He wasn’t. That was the bottom line. As much as he wanted to believe Kala Aulani had it, he knew she didn’t. If Sophie Lee had it, she would have turned it over to her attorney. That just left Adam Star. And Adam Star or Adam Clements, whatever the hell his name ended up being, was now dead. Unless Spenser could find a direct line to hell, he was never going to locate the journal.
Spenser sniffed the aromas wafting out of the kitchen. He hoped the mess in the Crock-Pot turned out to be as good as it smelled. He forced his thoughts back to the matter at hand. And that’s when he had his epiphany. Did he have the guts to act on it?
Spenser leaned his head back and closed his eyes and thought about Sophie Lee. Maybe, just maybe, he could salvage this whole disaster.
Sophie Lee walked on the beach with Sula at her side. She felt better than she’d ever felt in her whole life. Kala had called and said the state of Georgia was going to meet Kala’s demands. She was going to have so much money she wouldn’t know what to do with it. They were wrong. She knew exactly what she was going to do with it, and with the Star fortune, too.
She absolutely loved it in Hawaii. As each day wound down, she thought more and more about making the island her home. If she needed a stateside fix, she could always head for the mainland.
Sophie was tanned and toned, the muscles in her legs and thighs like steel with all the sand walking she’d done these past weeks, ten miles in the morning, ten miles at night. She had developed superior upper body strength, what with all the swimming she’d been doing. The swimming pleased her more than anything. She’d conquered her fear of the water, thanks to Sula, who swam with her every day as she perfected her breaststroke. If ever there was a time to take on the world and Ryan Spenser, this was the time. But did she really want all that upheaval in her life? She simply didn’t know.
But did she really want to let it all go? Wasn’t that why she had a lawyer? You couldn’t unring the bell, everyone knew that. Whatever, if anything, was going to happen to Ryan Spenser would happen regardless of what she and Kala would decide to do. In the end, Kala could take care of all that. All she wanted now was to get on with her life. More to the point, make a new life for herself. If she elected to live in the past, she’d never move forward. All that was important to her these days was that the people she loved and cared about the most finally had hard and fast evidence that she hadn’t murdered her patient. That, she had decided, was enough for her to start to lay the groundwork to begin a new life. She could do that, too. She was mentally and physically strong and getting more so with each passing day.
The only thing that remained to plague her was Audrey Star’s missing journal. Adam Star must have taken it and hidden it somewhere. She realized they would probably never know what had happened to it. It was strange, though, that Adam had not mentioned it in his deathbed confession. Was it that unimportant, or was it too important to talk about? The point was moot now, she assumed, with both Audrey and Adam dead.
The sun was starting to go down, so Sophie turned and headed back to the house where she was living. She was tired, but it was a good kind of tired. In her whole life, she had never gotten this much fresh air or exercise. She poured herself a big glass of pineapple-mango juice and got a chew bone for Sula before she headed to the lanai, where she collapsed onto a flower-patterned lounge chair. Sula hopped up next to her and curled up in the bend of her knees.
Sophie clicked on the remote, and the news came on. She watched it, paying attention to what was going on locally. Then the newscaster switched to the national news, and she watched Ryan Spenser outside the courthouse. He looks terrible, she thought.
There was something different about him, though. Was she mistaken, or was the man being humble? She was mistaken; Spenser didn’t know the meaning of humble. Or did he? Only time would tell.
Sophie had no idea how close to the truth she was or how soon everything would be resolved, one way or the other.
Chapter 19
“THIS IS REALLY A SNAPPY LITTLE CAR, PATTY,” KALA SAID, GETTING out of the two-seater and smoothing down her skirt. “I like it.”
“I like that it’s affordable. Nick got it for me. I don’t mean he paid for it—I’m paying for it—but he got me a rock-bottom price on the deal because of his endorsement for Ford. Gets great mileage. I just love red. I feel important for some reason. I never ever thought I’d be driving a racy convertible. Guys really look at you when you drive a convertible, did you know that?” Patty grinned.
“What does Jed think about that?” Kala asked.
