I STARED AT THOSE FEW LETTERS FOR A LONG TIME, A whole movie’s worth of possible scenarios running through my head, along with about a million questions: Why hadn’t Joline Eastman told me about this Deshawn person? Could he be Kimmie’s biological father? If so, then my assumption about a one-night stand had to be completely off base. But why would she risk her child’s life to keep such a critical piece of information from me? Who was she protecting? And why?
I leaned back in my desk chair and ordered my mind to slow down. I pictured Joline Eastman as she’d sat in my office: a private woman, quite beautiful, perfectly dressed and groomed, but with a deep current of suppressed emotion running just below the surface. Proud? Embarrassed? Scared? Any of those words could have described my client and might also explain her insistence that I not divulge to strangers the dire need to find her family. And yet . . . Could her pride—or fear—be that important to her? More important than saving Kimmie’s life? There had to be more to it than that.
Secrets. Hers. My father’s—
The jangle of the phone startled me. My hand trembled a little as I leaned forward and picked up the handset.
“Good, you’re home,” Erik said when I answered. “I don’t really have much news, but I thought I’d check in.”
“Nothing at all?” I asked and the sinking feeling took hold of my stomach again.
“I found a Jonas Jefferson who’s still in Macon. He says he used to live with a Maeline Mitchell, but they weren’t married. Said her drinking got to him, and he threw her out after she totaled his pickup one night. He doesn’t know what happened to her or where she went.”
“Damn it! How can living, breathing human beings just drop completely off the radar like this?” I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Okay, so that’s another dead end. And another wasted day. Although, I did have an interesting conversation this evening with a woman who knew Maeline back in high school.”
I gave him a brief synopsis of my talk with Keisha Spencer as well as Joline’s earlier slip about Kimmie’s father.
“So you think this Deshawn who used to live with the Mitchells could be the guy?”
“You know how I feel about coincidences.” A thought struck. “Keisha said he might be a cousin. Do you have those photocopies Ellis sent from the family Bible?”
“Hold on a sec.” I could hear him rustling papers, but he was back in less than a minute. “Nope. No Deshawn listed. But it could be from the other side of the family. Do we know Joline’s mother’s maiden name?”
“No. But she said they’d already tested everybody on that side, so we should concentrate on the Mitchells.”
“Maybe there’s some reason she doesn’t want us digging around in her mother’s family.”
“Like what?” I asked.
“I don’t know. Skeletons in the closet she doesn’t want us rattling?”
“It’s possible, I suppose. I’m beginning to think she hasn’t been completely up-front with us about much of anything. Trouble is, I’m not sure I can bring myself to call her on it. It seems like kicking someone when they’re already down. Besides, I get the feeling that she’s riding pretty close to the edge right now. Emotionally.”
“I know what you mean. So we just have to do our best with what we have to work with.” Again Erik hesitated. “And you have to stop feeling as if this kid’s life or death is one hundred percent on your shoulders. We can only do what we can do, right?”
I sighed. “You’re right. I’ll try to keep that in mind. So now what?”
“Without a last name, there’s nowhere for me to go on Deshawn.”
“You know, we’ve never talked to her husband. Dr. Eastman. I wonder if he’d be more forthcoming. There might be things Joline has told him that she doesn’t want to share with us for some reason.”
He didn’t answer for a long moment. “Do you think that’s right? I mean asking a man to betray his wife’s confidences? Besides, didn’t Joline specifically say not to involve her husband?”
“Yes. But that makes no sense. He must have feelings for Kimmie. Surely he’d want to do anything he could to save her life, even if she isn’t his natural daughter.”
“Touchy. But you do what you think you have to. If you come up with anything I can check, let me know. I’m off tomorrow. Stephanie and I are going to run into Savannah and bum around a little, but you can get me on the cell if something pops.”
“Have fun,” I said and hung up.
My tea had gone completely cold, so I carried the cup into the kitchen. While it whirled around in the microwave, I pulled the phone book from under the built-in desk and flipped to the yellow pages. Dr. Jerrold Eastman, OB-GYN, had an office in the medical complex right behind the hospital. I jotted his business number on a notepad just as the bell dinged. Hot tea in hand, I wandered back into the office.
