Beyond the Quiet: Romantic Thriller (15 page)

Chapter Seventeen

As much as I wanted to stay on Highway 38 and head for Big Bear, I was exhausted. Behind me, the setting sun was blazing, streaking the sky with orange, and it would soon be dark. During daylight hours the back way to the mountain resort was a scenic drive, but I wasn’t sure I felt alert enough to handle all the sharp switchbacks in the dark. And once there, I’d have a difficult time finding her house. Better to wait until morning. Reluctantly, I took the cutoff to Yucaipa.

After a sleepless night, I grabbed a handful of grapes from the fridge and was on the road by five in the morning. Sipping coffee from a drive-thru, I decided to go the longer way and avoid some of the hairpin turns up the mountain. I beat the rush hour freeway traffic and took the Mountain Resort cutoff from Redlands.

An hour later, I was on Big Bear Drive, the crisp mountain air a refreshing change from the dry climate below. Knowing the library and civic center wouldn’t be open this early, I headed for a parking place near the lake and pulled onto a concrete area in front of some condos. I could’ve stopped at one of my favorite breakfast places, but my stomach felt too tight to eat anything more and I wasn’t in the mood to make polite conversation—at least not yet.

Later, I started my search. While I usually never tired of browsing the shops in The Village, today I had tunnel vision, only wanting to find the library. If Jenna wasn’t listed there, I’d go to the civic center and browse the property owner records in city hall. I was sure that woman and her child would be living in their own home, a home bought with my money.

The librarian tried to be of help, but their local phone book had no more information than mine. Next, I headed for city hall and the property records. After searching the files for Jenna, Jennifer, or any other name she could possibly use, I left in defeat, wondering what to do next. I refused to consider that she had left the state.

I considered knocking on doors, but I nixed that idea pretty fast. Not only are the businesses scattered down the highway so that it would take forever, but someone might actually call the police on me.

I could ask some questions at the local restaurants. Maybe someone would know Jenna. After all, if I were right, she’d lived here at least a year, maybe even longer. Bypassing several resort lodges, I preferred some of the smaller places with a local flavor.

Mac and I had always loved the potato pancakes at The Log Cabin restaurant, but they closed at two, and I felt Jenna would frequent restaurants where she could take her child for dinner. The Grizzly Manor closed early as well. Just as I thought of Kujo’s BLT, I realized that woman might take her child to the Log Cabin on weekends. Might be a good place after all.

Just as I found a parking spot, I had a sudden idea where to look for Jenna. I checked my watch. If I hurried, I could make it.

Back at city hall, I checked for any real estate under Jenna
Montgomery
instead of Yearwood.

And found it.

Everything else in my vision faded as I zeroed in on that name. While I’d hoped it would be listed, I hadn’t counted on my reaction at actually seeing that name in print. Jenna Montgomery, Jenna MONTGOMERY. The words seemed to grow large enough to slap me in the face and I could feel my heart thumping in my ears.

How dare that woman! She actually had the audacity to use my husband’s name to buy her property. Son of a bitch! I wanted to kick the wall and scream. But while it might make me feel
better, I’d look like an idiot.

So, back to my breathing exercises. In, out, in, out. I closed my eyes. When I could picture casting a fishing line from a boat on the lake, I knew I had begun to relax. I could do this. Then I saw Mac giving me instruction on how to reel in the damn fish, then turning to a faceless woman and laughing at my ineptitude. With a superhuman shove, I pushed Mac and Jenna into the lake and
whacked them both with an oar.

Then I felt better. The rage wasn’t gone, but I’d pushed it down enough to conc
entrate on what I needed to do.

I pulled out a legal description of a two-bedroom chalet-style hom
e, a home bought with my money.

After taking a copy of the property description, I showed it to the clerk asked for directions. Perhaps I wasn’t as good at masking my outrage as I thought, because the older woman looked at me, her eyes behind the glasses judging, speculating.

“I’m not sure I should do that,” she said, her voice tinged with doubt. Her tag said her name was Joyce. She wore stretch jeans with an elastic waist over a rounded tummy.

“Look, Joyce, i
t’s all public record. If you don’t tell me how to get there, someone else will.”

Her mouth tightened. “Then I think you need to find out from someone else.”

I stormed out of the office and headed for the ladies’ room, taking several minutes to get myself under control. Then I realized how I’d spoken to her and felt like an ass.

“I’m sorry,” I said, returning to
her desk. She’d developed a sudden interest in her desk drawer. “Today hasn’t been a good one for me,” I told her, “but I shouldn’t have taken it out on you. I apologize.”

