He drew a grateful breath.
Nina left his arms, walked over to the dresser on which she had placed a photograph of herself, Nick and Phoebe, arm-in-arm, and a copy of Firefly together with a set of tiny silver brush, comb and mirror that Phoebe had bought for the baby.
‘Dad’s been driving me crazy,’ she confessed. ‘He’s been calling all the time since he got back to Scottsdale, nagging at me.’
‘Saying what?’ Nick paused. ‘Or don’t I need to ask?’
‘Not really.’ Nina’s sigh was drawn out and miserable. ‘He keeps telling me not to leave Zoë alone with you. It’s unbelievable, I know – you know I know, Nick – but Dad seems obsessed. He reminds me over and over – as if I need reminding, for Christ’s sake – that Phoebe’s still in plaster, that she still can’t talk.’ She paused. ‘He says that even if you didn’t directly cause that, if Holly was involved, then that still makes it your fault.’
‘He’s not wrong about that, is he?’ Nick said quietly.
‘I didn’t want to tell you,’ Nina said. ‘I know how bad you feel already – I didn’t want to make it even worse for you.’
‘Of course you had to tell me.’ Nick came over to her, put out his right hand and stroked her bare arm. ‘You’re cold, sweetheart. Why don’t you come to bed?’
‘I’m fine.’
‘No, you’re not.’
She shook her head. ‘No, I’m not,’ she admitted.
Nick saw the awful strain in her eyes and in the tight set of her jaw. ‘Have you been thinking about taking a drink?’ he asked, gently.
‘Oh, yes,’ she said.
‘How bad?’
‘Bad enough. I’ve been coping, just about.’
‘You’re very brave,’ Nick told her.
‘Not brave at all.’ There were tears in Nina’s eyes again. ‘I’m afraid to drink, Nick. I’m too bloody scared to go through all that again.’
‘Brave and wise,’ Nick said.
They went back to bed, and Nina fell asleep with surprising ease, but Nick stayed awake till after dawn.
He had already arrived at the decision that he was going to have to take some kind of action himself. He might have turned the facts over to the police and Richard Bourne, but all his instincts were telling him that even if the cops did locate Holly, she would convince them that he was the crazy one, the villain, the one with the record. And Richard still hadn’t gotten in touch, which seemed to indicate to Nick pretty clearly that that was a closed avenue.
He couldn’t just go on sitting around, waiting for the next blow to fall. Although this was probably the worst imaginable time for him to consider leaving Nina alone, if he wanted to call a halt to all the madness, it was pretty clear that he was going to have to leave town again to try to track Holly down. He knew, without even broaching the subject, that Nina wasn’t going to agree with him about that – was not going to want him to go anywhere, least of all after Holly.
He was right.
‘You can’t be serious.’
Nina had slept late, had woken to find Zoë with a clean nappy and Nick at work in his studio on the third floor. He was working on an abstract using acrylic paint, taking out some of his fear and anger on canvas. He had been psyching himself up to tell Nina what his plans were for more than two hours.
‘I’m very serious,’ Nick told her, cleaning the brushes he’d been using. ‘God knows I didn’t want to ever have to see her again – and the last thing I want to do is leave you and Zoë right now—’
‘Then don’t.’
‘I don’t see that I have a choice.’
‘Of course you have a choice, Nick.’ Nina sank down onto a stool near the big window. ‘You can leave it to her father and the police.’
‘I don’t believe anymore that I can trust Richard Bourne to help me,’ Nick said. ‘And I’m not convinced that the cops are going to see through Holly if they do talk to her.’
‘Then hire a lawyer to find her for you,’ Nina suggested. ‘It doesn’t have to be Field – there must be scores of good lawyers in San Francisco.’
Nick dropped the brushes into a glass jar. ‘None of whom are guaranteed to take me any more seriously than Field did.’
‘So hire a private investigator.’
‘I talked to three of those yesterday,’ Nick said. ‘New York agencies.’
