Not This Time (28 page)

“Thank you.” Sara nodded. “No wake. Race Miller can do a simple graveside service.”

“Not Reverend Brown?” Nora sounded shocked.

“No, Race Miller.”

Nora and Annie shared a look Beth fully understood. Robert would have wanted an event. Why was Sara doing this? Was it because there was no body? Was she in denial about Robert being dead after all? Race Miller. He wasn’t even a real minister … Bizarre, but her call.

“Simple is best,” Nora said.

“Best.” Annie nodded.

Baffling, but Nora and Annie agreed with Sara. For the rest of the village, it wouldn’t matter why. For Beth, it didn’t matter at all. Robert was gone. Sara hadn’t had another attack—grace in action, if ever Beth had seen it—and that’s what mattered.

Beth’s mother had flown home from her cruise. She’d been with Sara
around the clock, which had given Beth an opportunity to check on things at home and at the office. If she could just reach Joe, she’d feel a whole lot better. He must be up to his neck in alligators, though Mark assured her he was fine, just tied up.

Beth understood tied up, and she wouldn’t be neurotic about contact, but she needed to talk to him about the potential connection between Sara’s anti-Quantico stance and NINA’s attack and Robert’s kidnapping. She’d thought the situation through from every angle and that they all were connected was the only way everything happening made sense.

On Tuesday morning, everyone from SaBe came to pay their respects. Nora and Nathara walked in right behind Margaret.

“Nora.” Sara took one look at her and lunged into her arms. “I—I can’t do any more of this. I just can’t.”

“Of course you can.” Folding her into a hug, Nora whispered, “Stay strong, my girl. The worst of it’s behind you now.”

The worst of what? Beth started to ask but Darla Green sidetracked her. Aflutter, she grabbed Beth’s arm. “Hank and Lance are here. What do I do?”

“Nothing.” Nora and Sara disappeared into the family room. “Just stand here with me. They’ll see you. If they come over, fine. If not, then just stand here.”

Darla trembled, looked at Lance with hungry eyes. “He’s grown so much.” She swallowed hard. “Look at him, Beth. He’s even more like John than I remembered.”

“Inside and out.” The resemblance was striking. “He’s a good young man.”

“Because of John. I wasn’t a good mother, but he was a wonderful father.” Darla’s voice cracked.

Uneasy, Beth turned her gaze from Lance to Darla. “Yes, he was.”

Tears glossed her eyes. “He deserved better than he got from me. They both did.”

“What did he get?” Was she confessing to killing John?
Not today. Please, not today
.

“He loved me.” Darla sniffed. “I should have loved him more.”

“You adored him. Everyone knew it. I saw it myself.”

“I should have tried harder to be the woman he saw in me.” She sniffed again. “I didn’t appreciate that when he was alive.”

“Appreciate what?”

“The security and confidence that comes with knowing you’re loved.” She tore her gaze from Lance. “I took John for granted. I was the center of his world. Until he was gone, I had no idea what a privilege that was.”

“John was content with you.”

“He deserved more. A lot more.”

Darla snagged Hank’s gaze. He whispered something to Lance, who shot his mother a surprised look. Darla sucked in a sharp, hopeful breath. He hesitated a long moment, then turned away.

A soft cry garbled in Darla’s throat. “Excuse me, Beth.” She rushed out the back door.

Beth started after her, but Lisa caught her arm. “Give her a few minutes. She doesn’t want to be seen upset.”

“You sure?”

“I’m a doctor and this stuff is my business, remember?”

“It’s hard, seeing her so hurt.”

“It is.” Lisa nodded. “Time will help them both.” She tilted her head toward Lance.

He looked as devastated as Darla, and afraid. Hank wrapped a protective arm around the boy’s shoulders, whispered something to him. Whatever it was, it seemed to help. Beth didn’t dare to intrude, but she sure wouldn’t mind knowing Hank’s secret. Seemed all around her people were suffering—Nora, Sara, Darla … everyone except Nathara.

Not wanting to hear her latest tirade, Beth went to the family room door. Sitting on the sofa with tears running down her own leathery cheeks, Nora held Sara while she cried.

Beth’s chest went tight. She folded her arms. The two women in the world
she was closest to, and they both were mourning. Feeling small and helpless, Beth prayed.
Carry them
.

She backed away, then shut the door. They stayed in the closed room a long time. Long enough for Nathara to fray the nerves of everyone else in the house. She was now going for round two and started with Beth. “Nora always did make too much of dying.”

Beth bit her tongue.

Peggy didn’t. “Nora understands grief, Nathara. That’s a blessing to her and others. Life holds value. It should be mourned.”

“Nonsense. We live, we die, and that’s that. Mourning is weakness.”

“There’s a time to mourn, and this is it,” Peggy challenged her. “It’s not weak. It’s a sign of strength. Refusing to care enough to mourn. Now, that’s weak.”

“Nonsense, I say.” Nathara shrugged. “But to each his own.”

Mean as a snake
. Beth squeezed her eyes shut.
So unlike Nora
. It was hard to believe they were related, much less twins.

At one forty-five Sara emerged for Robert’s funeral.

Dressed in a soft black dress that flowed to her ankles, black hose, and pumps, Sara straightened the broad brim on her hat. Its short veil covered her eyes. “Beth, I need a few minutes. Keep them away from me, okay?”

“Okay.” Beth glanced into Sara’s living room. Her entire family had come; Maria and her family; Henry Baines, Nick Pope, and Margaret from SaBe; and everyone from Crossroads, yet Mark Taylor wasn’t with Lisa—and where was Jeff?

Peggy Crane came over. “Who are you looking for?”

