“What about drugs?”
Scott shook his head. “There’s not enough money to suspect she’s into anything like that and no sign at all that she’s a user. No pupil variations, erratic behaviors, appetite fluctuations, mood swings, excessive energy, lethargy or needle marks. Hell, she hardly drinks.”
“Okay, I can see you’ve thought that one through.” Cliff’s grin didn’t make light of the situation, but lightened the moment.
“So it’s not drugs, money or a man. What’s left?”
Scott shook his head, taking a slow sip of coffee. If they got another call tonight, which the odds said was about one-hundred percent likely, he was going to need the caffeine. “I have no idea,” he admitted. “Take yesterday, for instance. She comes home with red eyes like she’s been crying, you know? Claims it was allergies—that the wind was blowing on Coronado.”
“Could be true. It’s allergy season.”
“Yeah, and in the two years I’ve known her, she’s never been allergic to anything.”
The station reverberated with the eerie silence that fell in the absence of normal sounds and activity. A silence made that much more noticeable by the awareness that bells and sirens could erupt at any moment.
“She could be pregnant.”
Cliff’s words knocked the wind out of Scott as tangibly as if he’d punched him.
“She’s on the pill.”
“Women forget.”
Especially women who spent a lot of nights in bed alone.
“Could be she’s afraid to tell you. Afraid you’ll think she did it on purpose, to trap you.”
Scott felt trapped. And constricted and tied up. Handcuffed. In jail, behind bars, unable to escape. She couldn’t be pregnant. He couldn’t be a husband and father. He wouldn’t be able to empty his mind of all worldly concerns to walk into burning buildings, to rescue burning little girls. He couldn’t do that if he had anything in the world he cared about more than the person inside the fire.
And if he had a wife…a child of his own…
Still, a hidden pregnancy would certainly explain Tricia’s inexplicable behavior on Coronado the Sunday before. The sudden onset of a stomach ailment. It might not explain walking all the way to the Hotel Del, but pregnant women were known to have odd cravings. Why not odd requirements regarding toilet standards?
It could also explain the unusual evidence of tears the day before. Even women who didn’t cry much or easily were prone to unexpected tears while pregnant. Especially during the first few months of hormonal adjustments.
Oh, my God. She could be pregnant. He should be angry. There was no room for even a hint of anticipation.
How far along was she? Did she know if it was a boy or a girl? Was she planning to have it?
He had to know.
And couldn’t ask her. He’d promised no more questions.
She could very well leave if he pushed. And especially now, with a baby possibly on the way, he couldn’t take that chance.
Still, he had to know.
It took Arnold Miller five days to get back to her.
You get what you pay for, Tricia mumbled to herself as she waited outside Island Dry Cleaners for the half-bum half-detective to show up.
Of course, the fact that he could only reach her through Patsy’s and she hadn’t been on Coronado over the weekend made things a little tougher on him. Except that Patsy had told her he’d only called back that morning.
Still, if he had something…
Sweating in her jeans and button-up white blouse, Tricia turned in the hot sun outside the dry cleaner’s to see Taylor through the window, inside playing with Doris. His presence calmed her. Always. He was larger than life—larger than her life. As long as Taylor was okay, she was, too.
No matter what.
She saw him halfway down the street—or rather, noticed how the crowd parted around him, the good people of Coronado keeping their distance from the unkempt and smelly man walking amidst them with his unsteady gait. Gray-haired and unshaven, wearing dirty beige pants and a faded dark-blue T-shirt with a hole just below the chest, he could easily have passed for a man twenty years older than the forty-something she knew him to be. Even bent over, folded in on himself, he was a tall man. Had probably been quite imposing once upon a time.
His watery blue eyes trained on her as he approached, but there was no sign of recognition.
“Mr. Miller?” she called as he approached the dry cleaners. A couple of older women wearing tennis shoes, T-shirts and fanny packs, carrying at least three shopping bags apiece, looked over at her but their conversation never missed a beat.
