Grayson (12 page)

She could coax him into kissing her again. Maybe even talk him into coming to her bed. But he would soon feel trapped, and he would blame himself—and her—for feeling that way. She cared for him too much to make him go through that. Grayson already had enough duty forced on him in his life without making him feel even a shred of obligation to her. More kissing would make him feel obligated.

“You okay?” Grayson asked.

She glanced at him and realized he’d seen her hand on her stomach. “I’m fine.”

He seemed suspicious of her answer, but he didn’t press it. Nor would he. A discussion about the baby was off-limits for both of them, and Eve was thankful for it. Conversation wasn’t going to help with this matter. No. The only thing that would help was to put some distance between them.

The voice on the GPS directed them toward another turn, and Grayson drove into the upscale San Antonio neighborhood. Of course, she hadn’t expected Cicely to live in a shack, but it was obvious the woman had done well in the divorce settlement.

Grayson parked in the driveway of the two-story Victorian-style home. It was painted a soft buttery yellow with white trim, and despite the fact that it was the dead of winter, the lawn was as pristine as the house.

“I have a warrant for Cicely’s DNA,” Grayson ex plained, grabbing the large padded envelope that earlier he’d put on the backseat. “I can compare it to Nina’s. If it’s a match, we’ll have proof that Nina is really Sophia Collier.”

“What about Claude’s DNA?” Eve asked.

“There’s a warrant for that, too. Nate’s over there now collecting it.”

Poor Nate. She doubted Claude would make the process easy. For that matter, maybe Cicely wouldn’t either, especially when they told her that her long-lost daughter was likely dead. Murdered, at that.

Eve was bracing herself for the worst.

Grayson and she got out of the car and went to the door. Unlike at the Collier estate, Cicely already had the door open and was waiting for them.

Cicely looked exactly as she had in the photographs that Annabel had taken of her in Claude’s office. Her short, dark brown hair was perfect, not a strand out of place, and she wore a simple olive-green wool suit. She was nothing like Annabel, her curvy young replacement, but it was easy to see that Cicely had once been stunningly beautiful.

“Sheriff Ryland,” Cicely greeted. Her nerves were there in her voice and the worry etched on her face.

“Mrs. Collier. This is Eve Warren. She’s helping with the investigation.”

“Yes.” She stared at Eve and repeated it. “Sebastian called and told me that Ms. Warren had taken a picture that you have some questions about.”

Cicely stepped back, motioning for them to enter. She didn’t say anything else until she led them into a cozy room off the back of the foyer. The painting over the stone fireplace immediately caught Eve’s eye. It was an oil painting of two babies. One was definitely Sophia, and she guessed the other one was Sebastian.

“My children,” Cicely explained, following Eve’s gaze. “Won’t you please have a seat?” She motioned toward the pair of chairs.

There was a gleaming silver tray with a teapot and cookies on the coffee table. Cicely sat on a floral sofa and began to serve them. Eve sat across from her.

“Sebastian dropped by earlier, and we had a long chat.” Cicely’s hands were trembling when she passed Eve the tea that she’d poured in a delicate cup painted with yellow roses. “He’s worried. And so am I. You think Sebastian had something to do with Nina Manning’s death.”

“Did he?” Grayson asked. He waved off the tea when Cicely offered it to him and sat in the chair next to Eve.

“No.” Cicely’s pale green eyes came to Eve’s. “But of course, that means nothing. I would say that because he’s my son.”

Eve was more than a little surprised that a mother would admit that. Of course, despite her comment about
being worried,
maybe Cicely and Sebastian weren’t that close.

Grayson took out the warrant and the DNA kit from the envelope and handed them to Cicely. “I need a sample of your DNA.”

Cicely’s forehead bunched up, and for a moment Eve thought she would refuse, but she only refused the warrant. She pushed it aside, took the swab and without questions, she used it on the inside of her mouth.

“It’s not necessary, you know,” she said, handing the kit back to Grayson.

Yes, it was, and Eve figured Grayson was about to tell her why. Eve held her breath.

“Mrs. Collier—” But that was as far as Grayson got.

“Yes,” Cicely interrupted. “I know that Nina Manning is…was my daughter.”

Eve didn’t know who looked more surprised— Grayson or her.

