Dark to Mortal Eyes (27 page)

Josee’s patience was running low. “And what gives you the right to decide my bounds? Didn’t you relinquish those rights when you signed the adoption release forms? Maybe you don’t think you’re my father, but Kara seems to have no doubt. Says you signed the same papers she did.” Josee snorted. “She warned me you wouldn’t want to see me. I mean, how stupid can I be? For a split second, though, back at the station …”

Marsh stopped. Looked up from the menu.

“I guess … Well, when you walked toward me, Marsh, for one tiny little moment I thought maybe something had changed.”

“How so?”

“Okay.” She picked at the sleeve of her sweater. “Here it is. I thought you might actually want to talk to me. Meet with me, same as Kara. Get to know each other, as if that’s a crime. I hoped that—”

“Enough.” The storm deepened in his eyes. “Let’s stop right there. I’m sorry, but this is bad timing. Terrible, in fact. Things’re going on here that can do nothing but cause trouble for you. Best thing, in my opinion, is that you go now before you get hurt. I’m saying this for your sake.”

“For my sake? Unless you count my foster fathers—one of whom was a wife-beating alcoholic, a real loser!—I’ve spent almost half my life without a dad. Obviously, you have no clue what that’s like. Zilch.”

“Actually, my father died when I was five months old.”

“
Your
father? Oh.” She sucked air through her teeth. “I … didn’t know that.”

“His name was Chance. I have no more than a handful of pictures of him. He kept a journal, but my mother’s never let me see it. I’m not even sure it still exists.”

Ms. Wilcox was returning. The waitress in her wake wore black slacks, a white shirt, and a bolero tie. “We’ve cleared a quiet space in the back. Is your party ready?”

Josee said, “Maybe you’re right, Marsh. Time for me to say good-bye.”

She slapped her menu into his hand, snugged her sweater, then pushed out onto the sidewalk where she rescued her cigarette from the brick sill and touched it to her lighter before heading up the street. Time to go. Somewhere. Anywhere but here.

“Whoa now, where’re you off to in such a hurry?” Sergeant Turney was surprised to find Josee strutting along the curb. “Thought you were with your father.”

“Who says he’s my father?”

“Kara’s your mother, isn’t she? They’re married, so I assumed that—”

“You assumed. Know what happens when you do that, mister? You make an—”

“I know the saying. Cut me some slack, would ya? I’m not feelin’ so hot.” The gelatinous mass on his arm was draining him. Like a leaky spigot, it dripped from his scars. He felt depleted. With a hand rested over his belly, he said, “Now’s no time to be runnin’ off, Josee. Glad I caught ya out here.”

“Sure, yeah. Glad to see you, too. Whoop-de-do.”

He cleared his throat. “Let me talk to your … to Mr. Addison. Then I’ll meet you back at the station. Ask for Rita. She’ll show you into my office. Should be safe there.”

“Safe? You make me sound helpless.”

Turney thought of Scooter’s backpack in his cruiser. “Little concerned, is all.”

“Liar. I bet you’re worried sick over me.”

“Only this much.” Turney held up two fingers that almost touched. “That’s my story, and I’m stickin’ to it.”

“Nice to know
someone
cares. Past two days’ve been whacked-out. Kara’s missing, Scooter’s gone, and my father—or whatever you wanna call the jerk back there—refuses to claim me as his own. Like I care! Just be nice to hear the truth.”

Truth? As a cop, Turney reminded himself that it was his duty to search for and defend it. In every conflict, every love scene, every birth, and every death, truth was a silver cord that bound that moment in time. Falsehood caused those cords to unwind.

“What’d Mr. Addison tell you? Does he know where his wife is?”

“Heck if I know. The man’s cold-hearted. Forget him.”

The sergeant rolled his wide neck, took a breath, and eased into Josee’s gaze. Like a child losing his footing on a rope climb, his heart slipped. One notch. Then two. This woman … Sakes alive, was this what they meant by “chemistry”? Could it be chemistry if only one person felt it? Not that he had much to offer.

“Josee? C’mon, you gonna tell me what happened, what’s got ya so riled?”

She shrugged. “Nothing worth telling.”

“And that’s why you’re poundin’ the pavement.”

“Did I say I wanted to talk about it?”

“Didn’t say either way. Am I supposed to read your mind?”

“Like to see you try, Sarge.” She set her hands on her hips.

“Oh, no you don’t. See, if I could read your mind, you’d change it.”

“Smart man.” Her half smile boosted him up a notch. “But that’s not the point, women don’t want you to know what we think.”

“What is the point?” Turney pretended to dig for his notepad. “Mmm, let me write it down. This could make me millions.”

“Simple. We wanna know that you care. Just ask and just listen.”

“Ask and listen.”

“Really listen.” Josee dragged a hand through her hair and left it there. “If you quote me on this, I’ll deny every word, you hear me? Thing is, it’s not even about reading minds, okay? Guys can be so ignorant—it’s about the heart.”

“Then let me ask you one more time …”

Marsh Addison knew he had a reputation for sniffing out vulnerability. He was the king, sizing up his foes and his latest acquisitions. Whether in a boardroom or on the golf links, he could smell it like crushed grapes: tannic and tangy, with the promise of fermented surrender.

