Cover of Night (10 page)

He’d been an advertising executive; she’d worked in a large bank. They were young and single and had enough money to do the things they wanted. After they’d gone on their climb together, they’d begun seeing each other in locations other than on a sheer rock face, and things had grown from there.

She moved on to a picture of them on their wedding day. They’d done the traditional ceremony; he’d worn a tux; she’d worn a romantic satin-and-lace gown. How young she’d looked, she thought, suddenly catching a glimpse of herself in the mirror and comparing the two images. Her shoulder-length brown hair had been in a sleek, sophisticated style; now it was merely long, and the style was a clip or ponytail. She’d worn makeup then; now she was lucky if she had time for a swipe of lip balm. Then she hadn’t had a care in the world; now the constant strain of worry caused faint shadows under her eyes.

Her mouth hadn’t changed; she still had a duck-mouth, with the upper lip fuller than the lower. Derek had thought her mouth was sexy, but she had obsessed about its shape all through her teenage years and she never quite believed him. Michelle Pfeiffer’s duck-mouth was more subtle, and way more sexy. Cate’s mouth had often caused her little brother, Patrick, to go into such prolonged fits of quacking that she had once thrown a lamp at him.

Her eyes were still brown, a lighter, more golden shade of brown than her hair, but…brown. Unexciting brown. And her body was still the same shape it had always been, except during her pregnancy, when she’d actually had full breasts. She was lanky to the point of thinness, with the sort of build that made her look taller than her ordinary five-foot-five. The only curvy part on her body was her butt, which looked too prominent for the rest of her body. Her legs were muscular, her arms thin and sinewy. All in all, she was no bombshell; she was just an ordinary woman who had loved her husband very much and, at times like this, missed him so acutely his absence was like a knife in the heart.

The third photograph was of the four of them together: Derek, her, and their three-month-old babies. They had each held one of the twins, whose tiny faces were identical, and she and Derek had such wide, proud, sappy smiles as they looked down at their children that, looking at them all now, she wanted to both laugh and cry.

Oh, God, their time together had been so short.

Cate shook herself back to the present and blinked the tears from her eyes. She let herself cry only at night, when there was no one to notice. Her mother and the boys could return from their picnic at any time, and she didn’t want them to catch her with her eyes red. Her mother would be worried, and the boys would cry if they thought Mommy had been crying.

She got the old, long key out of her dresser, slipped it into her jeans pocket, and retraced her steps down the hall to where she’d left the suitcase and Dopp Kit outside room 3. She turned on the hallway light, then picked up the suitcase and kit and took them all the way to the end of the hall, where the attic stairs were, plunking them down again.

The stairwell door opened outward, revealing three steps up to a landing; then the stairs made a right turn and ended at an awkward spot in the attic, so close to the slanted ceiling that she had to duck to take that last step. At least, the door was
supposed
to open outward. She inserted the key and turned it, and nothing happened. The lock was a little tricky, so she wasn’t surprised. She pulled the key out a little and tried again, with no success. Muttering to herself about old locks, she pulled the key all the way out, then reinserted it a little at a time, trying repeatedly to turn it. The key had to hit the pins just right…

She thought she felt a tiny click, and triumphantly turned the key with a brisk motion of her wrist. There was a snap, and half the key came away in her hand. Which meant, obviously, that the other half was stuck in the lock.

“Son of a
bitch!
” she swore, then hastily looked around to make certain the twins weren’t standing silently behind her. Not that there was much chance of them silently doing anything, but if they ever did, it would be when she was swearing. Seeing that she was safe, she added—for good measure—“Damn it!”

Okay, the door needed a new lock anyway. And locks weren’t hideously expensive, but still, there was always something that needed repairing or replacing. She also still needed to get that door open, so she could store this suitcase somewhere out of the way.

Swearing under her breath, she stomped downstairs and into the kitchen. She was just reaching for the phone to call the hardware store to locate Mr. Harris when she heard a car stop outside. Looking out the window, she saw—miracle of miracles—Mr. Harris himself, climbing out of his battered pickup.

