Laurel headed toward the kitchen door, picking up a doggie treat on the way. Jase would probably return to Lolly in the drawing room before she got back, but that was okay. Father and daughter could use a little private time together.
It took a few minutes, but Hugo finally allowed a rawhide bone to lure him away from the albino squirrel who was running across the yard. As Laurel led him down the hall, he pushed open the door to the den, and she had to pull him back by his collar before he could bother Jase, who was apparently engaged in a deep conversation about a woman who was sick—Maxie? Maybe the caller was a doctor.
Then why did he identify himself as an old acquaintance?
Suddenly she remembered the voice—school bells and Friday morning announcements, the pugnacious twang of the principal listing deeds and misdeeds of the previous week.
Bert Nyquist. Come to think of it, Lolly had said Marguerite’s husband was named “Bart or something,” and she knew Bert Nyquist had left town soon after Marguerite Shelton. Who would have ever guessed they’d end up together?
Footsteps sounded in the hall. One look at Jase confirmed Laurel’s worst fears.
He took a seat on the sofa beside his daughter and lifted her hand. “Lolly, we need to discuss something very serious. I just talked to Marguerite’s husband. He says she won’t last more than a day and she wants to see you one last time.”
Lolly backed away into the corner of the sofa, her eyes opened wide in alarm. “I don’t want to go, Dad! I don’t even care if she’s dying! She might say something even worse to me this time!”
Hugo rose from his place by Laurel’s side, stretched, and ambled over to lay his head in Lolly’s lap. She massaged his ears, then looked deep into his comforting eyes.
“Her husband was nice, though. He apologized all over the place and said she was overmedicated, that the doctor had upped her oxycodone the day before and she wasn’t thinking straight, that she was talking wild.” She cocked her head. “He’s sort of sad, I think. He must love her a lot.”
The immensity of death hovered over the room.
Hugo licked her hands. Lolly stroked his back, then returned to his ears again. “If she’s dying, this would be my last time to see her.” She looked into the dog’s eyes. “Maybe…” She turned toward her father. “Dad, if I go, will you go with me?”
“Of course, honey. I’ll be with you all the way.”
“I don’t mean you’ll just take me there. I mean will you go inside the house with me and stay with me the whole time I’m in the room with her?”
“Yes.”
She turned to Laurel. “And you’ll go too?”
“If it’s all right with your father.”
Jase gave her a look that could have jump-started a three-day corpse. “I’d like to have you there.”
Lolly continued to stroke Hugo. “And if she starts saying ugly things to me again, I can leave, right?”
Jase nodded. “If she starts saying ugly things to you, we’ll all leave.”
Lolly took a deep breath and stood up. “Okay. I’ll go, then.”
*
Ten minutes later, Jase had them all in the car and they were on the road.
God only knew what awaited them, but he wanted Lolly to have closure—as his shrink would have said—so here he was, driving hell for leather down I-35 again, taking Lolly to the very person he’d tried to protect her from her whole life. And he’d thought he was through with Marguerite Shelton once and for all sixteen years ago, when they got caught. The scene had played out like an X-rated soap opera.
He’d finished up his job at the car wash Wednesday night and driven over to her neighborhood, parking his car in an alley a block away from the little stone house.
He usually came in about eight and left around midnight, but Wednesdays were difficult to manage because of school the day before and the day after. So instead of enjoying a light doze before leaving, he fell heavily asleep.
The bulldozer roar of a familiar voice had cut through his dreams. Had he conked out in American history again? Struggling to consciousness, he realized the overhead light had been turned on and he was lying in bed bare-ass naked with his English teacher while his high school principal was standing in the doorway, jabbing his finger at him and yelling himself red-faced.
“You son of a bitch! You’ll pay for this!”
Gloriously nude, Marguerite, her full, buoyant breasts swaying, rose from her side of the bed and walked nonchalantly to the chair to reclaim her negligee. “Keep your voice down, Bert. Let’s not give the neighbors any more to talk about than they already do. Remember your position.”
“Damn my position! What’s that snot-nose kid doing here?”
Marguerite smiled. “What’s he doing here?” she repeated in her husky, sexy voice. “The same thing you do, Bert, but he does it better.”
Nyquist stopped dead, his mouth flapping, his angry eyes popping fire.