‘You didn’t tell me.’ Nina looked startled.
‘Because there wasn’t much to tell. I told them I’d already tried the obvious places – directories and the State Bar—’
‘When did you do that?’
‘Over the last couple of days.’
‘For God’s sake, Nick.’ Nina got up. ‘How many more secrets are you going to keep from me?’
‘They’re not secrets, Nina—’
‘Garbage.’ She stared at him. ‘Absolute, complete garbage.’ She sat rigidly back down on the stool. ‘What did the agencies say?’
‘That it’s clearly not going to be easy – which means it’s going to take a lot of time and money, and without any solid place to start, it could even turn out to be a total bomb.’
‘Surely a detective could at least find out Holly’s married name.’
‘So can I, with a little time and effort.’ Nick picked up a second stool from behind his easel, put it down close to Nina and sat down on it. ‘Though knowing Holly, I’m surprised she hasn’t been using Bourne as her professional name.’
‘Clearly you don’t know her as well as you thought you did.’
Nick saw the anger still on his wife’s face. ‘You don’t understand.’
‘No, I don’t.’
‘You don’t understand how convincing and respectable Holly can be.’ He got up again, restless, walked back to the easel, stared unseeing at the uncontrolled chaos on the canvas. ‘You can’t even begin to understand – no one can, believe me – how great she is at climbing out of shit smelling of roses. She was like that as a child, and she was even better at it when she was a student.’
‘And now she’s a lawyer,’ Nina said.
‘Exactly.’
‘Which can only make her more dangerous.’
‘Which makes it more important than ever that I find out where she is and what she’s up to – really up to.’ He turned back to her. ‘I can do that, sweetheart – I can see through her.’
‘You couldn’t in the past,’ Nina pointed out.
‘Not for a long time, no, you’re right. Not till New York.’
‘And then what?’ Nina asked. ‘When you’ve found her, seen through her, found out what she’s up to – what then?’
‘Then I go back to the police and leave it with them.’ Nick came back, sat down again, reached for her hand and grasped it tightly. ‘Nina, I’m not going to run any risks, not with you and Zoë here at home. I’m just going to track down a couple of people from NYU, try asking a few questions, find out what her first job was – at least get some place to start, so I can lose this awful feeling that she’s just sitting someplace loving making our lives hell.’
Nina waited a beat. ‘What about the rest of it?’
‘The rest of what?’
‘The other side of your relationship. With Holly.’
‘There is no other side,’ Nick said flatly. ‘You know that.’ He still held onto her hand, afraid to let her go.
‘But there was.’
‘When we were kids.’
‘And in New York.’
‘One night,’ Nick said. ‘That was all it was. A mistake.’ He felt sick. ‘I thought you believed that.’
Nina said nothing.
‘Nina, talk to me.’
She took another few moments. ‘I do believe it.’ She shook her head. ‘But that doesn’t stop me being afraid for you. For us. Nick, if Holly did do that thing to Phoebe – whether she meant it for me or not –’ The fear lay deep in her eyes. ‘We’re talking about attempted murder.’
‘I know we are.’
‘Then lea
ve it to the police,’ she said again.
‘I can’t do that.’
Abruptly, Nina pulled her hand away.
‘This is all a waste of time, isn’t it?’ she said, coldly, standing up.
Nick was dismayed. ‘Of course it isn’t.’
‘Oh, yes, it is.’ She walked around him and the easel over to the door. ‘You made up your mind to go after Holly before you even told me. You haven’t been listening to a single word I’ve said.’
‘That isn’t true. I always listen to what you say.’
‘Maybe you listen’ – Nina turned the handle – ‘but you don’t hear. Forget it, Nick.’ Her tone was harsher than he’d ever heard it. ‘No more garbage – no more half-truths. No more wasting time.’ She opened the door. ‘I have better things to do,’ she said.
And walked out of the studio without looking back.
