Page 104 of Not a Word

“I need to talk to him, explain,” she said. “It wasn’t an affair. Not back then. We hired her. But I can’t, not right now. I need you to go talk to Holden. Explain things.”

What could she have to do that was more pressing than helping my brother deal with a revelation that was nothing short of an emotional earthquake?

“What?” I asked. “Is there another arts council luncheon?”

“Go to hell,” she said.

I felt that as sharply as when she’d actually slapped my face.

“Look, Mom, I don’t know what kind of mess you’re in, I don’t know what might have happened years ago, between you and Dad, with this Corby woman, with Leah Kennard, with all this shit. I hardly know who you are right now.”

“That’s hateful.”

“I don’t mean it to be. But I can’t help you if you’re not honest with me.”

“You don’t understand.”

“So help me understand.”

“Your father didn’t kill himself.”

It was my turn for a moment of silence. “I don’t think so, Mom.”

“He didn’t. I’m sure of it.”

“What are you saying? There was someone else in the house? Someone else came in and shot Leah and shot Dad and made it look like suicide?”

“That’s right.”

Three words went unsaid in my mind: Was it you? I was ready at this point to consider just about anything. After all, if you were looking for someone with a motive, Mom fit the bill. Finding her husband in bed with another woman? What was the saying? A story as old as time?

But what I said was, “I saw the note. Dad wrote it. It was his handwriting.”

“He could have been forced.”

“By who?”

“We’re going to find out, and then everything will be fine,” Mom said.

We? Was she enlisting me in this?

“I don’t know how to help you with this,” I said.

“Oh, honey, not you,” she said, ending the call.

If not me, who? And then something occurred to me. She was talking about the man I’d seen her talking to in the hotel parking lot.

Thirty-Six

Alicia had said, “Five hundred thousand dollars.”

What the hell, right? If she had said a hundred thousand, and Catherine had said yes right away, then she’d kick herself for not asking for more.

“That’s ridiculous,” Catherine said, although she didn’t sound as taken aback as Alicia expected. “I can pull some cash together even though it’s Saturday, but not that much. I could give you a down payment. And then, when the banks open on Monday, we could talk again.”

How much cash did someone like Catherine keep lying around the house? Alicia wondered. She said, “If you can pull together a hundred thousand today, we can make this work.”

There was a long pause at the other end, followed by, “Okay.”