All Who Are Lost (Ashmore's Folly Book 1) (65 page)

Fourteen years began of the unfaithful husband’s credo:
deny, deny, deny
. I didn’t know that this moment, when he was emotionally off-balance from the shock of discovery, was the closest he would ever come to a confession, or I would certainly have pressed him harder. But even in his shock, Richard, clever Richard, had outmaneuvered me.

“I know,” I said. “You fucked your own sister-in-law.”

“Prove it,” he said.

In my mind’s eyes, I saw a tape, disintegrating in flames. I knew then, sick at heart, that my only evidence was gone, destroyed by my own hand, and nothing else was out there. Richard was always too damn clever for me.

“I drove down,” he said, “so I’ll take Julie back with me. Get yourself under control before you come home. I don’t want Julie upset again.”

And then that bastard, that utter hypocrite, turned and walked away from me.

I saw him stop and say something to Francie, slumped against the side of my car. Whatever it was, she grabbed his hand and held it hard. He touched her hair, just once.

And I never saw Francie again.

~•~

I was so shaken from my explosion and Richard’s threat, I wasn’t fit to drive, and I managed to rack up a speeding ticket before I made it back to Charlottesville. Thank God the cop didn’t pay attention to the joint smoldering in my ashtray, or all Richard’s dreams would have come true. Me, busted for drugs, him proved once again to be the long-suffering, superior husband. I sat in the driveway, terrified to go in. What if he really divorced me? What if – and the idea made me ill – he really wanted Francie? What if he inflicted the ultimate humiliation on me and left me for my sister?

What if he took Julie away from me?

I stayed out there in the car most of the night, smoking dope and sitting in frozen fear.

By the time he finally came out and told me to come inside, I was out of my mind, and I stayed that way. Richard didn’t speak to me again. I overheard him once on the phone, canceling a planned weekend home, telling Peggy that we were too busy to come down.

Not a word passed between us.

I don’t remember anything else until Daddy called ten days later.

I didn’t answer the phone, Richard did. And for a minute, his voice was clipped and short. He wasn’t even trying to hide his contempt for Daddy or me.

Then, in the space of a few seconds, he changed. He said, “Hold on, Dominic,” and he said to me, “Have you heard from Laurie?”

I was stunned to hear his voice, and even more stunned to hear his words. “Laurie?” I said, “no, why?”

“Your father seems to think she’s staying with us.” He turned back to the phone. “No, she’s not here. Diana hasn’t heard from her… no, I saw Lucy yesterday, and she didn’t say anything… what does Francie say?”

My mind flashed to Laurie, and her taut, secretive face.

“She
what?
” Now Richard looked really alarmed. “No, we haven’t seen her… Baltimore? Good God, Dominic, have you called the police?”

The police! I grabbed the phone from Richard.

Six days before, Laurie had told Daddy that she was driving up to help us pack. Francie had decided to visit some friends in Baltimore. They had left on what should have been, at most, a two-hour drive up to UVA to drop Laurie off, and they had disappeared off the face of the earth.

Then, earlier that day, the Baltimore police had called Daddy. They had found the abandoned car, stripped, in a parking lot. Daddy called Francie’s friends and discovered that they knew nothing about the proposed visit. Then he called us.

Then, at Richard’s insistence, he finally called the police. And he called Lucy.

Lucy came slamming into our duplex within ten minutes, and that’s when I discovered that the one person on earth I still trusted had betrayed me too.

She stormed in, went straight over to him, and smacked him full in the face. “This is your fault, you son of a bitch! What were you thinking?” And then she turned on me. “What’s the matter with you? Either sleep with your husband, or get a divorce!” And then she broke down. “They’re so young – my sisters—”

Richard, ashen-faced, picked up his keys and walked out.

Where he went, I can only guess. But he and Francie must have been meeting somewhere all those months, and I think he went there to look for her, hoping against hope that she had gone to earth after that fight in Richmond, taking Laurie with her to mop up her tears. I think – I
think
– he flew to Ash Marine, to the cottage. He called several hours later from Ashmore Park, where he had flown after his search, and Laurie and Francie were still missing.

