himself a drink. As he was sure she would, his daughter followed him into the big walnut-paneled room.
“Well?” she demanded as Phillip poured a generous slug of Scotch into a Waterford tumbler, then added a couple of ice cubes and some water. Only when he finished making the drink did he turn to face her.
“Well what?” he asked evenly.
Tracy hesitated. There was something in her father’s eyes she’d never seen before. Though he was looking at her, she had the funny feeling that he wasn’t seeing her. “Well, did she kill him?” she asked at last.
Phillip frowned, swirling his drink in his glass, then went over to the French doors to stare out into the night. “Why would she do that?” he asked, his back to Tracy.
“Well, isn’t that obvious?” he heard his daughter say. “She wants to come back here. So she killed her father, because if he’s dead, there’s no place else for her to live.”
Phillip felt his eyes flood once more, and suppressed the groan that rose in his throat. “Is this place really that wonderful?” he asked so softly that Tracy had to strain to hear him. “Is it really worth killing someone—your own father—just to live here?” Then, when he’d waited long enough for his words to sink in, he swung around and faced Tracy, who was standing in the center of the room, her eyes wide as she stared at him. “Well?” he asked. “Is it really worth all that?”
“It is to her—” Tracy began, but Phillip didn’t let her finish.
“How could it be?” he asked. “What would have been so wonderful for her here? Ever since you came home from school you’ve done your best to make her miserable. You didn’t even try to be friends with her. You treated her like a servant, ignored her, snubbed her—”
“So what?” Tracy demanded. Her face had flushed with anger, and her blue eyes glinted in the light of the chandelier. “She’s nothing but trash, just like her mother. She doesn’t belong here, and she doesn’t fit in here, and if she comes back here, I won’t live here anymore!”
“I see,” Phillip said calmly. “And just where do you propose to live?”
Tracy’s eyes widened, and the color suddenly drained from her face. What was he saying? He couldn’t mean what she thought he meant, could he? “I … I’ll go live with Alison Babcock.”
Phillip nodded thoughtfully, and sipped once more at his drink. “Tracy,” he said quietly, “I think you’d better sit down. It’s a good time for the two of us to have a talk, since Carolyn won’t be home.”
“I hope Carolyn never comes back here again,” Tracy declared, dropping into one of the wing chairs and draping her left leg casually over its arm.
“I’m sure that’s what you hope,” Phillip replied, sitting down opposite her. “But I’m telling you right now that it’s a hope I want never to hear expressed in this house again. You may think anything you like, but you will keep your thoughts to yourself from this moment on.”
His words hit Tracy like a physical blow. For a moment she was too stunned to say anything at all. Then she swallowed, and widened her eyes. “Daddy—”
“Put your feet on the floor, and sit up like the lady you think you are,” Phillip said.
Tracy’s leg came off the arm of the chair, and dropped to the floor. She stared at her father, trying to figure out what had happened. “You’re going to let her come back here, aren’t you?” she finally asked, her voice heavy with accusation. “Even after what she did to my horse.”
“Ah,” Phillip said, draining his glass and rising to his feet to fix himself another drink. “The horse.” As he passed Tracy he glanced down, and could see by her eyes that his suspicion was correct. “The Babcocks have some pretty good stock in their stable,” he commented. He said nothing more until he was once more facing her. “I wonder how safe they’d feel with you living in their house.”
Tracy’s heart was pounding now, and she had to grip the arms of the chair to keep her hands from shaking. “I didn’t do it—” she began, but when her father shook his head, she fell silent.
“I don’t believe you, Tracy,” she heard him say. “I don’t believe you, and I don’t know what to do.” His eyes flooded with tears once more, and this time he made no effort to hide them. “I guess I haven’t