For The Right Reasons

CHAPTER THREE

ERIC PRAYED MACKENZIE wasn’t about to throw one of her fits. “Why don’t you want to stay here?”

“I just don’t.”

“Well, we came a long way, and I’m hungry, and we’re not leaving until I get some dinner. Don’t you want your grilled cheese? And ice cream?” He knew bribing a child with food wasn’t the recommended way to get her to cooperate, but he didn’t want to risk a tantrum, not now.

“I’m not hungry. I want to go home.”

“I’m sorry, MacKenzie, we can’t go home right now. Daddy promised to be here, and I have to keep my word.”

“You want a coloring book, precious?” Molly asked. “I have Goofy and Cinderella.”

MacKenzie pressed her lips together in a mutinous frown.

“Go with Cinderella,” Eric said to the hostess. Then he scooped up MacKenzie and carried her to their designated booth. He would lie down and die any day of the week for this child. But the psychologist had emphasized that he had to be firm, too, and not let her walk all over him. Just because she was troubled didn’t mean she couldn’t also learn to be manipulative.

Once they were seated, he tried to get MacKenzie interested in the menu. She was a good enough reader that she could make out a lot of the words by herself.

“It says this diner has been here for more than sixty years,” Eric read, pointing to the words. That answered his question about whether it was authentic.

MacKenzie didn’t seem interested. She kept looking over her shoulder, as if she expected the bogeyman to be after her.

“MacKenzie, what’s wrong? What are you afraid of?”

“I don’t want a shot!” she said, bursting into tears.

“A shot? What makes you think... Oh.” Dr. Bree. “She’s not going to give you a shot. She’s just a nice lady.” A nice lady who was late. If he’d driven all this way for nothing, he was going to be more than irritated.

“No shots?”

“No. Just dinner. It says here they have a soup-and-sandwich special. How about a grilled cheese and tomato soup?”

After thinking about it, MacKenzie nodded.

A couple of minutes later Bree bustled through the door, looking a bit harried. Molly smiled at her and pointed toward their booth, and Bree hurried their way, waving as she caught Eric’s eye.

The sight of her had a stronger effect than he’d anticipated. She had her hair pulled back in a ponytail now, and several unruly strands had escaped to frame her face. She’d changed clothes since this morning, opting for a simple white blouse and gray pants. Again, he could tell at a glance that the clothes were high quality. Could a woman even buy clothes like that in Tuckerville?

Didn’t matter. The sight of her made his mouth go dry. He couldn’t recall reacting that strongly to a woman since...well, since Tammy. Tammy, the supposed love of his life, who’d turned out to be aggressively unfaithful.

You can’t trust a sweet smile. Bree had already proved she had a sharp side. During their very first meeting, no less.

“I’m so sorry I’m late,” she said as she slid into the booth opposite them. “I got held up at work. I hope you haven’t been waiting too long.”

“Just a couple of minutes.”

Then Bree’s attention focused on MacKenzie, and her face was transformed with a look of such sweet maternal softness that Eric found himself struggling to breathe.

“And who have we here?” Bree asked.

MacKenzie ignored her.

“This is my daughter, MacKenzie,” Eric said. “MacKenzie, this is Dr. Johnson.”

“Hi, MacKenzie. You can call me Bree.” Her voice was soft, nonprovoking. “Nice to meet you.”

MacKenzie kept her eyes on her coloring book, where she was filling in Cinderella’s dress with a brown crayon.

“Is that Cinderella?” Bree asked.

“Mmm-hmm,” MacKenzie replied.

“You’re good at coloring. You really know how to stay inside the lines. Me, when I color, I’m really messy. I bet you get gold stars in your art class.”

“I get all As,” MacKenzie said matter-of-factly.

“Where’s Philomene?” Eric asked. “I’d like to move this along so I don’t keep MacKenzie out too late.”

“Of course.” Bree looked around. “I’ll go ask if she’s here. If the waitress comes, order me a meat loaf special and a coffee.”

“Caffeine doesn’t bother you this late at night?”

“Unfortunately, no. If it did, maybe I wouldn’t drink so much of the stuff.” She slid out of the booth and headed for Molly. Eric studied her retreating form at leisure, especially those gently swaying hips.

MacKenzie was staring, too.

“See, she’s not so scary,” Eric said.

