1
Nicole felt as if she were in a trance as she drove from the store to her mother’s. Kay had asked if Nicole thought she should give the fragment of the photo of Paul Dominic to the police and tell them about the letters.
“No,” Nicole had answered sharply, realizing she sounded like her mother, wanting to keep everything quiet, desiring as little interference from outsiders as possible. But something told her now was not the time to reveal the letters to anyone. “Let’s keep this between us for now, Kay.” Kay had agreed, looking relieved.
When Nicole pulled up in front of her parents’ French Provincial house, she saw another car in the driveway, a blue Cadillac. One of her mother’s friends. Maybe today’s visit hadn’t been necessary at all, but she hadn’t even spoken to her mother on the phone since yesterday.
She opened the front door without knocking and heard the chatter of voices from the living room. Before she got the door closed, Phyllis had come to greet her. She wore slim black slacks and a white silk blouse, every hair of her white French twist in place, a slender necklace of real pearls—the last Christmas gift from her husband—around her neck. The only signs of her grief were faint mauve shadows beneath her eyes.
“Nicole, how nice to see you,” she said, aiming a kiss at Nicole’s cheek and just missing. This was the way her mother had always kissed her. “The No-Smear Kiss,” Nicole had come to call it, referring to Phyllis’s concern that her lipstick always look perfect. “I called earlier, but no one was home.”
“Roger took Shelley to Sea World, and I took a drive.” That wasn’t really a lie, she told herself. She had driven. “I see you have company.”
“Mildred Loomis is here.” She steered Nicole into the living room where a plump middle-aged woman with daffodil-yellow bleached hair, bright blue frosted eye shadow, and a vivid pink suit with red poppy appliqués on the jacket sat on the couch. “You remember Mrs. Loomis, don’t you?”
“Yes, of course.” Now that was a lie, Nicole scolded herself, but the woman was beaming at her, obviously remembering her. “It’s been a long time, Mrs. Loomis.”
“I’ll say it has,” the woman agreed. “And please call me Mildred. Why, honey, I haven’t seen you since you recited that poem you wrote to your mother’s reading circle.”
No wonder Nicole hadn’t remembered her. She hadn’t seen her for nineteen years. Now she recalled that even all those years ago, she’d wondered why the woman looked so blowzy despite her husband’s wealth. Certainly all that money could have improved her hair and makeup, if not her weight. “Oh, that dreadful poem,” Nicole groaned.
Mildred beamed again. “Why, I thought it was precious.” At the time, Nicole had thought it terribly profound. “It rhymed so nice,” Mildred continued. “I just hate poems that don’t rhyme. I don’t think they should even be called poems if they don’t rhyme, do you?”
“Well—”
Obviously Phyllis saw that Nicole was about to argue and cut her off. “Mildred and her husband just got back from New York last night. That’s why they didn’t come to your father’s funeral.”
Mildred’s beaming face immediately fell into a mask of woe. “Oh, Nicole, I am so sorry. What an awful thing. I was just tellin’ my husband, Willard, this morning, ‘What an awful thing! What would make a man who has everything want to stick a gun in his mouth—’ ”
“I suppose we’ll never know,” Phyllis interrupted sharply. “Nicole and I have decided not to speculate. It’s too upsetting.”
Sufficiently quelled, Mildred lapsed into a nodding, doleful silence. Phyllis looked at Nicole. “Would you care for some tea?”
Why did everyone keep offering her tea? she wondered. Especially her mother, who knew she couldn’t stand tea. “I think I’ll pass, Mom.”
“I could make coffee. We have a delicious pound cake that Mildred brought.”
“No, thank you.” She smiled at Mildred, who was slicing off a piece of the cake. Nicole was certain it wasn’t her first. “I’m really not hungry now, Mom, and since you have someone to keep you company for a while, I wonder if you’d mind if I went upstairs and looked for something in my old room.”
Phyllis allowed herself a small frown. “Look for what?”
“My school yearbooks.” Lie number three, she thought. A lot of good mass did this morning. “Shelley was interested in seeing what her mother looked like in high school.”
“Pretty as a picture,” Mildred managed around a mouth half-full of pound cake. “I always told Willard you were the prettiest girl I ever saw. You’ve only improved with age.”
“Thank you,” Nicole said.
“Your mama tells me you’re gettin’ a divorce. Our boy W. J.’s divorced, too.” She pronounced W as dub ya. “He’s only a couple of years older than you and a fine figure of a man, if I do say so myself. Maybe you two could go out to dinner or to the movies or somethin’.”
