by Karen Young
The room was actually a living-dining area combined, a pretty sort of formal room. She was glad to tear her gaze from Rick’s injuries to the china cabinet. His mom’s pattern had lots of roses on it. Delicate and feminine, nothing like her own mom’s sterile black-and-silver geometric choice. His mom must collect cranberry glass as there was a lot of that, too. She recognized it because Melissa’s mother had a sizable collection.
They sat down on a couch, which had a coffee table in front of it loaded with pictures of their family, she guessed. The frames were really cool, all mixed up designs, some funny, some traditional. Many of the photos were of Rick and somebody that looked a lot like him, only she was a girl. His sister, for sure. A boy and a girl, a mom and a dad. Nice house. Perfect family. Rick sat in a chair opposite her and her dad and propped one leg on an ottoman.
“My daughter has something to say.” Ryan prompted Jennifer with a stern look.
Her tummy gave a flip. She put her hands together, laced her fingers tight. She met Rick’s eyes, felt her face get hot. “I’m sorry for hitting you with the car last night,” she said, her voice low. “I didn’t know I was that close to you until it—it happened. I didn’t mean to hit you.”
“I realize it was an accident,” Rick said.
“I—Were—” She licked her lips. “I mean, I can see you’re hurt. I didn’t think so then, because you were just sitting there on the ground looking at us. I mean, you weren’t lying down. Or—or bleeding or anything. It was wrong for me to drive off. I should have stopped.”
“I was sitting there because I was dazed.” He frowned. “What did you say your name was?”
“Jennifer.”
“Jennifer. I knew nothing was broken, but it was no fun getting blindsided by an SUV…a big one at that.” He chuckled, shaking his head.
She glanced at his fingers, wincing. “Are your fingers broken? I’m really sorry.”
“No,” he said, lifting his hand and showing the wrapped wrist and fingers. “Just sprained. They’ll be okay.” He shifted on the chair, reached for a cushion and tucked it behind him. “So, where do you go to school?”
“Not here. I live in Dallas.” She glanced at Ryan. “Or I did. But I guess I’ll be enrolling somewhere around here. I’m going to be living with my dad.”
Rick looked at Ryan. “Will you try to get her in Kincaid?” His attitude suggested that he knew Ryan would want the best for Jennifer.
“Kincaid’s not possible as they’re entering the second semester. There’s a long waiting list. I tried Saint Andrews, too. Neither has to cater to parents who spring a new student on them at the last minute.” His smile took any sting out of his words. “Are you at Kincaid?”
“Whoa, not me.” Rick was shaking his head with a rueful smile. “The tuition’s way too steep for my folks. I’m at Memorial. It’s public, but the best, in my opinion.”
“You’ve been checking?” Jennifer asked, looking at her dad in surprise. “Why? For how long?” Did that mean her mom had just been waiting for her to screw up so she could dump her?
Ryan didn’t answer that, but kept talking to Rick. “Looks like she’ll be going into Memorial, too. My town house puts her in that district.”
Rick looked at Jennifer. “Maybe I’ll see you there, Jennifer.”
This time, her heart really did flop right over. “Even though I almost k-killed you?”
His grin widened. “Hey, accidents happen.”
“That’s pretty generous, Rick.” Ryan looked at Jennifer. “Isn’t it, Jen?”
She managed a nod. She was blushing like mad. She could feel the heat in her face as if she was on the beach in August! “Thank you,” she croaked.
“I believe there’s something else Jen wants to say,” Ryan prompted.
“Huh?” She gave her dad a blank look, but her brain was mush.
“Rick’s bike. Don’t you have something to say about it?”
“Oh. Oh! Yeah, your bike.” She lifted her shoulders, her smile weak and embarrassed. “I’m…ah, I would like to pay for it. Dad said it was a total loss, so…how much did it cost?”
“Twelve hundred dollars.”
She stared at him. Did bikes really cost that much? She didn’t have much experience with biking, but that sure had to be unusual. “No kidding?”
“It’s not your average Kmart special,” he said, smiling at her reaction. “I’m training for a cross-country this summer. It’s custom-built for the terrain we’ll encounter.”
