His Best Friend's Baby (6 page)

Dean had thought he was an idiot. He reveled in owning nice stuff.

“I miss my mom,” he’d confided once. “But she never had any money. Sometimes she bought me clothes at the thrift store, but mostly they came from school. You know how they have that room where you can pick out what you need?”

Quinn, to his eternal shame, had known. He’d been ashamed of taking clothes from the Howies, too, but that was a different kind of humiliation. At least now he didn’t have to walk down the hall at school wondering if some other kid was going to recognize his discarded shirt.

“When Mom comes to get me, I won’t mind being poor again,” Dean had added hastily. “And the Howies said I could take everything.”

His attitude was probably more natural than Quinn’s. Having grown up without giant piles of presents under the Christmas tree, Dean had apparently saved up all that wanting. Quinn had always watched him indulgently, even when he’d become a man who could fulfill his own wishes. He hadn’t been surprised when Dean had gone into business for himself so he could have more than a basic paycheck. Quinn was satisfied with a house and car, bought and paid for with his own money. Dean had seemed to have an empty place inside he never could fill. He’d developed cravings: for a bigger, fancier house, a flashy car, then a boat. His excitement had always been high when he first bought the new thing, whatever that was. But pretty soon, he’d start dreaming about something else.

Quinn had been surprised when he’d married Mindy. Dean had tended to follow the same pattern where women were concerned. He’d develop a huge crush, then court a woman with single-minded, romantic intensity. When she succumbed and became “his,” he’d seem happy. For a while. Then his interest would start to wane. Next thing Quinn would know, Dean had the hots for someone else.

Mindy was the first and only one to last. Quinn hadn’t understood why. He’d guessed that she had held out for marriage, but even then Dean’s interest hadn’t strayed. Maybe she’d filled that empty place in him. Maybe that hunger for something more, for someone who would never leave him, had been satisfied. Quinn hoped so.

He’d watched her, waiting for her to lose interest instead. As young and shallow as she was, he knew it had to happen.

Maybe, he thought now, he hadn’t been fair to her. Maybe she really had loved Dean.

Now he guessed he’d never know for sure.

* * *

M
INDY
DIDN
’
T
CALL
.

Quinn went days without thinking about her. When he did, it was in passing, part of his mourning. Irritatingly often, when he remembered something about Dean, she was in the picture.

Funny thing was, he missed Dean more now than he had in the weeks after the funeral. Maybe the absence was just starting to seem real. But maybe the huge hole in his life hadn’t been so apparent when he had something he could do for Dean. He’s been so busy as executor, dealing with Fenton Security and taking care of Mindy he hadn’t had time to miss talking to his best friend. He’d
wanted
to stay too busy to think about Dean’s death. But now the hole gaped at his feet, as raw and shocking as if a building he passed every day had been blasted from its foundations. Some days he could walk by and avert his face. Other times...other times, he couldn’t look at anything but.

He could focus at work. There, nothing had changed; he didn’t have to pass the stupid hole. But the minute he walked out to his car, he was faced with a life that felt empty even when he managed to occupy himself.

His track record with women wasn’t any better than Dean’s had been before he’d met Mindy. Before Dean’s murder, Quinn had been seeing a redheaded dispatcher with a great laugh.

By the time he remembered to call her weeks after the funeral, she said, “Quinn? Yeah, seems like I used to know a guy named Quinn. Bart? Ben? Brian?”

“Funny.”

“I was sorry to hear about Dean.”

“Yeah. Thanks.”

“I left a couple of messages.”

He rubbed his neck. “I should have called you.”

“Yeah, you should have,” she said frankly. “See, I had this illusion that we were friends. But maybe I should be glad that you kind of set me straight.”

“It wasn’t you. I’ve just...been having a hard time dealing.”

“Uh-huh,” she said without sympathy. “Quinn, it’s been five weeks. I’m dating someone else now. And here’s the weirdest thing—his kid just got diagnosed with leukemia, and you know what? I was one of the first people he called.”

She didn’t slam the phone down. She set it down gently, which gave greater punch to her message.

Quinn hadn’t asked a woman out since. He supposed he should give some thought to dating again, but nobody had crossed his path recently who interested him. Going out looking seemed like too much effort.

He realized he hadn’t called the Howies in a long time, put it off for another day, then phoned them in the evening.

George answered.

He sounded surprised. “No more bad news, I hope.”

“No. Just...trying to stay in better touch,” Quinn said awkwardly.

