Mandy nodded. “I always believed she loved us more than anything. I used to beg her to leave him, but I never dreamed she’d go and not take us. I trusted her as I’ve never trusted anyone. She taught me a valuable lesson, I suppose. Now I know better than to count on anyone but myself.”
Zach listened in silence, uncertain how to respond. He could scarcely imagine how much it must have hurt Mandy to realize that her mom had run away, leaving her behind to take the heat. Losing your mother was pure hell. Zach knew that firsthand. But at least he’d always known his hadn’t left him by choice.
“You know what hurt the most?” she whispered.
“No, what?” Zach’s voice had gone thick.
“I figured she’d call—or that she’d send us money to join her somewhere. For nearly a year, my heart soared every time our phone rang, and I checked the mailbox every single day, not just hoping but knowing she’d get in touch. But she never did. I can only assume she started a new life somewhere, and there wasn’t room in it for me and Luke. If I live to be a hundred, I’ll never forgive her for that.”
What kind of mother did such a thing? “And after she left, you took the brunt of your father’s rages.”
“Yes. Until I was seventeen, anyway, and called the authorities.”
“That took a lot of courage.”
“I didn’t have a choice.” She pushed at a curl that had come loose from her hair clip. “The night before I made the call, Dad went after Luke. Luke was blind by then, and when our father started in on me, Luke grew frightened and disoriented. When he couldn’t find the stairs, he huddled in a corner, crying. Then he wet his pants. When my dad saw pee on his precious hardwood floors, he grabbed Luke by an arm. Shook him like a rag doll and started slapping him. I was afraid he’d seriously injure my brother, so I grabbed a skillet off the stove and clocked Dad on the head.”
“Oh, my God,” Zach whispered. “That can’t have ended well for you.”
“It was bad,” she agreed. “But Luke got away. He finally found the stairs. He was safe, and that was the important thing.”
“What about you, Mandy? You couldn’t get away, and you weren’t safe.”
“I was bigger. Besides, I was used to it.”
Again, Zach looked for telltale signs of intense emotion, but her expression remained stoic. He’d always admired her, but never more than in that moment.
She turned her hands palms up and studied the creases as if she were trying to read her own future. “The next morning, we pretended to leave for school, but instead we hid in the toolshed until Dad left. I had to do something. Sooner or later, I knew Luke would get in the line of fire again.” She sent Zach a haunted look that chilled him clear to his center. “I didn’t know who to call. I phoned Dad’s parents. I thought they might take us in. Grandma refused to interfere and hung up on me. She was afraid Dad would get mad at them, and she didn’t want to jeopardize their relationship with him.
“Next, I called my school counselor. She got in touch with people who would help us.” A distant look came into her eyes again. “Two ladies came with a police escort. The cops were reluctant—a loyalty issue, because my father was the mayor, a big shot in Crystal Falls. The women took me in the bathroom, looked at my torso, and when they told the cops how badly beaten up I was, they came around. Neither of them said as much, but I think they were furious with my dad. Our clothing was packed, we were put into the police car, and by nightfall we were in a temporary foster home. Dad was in jail.”
“Did that bother you? Knowing you’d gotten your father thrown in jail, I mean.”
She shook her head. “I hoped they’d keep him locked up forever. I hated him, and I was terrified that sooner or later I wouldn’t be able to stop him from hurting Luke.” She began studying her palms again. “He was ... There’s something wrong with him. On the outside, he’s charming, well educated, funny, and warm. But on the inside, all you find is ice. Even when he beat me, there was something cold and calculated about it.”
“Meaning?”
She lifted a slender shoulder in a halfhearted shrug. “There’s no point in revisiting all of that. Suffice it to say he made sure no one outside our family ever saw the bruises. There’s something—I don’t know how to explain it, but something’s missing inside him. He doesn’t know how to love anyone. He didn’t even love my mother. She was pretty, and I think he thought of her as an ornament, something to have on his arm in public to make him look like the perfect family man. But he didn’t love her.”
