Candace laughed into the phone.
“What’s funny?” Leslie asked.
“He has such a high opinion of himself, that’s what’s funny. How’d you get rid of him?”
“I shot him with the fire extinguisher. This time I got him good.”
“That’s getting to be quite a habit, isn’t it, sweetheart? I just had the scariest thought—you might be getting more like your parents....”
She sighed. “That wouldn’t be all bad, especially if I could have as much fun as you do. I’m going to get a fire extinguisher for the house. You know, if I weren’t afraid of the message it might send to Greg, I’d call Allison and ask her if she can keep him home.”
“Hmm. Maybe the new marriage isn’t working out so well—have you thought of that? He has far too much time on his hands.”
“Oh, please be wrong,” she said. “I need him to be happily married and not my problem.”
“There was a time such a thought—that his marriage was on the rocks—would have filled you with joy,” Candace reminded her.
“Well, I’ve discovered something very important over the past couple of months. The only thing worse than feeling rejected and devastated is feeling like a damn fool.”
The second week in May, Conner received a message from Brie to give her a call when he had a minute. She told him she had information for him and to come to her house around six in the evening, by which time she expected to be done working for the day. To kill time, he went to Jack’s for a beer.
If Conner had any fantasy of flying under the radar in Virgin River, it was gone by now. He was made as the man in Leslie’s life. It only took one bartender, one cook, a couple of local guys sharing a pitcher and one general contractor whose loose lips had the story all over town. Within a week of Greg’s visit and the fire extinguisher dousing in the bar, it was a legend. Virgin River, he realized, loved a good story. They had plenty of them, too. There wasn’t a lot of entertainment in town besides those stories, and they lapped them up.
“Small town,” Jack said. “We live for stuff like that.”
“And the latest story on me?” Conner probed.
“Nothing all that interesting. Just that you’re gonna have to get Leslie away from her ex-husband to have her.” And then Jack grinned.
Conner eyeballed him for a moment while he considered the grim truth—that he had much more interesting facts still under wraps. “You people,” he said, shaking his head, “need to get a life.”
“This is the life, man. As a rule we like as little excitement as possible.”
Conner could relate to that.
“Where is the little lady tonight?” Jack asked.
“I believe tonight is yoga night,” Conner said.
“And what do you do on yoga night?”
“A little computer time and early to bed. Being gossiped about is very tiring.”
Jack laughed. “I guess you’re not as tough as you look.”
Conner went from the bar to Brie’s house. She’d said he was to come to her front door at six, not her law office door which was an addition to the side of the house. When she let him in, he was struck by how much she reminded him of his sister. Brie was tiny in her snug jeans and bare feet. Her sleeves were rolled up, and she had a child’s cup in her hand. Her hair was loose and long, and she looked so much younger than she was. If he was correct, she was over thirty-five.
“Come in,” she said. “I’m giving Ness her dinner.”
He followed her to the kitchen. He watched her pull a bowl of mac and cheese from the microwave and blow on it. Ness was seated at the small kitchen table on a booster chair, squealing and reaching for her dinner. “All right, all right, hang on to your britches,” Brie said, putting the bowl in front of her. She filled the cup with milk and put it on the table, then leaned against the kitchen counter and let out a breath.
He chuckled and shook his head. “It’s sure hard to picture you kicking butt in a courtroom,” he said.
“She was terrifying, too,” Mike Valenzuela said as he came into the kitchen. He didn’t look like a cop in his denim shirt, jeans and boots. But then as Conner had learned, he didn’t want to. He rarely carried a sidearm, though he kept a rifle in the rack in his truck. “Can I get you something to drink?” he asked, opening the refrigerator.
“No, thanks. What’s up?”
“Couple of things,” Brie said. “First of all, they’ll be starting jury selection soon—looks like they’re running close to the time frame Max suggested. I bet you’ll be called by late May. Possibly sooner. That should come as good news. And this was forwarded to you from the D.A.’s office to me.” She handed him a white envelope.
He looked at the handwriting and return address and handed it back to her. “This is my ex-wife. I’ve gotten letters before. I don’t read them.”
“Read this one, please,” Brie said. “We’d like to know how she knew to send it to the D.A.’s office, if she mentions that.”
He pressed it on her. “Go ahead, knock yourself out. Read it.”
“It could be personal, Conner,” she said as she took the envelope with reluctance.
Of course the D.A. knew the story even if Brie didn’t. “No, it couldn’t be. We’ve been divorced almost two years and we divorced because she had a problem with sex, as in she had a great deal more of it than I did. With many, many partners.”
“Oh,” Brie said. “Sorry.”
“So go ahead. It’s probably one of those amends letters—there were quite a few before the fire, before the murder in my back alley.”
“Amends?” Brie asked as she ripped open the envelope. “I take that to mean…?”
