The Summer Bones (20 page)

A car had driven into the lane. With a start, Victoria realized that Michael was arriving in the middle of her argument with her mother. Sure enough, when she glanced out the screen door, she saw a dark green Jaguar pull up, followed by a haze of dust.

“Mother,” she began to say.

* * * *

The whole thing was very interesting—fascinating, actually. Michael Roberts cautiously sipped a scalding cup of coffee and watched his would-be fiancée from above the rim. Victoria was nervous; he could tell it easily from her abrupt mannerisms and flighty smile. She alternated from being sweet and charming to jumping out of her skin.

Her mother wasn't what he expected—gorgeous in a mature, full-blown sort of earthy way, red hair, pale skin, fiery eyes. Victoria was a study in contrast with her subtle coloring and quiet demeanor.
Victoria must take after her father
, he decided, and fought a grimace as he took a mouthful of hot liquid.

The farm itself was a pretty place—well tended and impossibly green. The house was old, but not as old as he had imagined, and charming in the way of clean, painted wood and straight lines. The inside of the place, the kitchen being the only thing he had seen so far, was warm in the same sort of cozy and homey way. He placed his coffee cup on the table and unobtrusively pushed it aside. His shirt was already damp and clinging to his back from the heat. Coffee wasn't what he needed. A scotch on the rocks was more in order.

The screen door opened and two more people came in, sweating in the afternoon sun—an aunt and uncle, according to introductions. He smiled and shook hands. That made the family count eight so far, including a plump cousin and her husband, the grandparents, her mother, and Victoria herself. Victoria's grandmother, a sweet, soft old lady, offered him more coffee. He declined, his body retracting almost involuntarily at the thought of taking another drink.

Victoria stood up and said, “I think I'll take Michael upstairs to his room.”

At that point, the screen door opened again. Michael was beginning to think a revolving door would make more sense. He could hear the escaping rumble of a truck going down the lane.

Mildred Paulsen moved to the refrigerator and took out a glass. Wordlessly she filled it with iced tea and handed it over to the new arrival. The man nodded at her and drank it without stopping.

He wore no shirt, his sweat-drenched chest showing plenty of muscle. Damp dark hair curled in an unruly mess around his face. Torn jeans hugged a slim waist and long legs. The man finished the drink, dragged his hand across his brow, and narrowed his eyes. No one else in the room seemed to take much notice except the aunt, who turned and smiled. The resemblance between the two of them was unmistakable.
This must be the cousin then, the one Victoria mentioned so often.

Michael sent her a lightning glance of question. She indeed introduced her cousin, Damon. Michael shook a hand that had seen cleaner days and wondered sardonically how come this particular Paulsen had buried himself in the back of Indiana farm country.

Surely he had other options, and Victoria had mentioned something about medical school.

No mention had been made so far of her missing sister. The only indication of the current crisis was the distinct edge in the air. Obligingly, he smiled all around, receiving strained responses. Then he followed Victoria outside to his car to retrieve his luggage.

Once down the steps and into the yard, she waved a careless hand. “Sorry.”

“About what?” Michael asked. The grass was crunchy under his feet. Evidently the area hadn't benefited from the Chicago rains.

“People come and go here. I didn't expect Aunt Kate and Uncle Jim, nor my mother. I thought this would be a quiet evening.” Her mouth curved. “Rachel and her husband, what's his name, they drop in all the time. One can't prepare for it.”

“Jeff, I think.” He smiled.

“What?” She looked puzzled.

“The husband of your cousin. I think he introduced himself as Jeff.”

“Oh.” A short laugh escaped her lips.

“I wanted to meet your family. That's why I came.”

“But not all at once.” She trudged on, stopping by his car. Her slender shoulders were taut with telltale tension, and her eyes were darker than usual. Without comment, he opened the trunk and took out his case.

They went back inside, aware of the stilted conversation as they walked through the kitchen crowd. The air had begun to smell deliciously like roast pork.

