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“Toni with an i,” I told my mother, watching her for any sign of recognition.
After leaving Swedish Medical Center, Charlie and I had forfeited lunch altogether and instead driven straight to my house to fetch our father’s address book. When we’d failed to locate any entries for a Toni, Antonia, or similar, we’d proceeded to Charlie’s house, unable to wait to drop this latest tidbit on our mother.
Charlie, who sat on the sofa opposite the one occupied by our mother and me, leaned his elbows on his knees and flexed his fingers. He looked ready to throttle an answer from her.
But my mother shook her head, a slight frown pulling on her lips. “No, I’m sorry, but that name isn’t familiar to me.”
“Are you sure?” I pressed. “Supposedly she called Kathy to schedule lunch dates with Dad. Did you ever hear him mention this woman by accident or whisper her name during one of his hushed phone conversations?”
“No.”
“Okay, if the name’s not familiar, does it generate any feelings?” I asked, careful not to inflect any words.
My mother shook her head again, although she did fix her gaze on me, a wary expression pinching her face. When it came to our arguments, my mother had a memory like a steel trap.
I flopped back against the couch and sighed. “Well, I don’t know who this Toni is or where she came from, but she doesn’t mesh with our Leticia theory.”
“It is intriguing,” Charlie agreed.
I twisted toward him. “It’s downright mystifying. If Toni was Dad’s mistress, then how does Leticia fit in? The only thing I can figure is he fooled around with both of them.”
“Maybe your father and Leticia hadn’t been involved in an affair,” my mother piped in.
“Then how did she hoodwink him into believing Phoenix Microchip was a legitimate company?” I asked her.
My mother smoothed her pants with her palms. “Perhaps she had simply been very persuasive.”
“You yourself pointed out how carefully Dad managed money,” I reminded her. “He wouldn’t have blindly accepted her word that she needed all those cash payments unless she had a really strong hold over him. That type of influence suggests something beyond a business relationship.”
“Kathy could be covering for Leticia,” Charlie said. “She could have made up Toni to throw you off her tracks. She might have just plucked the name from Braxton Family Values.”
His awareness of Toni Braxton’s reality show caused my jaw to slip open, but I did consider my brother’s suggestion, having to admit that Kathy lying for her friend would make sense if she were aware of Leticia’s new identity.
“But I didn’t mention Leticia’s suspected affair with Dad until after Kathy told me about Toni,” I mused. “And Kathy didn’t seem alarmed when I did bring up the possibility. If anything, she had looked eager to partake in four-year-old gossip. Mentioning Phoenix Microchip also failed to elicit a reaction, so I don’t think she had any inkling of her coworker’s embezzlement.”
Charlie didn’t say anything more, likely at as much of a loss as I was.
I slapped my thighs, my frustration mounting. “We must be missing something obvious. I mean, it’s not like Dad had the CIA covering up his liaisons. The man had erectile dysfunction, for God’s sake!”
My mother turned wide eyes in my direction. “Good heavens, Betsy.”
Charlie’s own eyes bugged out of his head. “Dad had erectile dysfunction?”
I flashed my mother an apologetic look before acknowledging Charlie’s question with a nod.
My mother flushed red. “I told you that in confidence. I didn’t expect you to broadcast our personal problems to anyone and everyone.”
“Sorry, Mom,” I said, “but it is only Charlie here. He’s family.”
My mother pressed her lips together, folded her hands across her stomach, and stared at the wall straight ahead.
I took a deep breath, turning my attention to Charlie since my mother refused to look at us. “My point is we should be able to come up with a better idea of who Dad slept with. It can’t be this big of a mystery.”
Charlie nodded. “So what do we know about Leticia?”
“We know she’s beautiful,” I began. “We know Harold witnessed her and Dad leaving to grab lunch together. And Ursula thought her daughter was seeing a married man in secret. According to her, Leticia met with her lover on Mondays and Thursdays.”
