Season of Secrets (6 page)

Court slowed his pace and let them catch up with him as they approached the immense Christmas tree at the center of the square. “Have they always done this, Dad?”

“I don't know about always, but I remember going to a tree-lighting when I was a kid. I'm not sure it was in this park, though.”

“There are tree-lightings all over the area.” Dinah smiled at Court, some of the tiredness easing from her face. “And it's not just to draw tourists, really. Folks like to celebrate, and we're proud of our city, aren't we, Marc?”

He nodded, because to do anything else would provoke an argument. I'm not part of the city any longer, Dinah. You must realize that. People don't want me here, and I don't belong anymore.

That shouldn't give him such a lonely feeling, but it did.

“There's Phillips.” Dinah raised her hand to wave
across the crowd. “He's working one of the charity stands tonight. We should go over and say hello.”

He slid his hand into the crook of her arm, anchoring her to the spot. “Later. Looks as if the program is about to start.” And he didn't need his son exposed to any more snubs.

He watched Court's face as the tree-lighting ceremony progressed. They'd been to plenty of tree-lighting events over the years, so why did this one impress him so much?

Court stared, rapt with attention, as the Magnolia Singers performed folk carols, and clapped along with the Charleston Community Band. And when the mayor flipped the switch and the sixty-foot tree lit with lights, Court's eyes were as big as they'd been at four or five.

He suspected he knew the answer. This was Court's heritage, just as it had been Annabel's and his. That was what made the difference. In keeping Court away from the possibility of pain, he'd also kept him away from his roots.

When they'd sung the last carol, Court turned to him. “Wow, that was great. How about some hot chocolate? Watching made me thirsty.”

Dinah laughed. “I can see how it would.” She linked her arm with his. “There's a stand across the way—let's go.”

So apparently he was going to see Phil tonight whether he wanted to or not. Dinah didn't even question that—of course they'd go to the stand where Phillips was working. He'd opened this up when he'd
insisted on going to the Alpha Club tree sale, so they both knew Phillips was still a friend, in spite of his wife's attitude.

When he saw them approaching, Phil's face broke into the singularly sweet smile he remembered from when they were boys together.

“Hey, it's good to see you.” He swung around to fill foam cups with coffee from an urn. “Let me just take care of these customers, and then we can visit.”

The moment that took gave him a chance to study his old friend for the second time. In the glare of the unshaded lightbulb that hung from the top of the booth, Phil's face had lines that aged him, and his hair was more gray than fair.

Still, he, Marc, probably looked older, too. Bitterness had a way of showing on the face.

Otherwise, with his lean, ascetic face and thick glasses, Phil looked like what he was—a historian more comfortable in Charleston's past than the present.

“There now.” No one waited for service but them. “What can I get you? It's all for charity, remember, so don't be stingy.”

“Hot chocolate all around,” he said. Margo was nowhere in sight, and Phil obviously felt free to be friendly without her intimidating presence.

Phillips poured the chocolate and handed the cups across the counter. Dinah wrapped her fingers around the cup as if seeking its warmth.

“I'm glad I had a chance to see you again.” Phil's eyes fixed anxiously on his face. “I wanted to say
I'm—I'm sorry about what happened the other night. Margo gets these ideas in her head, and nothing can get them out.”

She thinks I'm a murderer. Nothing to be gained by repeating the obvious. “It's not your responsibility, Phil. I just hope Margo doesn't speak for you.”

“No, of course not.” Phil flushed slightly. “I know you didn't hurt Annabel. The very idea is ridiculous.”

“James doesn't think so.” That still stung. He and James and Phil had been like brothers when they were cadets at the Citadel. He'd thought then that nothing could ever come between them. They were going to save their beautiful city together—Phil as historian, James as politician, he as crusading prosecutor.

“I know.” Phil's gaze dropped, as if he didn't want to admit how deep the breach went. “James has changed since, well, since you left Charleston. I thought once we'd be friends for life, but now we don't seem to have a thing in common. I wish life didn't—”

Before he could finish the thought, a bevy of teenage girls came giggling and nudging each other to the counter.

“Sorry, I'll have to take this.” Phil checked his watch. “My helper should be here by now. He's late.”

“Would you like me to help, sir?” Court set his cup down on the counter. “Just till he gets here?” Court glanced at him. “It's okay, isn't it, Dad?”

He suspected the presence of several cute girls had something to do with his son's sudden altruism. “Dinah may want to get home.”

“I'd like to stay,” she said quickly. “Let's find a
bench and watch Charleston go by until Court's ready. Court, we'll be right nearby, so come and find us.”

He nodded, and while Court hurried into the booth, he and Dinah walked down the path to the nearest bench.

