Unveiling the Past

by Kim Vogel Sawyer

  The waitress brought their check, which Kevin took care of, rejecting Mother’s offer to leave the tip. Then they stood and headed for the door. Out on the sidewalk, Kevin rested his hand on Diane’s arm and gave her a smile as warm as the sun beaming from the cloudless sky.

  “Thank you for the invitation. I enjoyed the food and the company very much.”

  She took a slight side step, dislodging his hand, and managed a weak smile. “You’re welcome. Thank you for brunch. I hope your business dealings here go well.” She wanted to ask why he hadn’t mentioned Meghan during their hour and a half together, but questions would delay their leave-taking. She cupped Mother’s elbow and turned for their vehicle.

  “I wonder…”

  His musing tone stopped her. She looked back.

  “I feel as if I caught up with you, but we didn’t really talk about your daughter.”

  Her daughter, not his or theirs. She couldn’t decide if she appreciated or resented his use of the pronoun. She started to suggest he deliver his queries to Meghan herself, but he spoke before she could form the sentence.

  “If you aren’t busy tomorrow morning, maybe you’d be willing to meet me and the real estate agent at the building I’m interested in purchasing. You could tour the building with us. I’d appreciate a feminine point of view on its aesthetics. Then I’ll treat you to lunch on the Strip, where you can tell me about your daughter.”

  Diane examined his face, searching for signs of duplicity.

  He must have sensed her uncertainty because he held up his palm, Boy Scout style. “Strictly business. You can even bring Hazel again if that makes you feel safer.”

  If he knew that Mother carried a Glock in her handbag, he might not feel so safe with her around. Maybe she should mention the weapon and watch his reaction. She imagined his shock, and her lips twitched with the desire to grin.

  Mother pressed her elbow to her ribs, squeezing Diane’s hand. “I have book club tomorrow morning, so I’m not available. But if you’d like to go, Margaret Diane, it’s fine by me.”

  Diane frowned at Kevin. “You said you wanted a feminine viewpoint. Couldn’t your wife accompany you on the trip?”

  His smile turned stiff. “I’m divorced.” He twisted the unadorned platinum band on his finger. “I wear this for business because a married man appears more trustworthy than an unmarried one to some people.”

  Mother’s pursed lips evidenced her disapproval, and Diane sensed it had more to do with him misleading people than the fact he was divorced. An uncomfortable thought struck. He’d used her once. Would he do it again?

  She put her hand on her hip. “You aren’t planning to pass me off as your wife with this real estate agent, are you?”

  He threw back his head and laughed. The reaction was so spontaneous that Diane couldn’t help but believe it was genuine. The laughter lasted only a few seconds before he gruffly cleared his throat and ended it. He met her gaze. “No.” He shook his head. “No.”

  Hmm, was he now insulting her?

  A disarming smile formed on his still-handsome face. “I really would like to ask a few questions about Meghan.”

  He’d finally used their daughter’s name.

  “If you’re not comfortable meeting me at the building, then maybe we can—”

  “It’s all right.” She’d be safe meeting him in a public place. She’d see him one more time, satisfy his curiosity about Meghan, and then be done with him. Besides, she didn’t have anything else to do except attend book club with Mother and her octogenarian friends. She pulled out her cell phone and opened the calendar. “Tell me the address and time, and I’ll meet you there.”

  Thirteen

  Little Rock, Arkansas

  Sean

  Could granola bars spoil? Sean braced his palm against his rolling stomach and opened the door to the cold-case unit’s building. Meghan crossed the threshold, her lips set in a grim line and her face pale. She looked half-sick, too. Maybe they’d better buy name-brand breakfast bars next time. Ones without raisins and dates. It had to be the raisins and dates making him feel queasy.

  Yeah, right.

  Apparently workers had come in during the weekend and fixed the elevator, because the Out of Service sign was missing. Meghan pushed the Up button, and they waited in silence for the car to arrive.