She didn’t know what had brought him here, but his timing couldn’t have been better. She jerked open the kitchen door as he was coming up the steps, both relief and frustration evident in her voice as she said, “Am I glad to see you!”

He stopped in his tracks, his cheeks already firing with color as he glanced back at his truck. “Will I need my toolbox?”

“A key broke off in the attic door—and I need the door unlocked.”

He nodded and went back to the truck, reaching over the side of the bed and one-handing the heavy toolbox up and over. She had the fleeting thought that he must be stronger than he looked.

“I’m going into town tomorrow,” he said as he trudged up the steps. “Thought I’d stop by and let you know, in case you need anything.”

“I have some mail that needs to go out,” she said.

He nodded as she stepped aside to let him enter. “This way,” she said, preceding him into the hallway and up the stairs.

Even with the light on, the hallway was dim, because there were no windows at either end. The open bedroom doors let some daylight in, enough to see unless you had some specific task, such as manipulating a cantankerous old lock or retrieving a broken key from it. Mr. Harris opened his toolbox, took out a black flashlight, and handed it to her. “Shine the light on the lock,” he muttered as he moved the suitcase out of the way and went down on one knee in front of the lock.

Cate turned on the flashlight, amazed at the powerful beam that shot out. The flashlight was surprisingly lightweight, with a rubberized coating. She turned it in her hand, looking for a brand name, but she didn’t see one. She turned the beam on the door, directing it just below the knob.

Using needle-nose pliers, he retrieved the broken key, then took some kind of pick from the toolbox and inserted it into the lock.

“I didn’t know you knew how to pick locks,” she said with amusement.

His hand froze for a moment, and she could almost hear him wondering if he needed to actually reply to her comment; then he made a “hmm” noise in his throat and resumed manipulating the pick.

Cate moved so she was directly behind him and leaned closer, trying to see what he was doing. The bright light illuminated his hands, etching every raised vein, every powerful sinew. He had good hands, she noticed. They were callused, stained with grease, and his left thumbnail sported a black mark that looked as if he’d banged it with a hammer, but his nails were short and clean and his hands were lean and strong and well-shaped. She had a soft spot for strong hands; Derek’s hands had been very strong, because of the rock climbing.

He grunted, withdrew the pick, and turned the doorknob, pulling the door open a few inches.

“Thank you so much,” she said with heartfelt gratitude. She indicated the suitcase he’d pushed to the side. “That guy who left without taking his things still hasn’t come back, so I have to store his suitcase for a while, in case he decides to come back for it.”

Mr. Harris glanced at the suitcase as he took the flashlight from her, turning it off and placing both it and the pick back in his toolbox. “That’s weird. What was he running from?”

“I think he wanted to avoid someone in the dining room.” Odd that the handyman had so swiftly picked up on something that hadn’t immediately occurred to her. Initially, she’d just thought Layton was nuts. Maybe men were more naturally suspicious than women.

He grunted again, an acknowledgment of her comment. He dipped his head at the suitcase. “Anything unusual in there?”

“No. He left it sitting open. I packed his clothes and shoes, and put his toiletries in the kit.”

He stood and nudged the toolbox to the side, opening the door wide, then bent and picked up the suitcase. “Show me where you want to put it.”

“I can do that,” she protested.

“I know, but I’m already here.”

As she led the way up the steep staircase, Cate reflected that she’d probably heard him say more in the past ten minutes than she had in months, and it was certainly one of the few times she’d heard him utter an unsolicited comment. Usually he’d give a brief answer to a direct question, and that was it. Maybe he’d joined Toastmasters, or taken a loquacious pill.

The attic was hot and dusty, with that moldy smell abandoned possessions all seemed to have even when there wasn’t any mold present. Light from three dormer windows made it a surprisingly sunny place, but the walls were unfinished and the floor was made of bare planks that creaked with every step.

“Over here,” she said, indicating a bare spot against the outer wall.

He put the suitcase and Dopp Kit down, then glanced around. He saw the climbing gear and paused. “Whose is that?” he asked, pointing.

“Mine and my husband’s.”

“You both climbed?”