Immediately she brightened. “That’s okay,” she said, her blue eyes crinkling in a smile. “We all have bad days. Now,
how can I help you?”

What a lovely woman. I wanted to hug her simply for forgiving me so easily. I wished I had that quality.

***

A few minutes later I was driving down a short residential street, its homes surrounded by tall pines, looking for number 485. I knew it as soon as I spotted it—a wood A-frame with a scrolled red porch railing chalet-style, and a matching red wood balcony extending the width of th
e house. Mac would’ve loved it.

Hanging baskets held red geraniums, a huge spider plant stood on a redwood pedestal next to the front door, and several pots stationed along the wood porch floor held various other plants. Clearly, along with her other talents, Jenna had a green thumb. I supposed she could ba
ke a perfect pie crust as well.

About ten feet down the long porch, a boy’s green bike with training wheels leaned against the house. A helmet lay beside it.

A boy. Something Mac had always wanted, something I couldn’t give him after Shanna was born. I’d had such a difficult delivery that the doctor warned against future pregnancies.

God, how I hated that woman.

Instead of a doorbell, a red wood door held a brass knocker.
The Montgomery House
was written in script. Oh, God, please don’t let me lose my cool. My teeth set, I opened the screen door and knocked.

“I’ll get it!” a child yelled from inside the house.

By now I was so tense I wasn’t certain I could go through with this. Would the boy look like Mac? Could I could bear it if he did?

“Hello.” A boy with a pirate’s hat perched cockily on his head and holding a silver plastic sword regarded me quizzically fr
om the other side of screen.

Everything in me tightened. I knew that child. I’d seen him...where?

“It’s that woman,” he said, turning to someone inside the house.

That
woman?

Through the screen, I heard a woman’s voice. “Go on out to play until your uncle gets here, Marsh. I want to talk to the lady.”

Marsh? As in Marshall, Mac’s father’s name?

Marsh glanced at me once more, then opened the screen door and brushed by. He led his bike down the stairs to the yard, th
e wheels thumping on each step.

Of course! He was the child in the car at the open house during my first day back to work. And I realized why he looked so familiar. Now that I knew who he was, I could see the resemblance to the ch
ildhood photos I’d seen of Mac.

“Stay off the street!” his mother called after him. She appeared at the screen door, a woman in her thirties with ink bl
ack hair. The woman in the car.

“You,” I managed to say.

“I wondered when you’d figure it out,” she said softly, leaning against the door frame, her arms folded.

“All those appoint
ments you made and cancelled...” I suddenly remembered having seen her other places as well. “You used to follow me, when I went to the mall, or grocery shopping.”

“I wanted to talk to you,” she said simply, “to tell you what was happeni
ng. I thought you should know.”

“How considerate of you.”

“Do you have a gun on you?” she asked.

“A gun? Are you crazy?”

“Mac told me he kept several at home. I don’t know you well enough to know what you’ll do and I have to protect my child.”

“You should’ve thought of that before you
went to bed with my husband.”

“You don’t have to be crude.”

“You have an affair with my husband, produce an illegitimate child and call me crude? Forget it, this isn’t going to work.” I spun on my heel to head down the porch stairs.

“Wait. We need to talk.”

Hesitating, I turned around, so furious I could barely stand.

“But first, do you have a gun?”

“No, I-do-not-have-Mac’s-gun, but I don’t care if you believe me or not.”

She stared me a little longer, as if trying to decide, then she opened the screen door.

“Come in. We might as well be civilized about this.”

Civilized! I’d step inside, b
ut I couldn’t promise anything.

Chapter Eighteen

In the living room, two taupe overstuffed sofas loaded with fluffy throw pillows faced each other in front of a brick fireplace. One wing chair with a matching footstool stood at the end of the grouping, and another sat at an angle in front of the bookshelves lining the wall on either side of the fireplace. Wrought-iron stands held lush green plants and red-accented throw rugs added a splas
h of color to the wood floors.

Taken aback, I gazed at the cozy room. I guess I was expecting purple veiled rooms with scented incense wafting to the ceiling. Instead, this room looked so inviting that if I hadn’t hated the occupants so much, I’d have been tempted to kick off my
shoes and grab a book to read.

I could’ve cried. Why couldn’t I ever achieve that same look of comfortable elegance in my own home?

“Please, have a seat,” Jenna said, “and I’ll get some iced tea. You take yours with lemon, don’t you?”

Staring after her as she hurried out of the room, I wondered just how much Mac told this woman about me. Had our entire marriage been an open book? I suddenly saw them in bed, all cozy after sex, laughing and talking about my foibles.

How could Mac have done that to me? Never in my entire life had I felt so betrayed.