  Acid burned in Sean’s throat, and he swallowed. Twice. The burn remained. He’d never been one to bemoan Mondays, but this one was going down as his least favorite Monday ever. They’d stumbled through their morning routine, as slow and clumsy as a pair of sloths. Unlike themselves. He’d prayed plenty of times during the weekend in preparation for changing partnerships, and he sent up another prayer as he and Meghan stepped into the elevator car for their ride to the fourth floor.

  Please give me Your patience, Your strength, Your compassion, Your discernment…

  The doors opened, and Meghan got out. She took three steps across the tile floor, then stopped and spun to face him. He slid to a stop while the doors whisked closed behind him. “What’s wrong?”

  “I don’t want to work with Greg. And I don’t want you to work with Tom.”

  “It’s too late for that, babe.”

  “No, it’s not. Greg and I haven’t officially started our investigation. You could still hand off the Dunsbrook case to Greg and Tom, and you and I could forge ahead on the Menke case.” Her expression pleaded with him, making his stomach churn worse. “It doesn’t seem right partnering with anyone else. I actually feel like I could throw up.”

  Sean grimaced. “Yeah. No more raisins and dates in our granola bars.”

  “What?”

  “Never mind.” He lightly gripped her upper arm and stroked with his thumb. “I understand how you feel. I feel pretty much the same. But we gave the captain our decision. If we go back on it now, it reflects on our professionalism.”

  “But—”

  “We can still confer with each other about our cases, get each other’s input, and be involved even if we aren’t working as an assigned team. Splitting for an investigation doesn’t mean splitting in everything else.” Although they remained split on the subjects of starting a family and opening a private business. The queasiness intensified.

  She seemed to search his face for several seconds, her brow pinched into worry lines, and then she lowered her head. Her chest rose and fell with a mighty sigh. “I think I messed up. I didn’t listen for God’s voice before I decided what to do.”

  Her distress pained him worse than thinking about spending the next weeks in constant contact with his nemesis. He caught her shoulders and turned her toward the case unit’s doors. “Well, it was pretty much decided for you by the captain. You were assigned, remember? I’m the one who was given the choice of investigations.”

  She glanced back at him, her nose wrinkling. “And you chose Tom over me. Nice.”

  The hint of impishness removed some of his discomfort. He grinned. “You know what they say—absence makes the heart grow fonder.”

  “That didn’t work so well for my mom and grandma.”

  Her melancholy returned so quickly that a fresh stab of pain slashed through his belly. He nudged her arm with his elbow, the kind of teasing bump junior high–age boys gave girls they liked. “That was a completely different situation, and it’s all water under the bridge now, right?”

  He waited for a response, but she only shrugged. He grabbed the door handle. “C’mon, we need to go in or Cap’ll think we’re playing hooky.” He leaned down slightly and whispered, “It’s only one case, Meg. Remember what you told your mom? It’ll probably turn out to be a good experience for us.”

  “I said might.”

  “Let’s go.” He ushered her into the room.

  Farber was sitting on the edge of Dane’s desk, and he shot a sour look in their direction as
they crossed to the cluster of detective desks. “ ’Bout time you showed up. You get lost on the way to work, or what?”

  Meghan draped her purse handle over her desk chair and released a short laugh that seemed as much cough as chuckle. “Now, Tom, we aren’t that late. Did you get up on the wrong side of the bed this morning?”

  Farber muttered something under his breath and rounded the desks. He stopped in front of Sean and folded his arms over his chest. “Cap called in. He’s gonna be gone all morning—something about his wife getting a root canal and needing him to drive her home afterward. So he said get our notes together for a sit-down with him when he gets here.”

  “Sounds good.” Sean always welcomed Captain Ratzlaff’s input. He sat and slid his chair up close to his desk, then hit his desktop tower’s power button. “Lemme make sure I forwarded everything to you so we’ve got the same information in front of us.”

  Dane held up his hand. “Before you get too ambitious over there, let’s change the desk configurations. It’ll be a lot easier for us to confer with the right person if we aren’t talking over the top of each other.”

