Praise for the novels of Tara Taylor Quinn

“Quinn smoothly blends women’s fiction with suspense and then adds a dash of romance to construct an emotionally intense, compelling story.”

—Booklist on Where the Road Ends

“One of the skills that has served Quinn best…has been her ability to explore edgier subjects.”

—Publishers Weekly

“Quinn ties you up emotionally as her wonderful voice explodes into the mainstream.”

—Reader to Reader on Where the Road Ends

“One of the most powerful [romance novels] I have had the privilege to review.”

—Wordweaving on Nothing Sacred

Street Smart is filled with “deception, corruption, betrayal—and love, all coming together in an explosive novel that will make you think twice.”

—New Mystery Reader Magazine

“Street Smart is an exciting novel…action-packed and fast-moving…Tara Taylor Quinn has done a beautiful job.”

—Writers Unlimited

“Quinn writes touching stories about real people that transcend plot type or genre.”

—All About Romance

Hidden
Tara Taylor Quinn

www.mirabooks.co.uk

Dear Reader,

There are some stories that just insist on being told. They come to you without warning or explanation. They take up residence in that corner of your brain reserved for private thoughts, and they nag at you, sometimes incessantly, sometimes quietly, sometimes in the middle of the night when you aren’t sure if you’re dreaming or awake. If you don’t heed them they take a seat and stay put until finally, out of desperation, you agree to listen and to write. Hidden is one such story. It first came to me almost three years ago in the middle of a long-distance telephone conversation. I listened to the story for a second, losing track of the real-time conversation because of the interruption—and I don’t know that I’ll ever regain credibility with the person who was at the other end of the phone and doesn’t understand writers at all. And then I told the “voice” to shut up. It quieted but didn’t leave.

I told the story to get lost. I was contracted for seven books, and it wasn’t one of them. I didn’t write that kind of book. But even as I thought the words, silently listed the reasons, I knew the story wasn’t leaving.

It hung around for a couple of years, bugging me periodically, reminding me that it was waiting. And in a meeting with my agent, in reply to a question she’d asked, this story stood up from its seat in a corner of my mind and suddenly it was all I could see, all I could think about. I told my agent about it. Her response was completely positive. Surprised, I then talked to my editor, who also showed no signs of shock or hesitation. Only I remained, secretly, doubtful of my ability to pull this off.

And then I sat down to write. I opened myself to the story, and I can now honestly tell you that this is the best work I’ve done to date. Hidden is a story about people who, at least to my mind, are very real. I’d love to hear what you think about it! You can reach me at P.O. Box 13584, Mesa, Arizona 85216 or at www.tarataylorquinn.com.

Till then, enjoy!

Tara Taylor Quinn

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

For Quinnby, Henry J, Maya and Abrahamburger, who are the angelic bearers of unconditional love and support. If they were my only teachers in life, it would be abundant.

Thank you to California senator Jack Scott for his generous insights into a day in the life of a California state senator, and to Phil Blake, EMS Management Analyst with the San Diego Fire Department for cheerfully and enthusiastically answering a plethora of questions. Any mistakes in representing either career are mine.

A heartfelt thanks also to Lynn Kerstan, who shared her hometown of San Diego with me and who not only chauffeured me around but took me to dinner. And thanks to Jill Limber for running down to her local San Diego fire station to find out what color uniform the firefighters were wearing. And to Lisa Kamps, former firefighter turned romance writer, for all the tidbits about the life of a firefighter.

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

1

San Francisco Gazette

Tuesday, April 5, 2005

Page 1

Single Socialite Disappears

Leah Montgomery, one of the country’s most sought-after and elusive heiresses, was reported missing by her brother, San Francisco attorney Adam Montgomery, and sister, Carley Winchester, in San Francisco last night after she failed to attend the $200 a plate orphaned children’s fund-raiser she’d spent the past six months organizing. The thirty-one-year-old was last seen yesterday at 3:20 p.m. leaving Madiras where, according to the upscale salon’s owner, Samantha Ramirez, Montgomery received her weekly massage and manicure and had her hair cut and styled, in preparation for that evening’s event.

Again according to Ramirez, Montgomery had been planning to wear a black satin gown with red lace trim. Late last night, when police searched Montgomery’s penthouse condominium, they found a dress matching that description hanging from one of the two shower heads in the woman’s shower. Montgomery’s white Mercedes convertible is also missing.

There are no leads in the case, though police are rumored to be questioning California’s newest state senator, attorney Thomas Whitehead, who was to have been Montgomery’s escort at last night’s fund-raiser. Whitehead was elected to the Senate last fall, just fourteen months after his six-months-pregnant, fashion-designer wife, Kate Whitehead, disappeared without a trace. Before her disappearance, Mrs. Whitehead was frequently seen in the company of her longtime best friend, Leah Montgomery.

“Mama! Mamama!”

Shaking, heart pounding so hard she could feel its beat, Tricia Campbell lowered the newspaper enough to peer over the top at her eighteen-month-old son. She could see him sitting there in his scarred wood high chair in their modest San Diego home, pajamas covered with crumbs from the breakfast he’d long since finished, wispy dark curls sticking to the sides of his head. Could smell the plum jam he’d smeared all over his plump chin, cheeks and fingers. And she could definitely hear him…“Mamamama! Down!” The baby, pounding his clenched fists on the stained tray of his chair, was working up to a frustrated squall.

The paper fell to Tricia’s lap. She stared at her son, seeing him as though from afar—as though he belonged to someone else. The little boy was almost the entire sum of her existence—certainly the basis of every conscious decision she’d made in the past two years—and she couldn’t connect. Not even with him. Not right now.

“Maamaa?” The little voice dropped as though in question.

Wordlessly, she glanced down at her lap, staring at the small, grainy picture that accompanied the article. It must’ve been pulled from the vault in a hurry. The likeness was old, an image captured more than two years before. Taken at yet another of Leah’s constant stream of charity events—a Monte Carlo night with proceeds to offer relief to recent hurricane victims.

Tricia recognized the dress Leah was wearing. The smile on her face. The picture. She’d been standing right beside her when that photo was snapped. Had posed for one herself. After all, they’d both been wearing gowns from the latest Kate Whitehead collection—gowns that were to have their own showing later that year.

“Ma! Ma! Down! Mama! Down!” The loud banging, a result of her son’s tennis shoe kicking back against the foothold on his chair, caught her attention.

With a trembling hand, she pushed a strand of her now-mousy brown hair toward the ponytail band that was supposed to have been holding it in place, watching as the toddler screwed up his face into the series of creases and curves that indicated a full-blown tantrum. And felt as though the expression was her own. Grief. Anger. Confusion. Leah was missing. Leah—her best friend. A piece of her heart.

Leah, whose memory afforded her a secret inner hold on sanity in a life that was nothing but secrets and insanity.

“Down!” The squeal of fear in her son’s voice catapulted Tricia out of her seat, across the foot and a half of cheap linoleum to his secondhand chair. In no time, she had him unstrapped and clutched his strong little body tight, cheek to cheek, the tears streaming down her face mingling with his.

She was shaking harder than he was.

“…Engine Eleven respond, overturned traffic…”

“Let’s go!” Captain Scott McCall dropped his sponge in the bucket of water he’d been using to clean the windows in the station’s kitchen and ran for the door. An overturned vehicle on the freeway couldn’t be good.

A flurry of heavy footsteps hitting cement rang through the station. Silent men, focused on the moments ahead, or perhaps the pizza they’d just ordered, all doing the jobs they’d been trained to do. Street boots off, Scott pulled on the heat-resistant pants with attached boots that he’d thrown over the side of the engine when they’d returned from a Dumpster fire that morning. He grabbed his jacket off the side mirror and jumped aboard, scooping up the helmet he’d left in the passenger seat.

Cliff Ralen, his engineer, already had the rig in motion. They traveled silently, as usual, having worked together so long they had no need for words. Scott was the captain, but he rarely had to give orders to any of the three men on the engine with him. They were well-trained, as firemen and as co-workers. He was damned lucky to have a group of guys who shared a sixth sense when it came to getting the job done.

The engine couldn’t get to the freeway quickly enough for Scott. Was it a multiple-car accident? Someone could be trapped inside. More than one someone. It was interstate. A second engine would be called. Police would be on-site.

With a rollover accident, there was a greater possibility of explosion.

And a greater possibility of severe injury—or death.

Sweating, impatient, Scott clenched his fists, waiting. This was always the worst part for him. The waiting. Patience wasn’t his strongest suit. Nor was inactivity.

Waiting could be the hardest part of his job because he knew what it was like to be on the other side, helpless, feeling time slip away while you waited for help to arrive….

He tapped a foot against the floorboard. He was help. He and his men. The guys would secure the area. Check for signs of fire danger. Rip car doors from their jambs. Break through back windows.

And Scott, as the engine’s paramedic, would…

Do whatever needed to be done. He always did. He wouldn’t think about the people. He wouldn’t feel. They didn’t pay him to think too much. Or to feel.

Feeling weakened a man. Got in the way. Could make the one-second difference between saving a life and losing it.

Scott wasn’t going to lose a life. Not if there was anything humanly possible he could do to save it.

He wasn’t going to witness another life fading away while he stood helplessly by and watched.

Period.

With his door open even before Cliff pulled to a halt, Scott jumped out. He took in the entire scene at a glance—the circle of tragedy, with bystanders on the periphery and his men moving forward checking for fuel leaks, other signs of explosion danger, trapped victims.

Engine Eleven was the first on-site. Goddamn, it was ugly. A pickup truck, the mangled cap several yards away. Off to the other side, also several yards from the smashed vehicle was a trailer hauling a late-model Corvette. Whoever had been driving that truck had been going too fast, jackknifed the trailer, lost control. Judging by the roof flattened clear down to the door frame, the truck had rolled more than once.

Whoever had been driving that truck was nowhere in sight. He hoped it was a man. Or an old woman who’d lived a full life. Please, God, don’t let it be a young woman.

“She’s trapped inside!” Joe Valentine called out. He’d worked with Scott for six of Scott’s eleven years with the department.

If she’s young, let her be okay, he demanded silently as he grabbed his black bag and approached the truck. She’s just trapped. Between the steel frame of the truck, the air bags and seat belt, the vehicle might have protected her. Cliff took a crowbar to the upside-down driver’s door. Metal on metal, screeching over raw nerves. He’d treat her for shock. Rail at her about the reason for speed limits. Make sure she understood how lucky she was to have escaped serious injury.

It was half an hour before Scott had his mind to himself again. He’d filled out his report. Tuesday, April 5, 2005. 11:45 a.m. Responded to call at…

Kelsey Stuart, the young woman who’d borrowed her boyfriend’s truck to pull her recently deceased father’s car to her apartment in San Diego, had been pronounced dead at the scene fifteen minutes before.

By the time she heard Scott’s black Chevy pickup in the drive shortly after eight on Wednesday morning, Tricia had had twenty-four hours to work herself into an inner frenzy and an outer state of complete calm. Much of her life had been spent learning things she’d never use. But little had she known, growing up the daughter of a wealthy San Franciscan couple, that the ability to keep up appearances had also equipped her with the skills to lead a double life.

“Hi, babe!” Even after almost two years of living with this man, sharing his bed and his life, she still felt that little leap in her belly every time he walked into a room.

She was in the kitchen and plunged her hands into the sink of dirty dishwater to keep from flinging them around Scott. He wouldn’t recognize the needy, clinging woman.

“Hi, yourself!”

