“It’s probably Hank, forgetting what time my flight gets in. He offered to come pick me up so I didn’t have to pay to park my car.” With her long blond hair up on top of her head in a claw clip, her face clear of makeup and her slim leggy figure dressed in Juliet’s white terry-cloth sweat suit, Marcie looked beautiful, healthy and vibrant. She barely resembled the worn-looking woman who’d met Juliet and an exuberant Mary Jane at the San Diego airport two nights before.
“Oh come on,” Juliet teased her sister. “You kidding? A trip all the way to San Francisco? An adventure in the big city? He’s probably been up since dawn.”
Marcie chuckled and punched Juliet on the arm. “Hank’s not that bad. He’s taken me to dinner in San Francisco twice since Christmas!”
“Mom! It’s for you!” Mary Jane called.
The sisters, as identical in size and shape as they were opposite in coloring, shrugged and grinned.
“I’ll be right back.” Leaving her sister to start lunch, Juliet took the call.
“WHAT’S UP?”
Marcie’s question was immediate when Juliet, still wearing her black Lycra pants, sweatshirt and tennis shoes, returned to the kitchen five minutes later. The side trip to her room to breathe probably would have worked if she’d been facing anyone but the other two McNeil women.
“You’ve got that weird look on your face,” Mary Jane piped up, her mouth full of peanut butter and jelly as she watched her mother come into the kitchen and take her seat. “The one where something might be wrong but you’re going to pretend it isn’t.”
“Eat,” Marcie said.
“I am eating.”
With her short dark curls, Mary Jane might bear no resemblance to her blond aunt, but there was no doubting the adoration the two had for each other. When Mary Jane had found out her aunt was borrowing the white sweatsuit, she’d immediately run in and changed into her identical—if slightly more stained—one.
“Eat your chicken salad,” Marcie turned to Juliet, indicating the plate waiting in front of her. “The protein will do you good.”
It wasn’t a large portion, about as much as Marcie had given herself. Juliet stared out the bay window of the kitchen alcove, telling herself that she was nervous for nothing.
She’d made some very difficult choices in her life. And while she’d also adopted the very annoying habit of second-guessing herself about one or two of them, she knew, deep inside, that she’d done the best that she could. She’d seen him a few years ago and the encounter had run exactly as she’d have scripted it, had she known ahead of time it was going to happen: quick, impersonal and uneventful.
He’d been married. And thankful that he didn’t have children.
“You know that case I told you I was working on?”
Marcie watched her closely. “Eaton James.” She stabbed a piece of chicken with her fork. “He’s so big he’s your only client right now.”
Juliet nodded. Her sister always kept track.
“Blake Ramsden is going to be in court tomorrow, as a witness for the prosecution.”
Mary Jane took another bite of her sandwich, adding a potato chip to the wad in her mouth. She chewed and swung her feet while she watched her mother, and listened.
Fork midmouth, Marcie stared. “How do you feel about that?”
“Obviously uneasy.” Juliet focused on calm. Normalcy. She took a bite of chicken. “Surprise evidence is never welcome, particularly in a case as convoluted as this one is. True to form, Paul Schuster is attempting to confuse the jury with a paper trail that probably took years to accumulate, only half of which is really relevant.”
“Can’t you object?”
“She does.” Picking up her glass of milk, Mary Jane rolled her eyes. “The prosecution talks pseudo-logic, huh, Mom?”
“Yeah.” Juliet smiled. The milk mustache only slightly detracted from the maturity of her daughter’s contribution to the conversation.
“Doesn’t it present a conflict of interest having him as a witness for the other side?”
“No.” Juliet shook her head. “I certainly have no personal relationship with him!”
“Still…”
“I’ll explain to Eaton James that I met Blake Ramsden in a bar years ago, but that there’s been nothing between us since. He’s not going to care.”
“So what’s Ramsden got to do with the Terracotta Foundation?”
“I have no idea. Schuster’s faxing me a copy of the evidence he plans to present. I know that Ramsden’s father donated a substantial sum of money to Terracotta several years ago to be put in some land investment that didn’t pay off. Terracotta, and those particular investors, lost everything they put into the project. But no one has ever suggested any evidence of fraud. Eaton James was up front with everyone about the risk involved.”
“Mr. Ramsden died when I was a little kid,” Mary Jane reminded them all. “And Blake was still gone then, right, Mom?”
Juliet nodded.
“But he’s been back a long time,” Mary Jane added.
Marcie looked from one to the other of them, pushed the chicken salad around on her plate with a fork and took a small bite. Then she put down her fork.
“Okay,” she said, crossing her arms. “Nice try, but we both know the court case isn’t what I was asking about. Are you going to tell me how you feel about seeing him again?”
“You don’t care, do you, Mom?”
Juliet looked at her sister. “You have a plane to catch.”
“We don’t have to leave for another half hour. At least.”
If not for the somewhat questioning look in her daughter’s eyes, Juliet might still not have answered. Truth was, she didn’t have an answer.
“I guess I’m a little uneasy,” she said. “I mean, I did know him briefly. It could be kind of awkward.”
“Know him briefly? He’s the father of your child!”
“Biological, only.” Mary Jane was chewing again. She’d finished one-half of her sandwich, leaving the crusts, and had started on the other.
“A child whom, I might add, he knows nothing about.”
Pulling her hair down out of its ponytail, Juliet shook her head. “That’s a decision I made a long time ago.”
“I know. And I understand why. But that doesn’t mean it can’t be changed.”
“I don’t want it changed!” There was nothing childlike in the small body at the opposite end of the small table from her mother. “It’s always just been the two of us and I like it that way. Besides, it’s not like he wanted to marry my mom.”
With a quick frown in Juliet’s direction, Marcie leaned toward Mary Jane. “I know he didn’t, honey, and I know you like it with just you and your mom, but maybe you only feel that way because you don’t know what you’re missing.”
“Missing?” The look the girl gave her aunt was similar to one that Mrs. Cummings had bestowed on Mary Jane in her office the previous month. “You think I want to be like Tommy Benson at school? Or Sarah Carmichael? Or Tanya Buddinsky?”
“Buddinsky?” Marcie asked Juliet.
“Her last name is Buehla.” Juliet lowered her head a notch as she looked at Mary Jane. Her daughter