Payback

by Jasmine Cresswell

  “It’s possible,” Luke conceded. “When you think about it from Paul’s point of view, the phone call required almost no effort on his part and the payoff was potentially huge if he succeeded in scaring you off. He could have placed the call from any phone, anywhere in the country, and the chances of the call being traced back to him are close to zero.”

  “And if there’s no way we could prove he was responsible for placing the call, it was a very low-risk proposition for him.”

  “But the invasion of your home was a lot riskier. If you’d recognized him, Kate, it would have been a disaster for Paul. There are lengthy prison sentences waiting for men who tie women up and whisper death threats.”

  “He wasn’t running as much of a risk as you might think,” Kate disagreed. “He knows my neighborhood, he knows the house and he knows I go to bed quite early. He would have known the best place to park his car so that it wasn’t noticed, and if the lights had been on in my room, I guess he wouldn’t have come upstairs. Presumably he wasn’t carrying any sort of weapon. Even if I’d woken up and seen him, he’d have been able to invent dozens of at least semiplausible excuses for being at my house. In fact, the more I think about this from Paul’s point of view, his attack on Monday night makes perfect sense—it was low risk for him and devastating for me.”

  Luke raised her hands to his face and pressed her palms against his cheeks. “Except that Paul seriously underestimated you. Instead of causing you to back off, his attacks made you more determined than ever to find Ron.”

  “Paul never was very good at judging character.” Kate yawned and plopped onto the bed. The rush of adrenaline that had kept her going was fading fast, and she was suddenly almost falling-down tired. “Finding Dad seemed easier when we thought he was the only bad guy we had to deal with. Have you by any chance noticed, Luke, that if we do get married, you’ll be infiltrating yourself into a family of crooks?”

  He laughed. “No, I hadn’t considered that.”

  “Maybe you should.”

  “Maybe. And then in exchange I’ll open a few of the Savarini closets and show you some of our family skeletons. We have our fair share, you know.”

  “Nothing that comes close to my father, I’m guessing. Or dear old Uncle Paul.”

  “I’m not so sure of that. I have a couple of cousins who are definite contenders. They were animal rights activists who kept sneaking into college science departments and—quote—liberating all the oppressed animals. Unfortunately, on their last excursion they liberated a saw-scaled viper, one of the most poisonous snakes in the entire world. It bit a lab assistant, who died before anyone could administer antivenin.”

  “Oh my God.”

  “Yep, that’s what all three hundred or so Savarini cousins said when we heard the story. The Morons, as they’re not-so-affectionately known within the family, are currently serving time for second-degree murder. So don’t think you have a premium on crazy relatives.”

  She looked at Luke, her heart melting with love. “Thank you,” she said softly.

  He squished the tip of her nose. “For what?”

  “You know for what. For making me feel that I’m not the weirdest person in the world to have Ron Raven and Paul Fairfax as members of my family.”

  “You’ll need to come up with a much better excuse than horrible relatives if you want to avoid marrying me.” He tugged her backward and she tumbled against the pillows, her head ending up very conveniently on his shoulder.

  “We could talk some more about Uncle Paul,” he said, turning toward her. “Or we could make love and worry about Uncle Paul tomorrow.”

  She sighed, forcing herself to be sensible. “We need to discuss what we’re going to do. Paul must be planning to sabotage our arrangements to meet up with my father—”

  “We have an entire flight to Washington, D.C., with nothing to do except discuss our options.” Luke leaned down so that he could kiss her. “Puff votes for making love,” he murmured, his lips almost touching her. “So do I, and that makes two against one. Besides, Puff is a very powerful dragon, and you’d be smart to surrender to his command. His revenge could be terrible.”

  Kate surrendered. Only a fool would argue with a dragon.

  Twenty-Five

  October 26, 2007

  A very stared at the busy airport scene around her without actually seeing any of it. Listening to Kate, she struggled to absorb the latest twist in the nightmare that had started to unfold on the day Ron disappeared and had ever since staggered with drunken exuberance from one incredible event to the next.

