Payback

by Jasmine Cresswell

  Paul spluttered and then subsided into silence, helping himself to another cup of tea, apparently in the hope that drinking something would help to wash the bad taste from his mouth.

  “We’re getting off the subject of George Klein’s murder.” Kate rubbed between her eyes, where a splitting headache had begun to throb. “I don’t see what motive my father…” She stumbled over the word father and then forced herself to continue. “I don’t see what motive he had to murder George Klein.”

  “To stop you looking for your father,” Avery said promptly. “Or at least to increase the chance that you wouldn’t find him.”

  “There are dozens of private investigators in Chicago, maybe hundreds. Getting rid of George Klein wouldn’t stop us looking for my father.”

  “That’s true and Ron would have to realize that, I suppose.” Avery appeared a little more cheerful at the thought.

  “Absolutely.” Luke nodded his agreement. “Ron couldn’t have guessed that Kate and I would decide to pursue him ourselves, but he would have to realize that taking George out of the picture wouldn’t stop the investigation. Obviously, we’d hire somebody else. Ron could hope that the new investigator wouldn’t be as experienced and hardworking as George, but he would have known we wouldn’t select anyone flat-out incompetent. Anything George discovered, his successor was likely to uncover, too, sooner or later.”

  “Exactly,” Paul said. “Let’s not have our imaginations run away with us here. The police suspect random robbery was the motive for George Klein’s murder, and there’s every reason to assume they’re right. Ron may be a really unpleasant man, but there are no grounds for us to attribute such a heinous crime to him.”

  To Kate’s surprise, her mother didn’t seem willing to abandon her suspicions. “What if George Klein had already found out something important about Ron? Something Ron couldn’t afford to have reported to us.”

  “How would my father even know what George discovered?” Kate asked. “How would Ron manage to stay hidden from us, negotiate deals with five companies and still find a way to fly to Chicago to murder George? It’s impossible. Or darn near it, anyway.”

  “Besides, killing George wouldn’t keep the secret,” Luke interjected. “Ron would be going to all that trouble for nothing. If George could discover something, presumably any other investigator could discover the same thing.”

  “But not until several days later,” Avery persisted. “Maybe Mr. Klein discovered something Ron desperately needed to keep quiet just for a few days. Killing George Klein would buy time, even if Ron realized we’d immediately hire somebody else.”

  “But this speculation is silly because we know George hadn’t discovered anything important,” Paul pointed out. “He’d sent me his report, remember? I showed you the memo. He was coming back to Chicago on Friday night precisely because he needed fresh instructions. And in the end, because George was dead, Kate and Luke decided to investigate personally. And they turned up more information than George, the so-called professional whiz kid. So if Ron killed George Klein in order to stop our investigation in its tracks, he sure didn’t succeed!”

  “That’s true.” Color finally returned to Avery’s cheeks. “And Ron would realize that with e-mail and cell phones, Mr. Klein would report anything important the moment he discovered it. Which, I suppose, leaves Ron with no motive to get rid of George Klein.”

  “None that I can think of,” Luke said. “I’m a hundred percent in favor of taking Ron’s threats against Kate seriously. We’d be fools to ignore the possibility that he might be capable of murder. Still, let’s not pin crimes on him just for the hell of it.”

  “I’m with you, one hundred percent,” Paul said. “Stop torturing yourself, Avery. George Klein’s murder is tragic and we’re all sorry for his family, but it’s got nothing to do with Ron.”

  “I hope you’re both correct.” Avery shrugged. “The truth is, I no longer trust coincidences where Ron is concerned. I spent too many years believing his excuses when I should have questioned every one of them. I guess I’ve moved from naive belief into a state of permanent doubt.” She gave a small, rueful smile. “I obviously need to work on finding a spot somewhere in the happy middle between credulity and constant suspicion.”

