Linda Castle (10 page)

Moses coughed. “Uh, well, anyway—welcome back to Hollenbeck Corners.”

The tension in the air grew thick enough to cut. Flynn could feel the worry telegraphing its way from Rachel’s hand to his.

“I’d like to see Victoria now,” Marydyth said without ceremony. “We have a lot to talk over.” She looked longingly at her daughter. “A lot.”

Moses glanced at Flynn, who shook his head from side to side.

“I—that is—” Moses started. “Victoria is.”

“Don’t bother to make excuses for her. It is time we two had a reckoning.” Marydyth stood away from Rachel, allowing her hand to linger lovingly on the child’s head. “Is she in the front parlor?”

“Uh, yes,” Moses said.

“Good, I’ll just announce myself if you don’t mind.” Her skirts swished as she turned on her heel and marched through the grained oak double pocket doors before either man could react.

“I guess that is that,” Moses said softly.

“It was bound to happen. Maybe it’s best if she gets it over with quickly,” Flynn replied.

Marydyth entered the front parlor and found herself engulfed by darkness. One solitary lamp burned by the front window that overlooked the street.

Had Victoria been sitting here watching Marydyth in the buggy? She drew herself up and lifted her chin. It would not do to meet Victoria with any timidness, not if she expected to change the situation with Rachel.

The soles of Marydyth’s shoes clicked on the bare floor and then were muffled by the thick hooked wool carpet. Victoria had always liked the comfort of carpet beneath her feet, Marydyth recalled. She approached the single high-backed chair that was facing the windows. Even though Victoria had not yet shown herself, Marydyth knew she was in the room. She could practically feel Victoria’s disapproving presence all around her. It took all the love she had for her child to pluck up her courage and step around to face the chair.

This was the moment Marydyth had waited for. Now she could face Victoria, her most ardent accuser, as a free woman.

“Victoria?” She peered at the motionless form. “I know you can hear me.”

Victoria never moved. Her hands were folded in her lap, her lacy dress arranged in a graceful bell around her ankles.

“You’ll have to face me sometime. It might as well be now.” Marydyth paused for a moment.

“I am a free woman, Victoria. What have you got to say about that?” Marydyth challenged.

But as she studied the frail woman before her the knowledge slowly began to dawn that Victoria was unable
to say anything. Marydyth frowned and allowed her eyes to see what her heart could not accept.

Victoria was indeed changed, just as Flynn had said. Her right hand was twisted at an odd angle in her lap, and it appeared to be as lifeless as the muscles in the right side of her face. Only her eyes remained bright and alert, and those eyes burned with loathing.

Marydyth stood there staring at Victoria while bits and pieces of Flynn’s conversations came floating back to her.

When Victoria had her first stroke…

She was searching for the woman who had always been her nemesis, her enemy and her rival for J.C.’s affection, but all she found was the shell of a woman, alone and miserable, locked inside her own kind of prison.

“Victoria?” Marydyth whispered, but she found herself kneeling beside the chair. Tentatively, as if she were reaching out to a wild animal that might bite her, she touched Victoria’s arm. The skin was as dry and thin as the last leaf of autumn.

“Oh my God, Victoria, I didn’t know.”

A flicker of something clouded the old woman’s eyes, and she blinked at Marydyth.

Marydyth tried to swallow the painful catch in her throat but the events of the day were becoming too much. Like a heavy burden they crushed her down and threatened to suffocate her. “You can communicate by blinking?’

One long blink was her answer.

“How…how long have you been like this?”

Three rapid blinks of the eyes.

“Three years? Almost three years?”

A single blink that was held for half a second longer than the others.

So Victoria, the tough old matron who had wielded power and dictated the pace of life in Hollenbeck Corners, was alert and alive within a body that would no longer do her bidding.

Marydyth felt a wave of pity and compassion. She fought it, and told herself that she shouldn’t care, that Victoria Hollenbeck did not deserve her sympathy.

But she did feel it.

A glimmer of understanding about Rachel, and Flynn’s total guardianship of her, crept into Marydyth’s mind. Victoria must have known, or at least feared, that she would end this way, and her last unselfish act was to make sure that Rachel was cared for.

“I am free, Victoria.”

Two blinks. Marydyth realized Victoria was unwilling to believe the truth before her.

“Yes, I am. The governor has commuted my sentence. Did you know?”

Two blinks and a hate-filled glare, the final proof that two blinks meant no.

“You didn’t know, did you?” Marydyth grabbed a straight-backed chair that was near and pulled it close. She sat down beside Victoria and picked up the old woman’s blue-veined hand.

“I thought of you often—thought of you and J.C,” Marydyth said softly.

Three blinks.

