The Only Child
The Only Child
Carolyn McSparren
Family Man"The Only Child is beautifully written, wonderfully rich, totally satisfying."–Debra Dixon, award-winning authorA Child Is Missing…Logan MacMillan hasn't seen his granddaughter, Dulcy, since the toddler was snatched by her fugitive mother three years ago. Logan never gave up hope of finding her until the moment his private investigator handed him a death certificate for a little girl named Dulcy MacMillan.A Child Is Found!Molly Halliday knows that the death certificate can't be Dulcy's. But Logan doesn't trust her. The woman lives in a fantasy world–she makes dolls for a living! However, Logan has to admit that one of her dolls looks exactly like his computer portrait of Dulcy as a five-year-old. And Molly modeled that doll on a child she saw less than a year ago.Join Logan and Molly as they search for Dulcy–and find much, much more than they bargained for."The Only Child is beautifully written, wonderfully rich, totally satisfying. What more could a reader want? Carolyn McSparren is a terrific, talented newcomer who has a gift for finding the emotional compass of a story." – Debra Dixon, award-winning author of Bad to the Bone and Doc Holliday
Table of Contents
Cover Page (#ue18b3b24-a3a7-5a66-b250-aa156e2a509f)
Excerpt (#u1f6d2f93-e1b0-5496-b987-542e47113ec8)
ABOUT THE AUTHOR (#u499aff3c-1dca-5823-9a99-8bd4ea4023a1)
Title Page (#u7465759c-4bdc-56c5-bfff-5aed45622c9e)
Dedication (#uec237d26-38cd-539c-88a5-9ae2f24f17a4)
CHAPTER 1 (#uc4e0d07f-da57-5922-9976-d7dc6598f933)
CHAPTER 2 (#u6b5289d3-9086-570d-91e1-cf9935a5d38f)
CHAPTER 3 (#u749cd328-84eb-5baf-aab0-a47ee8dd5ca6)
CHAPTER 4 (#u0499a4eb-9ebf-58a8-b89a-0f2616075e38)
CHAPTER 5 (#u97c7d5dc-cb57-544e-9a36-952a4ca2080f)
CHAPTER 6 (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 7 (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 8 (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 9 (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 10 (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 11 (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 12 (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 13 (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 14 (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 15 (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 16 (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 17 (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 18 (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 19 (#litres_trial_promo)
EPILOGUE (#litres_trial_promo)
Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
“Why won’t My Molly marry us?”
Dulcy’s voice broke—and Logan thought his heart would, too. “Is it because of me?” she asked.
“No, Dulcy,” he said. “It’s not because of you. Molly loves you very much. It’s because of me.”
“Maybe you asked her wrong.”
Logan smiled grimly. “Maybe I did”
“So ask her right and then she’ll marry us.” Dulcy nodded her head as though encouraging him to agree with her. She was like a teacher coaching a really slow student.
“I’ll try, but I can’t guarantee she’ll say yes. But I’ll work out something so you and I can be happy. Just give me a chance, Dulcy. I’m not so bad.
The child cocked her head, assessing him, then she sighed like a grown-up and walked slowly over to lean against his knees. She patted his arm gently. “Don’t be sad, Grandfather Logan, okay? I know you aren’t bad.” She nodded several times as though adding up a column of figures in her head.
“You found me, that’s good. You gave me my Dulcy doll, that’s also good. You found me again when I got lost in the airport. And you slept on the floor next to my bed so I wouldn’t be scared when I woke up. That’s all good” She nodded once more and smiled up at him. “Okay?”
Logan didn’t think he could take much more without breaking down completely. I can do it, he told himself firmly. If I have to, I can raise this child alone, but God in Heaven, I don’t want to. Oh, Molly, I need you! We need you. Where are you?
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
The Only Child—a finalist in the RWA’s 1995 Golden Heart Awards—is Carolyn McSparren’s first published novel. However, this talented writer has written poems and magazine articles for many years. She’s always loved romantic mysteries, but not until a friend took her to a local RWA (Romance Writers of America) chapter did she begin to write romance fiction.
Carolyn has lived in Germany, France, Italy “and too many cities in the U.S. to count In my checkered career,” she says, “I’ve sailed boats and raised horses. I’ve been a horse-show momma for my daughter, who is now grown and married.”
Carolyn now lives in the country outside Memphis, Tennessee, in an old house with three dogs, three cats, two horses and one husband—”not necessarily in order of importance.”
The Only Child
Carolyn McSparren
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
For Martha Shields and Amelia Bomar, who stuck with me from the beginning, and for Zilla Soriano, a fine editor.
Thanks also to Alix Sullivan, a real doll lady, for sharing her technical expertise.
CHAPTER ONE (#ulink_8444fe8f-7d96-5c93-a197-f88fc3c75c5d)
MOLLY HALLIDAY DROVE her hands through her hair, picked up her scalpel and spoke to the grinning head on the table. “All right, Quentin Charles Dillahunt the Third, if you don’t help me get your eyebrows right you’re going to wind up in the slag heap.”
The small bisque head leered back through empty eye sockets as Molly began to carve tiny chunks from the moist unfired clay. Feathery eyebrows emerged bit by bit.
“Where are you attaching the horns?” Sherry Carpenter asked, glancing up from the doll magazine in her lap.
Molly grinned and kept working. “The real Quentin’s only four years old. What’s he ever done to you?”
“Not me. He tried to bite my niece Sarah’s ear off last winter. He’s a Little demon. You’re making him look downright angelic.”
“Mrs. Dillahunt, Senior, commissioned this portrait doll,” she told Sherry. “Another Memphis grandparent who thinks her grandkid is an angel. Thank God, I do my commissions from photographs. I don’t have to put up with Quentin in real life.”
Sherry unfolded from the bentwood rocker and smoothed down her immaculate slacks. “You’d better put that thing away. Zoe and Logan MacMillan will be here any minute.”
Molly checked her watch. “They’re not due for twenty minutes.”
“They may be early.”
“Give me five minutes. I really need to finish these eyebrows. I’m a week behind on my commissions, and I don’t get paid the rest of my fee until I deliver the finished doll.” Her hand rested momentarily on the head and she frowned over at her friend. “Besides, how come Logan MacMillan has to approve my deal with MacMillan’s? I thought Zoe ran the store.”
Sherry shoved a large ginger cat off a nest of magazines on the work counter and began to organize them into a neat stack. “She does, but her father actually owns it. Usually, he simply rubber-stamps her decisions, only this time he didn’t.”
“Well, he should have. My dolls will sell very well in MacMillan’s.”
“I know that, you know that, Zoe knows that. We just have to convince Logan.”
“Have to is right.” Molly waved a hand at the room. “I went two thousand dollars over budget building this darned workshop. I need some more outlets for my dolls fast if I’m going to pay the bills and have enough left over for frivolous stuff like food.”
“You had to build it, Molly. The dolls were taking over every flat surface in your house. Visiting you was like walking into a deli for very small cannibals.” Sherry wrinkled her nose. “Not to mention the dust.”
Molly bent to get a better view of Quentin’s forehead. “I know, I know. I needed the workshop, I needed the showroom, I even needed the reception room. It all seemed so essential. Now I wish I’d made do with a little less space.” She squinted at Quentin and ran her thumb along his cheekbone, lifting it a millimeter and rounding it off slightly. “I love making these critters, but, Lord, do I hate having to deal with professional store-buyers. Scares me to death. Thanks for giving me moral support. Now tell me a little about Mr. MacMillan.”
“He used to be one of those international construction engineers—you know, build a bridge in Tanzania, a dam in Brazil, then home for a month and off to build a plant in Costa Rica.”
“Somehow I can’t visualize Zoe growing up in a mud hut.”
Sherry laughed. “She didn’t. When I met her mother, Sydney, in college I knew we were kindred spirits—anything less than a four-star hotel was roughing it. Sydney turned that old mansion into MacMillan’s and converted the third floor into a chic apartment. That’s where Zoe grew up. Sydney died a couple of years ago, but Logan still lives there. He’s semi-retired. I guess he didn’t see any reason to move.”
“Is Zoe an only child?”
Sherry hesitated. “She had a younger brother named Jeremy. He was killed in an automobile accident. You were divorcing Harry about that time or you would have seen it in the papers. Big scandal. Jeremy’s wife, Tiffany, was driving. They were both very, very drunk. She didn’t get a scratch.”
“Lord, Sherry, how awful.”
“It gets worse. Tiffany was convicted of vehicular homicide, but before she could be sentenced, she ran away and took her baby with her. Sydney died about a year after that. Officially, it was emphysema. I think it was a broken heart.”
“Poor Zoe. I guess you never know what kind of trouble people carry around with them.” Molly opened the drawer beside her, cleaned her scalpel and put it away. Then she picked up a smaller one and held it up to the light. “I’m glad she and Rick got married. He’s a nice man.”
Sherry glanced at the round kitchen clock that hung on the wall beside the door to the showroom, and laid five red-tipped fingers on Molly’s arm. “Molly, you better put that head away this minute and take a look at yourself.” She pulled a small mirror across the counter and positioned it in front of Molly’s face.
“Oh, good grief. I look like I’m wearing a powdered wig. Why didn’t you tell me my hands look like something from the mummy’s curse?”
“I’ve been trying to spiff you up since that first day in the tenth grade when you walked into my homeroom. You’re my oldest and dearest friend. I’m happy if you stay one step ahead of the fashion police.”
At that moment the alarm bell from the end of the driveway sounded twice followed closely by the crunch of gravel signifying a vehicle in the parking area at the top of the hill. “Damn, they are early. I hate it when you’re right.”
She grabbed a wet towel, swathed the bisque head, stuffed it in the small refrigerator under the counter, then slid the unused scalpel back into the drawer under her worktable. She rubbed the end of her nose fiercely and unhooked her bare feet from the rungs of her stool. “For Pete’s sake, Sherry, help me find my shoes!”
LOGAN MACMILLAN pulled his black BMW into the parking area beside his daughter’s red Saturn, turned off the engine and listened to a silence so profound, he might have been plunged back into the Brazilian rain forest The vegetation was different, of course, but this place felt equally isolated. They might be a thousand miles from civilization, instead of twenty-five or thirty miles from the city.
Why would this Halliday woman choose to live and work in such isolation? Despite his daughter’s protest, he was glad he’d decided to come today. Zoe always accused him of not trusting her decisions, but all he wanted was to give her the benefit of his business expertise. She was developing a fine reputation as an interior designer. A wrong choice now could set her back professionally. Besides, assuming he agreed that Mrs. Halliday’s dolls belonged in MacMillan’s, he felt certain he could get Zoe a better deal than she could hope to negotiate on her own.
Zoe didn’t wait for him. She strode down a gravel path to the left of a log house. Logan glimpsed a rectangular metal building among the pines down the hill. That must be the workshop.
“We’re early,” he called to his daughter’s retreating back. The cool look she threw him over her shoulder told him her mood hadn’t improved. Zoe had refused even to discuss their impending visit. He was going in blind and he didn’t like the sensation. Still, he’d do his best to make certain she came out ahead. He owed her that. She might not believe him, but her happiness was all he cared about.
MOLLY SQUARED her shoulders, pasted what she hoped was a welcoming smile on her face and opened the door to the front room of her workshop.
“Zoe,” she said. “Welcome.”
Zoe leaned forward and shook Molly’s hand, then stood aside. “Mrs. Halliday, this is my father. Logan MacMillan.”
Molly took a deep breath to quell the butterflies in her stomach and extended her hand. He had a strong handshake, but he didn’t try to break her fingers the way some men did. She could feel his long fingers winding around hers.
Then she remembered the dust on her hands. He glanced at his palm. She groaned inwardly as he frowned and rubbed his palms together. Familiar insecurity washed over her.
“Please come in, Mr. MacMillan,” Molly said. She looked down to see Elvis, the ginger cat, undulate around MacMillan’s ankles. She hoped the man wasn’t allergic to cat hair because he was going to take plenty of it home on his slacks.
He stood a good six inches taller than Molly, but probably didn’t weigh five pounds more than she did. There was not an ounce of fat on him. His face was deeply tanned and lined like a granite outcropping at the edge of the Arizona desert. His steel-gray hair was cut short. His equally steely eyes seemed to be set for longrange viewing—great vistas, massive creations of concrete. He’d have difficulty adjusting his sight to look at dolls.
He walked in warily.
“Sit down a minute, Logan,” Sherry said, nodding toward the Victorian love seat to the left of the door to Molly’s showroom. “You all need to get to know one another before you talk business.”
He glanced at his watch. “I don’t want to impose on Mrs. Halliday’s time.”
Zoe snorted, then she sat as far away from her father as she could. Sherry perched on a French side chair and smiled.
Molly pulled up her old rocking chair and sat with her feet curled under her. MacMillan waited politely until she was settled, then perched cautiously on the edge of the sofa as though he were afraid it might collapse under his weight.
“I must admit I’m a little confused, Mr. MacMillan,” Molly said. Elvis jumped onto her lap, walked around in a circle and collapsed in a heap. She scratched his ears; he purred softly. “I’ve been trying for several years to find a good outlet for my dolls in town, and when Zoe said she’d like to carry them in MacMillan’s I thought we had a done deal.”
“Before this afternoon is over, it may well be,” MacMillan told her.
Zoe moved restively on the sofa. Molly glanced at her. The young woman sat with her arms crossed tight across her chest.
Logan also looked at his daughter as he addressed Molly. “Zoe tells me that your dolls are extraordinary and would sell well at MacMillan’s. I’m sure you’ll convince me she’s right. She generally is.” He smiled a kind, sad smile that softened the hard planes of his face.
Zoe raised her eyebrows, but said nothing.
“Actually, you should thank Rick,” Molly said. “He saw the dolls when he came out to do the plumbing on the workshop and dragged Zoe back to look at them.”
Again he flashed her that smile. Molly felt a jolt. This guy could be really dangerous. Too attractive for his own good. Or hers.
“Tell him about the shops that carry your dolls,” Sherry prompted.
“Sure.” Molly ticked off her fingers. “Let’s see, Andreotti in Atlanta handles my dolls, so does Minou et Cie in Brussels, and I’ve just started shipping to Belisarius in Los Angeles. They’re all doing very well with them. MacMillan’s would fit right in.”
“Surely a toy store would be a more appropriate outlet. Why an interior design house?”
“These dolls aren’t toys,” Zoe said. “I told you that.”
“Let me show you,” Molly said. “Wait right here.” She opened the door to the showroom, slipped through and returned a moment later carrying a life-size doll—a little girl in a pale blue party dress and Belgian lace.
Zoe turned to her father. “You see?”
Molly held the doll out to MacMillan, who raised his hands and shook his head as though she were handing him a ticking time bomb. “No thank you. I’d rather not touch it. I break things. But she’s beautiful.”
“Thank you. She’s a portrait doll.”
“What are portrait dolls?”
“People commission me to sculpt dolls that look like their children or grandchildren. They tell me it’s better than a regular portrait or even a statue. Some of them, like this one, are life-size.”
“And expensive?”
“Up to six or seven thousand dollars.”
“You can actually sell dolls for that kind of money?” MacMillan asked, and ran a hand along his jaw. “I don’t know enough to make an educated decision.”
Zoe stood up abruptly. “But I do. That’s the point, isn’t it? In addition to the portrait dolls, Mrs. Halliday also designs and sculpts her own. And she makes beautiful copies of antique dolls. I know we could sell them in MacMillan’s.” She turned to Molly. “Thank you, Mrs. Halliday. I have another meeting at the shop. My father can conclude the negotiations. Supposedly that’s what he came for. Nice to see you, Mrs. Carpenter.” She walked to the front door and opened it.
“Zoe,” Logan called after her.
She kept going. She didn’t quite slam the door after herself, but she certainly closed it with a snap.
“Should I go after her?” Molly said.
Logan sat back on the couch and shook his head. “Sorry about that. Zoe resents what she perceives as my interference, but with an investment of this magnitude…”
“Investment?” Molly said. “You’re getting the dolls on consignment, didn’t Zoe explain that?”
“Consignment? Zoe neglected to mention that. I assumed she was buying them wholesale.” He realized with a sinking sensation that Zoe had deliberately set him up. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Halliday. I misunderstood.” He stood and began to move toward the door.
“Whoa! Not so fast.” Molly laughed. She had to do something to lighten the atmosphere. “You came to see dolls, and by gosh, you’re stuck with them. Come on, Mr. MacMillan, you are going to see enough dolls to last you a lifetime.”
Sherry tucked her hand under MacMillan’s arm. “Don’t worry, Logan, unlike real children, they don’t bite.”
Molly opened the French doors at the back of the room and turned on the lights. She and Sherry hung back. MacMillan stood transfixed in the doorway.
Dolls in satin and lace rode in wicker carriages and antique sleighs; Native American dolls in beaded buckskin sat astride miniature ponies; Irish colleens in tartan shawls swung milk pails; baby dolls slept in bassinets; on a center table smaller dolls played jacks or snuggled under receiving blankets. Around the perimeter of the room, waist-high Victorian ladies nodded to nearly life-size portrait dolls of toddlers and young children dressed in everything from Belgian lace to jeans and cowboy boots.
MacMillan began to work his way methodically around the room as though he were in a museum. He kept his hands carefully clasped behind him. Molly understood. For a man who broke things, the showroom was a disaster waiting to happen.
“How’s the experiment with the vinyl going?” Sherry whispered.
Molly held up crossed fingers. “Great. I’ve cast a couple of my favorites and one of the big toy companies is definitely interested in mass-producing them. I never planned to go commercial, but the money’s too good to pass up.”
“Which ones did you pick?”
“The Jeannette doll—you’ve already got one of her. Then a new one I don’t think you’ve seen. The Dulcy doll is the one right in front of Mr. MacMillan.”
Sherry gasped and stared at MacMillan’s broad back.
Molly saw him stiffen like a bird dog on point.
Suddenly, he reached forward and grabbed the very doll she’d been talking about by its arm. He whirled to face them. As the doll swung, its right leg hit the edge of the table and shattered. Shards of bisque rained onto the table and floor. Without a word, MacMillan grasped the doll around its body and held it up so that both women could look into its face. Sherry moaned softly, “It can’t be.”
Molly felt her scalp tighten. MacMillan’s face was stony, his eyes hard and flat.
He threw the doll onto the table so hard that the crown of its head shattered. Two gray eyeballs flew out and rolled across the tile floor. Without a word he pushed past the two women, through the reception room and out the front door. They heard his footsteps as he ran up the path, heard his car door open then slam, the engine roar into life, and a moment later the gate alarm pealed as he drove into the road and away.
As the sound died, Molly reached out and picked up the broken doll from the table. She cradled it in her arms and turned to Sherry. “What on earth just happened here?”
Sherry sagged against the doorjamb as though her legs wouldn’t support her. “Molly, have you made any other dolls using that mold?”
“I told you, that’s one of the two I cast in vinyl.”
“Where is the other one?”
“In the workroom. I haven’t finished painting her face yet.”
“Go get her. Bring her here.”
Molly opened her mouth as if to argue. Then shrugged and went out.
A moment later, Molly returned from the workshop carrying a large doll loosely wrapped in brown paper. She unwrapped it and laid it naked on the table.
Sherry gasped. “Oh, Lord, it’s uncanny!”
“For Pete’s sake, Sherry, what?”
“Remember I told you that Logan’s daughter-in-law took her baby and disappeared? The little girl was named Dulcy.”
“Poor MacMillan! But I don’t think he heard me say her name. You and I were both whispering. And surely just a name wouldn’t be enough to set him off like that.”
Sherry looked into Molly’s eyes. “Molly, that doll you call the Dulcy doll—that’s the spitting image of Logan’s Dulcy, the way she’d look now.”
Molly felt the hackles rise on the back of her neck. “Noway.”
But Sherry wasn’t listening to her. She was off in some reverie of her own. “Rick and Zoe loved that child so much. Why didn’t they recognize the doll, too? I did.”
“They didn’t see her is why,” Molly said practically. “I was using my bathroom sink to cast the vinyl head while Rick finished plumbing the workshop. The Dulcy doll was there so I could refer to her if I needed to. I just got her dressed and back down to the workshop today.” She shook her head. “Specially for MacMillan and Zoe. My timing is as flawless as ever.”
“My God, just think how awful it would be if they saw a thousand of her sitting around in some toy store next Christmas!”
“Wouldn’t happen. These two are perfect likenesses, but if the company mass-produces them, I’ll give them a more generic prototype. The new doll won’t look like the little girl who disappeared.”
“Molly—she did more than disappear. Dulcy MacMillan has been dead for two years.”
Molly stared at Sherry.
“That’s impossible! She was alive and well a year ago when I modeled the doll.”
LOGAN MACMILLAN CAME to his senses five miles down the country road, barely in time to avoid a head-on collision with a pickup truck. He braked, swerved and wound up on the verge of a six-foot ditch. The other driver honked in irritation.
After his breathing returned to normal, Logan turned off the engine, climbed out of the car and slammed the door behind him. He picked up a softball-size stone from the shoulder and threw it underhand as hard and as far as he could. It splashed in a cow pond fifty feet away.
Funny that he could still pitch. The last time he pitched to Jeremy, his son was ten. Logan had been home between jobs for a full four months that time.
He wiped his muddy hands down the sides of his jacket and grimaced. He’d always been so certain that sooner or later he and Jeremy would be able to spend time together, to catch up on all those years they’d been apart. How wrong he’d been.
He needed to hit something, so he punched the BMW with both fists hard enough to leave a dent. Pain radiated to his shoulders. His car insurance would probably skyrocket. The hell with it. He was beginning to feel a little better.
He tore open his tie, and yanked at his collar until the button popped.
Suddenly, his adrenaline bottomed out. He walked around to the driver’s side, slid in and turned on the ignition, then the heater. He had been in shock before and knew he was close again. As warm air flooded from the vents, he closed his eyes and fought for control. Much as he longed to put Molly Halliday and her dolls out of his mind he couldn’t. He’d have to drive back, apologize, pay for the doll and find out how she came to create such a bizarre likeness.
He didn’t believe it was a coincidence that the doll named Dulcy was an exact likeness to the image the computer had made of how his granddaughter would have looked.
If she had lived.
CHAPTER TWO (#ulink_1e9c7793-5d26-5ee2-9370-a309c92188a0)
MOLLY STOOD under a steaming shower, scrubbed her hair and body, then let the water course over her shoulders until it started to chill. She could feel the tension in her knotted muscles begin to ease. All in all, this had been some afternoon. What had started out as a simple showing for Zoe MacMillan had deteriorated into a Greek tragedy with Zoe’s father, Logan, as the tragic hero. Molly didn’t understand what had happened, but she planned to, for her own peace of mind, if for no other reason. She toweled her hair, and because she still had to feed the animals in the chill evening September air, blew it dry—something she seldom took the time to do.
She pulled on a pair of clean jeans and a teal blue turtleneck sweater, dug her windbreaker out from under a pile of flea-market clothes from which she intended to make dresses for her newest dolls and went out to the barn where Eeyore, the Sicilian donkey, and Maxie, her granddaughter’s pony, waited impatiently for her.
