Wakefield College 01 - Where It May Lead (17 page)

He’d opened his mouth to ask if she wanted to take a break when
she blurted, “I’m researching my father.”

His back straightened. “What?”

“You heard me.” She crossed her arms defensively in front of
herself. “I called up all the college records, and then I searched him
online.”

To buttress her belief in the man who loomed so large in her
life Troy was chilled by the shadow? Or because she really wanted to know the
truth of who her father was?

“You have time to get away? We could go out for coffee.”

She stood with alacrity. “Please. I’d suggest a walk,
except—ugh. I wore heels today.”

He waited while she righted her shoes and slid her feet into
them. Her feet were dainty, but relatively speaking her toes were intriguingly
long, as were her fingers. Troy had no trouble imagining some things she could
do with fingers and toes both.

And, shit, that was enough to stir his libido.

In deference to her heels, they took the elevator down, a
creaky, slow-moving relic of a midcentury remodel. It stirred some mild
claustrophobia in Troy, who was glad when the damn thing finally chose to cast
open its doors.

They strolled over to the Student Union, bought cold drinks and
carried them back to the duck pond—and the same bench—where they’d sat before.
About the time they left the SUB, students poured out of buildings like ants,
rushing down the sidewalk or across the field. Troy glanced at his watch.
Apparently they were between classes. He wasn’t surprised when, a minute later,
the flood of bodies ebbed and Madison and he were virtually alone. They sipped
in contemplative silence for a few minutes.

“So?” he said at last.

Madison sighed. “I’m sort of getting the feeling Dad has a lot
of enemies.”

Troy watched her, wanting to catch every shift of emotion. “The
kind of enemy who would assassinate him if he thought he could get away with it?
Or the ‘I wish a mud pie would hit him in the face’ kind?”

This sigh was even gustier. “Oh, probably the second. I mean,
nothing is overt. Most people aren’t stupid enough to tweet about how they
despise this businessman they’re going to have to keep dealing with.”

“Don’t kid yourself,” he said sardonically.

A quick smile lit her face. “Well, you have a point. But you
know what I mean.”

“Why did you start this, Madison? Did you talk to him again?
Did something happen?”

She sneaked a peek at him, and he thought he saw shame in her
eyes. “No. It’s me. That’s all. It suddenly occurred to me how I see him may not
be how other people see him. And yes, I know I sound dumb. I mean, how obvious
is that?”

Troy shifted his cup to his other hand and slid an arm around
her shoulders. He was relieved when she immediately leaned into him as if her
body couldn’t conceive of doing anything else.

“Obvious if you stand back and think about it that way,” he
said, “but most of us don’t. Especially not about someone we’ve known all our
lives unless it is impossible
not
to see other
viewpoints. I mean, if I’d had a sister who had been at war with Mom for years,
no matter how well I got along with Mom I’d have to reconcile my opinion with my
sister’s. But...no sister. You’re in the same boat. Nobody to say, ‘Wow, Dad may
be nice to you but
I
think he’s a major jerk.’”

“He wasn’t always nice to me. Why didn’t
I
see?”

Wrung by pity, he kissed the top of her head. “Don’t you mean,
why didn’t you let yourself see?”

“Oh, God. That is what I mean.”

Troy grunted. “I sure as hell never questioned my faith in my
parents. For both of us, outside events have forced us to take another look. We
probably never would have otherwise.”

She didn’t say anything for a long time. With her head tucked
into the curve of his shoulder, he couldn’t see her face. “I think maybe I
needed to,” she finally said.

Aching for her and reminded, disturbingly, of his own shifting
feelings for his parents, he frowned at the pond and a couple of students
sunbathing and studying at the same time on the far shore. “I hope you know it’s
not necessarily a bad thing,” he said, and realized he meant it. Not only for
her, but for him, as well.

