by Cathie Linz
“He flew right out here after working a double-shift back in Chicago,” Buddy explained. “I sent the boy to my room to get some shut-eye. Do you think it’s too early for me to leave too?”
“No. Thanks for coming back, Buddy.” She hugged him.
“You can repay me by putting in a good word for me with your grandmother,” he said. “I’d appreciate it, petunia.”
She watched as Buddy made his farewells to the bride and groom.
“Good riddance,” Jeff muttered beside Megan as he watched Buddy leave the room.
She socked her uncle’s arm. “Be nice.”
“That’s my brother’s job, not mine.”
The wine flowed freely after that. Megan limited herself, but noticed that her uncle switched to Scotch.
“How are you holding up, Gram?” Megan slid onto the vacant chair beside her.
“Just peachy,” Gram said tartly. Her voice softened as she added, “It was a lovely wedding. Faith and Caine look so happy. I remember the first time I saw them together. They were making out in a corner of a fancy restaurant.”
“The first time I saw them together, Faith dumped a glass of water in Caine’s lap.”
“Trying to dampen his ardor, was she?”
Megan laughed. “Clearly it didn’t work.”
As the party wound down, people broke into even smaller groups. Faith’s friends from her time working at the library in Las Vegas grouped together. Faith’s family members gathered and talked about old times.
Faith held her bouquet over her head and teased Megan by pretending to toss it her way before Caine scooped her up in his arms and marched her out of the reception room. After that, people gradually said their good-byes and began filing out.
Megan, who’d been up since sunrise preparing for the wedding, was ready to call it a day. Kissing her dad’s cheek, she wished him good night and headed out. She was in the elevator before she realized she needed to go back because she’d left her clutch behind. Being in the elevator reminded her of waiting for it earlier with Logan.
She still wasn’t sure what had happened. What was it about Logan that got to her?
No, she told herself, she wasn’t going to go down that path. Instead she remembered how thrilled she’d been to find the stunning vintage 1930s Art Deco-designed clutch on eBay. The black purse with the red fauxjeweled clasp was from Blum’s-Vogue, a high-end Chicago store where the city’s elite shopped before it had closed decades before Megan had even been born. There had been several other bidders, but Megan had won out in the end. She was still grinning about her retail victory when she reentered the reception room.
Her dad and Jeff were seated with their backs to her. Megan spied her clutch on the table by the door and quickly picked it up.
“I’m telling you, your past can come back and bite you big-time if you’re not careful,” Jeff was saying. “Trust me, you did the right thing letting Megan think her mother is dead.”
Chapter Three
Megan froze. She couldn’t believe what she’d just heard. There had to be some mistake. She must have misunderstood what her uncle said. She moved closer, certain that it couldn’t be true.
But one look at her father’s panicked face when he turned and saw her told her that she hadn’t misunderstood one word. She felt the blood drain from her face as her world as she knew it crashed around her.
“My mother . . . isn’t . . . dead?” Megan could barely squeeze the words out past a throat tightened by emotions too numerous to label.
“Megan ...” her dad pleaded as he stood to approach her.
She put out her hand to stop him in his tracks. “Just answer the question.”
“He was doing you a favor,” Jeff said.
“Shut up!” her dad growled at his brother.
“I don’t understand. She’s alive?” Megan’s voice trembled with shock and anger.
“Yes,” her dad said, “but let me explain ...”
“No!” Megan had never moved so fast in her life. Pivoting, she ran out of the reception room and into a nearby elevator a second before it closed. The empty enclosed space felt like a coffin.
Her phone immediately started playing Mozart, her father’s ringtone. He’d told her it was his favorite piece of music. But then, he’d also told her that her mother was dead.
She couldn’t breathe. She felt as if all the air had been sucked from her surroundings, leaving her gasping like a fish out of water. She needed to get outside. She needed fresh air.
She frantically punched the next floor number, leaping off the elevator as if shot out of a cannon before ramming into someone.
“Sorry,” she muttered and kept moving. She vaguely registered that she’d run into Logan, but she didn’t care. Out. She needed to get out!
“Hold on a second,” Logan said, gently holding on to her arm. “Are you okay?”
She shook her head.
“What’s wrong?”
“I need to get out of here. My mother isn’t dead.”
“What?”
“I need to get out. I can’t breathe in here!” Her voice rose.
“Okay, stay calm. Don’t panic. You’ll be okay. I know a shortcut to the lobby.” He took her hand in his.
As promised, he got her outside in record time. Megan inhaled gulps of the cool night air.
“Better?” he asked.
She nodded.
“So your mother isn’t dead. That’s a good thing, right?”
“I have to find her.”
“Okay.” His voice was quietly confident. “Did she come to the wedding?”
“No. Since they told me she was dead, they didn’t invite her to the wedding.” Still freaked out by this revelation, Megan started walking away from the entrance.
“Hold on a second.” He followed her. “Where are you going?”
“I don’t know. Away from here.”
“Talk to me.”
