Chapter 16
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Pamela looked out at the street, where Alice Quinn sat in her friend’s borrowed car, still sobbing but much calmer, to the point that they felt it was safe for her to drive, minus the gun.
After getting promises from Alice to stay in touch and to keep them posted, Pamela looked over at Anderson.
“Will this day ever end? And what on earth was this all about?” she murmured.
“Nothing good,” Anderson declared. “As much as I appreciate finding out what we could from Alice, I sure don’t want to tell Talia, but it’s better that we know at least.”
“And yet maybe Talia already knew,” Pamela suggested, turning to him. “Maybe she had an inkling. Men think that they are good at covering their tracks, but women have an innate ability to suss out the cheaters.”
“Maybe,” he conceded. “Is that something you would know?”
“I think every woman would think they would,” she began, “but who knows? Talia would have been incredibly busy, looking after the babies and keeping things together. So maybe she didn’t have any extra time for wondering about other things.
Yet surely she would have been upset over the lack of assistance she was getting from her husband.
Even that may have caused her to question things. ”
Anderson grimaced. “She also may have chalked it up to the trauma of three babies,” he pointed out.
“At least for us, me and Burton, being responsible for three babies has been fairly traumatizing,” he admitted, with a wry look at the floor, where even now the triplets were looking for attention or getting into trouble, as he couldn’t find the third one.
He spun around, only to realize she had found something on the floor and had picked it up and was staring at it.
Even as he watched, she popped what looked to be a piece of a leaf into her mouth. “No!” he roared, as he raced toward her. Her eyes opened wide and whatever it was fell out of her mouth as she started to cry. He groaned.
“That cry,” Pamela noted, “was out of surprise from you yelling at her, not so much anything she may have done wrong. It’s just that you startled her.”
“Geez, what an idiot,” he muttered, grabbing his hair in frustration.
She chuckled. “Just take it easy.”
“She put that disgusting thing in her mouth!”
“Yes, she did,” she replied, consoling the baby. “It won’t be the first thing she puts in her mouth that she shouldn’t. She’s a baby after all.”
“I feel for Talia.” As he looked at the triplets, he got quiet. “I mean, I can understand Tim’s reaction, if that was a factor, but that’s not the way to handle it.”
“The timing works out, you know? Hooking up with Alice, I mean. Now we don’t know how truthful she was, but the affair seemed to begin either after the babies were born or while your sister was pregnant.”
“Right,” Anderson grumbled, his glare deepening. “That, however, isn’t the pressing issue.”
“No, but we’ll have to deal with it when your sister feels better. So, right now, what the heck is Tim up to? And why is he trying to get back in the house?”
“As far as he’s concerned, it’s his house, don’t forget.”
“Sure, but he should have realized by now, with his wife in the hospital, that somebody must be here, looking after the babies.”
“He was probably expecting them to be in foster care. Thus the house would be empty.”
She sucked in her breath and then slowly nodded. “That makes sense.”
“Yes. And making more sense just means a shittier outcome for Talia.”
“No,” Pamela muttered, “don’t go there.”
He glared at her and then shrugged. “Look. I can’t do anything about their marriage, which is obviously over, and that’ll be incredibly hard for Talia to deal with.”
“You also don’t know though. She may have been happily telling you everything was fine on your overseas phone calls, not wanting to worry you. Maybe her marriage was over already, and she was dealing with it, like changing the locks so Tim’s key wouldn’t work.”
He pinched the bridge of his nose. “What kind of brother am I that she wouldn’t have told me?”
“A busy one, an ocean away, someone she didn’t want to distract with her issues.”
“Damn it.”
“Don’t do that. You are doing what you wanted to do, while she was doing what she wanted to do—dealing with the hiccups in her life on her own.”
He stared at her for a long moment.
Pamela added, “I know you don’t like what I’m saying, but it doesn’t change the fact that it could very well be the truth.”
“Is that what you would do?” he asked.
“Probably, yes. I mean, if you were off doing what you wanted to do, I wouldn’t say something that would change your future. Why change yours just because mine has changed?”
He stared at her and then looked away for a few minutes while he considered that. “I guess you’re right on that score,” he acknowledged, “but she didn’t need to do this alone. Caring for infant triplets is hardly some hiccup.”
