“I will not ‘chill out!’” She rotated the slim phone in one hand while she glared at her husband. “Why does it seem like my children are avoiding me? Screening their damned calls?” Her scorching gaze landed full force on Alvarez. “Why are you here?”
“Noreen, please—” Her husband held out his hand, fingers splayed, beseeching her to shut up. “Let me handle this.” To Alvarez and Pescoli, he said, “I told you I was expecting you because Acacia Lambert came to my office today. She had the same information you just told me about.”
“Who came to the office?” Noreen cut in, pacing back and forth in front of the fire. “Acacia who?” she was shaking her head, obviously not understanding. “What are you talking about, Gerald? But there was something more than curiosity in her imperious gaze; there was a hint of trepidation. Of fear.
“My daughter,” he said softly.
His wife’s expression froze. “What the hell are you talking about?” She whispered the question, her gaze darting to the officers for the briefest of seconds. “Clarissa is our daughter.”
“Not ours, Noreen. Mine,” he clarified and Alvarez could almost see him sweat. “With Maribelle,” he admitted.
“Maribelle?” Noreen stopped short. “That nurse who used to work for you?” She was nearly shivering with rage.
“Acacia’s nearly thirty-five now,” Gerald said softly.
Something deep inside Noreen broke. Her shoulders slumped and tears welled in her big eyes. “I knew you two were ... intimate. Of course I knew, but . . .” Noreen’s voice quivered. “And I’ve stayed your wife. Through that other debacle, when you claimed him, hired him, paraded him out like some precious puppy. And I suffered through that excruciating embarrassment.” Her nostrils flared and her lips curled back over white-capped teeth. “I’ve even had your bastard’s whore of a mother here, in my house.” She pointed a finger at the thick carpet covering the hardwood. “I’ve suffered through that humiliation as well!” Jabbing her finger at the floor, she started to sob. “But this ... another one?” Tears slid down the severe slope of her cheeks, “Don’t do this ... don’t you tell them ... I can’t believe, not after that pathetic Lindley woman and her boy . . .”
“My son’s name is Robert and he’s a man.”
“What’s wrong with you? Why have you done this? And with whores! You swore to me, do you remember, swore on our children’s lives, that you’d broken it off with that wretched Collins woman!”
“I did.”
She shuddered and looked as if she might throw up. “But you had a child with her. And she was married, then, too. Probably pawned that kid off as her husband’s.” When Gerald didn’t respond, she said, “What is it with you? You didn’t father just one bastard child. That wasn’t enough. Now there’s another! Do our kids know?” She seemed to shrink from the inside out. “Oh, God, they were t
here at the office when she showed up, right?” When he didn’t answer, she said more loudly, “Right?”
“That’s probably why they’re not answering their phones,” Gerald said. “I told them I was going to tell you tonight.” He glanced down at his half-drunk glass of scotch. “I just hadn’t worked up the nerve yet.”
“Funny how easy it is to father an army of children, but you don’t even have the spine to talk to your wife!” Noreen said under her breath.
“Just listen, okay,” he suggested, and let out a heavy sigh.
Noreen crossed her arms under her small breasts and jutted out her jaw defiantly, but held her tongue as he explained what he knew of Acacia and how he’d stayed out of her life, but when asked, acknowledged being a sperm donor.
“So you knew that he’d been involved with the fertility clinic?” Pescoli asked Noreen.
“That was so long ago,” she said. “But yes. I knew that Gerald . . .” She waved one bony hand. “That was different. Clinical. Nothing intimate. Not like having an affair and fathering children with whores!” The tears began again. She found a tissue and dabbed at mascara-stained tears drizzling down her cheeks. “I don’t understand. That really doesn’t explain why you’re here. Even if, even if he did ... well, sire these women for lack of a better word. How do you even know that?”
“It’s the one thing that connects the victims,” Pescoli said.
“Victims?” Noreen was torn between horror and disbelief. “Oh God! Why these women? Why now? And what does it have to do with him?”
Alvarez said, “That’s what we’re here to find out.”
Calm down, Kacey told herself. Eli has to be here. He has to. “Eli!” she yelled, more loudly. “Eli, honey, where are you?”
Frantic, her heart racing with fear, Kacey searched the house top to bottom once more. Her flashlight was losing power, its beam weak as she moved slowly, room by room, calling out Trace’s son’s name. Her pulse was pounding erratically in her ears, dread propelling her as she swept the pale light under beds, into closets even, dear God, down the laundry chute to the basement.
Still no sign of him.
“Come on, Eli. Where are you?”
The house was getting colder by the second. Through the upstairs she went another time and there, in the third bedroom, she saw a crack, heard the whistle of air seeping through a window that wasn’t quite latched. She tried to slam it shut, but it wouldn’t catch.
Throwing her weight into it, she heard ... what? The skin on her scalp crinkled as she caught her breath and listened.
Another noise. From the floor below! Footsteps?