The Cost of Silence

“Please, call me Red,” he said. “I’m sorry. I know it seems strange, but I promise you I’m not some creep who followed you home from the café. I’m here on behalf of a mutual friend. It’s important.”

At that her eyes widened. The setting sun lit their honey-brown depths. It also pinked her freckled cheeks and full lips. The effect was amazing, and he felt a purely male reaction that he clamped down on instantly. Panting like a pervert wouldn’t be at all helpful in the I-am-not-a-creep department.

“A mutual friend?” Her voice sounded tight, as if her breathing had accelerated. Her nostrils flared subtly. It looked a little like anger. He wondered who she thought he meant. Was it possible she’d already begun to suspect the truth?

The baby began to fuss and wriggle, as if he reacted to his mother’s emotions. She dropped a kiss on top of the blanket to soothe him, then looked at Red. “What are you talking about? What mutual friend?”

Okay, moment of truth. He met her gaze squarely. “Victor Wigham.”

She lifted her chin, but not before he saw the contempt that flickered behind her eyes. “Victor Wigham is not my friend.”

“Okay. That might be the wrong word.” Red tried to remember that he’d been chosen for this task because he supposedly understood how to be diplomatic. “But, as I understand it, he was the father of your child.”

She didn’t even blink. “And since that fact doesn’t seem to interest Victor in the least, I’m afraid I don’t see how it could possibly interest you, either, Mr. Malone.”

Red hesitated. She was using present tense when she mentioned Victor, just as he sometimes found himself doing. But why? He was struggling with grief, but clearly she had no affection for the man who had fathered her child.

Which had to mean…she didn’t realize Victor had died.

Hell. That complicated things. For some reason, he’d taken it for granted that she knew. But how? The Wighams owned a vacation house here in Windsor Beach, but they kept it rented out, so they wouldn’t be considered locals. His obituary wouldn’t even have made it into the back pages of the Windsor Beach Bulletin.

And obviously the “other woman” wasn’t likely to be mentioned in the will. So unless she kept tabs on him via the internet, how would she have found out?

The baby sneezed. She pulled the blanket up, covering the last inch of downy forehead that had still been visible. “I’m afraid I need to get Eddie inside. It’s too chilly for him. So if you don’t mind—”

“Allison.” He decided to say it. “Victor died two months ago.”

Her body froze in place, but a dozen different micro-expressions swept across her face. Surprise, definitely. And…could that have been fear? Anger? Something negative…but it all happened too fast. He would have loved to capture the display in slow motion, so that he could decipher even half of them.

When the baby began to cry, she blinked, and all visible emotions disappeared.

“I see,” she said. She picked up her purse with her free hand and gestured toward the stairs. “Then I guess you’d better come in.”

HALF AN HOUR LATER, Allison still hadn’t recovered from the shock. She had gone through the motions of playing hostess, getting Red a cup of coffee—two sugars, no cream—and inviting him to sit while she changed Eddie and put him in bed.

Thankfully, Eddie was exhausted and fell right asleep. Afterward, she stood at her bedroom door for a couple of frozen seconds, still numb and reluctant to emerge. Her mind wasn’t working. She couldn’t think where to begin.

She wasn’t sure why the idea of Victor’s death bothered her in the first place. She’d long since accepted that he wouldn’t be a father to Eddie. But obviously somewhere, buried very deep, the hope had lingered that someday he might wonder what he’d missed. That he might find his son and try to make up for lost time.

But now her son truly did not have a father. And never would.

She had to go out there. She could see enough of the living room to know that Red had picked up a magazine. He leaned back, comfortable and relaxed on the scratchy plaid sofa.

That kind—the completely confident kind—always claimed their personal space with ease. Victor had looked equally at home on that sofa. Fat lot that had meant, in the end.

She couldn’t stall forever, though. So she straightened her spine and walked down the hall.

“Sorry to keep you waiting.”

“No problem.” He half stood, maybe because his mom had raised him right, and maybe only to set down the magazine on the coffee table. “I learned a lot about fat-free casseroles.”

She bought some time by circling the living room, turning on the lights to banish the twilight gloom. Then she sat on the opposite sofa and folded her hands in her lap.

“So, what happened?” she asked. “To Victor.”

