by Karen Rose
“God, the woman’s got balls,” Mia marveled.
“She went alone,” Scott said.
“More like rocks in her head,” Mia amended. “So she didn’t come back?”
“No, she came back. Mad as hell and muttering about how she’d nail Conti to the wall. Then this morning she calls in to say she’s taking a leave of absence until this thing with John Alden blows over.”
“And you don’t believe her,” Abe said.
“She would never walk away from a story. She wanted Conti, but she wanted Mayhew even more.”
“You mean she wanted the vigilante story,” Mia said.
“Sure she wanted the story. It was her ticket. She was getting calls from CNN and NBC, for God’s sake. But she really hated Mayhew. She never would have just walked away.”
“Why does she hate Kristen so much?” Mia asked.
Scott shook his head. “Don’t know. Don’t want to know. It was bad enough having to capture it all on film. I could say I was only doing my job, but I know that’s no excuse. Please tell Miss Mayhew that I’m sorry.”
Abe clenched his teeth and Mia continued. “I’ll give her the message, Mr. Lowell. Did you report Richardson’s disappearance?”
Scott shrugged. “Didn’t seem to be any point. She made the call herself. I just wanted you to know in case it becomes important. I have to go. I got reassigned to a different reporter today. Good luck.”
He walked away and Mia sighed. “A killer who takes out scum. Wealthy scum like Conti beat up old men, then take out Richardson. I’m not sure who the good guys are anymore.”
Friday, February 27, 4:45 P.M.
“Leah’s mother is dead,” Abe announced when they’d gathered in the conference room. “She died of cancer three years ago.”
“Leah hasn’t been seen for a year by anyone we talked to,” Mia went on. “Her pastor said she’d become more and more depressed, then one day she didn’t come to church. They found she’d moved and left no forwarding address. I’m sorry, Kristen.”
Kristen tried to push aside the sadness, but it was hard. “Poor Leah.”
“We searched Paul Worth’s house,” Jack said. “Found a bunch of different prints, but still none that match the partial Julia found on Conti’s body, which she released to the family today, by the way. In Worth’s garage we found the Oldsmobile without its plates and between a table saw and a rolling tool chest there was an empty space just the right size for that Craftsman vise that was used on Skinner. The house itself was deserted. They have a cleaning service come in every other week. Nobody saw anything.”
“Well, I can tell you Paul Worth himself is not involved,” Miles said. “He’s not lucid and hasn’t been since his stroke last year. I saw him at the nursing home myself.”
“Any visitors?” Abe said.
“None.” Miles looked sad. “Hell of a way to spend the end of your life.”
“Oh,” Mia said, “and Zoe Richardson is missing.”
This caused a bit of a buzz until Spinnelli raised his hand for silence. “Nothing we can do until she’s declared a missing person. Let’s not get sidetracked from our goal here, people. We know that Robert Barnett is the illegitimate son of Hank Worth and Genny O’Reilly, and that Barnett is Paul Worth’s nephew, but what is the connection between the Worth family and Leah Broderick?”
“We haven’t been able to find any yet,” Abe said tightly.
“There were no pictures of her anywhere in Worth’s house,” Jack added. “Sorry.”
Spinnelli sighed. “What’s next?”
“Murphy and I started checking area death certificates for Leah,” Kristen said quietly. “Murphy sent out her picture to the State Police before I sent him home to sleep and Julia helped by sending copies to ME and county coroner’s offices in Illinois. She was thinking there might have been an unclaimed Jane Doe.” Kristen’s throat closed. Such a waste.
Friday, February 27, 6:00 P.M.
“Looks like the gang’s all here. Mom’s having a little family party tonight. There’s a big party following the christening tomorrow,” Abe said, squeezing the SUV between Sean’s minivan and Aidan’s Camaro. Then he sighed. “This should be interesting.”
There was a high-end Lexus parked in front of the mini-van, and instinctively Kristen knew to whom it belonged. “Debra’s parents?”
“Yeah.”
“You never did tell me what happened last night,” she said gently.
