Mission

by Camilla Chafer

  "We will," said Solomon. He waved and Delgado returned. "My investigator will see you out."

  "What do you make of that?" I asked as we watched Delgado escorting Charlie out the door.

  "I think he's a liar," said Solomon.

  "Oh?"

  He glanced at me. "You didn't?"

  I swayed my head from side to side, weighing up Solomon's statement. He was an excellent judge of character but I didn’t automatically assume Charlie was a liar. "I thought he was forthcoming with a lot of information, although it lacked the crucial bits like what he wants us to locate."

  "He also won't tell us to whom the item belongs, and I think he knows, or at least, he suspects he does. We should consider the possibility he also knows what the item is but simply doesn't want to tell us."

  Solomon reached for the envelope, flicked open the flap and took out a check. He whistled. "This is one hell of an incentive," he said, passing it to me.

  "Wow!"

  "It's also one hell of an incentive not to take the case. Whatever the mystery item is, it's that valuable and he's clearly desperate to find it or he wouldn't have written such a generous check on what I'm guessing is his expense account. I'll need to give this more thought."

  "That sounds sensible," I agreed just as my cellphone began to vibrate in my back pocket. I pulled it out. Alice. Alice! With all the events going on at the bank, I completely forgot about Alice and her patient.

  "Alice, I am so sorry," I started. "I meant to call you and Austen but I..."

  "Don't apologize," interrupted Alice. "I heard what happened. I'm just glad you're okay and I'm sure Austen will be relieved to hear it too."

  "He knows?"

  "I don't think he knows you were there, since no one reported that, but the bank robbery is buzzing all through the hospital. It's kind of exciting! Was it just like the movies?"

  "Much scarier," I decided, "and less well paid."

  "I can't believe you got caught up in it."

  "It was a case of right place, wrong time."

  "But you're okay? That poor officer was shot. It must have been terrible. He was in the ER. Quite the intrepid story! Some of our nurses are a little in love with him; maybe the doctors too."

  "One hundred percent fine and I hope he enjoys his five minutes of fame."

  "You don't sound too impressed."

  "It would be unkind of me to say anything about the officer's ability to make sound decisions."

  "Ah," said Alice. "You think he was a jerk."

  "A jerk who took a bullet so he has my sympathy to some extent. If you want to know more, I'm sure it'll be hottest topic at the next family dinner."

  "Your mother says that will be tomorrow."

  "What?" I sighed as I looked at Solomon who was watching me with some amusement. "Family dinner, tomorrow," I told him.

  "We'll be there," said Solomon.

  "Your mom says it's a pasta party. We can all bring a pasta, sauce, or a side dish, but we have to text her what we decide to bring so we don't have too much of one thing. I'm making garlic baguettes."

  "Good to know; I look forward to the food, at least."

  Alice laughed since she was quite familiar with the chaos of family dinners, especially when my mother was in a whirl about my latest calamity.

  "How is Austen? And Sophie?" I asked.

  "No change for Sophie. She continues to be stable, which is good, I guess, but I know we all are wishing for better news. Austen hasn't left her side. One of his friends brought him a change of clothes and some food to eat. He said he didn't want to go home but he really must. He needs some rest. He has to trust us to do our job."

  "I know how he feels. He's probably afraid to leave her side," I said, thinking back to when Solomon was rendered comatose following an attack. I was terrified to leave him but I also desperately needed to track down his attacker and find out the reason why he was targeted. That sense of purpose stopped me from falling apart. I was in a unique position now: my sense of empathy clashed with my sense of duty. Yet who was I to tell a heartsick man to leave his wife's bedside, especially given his suspicions? His suspicions were now also mine.

  "I feel for him, I really do, but he needs to stay strong. He said you went to his house after you spoke. Do you think he's paranoid? Or could there be any truth to it?" asked Alice.

  "I think I should come over and talk to Austen." I checked my watch as I glanced at Solomon, who was listening. He nodded. I was okay to leave. "I'll be with you inside twenty minutes," I told her.

