Читать книгу Father and Child Reunion - Christine Flynn, Christine Flynn, Mary J. Forbes - Страница 7

Vanderbilt Park was a rectangular oasis of evergreens and rustling aspens, meandering paths and flowering gardens. The hospital complex fronted it on one side. Businesses, the courthouse and a chain of parked cars lined the rest of it.

Rio wedged his SUV between a city waterworks barricade and a landscaper’s pickup truck, did a slam dunk with the last of his coffee, then pitched the plastic cup through his window into a green City of Grand Springs trash barrel. Seconds later, with the bang of a door that had birds scattering, he was on his way to the miners memorial. It was five minutes to nine, and probably the first time in a month that he’d been on time for anything.

He could see the huge bronze of a battered miner leading a mule well before he reached it. The bench near it was empty. Rolling up his shirtsleeves, he glanced past the small mountain of fir branches and uprooted trees one of the local organizations had collected during the ongoing storm cleanup, and checked out the path leading in the opposite direction.

It took him all of ten seconds to decide nothing of interest was taking place among the teenagers near the fountain, or the young mothers watching their children in the play area. He wasn’t looking for diversion, anyway. He wasn’t even looking for a story. Between his regular police and fire beats, a staff meeting and follow-ups on yesterday’s stories, he had plenty to keep himself out of trouble today. Any spare time he could scrape up, he’d spend on the cabin he was building near Two Falls Lake. He just wanted to make sure he hadn’t missed Eve. She was the final name on his list of people known to have been in contact with Olivia Stuart that last day. If he couldn’t get a lead out of her, he had no idea where to go.

Stifling his frustration on that score, he scowled at his watch. After the hurry Eve had been in to get rid of him yesterday, he had to wonder if she’d show up at all. Just because she’d seemed willing to talk didn’t mean anything. He’d misjudged her before. He’d once believed she was different from the other people he’d let himself care about. He’d believed that he could trust her, count on her. But he’d never been more wrong.

He hadn’t been wrong about her reaction when she’d opened the door to him yesterday, though. There hadn’t been a hint of welcome in her expression. Not that he’d expected it. He’d seen caution. He’d sensed wariness. He’d even caught a fairly satisfying jolt of anxiety. What he would liked to have seen was regret.

One must never wish for another, what he would not wish twofold for himself.

Unexpected, unwanted, the elders’ ancient teaching reared from the depths of his memory. Rio gave a snort, dismissing it, then closed his eyes against the automatic rebellion. He’d abandoned so many of the old teachings over the years that tossing out one more shouldn’t matter.

The thought had scarcely nudged his conscience when his head came up. Eve was there. He knew it even before he saw her walking toward him. Though the reminder wasn’t particularly welcome, he’d always had an odd, almost feral awareness where she was concerned.

The gentle morning breeze lifted her hair away from her face, the bright sunlight turning pale gold to platinum. Small gold earrings flashed with the turn of her head. Another discreet flash caught her watch when she lifted her hand to shield her eyes from the sun. The motion drew the short, sleeveless shift she wore higher, drawing attention to her slender legs, until she lowered her hand and his glance moved upward once again. The crisp white fabric that skimmed her hips and small breasts didn’t define her shape. Rather, it gave subtle, intriguing hints of the enticing, feminine curves hidden beneath.

Sweetness and seduction, he thought, pushing his hands into his pockets as he watched her move closer. Innocence and sophistication. The combination was as appealing as it was dangerous.

She stopped an arm’s length away. Eyes the clear, hypnotic blue of a summer sky met his.

“Before you say anything,” she said, “I need to apologize. I’m sorry I was such a basket case yesterday. You caught me at a bad time.”

He’d been well aware of that. He’d also spent half the night trying to forget everything else he’d noticed about her after he’d made it past the wariness and anxiety. The sadness in her eyes. Her bewilderment. The brave little smile that had caught him like a punch in the gut.

The way she’d practically pushed him out the door.

“Don’t worry about it.”

