On Mother's Day (Great Expectations #1) Page 4

  “Make sure it’s to Chicago he’s driving you. Men can drive a woman to distraction.”

  Fiona stared at her neighbor. Was she making a joke? Her words said yes but her face said nothing.

  “I got a light bulb burned out in my bathroom,” Mrs. Torcini said. “How about you put in a new one?”

  “Light bulb?”

  “They’re sort of round things with a tail that has screw threads at the end,” Alex whispered in Fiona’s ear.

  She glared at him before turning back toward Mrs. Torcini. “Of course,” she said. “I’d be happy to.”

  Her neighbor stood back and let them enter. After closing the door she shuffled off to find a new bulb, leaving Fiona alone with Alex in the foyer.

  “How many schoolteachers does it take to screw in a light bulb?” Alex asked.

  Her nervousness evaporated as she turned her best schoolmarm stare on Alex. The one that told every little boy from six to sixty to go ahead and “make my day.”

  “One,” he said, as a little smile, full of devilish innocence, danced on his lips. “Because they’re so smart.”

  Fiona frowned. A little voice inside her was shouting out, Be careful. If anyone was going to drive her to distraction, she had a feeling it could be this man.

  Chapter Two

  “You have a nice family,” Alex said.

  Not that he strictly knew that was true. His years as a cop and then a P.I. had taught him not to judge anything by what he saw on the surface. But Fiona was sitting in the dark over by her car door, quiet as a church mouse. She looked so forlorn he had to say something. Otherwise this drive to Chicago would feel twice as long as it actually was.

  “Yeah,” she murmured. “They’re fine.”

  She was staring at the night-shrouded rolling countryside that lined the Indiana Toll Road. There was nothing to see but an occasional light here and there, yet it was holding her attention like she was watching a thriller.

  “Your mother must have had some hard times for a while.”

  He could feel her blink. Then, like Lazarus, she slowly turned and came to life. “I beg your pardon?”

  It was good to see that she wasn’t totally comatose. “Well, except for Samantha, you guys all seem clustered around thirty. There must have been a time when she was drowning in diapers.”

  “Oh.” Fiona almost smiled, but she’d turned back to the window before he could be absolutely sure. “We’re one of those blended families.”

  “Your parents married and each brought kids with them?”

  Fiona turned toward him. “I thought that as a private detective you’d know a lot more about us. I mean, you found me out of the blue.”

  “I was just supposed to find Kate’s biological mother,” Alex replied. “There wasn’t any need for me, or any other stranger, to know all the personal details about you and your family.”

  “That’s very kind of you.” Her voice was sincere.

  Alex gripped the steering wheel and squirmed in his seat. Kindness had nothing to do with it. Jeez, she was making him sound like some knight in shining armor. “I couldn’t really afford the time,” he said gruffly.

  He could feel her looking at him, could feel his shirt collar tighten around his neck. “Data gathering takes time,” he explained. “And time is money.” He paused a moment and checked out the traffic before him. “Besides, I’m congenitally lazy.”

  She murmured something and a quick glance confirmed that she was back to staring out her window. He couldn’t figure out what she could see, but maybe it didn’t matter. Most likely Fiona wouldn’t see any more in the middle of a sunny day than she did now.

  A sign surfaced on the horizon. An oasis was coming up in two miles. “Care to stop?” he asked. “Get something to drink? Stretch your legs? Roll around naked in the grass?”

  “No, thank you.”

  He nodded and suppressed a sigh. Little Fiona didn’t want to talk. It was going to be a long ride, but then she had a right to her privacy and her thoughts. They sped by the oasis.

  “We were adopted.”

  His mind had gone into automatic pilot and, although he heard her words, he didn’t quite catch the sense of them. “Pardon?”

  “The three of us were adopted,” Fiona said. “Myself, Cassie, and Samantha. We’re biological sisters.”

  “Oh.” He shrugged. “I was thinking that was another possibility.”

  “Yeah, right.”

