If I Loved You

by Kress, Alyssa

  Her gaze slid toward Michael. Her landlord had a host of hotshot lawyer friends. Maybe one of them would know how to research a corporation. But Pattie knew she couldn't ask Michael. One question would lead to another, and then both he and Angela would realize Pattie thought her sister had been murdered—and that she was trying to find out who'd done it. They'd think she was nuts. Nobody else, from the police to the media, had ever considered foul play a part of Savannah's death.

  Pattie would prefer her friends not think she was nuts.

  Slowly, Angela placed a white dragon tile in the center of the table. "How do you like that?"

  Michael turned from a scowling perusal of his not-yet-fixed vintage window. His eyebrows jumped. "Oh, wow. Let me think about it."

  "Shoot," said Angela. "He might like my white dragon." She turned to tilt her head at Pattie. "While he's deciding, you can tell me how things are going between you and your hunk of a manny."

  Startled, Pattie looked up. How did Angela know about her hunk of a manny—that is, about Zane? It took her an embarrassed moment to remember Zane had started to work for her a week ago, the day of the last Mah Jong game.

  Before Pattie could stammer out a response, Michael stepped in. "Oh, Pattie's reconciled with the evil manny."

  "I have?" Pattie blurted. "How do you—? I mean, what makes you think that?" She did her best to look innocent.

  With a knowing smirk, Michael took a tile from the wall rather than pick up Angela's discard. "Every time I see you two together, you're as thick as thieves. Either you're deeply into an affair, or you're plotting to take over the world."

  Arching her brows, Angela turned to Pattie. "So which is it? Hot affair or world takeover?"

  "I'm not— That isn't—" To her mortification, Pattie could feel her face turning red. She was blushing over Zane. Ridiculous! Doing her best eye-roll, she attempted to recover. "Michael has an over-active imagination."

  Pattie and Zane were not having an affair. They'd been to bed together once. Big deal. Even less of a big deal since it was never going to happen again.

  Looking at Pattie's face, Angela laughed. "Not to worry. I won't pry if you don't want me to." Her eyes sparkled. "But I'm so glad you've finally ended that horrible hiatus."

  Pattie clamped her lips together. It was impossible to deny Angela's assumption without making things worse. Besides, technically, Angela was correct. Pattie had ended her hiatus from sex. But the whole thing had been—an accident. She'd thought having sex with Zane would be easier than talking.

  It would have worked if Pattie had tried the trick with Nick, or any of her other previous lovers. Sex was always simple.

  But it hadn't been simple with Zane.

  What made the whole thing even worse was the contrast between Zane's calm self-control and her own irritated confusion. Thinking about it all, Pattie sighed. Her gaze drifted toward the boarded-up window.

  "I'm trying to think of a good discard," Michael said, "but I keep thinking about what you're thinking about."

  Pattie straightened. Michael was thinking about sex with Zane?

  Michael shook his head. "We've got the money for it now, but when is Rory the repairman actually going to come fix that window? Here. Here's your discard. A flower."

  The window. Suddenly, Pattie wasn't thinking about Zane any more, or even about the discard Michael had just put down for her. The window. She returned her gaze to the boarded-up thing while her brain started racing.

  Michael knew the repairman's name. And Pattie was certain the vintage window repairman knew Michael's name, too, though the guy probably billed Michael's real estate corporation, the one that owned this building and three others.

  "Earth to Pattie," Angela sang.

  Pattie turned to blink at her friend. Her mind whirled with corporations and real names and unpaid repairmen. Hadn't she received some forwarded bills for work that had been done on Savannah's house? Something from a gardener, an angry note from a carpenter? Pattie was certain Savannah hadn't assumed financial responsibility for work on the house.

  So the angry gardener and carpenter, like Michael's window guy, might have been on a first-name basis with the fellow who was paying the bills, the fellow who was the real owner of the Pacific Palisades house.

  "Do you want that flower or not?" Angela demanded of Pattie.

  "I, um—no." Pattie took a tile from the wall. Her heart was skipping. If she could remember the information from those bills, she could track down one of the unpaid workers. They might be able to tell her who'd owned Savannah's house. In fact, Pattie might be able to find Savannah's biggest blackmail victim—and murderer.

