"I hope it's true," Josef said, after a period of appalled silence; Mark's passionate description had affected them all. "I'd hate to think you could invent a story as gruesome as that."
"I didn't invent it," Mark insisted. "We can probably prove the bones were Peter's, if you want to dig them up again. Personally I'd fill in the hole and plant a cross or something on the top and leave well enough alone. He wouldn't care. He wasn't bothering anybody. Mary Jane was the ghost, and she's gone. I took care of her."
They let this egotistical statement pass, for varied reasons; Kathy because she didn't want to jar Mark's male ego any further, Pat because she was reluctant to state what she really believed: that Peter Turnbull had finally found strength enough to deal with the threat to his sweetheart.
Pat never knew why she chose that moment to speak. Now that the emergency was ovee-and her own instincts, even more than Mark's assurances, told her that it was-there was no need for hasty decisions. She had meant to prepare Mark for the step she planned to take in slow, subtle stages, giving him time to appreciate Josef's good qualities-and getting him enrolled in a college some distance from home. Instead she blurted it out, interrupting Mark in the midst of his self-glorification.
"I'm going to marry Mr. Friedrichs, Mark."
Silence descended like a pall. Pat twisted her hands together. Her palms were damp. Mark's face had gone completely blank.
"Well, that's a relief," he said at last. "I mean, not that I think marriage is necessarily the best relationship, but for your generation…" He smiled in a kindly fashion at his speechless mother. "It will be nice," he conceded, "for you to have somebody around next year, when I'm away at Princeton."
Josef reached for Pat's hand.
"Do me a favor, darling."
"What?" Pat managed to get the word out.
"Don't ask him how he knew."
About Barbara Michaels
Pen name of Barbara Mertz, who also writes as Elizabeth Peters. Under the name Barbara Michaels, she writes primarily gothic and supernatural thrillers. The name Barbara Michaels was chosen by her publisher since she had already published one nonfiction book on ancient Egypt, and the publisher wanted her novels to be distinctive and not be confused with her other historical book.
