Chapter Four
Ross itched to take his sister-in-law to task for telling the cops he was SAS but the presence of his nephew stopped him. He reminded himself he had more important priorities. Like telling Charlie his mother was dead.
Holy shit, he needed a drink. Heading to the liquor cabinet in the lounge, he poured a finger of whiskey into a crystal tumbler. Despite his father’s efforts, this place had never been home. Even now, with Linda beyond caring, Ross felt like a trespasser. Behind him, he heard the diaper bag hit the carpet. Harry on her hip, Meredith held out a hand. “Oh, God, yes please.”
Passing his glass over, he poured himself another. Harry made a grab for his mother’s tumbler and Ross distracted him with a shiny stainless-steel cocktail measure.
Meredith raised her glass. “To Linda,” she said with a faint tremor in her voice.
Ross wouldn’t be a hypocrite so he simply chinked glasses. They tossed down their drinks in one gulp. “I owe you an apology,” he said, while the whiskey was still a smoky afterburn on his tongue. Might as well get this over with. “For venting on you after an argument with Linda.” Though come to think of it, Meredith had given as good as she got.
“She was angry but not clutching her chest or anything when I arrived,” she offered, putting her empty glass on the cabinet. “In case you were feeling guilty.”
He glanced at where the picture used to hang and resisted the temptation to pour another shot. He had caused Linda’s fall—indirectly. Cleaning up he hadn’t seen the sampler; it didn’t matter. Ross never wanted to set eyes on it again.
Because of the sampler, his brother would suffer losing his mother and Ross would suffer for him. In the saddest of ways, Linda had had the last word.
Steeling himself, Ross pulled out his cell. “I’ll phone Charlie while you’re changing Harry.” He considered asking Meredith to call—a woman might break the news more gently—but dismissed it.
His brother was finally getting over his ex, although dating Harry’s day-care teacher was just plain dumb. God knows how Harry’s baby brain was making sense of it.
But Ross had long since given up pointing out emotional minefields in favor of standing clear. Only once had he stepped over his self-imposed line—deterring his brother from starting a turf war over custody. Women rarely came first in Ross’s world but kids always did. He knew firsthand how an acrimonious divorce affected a child.
He waited until she and Harry were out of earshot before punching in Charlie’s number. “The cell phone you have called is either turned off or outside the coverage area.” Damn it. Ross considered a moment, then snatched Meredith’s handbag from the sideboard and went upstairs, following the sound of her voice. She sounded fraught.
“Sweetie, second time’s lucky, I promise.”
“Meredith.”
She jumped and turned guiltily from the change table. Two diapers lay discarded, one used, one fresh. “The tabs wouldn’t stick,” she said. “This one seems okay.” She finished fastening Harry’s diaper and stood back. “There.” Anyone would think she’d painted the Sistine Chapel.
Impatiently, he lifted her handbag. “I need the number of the camp where Charlie and Tilly are staying.”
Her eyes widened, she darted forward to grab it just as Harry dropped the cocktail shaker and started to roll. Ross dived forward and scooped him off the change table before he fell. “Oh, no, you don’t.” He turned to his sister-in-law. “Relax, I wasn’t going to open it.” Though now he wondered what she was trying to hide.
She clutched the bag to her chest. “The zip’s faulty…. It splits open sometimes and spills everything.” She hadn’t even registered Harry’s near tumble. “The camp is called Findlay Park. You’ll have to look up the number.”
He gave her the baby. “Where is it?”
There was a long pause. “I’m sorry, my brain’s stopped working. I need to get out of this house.” She set Harry on the change table and snapped the domes closed on his overalls. “All I can remember is that tonight they were doing some sort of wilderness camping thing…I’ve been worrying that Tilly’s sleeping bag won’t be warm enough.”
Typical. She’d always been a helicopter mum. Ross did a search for Findlay Park on his cell. “Karapiro,” he said, “just over two hours’ drive away. Did Charlie take his car?”
She had to think about it. “No, everyone met at the school and took the bus.”