Instead of sitting down again at the desk, I curled up on the chaise I’d added a couple of years before. When Darnay moved in, I thought. I’d needed space in the bedroom for another dresser, so the chaise had ended up along one wall of the office. I’d had misgivings about letting someone as volatile and secretive as the former Interpol agent share my house, let alone my life, but I’d decided to take the risk, a leap of faith it had taken only weeks to regret. His desertion had been devastating, a blow from which I had just begun to recover when Red had renewed his assault on my emotional battlements. And once again I’d lowered the drawbridge. . . .
Geoff Anderson. Darnay. Red. You never learn, I told myself, and took a sip of the strong, sweet tea. I set the cup on the floor and stretched out, tucking both hands behind my head. I closed my eyes, and bits and pieces of quotations, long ago learned and mostly forgotten, flitted through my mind. When I was young, the Judge and I used to challenge each other, flinging out memorized passages and daring the other to name the citation, points awarded for correct title and author. I smiled, remembering how my best childhood friend, Bitsy Quintard, and I used to sit on the back verandah on rainy days, she with her Anne of Green Gables and I with my nose buried in Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations.
There was something . . . I concentrated on bringing the elusive words into focus. Madame de Staël, was it? I asked myself. The original was in French, eighteenth century, if I remembered correctly. I couldn’t come up with it exactly, but it was something about love being the entire history of a woman’s life, but only an episode in a man’s. Maybe that was the problem. Nature of the beasts, male and female. Yet, it hadn’t been like that with Rob. We had connected immediately, had—
The shriek of the alarm sent me leaping from the chaise. I kicked over the cup, and a dark stain spread across the pristine white carpet. In less than a moment, the noise abruptly ceased. My eyes shot to the doorway across the hall, to the closet with its floor safe and my pistol. No time. I cast around for something else to use as a weapon when I heard the familiar voice.
“Bay? It’s okay. It’s me.” A moment later, Red stuck his head slowly around the doorway.
“You’re damn lucky the Seecamp’s in the safe,” I said, my heart thudding wildly in my chest for a number of reasons I didn’t want to examine too closely.
“Sorry. I screwed up the code.” His grin was a little forced, and I could hear a tentative quiver in his voice.
“I meant to change it.” I reached down to pick up the overturned cup.
“I’m glad you didn’t.”
I stepped over the sticky puddle of tea and set the cup on the desk. “What do you want, Red?”
He moved all the way into the office then, his hands shoved into the pockets of his jeans as if he didn’t quite know what to do with them.
“To apologize, beg forgiveness, grovel at your feet. Any or all of the above. Your choice.”
Again he tried to smile, to joke his way past the awkwardness, but I could see the confusion in his eyes. And the hope, too.
I stalled by crossing in front of him and into the bathroom across the hall. I pulled a rag from the vanity under the sink and ran cold water over it. Back in the office, I again gave Red a wide berth and knelt to begin blotting at the spilled tea.
“Aren’t you going to say anything?” he asked. “You can yell and scream if you want. I deserve it. I’m even prepared to take a punch or two.”
I glanced up, unable to stop the stony glare from settling into my eyes. “I don’t plan on getting arrested for assaulting a sheriff’s deputy.” I rose and carried the sopping cloth back into the bathroom. “And you can knock off the Mr. Charming act. It’s not working.”
I turned the faucets on full blast, drowning out his reply. Back in the office, I resumed my work on the stain.
“Did you hear what I said?” he asked softly.
“No.”
“I said there’s no chance of you being arrested for assault on a police officer. I quit.” My head snapped up. “Effective immediately. No badge, no gun. I’m officially a civilian.”
Some part of me had never been convinced he’d actually go through with it. I pushed my own righteous indignation aside and really looked at him. He seemed fine with his decision. In fact, there was an ease to his shoulders, a hint almost of relief in his eyes.
“If that’s what you want, I’m happy for you,” I said, applying myself to my cleaning duties once again.
“Stop screwing around with that rag and look at me.” All the wheedling, make-nice tones had fled from his voice. “I’m trying to apologize, damn it. The least you can do is pay attention.”
Wrong tack. I jumped to my feet and stared straight into his face. “I’m not interested in that kind of apology. You can’t just take all your stuff and stomp out of here in a huff because something I said pricked your damn male pride. I did absolutely nothing to provoke that kind of reaction, and you know it.”