Victoria took him up a carpeted staircase and down an airy hallway. He followed her into a large bedroom with two long windows and a polished wooden floor. The furnishings were antique—an ornate cherry bed, a low dresser with an age-spotted mirror, a small dark stand by the bed that held a pitcher and basin. The bed was spread with a handmade quilt done in royal blue, dark red, and pale green against an ivory background. It was breathtaking. Antiques being fashionable, his mother had taken lately to collecting them, so he had some idea of their value.

“Very nice,” he said, and meant it. He had never been sure how to interpret the vague references Victoria occasionally made to her childhood. He knew her parents had an unhappy marriage, which explained to an extent her reluctance to commit to their own relationship. He also knew that her family roots were here, in this house and land, where her family had taken hold generations before. She was as passionate about the farm as she was about anything. There was always a glow to her voice when she spoke of it, and he never remembered her referring to her parents' house in Indianapolis as home.

Now he was here, seeing it, meeting everyone and putting faces to the names. At least the worst wasn't true; he had half dreaded that the farm would be a rundown relic or her family an uneducated bunch of backwoods farmers. That obviously wasn't the case. Gratefully, he noticed an air conditioner humming away in his window. The kitchen downstairs had been like an oven.

He put his suitcase on the floor. Victoria wandered over to the window and stared outside. Without preamble, she said, “Three months ago a young girl disappeared from Mayville. A farmer found her body the day before yesterday at the edge of a field.”

He considered his response carefully. He'd been a lawyer a long time. After a few seconds, he said, “Gruesome.”

She didn't move. “You're telling me. I guess there wasn't much more than some bones. The paper didn't imply that the police were hopeful.”

“I don't suppose they are. Three months is a long time and it doesn't sound like there would be much forensic evidence.”

“It just makes a person … wonder.”

“Is there any word of your sister?” He kept his voice neutral.

“No.”

“And this other girl, what about her? Could there be a connection? Are there any other women missing from the area?”

“I don't think so.”

“I see.”

She shifted by the window and made another restless gesture. Victoria said, “I knew her, or her family, actually. Hallie Helms. She was only sixteen.”

“You said that there isn't a person in Mayville that you probably aren't related to in some way.”

That drew a glimmer of amusement. She turned from the window, smiling faintly, wrapping her arms around herself as if she were cold. “I did say that, didn't I? It would be more accurate to simply say that my family has been here a long, long time.”

“How nice for you.” He took a few steps and stood closer, but not close enough to touch. The body language so far had been unmistakable. Everything about the way she held her head, her shoulders, her stiffened spine, suggested that he keep his distance.

“My family,” he continued mildly, “has lived in Chicago for generations. Yet my parents trade up in houses like they were last year's fashions, and I don't think I could tell you the name of a single neighbor when I was growing up. My mother deplores social contact unless she's organized it into a grand event and can get credit for it.”

He wasn't being funny. The two of them had experienced completely dissimilar childhoods. Money wasn't everything and he wondered now if that wasn't one of the reasons he was so drawn to Victoria Paulsen. She was basic and down to earth—intelligent and pretty and without pretension.

She didn't look startled. “I know,” she said gravely. She would, of course. She'd met his parents often enough.

He smiled. “See how lucky you are.”

“I never said I wasn't.” With that, her head swung back toward the window. Her gaze searched the vista of green fields and lawn as if she would see something new, find something that had been missed before.

He couldn't help it. She looked so fragile. Drawn and tired and damned fragile. He moved forward and touched her shoulder, then slid his arms around her. Victoria didn't move away, which was encouraging.

He breathed in her ear, kissed the side of her neck. “I missed you. In the office, in my bed, in my life.”

Her body remained relaxed and pliant, but she said with a jag of cynicism, “Not in that order, I hope?”

Her hair smelled clean, like flowers. He rubbed the silky texture against his cheek and said, “I was hoping you might say that you also missed me.”

“I did.” She tentatively put up one hand, touched his face, and leaned against his chest.

