Stonechild and Rouleau Mysteries 5-Book Bundle. Brenda Chapman

flinched involuntarily until he looked down and saw that it was his daughter. He let his arm relax against hers. Geraldine tilted her shiny blond head and smiled up at him, a smile that softened her long, narrow face and plain features.

      “Max and I are just heading out, Daddy. He’s got an early day tomorrow and I’m a bit whacked.” She patted her rounded belly for emphasis. “This baby is sapping my energy.”

      “I’ll walk you out then,” said Tom. He noticed Max standing behind Geraldine, checking his BlackBerry and punching keys with his thumbs. “Something in the hopper?” Tom asked over Geraldine’s head, not sure why Max’s fiddling with the contraption unsettled him. It might have had something to do with the focused look on Max’s face that shut out everybody around him, including his pregnant wife.

      Max glanced up. “Just a question about a meeting tomorrow. It could have waited until morning but you know Benny. He’s a bulldog when it comes to nailing down the details.”

      “Sure.” Tom looked closer at his son-in-law. When had he added the blond streaks to his hair? His grey pinstriped suit looked tailor-made and his shoes brand new. Tom grimaced. If Geraldine hadn’t begged him to give Max Oliver a job, he never would have let the guy through the front door. Tom had Max’s number at hello — as deep as a puddle and as vain as a show horse — but Geraldine couldn’t live without him, and he couldn’t deny her. Tom felt a stab of indigestion below his rib cage. It was worse than normal tonight and that was saying a lot. At this rate, he’d have to find somewhere to lie down and curl into a ball until the pain lessened to something approaching bearable.

      “You okay, Daddy?” Geraldine squeezed his forearm as they walked. “You’ve turned pale all of a sudden.”

      “Just tired. I think I’ll leave right after you.”

      “What about Laurel?” Geraldine’s eyes narrowed as she looked toward his wife holding court. “She doesn’t look like she’s ready to leave.”

      “Don’t worry about Laurel,” Tom said. He gently steered Geraldine toward the coatroom. He didn’t feel like another scene tonight. He hoped Geraldine didn’t feel his weight on her arm. The spasm of pain nearly had made him double over.

      He forced himself to walk upright as they stepped outside into the welcome cold of the winter evening. The air chilled the sweat on his forehead and he felt like he might just make it home. He handed the doorman in the heavy red overcoat their two tags and watched him speak into a radio to have their cars brought around. Tom looked past him at the blue and green Christmas lights swaying on the tops of the trees in the square across from the Chateau Laurier.

      “Looks like I have to go back to the office,” Max said stepping close behind them. Tom and Geraldine turned in unison to face him.

      “No!” Geraldine wailed. “You promised me not tonight.”

      Max frowned and his shoulders rose in a quick shrug. “Sorry angel, but it can’t be helped. Benny’s found a problem with one of the contracts. If I deal with this now, I might avoid a trip east. God knows, I have no desire to head to the coast this time of year.”

      Geraldine began to say something, but whoever was driving their car approached a little too fast and it skirted to a stop, fishtailing slightly so they all took a step backwards. Her voice trailed away.

      “What the hell?” said Max. He raised a fist toward the car.

      A kid in his early twenties wearing a red toque and an iPod jumped out and grinned at them before he headed back to the parking lot. Max lowered his hand and cursed again. He took Geraldine by the arm and guided her to the other side of the car, walking slowly so she didn’t slip on the ice. He opened the door and lowered her onto the seat. Whatever he whispered into her ear must have been amusing because when he straightened she was smiling up at him, her eyes luminous in the overhead light of the car.

      Tom motioned Laurel over. He’d left his overcoat on and didn’t want J.P. to see that he was leaving early. Laurel said something to one of the men and he laughed as she stepped away from them. She made her slow way toward him, her hips swaying in time to the music like a stripper crossing the stage. Tom pulled her into the hallway.

      “I’m heading home,” he said. “I’m a bit done in.”

      “I can come with you. I don’t mind leaving.”

      Her eyes said otherwise. He could see the wine glow on her face and knew she was just warming up to the evening. He’d long since stopped worrying about trying to keep up with her. Their twenty-seven-year age difference had become an insurmountable chasm.

      “You should stay. If J.P. sees us all cutting out early, I’ll never hear the end of it.”

      “If you’re sure.” Her eyes slid past him, back into the glitter of the party room. The DJ had replaced Bing Crosby with Beyonce and couples were dancing in the centre of the gilt ballroom.

      “Will you manage to get home okay if I take the car?”

      “I have cab money if nobody is going my way.”

      “I’ll kiss Charlotte goodnight for you then,” he said.

      “She’ll be long asleep.” Laurel leaned forward and for a second he thought she might kiss him on the mouth. He felt her lips brush his cheek and the disappointment was more than it should have been. “Don’t wait up.”

      “I never do,” he mouthed at her retreating back. The musky smell of her stayed on his skin, like a memory that would not leave him alone.

      This time, it was an older bald man who delivered Tom’s silver Mercedes to the front of the hotel. Tom tipped him generously before slipping behind the wheel and pulling away, careful not to spin the tires on the patches of black ice. The doorman was spreading salt from a bag onto the driveway when Tom glanced into the rearview mirror. The temperature had risen since they’d driven to the hotel some four hours earlier, but it was still a cold night. He was glad for the blasts of dry heat coming out of the vents on either side of the dashboard.

      He drove toward the Rideau Centre and made a right onto the Canal driveway, following its curved length to the Pretoria Bridge. He stayed to the same side of the canal and continued south through the Central Experimental Farm. The blackness of the sky sequined in stars and the reassuring hum of the car’s powerful engine gave him the feeling of driving in the country, even though the farm was surrounded by subdivisions and commercial buildings. Turning onto Prince of Wales, he passed a string of bungalows with Christmas trees lit up inside their living rooms. He continued on to what used to be the country but was now a series of new subdivisions that had sprung up along the Rideau River. Winding Way, where his six bedroom grey stone with the three-car garage nestled, was another ten minutes away. The thought of going home to his mausoleum of a house was suddenly depressing.

      Tom stopped at a light and watched a woman and a boy around ten years walking along the other side of the road. It was late for the kid to be up. At that age, he’d have been long asleep no matter holiday or school night. The kid hung back, dragging his feet.

      For a moment, Tom flashed to the boy he’d been and the parents who’d tried to cocoon him from the world’s worst. They’d been lower middle class with strong Catholic values in a more innocent time. They’d be appalled at today’s youth if they were still alive. The world had changed drastically even between the short years raising Geraldine and Hunter and now Charlotte. He shuddered to think what lay ahead for his youngest daughter. Sometimes it felt like too much to deal with. He saw himself now, a man approaching sixty with more money than he would ever spend and no ability to keep the women in his life happy. He was running on empty, drained of conviction, an utter failure in anything that mattered. The innocent, hopeful boy he’d once been was long gone.

      But maybe, just maybe, there was still hope.

      The light turned green. Tom released his grip on the steering wheel and pressed his foot on the gas pedal. The car powered forward while he rummaged inside his coat until he grasped his cellphone in his suit jacket pocket. He held it