In Confidence Read online

  “Remarkable for a small town like Rose Hill,” Cam said.

  “That’s what everybody says. Well…I need to get back. I didn’t tell Gran where I was headed and she’ll be breakin’ out the blueberry muffins any minute now.” He flashed a quick grin. “She likes to push food at me when I come and I’m sure not complaining. You should try her pecan pie. Man, it’s to die for!” He hesitated, then stepped forward and stuck out his hand. “Thanks, Mr. Ford.”

  Drawing a deep breath, Cam took the boy’s hand. Bony, young, strong. Like Jack’s. “Cam, not Mr. Ford. And, like I said, don’t rely on me exclusively regarding your gran.”

  “Yes, sir. I mean, no, sir, I won’t.” He started off, but then stopped and looked back. “If you notice anything that me or Mom should know about, will you let us know?”

  “Yeah, I’ll do that.”

  Five

  Rachel had an eye out for Nick at Kendall’s soccer game, but he didn’t show, which was unusual. Since the beginning of the season, he’d made it a point to go to nearly every game because somehow Ted never could. Kendall always beamed after spotting Nick in the bleachers, and her teammates almost swooned with delight over her big brother. But today there was no sign of Nick.

  The team won, anyway, and Rachel saw Kendall off in an SUV with Amy Milton’s mom driving, then headed over to see Dinah. As she got out of her car in her mother’s driveway, she glanced with new interest at the house next door, now that she knew it belonged to Cameron Ford. A rambling forties-style cottage, it was a soft shade of buttery yellow with elaborate gingerbread trim painted white. Clearly, it had been added on to more than once over the years and the result was charming, she had to admit. In the front yard, a huge oak with wide-spread limbs furnished deep shade and beauty that no amount of professional landscaping could match. Underneath the ancient tree was a white wrought-iron lawn set, a table and four chairs that would be the perfect place to enjoy morning coffee while reading the paper or to laze away a summer afternoon with a book and a glass of ice-cold lemonade.

  She’d noticed the house a couple of years ago when she’d called on a student’s parents who lived nearby, never dreaming her mother would one day decide to move to the neighborhood. At the time, she seemed to recall this particular house showing dire signs of neglect. Cameron must have decided to restore it.

  She saw movement of the lace curtain at the upstairs window and wondered if he was watching her now, probably thinking her visit to her mother was in response to his lecture about neglecting Dinah. Turning away, she hurried up the flagstone walk to her mother’s front door.

  As soon as she got inside, Dinah called out from somewhere in the rear of the house. “I’m back here! Pour yourself some wine, Rachel. It’s six o’clock somewhere.”

  Not a bad idea, Rachel thought. An opened bottle of a good cabernet sat breathing on the kitchen counter with one of Dinah’s unique wineglasses ready and waiting. She poured the wine and went in search of her mother.

  “Hi,” she said, upon finding Dinah curled up on a chaise on her patio. Afternoon sun had taken the chill off the day, not unusual in this part of Texas in February. Rachel held up the wine. “Were you expecting someone?”

  “You,” Dinah said. “Nick dropped by earlier.”

  “Oh.”

  “He’s mad as hell at Ted.”

  “Well, that makes five of us, I guess.”

  “Who’s the fifth?” Dinah ticked off on her fingers, “Me, Nick, Kendy, you and—”

  “Marta.” Rachel sat down on the porch swing. “I should have guessed Nick would come straight to you. I hoped I would get over here before you heard it from one of the kids. And you’re right, he was very angry. It may be a long time before Ted can mend what was destroyed this morning. If ever.”

  “Hmm.” Dinah took a sip of wine. “The only thing that surprised me was the fight with Walter. It’s hard to imagine Ted actually getting into a physical confrontation with anyone. Over anything. I wish I’d been there.”

  “It wasn’t Ted’s doing, believe me.” Rachel rubbed her left temple and added in an unsteady voice, “And, trust me, Mom, you wouldn’t want to see it. I was already dreading having to tell the kids their father is having an affair and wants to move out, but to have them learn it that way made it even more traumatic. The whole thing still seems so unbelievable.” Tears started in her eyes and she abruptly leaned over and set her glass on a small wrought-iron table. “Ted with another woman,” she murmured, pressing her fingers to her lips. “I’m still in a state of shock.”