There was a hint of nerves behind the expression, but she smiled now at the reassurance. “So,” she began, sounding as if she were determined to get things off to a better start this time. “When did you go to work for the Herald?”

“Checking my credentials?”

Her slender shoulder lifted in a tight little shrug. “Curious. I thought you would have moved to a bigger city. You always talked about working for a big paper.”

“Still plan to.” Determined to be objective, he motioned toward the gray concrete bench and pulled a small digital recorder from his pocket. “Do you mind if I record this?”

She wasn’t interested in him or his plans. He was sure of that. She was just trying to be civil by making conversation. All he wanted was to get this over with.

She got the hint. Her smile dying, she pulled her glance from his.

“You can record it if you want,” she told him, leaving three feet of space between them when she sat down. “But I don’t know what I can tell you that I haven’t already told the police. And that wasn’t very much. I wasn’t there when it happened.”

He knew that. He’d read her statements.

He punched a button on the small silver recorder he’d set between them and angled himself to face her. He would remain objective if it killed him. “Some of this might be hard for you,” he told her, refusing to deny her the understanding he would give anyone else under the circumstances. “We can stop anytime. Okay?”

That seemed to make her relax a little. “Okay.”

“Just tell me when you last saw your mother.”

The wind had blown a bit of twig onto the bench. He watched her pick it up, her attention following the motions of her fingers as she drew a deep breath, then quietly told him that the last time she’d seen her had been about an hour before her brother’s wedding had been scheduled to start.

“We’d gone ahead to Squaw Creek,” she explained, speaking of the ski lodge where her brother’s wedding was to have been held. “I hadn’t seen Hal yet and I wanted to wish him well before the ceremony. But Mom couldn’t find one of the earrings she wanted to wear. She told us to go on and that she’d be right behind us.”

“Who’s us?” Rio watched Eve’s hands, wondering if she had any idea how they gave her away. Though she appeared outwardly calm, when she was nervous or upset she couldn’t keep her hands still. Yesterday, it had been the scarf she’d pulled, twisted and strangled. Now it was the twig. The motions were small, barely noticeable, but she was methodically annihilating the bit of broken branch. “You and your daughter?”

He saw those lovely hands go still.

“Several people mentioned her being with you,” he explained, since she seemed surprised by his knowledge of the child. Darling girl, one of them had said. So exotic, claimed another. And tiny, like her mother. Poor thing was scared to death when the lights went out. “Is that who you mean?”

Eve cleared her throat. “Yes, it is.”

“What’s her name?”

“Molly. But she doesn’t know anything that would be of help,” she added hurriedly. “She was with me the whole time.”

“How old is she?”

The question was automatic. Person at scene. Get name, age, occupation. The presence of Eve’s daughter had just been one of those extraneous details he’d picked up during his interviews, along with dozens of others. Like the fact that the woman in charge of catering at the lodge was the minister’s cousin. And that Eve didn’t have a husband.

Not caring to consider why that latter detail should matter to him, he dismissed it. What he couldn’t dismiss was how Eve pushed past the subject.

“She’s too young to be interviewed,” she replied, sounding as if she figured that was what he was after. “Really, Rio, she won’t be any help at all. What else did you want to know about that night?”

He might have thought she was just being protective. Mothers of small children tended to be that way, after all. But there was something about the way Eve’s glance faltered before she started in again on the twig that seemed vaguely familiar. She almost seemed as uneasy now as she had yesterday when she’d been in such a rush to get rid of him.

Or maybe, he considered, she was just in a rush to get this over with. That being the case, he reiterated that she’d last seen Olivia at home, then asked when Eve had realized something had happened to her.

Not until she’d returned to the house, she told him, still seeming tense. Since it had been storming so badly and the streets were such a mess, it had taken them a while to get back to the house. The ambulance had been pulling out as they arrived. Confirming what he’d already learned from 911 dispatch, she told him Josie Reynolds had called it.

