Silence of the Lamps (17 page)

“Your nana called me to talk awhile. I so appreciated that. It seems since my grandson was murdered I’m persona non grata in Kismet.”

“What do you mean?” Caprice could guess, but it seemed Rowena needed a listening ear.

“I thought I had friends in this town. I’ve lived here all my life. I raised Drew and Jeanie the best way I knew how. They went through the public school system, and I made friends with other parents even though they were younger than I was. Granted, since I haven’t been able to get out and about as much, I’ve let a lot of friendships slide. When you can’t go and do, people forget you’re around. All except for Kiki. She’s been a true friend. The others—they’re all keeping their distance. It’s as if I have the plague.”

Caprice didn’t know if she could help Rowena, but she could try. “I don’t know if I can find out who killed Drew, but I might be able to find some tidbits of information that could help the police. What I want
you
to know is that the general public does look on murder as if it’s something that’s catching. It’s not fair, but they don’t want to be tainted by it. They don’t want to think that they could bring something like that on themselves. They want to believe they’re different. They’re not, of course. Violence can touch anyone.”

“I just feel . . . so alone now.”

Caprice knew Rowena was missing Drew desperately, and she was hurt by her friends ignoring her and putting her in a “do not touch” category.

“Is there anything I can do to help?”

“Just your visits help. You don’t know how much they mean to me. Your grandmother said she’d visit too. She didn’t want to barge in too soon, but I don’t think there is a too soon with this. I’m never going to get over Drew being taken from me. All I can do is learn to live with it.”

“Has Jeanie been by to visit?”

“She’s at her store all the time, and she tells me she can’t get away. But from what I’ve seen of write-ups about you in the newspaper, and what your nana says, you work a lot too. Yet here you are.”

Yes, here she was. And she wasn’t going to ask any more questions. She was going to keep Rowena company and just let her talk about Drew. She had the feeling that that’s what the woman wanted to do most, and Caprice was going to let her.

* * *

That evening Caprice had just ended a video conferencing call with a client when Roz texted her.

Caprice texted back,
Sure. Anything wrong?

Roz texted back,
We’ll talk.

Hmmm. That didn’t sound good. A problem with Bella working for her? A pothole in the road with Vince?

Caprice was wearing her favorite pair of lounging pants, patterned with kittens, and a bright pink T-shirt that matched part of the design. She briefly thought about changing, but this was Roz. She could be comfortable.

After almost exactly fifteen minutes, her doorbell rang. She checked the monitor next to her computer. Yep, that was Roz standing under her porch light, and she had Dylan with her.

Caprice opened the door and invited them inside. Dylan yipped, danced around the foyer, then met Lady in the dining room and took off for the kitchen.

“I made decaf coffee,” Caprice told her friend. “It’s a new flavor—butternut rum.”

“Do you have a bottle of wine? I think that’s more my speed tonight.”

She and Roz had shared wine before, but it wasn’t usually their beverage of choice. Something was wrong.

“I think I have Tears of Gettysburg that Vince brought me from Adams County Winery.” It was a sweet white wine that went down easy.

“That might be appropriate,” Roz agreed, going into the living room and plopping down on the sofa.

Roz’s golden-blond hair was always perfectly coifed. She usually wore gold earrings or jewels even when she was dressed casually. Casual for Roz was a well-tailored, probably designer top and slacks. Tonight she wore a pale green set with emeralds at her ears.

“Do you want to tell me what’s wrong
before
we have the wine or afterward?” Caprice asked.

“First of all, I want to tell you we have a tennis court date for tomorrow at four-thirty. We’ll be on the court next to Bronson.”

“That’s great. How did you manage it?”

“That wasn’t hard. I just dropped in at the Country Squire pro shop. I asked about court availability. I hinted that I might want to do some business with Bronson, and the manager set me up.”

“It’s good to have friends in high places,” Caprice joked.

“Or at the computer in the pro shop. When Ted was alive—” She stopped abruptly.