  “Excuse me, ladies.”

  Rachel looked around, startled to find Cameron Ford at the edge of the patio. She turned away, quickly swiping at both eyes as Dinah greeted him. How long had he been there, she wondered frantically. How much had he heard?

  “Are you knocking off early today, Cam?” Dinah asked.

  After a keen look at Rachel’s face, he replied to Dinah. “Just taking a break. I realized when I got home from the hospital that I had some personal items of yours. When they removed your watch and earrings, they gave them to me for safekeeping.” He handed her a small plastic bag.

  “Thank you,” Dinah said, peeking into the bag. “I realized this morning that I’d left them at the hospital, so I would have wasted a trip going back for them.”

  “I spotted you sitting out here from my kitchen window and didn’t realize that you weren’t alone. I can see my timing’s off.”

  “Not at all,” Dinah spoke, stopping him as he turned to go. “There’s more wine. Rachel, go inside and pour a glass for Cam. Or there’s beer, if you’d prefer that.”

  He looked directly at Rachel then. “No, thanks.” He seemed to hesitate, then he blew out a breath and squared his shoulders. “I suppose now’s as good a time as any to apologize.”

  “Apologize?” Rachel knew traces of tears were still in her eyes and wished she had a tissue. Almost as the thought was born, he produced a neatly folded handkerchief.

  “Here, looks like you’ve had some bad news.”

  She hesitated briefly, then took the handkerchief, murmuring thanks before pressing it to her eyes. There was no hiding the fact that she’d been crying. “What are you apologizing for?”

  “For being out of line at the hospital yesterday. It was the wrong time to jump you about something that’s none of my business.”

  Dinah chuckled. “But you’ll reserve the right to jump her at another time, huh?”

  A smile threatened before he bent down to pick up a leafy twig that had blown onto the flagstone surface. “Maybe if I count to ten, it’ll save me from sticking my foot in my mouth again,” he replied, settling his gaze again on Rachel.

  “Just so you’ll know, Cam, Rachel makes more time for me than I deserve.” Dinah disregarded a murmured denial from Rachel. “And if I felt neglected, she knows I wouldn’t be shy about saying so.”

  “Like I said, I was over the line.”

  “Forget it,” Rachel said, wishing he’d go.

  “One more thing,” Cam said, studying the twig in his hands before looking up into her eyes. “I’ve spit out the apology, so I might as well be in for a penny as in for a pound. I couldn’t help overhearing the reason you’re upset. For what it’s worth, if Ted has screwed around and messed up your life and his kids’, too, then he’s a bigger fool than I figured.”

  Rachel stared, unsure how to respond to such a straight-on insult to Ted, even if she’d been in a mood to defend him. A more tactful person would have ignored what was clearly a personal conversation, wouldn’t he? While she was trying to think of a reply, he straightened, adding as he was half-turned to leave again, “Did it really come as a shock to you?”

  “Yes. Of course.” And was instantly shocked that she’d answered. The subject was devastatingly personal and he was, after all, a virtual stranger. Frowning, she gave a confused shake of her head. “Do you know Ted? Have the two of you met?”

  “It’s a small town. I’ve seen him on t
he golf course and…around here and there. He’s a jerk. Beats me what you saw in him to begin with, but with two kids and a pretty solid history together, he’s the loser in this, not you.”

  “Why don’t you tell us what you really think?” Dinah put in dryly.

  Rachel hardly noticed, she was so riveted by what he was telling her. Later, she’d probably figure out that he still felt so hostile toward her that it had been easy to speak with brutal honesty. Which gave her more information than she’d get from her friends, even if they’d known about Ted. “Since you’re into plain speaking about my husband,” she said stiffly, “I’d like to know if you were aware of other times when he…he…”

  “Cheated?” Cam broke the twig in half and tossed it in the grass. “If I did, I wouldn’t tell you. What good would it do? You’d only feel worse than you do already.”

