Книга - Summer Of Joanna

Summer Of Joanna
Janice Carter


Who is the real Joanna Barnes?To Matt Sinclair, Joanna Barnes was the woman his father married six months after his mother died. Two years later, his father had been on the verge of divorcing Joanna when he'd suffered a heart attack. Most of his assets were gone–and several important papers were missing.To Kate Reilly, Joanna Barnes was the woman who'd befriended her one summer when she'd been an unhappy 11 year old. The woman who'd sent Kate a birthday card each year with a reminder that the two of them would meet on Kate's 30th birthday. A meeting Joanna doesn't make.Then Kate reads Joanna's obituary in the paper. The police are calling her death a suicide. Kate insists that Joanna would never have broken her promise. Matt's not so sure.But Kate and Matt put aside their differences as they uncover a world of intrigue, betrayal, and danger. Gradually the summer of Joanna becomes the summer of Kate and Matt….







“Joanna Barnes was married to my father.”

Matt Sinclair folded his arms and stared across the parking lot. “They were married for two years. I was only seventeen at the time. Pretty much out of the picture, thank God.”

“Obviously you didn’t care for her,” Kate said.

“Frankly, no. Sorry if that offends you.”

Kate inhaled deeply. She hadn’t come to Joanna’s funeral for any kind of confrontation. All she’d wanted to do was pay her last respects to the woman who’d once saved her life.

“I do—did—care for Joanna,” she said, “and I don’t believe in speaking ill of the dead. Especially at a funeral.” She brushed past him to head for her car.

“Those are fine sentiments,” he replied, raising his voice as she kept walking. “And you’re welcome to them. But Joanna Barnes ruined my father. I’ll never forgive her for that.”

Matt watched her car zip out of the parking lot and disappear down the quiet, tree-lined road. He didn’t like the uneasy feeling in his gut when he recalled the hurt in her eyes. As if she couldn’t comprehend why he was attacking somebody she cared about.

But that somebody was Joanna, he reminded himself. The last person on earth to deserve such fierce loyalty.




ABOUT THE AUTHOR


Reading and writing have been lifetime passions for Janice Carter. She wrote her first novel at age twelve in school notebooks. As a teenager, she wrote daily serializations of romance novellas for her classmates. “Publishing a novel was always a dream,” she recalls. “But for a long time, the business of living got in the way of writing. I traveled around the world and saw many exotic sights. I married and had two amazing daughters. There was little opportunity or inclination on my part to write until one autumn I impulsively decided to take a romance writing workshop at a local college. I was hooked! That year I began to write my first romance novel and sold it two years later to Harlequin Intrigue.”

Janice lives with her husband and two daughters in Toronto, Ontario, where—during the year—she works as a teacher-librarian in an elementary school. Her summers are spent on a small island on Lake Ontario where she has her morning coffee and watches great blue herons fish off the rocks. Then she adjourns to her “writing room” and indulges in her favorite occupation.




Books by Janice Carter


HARLEQUIN SUPERROMANCE

593—GHOST TIGER

671—A CHRISTMAS BABY

779—THE MAN SHE LEFT BEHIND

887—THE INHERITANCE




Summer of Joanna

Janice Carter





www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)


For my beautiful daughters, as always




ACKNOWLEDGMENT


With much appreciation to my editor of many years, Zilla Soriano, for her intuitive good sense and gracious guidance.




CONTENTS


CHAPTER ONE (#uea157b13-e813-5490-ba12-abdc5fee8d44)

CHAPTER TWO (#u51d9fcfd-7106-5149-9f29-68b405c2a68b)

CHAPTER THREE (#ub7b30c86-5fe1-5c2b-b4ca-af2ca96a8cce)

CHAPTER FOUR (#u18c108b7-acc7-5560-8bbe-41c8f69935a6)

CHAPTER FIVE (#u65d02481-82e4-5d91-881c-c9e7c819fa8e)

CHAPTER SIX (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER SEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER EIGHT (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER NINE (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER TEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER ELEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER TWELVE (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER THIRTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER FOURTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER FIFTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER SIXTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER NINETEEN (#litres_trial_promo)




CHAPTER ONE


SHE COULDN’T TAKE her eyes off the coffin.

It sat, resplendent beneath a spray of leaves and white lilies, in the very middle of the raised dais in front of the altar. Kate closed her eyes, fighting the pain that swelled up from the pit of her stomach. Just get through this, she reminded herself. Then give in to grieving for Joanna when all the questions have been answered, especially those beginning with why. Until then, stay calm, in control and, most of all, stay angry.

The organist segued into another interlude as mourners continued to slide into the pews. Kate raised her head, glancing left to the center aisle. The church was filling up. Joanna would be pleased. Or so Kate imagined. For how much could she say about someone she hadn’t seen for nineteen years? Kate lowered her head again and squeezed her eyes shut, bringing back that sultry July day at Camp Limberlost. The day she’d met Joanna Barnes.

THE RAFT WAS TOO FAR AWAY. Kate knew that from the start, but it almost seemed to beckon to her, a refuge from the gang of kids lying in wait down by the canoes. If she turned around to confront them, she’d probably get into another fight and she’d already had her last warning. One more and she’d be put on a bus and sent back to the city. Which wasn’t such a bad thing, she figured, since she hated the place, anyway. But there was only her foster mother and little kids, including a new baby, at home. The rest of the summer was already booked for baby-sitting.

So the raft it would be, she decided, wading into the shallow water of Whitefish Lake. But distances were deceiving in the midday glare, and Kate wasn’t an experienced swimmer. Less than a yard away from the raft, she could barely keep her head above the water. Her legs seemed like lead weights, pulling her down, as her arms flailed the surface.

“For heaven’s sake, take my hand so I won’t have to come in after you.”

The command—really a peeved drawl—came from the raft, and Kate barely caught a glimpse of a bronzed arm reaching toward her as she went down for the second time. Her own arms kept thrashing but contact was made. A strong grip pulled her to the raft’s edge where a beautiful face, framed by an ear-length swoop of jet-black hair, loomed over her.

An angel’s face, Kate was thinking as she clung to the ladder at the side of the raft, and was suddenly glad she’d gone to confession before leaving for Limberlost.

“Catch your breath before you climb up,” the woman said. “I’ve just slathered myself with sunscreen, and I don’t want it to come off if I try to haul you out.” Then she disappeared from the edge and shifted toward the center of the raft.

Kate waited until she knew she could pull herself up on her own. When she finally rolled onto the warm, dry surface, she lay on her back, her chest heaving.

After a moment, the woman raised her head from the paperback she’d been reading and said, “I’m Joanna Barnes and you must be one of the Bronx kids.”

Kate shot up. “My name is Kate Reilly and I’m not one of the Bronx kids. I live in Queens.”

Joanna Barnes shrugged, turning her attention back to her novel. “Whatever,” she said.

THE ORGAN SWELLED to a crescendo as the minister walked toward a podium a short distance from Joanna’s casket. Kate rose with the others, reaching automatically for a hymn book and the page the minister directed the congregation to. But she could still see Joanna sprawling on a beach towel, apparently oblivious to the eleven-year-old kid gawking at her.

“ARE YOU RELATED to the people who run this place?” Kate asked when she’d caught her breath.

“My parents,” Joanna mumbled from behind her book.

Kate tried to connect the white-haired plumpish couple she’d met her first day with the beautiful woman in the bikini, but couldn’t quite do it. She swiped at a drop of water hanging from the tip of her nose. “So do you work here, then?”

The novel came down. “Hardly.” There was the faintest of smiles.

“I haven’t seen you before and I’ve been here a week.”

The crimson smile widened. “I don’t exactly hang out with the campers. But I used to work here when I was a kid. My parents have owned Limberlost for twenty years.”

“Did you like coming here when you were a kid?”

“We lived here year-round in those days.”

“You lived here?”

A peal of laughter burst from Joanna. “For several years—until I finally made my escape.”

“That’s what I’d like to do,” Kate muttered bitterly. “Make my escape.”

“It’s not that bad here…or is it? I’ve forgotten what it’s like to be a kid in a godforsaken place like Limberlost.”

“The place itself isn’t that bad,” Kate admitted. “And neither are the counselors, except for Mary Lou Farris—or the ferret, I call her. Your parents seem pretty nice,” she added, not wanting to offend the person who’d saved her life.

“Then it’s the other kids,” Joanna guessed.

Kate nodded. “They all knew one another before they came here. And I’m the only one from Queens.”

Joanna shook her head. “Kids can be mean. Usually Mom and Dad try to get a mix from all over.”

“If I’m lucky, they’ll send me home soon, anyway.”

“You miss home that much?”

Kate pictured her foster mother walking wearily around the cluttered house, rocking the baby and snapping orders left and right. She herself would be chasing the two-year-old away from the family cat. She’d been in that particular foster home almost four months.

“No,” she finally mumbled.

“Maybe even Limberlost can look good compared to other places—and other people.”

Kate gave that some thought before asking, “Are you on a holiday here, too?”

“Not really. More like on leave. At the moment I’m unemployed and between marriages,” she said. “What my dad calls footloose and fancy-free.”

Kate wasn’t certain what the phrase meant, but she thought it a good one for the woman sitting next to her. The painted fingernails and matching toes seemed to go perfectly with the splashes of color on her bikini. Up close, Kate could see that her makeup was also perfect, which made her wonder how she’d made it to the raft without getting wet. Her eyes drifted past Joanna and spotted, for the first time, the tip of a paddleboat tied to the far side of the raft.

They sat in silence for a while. Then Joanna put her book down and, turning to Kate, said, “I’m sorry about lumping you in with those other kids. I can see now that you’re an entirely different type.”

That was when Kate decided Joanna Barnes was an okay person—for an adult.

THE MINISTER’S resonant baritone drew Kate from the past. He’d begun to speak about Joanna, and in spite of herself, Kate’s attention began to wander. Mainly because he wasn’t talking about the woman she’d known briefly for a week when she was eleven years old. He referred to the well-known fashion writer and columnist, world traveler, friend of many and wife. Kate’s ears pricked up at that. Had Joanna married again?

She peered discreetly around, trying to guess which somber-suited man in the congregation had been Joanna’s latest husband. Trouble was, the small church was full of black-suited men. In fact, she just realized, there seemed to be more men than women.

She wondered briefly if any of Joanna’s family were here, then remembered the reference in the obituary to Joanna’s late parents. She frowned, trying to recall their faces. The minister coughed, then, lowering his voice, alluded to the cause of Joanna’s death. He knew every euphemism for suicide, Kate thought. But his oblique references only revived the anger she’d been feeling since she’d read Joanna’s obituary in the New York Times three days before. No way, she’d fumed, would Joanna Barnes commit suicide. Not in a million years. And especially not just before their promised reunion—a promise made nineteen years before at Camp Limberlost.

AFTER THAT FIRST MEETING, Kate found herself swimming out to the raft every afternoon. Those few hours had saved Kate’s summer for her. The remaining week at camp flew by. Joanna talked about growing up in the country, laughing at Kate’s reference to it as “wilderness.” She brought a cooler pack with pop and snacks out to the raft, letting Kate indulge in the junk food forbidden at camp.

“I plan to head for Manhattan soon,” Joanna said, after revealing that she’d had her first lucky break—a fashion article published in a local newspaper. “If I’m ever going to make it in this business, that’s the place to be.”

“Maybe I could visit you,” Kate suggested impulsively.

Joanna smiled and murmured, “Maybe.”

Kate’s excitement fizzled. Joanna’s reply had been the first typical adult comment she’d made all week. Kate figured she might as well have added, “But not likely.”

Then Joanna leaned over and said, “Look, I can’t make promises like that because I’ve no idea where my life is going to go from here. I’m going to be thirty years old this September and you’re…”

Kate’s heart sank as she waited for Joanna to say “just a kid.”

But instead, she’d scrunched up her forehead and said, “What? Twelve?”

“I’ll be twelve on August 15.”

“There you go. I was close enough. Anyway, I guess I don’t have to spell it out for you—the big difference in our ages. You’re on the verge of becoming a teenager…sort of, and I’m on the verge of—”

“Becoming a woman?” Kate suggested.

Uproarious laughter at that. “Let’s say, a more mature woman. Going into my thirties, I hope not to repeat the mistakes of my twenties.”

“I can hardly wait until I’m the same age as you and I can go anywhere and do anything.”

