In the Blink of an Eye (26 page)

Tonight belongs to Kathy.

Lincoln is taking the last thing from the box when he hears an unexpected sound from the next room, barely audible over the wind outside and the guitar music spilling from the stereo.

The squeak lets us know when somebody's comin' in.

“
Who's there?” he calls, frowning. He wasn't expecting anyone.

There's no reply.

Maybe it was just the wind in the trees, he thinks, listening.

But there is no wind.

No squeaking.

He can hear only “Kathy's Song,” winding to a bittersweet conclusion.

I know that I am like the rain . . . There but for the grace of you go I . . .

From where Lincoln sits on the living-room floor, the door in the small front hallway isn't visible.

Now the last guitar strains have faded and the room is silent, but for the scratching of the needle on vinyl and a soft pattering on the roof far above.

The rain has begun.

“Anybody there?” he calls.

For some reason, he remembers that woman, Pilar. How she told him she made contact with Corinne's spirit.

Do you believe in ghosts? Lincoln asks himself.

There's no answer to that question, nor to the one he asked aloud.

Lincoln leans forward.

A long shadow lurks on the wall in the hallway, cast by the glow of the porch light outside.

“Who's there?” Lincoln asks again, dread slowly seeping in as he gets clumsily to his feet.

“It's me,” a hauntingly familiar voice says, followed by the unmistakable sound that throws Lincoln back to his military days.

The sound of a gun being cocked to fire.

Lincoln Reynolds's last thought, as he falls, mortally wounded, to the floor, still clutching the yellowed envelope bearing Kathy's Dear John letter, is that he never should have made that phone call this afternoon.

A
T DUSK, TURNING
away from the open, half-filled suitcase on the bed, Pilar looks at the phone.

She left Katherine's number downstairs on the desk, after trying it intermittently throughout the day. Maybe someone will be home now.

If not, she won't have another chance to call until she gets back from tonight's Thought Exchange session over at the auditorium. By then, it will be too late to phone a total stranger.

After quickly tossing a few more items into the suitcase—an extra pair of sandals, another sweater for cool shipboard evenings, a novel she's been meaning to read—Pilar heads downstairs. On the landing, she hears voices and glances out the screened window at the house next door.

Julia, Paine, and Dulcie are ducking through the rain, going from the front steps to the red car parked at the curb.

They look like a family, Pilar thinks, smiling as she watches Paine hurriedly open the passenger's-side door and help his little girl into the backseat.

He says something to Julia as she gets into the front, and she laughs, the frothy sound reaching Pilar's ears.

She sounds so happy, Pilar thinks, watching the three of them drive away.

Maybe Julia and Paine will fall in love, and they'll live happily ever after in Iris's old house.

You would have loved that, wouldn't you, Iris?

Pilar won't be able to attend Iris's memorial service on Thursday. She would have liked to go. She sighs, missing her friend. And now she's going to lose another. Nan.

She turns abruptly away from the window and continues down the steps to the living room, where she picks up the telephone and dials the number she now nearly knows by heart.

It rings once.

Twice.

And then, unexpectedly, there's a click.

Somebody is picking up.

Pilar's breath catches in her throat. She was so certain nobody would be home yet again that everything she intends to say to Katherine flies right out of her head.

“Hello?”

It's a man.

Katherine's husband?

Pilar finds her voice, heart pounding as she asks, managing to sound perfectly normal, “Hello, is Katherine there, please?”

For a moment she thinks he's going to tell her she has the wrong number. That no such person is at this listing.

But he doesn't.

He only says, pleasantly, “No, she isn't. Can I take a message?”

A message.

Pilar can't possibly explain who she is and why she's calling.

“No, that's all right,” she says slowly. “Can you please tell me when she'll be back?”

“I don't expect her until late. She's in the city.” There's a pause. “Who is this?”

“Just a friend. I'll . . . I'll call her tomorrow,” Pilar says, hanging up before the man can ask another question.