Abe rested his chin on the steering wheel. “They asked me to forgive them.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, really. I about fell out of my chair. Said they’d been wrong. In everything. That they’d realized the day Debra finally died that they couldn’t have ended her life either, even if I’d allowed them to. But that they couldn’t get in touch with me to let me know because my parents weren’t telling anybody where I was.”
“So what did you say?”
“I said I’d have to think it over.”
“And have you?”
He looked over to find her green eyes filled with gentle understanding and unrelenting support and something shifted inside him. He’d known it was coming from the start, from the moment she’d tried to fell him with a pathetic can of pepper spray.
He loved her. He watched her face heat and he knew what he was feeling was written on his face for her to see. “Yeah.”
She reached out, letting her fingers trail down his cheek. “And?”
“Of course I will. Life’s too short, Kristen. I’m ready to move on. With you.”
Her mouth curved. “Are you now?”
“I am.” He caught her behind her neck and pulled her closer. “Will you come?”
Her eyes danced. “Not in front of your parents’ house. But maybe later.”
Laughing, he kissed her hard. “Tart. Let’s go in and join the others.”
The kitchen was controlled chaos, as usual. Sean’s kids ran circles around the floor, while his mother was smacking Aidan away from the pie she’d just pulled out of the oven. Annie was standing at the sink peeling potatoes and the television blared ESPN from the living room. The pie was cherry. All was right with the world.
“Hi, Mom,” Abe said. “Got enough for two more?”
“We can’t cook in my kitchen,” Kristen added wryly. “Somebody stole it.”
Aidan and Annie looked at each other, coconspirators, and Kristen surprised them all by walking right up to Aidan and pulling his head down to kiss his cheek.
“Thank you,” she said. She put her arm around Annie’s shoulders and hugged. “That was the nicest thing anyone’s ever done for me.”
Annie beamed and quickly recovering, Aidan grinned wickedly. “If that’s the nicest thing anyone’s done for you, then I really do need to have that talk with Abe.”
Her cheeks crimson, Kristen looked at his mother. “Hit him, please.”
Becca arched her brows. “You’re no longer a guest. Hit him yourself.” Sobering, she turned to Abe. “You’ve got company in the living room.”
“Yeah, I know. I’ll be back later.”
Kristen watched him walk away. He was ready to put aside the last ugly remnants of his past so that he could get on with his future. A future he wanted to share. With her. Will you come? he’d asked. She knew where this was leading. A man like Abe Reagan didn’t have affairs. He wanted a wife. A family. How desperately she’d wanted to say yes. But there were things he had to know first. Things that might change his mind. So she’d made light of his beautiful offer. She needed to tell him. Soon. And then, if he still wanted her, she’d give him the answer her heart was screaming.
Shaking herself, she turned to Annie. “So what do you think about the kitchen? Country hearth or French Provincial?”
Friday, February 27, 6:30 P.M.
Finding him had been no trouble at all. Few mayors of small Kansas towns were running for the state legislature and only one of them had gone to the University of Kansas. Figuring out that Geoffrey Kaplan w
as the man who had hurt Kristen had taken all of one hour. Getting from Chicago to Kansas, unfortunately, had taken fourteen. He’d managed to catch a few hours of sleep while Kaplan was in town tending his mayoral duties.
He now waited for the man to come home to his pretty house which sat isolated on ten acres of land. An old barn made a handy cover for his van. Kaplan’s trusting wife left the garage door wide-open all day, so it was no problem to slip inside and wait. It was a basement garage, like his own, so there were lots of places to hide. At least two televisions blared upstairs, and his gun had a silencer. There would be no noise of consequence.
He felt a tightening in his chest when the bastard drove in. In a few seconds, he’d see the face of the man who had raped a young woman and left her in the dirt at the county fair. The headlights switched off, leaving them in darkness. The car door opened, the dome light illuminating the interior and Kaplan climbed out. And his first thought on seeing Kaplan was that Kristen had been right. He was a totally ordinary-looking man. Five-ten, average build, slight paunch. He was balding. Badly.
