Page 24 (2/2)
Ford simply dropped his head in his hands "It’s a terrible, terrible series of i in my brain"
"Would he tell you if you asked?"
"I don’t know, and I’ out of the crazy section of the veranda"
"Wait, wait We’ll switch grandfathers Brian’s It’s hard to see yours holding so fondly on to all those photos if their affair ended so badly But Brian’s was the type, wasn’t he? Powerful, important Married Married with a family, a successful-and public-career He could’ve written those letters"
"Seeing as he’s been dead for about a quarter century, it’d be hard to prove either way"
It was an obstacle, she thought, but didn’t have to be insur soh "Yeah"
"If I could get a sample, and coone, and it could end there There wouldn’t be any point in letting it get out But"
"You’d know"
"I’d know, and I could put away that part of her life that I never expected to find"
"If they don’t ht question of the right person one day"
"I’ll see what I can do"
IT TOOK FORD a couple of days to figure out an approach He couldn’t lie Not that he was incapable of it; he was just so freaking bad at it The only way he’d ever gotten aith a lie had been when the person being lied to felt pity for him and let it slide He’d learned to sink or swi a load of peat moss into the soil behind the coet a shovel," Brian told hi and ad of Shanna’s ass"
She wiggled it obligingly
"We all know you’re watching my ass," Brian shot back
"It’s true Shanna is only the beard To be , maybe she could bend over just a little hed
It ca friends all their lives Only onewas
"What are y’all putting up there?"
Brian straightened, swiped a forearroup of shrubs in nursery pots "Make yourself useful, since you don’t see better to do Haul the them, see how they look"
"He’s just bitchy because I’ out to LA to visit Steve"
"Yeah?" Ford hefted an azalea "So?"
"’The future has not been written’"
You had to love a woman who quoted from The Terminator "Tell hied the plants he handed up, rearranged theement, and eventually jueht," Shanna admitted "We’ll switch that rhodo and that androly, Brian poked himself in the chest with his thumb "That’s why I’m the boss"
"As boss, can you take a "
"Sure," Brian replied as they walked away
"Okay, this has to stay between you and uy her grand, secret affair, ht before she died"
"I repeat: So?"
"Well, they weren’t signed, and Janet kept them and hid theht maybe, until Hennessy melted down, that the break-ins were an atteet the letters back"
"Wouldn’t he be, like, a hundred years old?"
"Maybe, but not necessarily And plenty of guys in their seventies once banged wo," Brian said drily "Hey,with the beautiful, sexy movie star Except I think he was born a dried-up asshole"
"It’s not beyond the realical possibility See, she knew your grandfather, and he was an important man around here, and ca his head while Brian bent over double and laughed "Jesus Jesus!" Brianthe nasty with Janet Hardy?"
"It’s close to the circle of logical possibility," Ford insisted
"Not in my world, Saw I don’t remember him all that well, but I rehteous"
"Inaround getting blow jobs before they go home to the wives and kiddies"
Brian sobered, considered "Yeah, you got a point And God knows randmother must’ve been hard to live with Water was never quite wet enough for her God, she ragged on ht up till she died It’d be kind of cool," he decided, "if Big Drew Morrow had a few rounds with Janet Hardy"
It wasn’t lying not to ly tenor of the last letters It was just nothe wrote? Birthday card, letter, anything?"
"No My uess She keeps faet a sa her knohat it’s for?"
"Probably She’s got a box of e School papers, cards, that kind of shit Therein there She’s been after et it out of her way, take a look through"
"Cool Thanks"
"Hey!" Shanna shouted over "Are you guys about finished or do I have to plant this whole terrace ," Brian shouted back
Ford studied her Built, bawdy, beautiful "How come you never went there?"
"Window of opportunity passed, and she becaot a deal If we’re both single e hit forty, we’re going to Jale sex"
"Well Good luck with that"
"Only nine years to go," Brian called out as he strode back toward Shanna
For a moment, Ford was simply struck du forty Forty was another decade The grown-up decade
How did it get to be only nine years off?
Ja his hands in his pockets, he veered toward the house to find Cilla
In the kitchen, where even the slices and chunks of counter had been torn out and hauled away, and odd-looking pipes poked out of a floor that ht have been snacked on by drunken rodents, Buddy worked at a wide slice in the plaster wall
He turned with soe tool in his hand that iraffe’s neck
"Who the hell puts a goddaoddamn stove?" Buddy demanded
"I don’t know Ah, in case of fire?"
"That’s a load of crap"
"It’s the best I’ve got Is Cilla around?"
"Woman’s always around Check up in the attic Toilets in the attic," Buddy muttered as he went back to work "Faucets over the stove Want a tub in the bedroo," Ford said when Buddy turned slitted eyes on hih the house, noted that the trim was nearly finished in the hall, the entryway On the second floor, he poked into rooms He could still smell the paint in a room alls of a subtle, smoky brown In the master, he studied the three colors brushed on the wall Apparently, she hadn’t yet decided between a silvery gray, a gray-blue and a old
He wandered down the hall, then up the widened, finished stairs She stood with Matt, each holding a sah the
"Yeah, I like the contrast of the oak against the walnut" Matt nodded "You knoe could do? We could triot your Hey, Ford"
"Hey"
"Suht ahead"
"Okay, like this" With his pencil, Matt began to draw on the drywall, and Ford’s attention shifted to the swaths of paint brushed on the opposite wall She had the sa hat he’d call apricot
He took a look in the bathroom, at the tiles and tones
He tuned back in to hear Matt and Cilla coet started on this in ?"
"Hot and i why the hell she didn’t do the h the suested "Buy her flowers on the way home She’ll still be hot, but she’ll be happy"
"Maybe I’ll do that I’ll check,another scree’ll start haht?" he asked Ford
"They’re a classic for a reason"
"Okay I’ll let you know about the flooring, Cilla"
As Matt went down, Ford stepped over, tapped Cilla’s chin up, kissed her "The pale silver up here, the dull gold in the master"
She cocked her head "Maybe Why?"
"Streams better with the bathrooms than your other choices And while they’re both warives a sense of coolness It’s an attic, however jazzed up you make it And in the bedroo Now tella faucet over your stove"
"To fill pots"
"Okay I talked to Brian"
"You often do"
"About the letters His grandfather"
"You you told hirandfather randmother?"
"I don’t think co saet one"
"Yes, but Couldn’t you have been covert, a little sneaky? Couldn’t you have lied?"
"I suck at sneak And even if I gold-medaled in the sneak competition, I can’t lie to a friend He understands I told him in confidence, and he won’t break a confidence to a friend"
She blew out a breath "You people certainly grew up on a different planet than I did Are you sure he won’t say anything to his father? It’s a stew pot of e coh What if Hennessy wrote the letters?"
Cilla went back to gape "Kill-you-with-my-truck Hennessy?"
"Well, think about it How crazy would you get if you’d been having an affair with a woman, then the son of that wo your son in a wheelchair? It’s way-fetched, I agree I’ to reread the letters with this in mind Just to see how it plays"
"You knohat? If it turns in that direction, within a ining ives hed, started downstairs with him "I talked to the police today," she told Ford "There won’t be a trial They did a deal, Hennessy took a plea, whatever He’ll do a minimum of two years in the state facility, psychiatric"
Ford reached for her hand "How do you feel about that?"
"I don’t honestly know So I guess I’ll put it aside, think about now"
She moved into the ht about the color"