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“Betsy,” Derek said, opening the door to his condominium unit.
“Thanks for buzzing me up.” I squeezed the handle of my suitcase, not making any motion to enter.
Although spending the night at Derek’s had seemed wise thirty minutes ago, now that I was standing on his doorstep a sense of shame washed over me. How could I have misjudged the man in my life so severely? I hadn’t yet shared with Derek anything about Larry and Leticia’s suspect relationship, but he must have known I’d chosen his place over my boyfriend’s for a reason. I dreaded Derek’s reaction when I confessed that Larry might be responsible for the threats against our children. He would be perfectly within his rights to berate me for allowing such a dangerous man into our daughters’ lives.
Derek took a step back. “Come in.”
I shuffled into the condo, and Derek closed the door behind me. Both of our daughters sat perched on the couch, their wide eyes trained on me. At the sight of them, my hesitation evaporated. I let go of my suitcase and rushed toward Meredith, enveloping her in a brief hug before reaching for Katherine.
Katherine swayed in the opposite direction, sufficiently warned by my display toward her sister. “What’s up with you, Mom?”
I managed to encircle her shoulders before she weaseled her way out of my grasp. “I missed you girls.”
Katherine scooted a few inches away and rolled her eyes. “We just saw each other, like, a couple hours ago.”
I wedged myself into the space she’d vacated. “Then that’s a couple hours I’ve been missing you.”
My daughters stared at me, their faces tight. They obviously sensed something strange. I’d resisted filling them in earlier, but keeping them sheltered forever was not only impossible but unfair. At their age, they had a right to know about threats concerning their safety.
I twisted around and motioned Derek over from where he still stood by the front door. “I think we need to explain what’s going on.”
He didn’t budge. “We should discuss this matter in private first.”
“Explain what?” Meredith jumped in, glancing between us as if watching a game of table tennis. “Are you guys getting back together or something?”
Katherine’s eyebrows shot toward the ceiling. The hope reflected in her large, brown eyes as she looked at me for confirmation weighed down my already heavy heart.
“No, we’re not,” I said gently. “I’m afraid the news is a bit more troubling than that.”
Meredith’s face hardened, and Katherine set her jaw. They appeared to be bracing themselves for the most horrendous news they could conceptualize, which no doubt would be an accepted marriage proposal from Larry and the resulting request for them to call him Daddy.
I shivered at the reminder of Larry and his role in the scene unfolding now.
Derek cleared his throat. “I really think the two of us should talk first, Betsy.”
“Derek,” I said, feeling a lurch of irritation. My reaction had more to do with the events of earlier and my inability to control them than Derek, but this awareness failed to dull my annoyance. “The girls know something is up, and it’s not fair to keep them in the dark.”
“Yeah, Dad,” Katherine chimed in, already sounding exasperated despite not yet knowing anything about the matter at hand. With her, exasperation was more of a lifestyle tenet than a fleeting emotion.
Meredith merely eyed her father with the same scorching slant to her eyes that she adopted when complaining about how I might as well slap a diaper on her rear for all the maturity I gave her credit for.
Derek seemed to recognize he was outnumbered. He walked stiffly into the living room and dropped into an armchair facing the three of us. The pencil-thin line of his lips combined with my competing emotions made me feel as though a family therapy session was about to commence.
I angled my body so I could better ignore Derek’s scowl. “Girls, I received a threatening phone call earlier today.”
Katherine sat up, her eyes shining. She actually appeared excited, as though I’d told her about a promising casting call and my expectation that Tom Cruise would soon swing through the window as part of my audition.
Meredith’s face remained impassive. She could be suppressing a budding fear, relieved she wasn’t being saddled with an unwanted stepfather, or wondering what her friends did at the mall earlier.
I inhaled. “I’ve been looking into something that involves your grandfather, and my activities upset someone.”
“Upset who? Grandma?” Katherine asked.
I shook my head. I couldn’t really fault her for this conclusion. My actions often upset my mother. “Someone your grandfather used to work with. A woman you girls never met.”
“What does that have to do with us?” Meredith inquired.
I prayed my face didn’t betray the intensity of my fear as I forced myself to meet her gaze. “Well, this person seems to think that by threatening you I may back off from my investigation.”
