a mother. A mother she never knew. A real, live, flesh-and-blood mother like all her friends had, like Sara Kelly’s mother. Olivia bolted from the chair and raced to the powder room off the great room. The dogs huddled and whimpered at the strange sounds emanating from behind the closed door.
Ten minutes later Olivia literally crawled out of the powder room on her hands and knees, her face splotchy and red. She crawled across the slick hardwood floors she’d helped her father install. Tongue-and-groove. She’d thought that phrase so funny as a child. Her father had allowed her to hand him the pieces of wood and showed her how to lay them down. She’d been so proud that he allowed her to help. “It’s just you and me, kid,” he always said after they finished a project. Just you and me, kid. Yeah, right. I think you left someone out, Daddy.
It wasn’t until she was back in her favorite chair that she saw that the will was still on the coffee table. Well, she certainly wasn’t going to touch that. No way was she ever going to touch that. Absolutely, she was never, ever going to touch that.
Alice pawed her mistress’s leg for attention. When there was no response, the dog ran to the kitchen for her food bowl, carried it back, and dropped it at Olivia’s feet. Cecil barked. Olivia looked at her watch. It was time for Alice’s supper. Cecil, too, since she was dog-sitting. She felt a hundred years old when she heaved herself to her feet and made her way to the kitchen.
Olivia reached into the cabinet for the dog food. Her father had allowed her to screw the knobs into the cabinets. Just you and me, kid. A duo instead of a trio. She started to cry again, the tears rolling down her cheeks like a waterfall. She sniffed as she scooped out the food into two bowls and watched as both dogs gobbled it down. She let them outside. It was snowing harder. It always snowed in February. Her father was probably basking on the deck of his boat, sharing a glass of wine with Lea at this hour. It was probably warm and balmy, and they were probably both wearing shorts and T-shirts.
She needed to call her father. What should she say? How should she say it? Just you and me, kid. Now it was her father and Lea. And, she wasn’t a kid anymore.
Nothing was what it seemed. Not even the picture of “her mother” on the mantel.
Alice scratched against the door as Cecil tried to nip her ear. Olivia opened the door, towel-dried the dogs, handed each of them a treat. She should think about her own dinner. She reached for a box of Cheerios and carried it back to the great room. She set the box down and made a fire.
Olivia was a little girl again as she hugged her knees to her chest and watched the flames dance behind the ornate grate. She picked at the dry cereal, sharing it with the two dogs sitting next to her. She had to think, but her brain suddenly wasn’t working.
Just you and me, kid.
Liar! Liar!
Both dogs crawled into Olivia’s lap and snuggled with her. How warm and comforting they felt. Suddenly, a red-hot streak of rage, hot as the fire she was looking at, ripped through her. What kind of mother would…would…ignore her daughter for thirty-four years? Who was this woman who had left her entire estate to a daughter she’d ignored all her life?
Well, the only person who could answer those questions, other than possibly the attorney, was her father. And only he could tell her who was in the picture on the mantel.
Olivia got to her feet and rummaged between the sofa cushions for the portable phone. For some reason she always stuck it between the cushion and the arm. Most times the battery was dead, and she had to recharge it or use her cell phone. She took a mighty, deep breath and dialed her father’s cell phone. She wasn’t surprised when Lea answered, sounding happy and relaxed. Well, why the hell shouldn’t she sound happy and relaxed, with her father and all that warm sunshine?
“Lea, it’s Ollie,” she said, using her father’s favorite nickname for her. “Is he there?”
“Honey, you sound…funny. Are you all right? Do you have a cold or something? If you do, you need to start taking care of it. I saw on the news that it’s very cold and snowing in Winchester.”
“Or something,” Olivia responded. “Is Dad there?”
“He was until about ten minutes ago. He’s down on the pier watching some fisherman haul in a huge marlin. Can I have him return your call, or would you like me to go get him? I don’t think he’ll be too long. Let’s face it, how long can you stare at a dead fish?”
Olivia knew she was supposed to laugh at Lea’s little joke. She didn’t. She wondered if she would ever laugh again about anything. “No, that’s okay. Tell him to call me when he gets in. It’s important, Lea.”
“Is there anything I can do, honey?”
“No. But thanks for asking.” Olivia clicked the OFF button and replaced the phone in its stand instead of letting it slide down between the cushions. She walked back to the fire, carrying an armful of pillows. She was so cold she ached. The dogs curled up next to her, and she fed them the crunchy cereal, one morsel at a time.
Just you and me, kid.
Chapter 3
Three hours later, the dogs sound asleep on the pillows, Olivia’s phone finally rang. She looked at it through narrowed green eyes that were little more than slits. The rage she’d felt earlier was still with her. Getting up carefully so as not to wake the sleeping dogs, she barked a greeting into the phone.
“Ollie, Ollie, how are you? I’m sorry I missed your call. Daimon brought in this glorious marlin, and we all had to stand around and watch him gloat. Then we had to go to Finnegan’s to make a toast. What’s up, honey? Lea said you sounded funny and wasn’t sure if you were sick or something was wrong.”
There’s something wrong all right. “A lawyer came to see me this afternoon.”
“Good Lord, don’t tell me someone is suing you! When are people going to understand the camera doesn’t lie? They look the way they look. Call up our attorney, offer to redo the photos, then touch them up. That should work. You aren’t upset over this, are you, Ollie? You know it goes with the territory. It happened so many times to me, I lost count.”
How cheerful and upbeat his voice sounds, Olivia thought, when my own is so chilly and hateful. Just you and me, kid. “It wasn’t about a disgruntled client, Dad. It was about my deceased mother—your deceased wife. The woman whose picture is not on the mantel. It seems she rose from the dead and died all over again two weeks ago. Well, Daaadd, what do you have to say about that?”
The silence on the other end of the phone was so total, Olivia had to prompt her father for a response. “Well?”
“I’ll get the first plane out in the morning. I should be there by midafternoon. This is not something to discuss over the phone.”
“Why the hell not, Daaadd?” Olivia wailed. “How could you? More to the point, how dare you not tell me? How dare you let me think that woman in the picture was my mother? How dare you, Dad?” With shaking hands, Olivia pitched the phone across the room. She watched as the small cover that held the batteries bounced off, and the batteries rolled across the tongue-and-groove floor. She cried harder but made no move to fix the phone. Instead, she went back to the fire and curled up with the dogs, where she cried herself to sleep.
Olivia woke with a stiff neck. She struggled to her feet, all the while massaging her neck. She hoped a hot shower would
