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She had a career and a neatly ordered life. She always imagined she didn’t need anything else. Easy’s startling reemergence made her see the lie. She did want a husband and children, but she was afraid, simple as that. Afraid to love, afraid to lose again, afraid of a broken heart.
Bearing an illegitimate child didn’t brand her as a fallen woman. She’d been sixteen, a child who made a mistake. She rubbed her flat belly, dismayed by the emptiness she felt inside.
She slid the ring onto her finger. It was weighty, flashy, alien.
Certainly Jeffrey would understand. What’s more, she felt, he would still love her.
INSIDE THE PEAK CAFÉ, Easy looked toward the booth where he and Trish usually sat. The small café off Academy Boulevard sat halfway between his office and hers, so they often met here for lunch. Trish waggled her fingers at him. He joined her.
“I ordered you a Peak burger,” she said.
“Thanks.” He wondered if he’d be able to eat it.
She searched his face. “Oh God, Catherine doesn’t believe you about Jeffrey Livman.”
A waitress arrived with two iced teas. She smiled at Easy. He tried to smile back at her, but failed. His gut ached as if he’d been kicked.
“We never talked about Livman.”
Trish’s face twisted in a puzzled frown. She dumped Sweet’n Low into her iced tea. “She wasn’t home?”
“She was there all right.” He huffed a long breath, staring at the iced tea, repulsed. He’d been a confirmed soda drinker until Catherine introduced him to the pleasure of a glass of icy cold sun-brewed tea.
“What happened, Easy? Was Livman there? He’s not supposed to see you. You’ll spook him.” She launched into a diatribe about how Easy was supposed to operate. John had tried to convince the police to investigate Roberta’s death, but they’d found no evidence of foul play and there had been no witnesses. Romoco Insurance, which had carried the life insurance policy, had worked with John, but despite the large benefit, they had turned up nothing to suggest Roberta’s death was anything other than an accident. When the coroner declared the death accidental and closed the file, the insurance company had been forced to pay out, and John’s hope for a police in-■ vestigation had died. They needed a confession. The only way to get it would be to lull Livman into believing he’d gotten away with his crime.
Easy waited until his sister ran out of steam. “Livman wasn’t there. Remember when she left town?”
“Yeah, junior year. She moved.”
“Her parents threw her out. She was pregnant.”
Eyes wide, mouth opened, Trish stared at him.
“I didn’t know. We had that big fight before she could tell me. I can’t believe how stupid I was. I should’ve known.”
“I’m an aunt?” A slow smile brightened Trish’s face. Her eyes glowed. “Boy or girl? Name? Did—”
“She gave the baby up for adoption.”
Her smile winked out like a blown lightbulb. “Oh no. How could she do that? It’s your baby, too. Why didn’t she ever tell you? You guys were so much in love. You’d have married her, right? I know you would have.”
“Why don’t you use a bullhorn? I think some of the people in the parking lot didn’t hear you.” Embarrassed as if he were eighteen again, caught doing something nasty, he glanced around the small restaurant to see if anyone paid attention.
“Sorry,” she mumbled. She leaned over the table and lowered her voice. “I thought she was so smart. Why didn’t she tell you?”
He shook his head. “I was mean to her. When I joined the army, she thought I ran out on her.”
The waitress arrived with their lunch. She set a steaming burger covered with onions, mushrooms and Jack cheese in front of Easy. The knots in his belly jerked tighter. He averted his gaze.
Trish stole the dill pickles off his plate, arranged them on her burger, then sliced the sandwich in half. “You better not tell Mom and Dad.” Her voice reverberated with dire warning.
Their parents bemoaned the single status of their children. They wanted them married, and the house filled with grandchildren to spoil. News of a lost grandchild would crush them.
Trish bit into her burger, chewed and swallowed. She wiped her mouth with a paper napkin. “You can find your kid. You find adopted kids all the time. Shoot, it’s so easy, I could do it.”
Tempting, very tempting. He imagined his daughter looking like a miniature version of Catherine. She probably insisted on being called Elizabeth, never Lizzy or Beth or Betsy. Maybe she was artistic, she was definitely a brain, pulling straight As.
“You have to,” Trish insisted.
Shaking away the images in his head, Easy grunted irritably. “Right now the problem is Livman. I did some research. Catherine paid cash for her house in Black Forest, so she’s got some money of her own. Livman won’t have to shell out for insurance premiums in order to turn a nice profit.”
Trish shuddered. “You can’t let her marry him.”
He poured ketchup on the plate and swirled a french fry through it.
“What are you going to do?”
“I don’t know,” he snapped.
She reached across the table and placed a slim hand atop his. “She really got to you, didn’t she?”
“It’s weird. Seeing her again…” He pulled his hand away from hers—he deserved a good kick, not comforting. “She hates me. She thinks it’s my fault she lost the baby. She won’t listen to me.”
“I’ll talk to her. We were friends. Sort of. She’ll listen to me.”
He considered the offer, but discarded it. He suspected one more blast from the past would cause Catherine to run out and buy a shotgun in order to shoot any trespassing Martel on sight. “I have to dig up some dirt on Livman.”
