In a Heartbeat - Elizabeth Adler [39]
“Well, for a start, who is he?”
She shook her head, puzzled. “I don’t get it.” “Where does he come from, his family, his life before he was the famous Ed Vincent? I thought for sure you would know.”
“I know he was poor. Really poor. It’s a media myth about him being an heir to a fortune. He told me he’d been brought up in a two-room shack in the Tennessee mountains. Hainstown, I think, or something like that. He was proud that his father owned his own piece of land. They were farmers. And he had brothers and sisters.”
“Brothers and sisters, huh?” Camelia said, thoughtfully. “Now, Ed doesn’t strike me as the kind of man who would abandon those poor brothers and sisters when he’d made himself a pot of money. What d’you think?”
Mel thought, surprised, that he was right. “But he never mentioned them by name, never really talked about them, except one. His eldest brother, Mitch. I’ve no idea where they live, or if he ever sees them.”
“A family falling-out,” Camelia said, then added wryly, “It happens in the best.”
“Yes, but Ed’s not like that. I mean, he’s not the kind of man to hold a grudge. He’s the giving type, he helps strangers, gives to charities. I can’t believe he would just ignore his own family, especially knowing how poor they were.”
Camelia said soberly, “Then I guess it’s up to me to find out the answer to that riddle. Hainstown, Tennessee, here I come,” he added with a grin. “But first I have to find it on the map.”
“Maybe it was Hainsville,” she said. “And you can bet it’ll be a mere pin dot on the map,” she added. Then she realized that Camelia was going to find out about Ed’s life, a life she had hoped to share with him, a life that he had kept a secret, even from her. “I wish I could come with you,” she added wistfully.
“Think you’d be of any help?” Camelia’s voice was deliberately casual as he picked up his coffee cup. Dear God, he thought, here she was, the one woman on God’s earth who could probably seduce him just by batting those golden eyelashes, or smiling at him with those pouty lips, and she was offering to go on a trip with him.
Visions of a rustic motel room, set among pine trees and soaring mountains, of dark black nights with the stars a trillion miles away, of foggy, dewy mornings and a warm tumbled bed, pushed their way into his mind. He took a deep breath, downed his coffee, and signaled for more.
Mel looked doubtful. “I can’t leave Ed. He might . . .” She couldn’t bring herself to say he might die, though she knew the odds. Besides, she wasn’t going to let him die without her there. “Ed needs me,” she said fiercely.
Camelia pulled his wits together, canceled the coffee order, and asked for the check. “Better put you in touch with the Identikit guy and the accent expert, see if we can get tabs on this killer,” he said gruffly. “I’ll go to Hainsville in search of Ed’s past, while you do what you can to come up with an ID.” He pushed back his chair, stood, held up his hand. “Deal?”
“Deal,” she said, smiling as she gave him a high five.
26
Brotski was on duty again, prowling the gray corridor outside Ed’s room, looking, Mel thought, too young to be a cop, with his ginger-spice cowlick and peach-fuzz cheeks. He also looked bored to death, and she guessed this wasn’t exactly what he had expected of police work. Still, his presence calmed her fears that the worst might have happened while she was in the deli. Brotski being there meant that he still had a man to protect. Ed was still alive.
“You look like a guy in need of some fresh air and a cup of coffee,” she said, smiling. “Tell you what, why don’t you take time out and I’ll guard the fort.”
Brotski’s baby blues narrowed and his jaw firmed right up. “Sorry, ma’am, but I’m on duty here,” he said stiffly.
“Oh . . . right. I’m sorry.” All of a sudden Mel had the feeling that she was the suspect again, and she hurried past him. Her hand was on the doorknob when she felt him behind her, then his hand was on hers, preventing her from opening the door. Surprised, she turned and