by Nikki Soarde
“Thanks, Marnie,” said Iris as she settled back into her chair with a steaming cup of coffee and a jelly donut. “You’re a peach.”
“My pleasure,” she said as she stood, hardly aware that she was still holding his hand. “Do you think he’ll be back in here by four?”
“Yeah. His surgery is set for eleven, so he should be out of recovery by then.”
“Okay. I’ll—” Marnie caught her breath and glanced down at the hand that was resting so quietly in hers.
“What?” said Iris, her tone concerned.
“I-I think he squeezed my hand.”
Iris shrugged. “They do that sometimes. Their muscles flex involuntarily. It doesn’t mean anything, I’m afraid.”
Marnie frowned as she laid his hand back on the mattress. “Oh. I guess I’ll see you later then.” Iris waved absently as she glanced back at the papers she had been studying when Marnie came in.
Marnie left, but her steps were contemplative. That hadn’t felt like a muscle spasm. It hadn’t been jerky or quick. It had felt like a slow, very deliberate squeeze. He had been aware of her presence. She was certain of it. And she decided then and there to spend more time with Mr. John Doe, aka Lucky. It wasn’t like she had a husband or family at home who were vying for her time. It wasn’t like there was really anybody who cared how she spent her leisure hours. But she had a feeling that Lucky needed her.
It had been a very long time since she had been able to say that about anybody…if ever. She didn’t take that responsibility lightly.
She would skip out on her ride home with Shawna. She would spend some time with Lucky and, having made that decision, for the first time in years she didn’t dread quitting time.
Chapter Three
Late June, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
“And on a lighter note,” crooned the news anchor with the gleaming teeth and the perfect Windsor knot, “earlier this evening in South Philadelphia, one of our men in blue distinguished himself with an act of heroism that will go down in history as—”
Elsie Riven hit the power button on the remote and interrupted the obligatory human-interest blurb that concluded the local newscast every night. She had no desire to hear a story about a Philadelphia cop—heroic or otherwise. Philadelphia cops—one in particular—had consumed her thoughts for the past several weeks, and honestly, she’d had her fill.
Idly, she wished for a return to the days when she could put her head down on the pillow and worry about nothing more complex than what to put in her son’s lunchbox the next day. But wishes had never gotten her very far. And it seemed that this time was no different.
There was a soft knock on the back door.
A warm smile teased at her lips as she headed for the entrance. There was only one person who had the nerve to darken her doorstep at such an ungodly hour.
Elsie pushed open the door and stepped aside. “Thanks for coming, Pete.”
“Sorry I’m so late.” The burly figure with the platinum blond hair and the tired eyes stepped inside and planted a kiss on her cheek. “And I’m sorry I couldn’t come sooner, Elsie. I’ve just been…” He sighed as he settled his bulky frame into a chair at the kitchen table. “I’ve been busy.”
“That’s okay. You know you’re always welcome.”
He glanced around the kitchen and then back at the door that had just swung closed behind him. “The house looks great, Elsie. I don’t know anybody who plants prettier flower beds.”
The security lights that Elsie had installed after the divorce showcased her flower beds, even in the dead of night. She had just tended them that day.
She had needed something to do with her hands, so weeding and fertilizing had occupied her afternoon. Here in Upper Darby, an upper middle class section of Philadelphia within a stone’s throw of the University of Pennsylvania, maintaining the exterior of your home was paramount. Not that Elsie cared particularly for maintaining the status quo, but she did enjoy impatiens and petunias and had decided to indulge herself.
But Pete wasn’t the type to concern himself with bedding plants. He had something bigger on his mind. As did she. “Thanks, Pete,” she said simply as she seated herself.
He smiled at her in the intimate way of old friends. “And you’re as gorgeous as ever. Sam was crazy to let you go.”
