Moonlight Becomes You (27 page)

They did not speak as they got in the car. Malcolm stared ahead for a few moments, then he turned toward her. “I'll pay off the mortgage on our house,” he said quietly, his voice a monotone. “Holloway won't sell now, and she says she has a substantially higher offer anyway, which means if she does change her mind, it won't do me any good.”

“
Us
any good,” Janice corrected automatically, then bit her lip. She did not want to antagonize him, not now.

If he ever found out that she had had a hand in the counteroffer that was made on Nuala's house, he might well be angry enough to kill
her,
she thought with rising uneasiness. Her nephew Doug had made the offer, of course, but if Malcolm found that out, he would surely know that she had put him up to it. Had Maggie Holloway told him anything that might implicate her? she wondered.

As though reading her mind, her husband turned toward her. “Surely you haven't talked to anyone, have you, Janice?” he asked quietly.

*   *   *

“A bit of a headache,” he had said when they reached home, his tone remote but cordial. Then he had gone upstairs to his room. It had been years since they had shared a bedroom.

He did not come downstairs again until nearly seven o'clock. Janice had been watching the evening news and
looked up as he stopped at the door of the family room. “I'm going out,” he said. “Good night, Janice.”

She stared unseeingly at the television screen, listening carefully for the sound of the front door closing behind him. He's up to something, she thought, but what is it? She allowed him plenty of time to leave, then turned off the TV and collected her purse and car keys. She had told Malcolm earlier that she was going out to dinner. They had grown so distant of late that he didn't ask her whom she was meeting any more than she bothered to inquire about his plans.

Not that she would have told him if he had asked, Janice thought grimly as she headed for Providence. There, at a small out-of-the-way restaurant, her nephew would be waiting. And there, over steaks and scotch, he would pass her an envelope containing cash, her share for supplying him with a detailed account of Cora Gebhart's financial situation. As Doug had happily told her, “This one was a real bonanza, Aunt Janice. Keep 'em coming!”

54

A
S
M
AGGIE WAS DRESSING FOR HER DATE WITH
N
EIL
S
TE
phens, she realized there was a stronger-than-usual hint of dampness in the sea-scented breeze that came in through the bedroom window. Ringlets and waves, she thought with resignation. She would just fluff her hair with her fingers after she had brushed it, she decided. On a night like this, it was inevitable that the natural curl would assert itself.

She thought about Neil as she continued getting ready.
Over these past months she had found herself more and more looking forward to his calls and too disappointed when they didn't come.

But it was very obvious that, to Neil, she was an occasional date and nothing more. He'd certainly made that clear. Even so, she really had expected him to call before she left for Newport, and now she was determined to place no special significance on this evening. She knew that grown children—and especially single men—when visiting their parents, frequently looked for excuses to get away.

And then there was Liam, Maggie thought briefly. She didn't quite know what to make of his sudden show of interest. “Oh well,” she shrugged.

All tarted up, she thought wryly after she applied eye shadow and mascara and blush, then carefully made up her lips in a soft coral shade.

Looking through the outfits she had to choose from, she picked the one she had intended to wear to Nuala's dinner party, a vivid blue silk print blouse and matching long skirt. A narrow gold chain and earrings were her only jewelry, except for the oval-shaped sapphire ring that had belonged to her mother.

When she passed Nuala's bedroom on the way downstairs, Maggie entered for a moment and turned on the lamp on the nightstand. As she looked around, she decided definitely to make this her room. She would move into it tomorrow, after she returned from the brunch with Mrs. Bainbridge and her daughter. I can shove the furniture around by myself, she decided, and the only things I haven't cleaned out are the shoes and whatever is on the closet floor, and it won't take long to finish with that.

Walking through the living room, she noticed that the roses Liam had brought needed a change of water. She refilled the vase at the kitchen sink, reached into the clutter
drawer for scissors, cut the stems, and rearranged the roses before taking them back to the living room. Then she walked around the room, “fussing” with little things, like straightening the ottoman in front of the club chair, removing some of the profusion of small framed pictures on the mantel and tabletops, leaving only a few of the most flattering ones of Nuala and her husband, plumping the pillows on the couch.

In a few minutes the room took on a more tranquil, less busy feeling. Maggie studied the space and mentally rearranged the furniture, knowing that the love seat behind which Nuala's body had been hunched would have to go. The very sight of it haunted her.

I'm nesting, she told herself, more than I've ever done anyplace since that silly little apartment Paul and I had in Texas. She was at once surprised and pleased with herself.

The front doorbell rang at ten of seven. Neil was early. Realizing how ambivalent she felt about the evening ahead of her, she waited a long minute before answering the ring. When she opened the door, she was careful to keep her voice and smile friendly but impersonal.

“Neil, how nice to see you.”

Neil did not answer but stood looking down at her, studying her face, unsmiling, his eyes troubled.

Maggie opened the door wider. “As my father used to ask, ‘Cat got your tongue?' Come in, for heaven's sake.”

He stepped inside and waited as she closed the door; then he followed her into the living room.

“You look lovely, Maggie,” he said finally, as they stood facing each other.

She raised her eyebrows. “Surprised?”

“No, of course not. But I was sick when I heard what happened to your stepmother. I know how much you were looking forward to being with her.”

“Yes, I was,” Maggie agreed. “Now, where are we going for dinner?”

Fumbling with his words, he asked if she'd mind having dinner with his parents to celebrate his mother's birthday.

