Sharp Edges (18 page)

"I didn't set out to take matters into my own hands. It all just sort of happened."

"Uh-huh. Something tells me things just sort of happen like that a lot around you."

"Now, Cyrus—"

"You should never have confronted Rhonda alone. You know nothing about questioning people who have things to hide. What the hell did you think you were doing?"

"I didn't have much choice," Eugenia pointed out. "She confronted me, remember?"

"Damn it, I don't care which one of you started it. All I know is that you ended up in the water with her. It could have been a very dangerous situation."

"It was dangerous for Rhonda, but not for me."

"Is that right? You could have been the one who hit her head and got knocked unconscious when you went running to the rescue. That pier was still slippery from the rain this evening—" Cyrus broke off abruptly.

This was crazy. He was overreacting, and he knew it. What he did not understand was why. He was amazed to realize that his temper was suddenly on simmer, just as it had been earlier at dinner.

He wondered morosely what it was about Eugenia that got to him so easily. She had a talent for sabotaging his self-control in a way that no one else had ever been able to do.

"I'd rather you didn't lecture me anymore tonight, Cyrus." Eugenia patted a small yawn. "I haven't got the energy for a knock-down-drag-out fight. Maybe in the morning."

"I don't want a fight." He flexed his hands slowly. "I just want the facts."

She leaned her head against the back of the sofa and watched him through half-closed lids. "You heard me tell Deputy Peaceful the whole story."

"The hell I did. You gave him the short, simple version."

"The short, simple version?"

"The one in which you told Rhonda that you wanted to talk to her about her art, and she said she didn't want to discuss it. The one in which she just turned and ran out of the restaurant for no apparent reason. You remember that version?"

"But that's exactly what happened." Eugenia frowned. "I never even got a chance to mention Nellie's name to her. Rhonda told me to leave her alone, and then she took off. I went after her. When I got outside on the pier, I stopped because I couldn't see her. Then I heard a scream and the splash."

Cyrus rubbed the back of his neck. "While you were with Meditation Jones I talked to the busboy who saw you and Rhonda run out the side door. Fortunately, he confirmed that Rhonda left ahead of you and that you were standing in plain sight just outside the door when she screamed from the far end of the pier."

Eugenia gave him a quizzical look. "What do you mean, fortunately he confirmed all that?"

He shrugged. "It simplifies things."

"How does it simplify things?"

He glanced at her, exasperated. "It makes it real clear that you didn't get into a shoving match with Rhonda at the edge of the pier."

Her mouth dropped open as the implications hit her. "My God. You mean someone might have concluded that I pushed her into the water?"

He braced one hand on the mirrored mantel. "Why do you think Deputy Peaceful was asking all those questions at the clinic?"

"Good grief." Outrage lit her eyes. "I never realized that he thought that I might have shoved Rhonda off the pier."

"I'm not saying he did believe that. He was just checking out the possibilities. Like I said, the busboy's version of events coincides with yours, and that takes care of the problem."

"Of all the nerve." Her expression went from angry to appalled in the blink of an eye. "Don't tell me that you had a few doubts, too?"

"No." He smiled. "Not for a minute."

"Well, thank goodness for that much." She shuddered. "It's infuriating to think that anyone could have thought for a second that I would do such a thing."

"Don't worry about it." Cyrus tried for a soothing tone. "Peaceful knows that the fall was an accident. He told me that Rhonda has always been a little high-strung and that lately she's been acting even more anxious than usual."

"Is that so?" Eugenia's gaze was suddenly very intent. "Did he have any theories about why she might have started acting more nervous lately?"

"I got the impression that he thinks she might be doing drugs, although he didn't come right out and say it." Cyrus cleared his throat. "He mentioned that Meditation had noticed that Rhonda's aura had become a little pale and thin lately."

Eugenia wrinkled her nose. "Oh, well, that explains everything. Everyone knows that a pale, thin aura can make a person extremely tense."

