The Husband She Never Knew

“Stop it, Louise. I’ve told you I felt obligated.”

Louise pressed her lips together. “Okay, honey, I know all about your big heart. But to put it more kindly this time, I’ve seen your parents take advantage of you over and over again, and what you did thirteen years ago went beyond what anyone should expect from you.”

“Be fair, Louise. They didn’t know how I got that money.”

“True, but do you honestly think they would have cared?”

That hurt, but Vicki had to admit the truth in her friend’s words. Louise had a gift for seeing the simple facts, pleasant or not. It was an ability that Vicki had never really developed. Even now she still couldn’t judge her parents from an objective viewpoint. They were her parents, after all.

“Besides,” Louise continued, “you could have gotten into big trouble. Malone was a stranger to you!”

“No, he wasn’t. Not exactly. He was the friend of a friend.”

“But you knew he was a criminal.”

“He wasn’t a criminal!” Vicki was tired of defending herself over this issue. Louise would never comprehend Vicki’s motives for what she’d done that day, and why should she? Louise was the daughter of a pair of Orlando obstetricians who’d never demanded more of her than passing grades and weekly phone calls. But Vicki needed Louise’s help desperately, so she tried once more to make her understand about Jamie Malone. “He left Ireland to avoid going to prison. He was innocent of any wrongdoing. It was a family-loyalty thing. I told you all this years ago.”

“Yeah, I know,” Louise drawled without enthusiasm. “The poor guy was in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

“Exactly.”

“So what do you want from me?”

“Get me a divorce. Or an annulment. Or make a case for abandonment. Whatever it takes. But do it quickly and quietly. When I get a ring in two weeks, I want to wear it as the respectable single woman the Townsends and Graham think I am.”

“This won’t be easy, you know that,” Louise said.

“I know, but I’m putting my future in your hands.”

Louise sighed. “Okay, our best chance is a divorce for the reason of abandonment. You’ll have to run a newspaper ad for four consecutive weeks in the county of his last-known address. After that, you’ll file papers with our court, and then you’ll wait a prescribed amount of time for Mr. Malone to come forward. If he doesn’t, and if the judge feels you have truly exhausted all reasonable efforts to locate him, he’ll grant a divorce on the grounds of abandonment.”

Vicki fought her escalating panic. “Four weeks? A prescribed amount of time? Lulu, I just told you I have to have this taken care of in two weeks.”

Louise narrowed her eyes and spoke in low tones. “And that’s not all. Your name will be in the newspaper, as will his, so you’d better hope that the issue of his green card and your fraudulent marriage in Orlando doesn’t ring a bell with an overzealous immigration official.”

Being accused of defrauding the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service after all these years was enough to turn Vicki’s blood to ice. And if Graham’s family saw her name in the paper and investigated her background, they would do everything in their power to keep Vicki from becoming a Townsend. She didn’t even want to think about Graham’s reaction. She loved him, but he could be extremely opinionated about issues of respectability.

“You’re scaring me, Louise,” she said. “Surely there must be a statute of limitations on this sort of thing.”

“I don’t know, but even if there is and even if you get away with a clean divorce, it could be a very long and expensive process. Remember, Malone’s in absentia. You’re shouldering all the expenses.”

Vicki pictured her dwindling savings account, and desperation crept into her voice. “I don’t have a lot of money, but time is the most important issue. The process you described takes too long. What else can I do?”

Louise drummed her fingers on the table while she considered Vicki’s question. Finally she said, “It’s a long shot, but you actually might be able to find this guy and get him to sign uncontested divorce papers. That way, you see him one time, he signs, you’re divorced in a Broward County court, and it’s over like any other failed marriage with no assets, liabilities or children to argue over.”

There was a ray of hope, after all. “So how do I find him?”

“Our firm uses a reliable detective agency. They claim they can find anybody. I can have an investigator call you.”

Vicki poured another inch of wine into Louise’s glass. “You’re an angel, Lulu. I’ll owe you big time.”

Louise arched her trim black eyebrows. “You bet you will.”

AT NINE O’CLOCK Monday morning Vicki met with her contractor and discussed the final decorative details for her shop. While they talked, a painter stenciled “Tea and Antiquities” in old-English script on the panels of the leaded-glass windows.

Vicki was pleased with the transformation of the two-thousand-square-foot store. After investing her life savings into this prime location of old-name insurance companies, law offices and upscale retail shops, she nervously anticipated the grand opening of Tea and Antiquities in twelve days. She hoped her shop would attract customers because of its originality. It was the only store on the street that offered the comfort and refinement of an English tearoom with the eye appeal of antiques she and Graham had personally selected.

The contractor had just left when Vicki’s phone rang. She crossed to a mahogany Chippendale desk to answer it. “Tea and Antiquities.”

“Miss Sorenson?”

She didn’t recognize the male voice. “Yes.”

“This is Russell Weaver from Insider Investigations. I got a call from Louise Duncan this morning advising me that you have a need for our services.”

Vicki set both elbows on the desk. Thank goodness. Louise hadn’t forgotten. “That’s right, Mr. Weaver. I need you to locate someone for me as quickly as possible.”

“A former husband, is that right?”

Louise had obviously tried to be discreet, and Vicki saw no reason to correct the misconception by calling Malone her current husband. “Yes, that’s correct.”

“The man’s name?”

“Jamie Malone.”

“Last known address?”

“I’m not sure.”

“Occupation?” Weaver asked questions as if following a script.

Unfortunately Vicki didn’t know her lines. “I’m not positive of that, either. I think he used to work as a carpenter.” She felt incredibly foolish. Certainly any woman would know more about a former husband.

“He changed jobs a lot,” she said to cover her ignorance and tried to overlook the snort of skepticism that came from the earpiece. “I haven’t seen him in thirteen years.”

“His age?”

Vicki let out a breath of relief. She knew this one. There was four years’ difference in their ages. “He’s thirty-eight.”

Mr. Weaver asked a few other pertinent questions to which Vicki responded with embarrassing ambiguity. Finally with a knowing smugness, he said, “Do you happen to have a description of your former husband, Miss Sorenson?”

“Well, of course.” That was truly an honest answer. How could she forget seeing Jamie Malone for the first time on the steps of the Orlando courthouse? Her knees had been knocking. Her palms had been sweating. She’d been trembling like the last leaf in a windstorm on the day she’d agreed to marry him for the generous sum of five thousand dollars.

Besides his physical characteristics, which were still clear in her mind, she remembered the underlying brashness of the man—a trait that was intimidating to a shy twenty-one-year-old farm girl who only wanted to get the disagreeable task over with and collect her money. Even Jamie’s quick smile and misplaced attempt at charm hadn’t put her at ease.

She gave the detective a description of the way Jamie had looked thirteen years ago. Then, grateful that Mr. Weaver didn’t ask more personal questions, she acknowledged his promise to call with information as soon as he had any.

That call came in the early afternoon of the same day.