The Night In Question Page 18

  “And the taxi got into an accident?”

  He nodded, his gaze dark with memory. “Yeah,” he said softly. “The taxi was broadsided by a truck. They told me later she was killed instantly.”

  “And you’ve never forgiven yourself since.” She looked up at his expressionless face, her own features etched in sorrow. “You think you were somehow responsible for your wife’s death.”

  “I was responsible. If she hadn’t taken that taxi home—”

  In the silence that fell, Julia got to her feet. Stepping carefully over the dog lying between them, she laid her hand lightly on Max’s sleeve, feeling the hard muscle tense as she touched him.

  “That’s why you can’t let him live, isn’t it?” she whispered unevenly. Tears shimmered at the corners of her vision. “Because if you let yourself accept that Ethan was real, then you’ll blame yourself for his death too. But it wasn’t your fault, Max. It was an accident—a tragic accident—but it wasn’t your fault.”

  For a moment she thought she’d reached him. A tremor ran through his rigidly held frame, and the desolate bleakness in his eyes was replaced for a second by sharp pain. Then the arm under her hand stiffened again, and his gaze became once more shuttered and blank. He took a step away from her and her hand fell away from his arm.

  “You’re wrong on both counts, Jules. It was my fault that my wife was killed that night.” He walked to the doorway and paused. He spoke without looking back at her.

  “But I didn’t lose a son. Like I told you before, I never had one.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Gosh, the boy was getting big, Max thought as he lobbed the softball to his son with an easy underhand throw. Ethan hooted in derision and made the catch one-handedly.

  “Come on, Dad.” He whipped the ball back. “I’m not a baby anymore, you know.”

  Max grinned and shielded his eyes, squinting. This time he put a slight spin on the throw but even so, a split-second later he heard a solid thwack as the ball lodged in Ethan’s glove.

  “I was just thinking that myself, buddy. Hey, why don’t you give your old man a break here and change position? I can hardly see you standing against the sun like that.”

  He could just make out the movement of Ethan shaking his head before the ball came whizzing back. Max had to scramble to catch it.

  “You know I can’t do that, Dad.” The young voice sounded regretful. “I’ve got to be getting back soon, anyway.”

  “I know.” Max forced a smile. “But not just yet. We’ve got time for a few more throws.” The ball left his hand and he saw his son’s arm shoot up to catch it.

  A year ago he would have had to jump for that one, Max told himself with a pang. Maybe even six months ago. It seems like every time I see him now he’s grown another inch. How much longer is he going to want to play catch like this with his old man?

  “How’s Boom doing, Dad?” The clear tones held a smile. “Still chewing up slippers?”

  Max blinked and caught the ball just before it flew past him. “He got a new toy last night. A squeaky hot dog. But he’s not doing so great these days, son. He—he’s gotten old.”

  “I know you don’t want to let him go.” Seemingly with no effort at all, Ethan opened his glove and the ball dropped into it. He didn’t throw it back immediately. “But he won’t really be gone. He’ll never be lost to you—not as long as you still remember him.”

  Max saw the ball fly past him. He heard a soft thud as it hit the grass a few feet away. He shielded his eyes again, but the sun was so dazzling that all he could see was a wavering blur where his son was standing.

  “But that’s not true. I lost you,” he said hoarsely. “I lost you, and I never found you again. I love you so much, son—but I lost you.”

  His throat closed completely and he stood there, the tears streaming down his face. He saw the blurry figure start to walk away, but then it stopped and turned back to face him.

  “You didn’t lose me, Dad. I’ll always be here waiting for you. You just lost yourself for a while.” The boyish voice began to fade. “You lost your way, Dad. When you find it again you’ll find me…”

  Max opened his eyes, and for a moment the dream was still so real he could almost smell the golden-green scent of freshly cut grass, feel the solid weight of the softball cradled in his palm. Then his gaze focused on the flowery wallpaper, the fussy furniture of the room around him. His brain still slightly fogged, he felt for Julia beside him but his hand encountered only empty bed.

