With Child

by Janice Kay Johnson

  “I knew who she was,” he said with composure. “We often have guests who choose to register under an alias to avoid the public eye. I thought nothing of it.”

  All suggestive enough to earn a search warrant, executed by San Francisco P.D. They called within a few hours.

  “Here’s a bizarre one,” the San Francisco detective told Quinn. “Get this. We found a lock of blond hair in a little crystal candy dish with a lid. The hair had been dipped in blood. Dried now, but you could tell what it was. The lab’s got it. If the DNA matches…”

  If the blood had just been the rock star’s, his wife might have dreamed up an excuse for treasuring the two-inch chunk of blood-soaked hair. They weren’t exactly a normal couple with all-American habits. Unfortunately for her, some of the blood came from the blonde whose body had been fished from the Sound.

  The arrest brought huge headlines and ensured that the faces of the dead musician and his wife dominated the covers of the tabloids. Quinn got damn tired of the endless requests for interviews and was grateful to have a couple of quiet days off.

  His own lawn had gotten shaggy and the milk in his refrigerator was sour when he poured it on his cereal.

  “Damn,” he growled, and dumped the rest down the sink. The bread was growing mold, too. He cut it off and toasted a couple of pieces for breakfast. Grocery shopping needed to come ahead of mowing.

  In the produce section at the store, he saw a pair of long legs that turned out to belong to a teenager with short tousled hair like Mindy’s, but also a nose ring. Still, he stood in the checkout line wondering how she was doing. She hadn’t left a phone message. Maybe she’d seen him on the news and realized he wouldn’t have had time for her anyway. Or maybe she was more stubborn than he’d expected.

  He wouldn’t make her beg, but by God she was going to have to ask for help. All he was doing was honoring her declaration of independence, not holding a grudge. In that spirit, he sure as hell wasn’t going to drive by as if by chance just to see what the house looked like, even though the thought crossed his mind as he turned out of the grocery store parking lot.

  Another week passed, and then another, and he began to wonder if she would call. Dean’s attorney phoned at last to let him know that probate was coming along.

  “With the boat and the BMW sold as well as the business…”

  Quinn interrupted. “She sold her car?”

  “Mrs. Fenton is a levelheaded young woman,” Armstrong said with apparent approval. “Without a substantial income of her own, she could see that continuing to make such steep payments doesn’t make sense.”

  So the little bright blue car was gone. Quinn frowned, wondering what she’d chosen to drive instead.

  “I was going to buy the Camaro,” he said.

  “Yes, in fact I have it here. That’s really why I called. She’s already signed the papers so we can transfer the title.” He went on, but Quinn didn’t listen.

  She didn’t want him at the house even to pick up the car. Maybe he was just dense not to have realized she disliked him so much.

  Stupid to be shocked, but he was. He was also suddenly conscious of a hollow feeling under his breastbone. He shouldn’t have had that Philly sandwich for lunch. The damn onions.

  “Yeah. Okay. Sure,” he said, only belatedly noticing that Armstrong was still talking. Into the silence that followed his interruption, Quinn said, “I’ll, uh, pick up the car at your office. This afternoon? Good. Sure.”

  By the time he slid behind the wheel of the Camaro late that afternoon, anger had taken the place of the shock. Mindy might dislike him, but she sure hadn’t hesitated to use him. Funny thing, but she hadn’t told him to get lost until Dean’s affairs were pretty well wrapped up and she knew she’d have enough money to get by.

  Well, he’d done as much as he had for Dean’s sake, not hers; she was right about that.

  “I tried,” he said aloud, figuring he was as close to Dean here in the car he’d loved as he’d get anywhere. When Quinn turned the key in the ignition, the engine started with a throaty purr. Accelerating out of the parking lot in the candy-apple-red Camaro, he remembered how much Dean had enjoyed the way heads turned when he drove this car. Quinn did like the power, the sense that he had only to ask and the car would surge forward like a thoroughbred out of the gate at Emerald Downs. The bright red, though, made him feel conspicuous. But the car would stay red. He wouldn’t give Mindy the satisfaction of finding out she was right.