“You mean, checking up on us now.”

“You’ve been taking care of yourself for a long time.” Quinn prowled his living room. “But since I don’t have Dean to keep me updated on how you two are doing...” His throat closed.

“You’re missing him.”

“Yeah.” He swallowed. “Yeah, I am.”

“We do, too.” George Howie’s voice sounded thick. “Dean was a nice boy who turned into a good man.”

Quinn nodded but couldn’t seem to speak.

“We were proud of both of you. Dean was the easy one. You were always more complicated.”

“I’ve been remembering,” he admitted. “Dean loved getting presents. That first Christmas...”

George laughed. “If Schwinn could have filmed him, they’d have had the ad of the century. Boy lit up like the Fourth of July sky.” He was silent for a moment. “Now, you... I could see your struggle. You wanted that bike real bad, but you didn’t like taking anything from anybody. Or maybe you just didn’t like feeling hungry for something. I was never sure.”

They’d known him better than he’d ever guessed.

“A little of both,” Quinn admitted. “I told myself the bike was just a loaner. I was already taking food from you, so why not wheels?”

“You know, we still have things you left packed away in the attic. Couldn’t get rid of them. You ever want your football or skateboard, you just let us know.”

“You really still have them?” he asked, incredulous.

“Sure.” George sounded reproving. “Your kid leaves home at eighteen, you don’t strip the house of everything that was his. He might need to come home.”

Your kid.
Had they really thought of him that way? He rubbed his breastbone, conscious of that ache beneath it.

“Have you talked to Mindy?”

“She’s called a few times.” George paused. “She hasn’t wanted to say how she stands financially.”

“Dean had a lot of debts,” Quinn said bluntly. “Now that she’s sold the business, she’s also had to sell the boat and the cars to cut down on payments. I bought Dean’s Camaro.”

“She did mention that.” He grunted. “I’m not surprised that Dean got in over his head.”

“I didn’t say that.” Long habit had Quinn defending his friend. “He was managing the payments fine. He didn’t plan to die.”

“In other words, no life insurance.”

“Unfortunately, no. You know, until this last year, he didn’t have anybody to worry about. No reason for it.”

“Too bad he didn’t buy some when he got married.”

“She’s okay, George. Just not as well off as she’d probably imagined she’d be.”

Acid must have crept into his tone, because his foster father said, “You don’t like her.”

Denial came as instinctively. “She’s nice enough.” He rubbed his forehead. “We’ve never gotten to be close. I didn’t think she’d last.”

“Didn’t want her to last?” George asked quietly.

The implication was there: He’d been jealous.
Had
he been?

“I didn’t think she was right for Dean,” Quinn said. “If she has any depths, I never found them.”

“Except for some grief over his mother, I’m not sure Dean went deep, either,” George suggested. “He didn’t spring surprises on you with time.”

Quinn wanted to deny that analysis, too, but found his protest died in his throat. Maybe that description wasn’t even an insult. Dean was a nice guy. Smart, but not a thinker. Not someone who brooded. He pretty much closed the book on each day, looked forward to the next. He’d never been much of a reader and had been an adequate student but no valedictorian. He wasn’t interested in going to college, while Quinn would have liked to go but hadn’t wanted to owe anyone another nickel.

Only Dean knew that Quinn had spent the past ten years working his way toward a B.A. He’d started at Central Community College on Capitol Hill, one class a quarter. Just a year ago, he’d finished his bachelor’s degree in history at the University of Washington. Didn’t mean a thing to anybody but him, but he was glad he’d done it.

Long after he’d hung up the phone, he thought about whether George was right about Dean. As far as Quinn was concerned, their friendship
had
gone deep. Their very ease together came from what they’d shared, what they knew about each other, what they had in common that separated them from people who took family for granted. But they tended to talk about the job, about cases, about Fenton Security, about women or sports or occasionally politics. They played golf, shot hoops, shared a six-pack during a Seahawks game on the TV. Quinn couldn’t remember the last time they’d had a discussion he might not have had with anyone else he knew.

Dean, he thought, had kept that childish pleasure in the moment. It was something Quinn had always envied. He’d been robbed of that pleasure before he’d started eating solid foods. He didn’t remember ever letting himself totally relax and trust that something good would last.

All roads led to Rome, and he found himself thinking about Mindy again, too. Maybe he hadn’t so much misjudged her as misjudged Dean, and what Dean wanted and needed in a woman. Quinn had assumed because she wouldn’t fascinate him forever that she wouldn’t keep Dean enthralled, either, and maybe that just wasn’t true.

