by Brenda Novak
“Sorry to bother you.” It was Caleb Trovato. Madison knew instantly because of the flutter of excitement in her belly. “I saw your lights on and thought you might be hungry,” he said. “I just ordered a pizza. Would you like to share it with me?”
Instinctively, Madison moved toward the window to peer through the wooden shutters she’d closed when she heard Caleb pull into the drive an hour or so earlier. She saw him standing at his living room window, one hand holding the phone to his ear, the other propped against the wall as he gazed out. She knew he’d seen her peeking at him when he smiled and gave her a small salute.
Closing the shutters, Madison stepped quickly away. Attractive didn’t begin to describe Caleb Trovato, which was a big problem. She couldn’t afford to get involved with anyone right now, least of all someone so smooth. Earlier this afternoon, he’d neutralized Brianna’s resentment of him in just a few hours. And he’d charmed them both at the ice cream parlor. Given enough time and privacy, imagine what he could do with a lonely divorcée….
“I’ve already eaten,” she said. “But I appreciate the offer.”
“I was actually looking for company more than anything,” he replied. “It’s Saturday night, after all, and I don’t know anyone in the immediate area.”
Plotting to cover up her father’s misdeeds was by nature a rather solitary endeavor, Madison thought sarcastically. “It’s getting late….”
“It’s only ten o’clock.”
She could tell that “no” wasn’t an answer Caleb heard very often. But she wasn’t particularly concerned about his potential loneliness. She was more worried about insuring her life and Brianna’s remained on a calm and even course. No extreme ups and downs. Just thoughtful decisions, solid parenting and a strong work ethic—no matter how good he looked standing in that window.
“Let me be honest, Caleb,” she said. “You’ve been very nice, and…and I really appreciate all the work you did in the yard today and the ice cream and all that. But I’d prefer to compensate you for your time and effort in rent or meals rather than feel obligated to you in…other ways.”
“Obligated to me?”
He obviously didn’t like the sound of that. Perhaps determination had prompted her to state her position a little too bluntly. “I feel bad turning you down after what you’ve done,” she said. “But my life’s a bit complicated. I’m a single mom, trying to run a business. I’m not interested in seeing anyone.”
“I’m not asking for a relationship,” he said, his tone slightly affronted. “I’m moving back to San Francisco at the end of my lease, so I won’t be around long, anyway. I was just hoping we could be friends while I’m here.”
She thought of how much she’d enjoyed their time together in the yard today and later at the ice cream parlor, and had to admit that being Caleb’s friend was pretty tempting. Most of the friends she’d known growing up had either abandoned her or turned on her when the investigation destroyed her father’s good name and reputation. Rhonda, her best friend since grade school, had hung in through the initial years—until the police became more and more convinced that Ellis was indeed their killer. Then she’d started pressuring Madison to assist in the investigation. She’d said she owed it to the women of Seattle. But when Madison had refused to do anything that could hurt her father, even Rhonda began to distance herself.
“You don’t have any problems with being friends, do you?” Caleb asked.
“Of course not,” Madison said. “I just don’t want to mislead you. As long as you understand my feelings, I’m perfectly okay with hanging out once in a while.”
“Good. Sounds like we agree. So how ’bout a slice of pizza? It should be here any minute.”
Madison smiled, thinking a distraction might actually be good for her. She couldn’t do anything about that box at her mother’s house until Brianna was staying with her father next weekend, anyway.
“Bring it over whenever you’re ready,” she said.
CHAPTER EIGHT
THAT COMMENT HE’D MADE on the phone about being friends really bothered Caleb. He took friendship seriously. Most of his friends had outlasted his two marriages. But at this point he had to use every avenue available to him to get close to Madison. Susan’s life was possibly hanging in the balance, and Caleb was getting desperate. After spending a couple of hours down at the station with Detective Gibbons this evening, he’d learned that, so far, the hair and fiber analysis from the samples collected at Susan’s apartment had yielded exactly nothing. All the hairs belonged to Susan or Holly or someone else who had a reason to be there. No unusual fibers, foot imprints or fingerprints offered any clues. And the forensics team had sprayed the apartment with luminol and determined that there wasn’t any blood there, either.
Whatever happened to Susan had probably happened elsewhere. That fact had to be established, of course, but it was a very small step forward when they had no body, no crime scene, no suspect and no leads. They hadn’t even found Susan’s car….
A knock at the door told Caleb that the pizza had finally arrived. He handed the deliveryman thirty bucks, grabbed the pizza box and a bottle of wine he’d purchased on his way home, and headed directly to Madison’s. With Brianna in bed asleep, he hoped this might be a good time to talk to her mom. Maybe he could persuade Madison to have a glass of wine, relax….
The smell of sausage and pepperoni rose to his nostrils while he waited on the front stoop, but did little to tempt his appetite. Like Madison, he’d eaten earlier. The pizza was only an excuse to get together with her—which, when he thought of it, bothered his conscience, too. He generally didn’t pretend to be something he wasn’t.
“Hi,” she said when she opened the door. “Smells good.”