Always sensitive about her appearance, Elsie felt the color rise in her cheeks. She hooked her jet-black hair behind her ears. The coarse strands hung thick and straight—a testament to her Oriental mother and Italian father. Her eyes, too, were as black as night and as wide and dark as olives that had ripened in the Mediterranean sun. Her features bore just enough evidence of each culture to make her beautiful and exotic, and yet she had been generic enough to not raise the hackles of Sam’s race-conscious parents.
They weren’t bigots, exactly, but they were very conscious of breeding and roots. She had been redeemed in their eyes by the fact that her father had come from a long line of successful jewelers who had cut diamonds and fashioned gold for some of the most notable names in European history.
The name and the money had, of course, meant nothing to Sam, who had long ago shunned his parents’ Old World ideals. He had fallen in love with her quick wit, her deep-seated values and her brutal honesty. On their wedding day his eyes had shone with admiration and devotion—feelings which she shared. He had given himself to her wholly and completely. Unfortunately, despite her best efforts, she had been unable to keep him.
Without asking, and despite the late hour, Elsie got up and poured them both a cup of coffee. “No word? Isn’t there any sign of him at all?” She set the cream in front of Pete and pushed over the sugar bowl.
Pete examined the dark depths and breathed in the steam, and before he said the words she knew the answer. “No. Not a single, fu—” She smiled at the little slip. Pete tried to treat her like a lady, despite the fact that Sam always swore freely in front of her. His heavy jaw worked around the words. “Not a single clue.”
Elsie sipped from her own mug, but as the coffee slipped past her tongue she hardly tasted it. “I don’t believe this. It’s been almost four weeks. The first two weeks I cursed him, the next week I missed him, and now I’m starting to worry.”
“If he wasn’t such a fanatic about Tate Barton’s business…” He managed to sip from his mug. “If he had called me first, instead of running off alone like a damn maniac…”
Elsie covered his enormous hand with her own. “You can’t change him, Pete. God knows I wasted enough years trying.”
“Yeah, well, you had the option of divorcing him. I ain’t so lucky.”
“I may have divorced him, but he’s still Scott’s dad and I’d really rather he was around for him.” She shook off the malaise that seemed determined to settle across her shoulders. “Besides, you could never give up your partnership with Sam. You guys have been together too long.” Pete and Sam had hooked up a mere two years after she and Sam had been married.
Pete spoke quietly. “That may be true, but in a weird way he’s more tied to Tate than he is to me.”
“Tate’s…” Her voice faded as she tried to put words to the strange relationship that her ex-husband shared with the local scoundrel. Her eyes focused on the rich dark brew in her cup. “They knew each other as kids. They were friends through some tough stuff, and he always hated Tate for taking the easy way out.” Of course, Pete knew all this, but Elsie couldn’t seem to stop herself from reciting it all again. “He always figured Tate was too smart to turn to that kind of life. He hated him for turning his back on their friendship and on his dreams.”
“Sam never took the easy way in anything, did he?”
She looked at him sharply. “I won’t have you talking about him in the past tense, Pete. He’s holed up somewhere or…or something. He’s okay. I know it. I refuse to believe the father of my son is…gone.”
Pete considered her, his thin lips set in a grim line. “Look, Elsie, I know you don’t want to face it
, but it doesn’t look good. He’s never been gone this long, and I just don’t have a clue where to start looking for him. The captain is almost ready to declare him officially missing and assign me a new partner.”
“He’ll come back,” she said with determination. “He wouldn’t leave Scott, and he wouldn’t leave Philadelphia. He loves his home and he loves that boy.” And there was a time, long ago, when I thought he loved me.
She turned pleading eyes to the man who had been almost as much a part of their family as her ex-husband. “Please find him, Pete. If anybody can, it’s you.”
“I never meant to imply that he’s run out on you.” Pete’s jaw clenched and he refused to look at her. He just stared at his mug, and the moment stretched until Elsie thought she would break. “The thing is…” he said at last, “the thing is that Tate is missing too. We’ve been watching his place, and except for that Calvin character hanging around, Faye and the boy have been alone ever since Sam left.”
