The Once and Future Father

by Marie Ferrarella

  That explains the tempting aroma within the car that was beginning to register, Lucy thought. “Just when I give up on you, you do something sweet.”

  He shrugged. “I’ve got to eat, too.”

  Leaning forward just as they came to a red light, she pressed her fingertips to his lips. “Don’t spoil it. Let me savor the moment.”

  He curbed the sudden, strong urge to kiss her fingers. Instead, he removed her hand and muttered, “Buckle up.”

  Her eyes danced as she sat back. “I already have—and the ride’s not as bumpy as you think.”

  Dylan felt silence was his best option.

  Chapter 11

  Slipping the key into his pocket, Dylan walked in quickly, trying not to think how strange it felt to be in Lucy’s house and not hear sounds that were already becoming so familiar to him. In a little more than two weeks’ time, the routine he followed had become more a part of him than anything he’d done all the years that had come before.

  Coming home to her and then, for the last few days, with her at the end of a long day somehow seemed far more right to him than walking into his own empty apartment ever had.

  He found himself listening for the sound of her voice, or the baby’s whimper, even though he knew they weren’t here. Lucy and Elena were both at her shop. He’d purposely picked this time to do what he had to do without distractions.

  For the last few days, he’d come here just a little after two, when the flow of patrons entering and leaving the Den of Thieves was at a low ebb, to slowly, methodically sift through the things in Lucy’s house. Looking for what had been overlooked by both the police and the men who had broken in.

  So far, he’d found nothing that remotely looked as if it would have been worth the sacrifice of a life.

  Though he’d been the one to put things away after the break-in, it had been done quickly. Then he’d wanted to get things ready for her return. He hadn’t the time to sift and search.

  Common sense told him he probably wouldn’t find anything now, but common sense had been known to be wrong.

  Walking into Lucy’s bedroom, he forced himself to shut out the memories and proceed with what he had to do. He was, first and last, a police detective. If there was something small left in the middle, he wasn’t about to pay any attention to it. It would only interfere.

  But he found himself standing before her bed. Though she’d gotten up late, she’d still taken the time to make it before she left. He would have expected nothing less. Lucy liked to have all the details of her life neat and well organized. Something you would have never guessed just by looking at her. The first time he’d seen her, she’d seemed like such a free spirit. Lightning in a bottle, about to blow out the cork.

  Rousing himself, he crossed to her walk-in closet and opened it. That, too, was organized. No haphazard toss of a blouse here, a skirt there. Everything was hung up, facing the same direction, coordinated by color. Husbanded the way someone who had grown up with nothing, appreciating every tiny new thing, would have done.

  He brushed against the sleeve of a blue silk blouse as he reached for the box that was overhead on the shelf. For a second, he paused and allowed himself one small indulgence, here, in the recesses of her closet, where no one could see. He raised the sleeve to his cheek and let the soft fabric glide along his skin. Dylan felt his stomach tightening as the faint scent of her perfume drifted into his consciousness.

  Damn, he couldn’t stand here, mooning like some pathetic, lovesick adolescent. He had a job to do. There had to be some shred of something he could find to tie some of the ends together, bring at least this part of the investigation to a close and get him to move out of her life.

  Dylan dropped the sleeve in self-disgust and reached for the box. Taking it down, his fingers came in contact with what felt like an envelope.

  Curious, he stretched and reached in farther. It was an envelope. Business-size and manila, its flap was worn as if it’d been the victim of numerous openings and closings.

  Forgetting the box which he’d already gone through once when he’d cleaned away the debris, Dylan sat down on her bed and opened the envelope.

  There were photographs inside. A handful of what appeared to be candid shots. Of memories chemically sealed in time. He stared at the photograph on top. It was of him. Looking at the background, he tried to remember when it could have been taken. He didn’t recall posing for it. But then, Lucy liked to wield that small camera of hers like a professional. Gobbling up moments in time so that she could look at them later, she said. He never liked having his picture taken. It hadn’t stopped her.

  His mouth curved in a smile that was both fond and grim as he slowly went through the photographs. Some of the backgrounds were familiar, some nudged only vague recollections.

  He paused, looking at a photograph that was different from the others. This one was of the two of them. He was standing behind her, his arms encircling her, and he looked as if he was saying something in her ear. She was laughing. There was a kiddie ride just behind them. This was taken at the annual fair Bedford held, he remembered. Ritchie had been with them. She must have given the camera to him and told him to take the shot. Ritchie wasn’t the kind to do something like this on his own. He hadn’t been interested in memories, only the present—and the future.

  Neither of which he had any longer, Dylan thought grimly.

  With the tips of his fingers, he slowly outlined Lucy’s face, so close to his. He remembered that day. Remembered the sound of her laughter, running in his ears. Filtering down to his soul. That was when he’d still thought that…

  Dylan frowned, it didn’t matter what he thought. That he’d believed maybe he wasn’t like his abusive father. That he could break the chain. He’d discovered shortly thereafter that he couldn’t. The rage, the jealousy that had overtaken him when he thought Lucy was seeing someone behind his back showed him otherwise. It had taken everything he had to shut the lid down on it. When he’d discovered it was all a mistake, that she’d been meeting with the man, the husband of a friend of hers, to plan a surprise party for the woman, it had all come crashing in on him. The relief that she had been faithful was outweighed by the reinforcement of his beliefs that he could never marry Lucy. Never be the kind of husband she deserved. The specter of his father, hiding in the shadows, was only waiting to emerge. He couldn’t risk it. Or Lucy.

