by Brenda Novak
His assistant knocked again. He’d assumed she’d gone back to her desk. “What now?”
There was a brief hesitation. No doubt she was surprised. He never treated her rudely.
“Have I done something wrong?” she asked.
He cursed under his breath but managed a solid, “No, it’s me. I’m sorry.”
That seemed to make it better. Her voice sounded more strident when she spoke again. “Mr. Winn is here. He’d like to see you.”
Mr. Winn owned a liquor store and wanted to beef up security beyond the single guard Virgil provided on weekends. “Tell him I’m dealing with a family emergency and won’t be able to meet today.”
There was a pause and then a drawn out, “Okay…”
“And, Sandra?” he said before she could move away.
“Yes?”
“Clear my calendar. I’m going to be gone for a couple of days.”
At this she opened the door and peered into the room, her face flushed with excitement. “Is it the baby? Is your wife in labor?”
He prayed Peyton could manage on her own and that nothing would happen to their daughter. Or their son. Or anyone else he loved. As soon as he dropped off Laurel’s kids, Rex would be flying back to Montana to look out for Laurel, and Virgil would be in L.A. He’d have to move Peyton, Brady, Jake and Mia into a motel until he could get back. They could order room service and swim in a heated pool. That was the upside. The downside was that he didn’t know how long he’d have to be gone. “Not yet.”
Sandra’s smile faded as she glanced at the damage the stapler had done to the wall. “So…where are you going?”
“I have a job to do.”
“A protection job?”
“Yes.”
Nonplussed, she let go of the handle and the door swung wider. “But we don’t have any jobs scheduled for out of town. You haven’t accepted one of those in weeks.”
“I can’t get out of this.”
“Is it what you were telling me about before? About…the people in L.A.?”
With a nod, he grabbed his keys, left the stapler where it had fallen and walked right past Mr. Winn before taking the stairs two at a time and hurrying into the parking lot. Breaking the news to Peyton wasn’t going to be easy. But he had to get on the next available flight.
22
While Myles went upstairs to change out of his uniform, Vivian walked around the main floor. Except for the section of living room visible from the front door, she’d never seen the inside of his house before. The coziness of it, the family portraits, the ceramics and drawings Marley had created, reminded her of what so many women wanted—a home and family, a steady relationship, a place to call their own, safety and security. Even the expansive, unused deck out back appealed to Vivian because it symbolized a man’s love for his wife— Myles’s commitment to Amber Rose as he cared for her in those last months.
Vivian wanted the same kind of love and commitment. And from the same man. Sure, she’d stayed in Pineview because of Claire, the gals at the Thursday-night book group, Myles’s daughter, who was so willing to babysit, Nana Vera and all the others. She’d also stayed because she loved her home, and her children were happy here. But all these things wouldn’t have been enough, wouldn’t have motivated her to take the risks she was taking now. It was Sheriff King she hadn’t been able to leave. She was afraid she’d never meet another man like him, one who so closely fit her ideal of what a husband and father should be. If not for him, she probably would’ve gone to New York and considered herself lucky to have escaped The Crew yet again, lucky to be reunited with her brother.
But living near Virgil didn’t hold the same attraction if it meant living without Myles. She’d fantasized about the sheriff far too many times to walk away from the hope that’d taken root inside her, especially after making love with him at the cabin. Maybe she’d chased that desire into a corner, but it was still there. Despite all her denials, she’d allowed herself to believe, at least on some level, that they had a chance of becoming a couple. She was fighting for that chance, fighting to establish the family she’d always wanted. That went beyond a house. After finding him on her doorstep when she returned, she understood that he was what she’d been looking for all along.
Only now he’d taken a giant step away from her. Had she been crazy to send her children to New York, to take a gamble on trying to have it all?
“You hungry?”
Startled by the sound of his voice, she turned away from a portrait of Amber Rose to find him standing at the foot of the stairs. She hadn’t heard him come down because she’d been studying the photograph of his wife with such intensity. He had pictures of her all over. Not that the house was a shrine, exactly. Far from it. She figured these pictures were the same ones that’d been up when Amber Rose was alive but they still made Vivian a little uncomfortable. She’d been so worried about her own problems, her own reasons for being unable to sustain a relationship, she hadn’t really considered whether or not she could compete with someone like Amber Rose. In death, Myles’s wife only became more perfect. While Vivian had to live with whatever life threw her.
“No, I’m fine.” She was too exhausted to eat. And she was afraid, that if she ate the wrong thing, her ulcer would act up again. Her stomach had been burning all day.
As his gaze moved over her, she realized she wasn’t looking her best. Knowing how much she was going to miss her children, she’d cried the whole way back from Kalispell and hadn’t bothered to repair her makeup. And she was wearing loose-fitting jeans with holes down the legs, sandals and a simple T-shirt, nothing that would impress him.
He was dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, too, but after a shower, he looked fresh. Smelled good, too. The scent of his shampoo brought back the night she’d pressed her face into his neck and breathed in the same scent she was enjoying now.
