There, holding the door open and viewing the diner and its customers as if they were a bucket of worms, stood Professor Dawkins Cipre. He looked the same as he had on the cruise: tall, white-haired, round-bellied, wearing a rumpled tan suit and a blue oxford button-up shirt with the top button open to accommodate his sagging, jowled neck.
Merida ducked her head. All too well she remembered those horrific days aboard the yacht: meeting Benedict, listening to Dawkins’s lectures until she wanted to fall into a coma, and dealing with Nauplius’s increasingly outrageous jealousy and aging temper.
“In or out!” Linda yelled.
Merida raised her iPad and peeked over the top.
Dawkins looked astonished to be addressed in such a manner, but he stepped in and let the door swing shut behind him. Again he looked around the café and before Merida could avert her eyes, he saw her.
She froze.
He looked her over.
Her iPad drooped.
His lip curled. Deliberately he turned his shoulder and headed to a far table. With his back still turned, he sat down and started texting.
He had snubbed her.
Or … or perhaps he hadn’t recognized her.
She put her hand to the buzzed side of her head. She brought the long strand in front of her eyes. She looked down at her outfit: a bright orange sleeveless T-shirt that showed off the colorful falcon tattoo on her left bicep, ragged jeans and her worn college-era Birkenstocks.
He really hadn’t recognized her. That shallow snob, that pompous academic, had looked at her, seen a badly dressed woman with hair dyed the colors of the United States flag and immediately decided she was not the kind of person with whom he wanted to associate.
She wilted with relief. Her disguise, such as it was, had passed the test.
But she couldn’t stay here and take the chance he would remember her. Standing, she gathered her tablet and purse, put a twenty on the table and hurried toward the door. She extended her hand to push it open—
And met Elsa Cipre coming in.
Merida tried to turn her head away, but of course, Elsa recognized her immediately. She never seemed as self-absorbed as her husband. She caught Merida’s outstretched wrist. “Helen!”
Merida shook her head.
“How good to see you. I never expected to find you in this little corner of the world. How did you get here?” She looked around the café, spotted her husband and said, “Dawkins is right over there. Come and sit with us.”
Merida shook her head more emphatically.
“Dawkins will be so pleased to see you again.”
Merida set her heels.
Without any seeming effort, Elsa dragged her toward Dawkins.
For a skinny, nervous academic, the woman had impressive upper body strength. “Dawkins, look who I found in this godforsaken town.”
Dawkins gave Merida his patented superior sneer, then visibly started. “Helen Brassard! I didn’t realize…” He rose to his feet. “Helen, my dear, we had no idea we would find you here.”
If I had known I would find you, I wouldn’t be here. But Merida couldn’t say it, didn’t sign it, smiled tightly. Pulling out her iPad, she typed, “Not Helen. I’m Merida now. I don’t tell anyone about my husband.”
“Why not?” Dawkins boomed.
Elsa lowered her voice. “Because of the money. Of course. We understand.”
Merida nodded.
“Do you still have your bodyguard? What was his name? Carl Klinger?” Dawkins didn’t know how to lower his voice.
“Carl Klineman, dear,” Elsa said.
Merida shook her head, put her finger to her lips.
Dawkins leaned forward and in a piercing whisper said, “You should get him back so you could use your real name. It’s not safe for you to be alone.”
Merida typed, “Most of the money went to Nauplius Brassard’s children. I don’t need a bodyguard for my small savings. What brings you to Virtue Falls?”
“I’m on sabbatical from Oxford and Washington State University begged me to come and lecture on French medieval poetry and its influence on the customs of romance and chivalry.”
Merida could see a free lecture coming at an unstoppable speed, and she clutched her backpack closer in preparation for a panicked escape.
Elsa didn’t wait for him to get rolling. Instead she stroked his ego. “They are so lucky to have you.”
“They know it.” Dawkins folded his hands over his belly. “The semester starts in August and until then, I gave in to Elsa’s desires and we’re touring the Washington coast. It’s very … picturesque.”
The way he said picturesque reduced the Pacific Ocean to the level of a lap dance.
“What are you doing here, Hele … Merida?” Elsa asked.
Merida typed, “I’m touring, also.”
“We should tour together!” Elsa exclaimed.
“That would be lovely, but I’ve taken rooms at the Good Knight Manor Bed and Breakfast for the next year and they’re nonrefundable.” Merida congratulated herself on a nice save.
“That’s where we’re staying!”
Fatal mistake.
“Dear Dawkins, couldn’t we extend our stay longer to visit with our Merida?”
Dawkins’s cheeks turned a slight purple that made him look like he was strangling. “Virtual Falls is ridiculously busy this time of year. And expensive. We barely got a reservation as it was!”
Gently, Elsa corrected him, “It’s Virtue Falls, dear.”
“I know that!”
Elsa smiled at Merida companionably, as if she expected her to understand Dawkins’s peevishness. Of course she would think that; she had seen Merida catering to her husband the same way Elsa catered to hers. What Elsa didn’t realize was that Merida had hated every minute of her servitude, and before she was done, someone would pay.
What was more, she couldn’t stand to sit by and watch this kind of abuse. It made her want to slap Dawkins—and Elsa.
Merida stood, gathered her tablet, touched her brow in a farewell salutation.
“Wait, dear! We should exchange phone numbers!” Elsa called.
Not while I have breath in my body. Merida again started toward the door.
Behind her, she heard Elsa say, “The poor dear was obviously overcome by our repartee. She must be missing Nauplius.”
Merida fled. She drove her car out to the beach, parked and walked along the sand, letting the wind, the salt air and the joy of being alone and at no one’s beck and call drive the distasteful memory of the Cipres out of her brain.
CHAPTER TWELVE
On occasions like these, Kateri wondered what kind of crapshoot was going on in the wonderful world of genetics.
Lilith had naturally blond hair that she styled in an upsweep with enough texturizing spray to make a Texas debutante coo with joy. Her fair, carefully tended skin glowed like an English maiden’s, and her makeup had been so carefully selected and applied one could not tell where the cosmetics left off and nature began. Her figure had been given the advantage of a lifetime of dance and a daily fitness regimen with a physical trainer. The only sign of Lilith’s age—she was thirty-nine—was mild wrinkling at the corners of her eyes and age spots on the backs of her hands, and she was so short—five-two—and thin that Kateri should be able to snap her like a toothpick.