Red leaned forward, his hands dangling near his knees. He looked sober, but under complete control. She couldn’t tell from his manner how close he and Victor might have been.

“Throat cancer. He was diagnosed about a year ago, more or less. He didn’t tell any of us until about six months ago.” He seemed to be watching her closely. “I take it he didn’t tell you, either?”

“Victor and I haven’t spoken for at least that long,” she said. “But, no. He didn’t tell me he was sick.”

She worked to keep her expression neutral, too. They were like two poker players, neither willing to give the other an iota of advantage.

But her mind was racing. About a year ago…that would have been close to the time she met Victor. He’d been a regular at her dad’s restaurant. He’d clearly been sad—a bad divorce, he’d told her. And she had been keeping a death vigil on the restaurant. On the night she closed the restaurant doors for good, she and Victor had finally made love.

She wondered whether he had known about the cancer then. She wondered whether his sickness had anything to do with his leaving her.

Not that it was an excuse. Sick or not, he shouldn’t have walked away without a word. Their relationship had lasted about five weeks. They hadn’t been in love—they’d both known that. They were good friends who had helped each other through some tough times.

But you’re never too sick to call and tell a friend goodbye.

Besides, he’d sounded fine four months later, when she called to tell him about the baby. He’d sounded quite normal as he explained that he hadn’t been entirely truthful with her.

Not entirely truthful? Yeah. You might say that.

He was a married man with two children.

He’d apologized, of course. And he’d instructed his lawyer to send her a check. Not a huge one—enough to pay for the abortion he’d earnestly advised her to seek, and then a little cushion for “emotional distress.”

She’d torn up the check the day Eddie was born. And then she’d done the one thing she was truly ashamed of in this whole mess. She’d found Victor’s address and mailed the pieces back to him, along with a picture of Eddie. No note.

She’d never heard from him again.

So what was his emissary doing here now?

She was suddenly exhausted. She’d been up since six, after only three hours sleep. And Eddie had been waking up every couple of hours lately, as if he still didn’t feel quite right.

So whatever Red Malone wanted, he needed to get to the point.

“Victor made it clear that he wanted nothing to do with me, or with Eddie,” she said. “So I have to admit I’m a little confused. Why are you here?”

He moved forward. The light from the end-table lamp tilted the shadows, hiding one side of his face. “Because he asked me to come. He was—” He seemed to search for the correct word. “He was worried about you. He wanted me to give you something.”

“What?”

“This.” Red had been wearing a windbreaker, which he’d folded beside him on the sofa. He reached into the front breast pocket and pulled out a long, thin brown envelope. He opened it and pulled out a small, rectangular piece of paper.

“It’s a check,” he said unnecessarily, holding it out for her to take. “For you and your son.”

She accepted it without comment and took a moment to look it over. The amount surprised her. Twenty-five thousand dollars. That was a lot of money. Five times what he’d offered her to get rid of Eddie in the first place. But Victor’s name was nowhere on it.

“This is your check,” she said, holding it out for Red to reclaim. “Not Victor’s.”

He held up his hand, forestalling her. “It’s Victor’s money, though. He gave it to me with the understanding that I would give it to you.”

She smiled, though she could feel her pulse beating in her throat. “So you laundered it for him. How sweet. The two of you must have been very close.”

He understood how she felt now, she could see that. His eyebrows lowered over his blue eyes. “Yes,” he said. “It would be difficult to overstate Victor’s importance in my life. I’m close to his family, as well. His wife. His son and daughter.”

He waited a minute, as if to let that sink in, as if she might not have realized Victor had another family.

“Yes,” she agreed. “Cherry and Dylan.”

Red’s eyebrows went up. But he shouldn’t have been surprised. Victor had told her their names, the day she called about the baby. He’d told her all about them. Cherry was much older, beautiful, ambitious and good at math. Dylan, who was starting to play soccer, was going through a difficult phase. Victor had wanted to make Allison understand. He’d been so sure she would see that his beloved legitimate children were far more important than any bastard child she might be carrying.

“Yes, Cherry and Dylan,” Red repeated. “They’re grieving right now. Obviously Victor didn’t want them to be hurt further by any…disturbing revelations. But he also wanted you and your son to be remembered. So yes, I was happy to help make sure no one got hurt unnecessarily.”

