Chapter Seven

by Lori Robertson

The thought of making the long drive back to Scottsdale was only slightly less appealing than spending the night at my father’s.  I assumed Caroline’s earlier excesses would have ushered her into oblivion by the time I returned to the cabin, and it was that likelihood alone that kept me from pulling in to one of motels along the canyon road after I left the diner. I gripped the steering wheel and berated myself for responding to this ridiculous distress call. I’d blown an entire day that should have been spent reviewing depositions, and with each passing mile I felt the weight of those neglected case files. 

By the time I turned off the highway and onto the private road that led to the cabin I had one clear goal in mind, a decent night’s sleep and an early start home in the morning.  A nightcap would be a bonus. God knows it was only at Dad’s that I ever tasted three-hundred-dollar bourbon, but Caroline had polished off a bottle of Hirsch that afternoon. At least she wasn’t mixing it with Diet Coke anymore.

I slowed down and hit the high beams so I could find the entrance to the driveway, a quarter-mile stretch of gravel through dense forest.  Dad’s twelve-acre lot felt spookily remote in the dark, but his disappearing act no longer struck me as sinister. Now that I’d had time to think about it, it was no great revelation that he saw fit to take off without explanation.  He’d first left me wondering what became of him when I was twelve years old.  It’s true that Caroline has the discerning powers of a garden slug, but really, after sixteen years with the man you’d think she would have figured out that this crisis was nothing more than another insensitive indulgence by a man who’d always considered himself entitled to them.

Only a few lights shone weakly through the pines as I approached the cabin. I parked the car, hurried up the steps to the sprawling front porch, and let myself in.  I tiptoed through the living room where a lingering scent of cigarettes and booze still hung heavy in the air, then headed down the hallway to Dad’s office, the sanctuary where he kept a Venetian liquor cabinet and Baccarat crystal decanter, one of which, I hoped, still held a splash of bourbon. A dim light showed beneath the door and made me pause, but hearing no movement in the room, I pushed the door open.

My breath caught in my throat and I took a quick step back. In the dim light, it took me a minute to recognize Leo, Caroline’s son.  It’d been a few years since I’d last seen him. That encounter had been during a particularly excruciating Christmas visit when he cornered me in the kitchen and suggested that, since we weren’t blood siblings, there was nothing to prevent us “getting it on.”  I’d handed him a jar of olives and sent him on his way. It wasn’t that Leo wasn’t attractive; in fact, he was quite good looking in a lanky, shaggy-haired, Keith Urban kind of way. It was just that he had all the mental prowess of his mother and none of her charm.

He sat at Dad’s desk, casually reading the back of a John Coltrane album. He looked up and smiled. “Wondered if you’d be back,” he said. “Heard you were out looking for the old man.” He tossed the album into a cardboard box at his feet. “Your father just loves this old stuff,” he said. “Can’t stand it myself, but it sells.” He picked up a glass and raised it as if to toast. “Join me in a drink, Zeldanna?”

I resisted the urge to slap the glass from his hand. “What the hell do you think you’re doing, Leo? You’ve got no right—”

“Whoa, take it easy there, sweetheart. I’m here at my mother’s bidding, and as the deserted spouse, she’s got every right to call the shots.” He took a slow sip and then slid the glass across the polished desktop. I caught it before it sailed over the edge and sniffed at the amber liquid swirling in the bottom of the glass. Hirsh. The bastard.

“Your mother’s got no idea what’s going on here so she can hardly call herself a deserted spouse. And even if the party’s over, Leo,” I pointed to the cardboard box where he’d stacked a few dozen albums, “those are my father’s, so lay off.”

He smiled. “Such a devoted daughter. How touching.” 

I reached for the box but Leo grabbed my wrist, hard. We held the pose and glared at one another before I wrenched my hand away. I took a step back and saw for the first time that the box we were sparring over was not the only one in the room. He’d cleaned out the glass-fronted cabinet that held Dad’s rare book collection, the stereo system was missing from the shelf above, and god knows what else had already been packed away. My heart pounded but my voice held steady. “This is larceny, jackass.  And I’m a pretty reliable witness.”

He laced his fingers behind his head and leaned back in a luxuriant stretch. “That so, Zel?” He looked up at me and winked. “Maybe you’ll want to check with the old man before you going calling in the cops.”