Lying With Strangers

by Jonnie Jacobs

  The man seemed to hesitate. “Not necessary,” he said finally. “I’ll give her a buzz later.”

  Chloe was determined to be so efficient Diana wouldn’t let her go. If she could overlook the traffic stop, that is.

  She checked caller ID on the phone and wrote down the man’s telephone number.

  Chapter 31

  Diana’s head was still spinning from her conversation with Alec Thurston. She rolled down the car’s window and motioned to the driver behind her that she wasn’t leaving her parking spot just yet. Not until she’d had a moment to collect her thoughts.

  When people used to ask Roy why he’d chosen to become a prosecutor, he’d sometimes quip that it was his fallback once he realized the position of Superman wasn’t available. The comment, delivered with Roy’s customary dry humor, always got a laugh, but Diana suspected it was closer to the truth than he realized. Roy was passionate about seeking justice for victims and making sure wrongdoers paid for their crimes. While he wasn’t so naive as to believe that life fell neatly into camps of black and white, his worldview was colored with very few shades of gray. Which was why Diana was having a hard time believing that Roy had made an off-the-record deal with this Jamal Harris, especially one that involved evidence tampering.

  Then again, she was having a hard time believing much of what she’d learned about her husband of late. That he’d cleaned out a substantial portion of their savings. That he’d been a prime suspect in the murder of Miranda Saxton. That he’d lied to Diana about so many things, not the least of which was his own identity. As painful as it was, Diana needed to face facts—the man she’d loved was a charlatan and probably worse.

  But he was also Jeremy’s father, and more than anything, that caused Diana anguish.

  Jeremy adored his father. Whether Roy was coaching him on the best grip for holding a bat or explaining the workings of the criminal court system (in more detail than Diana deemed necessary for a seven-year-old), Jeremy lapped up the time spent with his dad. Some days she’d watch them together—the small boy with a cowlick at his temple and a sprinkling of freckles across his nose, and the slender, dark-haired man with a gentle manner and a twinkle in his eyes—and she’d experience a hiccup of what could only be envy, although she was loathe to admit it. Fathers and sons spoke a language all their own. It was a bond as elemental and absolute as the morning sun.

  How could Diana ever explain what Roy had done in a way that wouldn’t destroy Jeremy’s memory of his father?

  Diana was suddenly relieved that she would no longer be writing her column. Light and funny weren’t part of her vocabulary anymore. In fact, she was having trouble remembering that they ever had been.

  But she did have that one final column to turn in, and an increasingly short window in which to get it done.

  Diana rubbed the back of her neck and sighed. Chloe would have picked Jeremy up from school by now, but Diana could still get in a couple of hours at her computer, knock the damned thing out, and be done with it. The column was one of the few loose ends in her life she could actually wrap up. One of the few things over which she had some control.

  *****

  “You had another phone call,” Chloe told her when Diana walked into the house. “I would have let the machine pick it up, but Jeremy answered before I could stop him.” She looked contrite. “I’m sorry.”

  Diana brushed Chloe’s apology aside with a wave of her hand. There were enough important things to worry about. “Who was it?”

  “A friend of your husband’s. From the old days, he said.”

  Diana’s heart skipped a beat. “Did he leave his name?”

  Chloe shook her head. “He said he’d call back, but I wrote down the number for you from the caller ID.”

  She handed Diana a square of paper with a phone number on it. “Also,” Chloe said, taking a breath and lowering her gaze to the floor, “I need to tell you I got stopped by a cop today.”

  Diana was only half listening. Her mind had frozen at the phone number Chloe had written down. One with the same area code as Fusco’s—eastern Georgia. A friend from the old days.

  “Were you speeding?” she asked absently.

  “No,” Chloe stammered, “I made an illegal U-turn. In a business district.”

  “We went to Fenton’s to celebrate,” Jeremy explained. “I had the best poster in the whole class.”

  “That’s great, honey.” Diana smiled, tried to convey an appropriate degree of enthusiasm. Her mind was focused on the mysterious caller.

