For All of Her Life (36 page)

Peggy was the ultimate housekeeper, creating a calming effect on those around her with her suggestion of some stiff tea with whiskey or hot coffee with a liqueur. Sympathetically clucking over poor Tara’s injury and shaking their heads, the bulk of the guests began to move into the house, following Peggy’s lead.

Kathy stood pat.

“I have to stay with you,” Jeremy said firmly to her.

“Go have a drink and watch over my daughters with that handsome young flirt Angel. Mickey is a cop, I’ll be fine with him, okay?”

Jeremy shook his head, and turned away.

“Mom?” Alex said, hanging back worriedly.

“I’ll be right along, dear. I just want a word with Mickey.”

“You’ll stay with her, right?” Alex demanded of Dean.

“Sure, Alex. I’ll be here.”

Though Alex still didn’t look happy, she headed for the house, glancing back over her shoulder several times.

When she was gone, Kathy spun to Mickey. “A tile fell like hell! She could have been killed!”

Mickey was staring up at the roof. “I can get someone out in the morning to try to figure out what happened.”

Kathy shook her head, her lips tight. “Damn! They were all here in split seconds! No one away from the group. How are we ever going to know just what in God’s name is going on?”

“Everyone makes a mistake somewhere along the line, Kathy. Drops a clue. Rushes. Forgets some minute detail.”

She lifted her hands dejectedly. “I keep trying to put it in order. Ten years ago, Keith died, and even to me, it looked like a drug overdose. Back then, Jordan was convinced Keith was murdered. It’s not flattering, but he considered me one of the suspects. The group splits, we all go our own ways. Jordan plans a reunion and starts getting phone calls; then I’m attacked in an alley. Now this. And still we haven’t the faintest idea of what was going on! Tara was knocked out—she didn’t see anyone. The accident was planned—for Tara or for me, it’s hard to tell. But no one saw anything. We all reached the front at about the same time. But it would have been very easy for anyone halfway agile to toss down a tile, slip down from the roof and mix with the group, then look as innocent and concerned as the rest of the gang.”

“Kathy—”

“Mickey, I’m just so damned frustrated!”

Dean sighed, looking at her unhappily. “You can’t think of anything anyone has said or done that might provide some clue to the past?”

“No, I...” she broke off momentarily. She was lying.

There was Larry. Scaring her half to death at the pool and then admitting he’d been the drug smuggler. He’d had good reason to kill Keith. To silence him. Then Larry wouldn’t be exposed.

She was a fool. She had to tell someone.

If she did, Larry would become a suspect in the murder...

He was a suspect already in her mind!

What if he was the wrong one? Did she have the right to halfway hang him when he’d come to her for help?

She’d gotten in trouble before for trying to be helpful!

“Dammit, I just wish our murderer would make one mistake!”

“Kathy, don’t hope that mistake is made too soon.”

“Why?”

“Because someone who has already committed murder won’t hesitate to it do again if he or she is in danger—from having made a mistake.”

Kathy shook her head. “We’ve got to know, Mickey. If we don’t find out soon, we won’t find out at all!”

As Kathy spoke, her mother poked her head out the back door. “Jordan just called.”

“For me?” Kathy asked, starting to walk toward the house. “Is Tara going to be all right?”

“She’s going to be fine, and Jordan called for Mickey!” Sally said. “Mick, he wants you to call him back on your cellular phone.” Sally rattled off the number and Mickey thanked her, flipping out his pocket phone and putting through the call. Kathy ambled a few feet away, her arms crossed over her chest, wanting to hear his conversation and yet not wishing to intrude. She stared at the broken tiles. She didn’t wish Tara ill, and was truly sorry the young woman had been hurt, but she was disturbed because Tara had been hurt while wearing a red wig.

Kathy sighed, studying the guest house, wishing it didn’t look so much now like it did back then. She shivered, experiencing a strange sense of déjà vu, suddenly smelling smoke again, seeing flames skyrocketing into the air.

She turned away from the guest house, trying to shake off the feeling that someone was watching her as she walked away from it. Mickey was beckoning to her.

“Yeah, you take care there. Glad Tara’s going to be just fine. I’ll put Kathy on for you now.”

He handed Kathy the phone, grinned, and walked away; heading back toward the guest house himself. Out of hearing range, he stooped by the trampled hibiscus and broken tile.

