Part 16 (1/2)

”Gone to the mortuary to see about Kevin.”

”Why didn't you go with her?”

Nate mumbled something about being home for her and Josh.

”What?” Puzzlement played across Beth's face.

Might as well bite the bullet. ”Your aunt thought you guys might need a chaperone.”

As he reached out to pat her arm, she drew back like she'd been scalded.

”A chaperone!” Beth yelled, ”How could you? How could Aunt Morgan think I'd have s.e.x with my brother? Eeew. That's disgusting!”

Nate was knocked off guard. Josh was her stepbrother, and he hadn't been for long. Words jumbled around as he tried to make them come out in some order to appease Beth, but she would have none of it.

”And it's not just Josh I wouldn't have s.e.x with,” she screamed. ”Don't you guys know there's no way I'm ever going to end up like Mom? I mean, like how could I live with her and not know exactly what I was never going to be?”

Then her face froze, as she apparently got hit with the full brunt of her words. ”Oh.” The scream shrank to a whisper as tears coursed down her face.

Again Nate reached out to her, but Beth turned and ran from the room.

As sorry as he was to see her pain, Nate was relieved. He'd tell Morgan that she had no cause for worry. But something in him was uncomfortably aware that Morgan probably already knew this.

He sat down on the bed with thoughts of meperidine swirling around in his head. Coincidence? He hoped that was it. What he was imagining could mean a drastic life-style change if it were true. Morgan's being questioned by the police in the presence of her attorney, and not wanting him there-that was the clincher. Or was it?

No way. He was reading something into nothing. Playing what if. And some of the alternatives really weren't all that bad. If something happened to his wife-like maybe she had to go away for a long time-somebody would have to take care of all that money.

Oh, yeah. There was Sam, but frankly, the old geezer couldn't live forever, could he?

Then he remembered he hadn't deleted the site he'd visited on Beth's computer. What were the chances Morgan ever used Beth's laptop? Next to none. She had her own.

But just in case, he began to envision a lock on the guest room door, to which he had the only key. But that was really crazy.

At 8:35 p.m., Wehr's building was caught in a web of shadows from the surrounding trees.

The evening had cooled nicely, but Reggie had broken a sweat that wouldn't let up from the moment he'd seen signs of life in Wehr's apartment.

Not the cops. No vehicles that he couldn't account for on the street or in the building parking area. Somebody Wehr had sent to retrieve the tape? No way. They wouldn't stop to play it first.

The gal with the grocery bag. He'd waylay her when she came out and bust her for B and E. Or put the threat of being busted on her so's she'd give up whoever sent her. And maybe he'd retrieve the tape in the process.

How'd he explain his presence at Wehr's? More Tums.

The pain in his gut was moving. Gas, he told himself, from all that coffee. He s.h.i.+fted in his seat and tried to relieve the pressure but nothing happened. h.e.l.l of a note when a guy couldn't even fart. Better not try too hard. He was in enough s.h.i.+t already.

Then he saw a white Jag circle the block for the second time, but he couldn't catch the license. He waited. This time it didn't come back by him. Reggie waited another ten minutes.

The gal in A came out with her boyfriend. Reggie watched them get into a Honda and drive away. The kids in C brought down a couple of pizza cartons and shoved them into the building's waste dumpster. Recycle, ya little b.a.s.t.a.r.ds.

The VCR strobed again in apartment D. Oh, s.h.i.+t, an encore. Reggie started the truck, threw it in gear and drove around the corner to where a city park backed up to Wehr's building.

A handful of folks roasted weenies over a community pit. A couple sets of parents pushed small kids on a swing set.

Reggie pulled to an unlit corner of the parking lot and spotted the white Jag. He drew up next to it and looked inside. Empty. Run the tags? Nah-that could put him where maybe he didn't want to be. He had no business hanging around Wehr's.

A quick a.s.sessment of the small park turned up n.o.body who looked like they belonged to the Jag-all strictly Chevy and bicycle folk.