Cyrus grinned. "Yeah. Common knowledge. Peaceful also told me that for years the town council has promised to build a railing on that old pier. Apparently Rhonda's not the first person to fall off it."

Eugenia gave a ladylike snort. "First time some tourist goes over the side there's going to be a major lawsuit."

"Probably."

"You said a busboy heard Rhonda's scream and raised the alarm?"

"He says he heard the scream, but he didn't know what had happened until he heard you shout for help. Then he rushed into the restaurant and started yelling."

"Hmm. That explains it, I guess."

"Explains what?"

She stared thoughtfully into the fire and tapped one finger against the tea mug. "It must have been his footsteps I heard."

"Footsteps?"

"They came from somewhere near the garbage bins." Her brows drew together in a considering expression. "But I could have sworn that the person was running away down the pier, not going back inside the restaurant for help."

"It would have been difficult to be sure one way or the other. You were pretty busy at the time."

"True, I did have other things on my mind. It was right about then that I lost my footing on the ladder. What with trying to hang on to the life preserver and grab Rhonda, matters got confusing." A tremor went through her. "And the water was so cold."

He felt her shiver as if it had gone down his own spine. "Do you want more tea?"

"No, thanks." She looked up. "The only thing I didn't tell Deputy Peaceful was that I suspected that the painting I bought at the Midnight Gallery was Nellie's work, not Rhonda's. And the reason I didn't tell him that was because I can't prove it and Rhonda will deny it."

"You think Rhonda knew the real reason you wanted to see her?"

Eugenia hesitated. "Yes. Definitely. It was obvious she was scared. I'm sure she had guessed that I suspected she had passed off Nellie's work as her own. Why else would she have acted the way she did?"

"Who knows? She may be seriously neurotic or even paranoid. Especially if she's doing drugs."

"This was more than neurotic, Cyrus. She was scared and angry. She was probably afraid that I would expose her. I'm sure Rhonda knows something about Nellie." Eugenia narrowed her eyes. "She may even know how she died."

"Don't go off into fantasyland with this. She may simply have taken advantage of Nellie's death to steal her work and sell it for whatever she could get."

"Maybe." Eugenia looked unconvinced. "You know, Cyrus, Meditation told me that Rhonda may be in the hospital for two or three days."

"You never give up, do you?"

"I beg your pardon?"

"Don't give me the innocent act," he said. "You're still working on figuring out how to talk me into helping you take a look around her cottage."

"I wouldn't dream of asking you to get involved with anything that might possibly be construed as illegal."

He smiled faintly. "Like hell you wouldn't."

She raised her brows. "So?"

He exhaled deeply. "I'll think about it."

"You know," she said brightly, "if we're going to do it, we probably ought to do it tonight."

"No," he said with great conviction. "We are not going to do it tonight. I want to think about this a little more before we do anything really stupid."

"But, Cyrus…"

He released his grip on the mantel and went to the couch. He leaned down and planted his hands on the white cushions on either side of her shoulders, caging her. He brought his face very close to hers.

"I said, not tonight, Ms. Swift."

She blinked, and then sparks of laughter lit her amber eyes. "You know, if you're any kind of example, you private investigators aren't nearly as spontaneous and adventurous as I have been led to believe."

"Your concept of what constitutes spontaneous and adventurous sends cold chills through me." He inhaled the scent of her freshly scrubbed body and felt his insides clench. With an effort, he straightened. "It's been a long night, and I'm getting a little old to be fishing my dates out of the water. Time for bed."

"All right, be that way. See if I care." The humor faded from her expression. She set her mug down on the glass end table with great care. "But first I have an apology to make."

"If you're going to say you're sorry because you got both of us wet tonight, forget it."

"It's not that." She looked at him with clear, somber eyes. "I want to apologize for what I said earlier at dinner. About your wife. I had no right to say all those unpleasant things about her. I don't expect you to forgive me, but I want you to know that I'm sorry."

He felt the same twisting sensation in his gut that he had experienced at the restaurant when she had talked so passionately of love and honor and loyalty. He turned back to the fire.