Caleb’s smile when he saw her was genuine; he didn’t have to pretend he was glad to see her. “I brought some wine. I hope you’ll have a glass with me.”
She hesitated. “Maybe…Come in.”
He could hear the television as he followed her into the kitchen, where she grabbed napkins, plates and glasses before waving him into the living room. “Are you comfortable over at the carriage house?” she asked.
“Actually I am. It’s going to work out pretty well.” He sat down and put a slice of pizza on a plate, which he passed to her, then nodded toward the film that was playing. “Looks like I interrupted you. What have you been watching?”
“Chocolat. Have you seen it?”
“No.”
“It’s fabulous.”
He could’ve said the same for the way she looked, even though she certainly hadn’t dressed up on his account. With her auburn hair in a short, messy ponytail, she was wearing a white long-john top and plaid pajama bottoms. No shoes. She’d already removed her makeup, which made the few freckles across her nose seem more pronounced.
He appreciated her fresh-scrubbed face. Not many women possessed the inherent beauty to go so natural. But what really caught his attention was that she wasn’t wearing a bra. She wasn’t particularly big-busted, but the sight reminded him of just how long it had been since he’d seen, let alone touched, a woman in any intimate place. He had to drag his gaze away and remind himself that now was not the time. “Do you watch many movies?” he asked.
“Not really.” She turned off the television. “I bought a real estate business when I moved here, and it keeps me busy. I don’t go out much, and I only own a few DVDs. Mostly romantic comedies.”
He could certainly understand why she might not have any thrillers in her collection. Uncorking the wine, he poured them each a glass. “So how’s Brianna doing with her new pet?”
“She’s crazy about it.” Madison raised an eyebrow at him. “But I hope you’re planning on helping her feed it. Looking for bugs isn’t one of my favorite pastimes.”
“Sure, I’ll help,” he said with a chuckle. “It only needs to be fed twice a day.”
“Twice a day?”
“Come on,” he teased. “Didn’t those brothe
rs of yours teach you anything?”
She accepted the glass he gave her but set it on the coffee table, next to her plate. “We weren’t very close,” she admitted.
He took a slice of pizza and grinned. “Maybe that’s not entirely a bad thing. When I saw Johnny the other night, I got the impression he’s caused some trouble in his lifetime.”
She sat on the edge of the overstuffed chair not far from the sofa, and Caleb allowed himself another glance at her chest as she picked up her plate. “He has, but—in his defense—he didn’t have a very good childhood.”
“What happened?” he asked, wondering if she’d had a bad childhood, too.
She shrugged and swallowed her first bite. “Nothing too unusual. My father got his girlfriend pregnant in high school. They got married.”
“Then the baby came.” That statement seemed to stem the sexual awareness humming through him.
“Exactly. And they had Johnny right after Tye. But the marriage was too dysfunctional to survive. My father dropped out of school to become a truck driver, so he was gone a lot, and Peg—his wife—started drinking.”
“That’s too bad,” he said, concentrating on his own pizza so he’d keep his eyes where they should be. “When did they split up?”
“Only a couple years later, I think. I’m not really sure of the details. My father was never much for conversation, and he probably didn’t want to believe all the stuff he heard about Peg. But Tye and Johnny came to live with us when they were teenagers, and they told some pretty hair-raising stories.”
Caleb traded the pizza for his glass of wine. He wasn’t having any luck redirecting his attention, and it was easier to watch her over the rim of his glass. “Like what?”
She waited until she’d swallowed again, but she seemed to be enjoying the chance to talk. He could tell he’d chosen the right approach—targeting peripheral subjects, moving the conversation along, giving her a chance to drink some wine.
She tightened her ponytail, but her hair was pretty much falling out of it, anyway. “They said their mother once had a boyfriend who used to slug them if they made him angry,” she said. “There might even have been sexual abuse, although the boys never talked about that.”
She picked up her glass, studied it and finally took a sip. “They said there was usually nothing in the refrigerator except vodka and some moldy fast-food leftovers. One time Johnny called Peg to get him after school, and she was so drunk she told him he couldn’t come home. Another time, when they were only ten and eleven, she dropped them off at a mall and never came back. When the place closed, the police finally brought them home.”
“There’s no excuse for that.” Caleb’s disgust helped check the attraction he was feeling. Unfortunately, the wine did not. “Why didn’t the state take Tye and Johnny away from her?”
Madison finished the last of her pizza and set her plate aside. “Because she always knew how to pull it together when she really needed to, and her mother would occasionally step in and clean her place, make her look better than she really was.”
“Did she ever dry out?”
“Not for long.” Madison tossed a lap blanket over her legs and leaned back with her wine, folding one arm beneath the perfect breasts he found so fascinating. “Bottom line, I think she resented Johnny and Tye. I think she blamed them because she never found another man who was willing to take care of her.”
“Why didn’t your father step in and take over?”
She raised her glass to her lips again. “This is good,” she said.
He smiled, beginning to feel a little warm.
“I don’t think he realized how bad it was at the time, not that that’s any excuse,” she continued.
“Did he pay child support?”
“I’m sure he did.”
“Maybe he thought that was enough.”
