Eric didn’t think Lex Hall’s neighbors would say that. More likely they’d line up for the opportunity to say he was an obvious nut, and they’d always known it was only a matter of time before he cracked.
“Then one day,” Sammie said, “Andrew Halliday snapped, drowned the baby, lined the wife and the boys up at the top of the stairs and shot them, one by one.”
“And Lex is . . . ?”
“Andrew Junior. He survived. The Rakoczys adopted him. I tell you what, you are in big trouble, worse than I thought. You can’t have that man as your client. Living in his old house, where all his people died. That’s when they start mailing you dead possums and anonymous human thumbs. We’ll find him a new lawyer, first thing Monday.”
“You can’t tell Lacey about all this.”
Sammie snorted. “She doesn’t know? Yeah, right, and Floyd’s going to double my salary. Any day now he’ll get around to it. I’ll just hold my breath.”
“I don’t think she knows. She’s never said.” But it would be just like Lacey to find out some terrible thing and then keep it from him, believing she had to protect him. What was he going to do about this mess? A house where a whole family had died, and Lacey already nervous and unhappy. He’d have to do what Harry had done: live somewhere else, use the house as a rental, and eventually sell it, after the baby was born. Lacey was in no shape to pack up and move again. Depending on the housing market, which with any luck was hitting bottom right around now, they’d only have to keep it a couple of years to break even. And there’d be taxes, if it wasn’t their primary residence. His mind spun along the numbers. They couldn’t get another mortgage as long as they had this one, and how would they afford rent? They’d manage if the house had tenants, but not if it stood empty for long. Taxes, utilities, water . . .
It was all right for Sammie; she’d known the story all her life, and she wasn’t living there. What did the tragedy of the Halliday family mean to her? She saw the same thing happen on CNN twice a week. Harry Rakoczy had told them people died there, but he’d never hinted at anything like this. His own sister, his niece, and his nephews all murdered; and he lived next door to it and owned it all those years, waiting for what?
Eric’s phone rang, and Sammie answered it: “Moranis Miszlak.” She frowned. “Have you been arrested? I’ll let him know, and he’ll get back to you on Monday.” The phone gabbled at her, and she pulled a face. “Monday. He’ll call you when he gets in. Good-bye.” The phone kept on whining at her, but she hung up. “Speak of the devil. That was Lex Hall. Deputies just repoed his baby.”
“He’s got visitation.”
“Cambrick MacAvoy filed an emergency order. Nasty. I told you. You don’t want to be in court with that woman.” The phone rang again, and she picked it up and said in a neutral, measured tone, “You have reached the offices of Moranis Miszlak. Our office hours are Monday through Thursday eight A.M. through five thirty P.M., Friday nine to noon, and Saturday,” an infinitesimal pause as she glanced at the clock, “two to five.” The minute hand clicked to twelve, the hour hand to five. “Please call back during business hours. Thank you.” She hung up on Lex’s protests.
Eric was charmed. “How often do you do that?”
“As often as I want. What are going to tell your wife?”
“Nothing.”
“Right, because it’s so great for a marriage when people keep secrets.”
“I’m not keeping secrets.”
“Sure you are. You’re not going to tell her about the Hallidays, are you? You know, what I’d wonder about is what she’s not telling you.”
“Lacey tells me everything.” Almost everything. She hadn’t told him why she didn’t want to buy baby furniture. She hadn’t told him Dr. Vlk said it was time to start birth classes. When she failed the Praxis teaching certification test the first time she took it, she didn’t tell him until she took it a second time and passed, because she knew how anxious he would be.
Lacey kept secrets, not to protect herself, but to protect him.
“Tells you everything,” Sammie scoffed. “Sure she does. When? You’re always here. Just because you’re on call, you don’t have to be actually in the office. That’s why they call it a smartphone. Go home.”
He couldn’t go home. A thousand reasons jumped into his mind. Files he might need to reference, research he might have to do. The house pushed him out; the thought of the house repelled him. Those three little boys, falling down the stairs, dying, dying, dead—and if he could imagine it so clearly, how would Lacey react? He’d never tell her; she could never know. He opened his laptop. “I’ve got work to do.”