The Pact (13 page)

“Emma, I don’t want to guess. I’m just worried about you.” I would have gone on, but I was silenced by the look on her face.

“Have you noticed anyone missing this weekend? Perhaps a close family friend?”

“You can’t mean—”

“Oh, yes, I can. It doesn’t matter to him that Nina’s mother was my mother’s best friend.”

“Are you sure?” I asked, shocked. I had noted that Nina was not around this weekend, but I hadn’t given it much thought. Matthew had made a vague comment about his sister having a schedule conflict of some sort, an exciting overseas assignment. Nina worked at one of the fashion magazines in New York, which meant that she frequently was away on boondoggles to Paris and Milan. I’d simply assumed that she was at a Fashion Week or design convention or some such event.

“Positive. I’ve even seen them together, in the city. And I assure you, there was no mistaking the fact that they’re an item. God. It’s sickening.” She giggled as a thought occurred to her. “Why, if he’s old enough to be my father, he’s also old enough to be her father.” She turned away from the window and sat on the bed.

“Does Matthew know?” I asked.

“That his sister’s sleeping with my father? I don’t think so. Although, he’s more perceptive than we sometimes give him credit for. Still waters and all that.” She fiddled with a bottle of pills on the nightstand.

I was at a complete loss for words, even though now that I’d had a moment to digest some of what Emma had said, my curiosity was kicking into overdrive. The look on her face was so pained and so empty, and her words were so jarring. I felt as if I were getting the first glimpse of what was going on in her head that I’d seen for months.

“Emma?”

“Hmm?”

“What’s going on? What’s this all about? What was going on with you and Richard?”

She sighed. “I can’t tell you that. I wish I could, but I can’t. And, frankly, it’s better that you don’t know.”

Those weren’t comforting words. “We’re all here for you. You understand that, don’t you? We’d do anything for you.”

She looked up, her blue eyes clear and strong. “That’s exactly what I’m afraid of.”

Somebody rapped softly on the door. “Come in,” I called, both frustrated and relieved at once.

The door opened and Matthew’s familiar face appeared.

“Hi,” he said, his gaze settling on Emma. “How’re you doing?”

“Oh, Mattie.” Emma looked at him and her face crumpled. He was across the room in an instant, cradling her in his arms. Her body shook with silent sobs as he rocked her slowly, gently stroking her hair.

I discreetly took my leave.

I
closed the door behind me and leaned against it. Matthew’s interruption was inconvenient because it meant that all the questions I had would remain unanswered for the time being. Not that Emma seemed ready to tell me anything. But I was also unsettled by how inevitable Emma and Matthew seemed together; their closeness, now of all times, could be interpreted as inappropriate. I was glad that the police hadn’t just witnessed what I had.

I tried to shake the scene from my head and moved away from the door. On cue, my stomach gave an ominous rumble, the perfect distraction for the tempest of intrigue and raw emotion swirling around in my brain. I was glad to have something more practical—and far more easily addressed—on which to focus my attention.

As a general rule, I tried to avoid any undue extension of the interval between meals. By my calculations, I was now going on fifteen hours and I was starting to feel testy. If my needs weren’t met soon, there was a danger that I would become downright cranky, and in such a state I could not be held responsible for my actions. Maybe all the other delicate souls in the house had lost their appetites in the face of unexpected death, but I could hardly be expected to waste away in silence simply to accommodate their squeamishness. A raid on the Furlong refrigerator was very much in order.

Decision made, I started off for the kitchen at a brisk pace, only to stumble into Luisa, Jane and Sean, coming from the direction of Mr. Furlong’s study. They met me at the top of the stairs.

“I can’t take it anymore,” I announced. “I’m going to find food before malnourishment sets in. If any of you are even toying with the notion of standing in my way, you’ll regret it.”

“Rachel’s sort of scary when she’s hungry,” observed Sean, his voice deadpan.

“Don’t joke,” warned Jane. “She may look fragile and helpless, but it’s dangerous to taunt her when she hasn’t been fed.”

“It’s dangerous to taunt her when she
has
been fed, too,” added Luisa. They shared a chuckle all around. Meanwhile, my hunger pangs were gaining intensity with each passing second.

“Look, don’t get me wrong, but I can’t handle being ganged up on without any sustenance. You can tease me as much as you want once I’ve had something to eat.” My voice sounded plaintive, even to me.

“Relax. We were actually heading to the kitchen ourselves—Mrs. Furlong asked us to round up some lunch for everyone,” said Sean.

“Are you sure she wasn’t asking you to move water from one side of the lake to the other?” I asked. “Or perhaps to uproot some trees and plant them elsewhere?”

“No, I’m pretty confident she said lunch. But please don’t put any ideas in her head. I’m not used to heavy labor.”