Cicely took a sip of tea, but her hand was trembling so much that some of it sloshed into the saucer. “I’ve already done the DNA test, and I can provide a copy of the results if you need them.”

Grayson stayed quiet a moment. “How long have you known that she was your daughter?”

Cicely dodged his gaze. “About a month.”

“A month?” Grayson mumbled something under his breath. “And you didn’t think you should tell the police that your kidnapped daughter had returned?”

“I considered many things but not that.” Cicely let the vague comment hang in the air for several seconds. “About a month ago, Nina showed up here and claimed to be Sophia. She said that as a baby she’d been abandoned at a church and had been raised in foster care. I didn’t believe her, of course. Not until I got back the results from the DNA test.”

Cicely blinked back tears. “I thought my daughter was dead.”

After twenty-two years, that was reasonable, but Eve knew if she’d been in Cicely’s shoes, she would have never stopped looking.
Never.

“What happened when you found out Nina was telling the truth?” Grayson asked.

Balancing her cup on her lap, she picked at a nonexistent piece of lint on her jacket. “I begged her to come home. It was obvious that she needed help. Rehab. Counseling. Did you know that she’d been selling her body to support her drug habit?”

Grayson nodded. “She had a record.”

Cicely pulled in her breath as if it were physically painful to hear her suspicions confirmed. “She refused my help. She only wanted money, and I didn’t want to hand over cash because I knew she’d just use it for drugs. So, I called Claude to see if he would help me convince her to go to rehab.”

Grayson and Eve exchanged a glance.

“Claude knew that Nina was your daughter?” Grayson asked.

“Of course,” Cicely said without hesitation. “What? Did he deny it?”

“He did,” Grayson confirmed.

Her mouth tightened. “Well, apparently he wasn’t just a weasel of a husband, he’s also a weasel of a father.” She practically dumped her teacup onto the table and got up. She folded her arms over her chest and paced. “Did you meet his new tart of a wife?”

“Yes, we met Annabel.” Grayson didn’t say a word about the photos Annabel had provided. Without them, it might have taken a lot longer to make the connection between Nina and Sophia. However, Eve wasn’t sure that had been Annabel’s intention.

“Annabel,” Cicely repeated the name like it was a profanity. “You can put her at the top of the list of suspects as my daughter’s killer. She probably hired her lapdog, Leon Ames, to murder my baby in cold blood.”

Eve set her tea aside also. This conversation was definitely loaded with bombshells. “Why would Annabel do that?” Eve wanted to know.

Cicely rubbed her fingers together. “Money, plain and simple. Claude’s dying, you know?”

Grayson shook his head. “You’re sure?”

“Positive. Sebastian told me all about it. Claude has a malignant nonoperable brain tumor. Probably has less than two months to live. And when they put Claude in the ground, the tart will inherit half of his estate. If Sophia had lived, the split would have been three ways. Apparently, that wasn’t enough money for her.”

Mercy. If that was true, then Cicely had not only just given Annabel a motive but Sebastian, as well. After all, Sebastian certainly hadn’t volunteered anything about the dead woman being his sister. In fact, he’d lied to Grayson from the very start.

“I need to re-interview Claude and Sebastian,” Grayson said, standing.

“Annabel, too,” Cicely insisted. “She’s the one who had my baby killed, and I’m going to prove it. I want her surgically perfected butt tossed in jail.”

Cicely wasn’t so shaky now. She looked like a woman on a mission of revenge.

“You need to stay out of the investigation,” Grayson reminded her. “If Annabel is guilty, I’ll figure out a way to prove it.”

Cicely didn’t respond, and Eve wondered just how much trouble the woman would be. She wasn’t just going to drop this.

“You can see yourselves out,” Cicely said with ice in her voice. She’d apparently worked herself into a frenzy and was no longer in the hostess mode.

Grayson and Eve did just that. They saw themselves out, but Eve was reeling from what they’d just learned. Reeling and frustrated.

“I thought by now we’d have just one suspect,” Eve whispered to Grayson on the way to the door. “Instead we have two—Annabel and Sebastian.”

“We have four,” Grayson whispered back, and he didn’t say more until they were outside. “Claude might not have been so happy to see his drug-addicted, prostitute daughter return to the family fold.”

True. He had a thing about keeping mud off his good name. “And the fourth suspect?”

