by Susan Crosby
He wished he hadn’t been part of that loss of innocence.
Four
For the first time since Claire was sixteen years old, she didn’t have a summer job. She planned to redecorate the house more to her taste, strip and refinish furniture, sand and paint kitchen cabinets, and make a bedspread for her bedroom. She might even try her hand at writing a book geared toward first-through third-graders, something about life in a big city, a backdrop with which children in her community could identify.
Jenn had been gone a week. None of Claire’s clothes were missing, nor had she found a hair-color box or anything else in the trash to give hints as to where Jenn had gone. Claire had gotten past her anger. She figured Jenn intended for Claire to feel guilty about issuing the ultimatum to move out, and would stay out of touch long enough to make Claire worry, and possibly relent about living together.
Not this time, Claire decided, putting a little more effort into sanding the last kitchen cabinet before she started painting. She would assume that Jenn had landed on her feet, as she always did. Claire never had been able to figure out why her sister wanted to live with her. She’d never catered to her, never done her laundry or fixed her meals. Certainly Jenn could afford her own place.
Rase barked then ran out of the kitchen. The doorbell rang. Every time someone had dropped by in the past week, she’d hoped it was Quinn. Silly of her to hope for that, she knew. He’d had a job to do, and that was all. Still, she’d felt a connection with him and thought perhaps he had with her, too.
He’d given her his phone number. She’d dialed six of the digits several times, then hung up at the last minute. What could she say— “You make my heart stand still”? He believed her sister was guilty. How could Claire be with someone who thought that? Yet another way Jenn had disrupted her life.
Claire reached her front door and looked through the peephole, then smiled as she opened the door to Jenn’s mother, Marie, who, while she didn’t have any official title, like “stepmother,” had become like a second mother to Claire through the years.
“Hi, baby— Oh, Claire! Goodness. You’re blond. I thought you were Jenny.” She stepped into the house. Rase circled her.
“Stop,” Claire ordered the dog in a serious voice. As usual he ignored her.
“How’s my favorite doggy?” Marie crooned, not helping matters, as Rase danced on his hind legs, his front paws on her thighs.
“Down,” Claire ordered again. This time he bounded onto all fours. “Sit.” He grinned. She sighed.
Marie hugged Claire. “You look cute, honey.”
“Thanks, Marie.” Claire adored the tall, buxom, fiftyish woman with the bright red, long, curly hair, dramatic makeup and tinkling jewelry. “How have you been?”
“Better than most, I think.” Her sparkling smile reminded Claire of why her father had been drawn to Marie once upon a time, even if her New Age personality had contrasted sharply with his rational-physicist nature—a major reason why they’d never married, although he’d offered when he found out she was pregnant. It was Marie who’d turned him down. A year later he’d married the woman who became Claire’s mother.
“Business is good,” Marie added. “Lots of stressed-out people out there. I’ve been turning away new customers.”
“You give great massages.”
“I do, don’t I?” She flexed her hands. “Hope the instruments stay healthy. Listen, honey, I’ve been leaving messages for Jenny on her cell all week and she hasn’t returned any. Nothin’ new there, of course, but I tried again a little while ago, and the line’s been disconnected. What’s going on?”
Claire would’ve invited her to sit down but Marie wouldn’t stay long. She never did. “Jenn’s gone.”
“What do you mean?”
“She moved out. Beyond that, I don’t know anything.”
“Did you two have a fight?”
“No. Not really. Well, sort of, I guess. I mean, I asked her to move out. I thought it was time she go out on her own again.”
“You know I agree with you. We talked about it before. Why didn’t she call me?”
“I assumed she had.”
Marie shook her head. “Did she leave me a check?”
“Not that I’m aware of.”
Marie paced, her velour pants hugging her ample behind. Lime-green high heels clicked against the hardwood floor. “She was supposed to give me a check.”
“You can look in her bedroom, if you want.”
