Her Detective's Secret Intent

by Tara Taylor Quinn

  If he knew why, probably. But... “No.”

  “Ethan’s dad. I feel kind of ridiculous saying that every time. I assume the guy has a name?”

  Yep, and there was why she didn’t do intimate with anyone. Or get close enough for intimate to be a risk.

  She hated to lie.

  And the more lies she told, the more chance she’d make a critical mistake. Counseling had pounded that one into her.

  “Ethan’s named after him,” she said. It was the truth. His birth name just wasn’t Ethan.

  “Ethan what?”

  Why? Why did he need to know a last name?

  If she came across like a crazy woman, she’d raise more suspicion than if she answered.

  “Grossman,” she said, blurting the name of one of her mother’s doctors. Colleen had contracted hepatitis C while on vacation with Miranda and her father down in Punta Cana. They’d thought for a while that she was doing better. That she’d be okay.

  She wasn’t.

  “I’m not going to hurt you or Ethan.” Tad’s soft voice came over the line. She couldn’t remember wanting to believe a man so badly in her life.

  But she couldn’t.

  Chapter 11

  Tad didn’t take Ethan to the gym Saturday. He’d decided not to broach the subject again during his Friday-night conversation with Miranda. He’d almost made a critical mistake, pushing too hard, with his request in the first place. Had teetered on the edge of losing her friendship altogether.

  And he’d learned a valuable lesson about survivors. They were as vulnerable as they were strong.

  Or maybe the lesson had been about Miranda in particular. As strong as she was, she was vulnerable, too.

  He thought about her all day Saturday. Wanting to call her. To see her and Ethan. And settled for a couple of drive-bys. Now that he knew the possible threat against her was in jail, he wasn’t as worried about her immediate safety.

  He’d looked up Ethan Grossman the second they’d been off the phone Friday night. He’d found no one of that name in North Carolina who’d been in college six years before. Or anyone close to college-age. Even using databases he still had access to, he’d only been able to find one listing. A man closer to her father’s age than her own.

  She’d lied to him about her husband’s name. Not surprising. Smart.

  Disappointing, too, on a strictly personal level. Which was at the bottom of his priority list.

  Lying in bed Saturday night, thinking about her, he suddenly sat upright in the dark.

  Ethan’s named after him. She hadn’t said the man’s name was Ethan; she’d only confirmed the conclusion he’d drawn.

  Ethan’s named after him.

  Ethan’s birth name was Jeffrey.

  He spent the next hour on his laptop, searching for Jeffrey Grossman in or around North Carolina.

  And came up empty.

  Frustrated, he pulled out his burner phone and texted the chief. I know the father’s name. She told me.

  It wasn’t technically true. But he had to have answers. If leading the chief to believe he already had, by other means, the information that he wanted the chief to discuss with him, and the chief would then open up more to him, give him more complete information, then the end justified the means.

  * * *

  Miranda passed Tad on the road Sunday, on her way home from the grocery store. She waved. He waved. Ethan turned around, as much as the belt would let him, and kept waving.

  She couldn’t even pretend not to be thinking about him after that, and when her son was in his room, doing his weekly cleaning chores, she texted Tad, asking him if he felt like grilling a steak. The man was alone. Healing. Helping Marie.

  It wasn’t until after he’d said a steak sounded good that she told him it would have to be at the play park on the beach. She didn’t own a grill.

  Didn’t have steak, either, but a grilled steak did sound wonderful. And it was something she never had because Ethan hated steak. On her trip back to the grocery store for a couple of thick T-bones, she bought her son the hot dogs he wanted as his dinner on the grill. She’d planned to meet Tad at the park, which was really just playground equipment, some grills and picnic tables cordoned off in the sand of one of Santa Raquel’s tourist beaches. But when he’d offered to pick her and Ethan up, she wasn’t quick enough to invent a reason to refuse and said yes.

  She told herself she wasn’t going to make a big deal of her appearance. The meal wasn’t a date. She and Tad weren’t dating.

  She wore leggings because they’d be comfortable to sit in on the beach. And the thigh-length off-white figure-hugging short-sleeved sweater was the only thing warm enough to wear with leggings on the beach in April. Running a brush through her hair was just polite, and she reapplied her minimal makeup because she’d rushed through it that morning.

  The ride over could have been intimate, sitting next to him in the front seat of his SUV, but Ethan, strapped in the back in his shorts, long-sleeved shirt and tennis shoes, took over the space and didn’t let go during the five-minute drive to the park. As soon as Tad answered his first question—had Tad ever been to the beach park?—in the negative, the six-year-old regaled him with all the things he could do there. How the slide was higher than the one at school, there were a lot more swings for big people, and if you got high up and wanted to jump out, it was cool because you landed on the sand.

  The barrage went on. She was happy to listen. Her son sounded normal. Happy. Eager to face what was ahead of him.

  She’d done some good as his only parent.