  His jaw flexed. No, damn it! The Camaro would stay red because Dean had liked it that way. The car was a memento, a reminder of Dean’s boyish delight in expensive toys, starting with the mountain bike the Howies had bought him that first Christmas in their home. He’d grinned and cried at the same time.

  “You mean, it’s mine?” the gawky kid had asked in wonder. “I can take it, even if my mom comes for me?”

  Quinn had considered his matching bike a loaner. The only gifts he’d ever had were from men sniffing after his mother back before she got so strung out. Those hadn’t really been for him; even as a little kid, he’d known that. Gifts came with strings attached. He’d hated the knowledge he’d seen in his mother’s eyes.

  He hadn’t known what the Howies thought he’d give in return for that bike or the other Christmas and birthday gifts that followed, and they never had explicitly asked for anything. Even so, he’d continued for his own self-defense to think of everything they’d given him as borrowed, like the bedroom and his place at the dinner table. When he’d graduated from high school and left the Howies’, he hadn’t taken much: a few clothes, the clunker of a car he’d bought with his meager income from bagging groceries, and that was about it.

  Dean had thought he was an idiot. He reveled in owning nice stuff.

  “I miss my mom,” he’d confided once. “But she never had any money. Sometimes she bought me clothes at the thrift store, but mostly they came from school. You know how they have that room where you can pick out what you need?”

  Quinn, to his eternal shame, had known. He’d been ashamed of taking clothes from the Howies, too, but that was a different kind of humiliation. At least now he didn’t have to walk down the hall at school wondering if some other kid was going to recognize his discarded shirt.

  “When Mom comes to get me, I won’t mind being poor again,” Dean had added hastily. “And the Howies said I could take everything.”

  His attitude was probably more natural than Quinn’s. Having grown up without giant piles of presents under the Christmas tree, Dean had apparently saved up all that wanting. Quinn had always watched him indulgently, even when he’d become a man who could fulfill his own wishes. He hadn’t been surprised when Dean had gone into business for himself so he could have more than a basic paycheck. Quinn was satisfied with a house and car, bought and paid for with his own money. Dean had seemed to have an empty place inside he never could fill. He’d developed cravings: for a bigger, fancier house, a flashy car, then a boat. His excitement had always been high when he first bought the new thing, whatever that was. But pretty soon, he’d start dreaming about something else.

  Quinn had been surprised when he’d married Mindy. Dean had tended to follow the same pattern where women were concerned. He’d develop a huge crush, then court a woman with single-minded, romantic intensity. When she succumbed and became “his,” he’d seem happy. For a while. Then his interest would start to wane. Next thing Quinn would know, Dean had the hots for someone else.

  Mindy was the first and only one to last. Quinn hadn’t understood why. He’d guessed that she had held out for marriage, but even then Dean’s interest hadn’t strayed. Maybe she’d filled that empty place in him. Maybe that hunger for something more, for someone who would never leave him, had been satisfied. Quinn hoped so.

  He’d watched her, waiting for her to lose interest instead. As young and shallow as she was, he knew it had to happen.

  Maybe, he thought now, he hadn’t been fair to her. Maybe she really
had loved Dean.

  Now he guessed he’d never know for sure.

  MINDY DIDN’T CALL.

  Quinn went days without thinking about her. When he did, it was in passing, part of his mourning. Irritatingly often, when he remembered something about Dean, she was in the picture.

  Funny thing was, he missed Dean more now than he had in the weeks after the funeral. Maybe the absence was just starting to seem real. But maybe the huge hole in his life hadn’t been so apparent when he had something he could do for Dean. He’s been so busy as executor, dealing with Fenton Security and taking care of Mindy he hadn’t had time to miss talking to his best friend. He’d wanted to stay too busy to think about Dean’s death. But now the hole gaped at his feet, as raw and shocking as if a building he passed every day had been blasted from its foundations. Some days he could walk by and avert his face. Other times…hell, other times, he couldn’t look at anything but.

  He could focus at work. There, nothing had changed; he didn’t have to pass the damn hole. But the minute he walked out to his car, he was faced with a life that felt empty even when he managed to occupy himself.

