by Diane Bator
Her imagination changed gears into overdrive. What if the dark figure had buried drugs or cash in the backyard and had come back to retrieve it? Nah, she guessed her neighbor Mitch had wandered outside rather than into the bathroom. When she opened the window, to let in the cool night air, the unmistakable sound of a shovel stabbing into the dirt set the fine hairs of her neck on end.
Lucy watched, torn between running outside to find out what was really going and standing watch in case the figure with the shovel was tensed and ready for a fight. She had nothing to fight back with. When the shovelling stopped, she pressed her face against the screen, positive the dark figure had dropped something into the earth before refilling the hole.
She tiptoed back to the front of the house and peered out her bedroom window hoping for a glimpse of a car, the man’s face, anything to give her a clue. She waited, breath stuck in her throat, but no one appeared.
Either Mitch had buried something in his own backyard or someone else lurked in the shadows of Bishop Street.
Chapter 5 ~ Danny
Danny sat back and rolled down the car window to let in the early evening air. He should be working on his half-demolished house or on a date with Katie. Instead, he sat wedged in the Honda, yet again, watching a whole lot of nothing. Most evenings, Clancy was around to keep an eye on things, but tonight he’d left the house with other plans. Not like anything happened at Lucy’s house once the sun went down anyway.
“Hey, Clancy.” Mitch waved from his front porch swing, a case of beer at his feet. Apparently, he was waiting for a spontaneous party to break out. His gray-haired chest glowed inside is unbuttoned shirt, a definite improvement from earlier when he wore no shirt at all. “No one wants to drink with me tonight. They’re all busy and your dad hasn't been home in days. How’s your mom doing, by the way?”
“I’m heading over to see her now. She’s been having a rough time lately, but can’t wait to come home.” Clancy glanced across the street, but didn’t acknowledge Danny. “What about Lucy? She looked like she could use a good stiff drink.”
“I tried her already.” Mitch belched and waved him off with a sunburned hand. “She’s got the kids to deal with. That and she doesn’t like me much.”
Clancy unlocked the car door. “Why would you say that?”
Mitch sighed with an invisible weight on his reddened shoulders. He’d be in a lot of pain once he sobered up. “ Apparently, Lucy was hurt bad when that louse of a husband of hers left. I think she’s got a problem with men.”
“Maybe it’s because you’re married.” Clancy shrugged.
“Yeah. Maybe.” He tossed an empty bottle to one side and opened another. The discarded bottle rattled off the cement steps into the flowerbed below. “I guess she’s happier sitting at her computer anyway. I’ve never even read anything she’s written. To tell you the truth, I don’t even think she’s a writer. I think she’s really one of those phone sex girls.”
Danny stifled a smile. He’d never considered that idea. Maybe he should find a way to tap her phone. Leo would probably be able to rig something.
Clancy burst into laughter then coughed and stared at Mitch. “Phone sex? That’s a good one, Mitch. Have a beer for me.”
“I’m serious.” He stumbled down the front steps and trampled over April’s flowerbed. “Have you ever talked to her?”
“Nothing below a yell I’m afraid.” When Clancy’s voice softened, Danny sat upright. What had he missed earlier?
“She’s got a real nice radio voice. You know, one of those sexy, late night shows. Hell, I’d sit up and listen to her all night. Lucy’s a nice girl when she’s not yelling at people. You should ask her out sometime.” Mitch steadied himself on the hood of Clancy’s red sports car. “You working on somebody’s tattoo tonight?”
Clancy flinched. “No, I’m going to visit Mom and Dad at the hospital.”
“Say hi for me. I’m just going to sit here and wait for my fat, grouchy wife to get home.” Mitch let out a deep sigh then wove back through the middle of the flower beds to his front porch.
“See you later.” Clancy drove off slowly then sped up after he passed Lucy’s house.
Danny hesitated. He should stick around and keep an eye on her, but had a feeling there’d be no more action on Bishop Street tonight. He’d be better off catching up with Katie or working on the house.
