Search the Dark. Marta Perry

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      CHAPTER TWO

      MARGO SLIPPED AWAY from the kitchen door, her terry-cloth slippers making no sound at all. But she wouldn’t be heard in any event. Meredith had gone out on the back porch with her friend. She’d never know her mother had been out of bed at all.

      A lady doesn’t eavesdrop. It wasn’t polite. But what was she to do when her own daughter kept secrets from her?

      Margo’s anger flickered as she made her way up the stairs, her hand on the railing for support. Really, Meredith should have better sense, but it certainly wasn’t her fault. No one could say that Margo hadn’t done her best to raise her only daughter properly.

      It was a mother’s duty to protect her child, even when that child was an unmarried woman of thirty. She winced, Meredith’s age reminding her uncomfortably of just how old she was. Still, her friends assured her she didn’t look a day over fifty.

      Margo padded into her bedroom, sending a satisfied glance at her image in the mirror. Like a Dresden doll, her father had said of her the evening she’d gone to her first dance. Certainly the boys had agreed. She’d had her pick of boyfriends. If only she hadn’t imagined herself in love with John King....

      She fluffed up her pillows and settled back against them, frowning a little. The issue now was Meredith, and how she could be protected from her weakness where Zachary Randal was concerned.

      Good riddance to bad rubbish—that was what people had said when he’d left town all those years ago. Margo had bathed in a glow of righteousness for weeks over her role in making his departure come about. Zach had left, and Meredith had been protected from him. Goodness only knew what might have happened if Margo hadn’t intervened when she did.

      She’d been so sure the incident was closed after all these years. Who could have imagined that Randal boy would dare to show his face in Deer Run again?

      Her breath came too quickly, and Margo forced herself to relax. She mustn’t upset herself or she’d bring on one of her attacks, and then she wouldn’t be able to do anything to save Meredith from herself.

      Meredith was still in danger of succumbing to Randal’s dubious attractions. Margo didn’t doubt that for a minute. There was simply something about one’s first love that blinded one.

      She glanced at the silver-framed photo of John that stood on the bedside table. John hadn’t liked having it taken—some silly hangover from his Amish upbringing. But she’d had no patience with that foolishness and had insisted.

      Enough of thinking about the past. She had to decide what to do now. Meredith and Rachel had brought up two distasteful matters in their private little chat.

      Why were they so fascinated with Aaron Mast’s death? It had been an accident, pure and simple. Everyone knew that. As for Sarah asking Meredith to look into it—well, that was just ridiculous, and no more than one could expect from her husband’s relatives.

      Meredith couldn’t possibly know anything about what happened the night Aaron drowned in the pond. She hadn’t even been at home. She’d spent the night with another of John’s numerous cousins, at his insistence. If Margo had had her way, Meredith would have had no communication with those people. But John, usually so compliant and eager to please her, had stood firm on that subject.

      Margo sifted through memories. Odd, how some incidents formed landmarks in a person’s mind. She remembered that night clearly because of what had happened early the next morning. She’d gone downstairs to find Bill Kramer, his fishing rod still dangling from his hand, pounding on the back door and insisting on using the telephone because someone was dead in the pond.

      Margo pulled the silky comforter up to her chin. The accident had probably happened in the late evening, people had said. Meredith hadn’t been home, thank goodness. John hadn’t, either. He’d gone back to the harness shop to work on an order.

      Margo’s lips tightened at the remembered grievance. All the men in her family had been professionals—doctor, pharmacist, teacher—but John had insisted on opening his harness business right here in Deer Run. Worse, he’d left her alone in the house the evening that boy had drowned.

      Still, his callousness had an unexpected benefit now. If anyone in the family knew anything about the Mast boy’s death, she would.

      Margo glanced at the window, shielded by the shade Meredith had pulled down. It faced the driveway, down which someone might have walked to reach the creek. People shouldn’t trespass, of course, but they did. And the window would have been open on a summer evening.

      Memories began to stir and shift in her mind. Consider how satisfying it would be if Margo was the one who remembered something important about that night. It would certainly show Meredith she wasn’t the only smart one in the family.

      Margo leaned back against the pillows, indulging in a rosy daydream. Of herself, the heroine of the hour, graciously telling her story to a chosen few. Of Meredith, looking on admiringly.

      As long as she was dreaming, she might just as well dream of a means of getting rid of Zach Randal again, this time for good.

      * * *

      ZACH ARRIVED RIGHT ON TIME for his meeting with the attorney the next day. Evans and Son. The gilt letters on the window of the office weren’t exactly a surprise. Jake Evans had been slotted to go into his father’s law firm from the day he was born, he’d bet.

      Zach paused for a second, his hand on the doorknob, remembering. Jake had been in his class in school, so they were about the same age. There the similarity between them ended.

      Jake had been one of the “in” crowd, the people who lived in the big old houses along Maple Street and Main Street, the ones whose fathers had worn coats and ties to work every day, who never had to wonder if there’d be food in the house.

      The “in” crowd hadn’t had much time for somebody like Zach Randal in those days. He didn’t figure much had changed in that respect, СКАЧАТЬ