Pieces of You (5 page)

“I’m really sorry.”

She didn’t want “sorrys”. She wanted him to feel her pain. “Tell me. Have you ever lost someone you loved more than your own life?”

He looked away, just for a second, then met her gaze.  “No.”

“Then you don’t know what it’s like, do you? Losing someone can make you go crazy, especially if you feel somehow responsible, like maybe there was something you could have done, or something you shouldn’t have done.”

He shoved his hands in his pockets and stared at the floor. “I really am sorry.”

They were small words, inadequate, but she sensed pain in them. “I’m not crazy,” she whispered. “And I didn’t kill him on purpose.”

“You can’t go back. They’ll crucify you.”

“So, I let them crucify an innocent man instead?”

He shrugged. “If he has an alibi, they’ve got no case. And they still have to find the murder weapon, which I assume is gone?”

She forced herself to push out the truth. “I dumped it in a garbage can at a Wendy’s in St. Louis.”

His look said he’d expected as much. “Then, they’ve got no case. Who knows, maybe you saved the ex-convict, drug dealer from landing back inside. You said he threatened to come after your husband once he got out and now he’s lost that opportunity.” He rubbed his jaw and started pacing again. “You know, there is one thing I can’t quite figure out.”

“Yes?”

“You said you shot him in the stomach.”

“That’s right.” How could she ever forget his bloody hands clutching his middle?

“Then how do you explain the coroner’s report that said there was a single gunshot wound to the head?”

***

The day was never going to end. Quinn sank back in his leather chair and dragged his hands over his face. If Roberta Carlson brought that damn notebook to the next meeting and started reading off every detail of her husband’s
life since the accident
, Quinn would rip it to shreds. And then burn it.

Thank God it was almost the weekend. Between the Carlsons and the mystery woman, he deserved a break. His thoughts turned once again to Mrs. Eve Maldonando aka Danielle. Now, there was a real piece of work. The woman actually refused to give up the shot in the gut story, said she’d never come anywhere near her ex’s head.

He’d called her on it and asked her to explain the coroner’s report but of course, she couldn’t. All she could do was let those big blue eyes overflow. Did she think he was stupid? That a beautiful face would render him brain dead? He was done with her anyway; he’d told her what she wanted to know. Her estranged husband was dead, and if she wanted to put a big bulls-eye on her forehead and turn herself over to the San Diego police, then go for it.

But why couldn’t she just admit she’d shot to kill? Why did she have to give him some lame brained excuse about an intruder? She should disappear and forget the Maldonando name and the West Coast. She could keep up with the “Danielle” ruse and get away with it. People did it all the time.
One minute they’re washing dishes at the kitchen sink, and the next, they’re gone . . .

“Quinn?”

Vanished . . .

“Quinn?” Sylvia stood in front of him, eyes bright, plump fingers fanning her face.

“Don’t tell me the Carlsons are back.”

She shook her ginger-red head and the extra skin under her chin jiggled. “No. There’s a woman outside who says she needs to see you.”

“You’ve got my appointment book.”

“She says it’s urgent.” She pulled the words out like warm taffy.

“Sylvia, they all say it’s urgent.” He checked his watch. “I was getting ready to leave.”

His secretary leaned forward, her pink-tipped fingers gripping the edge of his desk. Sylvia was the “Queen” of secrecy and embellishment. “She says it’s about your family.”

“Annie?”  

“No, not Annie, she would have said, I think. I tried to quiz her but she shut up tighter than a clam.”

Annie was his only family, at least the only family he claimed. His father was dead, and the aunts and uncles were all back in Corville, but Quinn hadn’t thought about them since Rupe’s funeral.

Sylvia appeared much more curious than he was to find out about the mystery woman. “Your horoscope today said, ‘Old paths cross with new ones.’”

Quinn sighed. “Okay, show her in. But tell her five minutes because I’ve got a plane to catch.” He ignored the arched brow. “Just tell her.”

Less than three minutes later, Sylvia ushered in a small built fifty-something woman, dressed in a beige, linen suit and fat gold hoop earrings. Her salt and pepper hair clung to her head like a curly cap and she wore dark glasses.
Ah, the glasses are the reason she’s here.

“Ms. Rita Sinclaire, Mr. Quinn Burnes. Quinn, Ms. Rita Sinclaire.” Sylvia sidled up to the second wingback chair as though she were going to settle in and ask her own share of questions. “Thanks, Sylvia. Go ahead and take off.” He glanced at his watch. “I’ll be leaving in a few minutes myself.”

“Oh. Sure.” There was such disappointment in her voice Quinn almost told her to stay and take notes but that would only prolong the meeting. 

He waited until the door closed before he turned to the woman in dark glasses. “Sit down, Ms. Sinclaire.” He gestured to one of the chairs and pretended politeness. “What can I do for you?” The woman remained standing. And silent. “Ms. Sinclaire?” Just his luck she’d drag this meeting on with too many pauses and not enough answers.

“The watercolors in the lobby,” she finally managed, “they were signed by a Burnes. Is that you?”

“My sister.”

She cleared her throat. “Do you paint?”

“No.”

She nodded slightly, moved toward a chair and sat down. “Painting is very soothing, but it can be very unsettling, too.”

“I wouldn’t know.” He didn’t believe for a half second she had any information about his family. It had all been a ploy to meet with him.

The woman clasped her hands together and continued as though she were a renowned art critic. “I’ve always loved oils myself, so much more vibrant, but painful. Some people avoid them, they say they reveal too much.”

The eyes, tell me about the eyes.

“Have you ever worked with oils, Mr. Burnes?”

