Perfect Partners?

Lindsay ignored the sidebars. “Was the gun loaded?”

“Obviously, since my father was shot.”

“Did your mother load it, or was it loaded when she picked it up?” Lindsay asked more specifically.

“It was loaded. I think. Anyway, it went off—accidentally. Mom sort of lost consciousness for a while and when she came to, Dad asked her to phone for help because he’d been shot. I guess there was quite a bit of blood, even though his injury was minor.”

“You don’t seem very upset about the fact that your father was shot.”

“Well, I’m sorry it happened. But Dad wasn’t the one who ended up getting arrested and being charged with a crime he didn’t commit.”

Lindsay could see that Celia was becoming overwrought again. She sighed and gave the woman a moment to collect herself. Celia drank some coffee and whispered something to Nathan. He said something back, his tone low and reassuring.

Where did he get the patience?

But then, Celia was an awfully pretty girl.

Finally Lindsay could wait no longer. “If your mother accepts your father’s version of that day’s events, why can’t you?”

“I know my mother. Nathan’s met her, too. Can you imagine Audrey shooting anyone?” she asked him.

“Not easily,” he admitted. “But even good people make mistakes.”

“Mistakes, yes, but shooting your husband?”

“These weren’t normal circumstances,” Lindsay reminded her. “People change when they’re under duress. How long were your parents married?”

“Twenty-five years.”

“That’s a lot of time to have invested in a relationship. When your father told her he wanted a divorce she must have been devastated. Trust me, divorce never brings out the best in people.”

“But that’s something else I can’t understand. My parents were happy together. Really, they were.”

“Children are often the last to know about these things,” Nathan pointed out gently.

“Maybe. I could probably accept that I simply wasn’t aware of the problems in their relationship. But I will never be able to accept that my mother would deliberately shoot my father. She was scared of his guns. Wouldn’t even touch them.”

“Why isn’t your mother here with you?” Lindsay wondered.

“She didn’t want me to hire an investigator,” Celia said. “But her lawyer thinks it’s a good idea. And since I knew Nathan…”

“Right,” Lindsay said. She’d already decided to take on this case, but she wanted to make sure the parameters were wide-open. “We will need to question both of your parents. Do you think they’ll cooperate with us?”

“I’ll make sure they do.”

“Good. I think that wraps things up nicely,” she said crisply.

Nathan offered to walk Celia to her car, and once they’d left, Lindsay reflected on the meeting. Celia seemed like a sweet, somewhat naive person, someone whose life had been uncomplicated until events completely beyond her control had shattered everything from the foundation up.

Celia may have found her unsympathetic during the meeting, but the truth was Lindsay had related with her more than the other woman could have ever guessed.

But Celia wasn’t paying them for sympathy. She wanted the truth.

The facts of the shooting seemed incontrovertible. Though they often had visitors, Audrey and Maurice had been alone at the lodge that weekend—which was to be expected. If Maurice had planned to tell Audrey he wanted out of the marriage, he’d want privacy. Maurice couldn’t very well have shot himself in the butt with a shotgun—not even a grazing shot. So Audrey must have done it.

The problem with the scenario, however, was that it didn’t fit with the personalities of the people involved. Unless Celia’s assessment of her parents and their troubles was all wrong.

Celia was far from an objective bystander, after all.

Finally Lindsay stood and stretched.

Damn Nathan for knowing her so well. He’d guessed she’d be intrigued by this case, and she was.

CHAPTER FOUR

NATHAN CAME BY LINDSAY’S office after seeing Celia out. She’d already started working on another case.

“You look busy.”

“Try swamped.” She put a hand on a stack of case files that were all of pressing importance.

“Want to pass some of those on to me?”

Lindsay selected a couple files that required a lot of research—his specialty—freeing her up for the fieldwork she loved. She handed them to him.

“See? Doesn’t that feel better already?”

She had to admit that it did.

And then he was gone, before she had a chance to talk to him about the Burchard case, or question him about Celia.

The day was busy and she didn’t see Nathan again. Fieldwork kept her occupied until after eight in the evening, and by the time she made it to the Stool Pigeon for dinner and a few wind-down drinks, she was exhausted.

Still, she didn’t expect to sleep well that night. Celia Burchard’s story was far different from her own, but the woman’s distress had sparked memories, nonetheless.

At home, Lindsay watched reruns on TV, finally falling asleep around two in the morning. A few hours later she awoke suddenly with sadness pressing like a sandbag on her chest.

The light from the hallway provided enough illumination for her to make her way to the bathroom. Not bothering to switch on the wall sconces by the mirror, she splashed cool water over her face.

The dream was always the same. She was a child again, eight years old in a sun-filled playroom. Then she heard a woman scream. A man yell.

The scene shifts and suddenly she was standing in a different room, darker, streaks of red everywhere. At first glance it seems like paint.

Her father is in this room, too, about ten feet away. He’s staring right at her, and she can’t look at anything but him. Slowly understanding seeps through her. Something terrible has happened. The red stuff isn’t paint.

Then she hears another scream and she wakes up.

The dream ends there, always ends there.