Joanna nodded. “It’s pretty good, believe me. And what you gotta remember is, you can also be anything. Don’t forget that one.”

They sat without talking again for a long while. The sun was lower in the sky now and the west side of the bay was in shade. “It must be past five,” she said. “My turn to help set up for dinner.”

As she edged toward the ladder on the far side of the raft, Joanna suddenly put out a hand. “I hate to tell you, Kate, but I may even be leaving tomorrow sometime. Something’s come up.” She frowned and glanced away for a second as if she didn’t want Kate to see her face. “But I just had a great idea,” she enthused, turning back to Kate with a big smile.

Kate’s insides churned. “What?”

“Well, since it’s unrealistic for us to expect to get together on a regular basis, how about if we promise to meet someplace—we can decide where later—exactly nineteen years from today, July 14. You’ll be thirty—just about my age now. You can fill me in on how your life has turned out and I’ll…well, I don’t even want to think about it, but I’ll be looking at the big five-oh coming up. We’ll both be dealing with an age milestone. Sound like a good idea?”

“Yeah! But…what if one of us forgets?”

Joanna pursed her lips thoughtfully for what seemed a long time. Then she said, “We won’t because I’ll send you a reminder card every year—like a countdown.”

“Do you think you can remember to do that?”

“I promise you, Kate Reilly, that if I get one thing in my life together, it will be that. Okay?”

“How will you find me?”

“Jeez, you’re brimming with good questions. I knew from the start you were a smart kid.”

Kate beamed.

“Let me see…you give me your address before I leave and as soon as I get to New York in September, I’ll set up a postal box number for you. I’ll pay for it until you reach the age of…what? Twenty? Then you can pay on your own.”

“Nineteen,” Kate said. “Because I’m going to make it on my own before I’m twenty.”

“That’s what I want to hear! Okay, then. Deal? Shake?” Kate stuck out her hand.

YOU PROMISED, JOANNA, and since you’ve been keeping that promise for the last nineteen years, I know you wouldn’t have let anything stop you from meeting me last week.

The organist swelled into the next hymn as everyone stood. Kate now had an opportunity to scan the congregation in front and to the left of her. She thought she recognized a few people in amazing outfits. Perhaps she’d seen them in some of the many news clippings she’d saved over the years—articles and pictures featuring Joanna and various fashion-world celebrities.

She’d acquired quite a collection. It was one of the things she’d considered taking to their reunion, to show Joanna how she’d tracked her life through the years. But then she realized how pathetic that might look—as if she hadn’t achieved a life of her own. And she had. A very satisfying, rewarding life, though teaching elementary school was probably a bit tame by Joanna’s standards. But not bad, Kate thought, for a kid who’d been shuffled from one foster home to another.

After the hymn ended, the minister rose to introduce the eulogist—Joanna Barnes’s husband, Lance Marchant. Kate straightened. So, Joanna had remarried. Was this man number three or four? she wondered. A tall man in a navy pinstriped suit stood from a front pew and headed up onto the dais, pausing to place the palm of his hand on the end of the casket. Someone behind Kate blew a nose.

Joanna’s husband was a handsome, white-haired man who looked very familiar. Lance Marchant. The name rolled around in her mind, teasing her memory. Where had she seen him and why hadn’t she known about the marriage? Especially given her habit of snipping any mention of Joanna in the papers. She might have missed the announcement, or perhaps, for some reason, Joanna had kept the marriage under wraps. Another piece to add to the puzzle that was growing around Joanna Barnes.

Lance Marchant cleared his throat, cast a quick glance at the casket and began to speak. As eulogies went, Kate assumed his speech was the standard fare. Not that she was any expert, since this was only the second funeral she’d ever attended. He did refer to their brief marriage of less than a year, but claimed to have known Joanna Barnes almost twenty. Kate’s antenna rose at this. If she herself had first met Joanna nineteen years ago, then he must have known her earlier.

He continued extolling the talents and—with humor—the foibles of Joanna Barnes. It was an eloquent speech, Kate had to acknowledge. But that was the problem. Instead of a tribute delivered by a grieving husband, it had come across as a piece put together by some clever speechwriter.

When he finished, Lance Marchant stepped down from the dais and suddenly stumbled. Kate’s heart leapt; she wondered if he was going to topple onto the casket. But he caught himself, placing his hand on the gleaming oak surface and staring down silently for a moment, as if communing with his wife one last time. Kate squirmed. She couldn’t think why, but the scene embarrassed her.

Lance raised his head and walked down the aisle out of the church. As he passed Kate’s pew, she caught a closeup of his face—flushed now, jaw set in a tight, steadfast line. The other mourners followed in hushed respect. Kate sat until the last person passed. Then she stood and, on rubbery legs, made her way to Joanna’s casket.

There was so much she wanted to say, but finding the starting point was difficult. The whole purpose of their getting together again on the nineteenth anniversary of Kate’s stay at Camp Limberlost had been to compare the courses of their lives. Joanna Barnes had certainly not been a substitute for the family Kate never had, but she’d represented a kind of continuity in her life. No matter how many foster homes or bad times Kate had gone through, she’d always had that annual card to look forward to. And true to her word, Joanna had never forgotten, although once she’d been late.

Kate touched the casket, then flashed to the eulogy scene. She quickly withdrew her hand. It was too late to talk to Joanna now, and here wasn’t the place. She started to turn away when four undertakers from the funeral home filed through a side door.

“Are you finished, ma’am?” one of them asked quietly.

Kate could only nod. The tears she’d tried to hold back welled up. She dabbed at her eyes with a tissue. The men bent to release the wheel brakes of the stand the casket rested on and lifted up the cloth that skirted it.

“Where…where will she be buried?” Kate asked.

“Mrs. Marchant is going to be cremated. We’ll be taking her back to the funeral home from here.”

“I see. Thank you,” Kate murmured, and averted her face, unable to watch Joanna Barnes wheeled out of her life forever. She closed her eyes, listening to the muted rumble of the casket as it rolled along the carpeted aisle. There was the sound of a door opening and, seconds later, thudding shut. Silence roared through the empty church.

Kate clutched the back of a pew to steady herself.

“Can I get you something?” a voice asked from behind.

She turned and looked up, making eye contact with a man who seemed to tower over her. He wasn’t smiling and his eyes were serious.

“Something?” she echoed. “Like what?”

A single eyebrow on his pale face rose at her question. “Uh, well, since this is a church…say, a glass of water?”

“Thanks, but I’m not sure you could even get a glass of water here. Everyone’s gone.”

He shook his head. “They’re all outside, being social the way people have to behave at a funeral. Maybe even talking to reporters.”

“Reporters? Here?”

“A couple, anyway. Too bad Joanna can’t talk to them herself—she’d be in her element, wouldn’t she?”

Kate stiffened at the edge in his remark. “I wouldn’t really know,” she said, and began to walk down the aisle toward the open front doors of the church. She heard him follow.

“Sorry,” he said. “That didn’t come out the way I intended. Just that, you know how Joanna loved the limelight.”

He caught up with her. “Are you a relative of hers?”

“No.” Kate kept walking.

“Then…a close friend?”

“Not really.”

As she reached the entryway, he reached out his hand to stop her. She swung around, staring down first at the hand on her forearm and then up into his face. A nice face. Nice enough to be in some of the fashion articles Joanna used to write. Maybe he had been, she thought. There was curiosity in the face, too. But the eyes—gray, she decided—were intense.

“Not really?” He repeated. Then he frowned. “You’re not a reporter, then?”

“No, for heaven’s sake. I met Joanna a long time ago. End of story.” She turned her back on him and headed for the door.

“Sorry again,” he called after her. “I’ve been trying to find someone she was close to.”

“I can’t help you there, but her husband is probably right outside.”

“He’s the last person I’d talk to.”

That stopped her. Kate pivoted around. “You’re not a relative?”

“No.”

“Friend? Colleague?”

“Hardly.” The edge returned to his voice.

The emotional fatigue of the past few days suddenly overwhelmed Kate. She was tired of this little game and only wanted to leave the church and go home. “Then I suppose neither of us has any relevant information to exchange.” Kate swung around and stepped out the church door into the glare of a July afternoon.

Lance Marchant was holding court at the foot of the steps leading up to the church. He craned his neck as Kate exited, frowning momentarily before turning his attention back to the small group of reporters interviewing him. As Kate passed, she became aware of a brief flurry of interest from the reporters, but it quickly evaporated when Joanna’s husband failed to acknowledge her.

Kate had to smile. So much for her fifteen seconds of fame, she thought. Then she remembered why she was there—and why the reporters were there. Walking briskly through the knots of people milling on the church lawn, she headed with grim determination to the rental car parked in the lot beside the church.

The day was already gearing up for more record heat. Kate was grateful for the air-conditioning that had made the drive to Westchester more tolerable. When she’d read that Joanna’s funeral would be held outside New York City, she’d decided to rent a car rather than travel by public transit. She hesitated at the entrance to the lot, scanning it for the small white Escort.

“Lost your car?”

She turned, thinking the man from the church had followed her to the parking lot. But the man a few feet to her right was another stranger. He was short, balding and red-faced from the heat. His baggy tan slacks dipped beneath a bulging stomach, and the rumpled sports jacket looked as though it had been acquired at a secondhand clothing store. His white shirt, straining at its row of buttons, clung to him in unsightly patches. He threw the cigarette he’d been smoking onto the pavement, ground it under his heel and huffed his way toward her.

Watching him made Kate feel cool. “When I got here, there weren’t so many vehicles,” she said.

He glanced behind her at the lot. “Uh-huh. And most of them limos.”

Kate suddenly noticed a sleek black limo angled in front of the Escort, blocking any quick exit she might have made. “Great,” she muttered. She pulled the material of her navy blue sleeveless dress away from her damp skin. Five more minutes in this lot, she figured, and she’d look like the man standing beside her.

“Problem?” he asked.

Kate sighed, tugging at the dress again. “My car—it’s behind that black limo in the second row.”

“Uh-oh. Hopefully the owner won’t be long. Unless he—or she—is attending the postfuneral reception in the church manse.”

Kate fanned herself with the rolled-up funeral service program. “How long will that be?”

“You’re not going?”

“No. I’m not family and…well, it wouldn’t be appropriate.” In fact, she was thinking, it would be downright awful to have to mingle with a bunch of strangers, picking up snippets of talk about Joanna.

“Not family, eh? You in the fashion trade, too, then?”

His eyes, small and deep-set in his fleshy face, swept over her.

“No, I’m a teacher,” she replied, wishing he’d go away. What was it with all the questions? she wondered.

She glanced around to see if the owner of the limo might be walking their way, but all she saw was a group of uniformed drivers standing smoking under a tree in the far corner of the lot.

“Friend of Mrs. Marchant, then?”

Kate turned her head. He was almost her height, making the top of his glistening forehead about even with her nose. His face was tilted up, allowing a brief glimpse of trickles of sweat dripping off the folds of skin beneath his chin. Kate looked away.

“Guess I’ll see if one of those drivers can move the car,” she said, moving off, hoping to put some distance between herself and the man.

But he followed. “Were you a close friend of Mrs. Marchant’s?”

The way he used her married name told Kate he wasn’t exactly Joanna’s bosom buddy, either. She stopped and turned toward him. “No, I wasn’t. Why are you asking?”

“Just curious about why you came to the funeral.”

Kate narrowed her eyes at him. “And what business is that of yours?”

He’d taken a handkerchief from his trouser pocket and was now mopping his forehead with it. “Guess I should have identified myself. Sergeant Tom Andrews, Westchester County Police.” He started to extend the arm holding the handkerchief, then apparently thought better of it.

The introduction didn’t exactly warm Kate to him. Instead, she wondered why he’d taken so long to get around to it. “And?” she prompted in her best schoolteacher voice.

He straightened at her tone, tucking away the handkerchief and digging in his jacket pocket for his badge. Kate scarcely had a glimpse of it before it was stowed away again. “Just making a few inquiries of the funeral guests, that’s all, Miss…?”

“Reilly. Kate Reilly. Is it customary for the police to attend the funeral of a suicide victim?”

He seemed to look at her with new interest. “Police like to get information on any death where there are unusual circumstances.”

A calm stillness settled over her while a tiny voice inside whispered, I knew it! I knew it! “And…what are the unusual circumstances around Joanna Barnes’s death?”