I waited then for a word or a gesture that told me he got it, that he understood how deeply his actions had hurt me. He let the opportunity slip away.
“Fine,” I said and stepped back.
“Bay—”
“No, Red. Too late. Leave the key on the foyer table. And don’t try the alarm code again. I don’t think you’d enjoy the view from the backseat of a sheriff’s cruiser.”
He reached for me then, and I turned away. Suddenly, his hand fastened around my wrist. I whirled and glared at him, and he loosened his grip, then let it drop.
“Listen, Bay. I know I acted like an ass, okay? But I was hurt. You treated me like some sort of gigolo, as if I planned on living off you and spending all day at the beach.”
“I never said anything like that.”
“Maybe not in so many words, but you weren’t exactly jumping for joy, either.”
“You never gave me a chance.” I felt myself relaxing a little as we talked.
“I know,” he said again. “That’s what I’m saying. And I was scared. I’ve got responsibilities—Sarah, and the kids’ child support. And you. I want to be able to support you, Bay. And I will. It’s just going to take a little time. Rick and I can make a go of this charter business, I know we can.”
He stepped back. I wrapped my arms around myself and stared into his eyes.
“I love you, Bay. Please give me another chance.”
There was no mistaking his sincerity this time, but somehow I couldn’t bring myself to speak. It seemed as if my brain had shut down, as if all the turmoil of the past few days had rendered me mute.
We stood like that, inches apart, neither of us speaking for a long time.
“The kids miss you,” he said softly.
“Low blow,” I answered in an equally quiet voice.
He stepped around me, his fingers trailing a gentle caress down my arm as he passed, and I shuddered. I felt him pause in the doorway.
“You know where to find me,” he said, and a moment later I heard the front door close.
The rain beating against the French doors woke me.
I’d fallen asleep on the sofa again, this time unintentionally. I couldn’t tell if it was dark because of the storm or because the sun hadn’t yet risen. The inside of my mouth felt as if I’d eaten sand. I flung off the afghan and stumbled up into the kitchen. As I ran the cold water tap, I checked the clock. Only a little after five. A huge clap of thunder rattled the windows, and I nearly dropped the glass in the sink. The reverberation was followed quickly by a zigzag of lightning.
In the brief flare, I saw myself sitting on the back verandah at Presqu’isle, my quivering body wrapped in the Judge’s arms, his voice low and soothing as we rocked.
When you see the lightning, start counting like this: one one thousand, two one thousand, three one thousand.
In my head I could hear my childish Why? muffled by some soft material, probably one of his old sweaters that always smelled of tobacco and aftershave.
You keep doin’ that until you hear the thunder. That way you can tell how far away the storm is.
Standing now in front of the sink ignoring the steadily running water, I tried to recall how old I’d been. Five? Six? I remembered my father had gone on to explain about the difference between the speed of sound and the speed of light, but I didn’t understand much of what he said. I had been content just to snuggle in the safety of his arms, certain that nothing could ever harm me as long as he was there.
Had he known even then that I wasn’t his only daughter? Did he sit on another porch, calming the fears of another little girl when he was supposed to be at some conference or meeting? Did he sneak off and leave me after I’d gone to sleep so he could cradle Julia in his strong embrace? Did he love her, too? More?
The next crack of thunder jerked me back. I filled the glass and drank greedily, and slowly the visions faded. I wiped my face on the dishtowel and trudged back to the great room. On the sofa I wrapped the afghan around me and stared out into the blackness, sky and sea melded into one dark mass broken only by the occasional fork of lightning.
I’d buried the anguish of my father’s deception. And Red’s desertion. Two sources of pain I’d felt unable to deal with. No, three, I reminded myself. Kimmie Eastman’s imminent death if no compatible family member was found. I’d elevated compartmentalization to an art form, but in the cold gray hours before sunrise, I forced myself to open all those forbidding doors and stare inside.
After a while, I let the tears come, slow gentle drops that rolled down my cheeks and soaked the soft wool of the afghan. Finally spent, I snuggled back down onto the cushions. Red and I would work things out. We’d find Joline’s sisters. And my own.
Another streak of light split the sky. I fell asleep counting.
One one thousand, two one thousand . . .