Love at First Sight - By B. J. Daniels Page 0,37

on this case, you’d be up in the mountains right now. Fortunately for me, you’re stubborn as hell and you met Karen Sutton.”

Maybe fortunate for Denny, Jack’s meeting Karen, but Jack wasn’t so sure it was fortunate for him. But he’d definitely gotten involved.

“Why?”

“I want Liz’s killer,” Denny said, his words hard, the humor of a moment ago long gone.

Jack didn’t like the vengeful look in his partner’s eyes, but it definitely confirmed what he’d suspected. “She was your first love, the one you told me about.”

Denny put his elbows on the table and cupped his face in his hands. He looked tired and incredibly sad. “It was like what you said happened with you when you first saw Karen. Zap. I never thought I would ever love anyone the way I loved Liz.”

Jack waited, sensing more to Denny’s story. A whole lot more.

“I get this call from her last week,” Denny began slowly. “After all these years, she calls me out of the blue. Just hearing her voice—” He shook his head and looked out across the bar. “She says she needs to talk to me. So I meet her at The Oxford. She probably figures it’s someplace her doctor husband doesn’t frequent.”

Denny took a breath and let it out slowly. “I’d heard she’d married Vandermullen so I figure she either wants to rub it in about marrying a successful doctor, every girl’s dream, or she’s got marital problems and just wants a familiar shoulder to cry on and that’s why she wants to see me.” He scrubbed his hands over his face. “Then she drops the bombshell.”

Jack stared at his friend, holding his breath, afraid to move a muscle. God, don’t let him tell me he killed her. For any reason.

Denny’s next words were so unexpected that Jack thought he’d heard wrong. “She told me we had a daughter.” He shot a look at Jack. “Liz was pregnant when she broke up with me. Said she didn’t know it at the time. She left town. Gave the baby up for adoption.”

Jack didn’t know what to say. Couldn’t find any words for a few moments. He could see how hard the news had hit Denny. Much harder than Jack would’ve ever imagined.

“Why tell you now, after all these years?” he asked finally.

“She’d been trying to find our daughter and had reason to believe she’d been adopted by a family in Missoula. She wanted my help. The adoption had been handled illegally.”

Jack dreaded to think what kind of help Liz had solicited. “What did you do?”

Denny let out a bitter laugh. “Nothing. We got into a huge fight, as you know. I threatened to throttle her for keeping this from me. I was so angry—” he shook his head “—I just couldn’t deal with it. It was bad enough that she’d torn out my heart when she dumped me, but this— I stormed out of the bar, trying to cool off. Liz left and I…followed her.”

Jack didn’t like the hole Denny was digging for himself. No wonder his friend hadn’t told him or anyone else about this.

“I just had this feeling that she was lying to me about something. I couldn’t put my finger on it.”

“You didn’t believe you’d had a child with her?” Jack asked.

“That was the only thing I did believe,” he said. “Everything else about the story just didn’t ring true, you know?”

Jack knew. Maybe that’s why they’d become cops. Cynics with a sixth sense for bullpuck. And a need for justice.

“I followed her to the cemetery,” he said. “I watched her from a distance as she knelt by a grave. She looked like she was crying. After she left, I went over to where she’d been kneeling and shone my flashlight on the gravestone.” Denny swallowed, his eyes hardening.

Jack held his breath.

“It was the grave of a baby girl who’d died at birth on March 11, 1984. The same day Liz said our baby had been born. The baby’s name was Joanna Kay.”

Named after her father, Jack thought with a start. Johnny K. The name Liz had known Denny by. “I’m sorry,” Jack said, not knowing what else to say.

Denny shook his head. “Liz had buried her in the Missoula City Cemetery, right there between Interstate 90 and the railroad tracks, just blocks from where I was raised, on the wrong side. Ironic, huh?”

The bitterness in his voice couldn’t cloak the horrible hurt. To find out he’d fathered a child and only hours later learn that