“Go on,” Caprice prompted. “You can talk about him, you know. You were married to him.”

“And what a sham that was,” Roz said. “He often had the manager rearrange court times or court schedules to suit him when he wanted to discuss business over a tennis game. I felt it was manipulative, and here I am doing the same thing.”

“Does it make a difference that I’m trying to catch a murderer?”

Roz’s gaze met hers. “Of course, it does. I just . . . I just regret so many things about my marriage to him.”

“Where is this coming from now?”

“Let’s open the wine.”

Caprice brought out two crystal wineglasses. Vince had given them to her as a housewarming present when she’d bought this house. They were blown glass with an etched flower pattern. She suspected he’d gone to Isaac’s shop to find them.

After Caprice sliced cheddar cheese and paired it with one of her favorite crackers, she arranged a plate for the two of them. When she returned to the living room with the dish and the open wine, Roz was staring into space. Something had her spooked.

After Caprice poured the wine, she handed Roz a glass. “Okay, spill it. What’s going on?”

“It’s your brother. It’s Ted. It’s my history with men. I’m confused about all of it, and I’m not sure what I should do or shouldn’t do.”

“That’s one very broad topic. Can we narrow it down?”

Roz drank at least half her glass of wine. “I haven’t always made the best choices when I’ve tried to have relationships in my life. I dated a few men after Mom died . . . before Ted.”

Although Roz was rich now, she’d had few advantages growing up. Her mom had raised her on her own. When Roz was a senior in high school, her mother had been diagnosed with breast cancer. The summer after graduation, out of necessity, Roz had had to put her dream of being a flight attendant on hold and waitress while she’d taken care of her mom. Before her mother died, Joan Hulsey had made Roz promise not to put her dreams on hold again. So after the funeral, Roz had trained for her job, flown everywhere, and then met Ted Winslow. Roz’s traveling and then her marriage to Ted had interfered with their friendship. They’d kept in touch, but weren’t the good friends they’d been in high school. Not until after her husband’s murder. Roz had been accused of killing Ted, and Caprice had stepped in. Now she and Roz were close again, close enough to be honest with each other and tell each other the truth.

“The men you dated before Ted. Were they really serious relationships?”

Roz thought about it. “I didn’t let them get too serious, I guess, because of my traveling. As you found out, it’s hard to have a long-distance relationship.”

“But Ted was different because he promised you the sun and the moon and the stars?” Caprice asked without judgment.

“I guess you could say that. He was rich, powerful, and confident. He swept me off my feet. He wouldn’t take no for an answer. I was blinded by what Ted could give me, by the facade he showed me. He wasn’t who he seemed.”

“You don’t really know a person until you’re with him for a while.” Caprice couldn’t help but think about her own situation with Grant. She thought she knew him. But did she really?

“What are you afraid of most?” Caprice took a few sips of her wine and thought about the answer she would give.

Roz drained her glass, set it on the coffee table, and poured herself another. “I’m afraid of getting hurt again. I’m afraid I’ll hurt Vince. Up until now, we’ve had fun together. We’ve enjoyed each other’s company. We’ve given in to a romance that just happened. If my relationship with him goes south, what happens to my friendship with you . . . with your family? If he and I really don’t belong together, what damage are we going to do to each other?”

“I’ve misplaced my crystal ball,” Caprice said. “You can’t possibly think you’re going to answer these questions, do you?”

Roz sipped more wine, then laid her head back against the sofa cushion. “Here I thought you’d have some answers.”

“Not to those questions. I can tell you no matter what happens between you and Vince, it’s not going to affect our friendship. We’ve been through too much together.” She motioned to the dish of cheese. “Eat something before all that alcohol goes to your head.”

“My head’s already spinning, so it’s not going to make much difference.”

As Roz assembled cheese on a cracker and popped it into her mouth, Caprice asked, “What brought all this on?”

Roz chewed, swallowed, and took another sip of wine.

Lady and Dylan raced into the room, awakening Sophia perched on the top shelf of her cat tree, as well as Mirabelle, who was prettily sleeping on the bottom shelf.

