Have Your Cake and Kill Him Too (9 page)

I felt myself flush with remorse.

Here I was, jeopardizing my future with Richard because I couldn't make a clean break with a likely criminal. “Of course we have something, Richard. I—look, I'm sorry you doubt it. I'm sorry for a lot of things.”

“You protect him even though he's a monster.”

“He is not a monster.”

Richard sighed.

“All right,” I conceded. “Maybe he's no angel. I won't make excuses for Michael anymore. I did that for my husband, and now I know I only enabled his drug use. But, Richard, I don't believe Michael is capable of killing anyone. If you want to devote your waking hours to proving otherwise, that's your prerogative, but—”

“Has he got you hypnotized or brainwashed? Do you see what he's doing?”

“He's changed,” I said. “At least, he's trying to.”

“Are you sure about that?”

“I don't know. I thought he was trying to get away from that life. But deep down, he loves his father, and he wants to be loyal. Michael struggles with this—this basic instinct to outsmart the system. I can't believe he gave in to it.”

“You're going to get hurt with him, Nora.”

“I'm not with him,” I snapped. “I'm with you.”

“You mean that?”

“Yes. Absolutely.”

Richard asked, “Did you tell him about the baby?”

I flushed hot, remembering what I'd done in the dark less than an hour earlier. I'd let myself go. Forgotten who I was. And here was Richard trying to help me regain the part of myself I relinquished when I was with Michael. I said, “It's none of his business. He doesn't need to know I'm pregnant.”

“I'm glad to hear it.” Richard sounded tired. “For one thing, he's got a new girlfriend.”

“So I noticed.”

“I hope she knows what she's getting into.”

His sarcasm needled me. “You and I are together now, Richard. What more do you want?”

“You know what I want,” he said just as harshly, and pulled into the long driveway of Blackbird Farm.

The house loomed ahead of us in the dark—a fieldstone farmhouse built during the time of William Penn and added onto in haphazard ways until the original structure was nearly consumed by more modern additions. The property had been in my family for generations, and now it was mine to preserve. Hanging on to such an old estate came with so many problems and expensive bills to pay that I was nearly overwhelmed just making sure the roof was waterproof. As the whitewashed fence posts flickered past us, I reflected that it seemed important to stay in a place where my life felt composed. Even when things were falling apart.

When Richard swung the car into the gravel circle at the back of the house and stopped, I made no move to get out, but sat quietly for a moment and tried to piece together the thoughts I'd been fighting for several weeks.

“I'm sorry,” I said at last. “I don't know why. But I'm not ready to go to bed with you again.”

Richard turned toward me in the seat. He was gentleman enough to smile. “I'll admit the first time wasn't the best experience, but it got the job done.”

“That's not what I—”

He said, “I can't promise that we won't have a few more mistakes the next time, either, Nora. But that's one of the great things about creating a relationship, you know. Learning to be good together.”

“Do you think we can?”

“Don't you want that?”

I couldn't stop myself from touching my belly. I didn't know what I wanted. All I knew right now was that my choice was going to affect my child, and I didn't want to make any more mistakes.

Richard shut off the engine, got out of the car and came around to the passenger door. He opened it and helped me stand, which turned into an embrace.

Above me in the darkness, he said, “Let me try to convince you.”

I smiled and hoped it didn't look shaky. “I'm game. But not tonight, please. It's been an awful day and—”

He tried to change my mind with a kiss.

There was no avoiding it, and I prayed he couldn't divine that I'd been kissing Michael just an hour ago. I felt a rush of shame.

I should have enjoyed the moment. After all, Richard had all the right qualifications to make a woman's knees go weak. I closed my eyes and thought it would be a relief to feel something for another man. As Richard's arms tightened around me, I tried to make it happen. Around us, the night whispered, and Richard's gentle, nibbling kiss coaxed me to forget, to start anew.

But I found myself wondering in which pocket I put my house keys, if there might be one more can of soup in the pantry, and did I have a new book to take into the bathtub with me tonight?—all thoughts that should have been swept aside by passion. Which made me feel doubly guilty for having climaxed in Michael's arms in a phone booth.

