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“Jacob.” She did her best to sound firm and hide how distraught she felt at his misery. “Honey.” She gave him a small shake. “You like spending your day with Jenna and Neil and Evan. And even Courtney,” she teased.
He shook his head hard. She thought his tears had slowed.
“Okay, maybe not Courtney. But she’s not so bad, is she?”
Jacob didn’t yet care whether his friends were girls or boys. But Courtney, almost four years old, was bossy. According to Jenna, most of the time the three boys did what Courtney ordered them to do, because she was good at organizing games. Helen could tell that Jacob, at least, felt a glimmer of resentment.
“We’re having macaroni and cheese for lunch today,” Jenna said, smiling. “And ice-cream sandwiches.”
Sniffling, he wiped his wet cheeks on Helen’s blouse. Oh, well. She was a mother. It was a rare day she made it to work unwrinkled and completely stain free.
At last, he reluctantly let Helen go and took Jenna’s hand. Walking out, she suspected that he’d quickly forget he hadn’t wanted her to go and start playing with his friends. If only it was so easy for her.
The last sight of his woeful expression and puffy, red eyes was sure to stick with her all day.
And that wasn’t even the worst of it, she thought tensely as she waited in a short line at the bank drive-up ATM. If Richard now knew about Jacob’s existence, everything had changed. Was he safe at the home day care? Most of the time Jenna kept the doors locked, but toward the end of the day, the door was open for the pickups.
Would Jenna not want to keep Jacob if Helen talked to her about being extra careful because she was concerned about her ex-husband?
She withdrew three hundred dollars and pulled out of the bank parking lot, only to immediately get stuck at a red light. Her gaze flicked to the dashboard clock. She should have waited to do her errand after work.
As if the inside of her head was a pinball machine, her thoughts bounced back to Jacob. If she intended to stay in town, she could move him to a larger day care. Except he would always be vulnerable while she was at work.
Plus, if he didn’t want to be left at Jenna’s, imagine if she tried to drop him off mornings at a strange place full of adults and kids he didn’t know! No, she couldn’t do that to him. But, oh God, what if...?
Don’t think about it.
By the time she reached her office, stowed her purse in a drawer and responded to an instant message from her boss, her facade of calm felt paper-thin.
* * *
BY MIDMORNING, SETH had completed background searches on Andrea’s husband and several of her coworkers. He’d made good progress looking at her closest friends, too, as well as their husbands. Dean Ziegler; the fact that he and Andrea were both married to other people didn’t mean they hadn’t hooked up. Maybe she was trying to break it off and Ziegler didn’t like that. Seth had to seriously consider him, given that he owned Helen’s rental house and presumably had kept a key.
But so far, the only search that had raised red flags for Seth was the one he’d done on Helen Marie Boyd.
To all appearances, she’d emerged naked from the sea, as in Botticelli’s painting, The Birth of Venus.
Damn it, he had to quit thinking about her that way.
Supposedly, she’d lived and worked last in California. If so, she had had still been using her married name. That was assuming Boyd was her maiden name. That would explain the giant blank where her history ought to be.
Seth just didn’t believe in either possibility, in part because he had failed to find a divorce including that name in any Southern California county.
He also couldn’t forget the turmoil he saw in her eyes. The darkness he guessed was fear. There could be a lot of reasons for that, especially after she found the dead woman in her kitchen. Even before he pointed out Andrea’s resemblance to Helen, she’d thought about the possibility another woman had died in her place. He’d put money on it.
Why did he suspect she was as afraid of him because of the badge he wore as she was of whatever trouble followed her?
Irritated at himself, Seth shook his head. The fact that he was a cop might not have anything to do with her lack of trust. She didn’t know him. It was equally possible that she’d been living in a gray area legally.