“Did you ever have dinner?”
They’d been staring at each other. Slightly embarrassed by the appreciation that must’ve shown on her face, she blinked. “No, I had a late lunch with Claire.”
“It’s midnight. Even a late lunch would’ve been hours ago.”
“I’m fine,” she repeated.
He started to move past her but hesitated. She could sense him behind her, large and solid, and wished he’d place his hands on her shoulders, her arms, anywhere. With so much at stake, she needed him to reassure her that she’d put her hope in the right thing. But he didn’t. After a pause, in which it felt as if he wanted to say something but didn’t, he skirted past her into the kitchen and opened the refrigerator.
“I make a mean omelet. Will you eat one if I cook it?”
Her stomach burned enough already. “Thanks, but I don’t think so.”
“What’s wrong?”
She adjusted her position to try to ease the discomfort. “Nothing.”
“You keep rubbing that spot. Does it hurt?”
“A little,” she said with a shrug. “I have an ulcer that gives me trouble every once in a while. Nothing big.”
“An ulcer.”
“It comes and goes. The wine I drank the other night might’ve caused it to flare up again. I don’t do well with alcohol. And stress makes it worse.”
“What can I feed you that’ll help?”
He seemed genuinely concerned, but after what he’d been through with his wife, she couldn’t imagine he wanted to deal with any kind of illness, even if it wasn’t cancer. “An omelet will be fine.” She smiled as she said it.
The comforting sizzle of eggs in a frying pan filled the kitchen as she wandered to the windows overlooking his back porch and that elaborate deck. From where she stood, she could see straight into her own kitchen. She wondered if he’d ever noticed that—or been tempted to watch her as she moved about. She certainly glanced over here often enough.
“Will you tell me about your ex-husband now?” He opened a drawer and the utensils rattled as he came up with a spatula.
Leaving the w
indows, she sank into a seat at the circular booth that served as his kitchen table. She wasn’t that impressed with the decor in his house, thought Amber Rose’s taste had been mundane. But Amber Rose hadn’t been known for her decorating ability. She’d been known as a wonderful wife and mother. So saintly it was probably crazy to hope Myles could ever get over her.
“Why do you want to know about my ex?” she asked.
“Was he abusive? Or was that a front for everything else that was going on?”
As Tom’s face appeared in her mind, Vivian grimaced. “He was definitely abusive.”
“In what way?”
“Is there anything I can do?” she asked.
“No. I’ve got it. In what way?” he repeated.
She would rather have chopped vegetables or grated cheese. It would be easier than watching him. “In every way.”
He put two slices of bread in the toaster. “How old were you when you married him?”
“I’d just turned eighteen.”
“Wow, that’s young.”
“Too young.”
Opening the cupboard closest to him, he took out the salt. “Where’d you meet?”
“At the doughnut shop where I worked.”
“He came in?”
“Pretty regularly. I didn’t notice him at first. He was just another customer, someone who was quite a bit older than me. It was his persistence that eventually caught my attention. I worked at the doughnut shop in the mornings and waited tables at a Mexican restaurant in the evenings. Once he learned I had a second job, he began to show up there, too.”
Myles twisted around to look at her. “Sounds like a stalker.”
“He has emotional problems. I wish I’d been smart enough to realize it then. But I had to work night and day just to get by, and that left me with no social life. I was really lonely, angry at my mother and worried about my brother. Tom stepped up to help me through it.”
“And I’m sure he did that for your benefit.”
She recognized the sarcasm in those words but didn’t attempt to justify her actions. Hindsight made her mistakes so clear. What she didn’t add was how desperate she’d felt for a little love, how long it had been since she’d experienced anything like that. “Everything started out okay,” she went on. “It wasn’t until I was pregnant with Jake that he got so possessive.”
Myles didn’t seem to like this story. A muscle jumped in his cheek and his movements grew jerky, at odds with his typical athleticism. Yet he was engrossed enough that he’d all but forgotten his cooking. “Where were your parents?”
She pointed to the pan behind him. “I think the eggs are going to burn.”
He shook on some grated cheddar and flipped the omelet. “So, where were your parents?”
“My dad abandoned us shortly after I was born. My mother went from relationship to relationship. Each new ‘love’ was all that mattered to her. I moved out at sixteen, shortly after my brother went to prison. He was what made home bearable for me.”
“You’re talking about Virgil.”
“Yes. He’s my only sibling.”
“Prison was how he met The Crew.”
“Did Rex tell you that?”
“Yes, but not what Virgil did to land himself in prison. And…didn’t you say you have an uncle in prison, too?”
“I’m getting to that.” She propped her chin on one fist as she recited the rest. “They charged Virgil with killing my stepfather, but he was exonerated fourteen years later, after my uncle’s ex-wife came forward with what she knew about the night in question.”
He put the first omelet on a plate and started another one. “What took her so long?”