  “I see you looking at your watch,” Paul said to Luke, clearly deciding the discussion of George Klein’s murder had already wasted too much time. “You need to get out of here and I do, too. Can we agree on our plans for Friday afternoon? I’m flying out of here tomorrow afternoon. I need to be in Denver on Thursday and my meetings are likely to run all day. I’ll catch the last flight out of Denver International back to Washington and probably spend the night at a hotel near Dulles airport. That leaves me all morning to rent a car and drive to Focus Health. Are all three of you going to fly to Virginia and join me in our attempt to confront Ron and force him to admit what he’s done?”

  “I wouldn’t miss it,” Avery said grimly.

  “Absolutely, I want to be there,” Luke said.

  “And me.” Kate turned to look at her mother. “The three of us will fly together, right, Mom? Luke?”

  “I’d like that,” Avery said. “Airports are such miserable places these days. Companionship helps.”

  “We just need to agree on a place to meet up with you in Virginia, Uncle Paul.”

  “We also need to agree on exactly what we’re going to do when Ron turns up in the parking lot of Focus Health,” Luke said. “We’ve come this far. We sure don’t want to blow it at the last minute. Based on my experience at Bruno’s restaurant, if Ron catches so much as a glimpse of us, he’s going to get straight back into his car and drive away like a bat out of hell.”

  “Very true.” Paul nodded. “We should all check out the location for Focus Health on MapQuest, and then we can e-mail each other with suggestions about precisely where we should get together. Some nearby coffee shop would be ideal. As you point out, Luke, at a minimum we need to make sure Ron can’t just drive off the moment he catches sight of us.”

  “If Focus Health has a lobby, maybe we need to wait inside?” Kate suggested. “Then Dad wouldn’t see us until it’s too late.”

  “Yes, once he’s inside, he can’t run back to his car,” Paul agreed. “At least not so easily. However, we can’t finalize anything until we see exactly how the parking lot around Focus Health is configured.”

  “How does one-fifteen sound for our get-together?” Luke asked. “Even if Ron arrives a bit early for his meeting, that gives us at least an hour to make sure we all know exactly what we’re going to do when we see him drive up.”

  “Right now, it seems almost too easy,” Avery said, and Kate silently agreed. “He’s avoided us for so long. Is it really going to be this simple to catch him?”

  “Knock on wood, it is.” Paul rapped the nearby table. “Let’s start praying that the reality turns out to be as easy as the planning.”

  Twenty-Three

  October 25, 2007

  “I t was a very smart move on my part to come over right at cocktail time.” Avery settled into the chair across from Kate and sampled one of Luke’s famous mushroom caps, stuffed with artichokes and sun-dried tomato pesto and topped with pecorino cheese. “These are yummy. When on earth did Luke have time to make them with all that’s been going on around here?”

  “He brought them home from the restaurant last night.” Kate uncorked a bottle of wine and lifted two glasses down from the cupboard next to the fridge without needing to stop and think where the wineglasses were kept. She’d spent so much time in Luke’s condo when they were dating the first time around that moving in with him yesterday had felt almost like a homecoming.

  “How fortunate for me.” Avery took another luxurious bite of mushroom. “Really, from my point of view, you and Luke make the perfect couple. He’s the best cook I’ve ever met and you’re the best baker. It’s a killer combo. The only problem I see is that the two of you are never home at the same time to enjoy ea
ch other’s cooking.”

  Kate laughed and handed her mother a glass of wine. “Mom, you’re usually more subtle than that. Are you asking me if Luke and I are dating again?”

  “Oh, no, dear.” Avery gave a bland smile. “It’s perfectly obvious that the two of you are dating—if that’s the current euphemism for having wildly satisfying sex. What I’m curious about is whether the two of you can make your relationship work long-term this time around. When you were apart from him this summer it was a little hard for a mother to watch. I’d hate to think of you going through that much grief again.”

  “We’re pretty sure we can make it work this time.” Kate sat down cross-legged on the sofa. “We love each other and we understand what went wrong before, so now I guess we just have to straighten out the logistics.”

  “It seems a bit ridiculous for me to offer advice on relationships, given the muddle I’ve made of my life thus far, but I can’t resist offering some anyway. Luke is a good man, Kate, a keeper. Find a way to make the logistics work.”

