“Damn it, Dad, don’t do this!”
“Now,” he ordered, though his voice wasn’t quite so harsh.
She hesitated, then whipped her phone from a pocket of her jeans. Turning her back to her parents, she hit speed dial, and standing in the hallway, had a quick call in hushed, mumbled tones. Her small shoulders were slumped, her head cocked, one shoulder braced on the wall.
“No one was out there, Kris,” Ross said as Lissa finished her short conversation and snapped her phone shut. When she turned to face them again, she was fighting tears. “It wasn’t him, okay?” She swiped at her red eyes and sniffed loudly.
“You’re sure?”
She nodded, her jaw sliding to one side. Hesitating, she then cleared her throat and squared her shoulders. “I don’t think he’d bring someone else over here. He’s with Tara O’Riley. I heard her laughing.”
“Oh, honey.” Kristen’s heart cracked for her daughter.
“It’s okay,” Lissa said. “He’s a jerk.”
Ross stepped right into it. “You could do better anyway.”
“Then why’s he with Tara?” she spat, bristling as she threw her hands into the air. “What do you care, anyway?”
“Lissa,” Kristen warned, but her daughter’s volatile emotions erupted.
All her anger and shame had shifted to her father. “Mom says you’re moving back in. What’s up with that?”
“I said he was spending the night. That’s different from moving back,” Kristen reaffirmed.
“So this is just temporary?” Lissa asked, a trace of sarcasm still evident in her voice. “You move in, you move out, you move in again. Just like some kind of yo-yo dad. So who are you to give me any kind of advice?”
Kristen expected Ross to come unglued. To argue. To point out the difficulties of an adult relationship, to explain why both he and she had needed their space to sort things through. Instead his jaw worked, he glanced down at the floor for a second, rammed his hands deep into the pockets of his slacks, then nodded to himself before looking up and meeting his daughter’s angry, red, accusing gaze. His voice, when he spoke, was softer. More thoughtful. “I can’t give you advice. You’re right, Lissa.”
There was a beat of uncertain, uncomfortable silence when only the slow sizzle of the fire and quiet rumble of the refrigerator could be heard.
“But I am moving back in,” he said, holding Kristen’s gaze. “For good.”
Chapter 11
Over the next few days Kristen learned how serious Ross had been. She hadn’t argued with him when he’d made his proclamation, because a part of her was thrilled to have him back. She wanted to give their marriage one more chance.
But she’d laid down some rules. Ross used the guest bedroom as his office and sleeping quarters for now. They chose a family counselor who would work with them as a couple, as well as with Lissa, to help them repair the rifts in their shattered little family. They both agreed to the changes, though Lissa dragged her heels to the first counseling session and thought the whole idea was “beyond lame.”
But it was a step forward…a step in the right direction.
As for the reunion for St. Elizabeth’s, Kristen did call the police about the tape and photo and a detective came by the office and took her statement, along with the “evidence.” Considering the more deadly, higher-profile crimes that were occurring in the city, Kristen didn’t hold out much hope that anything momentous would come of the investigation.
She managed to write a letter to the alumnae and stuff and seal all of the envelopes. Then, unfortunately, because of deadlines at work and her own complicated family situation, she forgot to take the damned things to the post office. They sat ready to be mailed on the kitchen table for two days before she finally remembered to haul them to the post office a week after the reunion meeting. Only when Ross had remarked about them and actually offered to take them himself did she realize they weren’t already in the post.
Ross was being on his best “family-comes-first” behavior, and though Kristen wanted to trust him, she was holding back. Everything was much too fragile. She thanked him for his offer but she dropped off the envelopes on her way to work the following morning, then caught up with Sabrina, who had decided, against her better judgment, to help her husband Gerard and Chad Belmont with the Western Catholic reunion that was the same weekend and dovetailing into the St. Elizabeth’s festivities.
“So I heard about the weird tape you got and that creepy picture,” Sabrina said, shuddering as she blew across the top of her caramel/mocha-nonfat-decaf-with-light-whipped cream latte she was sipping. She and Kristen were taking a break at the local coffee shop, seated inside the windows, watching clouds roll over the sky and pedestrians scurry past as the first few drops of rain began to splatter against the sidewalk. With a great rumble, a TriMet bus pulled out of the bus stop and eased into traffic heading east, toward the gray waters of the Willamette River and the Hawthorne Bridge.
“Did you talk to the police?”
“Mmm, but so far, they haven’t found anything.”
“It would be a great story for the Clarion. You could bring up Jake Marcott’s murder and then tell what happened to you. Get a little press and a nice byline.” She was only half kidding.
“No, thanks. The publicity just might be what whoever did this wants. It could make him frantic for more and more, and he could up the ante.”
“Or she.”
“Or she,” Kristen agreed as they carried the rest of their drinks back to the office. Kristen finished a piece on school funding or lack of it, and near five, she made a phone call to Alabama-one she’d been putting off-where it was almost eight in the evening.
A woman picked up on the third ring. “Hello?”
“Rachel?” Kristen asked. “This is Kristen. Kristen Delmonico, but it was Daniels. From St. Elizabeth’s.”
“Kris? Daniels?” Rachel replied, clearly surprised. “Hi. It’s been years…Oh, I get it, you’re in charge of the reunion, aren’t you?” She laughed, and it was a sound that Kristen remembered well, one that caused a pang of regret to cut through her. How had she let so many years pass without trying to connect with her old friend? “Listen, if you’re trying to get me involved, forget it. You got drafted for the job, not this girl.” Again the soft laughter.
“I did call about the reunion,” Kristen admitted, “but I really wanted to talk to you. To catch up. Got a minute?”
“Absolutely.”
They talked for nearly half an hour, filling in the gaps and laughing. Kristen told Rachel about her job at the Clarion, her husband and daughter, and Rachel revealed that she was divorced and working as a cop.
“I heard that much,” Kristen admitted. “That’s really one of the reasons I decided to call you today. I know your father worked on the Jake Marcott murder case.”
On the other end of the phone, Rachel sighed. “Oh, God, yes. Swear to God, the fact that Dad couldn’t solve that one drove him to an early grave.”
“I’m sorry.”
“So am I. For a lot of things,” Rachel admitted. “The Jake thing…horrible. For all of us.”
“You’re right, and it hasn’t gone away.”
“It never will,” Rachel thought aloud. “It really ticks me off that someone got away with murder.”
“Me, too, and I’m afraid whoever did it might be back.”
“What?” Rachel asked, a little more loudly.
“Either the murderer has returned or…someone’s getting off on messing with me, probably because of the reunion.” She explained everything that had happened, from the moment she felt someone might have been inside her house to the reunion committee, to feeling she was being watched. As Rachel listened, Kristen told her about driving to St. Elizabeth’s campus, walking through the maze, and receiving the “gift” of the picture and tape. She finished with, “The photographer is out of business and my picture, the one of Jake and me at the dance, is missing, though I don’t know for how long. It’s been years since I looked in that box in the attic.”