“That’s how we met, at a climbing club. I stopped climbing when I got pregnant.” But she hadn’t gotten rid of their gear. It was all still there, neatly arranged and stowed: the climbing shoes, the harnesses and chalk bags, the belaying and rappelling devices, the helmets, the coils of rope. She’d made certain direct sunlight never reached the ropes, even though she knew she’d never go climbing again. It just wasn’t in her to mistreat the equipment.

He hesitated, and she could see his face turning red again. Then he said, “I’ve done a little climbing. More mountaineering type stuff, though.”

He’d actually volunteered information about himself! Maybe he had decided she was as nonthreatening as the boys, so she was safe to talk to. She should note this day on her calendar and circle it in red, because any day that shy Mr. Harris began talking about himself had to be special.

“I just did rocks,” she said, trying to keep the conversation going. How long would he keep talking? “No mountaineering at all. Have you climbed any of the big ones?”

“It wasn’t that type of mountaineering,” he mumbled, edging toward the top of the stairs, and she knew his unusual talkativeness was over. Just then, two stories below, she heard the sound of childish voices raised in an argument, and she knew her mother and the boys were home.

“Uh-oh. Sounds like trouble,” she said, bolting for the stairs.

She knew something was wrong just from the looks on their faces when she reached the bottom floor. All three looked angry. Her mother was holding the picnic basket, her mouth compressed, and she had the boys separated, with one on each side of her. The twins were red-faced with anger, and their clothes were dirty, as if they’d been rolling in the dirt.

“They’ve been fighting,” Sheila reported.

“Tannuh called me a bad name!” Tucker charged, his expression mulish.

Tanner glared at his brother. “You
pushed
me.
Down!
” His outrage was evident. Tanner didn’t like losing in any situation.

Cate held up her hand like a traffic cop, stopping both of them in the middle of continued explanation. Behind her, Mr. Harris came down the stairs, carrying his toolbox, and the boys began shifting in agitation; their hero was here, and they couldn’t swarm him as they usually did.

“Mimi will tell me what happened,” Cate said.

“Tanner got the last piece of orange, and Tucker wanted it. Tanner wouldn’t give it to him, so Tucker pushed him down. Tanner called Tucker a ‘damn idgit.’ Then they started rolling around and punching each other.” Sheila looked down at both of them, frowning. “They knocked my lemonade over and it soaked my clothes.”

Now that she looked, Cate could see the dark, wet patches on Sheila’s jeans. She crossed her arms and looked as stern as possible as she did her own frowning. “Tucker—” she began.

“It wasn’t my fault!” he burst out, clearly furious at being singled out first.

“You pushed Tanner first, didn’t you?”

If anything, he now looked even more mutinous. His little face turned red, and he was all but jumping up and down. “It was—it was Mimi’s fault!”

“Mimi!”
Cate echoed, thunderstruck. Her mother looked just as stunned by this turn of events.

“She shoulda watched me better!”

“Tucker Nightingale!” Cate roared, galvanized by his blame-shifting. “You get upstairs and sit in the naughty chair right now! How dare you try to blame this on Mimi! I’m ashamed of the way you’re acting. A good man never, never blames someone else for something he did himself!”

He shot a pleading look for understanding and backup at Mr. Harris. Cate wheeled and gave the handyman a gimlet stare, just in case he was thinking of saying anything in the least sympathetic. Mr. Harris blinked, then looked at Tucker and slowly shook his head. “She’s right,” he mumbled.

Tucker’s little shoulders slumped and he began dragging himself up the stairs, each step as ponderous as a four-year-old could possibly make it. He began crying on the way up. At the top he paused and sobbed, “How long?”

“Long.”
Cate said. She wouldn’t leave him up there any longer than half an hour, but that would seem like forever to someone with Tucker’s energy. Besides, Tanner would have to spend some time in the naughty chair, too, for calling his brother a “damn idgit.” Okay, this meant they both knew the word
damn,
and how to use it. Her children were swearing already.

She tucked her chin and scowled at Tanner. He sighed and sat down on the bottom stair, waiting his turn in the naughty chair. Nothing more had to be said.

Mr. Harris cleared his throat. “I’ll pick up a new lock tomorrow while I’m in town,” he said, and beat a path to the door.