And the crib and dresser in Taylor’s small room left no space for anything else. Which made the fact that they had little else less noticeable.
“What’s up?” They were in Scott’s room—their room for now—with the door open so she could hear Taylor.
He paced at the end of the king-size bed, staring down at the hardwood floor. Sitting in the old wooden rocker that had become a haven to her, Tricia hugged a throw pillow to her belly and waited.
Scott stopped. Glanced over at her. He sat on the end of the bed she’d made only an hour before. With hands clasped between his knees, he looked over at her.
“I haven’t been completely honest with you.”
Her breath whooshed out, but her lungs didn’t immediately expand to allow any entry of air.
He opened his mouth to speak, then shook his head.
“What?” Her voice was low, partly because she was having trouble saying anything at all. Partly because of Taylor in the next room. But also because, as she saw him sitting there, she watched—felt—the struggle inside him.
She knew. Oh, not his secret, obviously. But she knew all about the dark pain associated with keeping secrets.
“I shouldn’t have lied, and I’m sorry.” The conversation was getting more and more ominous. Tricia wanted to scream at him for lying to her. She’d been lied to enough. Couldn’t take any more.
But how could she be upset with him for something she was doing herself? No one was guiltier of hiding things than Tricia Campbell—name chosen from the Campbell’s soup can she’d seen on his counter when, the morning after the first time they’d had sex, he’d asked her full name.
“Why…” she coughed. “Why don’t you tell me what this is about?” If she had to find another place to live, she’d need as much of the day as she could get. Taylor had to be in bed by seven or he’d be too tired to sleep.
Still hugging the pillow, Tricia tried her hardest to ignore the far-too-familiar sense of impending darkness, the dread and panic that she could never seem to escape. She thought of the blue sky outside. Of the beach in Coronado, there for her to walk any time of the day or night. She thought of cuddling up to her small son for a long afternoon nap.
“I’m—I haven’t always lived…this way.” He gestured to the room.
“What? I’m keeping the place too clean? I don’t mean to, I just…”
“No!” He grinned at her and Tricia’s heart lightened. That quickly. It was why she’d been drawn to the man in the first place. There was something special about him and something deep in her recognized it. Even if, consciously, she had no idea what it was.
“I love everything you’ve done to the place. The curtains and pillows, the rugs. I love having meals I don’t have to fix myself, and having help with the dishes. I love always being able to find what I need because it has a place, so I know where to look for it.”
Good. Okay, then. She wasn’t just using him. She was giving him a valuable service.
“Have you ever heard of McCall faucets?”
The question threw her. “Of course. They’re top of the line. In custom homes all over the country. They do shower fixtures, too.”
“And toilet hardware,” he added.
“So?” She frowned, pushed against the floor with one bare foot to set the chair in motion. “You want to replace the kitchen faucet?”
He shook his head.
She hadn’t really thought so.
“The shower?” Please let it just be that.
“No, Trish. I want to tell you that my family is McCall faucets. I am McCall faucets.”
She was going to wake up now and find out that this was a twisted dream, another way her psyche had dreamed up to torment her. She was going to wake up and find out that it was really only one in the morning and she had a whole night to get through before she could get out of bed and feel the promise of sunshine on her skin. Seven and a half hours to go before Scott got home from his shift at the station.
“Say something.” He was still sitting there, dressed in his blue uniform pants and blue T-shirt with the San Diego fire insignia on it, hands clasped. She hadn’t woken up.
“I’m confused.” It was a relief to tell the complete truth for once.
“My grandfather is the original designer and patent holder of McCall faucets. The company now belongs to my parents. My younger brother, Jason, has an MBA in business and will probably take over the vice-presidency from my uncle when he retires in a couple of years.”
Wake up. Wake up. Please wake up.
“Do you have a large family?” That seemed the smart thing to concentrate on until she could get herself out of this crazy nightmare.
Scott was one of those people? The kind she used to be? The kind her husband still was? People whose wealth and privilege instilled the belief that they were above the law? One of those people who made mistakes and knew that society would look the other way?
Scott was coming clean? When it was more important than ever that she continue with her lies?
He’d said something—about his family she presumed—and was now awaiting her response.
“I’m sorry, I missed that, I was listening to Taylor.” The lies slid out of her mouth so easily these days.
His mouth curved in that half grin that usually made her stomach turn over. Not today. She was going to miss that grin.
“I said that I have numerous aunts, uncles and cousins, both of my maternal grandparents and both parents. But Jason is my only sibling.”
“No sisters?” The ridiculous question, considering what he was telling her, proved to her that this was only a dream. Reassured her.
Scott shook his head. “Just a bevy of female cousins.”
She felt a brief curiosity about them. Would probably have liked them. If she could’ve met Scott sooner, in college maybe, before she’d made the one critical choice that had ruined the rest of her life.