  Dylan tossed the photograph aside, searching through the remaining stack. Why was she keeping these photographs while she had none of Elena’s father? He’d already been through the albums she kept, all neatly organized and arranged according to date order. He hadn’t expected to find any photographs of himself there, and he hadn’t only because she’d kept them separated. So why weren’t there any of Elena’s father somewhere?

  It didn’t make sense to him.

  Very carefully, he slipped the photographs back into the envelope, and then returned it to its place. He didn’t want Lucy to know he was going through her things, he knew she’d balk at it. Strictly speaking, it was an unlawful search. He was bending the rules, but it was necessary.

  What it wasn’t, he was beginning to think, was fruitful. With a sigh, he finished looking through the box of keepsakes and returned it to its place as well.

  Dylan was beginning to entertain the idea that maybe there wasn’t anything to find. Maybe Ritchie had just been talking, blowing hot air. It wouldn’t have been the first time.

  But this time, it apparently had cost Ritchie his life.

  Still, Dylan felt he had to proceed as if it were true, as if there was something tangible to go on. Which meant having to deal with a great many old memories he’d shut away.

  Memories that came leaping out at him at the worst possible times.

  Quickly, he finished checking the pockets of her skirts and carefully moved the hangers back into position. Nothing in her pockets, nothing inside any of the shoes that were so neatly lined up on the floor. In the back of his mind, he knew he was s
earching for some sort of videotape, but even that wasn’t certain. There might be something else to go on, something else to lead him where he wanted to go. Out of habit, he glanced at his watch as he shut the closet.

  If he didn’t get back soon, he figured he’d probably find his partner swinging off a light fixture. Between the monotony of waiting for something to happen outside the restaurant, waiting for his wife to page him, and staring at indistinguishable white puzzle pieces that were still spread out all over that damned folding card table of his, Watley struck him as a man who looked as if he was coming to the end of his rope.

  Dylan nodded at the off-duty detective sitting in the unmarked car across the street as he hurried to his own vehicle. He wasn’t sure just how much longer he was going to be able to pull in favors and have men guarding Lucy’s house like this. Especially when there was nothing to show for it.

  “Aren’t your friends getting a little tired of playing musical detective yet?” In reply to the silently raised eyebrow, Lucy nodded at the unmarked car they passed as they pulled out of her driveway the following morning. She recognized the man as Kane Madigan. “It’s been more than two weeks now and I’d think that they’d want to get on with their lives.” Shifting in her seat, she looked at Dylan. “For that matter, I’d think you’d want to get on with yours as well.”

  “This is my life.”

  He wasn’t talking about her, but the job. She knew enough not to take the comment personally. She’d made that mistake before about Dylan, taking ambiguous words and making them personal. Thinking that they had something special when he was only passing through.

  She tried to sound nonchalant. “Guarding supposed victims?”

  Dylan heard the edge that came into her voice and ignored it. He didn’t feel like getting into anything. “Yeah.”

  She glanced behind her to make sure that Elena wasn’t uncomfortable. A shiny, toothless face looked back at her. Did he see it, she wondered, the resemblance between himself and the baby? Did it register subconsciously?

  “I’m beginning to think there was no connection between the two break-ins, other than just a very bad streak of luck.” She turned forward again. “Nothing else has happened.”

  She hadn’t told him about Palmero calling. Twice since the funeral, each time suggesting that they get together. She felt like a fly saying no to a spider’s invitation. Although she certainly thought he was slimy and untrustworthy, she couldn’t make herself believe the man had her brother killed. And she was afraid that if she told Dylan the man had made advances, Dylan might fly off the handle at him. She’d decided that Palmero was just hoping to prey on what he perceived to be her vulnerable state. She’d known men like that before.

  “Are you trying to get me off your sofa?” Dylan asked.

  She’d always been strong when she had to be. Why did her grasp on that strength waver so badly whenever it came to him? “I’m trying to get us both to move on with our lives.”

  Taking a turn slowly, he guided his vehicle onto a major thoroughfare. At this hour of the morning, the last of the rush hour traffic was finally beginning to dissipate. “I’ll move on, Lucy, when I’m sure you’re safe.”

  She wanted him gone, yet the thought of not seeing him, of knowing that each day would go by without him in it, dragged tiny, sharp nails across her heart. She had to stop this waffling, she upbraided herself. “And when will that be?”

  “When we get whoever killed Ritchie.”

  The grim answer reminded her that there were far larger issues involved here than just her heart. “You still think whoever did it is the one who broke into my house and my store?”

  He noticed she didn’t mention Palmero by name and wondered if she’d decided that the man hadn’t a hand in it after all. Dylan lifted a shoulder and let it drop carelessly. “Seems logical to me.”

