by Style, Linda
“Sure.” Jillian got up and crossed to the table for the cards.
“You mix ’em up and deal,” Harriet said. “I don’t do that so good anymore.”
“You do just fine, Harriet. But okay, I’ll start.” Jillian sat down again and shuffled the deck. The cards, somewhat tacky from use, kept sticking.
“Harriet,” Jillian began slowly, deciding how best to phrase the questions she felt compelled to ask. “Do you remember when we buried Rob?” One by one, she dealt out the cards.
Harriet gathered her hand and fanned it out, pondered briefly, then switched a few cards around. “Of course I remember. It was the worst day of my life. Don’t you remember?”
“Yes. Yes, I do.” Jillian sighed, ready to go on with her questions, but Harriet stopped her by raising a gnarled finger.
“The police still don’t know nothin’ about my son,” she said to the aide. “Did you know that?”
The aide shook her head.
“Have you heard about all the new scientific advancements these days?” Jillian asked. “With improved testing, I understand they can find out information they couldn’t before. Maybe if they did more tests—”
“You sound just like that detective.” Harriet waved a hand in dismissal, then laid down two sets of cards, three of a kind. “He asked too many questions. I told him I wasn’t going to tell him anything and he was just going to have to talk to Jack.”
Jillian stiffened. Ramsey had been here, too, and he hadn’t said a word to her about it. Or had he come here after he’d talked with her?
But why? Did he think Harriet could convince Jillian to agree to exhume Rob’s body? Or was he looking for other information?
Harriet plucked up another card and inserted it into the fan of cards still in her hand. “Jack told me not to talk to anybody. He wouldn’t like it if I talked to that man.”
Jillian made her play. “Well, I’m sure he wouldn’t mind if you talked to me.”
“Nope. I said I won’t say anything and I won’t.” She plunked down another set of cards, dropped a discard on the pile and, smiling, she looked up. “Gin.”
Jillian’s nerves stretched taut when she left Meadow Brook a half hour later, the demons of doubt nipping at her heels. Everything she believed in had been forged from her relationship with Rob. His sincerity, kindness and compassion had made her believe in the goodness in people again. If that was all a lie…she couldn’t even believe in him, what could she believe in?
But that wasn’t Rob. That wasn’t who he was and nothing anyone said was going to make her believe it. That’s what she kept telling herself all the way home and for hours after. But nothing she told herself rid her brain of the horrible possibility. Now, hours later, with all manner of drama playing out in her head, she sipped a glass of wine while listening to the early-evening news on television, hoping the noise would drown out the horrible thoughts corrupting her good sense.
She could not, would not, doubt Rob. Because if she did, everything she’d come to believe about love and trust would crumble. Rob had been an honorable man. Doubting his veracity was a betrayal of the worst kind.
Yet…that most awful what if question kept rearing its ugly head.
She couldn’t just sit here and wonder. She needed to see those photos again.
***
“I’ve got nothin’,” Adam told Rico on the phone.
“Hey, hold on a minute. Someone’s here.”
“Yeah, sure. What else do I have besides time?” Adam dropped onto the bed and leaned against the padded beige headboard in the beige motel room.
He had all the time in the world. Because nothing was urgent in cold cases that made up the bulk of his assignments these days. And according to the chief, the situation wasn’t likely to change unless he could prove himself.
For a guy used to being in the trenches, working cold cases depressed the hell out of him. And Enrico Santini, his new partner who’d come on board only a year ago, had taken the brunt of his dissatisfaction—until one morning when the kid had laid into him, telling Adam that if he wanted to tank his career and spend the rest of his life wallowing in self-pity, that was his choice.
But Rico wasn’t going to put up with his sarcastic jabs anymore, wasn’t going to keep covering his ass or let Adam’s attitude screw with his head or his job.
You’re the problem, Ramsey. If you’re going down, you’re gonna do it alone, Rico had said—right before he’d contacted the employee-intervention program.