“That sounds very nice,” Nicole said woodenly, suddenly remembering W. J. Loomis as an oxlike creature whose claim to fame in high school was dropping water balloons out of second-floor windows on the heads of passing girls.
“I could give him your phone number,” Mildred continued hopefully.
“Well…”
“You run on upstairs,” Phyllis said quickly, rescuing her. “Mildred and I are having a very nice conversation. We won’t even miss you, will we, Mildred?”
Mildred, stuffing another piece of cake in her mouth, waved a puffy hand in dismissal. Phyllis gave Nicole an unexpected wink, and Nicole felt like hugging her. Her mother rarely came to her rescue.
Nicole hurried up the stairs before Mildred could ask for her phone number. Nicole knew the woman couldn’t pry the number out of her mother, but that didn’t mean W. J. couldn’t get it from Directory Assistance. Maybe I should get an answering machine so I can screen calls, Nicole thought.
Her bedroom looked almost as it had when she moved away fifteen years ago. The thick pale green carpet seemed like new. The ultramodern white lacquer furniture was spotless, just like the snowy white bedspread adorned with decorative pillows in mint, forest, and ivy-green. The heavy pale green draperies hung over snowy sheers. A large framed print of “Idle Hours” by J. Alden Weir graced one wall. The only ornaments on the dresser and chest of drawers were framed photos of a four-year-old grinning Nicole wearing a bunny outfit at a dance recital, and her formal high school graduation picture.
She shut the door to her bedroom and went to the walk-in closet. One side was for clothes, the other lined with built-in shelves for books. Garment bags hung on a rod. Nicole knew they held Easter dresses and prom gowns from her youth.
But she wasn’t interested in clothes. She turned to the shelves. Books stood rigidly in place, so many she’d read over and over as a teenager such as Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre. A few schoolbooks stood among the crowd. At the end of one shelf were her school yearbooks and two photo albums.
Nicole gathered up the yearbooks and albums and placed them on the floor by her bed. Then she went back to the closet.
When they had moved into the house, she’d been delighted to find a small cabinet built into the base of the shelves. She called it her hiding place, but it wasn’t safe enough for her really private things like her diary and valentines she received from boys, so when she was twelve, she bought a padlock. Phyllis had been outraged, and even Clifton had complained. “What kind of secrets could my baby girl have that even her daddy can’t know?”
Nicole had ignored both of them, though, tucking away what she considered top secret property and keeping the key to the padlock with her at all times. Until she moved away seven months after the rape, that is. Then she’d left the contents of her hiding place and the padlock key behind. Now she picked up her graduation picture and slid the photo from behind the glass. On the cardboard backing was taped the short, thin key. She’d never liked the picture, but it had been good for something.
Nicole untaped the key and rushed back to the closet. The lock was stiff and at first she thought she’d have to sneak back with lubricating oil, but at last the lock clicked open. The hinges creaked as she swung open the storage-cabinet door.
Sitting on the floor, she withdrew five diaries. “All full of torrid secrets, no doubt,” she mumbled, noticing they only covered her years between twelve and seventeen.
At the bottom of the cabinet was a photo album. This was what she’d been looking for, although it wasn’t a traditional album. Her hands trembled slightly as she pulled it from the cabinet. Her hands had also trembled when she’d put it together.
She dusted it off and sat down on the bed. Are you sure you want to dredge all of this up? she wondered. No, but after what Kay told her, she must.
She opened the cover. On the first page beneath a plastic protector was a yellowed newspaper clipping. The headline blared, “Daughter of Local Businessman Assaulted in Basin Park.” The story went on to describe how Nicole Marie Sloan, nineteen, a sophomore at Trinity University, had been raped and brutally beaten by two men. A male passerby had scared off the men with a handgun. Sloan’s rescuer had not seen the men’s faces, but Sloan had identified her attackers. Their names were being withheld until arrests were made. Nicole Sloan was in serious but stable condition.
Nicole took a deep breath and moved on to the next page. Here was the story of the arrest of Ritchie Zand, lead singer of the local rock band The Zanti Misfits, and one of the band’s roadies, Luis Magaro. Magaro, thirty-two, had a previous record of assault. Zand, twenty-three, had been arrested three years ago for statutory rape, but the charges were dropped. Magaro and Zand had been positively identified by Nicole Sloan.