“John already looked. There’s nothing.”
Easy had been impressed by the amount of information John had dug up on his former brother-in-law: schooling, job history, finances, family. None of it, unfortunately, pointed to murder. “There has to be a pattern somewhere. He didn’t decide on the spur of the moment to push Roberta off that rock.”
Trish scrunched her face into an expression of distaste. “You think he killed someone else?”
“Who knows? But I’m thinking Roberta isn’t the first woman he abused.”
Chapter Three (#ulink_14515524-9d8b-542b-86a3-d6031ee08f25)
Easy smiled at the elderly woman who answered the door of the small brick bungalow in Arvada. This quiet neighborhood in a suburb of Denver consisted of tract homes built in the 1950s. Mature elm trees shaded the sidewalks. In this house Jeffrey Livman had grown from a boy into a man.
“Mrs. Vera Livman?” He looked up from the clipboard he carried and glanced at the metal house numbers attached to the bricks next to the door. “I’m from the utility company.” He flicked a finger against the identification badge clipped to the pocket of his coveralls. A computer publishing program, a Polaroid camera and a small laminating machine made producing identification badges and cards a snap. At the moment he was Earl Spencer, employee number 187 with the gas company.
“We’ve got a suspected gas leak in this block. May I come in to check your lines, ma’am?” The lie slipped smoothly from his mouth—he’d used it before. It rarely failed, especially with older women who lived alone. He held up a toy laser gun. Shaped like an oversize television remote, it had an impressive array of dials, switches and lights. It made a terrific “gas detector.” “It won’t take five minutes, ma’am.”
“Gas? I haven’t smelled anything.” She blinked owl-ishly from behind thick bifocals.
“With any luck, you won’t. Safety first, though. It’s nothing to mess around with.”
She unlatched the storm door and pushed it open. “Certainly.”
He walked inside. “Gas leaks are worse in the summertime. People have their windows open so they don’t smell the fumes. Gas builds up in pockets. Is your husband home, ma’am? I’d like to show you both where the—”
“I’m a widow.” She nervously rubbed her hands together.
He noticed the telltale swelling of arthritis in her knuckles. He noticed, too, the guileless trust in her eyes.
A pang of conscience tightened his chest. He preferred gathering information in a straightforward manner. Ask the questions, glean what answers he could, then split. He needed, however, to handle this operation as he did for the occasional bail jumpers he traced—carefully, without alarming friends and family with too many questions. He especially didn’t want to alarm Livman’s mother. No matter what, a mother’s love won out every single time.
He’d discovered a worrisome pattern in Livman’s life. The man apparently felt no qualms about dumping jobs, homes, cars or acquaintances. In the past twenty years, he’d worked for more than a dozen real-estate companies. He’d bought and sold dozens of homes and properties. Nobody seemed to know Livman well. A few people had been surprised to learn he’d been married and was now a widower. Easy suspected if the heat turned up too high, Livman wouldn’t have a second thought about skipping the state. Still, sneaking around, asking covert questions and hoping nobody noticed his interest, was getting on Easy’s nerves.
Mrs. Livman showed him to the basement. It had linoleum flooring, simulated wood panelling on the walls, and that funky, old-house-basement smell. It reminded him of the house where he’d grown up. While the woman hovered anxiously, he played with the laser toy, sweeping it around the gas lines, furnace and water heater. He made lights blink and a few presses of his thumb caused dial indicators to jump.
“Clean as a whistle,” he announced.
“Oh, good! You were scaring me, young man.”
“Sorry. My instrument is sensitive. But everything is operating normally. No leaks, no problems. Thank you for your time, ma’am, and sorry for bothering you.”
She protested heartily that he was no bother at all. At the top of the stairs, he noticed the knob was loose on the basement door. He pretended to lose his grip on his clipboard and while catching it, he gave the doorknob an ex-trahard shake. It rattled loudly.
“You’re about to lose your doorknob, ma’am.”
She sighed heavily. “Sometimes it just seems like this old house is falling apart. Sort of like I am.”
He pulled a Phillips head screwdriver from his work belt. “Just need to tighten the screws, ma’am. Only take a second.”
Her smile beamed pure gratitude; he lowered his head so she couldn’t see his shame. He jiggled the doorknob into place and tightened the screws. As he sensed she might, she acted as if he’d saved her from a burning building. She offered him something to drink. He made a show of checking his watch, but allowed her to coax him into accepting the offer.
In the small living room he pretended to make notes on the clipboard while she fetched him a glass of lemonade. He sipped and declared it the best he’d ever tasted. Then he nodded at a large, framed portrait hanging prominently in the middle of a montage of photographs. It pictured five girls, ranging from around ten to perhaps eighteen, all of them blue-eyed blondes with pretty faces and big smiles. Seated on the lap of the eldest girl was a toddler, a blond, blue-eyed boy.
“Your family?”
“My children.” She practically wriggled with pride. “All grown-up now and on their own. They visit whenever they can.”
