“Actually, he’s pretty little,” Bo said, leaning down to demonstrate a height somewhere near his knees. “Cute as a bug. Curly brown hair. Big blue eyes.”
Ren pictured a photograph hanging on his upstairs wall: his father leading a toddler—Ren—with curly brown hair and big blue eyes down a dock to the family boat. “You saw him?” he asked.
“Yeah. At the bookstore,” Bo replied. “The aunt takes him to work with her instead of using a baby-sitter. Go see for yourself.”
The idea made Ren’s knees buckle. He parked his butt on the desk and gripped the edge while he forced his brain to recall the paternity cases he’d tried. “What’s his blood type?”
“I don’t know. A, B or O, I suppose,” Bo said flippantly.
“Could you narrow that down?”
“How? Medical records are confidential.”
“Come on, Bo. You hack the telephone company’s records all the time. All I want is his blood type, although I suppose I’ll probably need a DNA match to go to court. Maybe you could ask the aunt.”
Bo’s mouth dropped open. “Have you lost your frigging mind? There ain’t no way that woman would voluntarily give you a drop of that baby’s blood if it meant you might wind up taking him away from her.”
Lowering his voice, he added, “Listen, Ren, get a grip. Chances are, like, one in six zillion this could be your kid. Maybe Julia and the doc had a spat, and she ran up to Tahoe to get back at him—but odds are the kid’s his. If not, she’d have come looking for you as soon as she found out she was pregnant, right?”
Ren had no way of knowing what Julia would do; he didn’t know Julia—only Jewel—and their relationship hadn’t involved much talking. “I never told her my last name.”
“Big deal. If she didn’t recognize you from the salmon thing, she sure as hell couldn’t have missed your dad’s funeral or when you were appointed to the bench.”
“Maybe…”
“Not to mention the fact I see your ugly puss in the papers every few days thanks to that news bimbo you’re engaged to.”
“Eve is co-anchor of the Channel 8 news, Bo—I hardly think she deserves that kind of disparagement. But you do have a point. We are photographed quite often. If Julia had wanted to reach me, she could have found a way.”
“Exactly,” Bo confirmed. “My old man used to tell me ‘Don’t trouble trouble ’til trouble troubles you.’”
Ren snorted. “Very profound.”
“Hey, people pay big bucks to hear Robert B. Lester Sr. talk. The point is, you’ve got a nice life. Don’t rock the boat.”
A part of him wanted to agree, but the problem with Bo’s nautical metaphor was that Ren’s boat was sinking fast from a broadside hit by an eighteen-month-old iceberg.
“SARA J., I’M NOT GONNA tell your sorry ass again, you can’t be giving stuff to every person that comes asking!” Keneesha said with finality.
Sara ignored her friend and continued putting books into the box she was sending to the homeless shelter. Daniel Paginnini was due to arrive at the bookstore any minute to pick them up, and she wanted to be sure she included as wide a range of titles as possible.
“Leave her be, Keneesha,” Claudie St. James said, rocking back and forth in the bentwood chair. “You know how she gets. Sara’s a woman on a mission. And I don’t mean position.”
Claudie laughed at her own joke. Sara smiled, too. For her age, which Sara guessed to be twenty-five, and profession—prostitute—Claudie could, at times, be downright childlike. Perhaps that was what endeared her most to Sara.
Claudie rocked a little faster, her small feet coming off the colorful braided rug that delineated the story corner where Sara regularly read to her customers’ children and to her 18-month-old nephew. At the moment, Brady was sound asleep in his soft-sided playpen behind her desk.
“Don’t talk dirty in front of the child,” Keneesha said, her tone surprisingly maternal. To Sara’s knowledge, neither woman had children, but ever since Brady had arrived in Sara’s life, the two hookers had become veritable founts of wisdom on how to raise children.
Claudie snorted. “The child’s snoring like an old man, or is your hearing going?”
Keneesha drew herself to her very impressive height of six foot, her voluptuous chest swelling indignantly. “I hear just fine. I was referring to Sara J.”
Both women laughed. Sara looked at them, her best—most unlikely—friends, and stuck out her tongue. The two laughed all the harder.
