Did he care that Tammy had left an infant son behind?
Not sure that he would be able to hold his tongue when the man walked in the door, Jay took a long swig of water, praying that it would turn into beer between his lips and his throat. And when that failed to materialize, he prepared to meet the man he’d spent his entire life hating.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
ELLEN’S SENSES WERE ON full alert. She heard the sound of tires on the gravel drive and straightened, ready to…what? Dart in front of Jay and save him from himself when the Phoenix lawyer walked in?
“That’ll be Bob,” Daniel said, standing. Elise rose, too, getting a glass and bottle out of a sideboard. Pouring a healthy portion of amber liquid into the glass, she added a splash of water and stood behind her husband.
Ellen’s focus was on Jay. Her academic training told her the myriad of emotions he could be experiencing as his moment of reckoning approached. She noted his sudden stillness. The clenching of his jaw.
Jay might look tough—he might be capable of tough—but he was also a very gentle man. A man who would rather go to prison than see a girl, a complete stranger, be hurt.
His hands could control that monster machine of his, but they could also bring sweet solace to a body taut with fear, braced for attack.
“Daniel, Elise, good to see you. Ah, thank you, dear.” Ellen could not yet see the man, but she saw his hand take the glass. “Now what’s this about a picture?”
When the attorney came into view, Jay twitched, as though a fuse had been lit. The man was tall, like Jay, with thick salt-and-pepper hair and a receding hairline. He was trim and obviously fit. The glass Elise had poured was already half-empty.
A man who played hard? He reminded Ellen more of a high rolling poker player than a member of the professional elite.
He assessed Jay and Ellen, a smile on his face.
“Bob, this is Ellen Moore, a friend of a friend from Shelter Valley. And this is Jay.”
“Jay, Ellen.” Bob nodded, but didn’t approach or attempt to shake hands. “Nice to meet you.”
Ellen nodded. Jay didn’t say a word.
“Some folks in Shelter Valley have been showing around this photo,” Daniel said, handing a copy to Bob. “Turns out that woman is Jay’s mother. He wanted to ask you some questions.”
“I’ll be damned.” Bob grinned. “I haven’t seen this photo in years. Montford was about to set a state record for most consecutive singles wins.” He peered closer at the image. “Yes, I remember this girl. Tammy something. She was one of those you don’t forget. Had these big blue eyes. I was so busy staring at her as I climbed up to take my seat that I knocked over her drink. She got really upset so I bought her another one. Thought I’d stumbled on a new, if slightly hazardous, pickup line. Missed most of the match because of her smile.”
Ellen hung on every word, hating the man on Jay’s behalf, yet watching for the possibility of redemption. He wasn’t all bad. He’d driven from Phoenix simply to meet with them.
Bob looked at Jay. “So what can I do for you?”
Jay’s lips twitched. He set his bottle on the table. “How well did you know her?”
The attorney’s eyes narrowed. His court look, Ellen supposed, imagining he could crack a witness’s testimony with it. Despite the distance in his expression, he seemed genuinely confused, as though trying to put pieces together that didn’t quite fit. “Not well, though not for want of trying. She was sweet. Funny. In the space of an hour I was hooked.”
Jay’s shoulders heaved. He locked his hands behind his back. “And then?” The words were barely civil.
“And then, when I asked her out, she started to cry.”
“Cry?” Ellen spoke up, though she hadn’t intended to. “She cried over being asked on a date?”
“Yeah. She said it wasn’t my fault. Told me that she wasn’t…free…to date anyone. Then she left.”
“And that was it?” The words were still staccato, but Jay’s tone had less bite to it.
“That was it. I never saw her again.”
“Did she tell you anything else about herself? Anything at all?”
“Just that she was eighteen. And from Tucson.”
“Was she in college?”
Tilting his head to the side, the lawyer pursed his lips. “I’m sorry, man, I don’t recall. She seemed to know a lot about the game. As I remember it, I spent the match trying to make her laugh. What’s this about? Did you just find out she’s your mother?”
“No, I’ve known that. She died when I was a baby. I’m looking for my father.”
“Your— You thought…” Bob looked at the photo once more then put it on the table. “No, sorry. I didn’t even get as close as holding hands.”
“You have your arm around her.”
“I helped her after she stumbled.”
“Was she at the match alone?”
“Seemed to be. She didn’t talk to anyone else. And as far as I could see she left alone.”
“Did you see where she went? The parking lot? Toward campus?”
Bob bore Jay’s questions with equanimity, giving each one thoughtful consideration.
“Now that you mention it… Yeah, it was odd. She went toward the tunnel where the visiting tennis team congregated. I figured she knew someone on the team. I’d forgotten that.”
“She didn’t say that, though? During the match?”
“I don’t remember. It was thirty years ago, you know? I remember the girl. That’s about it.”
“Did she seem to cheer for anyone in particular?”
“No. She actually wasn’t cheering at all. Just watching. Studying. Like she was a coach, or a student of the game. She was pretty focused.”
“Did you find it odd that she was at the tennis match alone?”
