Читать книгу The Secret Wife - Carrie Weaver - Страница 10

MAGGIE SURVEYED the cramped lobby while she swayed from side to side, David’s head growing heavy on her shoulder. The motel was neat and clean. Not luxurious, but certainly not a dive—and way off the beaten track.

She watched J.D. set down her suitcase to pull a wad of bills from his pocket. He peeled off several and tossed forty bucks on the counter like it was pocket change. Maybe for some people.

The room was paid up for one night, and one night only. Noon checkout, and Eric’s brother expected her to be long gone by then.

He had a lot to learn about her.

What she might lack in worldly knowledge, she more than made up for with grit. How else would she have survived till now?

J.D. handed her the key card. His eyes narrowed as he surveyed her face.

She kissed the top of David’s downy head, avoiding J.D.’s questioning gaze.

“Thank you,” she murmured.

God, she was getting tired of saying that. Tired of depending on a stranger. But it couldn’t be helped. She’d get her mortuary-science degree, become the best damn funeral director in Phoenix and then she’d never have to rely on anyone again.

“Go get some rest. I’ll drop by tomorrow morning and take you to see Eric. They serve juice and doughnuts right here in the lobby, so you don’t have to go anywhere for breakfast.”

The threat was implicit.

He didn’t want Eric’s second wife parading around where anyone could see her. Just wanted her to disappear like a wisp of smoke. No ugly scene. No smudge on the sainted McGuire name. Sure, she’d let him savor that little fantasy a while longer.

“Oh, good. I’m really beat. We’ll just get settled in, get rested up….”

“Do you need me to carry your suitcase to your room?”

“No, I can handle it.”

“I’ll pick you up at nine tomorrow morning.”

She nodded.

He turned and strode out the door without a backward look. Problem solved. It wouldn’t have surprised her to see him dust his hands.

Maggie slid the key card into her back pocket and watched him get into his candy-apple-red pickup. She’d dropped him off to get his truck, then followed him to the roadside hotel. When she’d lagged behind, so had he. There was no way her little Toyota could outrun him, so she’d had to wait for an opportunity to ditch him.

Shaking her head, Maggie had a hard time believing J.D. and Eric came from the same family. He was everything Eric wasn’t—solid, dependable, controlled. An accountant hiding out in a football player’s body. The kind of guy who should have a four-door sedan, a Volvo station wagon even. Something safe, reliable. Boring.

If J.D. was a station-wagon kind of guy, then Eric was definitely meant for sports cars. Lots of flash and excitement, but never dependable. And her Toyota, where did that fit into the scheme of things?

A little battered, but reliable and good on gas. But underneath the hood, the little import longed to be a sports car.

David shifted in his sleep, settling against her shoulder with a sigh.

But sports cars weren’t conducive to children. And if she were one of the little Toyotas in a world of sports cars and SUVs, that didn’t mean she couldn’t be as successful as the next person. It would simply take more work.

Maggie fought a wave of loneliness as she watched the taillights fade into the distance. J.D. wouldn’t be back until morning. Lifting her chin, she shook off the pressure in her chest. Getting sappy wouldn’t pay her tuition.

Maggie waited a good fifteen minutes after J.D. left. When she was sure he wasn’t coming back, she settled David in his car seat and continued her mission.

The racetrack wasn’t hard to find once she stopped at a convenience store for directions. Straight through town, five miles on the other side, just where the clerk had said.

She swung the little car into the dirt parking lot and wedged the car into a space at the end of a row. In Arizona, the dust would’ve choked her. But here, it was the mosquitoes. They swarmed around her as she exited the car, ravaged her bare legs when she reached in to remove the sleeping baby from the back seat.

She wrapped a lightweight cotton blanket around David to protect him from the cloud of insects.

Unfortunately, her shorts left plenty of bare skin for the little bloodsuckers. One voracious mosquito died from her stinging smack, only to be replaced by ten more. Finally, she gave up.

Glancing around, Maggie was glad to note that she wasn’t late. People streamed toward the entrance gates. She let the crowd swallow her until she neared the ticket booth. There, she split off to the left, following the chain-link fence that separated her from her destiny.

Squaring her shoulders, she headed for the pit entrance. Her face warmed with embarrassment. It wasn’t right to avoid paying. But it was the only way.