“Some kind of program,” he answered. “A very long, expensive program. My parting gift to the lady.”
“Wow,” Brie said under her breath, unfolding a long letter. “Wow,” she said again, taking in the neat, close, tightly constructed and lengthy penned letter—three pages, both sides. It was written so densely. Obsessively. “This could take a while.”
“Take as long as you like, it’s all yours.”
“You’re not wondering how she tracked you down to Max? The D.A.’s office?”
“Not really. She was a smart woman. About most things.”
Brie scanned the first page. “Well, we’re in luck—it’s up front. After she heard about the killing and your store being burned down she decided to take a chance and see if the D.A.’s office might know where you could be. She’s very worried about you and hopes you’re all right.”
“That’s Samantha,” he said. “She was worried about me before all this happened, too. She wants dialogue—it’s not going to happen.”
“Maybe she wants to be forgiven,” Brie suggested.
“That, too, so I told her that I forgave her, but that we weren’t going to have a relationship. It just isn’t a good idea, not for either one of us. I wish she’d quit writing me letters.”
Brie scanned some more. “She says she’s been straight for a long time and that she’s sorry and that she misses you.”
“Hmm,” he said. “Good for her. That she’s fixed, I mean. So, there are a couple of things I need to talk to you about. First of all, when do you think I’ll be asked to go to Sacramento?”
“A few weeks, I think. Give or take.”
Ness tried to get her cup of milk, just out of her reach, and Conner automatically slid it closer to her. “There you go, honey,” he said. “That’s good, isn’t it?” he asked her gently. Then he straightened and looked at Brie. He was glad they were all in the kitchen together with Ness eating her dinner. That alone would probably keep Brie from having a little hissy fit.
“Before I testify, I’m going to see my sister,” he said. “I’ll drive to San Francisco, leave the truck in the long-term lot and fly to Vermont. I haven’t asked her if I can visit yet, but I’m sure she’ll be happy to see me. We’re very close. I’m close to the kids.”
“Not recommended,” Brie said, shaking her head.
“I wasn’t asking for a recommendation,” Conner said. “I don’t know what you know about me, Brie, so let me fill in some gaps. Our parents died when we were young—both of them were gone when Katie was twenty and I was twenty-three. We took over a family business we didn’t know how to run, and although she thought she was all grown-up by then, I had to be a parent to her. She married a great man, Charlie, when she was twenty-six—he was like a brother to me. Less than a year later, a couple of months before Katie’s twin boys were born, he was killed in Afghanistan. That was five years ago. I took care of her and my nephews right up to the day the D.A. sent her in one direction and me in another.
“Now I talk to Katie every day, and guess where we are? She likes where she is. There’s someone she’s starting to care about there. She’s talking about staying there. She thinks she and the boys might have a future there. She was kind of hoping I’d end up there, near them. But what do you suppose happened? After all these years, after all the crap, I find myself wanting to give a little more time to the best thing that’s ever happened to me.”
“Conner, look, I’m totally sympathetic, but—”
“I don’t know what your concept of family is, Brie, but Katie and I and the boys are tight. We’ve always known we might not live in the same town all our lives—hell, she was married to a military man. She was going to be moving around as an army wife—I can live with that. We can make do on visits. But like I said, we’re tight. The boys don’t get why they haven’t seen Uncle Danny—that’s how they’ve always known me. And before I testify, before I put my life on the line or make another major change in my life, I’m going to do two important things. I’m going to tell Leslie what I’m up against and that I’ll come back here after the trial if she thinks she can handle that. And I’m going to go see my sister to be sure she and the boys are all right. And that they’ll be safe and happy if they stay there.”
Brie looked down. She slapped the effusive blue-inked letter against her thigh. She looked up at him. “Now look—”
“Brie,” Mike said. He didn’t say it loudly or sternly, he just said her name and she looked at him. He lifted his cola can, and on the way to his lips, he gestured toward Conner.
“There are risks. No matter what I do. That son of a bitch could have me capped as I’m walking up the courthouse steps. In fact, that’s the only thing that makes sense. And I bet he’d still get convicted.”
Mike gave a shrug that was nearly a nod.
“I’ll keep the new name, all the new ID, and if the D.A.’s office will help, I’ll sell everything and start over. I’d be willing to sell it all, but it probably makes more sense to put it all in crated storage in Sacramento until we have a destination. The houses…?” Conner shrugged. “We’ll have to sell them. We know we’re not going to live in Sacramento again. Not after what happened there. I’ll pay for the truck I’m using or get a new one, whatever. Katie’s share will give her a fresh start. But that’s it, that’s all I’m doing. I’m not going to run for the rest of my life. If Regis Mathis doesn’t get me before I can help lock him up for life, I find it hard to believe he’s going to go to too much trouble and expense to scour the entire frickin’ United States for me or Katie. Not just for revenge. His money would be better spent on lawyers for his appeal.”
