Beyond Midnight (67 page)

Now the old woman became suspicious.
"
Are you one of those parents that keeps calling and saying cruel things? Because if you
'
re trying to hound my niece—or my grandniece—
"

"
No, no, not at all. I
'
m sorry. I should
'
ve said who I was. This is Peaches Bartholemew,
"
she said in a reassuring way.
"
Mr. Byrne
'
s nanny?
"

"
Oh, for goodness
'
sake,
"
the old woman said, relieved.
"
Why didn
'
t you just say so?
  We've never met.
I
'
m Helen
'
s Aunt Mary.
"

The introductions behind her, the aunt said,
"
No, I haven
'
t seen Mr. Byrne. As for Helen—well, she
'
s supposed to go to the school sometime today, but the girl went tearing off just now to see some
, what did she call him?   H
erbalist. As if she doesn
'
t have enough on her mind!
"

Peaches became very still.

"
An herbalist? My goodness,
"
she said lightly,
"
what on earth for? Some special blend of tea leaves?
"

The aunt began working herself into a fret.
"
Well, that
'
s just it. I don
'
t understand it at all. Why go there, when there
'
s a nice
organic
food store nearby with good fresh vegetables and hard-to-find spices that I go to all the time— well, I don
'
t go to it very much anymore, not since—well, the summer
'
s been so hot, I haven
'
t done much cooking and of course with Russell gone and then this business with the witches is taking everybody
'
s time and—now where was I?
"

Peaches said slowly,
"
Helen Eve
tt
. She
'
s gone to an herbalist. You were about to tell me why.
"

"
Oh, yes. To find out about a fungus in rye bread. It
'
s such a strange thing to do! I
'
m a bit worried about her, between you and me. She was very excited, overly excited. With all the strain, well, even though she
'
s a levetheaded girl—actually, a woman, I suppose, but she
'
ll always be my little girl—well, actually not mine, but almost as well as
.
...
"

It was like being hit in the face with a hammer by a ninety-pound invalid: The swing wasn
'
t much; it was the hammer that hurt. Peaches interrupted the babble to say she had another call and got off the phone.

Shit!
Way worse than she thought. Sooner or later Helen would hit the right herbalist.

Peaches headed straight for the wall safe in Nat
'
s study. Unhooking the Butterworth painting—it should
'
ve been hers!—from the wall, she quickly spun the safe
'
s dial to the left, the right, the left. She heard the satisfying click of the tumbler, then swung the door open and began removing Linda Byrne
'
s jewels, old and new. It was no coincidence that after Katie handed Helen Evett a diamond bracelet from a drawer of the commode, Peaches had encouraged Nat to consolidate everything in the wall safe. She had in mind an emergency scenario like the one
that
was playing out.

She had a dozen of the most valuable velvet-encased pieces on the desk when she heard Nat
'
s surprised gr
eeting to his daughter in the hall
. Shit! She grabbed the booty and flung it under the leather cushion of one of the matched wing chairs—she knew where he sat; he never sat there— then closed the safe, hung up the painting, and dashed over to the bookcase on the opposite wall just as he reached the open door to his study.

"
Peaches.
"

The word sounded cold, almost threatening, on his lips. Nat didn
'
t ask what she was doing there; obviously it looked as if she were searching for a book on finance, which he
'
d freely lent her in the past. Instead he said,
"
Would you mind te
ll
ing me why Katie isn
'
t in school?
"

She
'
d jumped at the sound of her name, closing the book with a snap.
"
Oh! Nat,
"
she said, clapping an open palm to her breast.
"
You frightened me! I thought I
'
d left the front door unlocked!
"

"
I
'
m sorry,
"
he said with an icy stare, and waited.

Discreetly ignoring his tone, Peaches said,
"
Katie
'
s still a little sluggish.
"
(With three candy bars in her, she could hardly be anything else.)
"
I have a call out to the pediatrician,
"
she added in a lie.

She put the book back on the shelf and said,
"
I tried to let you know. I even called Helen Evett, because I thought she might have heard from you. But Helen wasn
'
t home, and her aunt,
"
Peaches said with a bland look,
"
said she hadn
'
t seen you. And with your car still here
...."

She gave Nat a baffled shrug, though her heart was still hammering loud enough for a deaf man to hear.