Marydyth felt her lips twisting in a wry smile. “I didn’t defend myself at the trial because I felt so much guilt over the things that I had done. But that is all over now, Victoria. I have paid a heavy price. I have a second chance at life and I want to raise my daughter.”

Two blinks.

“I deserve a second chance, Victoria.”

Two blinks.

“Everyone deserves to be forgiven,” Marydyth whispered.

Two blinks.

Marydyth inhaled deeply, then let out the air in a great rush. All the bad feelings she had carried for Victoria left with that sigh.

“I hated you, Victoria. For what you and Flynn O’Bannion did to me, I loathed you.but now it doesn’t seem so important.” Marydyth looked at the thickly veined hand lying lifeless in Victoria’s lap. The huge topaz and diamond rings seemed to hold the frail digits as iron shackles had once bound Marydyth. “I forgive you, Victoria, and I pray to God that someday you will forgive me.”

Marydyth closed her eyes and didn’t watch Victoria’s eyes while she bent over and deposited a gentle kiss to the old woman’s forehead. She rose from the chair and carefully put Victoria’s hand back where it was.

She was ready to go, to leave this unhappy house and all the hatred she had harbored. “You were wrong, Victoria, about a lot of things, especially about me.”

Outside the double doors Flynn was pacing. Moses and the nurse had taken Rachel to the kitchen for cookies and lemonade as soon as Marydyth had gone inside the parlor. Now Flynn’s curiosity was eating him alive.

What was she doing in there?

He kept looking at the doors and telling himself that it was none of his business.

But it might affect Rachel.

He walked quiet as an Apache to the doors. Marydyth had slid them almost together but there was a crack about half an inch wide. Flynn squinted his eyes and looked
into the darkness, but he couldn’t see anything. He could, however, hear Marydyth’s voice clearly.

“So,” Marydyth said, “I wanted you to know, Victoria. I did what I had to do—as God is my witness, I had no choice. I took his life but I wouldn’t call what I did murder—not now.”

An icy finger traced a line up Flynn’s spine.

I did what I had to do…. I took his life.

He stepped back from the crack in the door wishing he had not heard what she had just said. But deep inside, the kernel of suspicion had taken root and was already beginning to grow. Marydyth had just confessed.

M
arydyth rocked Rachel to sleep after bathing her and reading her a story, but she was still unwilling to leave her child for even a moment. The wonder of being with her, of actually
being
a mother again, was too new—too fresh.

The memory she had carried with her through the hard times at Yuma had been of a round-faced baby. The little girl in the pretty bed with the ruffled canopy was not a baby anymore.

She felt a painful tug on her heart when she thought of how many birthday celebrations she had missed. All the days of teaching Rachel, all the moments of marveling as she changed from an infant to a toddler and the little girl she was now.

She had missed so much. But she was here now and Rachel was sleeping soundly as she watched. Marydyth focused on that positive thought as she forced herself to rise.

Seeing Victoria had put things into perspective for her. Now she realized with painful clarity that she could remain bitter and vengeful about what had happened, turning herself into a withered old woman—as Victoria had
done—or she could move on, build a life and future for herself and Rachel.

Marydyth had spent enough time locked inside Yuma; she vowed she was not going to carry that place locked inside herself. She was not going to be a victim anymore.

Rachel was here and that was all that mattered-that and starting the process to revoke Flynn O’Bannion’s guardianship.

Making sure not to wake the child, she allowed herself one last loving touch. Then she turned toward the door. She needed to rest so she would be ready for all the wonderful things she had planned to do with Rachel tomorrow.

With the lamp in hand, Marydyth backed out of the bedroom. Shadows capered on the ornate rose wallpaper as she climbed the stairs to the west wing of the house. There was a sort of sleepy quiet to the house, as if it had not been disturbed for a long while. She knew in some deep, inner place that she was treading on stairs that had gone unused since her departure.

She didn’t like being so far from Rachel, but she could not disrupt her life by changing her bedroom immediately. Things were delicate enough. Each time she touched Rachel, there was a momentary wariness that clawed at Marydyth’s insides. Several times Rachel had asked Flynn—
Unca Flynn
—if it was all right for Marydyth to do things for her. As much as Marydyth hated to admit it, he had been wonderful. His manner with Rachel was easy and matter-of-fact. He didn’t make a fuss, didn’t dwell on the unease, he simply nodded or smiled at Rachel in that crooked, boyish way. His manner encouraged Rachel to allow Marydyth to do for her.

She owed him a debt of thanks, as much as it rankled her to admit it. Not only had he taken fine care of Rachel—that
was evident—but he was doing what he could to help her adjust to a mother she could not remember. It was a lot to be thankful for, Marydyth acknowledged as she turned the last corner toward her room.

She pushed open her door and it was as if the old house sighed. There was a quiet about it, but it was a different kind of quiet than the oppressive, fearful silence she had known in Yuma.

