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CHAPTER 44

FIVE MINUTES LATER Cassie closed the door to the dining room and settled her chi ldren around the kitchen table. "Look, there's something I have to do right now." She didn't look at Teddy, but she knew he had tears in his eyes.

"What's that man doing here?" Marsha said softly.

"Listen to me, Marsha. You and Teddy are going to have to go through my address book and start calling people."

"Mom, talk to me. What's going on?" Marsha kept her voice low, but she wasn't backing down.

"I told you, he's an IRS agent," Teddy said unhappily.

"Marsha, I want you to call Parker Higgins and tell him your father died." Cassie leaned forward. She didn't have a lot of time and wanted them to pay attention.

"I can call him," Teddy protested.

"You call Ira. Divide up the list."

"An IRS agent? Mom, what are you doing?" Marsha asked.

"I'm taking Charlie to see Mona's house," she replied.

"Why?" Marsha was shocked.

"Because it's juice. Now, do what I tell you for once."

"Mom, don't go psycho on us. The IRS is like explosive stuff." Marsha gave her mother one of her superior looks, and Cassie exploded.

"I don't want to hear that from you ever again! I've never been psycho, not for one second in my whole life. I've been stupid. I've been in denial, but psycho, never!" Cassie realized she was getting loud and lowered her voice. Leaned forward, tried to take control of the plane. Up, up, up, get that cockpit up, she coached herself.

"Now, listen to me. The two of you have to rely on me now. Teddy, I understand what happened last night. Marsha took off, and you were doing your own thing." That was a nice way of putting it. Cassie's lips were set hard against her teeth, but she said it without a trace of irony. They'd been doing their own thing, and their father had died on their watch. It was over. Fact of life.

Marsha gripped her mother's arm. "Mom, calm down."

"I'm perfectly calm. He had Daddy's body removed before I was even up, Marsha. Did he call you at Tom's place? No, he did not. Then he took off with that girl and left me here to be interrogated by the police. That cop wanted to arrest me for murder. What were you thinking?" she hissed at her son.

Teddy looked like a fifteen-year-old caught out doing everything he wasn't supposed to do. "I was just trying to help. I'm really sorry, Mom."

"Sorry!"

"He was already dead when she went to check on him. I swear," Teddy said.

Cassie didn't want to pursue it now. The girl was not in the house. Good, she didn't want to pursue that, either. Suddenly she felt sick again. She turned her attention to the grain running through the wood in the kitchen table. She'd wiped it clean before she'd gone upstairs to change. Tidy was her middle name. "Is there anything else you want to tell me before I go?" she asked softly.

Teddy took a deep breath. "Well…"

"What, Teddy?" Marsha demanded. "What now?"

"Gently, gently." Cassie pointed at the dining room door. "I swear to God he must think we're nuts."

"Who cares? We are nuts," Marsha muttered.

"Shhh. Marsha!" Cassie told herself she was perfectly calm.

"Don't shhh me. Daddy's dead, and nothing changes around here except now you're wearing my clothes."

"Well, they're better than mine," Cassie pointed out.

"I sent the letter," Teddy blurted.

"What letter?" Marsha gave him the idiot look. For once, Teddy ignored it.

"Mom, I'm really sorry. He was going to marry her. She told me a thousand times that everybody underestimates you, that you'd be okay. She promised me a better life." He squirmed in his chair, crumbling like a cookie.

"Mona promised you a better life than what?" Cassie's brain spun back into its whirl. In an instant she lost her perfect calm.

"She promised she'd always take care of me." Teddy pulled on his fingers until his knuckles cracked. "I had to stop it, that's all."

Mona had promised Teddy a better life? Cassie swallowed bile as a terrible thought struck her: Had Mona been sleeping with her son, too? She shivered in the sun-drenched kitchen. This was the stuff of soap operas. Teddy was their informer. He had nailed his own father. She was speechless.

"What are you talking about? What did you do?" Marsha demanded. She didn't have a clue.

Teddy was telling his story and paying no attention to her. "He was always teaching me lessons. It was time to teach him one."

"For God's sake what did he do?" Marsha turned to her mother, and still Teddy wouldn't acknowledge her.

"Mom, I gave him the second set of books."

Cassie's life took another unexpected turn. She was spinning, spinning. Dizzy, dizzy. Where would it stop? "What second set of books?" she asked faintly.

"It was how he taught me accounting. Not even Ira knows." For the first time Teddy glanced guiltily at his sister. "He and Mona cooked the books. Daddy showed me how they did it. Easy as pie. The official set was prepared for Ira, the other for them. He told me everybody did it. He was proud of it. He thought only idiots were honest."

Cassie put her hand to her mouth. She pointed to the dining room. "You gave him the books?"

"Well, they were disks, really. He was in here. He would have found them, anyway, and I didn't want to be like that kid in The Sopranos."

Cassie frowned. Sopranos? Was that an opera?

"He loved that show. Loved it. He thought he was Tony. I was Tony Jr."

"Oh God!" Now Marsha got something. "He thought he was Tony Soprano, Mom."

No wonder she'd always hated that show. Cassie waved her hand impatiently. She was still on the cooked books. Teddy gave the juice to the finder. "When did you do that, Teddy?" she demanded.

"Just now. He pretty much promised none of us would go to jail. You're not mad, are you?"

"Ha. They rape boys like you in jail," Marsha crowed. "I hope you get buggered, you crook."

"Marsha!" Cassie said, shocked.

"Well, he is a crook, isn't he?"

"Mom, do you forgive me?" Suddenly Teddy was begging, a little kid all over again. "I did it for you," he said. "And her." He pointed at his sister. "She may be a total jerk, but Mona wasn't going to give her a nickel. It wasn't fair."


CHAPTER 43 | Over His Dead Body | CHAPTER 45