Circumstantial Marriage (9 page)

“Funny coincidence,” Jason said smoothly. “Clint mentioned that Tim used to date Richard Bridges’s wife before he married her. I guess she was known as Julie Ann Foster back then?”

Audrey watched Marybeth’s reaction closely. She wasn’t disappointed. The woman went pale, her jaw tightening. “I believe he may be right. I’d forgotten about that. It was so long ago.”

“You must have known her, too,” Audrey noted.

“Not really,” Marybeth said thinly. “We weren’t part of the same crowd.” She shook her head as though to clear it. “Anyway, you must be wanting to get settled in. Let me show you to your room.”

Once again wondering about Marybeth’s reaction, Audrey nodded. “That would be great.”

“Can I help you with your bags?” Will asked, stepping forward.

Shaking his head, Jason picked up the two bags he’d brought in from the car and set at his feet when they’d entered. “That’s okay. We’re traveling pretty light. Thanks though.”

“Well, nice meeting you folks,” Will said.

Jason and Audrey returned the sentiment, turning to follow Marybeth.

She led them to a back staircase and down a carpeted set of stairs. At the bottom landing were two doors, one leading left, the other right. Pulling out a key, Marybeth unlocked and opened the door on the left, then stepped inside, flipping on the light.

Audrey followed her in. She saw immediately, her heart sinking, that Marybeth had gone out of her way to make the room suitable for a honeymoon. If Will Kent hadn’t been exaggerating and Marybeth had been keeping the room as any kind of shrine, there were no signs of it left. No personal items were in view. Instead, a variety of big and small candles had been placed on the top of the dresser and on the bedside tables. A few vases filled with what appeared to be fresh flowers were placed around the space. Even without those touches, it was a nice room, the dark blue carpet clean and thick, the walls painted a warm cream color, the furniture in flawless condition. From where she stood, Audrey could see the adjoining bathroom Marybeth had promised. If they hadn’t just come down the stairs, Audrey might not have guessed this was a basement room. Other than having windows while this room did not, she couldn’t imagine any of the upstairs rooms being much nicer than this. It only increased Audrey’s suspicion that Marybeth could very well have rented this room long before they arrived if she’d wanted to.

Finally unable to avoid it, Audrey’s attention went to the bed. She might have expected it to be too small to fit two people since Will Kent had slept here as a teenager, but the mattress appeared to be at least queen-size. Clearly, the bed could accommodate two people, and had obviously been prepped to do just that, the comforter already turned down, plush white pillows propped invitingly against the headboard.

Not that it was going to, of course.

One of them could easily take the floor. Audrey didn’t really care which one of them did, as long as someone did.

Not that they could let Marybeth know that. She had to expect them to hop in bed as soon as she left.

Audrey barely managed to suppress a shudder at the thought—or the images that suddenly filled her head.

Summoning a smile, Audrey turned to the woman who was clearly waiting for a reaction. “It’s perfect. Thank you so much.”

Marybeth beamed at her, a knowing gleam sparkling in her blue eyes. “Well, I’ll leave you two to settle in. Let me know if you need anything. I’m right upstairs.”

“Thanks again,” Audrey said sincerely.

Handing Jason the key, Marybeth backed out of the room, closing the door behind her.

Releasing a breath, Audrey finally looked at him. As usual, his expression betrayed none of his feelings. Or maybe there were no feelings to betray because he wasn’t as affected by the implications of this room as she was.

Then she saw the vein pumping at his neck, the throb of his pulse quick and insistent, and knew he wasn’t nearly as cool as he appeared.

She couldn’t deny the hint of satisfaction the knowledge gave her, even as her unease crept higher at the same time. The tension between them had been growing thicker all day. Clearly, he was just as aware of it as she was.

And now here they were, alone in this room that had been planned with romance in mind, with nowhere to turn.

Clearing his throat gently, he moved toward a small table in the corner. “Well, let’s get to work.”

Yes, that was exactly what they needed to do, she thought. She watched him go to the small table, realizing there really wasn’t enough room for both of them to work at it. A quick scan of the room revealed there was only one other option available to her.

It looked like she would be taking the bed after all.

Alone.

“I
’M NOT FINDING MUCH
on Julia Bridges,” Audrey said a half hour later. Sitting cross-legged on the bed, she looked up from the laptop in front of her and set down the pen she’d been using to take notes on a pad. “It really doesn’t look like there’s much out there on her.”