  She stared at his profile for a long moment. Damn it, why, after everything that she’d been through, everything she knew about him, was she still in love with this man?

  Love and lunacy began with the same letter, she reminded herself.

  “And you think you might find him by going through my things?” The look of surprise on his face pleased her. He’d obviously thought she wouldn’t catch on.

  “How did you…?”

  The photographs had been out of order. She’d taken them down last night, prompted by a strong yearning to return to a time when she had still believed in happy endings and that life could be as tidy as her shop. His photograph had always been on top. This time, she discovered the one that had been taken of the two of them at the fair was in its place.

  Lucy smiled at him like someone with a secret that she intended to hold on to just a little longer. “You’re not as good as you think you are about putting things back. What are you hoping to find?”

  Not what he had found, Dylan thought, easing into the flow of traffic on MacArthur Boulevard. “Whatever it is that whoever broke in missed. Something that’s maybe out in plain sight.”

  Traffic came to a dead stop. There were orange cones equidistantly distributed in the next lane, slowly eating up the space and inching their way over to the next lane. Three lanes were reduced to one while someone in their infinite wisdom mandated that the road to the medical complex they were heading toward was under construction.

  Queuing up behind the electric-blue sports car, Dylan spared her a grim look. “Something Ritchie would have died for.”

  She gave voice to what had been bothering her from the very first. “I don’t understand that. Why wouldn’t Ritchie have told them what they wanted to know? Why die for it?”

  Dylan had had trouble with that himself at first. “Revenge. Ritchie was smart enough to know that once they had him in that situation, they’d kill him one way or another. He didn’t want to give them the satisfaction of handing over what they desperately wanted.”

  It still didn’t make any sense to her. “Which would be?”

  “Some kind of evidence. Something to blackmail them with. If we knew what, then I’d know what I was looking for.”

  The next lane finally began to open up. Glancing behind him, he took his opportunity and got into the lane. Without any other cars in front of him, he made up for lost time. They had appointments to keep, or at least, she did.

  “Why don’t you have any photographs of him?”

  The question caught her off guard. It took her a second to answer. “I’ve got plenty of photographs of Ritchie.”

  “No, I mean him.” She knew who he was talking about, he thought. He realized that his hands had tightened on the steering wheel and he forced himself to slacken his fingers. Dylan nodded back toward the baby strapped into her seat. “Elena’s father.”

  Familiar wavering began within her. Lucy refused to pay attention to it. Instead, she kept her face forward, looking through the windshield. “It didn’t last long enough for me to take a photograph.”

  “It lasted less than ten seconds?”

  She ignored the biting sarcasm in his voice. “Felt like it.”

  Guilt pressed heavily down on him. “Was that my fault?”

  Unable to help herself, she slanted a look at him. “Are you asking defensively, or curiously?”

  Frustrated, annoyed, wishing he could just drop the matter and concentrate on what they were paying him to do, he grated, “Whatever way will get me an answer.”

  He wouldn’t even give her that much, would he? Wouldn’t even let her know if he was jealous or if it didn’t matter.

  She drew herself up like a queen, invisible shields going up around her. “Then my answer is don’t waste time going over something in the past. What’s done is done. The only way you live is to move on.” She struggled with the tears she felt forming, forbidding herself to cry. Her voice was quiet when she spoke again. “I learned that a long time ago.”

  Dylan had sworn to himself that he wouldn’t pry, wouldn’t push, but the question had been eating away at him ever since he’d seen h
er rounded belly filled out with someone else’s child. “Why won’t you tell me who it is?”

  She resisted the temptation to wrap her arms around herself for comfort. Dylan was far more in tune to body language than he was to feelings. “Because I don’t want you to know.”

  It didn’t take a brain surgeon to figure that part out. But why? he wondered. “Is it someone I know?”

  Her smile, when she offered it, was sad. “It’s not even someone I know.”

  “Damn it, Lucy—”

  Her head snapped up as she suddenly recognized her surroundings.

  “We’re here.” Dylan pulled into the first available medical complex parking spot. She’d already unbuckled her seat belt and was gathering her purse to her. “If you drop us off, we can get a cab back. Or call Alma—”

  Damn it, she looked like a woman eager to jump ship. Why wouldn’t she answer him? “I’m not dropping you off.” Getting out, Dylan quickly rounded the hood, moving fast to block her way before Lucy had a chance to lift Elena out, infant seat and all, and make her getaway.

  Lucy stared at him. She hadn’t expected this. “You’re coming in with me?”

  Taking Elena from her, he led the way into the brightly lit, eight-story building, one of five that made up the complex. “Looks that way.”

  Lucy found herself hurrying to keep up with him. Just when she thought she saw a pattern, he did something unpredictable and messed everything up. At this rate, she was never going to understand him.

  Not that, she figured, she’d have much time to puzzle him out firsthand. He’d be gone again soon, the only thing that was uncertain was when.

  “Why, do you think the doctor’s going to hold us hostage…?” she quipped dryly.

  He stopped at the bank of elevators, pressing the button for the next available car, ignoring the fact that the three other people who were waiting had already pressed the button ahead of him. “I hope Elena’s not going to pick up on that sarcasm of yours.”