Taylor's Law, page 6
“What happened to the pictures on this wall?” He gestured to the bare wall behind her, where small marks showed where pictures had hung.
“I gave them to my parents. They wanted some shots of Tessa and Chrissy. I’ve reordered them. They have to be framed, so it’ll take a week or two.” She lifted an eyebrow. “Are you thinking of adding a set of those to the list of ‘evidence’ you want me to provide?”
“I’m not bothering with a list you’ll ignore. But I imagine Peter and his wife, Bronwyn, would like to see pictures of Tessa with her mother.”
Her parents treasured them.
“Why haven’t you been back to see me, EJ?” He bit into his sandwich.
“Who gave you permission to call me, EJ?” School friends had coined the nickname—a logical shortening of Eleanor Jane—although it had carried a barb, no-nonsense, useful in an emergency.
“Everyone calls you EJ.”
“Not everyone.” The name had followed her into her working life, although she never introduced herself that way.
“Everyone you work with, everyone you grew up with. It’s in my report.” He paused for a heartbeat. “I had an investigator run some checks on you.”
“What did you say?” She lowered her partly eaten sandwich, shocked to her core.
“I had an investigator run some checks on you,” he repeated without a scrap of shame.
“Typical!” Yet her heart sank, knowing Chrissy’s actions were to blame for the violation, another humiliation she had to swallow. “That’s the sort of outrageous behaviour I’d expect from Taylor Law.”
He inclined his head and kept chewing, comfortable he’d slipped under her guard. The pirate hadn’t hesitated to slide the knife in when he got a chance.
“You had no right to invade my privacy.” Although it explained his presence, digging for dirt to discover proof she was using Tessa as a meal ticket. There was none to find.
“Disappearing with Drew Browning’s child rather forfeits your right to privacy.”
“I live here. I’ve lived here for nearly three years. If you think that’s a disappearing act you need to get out more.” She slapped at his smug certainty. “And what about Tessa’s rights? Don’t they deserve respect? Even if you’re prepared to ride roughshod over mine.”
“That’s the crux, isn’t it?” He seemed untroubled by her verbal smack. “Given your line of work I should have guessed respect matters.”
“I should have guessed using a snoop was how you’d operate.” Ella picked up her sandwich, took another bite, chewing on it slowly, reviewing their earlier conversation for facts he shouldn’t have known. “That’s how you knew about the centre.” She’d missed that earlier. “And Friday night.”
“How else would I know?” When she didn’t answer, he continued. “A legal firm funds your centre. A very flexible employer, prepared to timetable around childcare.”
“They’ve been very generous to me.” Those details could have been picked up from the centre’s advertised hours and policy statements on the web. The childcare was a logical guess given her working hours. Was that as far as his private eye had gone?
“But you’ve had to compromise, hence the evening shifts. Not ideal with Tessa.”
“Few single parents can boast of an ideal work-life balance,” she said, but Chrissy had hated the late shifts.
“Is the night work necessary?” He sounded curious.
“It shares the load.” She finished the last mouthful of her sandwich and pushed her plate away. Her blood sugar level had risen and with it her cool-headed approach to crises. Working the odd night didn’t make her a bad parent. It did make her a good manager.
“Why didn’t you answer any of my messages?”
“I expected Drew to be there.” She was running out of plausible excuses.
“Old news, and don’t pretend you didn’t get them, because Mrs. P remembered hearing you replay a message on the phone.”
Ella straightened the knife on her plate. The calls had been worse than the texts and emails. More compelling. Short messages in a voice unmistakably Jake Taylor’s. Each starting with an unnecessary statement of who he was, his phone number and a request for her to call back. She knew who he was. The rough gravel of his tones on the phone had the power to bring his face into clear focus.
Short messages, but long enough to strengthen the conviction he wouldn’t let her handle this her own way or pretend the visit to his office had never happened. Long enough to trip the switch in her head, which ran around in circles. By not answering immediately she was ignoring her sister’s wishes and hurting an old man, Tessa’s grandfather.