She dumped sweet feed in Eeyore’s and Maxie’s buckets, then tossed them a couple of flakes of hay. She scooped up corn to throw to the five geese that clambered honking out of the pond when they saw her coming and waddled toward her at breakneck speed, their necks stretched out so far, it was a wonder they didn’t tip over.
She flung the corn as far from her as she could. If she dropped it at her feet, they’d crash into her like bumper cars.
Absentmindedly, she put the feed away, hung up the scoop and strolled back to the house to fix herself a sandwich.
In the kitchen she sniffed basil and fresh mint from the pots on the windowsill. The wet-concrete odor of damp bisque was finally gone from the house together with the last of the dust. Her ex-husband, Harry, had hated the mess. In fact, he’d probably divorced her because of the dolls.
Molly poured herself a glass of iced tea and twisted a sprig of mint into it, enjoying the quiet. Sherry often teased her about being a hermit, but Molly did not regret for one moment spending most of her divorce settlement to buy her woods and pasture, to build her log house and barn. She never wanted to go to another fancy corporate function again, if she lived to be a hundred.
How could she ever have guessed when she let Sherry con her into taking that first doll-making class that she would find her life’s work? She was content for the first time in her life, and never lonely. Sherry dropped in four or five times a week. Molly’s clients loved coming out to see her. Her daughter, Anne, brought her granddaughter, Elizabeth, by nearly every day after school to ride her pony. Molly still missed her volunteer work at the Abused Children’s Center, but there wasn’t time, not if she expected to make a living. Funny that she’d started volunteering because Harry said she had to do something charitable to make him look good at his firm.
Molly sipped her tea slowly, so lost in her thoughts that when the doorbell sounded, she jumped a foot. Nobody came up her driveway unannounced. Although a person could walk through the woods to the house and bypass the gate alarm, dense underbrush and snakes tended to discourage walkers.
No, it was more likely that a car had driven up while she’d been in the barn.
The doorbell pealed again. She peeked through the front curtains and saw a black BMW Then she saw MacMillan on the front porch. She felt a stab of alarm. Should she open the door to him?
“Mrs. Halliday,” a deep voice spoke through the door. “I must see you.” It wasn’t so much a request as a command.
Molly sighed. Get the confrontation over with. Maybe she could get an explanation as well.
She opened the door and snapped, “Didn’t you do enough damage on your first raid?” Then, seeing his face, she reached out to him quickly. “You look as though you’ve been rode hard and put away wet,” she said. “You need a drink.”
“Excuse me?” he asked. He seemed to be having trouble focusing his eyes..
He was no longer immaculate. Besides the bisque dust, there was mud on his jacket, his tie was loose, his shirt gaped open at the neck. His hair stood on end as though he’d been driving his hands through it, and his skin had a gray caste that his tan couldn’t quite hide.
“Come into the kitchen,” Molly said, and took his arm. “You need a glass of orange juice, my friend, and you need it quickly.” She shoved him onto a stool, poured a glass of orange juice and ordered, “Drink it before you pass out.”
He peered into the jelly glass as though it held arsenic.
“Do it. It won’t bite you.”
He took a sip, then drank greedily.
“More?”
“Thank you, no.”
“Iced tea then? Or Scotch?”
“Nothing, thank you.” He set the empty glass down carefully. The bar stool put him for the first time almost at eye level with Molly in a room still flooded with western light from the setting sun. He took his first real look at her.
How could he have missed seeing her clearly before? The shock of recognition of her sheer femaleness startled him. He stood and strode back to the relative sanctuary of the front hall.
Molly followed him.
At the door he turned and took his checkbook from his inside jacket pocket. “I’ve come to pay for the doll.”
“I planned to bill you.”
“How much?”
“Fifteen hundred dollars will do. Use my desk.” She pointed at an aged plantation desk inside the living room.
He sat down, wrote the check and handed it to her.
She stuck it into her jeans without looking at it. “Sherry told me what happened. You must understand something, Mr. MacMillan. I am a craftswoman, pure and simple. I’m certainly not clairvoyant. In fact, I do not have a bit of ESP in my entire body.”
This time he did look up, and straight into those amazing blue eyes. They were full of intelligence and compassion. He kept his voice even. “The doll-”
“Please, let me finish. Sherry told me your granddaughter died two years ago. I’m sorry, that is simply not possible.”
This was the last thing Logan expected to hear. He was stunned and then anger began to take over. What right had this madwoman with the teal blue eyes to tell him his granddaughter had not died? He felt his heart begin to speed up. “I assure you, Mrs. Halliday, I have seen her death certificate.”
“I don’t care if you had all nine justices of the Supreme Court testifying to you,” she said. “I don’t make things—children—up. And I certainly don’t pull the names of dead grandchildren out of the air. I name all my dolls. It’s standard in the industry. It’s easier to keep them straight that way and the customers like it.”
“So?”
“So, that doll, the one you smashed this afternoon…I didn’t pull her name out of a hat, either.” Molly sat on a wing chair across from him.
It was as though a ghost had stepped into the room. He looked at the woman before him, noticing that she met his gaze head-on.
He stood up. “Mrs. Halliday, this is obviously some sort of confidence game. I won’t tolerate it.”
“Oh, for Pete’s sake, sit down before you fall down. Hear me out. Do it. There. That’s better.”
“Very well, I will hear you out, but I assure you—”
“Look, when I designed the Dulcy doll—”
“Stop calling her that!” he shouted.
The anguish in his voice took Molly’s breath. “Mr. MacMillan, Logan,” she said gently. “That’s her name. It has always been her name, ever since I saw her and decided to model her.”
She watched his hands curl into fists and hoped he didn’t plan to hit her, but she stood her ground. “I said I saw her and I meant it. Obviously I also heard her name. I told you, I don’t make up children in my mind and then model them. Within the last year, I saw that little girl and heard someone call her Dulcy. Who could forget a name like that?”
“Even if I believed you, what proof have you? Do you take pictures?”
Molly shook her head. “Only when I’m working on commission. Let’s face it, most children look a good deal alike. Shortly after my divorce four years ago I decided I wanted to devote my life to creating dolls, and in the beginning I tried to find a mold that had the same expression and bone structure as the child I was working on, then I either added or subtracted material to make the doll as much like the child as possible. I still use that technique sometimes, but after a while it didn’t satisfy me. I took some sculpture classes and began to sculpt my own molds. The Dulcy doll is my fourth attempt at creating a portrait from scratch, and the only one I’m really proud of!”
“That doesn’t explain…”
“I know. It’s a rather long-winded way to the point, which is that I know Dulcy’s face intimately. In my mind I’ve touched the curve of her cheek, the angle of her eye socket. And I know the Dulcy doll is a perfect reproduction of the child I saw. I have a photographic memory for faces. I may not know where I met you or under what circumstances, but I remember your face. In Dulcy’s case, I remember the name, too. Usually I don’t.”
“For the sake of argument, let’s say that you did see Dulcy somewhere in Memphis, heard someone call her name. She was not quite two when Tiffany ran away with her three years ago.”
Molly relaxed. At least MacMillan was prepared to talk rationally to her now.
“I’m sorry, but I can’t project change on the faces I see. I couldn’t sculpt the way you looked at twenty or the way you’ll look at ninety. The Dulcy I saw was that age, that shape, that size and called by that name. How many Dulcys do you think there are in the United States, Mr…Logan? A few thousand? There is something I don’t understand, by the way. If you haven’t seen your granddaughter since before she was two, why are you so sure that the child I sculpted looks the way she would look?”
“Computer simulation.” Logan leaned forward. “How much did Sherry tell you?”
“She filled me in on as much as she knows.”
“She knows most of it. I guess I owe you an explanation for the rest.”
Molly realized that even that small an admission had cost him dearly. It was clear that he wasn’t used to accounting to anyone.
“When my daughter-in-law, Tiffany, ran away with Dulcy, she was out on bond awaiting sentencing for vehicular homicide. She was probably facing a sentence of five to eight years in prison. Even with good behavior, she’d have served two years, maybe more.”
“Sherry told me about your son’s death.”
A flash of pain crossed MacMillan’s face, but he continued stoically. “My son, Jeremy, wasn’t the only one killed in the wreck. Edward Valdez, a cardiologist, was changing a flat tire when Tiffany hit his car. His family is rich and prominent. They demanded the prosecutor go for the maximum sentence possible. No plea bargains, no lesser charge, no probation or credit for jail time served. They wanted Tiffany’s blood. They would have gotten it.”
“Please, I know this is hard for you…” Molly reached a hand out to touch him. He drew back as though any physical contact would shatter his iron control.
“I have told the story many times since Jeremy was killed, Mrs. Halliday.”
“Doesn’t make it any easier.”
“In an odd way it does. While I’m talking, I can almost convince myself that the entire thing happened to someone else. It’s only afterward that the full force of Jeremy’s death hits me again. Do you have children, Mrs. Halliday?”
Molly nodded. “A daughter, a son-in-law and a granddaughter. I’d go nuts if anything happened to any of them.”
“Unfortunately, I’ve remained sane. Madness might be easier. Did Sherry tell you that Jeremy was an alcoholic?”
Molly nodded and felt a chill as she looked into his eyes, as flat and bleak as an Arctic ice floe.
“My granddaughter, Dulcy, was not even two,” he continued. “Tiffany’s mother is dead, her father has remarried and lives in Spain. At the trial, her lawyer argued that since Tiffany grew up with a drunken mother and an absentee father…” He stopped speaking a moment and closed his eyes. “An absentee father,” he repeated, “she was not responsible. The jury looked at the size of her trust fund and were not impressed by his argument.”
Molly wondered whose side Logan had been on. Most men would feel vengeful for the loss of an only son. She couldn’t tell from that careful voice, that stony face, what Logan felt about his daughter-in-law.
“My wife, Sydney, and I were the obvious ones to take custody of Dulcy,” he went on. “Tiffany signed the custody papers willingly. We made plans to help her get her life back on track after she was paroled.”
“Then why did she run away?”
MacMillan sighed. “I can only guess. I think she couldn’t bear to face us or prison or the world or perhaps most of all, her own guilt. She was used to running away from problems that she couldn’t buy her way out of.”
“But she didn’t leave Dulcy behind.”
“No.”
“You never suspected she planned to leave?”
He shook his head. “She was very careful. All the time we were worrying about how she would survive her prison sentence, she was setting up the mechanism to disappear. She was to be sentenced on Monday. On Friday afternoon, Zoe was baby-sitting Dulcy at the store. When Tiffany came to pick her up, she’d been drinking again, and she and Zoe really got into it. Zoe didn’t want to let her have Dulcy, but couldn’t really stop her. In the end, Rick drove Dulcy and Tiffany home in Tiffany’s car while Zoe followed in theirs. Tiffany swore she wouldn’t drink or drive anymore that night. Zoe and Rick had to be content with that. It was the last time any of us saw either Tiffany or Dulcy. When she didn’t show up in court on Monday, the judge issued a warrant for her arrest, but she and Dulcy had simply vanished into thin air.”
“The police couldn’t find her?”
“They came up empty. We found she’d raided her trust fund, so she had plenty of cash with her. The private detective we hired traced her partway. He’s the one who discovered that Dulcy—” MacMillan’s voice broke. He cleared his throat and continued in that same cool way he had before.
This time Molly wasn’t fooled. He wasn’t cool. He was being torn apart inside. She knew she couldn’t offer him sympathy. He’d hate it.
“Why do you think the child is dead?”
“I don’t think Dulcy is dead. I know she’s dead, dammit! Do you think that if I thought there was the slightest chance Dulcy was alive, I wouldn’t be combing the country—no—combing the planet, to find her?”
Molly raised her hands. “Okay, let’s leave that for a minute.”
He looked at her appraisingly. “You haven’t asked the usual question.”
“Which is?”
“Why Tiffany took the child when Dulcy would be better off with us.”
“I can guess the answer to that one already.”
“Because you’re a mother?”
“No, I used to volunteer at the university center for disturbed and abused children.”
Logan sat up very straight and said, “Dulcy wasn’t abused.”
“Not in the usual sense. But I’ve seen drunken mothers, drugged out on crack, hooking, with AIDS and TB. They love their children and will kill to keep them, even if they’re doing massive and irreparable harm to those children in the process.”
“It’s difficult for me to excuse a parent who would knowingly do something against a child’s best interests. Jeremy and Tiffany must have known what their alcoholism would do to Dulcy. They never managed to stop drinking even after Dulcy was born.”
“It seldom stopped the mothers at the center, either. Alcoholism is a disease, Logan, but it’s not like the mumps. You don’t get over it after a week of bed rest. It takes strength and a good support system. From what you tell me, Tiffany didn’t have either.”
“We were her support system, or wanted to be. Unfortunately, we weren’t enough.” He took a deep breath and stared at Molly as though seeing her for the first time. “You are a remarkable woman, Mrs. Halliday. I admit I underestimated you. Frankly, a woman who spends her days making dolls…”
“Let me finish for you. I make dolls, I hide in the woods, I live in a log cabin…”
“Hardly a cabin.”
“Not a suburban ranch, either. Come on, admit it, you thought you were meeting Beatrix Potter.”
“Actually, you have a great deal in common. I seem to remember she retired to a farm.”
Molly laughed, then said, “But she never worked again.” She shrugged and grinned at him. “Hey, I’m divorced, middle-aged and my only talent is my dolls. I didn’t choose harsh reality, it chose me. Now, tell me why you think Dulcy is dead.”
“The private detective we hired discovered that Dulcy had died of viral spinal meningitis at a small hospital in the Midwest. He brought us her death certificate.”
“You flew there? Saw the body?”
Logan shook his head. “My wife was in intensive care by that time. I didn’t even tell her. What was the point? Besides, the whole thing had happened three months earlier. Someone—I can only assume Tiffany—had abandoned. Dulcy at the local clinic. They tried to save her, but it was too late. They tried to trace her parents, but eventually they gave up and buried her there.”
“What made your detective think that was Dulcy?”
He shrugged. “He said he showed her picture to the nurses who had worked to save her. They identified the picture. It was Dulcy, all right.”
“I see.”
“They were certain. They had no reason to lie.”
“Nor do I.”
He leaned back and closed his eyes. The lamplight carved his face into its essential planes. Looking at him, afraid to speak for fear of disturbing his small moment of repose, Molly longed to model that face. Every ounce of grief and loss were carved into him. He had a massive head, and the short gray hair revealed the fine sculpting of his skull. His was a face constructed of angular planes—the angle of bone strong over the eyes, the high sharp cheekbones, the eagle’s nose, and finally, the strong jaw.
He sighed, shook his head and opened his eyes.
Molly felt the shock of his gaze deep inside her. Unfortunately for her peace of mind, the shock went to a part of her body she had thought long dormant. She was reacting to him the way a woman reacts to a man. Not possible. She didn’t even like him. The day her divorce was final, she stepped out of the sexual arena without a moment’s regret. The last thing she wanted was to climb back into the ring.
Not that it would be possible with someone like Logan. He was probably no more than two or three years older than she. Middle-aged men went for twenty-yearold trophies.
Now, one glance from those gray eyes of his sent awakening shivers straight through her body and straight as an arrow to her groin.
Hoping that he couldn’t detect the blush she felt spreading up her face in the lamplight, she found herself babbling. “You said you saw a death certificate. What name did it have?”
“Jane Doe. But the picture, Mrs. Halliday. They identified the picture.”
“Logan, I’m going to ask you something you are not going to like. Please don’t get angry.”
“I’m too tired to get angry.”
“Do you trust that private investigator?”
He drew himself up in the chair. “Mrs. Halliday, I have no reason to doubt the man. First, why would he end a lucrative contract? I had every intention of pursuing Tiffany until I either went bankrupt or found my granddaughter.”
“Yes,” Molly conceded. “There is that.”
“Second, he has a good reputation. My lawyer recommended him. He has been successful in several other cases. I checked his clients. They were satisfied.”
“Better and better. Still, either there was some mix-up about the picture and the identification, or something’s going on we’re not aware of.”
“I doubt whether the entire staff of a hospital would lie. What would be the reason? Some sort of misguided loyalty to a criminal?”
“We don’t know who made the mistake. Another thing that puzzles me is how Sherry was able to recognize that doll as Dulcy.”
“She and my wife worked together to decorate Sherry and her husband, Leo’s latest house. She saw a great deal of Dulcy when she was a baby, and she’s been a good friend ever since. She’s seen all the computer enhancements the detective produced. She’d have known Dulcy’s face at almost the same moment I did. What I don’t know is why she didn’t recognize the doll earlier.” He considered. “Or why Rick and Zoe didn’t.”
“I just put her out today when I knew you were coming.” She sighed. “Ironic. I really rushed so that she’d be there especially for you.” She leaned back and closed her own eyes, trying to recall where she had seen the child, remembering instead only the child herself. She wasn’t certain she should tell Logan about the picture in her head.
He seemed able to read her mind. “If you saw this child, tell me where, how, what she looked like.”
Molly opened her eyes, looked at him and made her decision. “She was the saddest, gravest little girl I have ever seen in my life.”
He sucked in his breath. He gripped the arms of the chair as though he’d like to rend the leather with his bare hands. “Sad how?”
Molly closed her eyes again. This time she saw more. “It was in a park somewhere. I remember there were lots of children swinging, sliding, one of those little merry-goround things, I think. A friend of mine and I were on a bus tour with a bunch of other local people on our way to Aspen and Vail. We must have stopped there to picnic. This child was sitting alone on the grass. She had a book in her hand—not a children’s book. It was thick and there were no pictures on the cover.”
MacMillan snorted. “Come now, she would hardly have been reading a book.”
“Why not? Children learn to read early these days. Maybe there were pictures inside. She wasn’t smiling. She looked up at me, right into my eyes. I wanted to stoop down and hug her, but something warned me she wouldn’t allow that.” She looked up at him. “That’s when I heard someone call out ‘Dulcy’ and she closed the book, stood up, brushed off her jeans and walked away. She didn’t run, she walked, quite calmly, the way an adult walks to a business meeting. She wasn’t like any child I’ve ever seen. So self-contained. I knew I had to try to capture that self-possession.”
“Where was this?”
Molly threw up her hands in frustration. “I simply can’t remember.”
“And I’m supposed to take your word for all this over a licensed private investigator’s?”
“Look, let me go through my photographs from my trips. Maybe something will click.” She hesitated a moment. “You never tried to find your daughter-in-law after the detective said Dulcy was dead?”
“No.” His voice was flat, hard. “She made her choice. I stood by her throughout her trial even though she killed my boy. Zoe has never forgiven me for that. But when I found out she’d abandoned Dulcy to die…” He cleared his throat. “Frankly, I don’t give a damn what happens to her.”
“But if Dulcy is still alive and with her?”
“If—and I still think it unlikely—there was a mix-up or a cover-up, then I will hunt them down and bring my granddaughter home. Tiffany can go to Outer Mongolia for all I care.”
Molly saw the muscles along his jaw tighten until they stood out like steel cables. She shivered. This man would make a dangerous enemy.
“Will you tell me something?” she asked. “I can understand that you were startled when you picked up the doll, but frankly, I thought you overreacted big time. It’s only a doll.”
“Only a doll?” He stared at her in genuine surprise. “It was a.corpse!”
“But…”
“I felt as though you were playing some sort of sick joke at her—my—expense. I see now that wasn’t true. Please accept my apologies. I don’t usually fly off the handle like that.”
“Apology accepted. Listen, maybe the child who died looked enough like Dulcy so that the hospital staff made an honest mistake.”
Logan shook his head. “Forgive me. I stopped hoping a long time ago.”
“Don’t let yourself hope then. But for pity’s sake, check it out.”
“I plan to. If Dulcy is alive, I must find her and bring her home. But I’m not sure how much more disappointment I can take.”
Looking into his eyes, Molly realized how difficult it must be for such a man to reveal this sign of weakness, not only to a woman but a comparative stranger. She felt sympathy for him in the same moment she knew how deeply he would resent her expressing it.
Molly sighed. She couldn’t leave this problem alone any more than she could abandon this strange, lonely man. “I think the first thing to do is talk to your detective. See if you still believe him. Maybe take Rick and Zoe with you.”
“I don’t plan to tell Zoe any of this until I’m certain the child is alive and we have some hope of finding her.”
“Then I’ll go with you.” There. The die was cast, the words were spoken. She could only hope he’d refuse her offer. But he didn’t—not exactly.
“I can’t ask you to—”
Just then, the driveway alarm sounded. Logan MacMillan started as though she’d stuck him with a pin.
A moment later, Molly went to the front door and opened it.
“Gram, I know it’s late, but I had to say good-night to Maxie.” A coltish prepubescent girl with chestnut hair straight down her back flew into the room, followed by an exasperated woman who might have been Molly twenty years earlier. The child stopped when she saw Molly was not alone.
“Sorry, Mom. We were in the neighborhood. I tried to stop her,” the woman said, and grinned.
“No sweat. Anne Crown, this is Logan MacMillan. Logan, my daughter.” She smiled at the child. “And this is my granddaughter, Elizabeth.”
Logan, who’d stood when Anne and Elizabeth came in, nodded.
“Hello,” Anne said. “Hope we’re not interrupting anything.”
“Hi,” Elizabeth said, then turning to Molly, “Got any carrots in the fridge?”
“Yes. Don’t forget Eeyore,” Molly called after the child, already disappearing into the kitchen. They heard the refrigerator open and a. moment later shut. “And don’t slam the—”
The back door slammed.
“Please sit down, Mr. MacMillan,” Anne said. “We can only stay a minute. I have to get home to fix dinner.” She glanced at her watch. “Phil will probably have to go back to the office. It’s the end of the quarter. No rest for the poor tax accountant.” She shrugged. “I had to pick Elizabeth up at the Fitzgeralds’. Anytime we’re close to Mom’s, Elizabeth insists on stopping by.”
“The attraction is Maxie, her pony, not me.” Molly laughed. Looking at Logan, she realized he had retreated into his shell.
The back door slammed once more. “Okay, old mom. Maxie pig and Eeyore pig are stuffed. We can go home now. I’ve got tons of homework.”
“You spending the night Friday?” Molly asked Elizabeth as she followed the pair to the door.
“What’re you offering?” the girl said. “Pizza, maybe? A movie?”
“I was thinking more along the lines of brussels sprouts and barn-cleaning.”
“Yech!” Elizabeth made a face. “Can I bring Karen?”
“Sure. Maybe pizza. Maybe popcorn. Definitely barn-cleaning.”
“Deal. ‘Bye, Gram.” The child leaned over and kissed Molly. Anne raised her eyes to heaven and waved goodbye as she followed her daughter to the car. Molly stood in the door and watched them until she heard the driveway alarm go off as they turned onto the road. Then she came back into the living room.
“I must be going, as well,” Logan said. “I’ve taken up entirely too much of your time.” He stood by the window. Molly realized he’d watched the pair into their car and down the road.
“Don’t be ridiculous. We’ve barely started. I’ve got a couple of steaks in the refrigerator. I’ll whip up a salad. Stay.”
“I couldn’t.”
