Читать книгу On the Doorstep - Dana Corbit - Страница 13

“What do you mean, what’s my connection?” Pilar asked, her eyes wide.

She was pressed so hard against the sofa arm that Zach wondered if she planned to escape over the top. He trapped her with his gaze in the way he’d learned to make lesser suspects squirm.

“That’s what I’m asking. You probably place babies all the time. Do you get this attached to all of them? Or is there something different about this baby?”

When she didn’t answer immediately, he continued to stare. Strange, but he hoped for Pilar’s sake that she didn’t have that same intense connection with each child she placed, because he didn’t like the idea of her heart breaking all the time. But then he hadn’t done a good job of keeping his professional distance in this case, either.

He couldn’t say he’d been soft on questioning Pilar. In fact, he was grateful Naomi hadn’t held him under the same level of scrutiny when she’d asked why he’d visited that day. Sure he’d come to see Gabriel, but he was beginning to wonder if the possibility of seeing Pilar again had also played into his decision.

It had certainly been for her benefit that he’d talked up the investigation when he still didn’t know if any of his “solid leads” would pan out. He didn’t know why it mattered so much to him that she thought he was a good detective. He’d never worried before what anyone thought as long as he was doing his best to help people. It was a good policy, and he would do well to stick to it instead of trying to impress anyone.

But this was about more than impressing. It was about curiosity, and everyone knew what that did to the cat. Pilar had become such a puzzle to him, full of challenging, interlocking pieces, when before he’d barely noticed her. Or at least when he had noticed, he’d taken in her flawless beauty and too-perfect background and had kept his distance.

“Gabriel’s different,” she answered finally.

“How is he different?”

Pilar blew out an exasperated breath. “I found him. He’s—”

She cut herself off then, but that only made Zach want to know more. Had she nearly said “mine”? That didn’t make any sense, though it did take finders-keepers to a whole new level. “He’s what?”

“He’s just a sweet little baby who could use all the friends he could get.”

He nodded. That was true enough, but if it was what she’d intended to say, then why hadn’t she looked at him when she’d said it? Her posture was stiff, and her closed body language signaled she wasn’t telling the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help her God. She was still hiding something.

Twice now he’d witnessed private moments between Pilar and the infant she should have met only that morning—first on the agency steps and now in the Frasers’ family room. There was a connection, all right, but what?

Could Pilar have been a friend of Gabriel’s biological mother and was covering for her? Zach pondered the premise that would have explained why she was reluctant to help with the investigation, but he couldn’t buy it. As a Tiny Blessings employee, she would have encouraged the mother to give the child up for adoption, or at the very least would have discouraged her from breaking the law.

His gut told him Pilar’s reasons were much more personal. That he could relate to. Everyone had a right to a few secrets—those personal parts that no one needed to know and that only reopened old wounds in the retelling. Did Pilar have wounds she needed to protect?

Immediately, he was contrite for the high-pressure interview tactic. Though Gabriel had more to complain about, Pilar had been through a rough day. He’d seen her that morning, had witnessed her shock and even had wrapped his jacket around her. The last thing she needed was some overzealous detective shoving her around for new leads.

“Is this the first time you’ve dealt with a child-abandonment case?” he asked, though he’d already guessed that it was.

She nodded. “I work with people who would give everything they have to have a child of their own. None of them would ever dump a baby, in a fancy basket or not.”

He’d been right: It was personal. How could he, of anyone, criticize someone who took her job and the people it affected personally? That would be like smashing the image of the person he saw in the mirror every morning.

“Do you have a long waiting list of people hoping to adopt?”

Pilar tilted her head to study him, appearing to recognize that his question had no bearing on the case.

“We have more homes than we have children to fill them. Especially for clients who want babies. The waiting list for a newborn is often three years deep.”

Zach couldn’t imagine what that was like, the bureaucracy and the waiting and hoping for a child that most couples assumed would be the natural next step in their relationships. Life had no guarantees; he’d learned that the hard way. Apparently, Pilar’s clients had swallowed their own bitter pills.

When he looked up again, Pilar was studying him.

“Are you finished asking questions?”

“Sure. For now.”

As finished as he could be given that she hadn’t really answered the important one. She’d never explained her connection to the foundling.

She nodded but didn’t look him in the eye. “Well, if there’s nothing else, I need to get going.”

Pushing herself over the arm of the sofa, she stood as if she couldn’t get away from him fast enough. He was used to women’s attention, had even learned to ignore it most of the time, so he wondered why her pariah treatment bothered him so much.

Zach hesitated, which was about as unlike him as letting himself be distracted when he was on a case. He should have been telling her not to let the door slam when she left, but here he was hoping to keep her around a few minutes longer so he could prove he wasn’t a bad guy. How pitiful was that?

Naomi’s louder-than-necessary footsteps on the stairs saved him from a thorough self-lecture. He stood in time to see her reentering the room, carrying a clean and content baby.

“Pilar, you’re not leaving, are you? I thought you were staying so we could go to prayer meeting together.”

“I was, but…” Pilar paused and cleared her throat “…I’ve decided to meet you there.”

