Back in college, I took a job as a secretary for a law firm’s process server to make ends meet. My boss was a retired police officer named Maurice Griggs, and he was very good at his job. After four years of working for him, I had a degree in criminal justice and just enough on-the-job experience to qualify for my own private investigator’s license. I decided against law school, and when I’d needed to run from my life in Seattle, Maurice stepped in and gave me a leg up out here in San Francisco. He called in favors and had old buddies send me their overflow business. I wouldn’t have made it that first year without Maurice’s help. I still send him cards on his birthday and Christmas. Maurice was like a father when I had no one.
The fax machine beeped, and I jumped in my chair. I looked around, smoothed my shirt, and resolved to pull my attention back to the paperwork. A few minutes later, I was staring out my office window again. My mind kept wandering back to that horrible day at the hospital.
In the afternoon, I kept appointments and meetings, hoping the daily grind would get my mind back in the groove, but everything reminded me of Summer. I kept missing parts of conversations. Finally, I gave up and went home.
Just when I though I couldn’t hurt any more, I delivered an unintentional blow.
At the end of the third day home, I tore apart my room looking for a spare memory card for the camera. I needed it for a stakeout. I rummaged through boxes and bins, cleared out junk drawers, and searched through wicker baskets. I pulled open the lid to the red lacquer box without thinking…and found the ring. My heart tore open again.
Jimmy had chosen a single, princess-cut stone. It sparkled like a fiery star. I took it out of the blue velvet box and ran my finger over the engraving on the band.
My One and Only.
He’d taken me to the top of a lighthouse on his family’s private beach in Washington. We’d watched the sunset from our perch.
I closed my eyes, almost felt the warm breeze again, and remembered what joy felt like. I remembered the look in his gorgeous eyes and the passion in his voice when he promised me his heart. Four years ago, I almost married James Samuel Corbeau. Jimmy.
My hand went to my stomach, and the ache of so much loss crashed over me; a wave of regret and pain that had never really pulled away after all this time. And then the anger surfaced; the unfairness and shame of everything that happened. I ground my jaw, closed my eyes, and willed myself not to fall. I’d barely clawed out of that pit. I wasn’t going back. No amount of prayer could lift me out a second time.
My cell phone rang and it yanked me back.
“I got something on the conference.” Salem said.
“Anything good?” I placed the ring back in its velvet cradle and closed the lid. I swallowed the lump in my throat, wiped the tears, and forced a smile even though Salem couldn’t see it. I didn’t want him to hear anything in my voice.
“OK, so I checked out Parker’s mini bio on the company website. He’s in charge of sales reps that cover the Pacific Northwest. Parker’s department monitors Washington state, Oregon and parts of Idaho. Colorado doesn’t even come up in connection with his name.”
“So he wasn’t there to meet with clients or sales staff. What about the conference angle? Corporate executives are always going to conferences.” I stepped into my home office, grabbed the notebook off the desk, and thumbed through the pages.
“Well, Veno Pharmaceuticals didn’t have any mention of a conference on their website or online employee newsletter.”
“Call their Human Resources Department and try to sell your services as a travel agent.”
“Uh, why?”
“Because a lonely Human Resource lady holed up in her storage room cubicle can be a goldmine of information. Offer your services as a travel agent, and when she declines just take some time to chat with her. She’ll want to brag about where she’s been or where she dreams of going. Just let her talk. Before you end the call, ask her in a roundabout way who your competition is. Nine times out of ten, she’ll tell you which company they use.”
“I don’t know if I could pull that off. What if she figures out I’m trying to get information from her?”
“Pretend you’re playing a part.”
“A part?”
“Yeah, like you’re acting out a part on stage. Make up a name and pretend you really are a travel agent cold calling for clients. You’ll be more believable if you put the effort in.”
“Uh, OK.” Salem sounded doubtful.
“I know you prefer computer searching but talking to people directly often gets you better results.” I let my head fall back on the couch and stared at the ceiling. Where did all those wispy cobweb strings come from?
“OK.”
“You’ll be fine.” I stood on the couch and swatted at the cobwebs with the notebook.
“Anything else?”
“If there wasn’t a conference, then we have to find out why Parker would be so far from his territory. He told Mona he’d been there for work. Either he’s lying, or we haven’t dug enough. What about the temp agency he uses?”
“What do you mean?”
“When executives go somewhere, they generally either loan out their temporary help to other execs, or they put the temp on hold ‘til they get back.”
“That’s rude,” Salem sniffed.
“Well, it saves money, and Summer once told me that it was more cost efficient to pay double the salary for a temp than to pay for benefits for a permanent employee. If Parker was going somewhere, he might have said something to his secretary’s agency.”
“I’ll check on that. I got her name when I called for an investment packet the other day.”
“We need to establish where he really was when Summer was attacked. Either he was in Colorado, or he was somewhere else and he doesn’t want anyone to know about it, or he was in Seattle attacking his wife.” I gave up on the cobwebs, sat back down on the couch, and made a note to check on Parker’s personal investments. That would be more risky.
“He could have hired somebody, or checked in at a hotel and then turned around and flown home.”
