Web of Smoke (19 page)

Her eyes and her voice pleaded, begging him for help. Mike’s sigh came from his gut. “Okay, but you get in my way, you wait in the car.”

“Okay.”

“I’m going to the can. Is it okay if I do that alone?”

He closed the door behind him leaving Kathy in the living room alone with Rookie. Waves of self-pity convulsed through her at his accusations. Slowly, she sank to the sofa. A great hiccupping sob caught in her chest. She’d never felt so lost or alone. Even when Dan had died.

A giant, crystalline tear rolled over the widened rim of her eye and careened down her cheek. She lowered her head to her knees, drawing herself into a tight, pain-filled ball. Rookie whined and put his big head in her lap. Unconsciously, her fingers stroked behind his ears.

How could Mike be so cruel?

She wiped her tears and straightened her shoulders. His accusations about Dan had hurt, but Dan was dead. Jessica wasn’t. She wouldn’t even permit herself to think otherwise.

Jessica.

Like a bright light that still seemed to glow even after it had been extinguished, she could picture Jessica. Her smile. Her sparkling eyes.

“Wait for me Jess,” she whispered. “Wait for me.”

In the breeze through the window, she imagined a sighing response.

Hurry, Mommy....

* * *

“Ever heard of Dr. and Mrs. John McClowsky?” Sam asked as he walked through the front door.

Christie shook her head.

He unfolded a computer printout and spread it on the table. “Title on the house was transferred from them about a month before your mother died.”

“DC was still around at that time.”

“That’s what I thought, but I wasn’t sure. You’re sure you never heard your mother mention the name McClowsky? Think hard.”

“I am thinking hard, Sam. It doesn’t ring any bells. You say the house was transferred? Not sold?”

“That’s right. Frank has a friend who checked out some tax records—don’t ask me how he got them because I don’t know—but he told us that McClowsky used the house as a tax deduction. A donation.”

“A donation? To my mother?”

“To the MJ Collins Agency.”

“Agency?”

“I take it you knew nothing about your mother’s plans to start her own business?”

“Sam, she would have told me if she’d been thinking about that. Even with the DC thing between us, she would have told me.”

“Maybe that’s what she was working on with DC that day you went to the clinic.”

“What do you mean?”

“Beth claims she knew nothing about DC having anything to do with an adoption, right?”

“Right, but she had a good point about my mom lying. I mean, it wouldn’t be the first time she’d lied to me about a boyfriend.”

“Okay, but maybe it wasn’t a lie. Maybe she planned on opening her own adoption agency and was working under the table on the first transaction.”

“Sam, she wasn’t that underhanded. I mean, lying about a lunch date is one thing, but I can’t believe she’d double-cross Beth.”

“But DC would and you said yourself that he had a powerful hold over your mother. I know you don’t want to believe it, but I think it would be worth the drive to give these McClowskys a surprise visit. It’s almost dinnertime. We might be able to catch them at home if we leave now.”

On the way to the McClowsky’s house in El Cajon, Christie told Sam about Mike Simens’s visit. He listened, his expression becoming grim, the set of his jaw even more determined.

She finished talking as they exited the freeway and turned to the south side of El Cajon, where sprawling estates dotted the sloping hills like patchwork. Looking out her window, Christie was amazed at the difference a few miles could make in a city. They passed several kennels and fenced-in meadows with sleek horses grazing in the sun.

They drove through a nice neighborhood filled with the sounds of children laughing and playing. The different models of homes were unique duplications of one another. Here, someone had added an extra room. There, RV parking. The community’s upgrades sparkled with middle-class comfortableness. Enough, but never enough.

Following a road that snaked between the hillsides, twisting without obvious plan from one side to the other, they stopped at the foot of a driveway marked by a barn-shaped mailbox with McClowsky painted on the side. Feeling suddenly nervous, Christie gave Sam a glance.

“Are you sure this is a good idea? Don’t you think we should have called first?”

“And give them time to make up a story?”

“Sam, you’re talking as if these people committed a crime. At worst, all they did was make a donation to my mother.”

“You don’t really believe that, do you?”