MacKenzie shrugged and turned her attention to the menu. “I don’t see ice cream on here.”

Eric flipped the pages until he found desserts. “Right here. Chocolate, vanilla and strawberry.”

She put her finger on the menu where Eric had pointed and attempted to sound out the words. The waitress stopped back, and Eric dutifully ordered Bree’s meat loaf special. “I’ll have the same thing,” he added. “And a grilled cheese and tomato soup for the little one.”

“You want a soda with that?” the perky waitress asked.

MacKenzie nodded, but Eric shook his head. “Milk.” Bree might not be bothered by caffeine, but it made MacKenzie spin like a top.

As soon as the waitress left, Bree returned, a worried frown on her face. “Philomene’s not here. She should have gotten off work at six.”

“Maybe she got held up.”

“Maybe. But wouldn’t she call?”

“You’re asking me? I’ve never met this woman.”

“She should have called,” Bree said decisively.

Eric stifled a groan. He should have known this was a fool’s errand. “Sounds like maybe she had a change of heart.”

“When I talked to her yesterday, she sounded really eager to unburden herself. The guilt has been eating her alive.”

“You said she was nervous about changing her story. She probably just got cold feet.”

“I hope that’s all it is.” Bree already had her phone in her hand. “I’ll call her and see what’s what.”

The waitress brought MacKenzie’s milk and Bree’s coffee. Bree took a healthy gulp of the stuff, black, while waiting for Philomene to pick up.

“Hi, Philomene, it’s me, Bree,” she said after a few moments. “I’m at the diner with Eric Riggs from Project Justice. Please call me when you get a chance.” She was still frowning as she hung up.

“Look, Daddy, I finished.” MacKenzie displayed her coloring work. Although the colors were a little drab, she’d kept within the lines in her usual meticulous fashion.

“Very nice, sweetheart.”

Cautiously, she turned the page around and slid it toward Bree.

Bree smiled, and again her face was transformed.

She ought to smile more often, Eric thought.

“Very good work, MacKenzie. I think I might have something here...” She dug into her purse. “I do. Would you like a glitter heart or a gold star?”

“Heart, heart heart heart!”

Eric was touched. Had Bree put those stickers in her purse just for MacKenzie? Or... “You must have kids.”

A stark sadness flashed across Bree’s face before she masked it. “No, no kids. But I keep a few things on hand for children who come through the E.R.”

“So emergency medicine is your specialty?” She’d said earlier today that she’d met Philomene in the E.R., but he wanted to keep her talking about herself.

“Yes. I work at the county hospital.”

He wondered how many men faked serious illness in the hopes that lovely Bree would minister to them. Images flashed through his mind of Bree’s soft, pale hands touching him—in the most innocent, doctorly ways, of course.

God, what was he doing? He clenched his eyes shut until the images dissipated. He couldn’t afford to think of her like that. He needed to get her and her misguided agenda out of his life.

“Oh, no,” Bree said under her breath, her gaze fixed on the door.

Eric turned to look. A big, beefy guy with dark close-cropped hair in a well-tailored dress shirt and pants had just entered, accompanied by a shorter, more slender man with thinning curly hair and thick glasses. The shorter one’s clothes were rumpled, and as Molly showed them to a table, he walked with a slightly lurching gait, as if he had an issue with his hip or knee.

“Darn it, they’re headed this way.” Bree lowered her head and took another sip of coffee, playing with a strand of her hair to shield her face.

“Well, if it isn’t the crusading lady doctor.” The larger of the two men, clearly the alpha in this pack of two, had paused by their booth, proving Bree’s attempt to be inconspicuous hadn’t worked.

“Hello, Mr. Needles,” she said wearily, offering him a tight, almost hostile smile.

“Aren’t you going to introduce us?”

“Eric, this is District Attorney Sam Needles, the man who put Kelly in prison. Sam, this is Eric Riggs. He’s an attorney with Project Justice,” she said meaningfully.

Sam Needles didn’t take the hand Eric extended. Instead, he laughed. “Surely you’re kidding. You actually think Project Justice can get your no-good boyfriend out of prison? You ought to know that dog won’t hunt.”

Eric withdrew his hand, which had clenched into a fist. He didn’t know Bree very well, and he even agreed with Needles’s assessment of Ralston. But Needles had no call to be out-and-out rude.

