Shakespeare's Christmas (Lily Bard #3)

"Yes."

I could feel my mouth compress in a hard line and my eyes narrow, in what my friend Marshall had once called my "fist face."

"What kind of knife?"

"Some kind of single-blade kitchen knife, looked like, but we have to wait on the autopsy to be sure. We haven't found any kind of knife."

"Did you go in the Osborns' house?"

"Sure. We had to see if the killer was in there, and the back door was unlocked."

"So someone had made a noise, or called Meredith out of the house... ?"

He shrugged. "Something like that, we figure. She wasn't scared. She would have stayed in the house and locked the back door if she'd been scared. She could have called us. The phone was working, I checked. Instead, she went outside."

Unspoken between us lay the inescapable conclusion that Meredith had seen someone she knew and trusted in the yard.

"When does Emory say he left the house?"

"About seven. He had the two little girls. He wanted to give his wife some time to herself, he said. She'd had a hard time with the baby's birth, wasn't getting her strength back, and so on."

I raised my brows.

"Yes, the waitress confirms that Emory got to the restaurant about five after. It took about forty-five minutes for Emory and Eve to eat, and then the baby woke up and Emory gave her a bottle, burped her, the whole nine yards. So they left the restaurant maybe fifteen minutes after eight. Emory had some things to pick up at the Kmart, so he took the girls with him in there, and they got some vitamins and other junk... that brings us up to around eight-fifty, nine o'clock, somewhere in there."

"Then he comes home."

"Then he comes home," Chandler agreed. "He was mighty tore up. Turned white as a sheet."

"You had already searched the house?"

"Yes, had to. Didn't find any evidence anyone but the family had been in it. Nothing suspicious in any way. No forced entry, no threatening messages in the answering machine, no sign of a struggle ... a big zero."

"Chandler ..." I hesitated. But I could think of no other way to find out. "Did you search his car?"

Chandler shifted in his seat. "No. Do you think we should have?"

"Did you ask Eve if her dad had stopped back by the house for anything?"

"I did my best to ask her that. I had to be real careful how I put it, didn't want the girl to think we figured her dad had done it. She's just eight!" Chandler looked at me angrily, as if that were my doing.

"What did she say?" I asked, keeping my voice very quiet and level.

"She said they went to the restaurant. Period. Then to Kmart. Period."

I nodded, looked away. "Where was Jess O'Shea?" I asked.

I could feel the heat of Chandler's glare even though I was looking over at the chipped Formica counter.

"Dave asked Emory what church he went to, and when he said Presbyterian, we called Jess," Chandler said slowly. "Lou said he was over in his office counseling a member of the congregation."

"Did you call over there?"

"Yes."

"Get an answer?"

"Yes. But he said he couldn't come right that second."

I wondered if Jess had actually come over to the Osborns' house that night. I couldn't remember if the scene between him and Emory the next day had given me a sense of an original encounter or a continuation of a dialogue begun the night before. I had been so embarrassed that I had tried to block out their conversation.

"Did he give a reason?"

"I just assumed he had to finish talking to whoever was there."

The upshot was, Jess had been away from home and the police had not asked him to account for his time. There was no reason why they should, from their point of view.

Varena had told me Dill was going to spend the evening at home with Anna. I didn't think Dill was the kind of father who'd leave Anna in the house by herself, but he could have worked it out somehow, I guessed. I wondered if I could think of a way to ask questions that wouldn't make red flags go up in Varena's mind.

"Lily, if someone's safety is at stake, or if you have any idea at all who killed that poor woman, you are legally obliged to tell me. Morally, too."

I looked into Chandler's round brown eyes. I'd known this man my whole life, been friends with him, off and on, that long. When I'd come home to Bartley after my spectacular victimization and subsequent media bath, Chandler had been a constant visitor. He'd been between marriages, and we had gone out to eat together, ridden around together, spent time together so I could get away from my family and their love that was just choking me.

