Truth Be Told (Jane Ryland)

by Hank Phillippi Ryan

  What would that be? Aaron lifted his head from his arms, stared into the parking lot. The bank president’s place was still occupied, that navy blue Lexus that cost Aaron’s entire annual salary, probably more. Ackerman’s space was also filled. And so was Lizzie’s. She was here at the bank, not at home.

  He sat back in his seat, chewing the inside of his cheek. Imagining her journey. Her office. The parking lot. Her apartment.

  Where did she park at home? Did she have to walk from there to her front door? Or did she use a back door?

  So many things about Miss Lizzie he didn’t know.

  Still, he knew how to find out.

  * * *

  “Here we are.” Peter pulled into his driveway, clicked open the garage door, but didn’t drive in. The porch light was on, even though it wasn’t quite dark. He hadn’t reset the timer for the later-lasting summer light. Harley already had his two front paws on the front bay window, and Peter could see he was barking. He smiled, remembering. Dianna used to say Harley would run to the front window before she had any idea he was coming home.

  He still missed Di. But life would go on. His, at least.

  “Let me run in and change my—listen. If you don’t mind the dog and a lot of newspapers on the couch, come on in and wait in the air conditioning. Unless you prefer to—”

  “Thanks. I’ll hit the bathroom, if you don’t mind,” Jane said. “Nice house, by the way. I love this part of Milton. You lived here long?”

  He watched her gather up her stuff, thinking again how lucky they were that he’d been able to handle the Jeep. Random, ridiculous drivers. Another lesson in how quickly one’s life could change.

  “A few years,” he said. He opened the door, keyed the alarm system, defended himself against his overjoyed Lab. “Yes, I’m home, yes, you can go out, yes, this is Jane, try to behave.”

  Peter waved Jane inside, grabbing Har’s thick red collar in a futile effort to restrain the four-legged goofball now attempting to wag his entire body. “He’s enthusiastic.”

  “So I see,” Jane said. “You sure you’re okay?”

  “Yeah.” Peter waggled his shoulders, rolled his neck. “Creaky, though, I guess. You?”

  “Me, too,” she said. She flexed her arms, shook them out.

  “We’re lucky,” he said. He saw her looking around the living room, at the photos over the fireplace, and the silver frames on the piano.

  “You play?” she asked.

  He knew it. Okay, then, the short version.

  “My wife did. She died. Several years ago.” He waved at the pictures. “That’s her. Dianna Nesbitt. She was terrific.”

  “I’m so sorry,” Jane said.

  “Thanks.” Peter shook his head. Enough explanation. “Listen. Do you mind if I take a quick shower? You can use the downstairs head, I’ll go up. I’m sort of—”

  “Sure,” Jane said. “I’m fine.”

  Harley yanked away from him, sniffled up to Jane.

  “Harley,” he said. Exasperated. “Get back here. Jane, I’m sorry, Har’s just happy to—”

  “We’re fine,” Jane plopped onto the couch, Harley nudging her leg. “Go shower.”

  “He can go outside, into the backyard.” Peter pointed. “Just open the kitchen door back there, okay? And you can have some peace.”

  “Will do,” Jane said. “We’re fine.”

  29

  “Where the hell did you go? A little rain scare you off?”

  Jake figured he had only a few minutes to answer Nate Frasca’s call before the flight attendant’s preflight swoop-through ensured no passenger was using a deadly electronic device in deadly out-of-airplane mode.

  “Nope, you scared me off,” Jake said. “All that bullshit jargon in your files, God help anyone trying to make heads or tails. I’m boarding now, so—”

  “You get anything?” Frasca said.

  “Maybe,” Jake said. “Thing is, it all points to his potential guilt. Excuse me, ma’am.” Jake found seat 6A, slid past the woman with the e-reader in 6B. She’d stuck a full paper cup of coffee in the elastic seat pocket in front of her, and the cup was clearly on the verge of collapse. Exploding coffee, just what he needed. “Anyway. Turns out we’ve got a different case coming to a head back home. Suspect and all. So I’ve got to—”

  “Ladies and gentlemen, from the flight deck, this is Lois, your front cabin attendant,” squawked a voice over the PA. “In preparation for takeoff, please make sure all of your cell phones are—”

  “Listen, Nate? Gotta go. They’re—”

  “You said the Lilac Sunday guy’s name was Gordon Thorley, right?” Frasca interrupted. “Common spelling?”

