She didn’t understand her luck. She was repellant to decent guys and syrup to creeps, and she’d spent more than enough time around men who’d treated her poorly. Ben, for example. She’d once allowed herself to believe she’d fallen in love with him. He’d gotten what he wanted from her, and then he’d been purposefully cruel. Broke off contact. Saw other women. Treated her as if what they’d shared had been nothing. Seeing him again reminded her of how foolish and naive she’d once been.
Well, no more. She was done. She wanted a baby and she would have one, but she’d just eliminate the middleman, so to speak. In a way, the decision was liberating. No more heartbreaks like the one she’d experienced with Michael. No walks of shame after a one-night stand, or waiting for a phone call that would never come. No more! She’d turned thirty-five over the summer and decided it was now or never. Insurance covered most of the treatments, and she had nothing to lose except the painful fear that she’d live out the rest of her life alone.
Sally knew nothing about her sperm donor except his education level, where he’d attended school, and that he lived in a different region of the country. She had a copy of one of his baby pictures, but he hadn’t submitted a photo of himself as an adult. Mr. X, the man who would be the father of her child because she was finished with men and had completely lost hope of ever finding one she trusted enough to make a baby the old-fashioned way, was an enigma. But thank goodness for reproductive technology.
She bit her lip. She didn’t want to talk about Mr. X. He was the white flag she was waving at her future. Yes, she appreciated his help, but he sort of depressed her, too.
“The doctor says it’s probably too early for symptoms, and that I should feel grateful for any day I wake up and feel like eating breakfast.” She looked at Tessa’s large gray eyes. “But you know? I worry. I do. I worry about being too happy and getting too attached. I feel like I’ve been swimming upstream. I thought I was having a baby with Michael, and look how that turned out.” The memory was still painful. “I just want something to go my way for once. Perfectly and easily my way.”
“Oh, honey.” Tessa grasped her hand warmly again, between hers. “It will. I want this for you, too.”
Sally squeezed her friend’s hands before gently pulling back. “Anyway, I haven’t been thinking about it much since I found out last week that I was pregnant, because I have this trial. Had this trial.” She twirled her straw around in her glass. “What am I going to do?” She brought her elbow to the table and rested her forehead on her hand. “I’m so finished. Ben is going to find something, and he’s going to ruin me with it. I just know he is.”
Tessa arched her elegant brown eyebrows. “What makes you sure he’s out to get you? I met him, and he seems like a nice guy. Straightforward.”
“Ben is not nice,” Sally informed her. “If his picture was in a dictionary, it would be filed under ‘nice, antonyms.’ He is the anti-nice, and now he’s my coworker. Oh, and he’s reviewing my file, and he’s going to ruin my life. Et cetera.” She paused. “He wants me to stop sneering at him. He says that I need to give him a second chance.”
Tessa raised her eyebrows. “You held out on me! A second chance—what’s that, like a date?”
She shifted in her seat. Suddenly, there wasn’t enough air in the room. “It’s not a date. It’s more like blackmail.”
Tessa chuckled. “Blackmail? Yeah, right. A man who looks like Ben McNamara can blackmail me that way anytime.”
Sally felt an odd flash at her friend’s light remark, a twitch that felt something like jealousy. She tugged at the diamond stud in her right earlobe. No, not jealousy. She’d have no reason for that. The feeling must be protectiveness. “You wouldn’t like Ben. Besides, you should watch out for him.”
“Oh? Why’s that?”
“He likes brunettes.” Sally refolded the cloth napkin in her lap. “He also likes redheads, and blondes, so...”
“Okay, I got it. He’s one of those.” Tessa grinned. “But, Sally, you’re acting so funny about all of this. Since when have you been intimidated by anyone? We’ve worked together for years, and you’ve never struck me as someone who gives a damn what others think.”
She didn’t care what Ben thought. She was certain of that. She also wasn’t about to rehash their entire history right now, just as she and Tessa were finishing up lunch. They needed to get back to work, and things with Ben were complicated. They’d dated for three months, during which time she’d fallen completely in love with him. It could have been a happy ever after, until he’d gone and betrayed her.
She felt heat creeping up her neck. “I prefer to work with people with integrity, that’s all.”
Tessa dabbed at the side of her mouth with her napkin, then opened her purse as the check appeared. “You’re not going to lose your job.”
Sally shook her head. “You don’t know—”
“You’re not going to lose your job because you’re too clever for that. Lunch is my treat, by the way.” Tessa slid a credit card over the check. “Considering the day you’re having, it would be unconscionable for us to go dutch.”
Sally barely registered the gesture. “What do you mean, I’m too clever?”
“I mean that if Ben’s going to review your file, you’re going to review Ben’s. You’re going to be his partner on this. You know that case. You know the weaknesses and the strengths better than anyone else. If you don’t trust him, then don’t let him out of your sight.” She shrugged as if it was truly that simple. “It’s not like this is a formal peer review. All Jack wants is a second set of eyes so that he can put some spin on it for the press. The way I see it, you stand your ground, supervise Ben while appearing to just be helpful, and you come out looking like a hero.”
