OVER HER DEAD BODY: The Bliss Legacy - Book 2 (17 page)

Dolan shook again. What the hell was the muscle-bound idiot talking about movies for?

“Porn, one of the greats. Made a ton of money a few years back. Kind of a mini
Deep Throat.
” He rubbed the side of his nose again. Dolan figured he did it to warm up his brain. Mace went on, “Starrier’s been in the biz for years. Their daddy, Jimmy, started it, and when he ran off, their mommy took over. Used to be a customer of my uncle. Sure did like her snow. Saw her once. I was just a kid, though.”

“You getting to some kind of point here?”

Mace made like he didn’t hear him and rambled on. “Erica and her brother jumped in when mommy died a few years back”—his lips twisted and his look turned bitter—“some of you bastards sure are lucky in the daddy department. Me? I had a weeping alky who ended up with his nose pressed into back alley pavement in the asshole of Seattle. He had nothin’, and when his liver finally rotted out, I got nothin’. Not like the Starks—or you. You all get a platter full of cash you didn’t do squat for, while I’m the one doing all the work.” He paused, his expression sour. “Ain’t fair.”

“What’s a porn producer got to do with the Farrell woman?” Dolan ignored the poor-me crap, determined to bring him back on point.

“No idea. But I’m gonna find out” He signaled the waitress. “All I know is that the Stark kids have damn near busted Starrier. They owe some big, bad people some serious cash. So if they’re hanging around, they’ve got a reason.” He chuckled. “And it’s likely not good works. Paul’s nothing, but Erica? Now that’s one serious bitch.”

“What are you saying?”

Mace rolled his eyes. “I’m saying,
slo-mo
,
that maybe your daddy wasn’t the only person the Weaver dame called.”

Dolan’s blood chilled in his veins. “You think they know?”

The waitress arrived and dropped the tab in front of Mace. He eyed her as if she were naked on a buffet table, then shoved the bill toward Dolan. “I’m thinking Mayday is getting to be a real interesting place.” His eyes burned into Dolan’s. “And I don’t intend to do nothing until I know what’s in it for me.”

“Don’t start messing with things, Mace. We have a deal,” Dolan said, panic overwhelming his common sense. “You don’t come through, I’ll get someone who will.” The minute the words were out of his mouth, his mistake took hold.

Mace’s hammy hand shot across the table, grabbed his wrist, and twisted hard. “You call someone else, I call your daddy. Have a little chat with him about what you’re up to.” He bent Dolan’s wrist to snapping point. The pain shot to his brain. “You got that?”

“Ye-s. I’ve got it.”

“Good.” Mace let him go. “Maybe you’re not so stupid after all.”

Dolan rubbed his wrist, said nothing. Christ, he hated this guy.

Mace stood, planted both his hands on the table, knuckles down, and leaned in; he put his face six inches from Dolan’s. “And as to our deal you’re so worried about, I’ll see it done. When the time’s right, the red headed bitch gets very dead. You get your money, I get what you owe me—with interest. Right?”

His face was so close Dolan smelled his scotch-laden breath. “Right.”

Mace smiled. “The thing is, your side of this deal is only breakeven for me, Dolan, buddy. The Starks? Now that could be pure profit” He straightened. “Hell, maybe they’ll even put me in one of their movies.” He cupped his cock, smirked. “They get a load of this baby, they’ll shit themselves. Make me a star.”

Watching the asshole walk away, and still massaging his aching wrist, every nerve in Dolan’s body was jumping. And he had no idea what he should do.

Mace, if he messed with those people, would screw everything.

He had to get rid of him, take care of things himself. His stomach clenched as if punched, and he swallowed the tight clump of nerves lodged in his throat. Doing things himself wasn’t in the plan—which meant he needed a new plan. He rubbed his knuckles, then took a long swig of beer.

The tip of an idea poked up from his gray matter, a bit crooked and uncertain, but better than nothing. A definite possibility. He decided to stay in Seattle until he worked it all the way out. Damn Mace to hell …

The next morning Gus left Keeley in the cellar going through box number three zillion—and it wasn’t eight A.M. yet. Okay, maybe his count was inflated, but with nearly a half century of unlabeled boxes to slog through, as lost causes went, this one ranked damned high. Hell, the old woman had even kept her parents’ farm records. Keeley had been at it since well before six. He knew she hoped she’d find something before seeing Christiana again this morning, but so far she’d come up empty, which put a fresh cup of coffee on his agenda and a quick check to see if the Fordham woman was stirring yet.

