Smooth Talking Stranger Read Online Free Page B

hoping she was with you.”
    “No. I’ve tried calling her a thousand times and she won’t pick up.”
    Although Liza was my age, and I had always liked her, we’d never had much to do with each other. Like most of the women on my mother’s side, Liza was blond and leggy, and possessed a perpetual appetite for male attention. With her long face and slightly horsy grin, she wasn’t as pretty as my sister Tara, but she had
it,
the unmistakable quality that men couldn’t resist. You would walk through a restaurant with her, and men would literally turn in their chairs to watch her go by.
    Through the years Liza had managed to get access to some fast circles. She dated rich Houston guys and their friends, becoming sort of a playboy-groupie, or to put it more unkindly, a local starfucker of sorts. There was no doubt in my mind that if my sister had been living with Liza, she had been the eager recipient of Liza’s leftovers.
    We talked for a few minutes, and Liza said that she had a few ideas about where Tara might have gone. She would make some calls, she said. She felt sure Tara was okay. She hadn’t seemed depressed or crazy. Just ambivalent.
    “Tara was going back and forth about the baby,” Liza said. “She wasn’t sure she wanted to keep it. She changed her mind so many times the past few months, I gave up trying to figure out what she was going to do.”
    “Did she get any kind of counseling?”
    “I don’t think so.”
    “What about the father?” I demanded. “Who is he?”
    There was a long hesitation. “I don’t think Tara is all-the-way sure.”
    “She must have
some
idea.”
    “Well, she thought she knew, but. . . you know Tara. She’s not very organized.”
    “How organized do you have to be to know who you’re sleeping with?”
    “Well, we were both partying a lot for a while . . . and the timing’s not easy to work out, you know? I guess I could put together a list of the guys she went out with.”
    “Thank you. Who are we putting at the top of the list? Who did Tara say the most likely father was?”
    There was a lengthy hesitation. “She said she thought it was Jack Travis.
    “Who’s that?”
    Liza gave an incredulous laugh. “Doesn’t that name mean anything to you, Ella?”
    My eyes widened. “You mean a
Travis
Travis?”
    “The middle son.”

    The head of the well-known Houston family was Churchill Travis, a billionaire investor and financial commentator. He was on the golden Rolodexes of media people, politicians, and celebrities. I’d seen him on CNN more than a few times, and in all the Texas magazines and papers. He and his children inhabited the small world of powerful people who rarely faced the consequences of their actions. They were above the economy, above threats from men or governments, above accountability. They were their own species.
    Any son of Churchill Travis had to be a privileged, spoiled jerk.
    “Great,” I muttered. “I’m assuming it was a one-night stand?”
    “You don’t have to sound so judgmental, Ella.”
    “Liza, I can’t think of any way to ask that question without sounding judgmental.”
    “It was a one-night stand,” my cousin said shortly.
    “So this will be coming out of left field for Travis,” I mused aloud. “Or not. It’s possible he gets this all the time. Surprise babies popping up like daisies.”
    “Jack dates a lot of women,” Liza admitted.
    “Have you ever gone out with him?”
    “We’ve hung out in the same circles. I’m friends with Heidi Donovan, who goes out with him sometimes.”
    “What does he do for a living, aside from waiting for Big Daddy to kick the bucket?”
    “Oh, Jack’s not like that,” Liza protested. “He’s got his own company . . . something about property management. . . it’s at 1800 Main. You know that glass building downtown, the one with the funny-looking top?”
    “Yes, I know where that is.” I loved that building, all glass and art deco flourishes with a segmented glass