Father and Child Reunion Page 3

  She’d already been in love with him. Madly. And she still remembered exactly what she’d said. She told him she thought she did, but since she wasn’t positive, he’d have to teach her.

  So he had. But not until she discovered she was pregnant did she realize that, at seventeen, she wasn’t ready for a commitment he wouldn’t want, anyway. By then, she’d learned that his plans didn’t include children. Ever. But not until she tried to contact him after Molly was born did she realize how much she didn’t know about him.

  A bright white bus turned the corner, its windows reflecting patterns of sunlight and trees on its way to where she stood on the sidewalk. As it stopped in front of her to open its doors with a whoosh of air, she didn’t know which unnerved her more. The fact that she had known so little about Rio when she’d left six years ago. Or that she knew so much less about him now.

  Chapter Two

  Vanderbilt Park was a rectangular oasis of evergreens and rustling aspens, meandering paths and flowering gardens. The hospital complex fronted it on one side. Businesses, the courthouse and a chain of parked cars lined the rest of it.

  Rio wedged his SUV between a city waterworks barricade and a landscaper’s pickup truck, did a slam dunk with the last of his coffee, then pitched the plastic cup through his window into a green City of Grand Springs trash barrel. Seconds later, with the bang of a door that had birds scattering, he was on his way to the miners memorial. It was five minutes to nine, and probably the first time in a month that he’d been on time for anything.

  He could see the huge bronze of a battered miner leading a mule well before he reached it. The bench near it was empty. Rolling up his shirtsleeves, he glanced past the small mountain of fir branches and uprooted trees one of the local organizations had collected during the ongoing storm cleanup, and checked out the path leading in the opposite direction.

  It took him all of ten seconds to decide nothing of interest was taking place among the teenagers near the fountain, or the young mothers watching their children in the play area. He wasn’t looking for diversion, anyway. He wasn’t even looking for a story. Between his regular police and fire beats, a staff meeting and follow-ups on yesterday’s stories, he had plenty to keep himself out of trouble today. Any spare time he could scrape up, he’d spend on the cabin he was building near Two Falls Lake. He just wanted to make sure he hadn’t missed Eve. She was the final name on his list of people known to have been in contact with Olivia Stuart that last day. If he couldn’t get a lead out of her, he had no idea where to go.

  Stifling his frustration on that score, he scowled at his watch. After the hurry Eve had been in to get rid of him yesterday, he had to wonder if she’d show up at all. Just because she’d seemed willing to talk didn’t mean anything. He’d misjudged her before. He’d once believed she was different from the other people he’d let himself care about. He’d believed that he could trust her, count on her. But he’d never been more wrong.

  He hadn’t been wrong about her reaction when she’d opened the door to him yesterday, though. There hadn’t been a hint of welcome in her expression. Not that he’d expected it. He’d seen caution. He’d sensed wariness. He’d even caught a fairly satisfying jolt of anxiety. What he would liked to have seen was regret.

  One must never wish for another, what he would not wish twofold for himself.

  Unexpected, unwanted, the elders’ ancient teaching reared from the depths of his memory. Rio gave a snort, dismissing it, then closed his eyes against the automatic rebellion. He’d abandoned so many of the old teachings over the years that tossing out one more shouldn’t matter.

  The thought had scarcely nudged his conscience when his head came up. Eve was there. He knew it even before he saw her walking toward him. Though the reminder wasn’t particularly welcome, he’d always had an odd, almost feral awareness where she was concerned.

  The gentle morning breeze lifted her hair away from her face, the bright sunlight turning pale gold to platinum. Small gold earrings flashed with the turn of her head. Another discreet flash caught her watch when she lifted her hand to shield her eyes from the sun. The motion drew the short, sleeveless shift she wore higher, drawing attention to her slender legs, until she lowered her hand and his glance moved upward once again. The crisp white fabric that skimmed her hips and small breasts didn’t define her shape. Rather, it gave subtle, intriguing hints of the enticing, feminine curves hidden beneath.

  Sweetness and seduction, he thought, pushing his hands into his pockets as he watched her move closer. Innocence and sophistication. The combination was as appealing as it was dangerous.

  She stopped an arm’s length away. Eyes the clear, hypnotic blue of a summer sky met his.

  “Before you say anything,” she said, “I need to apologize. I’m sorry I was such a basket case yesterday. You caught me at a bad time.”

  He’d been well aware of that. He’d also spent half the night trying to forget everything else he’d noticed about her after he’d made it past the wariness and anxiety. The sadness in her eyes. Her bewilderment. The brave little smile that had caught him like a punch in the gut.

  The way she’d practically pushed him out the door.

  “Don’t worry about it.”

  There was a hint of nerves behind the expression, but she smiled now at the reassurance. “So,” she began, sounding as if she were determined to get things off to a better start this time. “When did you go to work for the Herald?”

  “Checking my credentials?”