After he left, I was left with Lucy.

“You knew,” I said without preamble.

Lucy was crying, great, huge tears running down her face. “Of course I knew,” she managed between sobs, and she didn’t look at me. “God, Di, how could you be so blind?”

I didn’t care about her tears. I’d had enough of all the subterfuge. All I knew was that Lucy, the one person I’d thought I could still trust, had known that my husband was having sex with our sister, and she hadn’t told me. She’d let me skate along in innocence. She’d set me up for that terrible day in Richmond. I grabbed her arm and held it tightly until she glared up at me in pain. “You knew,” I repeated through my teeth, “how did you know? Did you see them together? Was he touching her?”

“Oh, shut up!” Lucy wrenched her arm away. “Is this all you can think about? I
saw
them. I saw them at Easter dinner. They weren’t touching, they weren’t even looking at each other. But I could tell. The air was practically vibrating between them.”

I was so angry with her, I could have spit nails. “You should have told me,” and I’m sure I was shouting. “What kind of sister are you, anyway?”

“I’ll tell you what kind,” said Lucy, and I remember her shoulders shuddering with her sobs. “You’re my sister, Di, but I’m his, too. I grew up with him. And I’ve seen how miserable he is.” Her voice rose. “You think I don’t know what goes on in this house? How you never speak to each other? How you never sleep together? Are you crazy, Di, did you think he was going to live that way forever?” She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. “He’s so damn lonely, and the only time he’s even looked alive was in the past few months.”

That flicked me right across the heart, and I reacted in the worst way possible. “Get out,” I said, “get out of here right now.”

“Di—”

“
Get out!
” I couldn’t bear her in my sight one second longer. She’d known.
The only time he’s looked alive….

Lucy studied me for a long, cool moment, a harbinger of many to come. I swear, that girl was born a lawyer. “Fine,” she said, and her voice was cold. “In case you’ve forgotten, Di, our sisters have disappeared into thin air. You might try thinking where they could be. And I,” she paused at the door, “I’m going home. Maybe Dad has some ideas.”

She slammed out.

I was left there, alone, no husband, no sisters.

The fear that they had fallen into the hands of some psychopath hovered throughout that day. Richard, when he called, said that the police were proceeding on the theory that the girls had been abducted, because of the state of their car. “Do you think that’s what happened?” I asked, because in the back of my mind, I still saw that strange determination in Laurie all those months.

He said wearily, “I don’t know, Di, I hope not. But—” only the slightest pause in his voice, “this isn’t like Francie. She wouldn’t leave without a word.”

Daddy said the same thing.

So did Philip and Peggy, who were even more upset than Daddy.

Sad – that Laurie would leave without a word, everyone took for granted.

But the abduction theory was laid to rest forever the next day. The police learned that, the day before she disappeared, Laurie had withdrawn over four thousand dollars from her bank account. In fact, she had left a total balance of a dollar, just to keep the account open. The bank teller said that Laurie was alone, in good spirits, and not under any duress. Everyone but Lucy and me was stunned to find out that she had that much money.

Daddy, prompted by the police, discovered that Mama’s jewelry was missing.

Francie’s winter coat had been removed from storage.

Laurie’s journal and current piece of needlework were gone from her room, along with every piece of music she had ever written.

A clerk at Williamsburg remembered selling tickets to Francie and Laurie.

A waitress remembered serving them lunch.

By that time, two days passed, and the police told Daddy that they couldn’t put more time into it. Francie was eighteen and a legal adult, and she had the right to go where she wanted. True, Laurie was underage and a technical runaway, but she was with Francie, she obviously had enough money with her, and (no one said, but everyone thought) she appeared to be the brains of the entire escape plan.

They were gone. Four sisters, cut down to two.

And Lucy and I weren’t speaking.

Nor was she speaking to Richard.

However, Philip had plenty to say.

Philip had always intimidated me, mostly because he didn’t like me and he didn’t think I was good enough or smart enough for his precious son. But we all knew that he had genuinely loved Laurie, and it was no secret to me that he and Peggy had been praying that Richard would come to his senses, ditch me, and wait for Laurie to grow up. As soon as the police proved that Laurie and Francie had not fallen prey to a serial killer, Philip drove up to Charlottesville to see us.

