Till tried to keep his mind on forcing his way to the next revelation. But he kept thinking of what it would be like to have to leave Holly forever. He had a memory of her looking up at him and smiling, then turning away to go back into Garden House when he had last seen her. He could hardly bear it. “I told you before that you don’t have to make any big decisions tonight.”
“And I told you it’s over. It’s been the arrangement from the beginning, from the day when I told him the truth in Henderson the first time. If he wanted to get married, he had to agree to the plan. He’ll keep his word. She’ll do the rest.”
“She’s not just an employee, is she? And she’s not just for the kids.”
“No.”
“Does he know?”
“No. Yes. He’s just a guy—a good, kind, ordinary guy with a business that keeps him busy all day, and a few things like golf and watching sports that keep him occupied the rest of the time. And the kids. He adores the kids. He doesn’t require an oil well to come in before he considers it a good day.”
“So why did you hire this Iris?”
“Hire her? I suppose I did, in a way. But hardly any money ever changed hands. All I had to do was take the life that I had built for myself, show it to this woman whose life was crummy, and say, ‘If anything ever happens to me, will you please take over?’ Of course she would. A couple of times a year we would talk on the phone, and I would say, ‘Still available?’ and she would say, ‘You bet.’”
“And did Dennis seem satisfied with her?”
“I told you, he’ll be fine.”
“Did he say that?”
She glared at him. “During the month or so at a time when she came to stay with us, I arranged lots of times when I would take the kids somewhere for a day or two, and leave Dennis in the house with her to see if they would be able to get along and agree on things. Then I would come home and talk to each of them alone.”
“What happened when he cheated on you?”
She glared at him again. “If you’re smart enough to know that happened, then you can’t be so dumb as to think I didn’t expect it. Louanda and Iris and I sat down together beforehand and talked about that possibility on some of the trips to Philadelphia. Louanda thought I was foolish, letting go of my husband when there might never even be a reason.”
“What about Iris?”
“She wasn’t sure what she wanted, at that point. She had met Dennis by that time and she admitted she’d been attracted to him. She was afraid that maybe I would turn my faithful husband into an unfaithful one, and I would never feel the same about him.”
“But you persuaded her?”
“No. No. I didn’t. I just made sure everybody had every chance to get to know one another—Iris, the kids, Dennis—and left them alone as much as I could. Don’t you see why?”
“Why don’t you tell me?”
“Everybody’s objection was that the killers would never come after me. Well, now they have, and it turns out that I’m the one who was right.”
“But what advantage was there?”
“For me? None. Not then, certainly. Not ever. It was for the kids.”
“With Iris, you get to maintain control over everything.”
“No. I don’t get to do that. I do get to be sure that when my family begins over again in a few days, there will be a nice place to live that’s far from here, and there will be four of them: two kids, a father, and a mother. Nobody’s missing, see? Nobody is going to run an easy search or publicize some easy lie and learn that a father and two kids the right ages showed up on this date and bought a new house. It’s a family of four who have owned the place for four years. No woman who meets the family is going to see a slot that’s open and decide she’s the one to fill it. I don’t have to worry that the Wicked Witch of the West is going to get the kids.”
“You’re not so worried about your husband, though. Why?”
“He’s a grown-up. He has to do that much for himself.”
“You’re hedging, evading. Don’t you care about him?”
“I’ll miss him. Sure. He’s a nice man.”
“You didn’t say you love him. Did you ever?”
“I was lonely. I missed having a relationship with a man. I like men. I like the feeling of security and someone to do the heavy lifting and reach the top shelf. Dennis asked me out, and we liked each other.”
“Not enough.”
“All right. The truth, then. Dennis was a father with two little kids. He wasn’t too good at it, and he’d had no time to learn, but he was trying. He had the guts to try as hard as he could every single day. It appealed to me. I could see that he and the kids needed me, and that appealed to me even more. When I was young, I was one of those girls who took all the babysitting jobs I could get. I loved little kids—probably because I was an only child—and I got really good at taking care of them. When I met Dennis, I had just spent over a year doing nothing but thinking about myself and hiding from everybody else. I needed somebody who needed me, so when I saw three of them, I was willing to do what was necessary. That meant getting married.”
Till said carefully, “If only you could think of something that would lead us to the man who’s trying to have you killed, you could go back.”
“If I could have done it, I would have long ago.”
Till noticed that a car was slowly, steadily moving up behind them. Just as the headlights in the rear window began to be noticeable, the car dropped back. It allowed another car to pass it and pull in ahead, and then another.
Till said, “That one came close enough to take a look at us.”
“What do I do?”
“Keep going at the same speed, but don’t pass anybody. What we’re going to do is take the next exit. Don’t let yourself slow down to prepare for it, and don’t signal. When we get there, just veer off and coast down the exit ramp. At the bottom, turn right. Pull into the first parking lot, whatever it is. If there’s a building, stop on the far side of it and turn off the lights. I want to see if anybody follows.”
“What are you going to do if it’s the people who killed Louanda?”
“Try to get a good look at them. I’d love to catch them, but our main concern right now is to get you to Los Angeles safely.”
“There’s an exit coming up. Half a mile,” she said.
“Good.” He watched the speedometer for a few seconds. “That’s right. Same speed. Nothing to give away what you’re going to do.”
“A quarter mile.”
He looked back along the line of headlights to pick out the ones he wanted to watch. “Keep it steady.”
“Here we are.” The exit ramp carried them off down a slight incline. They were moving too fast, and Ann Donnelly had to brake hard at the bottom of the ramp to make the right turn. Till kept his eyes on the road behind them as the car made its second right and bumped up a drive into a parking lot.
Ann Donnelly could see the lot belonged to a 1950s-style fast-food restaurant that seemed to be called Good Food Good Times, and she swung around the building and into a space behind it.
Till said, “Wait here,” and then was out of the car and trotting along the side of the building toward the front. He stopped there and looked. There were lots of cars going past, and any of them could have come off the freeway while he was behind the building. None of the drivers seemed to be scanning the parking lots looking for a particular car. Two cars pulled into the strip mall just past the restaurant, and they both parked by the Laundromat. But a woman got out of the first car with a basket of clothes. Another car went by and stopped at the gas station farther down the road.
Ann sat in the car with the motor running. She lowered the window beside her so she could hear, but there was only the steady, dull sound of cars passing unseen on the street in front of the restaurant, and beyond that the occasional whine of a truck flashing past up on the elevated freeway.