“But not in the same way,” he asserted without bitterness.

“How can I tell?” She didn't dissemble. “The past five days have been a little hell. My brother-in-law is crazed with worry. My mother and father are forced to see each other, which is always a disaster. My grandfather looks like he's aged a decade in a week, and my grandmother is getting so senile that I'm afraid to let her out of my sight.”

“I realize the tension—”

She shook her head blindly.

His arms tightened. “I'm just saying that this type of situation is trying on a family.”

“If it wasn't for Damon, I'd be crazy,” she said. “He's been an island of sanity.”

“Ah yes. The cousin.” Michael's arms tightened a fraction as he said lightly, “He wasn't quite what I expected. Is he gay?”

She laughed then, a choked sound against his shirt. “No, I'm afraid not.”

“Too bad. What's he doing here? He doesn't quite fit my impression of tobacco-chewing farmhands with missing teeth and tans that end at their upper arms. I thought you told me something about him attending medical school in Champaign.”

“He was in his second year when my grandfather had his bypass surgery. He helped out that summer and ended up staying on.”

“Not much of a trade, I'd say.” Michael shook his head in disbelief. “A career in medicine for farming?”

Looking insulted, Victoria pointed out, “Farming isn't exactly easy, or boring. You have to be an accountant, a laborer, a gambler, a meteorologist, and not to mention that it happens to be one of the most dangerous professions in the world.”

“Okay, okay.” He laughed softly. “Point taken.” He let his mouth drift again across her hair.

“Oh, Michael.” She sighed and pushed away. She said, “There's more to the story. Emily is pregnant. Three months along.”

“Is that somehow significant?” He dropped his arms and watched her pace to the window.

She touched her fingers to the glass briefly. “I think so. Ronald, her husband, couldn't be the father. He was married before and had a vasectomy at that time. Em always made it pretty clear she didn't care that there would be no children. She was more interested in her career than becoming a mother.”

Giving up on any hope of an intimate moment between them, Michael sat down on the bed. The springs groaned softly. He contemplated how Emily Sims might deal with such a predicament. What would her options be? What course of action would be best under the circumstances? Human behavior was often erratic, but more often it was predictable.

He said, “I think the first question is obvious.”

Victoria said to the window, “Who is the father of Emily's baby?”

Michael gave a jaundiced smile. “Actually, to me that would be question number two. Question one would be, had your sister told her husband yet about her pregnancy?”

Victoria studied the glass as if it held the answers of the centuries. “I've wondered that myself,” she said softly.

The morning paper had two full pages on Hallie Helms, describing the night she disappeared, the clothes she was wearing, and her backpack, which had not been found near her body. The shock of the community was vivid in the interviews with her family and friends and her picture on the front page. Victoria read the article for the third time, poking without enthusiasm at the eggs drying on her plate.

She felt Michael watching her read over his fare of plain toast—no butter, no jam. Her grandmother rinsed dishes in the sink, periodically offering him eggs, bacon, and more toast as if she couldn't believe that anyone could possibly get through the day without more calories. Religious in his diet regime, he politely declined more breakfast for the fourth time and reached over to pluck the newspaper from Victoria's hands.

“That's enough,” he said mildly. “You're simply depressing yourself.”

She looked at her plate, scraping at the bits of yellow that were glued to the surface. The sun rose outside, gleaming like an avenging angel from a sky wiped clean of everything except endless blue depths—another scorcher, complete with sky-high humidity.

“It's a nice day,” he continued persuasively. “Let's go outside for a walk. How about it, darling?”

Darling. Love. Sweetheart.
Since the moment of his arrival, he had acted as if their engagement was official. She looked out the window to where the lawn melded with the fields and felt unaccountably awkward. What seemed so normal in Chicago was different here, even though everyone had seemed to approve of Michael last night. He'd been charming, witty, and friendly all through the evening, and even her grandmother had taken her aside and commented on what a nice young man he appeared to be.