But first thing tomorrow, Pilar will be flying to La Guardia Airport. And after killing several hours in New York City, she'll be meeting Christina, Tom, and the children and boarding a cruise ship.

You'll have to call her from a pay phone while you're in the city, Pilar tells herself. It's probably not even considered a long-distance call from there.

Or . . .

Or you can go to see her in person.

You have the address.

Pilar frowns, considering it.

It seems like a crazy idea, and yet . . .

The news she bears is disturbing. Far too disturbing to be blurted on a pay phone in a public place.

It would be better if she goes to see the Biddles' daughter. She'll have plenty of time. Her plane lands before eight o'clock in the morning. Christina put her on the first flight out of Buffalo, explaining that even if there are delays—as often happens at La Guardia—Pilar will still most likely be in New York in time to board the ship.

Christina and Tom are flying into New York tonight. Tomorrow, matinee day on Broadway, they're taking the kids to see a musical. They invited Pilar to go, too, but she told them she'd much rather spend the day shopping and seeing the sights. She plans to check her luggage with the cruise line when she lands, and go off on her own, meeting her family back at the pier before departure.

Now, instead of going to Saks, Bloomingdales, and the Empire State Building, she'll find a car service to drive her to Garden City. It isn't that far from the airport in Queens. She already looked it up on a map yesterday after she returned from the Biddles'.

Pilar is so intent on her revised plan as she walks back up the stairs to get ready for the Thought Exchange that she doesn't even glance toward the window on the landing.

Thus, she doesn't see the dark figure slipping through the shadows beside the lilac tree toward the back of the house.

“
S
ORRY
I
'M LATE.”

“It's okay,” Miranda says frostily as Andy hurries to the small table by the fireplace where she's been waiting for well over an hour.

And it isn't okay.

She should have known better than to get involved with someone like him. Everything about him should have set off warning signals in her, but if they sounded, she managed to ignore them until now.

“I got hung up with a few things that couldn't wait.” Andy takes off his dripping navy rain slicker and drapes it over the back of a chair. “Please don't hold it against me. I came as soon as I could.”

Unreliable.

Unfaithful.

Unforgivable . . . right?

Right?

Miranda looks at Andy.

He flashes a sweet, little-boy smile. “Please don't be mad, Mandy.”

How many times did Michael pull this on her? How many times did she fall for it, giving him just one more chance?

Too many times.

She pushes back her chair.

He reaches out to encircle her wrist with his strong, warm fingers. “Don't go. Stay and have another glass of wine with me. Please?”

She hesitates, looking anywhere but at him, knowing that if she allows herself to glance into those green eyes of his, she'll do anything he pleases.

She looks around the room. Few other tables are occupied here in the cozy lounge of the White Inn, a charming, upscale establishment in Fredonia. On a night like this, no one in their right mind would risk life and limb to go out for a drink.

Obviously, Miranda isn't in her right mind. She was terrified, driving down Route 60 in Kent's Jeep. He has no idea where she's gone, of course. He probably forgot that she never returned the keys to him the last time she used the Jeep. He's back at the hotel, in bed, most likely sound asleep. He blames his exhaustion on the medication prescribed by the doctor Miranda dragged him to yesterday afternoon. According to the doctor, the pharmacist, and the label warning, the medication wasn't supposed to make him groggy, but Kent claims he's ultra-sensitive to drugs. Mr. Dramatic. Miranda can only tolerate so much of him when he's not feeling well.

Hopefully, he'll be back to normal tomorrow.

And hopefully, this rain will end tomorrow.

Then Miranda and Kent can get on with their investigation, and move on to their next destination so that Miranda can put Andy out of her thoughts—and out of her life—for good.

It would be a hell of a lot easier if he wasn't so damned charismatic.

And a hell of a lot easier if she hadn't slept with him last night.

