“I’m sorry I missed the funeral,” she said, eyes lowered. “After all these years, I did love Frank. I wanted to go. I just thought it would have been awkward for the family. You, especially.”
“I understand.”
“I hope you do. Because I don’t want us to end up enemies.”
“It’s okay. I promise.”
She looked away, then turned her gaze toward Ryan. “I don’t think Frank would want us to be enemies.”
“Dad would want us to stay married, Liz. But this isn’t about what Dad wants.” Ryan paused. His words had sounded harsher than intended. “I do appreciate the way you helped me keep the lid on the divorce around Dad. There really wasn’t any need for him to know.”
She sniffed back a tear, nearly scoffed. It was a hopeless charade Ryan had kept up for the sake of his dying father, never telling him that the marriage was over. “He must have known. For God’s sake, we lived in Piedmont Springs. Everybody knew.”
“He never said anything to me. To suggest he knew, I mean.”
“We talked a couple of weeks ago. On the phone.”
“I didn’t know that.”
“He didn’t really come right out and say the word ‘divorce.’ But I think he sensed you and I were having money problems.”
“What did he say?”
“Just before he hung up, he said something like, hang in there. Things will get better for you and Ryan. Money will come soon.”
“Did you ask him what he meant by that?”
“I didn’t push it. At the time, I didn’t see the point.” She paused, as if considering what she was about to say. “But I’ve been thinking about what he said. A lot. I guess that’s why I drove all the way down here to see you.”
Ryan bristled. “What have you been thinking?”
“I thought, if only that were true. If we could solve our money problems, maybe we wouldn’t be where we are now.” She looked up, catching Ryan’s eye.
He blinked. She looked sincere, sounded like she meant what she was saying. Yet he somehow didn’t trust her. Anger swelled inside him. It was the damn money. Either she was after it, and it was making her deceitful. Or she knew nothing about it, and it was making him paranoid. The damn money.
“Liz, I’d be lying if I said I’d lost all feelings for you. But I just buried my father today. I can’t get on this emotional roller coaster.”
“I’m sorry,” she said, rising. “I didn’t come here to mess with your head.”
“I didn’t mean to send you away.”
She smiled sadly. “It’s okay. I really should go. Give my love to Jeanette.” She kissed him lightly on the cheek — just a peck, next to nothing.
“Thanks for coming by. It means a lot.”
“You’re welcome.” She headed down the steps and crossed the lawn. With a half-turn she waved goodbye, then got in her car and drove away.
He watched as her taillights faded into the darkness. He was tempted to call her back and tell her about the money. But his sister’s earlier warning echoed in his mind — how Liz had hired herself a shark of a Denver divorce lawyer. Maybe Liz was just fishing for assets, something to report back to her lawyer.
Ryan walked back inside, chiding himself. After coming down hard on Sarah to keep things quiet until they sorted out the truth, there he was ready to tell all to Liz at the first sign of a possible reconciliation. Still, he couldn’t deny his feelings for Liz. What was so awful about a woman who wanted a little financial security?
He went to the living room and picked up the phone, ready to call her answering machine and tell her to call him as soon as she got in. He punched three buttons, then hung up.
Sleep on it, he told himself.
10
Two days had passed, and Amy was still working up the nerve to phone Ryan Duffy. Just one question — the two-hundred-thousand-dollar question — had her paralyzed: Did she have the right Duffys?
She had done some serious checking. Yesterday, she’d even taken a sick day from the firm and driven all the way to Piedmont Springs, looking discreetly for obvious signs of wealth, a lifestyle befitting a family that could spare an extra two hundred thousand dollars. She found nothing of the sort. The Duffys owned a simple house in a rural middleclass town. The only car in the driveway was an older Jeep Cherokee. Ryan’s clinic had the street presence of an abandoned five-and-dime store, serving patients who looked like they might barter sheep for services. And Frank Duffy had worked for wages his entire life.
Her findings had so befuddled her that last night she’d gone back to the computer to check the remaining Jeanette Duffys on her list. No one, however, seemed more promising than the Duffys of Piedmont Springs. Amy figured that whoever had sent the money didn’t just wake up one morning and decide to do it. Something had to trigger the decision — a traumatic and life-altering event, like Frank Duffy’s illness and impending death. It couldn’t be coincidence. It had to be these Duffys. For whatever reason, they just didn’t flaunt their money.
Amy had to be cautious in her approach. It simply wouldn’t be smart to phone Frank Duffy’s son and say, “Someone in your family appears to have sent me a box full of cash for no good reason.” Greedy heirs weren’t likely to explain why she’d gotten the money. They were more likely to say, “It’s mine, give it back.”
At lunchtime Thursday, Amy grabbed a Pepsi and an orange from the employee lounge and went back to her office. She peeled the orange and broke it into wedges as she glanced at the handful of snapshots she’d taken of the Duffy house. Eight of them were spread across her desk. It had seemed wise to take pictures, just in case she ever had to go to the police. Police were always taking pictures — at least that was her experience. She remembered when she was eight, when her mother died. The police were all over the house taking photographs.
Funny, but the Duffy house resembled her old house in some ways. An old two-story frame with green shutters and a big porch out front, the kind they didn’t seem to build anymore. She wondered if Frank Duffy had died in that house, as her mother had died in theirs. She wondered who had found his body, the first to realize he was gone. The thought chilled her. There was something eerie about a house in which someone had died, which was only compounded when, as in her house, that someone had died so violently. Amy hadn’t gone back to her old house since the night of the gunshot. That is, she hadn’t physically gone back there. In her mind, she’d relived that night many times. Now, alone in the silence of her office, the photographs of the Duffy house seemed to blur, drifting out of focus. Her mind, too, began to drift. The image in the photographs looked more and more like her old house, until she could see beyond the likeness, see right into her old bedroom. She saw herself on that unforgettable night, a frightened eight-year-old girl alone in her dark bedroom, shivering with fear on a warm summer night, unsure of her next move…
Amy was sitting on the window ledge, a tight little ball with her knees drawn up to her chin. She had waited for another gunshot, but there had been only one. Not another sound. Just silence in the darkness.
She didn’t know what to do, whether to run or stay put. Someone could be out there, a burglar. Or Mom could need her help. She had to do something. It took all her courage, but slowly she lowered her feet to the floor. The wooden planks creaked beneath her feet, startling her. She took a deep breath and started toward the door. She stepped lightly, so as not to make a sound. If there was someone out there, she couldn’t let them hear her.
The knob turned slowly in her hand. She pulled the door toward her. It opened a crack, then caught on something. She tugged harder. It would open no more than a two-finger width. With her cheek pressed against the door frame, she peered out the narrow opening. She blinked, confused. A rope was tied to her bedroom doorknob. The other end was looped around the banister across the hall. With the door open just an inch, it was taut as a tightrope.