  Maybe it had seemed real, but it hadn’t been. He threw back the sheets and got to his feet, reaching for a nearby pair of sweatpants. Reality was getting up and walking the dog. Reality was finding a killer who had gotten away with murder. Reality was putting a little girl’s world back together again if he could.

  His dream hadn’t been real. And the last few days with the woman who was sleeping right now in his guest room hadn’t been reality either.

  She’d thought she didn’t deserve the child she’d been given. She’d thought she hadn’t measured up as a mother. He shook his head, his mouth tightening. “Hell, Jules,” he muttered as he pulled a T-shirt over his head. “Willa got the best darn mother in the world when they put her into your arms at the hospital. Can’t you see that? And you deserve to have more like her one day. You deserve everything, dammit.”

  And everything was exactly what he could never give her. He jammed his feet into a pair of runners, grabbed a jacket from the closet beside him, and then just stood there, his eyes closed and his head bowed.

  Still—the dream had been so real. He’d been having it, or variations on it for ten years now, and it always had seemed real. But Ethan had never existed. He’d never had a son. All he had was an empty space inside him.

  Jules deserved everything, and for a few brief hours the other night he’d fooled himself into thinking that maybe—just maybe—he might be the one to give it to her.

  “But you’re not.” He opened his eyes and stared at the man reflected in the dresser mirror in front of him. “You wanted her to bring you back to life, and she might even have been able to pull it off for a while. But in the end she’ll want a whole man to share her life with, to make a family with. She’ll get that man one day. He just won’t be you.”

  He raked a hand through his hair, shrugged into his jacket and took a deep breath. Before he let her walk out of his life for good there was one thing he could do for her. Her child had been taken from her. He was going to bring her child home. He took one last look at the man in the mirror, and gave that man a ruefully lopsided smile.

  “She asked you to tell her lies, buddy.” Despite the smile, the green eyes reflected back at him darkened in sudden pain.

  “But you couldn’t even get that right, could you?”

  “YESTERDAY YOU SAID Noel had the opportunity and the motive. Why are we on our way to see Olivia instead of him?”

  Julia raised an eyebrow in detached inquiry as they drove to Olivia’s. Her voice was politely curious, nothing more. Prison was a great finishing school, she thought. What she really wanted to do was to grab the stone-faced man walking beside her by the lapels, shake him until that blank mask he was wearing fell away, and demand some answers from him.

  But even that wouldn’t do any good, she thought. If men were supposed to be from Mars, then Max Ross had the rest of his sex beat by a couple of galaxies. Since he’d silently walked away from her last night he’d gone so far out of reach that the man who’d held her in his arms, the man who’d laughed with her and made love with her, might as well not exist anymore.

  He didn’t, she told herself bleakly. The man in the video was once again a ghost. She wouldn’t see him again, and part of that had been her fault.

  But if she had it all to do over again she wouldn’t be able to change anything she’d said to him. Maybe Max was able to pretend that his Ethan had never existed, but she couldn’t, she thought sadly. She wouldn’t. Going along with him in his conspi
racy of silence was as impossible as seeing a child standing outside in the rain, and turning her back on that lost child.

  “Olivia’s the driving force behind the Tennants. She always has been,” Max said evenly. “Getting her perspective on what makes Noel tick might just give me enough leverage to open a crack in the wall of lies he’s throwing up, and that could be crucial. If he built that bomb, he’s had plenty of time to cover his tracks.”

  “But Olivia’s perspective on Noel is probably as distorted as looking through a fun-house mirror.” Julia’s lips thinned. “She persuaded Babs that I was capable of getting rid of my own daughter, for God’s sake.”

  “That’s right.” He glanced at her, his smile humorless. “And the fact that Olivia could accept a mother killing her own child for gain told us a hell of a lot more about her than about you, didn’t it? Yeah, her perspective’ll probably be distorted. But that doesn’t mean it won’t be revealing, Jules.”

