CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

1

“Did you have nightmares about finding that dead body? Oh, I’m sure you do. Tell me about them!”

I knew it, Catherine thought as she looked down at her eggs Benedict. I knew I couldn’t escape her. The woman had honed in on her as soon as Catherine set foot on the terrace. “I really haven’t had any nightmares,” she said.

“Oh, I don’t believe that!” the little woman proclaimed. “You’re trying to tell me a thing like what happened to you wouldn’t give you nightmares? Why, I’d have nightmares for the rest of my life.”

Which makes me even more happy that I’m not you, Catherine thought. “Maybe I’ve simply trained myself to shut out what frightens me during my sleep.”

“Oh, that’s not possible!” Maud exclaimed. “Fear and repulsion all have to do with the subconscious. I read that. You’re a psychiatrist. You must have read it, too.”

“I’m a psychologist. I don’t have a medical degree.”

“So psychologists don’t believe in the subconscious? Well, that’s a surprise!”

“Hello, Dr. Gray.”

Catherine looked up to see the Blakethorne’s housekeeper, Mrs. Frost. She liked the woman, although during the many times she’d stopped at the house to visit Ian over the years after his accident she and the woman had only spoken briefly and casually. “Mrs. Frost! How nice to see you. I haven’t visited for months.”

The sun shone on the woman’s silver hair. “I know you’ve been busy setting up your new counseling practice. I only wanted to say hello.”

“Well, we must say more than ‘hello’ at another time soon. You know, you’re always welcome at my house.”

“Oh, I don’t leave here often, especially in the evenings, and during the day everyone is busy.”

“Then I’ll come here to visit. I know Ian doesn’t live here anymore, but I can always visit with you and Lawrence.” The woman smiled. “And Patrice, of course.” The smile immediately vanished. “And maybe we can arrange a time for it to be just you and Ian and me. Or maybe some pretty Saturday afternoon we could go antiquing.…”

Catherine had never gone antiquing in her life, but Ian had once told her Mrs. Frost loved to visit antique shops and had even made some purchases over the years, which were kept safe and well preserved in a building at Blakethorne Charter. Occasionally, Ian or Lawrence drove her out to look at them.

“Well, I am glad to see you again. I saw you at the wedding and reception, but there were so many people, I stayed out of the general melee. I wanted to tell you how lovely you looked, though. That green gown fit you perfectly and the jewelry was beautiful.”

“Thank you. The jewelry was my mother’s.”

“Bless her soul.” Miss Frost looked around a bit anxiously. “I’d must be going now. There are a hundred things to do.…”

She took a few steps away before Maud burst out, “What’s her story?”

Catherine noticed Miss Frost’s slight head movement. She’d started to look back, then stopped herself.

“She is the Blakethornes’ housekeeper. She’s been here for many years.”

“You must know her pretty well. You talked about coming here to visit.”

“Yes, I’ve known the Blakethornes slightly since I was young. I became closer as I got older.”

“There you are, Maud.” Luckily, Patrice had come to Catherine’s rescue once again, leaning over Maud. “I thought I might find you with Catherine, but there was another woman here looking for you—I can’t remember her name—short, frosted-brown hair, blue eyes, just a bit taller than you.”

“Oh, her.” Maud looked disdainful. “She’s such a gossip, I usually try to avoid her. Besides, Cathy and I are having a great conversation about the subconscious. She doesn’t think it exists.”

“That’s not what I said,” Catherine replied.

“Another mimosa, ma’am?” a waiter interrupted. Catherine felt like kissing him.

“Well, as a matter of fact, I love mimosas,” Maud informed about ten people eating nearby. “I’d have mimosas every Sunday morning, but my husband Ed says we shouldn’t have champagne on our breath when we go to church. After church, he says it’s too late in the day. I say it’s never too late in the day!” She turned to a slightly wilted-looking Patrice. “Lawrence must feel the same way about champagne, considering how he was carrying on last night. I think he would have whirled that pretty girl with the dark hair right through those windows if they hadn’t bumped into Cathy and Ian first.”

A short, embarrassed silence followed. Patrice’s smile looked as if it had been set in concrete, and the little bit of natural color beneath her blush faded.

“Yes, Maud would like another mimosa,” Catherine said gaily, and loudly to the waiter. “Maybe we should each have another one, Maud.”