Sara had known Keneesha, a woman in her mid-forties, for almost ten years, which was how long Sara had been back in Sacramento. They’d struck up a conversation on a bus from Reno. Sara had been on the last leg of her journey, returning home after being summarily ejected from the Air Force. Keneesha, “Kee” to her friends, had been returning home after three days of partying with a group of high-rollers.
Kee had listened sympathetically to Sara’s story of her aborted military career—destroyed by a boyfriend, who’d used Sara as a means to facilitate his drug sales on base. Kee had agreed wholehearted with Sara that the judicial system was deeply biased and routinely hung women out to dry.
Claudie had come along later, showing up one night, fiercely prepared to stake out her turf. Kee, who could act downright maternal on occasion, had taken the younger girl under her wing, and Claudie, too, became attached to Sara. To the casual observer, Keneesha and Claudie had only two things in common: their profession—which Claudie engaged in only to supplement low-paying jobs that never seemed to work out, and which Keneesha did when she pleased, period—and Sara. They adored Sara.
Everyday the two women would make their way from their rooms in the crummy hotel down the street to No Page Unturned, Sara’s bookstore. They’d drink coffee at Sara’s new coffee bar, or, on nice days, they’d sit out front at one of the three tiny tables and poke fun at the general populace.
Sara was content with her life as a single mother and small-time bookstore owner. She’d inherited the store when her long-time employer, Hank Dupertis, a gruff old widower with no children or close relatives, passed away in his sleep. Brady was a gift that accompanied the most grievous loss of Sara’s life—her beloved sister’s death.
The book Sara was holding slipped from her fingers, just as the bell above the door tinkled. When Sara straightened, she saw Daniel stride into the shop.
“Hello, Sara love,” Daniel said, his dark eyes teasing. “Will you marry me today?”
Once—about three lifetimes ago—Daniel had proposed in earnest. Fortunately, Julia had intervened. “You and Danny both need to find out who you are before you jump into a relationship,” Julia had told her. “Get out and live a little, girl.”
For Sara that had meant a stint in the Air Force; Daniel had headed to college, then to a job in Seattle. He’d returned to Sacramento just after Julia’s death, and although he and Sara remained good friends, both knew his proposals were in jest.
“Sara J. don’t need no stinking man in her life,” Keneesha said. “She’s got us.”
Daniel looked from the large black woman to the petite blonde, then back to Sara. “Two hookers and a bookstore—why does that not sound like everybody’s idea of heaven?”
Sara laughed and pushed the now-overflowing box across the display table. “I guess everyone’s idea of heaven is different. Actually, I’ve been very blessed. I have three wonderful friends. And business is good. In fact, Channel Eight News is doing a show called The New Downtown next Friday. They want to interview me about No Page Unturned.”
“Next week?” Claudie squealed. “I thought you said next month. Good Lord, Kee, how are we going to get her done by then?”
Daniel looked confused, so Sara explained. “They think I need a new look to be on TV.” She glanced down at her calf-length cotton dress, a sort of wallpaper print with a pale rose background and tiny yellow flowers. Her white sneakers were gobbling up her anklets, heel first. “Who has time for glamour?” she said, tugging up her stock
ings.
“You’re beautiful to me just the way you are,” Daniel said. He tenderly reached out and tugged on a lock of Sara’s shoulder-length hair.
Sara hated her hair. Bone straight, baby fine and the color of dishwater, her mother always said. Compared to her sister’s vibrant red locks, Sara’s always looked washed out. The idea of being interviewed by someone as beautiful as Eve Masterson left her more than slightly unnerved, which was why she’d agreed to the makeover.
“Yeah, but you’re a man, so what do you know?” Claudie said spitefully.
Sara sighed. “Stop squabbling, children. I told you you could play with my hair, so be nice.”
“And a new outfit,” Keneesha reminded her. “I am royally sick of those baggy dresses. You need some color, girl.”
Sara looked at Keneesha’s leopard-print tank top plastered over fuchsia pedal pushers, and involuntarily cringed. “Maybe.”
The bookstore bell tinkled, and Sara glanced at the nondescript gentleman in a baseball cap who quickly made his way toward the back of the building. The patron seemed vaguely familiar, but since he didn’t seem to require her assistance, Sara turned to Daniel, who was talking.
