CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Susie’s fingers were on the keyboard.
Merida grew cold with fear. She signed, “What are you doing?”
“Nothing, miss!” Susie answered as if she could read sign language. “That is … I thought you’d be longer. At dinner.” She saw Merida looking at her hands and slammed the laptop shut.
“Where did you get that?”
Again Susie answered as if she could read Merida’s hands. “I … I … I … found it when I went to get a new tablecloth for your parlor.” She picked up the computer and offered it.
Merida advanced on her, took it, backed away.
“I didn’t mean nothing by it, miss! My boys need a new computer for school. I don’t know nothin’ about them and I was just wonderin’ whether this kind would do.”
Merida stared at the woman with new eyes. Susie still looked thin, she still looked careworn, but her eyes held intelligence and cunning. And lies?
“Please don’t tell Miss Phoebe, ma’am, she’ll fire me for sure and I need this job. My husband will beat me if I don’t bring home the money! He drinks, you know, and when he does that, he beats the kids. I put myself between ’em until he tires out. Please don’t tell her!”
Merida nodded. Susie’s story was all possible. Even probable. But Susie’s use of a country accent had intensified. Maybe from nerves. Maybe to disarm her. As Merida observed her with more care, she saw a box knife connected to Susie’s belt and a kitchen knife and a screwdriver in her carry caddy. Those weren’t standard supplies for a cleaning woman, at least not one she had ever met.
“I’m almost done, miss. All I have to do is change that tablecloth”—she put her hand on the folded linen on the table beside her—“and dust in here. Then I have to go upstairs to the attic, up to clean for them Cipres.”
Merida pointed up at the ceiling. They were above her?
“Yes, and that woman—she is the very devil for being fussy.” For one moment, Susie looked dangerously peeved. “Can I finish with you now?”
Merida nodded again.
Susie shook out the tablecloth and brushed past Merida on her way to the parlor.
Merida stood where she was, the computer pressed to her chest, feeling suspicion crawl up her spine. For the first time since Nauplius had died, she felt … watched, as if someone knew more than she did and was spying on her.
The Cipres. Sean Weston. Susie. Everyone seemed corrupt. Even Phoebe’s exuberance rang false.
And Benedict. Most of all, Benedict … was he here because she had somehow betrayed herself? Had he tracked her not to use her for sex, as he had suggested, but to at last wipe her from the face of the earth? Because he knew … who she was. Because he remembered … what he had done. Because he was afraid of her … as he should be.
She glanced at the video camera she had set up, the one that looked like an antique mirror. She had placed something similar in every room she occupied. She would review the videos and see exactly what Susie had been doing, and if she was telling the truth.
Susie hustled back into the dining room. “There you go, miss. The parlor’s ready if you want to sit in there and wait for me to finish. I won’t be ten more minutes!”
Merida went into the parlor and sat. She opened her laptop and surveyed the screen. As it should be, it was blank, with no way in without a password.
She looked at the key click history.
Susie had been typing nonsense words. Code? Merida saw no pattern, but she knew the basics and no more, and computer science progressed at the speed of light. If Susie was secretly a hacker …
But what should Merida be looking for? Who would Susie be working for? Benedict? His aunt and uncle? Or for herself because she knew anyone who had the cash to take half this house for a year must be rich?
Merida had made a mistake. She knew that now. She’d lived with so much money for so long, she had thought only of privacy, not that she had placed herself as a target to be hit up for money.
She used her handprint to get into the password screen, then used her password to advance to the security viewer.
* * *
She had always wanted to fly. With a name like Merry Byrd, that had seemed a natural. She didn’t remember the mother who had given her the name and there was no father listed on her birth records, yet she confidently told the other children at the orphanage that Amelia Earhart was her aunt and on the day of her birth Aunt Amelia had taken her on a flight into the clouds. Merry told them she was fated to be a famous pilot.
That worked until one of the older kids scornfully informed her, and everyone else, that Amelia Earhart had been dead for about a hundred years and anyway she flew off course, crashed somewhere, disappeared forever and was a major loser.
To Merry Byrd, that made Aunt Amelia even more brave and romantic, and at night she made up stories about Amelia and how she had never meant to fly around the world at all. Instead she had deliberately landed on a remote tropical island and lived there forever with her foreign lover, and took him flying whenever he wanted.
Merry made the mistake of telling one of the other kids about that, too, and for that she was teased mercilessly. Then she stopped telling everyone about her destiny and began to quietly plan how to get what she wanted—to fly as far away from this place as possible and disappear forever.
Be careful what you wish for, Merry Byrd.
By the time she was eleven, she’d been working in the nursery as long as she could remember. Babies loved her because she sang them nonsense songs. Little kids loved her because she told them stories that took them far away to a mythical place where their parents lived. And she loved the little ones because they didn’t mock her dreams. Merry didn’t realize anyone had noticed, but when one of the men on the orphanage board heard that one of his rich friends was looking for someone to help his wife with his newborn triplets, he recommended Merry.
That was when her life really began.
