Jasmine Cresswell - Suspect

“Come on in,” Tom said, stepping to one side, apparently not expecting his son to speak. “This is a terrible situation, isn’t it?”

Liam nodded, relieved to turn his attention back to a grown-up. “Yes. It’s bad enough that Chloe’s lost her husband, but it’s worse that she isn’t getting a moment’s peace and quiet to grieve for him.”

“Jason was a good guy and a terrific mayor. His passing is a terrible loss for a lot of people.” Tom frowned and then shook his head. “Anyway, it’s great to know you’re on Chloe’s team. Her whole family is very relieved that she’s moved quickly to get the legal help she needs instead of relying on the fact that she’s innocent to protect herself.”

Liam certainly agreed with that. “Innocence is a lousy defense if it’s all you have to bring to the table. But I’m hopeful we’ll soon find concrete evidence to point the cops in another direction.”

“God, I hope so. And it can’t be too soon as far as I’m concerned. Anyway, Lexie’s just finished feeding the kids their dinner, so Sophie is good to go whenever you’re ready to take her.” Tom shoved a plastic horse out of the way with his foot, sending it skittering toward the staircase. “Sorry about the mess. Dinner time is always chaotic around here and tonight Lexie is trying to give Sophie a bit more one-on-one attention than usual, so clearing up has to wait.”

“Don’t apologize. I’m awestruck by people who can cope with even one child, let alone multiple preschoolers.”

“You don’t have kids of your own?” Tom asked.

“I’ve never been married,” Liam responded, as if that answered the question. He had known the truth of his fatherhood for less than twelve hours and already he could see that everyday conversation was going to be filled with booby traps. His choice seemed to be constant lies or a head-on clash with Chloe. At some point she would have to accept that he wasn’t willing to abide by her wish that Sophie should spend her life in the mistaken belief that Jason had been her biological father. But for tonight, he’d given Chloe his word and he would stick to it. Eventually he would have to decide whether to be actively involved in Sophie’s life. He was pretty sure he’d make a lousy father, but at least he wanted his daughter to know his name, for God’s sake.

The parallels to his own father’s life were too powerful to ignore, and not at all attractive. In the wake of their father’s death, Megan had suggested that it might have been a desire to protect his existing family that had propelled Ron into a twenty-six year pattern of criminal deception. Liam had found that explanation incredible two months ago. Now he was having second thoughts. Had the whole bigamous mess of Ron Raven’s life started as innocently as his father not wanting to hurt the people he loved? It was possible, Liam conceded grudgingly. After all, that was exactly what Chloe had chosen to do for Sophie—hide the truth beneath a more palatable sugarcoating. And Chloe’s ploy would have worked, if her husband hadn’t been murdered—just as Ron Raven’s ploy had worked for more than two decades.

Liam circled a giant plastic tub of toys deposited in the center of the hallway, not willing to cut either Chloe or his father any slack. Ron had screwed up, literally, and then lied to cover his ass. Ron’s possible desire to protect his wife and children from being hurt didn’t excuse either his initial adultery or the next quarter century of deception. Chloe’s choices, in Liam’s opinion, had been just as wrong.

He followed Tom into the family room, his breath catching in his throat when he saw a little girl sitting on the floor surrounded by an array of Barbie dolls. Chloe had claimed that Sophie was an amazing child and it seemed she hadn’t been exaggerating. This little girl was picture-perfect, from her mop of golden curls to her tiny button nose and petal-soft rosy lips.

She jumped to her feet and greeted them both with a beaming smile the moment she noticed them. His daughter seemed to be friendly as well as adorably cute, Liam thought with a stab of irrational pride.

“Hi,” she said to him, waving the naked Barbie clutched in her left hand. “I’m Morgan. I’m four. Soon I’ll be five.” She held up four fingers on her right hand and then pointed toward Peter. “My bruvver is three. It’s a long time till his next birfday.” She adjusted her fingers to provide Liam with a demonstration of the number three.

The child’s name was Morgan? The delectable little girl was not, it seemed, Chloe’s child or his daughter. Liam pushed aside a twinge of regret and tried to decide how he was supposed to respond to Morgan’s overture. “I’m thirty-five,” he said finally, since age seemed big in her life at this point.

Morgan’s eyes opened wide. “That’s old,” she informed him. “That’s very old.”

“Er…yes, I guess it is.”

“My grandpa is old. My grandma is old. My nana is old. My poppa is old. Miss Rose is old—”

“Who is Miss Rose?” Liam asked, interrupting what threatened to become an endless litany of the aged. “Is she your teacher?”

“No!” Morgan chuckled at his ridiculous mistake. “Miss Rose is my dog. She frew up on Mommy’s shoes ’cos she ate Peter’s chicken nuggets. Mommy shut her in the laundry room.”

Liam had no idea how to respond to this wealth of information. Tom, on the other hand, simply laughed.

“The bit about throwing up on Mommy’s shoes might have been more than we needed to know, Morgan, love. Peter, you can play with your sister for a while.” He set his son on the floor and dragged a box of wooden blocks into the center of the room. “Build a house for Morgan’s dolls,” he suggested. “Build a red house.”

Peter, clearly a man of few words, sat down without complaint and carefully selected a dozen or so red blocks. “He’s very good with his colors,” Tom said proudly. “He knows them all.”

“Er…great.” Liam felt as if he’d been plunged into a foreign country where he spoke only a textbook version of the language and didn’t quite grasp the native customs. According to Morgan, Peter was three years old. Didn’t all three year olds know their colors?

“Do you like how I fixed Barbie’s hair?” Not wanting to be overlooked, Morgan extended her naked doll for closer inspection and Liam noticed that the stiff blond hair was haphazardly decorated with glittery pins.

“Er…very nice,” he said.

Tom smiled. “Barbie is beautiful, honey bun. I love all those pink diamonds. Why don’t you try dressing her in a skirt to match? Then she can go to the ball.”

Morgan frowned. “She’s not Cinderella. She’s Barbie.”

“Right. But Barbie can go to a ball if she wants.”

Morgan considered this in silence for a second or two, then shrugged. “Daddy, tell Peter not to pull the heads off of my Barbies.”

“Peter, are you listening? No chopping off Barbie’s head, okay?”

Peter interrupted his turret building long enough to give a reluctant nod.

“Okay, be good both of you. Don’t fight. I’ll be right back.” Tom appeared unaware of anything in the least strange about his conversation with his kids. Maybe discussion of head-removal was a normal exchange when you were dealing with preschoolers? Since he’d been thirteen by the time Megan was four, Liam had spent very little time playing with his sister but for sure he couldn’t recall harboring any murderous impulses toward her Barbie dolls.

Liam followed Tom out of the family room, trying to remember when he’d last spoken to a human being under the age of twelve. He supposed it must have happened at least once or twice during the past fifteen years, but he’d be damned if he could remember the occasion.