If White Jag was in Wehr's, he would have needed to scale a six-foot cedar fence. No sweat. Reggie'd done that when he'd broken in. Right then, he prayed for no sweat. The walk from his truck to the fence had drenched him. The thought of making it over that fence with a gut ache was-ah, there were two fence panels on the ground, like somebody else had looked for an easy way.

He glanced back at the recreation area and gauged he was about a hundred yards from the nearest person. No lights here next to the fence, except from the building, and those were filtered through drapes and blinds.

Through the opening in the fence, he made his move. Halfway, he realized he had misjudged his own bulk. He needed more like four panels removed.

Oh, s.h.i.+t. Two women came out the back door of Wehr's place and paused at the top of the stairs. The gal in the sweats, only this time she wasn't carrying a grocery bag. The other gal moved like she was older. He couldn't see their faces, but if he didn't get himself loose, he soon would and not in a way he wanted.

Gotta get back to the truck.

Reggie pulled back in the direction of the park, but he had gone too far. Stuck like a pig on a spit. The pain hit him again and moved upward, skewering his chest.

When he heard the sound of the garage door opening, Nate looked at the luminous hands on his watch. Eleven-thirty. He didn't turn the light on, as the guest room he occupied was near the garage. Its tiny window would be visible to Morgan as she went through the breezeway to enter the house.

He s.h.i.+vered at the sound of Morgan's footsteps on tile, glad she pa.s.sed his room without stopping.

In the wake of her footsteps, a soft wail drifted back. Was he hearing things? He waited a moment and then crawled silently out of bed.

As he listened at the door, there it was again. Muted sobs. Couldn't be Morgan. She never cried. Not even when her mother had pa.s.sed. And there had been no tears for Deidre or Kevin. At least none that he'd witnessed.

Down the hall he crept, and across the house to the master suite. Morgan's door was closed, but he could see a light under it.

He twisted the k.n.o.b slowly and opened the door a crack. She lay on the bed, sobbing into the stack of down pillows. His first instinct was to go to her, but there was something in those soft wails-like her heart was being torn out. She seemed totally unaware of his presence, so private and all-consuming was her grief. Nate wavered in the doorway and then stepped back into the hall, closing the bedroom door quietly behind him.

In the light of day, Nate had to think. Outside on the patio, the comfort of hazelnut-flavored coffee warming his chilled nerves, he had to put it all together somehow. Had Morgan really, truly been crying out of grief over Kevin? Not a chance. Deidre? Maybe. Tears of remorse? That was scary. Like the meperidine was scary.

Why didn't she even listen to his report? Did she already know the person named as Camacho's next-of-kin? Was that why he was being kept out of the loop?

All Morgan's obscure references to Stan Eisley taking care of things. Why didn't she just say she'd met with Stan and the detective? Why did she phrase it as if it were something in the future? At least he knew Sam hadn't been there. He'd been in the office all day-but did Sam know about the meeting? What other things might Sam be privy to that he wasn't? Didn't Morgan know a husband couldn't testify against his wife? Was that name on the Harris's rent application just going to disappear along with JJ Camacho?

And if the name didn't disappear...and Morgan was somehow culpable along with Sam...who would be left to be Beth's guardian? Somebody had to look out for all that money, if all her relatives were either dead or...incarcerated.

Nate weighed alternatives. If there was no wrong-doing on Morgan's part, then what was the harm of his bringing his discovery to the attention of the authorities, presuming he could find someone in authority not complicit in the cover-up? Morgan couldn't fault him for looking out for her interests if she were guiltless.

Of what might she be guilty? Kind of like poking a spider to see if it would run away or jump on you. Maybe best to leave it alone and tiptoe around it. But then he'd never know, would he? Unless he poked the spider.

The house behind him was deathly quiet. He'd heard Beth when she had left for school, but not a peep from Morgan. He could see the drawn shades of her tiny window from where he sat. From the corner of his eye, he detected movement in the kitchen. The thought that his wife might be watching him sent a s.h.i.+ver down his spine.

The kitchen door opened and Morgan came down the back steps toward him. She wore a pale blue negligee and her face bore traces of a sleepless night. Dark circled underscored her eyes coloring her sad and vulnerable.

He got up and went toward her, suddenly ashamed of what he'd been thinking.