Private Lives

by Karen Young

  “You don’t know the address?”

  “What? Oh, for Patricia, you’re mean? I think I can get us there. But I was still mulling over the connection between Ryan’s father and Judge Walker. And now you tell me that Louie knew them both, possibly worked with them. How come he’s never mentioned that to you?”

  “Maybe he sensed that I shied away from any mention of my parents and out of consideration he didn’t go there.” What was more surprising to Elizabeth was that she was no longer shying away from that time. The defenses she’d spent years building were crumbling at a pace that made her almost dizzy. This discussion with Lindsay was an example. They were delving into places she wouldn’t have allowed just a few weeks ago.

  So many changes.

  “Well, I think it’s odd,” Lindsay said, “very odd. And I’m gonna put it to him the next time I see him. I want to know what he knows about Judge Matthew Walker. Heck, I’ve encountered nothing but obstruction and frustration using more conventional methods. What reason could Louie have to stonewall? The guy was my father, after all. If necessary, I’ll weigh in strongly on my personal right to know.”

  “Speaking of odd,” Elizabeth said, now thinking back to that time when she’d been obsessed with learning about Judge Matthew Walker, “you mentioned the Cayman Islands scandal. And we know Louie, John Paxton and Matthew Walker were all judges at the time. What I don’t recall is ever seeing Louie mentioned. Nowhere in all the hundreds of pages of transcript that I reviewed did the name Louis Christian ever appear.”

  “Yes, very odd,” Lindsay said, turning onto Woodlands Parkway. “We’ll ask him about that, too.”

  Patricia Ellis Parks could have been Gina’s twin. The resemblance was so striking that both Elizabeth and Lindsay were caught off guard when she opened the door. Dark hair, crystal-blue eyes, petite to the point of delicacy, the look of her sent a swift, piercing pain straight to Elizabeth’s heart. So like Gina.

  “Mrs. Parks?” Lindsay flashed her best smile and stuck out her hand. “Lindsay Blackstone. I called you a couple of days ago, if you recall. This is Liz Walker, ah, you may know her as Elizabeth Walker, author of children’s books?”

  Patricia Parks’s manners demanded polite acceptance of Lindsay’s hand and a cordial acknowledgment of Elizabeth. “How did you know where I live?” she asked. Although still courteous, she didn’t invite them in.

  Lindsay gave one of her charmingly wry shrug-and-a-smile movements. “Well, it wasn’t too difficult after we talked on the phone. I hope we haven’t shocked you by just showing up, but we’d love—no, we need to talk to you.”

  “Is it about Austin?”

  “Yes,” Lindsay said and rushed to add, “and we understand you probably hoped you’d never hear his name again as long as you lived, but men like Austin don’t just fade away, they keep on wreaking havoc in the lives of other women. We hoped you’d agree just to talk to us, hear us out…for Jesse’s sake.”

  Patricia frowned. “Jesse?”

  Elizabeth spoke up. “Jesse’s my goddaughter, Mrs. Parks. She’s five years old. My foster sister, Gina D’Angelo, is…was her mother. Gina died last week in an accident after spending the evening with Austin and there is some question about his culpability there. Austin is Jesse’s father.”

  Patricia stood for a moment, still uncertain about welcoming them into her home. Elizabeth could almost imagine the conflict going on inside her. She, unlike Gina, had been clever enough to put Austin out of her life after only one brutal incident. What if she’d had a child before she learned his true colors and then something happened? Elizabeth saw on her face that she could imagine the fate a child—worse, a girl child—would have growing up in Austin’s care.

  Suddenly arriving at a decision, she stepped back and invited them in.

  Ryan was in his office the next day even before his paralegal arrived. Jean Johnson was an early bird, often at work an hour before others in the firm. She was fifty-five, single, and efficient almost to the point of obsessive-compulsive behavior where her job was concerned. This morning, when she did appear, she gave him a curious look and asked if he needed her assistance. She’d returned to her work space after he’d told her to let him know when Austin made it into the office. She’d be shocked if she knew the chaos in his thinking this day. Good thing he didn’t have to appear in court, he thought. Rage was not conducive to straight thinking.