  “He let me off with a warning,” Chloe continued, her gaze still on the floor. “I’m so sorry. I promise I’ll be more careful in the future.”

  “The cops along that stretch are notorious. You were lucky to get off with warning.” Diana turned the conversation back to the phone call. “What did the caller sound like? Male?”

  “Yeah, it was a man. A southern accent, I think, but not too thick. He didn’t say a whole lot, just that he’d call back later. Oh, and he asked if I knew how long your husband had lived in California.”

  Diana’s shivered involuntarily. Someone besides Diana had made the connection between Roy and Brian Riley.

  That didn’t prove that Roy was Brian, she told herself. But the odds were certainly greater.

  *****

  While Chloe straightened up the house and prepared dinner, Diana worked on her column. She’d decided to write about endings and beginnings. It wasn’t the memorable, touching piece she’d imagined as her literary farewell, but it was a good column, something she wasn’t embarrassed to put her name on.

  She read it through one last time and then emailed it to Jack Saffire at the paper. Surprisingly, she didn’t feel the sense of regret she’d expected to feel. She no longer had anything in common with the witty and sometimes clever columnist who’d found joy in the ironies, and lessons, of domestic life.

  Downstairs, she was greeted by happy chatter and the warm, comfortable aromas of food cooking.

  “I made pasta,” Chloe announced. “And a salad. I bought butter lettuce like you said, but they were out of mixed greens so I got baby romaine instead.”

  “And I got to tear up the lettuce,” Jeremy added.

  Diana poured herself a glass of wine and sat at the table next to Jeremy. “Tell me about your science presentation,” she said.

  *****

  Dinner was a relaxed affair during which Chloe and Jeremy kept up a lively conversation, allowing Diana a little breathing room. Sometimes Jeremy’s nonstop questions wore her out. Not the way Emily’s sullenness had, but still, it was nice to have some of his comments directed elsewhere.

  Jeremy scooted off after dinner to play a computer game, and while Chloe cleared the table, Diana remained seated and finished her wine. Out of the blue, Chloe gave a little cry, and put her hand to her belly.

  “What is it?” Diana asked. Dear God, let it be nothing. She didn’t need a nanny with appendicitis. Not now, on top of everything else.

  “Nothing.” Chloe steadied herself with a hand on the counter. Then a slow, secret smile of wonder lit up her face, and it spoke volumes to Diana.

  “Are you pregnant?” Diana asked without thinking.

  The smile vanished as quickly as it had appeared as Chloe bit her lower lip and looked at Diana in surprise. “How’d you guess?”

  “Your expression.”

  The smile returned. “It was amazing, the first time I’ve felt the baby. Like butterfly wings. Like, she’s actually real.”

  Diana sat back, stunned. “Good lord.”

  “I’m sorry. I should have told you. I didn’t really mean to keep it a secret. It’s just that everything happened so fast. You needed someone, and I needed a place, and . . .” Chloe gave a helpless shrug. “I’m really, really sorry.”

  So much for my well-ordered new start in life, Diana thought. An attack of appendicitis would have been far simpler to deal with.

  “You must be so angry at me,” Chloe contin
ued. “I don’t blame you. I wasn’t intentionally trying to hide it from you.”

  “You merely neglected to tell me,” Diana said tartly. “It’s a pretty big thing to forget.”

  “Yeah, I know.”

  Diana got up from the table. The relaxing effects of the wine had given way to irritation. “How long were you going to wait before telling me? And don’t you think it’s unfair to take a job like this when you know you’ll be leaving soon?”

  “I’m so, so sorry,” Chloe said. Her voice quivered. “I seem to be saying that a lot lately, don’t I? I’m making one mistake after another.”

  She looked so miserable, Diana’s anger softened. “We never really talked about long term. I probably should have pressed you a bit about your plans before offering you the job.”

  “No, it’s my fault. I should have told you right away.”