Molly had visions of a turtle pulling back into his shell. “Why? Because it’s on the spur of the moment? You’re a vegetarian? You really do have plans? What?”
Logan stammered, “I…uh.” He looked across at Molly in the doorway, her hands on her ample hips, her feet wide apart, peering at him with those marvelous eyes as though she could see right into his soul. She didn’t seem pleased at what she saw.
He thought of the cold chicken he’d planned to pick up on his way home, the silent kitchen in which he’d eat it, the lonely empty apartment, the broad empty bed. “All right.”
“Good. Want a drink? I don’t, but my friends do.”
“I don’t drink.”
“Okay, how about a soda?”
He nodded.
“Come into the kitchen while I fix the salad.”
“Your granddaughter is very beautiful.”
Molly snorted. “She’s nothing of the sort, but she’s going to be. She inherited Anne’s brains and her father’s metabolism.”
“You seem very comfortable with each other.”
“She doesn’t say ma’am or sir, if that’s what you mean. I want real respect, thank you, not the fake kind. She respects what I do. It’s going to be tough to lose her in a couple of years.”
Logan sat up. “What do you mean, lose her?”
Molly turned away from the refrigerator, a head of romaine lettuce in her hand. She said seriously, “Because sometime between now and age fourteen she will turn away from me for a few years. If I’m lucky and live long enough, I should get her back around twenty. We have entirely too good a relationship, so I’ll be one of the people she’ll have to rebel against if she’s going to grow up. Painful for everybody, of course, but teenagers are certifiably loony, anyway. The trick is to get them to adulthood without a pregnancy or a police record and definitely in one piece.” She glanced at Logan and gasped. “Oh, God, that was a stupid thing to say. I am so sorry. Please forgive me.”
“Perfectly true. Unfortunately, I discovered too late that a parent actually has to be on site to accomplish that.”
Molly obviously had no idea what he meant, and he wasn’t ready to explain.
He watched her move easily and competently around the kitchen. She radiated warmth and a kind of inner composure that he didn’t think he’d ever encountered before. Suddenly a wave of panic swept over him. She touched him. Made him feel. He didn’t dare feel anything. If he allowed one crack in the protective shield he’d built around himself, all the pain might come crashing in.
“I’m sorry,” he said quickly. “I’ve remembered I have an engagement. I must leave. I apologize.” He strode to the front door.
Molly stared after him, heard the door slam, the car start, and a moment later the alarm sound. She looked down at the lettuce in her hand and shook her head.
“That man is definitely a menace,” she muttered.
CHAPTER THREE (#ulink_d527bbb0-9dac-5149-ba08-de5452f83f3d)
LOGAN STRUCK the heavy bag again and again. He felt each blow all the way to his shoulder, but he kept punching. Barely protected by light boxing gloves, his hands still ached from hitting the BMW. Sweat poured down his face, slid over his naked shoulders and chest down to the waistband of his sweat pants. The thrumming rhythm of the bag echoed off the attic walls.
He saw the face of George Youngman on the bag every time he hit it. He’d trusted the private detective. If the man had lied or screwed up, Logan intended to make him very sorry.
Eventually, his bursting lungs drove him to his knees. He rolled over on the mat and listened to his heart thud against his rib cage. Stretching out, he waited for his pulse to slow down.
Overhead in the wooden rafters a fat spider scuttled across its web.
Each night when he came up here from his apartment to use Jeremy’s exercise equipment, he felt close to his dead son. The place needed a good cleaning, but he liked it as it was, spiders and all.
His pulse rate slowed and stabilized quickly. He was in good physical shape for a man his age.
He stuck his left boxing glove in his right armpit to pull it off, then pulled the other off and dropped both on the mat beside him. His emotional shape was something else. He felt older than the pyramids and more battered than the Sphinx.
He rolled over, pulled Jeremy’s rowing machine to him, climbed in and began to row. He had to exhaust himself totally or he’d never sleep.
The cordless telephone on the floor beside him buzzed. He reached over and picked it up.
“Where have you been?”
“Zoe.” Wearily, Logan acknowledged the anger in his daughter’s voice. “Here. At least since about six.”
“Why didn’t you call me? I’ve been worried sick!”
“Why?”
“Sherry called looking for you and said there’d been some kind of a mess at Molly Halliday’s after I left. What was she talking about?”
Silently, Logan cursed Sherry. He hadn’t planned to explain anything to Zoe. “Nothing. A minor mix-up.”
“You broke something, didn’t you?”
“As a matter of fact…”
“Oh, Lord! Do we still get the dolls?”
“Why didn’t you tell me they were going to be on consignment?”
There was a silence at the other end of the line. “Would it have made a difference?”
“Of course it would, Zoe. I went there to get you a better deal. You know I don’t interfere with the store.”
“Oh, right.”
Logan sighed. He couldn’t ever get through to Zoe. “Let’s talk about it tomorrow, shall we? I’m sorry I worried you.”
The phone slammed down. Logan listened to the dial tone.
She never called him by any name. She spoke of him to other people as “my father,” but when she spoke to him directly he was never “Daddy” or “Dad” or even “Father.”
She was right to blame him for all the mistakes he’d made, all the years when he’d dropped in on his family’s lives and dropped out again. But he had truly believed he was doing the best thing for them all. Good intentions didn’t count with Zoe.
At least Zoe had her plumber. Rick was a full-time husband to Zoe. He didn’t go running off to the Arctic Circle to work on a pipeline. Logan and Rick might not be on the same wavelength, but he could see why Zoe would choose a man like Rick after a lifetime spent with an absentee father.
He began to row again. His legs and arms hurt, his back ached, but he didn’t stop. He knew how tired he had to be to sleep. He hadn’t reached that point yet.
He was glad he’d walked out on Molly Halliday. Her eyes had a way of seeing into him that zeroed in on his pain.
Then he remembered her soft full mouth. A mouth made for deep, gentle kisses. Her breasts seemed created to pillow a man’s head.
His loins tightened. If one meeting with Molly could awaken longings in him that he had denied for years, she was very dangerous. She could infiltrate the protective wall he’d painstakingly constructed around his emotions.
He thought about the easy way she acted with her daughter and granddaughter. They treated one another casually, certain of the love they shared.
God, how he envied her!
“YOU DEMONIC LITTLE troll, I could just murder Sherry for bringing that man out here!” Molly jabbed at Quentin Dillahunt’s right eyebrow with a viciousness it didn’t deserve. She knew if she didn’t calm down she’d ruin the portrait and have to start from scratch. She didn’t have time.
“I keep seeing you with Sherry’s horns on you, you little beast.” She smoothed her thumb across Quentin’s pate as though the horns had begun to grow. She wasn’t really mad at Quentin or Sherry. She was mad at Logan. Whether she liked it or not, the moment he destroyed the Dulcy doll he became entwined in her life. She didn’t want anybody entwined anywhere, drat it!
Of course he had to find out the truth about Dulcy; he had to find the child—or try to find her—if she was still alive. The thought of a little girl dragging around the country behind an alcoholic felon of a mother was more than Molly could bear.
Maybe she had opened Pandora’s box. But like Pandora, she’d managed to keep hope alive for Logan. That ought to be worth something. He’d been living without hope for a very long time.
She laid down the scalpel before she did irreversible damage. Logan had paid for the broken doll; maybe she should simply walk away and forget the whole thing.
Except that she wasn’t built that way. She had to know about Dulcy. Unfortunately, that meant she had to deal with Logan again, and that she had to go outside her little compound into his world of society women and powerful men, a world she’d thankfully left behind when she and Harry divorced.
Did she have the nerve to go back out there without her status as a craftswoman to protect her? She dealt with wealthy and powerful clients every time she sold a doll. Those clients knew she was a recluse, and they loved it. The last magazine interview about her dolls had gone on and on about her log house, her menagerie, and the fact that she hadn’t put on a skirt in three years. She had to admit the paragraph about her “unabashedly gray hair” and her “crinkly” blue eyes had made her want to reach for the Clairol and the telephone number of the nearest plastic surgeon.
But she’d gotten over it.
Then why did it bother her that Logan MacMillan probably saw her the same way. Why should she give a tinker’s damn what he thought of her? Why should it be important that he see the woman she really was?
The damned man was too sexy for his own good.
Sherry should have warned her. Molly took a deep swig of her diet cola, looked into Quentin’s piggy-little eye sockets, and saw instead the sad gray eyes of Logan MacMillan staring back at her.
The man was strung so tight that if you poked him right he’d probably fly apart. Molly was not in the rescue business. True, he’d had more than his share of sorrow, but that didn’t give him the right to show up behind her eyelids every time she blinked.
Molly sighed, wrapped Quentin’s head in a damp towel and slid it into the refrigerator under her work counter. She’d have to refire the piece in the morning, but she hadn’t messed it up yet. She cleaned her tools carefully and arranged everything neatly in the cabinets beside her.
She locked the workshop behind her and walked up the brick path toward the back door of her cabin.
If Dulcy MacMillan was still alive, Molly had to help Logan bring her home. Only Dulcy mattered. Any developing feelings Molly might have for Logan must be squelched before they made her miserable.
She went at once to her junk closet and began to pull out cardboard boxes stuffed with souvenirs and photographs from her trips. They weren’t marked by datethat would be too organized—but maybe she could find a picture that would jog her memory. She had to remember where she’d seen that child!
“MRS. HALLIDAY. I’m so glad you came.” Zoe Jackson set a small celadon vase down on a Federal end table and met Molly three steps inside the front door of MacMillan’s.
Molly shifted her heavy leather handbag to her other shoulder and smiled.
“My father said there was a problem yesterday. He broke something?”
“No problem. He paid for it—a lot, I’m afraid.”
“You’re still going to let us carry your dolls, aren’t you?” Zoe pointed to a tall Welsh dresser against the far wall. “I thought I’d clear off all that Chinese-export stuff and set up a display area on the shelves for the smaller dolls, with the larger dolls in buggies and strollers on the floor.”
“That would be perfect.” Molly followed her. “We didn’t actually settle anything yesterday, but I think you made your point before you left.”
Zoe sighed. “I know. I behaved badly. I’m sorry. It’s just that sometimes I feel as though my father treats me like I’m about six years old.”
Molly laughed. “My father tried to balance my checkbook for me until the day he died. Fathers are like that.”
Zoe smiled politely. “At any rate, I know we’ll sell lots of dolls for you and get you plenty of portrait orders. Did you and my father manage to discuss how much commission MacMillan’s would charge on the orders we acquire for you?”
“Afraid not. Don’t worry about it, Zoe, we’ll work something out. How’s that precious Rick of yours?”
This time the smile was radiant. “He’s not quite so precious at home, you know.”
“One of my mother’s friends once told me that given the choice of a twenty-carat diamond or her own personal plumber, she’d opt for the plumber every time. You’re lucky to have married one.”
“You know that old story about shoemaker’s children never having shoes? It goes double for plumber’s wives. The hot-water faucet in our bathroom has been dripping for weeks. Rick keeps promising to fix it, but he never does.”
Without Logan around, Zoe reverted to her normally pleasant self. Molly had always thought she was highstrung and nervous, but now that she knew she’d lost a mother, a brother and a niece, that was understandable. “Is your father here? I really came to see him.”
Zoe’s face clouded. “Oh, yes. The negotiations.”
“Nothing like that,” Molly assured her. “Just something that came up last night.”
Zoe obviously wanted to ask more questions, but she didn’t. “He still lives upstairs. Funny, I was raised in that apartment, and now I don’t feel comfortable even going up in the elevator. This is my bailiwick.” She spread a hand at the opulence around her. “Shall I buzz him for you?”
“Please.”
“Have a look around. You haven’t been in before, have you? I should have invited you when Rick brought me out to see your dolls.”
Molly watched Zoe move among the showcases with grace. She must take after her mother. Tall, slim, casually elegant, she looked every inch a successful businesswoman. She must be over thirty. She wore a simple navy suit that probably cost more than Molly’s entire wardrobe. No jewelry. Not even earrings. It was as though she didn’t want to distract the customers from the luxurious surroundings.
Molly didn’t think she needed to worry. A czar in full coronation garb couldn’t distract from a store like MacMillan’s. Molly felt as though she’d strayed into Ali Baba’s treasure cave. The shop was awash in Scalamandré silks and what her mother called antique “sitarounds,” as well as furniture made of wood so old and so beautiful that Molly longed to pet the chairs like cats. Everything was displayed in a sort of higgledy-piggledy ebullience that looked casual but undoubtedly wasn’t.
In her freshly pressed dress jeans and polished L.L. Bean topsiders, Molly felt a familiar sense of panic. She glanced at the other customers. At least no one realized she longed to run out the front door. She picked up a small triangular damask pillow and promptly dropped it when she saw the price tag.
Zoe came back looking puzzled and curious. “My father says would you please go up. The elevator’s by the back door.” She pointed and watched until the door slid shut on Molly.
When the door opened onto the MacMillan living room, the first thing Molly noticed was the number of throw pillows. No doubt Sydney MacMillan paid wholesale prices, but she’d still piled them three deep on every piece of ornate French furniture in the room.
Logan held the elevator door open for her. He was dressed casually but immaculately in slacks and a sweater. He smelled as though he’d just gotten out of the shower, and his gray hair was still damp. “I wasn’t expecting you,” he said.
Molly came close to pushing the button and letting the elevator doors shut on her again. She must have been out of her mind to come. “I-I’m sorry,” she stammered.
“No, I meant I’m glad you came. When I left so rudely last night…”
“Please. It’s all right.”
“Come in. I won’t bite.” He smiled. “I’ve got coffee if you’re interested.”
“No, thank you.” She stood in front of the elevator, poised for flight. “Last night I went through all my old photos. I found something I thought you should see.”
“Show me.”
Molly dug into her capacious handbag, pulled out a folio of photos, flipped it open and handed it to Logan. “Take it to the light. Ignore all the people in the foreground. They were on the tour with me. Look at the background. I imagine someone can blow it up if you’d like.”
Even at ten in the morning there was almost no light filtering into the living room through the heavy gold damask drapes drawn across the windows. Logan pushed them aside and raised a cloud of dust. The room—revealed in the sudden light—seemed like a disused movie set or a posh suite in a bankrupt hotel.
He stared at the picture. “Dear God, that’s Tiffany. I’m sure of it.” He glanced at Molly. “But I don’t see a child.”
“Try the next one.”
Logan flipped to the next photo. He went very still. “That hair,” he whispered. “I can’t see the face clearly, but Dulcy’s hair was just this color. And curly like this.”
“It’s an odd strawberry blond. I think that’s one of the things that caught my eye when I saw her. So it really is Dulcy?”
He shook his head as though to clear it. He couldn’t take his eyes off the photo. Molly saw that his hands were shaking slightly. She wanted to reach out to him, but instead she clutched her handbag even tighter. After a moment he steadied himself. “I still can’t believe it.”
“It’s a start, at any rate. Do you have those computer enhancements?”
“Yes. In my office.”
Molly followed him down a long hall papered in gold silk damask and into a small room at the back of the house that was bathed in light from a bank of windows across the back wall.
This must be where Logan really lived. The door was held open by an irregular chunk of concrete. A two-foot section of steel I-beam stood on end to form a side table beside a brown leather chair with the dye worn off arms and seat.
There were three steel file cabinets, a battered steel desk, shelves stuffed with books, a blue umbrella rack full of rolled up blueprints. On the walls were framed photographs of dams and bridges in various stages of construction. A large computer sat on a credenza. Everything seemed immaculate and orderly but chosen for serviceability rather than show.
“Please have a seat.” Logan pointed at the leather chair and went directly to the file cabinets. He dropped the photos on the desk and searched rapidly through the files in the top drawer. There was an urgency about him now. He pulled out a thick file and dropped it in Molly’s lap. Then he sat in his desk chair and stared at the two photos again, squinting to see the background. “The computer enhancements are at the back of that file.”
Molly found them. Her eyes widened. “It was Dulcy I saw!”
He glanced up sharply. “You say that as though you weren’t sure before.”
“Of course I was sure. I just wasn’t sure-sure.”
Logan flipped the photos to look at the backs. “Do you know where you took these? Don’t you write dates and places on your photos?”
“The ones before that are from Oklahoma City, the ones following are from Denver. I checked my itinerary. We stopped for lunch along the way in Moundhill, Kansas.”
MacMillan’s jaw dropped. “Where?”
Molly repeated the name, then asked, “Why? What’s the problem?”
“Moundhill, Kansas. That’s where Dulcy’s buried.”
CHAPTER FOUR (#ulink_bd4f61b8-7cd6-5d61-b763-9e75c0125236)
AT ELEVEN-THIRTY that morning, Molly and Logan walked into George Youngman’s office unannounced. Youngman showed only a moment of surprise, then he became all smiles. Molly could see why Logan trusted him. The private detective had guileless blue eyes and a generous mouth. He stood five feet seven, and was built in a series of soft globes like the Michelin Man, yet gave the impression of muscles lurking beneath the paunch. His firm handshake didn’t last a second too long. His office was large and comfortably furnished. On the wall behind his desk were gold-framed photographs of Youngman shaking hands with high-ranking policemen and prominent lawyers.
Logan introduced Molly and held her chair for her. Youngman sat behind his oversize desk in his oversize leather desk chair.
“I was surprised when I got your call, Mr. MacMillan, after all this time,” Youngman said. “Something I can do for you or the little lady?” He shot his immaculate white shirt cuffs. They were monogrammed with an elaborate “GY.” Molly revised her first assessment. She instinctively distrusted men who wore monograms.
“I need to review a few things about my case,” Logan said.
Youngman leaned forward. Molly saw his hands tighten suddenly on his desk mat. The small tufts of brown hair on his knuckles seemed to stand up like the ruff of a dog that senses danger. “You got some new information on your daughter-in-law? Something you want me to run down for you?”
Logan shook his head. “Not precisely. Refresh my memory, Mr. Youngman. Who told you that my granddaughter Dulcy had died?”
This time there was no mistaking Youngman’s reaction. He sat back in his chair and drew his hands quickly into his lap. He answered carefully, as though he’d been expecting the question or something like it for a long time. “As far as I can remember, and it’s been a while, I got a call from an informant in Kansas about the kid being dead.” The detective nodded, then said, “Yeah. That was it. An informant.” He shrugged. “By that time the mother was long gone.” He clicked his tongue against his teeth. “Tough break.”
“Refresh my memory, Mr. Youngman, just how did the person who called know you were looking for Dulcy?” Logan smiled gently. Molly could tell he had also noticed the detective’s response.
“I guess it was from some of those fliers I distributed to police departments, Mr. MacMillan. Why?”.
“And the people at the hospital definitely identified the child as Dulcy?” Molly asked.
“Yes, ma’am, absolutely.”
“Were you paid to say Dulcy was dead?” Molly asked.
Youngman turned to Logan. “What the hell’s this all about?”
Molly answered before Logan could speak, “I saw Dulcy MacMillan alive and well long after you told Mr. MacMillan she was dead, Mr. Youngman,” she said. “Her mother was with her.”
“You can’t have!” Youngman squawked and shoved his chair back so hard it crashed into the wall behind him. He jumped up and held on to the chair, his fingers working against the leather.
“Sit down, please, Mr. Youngman,” Logan said sternly.
“You must have realized that someone who knew her might see her alive one day,” Molly said.
“I don’t have to listen to this!” Youngman darted around the corner of the desk.
“Yes, you do.” Logan blocked his way, his quiet voice forcing the man back. “My granddaughter is alive, isn’t she?”
“No!” Youngman snarled. He made a futile attempt to push by Logan, thought better of it and moved to the other side of the desk where Logan couldn’t reach him so easily. He began to deflate. “At least I don’t think she is.” He raised his hand as though to ward off a blow. “Swear to God, Mr. MacMillan, your daughter-in-law told me Dulcy was dead.” Youngman frowned at Molly. “Heck, she is dead. You saw some other kid who looked like her.”
Logan ignored Youngman’s last statement. “Tiffany paid you to lie to me.” .
Youngman shook his head. “No way. You got to believe me. All she did was tell me which nurse to show the picture to. If the kid’s alive, I got conned same as you did.”
“That nurse. What was her name?” Logan asked. His voice was dangerously quiet.
Youngman’s eyes shifted and he gulped. The fleshy rolls that covered his Adam’s apple quivered. “I don’t remember.”
“You have the files. Look it up!” Logan snapped.
Youngman shook his head. “I dump all my inactive files after a year, unless it’s something about pending litigation.” He swung a hand at the file cabinets in the corner of the room and said plaintively, “I run out of space, as it is.”
“Why didn’t you give me the nurse’s name at the time? And why did Tiffany call you, not me or my daughter?” Logan asked.
Sweat gleamed on Youngman’s upper lip. His head swiveled from Molly to Logan. “She said somebody told her you’d hired me. Said you was one of them sex abusers. After the kid’s money. She didn’t want to talk to you.” Youngman hunched his shoulders. “She was crying and screaming fit to burst. Said Dulcy was dead. Told me to go on out to Moundhill and show that nurse the kid’s picture. Told me a bunch of other stuff, too, about how much better off Dulcy was dead than with you and your family. How you’d paid off the lawyers to get custody of her for her money.”
“And you believed her?” Molly snapped.
“I don’t see what was in it for you, Youngman,” Logan said, “unless Tiffany paid you more than I could. You had a good thing going with me. Even if the dead child had been Dulcy, you’d have done better to string me along a while longer, wouldn’t you?”
Youngman drew himself up. “I am an honest man, Mr. MacMillan. I wouldn’t take advantage of anybody like that.”
Logan shook his head. “So you took the word of a convicted felon that her child was dead and got the hospital to corroborate her story. All because you’re an honest man.”
“She’s the kid’s mother.”
“Where is Tiffany now, Youngman?”
“I don’t know, swear to God! You told me to drop it after that! You said you didn’t care if Tiffany got away once you found out Dulcy was dead. You said that.”
Logan stood and reached a hand down to Molly. “Yes, I said that.”
“Did you tell the police about her call?” Molly asked.
Youngman gulped. “Well, no. Wouldn’t do any good. She’d ‘a been long gone before they got there.”
Logan took Molly’s arm. “I have to get out of here now.” He glared at Youngman. “I have to call my lawyer, the man who sent me to you. He needs to know what a consummate professional he recommended.”
“I didn’t do anything wrong!” Youngman squawked.
“Except to keep facts from a client and conceal the whereabouts of a convicted felon.”
Youngman called after them. “I could make it up to you. I could maybe trace the kid for you now.”
Logan spun round. “So you admit you know she’s alive?”
Youngman took a couple of steps backward. “I don’t admit nothing. But if she is, I mean, I’m good at finding lost kids.”
Molly knew it was time to get Logan out of there. “Thank you, Mr. Youngman,” she said. “I don’t believe we need your services.” Then she grabbed Logan and dragged him out of the office.
Molly took the keys from Logan’s hand without a protest from him. His face looked like thunder. If he planned to take out his anger on something, she didn’t want him using a couple of tons of BMW to do it with. She climbed into the driver’s seat and waited for him to get in beside her, then pulled out into traffic.