During that time, seven years ago, we had also shared a horribly embarrassing evening in the big pickup Chandler had been driving then. But I was sure we both did our best not to remember that.

"I don't know the identity of anyone who is in danger," I said carefully. "I don't know who killed Meredith." That was absolutely true.

"You should tell me everything you know," Chandler said, his voice so low and intent it was as scary as a snake's rattle.

My hands, resting on the worn gray and pink Formica of the table's surface, clenched into hard fists. My heels dug into the wooden base of the booth, giving me launching power. A startled look crossed Chandler's face, and he leaned away from me.

"What's in your mind?" he asked sharply, and he brushed his empty plate to one side without taking his eyes off me, clearing his own deck for action.

For once, I was anxious to explain myself. But I couldn't. I took a couple of deep breaths, made myself relax.

"You love this man," he said.

I started to shake my head side to side: no. But I said, "Yes."

"This is the one."

I nodded, a jerky little up-and-down movement.

"And he doesn't ... he can handle... what happened to you?"

"He doesn't mind the scars," I said, my voice as light and smooth as the changing scenery of a dream.

Chandler turned red. His eyes left mine, focused on the pattern of the Formica.

"It's OK," I told him, just above a whisper.

"Does he ... does he know how lucky he is?" Chandler asked, not able to think of any other way of asking me if Jack loved me back.

"I don't know."

"Lily, if you want me to have a serious talk with this joker, just say the word." And he really meant it. I looked at Chandler with new eyes. This man would put himself through a humiliating conversation and not think twice about it.

"Will you make him go down on one knee and swear to forsake all others?" I was smiling a little, I couldn't help it.

"Damn straight."

This, too, he meant.

"What a great guy you are," I said. All the aggression leaked out of me, as if I was a balloon with a pinhole. "You've been talking with Jack, haven't you?"

"He's an ex-cop, and no matter how his career ended," and Chandler flushed uncomfortably since Jack had not exactly left the Memphis police force under creditable circumstances, "Jack Leeds was a good detective and made some good arrests. I called the Memphis cops, talked to a friend of mine there, as soon as I realized who he was."

That was interesting. Chandler had known Jack was in town probably before I did - and had checked up on him.

"Fact is, the only thing this guy knew against Jack was that he'd hooked up with a shady cleaning lady," Chandler said with a grin.

I grinned back. All the tension was gone, and we were old friends together. Without asking, Chandler paid for my milkshake and his meal, and I slid out of the booth and into my coat.

When he dropped me off at home, Chandler gave me a kiss on the cheek. We hadn't said another word about Meredith Osborn, or Dr. LeMay, or Jack. I knew Chandler had backed off only because he owed me, on some level: The last time we'd been together had been a terrible evening for both of us. Whatever the reason, I was grateful. But I knew that if Chandler thought I was concealing something that would contribute to solving the murders that had taken place in the town he was sworn to protect, he would come down on me like a ton of bricks.

We might be old friends, but we were both weighted down with adult burdens.

Jack didn't call.

That night I lay sleepless, my arms rigidly at my sides, watching the bars of moonlight striping the ceiling of my old room. It was the distillation of the all the bad nights I'd had in the past seven years; except in my parents' house, I could not resort to my usual methods of escape and relief. Finally I got up, sat in the little slipper chair in the corner of the room, and turned on the lamp.

I'd finished my biography. Luckily I'd brought some paperbacks with me from Varena's, anticipating just such a night... not that I would have picked these books if I'd had much choice. The first was a book of advice on dealing with your stepchildren, and the second was a historical romance. Its cover featured a guy with an amazing physique. I stared at his bare, hairless chest with its immense pectorals, wondering if even my sensei's musculature would match this man's. I found it very unlikely that a sensible fighting man would wear his shirt halfway off his shoulders in that inconvenient and impractical way, and I thought it even sillier that his lady friend would choose to try to embrace him when he was leaning down from a horse. I calculated his weight, the angle of his upper body, and the pull she was exerting. I factored in the high wind blowing her hair out in a fan, and decided Lord Robert Dumaury was going to end up on the ground at Phillipetta Dunmore's feet within seconds, probably dislocating his shoulder in the process... and that's if he was lucky. I shook my head.

