Sunset Bridge (26 page)

“You don’t even know! I’m having your baby, and you don’t know the simplest things about me!”

“That works both ways. Am
I?
”

She took a guess. “No, or you wouldn’t sleep in that stupid backpacking tent.”

“Good call, and using that measure, I guess you aren’t, either. So there are only two problems left. Me, and all that water.”

“
You
are the least of it.”

“I like the sound of that. I like not being the cause of all the bad things in your world. It’s encouraging.”

She glared at him. “How can you make jokes?”

“I’m not.”

Tracy could still hear the alarm in the distance. “Doesn’t this thing have a speaker? Shouldn’t somebody have talked to us by now?”

“Old elevator.”

“This really sucks.” Tracy wondered how long she could hold out. Minutes, at best, possibly only moments.

Marsh scooted closer; then, before she could protest, he lifted her to his lap and tilted her forward, propping her back with one arm and holding her at the waist with the other. “Is that any better?”

Miraculously, it was. The pressure eased almost immediately.

They hadn’t been this close in weeks. Months. She had trouble catching her breath. She leaned forward, away from his chest.

“Trace, try not to squirm, okay? It’s not helping.”

“I’m just trying to get comfortable. How do you know it’s not helping?”

“It’s not helping
me
.”

It took her a moment to get that. Despite herself, she felt a little jolt of pleasure that she was turning the guy on. “This was your idea, remember? I didn’t target your erogenous zones.”

“Well, we hit a bull’s-eye anyway, didn’t we? By the way, pregnancy agrees with you. You’ve never been sexier.”

She knew better than to let that go further. She reminded herself that she didn’t want to be sexy, she wanted to be loved. Well, okay, both. Both would be good.

That was getting her nowhere. She changed the subject. “So why do you want to know whether the baby’s a boy or girl?”

“Baby. Oh, right. Now I remember. That’s why we’re here.” He tightened his arm around her a little, and his hand stole down to the mound where their baby lay, and rested lightly, fingers splayed. “I guess I like imagining what he or she will be like. There are so many possibilities, it just seems like a good idea to limit them a little.”

“Do you care?”

“Care?”

“Boy or girl. Do you care?”

“Nah. Although if I had to choose, I think I’d ask for a girl. One who looks like her mother.”

Tracy didn’t know what to say. It was one of the most intimate things Marsh had ever said to her.

“Rather than me,” he added. “That would be a lot for her to contend with. I wouldn’t make a pretty girl.”

She deflated. “Well, I don’t care. The chances I’ll have another baby are nil, so I’ll take potluck.”

“Do you want more?”

“Weird, weird question. You think I have a postpartum date at the sperm bank?”

“You’re young enough to try again. I’ve been raising an only child. It has its problems.”

“Well, you won’t be raising one anymore. And mine will have Bay to fight with whenever they’re together. Why isn’t somebody doing something about that alarm!”

“Somebody is, you can count on it. And I’ve told Bay about the baby, in case you were wondering. He’s confused, but that seems to run in the family.”

Before she could answer, there was a grinding sound and a jerk. The whole floor of the elevator shook, then it began to move again. Tracy scrambled to her feet. “We’re going down!”

“Up and down. Sounds familiar to me.”

The door slid open on the second floor, and Tracy made a flying leap into the hallway. The exit sign pointed left, and she hobbled in that direction. Marsh kept pace. In the stairwell, she gripped the banister and told herself she could do this. Marsh had the good sense not to speak.

They arrived on the third floor after she’d pulled herself up
by the railing, hand over hand, and she threw open the door to her doctor’s office with just a minute to spare until her appointment.

“Now.” She leaned into the reception window, practically falling over the desk that ran in front of it. “Now, now, now! I have to have the ultrasound right this minute.”

The woman grinned. “They all say that.”

Tracy leaned closer. There must have been something in her eyes that made it clear she wasn’t kidding.

Marsh spoke from behind her.

“I think she means it,” he said. “You don’t want to mess with this lady right now.”

The receptionist stood. “You can come back, Miss Deloche. Right this way.”

The first part of the ultrasound was excruciating and happily uneventful, but after Tracy was allowed to visit the ladies’ room, the second part was much more fun.

“It looks like one of those aliens with the big eyes,” she said, staring at the fuzzy pictures of the baby on the monitor as the technician moved the transponder over her gel-slick belly.

Marsh stood on the side away from the monitor, gazing over her reclining body. “I think it looks like a king-size peanut.”

Tracy was trying to put the experience in perspective. Marsh was here to see his child. He had jollied her along in the elevator to keep her from freaking out. She should not exploit this connection. Sperm meets egg = baby created. Conception was just that clinical, even if they had enjoyed it.

