Foundation for Three (26 page)

Those were a lot of questions all at once. She couldn’t keep anything from them. “He knew I was the one who said something to the cops.”

“And?” Thad’s defensive side intensified.

“He wanted to know if I also told Dr. Sanchez about what I saw, and I assured him I had not. He said if I mentioned his affair with Gloria to anyone else, it might damage the hospital’s reputation.”

Thad shook his head. “That’s rich. Regardless of who is guilty, all of this information will come out at the trial.”

Crap. A tight knot formed in her chest. “Will I need to testify?”

“Most likely.” Thad’s fist clenched. “Let’s not worry about that today. I’m just pissed that he spoke to you like that.”

“I think he was scared. The career he’d spent years building is crumbling all around him, and since I was the one who alerted the police to his indiscretion, it makes sense he’d blame me.”

“Don’t make excuses for him. Even if Dr. Carson didn’t kill Mrs. Sanchez, he’s a cheating bastard. And with his own boss’s wife. Jesus. The man deserves what is thrown his way.”

“You’re right.” She’d let her emotion cloud her logic.

Pete wrapped an arm around her waist. “I’m driving you home.” His sternness almost frightened her.

“I’m fine. Besides, who’ll drive Thad?”

Thad waved his arm. “I drove here. Remember, we spoke on Monday and I told you I was cleared?”

The stress was getting to her. “Maybe I’m more upset about Gloria’s death than I realized.” Or else it had been the interaction with Avery Carson.

Pete held out his hand for her keys. She fished them out of her purse and handed them over. Just as she was getting into her car, Amber, Jamie, Cade, and Stone drove up.

“Let me tell them I’m leaving.” Zoey went over to her friends and gave them a hug, seeing no reason to mention anything about Carson’s bad attitude. Zoey placed a hand on Jamie’s arm. “Pete and Thad are waiting for me, but we have a lot to talk about.”

Jamie looked over at the men and smiled. “I say we do. Next week at our get-together for sure if not sooner.” With the funeral, they’d cancelled tonight’s happy hour.

“It’s a date.”

After a second round of hugs, Zoey returned and slipped into the passenger’s seat.

“The girls are good?”

He must have seen Jamie look over at them. “Yes. I can tell she wants the lowdown on us, but she’ll have to wait.”

Pete smiled. As he made a right out of the funeral home parking lot, Zoey glanced in the side view mirror to make sure Thad was behind them. He was.

“You hungry?” Pete asked.

It wasn’t even five, and while her stomach was anything but settled, she wanted to have some normalcy back in her life. “Sure.”

“How about texting Thad and telling him I’m taking you to the Steerhouse?”

The Steerhouse was only the most expensive place in town. “Pizza is good.” While she’d offered to pay for her meals, the men seemed to have an issue with that.

“Text him.”

Zoey had no energy to argue. “Fine.” She did as Pete asked, but told Thad not to text her back. She was merely giving him a heads up. Knowing his penchant for red meat, he’d not complain.

They battled rush hour traffic but somehow managed to find a place less than a block from the Steerhouse. They waited for Thad to park before heading to the restaurant.

“How are you holding up?” Thad asked as he joined them.

“I’m actually doing okay.” He probably feared that once she thought about the implication of Carson’s words, she’d fall apart.

Thad wrapped a comforting arm around her waist and escorted her inside where they were seated right away. She slid into the booth first, and Thad moved in next to her. Pete sat across from them.

The waiter came over right away and asked what they’d like to drink. “I’ll have a Chardonnay,” she said.

“Ale,” Pete added, while Thad ordered coffee.

Thad placed a hand on her leg. “If I seem a bit distracted during dinner, forgive me. I’m trying to process everything you’ve told me.”

“It’s not your case, you know.”

“But it involves you, and I want to be sure you stay safe.”

Zoey leaned over and kissed his cheek. “You are a good man, Thad Dalton.”

Pete cleared his throat. He didn’t act embarrassed. Rather he seemed to be trying to lighten the mood. He then stretched an arm across the back of the seat. Just looking at his pose made the recent incident fade.

“The whole time we’ve been together,” Pete said, “you’ve been able to get us to spill the beans about how we grew up, but I don’t know a lot about you.”

“I’m not used to talking about myself. Besides, my life isn’t very exciting.”

“It is to us,” Thad chimed in.

“You want the lowdown on Zoey Elizabeth Donovan?”

Thad leaned close. “Elizabeth huh? I like it. We want it all—the whole
naked
truth. The good, bad, the ugly.”

That made her laugh. Thank goodness the men were willing to put Gloria Sanchez to rest, at least for tonight. “There’s plenty of ugly in there, though not much bad, thankfully.” How did one sum up her life without boring them to death? “I have four siblings. Courtney, twenty-nine, works at a craft store in Billings. She’s the emotional one in the family. She’s made some bad decisions when it comes to men, but she has a heart of gold.”

Pete lowered his arm and leaned his elbows on the table. “I think we’ve all made some poor choices along the way.”

Zoey was guilty of that, too. “Yes, but Courtney seems to find men who believe violence is the way to settle disputes.”

Thad winced. “If a guy harmed any one of my relatives, I’d level a shotgun at his chest.”

Whether he meant to cheer her up or not, he did. “That’s not violent how?”

Pete grinned. “She’s gotcha there, Thad.”

Thad’s grip on the silverware lightened. “Point taken. Go on.”

The server delivered their drinks. “Are you ready to order or do you need a minute?” the young man asked.

