Night Whispers

by Judith McNaught

  She had no idea yet exactly what she was going to do; her crazed emotions blocked logic except for two trains of thought. She had to warn Sloan, and she had to leave the house without making anyone suspicious about why she’d left or where she was going.

  “Hello, Mary,” she said to the maid. “I just remembered I’m going to miss my—manicure appointment. I’m in a terrible hurry.”

  In her room, she grabbed her purse and car keys and started for the door; then she remembered throwing Paul Richardson’s card in a drawer with some vague thought of writing a stern letter of complaint to his superiors about the accusation he’d made.

  She saw the card, but her hands were trembling as if she had palsy and she dropped it twice.

  Nordstrom was in the downstairs hall. She needed to give him a message for her father so that he wouldn’t suspect why she wasn’t going to be home for dinner. She tried to think of where she could say she was going on the day after her great-grandmother’s funeral that wouldn’t strike him as odd. “My father is meeting with Mr. Dishler, and I don’t want to disturb him. Will you tell him that . . . that Mrs. Meade called, and I’m going over to discuss some of my designs. I think it will help cheer me up.”

  Nordstrom nodded. “Certainly, miss.”

  49

  Paris glanced at the clock on the dashboard as she lifted the Jaguar’s car phone from its cradle in the center console and saw that it was a little after four o’clock. If she completely ignored the speed limit, the drive to Bell Harbor would take an hour or even less. It would take her longer than that to arrange for a plane, fly to Bell Harbor, and find transportation once she landed. She decided to drive. Either way she couldn’t get there before dark.

  Cradling the car phone on her shoulder, she kept one eye on traffic while she dialed the number Paul had scrawled on the back of his card. Her hands were still shaking, but she had urgent details to handle, and that kept her from thinking about the unthinkable.

  The phone at the number Paul had written gave out a tone as if it were a pager, and Sloan put in her car phone number, hung up, and waited for a quick return call.

  • • •

  Sitting in his Palm Beach motel room, Paul listened with resignation to the verbal blasting coming across the phone line from the special agent in charge of the FBI’s Miami division. The cellular phone he carried was lying on the nightstand, and a small light on it began to flash, indicating a call was coming in. Paul reached over and switched it to its pager mode to keep it from ringing . . . and further antagonizing the angry man on the other end of the phone.

  “Do you understand what’s happening here, Paul? Am I making this clear? It’s going to cost the bureau a fortune in man-hours just to answer the first deluge of complaints that Maitland’s attorneys filed in court today.”

  “What, specifically, is he accusing us of doing?”

  “I’m so glad you asked,” Brian McCade replied with biting sarcasm. There was a shuffling of papers as he picked up Maitland’s attorneys’ papers. “Let’s see, this one accuses us of illegal search and seizure, then there’s entrapment . . .” Paul listened silently to the long litany of legal accusations. “Wait, I missed this one,” McCade said bitterly. “This one charges us with ‘malicious incompetence.’ ”

  “I never heard of that one. Since when is incompetence a violation of the law?”

  “Since Maitland’s attorneys decided to try to make it one!” McCade said furiously. “His attorneys are probably writing new law with some of these. I can see this going all the way to the Supreme Court for rulings.”

  “There’s nothing I can say, Brian.”

  “Yes, there is. In one of these complaints, Maitland is demanding a formal, public statement of apology because you didn’t find anything illegal on either of his boats. He wants you to say you’re sorry.”

  “Tell him to go to hell.”

  “Our attorneys are drafting the legal equivalent of that reply; however, I don’t think it’s appropriate unless you honestly feel that he got the stuff you were looking for off his yachts without you knowing it.”

  Paul expelled his breath in a long sigh. “There’s no way he could have. He flew back after he had the last meeting in South America aboard the Apparition. We kept that ship under surveillance on its way back here, and we’ve had it under surveillance every hour of every day that it’s been in Palm Beach.”

  “So, what you’re telling me is that no contraband was brought aboard in South America or you’d have found it.”

  Paul nodded; then he said it aloud. “Right.”

  “And there was nothing aboard the Star Gazer, either?”

  “Nope.”

  “So, basically, Maitland is innocent.”

