Heaven to Betsy (Emily #1)

by Pamela Fagan Hutchins

  We walked in and she shut the door with a heavy thud. I put my hands to my cheeks to see if they were as hot as they felt. They were. Melinda and I both took seats—her at the head of the table, and me on the far side—but Jack stood by the chair nearest the door. He’d missed a loop with his belt, and I found myself wanting to fix it for him, which was his wife’s job. That made my cheeks even hotter. How was it that Jack could distract me like this when, seconds ago, I’d been so upset about Valentina’s kidnapping?

  Melinda clasped her hands in front of her on the table. “I wanted to tell you in person, before you heard about it on the news. There’s been an incident at the jail.”

  Jack stopped short, his hand on the back of a chair. “What kind of incident?”

  “The kind where your client Sofia Perez was killed, unfortunately.”

  It took a moment for the shock of her words to break through the haze Jack’s eyes had put me in, and I gasped aloud. Sofia, dead? I’d only met her once, but my entire life had revolved around her and her daughter for the last week. Valentina, missing . . . and no longer with a mother, or even a father (that we knew about). Well, I guess we wouldn’t have to worry about how to break the news to Sofia about Valentina after all.

  To my horror, I burst into tears.

  Chapter Fourteen

  I paced in front of Jack’s desk.

  “But we could file a wrongful death suit on Valentina’s behalf, as Sofia’s survivor. Or on behalf of Sofia’s estate. Or something!”

  That last part came out a little louder than I’d intended. Too late, I realized it was probably bad form to yell at the top of your lungs at your boss of one week. But, really, Jack could drive anyone into a frenzy. The man was infuriating. One minute he was confusing me with inappropriate goo-goo eyes in the DA’s office, and the next he was shutting me down about Valentina. When she needed my help more than ever.

  Jack didn’t yell back, but Snowflake shivered in her sheepskin doggy bed beside his desk. “It’s called a survival action, but Valentina isn’t our client.”

  “Sofia is.”

  “Emily, finding Valentina has nothing to do with filing a survival action.”

  “But our client was murdered in cold blood. Melinda may call it a gang fight, but that’s a crock and you know it. How come Sofia was the only one hurt, much less killed? And on the same day Valentina gets snatched? Something more is going on here, Jack. Something much, much more. And the DA’s office is covering it up. It’s total bull honky!”

  A big grin spread across his face ear to ear. “Bull what?”

  I crossed my arms and glared at him. “You heard me.”

  Jack stood up and started pacing back and forth behind his desk, which made Snowflake sit up and whine.

  “You’re right,” he said. “The circumstances suck, and a survival action isn’t out of the question. But not until we’re caught up on some other things. Then, and only then, I very well may support your request to expand the practice into civil litigation and ask you to help look into it. In the meantime, you did an amazing job today and really broke things open for the police. They’re going to find Valentina, and you’ll have made that possible. But, Emily, that’s their job, not yours.” His voice softened. “You certainly have a passion for managing my practice, and I’m not complaining about it. Passion is good.”

  I stared at the floor, thinking for a moment. “I haven’t told you everything.”

  Jack leaned back against one of his tall cabinets. “Oh, shit.”

  “What? No, I didn’t do anything. Well, I mean, I didn’t get caught doing anything.” I held up my hand as Jack started to interrupt. “Just listen. We know Sofia shot Spike, but she wouldn’t say why. I looked into Spike’s background, and he did time for molesting a child with another guy—a Harvey Dulles from Amarillo. I gave you a copy of my research, remember?”

  “Right.”

  “Well, today I learned Sofia used to bring Valentina to work and hide her there, where she’d sleep or read or color or whatever.”

  “So?”

  I crouched beside the shivering Snowflake and started massaging her neck. Poor girl didn’t like high emotion. She still shook, but she seemed to relax some into my hand. “So, Spike has a record for doing bad stuff with kids. Sofia shot him. What if those two things are related? I got to thinking: what about the possibility that his old buddy Harvey was there, too? One of the hotel employees said he saw a man running away from the hotel the night Sofia shot Spike, a man that fits the description for Harvey. Harvey could be a witness for us. Or, he might even be the one who has Valentina.”

