Free Murder At The Mendel by Gail Bowen Page A

life. Jo, ittook me three seconds to give him my answer. I’ve put my house in Toronto on the market. It looks as if you and Stuart are stuck with me.”
    I felt my heart sink. “That’s great news,” I said weakly.
    Puzzled, Nina looked at me. “I thought you’d be thrilled, Jo. I know I was, at the thought that after all these years, you and I’d be in the same city again, able to pick up the phone and meet for lunch or tea or go for a walk.”
    “I am thrilled,” I said. “One of the best Christmas gifts I could have would be having you here permanently. It’s just … has anyone thought about what Sally might want in all of this?”
    “Sally always thinks enough about Sally for all of us,” Nina said sharply. “Damn it, Jo, she made her decision when she walked out on Stuart and Taylor. She didn’t go alone you know. She went with a student of hers, a boy of seventeen. It didn’t last, of course. Do you know the joke that went around the gallery? ‘Someone told Sally Love it was time she thought about having another child. So she went out and had herself a seventeen-year-old boy.’ You should have seen Stuart’s face the first time he heard that. He came home looking like a whipped dog. No, Jo, we haven’t given much thought to Sally in all this, or perhaps I can put it more acceptably, we’ve given her about as much thought as she gave us.” Her face, usually so expressive, was a mask.
    I reached out to embrace her, and she turned away. “Nina, don’t,” I said. “Don’t be angry at me.”
    She took my hands in hers again. “I could never be angry at you, Jo.”
    “And don’t be angry at Sally. She wants what’s best for Taylor, too. And she has her own worries right now. Did you hear her gallery burned down last night?”
    “Of course. It was all over this evening’s paper. Stu thinksit must have been some sort of retaliation for Erotobiography. Sally’s always chosen to live on the edge, Jo. And if you live on the edge, you have to accept consequences. I’m just glad she’s out of this house. It wouldn’t have been much of a Christmas for Taylor being stalked by a lunatic.” She stood up and smoothed her hair. “I don’t want to talk about this any more. Come on, let’s go downstairs. We have one last Christmas Eve surprise.”
    We came back to a scene of perfect holiday harmony. The boys and Stu were sprawled on the floor in front of the fireplace looking at baseball cards, and Mieka and Taylor were sitting side by side at the coffee table, drawing butterflies.
    It was Nina who broke the spell.
    “All right, Taylor,” she said. “Time to come into the dining room for the big moment.”
    “The next event calls for champagne,” Stuart said, filling five glasses and splashing two more. “Now you Kilbourns stand right there in front of the French doors, and I’ll go back into the dining room and let you know when we’re ready.”
    The kids and I stood obediently, with that self-conscious air of celebration that comes when you’re holding a glass of champagne. Someone turned off the lights; the doors to the dining room were flung open, and we were confronted with the extravagance of the Lachlan family Christmas tree.
    It was a plantation pine, full and ceiling high; its fragrant, soft needles had the fresh green of new growth, but everything else was pink. There were dozens of dusty pink velvet bows tied to the branches, and each of them held a shining pink globe. And there were candles, pink, lit candles that sputtered a fatal hairbreadth away from pine needles, and there were pink roses, real ones suspended from the pine branches in tiny vials of water that glistened in the candlelight. Beside the tree, Stu and Nina and Taylor stood, handslinked. “We wish you a merry Christmas,” they sang in their thin, unprofessional voices, and I felt a sense of dread so knife-sharp it sent the room spinning.
    “Steady,” Peter said, and I felt his arm around my shoulder. The