  “So what are your plans? Where is the baby’s father? Is he someone you’re involved with still?” Diana realized she didn’t even know if Chloe was married, although she suspected that was not the case.

  Chloe hesitated. “He died.”

  Diana’s anger softened further. “How terrible. What happened?”

  A shadow crossed Chloe’s face. She opened her mouth and then closed it again, disguising her hesitation with a small cough. “He was in the army,” she said finally. “Iraq.”

  “That’s so sad. What about his family? Are you close to them?”

  She shook her head. “He didn’t have any, not that I know about anyway.”

  “Not someone you knew from high school, then?”

  “No. We met at the movies, through, uh, friends.”

  The way she said it made Diana wonder how well she’d known the boy. And how little Diana knew about Chloe and her background.

  “Are you keeping the baby,” Diana asked, “or putting it up for adoption?”

  Chloe’s eyes widened. “I’m keeping it,” she said, in a tone that implied the answer should have been obvious.

  “Have you thought this through? It’s not going to be easy.”

  “I’m a hard worker.”

  And so naive, Diana thought sadly. “How old are you, Chloe?”

  “Eighteen.”

  The same age as Emily, Diana realized with a start. She was suddenly glad that whatever else Emily was, she wasn’t pregnant at eighteen. Then Diana remembered Dog, the boy Emily had mentioned in the fleeting moments of their ride to the airport, and was hit with a wave of anxiety.

  “What about your own family? Did you grow up around here?”

  “Vacaville,” Chloe said. “I never knew my dad. My mom, she was killed in auto accident when I was thirteen.”

  “You’ve had a rough time of it.”

  “I guess.”

  “Where’d you live after your mom died?”

  “Foster care. Mostly in a group home.” Chloe gripped the back of the chair she stood behind. “I really need this job,” she said. “I really like this job, too. I know I messed up, but if you give me another chance, I promise I’ll work hard for you.”

  And when the baby arrives, Diana thought. What then? But it felt wrong to push the question right now. Besides, Diana did need someone to help with Jeremy, and aside from being pregnant, Chloe seemed a perfect fit for the job.

  “You’ve seen a doctor, right?”

  Chloe shook her head. “I guess I should.”

  “Absolutely.” Diana sighed and tried to ignore the knot of tension in her chest. “I’m not going to let you go for being pregnant,” she said, “but I hope you’ll be more up-front with me from now on. There are going to be a lot of things we’ll have to work out. When’s the baby due?”

  “March. Five months from now.”

  Five months, Diana thought. It gave her some time, and a lot could change between now and March.

  Chapter 32

  Despite the brisk fall temperature, Joel’s hands were sweating when he rang the bell to Diana Walker’s big, Tudor-style house. And his brain had gone into freeze mode. The idea of meeting with her face-to-face, which had made so much sense back in Littleton, made no sense to him now.

  At least it appeared that he’d arrived before the cops, which was some relief.

  Joel had been on the brink of calling Diana Walker a second time when Skeet had phoned him.

  “Have you spoken with her yet?” Skeet had asked without preliminaries.

  “No. I called her this afternoon as soon as I checked into the hotel, but she was out.”

  “Better get your butt over there ASAP. The cops are probably on their way as we speak.”

  Joel had been stunned by the announcement. “What? Why?”

  “Monica figured you were up to something and started snooping around. She must have checked your web history because she came across the searches you did on Roy Walker. And then, a copy of that first note you got.”

  Disbelief, and then anger, exploded in Joel’s chest. “What was Monica Couch doing on my computer?”

  “Technically, it’s the paper’s computer. But let’s deal with that another time. She’s apparently been in touch with the local cops out there in California.”

  “What the hell did she do that for?”

  “Monica’s not about to let you get one up on her. She’s like a shark that smells blood.”

  She was a shark, period. “But I flew all the way out here—”

  “Go on then,” Skeet urged, “get moving.”

