Dead Ringer - Chapter Twenty-Eight

⬅ Go here to read Chapter 27.

CHAPTER 28

All of a sudden, I was pissed. Maybe it was the young woman in hospital security acting like I’d shown up and asked for one of her kidneys, or maybe it was whatever stuck in my craw every time I laid eyes on that poser Lamar. For sure, I was frustrated about the Will situation.

I pointed my Civic toward Mark’s office, churning a head of steam on the way. Honestly, the whole “cloaked in secrecy” thing with him was getting old. If he wasn’t back by now, I’d leave a short but pointed note taped to his front door. Finding out what happened to Rachel Roper was important to me, and I thought it would be important to him. The “I’m leaving you in charge of this case” that at first seemed like a vote of confidence now felt like he’d off-loaded an inconvenience.

I’d held off calling Weston until I had something to report, but I owed him a contact. The man had lost his sister in the most terrible way, and I knew he must be beside himself with grief, along with feeling a sense of urgency to find out who killed her and why. Still, I wanted to speak with Mark first. And I wanted to talk to him about doing a thorough background check on Lamar. Something was way off with that man, I could feel it in my bones.

Also, there was the pesky little thing of giving Mark the heads up that he might be hearing from Chad, since I’d fibbed to Lamar about working alongside Brady PD and the Sheriff’s office. Whoopsie. Not the first time my mouth would get me in trouble, and one hundred percent likely it wouldn’t be the last. Still, in hindsight it was a stupidly bad decision.

I was half a block from Mark’s when I caught sight of him standing with a woman in front of his office. I slowed to a crawl, checking in my rearview mirror to make sure no one was behind me. I’d seen her before. She was the woman from last week, the tall, well-dressed strawberry blonde who tooled around in a white Lincoln. Mark gathered her in a hug that lasted longer than it might have. I slowed down and watched as she got into her car. He waved as she drove away.

He was just turning to head back into his office as I pulled up. “Oh, hi, Blainey,” he said as I got out.

“Oh, hi? That’s it? You disappear and I have no idea how to reach you?”

“Did you need to reach me?”

“No, not till today, but…”

“I told you I’d be back in a couple of days. Here I am. What’s up?”

I hated it when he was calm and reasonable. “Can we go inside?”

He hesitated and flicked his eyes back toward the house. Then he shrugged and sighed. “Sure, okay.”

I bit down hard on the words that wanted to come out and followed him in through his front door.

“Bring me up to speed,” he said. His leather chair crunched agreeably as he sank into it, but the breezy question hit me right in the “oh, no, you don’t” area.

I sat in one of the wingbacks and fired from the hip. “Have you been working another case you’re not telling me about?”

That stopped him. “Oh,” he said. “Um…okay…well, sort of…”

“Does it involve the woman who just left?” I hated how the question sounded coming out of my mouth.

After a moment he said, “Yeah. In a way.”

“So do you mind my asking who she is?”

“I mind, because it’s my business, but I’ll tell you. She’s my attorney.”

“Oh,” I said. I wanted to ask if he always hugged his attorneys, or just the graceful, elegant ones, but for once, that little voice telling me to shut it won out.

“So what’s the latest with the Rachel Roper case?”

“Well, I got the name of the CNA who found her. Cathy Stearnes. But I’ll need to track down the agency she works for. I’ll make some calls this afternoon and see if I can talk to her today.”

“Okay, sounds like a plan. Anything else?”

Just then from the back of the house came the sound of something metal being dropped and a high, soft laugh.

I let out a long sigh and counted to ten. “Okay, I think it’s time for me to go and leave you to…whatever.”

But Mark’s eyes weren’t on me. His gaze was aimed just past my shoulder with such an expression of tenderness that it nearly took my breath away, and when I turned, peeking around from the hallway was a small, freckled face with a button nose and ice-blue eyes set in a cloud of dark curls.

“You can come in, Angie,” Mark said softly, and the girl stepped into the room. She wore blue-and-white striped bib overalls and a yellow t-shirt. I guessed she was around eight years old.

“Angie, this is Miss Blainey. Blainey, this is my daughter. Angie.”