  Her slender shoulder lifted in a tight little shrug. “Curious. I thought you would have moved to a bigger city. You always talked about working for a big paper.”

  “Still plan to.” Determined to be objective, he motioned toward the gray concrete bench and pulled a small digital recorder from his pocket. “Do you mind if I record this?”

  She wasn’t interested in him or his plans. He was sure of that. She was just trying to be civil by making conversation. All he wanted was to get this over with.

  She got the hint. Her smile dying, she pulled her glance from his.

  “You can record it if you want,” she told him, leaving three feet of space between them when she sat down. “But I don’t know what I can tell you that I haven’t already told the police. And that wasn’t very much. I wasn’t there when it happened.”

  He knew that. He’d read her statements.

  He punched a button on the small silver recorder he’d set between them and angled himself to face her. He would remain objective if it killed him. “Some of this might be hard for you,” he told her, refusing to deny her the understanding he would give anyone else under the circumstances. “We can stop anytime. Okay?”

  That seemed to make her relax a little. “Okay.”

  “Just tell me when you last saw your mother.”

  The wind had blown a bit of twig onto the bench. He watched her pick it up, her attention following the motions of her fingers as she drew a deep breath, then quietly told him that the last time she’d seen her had been about an hour before her brother’s wedding had been scheduled to start.

  “We’d gone ahead to Squaw Creek,” she explained, speaking of the ski lodge where her brother’s wedding was to have been held. “I hadn’t seen Hal yet and I wanted to wish him well before the ceremony. But Mom couldn’t find one of the earrings she wanted to wear. She told us to go on and that she’d be right behind us.”

  “Who’s us?” Rio watched Eve’s hands, wondering if she had any idea how they gave her away. Though she appeared outwardly calm, when she was nervous or upset she couldn’t keep her hands still. Yesterday, it had been the scarf she’d pulled, twisted and strangled. Now it was the twig. The motions were small, barely noticeable, but she was methodically annihilating the bit of broken branch. “You and your daughter?”

  He saw those lovely hands go still.

  “Several people mentioned her being with you,” he explained, since she seemed surprised by his knowledge of the child.
Darling girl, one of them had said. So exotic, claimed another. And tiny, like her mother. Poor thing was scared to death when the lights went out. “Is that who you mean?”

  Eve cleared her throat. “Yes, it is.”

  “What’s her name?”

  “Molly. But she doesn’t know anything that would be of help,” she added hurriedly. “She was with me the whole time.”

  “How old is she?”

  The question was automatic. Person at scene. Get name, age, occupation. The presence of Eve’s daughter had just been one of those extraneous details he’d picked up during his interviews, along with dozens of others. Like the fact that the woman in charge of catering at the lodge was the minister’s cousin. And that Eve didn’t have a husband.

  Not caring to consider why that latter detail should matter to him, he dismissed it. What he couldn’t dismiss was how Eve pushed past the subject.

  “She’s too young to be interviewed,” she replied, sounding as if she figured that was what he was after. “Really, Rio, she won’t be any help at all. What else did you want to know about that night?”

  He might have thought she was just being protective. Mothers of small children tended to be that way, after all. But there was something about the way Eve’s glance faltered before she started in again on the twig that seemed vaguely familiar. She almost seemed as uneasy now as she had yesterday when she’d been in such a rush to get rid of him.

  Or maybe, he considered, she was just in a rush to get this over with. That being the case, he reiterated that she’d last seen Olivia at home, then asked when Eve had realized something had happened to her.

  Not until she’d returned to the house, she told him, still seeming tense. Since it had been storming so badly and the streets were such a mess, it had taken them a while to get back to the house. The ambulance had been pulling out as they arrived. Confirming what he’d already learned from 911 dispatch, she told him Josie Reynolds had called it.

  There didn’t seem to be much she remembered after that. In the quiet tones of someone who has told the story before and learned to numb herself to the memories, she went on to explain that Millicent had taken Molly home with her. Eve had then gotten back in her car and followed the ambulance to the hospital. The rest of that night was apparently a blur. She had no answer for any other questions he asked about the evening. Though she tried, she couldn’t recall seeing anyone acting suspicious. Nor did she remember anyone who’d seemed out of place. Once her daughter had been taken care of, her sole focus had been her mother.

  Rio rested his elbow on the back of the bench. With his thumb hooked under his chin, he absently rubbed the cleft in his top lip while he studied Eve’s profile. She wanted to help. More than that, she seemed to need to help, something he understood far better than he wanted to admit. But not a word she’d said had done him any good at all.

  Still looking for suspect and motive, he tried a different tack and asked if there had been a man in the picture. Other than for business, no one could recall seeing Olivia in a man’s company. But just because her personal life had seemed nonexistent, that didn’t mean it had been. Or so Rio was thinking before the slow but certain shake of Eve’s head cut off that particular avenue.

  “Mom’s life was this town. She didn’t have time to have a boyfriend. We used to talk to each other on the phone every Sunday about what had gone on during the week. If there had been a man in her life, she’d have said something about him.”