It was surprisingly private, screened by azalea bushes, even though it was just a few feet away from the booths. Dinah sat down with a little sigh and sipped at the chocolate.

“You look wiped out,” he said bluntly. “Don't tell me to mind my own business, Dinah. Is our being here upsetting you that much?”

She looked at him, eyes wide and startled. “It's not you and Court. It's the case.” She shrugged, lips curving in a rueful smile. “Was I rude earlier? I'm sorry. Aunt Kate fusses over me so, and Alice—you remember Alice Jones, her housekeeper?”

“Round, comfortable, the best pies I ever ate. She's still there?”

She nodded. “A little rounder, probably. She keeps offering me chamomile tea. Says it's good for the nerves.”

He propped his arm along the back of the bench, leaning toward her. “Okay. I promise not to offer you any chamomile tea. Can you tell me about the case, or is that a breach of protocol?”

“Probably, but there's not much to tell. She broke the interview off today before we could get what we need.” Dinah seemed to be looking back, probably weighing whether she'd handled the girl right. “I guess I'm disappointed not to come away with a lead.”

“It's more than that, isn't it?” He touched her shoul
der lightly. “You identify with this girl. Her experience is too similar to yours.”

Dinah stared out across the park, as if mesmerized by the thousands of twinkling white lights draped from the trees. “I feel empathy for her, I suppose. But there's one big difference. We're sure she must have seen something, if she can just let herself remember it. I didn't see anything.”

He knew better than to question that. It was what Dinah believed, and arguing wouldn't change that.

“Still, a case like this, with a young girl, must be especially painful.”

She nodded, still not looking at him. Talk to me, Dinah. Please, talk to me.

She tilted her head back, dark hair flowing across the collar of her cream wool jacket. “I guess that's part of it. Her mother doesn't know what to do to help her, any more than Aunt Kate knew.”

“Your aunt sent you away.”

“To her cousins in New Orleans. Bless their hearts, they didn't know what to do with me, either.” She smiled faintly at the memory.

“Still, you got through it somehow.” She should have had more help. Professional help. He should have insisted, though he'd had no right or say.

“Going to art school was the best thing that could have happened to me. In a way, I painted out all my grief and anger. I think I started to find my way once I'd done that.”

Have you found your way, Dinah? Or are you still hurting?

He didn't dare to ask the question, but he probably already knew the answer. She was hurting, and his presence made that pain worse. He couldn't even comfort himself with the idea that it would be best for her to face the past, because that wasn't his motive. He was using her, and that was an ugly thing to find in himself.

“Dinah—” He wasn't sure how to put his feelings into words. “Court and I can't leave here with so many questions unanswered. But maybe you should back away.” He shook his head. “That wasn't what I wanted to say to you, but you're forcing me to be honest. And maybe what's honestly best for you is to stay away from us.”

She turned toward him, her cheek brushing his fingers with a touch soft as a snowflake. She gave him a grave, sweet look. “A few days ago I might have agreed. But now—it's too late for that, Marc. I'm in this thing with you and Court. All the way.”

His throat tightened. “Thanks, sugar.” The Southern endearment came to his lips without thought. “I'm glad you're on our side.”

He'd gotten what he wanted. He should be happy. But all he could think was that now he was responsible for Dinah, too. If this situation hurt her, which it very well might, then he was to blame.

D
inah perched on a stool at the kitchen counter, watching as Glory rolled out crust for chicken pot pie. She might have been a teenager again, escaping to the kitchen for a quick chat with Glory.

Escaping? She took a closer look at the word her subconscious mind had chosen. She'd loved staying in the house with Annabel and Marc that summer, helping to care for Court. Why on earth would she have wanted to escape that?

She hadn't. That was all. Her mind had made a silly misstep. She picked up a scrap of dough and rolled it idly through her fingers.

“So.” Glory's black eyes were bright with curiosity. “What you think about Mr. Marcus coming back here like this?”

The soft Gullah cadences of Glory's speech were soothing, even though the question wasn't.

She hesitated. She could trust Glory, but what did she really think about Marc's return, underneath her concern for Aunt Kate and Court and Marc himself?

“I think he had to do it,” she said finally. “He had to put things to rest here. I just wish I knew what other things his coming will stir up.” James Harwood's animosity flickered through her mind. That had to hurt Marc, as close as they'd been.

“Always a danger of that.” Glory's strong brown arms wielded the rolling pin like a weapon. “Folks don't like prodding into the past for a lot of reasons—some good, some not so good.”

Dinah had twisted the fragment of dough into a tortured shape. She tossed it into the waste can and dusted her hands. “That's what I'm afraid of, I guess. That he'll stir up something he can't control.”

Glory's lips twitched. “Don't know as anybody gonna stop him, though.”

“Certainly not me.”

