From Boss to Bridegroom

by Victoria Pade

  “I’m going to have to lie on the sofa in the office to do my part. Sitting is an exercise in agony.”

  “Can I fix you breakfast while you shower?” she offered.

  “Thanks but I ate some toast to cushion the pain pills. Just pour us some coffee when it’s done, if you would.”

  And with that he left to shower.

  Lucy tried not to think about that as she went into his home office. Not to picture him dropping that bathrobe and those pajama bottoms. Not to think about the fact that he would be stark naked only a room away. Not to imagine thick-muscled thighs and well-honed calves, or a backside to die for, or a front side…

  Oh, boy. This was not going to be an easy day at all.

  She forced her mind off Rand and turned on one of his computers, laying out in her head the jobs of the hours ahead, picturing Max’s cherubic face to remind herself of her own priorities.

  It helped. By the time Rand returned, shaved, combed and dressed in sweatpants and a Harvard sweatshirt that still made him look all too good, Lucy had his coffee waiting on a TV tray in front of the couch and had already printed out the note for his family, informing them simply and succinctly that Emily had not been kidnapped, that she was alive, well, not in danger and would return home as soon as she could.

  “Great,” Rand judged after reading it.

  “I called my friend so she knows it’s coming and what to do with it. I’ve also called FedEx to pick it up this morning. I didn’t think you’d want to waste any time getting it to its destination.”

  “You read my mind,” he assured her as he oh-so-carefully lowered himself onto the couch, his head and back elevated only enough to sip his coffee and write on the legal pad he set on his lap.

  And with that they went to work as usual, spending the morning as Rand had instructed. Which was fine with Lucy. But it wasn’t as much fun as the afternoon when she began to search into Meredith Colton’s—nee Meredith Portman’s—past.

  “Some things are directly accessible,” Lucy explained to Rand as they got started, sitting at the computer while he continued to lie on the sofa that ran the length of the wall beside it. “Things that are a matter of public record are basically there for the asking, but that doesn’t mean I can just tap into the computer systems and bring them up myself. But I can e-mail a request for copies of things, which I did the night before last after you left. Last night when I got home I checked to see if any of my requests had been answered and when I found on your mother’s birth record that she was a twin, I e-mailed for everything that was a matter of public record on her twin, too. I hope that wasn’t out of line. I just thought that with your sister making claims to have seen two—”

  “Twin?” Rand said, cutting her off. “What are you talking about?”

  “Your mother was one of a double birth. You didn’t know that?”

  “No, I didn’t know that. No one knew that. Are you sure?”

  Lucy pulled up the e-mail and printed it out for him to see. Along with the birth information for Meredith Portman was documentation for a person named Patsy Portman, born on the same day, at the same hospital, to the same parents, five minutes later than the time of birth for Meredith.

  “Why didn’t you tell me about this right away?”

  “I assumed you knew. Your mother didn’t mention a thing like having a twin?”

  “Never. Are you sure the twin didn’t die shortly after birth? Or wasn’t given up for adoption or something? Maybe my mother doesn’t even know.”

  “I asked for everything that was a matter of public record on both Meredith and Patsy Portman. They both got driver’s licenses when they were sixteen and the same address is listed on them. So your mother had to have known about her.”

  “What happened to her?”

  Lucy wasn’t crazy about being the one to inform him of this next part. She’d thought it was something he knew and had purposely not talked about because his family wasn’t proud of it. “Patsy Portman has a criminal record, but I haven’t delved into that yet. I thought you were aware of it and might not want me poking around in what was a skeleton in the closet, that that’s why you hadn’t mentioned the twin.”

  “A criminal record? No, I didn’t know about that either. What did she do?”

  Lucy felt very much the burden of being the bearer of bad news so she answered quietly, “She was convicted of murdering someone named Ellis Mayfair when she was eighteen.”

  “I need to know everything you can get on that.”

  “Old newspaper articles are the best but they’re on microfiche. I might be able to persuade the library to fax us copies.”

  “Try,” Rand said.

  Lucy spent the next hour doing just that, luckily connecting with a helpful librarian in California who was willing to go to the trouble of looking for all the articles on the long-ago killing.

  By the time the faxes began to come in, Rand had fallen asleep, and since the sound of the machine didn’t wake him, Lucy read the articles herself.

  It seemed that Patsy Portman had had a troubled youth wrought with mental instability, anxiety, bouts of depression and severe mood swings, all of which had been dealt with unsuccessfully by a caring mother who had tried to get her daughter help. Patsy had dropped out of high school and had been reported as a runaway several times.

  Apparently in 1967 she’d become pregnant by Ellis Mayfair who was considerably older than she was and married.

  Ellis Mayfair had wanted her to have an abortion but she had refused, hiding her pregnancy even from her family. She’d given birth to a baby girl in a motel room with only Mayfair in attendance, naming the child Jewel. But while Patsy had slept postpartum, Mayfair had taken the baby away.

  When Patsy had awakened and asked for her baby, Mayfair had at first told her the baby had died. Patsy hadn’t believed that and after pressing Mayfair was told that he’d sold the baby to a doctor for a secret private adoption.