Hearing Mandy talk, Zach realized how very lucky he’d been to have such wonderful parents. “On some level, he must have cared for her, Mandy. Maybe not—”
“No,” she interrupted emphatically. “After she left, he pretended in front of all his friends that he was devastated. But he wasn’t. You know what he did one week later?”
“What?”
“He revamped our whole backyard to be the entertainment showplace of Crystal Falls. It was a huge yard, probably twice the size of mine. And in the far left corner, he paid to have an elaborate outdoor kitchen area built, a gigantic cement pad trimmed with brick benches and a brick barbecue.” She shook her head as if she still couldn’t believe he’d done that. “My mother had been gone only a week, and he revamped the yard? If he’d loved my mom—her name is Sharyn—he would have been devastated. Instead, all he could think about was the fabulous garden parties he was going to throw for all his important friends. And he had the first one two weeks after she left.”
Zach thumbed a flyaway curl from her cheek. He wished he knew something wise to say, something that might heal the wounds that he sensed festered so deeply within her. Sadly, all that came to mind was, “If you ever need to talk, you’ve got my numbers. Early morning, way late at night, you can call me anytime.”
She curled her fingers over his wrist, the tips reaching only a little over halfway, reminding him how fragile her bone structure was. Though she chose to be reticent about the beatings she’d received from her father, Luke hadn’t been, so Zach knew more of what had gone on than she realized. The thought of some man pounding on her with his fists and kicking her made his blood boil. He would have emptied his bank accounts and liquidated all his assets for ten satisfying minutes alone with Tobin Pajeck.
The realization stymied Zach. He’d never before felt so protective of a woman outside his family. Mandy. When he looked at her, warmth sluiced through him. He was coming to care for her, perhaps far more than was wise. But how in the hell could a man stanch the flow of feeling?
Luke and Rosebud returned. Zach pushed to his feet, belatedly remembering that dinner was his show. He had to get the spuds in the oven and take a wire brush to the grill. He kicked it into gear, helping Rosebud up the steps while Mandy guided Luke to a deck chair. Then he hit the kitchen. Mandy followed him inside.
She stepped to the sink to wash her hands. “What can I do to help?”
“I haven’t made the salad yet.”
She dimpled a cheek at him. “One of my specialties. Do you like Caesar?”
It was one of Zach’s favorites. “I don’t have any Caesar dressing or croutons.”
“You don’t need any. I make everything from scratch. If you have all the ingredients, it’ll be awesome.”
The Caesar salad was awesome, and so was the rest of the evening. Zach hated to see it end. Luke and Rosebud were getting along famously, and so were Zach and Mandy. As they worked together to clean up the kitchen, with Luke in charge of loading the dishwasher because he’d insisted on helping, they told silly knock-knock jokes.
“Knock, knock,” Luke said.
“Not another one!” Mandy protested.
Playing along, Zach asked, “Who’s there?”
“Me, you idiot,” Luke shot back. “Are you blind or something?”
When they ran out of knock-knock jokes, Zach asked, “What do you call a gorilla with a banana stuck in both ears?”
“Developmentally challenged,” M
andy tried.
“A banana fiend,” Luke suggested.
Zach laughed. “You can call him anything you want. He can’t hear you.”
Luke laughed. Mandy groaned. When the dishes were done, Zach brewed coffee, and the three of them sat at the table to enjoy Mandy’s chocolate cake. In Zach’s estimation, it was delicious. He had three pieces. After putting their plates and cups into the machine, Mandy glanced at her watch and smiled regretfully at him.
“That time already?” he asked.
“It’s almost ten. We need to get home.”
Zach sighed. “I wish you didn’t have to go.”
Her gaze searched his. “Me, too. It’s been fun. Thank you so much for inviting us.”
Luke went down on his knees to tell Rosebud good-bye. The two had been inseparable all evening. “I hate to leave her,” he said.
Zach winked at Mandy. “You’ll see her again.”
“When?”