He’d been gone four nights—part of the four on, four off rotation that made up most of his schedule, broken only once or twice a month with a one or two day on/off turn. She could have justified a hug. If she’d been able to trust herself not to fall apart the moment she felt his arms slide around her…

“Daaaddeee!” Taylor squirmed in his high chair, seemingly unaware of the toast crumbs smeared across his plump cheeks and up into his hair. His breakfast was a daily pre-bath ritual.

“Mornin’, squirt!” Scott rubbed the baby’s head and bent down to kiss his cheek, as though he was spotlessly clean. “Were you a good boy for your mama?”

“Good boy.” Taylor nodded. And then, “Down!”

He lifted his arms up to the man he called Daddy. Someday Taylor would have to know that Scott wasn’t actually his biological father, but maybe by then Scott would have adopted him and—

She abruptly yanked the plug in the bottom of the sink, watching as the grayish water and the residue of bubbles washed away. She couldn’t think about the future. It was one of her non-negotiable rules.

Unless things changed drastically, there would be no future for her. Only the day-to-day life she had now. Only the moment.

Hearing her son squeal, followed by silence from the man who usually made as much or more noise than the little boy when the two were playing together, Tricia glanced over her shoulder.

“Scott?” She dried her hands, moved slowly behind the man she’d duped—yes, duped—into taking her in. She’d played the part of a destitute homeless woman, and then grown to love Scott more than she’d ever believed possible. Face buried in Taylor’s neck, he was holding on to the boy.

Almost as she had the day before…

“Is something wrong?” she asked, her throat tightening with the terror that was never far from the surface. Had he had enough of them? Was this going to be goodbye?

Could she handle another loss right now?

He didn’t look up right away, and Tricia focused on breathing. Life had come down to this a few times in the past couple of years—reduced to its most basic level. Getting each breath to follow the one before. Clearing her mind of all thought, all worry, her heart of all fear, so that she could breathe.

“You want us to leave?” she made herself ask when she could. Probably only seconds had passed. They seemed like minutes. Her arrangement with Scott wasn’t permanent. She’d known that. Insisted on it.

The back pockets of her worn, department-store jeans were a good place for hands that were noticeably trembling.

“Can we put him in his playpen with Blue?” Scott asked.

Taylor’s addiction to Blue’s Clues could easily buy half an hour of uninterrupted time.

“I need to talk to you.”

It was bad, then.

He wouldn’t look her in the eye. Hadn’t answered her question about leaving. And his thick brown hair was messier than usual—as though he’d been running his hand through it all morning.

Scott had a habit of doing that when he was working through things that upset him.

She wanted to speak. To tell him that amusing Taylor with Blue while they talked was fine with her. That she was happy to hear whatever was on his mind.

She just didn’t have it in her. She’d hardly slept. Was having trouble staying focused. Jumping at every innocuous click, bump or whoosh of air. She’d even dropped Taylor’s spoon earlier when the refrigerator had clicked on behind her.

With a jerky nod, she followed him into the living room, where one entire corner was taken up with Taylor’s playpen, toys and sundry other toddler possessions. She would’ve moved the changing table out of the crowded room now that he was older and it was easier to have him climb onto the couch rather than lifting his almost twenty pounds up to the table for a diaper change, but they didn’t have anyplace to put it. Scott’s house, as was the case with most of the homes in the older San Diego South Park neighborhood, didn’t have a garage.

And the crib and dresser in Taylor’s small room left no space for anything else. Which made the fact that they had little else less noticeable.

“What’s up?” They were in Scott’s room—their room for now—with the door open so she could hear Taylor.

He paced at the end of the king-size bed, staring down at the hardwood floor. Sitting in the old wooden rocker that had become a haven to her, Tricia hugged a throw pillow to her belly and waited.

Scott stopped. Glanced over at her. He sat on the end of the bed she’d made only an hour before. With hands clasped between his knees, he looked over at her.

“I haven’t been completely honest with you.”

Her breath whooshed out, but her lungs didn’t immediately expand to allow any entry of air.

He opened his mouth to speak, then shook his head.

“What?” Her voice was low, partly because she was having trouble saying anything at all. Partly because of Taylor in the next room. But also because, as she saw him sitting there, she watched—felt—the struggle inside him.

She knew. Oh, not his secret, obviously. But she knew all about the dark pain associated with keeping secrets.

“I shouldn’t have lied, and I’m sorry.” The conversation was getting more and more ominous. Tricia wanted to scream at him for lying to her. She’d been lied to enough. Couldn’t take any more.

But how could she be upset with him for something she was doing herself? No one was guiltier of hiding things than Tricia Campbell—name chosen from the Campbell’s soup can she’d seen on his counter when, the morning after the first time they’d had sex, he’d asked her full name.

“Why…” she coughed. “Why don’t you tell me what this is about?” If she had to find another place to live, she’d need as much of the day as she could get. Taylor had to be in bed by seven or he’d be too tired to sleep.

Still hugging the pillow, Tricia tried her hardest to ignore the far-too-familiar sense of impending darkness, the dread and panic that she could never seem to escape. She thought of the blue sky outside. Of the beach in Coronado, there for her to walk any time of the day or night. She thought of cuddling up to her small son for a long afternoon nap.

“I’m—I haven’t always lived…this way.” He gestured to the room.

“What? I’m keeping the place too clean? I don’t mean to, I just…”

“No!” He grinned at her and Tricia’s heart lightened. That quickly. It was why she’d been drawn to the man in the first place. There was something special about him and something deep in her recognized it. Even if, consciously, she had no idea what it was.

“I love everything you’ve done to the place. The curtains and pillows, the rugs. I love having meals I don’t have to fix myself, and having help with the dishes. I love always being able to find what I need because it has a place, so I know where to look for it.”

Good. Okay, then. She wasn’t just using him. She was giving him a valuable service.

“Have you ever heard of McCall faucets?”

The question threw her. “Of course. They’re top of the line. In custom homes all over the country. They do shower fixtures, too.”

“And toilet hardware,” he added.

“So?” She frowned, pushed against the floor with one bare foot to set the chair in motion. “You want to replace the kitchen faucet?”

He shook his head.

She hadn’t really thought so.

“The shower?” Please let it just be that.

“No, Trish. I want to tell you that my family is McCall faucets. I am McCall faucets.”

She was going to wake up now and find out that this was a twisted dream, another way her psyche had dreamed up to torment her. She was going to wake up and find out that it was really only one in the morning and she had a whole night to get through before she could get out of bed and feel the promise of sunshine on her skin. Seven and a half hours to go before Scott got home from his shift at the station.

“Say something.” He was still sitting there, dressed in his blue uniform pants and blue T-shirt with the San Diego fire insignia on it, hands clasped. She hadn’t woken up.

“I’m confused.” It was a relief to tell the complete truth for once.

“My grandfather is the original designer and patent holder of McCall faucets. The company now belongs to my parents. My younger brother, Jason, has an MBA in business and will probably take over the vice-presidency from my uncle when he retires in a couple of years.”

Wake up. Wake up. Please wake up.

“Do you have a large family?” That seemed the smart thing to concentrate on until she could get herself out of this crazy nightmare.

Scott was one of those people? The kind she used to be? The kind her husband still was? People whose wealth and privilege instilled the belief that they were above the law? One of those people who made mistakes and knew that society would look the other way?

Scott was coming clean? When it was more important than ever that she continue with her lies?

He’d said something—about his family she presumed—and was now awaiting her response.

“I’m sorry, I missed that, I was listening to Taylor.” The lies slid out of her mouth so easily these days.

His mouth curved in that half grin that usually made her stomach turn over. Not today. She was going to miss that grin.

“I said that I have numerous aunts, uncles and cousins, both of my maternal grandparents and both parents. But Jason is my only sibling.”

“No sisters?” The ridiculous question, considering what he was telling her, proved to her that this was only a dream. Reassured her.

Scott shook his head. “Just a bevy of female cousins.”

She felt a brief curiosity about them. Would probably have liked them. If she could’ve met Scott sooner, in college maybe, before she’d made the one critical choice that had ruined the rest of her life.

Staring at the braided rug in the middle of the floor between the rocker and bed, she didn’t realize Scott had stood until she felt the warmth of his hand prying the pillow from her fingers. With gentle pressure, he pulled at her hand. Tricia didn’t resist. In his arms she came alive.

She knew her attempt at escape through fantasies of nightmares for the lie it was.

Everything Scott had just told her was true. All true.

And everything about her—including her mousy-brown hair—was false.

2

T he peace Tricia generally found in Scott’s arms was elusive that morning. She snuggled up to his warmth, buried her face in his neck, inhaling the musky scent of his aftershave—a cheap drugstore brand she’d bought him for Christmas.

A drugstore brand when he’d probably been used to several-hundred-dollar-an-ounce varieties.

He’d shaved before he’d come home that morning. The skin on his neck was smooth, soft. She kissed him. A small caress that lingered.

God, let this all go away.

Scott held on to her, saying nothing, but there was a sense of things left unsaid. Of more things coming.

She had to get a San Francisco paper. It was going to tell her that Leah had turned up, healthy and happy, though embarrassed as hell for having fallen prey to the consequences of some inane idea she’d had. Wasn’t it? She’d promised herself, sometime during the long lonely hours of the night, that it would.

“Taylor’s going to want his walk,” she said into Scott’s shoulder, making no move away from him.

It was during those morning walks that Tricia usually picked up the San Francisco Gazette from a stand at the food mart a couple of blocks away. And unless Scott was on twenty-four-hour duty at the station, she read it at the Grape Street dog park, where no one would pay attention or ask questions. And where Taylor could squeal at the four-legged creatures.

In another lifetime he’d have had a dog. Or three. In another life, her son would’ve had anything and everything his little heart desired.

“I don’t think he’ll be too upset about exchanging a walk for Blue.” Scott’s lips nuzzled her neck, sending chills down her spine. Good chills. And chills of warning, too. She’d never have believed it was possible to experience such opposing thoughts—emotions—sensations—all at the same time.

She had to take that walk. Get away from Scott. She had to buy the paper.

And she had to stand up, face what was before her, move on. Taylor’s life depended on her ability to take the next step. And the next.

Reaching up to release the ponytail that was giving her a headache, Tricia pulled back from Scott and shook her head, letting the long brown strands fall around her. She’d never had long hair before.

She’d gotten used to it. Maybe even liked it if she could get past how unfashionable it looked.

“The fresh air’s good for him.”

“You’re angry.”

She turned away. Dropped the ponytail elastic on the Formica dresser top.

“No, I’m not.”

Turning back, Tricia met his gaze briefly, and then glanced at the blue fake-down comforter on the bed behind him, covering what she knew were sheets with such a low thread count that the only way she’d been able to make them soft was to wash them repeatedly with tons of fabric softener. The throw pillows she’d sewn herself from fabric remnants left over from her contract job as an independent alterations specialist at a Coronado dry cleaner. Behind the bed were walls so thin any insulation that might’ve been there had probably deteriorated years before, and windows whose frames were bent enough that if the wind blew just right during a storm, water would come in.

His body, leaning against the bed, captured her attention for a second. And then she looked him in the eye.

“I don’t understand.”

He shrugged, didn’t ask what she meant. “It’s a long story.”

“I can always start Blue over if I have to.”

He gestured to the bed. “You want to sit down?”

She didn’t. Her nerves were stretched too taut. Tricia peeked out the bedroom door, down the hall to the living room where she could see her son happily playing, his little chin raised as he stared at his idol on the screen in front of him.

And she turned back. As much as she didn’t want to hear whatever Scott had to tell her, she had to. She loved him.