“Oh, where’s that?” she asked weakly.
“Colorado.”
She cleared her throat, looked to her dad for help. She’d never be able to come up with twelve hundred dollars. Not even if she sacrificed for a year! No more CDs or makeup or even if she gave up her cell phone. “Um, could you accept a payment plan?”
“Possibly.” Rick’s expression was sober, but his gray eyes were bright. He was laughing at her! “What terms do you think you can manage?”
“Well—”
Ryan stood up. “You can leave that to Jen and me, Rick. She’s going to have a lot of time on her hands here in Houston until she can make new friends. Until then, there might be something she can do to earn a few bucks.”
“Twelve hundred dollars is more than a few bucks, Dad!” she cried. She was convinced they were putting her on now.
“Yeah, so the sooner you get started, the sooner Rick will be able to resume training. Right, Rick?”
“That’s right.” He shifted forward in the chair and got to his feet, wincing a little. “I’ll take it easy until my ankle is better and by that time, the wrist should be good as new, too.” He looked at Jennifer. “What do you say to…three weeks?”
She looked in absolute desperation at Ryan. “Dad?”
“You’ll have a check in three weeks, Rick. And thanks for being a good sport about this.”
“Forget it.”
“Jen?” Ryan looked at her.
“Oh, okay. I mean, yes, thank you.” Feeling her cheeks begin to heat up again, she fled the room and was out the door before Rick, hobbling beside Ryan, could say anything else to make her feel worse.
She was nearly in tears as Ryan started the SUV and backed out of the Sanchez’s driveway. Rick’s outline, as he stood in the doorway backlit from the light in the foyer, was a blur. “Dad, I don’t know how I’m going to get twelve hundred dollars even if Rick would be willing to wait a year! Mom only gives me fifty dollars a week for my allowance and I have to buy my lunch every day with that. What’ll I do?”
Ryan disciplined the grin that wanted to escape. “I’ll think of something.”
Nine
“She doesn’t want to talk to us, Megan.” Lindsay sat on the floor in what served as her sister’s dining area, her legs tucked in a lotus position, eyes closed, shoulders relaxed. “No, that’s not it. She doesn’t even want to know us.”
Megan stood at the stove tossing shrimp and Chinese vegetables in a wok. “You’re not supposed to talk while doing yoga.”
Lindsay opened one eye. “Don’t you care? She’s our sister. Aren’t you just the least bit curious about her?” She uncurled her body and flopped back on a huge black floor cushion. “She’s beautiful, Meggie. And so…so…cool. I mean, not cool as in hip, but like an iceberg. In fact, iceberg is a pretty good description. Most of her real self is hidden beneath the surface, if you ask me.”
“She’s probably far from cool to the people in her life.” Megan rummaged in her fridge looking for a lemon.
“She was certainly fierce in her defense of Gina D’Angelo.”
“Well, they have a history.”
“And how. You should have heard the testimony of that slug, Austin Leggett. He said some really vile things about Gina. What I want to know is why he stayed in a relationship with her if she was so screwed up. How come he had a child with her? Why get involved with her in the first place?”
Megan reached for a spatula. “Did you believe her when she said he
was abusive?”
“I thought she seemed credible.” Lindsay took a baby carrot from a bowl sitting beside her on the floor. “But even if she was iffy, Elizabeth was anything but. She defended Gina with a sincerity that was very believable.”
“She would, considering the bond they share.” Megan stirred the ingredients in the wok. “Was the little girl there?”
“No, just Elizabeth, Gina and Maude Kennedy, her attorney. And wow, they were a solid team, those three. Even with the sexy Ryan Paxton doing his thing, the day belonged to those gals.” Pausing with a carrot in her fingers, Lindsay looked thoughtful. “She didn’t have a clue who I was when I approached her at lunch, Meggie.”
“Must have bruised your ego a bit.”
“Not really.” She made a wry face. “Well…maybe I did feel a pang when only Gina had seen my show. What is it with Elizabeth? I’ve tried e-mail, I’ve called her, but I get her answer machine, of course. She just doesn’t want to know us.”