  “Yeah. At least, that’s the one who says he—well, yeah.” Jake held the phone between his shoulder and cheek, felt for the seat belt while trying to avoid poking his seatmate in the ass, clicked it on. “Ring a bell?”

  “Maybe,” Frasca said. “Age?”

  “Like, late thirties? Early forties,” Jake said. “What bell?”

  “Maybe nothing,” Frasca said. “But—”

  “Sir?” A disapproving flight attendant leaned across e-reader woman, eyeing Jake’s phone. “We cannot take off until all cell phones—”

  “Gotta go.” Jake clicked off, showed the woman his black screen.

  “Airplane mode, sir,” she said.

  Just get me to Boston, Jake thought.

  * * *

  Why were numbers so easy and people so difficult?

  Lizzie’s client handiwork had passed the C&C test with flying colors. She should be happy. For now, at least, no one would notice that the mortgage payments for certain families did not exactly match actual money in the actual bank. According to the records, those customers were stellar, reliable, and double-A risks.

  One hundred percent untrue, of course. But Lizzie was sick of banks, marble palaces to greed and acquisition, raking in all the profit at the expense of those they ostensibly served.

  Not exactly objective, of course, but when the pendulum swung so far the wrong way, it was immensely pleasurable to be able to push it back. Even just her little bit. Seeing the relief and delight on the Iantoscas’ faces, for instance, made it all worthwhile.

  Lizzie tilted back, leaning into the cushion, stared at the nubby white ceiling. Technically, technically, she was robbing the bank. From the inside.

  She clicked her seat back into place. Still. The bank would never miss the money, people got to stay in their homes, and she got to do a good thing. A total win-win. Well, not exactly total-total. The powers-that-were up on the fifth floor would certainly not be thrilled. Nor, Lizzie had to admit, would the federal bank examiners or FDIC or the comptroller of the currency. Or the cops. But it was a win for the good guys. And she was a good guy.

  When the families were back on their feet, she would undo it. Tell them their payments had to start again, lucky that their new job, new life, inheritance, or lottery win—whatever—had come at exactly the right time. Then she’d back the numbers out, and all would be well.

  Question was—what was Aaron doing?

  She took out the lease for the millionth time, tried again to find some clue. It was so standard, the header actually said “Standard Lease Form.” She smoothed out the two creases in the legal-sized document, read the boilerplate language, customary lease stuff, tenant at will, blah-blah, address, rent payment of $2,950 per month, payable on the blah-blah.

  The lessee signature line had a scrawly felt-tip name, which Lizzie decided was the Frank Something guy Mo Heedles had mentioned. The ridiculous illegible squiggle above the typed-out “for the lessor” hardly had any decipherable letters, let alone a name. It was only a line with a loop on the end. Someone writing fast.

  Or writing to deceive.

  Someone who figured no one else would ever look at the lease, and if someone did, the signature was 100 percent deniable.

  Why did her analysis always seem to go in circles?

  Becaus
e—wait. There was one possibility. One explanation that meant maybe Aaron thought he was doing a good thing, too.

  Maybe they just had different ways of going about it.

  And if that were true—speaking of circular—then maybe the best option was to leave it alone.

  She picked up her ball-point pen, clicked the end of it, up and down, and up and down.

  Leave it alone. It’s what she’d want him to do if he ever found out about her—not that he ever could.

  Click, click.

  Leave well enough alone, her father always said that. Well, what if this was “well enough”?

  Click, click.

  Lizzie put the pen back into the leather container. She folded the lease once, twice, and smoothed the wrinkles.

  She’d decided.

  She’d take the lease back to that house tomorrow. Stick it in the mailbox, with a note saying “All is correct and current, sorry for the confusion.”

  Type it, so there’d be no handwriting.

  Lizzie tapped her fingers on her desk, weighing the pros and cons. The girl in the house was an airhead. No one could easily connect Lizzie to any of it.

