An Accidental Woman (27 page)

Approaching the wall beneath it, Victoria put her front paws up. With a graceful little bound, she was up on the narrow sill, making herself narrow to match it and settling in like a duck with her nose to the spot where the cool air came in.

Poppy wondered whether she had always been so deft, or whether it came with blindness. The cat was certainly adventurous. And independent. Once she had food and litter, she was also self-sufficient. Granted, having been unceremoniously passed from Charlotte to Griffin to Poppy, she hadn't had a choice about trying new things, but she had certainly done it with style.

Of course, Victoria wasn't weighed down by guilt.

* * *

He hunkered down. “Are you sick?”

She shook her head.

“Bad dream?”

She nodded.

He looked at the other bed. Missy was sound asleep.

“Want milk?” he asked Star.

When she nodded, he scooped her up, settled her on his hip, and left the room. He didn't turn on the light in the kitchen. It would have been too harsh, given how raw he felt. Thanks to the moon, the night was plenty bright. He could see his way.

Setting Star on the counter, he poured her a cup of milk. She held it with both hands and drank slowly—tasting, swallowing, tasting, swallowing. Watching her, he felt a clenching in his chest. Star had been special right from birth, so grown up, as though she had come from the womb knowing what she faced, and was equipped to deal with it. But she was still a child.

With her eyes on the milk, she whispered, “It was just me in the dream.”

“Just you? Where was I?”

Solemnly she said, “I dunno.”

“Where would I
go?”

She shrugged.

Taking the cup from her hand, he set it on the counter and pulled her close. The feel of her arms clutching his neck brought tears to his eyes. “I live here,” he whispered fiercely. “With you. I'm not going anywhere.”

He held her very tightly for another minute, carried her back to bed, and sat with her. Even after she'd rolled to her side and curled her hands under her chin, he felt them around his neck. He hadn't known much touching as a child. He had always guessed that was why being with a woman meant so much to him. Marcy had been a toucher. That was part of her appeal. And then Heather had come into his life. Her touch was so different from Marcy's, so much more honest and sincere.

So. Was that a big fat lie, right along with where she'd come from and who she'd been?

The possibility infuriated him.

And now, here, Star. And in the other bed, Missy. Heather had taught them to reach out, touch, and hold. Star had tried to do just that in her sleep, and was left clutching air.

Looking at her now, still feeling the trust in her arms and the awesome responsibility that went with it—all his now, his alone—he felt an acute resentment toward Heather. By the time Star turned over, sound asleep, he was rip-roaring mad.

When she finished up, using the standing table last, she settled back in her chair, wheeled over to the parallel bars, and stroked the cat's head. Words were unnecessary. The cat seemed to know. With uncanny accuracy, she jumped up into Poppy's lap, a small orange body that turned, tested one spot, turned a little more and tested another. Poppy couldn't feel the weight on her legs, but once Victoria was settled snug up against her, her belly felt the warmth.

Keeping a hand on the cat and taking comfort from her, Poppy studied the bars. Aside from their being at waist height rather than overhead, they weren't terribly different from the monkey bars she had used on the school playground when she was growing up. Tomboy that she was—
competitor
that she was—she had easily crossed those using the momentum of her swinging body to give a boost to the pull of her arms. Her arms were stronger now than they'd been then. She was also heavier, but not by much. She barely topped 110. That wasn't much weight to hold up.

She could move herself down these bars doing what gymnasts did,
shifting her weight from one bar to the other. But traversing the bars wasn't the point. The point was using them for stability while she swung one hip forward, then the next. She could teach her hips to do that. With practice, it would work.

Still with a hand on the cat, she looked across the room. There, on hooks that made them easily accessible, were a pair of leg braces. They weren't pretty. And they were a major hassle to put on.
And
they made noise—she hated that the most. The tiniest little mechanical click made her think of a robot, which, as far as she was concerned, was ample reason not to use the things.

Besides, at best she would need crutches, and, even then, she would lurch. She didn't know why she should do that, when she could wheel herself around ever so smoothly.

Yes, she remembered Star Smith up in the woods while she was back at the door feeling frustrated and impotent, growing panicky when she realized that she couldn't go after the child. But that was an isolated incident.

It would be different if she had kids of her own. Maybe then it would be worth the effort to try to walk.

But she didn't have kids. She probably
shouldn't
have kids. She wasn't the most responsible of people. Not in the long run.

* * *

“Watch my lips.” Poppy mouthed the three words. Her lips were licked clean of the syrup she had poured on his oven-baked French toast, which he had to admit was the best he'd ever made.

She mouthed the words a second time.

“That's pretty clear,” he agreed. “She's Lisa then?” When Poppy bent over, put her cheek to her knees and her hands on her ankles, he felt a wrenching inside. “You're not going to cry again, are you?” he asked, fearful. It broke his heart when she cried, because she was such a strong woman. Besides, they needed to strategize.

“No,” she said quietly. “I just . . . feel . . . weary.”

He stroked her head. Her dark hair was short, but it was soft and thick
and clean, even lingeringly damp from the shower she just finished when he arrived. He ran his fingers through it, lightly massaging her scalp.