“Not really. If she was a student, she could have been there to support the school. It was an exciting time—possibly putting Montford on national news.”
“Where were you in January of the following year?”
“Boot camp. I was a poor kid at Montford on scholarship. The money ran out and I joined the army reserves so I could finish my education.”
“You never attended the University of Arizona?”
“No.”
“You ever heard of a guy named Jay Billingsley?”
“No.”
“And you never saw Tammy Walton again? Never met up with her in Tucson?”
“No.”
Ellen swallowed tears as she watched Jay grill a guy who was obviously not his man. His thoroughness didn’t surprise her. Neither did his lack of ability to let go.
What did surprise her was her own personal attachment to Bob’s answers. As though what affected Jay affected her. What mattered to him mattered to her. She had to stop that. Now.
“You ever hear of Dolby Dodge?”
“No. But if it would help, I’m willing to submit to a DNA test to prove I’m not your father.”
He wasn’t the man they were looking for.
“I’M SORRY.”
Sitting in the passenger seat again, his long legs stretched out in front of him, Jay watched the desert passing by. Ellen’s voice reached inside him, settled there.
He had to dislodge it.
“Yeah, I guess I am, too. I don’t look forward to facing the man, but I’d just as soon get it over with. Still, I’m a bit relieved,” he admitted. He was tired.
“That’s understandable,” Ellen said. “You’re only looking for your father because you feel like you have to, not because you want to. And you’ve been given a reprieve.”
“What I’ve been given is another dead end. The photo’s out.”
Nothing added up. Jay existed, ergo, there was a father. But there was no evidence of a man in his mother’s life. No evidence of her having friends. Going to college. Or high school even. No evidence of a job. Or any life at all other than her time with his aunt.
“Maybe not so dead,” Ellen said slowly. With
both hands on the wheel, she was focused on the highway.
“What do you mean?”
“I’ve been thinking about what Bob told us. Trying to visualize it all. Putting myself in Tammy’s position. Why was she there alone? Based on the things we know about her—her lack of friends, absence of any high school records—it’s odd that she was at that match let alone by herself. So it makes sense that she was there to watch someone. She probably knew someone on one of the teams.”
He’d come to the same conclusion. Had planned to find out what he could about every member of both teams in attendance that day. He had an entire folder of articles and pictures of that day gleaned from the public Montford University archives.
“But something else is sticking with me. She cried when Bob asked her out. Not really cause for tears. The only reason I can come up with for a woman to cry at the drop of the hat is because she’s hormonal.”
“PMS?”
“I was thinking pregnant.”
Jay did the math back from his birth date. “If she was, it was just barely. Four weeks at the most. There weren’t tests that could have told her that conclusively—”
“Of course there were, just not available over the counter. She could have had a free blood test at any Planned Parenthood clinic. She also could have been further along. You might have come late.”
Had his mother been pregnant that day? Had his presence made her cry?
He had always assumed that his mother wanted him. But what if she hadn’t? What if he’d been as much a surprise, a hardship, to her as he’d been to his father?
“Was Planned Parenthood even around then?”
“Yeah. The first clinic in Arizona opened in Tucson in 1934. Strange, the things you retain from college.”
And strange, the things that didn’t add up. Such as why his possibly pregnant mother, a resident of Tucson, had been in Shelter Valley at a tennis match alone.
But the strangest of all was the way the woman sitting next to him made the dead end, his lack of answers, seem…manageable. Ellen Moore made life okay.
AN HOUR LATER, JAY STUDIED his copy of the photo he’d left with Bob. He’d asked to keep the picture and Jay could think of no reason to refuse.
As he sat at his dining-room table, he concentrated on his mother. The photo was grainy—not as clear as others he had, compliments of his aunt.
Grabbing his photo viewer, he examined the photo inch by inch, as though he could see the shape of the embryo—him—she carried. As if he could somehow discern his genetic makeup there, find the Y chromosome that contributed to his existence and discover the identity of the donor.
He was good at ferreting out the most obscure information. He saw what others did not.
Usually.
He picked up the phone, vaguely surprised that he was reaching out to someone. Very unlike him.
Ellen answered on the first ring as though she’d been holding her cell. Awaiting his call.
He was being ridiculous. If she had been, it was past time for him to hightail it out of town. The last thing Jay ever wanted was a woman waiting for his call.
“Scott said my mother had big blue eyes.”
“That’s right.”
“None of the pictures I have of her make that clear.”
“Doesn’t it say so on her birth certificate?”
“No. Eye color isn’t checked.”
“Well, apparently they were blue.”
“Mine are brown.”
“So you think your father had brown eyes.”
“An educated guess.”
He was staring at the photo while they spoke, his eye to the photo magnifier.
“I’ll be damned.”
“What?”
“The photo. She’s wearing a ring on a chain around her neck. I can make out the indentation under her shirt.”
“What kind of ring?”
“I can’t tell, but it looks plain. A wedding ring maybe?”
“Like the one you have from your aunt? Your mother’s wedding ring?”
