“I love you, Scott McCall.” The blood drained from Tricia’s face. She felt it go.
They didn’t speak of love ever.
They weren’t in love, couldn’t be.
She wasn’t free to love. At least not until Taylor’s eighteenth birthday. And probably not then.
“I love you, too.”
She’d never expected to hear that declaration. And certainly not in a fire station parking lot.
The expressionless set of Sergeant Mike Midori’s face was not good news. And Thomas had counted on good news. Taking a long swig of the third bourbon he’d had in as many hours, he stood as the San Francisco police officer approached his back corner table in one of the city’s lesser-known gay bars Wednesday afternoon.
“Tough day?” he asked his old college roommate, careful not to let his distaste of the establishment, or Mike’s affinity with it, show. His choice of meeting place was no mistake.
Mike shrugged in answer as he sat, his back to the semidark, mostly deserted room. He motioned over his shoulder to the bartender he obviously knew well and in less than a minute had emptied half of the cold beer he’d ordered. That was when he finally glanced at Thomas.
“I’ve put pressure on certain people to ignore evidence, but there’s nothing else I can do on this one.”
Counting to ten, breathing deeply, Thomas forced himself to relax. Nothing would be gained by losing his temper. Emotion wouldn’t serve him well in this type of situation.
“Tell me what to do,” he finally said when he was sure he could put the proper amount of pleading in his voice. If his father had taught Thomas nothing else during those brutal years of his youth, he’d taught him how to behave in any situation.
Truth be known, he was close to begging but he made an effort not to show it.
“Look, Thomas, I did what I could. I warned the powers that be that they were wasting money prosecuting you. I discredited what evidence I could and showed concern about the real killer still being at large….”
Thomas believed him. As one of the handful of people in the world who knew of Mike’s sexuality, Thomas had always been confident that he could trust the married cop and father of three beautiful little girls. Still, he knew how to apply pressure.
Scrutinizing his college buddy, he waited for Mike to start to worrying about the things Thomas knew. He had no intention of ratting on Mike. Ever. He cared about the other man a great deal. Cared about a loyalty that went back twenty years.
But things were out of control and something had to be done. Mike was the only person he knew he could trust. The only person with the power to help. Everyone knew that Mike was, hands down, the best detective in San Francisco. Practically on his own, he’d busted a huge meth operation the year before.
“I’m sorry, man.” Mike shook his head. His mouth was twisted as though he’d sucked down a lemon with his beer. It didn’t do much for the other guy’s usually handsome face. “My hands are tied. It’s two in a row—looks too suspicious.”
Yeah, that was what the press was implying, too. He finished off his bourbon. Motioned for another. “I didn’t kill my wife.”
Mike, picking up his bottle from the slick black granite table, leaned back in his chair, looking every bit the macho cop most people—including his wife of ten years—believed him to be. “I know, man, I was with you the afternoon she disappeared,” he said, running his free hand through the longish dark hair that had always appealed to women. “I know you didn’t kill Kate. It’s why I risked my job, my reputation, to stand by you, but there isn’t much I can do here.”
“Get them to drop the charges.”
The shake of Mike’s head irritated him. Or scared him, and he preferred the former. “Too late for that.”
“I didn’t kill Leah Montgomery. I didn’t even see her. I talked to her on the phone and that is all.” He wasn’t quite gritting his teeth, but damn, he was close to it. He couldn’t believe any of this was happening. He was a man of power. Always had been. Why were people suddenly forgetting that?
How could a loyal public, a people he’d spent his life serving, turn on him like this?
“I’m not doubting you, Thomas, but as far as the state’s concerned, circumstantial evidence says otherwise and that’s all it takes to convict you if the prosecutor can convince a jury.”
“What kind of society sends an innocent man to jail because he slept with a consenting woman?” Jail. He had to fight the urge to wipe sweaty palms along his pants. This interview was too important to risk appearing weak. Or worried.
“The consenting woman was your missing wife’s best friend, who, incidentally, is now missing as well. There’s another coincidence. Both women were pregnant—”
“Not with my kid. Neither one of them.”
Mike’s gaze sharpened as he sat up. “Kate’s baby wasn’t yours?”
Making an instant decision, something he rarely did, Thomas reined in the rage that surfaced whenever he allowed himself to think of his wife spreading her legs for another man. He shook his head. “I can’t father children.”
“Can you verify that?”
With a cocked head, he perused his college roommate. “I had a vasectomy right after college,” he admitted. “Mostly to piss off the old man. I wasn’t going to be his pawn in the progeny game. Nor was I about to give him the chance to do to any kid of mine what he did to me.”
He’d never told Kate about having the procedure, but she’d never told him she wanted children, either. Not before they were married, anyway. And afterward, she’d seemed content with his assertions that he didn’t want to share her.
“That just might be your ticket to freedom, man,” Mike said, his expression softening as much as a macho cop’s could. “Who performed the surgery? I’ll subpoena the records.”