With one hip resting on the bed just below her pillow, she kept both feet firmly on the floor, arms crossed over her chest.

She’d once been told that her C-cup breasts were the best part of her. At the time, she’d considered the words a compliment.

Scott closed his eyes, one bent leg pulled up on the mattress, his other foot still on the floor.

“I had it all once.” His voice had an edge she didn’t recognize. The man she’d grown to count on was peaceful and compassionate. He was a healer. Not a hurter.

Taylor’s babyish lisp rang out from the other room, his rendition of Blue’s theme song. Another episode was starting.

Plastic scraped against plastic. He was playing with his hollow square color blocks, trying to fit one inside another. Only problem was, her son hadn’t quite grasped the concept that the smaller block went into the bigger one.

“The best of everything. Best home. Best clothes. Best education.” He’d opened his eyes and was looking right at her, making her uncomfortable.

He knew nothing about her. But this wasn’t about her.

Silently, keeping her own counsel, she waited.

“I had my own servants.”

He’d said that as though it was one of the seven deadly sins. Her skin felt hot. And she shivered with cold.

“On my seventeenth birthday, my father surprised me with a brand-new Porsche.”

They were nice cars, though Tricia was more fond of Jaguars. Navy-blue ones. With beige leather interiors and seats that heated up at the touch of a button.

“Alicia loved that car.”

What? “Alicia?”

He nodded. Tense enough that the cords in his neck framed his next swallow. “I met her in high school.”

“Your girlfriend?” She wasn’t jealous. Had no reason to be jealous. Obviously Scott hadn’t stuck with this girl. Still, had she ever seen that warmth in his eyes when he’d been focused on her?

“She was more than just a girlfriend.” His voice took on a distant quality, almost as though he was talking in his sleep. His sight had definitely focused inward, leaving Tricia sitting there alone.

And yet… He was sharing this with her. That meant something.

“How so?” she asked softly, dragging a blue-and-white throw pillow onto her lap, hugging it, pulling at the tasseled trim she’d sewn on by hand.

He tilted his head slightly, a restless hand coming to rest on the side of his boot.

“It sounds crazy,” he told her. “Always has, even in my own mind, but Alicia was special. Different. From the first time I met her, it’s like we connected. Suddenly everything in life made sense. I felt as if I’d been thrown from a hurricane into a rainbow.”

Which described exactly how she’d felt when she met him. Emotion burned at the back of her throat. She felt that way about him. He’d felt that way about someone else.

“It doesn’t sound crazy.” But this love story didn’t have a happy ending. Had the woman dumped him? For someone who was more…what? Couldn’t be richer. Meaner, then? Politically motivated?

Or had their families been involved? Disapproved of the match?

“Did your parents like her?” Was she rich enough for them?

“Everyone liked her. Alicia was the only daughter of one of California’s most influential bankers. But unlike the other girls at school, her attitude wasn’t defined by her family’s wealth. She was blond, small, popular. She liked nice things. But she spent her time thinking about poetry. And social problems—how she could help people.”

Tricia had spent most of her teenage years dreaming about clothes. But she’d volunteered at the animal shelter every weekend and during the summer. Leah had taken her there. Among the animals Tricia had found peace. Security. Unconditional love.

“So what happened? I can’t imagine she didn’t like you.”

His grin was slow, not fully present, but Tricia felt heat in her cheeks anyway.

“We were pretty much inseparable the last two years of high school. We graduated. Celebrated our eighteenth birthdays that summer.”

His was in July. Three months away. Last year had been the first she’d celebrated with him. He’d been embarrassed by the fuss she’d made—which had consisted of one new shirt and a homemade cake.

“The third Saturday in August, just before we were due to leave for college, we took the Porsche out for a long drive along Highway One.”

The coastal road followed the Pacific Ocean all the way up the state of California and beyond. Tricia and Leah had run away for a couple of weeks one summer during college and driven the entire craggy coastline, marveling at the natural beauty that took their breath away, the mountains and drop-offs, the mammoth rocks and roaring waves, stopping wherever the spirit took them. They’d spent three days in Carmel.

Tricia had sworn she’d go back there with a lover someday.

She never had.

“Somewhere about a hundred miles north of Santa Monica I pulled into a deserted overlook and asked her to marry me.”

This was where the story got sad. Those narrowed, glistening eyes said so.

“She turned you down?” She hadn’t meant to sound incredulous, but she really couldn’t believe it.

“No.” He glanced up with a bit of a smile. She’d never seen a smile look so sad. “She said yes. And started to cry when the ring I nervously pulled out of the glove box fit her finger perfectly.”

“How’d you manage that?” She was hurting and didn’t even know why.

“Got one of her rings from her mom and took it to the jewelers.”

His thoughtfulness didn’t surprise Tricia. Except as confirmation that he’d always been like that. She’d occasionally wondered if he was so different from the other men she knew because of something that had happened to him. Apparently not. Apparently he’d been born thoughtful and kind.

“An hour later, flying high on life, I took a corner twenty miles an hour too fast, lost control of the Porsche and slammed into the side of a mountain.”

San Francisco Gazette

Wednesday, April 6, 2005

Page 1

Socialite Still Missing

Forty-eight hours after thirty-one-year old charity fund-raiser Leah Montgomery was reported missing by her brother and sister, there has still been no word on her whereabouts. According to a police source, they have no clues other than the black gown hanging in her shower. The missing woman was apparently planning to wear it two evenings ago at a charity gala. There was no sign of struggle in her Pacific Heights security-system-controlled home. Montgomery’s white Mercedes convertible has not been found.

Standing at the checkout counter at Gala Foods, her basket empty except for the fresh vegetables she’d suddenly decided she wanted for dinner, Tricia read the article a second time. Her hands were trembling so hard she could barely make out the words bouncing in front of her.

They weren’t what she’d expected to read. No inane idea to explain her friend’s sudden disappearance. No embarrassing statement of apology for the rash or naive behavior that had made her miss her own black-tie function. No Leah.

Dammit, Leah, what have you done this time? Who’s rescuing you from whatever mess you’ve created now that I’m not there to do it?

And whose gown did you buy?

It was almost one in the afternoon. The paper had gone to press before six that morning. Perhaps Leah had been found by now.

Yeah, that was it. Tricia folded the paper, putting it on top of her purse in the metal child-seat in the front of the basket. Tomorrow she’d read all about it. The harebrained scheme. The embarrassment. Leah safe and sound and laughing it all off in such a way that everyone would eventually laugh along with her.

Taking a deep breath, hooking the hair that had fallen over the shoulder of her T-shirt back behind her ear, she pushed her basket closer to the moving conveyer belt, unloading a head of cauliflower, broccoli florets and peeled baby carrots.

The San Diego daily paper was there at the checkout—without any mention of Leah on the front page. Somehow that was comforting.

“Paper or plastic?” the older man who bagged groceries asked.

His question startled her. Brought her back to the present moment—the only moment she had to worry about right now.

“Plastic, please.” She pushed her empty basket through to the end of the aisle.

“Where’s your little one this afternoon?” asked Gabriella, the young, slightly plump and quite beautiful Hispanic cashier.

“Home napping with his dad.” She’d snatched the opportunity to get out alone to grab the paper. Away from the house, she could freely study news from the town where she’d grown up and dispose of the evidence with no one but her eighteen-month-old son the wiser.

Only occasionally during Scott’s four-day rotations on would she spoil herself, bringing the paper home to enjoy over a cup of coffee as she had the day before.

“You are one lucky woman!” Gabriella was saying, her fingers flying over the number keys of the computerized register, typing in prices for the fresh vegetables. “Most of us just fantasize about being with a gorgeous fireman. You not only got one, but he’s a good dad, too.”

“And he cooks!” Tricia smiled at the girl she’d come to know. She and Taylor made at least three trips a week to the neighborhood grocer.

“’Course, you ain’t nothing to sneeze at,” Gabriella continued. “I’d give a year’s worth of paydays to have your long legs.”

“And I’d give the same to have your beautiful black hair.” Tricia pulled cash out of the black leather bag she’d sewn from the bolt Scott had given her for Christmas the year before, after he’d seen her fingering it in a department store.

“You really should get one of them cards,” Gabriella said, pointing to the debit machine by Tricia’s right arm. “It’s not safe, a woman like you carrying cash around. Not in this neighborhood.”

Yeah, well, it was a hell of a lot safer than leaving any kind of paper trail that could be traced.

Picking up the plastic bag, she nodded. “I know. I’ll get around to it.”

It was the same reply she’d given the first time Gabriella had warned her about the neighborhood. That had been a couple of months before Taylor was born.

“Where were you Monday afternoon and evening?”

Senator Thomas Whitehead, impeccably dressed in a navy suit, cream shirt and red tie, his always freshly polished black Italian leather shoes shining, didn’t immediately spit out an answer to the San Francisco detective’s question. He’d come to the station voluntarily and without counsel.

He had nothing to hide. And everything to gain by carefully thought-out, honest responses.

“I was at my office until close to seven. I stopped on the way home for a steak at McGruber’s, dropped a novel off at my mother’s after she called to say she was having trouble sleeping. I visited with her until shortly before midnight and then went home.”

Detectives Gregory and Stanton, the same team who’d interrogated him after Kate’s disappearance, were seated across from him in the small room. Dirty white cement walls, gray tile floor, a single table with two chairs on either side. Their faces were grim. Gregory was the younger of the two, in his midthirties, tall, dark curly hair with a pockmarked face. Poor guy must’ve had it rough in high school with all the acne it would’ve taken to leave those scars.

“Is there anyone at your office who can verify that?” Gregory asked, head tilted to the left and slightly lowered at the same time. He was still assessing, Thomas surmised. Not yet convinced of Thomas’s innocence, but not thinking him guilty, either. Thomas took an easier breath.

“Yes. My secretary was there, as were Senators Logenstein and Bryer. We’re working on legislation to provide stiffer penalties for anyone bringing drugs within the state’s current safe-school perimeter.”

So much rested on the positive outcome of this voluntary and informal questioning by the police. His mother’s health, certainly. His own emotional health. Particularly if—as it appeared—he’d just lost his wife’s best friend only two years after Kate’s disappearance.

His schedule and convenience were also factors. He was a very busy man who didn’t have time to be hauled into a long drawn-out court case but he’d do what needed to be done. He always did.

And for his constituents, he needed to clear his name as quickly as possible. They trusted him. Depended on him. He’d been told by many of them that they slept better at night knowing he was there taking care of the big decisions for them.

Stanton, proverbial pen in hand, nodded. “Amanda Livingston still your secretary?” Shorter than Gregory, and thirty pounds heavier, too, the older detective was the one Thomas respected most.

“Yes.” The fifty-year-old grandmother was perfect for him. Sharp. Reliable. Mature enough not to get emotional on him. And a great asset in his quest to win voters’ trust. “She’s been with me since I graduated from law school.”

“And that was when, fifteen years ago?” Stanton asked. The man really needed to run a comb through that grey hair once in a while. And iron his cheap suit while he was at it.

“Sixteen. I earned my Juris Doctorate at twenty-four.”

“When was the last time you were in contact with Leah Montgomery?” Gregory didn’t seem to think Thomas’s education pertinent.

He allowed some of the sadness he’d been fighting for the last two days to show on his face. He’d been genuinely fond of Leah. Found her spontaneity engaging. “I spoke with her Monday afternoon.”

“What time?”

“Around four.” Four-eleven, to be precise. His cell phone logged all calls, received or made. As his father had taught him to do with everything in life, he’d come to this meeting prepared.

“You called her?”

“She called me.”