“Sam,” the other man said to his friend, “leave her be.”

“Eric, this is Ted Gentry,” Bree said in a friendlier tone of voice. “He’s our county coroner. Normally a perfectly nice man, though he could keep better company.”

Gentry grinned. “Sam’s okay if you catch him on a good day. And he said he’d pay for dinner.”

“Least I could do, after you let me keep all the fish we caught,” Needles said with a hearty laugh.

“We did some fishing last night out at Willowbrook,” Gentry explained. “Sheriff’s got a place there. I like to catch ’em, not eat ’em.”

Sam Needles sobered. “Don’t drag me back to court, Bree. It’s a waste of everyone’s time.” He sauntered off.

Gentry shrugged apologetically. “You know how it is. If he says a man’s guilty, he doesn’t like being proved wrong.”

“A common trait among prosecutors,” Eric said amiably, though he was far less accepting of Sam Needles’s behavior than he let on. The fact was, the prosecutor’s attitude got Eric’s back up. He felt this tremendous urge to say, “Hell, yeah, Project Justice is taking on this case and you’re gonna eat your words.”

Even if Eric did agree with the guy.

But he kept still. He didn’t want any arguing, particularly not in front of MacKenzie, although she seemed engrossed in her coloring book and looked as if she’d tuned out the adult conversation.

“If you need anything from me, just let me know,” Gentry said. “I don’t like being proved wrong, either. But as I recall, I wasn’t able to contribute a whole heck of a lot to that case.”

“Thanks, Ted.” Bree gave his hand a quick squeeze.

A jolt of some uncomfortable emotion shocked Eric’s system; it took a moment before he realized he was jealous.

The coroner left to join his friend at a table thankfully far away from theirs. Bree watched them for a few moments. “Of course. They’re sitting down with Sheriff DeVille. Birds of a feather,” she grumbled, then turned to look at Eric. “See what I’m up against? Good-ol’-boy network can’t stand the thought that they might be proved wrong, by a woman, no less. ‘Crusading lady doctor,’ my foot.”

“It’s an attitude I’m familiar with. The coroner seemed a nice enough guy, at least.”

“He’s okay. We go way back, actually. We were in med school together. He’s kind of weird, but you’d have to be kind of weird to, um, do what he does all day.”

The waitress arrived with their food, and for a few minutes they made small talk. Under any other circumstances, Eric would have found Bree delightful. If this had been a first date, he would have wanted a second.

But he didn’t date. Even if he had been ready to trust another woman with his heart—and he wasn’t—there was no way he would make MacKenzie negotiate the minefield of Daddy’s girlfriends. She’d had to endure so many changes so quickly, not the least of which was discovering the foster father who’d cared for her the past three years had killed her mother. That was after losing her mother to murder, then having everyone tell her her own father had done it.

While MacKenzie was working on her scoop of vanilla ice cream, Bree tried to call Philomene again but still got no answer.

“I’m worried about her.”

“Philomene sounds like a woman who can take care of herself. I read up on the case, you know.” He hadn’t exactly had a ton of work to do so far at the foundation. “She came across as gutsy, standing up to her attacker, testifying in court against him—”

“Against the wrong guy. If you met her, you’d know she’s not very tough at all.”

* * *

BREE SEEMED INDECISIVE as she pulled out a credit card to pay for their meal.

“Wait, you don’t have to pay for dinner.” Eric was already reaching for his own wallet.

“Of course I do. You drove all this way, for nothing, as it turns out. I’m so sorry she didn’t show.”

“Crime victims don’t always behave rationally. If I’d been through what she has, I’d be scared, too.” Come to think of it, he was scared.

“But this was our one chance to get someone at Project Justice to listen. She understood that!”

Eric wished he knew what to say to make Bree feel better.

“I’m going to swing by her apartment and see if she’s home,” Bree said. “I don’t suppose you want to come with me—in case she’s there? Maybe I can still get her to talk to you.”

Eric was torn. He wanted to be done with this matter. At the same time, he didn’t want to say goodbye to Bree forever. She was a bright and interesting aspect of his life all of a sudden, even if she did bring trouble. He honestly hadn’t thought he would ever be interested in another woman after Tammy. But this one—she caused something to stir inside him, something he’d thought dead and buried right along with his duplicitous wife.

