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A pan of the audience showed rapt attention. Taylor
sat silently in her lap, one thumb in his mouth, his other hand rubbing Blue's silk-lined ear.

“At least the police are finally listening,” Cavanaugh said, seemingly engrossed now in the Pandora's box he'd opened. Tricia respected him for continuing with a show that could as easily finish him as catapult him from local cable to prime time.

“Listening, maybe, but still approaching the probable deaths of two women with a disturbing lack of commitment.”

“How so?”

“They charged him with murder in the first degree, one count. With a baby involved, in the state of California, that should've been two counts. And, in the state of California, two counts of first-degree murder allows them to ask for the death sentence, which, of course, they did not do.”

Did a woman go to hell for feeling a surge of joy at the thought that a man might be put to death? Had Tricia foreclosed any possibility of personal happiness by wishing bad fortune on someone else?

Cavanaugh took a sip of something from the cup on the coffee table beside him. “Let's go back to the pregnancy for a moment.” He glanced from the audience back to Carley. “You think Senator Whitehead knew about it, and that this somehow had a connection to your sister's disappearance?”

“I'm certain of it.” Carley sat up straight, facing the camera, not the studio audience. She was talking to a much bigger audience. Or just to Tricia. “That last
phone call between Whitehead and Leah, the Monday afternoon she disappeared, didn't go at all the way he said. That's the one where he claimed she was calling to say she didn't feel well, to cancel their date for that evening. But someone got in touch with me, someone who's afraid to come forward, who overheard the senator on the phone. He broke things off with her. She'd told him that morning at breakfast that she was pregnant. And knowing Leah, if he'd told her it was over, she would've refused to accept that. She'd more likely have made some impetuous threat, such as going to the press and claiming he was the father of her child. Not that she'd have
wanted
him as a father to her baby at that point, but to show the world that the man really wasn't the supporter of children he appeared to be.”

“And this person really overheard Senator Whitehead say he was breaking it off?” Cavanaugh sounded incredulous. The man was definitely off his game plan.

Carley nodded.

“Wow. Hard to believe. Senator Whitehead seems like such a kind, ethical man. And everyone knows about all his efforts for the kids of California.”

“Yeah, kind.” There was no misinterpreting the scorn in Carley's voice. “So kind, he beat his wife.”

Tricia gasped. Crouched down over Taylor as though to protect him, her gaze still glued to the television.

“What?!” Cavanaugh sat forward. “That's some pretty serious allegation!”

Carley shrugged. “So I've been told. And that's prob
ably why no one else is willing to say it out loud. But I knew Kate from the time I was born. I could tell—probably even better than my sister, whose head was often lost in the clouds—when Kate was lying.”

“And she told you he didn't hit her?”

“No.” Carley shook her head. Her gaze seemed to be focused inward, and Tricia held her breath, her heart beating far to fast.
Please, no. It's not important. Or pertinent. We need to hear about Leah. Only Leah.
“On two occasions in particular, when we had plans that would've been impossible to cancel, Kate showed up with bruises on her face. The first time they weren't so bad. She said she'd slipped getting into her jetted tub and hit her face on the spigot.”

Tricia moaned.

“And the second time?”

“The bruises were much worse. Covered both of her eyes, her nose was swollen…” Carley paused and another shot of the audience showed a room full of shocked-looking people. “She said she'd had her eyes done to remove the laugh lines.”

Rocking back and forth, arms wrapped around the baby in her lap, Tricia barely heard when the show's host announced a commercial break.

They'd be right back with more from Carley Winchester.

 

She couldn't believe this was happening, that she was sitting in Scott's house, on his carpet, in his living
room, surrounded by his furniture, Taylor's toys and the couple of knickknacks she'd bought since moving in, watching his television and hearing parts of
her
life story. A story she could
feel.
And yet, a story that seemed to belong to someone else…

She wanted it to stop. But it didn't. And it didn't help. The more she watched Carley's lips move, the more confused she got until she wasn't even sure who she was anymore. She wasn't sure of anything.

Except that she loved her son.

“Before we get back to the incredible story you're telling us, Mrs. Winchester, I wanted to ask you a quick question regarding your husband, Benny Winchester. He's a sitting member of San Francisco's City Council and, one would surmise, professionally acquainted with Senator Whitehead.”

“They know each other, yes.”

“So what does he have to say about you speaking out so harshly against a man who is, quite frankly, his political superior?”

Carley's face softened into a mischievous look Tricia recognized. “Whitehead's a Republican, Blaine. Benny's a Democrat.”

The audience laughed. Even Cavanaugh, his face usually so filled with drama, chuckled.

“Still…” he began.

Carley looked straight at the camera. “My husband loved my sister. And he loves me,” she said in no uncertain terms. “He's a member of the San Francisco City
Council because he'd like to make a difference, but it isn't the driving force in his life, nor is the position going to dictate his decisions.” Carley looked back at Cavanaugh. “He fully supports what I'm doing.”