He waited until Kaplan had leaned into the backseat to retrieve his briefcase, then emerged from his hiding place, his revolver drawn. In his other hand he held Kaplan’s own tire iron. Soundlessly he approached.
“Stand up, Mr. Kaplan. Put your hands in the air.”
Kaplan froze, then slowly straightened, his hands coming up. “Who are you?”
“Turn around, Mr. Kaplan. Slowly.”
Kaplan obeyed and even in the dim light of the dome light, he could see terror in the man’s eyes. Terror was good.
“Who the hell are you?” Kaplan hissed. Kaplan’s terrified eyes dropped to the gun in his hand and then took a quick trip up to the ceiling to where Mrs. Kaplan moved about above.
For an instant he wavered, then stiffened. The wife would be better off in the end. Being a widow would be far better than to be the wife of a monster.
“Kristen Mayhew,” he said, and waited.
“What?” Kaplan shook his head in bewildered panic. “Who is Kristen Mayhew?”
He didn’t even remember. He stole the innocence of a beautiful young woman who trusted him and he didn’t even remember her name. “Think back, Mr. Kaplan. College. Summer. The county fair.”
He watched Kaplan desperately processing the information. “Kristen May—” His head came up, ever so slightly. “Oh, yeah. I remember her. She was just a girl I dated in college. So what?”
Just a girl? So what? “You raped her.”
Kaplan’s eyes widened, then narrowed. “She said that? That little bitch.”
The tire iron swung up out of the darkness, hitting Kaplan just above the right temple. Kaplan sank to his knees, moaning.
“Watch your language, Mr. Kaplan.”
Kaplan held his head and in the dim light he could see blood oozing between his fingers. “I didn’t rape anybody. I swear it. She’s trying to ruin my career. That’s all.”
That’s all. “And why would she do a thing like that?” he asked tightly.
Kaplan looked up, furious. “Because I’m leading in the polls, that’s why. Every bimbo I’ve ever fucked is comin’ out of the damn woodwork.”
Bimbo. Kristen’s face crystallized in front of his face, then everything faded to red and the tire iron swung again and again and again.
“Daddy?”
He paused, the weapon above his head. His vision slowly cleared. And he heard the little voice again. “Daddy? There’s a van parked behind the barn.”
Panicked, he lurched to his feet, the gun and the tire iron dangling from his hands.
And over the car he looked into the horrified eyes of a child.
He looked down at himself. He was covered in blood. Her father’s blood. She’d seen him covered in her father’s blood.
She’d seen him. She’d run. She’d tell. He’d be caught.
I can’t be caught. I’m not finished yet. Leah.
Slowly, he raised the gun.
Chapter Twenty-One
Friday, February 27, 10:00 P.M.
From his half-lounging position on her bed, Abe watched Kristen get ready for bed. It was the first time he’d had the opportunity. Every other time they’d ended up in her bedroom, they’d stumbled in, shedding clothes along the way, falling into bed to make incredible love. Now, tonight, he could just watch her. He used to love watching Debra get ready for bed. He’d missed the closeness, the knowing that soon she’d lie beside him.
That he’d found that closeness again was almost too hard to believe.
Kristen paused, her fingers stilling on the middle button of her blouse. She could feel the steady pressure of his eyes from the bed. He’d piled some pillows behind his head and sat up against the headboard, his long legs stretched out. She looked over her shoulder and shivered at the heated look in his eyes. “Why are you looking at me?”
His smile was at once sensual and beatific and stole her breath. “Because you’re beautiful. Don’t mind me. Just keep going.”
She looked back down at her blouse, focusing on the buttons, willing her hands not to shake. She needed to tell him. Now, Kristen. Instead she concentrated on her clothes, taking them off, hanging them up as was her habit until she stood in nothing but her bra and panties. There was a rustle from the bed and he was behind her, almost scorching her back with his heat. He covered her shoulders with his hands and kissed the side of her neck. She tilted her head to give him better access and shivered again when he ran his tongue down her neck to the curve of her shoulder.
“Cold?” he murmured.
