Presumed Guilty

She went into the bedroom and sat on the bed. It seemed like a bad dream now, what she’d seen here. She thought, If I just concentrate hard enough, I’llwake up. I’ll find it wasa nightmare. Then she stared down at the floor and saw, by the foot of the bed, a brown stain in the oak planks.

At once she rose and left the room.

She walked into the living room just as the phone rang again. Automatically she picked up the receiver. “Hello?”

“Lizzie Borden took an ax and gave her mother forty whacks. When she saw what she had done, she gave her father forty-one!”

Miranda dropped the receiver. In horror she backed away, staring at the dangling earpiece. The caller was laughing now. She could hear the giggles, cruel and childlike, emanating from the receiver. She scrambled forward, grabbed the earpiece and slammed it down on the cradle.

The phone rang again.

She picked it up.

“Lizzie Borden took an ax—”

“Stop it!” she screamed. “Leave me alone!”

She hung up and again the phone rang.

This time she didn’t answer it. In tears, she ran out the kitchen door and into the garden. There she sank into a heap on the lawn. Birds chirped overhead. The smell of warm soil and flowers drifted sweetly in the afternoon. She buried her face in the grass and cried.

Inside, the phone kept on ringing.

CHAPTER FOUR

MIRANDA stood alone and unnoticed outside the cemetery gates. Through the wrought-iron grillwork she could see the mourners grouped about the freshly dug grave. It was a large gathering, as befitted a respected member of the community. Respected, perhaps, she added to herself. But was he beloved? Did any among them, including his wife, truly love him?

I thought I did. Once….

The voice of Reverend Marriner was barely a murmur. Much was lost in the rustle of the lilac branches overhead. She strained to hear the words. “Loving husband…always be missed…cruel tragedy…Lord, forgive…”

Forgive.

She whispered the word, as though it were a prayer that could somehow pull her from the jaws of guilt. But who would forgive her?

Certainly not anyone in that gathering of mourners.

She recognized almost every face there. Among them were her neighbors, her colleagues from the newspaper, her friends. Make that former friends, she thought with bitterness. Then there were those too lofty to have made her acquaintance, the ones who moved in social circles to which Miranda had never gained entrance.

She saw the grim but dry-eyed Noah DeBolt, Evelyn’s father. There was Forrest Mayhew, president of the local bank, attired in his regulation gray suit and tie. In a category all to herself was Miss Lila St. John, the local flower and garden nut, looking freeze-dried at the eternal age of seventy-four. And then, of course, there were the Tremains. They formed a tragic tableau, poised beside the open grave. Evelyn stood between her son and Chase Tremain, as though she needed both men to steady her. Her daughter, Cassie, stood apart, almost defiantly so. Her flowered peach dress was in shocking contrast to the background of grays and blacks.

Yes, Miranda knew them all. And they knew her.

By all rights she should be standing there with them. She had once been Richard’s friend; she owed it to him to say goodbye. She should follow her heart, consequences be damned.

But she lacked the courage.

So she remained on the periphery, a lone and voiceless exile, watching as they laid to rest the man who had once been her lover.

She was still there when it was over, when the mourners began to depart in a slow and steady procession through the gates. She saw their startled glances, heard the gasps, the murmurs of “Look, it’s her.” She met their gazes calmly. To flee would have seemed an act of cowardice. I may not be brave, she thought, but I am not a coward. Most of them quickly passed by, averting their eyes. Only Miss Lila St. John returned Miranda’s gaze, and the look she gave her was neither friendly nor unfriendly. It was merely thoughtful. For an instant Miranda thought she saw a flicker of a smile in those searching eyes, and then Miss St. John, too, moved on.

A sharp intake of breath made Miranda turn.

The Tremains had halted by the gate. Slowly Evelyn raised her hand and pointed it at Miranda. “You have no right,” she whispered. “No right to be here.”

“Mom, forget it,” said Phillip, tugging her arm. “Let’s just go home.”

“She doesn’t belong here.”

“Mom—”

“Get her away from here!” Evelyn lunged toward Miranda, her hands poised to claw.

At once Chase stepped between the two women. He pulled Evelyn against him, trapping her hands in his. “Evelyn, don’t! I’ll take care of it, okay? I’ll talk to her. Just go home. Please.” He glanced at the twins. “Phillip, Cassie! Come on, take your mother home. I’ll be along later.”

The twins each took an arm and Evelyn allowed herself to be led away. But when they reached their car she turned and yelled, “Don’t let the bitch fool you, Chase! She’ll twist you around, the way she did Richard!”

Miranda stumbled back a step, physically reeling from the impact of those accusing words. She felt the gate against her back swing away, found herself grabbing at it for support. The cold wrought iron felt like the only solid thing she could cling to and she held on for dear life. The squeal of the gate hinges suddenly pierced her cloud of confusion. She found she was standing in a clump of daisies, that the others had gone, and that she and Chase Tremain were the only people remaining in the cemetery.

He was watching her. He stood a few feet away, as though wary of approaching her. As though she was some sort of dangerous animal. She could see the suspicion in his dark eyes, the tension of his pose. How aristocratic he looked today, so remote, so untouchable in that charcoal suit. The jacket showed off to perfection his wide shoulders and narrow waist. Tailored, of course. A real Tremain wouldn’t consider any off-the-rack rag.

Still, she had trouble believing this man, with his Gypsy eyes and his jet black hair, was a Tremain.

For a year she had gazed up at those portraits in the newspaper building. They’d hung on the wall opposite her desk, five generations of Tremain men, all of them ruddy faced and blue eyed. Richard’s portrait, just as blue eyed, had fit right in. Hang a portrait of Chase Tremain on that same wall and it would look like a mistake.

“Why did you come here, Ms. Wood?” he asked.

She raised her chin. “Why shouldn’t I?”

“It’s inappropriate, to say the least.”

“It’s very appropriate. I cared about him. We were—we were friends.”

“Friends?” His voice rose in mocking disbelief. “Is that what you call it?”

“You don’t know anything about it.”

“I know that you were more than friends. What shall we call your relationship, Ms. Wood? An affair? A romance?”

“Stop it.”

“A hot little tumble on the boss’s couch?”

“Stop it, damn you! It wasn’t like that!”

“No, of course not. You were just friends.”

“All right! All right….” She looked away, so he wouldn’t see her tears. Softly she said, “We were lovers.”