  And Joel had. Without taking the time to comb his hair or change out of the jeans and sweatshirt he’d worn on the plane, he’d charged out the door of his hotel room, grateful that he’d driven past the house earlier so he knew the way. Fueled as much by his resentment of Monica as his determination to get the story, Joel’s single-minded focus had been to get to Diana Walker.

  But now that he was here, on her doorstep, he wasn’t so sure.

  *****

  The door was opened by a fair-skinned girl in her late teens or maybe early twenties. She was six inches or so shorter than his own five-ten, and cute enough to leave Joel tongue-tied.

  She waited for him to speak, and after a stretch of silence said, “Can I help you?” When he still stood there mutely, she shook her head in defeat. “I don’t know ESP.” She started to close the door.

  “No, wait,” Joel said. “I’m here to see Mrs. Walker. Is she available?”

  “Oh.” The girl smiled. “It’s you. You’re the guy who called here this afternoon.”

  “I am?”

  “Aren’t you?”

  “Yes, but how did you—”

  “Your accent,” she said, and then her smile broadened. As an afterthought, she added, “I kinda like it.”

  “Thank you,” Joel mumbled, troubled both at the “kinda,” which was not a wholehearted endorsement, and because she’d noticed at all. He’d worked hard to rid himself of the accent.

  Joel heard someone coming down the stairs behind the girl. “Who is it, Chloe?”

  Chloe. The name fit the girl. She had a spirited, infectious warmth about her.

  “It’s that man who called earlier,” Chloe called back. “The one whose number I gave you.”

  The woman who appeared at the door behind Chloe was attractive in a stylishly middle-aged sort of way. She had what his father used to refer to as “apple cheeks,” and brown hair with coppery highlights that fell in waves around her face.

  “I’m Diana Walker,” she said. “You wanted to talk to me?”

  Joel held out his hand. “Joel Richards.”

  “You knew my husband, is that what you said? An old friend?” She looked skeptical.

  “In a manner of speaking. May I come in? I’d like to talk with you and it’s not the sort of conversation for the doorstep.”

  Diana Walker hesitated, and Joel thought for sure she was going to close the door in his face. Then she stepped back, inviting Joel in, but with hesitation and bafflement. “Chloe, why don’t you check on Jeremy. Make sure he’s
brushed his teeth and washed his face.”

  She led Joel to a living room with a TV, sofa, and matching loveseat off the main hallway. “How did you know Roy?” she asked. Unspoken, but apparent in her tone, was a hefty dose of suspicion. Joel didn’t know how much Diana Walker knew about her husband’s background, but he could tell from her attitude that something wasn’t sitting right with her.

  “I’m not really an old friend,” Joel said.

  “I didn’t think so. You’re much too young, for one thing.” She pointed him to the sofa and seated herself on the loveseat.

  “I’m sorry,” Joel said. “It just seemed easier to say that than try to explain over the phone.”

  “Explain what?”

  Even before meeting Diana Walker, Joel had decided to ditch the ploy he’d initially come up with to get her talking about her husband. He’d wanted to go slow and lead up to the question of Roy’s identity. But with the local cops on the trail, there wasn’t time for that. Besides, Joel had never been very good at pretense. Now that he’d met Diana, he knew he could never have made much headway following that path, anyway.

  “Who are you?” she asked.

  “I’m a reporter. With the Littleton Post in Georgia.”

  Joel picked up a flash of recognition in her eyes when he mentioned Littleton.

  She crossed her arms over her chest. “I have nothing to say to you.”

  “Hear me out. Please.”

  When she didn’t protest, he continued. “First, I’m sorry about your husband. I know it must be very hard for you. Losing someone you love is always hard, but to lose him to murder, out of the blue . . . well, it must be just awful.”

  She nodded but said nothing.

  He looked around the room. It was done in muted earth tones, comfortable and homey. “Mr. Walker had an outstanding reputation as DA. I know that much from reading about him and talking to others, but I was hoping you could tell me something about childhood, his family growing up.”

  Diana had been sitting motionless throughout his speech, and she continued to sit there now, looking at him, her brow furrowed.

  “His childhood?” she asked finally.