The Perfect Husband

  “I stopped.”

  “Hmm.”

  “There was no point to it,” she said sharply. “No one rides horses in real life. It’s not a usable or marketable skill. Really, it was a waste of time.”

  “You think?” J.T. drawled neutrally.

  His fingers rotated the empty glass in front of him, sliding up the condensation on the side, then twirling the base again. “I used to watch you ride. I thought you were pretty good.”

  “You watched me ride?”

  “Yeah. I did. Could never figure out how you managed it. Such a tiny thing commanding a twelve-hundred-pound beast around the ring. I used to think you belonged to the horse more than you belonged to us.”

  “I never saw you at the arena.”

  “I didn’t want to interrupt.”

  “Huh,” Marion said. There seemed to be a wealth of suspicion in that grunt.

  J.T. turned to Tess. “What did you do?”

  “Who, me?”

  “I assume you had a childhood, unless that stork story’s true after all.”

  The question caught her off guard. She wasn’t used to anyone asking about herself. “I did Girl Scouts,” she answered finally. “I didn’t have hobbies or things like that. I worked after school. My parents owned a general store with a small deli. Cheese, fudge, gourmet foods. It was a lot of work.”

  “Working-class parents?” Marion asked. “New England, right? You have a northern accent.” She was obviously taking mental notes.

  “Down, girl,” J.T. said lightly. He offered Tess a crooked grin. “Forgive Marion. Unlike you, we never worked as children—our father did the smart thing and married money. Now Marion is hell bent on overcoming this stigma by turning into a workaholic. We can’t take her anywhere anymore. She’s liable to arrest the host for income tax evasion.”

  “One of us had to have follow-through. You certainly don’t.” Marion stubbed out her cigarette and reached for another. She said to Tess, “You want to know a little bit about your hero? Well, let me tell you.”

  “Uh-oh,” J.T. said.

  “J.T. at seventeen. He’s into orienteering. Do you know what orienteering is?”

  Tess shook her head. Tension swept over the table. J.T. hadn’t moved, but his expression was tighter. Lines had appeared at the corners of his mouth. Marion leaned forward and plunged on.

  “Orienteering is a sport from Scandinavia, developed during one of the world wars. Basically you’re turned loose with a detailed topographic map of an area and thirteen controls—”

  “Flags,” J.T. supplied.

  “Flags to find. You have a compass, you have a map, and you have three hours to find however many flags you can find.

  “It can be brutal. The courses are rated for difficulty and the truly advanced ones—the red and blue courses—aren’t even forest trails, they’re just flags left in the forest. You get to plow through the underbrush, hike up mountains, cross teeming rivers. People get lost. People get injured. You have to know what you’re doing.”

  “I knew what I was doing,” J.T. said. “I made it back.”

  “Barely!” Marion returned her attention to Tess. “So here’s J.T., seventeen years old and already arrogant. You think he’s insufferable now? You should’ve known him then.”

  “I was a saint.”

  “Get over it. These competitions, class A meets, are a big deal. You compete by age group and prizes are given out. Our father always dominated the blue course, the hardest level. He always won first prize. Then we have J.T. He’s still too young for the blue course. He’s seventeen and the toughest course for him is the red, and he’s good. Everyone thinks he’ll win it and everyone’s talking about how the father will take blue and the son will take red. The colonel’s already choosing the spots on the mantel.”

  Her jaw set, her gaze hardened. “Morning of the meet. Morning of the meet. Does J.T. register for his category in the red course? No. He registers for blue. A seventeen-year-old kid registering for blue.”

  “I’d already done red,” J.T. said. “I wanted something new.”

  “You would’ve won!”

  “Trophy’s nothing but cheap metal that gathers dust.”

  “So what happened?” Tess demanded to know.

  “Einstein here,” Marion supplied in a low growl, “goes running off in his orienteering suit. Three hours later he’s nowhere to be found. Two hours after that they’re arranging the search parties, when all of sudden from the underbrush comes this huge commotion. Thrashing and cursing and swearing. Mothers are running to cover ears of their children, and lo and behold, it’s J.T. Half of his face scratched off, both of his hands mutilated, and his ankle in a twig brace. He’d fallen off the side of a hill.”