Maggie raised her chin as she passed the big-bellied guy checking passes. Juggling the baby and the diaper bag, she worked on an innocent fluster—as opposed to a guilty one. The blanket inched down to reveal David’s face.

“Aw, shoot. I must’ve left my pass in the car. Bobby’ll skin me alive. He’s pittin’ tonight and I promised I’d kiss him for good luck.”

She didn’t know if it was her winsome smile, or the sight of the sleeping baby, but the guy nodded and let her through.

Maggie released a breath. Hurdle number one.

Shielding her eyes from the glare of the stadium lights, she searched the pit area. No number fifty-three. That had always been Eric’s lucky number. But number eight was a spanking clean white-and-kelly-green. Eric’s colors.

Familiar sights and sounds brought a lump to her throat as she made her way through the pits. People jostled her, the stands seemed to close in. She jumped as an air tool hammered in the area to her left. The din was strange, no longer music to her ears. She didn’t belong anymore.

But like his father, David could sleep through it all, the noise a familiar lullaby from the womb. She’d been at the track so much when she was pregnant, it probably seemed reassuring to the baby.

Maggie eyed the green-and-white car. Was number eight Eric’s? She cautiously approached, afraid someone would haul her out by the arm. But nobody noticed. They were too busy with their respective jobs, readying the car for the race.

A familiar crouched figure seemed oblivious to the whine of the air gun as he tightened lug nuts. He turned and the light fell on his face. Randy, Eric’s buddy and leader of the pit crew. If he were here, then so was Eric.

But there was only one way to be absolutely sure it was Eric’s car. Her heart hammered as she scooted behind Randy. She used the surge of the crowd as a shield so he wouldn’t see her.

Leaning through the window of the car, she surveyed the dash. Amid all the dials and stuff was a small photo taped to the dash. A wedding photo, circa the late sixties. Eric’s mom and dad, or so he’d said. He never started a race without touching the photo for good luck.

Number eight was Eric’s car all right.

The battered motor home parked fifty feet away had to be his, too. He insisted on sleeping at the track to be near his car. It looked like a few months hadn’t improved Eric’s financial position any more than it had hers.

When she’d met him, he’d had only the best—a shiny new motor home and only the finest gear. But he’d dipped into the sponsor’s pocket one time too many for bogus supplies and the gravy train had run out. Even an old family friend had a limit to how much he would allow himself to be cheated.

Though the conditions weren’t lavish like before, Maggie knew how Eric prepared for every race. He’d be reading his Bible. Maybe on his knees praying.

Funny, he might be a self-centered SOB most of time, but right before a race he always found God.

Maggie sauntered over to the motor home, acting as if she belonged. As if entering Eric’s motor home were the most natural thing in the world.

Regret flared, then died. There had been a time when she’d revolved in Eric’s orbit. Absorbed his reflected excitement and glory.

Her hand froze on the knob.

Maggie couldn’t do it. Just couldn’t.

She had vowed never to ask him for anything, but for her son’s sake, she’d always accepted the small money orders he’d sent from time to time. Now she was about to beg for regular child support. And have him explain the twisted mess of their “marriage.”

Maggie swallowed hard. All she wanted to do was turn around, get into her car and head back to Phoenix. But she deserved answers and a whole lot more.

A chubby little hand patted her cheek.

David certainly deserved more. “Hey, little guy, are you my moral support?” She hoisted him under the armpits so they were eye-to-eye. His wide smile told her she was the most important person in the universe. David planted a wide open baby kiss on her nose.

Pulling him close, she hugged him tightly. Her throat prickled with the enormity of her love for this child. For David, she would do anything: beg, plead, demand.

She grasped the doorknob before she could lose her nerve. The door opened easily, without even a squeak. Tiptoeing inside, she hesitated, allowing her eyes to adjust to the gloom. The tiny light above the stove gave off a weak glow.

The motor home was strangely silent.

Maggie observed the usual mess Eric left behind. Racing magazines, gloves, a sweating bottle of blue sports drink.

But no Eric.

Strange.

He was a creature of habit. And supremely superstitious. He had an unchanging ritual before a race. First, a Bible reading, then prayer. But his Bible wasn’t lying open on the table.

She rummaged through what had always been the junk drawer in the other motor home. Her fingers folded around a slim volume of the New Testament, the corners accordion pleated from jamming the drawer so many times.

Weird.

