Nora Roberts - Remember When

"Insurance? Could've fooled me."

"It's just gambling, isn't it?" He popped a pretzel into his mouth, flashed the grin again. "Most people, they like to gamble. Just like they like to believe they're going to live forever." He took a sip of his beer, noted she glanced at his left hand. Checking for a wedding ring, he assumed. "They don't. I heard some poor bastard got creamed right on Main Street this morning."

"Market," she corrected, and he made himself look puzzled. "Happened this morning on Market Street. Ran right out in front of poor Missy Leager's Cherokee. She's a mess about it, too."

"That's rough. Doesn't sound like it was her fault."

"It wasn't. Lots of people saw it happen, and there wasn't a thing she could've done. He just ran right out in front of her."

"That's hard. I guess she knew him, too. Small town like this."

"No, nobody did. He wasn't from here. I heard he was in Remember When-I work there part-time-right before. We sell antiques and collectibles and stuff. I guess maybe he was browsing on through. Awful. Just awful."

"It sure is. You were there when it happened?"

"Uh-uh. I wasn't working this morning." She paused, as if conducting a quick debate on whether she was glad or sorry to have missed it. "Don't know why anybody'd run out in the street that way. It was raining pretty bad. I guess he didn't see the car."

"Bad luck."

"I'll say."

"Angie, you waiting for those drinks to serve themselves?"

It was from the librarian and had Angie rolling her eyes. "I'm getting 'em."

She winked at Max, then hefted her tray. "See you around?"

"You bet."

By the time Max walked back into his hotel room, he had a good handle on Willy's movements. He'd checked into his motel at around ten the night before, paid cash for a three-night stay. He wouldn't be getting a refund. He'd had a solo breakfast at the coffee shop the next morning, then drove in his rental car to Market Street and parked two blocks north of Remember When.

Since, at this point, Max couldn't put him in any of the other shops or businesses in that section, the most logical reason for parking that distance from his assumed destination, in the rain, was caution. Or paranoia.

Since he was dead, caution was the safer bet.

So just what had Willy wanted with an antique shop in Angel's Gap that had him making tracks from New York-and doing everything he could to cover those tracks?

A drop point? A contact?

Once again, Max booted up his computer and brought up the town's home page. In a couple of clicks, he linked to Remember When. Antiques, estate jewelry, collectibles. Bought and sold.

He scribbled the shop name on a pad and added Fence?, circling the question twice.

He read the operating hours, phone and fax numbers, e-mail address, and the fact that they claimed to ship worldwide.

Then he read the proprietor's name.

Laine Tavish.

It wasn't one on his list, but he checked anyway. No Laine, he verified, no Tavish. But there was Elaine O'Hara. Big Jack's only daughter.

Lips pursed, Max leaned back in the desk chair. She'd be... twenty-eight, twenty-nine now. Wouldn't it be interesting if Big Jack O'Hara's little girl had followed in her daddy's larcenous footsteps, had changed her name and snuggled herself away in a pretty mountain town?

It was, Max thought, a puzzle piece begging to fit.

***

Four years of living in Angel's Gap meant Laine knew just what to expect when she opened Remember When in the morning.

Jenny would arrive, just a hair late, with fresh doughnuts. At six months pregnant, Jenny rarely went twenty minutes without a craving for something that screamed sugar and fat. As a result, Laine was viewing her own bathroom scale with one eye closed.

Jenny would complement the doughnuts with a thermos of the herbal tea she'd become addicted to since conception and demand to know all the details of yesterday's event. Being married to the chief of police wouldn't stop her from wanting Laine's version to add to already accumulated data.

At ten sharp, the curious would start to wander in. Some, Laine thought as she filled the cash register with change, would pretend to be browsing, and others wouldn't bother to disguise the hunt for gossip.

She'd have to go through it all again. Have to lie again, or at least evade with the pretense that she'd never before seen the man who called himself Jasper Peterson.

It had been a long time since she'd had to put on a mask just to get through the day. And it depressed her how easy a fit it was.

She was ready when Jenny rushed in five minutes late.

Jenny had the face of a mischievous angel. It was round and soft, pink and white, and had clever hazel eyes that tilted up just a tad at the outside corners. Her hair was a curling black mass, often, as it was today, bundled any which way on top of her head. She wore an enormous red sweater that stretched over her pregnant belly, baggy jeans and ancient Doc Martens.

She was everything Laine wasn't-disordered, impulsive, undisciplined, an emotional whirlwind. And exactly the sort of friend Laine had pined for throughout childhood.

Laine considered it one of those golden gifts of fate that Jenny was in her life.

"I'm starving. Are you starving?" Jenny dumped the bakery box on the counter, ripped open the lid. "I could hardly stand the smell of these things on the two-minute walk from Krosen's. I think I started to whimper." She stuffed the best part of a jelly-filled into her mouth and talked around it. "I worried about you. I know you said you were okay when I called last night, just a little headache, don't want to talk about it, blah, blah, blah, but Mommy worried, sweetie."

"I'm okay. It was awful, but I'm okay."

Jenny held out the box. "Eat sugar."

"God. Do you know how long I'll have to work out to chip this off my ass?"

Jenny only smiled when Laine caved and took a cream-filled. "You've got such a pretty ass, too." She rubbed her belly in slow circles as she watched Laine nibble. "You don't look like you got much sleep."

"No. Couldn't settle." Despite every effort not to, she looked through the display window. "I must've been the last person he spoke to, and I brushed him off because I was busy."

"Can you imagine how Missy's feeling this morning? And it's no more her fault than yours." She went to the back room, moving in the waddle/march she'd developed in the sixth month of her pregnancy and came back with two mugs.

"You'll have some tea to go with your sugar hit. You're going to need both to fortify you for the onslaught when we open. Everybody's going to want to come by."

"I know."

"Vince is going to keep it quiet until he's got more figured out, but it's going to get out, and I figure you've got a right to know."

Here it comes, Laine thought. "Know what?"

"The guy's name? It wasn't the name on the card he gave you."

"I'm sorry?"

"It wasn't the name he had on his driver's license or credit cards either,"

Jenny continued excitedly. "It was an alias. His name was William Young. Get this. He was an ex-convict."

She hated hearing the man she remembered so fondly called an ex-con, as if it was the sum of him. And hated herself for doing nothing to defend him. "You're kidding? That little man?"

"Larceny, fraud, possession of stolen goods, and that's just convictions. From what I wormed out of Vince, he was suspected of a lot more. Like a career criminal, Laine. And he was in here, probably casing the joint."

"You're watching too many old movies, Jenny."

"Come on! What if you'd been alone in here? What if he had a gun?"

Laine dusted sugar off her fingers. "Did he have a gun?"

"Well, no, but he could have. He could've robbed you."

"A career criminal comes all the way to Angel's Gap to rob my store? Man, that website really works."