The Perfect Stranger (Social Media #2)(50)

Both Teddy and Neal have been busy talking to people, tending to details. Teddy, the numbers guy, has been handling the bills and the paperwork; hands-on Neal dealt with the logistics of cars clogging the driveway and the street, the funeral service arrangements, where to seat all the visitors . . .

Poor Dad is too shell-shocked to do anything but sit and stare as people pat him on the shoulder.

But Keith . . .

Keith has spent the last few days either hiding away upstairs or on his phone incessantly checking his e-mail or texts. That didn’t escape Neal, the more intuitive of Beck’s brothers.

Touched by the concern in his eyes when he asked her about it, Beck said, “Now isn’t a great time to get into what’s going on with me and Keith.”

“I know it isn’t,” he agreed, putting an arm around her. “But when you need to talk . . . I’m here. Okay?”

She nodded her thanks, unable to speak.

Her brother—both her brothers—have solid marriages. Teddy rekindled the flame with his high school prom date a few years after graduation and walked down the aisle with her at twenty-three; Neil wed his college sweetheart. They’ve both always made it look so easy.

Maybe that’s why she said yes when Keith proposed, though he seemed halfhearted about it and she had her reservations even then, mostly based on his mercurial moods.

She didn’t share that with anyone, though, not even her friends, or her mother. She figured everyone must have doubts but also assumed it was normal for relationships to run hot and cold. Anyway, that was the logical sequence of events, right? Graduate high school, graduate college, get a job, get married, buy a house . . .

Have babies is supposed to be the next step, but it looks like for her it will be Hammer Out Separation Agreement.

“Rebecca?” Keith pokes his head into the room as she reaches up to fasten a string of pearls around her neck. “Your father wants to know if you’re ready to go.”

“Almost.”

The funeral director asked the family to be there a couple of hours ahead of everyone else. That was the case when her grandfather died, too—but it was so they could have a private viewing of the body.

Today, with Mom, that’s not going to happen. Her body was cremated. That was Dad’s decision. He said it was what she would have wanted.

Beck isn’t so sure about that, but she wasn’t about to argue.

Her hands tremble; she struggles with the clasp on her necklace.

Keith, still standing behind her in the doorway of her room, doesn’t move to help her. Not surprising.

She wonders if he remembers that she wore these pearls on their wedding day. Mom gave them to her. Beck stumbled across them last night in a velvet case in a dresser drawer here in her bedroom, still right where she stowed them before she and Keith left on their honeymoon.

Whoever broke into the house—whoever murdered her mother—didn’t find them.

He didn’t find a lot of things you’d have expected to be stolen.

Maybe that’s why the detectives don’t seem convinced it was a just a simple robbery gone bad. They didn’t come right out and say that the other day, but Beck could read between the lines.

They suspect her father.

That they didn’t arrest him doesn’t mean they’ve ruled him out—but it doesn’t mean they haven’t.

She can only hope that after interviewing everyone in the family, including Dad himself, they realize it’s ludicrous to think he could be behind this.

But if it goes any further and the police want to talk to Dad again . . .

Beck and her brothers have been quietly discussing whether they should hire an attorney. It’s not something anyone wants to bring up to their father, but they’ve agreed that if the questioning persists after today, they should all stop talking to the detectives and get in touch with a lawyer.

Maybe they should have done it before now, but they don’t want to raise any red flags or be labeled as uncooperative. That would only complicate matters or, God forbid, seem to implicate Dad in some wrongdoing.

Finally, Beck’s shaky hands manage to fit the hook into the clasp on the pearl necklace.

“How long do you think the service will last?” Keith asks.

“I have no idea. An hour? Two?” She picks up a hairbrush.

She doesn’t turn to look at him, but she can see him reflected in the mirror. He’s wearing a dark suit, and he trimmed his beard for the occasion, but he didn’t shave the damned thing off.

She’s been asking him to do that for months, ever since he grew it. She’s never been a fan of facial hair. He knows that. So why, she wondered at first, would he grow the beard in the first place?

Because someone else in his life—someone who matters more than I do—is a fan of facial hair.

That’s the answer that makes the most sense.

“Okay. So I’ll be waiting downstairs,” Keith tells her, starting to go.

“Wait.”

“What?”

“You can leave,” she says. “After the service. If you want. You can go back to Lexington.”

She waits for him to tell her that it’s okay—that he’ll stay here another night, at least. That he won’t leave her yet.

Ever.

He doesn’t say that.

He doesn’t say anything at all, just nods and leaves the room.