Moving Target (8 page)

Maisie took a delicate sip of tea and made a determined effort to change the subject. “It would appear you’ve done quite well for yourself, Lee,” she said. “Exactly what kind of work did you do? I assume you’re retired now, of course.”

“He’s a property manager,” Ali answered in Leland’s place. “And no, he’s not retired. You love what you do, don’t you?” She was tempted to
give him a wink. Afraid that one of the twins might intercept it, she refrained.

“Quite right,” Leland agreed smoothly. “I don’t ever see myself retiring. I expect I’ll be more like one of those old dray horses and die in the traces.”

“Do you have children? Grandchildren?” Maisie persisted. “You must have photos. Please show us.”

“Yes, do,” added Daisy. “By all means.”

“I lost the love of my life several years ago,” Leland answered quietly. “We were never able to have any children.”

“Your wife is deceased, then?” Maisie asked.

“It’s all too painful and I’d rather not talk about it, if you don’t mind.” Leland’s deft reply left Maisie free to draw her own conclusions. “What about the two of you?” he added. “What all have you been up to while I’ve been gone?”

For the next twenty minutes, Maisie delivered a monologue with a detailed rundown of how the two sisters had taken ownership of the family home and turned it into a thriving business. As far as Maisie was concerned, she and Daisy were among Bournemouth’s finest hoteliers, and Jordan’s offered the very best in accommodations.

While Maisie talked, Daisy systematically ate her way through most of the food on the table. It would have been a lot more difficult for Ali to listen to Maisie’s brag-o-rama if she hadn’t been able to see that Leland was enjoying himself immensely. Eventually, Maisie ran out of steam. When she went looking for food, there was precious little left.

Maisie then returned to grilling Leland about his life in the U.S. Where exactly did he live? Wasn’t Arizona terribly hot? Did Indians live anywhere near where he did, and were they dangerous? Had he ever thought about returning to England to live?

That last question Leland answered with a definitive shake of the head. “The U.S. is my home now,” he told them. “It’s been very kind to me, and there’s nothing for me back here, not anymore.”

Maisie pursed her thin lips. Ali could almost see the words “But
what about us?” running through her hennaed head, but she didn’t say them aloud.

“Have you been in touch with that friend of yours? What was his name again? Tom something.”

Ali saw Leland’s jaw tighten. “Thomas,” he said quietly. “Thomas Blackfield.”

“That’s the one,” Maisie said with a nod. “He was quite handsome, wasn’t he? Did you know Daisy had a terrible crush on him?”

Leland shook his head.

“That was before I met Roger,” Daisy interjected. “My late husband.”

“Did you let Thomas know you were coming to visit?” Maisie asked.

“I’m afraid Thomas and I lost touch,” Leland said.

“Well,” Maisie went on, clearly happy to fill in the blanks, “he spent his entire career at the Kembry Park Academy, first as a teacher and later as headmaster. He was in charge when they closed it down. People can’t afford private schools these days, not the way they used to. He’s still around, though. You should be sure to see him while you’re here. I understand he’s not been doing all that well since his wife died. Sally was such a wonderful person, a local girl, several years younger than we were. One of those people always reaching out to give others a helping hand. You would have loved her.” She smiled confidently at Leland.

“I’m sure I would have,” Leland murmured.

“I knew them both from church,” Daisy said. “Sally was utterly delightful. They were never able to have children. That must have been difficult for her since they spent so much time with other people’s children.”

“What happened to her?” Ali asked.

Maisie shrugged. “It was at least a year or so ago. First there was an announcement in the paper about celebrating their fiftieth wedding anniversary with some kind of upscale get-together—I believe it was in the ballroom at the Royal Bath. A few weeks later, poor Sally was dead,
just like that. Something quite sudden, I believe. A stroke or something on that order. So sad, really. Terribly sad.”

It’s sad, all right, Ali thought, glancing at Leland’s stricken face. And for more than one reason.

