The Escape Artist (16 page)

“Duk, duk!” Cody squealed. He was entranced with Lucy, as he was with everyone, and Kim watched the scene with a brand new seed of paranoia growing in her head. If Jim were really smart, he could do no better than to hire a grandmotherly private investigator to move in next door to her.

“He reminds me of my little grandson,” Lucy said. “Who I haven’t seen in months, unfortunately.”

Cody pulled himself up by her shoulder and dropped his little body onto her lap. “Oh, is he ever lovable! And he has your eyes, doesn’t he?” She looked up at Kim.

“Yes, I guess so.”

“Such an unusual, pretty light blue.” She ran the truck up Cody’s leg, speaking to Kim without looking up. “Ellen told me you’re newly divorced. Must be terrible with such a little one.”

Kim nodded. “It’s hard, but I think we’re better off without him than we were with him,” she said.

“Oh, one of
those
sorts. He helps out with child support, I hope.”

Kim hesitated. What was the best answer? She couldn’t think through all the ramifications quickly enough. She’d told Ellen she received child support. “A little,” she said.

“It’s never enough, is it? Does he live nearby? Does Cody get to see his papa ever?”

Kim was anxious for a change of topic. “Not too often.” She made a show of looking at her watch. “I hate to tear him away from you, Lucy, but we have to meet some people for dinner.”

“How lovely for you.” With some effort, Lucy was back on her feet again. She returned Cody to the playpen. “Actually,” she said, dusting off the back of her jumper, “I came over to see if you might have an extension cord I could borrow.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, I don’t. I just moved in myself—not quite two weeks ago—and I haven’t had the need for one. Maybe Ellen?”

“Maybe.” Lucy walked toward the door. “I’ll check with her. She’s something, isn’t she? She probably has a scented extension cord that chants when you plug it in.”

Kim had to laugh. “I wouldn’t be surprised.” She followed the older woman to the door.

“Ellen said you work at home?” Lucy asked.

“I plan to. I’m hoping to take in word processing jobs.”

“Well, that will be wonderful. I work at home too, so maybe we can take a coffee break together every once in a while.”

“Sure,” Kim said, but she didn’t know about that. Lucy seemed a bit too intrusive. Overbearing.

“And if you ever need someone to watch Cody, you just let me know, okay?”

Kim nodded with a smile, but once she’d closed her door on her new neighbor, she shook her head. “Don’t hold your breath,” she said.

THE RESTAURANT WAS A SMALL
, Italian eatery, and Kim was relieved to discover the relaxed atmosphere. She’d been worried about taking Cody into someplace fancier. He was usually well behaved, but in case this turned out to be one of his rare cranky evenings, she didn’t want to embarrass her new friends.

She spotted Adam and Jessie already sitting across from one another at a table near the middle of the restaurant. They were involved in an animated, perhaps even angry, discussion. Adam had his back to the door, but Jessie spotted her and waved, a smile instantly replacing the frown on her face.

Kim collapsed Cody’s stroller and left it by the coat rack, then walked toward the table. She sat down next to Jessie, and the waitress brought a high chair to the end of the table so Kim would have easy access to her son.

“Did you walk here?” Adam asked.

“Yes. I do own a car, in case you’re wondering, but I don’t live that far.”

“There’s no place to park around here, anyway,” Adam said. “Where do you live?”

“On Maryland Street. I’m renting one of the upstairs apartments in a big house near the Naval Academy.”

“I bet I know the house,” Jessie said. “There’s been a for rent sign out front of it for a few weeks. Isn’t the woman who owns it a massage therapist?”

“Right. Ellen King.”

“Is that who Cherise goes to?” Adam asked his sister.

“Yes.”

“Ah.” Kim smiled. “That’s got to be the connection, then. I didn’t understand why I got an invitation to your show last night. I mean, I don’t know anyone in Annapolis except Ellen. But if Ellen knows Cherise, then I bet she asked Cherise to invite me.”

“That’s probably it,” Jessie said.

Kim unwrapped a breadstick and handed it to Cody. “Cherise seems really nice.”

“She’s a character,” Adam said. “One of those people who never met a stranger. She has an eye for art, though, and she’s really been my champion. Always after me to get back to painting again.”

“Do you think you ever will?” she ventured.

He shrugged. “All depends on my dreams. I’ve never been able to have much control over them.”

“They’ll come back, Adam,” Jessie said reassuringly.