There didn’t seem to be much she remembered after that. In the quiet tones of someone who has told the story before and learned to numb herself to the memories, she went on to explain that Millicent had taken Molly home with her. Eve had then gotten back in her car and followed the ambulance to the hospital. The rest of that night was apparently a blur. She had no answer for any other questions he asked about the evening. Though she tried, she couldn’t recall seeing anyone acting suspicious. Nor did she remember anyone who’d seemed out of place. Once her daughter had been taken care of, her sole focus had been her mother.

Rio rested his elbow on the back of the bench. With his thumb hooked under his chin, he absently rubbed the cleft in his top lip while he studied Eve’s profile. She wanted to help. More than that, she seemed to need to help, something he understood far better than he wanted to admit. But not a word she’d said had done him any good at all.

Still looking for suspect and motive, he tried a different tack and asked if there had been a man in the picture. Other than for business, no one could recall seeing Olivia in a man’s company. But just because her personal life had seemed nonexistent, that didn’t mean it had been. Or so Rio was thinking before the slow but certain shake of Eve’s head cut off that particular avenue.

“Mom’s life was this town. She didn’t have time to have a boyfriend. We used to talk to each other on the phone every Sunday about what had gone on during the week. If there had been a man in her life, she’d have said something about him.”

Faced with that dead end, he tried another route and asked about disagreements, or if she knew of anyone her mother had upset in any way. Eve’s response didn’t promise any more hope there, either—until she mentioned that Olivia had been getting a ton of grief from the miners union and the mining company about her position on a mining operation. When Eve had expressed concern about it, her mom had said that sort of disagreement came with the territory and reminded her that a person in political office couldn’t possibly please everyone.

Rio’s glance sharpened. It was common knowledge that Olivia’s environmentalist leanings adversely affected renewal of the mine’s land lease. It was no secret, either, that the last word to leave her dying lips had been “coal.”

“Did she mention any names? Any person in particular she was arguing with?”

“If she did, I don’t remember.”

“Did she say if anyone from the union ever threatened her physically?”

“Never.” Eve finally looked up from her twig. “Do you think someone from the union did it?”

“I’m not implying that.”

“The police asked me these same questions, Rio. You know something, don’t you?”

“It doesn’t matter if I do or not. My deal with the police is that I keep what information I have between them and me until this thing breaks.”

Holding his glance, her eyes narrowed.

“So that means everybody knows more than I do. Hal. The police. Now you. It’s their investigation. They’re his contacts. It’s your story. Damn it, Rio. She was my mother.”

For a moment, Rio said nothing. She hadn’t raised her voice. But her tone echoed what flashed in her eyes. Not annoyance. It was something far more subtle. Yet potentially more volatile. It was more like fury that had been refined and suppressed. Or, more likely, quietly denied.

Rio understood why it was there. He even knew how it felt, though her reasons for fighting the suffocating feelings were far more tangible than his own. She was an unacknowledged victim of a murder, a survivor with no answers, struggling to deal with her grief.

That her brother was keeping her in the dark surprised Rio. That he wanted to go for her brother’s throat because of it, surprised him, too.

He glanced at the recorder, then decided to leave it running.

“The union keeps coming up,” he finally admitted, though he kept the confidential aspects of that fact to himself. “A couple of potential suspects have been identified in its membership, but the police haven’t been able to get anything specific on them. That’s why it could be important for you to recall anything she said to you about anyone connected with the lease renewal.”

He could see her frustration slowly give way as she processed what he’d told her. It made no difference that he didn’t want to consider how overwhelmed she might feel by all that had taken place. He was beginning to sense an inner strength in Eve that the girl he’d known hadn’t yet grown to possess. That strength had been evident even yesterday, despite her bewilderment over her mother’s decisions and the stresses straining her relationship with her brother. She was doing what needed to be done and expecting no one to come to her rescue.

He had to admire that. He’d met too many people who expected others to bail them out when life got rough, or who took out their pain and frustration on everyone around them when something went wrong. Yet, despite her willingness to fight her own battles, to deal with her own pain, there was a vulnerability about her that was playing havoc with his more protective instincts.