She wrapped her arms around her middle as tremors started inside and spread throughout her body. If she didn’t hold herself together, she’d crumble right there on the sidewalk in front of the entrance to the Venetian. “I have to find her.”
“Okay. Well, luckily your family owns the largest PI firm in Chicago, so they can help you with that.”
She shook her head vehemently. “They’re the ones who hid her from me, who lied about her being dead. I can’t trust anything they’d tell me about this.”
Logan ran his hands up and down her upper arms as if to keep the chill and tremors from consuming her. She could tell by the look on his face that he was worried about her. She saw it in his blue eyes.
She realized that in his line of work he was accustomed to dealing with hysterical people and stopping them from going over the edge, whatever that edge might be. He projected a sense of commanding assurance, which helped keep her howling panic at bay.
“Come on,” he said. “I know a place that serves the best pancakes you’ve ever tasted.”
She blinked at the non-sequitur. “Pancakes?”
“Yes. Pancakes make everything seem better. You’ll see. We’ll go discuss the situation there. Calmly. Logically. I’ve got wireless Internet on my iPhone, so we’ll do some research and see what happens.”
“But it’s after midnight.”
“This is Vegas. Open 24/7.”
She looked down at her black dress.
“They don’t care what you wear. There is no dress code at Aunt Sally’s Pancake House. Come on.” He aimed her toward the curb.
She paused. “What’s this?”
“A car. The car of all cars. A 1957 Chevy Bel Air.” His voice was reverent. “The ultimate classic Chevy.”
“Whose is it?”
“A good buddy of mine owns this baby.” Logan patted the hood gently. “Harry lets me borrow it whenever I come to Vegas. He’s a retired Chicago cop who’s moved out here. He has several vintage cars in his collection. I helped him rehab this piece of automotive beauty when he fo
und it back in Chicago. She was in really bad shape.”
Megan could relate to that. She was in really bad shape herself at the moment.
“He calls her Lucille.”
“Lucille?”
“I know. I’m not into naming cars, but my buddy won the coin toss and he wanted to name her. So hop in.” Logan opened the door for Megan. She got in the car and fastened her seat belt.
Normally she would have appreciated the vintage car much more than she did, oohing and ahhing over every little thing. She was a big fan of the styles of the ’50s—as her maid of honor’s dress and antique clutch verified. And this car was definitely a representative of that time.
“It’s aqua,” she said, running her hand along the vinyl upholstery.
“It’s blue,” he corrected her as if she’d just insulted his mother or something.
“Sorry.”
A pair of fuzzy dice hung from the rearview mirror, reminding her how life could change on the roll of the dice . . . or an overheard comment.
As they drove out onto the Strip, the brightly colored light extravaganza created a splashy circuslike show, but once they left the tourist area, things became darker and grittier. Her evening had turned out the same way—starting out with the extravaganza of the wedding before deteriorating into a mess. Not that the areas they passed were dangerously bad, but they weren’t the finest part of the city by any stretch of the imagination. For the first time, she sensed the desperation and despair that was also a part of Las Vegas.
Then the streets became more commonplace to any franchise-ridden highway in America.
Aunt Sally’s Pancake House was located near the outskirts of the city before the sprawl of the express-ways leading to surrounding suburbs. The strip mall also included two pawnshops, a nail salon and an Asian market.
Once inside, Megan studied the plastic-laminated menu.
“Their oven-baked pancakes are really good,” Logan said.
There were lots of choices: silver-dollar pancakes, buttermilk pancakes, Swedish pancakes . . . That last entry reminded her of Gram. Did Gram know that Megan’s mom was still alive? Had she been part of the deception?
The thought made her stomach tie into even more elaborate knots.
“I’m not hungry.” Her voice was flat as she slapped the menu onto the table.
“You will be when they put a plate of pancakes in front of you.”
“No, I won’t.”
“Anyone ever tell you that you’re stubborn?”
“No, but they’ve told me you’re stubborn.”
“And they’re right,” he cheerfully acknowledged. “I take after my granddad that way. He’s the one who told you I was stubborn, right?”
“I’m not going to confirm or deny your statement.”
“Did my granddad teach you that?”
She answered using one of Buddy’s trademark sayings: “That’s for dang sure.” Her smile faded as her thoughts of Buddy reminded her of Gram, which took her right back to the appetite-killing possibility that her grandmother had been part of the family conspiracy to keep the truth from Megan.
Her mind was still spinning after everything that had happened. Part of her felt numb, unable to fully comprehend all the ramifications of what she’d overheard. The other part felt betrayed at such a deep level that she wasn’t even able to comprehend it.
Had her grandmother been part of the conspiracy? What about her aunt, Faith’s mother? Had she known the truth too?
And Faith. What about her? No, Megan refused to believe that Faith would keep anything like this from her. She was gut-certain of that.
But as for the others . . . Megan didn’t know, didn’t want to believe they were capable of deceiving her this way. But then she would have bet a million dollars that her own father would never have lied to her the way he had.
So what did she really know? That she felt awful, for one thing. That she’d apparently been living in a house of mirrors where nothing was what it seemed.
