Season of Secrets Page 4

  “How long are you staying?” Phillips glanced at Marc. “I heard you were putting the house on the market.”

  “I see the grapevine is still active.” Marc seemed to relax in Phillips’s company, his smile coming more easily now.

  Dinah felt some of her tension dissipate as the men talked easily. It looked as if her fears had been foolish.

  Marc had handed over a shocking amount of money and they’d negotiated when the tree would be delivered when the interruption came.

  “Phillips! What are you doing?”

  Dinah didn’t have to turn to know who was there. Margo Carmody had an unmistakable voice—sugarcoated acid, Annabel had always said. How someone as sweet as Phillips ended up married to a woman like that was one of life’s mysteries.

  Dinah pinned a smile to her face and turned. “Hello, Margo. Are you working the sale as well?”

  Margo ignored her, the breach in etiquette announcing how upset she was. Margo never ignored the niceties of polite society. Except, apparently, when confronted by a man her acid tongue had proclaimed a murderer.

  “Look who’s here, my dear.” Nervousness threaded Phillips’s voice. “It’s Marcus. And his son, Courtney.”

  Margo managed to avoid eye contact with both of them. “You’re needed back at the cash desk, Phillips. Come along, now.” She turned and stalked away, leaving an awkward silence behind.

  “I’m sorry.” Faint color stained Phillips’s cheeks. “I’m afraid I must go. Perhaps I’ll see you again while you’re here. It was nice to meet you, Court.” He scuttled away before Dinah could give in to the temptation to shake him.

  “That woman gets more obnoxious every year.” She could only hope Court would believe Margo’s actions were motivated by general rudeness and not aimed at them. “How Phillips stands her, I don’t know.”

  “He seems to come to heel when she snaps her fingers.” Marc’s dry tone was probably intended to hide the pain he must feel.

  “Would you expect anything else?” The voice came from behind her.

  Dinah turned. Not James Harwood. It was really too much that they’d run into both of the men who’d been Marc’s closest friends in the same night. Still, James and Phillips ran in identical social circles, and they were both mainstays of the Alpha Club, regulars at the elegant old building that graced a corner of Market Street near The Battery.

  “Hello, James.” This time Marc didn’t bother to offer his hand. It was clear from the coldness on James’s face that it wouldn’t be taken.

  “James, I—” A lady always smoothes over awkward situations. That was one of Aunt Kate’s favorite maxims, but Dinah couldn’t think of a thing to say.

  “You shouldn’t have come back.” James bit off the words. “You’re not welcome here.”

  Court took a step closer to his father. The hurt in his eyes cut Dinah to the heart. Court shouldn’t have to hear things like that. Marc should have realized what might happen when he brought him here.

  “I’m sorry you feel that way.” Marc’s tone was cool, the voice of a man meeting rudeness with calm courtesy. But a muscle in his jaw twitched as if he’d like to hit something. Or someone.

  “I think we’re ready to leave now.” She’d better intervene before they both forgot themselves. “We have what we came for, don’t we, Court?”

  Politeness required that Court turn to her, and she linked her arm with his casually. “Ready, Marc?”

  Please. Don’t make matters worse by getting into a quarrel with James. It’s not worth it.

  Whether he sensed her plea or not, she didn’t know. He flexed his hands, and she held her breath. Then he turned and walked steadily toward the car.

  “Hey, wouldn’t it look cool if we strung lights along the banister?” Court, standing halfway up the staircase, looked down.

  Struck by a sudden flicker of resemblance to Annabel in his son’s face, Marc couldn’t answer for a moment. Then he managed a smile.

  “Sounds great. What do you think?”

  He turned to Dinah, who was dusting off the stack of ornament boxes they’d just carried down from the attic. In jeans and a faded College of Charleston sweatshirt, her dark curls pulled back in a loose ponytail, she looked little older than the sixteen-year-old he remembered.