  Patsy had flown into a rage and attacked Mayfair, breaking a table lamp over his head and ultimately stabbing him in the chest with the scissors used to cut the umbilical cord, killing him.

  Meredith had arrived at the scene shortly after the murder. But because of her presence before the police arrived, Patsy had tried to claim on the witness stand that Meredith had instead arrived during Patsy’s fight with Mayfair and had killed him in defense of Patsy.

  But Meredith had denied it and since there had been absolutely no evidence or witness testimony to support it, Patsy had been found guilty of second-degree murder and sentenced to twenty-five years in the state correctional facility for women in California.

  Lucy glanced up from reading the faxes to see if Rand was still napping. He was so she went on to the follow-up article that had been done on the anniversary of the murder.

  The anniversary article began with a jailhouse interview of Patsy, who was clearly obsessed with the loss of her child. The obsession seemed to the reporter to have pushed Patsy’s delicate psyche over the edge. She was insanely angry with her sister for not having taken the fall for her. If only Meredith-the-honor-student and model citizen had said that she had killed Ellis Mayfair by accident while trying to defend Patsy, neither Patsy nor Meredith would have been put behind bars. But no, goody-goody Meredith wouldn’t do that, Patsy had raved.

  Patsy was also furious with their mother, Edna Portman, for not forcing Meredith to help. “But of course my mother wouldn’t do that,” Patsy was quoted as saying. “My dear mother wouldn’t risk anything happening to her little pet, to the good daughter. But she couldn’t care less if I molder away in a jail cell.”

  The reporter clearly doubted the credibility of Patsy’s claims and upon investigation pieced together a timetable that put Meredith at the scene of Ellis Mayfair’s murder only after the fact. The reporter had also learned that Mrs. Portman had done everything humanly possible in Patsy’s defense, nearly to the point of bankrupting herself.

  Additionally, the reporter had disc
overed that at Patsy’s request of her family to find her lost baby, Jewel, Meredith and Edna—with almost no money left—had done their best to locate the child. But from reports by the prison guards, when Meredith and Edna had informed Patsy of their failure, Patsy had yet again flown into a rage, screaming profanities and telling them she never wanted to see them again.

  After that Patsy had refused their repeated phone calls and visits, returned their letters unopened, and effectively cut herself off from them.

  When questioned about this in a subsequent interview by the reporter, Patsy had admitted, “I washed my hands of both of them. I can’t think of anything but my lost baby. My Jewel. I believe with all my heart that she’s alive and I can only hope she’s found a good home and knows somewhere in her heart that I’m just waiting for the day when I can find her myself.”

  Concluding the last article was an interview with Edna Portman in which she conveyed that while she was heartbroken over Patsy’s tragedy, she was deeply concerned about what kind of impact this scandal was having on Meredith and what it would do to her future. In view of that she let the reporter know that she would no longer speak on the subject.

  By the time the article had gone to press, Mrs. Portman and her daughter Meredith had moved to an unknown location, presumably in search of a fresh start away from Patsy altogether.

  “And if I had to bet on it,” Rand said when he’d awakened from his nap and read the faxes as Lucy had, “I’d bet that’s why my grandmother and my mother moved to Sacramento, that it wasn’t only for my mother to go to college. I’d also bet that my grandmother convinced my mother never to speak of the scandal again to escape the stigma and that’s why no one knows anything about this.”

  “I wouldn’t doubt it,” Lucy agreed. “Especially since it seems as if your mother and grandmother did all they could to help Patsy Portman and she made the decision to have nothing to do with them. They weren’t abandoning her. They’d been shunned by her. But once that had happened and they needed to start over again, to make a new life for themselves, it defeated that purpose to tell people about it.”

  “But the question is, does all this have anything to do with what’s happening in my family now?” Rand said.

  “The articles mention more than once that Patsy and Meredith were identical twins. That, had Patsy not been wearing prison clothes, no one would have been able to tell them apart,” Lucy pointed out.

  “But after all the years that had passed between the time of that last article and when my mother and Emily had the car accident, is it logical to believe Patsy would have come back and done something as outrageous as hijack my mother’s life?”

  “It doesn’t seem as if anything about Patsy was ever logical.”

  “Okay, granted. But even if she did impersonate—or is impersonating—my mother, how could she have pulled it off for so long? It seems so preposterous.”

  “What we see is usually what we believe. If Patsy caused the car accident Emily was involved in and switched places with your mother, chances are she looked too much like your mother to trigger any suspicions. But you said yourself that there was a difference in your mother after the accident. Maybe it wasn’t a personality change at all. Maybe it was a person change, just the way Emily says it was.”

  “I just can’t imagine that. But if it’s true, what did Patsy do with my mother?”

  Lucy didn’t want to respond to that because the most obvious answer was the worst. If Patsy Portman had gone to such lengths, for whatever reason might have gone through her deranged mind, to take over her sister’s life, and if she had already committed one murder, wasn’t it possible she’d committed murder again? That Meredith Portman Colton had met her death in that accident or just after it at the hands of her sister?

  It seemed all too possible to Lucy but she didn’t want to be the one to say it to Rand so she didn’t say anything at all.