  Meghan’s face fell. She gaped across their butted desks at Sean. “Do we really need to? I mean, it’s only for one case, right?”

  Farber huffed. “One case can take more than one day to solve. So…who wants to move?”

  Dane stood. “It’s no big deal to me to change places. I haven’t booted up yet, so I can unplug everything and go pretty easily.”

  “No,” Farber barked. “Beagle’s already got his computer on, but DeFord hasn’t. Unplug hers and mine instead. Me and her will swap out. Beagle, get her equipment unplugged. DeFord, pull your chair out of the way. Johnson, Roach—give us a hand with these desks. The ancient behemoths weigh half a ton.”

  Sean gritted his teeth. Even though the captain often put Farber in charge when he was away, the man’s dictatorial attitude chafed like a sand pebble stuck in a shoe. Patience, Lord…He shifted to his knees, ducked under his desk, and pulled the plug for Meghan’s computer from the power strip. As he did so, nausea flooded his stomach—as if he’d disconnected the two of them.

  “You done under there?” Farber was bending over, peering under the desk.

  Sean backed out, forcing himself to ignore the uncomfortable ache in his gut. “Good to go.”

  “Johnson, Roach, move DeFord’s desk. Beagle, help Dane with mine.”

  Everyone leaped into action.

  Dane bobbed his chin toward Farber as they inched their way around Johnson’s and Roach’s desks. “He’d make a good drill sergeant, huh?”

  Sean didn’t answer, but inwardly he agreed. Farber got results. The fact that they all did his bidding without a word of argument proved it. The man was bucking for captain of the unit when Ratzlaff retired in a year or two, but Sean hoped the promotions team would talk to everyone in the unit before they made it official.

  Farber’s knowledge exceeded anyone else’s on the squad, but his leadership skills needed some polishing before he’d be qualified to take command. Sean would rather see Dane, who’d served in the unit for as many years as Farber, receive the promotion. But if he and Meghan went out on their own, it wouldn’t much matter who was in charge.

  The thought startled him, and he lowered his end of Farber’s desk with a thud.

  “Hey! Careful!” Farber bounded over, scowling, and checked a couple of desk drawers. “Lucky for you nothing broke.”

  Their desks held office supplies and files. What could break? The discernment he’d prayed for gave him the wisdom not to ask the question out loud.

  Panting, Roach leaned on Meghan’s desk. “When we put these things back, let’s empty the drawers first. It’d make ’em a lot easier to move.”

  “Stupid to take time for that.” Farber grabbed his chair and angled it into position. “Y’all stop acting like a bunch of sissies and get to work.” He aimed a glare at Sean. “Get me plugged in already, will you?”

  Sean was still battling a floating sensation as his taut muscles relaxed. “Sure. Gimme a minute.”

  “Now, Beagle. I wanna get started. We’ve already burned up almost half an hour of our day.”

  Dane released a nervous laugh. “Why don’t you plug it in yourself? Or did you wear yourself out telling everybody else what to do?”

  Roach and Johnson snickered but shot wary glances at Farber. Meghan’s gaze flitted back and forth between Sean and Farber, and Sean sensed her discomfort from ten feet away. Protectiveness welled, and sharp words formed on his tongue.

  Patience and discernment, Lord…

  Sean sent his wife a grin and wink, then turned to Farber. “I’d be glad to plug in your computer for you, partner, now that the blood flow’s back in my brain. Then we can review those notes, all right?”

  Farber grunted, but he nodded.

  Sean bent down and pushed the computer cord’s plug into the power strip. When he emerged from beneath the desk, the others—including Meghan and Dane—were focused on their own computers. Back to a normal day. Sean breathed a sigh of relief.

  “Oh, DeFord and Dane.” Farber turned his chair toward Meghan’s and Greg’s desks and frowned. “Cap said you’d be getting your travel papers by the end of the day, so prep for time on the field. And”—his scowl deepened—“the daughter of the missing man took a leave of absence so she can travel with you.”

