Blond, blue eyes.” She smiled suddenly at whatever it was she saw in her memory. “He was our knight.”
“You recall the game you girls played, then.”
“Bits and pieces. We made up a kind of fantasy world, and the three of us played it all that summer. Aaron was the noble knight, and Laura...of course. Laura was the beautiful princess.” Her eyes lit with the memory, and for an instant her face was the face of the little girl she’d been. “Everyone wanted to marry the princess, but she had eyes only for Aaron.”
“That’s it, from what I heard from Meredith and Rebecca.” He hesitated. “Do you remember how it ended?”
“Ended? I went away. My mother came, out of the blue, and took me with her. I didn’t even have time to say goodbye to people.” Lainey’s words were underlined with resentment and something else...resignation, was it?
“Surely you must have heard that Aaron died—drowned in the pond back by the dam.” He nodded toward the rear of the house, seeing in his mind’s eye the stretch of lawn, the narrow belt of brambles and tall grass, and then the strip of woods that bordered the stream where it tumbled over Parson’s Dam—only three feet high, but deadly when a day or two of rain turned it into something like a riptide.
Lainey put her hand to her head. “I...I don’t think so.” Her face paled. “How could I have forgotten something that terrible?”
She looked so white and distressed that he reached out and clasped her hand. Her fingers curled around his.
“Apparently the day after his death your mother took you away. You weren’t here to have any reminders.”
“Even so.” She seemed to realize she was clinging to his hand, and she let go, drawing back in her chair. “But I still don’t understand. How could that have anything to do with Meredith’s mother’s death?”
This was the complicated bit, trying to piece the story together. “I guess it began when Rachel came back to Deer Run in the spring. She and Meredith got together, and they started remembering things from that summer. And they started asking questions.”
She nodded, and it surprised him that she seemed to find that normal. “They would, wouldn’t they? It seems impossible to me, coming into it cold, that Aaron could have drowned that way. He was sensible, and a lot more responsible than most teenagers. He even warned me about the dam one day when he found me down by the creek. How could he have an accident there?”
“You have a lot in common with those two, you know that? You’re reacting just the way Rachel and Meredith did. So, as I say, they started asking questions.”
She looked pleased at being told she was like the two girls who’d been her friends. She brushed a strand of thick, curling hair back from her face, and again he wanted to touch it, to feel it twist around his fingers.
“What did they find out?” She seemed to take it for granted that they would have uncovered something.
“At first it seemed they’d found a reason for Aaron to have killed himself. As you can imagine, that opened up his family’s grief all over again. But they dug deeper and learned that someone had been with him at the dam that night. That it wasn’t an accident or suicide. That knowledge nearly cost Meredith her life.”
Lainey considered his words, staring down at her hands, clasped in her lap. Then she looked up. “Laura’s husband, I understand. Victor Hammond. I remember him now. Kind of pudgy, anxious, eager to please. One of Laura’s followers. Are you seriously saying he killed Aaron? And why Meredith’s mother?”
“Margo King had seen or heard something at the dam that night, and she made the mistake of letting Victor know she had. She was drowned, same as Aaron. And when Meredith got too close, he tried the same to her.”
Lainey shuddered. “Thank heaven he failed.”
Jake nodded. He’d been there, that day, arriving with the police and Zach, Meredith’s fiancé, in time to save her. He didn’t like remembering how close it had been.
“No wonder Laura looked as if she’s...” Lainey hesitated, apparently considering the word. “Empty. That’s how she looks. Empty.”
“That describes it pretty well. If she knew, and I think she must have at some point, she wasn’t strong enough to cope with the knowledge.”
“Poor woman. And poor Meredith, losing her mother that way. I’m surprised they didn’t say something about it last night.”
He considered. “It’s a pretty complicated story to hit you with the first time they see you after twenty years. But I’d guess they’re eager to talk to you about it. They even have the scrapbook you kept that summer. You were quite an artist for a ten-year-old.”
Her gaze slid away from his, as if she were embarrassed. “Kid stuff. Not enough talent for the real world.”
He wasn’t sure what to say to that comment. It was revealing, and he suspected she’d regret it if he got too close.
Maybe she thought so, too, because her expression changed and her chin came up. “You didn’t come here to tell me this story, Jake. So why did you come?”
Jake had to do some rapid reordering of his thoughts. “Right, that. I was hoping you’d come to a decision about Rebecca’s wishes, so we can move ahead.”
Her eyebrows lifted. “You mean you hope I’ve decided to give up the power of attorney.”
“No.” It had sounded that way, hadn’t it? Why was he so inept in dealing with this particular woman? “Not at all. I just need a decision, one way or the other.”
“Fine, you’ve got it.” Her face firmed. “I told Zeb Stoltzfus today, so I’ll tell you. Aunt Rebecca wanted me to do this, so I’m doing it.”
“Right.” She wouldn’t be leaving, then. He had a certain sneaking pleasure in the thought. “That’s all I needed to know.” He stood. “We’ll go from there, then.”
“Really? No arguments? No pointing out that I don’t know anything about Rebecca’s way of life?” She stood, which put her very close to him. “Aren’t you going to tell me that I’m...” She looked up into his face, and their gazes caught. She seemed to lose track of what she was saying.
And he didn’t think he could utter a coherent sentence to save him. His eyes traced the line of her cheek, the curve of her lips. It was all he could do to prevent his hand from following along. She leaned toward him, as if some force of gravity pulled them together.
With an effort of will and muscle, he drew back away from her.
“Right,” he said, not pleased to discover that he was breathless or that he was repeating himself. Couldn’t he think of something else to say? “I...I’ll have to talk to you about business in a day or two if Rebecca doesn’t improve. In the meantime, you can refer to me anyone who has a question about finances.”
“Yes, all right.” She turned and walked a few steps away. Maybe she felt the need to put some distance between them as well. “Thank you, Jake. And thank you for telling me.”
She’d thanked him twice in one meeting. That had to be