She straightened and smiled at him, although she couldn’t
totally hide sadness. “You’re right. You asked what got me started this morning.
It came to me that I wanted to know how other people feel about my father.” Her
forehead crinkled. “I always knew Mom was trying to stay positive. She’d never
say anything bad about Dad. I was never even sure what split them up, except for
the yelling. Now that I think about it, I’m in awe that she kept her mouth shut
even when I chose him over her.”

“You ever think the divorce was her fault and not his?” Troy
wasn’t sure why he’d made a suggestion that might upset Madison, but her
mother’s behavior struck him as odd. “You had your suspicions. What if she had
an affair? She’d have felt guilty because she wronged your dad. Maybe so guilty
she thought she had to let you go, that she couldn’t take his daughter away from
him, too. That he deserved you and she didn’t.”

Madison stared at him in apparent shock. After a minute she
straightened away from him, as if she had to be self-contained to deal with what
he’d said. “I did think... But I never...” She swallowed and looked away.
“Another weird thing. He was my rock and I was so
mad
at her, but...in my heart I always believed the breakup was
his
fault. Dad is...easy to admire, but hard to
like. Mom sparkles. She loves to entertain, and to laugh, and to be surrounded
by friends. I suppose I thought his coldness had driven her away.”

What would it be like to desperately love
someone you also found hard to like?
Troy wondered.

“Could be a little of one, a dash of the other,” he pointed
out. “Your dad’s level of fault, for lack of a better word, might not reduce her
guilt if she met someone else. Ultimately,
she’s
the
one who left. You were a little kid. She not only walked out, she abandoned you.
She may have meant it to be temporary, but what does a word like that mean to a
kid when mommy is gone with no more than an undefined promise to come back for
you eventually?”

“Yes!”

The single, hissed word held pain that cramped Troy’s chest as
he watched her. He set his cup down on the ground and reached for her. “Come
here, sweetheart.”

She did, burrowing against him and clutching so tight to his
shirt her knuckles dug into the muscles around his spine. He was vaguely aware
of a few students passing, glancing at them with curiosity and the discomfort
most people feel when they see distress they don’t understand.

Madison didn’t cry, though, which didn’t surprise Troy. He
didn’t like to think what it would take to make her cry.

God,
he thought.
Her mother leaving would do it.
How could Madison help
but have cried then? He could see her waiting until she was alone, tucked into
bed, and then sobbing into her pillow because she was being brave for her daddy,
who didn’t sound like the kind of man who would have understood a grieving
little girl. Oh, yeah, Madison would have cried herself out, and maybe never let
herself do it again.

Frowning, he held her and was a little shocked to realize his
sinuses burned. Crap. He hadn’t thought he could ever hurt for another person
like this. Especially not when the pain was such an old one. There was nothing
he could fix. Madison had mostly fixed herself.

She let out a long, ragged breath that he felt on his throat,
and then eased herself back. Her eyes were too bright, but a rueful smile curved
her mouth.

“Wow. It’s really disconcerting to discover how much I never
really dealt with.”

He shook his head. “You grew up into an amazing woman. So you
had to bury some pain and disappointment in your parents. As a kid, we’re so
dependent on them—we can’t afford to doubt them.”

Her throat moved as she swallowed. The smile shook and she gave
up on it. “I’m not sure I really want to revisit all this.”

“I know what you mean.” He wasn’t much enjoying his own
experience trying to reconcile the Mom and Dad he’d thought he knew with the
reality.

“I think I need to concentrate on Dad. And what I learned today
is that he’s admired, feared, but not much liked. I should probably be
surprised, but...I’m not.”

It took real courage for her to untangle how she felt about her
father. There was no therapist to help her on the path, only him, and he wasn’t
exactly unbiased. No, he was the man who suspected her father of murder. It
would have been easier for her to remain defensive, to keep insisting that her
dad was honorable and incapable of making mistakes. Instead, she really and
truly seemed to want the truth.

Again, Troy had the fleeting, if disconcerting, thought that he
liked Guy Laclaire better than he should because he had something to do with
Madison’s utter honesty, her willingness to face even an unpalatable truth.
Parents had a lot to do with how their kids came out.