His protective instincts weren’t the ones he was concerned about at the moment, however. What he felt when Eve tipped her head back and blew out a breath was considerably more basic.

Already more aware of her than he wanted to be, he let his glance slide down the long line of her throat, along her delicate collarbone and over the gentle swell of her breasts. They were fuller than he remembered, and he couldn’t help wondering how they would fill his hands.

At the thought, heat spiked through his gut. He knew how it felt to lie with her. How perfectly she had once fit his harder, tougher body. She had been a virgin the first time they’d made love, totally inexperienced, but so trusting. So innocently willing. With no effort at all, he could recall far more about that night than was wanted or wise, and since seeing her yesterday, he could swear nearly every detail of that first afternoon had been resurrected. She’d had news she’d wanted to share, and she’d come to his apartment. It had been raining and she’d been laughing, and when she’d launched herself into his arms, the feel of her soft, supple body pressed to his had nearly brought him to his knees.

The muscles in his jaw jerked as he sought to banish the memory. What he needed to remember about Eve Stuart was that she had left without a word. Somewhere along the line, she’d gone on to another man, made love with him as they had done, borne a child. The past was over and done with. At least, it was about to be.

“I honestly can’t think of anything else, Rio.”

“Then, answer one last question.” He’d told himself he didn’t need to know. That her reasons couldn’t possibly matter now. No longer willing to lie to himself, he turned off the recorder with a quiet click and looked up to meet her eyes. “Why did you leave without talking to me?”

Rio’s glance never wavered. He simply sat there, solid and unyielding as granite while the color drained from her face.

He knew she hadn’t expected the question. Not then. Not while she was dealing with the too-fresh memories of the night her mother had been killed. Not while she was struggling to remember something, anything, that would help the police.

“Do we have to talk about this now?”

“Seems to me it’s as good a time as any.”

“Because you decided so? I tried to talk to you about something other than this investigation a few minutes ago but you didn’t want any part of it. And yesterday, you acted as if we’d never known each other at all.”

He wasn’t swayed by her logic. “It’s been six years, Eve. How much longer do you need?”

Far more than you’re giving me, she thought, catching the adversarial glint in his eyes. She honestly didn’t think he would want anything to do with Molly. But if he did, she needed to know the man he had become, and what sort of influence he would be in her daughter’s life. In her own life. She had so little to go on now.

Rio didn’t seem to expect an answer. Despite the faint edge in his words, his deep voice remained as cool and matter-of-fact as his expression.

“Did you know that I tried for weeks to find out where you’d gone, Eve? Weeks,” he repeated, the edge hardening. “But all I could find out was that you’d decided to finish school in California and that you were staying with relatives. Your mother refused to tell me anything else. So I went to the registrar’s office at the college. I thought I could find out where your records had been sent. But they wouldn’t give me a thing, so I tried your mom again. Only that time I asked her if she’d sent you away because of me.”

“Rio—”

“She claimed it hadn’t been her idea for you to leave,” he said, cutting her off. “Apparently, you were the one who didn’t want me to know where you were. But she said she’d ask you to call me. Did she ever ask you that, Eve?”

More than once. They’d even argued about it. “Yes,” she quietly replied.

That wasn’t the response Rio wanted. He’d wanted Eve to deny that Olivia ever gave her his message. He’d wanted her to tell him that her disappearance had been her mother’s idea all along, and that Olivia really hadn’t been as accepting of him as she’d seemed to be. It would have salved his pride enormously to know that Eve had been coerced into leaving. But all she’d done was confirm that it had, indeed, been her decision to leave without a word of explanation.

He slipped the recorder into his pocket, then leaned forward to let his clasped hands dangle between his knees. For so many years, none of this had mattered. He’d gone on, done what he’d wanted to do. Forgotten. Or so he’d thought. He’d forgotten nothing. He’d simply buried the feelings of hurt, confusion and anger along with a sense of loss that had stunned him. Seeing her again had been like entering a forbidden burial ground. All manner of ghosts had risen up to haunt him.

