Wind Chime Wedding (A Wind Chime Novel Book 2) (32 page)

Slowly putting her own car in park, she sat in the driver’s seat with her hands on the wheel, staring at the black car in front of her. What was Tom doing at Lydia’s house? Why had he lied to her about being in Baltimore?

The front door to the house opened. Tom walked out, waved goodbye to the woman inside, and closed the door behind him. Becca got out of her car and Tom looked out at the driveway. He stopped short when their eyes met.

“Becca?”

She crossed her arms over her chest. “Baltimore, huh?”

His gaze shifted left, then right. “What are you doing here?”

“I could ask you the same thing.”

He walked quickly down the steps. “I had to drop off some papers for a client. Did you…follow me?”

“How could I have followed you when I didn’t even know you were here?” she snapped, stalking toward him. “You said you were in Baltimore. What the hell’s going on?”

Tom glanced back at the door, as if he were afraid Lydia might come out and see them arguing. God forbid they make a scene in front of one of his precious clients. Becca shook her head, wondering how she had never seen it before, how she could have stayed with someone for so long who didn’t care about anyone or anything but himself.

Tom lowered his voice as he closed the rest of the distance between them. “Not all of our clients can go into the office during regular business hours. In some cases, special cases like Lydia’s, we need to respect their privacy and come to them.”

The lies came so easily to him, Becca realized. It was no wonder she’d been falling for them for so long. “What,
exactly
, are you doing for Lydia?”

“Just some basic contract work.” He took her by the elbow and started to lead her back to her car. “It’s not important.”

It was obviously important enough that it needed to be hand delivered on a Saturday. How stupid did he think she was? Becca stopped walking, her eyes widening. “Oh my God,” she breathed.

“What?”

“You’re working together.” She took a step back. “You’re on her side.”

“What are you talking about?”

How could she not have seen it before? How could she have missed this? “Richard Goldwater,” she said, staring back at him—this man who she had spent half her life with, who she had almost walked down the aisle with, who she’d thought she’d known better than anyone.

She didn’t know him at all. “He works at your firm.”

“Of course he does,” Tom said, and had the nerve to look baffled. “What does that have to do with anything?”

Becca turned, walking back toward the house.

“Becca, wait,” Tom said. “What are you doing?”

She ignored him.

He jogged after her. “Is Lydia expecting you?”

What was he, her assistant now? “No.”

“Becca.” He caught her arm.

She winced when he grabbed her in the same spot where Jimmy had left a bruise from the night before. She stopped walking, looking down at where his fingers were wrapped around her forearm.

“Let it go,” Tom ordered.

She looked up at him, at those blue-green eyes she had fallen for so many years ago, during the weakest time in her life.

She wasn’t weak anymore. She wasn’t grieving. And she wasn’t going to let anyone tell her what to do.

“It’s over,” Tom said firmly. “You need to let it go, Becca—the school, the island, your father, everything. It’s the only way you’ll ever be able to move forward.”

No, Becca thought, shaking her head. There was only one thing she was letting go of, and it wasn’t the island, or the school, or her father, or her friends. She jerked her arm out of his grip and stalked passed him toward the door.

“Becca—”

She ignored him, not even bothering to look back. Taking the front steps two at a time, she thought back to the night Tom had come to the island, the night she had thought she’d finally gotten him back. He hadn’t come down to comfort her. He’d come down to get information out of her for one of the partners at his firm.

He’d used her.

And she’d fallen for it.

How could she have been so blind?

She lifted her hand to knock on the door, and spotted the charm bracelet—the charm bracelet he’d said he’d been saving for their wedding night. Had he lied about that, too?

“I thought you wanted to talk?” Tom called after her.

She paused, looking back at him. Talk? What could they possibly have to talk about anymore?

“I have to get back to the office in Baltimore for another meeting,” he said, checking his watch, “but I could probably squeeze in a quick lunch…”

“Go ahead,” she said, and was amazed at the lack of emotion in her voice. “I wouldn’t want to hold you up.”

Tom hesitated for about three seconds, then turned, walked over to his car, slid behind the wheel, and drove away. She hadn’t expected him to put up a fight. She knew now that he was too weak to stick around, to risk one of his clients seeing him in a less than favorable light.

Turning back to the door, she knocked—three loud raps.

A few moments later, she heard footsteps on the stairs. The muted click of a woman’s heels came closer, until the mahogany door swung open and a tall woman with long, dark hair and pale green eyes stood on the other side. She was wearing gray slacks, a sleeveless white shell, and a necklace that looked like it was made of little bits of broken glass. “Can I help you?”

“Yes,” Becca said, lifting her chin. “My name is Becca Haddaway. I’m a second grade teacher at Heron Island Elementary and I’d like to speak with you about your decision to close the school.”

Lydia blinked, her gaze sweeping past Becca’s shoulder to the driveway, probably trying to see if she’d brought any reporters with her. Once she was satisfied that it was only the two of them, she looked back at her. “I’m sorry, Ms. Haddaway,” she said, her tone dismissive. “I was just on my way out. Now’s not a good time.”

“I’m sure you’re very busy,” Becca said, struggling to control her temper, “but I think I’ve earned a right to speak.”

Lydia’s expression grew cold. “This is highly unprofessional, coming to my house like this.”

“So is refusing to call us back and ignoring all our emails.”

