Secrets Rising (21 page)

"Hello, Clyde."

His expression sobering, Clyde slid in beside her. "How are you doing? We've all been worried about you. Charles told us you were too upset to come to Ben's funeral and were going to stay with some of your folks for a while. Are you doing better now?"

"He's going to be fine." Mary dared to breathe again. "It was touch and go there for a while. He had a heart attack from the shock of Ben's death. But the doctor says he can still have a long life if he takes it easy and avoids worrying." Clyde reached to take her hand then stopped when he saw the cuffs. "What's this?"

Charles leaned in the window on her side. "For her own protection. The people she was staying with brought her back up here so she could get some help. She's having some really bad emotional problems. Even tried to hurt herself. I'm taking her to the doctor."

Clyde's eyes widened in shock. He grasped both her hands in his. "Oh, Mary! Ben wouldn't want you to do that!"

"I didn't," she said firmly. For a moment she considered telling Clyde the truth, taking the chance that he'd believe enough of what she said to at least check things out. But her story might only add credence to Charles' assertion of her mental instability.

Even if Clyde did listen, would he end up like Ben when he started checking?

"It was all a mistake," she improvised. "I woke in the middle of the night with a terrible headache and went to get some aspirin. But being half asleep and in pain and in a strange house, I got the wrong bottle and took three of my...my aunt's sleeping pills. She's very elderly and when she had trouble waking me up, she jumped to the wrong conclusion." This business of lying was getting easier and easier.

Mary turned and lifted her hands to Charles. As he unlocked the cuffs, she'd have liked to give him a triumphant look, but she didn't dare taunt him...and she hadn't emerged triumphant yet. This was only the first step. She kept her expression neutral. Charles did the same.

"Now, Mary," Clyde said, "you've had quite a shock. I do think you ought to see a doctor."

Mary rubbed her wrists. "I will, Clyde. I'll call and make an appointment with Dr. Wilcox. But right now I just want to get home again. I've had two weeks to deal with Ben's death, and now I've got to start getting on with my life."

"No, you said you were taking me to a doctor. I'm quite capable of taking myself to a doctor. Besides, you've got to go back in that tow truck. Clyde can run me by the house a lot more easily."

"I'd be pleased to do that, Mary," Clyde said. "When I heard Charles' radio message about having car trouble, I came out to see if I could help since things are pretty slow right now. I don't have anything to do that's nearly as important as taking you home."

"Thank you, Clyde. I'd really appreciate that." She pushed open the door and got out. As she walked away from Charles, she could feel his hatred following her, surrounding her like a black, roaring tornado. She wouldn't have much time when she got home. Grab a few things, get in the car and go.

She was on her own. She couldn't even look to Doris and Edgar for help. That would not only put them in jeopardy from Charles but also from Edgar's heart. She had no one to rely on but herself.

She needed money, needed to close out Ben's and her bank account. Maybe she could get Clyde to stop by the bank so she wouldn't have to worry about Charles' intercepting her there.

She could call later and arrange to have the utilities turned off and then decide what to do about the house. She'd probably never come back here, never see Doris and Edgar again. Tears formed somewhere deep inside at this latest reminder of the loss of everything she and Ben had planned.

But she had no time to shed those tears. Ben was gone. All their hopes and dreams were gone. All except one, and her entire focus, her entire life, had to be directed toward saving that one, her child.

How far would she have to go to be safe from Charles?

A big city. Los Angeles? New York? The only knowledge she had of those cities was from geography classes and what she'd seen on television. They seemed like foreign countries, and the thought of going there was frightening. But not as frightening as Charles, not as frightening as losing her baby before that baby took a breath, before she even got to hold that baby in her arms.

She climbed into the passenger seat of Clyde's patrol car, leaned back and pressed a hand to her gently rounded stomach as if she could touch and soothe the child within.

It's going to be all right, precious child
. Your mother loves you more than anything in this world. I know love wasn't enough to keep Ben safe or my mother or my father, but somehow, whatever it takes, I will keep you safe. You just concentrate on growing, and your mother will take care of everything else. I promise I won't let anything happen to you. I swear I'll keep you safe.

Chapter 16

The morning was cool after the rain the day before, but the sun blazed as relentlessly as ever. The cool wouldn't last long.

Rebecca stashed her suitcase in the trunk of her car and looked back at the rundown motel where she'd spent the last few nights. Less than a week, certainly not enough time that it should bother her to leave it when she'd hated the dreary place from the first night there.

Was she so bereft that she could become attached to any place...or anyone?

"Okay," Jake said, opening the door of his car. "We're due at Lorraine Griffin's in twenty minutes. The directions sound pretty simple so we should be there in plenty of time." He hesitated, one foot inside his car. "You're sure you want to go with me? You could wait here. Checkout's not until eleven."

