The Sinner

Somehow he didn’t get the impression she was poking around for gossip. She had a peaceful quality herself, kind of like this garden, as if she had been through a lot and found calm on the other side.

“Yes,” he said, surprising himself. “I was pretty damn angry most of the time. This garden belonged to my father, and that alone was probably enough to poison it for me.”

She just nodded. Bryce looked at her lovely profile rimmed in moonlight, and he decided that Kieran had done very well for himself. A woman who knew when to be silent was rare. A beautiful woman who knew was nothing short of a miracle.

They stood together several minutes. The air was cold and clean and sweet, filled with the scent of unseen winter roses. The light in the pool was off, so the wind-ruffled navy-blue water was lit only by wavering points of starlight. Somewhere a fountain trickled.

Suddenly, Claire made a small noise, something between a gasp and a moan. He looked over and saw that she was clutching the railing with one hand, bending toward it. Her other hand was pressed against her abdomen.

“Are you all right?” He touched her shoulder. “Do you want me to get Kieran?”

She shook her head, but she didn’t seem to be able to speak. Her breath was shallow and quick. He put his arm around her shoulder and felt the trembling in her fragile body. Oh, hell. He didn’t know anything about pregnant women. What was happening?

If it had gone on a single second longer, he would have scooped her up in his arms and carried her in to Kieran. But just then she took a deep breath and straightened up to her full height, which still didn’t reach his chin.

“Sorry about that,” she said with a wobbly smile. “Thanks for not sounding an alarm. It’s just false labor—it happens every now and then. I saw the doctor this morning, and she says it’s perfectly normal. The baby’s not due for a month. The doctor says it may be a little early, but it’s not imminent. A couple of weeks, at least.”

Bryce had removed his arm, but in his mind he still could feel those shaking shoulders. That was normal?

“But even so…shouldn’t you tell Kieran?”

“God, no.” She laughed softly. “You’ve seen how he treats me. If I told him about this, he wouldn’t let me out of bed until the baby was born. He’d be spoon-feeding me parfait night and day. I’d go crazy.”

From what Bryce had seen tonight, he judged Claire McClintock to be a pretty sensible lady. He decided, on the spur of the moment, to trust her.

“Okay,” he said. “I won’t say anything.”

She squeezed his arm. “Thanks,” she said. “You know, I—”

But just then the peaceful blue midnight was shattered by the sound of gunfire. Bryce started, his heart accelerating under his dinner jacket, but almost immediately he figured it out. Of course. Up and down these normally quiet streets, people were celebrating, ushering in the New Year with sparklers and firecrackers and half-heard, half-drunken renditions of “Auld Lang Syne.”

In the middle distance church bells began to ring.

The library doors opened, and the others spilled out onto the porch, carrying glasses of champagne. They left the doors open, so that the stereo could reach the garden. It, too, was playing “Auld Lang Syne,” which in this clear starlight sounded more poignant than anything Bryce had heard in a long, long time.

Suddenly the cell phone in his pocket rang. He glanced at the caller ID, and for a minute his heart began to race again. The area code was 213, the area code for Los Angeles, California.

Excusing himself, he answered it, moving to the edge of the porch so that he wouldn’t disturb the kissing and laughing and hugging going on among the old Heyday buddies gathered there.

“Hey, McClintock, this is Joe. Hope I’m not interrupting.”

“Of course not,” Bryce said. Joe was the police officer who had been shepherding the Kenny Boggs issue through the system. He was a good guy.

Bryce realized that his voice sounded dull, so he put more energy into it. “No problem, Joe. What’s up?”

“I just wanted to tell you the final hoops have been cleared. Everything’s in order. You can even have your gun back if you want it.”

No. He didn’t want it.

“Thanks,” Bryce said. He paused. “I mean it, Joe. Thanks.”

“Forget it. I just— I mean, I also wanted to say…I hope things go good for you there in—what the hell was the name of that burg you came from?”

“Heyday,” Bryce said. “Heyday, Virginia.”

Joe laughed. “Yeah, in Heyday. I wanted to say Happy New Year, you know. I hope it’s a good one for you, McClintock. You deserve it.”

Bryce swallowed hard and thanked him, surprisingly touched that Joe had remembered and made the effort. It was only nine o’clock in California.

But when he clicked off and looked down at the silent cell phone in his hand, he had to face the truth.

He knew what he’d really been hoping.

Fool that he was, he’d been hoping that, in spite of everything, Lara Lynmore had been thinking of him.

He’d been hoping that somehow, even out there in Tinseltown where the New Year’s Eve parties were just getting started, she might sense that, here in Heyday, it was a cold and lonely midnight.

CHAPTER THREE

MORESVILLE COLLEGE WAS small in acreage, but big on charm. The view people always saw on the postcards, shot from Stagger Hill just above Heyday, was downright quaint. The school’s half-dozen Federal-style redbrick buildings were sweetly tucked into the surrounding flowery woods—they always photographed it in the spring—like so many giant Easter eggs.

Seen from ground level, in the visitor’s parking lot at the tail end of the winter break, it looked much more institutional. Bryce locked his car and gazed around. Maybe it was just the absence of student bustle, but he thought the campus looked run-down and tired.

He wondered what that was all about. When he’d last been in Heyday, the college had been thriving, really making a name for itself.

He poked around a little, getting oriented. By the time he reached the office of Dilday Merle, chairman of academic affairs at Moresville College, for their ten o’clock meeting, he was five minutes late. But since he wasn’t sure what the hell this meeting was all about, anyway, he wasn’t terribly worried.

So, 301…that was the corner office, four big windows with great views. Bryce whistled under his breath. So Dilday Merle had finally made good, huh? Bryce was glad to see it.

Fifteen years ago, Dilday Merle had been the Algebra II teacher at Heyday High. On his next-to-the-last visit home, Bryce, who had fooled around and flunked Algebra II at his own school in Chicago, had ended up attending summer school in Heyday. He’d been assigned to Dilday Merle’s class.

The guy had been geeky and ancient even then. Bryce had thought he was a total loser. And he couldn’t believe that the slow-witted Heyday kids hadn’t already seen the entertaining possibilities for making fun of Dilday’s name. Bryce and the dorky teacher had locked horns early, but to his surprise, Dilday Merle had won the battle. Bryce had never stopped being cocky and obnoxious, but he had damn sure learned algebra.

They shook hands now with warmth that was, on Bryce’s side at least, quite sincere.

“Bryce McClintock. It’s been a long time.”

“Yes. It has.”

The pleasantries didn’t last long. Dilday looked scatty, with thick black glasses overhung by shaggy, unkempt eyebrows and Albert Einstein hair, but he was mentally as sharp as a shark’s tooth.

“All right,” Dilday said. “Let’s get down to it. You know I want something, or I wouldn’t have asked you to come over. Maybe you already know what it is?”

Bryce lifted one brow. “Money? I’ve just been here a week, but so far that seems to be the odds-on favorite.”

Dilday laughed. “Oh, no. Money’s not my department. Our president, Dr. Quentin Steif, he’s the official back-slapper and fund-raiser. I’m sure he’ll be calling you before long. No, my area is academics. I am hoping I can talk you into teaching a criminology class.”

Well, that did cut to the chase. Dilday had always known how to keep students awake and edgy. Bryce could feel his curiosity pricking. He sat up a little straighter. “You’re kidding.”