She stared at her closed bedroom door, willing James to knock. Knowing he would not. Neither of them knew how to seek comfort, to ask for help. Teresa pictured him doing what she was now. Sitting on his bed with the letter beside him. Lost in dark thoughts, hounded beyond the wall of death by their bitter, controlling grandfather. Damn the man. Though that probably was unnecessary.
They had all gone their separate ways after meeting Mitchell, but curiosity or common cause would draw them together before long. What would she reveal? James and Kenny knew what they would find in their letters. It was Audrey and Teresa getting the nasty surprise, yet in the end was it surprising? Go to the place that’s most private to you. Most humiliating. That’s right where he would have put his finger. Kenny had warned her, and her unconscious had gnawed at his words ever since. She tore open the envelope believing its contents a mystery, yet as soon as she began reading Teresa grasped the old man’s intent. She did not read closely, just scanned words and phrases. Impaired functioning. Occipital lobe epilepsy. The names of surgeons. The second paragraph dealt with her father, and with a young person’s tendency to romanticize mental illness. Teresa tossed the letter aside then. At some point she would read it through, but the meaning was clear enough. She was a broken thing. She needed fixing.
Another part of her understood that this was a long-delayed reckoning. Not with her grandfather, but herself. She had suppressed certain questions for so long that they stopped being questions, just shut-up rooms in her brain. The shock of the sprawled body on the sofa blew open those doors. She had found the courage to enter that room of death, and she would need the same courage to explore her interior chambers. To wipe the dust off old uncertainties and seek answers. Who had her father really been, and what had he done that severed him from his family? What did her visions mean, or did they mean anything? Would she be the same person without them? Was she brave enough to find out?
Oh, and a late addition: What or who had killed her grandfather?
She stood and paced. Hard questions for someone unskilled at extracting information. She needed more than courage; she needed an ally. Up to now she had assumed it was James. But he could not even speak of his own trouble, and he would make a terrible detective. Audrey was the obvious choice, but she could not be trusted. Kenny was too removed from everything. Philip was the only one seeking answers, but why would he share them with her? He wanted the estate, which meant a fight with Ilsa, of which Teresa wanted no part.
The front doorbell surprised her. Family and friends had been in and out all afternoon without observing niceties. Curiosity sent her down the hall to the top of the wide, carpeted stairs. Audrey was below, changed into jeans and a dark blouse. She had the door open two feet, her frame filling the space. Blocking the man standing outside, or requiring that he push through her to enter. The man stayed put, speaking in a low voice.
“Come in,” Audrey said, stepping aside. “But good luck speaking to Philip.”
He moved stealthily into the hall. Dark blazer, dark circles under his eyes. Swollen nose. The man from the cemetery.
“Where is our Phil?” he asked.
“Beats me. Probably upstairs strangling the lawyer. Have you eaten?”
“Uh, no.”
“Figures,” Audrey said, with affectionate disdain. Her speech was vaguely slurred, and there was a sway in her step. “Come back to the kitchen. There’s a ton of food.”
They set off down the hall, and Teresa retreated to her room. Philip’s investigator, he had to be. What was he doing here? What had he learned, and why did he make Teresa so uneasy? She slipped off her boots and went carefully down the back stairs. From the lower flight she could see the closed door of the study and the open kitchen entry. She sat on the second to bottom step. She could not see into the kitchen from here, but could easily hear anyone inside. Especially anyone as loud as Audrey.
“These are tasty. Not sure what’s in them.”
“Something indigestible,” he replied with his mouth full. “I’ll stick with the fruit.”
“That’s how you keep that flat belly.”
“It was only flat because I was on my back.”
“Yeah.” She giggled. “Mine ain’t flat in any position, as you know.”
That answered one question, Teresa thought, shaking her head in wonder. Quick work even for Audrey.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
“You mean am I drunk,” Audrey declared, exaggerating the slur. “Yes, sir, I am.”
“Well, funerals...”
“If you must know, I’ve had a financial setback.”
“Ah. Zeke won’t be happy.”
“Fuck Zeke,” she said viciously. Who the heck was Zeke?
“I leave that to you.”
“You think I’m doing him? You think I sleep with every guy I meet?”
“Only the hopeless cases.”
“Did you catch up with Pete?” she asked, her tone more casual.
“I did, yeah.”
“You going to tell me?”
“You going to split my fee with Philip?”
“Philip,” Audrey said acidly, “owes me more than he can ever repay. What’s he giving you, anyway?”
“I got the impression you and Pete have been in contact. I mean, since he’s been out of prison.”
“You did, huh?” She was quiet for a bit. Ice shifted in a glass. “He came to see me. Year or two ago.”
“To catch up? Were you two pals before the theft?”
“I was fifteen, dickhead. But yeah, I was friendly with him, maybe he remembered that. I wasn’t the only one he visited either.”
“Who else?”
“Philip. Ilsa, I think. Maybe others.”
“What did he want?”
