Heaven to Betsy (Emily #1) (16 page)

I paced in front of Jack’s desk.

“But we could file a wrongful death suit on Valentina’s behalf, as Sofia’s survivor. Or on behalf of Sofia’s estate. Or something!”

That last part came out a little louder than I’d intended. Too late, I realized it was probably bad form to yell at the top of your lungs at your boss of one week. But, really, Jack could drive anyone into a frenzy. The man was infuriating. One minute he was confusing me with inappropriate goo-goo eyes in the DA’s office, and the next he was shutting me down about Valentina. When she needed my help more than ever.

Jack didn’t yell back, but Snowflake shivered in her sheepskin doggy bed beside his desk. “It’s called a survival action, but Valentina isn’t our client.”

“Sofia is.”

“Emily, finding Valentina has nothing to do with filing a survival action.”

“But our client was murdered in cold blood. Melinda may call it a gang fight, but that’s a crock and you know it. How come Sofia was the only one hurt, much less killed? And on the same day Valentina gets snatched? Something more is going on here, Jack. Something much, much more. And the DA’s office is covering it up. It’s total bull honky!”

A big grin spread across his face ear to ear. “Bull what?”

I crossed my arms and glared at him. “You heard me.”

Jack stood up and started pacing back and forth behind his desk, which made Snowflake sit up and whine.

“You’re right,” he said. “The circumstances suck, and a survival action isn’t out of the question. But not until we’re caught up on some other things. Then, and only then, I very well may support your request to expand the practice into civil litigation and ask you to help look into it. In the meantime, you did an amazing job today and really broke things open for the police. They’re going to find Valentina, and you’ll have made that possible. But, Emily, that’s their job, not yours.” His voice softened. “You certainly have a passion for managing my practice, and I’m not complaining about it. Passion is good.”

I stared at the floor, thinking for a moment. “I haven’t told you everything.”

Jack leaned back against one of his tall cabinets. “Oh, shit.”

“What? No, I didn’t do anything. Well, I mean, I didn’t get caught doing anything.” I held up my hand as Jack started to interrupt. “Just listen. We know Sofia shot Spike, but she wouldn’t say why. I looked into Spike’s background, and he did time for molesting a child with another guy—a Harvey Dulles from Amarillo. I gave you a copy of my research, remember?”

“Right.”

“Well, today I learned Sofia used to bring Valentina to work and hide her there, where she’d sleep or read or color or whatever.”

“So?”

I crouched beside the shivering Snowflake and started massaging her neck. Poor girl didn’t like high emotion. She still shook, but she seemed to relax some into my hand. “So, Spike has a record for doing bad stuff with kids. Sofia shot him. What if those two things are related? I got to thinking: what about the possibility that his old buddy Harvey was there, too? One of the hotel employees said he saw a man running away from the hotel the night Sofia shot Spike, a man that fits the description for Harvey. Harvey could be a witness for us. Or, he might even be the one who has Valentina.”

Jack rubbed his jaw. “Okay. I’m still listening.”

I stood back up and leaned my tush against the edge of Jack’s desk, facing him. “Wallace and I went to Harvey’s house before we went to see Victoria,” I said. “Before I knew she had Valentina. Harvey wasn’t there. Two homeless teenagers told us he moved out in a hurry last week. I haven’t checked with his employer yet to see if he’s still working, but he could have her, Jack.”

He shook his head. “Did you tell the police about Harvey? Because Valentina—”

“I know. Isn’t our client. And yes, I told the officer that questioned me at Victoria’s my theory. I got a few nods, but he wasn’t won over.”

“Is that all?”

I thought about trespassing at Harvey’s house and my B&E at Sofia’s apartment.

“Yeah, that’s all,” I said. “I just wanted you to know everything, plus, it could be a lead for a survival suit.”

“Which we aren’t going to look into yet.”

I crouched and resumed stroking Snowflake, as much to soothe myself now as her.

“I know, but just keep it in mind,” I said. “We’ve got one known creep living in Amarillo, and his creepy buddy shows up here. Sofia kills the buddy, so isn’t it possible creep number one knows people that know people in PCDC? He could be behind Sofia’s death, too.”

“Noted. For the future. For now, just finish Johnson. Then I need to unleash your passion and brilliance on my other cases.”

I crossed my fingers behind my back and said, “No problem.”

***

Mother picked me up at the curb forty-five minutes later for the ride back to Heaven. Suddenly, a heavy tiredness coursed through me so hard that I could barely lift my hand to open the door. I flopped into the seat like a lead weight.

