“On the way home from doggy day care, Doug ran into three other dogs,” Adeline read from the book. “They had no home so they didn’t get to go to doggy day care. ‘Look. Here comes Doug,’ one of the dog bullies said.”
Jamie touched the drawing of a black Doberman between a medium-sized brown terrier and a pit bull. “They’re mean.”
“‘She’s got a boy name,’ said the brown terrier,” Adeline went on. “‘Why’d your people name you Doug?’ Doug held her tail high and said, ‘They love me.’ Then the three dog bullies passed. The Doberman didn’t say anything. He knew Doug had a nice home and he had none.” Adeline turned the page. “Doug overcame her fear of the dog bullies. She felt sorry for them instead. They teased her but she didn’t have to let them hurt her.”
“Why are dog bullies mean?”
“They’re jealous,” Adeline said.
“What’s ‘jell-us’?”
She’d have to get used to talking to a three-year-old. “They just want what Doug has.”
Adeline read about Doug going home to her people. Then Doug and the bullies ran into each other at a birthday party. The bullies found a home and they all started to become friends. At that point, Adeline finished to “The End.”
She closed the book. “That was a good story.”
“Yeah. I feel sorry for the dog bullies.”
“Why do you feel sorry for them?”
“They didn’t have a home.”
“Well, then you got the message of the story right. And they ended up getting a home.” She smiled down at him as he looked thoughtfully up at her.
“Do you have a mommy?” Jamie asked.
The question came so out of the blue she had to take a moment to assemble her reply. “Yes.”
Jamie wore such a serious face for one so young. “Did she go away?”
Did he ask very many people this? He must have noticed other kids his age had both a mother and a father. Did he remember Tess? He’d only been a year old when she died. “No, but my dad did.”
“You don’t have a daddy?”
He couldn’t possibly know what a hard question that was. “I do but he went away when I was a baby.”
Jamie stared up at her, his crystal clear blue eyes wide with absorption. “Is he dead?”
“No. He didn’t want to stay with me and my mother.”
With that, Jamie turned and lowered his head. After a time he looked back up at her. “My mommy left me. Daddy said she had to go away.”
“She didn’t want to leave, sweetie. She died. I know she would have never left you if she had any say in the matter.” She put her hand over his tiny one on the comforter. “It’s okay. Your daddy loves you very much, just like my mommy loves me. Some of us don’t have both parents, that’s all.”
Jeremy appeared by the bed. “Time for sleep, buddy.”
Adeline stood while he tucked Jamie into the covers.
“Love you.” Jeremy kissed Jamie’s forehead.
“Love you too, Daddy.”
Jamie’s eyes closed and he began to slip into sleep. Precious. Children could fall asleep so easily.
Jeremy headed for the door and Adeline left ahead of him. Out of the room, he stopped in the loft.
“Sorry about that. I didn’t mean to throw you into that on your first day here.”
“It’s all right. I enjoyed it.” She tried to sound nonchalant, as though reading to her son and handling a serious question were no big deal. That wouldn’t affect her when it came time to leave...not.
* * *
The next day, Jeremy stepped into his office building with concern weighing down his brow. He and Adeline had just dropped Jamie off at Camille and Oscar Biggs’s house. Camille had offered to watch Jamie temporarily until Jeremy could find a new nanny. He and Oscar were friends as well as colleagues. Camille had told them Oscar would want to talk to Jeremy when he arrived in the office. Jeremy had received a text saying the equivalent from Oscar himself. His general counsel wouldn’t relay a message like that if it wasn’t important.
He guided Adeline into the elevator, vaguely aware of how she took everything in around her, from the marble lobby to the security desk and the sign in the elevator mapping out businesses on each floor. She wore her professional PI attire again, this time in a man-torturing black pencil skirt with matching vest over a white shirt. She had her trench coat over her arm, and runnable heel-height ankle boots, showcasing her leggy strides.
The elevator opened on the top floor. He walked out with her into the open reception area flanked on three sides by cubicles, the windowed walls lined with the executive offices. Adeline’s heels tapped against the gray slate tile.
“Good morning, Mr. Kincaid,” the receptionist greeted from behind the marble-plated half wall from her desk. She wore her black hair pulled tight into a bun. A vase of white lilies and a large round bronze clock added a touch of warmth. Light streamed through windows on each side, and irregularly placed tables with white chairs provided books and magazines catering to a variety of interests.
Jeremy guided Adeline down a hall between cubicles to the west side of the floor and his corner office.
His assistant rose from her chair when she saw him. “Oscar said to get him as soon as you arrived.”
“Send him in.”
“I’ll wait out here.” Adeline stopped near the assistant.
She and Jeremy were going to go over Tess’s accident this morning and strategize on how to take his lead further. But now they had another meeting with Oscar to squeeze in.
“Oscar said to include your PI,” the assistant said.
That brought both his and Adeline’s head turning.
Was this related to Tess?
“I’ll go get him.”
Jeremy met Adeline’s eyes, hers likely less astounded than his. She might expect the unexpected while working cases. In business he could handle that. This was personal, though. Oscar never insisted on talking to him so urgently. If something important came up, he usually just stopped by his office.