“I’ll drive down, break the news in person and bring them home. Are you ready to leave?”
Meredith picked up Harry, who’d begun to fuss. “I need to call a cab…. My vehicle’s getting serviced.”
Ross looked at his grumpy nephew. “I’ll give you a lift.” He led the way downstairs. “Where’s Harry’s car seat?”
“Umm.” She glanced around helplessly, clearly flustered.
He tamped down his impatience. Meredith hadn’t liked Linda any more than he did but she had a soft heart. “I’ll check Linda’s car.”
He found the car seat in the garage, still holding half a cracker from an earlier journey. Picking off the fluff, Ross handed it to Harry, then strapped the happier toddler in the Range Rover while his mother went round the house collecting baby stuff.
When he returned to the front door, she was standing in the hall, looking at the spot where Linda had fallen. “I feel we should say something,” she mumbled.
It was a civilian preoccupation, wringing meaning from death, and in this case he had no patience for it. “She was a terrible woman,” he said bluntly. “You know it, I know it. We’re going to have to pretend otherwise for Charlie but between ourselves we can be honest.”
“And yet you worked so hard to resuscitate her.” His sister-in-law, normally so reserved, seemed to stare right into him.
For Charlie. “Maybe I just wanted Linda beholden to me for saving her life.” It occurred to Ross how much she would have hated that and he smiled grimly.
“Why do you talk like that?”
He shrugged. Death didn’t make saints out of sinners even if he’d seen the bereaved reinvent loved ones until they were unrecognizable. And wasn’t that the ultimate irony? “I’m sorry she’s dead because it will hurt my brother and Tilly. But Linda wouldn’t have cried over me and I’m not sugarcoating the truth for the sake of political correctness.”
“Whatever she did to you, you need to forgive her,” she said.
Ross snorted. “Turn the other cheek? Personally I’ve always found an eye for an eye works a hell of a lot better.”
“You’ve changed, Ross,” she said slowly. “I mean you were always a hard-ass but…” Meredith brushed a loose strand of hair off her cheek and he noticed her nail polish exactly matched her lipstick. Earlier he’d suspected she’d come from a lunch date.
“Yeah, well, I’m equally disappointed in you,” he said. Ross did a visual check on Harry in the Range Rover. The baby was happy with the cracker.
Meredith stared at him. “Why would you be disappointed in M—me?”
The innocent act again. “Look, say a few words if you have to, but make it snappy. I’ve got a long night ahead of me.”
She opened her handbag and pulled out a thick gilt-edged book the size of an index card.
“Is that a bible?”
“No, a saints book.” Meredith flipped through the pages. “Here’s one. Saint Barbara covers sudden death… Oh dear, she also looks after ammunition workers. You can’t help but think the two are connected.”
Maybe she was still in shock. “Meredith, this is a waste of—”
“Found one.” Closing her eyes, she took a deep breath and bowed her head. “Linda, there’s no point pretending you were a nice person. But without you there wouldn’t be Charlie or Tilly or Harry so we thank you for them.” Ross found himself bowing his head. “And for their sake, we ask Saint Joseph, the patron saint of happy, holy death, to make a case for you at the pearly gates.” His mouth twitched. The timbre of Meredith’s voice seemed huskier than usual. She must really be upset. “Rest in peace,” she finished. “Amen.”
He lifted his head and met her expectant look. “Amen.”
They didn’t talk much on the drive to her house. Harry finished his cracker and began fussing again. His mother couldn’t soothe him. “He’s hungry.”
“Any food left in the baby bag?”
“I’ll check.” She found a half bottle of milk and Ross caught a faint scent of honeysuckle as she unfastened her seat belt and leaned over the seat to pass it to Harry. Since when had he noticed his sister-in-law’s perfume?
“I’ve been thinking,” she said as he turned onto her road. “If you time your arrival at Findlay Park after all the kids are in bed then Charlie can adjust to the shock before he has to tell Tilly. And she gets a good night’s sleep before she has to deal with it. You could drive home first thing in the morning.”
