The Summer Bones (12 page)

“He wouldn't explain.” Victoria cleared her throat. “He wasn't all that coherent.”

Kate lifted fine brows. “So she's left him, is that how he interprets this situation? Why wouldn't she contact her family? We, at the least, would help her if she was unhappy. Divorce is more reasonable than this sort of thing. It just doesn't sound plausible.”

“He was drunk,” Victoria explained abruptly, “maybe high as well. The house was an absolute mess. I couldn't quite tell if besides being intoxicated, he was angry or worried, or a combination of both. He wasn't exactly pleasant or making good sense.”

“Lovely.” Distress was written clearly on Kate's features, worry pulling at the corners of her mouth. “What else did he say?”

Victoria thought about the painting. She could picture the haunting image of secretive admiration, of implied lust and violation. But she could hardly tell Damon's mother that her son was the featured attraction in one of Ronald's paranoid fantasies, and that he'd taken the pains to put it on canvas.

“Not much,” she mumbled, rubbing her fingers along the counter. The surface was pitted with age, pink and pale green in a diamond pattern that had faded with time and wear. Much like the house itself, a product of the people who had lived inside it—worn, well used, beloved with memory.

Kate was watching her—beautiful Kate, who looked too young to be a mother, much less an expectant grandmother. Kate, who had been more accessible and more understanding than Victoria's own mother for most of her life.

“Not much,” Victoria said again, more firmly.

The heat gave Kate's skin a faint sheen, like satin. The tiny lines of encroaching age around her eyes didn't detract one bit from the elegant bone structure of her face. She sighed. “I don't know what to think myself. Emily has always been unpredictable, and God knows she and Ronald have had their differences, but I can't see her being this dramatic. Her car, her keys, her purse … what's the point of leaving it all behind?”

“But taking her briefcase.”

“What?” Her aunt looked startled.

“Gail told me that her briefcase is missing. The police didn't find it, yet she had it that morning.”

“How odd.”

“Yes. Definitely.”

“Do you know of any reason she might want to leave Ronald and be so secretive about it?”

“No.” It was somewhat of a lie. If Ronald had been abusive, maybe Emily had been too afraid to ask for a divorce. It happened. It happened time and again to terrified women locked in horrifying situations they felt helpless to escape. It didn't seem in character for her sister to become a victim, but it would explain those bruises. However, given such an opportunity as the confrontation last spring, why didn't Emily confide the truth? They had shared everything growing up, both emotionally and physically. Their looks, their fears, their dysfunctional family life. Victoria turned her head and looked out the window rather than meet Kate's concerned gaze.

“The alternative—” her aunt began to say hesitantly.

“Is worse, of course,” Victoria finished grimly. “Emily picking up a hitchhiker, or stopping to help someone, or even having someone along with her in the car, and that person or persons abducting her. Leaving her car because they didn't need it. Leaving her purse and keys because taking those items along would only increase the risk of being tied to the crime on down the line. I'm well aware of the alternative. The briefcase may just be a red herring, or lost, or … anywhere.”

It was possible. Not that any of them wanted it to be the truth, but possible just the same. Emily was gone. No word. No clues. Victoria could tell both of them felt the weight of the words hang in the close evening air.

Kate's eyes were shadowed, her face finely drawn. She reached out and touched Victoria on the arm, a feather-light gesture of reassurance and affection. “There's no reason for us to think anything of the sort. Let's be positive here.”

In answer, Victoria shook her head blindly. Every minute that passed by, every ticking second, made the alternative more possible. They were fools to not face it.

* * * *

The television droned, flashing bright, fast pictures of cars and city streets. As Victoria watched, two men in beautiful dark suits piled out of a vehicle, leveled guns at a fleeing suspect, and opened fire. Not a hair flicked out of place. The criminal dropped his weapon, threw up his hands, and surrendered—clean, fashionable justice.