Gregory leaned forward, practically drooling. His instinctive alertness reminded Thomas of a hunting dog. “Why?”

“To say that she wasn’t feeling well.” Thomas slowly, calmly lifted his folded hands to the table. “I’d agreed to escort her to a children’s fund-raiser that evening and she was calling to cancel.”

All he had to do was tell the truth. The rest would take care of itself.

“What was the nature of your relationship with Ms. Montgomery?” Gregory didn’t quite sneer, but the tight set of his lips was enough to put Thomas on edge. And to make his smile that much more congenial.

“We know each other quite well. She was my wife’s best friend. Leah and Kate grew up together, and even after Kate and I were married the two of them spent a lot of time together.”

“And you had a problem with that.”

Gregory’s words were more of an assumption than a question. “No, I did not. I’m a very busy man. I was glad my wife had her for company.”

“And now?”

“Leah and I grew closer after Kate’s disappearance, understandably so,” Thomas said, the ever-present pang of grief and anger brought on by Kate’s disappearance stabbing once more. “My wife was a dynamic woman, and her absence left a real emptiness. Leah and I have spent some time together, trying to fill the gap where we could. Mostly in the social arena. Leah accompanies me to various public appearances. And I return the favor. That’s all.”

The older detective cleared his throat. “Where’ve you been for the past two days?” he asked, his tone friendlier than his partner’s.

“Out on a fishing boat with a couple of my late father’s friends. It’s an annual event.”

Thomas waited for the next question. And all the questions after that. He could handle them. And then he’d be free to get on with his life.

Even if that meant living in a house that was empty and far too quiet. Going to bed alone. But then he’d never been one to require much sleep.

3

T he little guy went down without a fuss. It wasn’t all that unusual. Taylor was a great kid. He played hard. Ate well. And slept when it was time. He was a tribute to the woman who’d borne him.

The woman who was pouring a diet soda before joining Scott in the living room Wednesday evening. There was only one lamp burning softly on a small table in the corner. As was the case most evenings when he and Tricia were home together, the television remained silent. He’d put a couple of new age jazz CDs in the player, turning the volume down low. And was sitting in the middle of the L-shaped sectional sofa, dressed in one of the pairs of silk lounging slacks from his old life that he’d never quite been able to abandon and a ten-year-old faded blue San Diego Fire Department T-shirt. He rested his arm along the overstuffed cushion.

“You sure you don’t want anything?” Her voice, as she called from the kitchen, sounded normal enough.

“No, thanks.” What he wanted was a beer. But if he started drinking, he wasn’t apt to stop, and hungover wasn’t the way he wanted to begin his four-day-off rotation. Hungover—or worse, drunk—wasn’t the way he wanted Taylor to see him. Ever.

Taylor. Why couldn’t the baby have fussed a bit tonight? Distracted them? Cut into the time Scott generally lived for—time alone with the most fascinating woman he’d ever held in his arms.

“I brought you a beer,” she said, walking around the corner. She didn’t hand him the bottle, setting it on the low square table in front of him, instead. Then she curled up a couple of cushions down from him, balancing her glass of soda on one jean-clad thigh.

Most nights she changed into pajamas right after Taylor went down.

“Thanks.” He picked up the bottle, taking a sip since she’d opened it for him. Couldn’t have it go to waste.

“You looked like you could use a drink.”

Scott nodded.

“So, are you going to tell me the rest of the story?” Her voice was almost drowned out by the soft music.

He’d known the question was coming. Had felt it in her look, her tentative touch, all day. Ever since Blue’s Clues had ended that morning and Taylor had let out a wail protesting against being ignored any longer.

That had been right after he’d told her about driving his Porsche into the side of a mountain. Taylor’s cry had been like divine intervention. Saving him.

“Nothing lasts forever, huh?” he asked now, glancing at the woman who’d found a way into his life despite the dead bolts he’d firmly attached to any doors that might be left.

She shrugged. Sipped. “Some things do.”

“Yeah?” Divine intervention sure didn’t. Taylor wasn’t crying tonight. In fact, the rescue that morning had only bought him part of a day.

Or nothing at all. Because he’d spent the ensuing hours reliving the horrors. In one form or another.

“Sure.”

“Name one.”

“Love.”

Maybe. Finding out wasn’t a risk he was willing to take.

“Take Alicia, for instance. Whatever happened between the two of you, wherever she is now, the love you felt for her obviously still exists.”

Obviously. He stared at her, glad the dim light made it impossible to read the message in her eyes. And his. This wasn’t a time for expectations. Or declarations. It wasn’t a time to break the rules.

To care too much.

“So what happened?”

Maybe if she hadn’t spoken with such compassion he could have stood, walked away. Maybe.

He had to be able to walk away from her.

“She died.” Like millions before her. And millions after. Like Kelsey Stuart the day before. Too much like Kelsey Stuart.

He heard Tricia’s glass touch the table. Felt her sit back against the sofa. And then nothing. Heard nothing. Felt nothing.

“I did everything I could.” His voice belonged to a stranger, someone who was sitting a distance away, speaking of things Scott refused to think about. “It wasn’t much.”

Quiet had never been less peaceful. Or a muted room more filled with loud and bitter truth. He watched a drop of perspiration move slowly down the bottle of beer. Thought about picking it up and pouring it into his mouth.

“My ability extended to a phone call on my still-operable car phone. And to waiting for someone to come and do whatever needed to be done.”

“Could you get to her?”

Tricia’s voice slid over him, inside him, chafing the nerves just beneath his skin with her compassion.

“We hit on her side of the Porsche. She was thrown into my lap. I was afraid the car might explode so I moved her just enough to get us clear of the wreck.”

He’d made a mistake, doing that. The car hadn’t exploded. And her neck had been broken. If she’d lived, he’d have paralyzed her by that move.

Someone, at some point, had said better to have been paralyzed than blown up. Might even be something Scott would say to a victim. But it didn’t ease the guilt.

Neither did the beer he gulped.

Tricia didn’t move, didn’t reach out that slender hand to touch him. He was immensely thankful for that, yet he hated being with her and feeling so separate. So alone.

“Leaning up against a rock on the other side of the road, I held her and prayed for someone with medical knowledge to come past. Two cars passed. Stopped. But couldn’t help.”

“Were you hurt?”

Depended on how she defined that. “A few cuts and bruises…” A broken left forearm where Alicia had landed, slamming his wrist against the door. Not that it had hurt. He’d been so numb he hadn’t even known about the injury until hours later.

When everything had hurt. He’d gone crazy with the pain….

Scott got up, went for another beer. When he came back, Tricia was sitting just as he’d left her. Disappointed, relieved, he sat again.

“For forty-five minutes I waited there with her sticky blond hair spread over my arm, her sweet face going purple, and watched as she died in my arms.”

“It wasn’t your fault.”

Slamming his beer onto the table with unusual force, Scott turned, pinning her with a stare that he knew wasn’t nice, but one he couldn’t avoid, either. Other than in bed, his passion was always firmly under wraps. He couldn’t seem to keep it there at the moment.

“It was completely my fault,” he said, gritting his teeth so hard they hurt. The pain was tangible, identifiable, welcome. “I was larger than life, speeding like the spoiled, immature punk I was, so certain that I was above it all. Above the law…and death.”

“You didn’t do anything any other kid hasn’t done.”

Other kids might speed. But most other kids didn’t kill their fiancées while doing it.

His first reply was a derisive, humorless laugh. Followed by, “So many times I’d heard people—my friends even—say that I had it all. But in the end, I had nothing.”

Depleted, Scott picked up his beer, slid down on the cushion until his head touched the back of the couch and stared at the ceiling. “No amount of money could help her hang on.” The words were as soft as his previous ones had been harsh. Moving his head, he looked over at Tricia, hurting all over again. “You know?”

She nodded, her gaze never leaving his. What was she thinking? Wondering whether she could trust her son to his driving? Glad she hadn’t been the one in his car, in his care, that Saturday so long ago?

“Money didn’t give me the ability necessary to help her. Nor could it revive her when help finally did arrive.”

He glanced away and then back, eyes open wide, completely focused on her as he finished. “No amount of money could ease the pain of knowing what I’d done, of having to face her family, to bury her, to live without her; and in the months and years that have followed, there hasn’t been enough money in the world to take away the guilt….”

God, she hated feeling helpless. Hugging her arms around her shoulders, Tricia sat beside Scott, studying his hunched silhouette in the dim light, aware that there was nothing she could do. No words that would change the circumstances of his life. Nothing she could offer him to alleviate the self-loathing.

She was a woman who’d once been in control of everything about her life, and the realization left her floundering. Should she get up? Leave him to the mercies of his conscience? Go to bed?

It was his bed.

She could sit quietly. For as long as it took. If he wanted her there, she wanted to be there.

And she wanted to tell him the truth, as he just had with her. It would be such a relief. She valued his opinion. He’d tell her she was being ridiculous, worrying herself sick over Leah. All she had to do was open her mouth. She could do it. And then…

No. She wasn’t going to revisit that ground. She’d been all over it. Too many times. Some things just had to be put to rest or she’d be incapable of going on. Taylor needed a sane parent.

“Not quite the hero anymore, huh?”

He’d turned his head, studying her.

“I don’t believe in fairy tales.”

The CD player changed discs, the clicking loud in the room. Intrusive. Tricia went to check on Taylor. She adjusted the covers at her son’s waist and double-checked the latch on the side of the crib, ensuring that her small son was secure. Running a hand lightly over his fine dark curls, she sucked in a long, shuddering breath. Her integrity depended solely on being the best mother she could be.

Scott didn’t need her, or her protection. Taylor did.

“I will keep you safe,” she whispered. “Whatever it takes.”

Calm as she returned to the living room, clear in her resolve, she settled on the cushion next to Scott. She didn’t think he’d moved at all.

“You are, right now, the same man I’ve loved and cared about for almost two years.” The words came softly, without conscious thought.

That statement was the only honesty she could give him.

He covered one of her hands with his. And started to talk. About the help his family tried to give him. The support from Alicia’s parents. Sitting there with him, listening, Tricia could easily imagine the days he described. Four years of college, trying not to feel, and always feeling too much. She understood completely the despair he described, the sense that life would never again contain moments of pure joy. At the same time there was the undeniable urge to press on, simply because one breathed.

And she understood the social pressures, the parents who just wouldn’t give up their need to make everything at least appear okay, regardless of whether or not things would ever be okay again.

He held her hand during the telling. At some point, as the minutes passed, her fingers stole up his arm, tangling lightly in the hair at the back of his neck, caressing him.

“I graduated from college with a dual degree in fire science and business, went to work for my father and hated the sight of the years stretching endlessly ahead,” he said, as though narrating rehearsed lines.

“I was so tired of fighting it all—my memories, my guilt, my family.”

Her fingers stilled along the back of his neck. “So what did you do?” Had he fallen into the same depths that had almost consumed her? Scott seemed far too strong….

“For one thing, I gave in. They’d been trying for a couple of years to fix me up, and when they introduced me to Diana Grove of the New England banking Groves, I went along with everyone’s not-so-gentle pushing. Diana was sweet, beautiful, had a great sense of humor…”

A paragon of virtues. Tricia would bet she’d been honest in every way, too.

Nothing like herself. A jeans-wearing alterations specialist for a local dry cleaner, who was paid in cash only. There was nothing upper-crust about her. Not her plain brown unstyled hair. Not her drugstore makeup or homemade purse. Certainly not her non-existent bank account—or the made-up social security number on file at the free health clinic where she took Taylor.

And not the facts she hid from the world, either.