A light tap sounded at the door. Nicole jumped and almost dropped the album, knowing that if her mother saw it, she would jerk it from her hands and immediately destroy it. Instead, the door opened and Carmen stepped in. “What’s going on? Hiding from Mrs. Loomis?”
Nicole let out her breath. “Partly.”
Carmen’s curly dark hair framed her face. She wore jeans and a long-sleeved peach-colored shirt. Except for the weight she’d gained lately, she looked almost exactly the same as when they were teenagers. “When I couldn’t reach you at home, I figured you were here. I thought you might need a friend today.”
“Thanks. I do.”
“What are you looking at?”
“Memories. Close the door and come on in.”
Carmen joined her on the bed. Her smile disappeared when she saw the clippings in the scrapbook. “You kept all this stuff?”
“Yes. The album’s been hidden in this room since I moved away. I’ve never taken it home because I didn’t want Shelley to find it.”
“My God, Nicole. I had no idea. Why are you looking at it now?”
“I’m not sure. I heard something today…” Carmen’s dark eyebrows rose and reluctantly Nicole began telling her Kay’s story, knowing Carmen would never repeat it.
When she finished, Carmen looked at her quizzically. “Why would someone send your father a picture of Paul Dominic?”
“I have no idea. But I know that he started acting strange when those damned letters began coming. And because of what he mumbled in his nightmares, I’m sure the letters had something to do with what happened to me.”
Carmen tapped a long peach-polished nail against her perfect teeth. “That sounds logical, although I still can’t imagine what in those letters could have upset your father so much. The picture of Paul hints that it was something about your assault and the murders, but it’s not as if your dad didn’t know exactly what had happened to you and everything that took place afterward.”
“I know. I’m not even sure why I’m looking at this. Maybe it’s because of Dad. Maybe it’s because I want to see if I’ve really put it behind me. I thought I had—until lately.”
“Until you thought you saw Paul at the cemetery.” Nicole nodded. “You were exhausted and emotionally drained. I agree that the guy looked like Paul. But it wasn’t.”
“Probably not, but I still want to go over this stuff. Will you stay with me?”
Carmen smiled. “Sure. But we’d better keep a sharp ear for your mother. If she sees this—”
“We’re dead meat,” Nicole said melodramatically.
Carmen smothered a laugh. “You’re still a big goof, do you know that?”
“Thank you. Only you and my daughter seem to appreciate my sense of humor.”
“Okay, if you’re determined to do this, turn the page. I don’t know how much more cake Mrs. Loomis can hold, and as soon as she leaves, your mother will be right up the stairs to see what we’re doing.”
Nicole obeyed. The next page displayed an article dated two days after Zand’s and Magaro’s arrests. A picture showed a triumphant Zand waving to a crowd. And why wouldn’t he be looking triumphant? Nicole thought. Suddenly Magaro and Zand had alibis. According to two sons of a prominent San Antonio family, at the time of Nicole Sloan’s assault, Magaro and Zand had been with them. The brothers had gone to Mexico the day after the attack and had only just returned to San Antonio. Otherwise, they could have cleared Zand and Magaro immediately. “Yeah, sure,” Nicole said aloud. “In other words, it just took a while to find a couple of suitable guys willing to lie for them. Probably die-hard fans of Ritchie’s band. Either that, or Magaro was their drug supplier.”
“Are you sure you should go on with this?” Carmen said tentatively. “It only gets worse.”
“Yes.” Nicole noticed the steely edge in her voice. “I’m sure.”
She turned the page and the headline seemed to scream: “Two Men Found Murdered in Basin Park.” Nicole scanned the article, although she knew the details by heart. Ritchie Zand and Luis Magaro, who only four weeks earlier were arrested then released for sexual assault and battery, had each been found shot in the head. The bodies were hanging from trees near the Interstate 281 overpass. The weapon was a .44 magnum. Both men had died instantly from the gunshot wounds. In a bizarre touch, black hoods had been placed over their heads. Some speculation existed that the men had been the victims of a ritual execution.
The article went on to talk about the promising career of Ritchie Zand, lead singer of the rock group The Zanti Misfits, named for an episode of the science fiction television show The Outer Limits. Only a week before the killings, the band had been given a recording contract with Revel Music. Without Zand, however, the future of the group was unknown.
“The Zanti Misfits,” Carmen said softly. “Ritchie Zand was slime, but he had that fabulous voice. Remember it?”
