“It’s up to Mr. Carlson.” Quinn was rooting for the big man to push past his big-mouthed wife.
“I won’t be pressing no charges.” Carl Carlson wiped his eyes with a beefy hand. “All that money wouldn’t bring my Ma back. It’d only be a reminder that I was here, instead of where I should’ve been.”
“Carl, please. Don’t do this.”
“That’s enough, Roberta. I said it’s done.” He hefted himself out of the chair and wobbled to a standing position. “I thank you, Mr. Burnes.” He extended his hand. “Sorry to take up so much of your time.”
“My condolences, Mr. Carlson.” Quinn stood and shook his hand before turning to Roberta Carlson.
She opened her mouth, closed it, then she too, squeezed out of her chair. “Good bye, Mr. Burnes.”
When they were gone, Quinn blew out a long breath and moved to the large window overlooking the city. Throngs of people maneuvered the streets looking wilted and swollen in the summer heat. Thank God for air conditioning, the true blessing of summer. He shoved his hands in his pockets and thought about Carl Carlson. The man pulled through and did the right thing despite his pain in the ass wife and her dogged insistence that he take what was rightfully his. Only it wasn’t his and Carl knew this.
Bravo, Carl Carlson.
Sylvia buzzed him and he picked up, half wondering if Roberta Carlson had strong-armed her husband in the elevator and forced him back to the office.
“Quinn, I’ve got Arianna Sorensen on the line.” Sylvia’s voice held a secretive questioning tone. “She said it’s urgent.”
“Put her through.” A slow bead of panic spread through him. Had something happened to Danielle?
“Quinn. Thank God.” Arianna’s usually calm voice rasped through the line in nervous agitation.
“What’s the matter? Is it Danielle?”
“He called her.
My God, he said he was coming for her.”
“Who?” But Quinn didn’t need a name. He knew. Alexander Maldonando was alive and he was coming for his wife.
***
Eve lay curled on the futon smothered in two afghans though it was eighty degrees outside. She clutched her stomach, and squeezed her eyes shut.
Must protect the baby.
She heard Alexander’s deep voice vowing to find her. She pulled back, farther, where no one could reach her.
“I gave her a valium to calm her. She was hysterical.” Arianna’s voice reached her, whisper soft.
Someone leaned over Eve but she kept her head tucked into her chin, hands covering her belly. Maybe if she were very quiet, he would go away. Maybe Alexander would go away, too. As long as he didn’t know about the baby she had a chance.
“Danielle, look at me.” Quinn Burnes’s voice washed over her like warm water. “Please, look at me.” He touched her hair, stroked it. So very gentle. Her body relaxed with each stroke, her fingers easing from her stomach, her neck loosening. Could he protect her? Could he protect her baby?
His weight shifted onto the futon as he leaned toward her. “I’m not going to let him hurt you. I’ll help you.” His hand eased along her back, moved up and down to massage her shoulders, then her neck. “I’m not going to let him hurt you,” he murmured, repeating the words in a litany of promise. He pulled her to him, so hard, so purposefully, that she wrapped her arms around his waist and let the fear, the grief, and the tears pour out.
Chapter 13
Annie unlocked the mailbox in the tiny front hallway of the apartment building and grabbed the mail. What a day. Leah had another nightmare last night. In this one, her mother’s arms were cut off, belly slashed, eyes gouged out. Blood everywhere. Now, Leah was afraid to fall asleep. Annie knew these dreams well, she’d had enough of them herself.
But Leah’s mother wasn’t missing anymore. The police nabbed her three states over soliciting for prostitution and now she sat in cell block #3 at the county jail awaiting arraignment.
Annie trudged up the narrow flight of stairs to the fourth floor. How had she existed all these years without a mother? Since Evie Burnes literally walked into her life eight days ago, Annie saw the world through different eyes. Quinn had done his best to fill the holes in Annie’s life with reassurance and brotherly love, but there were always tiny cracks at the seams, the kind that could only be filled with a mother’s love.
Evie was staying with Annie and Michael in the tiny spare bedroom, crowded among canvasses, paint and easels, with just enough room for a single bed in the corner. She said she didn’t mind, that she’d rather be squeezed into a room with paint brushes and palettes than sitting alone with an uncluttered floor and four empty walls.
They talked and laughed, and cooked, sharing moments just like a Hallmark Card, just like Annie had imagined thousands of times. There was no talk of the past but that would come. If only Michael and Quinn could be a little more understanding. This was a new life for all of them, a good life filled with joy and rediscovery. Why couldn’t they see it that way?
Michael spent most of his nights at the hospital, coming home at one or two in the morning, slipping into his side of the bed. Not touching her. They hadn’t made love in eight days. A liftetime. Talk dribbled out, the real words swirling between them, unspoken, heavy, hurtful and hurting. Why couldn’t he understand? This was
her mother,
the woman she had thought was dead.
Michael believed she was choosing her mother over him. How absolutely ridiculous was that? He was a doctor for heaven’s sake and he was being totally illogical. How many times had she told him she loved them both, needed them both? But he wasn’t listening because he wanted to feel sorry for himself, like a typical only child . . . which was why they were going to have four children . . .
if
they ever made love again. Quinn was no better. He’d only called her once, and then to ask if she wanted to meet him for lunch,
she
, not they.
Well, he was going to have to get used to the idea of having his mother around,
and
including her. She unlocked the apartment and stepped inside. Window air conditioning units were definitely ten steps down from central air. The faint remnants of last night’s veggie meatloaf filled the room but where were the new smells? Annie sniffed again. Coming home to Evie’s cooking had become one of the favorite parts of her day. Lasagna, eggplant parmigana, apple pie, and Michael’s favorite, cheesecake, though he’d feigned polite indifference when she offered him a piece last night. How had she made it all these years without these heady, explosive, sad smells? “Mom?”