Had he changed that much in the six months since she’d seen him? Two since she’d heard from him?

The bathroom door was closed. Maybe a last-minute bout of nerves?

She tiptoed to the door and tapped.

“Eric?”

No answer.

Opening the door, she leaned in to peer around. Light trickled in through the bathroom window, casting everything in varying shades of gray. The shadows were barely discernible from the objects that created them.

David snuggled close, resting his cheek against her chest. His breathing slowed. Poor baby. They were both exhausted.

The white of the sink glowed pale against the gloomy backdrop. The faucet dripped.

Terrible waste of water. Maggie turned it off.

Black splotches decorated the otherwise pale sink rim, kind of like a Rorschach test, dribbling down the side, to leave tiny specks on the floor.

It was something dark, something liquid.

Oil maybe? It had splattered too much to be grease.

Maggie ran her fingers through it. Thick, crusty and drying around the edges. Definitely not oil. It almost looked like…no, her brain rebelled at the very thought. Not blood.

She searched the gloom for a roll of toilet paper, but came up empty. Typical. Eric could never remember to put out a new roll.

Sighing, she adjusted the sleepy baby a bit higher on her hip and wiped her hand across the leg of her shorts. They’d need washing later in the hotel sink.

The silence surrounded her, intensified by the muffled clanking, banging and hammering outside.

Maggie backed out of the bathroom.

She would come back after the race. If she waited any longer than that she might lose her nerve.

David squirmed in his sleep and made one of his puppylike snuffling noises. He deserved a good night’s sleep. In a real bed. And so did she.

Maggie stifled a yawn and headed for the door.

As she grasped the knob, she turned to take one more look at her past. What had once appeared dangerous and exciting, now simply looked sad.

She shook her head. Something white on the lower bunk caught her eye.

There was a lumpy sleeping bag, as usual, tossed over Eric’s belongings, as if no one would be smart enough to look there for his valuable stuff. His guitar, his pistol…

The light-colored thing took on eerie dimensions as she stepped closer to check it out. Almost like a—

Hand.

She jostled what she figured had to be his arm under the sleeping bag.

“Eric,” she whispered. She didn’t want to wake the baby.

She shoved a little harder.

No response.

“Come on, Eric, this isn’t funny.”

David whimpered in his sleep.

Losing patience with Eric’s games, she grabbed the sleeping bag and flung it back.

Time froze, Maggie froze.

She scrambled for the hand she’d seen, grasped the wrist. It was warm.

The wild thumping of her heart eased.

Until she looked at his face.

And knew, without a doubt, her searching fingers wouldn’t find a pulse. She’d been around enough corpses in her embalming class to recognize death.

Her eyes widened at David’s shrill screech of baby rage. It rang in her ears, bounced off the fake wood-grain walls, slashed through her to the very core. Only when she slapped a hand to her open mouth did she realize the screams came from her. Then, and only then, did the baby join in.

MAGGIE SHIFTED in the cold, metal chair, David’s cries echoing in her head and in her heart.

She could almost feel his terror as he’d been taken from her arms. His little hands had clutched at her shirt, his eyes wide with panic.

And she’d been forced to let him go. Hand him over to strangers. It was her worst nightmare come true. Nameless, faceless authorities taking her son away because she wasn’t a fit mother.

Tears sprang to her eyes, but she brushed them away. This was all a big mistake. They would figure out she wasn’t capable of hurting Eric, wouldn’t they?

She eyed the two deputies as one set down a foam cup of coffee for her. Both wore bland expressions.

“I don’t drink coffee.”

A half truth. Used to drink the stuff by the bucketful. Back before David, when she’d been a college student with ample scholarship money. These days, generic cola was much cheaper and did a decent job of keeping her eyes open.

But now her nerves jangled and she didn’t think she’d ever be able to close her eyes again. When she did, all she saw was Eric. And blood. So much blood.

She should be used to it by now, or she had no business pursuing a profession where it was such an integral part of the process.

“How about a pop?” The scrawny deputy did most of the talking. He wasn’t a bad guy, all in all. It was Deputy Wells, the big, beefy, quiet one who made her nervous.

“No, thank you. I just want to get back to my baby.”

“He’s fine. A caseworker’s watching him while we talk.”

“There’s no need for a caseworker. We’ll clear this up, then I’ll take care of David.”