Marie laughed, the sound musical. “Like anyone could unearth anything there.” Her cell phone rang. She dug it out of her big cloth purse and said hello. “Baby, where are you?” She glanced at Claire and mouthed, “Jenn.”
Claire crossed her arms.
“You promised me a check, you know, for—” She turned away slightly. “You know…. No, I can’t wait! Jennifer Marie, you promised…. I gotta have it, baby…. Okay, okay. Thanks.”
Claire held out her hand, asking for the phone.
“Listen,” Marie said. “I’m at your sister’s house. She wants to talk to you…. ’Cause I was worried about you. What’s your new cell number?…Well, when you do get one, call me. Stay in touch, okay, baby?”
Marie passed Claire the phone.
“What’s going on, Jenn?” she asked.
“I’m moving on, just like you said.”
“I didn’t mean you had to move out the same day. Where are you?”
“What do you care?”
Jenn’s casual way of putting Claire on the defensive riled her. She’d had it with her self-centered sister. “Well, for one, your car’s taking up my garage space. If you don’t get it out of there, I’m going to have it towed. You can pay the fines when you pick it up from impound.”
“Ooh, kid sister’s got fangs all of a sudden.”
Marie leaned toward the phone’s mouthpiece. “Can I use your car until you get back, baby?” she asked loudly, then whispered to Claire, “I’m gonna use your restroom.”
“Tell Mom no. She would crash it, just like all the others she owned.”
“Tell her yourself.” She waited for Marie to shut the bathroom door down the hall, then walked into the living room and let her frustration spill out. “You didn’t tell me the cops were looking for you.”
“The D.A., not the cops. They followed me for weeks. So what? No big deal.”
“Is that why you left?”
“I left because you told me to.”
Claire gritted her teeth. She didn’t believe her. “I’ll ask you again, Jenn. Do you have the money Craig Beecham embezzled?”
“And I’ll answer you again. No, I do not.”
“Then why did you run?”
“Who says I ran?”
“You left me a note, which is a cowardly way to leave, and you know it. You left your car and your clothes behind. Now you’ve changed your cell phone number. You ran,” she said again.
“I’m starting the life I always wanted, that’s all. Listen, I gotta go. Later, okay?”
Claire punched the off button and banged the phone down on the bottom stair. She blew off some steam by walking into the foyer then back into the living room again until Marie joined her.
A movement outside caught her attention—a gray sedan pulling up across the street. Recognizing Quinn Gerard, she closed her eyes and groaned. Great. Just great. She’d been sanding kitchen cabinets all morning and hadn’t even showered yet. She’d twisted her hair up off her neck with a big clip. Of all days for him to show up.
She resisted the temptation to pat her hair and smooth her clothes.
He got out of the car, his expression serious as he stood for a moment and stared at her house. He looked like a bearer of bad news.
Quinn should’ve done the polite thing and called before dropping in on Claire. In fact, he could have given her the information over the phone. Yet he was here, outside her house, feeling more hesitant than when he’d asked Melanie Davison to the homecoming dance eighteen years
ago. Why did this fresh-faced, seemingly harmless woman have the ability to intimidate him?
He climbed her stairs, eight of them, then stood under the portico for several seconds. Hell. He should just get in his car and drive away. Call her from his cell phone. Tell her what he’d found out. And keep on driving.
He blew out a breath. Big, fearless Quinn Gerard, who’d earned a reputation for uncovering secrets others couldn’t, for clinging unnoticed to the shadows of the city, for hacking into other people’s computers without remorse for violating their privacy—that Quinn Gerard was quaking in his boots at facing a first-grade teacher with philanthropic tendencies?
Idiot.
He started to knock but the door opened. A tall redhead was chattering and smiling. “I only crashed two cars,” she was saying. “And that was years ago.” Her smile changed, as did her body language, when she almost bumped into Quinn.
“Well, hi, there,” she said, not quite à la Mae West, but in a definitely flirtatious way.
