His Daddy's Eyes

The book Sara was holding slipped from her fingers, just as the bell above the door tinkled. When Sara straightened, she saw Daniel stride into the shop.

“Hello, Sara love,” Daniel said, his dark eyes teasing. “Will you marry me today?”

Once—about three lifetimes ago—Daniel had proposed in earnest. Fortunately, Julia had intervened. “You and Danny both need to find out who you are before you jump into a relationship,” Julia had told her. “Get out and live a little, girl.”

For Sara that had meant a stint in the Air Force; Daniel had headed to college, then to a job in Seattle. He’d returned to Sacramento just after Julia’s death, and although he and Sara remained good friends, both knew his proposals were in jest.

“Sara J. don’t need no stinking man in her life,” Keneesha said. “She’s got us.”

Daniel looked from the large black woman to the petite blonde, then back to Sara. “Two hookers and a bookstore—why does that not sound like everybody’s idea of heaven?”

Sara laughed and pushed the now-overflowing box across the display table. “I guess everyone’s idea of heaven is different. Actually, I’ve been very blessed. I have three wonderful friends. And business is good. In fact, Channel Eight News is doing a show called The New Downtown next Friday. They want to interview me about No Page Unturned.”

“Next week?” Claudie squealed. “I thought you said next month. Good Lord, Kee, how are we going to get her done by then?”

Daniel looked confused, so Sara explained. “They think I need a new look to be on TV.” She glanced down at her calf-length cotton dress, a sort of wallpaper print with a pale rose background and tiny yellow flowers. Her white sneakers were gobbling up her anklets, heel first. “Who has time for glamour?” she said, tugging up her stockings.

“You’re beautiful to me just the way you are,” Daniel said. He tenderly reached out and tugged on a lock of Sara’s shoulder-length hair.

Sara hated her hair. Bone straight, baby fine and the color of dishwater, her mother always said. Compared to her sister’s vibrant red locks, Sara’s always looked washed out. The idea of being interviewed by someone as beautiful as Eve Masterson left her more than slightly unnerved, which was why she’d agreed to the makeover.

“Yeah, but you’re a man, so what do you know?” Claudie said spitefully.

Sara sighed. “Stop squabbling, children. I told you you could play with my hair, so be nice.”

“And a new outfit,” Keneesha reminded her. “I am royally sick of those baggy dresses. You need some color, girl.”

Sara looked at Keneesha’s leopard-print tank top plastered over fuchsia pedal pushers, and involuntarily cringed. “Maybe.”

The bookstore bell tinkled, and Sara glanced at the nondescript gentleman in a baseball cap who quickly made his way toward the back of the building. The patron seemed vaguely familiar, but since he didn’t seem to require her assistance, Sara turned to Daniel, who was talking.

“…and you can have first pick.”

“What?” she asked, noticing how Claudie’s gaze stayed on the customer as he meandered into the cookbook section.

“Jenny just cleaned out her closet. She never keeps an outfit longer than a year and she only buys the best. I was taking the bag to the shelter, but you can go through it first.”

Daniel’s sister, a true fashion diva, was Sara’s size and had excellent taste. “That’s fantastic. Thanks!”

“No problem,” he said, giving Sara a hug. “Now, where’s my godson?”

Keneesha scurried around the desk to stand defensively in front of the playpen. For a large woman, she moved with surprising speed. “Back off, light-foot. He’s our godson, not yours.”

“Do you have that in writing?”

“I’ll show you writing, white boy,” Kee said, her bluster taking on volume.

The noise woke Brady.

Sara hurried to the playpen and picked him up. “Hey, baby love,” she said, kissing his soft, plump cheek. His sleepy, baby smell made her heart swell and her eyes mist. “How’s my boy?”

Daniel walked over and planted a kiss on Brady’s cheek. The sleepy child chose that minute to rub his eyes, and his small fist collided with Daniel’s nose.

“See, there,” Keneesha chortled, triumphantly, “he likes us better.”

Sara saw a hurt look cross Daniel’s face and impulsively drew him close with her free arm. “We both love you, Danny boy, you know that,” she said softly.

“I know,” Daniel replied. “I love you, too. I’ll see you Sunday, right?”

Before Brady came into her life, Sara had participated on Sundays in a literacy program at a local shelter. Unfortunately, nowadays her free time was so limited, she seldom had the energy to join the other volunteers at the Open Door family shelter.