His reflections roiled inside him like a meal that didn’t settle. He was left wondering if he’d known Dean as well as he thought he did, or whether he’d pretended there was more to Dean than showed on the surface because if there wasn’t, he might have had to admit he’d sometimes been bored on the boat or in front of the TV, talking about the same things they’d talked about the week before and the one before that.

Maybe what he’d been uncomfortable with about Mindy was that she
was
too much like Dean in her interests and fun-loving personality. Quinn’s head ached by the time he admitted to himself that he’d wanted her to be more because he’d wanted Dean to be more.

And maybe he was overanalyzing. Because Dean was his brother in all but blood, and he still missed him in a way he’d never missed anybody, even his mother. He might get so he didn’t very often notice that yawning pit where the building had once stood, but it would always be there if he turned the wrong corner or let himself remember.

He wasn’t a man to rebuild, even if that were possible.

CHAPTER SIX

M
INDY
WALKED
THROUGH
the house one last time, even though doing so was like worrying an aching tooth with her tongue. Except for small mementos, everything was gone—the furniture, the artwork that had hung on the wall, even the power tools and the lawn mower. What little she’d kept was packed into boxes that filled the aging Saab she’d bought to replace the BMW. Her woodworking tools, of course; they took up most of the trunk. A few pans, dishes, utensils, the toaster and blender, blankets and two sets of sheets, a couple of photo albums, her clothes and little else.

Even Dean’s clothes she’d donated to the Volunteers of America. She’d once asked Quinn if he wanted any of them, and he’d shuddered. They weren’t really the same size, anyway. Dean had been a couple of inches taller, rangier, while Quinn was more...solid. Dean’s shirts would be too long in the sleeves for Quinn, too small around the neck. Besides, Dean loved bright colors. He almost always wore red or school-bus yellow or purple or even pink. Gaudy Hawaiian shirts were his favorite. He’d had Hawaiian-print shorts, too, and sometimes wore clashing prints on top and bottom. No, she couldn’t see Quinn in any of them.

That had been the worst part—packing up Dean’s clothes, remembering a day when he’d been wearing this jacket, the sight of him grinning at her from behind the wheel of the Camaro wearing
that
shirt. Their first date, their first kiss, his proposal, she could track in his wardrobe.

At first, she set aside some garments to keep. But the pile grew, and finally she chose not to keep any. Tears had dripped onto the cardboard as she’d taped shut the boxes.

Her back ached and she gently rubbed her belly as she walked through the kitchen and paused at the French doors looking out on the patio. The baby somersaulted in an unusual display of daytime acrobatics. Usually he or she rested quietly during the day. Bedtime was playtime. But perhaps her distress had flowed with her bloodstream into her unborn baby, agitating him. Her, she amended, as always reminding herself it could be either. Which would Dean have preferred? A boy or a girl? Or would he have cared at all?

Her eyes were wet again when she turned away from the patio and the roses that now, in August, were looking parched.

She laid her house keys on the kitchen counter beside the appliance manuals she’d found neatly filed away and had set out for the new owners. Then, almost steadily, she walked straight out, locking the front door behind her.

Even the act of walking down the driveway and getting into her car was different than it used to be. Already, at five and a half months pregnant, she felt unbalanced by her protruding belly. Awkward.

Dean would have thought she was beautiful. She blinked away the moisture in her eyes and gave an unladylike snuffle. She fumbled for a tissue and blew her nose and mopped her cheeks. She wasn’t beautiful at her best, and she sure wasn’t anything approaching it right now. Her face looked puffy and any semblance of a waist had disappeared.

“Okay,” she told herself. “Time to go.” She turned the semi-functional air-conditioning up, because she was already sweating, and backed out of the driveway.

She had rented an apartment on Beacon Hill a few blocks above Rainier. It wasn’t the best part of Seattle, but the small houses in the neighborhood looked cared for, and rents were cheaper than around the university or in West Seattle or any other part of the city she’d lived before. And she wanted to save as much money as she could. She’d have to draw on what she had to get started—even for the small basement apartment she was moving into, she’d had to write a hefty check for first and last months’ rent. She didn’t know if she’d earn enough from the job she’d found as a barista to pay for rent and utilities and food. She hoped she would, because she didn’t have health insurance and would be facing doctor and hospital bills for the birth. Plus, she wanted desperately to take two or three months off work after her baby was born. Just to get to know her.

