Somewhere Only We Know (28 page)

But while Leanne looked happy, there was a strain in her eyes.

It was a strain he'd seen, too, but he hadn't paid attention to it. Leanne often worked long hours at her job. He'd suggested she cut back, but she liked to work; it was something they had in common.

"Sorry about that," Marjorie said, returning to the room.

He returned to the couch. "No problem. I was just remembering that you and Leanne went to Sonoma a few weeks before she was killed."

"The last trip we had together. It was very emotional."

"Why?" he asked, her word choice a little odd.

"Well, you two were going to be married soon. I thought it was probably the last time I'd have her all to myself."

"Is that why Chuck didn't go with you on the trip?"

"Yes, that was why."

The same strain that was in Leanne's eyes in the photograph was now in Marjorie's eyes. He had a feeling he knew what had caused her new tension. "When you were in Sonoma, did Leanne tell you she was pregnant?"

Her jaw dropped, then she licked her lips. "What?"

"You heard me. Did she tell you she was pregnant?"

"I don't want to talk about this, Burke. This is wrong."

"You have to talk about it. I'm sorry, but I need to know. Was Leanne pregnant?" He drew in a deep breath as he forced himself to get the next sentence out. "And was it my baby or was Mitch the father?"

Marjorie put a shaky hand to her lips. "Leanne made me promise not to say anything."

"About the baby? About her affair? About both?" The questions flew out of his mouth. Marjorie shrank back in her seat. He knew he was pressing her beyond belief, but he was so close to finally knowing the truth, he had to make her answer. "Marjorie, please."

"Oh, Burke, I don't know what to say."

"Just tell me what Leanne told you. That's all. It's really pretty simple."

Her hands shook as she pressed them together, as she thought about his demands. Finally, she let out a sigh, and said, "Yes, Leanne was pregnant. She had wanted to get away that weekend so she could talk to me about it."

"And the father?"

Marjorie's face paled. "Leanne said she didn't know who the father was."

He finally had confirmation of what he'd known since the first second he'd seen that medical report and learned that Leanne was pregnant. He'd tried to fight against it. He hadn't wanted to believe that Leanne had cheated on him, that she'd kept two such huge secrets from the man she was supposed to love and was going to marry. But there it was. It didn't feel satisfying. It didn’t even make him feel angry. He was just—sad.

"Leanne made a terrible mistake, Burke. She said she didn't know how it happened."

"How is that possible? She was a smart woman."

"No, you don't understand." Marjorie sat up straighter, no longer defeated, but wanting to fight for her daughter. "Leanne said she was at a party. It was some firefighter pub crawl or something. She said you were supposed to be there, but you got stuck at work, some odd problem with the truck or something."

He frowned. "We had some vandalism at the firehouse. They stole parts from the truck. I had to stay past my shift to get that issue resolved. Is that what you're talking about?"

"I think so. She felt uncomfortable at the pub crawl, but you had been telling her that you wanted her to get to know your friends, and Shelby had also said it was really important to you that Leanne fit in with your work family. So she stayed. And she drank. She drank a lot. She told me that she felt better when Mitch got there, because she knew him better than anyone else. They went to the next bar together. That was the last thing she remembered until she woke up the next morning in Mitch's house."

"In his bed," Burke said harshly, not quite able to believe that Marjorie was trying to put Leanne's actions on him, on the fact that he'd left her alone at a pub crawl.

"Yes," Marjorie admitted. "But she didn't know how she got there. She believed someone spiked her drink at one of the bars. She couldn't remember anything. And you know she wasn't a girl to drink in excess, Burke. That wasn't her. For her to have a complete blackout of a night terrified her."

"I'm sure Mitch told her what happened."

Marjorie's brows drew together in a frown. "Mitch said she seemed unusually happy, but he didn't notice anything wrong with her. He told her that she was a willing participant, that she'd admitted she was in love with him and that she wanted to break off her wedding and be with him."

Were those more of Mitch's delusions, Burke wondered. Or had he been telling the truth?