The detective shuffled past.
Tricia took a couple of quick steps toward him. “Mr. Miller!”
He stopped. Turned. “Yes?” He blinked, glanced around and then nodded as though he’d just remembered why he was there.
He gripped her arm, apparently stumbling. “Ms. Campbell, good to see you again.”
The hand was as dirty as the rest of him. Tricia took hold of it anyway, steadied him. She’d always heard that beggars couldn’t be choosers, and only now had some practical understanding of what it meant.
At least he didn’t reek of liquor as he had the other day.
“Shall we walk?” he asked, his voice at that moment firm and competent. Patsy had told her he had his moments; she was obviously right. Their first meeting had been the previous Wednesday. At her request, Patsy had called her friend who called the divorce attorney who’d agreed to send Arnold Miller over if he could get him to answer his phone. That day she’d given him the hundred-dollar bill Patsy had paid her for the work she’d just delivered.
A quick glimpse through the window assured her that Taylor was happy with Doris. Tricia took a slow step forward. And then another. She glanced over her shoulder, not that she’d be able to tell if someone was watching her. Following her. She’d seen no sign of anyone since that day on Coronado. But that didn’t make her complacent.
“Did you find out what evidence the cops found in Ms. Montgomery’s apartment?”
He nodded. Stubbed his toe against a crack in the sidewalk and stumbled again.
“You going to tell me what it was?”
“Eventually.” Hands in his pants pockets—one of which was ripped half off—the man actually grinned at her, giving her a brief glimpse of what he’d once been, before tragedy struck his life.
She stopped in the midst of pedestrians who had to circle around her. “Listen, Mr. Miller, I paid you good money for that information and—”
The man was a couple of feet in front of her, still shuffling along. Tricia ran to catch up with him.
“No one calls me ‘Mr. Miller,’” he mocked her. “I’m not fit to be Mr. Anything. And I’ll tell you what you want to know as soon as I’m sure that the woman who’s been standing across the street watching you isn’t following us—at least not closely enough to overhear what I have to say. That is, unless you don’t care if we’re overheard. I assumed that since you hired me, you don’t want anyone to know about the questions you’re asking.”
10
Tricia almost tripped. And was grateful for his hand on her elbow. “There was a woman watching me?”
“She sure as hell wasn’t watching them clean clothes inside the dry cleaners.”
“Maybe she was waiting for someone.”
“Maybe.”
She glanced at him, confused by the contradictions between the drunken derelict and the experienced detective. The man was intelligent. Observant. Talented.
“You don’t think she was, do you?”
“I know not. An observer has a focused way of looking while appearing not to look at all. It’s recognizable every time.”
Perhaps to someone like him who was trained to see such things.
She wasn’t. She’d thought herself so accomplished and capable, picking out that man on the beach, taking action. But how many of them had there been that she’d never seen? For how
long? Did they know everything about her? That she was living with Scott? And where? Did they know about Taylor?
The possibility made her sick.
She turned abruptly. She had to get back to the dry cleaner, to Taylor. From that moment on, she was not letting her son out of her sight.
“He’s okay,” Arnold Miller rasped softly.
“Who’s okay?” God, was she so naive? So incapable of pulling this off? She’d thought only she knew her secrets.
“The little boy I watched you leave with the other day. He’s still inside. And the woman’s on the other side of the street, right where we left her.”
“You watched me leave?”
“I may be a drunken bum, but I’m not stupid,” the man uttered with a sarcastic chuckle. “I like to know who I’m risking my ass for, lacking in value though it may be.”
“The woman’s not following us?”
“We haven’t gone far enough for her to have to.”
Swallowing, shaking, Tricia nodded. “So what do we do now?”
“We’re going up to that hot dog stand over there. You’re going to buy me a cola and a hot dog, which I’ll refuse to take at first. You’ll show signs of insistence, I’ll shrug, take them, cram half the hot dog into my mouth and you’ll turn and hurry away.”