“I’m for that! Now where was I? Oh, Lawrence. Patrice, did your groom get drunk on you?” Maud asked coyly. “That couldn’t have made for a great wedding night. But I know you two have been living together for a couple of months, so it probably didn’t matter to you.”

“Lawrence wasn’t drunk. He didn’t feel well,” Patrice said stiffly.

“Okay, honey.” She gave Catherine a conspiratorial wink. “We’ll back up your story, won’t we, Cathy?”

Exactly which level of hell have I reached? Catherine thought, by now too embarrassed to be embarrassed. But she felt bad for Patrice, whose lips looked thinner, her eyes narrower.

Then a woman with brown frosted hair and blue eyes walked by, tripped, and dumped a plate of Italian sausage and creamy scrambled eggs in Maud’s lap. Maud squealed and leaped up, spilling the food mixture onto high heels dyed to match her hot pink suit. Her gaze clashed with the woman’s—obviously the “gossip’s.” Amid an arguing match, the two walked off together, Maud headed inside to clean off the food clinging to her suit.

Patrice sat down beside Catherine. “I’m so sorry about her. She’s just awful, but her husband is a dream and very important to Lawrence’s negotiations with Star Air. No matter how important he is, though, I had to get her away from you.”

“You don’t know how much I appreciate it,” Catherine said. “I just hope Lawrence doesn’t suspect that you arranged the accident.”

“Oh, I’m sure he does, but as long as Maud’s husband isn’t angry, he won’t care. And the two are talking seriously as we speak, and I don’t think it’s about Maud’s embarrassment. I don’t know how a nice guy like Ed puts up with her. I guess he spends a lot of time at the office.”

Catherine laughed. Then she looked to the head of the table where Lawrence sat. Ed Webster had taken Patrice’s vacated chair on Lawrence’s left.

Patrice looked for a moment at Lawrence. “Does he seem all right to you?” she asked softly.

Catherine glanced at Lawrence, talking animatedly with Ed Webster. He seemed steady, strong, and his color was good. “I think he seems fine.”

“Well, I heard about the little incident last night. If I hadn’t already heard about it, I would have from Maud talking to you.”

“I think Lawrence just had a bit too much champagne,” Catherine said carefully. Lately, though, he’d looked pale and strained and she planned on suggesting he get a complete checkup, but she wouldn’t say so with the suddenly quiet people sitting near her and Patrice. “And he’d had two big nights in a row, plus a wedding!” She longed to ask Patrice how Lawrence had seemed when they got home, which she couldn’t ask now or maybe ever. The question seemed too intimate. Perhaps she could put James up to the task. “After all, Lawrence has been a bachelor for a long time, Patrice. He was just excited, in high spirits.”

“Yes. And he overestimates his dancing skills,” Patrice said lightly. “I think he tried a tango move that didn’t work out as planned.”

When Catherine saw the smiles around her, she knew she’d been right about eavesdroppers. “Well, maybe one of the first things you can do together is take ballroom dancing lessons. I’ve always thought they’d be fun.”

Patrice gave her a droll look. “He’s taken them twice. You saw the results. No, I’d rather live at least through the first year of my marriage. No ballroom dancing with Lawrence for me!”

*   *   *

An hour later, as the brunch seemed to Catherine to be mercifully winding down—a few people began wandering over the grounds toward the hedge grouping and others went for that last cup of coffee and Danish—Lawrence stood up at the head of the table.

“Ladies and gentlemen!” he boomed, tapping a spoon against a china cup of coffee. “Ladies and gentlemen, may I please have your attention?”

The people walking over the grounds headed back for the table and the others drew nearer, all looking expectantly at Lawrence. All except Mrs. Frost, who caught Catherine’s eye with what she thought was a bit of worry or even dread, which puzzled her. Lawrence seemed fine, if a bit louder than usual, and Catherine saw no sign of Maud. Maybe she fell in the fishpond in the middle of the hedge fortress, she mused, wondering if anyone would try to save her.

“As you know, Star Air and Blakethorne Charter have been negotiating a merger for several months. Although we have a few things to iron out yet, things are looking very positive for the merger!”

Everyone clapped. Patrice stood beside Lawrence looking slightly wary, and Ed Webster’s smile seemed false, a polite smile with no heart behind it. He’s not glad about this announcement, Catherine thought suddenly. Lawrence has jumped the gun, assuming the merger is a done deal when it isn’t.