  Ethan wanted to go down to the water first thing, so they left the cooler in the car and, after taking off their shoes, walked across the sand, down to the shore. The beach wasn’t crowded, but it wasn’t deserted, either, that Sunday afternoon. Seventy degrees and breezy was too cold to swim, but a couple of kids were wading, bending over, picking things up off the ocean floor. Another kid was building a sandcastle in sand wet from the surf. Three teenage girls walked past them, chattering and laughing. A few couples were scattered about.

  Ethan liked to look for anything living on the shoreline.

  “You’re giving him a great childhood,” Tad said, standing beside her just out of reach of the waves lapping at the shore.

  “I do my best.” The breeze was harsher down by the water, but she welcomed the coolness on her heated skin. Being around Tad, who needed central heat? Or warmth from the sun?

  “I went to the beach once, as a little kid. In a town called South Haven on the shores of Lake Michigan across from Chicago. Mom rented a cottage there for the long weekend over the Fourth of July.”

  It was the first mention he’d ever made of his personal life. Avid for more, for a real picture of the man who compelled her to want to be around him, she asked, “Was your dad there, too?”

  “Nope. He took off when I was a baby. Met someone else, divorced my mom and moved to North Dakota. It was always only Mom, my older sister, Steffie, and me.”

  “Did you ever see him?” Fathers were a tough subject. No matter what they did to you, you loved them. Felt like you needed them.

  Until you had a child of your own to protect.

  “Not that I remember. He left that woman, too, luckily for her before they had kids. Last I heard, he was in Florida, working as a casino dealer. As far as I know he never remarried or had other kids.”

  “Have you tried to get in touch with him?”

  “Not in a long time.”

  The way he said the words had her looking up at him, and she was shocked to see the bitter sadness in his expression. Ethan was talking to the kids who’d been in the water, picking up things from the ocean shore, seemed to be comparing finds. He was a friendly kid. Outgoing. She’d been worrying too much that week about the way she’d secluded him.

  “How about your si
ster? Is she in touch?” She wanted desperately to know. But didn’t want to push.

  She didn’t want to be pushed, either.

  “Steffie’s dead.”

  Her heart dropped, and the breath caught in her throat. “What happened?” She turned to him and when he met her gaze...it was like his soul and hers...knew each other. Connected as friends, not strangers.

  “She and I were home alone one night. I was a freshman in high school. She was a freshman in college, going to a local university. Mom was at work. She was a nurse at the children’s hospital in Detroit.”

  “Your mom was in the medical field?” He’d never said. And at a children’s hospital... Her entire being tensed with the need to help him—because she was a nurse, too? Or had been. Before she’d left herself behind, invented a new life and become a pediatric PA.

  She liked being a PA. As much as she’d liked being a nurse. Maybe even a little more. She so badly wanted to share that with Tad.

  “Yeah. My father was an X-ray technician when they met. From what I can tell, he’s had a lot of different jobs since then.”

  “Where’s your mother now?”

  She wanted to know about his sister. Had to get back to that. But it felt like they needed a moment. Or at least he did.

  “She’s gone, too. After Steffie died, she fell into a deep depression that she never really came out of. She died of an accidental overdose of prescription medications when I was in college.”

  Miranda knew how horrible that felt—losing your mother. Couldn’t tell him that, either.

  “Oh my God,” she said, watching as the children moved a few feet farther down the sand. Ethan wasn’t allowed in the water without her. So far, he was remembering that. A breeze blew against them, lifting tufts of Tad’s short brown hair. The ocean sounds could have taken his words, their conversation, away.

  Instead, they seemed to be enclosed by it all.

  “I’m so sorry.”

  He shrugged. “It was a long time ago.”

  And yet...right there with them. Life had a way of doing that to you. No matter how many years passed, some things remained. Hurting you still.

  “Tell me about the night your sister died.” He’d brought it up. As though he wanted her to know.

  “She was watching a movie the last time I saw her. Eating popcorn. I went to my room, had my headphones on, listening to music. When I went out to tell her good-night, she was gone.”

  “Gone?”

  “From what they pieced together based on forensic evidence at the scene, and later a confession from the guy, the perp knocked at the door. A guy she knew from college. He’d had a crush on her, thought she returned his feelings. He said his car broke down and his cell was dead. Asked to use our phone. She went back to the couch. When he got off the phone, she offered him some popcorn. Apparently he made a move, she rejected him. Popcorn flew all over. Then he dragged her out of the house. Turned out his car was just fine, and parked at the curb. He’d just been looking for an excuse to spend time with her. But after her rejection, he lost it. He shoved her inside his car, drove her to a field, raped her, beat her to death and left her lying there. The neighbors heard her scream, called 911. I’d already discovered she was gone and had called, too, but by the time they found her it was too late.”

  Oh. Just oh, God. He’d been in his room with headphones on. A fourteen-year-old man of the house. Coming out to see popcorn all over the living room.

  There were no words. No way to fix this.

  Sliding her hand into his, Miranda held on to him, hoping he’d know she was sharing his pain.

  Hoping it helped.