“Hi, everything okay?” Kathy asked lightly.

“Everything sucks,” Jordan said.

“Tara is going to be all right?”

“They’re still doing tests, but the doctor thinks she’s got a mild concussion, nothing more.”

“I’m sure she’s going to be fine.”

“So am I, but it would be difficult for me to leave here now.”

“Jordan, Tara is hurt. I’m not.”

“She’s in the hospital. Safe. You’re there—”

“With Mickey, my mother, your father, our children—”

“And whoever threw that tile at Tara, thinking she was you.”

“We’ve no proof—”

“Right. The tile must have jumped off rather than fallen to have cleared the bushes so well! I don’t like this. We’ve gotten nowhere at all.”

“Sure we have. We found out you saw Tara dressed up in a red wig last night.” She hesitated. “Why?”

He hesitated in return. “She thinks I like redheads.”

“What?”

She heard his long sigh over the phone. “She dressed up last night and tried to find me. She said she found the wig in the costume storage vault at the back of the studio. But I wasn’t in the guest house; I’d come to your room. I ran after her; but she’d slipped out and walked down to the dock. She came back the long way, which is why you didn’t see her. Mickey noticed her, though, while he was watching the place. He hadn’t been able get me all day because we were rehearsing. He’d just called to tell me when she screamed.”

“So we know who played dress-up,” Kathy said softly.

“Right. We know that, but we’re getting nowhere regarding the murder. Tara wasn’t even here when Keith died.”

“Tara wasn’t out of diapers when Keith died,” Kathy said morosely. But then she added thoughtfully, “Tara wasn’t here, but...”

“But what?”

“I think we still have the answer.”

“To what?” he asked wearily.

“Okay, think back to that night. You were absolutely convinced that you saw me running to Keith. But I wasn’t. I wasn’t anywhere near Keith. I’d been in Bren’s room, pacing around. That’s how I saw you when you ran across the patio.”

He arched a brow. “Go on?”

“Well, the point is, we know that it was Tara who dressed up recently, but we were both right about what happened the night Keith died. I wasn’t out there and you didn’t see me, but you did think you had. For some reason, someone was masquerading as me back then as well. Tara said she found the wig with some of the costume stuff in the studio storeroom, right?”

“Right,” he said softly.

“So someone was else
was
dressing up ten years ago. We need to know who did it the night Keith died—and why.”

“It could be a man or a woman,” Jordan said flatly.

Tara frowned. “A woman, I imagine.”

“Why?” he queried. “I was in the house, at a distance. Hell, I was right on top of Tara tonight before I was certain it wasn’t you.”

“Well, that’s complimentary,” Kathy said dryly. “Better than your thinking I was a man!”

“My point is, I was at a distance. You—or the fake you—was moving fluidly in a white flowing thing, and had long flowing hair. Anyone could have pulled it off. But again, why?”

She shook her head, forgetting that he couldn’t see her over the phone.

“I don’t know,” she said at last.

“Kathy, sleep with Jeremy tonight.”

“What?” She pulled the phone from her ear, staring at it, stunned. What was he telling her? With Tara’s accident, he’d realized how much he cared for his blond bombshell? It was time for them to quit playing back to memory lane?

“I don’t want you alone,” he said.

She bit her lower lip, startled at the rush of tears that filled her eyes.

“I’m a big girl. I don’t need to sleep with anyone.”

“Kathy—”

“Jordan.”

“What?”

“Do you really want me to sleep with him?”

He hesitated. “I want you safe.”

“But do you—”

“No, dammit, I just don’t want you hurt.”

She smiled. “I’ll be all right. I’m going to hang out with Mickey for a while, and when I’m not actually with him, I’ll make sure to be with others. I’ll sleep with my mother. Unless she’s sleeping with your father. Wow, Jordan, do you think the two of them might really be involved with one another?”

“You think they’re too old for sex?” he queried teasingly.

“I’d like to imagine I’m going to want sex in another twenty to thirty years.”

“You’re already past your prime. My mother said so.”

“She did?”

“It’s all right. I defended you.”

“Oh?”

“It was before—Never mind. Anyway, she said I was past my prime as well.”

“It’s kind of what we make it, don’t you think? Anyway, I guess I’d better get back and be a hand to hold. I do feel awful about what happened.”

