Chapter Five
"Kendall!" Myrtle quivered, pulling Kendall out into the hallway. "I'm sorry, darlin', but you may not talk to Mr. Slater like that when he's a guest in my home."
"I'm sorry, too, Myrtle, but Zach's a rattlesnake! We can't let him anywhere near Miranda."
"Kendall…we've all had a terrible shock tonight. But we still don't know what—what's happened, and we can't afford to turn on each other while we're waiting to find out."
"But Zach knows what's happened, Myrtle. He's making fools of all of us by coming here. He's the one who did this. He wanted to get rid of Ethan and Bianca, and—"
"Kendall."
"Don't let Kendall upset you, Mrs.—Myrtle," Zach stated firmly over Myrtle's head. Intent on their discussion, neither woman had noticed him place Miranda back in her crib with a kiss on her head, and join them. His hazel eyes, as temperate as an early autumn afternoon while gazing upon Miranda, narrowed to wintry slits. "It's because she is so upset that she is repeating the same fantasy to you that Derek and I endured from her earlier."
Myrtle held up her hands in a way that brooked no nonsense. "Children, please, let's go downstairs before we disturb Miranda. Kendall, I'll need you to help me fix a tea tray. Greenlee and Ryan will be here soon, and Opal and Palmer, and I've nothing ready. Zach, I'll need you to act as host while we're busy in the kitchen."
No general in history had ever marshaled such unwilling troops. But no troops in history had ever been under the command of Myrtle Fargate, whose fragile exterior and Southern charm belied her impenetrable core of solid steel. With ill but silent grace Zach and Kendall followed Myrtle down the stairs. To Zach's displeasure, they found Greenlee and Ryan already at the front door. He was certainly being outnumbered…but he was accustomed to that.
The Laverys were no more pleased to see Zach than he was to see them, and they were far less expert at concealing it. Once more Myrtle ignored the heavy tension riddling the atmosphere, giving them a warm reception, seating them in the living room, and asking if there was any news.
"We didn't hear anything," Greenlee sighed. "Did we, Ryan?"
"Nothing but sports scores and traffic reports and commercials," was the gloomy response.
"We'll all pray that no news is good news," Myrtle said briskly.
"Yeah, why don't we do that," Kendall muttered. "Myrtle, really, I—"
"You were going to help me in the kitchen, weren't you, Kendall honey? Zach, darlin', you just gave me a start standing over there in the dark. Won't you please sit down and visit with Ryan and Greenlee while we rustle up the tea."
Ryan choked, which was also the audible equivalent of his facial expression, and Greenlee had to give him a discreet thump on the back.
"Er, may we go look in on Miranda first?" Greenlee sounded almost desperate. "Come on, Ryan, I'm dying to see her, aren't you?" She sprang to her feet.
From where he stood at the very edge of the room, close to the entryway and escape, Zach was able to survey the company with a veneer of detached amusement. A late-night tea party with the estimable Ryan Lavery was hardly the way he'd have chosen to end the evening, and he didn't plan to. Ryan and his bossy little wife clearly shared Zach's distaste for the arrangement, but lacked the self-possession allowing Zach to appear completely unruffled by it. And behind Myrtle's stalwart back, Kendall didn't hide her outrage at Myrtle's determination to treat Zach as one of them, as Miranda's uncle, instead of the murderous thug Kendall was so convinced he was.
If this had been a less charged occasion, Zach felt he might have acceded to Myrtle's wishes and outlasted them all. He not only respected Myrtle, he suspected his feelings for the wise old woman ran deeper than that, and he couldn't help being touched by her so frankly treating him as a member of the extended family that he actually was—rather than the wicked outsider his fellow family members considered him. Nevertheless, he decided against either inflicting them on himself or inflicting himself on them any longer.
Miranda was his highest priority. Zach's heart still rang with seeing her, and these people—especially Kendall—would only make the tune go sour.
He said quietly, "Myrtle, thank you for your hospitality. But rather than do that, I'll take my leave for now."
"I don't mind telling you I wish you'd keep the vigil here with us, Zach," she replied soberly, crossing the room to see him out, "but I know you'll be keeping it here," she lightly tapped him on the chest, "and that's what counts."
He nodded assent and headed back out into the night, almost wishing he could be a fly on the wall after he left.
