Dead Secret

“No. We all thought it was a raw deal. . jealousy, infighting. Mother and Dad think the world of him, so Dad got him a job with the firm that Fallon and Abernathy use. Alan’s made some mistakes with their accounts. He told the partners that Gerald is the one who gave him the information and told him how he wanted things handled. Gerald found out this morning and called him. They had a row, and that’s when Alan told him. Now Gerald thinks we. . that we had an affair. I swear we didn’t. That’s why we sent the children to his sister’s. We didn’t want them to witness us sorting this out.”

“I’ll tell Gerald that I believe you, if you think that will help.”

“Do you?”

“Believe you? Yes.”

“Why?”

“I have experience with people who lie.” Diane didn’t say that one of the people she had experience with was Susan herself when they were children, and that Diane knew exactly when Susan lied and when she was telling the truth.

“Gerald is a good man, and I don’t want a divorce.”

“Is that what Gerald is threatening?”

“He hasn’t come out and said it, but. . Alan really rubbed his nose in it.”

“I’ll talk to him tomorrow.”

“I appreciate it, Diane. I’d better get back. I don’t want Gerald to think that I’m. .” She left the rest unfinished.

Susan kissed Diane’s cheek as she left for home. Her family got downright affectionate during times of stress. She realized that she hardly knew them. Perhaps that was her fault. She could be as stubborn and intransigent as they in her opinions. On the other hand, they had never understood how much Diane loved her daughter. That lack of empathy was hard for Diane to forgive.

Diane undressed and tossed her clothes over the back of a chair. She put on her nightgown, fished a paperback of Foucault’s Pendulum out of her duffel bag and crawled into bed. Her eyelids were heavy, but she was looking forward to continuing what she started on the plane-and getting her mind away from current events.

Something caused her to jerk awake. The book had fallen to the floor. That was probably what woke her up. She picked up her cell and looked at the display. After eleven. She got out of bed, retrieved the book and turned out the bedside lamp.

She had one knee back up on the bed when she heard soft footfalls in the hallway. On the carpeted floor the sound was only a whisper, but Diane had a good ear for faint rhythm. Her father, probably. He was the only other person in the huge house. And when she and Susan were little, he would look in on them before going to bed. She started to call out, but instead she picked up her cell phone, moved away from the bed and secreted herself in the closet, looking out through the space between the louvers.

Okay, now what was she going to say to her father-I’ve been personally attacked so many times that I automatically run for cover at the sound of footsteps? She put a hand on the door to push it open, but stopped when she saw a shadow come into the room. Her father would have knocked-unless he was just checking. The shadowed form passed through rays of moonlight from the window. It was Alan.

Chapter 24

Diane held her breath for several seconds and slowly let it out. A sick knot formed in her stomach. What was he up to? Her father was downstairs and too far away to call. She could dial 911. She started to, holding her hand over the phone display to hide the light, but she hesitated. She knew instinctively that Alan would say she had invited him to her room, and her father would probably believe him. She would have caused an uproar at one of the worst times in their lives. She stayed her finger, but held the open phone.

“Diane,” Alan whispered in the darkness.

Diane watched as he approached her bed and stood looking down at the crumpled sheets. He glanced for a few seconds toward the open bathroom door. Diane readied herself for an approach to her hiding place. But his gaze didn’t linger on the closet. He turned around and retraced his steps, stopping at the chair where she had thrown off her clothes. Picking up her camisole, he held it to his face and breathed in. Diane raised her eyebrows and her phone camera. She had clicked several pictures by the time he put down her clothes and walked out her bedroom door.

What was he doing? Diane stayed in the closet for several moments, waiting for him to come back. When he didn’t, she stepped out and breathed a sigh of relief. She suddenly thought of her father downstairs. What if he was making his way down to him? What if he had suddenly turned into a maniac?

Diane grabbed her robe and dashed across the room, cautiously looking out the door and listening. She heard his footsteps going down the stairs and ran on tiptoe in the opposite direction down an alternate set of stairs to get to the first-floor hallway-where her father’s room was. At the bottom landing, she listened for steps. It was quiet. Leaving the concealment the stairs provided, Diane walked down the hallway toward the kitchen end of the house. Was that a door slamming? She ran to the kitchen and into the utility hallway that connected to the garage, following the noise. At the end of the hall through the window she saw a flash of light, like headlights turning down the drive. She ran to the living room and looked out at the lit driveway just in time to see Alan’s car turn the curve.

“Okay, that was weird,” she said to herself.

“What’s weird, dear?”

Diane whirled around.

“Dad.”

So much for her good ears. She hadn’t heard him at all. He stood in the doorway to the living room, looking out the windows, probably searching for whatever she was looking at.

“I saw a flash of light-like a car.”

“You didn’t see that from your room?”

It was more of a question than an accusation.

“No.”

What was she going to say-I’m down here protecting you from Alan gone mad?

“I had a slight headache and I came down to get some aspirin. The bottle in my bathroom is out-of-date. I thought Glenda might keep some in the kitchen.”

“I believe she does. If not, I have some in my bathroom.” He smiled at her. “Cars sometimes use our drive to turn around in. No reason for alarm.”

She followed him into the kitchen, where he reached up into one of the dark oak cabinets and retrieved a bottle of aspirin.

“These are no good; they’re children’s aspirin. Glenda probably takes one of these every day. Oh, here’s another bottle.”

He handed it to Diane and she jiggled a couple out into her hand, wondering what she was going to do with them.

She was caught now. Why had she said that? If she took them, they would probably cause her wound to bleed or weep. But she couldn’t tell her father about that, so she had to do something with them.

“Maybe you need to eat an apple or drink a glass of milk. It’s not good to take those on an empty stomach,” her father said.

“Would you like me to pour you some milk, too?”

“That might help. I can’t sleep either.” He sighed. “I keep thinking of your mother in that place.”

“I know, Dad. But she’s safe now and we’ll have her out tomorrow.”

Diane turned to take a carton of milk from the refrigerator and dropped the aspirin into the pocket of her robe. She poured two glasses of milk and they sat down at the kitchen table. She pretended to put the aspirin in her mouth, then took a drink of milk, feeling like a kid who had done something wrong and was hiding it from her