“How do you figure?”
“I know you. You didn’t make a mistake on that file. I also know the crime lab, and they triple-check everything. So I’m thinking that you’re either looking at some kind of terrible scam or publicity stunt by Mr. and Mrs. Kruger, or you’re looking at something very grim.”
Her words settled against the bottom of Sally’s stomach like a brick. “You think—”
“You know exactly what I think.” Tessa leaned closer and dropped her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “I think that if the forensic evidence shows that someone was murdered in that house, then someone was murdered in that house.”
“Yes.” Sally nodded slowly. “Someone was murdered, and we just got the wrong victim.”
She ruminated on this idea as they walked back to the office. The wrong victim—was it actually possible? Her head ached.
Before she reached her office, she stopped at the little closet of an office where Ben would be working. This was the worst office in the building, hands down. She sort of pitied him for it. He was sitting at his desk, absorbed in some kind of reading material. Her files. “Hey,” she said.
He looked up, and her traitorous heart kicked. “Hey.”
Sally cleared her throat. “The judge granted the motion, so Mitch Kruger will be released from prison.”
Ben nodded solemnly. “Okay. Thanks for keeping me informed.”
She ran her tongue into the corner of her mouth. “There are food trucks out by the park if you haven’t had lunch. I’ve already eaten, but I wanted to tell you.”
He glanced out the window and then gave her a vague smile. “Maybe later. Thanks.”
She felt as if she was having that dream where she was caught naked in public. A flush crept up her chest, and she turned to leave.
“Hey, Sally?”
She glanced back over her shoulder. “Yes?”
“I got permission from Jack to include you in this investigation. We’re good to go.” He gave her a half grin that made her think sexy things that she shouldn’t be thinking. “You’ll have to let me know your availabi
lity. I’ll find the perfect place.”
She glowered at him. So dinner with Ben was really going to happen? “Whatever,” she said. “But don’t expect me to have time for dessert.”
She didn’t wait for a response before turning and leaving the room. Dinner with Ben. After ten years, this was really happening.
She would have scolded herself for entering into such a corrupt bargain at a time of weakness, if she wasn’t so horrified by the shiver of excitement that the thought sent through her.
Chapter 4
Ronnie slid the glass door shut behind her and stepped onto the back patio. More leaves had come down last night, red and yellow ones that littered the cement. She didn’t know a thing about leaves, or what kinds of trees these came from. They were pretty, though. She swept them off to the side with her foot to create an open space. Then she shook a cigarette from her pack, placed it between her lips and lit it with the old purple lighter she’d found at the bottom of a drawer. She took a drag, inhaling the smoke.
The lighter barely had enough fluid in it. James had probably been using it to light candles and incense. The kid was weird about things like that, all his candles and scented things. He was lucky he hadn’t burned the house down yet. She flicked the cigarette butt with her thumb, sending a shower of ashes to the ground.
She hadn’t been exactly honest with Mitch about her smoking. He’d be upset. She hadn’t smoked since James was a baby. Back then he’d giggle and grab at smoke rings as she blew them, but she’d stopped when he’d developed pneumonia. Quit cold turkey. Because I care about my family. I fight like hell for my family.
This past year was no different. This was fighting like hell, going through hell, if she was honest. She’d enjoyed Vegas when she and Mitch made a long weekend of it fifteen years ago, but now she saw it was a dump. The lights and sounds of the place exhausted her, and Vegas was no fun unless you had the money to play. Turns out you needed a lot more money than the amount she’d had to hide out comfortably. Steak dinners? No way. Drinks at fancy bars? Out of the question. After she got her new ID set up, she’d found a job waiting tables ten hours a day, and she was still lucky to be able to afford a take-out pizza every now and then.
She took another drag of the cigarette. Small price to pay for keeping your family together. She had to keep reminding herself of that. Ronnie was a family woman. Without her husband and her son, she had nothing, and she’d thought of them every day during that long eleven months in virtual isolation. It was nice to be home. Nothing beat that.
The handle of the sliding glass door clicked behind her, and she dropped the cigarette to the ground, stamping it beneath her heel. Seconds later the door slid open, and James poked his head into the cool air. “Mom? What are you doing?”
“Getting some air, sweetie.”
He hated when she called him that—she could see it in his scowl and the duck of his head. But she couldn’t help it. She loved that kid, and she was glad he’d agreed to move back home. “Wanna join me?” She held out her arm in invitation.
He hesitated, but then stepped outside. Sniffed. “You’re smoking.” His tone was accusatory.
She rolled the cigarette beneath her shoe before picking up the remains and tucking them into her pocket. “Don’t tell Dad.”
James turned his head away, but kept an eye on her, studying her with a sidelong gaze. “You haven’t smoked since I was little. Smoking will give you cancer.”
She loved teenagers. She’d worked as a nurse at the high school for over ten years, and they’d never changed. Every one of them walked around as if no one had ever known anything before they came along. “Is that right? So that must be why they call them cancer sticks.”