“If it’ll save me another trip out here...” He tried to make it seem as if he were merely being practical.

She quickly paid the bill, deftly refusing Eric’s attempt to do so himself, and soon they were all headed out to the parking lot, though not without a brief tussle with MacKenzie, who wanted to take her ice cream with her.

“Do you want to ride with me?” Eric asked Bree. “It’s not far, is it?” How far could one drive in Tuckerville and not go beyond the city limits? “I’ll drop you off here when we’re done.”

“Okay, if you don’t mind.”

By the time he got MacKenzie settled in her car seat, Bree was already ensconced in the front of his Nissan, looking right at home. She brought with her not only a healthy dose of femininity but a light, clean scent that reminded him of an alpine meadow—like Colorado in the spring. He was on the verge of asking her what the perfume was, then realized that would sound much too flirtatious for this situation. But the feminine scent produced a ridiculous surge of pleasure.

As he fastened his seat belt and started the car, Bree took a small bottle out of her purse and squirted something into her hand. It was an antibacterial gel, he realized. The alpine scent grew stronger, and he felt like an idiot. No chance she’d gussied up for him.

“Habit,” she said as she tossed the bottle back into her purse. “Hospitals have so many germs that I put this stuff on every five minutes.”

“When MacKenzie was a baby, we were so paranoid about germs we went through a bottle of Lysol about every day. Our hands were always chapped from washing.”

“She must be your first, then.”

“First and only. I don’t see how people do it, the ones who have half a dozen, I mean. I worry about her all the time.”

“I guess you figure it out as you go along.” She sounded wistful.

He knew it was harder for women, doing the whole husband-and-kids thing when you had a high-pressure career. He’d heard enough of his female attorney colleagues say so, anyway. Tammy’d had a career as a bookkeeper before MacKenzie. After the baby came, she’d insisted there was no way she could work and be a proper wife and mother, and Eric had never pushed her to. They’d done okay on his income. If he’d known she was putting MacKenzie in day care so she could carry on with the guy from her coupon club—

No, he couldn’t think about that.

“Turn left at this next stop sign,” Bree said. “It’s the second house on the right. She lives in the apartment over the garage.”

It seemed a cheerful enough neighborhood, with lots of pecan trees and picket fences. Eric pulled his car to the curb and stopped.

“Where are we going, Daddy?” MacKenzie asked. He’d thought maybe after her dinner and ice cream, she’d go right to sleep.

“Just a quick stop. Then we’ll head home.”

“Who lives here?” she asked as Eric helped her out of the car seat.

“A friend of Bree’s.”

The three of them walked up a set of wooden stairs lined with clay pots overflowing with pansies. A light was on inside, but that didn’t necessarily mean Philomene was home. People often left their lights on to foil burglars.

Bree knocked sharply on the door. “Philomene? It’s Bree. I’m just checking to see if you’re okay. Did you forget our meeting?”

No one answered. But Eric heard someone moving inside.

“Did you hear that?” Bree asked in a low voice.

“Clearly she doesn’t want visitors.”

Of course, Bree was too persistent to just give up. She tried the latch, which wasn’t locked. She opened the door a crack. “Philomene? I’m coming in, okay? I just want to make sure you’re all right.” She turned to Eric and whispered, “I mean, what if she’s sick or hurt or something?”

Unlikely, unless cold feet could be considered an injury.

Bree knocked one more time. “I don’t think she would normally leave her door unlocked at night. I’m going in.” She pushed her way inside.

It was a tiny apartment—just a combined living/dining room and a galley kitchen separated by a half wall. A single door probably led to the bedroom.

“This looks a lot like the place I lived in college,” Eric said. “With two other guys.”

Bree wasn’t up for chitchat. “I know I heard someone in here.” She crossed the living room toward the kitchen and peeked behind the half wall. Eric was right behind her, gripping MacKenzie’s hand. He suddenly had a bad feeling they shouldn’t be here. Just because the door was unlocked didn’t mean they had the right to barge in.

“We should leave,” he said just as someone burst out of the bedroom and streaked past them, straight out the front door.

“Hey!” Eric yelled, a purely reflexive outburst. The last thing he really wanted was for the guy to stop, not when Eric had his six-year-old daughter with him.