Even without his calls, she’d wrestled with her conscience. The morning after her visit to his office she’d told her family about Drew, about Peter. Had been relieved at the hundreds of kilometres between them so they couldn’t see her face when she avoided their questions about why now? Hadn’t told them about Chrissy’s demand for money, that Chrissy might have offered custody if the price was high enough. Hoped she’d never have to tell them, hoped their last memories of Chrissy could remain untainted.
“You had no right to question Mrs. P.” She knew focusing on Mrs. P was a red herring, but she hadn’t found an answer to her quandary. Chrissy’s letter two days ago to Ella had made it brutally clear her sister would hand Tessa to strangers in return for a promised life of luxury. She fisted her hands under the table. “I’m thinking of approaching Drew directly.”
“Have you tried?”
“Not yet.” Her parents’ instinct was to welcome the Brownings into their extended family, but they’d handed responsibility for the decision to her, trusted her to make the right decision for all of them.
“You became unavailable, Eleanor, after tempting an old man with the sight of Tessa.”
Her nails bit into her palms as her mind returned to the merry-go-round of arguments and counterarguments for whatever step she took. “That’s one of the reasons for my decision.”
He pushed his plate away. “There’s a twisted kind of logic in that. Let me think about it.”
“You’ve already made it clear you’re worried about Peter falling for Tessa, then discovering she’s not their grandchild.” Despite his role in Taylor Law, Ella hadn’t been wrong about his concern for Peter.
“You insisted she is. The family resemblance is compelling. And the cute outfit.”
“What are you talking about now?” She pressed her palms flat on her thighs.
“The perfect Madonna and child.” He catalogued her sins. “A beautiful child to tempt a man longing to be a grandfather and your own beauty to distract everyone else.”
Her heart trembled at the compliment. “Country town consensus is that Chrissy was the family beauty.”
“The photo on the wall makes a lie of that.”
Their gazes met and the heat in his made Ella’s blood beat a frantic tattoo. “She blossomed as she grew up. Has your investigator been to Lismore too?” There were some in town who’d be happy to spread the tale that Ella had been dating a country lawyer, who’d run away to Sydney with her more beautiful sister.
“Not yet.”
“Keep it that way.” She watched his reaction to her demand. “My family’s grieving. It’s a small town. If someone starts asking questions about me, the gossip will get back to them.”
“He doesn’t need to ask questions if you’ll answer mine.” He was offering her a truce of sorts.
“That’s where I got the nickname EJ. I’m the sensible sister, the capable one, the managing one.” Ella’s passion for justice had alienated a few of the local cops back home, just as Grace’s passion for organics had alienated some local dairy farmers. Chrissy had been “pure silk” according to the bachelors around town.
“That’s probably why EJ doesn’t work for me, Eleanor. Being responsible is only part of the puzzle you represent. Murphy, that’s my investigator, got as far as the integrity and good reputation of your parents and a general belief you take after them.”
“Yet you’ve just accused me of dressing Tessa to ... beguile an old man. Every second toddler in Sydney is wearing that outfit.” She pushed to her feet. “You should go. Thank you for the sandwich. I’ll tidy up. I need to get some sleep.”
His intense scrutiny of her slashed at her composure. “What are your other reasons for disappearing?”
She narrowed her eyes on him and let fly. “Your animosity, your refusal to listen and the fact Drew wasn’t there. I’m guessing his denial of paternity also includes a refusal to have a DNA test. You’re offering a toxic conflict that could go on for years.”
“All true but”—he lifted a hand and let it drop—“this doesn’t feel right.”
“What doesn’t feel right is Taylor Law meddling in family law.” She hadn’t found a satisfactory answer to that conundrum.
“Chrissy wrote to me. I know the Brownings. This is a conversation, not a case.”
“Seriously?” She had no idea what was driving him. “Bringing the full force of Taylor Law’s resources to a conversation—your presence, your bloodhound—rather negates that statement.”