She smiled ruefully. "If I'm still here at 10:59, they'll probably send somebody over to dynamite the door and toss in a herd of tarantulas."

Jake rubbed his hand over the back of his neck. "You could be right. Well, you shouldn't have any trouble following me. Not much traffic to get in the way." He climbed inside his car and started the engine.

Rebecca did the same and drove behind him across town.

Going somewhere in two different cars. That was appropriate.

Last night after he'd disposed of the snake, an uncomfortable tension had developed between them. She knew from the look in Jake's eyes that he'd like to spend the night with her. Or at least, part of the night. Doubtless he couldn't commit to an entire night. But he wanted to make love again. And so did she. Yet equally as strong as her desire for him was her fear of the letdown that would follow, the hollow despair she'd felt when it was over in the gardening shed and would feel again when he left her in the middle of the night.

They'd parted and gone to their rooms, and she'd made a decision to return to Dallas and wait for Jake to send her reports, just as he kept suggesting. Perhaps she had nothing to go back to there, but all the occurrences in Edgewater only served to increase her emptiness.

Contrary to her original feeling, that she needed to be here to take control of her life, she seemed to be losing a little bit more of that control every day. It was becoming increasingly obvious that her parents didn't want to be found, didn't want her. Jake wanted her, but only for a limited time, an achingly beautiful time that made the minutes and hours that followed more barren by comparison.

Being kicked out of the motel had come at an opportune time. Tomorrow was Saturday, and Jake would probably go back to Dallas for the weekend. She wasn't sure if private investigators worked on weekends or not. In any event, he'd have to find somewhere else to stay, and she'd return to her condo in Dallas.

After dinner with Doris.

Doris Jordan was the one bright spot in this trip, the one person who made her feel comfortable and wanted, as though somebody cared. She wouldn't leave without telling Doris good-bye.

She followed Jake across town to an older home with a well-kept lawn and carefully trimmed shrubs. Though larger, the house was similar in age and appearance to Doris Jordan's, but no riot of flowers greeted them. Nothing about this house greeted. It was simply a house sitting in the middle of a yard.

She parked behind Jake's car and got out.

Side by side but not together, she and Jake walked up to the house.

Lorraine Griffin came to the storm door as they stepped up onto the porch. She didn't open the door, however, just stood looking out at them.

Like Doris Jordan, this woman had lost a child and a husband. She was tall like Doris and about the same age, but there the resemblance ended. They were no more similar than their houses.

Janelle Griffin's mother was a large woman, big-boned so she would never be slim even when she wasn't carrying an extra fifty pounds. She wore her graying hair pulled back into a tight bun, and her face drooped, its melancholy attitude at odds with her robust appearance. The brown dress she wore suited her.

She looked Rebecca up and down, and Rebecca suddenly felt that her white sundress, sedate as it had seemed when she'd put it on this morning, was inappropriate, too revealing.

"So why do you want to talk to me? Are you trying to accuse my Janelle of having relations with a man? My daughter was a good girl. Went to church every Sunday, not like some I could name."

"We're not accusing your daughter of anything," Jake soothed. "And any information you can give me about those others you could name will, of course, be kept strictly confidential."

"I'm not one to gossip."

"I understand. We don't want to cause anybody any problems. My client is simply trying to locate her natural mother for health reasons."

Lorraine lifted the glasses that hung from a chain around her neck and put them on, then peered at Rebecca. "She doesn't look too good. What's the matter with her?"

Not deafness!
Rebecca wanted to shout. "Nothing fatal," she said instead.

Again Rebecca couldn't help but make a comparison to Doris. The house and furniture were of a similar age and style, but this place was another world. An arrangement of gold plastic flowers that matched the gold shag carpet sat precisely in the middle of the coffee table which was centered in front of the brown Naugahyde sofa. End tables which matched the coffee table and held matching lamps with the plastic covers still on the shades sat on each side of the sofa. Everything was precise and tidy and perfectly squared. Lorraine Griffin's cupboard would hold no flower garden of riotously mismatched dishes.

She and Jake perched on the cold brown sofa while Lorraine sat in the matching chair, her legs crossed primly at her swollen ankles. Though an air conditioner purred continuously in one window keeping the temperature cool, the room seemed stifling with a faintly chemical odor as of pesticide. Surely no bug would dare to intrude on Lorraine Griffin's domain.

"Of course," Jake said smoothly. "I realize that, but I have to check out every lead. And I can see how a slick, successful man like Charles Morton could have insinuated himself into the graces of an innocent, unworldly girl like your daughter."

Lorraine sighed, and Rebecca caught a glimpse of sadness that blended with the bitterness. "She was innocent. Sheltered. Her father was a minister of the gospel, you know, and she thought the whole world was like our church. She didn't know about all the wickedness out there."

"That was a hard way for her to find out." Jake's voice was soft, and Rebecca held her breath, wondering if Lorraine would take the bait.