Trimmed With Murder (6 page)

A
nd the silent answer was
Of course she could have
.

The rattle of the deck doors rescued the moment. It saved them from saying what was on all their minds, words they'd regret—a stolen car, Charlie's poor judgment. A missing girl.

Amber stood on the deck, her breath fogging the glass and one gloved hand tapping insistently.

The sigh of relief was audible.

Nell reached the French door first and ushered Amber in out of the cold. They walked together into the steamy kitchen, the chowder now warming on the stove, the oven readying to crisp the French bread.

Amber brushed a strand of hair from her eyes and looked around until she spotted Charlie on the other side of the kitchen. She dangled his keys in her hand. “I didn't want to leave these on the doorstep back there. It's so windy. But your car's in the drive.” She dropped the key chain on the island and looked around at the others. Then looked slightly awkward. “Thanks,” she added.

The relief on Charlie's face was clear, his anger dissolving in an instant as his eyes met hers. He looked down at the keys in her hand.

Amber glanced at the others. “You must think I make a habit of barging in on you—like a bad penny.” Her words came out slowly, with a slight catch to her voice.

At first Nell thought it was because she was truly embarrassed about coming in the way she did. But when she suggested to Amber that she warm up with a glass of wine and walked over to take her jacket, she realized it wasn't embarrassment that was causing the catch in her voice—at least not because she had barged in on them.

Amber had been crying.

Her narrow face was swollen with leftover tears, their tracks still visible on her cheeks. Her eyes were red and puffy. In the bright overhead lights of the kitchen, she looked sad—and as vulnerable as a small child.

“May I use the restroom?” she asked Nell, allowing her hostess to take control, first by helping Amber with her jacket, then by leading her out of the limelight and down the shadowed hallway to the bathroom at its end.

Ben looked over at Charlie, but Sam had already recruited him into refilling martini glasses and Charlie seemed relieved to have a job. They were laughing together, an unspoken relief coloring their mood.

It was a muted celebration for the safe return of Charlie's car. But they could tell that to Charlie it was something more.

By the time Amber and Nell returned, the music had been turned up a notch, an old Beatles medley filling up the room. In the background, a lively fire crackled as if keeping time with “Hey Jude.”

Amber drifted over to Charlie's side, her slender frame smaller in the shadow of Charlie's broad shoulders. She had washed her face and was more composed, though her mind was clearly elsewhere. She looked over at Ben.

“Esther told me you were going to be at the meeting today. I'm sorry I missed it. I didn't intend to mess anything up. I . . .” She stopped, as if her explanation wouldn't matter, then said softly, “I hope it went okay.”

“We canceled it. It's been rescheduled,” Ben said.

Amber looked surprised. “Why?” She accepted a glass of wine from Sam and sipped it, color slowly returning to her face.

“Lydia Cummings attached a stipulation to the will that all those mentioned in it be present when it's read. That's one of the reasons the lawyer—Rachel Wooten—was so anxious to find you.” His voice was level and kind, nonjudgmental. “Usually wills can be handled by mail, but not this time. Anyway, no problem, we've rescheduled the reading for tomorrow morning, same place. I'd be happy to give you a ride.”

“They need you there to finalize it,” Charlie said.

Amber stared hard at him, the vulnerability that she'd shown when she walked in earlier fading. “I get that now. Maybe we both have a knack for inconveniencing people, Charlie boy,” she said softly.

Amber reached over and picked up the bottle of wine, refilling her own glass. She looked at Ben. “I'm sorry.”

Ben smiled. “It's okay. No one had to travel far.”

Charlie took a sip of his martini. “How about I give you a ride in the morning?”

“You want to make sure I get there?”

“Maybe.”

Amber's voice lost its edge. “It's okay, Charlie. I'll be there, I promise. Maybe we can get together after. I may need a hand to hold.”

“Sure,” he said. “And Uncle Ben will make sure they don't beat you up.”

Amber laughed and asked Ben who else she should expect to be in the firing line.