Nicole shuddered. Oh, yes, she remembered him singing “Radio Ga-Ga” in the backseat while Magaro held a knife at her throat.
“Without him, the band fell apart,” Carmen continued, “but Bobby still talks about it constantly.”
“He does?” Nicole answered absently. Then her memory flashed. “Carmen, I completely forgot! Bobby was the drummer for The Zanti Misfits.”
“That’s right. He’s certain that if Ritchie hadn’t been killed, they would have gone on to stardom. He would have been a millionaire, lusted after by hundreds of groupies, a household name. Instead he’s plain old Bobby Vega, co-owner of a trinket shop on the River Walk.”
“I’d hardly call Vega’s a trinket shop,” Nicole said. “But I cannot believe I forgot about Bobby being in The Zanti Misfits. I thought I remembered everything about the events, the people…”
“Apparently you don’t. I’m not surprised that you forgot about Bobby, though. He wasn’t mixed up in any of this.”
“No, of course he wasn’t, but you were dating Bobby at the time. Didn’t he talk to you about it?”
“Yes.”
“And he believed Zand was guilty, like I said?”
Carmen looked at her in surprise. “Yes, Nicole. He knew Zand was no angel. Why would you ask such a question?”
“Because I’ve always gotten the feeling Bobby doesn’t like me.”
Carmen shrugged. “He is different around you. I’ve noticed it. Maybe it’s because he’s afraid you associate him with that awful time, that maybe you don’t like him because he was friends with Ritchie Zand.”
“Good heavens, and I didn’t even remember he was in the band. So much for crossed wires. Sometime Bobby and I will have to have a talk.” Nicole drew a deep breath, her mouth getting drier. “Now for the worst part.”
“Nicole, you’re looking very pale. I think you should stop—”
But Nicole had already turned the page. She was right. This was the worst part. Here was the article about the arrest of Paul Dominic for the murders of Magaro and Zand. According to the article, the day after the discovery of the bodies, an anonymous tip had sent police to the home of Dominic. There they found a Smith & Wesson .44 magnum, registration numbers filed off, wrapped in a shirt belonging to Dominic. The shirt was smeared with AB Positive blood, the rarest kind, and that belonging to Ritchie Zand. Both the shirt and the gun were stuffed in a trash can. Ballistics verified the magnum as the murder weapon. In addition, Dominic had no alibi for the time of the murders. Finally, several people claimed that Dominic had threatened to get even with the men who allegedly had attacked Nicole Sloan, with whom he was romantically involved. Miss Sloan herself told police that Dominic said to her he would kill Magaro and Zand.
“I don’t remember saying that,” Nicole said faintly. “But everyone says I did.”
“You were heavily medicated after hearing about the murders, Nicole.”
“That’s right. You would have thought I’d have been glad Zand and Magaro were dead. Instead I got hysterical. The police insisted on questioning me. Dad was in Dallas on a trip. Mom was uncharacteristically flustered and called a doctor who sent me spinning with a bunch of tranquilizers.”
“I remember. You were probably babbling to the police things you would never have said if you’d had your wits about you. And after all, Paul did tell you he’d kill them.”
“What I said in such a medicated state should never have been quoted. I shouldn’t have been questioned at that time. I can’t believe what I said in that condition would have been admissible in court. Besides, Paul was just talking, just raging. He wasn’t a killer, Carmen.”
Carmen looked compassionate but dubious. “You’d only known him a couple of months when all of this happened. How well do you really get to know someone in eight weeks?”
“I knew Paul,” Nicole maintained firmly.
“And I’ll bet you thought you knew Roger, too. Yet after all those years of being married to him, you found out you didn’t.” Carmen reached over and touched her hand. “I wonder if we really ever know anybody.”
She’s right, Nicole thought. I believed I knew Roger. I believed I knew my father. But Paul…It was different with Paul.
Numbly she went to the next article, which described how Paul had been released on one million dollars bond. And finally she reached the last clipping, which announced that Paul Dominic had fled. A nationwide search was being conducted for him, but so far police had no leads.
“And he was never found,” Nicole murmured. “That handsome, wealthy, miraculously talented man just vanished off the face of the earth.”
Carmen shook her head. “No. Less than a year later he died in that car wreck. They found some of his possessions that had been thrown clear of the wreck, Nicole. And the body—”
“Was never positively identified,” Nicole interrupted.