  Faced with that dead end, he tried another route and asked about disagreements, or if she knew of anyone her mother had upset in any way. Eve’s response didn’t promise any more hope there, either—until she mentioned that Olivia had been getting a ton of grief from the miners union and the mining company about her position on a mining operation. When Eve had expressed concern about it, her mom had said that sort of disagreement came with the territory and reminded her that a person in political office couldn’t possibly please everyone.

  Rio’s glance sharpened. It was common knowledge that Olivia’s environmentalist leanings adversely affected renewal of the mine’s land lease. It was no secret, either, that the last word to leave her dying lips had been “coal.”

  “Did she mention any names? Any person in particular she was arguing with?”

  “If she did, I don’t remember.”

  “Did she say if anyone from the union ever threatened her physically?”

  “Never.” Eve finally looked up from her twig. “Do you think someone from the union did it?”

  “I’m not implying that.”

  “The police asked me these same questions, Rio. You know something, don’t you?”

  “It doesn’t matter if I do or not. My deal with the police is that I keep what information I have between them and me until this thing breaks.”

  Holding his glance, her eyes narrowed.

  “So that means everybody knows more than I do. Hal. The police. Now you. It’s their investigation. They’re his contacts. It’s your story. Damn it, Rio. She was my mother.”

  For a moment, Rio said nothing. She hadn’t raised her voice. But her tone echoed what flashed in her eyes. Not annoyance. It was something far more subtle. Yet potentially more volatile. It was more like fury that had been refined and suppressed. Or, more likely, quietly denied.

  Rio understood why it was there. He even knew how it felt, though her reasons for fighting the suffocating feelings were far more tangible than his own. She was an unacknowledged victim of a murder, a survivor with no answers, struggling to deal with her grief.

  That her brother was keeping her in the dark surprised Rio. That he wanted to go for her brother’s throat because of it, surprised him, too.

  He glanced at the recorder, then decided to leave it running.

  “The union keeps coming up,” he finally admitted, though he kept the confidential aspects of that fact to himself. “A couple of potential suspects have been identified in its membership, but the police haven’t been able to get anything specific on them. That’s why it could be important for you to recall anything she said to you about anyone connected with the lease renewal.”

  He could see her frustration slowly give way as she processed what he’d told her. It made no difference that he didn’t want to consider how overwhelmed she might feel by all that had taken place. He was beginning to sense an inner strength in Eve that the girl he’d known hadn’t yet grown to possess. That strength had been evident even yesterday, despite her bewilderment over her mother’s decisions and the stresses straining her relationship with her brother. She was doing what needed to be done and expecting no one to come to her rescue.

  He had to admire that. He’d met too many people who expected others to bail them out when life got rough, or who took out their pain and frustration on everyone around them when something went wrong. Yet, despite her willingness to fight her own battles, to deal with her own pain, there was a vulnerability about her that was playing havoc with his more protective instincts.

  His protective instincts weren’t the ones he was concerned about at the moment, however. What he felt when Eve tipped her head back and blew out a breath was considerably more basic.

  Already more aware of her than he wanted to be, he let his glance slide down the long line of her throat, along her delicate collarbone and over the gentle swell of her breasts. They were fuller than he remembered, and he couldn’t help wondering how they would fill his hands.

  At the thought, heat spiked through his gut. He knew how it felt to lie with her. How perfectly she had once fit his harder, tougher body. She had been a virgin the first time they’d made love, totally inexperienced, but so trusting. So innocently willing. With no effort at all, he could recall far more about that night than was wanted or wise, and since seeing her yesterday, he could swear nearly every detail of that first afternoon had been resurrected. She’d had news she’d wanted to share, and she’d come to his apartment. It had been raining and she’d been laughing, and when sh
e’d launched herself into his arms, the feel of her soft, supple body pressed to his had nearly brought him to his knees.

  The muscles in his jaw jerked as he sought to banish the memory. What he needed to remember about Eve Stuart was that she had left without a word. Somewhere along the line, she’d gone on to another man, made love with him as they had done, borne a child. The past was over and done with. At least, it was about to be.

  “I honestly can’t think of anything else, Rio.”

  “Then, answer one last question.” He’d told himself he didn’t need to know. That her reasons couldn’t possibly matter now. No longer willing to lie to himself, he turned off the recorder with a quiet click and looked up to meet her eyes. “Why did you leave without talking to me?”

  Rio’s glance never wavered. He simply sat there, solid and unyielding as granite while the color drained from her face.

  He knew she hadn’t expected the question. Not then. Not while she was dealing with the too-fresh memories of the night her mother had been killed. Not while she was struggling to remember something, anything, that would help the police.

  “Do we have to talk about this now?”

  “Seems to me it’s as good a time as any.”

  “Because you decided so? I tried to talk to you about something other than this investigation a few minutes ago but you didn’t want any part of it. And yesterday, you acted as if we’d never known each other at all.”