by Karen Young
“Stop, Lizzie. I need to say this.” His tone was suddenly strong enough to halt her. “I’m trying to tell you that I knew Matthew Walker, Lizzie.”
“I heard that, but it doesn’t matter now, Louie. I’m sorry I upset you.”
“My God, darlin’, you didn’t upset me. I’m the one—”
“Louie.” Now she was the one using a firm tone. “I’m going to call 911. Don’t move.”
“Lizzie.” Something in his voice should have warned her. “I am Matthew Walker.”
The next hour was, forever after, a blur in Elizabeth’s mind. It hadn’t taken more than ten minutes for the EMTs to arrive, but Louie was unconscious when she returned to the gazebo after calling for help and to her it seemed as if time stood still. She’d never been so frightened. But they’d stabilized him, thank God, then loaded him into the ambulance. They’d refused Elizabeth permission to go with them, ignoring her pleas, so she’d had to watch helplessly as Louie was taken away in a blaze of flashing lights and screaming sirens. Then, cell phone in her hand, she ran to her car to follow.
It was Ryan she called first. And then Lindsay. And then Megan.
Later, she would think about how right it had seemed that in a time of deep turmoil and fear, she’d turned to Ryan and her sisters. In the span of a few weeks, the defenses she’d used to protect herself for most of her childhood and all of her adult life had been abandoned. However, the bombshell Louie had dropped before passing out, she kept to herself. She simply didn’t believe him.
He didn’t have a heart attack. According to Megan, the scary episode was a reaction to new medication for hypertension that had been prescribed for him. “This is not uncommon,” she told Elizabeth in a reassuring tone. “The drug caused his blood pressure to drop to a dangerously low level. I suspect his hypertension is newly diagnosed and that his doctor has been trying to find the drug that’s right for him.”
“I didn’t even know he’d scheduled a physical exam,” Elizabeth said, still shaken to her core and feeling guilty for upsetting him. With her arms wrapped around herself, she gave Megan a bewildered look. “We—Gina and I—nagged him for months, but we thought he had ignored us. And then after Gina—” Her voice broke and she fought to bring it under control. “All along, he must have been receiving treatment. Why keep it a secret?”
“Men of his age often don’t want the people they’re closest to thinking they’re beyond coping. He’s not an old man, nor is he young anymore. It’s a common reaction.” Megan squeezed her arm. “Just be glad that he apparently took you at your word and had the exam. Hypertension’s known as the silent killer. It’s too late to take a pill after a stroke.” Her lips curved in a smile. “Of course, we don’t want the cure to be worse than the disease. Passing out is an extreme reaction. I’m betting his doctor will want to keep him here for a day or so until he can be stabilized with the correct meds.”
“Come on, let’s find you a place to sit down,” Ryan said, urging her toward a waiting area that looked eerily familiar. It wasn’t on the same floor as the room where she’d waited all those hours after Gina’s accident, but it was close enough. Too close.
“I can’t,” she said with real distress. “Jesse’s at kindergarten. I have to pick her up. They’re under strict instructions not to release her to anybody except Louie or me.”
“It’s too early,” Lindsay said, glancing at her watch. “But when it’s time, I’ll go. If you call and authorize it, they’ll release her to me. It’ll be a couple of hours yet, right?”
Elizabeth touched her forehead, having no idea of the time. It seemed forever since she dropped Jesse off at the school that morning. “Her class is dismissed at eleven-thirty. Thanks, Lindsay.”
Lindsay smiled. “What are sisters for?”
“Right.” Megan leaned against the door, crossing her arms. “You know, I see a lot of elderly people taken into the ER in situations like this and sometimes they’re totally alone. There’s nobody to worry about them, nobody to go in and give them a word of encouragement. Louie’s lucky to have someone who cares.”
Elizabeth closed her eyes. The moments before Louie’s collapse returned in a vivid flashback. Beside her, Ryan was quiet, deep in his own thoughts, it seemed. She glanced at him and then away. How much did he know? Had he guessed why Louie wanted to talk to her after giving up the files? “Can we all sit down for a minute? There’s something I need to tell you.” She lowered herself onto a sofa.