He frowned. “Sorry, I can’t get into the details. What exactly was your connection to Mrs. Marchant, or Miss Barnes?”

“I met her when I was a young girl. We haven’t seen each other in nineteen years, but she corresponded.”

“She ever talk about being depressed? Suicidal feelings?”

Kate bit down on her lower lip and shook her head. After she’d managed to regain control of her voice, she said, “No. We…uh, we weren’t close enough for her to talk about things like that.”

He kept his eyes on her, nodding his head thoughtfully. “I see. Okay. Well, thank you very much, Miss Reilly. How about if I find out which one of those guys over there belongs to the limo blocking your car? I’ve got to talk to them, anyway.”

“Thank you. I appreciate it,” Kate murmured, his question still pounding in her ears. She ever talk about being depressed? If only Joanna had written about her personal life more, rather than elaborate on information Kate had already gleaned from newspapers and magazines.

Then what, Reilly? Think your knowing her better would have prevented Joanna from killing herself? She closed her eyes. The small voice inside her was shouting yes! yes! No matter how hard she’d tried over the past few days, she couldn’t shake the thought that she might have had some influence over Joanna had she known her better.

“Sure you don’t want that glass of water?”

Kate jumped.

“Easy. I didn’t mean to frighten you. I thought you saw me coming.”

Kate squinted. He was standing with the sun behind him, and at first she didn’t recognize him. Then she caught his reference to water and managed a weak smile. The man from the church. “Thanks, but I’m all right. I was…lost in my thoughts.”

He stepped out of the sun to join her in the patch of shade. “Need a lift anywhere?”

“I have a car, but thanks, anyway.” Remembering the police officer, she turned her head to peer around his shoulder toward the limo drivers across the lot. Sure enough, she saw one of them talking to the officer. Then the driver sauntered toward the limo parked in front of her car.

“The black limo?” he asked, following her gaze.

Kate had to smile. “No. The white Escort behind it.”

“Aah. I’m sorry, I should have introduced myself sooner,” he said. “Matt Sinclair.” He extended a hand.

Kate placed her hand in his. “Kate Reilly.”

“A friend, but not a close one,” he added. She smiled again. “Yes. You were a friend of Joanna’s?”

“I knew her,” he said, finally letting go of her hand. “Family connection.”

He was being vague and Kate couldn’t understand why. Instinctively she stepped back, taking a second, longer look at Matt Sinclair. Unlike the policeman, he seemed cool and unperturbed by the sweltering heat. Everything about him spelled good grooming, from the cut of his lightweight summer suit to the plain silk tie knotted unobtrusively at the throat of a crisp white shirt. Grooming, she thought, and money, too. One of those limos in the lot probably belonged to him. His thick black hair was perfectly trimmed, and his eyes, still fixed on hers, were definitely gray. But not a cold gray, she thought, recalling how they’d looked in the church. Now they seemed to flicker with specks of color. Or was that glint amusement, instead?

“Do I pass?” he asked.

Kate looked away. She was certain her face had reddened, and not from the heat. “So you’re related to Joanna, after all. You mentioned a family connection?”

He folded his arms across his chest and stared across the parking lot. Kate turned her head, too, watching the black limo roll into another place. He shifted his attention back to her and mumbled, “By marriage.”

“By marriage?” she repeated. “A cousin or something?”

He shook his head. “She was married to my father.” He paused, fixing his eyes on hers. “For two years.”

“When?”

“Eighteen years ago. I was seventeen at the time. Pretty much out of the picture. Thank God,” he muttered bitterly.

“Obviously you didn’t care for Joanna,” she said.

“Frankly, no. Sorry if that offends you.”

Kate inhaled deeply. She hadn’t come to Joanna’s funeral for any kind of confrontation. All she’d wanted to do was to quietly mourn and pay her last respects to someone she’d met and liked.

“I do—did—care for Joanna,” she said, “and I don’t believe in speaking ill of the dead. Especially at a funeral.” She brushed past him to head for her car.

“Those are fine sentiments,” he replied, raising his voice as she kept walking. “And you’re welcome to them. But Joanna Barnes ruined my father. I’ll never forgive her for that.”

Kate kept walking, fixing her eyes on the white Escort and not noticing the policeman until she bumped against him as he passed.

“Goodbye, then, Miss Reilly. Maybe we’ll meet again,” Matt Sinclair called after her.

She reached the door of her car and slipped the keys from the side pocket of her purse. She wanted only to leave as quickly as possible, determined not to look back at the two men behind her. Both of whom, she suspected, were staring after her.

When the engine and the air-conditioning were running, Kate accelerated out of the lot and made a sharp turn onto the main street. She glanced at the rearview mirror and saw that the two men were now standing together as they watched her car drive away.

When the church and parking lot were out of sight, Kate pulled over at the first convenience store. She told herself she was desperate for a cold drink, but what she really needed was to wait for the trembling to stop.




CHAPTER TWO


MATT WATCHED her car zip out of the lot and disappear down the quiet, tree-lined street. A swirl of conflicting emotions threatened the grim determination he’d felt earlier when she’d rushed to defend Joanna Barnes. He wondered why he cared so much. Probably everybody else at the funeral had also been friends with Joanna.

He wiped away the sweat beginning to bead on his forehead. For the first time he questioned his motives. He didn’t like the uneasy feeling in his gut when he envisioned Kate Reilly’s pinched red face and the angry flicker in her jade-green eyes. It wasn’t the anger that had struck a nerve, but the almost simultaneous hurt. As if she couldn’t comprehend why he was attacking someone she obviously cared for.

Except it’s Joanna, buddy. The last person he could think of to deserve such fierce loyalty from a friend. Matt expelled a mouthful of bitter air and spun around to go back to the church. The man standing to his right said, “She’s definitely worth pursuin’, don’tcha think?”

Matt grimaced and kept right on walking.

THE FLAT THROBBED with heat. Kate headed straight for the kitchen and flicked on the small air-conditioning unit she’d just bought. She peeled off her dress and, seconds later, was standing under a cool shower in the bathroom. Was it her imagination, she wondered, or were those really wisps of steam pluming off her body? Or was she still angry at how the afternoon had played out?

She raised her face to the fine spray, and the band of pain across her brow began to ebb. But a pulse of disappointment was still there, right at her temple, when she finally stepped onto the bath mat. It came from the sense that she’d been robbed of her day of grieving for Joanna.

Kate rubbed a towel over herself before slipping into a cotton nightie that instantly stuck to her damp skin. She was suddenly reminded of the short, pudgy police officer at the funeral and grimaced as the pounding in her head amplified. Together with the Ivy League lawyer-type, the two men had succeeded in wiping out all thoughts of Joanna, leaving behind an ugly smear of doubt and innuendo.

The air-conditioning was going full blast by the time Kate returned to the kitchen to get a glass of ice water. Splurging on the unit had been an act of desperation, driven by forecasts of a hot summer in the Big Apple. So far, she hadn’t regretted the purchase, even though it had removed a significant chunk from her already tight budget. Kate took a long swallow from the frosty glass, then rolled it across her forehead.

Perhaps she ought to have signed up for another summer-school course, after all. At least she’d have had a few hours of daily relief working in an air-conditioned building. But having the whole summer off had been part of the plan. Time for Carla, as promised. And time with Joanna. As promised.

Kate closed her eyes, fighting a stab of pain. A week ago, the whole summer was an uncharted map. The thrill of anticipation—of promise—had yet to draw lines on that map; to mark days and nights of events that Kate had only recently allowed herself to dream about. She’d been finally going to see Joanna again. Finally to tell her how that summer’s meeting long ago had changed her life. How it had fixed a real place in her childhood, a place called hope.

Maybe Joanna could be repaid through Carla, Kate thought. Carla. She hadn’t telephoned to confirm their weekly get-together. Signing on as a mentor and Big Sister to thirteen-year-old Carla Lopez had stemmed from another promise Kate had made to herself, years ago. Somehow, in some way, she’d help another troubled teenager the way Joanna Barnes had motivated her.

Glass in hand, Kate strolled to the living room to check her voice mail. She quickly punched in her password when the beeper indicated a message. Carla’s piping tones unspooled from the tape.

“Hi—Kate? I know tomorrow’s our day, but something’s come up so, uh, I can’t make it. Talk to you later. Bye.”

Kate frowned. She called Carla’s foster home and, after several rings, finally reached Rita Santos, the teen’s foster mother.

“Nope, she isn’t here, Kate. Took off about an hour ago. Didn’t say where she was headed. As usual.”

There was a moment’s silence. Thoughts of Carla filled the void. Kate felt more annoyed than worried. Carla’s street sense was twice what hers had been at the same age. Of course, by thirteen Kate had already met Joanna and was working on her goal to get out of Queens.

“No doubt she’ll turn up with some excuse,” Rita said. “If not, guess I’ll have to call her worker again. Sorry she let you down, Kate.”

“No no, don’t say that. Carla’s not letting anyone down—except maybe herself. I’ll call back in the morning, but if…you know, there’s a problem, please call me. Even if it’s the middle of the night.”

“Sure. Meantime, I wouldn’t sit up worrying, I was you.”

“Okay, Rita. Talk to you soon.” Kate hung on to the receiver a few moments longer, thinking about the ominous turn Carla’s behavior had taken over the past few months. Rita had had about as much as she could take from the girl, who’d been with her for almost a year.

The pity of it was that Kate knew Carla really liked her current foster home. Only she liked her gang of friends more. Keeping Carla away from that gang had been an ongoing project for Rita, Kate and Carla’s social worker, Kim, for several months.

Kate still remembered vividly her own desperate efforts to be part of a group that wasn’t controlled by adults. Fortunately for her, the vow to make good and show Joanna Barnes that she could, had supplanted her need to be a gang member. It was a goal that took her off the streets. She was determined to do the same for Carla.

For now, though, she could do little but hope that Carla would have the sense to go home. Kate prowled around her small apartment. It was barely past nine and the city was just now succumbing to the cooling embrace of dusk. She’d eaten a fast-food dinner on the way home from dropping off the rental car, so didn’t have to worry about conjuring up a meal from the meager contents of her refrigerator. Still, she was restless.

She peered out the bedroom window through the geometric frieze of the fire escape on the other side of the glass, over the treetops and row houses of SoHo. Last summer she’d flung open the window and lain awake most nights in fear of intruders taking advantage of the heat wave to climb to her second-story flat. But now, thanks to her air-conditioning, she was both safe and cool. Except that she felt like a prisoner, barricaded against the heat and the night.

She stared down into the street and watched couples stroll in the balmy evening air, envying them. She could understand why Carla preferred the street to the family room, dominated by a blaring TV and the constant bickering of youngsters. On summer nights in the city, the streets were alive with excitement, anticipation.

Kate let the venetian blind drop, hiding the night away. Loneliness overwhelmed her. Thinking she’d be busy doing things with Joanna, she’d turned down a chance to travel out West with a friend and colleague at her school. Now, except for outings with Carla, the summer loomed empty and unpromising.

She wandered around the room, pausing before the mirror above her dresser. Her chin-length, damp, reddish-brown hair framed her face in limp tendrils, making her look like a waif out in a storm.

Kate moved away from her reflection—no comfort there—and slumped onto the edge of the bed. Too early for sleep. Too wound up for television. Ginny, the tenant downstairs and also a friend, was visiting her parents for a few days.

Maybe she ought to go down to the streets and look for Carla. Her quick smile vanished just as abruptly. No, she warned herself. Worrying about Carla, making sure she was all right, could be a full-time job if she was foolish enough to make it one. Both she and Rita Santos had already come to that conclusion.

Thoughts drifted back to the afternoon. Joanna’s casket. The flowers. Had Joanna liked lilies? So much she didn’t know and now, no possibility of ever learning. Impulsively, Kate went to the closet, drawn there by a need to find some clue, some hint in the few letters she’d received from Joanna Barnes over the past nineteen years. Why, Joanna? Why?

The album sat on the shelf above the clothes rack. Kate carried it to the bed, stacked the pillows against the headboard and made herself comfortable. Then she opened the first page.

August 15, 1982. Today is my birthday and I got my first real birthday card in the mail. It was from Joanna! She’s kept her promise and I’m going to keep mine. The one I made to myself the last night of camp. Not to get in trouble anymore. Not to ruin my life.