  * * *

  “Look, I got three at once!” Ethan came running up from the wet sand, his hand outstretched, extricating Tad from an excruciating moment—and ripping him from a warmth he’d never experienced.

  Miranda quickly pulled her hand from his and he tried to ignore the sense of loss as he bent to see the three sand crabs her son had in his hand.

  “You want ’em?” Ethan asked him. “They don’t hurt people, do they, Mom?”

  “Nope.” She shook her head, acting as though she’d just woken up from a nap. A little out of it, not completely with them.

  Tad could relate. What in the hell had possessed him to tell her about Steffie? People knew, of course. And that his mother had died during the first year of his criminal justice degree studies. He’d moved from Michigan to complete his studies in North Carolina—choosing the state because he’d never been there and was offered an academic scholarship with work-study opportunity. Background checks told the facts.

  They didn’t reveal the details he’d given Miranda.

  He’d known he was getting in deep. That things were complicated. Nothing had prepared him for the jolt he’d felt when she slid her hand into his.

  It was that feeling that prompted him to make another unscheduled call Sunday night after the picnic on the beach.

  He and Miranda hadn’t had any more time alone after Ethan shared his sand crabs. The little guy had announced that he was hungry. They’d traipsed up the beach, cooked, played some three-way kickball in the sand, then headed home early because it was a school night and Ethan had to have a bath before bed.

  Miranda had invited him in. He’d read more invitation than just the glass of tea or cup of coffee she’d offered, and despite all the desire flowing through him, he’d politely declined.

  And then called her an hour later to apologize. He needed to stay on her good side. Wanted to believe it was for her father’s sake and for her own ultimate good, which she’d see when she learned the truth. But he had to admit that the phone call was mostly for himself.

  Being vulnerable with someone was new to him. He didn’t like it. Didn’t know how to get out of it.

  And was mesmerized by it, too.

  “I felt a little awkward, unloading on you like I did,” he said by way of apology for his abrupt departure earlier. “I should have handled it better.”

  “You were fine,” she assured him, a little more distant than she’d been when she’d called earlier in the day to invite him to dinner.

  He was glad he wasn’t the only one who recognized that they had to maintain established boundaries, but he was disappointed, too. Perversely filled with a need to get them right back where they’d been on the beach before Ethan had interrupted them.

  It was as though unfinished business lay between them. Something that hadn’t been there before.

  Maybe it was time to get back to work. To occupy his mind before it flew off permanently.

  “I unburdened myself. Now it’s your turn,” he said, pushed from within to move on from the standstill he felt trapped in. Maybe if she talked to him about her father, indicated that she missed him, he could convince the chief that she was ready for the truth. That would get him out of this mess.

  “Excuse me?”

  “I told you about my family and I know nothing about yours.”

  If silence could be heard, he heard it then.

  “I don’t have a lot to say,” she told him after a lengthy pause. “You already know I grew up in foster care.”

  “Like Ethan Sr.?”

  Maybe he was egging her on. Maybe he needed her to trust him.

  A selfish need at best. Miranda believed her safety lay in her silence. And her lies.

  “Yes,” she said. “Except that I stayed in one place, and he was shifted around among different families.”

  “And your foster parents, were they good to you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Are you still in touch with them?” Frustration motivated him. He was aware of it.

  “No. They took in a lot of kids. I, um, didn’t actually go into the system until I was eleven.”

  The year her mother died.

  “So you were
with your parents until then?”

  “My mom. I never knew my dad.” Something in her tone touched him.

  More than mere sadness. Much more. What was he doing? Forcing a woman to talk about her father, the person she’d loved and adored, a man who’d been a true hero, who’d not only kept her safe but been all the family she had. Of course, she’d have to wall herself off from any admission that he even existed.

  Tad’s excess energy started to seep slowly away, bringing back the calm with which he did his best thinking.

  He wasn’t happy to be on the phone with Miranda in the middle of their current conversation.

  He needed to be able to tell her that her husband really was dead. That the story she’d made up about Ethan’s father’s death was now reality. That she could see her father again. That the chief knew where she was and was watching out for her.

  But it wasn’t his truth to tell.

  And how could he know, really, the nuances between a daughter on the run and a father left behind? He’d never been either.

  “See you for coffee after the meeting on Tuesday?” he asked her.

  “Of course.”

  Tad hung up, completely dissatisfied, and yet relieved, too. They’d taken a step back.

  And they were still friends.

  Chapter 12

  On Monday, Miranda took her lunch hour to visit The Lemonade Stand. She’d called first, found out that Sara Havens Edwin, lead counselor and the woman who’d counseled her when she’d first landed in Santa Raquel, had half an hour between appointments, and Miranda offered to bring lunch.

  With her complete security clearance, she could park in the employee lot and did so, still wary enough not to want anyone to see her entering the Stand and assuming she was a victim. No one could know she’d been one, except the few who’d worked with her, those who’d initially helped her.

  New identities had to be just that—brand-new. Zero ties to the old.

  And yet her very existence was a tie to herself, to her own history, that would never be broken.