Naomi turned to Zach. “You’ll be there, won’t you?”

“Not this time, sweetheart.”

Naomi stuck out her lip. “But even police detectives get time off for Wednesday night prayer meeting.”

“I’ll have plenty of time off when Gabriel’s mother has been located.” He looked at Pilar to let her know that the message was for her. No matter what she was hiding or how badly he felt for her for having made this difficult discovery, he still had a job to do. With or without her help, he was going to solve this case.

Pilar made a show of studying her watch, but he was pretty sure she’d received the message.

Naomi cleared her throat. “At least let me get you some dinner.” She turned back to Pilar. “You, too. It won’t take me a minute to whip up a big pot of chili.”

“That’s okay,” Zach and Pilar chorused and then shot glances at each other.

She was chewing her lower lip to keep from laughing, so he spoke for the both of them. “Thank you for the offer, but can we take a rain check?”

Naomi’s sly grin suggested she was as aware as anyone of her cooking weakness. “Okay, it’s a date. The kids will love having the both of you to dinner.”

Date? He started. Why did he feel as if he’d just been swindled? He opened his mouth to object and caught Pilar’s profile in his peripheral vision. Her mouth was open to say something, too.

Their minister’s wife stopped the both of them with a wave of her hand. “I’ll let you know when. I’ll see you out now.”

Only a few minutes later, he was buckling the seat belt of his sedan and wondering at how easily Naomi had dismissed them. It was probably for the best, he thought, as he watched Pilar climb into her red coupe. He needed to avoid distractions if he was going to solve this case, and Pilar had become one.

Even now his thoughts flicked to the scene between Pilar and Gabriel when she’d whispered promises that she would keep him safe. Strange how he could almost see a better world when looking at it through Pilar’s eyes. He saw hope, even though life had given him every reason to doubt.

He shook his head to dismiss the image now, as he had when he’d witnessed it. Some police detective he’d turned out to be. He’d been so entranced watching Pilar and her tiny charge that if Naomi hadn’t announced his presence, he might have gone right on watching without thinking once about the case.

Pilar was a distraction, all right, one that neither he nor the case could afford. He wished she would just tell him what she knew so he could steer clear of her until the investigation was complete. Even after that, if he had any sense.

No one who brought out such conflicting feelings in him could be good for his life—work or otherwise. Part of him wanted to lock her in a holding cell until she told him what he wanted to know. The other, more dangerous part of him wanted to take her in his arms and tell her everything would be all right.

Pilar peered into the oval window in the Starlight Diner’s front door before she pulled it open. Sure enough, Anne had already commandeered their usual booth and was sitting on one of its bright blue vinyl seats studying a menu she should have known by heart. In fact, the names Pilar Estes, Anne Smith, Meg Talbot Kierney and Rachel Noble all should have been engraved on the table’s Formica top as many years as they’d been coming to the Starlight for Sunday brunch.

“Hey, Pilar,” Anne called as her golden blond head came up and she set aside the menu. She would order her usual double bacon cheeseburger and fries when the waitress came anyway, and, as usual, she wouldn’t pack an ounce on her slender frame.

“Hi.” Pilar slid past the chrome counter, the upholstered bar stools and the black-and-white stills of Elvis Presley and Marilyn Monroe, pausing only to salute a picture of James Dean from Giant before she reached the booth.

“Glad to see you didn’t forget to say hello to our Jimmy Dean,” Anne said, glancing past her friend to the glass front door. “You’re the first one here from the church crowd.” She said it with laughter in her voice that almost masked the hurt.

As she slid across the smooth vinyl that caught her skirt and twisted it, Pilar studied her friend. Sunday brunches had probably become strange for Anne these last few months. Before, she’d had Meg and Rachel to help her stake a claim on their regular table, with only Pilar arriving after church. Now Meg and her new husband, Jared, were members of Chestnut Grove, and Rachel had been attending services with her fiancé, Eli Cavanaugh, most often snuggling Rachel’s adopted baby sister, Gracie, between them.

Anne probably felt a little jealous over Meg and Rachel finding love. Thoughts like that even had crossed Pilar’s mind a time or two. But did Anne also feel resentful over their new church involvement? Did she wonder if she was missing something the rest of them had found?

“Good afternoon, ladies,” waitress Miranda Jones said as she carried a heavy food tray to a table at the opposite end of the diner. “Be right with you.”

“No rush. We’re still waiting.”

“I know,” Miranda said over her shoulder, the tight twist that held her dark brown hair bobbing with her nod. “Two more friends.”

Anne returned Pilar’s sad look when their gazes caught. They were still getting used to Miranda waiting on them, wearing a pink apron that matched Sandra Lange’s except for the missing script S at the shoulder.

Usually the diner owner made a point of waiting on “the Sunday four,” as she called them herself. Now their friend was battling breast cancer and had taken several weeks off while she underwent chemotherapy. Without closing her eyes, Pilar said another quick prayer for Sandra’s recovery.

“How’d you get here so fast, Miss Pilar?” Meg called as she pushed through the door, shoving her sunglasses into her curly red hair. “Did you sneak out before the youth minister’s benediction?”