Mr. and Mrs. Cole took her in as a foster child and treated her better than she could have ever imagined. She had a beautiful bedroom and a maid to pick up after her, and all she had to do was go to school—a private school!—and help with the babies. The babies grew into toddlers who adored her, and Mrs. Cole adored her, too. She gave her an allowance, more money than Merry had ever imagined, and told her friends about Merry and let Merry go babysit her friends’ children. Merry had a savings account. Mrs. Cole listened to Merry’s dreams and hopes, and promised Merry she would fund college and when Merry was old enough, she would pay for flying lessons.
Compared to the orphanage, it was heaven. Merry had a future.
At eleven, she was ugly, awkward and gangly, her ears and hands and feet too big for her too-skinny, too-tall, totally unformed body. Sometime in the next two years, she changed. She was too busy to notice—she’d been ugly, awkward and gangly her whole life, she never expected anything different—but boys started watching her in a different way.
She laughed and dismissed them.
Mr. Cole wasn’t so easy to dismiss. He was a banker. He was important. At first he hadn’t paid attention to her. She was hungry for a father’s love, so she liked it when he teased her, hugged her. Then she got uncomfortable and avoided him, hiding in the nursery with the little ones, or at her friend Kateri Kwinault’s house.
She knew about men like him. In the foster care system, they were legion.
Mr. and Mrs. Cole started fighting.
Kateri ran away to her home in Washington State and didn’t come back.
Mrs. Cole cried when she told Merry she had to return to the orphanage, but she gave her her savings account and a bonus and a letter of recommendation. Merry immediately secured another foster home with one of Mrs. Cole’s divorced friends who had two kids, and this time she negotiated a budget that paid for her school and a salary. She no longer called it an allowance.
By the time she graduated from high school, she had earned a scholarship to Johns Hopkins, the govern
or’s award for the development and funding for a twenty-four-hour charity day care, and she believed she could change the world.
University was everything she’d dreamed of. She studied languages, pre-med, psychology. She dabbled in the humanities. She led the debate team and for fun she played broomball on a hockey rink with tennis shoes, a ball and brooms.
She met Benedict Howard.
He attended a charity event and stood around with a bourbon on the rocks, looking ruthless and cynical.
She’d heard of the Howards. The ruthless family owned a ruthless corporation with a reputation for ruthless takeovers. A good reason to hit him up for a donation for her charity day care.
He ruthlessly turned her down.
She told him about the difference her facility had made for poor single mothers and their children.
He told her poor people shouldn’t reproduce if they couldn’t support their children.
She got into his face and told him rich, ruthless scum shouldn’t reproduce, either, but obviously his parents had.
In years to come, whenever she recalled his expression, she always smiled.
She then told him that before he mouthed off about things he didn’t know or understand, he should work at the day care center.
He said he would … when she did.
She told him she worked the 3 A.M. to 8 A.M. shift and she would see him there. She flounced off to importune a wealthy elderly gentleman who had watched the scene with chortling amusement and gave her ten thousand dollars for the day care, and promised another ten thousand if she could pry a single dollar out of young Benedict Howard.
She kissed him on the cheek and thanked him for the ten thousand, and told him she deserved the second ten thousand for not telling his wife about him sneaking cigars at the club.
She got the other ten thousand.
She didn’t expect to ever see Benedict at the day care, much less the next morning still in his tuxedo with his jacket off, his bow tie dangling and his cuffs rolled up. He looked like a disreputable James Bond. Which wasn’t a bad look when combined with a warmed bottle of formula in one hand and a teething toddler hanging on the opposite leg howling for its momma.
“Why do people need twenty-four-hour child care?” he asked with grinding impatience.
“Mothers who have no help sometimes have to work two jobs, one in the day and one at night.”
“Strippers?”
He was a judgmental asshole. No biggie. The world was full of judgmental assholes. But this guy was young, in his early twenties, and privileged, and seemed to have not a scrap of compassion or empathy for the less fortunate. “Yes, strippers. If they’re lucky enough and agile enough to perform the job. Stripping pays well. Waitressing at an all-night diner is more common, or working as a hospice nursing assistant. Also a lot of our mothers are going to school in the day while their kids are in school and working at night while their kids are asleep.”
“Supposedly asleep.” Leaning down, he scooped up the child and offered the bottle.
The child reached for it.
“Not until you smile first,” he told her.
Her lower lip stuck out. Her eyes refilled with tears.
“One smile,” he said, and he smiled at her.
The child, who had been crying intermittently for five nights straight, smiled back at him.
Merry exchanged an exasperated look with the director, Ms. Sandvig. Of course that baby would respond to him. When Merry saw him smile, she wanted to respond to him. She wanted to lavish him with smiles. She wanted to … well, hell. He was wealthy, privileged and a judgmental asshole. She shouldn’t really want anything with him.
But she couldn’t resist.
Merry believed in gun control.
Benedict believed in the Second Amendment.
She believed in liberty and justice for all.
He believed the world belonged to those who worked to win it.
She believed in education for every child regardless of race, color or gender.