OCTOBER
Chapter Fifty-one
The atmosphere in our house is almost unbearable. It breaks my heart to feel Nina’s coldness towards me, but I’m doing my best to stay calm and organized because there’s nothing much more positive I can do. I’ve sworn to her that the instant I find even the smallest morsel of useful information – let alone actual proof of Holly’s involvement – I will hand it straight over to one of my SFPD inspector buddies, but I’m not sure that she believes me. I can’t blame her for her loss of faith, but that doesn’t stop it hurting.
We’ve agreed, at least, on one thing: taking on a nanny to help with Zoë, which will give Nina greater peace of mind and freedom to visit with Phoebe and William in Arizona, as well as allowing her to spend more time at Ford Realty. Betty and Harold have been doing all they can to paper over the cracks, but with Phoebe away for so long and Nina still preoccupied, business is starting to suffer. Anyway, work – real work – may just be the one thing that’s going to keep Nina sane and sober until all this is behind us.
Nina found Teresa Vasquez at the first round of interviews. Lucky. Lord knows we’re due some. She’s a small, light-boned, vigorous woman from Tijuana with great references, good enough English, and what seems to be a warm heart. Nina’s only real problem with her – aside from her ten thousand doubts about leaving our baby with anyone, even the Nanny of the Year – is Teresa’s tendency to talk the ear off anyone who’ll listen, but I figure that means she’s naturally friendly, which surely has to be good news for Zoë. Our daughter took to Teresa right away at the interview. Of course, Zoë takes to just about everyone.
So I guess I’m ready to leave. As ready as I ever will be.
Nina refuses to have any more substantial discussions about what I plan to do, her rationale still being that since I’m going to do what I want anyway, regardless of her objections or input, there’s no point us talking. I have tried pointing out that I’ve still heard nothing from Richard Bourne, and that when I called Norman Capelli in Personal Crimes to try to nail him down about contacting Holly, he made it clear they weren’t about to share any information with me.
‘Maybe Chris Field could persuade Capelli to tell him,’ she said.
She knows I have no more faith in Field than I did last time we talked about him. She knows – because I’ve told her repeatedly – that I will find another lawyer just as soon as I have something concrete to tell them, so that he or she will be standing by my side because they trust me, not just because I’m paying them to be there.
No change there either.
If Nina has told William about our disagreement – oh, Jesus, how I wish it were as simple as a disagreement – then she hasn’t described his reaction. Of course, if her father does know I’m going away – anywhere away from Nina – he’s probably cheering.
Damn Holly.
Chapter Fifty-two
It is done.
Holly has locked the doors of Taylor, Griffin, emptied out her savings accounts, sold her platinum and diamond Rolex, and has left Jack and that whole phase of her life behind.
There was no fight, not even an argument, no pleading or anger, because she gave him not the smallest hint of what she was planning and left their home on a Thursday afternoon when she knew he was safely in court and Vita, their housekeeper, had the day off.
She was perfectly organized, her plans meticulously, exquisitely, laid. She and Jack have been married for less than six months, and Holly never did have any great urge to refurbish or to stamp any substantial personal marks on his home. Jack always seemed to regard that as an accolade to his fine taste and as a mark of her love for him. Holly simply knew that she would not be there long enough to make it worthwhile troubling with. So there wasn’t all that much to pack up. Personal belongings. Books. Her computer. Her jewellery – including her beautiful three carat square-cut diamond engagement ring. The Tiffany tableware given as a wedding present by Richard and Eleanor. She was going to need dishes and silverware, after all, where she was going.
She knew exactly where she was going – though she did not, of course, intend letting anyone else know that. Neither Jack nor her parents. No one. Not even Nick.
Least of all Nick.
She did all the packing herself because it was safer that way. No moving company. No risk of gossip. No paper trail. No plane tickets. No car rental documents. No credit card charges.