“But you also think Leticia was with Larry?” Charlie asked.
I grew angry at the reminder of Larry’s involvement. “Whether she was with Larry—her embezzlement partner—or Dad—her married lover—on those nights, she would have wanted to keep her meetings a secret. Either way, Ursula knew her daughter had been seeing someone she shouldn’t, which generally points to a married man.”
My mother shifted positions to watch our exchange, some of the tension draining from her posture.
Charlie tapped one finger against his leg. “Okay. Go on.”
“And, lastly, we know Leticia disappeared two days after Dad’s accident,” I said.
We sat in silence for a moment before Charlie said, “What do we know about Toni?”
“Only that she called Track-It to schedule lunch dates with Dad, and Kathy thought she might be sleeping with him.”
“Is there any reason to believe Kathy was Dad’s mistress?” Charlie asked.
“None that we’ve uncovered,” I said, unable to picture the fresh-faced young woman lying next to my father despite sharing a motorcycle ride with him once. When recounting that experience, Kathy had sounded more enraptured by the vehicle than the driver.
Charlie rubbed his chin. “So right now our only candidates are Leticia and Toni.”
“If Toni even exists,” I added.
Charlie looked between me and our mother. “Are we sure Dad had been with a woman?”
My mother’s head snapped up. “Of course.”
“I’m not talking about sexually,” he clarified. “I mean, are we sure a woman had been in the car with him the night he crashed?”
My mother and I exchanged looks, silently sharing a recollection of our visit with James Cantwell.
“The ChapStick was the only foreign object recovered from the car that night, right?” Charlie continued. “It could have belonged to somebody not sleeping with Dad.”
“We thought of that,” I told Charlie. “We asked James Cantwell, the company’s lone financial backer, where he was that night, and he claims he hadn’t been with Dad. Mom and I tend to believe him. Likewise, Harold Earnest had been in Florida. If Dad really did have a ‘business appointment,’ that leaves Leticia or Kathy, possibly Toni if Dad met her in some professional capacity, or some other, unknown person associated to Track-It, like a potential investor.”
Charlie looked at our mother. “Did Dad have any other business associates?”
“None that I know of,” she replied.
I swung my head toward her, something striking me for the first time. “Why did Dad take the car that night?”
My mother tilted her head. “I’m not sure what you mean.”
“Why did Dad drive the Buick that night instead of his motorcycle? He almost never drove the car, right? So why did he take it out that night?”
My mother stilled, her forehead wrinkling as if she’d never thought of this question herself before now.
“It wasn’t raining or snowing that day,” Charlie said. “Although it was winter.” He turned toward me. “Was it cold?”
“Not unusually so,” I said, the night of my father’s accident burned into my memory. “And the cold never stopped Dad from riding the motorcycle before.” I faced my mother. “Had he been planning to pick up groceries or something?”
My mother buried her toes in the carpet. “No, I don’t think so.”
“Well, he had to have taken the car for a reason,” I said. “Think, Mom. Did he mention anything to you, offer any explanation as to why he needed the Buick?”
She frowned, slowly shaking her head.
“Maybe the person he was with didn’t want to be clinging to a motorcycle in the middle of winter,” Charlie proposed.
“He still would have had to give Mom an excuse for needing the car,” I said.
Our gazes moved toward our mother again. She peered back at us, clearly perplexed.
“Did Dad normally take the car without consulting you first?” I asked, already figuring out the answer myself. “It’s not like you would drive the motorcycle, and I don’t think he would have left you stranded at home without at least telling you.”
“He did tell me he was taking the Buick,” my mother said. “But he didn’t explain why. He simply said he was going out. He didn’t mention going to meet anybody, I’m certain of that.”
I twisted a lock of hair around my finger. “Although he wrote in his calendar that he had a business appointment.”
“Which might only mean he was meeting somebody he didn’t want Mom to know about,” Charlie said.
