about a hundred miles north of Santa Monica I pulled into a deserted overlook and asked her to marry me.”
This was where the story got sad. Those narrowed, glistening eyes said so.
“She turned you down?” She hadn’t meant to sound incredulous, but she really couldn’t believe it.
“No.” He glanced up with a bit of a smile. She’d never seen a smile look so sad. “She said yes. And started to cry when the ring I nervously pulled out of the glove box fit her finger perfectly.”
“How’d you manage that?” She was hurting and didn’t even know why.
“Got one of her rings from her mom and took it to the jewelers.”
His thoughtfulness didn’t surprise Tricia. Except as confirmation that he’d always been like that. She’d occasionally wondered if he was so different from the other men she knew because of something that had happened to him. Apparently not. Apparently he’d been born thoughtful and kind.
“An hour later, flying high on life, I took a corner twenty miles an hour too fast, lost control of the Porsche and slammed into the side of a mountain.”
San Francisco Gazette
Wednesday, April 6, 2005 Page 1
Socialite Still Missing
Forty-eight hours after thirty-one-year old charity fund-raiser Leah Montgomery was reported missing by her brother and sister, there has still been no word on her whereabouts. According to a police source, they have no clues other than the black gown hanging in her shower. The missing woman was apparently planning to wear it two evenings ago at a charity gala. There was no sign of struggle in her Pacific Heights security-system-controlled home. Montgomery’s white Mercedes convertible has not been found.
Standing at the checkout counter at Gala Foods, her basket empty except for the fresh vegetables she’d suddenly decided she wanted for dinner, Tricia read the article a second time. Her hands were trembling so hard she could barely make out the words bouncing in front of her.
They weren’t what she’d expected to read. No inane idea to explain her friend’s sudden disappearance. No embarrassing statement of apology for the rash or naive behavior that had made her miss her own black-tie function. No Leah.
Dammit, Leah, what have you done this time? Who’s rescuing you from whatever mess you’ve created now that I’m not there to do it?
And whose gown did you buy?
It was almost one in the afternoon. The paper had gone to press before six that morning. Perhaps Leah had been found by now.
Yeah, that was it. Tricia folded the paper, putting it on top of her purse in the metal child-seat in the front of the basket. Tomorrow she’d read all about it. The harebrained scheme. The embarrassment. Leah safe and sound and laughing it all off in such a way that everyone would eventually laugh along with her.
Taking a deep breath, hooking the hair that had fallen over the shoulder of her T-shirt back behind her ear, she pushed her basket closer to the moving conveyer belt, unloading a head of cauliflower, broccoli florets and peeled baby carrots.
The San Diego daily paper was there at the checkout—without any mention of Leah on the front page. Somehow that was comforting.
“Paper or plastic?” the older man who bagged groceries asked.
His question startled her. Brought her back to the present moment—the only moment she had to worry about right now.
“Plastic, please.” She pushed her empty basket through to the end of the aisle.
“Where’s your little one this afternoon?” asked Gabriella, the young, slightly plump and quite beautiful Hispanic cashier.
“Home napping with his dad.” She’d snatched the opportunity to get out alone to grab the paper. Away from the house, she could freely study news from the town where she’d grown up and dispose of the evidence with no one but her eighteen-month-old son the wiser.
Only occasionally during Scott’s four-day rotations on would she spoil herself, bringing the paper home to enjoy over a cup of coffee as she had the day before.
“You are one lucky woman!” Gabriella was saying, her fingers flying over the number keys of the computerized register, typing in prices for the fresh vegetables. “Most of us just fantasize about being with a gorgeous fireman. You not only got one, but he’s a good dad, too.”
“And he cooks!” Tricia smiled at the girl she’d come to know. She and Taylor made at least three trips a week to the neighborhood grocer.
“’Course, you ain’t nothing to sneeze at,” Gabriella continued. “I’d give a year’s worth of paydays to have your long legs.”
“And I’d give the same to have your beautiful black hair.” Tricia pulled cash out of the black leather bag she’d sewn from the bolt Scott had given her for Christmas the year before, after he’d seen her fingering it in a department store.
“You really should get one of them cards,” Gabriella said, pointing to the debit machine by Tricia’s right arm. “It’s not safe, a woman like you carrying cash around. Not in this neighborhood.”
Yeah, well, it was a hell of a lot safer than leaving any kind of paper trail that could be traced.
Picking up the plastic bag, she nodded. “I know. I’ll get around to it.”
It was the same reply she’d given the first time Gabriella had warned her about the neighborhood. That had been a couple of months before Taylor was born.
“Where were you Monday afternoon and evening?”
Senator Thomas Whitehead, impeccably dressed in a navy suit, cream shirt and red tie, his always freshly polished black Italian leather shoes shining, didn’t immediately spit out an answer to the San Francisco detective’s question. He’d come to the station voluntarily and without counsel.
He had nothing to hide. And everything to gain by carefully thought-out, honest responses.
“I was at my office until close to seven. I stopped on the way home for a steak at McGruber’s, dropped a novel off at my mother’s after she called to say she was having trouble sleeping. I visited with her until shortly before midnight and then went home.”
Detectives Gregory and Stanton, the same team who’d interrogated him after Kate’s disappearance, were seated across from him in the small room. Dirty white cement walls, gray tile floor, a single table with two chairs on either side. Their faces were grim. Gregory was the younger of the two, in his midthirties, tall, dark curly hair with a pockmarked face. Poor guy must’ve had it rough in high school with all the acne it would’ve taken to leave those scars.
“Is there anyone at your office who can verify that?” Gregory asked, head tilted to the left and slightly lowered at the same time. He was still assessing, Thomas surmised. Not yet convinced of Thomas’s innocence, but not thinking him guilty, either. Thomas took an easier breath.
“Yes. My secretary was there, as were Senators Logenstein and Bryer. We’re working on legislation to provide stiffer penalties for anyone