Clearly he wasn’t going to take the check back from her. She laid it gently on the coffee table between them. Then she folded her hands in her lap. She clenched them so tightly her knuckles went white.

“Twenty-five thousand dollars is a lot of money,” he said coolly, still watching her with that appraising look. “And yet, you don’t seem particularly impressed.”

“I’m not.”

He waited, apparently unfazed. She tried not to reach across the table and slap that smug arrogance from his face. He was so sure, wasn’t he? So sure he had her number. And that number, he assumed, was twenty-five thousand.

“Apparently you haven’t ever looked up the average cost of raising a child from birth to age eighteen, Mr. Malone. I have. Would you like to know what it is?”

He smiled. “About ten times that.”

“Exactly.” She sat back in her chair, though she didn’t allow her spine to touch the fabric. “So you’re correct. I’m unimpressed.”

He raised one brow. “You want more?”

“No, actually. I want less.” With effort, she kept her voice down, so that she wouldn’t wake Eddie. But God, she was mad. She was so hot, blazing angry. “I want less ingratiating B.S. I want less of your insulting, patronizing arrogance. This check isn’t a bequest, or a gift. This is a payment.”

“A payment?”

“Yes. Or rather, a payoff. I’m not an idiot, Mr. Malone. Victor never felt the urge to toss this kind of money my way before. Why now? What does he want? I’d be willing to bet the answer is in that nice envelope you’re holding. So why don’t you show me?”

The look he gave her now was odd—part contempt and part grudging admiration, as if she’d turned out to be a worthier opponent than he’d expected. She could feel his scorn, but in a strange way she was glad the poker faces were gone. The cards were on the table now, and the game was almost done.

With a cool smile, he opened the envelope and unfolded a sheaf of papers. He flattened them so that they could be more easily read, then extended them to her.

“It’s a confidentiality agreement. In a nutshell, he would like you to agree that you will not disclose to anyone that he is the father of your child. If you sign, you’ll also be agreeing to renounce any interest in the estate and relinquish any claim you may have to it.”

She took it. She gave it a cursory look, though the black squiggles didn’t even seem to form words in front of her fury-glazed stare.

Then she leaned over and picked up the check. She folded the check inside the papers, neatly. With an almost tender care.

And then she tore it all into pieces.

“Ms. York, I think you might want—”

As if it had been rehearsed, Jimbo chose that moment to come home.

He opened the door with his own key and blundered in, singing. His gorgeous, toned body was barely covered by his yoga pants, which rode low on his hips. He wore no shirt at all, displaying his colorful tattoos. At chest level, he held a pile of take-out boxes so high that only the spiky blond tips of his hair could be seen above the cartons.

“Hey, sugar lips. Lookee what Daddy brought home from Mamma Loo’s!”

Red Malone stared for a split second, and then, running his fingers through his hair, he began to chuckle darkly. “I see. The new meal ticket, I presume?”

“Hey.” Jimbo cocked his head around the food. He clearly didn’t like the tone. “Who the hell are you?”

“I’m nobody. I’m gone.” Still smiling, Red stood. “No. Really.” He put his hand out to prevent Allison from rising. “Don’t bother. I can find my own way out.”

CHAPTER FOUR

ATTORNEY LEWIS PORTERFIELD, who usually ate his lunch in lonely, Gothic splendor, obviously wasn’t happy to have Red as his guest today.

Well, too bad. Red wouldn’t say he was having the time of his life, either. The firm’s impressive, mahogany-walled conference room had obviously been decorated by a mortician. The lighting was as dim as what you’d get from candle sconces in an underground tomb.

Room was cold as a crypt, too, though that sensation might have been coming from Lewis.

The lawyer’s small, pasty form was almost invisible in the high-backed armchair at the head of the table. He could be located primarily by watching the ghostly glisten of his boiled calamari as he rhythmically lifted one forkful after another to his lips.

Red had often wondered why on earth Victor used this guy. Sure, Lewis could write a contract so tight even Houdini couldn’t wriggle out of it. But so could Colby, and probably a thousand other lawyers in the San Francisco Bay area alone. And they could do it without giving everyone the dead-eye creeps.