Holly knows how smooth getaways are achieved. She fucked an inspector in Auto three times before she had all the details she needed. Which cars to pick and which to avoid; where and at what time of day or night to make the move; where to obtain a slim-jim – one of the habitual car thief’s favourite tools of choice – or the kind of pliers to tackle locks, or the right sets of keys or whatever; how to hot-wire a car; where to get licence plates off wrecked cars and how to switch plates swiftly and safely.
Quite an education.
Holly has always got a buzz out of stealing, but breaking into the black Ford Taurus, getting the wheels and transmission unlocked and the motor started in the downtown underground parking lot – and then telling the attendant on the way out that she’d lost her ticket and grudgingly handing over the full daily rate – was the biggest and by far the most nerve-pumping theft she has ever undertaken.
Everything after that seemed easy – almost dull – by comparison. She drove to a second parking lot, still downtown, took her time switching the licence plates, careful, even with her hair tucked under a baseball cap and sunglasses hiding some of her face, not to be seen by anyone at all. The job completed and the original plates locked, for the time being, in the boot, she emerged from the parking lot, walked to the Holiday Inn, cleaned up in the powder room and then took a cab back home to Brentwood. Less than a half hour later, she called another cab, tipped the driver handsomely enough to persuade him to load all her belongings with few complaints (but not so generously that he would remember too much about her), told him she was going home to visit her parents and had him drive her to LAX. Once at the airport, she gave a skycap fifty bucks to take her and her worldly goods to a second cab, which transported her back downtown to the parking lot and the waiting Ford.
Four hundred and something miles later – the car’s original licence plates long since ditched in a dumpster at a roadside diner – Holly has arrived at her destination.
It’s night-time, and the house is dark.
It is so exactly, uncannily, what she was praying for. Karma. She was searching through a sheaf of San Francisco rental listings that she’d had sent to Taylor, Griffin when she found it.
Vacant possession. ‘In need of work’ – which meant lousy condition, which made it affordable. No owner’s regulations she couldn’t meet. Perfect. The only thing that might have made it more amusing would have been the broker being Ford Realty’s rental division, but then again, that might have been taking a risk too far.
Holly rented a post box and fax address, and took care of the whole deal long distance and fast, making an offer in the name of Rowe & Krantz (a dormant subsidiary of a law firm she had done some corporate work for in r
ecent weeks and whose legal registered address was Taylor, Griffin’s) and taking for herself the temporary identity of one of the firm’s partners, Barbara Rowe. It was, of course, entirely fraudulent and another gamble, but Holly was working on the assumption that by the time – if ever – some accountant, or maybe even the IRS, spotted this chicken feed transaction on the firm’s records, she would be long gone again and, thanks to her care and attention, there would be no reason to trace it back to Charlotte Taylor.
The Presidio Heights-based realtor had balked at first, uneasy about recommending that her client agree a lease with a company, rather than an individual. But then again, the realtor was hungry for deals and the situation was exceptional. The house in question had been empty for a while, mostly because the rental being asked by the owner was still pretty exorbitant for a property in comparatively poor condition; all Rowe & Krantz’s references had checked out, and Barbara Rowe, the tenant-to-be, was an attorney, plus she was offering to pay six months’ rent cash up front.
Holly lets herself into her new home, switches on the gas central heating and starts unloading the car. The street is quiet. A few cars drive up and down the hill. No one shows any interest in the woman carrying boxes and baggage from the Taurus into her house. The task completed, Holly gets back into the car and, a street map and torch on the seat beside her, makes for Candlestick Park, home of the Giants, and a good spot – she learned back in LA – to dump a stolen car.
She wipes over carefully inside and out, remembering to clean the rearview mirror – a prime site, the Auto inspector told her, for prints left by amateurs – as well as all the handles and the gas cap. The odds are heavily against anyone tracing this particular car. Pick the right kind of car, the cop said – nothing special – switch the plates, take it sufficiently far away, and no one’s going to give a shit about getting it back.
She checks the Ford over one more time.
And takes a cab to her new home.
Too Close Page 23