“It’s time. Having the Farriers rent the place all these years let me drift, but when they decided to move, I knew I had to do something about the house.”
“You won’t be here long, then.” She was aware of a sense of relief. He would go away, and the terrible wound of Annabel’s death would skin over again.
His brows lifted. “Are you eager to see the last of me, Dinah?”
“No.” He was making her feel like that awkward teen again. “I just assumed you’d be in a hurry to get the house on the market and go back to your life, especially with the holidays coming.”
“The holidays,” he repeated, something a little wary in his voice.
“I suppose you and Court have all sorts of plans for Christmas.” She was talking at random, trying to cover her embarrassment.
“Well, he’s past the Santa stage, but he still gets excited.”
“Does he?” For a moment she had a vivid image of the three-year-old he’d been—big dark eyes filled with wonder at the smallest things—a butterfly in the garden or a new puzzle she’d bought him, knowing how much he loved working them. “I’d love to see him.”
Again the words came out before she considered. Marc had made his wishes clear all these years, limiting their contact to cards and gifts. Just because he’d come back didn’t mean anything had changed.
“You’ll get your wish,” Marc said abruptly. “He’s over at the house now, unloading the rental car.”
She could only stare at him. “You’ve brought Court here, to the house where—” She stopped, unable to say the words.
“You think I’m crazy to bring Court back to the house where his mother died.” Marc’s voice was tinged with bitterness, but he could give voice to the thought she couldn’t.
“I’m sorry.” She sought refuge in platitudes. “I’m sure you know what’s best for your son.”
“Do I?” Vulnerability suddenly showed in his normally guarded eyes, disarming her. “I wish I were sure. I thought I knew. I thought the best thing for Court was a whole new life, with nothing to remind him of what he’d lost.”
“So you kept him away from us.” Did he have any idea how much that had hurt?
“Away from you, away from this place.”
Marc surged to his feet as if he couldn’t sit still any longer. He stalked to the window, then turned and came back again. The room seemed too small for him. He stopped in front of her.
“I did what I thought I had to,” he said uncompromisingly. “And it worked. Court was a normal, bright, happy kid, too happy and busy to worry about the past.”
She caught the tense. “Was?”
“Was.” He sat down heavily.
She waited, knowing he’d tell her, whatever it was. She didn’t want to hear, she thought in sudden panic. But it was too late for that.
“Maybe this would have happened anyway,” he said slowly, sounding as if he tried to be fair. “He’s thirteen—it’s a tough age. But when school started in September, one of his teachers assigned a writing project on family history. He started asking questions.”
“About Annabel.”
He nodded. “About her, about her family. About our life here in Charleston. He became obsessed.” He stopped, as if he’d heard what he said and wanted it back. “Not obsessed—that’s not right. I don’t think there’s anything unhealthy about it. He’s curious. He wants to know.”
She swallowed, feeling the lump in her throat at the thought of Annabel’s child. “I remember. He was always curious.”
“Yes.” His face was drawn. “He has to know things. So he told me what he wanted for Christmas.”
He paused, and she had a sense of dread at what he was about to say.
“He wanted to come back to Charleston. That’s all he asked for. To come back here and have Christmas in the house before I sell it.”
“And you said yes.”
“What else could I do?” He leaned toward her, his dark eyes focusing on her face, and that sense of dread deepened. “But it’s more complicated than I thought.”
“What do you mean?”
His hand closed over hers, and she felt his urgency. “I realized something the moment I saw the house again—realized what I’ve been evading all these years. I have to know the truth about Annabel’s death.”
He had shocked Dinah, Marc realized. Or maybe shock wasn’t the right word for her reaction. His years as a prosecutor had taught him to find body language more revealing than speech, and Dinah was withdrawing, protecting herself against him.
Protecting. The word startled him. Dinah didn’t have anything to fear from him.
He deliberately relaxed against the back of the chair, giving her space. Wait. See how she responded to that. See if she would help him or run from him.
He glanced around the room with a sense of wonder. It hadn’t changed since the days when he’d come here to pick up Annabel, and he’d thought it caught in a previous century then. Clearly Kate preferred things the way they had always been.
But Dinah had changed. He remembered so clearly Annabel’s attitude toward her shy young cousin—a mixture of love and a kind of amused exasperation.
She’s such a dreamer. Annabel had lifted her hands in an expressive gesture. She’s impossibly young for her age, and I don’t see how she’s ever going to mature, living in that house with Aunt Kate. Let’s have her here for the summer. She can help out with Court, and maybe I can help her grow up a little.
His heart caught at the memory. I feel it more here, Lord. Is that why I had to come back?
Dinah had certainly grown up. Skin soft as a magnolia blossom, blue-black hair curling to her shoulders, those huge violet eyes. He couldn’t describe her without resorting to the classic Southern clichés. Charleston knew how to grow beautiful women.
Dinah seemed to realize how long the silence had grown. She cleared her throat. “I don’t know what you hope to accomplish at this late date. The police department considers it an unsolved case. I’m sure someone looks at the file now and then, but—” The muscles in her neck worked, as if she had trouble saying those words.
“They’ve written it off, you mean. I haven’t.” He wasn’t doing this very well, maybe because he hadn’t realized what he really wanted until he’d driven down the street and pointed out the house to his son. “Court hasn’t.”
Dinah’s hands were clasped in her lap, so tightly that the skin strained over her knuckles. “There’s nothing left to find after ten years. No one left to talk to about it.”
“There’s you, Dinah. You were there.”
Her face went white with shock, and he knew he’d made a misstep. He shouldn’t have rushed things with her, assumed she’d want what he wanted.
She pushed the words away with both hands. “I didn’t see anything. I don’t know anything. You, of all people, should know that.”
A vivid image filled his mind, fresh as if it had happened yesterday—Dinah’s small form crumpled on the staircase of the house across the street, black hair spilling around her. He’d found her when he’d come home in the early hours of the morning from a trip to track down a witness in one of his cases.
He’d rushed downstairs to the phone,