Schuyler Square Day 71 Hello, Daddy

Chelsea tried to stand still as she waited in the massive front hall of Schuyler Manor. Honestly, it looked like something right out of The Beverly Hillbillies with the black and white tile floor, the curving staircase, the enormous crystal chandelier. Catching a glimpse of herself in a gilt-edged mirror that took up most of one wall, Chelsea almost fainted. She looked as out of place as a dairy cow standing in a jewelry store. Chelsea straightened her shoulders and lifted her chin. She had every right to be there. After all, her husband had to find out that he was going to be a daddy sooner or later.

"Chelsea." Peter entered the hall and gave her a spectacularly flat greeting. "What is it? Do you need money or what?"

She blinked back tears. While she naturally hadn't expected him to give her a kiss or even a hug she had hoped for something a little warmer than the glacial tone in Peter's voice. "Hello, Peter," Chelsea said softly. "I, um, need to talk to you."

An annoyed twitch passed over Peter's mouth and Chelsea tried not to burst into tears. This was the man who had promised to love and cherish her and now she was just some kind of minor annoyance to him. Sniffing loudly, Chelsea channeled her inner Glenn Close from Fatal Attraction. She would not be ignored. Remember that, she thought. "Well, what is it?" Peter asked impatiently.

"Is there some place we can talk privately?"

Peter sighed loudly. "Let's go to the den." Turning, he led the way down a long hallway lined with doors. Chelsea hadn't seen so many doors in one hallway since the summer she worked at a chambermaid at the Come On Inn motel. They entered a walnut paneled room. Peter shut the door, pointed at a chair for Chelsea and leaned against a desk, his arms crossed in front of the wide chest she knew so well. "Well?"

Chelsea perched on the edge of a soft leather chair and willed Glenn Close to surface. "I have some news for you, Peter. I'm pregnant."

All of the color drained from Peter's face. "You're what?"

"Pregnant. With your child." Chelsea kept her voice steady as she spoke. It had to be Peter's baby. She'd slept with one other man one lousy time--and it had been lousy--during the entire course of her marriage to Peter. The odds were highly in favor of Peter being this baby's daddy, not the creep from her dreadful one night stand.

"You can't be. We tried to have kids for years and nothing ever happened."

"Apparently we got it right a few months ago."

Peter looked like it was going to throw up, a condition Chelsea had become very well acquainted with over the past few weeks. "I don't know what to say."

"Why don't you try: I'm coming home so we can get ready for the birth of our baby?" Chelsea suggested.

Peter stared at her. "Because first I want to make sure that baby is really mine."

Schuyler Square Day 49 Kirk's Reaction

Kirk stared down at Ron Schuyler’s body, a sick feeling filling his gut. This was his father lying at his feet and he felt nothing. Absolutely nothing. With an effort, Kirk pulled his eyes away and focused instead on the crowd surrounding him. Everyone looked horrified but he noted that no one looked too surprised.

“Are you OK?” Mindy asked. She was still holding his hand tightly and Kirk could see the worry and concern in her eyes.

“Yeah, I’m all right,” Kirk responded.

“I wonder what happened,” Mindy murmured. “Who would have done something like this?”

“From what I’ve heard, Dear Old Dad had a list of enemies about a mile long. It’s going to hard to find someone in Schuyler Square who didn’t have a motive.” Like his mother. Oh, man, his mother. How was she going to handle this? Kirk still hadn’t figured out what kind of feelings his mom had toward Ron Schuyler. Was she still in love with him? Did she hate him? He knew she resented him. Hell, he did too. The man had never been in contact with her since she’d left Schuyler Square carrying his child. She had to resent him.

But had she resented him enough to be happy that he was dead?

“Is your mom here tonight?” Mindy asked, as if she was reading his thoughts.

“I don’t know. She was planning on coming but I haven’t seen her yet. I was late.”

“I know. I waited for you but then I decided to head over to the ball by myself. Where were you?”

Kirk didn’t answer. He wasn’t in the mood to be interrogated, not even by his live-in girlfriend. “I should find my mom.”

“You should,” Mindy agreed. “I’m going to stay around here for the story.”

His father’s murder was a news story. The sick feeling in his stomach grew stronger. “All right.”

They were interrupted by the sound of a woman speaking very loudly, almost hysterically. Kirk listened hard—was that his mother? He hoped not. Kirk knew what an intensely private woman his mother was and that she’d regret a public breakdown in the country club’s kitchen.

“What happened? Would someone please tell me what happened?”

Kirk and Mindy watched open-mouthed as Mavis Schuyler stormed into the room, her upswept hairdo flopping to one side like a drunken crow. She was missing one shoe and her dress looked torn, although Kirk wasn’t one hundred percent positive that it wasn’t supposed to look that way.

“Where’s Ron?” Mavis demanded. “Where’s my husband?”

“Oh, boy,” Mindy whispered under her breath. “This isn’t going to be pretty.”

One of the policemen grabbed Mavis by her elbows in an attempt to both stop her and steady her. “Mrs. Schuyler, something has happened to your husband.”

“I know that, you idiot!” Mavis shouted. “Someone told me he’s dead! Is that true? Let me go! I want to see Ron immediately!” She broke away from the policeman and stumbled into Kirk. He helped her stand up and for a moment he felt a flash of sincere pity for this woman. She was a victim, just as much as her husband was. Worse, she was going to have to live with the after effects of what had happened to Ron Schuyler.

Kirk experienced an odd sort of regret. No matter how much he had hated his old man—and over the past few months that hate had grown by leaps and bounds with every passing day—he hadn’t expected to feel this kind of pain when his father died. He hadn’t expected to feel like he’d lost something too.