Her grandmother shifted in her chair. The groan of overused springs mingled with a soft snore. The television was the only illumination, and she looked fragile in the uncertain light—her gray hair a halo against the dark green velvet of the chair, her stoutness concealed by the flickering shadows, her wrinkles smoothed to youth by sleep and darkness.

Victoria stirred, too lazy to get up and turn off the television. Her grandmother insisted on watching her programs each evening and the routine rarely varied. She switched on the set, settled in the same old comfortable chair, and was asleep in five minutes.

Victoria curled up on the couch, muscles lax, eyes half closed, letting her brain absorb the mindless images from the screen, the volume turned so low that the sirens barely whistled across the room.

Jim had come to pick up Kate at nine o'clock. Her grandfather had muttered his usual about an early morning and stumped off to bed not much later. She had talked briefly to Michael on the phone, and then settled in on the couch with the intention of going up to bed early. That was at least an hour ago. The room was a little too warm, she was sleepy, and the effort of going upstairs seemed too much bother.

Her grandmother sighed sweetly. The compassionate lighting made her look like the young woman posing in the wedding picture that sat in the parlor—soft-cheeked and happy, with the joy of life in her face and curving her mouth.

Victoria lay on her side, watching the flickering shadows slide over chin and cheekbone, remembering the vigor of the woman who had made her childhood summers full of love and security. Recalling the gentle discipline, the cheerful work ethic, the complete devotion to family. Nine months out of the year Victoria and Emily lived the quiet hell her parents had fashioned of their marriage, but the summers had been golden.

She hadn't heard Damon's car. In middoze, she recognized the sound of the kitchen door slamming shut and being latched. Footsteps came across the floor and faded into the carpeted hallway. He couldn't have heard the television because it was turned down so low, so it must have been part of his routine to check in on his grandmother. Victoria smelled the distinctive sweetness of perfume before she even saw him in the doorway.

“Hmm.” She smiled vaguely, not moving a muscle, eyelids still heavy. “It must have been a good date.”

“Why's that?” His disembodied voice came over the vague roar of gunfire. He came over and sat down, casually shifting Victoria's legs over and draping his arm over the back of the couch. He smiled into her eyes and lifted his brows. In a denim shirt and slim-fitting blue jeans, he was stunning as ever.

“You reek of perfume, that's why.”

“Oh, that.” A heartfelt grimace crossed his face. “I sat next to some lady at the theater who was a bit overzealous with her fragrance bottle.”

“I see.” Victoria's mouth twitched. “Well, you smell like a cheap brothel.”

“Have you been in a cheap brothel?”

“No, but I imagine they smell just like you do right now.”

“Is that so?” He looked unperturbed. “Well, brothel or no, it has nothing to do with Andrea. She doesn't wear perfume or at least not a truckload. Thank God.”

“Ah.” Victoria nodded in agreement, relaxed in her prone position, head against a musty pillow embroidered in tulips and improbable purple roses. “So, have you been dating her long? She seems nice, and your parents obviously approve.”

“A few months.” He looked amused, the chiseled mouth curving. “Does parental approval mean anything these days? I thought that went out with bobby socks and poodle skirts.”

“More like with tie-dyed shirts and peace signs.”

“More like,” he agreed. “The sixties were revolutionary, weren't they? Can you imagine what it was like back in the days of strict middle-class morality? People peeping from between their living room blinds to watch what time you left, or
if
you left someone's house.”

“Not as much as you can, I expect.” She gave him a speculative look from under her lashes.

Damon understood easily. “It can be inconvenient. Mayville is a small town. People know what you do.”

“Not just Mayville. I guess you must stay over at Andrea's place if you want to spend the night together. She could hardly stay over here.”

He laughed easily, shaking his head. “Are you being nosy? If so, it's none of your business.”

“Maybe a little,” Victoria admitted, taking no offense.

But there was no doubt about the fact that Damon had made sacrifices. He did work hard, her father had been right about that, and he had given up a possible career in medicine that might have taken him far from manure and dusty fields and hard physical labor. There was no mistaking what the family owed her cousin.

