“We don’t know these women! Barely even spoke to that Kara girl. Gerald, seriously!” She shook her head vehemently and said to the detectives, “We’re not talking to you without an attorney present. I know my rights.” She slid a slim phone from the pocket of her jeans and punched a single number. “I’m calling Judd.” To Gerald she lifted a pointer finger and admonished, “Not another word.”
He spread his hands. “They’re not accusing me of a crime.”
“I don’t care. They’re tricky. I’ve seen Law and Order!” She had the phone to her ear. “Oh, damn.” Meeting her husband’s gaze she said, “Judd’s not picking up!” Then, looking at the ceiling, she left a message: “Judd? It’s Mother. Call me ASAP. It’s an emergency!”
“For the love of Saint Peter, Noreen, he’ll think I’m in the hospital,” Gerald protested.
“Fine!” She hit another speed-dial number, waited, then rolled her eyes in frustration. “I can’t get Clarissa, either! Where the hell is she?”
“Noreen, you need to calm down,” Gerald said.
“And you need to not tell me what to do!”
Gerald suggested to Alvarez and Pescoli, “Let’s go into the den.” He motioned them toward double doors to the right of the staircase where a gas fire hissed, flames reflecting on the windows and the black sheen of a baby grand piano. A huge framed flat screen over the mantel was tuned to a sports network, a half-drunk glass of scotch on a table near a leather recliner. Cut flowers on a coffee table were starting to die, their blooms fading slightly, their scents nearly gone.
“It’s Mother. Call me! Emergency!” Noreen yelled into the phone again, as if by raising her voice, whomever she had phoned would pick up. The high heels of her boots clicked angrily as she marched stiffly into the den. “I can’t rouse anyone! Where the hell are they?”
“Honey, it would be best if you just chill out a little,” he husband suggested. He waved the detectives into side chairs as he settled into the recliner and clicked off the television. The latest sports scores disappeared and the screen briefly went black to be replaced, automatically, by a family portrait.
“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 there 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.