Share No Secrets (13 page)

“I assume your silence indicates acquiescence,” Margaret said briskly. “At least, it does if you know what’s good for you. Good night, Gavin. Run home to Ellen where you’re needed. At least expected. I have everything under control and I intend to keep it that way with no interference from you or anyone else.”

Margaret marched past the vending machine with her gaze straight ahead. Drew was certain she hadn’t seen him. But five minutes later, after he’d left the hospital and headed for his car in the parking lot, he saw Gavin Kirkwood sitting motionless behind the wheel of his Jaguar, his shoulders slumped, his face desolate.

“I’m sorry I’ve spoiled your evening,” Adrienne said when they pulled away from the hospital in Margaret’s car. “I’m sure you had better things to do than play chauffeur for me and Skye.”

“Don’t be silly.” Margaret smiled. “I was doing nonessential paperwork, just trying to keep myself busy until Philip gets home to tell me how the evening went.”

Not
Vicky
and Philip. Just Philip, Adrienne thought, bristling slightly. Vicky definitely didn’t imagine Margaret’s possessive air when it came to Philip, and Adrienne didn’t blame her for resenting it.

The rain had slacked off to a slight drizzle, but as they glided along in Margaret’s new Thunderbird, Adrienne felt chilled, even wrapped in Margaret’s dry raincoat. Mist circled the streetlights, giving them a ghostly glow, and a cloud cover hid the moon and stars. The evening felt bleak and lonely.

“I don’t know the address of the woman who took Skye home,” Adrienne finally said to fill the silence. “It’s Mrs. Granger. The daughter’s name is Sherry.”

“Drew Delaney got the address. I think he even called about an hour ago to tell Skye you’d be fine.”

“That was thoughtful.”

“Don’t get carried away with his kindness. He’s a reporter and this is the second big event you’ve been involved in today. Ingratiating himself to you is self-serving. He thinks you’ll be more inclined to give him details about finding Julianna Brent.”

Adrienne felt strangely annoyed by the comment because she knew Margaret could be right about Drew’s motive. He wasn’t above manipulating people to get what he wanted, even if it was just information. Still, she couldn’t forget the look of genuine alarm and concern in his eyes when he’d tended to her on the rain-washed sidewalk.

“I’ve offended you,” Margaret stated. “Sorry. I forgot you and Drew were once an item.”

Damn Philip for giving Margaret
that
embarrassing tidbit, Adrienne thought. “We went out a few times when I was in high school. That’s all. There is
nothing
between us.” She paused, thinking of what Margaret would make of that over-reaction. “I’m sorry I snapped. My head hurts.”

“You’ll feel better when you can take some aspirin get out of those damp clothes, and into a warm bed.”

They remained quiet until they reached the Granger house. When they pulled in the driveway, Margaret said, “I’ll get Skye. If you go to the door, there will be questions I’m sure you don’t feel like answering.”

“You’re right. But if Mrs. Granger is like me, she won’t let Skye leave with someone she doesn’t know.”

“Mrs. Granger doesn’t know you either, Adrienne.”

The woman had the infuriating habit of always being right, Adrienne thought, peeved. No wonder she drove Vicky crazy.

When they reached a cozy brick two-story home, Adrienne stayed in the car while Margaret went for Skye. The door opened and a bulb burning in a carriage light illuminated a plump woman, obviously Mrs. Granger, who nodded, clasped her hands as if in concern, smiled, leaned out the doorway and waved to Adrienne, then disappeared into the house. In a moment, Skye shot out the door, calling something over her shoulder to Mrs. Granger, and dashed to the car. Adrienne stepped out and the girl flung her arms around her mother.

‘Oh Mom, are you all right? Mrs. Granger gave me some stupid story about you spraining your ankle, but I knew it wasn’t true. What happened? Did you walk in on a robbery at Photo Finish? That’s what I’ve been imagining. That you got shot trying to wrestle the gun away from the robber.”

“Good heavens!” Adrienne laughed in amazement “I never dreamed you thought I was so brave! Actually, I got mugged before I reached Photo Finish.”

“Mugged?” Skye drew back and looked at her. “I thought that only happened in places like New York City.”

“I guess the craze has finally reached even Point Pleasant, West Virginia.”

Skye delicately touched the bandage on Adrienne’s forehead. “What’s under that? Something bad?”