“Jed’s cool with it. He’s cool with everything. That’s why we get on so well. He’s a great lawyer, Kala. He cares about his clients. He really does.”
“I know that. Why else do you think I hired him? He does more pro bono work than any other lawyer in this town. You know,” Kala said, looking around, “I’ve never been here to Nick’s house. I don’t know why, but I thought, considering his golfing status and all that, that he would live in some fancy gated community.”
Patty laughed. “That’s what everyone says. He’s no snob. He is who he is, and, guess what? He mows his own grass, too. Last year he painted the house. Jed and I helped him. You could do Nick the biggest favor in the world if you’d tell him where Sophie is so he could call her. He’s in love with Sophie—you do know that, right? Always has been, from the time we were little kids. I think Jon was in love with Sophie, too.”
“I know. I will tell him, but just not yet. Sophie is still in a fragile state. I don’t want anything to go awry. He can handle a few more days of not knowing. You said something about lunch, right? I hate to admit it, but I’m starving. Nick won’t give us yogurt, will he?”
“No. But I think lunch will probably be a bit of a surprise. We didn’t give him all that much notice. And he’s also a tad upset with you because you won’t tell him where Sophie is. Just so you know.
“Come on, let’s walk around the back. He likes to eat out on his patio. Nick is an outside kind of guy.” Patty shouted a greeting as she turned the corner at the end of the house. “We’re here!”
Two magnificent golden retrievers bounded over to Kala and Patty, then skidded to a stop. Both held up their paws to be shaken. “Kala, meet Jam and Jelly. Girls, this is Kala.” The dogs sniffed Kala’s shoes; then, satisfied that she was a friend, they trotted over to their master, who held out his hand to Kala.
“Nice to see you again, Kala. Where the hell is Sophie?” he barked.
“Safe,” Kala barked in return. “Now that we’ve settled that question, what’s for lunch?”
Nick, all six feet four inches of him, stared at Kala to see if she’d say anything else. “Okay, as long as she’s safe. As to what’s for lunch, help yourself,” he said, as he gingerly lowered himself to a padded chair.”
“Oooh, this looks good,” Patty said as she popped covers from the bowls on the table. “Ah, the famous Mancuso salmon salad straight off the grill, garden salad, fresh from your garden over there at the back of the yard, warm rolls that you did not make from scratch, and the leftover rice pudding complete with raisins that you made last night. Homemade sun tea. A feast, Nicky. Served on fine plastic plates that are disposable.” Patty giggled. In spite of himself, Nick laughed heartily.
Kala loved the sound of Nick’s laughter. It reminded her of Ben.
“Nick has a rule,” Patty said as she loaded up her plate. “We can’t talk about why we’re here while we eat. Bad for the digestion, he says. We can talk about anything else you want to talk about. I’ll go first. So, Nick, how are your pole beans doing? Looks like you have a bumper crop of tomatoes this year. When do you have time to do all the weeding and stuff?”
Nick suddenly looked embarrassed. “I got the garden planted, then I couldn’t bend down to do all the weeding, so one of the kids down the street comes by a few days a week to do it, and he gets all the vegetables his mom can use. It works for both of us. He’s only ten years old, and his name is Jake. The d
ogs love him.”
“You left off the part where you’ve been giving Jake and his mom and dad golfing lessons. For free!”
“Yeah, that, too,” Nick muttered.
“And he’s shy, too,” Patty needled.
“Free’s always good. I like free anything,” Kala said, stuffing her mouth. “And this is one of the best lunches I’ve had in a long time. Thanks for taking the time to make it for us on such short notice.”
Always painfully honest, Nick’s response came as no surprise. “I only did it hoping you’d tell me where Sophie is.”
“I know,” Kala said quietly. “I guess we’re done eating if we’re talking about why we came here. We need to find out where Sophie’s belongings are. Patty seems to remember you taking her overflow. If you tell us where to look, we’ll do it.”
“What exactly are you hoping to find? All the overflow is in the garage. Patty’s boxes are clearly marked. I’d offer to help you, but I’m still not allowed to lift anything.”