He named off the list, including Garrett O'Neal. “He's their financial guy, and is included in most family meetings. Stu will bring his wife, Helen, and he'll probably bring along a couple of his own lawyers.”

“Of course,” Amber said, more to herself than the others.

“I'm curious about one thing, Amber,” Nell said. She lined up napkins and silverware on the island. When Amber didn't answer, she went on. “You came all this way because Esther told you there'd be a will and some papers to sign. But you didn't go to the meeting . . .”

Amber was quiet, thinking. Finally she took a deep breath, then said, “I came back for other reasons, too. More personal. I had to come back. At least once. So I didn't come because of the will, not really.”

“Aren't you curious about it?” Izzy asked.

“Not in the slightest.” Amber drained the glass of wine and set it down on the island with more force than she intended.

“But Lydia provided for you while you were growing up. She must have cared about you.”
Provided for. Must have
 . . .

The words sounded hollow, even to Nell as she listened to Izzy.

“She provided for me, yes, because she felt she had to. But inheritances are for family. I was never family, not really. I don't expect anything from the Cummingses.”

Nell automatically opened her mouth to assure Amber that that wasn't true; surely Lydia considered her grandchild family. But she shut her mouth quickly. She had no idea what Lydia had thought.

“Lydia Cummings cared for me because her religion told her to. Esther Gibson liked me, not Lydia. But anyway, religion doesn't dictate wills or control feelings. Lydia's feelings for me would have prevented her from giving me anything.”

“Why do you say that?” Charlie asked. He sat on a bench right next to her, leaning in until their shoulders touched.

“Because it's true.” Amber touched her fingers to her cheek and rubbed it lightly in a nervous way. “I don't remember clearly what my early years were like. But as I got older and began to look exactly like my mother, Lydia Cummings could barely look at me; she had trouble meeting my eyes. Ever.”

The quiet that followed could only be broken by remarks that were without substance. Shallow assurances that she was wrong. But none of them knew that to be true and Amber was a no-nonsense person. So the quiet remained, until Amber herself broke it.

“It all made logical sense, you see. If not for me and my mother, she'd still have her son. We killed him.”

I
t was Charlie who suggested the hike the next morning. Dr. Virgilio wouldn't be at the clinic Monday. She was busy in her own obstetrics practice and suggested he take another day to get acclimated to the town.

A hike sounded like a perfect place to do it and he'd talked to both Izzy and Nell, suggesting all three of them get some fresh air together.
A family hike,
he said.

Nell resisted. He and Izzy should go alone, have time to talk. Time to clean out the cobwebs, to reconnect without others around. She didn't spell it out quite like that, of course. Instead she explained that it was a busy day. But Izzy loved to hike and sometimes could get away on Mondays . . .

But a subsequent phone call from Izzy rattling off a dozen reasons why it would be much, much better if Nell came along, too—
don't forget you're his favorite aunt, after all!
—wore her down. At least Charlie and Izzy were getting together without an entire bevy of friends and relatives around. And Nell certainly walked more slowly than Izzy. Being the lingerer on a Ravenswood trail was perfectly acceptable.

She and Charlie drove to Harbor Road to pick Izzy up at the yarn shop. Her day off never meant she didn't check in, although her manager, Mae, protested and practically pushed her out the door. Mae waved to Nell and Charlie, whose car was idling at the curb, and suggested they keep Izzy out for hours. She was sorely in need of exercise, according to Mae. Izzy walked to the car with Red trailing close behind. “He needs exercise, too,” she explained as the golden retriever leapt into the backseat. “I couldn't say no to him.”

Nell had suggested they hike Ravenswood Park. It would add a bit of distance from Sea Harbor—a slight nod to privacy. And the glacial moraine was one of her very favorite places on all of Cape Ann. Each season held its own special magic, and winter was no exception. The oaks and maples and swamp magnolias were eerily beautiful and it took little more than a light snowfall to turn the glacial erratics into giant snowballs.

The drive out of Sea Harbor to Gloucester was quiet, but revealed one good piece of news.

“Amber is at the meeting with the Cummingses' lawyer,” Charlie said. “I took her there myself.”