She was. Sitting quietly at the kitchen table, she glanced up at him when he came in. “Good morning,” she said and gave him a bare-bones smile. She was dressed in beige slacks and a dark brown sweater; a blue cell phone rested on the newspapers scattered in front of her. She was either planning on making a call or waiting for one.

He jerked his chin toward the coffee mug she held choked between her hands. “You want a refill?”

She glanced at the mug as if seeing it for the first time.”Yes, thanks.”

Gus walked over and filled her cup. The woman was obviously tense. When her cell phone rang, she picked it up with such haste she bumped her coffee mug, and some of the dark brew slopped onto the table. She winced at Gus, said “hello” into the phone, and after another quick glance at him, turned away.

Leaving her to her call, he went to look out the window above the sink.

The backyard trees drooped tiredly, sodden with last night’s rain, and the grass—mostly weeds—looked like swamp moss. The cedar hedge separating Mayday from St. Ivan’s sorely needed a shave and a haircut, and a couple of rundown sheds, one of them with its side falling in, fought a losing battle with the blackberry bushes crawling halfway over their roofs. But the sun had come out and the yard steamed under its slight heat.

For the first time, he noticed the lumpy old sandbox in the back corner and the rusted swing beside it. A few feet from the sandbox a long abandoned garden lay choked by weeds and thistle.

He sipped his coffee, thought about Keeley playing there as a kid, imagined her mop of copper hair under a summer sun. Like a small bonfire. Like the woman herself. He let his gaze travel over the big grassy yard. Without the weeds and the bumps and hollows that had come with the years, it must have been damn fine in its day. A good safe place for a kid.

April always wanted a swing. He’d even tried to build one for her once, in the alley behind the last dump they’d lived in, but the rope he’d found in the dumpster was rotten, and there’d been no place to string it anyway, so she’d had to settle for a skipping rope. It broke, too, but it lasted for three days, and she’d spent them skipping her little-girl heart out in that miserable alley.

“I told you. I’ll
be
there, Duke.”

The voice, irritated, rose behind him, and caught his attention. He turned. When Christiana glanced up to see him watching her, she reddened. “Noon. Yes, darling. I know. I said I’ll be there, and I will. See you then.” She clicked off.

“My manager,” she said—a little too quickly—then set the phone back on the table.

Gus sipped some coffee. “Judging by that ‘darling,’ a little more than a manager, I’d say.”

When it looked as though she was going to deny it, he raised a brow.

She cleared her throat. “You’re right.”

“Does he know what you’re doing here?”

She shook her head. “No. And he wouldn’t like it.”

Keeley burst into the kitchen, her brow furrowed, holding a piece of paper in her hand. “Look at this. I found it in one of Mary’s miscellaneous boxes, marked nineteen seventy-eight, but the back of it says nineteen eighty.”

From what Gus had seen so far, all of Mary’s boxes were miscellaneous, and all of them were a mess of paperwork and memories that laid waste to any concept of organization. The efficient, leave-no-string-untied Cassie could easily make Mayday’s paperwork her life’s work.

“What is it?” he asked.

She held out a photo. “Me. And someone else.”

She came to stand beside him, and they both rested their hips against the counter edge. He held out his hand, and she put the picture in it. It was colored, faded a bit, but clear enough.

She pointed to the woman in the picture. “That’s my mother. And that”—she pointed to one of the two babies her mother was holding up to the camera— “is me.”

Gus, his attention derailed by the brush of Keeley’s bare arm against his, forced his concentration on the photograph.
Damn!
That shot of distraction, what it meant, pissed him off.
If there was ever a lousy time to be attracted to a woman, Hammond, this is it. Especially one like Farrell. Be like robbing a goddamn church.

Holding the babies was a pretty, dark-haired woman, but to him both babies looked the same. Christiana came to stand with them.

“How do you know it’s you?” he asked.

“It says it’s me”—Keeley turned the picture over— “on the back. Right here. See?” She pointed and read, “’Left, Keeley Aileen, two months. Right, Baby C.’” She glanced toward Christiana. “Maybe baby C is you.”