Sipping her tea, the making of which had been interrupted by Palmer and Opal Cortlandts' arrival, Kendall was still fuming. "That son of a bitch Zach Slater! Myrtle, I want you to promise me that from now on you won't let him within a mile of Miranda."
"Slater was here?" Palmer asked. "Whatever for?"
"For once I have to agree that Kendall makes sense," Ryan chimed in promptly, talking over Palmer. "Slater's a loose cannon."
"The man is Miranda's uncle," Myrtle tried to answer Palmer.
"Brother of that no-good rapist, Michael Cambias, you mean," Palmer harrumphed.
Opal clucked, "Oh, Palmer, that's old news."
"Zach's worse than a loose cannon and I think he's worse than Michael, too," Kendall replied bitterly, tying both halves of the conversation together. "I mean, do you really think it's a coincidence that Ethan and Bianca, the heads of Cambias, are both on a plane that just happens to be missing? And the only reason Miranda wasn't with them was because she was stuffy this morning and Bianca didn't want to take her up in the air."
"What are you saying, that Zach Slater killed his own son? My god, you're paranoid, Kendall!" Greenlee exclaimed. "I know there's no love lost between him and Ethan, and frankly I wouldn't blame Zach for offing that nasty condescending twit who his orders my father around like his personal footman, but it would have been a hell of a lot cheaper and more efficient to just hire a hit man, don't you think? Especially considering the business Zach is in?"
"Zach Slater is in the casino business, and may I remind you that Opal and I are frequent customers. That is the only business he's in," Myrtle stuck in again.
"Thank you so much, Greenlee," Kendall sniffed, "and you too, Myrtle, for being so supportive."
Ryan glanced at his wife. "Greenlee, we don't know what Slater's capable of. I think Kendall's right to be concerned he might have something to do with the plane's disappearance, at least until we know he didn't."
"Well, I never!" Myrtle sounded disgusted. "Kendall, what am I going to do with you, honey? And Ryan, I thought you knew better."
"Myrt, you sound like you think Slater's A-OK," Opal commented. "Do you know something the rest of us don't?"
"Opal, honey, I've been around a long, long time, so long I sometimes wonder what I'm still doing here," Myrtle began. "But the good lord knows what's best, and he's given me that time for a reason, so I've always tried to put it to good use."
"Myrtle, are you ever planning to get to the point?" Palmer complained.
Opal frowned. "Let her finish, you old coot!"
Shooting Palmer a quelling look, Myrtle continued, "During my time on earth, I've taken the measure of many a man, some who knew I was doing it—and some who didn't." Her eyes briefly twinkled. "I'm telling you all, Zach may be many things, but he is no killer. Wherever our loved ones may be right now, they're not there because Zach Slater put them there."
"Myrtle, you don't know everything," Kendall said sullenly into her teacup.
Greenlee grimaced. "Kendall, think about it: We both know Ethan's been acting like a major ass lately, and that's really what this is all about. Ethan wants to string Zach up because Zach's trying to put him in his place despite Ethan's oh so many charms, and you're involved with Ethan—therefore you hate Zach."
"That is not the only reason I hate Zach," Kendall protested. "I hate him because he's a lying, cheating, stealing, repulsive, disgusting, revolting sexist piece of slime!"
"Ho, ho, sounds like you're in love with the man," Palmer joked from the far end of the sofa. "Oooph!" he added as Opal presented him with an elbow to his midsection. Undeterred, he added, "The word through the grapevine is that Ramsey's bitten off more than he can chew at Cambias. His father is right to be concerned."
Kendall turned her glare onto Palmer. "Ethan isn't Ethan Ramsey anymore, Palmer. He's rightfully Ethan Cambias. Zach Slater stopped having a say in anything that goes on at Cambias Industries a long time ago—around the time he got Ethan's mother pregnant, tore up his own Cambias birth certificate, and blew town."
"You need a scorecard to keep track of the name changes in that family," Palmer sneered.
"Will you look who's talking, Pete Cooney." Opal's voice dripped with sarcasm. "Not to take up for Zach Slater, but I must say if we only let people into this town who never changed their names or didn't have a long-lost child or parent rattling around the old family china closet, present company not excluded, Pine Valley would be a ghost town."
"Thank you, Opal," Myrtle said fervently.
"Ethan's doing a good job at Cambias," Kendall defended. "Bianca's happy with the way he's looking out for Miranda's interests."