“Hi, Mother,” I said.

When she didn’t reply, I turned to her. She was biting her lip—always a bad sign. Today had already been a long, hard day. I closed my eyes.
Lord, give me strength.

I tried again. “What’s wrong?”

She tilted her head back, the better to raise her nose in the air. “Imagine my disappointment to have to hear through the grapevine that my own daughter is having my first grandbaby, instead of hearing it from her.”

Well, this wasn’t good. Surely the news of my just-booked-half-an-hour-ago OB appointment for Wednesday hadn’t spread that fast.

“Who told you that?”

“So you aren’t denying it?” She braked at a green light and the car behind her honked. She pressed the accelerator.

I let my weary head fall back against the front seat cushion as we shot forward. “Um, congratulations, Grandmother.”

She cleared her throat, then went silent.

“Mother, I’m only eight weeks along.” Well, nearly nine, but who was counting? “I just found out myself. I had planned to tell you tonight anyway.” I hoped the crossed fingers I’d used with Jack earlier had a lasting effect. “So, who told you?”

“Katie emailed me. One of those online cards from Jacquie Lawson.” She sniffed. “It was just lovely. A little bear with balloons.”

I choked back a groan. Collin. I hadn’t mentioned “mum’s the word” when I’d told my story in New Mexico. Especially in relation to
my
mum.

“How sweet of her,” I said.

“She’s very kind. And so I called Rich—”

“You
what
?!” I sat forward so hard and fast the seat belt pinched me. “No, Mother, no, tell me you didn’t.”

“What? He didn’t pick up so I just left him a voice mail.”

Oh God, oh no, oh, my mother. “WHAT DID YOU SAY?”

“Don’t use that tone with me, young lady. I told him congratulations on the baby and how excited I was to be a grandmother.”

I put my head in my hands and then a giggle started that seemed to ricochet back at me as it bounced off the insides of the car, escalating and multiplying until it was a symphony of inharmonious cackles. I giggled so hard I needed to change my panties. I laughed, literally, until I cried, and by the time it stopped, I was choking on little sobs.

“You called Rich instead of me.”

Now it was her turn for the hot seat, and she squirmed.

“Well, I—your new job, and, because I just—so, yes, and I knew I’d see you soon anyway.” She clamped her mouth shut.

I blubbered a little as I spoke. “Mother, that man’s lover crashed my baby announcement dinner, and Rich chose
him
over me. So, guess what? I hadn’t told him yet. He doesn’t get to share this part. It was supposed to be my little secret. My baby. Mine. Not his, and not Stormy’s.”

“Emily Josephine Phelps Bernal, you cannot mean to tell me you aren’t going back to Dallas to raise this child with him.”

She put on her blinker and turned onto the I-40 access road.

“I most certainly can.”

“You can’t divorce Rich now. The baby is proof he’s not gay.”

I hooted. I couldn’t help it. “Were you not listening to the part where he doesn’t want to be married to me, the part where he chose Stormy, who is a man? I’m sorry, Mother, but the ability to make a baby does not determine your sexual orientation.”

She huffed. “Still, I cannot for the life of me see how you, a girl whose own father left you, would deny your child a father?”

She accelerated up the entrance ramp and merged into what passed for rush hour traffic in Amarillo. My pulse accelerated with the car. I held my tongue, fuming, working it out in my mind. What was this about? How could she say these things to me? Dad left when I was nearly grown. And it
had
hurt. It
still
hurt. Yet I knew it probably hurt her more. Lord knows she was the one who had to face the humiliation when other people whispered. I was beginning to understand what that must have been like. Plus, for years he’d sent postcards and letters and gifts and checks to me. He’d called on my birthdays. He’d begged my forgiveness and tried to explain, in his own way, that he wasn’t the kind of man to live in one place, with one woman, and that he couldn’t come back anymore.

So, yeah, it had hurt, but I hadn’t felt as “left” as she had. That was until I was a senior in college, anyway, when all his cards and letters just stopped, and he never called me again. I had Rich who told me he wanted to be my husband, so I didn’t need a father, and I moved on, too. An arrow sliced through my heart and out my back. Now I’d moved on from being left by a father to being left by a husband.

I softened my tone. “Mother, it is in part because I had a father at home and lost him that I fully understand the difference between what I went through and what it means that my child’s father won’t ever live in our house. This baby will always have a father, but won’t have to know the hurt of a father leaving.”

“But what will I tell my friends?” she shrieked, turning to me, and swerving into the lane to our right.