“What is it, Liz?” Lindsay perched on the arm of the chair that Megan took.
“You want me to stay or go?” Ryan asked.
“Stay. I think you’ve probably already guessed what I’m going to say.”
“What’s going on?” Lindsay demanded, looking from one to the other.
Elizabeth put a hand to her forehead, looking at her knees, but realized she would have to look her sisters in the face to tell them something like this. “I think I’m responsible for Louie’s attack.”
Megan looked confused. “It was the medication, Liz.”
“Maybe. But if the two of us hadn’t been…talking, he wouldn’t have reacted as he did.” Her hands twisted together in her lap. “He knew I was…upset with him and it bothered him. He probably would have realized he needed to call his doctor, but—”
“Liz.” Ryan sat down beside her and covered both her hands with his. “You’re making it more difficult this way.”
She looked at him with tears in her eyes. “You know what he told me, don’t you?”
“Maybe.” He shrugged. “Probably.”
“I don’t believe it.” She blinked her tears away, but her voice rose with her distress. “It can’t be true.”
“Tell us, for God’s sake, so we can decide whether we believe it or not!” Lindsay said, then added with exasperation, “whatever it is.”
Elizabeth put both her hands to her cheeks, looking at her sisters. “Louie claims he’s Matthew Walker.”
“Oh, my.” Megan looked from Elizabeth to Ryan and back again.
Lindsay, for once, was silent.
“I don’t believe it,” Elizabeth said, calmer now that she’d told them. She looked at Ryan. “I mean, he moved into the house next door five years ago. If what he says is true, he could have told me a thousand times before today.” She was shaking her head, but her lips were trembling. “I just don’t believe it.”
Ryan reached out a hand and cupped her cheek. “Yes, you do, Lizzie.”
Her eyes suddenly flooded with fresh tears. She still shook her head mutely.
“What about the fire when he died?” Megan asked quietly.
“I didn’t ask,” Elizabeth said, wiping her cheeks. “I mean, I didn’t have time. He took sick while trying to tell me. I rushed to call 911 and when I got back, he was unconscious. I was so scared.”
“You must have been,” Megan murmured softly.
“It was the longest ten minutes in history before they got there.” Elizabeth realized Ryan now had slipped his arm around her, and she felt comforted by it.
“This is incredible,” Lindsay said, finding her voice. She looked at Megan, her face alive with excitement. “Didn’t I tell you something about that whole thing was fishy, Meg? Didn’t I tell you that Duke always had his suspicions about that fire? That stuff was hushed up? But even he didn’t guess the real zinger, that the fire was staged. My God!”
“Who is Duke?” Ryan asked.
Megan was shaking her head. “Some aging detective connection that Lindsay pumped for information about Matthew Walker’s death.”
“His name is Duke Collins. And it was before Gina’s accident, Meg!” Lindsay turned to Elizabeth. “I was intrigued by the details of the judge’s death from day one. Maybe because it was all new to me, but I thought it seemed a little too dramatic. To me, that is, not you as you probably accepted the story the way it was told to you from the time you were five. We all know how that is. You grow up hearing the way something happened and you just a
ccept it. Well, I didn’t find it that…acceptable. I mean, here’s a judge, very well-connected politically, who’s involved in a very scandalous case. Careers are over for half a dozen judges and more lawyers. So Judge Walker’s house catches fire and he’s the only casualty. His three children are miraculously unharmed, plus nearly all the valuables of his career and what he might have been involved in are destroyed, too.” She gave a meaningful lift of her eyebrows. “Including most photographs of him. It’s the investigative reporter in me, I guess, but this story had all the makings of a really good exposé.”
“If there was anything to expose,” Megan said dryly.
Elizabeth looked all around the room. “Am I the only person who doesn’t believe Louie is Matthew Walker?”
“It would explain a lot if it’s true.” Lindsay was up and pacing. “I mean, he’s totally devoted to you, Liz. And he’s nuts about Jesse. He knows what she means to you. You said yourself he’s informed beyond the norm about Houston’s legal community. You name a judge, he knows him.”
