Beverly Barton - Silent Killer

When he got back to the table, Cathy didn’t question him about his attitude toward Clay; instead, she smiled warmly, a look of excitement in her blue-green eyes.

“Thank you for allowing me to draw up the plans for remodeling your house. I haven’t been this excited about a project in I don’t know when. Never, actually.” She laughed.

He liked the sound of her laughter. “I’m glad you’re excited about it.”

“I’ll need your input as soon as possible, but since both of us have to go back to work right away and I’m having dinner with Seth and his grandparents tonight, maybe you could drop by my house tomorrow evening and we can discuss everything then. Tomorrow morning the movers are bringing my furniture out of storage to the house I’m renting, but by tomorrow evening, I’ll need a break. Of course, if you have other plans…”

“You mean unless I have a date?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t have a date,” he told her. “And I’d like to stop by and discuss my plans with you. But I’ll tell you right now that although I have some basic ideas about restoring the old place, I’d like for you to help me decide just what to do. Like, what do you think of adding a gazebo on the porch? And you can design the master bathroom for me. I thought I could convert one of the bedrooms. Then there’s the kitchen-you’ve already mentioned some ideas on how to modernize it and yet at the same time retain its Victorian heritage.”

“You-you want me to make all these decisions? Are you sure? I mean, this is your home. It should reflect your tastes.”

“It’s a home meant for a family,” he said. “That’s what I want it to reflect. I want it to have a similar feel to the way it was when Maleah and I were kids, and my father…” He paused and huffed quietly. “I want to erase Nolan Reaves from every inch of the house and grounds.”

She reached across the table and clasped his tight fist. He stared at her small, delicate hand lying on top of his tense knuckles, and then he looked up at her. “I understand. You told me some of the things that horrible man did, the way he treated you and Maleah and your mother.” She squeezed his hand. “I promise you that I’ll help you make your house a home again.”

After a surprisingly pleasant dinner with her in-laws, her mother, Seth, Brother Donnie Hovater and his daughter Missy, Cathy pulled her son aside and told him she needed to speak to him alone.

“That would be kind of rude, wouldn’t it?” he said.

“I need five minutes of your time. Surely that’s not too much to ask.”

Seth nodded, then walked across the living room and spoke quietly to his grandfather. J.B. glanced across the room at her, a questioning glint in his eyes.

“I told Granddad that I wanted to show you my room,” Seth said.

“Thank you for thinking of an excuse so that we can have a few minutes alone.”

As they headed for the hallway, Seth said loud enough for the others to hear, “It’s my dad’s old room. Nana got some of Dad’s stuff out of the attic, stuff like his baseball glove and bat. We hung them on the wall over my bed. And we put together a photo album of pictures of Dad from the time he was a baby to when I was born.”

Seth opened the door to his bedroom and flipped the wall switch. The overhead light, with its two sixty-watt bulbs, illuminated the twelve-by-twelve space. This room didn’t resemble Seth’s old room in the parsonage; instead it looked, in an almost eerie way, like a shrine to Mark Cantrell.

Cathy swallowed and held her thoughts at bay, determined not to say or do anything that would upset her son. But seeing this room only reinforced her determination to regain custody of Seth. She didn’t want him to forget Mark, but holding Mark up as some saintly figure that Seth had to live up to was wrong. Had filling this room with all of Mark’s boyhood things been Mona’s idea or had it been J.B.’s? Or perhaps it had been a joint endeavor. After all, Mark had been their only child. His younger brother, for whom Seth was named, had died as an infant. What was it like for J.B. and Mona to have lost both of their children? Her heart ached for them, but she was not willing to give them her son as a replacement for his father.

“Why didn’t you and Dad ever tell me that he’d been married before?” Seth asked, the question coming from out of the blue.

“What?”

“When Nana and I were going through the old photograph albums, I saw Dad’s wedding pictures from his first marriage,” Seth told her. “Nana said that Dad’s first wife died. Her name was Joy.”

“Yes, I know.” Cathy hadn’t thought about Mark’s first wife in a long time. “She died when she was quite young.”

“Nana said she had cancer.”

“An inoperable brain tumor.”

“Why didn’t y’all tell me about her?”

“There was no reason to,” Cathy explained. “Mark’s first wife died several years before we married. She had nothing to do with our life, nothing to do with you. And, well, it made Mark unhappy to talk about Joy.”

“Did you mind that he’d been married before?” Seth asked. “Were you jealous of her? Did you think Dad might have still loved her?”

“My goodness, what strange questions for a fifteen-year-old boy to ask.”

“I asked Granddad about her.”

“Did you?” She could only imagine what J.B. had had to say about Saint Joy. During the first few years of her marriage to Mark, she had been forced to listen to her father-in-law sing the woman’s praises.

“He said Dad never got over losing her, that, well, that she was the love of his life.”

Damn, J.B. Why on earth would he say such a thing to Seth? “I was never jealous of Joy. Your father loved me. He was happy in our marriage, and he adored you.”

Apparently remembering the good life the three of them had shared, Seth smiled. “I sure do miss Dad.”

“I miss him, too.”

“Do you?”

“Of course I do. And I miss you, Seth.” He had given her the opening she needed. “You know how much I want you to come and live with me. I’ll be moving our furniture into the rental house tomorrow morning.”

Seth stared down at the floor. “Granddad doesn’t believe-”

“I don’t care what J.B. believes. I need to know what you want. Do you want to come and live with me?”

“Granddad would never agree. You know what he thinks.”

“Yes, I know what he thinks. What do you think?”

“I guess I’d like to be two people.” He glanced at her quickly and then looked back down at the floor. “One of me could stay here with Granddad and Nana and the other me could go live with you.”

God, she hated doing this, hated making her son choose between her and his grandparents. But it wasn’t her fault that he was being put in this position. It was J.B.’s fault.

“But there’s only one you-only one Seth Nelson Cantrell. As much as your grandparents love you and you love them, you’re my son, not theirs.”

“Maybe, if we give Granddad time, he’ll come around.”

“And if he doesn’t?” Cathy knew that waiting for J.B. to change his mind would be like waiting for the sun to rise in the west and set in the east.

“I don’t know. What do you want me to say?” Seth curved his right hand into a fist and punched it into the open palm of his left hand.

Cathy curled her hand over his shoulder. He looked right at her. “I’ve hired a lawyer, Elliott Floyd. I want you to talk to Mr. Floyd and tell him how you feel about living with your grandparents and about the possibility of coming to live with me.”

Seth’s eyes widened. “Why did you hire a lawyer?”

“That’s a very good question.” Elaine stood outside in the hallway, her hard gaze directed at Cathy.