But Nat was suddenly somewhere else entirely.
"Yeah ...
I was sure I caught a glimpse of Russ as I walked past the Common. I
'
ve been combing the area since then, asking about him. How even a dimwit like Mrs. Lagor could take the boy
'
s running away as proof of anything,
"
he burst out, and then he remembered where he was and returned to the business at hand.

"
Wel
l
, never mind. That isn
'
t what I want to talk about now,
"
he said with a distracted look.
"
Will you have a seat?
"
He indicated the leather chair with the jewelry under the cushion.

"
Thanks, I
'
ll stand,
"
Peaches said quickly, drawing his focus away from the chair.

He went over to his Regency desk, the desk that had cost him an arm and a leg at Christie
'
s, and sat on one corner of it. Folding his arms across his chest, he said,
"
The Evett family
'
s in a crisis, as you
'
re well aware. You know that I care deeply about all of them, and yet you said things to me last night about them that were vicious and perverted. You amazed me, frankly. You
'
re entitled to your own opin
ion, Peaches, but I think that at this point it
'
s best you leave my employ.
"

Just like a businessman: make it quick; make it clean.

Peaches merely stared.

Businessman or no businessman, Nat responded to her stare with a dark flush of angry guilt. He went around to the back of his desk and sat down in the leather swivel chair that Linda, with Peaches
'
s help, had bought him for his thirty-eighth birthday.

Pulling out the wide flat binder that held his personal checks, he said,
"
You
'
ve put in long hours at the job since Linda
'
s death; I
'
m perfectly aware of it. I think half a year
'
s severance would be fair compensation.
"

He began writing a check. Peaches gave him an ugly smile which was wasted on him as he filled out a blank, tore it from its record, then held it out to her.

His face was impassive as he said evenly,
"
You have an evil mind, Peaches. If I ever hear you say another malevolent word against Linda, or anyone else th
at I hold dear, I promise you: i
t will be your last.
"

She glanced at the amount, then folded the check and tucked it in one cup of her bra, exposing gratuitous flesh to him as she did so. Lifting her chin and arching one brow at him, she asked,
"
Are you throwing me directly into the street? Or will I be allowed to pack my things and take them with me?
"

"
Take what you need,
"
he said shortly.
"
I
'
d prefer that you send for the rest.
"

She could see that it filled him with loathing simply to have to speak with her. It made her want to drag him down to her level; to engage with her. She said with a sneer,
"
My performance here has been nothing less than stellar. May I use you as a reference?
"

But he refused to acknowledge that she was any longer in the room.

Flushing
a deep, dark shade of humiliation, Peaches turned on her well-shod heel and left the room.

It was all the fault of the Evett bitch.
Damn
her to hell.

****

Helen Evett drove home like a madwoman; her trooper husband would
'
ve been shocked. She
'
d got the information she needed from the herbalist to confirm her goofy theory, and now she was ready to share it with Nat, because it didn
'
t seem so goofy anymore. After that, they
'
d decide about the police. Helen had no proof, still; only the theory. But at least it was plausible.

The first words out of her mouth as she flung open the front door were,
"
Who
'
s home?
"

Out toddled her aunt.
"
Only me, dear,
"
she said with a sweet look of sadness.
"
Becky
'
s at the store, food shopping.
'

Helen didn
'
t have to ask whether Russell had called. Nonetheless, she was fiercely optimistic. The day so far had been filled with amazing things, and it wasn
'
t even noon.

"
Aunt Mary, I have to go over to Nat
'
s. I shouldn
'
t be long. But I have to—maybe I should call first,
"
she decided, and she ran to the kitchen phone and punched in his number. Busy.

She turned to her aunt, then frowned with concern.
"
You look awfully hot,
"
she said, noticing the beads of perspiration on her aunt
'
s rather fuzzy upper lip.
"
Are you feeling okay?
"

Aunt Mary sighed and sat down on one of the oak chairs.
"
It
'
s awfully warm today, isn
'
t it?
"
she said unhappily.
"
Maybe I shouldn
'
t have put on panty hose.
"
She was wearing sky blue polyester pants and a floral blouse to match, because she
'
d rather melt than be caught in creased clothing. She slipped off her Cobblers and wiggled her toes, trying to create a breeze.

Helen, who was carrying a glass of cold water over to
her aunt, stopped and stared at her feet. Her aunt was wearing two pairs of panty hose, one on top of the other.
Oh, no,
she thought.
Please. Please don
'
t slip any more than you have.