  “It happens.”

  “It wouldn’t have if you’d stuck to red!”

  “It did. And I made it back.” He turned to Tess with a wicked grin. “Walked two miles on a broken ankle. How’s that for cojones?”

  “More like stupidity,” Marion muttered.

  “The colonel was impressed.” J.T.’s voice was deceptively innocent, but Marion flinched. “That was the kind of thing Daddy liked,” J.T. continued, his eyes fastened on Marion’s face. “Enduring pain. Having balls. Walking on broken bones. Being an m-a-n.”

  Marion remained silent. Between her fingers, the cigarette trembled.

  “He was wrong, you know,” J.T. said. His fingers spun away the glass in front of him. “He should’ve let you compete, Marion. The orienteering, the Civil War Reenactment Society. I taught you how to read the compass, do you remember that?”

  “No.”

  “What about my percussion rifle? You watched me carve out the stock from the black walnut during the afternoons. Do you remember that, or did you block that out too, Marion? Did you leave all the memories behind?”

  Marion remained mutinously silent.

  “I remember,” J.T. said softly. “I remember you watching me forge the barrel and locks. Took me a year to carve out that damn rifle and you watched every day. I remember you trying to pick it up—you must have been ten or eleven. But at four and a half feet long and a front-heavy twelve pounds, it was too big for you. You couldn’t get the end of the barrel off the ground. So you poured the powder in it instead and rammed down the patch and ball with the rod. Then I lifted the rifle waist-high so you could half cock it, place the percussion cap, and move it to full cock. All that was left for me was to raise it to my shoulder, aim, and fire. Do you remember that, Marion? Do you remember any fucking thing?”

  “You’re lying.”

  “Why, Marion? Why would I lie about that?”

  “Because that’s what you do, J.T. Invent fantasies.”

  “About percussion rifles?”

  “You can’t stand the truth. You can’t stand knowing just how much Daddy gave you, just how much Daddy favored you, and just how badly you fucked up anyway.”

  J.T.’s knuckles whitened. Then abruptly J.T. pushed away. “Sure, Marion, that’s it.” He stood and began gathering dishes. “Everything happened the way you imagined and Daddy’s only crime was shutting you out. You do have follow-through. If you’d done orienteering, you would’ve won the trophy.”

  “We’ll never know, will we?”

  “No, we won’t. At least you have trophies from dressage.”

  “Who the hell cared about dressage?”

  “You did, Marion.”

  Marion rose. She wouldn’t look at J.T. She grabbed three plates, creating more noise than necessary, then stalked through the sliding glass door.

  J.T.’s gaze remained on the door. His hands held two glasses in midair.

  “You’ll have to forgive her,” he murmured after a bit. “She can be very intense.” He gathered more dishes, his movements short and choppy. “Wanna hand me that bowl?”

  “I’ll help.”

  “You don’t have to—you must be sore as hell.” He wouldn’t look at her. His gaze fixed on the table, his voice
brusque. Still, she could see the darkness rolling upon him, bunching the muscles on his neck, rounding his shoulders. The patio lights washed over his face but couldn’t penetrate the shuttered look masking his expression. Just his hands moved, long, callused fingers reaching, grasping, stacking. Thrusting, lifting, slamming, rapping out a staccato beat of frustration and anger that ran all the way through him and deep into the ground. “Take some Advil,” he commanded crisply. “Get some rest. You got a helluva lot of work ahead of you, Angie. None of it’s going to be easy.”

  “All right.” She still didn’t move.

  “Get in the house, Angela.”

  “I could carry something in.”

  “I don’t need any help.”

  She remained standing beside him, not sure what she wanted and not sure why she stayed. She studied his face, looking for something that eluded her. His expression didn’t offer her any miracles. “You . . . you and your sister, you grew up doing this stuff, didn’t you?”

  “What stuff?” He finished stacking all the plates and bowls. Now he gathered silverware.

  “Orienteering and the Civil War reenactment. Horses and hunting. Swimming.”

