“It’s a simple question.”
Caitlin walked down the hall, her heels clicking purposefully on the tile. “I can hear both of you all the way in the library.” She locked arms with William then looked up at Max. Even in her heels, she was several inches shorter. A petite, blond, blue-eyed Kewpie doll with the fangs of a viper. “Hello, Maxine. We’re so glad you’re not in jail, and that you could make time for your family. Perhaps you and William could save your arguments for later.”
If there was a picture next to the definition of “passive-aggressive” in the dictionary, Caitlin Talbot Revere would be it.
One well-placed question at the dinner table and Max would know the truth, but she hadn’t seen William with such a deer-caught-in-the-headlights expression in her life, even when they were fourteen and Aunt Joanne caught them sneaking back into the house at dawn after they’d gone to a concert at the Frost Amphitheater, after expressly being told they couldn’t go.
If he wasn’t hiding something, why hadn’t he shared the information with the police?
Maybe he had and they’d dismissed it. But if they had, Kevin’s attorney should have brought it up in court because it would have cast doubt on Kevin’s guilt as well as highlighted the errors in the initial police investigation. Max had never looked at the case files as a reporter because she’d washed her hands of Kevin twelve years ago. She hoped Kevin’s attorney could get her a copy of the files, because it would take much longer for her to pull all the information from the police department and courthouse.
William had locked down his emotions since Caitlin’s interruption. He gave Max a half smile. “Truce.”
She nodded curtly, but they both knew this conversation wasn’t over.
“After you,” William said.
Max walked down the hall, passed the elegant white living room with its dark antique furniture, the stately French dining room that was set for nine—who else was coming tonight?—the hall that led to her bedroom suite, the two rooms that had once been her mother’s. The library, where the family liked to gather before dinner, was in the far corner of the house, two walls of bookshelves and two walls of floor-to-ceiling windows that looked out onto the infinity pool on the side and a hundred-year-old oak tree in the middle of the large lawn in the back.
The library was Max’s favorite room in the house because it was the most lived-in. Before his death when she was fifteen, her grandfather spent most of his waking hours in this room watching baseball—his one, true love—and reading military history books—his second love. Max had often hidden in here with her grandfather, he at his desk, she on the leather couch with her homework or a book.
Stepping inside brought back a rush of warm memories, reminding her that her childhood was marked with quiet joy she sometimes forgot.
She glanced at her grandfather’s favorite chair, half expecting him to be seated there, reading. Of course he wasn’t, he was sixteen years buried, but Eleanor hadn’t moved it from its original spot. Though Eleanor was a hard woman who was critical of everyone in the family, including her husband, she had truly loved James Revere.
William handed Max a glass of wine.
She sipped. It was a perfectly chilled private reserve chardonnay. “Where’s Brooks and Grandmother? Still on the phone with the police chief?” She smiled.
Caitlin tilted her chin up. “You should be more concerned. This is serious.”
Max rolled her eyes.
Two little boys, Tyler and Talbot, ran into the room, each carrying a Maltese. “Auntie Max! Grams got two dogs!” the older of the two, four-year-old Tyler, exclaimed. He said “auntie” like “Annie.” She adored her nephews, and the worst thing about living so far away was that she rarely got to see them. William had brought them to visit her last September in New York, but she hadn’t seen them since.
Last year, her grandmother’s precious Pomeranian had died at the old age of sixteen. Before that had been a Maltese, which Max had adored. She’d never had a dog with her mother because they moved around so much, but she missed Eleanor’s pups.
“Boys,” Caitlin said, “I told you to stay in the playroom.”
“But Auntie Max is here—” Tyler said.
“Don’t argue with me.”
Max walked over and led the boys out of the library. “I want to see the dogs,” she said. “Let’s hang out in the playroom. Less stuffy.” She glanced over her shoulder and caught the glare from Caitlin. Max stuck her tongue out at her cousin-in-law, and caught a half grin on William’s face.
The playroom was filled with state-of-the-art toys and classic games. The boys put the dogs down—the pair were about nine months old. The puppies immediately began wrestling and the boys laughed. “What are their names?” Max said, though she already knew because her grandmother had sent her pictures. She knelt on the floor with the boys and the dogs sniffed her, then licked her hands.
“Winston and Queen Anne,” Tyler said. “They’re brother and sister.”
“I wish I could take them home with me.”
“Me, too,” Talbot said. His little three-year-old voice had a slight lisp, which Max found cute. She wasn’t much for babies, but she loved the innocent sweetness of young kids. She wished Tyler and Talbot could stay this young forever.
“Why don’t you get a dog, Auntie Max?”
“I travel a lot for work. It wouldn’t be fair to a dog to keep him locked up or in a kennel when I wasn’t home.”
“Yeah,” Tyler said as if he completely understood. And maybe he did.
Max looked up and saw Eleanor standing in the doorway. She had an odd expression on her face, almost wistful, until she saw Max looking at her.
“Maxine,” she said.
“Hello, Grandmother.” She said to the boys, “I can’t play tonight, guys, but I’ll come see you before I go back to New York, okay?”