Before Richard could sense my mind had wandered off like a bored toddler in search of excitement, a colossal snort resounded five feet away.

I yelped, and Richard cursed.

Mr. Twinkles stepped out of the darkness, his tail swishing and his ears laid flat against his long neck. Emma's horse snorted again and shook his head threateningly at Richard. The white blaze on his nose flashed in the starlight. Richard and I leaped apart.

“Dammit! This horse is an escape artist!”

Richard sagged against the car. “I think I just had a heart attack.”

I made a grab for the nylon halter on the horse's head, and Mr. Twinkles graciously allowed me to do so. Then he jammed his nose against my body and gave me an affectionate shove. I held on, patting his sleek neck to settle him down. “I'm sorry, Richard. This is Emma's latest project, Mr. Twinkles. He's supposed to jump fences, and I think Emma has taught him too well.”

“You keep him here at the farm?”

“Only when Emma can't afford to board him at a respectable place.” I rubbed Mr. Twinkles between his now curious ears. “Which is most of the time. Now that he knows how to get out of the paddock, he spends most of his time hanging around my back porch, looking for treats.”

Mr. Twinkles weighed twelve tons for all I knew, but he was surprisingly nimble on his feet. He spun around lightly, presenting his daunting hindquarters to Richard, who scrambled over the hood of the car to avoid getting kicked to the moon.

“Jesus! Is he dangerous?”

“I haven't a clue.” I felt guilty for making light of the situation when Richard was clearly shaken. “I'm sorry. Would you like to pet him? Make friends?”

“No,” said Richard from a safe distance. “I'm from Manhattan, Nora. I don't do horses.”

“He's just an overgrown pet, really. He can be very sweet.” I patted the horse's neck.

Richard reached the driver's door and opened it. “I'll pass. I'd better be going, anyway. Unless you need help—uh—putting him in the barn?”

“I can manage.”

Richard promised to phone in the morning. As he drove away, Mr. Twinkles seemed very pleased to have me to himself. While I waved to Richard, the horse lovingly snuffled my pockets for a bedtime snack and hit pay dirt in my handbag. I unwrapped a peppermint as we walked over to the paddock, and when he was once again standing on the right side of the paddock fence, I presented him with the candy. Positive reinforcement. While he crunched it, I gave him a stern lecture, closed the gate and said good night.

I let myself into the kitchen and flipped the light switch, which caused a disconcerting crackle behind the walls and a flicker in the chandelier before light finally filled the cavernous old room. The refrigerator—only twenty years old—hummed with modern efficiency in the middle of an otherwise rustic kitchen that featured a collection of antique cookware hanging overhead and a stone floor that had endured the crunch of General Washington's boots.

The telephone had been ringing when I stepped inside, and the answering machine picked up.

My sister Libby's voice echoed in the kitchen. I put my handbag on the counter and unbuttoned my coat while she talked. “I thought you'd be home by now,” she said, sounding wounded. “Have you thought about the calendar? Because I've made a preliminary appointment with a new photographer. His name is Jean Claude. Doesn't that sound artistic? No commitment, just a consultation. I'm told he's a master at disguising those tiny unsightlies. You'll enjoy it, I promise! Call me!”

“You're out of your mind,” I said to the machine.

I didn't notice the puddle in the middle of the floor. I slipped on the stone and barely saved myself from a fall by grabbing the edge of the counter.

“Damn!”

I'd spent the morning crouched under the kitchen sink with a roll of duct tape. Obviously, my first universal solution had failed me this time. The mysterious Blackbird plumbing was erupting again for no reason.

I peered under the sink to locate the latest problem. No drips had sprung through the hunk of duct tape, but a fresh leak oozed from a new crack farther down the pipe. I sat back on my heels and sighed.

Time to phone a plumber.

But the killer nighttime rate wasn't in my reach.