  She straightened, frowning at the stairwell. “What do you think of twining lights with an evergreen swag along the railing? I think I remember several swags in a plastic bag in the attic.”

  “I’ll go see.” Court galloped up the steps, managing to raise a few stray dust motes that danced in the late-afternoon light. A thud announced that he’d arrived at the attic door.

  Marc winced. “Sorry. Court doesn’t do much of anything quietly.”

  “I’d be worried about him if he did.” Dinah glanced up the stairwell, as if following Court in her mind’s eye. “At least he’s not showing any signs that being here bothers him. And if he’s not upset after what happened last night—”

  “I know. I guess I haven’t said you were right, but you were. We should have gone somewhere else for the tree.”

  “I wish I hadn’t been right.” Her face was warm with sympathy.

  Maybe it was the sympathy that led him to say more than he intended. “I expected antagonism from Margo. She never liked Phil’s friendship with me, and she and Annabel were like oil and water.”

  “I remember.” Dinah’s smile flickered. “Annabel had a few uncomplimentary names for her.”

  “Which she shouldn’t have said in front of you.” He ran a hand through his hair. “Margo doesn’t matter. But Phil and James—”

  He stopped. No use going over it again. No use remembering when the three of them had been the three musketeers, back in their Citadel days. He’d thought the bonds they’d formed then were strong enough to survive anything. Obviously he’d been wrong.

  “Phillips is still your friend. He’s just not brave enough to stand up to Margo. He never has been.”

  “Maybe.” He’d grant her Phil, and his patent knuckling under to the woman he’d married. But…“James thinks I killed Annabel.” He checked the stairwell, but Court was still safely out of hearing, rummaging in the attic.

  Dinah started to say something. Then she closed her mouth. It didn’t matter. Her expressive face said it for her.

  “You think I should have been prepared for that. You tried to warn me.”

  “I thought it might be awkward. I didn’t expect outright rudeness.”

  She sounded as primly shocked as Aunt Kate might have, and he couldn’t suppress a smile.

  “You don’t need to laugh at me,” she said tartly. “They were all brought up to know better.”

  “Next you’ll say that their mothers would be ashamed of them.”

  “Well, they would.” She snapped the words, but her lips twitched a little. “Oh, all right. We’re hopelessly old-fashioned here. I suppose James has been in politics too long to have much sense left. And besides, you know how he felt about Annabel.”

  That startled him. “Do I?”

  She blinked. “Everyone knows he was crazy about her.”

  “I didn’t.” Had he been hopelessly stupid about his own wife? “How did Annabel feel about him?”

  “Oh, Marc.” Dinah’s eyes filled with dismay. “Don’t think that. It never meant anything. Just a crush on his part.”

  “And Annabel?” Dinah wanted him to let it go, but he couldn’t.

  “Annabel never had eyes for anyone but you. She just—I think she was flattered by James’s attention. That was all. Honestly.”

  She looked so upset at having told him that he didn’t have the heart to ask anything else. But he filed it away for further thought.

  He bent to pick up the stack of boxes. “We may as well take these to the family room. If I know my son, he’ll drag everything out, but he won’t be as good about putting things away.”

  Dinah went ahead of him to open the door to what would be the back parlor in most Charleston homes. They’d always used it as a family room, and he and Court had managed to bring down most of the furniture that belonged here. By tacit agreement, they’d avoided the front parlor, the room where Annabel died.

  “Court looks so much like you. Looking at him must be like looking at a photo of you at that age.”

  He set the boxes down on the wooden coffee table that had been a barn door before an enterprising Charleston artisan had transformed it. “Funny. I was thinking that I saw a little of Annabel in his face when he looked down from the stairs.”

  “I know.” Her voice softened, and he realized he hadn’t done a good enough job of hiding his feelings. “I see it, too—just certain flashes of expression.”