“And for the other thing?” He’d said giving in was one thing he’d done. She rubbed the too-tight cords of his neck, taking comfort from the contact, the heat of his smooth skin, even though she knew that in loving him too much lay a danger that could kill her. Or Taylor. She couldn’t let herself need Scott. Couldn’t let a sense of security tempt her to trade away the freedom she’d bought at such a high price.

“What?” he asked, turning his head to look at her. In their closeness she could see the reflections of light in his eyes, the warmth and compassion that was never missing for long, shining from deep inside.

“You said ‘for one thing’ you gave in. I just wondered what the other thing was.”

He took her free hand, held it between both of his, stroking her palm with his thumb. It was so damn hard to keep her resistance up when he did that—when all she wanted to do was concentrate on that simple touch until it was her only reality.

“I made the decision to take control where I could. I was never again going to be in a position where I had to sit, helpless and incompetent, as I watched someone’s life slip away. It wasn’t enough that I had the degree in fire science. I was determined to get paramedic training, as well.”

“What did your family—and Diana—think about that?”

“She was understanding. Encouraged me to do what I needed to do.”

As any well-trained socially prominent wife would do with the man she hoped to marry.

“And your family?”

He shrugged, turning her hand as his thumb moved from her palm to her wrist. “They humored me.”

“Expecting you to get over it.”

“Something like that.”

“You didn’t.”

“Nope.” Sitting back, Scott put an arm around her shoulders, still holding her hand. “Diana didn’t believe me at first when I told her I was going to spend my life using that training.”

“And when she did?”

“She went along with it for a while.”

“Until?” Let me guess. Until he actually had to help some homeless or otherwise socially insignificant person and came home with low-class blood on his clothes.

That reaction wasn’t like her. It was probably true—but still, not the way she would’ve thought two years ago. She’d always been more of a glass half-full kind of person.

“She walked when I told her I didn’t intend to live in the mansion my parents planned to give us for a wedding present.”

So they’d gone as far as to get engaged. Something she’d never have the honor of doing with Scott.

“Why didn’t you want the house?”

“Somehow, living a life of luxury didn’t seem conducive to the job I had to do. It always comes down to those split-second decisions. I couldn’t risk getting too comfortable, losing my edge.” He threaded his fingers through hers. She loved the feel of silk against the back of her hand.

Moving her fingers against his, Tricia fell in love with the man all over again. If she’d met him a few years before, knew that men with character really did exist, she might still believe in fairy tales.

Scott leaned forward, grabbing his beer, which had to be pretty warm by then, and took a long sip. He held on to the bottle. “I’m never again going to be that soft boy sitting beside his mangled Porsche by the side of the road, waiting to be waited on.”

“No, you aren’t.” But not just because he’d given up a luxurious house.

He took another sip of beer. The CD changed, filling the room with Enya’s evocative tones. Tricia laid her head against his shoulder.

“I’m curious about something.” Petrified, more like it, but pretending to herself that she wasn’t.

Bottom line, she was on her own. Always would be. She could handle anything. Hadn’t she already proved that to herself?

“What?”

“Why did you choose today to tell me all this? Your parents coming for a visit or something?”

His hand on her shoulder stilled. He didn’t pull away, yet Tricia felt his withdrawal as completely as if he had.

“My parents have been on a cruise around the world for the past six months. They’ve called my cell phone a few times. They’re due to return sometime next month.”

“So you have contact with them?”

“When they’re in town, I talk to them, and to my brother, every week. Once they realized I was serious about my life choices, they gave me their full support.”

He talked with them every single week and she’d never known. That hurt.

And there wasn’t one damn thing she could say or do about it.

She and Scott were a moment, not an item. There was no reason for her to know his family. She couldn’t expect them to understand the terms of their relationship—that there was no future for them. It just made things too complicated.

And what if she liked them and they her? That would just make walking away even harder.

“Do they live here, in San Diego?”

He shook his head. “Mission Viejo. It’s where I grew up.”

“So back to my question—why come clean today?”

He sat forward, clasped his hands in front of him.

“I attended a freeway accident yesterday. A single vehicle rollover.”

His distant tone scared her.

“The driver was a young girl, about Alicia’s age….” Tricia almost slammed her hands over her ears. She knew what was coming. Didn’t want him to have to say it.

“We got her out. I did what I could. And watched her die anyway.”

Sliding a hand along his thigh, she reached for his hands. “Even the most world-renowned doctors lose patients sometimes,” she reminded him softly. “Sometimes it’s just not up to us….”

“I know.” His answer, the accompanying compassionate smile, threw her. And relieved her.

“So…”

“It’s not that I blame myself for her death,” Scott continued. Fear gripped her anew, more tightly, until her chest ached with it.

“What then?”

He turned to look at her, his eyes serious. “I’m never going to recover from Alicia’s death.”

“I understand.” She did. She just wasn’t sure why it mattered right now if it hadn’t the day before.

“I didn’t.” His words surprised her. “Not until I sat on the side of that road yesterday and felt the crushing weight of it all. Alicia’s death. The guilt. I can’t risk that again, Trish. Not even for you.”

He didn’t have to hit her over the head with it. She got it. All the way through to the vulnerable little girl lurking inside her, hoping against hope to somehow find unconditional love.

“Of course not for me.” She had no idea where she found the strength to sound so normal. “We have an understanding, buster,” she said, grabbing his hand, squeezing it. “No strings attached. No expectations. Today, but no promise of tomorrow. Remember?”

She hated it. Every word. But it was only under those circumstances that she could stay.

Face solemn, he studied her for long seconds while she held her breath. And then he nodded.

“Just so you aren’t hoping for more,” he said.

“I’m not.” Not in any way that could ever matter. Not now. Not with Leah missing and her heart still so raw and hurting for Scott and everything he’d told her that day. Not while she was suffering her own guilt for the lies she was telling. So she did the only thing that felt right, the only thing that had the power to dispel the darkness. She pulled his head toward hers and lost herself in a kiss that stirred every nerve in her body until there was no coherent thought left other than to assuage the ache between her legs.

And the hardness between his.

4

T hursday morning brought more bad news. Senator Thomas Whitehead sat behind his mahogany glass-topped desk, hands steepled at his chin as he faced the best defense attorney on his team, Kilgore Douglas. Thomas still maintained a penthouse office at the downtown San Francisco high-rise that housed the law firm he owned—although he no longer practiced there.

“Kassar found reasonable grounds to issue search warrants.” Kilgore came right to the point after announcing that he’d just heard from Detectives Stanton and Gregory.

Judge Henry Kassar. Democrat. Openly opposed to every Republican branch in Thomas’s family tree.

Sharp pain stabbed at Thomas’s stomach, but only for the second it took his mind to take control, issue calm. “To search what?”

“Your home. Cars. Offices. Everything.”

“I have nothing to hide.” But it wouldn’t look good to his constituents. And once doubt was cast…

Damn Kassar. Thomas had wiped the floor with his Democrat opposition—who’d been fully endorsed by Kassar—during last year’s election. The man would stoop to anything to get his own back. He’d seen Thomas’s remarks to the press as a personal attack. It wasn’t personal at all. Publishing a man’s accomplishments or lack thereof, as the case might be, was just part of politics.

Douglas, resting against Thomas’s desk, glanced down at the papers he held, nodding. Thomas recognized the blue folder. It contained the complete record of Thomas’s experiences with San Francisco’s law enforcement—one traffic ticket when he was sixteen, and everything relating to Kate’s disappearance.

The familiar jolt that shot through him as he stared at that folder, remembering his beautiful and spirited wife, hurt worse than usual today.

“I don’t like it,” Douglas said. “You have an airtight alibi. They shouldn’t still be poking around. I plan to appeal.”

Douglas was the best on his team, but only because Thomas, once the city’s highest-paid defense attorney, wasn’t practicing anymore.

Thomas shook his head. “Appeal on a warrant decision is so rare, it would play right into Kassar’s hands, drawing even more attention to me. Besides, if we do that, some people are going to think I have something to hide.”

“You know as well as I do that your being clean won’t stop them from finding potential evidence if they try hard enough.”

“They won’t try. They don’t have a case and they know it. They don’t want to come out of this with egg on their faces, either. Kassar aside, as far as the D.A. is concerned, this is merely a formality. So he can tell the mayor, and the mayor can tell his voters, that it’s been done. San Francisco’s second wealthy young beauty has just disappeared. They have to turn over every stone on this one.”

These were all facts he was comfortable with. Still, out of curiosity…

“What were the reasonable grounds?”

“You’re associated with both women.”

“What wealthy young woman in San Francisco don’t I know?” Thomas asked. In the past ten years, he’d done enough campaigning, socializing, smiling and schmoozing to get elected president of the United States if he decided to make a run for that office. “What wealthy person don’t I know?”

“You were the husband of one and escort of the other.”

Thank God that well-known fact was all they had to go on. He was innocent in both cases, but the prosecution might come to a different conclusion—the wrong conclusion—if they had all the facts.

“They’re going to see if they can find something among my things—phone calls I’ve made, bills I’ve paid, food in my refrigerator, whatever—that might connect the two disappearances.”

He hadn’t practiced courtroom law so successfully for seventeen years without learning how to outthink the prosecution.

“Leah and Kate were best friends.”

“So maybe they ran off together!”

Douglas chuckled without any real humor. “You don’t really believe that.”

Thomas rubbed his hand across his face, an unusual display of weakness. Revealing emotion, especially negative emotion, was something he almost never did. A Whitehead kept up appearances at all costs. In his world, that rule had been the most important condition for sustaining life. Breathing came in a close second.

“No,” he said, looking up at his attorney and closest friend. “I don’t believe that.” His voice broke and he stopped a moment to calm himself. “Kate and I…we—”

“I understand, buddy.” Douglas’s hand on his shoulder kept him from making even more of an idiot of himself.

“Sorry,” he said, standing. The ability to detach himself had always served him well—in the courtroom and in life. He wouldn’t lose it again.

“Hey, Thomas, this is me. No need to apologize.” Douglas rounded the desk, shoving the folder back in his hand-tooled leather briefcase. “Frankly, man,” he continued, his voice a little muffled as he bent over the chair in front of Thomas’s desk, latching his case, “I don’t know how you do it. If it were me and I’d lost Kate—let alone the baby—they’d have had to pull me out of the river. And now Leah. It’s…unsettling, you know?”

“I know.” Arms crossed over his chest, Thomas stood beside his desk, nodding slowly.

Douglas straightened, stared at him for a long silent minute. “Yeah, I guess you do. Listen, you want to hit the club tonight? I could use a drink.”

“Maybe.” He’d be drinking, that was for sure. “As long as Mother’s okay.”

“What’s it been, six months now since your father died?”

Thomas nodded.

“How’s she doing?”

“Like the rest of us, I guess. She has good days and bad ones. Nights are the hardest.”

Shaking his head, Douglas moved to the door. “You guys have had it rough lately, but you know what that means.”

“What?”

“That your turn’s coming for something really big.”

Thomas was counting on that.

Scott’s four days off made it difficult for Tricia to get to the paper every morning, but that didn’t stop her from driving herself crazy until she had the most recent edition of the San Francisco Gazette in her hands. She hated lying to Scott, hated being impatient with him when he accompanied her and Taylor on their morning walks, and then suggested going to the Grape Street dog park so the little boy could run and play with the animals. For some reason, her son was smitten with dogs. She’d never had a pet in her life and she’d certainly never considered having one that not only lived in the house but shed, drooled and didn’t wipe after it went to the bathroom. But watching Scott and Taylor with the unleashed pets in the park, she couldn’t help laughing.