  Sadly, Kate’s accusations against Paul were distressingly easy to believe, for more reasons than Kate knew. A couple of weeks ago, when it had become clear that Ron was more likely to be alive than dead, Avery had felt an overwhelming compulsion to organize her life. She’d worked on refurbishing her new home with manic energy, as if to make sure that she had a secure new nest before Ron exploded back into her life. Then at night, when she was too exhausted to scrub and clean and sew any longer, she’d hauled out boxes of neglected bank documents, legal notices and IRS forms, determined to take charge of her finances once and for all.

  For once, she’d cut Paul out of the loop, not telling him what she was doing and certainly not turning to him every time she didn’t instantly understand a document. It was way past time, she had realized, to stop relying on her brother and take full responsibility for both the nitty-gritty details and the big picture.

  Her search through her financial records had been enlightening, to say the least. For over a week now, she had known that the mysterious three-million-dollar mortgage on her penthouse had actually been taken out by her brother and not by Ron. That mortgage alone, with its accompanying forged signatures and falsified documents, provided Paul with three million good reasons to prevent her meeting with Ron.

  But there was another, much darker cloud looming on the Fairfax family horizon, and that was the death of George Klein. After twenty-seven years of believing Ron’s lies, and accepting strings of coincidences as part of the natural fabric of life, in the wake of his disappearance Avery had switched mental gears and become a complete skeptic. George Klein’s death fell slap-bang into the middle of her new skepticism.

  For several days, she’d suspected Ron of being the murderer. Then Kate and Luke had convinced her that Ron wasn’t responsible. But as she heard her daughter recount the list of Paul’s horrific acts, her old suspicions returned in new form. It occurred to Avery that her brother had not only known precisely when George would be arriving at O’Hare airport, he also might have reasons for wanting the detective to die. According to her brother, one of the best detectives in the state of Illinois had uncovered nothing of interest about Ron Raven during three days of intensive investigation. And yet Kate and Luke, with no special training, had managed to find Ron’s latest address within a couple of hours of arriving in Virginia. Had George Klein been incredibly careless? Had her daughter been incredibly lucky? It seemed to Avery that a more likely explanation was simply that her brother had lied. George Klein had been making his reports directly to her brother. Who knew what he’d really said? It seemed quite possible that he’d reported information Paul didn’t want pursued and her brother had doctored those reports before passing them on. Was her brother capable of killing a man with no better reason than the need to silence him and put an end to a crucial investigation?

  Avery shied away from answering that question. Still, she was convinced the motive existed. There was no way Paul could have foreseen that Kate and Luke would immediately take up where George had left off, and Paul certainly couldn’t have guessed two amateurs, better known for their creativity than their logic, would be so successful in their endeavors. If her brother had merely wanted to shut down the investigation of Ron’s whereabouts for a few days so that he could get to Ron first, killing George Klein would have seemed to be a clear route to success. Hence her brother’s frantic efforts to scare Kate off by making thre
ats while pretending to be Ron.

  Aware that she teetered dangerously close to hysteria, Avery quelled a gurgle of inappropriate laughter. She wondered if it was worth suspecting that your brother was a vicious criminal if the reward was to learn that your bigamous husband had no plans to murder your daughter. The answer in her case seemed to be yes. Now that the terrible suspicion against Ron was lifted, she recognized what a heavy weight of guilt and depression it had imposed. She no longer loved Ron—his betrayals had been too many and too deep—but it was a huge relief to know that she had merely been blind and credulous during the decades they spent together, as opposed to utterly and totally moronic. Ron was undoubtedly an unfaithful rogue. That, thank God, was several steps up from being a cruel, murdering psychopath.

  Avery brought her full attention back to her daughter. “We’re sure Paul must have some plan up his sleeve to disrupt our meeting with Dad,” Kate was saying. “Luke and I have tried to second-guess what he’s intending to do, but we’re coming up empty. There are three of us, four counting Ellie Raven, and only one of him. How in the world does he expect to keep us away from Dad?”