  Turning in his chair, he studied the Houston skyline through the tall windows without really seeing anything. He needed to get his ducks in a row before confronting Austin. No chance of the boss’s son arriving before anybody else, so he had plenty of time to lay out a plan before Austin showed. He’d spent most of the night thinking up and discarding ideas. Clearly, the restraining order wouldn’t keep Austin from grabbing Jesse, first chance he got. The file now on his desk might do the job. He owed Shepherd Steele for helping him load his guns. Austin had to get the message in a way that gave him no option but to back off, to get out of Jesse’s life. And Liz’s.

  He still went cold thinking about the son of a bitch invading Liz’s home and giving her the fright of her life. He’d already admitted to himself that Liz was special to him. He’d meant it when he said he’d fallen in love with her. But he hadn’t realized how much until last night. The turmoil inside him was almost as strong as if the threat were to Jennifer. It had been a defining moment for him.

  “Ryan.”

  He swiveled back to find Jean in the doorway. It was an indication of his state of mind that he hadn’t heard her. He stood up. “Is he here?”

  “Yes. Ryan, what’s going on?” She watched him scoop up a single file folder on his desk, snag his jacket from the coatrack and shove his arms into it.

  “Just a little problem with Austin,” he told her. “I’ll call if I need you, Jean.”

  A walk thirty feet down the hall and around a corner brought him to Austin’s office. Like Ryan’s, it was a spiffy corner location with a stunning view of the Galleria. Austin sat in a luxurious executive chair and, like Ryan earlier, seemed preoccupied with his thoughts, not the view. Ryan gave a perfunctory rap on the open door and without waiting for an invitation, closed it behind him and didn’t stop until he stood directly in front of his ex-client’s desk.

  Austin pushed his chair back a fraction, but didn’t rise. The last time they’d talked, Ryan had threatened him and had been fired before he could quit. There was nothing in Austin’s demeanor now that spoke of hard feelings. “Hey, big guy.” Going for humor.

  “Austin.” A grizzly bear would seem friendlier than Ryan.

  Now, as he got a closer look at Ryan’s face, Austin’s expression was suddenly wary. “Man, you’re looking real serious. What’s up?”

  “Where were you at midnight last night, Austin?”

  “Midnight? Last—What the hell are you talking about?”

  “I’m talking about breaking and entering. I’m talking about attempted kidnapping. I’m talking about your ass being in deep shit if you don’t persuade me that you were at home in bed at midnight last night.”

  Now Austin was on his feet. “Now look, you son of a bitch, you can’t come in here accusing me of—”

  “You sneaky little worm!” Ryan was around the desk and gripping a handful of shirt and tie before Austin could scramble out of the way. “You went to Liz’s house, dismantled her alarm system and entered in violation of a restraining order so you could take that innocent child and ship her off to Arizona.” Ryan had him up on his tiptoes now, both of them nose to nose. Then, with a disgusted sound and a hard shake, he let him go, watching Austin drop in his chair, almost missing it when it scooted sideways.

  “I’ve always had my doubts about you, Austin,” he said, now prowling the space near the desk. “But to kidnap your own little girl is too low for even you. What about when she woke up and saw you? She freaks out at the mention of your name, man. How did you plan to cope with that?”

  “I’m calling security.”
Austin reached for the telephone.

  “And you’ll tell them what?” Ryan stared him down. “Right. Yeah, that’s what I thought.” Grabbing the folder he’d tossed on Austin’s desk when he came at him, he shoved it toward him. “Read that and then instead of calling security, let’s call your old man. No, I’ve got a better idea, let’s you and me go together to his office. See what his reaction is when I fill him in on what you’ve been doing at night lately.”

  Austin hardly seemed to hear him. He’d opened the folder and was staring at the single sheet of paper it contained. “Where did you get this?”

  “Read the letterhead at the top, buddy. Fourteen hundred and forty dollars for paint and repair of your Porsche, the way I read it. Dated the day that Gina died. The day I tried to call you about six times trying all your numbers and getting nothing but voice mail. Hell, no, you were in Beaumont getting the nicks smoothed out and traces of the paint from Gina’s car buffed away.”

