"Investigate.. my mother-why?"
"For killing Westbrook's granddaughter."
For a moment I was speechless. It was like being in a dream, trying to scream, wanting desperately to tell him he was wrong, but unable to make a sound.
I rubbed my throat. "No one killed Ashley. She fell through the ice."
"Or she was pushed."
"She was looking for her rabbit!"
"Okay, she was lured," he said.
"By my mother? You're mad, you're completely mad!"
"By whoever took the rabbit, then placed it on the ice."
I was outraged. Victoria wasn't capable of murder. She was too motherly a person-before she ditched her only child, I reminded myself. How could I presume to know anything about the woman who had abandoned me?
Still, what motive was there? I regained my composure. "She had no motive."
Sam stood up and paced back and forth behind the bench.
Joseph was right, I thought. I couldn't trust Adrian, telling that tale about my father's artistic temper tantrum. No wonder he was nice to me now. He was responsible for my parents' sudden departure, frightening them, hiring a private detective to find evidence against my mother. My father probably stole the ring because he knew they'd have to lie low for a while, but when my mother left us, it became possible for him to work in the open again.
My thoughts took a surprising turn: Maybe my mother hadn't really wanted to leave us. Maybe she had had no choice. But if she was innocent, why would she have run scared? Perhaps she was guilty — at least, of neglect.
"She had no motive," I repeated to Sam. "Didn't you hear me? What is your problem?" I asked angrily.
"Dad was following your parents the night they left Mason's Choice. Later the sheriff received a call about a possible accident. They found Dad's car upside down in a ditch. He was dead."
I mouthed Sam's words silently, trying to understand them. I felt sick, the taste of cake going sour in my throat. I remembered huddling between the seats of our car, terrified of the storm and the speed at which my father was driving. The car had taken a sharp turn, then spun out of control. I remembered the crashing sound that came almost immediately after our car had stopped. It was deer, my parents said, a herd of them rushing across the road and crashing into the brush on the other side. Farther on, at a dark petrol station, my father had made a telephone call. He never told me that someone had been following us that night, that someone had been killed on the road.
I rose, the liquid in my stomach threatening to come up. Steadying myself, I walked past Sam. A distance away, I stopped to look back. He was kicking at the planks in the dock, jamming the toe of his shoe against the uneven edges.
"Feeling sorry for yourself?" I asked.
He looked up. "I don't expect you to understand. Your parents and Westbrook are responsible for my father's death. Hating them helped me get through it."
"At least you have your mother," I replied, "which is one more parent than I."
"What do you mean?"
I continued walking, heading toward my car, wanting to get away from him. I, too, was good at feeling sorry for myself. Like Sam, I had dealt with the pain of losing a parent by turning it into anger and resentment. I had funneled my hurt into an effort to hate-hate my mother. And I suspected that, in the end, the effort had brought as much peace and happiness to Sam as it had brought to me, which is to say none.
I spent the rest of the day on the road and in stores, driving as far as a popular shopping mall in Delaware, but it was impossible to drive away from my thoughts. It occurred to me that Joseph had been no more forthcoming than Adrian regarding the investigation of my mother. He must have known about it, yet he had gone along with Adrian's story about my father's artistic temper tantrum, indicating that was the reason we had left Wisteria. About 7:30, angry at everyone, I returned to Mason's Choice.
"I warned Mr. Westbrook you would bring trouble," Mrs. Hopewell greeted me as I came in the kitchen door.
"It's lovely to see you, too, Mrs. Hopewell."
I knew it from the moment you telephoned."
"And you made it quite clear," I said, continuing toward the hall. I guessed that something had happened while I was gone, but I would not take her bait and ask what was wrong. I walked quickly, anxious to find Patrick.
"Kate," Robyn called.
I stopped reluctantly at the dining room door. The supper candles were still burning, and several chairs had been pushed back from the table at odd angles. She and Trent sat nursing their coffee.
"Yes, ma'am?"
"Come in," she said.
I took one step inside the door.
"When I give you an instruction to come in, young lady-" "Let it go, Robyn," Trent interrupted. "Kate, have you been talking to Patrick about your time here as a child?"
"No, sir, I haven't said a word about it."
"Don't lie," Robyn hissed between her teeth.
"I don't," I replied.
"After you left today," Trent went on, "Patrick climbed a tree growing close to a cottage, the one where your family lived."
"Children climb trees, they have for centuries," I pointed out. "And, unless someone else told him, he has no idea where I used to live. He doesn't know my family stayed at Mason's Choice."
"He was trying to climb in the bedroom window," Trent pressed on, his eyes sharply observing me. Ashley had climbed that tree the day she threw my doll through the window-he remembered that as well as I.
"Were the windows and doors on the first floor locked?" I asked.
"Shuttered and locked," said Robyn.
"So then, it makes sense that he tried to get in through the second floor."
Trent took a sip of coffee. "When questioned, he told us he was playing with Ashley." Trent's voice was steady, but I heard the china cup clatter in its saucer. "Ashley and the orange cat."
"He has been talking a lot about Ashley," I admitted.
"Since you arrived," Robyn said quickly. "Emily told us that this talk started when you arrived."
"Did it?" I replied. "Then I can't help but wonder why someone would choose that moment to start telling ghost stories, for that is what I'm hearing from Patrick. Does someone want to frighten him, or is this directed at me? Perhaps it's an effort to get rid of me by upsetting others. What do you think?"
Trent and Robyn exchanged glances.
"Who found Patrick doing this?" I asked.
"Roger, the groundskeeper," Robyn replied.
"I thought he was off today."
"He lives in the cottage next door. He heard Patrick cry out when he fell."
"Fell! Why didn't you tell me? Is Patrick all right? Where is he?"
"This discussion isn't over," Trent said as I turned to exit.
"Then you will have to finish it yourselves," I replied, and rushed toward the steps.
I found Patrick in bed, wearing his sailboat pajamas, making action figures climb over the little mountains that were his knees under the quilt.
"Kate, you're back!" he said, his face lighting up. His right cheek was bruised, and there was a slight cut over his eye.
"Hel-lo, you're looking colorful! What happened to you?"
Patrick immediately pulled up his pajama sleeve to show me a bruised arm.
"Impressive. How did you do that?" I asked.
I fell out of a tree."
"That doesn't sound like a fun thing to do."
He cackled. "I didn't try to, Kate."
"Glad to hear it. So why were you climbing the tree?"
"Ashley dared me."