Okay, “enjoyed” wasn’t quite the right word. They had created this tiny alien creature the very first time, or at least
during the very first night, they had ever made love. And they had waited a long time for that moment, held off until they were sure the situation was right, so the moment had been, well, ecstatic.

Sperm ecstatically meets egg = creation.

Marsh touched her shoulder, and his hand stayed there. “Trace, Gwen here asked you a question.”

“I’m sorry.” Tracy looked at the monitor to see if something was obviously wrong. Then she looked at Gwen, young and blonde and still clearly enjoying her job. “I didn’t hear you.”

“I said I can tell you the gender of the baby if you want to know.”

Tracy considered. Marsh squeezed her shoulder. “You don’t have to find out now,” he said. “I can wait, too. Let’s leave this decision up to you.”

She looked away from the monitor and up at him. For a moment, despite her better judgment, she felt the thrill of a real connection. Marsh was smiling down at her with something she might even call tenderness.

“Let’s find out,” she said. “You want to, and I’m ambivalent.”

“You’d do that for me?”

“I’m actually a nice person. Believe it or not, most people like me.”

He smiled. “Then let’s not.”

“Not what? Like me?”

“Not find out.”

“What? Why the switch?”

“Because not knowing will give us something fun to talk about. Wonder about. Life’s filled with surprises. Maybe not knowing will stir up a few more.”

“Then we’ll leave the sex a mystery,” Gwen said before Tracy could respond.

“I’ll just paint the baby’s room green, I guess,” Tracy said. “I like sage green, and it’s good for a boy or a girl.”

“What room?” Marsh asked.

“The one I use now. I’ll be sleeping on a sofa bed in the living room. It’s the only good solution.”

“The only one, huh?”

“Better than making a nursery out of the dining area.”

“Definitely better than that.” He removed his hand and stepped back a little.

She looked at the monitor again. “I’ve thought of all the alternatives, and that’s what it comes down to. I’m going to need a crib, a changing table. I’ll have to get Janya watching out at garage sales for me. It’s so hard to believe, but there’s the baby. It’s real, isn’t it? This whole thing is real.”

Marsh didn’t answer. Tracy watched the baby, who was floating happily inside her, and wondered how, at the same moment that she was watching her very own son or daughter, she could still feel lonely, just because Marsh was no longer touching her.

B
lake definitely wasn’t a typical date. On their first evening together they had attended a posh party at his beach house. The next time they’d eaten at the shabby little Italian restaurant with the limited menu and fabulous food.

Now, miniature golf.

“I used to play with Marsh and Bay,” Tracy told Maggie after Maggie explained what Blake had planned for the evening. “Bay was better than both of us put together. Played real golf, sure, although mostly just to dress up the scenery, even if I was a lot better than most of the guys I went out with.”

Maggie was sure there were a lot of things Tracy had never done on a date, at least in the old days, on the road to becoming a trophy wife. She didn’t think her friend and landlady regretted changing, but today she seemed glum, even though she had reported that the morning’s ultrasound had shown that her baby was already totally adorable and growing appropriately.

Maggie rummaged in her closet for a thin black cardigan to
wear over her T-shirt. Blake was going to pick her up in ten minutes, but she was almost ready.

“He’s fun to be with,” Maggie said. “Undemanding, too. No groping.”

“There’s something wrong, then.”

Maggie laughed. “He knows about Felo, and he just got out of a relationship himself. I think that’s all it is. We’re taking it slow.”

“How slow?”

“Undetectably.” Maggie found the cardigan and backed out of the closet. Tracy was sitting cross-legged on her bed, staring out the window.

“Your mind’s a million miles away,” Maggie said.

Tracy glanced at her. “You won’t like what I was thinking.”

“Thanks for the warning.” Maggie waited.

“I was thinking I hope my life doesn’t come to that. Going on dates with guys I don’t really want to be with, even hot guys like Blake, just so I won’t have to think about the one I threw away.”

“Well…wow.”

“Yeah, I know. I warned you to duck.”

“Not loudly enough.”

“Have you talked to Felo since he told you about that state’s attorney you went after at the press conference?”

“He’s left a couple of phone messages, just to tell me he’s still looking into the murders, and I faxed him a photo of that slot machine we found at the Duttas’. He’s probably emailed, but my internet server’s almost as bad as my cell-phone carrier. They’re supposed to repair it this afternoon.”

She didn’t add that she had also asked another friend in her old department to send her any information she could gather
about Blake Armstrong, including his credit report—and not because they were dating.

“So you’re going to drop it? Him, I mean?” Tracy asked.

Maggie was beginning to feel annoyed. “Do we know each other this well?”

“Uh-huh. I think I know you well enough to realize talking about this isn’t easy or normal. It’s a lot easier for me, and I’m not enjoying it, either. But I’m beginning to wonder if both of us are just crazy. Janya says in India they work out the problems after their relationships are in place.”