  His own spirits perked up at the snicker in her tone and he turned to smile at her. They soared even higher when she returned it. It wasn’t like he was coming on to her or anything; he just hated to see her wallowing in the depths of a blue mood.

  “Our biological parents died when I was eight. We went through a bunch of foster homes in the eighteen months after that, then we landed with the Scotts. We seemed to get along, and they adopted us.”

  Alex’s mind returned to Fiona’s birthday party. To the joking and feeling of camaraderie that was so much a part of that gathering. “Looks like things worked out good.”

  “Yes, it did.” She turned toward him and shrugged. “All kids have to work at figuring out who they are. It’s just harder when you’re adopted.”

  “You were old enough to remember your biological parents.”

  “Yeah, and I went through a long period when I felt I didn’t belong to anybody. Not the Scotts. Not my biological family. Not anybody.”

  Alex thought back to his own childhood, to the procession of husbands that had paraded through his mother’s house. To his own feelings of wandering lost in this world. “Well, you certainly didn’t let those concerns drag you down.”

  “Everybody needs to feel a part of something,” Fiona said. “They need a connection to their past before they know who they are in the present.”

  “I suppose.” He had his life reasonably under control and he didn’t see any need for testing the solidity of his base.

  “It’s true.” Suddenly her tone turned passionate. “I was well on my way to lost. And then I remembered my dad talking about his Great-grandpa Horace.”

  She shifted in her seat to face him. “I really had nothing left of my parents except a few photographs. After they died in a car crash, me and my sisters were carted off to a foster home with barely half of our clothes. And none of our toys or any mementos of our parents. We never had much to start with—it’s not like we had a legacy coming to us or anything—but I would have liked more of the photos and my mom’s cookbooks and her diaries.” She paused and took a ragged breath. “God, yes, her diaries.”

  “What’d they do with the stuff?”

  Fiona shrugged. “Threw it all out, I guess. They said there wasn’t enough space in foster homes for us to have a lot of stuff.”

  “Yeah, but…” His voice died away. The cruelty of it all shouldn’t surprise him, but it did make him sad.

  “Anyway.” Fiona’s voice sounded brighter, but with a forced cheerfulness. “When I was in a junior-high history class, we read about Horace Fogarty and I realized that had to be the Great-grandpa Horace Dad talked about and suddenly everything changed. I had a relative. I don’t know if you’ve heard of him—”

  “Heard of him?” Alex said. “I’m a big fan. I even have an autographed copy of one of his editorials.”

  “Really?” Her voice radiated her excitement, filling the crevices of the car with her joy. “Most people only vaguely remember him from school.”

  “Maybe because I didn’t just read him. I agreed with him. Everyone in the world seemed to think honesty was a subjective value, except for me. You can’t imagine how excited I was when I found someone who not only agreed, but thought it was the basis for who you were as a person.”

  “I didn’t care so much about his philosophies,” Fiona said. “I had always loved to write, so when I found him again, it was like finding my way back home. It was where my writing talent had come from. And that was a connection that I needed badly.”

  Alex
felt a distant twinge of jealousy, like the remembered ache of an old pain. He’d once longed for a connection to the past, thought that he’d needed it as an anchor to keep him from drifting into darkness.

  But then, finding out your father wasn’t your father tended to unsettle a kid. Especially when you were also told he didn’t want to be your father, either.

  “Of course, growing up still wasn’t easy,” Fiona went on, her voice still surging with energy. “I didn’t really mature until after my daughter was born.”

  He pushed all that anger into the past where it belonged. “I’m guessing your family doesn’t know about this child.”

  “No,” she said slowly, carefully. “I couldn’t tell them.”

  He sensed her turning back to the window, to the blackness that she could lose herself in.

  “I’ve never been a very brave person,” she admitted, then added a short laugh. “Just ask Cassie. I used to drive her crazy when we were growing up. I was so afraid to get in trouble, so afraid of people being mad at me.”