“She threatened us?” Katherine said, suddenly indignant. “But we didn’t do anything.”
I patted her knee. “I know, baby. But you two are the most important things in my life. She probably hopes to intimidate me into abandoning my quest for answers.”
Katherine squinted, likely picking up on my use of the word probably. “Are you going to?”
I recognized the question for what it was: a test of my loyalties. Her underlying interest was to determine what mattered most to me, my dead father or my daughters. That choice didn’t even invite a contest, but the true answer to her voiced question was more complicated.
“I value you girls most of all in this world,” I assured her. “But the truth is also important.”
Derek coughed, and we all whipped our heads toward him. “You girls are our first priority, now and always. Given that your safety would be in jeopardy, your mother will obviously stop whatever she’s doing.”
I gripped the edge of the couch. “I beg to differ. I’m clearly on to something that needs to be exposed.”
Derek kept his attention on the girls. “Your mother and I still need to discuss what to do from here.”
I considered arguing with him, but his point about negotiating a forward course of action in private was valid. Once we’d reached a compromise, we could inform the girls of our decision together.
I relaxed my hold on the couch and turned toward my daughters. “The important thing right now is for you both to remain on the lookout for any suspicious behavior. You need to be extra vigilant for a while. Don’t wander off with people you don’t know. Try to stay near a trustworthy adult or an authority figure. If you see anything that doesn’t look right, get help from someone. If you feel unsafe for any reason, use your cell phone to call 9-1-1.”
Both girls absorbed my warnings in silence. After a moment, Meredith nodded. Katherine continued to stare at me with huge eyes. Her look triggered a wave of guilt. Apparently, starring in a real-life action drama fell short of the thrilling experience she’d expected.
I placed my hand on my youngest daughter’s arm. “Katherine, I have a favor to ask.”
My grave tone must have adequately imparted the importance of the matter. Her eyes grew fractionally larger, but she didn’t say anything, not even bothering to remind me of her fad request to be called Katie.
I pulled my hand back before she could notice my fingers trembling. “I need you to find out if any of the girls on your track team are related to Larry Juniper.”
She blinked. “Your boyfriend?” The typical venom she reserved for Larry was notably absent from her words.
“Yes,” I confirmed.
“I thought that’s how you met,” she said, some of the challenge returning to her voice as if she now suspected I had been lying to her for the past eleven months.
“It is, but I’d appreciate if you would verify. He could be related to a girl still competing this year, or one who dropped off the team or graduated to high school after last year.” I gave her arm a squeeze but didn’t offer any other explanation. I looked between her and Meredith. “And don’t either of you girls wander off with Larry for any reason.”
They cocked their heads in question. Meredith asked, “Why, did you guys break up or something?”
The urge to cry seized me. I took a deep breath to compose myself, well aware that my daughters awaited an answer. After a moment, I managed to say, “Or something.”
They peered at me, but thankfully didn’t press for details. I didn’t know how to tell them that my boyfriend could be responsible for the threats now stripping them of their teenage tranquility.
I glanced at Derek, who watched me with the same attentive bemusement. My heart plummeted. I dreaded our private conversation sure to follow when I filled him in on this evening’s events.
I sighed, regretting my decision to turn down Charlie’s offer of a sleeping bag. At least at Charlie’s I could have surrendered to my growing exhaustion, delaying the inevitable conversation with Derek until tomorrow. Here, I was bound to endure at least another hour’s discussion before I could finally close my eyes and put this day behind me.
“I’m going to go talk to your father.” I stood up, unable to say anything more without risking a barrage of tears.
I kissed each of the girls on the cheek and they let me, their defenses down at the moment. Derek rose as I grabbed hold of my suitcase handle. He guided me down the hall with a steadying hand on my back as he exchanged his own goodnights with our daughters.
“You have a nice place here,” I told him, giving cursory attention to the beautiful photographs of Mexico City lining the walls. I’d only been to Derek’s condominium once before, two years ago when he’d bought the place and the girls had visited for the first time. I had forgotten how well he decorated. Between the two of us, Derek had always been the one with a keener eye for art.
