The barkeep delivered her beer. At the same time, Kendra slipped onto an adjacent stool. The brunette gave her an over-the-shoulder glance before taking her first sip. The import was golden, as gold as the wedding rings encircling the finger on her left hand. Several moments of inner questioning took place, followed by a second inspection. “You,” she said to Kendra. Tina Ambrose prepared to bolt.
“It’s Tuesday, my day for sanity. And you’ll want to hear what I have to say.”
The girl cautiously reclaimed the stool. Her carotid artery visibly pulsed against an alabaster throat. “Don’t fuck with me, okay. I’m in no mood.”
“Joel’s heading for a fall.”
Though Tina’s expression assumed simpering apathy, curiosity lurked behind the smoldering eyes.
“But it’s you I’m worried about.”
She smirked. “Because I’m having an affair with him?”
“So is Juliana Santana.” Joel’s law clerk started to protest, but Kendra kept talking. “While he’s been helping himself to the Santana estate. It’s called embezzlement. Although ‘white-collar crime’ sounds so much better, don’t you think?”
“You’re lying.”
“About him sleeping around? Or stealing from his client?”
Tina angled her head, narrowed her eyes, and sniffed in a sharp breath.
“It’s in Jordan’s best interests to protect Joel. He’s probably been protecting him for quite a while now. Purely for selfish reasons, you understand. I can almost forgive him. Almost. But when everything comes out, he won’t hesitate handing you over to the district attorney.”
Her washed-out complexion paled a lighter shade of white.
“You still don’t understand, do you? Maybe I can clear up your confusion. Joel has been using you to transfer money out of Santana’s domestic holdings and into several offshore accounts. Small amounts at first, so no one would notice. And more recently, since I know how desperate he is, in larger amounts. Naturally, you thought those offshore accounts belonged to the merry widow so she could keep the estate out of the grubby hands of her stepdaughters. But in fact, Joel handled all the paperwork. Ah, I see you’re figuring it out.”
“He ...” Although her fishnet stockings spun partway around, Tina hesitated getting up. She was slow to answer, and when she finally did, refused to look directly at her boss’s wife. “We do it every day. Make deposits and withdrawals on behalf of our clients.”
“You did what you were told to do. But in the back of your mind, you must have suspected something.”
“I thought ...”
“—he knew what he was doing?” Kendra finished for her. “He did, but in a different way than you think. Who cut the checks? You?”
“Wire transfers, too,” Tina admitted as if the truth could set her free. “Everything belonged to her. To Mrs. Santana. Or her husband’s estate. DBAs, corporate mastheads, blind trusts, investment accounts.”
“Everything aboveboard.” Kendra cocked her head. “Unlike your trysts on the sailboat.”
This time, she twirled all the way around. Her face turned a sickly ashen gray. “I thought that was you. I told Joel. He didn’t believe me.”
“Oh, but he did. It was the day of his ... accident.” Kendra smiled the smile of the devil’s wife. She brought out the Nikon, powered it up, and pressed a button. A succession of digital images appeared in the viewing frame. Tina was the main subject, either with Joel or alone. The ones with Joel showed the twosome in various romantic poses. The ones without captured the girl entering banks, making transactions, and exiting those same banks. “It wasn’t just the Santana estate, was it? He’s been dipping his fingers into other client accounts, hasn’t he?”
Her eyes were interesting, a warm hazel with flecks of olive. As she fixated on the images, the pleasing hue turned icy.
“And then there’s the credit card taken out in my name. The one he gave you to use for special occasions.”
“I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.”
“I already know about the dress he asked you to buy for me.”
“What fucking dress!”
“The police have the video in evidence.”
“You really are off your rocker.”
“I have a copy of the charge slip. A forensic handwriting expert has already confirmed the signature isn’t mine. I’m sure, with a warrant, he’ll confirm it’s yours. In a courtroom, if necessary.”
Tina’s frosty eyes began to melt into runnels of fear. “You’re out of your mind.”
