Free Dark Lady by Richard North Patterson Page A

shoulder. “Stay,” he said. “Please. We’ve made up a room for you.” Caroline looked into his face. Only then did she realize that Betty watched them from the kitchen door. Following Caroline’s gaze, Larry turned to his wife. To Caroline, Betty’s face was an inscrutable mask. Larry crossed the room to Betty. “I’ll help with the pasta.” His tone strained for normality. “It’ll just be the three of us.” Caroline’s mind filled with dark humor, the skewed vision of a television family. Yes, she imagined Betty saying chirpily, Dad’ eating in his room tonight. He gets so over-excited whenever he sees Caroline. She realized that she was studying Betty with a grim half smile. Betty seemed to stand straighter. At the corner of her eye, Caroline saw Larry give her sister an admonitory gaze, form a few silent words with his lips. They vanished through the kitchen door. By rote, Caroline sat in the place that had once been hers.
    They ate by candlelight, the tradition of Caroline’s father and his father before him. It played tricks on Caroline’s memory. The light that danced on the crystal chandelier seemed to come from some other evening; the glow in the beveled mirror from Caroline’s childhood. Gazing across the table at her sister, Caroline remembered her father at the head, Betty and Caroline facing each other, Nicole Masters—small and dark and beautiful—at the end opposite her husband. To Caroline now, more sharply than it had then, the image that struck her was of Betty sitting alone, amidst her indifferent stepmother and the half-sister upon whom her father doted. She imagined that Betty’s eyes, meeting her own, still held the jealousy and confusion of the girl who without knowing why—had lost both her mother and Ir primacy. But now the cost of her own motherhood was etched on Betty’s face. Larry broke the silence. Quietly, he said, “Thank you for coming, Caro.” Caroline turned, slowly, staring at him until his gaze flinched. I’m sorry, she imagined him saying. As if to cover this, he murmured, “We know this can’t be easy.” What I know, Caroline thought, is that neither of you wants me here. Her sister’s face was hard. She made no move to join in Larry’s grace note. Caroline put down her fork. “Perhaps it’s best if we try to talk about what happened.” Betty was silent. After a moment, Larry said, “I was gone, Caro. Camping in Vermont.” The slightest glance at Betty. “I’d gone to a trout stream, one a friend at the college put me onto.”
    “By yourself?.” A slow nod, and then he shook his head in wonderment. “I never thought how out of touch it left me …. ” Betty’s mouth had set, Caroline saw. Caroline picked up her glass of red wine and sipped it, studying Betty over the rim. “But you were here,” she said. Betty nodded almost imperceptibly. It was more than the
    strain of her presence, Caroline realized; both Larry and Betty appeared hollowed out by an event they still could not quite accept. When Larry reached to touch Betty’s hand, his wife seemed not to notice. “Who else was here?” Caroline asked. Betty stared at Larry’s hand as if at a foreign object. “Just Father,” she said. “Upstairs.”
    “When did Brett leave?”
    “About eight, I think.” A faint note of impatience. “I really don’t remember.”
    “And neither of you went out—you or Father?”
    “No.”
    “Did you know whine Brett was going?” A sharp look. “Of course not.”
    “‘Of course not’?” Caroline repeated. Larry’s hand tightened on the back of Betty’s. “There were strains,” he interjected. “Over Bret’s relationship to James. Betty bore the brant of it.”
    “Meaning … ?”
    “We fought.” Betty’s voice was flat. “Over this boy’s involvement with drugs—I assume you know about that. Over this boy, period.” Betty leaned back, studying Caroline with new frankness. Did you come here, the look said, to judge me? With an