Yeah, then shouldn’t you cut your dad a
break? And maybe your mother, too?

Something to think about later.

Troy had made a decision sometime in the middle of Madison’s
speech to be truthful with her. How could he do any less, after what she’d told
him?

“A lot of people didn’t like your dad when he was a student,
either.”

Madison went utterly still. All she did was stare at him, as if
she were in a state of suspended animation. God, he hoped this wasn’t a
mistake.

But he’d started, and still couldn’t argue with his decision.
Troy went ahead and offered an edited version of what had been said to him.

“Some of it is clearly envy,” he said. “Your dad was the golden
boy. Athletic, handsome, smart, quick-tongued. Hard to see how he couldn’t have
known it. What he could have done better was hide his sense of superiority.” He
grinned crookedly. “In other words, he was cocky. Not the world’s greatest sin,
especially given his age when he was at Wakefield.”

Her relaxation was subtle, but it was there. “Yes. You’re
right. I had a couple of classmates like that in college. And one in grad
school.” Her nose wrinkled in distaste—she still didn’t like whatever idiot she
was thinking about. “Some people learn, some don’t.”

He hated to ask, but couldn’t help himself. “Your dad?”

Madison gave his question real thought. “I actually think he
did. Isn’t that funny, after what I was telling you about him? Mostly I think
he’s disliked now because he’s so aloof. He’s hard to know. That comes across as
arrogant, and maybe he is to some extent, but...” She shook her head. “He’s more
complicated than that. An arrogant man might think he’s above the rules. My
father has never thought that. Some of what makes him rigid and, well, unlikable
is his complete refusal to cut himself any slack.” More of that sadness, and a
whole lot else, passed over her face. “Or me. Or probably Mom, or his employees
or colleagues. It was really intimidating to me. I wish I could be more
impulsive, but instead I’m totally conditioned to think, ‘Wait—is this wrong?
Will I regret whatever’s about to come out of my mouth?’” Her shoulders slumped.
“It’s why I suck at lying, no matter how hard I try.”

He gave her a squeeze. “
Not
a bad
quality.”

Her lower lip got sulky. “I suppose not, but it’s aggravating
sometimes.”

Troy laughed at her. “I can just see you someday, trying to
teach your kid to lie so she won’t be as lousy at it as you are.”

Madison’s giggle satisfied him. But damn! He’d barely stopped
himself from saying
our
kid. In that moment, he’d
even seen her, small, perched on a chair, earnestly listening to her mommy, her
chin gently rounded, her forehead a high, curving arch, her eyes big and brown.
A little Madison. Not only Madison’s little girl, but his, too.

Maybe he should be freaked, but he wasn’t. Looking at the woman
beside him, he wanted her to be his future, his family.

The words
I love you
almost came
out, but somehow he stopped them. He had to be sure all this emotion having to
do with their respective parents wasn’t skewing how he felt about her. And then
there was the threat that hung over them both.

This wasn’t the first time the fear that he might end up
arresting her father for murder and putting him away for years had interfered
with the function of his heart muscle. The pain, he suspected, felt a lot like
angina, but was untreatable.

“I’d better get back to work,” he said abruptly, hearing
harshness in his voice as he bent to grab the cup on the ground in order to miss
seeing surprise or hurt in Madison’s eyes.

“Me, too.” Her tone held only dignity as she rose to her
feet.

Repentant, he straightened and met her steady gaze.

“Have you talked to your mother yet?” she asked.

He came close to squirming. “Uh...I left her a message the
other day.”

“Troy.”

“I’ll stop by tonight to see her. Is that good enough?”

A tiny smile flickered on her mouth as she started out beside
him. “Your mother, your conscience.”

“Oh, thanks,” he muttered, disgruntled and feeling guilty that
he’d needed a prod.

She laughed, which meant that after they parted at the foot of
the wide granite step in front of Mem, he was smiling, but also feeling some
more of those twinges in his chest.

