you
joking?
”

He didn’t answer.

She couldn’t let this pass. “Francie was nothing if not interested in her self-preservation. That girl would never have done anything to herself.”

Richard tapped a couple of keys, and he did not look at her. “I don’t agree,” he said. “In fact, I’ll argue that no one bent on self-preservation would have gotten involved with me. You never had much to do with her, Luce – not when she was by herself, away from everyone. She was a different person.”

Oh, this had to be nostalgia talking – however strange it was to hear Richard Ashmore, the most logical of men, making excuses for a girl he shouldn’t have been involved with in the first place.

She took a hard tack. “Are you saying we should overlook what she did because of her terrible childhood? Middle child and all that?”

He gave her a sharp look. “I don’t know that I buy into the birth order theory, but let me pose this to you. Suppose your mother hadn’t left you with us? Or suppose, when Dominic demanded you back, Mom had said fine and handed you over? How do you think you’d have done, sandwiched between two talented sisters, fighting for every bit of attention you got?”

Unsettling, his words dovetailing into her earlier thoughts. “No one thought Laurie had—”

“Oh, yes, they did,” he interrupted. “Francie did. If Diana had ever paid the slightest attention to Laura, which she didn’t, she would have. I guarantee you Dominic knew. I never bought into that myth that Cat Courtney surprised him. He didn’t like Laura’s success, he resented the hell out of it, but it didn’t surprise him. That’s merely the legend we’ve all repeated to make Diana feel better about herself.”

She wanted to protest that he was wrong, that he was trying to whitewash someone who didn’t deserve it, but memory stopped her. Dominic demanding that Laura practice on, telling Francie to wait. Dominic punishing Laura when he deemed her practice inadequate, letting Francie’s slapdash practice slide. Dominic encouraging Francie to apply to music schools around the country, decreeing that Laura remain at home with him, under his control.

Dominic playing favorites? Had he replaced Diana with Laura, and they hadn’t seen?

Did Diana see now? Did that explain her brutal exposure of Cat Courtney?

He said quietly, “You didn’t know her. I shouldn’t have, but I did, and I can tell you she had a massive inferiority complex. Laura may not always show a lot of self-confidence, but inside she has a bone-deep strength – like Dominic, much as it pains me to say that. Francie didn’t have her inner resources. From what I’ve heard about the mother, Francie seems the most like her.” He paused. “I can easily see her falling into despair.”

He stopped, maybe remembering his contribution to that despair. Lucy settled back against the sofa. What if she’d been a regular part of the Abbott household, instead of the honored guest every other weekend? What would it have been like to grow up second banana to Diana, the golden girl, when she had so little innate musical talent herself? Probably not great, she had to admit. Dominic had skipped the chapter in the parental handbook about not playing favorites.

Was she guilty of overlooking Francie? Dismissing her as a troublesome brat whose
look-at-me! look-at-me!
was to be quashed at every opportunity? Richard hadn’t. Even given the sorry condition of the Ashmore marriage, something in her must have drawn him in – something that allowed him, even now, to treat Francie’s shooting him as negligible. He seemed more concerned with what Francie had tried to do to Diana and Laura than what she had actually done to him.

She asked, “Why are you defending her? You seemed angry enough at her last night.”

“I was. I am.” He was typing on his keyboard, giving him an excellent reason to avoid her eyes. “But I owe her, too. I did a lot of damage to her. She had dreams and plans – she wanted to get away from Dominic, chart her own course, and I destroyed that for her through my stupidity.” He did look up then. “If I hadn’t gotten involved with her, she wouldn’t have run away, pregnant and dependent on Laura earning less than minimum wage. She wouldn’t have worked herself up to go after Diana.”

She wouldn’t have shot you.

He added, “And she wouldn’t be out there in Seattle under St. Bride’s thumb – I wonder if she knows he’s dead.”

Lucy said, startled, “Why do you say that?”

He shrugged. “If they weren’t in regular contact, she may not know. He was one of thousands that day.”

She had to think this through. Might Francie not know that she could now come in from the cold?

Richard’s tone said that he was finished with introspection. “Ready to get to work?”

~•~

Two hours later, they were ready to throw in the towel. Amy’s brother
thought
that the woman he met might have been called Francie. “It’s been a while.” Lucy searched the professional databases where Maitland & Maitland had a subscription, and Richard logged into the knowledge bases used by Ashmore & McIntire, all to no avail. No trace of Francesca Dane turned up anywhere but on the banker’s association web site. Even a search through an Internet people finder yielded only a “close match” – a woman named Frances Dane in Spokane.

“Spokane?” said Lucy. “Could she commute?”

“Doubt it. There’s a mountain range between Spokane and Seattle.”

“Oh, this is frustrating.” Lucy fell back against the sofa arm and clutched a cushion to her chest. “How can you exist in this day and age without a trace? What are we not seeing?”