At that point, Daisy nudged her sister’s arm and glanced pointedly at her watch. Maisie took the hint. “We should be going,” she said. “It is getting late. I’d hate to think we overstayed our welcome.”

By the time Leland and Ali walked them to the front entrance and said goodbye, Ali was more than ready to be rid of them. “That wasn’t so bad, now, was it?” she said to Leland as the glass doors swung shut behind their departing guests.

“Wasn’t it?” Leland replied grimly. “The whole thing was their fault, you know. Thomas and I were trying to steer clear of those girls when we ran into Langston and Frances that day. If we hadn’t—if Langston hadn’t been so outraged at being caught with his pants down—who knows how things would have turned out?”

“Who knows?” Ali agreed. “But here’s one good thing. We’re staying at the Highcliff as opposed to Jordan’s-by-the-Sea. I don’t know about you, but I’ve had quite enough of your relatives for one day. Why don’t we go up to the room? If we’re hungry later, we can order from room service or raid the rest of the fruit basket.”

“I doubt I’ll be hungry,” Leland said.

Ali studied him as they rode up in the elevator. Some of the light had gone out of that jaunty, nattily dressed gentleman who had ridden down with her in the same elevator only an hour and a half earlier.

“What’s wrong?” Ali asked.

“Fifty years,” Leland replied dejectedly, shaking his head. “I wondered about Thomas from time to time, but I never would have imagined that—that he would have been married for fifty years. That’s a very long time for me to have been so mistaken about who I thought he was. It’s as though my entire life was based on a series of erroneous assumptions.”

“Maybe you weren’t wrong,” Ali said. “Back in that era and even now, I have a feeling, there have been more than a few gay people who married and stayed married for camouflage reasons.”

Leland shook his head. “Maybe so,” he said.

Hoping to brighten his spirits, Ali asked, “What’s on the agenda for tomorrow?”

“If the weather’s better, I’d like to visit the cemetery and spend some time at my parents’ graves. If you don’t mind, that is.”

So much for brightening spirits, Ali thought. She said cheerfully, “Regardless of the weather, I’m here to do whatever you want to do.”

H
ow about some coffee?”

At the sound of her mother’s voice, LeAnne Tucker roused herself and sat up on the uncomfortable love seat where she had finally fallen asleep. Sunlight was streaming in through the window on the opposite side of the waiting room in the burn unit at Austin Memorial Hospital. Her mother, Phyllis Rogers, stood in front of her holding out a cardboard-wrapped cup of Starbucks from the lobby coffee bar downstairs.

When LeAnne’s son landed in the ICU, her mother had offered to drive down from Eugene to help. At first LeAnne tried to put the kibosh on the whole idea. She hadn’t wanted her widowed seventysomething mother to be out on the interstates, driving by herself with only her two yappy pugs as traveling companions, through hazardous winter conditions for the better part of two thousand miles. Phyllis had been adamant, insisting that she was more than capable of taking care of herself and of traveling cross-country. She and her two dogs, Duke and Duchess, had made the trip in her Honda Accord in what Phyllis regarded as a “leisurely” five days; she’d smoked Pall Malls every mile of the way.

Once Phyllis arrived, LeAnne couldn’t imagine how she would have coped without her mother’s help. She had to admit that having a second
vehicle available, even one that reeked of cigarette smoke, was a definite blessing. While LeAnne remained camped out in a hospital waiting room, waiting for Lance to awaken from his drug-induced coma, Phyllis had taken charge of things back home in San Leandro, some fifty miles away, supervising Lance’s younger brothers, making sure they had food to eat, and providing transportation as required to and from various school activities.

LeAnne accepted the cup, noticing gratefully that the coffee was far too hot to drink. That was the problem with the tepid stuff that came out of the machine in the vending alcove down the hall. Not only was it barely lukewarm, it was tasteless. LeAnne had complained about the machine, but so far no one had come by to fix it, and no one had returned the two bucks she had fed into it when no coffee came out, either.

