by Kathi Daley
Tony nodded as we headed into the kitchen. He opened the refrigerator and poked his head inside. “I was able to track down some of the information Mike was after, but not all of it. Apparently, Star was conversing with the bank about a loan she hoped to get to buy a desk and some other furniture from an estate sale. The loan officer was able to verify that her loan had not been approved, but it was his understanding that Star had found a partner and no longer needed the loan anyway.”
“Did he know who the partner was?” I asked while reaching for two wine glasses.
“No. Mike is looking in to it.”
“And the calls to Austin?” I asked. Austin Wade was a member of one of the founding families of White Eagle, and probably the richest man in the area.
“It seems Star was successful in her bid to buy that desk and wanted to ask him if he could provide some information about it.”
I leaned a hip against the counter. “What sort of information?”
Tony pulled out a package of fresh Parmesan, some heavy cream, and a stick of butter. It looked like fettuccine Alfredo was in our future. “Apparently, the desk that she purchased was a very old and very valuable desk from the Colonial era. The craftsman who made it was known for adding secret compartments to his furniture. Star believed her desk contained such a compartment, but she couldn’t figure out how to find it. She’d heard from a customer that Austin had a similar desk, so she called him for pointers. I guess they went back and forth a few times, trying to figure out if there was a secret compartment in it, and if there was, where it might be.”
“Did she ever find it?”
“Austin didn’t know. As of the last time he spoke to her, she hadn’t, but that was two days before her death.”
The concept of a hidden drawer or compartment in a desk was intriguing. I figured we might want to circle back to that one. “And this Celia Bronson?”
“So far, neither Mike nor I have been able to track her down. I also haven’t had any luck with the burner cell, so after a full day of work, we don’t have much more than we did when we started our search.” Tony opened a bottle of wine, poured it into the glasses I’d taken down, and handed one to me.
“I’m not sure you haven’t made progress,” I countered. “You might not have found a smoking gun, but I think the fact that Star bought a desk that was so expensive that she considered taking out a loan to pay for it might be relevant. Hattie mentioned something to me today about a rumor that has been floating around. There’s speculation that Star’s death might have had something to do with a business deal she’d entered into.”
Tony filled a pan with water and put it on the stove to heat. He then began grating Parmesan. “Did Hattie have any information specific to the rumor?”
“No,” I answered. “It was one of many, but still, it seems as if it might be worth following up on.”
Tony melted the butter in the pan. “I know Mike was going to look into it. He also planned to look for the desk Star had purchased. He didn’t find it in her home or her store.”
“So maybe the partner has it.”
“Perhaps.”
I took a sip of my wine. “Did you find any other information that might be relevant to the case?”
“I was able to unearth several interesting facts,” Tony confirmed as he stirred the cream into the pan and then added the seasonings he’d already pulled from the cabinet.
“Such as?” I asked, hoping that what he’d found was some sort of proof that Star’s death was not related to whatever was going on with my father.
“I found out that the man who hired Sam Denton to find proof that your father was still alive is named Layton Henderson.”
“And who is Layton Henderson?”
“Mr. Henderson is a billionaire who owns an import-export business that operates around the globe.”
Okay, I wasn’t expecting that. “And why would a billionaire import-export dealer want proof that my father was alive after all these years?”
Tony began stirring the Parmesan into the milk and butter base. “I’m not sure. I am planning to dig deeper because I suspect there is more going on than is apparent on the surface. It does not make sense that a man with the wealth and resources of this one would care one way or another whether a truck driver from Montana was dead or alive.”
“Do you think Henderson had something to do with Star’s death? It certainly sounds as if he could afford to have her eliminated if she’d stumbled across information about my father or his interest in him that he didn’t want to be made public.”
Tony took a whisk to the sauce as the noodles boiled. “I’m honestly not sure. From what I have been able to dig up, Layton Henderson is very well insulated. He lives overseas and rarely comes to the States. We know that your father traveled extensively both before his marriage to your mother and after his fake death, so I suppose it is possible that the two crossed paths. But I’m still not sure that explains why this very powerful billionaire would be looking for your father.”
“Yeah, and why hire Denton? He must have his own staff to do that.”
Tony picked up the pan with the pasta and drained it into the sink. “I’ve been thinking about that as well. It did occur to me that Henderson might have found out that Denton was linked to Star, and that Star had been looking for your father. I suppose he might have realized that Denton might already know how to track down the man he was after.”
Track down. That made my stomach knot. “Do you think my dad is in danger?”
Tony looked me in the eye. “I don’t know.”
I took a deep breath as he tossed the pasta with the sauce. I took our wine to the table while he brought the pasta. “So, did you find out anything else?”
Tony took a loaf of French bread from the pantry and sliced it. He carried it to the table as well. “I was able to find out that Star’s mother was a twenty-four-year-old woman named Ivana Kowalski.”
My eyes grew big. “You know who Star’s mother was? That’s huge. Do you know why she was with my father and why she was shot and killed?”
