Authors: Gail Bowen
“Do I have your permission to talk about your financial situation with Joanne present?”
“Of course,”
“Good,” Kevin said. “Let’s start with the fact that, for you, becoming a wealthy woman overnight is both a curse and a blessing.”
Jill gave him a sidelong glance. “Where’s the blessing?”
“Money’s always useful,” Kevin said. “Chances are that the person who dropped that prescription bottle in the garbage bin is someone you know. Who’s your candidate?”
“I don’t have one,” Jill said quickly.
“Because you lack knowledge about the possibilities,” Kevin said. “Money can buy you that knowledge.”
Jill set her jaw. “I won’t do that. I won’t hire some sleaze-ball to ferret out secrets about Evan’s family.”
“Your choice,” Kevin said. “But unless you do something to help yourself, you’re in for serious grief. The police are thorough, and you’ve worked in media. You know this will be a bonanza for the press. A lot of things about your private life are going to come out.”
“I haven’t done anything I’m ashamed of,” Jill said.
Kevin gave her a half-smile. “Neither have I,” he said. “But if I had a seventeen-year-old, there are a few things I’d rather explain to her myself. Face it, Jill, paying a little money to arm ourselves with information is the lesser of two evils.”
Jill ran a hand through her hair. “Jerry Garcia always said that the lesser of two evils is still evil.”
“You’re not going to shame me out of giving you the best advice I can.”
“All right,” Jill said. “Do it, but I don’t want anyone going around asking Bryn’s friends and classmates about her. She’s off limits.”
Kevin and I made eye contact, but neither of us said a word.
Jill’s voice was steely. “That’s the condition,” she said. “Keep Bryn out of it.”
“So where does that put us with examining Evan’s current projects?” Kevin asked. “If Bryn appears in a frame of film, do I hit the
off
switch?”
Jill shook her head. “I’ll need to know everything about Bryn, but it can’t go any further.”
Kevin turned to me. “I wrote down the address you gave me. Who are we dealing with?”
“A psychiatrist named Dan Kasperski,” I said. “He’s a good choice. He’s absolutely trustworthy, and his speciality is troubled adolescents. Bryn has been through a traumatic experience. The police will believe it’s logical for Jill to be visiting his office.”
“And while Jill’s visiting the good doctor, she can examine her late husband’s stuff,” Kevin said. “Very handy.”
“In more ways than one,” I said. “You heard Bryn say she hated her father.”
Kevin nodded. “On the night he was killed. It’s occurred to me since that she must have some complicated feelings to sort through.”
“She does,” Jill said. “But there’s no way Dan Kasperski can help her if she refuses to see him. I’ve asked her if she wanted to talk to someone about her father, but she says what he did to her gives her every right to hate him.”
Kevin leaned forward. “What did he do to her?”
Jill’s voice was bleak. “He’s used her for material. Starting on the day she was born, he began filming her life. He never stopped. The night he died, Bryn said she couldn’t remember a time when he wasn’t stalking her. She begged him to leave her alone. He just kept on shooting.”
“Why wouldn’t he stop?” Kevin’s voice was barely audible.
“Because the film about Bryn was going to be his magnum opus. He told Bryn that being in this movie would be the most significant thing she would ever do in her life, that when she was an old woman, audiences would still be watching her grow and develop.”
“But she just wanted to be a kid,” Kevin said.
“Exactly,” Jill said. “But when Evan weighed Bryn’s need to be a kid against his need to make a great work of art, it was no contest.”
“Fucker,” Kevin said. He glanced towards Jill. “Sorry.”
“No need to apologize for the truth,” Jill said shortly. “I guess the next order of business is to check with Dan Kasperski to see whether he’s had a visit from FedEx.”
I glanced at my watch. “Almost ten till. Dan’s appointments start on the hour and run fifty minutes. I’ll try him.”
When he heard my voice, Dan was enthused, “Hey, your boxes arrived.”
“If it’s all right with you, I’m going to send over a lawyer to go through them,” I said.
“The goodies never end.”
“You’ll like this lawyer. His name is Kevin Hynd. I’m with him right now.”
“Can I talk to him?”
When Kevin rang off, he turned to me. “Sounds like a nice guy.”
“He is, and he’s amazing with kids. Jill, if you’ll give him permission to look at some of the footage Evan shot of Bryn, he’ll be able to tell you the best way to approach her.”