And wishing that life was different—that she had a place where she felt secure enough to buy her son a puppy.

Still, she made excuses every day to get out of the house on her own. Thread she’d suddenly run out of. A quick trip to the grocery. A rush job that she’d forgotten had to be delivered.

He’d raised his eyebrows at that one, but had said nothing.

Which was pretty much what she got from the San Francisco Gazette. Nothing. Senator Thomas Whitehead had returned from an annual fishing trip. He’d stopped by the precinct the moment he’d heard about the heiress’s disappearance and no arrest had been made.

He was in the clear. Again.

On Saturday, the last day of his off-rotation, Scott stood in the doorway of the smallest bedroom in his modest three-bedroom home, watching the woman he thought of far too often for his own good. She sat there, some kind of dark garment in her hand, doing nothing.

He always wondered where she went when she did that. But he didn’t ask. The answer could very well take him into territory they’d agreed not to travel.

“You almost done?”

She jumped, bent her head for a second, and then turned to him, her ready smile in evidence. “Almost, why?”

Whatever had been on her mind, she wasn’t sharing it with him. Not that it mattered. He had no business knowing what made her jump in the middle of the night—or in the middle of the day when her lover spoke to her from a doorway in their home.

Soon after Tricia had moved in with him—which had been right after he’d met her, six months pregnant, in a bar where he used to hang out with the guys on his shift—he’d given Tricia this room for her sewing. He didn’t know anything about what she did, since he’d never seen his mother or his cousins so much as hold a needle, but even he could tell she was skilled at it.

He didn’t mind giving up his office/weight room for the sewing machine the dry cleaner had lent her so she could work at home while her baby was young. In the almost two years that followed, they’d added a cabinet from the flea market to hold her growing collection of materials, threads, scissors and tape measures, buttons and fasteners.

And she’d painted the room yellow with white trim. Not his style, but around her it looked good.

“The little guy’ll be up from his nap soon. How about a trip over to Coronado?”

As far as he could tell, it was her favorite place in the world—or at least in the San Diego area.

“To walk on the beach?” Her smile didn’t grow, it relaxed. She was back with him.

“Sure. And maybe get a burger downtown. I promised Taylor some French fries.”

“Can you give me fifteen minutes to finish these?” She held up the dark garment—a pair of women’s slacks. They were creased where she’d been holding them. “They’re the last of an order, and we can drop them off while we’re there.”

She looked so damned cute sitting there with minimal makeup on her flawless light skin, her long silky hair hanging down the white button-up shirt she was wearing over a pair of faded jeans. Compelled by something other than his own thoughts, Scott moved closer, catching and holding her gaze. Accepting the invitation he read in those deep blue eyes. He’d never seen such blue eyes on a brunette.

Or at least that was the reason he gave himself for the way they caught—and held—his attention even after nearly two years of living with her. Sleeping with her. Waking up beside her.

“Sounds good.” He finally uttered the words that were waiting to be said. He couldn’t quite remember the question he was answering.

His lips lowered, touching hers as, eyes slowly closing, she lifted her chin and nodded. Adrenaline shot through him, a streak of energy igniting every nerve in his body on the way through. Her lips were so soft, almost innocent, and so intent on passion he shook with it. She was moist and fresh and burning him all at once.

“Oh, God, woman, what you do to me,” he mumbled against her mouth, falling down to his knees between her legs, pulling her head with him. Tricia’s hands slid up his shoulders, pressing into him, her touch sending chills across his skin.

“How long did you say it would be before he woke up?” Her voice was ragged, as was the chuckle that accompanied it.

He had no idea. Couldn’t remember when he’d put Taylor down. Or what time he’d interrupted her.

“Ten minutes. Twenty if we’re lucky.”

Hands on her waistband, Tricia raised her bottom off the chair, and slid the jeans, with panties inside, down over her bare feet. “Let’s get lucky,” she said, her blue eyes glowing as she grinned up at him, her unsteady fingers meeting his at the button on his jeans.

He’d never known a woman whose hunger matched his. And that made him even hungrier. They’d done this in bed a few hours ago. It should have been enough.

“Hurry,” she said, the tip of her tongue gliding lightly on his neck.

He was so hard it hurt to shove the jeans down. Scooting her bottom forward on the chair, he tilted her just enough to fit him and then slid home.

Quickly. Again and again.

Thank God for home. It made life worth living.

“Mama, down!”

Laughing, Tricia leaned down to steady her son in the sand. With one hand wrapped firmly around his small fingers, she glanced up through her sunglasses to stare at her own reflection in Scott’s mirrored lenses. “Seems to be his favorite phrase with me these days,” she told him.

“A guy’s gotta see what he can do for himself,” he told her, bending to take Taylor’s other hand. They were a family, the three of them, laughing and kicking up sand as they strolled barefoot, jeans rolled up their calves, along the Coronado beach line. A moment in time.

That was just about how long it lasted. Taylor tugged at their hands. Tried to run. Laughed when Scott scooped him up, throwing him into the air, and before she knew what was happening, Tricia found herself sitting on the sand, an observer, while Scott and Taylor played a baby version of football with a shell Taylor had picked up.

Mostly the game consisted of Scott letting Taylor “catch” the shell and then chasing after the toddler, whose legs tripped over themselves in the sand, ending in a tickle tackle that had him screaming with glee.

And filled his hair with sand, too, she was sure. Not that she cared. Taylor’s squeals were so joyful they were contagious. She sat there grinning like an idiot when what she needed to do was get to a newspaper. She’d yet to see Saturday’s issue. Turning, looking for a newspaper box, she suddenly noticed the tall man in the distance. Noticed him because his slacks and dress shoes were hardly proper attire for the beach? Or because he didn’t seem to react to Taylor’s joy?

He was staring at the baby, though, and all thought of newspapers, of football games and joy fled Tricia’s mind. Taylor ran several yards up the beach with Scott in mock pursuit. Tricia followed their progress from the stranger’s perspective. He was watching them.

And, she was fairly certain, her as well.

Heart pounding, she stood, cloaked herself with the protective numbness that kept her mind focused and moved slowly up the beach. Had he seen them together? Did he know that she and Taylor were a pair?

If not, she had to keep it that way. Anyone looking for her would be looking for a woman with an eighteen-month-old boy. Not a woman wistfully watching a man with one.

And if he’d seen them together?

Then her walking off alone would at least throw him. Taylor was safe with Scott. Would be safest with him if something happened. She had to go. Separate herself from them. Be a woman on her own, unencumbered, unknown, spending a quiet Saturday alone in Coronado.

A brunette who’d lost twenty pounds in the past fifteen months wearing store-bought clothes and big plastic sunglasses.

Up the beach a couple of yards was a road access. Tricia took it, not once looking back. She didn’t know that man and child, had never seen them before in her life. Leaving them was nothing to her.

God, let me escape before Taylor sees me. Calls out to me. Let me go before Scott notices….

She didn’t breathe until she made it to the street—and then almost passed out with dizziness. She walked on. Half a mile. Maybe more. Unhurried, glancing at the flowering bushes, the palm trees lining the road. The resorts in the distance. Maybe she was on vacation. Or perhaps she was there on business.

Maybe her folks had a condo on Coronado Island.

Yeah, that was it. A condo. She could play that role. Had to play a role in her mind if she was to give the appearance of being someone else. A woman on the run looked like a woman on the run—a woman whose body was so filled with fear it hurt her muscles to move.

Tricia was a woman visiting her parents’ condo. Appearances were everything. They had to be. Without them, she and Taylor would’ve been dead two years ago.

A car passed. A light-blue Toyota. Going too fast. Probably because a high-school-age boy was driving. He had a young girl in the passenger seat.

No sign of the man. She couldn’t be sure he wasn’t behind her, though. She didn’t hear footsteps. Didn’t see shadows.

Pulling her bag over her shoulder while she walked, Tricia took out a tissue, dropping the pack in the gravel. Bending to pick it up, she looked back between her legs. And saw the dress slacks. He’d stopped, too. Was leaning against a lamppost, lighting up a cigarette. His hair was blond. And too long. He needed a shave. And he should lose about thirty pounds.

Mouth dry, Tricia was sweating beneath the sun as though it were midsummer rather than a balmy April day.

Scott and Taylor would have noticed her missing by now. Scott would be worried. She’d have to come up with something damn good to explain this. An urgent need for a bathroom might do it. Guys didn’t usually ask questions when a woman needed to take care of personal matters.

The man was still there, facing in her direction.

If she had to, she could always meet up with Scott at the house later. He’d return there eventually. It would be better, though, if she could get to a phone and call his cell. He always had it with him in case of an emergency at the station. The bathroom excuse would be more credible if she called him.

If she had a chance. She was away from Taylor now. It might be the perfect time to get her. After all, she was the commodity; the baby had been unnecessary baggage.

She walked on. She could feel the man following behind her. Was he merely visiting relatives on the island? Stopping for a smoke because he had the time and nothing better to do? Still, she’d spent countless hours on Coronado Beach since arriving in San Diego and she hadn’t seen many vacationers there in dress slacks and shoes.

None that she could remember.

Maybe she was overreacting. It wouldn’t be the first time since this nightmare had consumed what had once been a satisfying life.

And yet, what if she didn’t react? What if she grew complacent, quit watching, quit taking action—and was found?

Tricia turned onto the next major street, strolling slowly—and watching. The possible price if she relaxed her vigilance was too high to pay.

She was a woman on vacation at her parents’ condo. She’d go to her grave with that story if she had to. If it meant Taylor lived.

5

“H i, it’s me.”

“Trish? Oh, my God. Thank God.” He’d picked up his cell phone on the first ring. “Where are you? What happened? Are you okay?”

It was worse than she’d thought. He was more upset than she realized he’d be. After all, it wasn’t as if they had any kind of commitment to each other. Or expectations. She was just a woman he’d picked up in a bar, slept with, shacked up with, no strings attached. She’d only been gone half an hour. And he had to have known she’d come back for Taylor.

Which meant he was just plain concerned.

And that wasn’t good.

“I’m fine,” she said, her chest still tight with tension as she peered around her from the pay phone on the patio at the Coronado Del—one of the island’s plushest resorts. Tricia’s favorite, not that she had anyone in her life she could share that with.

“Where are you?” She could hear Taylor babbling happily in the background. The baby’s chatter made it easier to take the note of anger edging into Scott’s voice.

“At the Hotel Del. My stomach was upset and I had to find a bathroom, fast.” Not at all sexy or glorious. But, as it turned out, the truth. And better yet, a truth that would work as a perfect cover now that the danger, if there’d been any, had apparently passed.

When she’d veered into the Del, the man who’d been behind her disappeared.

“I would’ve driven you!”

“I know, but Taylor was having so much fun and I didn’t think it was this far.”

Lame. Too lame. Scott wasn’t a stupid man.

“You’re half a mile away!”

He was talking like a husband.

“I’m really sorry, Scott.” About so many things that were out of her control. “I thought there was a public restroom at the top of the road,” she lied, “but it was closed for renovation and by that time I figured it would be quicker to walk to the next place rather than turn around and go all the way back to you and then have to hike to the car. I had no idea it would take me this long to find a public restroom.”

Please don’t let there be a sign for one on the road, making this an obvious lie.

Things were getting too difficult.

Scott’s sigh was long and clearly distinguishable. She could hear her son babbling in the background.

“Mama?” She recognized the warning tone of impending upset in Taylor’s baby sounds.

“She’s right here, sport.” Scott’s voice was kind, reassuring. “Okay.” The word was louder as he spoke into his phone. “I’m just glad you’re safe.”