“A cut Minor. A couple of stitches.” Four, to be accurate, but she wanted to minimize the situation. “I banged my head on the sidewalk when the mugger knocked me down. Other than that, I’m just a little sore and bruised.”

Skye hugged her gently. “I’m so happy. But Mrs. Granger should have told me the truth. At least then I wouldn’t have imagined something lots worse.”

‘Telling you I had a sprained ankle was my idea. Don’t blame Mrs. Granger. I keep forgetting you’re not a little girl who has to be shielded from everything.”

Margaret was already seated behind the steering wheel. “All right, ladies. Time to go to the Hamilton house.”

“Aunt Vicky’s?” Skye asked. “Why?”

“The mugger took my purse,” Adrienne said. “He has keys to our house. It’s safer for us to stay with Vicky until I get the locks changed.”

“Brandon!” Skye cried. “He’s there all alone!”

“I’m sure he’ll be fine,” Margaret said offhandedly. “You can check on him in the morning.”

Skye was indignant. “In the
morning!
He hasn’t had his dinner. He hasn’t been let out since morning. Besides, he’ll be scared in a dark house all by himself. We have to go get him.”

“Skye, dogs are quite self-sufficient,” Margaret said with authority. “He probably won’t even miss you.”

That did it. Skye flushed. Even if Adrienne had agreed with Margaret, which she didn’t, she knew Skye would retrieve her dog if she had to walk the two miles to their house to get him. “If we’re spending the night at Aunt Vicky’s, then Brandon is coming, too.” Skye sounded like a supremely self-confident twenty-five-year-old not about to take guff from anyone. “Ms. Taylor, please take us to pick up Brandon.”

“Skye, really, you’re being silly—”

“I have to agree with Skye,” Adrienne said, earning an appreciative smile from her daughter. “Either we get the dog or we spend the night in our own house.”

Margaret sighed gustily, stared straight ahead, and finally muttered, “Oh, all
right.”
She was furious. Adrienne didn’t care. She even enjoyed the woman’s frustration a bit and she knew Vicky and Rachel would relish hearing about Margaret’s iron will being overridden by Skye.

After they picked up Brandon, Margaret cringing as the big, long-haired black dog piled onto the immaculate pale upholstery of the backseat, they headed for Vicky’s. As soon as Adrienne saw the house, her spirits sank even lower. Although Adrienne knew her own home was an interior designer’s nightmare—a hodgepodge of clashing styles and colors and patterns—it seemed like a vibrant, living thing next to Vicky’s stately white Colonial completely furnished in shades of pallid pink, chilly blue, and stark white. Nothing encouraged a guest to enter, kick off his shoes on an Aubusson rug, and curl up on a stiff-backed, brocade-covered sofa.

The house had belonged to Philip’s wealthy Great-aunt Octavia, who had raised him after his parents died when he was young, and the old lady’s rigid, chilly presence still permeated every room. Vicky had wanted to make changes in the décor, but Philip allowed only identical replacements of furnishings deemed too worn to remain. A noted interior designer had stated in his column that the home was a pristinely beautiful sanctuary. Adrienne thought it looked about as cozy and nurturing as an ice castle. A few carpet spots, live plants bearing a couple of dead leaves, a
TV Guide
lying open on an end table, and a mass-produced picture in a cheap frame would have been an improvement as far as Adrienne was concerned.

But she knew change was out of the question. Octavia Hamilton had never intended the house to look as if it belonged to ordinary people with ordinary lives, and her nephew seemed determined to carry on the tradition. The only change Philip had made since his great-aunt died was to set a towering pole bearing a huge American flag in front of the house. Seeing it always made Adrienne feel as if she were arriving at a government building instead of her sister’s place.

Although lights burned throughout the house, none of the family had returned. Margaret unlocked a side door and they entered the large, stark white and stainless steel kitchen. She pointed to a small room to the left. “The dog can stay in the laundry room.”

‘The laundry room!” Skye was appalled. “He always sleeps by my bed.”

Margaret gave her a tight smile. “In
your
house. Not in this house. Philip doesn’t want animal hair all over the place. Rachel has never had a pet.”

“And that’s a shame!” Skye looked reproachfully at Margaret. “Rachel told me when she was little she
really
wanted a pet. I don’t think she should have been denied having something to love because her dad was afraid of getting some animal hairs on the furniture.”

“And urine and feces on the antique rugs,” Margaret returned.

“Dogs can be house-trained. Brandon is,” Skye asserted. “He would
never
make a mess in the house, would he, Mom?”