  “Advice noted.” Kate reached for her wine. “I’m glad you like him, Mom. He’s a really great guy.”

  “To be honest, I was sad when you broke up. Not just for you, but because I enjoy his company. He’s smart and fun to be around. Best of all, my integrity meter, which is very sensitive these days, continues to register high on the approval scale.”

  “Mine, too.” Kate raised her wineglass in an affectionate salute. “Okay, Mom, before you can ask me a ton of questions I don’t want to answer, let’s change the subject from my love life. Do you want to stay and veg out with a movie? I was thinking about eating popcorn for dinner and watching Hocus Pocus. With Halloween just around the corner, a story about witches seems appropriate.”

  “Normally, I’d be thrilled to stay, but not tonight. I have to go shopping for a couple of Halloween costumes before we leave for Virginia tomorrow. I volunteered to help out at the homeless shelter next week, and their supply of costumes is sadly depleted, especially for the boys.”

  “What are this year’s hot-ticket items?” Kate asked, smiling. “Spider-Man? Batman?”

  Avery gave an airy wave of her hand. “Those are both so yesterday, my dear. This year the Pirates of the Caribbean are totally cool, and the X-Men still have some devoted followers. There’s one little boy at the shelter who has bright red hair and freckles and, truth be told, is a tad on the pudgy side, but he’s determined to be Wolverine on Halloween night. Because, he informed me, he’s a cool dude who looks exactly like Hugh Jackman!”

  Kate laughed. “Little boys pretending they’re superheroes are very cute.”

  “Yes, they are. It only gets annoying when they refuse to grow up and accept they’re never going to be Johnny Depp or Hugh Jackman, so they’d better learn to make the most of the person they actually are.”

  A frisson of alarm ran down Kate’s spine, but as soon as she tried to identify what had bothered her, the alarm dissipated, leaving her with nothing to track. Why in the world had her mother’s comment concerning men refusing to grow up generated an itch in her subconscious? What the hell was bothering her? There was something about her father’s attack lurking just on the horizon of her peripheral vision, but it wouldn’t come into focus, and every time she reached for it, it danced out of sight. The occasional, distorted glimpses were driving her crazy.

  “Kate, honey, are you okay?”

  “Yes, of course. I was just remembering the Halloween when Dad took me trick-or-treating and I dropped my entire sack of candy.” She pulled the memory out of nowhere, simply to have something to say to her mother, but suddenly she had a vivid mental image of her father, down on his hands and knees, helping her rescue Snickers bars and Tootsie Rolls from the sidewalk. He had laughed and joked as they chased errant candies, doing a silly little happy dance when they managed to capture most of them before they could land in the gutter. How in the world had that father—that affectionate father—turned into a monster who whispered death threats in the middle of the night? She couldn’t draw a line to connect the two radically different mental images.

  “I remember that Halloween.” Avery’s smile was wistful. “We had some good times with your father over the years, didn’t we? Sometimes, though, I wonder if I’m just inventing all the happy memories, or at least polishing past reality out of all recognition.”

  “You’re not inventing the memories,” Kate said quietly. “There were good times and plenty of them. That’s what makes me so sad when I think about Dad now. He’s definitely one of those larger-than-life people and he was a lot of fun to be with when I was growing up. He wasn’t a bad father—an absent one, maybe, but not a bad one.”

  “Well, before we drown in nostalgia for a man who betrayed both of us, let me get to the point of my visit.” Avery spoke with unusual tartness directed, Kate suspected, entirely at herself. “What I really came over for was to let you know that I talked at length with Adam yesterday, filling him in on the details of your father’s latest threats. Adam was furious with Ron, of course, and asked me to pass on an invitation to come and stay with him and Megan in Georgia. I told him I was sure you’d be grateful for the offer, but we had you well protected here.”

  Kate nodded. “I appreciate the invitation, but I don’t believe it would be any safer with Adam and Megan than it is here. I’d expose the two of them to unnecessary danger, and presumably Dad could track me in a small town even more easily than in a big city like Chicago.”