A horn blared and Mother jumped in her seat, overcorrecting to her left, earning her another honk. She straightened her wheel and squeezed her lips together. I grabbed the armrest on the door. She wasn’t going to have to worry about this if she killed us both. I bit my lip hard, holding it in. I’d grown up believing in honoring and respecting my parents. I didn’t always practice it, but I tried. Right now, I tried really, really hard.

I turned the radio on as a distraction. “A murder suspect was killed today in a prison riot at the Potter County Detention Center—”

I snapped the dial off.

Mother made a
hrmph
sound. “At least the rest of us won’t have to pay to keep another criminal fed and clothed for the rest of their life.”

“Enough!” My yell was so loud and high-pitched it hurt my own ears, and Mother ducked. “Enough with your comments. If you so much as open your mouth the rest of the way home, I’ll . . . I’ll . . .” I stopped. I had no idea what I’d do, I just knew neither of us was going to like it. I exhaled and dialed down my volume. “Just enough, okay?”

She bit her lip, again. It was white, as were her knuckles. I felt a little bit guilty, but not so much that I wasn’t able to appreciate the blessed silence on the rest of the drive.

I stalked from the elevator to the office the next morning an hour early in a hailstorm of text messages from my soon-to-be ex-husband. I hit the front door like a battering ram.

Rich:
Why didn’t you tell me?

Rich:
We must talk!

Rich:
I deserve a reply!

Those were the three latest I’d received. Oh, I had a reply for him. Boy, did I have a reply. I grabbed the door and threw my whole body into slamming it. The door swung closed on its hydraulic brake to a whispery soft landing behind me.

Snowflake met me, but she slunk away when she saw the mood I was in. No toast crusts for her today. I slammed my handbag down on my desk. I hadn’t slept worth a dang last night. Dreams of Valentina tormented me, her screams, her sweet face and her adorable little Barbie pj’s, a large bald tattooed man dragging her by the arm away from the rodeo arena while I watched, helpless, standing directly in the path of a charging bull. Hours later, I was struggling to keep my toast down and reeling from bickering with my mother the entire drive to work. Rich’s text barrage was just piling on at this point.

A note lay on my chair.
Johnson and only Johnson until you’re done.
Oh, not Jack, too. The yellow-bellied sapsucker didn’t have the guts to tell me to my face. He had to leave me a little note. I wanted to scream at him.
I know, I know, already. I know what you are ordering me to do, to ignore an innocent little girl who needs someone to care what happens to her so that I can go to work for clients who have done bad things.

The bell on my desk beckoned me, not to ring it, no, but rather to ignore it. It beckoned me down the hall on sneaky feet. It beckoned me to Jack’s luxurious and oh-so-private office. So I led with my chin and sailed down the hall, holding the clacker of the bell still as I moved soundlessly toward my boss.

Once at the door to his office, I stopped at the precipice, teetering on a doubt. He had asked me to ring the bell to give him his privacy.

The devil on my shoulder whispered in my ear.
Well, wouldn’t a little privacy be nice? You sure don’t have any, though, so why should he?

Nah, bell shmell. It was a stupid, chauvinistic rule, and it shouldn’t be okay to hold me hostage in the lobby so he could hide behind his “privacy.”

I took a deep breath and barged in, bell clanging. “Screw your bell rule, Mr. Holden, I’m not playing your little power game anymore.”

The first words came out as a bellow, the last few words came out a whisper, as I took in what I saw.

Jack’s tall built-in cabinet on the left side of the office was open, revealing an enormous photographic portrait of a family in what looked like hiking clothes, in a mountain setting with tall pine trees and a glistening stream. In the middle stood a striking woman with flawless skin the color of toasted caramel. Her long black hair was thick and lustrous, parted on the side and swept back as if with her fingers. The camera had caught her smile midlaugh. It lit her eyes like sparklers. She had one arm around two grinning kids: a little girl—maybe eight years old?—who was lucky enough to look just like her mother and a little boy who shared their looks and appeared to be slightly younger than his sister. On the other side of the boy, his arm around the two children, too, stood Jack. But that Jack had hair down to his shoulders and looked fifteen years younger than the short-haired man standing beside the portrait now, glaring at me like a bull does at the rodeo clown just before he tosses her over the rail.

“Is there a problem, Emily?” he said, nostrils flared, fists balled.