He believed in educating the privileged.
She pointed out that she was less privileged than him. And smarter.
He argued for those who had earned their living or protected their inheritance or both.
She lost that argument because he was burping a newborn and seeing him wipe a big ol’ puddle of formula off his suit made her grow soft with sentiment and estrogen.
They dated. They broke up. They dated. They had the best sex in the history of the world.
He was in Johns Hopkins Carey Business School and headed for the top job at his family’s business.
She was an undergrad with nobody, not one person who cared about her.
He cared about her. Somehow, he cared.
Or so she thought.
He took her to meet his aunt and uncle, Rose and Albert Howard. On the death of his parents in a yachting accident, they had raised Benedict. The old couple was charming. So charming. Rather ditzy. Yet sharp-eyed and maybe faking it.
At the time, Merry believed in the good of all mankind. Well, not really. She wasn’t stupid. She remembered Mr. Cole. At the same time, she believed everyone should have the chance to improve themselves, to be better, to be kind, to love as much as they could.
She simply didn’t realize that some people … never love.
Benedict worked with her every morning at the day care center from 3 A.M. to 8 A.M. The children adored him. Ms. Sandvig adored him.
Merry loved him. She loved him so much. She thought she was making a difference in his life. She imagined because of her he saw the world with new eyes.
Then he did change her life … when he tried to kill her.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
The corded phone rang beside Merida’s bed, waking her out of a nightmare-haunted sleep. For a moment, she stared around the room, lost in the past. The lights were on, she still wore her clothes. What…? Where was she?
Disoriented, she snatched up the receiver.
She said, “Hello.” No sound came out of her mouth, but for the first time in years, she had tried to speak.
Unbalanced? Yes, and her bewilderment grew worse when a man’s hoarse voice whispered, “Be careful. They’re hunting you…”
She wanted to demand an explanation, to ask who was after her.
But that voice said, “Remember, Helen. You cannot scream.” He hung up, leaving her clutching the receiver so hard her knuckles were white.
She didn’t glance at the clock, didn’t give a thought to the time. She grabbed her iPad in her shaking fingers, dropped it, picked it up again. Called Kateri’s number and activated the video.
Kateri answered immediately. She was braiding her dark hair. Behind her Merida could see a shadowy living room and a brightly lit kitchen. “What is it, Merida?” Her voice was clipped, anxious.
Merida tried typing, but her hands were shaking too hard. She propped up the tablet and spelled, “A man. A man! Called me here. He said … he said…”
At once, Kateri leaned close to the camera. “Are you in any immediate danger?”
Merida looked around. She was alone. The doors were locked. No one was watching her. Were they? The windows were dark. But she was on the second floor. All that was out there were those giant trees that overhung the mansion … no one would climb a tree to watch her.
No one.
Would they?
She signed, “He said, ‘Remember. You cannot scream.’” She didn’t tell the whole truth. She didn’t say that he’d called her Helen. The name, for her, was a shameful brand that burned and burned and never stopped.
Kateri sucked in her breath. “Damn. Not surprised you were scared. I’ll send a patrolman.”
Merida pointed. “You?”
“I’m sorry, Merida, but I can’t come myself. Right now, we’ve got a situation.”
Merida glanced at the clock. Three A.M.
Kateri was awake, alert, dressed in her sheriff’s uniform. She tied off her braid and
flipped it back over her shoulder.
A man, a tall man, Native American and bare to the waist, stepped into range of the camera, kissed her on the cheek and murmured, “Take care.”
“I always do,” Kateri said to him. She leaned down and petted her dog and with tablet still in hand, she picked up her walking stick and walked out of her apartment and into the night.
Behind her, a young, red-haired patrolman followed, speaking into the radio clipped onto the shoulder of his uniform.
“A crime?” Merida asked.
“A murder.”
That word, murder, jolted Merida into thinking logically and without that knee-jerk fear. “Don’t send anyone here.” Because she didn’t want to make a scene at the B and B. She didn’t want Sean Weston to be the patrolman who came to check on her. Most of all, she didn’t want Benedict to know his scare tactics were working. Because it had to be him, didn’t it? He had arrived in town and within hours a strange man called and “warned” her of oncoming trouble. “I’m fine. I’m safe. Take care.”
Kateri understood. “I always do,” she said again.
Merida cut the connection. She held the tablet and thought, then with every evidence of casualness, she turned off the lights—and dropped to the floor. She crawled to the window and looked out into the yard. She scanned the trees first—the moon was close to full and no clouds covered its face, and in the light she saw no suspicious shapes, no lurkers in the branches.
But when she peeked out into the shadowy yard, she saw furtive movement. A flash of eyes? A scuttle against the ground? Maybe a raccoon? Or a wolf? Or a … not a wolf. Not … it was human. Someone was watching.
She closed her eyes and leaned her head against the wall.
Who was watching? Paparazzi? Benedict? Someone who was after her?
Who?
And why?
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Officer Rupert Moen had parked the patrol car at the curb by Kateri’s door. He opened the passenger side door.