He remained standing with her as Oscar appeared at his assistant’s desk. A shade over six feet, Oscar dressed in a suit and tie every day and kept his body in good physical condition. He wore scholarly glasses and still had a head of dark hair, clipped short and peppered with gray.
He came into the office with a curious glance at Adeline.
Jeremy introduced them.
“The PI,” Oscar said, shaking her hand and giving her form a quick, purely observational once-over. “Not quite what I expected.”
“Did you expect a man, Mr. Biggs?”
Jeremy couldn’t tell if she sounded defensive. She didn’t strike him as a woman who’d let anyone get away with treating her with anything other than respect.
“I’m not sure what I expected, Ms. Winters, but it wasn’t a woman with such a fine presence.”
She had a way of balancing social etiquette with a serious question, her smile engaging and, yes, her presence was fine...very fine. Whatever she’d sought to find out must have satisfied her.
“Thank you... I think.”
Oscar put his hands together in a soft clap. “On to the purpose of this meeting.”
“Coffee.” Jeremy’s assistant entered with a tray and put it down on a conference table.
Jeremy sat at one end, Oscar to his right, Adeline to his left. She didn’t take a cup of coffee, just a glass of water. Oscar sipped from a steaming cup and Jeremy waited for his to cool.
Then Oscar put his cup down and, after a lengthy silence, finally turned to Jeremy. “What I have to say isn’t easy, Jeremy.”
Jeremy didn’t get uptight over that announcement. He’d already anticipated something big. That it wasn’t easy to say suggested this was personal. N
othing related to his business would be that shocking. Oscar must know something. No matter what, Jeremy preferred he tell him.
“You know how people talk around here. I heard you suspect Livia Colton may have something to do with Tess’s accident,” Oscar said.
Jeremy grew instantly more alert. Did Oscar know something about Livia that could help his case? “Yes.” Why had he brought that up? Had he found a connection? Jeremy contained his flaring hope.
“How long have you suspected her?”
“Not seriously until recently. Why?”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Oscar asked.
Why would he? “I had nothing to go on, only a hunch.” He waited for Oscar to tell him what he’d come to say, which seemed more and more to be a confession of some sort—a confession related to Livia’s involvement in Tess’s accident.
Oscar lowered his head briefly, uncharacteristic of such a powerful man. He had major difficulty with his declaration. He must have kept this secret for some time and something had compelled him to come forward.
“Before I came to work for you, I was involved with Livia,” Oscar finally said, not sounding or seeming proud.
“You had an affair?” Adeline asked.
He nodded. Jeremy could see how Oscar might be ashamed of that.
“What might make you think that is related to Tess’s accident?” Adeline asked.
The way Oscar turned to her and then slowly, reluctantly, met Jeremy’s eyes, warned of what was about to come next.
“I was the man your witness saw meeting Tess the day of her accident.”
Of all the things. Jeremy leaned back against his chair, needing the support to keep steady. Beside him, Adeline leaned over and removed her padfolio and a pen from her case. Putting them on the table, she began to write, asking, “Did you tell law enforcement this, Mr. Biggs?”
“No. I didn’t see the need. Tess’s accident wasn’t determined to be a homicide.” He turned to Jeremy. “But I see a need now. The next day when I heard she died in a car accident, I felt I was to blame.”
“Her blood alcohol level was well over the legal limit,” Adeline said, jotting down more on her notepad, her handwriting neat and uniform. He read her observations on Oscar’s appearance. Well-groomed. Anxious but forthright...
Jeremy got the idea she didn’t do anything halfway. Her attire was as neat and precise as her writing. Her blond hair was down but combed to a smooth, silky shine. Even her pen had the stamp of detail, with a monogram of her initials.
“Why did you meet her?” she asked, bringing Jeremy’s attention back to the purpose of this meeting.
Oscar looked intent, as though working up to plead his case. “Tess asked me to. I refused the first few times, but she wouldn’t stop until finally I agreed to meet her for a late lunch.”
A few times? She’d had a relationship with Oscar before Jeremy met her. Had she wanted to get back together with Oscar?
Jeremy was stunned. How had he missed her unhappiness? Sure, her drinking had caused problems in their marriage. She had gone to rehab but Jeremy had always worried she might relapse. It wasn’t until she died that he’d he realized she had. She hadn’t been dissatisfied with him as a husband...had she?
“Jeremy, I didn’t get involved with her.”
“Why did she meet you?” he asked again.
In his side vision he saw Adeline carefully put down her pen, pausing in taking notes and only listening intently now.
Oscar’s breath sighed out long and full of reluctance. “She wanted to start up with me again. When I refused, she left upset. I didn’t know she was drinking until I heard about her accident. If I’d have known, I would have stopped her.”
Looking straight ahead, Jeremy searched his memory for signs that Tess had drifted away from him to the point where she’d seek out other men. None came to mind, but the idea stung. He’d always been busy at work. Sometimes he didn’t get home until after eight. They had shared many evenings together, though. She hadn’t seemed unhappy.