She’d missed him, the sound of his voice, their conversations together. When he was a baby her only goal had been to kiss him a million times, and then he’d grown into a sullen teenager who’d stopped telling her where he was going, and with whom. Then her goal was to get him to confide in her, just a little, as he used to. In the months she’d been alone, she’d had plenty of time to think about James as he used to be, back when he’d rushed home to tell her about his day.
She leaned across the space between them to pull him closer, tousle his hair and wrap her arm around him, but he stepped out of her reach.
Ronnie swallowed the tension in her throat and let her arm fall uselessly at her side. Shrug it off. No big deal, the kid needs some space. He needed lots of it.
The wind rustled the trees, sending a shimmer of yellow leaves to the ground. They stood breathing in the cool air for a few minutes. Ronnie hadn’t expected to be happy to be back in this climate after those months in the desert, but she’d missed the unpredictable weather. There was a certain romance in rainfall, and she missed the trees.
“It’s weird that you’re back here,” James suddenly offered. His head was still turned so as not to make direct eye contact with her. “I thought you were dead. How could you run away like that?”
His voice trembled, his emotions barely restrained. He’d always been a sensitive kid. Ronnie patted her back pocket, where she’d stashed her cigarettes, and then thought better of lighting up in front of him. He was right, and she should set a good example.
“I didn’t run away,” she replied in her best mom voice. Calm to the verge of impatience. “I’ve told you, I was very confused. I’d had a terrible shock.” She leaned a shoulder against the side of the house and watched him. “I only regained my memory a few days ago, and what did I do?” She waited for a response that didn’t come. “James, what did I do? What did I do when I regained my memory?”
He shifted to his other foot and looked as if he desperately did not want to answer her. “I don’t know—”
“I came right home. As soon as I regained my memory, I came home to you and Dad. It was like I woke up, and in a flash—” she snapped her fingers for emphasis “—I knew where I belonged.”
He continued to stare out at the backyard, at the edge of the property where the neighbor’s clothesline was coming into view as the tree that normally shielded the properties from each other shed its leaves. Ronnie sighed and edged closer to him. He’d barely come near her, except to offer a stiff hug. He was probably in shock, and who could blame him? This was all just temporary. She wanted to tell him everything, to explain what a sacrifice she’d made for the good of the family. If you only knew what I’ve been through, James. What Dad and I did to protect this family from falling apart. But that was it: teenagers only thought they knew everything.
“I missed you,” she said softly. “I’d take back the past year if I could. I missed you so much.”
The hard lines of his shoulders relaxed, and he finally spared her a direct glance. “I missed you, too, Mom.” He turned away again.
It was a start.
He scuffed his foot across the cement, scraping at a leaf. “Dad hates me, you know. ’Cause I was going to testify that I thought he killed you.”
Ronnie’s heart clutched. She’d understood when she’d left that she’d be making certain sacrifices, but she hadn’t fully appreciated how her absence would affect her son. “That’s not the way it is with your dad.” She tried to keep her voice even. “He understands. You were confused. Everyone was.”
The look in James’s eyes sent a chill through her. “You don’t get it. He’s never going to forgive me. I helped send him to jail.”
She rubbed her tense jaw. Sleep had been eluding her for days, and when it came, she often ground her teeth and woke with a splitting headache. “He’ll come around. We’ll get back to normal.” She paused. “Well, as soon as that prosecutor stops nosing around.”
Her shoulders tightened just thinking about the interview at the prosecutor’s office yesterday. Ronnie could tell by the way Sally Dawson had looked at her that she had it out for her and Mitch. There wa
s nothing for her to find, of course, but that was beside the point. She could make their lives hell. She could tear apart their family, ruin everything for which Ronnie had sacrificed.
“She’s not gonna do anything, Mom.” James sighed. “She probably just has paperwork or something to fill out.”
“I don’t think so.” Ronnie’s fingers itched for the cigarettes again, but she caught herself in time. Months of chain-smoking, and now she was home and required to be on her best behavior. “She’s not going to let it go. She thinks something happened here.”
James stiffened. “Did something happen?”
“What?” Ronnie studied his figure, awkwardly settled in place, looking as if he was leaning while standing straight up. “No, of course not. Just an argument that got a little out of hand, that’s all.” She paused. “But I’ll tell you, I saw a different side of your father that night. A side of him that frankly scared me to death.”
Her son’s eyes were fixed on her now, watching intently. “Did... What did he do?”
She wrapped her arms around her chest as a breeze blew past them. “It wasn’t what he did. It was that I saw what he was capable of doing when pushed into a corner.” She took a deep breath. “The first thing I told him when I came home was that I don’t ever want to see that side of him again. He swore I wouldn’t. That’s the only reason I agreed to stay here, and it’s the only reason I pressed you to come home.” She shivered, running her hands up and down her arms. “But I worry about what will happen if that prosecutor keeps pursuing this case, James. I really do.”
“What do you think will happen?” His voice was barely a croak.
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