The Bad Daughter(21)

“Nice talk,” Robin said.

“I should go.”

“You should come home.”

“Talk soon,” Alec said, then disconnected the call.

Robin tossed her phone on the bed, picturing her brother’s handsome face—their mother’s soft gray eyes, their father’s sturdy jaw, the light brown hair that was a mixture of both, the sardonic sense of humor that was entirely his own. How many times had he reduced Robin and Tara to a puddle of helpless tears with one of his wry observations? “Oh, God,” she remembered Tara squealing at the conclusion of one of Alec’s spontaneous comic riffs. “I think I just peed my pants!”

“How could she do this?” Alec had asked Robin after Tara had eloped with their father. “I mean, it’s bad enough leaving me for a man almost twice her age. My father, no less. My father no more,” he’d proclaimed with a sad shake of his head. “But how could a woman who loves to laugh marry a man without a single funny bone in his entire body? Shit, the man wouldn’t know irony if it bit him in the ass. You know what he is, don’t you?” he’d asked, pausing before adding the killer punch line. “He’s irony deficient!”

Robin still chuckled over that one.

It was true. Greg Davis had absolutely no sense of humor. His relentless pursuit of success and the almighty dollar had left little time or room for anything else. Oh, he could be charming. He knew the right things to say. He could even tell a pretty good joke. But there was something hollow behind his easy laugh and seductive manner. Not that it mattered. He’d learned that money went a long way toward filling pesky hollows.

And it seemed that Tara had loved money even more than she loved to laugh.

“She’ll be sorry,” she heard Alec say, trying to block out the words that had followed. “Karma, baby. What goes around comes around. Sooner or later, she’ll pay for this. They both will.”

Of course her younger brother was just being overly dramatic. He’d been justifiably hurt and angry. “It would be way easier if she were dead,” he’d said.

But that was almost six years ago, Robin told herself now. He didn’t mean…There was no way…Besides, he’d been hundreds of miles away at the time of the shootings.

She took a deep breath, determined not to let unwarranted suspicions hijack the rest of the night. She wouldn’t allow such inane conjecture to keep her from getting a good night’s sleep. She needed her rest for what was promising to be an exceedingly trying day tomorrow. So where was Blake? she wondered, transferring her anxiety about Alec to her fiancé. Why hadn’t he called? “Goddamn it. Where are you?” Are you alone? Who are you with? She grabbed her purse from the floor and removed the small bottle of Ativan. Only eight left, she thought, counting them out and shaking two into the palm of her hand.

Her cell phone rang as she was lifting them to her mouth. Caller ID identified Blake as the caller.

Finally. “Hey,” she said, folding her fingers over the pills, as if trying to hide them from Blake’s sight, knowing he would disapprove.

“How are you?”

“Okay. Getting ready for bed.”

“It’s seven-thirty,” he said.

Robin pictured his eyebrows inching together at the bridge of his patrician nose. His worried face, she called it. Oddly enough, it made him even better-looking than he already was.

“You haven’t taken any more Valium, have you?”

“No,” she said, which technically was not a lie. “I’m just tired, that’s all. Apparently murder takes a lot out of you.”

“I’m so sorry. How’s your dad?”

“The same.”

“Do they have any idea who did it?”

Robin shook her head.

“Robin? Are you there?”

“Sorry. No, they don’t know who did it. They’re thinking home invasion, but…”

“But?”

“They don’t know.” She didn’t have the energy to recount her earlier discussion with Melanie. Were the rumors true? Had her father been cheating on Tara? Had Tara been cheating on her father? And ultimately, did it make any difference? Would they still be alive if the rumors proved to be unfounded?

“Have you been cheating on me?” she wanted to ask. “How are you?” she asked instead.

“Me? I’m fine. What about your sister?”

“Hard to say. One minute we seem to be doing all right; the next, not so much.”

“And her son? Sorry, I forget his name.”

“Landon.”

“Oh, yeah. He was named after that actor…”

“Michael Landon.” Robin pictured the long-dead star of Bonanza, a popular western that Melanie used to watch in reruns on TV. Who names their son after an actor she’s only seen in reruns? “He keeps pretty much to himself. I haven’t actually talked to him.” I can hear him, though, she thought, glancing at the wall separating their two rooms. He’d resumed his incessant rocking as soon as his friend, Kenny, left.

“Must feel weird to be back there,” Blake said.

“It does.”

“How’s the weather?”

Really? “Hot.” We’re actually talking about the weather?