Connor sighed. "I was kissing her, ma'am."
Barbara picked her way down the leaf-strewn steps in her slippers, her gaze horrified. "Honey? What is the meaning of this?"
Chapter Seventeen
Connor braced himself to be martyred. His doom was averted when the next-door neighbor's front door popped open and a chubby gray-haired lady came out onto her porch. Her eyes were bright with curiosity. "Hi, Erin!" she called. "Well, well! Who's your young man?"
"Hi, Marlene," Erin said. "Um… Mom? Could we have this conversation inside the house?"
Barbara Riggs glanced up at her neighbor. "That might be best," she said icily. "Under the circumstances." She marched toward the house, head high, back straight, just like Erin when she was royally pissed. He followed. His doom was not averted. Just delayed.
He followed Erin's glance into the living room, saw it flinch away. Sure enough, the gutted TV lay there on its back like a dead bug in the gloom. A poker stuck out of its belly, just as Tonia had said. Ouch.
Barbara turned on the kitchen light and folded her arms over her chest. Her mouth was a flat, bloodless line of fury. Even as disheveled and haggard as she was, he could see where Erin's regal air came from.
"Well?" The single word was like a bolt from a crossbow.
He was terribly afraid that that was his cue, but he had no idea what to say. Everything felt like the wrong thing. He was on the verge of just opening his mouth and letting whatever happened to be lying there on top fall out of it, but Erin beat him to the punch.
"We're together, Mom," she said quietly. "He's my lover now."
A blotchy flush mottled the older woman's face. She let out a sharp, high-pitched sound. Her hand flashed out, toward Erin's face.
He caught the slap and held it suspended in midair. Her trembling wrist felt clammy and cold in his grip. "You don't want to do that, Mrs. Riggs," he said. "You can't take it back. And it's not worth it."
"Don't you dare preach to me. Let go of me."
"No hitting," he said.
Her chin jerked up. He decided to take that for an assent and let go. She snatched her hand back. Her eyes were glassy and feverish.
"You've been watching her since she was practically a child," she spat. "Waiting for your chance. I saw it in your face, so don't bother to deny it. And now that Ed's out of the way, you think the coast is clear."
Things couldn't get any worse, so there was no reason not to be brutally honest. "I would have gone after her anyway," he admitted. "That whole bad business was just a delay."
The flush burned purplish spots into her pallid face. "Just a delay? You call the ruin of my entire life just a delay? You have the nerve to come into my house and say that to me, after what you did?"
"I did my job, ma'am. I did my duty," he said, with steely calm. "Which is more than I can say for your husband."
"Get out of my house." Her voice vibrated with fury.
"No, Mom," Erin said. "You can't throw him out without throwing me out, too. And you can't throw me out, because I won't let you."
Barbara's lips trembled with hurt and confusion. "What has come over you, honey? Are you punishing me for something?"
Erin grabbed her and hugged her tightly. "No. This is for me, Mom. Just me. For the first time, I am thinking only of myself, and you are going to have to swallow it. Because I've never called in a favor from you in my whole life."
"But you've always been such a good girl," Barbara whispered.
"Too good," Erin said. "I never misbehaved, I never made you wait up all night, I never put a foot wrong. I'm calling in all those points now, Mom. Remember those good behavior charts you made for us when we were kids? All those gold stars I got? This is my prize. And I picked it out all by myself."
Barbara's face convulsed. Her arms hung like sticks at her side in Erin's embrace. Slowly, they circled around her daughter's body.
Her eyes flicked up to Connor. He stoically endured it. It was no different than the way the respectable matrons of Endicott Falls had looked at him and his brothers in the old days whenever they came into town. A look that said, Quick, lock up your daughters, here come Crazy Eamon's wild boys. He'd gotten used to it. A person could get used to anything.
"Some prize," she said coldly. "Just how long have you been carrying on with my daughter behind my back?"
Connor thought about it, consulted his watch, and decided that those incendiary, mind-blowing kisses in the airport definitely counted. "Uh, forty-six hours and twenty-five minutes, ma'am."
Barbara closed her eyes and shook her head. "Dear God. Erin. Why didn't you tell me you were taking this man with you to the coast?"
"I didn't know at the time, Mom," she said gently. "It was a surprise. He came along to guard me, and this just… happened."
"Guard you?" Her eyes sharpened. "From what?"
Connor stared at Erin in disbelief. "You mean you didn't tell her? No wonder she thinks I'm the Antichrist."
"Tell me what?" Barbara's voice rose steadily in pitch. "What in God's name is going on here?"
"You better sit down," he told her. "We've got stuff to talk about."
"I'll make a pot of tea," Erin said.
The only good thing about heaping shocking revelations onto Barbara Riggs was that it diverted some of her horror and distress from his own miserable self. Two pots of tea later, after endless hashing over the details of Novak and Luksch's escape and Cindy's involvement with Billy Vega, Barbara's face was still pale but the glazed look was gone from her eyes.
"I remember her calling last week sometime," she said. "I'd just taken a Vicodin, and I barely remember what she said. But it certainly wasn't anything about exotic dancing, or being held against her will by a horrible man. God, my poor baby."
"Mom, do you remember Tonia's visit?" Erin asked.
Barbara frowned. "Vaguely. Your nurse friend, the pretty dark-haired girl, right? Yes, she did come by recently. That girl talks very loudly. And she should've noticed that it was a bad time."
"She told me about the TV" Erin said. "And the photos."
Barbara flinched at the mention of the TV Then she paused, and looked at Erin with blank puzzlement. "What photos, hon?"
"You don't remember?"
Barbara's brow knitted. "I remember having"—her eyes flicked to Connor's and quickly away—"a bad moment with the downstairs TV But that's all."
Erin got up and left the kitchen. Barbara and Connor stared at each other over the kitchen table as they listened to her light footsteps creaking on the stairs.
"My life is falling apart," she said, in a conversational tone.
"I know exactly how that feels," he said.
"You are the very last person I would have wanted to witness it."
He shrugged. "Don't know what to tell you, ma'am."
"Don't you 'ma'am' me." Her voice was frosty.
He wanted very badly to say that it wasn't his fault, but that was debatable from several different points of view, so he kept his big mouth shut for once. Erin came back into the kitchen and spread out a bunch of photographs on the table. Connor leaned over and took a look.
Baby pictures, family shots, graduation portraits. All with the eyes and mouths gouged out.
Barbara lifted her hand to her mouth. She leaped to her feet and scrambled for the door that led off the kitchen. He glimpsed a utility sink, the corner of a washing machine, and heard a toilet lid flip up. Retching sounds came from the room. Erin moved to follow her, but Connor held up his hand.
"Give her a minute," he said quietly.
The toilet flushed. Water ran in the sink. Barbara Riggs appeared in the doorway a few minutes later, dabbing at her face with a hand towel. "Not me," she said. Her eyes darted wildly between Connor and Erin. "I did not do that. There are no circumstances under which I would deface a picture of my own children. I don't know what is going on here, but it was not me. I swear it."