He hadn’t chosen his father.
She had.
“Look who I found.” Janet Quinn, who had been searching the library on the second floor, walked down the stairs carrying a shivering little white dog. Paterno looked up from the floor, where he’d been studying the tiles where the body had hit. There was still blood everywhere, but the shell of what had been Eugenia Cahill had finally been hauled away.
“Where was it?”
“Cowering in a cupboard beneath a shelf containing first editions of Sherlock Holmes.”
“In good company,” Paterno observed.
“And scared to death. Literally shaking. I wonder who put her there. Eugenia? Or the killer? We are thinking homicide, aren’t we?”
“Looks that way. Jefferson’s pretty certain.”
“Who would want to kill a little old lady?”
Paterno flashed on Marla Cahill. “Maybe her daughter-in-law?”
“Pretty bold to come here right after an escape.”
“Have you forgotten Marla Cahill? Brazen doesn’t begin to cover it.” He’d seen a lot of conniving, cold-hearted people in his time, but, as far as women went, Eugenia’s daughter-in-law took the prize.
“She’s not stupid.”
“Not at all.”
“And she would have had to have known that we were watching the place.”
“Well, someone called 9-1-1 before the granddaughter showed up here. I’m willing to bet whoever put in the call that pulled our guys off was involved. If we find out who that is, we might start making some headway.”
Quinn nodded. “The caller was a male. I checked.”
“Paid to do it. From a pay phone.” Paterno already had that much figured out from talking to the emergency dispatch operator. Squatting next to the bloodstains, he twisted his neck to view the landing as he had half a dozen times, replaying what he imagined had happened. It wouldn’t have taken Atlas to toss the little woman over the railing, but then again, Eugenia would have fought back. Unless she’d been drugged or had a stroke or heart attack. He’d know more once all the tox screens and blood work came back from the lab and the autopsy was complete. “I’ll start calling the staff,” he said to Janet Quinn. “You order phone records.”
“Planned on it,” Janet said. She stroked the dog’s head, and it whimpered. “Do you know her name? The dog’s, I mean.”
“Coco, the granddaughter said.” But he remembered the damned dog from the last time he’d been here years ago. Then, though, the dog had been younger and not traumatized. In fact, it had been feisty and yappy and a real pain in the butt. Now he almost felt sorry for the white mutt. “I’ll drop it off at her house. She was asking about it.”
“Her,” Janet said. “Coco’s a female.”
“Why do you think the dog was locked up? Did it get in the way?”
“Maybe she was locked in there by accident. Sometimes my cat will curl up in a closet or in a room where I’ve closed the door, and I won’t find him for hours.”
“This is a dog. And I remember it…her. She wasn’t exactly timid or quiet.” He glanced into the little black button eyes.
“I’ll put her in your car, and you can take her to Cissy Holt’s place. I saw a carrier in the bedroom.”
“We’re not done processing in there,” Jefferson said as she measured a piece of cracked, bloody tile directly under the balcony. “Just give us a second before you start taking things out.”
“I think I should stay,” Jack said, just as Cissy was thinking he should be leaving.
Damn him, Jack could be so muleheaded. Still, she thought she’d heard him wrong. “Don’t use this as an excuse.”
He handed B.J. to her. “If you want, I’ll camp out on the couch.”
“Don’t you get the concept of ‘separated’?” Cissy demanded in frustration. “Didn’t you hear what I was just saying? And, wait a minute.” She paused for effect as Beej squirmed in her arms. “Didn’t you say you got served today?”
“Don’t fight me,” Jack said softly, dangerously. “I’d just feel better about it,” he said, so close to her she could smell the clean scent of his aftershave, see the striations of darker blue in his irises. In her arms, her traitor of a son had the nerve to rain one of his incredible baby smiles on both of them. As if all were right in the world, as if his loving great-grandmother were alive and his parents were living some fairy tale.
“No,” she whispered, though her heart was tearing.
Jack leaned even closer, his breath warm against her ear. “Your psycho mother is on the run, Ciss. Remember her? How relentless and cruel she can be? God knows where she’ll turn up or what she’ll do. And your grandmother died tonight, possibly the result of someone helping her along to the hereafter.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I do know that things have taken a turn for the weirder, and I don’t like it. I’m staying.” To prove his point, he walked into the living room, sidestepped an array of B.J.’s toys, and flopped himself down on the leather couch they’d picked out together less than two years earlier.
Her stupid heart squeezed, but she ignored it, just held onto her son a little more tightly. “Jack, you can’t stay here.”
“What’re you going to do? Call the police?”
“They’re probably already camped outside again, waiting for Marla.” God, he was stubborn. “I don’t want you here.”
“It’s only for a night.”
“No, Jack. Not one night, not one hour.” She shifted Beej from one hip to the other.
“Damn it, Cissy.”
“I know. I’m pigheaded. So are you, actually. We should have been perfect for each other.” She was steamed now, all the rage she’d felt after witnessing Jack step out of Larissa’s apartment boiling up again.
She remembered the scene in vivid technicolor. Jack had still been tucking his shirt into his pants, his tie was missing, his hair wet and a mess, as if he’d just towel-dried it after a shower. Larissa was in the doorway in a bathrobe and, it seemed, nothing much else. Cissy’s heart had dropped to her knees as she’d sat in her car, half a block up the street, sunglasses covering her eyes.
Though they hadn’t kissed, Jack had flashed a smile at Larissa as he’d left and sketched her a wave before tripping down the stairs to his Jeep, parked right in the parking lot of the apartment building. Larissa, watching him go, had stepped barefoot onto the outside balcony, leaned over the top railing, and blown him a kiss as he’d fired up his Jeep. Her just-washed hair had caught in the sunlight, her cleavage playing peek-a-boo with the lapels of her robe, a breast slipping free before she laughingly clutched the lapels together again.
All for Jack’s benefit.
Even now, just thinking about it, Cissy felt wounded and mad all over again. Her jaw tensed.
As if reading her thoughts, Jack stopped arguing. He reached forward and ruffled Beej’s blond curls. Tiredly, he asked, “You sure that’s the way you want it?”
She inched her chin up a fraction. “Absolutely.”
“Then…if