“I’ll try, but Brady’s cutting teeth, and my neighbors don’t like the way my eaves look.” She rolled her eyes. “I keep getting nasty letters from the Rancho Carmel Homeowners’ Association.”

Daniel gave Sara a peck on the cheek. “Don’t sweat it. You’ve done your share.” He picked up his box of books. “So? Who’s going to fetch the bag of clothes?”

Claudie grumbled about being the company slave, but she followed him out the door.

Brady squirmed, so Sara knelt to put him down. His bare toes curled against the sturdy nap of the new gray-blue carpet. Until recently, the store’s flooring had consisted of worn tile squares circa 1955—some black, some green, about half of them broken. Hank had refused to waste money on a building he regarded as “a piece of junk waiting for the wrecking ball.” Sara never had the funds to re-decorate, but finally decided to use some of the trust money Julia’s lawyer sent each month to make Brady’s play area safe and comfortable.

“Mine,” Brady said, reaching for the bottom drawer of Sara’s desk. She’d been careful to have all the drawers fitted with locks—except one, which belonged to Brady. She made sure a healthy snack was in the drawer at all times.

She couldn’t help smiling at his triumphant chortle when he pulled a thick hunk of toasted bread from the drawer. His ash-brown curls, as thick and lush as his mother’s had been, bounced as he toddled to his miniature cash register and sat down to play.

Sara glanced around; she’d nearly forgotten the customer now unobtrusively tucked in a corner near the cookbooks. That’s odd, she thought. Her occasional male cook usually carried the tragic look of the recently divorced. This fellow didn’t strike her as needy or interested in cordon bleu cooking. And he definitely seemed vaguely familiar.

She started in his direction, but was deflected by Claudie’s loud “Whoopee!”

“Holy sh—shimany,” Keneesha exclaimed. “Look at this, Sara J. Lord God, what I wouldn’t give to be size eight!”

Sara joined her friends at the counter to examine Jenny’s discarded clothes. It wasn’t until the bell tinkled that she remembered the cookbook man.

BO POCKETED his palm-size camera and exited the bookstore, ducking into the alley. A mural of the store’s name was painted in five-foot-tall lettering along the brick wall. Clever name for a bookstore, he thought. I wonder if Sara made it up?

Thinking of Sara made him scowl. Normally, Bo liked his job, but at this particular moment he felt like a piece of excrement wedged between the proverbial rock and a hard place.

Ren Bishop was the brother Bo never had, his one true friend, and Bo owed him more than he could ever repay—but he wasn’t happy about the turn this case had taken.

I should have seen it coming, he silently groused as he opened the door of his car, a twenty-year-old Mazda with peeled paint and two primed dents in the fender. His work car, like Bo himself, knew how to be inconspicuous. “Two years without a goddamn lead,” he muttered. “The only witness finally comes home after trekking through India, and what do I find? A dead Jewel and a kid that’s got Bishop written all over his face!”

Lowering himself to the tattered upholstery, Bo pictured the sideswiped look on his friend’s face when he’d left the courthouse. It reminded him of that night two years ago when Ren had stumbled down the gangplank of Bo’s houseboat, vulnerable, exposed and all too human.

“I screwed up, Bo,” Ren had confessed, pacing from one end of Bo’s tiny living room to the other. “Positively. Beyond all screwups.”

“Did you kill someone?”

“Of course not.”

“Then stop pacing. You’re making me seasick.” Bo had been surprisingly unnerved by his friend’s agitation. In college, Ren had been known as Mr. Unflappable. Bo didn’t like seeing him flapped.

Ren proceeded to spill his guts about the redhead who’d mysteriously disappeared after one night of passion. Bo recalled half hoping that Jewel was a blackmailer so he’d have a chance to meet her. But nothing happened. If that night clerk had stayed in India, Bo never would have had a clue to Jewel’s true identity.

“That’s Mrs. Hovant. Julia,” the twenty-year-old clerk told him, after Bo gave her Ren’s description of the woman. “She and Dr. Hovant used to come up from Sac five or six times a season, depending on the snow. Maybe they still do. I don’t know. I don’t work at the lodge anymore.”

With a little cautious probing, Bo also found out that the day in question stuck in the clerk’s memory because Julia had come to the lodge alone. “I asked her where the doc was, and she said something like ‘Getting his rocks off at a medical convention.’ She didn’t seem too happy,” the clerk told him.

