There was a tapping noise on the passenger window. Catherine felt her heart leap into her throat, her hands crash against the edge of the steering wheel. Bustamante was outside, and when had he arrived? He could arrive just as unexpectedly, she thought. She hit the unlock button and watched the detective slide onto the seat and pull the door shut behind him.
“I didn’t see your car,” she said.
“Parked back there.” He tilted his head toward the pickup behind them. “A plainclothes team is scouring Confluence Park, plus a couple of uniforms. Not too many. I didn’t want to scare him off.”
“Let me guess. No sign of him anywhere.”
Bustamante nodded and looked straight ahead, and she understood that he was watching, too, studying the street and sidewalks, the fronts of the houses for anything out of the ordinary. He had a strong profile— an actual Roman nose, she thought, the long, black eyelashes, the prominent jaw. She trusted him, and there were so few people left now that she could trust with her life. Marie, certainly, Marjorie and Violet at the paper, but that was it. A small remnant that cared whether she lived or died. And now there was Bustamante.
“We will get him,” he said, looking back at her. He had dark eyes, set back beneath the cleft of his forehead. Little pinpricks of light shone in his pupils. “Trust me,” he said. Then he told her that he had brought in Lawrence this morning for an interview. And how had that gone? As well as they might expect. He looked shocked, stunned, when Bustamante had told him that a hired killer was trying to kill her. “Either he’s a very good actor, or he doesn’t know anything about it,” he said.
Catherine set her elbow on the rim of the wheel and dipped her forehead into her hand. What was it? Four nights ago? She had lain in Lawrence’s arms while he’d told her how they should be together, they never should have separated, and she had drifted along with him, believing, believing.
“He’s a very good actor,” she said. “He wants to meet me tonight for dinner.”
“Where?”
Catherine told him the name of the restaurant.
“There will be an unmarked police car out front,” Bustamante said. “Dark sedan, nondescript, okay? It’ll follow you back to the bed-and-breakfast.” He took a moment before he said, “I assume that’s where you’ll be going.”
She nodded. Where else would she go? Not with Lawrence. That was over now, finally over, another part of her life swept away. She said that she had to go to the town house to get clothes for Monday. She intended to go to Washington for a congressional briefing.
“You think that’s wise?”
“The town house or Washington?” She kept her eyes straight ahead, but she could glimpse him in her peripheral vision.
“Either,” he said. “The killer could expect you to go to Washington. We can’t protect you there.”
“You can’t protect me here,” she said, turning toward him. She was immediately sorry. They both knew it was the truth, but the truth could be hurtful. She hurried on, wanting to get past the hurt in his expression. “He doesn’t know about the hearing,” she said.
“What makes you think so?”
“He would have used someone other than Norman to lure me to Confluence Park, if he’d known Norman was on his way to Washington. He would have assumed I knew Norman would be leaving.” The hurt was still there, impressed in the lines fanning from his eyes, the little frown on his forehead. She heard herself yammering on about how the hearing was a big part of her story and how she had to cover it. She told him she planned to fly back Monday night. Tomorrow she’d stay in the room at the B&B.
“Call me the minute you land Monday.” He didn’t take his eyes from hers. It occurred to her then that he would be watching her closely, that he would be in the unmarked car at the restaurant tonight, and he would follow her to the B&B. She was beginning to feel warm, wrapped in the safety of the car, the sun blazing over the mountains.
Bustamante opened the door. In a nanosecond he was outside, changing places with the agility of a gymnast. He leaned back into the car. “I’m going to the town house with you. Ten minutes, that’s it.”
28
She saw Lawrence the minute she stepped inside the restaurant. Seated at a small table beyond the stainless steel counter that separated the dining area from the open kitchen. He had spotted her, too, because he was getting to his feet, the edges of the white tablecloth clinging to the dark trousers of his suit. He brushed the tablecloth away and stood ramrod straight while she walked past the other tables. The noise of clattering pans and dishes drifted around the conversations at the tables as she passed.