“So, tell me again.” Lewis took a sip of water, the only beverage Red had ever seen him drink. “In your estimation, is Ms. York saying no because she means no? Or because she is holding out for a larger payment?”

“I can’t be sure.” Red had said this five times now, but apparently Lewis planned to keep asking until he got an answer he liked. “I got the impression she really meant it. But it’s hard to be sure. She’s…complicated.”

The calamari hovered a few inches from Lewis’s lips. “Complicated how?”

Red shrugged. “I don’t know. She looks like the girl next door. And she lives simply, almost…” He thought of the squeaky clean, threadbare apartment. “Well, let’s just say that if she’s a gold digger, she’s not a very good one. Plus, you can’t help sensing that there’s this sweet quality in her personality, in spite of the situation. But she’s got a backbone. She’s far from weak.”

He wondered suddenly what Nana Lina would think about Allison. His grandmother was the shrewdest judge of character Red had ever met. She liked women who had what she called “starch.”

Lewis tapped his cloth napkin to his lips, three times, as always. “Is she beautiful?”

Beautiful? With that short nose and those freckled cheeks? All skin and bones, and wash-and-dry hair? Hardly.

But Red had hesitated a moment too long. Victor set down his fork with a ring of sterling against fine china. “Ah. She is, then. Is that why she’s complicated? Your mind can’t process her properly because she’s simultaneously a beauty and a tramp?”

Red’s shoulders twitched. God, what a judgmental— He knew this was merely how Lewis talked, but still. Red needed to get out of this room. He needed to breathe fresh air and eat something that didn’t look like boiled slime.

A whole hour of this crazy Victorian scenario was too much. Red sometimes wondered whether Lewis put it all on, for fun. Maybe at home Lewis wore a Giants cap and Nikes and burped up his beer while he watched American Idol.

Hell, the guy was only about fifty, Victor’s age. Maybe Lewis had a girlfriend, too. One who—

But no. That was taking even a comedic fantasy too far. If there was a female out there who would date Lewis Porterfield, Red didn’t want to meet her. “I think tramp might be a little extreme, don’t you?” Red was proud of his restraint. “For all we know, she was deeply in love with Victor.”

Lewis raised one eyebrow. “There’s already a new man in her house. Besides, you said she hated Victor.”

“Love can turn to hate pretty quickly.” Red tapped the table irritably. “But I’m not saying she did love him. I’m only saying we don’t know.”

Pause. Then Lewis’s mouth twisted in something that might have been a smile. “And, of course, there’s the fact that she’s…complicated.”

Oh, great. Sarcasm. That was the annoying part about Lewis. He might look like a caricature of a Victorian lawyer, but his brain was sharp and relentless.

Red shoved his plate of calamari away, untouched. “Okay, look. If I had to commit one way or another, I’d say she’s not going to take Victor’s money, no matter how high the offer goes. She needs it, but there was a kind of, I don’t know, steel behind her eyes. She said no, and I think she meant it.”

“Very well. Unfortunately, it doesn’t really matter because we have to follow Victor’s wishes, in any case.”

“What do you mean? I thought Victor’s wishes were for me to make that offer, and—”

“That was plan A.”

Oh, hell. “And what is plan B?”

“We wait a week. If she hasn’t accepted the offer by then, we go back, and we’ll offer her fifty thousand.”

“No.” Red shook his head. “That’s the worst thing you could do. Victor’s main concern was that Marianne and the kids wouldn’t have to find out. I’m telling you, Allison York doesn’t seem like the tattling type. I’d bet my life that, unless we antagonize her, she’ll leave well enough alone.”

Lewis stared at Red a long time before answering. Finally, after another sip of water and three more taps with the napkin, he cleared his throat. “But it isn’t your life that’s in jeopardy here, is it? It isn’t your family. It isn’t your legacy.”

“No, but—”

“We cannot substitute our judgment for Victor’s. He said he wanted us to wait a week, then double the offer. That’s exactly what we’ll do.”

“Big mistake. She’s offended by the idea that we want to buy her silence. Besides, the offer itself is offensive. It’s too low, Lewis, even if it’s doubled. Tripled. Given what she’s up against—”

“What she’s up against?” Lewis tilted his head, which, with his hooked nose, made him look oddly like a vulture. The plate of glistening, wormy squiggles in front of him didn’t help. “Sounds as if you feel sorry for the woman.”