“That reminds me, Parker has a pilot’s license. If he flew himself, there’s a flight plan.”
“I’ll check that out. Are you coming into the office?”
“No, but I’ll watch Bower tonight. Finish up what you’re doing and take the rest of the night.” I glanced at my clock. It was almost six in the evening, and it was Friday.
“Seriously?”
“Yeah. Consider it a friendly gesture to your girlfriend.”
He was quiet for a couple of seconds. “Are you all right, Reyna?” He sounded worried.
“Right as rain,” I said. I slumped back onto the couch and blew a ringlet out of my eyes.
****
A few hours later, I drove to Bower’s house. He was due to leave for his cup-cake run. I decided to keep my car running, killed the headlights, and idled a block down from Bower’s house. I scratched out unlikely answers on a crossword puzzle to pass the time. Ten minutes went by and then Bower’s garage door rolled up. I checked my watch.
“Right on time.”
I waited until he passed and then pulled into traffic behind him. I kept in the right lane. My cell phone chirped, and I hit the button on the wireless receiver hooked around my ear.
“Yeah,” I answered, expecting Salem to sign off.
An ear-exploding sound burst from a canned horn, the kind people use at football games. I swerved, thrown off, and yanked the earpiece from my head. I righted the car and looked at the phone. The number was restricted. My heart hammered as I struggled to understand what had just happened. Something in my gut told me that this wasn’t just a random prank call, though most of the ones I had done seemed to take place during this time of night. I pulled the phone from the dashboard holder and dialed Salem. My hands shook and it made me mad. He sounded like I’d woken him up.
“What happened?”
“Someone just called me an
d blasted one of those canned-horn things in my ear.”
“What?”
“The number is restricted. Can you back search it?”
“I can probably find out who it was. Do you want me to come to the office?”
I heard his girlfriend in the background, and realized I interrupted his date. Should I really panic over a prank call? I felt foolish now.
“You know what, I shouldn’t have bothered you. This can wait.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah, I’m sure. I’ll talk to you in the morning.”
I hung up and stared out the windshield wondering why the whole thing gave me the creeps. I decided to drive directly to the bakery to see if I could catch up with Bower. I pulled to a stop across the street. The name of the bakery was Sweet Cheeks, a picture of a fat baby hung in the window. Something about the name ticked at the corner of my mind. I thought I remembered seeing a variation of the name somewhere in my notes.
Bower was already inside talking to the baker. He sat down at one of the tiny tables, ate a cupcake and drank a coffee, and walked out ten minutes later with a pink box of cupcakes. Nothing special, or particularly interesting, yet that name bugged me. I’d come across it before, but not in relation to the bakery. Bower left, and then my phone buzzed a text message. I glanced at it and froze.
Stay away from the Evans family. Don’t start what you can’t finish.
Summer’s last name had changed to Evans when she married Parker. No one was supposed to know I was investigating Parker at all. I’d tripped a flag.
I looked out the car windows instinctively and the hair on my arms rose. Whoever sent that message might be watching me this very moment. I would have appreciated the irony had I not been so freaked out. I scrolled down, looking for the phone number. Restricted again. Then I noticed that Bower had already left. I let him go. I was done for tonight.
“How did Parker find out what I was doing?” I asked the empty car.
I had summoned all of Parker’s free information on my office computer. I’d searched his local, state, and federal records using a standard info-search program I always used. Nothing should have come back to me, at least not yet. I hadn’t tried to get anything confidential. I hadn’t questioned anyone in his offices or in his circle of friends. I hadn’t even talked to his secretary. I hadn’t really done anything. If I was getting warnings already…then maybe Parker did have something to hide.
I thought about calling Jimmy and telling him about the phone call and the text message but decided to sleep on it instead. I knew he wouldn’t take the warning as a sign to keep digging, like I had. He’d use it as a reason to leave things alone. That I couldn’t do. The more I thought about Summer’s death, the more I realized how convenient it was for Parker, how much he had to gain from it, and how much he would have lost if Summer divorced him. Thinking about it made my stomach burn. First thing in the morning I was going to really tear this thing apart.
Purple Knot
10
In retrospect, I should have been more concerned that whoever warned me away from investigating Parker had found my unlisted phone number. I was so preoccupied with finding the Sweet Cheeks reference and working for the fidgety client that it just didn’t register.
I spent the whole day helping Salem check Colorado private airports for Parker’s flight log. Nothing turned up. Wherever he was, he hadn’t flown himself there. By late afternoon I headed out to spy on a bride-to-be for her father-in-law. The office phone rang, and I glared at it. The client was driving me bonkers. I often did process serving work for his law firm, but a few days ago he’d approached me on a personal matter. Wanting to maintain a good working relationship I’d accepted, despite reservations.
“Mr. Cutler. How can I help you?”
Warren Cutler’s nasal whine vibrated through the phone. He was in a mood again.
“I really need an update. I mean, the date is coming up soon. I’ve already given a deposit. I need to know if this is happening, Ms. Cruz.”
“Mr. Cutler, I was just about to call you. I have all the information you need.”