Although she probably had as much influence over Marc now as anyone did. Odd. At first, he'd tried to treat her as if she were still that sixteen-year-old, but the more they were together, the more that wore away. Now they talked like friends, for the most part. Except when she tried to get in the way of what he wanted.

No, no one would stop Marc.

The kitchen door swung, and he came in. Glory sent him a smiling glance. “Ain't no use you coming in here now, looking hungry. Supper won't be ready for an hour, and I cook faster without a lot of people cluttering up my kitchen.”

“Dinah's here.” He smiled at her and leaned against the counter next to her. “Doesn't she bother you?”

“Dinah knows how to make herself useful.” She slid a baking tin toward Dinah. “You go on and make some cinnamon crisps out of that leftover dough. Maybe that'll keep these boys from starving till supper's ready.”

Marc's lips twitched at being referred to as one of the boys, as if he were no older than Court.

“What's the matter? Doesn't your housekeeper in Boston order you around?” She obediently began rolling out the dough scraps, trying to get the dough as thin as Glory did.

“We don't have a housekeeper now. Just a cleaning service that comes when we're both out and does its work invisibly.”

“Sounds a little impersonal.”

“I'm sure that's how they prefer it.” He seemed to be watching Glory slide the pot pie into the oven, but his expression indicated that his thoughts were elsewhere. “You didn't make pot pie that last summer we were here, did you?”

Glory closed the oven door and wiped her hands on her apron. “Pot pie's not a summertime dish, to my way of thinking. Heats up the kitchen too much. You want things that cook faster in the summer.”

Clearly Marcus wanted Glory to talk about that summer. So Dinah would steer the conversation in that direction, even though her instincts were to do anything but that. “Or cold dishes. You still make the best potato salad on the Peninsula?”

Glory grinned. “Child, I make the best potato salad on both sides of the Ashley and the Cooper,” she said,
naming the two rivers that bound old Charleston into itself. “Maybe even in Charleston, Berkeley and Dorchester counties all put together.”

“I remember that potato salad,” Marc said. “Sometimes we had Sunday lunch out on the veranda—potato salad and cucumber sandwiches and crab salad.”

“Stop, you're making my mouth water. And Glory won't make us potato salad. It's not summer.”

It wasn't any summer, but especially not that summer, ten years ago, when they'd lunched on the veranda, laughing at Court's attempts to catch one of the butterflies that hovered over the buddleia bush. There hadn't been any shadows of impending tragedy over those lunches, had there?

Glory straightened, hands on her hips. “No sense you talking about potato salad, Mr. Marc. You want to ask me something, just come right out and ask it. You know I'd do anything at all I could for you.”

That was a vote of confidence, and she hoped Marc appreciated it. Glory believed in him.

“Thank you.” His voice softened a little. “It's not any one question I want to ask you. It's that I hope you'll think about what it was like here that summer. Think about any little things that happened that didn't feel quite right, even if they don't seem to have to do with my wife's death. We don't know what might be important.”

Glory nodded, her eyes shadowed. “Reckon I've spent plenty of time on my knees about it. There's nothing that pops into my head, but I'll think on it some more.”

“What about Jasper Carr? Do you remember anything about him?”

Dinah had put Carr into his mind with her simple comment about Annabel not liking the man. She hadn't meant anything by the words—they'd just popped out, and Marc had seized on them.

His single-mindedness chilled her. If Marc did find evidence that implicated someone in Annabel's death, what would he do? Turn it over to the police, or try to take matters into his own hands? She hadn't thought that far, and she should, before she said anything else that might make him suspect someone.

Glory was shaking her head slowly. “Can't think of anything, except that time I found him in the kitchen. But you already know about that.”

“Found him in the kitchen?” His voice was sharp, his prosecutor's voice. “What are you talking about?”

“Why, that one evening I came back for my purse. I'd gone off without it. Everyone was out, and there Carr was right here in the kitchen.”

“Doing what?” Marc leaned forward, intent.

She shrugged. “Nothing that I could see. He said the back door was open and he just come in for a drink of water, but I didn't buy that. I spoke to him pretty sharp and sent him off with a flea in his ear, I can tell you that.”

“Why did you say I knew about it? I didn't.”

“I told Miz Annabel the next day.” Distress caught at her voice. “Had to do something, didn't I? She said she'd talk to you about it. Said you'd have to give him his notice. Didn't she tell you?”

“No. No, she didn't tell me.” He swung toward her. “Did Annabel tell you about it?”

“I don't think so. Not that I remember, anyway.”

Impossible to tell what he was thinking, but something implacable hardened his features, turning him into a stranger.

He zeroed in on Glory again. “When was this? Do you remember?”

“I couldn't forget it.” Her voice went low and mournful. “It was just a few days before Miz Annabel died.”