“Yeah, and they set brides on fire because their dowries aren’t big enough or they happen to get pregnant with a daughter.”

“Well, there’s plenty of abuse in this country, too, and some of it’s gold plated. But maybe Americans are so careful, so sure we have to dot every
i
and cross every
t,
we don’t take chances.”

“I’d say the divorce rate in this country doesn’t back you up.”

“Yeah… Maybe not.” Tracy’s brief spurt of enthusiasm drained away.

Maggie hated to see that. “You’re talking about Marsh and you, right?”

“I kind of thought you’d get what I’m talking about, since you’re jogging along in a parallel groove.”

Maggie could feel her defenses tumbling. “I do get it.” She dropped to the bed beside Tracy to lace up her sneakers. “I’m still sorting this out.”

“You’re a careful sorter.”

“When I was a kid, I made piles of clothes, and matched them by size, type and color, just so I could find everything when I needed it. Mom would go into my dresser when I was
at school and mix the panties with the shorts, the socks with the T-shirts. She said it wasn’t healthy to care that much about having everything in the right place.”

“Wanda’s not the most predictable person out there, I guess. You probably drive each other crazy.”

That was too clearly true to acknowledge. “Why don’t you just sit Marsh down and tell him how confused you are? Ask him how he feels about you.”

“Good idea. You first.”

Maggie finished tying the second shoe before she spoke. “It’s not the same for me. I know how Felo says he feels. I just…I just don’t know if I’m ready to trust him.” She glanced at Tracy, who still looked pensive. “But tonight I’m just going out on a date with a friend.” She paused; then she decided to tell the whole truth. “A friend who might have had his hair cut by Harit Dutta, but didn’t admit to me that he even knew the man.”

“Is that why you’re going? So you can find out what’s up with that?”

“Yeah. Part of it. I mean, it’s probably nothing. Maybe Harit wasn’t Blake’s barber, and that gel thing—” she shook her hands over her head in imitation “—was just a coincidence. When I followed up last week, Mom’s contact at the shop didn’t remember Blake’s name, but he said a lot of their business is walk-in, and if a walk-in pays cash, there’s nothing on file unless the guy asks for a receipt.”

“For all you know he’s been getting his hair cut when he goes out of town.”

“I’m just keeping my ear to the ground tonight to see if anything comes up. It’s the longest shot around, but what else do I have to do right now?”

“You’re asking the wrong person. Me, I’m going home to
watch the weather reports and find somebody to nail plywood over my windows if need be.”

As a native of the Sunshine State, Maggie wasn’t worried about the tropical storm picking up steam in the Caribbean after a lazy start. From experience, she knew storms this late in the season, when the waters had cooled, were disorganized and short-lived. In her opinion there was too little real news at the moment, so the local media were harping on this last-gasp attempt by Mother Nature.

“Well, I’m going to beat Blake at miniature golf while the sun shines,” she said. “Wish me luck.”

“You got it.” Tracy slid off the bed. “Glad we had this little talk.”

“Why?”

“So I won’t feel like a total loser tonight while I contemplate my rapidly changing belly button.”

“Because you have company in the failed-relationship department?”

“Because somebody else on Happiness Key is just as confused about her life as I am.”

There was no good way to just ask Blake if Harit had been his barber. The name for that was “interrogation,” and Maggie was on a date with the guy. Blake knew she was looking into the Duttas’ deaths, and if she asked him if he had a personal connection to the case, her motive would be clear.

Instead, she decided to find out more about him. This was their third date, and delving a little deeper made sense on a number of levels.

“Are you half this good on a real golf course?” she asked after he hit a ball through a tunnel, around a hillside curve and into the correct lobe of a four-leaf clover.

“One of the smartest things an engineering professor ever told me was to find a good golf pro. You’d be surprised how many deals are sealed on a golf course.”

“That was true in my profession, too. Any suspect I played with would have confessed by the third hole, just to keep from having to finish the course with me.”

“You’re not that bad.” Blake grinned his Beach Boy best. He was definitely an appealing guy. Open, friendly and courteous, but not to a fault. Maggie always hated guys who treated her like a piece of fragile china, and Blake was much too smart for that. He was a good judge of people, and she wondered if the same professor who had recommended the golf pro had also recommended a few helpful psych classes.

“I’m coordinated.” Maggie followed Blake’s fabulous shot with one that took her to the wrong lobe, but not the worst of the four. “But not infallible,” she added. She watched him sink the ball into the hole.

“You strike me as somebody who’s probably good at everything you try. A good cop, I’m sure.”

“And I can bake a cherry pie, Billy Boy.”

“But are you a young girl who cannot leave her mother?” he asked, impressing her by quoting the same song.

