Echoes (8 page)

"Yep." He stripped the sweaty T-shirt and rubbed it over his chest, then tossed it over his shoulder.

"And?"

"It could take the blue ribbon at a state-fair dollhouse show."

"I don't mean the model. I mean the idea."

"Uh-huh." He splashed water on the dusty tiles with the vigorous rinsing of his forearms. They didn't usually bid after a day's work, but the hotel owners couldn't spare any other time to view the plan.

She grabbed a paper towel and swabbed the floor at his feet.

"Get up, Rese. I'll take care of that."

"I don't want the mud to harden on the tile." She finished wiping and stood.

His glare caught her by surprise. "I didn't ask you to clean up my mess." He grabbed the towel. "Give me some room. And quit trying to fix everything."

She raised her chin. "That's my job. Fixing things." She scowled. "What are you so mad about?"

"I'm not mad." He turned and leaned on the doorjamb. "Just because we disagree—"

"I don't think it has anything to do with that. If you were in your right mind, you'd see the beauty of my plan."

He scowled. "Listen, kid . . ."

She huffed. "That might have worked ten years ago. But probably not now."

He pawed his pocket for a cigarette, found the pack empty and threw it. "Joni's getting married."

Rese stood a second before she realized what he was saying. "Your wife?"

His throat worked. "My ex."

"Oh, Brad."

"Don't get girly on me."

She brought her hands to her hips. "If you had any guts, you'd tell her how you feel. Just swallow your pride and do it."

"You don't know anything about that."

He was right. She was the last person to talk about swallowing pride. "You know what you want."

"No I don't. And you don't either." He pushed off. "I'm regretting opening my mouth."

"Brad . . ."

"Let it go, Rese. We have a pitch to make."

"We haven't even figured out our plan."

"Yes we have." He strode to the workbench and scooped up her model. "I wrote up the bid yesterday while you were having a personal crisis."

"It wasn't a personal crisis. And which way did you bid it?"

"With your fancy staircase."

She followed him to the door. "You'd already changed your mind? Before I brought the model?"

"I don't require show-and-tell. I'm as able to envision something as you are. In case you forgot, I taught you to see the big picture."

"What?"

"I'll admit you're better with the details, but you started out unable to see the forest for the trees."

"Look who's talking."

He glowered. "I'm through discussing my personal life."

"Who's she marrying?"

"Some loser worse than the last guy. She'll be crying on my shoulder inside of six months."

"Then save her that mistake."

"I can't stop her mistakes. Never could." He gripped the doorknob. "Can we go now?"

They climbed into his truck, and he got a clean shirt from the back seat and pulled it over his head. She perched the model in her lap, buckled up, and breathed the scent of smoke and tacos. Three wadded Taco Bell bags nestled at her feet. "Clean out the truck before you propose."

"Not happening."

"The truck or proposing?"

He gunned the engine and tore away from the curb.

"Why is she marrying him?"

He patted his empty pocket, then turned. "Did someone open your head and exchange brains? Since when do you care about anyone's love life?"

Since Lance broke down the walls that had kept her safely contained. "Fine. Buy her china."

"She's dangerous with china." He slid her a glance. "On second thought, maybe I'll get a whole set of that heavy stoneware. She could be out of this in a month."

"And in jail for battery with deadly crockery?"

He tossed back his head and laughed, then turned with a puzzled look. "That was funny."

"Don't look so shocked."

"What's gotten into you?"

Good question. "When's the wedding?"

"Two months. On the Golden Gate Bridge. Is that stupid or what?"

"Might be kind of foggy."

"It's where he proposed, so he thought it would be romantic to say their vows in the same spot. Just the two of them and two witnesses." The truck lurched over the top of the steep hill and they started down.

Rese readjusted the model in her lap. "Did she tell you that?"

"Asked me to be her witness."

Her jaw fell open. "Brad. She's begging you to stop her."

He snorted.

"She wants you to object."

"I doubt they'll have that part in the ceremony."

Rese shook her head. "Are you actually going to stand there while she marries someone else?"

He jerked the wheel, joggled over the trolley lines, and pulled up to a corner market. "I need smokes."