“Something’s happened.” His insight rocked her. “You mentioned handwriting samples. I didn’t mention her letter was handwritten.”
“She was housebound. Of course her letter was handwritten,” she argued. He had the investigative nose of a gumshoe.
“You said she left you no word.” He searched her face, cutting through her rationalisations for her silence of the last few days. “Is that still the truth?”
Why, Chrissy, why? Withholding knowledge of Chrissy’s second letter from him suddenly seemed counterproductive; a child refusing to give up the bat when they were clearly caught out. He and she each held half the secret to Chrissy’s state of mind. Playing fair was a solemn oath in her family. Her rule, regardless of his.
* * *
The energy drained from her body as he watched. Jake’s cross-examination of her in this state was arguably a violation of her rights under the Geneva Convention. He pushed because he had to know. Her sister was dead. Eleanor had shown up at his office. While all the evidence he’d collected in the last four days pointed to her being caught up in a desperate plan of Chrissy’s devising, something had spooked her into hiding.
“She left a letter for me with the community nurse,” she confessed. “The nurse left it when she called on Mr. P two days ago.”
“Show me.”
“This from the man who won’t show me Chrissy’s letter to him.” She bristled, and her show of spirit was a relief he didn’t want to question. “There’s too much at stake to treat this casually.”
“Tell me what’s at stake.” He leaned across the table.
She hesitated. Jake inhaled her scent. Its subtle femininity enveloped him, inviting enough to make him want to lean forward and taste, to let her off the hook.
“If you’re this offensive in all your dealings, I’m surprised you’re still in business.” She wrinkled her nose in what he could only guess was distaste.
“Doubting something until I have three kinds of proof is what keeps me in business.” Jake waited while she hauled herself off the chair and crossed to the briefcase sitting by the front door. He cursed himself for needing to push.
She extracted a folder from her bag and handed him a sheet of paper. He scanned it, noting the clear, no-fuss, feminine handwriting and Eleanor’s signature at the bottom.
“This isn’t a letter from your sister. It’s something you’ve written.”
“Brilliant, Sherlock.”
“I’ll keep this so I can have the handwriting compared to the one we received.” Jake shoved it into his coat pocket, knowing he didn’t need an expert to tell him the two samples of handwriting were different.
“You will only surprise me, Counsellor, when you take something I say or do on trust.” She was dead on her feet, and, still, she resisted him. He hadn’t needed Murphy’s report to tell him she was a fighter. And the most desirable woman he’d met in years.
Jake should go home now, especially since all he could think of was the soft feel of her when he’d held her on the sofa, the heady perfume of her skin. She made him want to bury himself in her, want to forget the vow he’d made when Julia walked out.
Sparring with her was a distraction from a conclusion he couldn’t escape. The evidence supported the view she was an innocent in this bizarre game. Peter had raised the stakes—regular access to Tessa, without formal confirmation of paternity.
She crossed to the kitchenette and turned on the cold water tap, half-filling a glass then swallowing a few mouthfuls. Slowly she turned to face him. “Why are you still here?”
“The sofa looks comfortable. Why don’t we move there?”
She returned to her straight-backed chair while Jake crossed to the sofa. Sinking into it, he leaned his head against the back so his eyes lifted to the ceiling. “The Southern Cross is the wrong size in proportion to the others.”
“I like it like that,” she protested.
Jake filed away that new piece of information. She liked the night sky. Not in his report, but it matched the yearning in her voice when she’d talked about the farm. Her parents had a reputation for helping, not scamming, their neighbours. He couldn’t ignore the evidence she’d inherited those traits.
“‘They glitter like a swarm of fireflies,’” she recited softly.
“Tennyson.” He grinned—poetry wasn’t his usual weapon. “Except for Merope, the only Pleiad to marry a mortal so her star burns less bright than her six sisters.” He tilted his head until his gaze met hers. Maybe there was another reason for her wistful note. “Where did you buy it?”
“Chrissy bought it for my last birthday.” A soft smile curved her mouth. She was stunning when she let her guard down. “It suited her madcap humour. ‘The Southern Cross is allowed to be large.’”
