Look Closely - Laura Caldwell [98]
“Of course he does! Doesn’t everyone? Do you know anyone who cares for you, who even likes you?” I was yelling again.
“Your mother did.”
The logical side of my brain clicked into gear. My mother in her blue suit, saying, “Caroline is here. She’ll watch after you.” The sound of two long car horns. “You were there that night. You came to pick her up on the night she died.”
“Good work, Hailey Belle.”
“Don’t call me that!” I unfurled my arms and strained toward him.
He laughed. He actually laughed at me, and my anger zinged into something sharper. I saw more flashes from that night. My mother clutching her head, answering the door. The hand on her shoulder. That ring with the black diamond inset. The man catching her as her knees buckled, his dark-haired head leaning over her.
And then something else shifted into focus. Maddy. That same ring on her nightstand. “Have you been dating my friend, Maddy?” I said incredulously.
“Yes, she’s quite lovely.”
“My God! Don’t tell me that’s a coincidence.”
“I wouldn’t think of it, although I would call it a convenience.”
“Are you sick?” I yelled. “Are you fucking sick?”
“Some might say. But no, I’m quite well.”
“Did you use my mother, too? Did you seduce her so you could blackmail my father and then blackmail the Fieldings?”
He looked surprised again, his eyebrows arched. “My. You are smart, aren’t you? I haven’t been giving you enough credit.” He swung around in his chair and gazed out the window. Rain was pelting it now, fog starting to obscure the view of the lake. “It may have started out that way. I saw your mother walking the beach night after night. She was a very attractive woman.” He glanced at me as if waiting for a reaction.
“And?” I said sarcastically, angrily.
“And your father was rarely around. I knew your father represented Fieldings, and so yes, I thought if his wife had an affair, he might want to keep it quiet. But you should understand one thing.” He turned back and leaned forward on his desk. “I grew to love your mother very, very much. Her death destroyed me.”
I scoffed.
He looked at me with eyes that could cut. “I loved your mother.” He enunciated each word. “And the night she died I told her, very briefly, what I’d done. I told her that I’d set out to use her as a pawn, but I’d fallen in love with her.”
“And Maddy? Why? Why did you do it?” I thought of Maddy’s excited face, her happy eyes when she talked about “Grant.” “Were you trying to keep tabs on me?”
“It was a nice way to find out firsthand what you were thinking about, Hailey. What you were doing. Besides, you’ve got to admit that your friend, Maddy, is quite the attractive girl.”
“You disgust me.”
He paused. “I’m sorry to hear that.”
“You left the ring at Maddy’s place on purpose, didn’t you?”
“Why not? I didn’t wear it anymore. I haven’t worn it since your mother died. And you were taking so very long to figure things out.”
“You were having me followed!” And then another piece shifted into place. “You sent me that letter.”
“I thought it was time,” McKnight said. “You’re a big girl now.”
My breath was coursing in and out, too fast, too shallow. I felt light-headed and then red with anger. “You sick asshole. Did you kill her? You just said you were there that night, and I wouldn’t put it past you to brag about it. Did you hurt her?”
“You don’t know yet? Maybe you aren’t that savvy.”
“Tell me.”
“This is yours to figure out, Hailey Belle.”
“If you call me that one more time, I’ll—”
“You’ll what?” he said incredulously.
“I’ll call the police.”
He laughed again. “And tell them what?”
He was right. It was an empty threat. I could say that I wanted the investigation of my mother’s death opened again, that I suspected McKnight had had something to do with it, but what if he didn’t? What if the real person at fault was my dad or Caroline or Dan?
I clenched and unclenched my hands. I felt like screaming so loud they would hear it across the lake in Woodland Dunes. Instead, I grabbed my briefcase from the floor, threw open his office door and ran for the elevator.
24
On the