Bet wandered through the empty rooms of her house and thought about history. Rob and all the Colliers, Eric and the rest of the Chandlers, the Riverses. Generations entwined in the story she’d started to unravel. Eric had said they used to all be friends. And then there was her mother. Bet’s mind balked at the idea of her mother sexually involved with another man.
Had all the adults in her life been adulterous? Her mother and Robert Senior? Lillian Collier and Michael Chandler? She couldn’t remember anything to lead her to believe her parents had been close to Robert Collier. Had her mother’s infidelity gone on longer than even Eric knew about? Was that why Lillian turned to Michael?
Though Lillian’s body in the lake could point to something else. Had Michael killed her because she planned to go back to Robert Collier? Or had Robert Collier killed her because she stayed with Michael? What brought her back to town?
Bet’s cell phone rang, shattering her reverie, and she pulled it out to see Rob’s number. Answering the phone, she realized it wasn’t just a break from thinking about the past that she looked forward to.
“I thought I’d check in,” Rob said.
“All is quiet on the western front.” Bet debated what to tell him regarding Eric’s speculations that copper seeped into the water supply from the mine. He’d just learned his estranged mother had been dead for years. He didn’t really deserve another blow tonight.
“Nothing new?”
When Bet didn’t respond immediately, Rob filled the silence. “What? What is it?”
“Something I learned about the lake—or the groundwater, anyway.”
“Are you all right?”
Bet didn’t know how to respond. It was, after all, his family’s mine.
“I can come over,” Rob said, after another moment of silence from Bet. “If you want to talk it through.”
“Do you know where I live?”
Rob arrived on her doorstep twenty minutes later. He carried a bottle of single-malt scotch and a brown paper bag that smelled a lot like short ribs from the tavern.
“I don’t know if you want a drink, but I could use one,” he said, following Bet into the living room. Bet gestured to the sofa while she went into the kitchen and came back with two glasses.
“I’ve never had the good stuff,” Bet commented as she watched him splash the amber liquid into the glass.
Handing one to her, he raised his in a toast.
“What should we drink to?” Bet asked.
“To good dogs and the people who love them,” he said, as Schweitzer plopped down on the floor, stretched between Rob on the sofa and Bet in the chair.
“To good dogs,” Bet echoed. She sipped the liquid and felt it slide down her throat, none of the usual burn from drinking hard liquor straight.
Glad she’d drunk little of the beer with Eric, Bet decided she could get used to expensive scotch.
“I wasn’t sure if you were hungry or not, but I thought you might have skipped dinner.”
Rob pulled out takeout boxes of short ribs, coleslaw, baked beans, and corn bread while Bet went to the kitchen for a roll of paper towels.
“I guess we could sit at the dining room table like civilized people,” Bet said. “I do own real plates and silverware.”
“Then we’d just have to wash them. This works fine.” He finished laying the meal out on the coffee table, and the two dug into the food. Schweitzer stayed sprawled out on the floor, but Bet could tell his eyes never wavered from the bones piling up.
“What’s on your mind, Elizabeth?”
She started with the story of Eric’s mother.
“Our mine might have caused her death?” Rob said after Bet finished, his face tight and drawn. “This just keeps getting better, doesn’t it?”
“It’s not your fault, even if it’s true.”
“It may not be my fault, but it is my responsibility.”
Bet couldn’t argue with that; someone had to be accountable. She thought for a moment about her own father and the dead man he’d never been able to identify, about her questions surrounding her father’s death. The guilt of things that weren’t a person’s doing but remained a person’s to keep.
“There’s more.”
Rob looked at Bet with trepidation. “Go on,” he said.
Bet went on to recount Eric’s story about Bet’s mother having an affair.
“I think it might have been with your dad,” she finished up, uncomfortable in meeting Rob’s gaze. “Maybe that’s part of why Lillian did what she did. We don’t know which affair happened first. Or if Lillian even had an affair with Michael. We don’t know for a fact that’s true, right?”
Rob stood and paced the room. Bet could see the agitation in his actions.
“I remember your mother,” Rob said.
“You do?”
“You look like her.”
Bet could hear Eric’s voice saying the same thing.
“It’s the hair.” Rob sat down and brushed Bet’s hair back, catching a curl on his finger. It was so different than the gesture Eric had made at the bar. Eric stretched her curls out, bending her hair to his whim. Rob coiled her hair around his finger as if to catch himself in her, not the other way around. His hand rested on her cheek. It was an intimate gesture, not something she’d expected.
“What do you think?” she asked, barely breathing.
“Anything is possible.” Rob released Bet’s hair and started to pick up the dirty paper plates and empty takeout boxes.
He stuffed the paper sack with the debris and stood. “I’d best get home.” He started for the door.
Bet wondered at his abrupt departure. “Is there something else you’re not telling me?”
Rob turned to look at her, weighing his thoughts before he spoke. “We’ll talk more tomorrow. I need to sort out a few things on my own.”
“If any of this relates to the case at hand—”
“Don’t worry, Elizabeth.” Rob clapped his hat back on his head, plunging his features into shadow. “I’ll tell you everything I think you need to know.”
With a last pat for Schweitzer, Rob went out the front door, taking his secrets with him.