  Jack rubbed his jaw. “Okay. I’m still listening.”

  I stood back up and leaned my tush against the edge of Jack’s desk, facing him. “Wallace and I went to Harvey’s house before we went to see Victoria,” I said. “Before I knew she had Valentina. Harvey wasn’t there. Two homeless teenagers told us he moved out in a hurry last week. I haven’t checked with his employer yet to see if he’s still working, but he could have her, Jack.”

  He shook his head. “Did you tell the police about Harvey? Because Valentina—”

  “I know. Isn’t our client. And yes, I told the officer that questioned me at Victoria’s my theory. I got a few nods, but he wasn’t won over.”

  “Is that all?”

  I thought about trespassing at Harvey’s house and my B&E at Sofia’s apartment.

  “Yeah, that’s all,” I said. “I just wanted you to know everything, plus, it could be a lead for a survival suit.”

  “Which we aren’t going to look into yet.”

  I crouched and resumed stroking Snowflake, as much to soothe myself now as her.

  “I know, but just keep it in mind,” I said. “We’ve got one known creep living in Amarillo, and his creepy buddy shows up here. Sofia kills the buddy, so isn’t it possible creep number one knows people that know people in PCDC? He could be behind Sofia’s death, too.”

  “Noted. For the future. For now, just finish Johnson. Then I need to unleash your passion and brilliance on my other cases.”

  I crossed my fingers behind my back and said, “No problem.”

  ***

  Mother picked me up at the curb forty-five minutes later for the ride back to Heaven. Suddenly, a heavy tiredness coursed through me so hard that I could barely lift my hand to open the door. I flopped into the seat like a lead weight.

  “Hi, Mother,” I said.

  When she didn’t reply, I turned to her. She was biting her lip—always a bad sign. Today had already been a long, hard day. I closed my eyes. Lord, give me strength.

  I tried again. “What’s wrong?”

  She tilted her head back, the better to raise her nose in the air. “Imagine my disappointment to have to hear through the grapevine that my own daughter is having my first grandbaby, instead of hearing it from her.”

  Well, this wasn’t good. Surely the news of my just-booked-half-an-hour-ago OB appointment for Wednesday hadn’t spread that fast.

  “Who told you that?”

  “So you aren’t denying it?” She braked at a green light and the car behind her honked. She pressed the accelerator.

  I let my weary head fall back against the front seat cushion as we shot forward. “Um, congratulations, Grandmother.”

  She cleared her throat, then went silent.

  “Mother, I’m only eight weeks along.” Well, nearly nine, but who was counting? “I just found out myself. I had planned to tell you tonight anyway.” I hoped the crossed fingers I’d used with Jack earlier had a lasting effect. “So, who told you?”

  “Katie emailed me. One of those online cards from Jacquie Lawson.” She sniffed. “It was just lovely. A little bear with balloons.”

  I choked back a groan. Collin. I hadn’t mentioned “mum’s the word” when I’d told my story in New Mexico. Especially in relation to my mum.

  “How sweet of her,” I said.

  “She’s very kind. And so I called Ri
ch—”

  “You what?!” I sat forward so hard and fast the seat belt pinched me. “No, Mother, no, tell me you didn’t.”

  “What? He didn’t pick up so I just left him a voice mail.”

  Oh God, oh no, oh, my mother. “WHAT DID YOU SAY?”

  “Don’t use that tone with me, young lady. I told him congratulations on the baby and how excited I was to be a grandmother.”

  I put my head in my hands and then a giggle started that seemed to ricochet back at me as it bounced off the insides of the car, escalating and multiplying until it was a symphony of inharmonious cackles. I giggled so hard I needed to change my panties. I laughed, literally, until I cried, and by the time it stopped, I was choking on little sobs.

  “You called Rich instead of me.”

  Now it was her turn for the hot seat, and she squirmed.

  “Well, I—your new job, and, because I just—so, yes, and I knew I’d see you soon anyway.” She clamped her mouth shut.

  I blubbered a little as I spoke. “Mother, that man’s lover crashed my baby announcement dinner, and Rich chose him over me. So, guess what? I hadn’t told him yet. He doesn’t get to share this part. It was supposed to be my little secret. My baby. Mine. Not his, and not Stormy’s.”