  She could unstick the investigation. Imagine the look on Zane's face then!

  "Discard?" Michael prompted gently.

  Pattie stilled. What? Had she just considered that if she could remember the repairman's name, she would run and tell Zane?

  "Pattie."

  Pattie looked up to find Angela regarding her oddly.

  "Do you have a discard for me?" Angela asked.

  "Oh." Though Pattie regarded the tiles on her shelf, she couldn't concentrate.

  The truth was, she would tell Zane. In fact, she couldn't imagine not telling him. He was part of the investigation now. In that respect, the two of them were kind of, sort of...together.

  A weird sensation slithered through her. She was together with Zane, at least in this one respect.

  The weird sensation inside her danced around, making her feel slightly ill. She'd never been together, in any way, with anybody.

  But on the other hand, didn't this mean Pattie could accept help? It meant she wasn't as sick as she'd thought the other night after meeting Lonny Domino. She could take.

  Yes, she could take help—when it came to a murder investigation. That only made sense. But she didn't want any of the other garbage Zane had been trying to send her way on Saturday night: tenderness or affection or whatever damn all thing.

  And that was okay. She didn't have to accept tenderness or affection, did she?

  At random, she picked a tile from her shelf. The slithering sensation inside her receded, leaving her feeling much better about everything. She set the tile in the center of the table as a discard.

  "Ooh, I like that four bamboo!" Angela exclaimed, and reached for Pattie's discard.

  "Damn," Michael muttered.

  Angela had the look of somebody about to make Mah Jong, but Pattie's mind jumped back to the topic of unpaid workers. Who'd that gardener been: Ernesto? Martinez? And the carpenter—Pattie recalled the company logo had made her laugh.

  "Mah Jong!" Angela cried.

  "Naturally," Michael grumbled.

  Pattie did hate losing, but this time she smiled, for the name of the carpenter had just come to her. She almost laughed out loud.

  Angela gleefully displayed her completed Mah Jong hand, but Pattie was sure she felt more jubilant than her friend. She knew the carpenter's name, and this path could actually lead somewhere.