“Why don't we just try doing this some other time?” Maggie asked curtly. “I'm sure your folks don't need a perfect stranger horning in on a family party.”

“They're looking forward to meeting you, Maggie. Don't back out,” Neil pleaded. “They'll know it's because of them that you didn't come.”

Maggie sighed. “I guess I have to eat.”

She let Neil do the talking as they drove to the restaurant, answering his questions as directly and succinctly as possible. She noted with some amusement, however, that he was being especially attentive and charming, and it took all of her determination to maintain her aloofness.

She had intended to continue treating Neil with distinct reserve throughout the evening, but the warmth of his parents' greeting and their obviously sincere distress over what had happened to Nuala made it impossible not to loosen up.

“My dear, you didn't know a soul up here,” Dolores Stephens said. “How awful for you to go through all that alone.”

“Actually I do know one person fairly well—the man who took me to the party at the Four Seasons where I met Nuala again.” Maggie looked over at Neil. “Maybe you know him, Neil. Liam Payne. He's in the investment business, too. He has his own firm in Boston but comes to New York regularly.”

“Liam Payne,” Neil said thoughtfully. “Yes, I do know him slightly. He's a good investment guy. Too good for his former bosses at Randolph and Marshall, if I remember correctly. He took some of their best clients with him when he went out on his own.”

Maggie could not resist a feeling of satisfaction at seeing the frown on Neil's face. Let him wonder if Liam is important to me, she thought. He's already made it plain how unimportant I am to him.

Nevertheless over a relaxing meal that included lobster and chardonnay, she found herself thoroughly enjoying Neil's parents and was flattered to learn that Dolores Stephens was familiar with her fashion photography.

“When I read the newspaper about your stepmother's death,” Mrs. Stephens said, “and then when Neil spoke about Maggie, I didn't connect you with your work. Then this afternoon when I was reading
Vogue,
I saw your name under the Armani spread. A thousand years ago—before I was married—I worked in a small advertising agency, and we had the Givenchy account. That was before Givenchy became famous. I used to have to go to all the shoots.”

“Then you know all about . . .” Maggie began, and soon found herself telling war stories about temperamental designers and difficult models, ending with the last job that she had done before coming to Newport. They agreed there was nothing worse for a photographer than a nervous and indecisive art director.

As she opened up more, Maggie found herself telling them about her inclination to keep the house. “It's too soon to be sure, so the best thing is to do nothing for a while, I guess. But in a way, living in the house this week makes me understand why Nuala was so reluctant to give it up.”

At Neil's inquiry, she told them about Nuala canceling her reservation at Latham Manor. “It was even for the large unit she had particularly wanted,” she explained. “And I understand that they go quickly.”

“Neil and I were over there today,” Robert Stephens said. “He's scouting it for one of his clients.”

“It sounds to me as though the apartment your stepmother
didn't take is the one that's being offered right now,” Neil commented.

“And it's the same one that Laura Arlington wanted,” his father noted. “Seems to me there is a real scramble for those places.”

“Someone else wanted it?” Maggie asked quickly. “Did she change her mind?”

“No. She got talked into investing the bulk of her money in a fly-by-night stock and, unfortunately, lost it all,” Neil said.

The conversation drifted to many other subjects, with Neil's mother gradually drawing her out about her childhood. While Neil and his father got into a discussion about how Neil might follow through in looking into the bad investment Mrs. Arlington had made, Maggie found herself telling Dolores Stephens that her birth mother had died in an accident when she was an infant and how happy she had been the five years Nuala and she had lived together.

Finally, realizing that tears were close, she said, “No more nostalgia and no more wine. I'm getting mushy.”

*   *   *

When Neil drove Maggie home, he walked her to the door and took the key from her hand. “I'll only stay a minute,” he said, opening the door. “I just want to see something. Which way is the kitchen?”

“Back through the dining room.” Bewildered, Maggie followed him.

He went immediately to the door and examined the lock. “From what I read, the police think that the intruder either found this door unlocked, or your stepmother opened it for someone she knew.”

“That's right.”

“I offer a third possibility: That lock is so loose anyone
could open it with a credit card,” he said, and then proceeded to demonstrate the fact.

“I have a call in to a locksmith,” Maggie said. “I guess I'll hear from him Monday.”

“Not good enough. My dad is a wunderkind around the house, and I grew up as his unwilling little helper. I, or maybe both of us, will be back tomorrow to install a dead bolt and check all the windows.”

No “if you'd like” or “is that okay?” Maggie thought, feeling a surge of irritation. Just “this is the way it is.”

“I'm going out to brunch,” she told him.

“Brunch is usually over by two,” Neil said. “Let's figure on that time, or if you want, you can tell me where you'll hide a key.”

“No, I'll be here.”

Neil picked up one of the kitchen chairs and wedged it under the doorknob. “At least this would make noise if anyone tried to get in,” he said. Then he looked around the room before turning to her. “Maggie, I don't want to alarm you, but from everything I've heard, the consensus of opinion is that whoever murdered your stepmother was looking for something, and no one knows what it was, or if he got it.”

“Assuming it was a ‘he,' ” Maggie said. “But you're right. That's exactly what the police think.”

“I don't like the idea of you being here alone,” he said as they walked to the front door.

“I'm honestly not nervous, Neil. I've been taking care of myself for a long time.”

“And if you were nervous, you'd never admit it to me. Right?”