“You look tired.” He came around the table and held out the chair for her. “I had no idea of what you’ve been going through.” He waited until she’d sat down before he went back to his own chair. “You probably know that Detective Bustamante has come to the office a couple of times. Today he requested I come to his.” He spread both hands over the white plate glistening in the dim light in front of him. “Saturday morning, golf day. But it wasn’t a request. More a summons, I would say, not legally binding, of course, but very suspicious if I refused to go.”
Catherine stopped herself from saying that Bustamante had been talking to everyone she knew. She would not make this easier for him. “What did you tell him?” she said.
“I know nothing about this, Catherine.” He sat back and waited while the waiter, a woman in her twenties with dark hair pulled back from sharp cheekbones, set the menus on top of the plates. Would Catherine like a drink? Yes, she would like a drink. A gin martini, like the one that Lawrence had half consumed. And he would have another, Lawrence said. When she had moved away, he leaned over the table. In the flickering candlelight, he looked five years older, the lines at his mouth deeper, the vertical line above his nose permanently carved in stone. “You do believe me,” he said.
“Is that why you insisted I meet you for dinner? To convince me you have nothing to do with the professional killer trying to take my life?”
“Catherine, please. You know I’ll always . . .”
“Stop, Lawrence.” She raised one hand, palm outward, like a traffic cop trying to stop a speeding car and prevent a wreck. “It’s really quite simple. Someone doesn’t like what I’ve been writing about a tribal settlement that would allow a casino. Someone wants me to stop.”
Lawrence sat and waited while the waitress placed the martinis at the edges of the plates. Then he started to give their orders. “I’ll have the filet.” Pointing to an item on the menu. “The lady will have . . .” He hesitated, deciding.
An old habit, Catherine thought. He had always ordered for both of them. He had known her then, known her preferences. But that woman no longer existed, and someone else now inhabited her skin. “The lady will have the pasta,” she said, watching Lawrence’s head snap backward, as if she’d landed an unexpected blow to his solar plexus. He managed a smile, then handed up the menu and waited until the waitress glided to another table.
“It’s that job of yours, isn’t it?” Lawrence was leaning toward her again, his voice so low that she had to come toward him in order to hear. “You never had to work, Catherine. I told you that when we were married. You still don’t have to work. I can make a financial arrangement . . .”
“What are you talking about? This is what I do, Lawrence. I’m an investigative reporter. I have a great job that I love.”
“Your great job is about to get you killed.” He glanced around the dining room, running his tongue over his lips, collecting his thoughts. “Let me help you, for Christ’s sake.” He slipped a hand inside his suit coat and extracted a thick white envelope. “You must be getting low on cash. Take this and go away somewhere. I can arrange for you to stay with my cousin in Los Angeles. You remember Brian? He’ll look after you. I’ll have my lawyer draw up the bank papers. You’ll get $10,000 each month and I’ll make certain it’s tax free. You should be okay.”
“And all I have to do is quit my job, st
op writing about the casino and the Sand Creek Massacre and whatever else somebody wants to kill me over?” She stared at him for a long moment, until he looked away. A wave of nausea rushed over her, so strong that she thought she might slip off the chair. He was trying to buy her off. The thick envelope he’d left at the ranch had been the down payment, but she hadn’t understood the part she should play. Now another envelope, and $10,000 each month. All she had to do was stop writing.
“I care about you,” he said. “I’ll always love you.”
She swallowed back the nausea and waited a long moment before she took a drink of the martini. She needed the drink. “You’re engaged to Heather Montgomery,” she said.
“That has nothing to do . . .” He broke off and gulped the rest of the martini. Then he lifted the new glass and took another long sip. “You have to understand,” he said. “Things aren’t what they seem. The Stern companies look great on the outside.” He leaned close again, his voice not much more than a whisper. “But cash flow has been tight lately.”
“The family owns land and properties all over Denver and you just offered me ten thousand a month.”