After the dogs ran through the room, around the circular floor plan that Caprice’s animals loved, she suspected they’d detoured into her office where a few of Lady’s toys lay strewn across the floor. Mirabelle hopped down off the cat tree, came over to the sofa, sat at Caprice’s feet, and meowed at her.

“Do you want closer company?” Caprice asked as she waited for Roz to answer her question.

Mirabelle hopped up onto the sofa and padded over onto Caprice’s lap. She settled in and purred.

Roz studied the beautiful Persian for a few moments. “Vince wants me to move in with him.”

“Wow,” Caprice said without stopping herself. “That’s huge for him.”

“And huge for me. Maybe it’s too soon. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what to tell him. I don’t want to hurt him, either by rejecting his offer or by moving in and having it all not work out.”

Hard questions that had to be answered. “Do you think you’re over Ted?”

“How does anyone get over a situation like that? Some days I think I am, and some days I think I’m not.”

“Do you believe on the days you’re not that Vince will support you through it? Or will he just get impatient that you haven’t moved on?”

“He hasn’t been impatient so far.”

“But you think that just might be romance’s rosy glasses, or Vince not showing you his true self.”

Roz took another gulp of wine. “Yes.”

“There’s only one way you’re going to know Vince’s true self, and that’s if you’re around him more. Not just for wine-tasting dates and movie dates and dinners out. But first thing in the morning and last thing at night, when he hasn’t shaved and when he has, when you can’t find something in your closet to wear even though your closet’s full, when you have an argument with him and he leaves and you don’t know what’s going to happen next.”

Roz raised glistening eyes to Caprice. “I want it to work.”

“If you want it to work, then you have to give it a chance. If you shut down now, how will you ever know?”

“You think I should move in with him?”

“I think you need to talk to him about it more, and maybe compromise.”

“How do you compromise on something like that?”

After a few sips of her own wine, Caprice responded. “I don’t know how busy Vince is this time of year, or you either for that matter. But what if instead of moving in with him, the two of you went on a vacation for a week? I’m sure he could use one, and you probably could too. Just be with each other day and night. No, it’s not real life. But you’d be in each other’s company whether you’re in a good mood or a bad mood, whether you’re having fun or whether you’re not.”

Roz set down her glass and turned it in a circle as if she was nervous about all of it. “Do you think he’d go for it?”

“You won’t know until you ask. At least you wouldn’t be saying no. You’d be taking a step forward.”

Roz thought about it some more. “I don’t want to board Dylan.”

“Board? I’ll take him. You don’t have to board him. He’s used to my house, and he’s used to Lady. He’s even getting used to having two cats around. It would be fine for a week.”

Roz rubbed her hand across her temple. “All of this is making my head spin.”

“That’s probably the wine. You’re a one-glass girl like me. You’ve had two. In fact, why don’t you just stay the night?”

After her husband’s murder, Roz had stayed with Caprice for a while. They gotten along great, and right now, Caprice could use the girlfriend company too.

“I don’t want to put you out.”

Caprice brushed her concerns away. “You’re not.”

Lady and Dylan trotted into the living room and sat down beside each other near the coffee table.

“It’s better if I don’t drive,” Roz agreed. “That’s the smart thing to do. And I’ll think about your idea of a vacation. Bella might like the extra hours for a week if she can find a babysitter. It will be a matter of whether Vince can get away.”

“Ask him.”

“I’m seeing him tomorrow evening after you and I have our tennis match. I’ll broach the subject then.”

Caprice knew life could be about compromise, about taking baby steps one at a time. A jump into the ocean wasn’t necessary when you could just jump into the little pond where you were sure you could swim. However, her relationship with Grant was more complicated than Roz’s with Vince. Weren’t their situations different?

Caprice poured herself another glass of wine and thought about her tennis match with Roz next to Bronson’s court. She needed to form a strategy for her approach to him. That was much easier than thinking about Grant and his ex-wife having an intimate dinner together . . . or more.