“Would there have been anyone Dad wouldn’t want Mom to know about besides another woman?” I glanced at my mother, but when she didn’t say anything I continued brainstorming. “Mom’s birthday and their anniversary both occur during the summer. Mom mentioned Dad had become distracted during the months before his death, which points to something larger than just a surprise for her anyway.”
“Are we sure Dad didn’t know about the embezzlement?” Charlie asked.
“We’re not positive,” I said, “but he likely only figured out the scam after Track-It went bankrupt. For one thing, Mom is practically broke so if he had been knowingly involved, he didn’t end up any richer because of it. That hardly makes sense.”
Charlie spun toward our mother. “You’re broke?”
My mother’s face tightened. “Really, Betsy, do you need to air all my dirty laundry today? And I’m hardly broke.”
“You have to sell the house,” I pointed out.
“You have to sell your house?” Charlie repeated, his face ashen.
My mother narrowed her eyes at me. “I don’t have to sell.”
“Anyway,” I said, eager to return to the topic at hand, “as far as I can tell, Leticia is behind the embezzlement. I think she used her feminine wiles to coerce Dad into doling out cash from Track-It’s coffers, then took off with the spoils. It’s too strange that she disappeared right after his accident and her signature is scrawled all over the fake invoices.”
“If Leticia was Rick’s mistress, why didn’t she run earlier?” my mother said.
“What do you mean?” Charlie and I asked in unison.
My mother looked between us. “Track-It folded a month before your father’s accident. It’s impossible Leticia stole more money after the company went bankrupt, so why linger for another month? Why not leave right after Track-It went under?”
“Because Dad’s accident forced her to disappear,” I said. “If Dad confronted her about Phoenix Microchip that night, his knowledge could have alarmed her enough to go into hiding.”
Charlie held up a hand. “That crash alone wouldn’t be enough to keep her hidden for years. She must have been planning to flee all along, even before Dad’s accident. Otherwise, she would have walked away from the scene, went back home, and gone on to live her life as normal.”
“Not if Dad confronted her about the embezzlement that night,” I argued. “Once she saw how easily Dad figured out her scam, she’d worry about someone else piecing it together too.”
Charlie furrowed his brow. “But you said the only evidence had been at Mom’s house, right? Nobody besides Dad would have had access to those papers, which would let her off the hook after he died. There would be no reason for her to abandon her existing life at that point.”
“Maybe she thought Mom would start digging through those invoices and notice something odd,” I said, the hypothesis sounding weak even to myself.
“In that case, why not break in right then and there and steal the papers? That would be a lot simpler than establishing a whole new life.” Charlie shook his head. “No, the sort of permanent disappearance that Leticia managed suggests she’d planned to run all along.”
“Without confiding in her mother?” our own mother said, this concept apparently beyond her comprehension.
Charlie lifted a shoulder. “How do you explain to your mother that you need to adopt a new identity? I’m sure Leticia didn’t want to burden Ursula with knowledge of the embezzlement. Then she could be charged with hiding a felony.”
I considered Charlie’s comments, warming to his theory. “Her apartment lease ended around the time she left,” I said, remembering Ursula’s reasoning as to why the police dismissed Leticia’s disappearance. “She might have wanted to wait until it expired.”
My mother squinted at me. “If you had over three hundred thousand in cash, would you care about terminating your apartment lease early?”
“Or maybe she needed to sort through some things,” Charlie said. “It could have taken her some time to arrange for a fake ID. If she wanted to book a flight or board a bus to skip town, she’d need some sort of identification.”
“Larry could have driven her wherever she needed to go,” I said, my voice catching on Larry’s name. “And she had all that stolen cash. She could have paid handsomely for someone to take her somewhere, no questions asked.”
“True,” Charlie said. “But she’d still need an ID. Otherwise she’d have to worry every time she went outside in case she was carded for something. Alternately, she could stay out of sight all the time, but that hardly strikes me as a life to look forward to.”