  “Emily Josephine Phelps Bernal, you cannot mean to tell me you aren’t going back to Dallas to raise this child with him.”

  She put on her blinker and turned onto the I-40 access road.

  “I most certainly can.”

  “You can’t divorce Rich now. The baby is proof he’s not gay.”

  I hooted. I couldn’t help it. “Were you not listening to the part where he doesn’t want to be married to me, the part where he chose Stormy, who is a man? I’m sorry, Mother, but the ability to make a baby does not determine your sexual orientation.”

  She huffed. “Still, I cannot for the life of me see how you, a girl whose own father left you, would deny your child a father?”

  She accelerated up the entrance ramp and merged into what passed for rush hour traffic in Amarillo. My pulse accelerated with the car. I held my tongue, fuming, working it out in my mind. What was this about? How could she say these things to me? Dad left when I was nearly grown. And it had hurt. It still hurt. Yet I knew it probably hurt her more. Lord knows she was the one who had to face the humiliation when other people whispered. I was beginning to understand what that must have been like. Plus, for years he’d sent postcards and letters and gifts and checks to me. He’d called on my birthdays. He’d begged my forgiveness and tried to explain, in his own way, that he wasn’t the kind of man to live in one place, with one woman, and that he couldn’t come back anymore.

  So, yeah, it had hurt, but I hadn’t felt as “left” as she had. That was until I was a senior in college, anyway, when all his cards and letters just stopped, and he never called me again. I had Rich who told me he wanted to be my husband, so I didn’t need a father, and I moved on, too. An arrow sliced through my heart and out my back. Now I’d moved on from being left by a father to being left by a husband.

  I softened my tone. “Mother, it is in part because I had a father at home and lost him that I fully understand the difference between what I went through and what it means that my child’s father won’t ever live in our house. This baby will always have a father, but won’t have to know the hurt of a father leaving.”

  “But what will I tell my friends?” she shrieked, turning to me, and swerving into the lane to our right.

  A horn blared and Mother jumped in her seat, overcorrecting to her left, earning her another honk. She straightened her wheel and squeezed her lips together. I grabbed the armrest on the door. She wasn’t going to have to worry about this if she killed us both. I bit my lip hard, holding it in. I’d grown up believing in honoring and respecting my parents. I didn’t always practice it, but I tried. Right now, I tried really, really hard.

  I turned the radio on as a distraction. “A murder suspect was killed today in a prison riot at the Potter County Detention Center—”

  I snapped the dial off.

  Mother made a hrmph sound. “At least the rest of us won’t have to pay to keep another criminal fed and clothed for the rest of their life.”

  “Enough!” My yell was so loud and high-pitched it hurt my own ears, and Mother ducked. “Enough with your comments. If you so much as open your mouth the rest of the way home, I’ll . . . I’ll . . .” I stopped. I had no idea what I’d do, I just knew neither of us was going to like it. I exhaled and dialed down my volume. “Just enough, okay?”

  She bit her lip, again. It was white, as were her knuckles. I felt a little bit guilty, but not so much that I wasn’t able to appreciate the blessed silence on the rest of the drive.

  Chapter Fifteen

  I stalked from the elevator to the office the next morning an hour early in a hailstorm of text messages from my soon-to-be ex-husband. I hit the front door like a battering ram.

  Rich: Why didn’t you tell me?

  Rich: We must talk!

  Rich: I deserve a reply!

  Those were the three latest I’d received. Oh, I had a reply for him. Boy, did I have a reply. I grabbed the door and threw my whole body into slamming it. The door swung closed on its hydraulic brake to a whispery soft landing behind me.

  Snowflake met me, but she slunk away when she saw the mood I was in. No toast crusts for her today. I slammed my handbag down on my desk. I hadn’t slept worth a dang last night. Dreams of Valentina tormented me, her screams, her sweet face and her adorable little Barbie pj’s, a large bald tattooed man dragging her by the arm away from the rodeo arena while I watched, helpless, standing directly in the path of a charging bull. Hours later, I was struggling to keep my toast down and reeling from bickering with my mother the entire drive to work. Rich’s text barrage was just piling on at this point.