He told Richard that he wanted to speak to him privately, and Richard never uttered a word of protest. They went into the back yard and stayed there quite a long time. I peeked out the window a couple of times and saw Philip talking, Richard forcing himself to look at his father. He looked even more taut and drawn than he had before. He had taken the twins’ disappearance hard. I think he blamed himself for not seeing that Laurie had been planning this for a long time.

I didn’t feel sorry for him. Laurie had given him a lifetime of loyalty and devotion, and he had let Francie and lust blind him to the turmoil that had ripped her apart. I truly believe that, if Richard hadn’t been so caught up with Francie that spring, he might have noticed something was wrong, or Laurie might have confided in him, and I’m certain Richard feels that way too.

And he took the estrangement from Lucy hard. They had grown up together, and now his best friend wasn’t speaking to him.

Who knows what Philip said, though. Richard never told me.

Then Philip summoned me. “Diana, I want to talk to you.”

That whole interview with Philip was so terrible, I’ve blocked most of it from my memory. Suffice it to say that Richard came by his self-righteousness and, worse, his bloody awful
niceness
honestly. Actually, it was worse talking to Philip, because at least I could tell Richard to go to hell.

Philip was older than Daddy. I had to be polite to him.

But Philip made his living as a pediatrician, and so I had to listen to what he said about Julie. He and Peggy were worried sick about her, he said, she seemed timid and subdued these days, and he worried that she was badly affected by the strain between Richard and me. He felt that we needed to make a fresh start in our marriage (so I knew Richard hadn’t told him the truth about Francie, because no one could seriously suggest I forgive him for that), and perhaps we could make that start now that we were both out of school, and “real life” could begin.

He suggested, too, that I not get a job right away, take some time to be a wife and mother. After all, Richard would be making enough; it was no longer up to me to bring home the bacon. It was tough, he said, being in college all those years, with a young child, working hard to make ends meet, and now Richard and I could relax and enjoy our lives and each other and Julie and any other children that came along.

I remember sitting there, listening to Philip’s calm, reasonable voice, looking down at my hands, and wondering how much time I’d do if I pushed his face into concrete and killed him.

But he meant the best, and I knew it. I had to remember that he and Peggy loved Julie and had a right to be concerned about their only grandchild, and I knew that he was right about college being an artificial environment for a marriage. Richard and I had been married for four years, and, after our first summer, we had never lived a normal married life.

Maybe he was right. I didn’t see that I had a choice. I had to stay with Richard in order to stay with Julie.

Because I knew, I knew even then, that Julie was Richard’s, more than she had ever been mine. I had lost her to him. And the only way to be with her was to stay with that self-righteous, cheating bastard.

If I’d known what hell the next three years would be, I’d have left him on the spot.

Chapter 22: Sex, Lies, and Thomas Jefferson

FROM THE PAST, FRANCIE SAT ON HER BED after her trip to Monticello and made her tape:
I can’t believe how passionate you are about Monticello, Richard. It’s like you built it yourself. Do you think you’re Jefferson reincarnated, lover?

“Is everything all right?” said Richard. “You’re very quiet this morning.”

Laura turned her head to look at him as he walked beside her on the roundabout circling the great house. He looked relaxed, hands in his pockets, not at all out of breath from the climb up the mountain. His voice was casual; his gaze upon her was not.

“I’m fine. Just a little winded. I’m not used to climbing a mountain.” She touched his arm; she had discovered that he liked her doing that, touches that told him how much she enjoyed being with him. “I guess we got here just in time. Look at all those people.”

“Well,” said Richard, “we could have come earlier, but—” His grin at her was a shared memory of waking up at dawn together. “We’re not on a schedule. We’ll explore the grounds until the tour.”

She nodded. The silence lay there between them, not yet uncomfortable, but nevertheless a presence that she couldn’t shake. Two nights of failure, two dawns of Cat taking over her mind and body… two mornings of having to regain Laura and act as if she were the same woman he’d made love with, whose bed he had shared.