  Austin shoved the folder aside. “That’s a damn lie! The damage to my car had nothing to do with Gina. There was street repair going on right outside the hospital the night of the accident. I bumped into a blockade put up by the city crews. I was upset and didn’t see it until I was on top of it. Hell, Gina was half dead and Jesse’d come close to a serious injury that night. I was rattled.” He straightened his tie and sat back down. “Anybody would be. That’s what happened.”

  Less enraged now that he’d worked off some of his frustration, Ryan stood at the front of the desk again. “You tell a touching story, Austin, but if it’s true, why the urgency to get to Jesse now? Are you afraid she’ll be able to blow your story to hell and back?”

  Austin still wore a sullen look. “My concern for my daughter is normal. And I deny ever trying to get to Jesse, as you put it. As for threatening to haul me up in front of my old man like a kid who’s been caught smoking dope, go ahead and try.”

  “You think you can blow this off, Austin, but I’m warning you, you’re treading on some very dangerous ground. Curtiss may cover for you as long as there’s no hard evidence, but if you keep on trying to get to Jesse, you won’t be able to rely on his connections. Kidnapping is a serious felony.”

  “Yadda, yadda, yadda.”

  Ryan stood looking at him for a beat or two, then shaking his head, walked out. Back in his office, he picked up the phone. There were two things on his agenda that day and the second one wouldn’t give him as much pleasure as confronting Austin. He dialed a number, setting the stage for what had to be done. Turning in his chair, he again fixed his gaze on the view from the tall windows and waited through several rings. On the fourth, Louie Christian finally picked up.

  Twenty-Four

  Elizabeth had not dressed for a date with a man for many months. And if dating brought on a case of nerves as intense as what she was experiencing tonight, she’d have been careful to avoid dates forever. She should have refused him, but he kept coming up with arguments to counter her objections. Remembering Ryan’s methods in court, she shouldn’t have expected less than steamroller tactics. She’d worried that it was risky leaving Jesse, but he’d reminded her that she couldn’t be safer than in Shepherd Steele’s care, after arranging for Lindsay and Steele to take Jesse and Jennifer to the movies.

  Standing before her mirror, she studied the effect of the outfit she’d finally chosen. Black-and-white silk capri pants with a lime-green top, black sandals. Silver jewelry. Did lime green make her hair look too red? Were the pants too trendy? “Casual dress,” Ryan had advised. “Where we’re going, you’ll want to be comfortable.”

  They went to a restaurant in Kemah, a town on Galveston Bay catering to the yachting crowd. The main attraction was a number of waterfront restaurants lining the ship channel. Within sight of the Bay was a string of touristy shops, but Ryan avoided them and headed to the waterfront area. The sun was setting and the western sky was a stunning display of color, burnished orange radiating from the center before darkening at the horizon to near-purple.

  He parked the SUV in sight of the channel and the fiery sky and went around to help Elizabeth climb down. It was almost a two-foot drop from the car to the street below. Instead of allowing her to step down, he lifted her and swung her about before setting her on her feet. “I’d kiss you, but you’d probably grumble and stop to put on more war paint.”

  “I certainly would,” she said, one hand trying to save her hairdo. There was a stiff breeze blowing in off the Bay and her hair wanted to fly everywhere. “And why didn’t you tell me we were going to Kemah? I would have put a clip in my hair.” She pushed a strand from her face, but it was a useless effort. “It’ll be a mess by the time we get inside the restaurant.”

  “That’s exactly why I didn’t tell you.” His hands still lingered at her waist and before she knew it, he’d slipped his arms around her. Leaning forward, he buried his face in her hair, inhaling the scent of it. “It’s gorgeous. Like that sunset, all color and light.”

  “My hair’s orange and purple?” she said, laughing. It struck her that she laughed a lot when she was with Ryan.

  “Your hair’s perfect. I fell in love with it at first sight.” He held her for a moment longer, swaying a little, enjoying the intimacy as if they weren’t standing in view of dozens of people. Then he caught her hand and they began walking toward the restaurant.