When Marydyth entered her bedroom suite she felt a thickness in her throat. It was foolish, but she trailed her fingers over the draperies, the dark wood of the poster bed, along the brocade comforter to the fringe on the bellpull—just to assure herself that she was really home.

Home.

Her room looked just as it had when she saw it last. She wondered how that could be.

Marydyth sat down in the small, armless chair by the window and looked outside. The town below was different in some small way she could not place immediately. Then it struck her that it was well lit. Gaslights flickered at regular intervals. Hollenbeck Corners was a pretty town. J.C. had been so proud of it when he brought her here.

Memories of her former life nudged at the corners of her mind. And now that Rachel was tucked in bed Marydyth was alone for the first time and able to look at her memories, to examine them in a way she had not done in three years. There was no unwanted, untrusted cell mate in the room. And the lock on the door was to keep people out—not in.

She shivered in relief. For the first time Marydyth had the freedom and the privacy to grieve for her husband and all that she had lost. Here in her own home, with pieces of furniture that she had handpicked surrounding
her, questions nipped at the corners of her mind. So many questions without answers.

Like her release, for instance. How had that all come about? She had been so giddy and gripped by the fear it was all a pipedream that, up until this moment, she hadn’t allowed herself to question how it had happened.

But now she wondered.

Did the governor hear of her plight and review the case? Had Victoria somehow been instrumental in obtaining mercy? As the image of Victoria’s hate-filled eyes remained in her mind, she doubted it. Perhaps somebody had found Blaine and the stolen jewelry, but Marydyth doubted that since she had kept his name out of it.

Only now, after three years in Yuma, had she realized her foolishness. But at the time, she had hoped—prayed—her silence would prevent Andre’s death from coming up. Then, it had been too late to matter. Nobody believed her—”The Black Widow.” She didn’t even have her wedding rings. All the wonderful presents that J.C. had given her, things she had wanted to pass on to Rachel, were gone—all gone. She glanced at her workworn hands. The thought of her jewelry made the thickness in her throat reappear.

Marydyth sighed and forced herself to relax. That was part of the past. And she could either mourn for something that could not be changed or let it go. She had her daughter and her life. And a million questions.

And there was one person who had all the answers.

“Flynn,” she said harshly. She’d sooner walk over hot coals than ask him.

No. Marydyth decided she would not ask him anything. She would just wait and maybe the pieces of the puzzle would fall into place on their own. Deep-down inside, she didn’t trust him.

Marydyth opened the clothespress and found a gown, looking and smelling as if it had been freshly laundered. She took off the dress that Flynn had selected and slipped the white cotton over her head. It felt good to be in her own clothes, and in a garment of her own choosing after so long.

She sat down at her dressing table and looked at herself. Time and events had taken their toll upon her, but tonight there was a light in her eyes that had not been present in Tombstone. She knew what it was, of course, it was hope. For the first time since J.C.’s murder Marydyth had hope that she and Rachel would be all right.

Flynn stared into the cold hearth over his unlit cigarette and sipped at some Mellwood whiskey. When Marydyth insisted on reading to Rachel and tucking her in, he had found himself prowling through the library looking for something—anything—to take his mind off it.

It was the last thing he wanted to admit, but it had stung to be replaced in Rachel’s nighttime ritual. It was foolish. Damned foolish, he admitted, but knowing that didn’t make it any easier for him. And the awful truth was, he didn’t one hundred percent trust Marydyth Hollenbeck.

And you feel guilty about it.

Guilty and responsible. He simply couldn’t shake the memory of what he had overheard her say to Victoria.

“Damn it all to hell.” He took a long drink of the whiskey, hoping it would burn away his concerns as it went down.

“That’s the wage for a man who listens behind doors,” he accused himself aloud, but it was more than that. It all came back to the letter, which, as Moses had said, could be interpreted many ways. Flynn realized now
that he had chosen to interpret it in a way that would give Rachel her mother back.

But was that the right thing? Had he put a coldblooded murderer back in this house?

He flopped down in the big chair and put the whiskey on the side table. Using his own leg as a bootjack, he eased off one boot and then the other. Flynn wiggled his toes inside his socks and crossed his feet at the ankles. Then he stared, unfocused, at the cold hearth.

After an hour of considering every possibility and looking at his problem from every possible angle he had come to a decision.

There was only one thing he could do. He was going to have to watch Marydyth Hollenbeck like a hawk. There were things about her that he couldn’t let himself trust. There were too many unanswered questions, but most of all, it was the sound of her voice speaking to Victoria that would not allow him to do anything else. It gave him an uneasy feeling—sneaking around watching—but he couldn’t find any way out of it.

Marydyth Hollenbeck couldn’t be trusted.