He lifted his shoulders in a halfhearted shrug— What could he say? “We just broke ground on a forty-million-dollar residential and office complex. We hoped to have leases in place in advance, but we overestimated the demand. Do you know how long we project it will take for the place to lease fully? Five years, maybe ten. And that is only one of our developments that are leasing out at a slower rate than we expected. In the meantime, we’re shoveling money to the banks. Ten thousand dollars?” He grasped the stem of the glass and took another drink. “A small drop in a flood.”
The waitress was back, delivering salads, turning the pepper grinder. Catherine watched the little black dots blossoming on the lettuce. When the waitress was gone, she said, “You could sell your interest in the complex.”
He lifted the glass again and drained half of the martini. “You should know the family better than that. We have never backed down. How would it look?” He glanced around, as if he wanted to check on the way he appeared to the other diners. “We have our reputation to uphold. We own this town,” he said, and she understood that he was talking about all of the old families, the founding fathers. “No one’s going to come in here from someplace and buy us out and take it over.”
Catherine picked at the salad, conscious of the pepper biting the inside of her throat. She took another sip of the martini. She could feel the headache creeping into the center of her head again. She shouldn’t be drinking, but she needed the drink, the way alcohol glued together all the rough pieces into a smooth whole. “So you’re marrying the daughter of a telecommunications billionaire.” She could still picture Heather’s parents glittering for the Journal photographer at some social gala she had covered in a past life, before Lawrence. It was pitiful, when you thought about it. She wondered if the only rebellious action Lawrence Stern had ever taken was to marry her. But he had divorced her, just as his grandmother had expected. “You’re marrying an outsider,” she said.
“She’ll be a Stern.”
“I see. And did that happen in the past? The Stern men looking for wealthy brides in the east who came with enough money to ease the cash flow?”
“You never understood business.”
“I write about business deals all the time.”
“The kind of business like ours. Yes, we own property all over the state. Yes, we have a billion dollars’ worth of assets, but it’s all on paper. We’d have to liquidate assets to get enough cash to service the debts on the various complexes we’ve built.”
“You could do that. There are probably buyers lining up, ready to buy.”
He shook his head. “You’ll never understand.”
But she did understand, she was thinking. She understood that selling the lands and the properties would be tantamount to selling the family legacy, that without them the Sterns would dissolve into the past, like other families with names that appeared in history books and nowhere else.
The waitress had removed the salad plates and replaced them with the entrees. A plate of pasta with steam rising over the creamy sauce; a filet and baked potato. Catherine ate a couple spoonfuls of pasta, but the nausea was gathering force. She pushed the plate away.
“Was there anything else?” she said.
Lawrence sliced off a corner of the filet and looked up. “What?” “Anything else you wanted me to understand, other than the reason you’re marrying Heather? I have to go.”
“No.” He reached over and took her hand into his. “Don’t go now. I thought we could spend the evening together. The other night at the ranch . . .”
“Don’t, Lawrence.”
“Was wonderful. You felt it, and so did I. We belong together.”
“You want me to be your mistress?”
He winced, then studied the filet a moment, the red juices spreading over the plate and leaking into the potato. “No one uses that word anymore. We could still be together, that’s all. You could go to L.A. until the police arrest the crazy killer running loose, then you can come back here.” He leaned closer, squeezing her hand. “Listen. You don’t even have to leave town. Go to the ranch and stay there. Gilly will watch over you. No one will get past Gilly.”
Catherine ripped her hand free. “I don’t believe this,” she said.
“I love you, Catherine. It’s very simple.”
“You’re wrong. It’s very complicated.”
