Patti Standard - His Perfect Family

“It’s all blown over now, thank God,” she said. “It seems one of Harvey’s clients had some money siphoned from an account, twenty-five thousand dollars, actually, and naturally they questioned everybody they could think of. Since they couldn’t ask Harvey, they had to ask me, of course, but how could I help? Harvey was a one-man office — he didn’t even have a secretary. He kept his own books, made his own appointments, filed his own files....”

The frosting was crisscrossed with deep slashes by now. “Anyway, the police and this insurance man made my life hell for a while, but finally they went away. I haven’t heard any more about it, so that’s the end of it, I guess.”

“It must have been tough. All the questions —”

“How long had we been married? What kind of husband was he? Had I noticed any unusual behavior?” She dropped the fork and shoved her plate away, glaring at him as if he were the one asking the questions. “How dare they! Harvey was a brilliant accountant, I told them. A wonderful husband! We were married fifteen wonderful years. We were high-school sweethearts—I dropped out of college to marry him, for God’s sake. He was the love of my life. How dare they ask about...about the things they did! He was a good man. A good father.”

She used the same words her mother had used to describe her own father — and didn’t realize it, Cutter saw with amazement. And judging by the grim determination in her voice, he doubted they were any more true about Harvey Rhodes than they’d been about her father. Lisa certainly didn’t think so. Poor Lisa thought she was in her own Star Trek episode.

After twenty years, he could tell a truth from a lie any day of the week. Her ardent defense of her husband rang so false it set his teeth on edge. He’d bet his life something had been wrong with her marriage, but as for the money? Did she have it or know where it was? Of that, he couldn’t be so sure. Not yet.

Adrianne watched Cutter take the last bite of cake. Her stomach twisted in on itself, too sick with nerves to eat. She’d had no idea Lisa knew anything about Harvey and the money. Why in God’s name had Lisa chosen now, in front of Cutter, to ask about it? She focused on Cutter’s strong, broad fingers holding his fork, remembered the comforting feel of them on the back of her neck. Maybe Lisa had felt it was safer to bring up the subject with him there as a buffer. Something about Cutter seemed safe and secure — maybe it was the military posture or those steady eyes that told you he knew all about secrets.

For that matter, why had she talked to him about Harvey? She’d told no one except Blanche about the money, the police, the questions.... “You want to stay for supper?” she asked, suddenly dreading the conversation she’d have to have with Lisa. Sometimes it was a good idea to have a stranger around after all. “I’ve got enough lasagna to feed an army.”

“No, thank you,” he said politely. “In fact, I’d better call it a day.”

After Cutter left, rolling his cords and neatly stacking his tools, Adrianne wandered around the kitchen, stomach churning. Lately, whenever her mother insisted on recalling some wonderful memory of her childhood, she felt this mixture of sadness and anger, of rage too close to the surface. She’d thought she’d dealt with all the baggage of an alcoholic father years ago. She’d thought she’d come to terms with the past and the way her mother chose to handle it.

Blanche conveniently managed to forget the fights, the broken promises, the disappointment when her father had chosen the bottle over them. In Blanche’s southern-to-the-core world, the only appropriate response to How are you? was Fine, just fine.

Depression dragged her down while anxiety wound her up, a double-edged feeling that had been her constant companion these past months. Longer than that, she corrected herself, staring unseeing out the window over the sink. Ever since that first phone call with its soft breathing that never answered her hello. She’d asked Harvey about that one, and the next and the next. But after that, she’d just smiled and said everything was fine, just fine.

She turned from the sink and walked with quick determination up the stairs — the whole time wishing she wouldn’t. But it was like picking at a scab. It hurt, but you couldn’t leave it alone. She passed Lisa’s door and went quietly into the spare bedroom. Bending down, she opened the lid of the cedar chest pushed against the wall and took out a plastic bag, Little Rock. Police Department stamped across it in smudged blue ink.