“We’re looking for whatever we manage to find, which I’m sure is going to turn out to be nothing, in which case we’re getting ourselves worked up over nothing. But we have to cover all our bases,” Kala said. “Do we have to clean up?”
“Well, yeah,” Nick drawled.
Quicker than lightning, Kala and Patty had the table cleaned and everything back in the kitchen. The only thing remaining on the table was the pitcher of sun tea, a bucket of partially melted ice, and their glasses.
The dogs remained under the shade of the huge umbrella as Nick led the two women through the kitchen and the door leading into the garage.
The garage was as neat and tidy as the rest of Nick’s house, at least what Kala could see of it. Unusual for a bachelor. But then she already knew that Nick Mancuso was a “what you see is what you get” kind of guy. No pretentious airs here. She liked that.
It took a good thirty minutes of shifting and stacking and replacing boxes before they found the yellow box Patty had carried out of the precinct ten years ago. She pulled it out to the middle of the third bay and squatted. “You want to open this, Kala?”
She did, and so she squatted alongside Patty. Nick remained standing.
Kala took a deep breath and let it out with a loud swooshing sound. “Here goes!”
Nick and Patty watched as Kala removed the items, one at a time. She felt choked up and knew the others felt the same way. It was almost sinful to be touching Sophie’s things this way. The clothes she’d had with her at the Star mansion, her plastic bag of toiletries, her purse, the things taken from the apartment. Kala sniffed. “It all smells faintly of lavender.”
Patty smiled. “We used to make our own dusting powder. The nuns showed us how to do it when the flowers bloomed in the spring. Sophie loved the scent, said it was so fresh and clean smelling.”
Kala nodded. She found it sad that these two remarkable women, Sophie and Patty, had made their own dusting powder. She thought then about how much money she’d spent on the French perfume for all the girls. She wished now that she hadn’t done it. “Okay, here’s her laptop. You recognize it, don’t you, Patty?”
“Yes, it’s Sophie’s. What else is in there?”
“Another laptop. It says it is the property of Dr. Hershey Franklin. Okay, what this tells us is, the officer on duty that day gave you, by mistake, the stuff in the evidence locker as well as Sophie’s personal effects. I’m sure it was an honest mistake on the officer’s part, and one no one would have caught except for the mess we’re in now.” Kala rocked back on her heels and stared at the contents. There was no smoking gun in the box. Nothing of any importance that could help her, or Ryan Spenser, for that matter.
“Nick, do you have an extra box somewhere to put Sophie’s things in? As an officer of the court, I have to return these things to the police precinct.”
“No spare boxes, but here’s a plastic bag for Sophie’s things. You can leave them here until she gets back. She is coming back, isn’t she, Kala?”
“That’s entirely up to Sophie, Nick. If she elects not to come back to Atlanta, I’m sure she’ll welcome you wherever she decides to put down her new roots. I wish I could say differently, Nick, but I can’t. Sophie’s been to hell and back, we all know that. If I were standing in her shoes, I’d want to put as much distance between me and this place as possible. But, that’s me. I’m not Sophie.”
Kala was on her feet, and Patty was holding the evidence box. “I guess we should be on our way. Thanks for lunch, Nick,” Kala said. “I really enjoyed it.”
Kala watched as Patty stood on her tippy toes to hug Nick. She smiled at the way he hugged her back. Kala decided at that moment that there was nothing better in the whole world than true friendship. She smiled all the way out to the car.
Nick waved good-bye. The goldens barked joyously, now that they had their master all to themselves again.
“Tell you what, Kala, I’ll drop you off at the office, then swing by the post office to pick up your mail. It’s just a few doors down. Do you want me to pick up Ben’s mail, too? If so, I’ll drop everything off at your house, and tomorrow we can take the box back to the precinct. Does that work for you?”
“Do you mind? Yes, pick up Ben’s, too. I’ll call him and tell him not to bother. He gets so cranky when he can’t find a parking spot.”
“Then we have a plan, my friend.”
