“How much do you know about your mother’s past before she married your father?” he asked.
Kat shrugged, a little embarrassed to admit even to herself that she knew little. Her father had never talked about their mother. Even as a child, when she’d asked about her mother, he’d been vague. It wasn’t until her mother returned that she understood why. For years, her father had believed that Sarah had committed suicide. He would have seen that as the ultimate betrayal—as well as his own failure. Add to that his broken heart...
Once Angelina had come into the picture, all evidence of their mother had disappeared, and her mother was never mentioned again. That was, until she’d shown up all these years later, alive but with no memory of the past.
“Why don’t you tell me what you know,” Kat suggested.
He gave her a look that said he saw right through her veiled attempt to hide what she didn’t know, but he didn’t seem concerned about it. “Your mother had what appeared to be a privileged childhood,” he began as if reciting from notes. “Two loving parents, a nice house in a nice neighborhood, friends and picture-perfect high school years. So I ask you, why are there no photographs from college? Your mother has been all over the news. By now friends would have come forward with candid shots, which would have been worth a nice chunk of change.”
“Maybe her friends aren’t as mercenary as you.”
“It’s just a fact of life. If not for the money, then for fifteen minutes of fame. It looks to me like your mother just dropped off the radar in college after being so popular and so involved in high school. It doesn’t add up.”
“So what?” Kat said, frowning. “I know she graduated.”
“According to her transcripts.”
She stared at him. “What are you saying?”
The waitress reappeared with their food. Max dug in as if he hadn’t eaten in days. Maybe he hadn’t. There hadn’t been many vehicles on Main this morning because of the hour. She assumed that the old pickup parked down the street from the gallery with the California plates must have been his.
“I can’t find anyone who knew her,” he said between bites. “Not a professor who remembers her, a roommate, anyone.”
“It was a large university, and she probably could afford not to have a roommate,” Kat said.
He continued as if she hadn’t spoken. “Add to that the fact that she wasn’t a member of any organizations, sororities or even campus clubs, or involved in any campus-sponsored extracurricular activities.”
Absentmindedly Kat picked up a strip of bacon and took a bite. It had been so long since she’d had meat—let alone bacon—that she was shocked at how good it tasted. She quickly put it down.
“That isn’t that unusual,” she said wiping her hands on her napkin. “I wasn’t interested in any of that either and at a large campus...” She watched him slather butter on his pancakes and then drown them in syrup, recalling the taste for the first time in what seemed like forever.
He was right. She hadn’t quit eating things that she loved for health reasons. She knew exactly when she’d begun denying herself any pleasures and shuddered inside at the memory.
“So you really don’t have any proof,” she said. “You’re just fishing.”
* * *
MAX DIDN’T LET her words affect his appetite or his confidence in what he had to tell her—or her desire to hear it.
Looking up, he jabbed his fork into the air as he ticked off what he’d discovered about the early Sarah Johnson pre-Hamilton.
“Think about it. Your mother was pretty and popular in high school. There were tons of photos of her in all kinds of organizations, at dances, with her girlfriends in the yearbooks. She was a cheerleader and in every kind of after-school activity there was.” He noticed that she was buttering her pancakes. Not missing a beat, he slid the syrup over to her. “Then she goes off to college and...nothing.”
“Maybe college was harder for her, and she had to study more,” Kat said and took a bite of her pancake. She closed her eyes for a moment, her face a picture of euphoria. He tried to concentrate on her words, telling himself she was beginning to question her mother’s past, as well.
But at the back of his mind, he kept asking himself why Kat Hamilton had given up the food she loved. What else had she given up, he wondered as he considered her apparel.
“A person as outgoing as your mother was in high school is the kind to pledge a sorority, to get involved in the school paper or university politics, have her photo all over that campus.” He shook his head. “Who changes just like that?” He snapped his fingers. “Something happened.”
He stabbed his fork into his pancakes. Like Kat Hamilton, he thought. He’d met women on diets. Others who wanted to eat more healthfully. But Kat was different. She seemed to be in a battle with food. Or was it with herself? Why was that?
“Something happened that changed your mother’s life, changed her.” He’d bet his lucky boots on that.
Kat sat back, as if trying to distance herself from what he was saying. “Like what?”
He chewed for a moment. “That’s what I don’t know and I’m trying to find out.”
“I think you’re making too much out of this.”
He considered her for a moment. “And I think you’re just as curious as I am. Too bad we can’t ask her.”
“Oh, I see what you’re up to. You want me to ask my mother what she was doing in college besides studying?”
He leaned his elbows on the table as he bent toward her. “Why not? Supposedly those were years she should be able to remember, right?”
Kat shook her head, and he saw that he’d made her angry again. “You think she’s lying about not remembering the past twenty-two years?”
He shrugged and took another bite of his pancakes. “What do you think?”
“I think breakfast is over.” She started to rise, but he caught her hand with his free one.
“I’m being honest with you. How about being honest with me?”
“I didn’t take your camera and laptop,” she said, pulling loose of his touch.
“I believe you. Who did you tell about the photo after I showed it to you, though?”
Kat’s gray eyes widened for an instant. She slowly sat back down. “I’m not sure I even believe you lost anything.”
He put down his fork and pushed his plate away before wiping his mouth with his napkin. “Yes, you are, and I think you know who was behind stealing them and the photos.” His gaze captured hers. “So who did you call?” To his surprise, he saw the answer in her expression. “You called your mother.”
“You can’t think that my mother...”
“Would she call your father? Or would she call Russell Murdock?”
“This is ridiculous,” Kat snapped. “You can’t think that my father or Russell—”
“No,” he said, frowning down at his nearly empty plate. “Unless...” He looked up at her. “What if her phone or wherever she is staying is bugged?”
She gave him an angry look. “You’re just saying all this to scare me. Why would anyone bug the cabin where my mother’s staying?”
“Seriously? The first wife of the possible future president. Even if she wasn’t missing the past twenty-two years, there’s a story there. The other reporters are chasing the love triangle, but I think the real story started back in college.”