“I owe you an apology,” he said after half-a-dozen blocks. He sounded rational. Bad sign.
They were passing Overton Park. Molly swung in and stopped beside the fourth fairway of the golf course. Logan stared straight ahead, his jaw set, his eyes seemingly focused on some faraway object.
Molly studied his profile. “Logan,” she said, “let’s talk about what happened. You seem to be taking things so calmly.”
Logan shook his head like a punch-drunk boxer. “I’m anything but calm. I feel so damned guilty.”
“Whatever for?”
“Tiffany read me perfectly. She must have realized instinctively that I would have no problem believing she could leave her sick child to die alone. She counted on me to call off the search once I thought Dulcy was dead.” He ran his hand over his hair and closed his eyes. “I’ve been refusing to admit even to myself how angry I was at Tiffany when Jeremy was killed.”
Molly laid her hand on his arm. She could feel his muscles bunched tightly under the wool of his jacket. “Of course you were angry. You can’t help your feelings, Logan. But, cut yourself a little slack. You stood by her, tried to help her.”
“She must have seen how I felt, how Zoe felt. Being around us must have been like heaping salt on a wound.”
“Are you excusing what she did?”
He shook his head. “Not for a minute. But I’m beginning to understand her reasons for running away.” He placed his hand over Molly’s and turned to her with a faint smile on his face. “All that matters at the moment is that I believe you. The child you saw, the child you modeled, was Dulcy.” He stared at her in awe. “If it hadn’t been for you and that doll, I might never have known that my granddaughter is still alive. Tiffany would have gotten away with it because I allowed a fake death certificate, a sketchy description of a dead child and a detective I knew nothing about to convince me of a lie.”
“Come on, Logan. Youngman’s story was plausible. He had the child’s death certificate and the identification of a nurse at the hospital where she supposedly died. As you said, he had no reason to lie to you about Dulcy’s death. You were paying him a bunch of money to keep looking for her—money that he’d lose the minute you called him off. Besides, your son had just been killed, your daughter-in-law had disappeared with your grandbaby and your wife was dying. You shouldn’t feel guilty.”
“Zoe wouldn’t agree with you.”
“Zoe would be wrong.”
“She’s been furious with me because I didn’t go to Moundhill and bring that child’s body home to be buried beside Jeremy and Sydney in the family plot. We’ve had more than one argument over it.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“If one really does believe in an afterlife, a soul, then the child wasn’t there anyway. Dulcy left the moment she died. I didn’t see any sense in disturbing her poor remains just to bury her in another grave in another cemetery.”
“I agree completely. So when are you going to tell Zoe?”
“Good God! I can’t tell her. What if I can’t find them? What if something’s happened since you saw them?” He looked hard at Molly. “I can’t get Zoe’s hopes up. She’s suffered enough already.”
“She has a right to know, Logan! She’s part of this.”
“No!”
Molly threw up her hands in frustration. “You’re going to do it all on your own and present her with a resurrected niece?”
“Better than letting her hope and then dashing her hopes all over again.” He shook his head. “I have to protect her.”
“I think you should tell her. If you don’t, I promise it will come back to haunt you, whether we find Dulcy or not.”
“No. The decision is mine alone and it’s final.”
She stared into his eyes for a long moment. She wished she could convince him that Zoe was a grown woman. To treat her like daddy’s little girl was the worst kind of condescension. Molly hesitated, then relented. “Oh, all right.”
“Bless you.” Impulsively he put his arm around her shoulder and squeezed. She was as startled as if he’d sprouted wings.
And even more startled by her own reaction. She hadn’t been this close to a man in more than three years. Logan’s arm felt taut around her shoulders. He smelled wonderful, like autumn leaves and ginger. Every endorphin in her body snapped to attention. Was she so starved for affection that a hug from an attractive man stirred her so completely?
Blushing, she thrust away from him, praying he had not sensed her reaction. She took a moment to fiddle with the keys until she had her breathing under control again.
As she turned on the engine, he laughed. She’d never heard him laugh—not a real laugh, at any rate. “Suddenly, I’m ravenous.”
Molly looked down at the serviceable steel watch on her wrist. “No wonder. It’s past noon.”
“Let’s have lunch at the museum restaurant. It’s close, the food is good and it’s quiet.”
“I don’t know. I’m not really dressed for the Brush and Quill.”
“Nonsense.”
As the hostess showed them to a table five minutes later, one of a group of elegantly dressed women at a nearby table waved and called to Logan. He smiled and waved back.
“Go on over and talk to her,” Molly whispered.
He shook his head and sat opposite her. “One of Sydney’s friends. I barely know her.”
“Good customer of MacMillan’s?”
“I have no idea. I told you, the shop is Zoe’s territory.”
“Well, at the moment she’s looking at me as though I were an armadillo. Hadn’t you better go speak to her?”
“No. We have to plan our campaign. I cannot—will not—trust another private detective to do the job. I’ve got to find Dulcy myself.”
“You can have whatever help I can give.”
“We’d best start with what we know.”
“Or what we don’t,” Molly said. “You said Tiffany’s scheme wouldn’t have worked unless you’d been willing to believe she’d abandon a sick child. It took more than that. There is a real little girl in Jane Doe’s grave in Kansas, a child the same age and with the same coloring as Dulcy. How did Tiffany find out about her?”
“She must have seen the child, maybe known the parents, or been around the hospital where she died.”
Molly nodded. “She didn’t call Youngman until months after the child died. Why did she wait so long?”
“Maybe she didn’t find out about the other child’s death right away. Or maybe it took that long to make her plans. She may have started trying to find a way to get Youngman off her trail the minute she found I’d hired him. The other little girl’s death must have seemed like the perfect opportunity to do just that.”
“If you bought the story, she was free and clear, and if you didn’t, what had she lost?” Molly said. “She’d just have to disappear again.”
“We know she was living in Moundhill, maybe she hung around the Moundhill hospital,” Logan said. “Perhaps she was a patient there.”
“Maybe Dulcy was a patient there,” Molly said quietly.
Logan stared at her in alarm.
She reached across the table toward him. “It’s possible. But we know she was alive and well long after that. I saw her, remember?”
Logan said with growing excitement, “She might still be living there.”
Molly took a deep breath. Logan wasn’t going to like her next words. “Did you ever think that maybe she’s made a new life for herself in Moundhill? Settled down. Married, even.”
“I hadn’t considered that.”
“Consider it, then,” Molly said. “What if you find Tiffany is sober, Dulcy is living happily with a new stepfather in a middle-class ranch house in Moundhill and going to Brownies every Thursday? Do you call the police, break up the family? Send Tiffany to jail? Drag Dulcy kicking and screaming back to Memphis to live with a man she likely doesn’t remember?”
“Dulcy belongs with me. I will be a good father to her.”
“Logan, you’re her grandfather. It’s not the same thing. You’ve been a father. The job descriptions are different.”
“No, I haven’t been a father.”
“But Zoe and Jeremy…
“They’re my biological children, all right, but I was never a father to them. I was gone for months at a time. Sydney had all the problems of being a single mother and none of the benefits. Well, almost all the problems. We had plenty of money—overseas jobs pay very well and there are no expenses to speak of. We decided the money was worth the long absences.” He threw down his napkin. “By the time I realized how wrong we were, Zoe hated my guts and Jeremy was a practicing alcoholic at sixteen.”
“Zoe loves you.”
He snorted. “She blames me for Jeremy’s drinking, his delinquency, his marriage, his death and for Dulcy’s death, as well. I used to think she married Rick just to spite me because he was a plumber without a college education.”
“If she did, she lucked out. Rick is a saint.”
He grimaced. “I must admit he’s been there for her.”
Molly could fill in the unspoken corollary. Rick was there when Logan hadn’t been. Maybe that was the key to Logan’s coolness toward his son-in-law. Rick made it all look so easy, while Logan struggled to rebuild his damaged relationship with Zoe.
Still, understanding Logan’s pain didn’t mean she had to agree with him. “So all this is not about Dulcy, it’s about you,” she snapped. “You want to prove to Zoe and to yourself that you can be a father. Of all the selfish, idiotic…” She pushed her chair back. “I’m not hungry. I’ll catch a cab.”
He caught up with her at the foot of the museum steps and grabbed her arm. “Wait, dammit! Listen to me. You’re wrong. It’s not about me. Tiffany’s life will be hell until she comes home to face what she did. No way can it be good for Dulcy. When we find Tiffany, I’ll help her any way I can, but I will take custody of Dulcy and raise her with love. Molly, you’ve got to help me. I don’t have anyone else. Please.”
“What do you want me to do?”
“Fly to Moundhill with me.”
“I don’t think…”
“Listen to me, please.” He kept his hand on her arm and walked her to the BMW He held the door and she got in against her better judgment. He climbed in the other side and faced her without turning on the engine. “You’ve worked with abused children, you know the system.”
“So?”
“What’s going to happen if I find Tiffany and Dulcy in Moundhill? Let’s assume that instead of a decent life, they’re living in squalor. Whatever money Tiffany took from her trust fund must have run out long ago and there was no way she could get more. Maybe she paid it all to Youngman. She may be slinging hash or clerking at the grocery store—or worse. She wasn’t only into alcohol, Molly, she was into cocaine. Even Zoe doesn’t know that.”
“Oh, dear.” That changed things. Molly knew from the seminars she’d sat in on for her volunteer work what addiction to cocaine could do to women. They didn’t hesitate to sell their bodies and their children’s bodies when their need for the drug became too much to handle.
“Even Jeremy’s death didn’t stop her drinking or doing drugs,” Logan continued.
“Why did she take Dulcy along? It would have been easier for her to disappear alone.”
“Maybe she loves Dulcy the way a child loves a favorite toy. Maybe she took Dulcy to punish us, Zoe and Sydney and me.” He ran his hand down his face. “I don’t know anymore. Not after today.”
“I still don’t see how I can help. If you find Dulcy, surely they’ll give her to you.”
“Say I waltz in to the local police station with my order of custody executed before Sydney died. They’ll pick up Tiffany for extradition. Youngman was right. Tiffany may well tell them I’m a pedophile and after the child’s money. In today’s climate, they may believe her. Dulcy could wind up in foster care.”
“But I’m not a lawyer or a psychologist. I make dolls, period. And I’ve known you less than twenty-four hours during which you have acted about as stable as plutonium.”
“Touché. You, however, have ‘mother’ written across your forehead in letters the size of a marquee.”
“Oh, thank you so much. Just what every woman wants to hear.”
“Even though I’ve known you such a short time, I would trust you with my life, and what’s more, with my granddaughter’s life. Besides, you can identify her. I haven’t seen her since before she was two. You’ve got to come with me. And without letting anyone know where you’re going or why.”
CHAPTER FIVE (#ulink_c924fd54-7aae-5c35-a6ba-a6241febde1a)
“IT’S BEEN NEARLY eight hours since I left you. I need you to tell me you’ll go with me to Kansas so that I can make reservations.” Logan was breathing hard. He cradled the phone against his shoulder and ran the towel over his sweating face and chest.
“I only said I’d think it over,” Molly said over the line. “I didn’t agree to anything.”
“Look, let me come out to your house right now. We can talk about it all night if that’s what it takes to persuade you.”
“No.” She sat down on her bed. “I’m practically ready for bed.”
“So much the better.” He chuckled.
She tried to chuckle back, but to her ears, it sounded as if she’d just choked on a peach pit.
“All right, how about I take you to breakfast?” he offered. “I’ve already got a call in to my travel agent. It’s not that easy to get to Moundhill by plane. We’ll have to fly into Wichita and rent a car.”
“Logan, talk sense. I have animals to feed, a halfdozen commissions that I’m behind on, Quentin Dillahunt’s evil little head hardening in my refrigerator, and I am terrified of airplanes. Isn’t there somebody else you can take?”
“Nobody else has laid eyes on Dulcy. Sleep on it, please. I’ll see you at nine o’clock tomorrow morning.” He sighed. “Please come with me. In just two days you have become more important to me than you can possibly imagine. I need you. Don’t desert me now.”
Molly sat on her bed and listened to the dial tone. She’d lied to Logan. She wasn’t ready for bed. She still wore her jeans, though her feet were bare. She wandered into the kitchen. Elvis, ever-vigilant for a handout, trotted after her with his tail in the air. She opened the refrigerator, found a diet cola, and on impulse pulled out the meat drawer.
She’d give Logan breakfast here. He probably ate healthy junk, but if she did decide to go with him, she needed to finish the country ham before she left. She checked the freezer. Biscuits. There were always plenty of eggs. One overdose of cholesterol was unlikely to do irreparable harm to their arteries, and country ham beat bran flakes any day of the week.
Not that he needed the extra energy. He’d become a different person since he’d found a direction, a focus, something to do. He’d turned into a cross between a dynamo and one of his blasted bulldozers. At the moment, she felt like a very small sapling standing directly in his path. He was going to mow her down any minute. He was obviously used to calling all the shots and making all the decisions. If this was the way he treated Zoe, no wonder they had problems.
She knew darned well all his sexy innuendos were nothing but cheerful banter, but they really affected her. She shook herself and reached for Elvis. He eluded her and scampered down the hall. “Fickle cat!” she snapped.
She called Sherry and poured out the whole story to her. “And the worst of it is, he refuses even to discuss the possibility with Zoe and Rick that Dulcy is alive,” Molly said. “He treats her like a child.”
“He’s being an overprotective daddy,” Sherry said. “And, he’s never really gotten to know Rick. Do you know a plumber who doesn’t work twelve hours a day, six days a week? And Logan still goes gallivanting off for months at a stretch. Their orbits don’t match.” Sherry paused for a moment before going on, “Neither do their views of the world. I think Zoe may keep her two men apart a bit as well without realizing it. She demands Rick’s complete loyalty. I don’t think she’d be too happy if Rick and Logan suddenly started going fishing together.”
“Maybe they should. Rick is the dearest, sweetest, most sensible man I know.”
Sherry laughed. “He also has a scruffy beard and wears jeans to work. When Logan’s home, he prefers three-piece suits and red power ties. Besides, Rick became the most important person in Zoe’s life just when Logan wanted to become a full-time father to her. Bad timing.”
Molly snorted. “I refuse to get involved in any more dysfunctional families. It’s taken me years to get over my own.” She hesitated. “On the other hand, Logan may act like a field marshal, but he’s so damned sad. I hate to abandon him.”
Sherry laughed. “That’s my Molly—half of you wants to hide in your cave and make dolls, the other half keeps turning into Joan of Arc.”
“And look what happened to her.”
WHILE SHE WANTED for Logan to show up for breakfast, Molly called her daughter. “Anne, I’m going out of town,” Molly said. “I’ll have to renege on Elizabeth’s sleep-over Friday. Can the two of you look after the animals for a few days?”
“Where are you going? Why? How long?” Anne asked. Then she caught her breath. “Mother, are you involved with that gray fox?”
Molly heard the verbal quotation marks around that word involved. “Even if I were, and I’m not, I’m a grown woman. I’m sorry, Anne, I can’t tell you any more. I promise I’ll keep in touch.”
Anne sighed. “Mom, you know we’ll look after the animals. It’s time Elizabeth started getting Maxie ready for the Thanksgiving horse show anyway. I’ll even make Phil take off on Saturday afternoon and come watch her ride.” She hesitated.
Molly, who was used to her daughter’s silences, waited for her to continue.
“It’s just that Phil and I worry about you, Mom. You’re out there all alone. The world’s not safe and neither are the people in it—not even the handsome foxes. I love you too much to want to see you hurt again. Sometimes I worry that you don’t think things out too clearly.”
“Thank you, darling, for your vote of confidence,” Molly said. “But I’m tougher than you think and not nearly so naive. I can look after every part of my self, including my heart. Don’t worry. I’ll keep in touch while I’m gone and tell you everything when I get home. I’ll call Elizabeth this afternoon to apologize for finking out on her sleep-over.” She hesitated, then blurted out, “I love you all. I’m so glad I have you.”
“Mom? Are you all right? You never talk like that.”
“Maybe I should. ‘Bye, darling.”
She hung up to Anne’s drawn-out “Mooooother” on the line.
Next, she called Sherry to report her decision to go with Logan.
“My God, Molly,” Sherry said. “You’re not seriously flying off into the wilds of Kansas with Logan MacMilan.” Sherry’s laughter echoed down the wires. Then her voice turned deadly serious. “Do you truly think you can find that child?”
“We have to try. The difficulty is that we’re a pair of rank amateurs. Frankly, I don’t have the foggiest notion where to start.”
“I wouldn’t either. But I’ll say some prayers for you. Trust you to wind up going searching with an incredibly attractive man. Nothing like that ever happens to me.”
“When has it ever happened to me before? Besides, we’ll probably hate one another cordially by the end of the first day. Logan MacMillan isn’t my type,” Molly lied glibly, wishing it were true.
“Then you are deaf, dumb and blind.”
“What’s more to the point, I am definitely not his type.”
“I wouldn’t be too sure of that.”
Molly stretched her bare feet in front of her and ran her hand through her hair again. “Okay, you said you’d known Sydney since college. Do I remind you of her?”
Sherry chuckled. “Not in the least. Sydney cared more for externals and appearances than any human being I have ever met. She knew darned well Tiffany was a hellraiser, but all she could see was her future daughter-inlaw’s social standing and a wedding with twelve bridesmaids. Boy, did she get a rude awakening. Besides, Sydney was what the movie magazines used to call ‘divinely thin’“
“That let’s me out. I have good reason to know that men Logan’s age go for women Anne’s age. He’ll probably treat me like a sister, or worse yet, an aunt. Frankly, I’m surprised some rich young widow hasn’t snapped him up before now.”
“Logan keeps them at arm’s length. He is courtly, charming, available for dinner parties when he’s in town, pleasant and detached. I think he doesn’t want to risk losing anyone else of value to him, so he simply refuses to care for anybody again. Of course, that old Byronic ‘secret pain that only you, fair love, can assuage’ is a downright killer with the ladies. I’ve considered seducing him myself.”
“Leo would kill you.”
“Only if he found out. Unfortunately, I haven’t the skill for double-dealing that most women have.”
“Meaning?”
“I’d louse up my stories and get caught…Easier to stay faithful. Of course, you don’t have a heavy husband waiting in the wings with a shotgun. You and he are both unattached. Enjoy.”
“Thanks for the insight, Sherry.”
“One more thing, Molly, don’t forget that Tiffany is a convicted felon who killed two people. She wants that child with her desperately. She’s dangerous.”
Molly hung up the phone thoughtfully. She still had half an hour before she expected Logan. Breakfast was well in hand. She pulled on a windbreaker over her black turtleneck and walked down to the workshop. Elvis padded along behind her.
Once inside, Molly pulled out Quentin’s head and began to add soft bisque to his chin. She worked silently for twenty minutes until she heard the gate alarm. She covered the head, put it back into the refrigerator, closed the shop and walked up the hill to meet Logan.
He was dressed for business. “Good morning,” he said formally.
Every time Molly left him a trifle loosened up, he reappeared as distant and formal as ever. He was like some kind of plastic that had a memory—melt it, bend it, curl it into a ball, it sprang right back to its original rigidity.
“Can you handle cholesterol?” she asked.
He smiled. “Upon occasion.”
“Good, because we’ve got country ham and hot biscuits for breakfast.”
LOGAN DRANK his coffee and watched Molly straighten the kitchen. He’d enjoyed breakfast. Molly had kept up a cheerful line of patter about her small farm and the animals. It all served, as he supposed it was meant to do, to keep his mind off the task at hand.
The food had been good, but eating with Molly gave it an even better flavor. She had served the meal on bright yellow Italian pottery. Watching her as she moved easily among the pots and pans, he thought her the most appealing woman he had ever met.
With a sudden startling jolt of insight, he realized he had an appetite for her, a simple physical hunger. He wanted to nibble her all over, taste her, feel the texture of her skin and curl her crisp hair around his fingers. He jerked himself from his reverie. “What?” he asked.
“I said, have you told Zoe we’re leaving tomorrow?”
“I told her I was leaving. I did not mention you.”
“Logan…”
“I’m not protecting your honor. I’m guarding my privacy. And I’m protecting Zoe against disappointment.”
“I don’t agree, but it’s your decision.”
“You see, Dulcy was much more to Zoe than simply her brother Jeremy’s child. She and Rick can’t seem to conceive—no reason that the doctors can find, but they’ve been trying for years without success. I think Zoe was jealous of the ease with which Tiffany got pregnant.”
“I can understand that. Sherry Carpenter loves me dearly, but she can’t help begrudging me Anne and Elizabeth.”
“It goes even deeper with Zoe. After Dulcy was born, Tiffany decided to go back to school to finish her degree. She didn’t want to be bothered with a baby. She dropped Dulcy off at the shop nearly every morning. Sydney was too ill to look after her, so we set up a kind of nursery in the workroom at the back, and Zoe took over Dulcy. She was everyone’s pet, but she was Zoe’s special love.”
“Then surely she’d be overjoyed to think that Dulcy might be alive.”
He shook his head. “I can’t raise her hopes. We may not find Dulcy. Perhaps she is dead.”
“I’m sorry, Logan, but we can’t put that toothpaste back into that particular tube.”
“I know that,” Logan said. “I’ll pick you up Thursday afternoon about two. We’ll get a rental car in Wichita, spend the night there and drive to Moundhill first thing Friday morning. Doctors often take long weekends. I don’t want to miss seeing the staff at that hospital.” He glanced over at Molly. “I’ve reserved two hotel rooms in Wichita for Thursday night.”
Molly let out her breath. Good. “Can’t we leave here early Friday morning?”
“No air connections. Molly, we haven’t discussed money.”
“Yes, we have. You said you’d pay all the expenses.”
“And I will. But you’ll be missing at least a weekend’s work, possibly more if we have to trace Tiffany beyond Moundhill.”
“I hadn’t planned to be away more than a couple of days. I can catch up when I get home.”
“I shouldn’t need you any longer than that.” Logan knew he was lying. He needed Molly beside him every step of this journey, and that included helping him get reacquainted with his grandchild. But he wasn’t about to tell her that until she was a long way from home. Then he trusted her maternal instincts would take over.
“Zoe still wants your dolls for MacMillan’s.” He smiled. “I agree with her. The store can arrange contracts for your portrait dolls, but that’s not enough to pay you for coming with me. The usual industry-consulting fee is five hundred a day. That’s fifteen hundred dollars if you get home Sunday evening.”
“Wow! I’m in the wrong business!” Molly laughed. “But you and I may be at each other’s throats by dinnertime Friday.”