“As I don’t have to announce to any of you here, I am now a married man,” Lawrence went on. “People have expected this for a long time, but I wanted to be sure that I was not making…” Oh God, don’t say a mistake, Catherine thought, feeling her breath stop for an instant “… that I could make this wonderful woman beside me happy.”

Catherine was certain she wasn’t the only one whose breath had nearly stopped. Marissa caught her gaze and closed her own azure eyes as if in relief. It seemed that Patrice had gone even a shade paler, although her smile was wide and she drew closer to Lawrence, putting her arm around his waist.

“How about this, honey?” Lawrence blasted to Patrice. “I get you and Star within a matter of hours. Maybe we should show everyone we’re not old fogies. We’ll get you a star tattoo right here!” His right hand swept past Patrice’s pubic area, hovered, then rose to her shoulder. “Oh, sorry, folks. I meant here!”

Weak laughter rippled through the crowd. People glanced at Patrice’s crotch, then quickly looked away, many of them blushing. Patrice drew herself even taller, as if she was daring anyone to think she was embarrassed, humiliated, shocked. But she is, Catherine thought in sympathy. She is.

“I’m not done yet!” Lawrence nearly shouted as some people began to move around again. Or escape, Catherine thought. “I also want to take this opportunity to announce that my son, Ian, is an official member of Blakethorne Charter. He will be my second-in-command—my co-pilot.” Lawrence laughed uproariously. “And for his invaluable service, which has yet to begin, but I’m sure will soon, I would like to present him with a gift. Now, I’ve always been just a simple man with a middling education and a big idea. My son is different, though. He has big ideas, but he’s not a simple man with a middling education. He’s a gentleman, folks, a real gentleman who knows all about gourmet foods, and literature, and especially art. This young fella is an art aficionado. And that’s why when he told me about a painting he loved, I decided to buy it. Ian, although I’ll keep it safe for you in this house, any time you like you’ll be able to look at Nicolai Arcos’s Mardi Gras Lady!”

2

“You’re so lucky you missed all the wedding events,” Catherine said to James as she sat close beside him on the hospital bed. “Are you sure you didn’t arrange to get shot?”

James laughed. “It sounds to me like I missed a fairly good time.”

“Maybe it sounds good when I’m telling you about it. Being in the middle of it was simply bizarre. I won’t be the same for at least a month.”

“Well, you came through it beautifully.”

“I don’t feel beautiful.” Catherine leaned over and carefully hugged James. “I’ve missed you so much. I feel like you’ve been in here for a week.”

“I feel like I’ve been in here for at least two. But tomorrow, I make my breakout.”

“Yes, but you won’t be going back to normal activities. I know you’re a workaholic, James, but you won’t be going into the office for a week.”

“A week! That’s ridiculous.”

“Your father’s orders. And Patrice’s.”

“What am I supposed to do for a whole week?”

“I could bring you to work with me.”

“I thought your sessions with your patients were confidential.”

“They are. You could sit in the lobby and talk to Beth. Oh, did I tell you Beth sang at the wedding?”

“Twice.”

“I didn’t know she had such a beautiful voice.”

“If I come to work with you, she can sing to me all day.” James rubbed his hands up and down her arms. “Honey, I hate to break the happy mood, but something’s been troubling me. I’ve always loved your patience, your optimism. Now I’m worried about what this last week has done to your view of the true world.”

Catherine looked deep into James’s dark brown eyes. “You sound as if this last week represents the true world. It doesn’t. Not entirely. This week has been a nightmare, but we’ve been through a nightmare before, and you were in one before I came back to Aurora Falls. The nightmares weren’t endless, though. You, we, came out of them. And compared to the rest of our lives, those terrible times have been brief—horrifying, but brief. You have to look at life as a whole, James, not just at the dark side. There is a bright side, a radiant side, and naïve as I might sound, I believe there is far more radiance than darkness if you only look for it.”

“Your optimism is still intact,” James said seriously.

“Yes, it is. But I’ve realized we’ve never talked as much about deeply personal things as we should have. Frankly, I think since we started seeing each other, we were both thinking of what happened between you and Renée. I understood why you didn’t want to talk about her. The two of you didn’t just have a bad marriage. You had a disastrous marriage ending with her disappearing and you being suspected of having murdered her. You underwent a police investigation, for God’s sake. Who wouldn’t have been traumatized? But, my darling, that’s over.”