“Not me, you. I’m not the one pestering her.” Megan cut the lemon in half. “As I said—and from what you’ve described of the court appearance—she has a life with her foster sister. And the little girl, of course.”
“But why not make room for us, too?” Lindsay reached for bottled water and unscrewed the cap. “We’re nice. We’re not going to bug her like—like rabid fans, or anything. Besides, her readership could hardly turn vicious. I mean, kids don’t usually even communicate with authors, do they? And besides, we’re related. What’s the matter with her!”
“We may be related, but we’re strangers.”
“We’re sisters, Meg.”
“Only biologically. And since the year we were all separated, we’re strangers who have nothing else in common with her. That’s obviously the way she sees it.” Megan took the lid off a saucepan to check that the rice was ready. “As I told you the last time we talked about this, I think you should leave Elizabeth alone. If and when she ever decides she wants to meet us, she’ll know where to find us. You, more so than I.”
Lindsay suddenly looked glum. “If you mean I’m visible on TV, I’m not so sure. I’m hanging on by the skin of my teeth. Filling in for various anchors isn’t my idea of success. For one thing, it’s not enough exposure. And working behind the scenes is definitely not me.” She saw the knowing lift of Megan’s eyebrow. “I know, I know, I’m vain and shallow, wanting to be a star, but actually, I’m more comfortable when I’m on camera. It just feels right.” She sighed and made a little moue of dissatisfaction. “I simply need to find the right venue to be able to persuade Jack Bigelow to give me another shot. He’s receptive, but when I approach him, I want to have something he simply can’t refuse.”
Megan lifted the steaming wok and dumped the contents into a wide serving bowl. “But getting back to Elizabeth, I don’t quite understand your obsession there.”
“It’s not an obsession, Meggie. It’s a natural thing, I think, wanting to include her in our lives.” Lindsay stood gracefully, her sleek body long and willowy-looking in black leotards. Now on her feet, she drank from the water bottle, then set it aside before pulling an elastic scrunch from her hair, which fell to her shoulders, a thick mass of streaky blond curls. To keep the current straight look, she spent much time taming it before appearing in public. Passing the large mirror mounted above an artistically decorated chest, she checked her reflection. Classic features were enhanced with unique almond-shaped eyes and a lush mouth that loved the camera, assets that hadn’t been overlooked by producers at WBYH-TV when they had cast her in her own show.
She mounted a tall stool at the bar as Megan dished up the food. “You know what we need to do,” she said, accepting a plate. “If we had something she wanted, she’d come around.”
“Give it a rest, Lin.” Megan tasted the shrimp-and-veggie concoction and closed her eyes in ecstasy. “Hmm, this is so good. I haven’t had real food in a week.”
Lindsay frowned. “You’re going to pay for neglecting yourself, I’m telling you, Meggie. If not now, then someday.” Lindsay was ruthless in adhering to her own health and exercise regimen. She worked out at the gym daily, ate healthy, obsessed over food additives and the problem of obesity in America. “What’s your cholesterol count?”
“It’s 176.”
“Oh. Well—” Undaunted, she pointed her fork. “You’re lucky it’s in the safe range, but one of these days—”
“I’ll collapse from overwork, not a heart attack. Only six more months of residency and I can ease up. Quit nagging.”
“You’re the doctor,” Lindsay said popping a shrimp into her mouth. “It should be you nagging me about keeping fit, not the other way around.”
“You were saying about Elizabeth—”
“Oh, yeah,” Lindsay said. “I was thinking.”
“Really?”
“I was thinking,” Lindsay repeated doggedly, “about things we have in common that might interest her. Not our careers. You’re in medicine, I’m in television, she writes books for children. Not much in common there. You and I were raised as sisters, but even though we’re equally related to her, she chooses not to acknowledge it. What she can’t ignore is that we have the same father. And that’s the ticket, Meggie.” Lindsay pushed her plate aside. “What do we really know about Judge Matthew Walker?”
“I thought we knew a lot.”
“We don’t know anything except what we were told by the parents when they finally outed the fact that we had another sister. Okay, Matthew Walker was a judge and our mother died in childbirth having me. They got married while students at the University of Texas. Their parents are long deceased, which is the reason no one came forward when we were orphaned. We know the judge died in the house fire that could have killed us, too, except that we were rescued.”