“Mark and Jeff.” Beth tried to keep her worry from her voice. “After the club and all this with Robert, I’m worried …”

“So are they. They’re securing the cemetery.” Peggy brushed a speck of lint
from her sleeve. “We’re not supposed to leave here until Mark phones with an all clear.”

Relief washed through Beth. “Oh, good. Good.”

“You’d better go with her.” Peggy nodded toward Sara, stepping out the door into the backyard. “She thinks she needs to be alone, but she doesn’t.”

Beth went out the back door, but not wanting to intrude, she stopped just outside. Sara stood staring out at the cove. The sun shone brightly, spangling on the calm, rippling water.

“I know you’re here.” Sara didn’t look back.

“Ignore me.”

“I don’t want to ignore you. I want …” She glanced back, sober. “What I want doesn’t matter anymore.”

Beth stepped closer. “It matters to me.”

“I know. I love you too. You’ve been the best sister, Beth.”

“You too.”

“No. I wish I had, but …” Sara drew in a shuddered breath. “This whole funeral is just a formality. It isn’t the end.” She moved to the porch swing and sat down. “Without a body, it doesn’t mean anything. We’re just burying a coffin filled with his favorite things.”

Dangerous thinking. Until Sara accepted the truth, she couldn’t begin to heal. Beth sat beside her, smelled the jasmine blossoms on the light breeze. “I know this is difficult and you don’t want to believe it, but it is real. Robert is dead, and as painful—”

“Not for seven years, he isn’t.”

“What are you talking about?”

Sara toed the ground, shoved the swing. “Henry says it’s federal law. Robert can’t be declared legally dead for seven years—all states respect it.”

She and Henry had a long, private conversation yesterday, and it sounded as if Sara believed Robert could still be alive and she had seven years to prove it. Oh, but Beth hoped not. Neither of them had the stamina to linger in limbo for seven years. Letting her gaze slide, Beth skimmed the wooden dock, Sara’s
sailboat. “That’s the legal declaration. But you do realize Harvey and Hank agree that Robert did die, right?”

“I know what they said.”

Cagey. Evasive
. Not good. Frowning, Beth tried again. “He lost over six pints of blood.” No one losing six pints of blood could live.

“Yes.” Sara squared her shoulders but refused to look at Beth.

Denial
. “I don’t know what you’re doing. I don’t understand, and I won’t pretend I do.” She wished Nora were out here. She’d know what to do. “Robert is dead. It’s horrible, but it has to be accepted. He needs to rest in peace, and you need to let him.”

Sara didn’t say a word. Didn’t so much as blink.

Beth’s throat went thick. “It would break his heart to see you like this.”

“Would it?” Sara frowned. “You hated him. You know nothing about him.”

“I didn’t hate him, and I know it’d break his heart because he loved you,” Beth said. “It breaks my heart to see you like this.”

That knocked the fight out of Sara. “This is so … hard. There’s no easy way to work through it. The things you don’t know … they make everything so twisted and complicated.”

“Do you want to explain?”

“No.” Resolve slid over her face, into her voice. “Not now, not ever. Just remember what I told you.”

The warning. “Sara, why were you in the hospital—three times before this last attack? You told me it was mild attacks, but that’s not true, is it?”

“No.”

Beth’s heart beat hard and fast. “You said you were in trouble. Are you still in trouble?” Had Robert’s death changed that?

“Yes.” A sob in her throat distorted her voice. “But—”

“No buts.” Beth clasped her hand. “Just tell me the truth.”

“No.” Sara shook off Beth’s hand. “This time, I walk alone.”

It wasn’t over. “Is someone pressuring you in some way?”

She shot Beth a warning. “Leave it alone. I mean it.”

Frustration flooded her. “Why won’t you let me help you?”

Truth burned in Sara’s eyes. “Because you can’t.”

“Then who can? Whatever it takes, we’ll get it.”

“You can’t get anything.”

“Are you saying no one can do anything?”

“No mortal can do anything. You want to help me? Pray.”

Beth prayed for all her family all the time. “Let’s pray together. If we agree—”

“I don’t pray anymore.”

Shock pumped through Beth. “Since when? Why not?”

“I—I can’t.”

“Sara, that doesn’t make sense. Of course you can pray.”

“No, I really can’t.”

Beth sensed pushing would only make matters worse, but she didn’t have a clue why Sara would feel that way. “Then I’ll pray for both of us until you can pray again.”

Tears gathered in Sara’s eyes. “When you do, tell God I’m sorry.”

“For what?”

“He knows.”

No doubt. Beth sure wished she did.

Joe sprinted from the parking lot across the cemetery and joined Mark. “I’m here, bro.”

“Ah, Thomas Boudin has arrived.” Not at all surprised, Mark moved away from the canopy above the stand where Robert’s coffin would be, passed the rows of chairs, and stepped out into the open. “So did Beth recognize you?”

“I don’t think so, but I left a calling card.” Had she noticed his message on the coffee cup? “I haven’t talked to her since I was there.”

“I know. She’s freaking out that you’re in trouble.”

“Can’t be helped. She’ll ask me questions I can’t answer right now, and that’ll just tick her off.”

Mark cocked his head. “Can’t answer, or won’t?”

“In this case, there’s no difference.”

“Sorry to hear it.”

“Sorry to have to say it.” It was exactly this—the inability to tell what you knew—that caused hardships in relationships for people like them, and there was nothing that could be done about it. Classified was classified. “I don’t want to lose her, Mark. She matters.”

“Understand, buddy.” Mark stopped in the clearing. “So you’ve connected the cases.”

“Not definitively, but I’m working a lead that could, if I can get past one snag.”

“Can I help?”

“Sam’s working on it. We’re really close.” Joe loosened his tie at his throat. “You think this jerk Tayton is really dead?”