I now took in the easel and paper in front of him, and the unfinished charcoal drawing of the little girl from the portrait on a spotted pony. A hideaway bed extended from the left built-in cabinet, Snowflake huddled in terror on a pillow. I took in the man in his white tee and his jeans, a Fender shirt on a hanger looking ready for wear on the table. I smelled spices and cheese and, on his desk, I saw his breakfast taco.

Suddenly I knew the answer to all his mysterious morning noises, and, worse, knew what a horrible person I was.

I tried to answer him. “No.” No sound except a wheezy crackling noise came out, and I repeated myself, louder. “No.” I backed up, my hand behind me on the doorframe. “I’m sorry.”

I fled back to the lobby and on to the bathroom down the hall, face in my hands, tears leaking through my fingers. What a dumbass I was. A total dumbass. A total clueless dumbass. I shook my head, cringing, as I remembered Jack’s face, and the picture of his daughter that he’d drawn from that beautiful, beautiful portrait of his family. A total clueless, selfish dumbass.

I leaned against the closed door inside a bathroom stall. Still, what was he doing living on a pullout bed in his Amarillo office if he had a family like that somewhere? They sure weren’t living at Wrong Turn Ranch in New Mexico either. And then it hit me. He wouldn’t have a shrine like that to his family if they were still with him. So, had Jack’s wife left him, and taken the kids? Was he in the middle of a divorce? It was possible, but it didn’t change my invasion of his privacy, or how upset he was with me, or how upset I was with myself. It could mean he hadn’t misled me about his marital status, and that my anger about it had been unjust, though.

Five snuffling minutes later, I washed my face and slunk to my desk. I booted up my laptop. Typing the words RodeoQueen somehow brought the rain down from my eyes again. I mopped them with my light peach sweater. Bangs and thuds resounded from Jack’s office, and I flinched at each sound. I opened my Johnson file and tried to find my place.

Footsteps approached along with the tinkle of Snowflake’s tags. I tensed, not ready to face him.

“Here are the other client files with instructions for your next few projects when you’re done with Johnson. I’ll be in court today.” His voice sounded tight and echo-y.

I tried to make myself sound neutral, even though tears threatened to fall again. “Okay, thanks.”

He opened the door and disappeared down the hall with Snowflake and me staring at the space he left behind.

***

I spent the morning on a variety of tasks, most of them not work related. Of course, there was my ongoing text war with Rich. Luckily, he’d disappeared about an hour ago. I needed the breather—from him and from a persistent ache in my abdomen, which I hoped was just stress.

I had emailed a few prospective employers about jobs I found in the
Globe News
. One as a legal secretary, another as a receptionist. Unfortunately, there weren’t any ads for paralegals. I hated to take a job outside my field, especially for less money, but I’d blown it this morning, and I needed a backup plan—fast. I hoped Jack didn’t fire me before I found something else. My heart lurched and made a liar out of me— it knew I hoped he didn’t fire me at all.

I checked my personal email, something I only did every few days. In it was an email from Katie, dated yesterday.

Emily: Congratulations on the baby! Collin told me the fantastic news, and also a lot of other not-so-great things, but I want to hear it from you. Call me, and I promise I won’t make it all about me for a change. <3 Tell your mother hello for me, and take your prenatal vitamins.

I would call her, for sure, but not when Jack could walk in. I flagged the message.

On a whim, I had texted Nadine, the waitress from My Thai:
It’s Emily. We bonded the other day over my crash landing into Taco Villa back in the day, and we talked about getting together. Want to grab dinner?

Despite all the nonwork stuff, I had uncovered a wealth of juicy nuggets for Jack on Paul Johnson, so I felt virtuous about that, at least. I eyed the new client files. My stomach growled. Which to deal with first? Neither.

I grabbed my phone and texted Wallace. Again:
Any news on Valentina? Do you know if the police found Maria Delgado or Harvey?

When neither Wallace nor Nadine answered me, the new project work seemed to glow like a bright light, refusing to be ignored. I grabbed the first file.

My phone rang. Thank God. “Hello?”

Crackle. “—Ily Ber—” Crackle.

“Our reception is terrible. This is Emily Bernal speaking.”

“I have your—” Crackle-crackle.

I stood up. “I can’t hear you.”

Crackle-crackle-crackle. “—car.”

I climbed up on the couch, trying to get my phone higher, to reach better coverage. “Can you repeat that?”

The call dropped.

The door opened. Wallace stood in the doorway in pressed khakis, work boots, and some Paul Bunyan-like plaid shirt. His eyebrows shot up.

I tried for a graceful dismount. “Um, bad cell reception.”