“Is it? Renée was murdered and maybe you’re the only person in town who doesn’t believe I did it.”

“I am not the only person who doesn’t believe you did it! Don’t even say such a thing.”

“Then who did? And what about Arcos, Nordine, the attempt on my life?”

Catherine bent her head, pressing together her lips, and wondering if now was the time to tell him all she knew. After all, he would be out of the hospital tomorrow. Now, he might only lie awake all night and think about what she’d said.

“You’re keeping something from me, Catherine. We’re not going to do that anymore. No more silence because we think what we say might hurt the other. That’s what has been keeping up apart, and I don’t want us to be apart anymore. I want us to be together—mind, body, and soul. So tell me what’s on your mind.”

Had he actually said he wanted them to be together mind, body, and soul? Catherine could hardly believe it. She’d loved him dearly for years, but there had always been a barrier between them, even the last few months when there had really been nothing to keep them apart—nothing except their own silence. If she gave up this chance to truly reach James by withholding information because she thought it might upset him, she might never get another chance to reach him, she thought.

“It happened at the wedding reception,” she began slowly. “I saw a man. He was leaning against a window and had been looking at the falls, but suddenly he turned and looked at me. Then he just stared at me.” James remained silent. “He was about sixty, I’d guess, and very tall and slim. He had heavy black hair with just a sprinkling of silver. But it was his eyes that caught me. They were dark, sunk in hollows with deep lines. At first I didn’t understand why he kept staring at me, even when he knew I was staring back. Then I got a feeling that there was something familiar about him. I was sort of overwhelmed with thoughts of the wedding and the humidity and … and a beautiful bride with dark eyes looking at me almost as if she were laughing at me.” She paused. “James, I think the man was Gaston Moreau.”

After a moment of silence, James asked, “Did you get a good enough look at him to make a fairly certain guess? You’ve only seen Gaston once.”

“Once, yes, and it was a bad day for me. I was so unhappy about your marriage and most of my attention was on Renée, but I remember Gaston as an unusual-looking man. Not handsome, but striking—not the kind of man you forget seeing.”

“Did he act like he wanted to talk to you?”

“No. He didn’t motion for me to come to him or look as if he were going to walk toward me. He just stared with an almost scornful expression. Well, maybe it wasn’t scornful, but it wasn’t friendly or even … nice. I felt more as if he were sizing me up.”

“Sizing you up? For what?”

“I don’t know. That’s what scared me so much that I went tearing off, looking for Eric. James, you’ve been trying to talk to the man for a week to tell him that his daughter has been murdered. His wife always says he’s out of town, she won’t have him bothered; I don’t know what all she’s said. You told me she hates Renée. I can’t guess how Gaston feels about her now, but he has to feel something. You sent him registered mail about the divorce and received acknowledgment of its delivery with his signature, so he had to know the marriage was over. And if he’s here—which I’m certain he is—he has to know she’s dead. Murdered.”

James’s gaze drifted out the window into the early night. The muscles around his eyes and his mouth tightened. He squeezed her hand so tightly, she almost shook it loose, but she knew James needed her right now, maybe more than he ever had. She was determined not to show the slightest sign of weakness.

“Does Eric still have a deputy following you all the time?”

“Yes. Tom right now. He’s very diligent, James. He’s standing outside the door. He’ll follow me home and sit outside the house until Jeff relieves him around three in the morning.”

“Good. I don’t want you to be alone, Catherine, not for a minute.”

“I won’t be.”

“You’ll go straight home after you leave the hospital, you’ll lock all your doors and windows, and you’ll stay inside. Don’t go to work tomorrow.”

“Well, I have to go to work. Dr. Hite won’t be back to Aurora Falls until midweek and there’s no time to cancel my appointments. But I won’t be alone. Beth and Jeff will be there. Besides, I’m only keeping morning hours. I’m picking you up here at noon when you’re released and we’ll be together for the rest of the day.”

“But you won’t come here without surveillance. You promise me.”

“I promise,” Catherine said solemnly. “James, are you afraid of Gaston Moreau?”

“I’m afraid of what he’s capable of. I used to just think he was odd. When I first married Renée, he gave me a bad feeling. And finally, she told me what he’d done to her for years. I never saw him after that, but I know he’s a monster.” He paused, looking intensely into her eyes again. “Catherine, I know in my gut that if Gaston Moreau is in Aurora Falls, it isn’t just to claim the body of his daughter.”