Keep calm. Breathe. You’re almost home. “It’s not going to be quite that easy. I found a guy who’d been struck from the medical register for performing illegal abortions. I offered him an ungodly sum of money to do the job and destroy all the evidence.”
“Were you crazy?”
“I couldn’t risk having the old man find out. That would’ve been the end of my inheritance and after taking shit from the guy for twenty-one years, I certainly wasn’t walking out on what was due me.” Thomas was being far more honest than was usual, but Mike knew him. He’d seen Thomas’s father in action more than once. He’d understand.
Mike hesitated, drank his beer, then settled back in his chair, his body as muscled and firm as it had been in college. The punk from the ghetto looked better in a suit than Thomas did.
“You’ll probably have to submit to an examination.”
He’d do whatever it took. Two women trying to saddle him with bastard children were not going to ruin his entire life’s work. “What about a lie detector test?”
“Maybe, but I doubt the prosecutor will accept that. It’s not infallible, and we’ve got two women missing. Absolutely no bank account activity on either one of them. Montgomery’s blood was found in your car. It probably wasn’t menstrual if she’s pregnant, which makes it look like you lied. Nothing in her apartment was disturbed, nothing missing. There’s been no word from her, no history of anything like this, no history of mental illness. She had a charity function to host that everyone in this town knows was vitally important to her. And you lied about your sexual relationship….”
“Okay!” Thomas held up a hand. “So what happens next?”
Sitting forward, Mike took on an air of confidence. “Obviously you don’t want me involved,” he said. “I lose all influence and credibility if anyone knows we’ve been in touch—which would also cast more suspicion on how easily things were put away after Kate disappeared.”
“Agreed.”
“My suggestion is you lay this on Douglas. Let him take it from here.”
It was the last goddamn thing he wanted to do. Admit to one of his employees—albeit a friend—that he was shooting blanks.
His old man died six months ago—a victim of his own brutality, falling prey to a stroke during a fight with Thomas’s mother. So there was no practical reason, other than pride, to keep his secret.
And when you were faced with jail, pride seemed like a small thing.
11
San Francisco Gazette
Thursday, April 21, 2005
Page 1
Vasectomy Might Free Senator
Key evidence used to indict Senator Thomas Whitehead in the kidnapping and murder of heiress Leah Montgomery might be just what frees him. According to an unidentified source, Whitehead’s indictment came shortly after the discovery that Ms. Montgomery had been pregnant at the time of her disappearance. Whitehead’s attorney, Kilgore Douglas, told reporters last evening that Whitehead couldn’t possibly have been the father of Montgomery’s baby, as he’d had a vasectomy just after graduating from college. The information has yet to be verified with the attending physician, but it would appear that, with this new evidence, prosecutors could be forced to drop charges against the senator.
The district attorney’s office was unavailable for comment.
Kate Whitehead, the senator’s wife who disappeared without a trace almost two years ago, was also pregnant.
“Leah, where are you?” On Thursday afternoon, while her son slept, Trisha paced the small house she shared with Scott and Taylor, and spoke to her friend as though she were there in the room and could hear. As children they’d believed they really did hear each other on some psychic level, even when separated.
She needed to believe that now. Standing in the front window she squeezed her eyes shut, trying to feel Leah, to get some sense that she was alive. But she was so consumed by the myriad emotions roiling around inside of her, she couldn’t distinguish one from another.
The front yard, a mass of color since the flower garden was in bloom, failed to offer the solace she normally found there. When Scott had first brought her here, exhausted, desperate, scared to death, that flower-filled front yard had seemed like an omen to her, telling her this was the place she would be safe.
“What do I do?”
Weed the flower bed. That’s what.
The bed was the entire front yard. And she wouldn’t be able to hear when Taylor woke up.
And what if someone was out there, watching? She moved away from the window. Pulled the curtains.
“He’s lying,” she said aloud, unequivocally, without a doubt. “Thomas is lying. And I can prove that.”
She waited in the too-silent room, the sun shining in, leaving a pool of bright light in the middle of the worn beige carpet. There was no response.
“Yes, I can prove it, but at what cost? Is it going to help you if I go back? If I come forward and testify?”
Nothing.
“Is it the right thing to do?”
Still nothing.
“In a sense I’m obstructing justice,” she told Leah while she fluffed cushions on the couch. “And being disloyal to my very best friend if I don’t come forward on your behalf, if I don’t avenge whatever has happened to you.”
There was a particle of dust on the coffee table. She brushed it off.
“But if you’re hiding somewhere, you don’t need to be avenged. You just need this all to go away. To leave you alone.”
Hadn’t she wanted nothing more than that these many, many months?
“Leah?” Standing in the middle of the room, Tricia raised her voice. “Answer me, dammit!”
She sighed, shook her head.
“How can I risk Taylor’s life, my life, by giving that bastard a chance to reassert his control, when I don’t know if going back is what’s best? When I don’t even know if it’ll help you? But if you’re alive in hiding, I have to go back. You won’t be able to handle everything alone—you’ll call for help, get caught and he’ll kill you for sure if he’s free.”