“There’s no question that your stepdaughter needs help, Jill,” Kevin said. “Might as well pull out all the stops.”
“Okay,” Jill said. “I’ll keep digging around for that binder Evan kept with the information about his works-in-progress.”
“You can’t find it?”
“No,” she said. “And that’s weird, because he was never without it.”
“Anyway, you guys carry on with what Larissa sent from Toronto.” She walked over to Kevin and kissed the top of his head. “I really do appreciate this, Kevin.”
He beamed seraphically. “Now that was nice,” he said. He glanced over at me. “Be careful,” he said. “The universe has a way of repeating itself.”
When we left Kevin’s, Jill gravitated towards the window of his neighbour. Pinkies was offering Acrylics,
UV
Acrylics, Gel Nails, and Advanced Nail Art at Rock Bottom Stocking Stuffer Prices. “How do you think Claudia would feel about a little Advanced Nail Art?” she asked.
In the end, we gave Pinkies a pass and hit the two last refuges of the desperate on the day before Christmas: the bookstore and The Body Shop. Jill shouldered through the crowds at the bookstore with the single-mindedness of a conquering general. Within ten minutes, we were walking out the door with a shiny Santa bag full of travel books for Claudia, who longed for escape, and a poinsettia-patterned bag of self-help books for Tracy, who longed for nirvana. Both outcomes seemed desirable; both seemed unlikely.
Jill’s face relaxed as we wandered through The Body Shop, filling her basket with lotions, creams, glosses, blushes, bath beads, mascaras, eyeliners, and conditioners to enhance the beauty of a seventeen-year-old who had no need of enhancement. When the young woman at the counter wrapped the gifts in silver-starred Cellophane and tied them with shimmering bows, Jill turned to me with soft eyes. “It’s great to finally have someone of my own to shop for.”
“I take it you’re not talking about Claudia and Tracy.”
“Hardly,” Jill said. “For me, Christmas has always been a day to get through. Now, I can’t wait till tomorrow morning. I know this sounds bizarre, Jo, but at this moment, I feel incredibly lucky.”
“Because of Bryn,”
She nodded. “She’s my best gift. You feel that way about your kids too, don’t you?”
“I do,” I said. I glanced at my watch. “Speaking of, my youngest treasure is waiting to be picked up, so we’d better make tracks.”
The fact that I cherished my children didn’t stop me from being realistic about them. Twenty minutes later, when Taylor, Jill, and I walked through our front door, I did what I always did when I came into a zone that had the potential to be hormonally charged – I made a lot of noise.
“Anybody home?” I called.
When there was no answer, Jill shrugged. “I guess they’re still at the mall.” She tapped Taylor on the shoulder. “I don’t know about you, but I’m dying for a cup of hot chocolate with about a ton of marshmallows.”
“Jess’s mum made us hot chocolate just before I left,” Taylor said. “But she uses carob and she doesn’t believe in marshmallows.”
“Holy Willie Wonka,” Jill said. “What an abomination! Let’s hit the kitchen and make some real cocoa.”
After they left, I went up to the landing and tried again. “Anybody home?” I called. This time I hit paydirt. Angus, the King of Cool, appeared at the head of the staircase. His hair was tousled, his face was burning, and his fly was undone.
“So, how’s everything here?” I asked.
From the time he was three, Angus had flagged the fact that he was engaged in dubious behaviour by hitting me with a river of irrelevant details. When I’d heard more than I cared to about this really hilarious old Adam Sandler movie he had chanced upon, I zipped an imaginary fly.
“So what was Bryn up to while you were sitting alone watching
The Wedding Singer?”
My son lowered his eyes and adjusted his clothing. “I’m a mutt,” he said.
“No argument here,” I said.
“It didn’t go too far,” he said.
“Keep it that way,” I said. “Angus, you know I try to stay out of your private life. All the time you and Leah were together, I trusted you to handle the situation.”
“Be respectful. Be responsible,” he said.
“You’ve got it,” I said. “And it still applies.”
That night we had enchiladas for dinner because we always had enchiladas for dinner on Christmas Eve. It was a tradition that endured because in the first year of our marriage my husband had decided that eating Mexican food, listening to Mel Torme, and making love in front of the fire was a fine way to usher in the holiday. Now, even though I could only manage two out of three, it still was.