Staring at the braided rug in the middle of the floor between the rocker and bed, she didn’t realize Scott had stood until she felt the warmth of his hand prying the pillow from her fingers. With gentle pressure, he pulled at her hand. Tricia didn’t resist. In his arms she came alive.
She knew her attempt at escape through fantasies of nightmares for the lie it was.
Everything Scott had just told her was true. All true.
And everything about her—including her mousy-brown hair—was false.
2
The peace Tricia generally found in Scott’s arms was elusive that morning. She snuggled up to his warmth, buried her face in his neck, inhaling the musky scent of his aftershave—a cheap drugstore brand she’d bought him for Christmas.
A drugstore brand when he’d probably been used to several-hundred-dollar-an-ounce varieties.
He’d shaved before he’d come home that morning. The skin on his neck was smooth, soft. She kissed him. A small caress that lingered.
God, let this all go away.
Scott held on to her, saying nothing, but there was a sense of things left unsaid. Of more things coming.
She had to get a San Francisco paper. It was going to tell her that Leah had turned up, healthy and happy, though embarrassed as hell for having fallen prey to the consequences of some inane idea she’d had. Wasn’t it? She’d promised herself, sometime during the long lonely hours of the night, that it would.
“Taylor’s going to want his walk,” she said into Scott’s shoulder, making no move away from him.
It was during those morning walks that Tricia usually picked up the San Francisco Gazette from a stand at the food mart a couple of blocks away. And unless Scott was on twenty-four-hour duty at the station, she read it at the Grape Street dog park, where no one would pay attention or ask questions. And where Taylor could squeal at the four-legged creatures.
In another lifetime he’d have had a dog. Or three. In another life, her son would’ve had anything and everything his little heart desired.
“I don’t think he
’ll be too upset about exchanging a walk for Blue.” Scott’s lips nuzzled her neck, sending chills down her spine. Good chills. And chills of warning, too. She’d never have believed it was possible to experience such opposing thoughts—emotions—sensations—all at the same time.
She had to take that walk. Get away from Scott. She had to buy the paper.
And she had to stand up, face what was before her, move on. Taylor’s life depended on her ability to take the next step. And the next.
Reaching up to release the ponytail that was giving her a headache, Tricia pulled back from Scott and shook her head, letting the long brown strands fall around her. She’d never had long hair before.
She’d gotten used to it. Maybe even liked it if she could get past how unfashionable it looked.
“The fresh air’s good for him.”
“You’re angry.”
She turned away. Dropped the ponytail elastic on the Formica dresser top.
“No, I’m not.”
Turning back, Tricia met his gaze briefly, and then glanced at the blue fake-down comforter on the bed behind him, covering what she knew were sheets with such a low thread count that the only way she’d been able to make them soft was to wash them repeatedly with tons of fabric softener. The throw pillows she’d sewn herself from fabric remnants left over from her contract job as an independent alterations specialist at a Coronado dry cleaner. Behind the bed were walls so thin any insulation that might’ve been there had probably deteriorated years before, and windows whose frames were bent enough that if the wind blew just right during a storm, water would come in.
His body, leaning against the bed, captured her attention for a second. And then she looked him in the eye.
“I don’t understand.”
He shrugged, didn’t ask what she meant. “It’s a long story.”
“I can always start Blue over if I have to.”
He gestured to the bed. “You want to sit down?”
She didn’t. Her nerves were stretched too taut. Tricia peeked out the bedroom door, down the hall to the living room where she could see her son happily playing, his little chin raised as he stared at his idol on the screen in front of him.
And she turned back. As much as she didn’t want to hear whatever Scott had to tell her, she had to. She loved him.
With one hip resting on the bed just below her pillow, she kept both feet firmly on the floor, arms crossed over her chest.
She’d once been told that her C-cup breasts were the best part of her. At the time, she’d considered the words a compliment.
Scott closed his eyes, one bent leg pulled up on the mattress, his other foot still on the floor.
“I had it all once.” His voice had an edge she didn’t recognize. The man she’d grown to count on was peaceful and compassionate. He was a healer. Not a hurter.
Taylor’s babyish lisp rang out from the other room, his rendition of Blue’s theme song. Another episode was starting.
Plastic scraped against plastic. He was playing with his hollow square color blocks, trying to fit one inside another. Only problem was, her son hadn’t quite grasped the concept that the smaller block went into the bigger one.
“The best of everything. Best home. Best clothes. Best education.” He’d opened his eyes and was looking right at her, making her uncomfortable.
He knew nothing about her. But this wasn’t about her.
Silently, keeping her own counsel, she waited.
“I had my own servants.”
He’d said that as though it was one of the seven deadly sins. Her skin felt hot. And she shivered with cold.
“On my seventeenth birthday, my father surprised me with a brand-new Porsche.”
They were nice cars, though Tricia was more fond of Jaguars. Navy-blue ones. With beige leather interiors and seats that heated up at the touch of a button.
“Alicia loved that car.”
What? “Alicia?”