  She wished he wouldn’t call her that, she thought, her eyes closing briefly. Not now. Not when everything else between them was on such a coolly courteous level. She looked up and saw they were nearing the severely plain federal facade of Olivia’s house. Beside her, Max was wearing one of his ubiquitous suits, and she had on a pair of tailored slacks and a thin-knit, neutrally shaded sweater, but all of a sudden she felt they might as well be outfitted in breastplates and leggings and horned Viking helmets. They were the unwelcome marauders at the gates. They were unpleasant reminders of the violent world outside this privileged little sanctuary. From what Max had told her, Olivia had agreed to this meeting with no outward sign of reluctance, but Julia was willing to bet the grande dame of Tenn-Chem Industries had little real desire to reacquaint herself with her daughter-in-law.

  But Max was right. Behind the deceptive facade of unostentatious affluence Olivia showed to her neighbors was a woman who had possibly rid herself of her own husband, a woman who had attempted to force her off-spring into a rigidly ruthless mold, a woman to whom the idea of doing away with a child wasn’t inconceivable. Julia’s gaze jerked up at this last thought.

  “You think Noel and Olivia could have been in this together, don’t you?”

  He pushed open the ornamental iron gate fronting the house and held it open for her. “It’s possible.” His nod was curt. “Under Kenneth she’d lost all power. At least in the current arrangement with Noel she’s back at the helm of Tenn-Chem. The animosity between them is probably real enough, but that doesn’t mean they don’t both prefer this state of affairs to the way things were when Kenneth had absolute control.”

  He raised the polished pewter knocker affixed to the gleamingly black-painted door in front of them, and let it fall. “Whatever she says, don’t let her get to you, Jules,” he added softly. “Snap right back at her if you have to, alligator.”

  She shot him a startled glance, but before she could say anything the door opened, and she received a second small shock.

  “Hello, Mrs. Tennant.” The kindly and once-familiar face of her former housekeeper, Maria, wore a tentative smile. “It’s so good to see you again.” Her smile wobbled and her eyes brightened with what looked suspiciously like tears. “Please—come in. Mrs. Olivia is expecting you.”

  “Maria!” Ignoring the other woman’s halfhearted attempt at reticence, Julia threw her arms around the plump shoulders in a tight hug. “You’re working here now?”

  Releasing her and standing back, she mustered her own shaky smile. “I got the letter you and Thomas sent me in prison,” she said quietly. “You don’t know what it meant to realize I had someone on the outside thinking of me.”

  “We never believed what they said about you, Mrs. Tennant.” Maria dabbed at her eyes with a corner of her apron. “Never! But you are out now, yes? You will have little Willa home soon?”

  “Any day now, Maria. Agent Ross is looking into the case.” Julia forced a note of unconcern into her voice and the older woman nodded happily.

  “That is good. The little one should be with her mama.” She gave one last sniff and straightened her apron. “Mrs. Olivia is in the small sitting room. She asked me to bring you straight through when you arrived.”

  She continued talking as she preceded the two of them down the walnut-panelled hallway. “When Mrs. Olivia’s housekeeper retired she hired me and Thomas. We preferred being in a house with a child, but not so many people are looking for chauffeurs and household help these days.”

  She hadn’t even laid eyes on her formidable mother-in-law yet, and already she was an emotional basket case, Julia thought wryly as she let Maria’s softly accented chatter roll over her. If meeting one of the few people from her past she had fond memories of wasn’t enough, Max’s disarming reference to Willa’s picture a few moments ago had come close to sabotaging her desperate attempts at self-control. It hadn’t been anything more than a reminder that he was on her side, she told herself tightly. It certainly didn’t negate what he’d told her two days ago and what his reaction last night had sharply underscored—that there was a limit to how far their relationship could go, and that it stopped well short of where she might hope it would lead.

  “Mrs. Olivia? Your visitors are here.” Maria’s tone took on a formal detachment. “Shall I bring the tea in now?”

  “Please, Maria.”

  As Julia, with Max one step behind her, entered the attractive and airy sitting room that she remembered as being Olivia’s favorite place to hold court when she received guests, her mother-in-law crossed the silkily carpeted floor to greet them. Wearing unrelieved black and with her hair severely secured in a chignon at the back of her head, with both heavily beringed hands she reached for Julia’s.

