Summer Sons(108)

“You aren’t,” Andrew said.

Inadequate, but a start all the same.

Sam took the exit suggested by the GPS and Andrew stopped chewing his cuticles, the faint taste of blood in his mouth. After another few minutes of coasting past unoccupied, verdant land, the Troth house rose up at the end of its paved drive, cream and yellow. Less imposing in the daytime, though still grand. The restless dead of the estate lay sleeping under the sunlight. The WRX rolled to a stop in front of the veranda’s broad steps.

“Damn,” Sam said, an arm draped over his steering wheel to peer out through the windshield. “Big-ass house she’s got.”

“Come in with me,” he said.

“No shit.” Sam got out and popped his back, rolled his shoulders. His nervous energy had a feral tint. “I don’t trust her.”

They mounted the steps all the same, Sam a prowling creature one step behind him. A multitoned, mellifluous doorbell chimed when he pressed the button. The tall wood door swung open mere seconds later, as if Troth had simply been waiting a few feet away in the sitting room for him to arrive. Wearing a lilac sweater with the sleeves rolled up to her elbows, Troth blinked, sun-dazzled, at the two young men on her porch.

“Hello, Andrew. And who’s this?” she asked.

“Sam Halse.” He offered his hand to shake.

She took it with a professional firmness as Andrew said, “Riley Sowell’s cousin. We’re planning to run an errand in this neck of the woods afterward, so he came with.”

“I understand,” she said, stepping aside to welcome them in with a sweeping wave.

“What did you find?” Andrew asked.

Troth’s mouth flattened into a frown. Her thin face was bare of makeup and carried a small collection of fine lines and summer freckles.

“Come with me,” she said.

Sam glanced at him for confirmation as she turned into the grand hall; Andrew nodded assent. She led them deep into the house, their sneakers squeaking across the polished wood floor. Sam cast Andrew a puckered grimace at the sight of the chandelier overhead. The trio stopped in an extravagantly furnished kitchen with a large Chemex steaming on one marble countertop, coffee silken and almost black in the sun pouring from the bay of windows overlooking the yard. A glazed blue-and-purple ceramic mug sat to one side, prepared just on time, an impeccable hostess despite the circumstances. Troth gestured them to the table and rummaged for two more mugs in her cabinet, looping her fingers through the handles as she grabbed hers from the counter.

“Cream, sugar?” she asked.

“Cream, if you could,” Sam said.

His accent thickened when he was being polite, maybe in response to being so sorely out of place in his grease-flecked boots among the finery. Andrew took the seat across from him and rested one forearm on the blond wood while Troth, in her immaculate leisure outfit, poured them each a generous serving. It occurred to him with an uncomfortable shock that he had the funds to step into a life like this, spending afternoons off in a historic home, lazing in the air-conditioning and drinking fancy coffee with cream poured from a tiny ceramic carafe.

Sam didn’t. His face telegraphed the fact.

Troth pushed their finished coffees toward them across the tabletop before claiming the seat across from them. She warmed her palms on her mug, glancing from Andrew to Sam. “Are you all right with me discussing this in company, or would you rather we do so alone?”

“He’s okay to talk in front of,” Andrew said.

Troth nodded and sipped. Andrew did the same. The coffee, hot and bitter, stung his mouth. She was pushing for time, he realized. Sorting her words.

“When his health began deteriorating again, Mark developed a fascination with folktales dealing in methods for staving off death.” Her tone approached clinical, gaze resting on neither of her guests but on the far wall. “I understand his reason. It breaks my heart, of course—how could it not? But I do understand.”

“And how does that connect to Eddie?” Andrew prompted her.

“I believe the Fulton curse might have been of greater interest to Mark than was good for him, and I was unaware that he and Edward had been in contact without me,” she said. “I found books I recognized from Edward’s reports, copious notes in Mark’s hand. The tone in the notes is not appropriate. I thought you should see for yourself; I’m not able to be objective.”

“Okay, I’ll look them over,” Andrew said.

“In a moment,” Troth said. “This is very difficult for me. He’s upstairs, sleeping. I can’t imagine him harming someone, but I will feel responsible for him if he pushed Edward too far in a fragile state.”

Andrew’s biceps bunched and his free hand flexed into a fist on his knee under the table. She might be lying or stretching the truth—he didn’t doubt she’d do anything to protect her husband. He held his breath to keep from charging straight up the staircase to drag a dying man out of his bed. And he wasn’t sure he believed her version of events, either.

Troth said to Sam, “I apologize for the distraction from your afternoon. Do you want something else to drink?”

Sam tipped his mug for a long swallow and said, “Coffee’s good, thank you.”

“To the library, then?” Troth asked.

“Yeah,” Andrew said. He finished the dregs and set his mug on the table. “Sam, I’ll be back in a minute.”