She’d appear to be merely feeding the homeless. Something she would never in a million years have thought to do on her own, not out on the street, one on one. There was an old woman who often sat on a bench near the Grape Street dog park. Tomorrow, or the next time she took Taylor for a walk, she was going to bring her a bag of fruit.
“Okay.” She had to get back to Taylor.
“They found a test strip from a home pregnancy test sitting on the edge of the tub, hidden by a hand towel. Interestingly enough, there was no other sign of the kit—not a box, a cup, nothing. As though someone tried to make certain there was no evidence.” They’d almost reached the hot dog stand. “Not likely that someone was Ms. Montgomery. Why would she have taken such care to remove all signs of the test, yet leave the strip lying there?”
A home pregnancy test. Tricia wasn’t going to be able to step up to that hot dog stand. She was going to puke.
“Did they…” Another step. The stench of ground animal parts being simmered on rollers overwhelmed her. “Did they say what the strip showed?”
He looked pointedly toward the cart. Tricia stepped forward. Anything to throw the woman off—to get back to Taylor. Not that she was going to leave the dry cleaner with her son in tow.
But then, if they’d been following her for months, they already knew about Taylor—knew everything about her.
Reaching into the pocket of her jeans for the five-dollar bill she’d tucked there, she spiraled toward the stand.
“The stick showed positive.”
Only the overweight old guy behind the hot dog stand was privy to the horrified look on Tricia’s face. She knew she’d slipped up, could see him looking at her strangely, as though wondering whether or not to call the cops, run or offer to help.
“One hot dog, please, with everything. And a diet cola.”
She had no idea if Arnold liked diet cola. She should have asked. And what if he didn’t like mustard? Or relish? With a shaking hand she held the five dollar bill suspended while the old man behind the chin-high glass squeezed various containers over the bun in his hand. What was she doing? Arnold might be allergic to catsup. She had no business ordering for someone else, taking responsibility for the life of another.
She couldn’t do it.
“That’ll be a buck fifty.”
She heard the voice, felt the tug as he pulled the bill from her hand. She took the hot dog and can of dripping wet cola he’d removed from an ice chest at his feet. She walked away with lead in her heart. If Leah had been pregnant, there were no more questions. Everything fell sickeningly into place.
“Hey, lady, don’t you want your change?”
“Keep it.” She wasn’t sure she said the words loudly enough for the old guy to hear. He’d get the idea, anyway, when she didn’t turn around.
Leah had been notorious for forgetting to take her birth control pills.
“Here,” she said to Miller, shoving the food in front of him.
When he backed up, shook his head, Tricia wanted to cry. She couldn’t stand the smell. Couldn’t take many more steps. Couldn’t keep up appearances.
“Here,” she said again, more loudly.
“She’d made an appointment with her OB/GYN,” Miller said without ever moving his lips. He was still backing away from her.
As if in a trance, Tricia followed, the food held in her outstretched hands. She’d almost forgotten why they were playing this little charade. Almost, but not quite.
If Leah was pregnant, it hadn’t been menstrual blood in Thomas’s car. What had the bastard done to her that morning? Something that hadn’t shown up later that day at the salon. Kissed her so hard he made her mouth bleed? “Bump” into her just hard enough to cause a nosebleed?
“Would you consider another job?” Tricia faced the detective. She wasn’t thinking, merely reacting. But reaction was all she had.
“Depends.”
“Find out who’s watching me.” She didn’t care that she was whining, begging.
He stopped and she accidentally smeared mustard and relish on his shirt. He hardly gave it a look, clearly more interested in the hot dog than his attire.
“It’ll cost you,” he said, around a mouthful of half-chewed food.
Bile rose in her throat. “I don’t care.”
“I didn’t think you did.”