Ross examined the idea. “I’ll do that.”
As they got out of the Range Rover, Salsa started barking, which just showed how long it had been since he’d visited. Any contact with the kids these days was through Charlie.
Meredith unstrapped Harry from his car seat. “Could you…ah…grab the seat while I take Harry?”
“Sure.” Dumping her bags in the car seat, Ross picked it up in one hand and opened the gate with the other. “Sit,” he ordered the barking dog and, with an apologetic whine, Salsa complied. “Yeah, you’ve forgotten your manners.” Ross bent to give him a rough pat. Salsa’s stubby tail wagged at Harry, in Meredith’s arms.
“So, Harry’s the key to the dog,” she said behind him.
“What?”
“Can you hold Harry while I find the key?”
Her cell rang as she rummaged in her bag, with a zippy time he recognized as “New York, New York.”
“Hello…oh…hey.” With her other hand she fumbled the key in the lock and opened the door. “I…can’t talk right now.”
Stepping inside, Ross put Harry down and the baby toddled over to Salsa who was licking a brown-red streak off the windowpane beside the front door. If he didn’t know better, he’d say it was dried blood.
“No, I’m not putting you off.” Meredith glanced over at him. Clearly she was lying and the male caller knew it, too, because Ross could hear his volume rising. “Look, I’ll call you later…yes…we’ll talk about this, I promise. Goodbye.”
Ross distinctly heard the sound of blown kisses. He folded his arms and reminded himself that it was none of his business that his sister-in-law was a goddamn hypocrite for pretending she was still heartbroken over Charlie. Meredith hung up. “Telesales,” she said brightly.
He raised his brows. “And you’re calling them back?”
“Who doesn’t need another insurance policy?”
Ross glanced around for Harry and saw he’d wandered into the playroom. “Liar,” he said in disgust. “You’re still playing doctors and nurses with the guy you screwed Charlie over with.” Her mouth fell open. “Don’t worry I won’t tell my brother. He’s got enough to deal with.”
“I would never have an affair.”
“See here’s where you and I part ways on our definition of fidelity,” he said. “I think tonsil hockey with another man is off the agenda for a married woman. Call me old-fashioned.”
Her fury was unexpected. “Who started that rumor…who?”
“What are you talking about? You admitted it.”
She looked at him blankly. No hint of remorse. Ross felt a wave of protectiveness toward Charlie.
Ross had been twelve when his mother died and he’d had to move in with his father and Linda. Charlie had been six and his mother’s baby, which meant he dressed like a sissy and had no practical skills because Linda did everything for him.
Ross had expected to hate him and he did. Hated the kid’s homemade sympathy cards, hated how he shared his lame computer games and really hated being told earnestly that even though his mother had gone to heaven, he didn’t have to worry, because he still had a brother.
Charlie was like one of those weighted punching-bag toys…bouncing up smiling after every smackdown.
Walking home from middle school his first day, Ross saw his half brother being bullied at the adjoining junior school. He did nothing. Let Mummy sort it out. But Charlie didn’t tell Mummy that night. Or Daddy, who spent most of his time working to support his second wife’s lifestyle. Instead Charlie said he’d fallen over. Seemed he was accident-prone.
Ross resisted intervening for three days—that’s how badly he wanted to protect himself from caring. On the fourth, he told the bullies he’d beat the crap out of them if they ever touched his little brother again.
“But I’m perfect,” Meredith protested. “Perfect wife, perfect mother, perfect everything.”
Over the past few months, this woman had pummeled Charlie emotionally, and Ross had stood back and let his little brother fight his own battles. Metaphorically it was day four.
He narrowed his eyes. “I don’t know what game you think you’re playing but I’m not letting you give Charlie any more grief than he’s already facing. Pull your head in and behave yourself for the next few days, you hear me?”
“Or what?” She’d lost some of her bravado.
“Your ex is about to come into money, honey,” he pointed out. “Imagine the edge that would give him if he renewed his bid for full custody. He listened to me once. I’m sure I can get him to listen to me again.”