Candace just stares at me and doesn’t say anything.
“Do I have it? Do I have your trust?”
“I... I don’t know you,” she finally says.
“I brought Kat to you when I could’ve kept her. You owe me your trust.”
She glances at her daughter and then shifts her gaze back to me. “All right,” she says. “You have it.”
I want to believe she means it. I will have to likewise trust that she does.Here we go, I tell myself.
“Do you remember when I said earlier that Belinda had cometo San Francisco looking for the husband she knew as James?” I ask. “And that she saw my wedding portrait with Martin?”
Candace nods, and I begin with that moment in the sitting room, when the portrait frame hit the rug as the kettle screamed in the kitchen. I tell her nearly everything from that moment to our arrival at the Loralei five days later.
I am vague about how Martin fell, telling Candace only that when he lunged at us there had been a struggle and he lost his footing. I don’t tell her about the oddly familiar snippet of time when my arms were outstretched in those seconds as Martin reached for Belinda and I reached to stop him, and I don’t tell her of the paired moment when I looked at Belinda and saw the rush of water and blood spill from between her legs—those memories belong to another time, another place, another girl. They have no place here on this sweltering patio.
And then I ask her again if I have her trust. She says I do.
“Then I’ll tell you exactly what happened at the top of stairs. Everything you and I decide to do next hinges on what truly happened, and whether we report Martin Hocking as a polygamist and possibly the murderer of a rancher’s daughter or whether we don’t.”
She stares at me, wide-eyed. “What do you mean? I don’t understand.”
“If we report Martin to the police, they will begin an investigation. They will ask when was the last time I saw him and many other questions. We can’t have them asking questions, Candace.”
When I say this I glance over at the sleeping child we both love. And when I look back at Candace, I see the exact moment she recalls that I told her that everything I did, I did for Kat.
“What are you telling me?” she says, anger and disbelief and dread thick in her voice. “What happened on those stairs?”
“He was going after Belinda,” I answer quietly, mindful of the sleeping man and the open windows of the hacienda. “Kat already loved her little sister. She already loved her even though she hadn’t been born yet. And Martin, this man who had lied to her about you, was lunging for Belinda. To harm her.”
I see the scene again in my mind. Martin’s arms outstretched to grab Belinda, mine to stop him, Belinda’s to raise the letter opener.
And Kat’s to protect the baby.
“Are you saying Katpushedhim?” Candace whispers.
I hesitate only a second before answering her.
“With every ounce of strength she had.”
22
I don’t believe you,” Candace says as a hot breeze kicks up a swirl of sand a few yards beyond the patio. “Kat wouldn’t do that. She’s not like him!”
But I can tell by the trembling in her voice that she does believe me. “You’re right, she’s not anything like Martin.” I reach for her hand. Candace pulls it away. “She is not. Kat only meant to protect Belinda and the baby, I’m sure of it. She couldn’t have known what that fall would do to him.”
“How do I know it wasn’t you who killed him?”
“Itwasme who killed him,” I say, willing her to hear me. It matters what Kat thinks about how he died. And what others will think. “I am the one who left him in that house, unable to get out, unable to call for help. He was gravely injured when I left him, but it was I who left him! I couldn’t let Kat see him like that, can’t you see? I couldn’t have Kat thinking again that she wasresponsible for the death of a parent, even the likes of him. She had to leave the house thinking he was alive. And everyone else must think it, too, that the last time Martin Hocking was in that house, he was alive and well.”
“What was he going to do?” Candace says, not much more than a whisper. “What was he going to do to Belinda? To you?”
I shake my head at the thought of it and the echo of Martin’s cold words. “We knew too much. We were obstacles to his plans. He said as much.”
“And... Kat? What would he have done to her?” Candace’s face is awash in fresh tears.
“He wouldn’t have harmed her. She was financial security if and when the gold ran out. He wouldn’t have harmed her. I think he knew how to keep her intimidated into silence.”