The rest had been child’s play for the PI.

Bo heaved a sigh, stirring the dust on his dashboard. He’d expected Ren to mourn Jewel’s death, but this thing about the kid had caught him off guard. Bo had tried to downplay Ren’s concern, but he had to admit the possible date of conception fell eerily close to the one-night stand.

Still, Bo had balked at pursuing it, partly because of what it might do to Sara, an innocent bystander in this little passion play.

“Even if, for argument’s sake, the kid is yours,” Bo had argued, “there’s nothing you can do at this point. It’s your word against the mother’s, and she’s dead.”

“As the biological father I’d have more rights than an aunt.”

“But it comes down to proof. How can you get the proof without admitting what you did? Which, if I remember correctly, was what you hired me to make sure never happened.”

“I don’t suppose there’s any way I can. But regardless of how it affects my political future, I still have to know.”

Bo sighed and started the car. A couple of discreet photos and the kid’s blood type from his medical records. This Bo could do, but that would be it.

“You have to draw the line somewhere,” he muttered to himself. “Even for a friend.”

CHAPTER TWO

REN YANKED ON THE CORD of the wooden blinds with more force than the old rope could take. The handle came off in his hand and the heavy shades crashed back to the mahogany sill with an ominous thunk. He sighed and tossed the yellowed plastic piece on the sideboard.

I’ve got to call a decorator, Ren thought. Although he seldom used the formal dining room, he knew it would be called into play more often once he and Eve were married. At present, the room reflected Babe’s favorite decorating motif: Ostentatious. The opulent crystal chandelier cast an amber glow across the Regency-style table at its eight saffron brocade chairs. Without benefit of the morning light streaming through its mullioned windows, the room’s musty gloom matched Ren’s mood.

Ren blamed part of his foul mood on his alarm clock. If he’d remembered to set it, he would have made his weekly golf game. Instead, he’d slept in till nine-thirty. Ren pushed on the swinging door and entered his kitchen, a pristine world of black-and-white tile—the first room he’d remodeled after he moved in.

His home had once belonged to his parents, but after his father died, Babe, wanting something smaller and more luxurious, sold the house to Ren. He loved the old beast, just as his father had, but the forty-year-old house needed work.

“Coffee,” he mumbled, moving like a bear just out of hibernation. Ren took a deep breath, hoping to discover his coffeemaker was still warming his morning brew. His nostrils crinkled. No light beckoned from the stainless steel coffeemaker, but the smell of overcooked coffee lingered.

Ren microwaved a mug of the tar-like liquid and carried it to the small bistro table in the glass-enclosed breakfast nook. He sat on one of the waist-high stools covered in black-and-white hound’s-tooth.

The wall phone rang before he could take a sip of his coffee. He stretched to pick it up. “Hello.”

“Hi, handsome, sorry about last night. I’d have called, but you wouldn’t believe how late we got out of the booth.”

Ren had no trouble picturing his fiancée as she rattled off her apology. No doubt she was in her car, zipping through the light, Saturday-morning traffic on Interstate 80, headed back into town from her Roseville condo. Eve was ever a study in motion; she reminded him of a hummingbird with too many feeders to frequent.

“Don’t worry about it,” he told her, finally taking a sip of coffee. The brew—a shade off espresso—made him blink. “It’s not like I was dying to go to the fund-raiser.”

Ren heard a horn honk. Probably Eve’s. She drove fast and had little tolerance for those who got in her way. “I know, but your mother won’t be a bit happy. By the way, I went online and had a nice big basket of flowers delivered to her this morning with a note saying you’d be making a substantial donation to her cause—what was it, anyway?”

“League of Women Voters, I believe.”

“Oh, damn. I wish I’d remembered that. Don’t be too generous. They were particularly snotty to the media last fall.”

Ren smiled—his first of the morning. His first since Wednesday afternoon, actually. Although he’d gone through all the motions for the past two days, his mind had been consumed by the thought of Julia. And her child.

He missed what Eve was saying and had to ask her to repeat it.

“Where have you been lately?” she exclaimed. “I’m serious, Ren. You always tell me I have too many irons in the fire, but at least I listen when somebody is talking to me. I asked whether Babe talked to you about setting a date for the wedding. She left a message on my machine, and it made me realize we really do need to sit down and talk about scheduling. You know what my schedule is like.”