Jenna returned, carrying a tray with a pitcher of tea and glasses filled with ice. She’d even arranged a scrolled side dis
h with perfectly-wedged lemons.

“Please, sit,” she said, placing the tray on the table between the two sofas. “I’ve wanted t
o talk to you for a long time.”

I didn’t want to sit and I didn’t want her tea. No way could I relax in her home—the home
she and Mac had stolen from me.

“I don’t plan on sta
ying long enough for tea, uh...” Damn. I didn’t know what to call her. To say
Jenna
would imply a friendliness I didn’t feel or want to convey.
Mrs. Yearwood
sounded stiff. Stuffy. Please God, don’t let me sound stuffy, not in front of her.

“Call me Jenna,” she said, placi
ng a glass of tea on a coaster.

“I can see why Mac was attracted to you,” I said, not calling her anything at all. “You’re very pretty.”

She didn’t reply, but she smiled as if acknowledging an accepted fact. I wanted to slug her.

“If you don’t mind telling me, when did your affair begin?”

“It was more than an affair.” She held up her left hand and on her third finger was a gold band. “We were married.”

“You were
what
?”

“We were married.“ She pointed to a framed picture of Mac and her in formal clothes, laughing while cutting a wedding cake. “I know thi
s is quite a shock, but I wanted everything to be done properly for Marsh’s sake.”

A roar in my head drowned out her words. I knew she was speaking, but I could barely hear her voice.
“Proper?
You can’t be serious. Mac was already married to me.”

“You know as well as I do that your marriage wasn’t a good one,” she said calmly. “I gave him some happiness.”

The old rage surfaced. My throat felt tight and strained, but I forced myself to speak. “How dare you say my marriage wasn’t a good one. What do you know about it?”

“Mac and I were close and he told me everything. I gave him what you couldn’t. Or wouldn’t.”

Now I could see why people shot each other, although I didn’t want to shoot her. That would be too quick. I wanted to hurt her, to prolong her agony, but I was so angry I could barely speak.

“I’m sure you’ve heard this expression,” I said, my voice trembling in outrage. “It was one of Mac’s favorites. It says, ‘A stiff prick has no conscience.’”

“I keep telling you, it wasn’t like that. We were married.”

“
Which one of those words don’t you understand? You couldn’t be legally married because Mac was still married to me. Don’t you realize I could press charges?”

“For what?”

“Funny, you don’t appear to be dim-witted, but I’m not getting through to you. You committed bigamy.”

She paid as much attention to those w
ords as she had to my feelings.

“When did this so-called marriage take place?” I managed.

“When I became pregnant, eight years ago. Look. I didn’t want to hurt you. I only wanted to protect my son.”

“Did it ever occur to you that the best way of protecting your son was to not get involved with a married man in the first place?”

“I wanted him.”

“Well, good God, there are a lot of things I want. I just saw a diamond ring on a woman’s finger. I can’t just yank it off and take it. There are rules. If you take what belongs to someone else, it’s called stealing. How can you condone that?”

She had the grace to blush.

“What a hypocrite you are,” I said. “Everything you have now, you stole from me.

“What are you talking about?”

“Everything you have now was supposed to have been mine.” I waved my hand around the room. “All of this was bought with my money.”

“Mac gave me money to raise Marsh when he retired, if that’s what you mean.”

“It wasn’t his to give. It was
ours
, his and mine, and when he died, it should have been entirely mine.”

“I don’t know about that. I just know he wanted to provide for Marsh. That’s the right and proper thing for a father to do.”

“There’s nothing right and proper about any of this,” I told her, wanting to scream. “If you’d had an ounce of decency, you wouldn’t have allowed yourself to get involved enough to love him. Perhaps I’m not making myself clear. Mac was a married man, legally bound to me. How could you possibly buy this property under his name? You’re not entitled to use the name Montgomery, so this couldn’t possibly be legally yours. I could sue.”

“It’s legal,” she said. “I changed my name to Montgomery after Mac’s and my marriage.”

“Your farce of a marriage, you mean.”

“Montgomery is my legal name,” she said, ignoring my words. “And it’s Marsh’s. You can’t take anything away from me.”

“Oh yes I can. You’ve stolen everything from me—my marriage, my life with Mac. You can’t have my money, too. At least not without a fight.”

“I was hoping to have a civilized discussion with you,” Jenna said. “But I think you’d better leave. I don’t want Marsh to meet you under these circumstances.”

“Meet me? Are you out of your mind?”

“I was hoping you’d talk to him, tell him personal things about his father.”