"Leanne didn't know what to do," Marjorie continued. "She didn't know if she should confess to you or just make sure it never happened again."

"She obviously didn't confess."

"She was torn. She loved you. She didn't want to lose you."

"She might have been afraid she was going to lose me, but I don't think she loved me, not if she did what she did."

"I think she was drugged, Burke. I do. Her behavior was so out of character."

He stared back at Marjorie, seeing the plea in her eyes. She wanted to believe the best of her daughter, but he couldn't go there with her. "If she thought someone had drugged her, then her first suspect should have been Mitch. But according to the people I've spoken to who spent a lot of time with her in the weeks before her death, Leanne and Mitch were in constant contact."

"Because she was trying to understand what had happened and also trying to make sure Mitch didn't tell you about the affair. Finally, she got him to promise he wouldn't say anything to you. She told him if he loved her as he said he did that he would let her go, that he would let her be happy with you." She paused. "That weekend in Sonoma, she said she thought she'd convinced him."

He thought about what she'd said. One thing that was odd was that Mitch hadn't told him about his hookup with Leanne until a few days ago. During the past three years when Mitch had come to talk to him—to ask him about the accident, to grill him about why Leanne had left him a cryptic, upsetting message—Mitch had never once said that he'd slept with Leanne. What did that mean? Why hadn't he played that card?

Had Mitch been keeping his promise to Leanne? Had he been so in love with her that he couldn’t betray her, not even after she died?

He was beginning to think that Leanne had played Mitch, too.

"What was she going to do about the baby?" he asked. "Was she just going to pretend it was mine, hope that Mitch wouldn't add dates together and come up with another conclusion? Because that doesn't seem like a very good plan."

"She didn't know what to do. She was confused. I was terrified that she might get an abortion just so she could start her marriage with you on a clean slate."

"You think getting rid of a child who might have been mine, would make the slate clean?"

"I didn't think that. And Leanne didn't think that, either. Not really. She was just trying to figure things out. She wouldn't have gone through with it. She loved children. I told her she needed to slow down, take her time, not let her emotions get the best of her, but we both knew she was going to have to make some quick decisions. Your wedding date was rapidly approaching, and she was starting to feel the beginning weight of pregnancy. She wasn't sure she could fit into her dress."

Which reminded him of what Kelly had said about Leanne skipping her fitting.

"The day before the accident," Marjorie continued, "we spoke briefly. She said that the two of you weren't getting along that well, and that it was her fault. The guilt was eating her up. She was going to tell you everything before the wedding, and if you wanted to call things off, then she'd accept it, because she couldn't live a lie. I think she actually felt good about her decision." Marjorie's chest heaved with her next breath. "I was hoping for the best, and then the next night I got the worst call a mother can get."

For a moment there was nothing but silence in the room as they both reflected on that night.

"Why didn't you tell me after she died?" he asked a few moments later.

"I thought about it, but I didn't want to cause you any more pain. And I was hoping you'd never find out. It wasn't on the medical examiner's report. I didn't believe that Leanne had told Mitch. I thought I was the only one who knew her secret. I decided to keep it for her. It would only cause you pain, and Mitch, too."

"You really care about Mitch's pain, after what he did?"

"I don't know what he did. I don't believe he was the one who drugged Leanne, and she didn't think that, either. She thought it was someone at the bar. Maybe her drink got mixed up with someone else's. But Mitch had always been there for Leanne. He was a good friend. He loved her in a way she didn't love him, but he wouldn't have pushed himself on her."

"I don't know that I believe that. I didn't see him like a saint the way you and Leanne saw him."

"Well, you wouldn't. You probably always knew that he wanted Leanne. And he always knew that you were going to be the one to stop him from getting her." Marjorie paused. "But the real reason I didn't tell you or Mitch about the baby was because I didn’t want to tarnish my daughter's memory. She was a good girl who made one bad mistake. I didn't want that error to outlive her. I'm sorry if you can't understand that."