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Carolyn McSparren
Family Man"The Only Child is beautifully written, wonderfully rich, totally satisfying."–Debra Dixon, award-winning authorA Child Is Missing…Logan MacMillan hasn't seen his granddaughter, Dulcy, since the toddler was snatched by her fugitive mother three years ago. Logan never gave up hope of finding her until the moment his private investigator handed him a death certificate for a little girl named Dulcy MacMillan.A Child Is Found!Molly Halliday knows that the death certificate can't be Dulcy's. But Logan doesn't trust her. The woman lives in a fantasy world–she makes dolls for a living! However, Logan has to admit that one of her dolls looks exactly like his computer portrait of Dulcy as a five-year-old. And Molly modeled that doll on a child she saw less than a year ago.Join Logan and Molly as they search for Dulcy–and find much, much more than they bargained for."The Only Child is beautifully written, wonderfully rich, totally satisfying. What more could a reader want? Carolyn McSparren is a terrific, talented newcomer who has a gift for finding the emotional compass of a story." – Debra Dixon, award-winning author of Bad to the Bone and Doc Holliday
Table of Contents
Cover Page (#ue18b3b24-a3a7-5a66-b250-aa156e2a509f)
Excerpt (#u1f6d2f93-e1b0-5496-b987-542e47113ec8)
ABOUT THE AUTHOR (#u499aff3c-1dca-5823-9a99-8bd4ea4023a1)
Title Page (#u7465759c-4bdc-56c5-bfff-5aed45622c9e)
Dedication (#uec237d26-38cd-539c-88a5-9ae2f24f17a4)
CHAPTER 1 (#uc4e0d07f-da57-5922-9976-d7dc6598f933)
CHAPTER 2 (#u6b5289d3-9086-570d-91e1-cf9935a5d38f)
CHAPTER 3 (#u749cd328-84eb-5baf-aab0-a47ee8dd5ca6)
CHAPTER 4 (#u0499a4eb-9ebf-58a8-b89a-0f2616075e38)
CHAPTER 5 (#u97c7d5dc-cb57-544e-9a36-952a4ca2080f)
CHAPTER 6 (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 7 (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 8 (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 9 (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 10 (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 11 (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 12 (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 13 (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 14 (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 15 (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 16 (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 17 (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 18 (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER 19 (#litres_trial_promo)
EPILOGUE (#litres_trial_promo)
Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
“Why won’t My Molly marry us?”
Dulcy’s voice broke—and Logan thought his heart would, too. “Is it because of me?” she asked.
“No, Dulcy,” he said. “It’s not because of you. Molly loves you very much. It’s because of me.”
“Maybe you asked her wrong.”
Logan smiled grimly. “Maybe I did”
“So ask her right and then she’ll marry us.” Dulcy nodded her head as though encouraging him to agree with her. She was like a teacher coaching a really slow student.
“I’ll try, but I can’t guarantee she’ll say yes. But I’ll work out something so you and I can be happy. Just give me a chance, Dulcy. I’m not so bad.
The child cocked her head, assessing him, then she sighed like a grown-up and walked slowly over to lean against his knees. She patted his arm gently. “Don’t be sad, Grandfather Logan, okay? I know you aren’t bad.” She nodded several times as though adding up a column of figures in her head.
“You found me, that’s good. You gave me my Dulcy doll, that’s also good. You found me again when I got lost in the airport. And you slept on the floor next to my bed so I wouldn’t be scared when I woke up. That’s all good” She nodded once more and smiled up at him. “Okay?”
Logan didn’t think he could take much more without breaking down completely. I can do it, he told himself firmly. If I have to, I can raise this child alone, but God in Heaven, I don’t want to. Oh, Molly, I need you! We need you. Where are you?
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
The Only Child—a finalist in the RWA’s 1995 Golden Heart Awards—is Carolyn McSparren’s first published novel. However, this talented writer has written poems and magazine articles for many years. She’s always loved romantic mysteries, but not until a friend took her to a local RWA (Romance Writers of America) chapter did she begin to write romance fiction.
Carolyn has lived in Germany, France, Italy “and too many cities in the U.S. to count In my checkered career,” she says, “I’ve sailed boats and raised horses. I’ve been a horse-show momma for my daughter, who is now grown and married.”
Carolyn now lives in the country outside Memphis, Tennessee, in an old house with three dogs, three cats, two horses and one husband—”not necessarily in order of importance.”
The Only Child
Carolyn McSparren
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
For Martha Shields and Amelia Bomar, who stuck with me from the beginning, and for Zilla Soriano, a fine editor.
Thanks also to Alix Sullivan, a real doll lady, for sharing her technical expertise.
CHAPTER ONE (#ulink_8444fe8f-7d96-5c93-a197-f88fc3c75c5d)
MOLLY HALLIDAY DROVE her hands through her hair, picked up her scalpel and spoke to the grinning head on the table. “All right, Quentin Charles Dillahunt the Third, if you don’t help me get your eyebrows right you’re going to wind up in the slag heap.”
The small bisque head leered back through empty eye sockets as Molly began to carve tiny chunks from the moist unfired clay. Feathery eyebrows emerged bit by bit.
“Where are you attaching the horns?” Sherry Carpenter asked, glancing up from the doll magazine in her lap.
Molly grinned and kept working. “The real Quentin’s only four years old. What’s he ever done to you?”
“Not me. He tried to bite my niece Sarah’s ear off last winter. He’s a Little demon. You’re making him look downright angelic.”
“Mrs. Dillahunt, Senior, commissioned this portrait doll,” she told Sherry. “Another Memphis grandparent who thinks her grandkid is an angel. Thank God, I do my commissions from photographs. I don’t have to put up with Quentin in real life.”
Sherry unfolded from the bentwood rocker and smoothed down her immaculate slacks. “You’d better put that thing away. Zoe and Logan MacMillan will be here any minute.”
Molly checked her watch. “They’re not due for twenty minutes.”
“They may be early.”
“Give me five minutes. I really need to finish these eyebrows. I’m a week behind on my commissions, and I don’t get paid the rest of my fee until I deliver the finished doll.” Her hand rested momentarily on the head and she frowned over at her friend. “Besides, how come Logan MacMillan has to approve my deal with MacMillan’s? I thought Zoe ran the store.”
Sherry shoved a large ginger cat off a nest of magazines on the work counter and began to organize them into a neat stack. “She does, but her father actually owns it. Usually, he simply rubber-stamps her decisions, only this time he didn’t.”
“Well, he should have. My dolls will sell very well in MacMillan’s.”
“I know that, you know that, Zoe knows that. We just have to convince Logan.”
“Have to is right.” Molly waved a hand at the room. “I went two thousand dollars over budget building this darned workshop. I need some more outlets for my dolls fast if I’m going to pay the bills and have enough left over for frivolous stuff like food.”
“You had to build it, Molly. The dolls were taking over every flat surface in your house. Visiting you was like walking into a deli for very small cannibals.” Sherry wrinkled her nose. “Not to mention the dust.”
Molly bent to get a better view of Quentin’s forehead. “I know, I know. I needed the workshop, I needed the showroom, I even needed the reception room. It all seemed so essential. Now I wish I’d made do with a little less space.” She squinted at Quentin and ran her thumb along his cheekbone, lifting it a millimeter and rounding it off slightly. “I love making these critters, but, Lord, do I hate having to deal with professional store-buyers. Scares me to death. Thanks for giving me moral support. Now tell me a little about Mr. MacMillan.”
“He used to be one of those international construction engineers—you know, build a bridge in Tanzania, a dam in Brazil, then home for a month and off to build a plant in Costa Rica.”
“Somehow I can’t visualize Zoe growing up in a mud hut.”
Sherry laughed. “She didn’t. When I met her mother, Sydney, in college I knew we were kindred spirits—anything less than a four-star hotel was roughing it. Sydney turned that old mansion into MacMillan’s and converted the third floor into a chic apartment. That’s where Zoe grew up. Sydney died a couple of years ago, but Logan still lives there. He’s semi-retired. I guess he didn’t see any reason to move.”
“Is Zoe an only child?”
Sherry hesitated. “She had a younger brother named Jeremy. He was killed in an automobile accident. You were divorcing Harry about that time or you would have seen it in the papers. Big scandal. Jeremy’s wife, Tiffany, was driving. They were both very, very drunk. She didn’t get a scratch.”
“Lord, Sherry, how awful.”
“It gets worse. Tiffany was convicted of vehicular homicide, but before she could be sentenced, she ran away and took her baby with her. Sydney died about a year after that. Officially, it was emphysema. I think it was a broken heart.”
“Poor Zoe. I guess you never know what kind of trouble people carry around with them.” Molly opened the drawer beside her, cleaned her scalpel and put it away. Then she picked up a smaller one and held it up to the light. “I’m glad she and Rick got married. He’s a nice man.”
Sherry glanced at the round kitchen clock that hung on the wall beside the door to the showroom, and laid five red-tipped fingers on Molly’s arm. “Molly, you better put that head away this minute and take a look at yourself.” She pulled a small mirror across the counter and positioned it in front of Molly’s face.
“Oh, good grief. I look like I’m wearing a powdered wig. Why didn’t you tell me my hands look like something from the mummy’s curse?”
“I’ve been trying to spiff you up since that first day in the tenth grade when you walked into my homeroom. You’re my oldest and dearest friend. I’m happy if you stay one step ahead of the fashion police.”
At that moment the alarm bell from the end of the driveway sounded twice followed closely by the crunch of gravel signifying a vehicle in the parking area at the top of the hill. “Damn, they are early. I hate it when you’re right.”
She grabbed a wet towel, swathed the bisque head, stuffed it in the small refrigerator under the counter, then slid the unused scalpel back into the drawer under her worktable. She rubbed the end of her nose fiercely and unhooked her bare feet from the rungs of her stool. “For Pete’s sake, Sherry, help me find my shoes!”
LOGAN MACMILLAN pulled his black BMW into the parking area beside his daughter’s red Saturn, turned off the engine and listened to a silence so profound, he might have been plunged back into the Brazilian rain forest The vegetation was different, of course, but this place felt equally isolated. They might be a thousand miles from civilization, instead of twenty-five or thirty miles from the city.
Why would this Halliday woman choose to live and work in such isolation? Despite his daughter’s protest, he was glad he’d decided to come today. Zoe always accused him of not trusting her decisions, but all he wanted was to give her the benefit of his business expertise. She was developing a fine reputation as an interior designer. A wrong choice now could set her back professionally. Besides, assuming he agreed that Mrs. Halliday’s dolls belonged in MacMillan’s, he felt certain he could get Zoe a better deal than she could hope to negotiate on her own.
Zoe didn’t wait for him. She strode down a gravel path to the left of a log house. Logan glimpsed a rectangular metal building among the pines down the hill. That must be the workshop.
“We’re early,” he called to his daughter’s retreating back. The cool look she threw him over her shoulder told him her mood hadn’t improved. Zoe had refused even to discuss their impending visit. He was going in blind and he didn’t like the sensation. Still, he’d do his best to make certain she came out ahead. He owed her that. She might not believe him, but her happiness was all he cared about.
MOLLY SQUARED her shoulders, pasted what she hoped was a welcoming smile on her face and opened the door to the front room of her workshop.
“Zoe,” she said. “Welcome.”
Zoe leaned forward and shook Molly’s hand, then stood aside. “Mrs. Halliday, this is my father. Logan MacMillan.”
Molly took a deep breath to quell the butterflies in her stomach and extended her hand. He had a strong handshake, but he didn’t try to break her fingers the way some men did. She could feel his long fingers winding around hers.
Then she remembered the dust on her hands. He glanced at his palm. She groaned inwardly as he frowned and rubbed his palms together. Familiar insecurity washed over her.
“Please come in, Mr. MacMillan,” Molly said. She looked down to see Elvis, the ginger cat, undulate around MacMillan’s ankles. She hoped the man wasn’t allergic to cat hair because he was going to take plenty of it home on his slacks.
He stood a good six inches taller than Molly, but probably didn’t weigh five pounds more than she did. There was not an ounce of fat on him. His face was deeply tanned and lined like a granite outcropping at the edge of the Arizona desert. His steel-gray hair was cut short. His equally steely eyes seemed to be set for longrange viewing—great vistas, massive creations of concrete. He’d have difficulty adjusting his sight to look at dolls.
He walked in warily.
“Sit down a minute, Logan,” Sherry said, nodding toward the Victorian love seat to the left of the door to Molly’s showroom. “You all need to get to know one another before you talk business.”
He glanced at his watch. “I don’t want to impose on Mrs. Halliday’s time.”
Zoe snorted, then she sat as far away from her father as she could. Sherry perched on a French side chair and smiled.
Molly pulled up her old rocking chair and sat with her feet curled under her. MacMillan waited politely until she was settled, then perched cautiously on the edge of the sofa as though he were afraid it might collapse under his weight.
“I must admit I’m a little confused, Mr. MacMillan,” Molly said. Elvis jumped onto her lap, walked around in a circle and collapsed in a heap. She scratched his ears; he purred softly. “I’ve been trying for several years to find a good outlet for my dolls in town, and when Zoe said she’d like to carry them in MacMillan’s I thought we had a done deal.”
“Before this afternoon is over, it may well be,” MacMillan told her.
Zoe moved restively on the sofa. Molly glanced at her. The young woman sat with her arms crossed tight across her chest.
Logan also looked at his daughter as he addressed Molly. “Zoe tells me that your dolls are extraordinary and would sell well at MacMillan’s. I’m sure you’ll convince me she’s right. She generally is.” He smiled a kind, sad smile that softened the hard planes of his face.
Zoe raised her eyebrows, but said nothing.
“Actually, you should thank Rick,” Molly said. “He saw the dolls when he came out to do the plumbing on the workshop and dragged Zoe back to look at them.”
Again he flashed her that smile. Molly felt a jolt. This guy could be really dangerous. Too attractive for his own good. Or hers.
“Tell him about the shops that carry your dolls,” Sherry prompted.
“Sure.” Molly ticked off her fingers. “Let’s see, Andreotti in Atlanta handles my dolls, so does Minou et Cie in Brussels, and I’ve just started shipping to Belisarius in Los Angeles. They’re all doing very well with them. MacMillan’s would fit right in.”
“Surely a toy store would be a more appropriate outlet. Why an interior design house?”
“These dolls aren’t toys,” Zoe said. “I told you that.”
“Let me show you,” Molly said. “Wait right here.” She opened the door to the showroom, slipped through and returned a moment later carrying a life-size doll—a little girl in a pale blue party dress and Belgian lace.
Zoe turned to her father. “You see?”
Molly held the doll out to MacMillan, who raised his hands and shook his head as though she were handing him a ticking time bomb. “No thank you. I’d rather not touch it. I break things. But she’s beautiful.”
“Thank you. She’s a portrait doll.”
“What are portrait dolls?”
“People commission me to sculpt dolls that look like their children or grandchildren. They tell me it’s better than a regular portrait or even a statue. Some of them, like this one, are life-size.”
“And expensive?”
“Up to six or seven thousand dollars.”
“You can actually sell dolls for that kind of money?” MacMillan asked, and ran a hand along his jaw. “I don’t know enough to make an educated decision.”
Zoe stood up abruptly. “But I do. That’s the point, isn’t it? In addition to the portrait dolls, Mrs. Halliday also designs and sculpts her own. And she makes beautiful copies of antique dolls. I know we could sell them in MacMillan’s.” She turned to Molly. “Thank you, Mrs. Halliday. I have another meeting at the shop. My father can conclude the negotiations. Supposedly that’s what he came for. Nice to see you, Mrs. Carpenter.” She walked to the front door and opened it.
“Zoe,” Logan called after her.
She kept going. She didn’t quite slam the door after herself, but she certainly closed it with a snap.
“Should I go after her?” Molly said.
Logan sat back on the couch and shook his head. “Sorry about that. Zoe resents what she perceives as my interference, but with an investment of this magnitude…”
“Investment?” Molly said. “You’re getting the dolls on consignment, didn’t Zoe explain that?”
“Consignment? Zoe neglected to mention that. I assumed she was buying them wholesale.” He realized with a sinking sensation that Zoe had deliberately set him up. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Halliday. I misunderstood.” He stood and began to move toward the door.
“Whoa! Not so fast.” Molly laughed. She had to do something to lighten the atmosphere. “You came to see dolls, and by gosh, you’re stuck with them. Come on, Mr. MacMillan, you are going to see enough dolls to last you a lifetime.”
Sherry tucked her hand under MacMillan’s arm. “Don’t worry, Logan, unlike real children, they don’t bite.”
Molly opened the French doors at the back of the room and turned on the lights. She and Sherry hung back. MacMillan stood transfixed in the doorway.
Dolls in satin and lace rode in wicker carriages and antique sleighs; Native American dolls in beaded buckskin sat astride miniature ponies; Irish colleens in tartan shawls swung milk pails; baby dolls slept in bassinets; on a center table smaller dolls played jacks or snuggled under receiving blankets. Around the perimeter of the room, waist-high Victorian ladies nodded to nearly life-size portrait dolls of toddlers and young children dressed in everything from Belgian lace to jeans and cowboy boots.
MacMillan began to work his way methodically around the room as though he were in a museum. He kept his hands carefully clasped behind him. Molly understood. For a man who broke things, the showroom was a disaster waiting to happen.
“How’s the experiment with the vinyl going?” Sherry whispered.
Molly held up crossed fingers. “Great. I’ve cast a couple of my favorites and one of the big toy companies is definitely interested in mass-producing them. I never planned to go commercial, but the money’s too good to pass up.”
“Which ones did you pick?”
“The Jeannette doll—you’ve already got one of her. Then a new one I don’t think you’ve seen. The Dulcy doll is the one right in front of Mr. MacMillan.”
Sherry gasped and stared at MacMillan’s broad back.
Molly saw him stiffen like a bird dog on point.
Suddenly, he reached forward and grabbed the very doll she’d been talking about by its arm. He whirled to face them. As the doll swung, its right leg hit the edge of the table and shattered. Shards of bisque rained onto the table and floor. Without a word, MacMillan grasped the doll around its body and held it up so that both women could look into its face. Sherry moaned softly, “It can’t be.”
Molly felt her scalp tighten. MacMillan’s face was stony, his eyes hard and flat.
He threw the doll onto the table so hard that the crown of its head shattered. Two gray eyeballs flew out and rolled across the tile floor. Without a word he pushed past the two women, through the reception room and out the front door. They heard his footsteps as he ran up the path, heard his car door open then slam, the engine roar into life, and a moment later the gate alarm pealed as he drove into the road and away.
As the sound died, Molly reached out and picked up the broken doll from the table. She cradled it in her arms and turned to Sherry. “What on earth just happened here?”
Sherry sagged against the doorjamb as though her legs wouldn’t support her. “Molly, have you made any other dolls using that mold?”
“I told you, that’s one of the two I cast in vinyl.”
“Where is the other one?”
“In the workroom. I haven’t finished painting her face yet.”
“Go get her. Bring her here.”
Molly opened her mouth as if to argue. Then shrugged and went out.
A moment later, Molly returned from the workshop carrying a large doll loosely wrapped in brown paper. She unwrapped it and laid it naked on the table.
Sherry gasped. “Oh, Lord, it’s uncanny!”
“For Pete’s sake, Sherry, what?”
“Remember I told you that Logan’s daughter-in-law took her baby and disappeared? The little girl was named Dulcy.”
“Poor MacMillan! But I don’t think he heard me say her name. You and I were both whispering. And surely just a name wouldn’t be enough to set him off like that.”
Sherry looked into Molly’s eyes. “Molly, that doll you call the Dulcy doll—that’s the spitting image of Logan’s Dulcy, the way she’d look now.”
Molly felt the hackles rise on the back of her neck. “Noway.”
But Sherry wasn’t listening to her. She was off in some reverie of her own. “Rick and Zoe loved that child so much. Why didn’t they recognize the doll, too? I did.”
“They didn’t see her is why,” Molly said practically. “I was using my bathroom sink to cast the vinyl head while Rick finished plumbing the workshop. The Dulcy doll was there so I could refer to her if I needed to. I just got her dressed and back down to the workshop today.” She shook her head. “Specially for MacMillan and Zoe. My timing is as flawless as ever.”
“My God, just think how awful it would be if they saw a thousand of her sitting around in some toy store next Christmas!”
“Wouldn’t happen. These two are perfect likenesses, but if the company mass-produces them, I’ll give them a more generic prototype. The new doll won’t look like the little girl who disappeared.”
“Molly—she did more than disappear. Dulcy MacMillan has been dead for two years.”
Molly stared at Sherry.
“That’s impossible! She was alive and well a year ago when I modeled the doll.”
LOGAN MACMILLAN CAME to his senses five miles down the country road, barely in time to avoid a head-on collision with a pickup truck. He braked, swerved and wound up on the verge of a six-foot ditch. The other driver honked in irritation.
After his breathing returned to normal, Logan turned off the engine, climbed out of the car and slammed the door behind him. He picked up a softball-size stone from the shoulder and threw it underhand as hard and as far as he could. It splashed in a cow pond fifty feet away.
Funny that he could still pitch. The last time he pitched to Jeremy, his son was ten. Logan had been home between jobs for a full four months that time.
He wiped his muddy hands down the sides of his jacket and grimaced. He’d always been so certain that sooner or later he and Jeremy would be able to spend time together, to catch up on all those years they’d been apart. How wrong he’d been.
He needed to hit something, so he punched the BMW with both fists hard enough to leave a dent. Pain radiated to his shoulders. His car insurance would probably skyrocket. The hell with it. He was beginning to feel a little better.
He tore open his tie, and yanked at his collar until the button popped.
Suddenly, his adrenaline bottomed out. He walked around to the driver’s side, slid in and turned on the ignition, then the heater. He had been in shock before and knew he was close again. As warm air flooded from the vents, he closed his eyes and fought for control. Much as he longed to put Molly Halliday and her dolls out of his mind he couldn’t. He’d have to drive back, apologize, pay for the doll and find out how she came to create such a bizarre likeness.
He didn’t believe it was a coincidence that the doll named Dulcy was an exact likeness to the image the computer had made of how his granddaughter would have looked.
If she had lived.
CHAPTER TWO (#ulink_1e9c7793-5d26-5ee2-9370-a309c92188a0)
MOLLY STOOD under a steaming shower, scrubbed her hair and body, then let the water course over her shoulders until it started to chill. She could feel the tension in her knotted muscles begin to ease. All in all, this had been some afternoon. What had started out as a simple showing for Zoe MacMillan had deteriorated into a Greek tragedy with Zoe’s father, Logan, as the tragic hero. Molly didn’t understand what had happened, but she planned to, for her own peace of mind, if for no other reason. She toweled her hair, and because she still had to feed the animals in the chill evening September air, blew it dry—something she seldom took the time to do.
She pulled on a pair of clean jeans and a teal blue turtleneck sweater, dug her windbreaker out from under a pile of flea-market clothes from which she intended to make dresses for her newest dolls and went out to the barn where Eeyore, the Sicilian donkey, and Maxie, her granddaughter’s pony, waited impatiently for her.
She dumped sweet feed in Eeyore’s and Maxie’s buckets, then tossed them a couple of flakes of hay. She scooped up corn to throw to the five geese that clambered honking out of the pond when they saw her coming and waddled toward her at breakneck speed, their necks stretched out so far, it was a wonder they didn’t tip over.
She flung the corn as far from her as she could. If she dropped it at her feet, they’d crash into her like bumper cars.
Absentmindedly, she put the feed away, hung up the scoop and strolled back to the house to fix herself a sandwich.