Carmen sighed. “All right, let’s say he is alive. What would you have to fear from him? He loved you. He killed for you.”
Nicole looked at her with anguished eyes. “I don’t believe he killed them. I’ve never believed it. But he was arrested for their murders because of me. My rape gave him a motive. And what was one of the most damning pieces of evidence against him? My telling the police that he’d sworn to kill them.”
“Nicole, other people swore he’d said the same thing.”
“No. They said he threatened to ‘get even’ with Magaro and Zand. It’s not the same.” Tears filled her eyes. “Carmen, don’t you see? I was the girl he loved, the girl people thought he killed for, and I was the one who supposedly told the police he planned to do it. I betrayed him. He had a fabulous life, and it was ruined because of me, because of what had happened to me, because of what I said to the police. If he’s alive, he must hate me. Now, just seven months after I moved back to San Antonio, I think he’s returned.” She looked at Carmen, tears streaming down her face. “What if he’s come back because he wants revenge?”
2
Nine thirty-five. Nicole sat at the kitchen table staring at the clock as if she could turn back time to seven o’clock when Roger was supposed to have brought Shelley home.
Nicole had called his apartment three times, each time getting the answering machine and each time leaving an increasingly angry message. The child should be bathed and in bed by now. Instead, Nicole had no idea where she was, and she didn’t know where else to call.
“What does Roger think he’s doing?” she asked Jesse, who lay curled at her feet the way he always did when she was upset. “Is he purposely trying to make me worry? Is that more important to him than Shelley’s welfare?”
Jesse looked up and tilted his head. “You’re right, Jess,” she continued. “Roger may be a jerk, but he loves Shelley. He wouldn’t abuse her just to hurt me.”
Talking with Kay and reading the old newspaper clippings had set her nerves on edge earlier in the day. Mrs. Loomis had stayed until she nearly finished the cake and Nicole was too nervous to wait out her visit, so she had never gotten a chance to talk to her mother about her father’s nightmares or his behavior at home, which frustrated her even more. Now Roger was over two hours late with Shelley.
She drummed her fingers on the table, angry and increasingly concerned. Where could they be? Certainly Roger would be wearing down by now after spending a whole day with his energetic daughter. After all, he hadn’t looked in top condition when he’d picked her up before noon.
A thought suddenly pierced her mind like a dagger. “What if they’ve been in an accident?” she asked aloud. “My God, it never occurred to me to call the hospitals!”
She jumped up and ran to the phone directory. She was looking up the number of the South Texas Medical Center when Jesse began barking and ran to the front window. Headlights flashed in the driveway.
Nicole didn’t remember running out of the house. She even forgot to put on Jesse’s leash. They both dashed across the front lawn and through the brilliant glare of the headlights, which Roger had on high beam, to see Shelley emerging from the back of the Explorer. “Shelley, where have you been?” Nicole yelled, not from anger but from fear and relief. “Didn’t I tell you to be home at seven?”
The child’s tired face crumpled. “I’m sorry,” she quavered, shying away from a blazing-eyed Nicole and bending to clutch Jesse who was jumping ecstatically at her legs. Roger clambered from the car. For a moment Nicole thought he was going to fall down before he regained his footing.
“Where the hell have you been?” Nicole raged.
“Lower your voice,” Roger said stiffly. “You’re making a scene.”
“Answer my question!”
Roger hung on the door of the car for balance. “One of my friends from the department was having a dinner. We went.”
“So you decided to take Shelley along to a dinner party without telling me?”
“I told you I’d give her dinner.”
“Buying her dinner at a restaurant and taking her to a dinner party are two different things.”
“Oh, settle down, Nicole. Listen, the guy’s wife is from Vietnam. Fabulous cook. I thought it would be a good experience for Shelley to taste some genuine Vietnamese food and talk with Mai—that’s the wife—about her life in…well, whatever the hell the name of her village was.”
“I guess you also thought having Shelley watch you get drunk and then drive her home in that condition would be a good experience, too. You’re not even wearing your glasses.”
“I am not drunk.” Roger overenunciated the way all drunks do when trying to prove they’re sober. “I had a couple of drinks. So what?”
“You’ve had far more than a couple. But whatever, you could have called, Roger. It’s nine forty-five, almost three hours after you were supposed to bring her home.”
“Sorry. I guess time slipped up on me.”