“As I wrote
in an email
to your principal this morning, if you have any concerns, you should raise them at the public hearing this Friday. Situations like these need to be handled through the proper channels.” Lydia stepped back, about to shut the door. “Now, if you’ll excuse me—”

No, Becca thought. She would not excuse her. She would not be pushed aside. She caught the door before it swung shut and shoved it back open, stalking into the foyer. “Everyone knows the only reason you’re doing this is to get back at your ex-husband. You already got what you wanted. You sabotaged the governor’s announcement. You hurt his campaign. Can’t you let the school go now?”

“This is completely inappropriate.” Lydia reached for the cordless phone on the wall. “If you won’t leave, I’ll call the police.”

“Go ahead,” Becca shot back. “I can see the headline now. Retired public school administrator calls cops on second grade teacher intruder.”

Lydia lowered the phone to her side, studying Becca for several long moments across the formal entranceway. “I don’t know what kind of operation your principal runs, but you should know better than to get involved in decisions that are so far above your pay grade. The only thing you should be doing right now is looking for a new job.”

No. Becca shook her head. As soon as she got home, the first thing she was going to do was ask Shelley to rip up her resignation letter. She wasn’t leaving the island. She wasn’t leaving the school. And she wasn’t going to let Lydia shut them down.

She opened her mouth, about to tell her that, when a fragment of light in the living room caught her eye. She glanced over, at the beam reflected off a sterling silver frame, and trailed off when she saw the pictures. Dozens of them, in all shapes and sizes. They covered every surface, hung from every wall. It was the same person in every shot—a child, at various stages in his life.

“Is that…Colin?”

“No,” Lydia said sharply.

She took a step closer, unable to look away. Did Colin have a brother? If so, they must not be close, because he’d never mentioned him. The skin on the back of her neck prickled when she realized, suddenly, that this room was a memorial. The boy in the pictures had never aged past eighteen.

In the hallway, a grandfather clock ticked, triggering some distant memory. She turned slowly back to face Lydia when she remembered that Colin
did
have a brother, a younger brother—one who’d enlisted in the military right out of high school, against his parents’ wishes. She remembered hearing about it on the news, before Nick Foley had been elected governor, back when he’d been running for Mayor of Baltimore. A reporter had asked him how he’d felt about having two sons serving in the military when he’d been so outspoken about his opposition to the wars. She couldn’t remember what his answer had been, but she did remember, now, that his youngest son—a helicopter pilot—had been shot down in Iraq a year later.

Gazing across the marble foyer at the woman still clutching the phone in her hand, Becca felt an overwhelming rush of sympathy. The only thing worse than losing a parent had to be losing a child. She could only imagine what Lydia must have gone through when she’d received that news.

She knew how hard it was to lose someone, how hard it was on those left behind. She started to say something to that effect, but then stopped…because something still didn’t add up. If Lydia had lost one son to the war, wouldn’t she be even closer with the only one she had left?

Thinking back to how upset Colin had been when he’d come to her house on Easter, Becca looked back at the living room, scanning the photos for a clue. But the only thing that stood out to her was the
lack
of photos of Colin anywhere in the house. She turned back to face Lydia. “Why don’t you have any pictures of Colin?”

Lydia said nothing and her expression betrayed nothing—not even a hint of emotion.

“You hurt him, you know,” Becca said. “By sabotaging your ex-husband’s announcement, you hurt Colin, too. He worked really hard on that jobs program. He worked his butt off all winter to get the veterans’ center ready to open by Memorial Day. He’s doing everything he can to help his fellow service members, to give them a second chance.”

“Not everyone deserves a second chance.”

Becca took a step back. What was she saying? That she didn’t think the people who’d fought for their freedom deserved to be taken care of when they came home?

Was she talking about Colin or veterans in general?

Becca had never supported the idea of going to war. She’d probably been as against it as both Colin’s parents, but that didn’t mean she thought any less of the men and women who’d served in it. Most of the people who went overseas had nothing to do with the decision to go to war. They had simply carried out an order that had been handed down to them. Now, over two million post 9/11 veterans were back home, many of them suffering from lingering physical and psychological wounds from a war their country had sent them to fight…and Lydia didn’t believe they deserved a second chance? “More people got hurt in the wars than your youngest son.
Colin
got hurt. He lost a leg in Afghanistan.”

“Colin got what he deserved.”

Becca gaped at her. She couldn’t possibly mean that. No one deserved to have a limb amputated. No one deserved to lose his fiancée when he came home because he wasn’t whole anymore. No one deserved to lose two of his closest friends in a single day. She continued to stare at Lydia across the formal entranceway as, suddenly, everything clicked into place. “This was never just about the governor, was it? You came after the jobs program and the veterans’ center on purpose? You
wanted
to hurt Colin?”

“If it wasn’t for Colin,” Lydia lashed out, her emotions finally snapping, “Hayden would still be here.”

“What?” Becca asked, baffled.

“I begged Colin not to join the Navy. I offered him everything—money, a car, a full ride to any graduate program in the country. I offered him anything he could ever possibly want. But he wouldn’t listen. No. He wanted to be a hero. He wanted to prove something. Even though he
knew
Hayden would follow in his footsteps.”

Follow in his footsteps?
Becca’s head spun. Lydia couldn’t possibly be implying…?

“Hayden died because of Colin’s selfishness,” Lydia said, her voice breaking.

Selfishness?
Becca took another step back. The last word she would ever associate with Colin was selfish. The air conditioning clicked on, blowing a cold stream of air through the vents, despite the fact that the weather was perfect outside. Becca was vaguely aware of the tick of the grandfather clock again in the hallway, the only sound inside this cold, lonely house.

No wonder Colin had been so upset when he’d come to her house last weekend.