Regardless of what’s gone before, it will help others if Thomas is put away. The thought came softly in the great silence engulfing the house. The bottom line was that Thomas, a respected state senator with more clout than God and enough money to buy medical records, was a dangerous, untrustworthy man capable of murder. Even if she couldn’t help Leah, her testimony would help whatever woman might be next.
It would help the state of California.
Oh, God. Tricia slid down to the floor, her back to one arm of the couch, facing a blank television screen. Could the universe ask a mother to risk her baby’s life for the good of some unknown woman in Thomas’s future? For the sake of some nebulous entity called society? Because if she went back and Thomas managed to pull off one of his miraculous escapes, she and Taylor would be in danger.
But could Tricia live with herself if another life was lost because of her?
Could she live with herself if she didn’t do everything possible to avenge her best friend?
Head in her hands, Tricia started to shake. With trembling fingers she massaged the back of her neck. She was in pain. So much pain. Her head was going to split soon, and then she wouldn’t have to think anymore.
An hour later, no closer to answers or sanity, Tricia went to get her son from his crib. Taylor was awake—full of energy and ready to be entertained.
Changing his diaper, getting lost in the grin and babble with which he conversed while he watched her face, Tricia didn’t know how she could possibly walk back into the nightmare that had been her life in San Francisco. How she could possibly walk back with Taylor in her arms.
So did she go and leave him here? Without a mother? Without an identity?
Snapping the overalls, she picked him up, hugged him until he squirmed, then gently lowered him to the floor.
Did she go? Did she stay? Did she have what it took to do either?
Tricia turned on the television.
“And now boys and girls—”
“No! I’m telling you, I didn—”
“…with bleach and—”
“…find out what—”
“…up next on—”
Channel after channel sped by. Taylor had the remote. Was standing two feet in front of the set, barefoot and diapered, pushing the up arrow button. He wasn’t allowed to do that.
A cartoon voice, immediately followed by country singing and then the frenetic jumble of a car commercial, calmed the panic barely held at bay as she lay back on the couch, watching the baby. He was safe. Happy. She’d teach him that the remote control was not a toy some other day.
Today she could keep him safe. She’d feed him dinner when it was time. And then they’d go to bed. He was sleeping with her tonight. She didn’t really expect to sleep, not without the aid of the sleeping pills she’d left back in San Francisco, but was going to keep him close in any case.
He emitted strange little tones and squeals as he paused in his surfing to watch a toy commercial. With his diapered bottom swinging back and forth, he was attempting to sing and dance like the huge animal on the screen.
How could she possibly consider doing anything to put that little body at risk?
“…Carley Winchester will be joining us—”
“…on the fourth tee with his three wood—”
“Taylor, wait!”
The baby jumped, dropped the remote and started to cry.
“Sweetie, Mama’s sorry,” she said quickly, grabbing for the abandoned remote, frantically pushing backward. “I didn’t mean to yell at you.”
She’d made her baby cry.
What channel had he been on? Commercials, all she could find were commercials. And Taylor was wai
ling so loudly, having worked himself up to full-blown hysteria, that she couldn’t hear.
“Taylor! Please, honey!” The baby’s cries stopped for a split second as he stared at her, and then burst forth even louder. She hadn’t meant to yell those last words. But she had to find that channel. It might already be too late.
Oh, God, Carley. What are you doing on television? Where are you? Please, someone…
Her fingers were trembling so hard she missed the channel button, hitting the one next to it. The television grew noticeably louder, almost competing with Taylor’s screams. The baby was at her feet, clawing at her legs. She had to pick him up.
“…Carley Winchester, right after this break,” the television yelled out.
A break. She had the channel. And a break.
Breathing quickly, Tricia set the remote on the carpet, scooping up the baby and hugging him to her chest, crooning words that probably didn’t even make sense but comforted her because they seemed to comfort him.
“Mama’s here, baby,” she said over and over, her tears mingling with his, wetting both of their necks. “Mama’s right here.”
And she’s sorry, she added silently. Sorrier than you’ll ever know.
“Welcome back to Good Afternoon, San Francisco….”
Blaine Cavanaugh, local well-known bachelor and host of his own cable talk show—which she’d heard of but never seen before in her life—appeared on the screen. He was sitting in a beige tweed armchair turned at a slight angle from the matching couch next to him. A low table with fresh flowers sat in front of the couch. He placed a coffee cup on the small table.
Pulling over a stuffed Blue, Tricia sat on the floor, Taylor cradled in her lap with Blue, hiccuping and sucking his thumb.
“Blah, blah, blah, get on with it,” she mumbled when the trendily dressed good-looking blond man rattled on about the day’s guests, the local lottery and a romance fiction author who was due to appear on the next program.
“Those of you following our latest scandal here in San Francisco will recognize our next guest as the woman many are calling crazy and out of her head with grief, the younger sister of missing heiress, Leah Montgomery, now presumed dead. Please welcome Ms. Carley Winchester.”
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