Again . . . it was all just bullshit.
“What about Nick?” Marla asked Carmen as she lingered in the kitchen where the cook, Elsa, was already marinating a cut of meat. A big woman with heavy breasts, a thick waist, and merry eyes, she rubbed spices into a thick slab of beef.
“He’s gone, too. Left early this morning and Mrs. Eugenia had Lars drive her to Cahill House for an early meeting.” Carmen’s dark eyes flashed. “Mrs. Eugenia wasn’t too happy that she had to be downtown before eight.”
“I don’t blame her.” Marla finished her coffee and made her way upstairs where Fiona was just picking up James from his crib.
“Let me handle this little guy,” she said, and over Fiona’s worried glances, fed and changed the baby. “You can take some time off this morning.”
“But it’s my job—”
“Mine, too. I might go out this afternoon, so I’d like to spend a little time with him first,” Marla said with a smile. “You don’t mind, do you?”
“Of course not. You’re his mum.”
“Precisely.”
“I’ll be back in a bit then,” the girl said, brightening at the opportunity for a little freedom.
“Thanks.”
Marla bathed her son and it felt so right to watch his eyes sparkle as she swished his legs and arms with the warm water. He kicked and gurgled and she thought him the most precious child in the universe. “Yes, you are,” she said, poking his little belly with her finger, “even if your daddy’s a first class jerk.” The baby smiled and waved a fist, as if he understood and Marla’s heart cracked. Why couldn’t she just be happy with her children and her husband, why couldn’t she accept that this was her life and it was a wonderful, enchanted, privileged existence that most women would envy?
Forget about Nick.
Forget about all the things that are bothering you.
Enjoy, Marla!
But she couldn’t. Yes, she could revel in her baby and daughter, but she needed to know so much more. She wrapped her son in a towel, dried him, powdered him and dressed him in blue pajamas that he was already outgrowing. “You’re such a big, big boy,” she said and carried him downstairs into the den.
The house was relatively quiet. No one was about, so this was her opportunity to do a few things where she needed privacy. She put the baby in his playpen and reached for the phone.
In a matter of seconds she was connected to the San Francisco Police Department, but was informed that she’d have to leave a message for Detective Paterno as he was out. She asked that he call her back and then hung up to dial the University of California at Santa Cruz and ask about Pam’s daughter.
“I’m sorry, there’s no one enrolled at the university with the last name of Delacroix,” the woman at the registration office said, without a note of inflection.
Great. Marla tapped her fingers on the arm of the couch. James was lying on his back and cooing, happy with the world.
“Maybe the Delacroix girl is registered under another name,” Marla suggested, thinking hard, trying to remember something, anything about Pam or her daughter.
“Then I’d need that information, but even if she were a student here, I wouldn’t be able to tell you. It’s our privacy policy.”
No other questions helped locate the girl and eventually Marla had to hang up. She was getting nowhere. Fast. She glanced at her wrist to check the time, but wasn’t wearing a watch.
That was odd. She was certain she’d always worn one . . . oh, for God’s sake, in all that jewelry upstairs, she’d surely find some kind of timepiece. The clock on the VCR said it was nearly noon.
Carrying the baby, she hiked up the stairs to her room, dug through a jewelry box filled with earrings, bracelets, and, as expected, a watch with a linked metallic band. As she reached for it, she hesitated, for there, hidden beneath a pair of faux pearl earrings and a silver bracelet was a ring, a gorgeous ring, the facets of its blood-red stone winking brilliantly.
“No way,” she whispered, picking up the ring and holding it in her palm. She wouldn’t have missed it in an earlier search. She’d been through this box a half dozen times and the stone was too large to have been overlooked.
She slipped the ring onto her right hand. It felt awkward and heavy. It slid between her joints, the gold band loose. Of course it is; you’ve lost weight since the accident, all of your clothes are almost a size too big. It makes sense that the ring and probably the watch don’t fit.
Either that, or they never belonged to you in the first place.
She glanced in the mirror over her bureau. A pale woman with short hair, green eyes and high cheekbones stared back at her. Her bruises had faded and aside from a little swelling from the cuts to the inside of her cheeks when Nick had ripped out the wires, she was herself. With her baby. That part seemed right, it fit. But the ruby ring didn’t, though she had a niggling idea, just the hint that she’d seen this piece of jewelry somewhere before.
On someone else? Who?