  But he was so lost in thought that he didn’t seem to notice. Instead after another moment of deep musing, he said, “You’re right, Patsy tracking down my mother and causing that accident, then doing something with my mother in the process, would explain Emily’s belief that she’d seen two mommies. But then it also means that my mother…isn’t my mother at all.”

  “And that Emily is right to fear for her life,” Lucy said quietly. “She’s the only witness to the switch.”

  That troubled Rand even more. Lucy could see it in the deep beetling of his brow as he eased himself off the sofa and began to pace.

  “So someone really could have been trying to kill Emily.”

  “I know it’s a horrible thought.”

  “As horrible as the thought that all this time Emily knew the truth and none of us believed her. As horrible as the thought that something happened to my mother and for years none of us has looked into it. Has looked for her.”

  There was a note of barely controlled alarm in his voice and Lucy knew how much this whole thing had rocked him. “Where will you go from here?” she asked.

  Rand stopped pacing to look directly at her. “Good question. I didn’t expect to find anything. I honestly thought that the attack on Emily was a random act of a burglar or something, that when we looked into things we’d come out with nothing but ordinary background information on my mother. I figured I could use it to calm Emily’s fears when she called again and maybe convince her once and for all that she was mistaken about what she thought she saw at the scene of that accident and that everything else had just grown out of a young child’s natural confusion—including her belief that someone was purposely trying to kill her. But now…”

  He started pacing again. “Now what we’ve found sheds new light on what she’s been saying. I think we’ve stumbled into serious territory that’s going to require more than just surfing the Internet to find answers.”

  “I think you’re right.”

  “But it has to be done carefully and by someone who actually knows what he’s doing since we could have opened up a potentially dangerous can of worms.”

  “True,” Lucy agreed again, enjoying the sight of the wheels of his mind at work.

  Once more he stopped pacing to stand at the window that faced the courtyard behind the building. “I have a foster cousin Austin McGrath. He used to be a cop but left the force in Portland to open his own detective agency. I think it’s time to call him into this. Maybe he can find out where Patsy Portman is now. Or at least find a trail that could let us know if she’s happily living in Cleveland and is absolutely not sitting in my father’s house impersonating my mother.”

  Lucy knew that was exactly what he was hoping but she had her doubts.

  “Austin is good at what he does,” Rand went on. “He knows the ropes. He’ll be discreet. I’ll feel better with this whole thing in his hands.”

  “Do you want me to get him on the phone for you?”

  Rand turned from the window to check the clock on the wall. It was a little after four.

  “Thanks, but I’ll get hold of him at home tonight. You’ve done more than enough for one day.”

  If they weren’t going to do legal work or pursue this family conundrum anymore, Lucy expected him to say she could leave early. But instead he said, “Close out the computer and let’s take a little walk. I can use some fresh air.”

  “Are you up to that?”

  “If we don’t go far. Walking is less painful than sitting. And I’ve been cooped up too long.”

  It was obvious that all the unsettling news she’d delivered today was really the problem, but she didn’t say that. “A walk sounds nice.”

  She put on her coat while he took his from a closet in the entryway.

  “Want help?” she offered.

  “I think I can manage.”

  He managed all right. With difficulty but with the same stalwart determination that won him cases.

  And while he was at it Lucy tried not to ogle him.

  How could the simple task of putting on a bulky stadium j
acket over a pair of sweats be sexy?

  The answer was that on any other man it probably wouldn’t have been. But on Rand there was an air of sensuality to it. So much so that by the time he’d put on the jacket Lucy needed a walk in the cool November air.

  There was a park directly across the street and once they were outside that was where they headed. Only a few stubborn leaves still clung to the branches of generations-old elm, oak and maple trees, while the ground was blanketed in their gold and red brothers.

  The air was crisp and redolent with the scent of wood burning in a fireplace somewhere. It was nearing dusk and the park was deserted except for the occasional dog-walker.

  It occurred to Lucy that every workday should end with a leisurely stroll through a park to wind down.

  “How did your parents meet?” she asked when they had settled into a comfortable gait, still thinking about his family.

  “Car trouble,” Rand said with a chuckle that made it seem like a story he had fond memories of. “My father and my uncle Graham were on their way to Sacramento on a business trip and my mother’s car was broken down on the side of the road.”

  “So your father rescued the damsel in distress and they fell in love at first sight?”

  “My father fell in love at first sight, but my mother made a date with my uncle.”

  “Oh no!” Lucy laughed.

  “Then my uncle stood her up.”

  “And your father stepped into the breach?”

  “It was more like he saw his opportunity and took it.”

  “And once he had his chance with your mother, she couldn’t resist him,” Lucy guessed, thinking more about the son than the father.

  “That’s about the size of it, yes. What about your parents? How did they meet?”

  “At a Christmas dance. My mother always said my father swept her off her feet, literally and figuratively.” Again Lucy thought about Rand in that same regard.

  “And maybe neither story had a happily-ever-after ending,” Rand mused.

  Lucy regretted having led him down this particular conversational path when it seemed clear that he needed to be distracted from it. So she said, “What’s on tomorrow’s agenda?”