He glanced down at the envelope, allowing the questions to come unhindered.
Why would somebody be writing to Marydyth at this address? The papers had been full of the details of her trial—the details and those names: the Black Widow and Murdering Mary.
The public had turned on Marydyth with the same vigor they had once pursued her. And the very ones that had been so happy to be guests in her home, to have attended the fancy dances and dinners, suddenly didn’t know her name.
“Unca Flynn, the table is all cleared.” Rachel’s voice drifted down the hallway.
He shoved the letter in his pocket. He would have to deal with the letter later. Right now his main priority was caring for Rachel.
As sundown came to the prison, the oppressive heat of the day vanished. Within an hour Marydyth was shivering in the cold.
She turned on her hard, rickety cot and closed her eyes. The hand she rubbed her face with was rough, callused and dry as the desert around Yuma. There had been a time when Marydyth’s hands had been soft, white, delicate, J.C. had called them.
Marydyth smiled and thought of her husband. There had been a time when the most important question she and J.C. shared was how many beaux they would allow to call once their darling daughter began receiving. Now each night when Marydyth lay down to sleep, the first and last thought in her head was a prayer for Rachel’s happiness. It was all that kept her sane.
Once more J.C.’s face came to her mind. She remembered their wedding day, all bright sun and giggling anticipation. J.C. had given her his name on that day.
“Marydyth Hollenbeck. It suits, I think,” he had said. Then he had smiled, creating a dimple in his cheek.
Did Rachel have a dimple? Marydyth tried to visualize Rachel’s face, how it would have changed and matured during the time she had been away.
As an infant Rachel’s hair had held the promise of reddish highlights. Would it be blond or would it shine like an Arizona sunset? Would it flash with auburn fire?
A smile tugged at the corners of Marydyth’s mouth. For a short march of time she was able to forget her environment. In her mind, if not her battered body, she could rise up from the depths of Yuma’s hellhole and live through the hopes and dreams she cherished for Rachel.
Her little girl would be a beauty, of that Marydyth had no doubt. And she would be a lady.
Victoria would see to it.
Rachel would never have to go to bed hungry. And she would never have to worry about money.
But would she be loved?
Would Victoria be able to put aside the poison of her hatred and embrace Rachel? Or would the bitterness of J.C.’s death be a blight on Rachel’s life?
The chilling question made Marydyth shiver more than the bleak cold of the Arizona desert. Would Victoria be able to love the daughter of a woman convicted of killing two husbands?
The moon rose and sent a silvery shaft of light through Rachel’s frilly starched curtains. Flynn had opened the window halfway to allow a little fresh air into her room while he got her ready for bed. Now she was tucked up and listening to him with a look of pure fascination on her face.
“…and the little princess lived happily ever after.” Flynn closed the slender volume and placed it on the table beside Rachel’s bed. He leaned close to give her a kiss on the forehead.
“That was a nice story.” She yawned and stretched, nearly giving him a shiner with her small clenched fist.
“You ought to know it by heart, as many times as you’ve had me read it. I think tomorrow you can read it to me.”
“Unca Flynn, I can’t read!” Rachel giggled and snuggled down in her feather bed.
“No? All right, then maybe I’ll read it one more time—but that’s all. Now it is time to say your prayers and get some shut-eye.” Flynn helped Rachel out of her bed. She knelt beside it with her head bowed. Delicate pink toes peeked from under the edge of her yellow flannel gown.
“Dear Lord, bless Grandma, Unca Flynn and Carolee Martin’s baby goat.”
Flynn nearly guffawed, but he supposed that God was as interested in Carolee’s kid as he was every other living thing.
Rachel didn’t say anything else for a long time, and finally Flynn cleared his throat to hurry her along.
“And please bless my mama, and if it isn’t too much trouble, Lord, please send her back home from wherever it was that she had to go. Amen.” She scampered under the quilt and closed her eyes without meeting Flynn’s stunned gaze.
So, Rachel had decided to enlist the help of the Almighty in getting a mother—her mother.
Flynn leaned over and tucked the covers beneath her chin. “Good night, little one.”
She squeezed her eyes tight and burrowed into the softness of her eider coverlet. “Good night, Unca Flynn.” She yawned again.
He picked up the lamp and walked to the doorway but something made him pause at the threshold and look at her. She was lying flat on her back with her eyes squeezed shut. The moonlight skimmed over her little turned-up nose and her square chin.
She was beginning to favor her mother.
Flynn nudged the unwanted thought aside. It would do Rachel no favor to become the beauty her mother was. In fact, he feared that the good people of Hollenbeck Corners would start treating her like a pariah if she started to remind them of Marydyth.
He shook himself and turned away from Rachel’s door. It wasn’t like him to be so damned maudlin. Must be old Charlie’s babbling, bringing up the past.
What he needed was a stiff drink and a smoke. And now that Rachel was fed, bathed and tucked in for the night he was going to have one.
He crept down the stairs on tiptoe, taking care to keep his spurs from ringing on the treads. He went into the study—the only room in the rambling mansion that he had ever felt really comfortable in.
Flynn pulled the makings from his shirt pocket and rolled a smoke. It dangled unlit from his lips while he poured himself two fingers of good whiskey.
Old Doc Scoggins had told him that smoking shortened the life span. Course, Doc Scoggins never had a puff of tobacco in his life and he dropped dead during church services only two months back. But Flynn had not wanted to take any chances—for Rachel’s sake. He had stopped smoking—at least he had stopped lighting them—but he hadn’t stopped rolling them.
Every night as he went through the ritual he told himself it was foolish to cling to his tobacco habit like a sugar-tit, but he got a certain amount of stubborn comfort from rolling a smoke, even if he never lit up.
He laid the unlit cigarette in the ashtray and took a drink. The first sip blazed a hot trail down his gullet and sent a flash of hot lethargy to his limbs. There had been some days in the past two and a half years when he had wondered how women managed to raise a houseful of children without getting roaring drunk once a week.
The thought had finally come to him that men and women were different in more ways than the obvious one—otherwise they would be a pack of falling-down drunks. Motherhood was damned hard work.
He collapsed into the big easy chair by the fireplace, cursing the leather for creaking like a riled cat under his weight. He held his breath and cocked his head, listening.
When the house remained silent, he let out a relieved breath. The noise had