“Not really. I simply see the reality of her situation. Being a single mother can’t be easy.”

“Immoral behavior leads to difficult situations.” Lewis sniffed. “She should have thought of that.”

Red’s shoulders tensed. “God, Porterfield. I was thinking this room looked a little Victorian. An attitude like that fits right in.”

Lewis smiled again. “Are you defending her? Interesting. I’m curious about this excess of sympathy. In fact, Redmond, I’m wondering if you might be a touch compromised here.”

“Really? Well, I’m wondering if you might be a touch reptilian. Putting basic human sympathy off-limits is a little cold-blooded, don’t you think?”

Lewis steepled his fingers and stared at Red over the tips. He spoke in a contemplative voice, almost as if he were alone, mulling over a thorny point of law. “Actually, I am not particularly surprised. I told Victor it was risky, sending a man like you to do a job like this.”

Red’s jaw felt tight. “A man like me?”

“Yes. A man with a…shall we say a fondness for a certain kind of young woman? Shall we say a certain vulnerability to their charms?”

Without realizing how it happened, Red was suddenly on his feet. “Shall we say bullcrap?”

Though Red was three times Lewis’s size, the lawyer didn’t show a hint of fear. He lifted one pointed shoulder. “You may call it whatever you want, but I call it a problem. I think perhaps I’d better be the one to deliver the next offer.”

“No.”

“No? Why?”

“Because—” Red caught himself right before he could say the words, because you’re an arrogant jackass, and you’ll piss her off so much she’ll tell Marianne everything just to spit in your eye.

That was what the whole ugly mess always boiled down to, of course. Protecting Marianne. And Dylan. At twenty-eight, Cherry was probably mature enough, and far enough outside the fray, to handle the truth, but Dylan was already messed up as hell. He and Marianne needed some peace. They needed time to heal.

And Red had promised to help make sure they got it.

“Because I’m the fool who vowed to fix this,” he said, pushing his chair in and preparing to get out of this oppressive room. “And I’m going to do exactly that.”

THE MEETING WITH Lewis had left a bad taste in his mouth—and it wasn’t only the thought of that revolting calamari, either. Red went to the Diamante office, hoping to lose himself in some paperwork. The city council had sent over traffic figures for three of the new locations he was considering. They looked good, but he wanted to analyze them carefully.

For once, though, work didn’t help. The numbers ended up running together, like crazy hieroglyphics on the computer screen. So by three o’clock he turned off the computer and decided to leave early.

The Malone brothers hadn’t ever been brooders. Nana Lina had always said there was no case of the blues that a good sweat wouldn’t cure. Consequently, they worked hard and they played hard, and that didn’t leave time for the sulks.

Work had failed. Time to try play.

Matt and Belle were out of town on their sixth honeymoon in four years, so he was no help. On the way out, Red checked Colby’s office. A good heated game of handball would be perfect, and Colby was ahead in their lifetime stats.

His brother wasn’t there, but Nana Lina had commandeered his desk. When she saw Red, she smiled and motioned him in.

He plopped in the chair opposite her and got comfortable. A dose of Nana Lina was always good for what ailed you.

“So, did you finally get wise and fire Colby?” He grinned. “I always said the guy was overrated.”

Nana Lina never bothered to laugh at stupid jokes. If they got lucky and said something genuinely witty, her eyes could twinkle with true appreciation, but after living around three boys so long, she was immune to the daily exchange of cheap sarcasm.

She looked at a spreadsheet she apparently had been studying. “He’s out at Half Moon Bay, number three. We got word that the drawer’s not right again. Sixth time this week.”

Red frowned. “Since when did the company attorney have to count the pennies in the cash register? Don’t we have a decent manager out there?”

“You know Colby.” Nana Lina raised one graceful pewter eyebrow, as if mildly amused. “They think it’s the Mathison kid they hired last month.”

Red groaned, finally understanding. Colby took these things so hard. The oldest Malone brother, Colby talked tough, but he was a hopeless idealist at heart. He never could quite believe that, when they gave summer jobs to the sons of their friends, the kids would rob them blind.

“What is it about rich kids?” He laced his fingers behind his head, stretched and yawned. “No work ethic. Not paragons of industry and virtue like me.”