“That’s what I’d say if I was caught doing a Tom Cruise on the couch.”

I laughed and he held up a bag. 575 Pizzeria. “I got a red pie and a white one,” he said. “Both meatless, since I learned you were a rebel yesterday. Hungry?”

My mouth watered. “You went all the way to 575 Pizzeria?”

“I’d have gone twice that far for their pizza.”

We walked to the kitchen. Was my tongue hanging out like a dog’s, or did it just feel like it? I grabbed plates and napkins and set them out while Wallace extracted the boxes from the bag. When he opened the first lid and that cheesy, doughy goodness wafted my way, I nearly cried.

“I’ve had a really bad day. Pizza is about the only thing in the world that could make it better. You’re psychic.”

He grinned, mouth full of a piece of the basil, garlic, and pine nuts red pie.

I put a piece of each pie on my plate. “And today? Let’s just say today can bite me.”

I chomped into the white pie and exhaled to cool the cheesy part that stuck to the roof of my mouth. It was wonderful, and I admired it in my hand, covered in stripes of white cheese and green chiles.

He laughed, half-choking. “You’re not much of a cusser.”

I brandished a slice. “I may not cuss tough, but I fight tough.”

“I believe that after yesterday.”

“Hey, you didn’t happen to bring my gun with you, did you?”

“No way in hell I’m carrying that thing without a license,” Wallace said. “Do you know what happens to men as gorgeous as me in the slammer? I like to choose my dates, thank you very much.”

I snorted, then laughed. “Did you find those teenagers we saw yesterday?”

Wallace held a hand up until he finished chewing a bite. “The police did. The kids’ names are Greg Easley and Farrah Farud. Their case worker—Byron, you’d like him, good guy—took them back to a group home until we investigate the abuse allegations.”

“That’s good, I guess.”

He waggled his hand and nodded. “It’s a start.”

We ate in silence a few moments until I had enough food in me to return to my favorite topic. “You brought me an update on Valentina, didn’t you?”

“Now who’s psychic?” He grinned.

“Psycho, more like it.”

A voice in the lobby interrupted. “Excuse me, anyone here?”

I took a gulp of my tea through a bite of red pie before saying, “Yes, just a moment!” I jumped to my feet, chewing frantically and mopping sauce from my face and hands.

“Expecting someone?”

I headed to the door, looking back at him. “Nope.”

The man in the lobby/my office looked about my age, ordinary in a white skin, brown hair, brown eyes kind of way, in clean blue jeans and a long-sleeved blue tee with the words Professional Drivers, Inc. across the chest. He held a clipboard and a ring of keys. He had a pleasant smell that I couldn’t place.

“Hello, may I help you?”

“I’m looking for Emily Bernal.” His voice had a weary undertone to its friendliness.

“That’s me.”

He nodded. “I called earlier. I have your car for you. I’ll just need a credit card and to take you downstairs so you can check it out and sign for it.”

Rich had failed to mention when I should expect my car, since baby talk had dominated the last fifteen hours of our interactions. I took the bill and recoiled. Gas, delivery fee, and money for a taxi to the airport and a plane ticket back to Dallas. It was more than I had left in my checking account. I retrieved my Visa card and handed it to him.

“Thanks,” I said.

He swiped the card in his phone reader and typed on his screen.

Wallace had joined us by now. “Looks like you can drive this afternoon,” he said.

I scribbled my name with my fingertip on the phone extended toward me. “Where are we going this afternoon?” I asked Wallace.

“Well, no one’s tracked down Maria Delgado yet. Obviously the job calls for our Scooby Doo investigator team skills.”

I laughed again. Thank God Wallace had come. “A team on which I am clearly Velma. Can we look for Harvey when we’ve corralled Maria?”

“Yep. And then, later, you might want to play around on the Internet. With the name Antonio Rosa.”

“Why’s that?”

“The gay-hating manager of the apartments finally coughed up a name to the cops. Antonio is the guy who paid for Sofia and Valentina’s apartment.”

“Heck yeah.” Before I could stop myself, I did a fist pump, and even went a little airborne. It wasn’t pretty.

Wallace burst out laughing at my feeble curse and leap, and I laughed, too, loud and real, heart hammering. The bad morning receded a little. We were going to find Valentina—I just knew it.

The driver interrupted. I’d forgotten he was there. “If you don’t mind, I’ve got a plane to catch.”

“Of course,” I said.

Wallace added, “Pick me up at my office.”

Jack wasn’t here to ask permission, so I pretended that if he had been, he would have said yes.