  He sank onto the brown leather couch and frowned absently at the tree they’d set up in the corner. He’d told Court it would be too big for the room. The top brushed the ceiling, and he’d have to trim it before the treetop angel would fit.

  “Maybe it’s because we’re back here. My memory of Annabel had become a kind of still photo, and she was never that.”

  “No, she wasn’t.” Dinah perched on the coffee table, her heart-shaped face pensive. “I’ve never known anyone as full of life as she was. Maybe that’s why I admired her. She was so fearless, while I—” She grimaced. “I always was such a chicken.”

  “Don’t say that about yourself.” He leaned forward almost involuntarily to touch her hand. “You’ve been through some very bad times and come out strong and whole. That’s something to be proud of.”

  “I’m not so sure about that, but thank you.”

  For a moment they were motionless. It was dusk outside already, and he could see their reflections in the glass of the French door, superimposed on the shadowy garden.

  He leaned back, not wanting to push too hard. “Being back in the house again—has it made you think any more about what happened?”

  “No.” The negative came sharp and quick, and she crossed her arms, as if to protect herself. “I don’t remember anything about that night.”

  “That summer, then. There might have been something you noticed that I didn’t.”

  She shook her head. “Do you think I didn’t go over it a thousand times in my mind? There was nothing.”

  And if there was, he suspected it was buried too deeply to be reached willingly. Dinah had protected herself the only way she could.

  He’d try another tack. “You’re connected with the police. If there’s any inside information floating around, people might be more willing to talk to you than to me.”

  Dinah stared at him, eyes huge. “Someone already talked to me. About you.”

  “Who?” Whatever had been said clearly had upset her.

  “A detective I work with.”

  He was going to have to drag the words out of her. “What did he say?”

  “She. She said…”

  He could see the movement of her neck as she swallowed.

  “She reminded me that the case is still open. And that you’re still a suspect.”

  He should have realized. He, of all people, knew how the police mind-set worked. And this detective, whoever she was, wanted to protect one of their own. Wanted to warn her off, probably, too.

  “Dinah, I’m sorry.”

  “For what?”

  “I didn’t think. I’ve put you in an untenable position. I shouldn’t have. If you want to back off…” He shook his head. “Of course you do. I’ll make some excuse to Court.”

  As if he’d heard his name, Court came into the room, arms filled with evergreen swags. “I found them,” he announced happily. “But we don’t have nearly enough lights, Dad. We need to go get some more before we can do this. Want to come, Dinah?”

  She stood, smiling at Court. “You two go.” She glanced at Marc, the smile stiffening a little. “I’ll unpack the ornaments while you’re out. I’ll be here when you get back.”

  He understood the implication. She wasn’t going to run out on them, although she had every reason to do so. He felt a wave of relief that was ridiculously inappropriate.

  “Thank you, Dinah.”

  Was she crazy? Dinah listened as the front door clicked shut behind Marc and Court. Marc had understood. Or at least he’d understood the spot he’d put her in professionally, if not personally. He’d given her the perfect out, and she hadn’t taken it.

  She couldn’t. She may as well face that fact, at least. No matter how much she might want to stay away from Marc and all the bitter reminders, too many factors combined to force her to stay.

  She’d been thirteen when he married Annabel, the same age Court was now. With no particular reason to, he’d been kind to her, putting up with her presence when he’d probably have preferred to be alone with his bride, inviting her to the beach house at Sullivan’s Island, even teaching her to play tennis. She’d told herself she didn’t owe Marc anything, but she did.

  And Annabel—how much more she owed Annabel, her bright, beautiful cousin. She’d loved her with a passion that might otherwise have been expended on parents, siblings, cousins her own age. Since she didn’t have any of them, it all went to Annabel.

  Finally there was Court. Her lips curved in a smile, and she bent to take the cover off the first box of ornaments. Court had stolen her heart again, just as he had the first time she’d seen him staring at her with unfocused infant eyes when he was a few days old.

