Found Money - James Grippando [81]
“Then why didn’t he tell me about that woman named Amy?”
“What woman?”
“The woman who Dad sent some money to in a box. She went to see Ryan, and he never told me. Then she came to see me.”
Jeanette shook her head vigorously. “I don’t want to know about that. I’m sure Ryan had his reasons.”
Sarah came to the table and sat across from her. It was clear her mother didn’t want to discuss it, but she wouldn’t let it go. “She came here to Piedmont Springs. I talked to her. Says Dad sent her a thousand dollars in a box. I got bad vibes from that woman. Real nervy-like. I didn’t like her. Didn’t like her at all.”
Jeanette said nothing.
Sarah said, “She had an attitude. Came on too strong for my taste. Like she was entitled to something. Like she was part of the family or something.”
Jeanette stared down into her coffee cup. Her hands were shaking, as if she were bracing herself for the worst.
“Mom, I need to ask you something. Was Dad ever unfaithful to you?”
Silence fell between them. Sarah tried to catch her eye, but her mother wouldn’t look up. Finally, she answered in a voice that was almost inaudible. “That’s a very personal question.”
“Was he?”
“I don’t see what that has to do with anything.”
“A man can’t have an illegitimate Amy, unless he was unfaithful.”
She nodded slowly, reluctantly. “Now that you put it that way, I’ll answer as best I can.”
Sarah watched her mother struggle for words, then put her question more firmly. “Well, was he?”
Jeanette looked her daughter in the eye. “I think he could have been.”
At 7:35 A.M. Amy was on her way to the office. Morning traffic was heavy on Arapahoe, but she was traveling on automatic pilot, deep in thought.
She had been up all night. The drive home from Coors Field had seemed like a blur. It wasn’t until 3:00 A.M., hours after she’d put Taylor to bed, that she’d even stopped shaking. She couldn’t talk about it, didn’t even tell Gram. Four different times throughout the night she’d picked up the telephone to call the police. Each time she’d hung up before she’d finished dialing, the words of her attacker echoing in her ear.
You ever talk to the police again, it’s your daughter who pays.
She wondered who the man was, if he had children of his own. Could one parent actually utter such words to another? Of course. That was how children grew up to be creeps like this. They were everywhere, she knew, people who could hurt children. No one had ever threatened her child, however, at least not directly. She remembered how horrified she’d felt when another pretty little girl had been murdered in Boulder. It had happened miles from their apartment when Taylor was just a baby. As a mother in the same city, she had felt threatened, even violated. This morning, she felt terrified.
But she had to do something.
She stopped at the traffic light. A restaurant marquee across the street advertised a Friday fish fry. Tomorrow was Friday—one week after her meeting with Ryan Duffy. The deadline was up. He was supposed to explain the money. Maybe he could explain who had jumped her in the parking lot.
And to think she had initially hoped to get to know him better. Fool.
She steered into the corner filling station and stopped at the pay phones by the vending machines. She checked her Filofax for the number and dialed it. On the fourth ring, she got an answering machine.
She thought before speaking. She wanted to get her point across, but she had to be vague in case a secretary or someone other than Ryan retrieved the message.
“Dr. Duffy,” she said in a businesslike tone. “It’s time for our follow-up appointment. Meet me at the Half-way Café in Denver. Tonight at eight o’clock. I’m sorry this can’t wait until tomorrow. It’s important.”
She hung up and drew a deep breath. Very important.
38
Amy arrived in Denver a few minutes early. Traffic out of Boulder wasn’t as bad as she had expected, and, unlike most days at the office, no one had snagged her on the way to the elevator with some end-of-the-day crisis.
The Half-way Café was a trendy downtown