But this was different.

As he watched Josee retreat through the doors of Barkley’s, he heard no call to arms. Questions swarmed in, and melancholy coated his mouth. In his chest Josee’s vulnerability evoked an uncommon response. Long-submerged emotion rising from an abandoned shaft, cranked upward from deep waters, attached by a tattered rope. A water bucket. Swaying, sloshing, splashing …

And icy cold! I could drown in this stuff
.

He released the crank, letting the bucket plunge. He could not indulge himself. Josee had misunderstood his reticence and, no doubt, hated him for it, but what option did he have. Anything he said would not only place her in danger but would also threaten Kara’s release. Sure, Josee had made an impression. A decent kid. Sad beauty in her eyes. A wide, thin mouth that—

He touched his own lips and tucked away an observation. Not now.

With a commitment to the task at hand, he pivoted and traced Casey Wilcox’s steps between the tables to a spot in back. Eased into a seat. Placed his order.

As the waitress moved on, Marsh excused himself to the men’s room.

He was a man in control, a man with a plan. Time to call his mother. Hadn’t she hinted at dark secrets all these years? If Virginia couldn’t point him in the direction of Chance’s journal, then Steele Knight would bring this game to a hasty end.

No. It’s not over until I get Kara back
.

“Mother, I need answers ASAP. Can you tell me where—”

“I knew you would call.”

Virginia’s flat response halted Marsh. He closed and locked a stall door, leaned against it with his eyes shut. “What else do you know? Now’s the time to tell me everything … Dad’s journal, your cryptic words over the years, everything.”

“Did you try calling earlier? I was out playing tennis with Barbara.”

“Don’t brush me off. This is deadly serious.” His thoughts thrust him back to that day as a thirteen-year-old in the drawing room, thumbing through the family keepsakes.
That journal’s so faded, so scribbled—looks like the tattered remains of an old pirate’s map … One day, Marsh. One day
.

He said, “I think today is the day you tried to warn me about.”

“Have they contacted you?”

“Who? Mom, what is going on? Have you heard from Kara?”

“Not since she told me about her plans to see Josee. That’s when I suspected.”

“Suspected what?”

“They want the journal, I s’pose. Am I right about that?”

A urinal flushed.
Whooosh
. Marsh popped his head from the stall, saw that it was an automated system on a timer. He was alone in the rest room. “Do you know where it is, Mom? I need to get it. I could drive over this evening.”

“The ramblings of a dying man. Hogwash, most likely.” Defeat filled her words.

“You’ve read it! You knew this would happen, didn’t you?” In the event someone should walk in, Marsh held the phone between shoulder and ear, ran the water, and slapped paper towels at his wet palms. “What’s so important? Some war secret, a treasure, what?”

“I’m not so certain you’re ready for it, Marsh. Chance feared this day would come and held himself accountable, but he was quite clear in his stipulations that the journal remain hidden. A last recourse and nothing less.”

“Kara’s gone! This is beyond worrying over a dead man’s wishes.”

“Marshall Ray Addison!”

He lowered his voice. “Sorry, but we’re talking about Kara here. Someone’s taken her, and I’ve gotta show up with the journal tomorrow night if I want to get her back. You never remarried, Mom. You never moved past his death. That’s your business. But I’m not about to let your antiquated loyalties keep me from protecting my wife, is that clear?”

“Clear as it’s always been. I shoulder my share of the blame. I used bitterness like a shield, holding even my own son at bay. For that, I owe you an apology.”

“An apology?”

Marsh had never heard such words from his mother’s mouth. After Chance’s death in early 1960, Virginia Addison had nurtured Addison Ridge Vineyards through numerous setbacks until its grape yields carved their niche in the Oregon wine industry. She raised Marsh with all the care she could muster, his playgrounds ranging from warehouse floors to muddy vineyards to the burgundy carpet in the manor’s wainscoted boardroom. She was there, albeit with little show of emotion, as his growing hands switched from Matchbox cars to Tonka trucks to John Deere farm equipment. In the early ’80s, multiple hip surgeries had prompted her to relocate to a retirement community in Depoe Bay, but only recently had her emotional backbone begun to soften. Like the other war widows, her parenting years had been an amalgam of devotion and detachment.

Not that Marsh had minded. He respected her. He’d often heard her say that it was good for a kid to have a thick skin. Accordingly, he kept his own distance.

Just as she’d taught him.

“Apology accepted,” he said. “Does this mean you’ll help me?”

“You’re not ready for this, Marsh. You don’t yet know that which you face.”

“I’ll be ready. In a dog-eat-dog world, I’m the one they run from. Don’t worry about me. What about you? What time should I come?”

In the receiver, Virginia’s deep sigh was the cry of an inclement wind. “Be here around suppertime, why don’t you? I’ll have food on the table, and we can discuss it then, the manner in which your father’s choices have returned to haunt us.”

“No, Mom, my father died with honor. He was awarded posthumously.”

“His journal tells the other side.”

Next he contacted his winemaker. “Gotta make this quick, Esprit. Can’t tell you all that’s going on, but it’s urgent that you help me out here. You know, of course, that the police have taken over the manor. They suspect me in Kara’s disappearance.”