“Nope. Just a regular Renaissance woman, that’s me.”

“You must have plans to do something else with your life.”

“You don’t think working for my mother at Wanda’s Wonderful Pies is my life goal?”

His cell phone rang, and he apologized after he read the caller ID. It was the second call he’d gotten since they began. “I have to take this. I’m sorry.”

She sat on a bench as he wandered off, and removed sand from her shoe, glad for the chance. Blake rejoined her once
her shoe was back on, followed her to her ball and watched her put it through a second tunnel.

On the way back, he draped his arm over her shoulder. “I think you’re trying to reassess your life. Keeping one finger in the law enforcement pie, baking pies with the rest of them.”

“We’ve about used up the pie sayings, wouldn’t you say?” She stepped onto the green and moved around the ball, which was at an awkward angle uphill from the hole. From experience, she knew this was the kind of shot at which she did not excel. She debated whether she should simply chip the ball to the flat area on the other side of the hole and put it in on the next stroke. Or should she try to sink it, against all odds?

There was really nothing to debate. She tried to sink it and almost did, missing the hole by half an inch. The ball rolled back to her feet.

“This could go on all evening,” she warned.

“And I bet if I said you could just add the six maximum to your score and go on to the next hole, you’d laugh at me, right?”

“Darn right.” She positioned herself and tried again. This time the ball went in.

“Wow.” He laughed. “Dogged determination coupled with a lot of luck and a little skill. Does that describe you?”

“A lot of skill and a little luck. What about you?”

He waited until they were at the next hole, the tenth of eighteen. Lucky Putt was all about good fortune. The four-leaf clover they’d just finished, a horseshoe, a wishbone. This one was the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. The goal was to hit the ball between strategically placed concrete leprechauns and down a steep incline into a pot of gold sunk into a hill. A painted rainbow pointed the way.

“I’m one of the lucky ones.” Blake made the first putt
because he’d done better on the previous hole. He watched as his ball clipped the second leprechaun and tumbled down a level. Now he would have to hit the ball across a small wooden bridge over a running stream.

“Not if that’s any example.” Maggie positioned herself carefully and managed to get her ball through the leprechaun gauntlet and into position to hit it into the hole on her next stroke. Which she did.

“
Usually
I’m lucky,” Blake amended as they walked down to his ball. “Good parents, plenty of money, good schools, driving ambition.”

“Where did you go to school?”

“Carnegie Mellon. Georgia Tech. How about you?”

“I stayed close to home. University of Miami.”

“Did you always want to be a cop?”

He was asking more questions than she was. Good manners or evasiveness? she wondered. “Apparently not,” she said, “because these days I’m baking pies.”

“But doing a little investigating on the side. How’s that going?”

Maggie was careful not to show any particular interest in the question. She stepped aside to let Blake aim for the bridge. He missed, and his ball went into the water.

“Man, I thought I had that,” he said. “Just hooked to the right.”

She wondered why he’d flubbed a fairly easy shot, although she told herself that was silly. Was she so hard up for something to do that she was seeing nerves where there weren’t any?

She waited until he brought the ball out of the water and got it easily across the bridge; then she walked around and watched him sink it.

“I looked into some things, but nothing panned out,” she said when Blake joined her off the green and they started toward the next hole, which had a slowly revolving roulette wheel in the middle and two narrow passages to each side. The wheel was low enough that it would send a ball spinning in a collision, but any golfer who lifted his ball into a black slot went right to the final hole.

“You got me interested, so I read about the case online,” he said.

She waited, a perfect study in nonchalance. This was where Blake announced that the dead man had, in fact, cut his hair once or twice, something he hadn’t realized until he saw the photograph. He would talk about coincidence, and how shocked he had been. Murder so close to his own life, and he hadn’t even known.

But Blake went a different route. “I can’t get those children out of my head,” he said. “I keep thinking how difficult this is going to be for them. Bad enough the parents were killed, but the article said there’s no family in the country.”

“True, but the kids are being well taken care of.”

“I lost an uncle to violence. Somebody grabbed his wallet, and he went after him. The guy shot him through the heart. I was ten. I still remember how awful I felt when I found out what happened.”

She supposed that
could
explain Blake’s curiosity, that and the fact that she’d been a cop and generally people found her former job interesting, due mostly to the plethora of inaccurate cop shows on the networks.

Or maybe Blake’s interest was something more.

“Well, it’s a dead end,” she said. “No pun intended. I think we just have to assume the deaths were what the Miami police believe they were. A murder-suicide. Love gone awry.”

“And doesn’t it far too often?” he asked, as if he understood that all too well.

His cell phone rang again. He lifted it from his pocket and looked at the number, then answered, moving away to carry on his conversation. Maggie played through, managing this one in three strokes.