So I plowed through the advice, learning more about being a new mother to a growing not-your-own child than I ever wanted to know. This paperback showed serious signs of being read and reread. I hoped it would be of more use to Varena than Ms. Dunmore's adventures with Pectoral Man.

I would have given anything for a good thick biography.

I got halfway through the book before sleep overcame me. I was still in the chair, the lamp still on, when I woke at seven to the sounds of my family stirring.

I felt exhausted, almost too tired to move.

I did some push-ups, tried some leg lifts. But my muscles felt slack and weak, as if I were recovering from major surgery. Slowly, I pulled on my sweats. I'd committed my morning to cleaning Dill's house. But instead of rising and getting into the bathroom, I sat back in the chair with my face covered by my hands.

Being involved in this child abduction felt so wrong, so bad, but for my family's sake I couldn't imagine what else I could do. With a sigh of sheer weariness, I hauled myself to my feet and opened the bedroom door to reenter my family's life.

It was like dipping your toes into a quiet pond, only to have a whirlpool suck you under.

Since this was the day before the wedding, Mother and Varena had every hour mapped out. Mother had to go to the local seamstress's house to pick up the dress she planned to wear tomorrow: It had required hemming. She had to drop in on the caterer to go over final arrangements for the reception. She and Varena had to take Anna to a friend's birthday party, and then to pick up Anna's flower girl dress, which was being shipped to the local Penney's catalog store after some delay. (Due to a last-minute growth spurt, Anna's fancy dress, bought months before, was now too tight in the shoulders, so Varena had had to scour catalogs for a quickly purchasable substitute.) Both Varena and my mother were determined that Anna should try the dress on instantly.

The list of errands grew longer and longer. I found myself tuning out after the first few items. Dill dropped Anna off to run errands with Varena and Mom, and Anna and I sat together at the kitchen table in the strange peace that lies at the eye of the storm.

"Is getting married always like this, Aunt Lily?" Anna asked wearily.

"No. You can just elope."

"Elope? Like the animal?"

"It's like an antelope only in that you run fast. When you elope, the man and woman who are getting married get in the car and drive somewhere and get married where nobody knows them. Then they come home and tell their families."

"I think that's what I'm gonna do," Anna told me.

"No. Have a big wedding. Pay them back for all this," I advised.

Anna grinned. "I'll invite everyone in the whole town," she said. "And Little Rock, too!"

"That'll do it." I nodded approvingly.

"Maybe in the whole world."

"Even better."

"Do you have a boyfriend, Aunt Lily?" Yes.

"Does he write you notes?" Anna made a squeezed face, like she felt she was asking a stupid question, but she wanted to know the answer anyway.

"He calls me on the phone," I said. "Sometimes."

"Does he..." Anna was rummaging in her brain for other things grown-up boyfriends might do. "Does he send you flowers and candy?"

"He hasn't yet."

"What does he do to show you he likes you?"

Couldn't share that with an eight-year-old. "He hugs me," I told her.

"Ewwww. Does he kiss you?"

"Yeah, sometimes."

"Bobby Mitzer kissed me," Anna said in a whisper.

"No kidding? Did you like it?"

"Ewwww."

"Maybe he's just not the right guy," I said, and we smiled at each other.

Then Mom and Verena told Anna they had been ready to go for minutes and inquired why she was still sitting at the table as if we had all day.

"You can manage at Dill's by yourself, can't you?" Varena asked anxiously. She'd returned from dropping Anna off at the party, complete with present. "You sure don't have to do it if you don't want to."