“Maybe she felt she had to. Maybe it was a test to see if she could. I don’t know how her finances would have worked for her or against her, but maybe she needed to navigate this herself. And maybe something came up recently. We just won’t know until one of them is available to talk to us.”
“I need to talk to Tim,” Anderson muttered, as he stared off in the distance.
“But you also have to be calm enough to get answers, not just beat it out of him.” His lips twitched at that.
She nodded. “I know. Believe me that I know how you feel. And it’s your sister, and I can appreciate that, from your perspective, nobody else gets it,” she explained.
“But you’re wrong. Lots of us understand.
The pain won’t be as intense because it’s not our family, but that doesn’t mean that we can’t relate.
The trick at the moment is making sure everybody is doing what they can to keep Talia and her triplets safe. ”
As if on cue, Anderson’s phone rang. He looked down at the Caller ID and asked, “Burton, everything okay?”
“Everything’s okay up here, but a kerfuffle went down at the main entrance of the hospital,” he began, worry evident in his tone. “And when I walked to the end of the hallway to take a look, I was a little concerned it might have been an intentional distraction.”
“Was it?” Anderson asked.
“Yeah,” he growled, “and, when I turned back around, somebody was trying to get into Talia’s room. I was there too fast and scared him away.”
“Was it Tim?” Anderson asked.
“It was, but he looked scared, and he took off pretty quickly. I called him by name and told him to get his ass over here and talk to me, but he didn’t listen—or was too sacred to even hear me.”
“Right, and he doesn’t know you.”
“No, he doesn’t.”
Anderson added, “Tim also has to know that we’re looking at him as having put Talia in the hospital in the first place.”
Burton muttered, “Whether he did or not is a moot point at the moment.”
Anderson snorted, then filled him in on the security footage he’d gotten from the neighbor down the street and their encounter with Alice Quinn.
“Good God,” Burton muttered.
“Yeah. So, I’m not sure what Tim’s done or who he’s done it with, but he’s in big trouble.”
“I think it’s more than just big trouble. I think this is bigger, something driving his desperation.” Burton hesitated and then added, “The man who tried to sneak into Talia’s hospital room seemed to match Tim’s photo, and he looked absolutely terrified.”
“I’m not sure what to do about that. If Tim doesn’t talk to me, I can’t help him. And, if he doesn’t come forward and talk to the authorities, he’ll just keep getting into more trouble.”
“Particularly now that we know he was having a long-term affair and that Talia’s been keeping the hearth warm while he’s out dallying. It makes me sick to think she’s been looking after those babies all alone, without any help from him or anybody else,” he barked into the phone.
“Yeah, you and I agree on that, but I need Tim to talk to me, or you, or any of us for that matter.”
“He certainly knows that we’re onto him now. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if he called you.”
“Why would he call me now?” he asked. “I blew up his phone for the first couple days I was here and got crickets.”
“Now he’ll know that you know. I’m here, and he’s seen me twice so far but still doesn’t know who I am.”
“That’s true. He probably assumes you will always be around there now.”
“But we can’t be sure on that—or anything else really.”
“No, we can’t. Anyway, let me try to contact him again and see what happens. I’ll touch base soon. Thanks for looking after my sister.”
“I’ll be here, but I need to grab a little more sleep at some point. It’s a little disconcerting to think Tim’s still trying to come in here.”
“I’ll come give you a break,” Anderson replied, “and I might just hide and see if he comes back.”
“If Tim comes back, it’ll be when the shifts change. That’s the predictable time when a bit of chaos is all around Talia.”
They worked out the details of what that could look like. “Okay, I’ll see you then. Thanks, buddy.”
And, with that, he ended the call and looked for Pamela, who was nowhere in sight, and only one Lisa was on the floor in front of him. He quickly scooped her up and called out for Pamela, “Only one Lisa is out here. You got one or two?”
“I’ve got two here,” she replied, with a laugh. “I’m in the bathroom, changing them.”
He stepped into the bathroom, holding Lisa number three, and muttered, “I still don’t quite understand how anybody by themselves can keep track of all three of these adorable little monsters.”
“It’s a one day at a time thing,” she explained. “So, I wouldn’t worry about it.”
“Yeah, you can say that.”
She laughed at him. “It’s all good.” He just shook his head. When she was done, she handed him one clean baby and took another one. She took the one in his arms and added, “This one hasn’t quite got to the point of filling her diaper.”
Just then her face scrunched up as if on cue.