Secrets Read online

  But every time he thought of getting closer to her, he remembered what had happened to Lillian. Happened because of him. Sometimes he thought he should send Elsbeth away so she’d be safe. If it weren’t for his father, a man who’d had a lifetime of training in being an agent, living with them, Jeff thought he might do that.

  How could he risk taking on another real relationship? he often wondered.

  When he reached the house, he quietly opened the door. His bedroom was on the ground floor, but he tiptoed up the main staircase, as he always did, to check on the windows, and the occupants. Elsbeth was asleep in her bed, looking as perfect as an angel. Down the hall was his father’s bedroom. Jeff didn’t knock but opened the door silently and looked in. His father was propped up in the bed, reading a book, and he didn’t look up or acknowledge his son.

  Jeff closed the door and smiled. He’d seen the way his father’s hand had disappeared under the covers. Jeff didn’t know and didn’t ask if his father slept with a weapon, but he wouldn’t doubt it. Old agents never changed their habits. Every birthday since he was eight, Jeff had given his father a gift that had 007 printed on it.

  Down the corridor, at the top of the back stairs, was Cassie’s room. The light was on; he could see it under her door. He wanted to knock; he wanted to talk to her. Sometimes what he missed most about marriage was having a confidante. He’d told Lillian all that he could. But, then, what she did or did not know had caused her death.

  He didn’t knock on Cassie’s door but silently went down the back stairs to his own bedroom.

  7

  CASSIE RAN THE RAZORup her leg, then slid back in the tub and closed her eyes. Both Dana and Althea said that waxing was the way to go. She hadn’t done that yet, but she planned to. Next week she had an appointment at a salon on Richmond Road where she was to get waxed and massaged, and her skin was to be made luminous. Or at least that’s what the ad promised.

  It had been a week since she and Dana had met Althea Fairmont, and it had been an exciting time. There had been no more talk of Cassie becoming Althea’s employee, but somehow, the woman had maneuvered both Dana and Cassie into working for her—without pay.

  But the work had been good for Cassie. For months she’d thought that if she had to leave Jeff’s house, had to leave Elsbeth, her life would be over. But in the last week she’d begun to see possibilities of a future without Jefferson Ames. Since she’d lived for over half her life with the idea that he was the only man for her, it hadn’t been an easy transition.

  But Althea’s energy and enthusiasm were helping her. On Monday morning, she and Elsbeth had met Dana at the end of the garden, ready to go to Althea’s house. Dana worried that they would tire Miss Fairmont. “After all, she is a woman of a certain age,” Dana said as they walked toward the house.

  “I dare you to say that to her face,” Cassie said.

  “No, I think I’ll continue to live for a while.”

  It had been at Althea’s invitation that they visited. She’d called Cassie on Sunday and asked if she and Dana would like to look at some memorabilia she’d saved from her many years in show business. “I have a few things that need to be cataloged,” she’d said on that first Monday as she’d climbed two flights of stairs, Cassie, Dana, and Elsbeth behind her, to a walk-in attic that covered the entire house. When she opened the door, the two women gasped. It was an Aladdin’s cave of treasure. There were hundreds of boxes and trunks, and what looked to be thousands of the most extraordinary items. Costumes, props, and printed matter from every play and movie that Althea had done were piled on top of one another.

  “This should be in a museum,” Cassie said in awe, looking inside a carton labeled Moments in the Sun. It had been the movie Althea had won her second Oscar for. “Is this…?” Cassie asked, lifting a silver cup from the bottom. At the end of the movie, Althea, as the heroine, had drunk poison and died in a futile attempt to take the blame for a murder the man she loved had committed.

  “The very one,” Althea said.

  Gently, with reverence, Cassie put the cup back, then stood up. There was furniture, posters, and bound scripts; costumes peeped out of big cloth bags. It was all gorgeous, and she wanted to go through every piece of it.

  “Now you’re seeing my dream,” Althea said. “I want to open a library for the study of film. It would not only be a repository of artifacts, but also a place where students can see films and learn.”

  “In L.A.?” Dana asked as she picked up a dress that was covered with silver beads.

  Elsbeth stuck her little feet into a pair of red shoes from the 1940s. Cassie recognized them as from Shadow of a Woman . She wondered if the matching dress was there.

  “I plan to leave everything, including my money, to the establishment of the library,” Althea said, ignoring Dana’s question. “But I do wish I could leave it all in better order than it is now.”

  “And that’s why you want to hire Cassie,” Dana said, sounding as though she’d solved a mystery.

  “Actually, I think there’s more than enough work here for two people,” Althea said, smiling and looking at Dana. “If that husband of yours can spare you from…” She waved her hand. “From whatever women who are supported by their husbands do all day.”

  Cassie saw Dana stiffen, so she stepped between them. “I don’t know how much I can do,” Cassie said. “I have Elsbeth to care for until…” She hesitated.

  “Until Skylar takes over your home and throws you out?” Althea asked. She looked at Elsbeth. “Think you could stand giving up your little playdates to spend time with me?”

  Most children wouldn’t want to spend time with an older woman, but Elsbeth wasn’t like other children. “Oh, yes,” she said, her eyes wide as she looked at a pile of hats that covered the centuries from the 1700s to the 1970s.

  “I think Elsbeth will do quite well here,” Althea said, eyeing the child with approval.

  “But I don’t know if Jeff will like this,” Cassie began.

  “And does he disagree with you often?” Althea asked.

  “No, not usually. Actually, not ever. But Thomas…I make lunch for him.”

  Althea smiled. “Do you think I’ve forgotten Jefferson’s handsome father? Rosalie is already working on a rather splendid lunch for him.”

  Dana and Cassie looked at each other in wonder. It seemed that everything had already been settled—and settled the way Althea wanted it, which they soon learned was always the way with her. Within two hours of arriving, Dana and Cassie were hard at work. By Tuesday afternoon, they had established a routine. And while Dana and Cassie worked like drudges upstairs, Althea and Thomas and Elsbeth spent the day downstairs, their laughter floating up to the women in the attic. From the second day on, the three of them went out to lunch together and didn’t return until evening. Cassie and Dana ate a sandwich while continuing to work.

  When Cassie put Elsbeth in the tub at night, she’d ask, “Where did you go today? What did you do?” but the child never told anything except uttered vague phrases. “To a restaurant,” she’d say. Or “to look at some old buildings.” That about covered every inch of Williamsburg, Cassie thought, frustrated that she couldn’t get much out of Elsbeth.

  She got no more out of Thomas. “Sightseeing,” he said.

  At dinner with Jeff, which had been cooked by Althea’s housekeeper, Rosalie, and carried home, Elsbeth and Thomas wouldn’t so much as mention what they’d done during the day. So Cassie followed suit. It wasn’t as though they were keeping a secret from Jeff; they just left out Althea from their talk.

  As for Cassie and Dana, they were loosening in their attitudes toward each other. It started on Tuesday when they were both sweating and dirty, and they heard more laughter from downstairs.

  “So how much are we being paid to do this?” Dana asked, standing up and stretching her aching back.

  “I think it’s four million an hour,” Cassie said, deadpan.

  “We should ask for a raise.” Dana