“I have to do what’s best for—”
“Right. I’ve got it.” Catherine threw her napkin onto the table and got to her feet. “You and Heather, you both know what you’re getting, don’t you? She’s getting the name and the prestige of an old family; you’re getting the money. Maybe you’re right after all. It really is simple.” She unhooked her bag from the chair and walked back through the tables and the clattering of dishes and pans, the snatches of conversation. Outside the evening was cool, deep shadows spreading down the front of the restaurant and out onto the street. There was the sudden surge of traffic as the light changed at the corner. She glanced at the cars parked along the curb. The black sedan was across the street. Beyond the tinted glass, she could make out the shadowy figure of Nick Bustamante behind the wheel.
Catherine slipped into the quiet of the bed-and-breakfast and wrote the story for tomorrow’s paper, the bottle of Chardonnay she’d gotten at a liquor store half gone. The Dave Brubeck Quartet played in the background. The clothes she’d gotten at the town house lay strewn over the bed: the suit she intended to wear Monday, an array of underwear, another pair of jeans and a pair of khakis, a couple of blouses, a sack of makeup. She had felt like a stranger in the townhome, a burglar rifling the dresser drawers, yanking clothes off the hangers, helping herself to things that belonged to someone else, another woman who had lived there once upon a time and had gone away. In less than ten minutes, she’d gathered what she needed, stuffed everything into a suitcase, and reappeared in the entry where Bustamante had stood guard. He had followed her to the restaurant and waited in his car until she had parked and gone inside. And he had waited while she sipped the martini and marveled at the way Lawrence could so easily slide around the past they had shared. And yet, it made sense. The woman seated across from him was not the woman who had loved him.
It took a little more than an hour to write up the story. Then she typed in a possible head: Professor Says Genocide Separate from Land Claims.
She sat back, read through the story again, and finished off the glass of wine, wishing she had bought a bottle for tomorrow and glad she hadn’t. She would have drunk all of it. And Monday she needed to be clearheaded, not foggy and half-dizzy, the way she had been today when she had agreed to a meeting based on a text message. My God, she could have been dead.
She ran the spell check and sent the article to Marjorie. Still two hours before deadline. Then she checked her messages—Marie again, and a message from Philip
. She tapped out Marie’s number and felt herself sinking into a soft blanket of safety and well-being at the sound of her mother’s voice. Was Rex okay? Catherine asked. Rex was fine. Marie had taken him for a good romp at Sloan’s Lake Park today.
Then Marie said, “I found your mother’s box in the attic. It’s downstairs on the dining room table waiting for you.”
“Thank you,” Catherine said. She would like to go through the box now. It was as if whatever had been stored inside had finally become hers, pieces of her own life that she needed to fit together to make herself whole again.
She told Marie good night and called Philip. His voice was ragged with grief, and her own grief imploded inside her again, leaking from her eyes and nose, distorting the sound of her voice. Maury’s memorial service would be held next week. Small and private, his sister and brother-in-law from New Orleans, a few friends. He’d hesitated then. “We agree it would be best if you don’t come,” he said.
Catherine hung up, feeling at once drained and heavy with guilt. Of course they did not want her—and with her the reminder that Maury had died in her place, that she was still alive.
She had to force herself to focus on the e-mail messages. Comments from as far away as Florida and Virginia from readers who had read her articles online and were concerned that the Arapahos and Cheyennes should finally see justice for their stolen lands. She skimmed through the messages, deleted the junk, and opened the message from Violet: “I expect to have the title report Monday. When will you be back from Washington?”
Catherine typed in the reply. “Not until late evening. Meet me first thing Tuesday morning.” She gave the address of a coffee shop on South Pearl, a place she never went to.
29
Washington was hot and muggy, a gray sky pressing down over the city. Traffic clogged the streets and tourists jostled the serious-looking bureaucratic types on the sidewalks. Catherine leaned against the window in the backseat of the cab to catch a glimpse of the Lincoln Memorial, the tip of the Washington Memorial riding in the clouds, the dome of the Capitol looming on a hill. The Potomac shimmered in the muted afternoon light. She had always liked the city. She had pounced on every opportunity to visit, looked for the angle in an article—an interview with a senator or congressman or department bureaucrat—that might take her to Washington.
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