Lucy’s upstairs light was on. She sat near the window, staring at her laptop screen, her face bathed in the blue-white light like the angels his mother used to hang on their Christmas tree every year. How many other men stared at her? If she were anyone else, he’d tell her to move her desk away from the window or at least close her curtains. Both would prevent him from his job.
Danny slid in an Otis Redding disc and weighed his options. he could wait for Clancy to get home, sit in front of Lucy’s house and wait for nothing to happen, or call Katie. His body ached. He’d sat in the Honda for most of the day watching Lucy, but hadn’t seen anything abnormal aside from neighbors mowing lawns and lounging on porches. Once she and the kids returned from their walk, Lucy hadn’t made another appearance.
He could be in the city chasing real criminals or even working on his house. Instead, he’d wasted weeks in a hot car waiting for some petite housewife to do something. Anything. He gave Katie a call and had to hold the phone away from his sweaty cheek. “Hey, how’s your day?”
She blew out a sigh. “Crazy busy. We had a couple busloads of tourists come through today. How about you?”
Danny groaned. “I’m ready to light firecrackers in the street for a little excitement. I’ve never done such a boring job in my life. Usually there’s at least something going on.”
“Between stock arriving and tourist buses coming through, the store’s been busy. The heat’s making people lazy. All they want to do is curl up with a good book.” Katie owned the only bookstore in town and sold both new and used books. “I’m nearly done my paperwork. What are you up to? Why don’t you swing by and we can get a late dinner?”
“Still doing surveillance.” Danny shifted in his seat. His butt prickled with sleep and he ached for a good cup of coffee. Katie’s sigh made him cringe. Hannah was right. If he kept brushing her off, he’d lose her by the end of the summer.
Katie yawned. “Who are you investigating? Anyone I know? I could help.”
“It’s confidential.” Danny sat up straighter when Lucy got out of her chair and moved away from the window. He needed to send a report to his client and had nothing to write except “spends lots of time at the playground” and “hasn’t left the house all day.”
“Oh yeah?” She sounded intrigued. “A murder case? Fraud? Did you find another runaway money-launderer in town?”
Danny grinned as she referred to how they’d met. Katie was a huge part of his previous case and a major cause of his temporary break from the police force. “No dead bodies so far, definitely no money, and the way it looks now, not even any fraud. Just dead ends.”
She laughed. “Then pick me up and let’s go do something fun.”
He hesitated. “I can’t.”
“I thought you had someone else on the case. Let him know you’re leaving and take a break,” she suggested. “That way you can finish the house and maybe take on a more interesting case, especially if this one seems to be a dead end.”
“I can’t. He’s not home.”
Katie gave an exaggerated sigh. “Well, I guess I’ll have to find another boyfriend who talks to me in person instead of by phone and texts.”
“I don’t text you. I like hearing your voice.” Danny threw his baseball cap on the seat and blew out a breath. “I do need to take a break though. My legs are cramping and I need real food.”
“It’s not a life-or-death case, is it?” Katie asked.
“Supposedly.” So far there was nothing to back up his client’s claims. No unexplained numbers in her phone records. No strange men dropping by during the night. Nothing except a lo
nely woman trying to keep up with three children.
Katie broke the silence. “Then let’s get some dinner. You can watch the grass grow again tomorrow.”
Lucy walked past her window and turned out the hallway light. She settled back in front of her computer screen where she’d probably remain in her chair until she collapsed into her bed in the wee hours.
Danny groaned. “I’ll be right over.”
Chapter 6 ~ Lucy
While the kids ate breakfast, Lucy selected clothes from their closets and made stacks of outfits on her bed. No suitcases in the closet. She groaned. Had Roger taken them all when he left? Nothing in Roger’s old closet, but a couple ratty ties. He hadn’t left much behind.
She scowled and went down to the basement. Inside the storage room, tucked behind a large box, she found an old suitcase large enough for the boys to share. Next to the suitcase sat a smaller travel bag. She’d seen both bags before, but was sure—positive, actually—Roger took them to Newville when he moved in with Cynthia.