  “But your family seemed so—”

  “I know. They are nice. And they probably would have been very supportive, but I just couldn’t tell them. I was a freshman in college, alone in L.A. and incredibly scared. It was my secret.”

  “And you never shared it.”

  “Mr. Rhinehart.” The temperature in the car suddenly plunged down toward freezing. “I have spent every day of my life wondering how my child is. I was not going to subject those I love to that kind of pain.”

  It was on the tip of his tongue to point out to Fiona that there was no reason for her, or anybody else, to carry that kind of pain. Sealed records or no sealed records, the world was filled with people like himself. People who could find the key to any strongbox.

  “And I don’t think it would have been right for me to go barging into her life just to satisfy my curiosity.”

  Alex started slightly, throwing an uneasy glance her way, but her gaze was straight ahead. He sighed and concentrated on the road.

  Back in the third grade, he’d had a teacher who supposedly could read your mind. Since then, Alex had been uncomfortable around teachers, afraid that they could read the thoughts buried in the most secret recesses of his soul. Although he knew that was nonsense. He shifted in his seat, trying to ease the strain on his back. He was sure it was nonsense.

  They exited the tollway, continuing to Chicago along the Borman Expressway. The traffic was heavier on this road and they fell into a silence, giving Alex more time to concentrate on his driving. And he did. He had to. Once he delivered Fiona, that was it. He’d never see her again. There would be no need to.

  They reached the Dan Ryan Expressway and the lights from Chicago’s Loop flickered in the distance. Fiona hadn’t said anything for forty-five minutes now. Sighing, he stirred in his seat.

  “I wonder if it’s Kate for Katherine,” she said suddenly.

  Her words had cracked his trance and he took a moment to gather his thoughts. “I don’t know,” he said. Great thoughts to gather. Maybe be should have left them ungathered. “They haven’t talked to me about her much. You know, not that kind of personal family stuff.”

  “It was my mother’s name,” Fiona said.

  Alex looked at her then, drawn by a stillness in her voice. The streetlights bathed her with a gentle glow that he felt almost came from within. He wanted to reach over and take her hand, to feel that warm glow seep into his heart.

  A horn sounded to his left and Alex shot his gaze back to the road. What was the matter with him? The Dan Ryan was a diabolical mixture of entrances and exits on the right, then on the left, of drivers weaving wildly from one lane to another. You could have an accident on the road without halftrying.

  “Did you name the baby?” he asked.

  Fiona laughed. “Of course not.”

  Man, this was spooky. He forced himself to watch the road as he took the right fork, the one that would take him to Lake Shore Drive. He wasn’t a statistician, but the odds of an adopted kid getting the name of her biological grandmother had to be a long shot.

  “I bet the lake looks beautiful during the day,” Fiona said.

  Alex grunted an answer.

  “We always came to Chicago for our back-to-school shopping,” she said. “We’d go to the stores in the Loop, have some lunch, and then walk along the lakefront.”

  He grunted again.

  “We did it until into high school,” Fiona said. “Even though a lot of the stores had moved out to the suburbs.”

  “You’re staying at the Water Tower Inn.” He was having a hard time getting that name thing out of his mind. “It’s just down the street from the hospital.”

  “That’s nice,” she replied.

  As they passed by the museums on Lake Shore Drive and headed into the S-curve, Alex began feeling his weariness. This had been a long, long day. He’d drop off Fiona, let her get some rest; then head for the barn and hit the sack himself. This hadn’t been a hard case but it seemed to be taking a lot out of him.

  “I don’t think I’ll be able to sleep at all,” Fiona said.

  Jeez, it was as if she was reading his mind again. “I’ve been told that the procedure isn’t that—”

  “Oh, I’m not worried about that.” Fiona gave a short laugh. “Well, maybe a little bit. What’s really scaring me is the thought of meeting my daughter.”

  “Oh, hell,” he muttered tiredly. Had he forgotten to tell her or had she just misunderstood? “Ah—” he cleared his throat “—you’re not going to actually meet your… Kate.”

