Pieces of You (6 page)

“Quinn, do you think I would have come here if there was any other way?”

“I can’t help you.”
By God, I won’t help you.

“You can. You’re the only one who can.”

“Okay, then, I can, but I won’t. Now, I’ve got a plane to catch.” What was one lie compared to the hundreds she’d told them? He pushed back his chair and stood. “Nice seeing you again.”

“Please help me.”

He ignored her words and yanked a phone book from the bottom drawer of his desk. “Here, take this. Look under A for attorney. I’m sure there are hundreds who’ll be willing to listen to you.” Quinn grabbed his jacket and walked around the desk to where she sat. He shoved the phone book in her hands and said, “I’ve got to go.”

“My life’s in danger.”

“All the more reason to use that book.” He shrugged into his jacket and reached for his briefcase. “I’ll walk you out.”

She stood, clutching the book to her stomach. “Does Annalise know the truth about me?”

He couldn’t resist. “She hasn’t been Annalise in years.” 

“She thinks I’m dead, doesn’t she?”

“Of course she does. That’s why she still loves you.”

“What would she think if she knew I was very much alive, have been for years and you’ve known all along?”

He didn’t like her discussing Annie as though she had a right. “I don’t know what she’d think but it doesn’t matter because she’s never going to find out.”

“I’m not trying to jeopardize your relationship with her. God knows, she must have needed you all these years. But now I need you and I’ve got nothing to lose.”

“You’re trying to blackmail me?”

“I’m sorry, Quinn. More than you’ll ever know.” Her voice held a remnant of the mother he knew long ago. “Just help me, please, and then I’ll leave.”

***

Within ten minutes, Quinn knew more than he wanted to about the tangle of lies that tied the real Rita Sinclaire to the woman he’d once called “mother”. The real Rita was dead, but Evie Burnes had been using the woman’s identity for the past eighteen years. The new Rita was a thriving artist in Ogunquit, Maine and signed her assumed name to paintings, checks, even credit cards. For all practical purposes, she’d
become
Rita Sinclaire. There was just one glitch. The real Rita had been an inside accomplice to a $250,000 armed robbery at First American Bank that left a security officer dead and Rita’s partner, Pete Muldaney, serving time in Attica State Prison. Until his release two weeks ago.

Evie sipped her scotch neat and settled in the chair across from Quinn’s desk. “This man just showed up and started treating me like I should know him.”

“You must have looked like the real Rita.”

“There was a resemblance. Of course, eighteen years changes people’s memory, everything gets a bit muted and fuzzy.”

“Not everything.” He wanted to tell her he remembered the exact instant he discovered she’d run away. It was Saturday, July 24th, late afternoon, probably 3:00 or 4:00. Scorching hot too, ten degrees hotter in the attic. He wore jeans and the Rolling Stones t-shirt she hated with the signature tongue. It was dead quiet. Rupe was sleeping. Annie was playing two doors down at the McPherson’s. There were eight notebooks, black, college composition, smooth to the touch, crammed with enough poison to destroy every Burnes in Corville. 

“ . . . I guess it’s God’s way of smoothing out reality, don’t you think? After a while, it tends to blur, the edges get dull, until one day, you can’t bring it back into focus. So you leave it that way and that’s how you remember it.”

“Is that what you did with us? Let us fall out of focus?”

She looked away, downed the rest of her scotch before speaking. “It was the only way.”

“So you wouldn’t feel guilty?” He had to know.

“So I could survive. I left because I couldn’t be the kind of mother you and Annalise needed. Or the kind of wife your father wanted. Staying would have destroyed us all.”

“What a convenient statement.”

“It’s true. You would have ended up hating me more than you do now.”

He didn’t answer, but then, he didn’t need to.

“I couldn’t go back, though I was close several times.” Her silver-blue eyes tried to look into him, through him. “When I first left, I went to a roadside diner and a young boy walked in. He was about your age, same wavy hair, same height. For one tiny second I thought he was you and almost went after him. Instead, I went into the bathroom and threw up. That’s when I knew if I was going to do this, I had to forget everything except starting over. No more thinking about birthdays, or Annalise’s fat braids, or your father’s laugh, or how you loved angel food cake. I had to let it all go, right then, or I’d go insane.”

“I’m glad your plan was so successful.” It didn’t make him feel any better that she remembered scraps of their lives. Actually, it only made him feel worse. She’d had a family who loved her and she’d left anyway.

“Not entirely.”

He wasn’t going to give her an opportunity to unload her conscience so she’d feel better and he’d feel worse. Quinn opted for polite disinterest. “And you found what you were looking for.”

“In measures, yes, I did.”

“Good.” He should just leave her alone. What did he care? But something pulled at him, forcing him to say, “Dad was the one who never got over it.”

She sank back in the Queen Anne chair and pressed her fingertips to her temples. “He was a good man.”

“He was a great man but he was never the same. He and Brenda Coccani were the only ones who never gave up on you. They became friends, imagine that.”

“She was a good friend.”

“She died a year before Dad. Ovarian cancer.”

Evie closed her eyes.

“So, enough of that. You’ve got an ex-con who wants money from Rita Sinclaire, who he thinks is you. Why did you come to me?”

“To prove I’m not her.”

“I see. And how will I do that?”

“By proving I’m really Evie Burnes.”

Chapter 7

He’d only come to Arianna’s because she’d invited Annie and Michael for a small get together and it would be rude to not show, considering he was the link between the parties. Annie couldn’t wait to see Arianna’s home; the red wall in her living room, the zebra stripes in the guest bath. It was the last thing Quinn wanted to do on a Saturday night, especially after the week he’d just had. There was the mystery woman and her sketchy tale, the Carlson’s and the toilet seat, and the coup de gras, Evie Burnes and her disappearing, reappearing act.