It was late when he came by the hotel looking for her. But she was still up, bored out of her mind, playing solitaire on her bed. It seemed natural to invite Andy to stay and play cards. And just as natural to respond when he kissed her . . . and then seduced her.

Not that it took much effort. It's been so long since she slept with anyone that it was actually a mutual seduction. When he got dressed in the wee hours, prepared to slip back through the deserted, rainy streets to his rented room, Miranda found herself asking if she could see him again tonight.

She had to prove to herself that she wasn't being foolish. That he wasn't just using her.

He hesitated before agreeing. He suggested that they meet late, here, outside of town.

She didn't want to ask him, then, what was going on with his girlfriend; whether he's broken up with her yet.

She doesn't want to ask him now, either.

“I can't stay,” she tells him. But she doesn't pull her wrist from his grasp.

“Why not? It's a crummy night. You can't conduct an investigation in this weather.”

“No, but . . .”

“Don't be mad, Mandy. I told you, I couldn't help it. What's the big deal? I was a little late—”

“More than an hour late.”

“Let me buy you another glass of wine.”

She shakes her head.

Yet still, she doesn't pull away.

“Let me make it up to you, Mandy.”

Miranda knows what she should do.

She should get up right now and walk out the door.

Kent was right all along about men like Andy Doyle. She was a fool to have gotten involved with him.

I
T'S NEARLY TEN-THIRTY
when Julia lets herself into her house, turning on lights as she walks from the living room through the dining room to the kitchen. What began earlier as a light summer rain has become a full-fledged thunderstorm that knocked out power in the Italian Fisherman, the quaint lakeside restaurant over in Bemus Point where Paine invited her to dine with him and Dulcie.

The staff hurried around lighting extra votive candles, and Paine and Julia reassured Dulcie, who nearly bolted out of her seat every time there was a deafening clap of thunder.

The harrowing drive home to Lily Dale took more than an hour, over wet back roads littered with fallen branches and an occasional downed wire. Julia sat in the backseat with Dulcie, her arm around the frightened little girl, who eventually relaxed and drifted off to sleep with her head on Julia's shoulder. She didn't even wake up when Julia gently pulled away from her just now as Paine dropped her off.

In the kitchen, the rain makes a strange sound on the plastic tarp the workers have draped overhead. Looking up, Julia can see patches of sky through gaping holes that have been ripped between the rafters. For some reason, that makes her feel uneasy. As though somebody can use the opening to look in.

Or get in.

I'm just anxious because of the storm,
she tells herself, going to the refrigerator for the pitcher of iced tea. She pours herself a glass and takes a sip, kicking off her wet sandals as she stands leaning against the fridge.

She certainly isn't dressed for weather like this. When she left home early this afternoon, the sun was shining. Now her navy shorts and white T-shirt are soaked through, just from the quick run from the car to the house. Paine was going to accompany her, but she told him not to leave the sleeping Dulcie in the car alone.

“At least take my jacket,” he urged her, but she refused;

“Use it to put over Dulcie's head when you bring her in,” she told him.

Now, she makes a mental note to get her raincoat back from Lorraine. Either that, or buy a new one in a more suitable color. With the way this summer's weather has been shaping up so far, she's going to need one.

Julia finishes her iced tea in a few more thirsty gulps, then puts the glass in the sink. Time to get out of these wet clothes, into some dry pajamas, and sink into bed.

There, she'll be able to think about what Paine said when she asked him how he can turn his back on Lily Dale so quickly and with such finality.

“I thought you wanted to know more about what happened to Kristin here, Paine,” Julia said from the backseat of the car as Dulcie dozed on her shoulder and Paine steered through the treacherous storm.

“I thought I did, too,” he told her. “But now I realize that it's pointless. Being here, and speculating about what happened to her . . . well, how can that be healthy? Not so much for me, but for Dulcie? I've got to take her home, Julia. We need to make a fresh start. For three years, I've been a zombie. Like Rupert is now.”