  Alex could feel her looking at him and he studied the line of cars ahead of them. “I thought I told you,” he murmured as he pressed his foot to the gas.

  “I’m sure you did. I must have misunderstood.” The reply came too quickly, the way it would from someone who’d spent her entire life worrying about the feelings of others. “And it makes sense.”

  Why did it make sense? What harm would it do for Fiona to meet the kid? No one had to spill the beans or anything. As far as the kid knew, she’d just be meeting a person who was donating some bone marrow. A wonderful, generous woman.

  Alex clenched the steering wheel and took a deep breath. Damn it. He was violating Alex Rhinehart’s rules numbers one, two and three. All of which said to never get involved.

  “It’s a very stressful time for Kate and her parents right now,” Fiona said. “They don’t need anything to add to it.”

  It was obvious that Fiona was a caring woman, the kind that everyone took advantage off. Like now. His inner soul was screaming a warning, but he ignored it.

  Kate’s parents were willing to take her bone marrow, but they didn’t want their daughter exchanging a handshake with her donor. Damn it all to hell and back. He took a left at Chicago Avenue and could feel his aggravation growing.

  “Is that the hospital?” Fiona asked, indicating a complex of buildings to their left.

  “Yeah.” A cab stopped to pick up a fare and Alex stopped behind it. “And your hotel is just up there on the right.”

  “Oh, good. It’s close enough to walk.”

  Alex had the feeling that anything within five miles would be close enough for Fiona. Some people just left themselves open to exploitation. It was a good thing that he was done with this assignment. He didn’t need this kind of aggravation.

  The cab’s customer was slow getting into the vehicle. “Damn it,” he muttered. “I don’t have all day.” Alex backed up, then gunned forward, his tires squealing as he laid rubber in an arc around the cab. They were pulling up to the hotel entrance in a matter of moments.

  “You in a hurry to get rid of me?” Fiona asked.

  “No,” Alex replied. “I just thought the quicker we got you settled, the more time we’d have on the town.”

  She shook her head. “I don’t think so.”

  “Aw, come on,” he said. “I got us some tickets to clown mud-wrestling. Front row, center.”

&n
bsp; Fiona just shook her head slightly and opened her door. A doorman, dressed like a Third World general, was standing there waiting. “You folks checking in?”

  “I am,” Fiona replied. “He’s checking out.”

  Alex stepped out himself, walking around back to the trunk. Without saying anything, he gave the doorman her bag, closed the trunk lid, and leaned on it, watching the man take the case into the lobby. He could feel Fiona slowly approach him.

  “Well,” Fiona said, “I guess this is it.”

  He closed his eyes briefly against the sight of her. She looked so vulnerable, like a princess imprisoned in a tower. But closing his eyes didn’t work. He didn’t need to be looking at her to feel it.

  “I’m sorry about my little remark,” she said.

  When he was a kid, he’d always imagined himself as a swashbuckling knight, rescuing the weak from the clutches of evil. By the time he’d reached high school, he’d learned that women wanted more than a rescue. They wanted more than he could give.

  “Forget it,” he said. “I have a tendency to wear on people.”

  “No, it’s my fault.”

  She smiled, a nice, comfortable smile that reminded him of cozy rooms, a crackling fire, and a winter’s storm blowing outside. It left an ache deep inside him.

  “But I do have some good points,” he said.

  “I’m sure you do.”

  “Let me take you to dinner. Give you a demonstration.”

  “Not tonight.” She shook her head. “I ate more than I needed to at my party. What I do need is my instructions for tomorrow. Like times and where I should go.”

  He looked into her face, friendly but looking a bit wan right now. Her eyes had a touch of concern in the corners. He’d brought her up here and now he was supposed to disappear, leaving her to the so-called mercies of the medical bureaucracy.

  “I’ll meet you at seven-thirty in the restaurant here.” He nodded at the hotel. “We’ll go for a swim in the lake, do some hang gliding, have breakfast, then I’ll take you down to the hospital.”

  Her forehead wrinkled. “I thought you were just supposed to find me.”