  “I did it, not Marion. The colonel was more interested in his son than his daughter. It worked for a while. Then I got too old and stubborn, stopped winning the trophies, got sick of shooting Bambi. And maybe the colonel stopped trusting me with a gun in his presence. The colonel wasn’t stupid.”

  Tess shivered.

  “No more father-son outings,” J.T. announced. “I joined the swim team and became the one-mile free-style champ for Virginia instead. The colonel thought swimming was for sissies. I think he had something against men shaving their legs.” He gathered up the glasses.

  “I wish I’d learned all that,” Tess said softly. “I wish my family had been into those kinds of things. That I’d had an older brother or uncle or anyone to teach me about guns or self-defense or survival. Even how to read a compass. I wish I’d known it sooner.”

  J.T. turned toward her. His eyes were empty and spiritless. “Yeah, Marion and I, we’re tough. We’re just so damn tough.”

  He carried dishes to the house. “Tomorrow we start with handguns.”

  TESS SLEPT AND, as always, Jim found her again in her dreams. In the shadows of the night she was back in Williamstown, lying in bed, the covers pulled up to her chin.

  He’s going to come out of the closet, she thought. Her mother had told her there was no such thing as monsters, but her mother had lied because her mother hadn’t wanted to believe in such people as Jim Beckett.

  He’s going to come out of the closet. Run, Tess, run.

  But she couldn’t run. She had no muscle. She was a shapeless blob, a weak, defenseless feather pillow.

  In the distance she heard a baby crying. She knew she had to move. You must protect Sam. You have to protect Sam.

  It was too late. Her closet door slid open and he stepped into the room, grinning and golden and hefting the baseball bat.

  “Did you miss me, Theresa? I missed you.”

  She whimpered. She heard the plea bubble in her throat and she knew she was going to die. Samantha had stopped crying, maybe she sensed the danger. Please let her remain quiet. If she would just remain quiet long enough . . .

  Jim leaned against the wall and bounced the baseball bat off his ankle. “Where’s Sam?”

  “Gone,” she whispered. Don’t cry, Sam. Don’t cry.

  “Tell me. I’m her father. I have rights.” He lifted the bat and stalked toward the bed.

  “I am going to kill you, Theresa. Samantha will be all mine, and you’re too pathetic to do anything about it.”

  The bat lifted and she whimpered and she remained frozen, watching it arch.

  The house was silent, her baby was silent. No more crying.

  “Discipline is the key,” Jim whispered, and the bat whistled down.

  Tess woke up, terrified and already reaching for the phone. She wanted to call Difford and hear Samantha’s voice. Her fingers clenched convulsively around the receiver as she lay in bed, her chest heaving, the sweat rolling down her cheeks.

  Slowly she forced her fingers to relax. It was dangerous to call Sam at the safe house, dangerous to do anything that would connect her daughter to her. If you really want to keep her safe, Difford had told her, you have to let her go.

  So Tess let her go. Tess hugged her baby, kissed the top of her sweet-smelling head, and let her go.

  And now she curled up in her bed, hugging her pillow as if it were her daughter, and thirsting for the scent of baby powder. Six A.M. Massachusetts time. Sam would be at the waking edge of slumber. Did she sleep well at the safe house, or did she have nightmares the way she sometimes did? During those times Tess would crawl in bed beside her and whisper the story of Cinderella with Sam cradled in her arms and smelling like Johnson & Johnson’s No More Tears shampoo. They would both make it through the night and in the morning, like any child, Sam would smile and be happy once more.

  Tess wanted so much more for her daughter than running from city to city and living in fear. She wanted Sam to grow up feeling smart and strong. She wanted her daughter to know she was beautiful and loved because Tess’s parents had never told her any such thing.

  She wanted Sam to be happy, and the desire made the darkness sweep over her like a wool blanket, stifling her. She wasn’t sure how to give the gift of joy. She wasn’t sure how to be a good parent. She had no examples to follow.

  Four A.M. She crawled out of bed, shaking and shivering and feeling her leg throb. She saw Jim stepping out of the closet and heard the crack of the baseball bat connecting with her leg.

  I’m going to kill you, Theresa. Sam will be mine.