He looked directly at Kim. “What happened six months ago was that my wife and two children were killed in a car accident.”

“Oh, no.” She was stunned he would reveal something that personal so quickly, so openly, and she felt a painful rush of sympathy for him. She had been through some tragedies in her life, but nothing she’d endured could compare to that sort of loss. “I’m terribly sorry,” she said. “I can’t even imagine…” Her voice trailed off. She did not know what else to say.

Jessie reached across the table and squeezed her brother’s hand. “Don’t talk about it, Adam,” she said. “Not here.”

“I wasn’t planning on it.”

“I’m so sorry.” Kim felt guilty for bringing up something that was not her business.

“I just wanted to tell you what happened so you’d understand why I was monopolizing you last night,” Adam said. “I wanted to apologize. I didn’t give you a chance to meet anyone else.”

“It certainly didn’t bother me at all.” She’d spent a good part of the evening talking with the star of the show and he was apologizing to her?

“I used you,” he said. “There were so many people there who know my background. They know about the accident and that I’m not working any more. I really had no desire to talk to them and answer their questions and listen to them try to persuade me to get back to work. I welcomed the opportunity to talk to someone who didn’t know a thing about me.”

So that was it. “Glad I could serve some purpose,” she said with a smile. She guessed that this dinner out was meant as some sort of payback.

“You did,” Jessie said, and there were tears in her eyes. “We were both dreading last night. We’ve discovered that we can’t talk too easily about what happened when we’re in a public place. We tend to fall apart a lot.”

“Of course you do,” Kim said.

“About the same time as the accident,” Jessie continued, “I split up with the man I’d been living with for five years. And I was going to school, but all of a sudden, I couldn’t concentrate. So I dropped out. Just for a year I hope. I was working on my master’s degree in engineering.”

“Wow,” Kim said, impressed.

“So Adam and I are both trying to put the pieces back together.”

Kim felt overwhelmed by their openness and frightened by her desire to be open in return. “Well, it’s great that you have each other,” she said.

The waitress appeared at their table and took their orders. Kim ordered pasta to share with Cody.

“So let’s switch the topic to you,” Jessie said when the waitress walked away. “Tell us your life story.”

Kim laughed, and she hoped that neither of them picked up the nervousness in the sound. “I don’t want to put you to sleep,” she said. She’d been on the run less than three weeks, and already she was longing to spill her guts to the first people who’d befriended her. She was used to relationships based on honesty. She felt guilty about offering them anything less than that.

“Well,” she began, “I was born and raised in Los Angeles.” Nice, big, anonymous city. She had been born in Boulder. Never lived anyplace else, either. “I loved art, growing up. All through school, art was the only class I could get decent grades in. I was planning to major in art when I started college, but then I met my husband and I dropped out to put him through school.” No harm in being honest about that part, she thought. Nobody was going to be looking for her based on the fact that she had once hoped to major in art. Jim probably wouldn’t think to mention that fact in his description of her.

“Ouch,” Jessie said.

“Worse than ouch,” Kim said. “Once he was done with college, he decided he wanted to go to medical school.” She’d make him a doctor—the arrogant, egocentric sort. “So I kept working to put him through medical school.”

“What kind of work were you doing?” Adam asked.

She’d told Ellen she’d worked in a bank, but she wouldn’t make that mistake again. “Receptionist,” she said. “For some nondescript business in L.A.”

“So what happened after he got out of medical school?” Jessie asked.

“He met someone better educated than me.”

Adam sat back in his seat and laughed. “Oh, man. I bet you wanted to kill him.”

“I’d considered it.” She smiled. “But I was pregnant at the time and didn’t want to give birth in prison.”

“You were pregnant and he went out on you?” Jessie asked. “What a prick.”

“Yeah.” She grinned. She liked this. They were definitely on her side. She had to be careful where she took her tale in terms of truth and lies, though. Already she’d forgotten to add in the part about living in New Jersey.

“So what happened?” Jessie asked. “Did he ask for a divorce?”

“No, I did.” It was a lie, of course, but it made her feel powerful just to say it. “He was weepy and remorseful and everything, but I was so angry. He’d cost me all those years when I could have been getting an education myself. Plus, I knew he was still seeing Babette, and I—”

“Babette?” Jessie laughed. “That was her name?”