  Now she could meet Aaron, as planned. She was late, but still acceptably late. She’d had to work later than she’d expected. Right? He’d understand.

  Maybe tonight she could find out what he was doing.

  Confirm what she suspected.

  She popped her computer screen to black, grabbed her linen jacket, and her briefcase, clicked off the lights, locked her office door.

  She punched the elevator button P for parking. If she had it right, what was Aaron’s motivation?

  By the end of tonight, she’d know.

  * * *

  At least she hadn’t had to answer Peter’s impossibly complicated “do you know Jake Brogan” question. Jane opened the kitchen door for Harley, and the Lab bounded into the lilac-filled backyard, and headed to a patch of manicured shrubs across the lawn. White impatiens blossomed in ceramic pots, two hunter green Adirondack chairs and a charcoal grill were arranged comfortably on a modest wooden deck. Someone loved this yard. Anyway, by now maybe Peter had forgotten his question. But Jane hadn’t forgotten her question.

  She watched the dog snuffle around, quiet for a moment in the twilight of the May evening. Jane couldn’t see into the neighbors’ yards on any side, fences and greenery blocked the way. She took a breath, drawing in the fragrance of the lilacs, trying to erase the car accident and the fear. Replacing it with beauty. Boston could be gorgeous this time of year, she thought. Well, this was a suburb, but same difference. She rarely missed the Midwest, where her father and sister still lived. Lissa. She shook her head. Lissa’s wedding in June. Looming. She’d think about that later. The lilacs were here and now, and so was she, and all of today’s bad stuff was over.

  Harley was occupied, and she guessed she could leave him outside. Jane went back in, closing the kitchen door, which clicked shut behind her. She could hear the upstairs shower.

  She found the downstairs bathroom—clean, a couple of framed museum prints, Kandinsky, on the walls. No toothbrushes. She fussed with her hair—hopeless, why’d she leave her purse in the living room?—resisted the urge to open the mirrored medicine cabinet, and headed back to the living room couch.

  She blinked, not quite understanding.

  “Ah, hello,” she said.

  Did someone else live here? Peter hadn’t mentioned a roommate, but how else would this guy have gotten in? Maybe this was the person who loved the garden. Seemed pleasant enough, older, thin, ill-fitting jean jacket. Scragglier than Peter. Not really what she’d have predicted as his roommate type. But then, who knew. The shower water continued.

  “Who’re you?” the man said. He must have just come in the door, and stood facing her at the edge of the entryway. She hadn’t heard a car.

  “I’m so sorry,” Jane said. “I’m—”

  “Are you a lawyer, too?” the man asked. He shifted, one foot to the other.

  Maybe he was embarrassed to see her here. Maybe since Peter’s wife had died, there hadn’t been any other—well, whatever.

  “Oh. No.” Jane smiled. “I’m a colleague of his. He’s upstairs, taking a shower.” She paused, realizing how that might sound. Shook her head. “Long story. No, we’re—”

  She didn’t need to explain herself, Peter’s roommate was simply startled to see anyone. She would be, too, if she walked into her own home and saw a strange woman.

  “Peter and I are working on a—project. Together.”

  “Are you?” the man said.

  Jane didn’t quite like the tone of his voice, but then she wouldn’t have to be around him long. She wished Peter would hurry. There was no protocol for this. Or maybe the guy was socially awkward, and she should be more friendly. Make conversation.

  “Are you Peter’s roommate?” she asked.

  “Nope,” the man said.

  Jane could hear Harley, barking, in the backyard. Barking, and barking. She turned, ready to go let the dog in. She’d feel better with Harley here, for some reason she couldn’t quite put her finger on.

  “Nope, you don’t want to do that,” the man said. “Stay right here, miss.”

  “What?” He hadn’t threatened her, exactly. But it felt—off. She wished for Peter, she wished for Harley, she wished for the cell phone in her faraway tote bag, for whatever good that would do. “I’m sorry, who are you again?”

  “Shouldn’t you know? You’re a reporter, right?” The man almost smiled. “You’re Jane Ryland.”