CHAPTER TWELVE

B
Y
THE
TIME
he got out of his
vehicle in front of his mother’s house, Troy had added several new layers onto
his guilt.

His father would have expected him to take care of his mother.
Dad would be disappointed in him, Troy knew. Even shocked because his adult son,
the cop, had been too busy sulking to think about what Mom was feeling.
Suffering
.

Troy was ashamed to admit it had been all about him. His way of
handling grief was to ignore it. But she’d become lost in it. He had to wonder,
in retrospect, if he hadn’t been oblivious to what was happening with Mom
because he’d become impatient with her.
She’s getting
groceries delivered now? Great. One less thing I have to do.
How else
could he have missed seeing something so obvious?

How long had it been since she’d stepped foot off her property?
Three months? Six? Since Dad’s funeral? Troy didn’t know.

He rang the doorbell and waited on the doorstep, uneasy. How
often did Mom even
see
other people? Talk to them?
She could have a heart attack herself—
she could kill
herself
—and no one would notice for one hell of a long time.

He grabbed his key ring and was about to let himself in when he
heard her fumbling with the lock and then the door opened.

“Troy!” His mother’s hair was disheveled and she looked older
than he was used to seeing her. Because he hadn’t given her warning, and
therefore she hadn’t fussed with makeup. “I didn’t expect you.”

“Sorry, I should have called,” he said, without meaning it.
“Are you okay, Mom?”

“Of course I am. I was just waking up from a nap.” She
hesitated then smiled tentatively. “Would you like to come in?”

“Thanks.” Scraping clean soles on the mat and stepping over the
threshold, he felt uncomfortably like a guest. This was
home.
Why did he ring the doorbell in the first place instead of
letting himself in?

No easy answer came to him. It had something to do with losing
Dad, but he couldn’t delve into any more emotional crap of his own right now.
This visit was about Mom. He thought about Madison, her clear-eyed truth and
compassion, to give himself confidence. Troy was a little surprised to find it
worked.

“I haven’t started dinner yet,” his mother began.

“Why don’t I order a pizza? We haven’t done that in a long
time.”

Her face brightened. “I could put together a salad.”

“Excellent.” He smiled, took a long stride to her and kissed
her cheek. “I was a jerk last week. I’m sorry,” he added simply.

Tears filled her eyes. “You had reason to be upset with your
dad and me. I understood.”

He nodded. “No reason to talk about that anymore.”

Her eyes narrowed on him, and he was reminded that she
was
his mom. “That doesn’t sound like you. When you
think you’re right, you never quit.”

Troy laughed. “I’m not quitting. By God, I’m going to find out
who killed Mitchell King.” Until he heard his own unyielding voice, he hadn’t
realized how determined he was, although he shouldn’t be surprised. Stubborn was
his middle name. In this case, though, he’d been so focused on his initial
goal—finding out whether Madison’s dad had anything to do with the crime—that
he’d missed the moment he shifted to a larger goal. He didn’t even know why he
was so damn determined. King wasn’t likable, as far as victims went. In fact, he
was a sleaze. The killer had reason to be enraged.

In general, the crime wasn’t so different from most urban
murders involving drug dealing or gangs. Nobody was sympathetic. A detective
didn’t need to like anyone to do his job.

This one was different, though, and Troy knew why without
digging deep. It was his father’s involvement. Dad had known the victim. Been
good friends with Laclaire. As a senior, he’d have known almost everyone with
whom Troy had so far spoken.

More than that, Troy wanted to know that Dad’s choice of
friendship over citizenship hadn’t allowed a murderer to walk free. Too many
people had been haunted by the unsolved murder. It was time to lay it to
rest.

He ordered the pizza and watched as Mom made a salad that was
fancier than anything he would have bothered with at home. He got out a soda for
her and a beer for himself, because it was there, the brand he bought on the
rare occasions when he drank, and he realized she’d been keeping it in the
refrigerator for him.

They started on the salads while they waited for the pizza. Mom
asked about Madison, and he told her more than he’d actually intended, about the
sad girl she’d been and the charming, brave, smart woman she was.