In the kitchen she sniffed basil and fresh mint from the pots on the windowsill. The wet-concrete odor of damp bisque was finally gone from the house together with the last of the dust. Her ex-husband, Harry, had hated the mess. In fact, he’d probably divorced her because of the dolls.
Molly poured herself a glass of iced tea and twisted a sprig of mint into it, enjoying the quiet. Sherry often teased her about being a hermit, but Molly did not regret for one moment spending most of her divorce settlement to buy her woods and pasture, to build her log house and barn. She never wanted to go to another fancy corporate function again, if she lived to be a hundred.
How could she ever have guessed when she let Sherry con her into taking that first doll-making class that she would find her life’s work? She was content for the first time in her life, and never lonely. Sherry dropped in four or five times a week. Molly’s clients loved coming out to see her. Her daughter, Anne, brought her granddaughter, Elizabeth, by nearly every day after school to ride her pony. Molly still missed her volunteer work at the Abused Children’s Center, but there wasn’t time, not if she expected to make a living. Funny that she’d started volunteering because Harry said she had to do something charitable to make him look good at his firm.
Molly sipped her tea slowly, so lost in her thoughts that when the doorbell sounded, she jumped a foot. Nobody came up her driveway unannounced. Although a person could walk through the woods to the house and bypass the gate alarm, dense underbrush and snakes tended to discourage walkers.
No, it was more likely that a car had driven up while she’d been in the barn.
The doorbell pealed again. She peeked through the front curtains and saw a black BMW Then she saw MacMillan on the front porch. She felt a stab of alarm. Should she open the door to him?
“Mrs. Halliday,” a deep voice spoke through the door. “I must see you.” It wasn’t so much a request as a command.
Molly sighed. Get the confrontation over with. Maybe she could get an explanation as well.
She opened the door and snapped, “Didn’t you do enough damage on your first raid?” Then, seeing his face, she reached out to him quickly. “You look as though you’ve been rode hard and put away wet,” she said. “You need a drink.”
“Excuse me?” he asked. He seemed to be having trouble focusing his eyes..
He was no longer immaculate. Besides the bisque dust, there was mud on his jacket, his tie was loose, his shirt gaped open at the neck. His hair stood on end as though he’d been driving his hands through it, and his skin had a gray caste that his tan couldn’t quite hide.
“Come into the kitchen,” Molly said, and took his arm. “You need a glass of orange juice, my friend, and you need it quickly.” She shoved him onto a stool, poured a glass of orange juice and ordered, “Drink it before you pass out.”
He peered into the jelly glass as though it held arsenic.
“Do it. It won’t bite you.”
He took a sip, then drank greedily.
“More?”
“Thank you, no.”
“Iced tea then? Or Scotch?”
“Nothing, thank you.” He set the empty glass down carefully. The bar stool put him for the first time almost at eye level with Molly in a room still flooded with western light from the setting sun. He took his first real look at her.
How could he have missed seeing her clearly before? The shock of recognition of her sheer femaleness startled him. He stood and strode back to the relative sanctuary of the front hall.
Molly followed him.
At the door he turned and took his checkbook from his inside jacket pocket. “I’ve come to pay for the doll.”
“I planned to bill you.”
“How much?”
“Fifteen hundred dollars will do. Use my desk.” She pointed at an aged plantation desk inside the living room.
He sat down, wrote the check and handed it to her.
She stuck it into her jeans without looking at it. “Sherry told me what happened. You must understand something, Mr. MacMillan. I am a craftswoman, pure and simple. I’m certainly not clairvoyant. In fact, I do not have a bit of ESP in my entire body.”
This time he did look up, and straight into those amazing blue eyes. They were full of intelligence and compassion. He kept his voice even. “The doll-”
“Please, let me finish. Sherry told me your granddaughter died two years ago. I’m sorry, that is simply not possible.”
This was the last thing Logan expected to hear. He was stunned and then anger began to take over. What right had this madwoman with the teal blue eyes to tell him his granddaughter had not died? He felt his heart begin to speed up. “I assure you, Mrs. Halliday, I have seen her death certificate.”
“I don’t care if you had all nine justices of the Supreme Court testifying to you,” she said. “I don’t make things—children—up. And I certainly don’t pull the names of dead grandchildren out of the air. I name all my dolls. It’s standard in the industry. It’s easier to keep them straight that way and the customers like it.”
“So?”
“So, that doll, the one you smashed this afternoon…I didn’t pull her name out of a hat, either.” Molly sat on a wing chair across from him.
It was as though a ghost had stepped into the room. He looked at the woman before him, noticing that she met his gaze head-on.
He stood up. “Mrs. Halliday, this is obviously some sort of confidence game. I won’t tolerate it.”
“Oh, for Pete’s sake, sit down before you fall down. Hear me out. Do it. There. That’s better.”
“Very well, I will hear you out, but I assure you—”
“Look, when I designed the Dulcy doll—”
“Stop calling her that!” he shouted.
The anguish in his voice took Molly’s breath. “Mr. MacMillan, Logan,” she said gently. “That’s her name. It has always been her name, ever since I saw her and decided to model her.”
She watched his hands curl into fists and hoped he didn’t plan to hit her, but she stood her ground. “I said I saw her and I meant it. Obviously I also heard her name. I told you, I don’t make up children in my mind and then model them. Within the last year, I saw that little girl and heard someone call her Dulcy. Who could forget a name like that?”
“Even if I believed you, what proof have you? Do you take pictures?”
Molly shook her head. “Only when I’m working on commission. Let’s face it, most children look a good deal alike. Shortly after my divorce four years ago I decided I wanted to devote my life to creating dolls, and in the beginning I tried to find a mold that had the same expression and bone structure as the child I was working on, then I either added or subtracted material to make the doll as much like the child as possible. I still use that technique sometimes, but after a while it didn’t satisfy me. I took some sculpture classes and began to sculpt my own molds. The Dulcy doll is my fourth attempt at creating a portrait from scratch, and the only one I’m really proud of!”
“That doesn’t explain…”
“I know. It’s a rather long-winded way to the point, which is that I know Dulcy’s face intimately. In my mind I’ve touched the curve of her cheek, the angle of her eye socket. And I know the Dulcy doll is a perfect reproduction of the child I saw. I have a photographic memory for faces. I may not know where I met you or under what circumstances, but I remember your face. In Dulcy’s case, I remember the name, too. Usually I don’t.”
“For the sake of argument, let’s say that you did see Dulcy somewhere in Memphis, heard someone call her name. She was not quite two when Tiffany ran away with her three years ago.”
Molly relaxed. At least MacMillan was prepared to talk rationally to her now.
“I’m sorry, but I can’t project change on the faces I see. I couldn’t sculpt the way you looked at twenty or the way you’ll look at ninety. The Dulcy I saw was that age, that shape, that size and called by that name. How many Dulcys do you think there are in the United States, Mr…Logan? A few thousand? There is something I don’t understand, by the way. If you haven’t seen your granddaughter since before she was two, why are you so sure that the child I sculpted looks the way she would look?”
“Computer simulation.” Logan leaned forward. “How much did Sherry tell you?”
“She filled me in on as much as she knows.”
“She knows most of it. I guess I owe you an explanation for the rest.”
Molly realized that even that small an admission had cost him dearly. It was clear that he wasn’t used to accounting to anyone.
“When my daughter-in-law, Tiffany, ran away with Dulcy, she was out on bond awaiting sentencing for vehicular homicide. She was probably facing a sentence of five to eight years in prison. Even with good behavior, she’d have served two years, maybe more.”
“Sherry told me about your son’s death.”
A flash of pain crossed MacMillan’s face, but he continued stoically. “My son, Jeremy, wasn’t the only one killed in the wreck. Edward Valdez, a cardiologist, was changing a flat tire when Tiffany hit his car. His family is rich and prominent. They demanded the prosecutor go for the maximum sentence possible. No plea bargains, no lesser charge, no probation or credit for jail time served. They wanted Tiffany’s blood. They would have gotten it.”
“Please, I know this is hard for you…” Molly reached a hand out to touch him. He drew back as though any physical contact would shatter his iron control.
“I have told the story many times since Jeremy was killed, Mrs. Halliday.”
“Doesn’t make it any easier.”
“In an odd way it does. While I’m talking, I can almost convince myself that the entire thing happened to someone else. It’s only afterward that the full force of Jeremy’s death hits me again. Do you have children, Mrs. Halliday?”
Molly nodded. “A daughter, a son-in-law and a granddaughter. I’d go nuts if anything happened to any of them.”
“Unfortunately, I’ve remained sane. Madness might be easier. Did Sherry tell you that Jeremy was an alcoholic?”
Molly nodded and felt a chill as she looked into his eyes, as flat and bleak as an Arctic ice floe.
“My granddaughter, Dulcy, was not even two,” he continued. “Tiffany’s mother is dead, her father has remarried and lives in Spain. At the trial, her lawyer argued that since Tiffany grew up with a drunken mother and an absentee father…” He stopped speaking a moment and closed his eyes. “An absentee father,” he repeated, “she was not responsible. The jury looked at the size of her trust fund and were not impressed by his argument.”
Molly wondered whose side Logan had been on. Most men would feel vengeful for the loss of an only son. She couldn’t tell from that careful voice, that stony face, what Logan felt about his daughter-in-law.
“My wife, Sydney, and I were the obvious ones to take custody of Dulcy,” he went on. “Tiffany signed the custody papers willingly. We made plans to help her get her life back on track after she was paroled.”
“Then why did she run away?”
MacMillan sighed. “I can only guess. I think she couldn’t bear to face us or prison or the world or perhaps most of all, her own guilt. She was used to running away from problems that she couldn’t buy her way out of.”
“But she didn’t leave Dulcy behind.”
“No.”
“You never suspected she planned to leave?”
He shook his head. “She was very careful. All the time we were worrying about how she would survive her prison sentence, she was setting up the mechanism to disappear. She was to be sentenced on Monday. On Friday afternoon, Zoe was baby-sitting Dulcy at the store. When Tiffany came to pick her up, she’d been drinking again, and she and Zoe really got into it. Zoe didn’t want to let her have Dulcy, but couldn’t really stop her. In the end, Rick drove Dulcy and Tiffany home in Tiffany’s car while Zoe followed in theirs. Tiffany swore she wouldn’t drink or drive anymore that night. Zoe and Rick had to be content with that. It was the last time any of us saw either Tiffany or Dulcy. When she didn’t show up in court on Monday, the judge issued a warrant for her arrest, but she and Dulcy had simply vanished into thin air.”
“The police couldn’t find her?”
“They came up empty. We found she’d raided her trust fund, so she had plenty of cash with her. The private detective we hired traced her partway. He’s the one who discovered that Dulcy—” MacMillan’s voice broke. He cleared his throat and continued in that same cool way he had before.
This time Molly wasn’t fooled. He wasn’t cool. He was being torn apart inside. She knew she couldn’t offer him sympathy. He’d hate it.
“Why do you think the child is dead?”
“I don’t think Dulcy is dead. I know she’s dead, dammit! Do you think that if I thought there was the slightest chance Dulcy was alive, I wouldn’t be combing the country—no—combing the planet, to find her?”
Molly raised her hands. “Okay, let’s leave that for a minute.”
He looked at her appraisingly. “You haven’t asked the usual question.”
“Which is?”
“Why Tiffany took the child when Dulcy would be better off with us.”
“I can guess the answer to that one already.”
“Because you’re a mother?”
“No, I used to volunteer at the university center for disturbed and abused children.”
Logan sat up very straight and said, “Dulcy wasn’t abused.”
“Not in the usual sense. But I’ve seen drunken mothers, drugged out on crack, hooking, with AIDS and TB. They love their children and will kill to keep them, even if they’re doing massive and irreparable harm to those children in the process.”
“It’s difficult for me to excuse a parent who would knowingly do something against a child’s best interests. Jeremy and Tiffany must have known what their alcoholism would do to Dulcy. They never managed to stop drinking even after Dulcy was born.”
“It seldom stopped the mothers at the center, either. Alcoholism is a disease, Logan, but it’s not like the mumps. You don’t get over it after a week of bed rest. It takes strength and a good support system. From what you tell me, Tiffany didn’t have either.”
“We were her support system, or wanted to be. Unfortunately, we weren’t enough.” He took a deep breath and stared at Molly as though seeing her for the first time. “You are a remarkable woman, Mrs. Halliday. I admit I underestimated you. Frankly, a woman who spends her days making dolls…”
“Let me finish for you. I make dolls, I hide in the woods, I live in a log cabin…”
“Hardly a cabin.”
“Not a suburban ranch, either. Come on, admit it, you thought you were meeting Beatrix Potter.”
“Actually, you have a great deal in common. I seem to remember she retired to a farm.”
Molly laughed, then said, “But she never worked again.” She shrugged and grinned at him. “Hey, I’m divorced, middle-aged and my only talent is my dolls. I didn’t choose harsh reality, it chose me. Now, tell me why you think Dulcy is dead.”
“The private detective we hired discovered that Dulcy had died of viral spinal meningitis at a small hospital in the Midwest. He brought us her death certificate.”
“You flew there? Saw the body?”
Logan shook his head. “My wife was in intensive care by that time. I didn’t even tell her. What was the point? Besides, the whole thing had happened three months earlier. Someone—I can only assume Tiffany—had abandoned. Dulcy at the local clinic. They tried to save her, but it was too late. They tried to trace her parents, but eventually they gave up and buried her there.”
“What made your detective think that was Dulcy?”
He shrugged. “He said he showed her picture to the nurses who had worked to save her. They identified the picture. It was Dulcy, all right.”
“I see.”
“They were certain. They had no reason to lie.”
“Nor do I.”
He leaned back and closed his eyes. The lamplight carved his face into its essential planes. Looking at him, afraid to speak for fear of disturbing his small moment of repose, Molly longed to model that face. Every ounce of grief and loss were carved into him. He had a massive head, and the short gray hair revealed the fine sculpting of his skull. His was a face constructed of angular planes—the angle of bone strong over the eyes, the high sharp cheekbones, the eagle’s nose, and finally, the strong jaw.
He sighed, shook his head and opened his eyes.
Molly felt the shock of his gaze deep inside her. Unfortunately for her peace of mind, the shock went to a part of her body she had thought long dormant. She was reacting to him the way a woman reacts to a man. Not possible. She didn’t even like him. The day her divorce was final, she stepped out of the sexual arena without a moment’s regret. The last thing she wanted was to climb back into the ring.
Not that it would be possible with someone like Logan. He was probably no more than two or three years older than she. Middle-aged men went for twenty-yearold trophies.
Now, one glance from those gray eyes of his sent awakening shivers straight through her body and straight as an arrow to her groin.
Hoping that he couldn’t detect the blush she felt spreading up her face in the lamplight, she found herself babbling. “You said you saw a death certificate. What name did it have?”
“Jane Doe. But the picture, Mrs. Halliday. They identified the picture.”
“Logan, I’m going to ask you something you are not going to like. Please don’t get angry.”
“I’m too tired to get angry.”
“Do you trust that private investigator?”
He drew himself up in the chair. “Mrs. Halliday, I have no reason to doubt the man. First, why would he end a lucrative contract? I had every intention of pursuing Tiffany until I either went bankrupt or found my granddaughter.”
“Yes,” Molly conceded. “There is that.”
“Second, he has a good reputation. My lawyer recommended him. He has been successful in several other cases. I checked his clients. They were satisfied.”
“Better and better. Still, either there was some mix-up about the picture and the identification, or something’s going on we’re not aware of.”
“I doubt whether the entire staff of a hospital would lie. What would be the reason? Some sort of misguided loyalty to a criminal?”
“We don’t know who made the mistake. Another thing that puzzles me is how Sherry was able to recognize that doll as Dulcy.”
“She and my wife worked together to decorate Sherry and her husband, Leo’s latest house. She saw a great deal of Dulcy when she was a baby, and she’s been a good friend ever since. She’s seen all the computer enhancements the detective produced. She’d have known Dulcy’s face at almost the same moment I did. What I don’t know is why she didn’t recognize the doll earlier.” He considered. “Or why Rick and Zoe didn’t.”
“I just put her out today when I knew you were coming.” She sighed. “Ironic. I really rushed so that she’d be there especially for you.” She leaned back and closed her own eyes, trying to recall where she had seen the child, remembering instead only the child herself. She wasn’t certain she should tell Logan about the picture in her head.
He seemed able to read her mind. “If you saw this child, tell me where, how, what she looked like.”
Molly opened her eyes, looked at him and made her decision. “She was the saddest, gravest little girl I have ever seen in my life.”
He sucked in his breath. He gripped the arms of the chair as though he’d like to rend the leather with his bare hands. “Sad how?”
Molly closed her eyes again. This time she saw more. “It was in a park somewhere. I remember there were lots of children swinging, sliding, one of those little merry-goround things, I think. A friend of mine and I were on a bus tour with a bunch of other local people on our way to Aspen and Vail. We must have stopped there to picnic. This child was sitting alone on the grass. She had a book in her hand—not a children’s book. It was thick and there were no pictures on the cover.”
MacMillan snorted. “Come now, she would hardly have been reading a book.”
“Why not? Children learn to read early these days. Maybe there were pictures inside. She wasn’t smiling. She looked up at me, right into my eyes. I wanted to stoop down and hug her, but something warned me she wouldn’t allow that.” She looked up at him. “That’s when I heard someone call out ‘Dulcy’ and she closed the book, stood up, brushed off her jeans and walked away. She didn’t run, she walked, quite calmly, the way an adult walks to a business meeting. She wasn’t like any child I’ve ever seen. So self-contained. I knew I had to try to capture that self-possession.”
“Where was this?”
Molly threw up her hands in frustration. “I simply can’t remember.”
“And I’m supposed to take your word for all this over a licensed private investigator’s?”
“Look, let me go through my photographs from my trips. Maybe something will click.” She hesitated a moment. “You never tried to find your daughter-in-law after the detective said Dulcy was dead?”
“No.” His voice was flat, hard. “She made her choice. I stood by her throughout her trial even though she killed my boy. Zoe has never forgiven me for that. But when I found out she’d abandoned Dulcy to die…” He cleared his throat. “Frankly, I don’t give a damn what happens to her.”
“But if Dulcy is still alive and with her?”
“If—and I still think it unlikely—there was a mix-up or a cover-up, then I will hunt them down and bring my granddaughter home. Tiffany can go to Outer Mongolia for all I care.”
Molly saw the muscles along his jaw tighten until they stood out like steel cables. She shivered. This man would make a dangerous enemy.
“Will you tell me something?” she asked. “I can understand that you were startled when you picked up the doll, but frankly, I thought you overreacted big time. It’s only a doll.”
“Only a doll?” He stared at her in genuine surprise. “It was a.corpse!”
“But…”
“I felt as though you were playing some sort of sick joke at her—my—expense. I see now that wasn’t true. Please accept my apologies. I don’t usually fly off the handle like that.”
“Apology accepted. Listen, maybe the child who died looked enough like Dulcy so that the hospital staff made an honest mistake.”
Logan shook his head. “Forgive me. I stopped hoping a long time ago.”
“Don’t let yourself hope then. But for pity’s sake, check it out.”
“I plan to. If Dulcy is alive, I must find her and bring her home. But I’m not sure how much more disappointment I can take.”
Looking into his eyes, Molly realized how difficult it must be for such a man to reveal this sign of weakness, not only to a woman but a comparative stranger. She felt sympathy for him in the same moment she knew how deeply he would resent her expressing it.
Molly sighed. She couldn’t leave this problem alone any more than she could abandon this strange, lonely man. “I think the first thing to do is talk to your detective. See if you still believe him. Maybe take Rick and Zoe with you.”
“I don’t plan to tell Zoe any of this until I’m certain the child is alive and we have some hope of finding her.”
“Then I’ll go with you.” There. The die was cast, the words were spoken. She could only hope he’d refuse her offer. But he didn’t—not exactly.
“I can’t ask you to—”
Just then, the driveway alarm sounded. Logan MacMillan started as though she’d stuck him with a pin.
A moment later, Molly went to the front door and opened it.
“Gram, I know it’s late, but I had to say good-night to Maxie.” A coltish prepubescent girl with chestnut hair straight down her back flew into the room, followed by an exasperated woman who might have been Molly twenty years earlier. The child stopped when she saw Molly was not alone.
“Sorry, Mom. We were in the neighborhood. I tried to stop her,” the woman said, and grinned.
“No sweat. Anne Crown, this is Logan MacMillan. Logan, my daughter.” She smiled at the child. “And this is my granddaughter, Elizabeth.”
Logan, who’d stood when Anne and Elizabeth came in, nodded.
“Hello,” Anne said. “Hope we’re not interrupting anything.”
“Hi,” Elizabeth said, then turning to Molly, “Got any carrots in the fridge?”
“Yes. Don’t forget Eeyore,” Molly called after the child, already disappearing into the kitchen. They heard the refrigerator open and a. moment later shut. “And don’t slam the—”
The back door slammed.
“Please sit down, Mr. MacMillan,” Anne said. “We can only stay a minute. I have to get home to fix dinner.” She glanced at her watch. “Phil will probably have to go back to the office. It’s the end of the quarter. No rest for the poor tax accountant.” She shrugged. “I had to pick Elizabeth up at the Fitzgeralds’. Anytime we’re close to Mom’s, Elizabeth insists on stopping by.”
“The attraction is Maxie, her pony, not me.” Molly laughed. Looking at Logan, she realized he had retreated into his shell.
The back door slammed once more. “Okay, old mom. Maxie pig and Eeyore pig are stuffed. We can go home now. I’ve got tons of homework.”
“You spending the night Friday?” Molly asked Elizabeth as she followed the pair to the door.
“What’re you offering?” the girl said. “Pizza, maybe? A movie?”
“I was thinking more along the lines of brussels sprouts and barn-cleaning.”
“Yech!” Elizabeth made a face. “Can I bring Karen?”
“Sure. Maybe pizza. Maybe popcorn. Definitely barn-cleaning.”
“Deal. ‘Bye, Gram.” The child leaned over and kissed Molly. Anne raised her eyes to heaven and waved goodbye as she followed her daughter to the car. Molly stood in the door and watched them until she heard the driveway alarm go off as they turned onto the road. Then she came back into the living room.
“I must be going, as well,” Logan said. “I’ve taken up entirely too much of your time.” He stood by the window. Molly realized he’d watched the pair into their car and down the road.
“Don’t be ridiculous. We’ve barely started. I’ve got a couple of steaks in the refrigerator. I’ll whip up a salad. Stay.”
“I couldn’t.”
Molly had visions of a turtle pulling back into his shell. “Why? Because it’s on the spur of the moment? You’re a vegetarian? You really do have plans? What?”
Logan stammered, “I…uh.” He looked across at Molly in the doorway, her hands on her ample hips, her feet wide apart, peering at him with those marvelous eyes as though she could see right into his soul. She didn’t seem pleased at what she saw.
He thought of the cold chicken he’d planned to pick up on his way home, the silent kitchen in which he’d eat it, the lonely empty apartment, the broad empty bed. “All right.”
“Good. Want a drink? I don’t, but my friends do.”
“I don’t drink.”
“Okay, how about a soda?”
He nodded.