“Now we know why,” Ryan said dryly.
“Even the full beard and mustache are in keeping with a man whose face might be recognized,” Lindsay said.
“Which explains the vague familiarity I felt when I saw the framed photo of a much younger Matthew Walker in your office, Liz,” Ryan said. “You look like him.”
“In other words,” Elizabeth said, “you all believe he’s Matthew Walker.”
Lindsay shrugged again, rather apologetically.
Megan stared at her feet.
Ryan gave her shoulder a sympathetic squeeze.
“Okay.” She watched a nurse pass by. “Fine.” She held up a hand. “I’m not saying I believe my own father has been deceiving me for twenty-five years, but just for the sake of argument, say it’s the truth. That he has.” She shot Ryan a tentative sideways glance. “The question is, why? Why would he do that?”
“If I knew the answer to that,” Ryan said, picking up her hand and kissing it, “I would have pushed Louie to tell you. But it’s his story to tell. That’s what opening the trunk was all about. That’s why he handed those files about my dad over to me.”
“What files? What trunk?” Lindsay demanded, in full investigative reporter mode.
Elizabeth looked at her watch. “It’s almost time to pick Jesse up, Lindsay. Does your offer still hold? Can you go now?”
“Of course,” Lindsay said, then added, “but as soon as I’ve left her safe in Jennifer’s care, I’m coming back here to get some answers from Louie.”
“Don’t you mean Judge Matthew Walker?” Elizabeth asked with sarcasm.
“Yeah, that’s what I mean,” Lindsay said, grinning.
“Isn’t Jennifer in school?” Megan asked, ever the practical one.
“It’s a teacher’s conference or some sort of thing,” Ryan replied. “She’s hanging out with a couple of new friends and they’re cool with taking Jesse.”
Thank God for Jennifer, Elizabeth thought. She released her cell phone from the clip on her handbag. “I’ll call the school.”
Twenty-Five
Jennifer sat in one of the soft club chairs near the coffee bar in the bookstore and watched Jesse solemnly studying the display of children’s books. For a little kid who couldn’t read yet, she definitely knew her way around a bookstore. She finally spotted the book she was looking for and picked it up. Big surprise, Jennifer thought, giving Jesse a high five from across the aisle. Her choice was Liz’s Newbery prize book. “You’ve already got that one at home, Jess. Pick something else, my treat.”
Jesse nodded and pulled out Bob the Builder.
“You have that, too, love bug.”
Putting her hands on her hips, she gave Jennifer a fierce frown.
“Okay, convince me that we should buy a book when you’ve already got it at home. I’m listening.”
For a beat or two, Jesse seemed on the verge of speaking. She opened her mouth. Jennifer held her breath. “Say it, Jess. Tell me why you want to take home a book you’ve already got.”
But the moment passed and Jesse disappeared into the next aisle to find something else.
Jennifer looked at Rick. “Did you see that? She almost said something.”
Rick nodded, taking a swig from his smoothy. “Almost, but not quite. She’s gettin’ there, Jen. But it beats me how you know what she’s thinking. She doesn’t even need to talk when she’s with you. You interpret those big-eyed looks and her funny little face quirks like they’re real words.”
Jennifer brushed the crumbs of a brownie into a napkin. “It’s easy when you know her, but she really needs to talk. It’ll mean she’s finally getting over the trauma.”
“You mean her mom and all.”
She folded the napkin over and then over again, studying it thoughtfully. “It’s not just Gina dying and all, you know? A lot of it’s about her sleazy dad. She’s really scared of him. You should see her whenever you just mention his name. She goes all quiet and it’s like she gets, you know, kind of smaller. Like she goes into herself. Just a minute.” She stood up suddenly and crossed the aisle to check the section where Jesse was browsing. In a moment, she was back, giving Rick a quick smile as she sat back down. “I know it’s silly, being so paranoid about keeping an eye on her ’cause this is a nice store and how could anything happen, but you can never be too careful, Liz says. And my dad.”
Rick smiled. “And when she’s with you, you’re responsible.”