“I can show you a picture,” he offered. “I took one with my
phone the other day without her noticing.”

He pulled it up and handed his phone over the table so his
mother could see. He’d gotten lucky, capturing Madison smiling at someone else.
She was in profile, her dark hair tucked behind her ears, that tiny dimple
beside her mouth in evidence.

“Oh, she’s lovely,” his mother said softly.

“Yeah.” He had to clear his throat. “She is.”

“Does she know...?”

“That I’m investigating her dad? Yeah. She understands. If I
have to arrest him, though...” He discovered he was hunching his shoulders and
had to consciously relax them. “That wouldn’t be so good.”

Mom nodded. “I’d like to meet her.”

“Soon,” he promised. “Mom...”

The doorbell rang.

When she started to rise, he shook his head at her and went to
pay. He brought the box back, opening it in the middle of the table. Mom, of
course, had produced plates and napkins and even forks and knives, although he
was pleased to see that after watching his example—grab and eat—she didn’t
bother with fork and knife, either.

He wondered if she was bracing herself for the conversation
they both knew they had to have, or whether she was in deep denial. Despite that
underlying tension, talking to her felt easier than it had in some time. Maybe
the blowup had unlocked something. At the very least, it had revealed to him
anger and frustration with her he hadn’t let himself admit he felt.

When she declared she’d eaten enough, he flipped the lid of the
pizza box closed and sat back.

“You know you need counseling,” he said flatly, but with an
effort at gentleness.

Rebellion flared on her face. “You’re creating a problem where
there isn’t one.”

“When’s the last time you left the house?”

Her mouth pinched.

“Drove yourself anywhere?” he continued inexorably. “Even took
a real walk?”

“I’m managing nicely.”

“Holed up here at home.”

“Why does that offend you?” she asked tightly.

Troy leaned forward and rested his elbows on the table. “It
doesn’t. It worries me. That’s not the same thing. How often do you see friends,
Mom? At first they’re okay dropping by the house, but eventually they’ll be
insulted if you aren’t willing to come over for dinner or meet them downtown for
lunch. Remember the walks you and Dad took almost every evening? He’s not here,
but a part of him would still be walking beside you if you’d only go.”

Her face began to crumple. He felt cruel, but made himself keep
going.

“You’re living half a life, stuck on one city lot. You’re a
reader—when’s the last time you went to the library? And—” These words caught in
his throat. “What about me, Mom? Are you not going to come to my wedding? To be
there for my wife if she needs you when our children are born?”

His mother was openly crying.

He swore and pushed back his chair, circling the table to bend
and wrap his arms around her. “God, I’m sorry, Mom.” His voice was hoarse. “But
this had to be said. You know it did.”

She wept, and he held her.

* * *

M
ADISON
HAD
LISTENED
in
silence. “It was a start,” she said finally, when he’d wound down.

“I don’t know. All she said was that she would think about
counseling.”

She laughed a little, shaking her head. “You wanted her to pick
up the phone and make an appointment, preferably for 8:00 a.m. this
morning.”

“You’re making fun of me,” Troy accused her, suppressing his
own smile.

“Yes, I am. Give your mother time to, er, work up her
nerve.”

“Or chicken out,” he muttered.

They sat on the flat rim of the fountain in the courtyard
outside McKenna Sports Center. The same fountain where Joe Troyer had waited,
irritation growing, thirty-five years ago for Guy to show up.

Troy was not here as part of his investigation. When he’d
suggested dinner tonight, Madison had persuaded him to go swimming with her.

“I haven’t been getting enough exercise,” she’d said firmly.
“All you and I do together is eat.”

He wasn’t a great swimmer. She scoffed at his suggestion he
meet her here after she swam. He might have persisted except for one thing she
said.

“You sound like my father. You don’t want to do anything you’re
not really good at.”

It wasn’t even the words so much as her tone of voice that
convinced him. Troy knew one thing, no ambivalence: he didn’t want to be like
her father in any way that made her sound like that.