“You are getting seriously boring with these questions, Davie.”
There was no reply, just more ice slushing against glass. Audrey tossing back another vodka, no doubt.
“He asked about the family,” she finally said. “How everybody was doing. Mostly he wanted money.”
“Did you give him any?”
“Few bucks, out of pity. What did he tell you?”
“That Philip was a character witness at his trial.”
“Oh yeah,” said Audrey in a flat voice. “That was kind of weird.”
“You know why he did it?”
“Philip? Why would I know that?”
“Because you know things. You keep your ears open.”
“I have to watch what I say to you.”
“He also claimed not to have been in those woods for fifteen years.”
“Huh,” she mumbled. “You believe him?”
“He was convincing. I haven’t been around him long enough to know when he’s lying.”
“That a skill of yours? Lie detection?”
“Yes,” he said.
One of their phones buzzed. The first bars of a pop song, so Audrey’s.
“I’ve got to take this,” she said. Teresa stood, preparing to flee, but Audrey’s voice went the other way, toward the dining room. Teresa sat again. This was her moment to confront him, while Audrey was out of the room. What would she ask? She was sitting there puzzling it out when he magically appeared. Standing in the doorway, profile to her. A glass of something clear in his hand and an anxious look around his eyes. His eyes, which were dark and round and hypnotic. She did not move. His head went left to right, from the basement door to the hallway, the study, the stairs. The merest shock registered in those eyes, a quick flare around the irises, at finding her so close. Then he simply stared. Teresa should have felt unease, but there was something so tender in his face, and so forlorn, that she was disarmed. She could not look away. He blinked and stepped back, breaking the spell.
“I’m Teresa,” she said, standing and extending her hand. With the stair giving her a boost, she looked him straight in the face. “Marías. I guess you know that.”
He took her hand carefully, as if she were an animal that might startle.
“Nice to meet you, Teresa. Dave Webster. I work for your uncle.”
“I know.”
“Yes. No secrets in this family.”
“There’s nothing but secrets,” she countered. “That’s just not one of them.”
His smile transformed his face nicely, but lasted only a moment. The face looked less swollen up close, but more colorful.
“What happened to your nose?” she asked.
“That, yeah.”
“You don’t have to tell me.”
“It ran into an unfriendly boot.”
“Ouch.” She had an urge to touch it. “No one I know, hopefully.”
“I wouldn’t presume to know your pals, but I doubt it.”
“Vodka?” she asked, looking at his glass.
“Gin,” he answered, taking a large swig.
“I don’t think there’s any gin in the house.”
“That explains the lack of kick,” he replied. “Just water, then. So you were, uh, having a quiet moment back here?”
“No, I was eavesdropping on you and Audrey.”
Dave nodded agreeably. He knew exactly what she was doing, of course. He had the manner of someone who was never surprised, but his casualness felt forced. Teresa would swear that she made him nervous. Strangely, she was no longer nervous at all.
“Sorry we weren’t more entertaining,” he said.
“Actually, I was riveted. Does Philip know you’re sleeping with her?”
“He’s probably figuring it out.” He gazed at the floor sheepishly. “It was only one time.”
“Won’t happen again, officer.”
“I’d like to promise that, but...”
“She’s a force of nature,” Teresa commiserated. He smiled again.
“She is,” he agreed. “Anyway, it wasn’t very professional of me.”
“You must be good at what you do if Philip hired you.”
“No,” he said. “I mean my abilities have nothing to do with it. I have prior history with the case.”
“I don’t understand,” Teresa said, her mind chasing possibilities. “My grandfather only died a few days ago.”
He looked blankly at her until comprehension came.
“I’m not investigating your grandfather’s death. I understand an autopsy was performed and nothing suspicious turned up.”
“Maybe not in the autopsy. So what are you investigating?”
“Wait,” he said, stepping forward. “Do you have a reason to think there was something odd about his death?”
“Did Audrey tell you?” she asked, trying to keep the quaver from her voice. “About the, um, about his body? The condition of the body?”
“She said something,” Dave replied, weighing words carefully. “Did you see him, or did she tell you about it?”
“I found him.”
“You did?” He seemed perplexed, then nodded slowly. “She said that she had.”
“Of course she did,” Teresa snapped. “She always has to be the center of attention.”
“Or,” he proposed reasonably, “she was trying to protect you from intrusive questions. Like these.”
“Yeah,” she conceded, exasperated with herself again. “That could be it. She’s been watching out for me. I don’t know why I’m being bitchy.”
“There you are,” a none-too-friendly voice said from the hall. Philip strode toward them in an obviously foul mood, the source of which was no mystery. “If you can take a short break from seducing my nieces, I need you to meet with my brother and sister.”
Instead of jumping at Philip’s command, Dave looked to Teresa. As if awaiting her leave to go. His gaze touched her. However unwise it was to assume, she felt they had made a connection.
“Nice to meet you, Dave,” she said, ignoring Philip’s stare. “I’m sure we’ll talk again.”