Zach lifted an eyebrow at Mandy. She smiled as she collected her purse. “I’ll call you to set up a time.”
“Sounds good,” Zach agreed.
As Zach walked them to their car, he took Mandy’s hand. For a moment she looked startled, but then she smiled uncertainly and didn’t pull away. At the driver’s door, he stepped in close, bent his head, and kissed her cheek as he told her good night. She pressed her fingertips to the spot where his lips had touched her skin.
“Good night,” she whispered. “See you soon.”
Tomorrow wouldn’t be soon enough to suit Zach, but all his instincts told him not to push her. He watched her car until it was swallowed by darkness; then he went back into the house. Rosebud looked forlornly up at him.
“You’re starting to love him, aren’t you, girl?” Zach patted the little horse’s head. “He’s shaping up to be a pretty nice young man. Maybe it’ll work out for the two of you.”
Zach stepped over to open the fridge and grab a beer. Then he changed his mind. If he wanted to start a serious relationship with Mandy, and he had come to realize he did, he needed to curb the amount of alcohol he consumed.
After setting the coffeepot up for the morning, Zach put the harness on Rosebud and they went to the arena. Tornado met them at the gate. Zach was pleased by the changes he was seeing in the stallion. The horse was learning to trust again. Soon, Zach would stop sleeping in the arena. Tornado no longer really needed that, and it was time to move on to the next step, which would be to love on him with no expectations riding drag.
Zach gave the stallion some pellet treats. Then he removed Rosebud’s gear, got her feeder and water pail, shook out his bedding, and went to turn out the lights. Instant blackness. After a second, his eyes adjusted. Faint shafts of moonlight came in through the skylights, providing just enough illumination for him to see. He rejoined Rosebud in front of Tornado’s stall, climbed into the sleeping bag, and tipped his Stetson down over his eyes.
In the habit of getting up long before dawn, Zach was weary, and he expected to fall asleep almost instantly. Instead he lay there listening to Rosebud munch on her hay, his thoughts circling back to Mandy’s story about her mother. Zach couldn’t believe Tobin Pajeck had bounced back from losing his wife within a week and started redoing his backyard. What kind of man could be so heartless? Even worse, what kind of father could distance himself so completely from his children’s pain and sense of loss?
Zach’s eyes drifted closed and then popped back open. According to Mandy, Sharyn had seemed to love her children with her whole heart and protected them at every turn. How, then, could she have abandoned Mandy and Luke, leaving them with a man she knew would abuse them? It made no sense to Zach. Hell, it would have been easier for him to believe Tobin had murdered her that night and hidden the body.
Zach jackknifed to a sitting position. After that, everything went quiet, Mandy had told him. And she hadn’t gone downstairs to check on her mother. I was forbidden . Zach stared into the shadows of the arena. It was late. He was tired. The evening had been emotional. That was why his imagination was taking such a morbid turn.
Maybe. But he couldn’t convince himself of it. Tobin Pajeck, the mayor, a prominent citizen, had been deserted by his wife, and instead of exploding in rage, he’d constructed an outdoor entertainment area that took up much of the yard. Then he’d thrown a party. No sense of humiliation had touched him. Mandy had made that clear. And angry humiliation would be the natural reaction for a man like him. Zach’s mind raced. What better way was there to hide a body than to cover it with concrete?
Nah, Zach told himself firmly. His imagination was running wild. That kind of crap rarely happened in real life. This was Crystal Falls, Oregon, not a crime-ridden metropolis. Maybe Pajeck was a violent alcoholic, but that didn’t make him a killer.
Forcing himself to lie back down, Zach tipped the Stetson over his eyes again, but sleep eluded him. I’m losing it. Sharyn Pajeck had had every reason to run scared, and there might be a perfectly rational explanation for her failure to send for her kids. Maybe she’d never contacted them because she was terrified her husband would find her. Or perhaps she’d had no education or training, which forced her to take a menial job that didn’t bring in enough income to support two children. That made more sense than the murder plot he was cooking up in his sleep-deprived brain.