When the door slammed behind him, she realized how hard she'd pushed. Lance was wearing off in more ways than one.

Brad lit up the minute he stepped out of the store. He climbed in and opened both windows. "You mind?"

"No, but I thought you were quitting." He'd tried four times that she knew of.

"Don't nag me on that now."

"I'm not."

He blew out the smoke. "Here's the thing. Just because I haven't replaced her, doesn't mean I can live with her."

"Were you married long enough to know?"

The truck climbed up Nob Hill. "She was eighteen when we married. Lasted until she'd just turned twenty."

"You don't think things might have changed in the, what, twenty years since?"

"Nineteen. And they can't have changed much if she's asking her ex-husband to witness her wedding."

"She's asking you to stop it." She was more sure of that than ever.

He pulled into the small lot outside the quaint fourteen-room hotel. "We're here."

She looked down at the miniature staircase she'd built with meticulous care, then over to him. "Thanks."

"For what?"

She half lifted it. "Going with this."

He smiled for real. "Let's go knock their socks off."

————

She jumped when he came into the room.

"Carly? What are you doing?"

Her brain scurried. "Um, checking out your phone."

"Why?"

Think. Think
. "To see if you had games."

He held out his palm for the phone. "Why would I have games on my phone? I don't play games."

"Drew said every cell phone has games."

"Why would you listen to a skinny wart like that?"

She should have said someone less recognizable. But his was the name that jumped to her head because he was, well, a skinny wart with scaly patches of skin and red hair so thin his scalp showed through. Kids didn't like him much, but she did, and so when Daddy asked . . . He was staring now and it felt like pinpricks in her skin. This was the scary side of Daddy. "I just wanted to see."

"Did you find any?" He pressed something and studied the screen.

"No."

"Is there anything else you want to tell me?"

"No." Could he see what she had really been doing? Did the phone show what calls were made? She hadn't thought about that.

She shook her head. There might be, but she hadn't looked.

He drew the air through his nose as if inflating his next words.

"You've disappointed me, Carly. Don't you realize you've infringed on my privacy?"

She swallowed. "I'm sorry."

The ice in his eyes lowered the temperature of the room. She would pay for the infringement.

"Does your stomach still hurt?"

"A little."

"Then I think you should go lie down."

"Okay." Her stomach did hurt, and she shouldn't have given in to the temptation of Sofie's number. She had wanted to feel better, but now she felt worse, much worse. She snatched a book on show horses from her desk and tumbled onto her bed. Daddy wanted her to regret what she'd done, but the only thing she regretted was not having had time to hear Sofie's voice.

She'd planned to talk this time, might really have talked to the one person who had always comforted her. Sweet, soothing voice. Soft, tender hands. She could hear Sofie's heartbeat if she pressed her ear to the bed and remembered the chest she'd nestled against.
Oh, Sofie
.

Not like the women Daddy brought home now. Not like anyone—even Ms. Rodemeyer. Sofie would have seen through his lies. She would never have turned her back when someone needed her so much. She pressed the tears from her eyes. Why hadn't she asked where Sofie was living and tried to find her?

But then she remembered the man's voice. Sofie wouldn't come back to Daddy if she had someone else. Or to her if she had other children. A long shuddering sigh shook her chest. She was alone now. Truly alone.

————

Sofie woke with a jolt and reached into the bassinet. In the dark, her fingers found the sleeping infant. The gentle rise and fall of his chest chased her fear back to the shadows. She rolled back in the dark, lay flat on the bed.

He did not cry out for her; his cries were impersonal need. He did not prefer her comfort to Nonna's or Lance's or Rese's, did not whisper her name in his sleep. He had no name. They were nameless to each other. He wasn't the reason she'd come. Why had she come?

In Belmont, she'd haunted her own streets like a ghost trying to hide and trying to be seen. Waiting to be found. Five years she'd pursued the mysteries of the human psyche, hoping to understand the force that had wounded and interrupted her life. In doing so, she'd given it strength, prolonged his hold.