  “Paul doesn’t know Ellie will be in Virginia,” Avery said, her thoughts still a little scattered. “I haven’t spoken to him since she decided to make the trip. I’ve no idea if that would affect anything he might be planning.”

  “Even so, even if he doesn’t know about Ellie, he knows it’s at least three against one,” Kate said. “How is he expecting to get around that?”

  “Paul has no clue we’ve uncovered what he’s been up to,” Luke added. “That might be important. Considering how much trouble he’s taken to divert our attention away from him, presumably he’s anxious to keep up the facade of good friend and loving family member.”

  “Is it important to know precisely what Paul is planning?” Avery made an apologetic gesture. “I’m sorry, Kate, your revelations this morning were so unexpected, it’s taking me a while to grasp the consequences and pitfalls.”

  “Yes, I think it’s important,” Kate said. “We need to have some inkling of how Paul intends to prevent us meeting with Dad. If we’re totally unprepared, anything could happen.”

  “And there’s an excellent chance Ron will take advantage of the confusion and disappear, never to be seen again.” Luke looked as grim as he sounded. “We’re not going to get two chances with Ron, that’s a certainty, so we need to get this right.”

  “We considered calling Paul and telling him we know he’s the person who attacked me. He would probably answer his cell phone if we called, since there’s no reason at the moment for him to be suspicious of us.” Kate had folded and refolded her boarding pass so many times that it was in danger of shredding. When she saw what she’d done, she put the pass in her pocket and linked her hands in her lap. It took a visible effort for her to keep them there.

  “The trouble is, we don’t know if telling him what we know would inspire Paul to retreat or to attack. I keep remembering what he said on Monday night when he was pretending to be my father. He begged me not to push him into a corner. If I did, he threatened to behave like any other cornered animal and lash out. I’m afraid he may have been expressing his own feelings under the guise of impersonating Dad.” Her voice dropped. “I’m really afraid that if Paul lashes out, someone will get hurt. Badly hurt.”

  The solution to the problem of what her brother planned to do seemed so clear cut to Avery that she decided she must have missed something. Which wouldn’t be surprising given the current jumbled state of her brain, she reflected with rueful self-mockery.

  “Let me see if I have everything straight,” she said, ticking off her thoughts on her fingers. “My brother probably never believed that Ron was dead, and he’s been searching for Ron for several months now. However, my brother had no success in smoking Ron out of hiding. Then Luke spotted Ron by sheer chance at his cousin’s restaurant. The minute that happened, Paul was left with a double problem—he still desperately needed to make contact with Ron, but he wanted to find him first, without any of us around. For some reason, undoubtedly money related, he’s so anxious to stop us talking to Ron that he faked a threatening phone call and invaded your home on Monday night, Kate, in the hope that he could terrorize you into backing off from the hunt for your father. Have I got everything right so far?”

  “Well, you’ve done a grand job of explaining our theory of what’s going on,” Kate said wryly. “Unfortunately, we have no proof for any of this.”

  “Leaving aside the question of proof, that brings us to right now, this morning. Our flight, knock on wood, is currently scheduled to depart on time, and we’ll be landing in Dulles airport around eleven. Meanwhile, if Paul stuck to the schedule he told us about, he flew into Dulles airport last night from Colorado. He doesn’t know this, but Ellie Raven is already in Virginia and I have her cell phone number, so we can talk to her if need be. Coming from Wyoming, there was no way for her to arrive at Focus Health by two-thirty unless she flew in yesterday.”

  “Mom, they’re going to be calling our flight at any moment. Are these scheduling details important?”

  “Yes, as it happens, I think they are. Very important. Bear with me a little longer. Paul has arranged for all of us to meet at a place called Lucinda’s Café, about two miles up the road from Focus Health. Lucinda’s Café exists, because we all checked it out on the Internet. Given all those facts, how is Paul going to stop us meeting up with Ron? He can’t prevent us catching our plane—we’re here and we’re going to board. He can’t prevent us renting a car at Dulles airport, or driving to Focus Health. Even if he was willing to risk injuring us, he can’t plan any unfortunate ‘accidents’ because he’s not in a position to make them happen.”

