Beyond Midnight (21 page)

"
How promising. I know someone who might enjoy going out with him.
"

"
I
'
d wait a decent interval first. I have a friend in mind myself, but I
'
m not rushing it.
"

They changed the subject to something safe and moved on. Helen was left clutching her OSHA list in a state of shock. Linda Byrne—a cheat? It wasn
'
t possible. She was far too
.
...

Too what? Too devoted to Katie? Maybe so, but that didn
'
t mean she adored her husband. All Helen knew for certain was that Nathaniel Byrne spent a lot of time away from home and that his wife resented it.

Or maybe not. The brief phone conversation seemed so long ago now. Helen had a vague recollection that Linda Byrne had wanted to get something settled—presumably Katie, into the preschool—before something else happened.

It was maddening not to be able to recall what it was.

Linda Byrne may have had motive. She definitely had opportunity. A toddler could be a full-time job, but Mrs. Byrne didn
'
t have a career and she did have a nanny. It wouldn
'
t have been hard to slip away if she wanted to. Despite her own best instincts, Helen found herself admitting that an affair was plausible, given the state of the marriage.

Who could the lover have been? Not the gardener or the handyman; the affair couldn
'
t have been conducted at home. Besides, Linda Byrne was a woman of intellect, an art historian, who was being neglected by her husband. Maybe she was looking for a soul mate. Maybe she sneaked out once in a while to debate the merits of Impressionism over a cup of cappuccino. It could
'
ve been entirely platonic.

An
intense
affair, the woman had said.

Helen grimaced. There was only so intense you could get over a bunch of dead artists. And anyway, say Linda did meet regularly with some professor to talk about art. Professors had more affairs, per capita, than anyone else on earth. So Gwen
'
s friend was probably, sadly, right on the money. Linda Byrne had been involved in an affair. The question was, had she killed herself over it? Who the hell knew? With a sigh of frustration, Helen swept the endless speculations from her mind.

They were giving her a headache.

Two hours later, tired of paperwork, Helen decided to pack it in and head for home. It was a shame, really; she used to love the job so much that she had to drag herself out of the little brick bank. But in the past couple of years she
'
d begun to realize that she was spending far more time with forms and rules than with boys and girls. Often, when she was up to her eyeballs in correspondence, she
'
d hear the laughs and chatter of children in the halls and feel like the boy at the piano who hears the crack of a baseball bat outside: hopelessly trapped.

She stood up and stretched, then packed her attaché with must-be-done work for after supper, which was going to be late again. Glancing at the stack of books on toddler care that Nat Byrne had left on her
desk, she peeled off the Post-
it note on the top book and again read its terse message:

"
Thanks.
"

It was oddly disappointing. A personalized note or memo with the same one word would
'
ve seemed so much more grateful. She studied the handwriting—what there was of it—for clues to the man
'
s character. Upright letters, barely more than a squiggle of shapes. The
t
was two lines, the
s
wasn
'
t closed. A man in a hurry. A man with a goal.

Money. It always, always came down to money in life. She
'
d known that since the day she
'
d showed up for the reading of her father
'
s will and her angry stepsister had shoved her into the lawyer
'
s arms. Money. People debased themselves for it.

The preschool was eerily quiet, the sound of her footfalls unnaturally lo
ud as Helen walked the empty hal
l through the lobby, then paused at the door to activate the alarm. It had been the first warm day of a cold, hard spring. No wonder no one was around.

Still feeling like that boy at the piano—only with supper to cook after the piano lesson was done—Helen hurried along the flagstone path to her Volvo, parked in its allotted spot behind the building.

Next to it, like a sleek black cat stretching its paws into a carpet of bluestone, sat a very new Porsche.

He
re, still? She could see him behind the wheel, not sleeping, not reading, just
...
sitting. Waiting. For her? When he could be at home or the office, buying and selling and making scads more money for everyone?

Helen was deeply impressed. He must be taking Katie
'
s welfare very seriously indeed to be able to make himself sit like a bump on a log for two whole hours. She was nearly to the parking lot when Byrne climbed out of the Porsche
'
s low-slung seat and stood beside the car, attentive and alert, a half-rueful smile on his face. Despite the dropping temperature he wore no jacket, which she could see was thrown over the passenger seat. He
'
d rolled his white shirtsleeves to the elbows and loosened his tie, as if he were preparing himself for a knock
-
down, drag-out negotiation.