In truth, she no longer knew what to believe, so she kept quiet, staring out her window as they climbed the steep drive to a flat surface that circled a man-made pond. Sam parked the Jeep next to a maroon Volvo and stepped out. Christie followed.

The house was gray, dusky yet bright, with happy white trim. It was freshly painted and the yard was immaculately tailored. Bright splashes of flowers lined the walkway. In the distance, someone mowed a lawn and the fragrance of freshly cut grass mingled with the scent of sprinklers splashing hot concrete. Summer. It was the kind of neighborhood in which Sam had grown up. The kind in which Christie had dreamed of living.

“Let me do the talking,” Sam said as they approached a door with stained glass insets and fancy woodwork.

“I don’t have the slightest idea what to say anyway. You’re not going to pull another act like you did at Pfeiffer’s office, are you?”

“Pfeiffer deserved to have his lights knocked out. I think I showed considerable restraint under the circumstances.”

Sam knocked on the door and they waited in the cool shadow of the doorway. They heard footsteps from within and assumed they were being watched through the peephole. After a moment a woman opened the door.

At first glance she looked very young, but as she stepped forward, the sun highlighted finely etched lines around her lips and laughter fanning from the corners of her eyes. Christie guessed her to be in her late forties. She wore a white, cotton pants outfit with a quilted pattern on the front. Cigarette smoke hovered around her, swirling in sunbeams and shadows. She gave them a warm smile as her gaze darted cautiously between them.

“Mrs. McClowsky?” Sam asked.

“Yes.”

“I’m Sam McCoy and this is my wife Christie. We’re sorry to bother you but we’re here about Mary Jane Collins—”

“Mary Jane? Of course. I’ll bet you’re here for a reference. You have that nervous look I remember having. Please, come in. I’d be happy to talk to you.” She stood aside for them to enter, shushing them with a finger across her lips as they passed the stairs. “I just got the baby to go down.”

Sam gave Christie a look that said “play along” as Mrs. McClowsky led them down the hallway. Reluctantly, Christie followed.

“Is your husband home?” Sam asked casually.

“No. He’s in LA on business. I’m not sure when he’ll be back. Soon, I hope.”

They stopped in a glass-walled room that overlooked the picturesque valley through which they’d just driven. After they refused her polite offer of refreshment, she perched on a matching chair and gave them another smiling look.

“I can see how nervous you are,” she said. “I understand. I was the exact same way. How long have you been trying?”

Their blank expressions made her giggle. “I mean, trying to adopt?”

“A while,” Sam said.

She nodded sympathetically. “Don’t worry. If you’re working with Mary Jane, you’re working with the best. The
very
best. She’ll move mountains to get you a baby. She delivered little Karen to us, just as she promised. Of course you always have to worry about the mother. That’s a given. But Mary Jane counsels them extensively before she even tells you about the baby. At least that’s how it was for us. We’d worked with several private agencies and the mothers changed their minds. Twice. Twice that happened to us. I was at the point of giving up.”

“That must have been hard,” Sam murmured.

“Hard isn’t the word. We’d even gone to Lamaze classes with one of the girls. She said she’d let us be coaches in the delivery room. Too good to be true. She had a little boy. My husband cut the cord, I gave him his first feeding. She took the baby right out of my arms and went back home to her parents. It was devastating. It nearly destroyed my marriage. Are you two feeling the stress?”

“We try and work through it,” Sam said, giving Christie’s shoulders a squeeze. She couldn’t believe how natural he acted, while she felt as flexible as glass. Seemingly at home with the charade, he elaborated. “It’s hard, but we try and keep each other’s spirits up.”

“That’s the best approach,” Mrs. McClowsky said. “It will rip you apart if you let it.” A sad, dreamy look glazed her eyes for a moment. “We would have named him Timothy. After my father. He passed away two years ago.”

She grew quiet for a few moments, gazing out the window. Then she blinked, beaming another smile their way. “But I wouldn’t trade Karen for Timothy, now.”

“Did you get to see Karen’s birth?” Christie asked her first question.

“No. They didn’t tell me about her until she was mine.”

“They?”

