"That's okay."
She heard Henry's crazed barking, and a moment later the sound of tires crushing gravel. There was a quick dip in her belly, but she kept her shoulders straight. "They're here." She shook her head before Max could speak. "No, I have to gear up. I have to handle this."
She walked to the door, opened it and watched Jenny play with Henry.
Jenny looked over. "Must be true love," she called out, then started toward the house. "Getting me out of bed and over here before eight in the morning must be a sign of true friendship."
"I'm sorry it's so early."
"Just tell me you have food."
"I . . . I have a coffee cake, but—"
"Sounds great. What are you having?" She gave her big, barking laugh, then shut it down when she saw Max. "I don't know what I think about you being here. If you're some big-city detective, why didn't you say so?"
"Jenny." Laine laid a hand on her friend's arm. "It's complicated. Why don't you and Vince go in the living room and sit down?"
"Why don't we just sit in the kitchen? It's closer to the food." And rubbing circles on her belly, Jenny started back.
"Okay then." Laine took a deep breath, closed the door behind Vince. "Okay."
She followed them back. "This might be a little confusing," she began, talking as she set out the pot of herbal tea she'd made for Jenny. "I want to apologize first off. Just say I'm sorry, right off the bat."
She poured coffee, cut slices of cake. "I haven't been honest with you, with anyone."
"Sweetie." Jenny stepped over to where Laine stood meticulously arranging the cake on a garnet glass dessert plate. "Are you in trouble?"
"I guess I am."
"Then we'll fix it. Right, Vince?"
Vince was watching Laine. "Why don't you sit down, Jen. Let her say what she needs to."
"We'll fix it," Jenny said again, but she sat, bored through Max with a steely stare. "Is this your fault?"
"It's not," Laine said quickly. "It's really not. My name's not Laine Tavish. It is . . . I changed it, legally, and I've used it since I was eighteen, but it's not the name I was born with. That's Elaine O'Hara. My father's name is Jack O'Hara, and if Vince was to do a background check on him, he'd find my father has a long and varied sheet. It's mostly theft, and cons. Scams."
Jenny's eyes went round and wide. "He doesn't run a barbecue place in New Mexico?"
"Rob Tavish, my stepfather, does. My father got popped—" Laine cut herself off, sighed. How quickly it comes back. "Jack was arrested and sent to prison for a real-estate scam when I was eleven. It wasn't the first time he'd been caught, but this time my mother had had enough. She was, I realized later, worried for me. I just worshiped my father, and I was doing considerably well, considering my age, at following in his footsteps."
"You ran con games?"
There was as much fascination as shock in Jenny's tone, and it made Laine smile a little. "Mostly I was just the beard, but yes, I did. Picking pockets was turning into my specialty. I had good hands, and people don't look at a little girl when they realize their wallet's been lifted."
"Holy cow," was all Jenny could say.
"I liked it. It was exciting, and it was easy. My father . . . well, he made it such a game. It never occurred to me that when I took some man's wallet, he might not be able to pay the rent that month. Or when we bilked some couple out of a few thousand in a bogus real-estate deal, that might've been their life savings, or a college fund. It was fun, and they were marks."
"And you were ten," Max added. "Give the kid a break."
"You could say that's what happened. I got a break. The direction I was heading in convinced my mother to change her life, and mine. She divorced my father and moved away, changed her name, got a straight job waiting tables. We moved around a lot the first few years. Not to shake my father loose—she wouldn't have done that to him. She let him know where we were, as long as he kept his word and didn't try to pull me back into the game. He kept his word. I don't know which of the three of us was more surprised by that, but he kept his word. We moved around to keep the cops from rousting us every time . . ."
She trailed off, managed a sickly smile in Vince's direction. "Sorry, but when you've got a rep for scams and theft, even by association, the locals tend to look you over. She wanted a fresh start, that's all. And a clean slate for me. It wasn't easy for her. She loved Jack, too. And I didn't help. I liked the game and didn't appreciate having it called, or being separated from my father."
She topped off cups of coffee, though she'd yet to touch her own. "But she worked so hard, and I started to see something in her, the pride and the satisfaction she got from earning her way. The straight way. And after a while, we weren't moving every time we turned around anymore. We weren't packing up in the middle of the night and slipping out of apartments or hotel rooms. And she kept her promises. Big Jack was long on the promises but came up short on keeping them. When my mother said she was going to do something, she did it."
No one spoke when she went to the refrigerator and took out a pitcher of water with lemon slices. She poured a glass, drank to wet her dry throat.
"Anyway, things changed. She met Rob Tavish, and things changed again, for the better. He's a wonderful man, crazy about her, and he was good to me. Sweet and kind and fun. I took his name. I made myself Laine Tavish because Laine Tavish was normal and responsible. She could have a place of her own, and a business of her own, and a life of her own. Maybe it wouldn't have all those wild ups she'd ridden on during the first part of her life, but it wouldn't have all those scary downs, either. That seemed just fine. So anytime you asked me about my background, or growing up, I fabricated whatever seemed to fit Laine Tavish. I'm sorry. That's all. I'm sorry."
There was a long moment of silence. "Okay, wow." Jenny goggled at Laine. "I'm going to have a lot of follow-up comments and questions after my head stops spinning, but the first thing I have to ask is how all this—and there's a lot of this—applies to you being in trouble."
"There's probably a quote somewhere about not being able to escape the past, or cover it over. William Young." She saw Vince nod slowly and knew he was putting some of it together.
"The man who was killed when he ran out into the street," Jenny prompted.
"Yes. He used to run with my father. They were close as brothers, and hell, he lived with us half the time. I called him Uncle Willy. I didn't recognize him when he came in. I swear that, Vince. It's been years since I've seen him, and it just didn't click. It wasn't until after the accident and he . . . God, he was dying."
She drank more water, but this time her hand trembled lightly. "He looked so sad when I didn't recognize him, when I basically brushed him off. Then he was lying there, bleeding. Dying. He sang part of this stupid song he and my father used to do as a duet. 'Bye Bye Blackbird.' Something they'd start singing when we were loading up to skip out of a hotel. I realized who he was, and it was too late. I didn't tell you, and that's probably some sort of offense, but I didn't tell you I knew him."
"Why did he come to see you?"
"He didn't get much of a chance to tell me. I didn't give him much of a chance," she corrected.
"It's a waste of time to beat yourself up over that." Max said it briskly, and had her swallowing tears.
"Maybe. Looking back, I know he was nervous, edgy, tired. He gave me his card—just as I told you—with a phone number written on it. I really thought he was in the market to sell something. After, I realized he wanted to talk to me about something."
She stared into her empty glass, set it aside. "I think my father must've sent him. One of Willy's best skills was blending. He was a small, nondescript sort of man. Jack's big and redheaded and stands out, so I think Jack sent him to tell me something or give me something. But he didn't have a chance to do either. He only said . . . he said, 'He knows where you are now,' and for me to hide the pouch. I think he said 'pouch,' it's the only thing that makes sense. Except it sounded like 'pooch,' but that's just silly."