Park Avenue Secrets. Barbara Dunlop

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      “Yet more evidence of his evil cold-bloodedness.”

      “He didn’t want me to suspect anything.”

      “Well, that’s not working out so well for him so far, is it?”

      “That’s because of my brilliant, deductive mind.”

      “It’s because of your pickle-brained paranoia.”

      “I heard the lies. I smelled the coconut.”

      Hanna’s telephone rang and Elizabeth cringed.

      Hanna picked it up. “Hello?” She looked at Elizabeth and mouthed Bert Ralston. She listened for a moment. Then her brows shot up. “Really?”

      “What?” Elizabeth demanded in a stage whisper. Her heart rate deepened in her chest.

      “Okay,” said Hanna. “Thanks. I owe you one.” And she hung up the phone.

      “Well?” asked Elizabeth, easing into a chair, because the feeling had suddenly left her legs.

      “Joe Germain isn’t a driver.”

      A loud clanging grew inside Elizabeth’s head.

      “He’s a bodyguard.”

      “What?”

      “He’s a bodyguard, Lizzy. He works for a national agency called Resolute Charter. Reed’s not trying to hurt you, he’s trying to protect you.”

      An instant rush of relief shot through Elizabeth’s body.

      For a split second, it masked all the other questions.

      But then they percolated back. “Protect me from what?”

      “I’m guessing reporters. With Hammond and Pysanski’s involvement, this SEC thing is heating up.”

      Elizabeth had no idea who Hammond and Pysanski were. But Reed wasn’t a member of a criminal gang. And her life as she knew it hadn’t just ended.

      “It doesn’t explain the coconut woman,” she pointed out.

      Hanna slid down into a chair beside her. “If you give it a little time, I’ll bet the coconut woman explains herself.”

      “Dad called here looking for an explanation.”

      Elizabeth was delighted to hear her brother Brandon’s deep voice on the other end of the phone.

      “Why didn’t he call me?” She crossed the living room to curl up in her favorite wingback chair next to the bay window. The clouds were still gray, but the rain had turned to drizzle.

      “He thinks the FBI has your phone bugged.”

      “It’s the SEC, and they don’t bug phones.”

      Did they?

      If they did, maybe she could get her hands on the tapes and get some information on coconut woman.

      “You holding up okay?” asked Brandon.

      Elizabeth traced a zigzag pattern on the smooth leather arm. “I’m fine.”

      Truth was, the SEC was far from her biggest problem at the moment.

      “So, you’re not worried?” asked Brandon.

      “He’s got a good lawyer, and they say it’s going well.” As she finished the sentence, she realized that Reed hadn’t in fact said a single thing to her about the case since their initial discussion. In truth, she had no idea how it was going.

      “How are things in California?” she asked brightly.

      “I hired another vet last week,” said Brandon. “And we’re advertising for two technicians.”

      “Business is booming?”

      “The practice is definitely growing. We’re not in your tax bracket yet, but Heather has her eye on a little house up the coast.”

      “You’re selling the condo?”

      “With a growing family—”

      “Heather’s pregnant again?” Elizabeth hated the pain that filled her chest at the thought of Heather having another baby. She would be thrilled to be an auntie a second time. Babies were nothing but good news. Even if they weren’t hers.

      “No, Heather’s not pregnant. Lucas isn’t even a year old.”

      “Right.” Elizabeth was ashamed of her reaction.

      “Lizzy?”

      “Uh-huh?” She promised herself she’d do better when her sister-in-law really was pregnant.

      “I’m sorry you’re not conceiving.”

      Everything inside Elizabeth went still, and a lump instantly formed in her throat. “How did you …?”

      Brandon’s voice went low and protective, and suddenly they were teenagers again, sharing secrets, laughing and conspiring. “I saw it in your eyes when Heather was pregnant. Then again when you held Lucas. And I hear it in your voice every time we talk about children.”

      “We’re trying,” she managed.

      “I know. And I assume you have the best medical care money can buy?”

      She nodded, then uttered a weak, “Yes.”

      “It’ll happen, Lizzy.”

      “How long—” Elizabeth stopped herself. It was none of her business.

      “Did Heather take to conceive?”

      “Yes.”

      “A couple of months.”

      Elizabeth reflexively wrapped an arm across her stomach, leaning slightly forward in the chair. She and Reed had been trying for three years.

      “I predict,” Brandon said into the silence, “that not too long from now, you’ll be sitting in my house with a plump, smiling baby wrapped in your arms, and you’ll be saying to me ‘Thank goodness it took so long. Otherwise we wouldn’t have Johnny or Sally or Mary or Tim—the most perfect baby in the world.’”

      Elizabeth’s throat was so tight, she couldn’t speak.

      “Lizzy?”

      “Three years,” she moaned, saying it out loud for the first time, feeling the weight of all those failed cycles pressing down on her shoulders.

      “It’ll happen.”

      “And what if it doesn’t?”

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