  “So what the hell is he going to do?” Luke demanded.

  Avery spoke with a calm she didn’t entirely feel. “He’s going to change the time of Ron’s meeting at Focus Health, of course. When we all get there at two-thirty, Ron will already have gone.”

  “Oh, my God,” Luke said. “Shit…I mean, shoot, that’s so simple. Why the hell didn’t I think of it?”

  Visibly stunned, Kate didn’t say anything for several seconds, at which point the counter clerk announced that the flight for Washington’s Dulles airport was now boarding. “How could Paul change the time of the meeting?” Kate demanded, scrambling to her feet. “In the first place, we have no current phone number for Dad, so we have no idea how to reach him. And second, the reason we went through Focus Health was precisely so that Dad wouldn’t become suspicious. Paul can’t just call and demand that Dad should arrive two hours early. It’s a dead giveaway.”

  “We’ll be lucky if Paul only moves the meeting up by a couple of hours,” Avery said bleakly. “We’d have a slight chance of getting there if that’s the case. As for how my brother can change the meeting schedule…Well, obviously he won’t phone Ron himself. He’ll get Focus Health to make the call.”

  “How will he do that, for gosh sake?”

  Avery shrugged. “He just has to invent some persuasive tale for the Focus Health people. Remember, he has all Ron’s files and notes on the company. He can read through those and come up with something convincing, I’m sure.” Avery joined Kate and Luke in the line of passengers waiting to board. “I may not have the details precisely right, but I’m sure the general theory is correct. There’s no other way for Paul to prevent us seeing Ron, so he has to find a way to make this work.”

  Conversation was impossible as they filed onto the plane, but the few minutes of forced preoccupation with mundane matters like finding their seats and stowing their three small carry-on bags provided Avery with just enough time to realize there was only one sure way to thwart any plan Paul might have to kidnap Ron before any other members of the family could arrive. The moment they were seated, she pulled out her cell phone, quickly scanning the list of phone numbers.

  “What’s up, Mom?” Kate searched for the ends of her seat belt. “Who ar
e you calling?”

  “I can’t explain. No time. They’re going to tell us to turn off our cell phones any minute now. And then it will be too late.” Avery found the number she’d been searching for and dialed fast, sending up a quick prayer of gratitude when Ellie answered.

  “Hi, Avery. Where are you calling from?”

  “Hello, Ellie, how are you?” Impatient with her own inability to dispense with the courtesies, even in an emergency, Avery rushed on, giving Ellie no time to speak. “I’m on the plane at O’Hare, about to take off, so I need to make this fast. Are you in Virginia? Please tell me you’re already in Virginia.”

  “Yes, I’m here. At the Courtyard Inn about five miles north of Focus Health.”

  “Thank God. Ellie, we have reason to believe Ron may turn up at Focus Health much earlier than we expected. It’s too complicated to explain what’s going on, but there’s no way for the three of us to arrive there before noon. Twelve-thirty is more realistic. Later than that if the traffic is as terrible as everyone always claims it is. Could you possibly get over to Focus Health right now—as soon as possible—and wait there to see if Ron arrives? I’m sorry to assign you such a boring task, but otherwise I’m afraid we’re going to miss him.”

  “Don’t apologize. It’s not boring at all if the end result is a chance to give Ron a piece of my mind! Do you have any special instructions?”

  Avery mentally blessed her for not asking useless questions. “Remember, Ron is going to be disguised as Robert Russo, which means he’ll be wearing a black wig and dark contacts. Also, you need to watch out for my brother, Paul Fairfax. We’re pretty sure he’ll be there and, unfortunately, we’re afraid he may be up to mischief. Paul is in his fifties, tall—”

  “I’ve met him, remember? He was at your penthouse when I came to visit you after Ron disappeared.”

  “Oh, yes. Thank goodness you’ll be able to recognize him! Be sure to look out for him. Whatever you do, Ellie, don’t put yourself in danger. I have no idea what my brother might be planning, but I’m quite sure he loathes Ron.”