At the funeral, Olivia knew there would be questions about who Willie and her daughter were. If she told the truth, all sympathy would go to the wife. Olivia was the wronged woman. She’d given her life to Alan and his son, Kevin—and everyone in town knew that. And what thanks did she get? Her husband had set up housekeeping with a woman who was older, plainer, and less intelligent than Olivia. Unappreciative bastard!
Yes, Olivia could have made people hate Alan Trumbull. She could have played the martyr and gained lots of sympathy.
But only she knew the truth about her part in it. She decided not to sully her husband’s memory.
It was only when the will was read that Olivia got a true shock. With the help of a prestigious law firm in Richmond, starting the moment he knew he was dying, Alan had managed to get everything put into his name—and he’d left the entire business to his son. Olivia got the house that she had found and remodeled, and she got the retirement plan that she had set up. But everything else went to Kevin. As for Willie and her daughter, Alan had made a trust fund for them years before.
For a while, Olivia had been so angry at how he’d tricked her into signing papers, that she was tempted to tell people about his second family. To destroy the memory of Alan being a “nice guy” would get him back in a big way.
For the second time, she didn’t do it. Alan, so very cowardly in life, had found the courage to tell Olivia what he thought of years of being on the receiving end of her managing his life. In death he’d taken away what had kept Olivia so occupied that she couldn’t think about the summer of 1970—and the aftermath of it.
She turned the keys over to her stepson, then tried to occupy herself. Gardening, church work, cooking for fund-raisers. She did them all. She became the person who was asked for help whenever anything was needed.
The town considered her a saint. She’d done so much for Alan and Kevin, and now she was dedicating herself to the town. Did the woman ever think about herself? they wondered.
As for Kevin, Olivia did her best to stay out of his life. When he left the stores to run themselves, she said nothing. When he married a woman who ordered him about, Olivia felt it was her fault. It’s what she had made Kevin think a wife should be.
Nor did she speak out when she saw Kevin and his wife, Hildy, spend masses. House, cars, trips, lavish wardrobes. The appliance stores faltered, then failed—and Kevin was left deeply in debt.
When Olivia sold her house, cashed in her retirement plan, and bailed her stepson out of debt, the townspeople began to speak her name in whispers. A true saint of a woman.
Olivia moved into a back bedroom of Kevin and Hildy’s big house—the one Olivia had paid off—and “helped out,” meaning that she more or less became their unpaid servant.
That had lasted for fourteen months, then Kit Montgomery had returned to town, put up his theater, and everything changed.
Except for the damaged lives, Olivia thought. Broken lives could never be fully healed.
Chapter Three
“Hi.”
Startled, Olivia sat up and saw young Elise standing a few feet away.
“I didn’t mean to scare you. I was out walking and I saw a bit of yellow and...” She shrugged.
Olivia’s blouse was a pale yellow, her slacks a dark brown, not bright enough to be a beacon that was easily seen through the trees. It looked like Elise had been searching for her. “Are you hiding from Ray or your husband?”
Elise smiled. “Both. Ray is stomping around, looking for something, but I can’t imagine what. And...” She hesitated. “By now my family knows I’m missing. They’ll be searching for me.”
Olivia tried to imagine the enormity of being pursued by... What? The police? Had the girl been labeled as an escapee from a mental institution? Said to possibly be dangerous? “What will happen if they find you?”
“I don’t know. Jeanne said that what they’re doing is illegal, but my father paid for a wing on the clinic, so I don’t think anyone will listen to me. I have no money of my own, and—”
She broke off because Olivia put her arm out to the side. Elise sat beside her on the little stone wall and let Olivia hold her.
“What did your husband do to make you so angry?”
“He loved someone else,” Elise said simply. “He married me because our mothers have been best friends since college, and my father gave Kent a job and a house and...”
She was crying and Olivia guessed that she’d done a lot of that.
“I’m sorry.” Elise sat up straight. “I don’t mean to dump my problems on you. You’re so perfect and elegant, while my life is as sordid as something on 20/20.”
“Doesn’t that show deal with murders?”
“I’m sure Kent has thought about that with me,” Elise muttered. Olivia looked at her in alarm.
“I’m kidding. Kent would never kill me. If he did, Dad would probably fire him. Maybe. And if I wasn’t his cover, Kent wouldn’t get to screw around with Carmen. And who would he present to the world without me? I’m the image he wants people to see. Not the gardener’s sister.”
“Ah,” Olivia said. “Carmen gets the passion while you get the ladies’ luncheons that further your husband’s career.”
Elise groaned. “I’m twenty-five years old and already I’m a cliché.” Olivia couldn’t help laughing.
“It’s not funny.” Elise sniffed. “Well, maybe it is a little.” She gave a bit of a smile, then buried her face in her hands. “What am I going to do? I don’t know how to solve this.”
Olivia took Elise’s hands in hers and looked at her. “We’re going to fix this. There are many lawyers in my husband’s family and we’ll set all of them on this. They’ll be like wolves going after lambs. How does that sound?”
“Can I go after Carmen too? She came to my wedding. I felt so sorry for her because she kept throwing up. I knew she was pregnant, but I had no idea my husband was the father.”
“She didn’t, by chance, have a girl, did she?”
Elise’s pretty eyes widened. “She did. How do you know that?” She jerked her hands out of Olivia’s grasp. “You aren’t with them, are you? Did you—?”
“No,” Olivia said calmly. “But it appears that you and I have some things in common. Alan, my late husband, has a daughter named Alana. She was born four years after we were married. I worked six days a week running the appliance stores that put Alana through college.”
“Oh,” Elise said. “I’ve put on dozens of dinner parties for Kent’s clients. Every morning he gave me a list of things to do for him. I spent my life in a car as I ran errands for him. And it was all so he’d have more time to spend with Carmen.”
“Alan told me he was playing golf. He was so passionate about the game that he went on several trips to play on fabulous courses. It wasn’t until he was dying that I found out that he didn’t even own a set of clubs.”
Elise let out a full laugh, then leaned back on her arms. “My husband complained about how much I spent on groceries, but he was buying Escada for Carmen.”
Olivia leaned back beside her. “Alan bought a vacation house for us. It was a cute little place just fifty miles away in the mountains. But every time we planned to go, he came down with some illness. I found out that his girlfriend and daughter lived there.”
It was Elise’s turn. “While I was locked away, my parents came to visit and I said I knew that they’d known about Carmen all along. Guess what they said?”
“I can’t imagine.”
“My mother said, ‘Darling, Kent couldn’t marry the gardener’s sister, now could he? She’d probably serve tacos at a dinner party. How would Kent’s career progress with a wife like that?’”
Olivia blinked at the coldness of Elise’s parents and she couldn’t top it. But giving sympathy might make Elise feel worse. “I don’t know about you, but I love tacos.”
“Me too.” Elise was smiling as she sat up. “Thank you. You’re making me feel better.” She looked around. “What is this place?”