“Give us a few.” Thad lifted his steaming cup to his lips and the delicious aroma of beans made her stomach grumble, but she was happy for the wine. “You’ve accounted for one of the four siblings,” he said. “What about the rest?”

Thad was good about paying attention. “Tom is twenty-seven and an investment banker. He’s too focused on work and never goes out. He lives in Connecticut and commutes an hour or more each day into New York City.” The image of her youngest sister, Kenna, surfaced and she smiled. “Kenna is twenty-five. She’s a happily married housewife, with two adorable kids. Hubby’s a lawyer, but just like my brother, Dan works too much. Kenna might be a stay-at-home mom, but she gets frazzled easily. Last but not least is Jack. He’s twenty and attends Yale. Says he wants to be an actor, but who knows.”

Zoey’s heart ached talking about them. As crazy as her brothers and sisters made her when she was growing up, she loved and missed them all. She sipped her wine and the smooth blend went down easy.

Pete’s cheer had ebbed. “Tell us about your folks. You said your dad was like mine. Did your family get along? Were they happy, comfortable, dysfunctional, or what?”

A quick bubble of laughter escaped. “Now who’s the shrink?”

Thad pressed his shoulder to hers. “He gets this way sometimes. Humor him.”

What way? Serious, introverted, interested? The man was more complex than his usual easy-going exterior implied, but if they had any chance of a relationship, she wanted to be honest. “My parents loved all of us, but I always sensed that because they struggled to keep themselves on track, we kids came second. I know that’s a terrible thing to say, but after my mom’s car wreck, things weren’t the same.”

“Car wreck?” Thad’s voice came out strangled. It was almost as if he was imagining his own mother injured.

“Yes. A drunk driver hit her. She broke a leg, an arm, and a few ribs. She was in the hospital for weeks.”

“How old were you?”

“Thirteen.” Zoey painfully remembered how her father had crumbled after the accident. It was the first and only time she’d seen him cry. “We found out later that Mom was pregnant with Jack.”

“What did you do?” Pete drank his ale, but kept his gaze on her.

“Those days were a blur. My grandmother flew down from Maine to help out, but I was central command. It was the first time my brother and sisters treated me like I mattered.”

Thad twisted toward her. “You became the caregiver. Do you think that was the impetus for you pursuing a degree in psychology?”

She shrugged. “I’ve always wondered if it was, but it gets back to the old nurture versus nature argument. I think I was born to help people, but being in charge of a family of six when I was thirteen certainly helped shape who I am today.”

“It makes sense,” Pete said, “why you never did anything bad. Your family counted on you too much.”

“That’s true.”

Both Thad and Pete picked up their menus and she did the same. By the time the server returned, they’d all chosen their meal. She went with a light fish, while Pete and Thad both ordered the filet mignon.

All three brought their drinks to their lips as if they were waiting for someone to start a new topic. Thad’s question about what made her choose psychology had her thinking. While she bet Thad’s family thought the world of him, he was a bit of an enigma. “Tell me what made you decide to work with gangs?”

It was always possible some distant family member was in a gang or had been accosted by a gang member. Personal experiences were often driving forces for what one did in life.

“I can’t even say it was one incident or one day, but there’s a particular image that will remain in my brain for life. I was new to the force, but had worked with some very experienced cops. This one time I was with Cade, and we found a young woman with a bullet through her forehead.”

She winced. “How did that make you feel?” Zoey couldn’t help jumping into shrink mode. She wanted to understand him.

“Pissed. Disgusted. And determined to do something so another innocent victim wouldn’t be killed.”

Zoey shifted in her seat so she could face him better, her knee comfortably bumping his. She didn’t want to think about what went through that poor woman’s mind seconds before she was shot. “I’ve heard cops have to develop thick skins to survive. Do you ever get used to seeing a dead person?” She kept her voice low.

“Haven’t seen that many, but after a while, you learn to block out the horror. They give us training on how to do our jobs and not let our emotions rule. Sometimes it works. Other times it doesn’t.”

She’d been trained like that, too, but it wasn’t always possible to turn off her heart. “Did you ever find the person who killed that poor woman?”

“Yes, but it took a long time. The victim was a schoolteacher from Colorado visiting her folks. She was in the wrong place at the wrong time. A couple of thugs were robbing a pharmacy when she happened by. The gang member who shot her said he did it in order to know what it felt like to kill.”

Zoey dealt with a lot of sick people but none that bad. She shook her head. This wasn’t helping her day. “Is that why you wanted to go after gang members? For this woman?”

He leaned back and blew out a breath. She didn’t want to push, but Thad was a sensitive man. Deep inside, he cared about others.

“In part, but more importantly, I wanted to understand what made a kid turn to gangs.”

The teenage mind fascinated her, too. “Have you?”

“Poverty, parents who don’t care. You name it. It makes me want to tell parents to love their kids.”

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Pete’s fingers tightened on his glass. Talking about bad parenting was a sore subject for him. She wished he’d understand that his father’s less than affectionate behavior might have nothing whatsoever to do with him. Some men spend their life battling their own demons and can never let go of the pain. Hopefully, Pete would see that at some point in his life.

Right now, she wanted to be with both of them, give them comfort, and let them bestow some loving on her. At the thought of crawling into bed with her two men and letting them hold her tight, the pain of the past few days eased.

Chapter Twenty-One

B
etween the stress from the funeral and eating a big meal at the restaurant, Zoey was tired. She agreed to let Pete drive because he wanted to. Tonight should be about the men’s needs and what they wanted. She’d yet to make real love with Thad, and she couldn’t wait to rectify that oversight. Between the murder and the funeral, the men had either been busy or perhaps not in the mood to get together.