  "Should I let Austen know you're coming?"

  "Sure. He's probably been waiting for me to call anyway." We said our goodbyes and I palmed my phone. "I hate to run during such a big dilemma," I told Solomon.

  "It's not such a big dilemma. Just a question of: do we take the case given our suspicions or not?"

  "Are you any further ahead in arriving at a decision?"

  "Than I was five minutes ago? No, but I think we should talk about it again. I'd like to give Charlie an answer today since time is of the essence."

  "He'll want to hire another firm if we decline."

  "Private investigators are not in great supply around Montgomery, and his case is pretty complex. He'll have to travel to Boston and find a firm there that's willing. However, that's not what I meant in terms of time."

  "Oh?"

  "It's more a question of how fast the missing item is either sold or transported from Montgomery. The trail gets colder the longer we contemplate our decision whether or not to take the case. The robbers are hours ahead of us."

  "Then I will leave you to contemplate it while I check in on my other prospective client." I reached up and kissed Solomon quickly and discreetly, given we were at our place of work, before hightailing it out of there. Taking Solomon's car, I made a mental note to go car shopping soon so I didn't have to rely on his car, or rides, or the office pool cars, although I was pleased to see Solomon had arranged for the one I borrowed to be returned to its space after I left it near the bank.

  By the time I reached Sophie Takahashi's hospital room, I was running late. Alice waved to me before tending to an elderly patient in the next room and I smiled and waved at her. Knocking on the glass door, I entered, indicating for Austen to sit back in his seat as he began to stand.

  "I'm sorry I didn't call you yesterday," I told him.

  "I heard you ran into some trouble."

  "Alice told you?"

  Austen smiled. "Just now. It's all anyone can talk about here. I have to admit, the heist took my mind off this for a couple of hours. Manny told me you took a look around my house but didn't stay long. Did everything appear normal to you?"

  "Manny is correct. I only inspected the area where your wife fell, including the stairs, landing area, and the balustrade but I found an anomaly that puzzled me."

  "An anomaly?"

  "You mentioned seeing blood on the stairs but when I checked them out, there was none."

  "I'm sure I saw it. I told you when I checked, the blood was gone. Was I mistaken?" Austen frowned. "Could it have been something else?"

  "No, I don't think you were mistaken. Like I said, there wasn't any blood on the staircase but I caught the smell of bleach. Someone cleaned the stairs recently but didn't do such a fabulous job. Manny confirmed that neither he nor his crew would clean the stairs at this stage of construction so I think someone else had to have done it."

  "An attempt to cover it up?"

  "It's possible. I also think there's some merit to the idea that the balustrade was unscrewed deliberately."

  "Lexi, does this mean you agree with my suspicions? Do you think someone intentionally hurt my wife?"

  "I think it's possible things didn't happen the way they appeared, and someone is covering something up. That doesn't mean it's malicious, it just means you don't have all the facts or the truth," I said as diplomatically as I could. I didn't want to rule out a terrible accident. Perhaps someone was simply afraid for their j
ob but it could also be as terrible as attempted murder. I didn't know enough yet to determine that but I got a bad feeling.

  "Will you take the case?" he asked, fixing me with a long look. "Whatever the answer is, I want you to find out what happened."

  "Before I commit to anything, I need to know if you can think of any reason why someone might want to hurt your wife?"

  Austen looked away, focusing on Sophie's still face. For a long moment, he appeared lost in thought. "Yes. That is, maybe. I'm not sure."

  "What's your concern?" I asked.

  Austen's shoulders sagged. "Over the last couple of months, I've had the strangest feeling my wife isn't who she says she is. If she's not Sophie, then I don't know who she could be. Perhaps somebody else does? Someone who wanted to hurt her? It's stupid, I know, but I can't shake the feeling." He looked up, his eyes filled with obvious worry. "I really need your help."

  "Tell me everything you can," I said.