Odd, she didn't remember him returning them to the storage room. She eased them off the shelves and lugged them up the stairs. Both bags seemed heavier than they should have been, particularly the larger suitcase. She set them on the floor then heaved the larger one onto the bed and opened it carefully. Inside lay a smaller, newer suitcase. Roger’s travel bag.
“That’s weird. Why would he leave that one here? He takes that thing everywhere.” At least she could use it for Gina’s clothes and put their swim suits and beach toys in the travel bag. When she pulled out the new suitcase, something shifted. She frowned.
Inside the new suitcase was a shaving kit he’d insisted leaving behind on one of his business trips. Attached to the zipper was the tag Gina had made when she was four with “I love you, Daddy” scrawled in tiny letters. She opened the shaving kit to reveal a white plastic bag.
As she unrolled the bag, the objects inside jingled. Her breath caught in her throat. Drugs didn’t jingle. She dumped several small plastic bags on the bedcover. Jewelry. A gold locket, a silver ring and a large amethyst set in gold. In other bags, he’d tucked business cards, one per bag. Odd souvenirs. Wide-eyed, Lucy tried to make sense of her find. Was Roger Stephen, her husband for so many years, a jewel thief?
Feet hammered the stairs and voices tumbled over each other. In a panic, Lucy covered the bags with the kids’ clothes. They’d ask questions she had no answers to.
Gina leaped onto the bed, narrowly missing the mound of clothes. “Can we go to the playground? We’re bored.”
Parker leaned against the end of the bed. “Yeah. Shawn and Gina are fighting so it might be a good way to split them up for a while.”
“Good thinking.” Lucy forced a smile. “Who’s the parent here, anyway?”
“Not you.” Shawn stood in the doorway, lower lip in a pout and nostrils flared. “You’re too busy with your books.”
Lucy flinched. Roger’s words exactly. A week away with his father would either make Shawn hate her more, if that were possible, or help him see the man he idolized in a different light. She didn’t hold out much hope for her son to have a drastic change of heart.
“I see you found some suitcases.” Parker moved between them and broke the tension.
She nodded. “Yeah, they were down in the storage room. Looks like you each get your own suitcase.”
“Good.” Shawn turned his back. “Let’s go before you go back to writing or whatever you were doing and forget about taking us out.”
Lucy held her tongue. While she didn’t deserve his wrath, fighting with him now would only give Roger more ammunition against her. She left the clothes and jewelry on the bed and made a stop for the bathroom to refocus. Shawn’s words tore at her heart, but she couldn’t let him see that. Losing Roger was painful enough.
She shoved on a pair of sunglasses and grabbed her tote bag she dragged everywhere. As she locked the front door, she glanced around, grateful for no sign of the blue car or any of her neighbors. While Parker chased Gina around the park and Shawn settled beneath the slide, Lucy sat on the wooden bench and attempted to write an article in one of Parker’s old scribblers.
Distracted, she made a couple lists. The list of things to do before the kids left filled two pages. Her list of things to do while they were away was more limited since her family lived a couple thousand miles away and she had no car. Roger and the kids had been her whole world. She needed to find something to keep her spirits up and keep her busy while the kids were away.
Her mind wandered, still stuck on finding the jewelry in the suitcase.
“Look at me, Mommy.” Gina’s voice rang out from across the playground.
Lucy glanced up and smiled, but her mind shifted to the past, not registering anything her eyes saw. For as long as they had been together, Roger tried to control everything she thought and did. He’d moved them across the country away from friends and family and flatly refused to get a car. Once she was completely dependent on him, he’d abandoned her. When she’d mentioned moving back to Seattle with the kids, he swore he’d fight her for custody.
Lucy glanced around. No blue cars, just a lone lady walking her dog. She sighed and went back to doodling in the scribbler and thinking.
During the last year of their marriage, a lot of things had changed. Roger grew distant and always seemed angry with her and the kids. The Saturdays he’d once spent bowling or biking with she and the kids became just another day of the week. His entire schedule grew more erratic and phone calls came at odd hours.
