“I have noticed that,” she agreed.
Mr. Smith opened the door and walked out onto the porch, idly noting a car that hesitated as it passed the house. Nosy neighbors, he thought mockingly, motioning to the cabdriver.
“I’ll phone you tonight,” she said. “Tell Blake I love him.”
“He knows that.”
“It never hurts to tell him, all the same.”
He grinned and got into the cab. “Okay.”
Meredith watched the cab drive away. Mr. Smith was like family. When he was gone, she was alone again. Just like old times, she thought as she turned back into the house.
The knock on the door ten minutes later startled her. Perhaps Mr. Smith had forgotten something, she thought as she went to answer it.
Meredith opened the door to an unexpected visitor. Myrna Harden stood rigidly on her doorstep, dressed in black, her thin, pinched face hard with contempt and repugnance.
“I’ve been expecting you,” Meredith said with icy calm. “Come in.”
Myrna walked into the house, looking around with disdain. She took the best of the living room chairs and crossed her elegant legs, her purse clutched tightly on her lap.
“I’ll come straight to the point,” she said primly, producing a check. She held it out to Meredith. “That should make it worth your while to leave Billings for good.”
Meredith didn’t take it. She smiled vacantly. “Would you like coffee?”
“Thank you, no,” Myrna said stiffly. She waved the check. “It’s for ten thousand dollars,” she announced. “Take it and go away.”
Meredith eased down onto the sofa and crossed her jean-clad legs comfortably. “I went away, once.”
“Why didn’t you stay?” Myrna’s face stiffened even more. “What do you want? My son doesn’t care about you! He never did, or he’d have gone after you, surely you must realize that?” she demanded in an almost frantic high-pitched tone.
Yes, of course Meredith realized it, and almost winced at the old pain. “My great-aunt died,” she said with dignity.
Myrna’s inherent good manners flinched at the reminder. “I did know that. I’m sorry. But you must have been offered something for the house….”
“I don’t want to sell the house. It has pleasant memories for me. I don’t want to leave Billings just yet, either,” she added quietly, and some of the steely makeup Henry had taught her was coming into play. She looked straight into Myrna’s eyes, her posture open and threatening, her face giving away no weaknesses. “It will take more than ten thousand to get me out of Billings. It will take more than you’ve got.”
Myrna gasped. “You arrogant backwoods brat!”
“No name calling, if you please,” Meredith said easily. She studied the lined face without haste. “You haven’t worn well, have you? I’m not surprised. The guilt must have been terrible at times.”
Myrna actually paled. She clenched her purse tightly. “I don’t feel guilt.”
“You lied to your son, falsely accused me, cost me my home at a time when I desperately needed it…you don’t feel guilt for any of that?”
“You were a child, playing games,” Myrna rasped.
“I was a woman, deeply in love and pregnant with your grandchild,” Meredith said, the words delivered with the precision of a merciless scalpel. “You lied,” she accused, her eyes contemptuous.
“I had to,” Myrna cried. “I couldn’t let my son marry someone like you!”
“You never told Cy the truth, did you?” Meredith persisted.
Myrna swallowed. “I’ll give you twenty thousand dollars.”
“Tell him the truth.”
“Never!”
“That’s my price,” Meredith said, rising. “Tell Cy what you did to me, and I’ll go without a penny.”
The older woman looked frail. Damaged. She stood up, her lips trembling. “I can’t do that,” she said, shaken.
“You’ll wish you had, before I’m through,” Meredith said, her eyes as cold as Henry Tennison’s had ever been. “Did you really think you were going to get away with it forever?”
Myrna dug out a handkerchief with trembling fingers and dabbed at the corners of her mouth. She looked pasty. “Abortions are easy these days,” she said. “I gave you enough for one. I gave you enough to go away.”
“And I had it sent back to you, along with all Cy’s gifts, didn’t I?” Meredith challenged.
Myrna squirmed, but she didn’t answer.
“You told Cy I’d robbed the company of thousands, Tony and I. You had Tony tell him that we’d been lovers, that I’d betrayed him.”
“It was the only way I could get rid of you. He wouldn’t have let you go if I hadn’t. He was obsessed with you!”
Meredith laughed bitterly. “Obsessed, yes. But that was all. He didn’t love me. If he had, you and all your plotting wouldn’t have made the slightest difference.”
Satisfaction smoldered in Myrna’s eyes. “So you know that, do you?”
Meredith nodded, the heat building in her body from a temper suppressed too long. “I was naive, all right. I didn’t realize just how naive until you shot me out of here.”
“You haven’t fared badly, have you?” Myrna asked stiffly. “You look well. You’re still young.”
“There was a baby, Myrna.”
“Yes.” Myrna moved closer, her eyes calculating. “Did you have it? Did you put it up for adoption? I’ll give you anything. Cy never has to know. The baby will want for nothing!”
Meredith looked at the older woman incredulously. “Suppose someone had made you that offer when you were carrying Cy?”
Something happened in Myrna’s eyes. An expression came into them that Meredith had never seen there. An uncertainty. An anguish.
“All these years…You never knew where I was, or what I had to do to take care of myself, and you didn’t care,” Meredith said. “Now you waltz into my home and try to blackmail me out of town. You even have the audacity to try to buy a grandchild you didn’t give a damn about six years ago.”
“That isn’t true,” Myrna said, lowering her eyes. “I…tried to trace you.”
“Because you felt guilty about letting a Harden be put up for adoption?” Meredith said with a mocking smile when the older woman flushed guiltily. “Just as I thought.”