Saturdays were made for quiet dinners and intimacy with the opposite sex, no pleasantries, no fakeries, no extra effort at conversation. It was a day for dumming down and Quinn kept a long list of females willing to play dummy as long as the restaurant was five star, the wine three hundred dollars a bottle, and the after sex gift, jewelry. Easy, Noncommittal. Exactly where he wished he were right now.

Instead, he sat in an overstuffed pink and green floral chair, nursing a scotch neat and trying to remember the name of the pony-tailed, old coot slouched in the matching chair next to him. Howard? Howell? Harvey? Why had Arianna done this to him? She knew he wasn’t part of this group, had no desire to mix with any of them, artists, writers, sculptors. He’d told her several times, so many she’d stopped inviting him.

So why did she back door it and extend the invitation to his sister? Did it have anything to do with Danielle? Speaking of, the mystery woman sat at the opposite end of the room, by design most likely, talking to a woman wearing a turban and a caftan. With the exception of the initial introductions with Annie and Michael, she hadn’t spoken to Quinn, probably because she’d have to work too hard to keep her stories straight. Shot in the stomach. Right. The guy probably deserved the bullet, but she’d insulted Quinn’s intelligence with a story even a first year law student wouldn’t buy.

“She’s beautiful, isn’t she?” Annie slid onto the arm of his overstuffed chair.

“Who?”

She pointed with her wine glass. “Danielle.”

“I didn’t notice.”

His sister’s laugh spilled over him. “Quinn, that’s like saying a starving man didn’t notice the cheeseburger and fries in front of him.”

That made him smile. “Okay, so I noticed. She’s beautiful.”

“Glad you can admit it.”

“She’s not my type.”

Annie sprung off the arm of his chair to stare him in the face. “Since when has a beautiful woman not been your type?”

He shrugged and downed the rest of his scotch. “She’s married.”

“Oh. Well, then I guess she’s not your type.”

“Nope.” No sense telling her Danielle was a widow.

“Well then, my mistake. It’s just that the way you were watching her, I was sure she was your next conquest.”

“I wasn’t watching her any way.” But for some ridiculous reason Danielle was imprinted on his brain. Her mouth, her eyes, the curve of her neck, the paleness of her skin . . .

“Quinn. You were watching her.”

He smiled.

“Too bad. She seems nice.”

“You could tell that with two minutes of conversation?” Annie was such a hopeless romantic.

She nodded, serious now. “I’ve always been a good judge of character.”

“I’m sure Michael will be happy to hear that. Speaking of your fiancé, where is he?”

“He’s having a very long, very medical, very boring conversation with Dr. Wintkowski, the head of Research.”

“What’s
he
doing here?”

“His wife paints.”

“Oh.”

She leaned over and whispered in his ear. “Nudes, I think. Young men.”

Quinn laughed. “Maybe, I’ll see if she needs a model.”

“You’re too old. She likes them young, under twenty-five.”

“Then she’s the loser.”

“Consider yourself lucky. Michael says she’s a real loo-loo. He only puts up with her because of Dr. Wintkowski.”

“Which one is she?”

“You don’t know? Really? She’s the one in the orange turban and striped caftan, over there, talking to Danielle.”

His gaze landed on the doctor’s wife, flitted over the vibrant plumage covering her ample, middle-aged figure and settled on Danielle. She looked stunning and untouchable in black with long silver earrings and a matching stone pendant. Her design? A half-smile shadowed her face as she nodded at Mrs. Wintkowski. Okay, so she really was beautiful. He still didn’t trust her. She turned and caught him watching her. The smile vanished and she looked away.

“Like I said, too bad she’s married. You guys would make a perfect pair.” With that, she stepped away and sifted into the crowd, disappearing behind an Asian giant in black leather.

He needed another drink and a gulp of fresh air. Unfortunately, the path to the bar was blocked by three men and a woman, all wearing pony tails and earrings, all engaged in a very animated discussion with Arianna. Forget the drink, he’d opt for the fresh air and grab a double later. Quinn worked his way through the kitchen, snatched a bottle of water and slipped out the back door.

The sounds of Boccelli flitted over the drone of air conditioners, distant cars, and crickets. Arianna lived on the fringe of the city in a renovated twelve unit condo that boasted patios and miniature gardens, the city’s attempt to bring the suburbs to its doors. A trellis with purple flowers and green vines crept in tangled clumps from end to end, six wooden planters lined side by side on the deck, two with roses, two with herbs and two, tomatoes. The scent of rosemary and oregano filled the air, reminding him of the garden in Corville.

Quinn uncapped the water and took a long drink. He was miles away from Corville, years, too. Yesterday had been a surprise. The gall of Evie Burnes to come to him because she needed a name, the same one she’d shunned years ago. The woman had guts, he’d give her that. She hadn’t been like that before, not that he remembered anyway, but fifteen year olds weren’t usually required to commit their parents to memory, one day here, the next gone.
Now draw the picture and write everything you remember about your mother.

She’d threatened to blackmail him if he didn’t help her. I love you, too,
Mom
. The woman wasn’t getting anywhere near Annie, even if Quinn had to threaten to turn her over to the police for identity theft. And by God, if she pushed him, he’d do it. She was coming to the office Monday afternoon and that’s when he’d tell her to go back to wherever it was she’d come from and forget about him and Annie.

He didn’t hear the back door open or the footsteps on the wooden deck. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know anyone was out here.”

Danielle.
He refused to think of her by that other name.
Quinn wiped the memory of his mother away and turned to face her. “It’s too damn stifling in there.”

“When Arianna said small gathering, I thought she meant five people, not thirty-five.” Danielle moved next to the rose bushes and her perfume mixed with their scent, drifting toward him.