Taped beneath the scrawled entry was the card from Joanna. Its message read simply:

Happy Birthday, twelve-year-old! Don’t celebrate too much. Manhattan’s amazing and I’m loving it. Watch for my byline in the papers—whenever. Have a great year and see you in eighteen!

Joanna

Kate passed her hand along the card’s glossy surface. She’d read the card more than a dozen times the day it arrived. It had been the first piece of personal mail ever to be delivered to her. She remembered, too, the way her foster parents and their children had stood openmouthed in surprise as she read the card. And the questions that had followed.

Who is this person, Kate? Where did you meet her? What’s this all about, anyway?

She’d been afraid then that somehow the whole thing—the cards and the promised reunion with Joanna—would be snatched away from her. But in the end, her partial explanation had satisfied her foster mother, who’d only muttered a last warning—I just don’t want you to get your hopes up. Kate hadn’t appreciated the irony of that comment until many years later.

Kate sighed and quickly flipped the page. This one—a postcard from Paris—had caused a real stir in the household because no one else had even known anyone who’d gone to Europe. Weeks before its arrival Kate had rushed to check the mail every day. She might forget. Don’t get your hopes up. But Kate had had the blind faith of a child. And she’d never been disappointed.

Suddenly she couldn’t take any more. Her only memories of Joanna Barnes were now permanently sealed behind plastic in an ordinary photo album. She’d never have the chance to transform all those bits of paper into a real person. Kate closed the album, sank back onto the bed and stretched out her arm to click off the table lamp. Street light dappled the room with a pale rainbow of color. But Kate closed her eyes to the summer night, turned her head into the pillow and cried.

KATE DIDN’T HEAR from Carla until two days after Joanna’s funeral, but she suspected the girl had tried several times to call her. There’d been a few hang-ups on her answering machine. She figured Carla had already been read the riot act from Rita and Kim, so she kept her voice light and neutral.

“Hi, Carly! What’s up?”

There was the slightest of pauses, as if Carla had been expecting another response.

“Uh, not too much. Guess you heard I got grounded.”

“Yes.”

Carla cleared her throat. “Well, I don’t know why everyone was so ticked off at me. I was okay. Not in any trouble or nothing—until I got home, anyway.”

“Maybe they were worried, Carla.”

“Yeah, right!” she scoffed. “More like Rita was thinkin’ she’d lose that check every month.”

Kate sighed. She’d heard the line before. “Is that fair? I don’t think Rita’s in this for the money.”

A longer pause this time. Then Carla mumbled, “Maybe not. But I wasn’t doing nothin’. Just hangin’ with my buddies.”

Kate counted mentally to ten. She’d had this conversation with Carla so many times she felt like screaming. Why aren’t you getting this, Carly? What does it take from all of us? Finally she said, “It’s all about communicating, Carla. Let people know where you are and when you’re coming home. Call, for heaven’s sake.”

A hoarse laugh drifted through the line. “If I’d’a called, Rita would’ve told me to get home. And I was having a good time—you know, with my buds.”

Kate knew better than to malign Carla’s friends. She’d seen Rita do it and it always brought Carla rushing emotionally to their defense. Besides, she’d heard all the excuses. Carla could pull them out of the air like a magician popping rabbits from a hat.

“So now what?” Kate asked, softening her voice.

“My last chance. Kim said next time she’ll have to send me to a group home. Out in the suburbs!”

Kate might have laughed at this final indignity, obviously a fate worse than death, were it not for the catch in Carla’s voice. The threat of a group home was now suddenly very clear to her. Kate sighed again. It had taken six months of “last chances” for that sober reality to register with Carla.

“Carla, be cool, okay? Look, my plans for the summer have altered a bit. I’ll have more time than I thought. We can do some things together.”

“Like go shopping?”

Kate smiled at Carla’s raised inflection on the last word. “Sure. Things like that. Maybe check out a museum or art gallery, too.”

“Yeah,” Carla murmured, less enthusiastic now.

“I’ll call you tomorrow about two and we’ll set a definite time and place. All right?”

Carla agreed and hung up quickly. Before I changed my mind? Kate wondered. Or because she had an incoming call? Kate shook her head as she set the receiver down. In spite of Carla’s attitude, she hadn’t yet crossed the line into serious trouble. Kate just hoped she could deflect the girl from that course before it was too late.

The remainder of the afternoon was spent in completing errands that Kate had postponed. She was grateful for the chance to be busy, thus removing thoughts of Joanna from her mind. Until she returned from feeding her neighbor’s cat and picked up the phone to order a pizza. There was a message for her from the law firm representing Joanna Barnes.

Kate sat down on the armchair next to the phone and listened. The cheery voice on the line requested her to attend a reading of Joanna’s will the next day at ten in the morning. Please bring some identification. After the message finished, Kate sat and stared into space, her sweaty palm clamped onto the receiver.

WHEN THE ELEVATOR DOORS parted, the man who’d spoken to her in the church after Joanna’s funeral was standing on the other side. The look of incredulity in his face must have matched her own, Kate thought, for they stood gaping at each other until she murmured a faint “hello” and stepped out onto the carpeted hall.

He’d obviously been about to enter the elevator, but turned on his heel to follow her into the reception area.

“Miss, uh…”

“Reilly.”

“I don’t know if you remember me—Matt Sinclair, from Joanna’s funeral.”

“It was only four days ago.”

He looked offended at her brusque tone. “Right. So you’re here for…?”

Kate flushed with annoyance. Subtlety definitely wasn’t his style. “I’ve an appointment with Collier and Associates. Why do you ask?”

“Sorry. I suppose I’m being rude, but I’m just curious. Are you here for the reading of Joanna’s will?”

Kate raised her chin to stare directly into his face. A handsome face, in spite of the knotted eyebrows and the glint in his eyes. Too bad he was so irritating.

“Yes, I am, Mr. Sinclair. Not that it’s any concern of yours.” She started to walk toward the reception desk where a young woman was watching them with interest.

He reached out a hand to her elbow. “I take it, then, that you’re more than just an acquaintance of Joanna’s, after all. Since you’re a beneficiary.”

Kate stared blankly at him. She’d been tormented by that very realization all night. What exactly was I to Joanna? But she wasn’t about to confide in someone like Matt Sinclair.

“And I suppose, since you were about to leave, that you are not. A beneficiary,” she clarified, and looked pointedly at his fingers splayed lightly on her arm.

Coloring, he dropped his hand. “No. I’ve been to see Marchant—his offices are farther along.”

Kate swung around to head for the desk.

“You just seemed different, that’s all.”

She stopped and faced him again.

“From Joanna’s pack of friends,” he said.

Kate’s eyes swept over him from head to toe before she resumed her course to the receptionist and asked for Mr. Collier. From behind, she heard the elevator door open and close. When she turned to head for the man’s office, Matt Sinclair was gone.

The brief walk down the hall was long enough to calm her, although Kate knew her face was still warm when she tapped on the lawyer’s opened office door.

“Miss Reilly? Come in, please.” Greg Collier rose from his desk chair.

He was in his mid-fifties and had the air of a suave used-car salesman. Or so Kate thought after a mere five minutes into their conversation. When he asked her if she’d known Joanna long, she derived some satisfaction from his surprise when she replied, “About nineteen years.” She followed him into a small boardroom where a handful of people sat around an oval mahogany table. Lance Marchant was pouring coffee from a stainless-steel jug at the head of the table and glanced up as Kate walked into the room.

Her arrival appeared to puzzle him momentarily, but he recovered almost instantly, setting down the jug and beaming in her direction.

“Kate Reilly?”

When she nodded, he moved around the chairs to her side, extending his right hand as he did so. “I’m Lance Marchant, Joanna’s husband.”

“Yes,” she murmured.

He frowned, studying her face. “Have we met?”

“I was at Joanna’s funeral,” she explained.

“Aah.” He nodded his head thoughtfully, obviously conducting a quick mental search of the day and still coming up blank. He was about to say something more when Joanna’s lawyer went to the head of the table, pushing aside the tray of coffee items as he withdrew a sheaf of papers from a briefcase. He put on his reading glasses cleared his throat and gestured toward the table.

“Shall we begin?” he asked, pausing while Lance returned to his chair and Kate sat down. “As all of you know, you’ve been requested to be here today for the reading of the late Joanna Barnes’s will, dated April 1, 2001.” He glanced over the rim of his glasses to smile. “Yes, that was Joanna’s idea of a little joke, though she assured me the will’s contents were quite serious.” He then began to read the legal preamble and Kate found her attention shifting to the others around the table.

Lance Marchant took a place to the right of Greg Collier. The lawyer’s secretary sat on his left and was jotting on a steno pad. The elderly woman sitting across from Kate had been introduced as Joanna’s housekeeper, and the thin, nervous-looking man with an earring in his right ear and a designer scarf knotted with a flourish around his neck had been her assistant at the fashion magazine where Joanna had worked as staff writer for the past five years.

Where were her other friends? Kate wondered. All the people she’d seen draped around Joanna in the newspaper and magazine pictures she’d clipped over the years? And family?

Kate peered down at her hands, clenched together on her lap. Her eyes filled with tears—as much for herself as Joanna. She’d thought herself immune to the sense of alienation that having no family produced. But here it was again, her pain on display for this roomful of strangers.

If only Joanna had called, made some kind of personal contact. But then what? Would we have had a real friendship? Would it have been a substitute for the family I’ve never had?

She chomped on her lower lip, forcing her mind back to Collier’s recitation of the will. There was a mild gasp from the older woman when the lawyer revealed Joanna’s bequest of a few thousand dollars. Likewise for the assistant, who received a smaller sum and all of Joanna’s office furniture and equipment. Kate almost missed her own name, except that everyone at the table looked at her.

“‘To my dear friend and co-conspirator, Kate Reilly, I leave Camp Limberlost and all its assets, in hope that she will rediscover the magic of a summer long ago. Kate, I can’t tell you how much our contact over the years has meant to me, and wish you all the best for a wonderful life. I have complete confidence in your continued success.”’

Kate stared blankly at the others. She was stunned as much by Joanna’s personal message as by the bequest. Tears welled up again and someone handed her a tissue, with which she quickly dabbed at her eyes. Joanna’s lawyer was clearing his throat again, waiting a discreet moment before continuing.

The rest of Joanna’s estate had been left to Lance Marchant. Through the labyrinth of legalese, Kate gathered that Joanna hadn’t owned very much personally beyond whatever she’d possessed jointly with her husband. When Greg Collier was finished, he asked the beneficiaries to stay behind long enough to sign some papers. While the housekeeper and assistant were doing so, Lance Marchant sidled over to Kate.

Still reeling from the will, Kate missed the first part of his comment.

“Sorry?” She blinked.

He smiled. “I said that I’d no idea Joanna had such a good friend in someone so young. She seldom discussed her friends, unfortunately.”

Unsure what he meant, Kate gave a tentative smile. What was he really thinking after learning his wife had left property to a virtual stranger?

She was saved from responding when Greg Collier approached with some documents. “Miss Reilly? Congratulations,” he said, as if Kate had just won a lottery. “If I can get you to sign these papers…”

“Of course,” she murmured. “Then I have some questions for you, if you don’t mind.” She went through the motions, still disbelieving the whole morning from the moment she’d stepped off the elevator into Matt Sinclair’s insinuating face. She was half aware of Lance chatting politely to the housekeeper and assistant while seeing them to the door. When she finished signing on all the lines Greg Collier had indicated, she looked up at the two men smiling benignly down at her.

“Well, then,” Collier said, rubbing his hands together, “more coffee, anyone?”

“Please,” Lance replied, pulling out a chair across from Kate.

Collier spoke softly to his secretary, who took the papers Kate and the others had signed and left, closing the door behind her. “Coffee, Miss Reilly?”

She felt she was being set up for something. “Yes, thank you,” she said, waiting while the lawyer poured and handed round the coffee with a tray of cream and sugar. Then she spoke, deciding not to let the two men take the lead. “I’m as puzzled by Joanna’s bequest as I’m sure you both are. Although I met her nineteen years ago, I haven’t seen her since. We corresponded only sporadically.”

Greg nodded at Lance, then at Kate. “That’s pretty much what Joanna explained when she had me draw up this will in the spring.”

Kate flushed at the knowledge that people had been discussing her.

“I’m sure you must have some questions about the property,” he continued, stopping as Kate began to shake her head.

“Actually, I’ve questions about Joanna’s death that I’m hoping—” she glanced quickly at Lance, then back to the lawyer “—neither of you will mind answering.”

