Taken to the Edge

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“Eldon,” Robyn said. “It’s too late for that. She already knows.”

“She’s okay with it,” Ford added, lying through his teeth. “She understands. She won’t hold it against you, not at this late date. It was a long time ago.”

Eldon shook his head stubbornly.

“You’d rather die than take this chance?” Ford asked.

He didn’t respond.

“We’ll find her without your cooperation,” Ford said with steely determination. “And when we do, I won’t be gentle with her. I’ll feed her name to every sleazy reporter in the country. Her life will be a living hell.”

ROBYN WANTED TO OBJECT to Ford’s harsh threat. Hadn’t Eldon been savaged enough? But what did Ford care? He didn’t know Eldon, had never seen him playing horsey with Justin or entertaining the baby with faces while changing his diaper. Ford’s job wasn’t to make friends. He was pursuing this case the way he did everything—moving resolutely forward, eye on the goal, never wavering.

It was the reason she’d agreed with Trina that he was the right man for the case.

When Ford had shielded her from the media vultures, she had thought she’d seen a speck of caring there. But she must have been mistaken. The man was a machine.

“Eldon,” Robyn said gently, grasping his attention. “No matter what happens, you won’t die alone. I will be here for you. I still care for you.”

“How could you?” he asked. “After what you’ve been through…”

“You lost a son, too. Maybe you aren’t the most faithful of husbands, but that doesn’t mean you didn’t love your son—or that you should die for someone else’s crime. For the love we had for Justin—for the love we once shared. Help us help you.” A single tear escaped, and she dashed it away. “Tell us the woman’s name. We’ll handle it sensitively.”

Eldon closed his eyes, battling some internal demon. Finally he looked at Robyn, shutting out Ford. “Heather.” He barely whispered the word. “It was Heather.”

“Heather Boone?” Robyn asked, her voice coming out a hoarse accusation. Oh, God. No wonder he hadn’t wanted to say anything.

“Do you understand now?”

Robyn was afraid she did. “How old was she at the time?” She chanced a look at Ford, gauging his reaction. He leaned back in his chair, his face a granite wall. But she noted a faint flicker of displeasure in his eyes. He wasn’t happy with the conversation’s direction.

“She was above the age of consent,” Eldon said.

Ford suddenly sat forward. “Look, would somebody mind telling me who Heather Boone is?”

“She was one of my art students. Someone I took a special interest in. Apparently Eldon did, too,” she added bitterly. “Damn it, Eldon, she was a troubled child. How could you take advantage—”

“I was helping her.”

“By sleeping with her?”

“Time-out!” Ford silenced them with his outburst. Robyn looked at him, startled at his show of temper. But there was a time to be sensitive, and a time to play hardball. Ford instinctively knew which strategy to use. “If you want me to move forward with this case, y’all are both gonna have to shut up and listen to me. Eldon, you’re dealing with me now, not your ex-wife. Tell me from start to finish what happened that night. And if I sense any bullshit, I’m walking out of here and never coming back.”

CHAPTER FOUR

ROBYN SHRANK BACK IN THE face of Ford’s anger. She wasn’t used to people speaking to her that way. Most people, family included, handled her with kid gloves. They tolerated any sort of emotional outburst or bad behavior because she had lost her child to tragedy.

She stared at Ford and he at her, bracing for more harsh words. But they didn’t come. After a few charged moments he sat back in his chair and straightened some papers on the table in front of him.

Robyn switched her attention to Eldon, positive he would be the next to explode. Her ex had never tolerated anyone speaking to him in such a manner—which hadn’t boded well for him during police interrogations. But to her surprise, he didn’t strike back. He folded his arms and looked down in a classic posture of submission.

He hardly looked like the man she knew. Or thought she knew. God, he’d had an affair with a teenager. A girl still in high school. Barely legal. Of course, Robyn had been the same age when Eldon had first become interested in her; Trina had barely been out of her teens at the time Robyn discovered that affair.

“I’ll go over the story again,” Eldon said calmly, as if the outburst hadn’t happened. “If you think it will help.”

He started at the beginning, when he had picked up Justin from Robyn’s house and they’d argued about his mother’s interference. His story lined up with her own—possibly because they had both told it so many times that their memories had become identical.

When he got to the part about Heather, he spoke barely above a whisper, so that Ford had to ask him to speak up so the digital recorder could pick up his voice.

They had spent the evening as people having illicit affairs generally did. Then Heather, with a case of the postcoital munchies, had begged Eldon to order pizza. He’d gone to pick it up, he said, because the restaurant didn’t deliver past midnight.