“What’s with you today?” Patsy Benton, owner of Island Dry Cleaners in Coronado, watched as Tricia hung up the garments she’d brought in.
Startled at the pointed look from the woman who was the closest thing she had to a friend these days, Tricia bent down to her bag. She drew out a long brown dress, reached for the cheap metal hanger that gave clothes points where they should be rounded, and shrugged. Taylor was in front playing with Doris, the older woman who handled the counter for Patsy.
“Just tired,” she said when she was fairly sure she could pull off a nonchalant air. Truth was, she needed something from Patsy but hadn’t quite decided whether to ask for it.
The risk was so great. Either way.
“Scott’s at the end of another four-day shift. I haven’t been sleeping well.”
“Yeah, well, if I had that man in bed beside me, I’d be awake when he was home!” Patsy, a self-made woman, was a little rough around the edges, but completely genuine. Tricia trusted her more than she trusted most people—other than Scott, of course.
And for someone who didn’t even trust herself, that said a lot.
“You got your hair cut,” she said now, glancing over. Patsy had just turned thirty-five and, having recently taken a course that had convinced her she could create any reality she wanted, was bound and determined to be beautiful and married by thirty-six.
“Yeah.” The muscular, five-foot, three-inch woman brushed her hand against the short, dishwater-blond bob. “I’m scheduled for a makeover next week.”
The back room, smelling like freshly laundered shirts, felt safe, evoking a sense of security. “You don’t need a makeover,” Tricia told her, not for the first time. “You just need the right clothes to enhance your attributes, and a bit of confidence will take care of the rest.”
This morning Patsy was wearing a tight black short-sleeved shirt that emphasized her oversize biceps. And a pair of army pants. On a more petite girl, the outfit would be cute. On Patsy, the getup looked masculine.
“I’ve got clothes out the wazoo.”
“Mmm-hmm. I know. But not the right ones.”
“And next you’re going to be telling me that you’re the person to provide me with them. And charge me an arm and a leg for sewing up some rags from the remnants you’ve got stacked in that sewing room of yours.” The words were laced with Patsy’s signature sarcasm.
“I’ll do it for nothing.”
Patsy’s generous mouth literally dropped open. “I know you’re a whiz at fixing things,” she said, motioning toward the silver lamé cocktail dress Tricia was hanging. “But fixing things isn’t like starting from scratch.”
Judging by Tricia’s cheap jeans and T-shirt, she couldn’t blame Patsy for doubting her abilities. She certainly wasn’t putting any supposed designer talent to use on herself.
“I know.” Tricia’s breath was coming in short, tight spurts. What was she doing? Testing the waters? If she could take one small step, maybe she could follow it with a leap?
Was she completely insane?
“I play around with ideas,” she said now, choosing her words carefully. “You know, drawings and stuff. I’ve been thinking lately that it’d be fun to actually try to do more with them.”
“You really think you can?”
I know I can. “I’m not sure, which is why I wouldn’t charge you. But I’d like to try.”
For Patsy. No one else. Just this once. Because the other woman had been so good to her, paying her in cash, no questions asked, right from the first.
And because she needed something to focus on, something challenging, if she was going to keep the demons at bay and retain her sanity. She needed a diversion if she hoped to have the capacity to deal with whatever lay ahead.
Patsy, head tilted, half grinned. “If you’re serious, I’m going to take you up on that,” she said. “I’ll pay for whatever supplies you need, material, everything.”
“Okay, but only because I spent my last fifty-eight dollars on a bus pass this morning and I want to get started right away.” Picking up her empty garment bag, Tricia folded it, shoving it down inside her purse.
Leaning against the desk in the back room where she spent most of her days, Patsy frowned. “You know, woman, with the money you’ve spent on those passes, you could’ve bought a clunker car that’d be a whole lot more convenient for your city-to-island runs.”
Uh-huh, and then she’d have to get a driver’s license….
“But when it broke down, I’d have neither the car nor the money for a bus pass.”
“I’m surprised McCall doesn’t let you take his truck. It’s not like he needs it sitting there for days at the station.”
What was it with the people in her life lately? Pushing for answers to questions they’d never asked before. Had she been here too long? Was it time to move on?
Or was it some subtle change in her that had prompted the change in them?
“Scott and I keep all our possessions separate. Things stay neat and clean that way.”
“You’re nuts, girl.” Patsy rolled her eyes. “I’d have had that man to the altar a year ago.”
“There’s a lot to be said for doing things my way,” Tricia said over her shoulder as she headed for the front of the shop. She could hear Taylor laughing, hear his little tennis shoes on the outdoor carpet by the door. Maybe it was a bad idea to ask Patsy for help. “With fewer expectations, there are fewer reasons for disappointment, which means fewer arguments.”
“Yeah.” Patsy was right behind her. “But think of all the making up you’re missing out on…”
A gold lamé gown with black Lycra strips across the bust and below the waist hung at one end of the room-length revolving rack that held orders waiting for pickup. A three-year-old designer gown.