  Paul thought of the personal lives he’d destroyed over his wrong hunch, and he felt far worse than he could let McCade know. “That about sums it up. Although, legally you can hang your hat on the machine gun we found. That constitutes an automatic weapon, which constitutes ‘illegal.’ ”

  “Thank you for that enlightening observation. Now, what do we say about the fact that the damned thing is practically an antique, and one that he confiscated to boot?”

  Paul sighed again and thought of Sloan and the way she’d steadfastly defended Maitland because her own judgment was more reliable than his. “Do you think it would be worthwhile for me to try to pay Maitland a visit and try to soothe his sensibilities?”

  “He doesn’t want soothing, he wants blood—yours.”

  “I have to talk to him to straighten out another matter,” Paul said, thinking he had to at least try to convince Maitland that Sloan had no idea Maitland was a target of the FBI’s investigation.

  “Don’t go near Maitland,” McCade warned, growing angry again. “By doing that, you could jeopardize our defense. Did you hear me, Paul? That’s an order not a suggestion.”

  “I heard you.”

  As soon as they hung up, Paul got two more calls from his men in Palm Beach. He gave them each detailed instructions; then he got a glass of water and brought it over to the bed. He got out his suitcase and began to repack.

  • • •

  Paris waited fifty minutes for Paul to call back; then she accepted that she needed to formulate a plan and rely on herself. Her hands were perspiring on the steering wheel, the speedometer was at 110 miles an hour, and she half expected to be pulled over at any moment for speeding.

  She needed to stay calm and think. With her right hand, she opened her purse and felt around for a pen and something to write on; then she picked up her car phone and called directory information for Bell Harbor.

  The information operator informed her that Sloan’s number was unpublished.

  “Do you have a listing for Kimberly Reynolds?” Paris asked.

  The operator gave her the phone number and address, and Paris wrote it down. “I’d also like the phone number for the Bell Harbor Police Department.”

  Paris wrote that down and called it first. She asked for Detective Sloan Reynolds, and the operator at the police station put the call through. Paris’s tension mounted as she waited expectantly for Sloan’s voice.

  A man answered her phone and said he was Lieutenant Caruso.

  “I need to speak with Sloan Reynolds,” Paris said.

  “I’m sorry, ma’am, but she went off duty at three o’clock.”

  “I have to reach her right away. I’m her sister and it’s urgent. Could you give me her home phone number?”

  “You’re her sister, and you don’t have it?”

  “I don’t have it with me.”

  “I’m sorry but it’s against policy to give that out.”

  “Listen to me,” Paris said in a strained, impatient voice. “This is urgent. Her life is in danger. Someone is going to try to murder her tonight.”

  The man on the other end of the phone evidently decided she was a crank caller. “Would you be referring to yourself, ma’am?”

  “Of course not!” Paris exp
loded. Realizing that neither hysteria nor a temper tantrum was going to get her anywhere with this fool, Paris tried again. “I am her sister. Do you know Sloan Reynolds personally?”

  “Sure do.”

  “Then you must know that she was in Palm Beach until a few days ago visiting her family.”

  “Yep, and her great-grandmother was murdered, and Detective Reynolds was arrested and then released. We’ve had two calls here from people who wanted to confess.”

  Paris decided he was an idiot. “Who is in charge there?”

  “That would be Captain Ingersoll, but he’s off today.”

  “Then who is second in charge?”

  “That would be me.”

  Paris hung up on him.

  • • •

  Finished packing, Paul reached automatically for his car keys and cellular phone. The flashing light indicated an unanswered call, and he remembered one had come in while he was on the phone with McCade. He’d had two more lengthy phone calls after that. The number he was supposed to call wasn’t one he recognized.

  Paris’s hand was shaking uncontrollably as she picked up the paper on the car seat and read Kimberly Reynolds’s phone number. She reached for the car phone just as it began to ring, and she jerked it out of the cradle.

  “This is Paul Richardson,” a familiar voice said. “Your telephone number came up on my pager—” Those were the most wonderful words Paris had ever heard in her life. She was so relieved she had to choke back tears. “Paul, this is Paris. I’m in my car on the way to Bell Harbor. You have to believe me because the Bell Harbor police think I’m a crank and they won’t do anything. And if you won’t help—”

  “I’ll believe you, Paris,” he interrupted in an amazingly gentle and reassuring voice. “And I’ll help you. Now, tell me what’s happened.”