That was as far as Mindy’s plans had gone. Paying child care out of minimum wage was going to be impossible. So she’d have to keep drawing on the money Dean had left. Someday there would be ballet lessons or Little League sign-ups and a bike would have to be under the tree some Christmas morning. And college. She gave a small laugh. Already she was worrying about tuition!

She hoped that somehow she could go back to woodworking once the baby was born. Right before she got pregnant, she’d had what she thought was a good idea... But then she didn’t have the energy, and now she’d decided that she shouldn’t be inhaling either sawdust or paint and polyurethane fumes. And even if her idea
was
good, she wouldn’t be able to make any kind of living, not at first. Since she’d rather live in a mission than beg for help from her mother, she had to take a job.

She’d decided that, after the baby was born, she would have to tell Quinn. Maybe she’d softened a little, after a peaceful two months without him. As annoying as he was, he
had
loved Dean. The two men had considered themselves brothers. Maybe playing godfather or uncle or whatever would give him comfort.

She left West Seattle, crossed I-5 on Columbia Way and circled the steep side of Beacon Hill. After almost two months of drought, the neighborhood looked more run-down than she’d last seen it, the small yard of the house where she was to live brown and weedy. Half-hysterically, she wondered what Quinn would think of this lawn, left to wander into abandoned flower beds and tangle with the trunks of lilacs and leafless trees before, unwatered, it had died.

Her landlords, an older Hispanic couple, didn’t seem to be home. She wished they were. A cheerful greeting might have made the tiny basement apartment more welcoming. She backed as close to the concrete steps as she could get, then went down and unlocked the door.

Even now, in August, sunlight barely came through the narrow high windows. Most were painted shut, so she couldn’t open them to let in fresh air. With the shrubbery overgrown, pressing against the windows, the basement felt claustrophobic. It also had a distinctly musty smell despite the hot, dry weather.

This apartment was cheap, she reminded herself, and felt safe, with the nice landlords up above. There was room in the driveway for her car, so she wouldn’t have to hunt for a spot every day, and Mrs. Sanchez had even hinted that she might be interested in babysitting when the time came.

Mindy carried in a fan and plugged it in before she went back out to her car to begin unloading. The sooner she’d made up the bed and had her own towels in the bathroom, the sooner she’d feel at home.

A bleak thought crept in. Really, what choice did she have?

* * *

T
WO
MONTHS
LATER
, she was coping. Barely.

This was one of the moments that fell in the “barely” category. It was eleven-thirty at night, she was alone closing the business, her back ached, her head swam, and she wanted to cry.

She was forty-five cents off. Mindy stared down at the rolls of nickels and dimes and quarters. She should count them again.

If only she wasn’t so tired! Nobody had ever told her that pregnancy was exhausting. Maybe it wouldn’t be if... She put a brake on her wistful thought. If Dean hadn’t been killed. If she weren’t working forty-hour weeks and sometimes more, mostly on her feet. If she were pampered and loved and able to be lazy.

Mindy squared her shoulders. Well, she wasn’t, and she couldn’t be.
Don’t even think about it,
she ordered herself. She’d made it this far. She was seven and a half months along now. With a flutter of anxiety, she turned the timetable around: she had only six weeks to go.

Tonight, she was too weary to count the wretched change again. Without hesitation, she scooped a quarter, a nickel and a dime out of the cup that held her tips for the evening and added them to the take that she was bagging to put in the safe.

She didn’t really like closing. Although she’d locked the front door at eleven, she kept stealing uneasy glances at the glass door and front windows. A group of young men had been hanging out on the sidewalk for the past hour, rap music from a boom box seeming to thud through the floorboards into her bones. Occasionally they laughed or shouted or a car would pull up to the curb so that friends could exchange a few words.

She wasn’t exactly afraid of this particular crowd; they were often around, and had never paid her much attention. As pregnant as she was now, she didn’t even merit a flirtation. She was more nervous about going out the back door to the alley, where she’d parked her car. There, sometimes shadows moved behind a Dumpster or she’d hear a murmur of voices. She always stuck her head out the door like a turtle peering out of its shell, checked to be sure that she was alone, then slammed the metal door and rushed to her car with her key already in her hand. She’d timed herself; she could make it in twenty seconds. But maybe she should start parking in front instead, even if it was a block or two away.

Every day she debated, and every day she ended up parking in back. She didn’t like the idea of going out the front, obviously locking up, then having to walk two blocks so late at night.