Smiling slyly, Kendra powered off the camera and slid it into her purse. “What you’ve been doing is called embezzlement, grand larceny, bank fraud, and tax evasion. Federal felonies like that come with criminal defense attorneys, jail time, and orange jumpsuits. You won’t like the jumpsuits. They’d clash with your eyes.”
Several blocks away, Kendra put a call into Joel. He answered on the first ring. He didn’t speak at first. Beneath his straining breath, she heard the rush of traffic. After garbling an intonation that sounded like, “Bitch,” he barked a stronger word. “Whore.”
She laughed, not because it wasn’t true, but because it was. She was a woman on the make who sought from other men what she could never get from Joel.
“How did you get into my house?” His voice was different than she remembered. Gruff. Hoarse. Heartless. Did it sound that way because so much time had elapsed since they last spoke? Or was it caused from his self-inflicted injury, not just of flesh but of soul?
Her heart almost went out to him. She couldn’t let it. “Are you speaking of our house, Joel? The one we bought together?” She made her voice dulcet, inveigling, and slightly amused.
He paused for just an instant before fury took hold. “Don’t fuck around with me, Kendra. I can still press charges.”
“To be honest, my dear husband, a jail cell would be a vast improvement over a psych ward.”
He couldn’t get to her anymore. It wasn’t because of the gulf separating them, Joel on one side of sanity and Kendra on the other, but because she knew where she stood with him. The veil had been lifted. It was impossible to break a heart that was already broken since the fragments were scattered to the wind, lost forever. “Where are you?” she asked. “Heading back to the office?”
“I filed a police report.”
“Must’ve been difficult, convincing the cops your wife broke into her own house.”
“They came to some interesting conclusions. Like nobody’s home upstairs.”
“Yes, I know,” she said. “After his wife slashed his throat, the husband’s not quite himself these days.”
He faltered, unsure of how to take this new wife, the one who didn’t give a damn anymore. “Did you think you could get rid of me so easily? It takes more than ripping up a few photos.”
“Oh, dear. Don’t you remember? You’re the one who tore the photos in half and tossed them into the dresser drawer for me to find. They call it being delusional, Joel, blaming the mad wife for mutilating the image of her husband, when everyone knows it was the other way around.”
“No, no ... it was you ...” He was beginning to question himself. “You’re the one who ...”
“You’ve been hearing voices. Imagining visitations. Claiming imaginary break-ins. There’s a name for that, too. This time, I can be the tolerant spouse, and you can be the nutcase.”
He laughed the laugh of the demented. “You’re good, Kendra. Almost convincing. But don’t forget, I’m the one who created you.”
“And I learned from the master how to be merciless at the point of a knife.”
“Fucking bitch.”
“Not anymore. At least ... not with you.” Kendra powered off the cell phone just as the doctor entered the waiting room.
Wearing scrubs as if she had just come from the operating room or a visit with a patient, she was a tall woman in her late fifties. Authoritative, confident, and very sure of herself. “Ms. McSweeney?” she s
aid.
Kendra stood and extended her hand. “Thank you for seeing me, Dr. Lynfield.”
She shook hands like a man, but every other observable trait spoke of unabashed femininity, from the stylish hair to the appealing physique and arresting face. She didn’t look like a renowned surgeon on staff at a major teaching university, and Kendra saw nothing of the son in his mother, except perhaps the same indefinable charisma. She would stand out in any crowd, just as her son attracted women by the dozens. “Shall we speak in private?”
“By all means.”
She showed Kendra into a private room off the main waiting area and shut the door, hermetically sealing them inside a claustrophobic box absent thrumming hospital noises ... noises Kendra never wanted to hear again. The doctor remained standing. “I had no idea exhibitionists entailed such close, personal attention. Have you identification?”
Kendra sat. “I apologize, Doctor Lynfield, but I made the appointment under false pretenses. I’m not with the state’s attorney’s office. You may know me better by my married name. Kendra Swain. Mrs. Joel Swain,” she emphasized.