Despite the scuttlebutt that the fresh-from-the-academy New Jersey propeller-head was a go-by-the-books wuss, Adam figured Rico had mega cojones to take on a multi-decorated senior officer. The kid, all full of shiny ideals about the way the world should be, reminded him a little of himself when he’d started on the force more than a dozen years ago.
Now, after three months in therapy, a whole lot of determination and a new lead, Adam was dried out and on a course to set things right. Four years was too long to be in limbo.
With the new information connecting Sullivan to Bryce on the night he died, he was going to uncover who was responsible for his former partner’s death and make the scumbag pay.
He couldn’t fix his broken marriage, but he was better off for it. A cop who couldn’t focus on more than one thing had no business being married. He’d learned that lesson the night his partner died. And the guilt still plagued him.
“I’ve got some stuff for you to check out when you get back tomorrow,” Rico said when he returned to the phone.
“Yeah? Like?”
“Nothing huge. You’ll see when you get here.”
Adam had come to respect his new partner’s sharp eye for detail and his powers of deduction. The kid thought things out, while he charged through life like a bull, a just-do-it, act-on-instinct kind of guy who cut to the chase. Despite their rocky start, they made a helluva good team.
“What’re you gonna do about the widow?”
“Nothing. Not yet. I’m hoping she’ll have a change of heart, call tonight and agree. If not, I’ll get the order myself. It’ll take longer, but maybe I can squeeze an old debt to hustle it through.”
He quickly ended the call before he got a lecture from Rico on the way the court system was supposed to work. Calling in old debts didn’t fit with the kid’s altruistic philosophy. Just as he hung up the receiver, the phone rang again.
“Yeah. What’dya forget?”
“Detective Ramsey?”
His adrenaline kicked in.
“This is Jillian Sullivan.”
As if he didn’t know. As if he wouldn’t recognize her voice in an instant. “What can I do for you, Mrs. Sullivan?”
“I’d like to see those photos again.”
“I’ve got a plane to catch early in the morning.”
“How about now?”
Man, oh, man. Someone somewhere was smiling on him. “My place or yours?”
She was quiet for a moment. “How about splitting the distance? A café or something.”
“Sure. It’s your town, you make the call and tell me when to be there.”
They made plans to meet at a diner at six-thirty. She said she had a birthday party to attend afterward.
He knew why she wanted to see the photos again. She wanted to make sure she was right—that the man in the photo wasn’t her husband.
No matter how much you trusted someone, once the seeds of doubt were planted, they were tough to ignore. He knew that only too well. He felt a twinge of regret that he’d sowed those seeds in Jillian Sullivan. She seemed like a nice person. A conscientious mother.
But in his business, the reality was that people sometimes got hurt. So why did this one lodge so solidly in his craw?
Hot, sticky and irritable, he showered and shaved, pulled on a pair of jeans and a white Polo shirt. He decided to go with the ankle holster for his gun…do whatever he could do to make her feel more comfortable and more agreeable to his suggestion. People were always more
agreeable when they were comfortable…and getting what they wanted. He’d learned early on that the proverbial ‘flattery will get you everywhere’ was quite true in most cases.
It was six-twenty when he pulled into Joe Bailly’s parking lot. An early-evening breeze dusted over him as he headed toward the door. He hoped for some quiet corner where they could talk privately, but the place was crowded and noisy as an old fashioned jukebox blared oldies-but-goodies as a reminder that rock and roll was here to stay.
“How about the patio?” he said to the hostess, who led him outside to a table with an umbrella. The heat wasn’t as stifling as it had been earlier, and it was quieter outside, although he could still hear music. He picked a spot where he could see anyone who entered the patio.
Five minutes later he saw Jillian Sullivan striding toward him in a figure-skimming scarlet dress that was so hot it could’ve set the place on fire. With each confident step, her long strawberry-blond hair, straight tonight, swished from side to side keeping time with the totally appropriate, primal beat of Billy Idol’s Hot in the City.