“So if she had planned to skip town all along, why had she agreed to see Dad that night?” I asked. “Why not blow him off? Since she was going to be gone a few days later anyway, why waste her time?”
Charlie snapped his fingers. “Or she could have been in the car just to break up with Dad. Maybe Dad never found out about her embezzlement. Maybe they’d still been involved but that night she planned to end their relationship.”
I bobbed my head, his theory ringing with possibilities.
“But why would Leticia have kept on seeing your father when she no longer needed him to authorize those payments?” my mother asked.
“You mean why didn’t she dump Dad once she could no longer milk money from his company?” I said. When my mother flinched, I added more gently, “Maybe she honestly cared for him.”
My mother folded her arms across her chest. “I thought you suggested she’d only used your father to steal money.”
I shrugged. “I really have no idea how she felt about him. The only thing that seems certain is she had been involved with him in something more than a business capacity.”
“She may have only prolonged the affair for another month so Dad wouldn’t get too suspicious,” Charlie suggested diplomatically. “If she broke up with him right after Track-It folded, Dad might have questioned why and started investigating. Perhaps by January she figured Track-It was far enough behind them.”
My mother clasped her hands in her lap. “Your father rarely took the car out before then, which didn’t seem to hamper his affair. I’m not sure why he made an exception that night.”
“Maybe they were planning something special,” I told her. “Didn’t you say you suspected Dad’s affair had lasted about a year at that point?” I offered my mother a sheepish smile for what I was about to suggest. “Maybe that night had been their anniversary.”
My mother blanched.
“Or maybe Leticia asked him to drive around for a bit so they could talk, intending to break up without suffering through dinner or a movie,” I said quickly. “They wouldn’t have been able to accomplish that on a motorcycle.”
My conjecture didn’t seem to comfort my mother. As I watched her fidget, I considered whether a person could be in love with more than one person at the same time. Had Leticia been fond of both Larry and my father? A few days ago I had found myself conflicted by feelings for both Larry and Derek. Could my father have cared for both my mother and Leticia, and maybe even Toni too? If so, would his undying love for his wife matter amid all the betrayal?
Experiencing a surge of sympathy for my mother, I reached over and patted her hand. “Sometimes I forget how hard this must be for you,” I told her.
My mother covered my hand with hers. “I know you are only doing this because I asked, dear.”
“Yes, but I’m sure you didn’t expect to learn that Dad’s mistress left him to die in that accident then went on the lam with money she embezzled from his company.”
“Even so,” my mother said. She paused, then added, “If this is difficult, I have nobody to blame but myself.”
We all sat in silence, images of my parents laughing together dancing through my head. Although I’d come to accept my father’s affair, the notion still disturbed me.
I pictured my own ex-husband, the man with whom I’d somehow reconnected over the weekend. I didn’t know whether to attribute my rekindled emotions to the shared threat against our daughters, my failed relationship with Larry, or our physical proximity over the last forty-eight hours. Or maybe I was just past the bitterness and disappointment that had consumed me two years ago and could appreciate Derek for who he was: a fallible man whom I’d loved my whole life.
I stood up, the reminder of my ex-husband making me anxious to see him again. “I should be getting back to Derek’s. He’s making dinner tonight.”
My mother and Charlie whipped their heads toward me.
I touched my hair self-consciously. “It’s nothing romantic. But since we’re both staying at his condo, and we both need to eat . . .”
Their mouths sloped skeptically, but additional explanations and protests would only make it appear as though I were covering up something meaningful.
And, I had to admit to myself, I was partially hoping their suspicions came true.
* * *
The scent of marinara sauce assaulted my nose as soon as I stepped off the elevator and onto the floor housing Derek’s condominium unit.
“Smells delicious,” I called out as I swung his door open using the key he’d lent me yesterday. Despite being invited, I felt obligated to announce my presence. Otherwise, I half feared I’d catch him canoodling with some bimbo.
“I’m just finishing up here,” Derek called back.