Our church’s early service was at 7:00 p.m. At 6:30, I was rummaging through my closet trying to find something that didn’t need ironing when there was a tap at my door. It was Bryn. She was wearing a demure black wool jacket, matching pants, and buttery leather boots. Around her neck was a woven gold chain that held a tiny cross. She was the epitome of pious chic, but there was uncertainty in her eyes. “Is this outfit appropriate?” she asked.
“It’s perfect,” I said.
“We don’t go to church,” she said. “I didn’t want to wear the wrong thing.” She hadn’t shifted her gaze from my face. Her thick eyelashes were painterly smudges against her pale skin, and her eyes were as warmly liquid as dark honey. “I know I worry too much about how I look,” she said.
“We all do.” I smiled at her. “Now if I’m going to come up with anything that makes me look one-tenth as attractive as you do, I’m going to have to get back to my closet.”
“I can do that for you,” Bryn said. She stepped into my walk-in closet and, after a few minutes of silent appraisal, selected a simple black turtleneck and a black silk skirt with a pattern of red poppies. “If you have some mid-calf boots with an interesting heel, this will work,” she said.
She was right. Five minutes later as I checked the mirror, I knew I had never looked more pulled together in my life. I was doing a quick makeup repair when the doorbell rang. I walked into the hall, but when I heard the murmur of voices, I shrugged and went back to my lip liner.
Bryn was standing by the front door when I went downstairs. As soon as she spotted me, she slipped something into her purse.
“Who was at the door?” I asked.
“Nobody,” she said.
“I was certain I heard voices,” I said.
“Well you didn’t,” she said brightly. “You really didn’t.” The tilt of her chin defied me to press the point. I let it go, and the phone call I received five minutes later made me glad I’d exercised restraint.
It was Dan Kasperski sounding more agitated than I ever remembered him sounding. Mindful of eavesdroppers, I asked if I could call him back. When I did, he wasted no time on preamble. “Kevin Hynd spent most of the afternoon watching the footage Bryn’s father shot of her. He was alarmed enough about what he saw to ask me to review some of the tape and give him a professional opinion.”
I felt a coldness in the pit of my stomach. “Is it that bad?”
“Jo, you have to talk to Bryn’s stepmother about getting her some help.”
“I was hoping you’d volunteer,” I said.
“You’ve got it,” he said. “Bring her in tomorrow.”
“Christmas Day?” I said.
“Ticking time bombs don’t stop for statutory holidays.”
When I came downstairs, Jill, Bryn, and my kids were already wrapped up for outdoors, ready for church. Lit by the twinkling lights of Taylor’s tree, they looked like carollers on an old-fashioned holiday card. Heart pounding, I hurried into my outdoor clothes and joined them. It was Christmas Eve. Divine Intervention was not out of the question, but I wasn’t holding my breath.
Taylor loved the lustrous magic of the Anglican service of Lessons and Carols. At that service, all the elements that caused her eight-year-old soul to soar were in perfect alignment. She loved music, and her favourite was “Once in Royal David’s City,” the traditional processional hymn. Every Christmas Eve, she would sit on the edge of the pew counting the moments until the boy soprano who sang the opening verse a cappella was finished so she could raise her strong clear voice in song. She was an artist who saw the world in terms of colour and composition. She loved the perfect rosy Renaissance feet on the doll that lay in the fresh hay of the crèche on the altar, and the juxtaposition of the tiny haloed baby with the soaring black cross that hung above it. And she loved the candles that flickered dangerously in our hands and the way the incense mixed with the scents of pine and perfume. Most of all, Taylor loved communion. She gave me the blankest of gazes when I mentioned transubstantiation, but at some deep level, she understood the thrill of a world in which wafer became flesh and wine, blood. That Christmas Eve as Father Gary ruminated on Plato’s observation that we live in a time when it often seems the sheepdogs have become the wolves, Taylor fidgeted, but when he called us to the communion rail, she grabbed my hand.
The whole process intrigued her: Father Gary’s explanation that our church has open communion, and that visitors of other faiths were welcome to take part; the promise that those who needed healing could come to the communion rail at the last for special prayers and blessing; the choir’s chant asking the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world to grant us peace.
Bryn was rapt too. As Father Gary talked about the sacrament of communion, she listened, lips slightly parted, her hand on the pew, fingers touching my son’s. But when our turn to go forward came, Bryn stayed in her place. When Jill whispered to her, she didn’t move.