“Loyalty. It wasn’t until they broke up and some of that love and loyalty faded that she was willing to reveal what she knew. After all, she’d benefited from it, too—at least, financially. When he fought her for custody of the kids, she got so angry she went after him with everything she had.”
“Bet that was interesting.”
“It was. She said he’d gone out the night Martin died. That when he came home, he had blood on his clothes and was visibly shaken. Then the insurance money arrived, and they could finally pay their bills. That sort of thing.”
“So it was your uncle who killed your stepfather.”
“That’s right.”
“With what?”
“My stepfather’s own gun, if you can believe it. He kept it in the house for protection.” She laughed at the irony that seemed to pervade her whole life. “The police knew that much when they arrested Virgil. The gun was on the floor near his body. Whoever shot Martin fired the weapon, dropped it and ran.”
“Not the smartest killer in the world.”
“Definitely an amateur but he did wear gloves. There were no fingerprints on the gun. And thanks to my mother, he nearly got away with murder.”
Myles took out another plate. “Wouldn’t your mother be the one to get the insurance money? How come the uncle was named beneficiary?”
Vivian thought about the autopsy the M.E. had likely performed on her mother today, or would perform in the near future, depending on how many bodies awaited his attention—and in L.A. that could be quite a few. What had the police discovered? Did they realize it was a gang hit? Did they have any hope of tracking down Ink without her help?
She doubted they’d be able to. Now that The Crew had found her despite her efforts to remain hidden, she could call the LAPD and offer what she knew. She planned to do it in the morning. She still wasn’t sure she’d be able to attend the funeral, though.
“Vivian? The insurance?”
“Oh, yes. My mother split the money with him. Uncle Gary claims she put him up to the murder in the first place. She claims—claimed—she was just trying to help him out of a financial mess, since he’d lost his job.”
His hand froze over the pan as if he was wondering whether or not to broach the subject of her mother’s murder; she was glad when he kept their conversation to the story. “What kind of job did your uncle lose?”
“He was a service manager at a Toyota dealership. With the state of the economy, other dealerships weren’t hiring, and he was struggling to find a way to support his family.”
Myles whistled as he slid the second omelet from the pan. “I see. Your mother was behind it all and yet she let your brother go to prison.”
Vivian rubbed her face. “Sick, isn’t it? I couldn’t stay with her after that.”
“But…now she’s gone.”
Vivian didn’t answer.
“Are you okay with that?”
She wasn’t okay with any of it. “I don’t want to talk about how I feel. It’s too complicated.”
“I understand.” He bent to see the gas flame beneath his pan as he lowered the heat. “So where’d you go when you left home so young?”
“I tried living with a friend. But her parents were about to divorce, and I was so worried about making things more difficult for them that I rented a room from a stranger, dropped out of school and went to work.”
He buttered the toast. “Did you ever go back? To school, I mean?”
“Never had the opportunity. I met Tom, got married and had Jake. And Tom hardly let me out of the house. I think he was afraid I’d meet someone my own age, and he’d lose me.”
“How much older was he?”
“Twenty years.”
Probably thinking of his own daughter, already in her teens, he shook his head. “Two decades is a big difference, especially when you’re only eighteen.”
“I’m lucky I got away from him when I did.”
“How long were you together?”
“Six years.”
He pulled a carton of milk out of the fridge. “When did he cut his initials in your arm?”
“After the first time I tried to leave him. He got drunk and showed me what would happen if I ever tried that again.” He’d done a lot more than cut his initials into her arm. He’d also tied her up for
eight hours. She’d never forget how badly her hands and feet had hurt once she got her circulation going again.
“Did he drink often?”
“Toward the end, all the time.”
He’d finished the second omelet. After turning off the stove, he carried both plates to the table. “What did Tom do for a living?”
“He was a stockbroker. He was educated, established, successful.”
Myles set the plates on the table. “And he was determined to keep you. How’d you ever get away from him?”
She laughed ruefully. “It was like trying to escape The Crew. After he went to work one day, I packed up the kids and left the state.”
He crossed the kitchen and returned with two forks. “Did your mother help you with finances or anything?”
“No. We weren’t speaking. When she got the insurance money and split it with her brother instead of putting some toward Virgil’s appeal, it upset me so much. I couldn’t believe she’d do that. My brother was the one person I loved, the one person I felt I could trust, and she’d taken him away from me.”
“Did she understand what you were going through with your husband?”
“Not really. I tried to talk to her, but she’d always gloss over it by telling me some men were more possessive than others. She said at least I had one who earned a decent living and wanted to be a good father. Bottom line, she didn’t care, didn’t want me to become her problem. That wouldn’t have gone over very well with Terry, her latest boyfriend, who didn’t want anything to do with me or Virgil.”
He must’ve realized he’d left the milk on the counter because he got up and poured them each a glass. “She sounds very childish and selfish.”
“She was.” As much as Vivian wanted to remember her in a more positive light, she had to be honest enough to admit that.
“So what happened? How’d you get by?” He nodded for her to start eating while they talked, and she did her best to take a few bites.