“The question,” she said in that same tired voice, “is how the Heather I know could have killed Rob DiCenza—or
anyone.
”

Leaving his hand in her hair, he spoke quietly. “That's the direction we take. We assume that Lisa is not the villain the DiCenzas make her out to be, and we try to find the reason she might have run him down. But there's a problem. My friend Ralph is hitting a wall. No one in California is willing to talk, and the only person we have on this end is Heather.”

“She wouldn't tell Micah a thing.”

“But she mouthed those words to you. So there's an admission.”

“She may deny it. She may hate me for telling you.”

“She may fry,” Griffin said and regretted it when he felt Poppy stiffen. Cupping her head with both hands, he leaned close. “I think we need another opinion. Can you get someone in to cover the phones while we go for a ride?”

* * *

“Hey, Micah,” Skip Houser, the driver, called out as he climbed from the cab. “How's it goin'?”

Micah nodded and focused on what he was doing. He wasn't in the mood to talk.

“Sun's rising higher,” Skip said, unscrewing his gas cap and inserting the nozzle. “S'posed to be high thirties today. Are you laying tubing yet?”

Micah was closely monitoring both the Weather Channel and his barometers. High thirties today, and who knew what tomorrow. A spell at forty and the sap could start to flow, which meant that on top of everything else, the season was messing him up by coming early. He planned
to start with the tubing that morning and work like the devil was on his tail.

None of this being Skip Houser's business, he just grunted an indifferent, “Nah.”

“We're puttin' up this big house other side of West Eames,” Skip went on. “Don't know as I'll be able to help any with sugaring this year. I feel bad, your being without Heather and all. She worked good. I liked her.”

Micah didn't care for his use of the past tense.

“Is she doing okay in jail?” Skip asked and hitched his head toward the cab of his truck. “Dunfy in there spent a couple weeks locked up for foolin' around with Harry Schwicks' little girl before she admitted she was lying. He says the place isn't so bad.”

Dunfy was the one not originally from there, but Micah knew about him. He was a no-good slime who had probably done everything the little girl said and more. He wasn't worth Heather's spit.

Riled that Skip had put Heather and Dunfy in the same category, Micah pulled out the gas nozzle. The tank wasn't full, but he didn't care.

He was screwing on the gas cap when Skip said, “Did you know she was Lisa?”

It was one remark too many, and it just hit him the wrong way. Micah slowly raised his head. “Did you say something?”

Skip, who had never been terribly bright, took that as an invitation. “I asked if you knew who she really was. I mean, man, here you're living with her all this time.”

Micah hauled open his door. “Who says she's Lisa?”

“Hey, it isn't just me. Most everyone in town's saying it. I was hearing it again just now at Charlie's. Hell, it's all over the Ridge. We keep waiting to hear something else, only nothing's coming out. It's like Heather just showed up here one day with no past at all—and then we think of her palling around with the son of a senator and maybe even going to Washington if the guy had been—”

“You don't know nothing, Skip,” Micah cut him off. “Keep your filthy mouth shut.” He put a foot in the cab.

“It isn't just
me.”

“Then tell
them
to keep their filthy mouths shut.”

Skip sniffed in a nervous way. “You don't
pay
me enough to do that, bud. I've worked for you, remember?”

“Yeah, I remember,” Micah replied. “I remember you bitching and moaning from three in the afternoon on, wanting to go home, get a beer, stuff your face. Well, I don't need you, Skip. I don't need you, and I don't need your buddies.” He slid in, started the truck, and pulled out. He didn't look back. He didn't have to. He knew he was being given the finger. Three fingers.

But he meant what he said. He didn't need them around. As far as he was concerned, if they came to help this year, they would give the syrup the same bad taste as if it was too late in the season to be tapping at all.

* * *

“Baloney,” Griffin teased. “You just don't want to be seen with me.”

She hesitated for a minute, then admitted, “That, too.” He ought to know. Showing up at the café with him would give people something to discuss other than Heather, but at Poppy's expense. She was taking enough of a chance entering the center of town now with Griffin's truck on her tail. John McGillicudy paused in raking snow from his roof to wave. Maddy Harris waved as she walked her dog. Luther Wolfe and Mercedes Levesque waved from the post office porch.

She waved back to all of them—and with some enthusiasm. She felt revived, much better now that she was actually doing something for Heather. And, yes, she had Griffin to thank. She had been spinning her wheels, going nowhere with Heather's confession until she shared it with him.

That didn't mean the town had to know they were working together.
Totally aside from romantic speculation, she didn't know how it would play.

Fortunately, Cassie's office was around a bend and out of sight from the center of town. It was in a small, pale blue house that had white trim, a picket fence artfully capped with snow, and a large oak plaque hanging from the porch.
Cassie Byrnes, Attorney At Law
it said in raised, midnight blue letters.

* * *

But Poppy had called and requested a meeting, and Cassie trusted Poppy. So there was Griffin, pulling into the driveway right behind Poppy's Blazer.

Watching him jog gallantly up to Poppy's door and give her a hand with the lift—a hand that Poppy didn't need, but that was charming, nonetheless—Cassie tried to put her finger on what bothered her about Griffin. Mark had hit the main point: Griffin was an outsider. Because of that, Cassie couldn't trust him to have Heather's best interests at heart. But there was more. He was a writer, and that made her uneasy. He was well-connected, and that made her uneasy. Mostly what made her uneasy was that he wanted Poppy. Cassie was nearly as protective of Poppy as she was of Lake Henry, as she was of Heather.