This evening’s tips were meager. She counted: $24.75. Three dollars an hour, on top of her minimum wage. She’d done lots better than that when she’d started two months ago. She guessed she’d been prettier then, maybe more animated and likely to chat and tease and laugh. Now she was too tired to do more than prepare a double mocha latte and say, “Six-fifty, please.” And then, to the next customer, “What can I get you?”

Tonight, she’d just closed the back door and checked to be sure it was locked when she heard a clang and then a shout so close by, her heart bounded and she ran to her car. Her hand was shaking, and it took her extra seconds to get the key in the lock. She fell in and hit the lock, her heart drumming and her vision blurred. She started the car, turned on the headlights and rocketed forward without even fastening her seat belt.

She didn’t see a soul in the alley. Somebody had probably been yelling at a dog beyond the fence. She sometimes heard a deep, snarling bark there.

Somehow she drove safely the half mile to her apartment. There, she parked, went in, and sank down on the couch as if her legs couldn’t hold her for another second.

Her ankles were so swollen, she saw in dismay. She was due to see the doctor this week. She’d have to ask about the swelling. She’d gained an awful lot of weight this month, too, if the scale in the bathroom was anywhere close to accurate. And she didn’t eat that much! She didn’t. She’d already given up drinking soda at all, since she’d read that could make your ankles swell. She didn’t have anything with caffeine, and she tried to eat lots of fruits and vegetables and whole grains and all the things she’d never thought about before. All she wanted was for her baby to be healthy.

Thankfully she had tomorrow and Monday off. Then she had her doctor appointment Tuesday morning before she went to work at two-thirty. She’d feel more rested by then.

Usually Mindy did her housecleaning on Sunday afternoon. This Sunday, she had breakfast, read the newspaper that she shared with the Sanchezes, then felt so tired she went back to bed for a nap. A knock on her door woke her.

Her dazed eyes found the clock. Oh, no! It was almost three. She’d wasted the day. Good thing she’d gotten dressed this morning, at least. She heaved herself off the bed, finger-combed her hair and went to see who was knocking.

On the doorstep was her mother, wearing a sweater that had to be cashmere. She gave an exaggerated shiver. “Aren’t you going to let me in?”

“Yes, I...” Mindy gave her head a shake. “Of course. But...what on earth are you doing here?”

“Visiting, what else?” Passing her, Cheri Walker peeked into the tiny kitchen and wrinkled her nose. “This place is nasty! How can you bear it?”

Feeling huge and sullen, Mindy gestured at the couch. “Would you like to sit down?”

Her mother studied it as if a cockroach might be lurking in the crack between the cushions. Finally, she perched on the very edge, without leaning back.

Mindy flopped into the easy chair.

“You hardly return my phone calls,” her mother said.

Knowing she sounded sulky, Mindy couldn’t help herself. “I most often work nights. And you’re at work in the mornings when I’m free.”

“You must have days off,” her mother pointed out, unanswerably. When Mindy didn’t respond, she swept her with a gaze. “Honey, you look awful.”

Mindy gritted her teeth. “Thanks.”

“You shouldn’t be working.”

“I can’t afford not to be.” Her mother didn’t want to hear unpalatable reality. “Dean’s money won’t go that far. I know I’ll need to take time off after the baby is born.”

“You’re planning to bring a baby to live
here?
” Cheri Walker made it sound as if the apartment was a cell at the state penitentiary.

“I can’t afford...”

Her mother stood. “You’re just being a martyr! What do you want me to say? You can come home to live with me?”

Mindy would rather stand at a freeway exit with a sign begging for money than go live with her mother.

“I know you’re far too busy to want me home again.” Oh, how civil she could be! “Are you seeing anyone right now, Mom?”

A smug smile curved her mother’s mouth. “Yes, and he’s such a doll! Mark is manager at QFC...”

Or maybe it was Safeway. Or Albertsons. Mindy quit listening. Her mother always had some fabulous man around. The strange men wandering into the kitchen at all hours of the day had been one of the reasons Mindy had left home the day after she’d graduated from high school.

Her mother was nearly fifty, but she had kept a slim figure. Although she hadn’t admitted to a face-lift, Mindy suspected she’d gotten one a couple of years ago. Now, no more than the tiniest lines beside her eyes hinted that she was over thirty-five. Her golden hair had more life and shine than her pregnant daughter’s, and she had a delighted, warm smile that gave men two left feet and a sudden desire to treasure her for all eternity.