“Ah. The shoplifting incident. That was you. Yes, I’m all ears.” As if she were in consultation with the relative of a loved one, the doctor sat cattycorner from Kendra, leaning forward with fingers laced together in a prayerful clutch. “Please do continue. Nothing can shock me. I’ve heard it all before.”
“You should know that your son Hunter and I were acquainted before his unfortunate arrest.”
Her hands were older than her face, but the fingers were refined and flexible, constructed for slicing human flesh at the point of a scalpel. She didn’t wear jewelry of any kind; a stark contrast to Kendra’s ringed fingers, one of which sported two wedding bands. “I take it you’re one of his many portraits?”
“You know about them.”
“I’m familiar with my son’s proclivities.”
“Then this will make what I have to say much easier.”
“I never come between him and his friends,” she put delicately.
“Hunter was an innocent victim. He was trying to help me. What happened that day in the mall had nothing to do with him but everything to do with me ... and with my husband.”
“Yes, Joel,” she said simply. “Jordan and Lenore, and Hunter’s father and I are ... were ... old friends. That’s how Hunter and Joel met.”
“That’s what I wanted to speak to you about.”
She hesitated before speaking. “Joel has always had a hold on my son. It was a ...” She hesitated. “... an unnatural alliance.”
“I suspected as much.”
“Did you?”
“Joel uses people. He used your son against me. Except Hunter doesn’t know to what extent. Or what Joel’s underlying motives were. I think it’s only fair for him to know everything. Maybe then, he can get the help he needs.”
“My son’s sickness has nothing to do with Joel.”
“Maybe not. But Joel used it to his own ends.”
As if Kendra had just substantiated something she always suspected but couldn’t prove, she reared her head up. She was almost grateful to have someone understand the darkness of her heart and to shine a tiny light into that darkness, no matter how faint.
“I think it would in your best interest, as well as Hunter’s, for me to explain what really happened that day. And why. But this isn’t the time. Or the place.”
Doctor Lynfield took three seconds to say, “Will later this evening be convenient?”
Chapter 40
THE DESK CLOCK chimed a quarter past seven. From the shutters on the windows to the arrangement of leather seating, the corner office stood as testament to the accreted power of its owner: Jordan Swain.
The door crashed open. Joel navigated the length halfway before pulling up short. He appeared beat, but not from the summons. A month of uninterrupted sleep couldn’t cure the inner battle exhausting him from second to second. His slack eyes swept a circle of occupied seats. He removed his glasses and fingered perspiration from his brow.
“Hello. What have we here? A lynching?” He focused on his mother, who averted her eyes before looking toward the woman standing near the window. He followed her gaze. “Kendra?”
He searched for the smile that would tell him everything was all right, but she didn’t have the courage to look at him.
The elder Swain swiveled his executive chair on an oblique angle and fixed his eyes on a distant horizon. Tousled hair revealed underlying weakness, as if he had recently come from an embrace that nearly undermined his resolve. Looking askance from behind wire-rimmed glasses, eyes exact duplicates of his son’s, he sought out Lenore Swain. The flickering, almost begging, connection made him tragically human. Finally, he spoke. “You’ve been implicated, Joel, in a serious crime.”
Joel pivoted toward the voice of authority. His scar flared livid above an open collar. The executive desk, massive in dimensions, created a formidable barrier between father and son. Three sheets of ivory stationery fanned the polished surface. A capped fountain pen flanked the documents. His accusation was meant for Kendra. “After sticking by you ... keeping you out of fucking jail ... this is how you repay me!”
Jordan cut his son off mid-sentence, their voices overlapping on a jagged edge. “Kendra has been good enough to entrust everything to me.”
Joel rounded on his father. “Good enough? Good enough!”
“Mrs. Santana has agreed not to press charges, provided we make a full and open accounting of her late husband’s holdings and assets, and make restitution for any shortfalls or irregularities. In addition, we will consult with neutral outside auditors of her choosing and fully cooperate with them in all particulars.”