Her mention of Bianca suddenly reminded the others of the reasons for the gathering, and the formerly married Cortlandts were shamefaced. "Ethan isn't running Cambias as smoothly as I did," Ryan announced in the breach, "but Zach Slater is capable of great violence."
"Well, that's true," Greenlee immediately agreed. "That fight you had with Zach was horrible."
"No, Greenlee, he picked the fight with me," Ryan corrected, "and I gave as good as I got, don't forget, but that was only a fistfight. I'm afraid I share Kendall's thinking that we can't rule Slater out in being involved in this, if—"
"Oh, Ryan, will you listen to yourself?" Myrtle scoffed. "Will you all listen to yourselves squabbling? For heaven's sake, we haven't even put the radio or television on to listen for a news bulletin the entire time you've been here. Instead we've all been sitting around gabbing about Zach Slater. Now, Kendall, I know you're scared and worried, honey, we all are, but please don't go borrowing trouble when you already own enough of it."
Her sharp words finally had the affect of changing the subject from the ever controversial Zach Slater. Ryan got up to turn the television on CNN, and Greenlee remembered that she'd wanted to see Miranda. Myrtle suggested that Kendall show her the way, and the two girls tiptoed up the stairs.
Unable to argue in front of the sleeping baby, by unspoken agreement they suspended their dispute over Ethan and Zach, and simply drank in the sublime sight of Miranda in dreamland, her stuffed pink Piglet clutched tightly in her tiny fist.
Gazing pensively at her niece, who in the unkindest twist of fate she could imagine was also Zach Slater's niece, Kendall tried unsuccessfully to blot out the offensive vision of Zach holding Miranda in his arms. How had he even found out where Miranda was? Not that it really mattered, Kendall supposed; Myrtle's boarding house was hardly a top-secret safe house. It just meant she would have to be more vigilant.
Don't you worry, Miranda! I'll guard you with my life until your mother Bianca comes home…and your grandmother Erica, and your cousin Ethan, and your great-uncle Jack…if they came home.
Kendall heard a muffled sniffle. Greenlee's shoulders were shaking, and Kendall realized she was crying and trying not to show it. Then, oddly enough, Kendall realized there were tears in her own eyes, and a lump forming in her throat. Tapping Greenlee on the arm to get her attention, she motioned her outside. In the hallway outside the closed door to Miranda's room, the girls wordlessly threw their arms around each other and sobbed.
By the time she and Greenlee rejoined the others downstairs, Kendall had herself under better control. Greenlee had Ryan, and she went straight into his arms, reminding Kendall she had only herself to depend on now. Ryan shared her suspicions of Zach, but Greenlee was clearly skeptical—true to her apparent mission on earth to give Kendall a hard time about everything—so they canceled each other out. Myrtle was dazzled by Zach's good looks and phony chivalrous manner to see him for what he really was, and Erica's other closest friends the Cortlandts couldn't stop needling each other long enough to take the danger Zach represented seriously.
Even Derek Frye was oblivious, thought Kendall in disgust, as she took a seat again and leaned against the sofa cushions. It was now after midnight. Time was passing, but for those who waited, it might as well have stood still, for they were locked in it. Yet their physical need for sustenance and rest went on. The television droned in the background and Kendall's attention wandered idly to it. Blah blah blah…her head lolled back, and she finally dozed, fitfully, and then more deeply.
Hours later, she awoke to a ray of sunlight piercing her eyelids and stiffness in her neck. Initially not recognizing where she was, she sprang to her feet with a startled gasp, then relaxed as the unmistakable sound of Myrtle's voice floated towards her from above at the same time her surroundings resolved into Myrtle's living room.
"Kendall, honey? Are you awake?"
"I am now!" she called back.
"Miranda's up too, all changed and ready for her breakfast. Would you come up here and carry her down to the kitchen for me?"
"I'll be right up, Myrtle!"
Someone had placed a colorful afghan over her as she slept; it was now on the floor and she replaced it. The daily newspaper was lying on the coffee table, the top headline blaring up at her in huge type: CAMBIAS JET MISSING. When she saw it, Kendall let out another gasp. But the story accompanying it could provide no more information than she already knew beyond that a search was being mounted by Federal authorities. The same was true of the anchorperson on the early morning news show on the television, reciting the same few facts before blithely going on to read the next news item as if it was of identical consequence.
Kendall ran her fingers through her mussed curls, straightened her wrinkled skirt, and went up to Miranda.