Warning Signs

"In the second example, the vulnerability is there, but there's no ope

"What do you call that?"

"I don't know," I said. "Reckless?"

Lucy pulled both her legs beneath her and crossed her arms. For some reason, I chose that moment to scan the room for a cat. Lucy seemed like the type of woman who would have a cat.

She said, "I need to think about this some more."

"Of course."

It was about this time that I would be glancing at my watch and saying, I'm afraid our time is up.

Lucy stood and walked to the other side of the room. I could see her reflection in the glass doors. Her legs were exposed from mid-thigh to the floor; her robe was open from her throat to the middle of her chest.

I hoped the exposure was unintentional. But I wondered about her seductiveness. Could she be so unaware of her behavior with men?

Her lips parted as though she was going to speak, then she pressed them together again. Finally, she said, "It's starting to snow. I didn't even know a storm was coming. Did you?"

"I'd heard a front was coming through. But, no, I didn't know it was going to snow."

"I wonder if it will stick," she said.

I didn't reply. I hadn't left my wife in bed to discuss Boulder's springtime climate.

Lucy shifted her weight and lifted one leg from the floor so that it was bent at the knee at ninety degrees, like a stork. She said, "I don't know exactly how to say this. No, that's not true, I do know exactly how to say this. I just don't want to say it." Once more her mouth opened and closed.

"Take your time, Lucy." It was something I said to patients all the time in psychotherapy. For some reason, it usually made them seem to hurry.

"Susan Peterson is my mother, Alan."

I said, "What?" I knew exactly what she had said. My question expressed my befuddlement, not my failure to hear or comprehend.

Lucy returned her weight to both legs and turned and faced me. She'd pulled the robe closed at her throat with one hand. "Susan Peterson is… my mother. Or at least she's the woman who gave birth to me."

At her pronouncement, I stood. I don't know why. "Lucy, Lucy. My God. I had no idea."

"No one did. We are… estranged. That's a good word for it. Estranged. In fact, it couldn't be es-stranger."

"Royal knew?"

Again, Lucy spun and faced the glass. She'd released the shawl collar of her black robe. The reflection made it clear that it had again fallen open to the middle of her chest. "Of course Royal knew."

"Cozy and Lauren?"

She shook her head. "No one else in town knows." She found her own words humorous, or ironic, or something. "At least no one in town knew. Until tonight. Now that's about to change."

I tried to make sense of the implications of the news that Lucy had just shared. I had to assume that this was the reason she had been in the Peterson home the night that Royal had been murdered. A visit to her mother would explain all the fingerprints the police had found in the house. Lauren and Cozy could create considerable doubt with that revelation.

But Lucy had also told Cozy and Lauren that if the reason she was in the Peterson home that night was known, everyone would be convinced that she had a motive for Royal's murder.

I couldn't make sense of that.

And, of course, I hadn't heard anything yet that would account for the wet spot.

Lucy turned back toward the room. She wasn't holding the collar of her robe this time.

"We're intimate now, aren't we, Alan?"

I thought, Whoa. She saw the puzzlement in my face.

"I've certainly been open with you… and, God knows, I've never been more vulnerable in my life than I am right now."

CHAPTER 28

Lucy Ta