Elsie frowned. “I don’t understand. What does that mean? We figured Sam went off on a tip that Tate was up to something, right? Doesn’t he sometimes go away looking for women for his bars?”
For years Sam had held suspicions that Tate was behind a call girl business that involved two local bars he owned and ran. He also suspected that Tate scoured the big city streets for runaways and preyed on their poverty and desperation, offering them their dreams on a platter if only they agreed to come back with him and become exotic dancers in one of his clubs.
Tate was a smooth talker, with a rugged face that few women seemed able to resist. He took full advantage of his assets. Sam also suspected that the dancing part of the deal was quickly followed by more direct customer services. Before the girls knew it they had been sucked so deeply into their new life that they lost all hope of ever clawing their way out again.
Every once in a while one of them disappeared without a trace. Tate always had a ready explanation, and there was never any evidence of foul play, but Sam was loath to think what their fate may have been, either at the hands of a john or—and Sam himself refused to believe this—Tate Barton.
But Tate was wily and hid his illicit activities behind a smokescreen of legitimate bars and elaborate deceptions. Sam had never quite been able to nail him on any of the charges, but he had come painfully close. And it galled him no end that his former friend would stoop to such tactics to line his pockets. It didn’t help that Sam hated to be outsmarted by anyone, least of all by someone he had once trusted and counted on. Combine all that with Sam’s already obsessive nature and it added up to a sure-fire recipe for marital failure.
“We’re not sure what it means,” Pete was saying. “But Tate has never been gone this long on any of his trips. So either something happened to both of them or…”
Elsie set down her mug and gripped it to keep her hands from shaking. “Or what?”
“Or Tate killed him and now he’s on the run.”
“No,” she said with conviction. “I won’t believe either explanation. Tate may be a grand-scale pimp and a scoundrel, but he’s not a killer. And despite what’s happened between those two, he could never hurt Sam.”
“I don’t know, Elsie. There’s something wrong, though. We know that much for sure.”
As he spoke, for the first time Elsie began to doubt something that had been a constant in her life for more than ten years. Whether she was loving him or hating him, Sam Riven had always been there. Even after the divorce he had continued to wear his wedding band, as if to flaunt in her face the fact that she couldn’t get rid of him. Not completely.
And now that she wanted him around, where was he? She thought of her seven-year-old son, sleeping soundly in his bed upstairs, and her heart ached for him. He needed a father. He deserved a father. And Sam had better show up and deliver on his promises, or she would—
“I won’t believe he’s dead until you show me a body, Pete. Just find him, okay?” But she couldn’t look at her friend. “Just try a little longer.” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “Please, just try a little longer.”
Chapter Four
Early July, Calgary, Alberta
Marnie shoveled the last bite of spaghetti into her mouth. She glanced hurriedly at the clock. She had an appointment tonight at Lucky’s bedside and had little time to spare. Despite his unresponsive state this was a big night for him, and she didn’t want to miss it.
She tossed her plate and cutlery into the sink, for once not caring about the mess she would come home to. She wasn’t obsessive about cleaning, and her house would never make it into the glossy pages of House and Garden, but it was tidy and she took pride in that.
White European-style cabinets and Shaker-style furniture kept her environment simple and functional. Only a few well-chosen antiques dotted her decor to add a touch of warmth and whimsy.
She had strayed far from the formal, overstuffed brocades and silks she had grown up with. The only rooms in her childhood home she had felt comfortable in had been the kitchen and her bedroom. The rest of the three-story monstrosity had been pristine and untouchable. Her parents had an image to uphold. They were pillars of the community, role models for their church, and they took that responsibility seriously.
God forbid the parishioners find out that their pastor had children who got dirty, or that he ever soiled a dish or left a sock dangling from the hamper. Amos Grant lived a perfect life and kept a perfect home. Too bad he didn’t have a perfect daughter.