Cavanaugh had opened his mouth, as though just waiting for Carley to finish so he could say more. He shut it again. Glanced at his notes.

“Okay,” he said a couple of long seconds later, “you were telling us what you know about Kate Whitehead.” His gaze rested on Carley. “Is there more?”

She sat forward, hands together in front of her, and nodded. Tricia's stomach tightened. Ached. But she couldn't turn away.

“The day Kate disappeared, my sister told Detectives Gregory and Stanton that she'd had a phone call from her. Kate had sounded odd, in a hurry, out of breath. She'd asked Leah to meet her in their usual spot, but wouldn't say any more over the phone. Leah ran out of gas on the way there. By the time she arrived, Kate was gone.”

“Do you know the spot Kate referred to?”

Mesmerized, Tricia watched as Carley nodded. The cliff. She was going to tell them about the cliff. Leah had run out of gas. Who would've believed something that ordinary could have such a drastic effect on so many lives?

“…the detectives sent someone to check out the cliff, but there was nothing. Leah had already told them that. They said the phone call in no way tied Kate's disappearance to Thomas Whitehead, nor did it give them any
other clues, since it wasn't unusual for Kate to ask Leah to meet her there, or vice versa. So the whole thing was dropped.”

“I wonder if anyone's checked up at that cliff this time,” Cavanaugh said.

“I've wondered the same thing,” Carley responded dryly, appearing more and more exhausted under the hot lights. “As a matter of fact, I've wondered it out loud, more than once, while speaking with the detectives.”

“We're running out of time, but tell me, Mrs. Winchester—and I'm probably getting myself into trouble here—do you think Whitehead is paying someone at police headquarters to make this go away?”

Cavanaugh smelled bigger game than a missing woman or two. Tricia's stomach hurt even more.

She wasn't surprised when Carley shook her head. “I really don't.” She laughed, a sound completely lacking in humor. “That's just it, he doesn't
need
to. They're doing their jobs. They're just treading too lightly on Whitehead ground for fear of being wrong and having it affect—or destroy—their careers.”

“But they did indict him.”

“Yes.”

“Don't you think you might be compromising the case, the upcoming trial, by releasing information they evidently thought might hurt their investigation if they disclosed it?” Before she could answer, he continued. “If nothing else, aren't you taking a chance on swaying a future jury? Making it impossible to find an impartial one?”

Carley sat forward and Tricia could tell by the twitch on the right side of her lips that it wouldn't be long before her friend lost all patience and told Cavanaugh exactly what she did think. “I'm trying to make sure there
is
a trial,” she said more loudly than she'd been speaking thus far. “We'll worry about the jury when we get there.”

“You think this morning's article might actually make a difference?”

“I can see history repeating itself,” she said. “If there's any way the D.A.'s office can justify dropping the charges, they'll do so.”

“And you don't think that the fact that Senator Whitehead had a vasectomy—surgery that makes it physically impossible for him to father children—is justification enough for believing there's more to this than anyone knows?”

“I don't care what stories Whitehead tells about his balls and who's done what to them,” Carley snapped. “Someone like him could produce medical records in his sleep. I know that man fathered my sister's baby. Not only has she slept with no one else in more than a year, she said one of the redeeming factors about the whole mess was that in being pregnant with his child, she felt closer to Kate somehow….”

Tricia didn't hear the rest of the show. Didn't hear much of anything the rest of that night.
Please, Leah, please be safe. Loved. Protected.

And please, please, please find some way to forgive me for all the things I've done.

S
he wanted sex. Her naked body curled around his like an octopus, a smooth slender leg flung over one of his, her toes hooked under his calf. Her belly pressed against his hip, one arm under his shoulder, the other wrapped around his chest, fingers tucked beneath his ribs. All of which was fine with him. The soft kisses she was placing along his neck were distracting, a pleasure and an irritation at the same time, because he didn't
want
to be distracted.

Scott shifted, sliding an arm around her back, holding her close—and moving down a few inches so that her mouth was away from his neck. She said nothing, just settled in again. He could almost be fooled into thinking she was falling asleep.

It wouldn't be the first time.

He'd heard from his parents, who'd called him at work, on his cell. They were due home in a couple of weeks and wanted him to come to Mission Viejo for the weekend. He missed them, but had avoided giving them an answer. He wasn't going to introduce them to Tri
cia—not the way things were. Where he saw no future, they'd see wedding rings. And he didn't want to leave for a weekend without her, either.

Thank God, in all the years Scott had been living in South Park, his family had never visited him there. They met for dinner occasionally. Before Tricia's advent into his life, he'd driven out for an occasional weekend with them. But not often. He felt out of place there—as they would in South Park. They supported his decisions; they just didn't want to see the evidence of them. And that, especially now, was probably for the best.