He nodded. Tense enough that the cords in his neck framed his next swallow. “I met her in high school.”
“Your girlfriend?” She wasn’t jealous. Had no reason to be jealous. Obviously Scott hadn’t stuck with this girl. Still, had she ever seen that warmth in his eyes when he’d been focused on her?
“She was more than just a girlfriend.” His voice took on a distant quality, almost as though he was talking in his sleep. His sight had definitely focused inward, leaving Tricia sitting there alone.
And yet… He was sharing this with her. That meant something.
“How so?” she asked softly, dragging a blue-and-white throw pillow onto her lap, hugging it, pulling at the tasseled trim she’d sewn on by hand.
He tilted his head slightly, a restless hand coming to rest on the side of his boot.
“It sounds crazy,” he told her. “Always has, even in my own mind, but Alicia was special. Different. From the first time I met her, it’s like we connected. Suddenly everything in life made sense. I felt as if I’d been thrown from a hurricane into a rainbow.”
Which described exactly how she’d felt when she met him. Emotion burned at the back of her throat. She felt that way about him. He’d felt that way about someone else.
“It doesn’t sound crazy.” But this love story didn’t have a happy ending. Had the woman dumped him? For someone who was more…what? Couldn’t be richer. Meaner, then? Politically motivated?
Or had their families been involved? Disapproved of the match?
“Did your parents like her?” Was she rich enough for them?
“Everyone liked her. Alicia was the only daughter of one of California’s most influential bankers. But unlike the other girls at school, her attitude wasn’t defined by her family’s wealth. She was blond, small, popular. She liked nice things. But she spent her time thinking about poetry. And social problems—how she could help people.”
Tricia had spent most of her teenage years dreaming about clothes. But she’d volunteered at the animal shelter every weekend and during the summer. Leah had taken her there. Among the animals Tricia had found peace. Security. Unconditional love.
“So what happened? I can’t imagine she didn’t like you.”
His grin was slow, not fully present, but Tricia felt heat in her cheeks anyway.
“We were pretty much inseparable the last two years of high school. We graduated. Celebrated our eighteenth birthdays that summer.”
His was in July. Three months away. Last year had been the first she’d celebrated with him. He’d been embarrassed by the fuss she’d made—which had consisted of one new shirt and a homemade cake.
“The third Saturday in August, just before we were due to leave for college, we took the Porsche out for a long drive along Highway One.”
The coastal road followed the Pacific Ocean all the way up the state of California and beyond. Tricia and Leah had run away for a couple of weeks one summer during college and driven the entire craggy coastline, marveling at the natural beauty that took their breath away, the mountains and drop-offs, the mammoth rocks and roaring waves, stopping wherever the spirit took them. They’d spent three days in Carmel.
Tricia had sworn she’d go back there with a lover someday.
She never had.
“Somewhere about a hundred miles north of Santa Monica I pulled into a deserted overlook and asked her to marry me.”
This was where the story got sad. Those narrowed, glistening eyes said so.
“She turned you down?” She hadn’t meant to sound incredulous, but she really couldn’t believe it.
“No.” He glanced up with a bit of a smile. She’d never seen a smile look so sad. “She said yes. And started to cry when the ring I nervously pulled out of the glove box fit her finger perfectly.”
“How’d you manage that?” She was hurting and didn’t even know why.
“Got one of her rings from her mom and took it to the jewelers.”
His thoughtfulness didn’t surprise Tricia. Except as confirmation that he�
�d always been like that. She’d occasionally wondered if he was so different from the other men she knew because of something that had happened to him. Apparently not. Apparently he’d been born thoughtful and kind.
“An hour later, flying high on life, I took a corner twenty miles an hour too fast, lost control of the Porsche and slammed into the side of a mountain.”
San Francisco Gazette
Wednesday, April 6, 2005
Page 1
Socialite Still Missing
Forty-eight hours after thirty-one-year old charity fund-raiser Leah Montgomery was reported missing by her brother and sister, there has still been no word on her whereabouts. According to a police source, they have no clues other than the black gown hanging in her shower. The missing woman was apparently planning to wear it two evenings ago at a charity gala. There was no sign of struggle in her Pacific Heights security-system-controlled home. Montgomery’s white Mercedes convertible has not been found.
Standing at the checkout counter at Gala Foods, her basket empty except for the fresh vegetables she’d suddenly decided she wanted for dinner, Tricia read the article a second time. Her hands were trembling so hard she could barely make out the words bouncing in front of her.
They weren’t what she’d expected to read. No inane idea to explain her friend’s sudden disappearance. No embarrassing statement of apology for the rash or naive behavior that had made her miss her own black-tie function. No Leah.
Dammit, Leah, what have you done this time? Who’s rescuing you from whatever mess you’ve created now that I’m not there to do it?
And whose gown did you buy?
It was almost one in the afternoon. The paper had gone to press before six that morning. Perhaps Leah had been found by now.
Hidden Page 2