“So do I. Go take care of Tara. I’ll be safe, I swear it.”

“I’m still not happy—”

“Neither am I. But I’m all right. Good night, Jordan. Don’t worry about anything here, please.”

“Yeah, well—”

“Good night,” she said, smiling and feeling curiously light under the circumstances. She pressed the button on the phone, cutting their connection.

Mickey walked back to her. “I’m your watchdog, you know.”

She smiled. “Want some coffee or tea with the others?”

“Sure.”

Bren, Alex, and Angel apparently preferred their own company to that of the others after the incident, as did Gerrit and Sally, since the five of them were nowhere to be seen. Peggy had made the coffee and tea with Joe at her side helping, and Larry was playing bartender, adding generous servings of various liqueurs to each serving. Kathy chose Tia Maria, intrigued to realize that the rest of the group seemed to believe the tile’s falling had been a bizarre accident.

“He’d better be good to that child! He’ll have a lawsuit on his hands from her,” Larry said dolefully.

“She’s not like that, Mr. Skeptical!” Vicky Sue remonstrated. “She’s a sweet girl, especially for one as beautiful as she is! Don’t you think so, Kathy?”

The question, coming from Vicky Sue, was completely guileless and innocent.

“A sweet, charming child.” Compelled to agree, Kathy wasn’t sure which of the words she spoke were completely truthful, other than “a” and “child.”

“Ummm,” Larry murmured, studying Kathy as he took a generous sip of whatever “coffee” he was drinking. “Interesting that she was wearing that red wig. Wouldn’t you say?”

Kathy shrugged. “It’s not really my place to judge.”

“If not you, who?” Shelley laughed. She lowered her voice. “She was trying to look like you.”

“It’s amazing that she’d try to look like anyone else,” Larry said admiringly.

Vicky Sue kicked him.

“You’re the one who says she’s so sweet!” Larry reminded her with a scowl.

“Yes, well. Never mind,” Vicky Sue told him.

“Jordan still has a thing for you, huh, Kath?” Miles said, smiling benignly. “More so than I imagined.” He turned and smiled at Shelley. “It’s really amazing how the years just don’t change some things.”

“They do change things,” Shelley said somewhat tensely.

“What’s different?”

“Keith has been dead a long time now,” Shelley stated.

“Dead is dead,” Derrick supplied dryly.

Shelley shook her head in the negative, watching Miles. “No. With death, time makes a difference.”

“It ‘healeth all wounds,’ right?” Judy laughed.

“Is that right, ‘healeth’?” Miles asked. “Hey, Kath, you’re the editor, you’re supposed to know.”

“When you want it to be ‘healeth,’ ‘healeth’ is just fine,” she told him. They were in the back, on the glassed-in porch by the French doors overlooking the pool. Shelley was sitting on the floor, leaning slightly back against Miles’s legs. Vicky Sue was perched on a bar stool while Larry was behind the bar itself. Jeremy was perched near Vicky Sue at the bar, gravely chewing a swizzle stick, while Derrick and Judy Flanaghan were seated in the wicker swing seat that backed up to the glass window.

They all seemed so damned relaxed. How could any one of these people have been responsible for the attack on Tara?

And why would any of them have attacked her, unless Kathy was to be the target. Because she was coming close...

But she wasn’t. She was getting nowhere, though she kept asking herself who would have killed Keith and why.

Jordan... because of her, because he and Keith fought constantly.

She herself... because he was ruining her marriage and destroying the group.

Shelley... because Keith played with her and never really loved her.

Miles... because he had loved Shelley and hated the way that Keith played with her.

Larry... ummm. Because he wanted Keith to take the blame for his drugging into eternity.

Derrick... because Keith was a better musician.

Judy... because Keith was a better musician than Derrick.

And Joe and Peggy had been there as well. Maybe they had planned the killing together, to save the band—and their jobs. Oh, God, she was getting ridiculous. She was tired. She rose, glancing down at Mickey. How were they going to manage this?

“You staying the night?” Peggy asked him. “I can put clean sheets in Tara’s room, or the guest house is empty—”

“I’m going to snooze, dressed, on Tara’s bed, right on the comforter, you don’t have to do a thing for me, Peggy. Get yourself a good night’s rest,” Mickey told her.

“Well, I don’t know about the rest of you, but I think I need a snooze,” Kathy said.