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Had he felt a little tug when he’d seen that picture? Something had made him memorize her husband’s name….
But that was exactly the type of thinking that’d gotten her into trouble before. None of this meant what she wanted it to. “Why are you calling?”
“I’m sorry. I know this is unexpected and…awkward, at best. I wouldn’t have bothered you, except…I’m looking for Francesca.”
Of course. Why else would he contact her? If she hadn’t been so blinded by desire ten years ago—desire and selfishness—she would’ve been able to see the truth even then. “She’s not here.”
“Have you heard from her today?”
“No.” The rumble of a car engine brought her to the kitchen window. Her husband had just come home from his office downtown, where he ran his medical practice. Hoping it would take him a few minutes to greet the kids before he came looking for her, she dashed up the stairs to their bedroom and closed the door. He knew about Jonah and the baby she’d given up. She’d told him all about it when they were dating. But she was sure he assumed, as she had until this morning, that if she ever met Jonah again he’d have no effect on her.
“Can I give you my number, in case she does get in touch with you?” Jonah asked.
That was it? They’d created a child together but he had nothing more to say to her than “please give my number to Francesca”? He hadn’t asked about her husband, her kids, how she’d been…
She closed her eyes. “I—Sure. Why not?” She had to agree, didn’t she? A refusal might inform him of how she felt—reveal her pounding heart and sweating palms. She loved all she had, but Jonah reminded her of old dreams and what it was like to be young, to experience the kind of bone-melting desire that could burn out of control.
“Thanks. You ready?”
“Yeah.” She jotted his number on the pad her husband kept by the bedside for when he awoke with a thought he didn’t want to forget. Then she ripped off that sheet, folded it into a tiny triangle and slipped it in her back pocket.
“What—what brought you back?” she asked before he could hang up.
She already knew about the cases in Prescott; she was really inquiring about finding him at Francesca’s house, and he seemed to understand that.
“I don’t know,” he said. “I guess the price we paid wasn’t high enough.”
A click signaled that he’d disconnected just as she heard her husband coming up the stairs. “Adriana? Where are you, babe?”
* * *
“I put a clean towel on the back of the toilet, in case you get up before me and want a shower.”
Shifting her attention from her laptop, which was open on the kitchen table, Francesca conjured up a smile for Heather’s sake. Nearly six feet tall and bone thin, her assistant had a pale face and long dark hair with streaks of blond that came from a bottle. “Thanks. I really appreciate your help.”
“No problem. Mi casa es su casa. Such as it is,” she added with a shrug. “You need anything else?”
“No, this is great.” Although she’d tried to infuse her voice with enthusiasm, Francesca considered those words a fairly transparent lie. She’d never felt so out of place, never dreamed it’d be necessary to spend the night with her twenty-two-year-old employee. For one thing, Heather lived in a small apartment and didn’t have room for guests. For another, as a single mother caring for a three-year-old boy, she already had her hands full. Francesca didn’t want to be an imposition.
But she couldn’t face going home. Not tonight. So what if she was doing the exact opposite of what she’d told Jonah she’d do? And so what if a small part of her felt sheepish for wimping out? She was too emotionally and physically spent to deal with returning to the house. It didn’t matter that Heather had met the locksmith and had the locks changed. Francesca no longer felt safe. She needed to get some sleep without having to worry that Butch might pay her another visit as soon as she closed her eyes. It wasn’t as if she could go to a hotel. She’d ordered a new debit card and replacement credit cards before going to the Apple store to get another iPhone, but they were coming in the mail and wouldn’t arrive for several days. Until then, she couldn’t do anything that required a card.
She supposed she could’ve stayed with Adriana…. But she couldn’t handle the complexity of their relationship right now. It was hard enough coping with the feelings Jonah had dredged up.
The unopened messages waiting in her in-box beckoned to her. Reading her e-mail brought a measure of relief because it felt normal. She could get lost in work and forget that she was sitting in an unfamiliar kitchen with cracked linoleum, secondhand furniture and a noisy dishwasher so old it hooked up to the sink. But she needed to be polite, didn’t want to ignore Heather. “Sean down for the night?” she asked, making small talk.
Heather responded while gathering up her son’s toys and piling them in a toy box shaped like a plastic turtle. “For the time being. Lately, he’s been getting up a lot. The doctor said I shouldn’t be too quick to respond when he calls out for me, so don’t worry if I let him fuss a little. I’m trying to teach him to sleep through the night so I won’t have to go through my days feeling like the walking dead.”
“No problem. Do whatever you have to. I’m not here to get in the way.” Francesca wasn’t even sure she’d be able to hear Sean. Her bed was in the living room, on the lumpy sofa.
As she bent to retrieve the last toy, Heather’s shirt rose up, revealing a large tattoo on her back—Alberto, the name of Sean’s father. In prison for armed robbery, he still had nearly two years, but Heather was determined to wait for him. He’d promised to marry her when he got out, make them a family, and each square of the calendar on her wall showed a number—the days left in his term. Six hundred and thirty as of today, which sounded like an eternity to Francesca. She often wondered how Heather tolerated having the man she loved locked up. But Heather never complained. She’d had a rough childhood and didn’t seem to expect a lot out of life.
Finished with the toys, she stretched her back. “Okay, well, I know it’s early for bed, but I’m going to turn in, if you don’t mind.”
It was only ten after nine, but it felt much later than that. Francesca planned on following her example, just as soon as she’d downloaded all the information that’d been stored in the iPhone she’d lost. Fortunately, she had a copy of everything on her computer. God bless the iPhone and its syncing ability. “I don’t mind a bit. Get some sleep while you can, huh?”
“You, too. You could use it.” She headed down the hall but turned back before reaching the bedroom. “I almost forgot—we were so busy this afternoon—but you got a ton of messages today. I brought them home, just in case you weren’t coming in tomorrow.” Twisting her hair up and fanning her neck, she went to her purse, which was sitting on the counter, and eventually handed Francesca a stack of messages fastened with a paper clip.
“You might want to check your voice mail, too, if you haven’t already,” she said. “Some of the people who called wanted to be transferred. Others had me take a message.”
