The President's Daughter - Mariah Stewart [48]
Without turning, the man said, “The high school kids who planted the trees.”
“Before that. The women she named by name.”
“Oh, Dina there, in the sunglasses, she designed the garden, and Polly Valentine, she works for Dina. . . .”
“And Jude is . . . ?”
“Oh, she’s the little blonde with the short hair there in the white jacket. Jude McDermott. She’s our librarian. Right next to her daughter.”
“Her daughter?”
“Dina. Dina is Jude’s daughter.”
The words shot through Simon like a heavy charge of electricity.
He stepped forward just close enough to see Dina flash a wide smile for the local press.
There was something about that smile. . . .
Drawn to her, Simon stepped closer.
And then she took off her sunglasses, and Simon’s heart stopped in his chest.
Simon knew that face.
His hand found its way to the inside pocket of his sport jacket, sought the photograph he had tucked away. He slid it from the envelope and held it up, checked to see if his memory was playing tricks on him. But no, the face in the photo was just as he had remembered it.
There was no mistaking what he saw before him but no explanation for it, either.
Dina McDermott was a dead ringer for Blythe Pierce. Right down to her megawatt smile.
Simon sat in his car, across the street and a safe distance from the McDermott house, and tried to make sense of what he’d seen and what he knew.
He’d seen a young woman who looked exactly like a woman who’d been dead for almost thirty years.
Unless her mother, Jude McDermott, was a close relative of the deceased, how could this be?
But if Jude was related to the Pierces, wouldn’t Betsy Pierce, who seemed to be so open and forthcoming, have referred to Jude as such, instead of merely as her sister’s college roommate?
The only logical explanation was even too far-fetched for Simon to consider.
The front door of the McDermott house opened, and the tall, graceful young woman stepped out, accompanied by the basset hound. The pair set out on a walk that brought them past Simon’s car on the opposite side of the street. He decided to take the direct approach, but by the time he got out of the car Dina and the dog had stopped to speak with a neighbor and hadn’t seemed to notice him at all. Simon leaned against the car, considering his options.
He could follow her and try to engage her in conversation. Or he could walk across the street and ring the doorbell. Daughter was oh, so appealing, but it was Mom he was here to see. And besides, sooner or later Dina would finish walking the dog and return.
Following his head rather than his heart, Simon crossed the street and walked up to the front door. Inside his busy brain there were countless questions crashing into one another with far too many intriguing possibilities. Only Jude McDermott could separate fact from fiction. Whether or not she would do so remained to be seen.
He was still working on his opening line when the door opened and he stood face-to-face with the woman he’d come to see.
“Mrs. McDermott, my name is Simon Keller. I’m a writer, working on a new book about former President Graham Hayward, and I was hoping for a few minutes of your time.”
“I . . . I never met the man. I’m afraid there’s nothing I could tell you.” Jude McDermott’s pretty face faded to chalk white in a heartbeat as she froze in the doorway.
Interesting reaction.
“I understand you had a mutual friend.”
“You’ve been given bad information.” She recovered, stepped back, and attempted to close the door.
Simon’s foot, wedged into the narrow opening, stopped her.
“Please go away, Mr. . . . whatever you said your name was. I know nothing about Graham Hayward.” She pushed against the door, but Simon would not budge.
“Betsy Pierce told me otherwise,” he said softly.
The words hit the woman much like a quick blow to the abdomen. She all but doubled over with the force. Her eyes were wide with what could only be described as terror.
“What exactly did Betsy tell