*
The Bellows’s cabin was much like he’d remembered it from his first visit: same tired-looking siding, same listing porch, same sense of abandonment. The landscaping was trimmed and tended, courtesy of Art Kessler undoubtedly. But Peg had said she was at the cabin, so Luke bent his head to a soft but persistent rain and hurried to the front door. He knocked loudly, the sound harsh and foreign in the bucolic setting. He could see through the cabin to the other side, where the gray waters of Schultz Lake were dimpling with the rain.
No answer.
Luke checked his watch and saw it was two minutes past two. He was right on time. He grew impatient, wondering if she’d stood him up. What the hell was that about? Bolchoy had intimated that she’d found the Carrera brothers attractive and that he should expect the same, but Peg had cooled off on them. At least that was the impression he’d gotten on the phone.
He heard a noise inside the house and peered through the window once more. Peg Bellows was moving toward the door slowly. She wore a bathrobe and a scarf was tied around her head.
Some kind of cancer . . .
Luke had a sinking feeling. He’d pushed and pushed and now realized she was ill. When the door opened he half expected her skin to be gray or sallow, but her cheeks were flushed pink.
“Luke, right?” she greeted him with an ironic smile.
“That’s right. How’re you doing?”
“You mean the breast cancer?” She shrugged lightly. “It’s a battle I’m losing.”
“I’m sorry.”
She shook her head and sighed, then waved him inside. “Come in. Take a seat. You want some coffee? I’ve got a pot brewing.”
“Sure. Would you like some help?” He felt embarrassed that he’d pushed her into playing hostess.
“I’ve got it. You want cream or sugar?”
“Black’s fine.”
Luke saw one particular chair arranged directly in front of the television and bypassed it for a worn, overstuffed plaid chair angled to one side. He perched on the edge, wondering if he should ignore her command and follow her into the kitchen.
But she returned a few moments later with two mugs of coffee. “My vice is loads of cream and sugar. I figure, what does it matter now? I struggled with weight all my life and now I just keep losing pounds. Be careful what you wish for, huh?”
“Thank you,” he said, accepting his coffee. “Let me just say, I’m sorry I left you so many messages.”
“Don’t back down now. You want the Carreras and so do I. Let’s work together.”
“Okay.”
She settled herself in the chair in front of the television. As she sat down, one skinny white leg escaped the robe, but she tucked it back in quickly. “They killed my husband.”
“I’d like to prove that.”
“But there’s no hard evidence. It’s just a theory proposed by a grieving widow. Make that a guilt-stricken grieving widow because well, she had an affair with one of them and her husband found out.”
This was more information than Luke had expected, but he sensed that Peg was racing against time and was bound and determined to make things right, or as right as they could be, no matter at what cost to herself. “Which one?” he asked, and she barked out a short laugh.
“That’s the question? Not did your husband know? Did you tell him? Or did he go to a watery grave thinking you were still the starry-eyed ingénue from forty years earlier?” Before he could answer, she said, “Blake Carrera. The sexy one with the scar. Brian’s good, too, but Blake’s the really dangerous one. He’s the predator.”
Little birds need to fly . . .
“Can you give me an example?” Luke asked.
“Whenever Ted was away, or engaged by something that took his attention, Blake was always touching me. He was careful at first, I realize now. Testing the situation. He was funny, too. Clever. I found myself thinking about him a lot, and I looked forward to any time they would be coming by to talk about selling the cabin. At first I was against selling, like Ted. I thought, if they want it so badly, we should hang on to it. But I’ve never really liked the place, and then Ted kept stringing them along and stringing them along, and one night he was with Brian at some bar and Blake came by and . . .” She drew a slow breath and exhaled it carefully. “We just fell on each other like we were the last people on earth. Or at least that’s how it was for me. And then he was like a drug. I couldn’t have enough of him. And that’s when he started pulling back. Just a little, then a little more. You know how it goes.” She looked at the blank eye of the television, but he could sense she was seeing something else. “Then they went out on that boat. Not Blake. Brian and Ted. And then Ted was gone, and you know what my first thought was? Now I’m free.”