“Really? Already?”
He seemed suspicious. Understandable, given my retainer and fee.
“Yes. As you know, I don’t discuss cases over the phone. I can deliver the report to you today at your office, or I can email you a security code and you can check on your case with a computer.”
He audibly harrumphed. Cutler was very old school.
“No, no computers. I hate those things.”
“OK, then I can deliver a paper report in an hour.”
“Yes, that would be fine. Is it good news?”
He tried to wheedle more information, but I had the rule for a reason. A former client’s wife had overheard a conversation with a client and emptied out his accounts before he had the pictures of her affair.
“It’s all in the report, Mr. Cutler.”
“Oh, all right. I’ll see you shortly,” he said irritably and hung up.
I could understand his anxiety. Warren Cutler’s son was engaged to a lovely girl named Susan Hicks. He’d just announced it a week ago. Their wedding date was in three weeks. Cutler had never met, nor heard about the girl until the announcement, and he freaked out. He wanted information, fast. She wasn’t just unknown, she was apparently very needy. She’d already needed several thousands of dollars worth of “help” from his son’s trust fund to get her through the month.
After a day’s work, to my utter astonishment, Susan Hicks turned out to be a former nun. She ran a halfway house for teens coming off the street and out of rehab. The help she needed from Cutler’s son had been a donation to fix flood damage. I still had a few more things coming in on her, but her requests for money seemed to be on behalf of runaways and abandoned kids. I felt both ashamed for spying and happy that I knew about her.
I dropped the report off at Cutler’s offices and then grabbed a coffee and sandwich at the café across the street from my building. The phone chirped. Jimmy. I turned the phone over and stared at it while I chewed on a thumbnail. It was three days and I still hadn’t actually talked to Jimmy. The only time I did call I used the number to his office at the law firm. They told me, predictably, that he was out. I left a voicemail on his office phone.
I rubbed my eyes. What was I doing? I had to talk to him sometime; it was just when I heard his voice, I missed him so desperately I couldn’t breathe. When I decided to move away from Seattle, I moved away from Jimmy, too. My heart had to stay here. It had to. I couldn’t lose myself in him again. I barely survived the first time.
I sipped coffee and watched a parcel truck pull up to my building. The delivery guy’s name was John, and his wife just had twins. I smiled. He pulled a long rectangular box out of the back and walked into the lobby. I wondered what the computer geeks on the floor below me had ordered this time. Last month they’d installed a thumping sound system for their break room. I now had party music blasting from below when I met with clients. I made a mental note to talk to the owner, Skippy, or whatever his name was. John came back out, jumped in his truck, and pulled away. I went back to staring at the offending phone. I navigated voicemail and listened to Jimmy’s message.
“Hey, Rain. I wanted to see how you were holding up.”
He sounded reserved. His Louisiana drawl always got thicker when he was tired. I heard papers rustling. He must be at his office. Jimmy practiced environmental law as a partner at the firm in Seattle. He loved the outdoors, particularly the woods. He lived on the twenty-thousand acre animal preserve his family owned. Still, Jimmy used his law degree on occasion to manage his family’s estate. One wouldn’t know it to look at him. Jimmy kept his worlds very separate.
“Also, Parker’s lawyer called me. He was trying to get hold of you for the deposition on Tuesday. I talked to our lawyer, Bennet, and he said you do have to come here to meet with them. So, there’s that. Also, they’re going to read Summer’s will on Wednesday. I don’
t know if you want to be there.”
He hesitated, and then I heard him sigh heavily.
“Listen. I’m going to give you Bennet’s number so you can deal with him directly. I don’t want to keep bugging you while you’re trying to work.”
He rattled off a couple of phone numbers and hung up. My stomach tightened. I was hurting him by avoiding him, and I needed to stop. I dialed his cell phone and waited through the rings with butterflies in my stomach. When I heard his voice, my heart leapt.
“Well, hello there.”
“Hi Jimmy. I’m sorry I’ve been out of touch these past few days.” I tried to keep my voice from going sonic like it did when I was holding back tears.
“That’s all right, Rain. I understand.” He sounded like he really didn’t understand. He sounded like he did whenever I pulled away from him.
“How are you doing, Jimmy? How’s Mona getting along?”
“She went to visit the baby at Parker’s mother’s house yesterday.”
“Oh, that’s great.”
She’d probably had no problem siding with a family that was bent on destroying me. Gleeful, probably, to provide them with ample examples from my youth of how terrible I was. Sadly, she wouldn’t have to lie.
“Yeah, they named her Autumn. She has Summer’s eyes. Mona showed me a picture.” He sounded horrible and alone. I wanted to reach through the phone and kiss his eyelids like I used to when he was sad.
“Oh, Jimmy, I’m so sorry about all of this.”
“I’m worried about you. How are you dealing with all of this?”
I shrugged even though he couldn’t see me do it. Frankly, being away from all of it was probably easier. “She pops into my mind all the time. The other day I saw some kid eating bubblegum ice cream, and I nearly lost it. Remember she was obsessed with that stuff one year?”
Purple Knot Page 5