Tony shook his head. “I found out her name after managing to dig up the initial police report of the woman who was shot at the time Star was left at the church. I don’t know why she was with your father, but I have been able to confirm that the man she was with most likely was your father, as we suspected.”
“And anything more?”
Tony twirled the fettuccine with his fork. “I also found a trail of credit card receipts spanning several states and dating back at least several months before Ivana was shot. That indicates to me that she and Grant Tucker were on the move for a while before she died. I don’t know why they were running or who shot her, but I’m still looking in to it.”
I took a bite of the pasta. It was excellent, as always. Tony knew just the right spices to use to give his sauces a unique flavor. “This whole thing is a bit overwhelming.”
“I know. And I’m sorry. I wish I had the answers you need, but I have a feeling things are going to get a lot more complicated before we get to the bottom of them.”
I ate quietly for a few moments. I was having a hard time processing everything. The idea that Star’s mother and my father had been friends was hard enough to swallow, but with everything that had happened since, it seemed as if the world as I knew it was once again spinning out of control. Tony had made a good start, but there were still so many unanswered questions. For one thing, we still didn’t know what Henderson had done with the photos Denton had taken of my father to prove he was alive, or if the man presented a threat to my father or to anyone else connected to him in the past or the present. Not having all the pieces of the puzzle was frustrating, and nothing Mike and Tony had discovered so far had served as an explanation of why Star had been gunned down in the doorway of her own home.
“Is everything okay?” Tony asked when I’d been quiet for quite some time.
“No. Not in the least. It really does sound as if Star was kil
led because of her relationship with my father. I’m just not sure how to process that.”
“There are circumstances that would point to Star’s death and your father’s activities as being linked in some way, but we don’t know that for certain,” Tony reminded me. “I wonder if there was something odd going on with the desk Star bought. Why did she want it so badly? Who did she partner with to get it? Did she ever find the secret compartment? And where is the desk now?”
Tony did have a point. There did seem to be more than one thing involved. “So, what do we do now?” I asked.
Tony hesitated before answering. “In terms of Star’s murder specifically, I’m not sure we should do anything at this point. Feathers have been ruffled, so I think it is best we let Mike take the lead. I was asked to look into some very specific things, which I intend to do, but beyond that, I plan to stay firmly on the sidelines and let Mike do his job. Having said that, I am very interested in figuring out why Layton Henderson was interested enough in tracking down your father to hire a PI, and what sort of information Denton provided to him before he died. This may or may not be related to Star’s murder, but given the possible threat to your safety as well as Mike’s and your mother’s, I feel I would be remiss not to do what I can to get some answers.”
“You’re worried that whoever killed Star might come after us?”
Tony nodded. “I am worried. A lot of people who seem to be connected to your father in one way or another are dead, and I don’t know why. Whatever is going on right now seems to me to have originated with Ivana Kowalski’s murder, or at least to the series of events leading up to it. I have a list of questions we’ve asked and asked again but still don’t have answers for. Why was she running? Why was your father, who apparently was not the baby’s father, with her? Who shot her? Why did your father change his name? Was he working for someone who’d been responsible for protecting her, or was he simply a friend? And why would a billionaire hire a small-town PI to prove a man who had been dead for over a decade was still alive?”
I pushed my plate aside, crossed my arms on the table, and lowered my head. The same questions seemed to be looping back around again and again. I felt like they permeated every thought and every conversation. This really was too much.
Tony got up and walked around the table. I felt him put his hand on my back.
“Having said all that,” he spoke softly, “I want you to know I am committed to getting answers to all those questions. And I am committed to making sure you and Mike and your mother are safe while I look for them.”
I looked up. “So, are you tracking Dad again?”
“No. I don’t want to alert anyone to my search if I can help it. Tracking your dad will put us back on the radar of the same people who threatened us before.”
“We need to get the file Star had.”
“I agree. And Mike is working on that. In the meantime, I’m going to keep doing what I’ve been doing.”
I looked down at my plate and knew I wouldn’t be finishing the food. “Do you want to get back to it now?”
Tony shook his head. “I’ve been at it all day. I could use a break. I’ll do the dishes, and then we’ll take the dogs out for a walk. When we get back, I’ll check the programs I left running. Hopefully, the pieces of the puzzle we still need will start to fall into place.”
“Okay,” I agreed. “I’ll help you with the dishes.”
As it turned out, the walk was an excellent idea. It helped me to both clear my head and relax a bit. I always enjoyed walking along the hard-packed trail Tony maintained for the dogs. Gentle snow added to the ambiance tonight.
When we got back to Tony’s place, we fed the animals, and then I followed him down to his computer room so that he could check the progress of his various search engines.
“Did your software find anything?” I asked.
Tony was frowning at the screen but did not answer right away.
“Tony?” I asked again. “Did you find anything?”
He hesitated and then looked toward me. “Actually, I think I have.”
I took several steps toward him. I stood behind him, but I couldn’t tell what he was looking at. “What did you find?” I asked.
“According to the records I just uncovered, it appears that Ivana Kowalski worked for Layton Henderson for several years prior to becoming pregnant with Star.” Tony typed in a few commands that made a series of random codes flash onto the screen.
