“He’s had other women, more practical women. He needs to marry. He needs to have a son to pass the business on to. Why not one of the women who live for the business?”
“He said he loved Merry Byrd.”
“Stupid name!”
“Yes.” She was too old to deal with this nonsense: from Albert, and from Benedict.
“All cats are gray in the dark,” Albert said.
She eyed him: tall, bony, bad eyes and wispy hair. “So they are.” Knowing Albert, he didn’t even start to comprehend the irony of her answer.
“Why do you say he found her?”
“He’s on vacation in Virtue Falls, Washington.”
Albert squinted at her, his reading glasses making his blue eyes wide and round. “Where’s that?”
“I don’t know, dear. In Washington, I suppose. But Benedict sounded happy, and he refused to immediately look over the reports.”
“You told him there was something wrong.”
“Yes.”
Albert leaned back in his chair and stroked his forehead. “Could be a different woman.”
“Could be. But she disappeared.”
“Merry did?”
“Yes, dear.” She hated when Albert played stupid. “When Nauplius Brassard died, his wife, Helen, disappeared. We know who that really was.”
“Merry Byrd.”
“The question is—does Benedict realize that Helen and Merry are one and the same?”
“If he’s found her, it’s only a matter of time.” Albert pointed at Rose. “Better take care of that.” Turning away, he returned to his work, muttering darkly as he traced down the discrepancies Rose had found.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Benedict and Merida started out slowly, warming up, their feet pounding the sidewalk, dodging overgrown branches and a bicycle left lying on the sidewalk, avoiding barking dogs. He let her set the route. They ran a mile through Virtue Falls, then turned onto the well-worn path along the cliffs above the Pacific. There he began to stretch his legs, taking longer strides, pushing her harder than her usual pace. For her, it at once became a contest, one she couldn’t stand to lose.
When she began to pant, he slowed. “I forget. You’re short.”
She held out her hands, using them like a selfie stick, so he could see her talk. “I’m petite.”
“Right. Petite.”
She pointed down the steep path to the beach.
He said, “Sure. Good idea,” and gestured for her to lead the way.
She loved this part of the run, leaping down the slippery trail like a mountain goat. She loved more that she left him behind.
At the bottom, she stopped, placed her hands on her knees and got her breath. When he came up behind her, she straightened and hopped along the rocks toward the pilings of the old dock.
Behind her, he called, “Great food last night.”
She nodded.
“Good kiss.”
She stopped, turned, signed, “Not a great kiss?”
“You need practice.”
She shot him the universal gesture of fuckoffery.
He laughed. He looked tired, as if he’d been up all night, but he sounded happy.
She returned to her rock-hopping. She was happy, too. The day had dawned with a rare blue sky, the air was cool, the ocean rolled and sparkled, she was with Benedict and her revenge was coming to fruition. Right now, the fact that she was revenging herself on him seemed irrelevant.
She jumped down onto the damp sand, then climbed onto the pilings and did her karate-movie poses, balancing on one leg and then the other. He watched for a few moments, then jumped onto a piling, wavered and fell off into the sand.
Clutching her side, silently laughing, she fell off, too.
“Really? Laugh at me?” He crawled toward her. He was on the prowl.
She crawled away. It was stupid, playful—she could have stood up and run. Instead she got sand in her shoes, scoured the skin off her knees, and when he caught her hips, found herself toppled onto her back, looking up at him silhouetted against the sky.
She thought he would be laughing. He wasn’t. He looked at her, searching her face, trying to peer beneath the features, seeking the truth.
He’d know the truth soon enough.
But not now. She wanted to live. A distraction. She needed a distraction.
Reaching up, she twisted her hands in his sweaty T-shirt, pulled him down on her—and practiced her kissing.
Stupid distraction.
By the time she was done, he had touched her. By the time she pushed him off, he was hard and hot and she knew she had made him suffer.
If only she didn’t still feel the pressure of his hands cupping her breasts, the thrust of his hips against hers. If only she wasn’t suffering, too.
She stood and set off across the sand, running fast, desperate to get away until her flush had faded and her pulse roared aerobically rather than lustily.
The sand ruined that plan. She had to stop, sit, shake out her shoes and empty her socks.
By the time she was done, he was standing, waiting. He set the pace up the steep path onto the cliff and he didn’t slack off to accommodate her. Or maybe he did, which made her gasping at the top even more humiliating. She wanted to take a break; she couldn’t because he kept running. Once again it had become a contest, and she wasn’t going to catch him without a strategy.
She’d traveled this path before; he probably hadn’t. She tracked him until he followed the trail as it cut inland, through a stand of cypress trees, and disappeared from sight. Then she took the shortcut, thrashing through the underbrush to cut him off.
She barely made it, leaping out in front of him where the path cut sharply back toward the sea. His competitive smile changed to surprise and he skidded to a stop. “How did you do that?”
“I cheated,” she signed, and grinned and plucked cypress bark from her hair.
“Wish I’d thought of that.” He looked beyond her. “Hello.”
She swung around.
The maid from the Good Knight Manor Bed and Breakfast stood there in her drab garb, holding her bag of cleaning supplies. Susie looked more surprised than Benedict or Merida, then annoyed, then embarrassed. “Sorry. Sorry! I’m in your way. Seems like I’m always in the way.” She shuffled off the trail and back into the trees. “Go on. Finish your run. I’ll stand here and wait.”
Merida gestured in question.
“What? Oh. What am I doin’?” Susie shifted her bag from hand to hand as if it weighed her down. “If I’ve got time before I go to work, I like to come look at the view. Refreshin’, it is, like a really good bathroom cleaner.”
“Oh.” Merida mouthed the word, began to sign, then stopped in frustration.
“Go ahead,” Benedict said. “I’ll tell her what you’re saying.”
To Susie, Merida signed, “I thought you didn’t start work at the B and B until later. Around eleven.” As she spoke, Benedict translated the sign language into spoken English.
Interesting. When Nauplius translated for Merida, he used her gestures, her expressions, to bring attention to himself. With Benedict, she felt as if he was simply making her life easier.
“I’ve got another job today, cleanin’ a house down here by the ocean. Please don’t tell Mrs. Glass. She’s real funny about me workin’ for someone other than her.”