As she neared, he could see large silver hoops glinting at her ears, and dark red toenails peeking from barely-there, nose-bleed high black sandals. He’d never been so freaking aware of a woman in his life.
For a moment he regretted he was going home in the morning.
Reaching him, she gave him only the briefest acknowledgment, and when he made an attempt to stand, she said, “Don’t bother.”
She sat opposite him. The waitress took their drink orders, Jillian’s for one of those fancy iced coffees and his for a cold glass of draft beer.
“You mind if I order dinner and eat while we’re talking?”
“And if I did?” She crafted a wry smile.
He shrugged and gave her a smile of his own. “I’d order anyway. Maybe you’d like to join me?”
“I’d like to look at the photos again. Did you bring them?”
“I did. And I apologize if I seemed insensitive earlier.”
Her eyes widened, as if surprised at the admission.
“I’ve been told I’m too results oriented,” he said, “that sometimes I have a tendency to go for the gold and forget common courtesy. I’m trying to change. So I hope you’ll accept my apology, have dinner with me and we’ll start again.”
Her expression softened.
Excellent. He picked up a menu to hand to her.
No, thanks,” she said, moistening her lips. “I appreciate the offer…and the apology, but I’d better save my appetite for the party.”
Heat burned in his chest. He shrugged. “Suit yourself.”
CHAPTER FOUR
SOMETHING IN JILLIAN YEARNED to say yes. But her gut instinct told her to stay as far away from this man as Jupiter.
The waitress came back with their drinks and took his order for a steak sandwich, French fries and onion rings. Just as the waitress was leaving, he asked, “You sure you don’t want something to eat?”
She smiled. “I’m sure.” And she hoped to hell her stomach didn’t growl. She’d been so upset over his earlier visit she hadn’t been able to eat a thing. Now he seemed so concerned, so genuine and sincere…but he’d already lied to her once to get something he wanted.
Just then a man and woman with two children were led to a table on the other side of the patio. As they passed, one little boy dropped his ball. Adam caught it on the bounce and tossed it back to the child with a smile. When the kid caught it, Adam gave him a thumbs-up.
He had an ease with children, a trait not all men possessed. He’d been just as at ease with Chloe, she remembered.
“You have children?” she asked.
“No, but I have some awesome nieces and nephews.”
“Nice. How many?”
He let out a whoosh of breath. “I lost count at six or seven.”
“So you’re from a big family, then?” She didn’t know why, but she’d thought of him as someone without much family. A loner.
“Maybe by some people’s standards. But in the Ramsey family, anything less than half a dozen is small. We were six. Four girls, two boys. All my sisters are married and pressuring me to get with the program.”
“And you don’t like the program?”
He eased back in his chair and looked directly at her. Drummed his fingers on the table. “Hey, I think it’s great.” A beat later he added, “For other people.”
So. He wasn’t married. And didn’t want to be. The quickness with which he’d said so sounded like a man who’d had a bad experience. Like her friend Patti who, after her divorce, had vowed to never ever get married again. Until she fell in love six months later.
“How about you…brothers and sisters?”
Shaking her head, she said, “No.” She’d never met the half sister from her father’s second marriage, and had only learned of the girl after she’d died from a drug overdose. Someone from social services found her when searching for a relative to decide what to do with the remains. Dina. Her name was Dina.
“An only child,” he said, as if that was somehow significant. “I can’t imagine what that might be like. Lots of perks, I guess. No sibling rivalry, no hand me down clothes. No having to share the candy, or babysit the youngest in the family.” He grinned.
“No big brother to stand up for you when kids picked on you, no sister who’ll play house with you, or who’ll help fix your hair and makeup.” She smiled. “Good and bad both ways.”
She reached for her drink and took a sip. And all this small talk was just putting off the inevitable.