  A note lay on my chair. Johnson and only Johnson until you’re done. Oh, not Jack, too. The yellow-bellied sapsucker didn’t have the guts to tell me to my face. He had to leave me a little note. I wanted to scream at him. I know, I know, already. I know what you are ordering me to do, to ignore an innocent little girl who needs someone to care what happens to her so that I can go to work for clients who have done bad things.

  The bell on my desk beckoned me, not to ring it, no, but rather to ignore it. It beckoned me down the hall on sneaky feet. It beckoned me to Jack’s luxurious and oh-so-private office. So I led with my chin and sailed down the hall, holding the clacker of the bell still as I moved soundlessly toward my boss.

  Once at the door to his office, I stopped at the precipice, teetering on a doubt. He had asked me to ring the bell to give him his privacy.

  The devil on my shoulder whispered in my ear. Well, wouldn’t a little privacy be nice? You sure don’t have any, though, so why should he?

  Nah, bell shmell. It was a stupid, chauvinistic rule, and it shouldn’t be okay to hold me hostage in the lobby so he could hide behind his “privacy.”

  I took a deep breath and barged in, bell clanging. “Screw your bell rule, Mr. Holden, I’m not playing your little power game anymore.”

  The first words came out as a bellow, the last few words came out a whisper, as I took in what I saw.

  Jack’s tall built-in cabinet on the left side of the office was open, revealing an enormous photographic portrait of a family in what looked like hiking clothes, in a mountain setting with tall pine trees and a glistening stream. In the middle stood a striking woman with flawless skin the color of toasted caramel. Her long black hair was thick and lustrous, parted on the side and swept back as if with her fingers. The camera had caught her smile midlaugh. It lit her eyes like sparklers. She had one arm around two grinning kids: a little girl—maybe eight years old?—who was lucky enough to look just like her mother and a little boy who shared their looks and appeared to be slightly younger than his sister. On the other side of the boy, his arm around the two children, too, stood Jack. But that Jack had hair down to his
shoulders and looked fifteen years younger than the short-haired man standing beside the portrait now, glaring at me like a bull does at the rodeo clown just before he tosses her over the rail.

  “Is there a problem, Emily?” he said, nostrils flared, fists balled.

  I now took in the easel and paper in front of him, and the unfinished charcoal drawing of the little girl from the portrait on a spotted pony. A hideaway bed extended from the left built-in cabinet, Snowflake huddled in terror on a pillow. I took in the man in his white tee and his jeans, a Fender shirt on a hanger looking ready for wear on the table. I smelled spices and cheese and, on his desk, I saw his breakfast taco.

  Suddenly I knew the answer to all his mysterious morning noises, and, worse, knew what a horrible person I was.

  I tried to answer him. “No.” No sound except a wheezy crackling noise came out, and I repeated myself, louder. “No.” I backed up, my hand behind me on the doorframe. “I’m sorry.”

  I fled back to the lobby and on to the bathroom down the hall, face in my hands, tears leaking through my fingers. What a dumbass I was. A total dumbass. A total clueless dumbass. I shook my head, cringing, as I remembered Jack’s face, and the picture of his daughter that he’d drawn from that beautiful, beautiful portrait of his family. A total clueless, selfish dumbass.

  I leaned against the closed door inside a bathroom stall. Still, what was he doing living on a pullout bed in his Amarillo office if he had a family like that somewhere? They sure weren’t living at Wrong Turn Ranch in New Mexico either. And then it hit me. He wouldn’t have a shrine like that to his family if they were still with him. So, had Jack’s wife left him, and taken the kids? Was he in the middle of a divorce? It was possible, but it didn’t change my invasion of his privacy, or how upset he was with me, or how upset I was with myself. It could mean he hadn’t misled me about his marital status, and that my anger about it had been unjust, though.

  Five snuffling minutes later, I washed my face and slunk to my desk. I booted up my laptop. Typing the words RodeoQueen somehow brought the rain down from my eyes again. I mopped them with my light peach sweater. Bangs and thuds resounded from Jack’s office, and I flinched at each sound. I opened my Johnson file and tried to find my place.