“Nice to meet you,” she said in a timid voice, her eyes trained on her slim, bare feet, toes curling into the Persian rug.

“I’m very pleased to meet you, Angie,” I said, and she raised her eyes and offered a sweet smile. I looked from the girl to Mark, trying not to gape. I’d never seen him so unguarded, completely naked in his adoration.

“Sweetie, Miss Blainey and I have some things to talk about. Could you go play in your room for a little while, and then we’ll go get ice cream?”

“Okay,” she said and gave me a shy wave as she disappeared around the corner, her feet padding quietly down the hallway.

I turned back to face him. For once, I had no words.

“Yeah,” he said, and I could hear how he tried to get the better of his emotions, but his voice was thick with love and something else. Sadness, maybe. He took a few minutes to collect himself. Outside, nearby traffic waved like a distant ocean.

“I met someone when I was an MP up in Maryland.” He stopped and glanced toward the hallway, listening.

“Mark, you don’t owe me any…”

“I only found out I had a daughter last year,” he said.

I waited for him to go on.

“When Serena found out she was pregnant, I told her we could get married. Or not. I said I’d do whatever she wanted, whatever it took. Then one morning her father shows up with a $10,000 check and instructions to never to contact her. He said the pregnancy would be terminated and she was going to go on with her life and move past this mistake. I tore up the check and threw it at him. But I didn’t try to get in touch, and I never heard from her again. I just figured that was that.

“Then two years ago Serena — that’s Angie’s mom — called me out of the blue and told me that she’d had the baby after all. I asked why she didn’t reach out when Angie was born. She said her father had told her about the $10,000. ‘That hurt me worse than anything you could have done,’ she said. ‘Any man who would take that kind of bribe could never be dad material.’”

“Ouch.”

“But she said Angie kept asking about me. ‘I felt she had a right to know,’ she said. In the perfect irony, she hired a private investigator to track me down.”

“God, Mark.”

“At first Serena didn’t believe me when I told her I hadn’t taken the money. Then she broke down and cried. We had a long talk and I said I wanted to meet Angie but that I’d respect whatever she wanted. We both decided to get attorneys to help hammer out visitation. After all this time, we really don’t know each other. Maybe we never did. Maybe we were in love. It doesn’t matter now.” Mark leaned forward in his chair. “I was up in Maryland for a few days, signing the last of the paperwork and spending some time with Angie and Serena. Personal business. Deeply personal.”

My face burned. I’d been an idiot.“I’m sorry, Mark. I should have trusted you.”

“It would be great if you just would from now on,” he said.

I nodded. Of course, I wanted to ask if there was a Mr. Serena, but I didn’t.

“Anything else before you go?” I was being dismissed. The man had a date with his adorable kid.

“Just a quick request — I think Lamar Gustafson is worth looking into. I can’t get rid of the feeling there’s something in his background we should know about. Things just seem…confusing and dark with him.

“I can do that,” he said and got up from his chair. “I’ll let you know what I find out.”

“Good, thanks,” I said. “And I'll bring Weston up to date.” In the moment we stood looking at each other, I felt Mark’s guard come back up like an invisible shield.

“Okay, well, I’ll talk to you later,” I said, moving to the front door. “I’m so glad to meet your daughter. I’m wishing you all good things. You both deserve that.” The words sounded lame coming out of my mouth, and Mark gave a cursory nod.

In the car, I realized I hadn’t mentioned Chad or the phone call that might come, but that would have to wait, and maybe Lamar wouldn’t tattle on me after all. Still, I felt the need to unburden from my other transgressions.

I dialed Will’s number and got his terse voicemail greeting — Yeah, you know what to do, so do it. “Will. Please call me. I’m so sorry. I’ve been a complete ass. I hope you’ll forgive me.”

Now to get something scheduled for a face to face with my boss and come clean. Fred might fire me on the spot — if I was in his shoes, I might do the same — but the weight of lies, half-truths, and omissions had been sitting on me like a stone.

Who the hell was I becoming? Or was this who I’d always been?

Go here to read Chapter 29.