The smile disappeared from Collier’s face. He sat down beside Lance, who was staring into his coffee cup. “Of course, Miss Reilly,” he said. “Ask away.”

“It’s just that, you see, Joanna and I had this promise to meet on July 14. It was meant to celebrate our meeting nineteen years ago. W-well,” she stammered under Collier’s blank look, “it’s a long story and I won’t bore you with it. I just can’t believe that she’d…she’d commit suicide, knowing how much the reunion meant to both of us.” She stopped, unable to continue.

Someone cleared a throat—Collier, Kate guessed. But it was Lance who spoke. “Kate, I understand what you’re saying. I’ve been tormenting myself with the same doubts. I’d always considered Joanna and I to be the perfect match for each other. I loved her deeply, and I know she was very happy with me. That’s what makes it so hard for me to believe she could…”

Kate’s ears burned. This statement from a bereaved husband made her own disbelief sound like pathetic whimpering. She kept her head down, unable to look either of them in the eye.

Collier broke the silence. “As much as we all want to have an answer for this…tragic situation, sometimes there just isn’t one that we can accept with any degree of comprehension.” He paused, then continued, “Now, about this piece of property, Miss Reilly. I’m not certain of the current market value because I understand that it’s been closed as a resort for several years. Most likely you’ll want to sell it, and I’d be happy to have someone give you an estimate of its worth.”

Kate’s head shot up. “Oh! I…I’ve scarcely had time to think about even owning Camp Limberlost, much less selling it.”

Collier chuckled. “I suppose all this does take time, but the summer will be the best season to show the property and all its potential.” He looked to Lance for agreement.

Lance simply nodded, keeping his gaze fixed on Kate. He wasn’t signaling his feelings about the camp either way, Kate realized. She had no idea how he felt about her inheriting it. Tongue-tied, she stared at the men.

“Owning it will most likely prove to be a greater disadvantage than asset,” Collier added. His voice dripped like honey from a spoon.

“I know Joanna hasn’t spent any time there since her father died almost eight years ago. And he closed it down a couple years before that, so…” Lance shrugged.

“I’ve heard the whole area has gone downhill,” Collier said, glancing at Lance and shaking his head. “Too bad. I understand it was once a prime resort.”

“I think so,” Lance murmured. He smiled across the table at Kate. “You’ll want to take a few days for this,” he assured her. “To let it all sink in. Believe me, as a developer, I know only too well what a headache owning a piece of property can be. Especially land and buildings that have been neglected. Let Greg—or me—know as soon as possible. We’ll help you get the best possible price for it.”

Collier nodded heartily. “Always available.” He pushed his chair back and stood up. “Now, if you’ll pardon me, I must get back to work.”

Kate struggled to her feet. These two were good, she decided. If they shoved a dotted line at her at that moment, she was certain she’d sign without a second glance. Except for a sudden clarifying thought. If Joanna willed Camp Limberlost to me, she must have really wanted me to have it. So no way am I going to give it up that easily.

“Thank you for everything, Mr. Collier. I promise to get back to you as soon as is realistically possible.”

He patted her arm. “You do that, my dear,” he said, and left the room.

Kate reached for her purse, slung across the back of her chair. She felt Marchant’s eyes on her and, when she straightened, knew from the amusement in his face that her own was beet red.

“Collier can be…well, shall I say, a bit paternal.”

“Is he a personal friend?” Kate asked.

“Only socially—he’s my lawyer, too, of course.”

“Oh,” she murmured.

“Which doesn’t mean that I can’t be objective about all this.” He waved his hand into the room.

Confused, Kate followed the movement.

“The will—the inheritances and so on,” he explained. “Joanna and I agreed when we got married that we’d each hold on to our own assets. Of course—” his voice dropped and he lowered his head “—we’d been discussing any future possibility of divorce, not…death.” When he raised his head, his eyes were red-rimmed and tired. He managed a faint smile. “You obviously meant a lot to Joanna for her to include you in her will. And I know at some point in time that camp of her parents must have been worth a lot. It’s just that—” he paused to shake his head “—Joanna was sometimes prone to what we used to call flights of fancy. A real romantic.”

Kate felt herself nod, though she wasn’t certain she agreed. The Joanna she remembered had seemed to have both feet firmly planted in the real world and to know exactly what she wanted.

“At any rate, I think the occasion of an inheritance, whatever that inheritance may be, is cause for celebration. I’d be honored if you’d be my guest for lunch.”

The invitation capped a morning of surprises. Kate heard herself consent before she had time to even process the invitation. As she left the boardroom, Lance Marchant’s hand guiding her at the small of her back, she had the feeling she’d played her cards exactly the way the two men had anticipated.




CHAPTER THREE


PARTWAY THROUGH LUNCH, Kate felt herself begin to unwind. She sipped her white wine, chosen after much deliberation by Lance. The ritual had amused Kate. She knew little about wine and was certain her own choice would have been based strictly on cost. The meal was impeccable, too. Another score for Lance, who was obviously a regular at the upscale restaurant, one Kate had read about in the papers, never imagining she might be eating in it some day.

In fact, there’d been so much deference shown to Lance as soon as they’d stepped inside that Kate began to wonder if he was a celebrity in his own right, regardless of his connection to Joanna Barnes. She pondered this throughout the salad course, racking her brain to determine where and when she’d seen or heard his name. She also scolded herself sharply for not reading the papers more carefully. Headlines were her specialty, along with a skim through the fashion and entertainment pages.

She began to think that maybe Lance Marchant was okay, after all, in spite of his smooth manner. Before ordering, they’d made small talk, discreetly skirting around the morning’s events as if none of the business of death had taken place.

As the salad plates were removed, Lance referred to Camp Limberlost and Kate thought, here we go again. But rather than renew his pitch for selling it, he’d asked what she recalled of the camp.

“I didn’t like it at the time—not until I met Joanna.”

“She was there? When was this, exactly?”

“Nineteen years ago this month. What year would that be?” She screwed up her face, mentally counting backward.

“It would have been 1982.”

Kate laughed. “That was fast. You should be teaching my grade eight math class.”

He gave a dismissive shrug. “I use numbers all the time in my job. Were you there with your family?”

“No. I was with a bunch of kids from here in the city. Courtesy of a joint social-service program and the generosity of Joanna’s parents.”

Marchant frowned. “Oh. You mean like…”

“Kids with problems. Not delinquents,” she added quickly, noting the expression in his face. “But, you know, kids at risk.”

He nodded. “I don’t mean to be nosy. Just didn’t realize Joanna’s parents were into that sort of thing.”

Kate was tempted to ask, “Like charity?” but sensed he really wasn’t being insensitive. Besides, she wanted to think she’d grown out of all that stuff—the feelings of defensiveness, of apologizing for being an orphan on the social welfare register.

“Did you know Joanna then?” she asked.

He nodded. “Joanna and I go—went—a long way back. But we weren’t dating or anything. Just friends.”

“Have you ever been to Limberlost?”

“I’m a city man. My idea of a holiday is a resort on some Caribbean island, five-star and all-inclusive.”

She joined in his laughter. “You and Joanna both, I’m sure.”

His face sobered. “Yes, for sure. That’s why I can’t figure out her being there. She always talked about how she’d made the Great Escape.”

“I remember her mentioning that she was between husbands then. I thought that was such a daring thing to say—to a kid, I mean.”

Lance opened his mouth as if to add something, but the waiter arrived with their main courses and the next few moments were devoted to murmurings about the food. Kate had almost forgotten what they’d been discussing when he asked, toward the end of the meal, “Do you remember much about that summer? How old would you have been? Don’t answer if you consider that a rude question,” he said, grinning.

The way he put it, refusing to answer would seem childish. “I was turning twelve in August. That’s why we decided to meet this year.” Kate angled her fork across her plate and leaned forward. “I was on the verge of adolescence and Joanna had just turned thirty. We’d been moaning about our problems and getting older et cetera and she said, wouldn’t it be great to meet when we were both at another milestone? To compare notes on how things had turned out.”

“I guess your memory of the place wouldn’t be very vivid.”

Kate laughed. “Oh, it’s pretty vivid even now, trust me.”

“How do you mean?”

She shrugged, unsure whether she really wanted to trip down memory lane with someone she scarcely knew. “I wasn’t really having a good time there until I met Joanna. I was a typical city kid, afraid of everything with more than two legs. Plus the other kids had been there before and knew one another,” she said.

“Aah,” he murmured sympathetically.

The waiter appeared to gather the rest of the plates and asked if they’d like dessert or coffee. Lance looked questioningly at Kate.

“No thanks, Mr. Marchant. I should be going.” Kate looked at her watch, realizing she hadn’t called Carla yet. So much for setting an example.

He asked for the bill and, turning back to Kate, said, “Please call me Lance. And I insist on driving you home. My car is being brought up to the front door by the valet right now.”

Knowing she’d get home much faster than by subway, Kate agreed. She’d hoped to glean more information about Joanna over lunch, but as they left, she realized Lance Marchant had been doing most of the asking. Perhaps the ride back home would elicit something about Joanna she hadn’t yet read in a newspaper.

A blast of heat greeted their exit from the restaurant. Lance tipped the valet, who’d driven up with his red convertible sports car.

“Where are we going?” Lance’s face was smilingly inquisitive.

“I live in SoHo. On a dead-end street off Bleecker, near Sullivan.”

His tanned forehead crinkled in thought. “Near the university?”

“Past.”

“Fine. The drive’ll be longer than to the restaurant, but you don’t seem to be the type to worry about a hairdo,” Lance said. He ushered her into her seat, got behind the wheel and shifted into Drive. The car jerked forward and squealed out of the parking circle. He was laughing when he braked at the first stoplight. “Sorry again. I’ve just had it tuned prior to selling it. Joanna doesn’t—didn’t—like it, and my campaign manager advised that I drive something a little more sedate.”

“Your campaign manager?”

He nodded. “Yeah. I’m running for Congress in the fall election. Lance Marchant? Republican ticket?” he added, obviously trying to jolt her memory.

Kate was embarrassed at her ignorance. “Oh, I’m sorry. I don’t keep up much with politics.”

He stared at her thoughtfully until the light changed, then shifted gears again. The breeze and traffic noise made conversation impossible, eliminating Kate’s hope of talking more about Joanna.

But when the car slowed for a traffic halt, she managed to say, “The reason I find it hard to believe Joanna would…would commit suicide is not just because of our meeting, but I read in a gossip column that she was expected to be made editor of Vogue. That would’ve been the pinnacle of her career. I just can’t believe that…”

Lance took his hand off the gear knob and patted her arm. “I’ve tortured myself with these same doubts, Kate, believe me. Perhaps she learned that she didn’t get the job, after all. Certainly no one there has called to express sympathy. That must mean something.” He paused then, having to move with traffic. Other than shouted directions about getting to Kate’s neighborhood, all talk ceased until Lance pulled up in front of the row house where her flat was.

“Wait!” Lance said after Kate thanked him for the lunch and ride.

She turned, halfway through the opened door. His wind-tousled hair and trendy sunglasses made him seem dashing and much younger than his years, she thought. He had the kind of classic good looks that appealed to women of all ages, and Kate suddenly realized she herself wasn’t immune to his charms herself. Well-established, well-dressed, trim and self-assured. But there was more. The gallant and attentive manner, the way he’d seemed to hang on to every word she’d uttered over lunch. He certainly fit the image of a winning politician.

“There is something,” he said, glancing quickly away when he’d caught her attention.

She watched him clench and unclench his hands around the steering wheel. Finally he murmured, “The thing is, Joanna and I hadn’t really been living as, well, as man and wife—if you get my drift—for several months. And as hard as I try, I can’t pinpoint a reason for it. She was incredibly involved with her work, but that was nothing new. I had my own business to run, too. I think it all started when I decided to run for Congress. She was supportive, of course, but part of her seemed negative about the whole thing.” He shrugged, helpless. “Maybe the thought of all the limelight—”

“Joanna loved the limelight!” Kate blurted. “At least, I’m sure she did. She often sent me press clippings of herself.”

Kate could see her house reflected in his sunglasses. She wished she could see his eyes, to read what he was feeling.

“That she did,” he agreed. “But on her terms. She knew how to manipulate the media, as many celebrities do. Inside, she was an intensely private person.”