Ren knew. Lesson One of celebrity dating: Everybody follows the schedule but the schedule-maker. “You’re right. We do need to talk.” Ren recognized that although his affair with Julia had taken place before he and Eve started dating, she had a right to know what was happening, particularly if it turned out he’d fathered a child.

“Okay, then,” she said. “Let’s see….”

A loud engine noise came over the line, and Ren cringed, picturing her flipping through her thick day-planner while changing lanes. “Why don’t you call me back?” he suggested. “I may go out later, but I’ll take the cell phone.”

There was a pause. “You hate cell phones. Ren, are you okay? You don’t sound like yourself.”

“I didn’t sleep well,” he admitted. A guilty conscience had a way of conjuring up the worst scenarios. For instance, what if the reason Julia’s husband had driven into a rock pile was that he’d found out the child wasn’t his? What if Ren was to blame for his son’s mother’s death? Would the little boy wind up hating him when he was old enough to understand?

“Maybe you need vitamins. Boyd did a piece on male vitality last Wednesday—did you see it?” Eve asked.

“Nope. Missed it.”

“Do you ever watch my show?” she asked, her voice suddenly vulnerable.

“Yours is the only news program I watch, you know that. I just happened to be with Bo that night,” he said in partial honesty. After Bo had brought him the news about Julia and the baby, Ren had driven to the American River and walked along the jogging trail until dark. It was either that, or do something utterly stupid like visit the aunt’s bookstore and check out the kid for himself.

Eve’s dismissive snort brought Ren back to reality. “I wish I knew what you see in that man. He’s such a boor.”

Ren grinned. He’d never figured out why the two people he cared for most couldn’t stand to be in the same room together. “Bo did a little research job for me and brought me the results. He’s the best in the business, you know.”

“So you say, but…” The sound of squealing tires broke her line of thought. “I’d better go, sweets. I’m meeting Marcella this morning. We still have to go over my ’96 and ’97 tapes. You wouldn’t believe what a fanatic this woman is. She makes me look laid-back.”

Her musical laugh brought an odd pang to Ren’s chest. He loved this bright, beautiful woman, but he had a feeling she wasn’t going to be overly thrilled at his news.

“So are we on for tonight?” he asked when he found his voice.

“Maybe. Marcella is only in town for another four days. She flies back to New York on Wednesday. Would you mind if she joins us?” Ren and Eve had a standing reservation at Hooligan’s. Since she worked weeknights, Saturday and Sunday were their only nights to dine together. Usually, they ate out on Saturday, and he cooked on Sunday.

“Naturally I’d prefer to have you all to myself,” he said, hoping his tone was more romantic than peeved. “Let’s leave it open for now. Call me later, and we’ll figure something out. Maybe we could ask Bo to join us so we’d have a foursome.”

Ren grinned, picturing Eve’s face at the idea of introducing her famous New York agent to the Sacramento PI. “You’re right,” she said. “We’d better hang loose until I have a better scope on my time. See you later, sweetheart. I love you.”

She hung up before Ren could tell her the same thing.

“Exactly what kind of foursome did you have in mind?” a voice said from the doorway.

Ren spun around, nearly dropping the phone. “Goddammit, Lester,” he shouted. “Don’t you know how to knock?”

Bo shrugged. His sloppy green-and-gold plaid shirt wasn’t tucked into his pants, making him look as if he’d come straight from the bowling alley. Brown double-knit pants barely cleared a disreputable pair of saddle shoes, which he wore without socks. His flattened-out hat was the kind that snapped to the brim.

“I looked for you on the golf course. Your partner said this was the first time on record that you were a no-show. He even thought about calling the paramedics, but didn’t want to miss his tee time.” Bo’s lips curled wryly. “Notice your real friend dropped everything and rushed right over to check on you.”

Ren hung up the receiver and sat down. “Thank you for your concern, but I overslept.” He took a sip of coffee, then frowned. “Did I give you a key?”

Bo ambled to the coffeepot, took a mug from the white oak cupboard and poured himself a cup. He added two scoops of sugar from the bowl on the counter, then carried it to the microwave. “Nope. I picked the lock. Gotta keep in practice, you know.”

Ren doubted that. More likely he’d forgotten to set the alarm. He’d been doing a lot of irresponsible things lately.

“You got anything to eat?” Bo asked, poking his head into the refrigerator. “Oh, Lordy, Revelda’s apple pie,” he said, referring to Ren’s part-time housekeeper. “I swear I’d marry that woman if she’d have me.”