“Actually, that sounds like a lot to me.”
“Facts. Dry facts. Or maybe not.” Forgetting her plate altogether, Lindsay hunched forward to make her point. “Have you ever wondered if it really was an accident? The fire, I mean. What if—”
“Oh, for Pete’s sake, Lindsay!” Megan took her plate to the dishwasher, put it inside and closed the door with a thump. “And they say Elizabeth’s the one with the active imagination.” She grabbed a dishcloth and began briskly wiping the counters. “Where do you come up with these off-the-wall theories? He was a smoker. He fell asleep with a smoldering cigar in his hand and a fire started. It happens.”
“How do we know it was that simple? Have you read an autopsy report?”
“No, but I assume if there was anything even remotely suspicious about that, it would have come out at the time. And I believe Mom and Dad would have mentioned that when they finally did get around to telling us that we were adopted. They were pretty up-front about the circumstances when they did come clean, if you recall.”
“I don’t necessarily think they would have been told those details.” Lindsay brought her plate around and stowed it in the dishwasher. “I mean, what purpose would it serve to tell prospective parents that?”
“Tell them what, Lindsay? That the judge might have been murdered? That is what you’re saying, isn’t it?”
Lindsay caught her hair up in her hand, lifting it off her neck. “Not necessarily. It might have happened just as they say it did. He was relaxing at the end of a long day, lit up a cigar. Maybe he had a couple of stiff drinks. He nodded off, the smoldering ashes dropped on the carpet….” She stopped, frowning. “I wonder if it was the carpet or something else, like a trash basket with paper in it. That’d go up pretty fast. But it would also wake somebody up, too. I mean, if a waste basket flamed up beside me at my desk, I don’t think I’d just continue snoozing. Oh, wait. There were no alcohol or drugs found in his body at the autopsy, so that wouldn’t—”
“Wait.” With a shake of her head, Megan held up a hand. “Wait a minute here. Are you saying you’ve looked at the accident report? You’ve read the autopsy?”
“No, but I nosed around until
I located one of the detectives on the case who’s now retired. He remembers it well. He told me there was a lot of speculation about that fire. He said he remembers the investigation because it was so brief, too brief in his opinion.”
“How old is this detective, Lindsay? All this happened twenty-five freakin’ years ago.”
Lindsay shrugged. “He’s old. But he had no difficulty remembering it. Judge Walker was well-known in Houston. His death was a big deal.” She waited a beat before adding, “And as for the autopsy and accident reports, you’re right about that. I should take a look at them. I met a guy the other night who might be a good contact. Name’s Jake Farrell. He’s in the DA’s office.”
Megan dropped her head down, braced herself with both hands on the countertop. Waited a long moment before looking up. “Okay, I’ll accept that you have some interest in exploring the death of our biological parent. But what does all this have to do with Elizabeth? About forging some kind of relationship with her?” Now Megan’s tone turned rich with irony. “I can just imagine how overjoyed she’ll be when you approach her with your theory that the man she remembers—and we don’t, mind you—didn’t die an accidental death. Possibly. He was murdered. Maybe. For a really sinister reason, about which you don’t have a clue. And, by the way, you can’t prove anything just yet, but hey, it could happen.”
“You just said it.” Lindsay pounced on the remark she considered relevant. “The man she remembers is the key, Megan. I need to have a conversation with her about Judge Walker. She might remember something vital. She might—”
“She was only five years old, Lindsay.”
“So? Kids that young have memories. I can remember my first day at kindergarten and I was only five at the time. Mom held my hand as we looked for the right room. I even remember what color the door was when we found it. It was orange and had a clown poster taped on it.”
Megan rolled her eyes. “You’re grasping at straws here, Lin. The best way to build a relationship with Elizabeth is to come at it naturally. She’s a very private person, but maybe she wouldn’t be offended by a note on her birthday, or maybe you could go to one of her signings when her next book comes out. Or you might bump into her at the grocery store where she shops, try approaching her there…just to say hello, nothing more. Sooner or later—”