“If she was married, why would she be wearing the ring around her neck?”
“I have no idea. If she was further along in her pregnancy, I’d say maybe her fingers had swollen, but she’s thin.”
He didn’t know the whys, but… “The important thing is, she was wearing it. She told Bob Scott she wasn’t free to date. Because she was already married? But if so, where was her husband?”
“Maybe he’d already left her.”
“My aunt said he left just after I was born.”
“I’m beginning to think what your aunt said and what really happened might be two different things. From what you’ve shown me, it seems like none of her facts can be substantiated.”
LATER THAT NIGHT, JAY was thinking about what Ellen had said. She was right, of course. He would have reached the same conclusion much sooner if he’d been on the outside looking in—investigating a life other than his own. But this was his aunt. The only family he’d ever known. And while she maybe hadn’t been the ideal parent, to the best of her ability she had been both mother and father to him.
The murder of her adored baby sister had taken its toll. She hadn’t trusted anything or anyone—including Jay, some of the time. But he’d understood. The tragedy—and the police’s inability to find the perpetrator—had imprisoned her in bitterness and distrust. She’d lost touch with friends. Quit going to church. She’d lost all sense of joy. Their home, while clean, had been stark. They’d had only the bare necessities to sustain life. No cable television. No computers.
His aunt’s life had been work and Jay.
She had monitored his every move. There had been no spoken affection between them, but she had listened to him. Considered his thoughts. She encouraged him to discover his interests and talents. To study hard and to believe that he could be anything he wanted to be.
And when he’d taken steps that she hadn’t approved of—such as trying to buy that Mustang from Dolby Dodge—she stopped him cold.
Now he had to contemplate how untrustworthy she was. How much of his life had been a lie?
He’d intended to find his father so he could lay the past to rest and decide how to proceed into the future with Cole. Instead, Jay was finding out that he had no idea who he really was.
This revised view of his aunt took Jay back several steps in his investigation. Sure, it opened innumerable new doors, as well, but he had to retrace his work.
And to top it off, he was feeling emotions he’d never felt before. A peculiar attachment to Ellen that defied definition or explanation. Was it a response to her uniquely needy and at the same time nurturing nature? The fact she’d suffered from a crime similar to his mother’s? Some chemical sexual thing?
Whatever it was, Jay was drawn to her. And that didn’t sit well with him.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
ELLEN WAS LOOKING FORWARD to Saturday morning’s session with Jay. Afterward she had a hundredth birthday party at work, and then was scheduled to meet with a family about enrolling their mother at Big Spirits. Whether someone was better off living in residential care or not, there was no way that she knew of to make the transition easy for the families. Or the residents. A not so fun part of her job.
She had talked to Josh that morning. He was off to Las Vegas to play at Circus Circus. Ellen had never been to Vegas and wasn’t particularly thrilled to have her five-year-old son exposed to the city of sin.
She wanted her son home in Shelter Valley with her. Where they both belonged.
But as only one of Josh’s parents, she couldn’t prevent him from going. Not when he was on his father’s time.
All in all, half an hour in her peaceful garden sounded fabulous.
Jay was in the waiting room, motioning her in before she’d scarcely cleared the door.
“How are you?” she asked quietly. She’d thought of him all night long. Wishing he’d had a friend to share the darkness with him.
Maybe wish
ing she could have been that friend.
“Fine.”
“Did you find anything in the tennis team archives?”
“No.”
Taking her cue, Ellen remained silent the rest of the way to his room. He left her, as usual, telling her to take her time getting ready.
She went through her now-familiar routine and was waiting for him after a few moments.
It took him a full five minutes to return.
“I’m going to do a bit of light massage today,” he said softly. “The same thing we’ve been doing with a little bit of kneading.” His low voice, speaking slowly, blended nicely with the music.
He pulled the sheet up to her neck. “If you have a problem, please let me know immediately. We’ll try to talk our way through it.”
She settled in and let the music take her to her special place.
Jay’s touch was soothing, gentle, his fingers working her muscles with a light, rhythmic pressure. The music was there. She could hear it. And the dimly lit floor looked the same in a comforting way.
Pressure against her shoulder at the base of her neck.
The walls moved a little closer. Ellen tensed.
“You okay?”
Jay’s voice.
“Yes.”
More pressure. Jay’s hands. She could see his thumb, tapping rhythmically against the car door yesterday. He’d been a grown man…and a little boy, too.
A human being trying to understand how a parent could desert him. Parents were partial to their kids. Parents loved their kids more than anyone on earth. Parents were security in a changing world. Safety in the midst of danger. Reassurance during sickness and encouragement in health. It was the natural way of things.
Pressure. Pressure. Pressure.
Jay had missed all of that. No safety. No security.
She could see him in her car. She cared.
His hands moved lower, edging along her spine next to her shoulder blades.
He was her therapist. Not a man she cared about.
Pressure. Kneading. Like she was a loaf of bread.
She wasn’t a loaf of anything.
Josh was going to Las Vegas.
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