A Kate Whitehead original.
Tricia stopped so abruptly Patsy bumped into her.
“What?” the dry cleaner asked, looking around them in concern.
Tricia shook her head, focused on the floor for the second it took to get her breath back. “Nothing.” She glanced up at Patsy, eyeing the confused woman for a long moment.
In the end, she didn’t have a chance to make any decisions. Tricia just opened her mouth and the words that came out were nothing like the little speech she’d rehearsed on the bus. It was after reading the paper on the way over this morning that she’d begun thinking about it.
“I need some help.”
“You got it.”
Still meeting Patsy’s gaze head-on, Tricia said, “No questions asked.”
“Okay.”
“I mean it.” The stern voice was one she hadn’t used in many, many months.
“Oka-a-ay.” Patsy’s gaze didn’t waver. She stood her ground two inches away from Tricia.
“You know everyone on this island.”
“Pretty much.”
“So you can find me a private detective who’s competent enough to get me one little piece of information—without being so competent that he follows up on it or surmises anything I don’t want surmised?”
Patsy’s brown eyes narrowed. She didn’t respond.
“Not that there’s anything to surmise. I just don’t want the complication of any false assumptions.”
Nodding, Patsy appeared to be thinking.
“Somebody who’ll forget he ever knew me.”
She hadn’t made a mistake. She’d given Patsy nothing she could do anything with.
“Arnold Miller.”
Heart beating faster, Tricia stood there, thinking it through, ensuring that she made no errors. It wasn’t too late to stop this. All she had to do was walk away.
And let the guilt eat her alive. If Leah needed her, if she could help and she did nothing…
“Mamamama!!” Taylor’s voice rang out from the front of the store.
If she did this, if she was found out, her son’s life could be in danger. That was something other people might not believe, but Tricia knew the
truth beyond doubt.
“Do you want me to call him?”
Could she do it? Leah’s life against Taylor’s? The baby squealed as though Doris had tickled him.
Taylor wasn’t currently in danger. Leah very well could be.
“He’s not some hotshot out to prove himself?” she asked.
“Used to be,” Patsy said, leaning back against the rack holding the gold-and-Lycra Whitehead gown. “He pushed things a little too far and there was retaliation. A little girl died. His little girl. He’s still, hands down, the best investigator around. He’s also a drunk. Can’t keep it together long enough to solve a case. But I know that one of the most sought-after divorce P.I.s on the island uses him pretty regularly for fact-finding.”
“Okay, let’s call him.”
8
There were no Tricia Campbells listed in Reno. Scott wasn’t surprised. He hadn’t expected the answers to come easy. Turning off the computer in his bedroom Thursday night, he grabbed a book he’d been reading about the history of Ireland, traded jeans for a pair of light-cotton pajama pants then propped himself up in bed and tried to read, waiting for Tricia to finish her shower.
With her hair being so long, she liked to wash it at night so it had time to dry naturally. Scott generally liked to help her. Tonight he was tired.
And determined not to lose the distance they’d set up between them at the very beginning. It had occurred to him during the past couple of long, slow days at the station, with no one but bored guys for company, that perhaps he was beginning to care about her too much.
“I’ve never seen those before,” she said. She was standing, naked, in the doorway between the bedroom and attached bath, a towel wrapped around her head.
She’d missed a drop of water on the top curve of her left breast. And another just below the groin.
Scott’s blood ran down to his dick.
“My mother bought them for Christmas a couple of years ago.” But that didn’t explain why he was wearing them to bed. He’d been sleeping nude since he’d graduated from college.
Her blue eyes narrowed slightly as she stared at him for a few seconds and then, nodding, she turned away, reaching for the short violet cotton gown she had hanging on the back of the bathroom door. Still holding the book, not quite ready to give up on the idea of reading it, he watched as she brushed her teeth, combed her hair, put lotion on her legs.
She always did that, or let him do it, after she shaved. Which meant those long, slim, softly muscled feminine legs would be smooth as silk tonight. His first night home in four days.
Then, switching off the bathroom light, she padded barefoot to her side of the bed. Though she didn’t normally wear any more than the brief gown to bed, he’d half expected her to stop at her dresser for a pair of panties. She didn’t.
And that sure didn’t help his surging blood. Still, the tension he’d felt in his back and neck all day dissipated just a bit.
Maybe sex was all he needed.
“You’ve seemed kind of remote today.” He was careful to keep his tone neutral. There was no room between them for accusations.
“I’m sorry.” She slid under the covers, her leg brushing up against his through the sheet and comforter separating them. “I’m just caught up in ideas for Patsy. I really want to get this right for her.”
She’d talked of little else that day, though he could have sworn she’d used the project as a shield. Maybe she was feeling nervous about their closeness as well.
Could be he’d made a colossal mistake telling her about his past—his other identity. He’d let her know him a little too well for his own comfort, and apparently for hers. As nearly as he could figure—and he’d spent far too much time figuring—that morning the previous week when he’d confessed all seemed to be when things had started to change between them.