 

“Court, if you eat any more of that raw cookie dough, your stomach is going to explode.” Dinah tried to sound severe, but judging by the grin on Court's face, he wasn't intimidated.

“That's an old wives' tale, isn't it?” He put another dollop of sugar-cookie dough in this mouth and spoke indistinctly around it. “There's nothing in them before they're baked that's not there afterward.”

He perched on the edge of the solid oak table in the kitchen, no doubt getting flour all over his jeans. Well, that didn't matter. Jeans could be washed, and at least the Christmas cookie baking could keep both of them from brooding about where Marc had gone.

“Maybe not, but that's what Aunt Kate always told me. And since she's the one who taught me to make sugar cookies, the advice comes with the cookies.”

“Not your mom?”

So few people ever mentioned her parents anymore
that Court's innocent question raised an unexpected pang of grief. Everyone else knew what had happened to them, so she never had to explain.

She forced a smile. “My mother wasn't much of a cook. She was more into outdoor things like riding and sailing.” Always alive, so alive, with her dark hair blowing in the wind and her eyes sparkling.

“She and your dad both died, didn't they?” Court's mobile face went somber.

Not the happiest of conversations to distract him, but she couldn't tell him anything but the truth. “I was nine, the year Hurricane Hugo hit Charleston. We had a cottage out on Isle of Palms then. My parents were trying to save it.”

Foolish, so foolish. None of those houses had been saved from the fury of that storm. They'd risked their lives for a thing of nails and boards, leaving their daughter alone.

“Where were you?”

“They'd brought me in to stay with Aunt Kate.” The image of her mother's face was clearer than her own, reflected in the dark glass of the microwave on the countertop. She'd gone out the door laughing and waving.

We'll be back soon, Dinah, and we'll tell you all about it. Be a good girl.

But they hadn't come back. Others had come to tell the story of the cottage collapsing. But she had done her best to be a good girl, hadn't she?

She shook her head. She'd intended to keep his mind off his father, not plunge him into another sad tale.
“Okay, let's get back to these cookies. How are you at decorating?”

“Don't know. I never tried. What do I do?” Court bounced off the table, the tea towel he'd tied around his waist flapping.

“You can be as creative as you want with these.” She plunged a small spatula into a bowl of icing and coated the surface of a Christmas-tree-shaped cookie. “There's icing in tubes and sprinkles in different colors, too. Have a ball with it. Just remember people might actually want to eat them.”

“Gotcha.” He wielded a spatula enthusiastically. “Dad doesn't have much of a sweet tooth, but I'll bet he'll eat a couple when he gets home.” Court glanced at the clock. “You think he's going to be much longer?”

“I don't know.”

She hoped not. Of course it was inevitable that he'd go looking for Jasper Carr, after what Glory had revealed the day before. And it was probably equally inevitable that he'd brush off her suggestions to discuss it with the police or turn it over to the private investigator he'd talked of hiring.

She couldn't protect Marc from himself, and she didn't seem to be doing a very good job of protecting Court from worrying about him.

“I'm sure he's fine. He said he'd be back for supper, didn't he?”

Court nodded, apparently intent on the cookie he was decorating. “He should have let me go with him. I'm not a little kid.”

What could she possibly say to that? Fortunately she didn't have to reply, as the front doorbell began to peal.

“I'll get it.” She pulled off the oversize apron that belonged to Glory.

“It can't be Dad. He has his keys with him.”

She pushed through the swinging door into the hallway. Funny, that was probably the first time she'd heard the doorbell since Marc had come back. Charleston hadn't been beating down his door coming to call.

The frosted glass panel on the front door distorted the figure beyond. She swung the door open, her eyebrows lifting in a polite question when she saw that the man was a stranger. “May I help you?”

“Devlin. Mr. Devlin. I want to see him.” He clipped the words off, and one hand beat a tattoo against his leg.

She didn't know him. Did she? Tall, painfully thin, with sunken cheeks and sparse gray hair. Nothing rang a bell, but still something about him seemed faintly familiar, like an old photograph she couldn't quite recognize.

“I'm sorry, but he's not here right now. May I give him a message for you?”

“No. No message. I'll wait.” He took a sudden step toward her, and it was all she could do not to retreat.

“I'm sorry. You'll have to come again another time.” She swung the door toward him, feeling her pulse quicken. This wasn't right. The intensity that came flooding from the man wasn't normal.

He swung one arm up, blocking the door and sending shock waves through her. “I have to see him.” He shoved. Her feet slid on the polished floor as her pulse
notched upward. He was going to come in. She couldn't stop him—

“No!”

Court's voice was so like Marc's that for an instant she thought he was there. Then his strong young hands grabbed the door and shoved. The door slammed shut. She snatched the dead bolt and twisted it. Safe. They were safe.