Psychology Today
rested open-faced on the coffee table, right next to the grocery list she’d started last night. Part of a pink sandal poked out from under the couch. “Mom?” The room shrunk, sucking out air like a huge vacuum as she forced her mouth open, gulping puffs of oxygen. Harder, faster, until her head pounded and the room blurred to blackish gray.
“Annie!”
A great rush of oxygen inflated the room, filling her with a swoosh. “I’m okay.” She gulped air until her breathing steadied. “Where were you?”
“I was painting. I didn’t hear you come in.”
“That’s okay.” One more breath, one more look at her mother’s face. “I know how it is to get lost in the canvas.”
“I’m sorry.” Evie smiled, and the last scrap of blackish gray faded. “I took out haddock for the stew and I was thinking about making chocolate chip oatmeal cookies.” Her voice dipped. “Quinn always loved them.”
“I’ll help you.”
This is what mothers and daughters do.
“I’d like that. Let me just clean up first.”
“I’ll help with that, too.” Annie set down her briefcase and the stack of mail she’d been holding and followed her mother to the bedroom. “Oh, my God, it’s beautiful!” She stared at the canvas dotted with row after row of sunflowers in brilliant yellow-gold. At the edge of the canvas stood the shadowy figure of a young man.
“When did you do all of this?”
“Last night. I couldn’t sleep so I started painting.”
“It’s exquisite.” The truth stared back at her in the face of each bold flower. It was everything her paintings were not.
“Thank you. I’ve always been partial to sunflowers.”
Annie looked away.
“Annie?”
She lifted her hands, palms up, surrendering to the truth. “My paintings could never have the feeling this one does.”
“Oils are different.”
“It’s the feeling, Mom. You know it, don’t you?” When her mother hesitated, Annie continued, “Either you have it or you don’t. You’ve got it, so does Quinn, at least I think I remember he did.”
“He did.”
“But I don’t, do I? Please just tell me the truth.”
Evie laid a hand on Annie’s shoulder and murmured, “No, I’m sorry.”
“I know.” Tears spilled down her cheeks, even as she told herself she’d known this a long time.
Her mother pulled her into her arms. “But you’re still a good painter,” she whispered. “Few people truly have the gift.”
Annie nodded, sniffling and wishing with every molecule in her body, that she had “the gift.” “Then how can I sell a painting for ten thousand dollars?”
“People make money in the name of art every day, but it doesn’t make them artists. The public is an odd lot. Some would rather purchase happy renditions of fluffy pieces that disguise themselves as meaningful. Who knows? You might have found a market for your work, or a benefactor. Or perhaps, something else.”
“Like what?”
“A secret admirer?”
“Why would you say that?”
“Well, why is it you never know who buys your pieces? And why was this last piece kept such a secret? It’s obvious the person who bought your work is taken with you, but desires to remain anonymous, at least for now.”
The intrigue boosted Annie’s spirits. If she couldn’t be a full-fledged artist, at least she could still have honest admirers. “I tried to find out who bought this last piece but Ian was as tight-lipped as ever.”
“There’s more than one way to find out who’s buying your work.”
“There is?”
Her mother smiled, picked up her brushes, and wrapped them in a cloth soaked in mineral spirits. “We’ll just have to visit Ian’s gallery and see if there’s some sort of trail.”
“Ah, I see, the old, ‘there’s always a clue left behind.’”
Evie’s hand stilled. “Exactly.”
“Why don’t we go tonight? Michael’s working late and we can grab a quick bite out, and be there before seven.”
***
It was odd how circumstance could transport a person from one situation, a lifestyle even, into another, completely foreign, heretofore, unthinkable arena. The role of mother was stiff and opaque, yet there were glimpses of recall, emotions pulsing to the surface like tiny electrodes on the brain, and at these times, Evie sensed how she once felt, how she was beginning to feel again.
Annie’s desperation to have a mother in her life forced her to accept Evie as a standard package, no add-ons, and certainly no real questions. Perhaps she possessed that rare unconditional love most often found in animals and small children. Or maybe fear prevented her from seeking answers to questions she didn’t know because the discovery would prove too great to gloss over and ignore. Evie fingered the heart necklace Annie had given back to her that first night.
Here. I know how much this always meant to you. Dad would want you to wear it again.
What choice did she have but to take it and wear it like a scarlet A around her neck?
Forgive me, Rupe. Forgive me for the pain I caused you.
Memories surfaced, pecking at her like tiny fish trapped under a frozen pond. Rupe trudging up the back steps after a long day’s work, sweat-stained and dusty, but smiling the second he saw her. The smoothness of the worn Formica under Evie’s palms as she spread flour to roll him an apple pie. The small, half-snore, the largeness of his body next to hers. It was all there, freeze dried and packed away, but there was a tiny crack in the seal, and the memories had begun to leak out, slowly right now, but soon, the crack would turn into a fissure, and more memories would slip out until they exploded through a gaping hole, exposing everything. She had to leave.
Soon.
“Mom? This is it.”
They were standing outside the art gallery, a posh storefront located ten minutes from the city in an upscale shopping plaza. The paintings in the window were all oils, all exquisite. “Let’s go see what we can find.” At least she could provide her daughter with this one small piece of truth. But once inside, she soon learned the gallery owner was not going to make it easy. Ian Debenidos swooped down on them with his 6’5” frame the second they walked through the door, following both women from painting to painting, hawk-like black eyes peering at them through black framed glasses. This would never do. The key was distraction. “Annie says you just sold a piece for her that garnered quite an impressive price.”
The man’s expression remained guarded. “It’s an impressive piece.”
“May I see it? Annie’s been trying to describe it to me, but words never do paintings justice, do they?” He was hiding something, she could feel it.