  Oh, wait until she told Zane.

  ~~~

  B.O.B. the Builder. The words blazoned across the door of a pickup truck caused Zane to slow Pattie's Rav4 as he drove past a home construction site on Tuesday morning. He pulled up into a space in front of the truck, rolling gently over an amalgam of mud and wood chips. As he pushed the car into park, he shot a look of satisfaction toward Pattie, who sat in the passenger seat beside him. "Looks like we found him."

  Glancing at the truck, Pattie agreed. "It does look that way."

  Her tone was neutral, even cold, but Zane didn't care. This morning Pattie had told him—on her own—about her brainstorm regarding Savannah's homeowner. On her own.

  She'd sat next to him on the sofa in the living room while Tristan stacked colorful blocks. "This carpenter added a bathroom to the house," Pattie had explained to Zane, who'd been reduced to stupefied silence. He'd been shocked she'd come to join him in the room in the first place, then shocked all over again at the
information she was—voluntarily—spilling.

  "I got letters forwarded to me after Savannah di—" Pattie broke off with a glance toward Tristan. "That is, after I moved Tristan out of the house. The carpenter was upset he hadn't been paid. Now, I'd be surprised if Savannah was footing the bill, so the carpenter might know who actually was footing it, and that could be the real owner of the house."

  Slowly, Zane had nodded, only dimly processing her logic about the carpenter's bill. Mostly he was bowled over Pattie had come to him with this jewel.

  She seemed to misunderstand his silence. "You did want to know, didn't you?"

  "Oh, yeah," Zane had agreed at once, feeling a little dismayed. Did she imagine he wasn't still interested? Just because she'd kicked him out of her bed? Come on.

  Clearly, the woman didn't trust him, even if she had come to him with her information.

  Not that he needed Pattie to trust him, Zane sternly told himself now as he turned off the motor. He wasn't looking to get into a relationship here.

  Just some more sex.

  He glanced over as she slipped out of her seat belt. She was wearing a snug-fitting blouse and capris, an outfit that did little to conceal her physical charms.

  Oh, he was definitely interested in more sex with Pattie. For that, trust didn't have to figure into the mix. All that was necessary was a mutual desire, and he was fairly certain that was present.

  "Is that his t'uck? Is that his t'uck?" Tristan stretched up from his car seat in an attempt to see out the car window.

  "Sure looks like it," Pattie answered before Zane had a chance. "The letters on the truck say B.O.B. That spells Bob."

  Tristan smiled. "We're gonna see Bob the Builder."

  On the verge of opening her door, Pattie stopped and glanced uneasily back toward the kid. "Uh...he may not look exactly like the guy in the TV show. In fact, he might look pretty different."

  "Thas' okay." Tristan pushed down on the button of his seatbelt. "He'll have a tool belt, won't he? Won't he?"

  "I'll bet he will." Pattie got out and then opened the back door for Tristan.

  The kid continued to pepper her with questions as they closed up the car. He directed the questions toward Pattie, Zane noted. Furthermore, Pattie fielded each toddler query with aplomb, while adding some cautions about not running in the construction site. The bond between them was growing visibly stronger.

  In fact, the two of them literally left Zane behind, slipping through an opening in the chicken wire fence surrounding the construction site.

  Tilting his head, Zane stopped for a moment. They were clearly losing their need for him. Of course, such a transformation was appropriate. He wasn't going to be around, after all, once Tristan started in a day-long preschool program. That could happen as early as next month, when most fall sessions began. Pattie wouldn't need a nanny then.

  Zane frowned, wondering why the idea caused a pang inside. As if he might not be ready to move on to another, more needy, family in a few months' time. Huh. Of course he would.

  Except—wait a minute. On his way into the site, Zane halted again, suddenly remembering an important detail. The paternity test. What had happened to it? Once it came back, Pattie might not be handling Tristan on her own. She might be doing so with Nick. He was a rather good-looking guy, Zane recalled.

  Scowling, he felt strangely disgruntled as he continued on his way, pushing through the opening in the fence. So what if Nick was a good-looking guy? So what if Pattie practically became a co-parent with him? What would that matter to Zane?

  He was not interested in a relationship with the woman. Absolutely. Not.

  The house was in the process of wood framing. Skeletal walls of two-by-fours sketched out its eventual layout of rooms. The sound of hammers and a drill wafted over the scene. With Zane now leading, they picked their way toward the noise over a bare concrete pad littered with nails and wood scraps.

  Two figures appeared. One of them wielded a nail driver, the other tested a wall with a level. Both wore pink hard hats.

  Pink? Zane thought.

  The figure holding the level looked up. It was a slight figure, the size of a teenage boy, or of a...

  "Bob?" Zane asked.

  The level-holder straightened and walked through the open wall toward them. Zane regarded the tight tank top and soft jeans. B-cup breasts.

