Back Where She Belongs(3)

“Her car’s at the mechanics, but she shouldn’t be behind the wheel as shaky as she is. You’ll likely have to take over with the funeral director. I did what I could.”

“Thank you, Joseph. I appreciate your help. I’m sure things are chaotic at Wharton right now. That’s a lot of weight to carry.”

He softened abruptly at her tone. “Lucky for me I’ve got that home gym, I guess.”

The joke made Tara wince, since she knew Faye had wanted the spare room for a baby. There had been some difficulty, though Faye hadn’t said whether it was a physical problem or a disagreement about becoming parents, and Tara hadn’t pried. Faye was a private person.

“If I can help out at Wharton, I’d like to,” she said.

“Not unless you secretly got an engineering degree.”

He knew full well what she did for a living, but she ignored the slight. “I did help a computer-chip company with the crisis plan that got them through a plant closure.”

“I don’t see how that fits,” he said.

Crisis plans covered executive deaths and other contingencies, but Joseph was too harried and worried to hear that—or for her to mention that Faye had wanted to hire her. “How about if I stop in one day to talk about that?”

“No need,” he snapped, then seemed to realize he’d been rude. “If you’d like a tour, our HR person gives them to our bigger customers. Call ahead.”

“I’d like that,” she said, bristling at his dismissal, though she managed a smile. Rise above. Be your better self.

He turned toward the elevator, but she moved in front of him. “Before you go, can you tell me more about the accident? I really don’t know much.”

“There’s not much to know.” His eyes flitted to the side, avoiding her.

Zing. Her instincts flared. There was more here. She held her tongue, knowing Joseph would be compelled to fill the silence. It was human nature.

He licked his lips, shifted his weight, then blew out a breath. “Evidently Faye was driving your father back from his poker game when it happened.”

“Faye was driving?”

“I know. Abbott was possessive about the Tesla.”

“My father always drove.” It was about control, she knew, not about any protectiveness about a particular car.

“But the Tesla was special. He traded in the Prius early.” Her father was a frugal man who drove his cars forever, no matter how much her mother complained that it made him look cheap. He was never showy about his wealth. Tara had respected that about him.

She remembered something else he’d said that bothered her. “You said evidently. You didn’t know what Faye was doing?”

“I’d gone back to the office. It’s quiet after hours, so I get more done...” He was tense and stiff, which likely meant he was hiding something. Without knowing his baseline gestures, she couldn’t say for sure. Reading micro-expressions was more art than science.

As good as she was at this—her clients sometimes asked if she was psychic—her exhaustion and distress were interfering with her instincts, not to mention how off she felt returning to Wharton.

“They found her car at Vito’s,” Joseph continued. “Perhaps she was eating there and ran into your father.” The poker game took place upstairs from the Italian restaurant.

“But it was Monday night. That’s Faye’s TV night.” Faye had told Tara about the guilty-pleasure drama she loved and had to watch real-time because she didn’t know how to use the fancy DVR Joseph had bought.

“Then he called her. I don’t know,” Joseph said impatiently. “The point is she lost control on that bad curve where the hiking trail starts, went over the rail, down the embankment and into the trees.”

She knew the spot. Her boyfriend Reed had crashed his motorcycle there the night Dylan had insisted she ride with him because Reed had had a couple beers. They’d found Reed limping along the shoulder. He’d cracked two ribs and broken his collarbone.

Now she pictured her father and Faye flying over the barrier, tumbling down the slope, landing with a crash.

No. Don’t think of that. Focus on what’s wrong. “Why would Dad ask Faye to drive him? Why not one of the poker guys? And why did he need a ride? Had he been drinking?”

“I told you all I know,” Joseph said, barely hiding his frustration. “Ask Faye when she wakes up. If she wakes up.” He took a sharp breath in reaction to his own words, revealing the pain he’d been holding back, then strode to the elevator, where he pounded the button repeatedly with the flat of his hand, face turned away from her.

“She’s a fighter,” she called to him. “Don’t forget that.”