Then he began recalling the weeks leading up to her accident. They hadn’t talked much. They’d had family dinners and done things together on the weekends, but now that he thought back in more detail, he and Tess hadn’t said much to each other. When they’d first met, they’d talked all the time. She hadn’t had to work and used to wait for him to get home so she could eat dinner with him. Somewhere along the way she’d stopped doing that. After they brought Jamie home, the sex had almost stopped, too.
“She was drinking again, Jeremy,” Oscar said in his lengthy silence. “She wasn’t thinking straight.”
Jeremy turned to him, a trusted employee, a trusted top executive. “You’ve been a good friend to me, Oscar. If she strayed, it wasn’t your fault.”
“I’m sorry. You’ve been a good friend to me, too. I should have told you sooner.” He bent his head above his coffee cup and shook his head before looking back at Jeremy. “But with her dying... I... I just couldn’t. I could see how much you were grieving. If I’d have been the one in your shoes, I’d have wanted the same. Time.”
Two years was a long wait.
Adeline picked up her pen again. “Tess died two years ago.”
Oscar didn’t falter as she pinned him with that fact. “Yes. And that’s why I’m sorry,” he said to her. Then to Jeremy he added, “But to be honest, I don’t think you’ve stopped grieving. When I heard about your suspicion of Livia, it dawned on me why. You’ve always thought Tess was murdered.”
Jeremy nodded. “I’ve told the deputy who worked the accident but he has done nothing. That only supports my theory about Livia.”
“She did have long tentacles into the community, and they didn’t stop at law enforcement.”
“How do you know that?” Adeline asked.
Oscar seemed to catch himself, remembering who she was, a PI Jeremy hired to look into Tess’s death. And he could have possibly implicated himself. “People talk.”
“She never said anything to you? You weren’t aware of her meeting with anyone on the force?”
He shook his head. “No. She had lots of meetings she didn’t tell me about. She wasn’t an open book. She was a walking secret factory.”
Adeline nodded as though she agreed. She must have heard things herself, although she had never been close enough to feel Livia’s evil.
“How long did you see her?” Adeline asked.
“Six months. She never got over me breaking things off, and was always jealous when I was with other women.”
“Did Livia know you met Tess?” Jeremy took up the questioning from Adeline.
“Not at first. Then she sent me a letter. Threatening me. That’s another reason I wanted to meet with you, why it was so important.”
“What kind of threats?” Adeline asked.
“If I didn’t break up with Tess, I might start having some accidents. She said she’d haunt me from prison. Her words exactly.”
Jeremy met Adeline’s glance. Livia had somehow managed to get a threatening letter delivered to Oscar. Did that bring her closer to believing Livia had enough reason to go after Tess?
“When did all of this happen?” Adeline asked.
“Years after Livia and I were together. I never understood why she hung on to so much resentment for so long.”
“Because she’s that crazy,” Jeremy said.
“What happened after she threatened you?” Adeline asked. “Did she ever haunt you?”
Oscar shook his head, propping his ankle on his knee, looking much more relaxed. “Tess broke up with me a few weeks later. Nothing unusual happened. I thought Livia finally let it go, like she was glad Tess and I split up. Tess met Jeremy about a month later. Jeremy was a good man about it. He made sure I had no hard feelings. I didn’t. I knew Tess and I
weren’t right for each other.” He looked directly at Jeremy. “I could see she loved you. I could see you loved her. It was obvious. If Livia held a grudge for years over me and Tess, she might have disliked Tess enough to go after her when she met you, a successful man who made her happy.”
“I appreciate you telling me.” Jeremy really was thankful for his candor. And he was relieved he hadn’t been wrong about keeping him on as his general counsel. He also felt reassured that he’d let his wife, Camille, watch Jamie when he or Adeline couldn’t be with him.
As he turned to see how Adeline was taking all this, he saw her scrutinizing Oscar, as though she felt the man was either a smooth talker or hiding something.
Chapter 3
“You dress differently when you go on stakeouts?” Jeremy asked.
After talking to Oscar, they decided to track down the deputy Jeremy had gone to for help on his suspicions regarding Tess’s accident, the one who had brushed him off. Had Livia paid the deputy to help her go after Tess? They had picked up Jamie and then the next day found the man and followed him here, to this café. He sat by himself drinking coffee and hadn’t noticed them.
Adeline glanced down at her black slacks with white-and-black patterned blouse. She’d draped her trench coat over the back of the chair. “I don’t always wear vests.” She did like the Sherlock Holmes kind of feeling she had when she did wear them, though.
“Maybe that’s what looks so different.”
She knew why when she saw him look down at her cleavage, which was modest, she knew. She never dressed sexy when she worked, but she did have some sexy clothes in her closet.
“Does it bother you?” she asked, hearing her own flirty tone.
“No. The opposite,” he said with answering flirtation.
The waitress came to their table, and she and Jeremy ordered coffee.
“Who are you, Adeline Winters?” Jeremy said. “I want to know more about you, more than they tell you about family history of a surrogate mother, anyway.”
Did he? Would she be wise in telling him? The tickle in her heart wouldn’t allow her to decide.
Mission--Colton Justice Page 3