“That's a good thing,” Nell said.

He'd also taken Amber home the night before, and although both Izzy and Nell had watched Charlie and Amber's interactions with interest, it was difficult to figure out what, if anything, was going on between them. Amber's moods seemed more erratic than Cape Ann weather, and Charlie went back and forth from displaying a tender side toward this woman, who had seemingly inserted herself into his life, to pulling away in irritation. Or maybe frustration. Nell realized she hadn't been around Charlie enough to be able to interpret his moods. As a youngster he'd been pleasant and amiable. A teddy bear, as his mother had sometimes described him, and Nell agreed.

When his father's trait of quick eruptive anger appeared in his youngest son, it was tamped down so quickly it made those around him laugh. And it was seen as a good thing; it made Charlie more competitive, maybe a little better at playing sports.

How Amber figured in this man's life after so few hours of their knowing each other was curious.

They drove toward Ravenswood Park, traffic almost nonexistent in the quiet, wooded neighborhood. In the backseat Izzy played with Red's coat, then leaned forward and said, “Was Amber in better shape this morning?” Her eyes were on Red, his head resting on her knees. She clenched her jaw, unhappy with her choice of words. “I mean, is she okay? She seemed to have a lot on her mind last night.”

Charlie shrugged. “I guess she's okay. We talked for a while after we left Aunt Nell's. Maybe it was Ben's martinis, but she needed to unload on someone. I was handy, I guess. We drove around for a while, along the shore, over to Gloucester, all the way up to Manchester-by-the-Sea. There was a small bar up there still open, so we sat and drank coffee. Talked some more. I found out some surprising things about her. She put herself through business school down in Florida while waiting tables. She had just finished when Esther contacted her about the will. She's got a head for math. Honors student, top of her class, the whole shebang. Who would have thought that from looking at her?”

“Looking at her?” Izzy said. Red's ears perked up at the tone in Izzy's voice. “That's a sexist thing to say, don't you think?” she said.

Charlie kept his eyes on the road but lifted one hand in the air to put a stop to his sister's chide. “Hey, Iz, I didn't mean anything by it, nada. Okay? Maybe I shouldn't stereotype. But you have to admit she looks more like a starving artist than an accountant or economist.”

“Maybe.” Izzy paused for a moment, then said softly, her words barely audible in the front seat, “But you don't look much like a nurse, either.”

Why did you become a nurse, Charlie?
The unspoken question hung there in silence.

Red flopped his furry tail against the door and Nell shifted in her seat. Her thoughts slid back to the dozens of Kansas visits she'd made when Jack, Izzy, and Charlie were growing up. Being a part of her sister's family was an adventure and one she cherished. They had had a good childhood, the kind Nell would have wanted for her own children, and she never forgot for a moment the gift her sister had given her in making her an integral part of her family.

But as she listened now to Izzy and Charlie, what she heard in their voices wasn't the teenage teasing or bickering she'd so often witnessed in the Chamberses' kitchen. It wasn't something that would be easily forgotten after a game of touch football in the backyard or galloping through the ranch woods on their favorite horses.

It was something else—something still held hostage in those years that had been pushed into the shadows. Undefined years, a void in the middle of a family's life. The unknown—a mighty, sometimes destructive, force.

The Chambers children were all so different, their parents' genes mixing and matching in that mysterious way that created fascinating children.

Charlie was the athlete. How many football games had Nell flown back to Kansas to watch? A handsome high school linebacker and the same in the small college he attended. She remembered the night he told his parents that his dream was to play football professionally.

But somewhere along the path, Charlie had unexpectedly dropped out of his dreams and landed in a different world, one in which he traveled around like a wanderer in a desert. A careless and aimless life, or so it seemed to those who loved him and never knew exactly where he was.

And then, one day, they'd learned that Charlie had gone to nursing school. And no one knew why.

•   •   •

The parking lot was nearly deserted on the cold Monday morning, and Charlie found a place easily, grabbing his backpack and water bottles from the trunk and heading toward the trailhead. “Hey, this is great. Who'd have thought there'd be something like this around here?”