He nudged me into his bedroom, closing the door behind us. “I wish you hadn’t said anything to the girls without consulting me first.”
“They deserve to know.” I let go of my suitcase handle and surveyed the room. Unfortunately, Derek hadn’t furnished his bedroom with any chairs, maybe intentionally leaving no other seating alternative for his airhead du jour than the queen-size mattress. And for obvious reasons, I didn’t feel comfortable throwing myself onto his bed.
“Yes, but we could have broken the news in a way that wasn’t quite so brash,” Derek said.
I flinched then turned around to face my ex, reminding myself that his analysis shouldn’t hurt me. “My delivery wasn’t brash. And the girls seemed to take it well. They were a bit shaken, but they should be given the circumstances.”
He pursed his lips. “You still shouldn’t have told them anything without talking to me first. And why all the questions about loverboy Larry?”
My face crumpled at the mention of Larry. I slumped onto one corner of the mattress, a sudden inability to support my own weight overriding my reluctance to occupy Derek’s bed. “He may be covering for Leticia.”
Derek’s jaw fell open, but he recovered quickly, sitting next to me and wrapping an arm around my shoulders. “This is unexpected. How did you arrive at this conclusion?”
“Leticia’s mother denies being in contact with her. I thought she was lying at first, but then I got to thinking and Larry had the same opportunity she did to notify Leticia. And he knew her when she went missing. He told me he was her real estate agent, but I think they really have a romantic relationship and he helped her go underground.”
Derek nodded, the idea of my boyfriend tomcatting around likely appearing quite natural to him. I could almost hear my ex-husband thinking, Been there, done that.
I hung my head and sniffled back my tears. “I came across some invoices in my father’s office pointing to Leticia’s role in an embezzlement scheme. Larry must have known about the scam because right after I told him I found those papers they went missing from my mother’s house.” I swallowed and forced myself to meet Derek’s gaze. “My discovery must have alarmed him enough to either urge Leticia to place that call tonight or make it himself.”
A fresh bout of self-loathing overtook me. For the past eleven months I’d viewed my every-other-weekend arrangement with Larry as a byproduct of my daughters’ custody schedule when the sparse timing of our “dates” really just allowed Larry to keep tabs on my activities while leaving most of his time free to canoodle with his real love, the lovely, rich Leticia Robinson, alias and location unknown. If Derek wanted to lecture me all night over my poor choice in men, I’d deserve every harsh word he could hurl my way.
“Have you confronted Larry yet?” Derek asked.
“No,” I said, grateful that my ex-husband expressed no desire to make me feel worse than I already did. For all his faults, Derek at least had never been the type to dwell on circumstances beyond control.
“It’s probably best if you avoid him,” Derek said. “I don’t want him targeting you if he decides to follow through on those threats.”
I looked down at my hands, fresh tears brimming at the notion of Larry Juniper, the man I’d thought I loved, harming me or my daughters. “I’m going to have to talk to him at some point. I can’t ignore him without offering any explanation.”
“He threatened our children.” Derek pulled his arm away from my shoulder. “He’s not going to expect you to keep dating him.”
“But he doesn’t know I’m aware of his involvement. He’ll want to pretend everything’s the same.” I peeked at my ex-husband. “Unless I’m wrong about the whole thing and Larry really isn’t part of this at all. Then he’ll still anticipate hearing from me at some point.”
Derek stiffened. “What do you mean he might not be part of this? You just finished explaining his whole connection to Leticia.”
“Their supposed connection,” I corrected. “What if Larry told me the truth, and he really was Leticia’s real estate agent?”
Derek gripped his thighs hard enough to turn his knuckles white. “Don’t second-guess yourself because you have some lingering feelings for the man, Betsy. Our children’s safety—your safety—is at stake.”
I slowly moved my head up and down, the motion taxing all the muscles in my neck. “You’re right.” Tears stung my eyes. My efforts to thwart them finally failed, and they slipped down my cheeks. “I just don’t want it to be true, you know?”
Derek wrapped his arms around me and rubbed his hands over my back the way he used to when we were each other’s world. “I know, baby. I know.”
I succumbed to his ministrations, pressing my face into his chest and letting myself cry in his arms.
