“You're awake.”
“Y-yeah.” The sight of him made her heart rattle around in her chest. The perfect waking sight to bring the nurses running—her erratic heart.
He stood. “How do you feel?”
She tried a smile. “Like somebody used a large knife to cut me open.”
His expression turned grim, then. “Why didn't you tell me about the cervical cancer? After the weekend we had, you just left without saying goodbye. What if you hadn’t made it?”
She tried to sit up, but the pain cutting through her, below her navel, increased. “How did you know I was here?”
Walter helped her into a sitting position, her feet dangling off the side of the bed. “Your roommate.”
She swallowed. “I understand if you’re mad.”
“I'm not mad, Eileen.” He rubbed his chin. “That was yesterday. Now, I'm confused and hurt. I told you personal things about myself. You didn't think this was good enough to discuss?”
“It would have changed everything.” Laughter would have turned to heaviness.
“Of course it would have.” He wiped a hand down his face and across bloodshot eyes as if he'd been so close to tears, his orbital sockets couldn't take the pressure. “This is probably the dumbest thing I've ever suggested, but I can't stop myself. Marry me, Eileen. In the hospital chapel. Today.”
A small laugh escaped her lungs before she could stop it. “Are you crazy?”
Seriousness blanketed his features as he stepped closer. “Yes.”
A sweeter word had never crossed her ears. “I have to recover from surgery. After that there will be treatment. Have you ever heard of Concurrent Chemoradiation? Double the treatment. I'm going to get sick, thinner, and paler. I might lose my hair. Have you ever seen someone going through that, Walt?”
“No.” Not an ounce of fear showed on his face.
She had. “It's sad to watch someone become a shell of who they are. They're so sick they can't move, can't talk and they don't want to eat. And sometimes they don't make it.”
“I love you.”
“What?”
He grabbed her hand. His was clammy, but maintained a firm hold. “I said, I love you. That won't change if I spend days, weeks, months or years with you. I'd be grateful for every day we have. Some will be better than others, but how else would we know to enjoy the good without the bad?”
Her heart stopped. She wanted to say yes to this man and his spontaneity, because after three days together she loved him, too. “What about your future? You can't put it on hold.”
“I'm not putting anything on hold. You are my future. You have to feel it, too.” He raised their hands to his chest, placed hers over his heart and covered it with his own. “Here.”
The steady thud, against her palm, reverberated through her arm and into her heart. That gaze cut through her and settled inside. “Five kids are in your future, too.”
“Six.” He smiled. “Or as many as they'll let us adopt.”
Tears leaked out of her eyes. “Why?”
He wiped one away with the back of his hand. “Because after less than a week, I can't imagine living without you.”
So, she did the only sensible thing her heart would allow. At two in the afternoon, in a white dress with the most fabric she'd ever seen, she married him inside the hospital chapel.
If she’d believed in magic, she would have said those twenty minutes hit fairytale status. In that time, she forgot about her surgery, the impending treatments and her uncertain future.
All that existed was the man she'd pledged her life to. That honeymoon fog traveled with them. As she got discharged several days later. Found a place, for rent, more conveniently located to the hospital. Cheap furnishings, so they could live in comfort. Sometimes, he cooked dinner. On occasion, she surprised him with takeout.
Almost two months later, during a chemo treatment, he met her at the cancer center with a stack of health magazines, some soup and a bouquet of wild flowers. Like any other time she'd been hooked to the machine pumping poison into her veins, he’d sit down and tell her a joke. Or make her smile. This time, the heart-felt grin wasn't on his face. Instead, he looked drawn and pale.
She put the book, she'd been reading, aside. “What's wrong?”
He placed a kiss on her cheek and pulled up a chair. “I brought some broth for you.”
She took the items he offered and set them aside. “Walt, what's going on?”
“I don't want to talk about it here.” He glanced at the other patients around them. Most of them were older and had their eyes closed. One lady flipped through a magazine.
“Do it anyway. I've still got another ninety minutes and then radiation.”
A heavy sigh came from his lips. “Sandra Porterville is three months pregnant.”
A sock to the stomach would have hurt less. Another woman was giving him what she could not. “You're sure it's yours?” She whispered.
“Sandra's a lot of things, but not a liar. She wants me to pay for an abortion.”
Dread pooled in Eileen’s stomach. “Does she have any idea how dangerous that could be to her health? How many people hope to adopt? There's got to be a solution.”
“Her parents have threatened to disinherit her, if she keeps it.”
Eileen never understood how reputation could come before flesh and blood. This woman had given Walter a son or a daughter and she refused to see that life wasted. “Let me talk to her.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
Meeting the woman who'd given birth to Amanda, would be like questioning any other person-of-interest. She'd ask simple questions and hope for reciprocal answers. Or something that might shed light on what their perp might be after.
Then she’d repeat the inquiries, if she had to.
Seeing Sandra Porterville wouldn't change anything about Amanda. It wouldn't matter that this woman had been ready to discard her, but had somehow managed to keep her twin sister hidden for ten years. This wasn't personal.
Nope. This woman had information she wanted. That's it.