“…and you can have first pick.”
“What?” she asked, noticing how Claudie’s gaze stayed on the customer as he meandered into the cookbook section.
“Jenny just cleaned out her closet. She never keeps an outfit longer than a year and she only buys the best. I was taking the bag to the shelter, but you can go through it first.”
Daniel’s sister, a true fashion diva, was Sara’s size and had excellent taste. “That’s fantastic. Thanks!”
“No problem,” he said, giving Sara a hug. “Now, where’s my godson?”
Keneesha scurried around the desk to stand defensively in front of the playpen. For a large woman, she moved with surprising speed. “Back off, light-foot. He’s our godson, not yours.”
“Do you have that in writing?”
“I’ll show you writing, white boy,” Kee said, her bluster taking on volume.
The noise woke Brady.
Sara hurried to the playpen and picked him up. “Hey, baby love,” she said, kissing his soft, plump cheek. His sleepy, baby smell made her heart swell and her eyes mist. “How’s my boy?”
Daniel walked over and planted a kiss on Brady’s cheek. The sleepy child chose that minute to rub his eyes, and his small fist collided with Daniel’s nose.
“See, there,” Keneesha chortled, triumphantly, “he likes us better.”
Sara saw a hurt look cross Daniel’s face and impulsively drew him close with her free arm. “We both love you, Danny boy, you know that,” she said softly.
“I know,” Daniel replied. “I love you, too. I’ll see you Sunday, right?”
Before Brady came into her life, Sara had participated on Sundays in a literacy program at a local shelter. Unfortunately, nowadays her free time was so limited, she seldom had the energy to join the other volunteers at the Open Door family shelter.
“I’ll try, but Brady’s cutting teeth, and my neighbors don’t like the way my eaves look.” She rolled her eyes. “I keep getting nasty letters from the Rancho Carmel Homeowners’ Association.”
Daniel gave Sara a peck on the cheek. “Don’t sweat it. You’ve done your share.” He picked up his box of books. “So? Who’s going to fetch the bag of clothes?”
Claudie grumbled about being the company slave, but she followed him out the door.
Brady squirmed, so Sara knelt to put him down. His bare toes curled against the sturdy nap of the new gray-blue carpet. Until recently, the store’s flooring had consisted of worn tile squares circa 1955—some black, some green, about half of them broken. Hank had refused to waste money on a building he regarded as “a piece of junk waiting for the wrecking ball.” Sara never had the funds to re-decorate, but finally decided to use some of the trust money Julia’s lawyer sent each month to make Brady’s play area safe and comfortable.
“Mine,” Brady said, reaching for the bottom drawer of Sara’s desk. She’d been careful to have all the drawers fitted with locks—except one, which belonged to Brady. She made sure a healthy snack was in the drawer at all times.
She couldn’t help smiling at his triumphant chortle when he pulled a thick hunk of toasted bread from the drawer. His ash-brown curls, as thick and lush as his mother’s had been, bounced as he toddled to his miniature cash register and sat down to play.
Sara glanced around; she’d nearly forgotten the customer now unobtrusively tucked in a corner near the cookbooks. That’s odd, she thought. Her occasional male cook usually carried the tragic look of the recently divorced. This fellow didn’t strike her as needy or interested in cordon bleu cooking. And he definitely seemed vaguely familiar.
She started in his direction, but was deflected by Claudie’s loud “Whoopee!”
“Holy sh—shimany,” Keneesha exclaimed. “Look at this, Sara J. Lord God, what I wouldn’t give to be size eight!”
Sara joined her friends at the counter to examine Jenny’s discarded clothes. It wasn’t until the bell tinkled that she remembered the cookbook man.
BO POCKETED his palm-size camera and exited the bookstore, ducking into the alley. A mural of the store’s name was painted in five-foot-tall lettering along the brick wall. Clever name for a bookstore, he thought. I wonder if Sara made it up?
Thinking of Sara made him scowl. Normally, Bo liked his job, but at this particular moment he felt like a piece of excrement wedged between the proverbial rock and a hard place.