The next morning as Zach strode up the arena hallway to the tack room, he stopped to stare at the concrete flooring. Four inches thick, impervious to wear, it had held solid for more than ten years and would probably hang tough for another thirty. He’d built it to last, reinforcing the cement with rebar. Over time, fissures had developed in the surface, but the only way the walkway would ever fall apart was if he took a jackhammer to it. If a man wanted to hide a terrible secret, covering it with cement would certainly do the trick.
Zach’s attempts to focus on work were invaded by visions of murder, grave digging, and the silent gloating of a man who knew he was beyond the law. He couldn’t push the thoughts from his mind. Who do I think I am, Sherlock Holmes? Murder scenarios weren’t part of his usual thought processes.
After putting in several hours with the horses, he broke for lunch at the house. While eating a turkey sandwich in his office, he called his uncle Hugh, a state cop who’d been based in Crystal Falls for most of his career. Hugh sounded surprised to hear from his nephew, which made Zach feel guilty for not calling or going to see him more often. The two men exchanged pleasantries, and then Zach got around to his reason for phoning.
“Do you remember back fifteen years ago when Mayor Pajeck’s wife disappeared?”
“Disappear is a strong word,” Hugh replied. “Sharyn Pajeck left her husband.”
Zach frowned. “Are you sure of that?”
“Pretty damn sure. According to Tobin, they got into a horrible fight the night before, and she said she was going to leave him. The little girl, I can’t recall her name now, verified that she’d heard her mother say that.”
“So the authorities took it at face value and never searched for Sharyn?”
“We had no reason,” Hugh said. “She was a grown woman. There’s no law against skipping out on your husband and kids. Tobin called to report her missing, but he wasn’t really interested in filing a missing-person report. The marriage was rocky; he didn’t want her back. No signs of violence were seen inside the house, end of story.”
Zach sighed. “Did you see the house yourself, Uncle Hugh?”
“I did, actually. I was on duty when he called. Tobin acted as if he had nothing to hide. Her closet was empty, her suitcase was gone, along with all her personal things.”
“Did you happen to notice any freshly turned earth in the backyard?” Zach inquired.
Hugh laughed. “No, son, I didn’t. What are you suggesting, that Tobin knocked her off and buried her out there?”
That was precisely what Zach was suggesting, but he could understand how outrageous it might seem to his uncle.
“Why are you asking about
this?” Hugh queried.
“I’ve met his daughter. Tobin is now in prison for trying to kill her. The story of Sharyn’s disappearance doesn’t add up for me. I was just curious to learn what kind of investigation ensued after she vanished.”
“There was no real investigation.” Hugh sounded troubled by the admission. “At the time, we weren’t aware of Pajeck’s abusive patterns; his story made sense, and the daughter backed him up on it. We figured Sharyn had just left him.”
After chatting for a few more minutes, Zach ended the call, feeling completely unsatisfied with the answers he’d gotten. No investigation? Now that Pajeck’s vicious nature had come to light, Zach believed that had been a huge oversight on the part of the police. Determined to rectify that, Zach got on his computer to search old public records. Tobin Pajeck’s former celebrity status as mayor made him an easy fellow to find. Within only minutes, Zach located the address of the home where Mandy had grown up. He didn’t need to jot it down. One look and it was burned into his brain.
After working with Rosebud and spending some time whittling outside Tornado’s stall that afternoon, Zach hunted down Cookie. He found the old fart in the arena office.
“I need the rest of the evening off. Can you button it up around here for me?”
The foreman had doffed his hat. He looked like a mad scientist when he glanced up from the paperwork, his flyaway gray hair poking out in all directions. “Sure. What’s up, a date with Tornado’s lady friend?”
Zach propped a shoulder against the doorjamb. “Not tonight. I just have a hunch I want to check out, and I’d like to do it before dark.”
“Anything special you need taken care of here?”
“Nope, just the usual.”
Here to Stay Page 29