“No,” she whispered.
“Mmm. Good.” His hands capably kneaded the tight muscles in her back, then guided her to the little chair at her vanity. “Sit.”
She sat and from under heavy lids watched in the mirror as he pulled the pins from her hair, knowing that he was creating traditions. One by one the pins dropped to the vanity surface until her hair sprang free. He picked up the brush and ran it through her hair, gently scraping her scalp. Her eyes drifted closed. It felt so good.
“Good,” he said softly. “I’d stop if it felt bad.”
Her eyes flew open and she stared up at him. “How do you do that? How do you make me say what I’m thinking out loud?”
“I think you say it out loud because in your heart you want me to hear it.” The brush paused and he sobered. “What’s wrong, Kristen? You’ve been so quiet tonight.”
Now, Kristen. Don’t be a coward now. She stood up, slipping around him to shrug into her robe. “I need to talk to you. I need you to listen, because it’s hard to say.”
His brow creased in a frown, he set the brush on the vanity and went back to sit on the bed. “I’m listening.”
She opened the vanity drawer and found the little album. Holding it to her chest, she turned and looked into his very worried blue eyes. “I know about your baby.”
He visibly blanched. “How?”
“Aidan let it slip. He didn’t know I didn’t know. Then your father showed me a picture of Debra right before… You know.”
His nod was jerky, his skin pale beneath the dark stubble on his cheeks. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to deceive you, Kristen. I just don’t talk about it.”
“I know.” She sat on the bed facing him. “I understand.” She swallowed, then put the album on the bed next to his hip and shot to her feet. He picked it up, looked at the first photo, an infant with tiny red curls and big green eyes. Instant recognition dawned.
“She’s yours,” he said dully. She said nothing and he flipped to the next photo and the next until he came to the end. “Eleven pictures.”
Kristen’s body was trembling and she couldn’t make it stop. “One at birth and one for every birthday thereafter.”
“She’s pretty.”
“Thank you.”
He looked up, his eyes unreadable. “What’s her name?”
She hugged herself, hoping to control her shaking. “They named her S
avannah.”
He nodded, still looking at her. “Where is she?”
“California.”
“So far away.”
“Her parents moved from Chicago when she was four.”
He looked back down at the album and traced ten-year-old Savannah’s smile with the tip of his forefinger. “What did you think I’d say, Kristen?”
She bit her lip. “I don’t know.”
“Did you think I would blame you?”
Hunching her shoulders, she dropped her gaze. “I didn’t know. I blame myself.”
“That I can believe.” The warmth in his voice made her look up. He opened his arms and she crawled across the bed and into them. “Kristen, honey.”
The tears came then and he pulled her onto his lap. “Oh, Abe, I didn’t know what you’d say. You lost your baby and I gave mine away.”
“No, you didn’t. You gave your baby a chance to have a normal life.” His hand was on her hair, stroking. Holding her until her tears slowed and his shirt was soaked. “I take it you got pregnant after …” He kissed the top of her head. “After.”
“I hadn’t planned to tell anyone. Then I missed one period, then two, and I didn’t know what to do. So I told my parents.”
His hold on her tightened. “And they didn’t believe you.”
“An unmarried pregnant daughter was worse than a drunken dead one.”
There was a long, long pause. “I hate your father, Kristen.”
She rested her cheek against the rock hardness of his chest. “So do I.”
Another long pause. “Do you see her? Savannah?”
Kristen’s heart squeezed. “No. We agreed they’d send me a picture every year on her birthday, and if she ever asked about me, they’d tell her that I was young and alone and couldn’t care for a baby.”
“Which is all true.”
“Yes. When she’s eighteen they’ll let her choose whether she wants to meet me.”
“They’re good people, then.”
Her eyes burned. “Yes. And they love her so much.”
“Then you did the right thing,” he murmured. Carefully he put the album in her nightstand drawer. Then tilted up her chin and claimed her lips in the sweetest, gentlest kiss. Her heart swelled in her chest and when he lifted his head she could only look at him as the words raced through her head.