Found Money - James Grippando [26]
He watched the lights above the elevator doors, avoiding eye contact.
“This wasn’t my idea,” she said, pleading.
Finally, he looked at her. “What were you trying to do to me in there?”
“It’s for your own good.”
“My own good? This I gotta hear.”
“It was my lawyer’s idea to accuse you of hiding your income, just to put you on the defensive. I wouldn’t let him use that ploy at a real deposition or in the courtroom, anyplace where it could embarrass you. But today was just a settlement conference. It’s just posturing.”
“Posturing? It’s an outright lie. How could you let him pull a stunt like that?”
“Because it’s time you woke up,” she said sharply. “For eight years I begged you to get your career in order and earn the kind of money we deserved. You could have been a top-flight surgeon at any hospital you wanted, right here in Denver. You just gave it all up.”
“I didn’t give it all up. I’m still a doctor.”
“You’re a waste of talent, that’s what you are. It’s time you stopped playing Mother Teresa for all the poor sick folks in Piedmont Springs and started making some real money—for both of us.”
“You and your lawyer are going to make sure of that. Is that the plan?”
“If forcing you to write a hefty alimony check every month is the only way to blast you out of Piedmont Springs, then by God, I’m going to do it. You brought this on yourself. I didn’t work two jobs putting you through med school so that I could wake up every morning to the smell of cow manure blowing in from the fields. Piedmont Springs was not the future we talked about before we got married. I’ve waited long enough to get out of that hellhole.”
The elevator doors opened. Liz started out to the main lobby. Ryan stopped her.
“Is that what’s driving you, Liz? You just can’t wait to get out of Piedmont Springs?”
Her eyes turned cold. “No, Ryan. What’s driving me is that I’m sick and tired of waiting for you.”
He swallowed hard, tasting the bitterness as she quickly walked away.
12
Friday afternoon traffic was heavy as Amy reached Denver. She parked near the Civic Center about a mile from the coffee shop, then walked a block to the 16th Street Mall and caught the free shuttle. The bus ride was part of her plan to conceal her identity, to the extent possible. It was conceivable that Ryan’s father had sent the money to her without telling anyone, taking the name and address of Amy Parkens with him to the grave. She didn’t want Ryan to find out who she was simply by checking her license plate.
She was getting nervous about meeting Ryan face to face. She wished she had a friend in law enforcement who could run a criminal background check on the Duffys, make sure the money was clean. She didn’t. Snooping around was no way to get answers anyway. She had learned that from her marriage. Weeks of discreet, behind-the-scenes inquiries had brought only aggravation. The answer had come only after she’d invoked the direct approach and asked him point-blank, “Have you been screwing another woman?” No soft-pedaling it with the usual euphemisms—“seeing someone,” “having an affair,” or “cheating on me.” It had hurt to hear the truth. But at least she knew.
The direct approach. In a pinch, there was no substitute.
The shuttle bus dropped her at Larimer Square, a historic street that boasted authentic Western Victorian architecture. But for the determination of preservationists, it would have been bulldozed for yet another glass and steel skyscraper, like so many others that had sprouted in the days when Denver meant oil and the TV hit Dynasty. It had become Denver’s most charming shopping district, home to specialty shops, cafés, and summer concerts in brick courtyards.
On the corner was the Green Parrot, a coffee house with a bird sanctuary motif, having been converted from a century-old drugstore. A big brass chandelier hung from a thirty-foot coffered ceiling. The