“That seems relevant. Is that relevant?” I asked.
“It seems as if it might be. If nothing else, it shows a link between Star’s mother and Henderson.” Tony continued to type commands into the computer. “I don’t know specifically when she left the company, but based on these employment records, it appears as if she left her employment with Henderson either shortly before or shortly after becoming pregnant.”
My brows flew upward. “Maybe Henderson is Star’s biological father,” I huffed out.
“Maybe.” Tony sounded less than certain as he continued to type. “But that doesn’t explain why Ivana ran, why she was with your father, who was chasing them, or who shot her.”
I got up and began to pace around the room. Maybe it made more sense than Tony thought. “Ivana was employed by Henderson. Maybe she had a fling with him, and she got pregnant. Maybe Henderson didn’t want the baby; maybe he even wanted her to have an abortion. I could see how it might cause a conflict if she refused to do as he asked. He may have felt that if the child was allowed to be born, it would create a liability for him, so he threatened her. Or maybe Ivana didn’t want Henderson to know she was pregnant for some reason, and when she found out she was having his child, she left her job and decided to disappear. I suppose she might have been friends with my dad, and he agreed to help her get away from the baby’s father.”
Tony sat back in his chair. “Okay, say that’s true. Say Henderson was Star’s biological father and that for whatever reason, Star’s mother wanted to put distance between herself and the man who’d fathered her child; that still doesn’t explain why Ivana was shot, and it definitely doesn’t tell us who shot Star.”
I shrugged. “The guy is rich. Very rich. Even if he wasn’t a billionaire forty years ago, I would be willing to bet he had substantial assets. Maybe he was afraid that Ivana would make a claim on those assets once she’d delivered his baby, so he decided to get rid of both mom and baby.”
Tony narrowed his gaze. “Seems like a stretch.”
“Or maybe someone else was afraid that Ivana would make a claim on his assets, so they went after the mother of his unborn child. Was Henderson married at the time of Ivana’s pregnancy? Engaged?”
Tony returned his attention to the screen. “I’m not sure. I’ll dig around a bit to see what I can find, but keep in mind that at this point, all we know is that Ivana worked for Henderson. The idea that she had an affair with him and that he was the biological father of her child is nothing more than a theory.”
“I know, but it is a theory that makes sense to me.”
“That’s odd,” Tony said after he’d been scanning the computer screen for several seconds.
I stopped pacing. “What’s odd?”
“According to this, Ivana was transferred from the import-export store in France to a plant in Hungary about eight months before she left Henderson’s employ.”
“So?”
“So there is no plant in Hungary. At least there isn’t one listed in connection with Henderson’s import-export business.”
“Maybe he operates another type of business in Hungary,” I suggested.
Tony frowned. “Maybe. I guess I’ll just keep digging to see what else I find.”
“Should we tell Mike all this?” I asked.
“I think I should tell him the parts that are fact, such as Star’s mother’s name and that she worked for Henderson, but I think I should keep the parts that are speculation to us, like our idea that Henderson might be Star’s biological father. Mike
has a lot on his plate. It doesn’t make sense to send him off on a wild-goose chase.”
“Agreed. So you’ll talk to him?”
“I will. And I’ll keep working on this.” Tony pulled me into his arms. “Don’t worry. We’ll figure this out one way or another.”
Chapter 6
Friday, December 13
What a week! Not only had the weather been wet and blustery, but Bree and Mike still weren’t speaking to me, which made traveling my route stressful. With the Christmas season in full swing, the number of cards and gifts that had been added to my usual delivery schedule made my cold, miserable days even longer than normal. With the short days of winter, it was usually dark when I started my route in the morning and dark again when I finished it. I needed some time to recoup and try to get my bearings, and when I clocked out on Friday, I felt like I’d been granted an eleventh-hour pardon.
“Let’s go home,” I said to Tilly as I started the Jeep.
Tony and I had discussed where to set up camp for the weekend and had chosen his house, despite the fact that we’d need to drive back into town for the holiday parade and community dinner. We also realized that tomorrow would be a long day, and Tony had a doggy door leading out to an enclosed yard for the dogs, while if we left them at my place, one of us would have to take a break to go let them out halfway through the day.
Tony’s house was also a lot larger for the four animals that were going to have to be cooped up all day. It made sense that we stay out at the lake for the weekend.
Besides the animals, Tony had been working with Mike all week and would very likely need access to his computers. My big brother might not be talking to me, but despite the fact that Tony had also kept the secret of Star’s birth from him, at least in the beginning, Mike still seemed to think he was the best thing since sliced bread. I’d asked him about it while delivering his mail, and tried to make the point that if he’d forgiven Tony, he should forgive me, and he reminded me that Tony hadn’t wanted to lie but had only been doing what I’d asked him to do. Mike was right; I really was the worst. Not only had Tony been doing as I’d asked, but he wasn’t Mike’s sister and, according to Bree, I’d apparently violated a sibling code.