It wasn’t the picture of Joanna that Kate had in her memory, but she could see how it fit with other facts. There’d only been a single card every year, even though Joanna had spent most of the nineteen years in the same city as Kate. And the few references to a personal life in those cards had been mainly a repetition of what Kate had already gathered from the media. The week with Joanna at Camp Limberlost had revealed more about the woman than the following two decades. The impact of that realization struck Kate with physical pain. Because now it was all too late. Tears edged her eyes and she averted her face. She wiped the corners of her eyes with her index finger.

“Kate?”

When she turned his way, it was her own drawn face she was seeing now in his sunglasses.

“Give me a call about the property as soon as possible. Don’t leave it too late. Summer’s prime showing season for lake properties. And, uh, whatever you decide, I hope we can see each other again. Soon.”

There was no mistaking the suggestion. Kate was speechless. The man had just buried his wife. Her friend.

As if sensing his indiscretion, he quickly added, “I didn’t mean that the way it sounded. Simply that I knew very few of Joanna’s colleagues, but I do know that you must have been very special to her. Otherwise she wouldn’t have included you in her will.” He paused and lowered his voice. “It would be nice to get together again and just talk. Do you know what I mean?”

Kate nodded. “Yes, of course Mr….uh, Lance. And I will call you or Mr. Collier as soon as possible. Thanks again for lunch and the ride home.” She slid out the door, closed it and waited by the curb as he drove off. When the red car zipped around the corner of her street, she turned toward her house. Matt Sinclair was leaning against the brick planter box at the foot of the steps.

HE’D BEEN FEEDING a parking meter a few yards away when Lance Marchant’s car screeched to a halt in front of Kate’s place. So he waited at the meter, watching the two of them chatting until Kate got out. Matt knew the surge in his blood pressure was from a long antipathy for Marchant, but the cozy sight rankled even more. When the red Porsche sped off, he strolled over to greet Kate.

She was in the same dress she’d worn to Joanna’s funeral, and her face looked just as red as it had that day, too. The heat or the thrill of Marchant’s company? He’d pegged her for an unassuming schoolteacher. Now he wasn’t so sure. Her chin-length hair fanned up and away from her face, whipped into a froth of knots by the car ride. As she marched toward him, he saw that, although the expression in her pinched face was most definitely schoolteacherish, her manner was no longer unassuming. For a moment he had a frightening flashback to his prep-school days, standing before his headmaster.

“You’ve been following me!” Her voice peaked in anger.

Matt forced back a smile. “Actually, I was here before you. Likewise for this morning at the elevator.” He waited a beat. “Maybe it’s the other way around.”

The lame attempt at humor failed. She hadn’t registered a single word, but came right up to him to repeat her accusation. So close that he sniffed the residue of wine and garlic on her breath. The sudden image of her and Marchant laughing over lunch chilled him.

He raised his palms in a surrendering motion. “Whoa! Doesn’t the word coincidence mean anything to you?”

“Coincidence was the meeting this morning. This is no coincidence. How did you get my address?”

“Phone book?” he countered.

She narrowed her eyes but calmed down, taking a step backward. “What is it you want, Mr. Sinclair?”

“Make it Matt, please. Could we go somewhere for a cold drink and a talk?”

“I’ve been eating and drinking for more than an hour, and frankly, I don’t see how I could possibly have anything to say to you.”

She started to move past him but he placed his hand on her arm. Looking down at the hand and then up at his face, Kate said, “You have an unpleasant habit of doing that and I’d like you to remove your hand this instant.”

Matt’s hand flew off her arm as if she’d taken a ruler to it. He tried again. “Look, after seeing you this morning I realized there were a lot of questions you must have about Joanna and, well, the things I said about her the other day.”

“Go on,” she said.

The stare made him think she must be a good teacher. Probably never had to raise her voice. Just fix those eyes—what color were they, anyway?—on an unruly kid and order would prevail.

“There’s a coffee place around the corner. Why don’t we go there? Not for long. I’ll leave whenever you tell me.”

She frowned as she considered the invitation, then nodded curtly and began walking toward the corner. He had to lope to keep up with her, in spite of the difference in their heights and leg length. She only came up to his shoulder but had no trouble keeping enough distance between them to make him feel like a pup on a leash.

The blast of frigid air as they stepped into the coffee house was nothing to the cool appraisal she gave him as he ordered iced cappuccino for them both. Her face could have been chiseled from Siena marble, he thought. Not a hint of emotion.

She got right to the point. “You wanted to tell me something about Joanna.”

He tipped an invisible hat to her. She was good. Making it look like the wanting and telling were both on his side when he could see, even under that neutral expression, that she wanted—no, needed—to hear whatever he had to say. He thought for a moment, knowing how important it was to choose his words carefully.

“My father and Joanna got married when I was seventeen, as I think I told you the other day. My mother had died just six months earlier.” He paused to stare down at the table for a long moment before raising his face back to her. “I was in Europe at some fancy boarding school my parents decided I needed at that point in my life.”

The waitress arrived with their cold drinks. When she moved away, he went on. “I got a telephone call about their marriage just the day before,” he explained. “They were in Las Vegas. It was all a last-minute thing. That’s what my father claimed, anyway.”

The bitterness in his voice just slipped out. He swallowed some of the frosty cappuccino, reminding himself to relax. It was a long time ago.

“To make a long story short, they got married and were on the verge of divorcing two years later when my father died of a heart attack. The last time I saw Joanna was at Dad’s funeral. I was nineteen and hardly knew her. We exchanged a few words and that was it.”

“You were going to tell me why you disliked her so much.”

Matt forced himself to keep his voice neutral. “To give Joanna her credit, she never tried to take anything out of the marriage that my father hadn’t actually given her. So after he died, she willingly handed over all my mother’s things—some jewellery and photographs—as well as most of Dad’s personal papers and such. But she certainly managed to go through most of his liquid assets in those two years, and they’d been substantial. Dad had been a highly paid executive at the bank. By the time taxes and lawyers were paid, there wasn’t much left, anyway.”

“And?”

He flushed with annoyance. She was cool, all right. Not a murmur or flicker of sympathy during his whole speech. Suddenly he wanted to blurt out the whole of it. See if that finely sculpted marble would crack under the heat of what he’d say.

“A while ago I learned that she hadn’t returned everything of Dad’s. I’ve been trying for several months now to get hold of some papers of his. They weren’t important to her, but they are to me. That’s why I was at Marchant’s office this morning. To ask about them.”

“What did he say?”

He wasn’t expecting the question. She was obviously more interested in Marchant’s response than in his story, and he felt a surge of irritation. Then she sat forward in her chair, folding her elbows on the tabletop. Her iced cappuccino, still untouched, was sitting in a widening puddle of condensation. Merely keeping eye contact with her blue-green and very direct gaze obliterated his rehearsed reply. Matt wet his lips and glanced down at his own empty glass.

“Mind?” he asked, indicating hers.

“Go ahead,” she mumbled.

Matt took a long swallow. “Lance told me he hadn’t found any of my father’s papers among Joanna’s things.”

Kate shrugged as if to say, what did you expect?

“But after I left his office, I thought the papers might have been stored at that camp of her parents. Can’t recall the name.”

“Limberlost,” she said. She was sitting straight as a poker now, all ears.

“Right. I wondered if you could look for them for me.”

Kate tilted her head questioningly. “Say again?”

He cursed under his breath. Well, he thought, there was no going back now. The proverbial cat was definitely not only out of the bag, but scampering across the table.

“Perhaps I’m speaking out of turn, but I heard that you’d inherited the camp from Joanna and, uh, I was wondering if you’d look for the papers for me. At the camp.”

“Where did you hear that?” she demanded. “Who told you I inherited the camp?”

She leaned across the table, the end of her nose almost touching the iced cappuccino sitting in front of him.

He made an effort not to pull his head back. In spite of the dizzying warmth of her breath enveloping his face, he managed a casual shrug. “I don’t know. I…I guess Marchant. When I saw him this morning.”

She eased back into her chair, a faint smirk on her face. “I don’t believe you. Your meeting with him was before the will had been read.”

Matt knew he’d never come up with anything convincing enough to sway that haughty, self-assured expression in her eyes, but he made a stab at it. “I’m sure he mentioned it. How else would I know?”

The rhetorical question hung over the table. After a long moment, Kate pushed her chair back and stood up. “I don’t know who you are—oh yes,” she said, holding up a palm, “you say you’re Matt Sinclair and your father was married to Joanna and so on, but we haven’t really been introduced at all, have we? I mean, you could be just anyone telling me whatever you want, and you still haven’t explained why Joanna was a target of your hate. I’ve no idea how you learned about my inheritance, but seeing as it’s got nothing whatsoever to do with you, I’m leaving.”

Color bloomed in her face again, and in spite of the frizzy hair and a bra strap drooping off her shoulder, Matt knew that she was mustering all her reserves to make a dignified exit. He remained in his seat as she marched to the door and left without a backward glance.

Strike three. So now you’ve blown all three encounters with Kate Reilly. Way to go, champ.

KATE KEYED IN HER password so hard she chipped the end of her index fingernail. With the telephone receiver clamped in one hand, she patted down her hair with the other. Then she noticed her bra strap hanging limply from under the shoulder of her sleeveless dress and swore. The safety pin must have unfastened. She should’ve taken a few extra minutes that morning to sew the damn thing. Knowing that she’d left the café disheveled as well as angry added to her conflicting emotions about Matt.

Her voice mail clicked on, repeating Carla’s message.

“Hi, Kate, it’s me, Carla. It’s already two and you haven’t called yet. Are we still on for shopping tomorrow? Can you call and let me know later, ’cause I’m going out right now. Bye.”

Kate hung up and swore again. In spite of the casual tone of Carla’s voice, she knew from experience what a broken promise meant to a troubled teen. She replayed Carla’s message. Hadn’t she been grounded? If so, why was she going out? Kate rapidly punched in Carla’s number, but the line was busy. Reluctant to play telephone tag, she hung up and headed into her bedroom.

She’d forgotten to close the blinds before leaving that morning, and the room, filled with sunlight for hours, was like a Swedish sauna in spite of the air conditioner pumping away in the kitchen. Kate rushed to the window and reached for the rod. Glancing downward, she noticed a man standing on the pavement a few feet away from the entrance to her row house. Matt Sinclair.

Kate frowned. She’d managed to put the coffee-shop scene out of her mind for five minutes and now the whole humiliating event surged back. She leaned closer to the window. He had his back to her and seemed to be swaying from side to side, his right arm raised. Kate pressed her nose against the glass to get a better look. Then she realized what he was doing. Talking on a cell phone. She almost laughed, except he chose that moment to crane around and look up at her window.

Ducking to the side so he couldn’t see her, Kate continued to watch him talk and survey her windows. Finally he tucked the phone into his suit jacket pocket and stepped off the curb to a silver-gray car. As he unlocked the car, he glanced up once more. Kate jerked her head back again and waited before chancing another peek. He was inside the car now and pulling away from the curb. She watched him drive down her street to the main intersection, then turn right.

Stepping out from her hiding nook, she yanked the blind rod and the slats swooshed noisily into place. Her fingers were still trembling as she unzipped her dress, letting it fall onto the floor. A wake of lingerie marked her path to the linen closet and bathroom.

Seconds later, a full spray from the shower nozzle cooled her body temperature to normal. A brisk scrubbing with her loofah sponge had her skin pink and glowing. If only, she thought ironically, she could eliminate all memory of Matt Sinclair and his annoying habit of dropping into her life every few days. No, not days. Make that hours.

Kate used the corner of her towel to clear a circle in the steamy mirror. She tapped her reflection lightly. Why do you care so much, anyway? Matt Sinclair is nothing to you.

By the time she’d dressed and poured herself a tall glass of ice water, she was ready to call Carla’s foster home again.

“Rita? It’s Kate Reilly calling. Is Carla there?”

A slight pause on the other end, followed by a muffled exclamation and a wail. “Shh! Hi, Kate. Sorry, just had to change arms there. I’ve been rocking the baby all afternoon and she just this second fell asleep.”

“I suppose the phone woke her. Sorry about that.”

“No, no. It’s okay. She’s gone back to sleep again. Worn out. Like me,” she whispered.

“Is she sick?”

“Teething. She was up all night, too. Look, Carla’s taken off again. I should call Kim. I…I don’t want to, Kate, but she really left me in the lurch. Promised to be home all afternoon ’cause you were calling. I’d hoped to catch a nap….”