Daddy's got a secret.
Of course Robinson had stayed through the recounting—and witnessed another weak moment, in the history of Amanda Nettles. Instead of panic and an obvious need to escape a family matter, Robinson remained relaxed. Had refilled her water glass and even slipped his warm hand into hers, at some point.
And she’d clung to it like a child holds their mother, in scary situations. It hadn’t seemed to faze him.
This sensitive side was new—she’d seen glimpses, but being the full-on target was different. Nice.
The windshield wipers flicked across Robinson's window, as he turned onto a quiet side street in northern Charlotte. In the opposite direction of Jordan and McKenna’s home, where her car still sat.
Leave it to Robinson to hijack her evening without consultation. Not evening. Morning.
“Give me a status on the agents we've got outside Beth Markel and Sandra Porterville's homes.” He said into the phone pressed against his ear. He listened for a minute. “Okay. Thanks.” He tossed his phone on top of the center console between them. Next to a bag of fast food he’d insisted they needed. The man could eat through everything.
“Jordan have any info on my look-a-like, at the condo?” She asked.
He turned into a parking lot. A few cars sat near a cluster of trees, at the back of the building on the lot. Street lights illuminated the area and a sign surrounded by neatly kept bushes. He parked near it.
Two Rivers Long Term Care Center. Huh.
He turned toward her. “Nothing at the time of the broadcast. A young girl said she saw you going into the condo at nine-fifty. Fifteen minutes before the nine-one-one call came in.”
This was bad. There wasn't a thing she could do or say to prove she wasn't behind all of this. Yes, her friends would vouch for tonight. What would that do, but paint a target on their backs?
The keys jangled together as he removed them from t
he ignition. Silence filled the car. “How you holding up?” His voice was a soft caress. “I know you've had a crazy night.”
That didn’t even cover it. A shower and a soft bed sounded wonderful. “What’s the plan, here?” She nodded toward the quiet building.
A few interior lights shone from the front door and lit up the sidewalk directly beneath it. “Because I need to get a hotel sometime before my alarm goes off.” She glanced out her window, the distant light from the freeway, little specks of bright white. Taking a few hours for sleep couldn’t hurt, right? If she could sleep. “I’ll let you know the details, once I check in.”
Sarcasm lurked inside the laugh that came from his mouth. “That's not going to work.”
“I'll be fine.” She dared a glance at him. “Just a few nights or until I can secure a new place.”
Even in the dim lighting, she saw his jaw clench. “Are you listening to what you’re saying? One thing has become painfully obvious. This guy isn't scared of getting caught. And somebody like that is dangerous.”
Because he or she had nothing to lose. Nothing to fear. “I'm not going to change my routine for any unknown entity. Be more cautious? Yes. If I change everything based on what he’s doing, he wins.”
Robinson gripped the steering wheel. “If you end up dead, you lose anyway.”
The ultimate game over.
“How do you think your parents will cope knowing their only child is gone?”
“Not the only.”
“They raised you from infancy. I hate to say it, but Beth is an intangible reality. You heard the story. They didn't even know she existed until she was nearly eleven. And by then, there wasn't much they could do.”
“We started excepting foster kids when I was ten. A five and three-year-old.” Those two little girls had been placed in their home, after a fire destroyed the house they lived in. Based on recovered evidence at the scene, authorities determined the children had been unattended for a number of days.
Who left kids that young alone?
Both children had scars on their bodies. “I remember the girls were always quiet. Never made a peep or left each other’s sight. An aunt and uncle came to claim them, but the state wouldn't allow it. The couple took matters into their own hands and showed up on our doorstep with a loaded gun.”
Robinson’s gaze widened. “You're kidding?”
Amanda shook her head. “Turns out their parents died a year before that, leaving custody to the mother's sister and husband. There was a huge trust fund they'd depleted and another one they couldn't touch until the girls were eighteen.”
He shook his head, disgust etched on his handsome face. “Typical. They didn't want the kids, but the money.”
“Shortly after that, I remember my parents arguing about something. I assumed it had to do with that.”
But they'd been discussing Beth, those girls and the right decision. In the end, her parents had chosen two girls who had nowhere to go and no one pulling for them.
The probability of them living out their lives in foster care or being adopted, separately, had been high.
“They had no way to know Beth was about to face time in foster care. From their vantage point, she appeared to be in a stable environment. They might have done something different, otherwise.”
“Seems to me it was more about saving face.” She threaded one hand through her hair and rubbed the back of her head. It wasn’t the image of her mother and father she carried with her. “Can’t move up the judicial ladder with such a black mark. An illegitimate daughter from your youth is one thing. A daughter with a sudden twin, in foster care, looks questionable. There’s no way for him to prove he didn’t know about Beth from the beginning. It would be Sandra’s word against his.”
“Speaking as an outsider, you can tell your mom and dad regret the turn of events. Yes, he could have come out and acknowledged Beth when she was ten, career fallout aside.”
They would have lost those two girls, who’d ended up being adopted by a local congressman, because of the connections Walter Nettles had. They both led productive lives, now. “He tried to settle it out of court when we were almost seventeen. Nothing says cover up, more than that.”