  "Yeah, I'm Bob." Big, soulful eyes looked out of a delicate face. Meanwhile, a large and intricate tattoo rested on each naked shoulder. "Short for Barbara Olmos Beltran. Are you the folks my secretary told me were coming, the ones from the house in the Palisades?"

  "Um..." Pattie blinked, her gaze tripping over one of Bob's tattoos. "That's right. Do you have a minute to talk?"

  "Bob?" Tristan piped up. He stared at the diminutive figure before them, the one wearing a pink, as opposed to yellow, hard hat. "You aren't Bob!"

  "Um, uh, Tristan, remember how I told you he—I mean, she—might not look exactly like—"

  "Thas' not Bob!" Tristan pointed at the female construction worker, clearly outraged.

  Even Zane didn't know how to rescue this one, and Tristan looked ready to make the situation even stickier, but Bob, herself, saved the day.

  "No, I don't look like that little clay dude, Bob the Builder, on TV," she confessed to Tristan. "But I have even more great tools."

  "You're not Bob!" Tristan persisted, but his eyes went to the level in Bob's hand.

  "You wanna see how this works?" Bob held it out to him.

  "Yes!" Tristan exclaimed, and reached for it. His expression said he was mortally disappointed, but fully willing to be distracted.

  Smiling, Bob pulled the level away. "Then come over here and be real careful."

  Holding the level like an instrument of the Pied Piper, Bob led the way back to the room in which she'd been working.

  Zane and Pattie watched while Tristan attempted to make the bubble land between the two dark lines. He laughed in satisfaction upon achieving success.

  "Now, here's a screwdriver." Bob handed Tristan a stubby screwdriver from her belt. "See if you can get that out for me." She pointed to a screw set into a wood scrap.

  While Tristan plopped onto the concrete pad and set to his task with gusto, Bob turned back to Zane and Pattie. "The kid looks familiar, but not you guys. You're not the people from the house in the Palisades."

  "No, not exactly," Pattie explained. "I'm the boy's aunt. My sister, Savannah Bowen, was his mother. She lived in the Palisades house and she, uh—" Pattie glanced toward Tristan, who was deeply occupied with the screwdriver. "She's deceased."

  "Oh." Bob's face fell. "That's bad. I mean—sorry for your loss and everything...but your sister died owing me a bunch of money."

  Zane's hopes dashed. Bob described the debt as belonging to Savannah. The carpenter might not know the real owner of the house, after all.

  Wincing, Pattie asked, "How much money?"

  Bob's face darkened. "Five grand."

  "Listen." Zane wasn't ready to give up. "That's a lot of money and we'd like to see you get paid. We're looking for, uh, an associate of Savannah Bowen's. We think...a man?"

  "You mean weasel-face?" Bob asked.

  "Excuse me?" Pattie said.

  Bob's lip curled. "He was the one said he was going to pay me. Then he hid behind a corporation and disappeared. Dressed like a millionaire, acted like a bum."

  Zane met gazes with Pattie. They'd hit pay dirt.

  Looking back toward Bob, Pattie scratched the edge of her mouth. "Like we said, we'd like to see you get paid. Maybe we can do that if we can find this guy." She paused. "Do you know his name?"

  "Of course I know his name," Bob scoffed. "Not that it'll do you any good, there's no phone number or address to go with it. Ted Cranston, for what it's worth. That's his name: Ted Cranston."

  Zane's soaring rush of triumph hit a brick wall. Ted Cranston? With a name that generic there'd be about a million references on Google. Still, it was a lot more
than they'd had before. "Tall guy? Short?" he prompted, hoping for something—anything—to help identify the man.

  Bob frowned. "I guess he was on the tall side. Dark hair. Good-looking." She paused. "Always seemed pissed off."

  Considering Mr. Cranston was being blackmailed to the tune of a house in the Palisades, Zane could easily believe this description of his mood.

  When he glanced toward Pattie again, Zane could read his own conclusion in her face. Okay, it was a common name, but they were onto something here.

  His sense of accomplishment stretched, linking him with Pattie. In that moment he felt in tune with her. He felt like they were...together.

  Before the impact of that could hit him, Pattie cut her gaze. She turned to the carpenter in the pink hard hat. "Thank you. You've been extremely helpful."

  "If you find him..." Bob said. "I've got a judgment against his damn-all corporation, but I need an address to collect."

  "We'll let you know," Pattie promised. She stepped away from Zane and put her hand on Tristan's shoulder. "Let's go, Bud."

  "You can keep the wood chip," Zane told Tristan. "But I think Bob the Builder needs her screwdriver back." Beneath the calm of his voice, his mind scrambled frantically. Together? With Pattie? No way.

  Grudgingly, Tristan handed the short screwdriver back to the carpenter. But the wood scrap he cradled like a precious treasure as they turned for the car.

  The kid was incredibly cute, so it shouldn't have been a surprise for Zane to see Pattie look down at Tristan with one of her new maternal smiles. But it hit him like a slug to the stomach.

  He slowed, letting Pattie and Tristan get ahead of him on their way out of the construction site, with Tristan warbling excitedly.

  An arrow of fear sliced through him. Was he fooling himself here? Was he hoping for more than merely sex with Pattie?

  Standing there, Zane shook his head. No. He didn't want more, and he wasn't 'together' with her. He was a rational man, not an idiot.