Only the small lamp on his side of the bed was still lit. He should turn it off, slip underneath the covers with her. Reach for her. A little forgetfulness…
Her toes moved up and down his calf, touching him through the covers still between them.
“Who’s Taylor’s father?” His stomach dropped when he heard his own question fall starkly into the silence. He should take the words back. He sat there with that knowledge, waiting to see what would happen next, feeling an almost morbid curiosity, as though detached from the whole thing.
Her feet pulled away from his leg. And that was all.
After a couple of long minutes, Scott picked up his book. Read about the Vikings coming into an Ireland made up of separate warring clans that left them vulnerable to takeover.
“Where is he?” The book fell closed in his lap.
She turned over, showing him her back.
“Is he here? In San Diego? Over on Coronado?” Had he taken leave of his senses?
There was no movement on the bed at all. He took a deep breath. And another. Considered going out to the kitchen for a beer. Might have done so but he didn’t feel like drinking.
“Listen, Trish, I’m not trying to give you a hard time here. But the other day, when you went missing like that, it scared the hell out of me.”
There. He’d admitted it. To himself. To her.
She still said nothing, but rolled over onto her back, her head turned slightly toward him.
“I was scared for you, thinking you’d been abducted or badly hurt. And I was scared for me and Taylor, too.”
“I’m sorry.”
He sighed, ran a hand through his hair. He really needed to get it cut again, much as he hated the bother. “You don’t have to be sorry. I understand and accept your explanation. I don’t care about that. But what if something had happened?” He turned to look at her but she didn’t quite meet his gaze.
“I have no legal rights to Taylor, no way to enroll him in school. If some stranger comes knocking at the door claiming rights to him, I have no way of knowing if they’re valid or not.”
“We agreed not to—”
“For that matter,” he interrupted, realizing he had no patience for reminders at the moment, “I have no idea whether there’s even anyone out there to contact about him. Anyone who’d need to know if something happened to you.”
“There isn’t.”
There was no logical reason for him to take satisfaction from that response. So what did it say about him that he did?
“What about his father?”
“There’s no one named on his birth certificate. You know that. And without that, no one has a claim.”
“There’s always DNA testing. If someone suspects he might be the boy’s father and cares enough to pursue the issue.”
Shadows danced across the room, making ghostly shapes on the wall.
“If someone cared enough, don’t you think he’d already have done that?”
So the guy knocked her up and took off. The thought shouldn’t surprise him so much. It was an age-old story. Happened all the time.
It just didn’t seem to fit with his vision of Tricia. She wasn’t the type of woman a guy ran from.
And then something else occurred to him, cooling his blood. “Do you know who he is?”
She glanced over at him, her brows raised.
It was a fair question. Considering.
“What do you think?” she asked.
“You do.”
“Of course I do.”
“Is he alive?” His gut told him to shut up. He didn’t often ignore that message.
“Last I knew.”
“When was the last you knew?”
“Listen, Scott, this isn’t going to work.” She sat up, shoved aside the covers, her legs over the side of the bed as though ready to take off. She twisted around to face him. “I can’t do this. I understand that you’ve reached a point where you need answers. I do. Really.”
He doubted it. How could she understand something he didn’t get himself?
“You’re absolutely right, too,” she continued. Being right had never sounded so mu
ch like a death sentence. “With Taylor here, in your care, you deserve to know his pertinent information. But I’m not giving it. No amount of…anything…is going to change that.”
He didn’t doubt the sincerity of her statement. The truth was in her eyes, her posture, the tone of her voice. He was looking at a woman who’d been pushed to her limit.
And since, until half an hour ago, he’d done very little pressing, he had to assume that there was someone else—something else—putting on the pressure. Either now or in her past. To such an extent that she wasn’t healed yet.
Would she ever be?
“I hate to wake Taylor,” she said, standing. “You know how fussy he gets. So if you don’t mind, I’ll sleep on the couch tonight and then make other arrangements tomorrow.”
He had no idea what to say. Except no. To everything. To her leaving. Her refusal to tell him anything. To trust him. To his feelings for her. For Taylor.
“Where will you go?”
“I don’t know. I’ll find someplace.”
With what, her non-government issue photo ID? It was all the plastic he’d ever seen in her purse.
Plastic she could’ve picked up from a booth at the beach or any number of other places, depending on her connections.
Particularly if she was somehow mixed up with the California drug scene. Or, more importantly, trying to escape it. Depending on whom she’d been involved with, escaping the illegal underground could be as difficult, as seemingly impossible, as getting away from the Mafia of the 1940s. A drug connection could explain her apparent familiarity with moneyed ways.
“Where?” he asked again. She was pulling on some jeans.
He needed sleep. Had to be overreacting. She was probably the daughter of some rich guy who’d kept his pampered offspring pinned too tightly beneath his thumb. When she’d gotten pregnant, she’d been afraid of daddy’s ire and run. He’d heard that story more than once, too.
“I don’t know yet.”
“Back to the shelter you were staying at when I met you?”
Hidden Page 8
