Until Dark - Mariah Stewart [30]
Could also be the car’s owner.
Kendra was pondering this as she unlocked the door to her room and dropped her briefcase in front of the closet, recalling her brief relationship with Adam four years ago and what had happened to bring it to an end before it even had a chance to begin.
Her mother’s death had happened, for one thing.
Greg Carson had happened, for another.
Kendra had only recently begun to acknowledge the relationship between the two.
In the aftermath of her mother’s death, Kendra had been totally unanchored, numb with grief, with only the haziest memory of her mother’s funeral and none whatsoever of going to the cemetery, of placing flowers on her mother’s coffin.
For weeks after, Kendra had floated through an unreal landscape that was barren and unfamiliar. Greg, her college boyfriend, had brought the known, the dependable, back into her unstable life. An assistant in the local district attorney’s office, Greg had heard about Elisa Smith-Norton’s suicide at almost the same time that Kendra was being notified. He’d rushed to the senator’s home, and finding that Kendra was living in Smith’s Forge, drove there himself to bring her back to Princeton so she would not have to be alone through the ordeal until her stepfather arrived. Greg helped them to deal with the funeral home, the press, and the florist, and made phone calls to family and friends on her behalf. He’d held her hand in the receiving line at the funeral home and offered his shoulder as often as she needed it. When a mere six weeks later he’d been offered the opportunity to start a firm with a classmate from law school, only the thought of leaving Kendra alone made him think twice about moving to Washington state. His solution was to offer marriage. Kendra, still shell-shocked, had said yes.
The wedding had been small and intimate, attended only by a few close friends and the groom’s family. Kendra’s reluctant stepfather had given her away. While he liked Greg and held him in high regard, Philip Norton had made no secret of the fact that he believed the marriage was a mistake, that Kendra was in no condition to make such an important decision. He feared that, feeling adrift, Kendra reached out for whatever mooring she could find. Time had proven him right.
Greg had been a fine husband, had tried everything he could to help Kendra overcome her grief and to find some happiness in life again. She was the first to praise his efforts. And the first to admit that she’d been a poor excuse for a wife.
Gentleman and genuinely nice guy that he was, Greg had never blamed her for being less of a marriage partner than he deserved. It was to his credit that he’d let Kendra go when she insisted that his life would be better in the long run with a woman who loved him with her whole heart. It hurt Kendra terribly to know that she’d never be that someone, but they were close enough as friends that she believed she owed him her total honesty. It had been with much regret that she’d left Washington to begin the long ride back across the country, alone.
On her way east, she drove into Montana, searching for the place where her family had camped during the last trip they’d made together before her father succumbed to his illness. Jeff Smith had wanted one last wilderness trip with his wife and children, had insisted on it, and Elisa, understanding that this would be their last time alone as a family, had made certain that he’d had that trip. They’d hiked into the hills and made camp along a stream that moved smartly over rock, underscoring the time there with a constant rippling of water rushing around stone.
They’d lain under the stars together, lined up like sentries beneath the big sky that rose over the landscape, before retiring to the tent they had shared. They hiked and fished for trout in mountain streams and told ghost stories around the campfire at night. They followed cougar tracks—from a distance, of course—one afternoon and awoke one morning to a rainstorm so fierce the hail blew a hole in the roof of the tent.