Marnie was checking over her ensemble in the mirror and eagerly anticipating what awaited her at the hospital when the doorbell startled her out of her reverie.
She frowned at the untimely intrusion. It was seven o’clock, prime time for solicitations and Jehovah’s Witnesses. As she placed her hand on the knob she vowed to not let them manipulate her into her usual pushover mode. She was not in the mood for an hour’s worth of The Watchtower, or how she needed to spend two thousand dollars on a vacuum cleaner that would change her life. For once in her life, she had someplace to be.
The door swung open, and her heart fell.
“Marina!” crooned Marnie’s mother as she swept into the apartment and fluttered her lips across her daughter’s cheek.
“Hi, Marnie,” added her brother in his usual authoritative baritone as he followed their mother inside. His six-year-old daughter, Tiffany, was latched firmly to his pant leg.
“Hi, Don.” Marnie closed the door with a resigned air. “What brings you guys into town? I wasn’t expecting you.”
Mrs. Grant settled herself primly on Marnie’s antique love seat. The skirt of her wispy, floral-print sundress settled about her like mist settling over an aspen. Her willowy figure, alabaster complexion, and pale blue eyes completed the image of a fragile china doll. But Marnie knew better. Helen Grant was anything but fragile.
“What do you mean you weren’t expecting us? We’re due at the cemetery this evening. Just like always.”
Marnie closed her eyes and silently cursed epithets she doubted her mother even knew existed.
Not waiting for a response her mother continued, “You’re not wearing that, are you? You know how much your father hated to see women in jeans. I know you practically live in them, but you could show him a little respect just one day a year.”
Marnie cast a veiled glance at Don and said evenly, “Don’s wearing jeans.” She instantly regretted it because she sounded exactly like the whiny fourteen-year-old who had constantly complained about the double-standard dress code at home. Nothing had changed then. She didn’t know why she expected anything to change now.
“Marina.” Her mother’s mournful tone communicated her disapproval much more eloquently than a fifteen-minute speech.
Marnie focused on her older brother. He had gotten the looks in the family. He was tall and broad-shouldered, with a sculpted jaw and blazing blue eyes. He was self-assured and successful. He was everything their father had dreamed for his son. All the more reason for him to expect hi
s daughter to fill her role.
Even after his death, however, Marnie still managed to disappoint him.
“Where’s Karen?” Marnie was actually tickled that her sister-in-law had seen fit to miss the annual family outing. They weren’t exactly kindred spirits.
“She’s got a bad case of stomach flu,” said Don smoothly.
“How convenient,” she muttered under her breath. Karen Grant managed to come down with a mysterious affliction on three very specific occasions each year.
“Daddy!” whined the cherub with the dark curls and the huge brown eyes. She squirmed inside her appropriately flouncy frock. God forbid Grandpa’s ghost see his female progeny in anything without lace. “Isn’t it time to go?”
“Quiet, honey. We just have to wait for Marnie to change.”
Don and his mother looked at her expectantly. She gazed back, and in some deeply hidden and seldom-accessed recess she found the strength to defy her mother.
“I’m sorry, Mom. I just can’t make it tonight.”
Her mother’s expression was one of frank disbelief. “What on Earth are you talking about? All I ask is that we visit your father once a year on our wedding anniversary and go out for coffee and dessert afterwards. Is that so much to ask? Is that such a hardship? I ask so little. And after all I’ve done for you—”
“Mom.” Marnie managed to restrain herself from screaming at the familiar tirade. “I said I was sorry, and I meant it. But I have something important to do tonight, and I just can’t miss it.”
“What could be so important that you can’t do it any other night of the year?”
Marnie gritted her teeth. At all costs she did not want to share her plans with her family. They already thought she was slightly off her rocker. This would confirm that she was loony, and they might consider admitting her to a mental institution. Or maybe they’d try to have her exorcised. The image made her shudder.