“Good morning.”
Rase charged out of the house, right at him. “Sit,” he said. Rase’s rump hit the ground but his body was in motion. Quinn had never seen a dog grin like that. He scratched the dog’s ears.
“Traitor,” he heard Claire say.
The redheaded woman put out a hand. Her wrist jangled with at least ten silver bracelets. “I’m Marie DiSanto.”
He shook her hand. “Quinn Gerard.”
The door opened a little wider, revealing Claire standing to the side of the exotic-looking woman.
“Have you got a couple minutes?” he asked Claire.
“Sure. Stay in touch, okay, Marie?”
“I will, honey. You, too. ’Bye. Nice to meet you,” she said to Quinn, breezing by him, her scent pungent, like incense.
“Same here.” He turned toward Claire, then felt the older woman’s hand on his arm. When he looked at her she was no longer smiling.
“Your past is about to catch up with you,” she said, her eyes vacant.
Hell. A psychic. He humored her. “I hope it’s Andrea Scarpelli. She—”
Marie made a hissing sound. “You jest. Don’t jest. This will be serious to you.”
“Look—”
“Marie,” Claire said, putting her hands on the woman’s shoulders and gently moving her back.
She seemed to snap out of her trance, or whatever it was. “Sorry,” she mumbled.
Since he didn’t believe anyone could predict the future, he found her harmless, although he never would’ve guessed that the very sensible Claire believed in such nonsense.
“Come in,” Claire said to him, turning away. “Bring your dog with you.”
He smiled. The dog followed without prompting. Quinn studied Claire. Her clothes were dusted with something, not dirt or sawdust but a residue of some sort. “Did I interrupt something?”
“That was Jenn’s mother.”
He tried to put the mother and daughter together, but the picture didn’t come into focus. “Has she heard from her?”
Claire headed away from the living room. He followed.
“I’ve been sanding my kitchen cabinets,” she said over her shoulder, “so I don’t want to sit in the living room, if you don’t mind. Can I get you something to drink?”
Can’t answer the question, Claire? “I’m fine, thanks.” Her kitchen was spacious, and adjoined a breakfast room with a sliding glass door overlooking multiple-level decks and a nicely landscaped garden. The kitchen appliances looked fairly new, but the rest of the room hadn’t been updated in a long time. All of the cabinets looked freshly sanded.
He spotted a dog bed and encouraged Rase to lie down there so that he wouldn’t be underfoot.
Claire dusted herself off a little then washed her hands. He was caught off guard by how much her casual look appealed to him. Maybe it was the red sneakers. Or the body-hugging T-shirt that molded her frame, emphasizing her curves. Or maybe he liked the baggy, faded overalls because those metal fasteners just begged to be unhooked. Or perhaps he was so used to the corporate wardrobe of the women he usually dated, Claire stood out in comparison. “I’m fun,” her look seemed to say. He’d already noticed that.
“Jennifer’s mother is a—” What could he call her?
“Psychic?” Claire supplied with a half smile.
“Is that what she is?”
Claire hung her hand towel neatly over the oven handle. “She’s a massage therapist, and an excellent one. As for being a psychic, who knows? She’s never predicted anything for me, so I have no way of verifying it. Is there something in your past you don’t want to catch up with you?”
“Isn’t there something in everyone’s past?”
She frowned thoughtfully. “No,” she said finally. “Not mine. So. What brings you here?”
A need to see you. “I kept in touch with the D.A.’s office. Thought you’d like to know that your sister hasn’t used her credit cards all week, which you probably know is outside her normal use pattern. She’s an everyday user, and a big spender.”
“Especially since she got her check a couple of months ago, to settle my parents’ estate.”
“What you might not know is that she withdrew a substantial amount of cash from her bank account the day before she left.”
“The day before?”
He nodded. She grabbed a soda from the refrigerator. Her hand shook just a little.