“My wife and I have only one boy. He’s a handful. A real little terror.”
“Boys are like that. Always into one thing or another.” She clucked her tongue. “Mischief and pranks and being ornery. I never had a speck of trouble with the girls, but Jeff sure gave me the devil.”
“I bet it was hard,” Easy said sympathetically.
“It sure was! My husband died soon after little Jeff was born, leaving me with six kids and no money. Fortunately I was a skilled legal secretary. I managed to support us. And the girls were a great help with little Jeff.” She giggled. “He’s not so little anymore. But he’s still my baby. He would have come to fix that doorknob, but he’s a very important businessman. He owns a huge real-estate company down south in Colorado Springs.”
A creepy sensation crawled up Easy’s spine. Livman’s sisters were all blue-eyed blondes. Roberta had been a blue-eyed blonde. As was Catherine. While Mrs. Livman waxed poetic about her perfect family and how the girls all rallied to help their mother raise the baby boy, Easy began to wonder if perhaps something more than money had motivated Livman to kill his wife.
CATHERINE HOPPED onto a picnic table. She shook her ponytail and raked damp tendrils of hair off her face. Not a whiff of breeze offered a cooling touch on her hot face, but she didn’t care. She loved Fox Run Park with its winding trails and pine trees. Oscar and Bent loved it, too. Mouths wide open and tongues dragging, the greyhounds lay in a patch of shade, serenely watching the small lake below.
She watched Jeffrey stretch his hamstrings. He’d been avoiding her all week. She’d hurt his feelings during the scene at the Grape and Olive. She’d acted poorly—reacted poorly. He loved her and she had treated his proposal like a personal attack. No wonder he’d been short on the telephone and “busy” all week. It surprised her somewhat that he’d agreed to meet her for a run in the park this morning.
“For an old guy,” she said, “you run pretty good.”
“Old, huh?” He used both hands to swipe sweat off his face. He sat on the picnic table beside her.
She admired the way he looked in his shorts and sleeveless T-shirt, his body toned and fit, his smile relaxed. He worked hard, vowing he’d be a millionaire before his fortieth birthday, but he knew how to play, too.
They liked the same music and movies. Both of them loved their work. Jeffrey enjoyed the outdoors—biking, hiking, running, camping—as much as she did. Most of the time they were so comfortable together it seemed as if she’d known him all her life.
“Can we talk?” she asked. All week she’d been working toward this conversation, seeking the perfect time and place. Now alone in the park, she knew it would never get better than this.
“Uh-oh, sounds serious.”
She couldn’t face him. “It’s about…the other night.”
“Is this a good talk? Or the kiss of death?”
She rested her forearms on her knees. This was hard. She didn’t know anything about relationships. “I owe you an apology. I realize now that what you did was very special. You’re romantic and impulsive, and I do want you to know I appreciate the gesture.”
He snorted. “Didn’t look appreciative. It was a real kick in the gut when you ran out on me.”
She cringed inwardly. She’d had plenty of time to consider what he meant to her. After Easy’s visit, it struck her that she could live her life on hold, or she could really live. A man as good as Jeffrey didn’t come along every day. Considering how difficult it was for her to meet new people, she might never meet another man like him. “I’ve been doing a lot of thinking. You’re right, we’re good together. We could make a great life.”
He lifted an eyebrow. His lips pursed. “It seems to me, that’s what I told you.”
“Please don’t be difficult, Jeffrey. I’m trying to apologize. To explain. There’s something I have to tell you, but it’s hard.”
“Sounds ominous.”
Maybe it was. She watched crows wheeling lazy circles over the pine trees. Did she love Jeffrey? If love meant respect, affection and a desire for his approval, then she did. It felt far, far different than what she’d felt for Easy. That, she reasoned, had been infatuation, not true, mature love.
“Cath—”
“Give me a minute. This is hard. I’ve never talked about it before.” She licked her lips and swiped sweat off her brow. The only way to say it was to just say it. “When I was sixteen, a junior in high school, I fell in love with a boy. I got pregnant. I gave the baby up for adoption.” She closed her eyes, waiting.
“That’s it?” he asked.
“That’s it” She made herself look at him, seeking clues to his reaction.
“You’ve never told anybody?”
Bemused by his nonreaction, she lifted a shoulder. “Nowadays, the talk shows and magazines make out-of-wedlock babies seem like no big deal. But it was a big deal to me, and still is.” She stretched out her legs and flexed her feet. “It still hurts.”
“Are you scared I’ll call you damaged goods and stomp off?”
It startled her to discover that was exactly what she feared. At hearing it said aloud, it seemed ridiculous. She forced a smile. “I don’t know: Will you?”
He laughed and picked up her hand. “I should have known it was something like this. You’re too sensitive. I’m glad you told me, Catherine. Honest. It explains a lot.”
“Like what?”
“Like why it’s so hard getting close to you.” He scowled in mock ferocity and leaned his face close to hers. “Why you ran out on me when I proposed. I felt like a jerk. Not to mention wasting a bottle of very expensive champagne.”