  “My sentiments exactly,” Dinah said.

  Again ignoring her mother, Rachel rose slowly from the swing. “Then you do know something?”

  “What you need to do now,” he said, ignoring her question, “is to beat him to the punch in case my reading of his character holds. Go to the bank and make sure he doesn’t clean out your accounts, which would leave you in a financial bind just when you don’t need that kind of grief. And since he’s caused the upheaval in your life, you and your kids shouldn’t be forced to alter your lifestyle. Do you have a lawyer?”

  “A lawyer?”

  “Yeah, trust me. You need a lawyer.”

  Her expression turned frosty. “I don’t see what concern—”

  “It’s not my concern. I’m just telling you that your first step should be to call a lawyer. And not someone used to handling both your business affairs. Get someone new, and while you’re at it, get someone who’s good.”

  “You should call Stephanie Roscoe, Rachel,” Dinah suggested.

  “Wait—” Rachel pressed her fingers against both temples. “Enough, please. This is crazy. We—I—don’t know if any of this is necessary. Ted’s probably going through a midlife crisis. That’s usually a temporary thing. It’s common for men of his age.” She glanced at them and got only bland stares in return. “And even so, I don’t think Ted would take advantage that way. He—”

  She was interrupted by her mother’s snort of disgust. “You just found out he’s been cheating on you for a year, honey. And until you saw it with your own eyes, you probably didn’t think he’d do something like that, did you?”

  Rachel sat back down again. “This is insane,” she murmured.

  Cam propped a foot on the edge of the patio. “It happens all the time.”

  She looked up at that, hearing more than a trite cliché in his tone. “It happened to you?” It was a personal question, but he’d opened the door himself.

  “Call it the voice of experience.” He shrugged, stepping back to leave. “And if I had it to do over again, I’d react differently. I wouldn’t waste time in denial. You sound as if you’re ready to defend Ted, but he’s not showing the same sensitivity to you or your kids, so forget him and think about the kids and…just in case…take some common-sense precautions, that’s all I’m saying.”

  He brushed grit from his hands. “And since I’m so full of advice today, I’ll just make this one other suggestion. Don’t waste time wondering what you did or didn’t do that made him cheat. That’s mostly a road to nowhere when you need to be concentrating on what you and the kids’ll do with the rest of your life.” He then stepped off the patio and walked away as abruptly as he’d appeared.

  “Whoa,” Dinah said softly as soon as he was out of earshot. “And here we thought he was surly and insensitive and had a deep-seated grudge against you.”

  “I still think that,” Rachel said, watching him make his way across the lawn, setting a fast clip to cover the distance between her mother’s property and his. “Yesterday, he could barely be civil to me and today he’s doling out advice, but not in a very loving way. He’s probably getting some kind of sick satisfaction knowing my life is falling apart.” She gave a push on the swing with one foot and settled back while it swayed gently. “Whatever his motives, I don’t need his advice.”

  “I wouldn’t dismiss it so lightly, hon. To hear him tell it, he’s been there, done that. Besides, it can’t hurt to call Stephanie and simply run the situation by her, just to hear what she might suggest.”

  Rachel looked at her mother. “Mom, for Ted to do what Cameron said would be a betrayal as bad as his cheating in the first place. Do you really think he would be so…so low-down?”

  “I’m hardly unbiased, but I’ve seen some pretty sneaky things done when couples begin talking divorce. You—”

  “We haven’t decided to divorce! Ted’s moving to the lake cabin, but it’s more like a separation. He’ll come to his senses, I’m sure of it. The consequences of an affair with Francine are just too dire. For one thing—if we’re talking assets—Ted’s whole financial life is tied up in the practice and the affair jeopardizes his position there. He had a taste of Walter’s reaction this morning, for heaven’s sake. He can’t think Walter will simply stand aside while Ted steals his wife and yet expects to continue to work alongside him every day, can he?”

  “Betcha a dollar to doughnuts that he’s telling himself he’ll figure a way to get around that sticky issue.”