“You can’t be serious. The last thing I’d want to do is talk to your illegitimate son about my husband.” I paused, trying to get enough control so I wouldn’t scream at her. “Do you realize I was married to Mac for over twenty-five years? We’d raised a daughter and built a life together. We had years of memories. When he became so ill—” To my horror, my voice cracked and tears threatened. Furiously, I blinked them back. I wouldn’t weaken and cry, not in front of her.

“I cared for him,” I said. “I did everything I could to keep him as comfortable as he could be. I watched him get worse and worse, until every day was a struggle to survive, and each breath was a miracle. I’d hold his hand and breathe along with him and panic when he struggled for each breath. When he died, I didn’t think I could survive, but my daughter convinced me he lived on in her son, Mac’s and my gr
andson. And I had my memories.”

I paused before going on. “One of the worst things about your affair,” I said, “and it was an affair, no matter how long it lasted, is that, along with everything that should’ve been mine, you’ve stolen my memories. Now, when I think of my husband, I think of you.”

I broke off when I heard a car pulling into the driveway. Someone was coming, and obviously I’d have to leave. But it didn’t matter. I had, after all, said everything I had come here to say.

“That’ll be Marsh’s aunt and uncle,” Jenna said. “They’re going to take him for a few days.” She gazed steadily at me. “No matter what you think, Mac loved his son, just as I do. And whether it was right or wrong to have him, he’s here now and my first obligation is to him. I’m sorry you’ve been hurt.”

“Sorry?” I couldn’t believe this woman. “Sorry doesn’t even begin to cover it.”

When I opened the door, I saw a Ford Expedition sitting in the drive. A man and woman were getting out, their arms loaded with packages. I suddenly had trouble catching my breath.

When Stan and Maggie saw me, they froze.

We all stood like statures, staring at each other in front of Stan’s car.

Stan and Maggie were dressed in jeans and windbreakers and Stan wore a khaki hat covered with small silver fishing lures. Fishing poles stood in the back seat, and clothes hung from a pole across the back.

“You knew,” I finally said.

“Lisa—” Maggie began.

“You knew all along,” I interrupted. “All that time I thought you were tr
ying to help me, it was a lie.”

Maggie looked ready to cry, and for once, Stan looked ill at ease.

“No, Lisa,” he said. “I wanted to help. I tried to do everything I could for you.”

“I’m so sorry,” Maggie said, walking toward me. I backed away and she looked crushed. “I wanted to tell you, but it was a confidentiality thing—with Mac and Stan.”

“I trusted you,” I said, “and I loved you, both of you. Maggie, you were the sister I never had.”

“Oh, God, Stan,” Maggie said, beginning to cry. “I can’t take
this...”

“You were my rock,” I told Stan, “the one true symbol of everything go
od in a man.” I closed my eyes.

“But Lisa, what was I to do? Marsh is my nephew.”

“Yes, well. Blood is thicker, and all that, I guess. I should’ve known Mac would confide in you.”

“Mac begged me to mentor his son,” Stan said. “He was dying, Lisa. I couldn’t turn him down.
I didn’t approve of what had happened, but I couldn’t turn my back on Marsh. God, Lisa, he looks just like a Montgomery.”

“Uncle Stan!” The little boy ran toward Stan, jumped into his arms, and held him tight around the neck. St
an hauled him to his shoulders.

“Hi, Aunt Maggie!” Marsh said, his voice excited. “We going fishing?”

“You bet we are,” Stan answered, bouncing up and down until Marsh squealed with laughter. I couldn‘t see his face and I was glad. I couldn’t have stood seeing Mac’s face reflected in his. Not now, not ever.

I made for my car, furiously swiping at my tears.

“Lisa, please...” Holding out her arms, Maggie ran after me, but I brushed her arms away and kept walking. I couldn’t bear to look back at the happy family.

Now Jenna truly had it all.

***

The trip down the mountain on the two-lane highway was a blur, but I remember at one point coming up behind an old geezer who seemed to think he couldn’t go more than ten miles an hour. I followed for a few minutes, and then, mashing down the gas petal, swung alongside of him to pass on a hairpin curve. An angel must have been sitting on my shoulder when I pulled that idiot stunt because when I skirted the edge of the road, I realized I was on a cliff that dropped down several-thousand feet. I heard brakes s
queal. I think they were mine.

When I got home, I threw down my handbag and grabbed a bottle of Sangria from the cupboard. Normally I like it chilled, but today I didn’t care. Warm and fruity, it slid like nectar down my parched throat.

One thing I was sure of. I was going to an attorney. Maybe I couldn’t change the past, but whatever material possessions Jenna had bought with my money were rightfully mine. I was going to get them back.