Mariah Stewart - Cold Truth

“Why not?”

“She wants as few distractions as possible. If she’s dealing with a child, maybe she’d let a parent in. But other than that, she prefers to be one-on-one with her subject.”

“Oh. Well, then…”

“I expect we’ll be back here by the time Kendra is finishing up, so you can see Lucy when it’s over. But I doubt Kendra would let you sit in.”

Cass nodded. “All right, then. Let’s go.”

Rick took a left and headed toward the bridge between Bowers Inlet and the mainland.

“Pretty, isn’t it?” He nodded toward the bay as he crossed over the narrow bridge.

“Beautiful. I love it. Love seeing the sun set over it every night.”

“Have you ever lived anywhere else?” he asked.

“Only when I was in college. Other than that, my whole life’s been on the Jersey Shore.”

“Where’d you go to college?”

“Cabrini. Outside Philly.”

“I know it. I went to Penn. ”

“Is that where you dropped the Texas accent from your speech?”

“Actually, I lost that a few years earlier.” He slowed for the entrance to the Parkway. “I went to boarding school in Connecticut.”

“How’d you end up there?”

“Not my choice.” He turned on the radio and began to search for a station that was more music than static. “My mother’s idea.”

“Oh.” She wanted to ask what had prompted his mother to send him away at a young age, but hesitated.

“She felt it best at the time.” He knew she was too polite to ask, and knew, too, that they had at least an hour together in the car. They had to talk about something.

“You mentioned once that she had remarried.”

“Married. She and my father had never been married.” He settled for classic rock out of New York.

“Right. Sorry.”

“It wasn’t your fault.” He smiled. He knew it was an awkward subject. “When she married my stepfather, and began having a family with him, I guess she felt the contrast between us was too great. Caused people to ask too many questions that were embarrassing to not only my mother, but her husband.”

“What contrast?”

“All of her children with Edward-her husband-are blond and blue-eyed. I, being one-fourth Mexican, stood out like a sore thumb in the family portraits.”

“You’re part Mexican?”

“I sometimes think that’s my best part.” He tried to smile again, was less successful this time. “My grandfather-my mother’s father-was Mexican. My grandmother was Swedish. Some combo, eh?”

“What about your father’s parents?”

“Irish and Italian.”

“Quite a combo, indeed.”

“And you’re, what, Irish and…?”

On the radio, Sting was singing about fields of gold.

“The Irish is that apparent?”

“Oh, yeah.” This time when he smiled, it was genuine.

“Irish and German and French.”

“Gotta love America.” He shook his head. “Gotta love that melting pot.”

She looked out the window at the seemingly endless vista of scrub pine. Less than a mile away, new shopping centers and strip malls abounded. The changing face of the area wasn’t totally to her liking.

“Did you hate boarding school?” she asked softly.

“At first, yes. Yes, I did. After a while, though, I adapted. I learned to make the best of it.”

“How?”

“Well, for one thing, since I was bigger than everyone else, I wasn’t bullied much. For another, I was a strong athlete. And I was smart.”

“What sports did you play?”

“Football and baseball.”

“Were you very good?”

“Actually, I was,” he admitted. “All in all, once I got used to the fact that I wasn’t going home until the end of the term, I was okay. I adjusted.”

“You were a smart little boy, then. Lots of kids rebel when they’re sent someplace they don’t want to be.”

“Is that the voice of experience speaking?”

She nodded. “After I lost my family, I went to live with my aunt and uncle-Lucy’s family.”

“And things weren’t good there?”

“It wasn’t bad,” she said. “I know they did all they could for me. And being with Lucy was a comfort, in a way. She and I had always been very close. But…”

“But it wasn’t your home, and it wasn’t your family.”

“I felt as if I’d walked into someone else’s life. I wanted my own life back. I wanted to go home,” she said simply. “I wanted my mother and my father and my sister and my house. As much as Aunt Kimmie loved me, she was Lucy’s mother, not mine. And Lucy, as close as we were, was not my sister. I wanted things to be the way they’d been. I never really was able to accept what had happened.”

He’d turned the radio down when she’d started to speak, he wanted to catch every word. He knew instinctively this was not something she spoke of often. He wanted her to know that he understood this, and therefore offered her his full attention.

“So you rebelled how?” he asked.

“Name something.” She laughed dryly. “I drank. I smoked. I stayed out at night. Much to my aunt and uncle’s dismay. They just didn’t know what to do with me. Looking back, I feel bad that I put them through so much. They tried really hard.”

She bit her lip and stared out the window.

“I’m sure the situation was difficult for your aunt, too.”

“I had no concept of that as a child. I wasn’t aware of anyone’s pain except my own. If she grieved, I didn’t sense it. I only knew that my entire world had collapsed under my feet. I had no sense of anyone else’s suffering back then.”

“Well, you were pretty young.”

“Seven that summer.” She bit her lip and stared out the window. “When I became old enough to understand things a little better-which wasn’t until I was in college-I was surprised that I had survived it all. You simply don’t realize how much pain the human spirit can endure.”

“You seem to have turned out all right.” He reached over and took her hand. “Better than all right. You might be the strongest woman I’ve ever met. And I’ve known some truly tough women.”

“I didn’t have a choice.”

“Everyone has a choice. You get into situations you hate, places you don’t want to be, you have a choice. You go with it and make it your own, or you fight against it relentlessly. Smart is knowing when to stop fighting. Strong is knowing when to move past it and take what you have and turn it into something you can live with.”

“Easier for some than for others.”

“Don’t kid yourself, Cass. It isn’t easy for anyone.”

Having no response, she turned her face to the window once again, and watched the trees whiz past as the car sped along. She’d already revealed more of herself to him than she had to anyone in a long time, and she wasn’t sure why.

She leaned forward and turned up the volume on the radio. Right then, she had nothing more to say.

“So, what have we got here?” Mitch asked as he followed Regan into her office. “Anything new come in since I left last night?”

“The fax machine hasn’t stopped,” she told him. “It’s eating me out of house and home. Well, out of paper, anyway.”

She pointed at the stacks neatly arranged atop the desk. “These came in late last night, this other stack was in the tray this morning. The ones that are still in the tray have arrived since the time I got up at six, emptied the tray, and made my breakfast.” She paused. “Speaking of which, have you eaten?”

“I have, thanks for asking. The restaurant next to the motel does a decent omelet. But if there’s coffee…”

“There’s always coffee. I think you know where to find it by now.” She pointed him in the direction of the kitchen.