With an ache, she pictured him. Golden hair like a halo, eyes like the sky, piercing blue. His potent smile. His ardent words, lifting her up and plunging her down. No violence except the silent rending of her mind. And even now she felt the hollow that he'd left.

She touched the ache, brought it out like a memento, studied and stroked it. She missed him. And in the missing found loathing, not for Eric, but for herself. For the damage she'd done. Not willingly, not even knowingly. Yet irrevocably.

Her moan became a name. "Carly." She hadn't known to block her heart. Though the ones she loved had cried beware, her heart had stumbled blindly on. Poor motherless babe; poor lonely man. What need of covenant when need itself is covenant? Grieving man; helpless child. How innocently she'd stepped into the steel bite still piercing her heart with relentless tines.

She clenched her hands. Somewhere out there, Carly slept, dreamed . . . feared. What hands would stroke and comfort, what voice whisper hope and courage?

Eric's. His love for his child never wavered. His devotion never flagged. It smothered. It devoured. It cherished. She could not stem the desire to once more soften Eric's love for his child, to bear his all-encompassing, possessing love.

Dawn touched the window, and she rose. Soon the baby would awaken. His needs were elemental, easily met. Too young to comprehend what he'd lost, he accepted what he had. She went and showered off the nightmare sweat, the scent of remembrance.

————

Matt rang the bell, and Sofie opened the door with the infant curled over her shoulder like a fuzzy caterpillar in his yellow sleeper.

"Hi." He had made an appointment for the baby with a pediatrician, though ordinarily he'd have directed them to do so. With the oddities in this case, he wanted answers straight from the source. "Is he ready?"

Nodding, she stroked the baby's back, evoking a soft burp. "He's just eaten."

Matt hooked the baby's splayed fingers with his thumb, cocked his head to meet the roving gaze. "I have an infant seat in the car."

"Let me tell Lance. Here." She handed him the baby.

He cradled the shaggy head in one palm, bearing the weight of his rump in the other. "Well, little guy, you don't look like you're suffering."

The baby scrunched up his face and emitted a bleat. Matt raised him to his shoulder and the baby burped again, dribbling a thin line of milky saliva onto his shirt. He patted the fuzzy back, weaving side to side and murmuring, "'Wynken, Blynken, and Nod one night sailed off in a wooden shoe. Sailed on a river of crystal light into a sea of dew.' "

He turned to find Sofie watching. She'd pulled on a red woolen jacket and had the diaper bag on her shoulder. He raised his brows. "Ready?"

She preceded him out. Something in the way she walked arrested him, and he couldn't help asking, "Are you a dancer?"

She turned at the car. "Why do you ask?"

"You look like it." He buckled the baby into the backward-facing carrier in the center of the second seat.

"Momma would be proud. I went from diapers to tutus to jazz slippers and heels. I taught with her at sixteen, danced a few shows off Broadway and one on."

"Impressive."

She shrugged. "It didn't change the world."

Hmm
. That same modesty her brother displayed. He held the door while she slipped into the back beside the baby, then got in and started the engine. "Still dancing?"

She shook her head. "I went back to school."

"What field?"

"Psychology. Behavioral disorders. I'm writing my doctoral dissertation."

"Really." He hadn't pegged her for an academic. She was too—Cassinia would flame him for this thought—sensuous. The Mediterranean cast to her skin, high cheekbones and full lips. Most of all her exotic eyes. Who could concentrate on her lectures?

She said, "We've probably had similar studies."

"I started in law. Came into social work through the back door."

"Did you practice law?"

"Awhile. I took the track where you have no life but work, no religion but work, nothing at all but work."

"And then?"

"Then I thought it would be better to make a difference."

She smiled. "You sound like Lance."

He jolted. "I'm no miracle worker."

"How do you know?"

He framed her in the rearview mirror. "Because there are no miracles."

The doctor's office was crowded with runny noses and coughs. He hated to bring a brand-new immune system into that, but the state required a medical evaluation. He'd filed the birth certificate Baby Boy Doe and obtained a social security number to process him into the system and start his care. If Maria came back, her child was now documented, though still nameless. And if she didn't? Then he'd be worked into the system accordingly.