  His track record with women wasn’t any better than Dean’s had been before he’d met Mindy. Before Dean’s murder, Quinn had been seeing a redheaded dispatcher with a great laugh.

  By the time he remembered to call her weeks after the funeral, she said, “Quinn? Yeah, seems like I used to know a guy named Quinn. Bart? Ben? Brian?”

  “Funny.”

  “I was sorry to hear about Dean.”

  “Yeah. Thanks.”

  “I left a couple of messages.”

  He rubbed his neck. “I should have called you.”

  “Yeah, you should have,” she said frankly. “See, I had this illusion that we were friends. But maybe I should be glad that you kind of set me straight.”

  Crap. “It wasn’t you. I’ve just…been having a hard time dealing.”

  “Uh-huh,” she said without sympathy. “Quinn, it’s been five weeks. I’m dating someone else now. And here’s the weirdest thing—his kid just got diagnosed with leukemia, and you know what? I was one of the first people he called.”

  She didn’t slam the phone down. She set it down gently, which gave greater punch to her message.

  Quinn hadn’t asked a woman out since. He supposed he should give some thought to dating again, but nobody had crossed his path recently who interested him. Going out looking seemed like too much effort.

  He realized he hadn’t called the Howies in a long time, put it off for another day, then phoned them in the evening.

  George answered.

  He sounded surprised. “No more bad news, I hope.”

  “No. Just…trying to stay in better touch,” Quinn said awkwardly.

  “You mean, checking up on us now.”

  “You’ve been taking care of yourself for a long time.” Quinn prowled his living room. “But since I don’t have Dean to keep me updated on how you two are doing…” His throat closed.

  “You’re missing him.”

  “Yeah.” He swallowed. “Yeah, I am.”

  “We do, too.” George Howie’s voice sounded thick. “Dean was a nice boy who turned into a good man.”

  Quinn nodded but couldn’t seem to speak.

  “We were proud of both of you. Dean was the easy one. You were always more complicated.”

  “I’ve been remembering,” he admitted. “Dean loved getting presents. That first Christmas…”

  George laughed. “If Schwinn could have filmed him, they’d have had the ad of the century. Boy lit up like the Fourth of July sky.” He was silent for a moment. “Now, you… I could see your struggle. You wanted that bike real bad, but you didn’t like taking anything from anybody. Or maybe you just didn’t like feeling hungry for something. I was never sure.”

  They’d known him better than he’d ever guessed.

  “A little of both,” Quinn admitted. “I told myself the bike was just a loaner. I was already taking food from you, so why not wheels?”

  “You know, we still have things you left packed away in the attic. Couldn’t get rid of them. You ever want your football or skateboard, you just let us know.”

  “You really still have them?” he asked, incredulous.

  “Sure.” George sounded reproving. “Your kid leaves home at eighteen, you don’t strip the house of everything that was his. He might need to come home.”

  Your kid. Had they really thought of him that way? He rubbed his breastbone, conscious of that ache beneath it.

  “Have you talked to Mindy?”

  “She’s called a few times.” George paused. “She hasn’t wanted to say how she stands financially.”

  “Dean had one hell of a lot of debts,” Quinn said bluntly. “Now that she’s sold the business, she’s also had to sell the boat and the cars to cut down on payments. I bought Dean’s Camaro.”

  “She did mention that.” He grunted. “I’m not surprised that Dean got in over his head.”

  “I didn’t say that.” Long habit had Quinn defending his friend. “He was managing the payments fine. He didn’t plan to die.”

  “In other words, no life insurance.”

  “Unfortunately, no. You know, until this last year, he didn’t have anybody to worry about. No reason for it.”

  “Too bad he didn’t buy some when he got married.”

  “She’s okay, George. Just not as well off as she’d probably imagined she’d be.”

  Acid must have crept into his tone, because his foster father said, “You don’t like her.”

  Denial came as instinctively. “She’s nice enough.” He rubbed his forehead. “We’ve never gotten to be close. I didn’t think she’d last.”

  “Didn’t want her to last?” George asked quietly.