His expression tense with concentration, Jason didn’t look up from the other laptop they’d bought on their way into Virginia. “That’s what I’ve found, too. Enough to confirm most of what Clint Raymer told us, but not much more than that.”

“So now we know that Julia Bridges did grow up as Julie Ann Foster here in Barrett’s Mill. She and Rich have been married thirty-three years, thirty-four this July. They were married the summer before he started at the University of Virginia, which must have been right after he returned from Europe. She’s a housewife, having dedicated herself to raising their three kids and supporting his career. Ever since he became a senator, she’s been active in charitable organizations, but that’s about it. I don’t show that she’s ever even done an interview. It’s like you said, she keeps a low profile.”

“Normally, I would say that makes her the best kind of political spouse. Chances are, she won’t be causing trouble or stirring any controversy for her husband.”

“Unless she was the cause of trouble before they were even married,” Audrey noted.

“If that’s the case, then Dick couldn’t have been too happy about the idea of Rich marrying her, whether or not she was from a lower social level like Clint implied.”

“I can’t imagine Dick intended for his only son to be married at nineteen, not with all the plans he had for him. I’m betting they ran off and eloped without his permission.”

“That shouldn’t be too hard to confirm. A little digging is all it should take to find out where the marriage took place.” He leaned back in his chair. “All right, Marybeth confirmed that Julie Ann dated Tim, so Clint’s story seems to be adding up. Which brings us back to Tim’s death.”

Audrey nodded. “If Rich was involved somehow, and that was the story Hal uncovered, there must be some way to prove it. Hal wouldn’t have relied on Clint Raymer’s story alone for the book. If he thought what we’re thinking, he would have tried to investigate the crash that killed Tim Raymer, see if there was anything that looked suspicious.”

“We can go to the police in the morning, see if there’s any way we can see the report on the crash. After all these years, it would be a long shot, assuming a report even existed in the first place. If there was a cover-up, I doubt they would have gone to much trouble to document anything.”

“Then we could always track down anyone who was with the police department at that time who’s still around, see if they can remember the crash and can tell us anything. And there’s always the reporter who covered it for the paper, if he’s still around, too.”

There was a beat of silence before he admitted, “Exactly what I was about to say.”

Grinning, she shot him a pointed look. “I told you, I’m not new at this.”

For the slightest of moments, the corners of his mouth began to inch upward. Even that was enough to make her heartbeat pick up slightly.

Then, as though he’d realized what he was about to do, his lips flattened into a thin, unyielding line, just before he turned back to his laptop. “Sounds like we have a plan then.”

Audrey surveyed him for a long moment, nearly shaking her head. Was it just her he didn’t want to respond to, or was he so lost in misery that he would deny himself even a fleeting bit of happiness?

Pretty sure she wouldn’t like either answer, she turned her attention back to the screen in front of her.

Rich and Julia Bridges smiled up at her from one of the many pictures she’d found of them. They were always smiling, whether in posed shots or images captured at events. They certainly seemed happy. Whatever had happened to Tim Raymer, they’d built a fine life for themselves.

As she had so many times since this had all started, Audrey studied Richard Bridges’s smiling face, trying to find any trace of the murderer she knew he was. There wasn’t one. She simply saw the same man she always had, the very image of respectability. Even his looks were nonthreatening, the kind of bland handsomeness that was somehow solid and reassuring. His jaw was square, his hair thick. Laugh lines were worn into his skin around the corners of his eyes, giving him the look of someone who smiled a lot. The eyes themselves weren’t particularly striking, just a comfortable dark brown. They seemed to shine with warmth and good humor. It was hard to imagine this man was a murderer, even though she knew it was true.

Which brought her back to Tim Raymer. She didn’t even know what he looked like, Audrey thought with a pang. There hadn’t been any pictures of him with the story in the local paper, and nothing had come up online, probably not surprising for someone who’d been dead for thirty-five years. She supposed if she really wanted to know, the local high school probably kept copies of old yearbooks, or she could even ask Marybeth, for that matter. She hadn’t thought to ask Clint, though she doubted he would have held on to any pictures anyway, if he’d ever had any at all.