“I wasn't prying,” she insisted lamely. “It has just been pointed out to me recently that neither one of us is married.” The television had traveled onward into a talk show. She could see the host laughing behind the typical desk of the set.

“Yes, you were being nosy.” Damon calmly reached over and touched her cheek, a feather brush of his fingers. “But I don't mind. Everyone has a different set of problems; everyone has different lifestyle issues. There are worse things in this world than living in a place that you love and eating Gran's fantastic cooking. So what if neither of us is married? The time isn't right. I'm happy enough. This is my home. I like it here.”

It was a simple declaration—my home, my life. Maybe he was right. Maybe he was the lucky one. She still considered the farm to be the center of her universe, as it would be until she and her husband, if she ever had one, bought a house, maybe even after. A home was more than walls and floors and sticks of furniture.

Husband
. Michael was not something she could think about right now.

“I'm glad,” she responded, “if you're happy here, Damon. It means the world to Grandma and Gran—”

His fingers moved from her cheek to her mouth, gently pressing her lips to interrupt her speech. “Hey, I chose this. My free will. So stop it, will you?” His hand lifted away.

Her gaze slid over to the sleeping woman in the chair. “All right. No more rhapsodizing over your generous nature. Promise.” She smiled and yawned.

“Are you coming up?” Damon asked. His hand had dropped to her shoulder and she could feel the warm weight of it through her thin blouse. She shook her head. “Not yet. I'm too comfortable.”

“Too lazy, more like.”

“That, too.”

“Well … good night, then.” Instead of standing up immediately, to her surprise he sat there, studying her face in the semilight, his eyes dark and serious. The scent of flowers was strong and heady.

“Good night,” she said uncertainly.

His fingers tightened momentarily on her shoulder. He stood. For a second she had the impression he wanted to say something else, but instead he simply turned and went to wake the sleeping woman in the chair. “Come on, Gran, time for bed.”

After they both had left, Victoria lay there and stared blindly at the television. For a brief moment—the briefest of moments, she told herself—she'd been reminded of Ronald's picture. Maybe it had been the poor lighting. Maybe it had been her groggy state, and the fact that Damon had been sitting so close and touching her. But the essence of that disturbing painting had come rushing back—the intense expression on the face of the man lurking behind the naked woman, the secretive eyes, the brooding mouth. If Ronald had indeed been trying to portray her cousin in that picture, he had captured something subtle and personal.

“Ridiculous,” she whispered in the empty room. The talk show host laughed.

His routine rarely varied. It was one of the solid things in his life—his coffee, his paper, his toast, dry, no butter or jam. Not that much to ask. He'd clung to it during the worst and wasn't about to give it up now. Thirty years of coffee, paper, and toast.

Richard Paulsen moved slowly across the apartment and sat down in his chair. The springs creaked. The paper rattled as he shook it. It was sunny again. The window showed streaks of light from an avenging sun. The air clicked on at regular intervals, just as it had all night.

The room was silent, which he loved. He no longer craved silence—not like he once had craved it—but it was still a comforting friend. A habitual visitor, something he'd once thought of as a weapon back when he was avoiding Jane's cutting unhappiness and his own discontented state. He wished he could explain it to his daughters, but they had always viewed his retreats as an act of betrayal. Only by silence could he avoid the screaming type of confrontation that his wife had perfected slowly over the years. Silence was a gift of battle.

He had other gifts in his life now. Not things he'd bargained for, or even wanted—just the reward that came from heaven or wherever, a complication, a difficulty, really, in most ways. Gifts always came with two sides. He frowned, his glasses perched unevenly on his nose, scanning the news.

The buzzer sounded by the door. He lifted his head. Three stories down, someone wanted entrance to the building and was asking him to provide it.

He glanced at the clock on the mantel above the gas fireplace, startled. Eight o'clock in the morning was not a normal time for visitors. Eight o'clock, given the fact that his daughter was missing, made his stomach tighten. As he slowly got to his feet, the buzzer rang again, angrily.