“Just tell me what I’d done that you couldn’t at least talk to me before you took off.”

“It wasn’t like that, Rio. It wasn’t a matter of who did what to whom. It was the circumstances.”

“Like the circumstance that you’re white and you decided you didn’t want to be involved with an Indian? Was that it?”

Eve’s startled “No!” was little more than a gasp as she grabbed his arm to keep him from moving away. Race had never been an issue. Not for her.

She wasn’t sure Rio believed that. Seeing his dark eyes turn to flint, jarred by the unexpected accusation, she wasn’t sure of anything at the moment. It was incomprehensible that her leaving so long ago would matter to him now. Just as unfathomable was how deeply he’d dug looking for the reason she’d gone. As for his heritage, he’d scarcely mentioned his family at all when they’d been together, and it was never a factor in their relationship.

The tension in the hard muscles beneath Eve’s hand finally registered. Reaching for him had been instinctive. But touching him had been a mistake.

His glance fell to her hand, pale and slender against his darker skin. In the space of a heartbeat, it moved to her lips, lingering long enough to seal the air in her lungs before shifting to meet her eyes once more.

He was a beautiful man. Solid as the earth. As mysterious as the craggy mountains rising all around them. She’d always thought him so. But there was an edge to him now, a kind of raw energy that surrounded him, an invisible force field that made him even more unreachable than he’d once been.

That thought caused a ball of nerves to knot in her stomach. Or maybe what she felt was the heat of his glance pooling the warmth low in her belly. He was a much harder man than she remembered. So much more cynical.

And so very…male.

Totally unnerved, her hand slipped from his arm. As it did, the rising cry of an ambulance siren sliced through the heavy silence. The sound had just started its downward arc when it was joined by an electronic beep.

Rio swore. With his jaw clenched tightly enough to crush bone, he reached for his phone on his belt and looked at an incoming text message. “I’ve got to go.”

Eve couldn’t hide her relief at the reprieve. Still, desperate to keep the lines of communication open between them, for Molly’s sake, she started to reach for him again.

Like a child who’s just remembered the burner was hot, she pulled back and curled her fingers into her palm. “I don’t want us to be like this, Rio. Please. We don’t have to be enemies.”

Rio was already on his feet, towering over where she remained seated on the bench. With her head tipped back as she looked up at him, she reminded him of a frightened doe with her throat exposed to a predator. She wasn’t even trying to protect herself.

The phone beeped again, the sound as impatient as he was beginning to feel. “We’ll have to talk later.”

“Can I call you tomorrow?”

Her reluctant question caught him as he turned. Not at all sure what to make of her, he told her to suit herself and cut across the grass to where he’d left his Durango parked at the curb.

The ambulance that had just left the hospital went screaming by as he called the news desk. Thirty seconds later, he pulled onto the tree-lined street and was on his way to the other end of town to cover an accident involving a semi and a motorcycle. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out which vehicle had lost. He just wished whatever was going on with Eve was as obvious.

She clearly didn’t want to talk about why she’d left. Yet she wasn’t making any effort to avoid him, either. That alone made him curious. He hated unanswered questions.

He was even less enthralled with the unexpected feelings that had crawled out of nowhere.

He could usually separate his feelings from a situation, act only on those that were necessary. As a child, he’d been taught that judgment was impaired when the mind was not clear. Man must rule emotion, not the other way around. As a reporter, the talent was invaluable. As a man, he found it protective. So all he had to do was clear his mind. Focus. And put the entire encounter with Eve into perspective.

The task took a block and a half. Following the ambulance through a red light, he told himself he’d be a fool to let injured pride stand in the way of an investigation. Eve was a valuable source. If she’d talked to Olivia as often as she’d indicated, she probably knew more than anyone realized. He could use her to corroborate information and pick her brain about possible suspects. The rest, he would ignore. After all, he had no problem with balancing acts. Having walked the line between rebellion and conformity for as long as he could remember, he was actually pretty good at it by now.