“Well, then, why are we standing around yapping when we could be eating?” I asked, peevishness getting the better of me. I led the way down the stairs.

Just as we reached the first floor, the library door cracked open. Jane put a restraining hand on my shoulder and used her other arm to prevent Sean and Luisa from moving forward. “Shh…” she whispered, putting a finger to her lips.

Hilary’s voice—to be specific, the voice she reserved for only the most demanding of flirtations—carried out to the hallway. “You must see a lot of excitement in your line of work, Detective.” She placed a special emphasis on the word
excitement,
rolling out the syllables as if she could taste them. I couldn’t see her, but if I knew Hilary, she had placed her hand on O’Donnell’s forearm as she said this.

“If only that were true, Ms. Banks, if only that were true.” O’Donnell’s voice was polite but formal. “Thank you again for your time,” he continued. “Now, if you’ll excuse us?” He was, without doubt, dismissing her.

There was a brief silence. Could it be that Hilary, our Hilary, was at a loss for words? If so, she only took a moment to recover. “Of course. It was good to meet you both.” She stepped out of the room, closing the door behind her with a level of force that wasn’t a slam but was definitely far from gentle. She leaned against it, hands on her hips, the unfamiliar taste of rejection twisting her red lips into a pout. I hitched my assessment of O’Donnell up a notch. Anyone who could resist all five feet and eleven inches of a determined Hilary clad in an outfit that depended heavily on spandex was a man to be respected, and potentially feared. She narrowed her jade green eyes. “Who the hell does he think he is?” she asked, presumably to nobody in particular, since she hadn’t yet seen us.

“Just a nice man trying to do his job?” offered Jane. Hilary had the grace to look at least a bit startled to see us watching her. She straightened up and grinned.

“Oh, well. I’ve always enjoyed a challenge. What’s up?”

“Food,” I answered. “We’re getting food, and there’s no time to waste on chitchat.” I continued on to the kitchen.

Hilary fell into line behind me. “Who let Rachel’s blood sugar get so low?” she asked. Then her tone brightened. “Maybe that’s what his problem is. He’s hungry! Well, that’s easy enough to fix. I nominate myself to bring lunch to the detectives.”

“Okay,” Jane told her. “But just remember what happened the last time you used the ‘Coffee, tea, or me?’ line.”

The kitchen was completely empty. Usually the Brouchards, a French-Canadian couple who played handyman-chauffeur and cook when the Furlongs were in residence, would have been there. Today, however, Mrs. Furlong had had to call and let them know that the police weren’t allowing anyone to enter the house who hadn’t been there the previous evening. There was also a police car stationed on the road at the end of the drive preventing anyone from entering. Otherwise, Hugues and Marie-Louise would have been here long ago. I sighed. Marie-Louise would never have let me go so long without a meal.

Still, I knew that we would find the restaurant-size Sub-Zero stuffed to the gills with all sorts of delicacies. I used the last of my rapidly fading strength to tug open the massive door and pull out the first thing my hands met—a crockery bowl overflowing with fruit. Nearly crying with relief, I set the bowl on a countertop, hoisted myself up beside it, and selected a polished red apple. It was hardly a meal, but it would do as an appetizer until somebody could whip me up something that involved more of my favorite food groups, like salt, butter and processed flour.

“Don’t you worry about a thing, Rachel,” said Jane. “We’ll figure something out for everyone else’s lunch.” She stepped forward to study the refrigerator’s contents.

“I won’t,” I assured her, my mouth full. She started removing items from the overstuffed shelves and drawers and placing them on the counter beside me—eggs, cheese, the makings for a salad, some cold cuts. She’d always been the most domestic of us all, and I was happy to let her take the lead.

“Should we do omelettes or quiche?” she mused aloud. Luisa shrugged. She’d positioned herself in a chair at the butcher-block table and lit a cigarette.

“Whatever,” said Hilary. “Does anybody know where they keep the liquor?” She started opening cabinets in the pantry while Jane and Sean discussed the relative merits of different egg preparations and the opportunities presented by the ingredients at hand.

Jane handed me a bowl of ripe tomatoes, a cutting board and a sharp knife. “Slice these,” she said.

“Um. Okay. Any special way?”

“For salad. Can you do that?”

I was offended. “Of course. Do you think I’m a total incompetent?”

“No, but I can’t forget your mother telling me how you once broiled a batch of brownies.”

“Well, how was I supposed to know that broiling is so different from baking?” I was indignant.

“I don’t think you really want to have this discussion,” Jane countered.

“She really broiled brownies?” asked Sean, who had found a large mixing bowl and begun cracking eggs on its rim. One-handed, he poured the whites and yolks into the bowl and discarded the shells in the garbage disposal. Show-off.

“Yep. Don’t even ask about the time we put her in charge of boiling water for pasta.”