“A lot more than when we first met,” she said dryly.
“Jeez, I hope so. You were hell on wheels then…so to speak.” He laughed, dodging sideways, when she tried to land a punch on his arm.
Jennifer knew the grin on her face looked stupid, but Rick was so cool. And he was nice, too. Like going with her to the bookstore to give Jesse a treat when he found out she needed to baby-sit. He could be hanging out with his friends instead or doing more training for his marathon. She couldn’t think of a single guy she knew in Dallas who would do that.
“Speaking of your dad,” Rick said, “how’re things going with you and him?”
“Great. I mean, really. This will sound crazy to someone like you with a regular family and all, but I didn’t know my dad as well as you know yours because of the divorce and everything. But he’s a good person, Rick. Just look at the way he’s tried to make up for almost handing Jesse over to creepy ol’ Austin.”
“This isn’t exactly a news flash to me, Jen. I knew your dad was cool five minutes after meeting him.”
“Well, my mom probably influenced me, but I’ve got my head on straight now. And you know what?” She glanced over at the aisle where she’d last seen Jesse. “I think my dad is serious about Liz. I bet they’re gonna have a serious relationship.”
“You mean an affair?”
She frowned. “I don’t think Liz is the type. I think if a man got serious about her and she felt the same way, she’s the kind of woman a man marries.”
Rick grinned and stood up. “I think you’re right. Come on, let’s check on the brat again.” He reached for her hand and pulled her up from the chair.
The trip to the bookstore wasn’t something she’d ordinarily do when she was in charge of Jesse. It was Lindsay who’d suggested it, saying it might keep Jesse from worrying about Louie being sick in the hospital. Having another person so close to her in the hospital was bound to be scary and Jesse had had enough scary stuff in her life to last any little kid always and forever.
They went to the section where she’d last seen Jesse sitting on the floor looking at a pop-up picture book. No sign of her in that aisle now, so Rick went back one aisle and she checked the next one. And the next.
The store was arranged so that parents could keep an eye on their kids and drink cappuccino at the same time as the kids went through the torturous process of choosing a book. The entire section was in full view of the café. Almost.
“Rick, do you see her?”
“
No.” He stood with his hands on his hips, looking around. “She’s got to be here. No way she could have disappeared without us seeing her.”
“She wouldn’t have gone anywhere without me,” Jennifer said, beginning to feel panic. “Quick, you go upstairs. That’s the music section and books on tape and stuff. I don’t think she’d go up there without me, but check anyway, would you? I’m going to the rest rooms.”
“Tell the checkers at the exit first,” Rick advised. “I mean, just in case she’s with someone and he tries to take her out of the store.”
“She’d scream bloody murder if that happened,” Jennifer said, beginning to get a stomachache. She took off in a run to the front of the store where she breathlessly explained there was a lost little girl. Then she dashed to the ladies’ rest room. Empty. As she left there, she hesitated only a second before going into the men’s room. Empty in there, too.
Rick met her coming down the stairs. “Nobody’s seen her in the upper level. What’d they say at the checkout?”
“I could tell they thought I was in a panic over nothing. Nobody saw anything.” Her mouth trembled. “I’m scared, Rick.”
“Yeah, it’s really weird for her to just disappear into thin air with us sitting right there.” He ran a hand over his hair. “I’m gonna ask to see the manager. Meanwhile, you go check the stockroom. She might just be hiding to scare you.”
“Well, it’s sure working.”
The stockroom was crowded with cartons and books stored on metal shelves arranged in aisles. Jennifer raced down the first few, turned a corner and came upon the rear exit of the store. She read the sign, Emergency Exit Only, and hesitated for two seconds before pushing it open.
Austin Leggett stood at the door of an SUV in the act of hefting Jesse up into the passenger seat. “Hey!” Jennifer shouted and dashed toward him.
She stopped in her tracks as he jerked Jesse back, covering her face with his hand. “Shut up, you little bitch, and get over here if you don’t want to see her hurt.” Jennifer’s stomach dropped to her feet. Jesse was struggling, clawing at Austin’s hand, trying to breathe.