“That’s the name I gave her.” Peggy was no Babette, but it didn’t matter. Kim was on a roll. “Anyhow, I knew I could never trust him again. I didn’t even like him anymore.”

“Who could blame you?” Adam said. “He doesn’t sound particularly likable.”

“And Babette,” Jessie added. “I would have hired a hit man, I think.”

“I did, in my dreams a few times.”

“What about the baby?” Jessie asked. “What about Cody? Didn’t your husband—what was his name?”

She had not thought of a name for him. “Ted,” she christened him. “And no, he wasn’t very interested in Cody.” She wanted to tell them the truth. She wanted to tell them what a creep Ted had turned out to be. What a traitor. But she couldn’t. “He didn’t care, and I really didn’t want him around my son.”

“He pays child support, I hope,” Adam said.

“No. If I took child support from him, I’d have to let him visit. And I don’t want that.” She would have to change the stories she’d told Lucy and Ellen.

“Well, it must help that he lives out on the west coast,” Jessie said.

“Well, actually we were living in New Jersey at the time we split up.”

“Really?” Adam asked. “Where in New Jersey did you live?”

“Sort of between Trenton and Princeton,” she answered vaguely.

“Dana—that was my wife—was from Passaic.”

“Oh.” She nodded, hoping she shouldn’t be making more of a connection than she seemed to be. Where was Passaic?

The waitress delivered their salads, and Kim cut a wedge of tomato on her bread plate and set it in front of Cody.

Adam shook his head as he started on his salad. “Some people take marriage for granted, you know? They don’t appreciate what they have.”

“Right,” she said. “I know.”

“So you’re all on your own with Cody, huh?” Jessie asked. “That must be hard.”

“It is,” she agreed. “That’s why I hope I get some work soon.”

Adam looked at his sister. “We can probably help out with that, huh, Jess?”

Jessie nodded. “Sure. Betty’s always complaining she has too much typing to do, and maybe Noel’s worn out his latest typist by now.”

“How about those offices in the Spire Building?” Adam asked his sister. “You know, Les and those guys?”

“Good idea. I’ll give Les a call and see what he thinks.”

“I sent brochures to a lot of the businesses around town,” Kim said.

“Great,” Adam said. “And Jess and I will put in a good word for you. Get you some work.”

She felt her eyes burning. Her nose was probably turning red. “That’s really nice of you.” She was embarrassed by her reaction to their warmth.

They walked her home after dinner, telling her it was not too far out of their way.

“Do you live together?” she asked, hoping that was not too personal a question.

“Just about,” Adam said.

“I’ve been renting the house next to his for the last five years,” Jessie explained. Jessie was pushing Cody’s stroller, and the little boy was nearly asleep by the time they reached Ellen’s house. The talk was light and easy, and Kim could not believe the level of comfort she felt with the two of them. She was too comfortable. It would be easy to slip up and reveal something she should never reveal.

And that was why, when they reached her house, she said good night without inviting them in.

IT’S QUARTER TO ONE
, Linc.” Grace warned. She pushed her shopping cart closer to the organic gala apples and pulled one of them out of the bin to sniff.

“Uh huh.” He picked up a few oranges, slipped them into a plastic bag, and dropped them in his cart. He knew what time it was, but he wasn’t anxious to do what he had to do that afternoon, and he didn’t feel like rushing. He liked taking his time when he shopped at Alfalfa’s. He and Susanna usually shopped here together, Tyler in the cart. They’d buy lots of good-for-you food, which was easy to do at this particular grocery store, but then they’d blow their good intentions in the bakery department.

Grace was not nearly as much fun. She disdained the bakery—”All that sugar!”—and she kept harping about the time. He had a one-thirty appointment on the other side of Boulder, and he would have to drop her off at her house first.

“You know, maybe giving Tyler’s birthday present away is a stupid idea,” he said as he bagged a head of lettuce.

Grace merely gave him a tolerant smile. He’d been saying the same thing all morning.

Tyler’s birthday wasn’t until the following week, but the rocking horse had been standing in the corner of Linc’s guest room for over two months, waiting to take someone for a ride. Now it was in the back seat of his car, covered by a blanket. The horse was beautiful, carved out of maple and sporting a white yarn mane and tail. He’d had one very similar to it when he was a child, and since the day Tyler was born, he’d imagined getting one for him. Now it looked as though he would never have the chance to give it to him, and his anger at Susanna for disappearing without letting him say good-bye to either her or Tyler was mounting.