  Tess padded through the silent house. Not knowing what else to do, she followed J.T.’s lead. She jumped into the pool and started to swim.

  EDITH MAGHER TOOK pride in her garden. She’d lived alone all her life, never having found Mr. Right, and by the time she was forty she knew she was destined to be a childless spinster and that was that. She adopted her garden instead, each flower, stalk, and leaf becoming precious to her.

  She worked outside every day, spring through fall. In the narrow six streets that served as her tiny neighborhood, she was widely regarded as having the best yard, and even that new couple who bought the house on the corner kept their big, pawing Labradors at bay.

  She was outside now, preparing her flower beds for winter. Late September was generally beautiful in Lenox, Massachusetts, the trees turning a rich gold, the sky an unbelievably bright blue. This year, however, the weather was turning cold unusually fast. On the news they were already issuing frost warnings, and even the diehards who vowed never to turn on their furnace until the first of November were beginning to think twice. Edith hadn’t decided whether she was prepared to turn on her heat yet, but she was definitely tending to her garden. She believed firmly in being prepared, which was why she’d been able to retire from her bank teller job at the age of sixty instead of slaving away until sixty-five, as so many others had. This afternoon was perfect for gardening; the huge maple tree in her yard reflected a dozen shades of gold and the slowly sinking sun made the leaves even deeper. When Edith breathed in deeply, she caught the rich odors of drying leaves, fertile earth, and mulled spices. Some people worked on their gardens in the morning, but Edith had always preferred dusk.

  Yesterday she’d gotten word that her dear neighbor Mrs. Martha Ohlsson was finally returning from Florida. Given the news that that horrible serial killer—Jim Beckett, that was his name—had just escaped from Walpole, Edith was looking forward to Martha’s return. Living next to an empty house no longer seemed safe.

  Edith reminded herself every night as she locked up her tiny two-bedroom bungalow that she had nothing to worry about. Her community was a small one, a quiet one. The heart of Lenox boasted old, beautiful Victorian houses that had once been the summer homes of Boston’s elite. Edith Wharton had give
n Lenox its claim to fame by building her mansion on the outskirts of town. Neighboring Tanglewood spread its lush green grounds and unbelievable mountain view for people who appreciated the Boston Symphony’s fine music and mother nature’s even finer grandeur. Between Tanglewood and the Wharton mansion, Lenox saw a fair amount of tourists during the bright summer months and brilliant fall.

  Now, thanks to the unexpected cold spell, Lenox was already taking on its winter rhythms, tranquil and slow. Nothing much had happened in Edith Magher’s community since a few years before, when the Joneses’ oldest son had broken his arm in a car accident.

  Every now and then, however, Edith had these spells. Not often—it had been years since the last one. But she was having them now, and sometimes at night she found herself lying awake just listening to the sound of her own heartbeat. She looked over her shoulder more too, as if expecting to see something awful.

  Her great-great grandmother Magher supposedly had had the gift of sight. Edith didn’t believe in such things. She trusted only the earth, the power of mother nature, and the beauty of her garden.

  Which was why when she looked up now and saw the ephemeral image of a thin blond girl standing at the base of the old oak with blood on her face, Edith shook her head and said, “Don’t you do that to me.”

  The vision politely vanished.

  Edith went back inside her house and brewed a strong cup of black tea.

  TEN

  DON’T STAND THERE.” “Why not?” J.T. grabbed her arm and dragged her toward him.

  “Because that’s a jumping cholla.”

  Tess glanced at the stubby, fuzz-covered cactus then gazed at his long, tanned fingers still wrapped tightly around her upper arm. “So?”

  He shook his head, massaging his temples with one hand. His eyes were bloodshot, his cheeks thick with beard. For a change, his black hair was pulled into a ponytail and he’d donned a worn T-shirt and a pair of sandals. They were his only concessions to civility, however. He’d gone twenty-four hours without alcohol and was hell on wheels. “Jumping cholla, Tess. See all those tiny, furry spurs? Trust me, you won’t think they’re so tiny and furry when those glochids leap onto your arms and hook into your skin.”