But there was nothing he could do. The world didn’t revolve around them. They couldn’t deny the other families the fun of Lunch With Mom Day just because it made Gavin feel bad.
“They said we could bring some other woman, if our moms couldn’t make it. But the only lady I could think of was Miss Pawley, and everybody knows she’s Ledge’s girlfriend, not yours.”
Mike nodded. “Yeah, I see the problem.”
But darn it, was there no way to get this mess right? After Justine’s disappearance, he hadn’t even considered dating. He didn’t want to confuse Gavin, and he certainly didn’t want to give the police or Justine’s dad any more ammunition against him. They already thought that, jealous of her new lover, he’d strangled Justine and dumped her in the lake.
Millner had even paid teams to drag the lake. Mike had taken Gavin away while they did it, up to Firefly Glen, where Mike’s parents fussed over him and kept him distracted.
And besides, who would want to date Mike anyhow? A black cloud of suspicion followed him everywhere he went. No woman in her right mind would voluntarily join him under there in the shadows.
“Still, you could ask Debra,” Mike suggested. “She’s fun. She’s pretty.”
Gavin looked at him. “Not as pretty as mom.”
“I know. But—”
Mike stopped there. What else was there to say? Gavin wasn’t ready yet to learn that beauty wasn’t everything. Hell, it wasn’t anything.
“I know,” he said again, lamely.
Gavin smiled a little. “But maybe I’ll ask her anyhow. She knows how to make a spitball, and Hugh will think that’s cool.”
Mike rolled his eyes. “Gavin…”
“I’m just kidding.” Gavin gathered up his portable video game and once again put his hand on the door handle. “Come on, let’s go. You’ve gotta tell Ledge we’re taking the boat out.”
But when they entered the cool front office, Rutledge was nowhere to be seen. Damn it, Mike thought, trying to keep his face expressionless. Had the son of a bitch gone missing again? He wanted to help an old buddy, but not if it was going to cost him his business.
“Maybe he’s in the back,” Gavin said as he moved toward Mike’s office, where there was an armchair he liked to plop on and play his video game.
Mike heard a strange noise. A thumping noise.
Gavin looked up from his game. “What’s that? Is he busting up boxes or something?”
“I don’t know.” Mike listened a minute. Then he narrowed his eyes. That noise sounded disturbingly rhythmic. Disturbingly familiar.
He turned to Gavin. “Wait for me in my office, okay?”
Gavin’s brows tightened, and he started to move back toward Mike. “Why? Is it something bad? Is it a burglar?”
Mike smiled and shook his head. Gavin had never been fearful before Justine’s disappearance. Once, when he was only five, he’d caught a large, hairy spider under a glass and sat guard over it until morning because he didn’t want to bother Mike and Justine, who were sleeping.
Now the slightest noise in broad daylight had him as tense as a guy wire.
“No, it’s nothing. It’s just Rutledge, being a dork. I’ll take care of it.”
“Okay.” Gavin headed into Mike’s office, the little dinging and chiming sounds of his video game already audible.
Mike headed back to the receiving area, where the thumping noises had just reached a crescendo and died away. He rapped roughly on the door, though he felt like busting in and letting the damn fool get caught with his pants down.
This wasn’t the first time he’d heard those thumping noses. Not the first time Rutledge Coffee had used Mike’s business as a by-the-hour motel room.
It was beginning to piss him off.
Worst of all, Mike knew that the thumpee wasn’t Rutledge’s girlfriend, Debra Pawley. Debra was handling an open house at Justine’s mansion this afternoon. Ledge must have found some other poor fool to join him in a little afternoon delight.
Mike’s knock had brought thirty seconds of scurrying and scrabbling noises. When they stopped, he opened the door. Sure enough, there between the cabinets that held pens and pencils and spare paper was Rutledge.
He grinned at Mike, though he was flushed and disheveled. He sucked in his belly, which had just a hint of beer bloat, while he put the finishing touches on his belt buckle.
Standing behind him was a curvy redhead who looked familiar. Mike noticed the smell of melted cheese, and then he remembered. Bonnie, the girl who delivered their pizzas when they had to work late.
“Hi, Bonnie,” he said.
“Hi, Mr. Frome,” she responded shyly. She swiped at her hair, which was decorated with tiny Styrofoam packing peanuts. They must have been using the mail table. “I’m sorry… I mean I brought Mr. Coffee a pizza and—”
Rutledge gave her a look. “And you were just leaving.” He shook his own hair with his fingers. “Right?”
“Right.” Bonnie slipped by Mike carefully, as if it would be rude to touch him. “Goodbye, Mr. Frome.”
When she was gone, Mike turned to Rutledge. “You stupid son of a bitch.”
Rutledge had decided to brazen it out. “Why? She’s got great tits, and we got the pizza for free.” He held up a slice and bit into it. “Want some?”
“No. My kid’s out there, Ledge. What I want is for you to stop treating my business like a brothel.”
Rutledge chewed a minute before responding. “A brothel?” He grimaced. “You sound like my Victorian uncle. You know, I think you may be hungrier than you think. What’s it been, two years? You’re starving, my friend, and you just don’t know it.”
For a minute Mike wanted to punch him. What the hell did he know about the two years Mike had just been through? What did Rutledge Lebron Coffee III, who had spent his life taking, whether from the pizza girls or from his parents, know about real loss? He thought that because he’d run through his inheritance and had to work for a living, he had really suffered.
And on top of that he was idiot enough to cheat on Debra. Sure, they’d both done crap like this in high school, but they were grown men now, supposedly. And Debra just might be the best thing that had ever happened to a jerk like Rutledge.
“Get out,” Mike said. “Go home and don’t come back until you’re ready to work for your paycheck, not sit around eating pizza and screwing the delivery girl.”
Rutledge frowned. “Come on, Mike. You know I was kidding. I—”
But just then Mike’s cell phone rang. He tugged it out of his pocket roughly and answered without looking at the caller ID.
“Yes,” he said tightly. “What is it?”
“Mike? It’s Debra.”
Debra? She sounded stuffy and wet, as if she’d been crying. Had she somehow found out about Rutledge and the pizza girl already? Mike tightened his grip on the phone.
“Hey,” he said. “What’s wrong?”
“I—” She began to cry in earnest. “Oh, Mike—”
“Honey, calm down. What’s wrong?”
“I found her,” she said. “In the garden, in the larkspurs. I saw something and—” She couldn’t go on. She was crying so hard she was hiccuping.
Saw something? That wasn’t much to go on, but Mike’s blood was already running