Robinson tapped his fingers on the steering wheel. “Or maybe he had something—someone else to protect. You.”
She blew out a breath. “I don’t know why. They’d drawn up paperwork that would have given Sandra no claim to me.”
“People can turn on a dime when their children are involved. Maybe Sandra threatened to find a way to take you. Maybe she just wanted Beth back. Either way, they came to a conclusion they thought was best for you both. What’s interesting, is that neither parent has made contact, with the opposite child, since you both entered adulthood.”
Or maybe one of them had. But not her dad, because, after the recounting of his biggest secret, she wanted to believe he would have mentioned trying to forge a relationship with Beth.
And wouldn’t Beth have said something?
“How am I ever supposed to look at them the same?”
Robinson grabbed the food bag and one drink, from the cup holder, near him. “Time. Come on.” Then he opened his door and got out, leaving her to follow or be left behind.
Speaking of choices…
She grabbed the other cup, followed suit and met him around the other side of the vehicle, closest to the front entrance. One of those rare, heartfelt smiles turned his face into a charming picture of sincerity. The rain had faded to a spattering of sporadic droplets.
One landed on her face. “So, time…”
He shrugged one shoulder. “The image I have of my mom and dad is built off of knowing they taught me better, because they made mistakes and learned from them. Case in point, my dad was the most upstanding person you’d ever meet. Preached about obeying the law, doing what is right and standing up for people. Never saw him say or do an unkind thing to anyone.
“One day, in college, I’m studying about some of the biggest paper crimes in our country’s history and—bam, he lays the truth on me. Tax evasion. Convicted and sentenced to a fine right after I was born. Almost lost the house and my mom.”
“That’s not the same as what we are dealing with here.”
“It’s different, sure.” He headed for the entrance, his steps confident. “Same principle. I was shocked. Here I was, trying to make him proud by upholding the values he’d drilled into me. He’d broken the law I planned to maintain. It all comes back to choices. He had to live with them. So did I. And someone will live with mine.”
She fell into step next to him. “I need to know why. We need to know why Sandra was so adamant about not having me and then decided to keep Beth. It doesn't make sense. Our birthdays aren’t even the same.”
“Even if Sandra gives you an explanation that doesn't implicate her, it still won't make sense.”
No. It wouldn't.
Five steps from the entry, he tugged her arm. She stopped.
He juggled their food and his drink in his opposite hand. “And if you go talk with her, you might find you have things in common.”
Oh, boy. Could she handle discovering some of her integral makeup might be based on this woman alone? She didn't have a choice. “There's no if. I'm going to talk to her.”
The warmth that had lent strength earlier, found her shoulder, his fingertips massaging her muscles there. “I just want you prepared.”
“You talked to her.”
“For about ten minutes.”
Amanda rolled her eyes. “We both know how much information you can pull from someone, in that amount of time. What did she say?”
Silence reigned for a beat. “She knows who you are.”
Amanda crossed her arms. “I'm sure there's more than that. Give it to me straight.”
“She's cold and disconnected where you're concerned.”
A punch to the gut would have hurt less.
“I got the impression she was aware of your care
er successes. She mentioned the bust last spring. Congratulated me, actually.”
When she and Robinson had finally solved a ten-year-old murder, with the help of Jordan and McKenna, the media had gone ballistic about it. Non-stop coverage had driven her friends into hiding, for a month.
“She probably recognized you from the press releases and newspaper articles.”
“Maybe.” He didn’t look convinced. “It’s like she knew I’d show up. Like she was waiting for me to ask why she’d given you up.”
“I'm not looking for a stand-in. I have a mother.” Irritation hummed through her system. Who did that? Who had a kid and didn't at least wonder from time to time. “I had a great childhood.”
“Nobody's arguing that.”
“With people who taught me values—in spite of some previously questionable decisions. And they didn't leave me to the system.” Like Beth. Which is what it all boiled down to. A sister she always wanted, but had never had.
Amanda pinched the bridge of her nose. Took a few deep breaths. The pressure behind her eyes didn't subside. She couldn’t afford to lose what little dignity she had left.
“It's okay to get good and pissed off, A.J.”
Anger, she could handle, but her world had a detonator ticking down the seconds to an invisible event. It could encompass no one but her. Or everyone she cared about. How was she supposed to prepare for that?
Heat radiated on her face as she blinked back tears.
Get it together.
Robinson slid his hand down her arm and into her grasp. The callouses on his palms brushed against her skin as he gave a gentle squeeze. She could get used to this.
“It's almost two in the morning. Let’s go inside and eat.”
As if her stomach could hear his voice and understand the words, it gave a loud growl. A laugh flew from her mouth. “I can’t even lie, and say I’m not hungry, I guess.”
He chuckled and opened the door. “I prefer my straightforward, sassy detective, anyway.”
“Yours?” The idea sent a thrill through her. “Are you going to steal me like you’ve done with all my cases?”
“FBI’s cases.” He winked.
DISCONNECT (The Bening Files Book 2) Page 34