  The implication was there: He’d been jealous. God. Had he been?

  “I didn’t think she was right for Dean,” Quinn said. “If she has any depths, I never found them.”

  “Except for some grief over his mother, I’m not sure Dean went deep, either,” George suggested. “He didn’t spring surprises on you with time.”

  Quinn wanted to deny that analysis, too, but found his protest died in his throat. Maybe that description wasn’t even an insult. Dean was a nice guy. Smart, but not a thinker. Not someone who brooded. He pretty much closed the book on each day, looked forward to the next. He’d never been much of a reader and had been an adequate student but no valedictorian. He wasn’t interested in going to college, while Quinn would have liked to go but hadn’t wanted to owe anyone another nickel.

  Only Dean knew that Quinn had spent the past ten years working his way toward a B.A. He’d started at Central Community College on Capitol Hill, just a class a quarter. Just a year ago, he’d finished his bachelor’s degree in history at the University of Washington. Didn’t mean a thing to anybody but him, but he was glad he’d done it.

  Long after he’d hung up the phone, he thought about whether George was right about Dean. As far as Quinn was concerned, their friendship had gone deep. Their very ease together came from what they’d shared, what they knew about each other, what they had in common that separated them from people who took family for granted. But they tended to talk about the job, about cases, about Fenton Security, about women or sports or occasionally politics. They played golf, shot hoops, shared a six-pack during a Seahawks game on the boob tube. Quinn couldn’t remember the last time they’d had a discussion he might not have had with anyone else he knew.

  Dean, he thought, had kept that childish pleasure in the moment. It was something Quinn had always envied. He’d been robbed of that pleasure before he’d started eating solid foods. He didn’t remember ever letting himself totally relax and trust that something good would last.

  All roads led to Rome, and he found himself thinking about Mindy again, too. Maybe he hadn’t so much misjudged her as misjudged Dean, and what Dean wanted and needed in a woman. Quinn had assumed because she
wouldn’t fascinate him forever that she wouldn’t keep Dean enthralled, either, and maybe that just wasn’t true.

  His reflections roiled inside him like a meal that didn’t settle. He was left wondering if he’d known Dean as well as he thought he did, or whether he’d pretended there was more to Dean than showed on the surface because if there wasn’t, he might have had to admit he’d sometimes been bored sipping beer on the boat or in front of the TV, talking about the same things they’d talked about the week before and the one before that.

  Maybe what he’d been uncomfortable with about Mindy was that she was too much like Dean in her interests and fun-loving personality. Quinn’s head ached by the time he admitted to himself that he’d wanted her to be more because he’d wanted Dean to be more.

  And maybe he was overanalyzing. Because, damn it, Dean was his brother in all but blood, and he still missed him in a way he’d never missed anybody, even his mother. He might get so he didn’t very often notice that yawning pit where the building had once stood, but it would always be there if he turned the wrong corner or let himself remember.

  He wasn’t a man to rebuild, even if that were possible.

  CHAPTER SIX

  MINDY WALKED THROUGH the house one last time, even though doing so was like worrying an aching tooth with her tongue. Except for small mementos, everything was gone—the furniture, the artwork that had hung on the wall, even the power tools and the lawn mower. What little she’d kept was packed into boxes that filled the aging Saab she’d bought to replace the BMW. Her woodworking tools, of course; they took up most of the trunk. A few pans, dishes, utensils, the toaster and blender, blankets and two sets of sheets, a couple of photo albums, her clothes and little else.

  Even Dean’s clothes she’d donated to the Volunteers of America. She’d once asked Quinn if he wanted any of them, and he’d shuddered. They weren’t really the same size, anyway. Dean had been a couple of inches taller, rangier, while Quinn was more…solid. Dean’s shirts would be too long in the sleeves for Quinn, too small around the neck. Besides, Dean loved bright colors. He almost always wore red or school-bus yellow or purple or even pink. Gaudy Hawaiian shirts were his favorite. He’d had Hawaiian-print shorts, too, and sometimes wore clashing prints on top and bottom. No, she couldn’t see Quinn in any of them.