“What the hell.” I'd take the risk and wait until morning. Meanwhile, a well-placed bucket and an armload of towels would have to hold back the tide. I wedged a plastic bucket under the new leak and distributed the towels around the floor.

Then I opened a can of alphabet soup and poured it into a saucepan. These days, it was the only food I could tolerate besides Jiffy Pop popcorn. While it heated, I frowned at the limp Christmas cactus that stood on the windowsill.

A diamond ring hung on one prickly leaf. Catching light from the chandelier, the diamond that Emma called the Rock of Gibraltar sparkled deep inside its facets. I'd put it there New Year's Eve, minutes after Michael gave it to me before he disappeared for two months. And there it had remained.

While I tried to decide who the father of my child should be, I let the diamond hang there.

“I should sell it,” I said aloud. “I could pay the plumber, at least.”

My husband, Todd, had died because he couldn't give up cocaine, shot by his drug dealer on a night when I couldn't keep him at home. I had failed to protect him from himself, and he was dead.

And then Michael came along—equally driven by some inner motivation I did not understand. He loved the challenge of crime, the chesslike planning, the bluff and risk of poker for high stakes. And I could not keep him at home, either—not when he heard the call that drew him out at night.

I turned back to the stove to stir my soup. I flipped on the answering machine and listened to the rest of my messages.

“Sweetie!” shouted my friend Lexie Paine. “Can't wait for the museum party on Saturday! Hope you made contact with the elusive Delilah. We expect a cast of thousands—well, at least two hundred—and I can't manage without her!”

The second message was a mumbling female voice. “Miss Blackbird, this is Joyce from the bank, confirming next Tuesday's appointment. We're sending our home inspector to see you at two.”

To the machine, I said, “How could I forget?”

The bank appraiser who was scheduled to tour the crumbling house had the power to bless my latest attempt at renegotiating my financial position. Or he could nix everything and ruin me. Just when I needed to be fixing a dozen household problems, new leaks, squeaks and broken doorknobs seemed to pop up in other parts of the house.

With the bowl of soup on the table at my elbow, I opened my laptop. First I sent an e-mail to my boss at the
Intelligencer.
My report on the Daffodil Luncheon would make a nice little item in tomorrow's edition of the society column. I took a moment to describe the menu, the clothes and the guests.

After that, I gave in to my curiosity and Googled Zell Orcutt. I found a few mentions in local newspapers for Cupcakes, his recent business venture. A group of local parents had protested the building of Cupcakes so close to a day care center—a justifiable complaint in my opinion. Old news articles mentioned his name in connection with some business deals gone bad. I noted one partner went to jail, while Zell was photographed leaving for a vacation.

Kingsley's auction house had already posted plenty of details on their Web site about Fitch's Fancy in anticipation of the upcoming sale. The information included a family history, which I skimmed. Zell was barely mentioned, clearly deemed unimportant to the provenance of the estate.

I let my imagination roll around various Fitch family members. I had seen all of them shoot targets during the summer archery parties. I wondered which one had been angry enough to use a bow and arrow to kill Zell.

I ladled more soup into my bowl and finished it while I double-checked Lexie's earlier e-mail concerning the museum party. Museum employees would help the linen service dress up the basement space on Friday, and flowers—a gift from Lexie herself—would arrive on Saturday afternoon. But everything else—food, drink and entertainment—depended on Delilah. And for some reason, she wasn't doing her usual first-rate job.

I pushed aside the thought that Delilah had been at Fitch's Fancy before we'd discovered Zell's body. She hadn't killed Zell. She might have argued with him and needed double martinis to calm down, but she hadn't killed him.

But whether the police would dismiss her as easily as I could—that was another matter.

If the school nurse had simply told us the truth about morning sickness, she could have skipped the lectures on birth control. My mother could have given away our copy of
Our Bodies, Ourselves
that she kept prominently displayed on the bookshelf next to her Nora Roberts collection. The whole condom industry would whither and die, ruining the New York Stock Exchange and probably the economy of the entire nation. Maybe the world.