Her voice drifted off, as if she were too exhausted to even finish the sentence.

Kate didn’t know whether to be angry at Carla or herself. If she’d called on time, would the girl have stayed? Who could tell with Carla?

“Okay, Rita. I’ll call again tomorrow.”

“It doesn’t look good.”

Kate sighed. “Yeah. It sure doesn’t.” She said goodbye and hung up. She understood Rita’s reluctance to call Carla’s social worker. It seemed like a betrayal of loyalty, going behind Carla’s back to discuss her. That was how Kate would have interpreted it, when she’d been in Carla’s shoes. But now she could see the other angles. What worried her was the fear that she’d no longer be able to get through to Carla herself.

Kate wandered into the darkened living room and flopped onto the couch. She felt drained of energy and initiative. No wonder, she thought, considering all that had happened that day.

Lunch in the most exclusive restaurant she’d ever been in, not to mention a ride in a foreign car that probably cost more than her annual salary. Two strange encounters with Matt Sinclair. She shivered. What’s his problem, anyway?

And how did he know which flat was hers, because he’d seemed to look straight up at her windows on the second floor. She took another sip of water, set the glass down on the coffee table beside the couch and lay back. A nap would be nice, she decided, plumping the pillows behind her. If she could clear her mind of all the unpleasant thoughts—Carla, in trouble again. Matt Sinclair. She sighed and closed her eyes. A brighter picture appeared.

Camp Limberlost. Now hers.




CHAPTER FOUR


“I SAID I WAS SORRY.”

Kate closed her eyes and breathed a sigh of relief.

Carla hung back on the door stoop. “I wanted to phone, honest. But the others started laughing and calling me a baby,” she continued, her dark eyes fixed on Kate’s face, willing her to believe.

And Kate wanted to. Except that she’d heard it all before in a hundred different ways, so that even Carla’s turned-down mouth and slumped shoulders failed to arouse pity. But the hint of moisture in her eyes did the trick, because Carla never cried.

“Come inside,” Kate said gently, standing aside as the girl slinked past. Instead of making for her favorite canvas hammock chair as she usually did, Carla stood in the center of the room, hugging herself tightly. She was a pathetic sight, but Kate resisted going to her.

“Care for a glass of lemonade? I was just getting one for myself.” And without waiting for a reply, Kate headed into the kitchen. The few extra seconds gave her time to put together some kind of strategy. Confrontation, she knew only too well from her own turbulent adolescence, was like turning up the heat. Too much sympathy would offer an escape route that Carla had already learned to use to her advantage. Of course there was also appealing to reason. With an emotionally charged teenager? Forget it.

After handing Carla her drink, Kate casually sat down on the couch. She sipped, wondering how long it would take Carla to follow suit. Three seconds later, Carla perched on the edge of the wicker armchair Kate had bought at a yard sale. It was a horribly uncomfortable chair and Carla never sat on it. Kate had to stifle a smile. A sign, perhaps, that the teen wanted to punish herself? She waited, taking a longer drink of lemonade. Finally Carla began to talk.

“Okay, see, there’s this girl I met. She doesn’t live near me, but a couple of subway stops away. She belongs to this gang. And, like, she’s been trying to get me in.”

Kate reached over to set her glass onto the coffee table. She was afraid if she held it a moment longer, it would shatter from the force of her grip. I’ve been too complacent, she thought. Assuming that Carla’s problems could be solved with shopping trips and sleepovers. How could I have forgotten so easily? But then, by the time she was Carla’s age, she’d already met Joanna Barnes and made her promise to take a different path from the neighborhood kids.

“Go on,” Kate said, keeping her voice as neutral as she could.

Carla glanced up at Kate for the first time since she’d entered the flat. The expression in her face begged for understanding. “They’re nice to me, Kate. That may be hard for you to believe, but they are. They don’t try to get me to do, you know, bad things like shoplift or smoke dope.”

“Do they do those things?”

Kate realized at once it was the wrong question to ask. Carla stared down at her lemonade and simply shrugged. After a moment she mumbled, “I don’t know.”

But of course she did, thought Kate, and I’ve just made her rush to their defense. She tried to make amends. “It’s okay, Carla, I’m not asking you to snitch on them. Forget I mentioned it. Go on.”

But there was a wariness in Carla’s voice now and she spoke in a stilted way, as if talking to her social worker. Or a teacher.

“Anyway,” Carla said, “I told Rita I’d help her out when I got home and I would have, only…”

“Only?”

She swallowed a mouthful of lemonade, then said, “I didn’t realize how late it was, and Toni—that’s my friend—said if I waited a couple more hours, her boyfriend would drive me home when he got off work.”

“She has a boyfriend? How old is this Toni?”

“Sixteen.”

Kate took a deep breath. “What are the ages of the rest of the kids? In the gang, I mean.”

“I dunno. Maybe fifteen up to eighteen or so.”

“Carla, you’re only thirteen.”

Carla raised her head, eyes flashing with anger. “Yeah, but they don’t hold that against me, you know. They think I’m, like, cute and funny. They even call me their mascot.”

Kate resisted responding to that, in spite of images of inflated birds and oversize fluffy dogs.

“And you couldn’t have called Rita? Or even me?”

“Like I said, they’d have teased me. Besides, what would have been the point by then?”

Kate leaned forward on the couch. “It might have meant that Rita wouldn’t have worried half the night, wondering if she ought to phone Kim or maybe the police.”

“The police?” Her face paled.

“Carla, if you’d stayed out an hour longer, Rita would probably have called them.”

“So much for trust.”

Kate sighed. Here we go again. “You have to earn trust. There’ve been too many other times like this. Rita feels that she’s expended all of her options. She doesn’t know what to do anymore.”

Carla lowered her head, seemingly intent on picking at a scab on her finger. But Kate noticed the trembling across her shoulders. After a moment, Carla wiped her nose with the back of her hand. Silently, Kate went to the bathroom for a box of tissues, which she placed in Carla’s lap. Then she sat down, waiting for the girl to stop crying.

When Carla had used two or three tissues to daub her face, she set the box down on the coffee table and looked across at Kate. “I know I’ve been giving Rita a hard time, but…but I don’t mean to. I like Rita. She and Eddie have always been good to me. Strict, but fair. I’ve been with them for two years now and I want to stay with them. If they still want me.” She glanced away, her chin wobbling again.

“They do want you, Carla. They’ve never stopped wanting to care for you. It’s just that they’ve never raised a teenager before and—”

“A problem teen, like me.”

“No, Carla. A teen with some problems, yes, but that’s all. The important thing is to keep talking to them. Don’t be afraid to just go to them and say, ‘Look, I know I screwed up and I’m going to try harder the next time.’ They’ll be more sympathetic if they see that you really want to change. Trust me, after all, I’m your Big Sister.”

Carla’s big brown eyes, damp with tears, fixed on Kate. “I hope you’ll always be,” she whispered.

“I will be.” Kate felt the prick of tears in her own eyes, but forced them back. “You know, I just had a great idea Carla. I’ve inherited some property in the mountains and—”

“Wow!”

“Yes, though I don’t know yet how exciting that is because I haven’t seen it for years. I was thinking of renting a car and driving into the mountains for a couple of days. If I get permission from Rita and Kim, would you like to go?”

A confusion of emotions battled in Carla’s face. “Would it be, like, camping or something? Would there be wild animals there? ’Cause I’m not real good with stuff like that.”

“Me, neither. No camping—there’s a lodge with beds—but it may be a bit dusty and cobwebby. Think you could handle that?”

“Yeah! It’d be cool, just you’n me. Will you rent a car with a CD player?”

Kate laughed. Typical teen—getting right to the important things. “If there’s one available. If not, we may have to settle for tape cassettes. Anyway, this means I’ll have a few phone calls to make. Shall I try to plan it for the day after tomorrow? Is that too soon for you?”

“I think that’ll be okay.” Carla frowned. “Do you think my behavior is going to make them say no?”

“I don’t know, Carla. That’s up to Kim and Rita. But I do think another apology and a real effort to help out over the next couple of days will influence their decision.”

Carla stood up. “I will, Kate. Thanks for…everything.” She reached out and gave Kate an awkward hug.

It was the first sign of physical affection Carla had ever shown to her, and Kate knew to play it down. She smiled and tapped the girl’s chin lightly with her finger. “I’m always here for you, Carla, remember that. Now, you’d better head home and I’ll start making my calls.”

After she’d closed the door behind the girl, Kate sagged against it. Yesterday’s impulsive idea to visit Limberlost was now a commitment. She didn’t know whether to curse herself or praise her ingenuity. She took a deep breath and moved away from the door. If she was going to make her promise to Carla a reality, she had a lot to do.

“MISS REILLY? Greg Collier here, returning your call.”

“Thanks for getting back to me so quickly, Mr. Collier. I wanted to talk to you about Camp Limberlost.”

“Ah! You’ve made a decision already?”

“Well, no, not really. I thought I’d like to visit it before deciding anything.”

After a slight pause, he said, “I see. Now, tell me, Miss Reilly, do you know that area at all? Other than having gone to Limberlost once as a child?”

“Uh…no, but to tell you the truth, it’s a chance to get out of the city for a couple of days.” Kate mentally chastised herself for feeling the need to make excuses. Wasn’t the property legally hers now?

He must have picked up a cue from her voice for he quickly went on to say, “Of course, and please don’t let me discourage you. Just want to remind you that things may be a bit rough up there—the camp hasn’t been used for a number of years.”

The urge to speed into the mountains was starting to wane. “Well, if things are too bad I can always head back to the city,” Kate replied. “How do I go about getting a key for the place? Or is there even such a thing?”

“Oh, yes. Apparently the place has been looked after by a couple who live in the nearest village. Now, what was the name…” There was a sound of drawers opening and papers shuffling. Then, still talking to himself, the lawyer mumbled, “Ah, here it is. Tippett. Bill and Verna. They live in Bondi, which is about ten miles from the camp. How about if I give him a call and let him know you’re coming? He’ll need to see about electricity and so on.”

“That would be great. Now, I guess I’ll have to get directions.”

“Do you have a fax machine?”

Kate smiled. “No, I’m afraid not.”

“No problem. I’ll have my secretary courier a map to you ASAP. When shall I tell Bill Tippett you’re going?”

It appeared she had to nail down the date. “I’m thinking the day after tomorrow.”

More paper noises. “Uh, that would be the twenty-fourth?”

The twenty-fourth of July. Ten days after she was supposed to meet Joanna. Kate couldn’t speak for a moment. If things had turned out differently, perhaps she and Joanna would have been making the trip to Limberlost together. And Carla might have had a chance to meet her and…. She closed her eyes.

“Miss Reilly?”

She took a deep breath and said, “Yes, the twenty-fourth.”

“Righto. If there’s a problem with Tippett getting the place ready, I’ll get back to you.”

“Please tell him I don’t expect miracles. I’m quite prepared to rough it.”

“I’m sure there won’t be any miracles, Miss Reilly.” He laughed. “When you get back to New York, let me know if I can help you with the property in any way. Whatever you decide.”

“Yes, I’ll do that. Thanks, Mr. Collier.”

His voice boomed across the line. “Only too happy to help out.”

As Kate put the phone down, she couldn’t help but think of a hungry shark streaking through a school of fish. She’d heard too many lawyer jokes, she told herself. Still, was it her imagination or had the man really been trying to put her off visiting Limberlost? Kate shrugged. What did it matter, as long as she and Carla had a chance to get out of the city? Now all she had to do was get permission for the girl to come with her.

Easier said than done. It seemed to Kate that she’d been dealing with bureaucracy all her life—filling out forms to go to camp, to go on school trips outside the city, to get braces on her teeth. Growing up a ward of the courts had meant a lifetime of dealing with committees and agencies rather than individuals. The years after Joanna had been relatively stable, but only because Kate had decided that cooperating with her foster parents was more likely to lead to the goals she’d set for herself.

So she knew exactly how to phrase her request to Kim, Carla’s caseworker. The woman was fair and would realize the break from routine would benefit Carla. Still, Kim said she wouldn’t be able to get back with an official okay until late afternoon the next day. Kate decided to book a rental car for the twenty-fourth on the assumption that Carla’s permission would be given.

Everything was proceeding well until Rita called early the next morning while Kate was finishing her first cup of coffee in bed.

“Carla’s taken off,” she said.

Kate sagged against the headboard. “What?”