What, exactly, did he have in mind to negotiate? He wasn
'
t due at the preschool until Orientation Day, more than a month away. Unless a parent was on the fussy side, it was unusual to have any contact before that time. Even then, it would be by phone.

She walked directly up to him, remembering well their last encounter. The whisper of
"
Enchantra
"
seemed to hover in the air. Her heart began tripping erratically, out of fear that the scent would waft between them again. What if it did? What could she say?

"
Hello, again,
"
she murmured, feeling the heat rise in her cheeks. She felt obligated to apologize.
"
I had no idea you were out here. Why didn
'
t you ring? I would
'
ve got the door.
"

"
I didn
'
t want to interrupt you at work,
"
he explained.
"
Obviously you stayed late because you had plenty of it to do.
"

Ah. Work. Naturally he
'
d respect that.
"
I saw you returned the books. Did they help?
"

"
Helped a little; scared me a lot. I had no idea what I didn
'
t know until I read them,
"
he said candidly.

"
That
'
s all right. You
'
re not alone,
"
Helen reassured him, but she was wondering where he
'
d
been
for the past three years. Hank had learned to change a diaper faster than she could, and Hank was the one, not her, who
'd potty-
trained Russell. Could a stock trader possibly be more macho than a state trooper?

Byrne had cocked his head and was looking at her briefcase.
"
Uh-oh. I recognize a workload when I see it. Not done yet for the day?
"

Helen sighed and lifted the attaché, weighing its contents.
"
Nope. The paperwork never ends.
"
She opened the door to her car and dropped the briefcase on the passenger seat, then turned to him. If he had a reason for being there, now was the time for him to state it.

"
Okay, here it is,
"
he said, as if she
'
d spoken the thought aloud.
"
I was hoping to steal some of your time. Hoping to pick your brain about Katie. I
'
ll be bringing her back from
Zurich
next week and frankly, I
'
m not any forwarder on what to say or do about Linda.
"

Linda.
He used the name as though she were a mutual friend. It sent a shiver through Helen, as though he
'
d thrown open a door to a vast, cold place.

"
Mr. Byrne—
"

"
Nat.
''

"
Nat,
"
she said automatically,
"
I don
'
t think my advice can possibly
top what you read in the Fendel
stine book.
"

His brow came down in a sharp crease of impatience.
"
That one assumes the child attended the funeral. It doesn
'
t apply.
"

Which Helen knew but had forgotten.
"
You
'
re right, of course,
"
she allowed, feeling less like an expert than before.
"
Did you look at the section on terminal illness in the book by Carey?
"

"
I did,
"
he said,
"
even though Linda didn
'
t suffer from terminal illness.
"

Here was new information.

Helen nodded and said,
"
Even a brief illness would warrant the same response.
"

She shivered again in a sudden, rippling wave. It was cold. She was tired. Russ and Becky would be waiting like hungry cubs back at the den. She was torn between helping him and serving them.

He folded his arms across his chest and leaned back on his gleaming car, then looked down at his shoes. He cleared his throat. Then he looked again at her.

"
I don
'
t know about you,
"
he said with a half-smile,
"
but this conversation, as much as I want—need—to have it, seems a little on the bizarre side for a parking lot. Can
'
t we just go somewhere for a while, have a cup of coffee and a piece of pie, and talk?
"
he pleaded.

Put another way, the question might have gone something like:
"
Is your time really so all-fired precious?
"

The short answer to that was: yes. Helen had a career and two kids. The pie-and-coffee part kind of got lost in the shuffle. Despite that, she decided on the spot to file him under
"
career
"
and have the pie and coffee. It was, somehow, the least she could do.

"
All right. I just have to call home and have my kids order a pizza,
"
she told him.
"
They
'
ll be faint with hunger by now.
"

"
How old are they?
"

"
Fourteen. Sixteen.
"

"
They don
'
t fend for themselves by then?
"
he said, surprised and obviously alarmed.

Helen gave him a grim, wise smile.
"
Not unless I leave notarized instructions on the kitchen table. I
'
ll be right back.
"

She turned to head for her office, but he caught her arm.
"
Wait. Use my cell phone,
"
he suggested.

Heat.
The warmth of his touch shocked her. Here it was, twilight in May in New England; but it felt like noon in July in the
Bahamas
.
"
I
..
. oh
...
yes. That makes sense,
"
she stammered.
"
I
'
ve been meaning to get one of these things.
"

He reached in his front seat for the phone and handed it to her with the kind of pleased expression that boys reserve for their best-loved toys. She took the phone,
called
the house, and was thrilled—thrilled—when Russ answered.