Installed on a high-backed leather chair, the widow wore a suit of admirable style. She acknowledged the assertion with a subtle nod.
“In exchange, Kendra won’t testify against her in a trial, either civil or criminal. The necklace found in Mrs. Santana’s possession will be returned to Kendra. The police will be notified, and the insurance company reimbursed. We will keep Mrs. Santana’s name out of this unfortunate incident, as she is as much a victim as Kendra.”
“As Kendra?” he shrieked. If it weren’t for Kendra ...”
Jordan spoke over Joel’s outburst. “Hopefully, all parties will be satisfied with our explanation, and no one will be injured or prosecuted as a result.”
Joel pirouetted on a heel and gaped at his wife.
“Further, Mrs. Ambrose has signed a detailed account of her part in your scheme, but only after repeated assurances, including one in writing, that she won’t be held culpable for illegal transfers of any monies involving Mrs. Santana’s account as well as any and all accounts of other clients who entrusted us with their assets. We will work to make everyone whole so as to avoid a scandal and save the firm from ruin, even if your mother and I are personally ruined as a result.”
Joel rounded on his law clerk and erstwhile mistress. She occupied a chair in the darkest part of the office, her legs crossed and her eyes unreadable. “After everything I did for you!”
Jordan continued as if there hadn’t been an outburst. “You can see how upset she is. As for the rest of us, we serve as witness to your final degradation.”
Joel tore his vision away from Tina Ambrose and faced his father. His wild hair reflected a scattered thinking process. He was caught in a sticky web of his own making. “Do you want to hear my confession?”
“Honesty might be refreshing,” Jordan said.
“Will you give me absolution?”
“If it’s important to you.”
“It’s not.”
Jordan folded his hands. “Then we’re at an impasse.”
The bell-jar clock ticked off the seconds. Lenore wept behind a cloaking hand. The widow crossed her legs and lowered her eyes. Near to tears, Tina Ambrose double-crutched her chin and gaped down at her shoes.
“Do I get the honor of a perp walk? Have you
called Channel 7? Did you promise them an exclusive?”
“This is a private matter.” Jordan uncapped the pen.
“You have a funny notion of private.”
“Let me say here, to all present, I was ignorant of my son’s activities.”
Joel wailed at the ceiling. “God save me from self-righteous pricks.”
“My son is sick.”
“You’ve been coughing up hush money!”
“His mother and I haven’t wanted to admit just how sick.”
“Dispensing acts of contrition!”
“Our hopes were for him to cease this foolishness of his own accord and save us the embarrassment. Selfish, I know. And uninformed. I ... we ... his mother and I ... didn’t know how far he’d gone.” He cast his eyes in a new direction.
Evelyn Silverstein sat on a chair near Kendra. A notepad lay in her lap while a tolerant expression consumed her face.
“Father Jordan on his holy crusade!”
“He’s a danger to himself and others,” Jordan continued.
“This close. I was this close from ...”
Jordan pounded the desk and jumped to his feet. “Disaster!”
“If Kendra had just gone quietly away ....”
“Kendra isn’t to blame.”
“She’s a certified schizo. She thinks I have it in for her. When I only want what’s best for her. For our marriage. For the children she never wanted to have.”
“Do you have eyes, man? She’s carrying your child. Think of the legacy you’re giving it.”
“It can be a tricky thing,” Joel said to no one in particular, his voice lilting in singsong. “You can dig yourself in deeper and deeper until you can’t dig your way out.”
Jordan saw the crisis coming and worked his way around the desk. He arrived just in time. Collapsing into his father’s arms, Joel clung to the tailored suit and sobbed into the starched shirt. And Jordan Swain, who had spent a lifetime avoiding emotional displays, cried with him until both were humiliated. Marshaling shreds of pride, Joel swabbed the wetness from his eyes. For Jordan, glaring down at a sniveling, cringing boy of thirty-three, his only ham-fisted offering to the future, was the final insult for a man of lofty aspirations.
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