He wished he didn't understand her motivation, but he did. "You were protecting your daughter as any parent would. But it would have been nice if you'd come forward a few days ago when you realized Mitch was going off the rails. You had to know that there was a chance he was going to discover Leanne's secret."

"I've been terrified ever since he hit you the other night. I could see that something had happened, but he didn't tell me until yesterday that his private investigator had discovered Leanne was pregnant. He asked me to confirm it, to tell him that he was the father, just as you're doing now. I told him I didn't know anything about an affair or a baby."

"So you lied to Mitch."

"Chuck said we should stay out of it." She paused, giving him a tortured, sad smile. "But I couldn't lie to you, Burke."

"So Chuck knew?"

"Not until after Leanne died. And I never told him that she was considering a termination of the pregnancy. That would have devastated him. You can't tell him that."

"I have no interest in hurting Chuck. But I can't say the same for Mitch. He believes his baby was killed that night, along with the woman he loved, and he's determined to find out who did it. He thinks it was me."

"I know he does. But we all know that you had nothing to do with it. It was just an accident. Leanne was on her way to yoga."

"Was she?" he couldn't help asking. "I think she was coming to see me, maybe to tell me about the baby, maybe to call off the wedding, I don't know. But we had been fighting, and I had asked her if she really wanted to marry me. She hadn't come up with an answer. I thought she was going to give me one that night, but she didn't make it to the firehouse."

Marjorie gave a helpless shrug. "I didn't talk to Leanne that day. I really don't know what she was thinking or why she was in the car that night. I know she left that cryptic message for Mitch about needing to talk to him about you and the wedding, but what she was actually going to say is a mystery to me. And I certainly don't know who was driving the car that ran her off the road that night. I have to believe that was an accident, because I can't imagine who would want to hurt Leanne. She didn't have enemies. She was a wonderful person." Marjorie took a breath. "I hate to think that you're going to remember her in a bad way now. She did love you, Burke. I know she did."

It didn't really matter anymore.

"I need to talk to Mitch," he said heavily.

"I think that's the last person you should talk to, Burke. I don't know what is in his head right now."

"He's going crazy because he can't get to the truth, and strangely enough I have a little more compassion now than I did before."

"I thought you'd hate him for what he did with Leanne."

"I hate him for a lot of reasons, but I need to end this. I need to be able to move on with my life, and he keeps dragging me back. That has to stop." He got to his feet, suspecting that this was probably the last time he and Marjorie would really talk to each other.

"Do you hate me, too, Burke?" she asked softly, sadness in her eyes. "Should I have told you Leanne's secret? Should I have broken my promise to my daughter?"

"I don't know. The person to blame for all this is probably Leanne."

"She didn't deserve to die."

"She didn’t die because of what she did with Mitch. That was…" His voice trailed away as he realized the word accident was starting to sound a little false to him, too. Had Leanne died because of what she'd done with Mitch? Or did his former fiancée have other secrets he knew nothing about?

When he got into his car, he took out his phone and saw he had two missed calls and a voicemail from Maddie. Her voice sounded tense when she asked him to call her back. That couldn't be good. He immediately hit her number. "What's wrong?"

"We have a problem, Burke. Someone left a bouquet of dead roses for me. They put the flowers in front of your door. Whoever made that delivery got into your building and was standing right outside the apartment."

Fear ran through him. "I'm coming home. Don't answer the door for anyone but me."

"I am definitely not going to do that. I called Emma and she's going to fill Max in. She gave me the same instruction to stay put. I have to say I'm happy you're coming home."

"I'll be there soon."

* * *

While Maddie waited for Burke to arrive, she kept herself busy finishing off her next batch of meatballs and listening to music on her phone. Despite her best efforts at distraction, her mind kept going back to the flower delivery. The bouquet was obviously meant to be a warning of some nature—a scare tactic.

And it had worked. She was scared. Seeing her name on those flowers had made the threat really personal. She was glad she'd finally reached Burke. He'd know what to do. He'd protect her.