Scott lay there, wide awake, staring at the shadows on the ceiling.

His body wanted sex, too.

His first night home with Tricia after rotation almost always included great sex. He'd been back for two nights, and he still hadn't taken her up on her offer. In her usual way, she asked no questions.

It bothered him. Perhaps because she didn't need to be with him badly enough to insist. And because he had no idea what she was making of his reticence. Was she expecting him, once again, to ask her to leave?

How could she live like that? Always wondering if, at any given moment, she'd be homeless with an eighteen-month-old son to care for.

He wasn't quite ready. If they had sex, would he be reaching up inside her toward a baby? His baby? He felt strange about not knowing.

And yet he didn't really understand that. It wasn't as
if pregnant women couldn't have sex. Hell, he'd had sex with her two days before Taylor was born. So why should it matter?

Deciding it didn't, Scott went to sleep.

San Francisco Gazette
Monday, April 25, 2005
Page 8. Section C

“Where were you?”

Scott was sitting at the kitchen table, a half-empty mug of coffee in his hand.

Just once, couldn't something happen the easy way? She'd risen at the crack of dawn, certain that she'd be back before anyone knew she'd been gone.

She said the first thing that came to her mind. “Out getting a paper.”

“Then where is it?”

Reaching for a coffee cup and saucer, Tricia bumped her hand on the cupboard shelf. “I read it already and threw it away.”

He had no right to subject her to this inquisition.

And he had every right.

Coffee sloshed over the side of her cup. Emptying the saucer into the cup, she stood with her back to the counter, took a sip, and then put the cup and saucer down. She didn't dare hold them. Their rattling would give her away.

Finally, she looked at her suspiciously silent lover. His dark hair was rumpled from sleep, his face bearing the shadow of a day's growth of whiskers. His flannel shirt was unbuttoned, as were the jeans he'd pulled on from the day before. His feet were bare. And he was staring at her.

Six months ago, Tricia would have crawled into his lap, made love with him there on the chair and then
again in the shower. She braced herself with her hands on the counter behind her. “What?”

“You didn't think I'd be interested in the news?”

Shrugging, Tricia tried her best to hold his gaze. To think of him and not herself. Because she loved him and he deserved her loyalty. And because she'd never be able to remain standing if she let her mind take her into another place and time. “You don't get the paper.”

“Because I'm gone so many days in the month it didn't seem financially feasible.”

She nodded at his repetition of a conversation they'd had two years before when he'd offered, after she'd moved in, to have the local paper delivered now that someone was going to be at the house everyday.

Not wanting him to spend a dime on her that wasn't necessary, she'd declined. It wasn't San Diego news she was interested in, anyway.

Scott sighed, forearms on the table, and just sat. Guilt, thick and heavy, spread through her, mingling with the fear, the confusion and despair. Her son was asleep in his crib in the other room. Two walls away.

She stood in the kitchen and tried to concentrate on visions of Taylor. His chubby baby cheeks, pert rosy lips, his father's nose…

Thomas Whitehead influenced the press, falsified medical documents, and even owned one of the most esteemed physicians in San Francisco. The Whitehead family physician, who had to be lying about that small
scar. Not that anyone except his physician would probably have detected it.

Thomas Whitehead had said she was a whore. That her unborn son wasn't his. Only a man who was sick beyond words would take the farce this far.

There was no stopping him. Unless…

One simple DNA test was all it would take. A few minutes of time.

And a lifetime of fear.

He'd buy his way out. He'd find a way to control her. Without warning, Tricia could feel that peculiar beating of her heart that meant she was trapped and in very real danger. She was back in that other place, that other time. She could taste the blood in her mouth as she saw her attacker approach, knowing what was coming, the slaps and punches that connected, the ringing in her ears, and while she struggled to maintain consciousness, he'd be demanding that she tell him who she'd been sleeping with….

“Tell me—”

Tricia screamed, jerked, banging her back against the counter. And then blinked. Scott was sitting at the table, eyes wide, face twisted in disbelief as he watched her.

“What?” She tried for normalcy.

“I asked you to tell me where you really were.”

Glancing down, Tricia studied the scuffed toes of her tennis shoes. Dusty white tennis shoes with no bloodstains.

“Out getting a paper.”

He stood. “Don't lie to me, Tricia,” he said, crossing
the kitchen. “If you aren't going to tell me the truth, then say so. Just don't lie. We're worth more than that.”

All the money I'm worth, and you dare to stand there and lie to me.

I'm telling you the truth, Thomas. I swear…

And the truth was never heard.

Tricia watched him approach. Knew what was coming. Tried to be ready.

“Okay!” she said when he was two steps away. “I…I didn't feel well and went for a walk, thinking the cool air would do me good and it did and now I feel better.”

He cocked his head, narrowed his eyes. He didn't hit her.