  “I agree.” Avery nodded. “Speaking of tracking, that’s something I’ve been puzzling over since you got back from Virginia. How in the world does Ron manage to monitor your movements so closely? How did he know you were in Herndon over the weekend? How did he know you had returned to Chicago on Monday evening? He must have a hundred other balls he’s keeping in the air right now and yet he can keep tabs on you—almost to the minute, apparently.”

  “He’s got years of experience in juggling multiple deceptions at the same time,” Kate said acidly. “We’re watching a master at work.”

  “Still, following someone is labor-intensive and energy-consuming.” Avery smiled faintly. “At least according to the cop shows on TV.”

  “Presumably he’s not trailing me in person. There are a ton of private investigators out there who are nowhere near as decent as George Klein was. Actually, come to think of it, Dad doesn’t even need to hire someone with dubious ethics. He’s so brilliant at spinning credible lies, he’s capable of persuading anyone he hires that world peace will collapse into nuclear disaster unless I’m under constant surveillance.”

  Avery nodded in reluctant agreement. “Have you and Luke noticed anyone following you?”

  Kate shook her head. “Not a twitch of a sign, although Luke is convinced that Dad must somehow have tracked us through our rental car. We know he isn’t using an electronic monitoring chip attached to our shoes, or clothing, or anything high tech like that.”

  “Good Lord, such an idea never even occurred to me!”

  “Nor to us, at least not at first.” Kate smiled ruefully. “Fortunately Luke’s friend, Seth, is so paranoid about all the high-tech-surveillance possibilities that he insisted on checking us out before we left his office on Monday. We were squeaky clean, both of us. On top of that, Seth suggested Dad might be tracking our rental car with a GPS device attached to the bumper or the wheel rim, but we couldn’t find anything.” Kate shrugged. “I admit I don’t understand how Dad is tracking me. Still, the bottom line is that he knew I was back in Chicago on Monday night, which means he’s found some way to keep tabs on us.”

  Avery fell silent for a moment, but then pulled herself out of her reverie with a brisk shake. “Well, there’s much more to report from my conversation with Adam. I thought you’d be interested to know that as soon as he saw those sheets of paper with the names of Mayan gods as headers, Adam had a theory about what they might mean.”

  “He did?” Kate sat up straighter on the couch. �
�I’m fascinated to hear it. Since he and Megan have actually been in Belize, their theory is a lot more likely to be correct than anything we could come up with.” She smiled ruefully. “Not that we came up with anything even halfway coherent. The best I could do was to guess Dad might be smuggling valuable ancient artwork out of Belize.”

  “I think you’ll like Adam’s theory better, since it paints your father in a more flattering light. Although, there’s no light flattering enough to obliterate the shadows cast by his threats to you.”

  “I’m not letting his threats depress me.” Kate shrugged. “I’ve decided to go with Uncle Paul’s theory that my father intends to scare me, not to kill me.”

  “I admire your ability to look on the bright side, provided you never let down your guard. Don’t put yourself in danger, Kate, because you’d prefer not to think ill of your father.”

  “Don’t worry, Mom. I’m a lot less vulnerable than Dad imagines. His threats make me sad, but they don’t frighten me nearly as much as he seems to think they will.”

  “I’m happy to hear it.” Avery leaned forward and squeezed Kate’s hand. “You always were incredibly strong and purposeful, even as a child. I’m so proud of you, Kate. You know that, don’t you?”

  “The feeling is definitely mutual,” Kate said, resisting the urge to drop her gaze and change the subject. The Fairfaxes were so inhibited it was almost laughable, and she’d inherited her full share of repressive genes. Avoiding confrontation in a family could be a good thing, but she’d come to realize over the past six months that her father would never have been able to get away with his lies if she and her mother had occasionally forced an honest conversation and to hell with the fallout. Instead, they’d behaved as if the main goal of human life was never to let anyone know what you truly felt. Perhaps they shouldn’t be surprised that they’d ended up paying a high price for years of silence and unasked questions.