“Hey, you fellas feel like some chicken cordon bleu and baked potatoes?” With her son on her left hip and a big wicker basket over her right arm, Tricia walked into the station garage late Tuesday afternoon, interrupting what looked to be a rousing game of table tennis. Cliff and Joe against Steven and Scott.
It was the first time she’d ever seen Steven join in with the other guys. Something Scott had maneuvered, she was sure.
“Tricia!” The way his eyes lit up when he saw her made the day’s cooking worthwhile. Hell, it made most of life’s daily struggles worthwhile.
“Daddee! Daddee!” Taylor bounced on her hip, moving the handle of the wicker basket back and forth across her forearm. Tricia, taking in the welcoming looks from the three other men, maintained her smile.
Setting down his paddle on the green-painted table, Scott hurried over to relieve her of her biggest burden. “You should’ve called,” he said, balancing the toddler on his hip. “It’s not good for you, carrying all this heavy stuff.”
“Daddee.”
Scott glanced at Tricia. “I’d have picked you up.”
“I know, but it’s not all that heavy and I wanted to surprise you.”
Cliff took the basket off her arm and set it on the old wooden table that took up half the living space inside the station. Joe and Steven gathered plates.
“Hi, sport!” Scott raised Taylor above his head, making the baby laugh out loud.
“Daddee!”
“Are you staying to eat with us?” he asked Tricia, still smiling.
She shook her head. “I have sewing to get back to,” she said softly, aware of the other firefighters a short distance away. “I just wanted you to know I’m thinking about you.”
Telling the other guys to go ahead and start without him, Scott walked Tricia outside. “I can’t believe you walked all the way over here carrying all of that.”
“It wasn’t too bad. It’s only a few blocks.” And if anyone had been watching they’d have seen exactly what she’d needed them to see—a woman in love putting forth a lot of effort to take dinner to the father of her child. “Besides, this little guy walked most of the way.”
“Daddee eat!” Taylor’s sweet baby face, framed by dark curls, grinned up at Scott. And if life had been kinder, Tricia’s world would have been complete at that moment.
“A
re you sure you’re okay?” Scott asked.
His concern was touching, if a little unusual, giving strength to the insidious guilt inside her. Scott was a good man. The best. He didn’t deserve to be messed up by her. “I’m fine.” She hoped her accompanying smile didn’t look as weak as it felt.
“At least let me take you back.”
“No way!” Tricia poked him in the stomach. “I didn’t do all that cooking so those Neanderthals in there could finish everything off. Go have your dinner. Taylor and I are going to stop for an ice cream on the way home.”
She’d made three stops as they walked over, just to see if anyone else stopped, too. No one had. But then, she hadn’t noticed the woman on Coronado the day before, either.
Scott nodded and, with Taylor still on one hip, bent to kiss her. He lingered, his tongue running lightly along first her top lip and then her bottom one. When he pulled back, his eyes were half closed, sleepy-looking.
“You seem…better…today,” he said, holding her gaze steadily.
“I am.” And worse, too. While Thomas’s indictment for Leah’s death relieved her of having to go back—there was nothing she could do to help Leah now—it had left her with an inconsolable grief that she had no idea how to deal with. In one sense she’d lost Leah two years before, but she’d always known where to find her.
Now she wasn’t even sure her friend and soul mate was alive. Suspected she wasn’t.
Still, there was Scott. And the peace and warmth she felt whenever he was near.
Except when he frowned, as he was doing now. “I wish you’d tell me what was wrong.”
“There’s nothing to tell,” she said, half believing her own words. The past was gone. Dead. Nothing. “I’ve decided to give up figuring out the future. I’m going to focus on us, you, me and Taylor, and let the rest take care of itself.”
God, that sounded like a dream. Nirvana. The perfect life. And so unattainable. But she was going to try. At least until she heard from Miller and knew whether or not she had to move on.
Scott smiled again—a deep smile that softened his face, his eyes. “Sounds like a plan to me,” he murmured, his gaze on her lips.
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