She carried the bag into her bedroom, shut the door behind her and sank down on the bed. She really didn’t want to look again. Unzipping the plastic seal, she reached inside, ignoring the wallet, the comb, the tie clip, and pulled out an airline ticket folder. She didn’t want to see it again, neatly typed in the destination line. Dallas — Fort Worth International Airport.

One-way.

Unable to stop, she reached into the bag again and took out the sandal. Red. Siren red. Slender, very high, spiked heel. Wispy straps across the toes, one around the heel. She kicked off her loafer and, careful to keep her sock on, slipped her foot into the shoe. She lifted her leg and examined it hanging from her toes.

It was two sizes too small.

Chapter Three

She’d be slim. Great legs. Short, tight skirts. Anyone who wore heels like that had to have great legs. She’d wear low-cut sweaters, and her implants would bubble up, on the verge of spilling over. A blonde? Redhead? That she didn’t know. Adrianne let the sandal slip off and fall to the floor. She stared at it as it lay on its side on the beige carpet — slinky, sly, as seductively dangerous as a serpent.

She knew the woman’s voice. Once she’d actually had the nerve to ask for Harvey instead of hanging up in Adrianne’s ear. It had been a husky, breathy voice, one that matched the shoe perfectly. She knew the woman’s scent, could almost smell it now, rising from the shoe, seeping from the plastic bag. That dark, musky perfume had come home with Harvey from every business trip, no matter if it was to Wichita or Oklahoma City or Memphis.

Idly, Adrianne wondered if Harvey had ever really gone to any of those cities, or if every supposed business trip was actually a quickie in Dallas. Or maybe she met him in all those cities, all those hotels, all those king-size, floral-print-covered beds, Gideon Bibles tucked away in the nightstand.

She picked up the sandal by the heel, using two fingers, and dropped it back in the bag. For a long time, she held the weight of it on her lap, all that was left of her husband, all that was left of her marriage. Then she got up and stuffed the bag in the top drawer of her dresser, deep beneath her panties and bras.

She stuffed her pain and anger just as deeply inside her and took a long, slow breath. She had to talk to Lisa. Tell her everything was fine. It had to be, because right now she was too angry for it to be anything else.

The new-home smell of wet paint greeted Cutter as he pushed open the front door with his foot, his arms around two sacks from the lumberyard. The late-afternoon sunlight was still full and warm on his back. An icy Dos Equis, listening to the traffic go by out on his deck, sounded a lot more appealing than breathing paint fumes for the rest of a Friday afternoon.

“Cutter? Is that you?” Adrianne appeared at the top of the stairs, paintbrush in hand. But that brush was the only sign that she’d spent the afternoon painting. Her hair, instead of stuck sensibly under a cap, fell around her shoulders with a casual wave that he knew wasn’t casual at all. It was too perfect. And her makeup... What was she wearing makeup for? She was alone in the house, working her butt off, hanging from a stepladder. Yet her eyelashes were darkened, her cheeks tinted — and he’d never seen her when she didn’t present just such a polished package. Not once the entire week. And this was on vacation!

Somehow, that very perfection made her seem vulnerable, achingly so. The more she armored herself, the more he felt the urge to shelter her.

“What is it? Do I have paint on my nose?”

“Nope.” He set the bags on the floor, annoyed he’d been caught staring, annoyed at his protective thoughts. The woman had started to get under his skin after a week in each other’s back pockets. A week of reading her mail, leafing through her photo albums, prying into every nook and cranny of her life. A week of sharing coffee in the morning and lunch at noon, talking, teasing — okay, mildly flirting. He told himself again it was all part of the job, to gain her confidence, her trust. That’s what he told himself. All part of the job.

But he hadn’t dared touch her again.

“Your father called while you were gone. He said to remind you you’re eating at their house tonight.”

“Not likely I’d forget that. The rest of the week, it’s nothing but TV dinners.”

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