Turning her back to the pay phone, nestled into the half-booth along a wall on the edge of the courtyard, Tricia took one more glance around, just in case.

The stricture on her chest loosened a little more. “Yeah,” she said, “me, too.” And then added, “I’m really sorry.” More than he’d ever know.

“You don’t need to apologize, love. I overreacted.” He sounded so sincere; he was accepting this so easily. “Is your stomach better?”

“Yeah.”

“Then walk out front. We’re pulling up now. We missed you and want you back.”

Tricia had to blink back tears as she hung up the phone, avoiding the eyes of the guests she passed on her way through the resort. If she’d still been free to indulge in dreams, Scott would have been the star of every one of them.

Scott thought he’d had himself completely under control. He’d put the episode behind him. Was completely on board with the program. He and Tricia were ships passing in the night. So it was turning out to be a longer night than he’d figured, they were still just passing.

She owed him nothing. And he wanted nothing except the moments she was with him.

Lying in bed on Saturday night, staring at the shapes of moonlight and dark gray shadows on the ceiling, he willed himself to let it go.

God, it was hot. Kicking off the covers he lay there, nude and exposed. But it wasn’t the physical exposure that had him feeling so raw.

Arms beneath his head, he closed his eyes. Told himself to rest, something eleven years on the department had taught him to do on command. He instantly saw a vision of Tricia—lying on the beach, bleeding. In the first run-through she’d been mugged. Her clothes were torn, that bag she’d sewn and been so proud of was gone, she was bruised, but otherwise all right. She heard Taylor call out to her and opened her eyes, focusing. A small smile spread over her face as she reached out a hand….

With Taylor on one hip, he bent to pull her up and suddenly it was scenario two. She was lying on the beach again, but it was hours later. Taylor was with Joe Valentine’s wife—not that he’d ever been with a sitter, as Tricia was one of those moms who’d yet to trust her firstborn to anyone else’s care.

Except for him.

Which said a lot.

Just as his heart started to settle, the vision was back. The guys were all out with him, looking for her, but he was the one who found her. Nude. Injured. Bleeding.

He couldn’t stand the thought of someone doing that to her. Of her experiencing such degradation and pain. He started to cry.

Eyes open, Scott concentrated on the ceiling again. It was tangible. Real. And Tricia was breathing beside him.

He had to stop this. Had to care less. He just wasn’t sure how to go about doing that.

Turning, he faced the closet several feet from the bed. The closet where her meager collection of clothes hung side by side with his uniform pants and dress shirts.

She was hiding something from him. He’d always known that. So why was it beginning to matter so much? Why now?

Returning to his back, Scott’s mind wandered over the past decade and a half. He’d experienced a lot of hell in those years. And was still standing. He was a survivor. He was—

“What’s wrong?”

Her soft voice was both a blast of cold air and a warm soothing breeze. He needed her comfort—and she was intruding where he couldn’t let her be.

“Nothing.”

“You’re not sleeping.”

“Just hot.”

“Scott McCall, I’ve been in this bed with you when it was a hundred degrees outside and the air conditioner was broken and you were still asleep the minute your head hit the pillow.”

He turned his head, studying the shadows of her face in the moonlit night.

“When you moved in here, we promised no questions.”

She didn’t look away. “I know. I’m sorry. I’ve just felt a distance in you all day and figured I’d make it easy on you.”

He frowned. “Make what easy on me?”

“You’re getting ready to tell me it’s time to end things. And I understand. You’re probably right. I’ll start looking for a place for Taylor and me in the morning.”

She could walk out on him just like that? If so, he’d made more of a mistake than he’d realized. He’d thought their enjoyment of each other, at least, was mutual. He’d thought that when they eventually parted it would be with regret on both sides.

“I’m really sorry about today,” she continued, licking her lips as though they were too dry. “I never should’ve run off and left you with Taylor, forcing you to be responsible for him.”

“You didn’t force anything. As long as he’s in my home, I am responsible for him. If nothing else, the law would hold me accountable. And that responsibility,” he added, staring back at the ceiling, “is of my own choosing.”

“Well…” Her voice was thick and she sounded as if she had something in her throat. “Thank you.”

Silence fell. A million things ran through his mind. Words to say. Warnings to himself. They were jumbled with emotions he didn’t completely understand. She’d fall asleep soon, and then he’d be free to work it all out. He didn’t have to report until eight in the morning. He had hours yet.

When Tricia pulled the covers up to her shoulders and moments later, scratched her neck, Scott knew she wasn’t any closer to falling asleep than he was.

“I wasn’t planning to ask you to move out. I don’t want you to.”

A reply might have made him feel better.

“Unless you need to, of course. In which case you have my full support and the use of my truck and any muscle you need to move Taylor’s things.”

“I’m a free spirit, Scott.”

“I know.”

“If you have expectations I’m only going to disappoint you.”

“I don’t.”

“I can’t live my life always being a disappointment.”

“You aren’t a disappointment.” Life was, maybe—the circumstances that had brought them together at this place and time, when neither of them was in a position to get involved.

“I can’t stay if my being here hurts you.” Though their bodies were close, they weren’t touching, separated by the covers. She hadn’t moved. Neither had he.

“It’s not your being here that hurts me.” He wasn’t supposed to hurt at all anymore. His whole life was organized around that principle. It was a decision he’d made years ago. And upheld without fail.

“What does?”

The air return flipped on, blowing thinly across the bed, across his skin. Scott started to get hard. All he wanted was to pull the covers off Tricia’s delicious body, roll over on top of her and just live.

He pulled the corner of the sheet over his thighs.

“I wouldn’t call it hurt.”

She continued to stare in his direction. Did she see him more clearly in the dark, without the distraction of light and color? Really see him? Or did the darkness allow her to pretend?

“What, then?” she asked.

He might as well tell her. It wasn’t like he had anything to lose. She was going to leave eventually anyway.

“I’m just curious,” he murmured.

“About what?”

“You.”

She rolled onto her back, her head facing up. “What about me?” Her voice had grown more friendly and that in itself rang as a warning to him.

“Your inconsistencies.”

“Such as?” He might have been responsible for some of the distance between them that evening. Right now, it all came from her.

“You speak as though this modest lifestyle is all you’ve ever known, but when you need to use the restroom, you go to the Hotel Del.”

“It was the closest—”

“No.” He turned his head, pinning her with his stare although he knew she couldn’t see that. “It wasn’t. There was a motel five minutes down the road with a public restroom sign in the window. It’s like you didn’t even see it. Which would often be the case with someone who’s grown up with only the best. Without even realizing it, you learn to disregard anything less as if it doesn’t exist. Because in your reality, it doesn’t.”

“Well, I—”

“It wasn’t just that.” Scott cut her off as soon as he heard the prevarication in her voice. “It was the way you moved at the Del. You demanded your share of space, as though you belonged there.”

She rolled over to look at him. “I walked out the door!”

“If I hadn’t lived an affluent life myself, I probably wouldn’t have noticed, Trish, but today wasn’t the only time. You get this…air about you. An air of privilege.”

She sat up until her head and shoulders were resting against the headboard. “So I’m a snob.”

“It’s not a snobbish air. More, it’s a sense of self. A natural awareness of worth. I think it’s something bred into wealthy children. Something they take with them wherever they go. Sometimes it’s as simple as the way you stand or the way you move about a room.”

“I had a persnickety aunt. She made me spend one summer at a camp where they taught tomboys to be ladies.”

He believed her. He also believed she’d been born wealthy.

“I told you about my past,” he said.

“I didn’t ask you to.”

She had him there. Still, it bothered him that she didn’t reciprocate. Was it pride?

He’d like to think so.

And feared not.

“You don’t trust me.” Trust could be freely given—at least the kind of trust where you could tell someone your secret and know it would be safe.

“I don’t trust anyone.”

He sat up, too, leaning against the headboard, taking the sheet with him. “It’s pretty obvious someone’s hurt you. Badly.” He was trespassing and knew it. The terror he’d felt that morning on the beach, when he’d known she was gone and had no idea where to begin searching, no idea if she was in danger or if she’d ever done anything like that before, drove him on.

“I’m guessing it had something to do with Taylor’s biological father.”

Her silence gave him nothing. It could indicate agreement. Or a refusal to be drawn into a conversation she’d asked not to have.

“But that doesn’t have anything to do with me. You’ve been here almost two years, Trish. I responded to your overtures of friendship in a bar, in spite of the fact that you were obviously pregnant and every other guy there was ignoring you. I brought you home and offered you a place to stay, no strings attached, no sex required. And when you let me know you wanted sex, that you needed a new experience to replace the memory of the baby’s conception, I was very careful. Hell, we birthed that baby together! I would think you’d know by now that you can trust me.”

When she turned her head, Scott could see the sheen of moisture in her eyes, reflected by a ray from the moon shining in the opposite window.

“It’s not you I don’t trust,” she whispered. “It’s me. And because I can’t trust myself, I can’t trust anyone else.”

He didn’t understand.

“I…made…choices. Bad ones. Really bad ones.”

Skin growing hot, Scott remained still. This was what he’d wanted, wasn’t it? To know?

“They affected not only my life, but others as well, and I never saw it coming. I had so much confidence, so much blind trust in my ability to make good decisions, that I almost died. Worse, I could have caused someone else’s death.”

Tears welled up in her eyes. He could count on one hand the number of times he’d seen her cry. And two of them had been within the past couple of days.

“That would be murder, Scott. And all because I trusted my judgment where other people were concerned.” She slid back down, pulling the covers up to her chin as she blinked away any hint of emotion. “I don’t anymore.”

She must, at least a little. Even if she wasn’t ready to acknowledge it to herself. She was here, wasn’t she?

And so was Taylor.

Tricia tried to sleep. She closed her eyes. Went to the safe place inside where, no matter what was happening on the surface of her life, things were exactly as she wanted them to be.

The place was always the same. A meadow. With cool grass, a light breeze blowing. The sun always shone in her meadow, no matter what time of day she went there. It kept her warm, but wasn’t hot. A brook trickled nearby. Birds sang there sometimes. Other times heavenly music played. It had to be heavenly because there were no electronics in her meadow—not even beneath the white canopy that had netted sides to keep out any bugs and a down floor upon which she could lie.

Tonight the meadow was elusive. She could get there, but kept popping back out, to an inexpensive mattress in a modest home in San Diego, lying next to a man who, in her meadow, would’ve been a fairy tale prince. But who, in real life, presented as much danger as he did safety. The biggest danger of all was making her want things she couldn’t have. Things that could endanger her life. Or Taylor’s. She couldn’t afford to become too soft. Or trusting. She couldn’t afford to feel secure.

That was when runaways got caught.

Still, she did want things. She wanted him.

He was still lying half-propped against the headboard and she knew he was awake.

Sliding one hand from beneath the covers, Tricia entwined her fingers with his. Many nights she’d fallen asleep with their hands interlocked.

“I want to stay.”

He didn’t react until, several seconds later, she felt the pressure of a light squeeze against her fingers. He slid down slowly, his body touching hers all the way down.

“I want you to stay,” he replied, just before his mouth covered hers.

And, really, that was it for them. Another bout of incredible lovemaking. Another moment when, injured as they were, they could each connect with another human being. Another moment of forgetting.

A brief moment of perfection in a life that wasn’t perfect at all.