“Come into the kitchen while I fix the salad.”
“Your granddaughter is very beautiful.”
Molly snorted. “She’s nothing of the sort, but she’s going to be. She inherited Anne’s brains and her father’s metabolism.”
“You seem very comfortable with each other.”
“She doesn’t say ma’am or sir, if that’s what you mean. I want real respect, thank you, not the fake kind. She respects what I do. It’s going to be tough to lose her in a couple of years.”
Logan sat up. “What do you mean, lose her?”
Molly turned away from the refrigerator, a head of romaine lettuce in her hand. She said seriously, “Because sometime between now and age fourteen she will turn away from me for a few years. If I’m lucky and live long enough, I should get her back around twenty. We have entirely too good a relationship, so I’ll be one of the people she’ll have to rebel against if she’s going to grow up. Painful for everybody, of course, but teenagers are certifiably loony, anyway. The trick is to get them to adulthood without a pregnancy or a police record and definitely in one piece.” She glanced at Logan and gasped. “Oh, God, that was a stupid thing to say. I am so sorry. Please forgive me.”
“Perfectly true. Unfortunately, I discovered too late that a parent actually has to be on site to accomplish that.”
Molly obviously had no idea what he meant, and he wasn’t ready to explain.
He watched her move easily and competently around the kitchen. She radiated warmth and a kind of inner composure that he didn’t think he’d ever encountered before. Suddenly a wave of panic swept over him. She touched him. Made him feel. He didn’t dare feel anything. If he allowed one crack in the protective shield he’d built around himself, all the pain might come crashing in.
“I’m sorry,” he said quickly. “I’ve remembered I have an engagement. I must leave. I apologize.” He strode to the front door.
Molly stared after him, heard the door slam, the car start, and a moment later the alarm sound. She looked down at the lettuce in her hand and shook her head.
“That man is definitely a menace,” she muttered.
CHAPTER THREE (#ulink_d527bbb0-9dac-5149-ba08-de5452f83f3d)
LOGAN STRUCK the heavy bag again and again. He felt each blow all the way to his shoulder, but he kept punching. Barely protected by light boxing gloves, his hands still ached from hitting the BMW. Sweat poured down his face, slid over his naked shoulders and chest down to the waistband of his sweat pants. The thrumming rhythm of the bag echoed off the attic walls.
He saw the face of George Youngman on the bag every time he hit it. He’d trusted the private detective. If the man had lied or screwed up, Logan intended to make him very sorry.
Eventually, his bursting lungs drove him to his knees. He rolled over on the mat and listened to his heart thud against his rib cage. Stretching out, he waited for his pulse to slow down.
Overhead in the wooden rafters a fat spider scuttled across its web.
Each night when he came up here from his apartment to use Jeremy’s exercise equipment, he felt close to his dead son. The place needed a good cleaning, but he liked it as it was, spiders and all.
His pulse rate slowed and stabilized quickly. He was in good physical shape for a man his age.
He stuck his left boxing glove in his right armpit to pull it off, then pulled the other off and dropped both on the mat beside him. His emotional shape was something else. He felt older than the pyramids and more battered than the Sphinx.
He rolled over, pulled Jeremy’s rowing machine to him, climbed in and began to row. He had to exhaust himself totally or he’d never sleep.
The cordless telephone on the floor beside him buzzed. He reached over and picked it up.
“Where have you been?”
“Zoe.” Wearily, Logan acknowledged the anger in his daughter’s voice. “Here. At least since about six.”
“Why didn’t you call me? I’ve been worried sick!”
“Why?”
“Sherry called looking for you and said there’d been some kind of a mess at Molly Halliday’s after I left. What was she talking about?”
Silently, Logan cursed Sherry. He hadn’t planned to explain anything to Zoe. “Nothing. A minor mix-up.”
“You broke something, didn’t you?”
“As a matter of fact…”
“Oh, Lord! Do we still get the dolls?”
“Why didn’t you tell me they were going to be on consignment?”
There was a silence at the other end of the line. “Would it have made a difference?”
“Of course it would, Zoe. I went there to get you a better deal. You know I don’t interfere with the store.”
“Oh, right.”
Logan sighed. He couldn’t ever get through to Zoe. “Let’s talk about it tomorrow, shall we? I’m sorry I worried you.”
The phone slammed down. Logan listened to the dial tone.
She never called him by any name. She spoke of him to other people as “my father,” but when she spoke to him directly he was never “Daddy” or “Dad” or even “Father.”
She was right to blame him for all the mistakes he’d made, all the years when he’d dropped in on his family’s lives and dropped out again. But he had truly believed he was doing the best thing for them all. Good intentions didn’t count with Zoe.
At least Zoe had her plumber. Rick was a full-time husband to Zoe. He didn’t go running off to the Arctic Circle to work on a pipeline. Logan and Rick might not be on the same wavelength, but he could see why Zoe would choose a man like Rick after a lifetime spent with an absentee father.
He began to row again. His legs and arms hurt, his back ached, but he didn’t stop. He knew how tired he had to be to sleep. He hadn’t reached that point yet.
He was glad he’d walked out on Molly Halliday. Her eyes had a way of seeing into him that zeroed in on his pain.
Then he remembered her soft full mouth. A mouth made for deep, gentle kisses. Her breasts seemed created to pillow a man’s head.
His loins tightened. If one meeting with Molly could awaken longings in him that he had denied for years, she was very dangerous. She could infiltrate the protective wall he’d painstakingly constructed around his emotions.
He thought about the easy way she acted with her daughter and granddaughter. They treated one another casually, certain of the love they shared.
God, how he envied her!
“YOU DEMONIC LITTLE troll, I could just murder Sherry for bringing that man out here!” Molly jabbed at Quentin Dillahunt’s right eyebrow with a viciousness it didn’t deserve. She knew if she didn’t calm down she’d ruin the portrait and have to start from scratch. She didn’t have time.
“I keep seeing you with Sherry’s horns on you, you little beast.” She smoothed her thumb across Quentin’s pate as though the horns had begun to grow. She wasn’t really mad at Quentin or Sherry. She was mad at Logan. Whether she liked it or not, the moment he destroyed the Dulcy doll he became entwined in her life. She didn’t want anybody entwined anywhere, drat it!
Of course he had to find out the truth about Dulcy; he had to find the child—or try to find her—if she was still alive. The thought of a little girl dragging around the country behind an alcoholic felon of a mother was more than Molly could bear.
Maybe she had opened Pandora’s box. But like Pandora, she’d managed to keep hope alive for Logan. That ought to be worth something. He’d been living without hope for a very long time.
She laid down the scalpel before she did irreversible damage. Logan had paid for the broken doll; maybe she should simply walk away and forget the whole thing.
Except that she wasn’t built that way. She had to know about Dulcy. Unfortunately, that meant she had to deal with Logan again, and that she had to go outside her little compound into his world of society women and powerful men, a world she’d thankfully left behind when she and Harry divorced.
Did she have the nerve to go back out there without her status as a craftswoman to protect her? She dealt with wealthy and powerful clients every time she sold a doll. Those clients knew she was a recluse, and they loved it. The last magazine interview about her dolls had gone on and on about her log house, her menagerie, and the fact that she hadn’t put on a skirt in three years. She had to admit the paragraph about her “unabashedly gray hair” and her “crinkly” blue eyes had made her want to reach for the Clairol and the telephone number of the nearest plastic surgeon.
But she’d gotten over it.
Then why did it bother her that Logan MacMillan probably saw her the same way. Why should she give a tinker’s damn what he thought of her? Why should it be important that he see the woman she really was?
The damned man was too sexy for his own good.
Sherry should have warned her. Molly took a deep swig of her diet cola, looked into Quentin’s piggy-little eye sockets, and saw instead the sad gray eyes of Logan MacMillan staring back at her.
The man was strung so tight that if you poked him right he’d probably fly apart. Molly was not in the rescue business. True, he’d had more than his share of sorrow, but that didn’t give him the right to show up behind her eyelids every time she blinked.
Molly sighed, wrapped Quentin’s head in a damp towel and slid it into the refrigerator under her work counter. She’d have to refire the piece in the morning, but she hadn’t messed it up yet. She cleaned her tools carefully and arranged everything neatly in the cabinets beside her.
She locked the workshop behind her and walked up the brick path toward the back door of her cabin.
If Dulcy MacMillan was still alive, Molly had to help Logan bring her home. Only Dulcy mattered. Any developing feelings Molly might have for Logan must be squelched before they made her miserable.
She went at once to her junk closet and began to pull out cardboard boxes stuffed with souvenirs and photographs from her trips. They weren’t marked by datethat would be too organized—but maybe she could find a picture that would jog her memory. She had to remember where she’d seen that child!
“MRS. HALLIDAY. I’m so glad you came.” Zoe Jackson set a small celadon vase down on a Federal end table and met Molly three steps inside the front door of MacMillan’s.
Molly shifted her heavy leather handbag to her other shoulder and smiled.
“My father said there was a problem yesterday. He broke something?”
“No problem. He paid for it—a lot, I’m afraid.”
“You’re still going to let us carry your dolls, aren’t you?” Zoe pointed to a tall Welsh dresser against the far wall. “I thought I’d clear off all that Chinese-export stuff and set up a display area on the shelves for the smaller dolls, with the larger dolls in buggies and strollers on the floor.”
“That would be perfect.” Molly followed her. “We didn’t actually settle anything yesterday, but I think you made your point before you left.”
Zoe sighed. “I know. I behaved badly. I’m sorry. It’s just that sometimes I feel as though my father treats me like I’m about six years old.”
Molly laughed. “My father tried to balance my checkbook for me until the day he died. Fathers are like that.”
Zoe smiled politely. “At any rate, I know we’ll sell lots of dolls for you and get you plenty of portrait orders. Did you and my father manage to discuss how much commission MacMillan’s would charge on the orders we acquire for you?”
“Afraid not. Don’t worry about it, Zoe, we’ll work something out. How’s that precious Rick of yours?”
This time the smile was radiant. “He’s not quite so precious at home, you know.”
“One of my mother’s friends once told me that given the choice of a twenty-carat diamond or her own personal plumber, she’d opt for the plumber every time. You’re lucky to have married one.”
“You know that old story about shoemaker’s children never having shoes? It goes double for plumber’s wives. The hot-water faucet in our bathroom has been dripping for weeks. Rick keeps promising to fix it, but he never does.”
Without Logan around, Zoe reverted to her normally pleasant self. Molly had always thought she was highstrung and nervous, but now that she knew she’d lost a mother, a brother and a niece, that was understandable. “Is your father here? I really came to see him.”
Zoe’s face clouded. “Oh, yes. The negotiations.”
“Nothing like that,” Molly assured her. “Just something that came up last night.”
Zoe obviously wanted to ask more questions, but she didn’t. “He still lives upstairs. Funny, I was raised in that apartment, and now I don’t feel comfortable even going up in the elevator. This is my bailiwick.” She spread a hand at the opulence around her. “Shall I buzz him for you?”
“Please.”
“Have a look around. You haven’t been in before, have you? I should have invited you when Rick brought me out to see your dolls.”
Molly watched Zoe move among the showcases with grace. She must take after her mother. Tall, slim, casually elegant, she looked every inch a successful businesswoman. She must be over thirty. She wore a simple navy suit that probably cost more than Molly’s entire wardrobe. No jewelry. Not even earrings. It was as though she didn’t want to distract the customers from the luxurious surroundings.
Molly didn’t think she needed to worry. A czar in full coronation garb couldn’t distract from a store like MacMillan’s. Molly felt as though she’d strayed into Ali Baba’s treasure cave. The shop was awash in Scalamandré silks and what her mother called antique “sitarounds,” as well as furniture made of wood so old and so beautiful that Molly longed to pet the chairs like cats. Everything was displayed in a sort of higgledy-piggledy ebullience that looked casual but undoubtedly wasn’t.
In her freshly pressed dress jeans and polished L.L. Bean topsiders, Molly felt a familiar sense of panic. She glanced at the other customers. At least no one realized she longed to run out the front door. She picked up a small triangular damask pillow and promptly dropped it when she saw the price tag.
Zoe came back looking puzzled and curious. “My father says would you please go up. The elevator’s by the back door.” She pointed and watched until the door slid shut on Molly.
When the door opened onto the MacMillan living room, the first thing Molly noticed was the number of throw pillows. No doubt Sydney MacMillan paid wholesale prices, but she’d still piled them three deep on every piece of ornate French furniture in the room.
Logan held the elevator door open for her. He was dressed casually but immaculately in slacks and a sweater. He smelled as though he’d just gotten out of the shower, and his gray hair was still damp. “I wasn’t expecting you,” he said.
Molly came close to pushing the button and letting the elevator doors shut on her again. She must have been out of her mind to come. “I-I’m sorry,” she stammered.
“No, I meant I’m glad you came. When I left so rudely last night…”
“Please. It’s all right.”
“Come in. I won’t bite.” He smiled. “I’ve got coffee if you’re interested.”
“No, thank you.” She stood in front of the elevator, poised for flight. “Last night I went through all my old photos. I found something I thought you should see.”
“Show me.”
Molly dug into her capacious handbag, pulled out a folio of photos, flipped it open and handed it to Logan. “Take it to the light. Ignore all the people in the foreground. They were on the tour with me. Look at the background. I imagine someone can blow it up if you’d like.”
Even at ten in the morning there was almost no light filtering into the living room through the heavy gold damask drapes drawn across the windows. Logan pushed them aside and raised a cloud of dust. The room—revealed in the sudden light—seemed like a disused movie set or a posh suite in a bankrupt hotel.
He stared at the picture. “Dear God, that’s Tiffany. I’m sure of it.” He glanced at Molly. “But I don’t see a child.”
“Try the next one.”
Logan flipped to the next photo. He went very still. “That hair,” he whispered. “I can’t see the face clearly, but Dulcy’s hair was just this color. And curly like this.”
“It’s an odd strawberry blond. I think that’s one of the things that caught my eye when I saw her. So it really is Dulcy?”
He shook his head as though to clear it. He couldn’t take his eyes off the photo. Molly saw that his hands were shaking slightly. She wanted to reach out to him, but instead she clutched her handbag even tighter. After a moment he steadied himself. “I still can’t believe it.”
“It’s a start, at any rate. Do you have those computer enhancements?”
“Yes. In my office.”
Molly followed him down a long hall papered in gold silk damask and into a small room at the back of the house that was bathed in light from a bank of windows across the back wall.
This must be where Logan really lived. The door was held open by an irregular chunk of concrete. A two-foot section of steel I-beam stood on end to form a side table beside a brown leather chair with the dye worn off arms and seat.
There were three steel file cabinets, a battered steel desk, shelves stuffed with books, a blue umbrella rack full of rolled up blueprints. On the walls were framed photographs of dams and bridges in various stages of construction. A large computer sat on a credenza. Everything seemed immaculate and orderly but chosen for serviceability rather than show.
“Please have a seat.” Logan pointed at the leather chair and went directly to the file cabinets. He dropped the photos on the desk and searched rapidly through the files in the top drawer. There was an urgency about him now. He pulled out a thick file and dropped it in Molly’s lap. Then he sat in his desk chair and stared at the two photos again, squinting to see the background. “The computer enhancements are at the back of that file.”
Molly found them. Her eyes widened. “It was Dulcy I saw!”
He glanced up sharply. “You say that as though you weren’t sure before.”
“Of course I was sure. I just wasn’t sure-sure.”
Logan flipped the photos to look at the backs. “Do you know where you took these? Don’t you write dates and places on your photos?”
“The ones before that are from Oklahoma City, the ones following are from Denver. I checked my itinerary. We stopped for lunch along the way in Moundhill, Kansas.”
MacMillan’s jaw dropped. “Where?”
Molly repeated the name, then asked, “Why? What’s the problem?”
“Moundhill, Kansas. That’s where Dulcy’s buried.”
CHAPTER FOUR (#ulink_bd4f61b8-7cd6-5d61-b763-9e75c0125236)
AT ELEVEN-THIRTY that morning, Molly and Logan walked into George Youngman’s office unannounced. Youngman showed only a moment of surprise, then he became all smiles. Molly could see why Logan trusted him. The private detective had guileless blue eyes and a generous mouth. He stood five feet seven, and was built in a series of soft globes like the Michelin Man, yet gave the impression of muscles lurking beneath the paunch. His firm handshake didn’t last a second too long. His office was large and comfortably furnished. On the wall behind his desk were gold-framed photographs of Youngman shaking hands with high-ranking policemen and prominent lawyers.
Logan introduced Molly and held her chair for her. Youngman sat behind his oversize desk in his oversize leather desk chair.
“I was surprised when I got your call, Mr. MacMillan, after all this time,” Youngman said. “Something I can do for you or the little lady?” He shot his immaculate white shirt cuffs. They were monogrammed with an elaborate “GY.” Molly revised her first assessment. She instinctively distrusted men who wore monograms.
“I need to review a few things about my case,” Logan said.
Youngman leaned forward. Molly saw his hands tighten suddenly on his desk mat. The small tufts of brown hair on his knuckles seemed to stand up like the ruff of a dog that senses danger. “You got some new information on your daughter-in-law? Something you want me to run down for you?”
Logan shook his head. “Not precisely. Refresh my memory, Mr. Youngman. Who told you that my granddaughter Dulcy had died?”
This time there was no mistaking Youngman’s reaction. He sat back in his chair and drew his hands quickly into his lap. He answered carefully, as though he’d been expecting the question or something like it for a long time. “As far as I can remember, and it’s been a while, I got a call from an informant in Kansas about the kid being dead.” The detective nodded, then said, “Yeah. That was it. An informant.” He shrugged. “By that time the mother was long gone.” He clicked his tongue against his teeth. “Tough break.”
“Refresh my memory, Mr. Youngman, just how did the person who called know you were looking for Dulcy?” Logan smiled gently. Molly could tell he had also noticed the detective’s response.
“I guess it was from some of those fliers I distributed to police departments, Mr. MacMillan. Why?”.
“And the people at the hospital definitely identified the child as Dulcy?” Molly asked.
“Yes, ma’am, absolutely.”
“Were you paid to say Dulcy was dead?” Molly asked.
Youngman turned to Logan. “What the hell’s this all about?”
Molly answered before Logan could speak, “I saw Dulcy MacMillan alive and well long after you told Mr. MacMillan she was dead, Mr. Youngman,” she said. “Her mother was with her.”
“You can’t have!” Youngman squawked and shoved his chair back so hard it crashed into the wall behind him. He jumped up and held on to the chair, his fingers working against the leather.
“Sit down, please, Mr. Youngman,” Logan said sternly.
“You must have realized that someone who knew her might see her alive one day,” Molly said.
“I don’t have to listen to this!” Youngman darted around the corner of the desk.
“Yes, you do.” Logan blocked his way, his quiet voice forcing the man back. “My granddaughter is alive, isn’t she?”
“No!” Youngman snarled. He made a futile attempt to push by Logan, thought better of it and moved to the other side of the desk where Logan couldn’t reach him so easily. He began to deflate. “At least I don’t think she is.” He raised his hand as though to ward off a blow. “Swear to God, Mr. MacMillan, your daughter-in-law told me Dulcy was dead.” Youngman frowned at Molly. “Heck, she is dead. You saw some other kid who looked like her.”
Logan ignored Youngman’s last statement. “Tiffany paid you to lie to me.” .
Youngman shook his head. “No way. You got to believe me. All she did was tell me which nurse to show the picture to. If the kid’s alive, I got conned same as you did.”
“That nurse. What was her name?” Logan asked. His voice was dangerously quiet.
Youngman’s eyes shifted and he gulped. The fleshy rolls that covered his Adam’s apple quivered. “I don’t remember.”
“You have the files. Look it up!” Logan snapped.
Youngman shook his head. “I dump all my inactive files after a year, unless it’s something about pending litigation.” He swung a hand at the file cabinets in the corner of the room and said plaintively, “I run out of space, as it is.”
“Why didn’t you give me the nurse’s name at the time? And why did Tiffany call you, not me or my daughter?” Logan asked.
Sweat gleamed on Youngman’s upper lip. His head swiveled from Molly to Logan. “She said somebody told her you’d hired me. Said you was one of them sex abusers. After the kid’s money. She didn’t want to talk to you.” Youngman hunched his shoulders. “She was crying and screaming fit to burst. Said Dulcy was dead. Told me to go on out to Moundhill and show that nurse the kid’s picture. Told me a bunch of other stuff, too, about how much better off Dulcy was dead than with you and your family. How you’d paid off the lawyers to get custody of her for her money.”
“And you believed her?” Molly snapped.
“I don’t see what was in it for you, Youngman,” Logan said, “unless Tiffany paid you more than I could. You had a good thing going with me. Even if the dead child had been Dulcy, you’d have done better to string me along a while longer, wouldn’t you?”
Youngman drew himself up. “I am an honest man, Mr. MacMillan. I wouldn’t take advantage of anybody like that.”
Logan shook his head. “So you took the word of a convicted felon that her child was dead and got the hospital to corroborate her story. All because you’re an honest man.”
“She’s the kid’s mother.”
“Where is Tiffany now, Youngman?”
“I don’t know, swear to God! You told me to drop it after that! You said you didn’t care if Tiffany got away once you found out Dulcy was dead. You said that.”
Logan stood and reached a hand down to Molly. “Yes, I said that.”
“Did you tell the police about her call?” Molly asked.
Youngman gulped. “Well, no. Wouldn’t do any good. She’d ‘a been long gone before they got there.”
Logan took Molly’s arm. “I have to get out of here now.” He glared at Youngman. “I have to call my lawyer, the man who sent me to you. He needs to know what a consummate professional he recommended.”
“I didn’t do anything wrong!” Youngman squawked.
“Except to keep facts from a client and conceal the whereabouts of a convicted felon.”
Youngman called after them. “I could make it up to you. I could maybe trace the kid for you now.”
Logan spun round. “So you admit you know she’s alive?”
Youngman took a couple of steps backward. “I don’t admit nothing. But if she is, I mean, I’m good at finding lost kids.”
Molly knew it was time to get Logan out of there. “Thank you, Mr. Youngman,” she said. “I don’t believe we need your services.” Then she grabbed Logan and dragged him out of the office.
Molly took the keys from Logan’s hand without a protest from him. His face looked like thunder. If he planned to take out his anger on something, she didn’t want him using a couple of tons of BMW to do it with. She climbed into the driver’s seat and waited for him to get in beside her, then pulled out into traffic.
“I owe you an apology,” he said after half-a-dozen blocks. He sounded rational. Bad sign.
They were passing Overton Park. Molly swung in and stopped beside the fourth fairway of the golf course. Logan stared straight ahead, his jaw set, his eyes seemingly focused on some faraway object.
Molly studied his profile. “Logan,” she said, “let’s talk about what happened. You seem to be taking things so calmly.”
Logan shook his head like a punch-drunk boxer. “I’m anything but calm. I feel so damned guilty.”
“Whatever for?”
“Tiffany read me perfectly. She must have realized instinctively that I would have no problem believing she could leave her sick child to die alone. She counted on me to call off the search once I thought Dulcy was dead.” He ran his hand over his hair and closed his eyes. “I’ve been refusing to admit even to myself how angry I was at Tiffany when Jeremy was killed.”
