Cynthia had the grace to look embarrassed. “I’m so sorry, Penny.” She sighed, glancing furtively at Ceci and Andrew.
Ceci rallied to the occasion. “Don’t worry. Andrew and I are banned from so many households for so many reasons, we don’t even bother with Christmas cards anymore.”
Andy chuckled. “Ain’t that the truth.”
Penny patted his knee, giving Cynthia a reassuring look at the same time. “As I was saying, dear…”
DAR SAT BACK to listen, half an ear listening for Kerry moving around the house behind her, and most of her thoughts fastened on what her partner was up to.
“You ready to go home?” Andrew asked in a low voice.
Dar glanced at him. “Does it show?”
Her father patted her knee, then poked it. “Whacha got here, Dardar? Alligator pants?”
“Leather.” Dar chuckled, smoothing the hide. “Stuck in the back of my closet.”
Andrew studied the garment. “Ah do believe I remember when you got them there pants.” He glanced around and lowered his voice again. “D’jya hear what happened last night?”
174 Melissa Good
“No.” Dar leaned on the arm of her chair. “What?”
“That there lady fired all them hangers-on,” Andrew said.
“Just went in and told them to git.”
Dar’s eyes brightened. “Yeah?” She was pleasantly surprised.
“All of them?”
Andrew nodded solemnly. “Yep. Even that feller we all did not like.”
Kyle? It had to be. Dar muffled a grin, giving Cynthia mental points she hadn’t expected to tender. “Good for her,” she whispered. “About damn time. Wait ’til Kerry hears.”
Andrew sat back with a satisfied grunt, folding his arms across his chest. He was dressed in his usual jeans, but this time with a heavy sweatshirt against the cold weather and a pair of sturdy military boots. “I do believe she’ll be happier for it.”
“Sure,” Dar said. “She’s hated that bastard most of her life.
Just wish she’d have been there to see it.”
Her father’s lips quirked a little. “Wall, just so happens your momma was there with that little camera thing of hers. So we can have us a picture watching session later on.”
Dar looked at him in surprise. “You were there?”
“Yeap.”
“Huh.”
“Didn’t think we’d let you kids have all the fun, didja?”
Dar covered her face with one hand and shook her head.
After a moment of watching her, Andrew leaned over again.
“Hey, Dardar?”
“Hm?”
“Things work out all right with Gerry?”
Dar stared past the people in the room to the far wall. “Not really. But that was my choice and my fault, so if I pay for it, it’s only fair.” She kept her eyes forward, even when she felt the warmth of her father’s hand on her shoulder. “You taught me that.”
The pressure increased as Andy squeezed her arm. “Yeap, I did. But if it’s all the same t’you, I think you made the right choice, doing what you done.”
Dar managed a smile. “Thanks.”
IT WAS A plain wooden door, set in a half forgotten hallway behind the library and the study, the senator’s official “working”
area. Kerry approached it and rested her hand on the rough, slightly irregular surface for a moment before she turned the knob and pushed the door inward.
Unlike the big study, this room was small, almost intimate. It Thicker Than Water 175
smelled mostly of books and dust, age and use. Along one wall, under the window, was a desk with an old style wooden desk chair. The other three walls were covered in bookshelves, and they, unlike the outer study, were filled with well-read and tat-tered books.
Kerry just stood in the middle of the room and looked around. It was, perhaps, the third or fourth time she’d ever been in there, and even though the memories she had were hazy, the room didn’t seem to have changed.
This was her father’s private office. Here, he worked on the family financial business, or read books that interested him rather than advertised his achievements. Here, on the walls, hung old certificates from his younger years and pictures from his college days.
Kerry knew she only had a few minutes to search, but she had to pause and study the pictures—stern men standing together, her father in the front row near the middle, almost unrecognizable.
Almost.
Except that the face in the picture held lines she recognized from the mirror she looked into every day. The truth was there in front of her, a truth she knew she couldn’t set aside. She had been a part of this man, no matter what he’d done to her. Kerry touched the edge of the picture frame, staring intently at it. Then she shook her head, went to shelves, and scanned the books on them.
Military histories. He’d loved them, she recalled, and now, thinking that, she remembered his reaction to Dar’s father and a little puzzle seemed to click into place. He’d always admired sol-diers, heroes. His most prized appointment had been to the Military Appropriations Committee. Surely, he’d taken the time to research Dar’s family. Kerry wondered what he’d decided about them. Had he changed his mind? Would he have ever changed his mind about her? About Dar?
With a sigh, she walked to the desk and gingerly sat in the chair, expecting but not getting a protesting squeak from the antique springs. She was reaching for the first drawer when a flash of color to her right caught her eye, and she half turned to look at the desk top.
Pictures were balanced along the back edge of the desk. To her utter surprise, she found herself looking back from one of the frames. Nestled between pictures of Angie and Mike, to one side of a smaller framed shot of her parents together, was not only a shot of her, but a recent one.
Dumbfounded, Kerry brought it closer as if to verify the evidence of her own eyes. She recognized the picture as one she’d had taken of herself for the corporate newsletter on her promotion 176 Melissa Good to vice president, so her expression was appropriately business-like.
It was an original. She could see the softly matted sheen, very different from the print in the glossy catalog. How had he gotten it?
She put it down again, a little shaken. It took all her will-power to turn her eyes from the photo and pull open the drawer to look inside it.
DAR’S CELL PHONE rang. She gave everyone an apologetic look, then stood and stepped outside the room to take the call.
“Hello?”
“Well, hello, Dar,” Alastair said. “Any luck?”
If there was any consolation to be found, Dar took it from the anxiety she could hear in Alastair’s voice. “No. Alastair, those papers could be anywhere. I’m sure he didn’t leave them just lying around his house, for God’s sake. They’re probably in a vault someplace.” She hesitated. “Listen, just…We should be home tonight. Have Bea book me on the first flight Tuesday.”
Alastair sighed.
“I want a day or so to get things settled,” Dar said. “And to give Kerry a few days. She’s pretty shaken up right now.”
“I’m sure,” Alastair murmured. “Take your time, Dar.”
Dar leaned against the wall and tried not to feel sick to her stomach. “Hey, Alastair?”
“Hm?”
“I’m sorry.”
Alastair was silent for a moment. “Well, you know, Dar, jobs are jobs, but family is the important thing in life.” He hesitated.
“Right?”
It didn’t make either of them feel any better, Dar suspected.
“Right.” She heard soft footsteps coming down the hall and glanced up to see Kerry approaching. “I’ll call you later.”
“All right. Bye.” Alastair hung up just as Kerry came within earshot. Dar clipped her phone to her leather beltlet and reached out to give Kerry’s arm a gentle rub. “No luck, hm?”