Joseph didn’t acknowledge her words. People so cut off from their emotions frustrated Tara. It was a hot button because, growing up, her parents had shut her out of their lives almost completely. They were all reserved, while she had big, big emotions. She’d trained herself to hold back, but it hadn’t been easy.

She returned to Faye’s room, where her mother sat with perfect posture, carefully avoiding the sight of her daughter’s face. Her poor mother. If Tara could help her, she would. If Faye died, Tara would be all the family her mother had left. She was certain that if her mother had to choose a daughter to lose, it would be Tara, not Faye. There was no sting to that awareness anymore. In fact, it made her feel sorrier for her mother.





CHAPTER TWO



TARA PARKED HER rental car outside the Parthenon Mortuary, which bore a resemblance to the ancient Greek temple it was named for, and went to help her mother out of the passenger seat. Her mother had slept for most of the hour-long drive and seemed groggy, so Tara held out her hand.

Her mother waved her away and forged up the steps with her usual self assurance. They were met by Dimitri Mikanos, the funeral director, with twinkling blue eyes and a bright yellow suit. When Tara introduced herself, he clearly hadn’t realized there was a second daughter, which pinched a little, but, truly, was what she should have expected. All her life, she’d longed to be invisible in Wharton.

The inside of the funeral home was painted bright blue with white trim, as cheerful as its director, which Tara appreciated, considering the gloom of their task. Her mother held it together until Dimitri ran down the list of decisions she had to make—casket color, style, upholstery, flowers, grave markers, clothing. Then she gasped and began fumbling in her purse for pills that spilled from the pillbox, trembling violently.

Dimitri helped her mother to a sofa in a small lounge, then Tara followed him into the casket room to make the selections. The organ music unsettled her, and the decisions were bewildering. Satin or plush, plain or tuck-and-roll, gold handles or bronze, casket spray or standing baskets, on and on.

Tara got through it, her emotions under control, until Dimitri brought out a clothing bag and took out three of her father’s suits that Joseph had brought in. Tara had to choose the one they’d put on her father.

She tensed up, held her breath, but it was no use. It was the shoes that got her—specifically a pair of oxblood wingtips like the ones she remembered from her childhood. Custom-made in Italy, they’d been her father’s favorites. Buy a quality shoe and take good care of it, he’d told her when she watched him polish them. She loved the smell of polish, the circular movements, how shiny the shoes got. She’d begged to go to the shoemaker’s when he had new heels put on. Mr. Vanzetti had brought out a bowl of rock candy—a treat only for good children, he’d said. “Is she a good girl?” he’d asked Tara’s father in his heavy Italian accent. Tara had held her breath waiting for her father’s verdict. When he gave a solemn yes, Tara’s heart had leaped in her chest. She chose a piece that looked like granite and tasted like a grape jellybean...and magic.

She could tell that Mr. Vanzetti had put new heels on the pair she now looked at, and the thought sent grief through Tara in a wave so deep she felt like she had to lift her chin to catch a breath. Her father was dead. She was choosing the clothes he’d take to his grave.

She would never get a grudging nod or even a disapproving glare from the man ever again. “Those.” She pointed. “I’ll get my mother,” she blurted to hide her emotion, practically running down the hall to the small room, where her mother lay sleeping on a gold-embroidered white sofa.

Tara had the fleeting wish she could run into Dylan’s arms again, but that made her feel foolish.

She sat near her mother’s hip. She’d been surprised how devastated her mother seemed by her husband’s death. Her parents had appeared to operate in separate spheres, hardly speaking to each other. Abbott’s life was Wharton Electronics and her mother managed the social and charity functions that suited her role as the wife of the most important man in Wharton.

Growing up, dinners had been quiet affairs, her father an intimidating frown at the head of the table, where he ate in silence, reading the paper or a book, unless her mother was reporting one of Tara’s crimes against the rules of comportment for the town’s leading family. Then he would redden before tersely declaring Tara’s punishment.