“It just happened,” Nicola said.
“Like a lightning strike, like a hurricane?”
“Don’t say it like that. Don’t make fun of me,” Nicola said. “I never wanted to hurt you.” She actually heard those movie-sappy words coming out of her mouth.
“It’s not just me; it’s Sam,” Beth said. “I think she’s known all along. That’s why she’s slipping in school. She knew what her father was doing, and she had to protect me.”
“I care about Sam.”
“Don’t insult me by pretending you do,” Beth said.
Nicola felt the words like a kick in the face.
“I thought the world of you. Both Kate and I did. We wanted to support you. We knew how hard you worked to get where you are, how you excelled all along the way. I wanted that for Sam. I wanted schools like the ones you went to.”
“She can still have them.”
“Right now she can’t even show up for her stage design workshop. She has stomach pains and had to drop out. She’s a wreck, and it’s because of you and her father.”
“I’m so sorry,” Nicola said.
“What you think you have with him isn’t real,” Beth said.
“It is,” Nicola said softly, glancing at Tyler.
The waitress came by to take Nicola’s order and refill Beth’s coffee cup. Nicola shook her head, sent her away. There were maroon paper place mats on the table, and Beth moved hers closer to Nicola. She slid the salt and pepper shakers and the sugar bowl onto her place mat.
“You don’t know him,” Beth said. “Or maybe you do. Haven’t you seen his moods?”
Nicola made sure she showed no emotion.
“This is me,” Beth said, pointing at the salt, “and this is Pete.” She touched the pepper. “Here is Sam,” she said, holding the sugar bowl in both her hands. “No matter how I feel about him now, this is our family.” She met Nicola’s eyes, a sharp expression in hers. She tapped her coffee spoon, and it slid onto the floor. “And that’s you. You’re off the place mat. You’re out of our lives.”
“Not out of Pete’s,” Nicola said. The waitress came by to pick up the spoon and give Beth a clean one.
“You are,” Beth said as the waitress left. “You just don’t realize it yet. He’s not capable. I’ll do anything for Sam, and when it comes down to it, so will Pete.” Her gaze was hard and furious, and she raised her hand as if she wanted to hit Nicola.
“Tyler needs his father too,” Nicola said.
A look of deep anguish crossed Beth’s face. Her whole demeanor changed. She crumpled, putting her head in her hands. Nicola wanted to reach across the table to comfort her. She started to, hand hovering above the back of Beth’s head. But she had known it would make everything worse, so she had lowered her hand and touched her sleeping son instead.
Now, sitting in the cozy library with Pete, Nicola caressed their son’s head again. It felt warm, but not like before. The fever was breaking. His crying had subsided, and she knew he was ready to fall asleep. The breeze had picked up, and the air was suddenly cool. Nicola wore a sage-green cashmere shawl wrapped around her shoulders. Afraid Tyler would get a chill, Nicola pulled the shawl off and tucked it around him.
“Fresh air is good for him,” Pete said.
“He still has a little fever.”
“You coddle him.”
“Pete, you’re being unreasonable.”
She saw him scowl, and she waited for his anger. He hated being challenged. She thought about asking to see his back. She could wash and dress his wounds, kiss them so tenderly. It might head him off, stop him from blowing up. He opened his mouth to say something, but then his phone rang. He answered, keeping his eyes on Nicola, but then he walked out the French doors to take the call in private. When he returned, he looked angrier than ever.
“Is everything okay?” Nicola said.
“No,” Pete said.
“What’s wrong?”
“Sam is spending the night at Kate’s. And you know why, don’t you?”
Nicola shook her head.
“Because I’m here. Trying to keep you happy instead of being home with my daughter, where I belong.”
“Then go,” Nicola said.
“It’s too late now,” Pete said. “She’s at her aunt’s. I swear to God, if Kate keeps poisoning her against me . . .”
“No one can do that,” Nicola said, staring at Pete with all the truth in the world. “Sam loves you. You’re all she has left.”
“Yes,” Pete said, looking away from Nicola and Tyler.
34
“Hello, Kate,” Reid said, meeting her and Popcorn outside her loft on Bank Street at midnight, a few blocks from where he’d just left Tom at the Y-Knot. “Jed Hilliard.”
“My sister loved him,” Kate said with a note of despair in her voice. Reid was a little buzzed. He focused on her face, on the lines in her forehead, and he felt her unhappiness. “And she didn’t tell me.”
Ah, Kate, Reid thought. Close sisters, a secret between them. That could hurt. It could break a heart.
“Who was he to her?” Reid asked.
“An artist she met. And cared about, and encouraged. And . . . fell in love with.”
“And Pete found out?” Reid asked, checking another box in the motive column.
“That I don’t know. Not yet, but I will find out.”
“Take it easy, Kate. Tell me the details, and I’ll track it all down. Where did she meet him?”
“At Ainsworth,” she said. “Visiting our father. And later at the soup kitchen.”
Ainsworth. Martin Harris had been incarcerated there too, and Reid wondered if Harris and Jed had known each other. Or if Harris had known Garth Woodward, for that matter.
“You’re thinking something,” Kate said, grabbing Reid’s hand. “I can tell.”
Reid held her hand tighter. The whiskey was hitting him.
“You’re right; I am,” he said. Could she smell the whiskey on him? Did he seem too loose? He couldn’t seem to let go of her hand.
“I want to know—please tell me.”
“Did you ever hear of anyone named Martin Harris? Did Beth mention him? Or your father?”
“I don’t think so; why?”
“Someone from Ainsworth who might have run into Beth,” Reid said, deliberately vague.
“The name doesn’t sound familiar,” she said. “But, Conor, she was head over heels. I think Jed might have been the reason she was going to leave Pete. Now I wonder if Matthew was Pete’s baby at all. What if he was Jed’s?”
Reid thought of the screwup, how he hadn’t requested a paternity test during the autopsy. He swallowed hard, couldn’t bring himself to tell Kate, and it seemed she hadn’t yet thought of it herself. She seemed to be reeling, just coming to grips with the fact her sister had had a lover she hadn’t known about.
“This might sound out of left field,” he said, “but do you know if Pete is into celestial navigation?”
She seemed taken aback, thrown off course from thinking about Beth and Jed.