The ambulance rolled to a stop mid-intersection, blocking the blinking lights of a patrol car. After pulling past a no-parking zone so he wouldn’t be in the way of the paramedics, Rio headed at a trot toward the man who appeared to be the driver of the semi. Even as he mentally winced at the teenager sprawled near the mangled motorcycle, he reminded himself to ask Eve if Olivia had kept any sort of a diary.

* * *

The pages of the calendar her mom kept by the phone in her study reminded Eve of her own. Notes, phone numbers and artistic doodles showing a flair for spirals and curves lined the margins. Most of the grids were filled in with birthdays or anniversaries of friends and professional commitments of one sort or another.

Eve was on the phone, adding a few doodles of her own while making arrangements to cover one of those commitments when three and a half feet of nightgowned and pigtailed little girl came tearing into the comfortable, book-lined room.

“Mommy,” she whispered loudly, as if whispering didn’t count as an interruption. “There’s a man at the door. A big one. I didn’t open it,” she added, well versed in the perils of “stranger-danger,” “but I saw him through the window. I waved.”

Excusing herself to Betty Dodd, the intimidatingly efficient executive chairperson of the Children’s Center, Eve put her hand over the mouthpiece. “Is it Uncle Hal?”

Molly gave an exaggerated shrug. “I don’t know who he is. Want me to ask?”

Eve had already changed into her nightclothes. Buttoning the long white cotton robe she’d thrown on over her chemise, she told her little girl that she’d take care of it and to go back to her movie, then told the woman who’d asked her to speak in Olivia’s place at a charity luncheon that she’d have to call her back. Eve wasn’t expecting anyone this evening. Especially not at this hour. It was after nine o’clock.

The robe was fastened from mid-thigh to lace yoke when she hurried through the foyer. Passing the wide archway to the living room, she saw Molly sprawled in front of the television once more, watching Aladdin for the hundred and umpteenth time. Hoping the child would stay put, and pretty certain she would since her favorite part of the DVD was coming up, Eve glanced through the pattern of leaded glass on the door.

Rio stood in the blue-white glow of the porch light.

She opened the door but not the ornate metal screen.

A frown of uncertainty slashed Rio’s chiseled features when his appraising glance slid from her neck to her knees. “You weren’t in bed, were you?”

“Not yet.” Watching his frown settle between her breasts, she reached for the button at her throat. “I was on the phone.”

“I know,” he muttered. “Your line’s been busy all evening.”

She meant to keep him on the porch. Overriding her intention to join him out there, he pulled open the screen the moment she unlatched it. Or maybe, she thought, seeing his mouth pinch when she shivered, it was the fact that she was getting cold that made him decide to step inside.

His rationale made no difference. Either way, Eve had to back up to avoid getting run over, but she refused to move any farther than the entry table. She wasn’t concerned about how Rio’s presence dominated the space, or even about his purely male interest when his glance strayed again to the sheer lace exposing glimpses of skin above her breasts. He could strip her naked for all she cared at the moment. What left her so unnerved was the fact that he was here, and so was Molly.

Exercising the only control he’d left her, short of pushing him back out the door, she turned her back to the wide oak staircase so he wouldn’t be facing the living room.

“This isn’t a good time, Rio. I know we need to talk, but maybe we could do it tomorrow. You can come back in the morning. Or I’ll meet you.”

“Relax, Eve. This isn’t about us.” He pushed his hands into his pockets, his sigh heavy. “I just want to know if Olivia kept any sort of a diary here.”

Relaxing was impossible. Not with him standing thirty feet from the daughter he didn’t know he had. Seeing him frown at her crossed arms, she did what she could to accommodate him and let them fall to her sides. “I don’t know that she kept one at all. At least, I haven’t come across one. I’ll look again and let you know.”

And ask you later why you want it, she added to herself as she started for the door.

He wasn’t going to be dismissed that easily.