“No, he wouldn’t,” Adrienne said mildly. “He’s really a well-behaved dog, Margaret. And, after all, this is my
sister’s
house too, and I know she doesn’t mind having dogs. If I break the rules, I’ll confront Philip. I won’t ask you to take the responsibility.”

Anger flashed in Margaret’s dark eyes for a moment. Then she said in a carefully expressionless voice, “As you point out, this is not
my
house, but I was hired to carry out Mr. Hamilton’s instructions. So I must insist that you put the dog in the laundry room for now and take up the matter with Philip later.”

Adrienne thought, What about Vicky? Doesn’t she have any say around here? But she decided picking a fight with Margaret would only make the evening worse.

Adrienne nodded at Skye. The girl looked at both her and Margaret resentfully before leading the big black and white dog into the small room. Margaret sighed. “She’s upset. It’s better that I never had children. I don’t have a way with them.”

She sounded almost wistful and Adrienne felt a twinge of sympathy for her. Maybe after years of directing political campaigns, of giving orders to dozens of people, of feeling ultimate responsibility for the success or failure of a candidate, Margaret didn’t realize she came off at all times like a general commanding the troops, a demeanor that didn’t encourage warm relationships with teenage girls. Adrienne wondered if Margaret had always been so bossy and self-assured, or if her own teenage years been filled with normal teenage insecurities and sensibilities.

Skye came out of the laundry room, closing the door behind her and looking tragic. “Honey, a night in there won’t kill Brandon,” Adrienne said. “It’s not like he’s been cast out into an ice storm.”

“But he’s used to being with me. He doesn’t understand.”

“He’ll be fine.” Margaret’s voice held a trace of kindness. She was trying. “I’ll go upstairs and help you get settled into the guest rooms. Which ones would you like?”

“I want to stay with Mom, not in a separate room,” Skye said promptly. “We want the room next to Rachel’s. It has the biggest TV.”

Margaret looked doubtful. “I don’t think your mother is up for television …”

“I’m always up for TV,” Adrienne lied, seeing Sky’s incipient glower. The girl had already been pushed far enough today with the murder, the attack on her mother, and finally Brandon’s incarceration in the wretched laundry room without his cushion or his toys or even his rawhide chewbone. “Really, Margaret, I can’t sleep unless I watch some television first. And there’s no sense in messing up two rooms.”

Twenty minutes later Skye lay across the king-sized bed watching a police show as Adrienne walked back into the room wrapped in one of Vicky’s terry-cloth robes. Her bath had felt wonderful, the hot water easing some of the tension from her neck and shoulders. She’d used lots of bath oil and placed several vanilla candles around the tub. Candles made by Lottie Brent. “Your sister is my mother’s biggest customer,” Julianna had told Adrienne a couple of years ago. “And she’s gotten a lot of her friends to buy them by the dozen. I’m so grateful to Vicky. It’s important to Mama to feel like she can earn her own living, with as little help from Gail and me as possible.”

A wave of sadness hit Adrienne so hard she felt almost dizzy. She would never again see Julianna’s beautiful face alight with joy or hear her girlish laughter. She was gone. All that remained of Julianna Brent in this world was a cold, pale corpse lying in a morgue. It seemed impossible. And awful.

“Mom, are you all right?” Skye had glanced away from the television and was looking at her in alarm. “Are you sick?”

Yes, I’m sick at the thought of my friend being dead, Adrienne thought. My friend being
murdered.
“I’m fine, honey. I feel much better after my bath.”

“You smell good—like vanilla—but you’re awful pale.

“I was generous with Vicky’s vanilla bath oil. And I’ll have my normal color back by morning.”

“I hope so.” Skye sighed. “Mom, except for when Daddy got killed, this has been the worst day of my life.”

Adrienne went to the bed, sat down, and put her arm around her daughter. “I know, baby. It has for me, too. But it’s over now. The whole awful nightmare is over.”

Adrienne spoke with conviction, but she was lying. She had an inexplicable but certain feeling that the nightmare was just beginning.

“For God’s sake, Adrienne, you look like someone beat you up!”

Philip Hamilton—tall and striking in a tuxedo, every light brown hair in place, each little wrinkle flatteringly placed on his patrician face to give him a look of youthful experience and wisdom—grimaced ferociously down at her as she leaned against pillows propped against the headboard. “What’s
wrong
with you?” he continued angrily. “Why were you out prowling the streets alone at night?”