  Like lovers. She shivered with the thought.

  “I saw Austin today,” he said, minutes later as they waited outside for a table. He played idly with the fingers of her hand. “He denied ever being near your house last night.”

  “What a surprise,” she said dryly.

  “However, when I showed him the receipt from the body shop, he couldn’t deny the fact that his Porsche needed repair and that he had it done within hours of the accident.”

  Elizabeth watched a flock of seagulls overhead, enjoying their flashy antics. “I’m amazed that Steele managed to dig that up. Did Austin question how you happened to have such a damaging piece of evidence? Incidentally, how did he get it?”

  “He didn’t acknowledge that it was damaging. And Steele got it as a result of good police work. He canvassed the neighborhood within a mile of the accident hoping somebody would have seen something. Fortunately, somebody did. As he was walking his dog, a man had noticed two speeding cars, the Porsche tailgating the Toyota. He was irritated and tried to get license numbers, but they flew by so fast it was impossible. He told Steele the Porsche bumped the Toyota from behind and it looked deliberate to him.”

  “Which would explain why Gina lost control and went off the road.”

  “Yeah. But it happened about a mile farther down from where the eyewitness saw them.”

  “So he didn’t actually see the accident.”

  “No, but from that eyewitness, Steele guessed the Porsche was probably damaged and that led him to look for a shop where Austin had it repaired. His search took him all the way to Beaumont.” Ryan was shaking his head. “I can’t figure why he’d be so stupid.”

  “To leave a trail when he got his car fixed?” Elizabeth asked.

  “No, to give chase and actually ram Gina’s car from behind like a maniac. His own child was in that car.”

  Elizabeth imagined the terror Gina must have experienced in the minutes before the crash. Austin had been in a rage, probably after she told him about her pregnancy. Seeing his reaction, she knew to get away from him to avoid a scene or before he hurt her or Jesse, but she probably hadn’t expected him to go so far as to chase her on a public street. That he had was an indication of just how furious he was with her. “I suspect it was a culmination of several things,” Elizabeth said, watching the gulls swoop down on an incoming tugboat. “Gina had challenged him in court, embarrassed him publicly and was going to put the squeeze on him financially. But in spite of all that, he may have thought he could still talk her around. Then she throws a pregnancy in his face.”

  “Like I said, only a maniac would react the way he did.
”

  “I really don’t think he intended to kill her,” Elizabeth said, thinking about it. “He just lost it, as he has done so many other times.”

  “Maybe. But this time his temper tantrum had dire consequences. If the circumstances are as we suspect, he’s definitely responsible for the accident and her death.”

  “Would that be manslaughter?”

  “If it could be proven.”

  “That’s a big if.”

  “Sir.” The hostess approached them. “Your table’s ready.”

  Ryan got to his feet, put out a hand to help her up and they followed the woman inside.

  “Sounds like you and Lindsay had some success with Austin’s former fiancée,” Ryan said after they were seated.

  “Patricia Parks is her name.” Elizabeth accepted a menu from the waiter. “And she was very nice, too nice to slam the door in our faces, as I’m sure she wanted to do when Lindsay first launched into her sales pitch.”

  “Lindsay wouldn’t be where she is today in her profession if she didn’t have guts.” He sampled the wine proffered by the waiter and nodded approval.

  Elizabeth’s lips curved in a smile. “Some might call it gall.”

  “But it worked.”

  “Actually, I think it was Jesse that turned the trick. When I mentioned that Austin was fighting for custody of a five-year-old girl, she suddenly overcame her reluctance and invited us in.”

  “Was it true that Austin broke her jaw two weeks before their wedding?”

  “Yes. And for Jesse’s sake, she’s willing to testify to that before Judge Hetherington.” She took a sip of wine, recalling the visit. “It was déjà vu, Ryan. Their relationship as she described it was like a rerun of Gina’s with Austin. In fact, both Lindsay and I were struck by how much she looked like Gina. Apparently, Austin’s taste runs to petite women with dark hair and pretty blue eyes.”