Christiana took the picture. “God, it
is
me.” She sounded stunned, put a hand to her mouth.

“Those babies”—he gestured at the picture—“look like matched bookends. How can you be sure?”

Christiana seemed unable to take her eyes from the picture. “Because of this.” She swept her long blond hair back from her left temple to expose a pale birthmark. Gus had to strain to see it. “I had it lightened in my early twenties, but look”—she dropped her hair and pointed to baby C in the photo—“it’s plain as day.”

Keeley frowned again, then headed for the door. “I just thought of something. I’ll be right back.” She came back into the room carrying a red and gold photo album the size of a generational Bible. She set it on the table and flipped through its heavy black pages.

The album was in good condition, and all the photos were held securely in place by gilt corner grips. Keeley turned the pages steadily until she reached the middle, stopped abruptly. “Odd,” she said. “There are no pictures missing from that time. Which means the picture I found was never in here, and I certainly don’t remember ever seeing it before.”

“I’m not following you,” Gus said.

“Mary might have been the scourge of filing systems everywhere, but she was meticulous about her photographs. She took pictures of everyone who ever came to Mayday—especially the mothers and babies. When I was a kid, I remember going through the albums with her, and she’d tell me everyone’s name, when they were here, and what, if anything, she knew about their lives at the time. A lot of the women kept in contact with her for years after leaving Mayday.” Keeley again nodded at the picture, which Christiana was still studying intently, and added, “I wonder why she didn’t put this one in the album.”

“Maybe she couldn’t resist keeping the photo, probably because you’re in it, Keeley, but because I’m in it, too, she was afraid to.” Christiana handed the photo back to Keeley.

“Because she couldn’t talk about you,” Gus said. “Or your mother.”

Christiana nodded. “And if one part of her story is true, Keeley, it makes the other part a strong possibility.”

Keeley straightened her shoulders. “You mean her killing your father.”

It wasn’t phrased as a question and Christiana didn’t answer her. Her expression grim, she said, “Look, I have to get back to Seattle. My manager’s waiting for me, and I’ve got two interviews lined up for this afternoon.” A newspaper lay open on the table in front of her; she pulled it forward and scribbled her name and number on it. “This is my cell number.” She wrote down another number, then looked at Keeley directly. “I know this is hard for you, and I know how you feel about Mary, but, please,
please
,
call me when you find out more. I need to know. I
have to
know.”

Keeley dropped the hand holding the picture to her side. “I’m not sure I will find anything more. If Mary deliberately misfiled the picture, why would she keep any other records?”

Gus figured he knew damn well why Weaver had kept records. If she hadn’t held on to her proof, she’d have had nothing to hold over Dinah. This thing was making more sense by the second. There was a better than even chance Christiana
was
Dinah’s daughter. But until he knew for sure, he’d keep his mouth shut.

“She kept the picture, remember, she just misfiled it,” Christiana said.

“Mary misfiled most things out of plain bad habit. The idea of her doing it on purpose is
really
scary.” Keeley knotted her hands on the table. He sensed she was hedging, that the enormity of Christiana’s revelation was only now settling into some corner of her mind.

“Just keep looking. There has to be something.” Christiana placed her hand over Keeley’s. “I
need
to know who my mother is—and exactly what happened here.”

Keeley glanced at Gus, and he knew she was thinking about Dinah; then she turned to face Christiana. “I know this is awful for you, but I won’t promise anything, because I can’t believe—”

Christiana shook her head, compressed her lips. “You don’t have to believe anything. Not yet, at least. But not knowing what happened to my father won’t do either of us any good.”

Gus watched the two women, fascinated. They’d known each other for less than twenty-four hours, yet they talked to each other as if it had been years. His mind shifted gears. Down. To Dinah Marsden—self-absorbed, self-protective Dinah. Damn.

With a half dozen words, she could clear this mess up. Chances of his getting her to say those words were slim to none, but it sure as hell wouldn’t hurt to try.

Fifteen minutes later Keeley stood beside Gus on the porch and watched Christiana Fordham drive out of Mayday’s rutted driveway. Keeley’s heart was a ball of thorns in her chest, her eyes thick with the pressure of tears.

Gus took a step toward her and lifted her face to his with a knuckle. “What’s this?” He wiped the moisture from her cheek with his thumb.