  Chapter Six

  "I don't know where to start," said Austen, resting his head in his hand. "Everything has spun around my brain ever since I found out Sophie got hurt. No, even before that. My mind is a mess."

  "You're sleep deprived too. That doesn't help," I told him. "You really should go home and get some rest."

  "I can't go home. Not back to that house, not without knowing what happened."

  "What about a hotel?" I suggested. "Or a friend’s place?"

  "Maybe. But..." He glanced at Sophie. She hadn’t moved since the last time I visited. Her head still lay on a pillow, her eyes were closed and her hands were clasped together over a soft, yellow wool blanket that didn't appear to be hospital issue.

  "I can have someone from the agency sit with Sophie all night if you're concerned about her safety. You can meet with them beforehand and they'll call you if any issues arise," I assured him. "You don't have to agree now. Just consider it a feasible option." I didn't want him to feel pressured to leave his wife's side, especially not while he was so worried, but I knew he would feel and think better if he got a few hours of rest. Plus, if he wanted me to investigate, I needed to clear his mind as much as possible.

  "I'll think about it," he agreed with a weary nod.

  "You said you had suspicions before Sophie's accident?" I prompted, moving him along from pondering all the what-ifs and hoping to keep his thoughts more ordered.

  "Yes. I can't say what particularly made me think there was something wrong but I guess lots of little things began to puzzle me before they all seemed to collide in my head at once, and now I've had nothing to do but think... well..." He sighed again.

  "Such as?"

  "Well, for one thing, Sophie rarely speaks about her life before me, before us. Things like her parents, where she grew up, her school, places she traveled, jobs. Barely anything beyond the basics. Right from when we first met, she always said she was future-focused, and liked to look forwards not backwards, which I thought was an attractive asset. It felt like such a positive, exciting way to look at life."

  "But you don't think so now?"

  "Oh, I still think it's a great way to focus on life, but... nothing from her past? Even her brother shuts down when I bring up something innocuous like a funny thing that happened at my senior prom, or the time my friends and I went to Cabo for spring break in my freshman year of college and I ask where did they go? Or discussing the dog I had as a kid and did they have any pets? Sophie barely replies. I guess I just thought I knew all about her. Now I can only wonder if I know anything."

  "You mentioned her brother?"

  "Yeah." Austen's face darkened and he drew a deep breath. "Zach Gallo. They're really close. I met him about three months after we started dating and..."

  "You don't like him," I filled in, sensing Austen was trying, no, struggling, to come up with something diplomatic to say.

  "No, I don't," he admitted. "I get they're close what with being the only family members they still have, but it's too much. He's always in Sophie's business. He speaks over her or for her. He makes decisions for her that he has no business making. I used to think it was heavy co-dependency that I hoped would improve after we got married, but it's still too much. Zach wanted me to turn part of the house into an annex so he and Sophie could be closer. I could tell Sophie didn't want that — she's been pulling away from him more than before in the last few months — but even though she came up with one excuse after another, he wouldn't accept it. When I refused, he flew into a rage, cursing us both, and even getting right into my face."

  "That seems a little over the top."

  "It was crazy. Any normal couple wants to start their married lives living alone. Just because we’ve been married a while and bought the house doesn’t change that!" Austen leaned back in the chair and crossed his legs, looking tired as he stifled a yawn. "I've seen him blow up at Sophie before and she just accepts it. I'll admit I strongly pushed us into buying the house we're renovating because I thought it would be a good project for us to share as a couple. I also wanted to put more distance from Zach and the apartment they rented downtown. I was surprised when Sophie so readily agreed."

  "You didn't think she would? It seems like she was on the same page as you?"

  "I thought she might want to stay closer to Zach, but yeah, turned out she was on the same page. We've been talking about starting a family and making that house our forever, family home. We didn't want to raise a family in my apartment. Even though Sophie never protested, I thought it was important for her to have her own home, and not feel like a guest in mine. I don't like Zach, I'll admit that, but I don't intend to cut them off from one another. I just wanted a little extra space for our life as a married couple, and later, for our family."