MacKenzie squeaked in surprise and Bree whirled around. “Who was that? Was it Philomene?”

“Definitely not, unless Philomene resembles a large male wearing overalls.”

Bree shook her head and walked to the door to look out. The guy’s footsteps had long since faded; he’d beat it out of there pretty damn fast.

“Does Philomene have a roommate or boyfriend?” Eric asked.

“No roommate. I don’t know about boyfriends. But whoever that guy was, he wouldn’t have run like that if he was supposed to be here.”

Bree walked over to the bedroom door and stuck her head in, then checked the bathroom. “She’s not here. Eric, did you get a good look at the intruder?”

“No. Just his general size and coloring, but he rushed past so fast. Look, Bree, I must have been insane to come here with my little girl. We have to go—now.”

“But Philomene might be in trouble.”

“That sounds like a matter for the police.” Eric was already heading for the door. He needed to get MacKenzie home, tucked in safe and far, far away from anything that smacked of “trouble.”

“The police. That’s a joke,” Bree muttered as she followed Eric out. “Tuckerville doesn’t even have its own police force. We rely on the Becker County Sheriff’s Department. They wouldn’t stir themselves to look for a missing woman.”

“Most law enforcement won’t search for a missing adult unless there’s clear evidence of foul play. Because ninety-nine percent of missing adults are missing because they want to be.”

“What about that one percent?”

“I’m sure she’ll turn up.” Was he? They’d interrupted a possible crime, and Eric’s bad feeling hadn’t gone away. But his job wasn’t to investigate missing persons.

They rode in silence back to the café’s parking lot. Finally, when Eric stopped to let Bree out, she spoke. “I’m sorry you came all this way for nothing.”

“Not nothing. That was awfully good meat loaf.”

“I don’t suppose you’d come back if I set up another meeting.... No, I can see it in your eyes. You’ve already been more than reasonable, and... Never mind. It’s not your problem. Have a safe drive home. MacKenzie?” Bree’s demeanor changed dramatically when she addressed his daughter. “I enjoyed meeting you.”

MacKenzie actually smiled. Then she said in a tiny voice, “I hope you find your friend.”

“Me, too, kiddo.”

Eric was touched. He’d thought MacKenzie would tune them out the way kids did when they weren’t interested in adult conversation, which they usually weren’t. But apparently she’d been paying attention, and she’d overcome her initial shyness to express compassion for someone else. She was an amazing kid.

With more empathy than her father, apparently. He felt guilty for not showing more concern for Philomene. He felt a sudden urge to reverse himself and tell Bree he would do whatever it took to locate Philomene and make sure she was safe, that he would listen, that he would look into Kelly Ralston’s case and see that justice was being served.

But Bree was already gone.

CHAPTER FOUR

BREE HAD NEVER thought of herself as a stalker. But she’d tried calling Eric Riggs three times and hadn’t been able to get through. She was not going to give up easily, however. Not when a woman’s life was at stake. So here she was, lurking outside the Project Justice offices, waiting for someone to exit.

She had known better than to actually go inside and face the Dragon Lady, Celeste. Celeste was the one who had repeatedly foiled Bree’s efforts to speak with Eric.

When someone finally did exit the building, it was the young blonde woman she’d seen on her first visit, the one who had interrupted what she must have thought was some kind of romantic tryst.

“Excuse me, Jillian?”

The woman whirled around. “Yes?” Then she smiled with recognition. “Oh, you’re Eric’s girlfriend.”

Bree let Jillian believe what she wanted. “I’ve been trying to reach him. But there seems to be some trouble with the phone, and he’s not answering his cell.”

“He’s probably in the courtroom,” Jillian said. “You get in big trouble with the judge if your cell phone goes off during some proceeding.” Jillian looked slightly guilty, as if she might know this from experience. “He was supposed to appear this morning for some reason or other. You can probably still catch him down there if you hurry. You know where it is?”

“Oh, sure,” Bree said breezily. “Thanks.”

“No problem. I’m just glad to see Eric has someone in his life. I don’t know him very well, but he seems like a really nice guy, and he deserves someone nice.”

As she hurried back to her car, Bree felt slightly guilty for having perpetrated the white lie on unsuspecting Jillian. But extreme circumstances called for extreme measures.