“What’s funny?” Leslie asked.
“He has such a high opinion of himself, that’s what’s funny. How’d you get rid of him?”
“I shot him with the fire extinguisher. This time I got him good.”
“That’s getting to be quite a habit, isn’t it, sweetheart? I just had the scariest thought—you might be getting more like your parents....”
She sighed. “That wouldn’t be all bad, especially if I could have as much fun as you do. I’m going to get a fire extinguisher for the house. You know, if I weren’t afraid of the message it might send to Greg, I’d call Allison and ask her if she can keep him home.”
“Hmm. Maybe the new marriage isn’t working out so well—have you thought of that? He has far too much time on his hands.”
“Oh, please be wrong,” she said. “I need him to be happily married and not my problem.”
“There was a time such a thought—that his marriage was on the rocks—would have filled you with joy,” Candace reminded her.
“Well, I’ve discovered something very important over the past couple of months. The only thing worse than feeling rejected and devastated is feeling like a damn fool.”
The second week in May, Conner received a message from Brie to give her a call when he had a minute. She told him she had information for him and to come to her house around six in the evening, by which time she expected to be done working for the day. To kill time, he went to Jack’s for a beer.
If Conner had any fantasy of flying under the radar in Virgin River, it was gone by now. He was made as the man in Leslie’s life. It only took one bartender, one cook, a couple of local guys sharing a pitcher and one general contractor whose loose lips had the story all over town. Within a week of Greg’s visit and the fire extinguisher dousing in the bar, it was a legend. Virgin River, he realized, loved a good story. They had plenty of them, too. There wasn’t a lot of entertainment in town besides those stories, and they lapped them up.
“Small town,” Jack said. “We live for stuff like that.”
“And the latest story on me?” Conner probed.
“Nothing all that interesting. Just that you’re gonna have to get Leslie away from her ex-husband to have her.” And then Jack grinned.
Conner eyeballed him for a moment while he considered the grim truth—that he had much more interesting facts still under wraps. “You people,” he said, shaking his head, “need to get a life.”
“This is the life, man. As a rule we like as little excitement as possible.”
Conner could relate to that.
“Where is the little lady tonight?” Jack asked.
“I believe tonight is yoga night,” Conner said.
“And what do you do on yoga night?”
“A little computer time and early to bed. Being gossiped about is very tiring.”
Jack laughed. “I guess you’re not as tough as you look.”
Conner went from the bar to Brie’s house. She’d said he was to come to her front door at six, not her law office door which was an addition to the side of the house. When she let him in, he was struck by how much she reminded him of his sister. Brie was tiny in her snug jeans and bare feet. Her sleeves were rolled up, and she had a child’s cup in her hand. Her hair was loose and long, and she looked so much younger than she was. If he was correct, she was over thirty-five.
“Come in,” she said. “I’m giving Ness her dinner.”
He followed her to the kitchen. He watched her pull a bowl of mac and cheese from the microwave and blow on it. Ness was seated at the small kitchen table on a booster chair, squealing and reaching for her dinner. “All right, all right, hang on to your britches,” Brie said, putting the bowl in front of her. She filled the cup with milk and put it on the table, then leaned against the kitchen counter and let out a breath.
He chuckled and shook his head. “It’s sure hard to picture you kicking butt in a courtroom,” he said.
“She was terrifying, too,” Mike Valenzuela said as he came into the kitchen. He didn’t look like a cop in his denim shirt, jeans and boots. But then as Conner had learned, he didn’t want to. He rarely carried a sidearm, though he kept a rifle in the rack in his truck. “Can I get you something to drink?” he asked, opening the refrigerator.
“No, thanks. What’s up?”
“Couple of things,” Brie said. “First of all, they’ll be starting jury selection soon—looks like they’re running close to the time frame Max suggested. I bet you’ll be called by late May. Possibly sooner. That should come as good news. And this was forwarded to you from the D.A.’s office to me.” She handed him a white envelope.
He looked at the handwriting and return address and handed it back to her. “This is my ex-wife. I’ve gotten letters before. I don’t read them.”
“Read this one, please,” Brie said. “We’d like to know how she knew to send it to the D.A.’s office, if she mentions that.”
He pressed it on her. “Go ahead, knock yourself out. Read it.”
“It could be personal, Conner,” she said as she took the envelope with reluctance.
Of course the D.A. knew the story even if Brie didn’t. “No, it couldn’t be. We’ve been divorced almost two years and we divorced because she had a problem with sex, as in she had a great deal more of it than I did. With many, many partners.”
“Oh,” Brie said. “Sorry.”
“So go ahead. It’s probably one of those amends letters—there were quite a few before the fire, before the murder in my back alley.”
“Amends?” Brie asked as she ripped open the envelope. “I take that to mean…?”
“Some kind of program,” he answered. “A very long, expensive program. My parting gift to the lady.”