“Are you quoting her?” If Jake hadn’t already been convinced of Ella’s integrity before he’d entered her flat, her quick giggle would have tipped him over the edge—honest, infectious delight.
She shook her head. “Not her, the packet. ‘It’s a stylised display, not the real thing.’ But she knew it didn’t matter.”
“Tony Baldwin described you as a force of nature.”
“Interrogating a senior partner in the legal firm that funds my work seems like overkill.” Her shift to attack was swift, but she’d paled. “If I was a notorious fraudster, I wouldn’t have the job.”
“Didn’t you ask him about me?” Jake was letting her know how close he’d come to the centre of her world. Tony wouldn’t have betrayed her to Jake any more than he’d betray Jake to her.
“He said you were a friend.” She refused to take the bait. “So, I didn’t continue.”
“You wouldn’t, would you?” He nodded, tallying another point in her favour. Although it would become a weakness in any contest with Drew. “He told me about you months ago—his marvellous manager. I didn’t have your name then. He has enormous respect for you.”
“It’s mutual.”
“Something we can agree on then. We both trust Tony Baldwin.”
“Using my faith in Tony is an interesting way to get my attention.” She tilted her head to one side, considering him. “Are you looking for common ground?”
“Yes. Something we can build on, given we have to work together.”
“Why didn’t you start by saying you know Tony Baldwin?” She pushed herself to her feet.
“I gather evidence, but I like to make my own decisions.”
“Well, bully for you. I’m tired of feeling like a cornered mouse with a malicious cat loose in my home. You prod then you procrastinate. Enough. Tell me what you came for, or go.” She crossed to the front door, weary but determined.
“Peter Browning wants reasonable access to Tessa now.” Jake accepted his dismissal, lifting his jacket off the back of the chair where he’d left it. “He understands a child of Tessa’s age will take some time to get to know strangers, to feel safe with them.”
Her hand twisted uselessly on the doorknob. “Tell me the rest.”
“Peter wants you and Tessa to spend time with him and his wife. Starting with a weekend visit to their home.” If he was wrong about her, Jake had just delivered her a royal flush.
* * *
“Am I crazy, or are you?” Ella counted off reasons on her fingers, while drums pounded in her head. “You’re still questioning if she’s Drew’s child. Still haven’t apologised for calling me a blackmailer. You don’t want them to fall in love with a child who doesn’t belong to them. And I think the fairest thing to do is to have the DNA test. I don’t want Tessa to fall in love with them and then see them disappear like her mother if the results go awry.”
“Probability says she’s Drew’s child. I’d prefer not to gamble even with good odds. But Peter’s prepared to pay maintenance in exchange for access.”
“Get out.” Ella couldn’t breathe, the tremble in her voice enraging her.
Her fury was directed at both of them. Him for his casual insult in offering money. Herself because the offer was like a trip switch, a reminder of the dark time when money bought power for Smithhouse, bought Taylor Law legal expertise, and used it to steal from her family. A reminder of her powerlessness.
“That came out the wrong way.” He shrugged into his jacket.
“Get Drew Browning to come home and take a DNA test.”
“We can do a test without him. But it’s more complicated than that. Peter’s wife is seriously ill. He wants her to meet Tessa.” He strolled towards her, his deep-voiced concern shivering down her spine. “Thinks it will give her more to live for.”
“Catch 22, Counsellor?” Heaven help her. Ella knew life was messy enough for his claim to be true.
“That’s my dilemma. Will it do more harm for them to spend time with Tessa and then lose her? Or to know of her existence, but be forced to wait for irrevocable proof? Time Bron can never get back.”
“Damned if you do and damned if you don’t. Welcome to my world. You’re ready to condemn me whatever choice I make.” Learning he was motivated by compassion shifted something inside her. “I’m prepared to make a deal.” She closed her eyes at the surprise in his. Whatever Chrissy’s state of mind or ultimate goal, she’d named Tessa’s father. That was the gamechanger.
