Faith couldn’t argue with that without revealing certain things in her past she’d sworn never to divulge, so she simply smiled enigmatically.
The gesture was lost on Scott, who was reaching for the last biscuit. He broke it in half and offered part to Faith. She heard echoes of the day’s earlier church service, “Take and eat this . . .” It was a vastly different kind of communion, but the gesture still felt ceremonial.
They sat in companionable silence for a while.
A spider had constructed an elaborate web between an elk’s antlers, and several dead flies were festooned there. Faith put her Coke down.
“What has our friend Stephanie been up to this week? Decided to change the date, go Hawaiian, what?” Scott and Tricia had never met any of the Bullocks, but they would be working at both the rehearsal dinner and reception. They reveled in the Stephanie stories, and whether there were any new ones had become the first question when they showed up for work.
“She dropped by on Thursday and proposed moving the rehearsal dinner from ‘Daddy’s’ to the Algonquin Club on Commonwealth Avenue in town. It wasn’t vintage Stephanie, not like lobster bisque being ‘too pink.’ Her heart wasn’t really in it. I think she’s running out of things. Niki sent her home to break in her bridal shoes.”
“They do that, you know. Tricia was wearing the damn things all over the apartment the week before we got married.” Tricia Phelan had informed Scott that she intended to get married only once and it was going to be “the whole nine yards,” not the elopement to the Cape that he’d envisioned.
If the Phelan nuptials had been nine yards, then the upcoming Bullock extravaganza would be nine hundred and ninety-nine.
“What do you think this is going to set ‘Daddy’ back?” Scott asked as he dug into a generous wedge of lemon meringue pie. He’d switched to coffee, and Faith followed suit. It never kept her awake.
“Niki and I sat down a couple of months ago when we had nothing better to do, or nothing we wanted to, and tried to figure it out. We know what we’re billing; it will be somewhere around thirty thousand dollars. Could go up to a million, though, now that we’re charging for changes.” Scott let out a low whistle. Faith smiled. “Hey, that’s nothing. In New York City, a caterer considers a fifty-thousand-dollar wedding midrange.
Twenty-five thousand gets you chicken and an old man with an accordion. Of course, the Bullocks don’t have to rent tents or a room, although I’m surprised Stephanie didn’t insist on flying everyone to Bavaria for a weekend at one of Mad Ludwig’s castles—you know, the Sleeping Beauty type. We are providing the tables and chairs, but not the tablecloths. Another savings, and so thoughtful of Courtney Bullock.”
“From everything I’ve heard, she seems to want to stick it to her ex every way she can.” Faith nodded. “She was so mad at one point when he refused to pay for the kind of roses she wanted for Stephanie’s bouquet—they grow in only one tiny village in Provence—that I thought the whole thing would be put on hold while she sued him for breach of fatherhood, or anything else she could fabricate to cover his ‘maniacal penury’—her words. She was also goading Stephanie to consider a wedding dress embroidered in gold-bullion thread!”
Scott was slowly shaking his head back and forth. “It’s hard to imagine people having that kind of money. They’ll end up dropping more on this wedding than we’ll spend on a house some-day.”
“Easily. We haven’t even mentioned clothes, hair, makeup. Then there’s the band, and photographer, limos, and invitations. Binky’s had to cough up for the rings and his expenses. I doubt his morning coat will be rented.”
“And Julian Bullock has this much dough?”
“Apparently. Courtney has her own nest egg, too, I believe. She was amused, not angry, because Julian wouldn’t pay for her mother-of-the-bride dress. ‘Just like old times,’ Stephanie told us she’d said.”
Scott stood up and stretched. “I’ve got to get going. Work tomorrow. I guess I’d better start saving for the ladder I’m going to give any daughter we might have.”
“As if Tricia would ever let you get away with that,” Faith teased.
“You may be right, but Tricia knows what makes sense and what doesn’t. Spending hundreds of thousands of dollars for something that’s over in a few hours is nuts.”
They walked out into the parking lot together.
It was dark, and Faith realized that she hadn’t been paying attention to the time. The small windows at the Willow Tree didn’t let in much light and, in any case, time didn’t pass so much as crawl once you were inside. The baseball game was long over. She had no idea who had won.
“Well, good night—and thanks, Scott.” “I haven’t done anything yet.”
“Yes, you have. I know a whole lot more than I did two hours ago.”
“Me too.” She could see his broad grin in the warm darkness. Damn, he was good-looking.
She was halfway to her car when she heard him call. She waited for him to come closer.
“Faith.” He put his hands on her shoulders.
“Faith, you’ve got to let this go. Get on with your life. Tom, the kids. Believe me, you could make yourself crazy, and it will all be for nothing in the end. Let it go.” He dropped his hands and disappeared into the night.
Faith had automatically walked up the back stoop before stopping herself and turning toward the front door. The hall light was on, but the rest of the downstairs was dark. She took her shoes off and crept up the stairs and into the bedroom, feeling like a teenager who has broken curfew.
The light on Tom’s side of the bed went on the moment she crossed the threshold, flooding the room. She froze.
“Tom, I . . .”
He patted the bed. “Why don’t you come over here and tell me what’s going on?”
She dropped her shoes and padded over to sit on the bed, leaning against him. It was tempting to turn the light off and simply spend the whole night this way. She felt her eyes close.
“I met Scott over at the Willow Tree. I thought he might have some ideas. Not that he’d ever be involved in anything like these break-ins, but he might know someone who might know someone.
That kind of thing.”
“And did he?”
“No, but I learned a lot about different kinds of robberies. He told me some pawnshops in Boston I could try and—”
“Okay, but what’s going on, Faith? What’s going on with you? Where are you?”
She knew what her husband was talking about.
These were questions she’d been asking herself.
“I feel . . . it’s hard to describe. I feel very alone, very empty. Every day I wake up and do all the things I’m supposed to do and tell myself how lucky I am to have my life, yet nothing seems real.
Sometimes people’s voices seem to be coming from far away or I’ll drive to work and not remember getting in the car, and the trip is over. It’s been like this since I found Sarah, found her tied up like that.”
Tom pulled the covers off and drew his wife close to him. She stretched out and let her head fall onto his shoulder.
“The only times I feel like me are when I’m out there doing something about all this, but then later it seems like a waste of time.” She’d dropped off a copy of the results of Friday’s meeting, neatly typed up by Pix, at the police station on Saturday afternoon, before they’d headed north. Charley hadn’t turned any cart-wheels, even after she’d pointed out the similarity in the days and some of their other conclusions.
That night, sleepless as usual, she’d been forced to face the fact that they really hadn’t come up with anything significant.
“Is there some way you could let it go?” Tom asked. “Something I could do to help you get there?” Deja vu all over again, and what were the odds of having two extremely attractive men offer virtually identical advice within the space of one hour?
“I wish there was. Getting another adjuster will help. And things are busy next week. I doubt I’ll have time to think of anything except radish roses and crystallized violets.”
“Do you want to talk to someone about it all?
Maybe get something to help you sleep?” Faith knew it was the sensible thing to do, but it seemed like an enormous effort at the moment.
“There are other cures for insomnia, darling.”
“Imagine that somebody stole your little electronic organizer or your Filofax—or both.” Faith could hear her