Forty minutes later, Patty Molnar gasped at the huge sack of mail the postal worker dragged to the door. “Do you think you or someone could carry that out to my car? I’m sorry, I had no idea there was so much, or I would have brought someone to help me,” she apologized.
“No problem. Anything for a pretty girl on this fine summer day. Gets me outside for ten minutes. Just show me where your vehicle is.”
“I got lucky today; it’s parked right in front.” Patty held the door, then followed the burly man out to her Mustang. Patty just loved her Mustang, particularly the true candy red color. Nick drove an identical car, but his was black. She had the top down now and loved driving with the wind in her hair and face.
“You wait right here, miss, and I’ll be right back with the other bag.”
“What other bag?” Patty asked, dumbfounded that one person could get so much mail in three weeks. Kala, Patty decided, must be on someone’s junk mail list.
“The judge’s mail that we’ve been holding. He called earlier and asked to have it ready along with Miss Aulani’s mail. He just has a quarter of what’s in this bag,” the postal worker added, pointing to the canvas sack in the Mustang’s trunk. “You have to return the sacks, in case you didn’t know that, or else leave them by your mailbox, and the mailman will pick them up and return them. I’ll be back in five minutes, have the judge’s mail right by the door. The judge doesn’t have a whole lot of patience, so I got it ready soon as he called.”
Patty leaned up against the back fender of her little sports car. She looked around at all the normal people—at least they looked normal to her—entering and exiting the post office. None of them looked like they had the problems of the world on their shoulders, which was exactly how she felt right now, this very moment. She almost wished she could turn the clock backward, back before Adam Star had made his confession. But back in time only if Sophie had been released and they had all picked up their lives and moved forward. Well, that wasn’t going to happen, so she had to deal with the here and now.
As Patty waited for the postal worker to bring the judge’s mail sack, she wondered if tomorrow, when Ryan Spenser showed up with the check for Sophie from the state, she would think or feel differently. She also wondered how much attention the Atlanta Journal-Constitution would give the check. Would they downplay it? Such a silly thought—of course they would. Well then, she would just have to make sure the media was up to snuff. She made a mental note to place a few calls the moment she returned to the office.
Patty had been so engrossed in her thoughts that she hadn’t even seen the post
al worker dump the small canvas bag in her trunk. She offered him a generous tip, but he refused, saying he was just doing his job. He snapped the trunk lid down and gave her a cheery salute before he walked back into the post office.
Even though it was a few miles out of her way, Patty drove to Kala’s house, where she backed her car up against the garage and tugged and pulled until she got the canvas bags of mail out of her trunk. The box of Sophie’s belongings was set down next to the sacks of mail. It was a good neighborhood, and there were NEIGHBORHOOD WATCH signs all along the streets, which meant that the neighbors kept a sharp eye out for vandalism. She called Kala to tell her what she had done and to let her know she was headed back to the office.
Patty made good use of her time as she drove back to the office. Why wait to do something if it could be done now? At the first red light she came to, she yanked out her cell phone and called her friend at Fox News.
“You didn’t get this from me, okay? I don’t want anyone knowing I’m your source.” She prattled on, pleased with herself that her friend would get a jump on everyone else. With a promise that her news would be at the top of the hour, starting at 5 P.M., Patty broke the connection. Should she or shouldn’t she call CNN? In the end, she decided not to make the call even though her contact at CNN was as much a friend as the reporter at Fox. Better to stay loyal to Fox News. Fox had been the only network that had stood by her when the AJC fired her. And that, she knew, was because of her friend. Loyalty demanded loyalty.
Chapter 20
KALA SAT OUTSIDE ON HER TERRACE AND STARED AT THE POTTED plants that were once colorful and lush but were now yellow and brown, with no hint of a bloom anywhere. Well, it was her own fault. She hadn’t told the guys who came by to look after Shakespeare to take care of anything else. And they had taken her at her word. She closed her eyes as she thought about her lanai back in Hawaii and how Mally pruned the flowers, sometimes with manicure scissors. She couldn’t ever remember a yellow leaf anywhere on any of the plants. Mally simply would not allow it.
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