“It would have been fine if you’d just let me use the microwave, the way you’re supposed to,” I protested. “Stoves are so archaic.”

“You can’t boil a gallon of water in the microwave, Rachel.”

I knew that I wasn’t going to win an argument about cooking methods. My lack of domestic skills was well documented. Usually I ate most of my meals in the office. On those rare occasions that I was home for dinner, I simply ordered in like any reasonable person would do.

I slid off the counter, threw the apple core into the garbage can under the sink, and turned my attention to the tomatoes. They sat innocently on the cutting board, unaware of the butchery that awaited them. I picked up the knife and began scoping out the appropriate angle at which to make the first incision.

“Bloody Mary, anyone?” Hilary had emerged from the pantry with a pitcher of drinks.

“Oh, yes, definitely,” I said, glad of a reason to put the knife down. She began pouring glasses for each of us.

“Wonderful,” said Jane. “If ever there’s an occasion for drinking before noon, this must be it.”

“It’s practically noon already,” I pointed out as I reached for a glass. “Besides, it must be after noon somewhere.” Hilary had made the drinks just the way I liked, painfully spicy with lots of Worcestershire sauce, Tabasco and a healthy dash of horseradish.

“If we only had some music,” Hilary mused, “this would be just like
The Big Chill.
Where is William Hurt when you need him?” She prattled on while the rest of us turned back to preparing lunch.

I took another swallow of my drink and then picked up the knife and gingerly halved a tomato. My mind began to wander. Everything felt so normal, from the house where I’d spent so many long, lazy weekends to the comfortable back-and-forth of familiar voices. It was hard to believe that somebody had committed a murder. In fact, it was really too much to contemplate on a practically empty stomach; my investigation would have to wait until I’d had something to eat. I tried to steer my thoughts toward Peter instead, a much more appetizing topic.

As if summoned by my train of thought, he stepped into the kitchen, freshly dressed in khakis and a sky-blue oxford cloth shirt. I tried not to seem unduly interested as he exchanged a subdued good morning with everyone. The air of casual gaiety that had filled the room abated, out of a sense of deference to Peter—we may have been a hardhearted, callous bunch, but at least we had the sensitivity to realize that Peter was upset about Richard’s death, even if we weren’t.

Hilary broke the awkward pause that followed the chorus of greetings. “Tomato juice?” she asked.

“Sounds good,” he said, accepting a glass. Before anyone else could intervene, he took a big swig and then spluttered with surprise. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

“It’s spiked,” Hilary added, a wicked gleam in her eye.

“Thanks for the warning,” he said with a quiet grin. “Actually, it’s probably just what the doctor ordered.” He took another sip, this time more cautiously. The atmosphere seemed to lighten with his good-natured reply.

“Be careful,” said Luisa. “If you spend enough time with us you’ll end up thoroughly pickled.”

“On a day like today, I think I’ll take the chance.” He ambled over toward where I stood at the counter. I did my best to display my total absorption with my task. The problem, however, with handiwork, is that one’s skill level is immediately visible, even to the casual eye. He watched me silently for a moment, studying the havoc I’d wrought.

“You’re a real wizard at the cutting board, aren’t you?” he asked in a teasing voice. I wheeled around, knife in hand, but drew a complete blank when I reached for a snappy retort. “Here,” he offered, extending his hand out for the knife. “Why don’t you let me take a crack at it?”

“Okay,” I acquiesced. “But be careful. The one I just sliced seemed particularly unruly.”

“It sure looks like you beat it into submission,” he observed. I followed his gaze. I’d meant to slice the tomato neatly into wedges for a salad; instead, I’d reduced it to pulpy mush.

“My God, Rachel. What have you done?” This was from Jane, who’d glanced over to inspect my labors. She reached around me, picked up the cutting board and slid the red goop I’d created into the garbage disposal with a swift, decisive movement.

“You told me to slice the tomato, and I sliced the tomato,” I said indignantly. “It was a bit slippery, but I think I did a pretty good job.”

“Slicing and pureeing are not one and the same.”

“Who died and made you Julia Child?” I asked.

“Rachel gets a bit snitty when she feels threatened,” Jane confided to Peter.

“Don’t worry,” said Peter. “I’ll take it from here.” Jane handed him the cutting board, and turned back to the concoction that she and Sean were creating on the opposite counter. Hilary and Luisa resumed their seats at the kitchen table, preparing a platter of sandwiches while they chatted quietly.

“So, do you think O’Donnell’s a mustard or a mayonnaise kind of guy?” I heard Hilary ask Luisa.

“You are completely insane,” Luisa answered.

“I’m thinking mustard,” said Hilary. “Yes, definitely mustard.”

“So, were you able to reach Richard’s mother?” I asked Peter in a low voice.