O' Artful Death - By Sarah Stewart Taylor Page 0,59
taking care of myself, because that’s exactly what I do.” It struck her that despite his protestations the night before, he believed there was something in all this, and that he believed she was in danger. And suddenly she felt awful and she wanted to tell him she was sorry.
Embarrassed, Patch said, “Why don’t we all go into the living room and leave you two.”
“No, that’s all right,” Sweeney said, and turned to Toby. “Can we go for a drive or something? I want to talk to you.”
He nodded and they put on their coats in silence and went out to the Rabbit. Driving gave her something to do as she decided what she wanted to say and they were almost to the Kimballs’ house before she started, “I’m sorry. I should have called and told you guys I was downtown.”
“Yeah, especially after all the stuff last night about someone being willing to kill Ruth Kimball to keep her quiet.” That was sarcastic.
She waited a moment until he had calmed down and then, because she was embarrassed, she blurted out, all at once, the words tumbling over and over each other, “What I’m really sorry about is last night. You were right. I put you in a really bizarre position and the thing is, I like Rosemary and I like how you are with her and I want it to work out. But I can’t help it if I’m jealous or whatever it is that I am. I shouldn’t have said anything.”
They drove over the bridge and Sweeney pulled the car over into a little turnout overlooking the brook.
“Yeah, that seems to be the way you and I do things,” Toby said. They were quiet for a moment and then he went on, “When I . . . last summer, I don’t think you knew how hard it was for me to see you. You made it out that you were the victim in all of it, that I was wrong to have told you. I don’t know why I let you do that. I didn’t say anything, but maybe I should have. And then, I just . . . it kind of gradually went away. I replaced it with something else and I was okay. I met Rosemary and it was the first time I’d even felt anything for anybody other than you. In a long time.”
She listened to the brook rushing beneath them. The night was still. “I know that. And that’s good.” There was nothing else to say. She felt like laughing. Toby just looked at her.
“Do you think that maybe this whole thing means something? That it means you’re ready for, I don’t know, a normal relationship? With a man who doesn’t already know that you eat condensed milk out of the can with a spoon?” The car’s headlights bounced off an evergreen tree in front of them, shining on Toby’s face. He was grinning.
“Is that what Dr. Berg would say?” Toby, whose mother had put him in psychoanalysis when he was eleven, always had a Dr. Berg.
“No, you don’t want to know what Dr. Berg has to say.”
She started up the car. “What? Does Dr. Berg think I’m screwed up?”
“Very.” They laughed. “Are you okay?”
“Yes.” She wasn’t yet, but she would be.
As they pulled into the driveway, he said, “Hey, what did you find out today? Anything interesting?”
She told him about the relief at Sabina’s house and asked if he’d ever heard of anyone associated with the colony with the initials J.L.B.
“I don’t think so, but you should ask Patch. He’d know.”
Sweeney knew she wouldn’t do that. She said, “I don’t know. I’m ready for a break from Mary’s gravestone.”
“You should come skiing with us tomorrow then. We’re taking the kids, I think. It’ll be fun.”
“Okay. Sounds good. I’m terrible, though. I might break my neck.”
“Don’t worry. I’ll look after you.” He smiled. “I always do.”
TWENTY
DECEMBER 17
IT WAS BRIGHT and clear the next morning, a perfect skiing day. Outside Sweeney’s bedroom window, the disembodied sky, a brilliant slippery, shiny blue, seemed to hang in suspension. She stared at it, half-conscious, until a passing cloud, as vague as a puff of breath in frozen air, broke her gaze.
Outside, after breakfast, they organized skis and cars. There wasn’t room for everybody in the Rabbit, so it was decided that Toby would take Britta’s Land Rover with Gwinny and the twins and all of the equipment.