Ren Bishop was the brother Bo never had, his one true friend, and Bo owed him more than he could ever repay—but he wasn’t happy about the turn this case had taken.
I should have seen it coming, he silently groused as he opened the door of his car, a twenty-year-old Mazda with peeled paint and two primed dents in the fender. His work car, like Bo himself, knew how to be inconspicuous. “Two years without a goddamn lead,” he muttered. “The only witness finally comes home after trekking through India, and what do I find? A dead Jewel and a kid that’s got Bishop written all over his face!”
Lowering himself to the tattered upholstery, Bo pictured the sideswiped look on his friend’s face when he’d left the courthouse. It reminded him of that night two years ago when Ren had stumbled down the gangplank of Bo’s houseboat, vulnerable, exposed and all too human.
“I screwed up, Bo,” Ren had confessed, pacing from one end of Bo’s tiny living room to the other. “Positively. Beyond all screwups.”
“Did you kill someone?”
“Of course not.”
“Then stop pacing. You’re making me seasick.” Bo had been surprisingly unnerved by his friend’s agitation. In college, Ren had been known as Mr. Unflappable. Bo didn’t like seeing him flapped.
Ren proceeded to spill his guts about the redhead who’d mysteriously disappeared after one night of passion. Bo recalled half hoping that Jewel was a blackmailer so he’d have a chance to meet her. But nothing happened. If that night clerk had stayed in India, Bo never would have had a clue to Jewel’s true identity.
“That’s Mrs. Hovant. Julia,” the twenty-year-old clerk told him, after Bo gave her Ren’s description of the woman. “She and Dr. Hovant used to come up from Sac five or six times a season, depending on the snow. Maybe they still do. I don’t know. I don’t work at the lodge anymore.”
With a little cautious probing, Bo also found out that the day in question stuck in the clerk’s memory because Julia had come to the lodge alone. “I asked her where the doc was, and she said something like ‘Getting his rocks off at a medical convention.’ She didn’t seem too happy,” the clerk told him.
The rest had been child’s play for the PI.
Bo heaved a sigh, stirring the dust on his dashboard. He’d expected Ren to mourn Jewel’s death, but this thing about the kid had caught him off guard. Bo had tried to downplay Ren’s concern, but he had to admit the possible date of conception fe
ll eerily close to the one-night stand.
Still, Bo had balked at pursuing it, partly because of what it might do to Sara, an innocent bystander in this little passion play.
“Even if, for argument’s sake, the kid is yours,” Bo had argued, “there’s nothing you can do at this point. It’s your word against the mother’s, and she’s dead.”
“As the biological father I’d have more rights than an aunt.”
“But it comes down to proof. How can you get the proof without admitting what you did? Which, if I remember correctly, was what you hired me to make sure never happened.”
“I don’t suppose there’s any way I can. But regardless of how it affects my political future, I still have to know.”
Bo sighed and started the car. A couple of discreet photos and the kid’s blood type from his medical records. This Bo could do, but that would be it.
“You have to draw the line somewhere,” he muttered to himself. “Even for a friend.”
CHAPTER TWO
REN YANKED ON THE CORD of the wooden blinds with more force than the old rope could take. The handle came off in his hand and the heavy shades crashed back to the mahogany sill with an ominous thunk. He sighed and tossed the yellowed plastic piece on the sideboard.
I’ve got to call a decorator, Ren thought. Although he seldom used the formal dining room, he knew it would be called into play more often once he and Eve were married. At present, the room reflected Babe’s favorite decorating motif: Ostentatious. The opulent crystal chandelier cast an amber glow across the Regency-style table at its eight saffron brocade chairs. Without benefit of the morning light streaming through its mullioned windows, the room’s musty gloom matched Ren’s mood.
Ren blamed part of his foul mood on his alarm clock. If he’d remembered to set it, he would have made his weekly golf game. Instead, he’d slept in till nine-thirty. Ren pushed on the swinging door and entered his kitchen, a pristine world of black-and-white tile—the first room he’d remodeled after he moved in.
His home had once belonged to his parents, but after his father died, Babe, wanting something smaller and more luxurious, sold the house to Ren. He loved the old beast, just as his father had, but the forty-year-old house needed work.
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