Rita gave a loud sigh. “It’s not as bad as it sounds, but she left in a huff right after breakfast. When I reminded her she’d have to do laundry for your trip north, she said she probably wouldn’t be allowed to go and what was the point. Then just as she walked out the door, she hollered back that maybe she didn’t want to go, anyway.”

“She’s just setting things up so she won’t be disappointed if it doesn’t work out. But it’s going to. Kim seemed very supportive. You haven’t spoken to her about it, have you?”

“Kim? No, I thought I should talk to you first.”

“Do me a favor, then, Rita? Wait until I get back to you. I’m going to have a talk with Carla. Where does she usually hang out with her friends?”

“They could be a couple of places. Either at the basketball hoops at the school playground or at the parkette at Vine and Broadview. It’s about two subway stops south of our place.”

“Right. Is that near where her friend Toni lives?”

“You know about Toni, eh? She’s bad news, that one.”

As soon as Kate hung up, she dashed into the shower and dressed in cutoffs, T-shirt and sneakers. Rather than take a fanny pack or wallet, she shoved her subway pass and a twenty-dollar bill deep into her shorts pocket. Then she searched in the bottom of her closet for her baseball cap and pulled it down over her hair, tucking the side tendrils back behind her ears and under the cap. She looked about seventeen, which was fine with her. As long as she eliminated her schoolteacher persona. She had a feeling that wouldn’t carry much weight with Toni and her gang.

Soon after, Kate arrived at the Brooklyn neighborhood where Carla and her friends hung out. They weren’t at the basketball court. Okay, she thought. On to the parkette. She didn’t want to think about what she’d do if Carla wasn’t there.

But she was. Coming up from the subway exit, Kate spotted a group of kids across the street. She paused at the top of the stairs, watching them. The parkette was merely a slightly bigger-than-room-size piece of sunburned grass a few yards from the intersection. A scattering of benches were chained to concrete posts, and there was a rusting combo of swings and teeter-totters around which a handful of mothers, shoulders drooping from the pull of plastic shopping bags, chatted as they watched their children shuffle from one swing or slide to another. It was only after ten, but already the heat was sucking energy from everyone, injecting them with a listless apathy. Except for the knot of teenagers who’d taken over the best benches—the ones in the shade at the edge of the sidewalk.

The large-framed girl standing, arms on hips, in the middle of the sidewalk was the focal point. The others around her were laughing at her impersonation of a suited executive type who’d just strode past them, cell phone clenched to his ear as he gesticulated with his free hand. The girl was good, Kate had to admit, watching her mincing mimicry of the man’s walk as he signaled his reactions to the phone conversation to the world at large. Then another passerby appeared.

Just a kid, but seriously obese. Laden with two bulky shopping bags, he waddled out of the corner fruit-and-vegetable store and headed their way. He was wearing shorts that ballooned out from his thick legs and a crumpled, wide-brimmed sun hat that might have sheltered an elderly woman’s head thirty years ago. Kate licked her dry lips, waiting for the gang to notice him.

Suddenly there was a flurry of elbow-poking as the girl was alerted to her new target by the kids around her. Kate looked at Carla, sitting at the farthest end of the bench with her knees tucked up against her chest. She, too, was looking at the boy, slowly making his way toward them. But she wasn’t laughing, Kate noticed with relief. Instead, she dropped her chin to her chest, as if hiding from what she knew was coming.

Oh, Carla. There’s hope for you yet.

Time to make my move, Kate thought. She sprinted to the corner, making it to the other side of the street just as the light changed. The girl had planted herself in the center of the walk, planning to block the boy’s way. She turned her head back to the others behind her, saying something that produced laughter from the bench-sitters. All but Carla, who now had her face completely buried in her upraised knees.

Kate marched toward them, easily overtaking the boy, who’d slowed his pace when he’d caught sight of the gang. Initially Kate had hoped to get Carla aside and talk to her in private. But now she realized she couldn’t avoid a confrontation with the performance artist herself. Was this the notorious Toni?

So she stopped dead center and mere inches from the girl, enjoying the surprise and then outrage that flitted across the teenager’s face.

“Where’s Carla?” Kate asked, her voice strong and confident.

The girl’s eyes narrowed, shifting from the approaching target to Kate. “Carla who?”

“Carla Lopez.” The second word was spoken like a taunt that conveyed the tag stupid.

Carla raised her head, and her eyes widened in disbelief. The boy was forgotten by the gang as all eyes shifted her way. Kate stepped forward, shortening the distance between her and the girl. When the girl stepped back, Kate knew she had the upper hand.

“So who are you?” the girl asked, her tone challenging.

Kate noticed Carla lower her feet to the pavement, start to get up off the bench.

“I’m her big sister, and I suppose you must be Toni.”

“Her sister?” Toni echoed with a glance back at Carla. The others looked back to Carla, as well. Sister? This was news to them.

“You don’t look like no Lopez,” jeered an acne-faced girl beside Toni.

Kate simply shrugged. She brushed past Toni to Carla. “Coming, Carly?”

Carla’s eyes flicked from her to Toni, held there a moment long enough to raise Kate’s blood pressure, then back to Kate. “Okay,” she whispered.

Kate draped her arms across Carla’s shoulders and the two stepped forward. But Toni wasn’t ready to let them go so easily.

She moved directly into their path. “She really your sister, Carla?”

“Well…yeah,” Carla mumbled.

“How come you never talked about her?”

“I don’t tell you everything!” Carla hotly declared.

Kate silently applauded the girl.

Toni raised her eyebrows. “So, you leavin’ for lunch or somethin’,” she sneered, “or you leavin’ the group for good?” The others stood round their leader, arms folded across their chests and nodding agreement.

Kate swallowed. Carla wasn’t ready to make that kind of a choice yet, and certainly not so publicly. She said, “What’s the big deal? I’ve come to get my little sister because I need her for something. Besides, it’s my job to look out for her, isn’t it?” She scanned the faces of each and every one. Then focused her attention on Toni.

“You got a big sister or brother?” she asked.

Toni flushed. Someone behind her burst out, “Yeah. In Sing Sing,” then sputtered in a hard laugh that died as soon as Toni swiveled her head round to glare.

“Whatever,” Kate said casually. “A brother?”

Toni gave a jerky half nod.

“So if he were here, he’d be looking out for you, too. Right?”

A more affirmative nod this time.

“’Course he would,” Kate continued. “That’s what big sisters and brothers are for.” She searched their faces again, waiting for disagreement. When none came, she said, “Then I guess you guys won’t mind if I take my little sister away for a bit—family business, you might say.” Kate reached down for Carla’s hand and started to walk.

Toni hesitated a second before standing aside. As they moved past her, she gave Carla a seemingly playful poke on the shoulder. “See you around, Carla.”

Kate kept walking, pulling Carla along. She felt the girl look back, but didn’t slow her pace. When she heard Carla say, “Maybe,” she knew everything was going to be okay.

It wasn’t until they got to the subway entrance that Kate relaxed enough to stop. Instead of lecturing the girl, she gave her a big, breathless smile. “We made it,” she said, giggling.

Carla, clamping her hand to her mouth, dissolved into laughter. “I couldn’t figure out who you were at first,” she said. “You look so different in that hat, with your hair all hidden. When you said you were my big sister, I almost fell off the bench.”

“Yeah. Well, I meant every word, Carla.”

The girl straightened up, meeting Kate’s gaze with an instant sobriety. “I know you did, Kate. That’s how I got the nerve…you know, to just…”

“Walk away?”

The girl nodded. “Thanks for coming,” she mumbled. “I…I…”

“You didn’t look like you were having a good time,” Kate said.

Carla shook her head. “Toni can be real mean sometimes.”

Kate made no comment, letting that realization sink in. Then she said, “Let’s go,” and the two ran down the steps into the subway.

NEITHER SPOKE UNTIL they reached Carla’s station. As they exited onto the sidewalk, Kate said, “By the way, I’ve rented a car and Kim’s going to call me later today. She sounded very positive about your coming with me to Camp Limberlost.”

Carla stopped and looked up at Kate, an anxious frown creasing her brow. “But, well, do you think Kim’ll still feel that way after today? I mean, when she hears that I walked out on Rita again.”

“Rita didn’t call Kim.”

“She didn’t?”

“No. I asked her to wait until I had a chance to see you.”

There was a thoughtful silence from Carla, followed by a husky thank-you. When they reached the triplex where Carla lived, Kate said, “I’ll call you as soon as I hear from Kim. In the meantime, you might want to do some packing. You’ll need a bathing suit, towel and change of clothes. I figure we’ll stay two nights. That should satisfy the needs of two city girls.”

“Rita said she’d buy me a sleeping bag.”

“Good idea! I’ll have to pick one up for myself. Okay, that’s it, then.” She smiled down at the girl. “We’re going to have a great time. Talk to you later.” As she turned to leave, Carla reached out a hand to her arm.

“Kate, I won’t mess up again. I promise. And I really did want to get away from those kids. I was just too chicken.”

Kate shook her head. “You came, didn’t you? That said everything.” She waved goodbye and headed back to the subway to get a train to Manhattan. Partway, she realized she was dying for a cold drink and recalled a terrific coffee shop on the edge of Little Italy, just a few stops from her flat. An ice-cold latte was definitely in order, after her encounter with Toni and friends.

Exiting the shop, chilled drink in hand, she strolled along to the next subway station, thinking she might find a store on the way that sold sleeping bags. Good for Carla for thinking of it. She herself had blithely assumed there’d be clean, pressed sheets on the beds. If the camp had deteriorated as much as Greg Collier had implied, she’d be lucky to have cobwebs and spiders swept away. Kate shivered. God, I hope so.

Luck was with her and she came upon an outfitter store just a block from the subway. By the time she’d made her purchase, she realized it was almost three. She wanted to make sure she had an answer from Kim before the woman left work for the day. Clutching the bag under her arm, she jogged the remaining distance. Later that day, she realized that if she’d been looking where she was going and hadn’t bumped into the woman pushing the stroller out of a grocery store, she might have run right past Lance Marchant.

Swearing under her breath as she stooped to pick up the sleeping bag after her collision with the stroller, Kate paused to rub her scraped shin. When she straightened, she noticed a bright red convertible pull out from the curb. There couldn’t be too many cars like that, she thought, even in New York. She walked briskly toward it, reaching the edge of the curb just as the car arrowed out of the space.

When the driver turned to check oncoming traffic, she saw a shock of white hair and realized that he was definitely Lance Marchant. She almost waved, except that he was looking to his left and not in his rearview mirror. Kate glanced back to the store in front of the parking space. It was one of those all-male sports bars. A dingy-looking one at that. Not some place a man like Lance Marchant would hang out.

She’d just stepped off the curb onto the empty parking space to jaywalk to the other side of the street when a sleek black limousine shot toward her. Kate jumped back onto the sidewalk. There was a flurry of Italian spoken behind her, and as she turned to look, a trio of dark-suited men in sunglasses hustled another man out of the bar and into the rear door of the limousine.

The door slammed and the car, having barely come to a halt, snaked out onto the path of traffic exactly as Marchant had. Must be some kind of celebrity, Kate guessed. Maybe the bar was one of those exclusive places that only the very wealthy knew about. She smiled at the idea, stepped off the curb again and, for the second time in two minutes, was almost run over. This time a battered white van roared into the lane of cars just as Kate was about to take advantage of a break in the traffic.

She swore aloud and would have run alongside the van as it chugged forward into the traffic. But she stopped in her tracks, recognizing one of the two men sitting in front on the passenger side, his finger pointing ahead as he talked to the driver. It was the police officer who’d spoken to her after Joanna’s funeral.

Kate watched the van merge into the mass of cars until it disappeared. What was his name? Anderson? Anders? Andrews? Yes, that was it. Somebody Andrews. She was certain it was him. What was he doing here? And Marchant, too. Seeing two men from Joanna’s funeral in the same neighborhood and virtually at the same time was a little too coincidental.




CHAPTER FIVE


KATE HUNG UP the receiver and exhaled a breath of relief. No problem. Carla could accompany her to Camp Limberlost. She made a quick call to Rita, speaking afterward to Carla to arrange a pickup time for ten the next morning.

Rita came on the line again after. “I don’t know what happened today—I mean, she was a bit sketchy with the details—but that girl has been wonderful since you brought her home. She even volunteered to take the baby for a walk after dinner!”





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