When a cheerful gum-smacking waitress who had to be well past retirement age moseyed over to take their order, Logan said, “She’ll have the chocolate chip pancakes and I’ll have the oven-baked apple pancakes. And keep the black coffee coming for me.”
“I told you I wasn’t hungry,” Megan said.
“You will be by the time the pancakes come. Thanks, Blanche,” he told the waitress, reading the nametag on her uniform as she poured him his coffee.
Pulling out his iPhone, he focused his attention on Megan. “So tell me about your mother.”
His tone was matter-of-fact. And that irritated her for some reason. Or maybe it was residual leftover aggravation about him disregarding her wishes and ordering her food anyway. She wanted to bang on the table and tell him he wasn’t the boss of her but that would be childish.
Instead she gathered her composure and tried to answer his question as best she could in the circumstances. “She was a mathematician. I was told she died when I was two. I don’t remember her. Tonight I went back to the reception room to get my purse and I overheard my uncle talking to my father. He said my father did the right thing letting me think my mother was dead.” Just saying the words aloud made her feel like someone had smacked her across the face. “When I confronted my dad, he confirmed that she’s really still alive and that he’d lied to me.”
“Did he say why?”
“I don’t care why.”
“His reasons might be helpful in your investigation. You really should talk to him. He’s probably worried about you and is looking for you at the hotel right now. You should call him.”
She pulled out her phone, which she’d set to go directly to voice mail during the drive to the restaurant. There were ten calls from her father. She didn’t bother listening to his voice messages, instead texting him a brief message. She used their secret code word, something the family had added after Faith had received a fake text from her father during an investigation into Caine’s father’s death.
“There.” She set her BlackBerry on the table. “I let him know I’m okay.” Which was a lie. She didn’t feel okay at all.
“What about your mom? What else do you know about her? Do you have a photograph of her?”
“I thought she died more than twenty-five years ago. So, no, I don’t travel with her photo. I have a framed picture of her at home.”
“Are you sure you don’t want to wait until you get home to investigate?”
“I can’t.”
“Why not? Like you said, you believed she’s been dead for over twenty-five years. What difference will a few more days make?”
“What if she dies or something before I find her?”
“Why jump to a worst-case scenario?”
“My cousin does that.” Megan’s voice was unsteady. “She’s the one who uses the worst-case scenario. Or she used to. I’m the optimist in the family. Or I used to be.”
“Then use that optimism now. Your family owns the biggest investigative firm in Chicago. Get them to find her for you.”
“Like I said, they’re the ones who hid her from me and lied about her being dead. I can’t trust anything they’d tell me about this. Faith would help me, but she’ll be on her honeymoon.” She looked at him with new eyes. “If you hadn’t barged into Faith’s wedding with the news about Buddy still being married, then my uncle wouldn’t have gotten drunk and let slip the news about my mom.”
He raised an eyebrow. “So now you’re trying to blame me? That’s not very logical.”
“You wouldn’t be logical either if the mom you thought had died when you were a child is really alive. My dead mother is alive. We’re not doing logical. Logical isn’t even on the menu!”
He gave her a minute to catch her breath after her outburst. “Feel better now?”
“Not really.” At least she hadn’t pounded her fist on the table.
Logan returned to his bossy cop ways as he said, “Give me your mother’s name, date of birth and Socia
l Security number.”
She gave him a scathing look. “Do you know your mom’s Social Security number?”
“Yes.”
“You’re weird.”
“I don’t need to help you, you know.”
“Never mind. I’ll have Buddy help me. He’s a PI.”
“A PI pushing eighty. You are notdragging my grandfather into this mess. He’s got enough problems of his own to deal with right now. Come on, tell me what you know.” His voice lost the cop edge and became more conciliatory. “Start with her name.”
“Astrid West.”
“That was her married name. What about her maiden name?”
“Astrid Meyer. She was born in Germany. She came to this country with her parents when she was ten. They were killed in a car crash when she was eighteen.”
“What’s her date of birth?”
“4-4-51.”
“Okay, let’s see what we can find.” He got on the Internet and checked several databases. There were a couple of matches to Astrid Meyer with her date of birth, but he narrowed it down until he located her information. “I found her naturalization papers making her an American citizen, her marriage license and the divorce decree.”
Divorce? Megan’s psyche took another blow. Only a few hours ago, she and her dad had been on the dance floor, talking about her parent’s wedding and how he was a one-woman man. How Megan’s mother had been his soul mate. Had it all been a lie? Had all the stories she’d been told about her parents’ life together been totally fabricated? Had they really met in graduate school and fallen in love at first sight or was that another tall tale?
“She and my dad were divorced? When?”
“Right about the time they told you she died, I’m guessing,” Logan said.
“Who filed the divorce?”
“She did, citing irreconcilable differences and granting your dad full custody of you.”
Megan tried to absorb this new piece of the puzzle. “I don’t understand. If they got divorced, why not just tell me that instead of lying about her dying?”
He pointed to her BlackBerry. “Call your dad and ask him.”