6

San Francisco Gazette

Sunday, April 10, 2005

Tricia quickly checked the date above the headline as she stared at the newspaper box on the corner of Redwood and 30th Streets, a short mile down the road from Scott’s house in South Park. Seeing that today’s issue had replaced yesterday’s, she slid her quarters into the slot, pulled open the front and grabbed the double-thick Sunday edition. Scott was at work, Taylor asleep in his stroller.

The sweet scent of roses and carnations coming from the flower stand nearby reminded her of home—of fresh-cut flowers on the table. Color everywhere. Sunshine and blue skies.

Paper resting on the stroller’s canopy, Tricia pushed her small son toward Fern Street and the crossover to North Park. With the paper growing heavier with every step she took, Tricia knew she had to calm herself. Her hands were shaking, her knees weak, threatening to give out on her.

Balboa Park, San Diego’s pride and joy, had acres and acres of parkland, flower gardens, museums and even the zoo. It would be a good place to go. Its elegance—and sheer size—its buildings and businesses would provide her with the company she needed to alleviate her panic while still affording the privacy that had become a necessity. And when Taylor woke up, they could play on the swings. He loved that.

The thought of her son’s laughter as she held him on her lap and pushed them both as high in the air as she dared chased away some of the fear that seemed such a natural part of her these days.

Past pink hibiscus, pine trees, down streets with two-foot-high beige walls surrounding grassy front yards, Tricia slowly pushed the stroller, concentrating on the rhythm of the wheels crossing cracks in the sidewalk, on the soft April air, on the mustards and browns of Southern California homes and plants.

Whatever was in that paper would still be there in half an hour, when she was in a better state to comprehend it. Yesterday’s scare with the man in dress pants watching her on the beach had taken its toll. Or maybe it had been her immediate reaction—the way she’d walked off without a word, leaving her son playing with her lover in the sand—that was unsettling her so completely. Had she really changed that much? Hardened that much? Hurt so much that something vital inside her had snapped, allowing her to shut herself off and simply go?

Or was she just stronger now? Better prepared? Able to do whatever she had to in order to protect her son?

Had there really been someone watching her? Or was she becoming paranoid?

At the park, she pushed the stroller toward the yellow metal swing set just off a cemented common area, stopping at a stone picnic table beneath the shade of a palm tree. Brushing back damp hair from Taylor’s flushed cheeks, she adjusted the canopy above him, loosened the straps on his denim coverall and slid the brown sweater down over his chubby little arms. He didn’t stir.

Smiling, Tricia watched her son, followed the even cadence of his breath, and knew another perfect moment—a second when everything in her world was just as it should be. As it was meant to be. The love she felt for Taylor, the joy he brought to her life in ordinary moments—these things were larger than any evil that might lie in wait. That joy was worth any inconvenience, any pain she had to go through.

For now and for always. To have had these moments, raising the innocent little person who was such an integral part of her, made everything else worthwhile.

Satisfied that Taylor was fine for another few minutes, Tricia slid onto one end of the bench, setting the paper in front of her. There was no one around that early on a Sunday morning, so she didn’t have the peripheral protection of the crowds that would appear later, drawn by the museums, restaurants and shops. Still, she was out.

And alive.

There was nothing on the front page. Not even a teaser. Nothing in the whole first section. Which didn’t necessarily mean anything other than that Thomas Whitehead—or someone equally influential—was paying to have the news hidden somewhere inside the paper. Money couldn’t stop freedom of the press, but it sure had a way of making some stories less visible.

Pages shaking as she held them up, gaze moving more rapidly across each sheet as her heart rate sped up, Tricia turned a page. And then another.

Panic rose in her throat. Another day with nothing couldn’t be good.

Or maybe it could be, a calming voice said inside her mind. If, like Tricia, Leah was alive and well…

Page 25. Section E

Blood Found on Car Seat

Police found blood on the front passenger seat of Senator Thomas Whitehead’s Miata convertible on Saturday after obtaining a warrant to search from Judge Paul Kassar. The lab report, released late yesterday afternoon, compared the blood sample with records from missing heiress Leah Montgomery’s personal physician. According to the report, the blood found in Senator Whitehead’s Miata matched a DNA sample taken from Ms. Montgomery at twelve years of age as evidence in her parents’ divorce case and resultant paternity suit.

The senator was brought in for questioning just before 7:00 p.m. last night. He had apparently been at his mother’s home, where he was watching television with her. He told police that, while he was unaware of any blood on the custom-ordered black velour seat, Ms. Montgomery had been menstruating Monday morning when he’d picked her up for a quick breakfast before dropping her at her office on the top floor of the Madison building downtown. When asked by reporters why he hadn’t mentioned in his previous interview with police that he’d seen Ms. Montgomery on Monday, the senator replied that they’d asked only when he’d heard from her last. He blamed his oversight on emotional distress caused by the heiress’s disappearance less than two years after his wife’s.

Whitehead said that Ms. Montgomery had been wearing a yellow pantsuit during last Monday’s breakfast. When asked if he’d noticed any bloodstains as she got out of the car to go into the Madison Building, the senator answered simply, “no.” Restaurant sources confirm that the couple had a table for breakfast and that Ms. Montgomery was wearing a yellow pantsuit. According to waitress Tina Bellows, the couple appeared to be engaged in an intense conversation.

Forensics physician Adam Foster reports that the blood from Senator Whitehead’s car could be menstrual blood. There is no way to distinguish between a woman’s cyclic bleeding and blood from other parts of the body. Foster was also unable to determine exactly how long the blood had been in Whitehead’s car, but based on coagulation, suspected it had been there for several days. Ms. Montgomery has been missing since Monday.

A search of the senator’s house, offices and two other vehicles earlier in the week produced no reported evidence. Detectives Kyle Gregory and Warren Stanton, who are heading the investigation, refused to comment, but one police source told the Gazette that the Miata’s search was delayed because Whitehead had lent the expensive sports car to Ronald Atler, an attorney at his firm who’d eloped on Wednesday. County marriage records confirm that the marriage took place. Atler was unavailable for questioning.

The dirt under the swing set was clean, processed. Tricia liked the natural grass surrounding it, and the yellow flowering weeds springing up all over the ground. That something so fragile-looking could live so abundantly meant that life endured.

Or at least weeds did.

Holding her baby to her chest with both arms wrapped around his body and the swing’s chains, Leah pushed off, keeping the swing in motion. Taylor squealed, his tiny fingers grasping hold of her white sweater and a few stray strands of hair. She hardly noticed the pain. Didn’t care about anything so unimportant.

Leah would survive. She was strong. Resilient. Determined.

“Did Mommy ever tell you about the time she and her friend Leah were riding double on Leah’s horse and the saddle broke?” She leaned her face down to Taylor’s neck, soaking in his clean baby scent.

“Horsey! Horsey!” With his little legs straddling her waist, Taylor bobbed up and down. “Mommy, horsey!”

“Yes, Mommy’s kind of like a horsey today, isn’t she?”

God, she loved this kid.

And she’d loved Leah, too. Her entire life.

That day on Cocoa, it had been the middle of August the summer before their senior year of high school. They’d been seventeen, too sure of themselves, maybe. Feeling invincible the way teenagers do. They’d taken the horse at breakneck speed, galloping over country roads and fields outside San Francisco, intent on nothing except getting as far away as they could, to someplace unreachable by motor vehicle. Someplace hidden from anyone looking for them. Someplace private, secret, for only the two of them. A place either of them could run to, where only the other would know where to find her.

Up in the mountains, after a couple of hours’ riding, while they were galloping down a hill, Cocoa’s expensive English saddle broke. Sitting behind the saddle, her arms around Leah, Tricia had felt the cinch straps give, saw the seat move. And knew they were goners.

Not Leah. No, holding on to the reins, her friend had slipped her boots from the stirrups, slid behind the saddle, half on Tricia’s lap, and shoved the broken equipment off the horse. They’d continued on, riding bareback on the saddle blanket, as though nothing had happened.

Leah looked danger in the face and didn’t look away. She stared it down and won.

Taylor laid his head against her chest, fingers still clutching her sweater. His eyes were closed against the wind, but he was wearing a huge grin. Tricia pushed off again. And again.

She should have told Leah.

Yes, and at what risk? Taylor’s life? Your own?

She pushed higher. The baby squealed and lifted his head, staring straight at Trish with eyes so dark and trusting.

Taylor, sitting here so precious and so happy, is a fair trade for your best friend’s life?

God, how could she possibly choose correctly? There was no right answer.

Not then. Not now.

But if something had happened to Leah—and if Thomas was responsible—she didn’t think she’d be able to live with herself.

“How was your day?” Scott held the cell phone as he stripped off his shirt, standing in the bathroom at the station. Then he wedged the phone between his shoulder and ear, reaching for soap and a towel. The guys would give him a hard time if he was in here too long.

And there was no way he was saying good-night to Tricia out there with all of them listening, razzing him, minding his business.

“Fine.” It had taken too long for her to answer and Scott’s neck tightened.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing. Just…lonely.”

Oh. Well…good. He was, too.

“It was kind of an intense weekend,” he said.

“Yeah.”

“Hold on, will you?”

“Of course.”

He splashed a handful of water over his face, swiped it with a soapy washcloth and towel and quickly brushed his teeth.

“So what’d you and Taylor do today?”

“Swung in the park. Had lunch at KFC. Watched old Lassie videos.”

“With Timmy?” Taylor had a real things for dogs. Blue ones. Smart collie ones. And mutts in the park.

“Yeah.”

Pants unbuckled, ready to slip off at his bunk, Scott faced the door. He had to be getting back out there. “What’d you have for dinner?”

“Macaroni and cheese.”

She hated it about as much as Taylor loved it, which meant she’d probably eaten very little. He rubbed at the ache in his solar plexus, left the bathroom and walked outside. The guys would rile him about his obvious need for private conversation with the woman he’d picked up in a bar and been stuck with ever since, but at the moment he didn’t give a flying damn.

“You haven’t been thinking too much, have you?” he asked quietly as soon as he was outside. “About last night, I mean? Having second thoughts about staying?”

Not that he didn’t have second thoughts about her being there. At least once a day, it seemed. Especially at times like now, when he felt so helpless and out of control. Her past was a void and he sensed danger there and it frightened him.

But she didn’t need him to worry about her. She could take care of herself.

“No.”

Okay, well, fine.

“I…” She stopped, sighed, sounding almost frustrated. “I want to tell you something that has no relevance to anything, but I don’t want you to ask any questions. Is that fair?”

“It is in my book.” He’d accept anything as fair if it meant she was going to talk to him. Not that he wanted to hear so much that he’d have to get further involved. He just wanted to know enough so he wouldn’t have to worry.

“I—when I was growing up, I had this best friend. Leah was her name.” Tricia’s voice took on the soft note that melted him. So loving, compassionate. Honest.

“We met when we were three—our mothers knew each other. Neither of us ever had another close friend after that.”

If he hadn’t known Alicia, he probably wouldn’t have understood that. “Didn’t you get sick of each other?”

“Not really. We just fit, you know?”

He hadn’t, before Alicia. “Yeah.”

“Anyway, I was thinking about her today. Remembering the summer before we graduated from high school.”

Leaning against the back wall of the station, surrounded by yard and a privacy fence, Scott slid down to the cement, intrigued as hell. If this was what his questions last night had brought him, glimpses of a younger Tricia, he hadn’t made such a bad mistake in forcing the issue.

“We found this clearing. It was a cliff, really, high above the tracks for an old mining train.”

Which could’ve put her in a million places in California and Arizona alone.

“We christened it our sacred place and whenever either of us had a problem or needed some time alone, that’s where we’d go. Inevitably, if one of us went up, the other one found her there. It was kind of weird.”

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