“So, everything was planned,” she said. “It didn’t matter that I’d told her she had to move. She was already leaving.”
“Looks like it.”
She leaned her elbows on the counter. “How much is ‘substantial’?”
“I can’t give you a figure. Enough to live in luxury for quite a while.” He sat on a bar stool when she offered the seat with a gesture. “Have you heard from her?”
She took a sip of her soda. Damn, she was sexy when she was evasive. He almost laughed at the thought. He couldn’t remember enjoying a woman more. Maybe part of it was that she was forbidden.
“I’m not the enemy,” he said. “As I told you before, whatever you tell me stays between us.”
She took a seat beside him at the breakfast bar, muttering a quick “Sorry” when she bumped against him. The innocent, accidental brush of her arm against his sent his hormones on another mutiny.
“She called her mother today,” Claire said. “But she didn’t say where she was. Except—”
He waited. He was good at waiting.
“She said something to me. A hint, kind of.”
“What?” he asked.
“That she was starting the life she’d always wanted.”
“Do you know what she means?”
She met his gaze directly. Her eyes took on a little sparkle. She seemed to be suppressing a smile. “She’s always had it in her head that she would marry a prince.”
Quinn raised a brow.
Her smile widened. “I know. Delusions of grandeur. But she’s always believed it. She figured she would move to a ritzy European hideaway, where she might meet a prince who would—”
A look of horror came across her face as she realized what she’d revealed.
“I won’t give that information to the D.A.,” he assured her. “Although you know it’s in your sister’s best interests that she come home. It already looks bad for her, as if she’s on the run. Even if she isn’t living on the money Beecham embezzled, she’s going to make it seem like she is, the longer she stays away.” Quinn’s experience was that people who looked guilty usually were.
Plus, he’d also seen someone following her.
“Haven’t they checked the airlines and found out if she flew anywhere?” Claire asked.
“Probably. But if she bought herself a new identity….” He let the word hang there.
“Why would she do that?” Claire pulled the clip from her hair, letting it fall against her face, blocking his view.
He wanted to run his fingers through her hair, to know if
it was as silky as it looked. “Only your sister can answer that.”
“Well, I asked her again this morning if she had the money, and she said no.”
“Did you expect her to say yes?”
After a minute, she shook her head. “I guess not.”
“The problem is that this isn’t going to stay private forever. Someone’s bound to leak it to the press so that they can enlist the public in tracking her down. Maybe they’ll take a couple of weeks to check things out through their own sources, but eventually they’ll expand their search. Maybe treat it as a missing-person case. You could very well find yourself in the media as a result. Believe me, it’s not a place you want to be.”
Guilt by association. He’d lived with it, been damaged by it, scarred forever. He didn’t want to see the same thing happen to Claire, especially by someone she loved. It was so much worse when it was someone you loved. Family was supposed to support each other, yet too often an innocent victim was left behind to deal with their mess. When that happened, ties should be severed. He’d done that. He’d had to.
Jennifer had selfishly used Claire’s guilt and goodwill. Why couldn’t Claire see that?
“You need to find her,” he said. “She needs to show she hasn’t run away.”
She took a long sip of her soda then set the can down carefully before she answered. “I don’t understand. She says she doesn’t know where the money is. No one has found any evidence that she has knowledge of or possession of it. So, why isn’t she free to come and go as she pleases? How can the D.A. pursue her without evidence?”
“Circumstantial evidence is enough for them to look at her with interest.”
“I don’t see what I could do to find her. Nor why I should. To me, everything points to Jenn being Jenn.”
He angled toward her a little more. If Claire didn’t want to search for Jenn, he couldn’t make her. But he didn’t know any other way to continue contact with her. It would be the unspoken subject, like the skeleton in the closet. So, in order to see her, he needed to keep the situation with Jenn up front. “I’ll help you, if you want,” he said.
She frowned. “If the D.A. can’t find her, why do you think you could?”