“Sorry isn’t good enough, not after what you’ve put me through this evening.” Nicole’s eyes flashed to the other side of the car. A young auburn-haired woman sat nervously in her seat. She didn’t meet Nicole’s eyes. “Lisa Mervin, I presume.”
“Yes. What about it?”
“Roger, you promised me today was for you and Shelley only.”
“I made no such promise.”
“Yes you did!” Nicole shouted.
“I did not. I am not going to keep Shelley away from the woman I intend to marry!”
“I didn’t ask you to keep her away forever. Just for today. You sat right there in our former house and promised me when you knew you had every intention of meeting Lisa.”
Roger glared at her. “What’s happened to you, Nicole? You’ve turned into a loudmouthed, carping, selfish bitch and I feel like slapping that sanctimonious face of yours!”
“Daddy!” Shelley exclaimed, fear edging her young voice.
Nicole stared at the man she’d once thought so stable, so caring. Her Rock of Gibraltar. The father of her beautiful child. Now here he stood, drunk, threatening to hit her, while his young girlfriend sat in the car watching. If she hadn’t been so furious, she could have cried for him. “Roger, I don’t know what has happened to you this past year, but it’s a damned shame,” she said quietly. “You used to be a very likable person.”
“Likable,” he spat. “Likable, not lovable like Paul Dominic. You would never have married me if he hadn’t been killed, no matter what he’d done.”
Nicole’s spine went rigid at the mention of Paul’s name, but she kept her voice steady. “Roger, please get back in your car and shut up. You’re making a fool of yourself in front of your girlfriend.”
“Lisa loves me!”
“She must to tolerate this kind of behavior. But remember, she’s young, she’s beautiful, and there are plenty of fish in the sea. Good night, Roger.”
She wished Lisa would take over the wheel. She appeared more sober than Roger, and Nicole didn’t want there to be a car accident. But she knew Roger. If he insisted he wasn’t drunk and he would do the driving, he would brook no argument. Nicole felt almost sorry for Lisa. Almost.
Shelley ran past her into the house. Nicole watched Roger climb unsteadily back into the car and the headlights weave to the end of the street before he drove over a curb. Then Jesse drew her attention. He stood at the end of the driveway, his little legs stiff, growling low in his throat. Nicole followed his gaze.
On the opposite side of the street sat a big Doberman wearing a red collar. For a moment the significance of the dog’s presence was overshadowed in her mind by her fear for Jesse. In spite of his small, battered body, Jesse had the heart of a lion. He didn’t like other dogs on his turf, and no matter what their size, he would attack. The Doberman wasn’t on Jesse’s territory, but if it made a move…In a flash Nicole saw Jesse’s throat ripped out by the powerful Doberman. Feeling slightly dizzy with the vision, Nicole called softly, “Jesse.” The dog did not respond. “Jess, please,” she said again. He wouldn’t move.
Slowly she walked forward. She could feel the Doberman’s eyes shifting between her and Jesse. She was probably being very foolish. Her mother would tell her she was being ridiculous to risk her own safety to try to save “that pitiful excuse for a dog.” But she’d never acted with what her mother considered good judgment.
As she neared Jesse, she expected him to bolt. If only she had a leash, she thought in frustration. But she didn’t. “Jess, I’m going to pick you up,” she said cajolingly. “I’m going to take you to Shelley, where you belong. Now be a good boy and don’t you dare jump out of my arms.”
Normally Jesse rebelled at being lifted, but miraculously he held perfectly still. She stooped, wrapped her arms around his small body, and clutched him to her chest. With one look back, she saw the Doberman sitting calm and watchful on the sidewalk, its muscular body gleaming beneath a streetlight.
When she got inside, she placed Jesse on the floor, closed and locked the front door, and went to the window. The Doberman was gone.
She found Shelley sitting on the side of her bed, crying. “Mommy, I’m sorry to be late.”
Nicole sat down beside her. “I know, honey. I shouldn’t have yelled. It was stupid, but sometimes grown-ups act stupid when they’re scared. I’ve been so worried, honey. So has Jesse. He’s been biting his nails all evening.”
This elicited a teary smile from Shelley. “No he hasn’t.”
“You’re right. He’s too vain to ruin the manicure he got at the vet’s last week.” The dog jumped up on the bed, climbed on Shelley’s lap, and licked her on the chin. “Did you have a good time today?”
“Lunch at Planet Hollywood was fun although Daddy didn’t like it too much. I knew he wouldn’t but I love it there.” Shelley cocked her head. “I think I want to be a movie star, Mom.”