Deliberately, he stripped his voice of all inflection. "Are you apologizing because you've changed your opinion of her?"

She cleared her throat. "My opinion of her behavior is not what's important here. You loved her, and I had no right to trample on your feelings for her. It was rude and cruel and inexcusable."

He glanced at her over his shoulder. "So why did you do it?"

She closed her eyes. "You pressed a couple of my hot buttons from the past. My parents were divorced when I was fourteen. My father was a professor of sociology at a small college at the time. He had an affair with one of his graduate students."

"I see."

"The divorce, itself, was bad enough. But the worst part was having to listen to all of my father's rationalizations, justifications, and so-called reasons why it was such a good idea for the whole family."

Cyrus remembered Rick's disgust with Jake Tasker's elaborate explanations for breaking up the Tasker family. "Yeah. I know what you mean."

"Dad managed to avoid being the one to tell me and my brother and sister about the divorce. He made Mom do the dirty work. But I went to his office one day and asked him why he was doing it. I told him we wanted him to stay with us." Her hand curled into a fist. "I told him we needed him. I pleaded with him."

Cyrus heard the self-disgust vibrate in her voice. "What happened?"

"He gave me a lot of garbage about how people grow apart and change and how everyone has an obligation to pursue his or her own happiness. How people have a responsibility to themselves to find fulfillment. He said that someday I would understand."

"Did you?"

"Certainly." Eugenia smiled wanly. "But I didn't have to wait to grow up in order to figure it all out. I learned everything I needed to know that day in his office."

"What did you learn?"

"That my father was weak." She gazed into the fire with shadowed eyes. "That he lacked a strong sense of honor and loyalty and that he could not make a lasting commitment or accept real responsibility. That I could not depend on him for anything important."

Cyrus could feel old, long-buried emotions shifting ghostlike in the mists of his memories. "You learned all that?"

"Yes. I was hurt and angry at the time, but I was careful to keep it all beneath the surface. I had to stay in control for Mom's sake. She had enough trouble on her hands. She needed my help. I didn't want to be another problem for her. And then there was my brother and sister. I had to be strong for their sakes, too."

He thought about how he had grown up with a need to be in control. From his earliest years he had been conscious of his responsibility toward his grandparents. They needed him. He could not take the risk of causing them any more grief than they had already endured.

"It was like that for me with my grandparents," he said. "Somewhere along the line I guess the control thing gets to be a habit."

She looked at him. "You know, it's strange. But when I look back now I feel a sense of pity for my father. It's hard to remain angry with someone who is simply weak in the ways that truly count."

He had a sudden, vivid image of Katy. Lovely, fragile,
weak
Katy. "Anger is a powerful emotion. It can crush and destroy. You have to be careful where you aim it."

"Yes. All I know is, that day in his office I promised myself that whatever else I did in life, I would not allow myself to be weak the way my father was. And still is, for that matter."

"So you became strong."

She grimaced. "Some people would say I've overdone it."

"Which people?"

"A couple of ex-boyfriends, among others."

"Ninety-pound weaklings, I'll bet."

She smiled. "You may be right." The amusement faded. "How did you get to be strong, Cyrus?"

"What makes you think I'm strong?"

"I can feel it. You radiate strength and power the way ancient glass does."

The quiet certainty in her voice gave him a strange feeling. The conversation had taken a turn toward the bizarre, he thought. He'd never talked to a woman this way. Hell, he'd never talked to
anyone
like this.

"You sound like Meditation Jones," he growled. "All that crap about auras."

Eugenia drew her knees up beneath the white robe and rested her chin on her folded arms. Her eyes were deep, luminous pools of gold in the firelight. "You make your own rules, and you live by them. You don't bend them when it's convenient. That takes strength."

"Rules?"

"Your wife betrayed you, but she was your wife." Eugenia's gaze did not waver. "You feel you have a duty to avenge her memory, even though she was unfaithful. You're following your own code. Of course, there are some who would call it a good working definition of an obsession."

He winced. "What do you call it?"