“‘Around here' is a pretty great place, Charlie,” Izzy said. She looped a wool scarf around her neck and pulled a hat down around her ears. “Come on. You'll see.”

Nell smiled at the lack of sarcasm in Izzy's voice. Ravenswood Park wouldn't allow it—and neither would she.

She opened the door and released a barely contained Red, who bounded over to Charlie's side.

They hiked up the path, with Red, Izzy, and Charlie in the lead and heading north on Ledge Hill Trail. The crisp air and crunch of the snow beneath her boots filled Nell's senses and she happily held back, letting her nephew and niece gain some distance and allowing her to savor the scenery in private. Although some of the park's features, like kettle ponds and vernal pools, disappeared beneath the snow, stands of eastern hemlock and birch, sweetbay magnolia and beech trees were majestic in their winter coats.

When she didn't see Izzy's bright yellow jacket ahead, she quickened her pace and finally spotted them again. “Sorry for being a poke,” she huffed, coming up alongside them.

From the lookout, Izzy was looking down toward the steep white banks of the harbor, the fishing boats making their way in and out of slips. It was as if the views and the water and the exertion of hiking up a trail were a magical leveling force—the mystery of nature somehow putting things into perspective.

“I'm glad you're happy here, Iz,” Charlie said, looking out to sea. His eyes searched for the horizon, but the sky and the water merged seamlessly at some distant point. Only an occasional whitecap added definition to the water. “Sam seems happy, too. Who'd have thought you two would end up together?”

“Serendipity, I guess,” Izzy said. “Once I got to know him away from my bratty brothers, I realized he wasn't all that bad.”

Charlie laughed. “Amber says Sam reminds her of a guy who used to take care of her mother. Same smile.”

“She talked about her mother?” Nell asked. “It sounds like you have had good talks. That's good.”

“She's unique, that's for sure. Sometimes it's hard to know what's true and what she says to get a rise out of you, especially after she smoked some pot she got ahold of somewhere. She's complicated. And young. But in some ways she seems old, jaded. I get that, though. Life can do that to you. Maybe that's why we gravitated toward one another.” He paused and looked up at the clear sky, his eyes tracing a long weaving contrail as a plane flew over. Then he looked down, focusing on his hands, as if trying to figure Amber Harper out while he talked.

“She's moody as hell. Hot and cold. She comes on to me like we've known each other in another life, all affectionate, and then in the next instant she's making fun, a harsh teasing that isn't really funny and it roils me. You know?”

“Like you and Jack used to do to me?” Izzy asked, her eyebrows lifting into her bangs.

Her teasing brought a grin to Charlie's face. “Nah. That was our way of saving face since you usually got the best of us.”

“Always,” Izzy corrected. “Always got the best of you.”

“So Amber isn't even-tempered, you're saying,” Nell said, pulling them back.

“Nope. Not so you'd notice. But, hey, I've known her for what, three days?”

“Is she still planning on leaving as soon as the estate is taken care of?”

“Far as I know. She never liked this place. And it never liked her, she said. She wants to leave, but then she asks me out. Can you believe it? Like we need to get to know each other better. She wants to be with me. She needs a friend, she said. We're meeting for coffee after the meeting with Uncle Ben and the lawyer today. See what I mean? She's unpredictable. Why does she need to get to know me better?”

Charlie's words were barely strung together when a louder, more distinctive sound filled the crystal air.

A coyote's howl.

Charlie grimaced. “Oh, jeez. No worry. It's my cell.” He dug into his parka pocket.

“Are you crazy?” Izzy said.

“When someone steals your phone it can come back to you with strange sounds on it. This was Amber's way of identifying her texts to me. She said it's the howl of a coyote seeking a mate. Weird woman.” Charlie pulled out his phone. “I guess she's telling me it's time for coffee. Maybe she wants to tell me what kind of toothbrush her grandmother left her in her will.”

Charlie looked at the screen, and then read the text out loud. “Hey, Charlie boy. Put the coffee on hold. I have promises to keep and miles to go before I sleep. B4N.”