Grayson opened the car door for her, and she got inside. “Cicely.”

Eve shook her head. “You think she would kill her own daughter?”

“I don’t know, but I’m going to find out.” He shut her door, got in behind the wheel and drove away. He took a deep breath. “I could drop you off at SAPD headquarters while I re-interview the Colliers.”

Eve gave him a flat look. “I’m going with you.”

Grayson matched her look and added a raised eyebrow. “There could be a killer in the house.”

She wasn’t immune to the fear, mainly because Eve believed that one of the Colliers was indeed a killer. But she was stuck on this investigation treadmill until Grayson made an arrest. Eve wanted to confront the danger head-on, and the sooner that happened, the better.

Grayson mumbled something about her being stubborn and grabbed his phone. “Then I’ll have Nate bring the Colliers into the police station.”

Eve didn’t have to guess how this would play out. “They aren’t going to like that.”

“Good. Because I don’t like the lies they’ve told us. Plus, I’d like to see how Claude reacts when I show him the memory card his wife gave us.”

Eve almost felt sorry for Annabel.
Almost.
But then, Annabel did have a strong motive for murder—her soon-to-be-dead husband’s money. And it was as if Annabel was trying to put the blame on either Claude or her stepson with those pictures she’d taken.

Grayson made the call to Nate, and while he was arranging the follow-up interview with the Colliers, Eve grabbed her laptop because she wanted to continue studying the photos. Before she could do that, however, she noticed the email from her doctor, Alan Stephenson.

The message was simple. “I’ve been trying to reach you. Call me.”

Eve automatically reached for her cell, only to remember she didn’t have one. It was in Grayson’s truck, which had gone into the creek. She hadn’t checked her answering machine at the condo either, mainly because Grayson had been in such a hurry to get her out of there.

“I need to use your phone,” she told Grayson the moment he ended his call with Nate.

“Anything wrong?” he asked.

“I’m not sure.” Eve took the cell and frantically pressed in the phone number at the bottom of the email. A dozen things went through her mind, most of them bad. Had the doctor been wrong about her ovulating? Had she put Grayson through all of this for nothing? Her heart broke at the thought of her being too late to have a child of her own.

She got the doctor’s answering service first, but Dr. Stephenson had left word to put her call through to him. Moments later, the doctor picked up.

“Eve,” he greeted, but she could hear something in his voice. This was not good news.

“I got your email. You’ve been trying to call me?”

“Most of yesterday afternoon. I found a private sperm donor, but as you probably already know, it’s already too late. I’m sorry.”

Her lungs were aching so she released the breath she’d been holding. “I found a donor.” She didn’t look at Grayson, but she sensed he was looking at her.

“That’s wonderful.” The doctor sounded both sur prised and relieved. “Did you use artificial insemination?”

The image of Grayson in the woods flashed through her mind. “No. There wasn’t time.”

The doctor cleared his throat. “Well, the old-fashioned way works, too.”

And was a lot more pleasurable. But Eve kept that to herself. “I know it’s probably a long shot.”

“Maybe not. Having sex when you’re ovulating substantially increases the odds. Come in next week, and I’ll run a test. We should be able to tell if you’re pregnant.”

Everything inside Eve began to spin. “Next week? That soon?”

“That soon,” the doctor assured her. “Call the office and make an appointment. I’ll see you then.”

The doctor ended the call, and Eve just sat there and stared at the phone. It was exactly the news she wanted. The doctor was hopeful that she had conceived, and she wouldn’t have to wait long. Seven days. That was it. And she would know if Grayson and she had made a baby.

But she immediately shook her head. She couldn’t think of this as Grayson’s baby.

Only hers.

“My doctor can do the pregnancy test next week,” she relayed to Grayson, though he was looking at everything but her now.

He didn’t respond. Which was just as well. Best not to mention pregnancy tests or the baby again because if this interview with the Colliers went well, maybe Grayson could make an arrest. Then, they would go their separate ways. That stung.

But it was necessary. A baby had to be enough. She couldn’t go weaving a fantasy life with Grayson when the last thing he wanted was to raise another child.

Eve cursed the tears that sprang to her eyes, and then she cursed Grayson for being able to detach so easily. She glanced at him to see if he’d had any reaction whatsoever to the test news, but he was volleying his attention between the street ahead and the rearview mirror.