Before the thought even settled in his brain, Rachel’s bloodcurdling scream had him on his feet and running for the stairs. His heart was pounding like a locomotive while images of Marydyth pummeled his brain.

Was she capable of hurting her own child?

Marydyth had not been able to sleep, and she found herself walking toward Rachel’s room without even realizing that she was doing so. She was right outside her door when the scream made her blood congeal in her veins.

She had heard screams like that many times in Yuma.
It was the sound of hopelessness. It was the sound a soul makes when it is lost and has no hope of being found.

Marydyth wrenched open the door and flew inside. Her only thought was of helping Rachel.

The thin, bluish shaft of moonlight added an eeriness to the room. Marydyth went to the bed and found Rachel wound up in the sheet, covered with a sheen of sweat, thrashing in torment. Marydyth knew what it felt like to be trapped in the hellish reality of a dream.

She picked Rachel up, sheet and all. The child swung her arms wildly, desperately trying to escape some nameless horror. Her elbows and tiny fists connected with Marydyth’s neck and face more than once.

“Shh. Darling, I am here now. Mama is here,” Marydyth whispered.

“Mama!” Rachel shrieked.

Flynn rounded the corner and stepped into the doorway but froze on the spot.

What in the hell are you doing to her, Marydyth?

The question, however, did not reach his tongue, because as he watched he saw not a murderess but a mother’s tender hand stroking Rachel’s forehead.

And then something else happened.

A twining sort of awareness crept from his socked feet to a spot below his navel. He swallowed hard.

The air between him and Marydyth became electrified as his eyes adjusted to the light and he made out more details. She was wearing a gown, and the moonlight shimmered on her uneven curls and down her slender back. He wanted to turn and leave but he was rooted to the spot.

He could sense her—smell her. It was a sweet, feminine odor, a mingling of hard-milled soap, fresh scrubbed cotton and
her.

The blood in his veins became thick and heavy. He put one palm flat against the fancy printed wallpaper and closed his eyes tight.

It didn’t help.

With his eyes closed he imagined her body and how it would look if he pulled that gown over her head.

“Mama is here, Rachel. I love you and I will keep you safe. Now sleep, my darling—I will never leave you again.”

A rustling sound brought his eyes open with a snap. Flynn stepped back into the deep shadows of the hallway. He didn’t want her to see him.

A great struggle began to war inside him. He didn’t want to believe what had just happened to him, but it was useless to deny it.

He wanted her. And it disgusted him to want a woman who, by her own admission, had taken a life.

At seven o’clock when Mrs. Young showed up, Flynn was on his second cup of strong, bitter coffee. He had spent a restless night, weighing what he had seen against what he had heard.

He was not in a good mood.

“Mornin’, Mrs. Young,” he said without looking up from his cup. He wrapped his fingers around the cup and held it in both hands.

“Maybe it is and maybe it’s not.”

He turned to see her clamp her palms against her wide hips. She stood there glaring at him with her bonnet still on her head.

“Is something wrong, Mrs. Young?”

“Yes, there most certainly is something wrong. Mr. O’Bannion, I’ve had no complaint with you and your
ways these past years. You’ve been a proper influence on that
child.”

Flynn felt his jaw tighten. He squeezed the tin cup harder between his hands.

“Lord knows, with the tainted blood flowing in her veins she needs a proper upbringing.” Mrs. Young waggled her head and compressed her lips into a thin line.

“Just what are you trying to say?” Flynn asked.

“I am a respectable woman.”

“I’ve never had any doubt of that,” Flynn said stiffly to his cup.

“Then you’ll understand that I cannot abide staying in this house a minute longer.”

“What?” His head came up and he frowned at the housekeeper. “What is that?”

“And I can tell you this, Mr. O’Bannion, there is not a decent woman in Hollenbeck Corners who will, no matter how much money that uppity Moze Pritikin promises to pay. No one will spend a minute in this house with the Black Widow.”

So, Mrs. Young had talked to Moze before Flynn. It did not really surprise him; the old attorney knew the pulse and rhythm of everything that happened in Hollenbeck Corners.

“Sorry you feel that way, ma’am,” Flynn said with absolutely no sincerity.

“Maybe Miss Uppity-high-and-mighty will do her own cooking. ’Course if’n I was you I’d think twice about eating anything she cooked. Probably be laced with poison.”

“She was never accused of poisoning anyone,” Flynn said dryly.

“That don’t mean she mightn’t try it. That is Murderin’ Mary in there, or have you forgotten there was a
dead husband before poor J.C.? God rest his soul, he should’a had more sense than to go chasing after a woman half his age.” She wagged her head back and forth while she kept her arms akimbo.

“There was not that many years’ difference between

them.” Anger flashed in Flynn.

“Well, I just wanted you to know from me, so there’d be no misunderstanding. And don’t try and offer me more money to stay, ’cause I won’t.”