The Bad Daughter(64)

“You don’t suppose it could be since she got pregnant with Landon, do you? I mean, you’d get pretty cranky, too, if you hadn’t had sex in almost two decades.”

“I can’t imagine…”

“What? That she has? Or that she hasn’t?”

“Either,” Robin said, turning down their driveway. “Besides, she was like that before she got pregnant.”

“Like what?”

“You know like what.”

“I want to hear you say it.”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because it’s not nice to call your sister a…”

“…cunt? Go on, you can do it.”

“I won’t.”

“I dare you. I double dare you.”

Robin was laughing now. “You’re crazy.”

The front door opened. Melanie appeared in the doorway, framed by the light of the hall behind her. She was wearing a pair of blue cotton pajamas and an expression of weary exasperation. “What the hell is going on out here?”

“Alec is back,” Robin said, trying to keep the laughter gurgling inside her throat from escaping.

“So I see. Nice of you to come home, Alec. Are you intent on broadcasting your presence to the whole neighborhood?”

“Sorry about that,” Alec said. Then under his breath, “Told you she’s a cunt.”

“Stop it.”

The two of them collapsed in a fresh fit of giggles.

“What’s the matter with you?” Melanie said. “Are you ten years old?”

“Sorry,” Robin managed to spit out as Melanie turned on her heel and disappeared inside the house.

“Way to go, Robin,” Alec said. “Now you’ve made her mad.”

Robin motioned toward Blake’s car. “Don’t forget your stuff.”

Alec used the fob to unlock the rear passenger door of the Lexus. It made a loud squeaking noise, as if in protest. He removed half a dozen large shopping bags from the backseat, handing half of them to Robin as he looked toward Landon’s bedroom. “Looks like we woke him up.”

Robin shook her head. “No. He’s always standing there.”

Alec waved at his nephew. Landon immediately disappeared from view. “Do you think he was there the night of the shootings? That he might have seen something?”

Was Alec curious, or was he afraid? Robin couldn’t help wondering. “I don’t know. I tried to talk to him once about it, but no luck.”

“Maybe I’ll give it a try.”

“Alec…” She wanted to ask if he and Tara had crossed paths in San Francisco, if seeing her again had reopened old wounds. Did you do it? she asked with her eyes. Are you guilty?

“What?”

She shook her head. “Nothing.” It was late. She was exhausted. And if she was completely honest with herself, she was afraid of what Alec’s answer might be.





CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE


The law office of McAllister and Associates was located on the second floor of a red-brick building at the corner of Main and Crittenden, half a block from the bright blue, two-story concrete building that housed Davis Developers. Melanie pulled into a parking space midway between the two, and the three siblings emerged from the front and back seats of the car almost simultaneously.

Robin looked toward her father’s office. “What do you think will happen to Dad’s business if…?” She let the sentence dangle, unfinished.

“…he croaks?” Alec finished for her. “I think you mean when, not if.”

“Guess we’ll worry about that if and when the time comes,” Melanie said, pulling open the outer door of the brick building.

“I think I remember Jeff McAllister,” Alec said as they headed up the steep flight of stairs to the office. “Short guy, right?”

“Tiny. Dad used to say his balls were bigger than he was.”

“The man’s a poet,” Alec said.

Melanie pushed the door open without knocking. “We’re here to see Jeff McAllister,” she announced to the young woman behind an old-fashioned wooden desk. “I’m Melanie Davis. This is my brother, Alec, and my sister, Robin.”

The young woman smiled, revealing two large dimples and a prominent upper gum. “I’ll tell Mr. McAllister you’re here. If you’d care to have a seat…” She indicated the four white plastic chairs, two sitting at right angles to the other two, against ecru-colored walls covered with framed mottoes: It’s Always Darkest Before the Dawn, read one. Everyone’s Entitled to at Least One Good Day, began another. This Is Not One of Yours.

Not exactly designed to give one confidence, Robin thought.

“We’ll stand,” Melanie said, perhaps thinking the same thing.

“You’re sure he’s a real lawyer?”

“This isn’t L.A.,” Melanie reminded her.

Robin’s body ached to sit down. She’d spent the balance of last night tossing and turning, worrying about Alec, about their father, about Cassidy, about everything that had happened and everything that might happen, unable to fall back to sleep. As anxious as she was to leave Red Bluff, how could she go anywhere until they knew what had happened? At the very least, she had to know the extent of her brother’s involvement.