“She wouldn’t. She’d have a heart attack if she saw that floating hovel you call home.”

“Actually,” Bo said, talking through a mouthful of pie, “I found a lady to come in and clean for me a couple of times a month. Works great now that I’ve moved my computers to the office. Speaking of computers—” He pulled a manila envelope from his waistband and tossed it on the table.

Ren’s gulp of coffee lodged in his throat. He strove for nonchalance as he opened the envelope and withdrew a half-dozen black-and-white photographs and a single sheet of paper.

He picked up the computer printout first, but his gaze was drawn to the photos. “Is this her? This can’t be her.”

Bo’s mouth was full. “Uh-huh,” he grunted.

Ren shook his head, his gaze darting from one photograph to the next. “There’s no way this woman is Jewel’s sister. She’s so…plain.”

Bo’s muffled expletive made Ren drop the printed page and pick up a photo. Leaning forward, he studied it closely. While the image was a trifle blurred, it showed a woman whom, though nice looking, he wouldn’t have looked at twice. How could he reconcile this image with the one he held of her sister, an Aphrodite with flaming red hair, lush curves and flashing green eyes?

Feeling a bit let down, like a child at Christmas who’d expected a bike and got a book instead, he sighed. “Her hair’s straight, her dress looks like a discount store special and her figure…” Ren frowned, squinting. “Well, I can’t tell much because of the dress, but she looks like a librarian.”

Bo made a low, snarling sound and helped himself to a second piece of pie. “Close—she owns a bookstore.”

“Owns it or runs it?”

“I didn’t hack her bank records, but her business card says, Sara Carsten, Owner.”

“She’s pretty young to own a business,” Ren said, mentally adding a point in her favor.

“The guy down the block said she’s worked there since high school. In fact, she’s turned it around from near-bankruptcy. The old man who owned it left it to her. She’s kept up with the times—added a coffee bar and two Internet stations. And she’s got a couple of book clubs that meet there.” Bo made a sardonic sound. “The men’s group is called The Unturned Gentlemen.”

Ren added another point in her favor—literacy was a pet project of his. “Okay, she’s a good person and a decent businesswoman, but I still can’t believe she’s Jewel’s sister.”

Bo scowled. Ren ignored him and rocked back, holding the photo. In the light from the window behind, he could see things he hadn’t noticed before. Her smile, for one. It was a kind, gentle smile that made him inclined to smile back.

Ren focused on her eyes. Jewel’s had been bright green, full of flashing sauciness and humor. If he squinted, Ren thought he could see humor in this woman’s eyes, too. “What color are her eyes?”

“How the hell should I know?”

The downright angry tone could not be overlooked. “What is your problem?”

“You, man. You are my problem,” Bo said, marching to the table. He ripped the photograph out of Ren’s hand. “Here you are, poised to destroy this woman’s life, and you don’t think she’s pretty. Well, f—”

Ren raised his hand in warning. He studied his friend as he might a criminal with a gun. Keeping his tone calm, Ren said, “I was just surprised that I couldn’t see any similarities between the sisters.”

Bo’s shoulders relaxed visibly. “It’s not a very good picture. She was talking to that guy when I took it.” He put the photo on the table and pointed at a good-looking man standing at the edge of the photograph. “She even gave him a hug, and I heard her tell him she loved him.”

A funny, totally unexpected twinge caught Ren in the solar plexus. “Her boyfriend?”

Bo shook his head. “No. I got his plate through the store window. His name is Daniel Paginnini. He works in the Building.” Ren had met enough congressional insiders to know that meant the Capitol. “I’d say he and Sara are old friends. She’s got a lot of friends.”

Ren detected an odd inflection in Bo’s tone, but he let it go, although he was curious why Bo was so defensive of the woman. Ren picked up a shot of her holding the baby. Her back was to the camera, but her upper arms looked firm.

“Does she work out?” he asked. Jewel had been in peak physical condition, he recalled, her long, lean body as finely honed as an athlete’s. When he’d asked about her sleek muscles, she’d said, “My job keeps me in shape.” When he’d inquired about her job, she changed the subject by putting her mouth on a part of his anatomy that drained the blood supply from his brain, waylaying any questions he might have asked.

“Yeah,” Bo said snidely. “She lifts weights. I’d say forty pounds, about a hundred reps a day.”