“What about a personal phone book? The kind that has family friends in it. Is that here, or did the police take it?”

“It’s here. So is her personal calendar,” she conceded, but she didn’t get a chance to ask if his questions could wait. The chatter of animated voices drifting from the living room had given way to the strains of violins. Right on cue, Molly’s clear, sweet voice joined the cartoon characters on the screen serenading the world from a magic carpet. Dynamite couldn’t blast her away from this part of the show.

A bubble of panic lodged in Eve’s chest when she saw Rio’s dark head turn to the living room.

Molly was sitting up now, her back to them as she sang along with her favorite song. The child definitely had his attention, but with Molly glued to the television, all he could see of her was the back of her pink nightgown and two long, dark pigtails.

“That’s your daughter?” he asked, without taking his eyes from the slender little back.

Protectiveness joined panic. “Yes. And she doesn’t know anything that would be of any help.”

His eyebrow arched at the easy way she’d read him. “People tend to underestimate kids. You never know what a child sees.”

Had it not felt so imperative to put some distance between him and that particular child, Eve might have wondered how someone who’d wanted so little to do with children had come by such an insight. But with her nerves stretched thinner by the second, and unprepared for him to discover exactly who Molly was, creating that distance between father and child was her only interest.

“Mom’s address book is in the study,” she said, snagging his attention once more. “If you’ll come with me, I’ll get it.”

With one last glance toward the little girl now holding her arms wide as she belted out an amazingly clear high C, Rio stifled a smile and followed Eve down the hall.

“How long have you been divorced?” he asked from behind her.

Her heart gave an unhealthy jerk. “I’m not divorced.”

That gave him pause. Or maybe, Eve thought, he was just silent because they’d entered the study and he was looking around. At her mother’s collection of law books, perhaps. Or the prints of wildflowers that saved the space from being too masculine. She honestly didn’t know what he was doing when she headed for the antique mahogany desk that bisected the narrow room. Nor did she care. She just wanted him out of there.

“Are you widowed?” he asked, a little more quietly.

Just as quietly, she responded with a soft “No.”

Another moment passed. Eve could have sworn she heard wheels turning.

“I heard that you didn’t have a husband.”

With her attention on the drawer she opened, she murmured, “It’s nice to know the local grapevine is so accurate.” She held up the small brown address book, determined to keep his focus on his investigation for now. “What do you want with this?”

Rio had come to a halt near the hunter green wing chair. His frown matched hers, but she couldn’t tell if it was because he now knew she’d never been married, or because she was holding what he wanted and she didn’t appear willing to give it up.

“I’m looking for names of people Olivia knew so I can talk to them. Until you came back, I couldn’t get to any of her personal things.”

It was on the tip of her tongue to ask him what made him think he could have access now. But that was her independence asserting itself. She couldn’t afford to irritate him. For a number of reasons.

“Look,” he began, seeming to realize he’d assumed more than he should. “Your mother routinely confided in you. And you said yourself that you aren’t getting much information out of your brother. If you’ll help me with my investigation, I’ll see that you don’t have to rely on him to keep up with what’s going on, or worry about bothering the detectives. I’ll tell my contact at the department that we have an arrangement, and keep you informed about anything that develops myself.”

Eve felt the faintest trace of tension ease from her shoulders. She already knew she’d do whatever she could to help find her mother’s killer, and to have access to the investigation through Rio would be a godsend. Not only would she know what was going on, she also would have the chance she needed to get to know him.

“I need some of the numbers in here,” she said, thinking that he hadn’t changed in at least one respect. He still seemed as driven as ever. She knew he’d been working since at least nine o’clock this morning. Twelve hours later, he was still at it. “The police made a copy of this and her calendar. I’ll make photocopies of them and bring them by your office. Maybe I could buy you lunch?”

She didn’t know if he was interested in her offer. Only that he was either surprised or intrigued by it. His eyebrow had barely arched when his attention was diverted by the little girl whose curiosity about their visitor had kicked in the moment her song was over.