Sand Castles by Antoinette Stockenberg

majesty of the sky, settling its blue and gold mantle over the majesty of the capitol—that made him feel small and mean and coldly vengeful.
    What right had he to go charging into innocent li ves and upending them? As near as he could tell, Wendy Hodene was a woman of character. All anyone had to do was look at her face: she looked you straight in the eye, she had a warm, ready smile, and she treated everyone with the same courtesy. That was all Zack needed to know about anyone, man or woman, to judge that person's worth. She had worth.
    And her son. Tyler . He seemed to be a likable enough kid, always with his nose in a book. Did he really need to know that his father was a bigamist and that he himself was a bastard? How did you recover from something like that? Some kids weren't very resilient. Look at Zina after their parents died; she had refused to come out of her shell for a year. Twenty-six years later, she still wasn't all the way right.
    It all came down to this: Zina loved Jimmy Hayward, but Jim Hodene was never going to love her back. The only way out of the impasse was to find Zina someone else to love, and if the someone else happened to be cats and dogs, then so be it. Love was love.
    Ah, but why Wendy, why do this to her ? Zack pictured her on her way to work, doing laundry, nagging her kid. This was a real, honest-to-God, flesh-and-bones woman he was sticking it to, not some faceless CEO of a corporation. That made it hard.
    He thought of their little exchange in the basement, and his mouth inched up in a wistful smile. Wendy Hodene ... keeper of the socks.
    He wondered, in his new and melancholy mood, what would be coming next. The initial confrontation with Jim in the basement may have ended abruptly, but that morning Jim had gruffly demanded Zack's phone number, and Zack had obliged. Not long after that, Jim had taken off with Wendy; they hadn't returned by quitting time. In short, Zack was batting zip-nada so far, which had to be a factor in his faltering resolve.
    It occurred to him that Jim might just whisk his family into hiding until Zack became bored and left. If so, Zack had only himself to blame. He had tipped his hand by announcing right up front that he was determined to protect his sister from further hurt. Boy. Some blackmailer he was.
    He sighed. It was a beautiful, heartbreaking sunset. And utterly wasted on him.
    The phone in his pocket rang. In theory it could have been Jim; but Zack was dead certain that it wasn't—so dead certain that he took out the tiny thing, flipped it open without looking at it , and said, "Hi, Zee."
    Startled by his greeting, she said, "Oh-h-h, I'm being a pest, aren't I?"
    "Not at all."
    "You haven't spoken to him, or you would have called," she said with a sigh.
    "Right," he said, lying merrily away. "I was just about to pick up the phone and tell you that. I'm hoping I have news for you tomorrow or shortly after."
    "But ... why are you staying in Providence , if he isn't there? Isn't that a waste of money?"
    "Nah. I found a bed-and-breakfast that suits me." In fact, it was a third-floor rathole in a huge Victorian that had been split into half a dozen apartments, most of them housing students from Brown and the Rhode Island School of Design. The rent went by the week, and an extra bonus was that he could walk to the little park he was at and breathe air that didn't reek of pot and smelly sneakers.
    "Besides, I've managed to nail down a commission," he said, adding another link to the chain of his lies. "A lady on the east side wants me to repair a set of busted Chippendale chairs that she picked up for a song—well, what she calls a song."
    Zina sounded relieved. "Oh, good! I'm glad you're going to be making some money out of this, at least."
    "Hand over fist," Zack said with a reasonably straight face. He hesitated, then added, "So how're you holding up, Zee? I know this is hard on you, the waiting."
    "Yes, but everyone's sick who should be working at the