“You’re certainly pretty enough.”
“But I won’t do nude scenes.”
“I’m glad to hear it. Grandma would have a heart attack.”
Shelley giggled. “Anyway, Daddy was grouchy at Planet Hollywood, but he got real happy when Lisa met us at Sea World.” Shelley stroked one of Jesse’s long ears. “Mom, I don’t like her.”
“You barely know her.”
“But I still don’t like her. She talks to me like I’m six.”
“Maybe she hasn’t been around children very much.”
“She was a kid once.”
“Yes, but as you get older, childhood dims. You forget what you knew at six and what you knew at nine, almost ten.”
“I still don’t like her,” Shelley maintained. “She’s always hanging on Daddy’s arm and talking to him and I never get to say anything. And you know what else? In front of people she kisses him all the time right on the mouth!”
“Well, young lady, you know about mouth-kissing from NYPD Blue.”
“Yeah, but that’s just pretend kissing. Besides, there aren’t a million people laughing like at Daddy and Lisa.”
“I’m sure there weren’t a million people laughing at Daddy and Lisa.”
“Well, maybe not a million, but lots. They were smiling, and they weren’t nice smiles. They were making fun.” Shelley let out a huge, gusty sigh and rolled her eyes. “I was so embarrassed!”
Nicole couldn’t help smiling although she agreed this was inappropriate behavior between Roger and Lisa in a public place and in front of a child. Now she had one more grievance against Roger for today’s performance.
“How about the party?”
“That was even worse! The food was yucky and that woman from Vietnam told stories about people starving and babies dying. It made me cry.”
“I’m sorry, sweetie.”
“But Daddy didn’t want to leave. Lisa did. Nobody would talk to her. They acted like they didn’t want her there, but Daddy still wouldn’t go. Then the man whose house we were at said Daddy’d had enough to drink. Daddy got mad and we left. I don’t think his friends like him anymore, Mom.”
Nicole hugged Shelley. “Today didn’t turn out just like you wanted, but at least you went to Planet Hollywood and Sea World.”
“Yeah,” Shelley said disconsolately. “But I sure wish Daddy was the way he used to be.”
So do I, Nicole thought sadly.
Long after Shelley had finally fallen asleep, Nicole sat curled on the couch, thinking about the day. Who had been sending her father letters marked “Personal” for months and why had they apparently thrown him into a tailspin? As hard as it was to believe, she might have entertained the notion that perhaps he’d had an affair and was being harassed by the former mistress. But that little scenario was ruined by the final letter, the letter he’d set on fire, the letter containing a photo of Paul Dominic.
Paul. Her father had disliked him. He believed the suave man of the world had seduced his daughter, who in his mind was still around thirteen years old. He thought Paul was merely dallying with her while he was spending time in San Antonio. Most of all he blamed Paul for leaving Nicole unprotected, for not walking her to the car where Magaro and Zand waited. But he’d blamed himself too for not keeping a closer eye on his daughter.
Fifteen years ago. Such a long time. Who would be tormenting her father with reminders of Paul after all those years? And why? What had Clifton done? He was the gentlest man she’d ever known.
Finally, she wondered what Paul Dominic had to do with all this. He’d vanished fifteen years ago. He was presumed dead.
But she would swear she’d seen him at the cemetery. Could he have been sending her father the letters? For what reason? Clifton Sloan might have disliked him, but he had nothing to do with Paul’s fate. Although he was briefly considered a suspect himself, the police proved he wasn’t even in the city when Magaro and Zand were killed. Still, he’d never accused Paul publicly or privately of the murders. In fact, he’d told her he believed the original theory that Zand and Magaro had been killed by a cult, therefore the strange hoods on their heads.
Finally, she wondered what on earth was going on with that beautiful, strange Doberman? Who did it belong to and why did it keep turning up, almost as if it were watching her?
The phone rang. Nicole glanced at the clock. Eleven-thirty. Who would be calling at this hour? Roger with another tirade? No. He’d be passed out by now. Maybe her mother with an attack of late-night blues.
She picked up the receiver of the cordless phone beside the couch on the second ring before it awakened Shelley. “Hello?”
“That man who calls himself your husband won’t dare talk to you so cruelly again,” a slightly familiar, smoky-voiced male said softly. “Tonight I’ll give him a warning. But if he continues, chérie, I will kill him.”