So he sat there, gym bag at his feet, prepared to make a fool
of himself if necessary to prove that he was man enough to display his
incompetence in front of the woman he loved.

“You’ll feel better after a swim,” Madison informed him, and
stood up.

Reluctant, he followed her. Inside, she signed them in at the
counter and pointed out the door to the men’s locker room before looking
chagrined when she presumably remembered he was well acquainted with this
building.

It actually felt kind of strange to walk in, choose a locker
and open it with a metallic clang, then start to undress in the middle of what
he thought of as a crime scene. He could see the showers at the end of the
aisle; the sauna was barely out of his line of sight. The place was, at least
temporarily, deserted, which gave it that hollow, echoing feel. He had to keep
reminding himself the crime was a very old one. He knew for a fact that
investigators at the time had all but gutted the sauna in their search for trace
evidence and blood that wasn’t Mitch King’s. The college would have finished
gutting the room and built it fresh. No one would have wanted to look at the
bench and wonder whether those boards had only been scrubbed clean. Troy
wondered how often the sauna had been used until a crop of new students arrived
the following year.

Wearing swim trunks, he reluctantly went into the pool area.
The water lay placid; the only other person in here was a bored lifeguard
sitting on a bench to one side of the pool, a textbook open on his lap. He
barely glanced up before returning to his reading. This was dinnertime in the
residence halls, Troy realized. No wonder he and Madison had the place to
themselves.

He dropped his towel on a bench and even more reluctantly
approached the edge. Behind him he heard the creak of a door and turned to see
Madison walking across the deck toward him. The sight of her sucked the air
right out of his lungs.

Her suit was her favorite fire-engine red, thin and as
formfitting as a second skin. So snug, in fact, that the fabric tried, not very
successfully, to flatten her generous breasts. It was a one-piece, high in front
and leaving her shoulders free. The legs were cut well up on her luscious
hips.

Troy was almost struck dumb.

“You’re beautiful,” he blurted hoarsely when she got close
enough.

“I...um... Thank you.”

He finally dragged his gaze up to see that her face was pink
and
she
was either being shy and not meeting his
eyes—or was fixated on his chest. Which she had yet to see bare, he
realized.

“Um...shall we?” Madison fluttered a hand toward the pool.

He pulled himself together with an enormous effort. “We could
call it good and just go to dinner,” he suggested.

Madison giggled. “Not a chance.”

She took the couple of steps to the pool ahead of him, giving
him a too-brief opportunity to ogle her spectacular ass. Then, without pausing,
she dove in, cutting the water’s surface smoothly.

Well, shit, he thought, reminded how desperately he’d hated
having to dive during those long-ago, torturous swim lessons his mother had
insisted on. Since he’d panicked every time, he had mostly belly-flopped. He’d
gotten his certificate as an Intermediate swimmer, but barely. On the skill
level chart, the check for “Diving” had been in the “Needs Improvement” box.
Troy persuaded his mother thereafter that he swam well enough to be safe in the
water and she’d surrendered, agreeing that he didn’t need to take any more
lessons.

At the moment, he kind of wished she’d subjected him to another
summer of them.

Madison had surfaced halfway down the pool and turned to look
at him. Her dark hair, captured in a ponytail, was slicked to her head, making
the curve of her forehead more obvious and letting her eyes dominate her
face.

He jumped in. Not quite a cannonball, but there was plenty of
splashing. Damn it, he still didn’t much like water in his eyes.

Laughing, she swam back to him with an easy head-up crawl
stroke. “Doesn’t the water feel good?” she called before she reached him.

“Sure. Great.” Then he grinned. Actually, it did feel good.
He’d been overheated all day, and the water was cool without being cold as it
slipped over his skin. He bent forward and dunked his head then straightened and
flipped his hair back. “You can swim laps if you want,” he said hopefully.

“Oh, I might do a few.” She smiled at him. “But first I want to
see
you
swim.”

“It’s not a pretty sight,” Troy warned her.