“Hmm. We’ll need your story, from the top.”

“I’ve already told you.”

“That was an initial interview at the scene. We need your complete story. Details.”

Maggie didn’t like the way Wells kept calling it her story. As if her version were obviously fictitious.

She drew in a deep, calming breath. This guy held her future, as well as her son’s future, in his big, square hands.

“Your relationship with the victim was…”

“You know darn well—”

Warning flashed in the deputy’s eyes.

“I mean, uh, Eric and I were…”

What were they? Estranged husband and wife, or so she’d thought, until she’d found out about Nancy.

“Lovers,” she ended lamely. That at least wasn’t in dispute. David was living proof of their intimacy. At least it had been intimacy for her. What it had meant to Eric, she could only guess. And none of the guesses were very flattering.

Anger bubbled up inside and made her face feel hot and swollen, as if her skin might split right open.

“Eric is…was…the father of my child.”

“And?”

“I came to talk to him about setting up some sort of agreement about David’s care. Child support.”

“Yeah, I heard about that little scene at the banquet. It’s all over town.”

The guy dragged over a gray metal chair and parked his big butt. He leaned back and crossed his arms over his chest. “Eric wasn’t what we’d call the responsible kind. What’d he do, laugh in your face? I could see where that might make a woman mad enough to grab a carving knife—”

“I didn’t grab a knife. I didn’t stab him. He was dead when I got there.”

“We’ll see what the medical examiner says about that. They can determine right down to the minute when a person died, you know. So there’s no use lying.”

“I’m not lying,” she said through clenched teeth. But he was. She knew damn well how many variables there were in determining time of death. There wasn’t a decent doctor or coroner alive who would claim to be one-hundred-percent sure. A window of several hours was more likely and that didn’t help her a bit.

“Look, lady, you breeze into town and all of a sudden Eric McGuire is murdered. My guess is you didn’t know he was married. You got all worked up about it and went out to the track. Eric always was a sweet talker with the ladies. But this time he couldn’t worm his way out of it.”

“That’s not true! I never even talked to him. He was dead when I got there.”

The scrawny deputy slipped into the room, his face beet red.

“Uh, there’s some guy out front. Says he’s—”

“Her lawyer.” A tall, silver-haired man pushed his way into the room. He extended a tanned, well-manicured hand to her.

She shook his hand, bewildered. She’d never seen him before in her life. And judging from the cut of his gray summer-weight suit, he looked expensive.

The man handed a business card to the big deputy and motioned for her to follow him.

“We’ll discuss the details later, darlin’. First, we get you out of this hellhole.”

“But—”

“No buts. Your child is right outside waiting for you.”

That was all the encouragement she needed. She followed the authoritative suit out the door without giving the deputies a second glance. For David, she would follow a stranger through the fires of hell.

It shouldn’t have surprised her that the devil himself stood on the other side of the door, holding her baby.

“J.D.”

He nodded in response. “We’re getting you out of here.” Turning to the men in uniform, J.D. said, “Deputy, any more questions should be routed through Maggie’s attorney.”

Her head whirled with unanswered questions. But the most important one had already been answered. David was here, safe and sound, if not totally content.

She held out her arms to him and he broke out in a big, nearly toothless grin. He leaned away from his captor, leaving no doubt where he’d rather be.

J.D. handed David to her and folded his arms over his chest, watching their reunion.

Maggie didn’t care who watched. She hugged and cuddled and kissed the soft little boy until he squirmed in protest.

“You done yet?”

J.D.’s voice was harsh, impatient, but his eyes were just a little too understanding.

She nodded.

“She’ll be staying at my house, Belmont, if you need to talk to her.” J.D. shook hands with the attorney. “Thanks for coming on such short notice.”

The distinguished gentleman winked. “It’ll cost you, J.D. You know that gazebo my wife’s been talking about…”

“Yeah, I know.” J.D. winced. “You name the day, I’ll be there for measurements.”

He shook hands with the attorney, then took her elbow to escort her out of the county jail. As if she needed any encouragement. Intent on putting distance between David and the uniforms, she broke into a jog.

But once outside, her steps faltered.

“Your house? But, the hotel—”

“The hotel isn’t an option. Anything you need there?”

“All our stuff is in the car.”

J.D. hesitated, “There’s someone who insists on meeting you. It’s against my better judgment, but…”