  “My dear, it’s been so long.” She pressed a kiss to the air a quarter-inch from Julia’s cheek, and stood back. “And Agent Ross. Do make yourselves comfortable.”

  With a gracious gesture she indicated a cosy seating area, but even as Julia, struck dumb by the unexpected welcome she’d received, obediently began to move toward the velvet-covered sofa and button-back chairs, she stopped in her tracks.

  Above the white marble fireplace hung a beautifully framed photograph. Slowly she walked over to it, her breath catching in her throat.

  “Taken last summer.” Olivia had come up behind her. “It’s my favorite picture of her, and since Barbara has seen fit to limit my granddaughter’s visits I like to look up at it while I’m working away here.”

  Buttery-pale hair gathered in a ponytail high on her head, Willa was sitting motionless on a swing, both chubby fists holding tight to the ropes supporting it and the toes of her sneakers lightly touching the ground. Her gaze seemed serious and faraway, as if she was unaware of whoever was taking the photo. On the ground behind her was a fallen toy, a vivid splash of contrast to the muted colors of the sylvan setting, the spangled sunlight, the dreamy blue of the little girl’s gaze.

  With an effort, Julia kept her own eyes from tearing up. “Yes, Babs told me she doesn’t allow Willa to see you as often as you’d like.” She wrenched her gaze from the picture and turned to the sofa. Max followed suit, waiting until Olivia sat before taking his place beside Julia.

  “You know why we’re here, of course, Mrs. Tennant.” His smile was perfunctory. “As I told you on the telephone, now that Julia’s conviction’s been overturned I’ve taken it upon myself to revisit my initial investigation into the bombing of your son’s plane.”

  “In an unofficial capacity, I believe,” Olivia countered with a thread of steel in her voice, no longer an indulgent grandmother or a welcoming hostess but reverting without difficulty to the persona that Julia was more familiar with—the implacable matriarch of the Tennant family and the brains and will behind the financial empire she’d created.

  “Unofficial for the time being, yes,” Max conceded. “But not for much longer. I’ll be filing a report with my director this week, telling him not only do I now believe the wrong person was convicted, but that I feel there’s suf
ficient new evidence to reopen the case. Officially reopen, that is,” he added, his tone suddenly as hard as Olivia’s.

  Their gazes locked. Olivia broke off eye contact first. “Then I presume you’ll be looking more closely into my younger son’s whereabouts on the night in question, Agent Ross.” She patted back an invisible strand into the elegant silvery chignon. “Means, motive and opportunity—I gather from the detective novels I occasionally indulge in that those are the three components to look for, am I correct?”

  “So they say,” Max said with a touch of amused dryness. “Are you telling me you suspect Noel of wanting his brother dead, Mrs. Tennant?”

  “We’d all grown heartily tired of Kenneth’s overbearing manner and bullying tactics. My son wasn’t sorely missed after his death—not even, I’d venture to guess, by his wife. Certainly not by his brother,” Olivia ri-posted. “I’m sorry if my attitude seems callous, Agent Ross, but I believe in calling a spade a spade. By the way, I’ll thank you not to patronizingly cast me in the role of a doddering Dr. Watson to your Holmes.” Her tone was ice. “Better men than you have underestimated me, to their eventual regret.”

  “I’ve heard that rumor.” Max’s smile didn’t reach his eyes. “But I didn’t put full credence in it until now.”

  “You have your hands full dealing with a two-year-old crime. I wouldn’t advise you to go back twenty years further, Agent,” Olivia said softly. “I’m sure the FBI doesn’t want to waste valuable hours on ancient history.”

  “You’re right, the Agency probably doesn’t.” Max sat back expansively. “But I’m on my own time here, as I think I’ve already mentioned.”

  To Julia’s surprise, Olivia’s austere features broke into an almost flirtatious smile and she relaxed her poker-straight posture a trifle. “Touché,” she said with a light laugh. “Shall we set aside our foils now and get down to business, Mr. Ross? We are on the same side, you know.”