  Jane took a step back, toward the stairs. Closer to where she hoped Peter would soon be. Wait a minute. The front door had been open. The garage door had been open. The alarm was off—she’d watched Peter disarm it. Harley was in the backyard. But she was used to being recognized from TV, so maybe he was a fan. “Yes, that’s—so you know who I am?”

  “I also know your address, and your Amex number, and that you used to have fifty-two dollars in cash in your fancy wallet.”

  Jane took one more step back. The man took one step closer to her. This was no fan.

  “You shouldn’t leave your purse around,” he said.

  “Peter!” she yelled. But all she heard was water.

  30

  Jake reached up, punched the orange call button. The woman in 6B was on her second Sudoku. The ones in Jake’s in-flight magazine had already been done, half-done, badly done, by the previous passenger. Rain pelted the Plexiglas porthole windows, and the 737 had moved away from the gate, then stopped. Hadn’t budged an inch on the tarmac since then.

  “Yes?” The attendant appeared, all smiles.

  “Can we at least use our phones? While we wait?” Jake asked.

  Six-B looked up. “How long is it going to be, do you know?”

  The flight attendant peered from under her eyelashes, squinting at the new torrent against the window, the multicolored lights of passing equipment glaring red and yellow on the drops, then fading to black. A crack of thunder rumbled, then a flash of lightning. Jake could see the Reagan terminal building, the multi-story panes of glass, the passengers inside peering out at the planes. They were grounded. He was grounded. Everyone was grounded.

  “I’m so sorry,” she said, waving in the general direction of outside. “We thought the rain was ending. Still, they’re requesting us to stay on standby, not pulling us back to the gate. That means they’re optimistic.”

  “The phones?” Jake repeated, holding his up.

  “Yes, you may,” the attendant said. “I’ll let you know as soon as we’re back in the rotation.”

  Jake wasn’t listening. He’d clicked the cell on before she’d finished, punched in Jane’s number, watched out the window as her phone rang, five hundred miles away. She was probably—well, who knew where she was, but he pictured her on that leather couch of hers, stretched out, her long legs across his lap maybe, in one of those little tank tops she wore, her hair down. That damn cat was pro
bably draped over the back of the couch cushion, as always.

  Ring two.

  Jake focused his reverie on Jane, her hair splayed across that striped pillow, her toes kneading into his thighs. It was raining there, too, he bet. At least there it was—cozy. One of Jane’s words.

  Ring three.

  Maybe she wasn’t home, if she wasn’t answering. Maybe she was in a meeting, or on a story. But this time of night?

  What if Sandoval had been arrested? By another detective? If someone had found him, say, and gotten orders to grab him. Maybe Jane was covering that. That’d be tease fodder for God knows how long—the irony of him being trapped on a plane while she was getting photos of what should have been his big arrest.

  Ring four. Weird.

  On the other hand, equally annoying, Sandoval might have headed for whatever hills he could. With the cop shop short staffed, and DeLuca out of pocket, maybe they’d pulled back on the Sandoval arrest, and as a result of budget cuts and Mother Nature, the bad guy was getting away.

  A click on the line, a change in the sound. Finally.

  “Hey, Jane, it’s—”

  “This is Jane Ryland. I’m sorry I can’t come to the phone right…”

  Voice mail.

  “Shit.”

  Six-B raised an eyebrow.

  “Sorry,” he said. Well, that was too bad. He’d call her when he got back. Or maybe stop by and surprise her. If he ever got back.

  * * *

  “See? They’re looking for me.” Jane pointed to her tote bag, her phone chiming from deep inside. “If I don’t answer that, all hell is gonna break loose. They know I’m here,” she lied. Whoever “they” was supposed to be. “You’d better let me answer it.”

  She took a step toward the phone. It brought her closer to whoever this was, but it might be her only option.

  The man put up a palm, narrowed his eyes at her. “I’ll have to risk that.” Reached into his back pocket. “I don’t believe you anyway, Jane.”

  And then she saw the glint of a knife.

  This was ridiculous. The intruder was so puny, so scrawny, she could probably belt him with a—she scouted the living room for a weapon. Nothing.