  “I grant you his behavior is pretty disgusting,” Rachel said as she bent forward and picked up her wineglass, “but he won’t just dismiss eighteen years of marriage and our two children like one of his used suits. You’ll see.”

  “Just promise me you’ll call Stephanie.”

  That lowlife, Cam thought as he made his way back across the lawn. And stupid to boot, screwing around with his partner’s wife. Although he didn’t know Ted Forrester beyond a few casual encounters at the golf course, he’d seen him a couple of months ago at a restaurant in Dallas with a woman and it wasn’t Rachel. With no connection to Rachel other than the few minutes he’d spent in her office five years before, he’d thought nothing of it. But now…somehow after overhearing her talking to her mother and knowing the boy’s concern, he couldn’t quite manage the detachment it took to stay clear of sticky situations.

  Back inside his house now, he went to the fridge for a beer. Unscrewing the cap, he headed back onto the porch and stood squinting through the afternoon sun at Dinah’s patio where both women still sat talking. Ever since Nick’s surprise visit this morning, he’d been trying to figure what in hell was behind the boy’s request. Well, now he knew. With his father shirking his responsibilities as keeper of the Forrester cave, the son felt obliged to assume the man-of-the-house role. Apparently that included helping his mom manage things on the home front and seeing to the welfare of his little sister and his grandmother…even if it meant forgoing his pride and seeking help from someone who was a virtual stranger. A daunting task for a fifteen-year-old.

  His beer forgotten, he stared at the two women as thoughts of Jack and his own desolated family rushed back. He’d spent five years wishing he could turn back the clock, wishing especially that he wasn’t haunted by that last telephone call from Jack.

  It had been late at night and he’d been in the throes of his usual deadline angst, trying to work through a book that was giving him problems. He’d rewritten the dialogue of the killer at least four times, trying to get it right. It was a crucial scene, one that would shed a glimmer of understanding about a man who had murdered half a dozen teenagers in the local lover’s lane of a small town in California. The crime had actually happened, and only God—or the devil—knew for certain what the killer said or thought as he prepared his young victims for sexual torture and death. Cam’s extensive research into the case had provided a lot of facts, but little psychological insight. If he’d pulled the story out of his imagination, he could invent whatever drove a monster to kill. But his genre was true crime, and his evaluation of the killer’s psyche had to be solid. After three bestsellers, nothing less for his next boo
k would satisfy his fans or Cam himself.

  In the back of his mind, he’d heard his phone ringing but ignored it. Everyone knew to leave him alone when he was working to a deadline. The book had to be on his editor’s desk in two weeks, and even working fourteen-hour days, he’d have to push to get it done. It was on the fifth ring that the answering machine picked up.

  “Hi, Dad. It’s me.”

  Jack. Cam dropped his head and groaned. It was the third time this week that his son had called, and Cam was still clueless over the reason for the calls. Lately when Jack phoned, he seemed to have something on his mind besides playing ball and the latest movie or rock group. When Cam tried probing deeper, all he got was evasion or Jack suddenly had to hang up.

  Now Cam turned to look at the answering machine, silent except for Jack’s breathing. It could simply be that Jack wanted to see Cam, whether in a visit to New York or in Texas, where he lived with his mother. He hadn’t come out and said so, but that had to be it. He knew it was not possible. It was the middle of the school year. Besides, he knew Cam was on deadline. Jack understood these things. Or he used to understand these things.

  “Dad, will you pick up?” There was urgency in his tone now. “I need to talk to you.”

  Maybe it was Cara. Now that Jack was in the full throes of adolescence, maybe they were at odds over some things. Girls. Sex. Algebra. But, hell, it would kill Cara if Jack actually pushed to come and live with Cam in New York and leave her.

  “I know you’re on deadline, Dad, but—” Jack’s voice caught on something that sounded like a sob.

  Cam picked up. “Hey, Jack. What’s up, son?”

  “Not too much.” Cam heard a sniff, then in a muffled tone, Jack said, “I guess you’re working, huh?”

  Cam looked at the blinking cursor on his monitor. “I’m trying to wrap this one up, yeah, but maybe taking a break’s a good thing. How’s it going with you, son?”