“Maybe.”
The wine rolled gently down Caleb’s throat, easing the tension he’d felt earlier in the day. “What did your mother have to say about the boys?”
Madison pulled her blanket a little higher. “I’m ashamed to admit she was probably the reason my dad didn’t get more involved with them. He didn’t think it was fair to expect her to clean up a mess she hadn’t done anything to create.”
“Wow.” He poured a little more wine into his glass and lifted the bottle to her in question, but she shook her head. “So you didn’t get to know your brothers until they came to live with you?”
“I didn’t have any contact with them until then. Once Peg’s mother died, Peg called my dad to tell him she couldn’t handle the boys anymore.”
Caleb leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “How did it go once they came to live at your place?”
“They didn’t stay long. Johnny got busted for drugs and went to a juvenile detention center within the first eighteen months. Tye shut himself up in his room and listened to stoner music for hours on end. He didn’t do his homework or interact with the family. He didn’t have friends. It drove my mother nuts that he could simply cut everyone off like that.”
“Was he on drugs, too?”
“Probably,” she said with a shrug, and surprised Caleb by accepting when he once again offered her more wine. “Dad and Tye argued constantly.”
“Did it ever come to blows?”
She sat back and faced him, her expression thoughtful. “Occasionally. Usually over schoolwork. My dad didn’t want Tye to end up without an education, like him. And he didn’t like the way Tye treated my mother.” She sighed. “On the other hand, Tye didn’t think my father had the right to tell him anything. Sometimes I could see hate flickering in his eyes when he spoke to my parents, and it was almost—” she hesitated, seeming to grope for the right words “—frightening.”
Caleb couldn’t help marveling at how different Madison was from the woman he’d expected her to be—and wishing she wasn’t so nice. Then maybe he wouldn’t have to feel like such a jerk for taking advantage of her. “Did you get along okay with Tye and Johnny?” he asked, feeling a bit protective in case the answer was no.
“I was only eight when they came to live with us, so I didn’t really have much to do with them. I felt like a spectator most of the time. I heard the yelling and watched the fighting, but I couldn’t do anything to stop what was going on around me. So I tried to tune it out.”
“You and your brothers make my childhood seem like a party,” he said. “Between the situation with Tye and Johnny and the investigation, how did you survive?”
He’d switched topics as smoothly as possible, but when she didn’t answer right away, he feared she was going to say something about calling it a night.
Instead, she drank a little more wine. “I don’t know. It all seems like a bad dream—a bad dream that lasted a very long time.”
Her answer was too vague. He needed more. “How did your father deal with the investigation?”
She threw the blanket aside and started clearing up the mess. “At first he tried to protect my mother and me by cooperating with the police. But when he agreed to take a lie detector test and they claimed he failed it, he wouldn’t cooperate anymore.”
“They claimed he failed it?”
She looked up at him. “There’s no law that says the police have to be truthful during an interrogation. Did you know that?”
Caleb tried not to think how darn pretty she was….
What was wrong with him? This was business. If only she’d put on her damn bra. “I didn’t,” he said, feeling more like Judas by the minute.
“I guess once my father learned that they didn’t have to be honest, he assumed they weren’t and never trusted them again,” she said. “He thought they were out to get him.”
He could tell she was no longer enjoying the conversation, but he had to keep pushing. Partially because he refused to let her beauty distract him from his real goal. “What did you think?”
“I believed him,” she said. “I saw how the police were acting, k
new they were definitely out to get somebody.”
“But why your father?”
She shrugged and shifted positions, but he kept an expectant expression on his face, and she finally said, “He worked on the third victim’s house, doing a renovation. Her name was Tatiana Harris. She lived pretty close to us, so that shouldn’t have been particularly unusual. But the lady across the street claimed she saw my father’s truck leaving Tatiana’s house the night she was murdered.”
“You mentioned something about that before. But you don’t believe she saw what she claimed she saw?”
“I think she could’ve been confused about when she saw my father’s truck. Or mistaken it for someone else’s in the dark. I tried talking to her about it once, and she seemed a little dotty to me. But the police thought they’d found the connection they’d been searching for, and kept digging. From there, circumstantial evidence made my father look even guiltier. And then another woman, years later, claimed she saw my father’s truck leaving another crime scene.”
That was Holly, of course, who’d even managed to remember the first three digits of Purcell’s license plate number. But Madison didn’t add that license plate detail. Maybe she didn’t want to face it.
“You don’t believe her, either?”
“I don’t know what to believe now.” She toyed with her hair. “At the time I thought the second woman was just jumping on the bandwagon. The media had publicized the details of the case so much, everyone knew my father’s blue Ford had supposedly been spotted at one of the crime scenes. Anyone who’d seen him in town or simply driving down the street could note his plate number.”
So she did acknowledge the plate detail. Caleb set his glass on the table and leaned back. “But the police didn’t look at it that way.”
“No. Nine women had already been sexually assaulted and then murdered. Public pressure was such that they needed to solve the case as soon as possible.” She gathered up the pizza box, on which she’d set their dirty plates, but before she could head to the kitchen, he stopped her with another question.