  Just like that, the normalcy splintered.

  Las Vegas, Nevada

  Kevin

  Kevin waited outside the building with Stan Fuller, the real estate agent, and watched for Diane’s arrival. She wasn’t late. He and Stan were early. So he didn’t feel bad about standing under the morning sunshine while the agent repeatedly checked his watch and paced back and forth in front of the oversized doors leading to the building’s lobby.

  Odd how the invitation for her to explore the property had left his mouth so easily. He’d used the excuse of wanting a female’s reaction, which in hindsight was pretty smart, but it was sure out of the ordinary for him. He’d never involved any of his wives in his business dealings. Dad always said keep home and business separate. Kevin and Mom uncovered lots of ugly “business stuff” after Dad died, and Mom still carried a load of guilt over things she couldn’t have controlled even if she’d wanted to.

  Maybe if Dad had shared some of his worries about business, he would have lived longer and Mom would now live happier. But Kevin still followed his dad’s example. All those instructions were deeply ingrained. He couldn’t imagine changing now. For reasons beyond his understanding, he experienced a pinch of regret.

  “Kevin?”

  He gave a jolt. Diane stood near, rhinestone-studded sunglasses hiding her eyes.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t intend to startle you. You must have been lost in thought.” She pushed a strand of dark shoulder-length hair behind her ear and glanced in the direction of the real estate agent. The man gripped the door’s ornate handle and nearly twitched in place. “Did I misunderstand the time? I thought you said ten thirty.”

  “I did say ten thirty.” He gestured her toward the door. “So you’re right on time. Thanks for coming. I don’t imagine it’s fun battling this traffic.” The constant flow of cars, taxis, and buses up and down the Strip made Fort Smith traffic pale in comparison.

  “Which is why Mother chose a house in Kendrickson. It’s quieter there.” She smiled at the agent, who opened the door as she approached. “Thank you.”

  Kevin followed her in. He enjoyed walking behind her and giving her a secret look-over from head to toe. Fifty-two—or was it fifty-one?—years old. Not quite as slender as she’d been in her early twenties, but definitely not overweight. Back when he’d known her, she’d dressed a little classier than the average college student. Yesterday’s and today’s outfits defined her curves without clinging to them. She w
as what his mother would call chic. Did she color her dark hair to hide gray? Not that he’d hold it against her—even Mom got a rinse every week to make her gray hair more silvery. He admired women who kept themselves up. Diane definitely kept herself up.

  She slipped her sunglasses to the top of her head, mussing her bangs, and turned. He made sure his gaze was aimed at her eyes when she looked up at him. “It’s beautiful so far.”

  The comment confused him at first, and then he realized she meant the building. He glanced around the lobby and nodded. “Yes. I especially like the art deco touches. Art deco never goes out of style.”

  “I agree. It’s classic.”

  Like her. He cleared his throat and shifted to face Stan. “When did you say this building was constructed?”

  He pulled a detail sheet from his briefcase and handed it to Kevin. “In the late 1970s. The previous building was razed after a fire destroyed the top floor. But the builder tried to emulate the original blueprint in both layout and style.”

  “He did well. I wouldn’t have guessed it was built in the seventies.” Diane crossed to a doorway and ran her fingers over the marble doorframe. She raised her gaze to the medallion centered above the door. “What was its original purpose?”

  Kevin held up the detail sheet. “Originally? A saloon and bordello.”

  Her eyes bugged, and red streaked her cheeks.

  He laughed, partly at her reaction and partly out of his own embarrassment. He shouldn’t have said that out loud. “I know, right? Hard to believe, smack-dab in the middle of town.” Granted, prostitution was legal in numerous places in Nevada. For a lot of men, it was a draw. Not for him, though. If a man and woman were going to be intimate, at the very least there should be affection between them. Certainly no money changing hands. That’s what his father had taught him, and he’d always followed Dad’s instruction.

  Of course, he’d also claimed affection for a number of women. The thought, for the first time, left him uncomfortable.