I wandered into the kitchen, where he was attending to a pot of sauce. I looked around for a place to put my purse, but there wasn’t a safe spot on the counter, its surface covered with bits of tomato, onion, and basil. Giving up, I clutched the bag closer to my chest.
“You still use only fresh basil?” I asked, inhaling deeply.
Derek stopped stirring and looked at me. “You remember.”
“How could I not? That was the only Italian we could afford when you were in school.”
His gaze dropped to the wooden spoon in his hand. “Maybe I should have ordered in.”
“I love your sauce,” I told him.
Derek’s lips quirked up before he dipped the spoon back into the pot. “How was your day?”
“Good.” I considered telling him about my visit with Kathy Smith, then decided I’d prefer to pass the rest of the evening without further talk of my father’s mystery woman—or women. My mother and Charlie had exhausted my thoughts on the subject. “I didn’t receive any death threats targeted at me or my children so my week is already improving.” I inched back and glanced around the empty living area. “Are Meredith and Katherine home?”
“They locked themselves in their rooms to do God knows what.”
Relieved they were safe, I stepped into the dining room where I could relax in one of the high-backed chairs. As I sat down, it occurred to me that these roomy seats could easily accommodate Raoul’s large build. “It’s probably better we don’t know. They’re likely plotting something evil.”
But blissful ignorance was always doomed to end at some point, and Meredith chose that moment to come bounding into the room.
“Dad’s car is hella cool, Mom,” she told me as she flopped into a chair. “Nothing like your old clunker.”
I arched an eyebrow at my ex-husband as I replayed this morning’s discussion, which had ended with me granting Meredith permission to drive the SUV. “Your father let you take the sports car to school?”
Derek shrugged. “It’s easier to steer than the SUV.”
His point seemed valid, but I still had difficulty accepting that he’d lent his babe mobile to a sixteen-year-old driver.
Unless he no longer envisioned the need for a babe mobile, I thought. My spirits lifted at the memory of waking up next to Derek this morning and the implication of him entrusting his sports car to our daughter.
Meredith picked at a fork set out as part of the dinner arrangements. “It has dual controls for everything, so Katie and I can set the temperatures of our seats to be different.”
“The sports car has temperature-controlled seats?” What could possibly compel two people to need different temperature seats? Granted, if Derek’s women tended to go commando they might require a bit more warmth than appropriately dressed people, but the feature still sounded frivolous.
And it also sounded completely like an add-on Derek would seek out. He always did go for over-the-top accessories: recliners with memory cushions, dual-channel televisions, double-D implants.
Meredith’s eyes brightened. “Not only that, but the windshield senses moisture. When it starts raining, the wipers switch on automatically.”
“Is it that hard to turn on your own wipers?” I asked.
But Meredith wasn’t listening, too enraptured by her morning adventure. I didn’t doubt a sports car had just nudged an iPhone further down her birthday wish list.
Suddenly, adopting a Labrador puppy didn’t seem like such an inconvenience.
As if she could read my thoughts, the dog lover herself raced into the room and plopped into a seat next to Meredith.
“Katherine,” I said, twisting toward her, “did you find out whether any of the girls on your team are related to Larry?”
She scrunched up her nose. “I didn’t have track practice today.”
I tamped down my irritation. I couldn’t really blame my daughter for her blasé attitude, I reminded myself. She had never asked to be put in this predicament.
I implored her with my eyes. “It’s important that I find out, so please don’t forget.”
“Okay,” Katherine said before turning away to join the interesting conversation by recounting how she’d spent the drive to school mastering Derek’s stereo system.
Watching my daughters chattering with the same enthusiasm they had regularly displayed before they hit puberty, I couldn’t help but miss the easy life Derek and I had once enjoyed, before he discovered infidelity.
Derek shut off the stove burner and motioned me into the kitchen. “You want to help serve?”
“Sure.” I stood up and approached my ex-husband, feeling like a family again.