  Whatever it cost her, she couldn’t walk away from this. All her instincts told her Marc was wrong in what he wanted to do, but she couldn’t walk away.

  She began unpacking the boxes, setting the ornaments on the drop-leaf table near the tree. They were an odd mix—some spare, sophisticated glass balls that Annabel had bought, but lots of delicate, old-fashioned ornaments that had been in the family for generations.

  One tissue-wrapped orb felt heavy in her hand, and an odd sense of recognition went through her. She knew what it was even before she unwrapped it—an old, green glass fisherman’s weight that she’d found in an antique shop on King Street and given to Annabel for Christmas the year before she died.

  For a moment she held the glass globe in her hand. The lamplight, falling on it, reflected a distorted image of her own face, and the glass felt warm against her palm. She was smiling, she realized, but there were tears in her eyes.

  She set the ball carefully on the table. She’d tell Court about the ornaments, including that one. That kind of history was what he needed from this Christmas in Charleston.

  She’d been working in silence, with only an occasional crackle from a log in the fireplace for company, when she heard a thud somewhere in the house. She paused, her hand tightening on a delicate shell ornament. They hadn’t come back already, had they?

  A few quiet steps took her to the hallway. Only one light burned there, and the shadows had crept in, unnoticed. She stood still, hearing nothing but the beat of her own heart.

  Then it came again, a faint, distant creaking this time. She’d lived in old houses all her life. They had their own language of creaks and groans as they settled. That had to be what she’d heard.

  She listened another moment. Nothing. She was letting her nerves get the better of her at being alone in the house.

  A shrill sound broke the silence, and she started, heart hammering. Then, realizing what it was, she shook her head at her own foolishness and went in search of her cell phone, its ring drowning out any other noise. Marc hadn’t had the phone service started. She’d given him her cell-phone number in case he needed to reach her.

  The phone was in the bottom of her bag, which she finally found behind the sofa in the family room. She snatched it up and pressed the button.

  “Hello?” Her voice came out oddly breathless.

  “Dinah? You sound as if you’ve been running. Listen, do you think a string of a hundred white lights is enough? Court put two strings in the cart when I wasn’t looking.”

  Her laugh was a little shaky. “You may as well get two. If you don’t use the second one, you can always take it back.”

  “I guess you’re right.” She heard him say something distantly, apparently to the cashier. Then his voice came back, warm and strong in her ear. “Is everything all right? You don’t sound quite yourself.”

  “It’s nothing. Really. I was just scaring myself, thinking I heard someone in the house.” When she said the words, she realized that was what she’d been thinking at some deep level. Someone in the house.

  “Get out. Now.” The demand was sharp and fast as the crack of a whip.

  “I’m sure I just imagined—”

  “Dinah, don’t argue. Just get out. And don’t hang up. Keep talking to me.”

  Logic told her he was panicking unnecessarily, probably visited by the terrible memory of coming into the house and finding Annabel. But even if he was, his panic was contagious.

  Holding the phone clutched tightly against her ear, she raced across the room, through the hallway and plunged out the door.

  Four

  Dinah slid back on the leather couch in the family room, cradling a mug of hot chocolate between her palms, and looked at Court. He’d collapsed on the couch next to her into that oddly boneless slouch achieved only, as far as she could tell, by adolescent boys. His mug was balanced precariously on his stomach.

  “More cocoa?”

  He shook his head, the mug wavering at the movement. “I’m okay.” He watched her from under lowered lids. “How about you? You feeling okay? Anything you want?”

  He was attempting to take care of her, obviously. The thought sent a rush of tenderness through her. She tried to keep the feeling from showing in her face. He wouldn’t appreciate that when he was trying so hard to be nonchalant about the prospect of an intruder in the house.

  Marc’s footsteps sounded, far above them. He was searching the attic, probably. She was convinced he wouldn’t find anything. She’d simply overreacted to being in the house alone, and, in turn, he’d overreacted. There’d been no one in the house.