Just the thought of the man and that dingy house made her feel another twinge of sadness. “Poor Tim,” she murmured. “Growing up in that house with that man.”

“I can’t imagine he was any more pleasant to be around thirty-five years ago,” Jason agreed.

“I can understand why Tim was so eager to get away, to make a better life for himself than the one he’d lived until then.” She shook her head, exhaling softly. “It’s not easy being stuck with a relative who doesn’t want you just because there’s no one else.”

Jason didn’t say anything for a moment, then, “Are we talking about Tim now, or about you?”

She blinked at him, only belatedly realizing what she’d said and how it must have come out, the words all too personal. Sending him a sheepish look, she smiled thinly. “I guess it’s no secret I know what that’s like, huh? Tim wasn’t the only one with an uncle who didn’t care about him.”

He simply looked at her. “Hal cared about you.”

Audrey barked out a laugh. “I know he was your friend, but please don’t feel the need to defend him. I know he was stuck with me, and he couldn’t have cared less about me. It’s okay. I came to terms with it a long time ago.”

“I’m telling you the truth.”

She snorted. “Right. That’s why he sent me away to school almost as soon as my parents’ funeral was over. That’s why he never came to visit me there, why he always sent me to camp in the summer instead of letting me come home with him, why he spent as little time as possible with me on holidays. He missed my high school graduation. I learned my lesson and didn’t bother inviting him to my college one, and he never even asked. Hell, I became a journalist and he didn’t even notice.”

A touch of unexpected sympathy entered his eyes. “That’s why you quit being a reporter,” he said softly.

It was embarrassing, but she supposed there was no point denying it. “Yeah, well, I finally figured out the real reason I’d pursued it as a career, and I realized there was no use trying to impress someone who simply didn’t care.” Unable to sit still any longer, she stood up and moved toward the bathroom, having had enough of this conversation. “So forget it. You’re wasting your breath, Stone. Not to mention your time and mine.”

She was almost to the door when he spoke again.

“At your boarding school graduation you gave a speech. You spoke about how you came to the school shortly after your parents died. You’d lost everything—your family, your home. But most of all, you’d lost your dreams. You were afraid to want anything, dream of anything, because you didn’t want to lose everything again. Over the years, you learned a lot at the school, but most of all you learned how to dream again. The teachers who taught you and the friendships you made showed that scared girl how to dream big, that there was too much world out there and too many possibilities to be afraid. You had grown and been changed by what you experienced over those years, and you stood there that day, with everything you’d learned and most of all your dreams, ready to move on and begin making every one of those dreams come true.”

She’d stopped halfway through his recitation, her hand on the doorknob, shock holding her in place. Now she clung to the knob for strength, her heart pounding so hard her whole body seemed to be shaking.

Eyes wide, she slowly turned back to face him. He was watching her, no expression on his face.

“How did you know that?” she whispered, barely managing to get the words out.

“Hal told me.”

“How could Hal know that?”

“He heard it. He was there.”

“No, he wasn’t. Believe me, I remember quite clearly that Hal didn’t make it to my graduation. I had a seat reserved for him, a seat that remained empty through the ceremony because he never showed. I got a call from him that night apologizing for not making it, saying he got caught up doing something. He didn’t even say what, and I didn’t ask. The only thing that mattered was that he had better things to do than be there for me.”

“He was there,” Jason repeated simply. “When he arrived, he saw you getting ready with your classmates, and he was struck dumb by the sight of you. I guess he hadn’t seen you in a while. You had your hair down, so it hung to your shoulders, and you were wearing a necklace that belonged to your mother. You looked exactly like her. He was surprised, shocked really. It brought back a lot of memories of your mother, how much he missed her, how it felt losing her. He told me he got a little emotional, but I have a feeling it was more than that, because he stepped out to regain control of himself. By the time he had, the ceremony was beginning. He didn’t want to make a scene getting to his seat. Plus, he knew if he sat in the seat you’d saved for him, you would see him, and he didn’t want you to see how affected he was. So he stood in the back, and he heard every word. He was moved by what you said, but he also realized how much he’d let you down. Because he hadn’t played a part in helping you learn how to dream again. He’d abandoned you there, and in life, because he’d been too afraid himself to get close to you. And when the ceremony was over, he didn’t know how to explain why he hadn’t been there, sitting in the front row, so he left.”