The photos. She had to see the photos.
The waitress brought his food. “Help yourself to some fries,” he said and shoved his plate toward her.
“No thanks. I love them, but calories I don’t need.”
He leaned back in his chair, his eyes dancing over her. “You don’t look like a woman who needs to worry much about that.”
He smiled then, a wide, dazzling smile as his gaze raked over her…or seemed to…from her perspective. Her imagination. She shifted in her seat, so out of practice in social situations with men that she didn’t know how to respond. “Looks are deceiving,” she finally said. “More often than not.”
“You a vegan?”
Laughter bubbled up. “Oh, no. I’m not that disciplined.”
He took a bite of his sandwich, and after he finished chewing, he said, “Must be some birthday party.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Well, you got all dressed up for it.”
“Oh.” Some birthday party was right. All women and she didn’t know why she’d chosen to wear a dress.
Or maybe she did. “I’m not all dressed up.”
He took another bite of his sandwich and studied her as he chewed. Then he said, “Sorry, I forgot. You’re a California girl.”
“Which means?”
“You have the look.”
The look. And he had a line of bullshit a mile long. What she didn’t know was if it was just usual cop talk or if he was hitting on her. And she had so little experience in the single world, she wouldn’t know if he was or wasn’t.
“Then I guess it’s okay for me to say you have the cop look,” she returned.
He glanced at his clothes. “No uniform, no visible badge or weapon. What?”
“It’s not what you’re wearing, it’s the way you walk and talk and how you check everything out. Your RoboCop attitude.”
“You’re an expert in body language?”
“My father was a cop.” At his look of surprise, she narrowed her eyes. “You didn’t check me out?” She didn’t believe that, not for a second.
Instead of answering her question, he asked one of his own. “You said was? Is he retired?”
“He’s dead.”
“Sorry.”
“We weren’t close. And he died a long time ago.”
“LAPD?”
“No. And if you don’t mind, I’d like to see those photos now
.”
His hand went to his back pocket, and in that flicker of a second, she wanted to take back her words. Did she really want to do this? She wanted to prove to herself that the man in the photo couldn’t be Rob, and up till this very moment, she was sure she’d find something to cement that belief. But what if she found something else? Something she didn’t want to know.
Filled with a rush of sudden panic, she shoved her chair back and bolted to her feet. “Excuse me for a minute. I’ll be right back. I-I’ve got something in my eye.” She reached to touch her eye and headed for the restroom.
As she brushed past him, he caught her hand.
“Here, let me see.” Still holding on to her, he stood. “I’m usually pretty good at this kind of thing.”
He lifted her chin, and at the touch, she felt suddenly breathless. As he reached up with his other hand, she shook her head and blinked. “Wait,” she said, stepping back to put some space between them. She blinked a couple more times. “I think it might be okay.”
“You sure?”
She nodded. “Yes. It’s fine now.”
As they sat, he frowned, his expression puzzled. He nudged his plate toward her again.
This time she took a fry and poked it into her mouth. Then she grabbed another and when she finished that, she sampled an onion ring. Before she finished chewing, she reached for her drink and gulped that down, too.
He gave her a lazy grin, as if to say he’d been right, she didn’t worry about calories, after all. But he was too gallant to mention it.
She blotted her mouth with the corner of the napkin and then wiped the grease off her fingers. “The photos, Detective?”
He kept his eyes on her, reached for a folder on the chair next to him and then pulled out a small envelope. He took out both pictures and laid them on the table between them. It was still light enough for her to see the photos clearly.
Her hand shook as she picked up the wedding photo, held it up and searched for something to prove it wasn’t Rob. Couldn’t be Rob.
But what? Most of the things she thought of wouldn’t show in a photo, especially when he was wearing a suit. The hairstyle was a little different, yet the part was on the same side…a cowlick in the same place. Not particularly unusual, was it? She picked up the second photo, and her stomach lurched.