Phyllis had arrived in the room carrying a small overnight bag. When she took a seat in the next chair over, a cloud of secondhand-smoke residue wafted in LeAnne’s direction. Phyllis set the bag on the floor between them. “How are things this morning?”

“The same. He’s still in the drug-induced coma,” LeAnne answered. “The doctor hasn’t been by so far this morning.” She glanced at her watch. “He should be here any minute. Maybe today will be the day they’ll bring him around.” She paused while tears sprang to her eyes. “Oh, Mom,” she groaned. “What am I going to do? I have to be there when they wake him up. I have to be the one who tells him about his leg, but what am I going to say? What can I say?”

Hours earlier, at a few minutes before midnight, Lance had been wheeled into surgery, where doctors, hoping to stop the spread of a raging infection, had amputated his right leg just below the knee.

Phyllis didn’t answer immediately. “I think you need to tell him the truth,” she said quietly. “Soft-pedaling it isn’t going to work.”

LeAnne sighed and tried to get a grip on herself by changing the subject. “How are things at home?”

“Thad has a basketball game after school. I told him I’ll pick Connor
up from Susan’s place and bring him to the game. I know he loves watching his big brother play.”

Susan and Les Madigan were LeAnne’s next-door neighbors in San Leandro; Susan had willingly pitched in to help look after six-year-old Connor as needed. She had also masterminded a hot-dish brigade that was organized so that one hot dish appeared each day and the previous day’s dishes were picked up and returned to their proper homes by whoever brought the next day’s meal.

“Thank you,” LeAnne said, patting her mother’s bony knee. “It’s so good of you and Susan to keep some semblance of normal life going on at home for Thad and Connor.”

“Speaking of normal life,” Phyllis said, passing her daughter a heavily laden grocery bag, “I brought you a change of clothes. There’s also shampoo, conditioner, and hair spray in there.”

LeAnne managed a tentative smile. “Is that a subtle hint?”

“Not so subtle,” Phyllis allowed. “Since they’ve got that shower room for bicycle-riding employees downstairs, and since they’re willing to let you use it, you should. You’ll feel better.”

“Yes,” LeAnne agreed, “but not until I see the doctor.”

“Have you had anything to eat?”

“I’ve had coffee, thanks to you. I’m not hungry.”

“Maybe not, but you’re going to eat. I’ll go down to the cafeteria and get you something. What do you want?”

“One of those wrapped tuna sandwiches and some yogurt.”

Phyllis sighed and shook her head. “Not a very nutritious breakfast, if you ask me,” she grumbled, “but I suppose it’s better than nothing.” Grabbing up her purse, she headed for the cafeteria.

As her mother left the waiting room, LeAnne picked up her phone. For the past week, her world had shrunk to endless hours in this waiting room and the few minutes she spent each hour at her son’s bedside. During most of that time her only connection to the outside world had been through her cell phone. Flipping it open, she studied the call history. Most were back and forth to her mother’s phone, to Thad’s cell,
or to the landline at home. Several of the incoming calls came from blocked numbers, mostly from media types hoping for interviews, all of which she had declined.

The last blocked call, the one that had come in early this morning, had been from someone who claimed he wasn’t a reporter. LeAnne wasn’t sure of the name; she hadn’t quite caught it. The guy had said he was the father of a kid from Lance’s school—the old one—from before their lives had all gone to hell. It had touched her to think that at least some of the kids from San Leandro High still cared about Lance.

All it had taken was that little bit of sympathy from a complete stranger for LeAnne to end up spilling her guts. Now she worried that she had said too much, telling him about the joke of an investigation that had ruled Lance responsible for his own injuries, about the doctors amputating his leg, about the foreclosure situation on the house, and about being held responsible for the hospital bill. She had blabbed about anything and everything. LeAnne was embarrassed to think that she had told someone else—a complete stranger—about Lance losing his leg when her son had yet to be told.

It was at that juncture when LeAnne’s mother returned from the cafeteria with a cellophane-wrapped sandwich and a small container of yogurt.