Found Money - James Grippando [86]
Only a cop would be so obvious about a tail. Son of a bitch.
She stepped onto the sidewalk and headed the other way. She wasn’t sure who had tipped off the police, Ryan or Amy. It didn’t matter.
Whoever it was, they would both regret it.
Amy’s old truck took her from Denver back to Boulder in record time. There was no real urgency. No one was chasing her. It was as if something horrible about her mother had been spilled back in Denver. Amy just couldn’t get away fast enough.
She parked haphazardly in the last available space outside her apartment and hurried upstairs. For a split second she was thinking how good it felt to be home, but she quickly realized it was a home she no longer recognized. It had never been luxurious by any stretch of the imagination, but she and Gram had worked hard to make it pretty. The Bokhara rug they had saved for. The pink sky and stars she’d hand-painted in Taylor’s bedroom. Antiques from the flea market, decorative things Gram had collected over the years. All their extra little touches had been trashed in the break-in. Now it looked like the cheap subsidized apartment it really was, with junky rental furniture that belonged in a ghetto.
Amy stopped outside her door to collect herself. She thought of Taylor inside, sleeping like an angel. She was an angel. So stop feeling so damn sorry for yourself.
She unlocked the door and stepped inside. Gram was sitting at a card table chair watching a Thursday night sitcom. They had no replacement couch yet. Amy walked to the TV and shut it off.
Gram looked startled. “I thought it was Taylor who had the limit on television time.”
“Is she asleep?”
“Yes. About thirty minutes now.”
“Good.” She pulled up another chair and faced her grandmother. “I have to ask you something. It’s important.”
Gram looked at her with concern. “Have you been crying, dear?”
“I’m okay. Gram, you have to be completely straight with me. Do you promise?”
“Yes, of course. What is it?”
“This may sound like it’s out of left field. But I have to know. Was my mother ever raped?”
Gram seemed to sway in her chair, overwhelmed. “What makes you think she was?”
“No, Gram. That’s not being straight with me. I can’t have questions answered with questions. Let’s try it again. Was my mother ever raped?”
“I’m not being evasive. I just—”
“Straight. Yes or no.”
“I don’t know. How would I know? You keep asking me like I should know. I don’t. I swear I don’t.”
Amy fell back in her folding chair. It was like hitting a brick wall. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to sound so accusatory. If anyone would know, I just thought it would be you.”
“I’m sorry. I don’t. It’s horrible if it’s true. But why is it suddenly important?”
She scoffed, as if the answer should have been obvious. “Because I’ve been wondering all my life why Mom would kill herself. This doesn’t explain everything, but it’s the only promising lead I’ve ever come across.”
“Where did it come from?”
“I talked to Ryan Duffy again. I think that’s why they sent me the money. I think his father raped my mother.”
Gram turned philosophical. “The price of easing a dying man’s conscience.”
“That’s what I’m thinking.”
“I wish I could help,” said Gram.
“So do I. The people who definitely would know are all gone. Mom’s dead twenty years now. Grandma and Grandpa have been dead even longer. I don’t know if Dad would have known or not. I guess I was hoping you’d heard something from someone.”
Gram shook her head. “You and I are close, dear. We tell each other everything. But don’t let that give you a false impression of the relationship I had with your mother. It wasn’t a bad relationship. But basically, I was her mother-in-law.”
“I understand.”
“There must be another way to tackle this. When was the rape supposed to have happened?”
“Before Mom and Dad ever met. Sometime when she was a teenager,