“Why didn't you wake me?”

“I didn't want you to worry.”

“Is there some reason I should be worried? Something going on—physically—that I should know about?”

Peering up at him, Tricia knew she didn't need to be afraid of this man. The knowledge would pass, it always did, to be replaced by the irrational fear instilled by hard experience. But for now…

“No, Scott,” she said softly, removing all holds on the love she felt for him. “I promise you, there's nothing.” Not physically. Not yet.

He studied her for a long time. And when he reached out, it wasn't to inflict searing pain, but to pull her into his arms, against his chest, where she could rest her face against the beat of his heart and feel safe. If only until Taylor cried.

 

On Tuesday afternoon, Tricia stepped into the back room of Patsy's dry cleaners and almost dropped the heavy bag of clothes she was carrying.

“What's going on?” she asked sharply, arm muscles weakened from the surge of fear that had come and gone when she'd seen the man sitting in the corner.

“I thought it was best to meet here where no one can see us,” Arnold Miller answered slowly. His words were slurred, but his eyes pinned her to the wall she'd leaned against.

“Sorry, I wanted to call you, but he told me not to,” Patsy said, shrugging. The sturdy blonde was sitting on her desk, frowning. She appeared more irritated with the smelly man in her store than anything else.

“You found out something,” she said, nervous with Patsy there—with anyone knowing anything about her business at all—but not knowing how to ask her to leave her own establishment.

“You got clothes for me?” the woman asked, nodding toward Tricia's laden garment bag.

“Two pairs of pants, one of them drawstring, one dressier, a couple of lacy tanks, and a short jacket with funky sleeves,” she rattled off, watching the drunken investigator. Did he know something important, or was he just using her as an excuse to hang out here and sleep for a while? Could she believe anything he told her when he was like this?

Getting to her feet, Patsy took the garment bag. “I'll
just go try these on,” she said. “Be back in about fifteen minutes. She went up the back stairs to her apartment on the second floor.

“Siddown.” Miller's order was compelling even with slurred syllables.

She told herself she was strong now. Didn't have to take orders. Unless she wanted to do as she'd been ordered. Tricia sat.

He leaned forward slowly, elbows extended as though to rest them on his knees, but missed, almost hitting his chin before he righted himself with forearms leaning heavily on his thighs. “Ish someone local,” he said, each movement of his mouth exaggerated as he spoke.

Tricia backed away from the stench of stale alcohol and cigarette smoke that sailed toward her on his breath.

“Someone local is following me?”

“S'right.” He gave her an almost piercing look. “Hired.”

“Someone hired someone local to follow me.”

Miller nodded; then froze, as though allowing himself to recover from the movement.

“Do you know who hired her?”

“Not jush her,” Miller, head hanging, grew still, and Tricia had to stop herself from crying out in frustration and fear. If he fell asleep now…

“Who else?” she asked quietly.

Pushing off from his knees, he fell back against the cushioned plastic chair. “At lease two—women.” He said the last word with the emphasis on the last syllable. “I got a…friend…to fo'ow zhem. Sheprate. Talk.”

Mind reeling with questions, possible scenarios, various actions to be considered, Tricia clasped her hands in her lap, holding on for dear life. Taylor's occasional squeals from the front room were all that kept her focused. Miller had asked a friend to strike up a conversation. “Do they work together?”

“Don' know.”

“You don't know who they're working for?”

“Nah yet.” His emphasis on the
T
spewed spittle that landed on his stained and wrinkled brown tweed pants.

“But you can find out?”

“'Coursh.”

“When?”

“Schoon as I'm sober.”

“When will that be?”

“Don' know.”

That was all. She couldn't take any more. She was going to lose her mind. Tricia rose with some half-formed thought of grabbing her purse, walking out and just walking until she was too tired to walk anymore.

And then Taylor giggled.

Falling to her knees in front of the broken man, hands on her thighs, she leaned close enough to see how dilated his pupils were. “Please Mr. Miller, I'll pay you whatever it takes, but I need you to get sober
now.
I have to know. Soon.”

“I don' care 'bout…”

She put one hand on his knee and held his gaze, although it was one of the hardest things she'd ever done.
She fought back nausea. “Please. My son's life might depend on it.”

He peered at her for a long time. And then heaved a sigh that almost made her lose her lunch.

“Okay. Bah only for da boy.”

She nodded, satisfied. Taylor was, after all, the only reason she did anything, including getting up in the morning.

Without another word, she picked up her purse, needing to get to her son, to hold him, to remind herself that life held innocence and beauty, trust and pure, unconditional love.

What did any of it mean? If Thomas Whitehead knew where she was and wanted her dead, she would be. If he wanted Taylor, he'd have him.

Wouldn't he?

Could it be someone else watching her, then? Watching out for her? Had her mother hired someone? Or did they all believe she was dead?