“Wow,” Brie said under her breath, unfolding a long letter. “Wow,” she said again, taking in the neat, close, tightly constructed and lengthy penned letter—three pages, both sides. It was written so densely. Obsessively. “This could take a while.”
“Take as long as you like, it’s all yours.”
“You’re not wondering how she tracked you down to Max? The D.A.’s office?”
“Not really. She was a smart woman. About most things.”
Brie scanned the first page. “Well, we’re in luck—it’s up front. After she heard about the killing and your store being burned down she decided to take a chance and see if the D.A.’s office might know where you could be. She’s very worried about you and hopes you’re all right.”
“That’s Samantha,” he said. “She was worried about me before all this happened, too. She wants dialogue—it’s not going to happen.”
“Maybe she wants to be forgiven,” Brie suggested.
“That, too, so I told her that I forgave her, but that we weren’t going to have a relationship. It just isn’t a good idea, not for either one of us. I wish she’d quit writing me letters.”
Brie scanned some more. “She says she’s been straight for a long time and that she’s sorry and that she misses you.”
“Hmm,” he said. “Good for her. That she’s fixed, I mean. So, there are a couple of things I need to talk to you about. First of all, when do you think I’ll be asked to go to Sacramento?”
“A few weeks, I think. Give or take.”
Ness tried to get her cup of milk, just out of her reach, and Conner automatically slid it closer to her. “There you go, honey,” he said. “That’s good, isn’t it?” he asked her gently. Then he straightened and looked at Brie. He was glad they were all in the kitchen together with Ness eating her dinner. That alone would probably keep Brie from having a little hissy fit.
“Before I testify, I’m going to see my sister,” he said. “I’ll drive to San Francisco, leave the truck in the long-term lot and fly to Vermont. I haven’t asked her if I can visit yet, but I’m sure she’ll be happy to see me. We’re very close. I’m close to the kids.”
“Not recommended,” Brie said, shaking her head.
“I wasn’t asking for a recommendation,” Conner said. “I don’t know what you know about me, Brie, so let me fill in some gaps. Our parents died when we were young—both of them were gone when Katie was twenty and I was twenty-three. We took over a family business we didn’t know how to run, and although she thought she was all grown-up by then, I had to be a parent to her. She married a great man, Charlie, when she was twenty-six—he was like a brother to me. Less than a year later, a couple of months before Katie’s twin boys were born, he was killed in Afghanistan. That was five years ago. I took care of her and my nephews right up to the day the D.A. sent her in one direction and me in another.
“Now I talk to Katie every day, and guess where we are? She likes where she is. There’s someone she’s starting to care about there. She’s talking about staying there. She thinks she and the boys might have a future there. She was kind of hoping I’d end up there, near them. But what do you suppose happened? After all these years, after all the crap, I find myself wanting to give a little more time to the best thing that’s ever happened to me.”
“Conner, look, I’m totally sympathetic, but—”
“I don’t know what your concept of family is, Brie, but Katie and I and the boys are tight. We’ve always known we might not live in the same town all our lives—hell, she was married to a military man. She was going to be moving around as an army wife—I can live with that. We can make do on visits. But like I said, we’re tight. The boys don’t get why they haven’t seen Uncle Danny—that’s how they’ve always known me. And before I testify, before I put my life on the line or make another major change in my life, I’m going to do two important things. I’m going to tell Leslie what I’m up against and that I’ll come back here after the trial if she thinks she can handle that. And I’m going to go see my sister to be sure she and the boys are all right. And that they’ll be safe and happy if they stay there.”
Brie looked down. She slapped the effusive blue-inked letter against her thigh. She looked up at him. “Now look—”
“Brie,” Mike said. He didn’t say it loudly or sternly, he just said her name and she looked at him. He lifted his cola can, and on the way to his lips, he gestured toward Conner.
“There are risks. No matter what I do. That son of a bitch could have me capped as I’m walking up the courthouse steps. In fact, that’s the only thing that makes sense. And I bet he’d still get convicted.”
Mike gave a shrug that was nearly a nod.
“I’ll keep the new name, all the new ID, and if the D.A.’s office will help, I’ll sell everything and start over. I’d be willing to sell it all, but it probably makes more sense to put it all in crated storage in Sacramento until we have a destination. The houses…?” Conner shrugged. “We’ll have to sell them. We know we’re not going to live in Sacramento again. Not after what happened there. I’ll pay for the truck I’m using or get a new one, whatever. Katie’s share will give her a fresh start. But that’s it, that’s all I’m doing. I’m not going to run for the rest of my life. If Regis Mathis doesn’t get me before I can help lock him up for life, I find it hard to believe he’s going to go to too much trouble and expense to scour the entire frickin’ United States for me or Katie. Not just for revenge. His money would be better spent on lawyers for his appeal.”