  "What did Sophie say about Zach's idea to include an annex?"

  "Privately, she agreed with me. She wanted more space too. She was excited about the new plans and decorating and making all the decisions. I'm not particularly interested in interior design although I like to have some input but Sophie is really creative. She loves art and she knows how to put things together, what colors work best to complement each other and things like that. I think Zach scares her sometimes, too much for her to say no to his face. So I told him. I don't mind being the bad guy in that scenario. I'm supposed to protect my wife."

  "How has their relationship been since that argument?"

  "Increasingly more arguments. It's been okay, mostly. Zach is still at the house quite often. He visits after work and sometimes spends his evenings with us, or Sophie when I'm not home. He just turns up and wanders in. It really annoys the work crew."

  "So he still comes over a lot despite your mutual decision that you didn't want him to."

  Austen nodded. "Way too much. He crosses boundaries too. I found him in my home office last week."

  I frowned. "What was he doing in there?"

  "That's what I asked. He said he was just looking for a pen but he had one in the pocket of his padded vest and I swear I closed my laptop when I left, but it was open. My laptop is password protected but I bet he tried to gain access."

  "Do you have any idea why?"

  "No, but we had a weird conversation about life insurance a couple weeks back. He asked me how much Sophie would get if I died."

  "Wow!"

  Austen blew out a breath. "Yeah."

  "I assume you weren't talking about the benefits of life insurance because he wanted a policy?"

  "No, far from it. Zach was talking about investments before the question popped out. I was surprised. He brushed it off and said he was only concerned for his sister since they didn't come from much but it seemed off." He glanced at Sophie. "Perhaps it was nothing. I'm here, I'm okay, and Sophie is the one who’s lying unconscious."

  "I'm sorry if this seems indelicate, but does Sophie have life insurance?"

  "Yes, she does. Before you ask, I'm the beneficiary but it's essentially just legalese. Crass as it sounds, I brought all the money into the relationship and So
phie brought all the happiness. Financially, if she died, I would receive what I already had. There's no financial motive to murder her, if that's what you're asking."

  "Do you have a pre-nup?" I asked.

  "I get why you're asking," said Austen, "and I'm not offended. Yes, perhaps that would give me a motive if I wanted to get rid of her without a divorce, but I can assure you I want my wife to stay alive and live well. We have a pre-nup that's airtight. My lawyers insisted on it but I gave Sophie the money to engage her own lawyer to keep it fair. I would never bulldoze her from a position of power. In short, Sophie wouldn't receive any payout until a minimum of five years of marriage unless children arrived. There isn't any codicil on having children, only a clause regarding the manner in which the marriage dissolved, if it did. I can send you the paperwork. So, you see, if I wanted out of our marriage right now, I could walk away absolutely fine. Financially and materially, I wouldn't lose a thing. I really don't harbor any motive to hurt my wife."

  I had to agree; it didn't sound like Austen stood to gain anything from his wife's demise. Even though it didn't offer me any answers as to why someone would want to hurt Sophie, it temporarily eliminated Austen as a suspect. If he didn't want to be married, he could easily get a divorce without losing anything. Of course, Sophie did suffer a horrible fall but the suspicious bleaching of the stairs threw a shadow over such a basic accident. There was another consideration I hadn't explored yet: would someone hurt Sophie in order to hurt Austen? He already established that he had money and power. Did someone envy that?

  "How did you two meet?" I asked.

  "At the theater. We both love Shakespeare and the theater in general, and we attended a fundraiser at The Playhouse. Sophie and I happened to be seated next to each other. I was alone and so was she so we got to talking. I previously bumped into a friend and his wife in the lobby and arranged to meet them at the bar for a drink afterwards. I asked Sophie to join us." Austen smiled. "I asked for her phone number and she told me if it were meant to be, fate would bring us together. Then she disappeared into the night. I thought I'd never see her again."