“My husband and Mary Jane. After the mother
changed her mind and kept Timothy, I had to be hospitalized. I wanted a baby so badly and knew I’d never have my own. My husband and I are double cursed. He’s sterile and I had an emergency hysterectomy when I was a teenager. When we married we decided we’d adopt, but my husband’s over sixty and I have some major health problems…. We were so naive. I’m sure you’ve had quite an education by now on how difficult it is to get a baby. Unless you’re willing to take on someone else’s rejects, that is. You know, a crack baby or disabled or abused child. We wanted a healthy baby, not someone else’s problem.”

She seemed not to know how callous her words sounded.

“I’m running at the mouth, aren’t I? That’s what my husband says I do. What else can I tell you, if I haven’t already blabbed your ears off?”

“How did you choose Mary Jane?” Sam asked.

“We started with Beth McClain. Don’t work with her, if you can help it. The woman’s got so many rules and regulations that you’ll be grandparents before you’re parents. And she’s absolutely inflexible on payments. I don’t like that woman at all. But when Mary Jane’s assistant approached my husband—”

“Her assistant?”

“Yes…what was his name? He went by initials. I’m sorry I can’t remember. Wonderful, caring man, though. Mary Jane was too ethical to talk to us independently of the McClain woman. She felt it was a conflict of interest. But her assistant said they could help us and once we terminated our business with McClain, Mary Jane agreed to assist us. Not to take credit away from her, but I don’t think she’d considered opening her own agency until she dealt with us.”

Sam raised his brows in polite surprise, casually asking, “Why is that?”

“Well, I didn’t know this was going on at the time it all happened. Like I said, my husband kept it a secret until it was a fait accompli. He didn’t want to see me go through the disappointment if it fell through. The way he explained it, though, is that there was a young woman who was expecting. She had several children already and couldn’t support another and she didn’t know what to do until Mary Jane’s assistant—what was his name?—”

“DC Porter?” Sam offered.

She smiled. “Yes, that’s it. DC Porter. He told her about us and talked her into giving the child up.”

“You say Mary Jane was flexible on payments?”

“Oh, yes. As a matter of fact she was very accommodating.’’

“Would it be too personal a question if I asked just how accommodating?”

She smiled with warm understanding, as if they were old friends. Christie felt small and cheap, sitting in her cheerful sun-room pretending to share a common problem.

“Mary Jane needed an office. We had a house that we’d been trying to sell forever because of my poor health. The house is in La Jolla—quite pricey, but the climate was just too damp for me. This far inland is so much better. We couldn’t sell though. I mean, no one has that kind of money these days. I’ll tell you, it was killing us. We were making payments on both houses…. We’d used all our reserves on the previous adoption attempts.” She shivered. “Bad times. Anyway, my husband worked out a deal and we donated the house to Mary Jane—took it as a deduction—and she took over the payments. It’s perfect for a home-based business catering to a wealthier clientele. And it must be doing fine because here you are.”

They both smiled and nodded. Yes, here they were. Christie could tell there were other questions Sam wanted to ask, but his tongue was tied by their charade.

“Do you want a boy or a girl?” Mrs. McClowsky asked.

“We’re not picky,” he answered glibly. “How about one of each?”

“Actually,” Mrs. McClowsky began, leaning forward in a confiding manner. “I’m trying to talk my husband into giving it another go. I know he’d love a son . . . But who can afford to do it twice?”

Sam and Christie murmured their agreement and stood to leave.

“Thank you for talking to us, Mrs. McClowsky.”

“Oh, it was my pleasure. Good luck to you both and say hi to Mary Jane for me. Tell her not to be surprised if she hears from me again.”

Chapter Nineteen

Christie stared out the window as she and Sam left the McClowsky residence behind, but what she saw in her mind shrouded her sight with the thick wool of introspection. She couldn’t believe that her mother had planned to open her own agency and hadn’t bothered to tell her. It hurt to think she’d keep something so important from her daughter.

“Hey? Christie, are you there?”

“What?”

“You’re starting to give me a complex. I’ve been talking to you for the last five minutes.”

“I’m sorry, Sam. I was looking out the window.”

“I can see that. Does that mean you can’t hear?”

She smiled. “Maybe.”

“You and ‘maybe.’ One of these days you’re going to have to choose yes or no.”