Molly laid her hand on his arm. She could feel his muscles bunched tightly under the wool of his jacket. “Of course you were angry. You can’t help your feelings, Logan. But, cut yourself a little slack. You stood by her, tried to help her.”
“She must have seen how I felt, how Zoe felt. Being around us must have been like heaping salt on a wound.”
“Are you excusing what she did?”
He shook his head. “Not for a minute. But I’m beginning to understand her reasons for running away.” He placed his hand over Molly’s and turned to her with a faint smile on his face. “All that matters at the moment is that I believe you. The child you saw, the child you modeled, was Dulcy.” He stared at her in awe. “If it hadn’t been for you and that doll, I might never have known that my granddaughter is still alive. Tiffany would have gotten away with it because I allowed a fake death certificate, a sketchy description of a dead child and a detective I knew nothing about to convince me of a lie.”
“Come on, Logan. Youngman’s story was plausible. He had the child’s death certificate and the identification of a nurse at the hospital where she supposedly died. As you said, he had no reason to lie to you about Dulcy’s death. You were paying him a bunch of money to keep looking for her—money that he’d lose the minute you called him off. Besides, your son had just been killed, your daughter-in-law had disappeared with your grandbaby and your wife was dying. You shouldn’t feel guilty.”
“Zoe wouldn’t agree with you.”
“Zoe would be wrong.”
“She’s been furious with me because I didn’t go to Moundhill and bring that child’s body home to be buried beside Jeremy and Sydney in the family plot. We’ve had more than one argument over it.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“If one really does believe in an afterlife, a soul, then the child wasn’t there anyway. Dulcy left the moment she died. I didn’t see any sense in disturbing her poor remains just to bury her in another grave in another cemetery.”
“I agree completely. So when are you going to tell Zoe?”
“Good God! I can’t tell her. What if I can’t find them? What if something’s happened since you saw them?” He looked hard at Molly. “I can’t get Zoe’s hopes up. She’s suffered enough already.”
“She has a right to know, Logan! She’s part of this.”
“No!”
Molly threw up her hands in frustration. “You’re going to do it all on your own and present her with a resurrected niece?”
“Better than letting her hope and then dashing her hopes all over again.” He shook his head. “I have to protect her.”
“I think you should tell her. If you don’t, I promise it will come back to haunt you, whether we find Dulcy or not.”
“No. The decision is mine alone and it’s final.”
She stared into his eyes for a long moment. She wished she could convince him that Zoe was a grown woman. To treat her like daddy’s little girl was the worst kind of condescension. Molly hesitated, then relented. “Oh, all right.”
“Bless you.” Impulsively he put his arm around her shoulder and squeezed. She was as startled as if he’d sprouted wings.
And even more startled by her own reaction. She hadn’t been this close to a man in more than three years. Logan’s arm felt taut around her shoulders. He smelled wonderful, like autumn leaves and ginger. Every endorphin in her body snapped to attention. Was she so starved for affection that a hug from an attractive man stirred her so completely?
Blushing, she thrust away from him, praying he had not sensed her reaction. She took a moment to fiddle with the keys until she had her breathing under control again.
As she turned on the engine, he laughed. She’d never heard him laugh—not a real laugh, at any rate. “Suddenly, I’m ravenous.”
Molly looked down at the serviceable steel watch on her wrist. “No wonder. It’s past noon.”
“Let’s have lunch at the museum restaurant. It’s close, the food is good and it’s quiet.”
“I don’t know. I’m not really dressed for the Brush and Quill.”
“Nonsense.”
As the hostess showed them to a table five minutes later, one of a group of elegantly dressed women at a nearby table waved and called to Logan. He smiled and waved back.
“Go on over and talk to her,” Molly whispered.
He shook his head and sat opposite her. “One of Sydney’s friends. I barely know her.”
“Good customer of MacMillan’s?”
“I have no idea. I told you, the shop is Zoe’s territory.”
“Well, at the moment she’s looking at me as though I were an armadillo. Hadn’t you better go speak to her?”
“No. We have to plan our campaign. I cannot—will not—trust another private detective to do the job. I’ve got to find Dulcy myself.”
“You can have whatever help I can give.”
“We’d best start with what we know.”
“Or what we don’t,” Molly said. “You said Tiffany’s scheme wouldn’t have worked unless you’d been willing to believe she’d abandon a sick child. It took more than that. There is a real little girl in Jane Doe’s grave in Kansas, a child the same age and with the same coloring as Dulcy. How did Tiffany find out about her?”
“She must have seen the child, maybe known the parents, or been around the hospital where she died.”
Molly nodded. “She didn’t call Youngman until months after the child died. Why did she wait so long?”
“Maybe she didn’t find out about the other child’s death right away. Or maybe it took that long to make her plans. She may have started trying to find a way to get Youngman off her trail the minute she found I’d hired him. The other little girl’s death must have seemed like the perfect opportunity to do just that.”
“If you bought the story, she was free and clear, and if you didn’t, what had she lost?” Molly said. “She’d just have to disappear again.”
“We know she was living in Moundhill, maybe she hung around the Moundhill hospital,” Logan said. “Perhaps she was a patient there.”
“Maybe Dulcy was a patient there,” Molly said quietly.
Logan stared at her in alarm.
She reached across the table toward him. “It’s possible. But we know she was alive and well long after that. I saw her, remember?”
Logan said with growing excitement, “She might still be living there.”
Molly took a deep breath. Logan wasn’t going to like her next words. “Did you ever think that maybe she’s made a new life for herself in Moundhill? Settled down. Married, even.”
“I hadn’t considered that.”
“Consider it, then,” Molly said. “What if you find Tiffany is sober, Dulcy is living happily with a new stepfather in a middle-class ranch house in Moundhill and going to Brownies every Thursday? Do you call the police, break up the family? Send Tiffany to jail? Drag Dulcy kicking and screaming back to Memphis to live with a man she likely doesn’t remember?”
“Dulcy belongs with me. I will be a good father to her.”
“Logan, you’re her grandfather. It’s not the same thing. You’ve been a father. The job descriptions are different.”
“No, I haven’t been a father.”
“But Zoe and Jeremy…
“They’re my biological children, all right, but I was never a father to them. I was gone for months at a time. Sydney had all the problems of being a single mother and none of the benefits. Well, almost all the problems. We had plenty of money—overseas jobs pay very well and there are no expenses to speak of. We decided the money was worth the long absences.” He threw down his napkin. “By the time I realized how wrong we were, Zoe hated my guts and Jeremy was a practicing alcoholic at sixteen.”
“Zoe loves you.”
He snorted. “She blames me for Jeremy’s drinking, his delinquency, his marriage, his death and for Dulcy’s death, as well. I used to think she married Rick just to spite me because he was a plumber without a college education.”
“If she did, she lucked out. Rick is a saint.”
He grimaced. “I must admit he’s been there for her.”
Molly could fill in the unspoken corollary. Rick was there when Logan hadn’t been. Maybe that was the key to Logan’s coolness toward his son-in-law. Rick made it all look so easy, while Logan struggled to rebuild his damaged relationship with Zoe.
Still, understanding Logan’s pain didn’t mean she had to agree with him. “So all this is not about Dulcy, it’s about you,” she snapped. “You want to prove to Zoe and to yourself that you can be a father. Of all the selfish, idiotic…” She pushed her chair back. “I’m not hungry. I’ll catch a cab.”
He caught up with her at the foot of the museum steps and grabbed her arm. “Wait, dammit! Listen to me. You’re wrong. It’s not about me. Tiffany’s life will be hell until she comes home to face what she did. No way can it be good for Dulcy. When we find Tiffany, I’ll help her any way I can, but I will take custody of Dulcy and raise her with love. Molly, you’ve got to help me. I don’t have anyone else. Please.”
“What do you want me to do?”
“Fly to Moundhill with me.”
“I don’t think…”
“Listen to me, please.” He kept his hand on her arm and walked her to the BMW He held the door and she got in against her better judgment. He climbed in the other side and faced her without turning on the engine. “You’ve worked with abused children, you know the system.”
“So?”
“What’s going to happen if I find Tiffany and Dulcy in Moundhill? Let’s assume that instead of a decent life, they’re living in squalor. Whatever money Tiffany took from her trust fund must have run out long ago and there was no way she could get more. Maybe she paid it all to Youngman. She may be slinging hash or clerking at the grocery store—or worse. She wasn’t only into alcohol, Molly, she was into cocaine. Even Zoe doesn’t know that.”
“Oh, dear.” That changed things. Molly knew from the seminars she’d sat in on for her volunteer work what addiction to cocaine could do to women. They didn’t hesitate to sell their bodies and their children’s bodies when their need for the drug became too much to handle.
“Even Jeremy’s death didn’t stop her drinking or doing drugs,” Logan continued.
“Why did she take Dulcy along? It would have been easier for her to disappear alone.”
“Maybe she loves Dulcy the way a child loves a favorite toy. Maybe she took Dulcy to punish us, Zoe and Sydney and me.” He ran his hand down his face. “I don’t know anymore. Not after today.”
“I still don’t see how I can help. If you find Dulcy, surely they’ll give her to you.”
“Say I waltz in to the local police station with my order of custody executed before Sydney died. They’ll pick up Tiffany for extradition. Youngman was right. Tiffany may well tell them I’m a pedophile and after the child’s money. In today’s climate, they may believe her. Dulcy could wind up in foster care.”
“But I’m not a lawyer or a psychologist. I make dolls, period. And I’ve known you less than twenty-four hours during which you have acted about as stable as plutonium.”
“Touché. You, however, have ‘mother’ written across your forehead in letters the size of a marquee.”
“Oh, thank you so much. Just what every woman wants to hear.”
“Even though I’ve known you such a short time, I would trust you with my life, and what’s more, with my granddaughter’s life. Besides, you can identify her. I haven’t seen her since before she was two. You’ve got to come with me. And without letting anyone know where you’re going or why.”
CHAPTER FIVE (#ulink_c924fd54-7aae-5c35-a6ba-a6241febde1a)
“IT’S BEEN NEARLY eight hours since I left you. I need you to tell me you’ll go with me to Kansas so that I can make reservations.” Logan was breathing hard. He cradled the phone against his shoulder and ran the towel over his sweating face and chest.
“I only said I’d think it over,” Molly said over the line. “I didn’t agree to anything.”
“Look, let me come out to your house right now. We can talk about it all night if that’s what it takes to persuade you.”
“No.” She sat down on her bed. “I’m practically ready for bed.”
“So much the better.” He chuckled.
She tried to chuckle back, but to her ears, it sounded as if she’d just choked on a peach pit.
“All right, how about I take you to breakfast?” he offered. “I’ve already got a call in to my travel agent. It’s not that easy to get to Moundhill by plane. We’ll have to fly into Wichita and rent a car.”
“Logan, talk sense. I have animals to feed, a halfdozen commissions that I’m behind on, Quentin Dillahunt’s evil little head hardening in my refrigerator, and I am terrified of airplanes. Isn’t there somebody else you can take?”
“Nobody else has laid eyes on Dulcy. Sleep on it, please. I’ll see you at nine o’clock tomorrow morning.” He sighed. “Please come with me. In just two days you have become more important to me than you can possibly imagine. I need you. Don’t desert me now.”
Molly sat on her bed and listened to the dial tone. She’d lied to Logan. She wasn’t ready for bed. She still wore her jeans, though her feet were bare. She wandered into the kitchen. Elvis, ever-vigilant for a handout, trotted after her with his tail in the air. She opened the refrigerator, found a diet cola, and on impulse pulled out the meat drawer.
She’d give Logan breakfast here. He probably ate healthy junk, but if she did decide to go with him, she needed to finish the country ham before she left. She checked the freezer. Biscuits. There were always plenty of eggs. One overdose of cholesterol was unlikely to do irreparable harm to their arteries, and country ham beat bran flakes any day of the week.
Not that he needed the extra energy. He’d become a different person since he’d found a direction, a focus, something to do. He’d turned into a cross between a dynamo and one of his blasted bulldozers. At the moment, she felt like a very small sapling standing directly in his path. He was going to mow her down any minute. He was obviously used to calling all the shots and making all the decisions. If this was the way he treated Zoe, no wonder they had problems.
She knew darned well all his sexy innuendos were nothing but cheerful banter, but they really affected her. She shook herself and reached for Elvis. He eluded her and scampered down the hall. “Fickle cat!” she snapped.
She called Sherry and poured out the whole story to her. “And the worst of it is, he refuses even to discuss the possibility with Zoe and Rick that Dulcy is alive,” Molly said. “He treats her like a child.”
“He’s being an overprotective daddy,” Sherry said. “And, he’s never really gotten to know Rick. Do you know a plumber who doesn’t work twelve hours a day, six days a week? And Logan still goes gallivanting off for months at a stretch. Their orbits don’t match.” Sherry paused for a moment before going on, “Neither do their views of the world. I think Zoe may keep her two men apart a bit as well without realizing it. She demands Rick’s complete loyalty. I don’t think she’d be too happy if Rick and Logan suddenly started going fishing together.”
“Maybe they should. Rick is the dearest, sweetest, most sensible man I know.”
Sherry laughed. “He also has a scruffy beard and wears jeans to work. When Logan’s home, he prefers three-piece suits and red power ties. Besides, Rick became the most important person in Zoe’s life just when Logan wanted to become a full-time father to her. Bad timing.”
Molly snorted. “I refuse to get involved in any more dysfunctional families. It’s taken me years to get over my own.” She hesitated. “On the other hand, Logan may act like a field marshal, but he’s so damned sad. I hate to abandon him.”
Sherry laughed. “That’s my Molly—half of you wants to hide in your cave and make dolls, the other half keeps turning into Joan of Arc.”
“And look what happened to her.”
WHILE SHE WANTED for Logan to show up for breakfast, Molly called her daughter. “Anne, I’m going out of town,” Molly said. “I’ll have to renege on Elizabeth’s sleep-over Friday. Can the two of you look after the animals for a few days?”
“Where are you going? Why? How long?” Anne asked. Then she caught her breath. “Mother, are you involved with that gray fox?”
Molly heard the verbal quotation marks around that word involved. “Even if I were, and I’m not, I’m a grown woman. I’m sorry, Anne, I can’t tell you any more. I promise I’ll keep in touch.”
Anne sighed. “Mom, you know we’ll look after the animals. It’s time Elizabeth started getting Maxie ready for the Thanksgiving horse show anyway. I’ll even make Phil take off on Saturday afternoon and come watch her ride.” She hesitated.
Molly, who was used to her daughter’s silences, waited for her to continue.
“It’s just that Phil and I worry about you, Mom. You’re out there all alone. The world’s not safe and neither are the people in it—not even the handsome foxes. I love you too much to want to see you hurt again. Sometimes I worry that you don’t think things out too clearly.”
“Thank you, darling, for your vote of confidence,” Molly said. “But I’m tougher than you think and not nearly so naive. I can look after every part of my self, including my heart. Don’t worry. I’ll keep in touch while I’m gone and tell you everything when I get home. I’ll call Elizabeth this afternoon to apologize for finking out on her sleep-over.” She hesitated, then blurted out, “I love you all. I’m so glad I have you.”
“Mom? Are you all right? You never talk like that.”
“Maybe I should. ‘Bye, darling.”
She hung up to Anne’s drawn-out “Mooooother” on the line.
Next, she called Sherry to report her decision to go with Logan.
“My God, Molly,” Sherry said. “You’re not seriously flying off into the wilds of Kansas with Logan MacMilan.” Sherry’s laughter echoed down the wires. Then her voice turned deadly serious. “Do you truly think you can find that child?”
“We have to try. The difficulty is that we’re a pair of rank amateurs. Frankly, I don’t have the foggiest notion where to start.”
“I wouldn’t either. But I’ll say some prayers for you. Trust you to wind up going searching with an incredibly attractive man. Nothing like that ever happens to me.”
“When has it ever happened to me before? Besides, we’ll probably hate one another cordially by the end of the first day. Logan MacMillan isn’t my type,” Molly lied glibly, wishing it were true.
“Then you are deaf, dumb and blind.”
“What’s more to the point, I am definitely not his type.”
“I wouldn’t be too sure of that.”
Molly stretched her bare feet in front of her and ran her hand through her hair again. “Okay, you said you’d known Sydney since college. Do I remind you of her?”
Sherry chuckled. “Not in the least. Sydney cared more for externals and appearances than any human being I have ever met. She knew darned well Tiffany was a hellraiser, but all she could see was her future daughter-inlaw’s social standing and a wedding with twelve bridesmaids. Boy, did she get a rude awakening. Besides, Sydney was what the movie magazines used to call ‘divinely thin’“
“That let’s me out. I have good reason to know that men Logan’s age go for women Anne’s age. He’ll probably treat me like a sister, or worse yet, an aunt. Frankly, I’m surprised some rich young widow hasn’t snapped him up before now.”
“Logan keeps them at arm’s length. He is courtly, charming, available for dinner parties when he’s in town, pleasant and detached. I think he doesn’t want to risk losing anyone else of value to him, so he simply refuses to care for anybody again. Of course, that old Byronic ‘secret pain that only you, fair love, can assuage’ is a downright killer with the ladies. I’ve considered seducing him myself.”
“Leo would kill you.”
“Only if he found out. Unfortunately, I haven’t the skill for double-dealing that most women have.”
“Meaning?”
“I’d louse up my stories and get caught…Easier to stay faithful. Of course, you don’t have a heavy husband waiting in the wings with a shotgun. You and he are both unattached. Enjoy.”
“Thanks for the insight, Sherry.”
“One more thing, Molly, don’t forget that Tiffany is a convicted felon who killed two people. She wants that child with her desperately. She’s dangerous.”
Molly hung up the phone thoughtfully. She still had half an hour before she expected Logan. Breakfast was well in hand. She pulled on a windbreaker over her black turtleneck and walked down to the workshop. Elvis padded along behind her.
Once inside, Molly pulled out Quentin’s head and began to add soft bisque to his chin. She worked silently for twenty minutes until she heard the gate alarm. She covered the head, put it back into the refrigerator, closed the shop and walked up the hill to meet Logan.
He was dressed for business. “Good morning,” he said formally.
Every time Molly left him a trifle loosened up, he reappeared as distant and formal as ever. He was like some kind of plastic that had a memory—melt it, bend it, curl it into a ball, it sprang right back to its original rigidity.
“Can you handle cholesterol?” she asked.
He smiled. “Upon occasion.”
“Good, because we’ve got country ham and hot biscuits for breakfast.”
LOGAN DRANK his coffee and watched Molly straighten the kitchen. He’d enjoyed breakfast. Molly had kept up a cheerful line of patter about her small farm and the animals. It all served, as he supposed it was meant to do, to keep his mind off the task at hand.
The food had been good, but eating with Molly gave it an even better flavor. She had served the meal on bright yellow Italian pottery. Watching her as she moved easily among the pots and pans, he thought her the most appealing woman he had ever met.
With a sudden startling jolt of insight, he realized he had an appetite for her, a simple physical hunger. He wanted to nibble her all over, taste her, feel the texture of her skin and curl her crisp hair around his fingers. He jerked himself from his reverie. “What?” he asked.
“I said, have you told Zoe we’re leaving tomorrow?”
“I told her I was leaving. I did not mention you.”
“Logan…”
“I’m not protecting your honor. I’m guarding my privacy. And I’m protecting Zoe against disappointment.”
“I don’t agree, but it’s your decision.”
“You see, Dulcy was much more to Zoe than simply her brother Jeremy’s child. She and Rick can’t seem to conceive—no reason that the doctors can find, but they’ve been trying for years without success. I think Zoe was jealous of the ease with which Tiffany got pregnant.”
“I can understand that. Sherry Carpenter loves me dearly, but she can’t help begrudging me Anne and Elizabeth.”
“It goes even deeper with Zoe. After Dulcy was born, Tiffany decided to go back to school to finish her degree. She didn’t want to be bothered with a baby. She dropped Dulcy off at the shop nearly every morning. Sydney was too ill to look after her, so we set up a kind of nursery in the workroom at the back, and Zoe took over Dulcy. She was everyone’s pet, but she was Zoe’s special love.”
“Then surely she’d be overjoyed to think that Dulcy might be alive.”
He shook his head. “I can’t raise her hopes. We may not find Dulcy. Perhaps she is dead.”
“I’m sorry, Logan, but we can’t put that toothpaste back into that particular tube.”
“I know that,” Logan said. “I’ll pick you up Thursday afternoon about two. We’ll get a rental car in Wichita, spend the night there and drive to Moundhill first thing Friday morning. Doctors often take long weekends. I don’t want to miss seeing the staff at that hospital.” He glanced over at Molly. “I’ve reserved two hotel rooms in Wichita for Thursday night.”
Molly let out her breath. Good. “Can’t we leave here early Friday morning?”
“No air connections. Molly, we haven’t discussed money.”
“Yes, we have. You said you’d pay all the expenses.”
“And I will. But you’ll be missing at least a weekend’s work, possibly more if we have to trace Tiffany beyond Moundhill.”
“I hadn’t planned to be away more than a couple of days. I can catch up when I get home.”
“I shouldn’t need you any longer than that.” Logan knew he was lying. He needed Molly beside him every step of this journey, and that included helping him get reacquainted with his grandchild. But he wasn’t about to tell her that until she was a long way from home. Then he trusted her maternal instincts would take over.
“Zoe still wants your dolls for MacMillan’s.” He smiled. “I agree with her. The store can arrange contracts for your portrait dolls, but that’s not enough to pay you for coming with me. The usual industry-consulting fee is five hundred a day. That’s fifteen hundred dollars if you get home Sunday evening.”
“Wow! I’m in the wrong business!” Molly laughed. “But you and I may be at each other’s throats by dinnertime Friday.”
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Carolyn McSparren
Тип: электронная книга
Жанр: Современные любовные романы
Язык: на английском языке
Издательство: HarperCollins
Дата публикации: 16.04.2024
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О книге: Family Man"The Only Child is beautifully written, wonderfully rich, totally satisfying."–Debra Dixon, award-winning authorA Child Is Missing…Logan MacMillan hasn′t seen his granddaughter, Dulcy, since the toddler was snatched by her fugitive mother three years ago. Logan never gave up hope of finding her until the moment his private investigator handed him a death certificate for a little girl named Dulcy MacMillan.A Child Is Found!Molly Halliday knows that the death certificate can′t be Dulcy′s. But Logan doesn′t trust her. The woman lives in a fantasy world–she makes dolls for a living! However, Logan has to admit that one of her dolls looks exactly like his computer portrait of Dulcy as a five-year-old. And Molly modeled that doll on a child she saw less than a year ago.Join Logan and Molly as they search for Dulcy–and find much, much more than they bargained for."The Only Child is beautifully written, wonderfully rich, totally satisfying. What more could a reader want? Carolyn McSparren is a terrific, talented newcomer who has a gift for finding the emotional compass of a story." – Debra Dixon, award-winning author of Bad to the Bone and Doc Holliday