Even with her wild imagination, Lucy never thought Roger would cheat on her, let alone become a jewelry thief. Sure, she’d found forgotten phone numbers scratched onto the corners of papers she found on laundry day. She’d even found a couple women’s business cards and, some days, she’d fantasize he was an undercover agent or hired assassin. The trigger for her first novel.
Lucy sighed and stared at the sand. Her novel. She’d completed the manuscript for Deceivers two years ago and submitted chapters to several publishers, but still waited for someone, anyone, to love her book as much as she did. Most replied with the generic “thanks, but no thanks.” Two agents had requested manuscripts and she hadn’t heard from either since.
She made a note on her scribbler to follow up with them, then drew a happy face. A reminder to stay positive and look at the bright side of things. Even with a job, she could squeak in an hour after the kids went to bed to write and work on building a writing career.
A shriek caught her attention. Gina soared on the swing as Parker pushed her. Shawn burrowed in the sand beneath the slide to dig his way to China or Australia. His destination changed day to day.
Lucy managed a weak smile, selfishly grateful all three kids looked more like her than Roger so she didn’t have to look at his mini clones every day. She’d never be able to walk away from such great kids the way Roger had.
Hard to believe one lousy phone call had flipped their whole world upside down four months earlier. Right after she’d taken a pregnancy test. Their fourth child was on the way.
“May I speak to Roger Stephen, please.” Cynthia’s voice rang inside Lucy’s head as though she’d called that morning.
“Roger’s not in right now.” She’d wanted to hurry the woman off the phone so she could tell her husband to come home early and pick up dinner from the Thai place to celebrate. “May I take a message?”
“Of course you can, darling. You are his secretary and that is your job, isn’t it?” Cynthia said. “Please tell him I won’t be able to meet this evening. I’ve had a change of plans.”
Lucy had tapped her fingers on the counter. “No problem. Who shall I say called?”
“Cynthia. His girlfriend.”
Her stomach dropped. As the dial tone buzzed in her ear, Lucy had stared at the clock in disbelief. She’d tried to call Roger’s cell phone several times, but her calls went unanswered. Her calls to his office went straight to voice mail. Cynthia was mista
ken. There had to be a logical explanation.
By the time her husband walked through the front door at nine o’clock, Lucy’s hands shook and she’d fought to keep her voice. She tried to give him the benefit of the doubt. “I had a call from your girlfriend today.”
Roger had paled before he turned away and opened the fridge for a beer. “I’m sure you probably misunderstood. I don’t have a girlfriend.”
Deep in her stomach, Lucy believed the woman on the phone over her husband. “Somehow, I don’t think so.”
He’d opened his beer and took a long drink. “What makes you think I’d cheat on you?”
She’d folded her arms across her chest, chilled from shock and anger. “Let’s run down the list, shall we? You’re out late every night of the week. Come home with phone numbers written on bar napkins in your pockets. Women call at all hours. Oh, and this one actually said she was your girlfriend.”
“Oh, yeah? What was her name?”
Lucy bit back the woman’s name and lied. “She didn’t say, but she sounded snobby.”
Roger shook his head and snorted. “You have a great imagination, Luce. Stick to fiction and keep your nose out of my business.”
“Then don’t forward your calls to the house.” She’d put her hands on her hips, indignant he took her accusations so lightly. “If you want me to keep my nose out of your business, then keep your business out of my house.”
“It’s my house, princess.” He’d all but dared her to argue. “You just get to live here.”
Lucy’s entire body had vibrated with anger. “Are you for real?”
He’d shrugged and drank his beer like they discussed the weather. “You know what? After living with you for eleven years, it’s time I had a little fun in my life. What happened to the woman who used to wear slinky dresses and come to parties with me?”
“You knocked her up and left her at home with four kids then moved her away from her friends and family. Since she’s not exactly a size two anymore, you don’t want to be seen with her in public.” Four kids. When Lucy realized she’d let her secret slip, she’d held her breath, waiting to see if he’d noticed or would continue to argue.