“I’m not trying to be rude, Ms. Sinclaire, but I really don’t think you came here to discuss my artistic abilities. It’s late and I’ve got a plane to catch.”

“Of course, you do. I know you’re a very busy man. And very well known, too.”

Here it comes.

“I read all about you. You’ve made quite a few headlines.”

Which is why you’re here.

“It isn’t every lawyer who can win cases against the likes of fast food chains and major department stores.”

Quinn picked up his pen, turned it over between his fingers. “You told my secretary you wanted to talk to me about my family?”
But we both know it’s really about your eyes.

“That’s right.”

“There’s just my sister and me.”

“Oh. And your parents?”

“Dead.”
How far is this going to go before she takes off the glasses and exposes the real reason she’s here?

“Dead.” There was the slightest pause. “How long ago?”

“Look, that’s enough. Tell me why you really came here. It’s about your eyes, isn’t it? You’re injured and want restitution. You should have just been honest about it.”

“That’s not it at all.” Her next words sucked the air from the room. “I’ve come to tell you your mother’s not dead.”

Chapter 6

Rita Sinclaire’s words pushed him into a black hole, sucking the air from his lungs. He’d imagined these words thousands of times, feared the reality of them, and fought them for years. “My mother’s dead.”
 

“No.” Rita Sinclaire shook her salt and pepper head. “She’s alive. I can prove it.”

“She died eighteen years ago.” He willed her dead, wanted it with a fierceness that hurt.

“She didn’t die, Quinn. She’s very much alive.”

Obviously, the woman knew something. Alive or dead, he still hated his mother. “Okay, she’s not dead. Let me guess, she’s dying and wants to reconcile.”

Rita Sinclaire shook her head again. “No, that’s not it.”

“Of course not.” Memories flooded his brain, crashing together, spinning apart. “Let me tell you about the last time I saw my mother. It was hot that day, miserable really, with a heat that sucks the life out of you, where you step out of the shower and you’re already sweating.” He fixed his gaze on one of the woman’s hoop earrings. “I didn’t even know she was gone until dinnertime. There was a pan of potatoes on the stove. I guess we were having mashed that night, and green beans in a colander on the counter. I remember the angel food cake, because it was my favorite. My father was the first one to go looking for her but it was already too late. She drove to the grocery store and disappeared.”

“I’m sorry.”

“We never had a funeral for her.”

“She loved you very much.”

He ignored her. “I wanted the funeral but my father wouldn’t hear of it. He made us set a place at the table every night, leave the light on above the stove, even sign her name on Christmas cards.”

“He knew she wasn’t dead?”

“He didn’t know. He just couldn’t accept her being dead. I knew the truth though.”

“How did you know?”

A cold smile slipped across his face. “I found her notebooks.”

“Notebooks?”

Why had the woman’s face turned from tan to paste? “They were the black and white composition ones, the kind kids use in school. She found one of my old ones and started spilling her guts in it.”

Rita Sinclaire gripped the edge of the chair and said, “I’m sure she never meant for anyone to read them.”

“Certainly not her family,” Quinn added. “They wouldn’t necessarily like to hear about how she didn’t fit in, how she was living a lie, how she didn’t know who she was and nobody really knew her. She filled eight of them.”

“I see.”

“That’s a hell of a lot of discontent, don’t you think?” The pages were there in front of him now, as though they’d never been torched, line after line of despair, all in his mother’s cramped writing, words strung together, questioning existence, mourning a past, yearning for a future that was anywhere but Corville.

“It must have been very painful for you to live with that knowledge.”

“It would have been worse if my father had found out.”

“I’m sure she never meant to hurt any of you.”

As if this woman would know. “Yeah. I’m sure.”

“She loved you.”

“She left me.”

“Did you ever consider the possibility that maybe she had no choice? Maybe she couldn’t stay.”

Anger festered in his gut but he tamped it down. He didn’t want to feel anything. Evie Burnes didn’t deserve it. “Everybody has a choice. She chose to leave.” Why was he having this conversation anyway? He’d never told anyone about the notebooks. “If she walked in this room right now and stood in front of me I wouldn’t acknowledge her.”

“You have a right to be angry.”

“I’m not angry.” He drew in a calming breath. “I’m not anything.”

“Don’t you want to hear her side of it?”

“
Her
side? Are you her lawyer, come to plead her case? Listen, that’s a very gracious effort on your part and you must be a good friend, but the truth is, I don’t care where she went or why she left. It doesn’t matter. It hasn’t mattered in years.”

“It matters to her.” She slid the dark glasses off her face. “It matters to me.”

Quinn fixed his gaze on the silver-blue eyes staring back at him, the ones the town of Corville called “sky-dipped.” She’d been smart to wear the glasses. Age had transformed the hair and skin, and the voice sounded huskier than he remembered. But the eyes, they were the same. Just like his.

“Look at me, Quinn. Please.”

He dragged his hands over his face, a quick attempt to pretend she hadn’t affected him. “Why are you here?”

“I,” she paused and he braced himself for the tears, the self-incrimination, the pleas for forgiveness. They would start now, years of them, a barrage of futile attempts to gain his forgiveness. He would scorn them all.

“I need your help.”

This, he had not expected. “My help?”

She looked away, her gaze flitting across the room, to ceiling, floor, desk, before finally settling back on him. “I’m in trouble.”

Laughter exploded from his mouth like a giant gusher and sucked the oxygen from his lungs. She needed his help? That was hysterical, wasn’t it? Was that why he was laughing? Maybe the sound spilling from him wasn’t laughter, maybe it was something else altogether, something so raw it didn’t have a name. The mother who deserted them needed his help. That’s why she’d come back, not to reunite, or apologize, or explain, but for his legal services. “You need to leave now.”