In Plain Sight. Tara Quinn Taylor
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was drunk and got his gun out to load it, to go hunting. It was already loaded and it went off….” She closed her eyes against the assault of memories, as if doing so could erase all the blood. “There was an investigation, and the evidence corroborated events exactly as my mother had said they happened.”
“Where were you at the time?”
“At home, taking a nap.” She tried to swallow, but her throat was too dry. Picking up her glass, she tried again. “I don’t remember the shooting at all, but I’ll never forget standing in the archway leading to the living room and watching while they cut out a piece of living room carpet that was saturated with his blood.”
And she’d never spoken of it, either. Jan peered over at Simon, afraid of what she’d done by telling him. Afraid of what she’d see in his eyes.
He looked confused, lost—like a man who was picturing the horrifying scene through the eyes of a four-year-old child.
“Were the two of you close?”
“I’m not sure. My mom’s been emotionally fragile ever since it happened—at least I’ve assumed it started then. In any case, it’s too hard on her to talk about my dad, so we won’t.”
“Seems like, at four, you’d have some memories, if you and he had much of a relationship.”
Something that had occurred to her, too. “I just have flashes,” she said, finishing her drink and pouring another. “I remember moments of anger, but I can’t ever bring back enough to know what he was angry about or who he was angry with. I can just picture his face, red, his mouth, thin, and his eyes small and kind of black.”
“That’s a pretty clear picture,” Simon said. “Sounds like he was angry a lot.”
“Maybe. I also remember a birthday—maybe my third or fourth. I can’t recall anything about the day, except that he and I laughed a lot and he threw me up in the air and caught me and said he always would.”
She smiled when what she felt like doing was crying. “I like to think he’s still up there, catching me. When my brother was little, he used to tell everyone he was special because his daddy was an angel who watched over him.”
“How old was he when your dad was killed?”
“A few months.”
“So he doesn’t remember him at all.”
“Nope.”
“It’s natural that he’d build him into some kind of hero or loving guardian, but those feelings don’t necessarily have any connection to the kind of man your father really was.”
“I know.”
“And your mother never shared anything that gave you any indication? No story about how they met? What he did for a living?”
“Not much.” Jan sighed, wanting to lay her head on a caring shoulder. For a second. “They were high school sweethearts who married fairly young. And they waited several years before having me. He worked for a trucking company, at some point. I discovered that tidbit when I moved my mother to Sedona. I was helping her get her finances together and I found documents concerning a small pension she’d been getting all these years, though it wasn’t clear from the dates if he’d been working at the time of the accident. I’m fairly certain he was an alcoholic, based on something Clara Williams—she was a neighbor and my mother’s closest friend—said once, when I was telling them about a friend who’d bought a fake ID and gotten drunk.”
“That could explain the anger. Some guys get mean when they drink.”
“Yeah.” And some were nice. Please God, for her mother’s sake if nothing else, let him have been a nice drunk.
“You said your mom had problems. Is she okay now?”
He was really sweet to ask. Surely he’d rather be home at his computer. Or doing whatever else he did until all hours of the night.
“She’s fine.” Jan gave the short version, in deference to his kindness. “She had a pretty bad bout of depression nine or ten years ago. I’d just started law school and moved into my own apartment. Johnny was seventeen and going through the rebellious teenaged crap. It was too much for her to handle alone. But she got help. And then there was a bout a couple of years ago. She wouldn’t get out of bed, wouldn’t eat. She finally agreed to check herself into the hospital and came out with this idea that she had to move to an adult-living community in Sedona. She did, and she’s been doing well ever since.”
Simon finished his drink, but didn’t pour another. “You could do an investigation. To track down information about your father.”
She’d thought about it a few times. “I’ve just never been sure enough that I wanted to know,” she said. “If it turns out he was a louse, I’m descended from a louse and that’s all there is to it. And if I find out he was a great guy, I lost one of the best things that ever happened to me.”
Simon stood. “You’re right,” he said. “You may be better off not knowing. That way anything’s possible.”
It made a strange kind of sense. She was tired enough to accept it.
“Thanks for taking out my trash.” She followed him to the front door.
“Thanks for the drink.”
She started to say “anytime,” but decided against it and held the door for him instead.
He began to leave, then stopped abruptly and turned, his face two inches from hers.
She could hardly breathe, struck with the completely unfamiliar desire to have wild, passionate, unrestrained and irresponsible sex. The kind you had without accountability or any thought of tomorrow.
“Lock the door behind me.”
She was deciphering the words when, halfway across her yard, he turned. Jan quickly shut her door and clicked the lock as loudly as she could.
And only then realized that while she’d just told Simon her entire life story, she still knew very little about him.
6
A gentle breeze blew through the trees surrounding the old wooden cabin, mixing with the sounds of chirping birds to create a background of nature music. Bobby Donahue swelled with pride as he surveyed his acreage in the mountains several miles outside Flagstaff. He’d done well.
Reaching over, he untied the blindfold covering Tony Littleton’s eyes.
“Sorry about that,” he said, “but the cause is too important to risk discovery. This place is a combination storeroom, training ground and safe house. There are selfish people out there who don’t want our voices to be heard because the truth of our message threatens their personal bottom lines. I have to be very careful. I can’t let you know exactly where we are or how we got here. Not yet, anyway.”
“No problem,” Tony said, his voice eager as he glanced around, reminding Bobby of a cocker spaniel pup he’d had as a kid. That dog had been his constant companion—until his father had snapped its neck one night, when it barked during basketball playoffs.
Perhaps it was time to get another one. The experience would be good for Luke, exposing the two-year-old to deep and abiding affection, and Amanda could take care of it.
“No one comes up here—ever—without me.”
“I understand. Believe me, you have nothing to worry about from me. It’s like you’re my personal savior. I’m so jazzed about this opportunity I lie awake at night thinking about it.” The skinny young man walked a few feet in one direction and then another, as though trying to take in the whole world at once. Bobby smiled, basking in the certainty that his life’s mission was the true course, the only course, and that all would be well.
This was why Bobby