  “They’re going to murder Sloan tonight! They’re going to make her write a suicide note and confess to killing my great-grandmother, and then they’re going to shoot her!”

  She half expected him to blow the whole thing off or to make her explain again in detail while the remaining minutes of Sloan’s life ticked away.

  “All right. Tell me who ‘they’ are, so I know the best way to stop it.”

  “I don’t know who they are. I just overheard a conversation about how it’s going to be done tonight.”

  “Okay, then tell me who you heard discussing it.”

  The moment of betrayal had come. Her father had loved her and raised her . . . Her father was perfectly willing for Sloan to die tonight to protect his “business” . . . Her father hadn’t exactly been hysterical when he realized his own grandmother had been murdered for the same reason. Paris had loved her so much. She loved him. She loved Sloan.

  “Paris? I have to know who is involved or I can’t be as effective!”

  She swallowed and wiped her left arm over her wet cheek. “My father. My father and Gary Dishler. I heard them talking about it. Dishler works for some people he refers to as my father’s ‘partners,’ and the ‘partners’ told him to kill my great-grandmother, so he did it.” Tears were pouring down her cheeks in torrents, blurring the cars and the road ahead. “They told him what to do to Sloan, but he isn’t going to do it himself. They’ve hired people, I think.”

  “That’s what I needed to know. I’ll call you back.”

  Paris hung up. Paul would help her save Sloan. He would also arrest her father.

  She thought of her proud, handsome father being taken out of his house in handcuffs. She thought of murder trials and accusations and ugly newspaper stories with his picture in them. Her tears came faster and faster. “I’m sorry,” she told him aloud. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

  50

  An FBI helicopter was at the marina, and Paul was on his way to it when he made a call to the Bell Harbor Police Department. He also got Lieutenant Caruso.

  Paul identified himself, and before he could draw a breath, Caruso said, “I recognize your name from the TV reports. You were with Sloan in—”

  “Stop talking and start listening,” Paul snapped. “She’s in danger. Someone is going to try to get to her, probably at her house—”

  “I’ll bet you mean that broad who just called here. I figured she was a crank, but just to be on the safe side, I paged Sloan and left a message on her answering machine at home.”

  “Did she answer your page?”

  “Nah, not yet, but—”

  Mentally Paul riffled through the officers he’d met with Sloan the night of the barbecue. One of them stood out; he’d been sharp enough to be suspicious of Paul that night and to question Sloan’s story about firecrackers that sounded like gunshots. “Where’s Jessup?”

  “He’s off duty too. Who else do you want—”

  “Listen to me, you ignorant bastard, and I’ll tell you what I want. Get off your ass and find him; then have him call me at this number!”

  • • •

  Days were short in March, and the sun was already going down when the Bell Harbor exit off the interstate came into view. Paris needed directions to Sloan’s house, but each time she called Kimberly’s number at home, she got an answering machine.

  Kimberly was probably still at work, Paris thought frantically. She told herself to stay calm, to think of other ways. She suddenly remembered that Kimberly worked in a boutique, and Sloan had talked about the owner. The owner had an old-fashioned woman’s name, and the boutique was named after her. Paris had been especially interested in the kinds of designer merchandise that . . . that . . . LYDIA carried.

  She grabbed the car phone and asked for the number of Lydia’s Boutique. She was so relieved that she almost laughed when Lydia grumbled about a personal phone call for Kimberly.

  “This is Kimberly Reynolds,” the soft voice said, sounding understandably curious about the identity of her caller.

  “This is Paris, Mrs. Reyn . . . Mother.”

  “Oh, my God. Oh, thank God.” She was squeezing the telephone receiver so hard that Paris could hear the sound in her own phone.

  Paris flipped on her lights and slowed to an exit speed that wouldn’t hurtle her into the traffic backed up at the stoplight near the end of the exit ramp. “I’m in Bell Harbor. I have a problem. I need to find Sloan right away.”

  “She should be at home. It’s after five, and she was working an early shift, but if she’s working on a case, she often works later.”

  “I’m just exiting off the interstate. Could you give me directions to her house from . . .” Paris paused to read the street sign. “ . . . From Harbor Point Boulevard and the interstate.”

  Kimberly complied with a gentle eagerness that touched Paris’s heart even though it was pounding with anxiety. “Sloan keeps a spare key in a place you’d never think to look,” she added, and told Paris where to find it. “If she isn’t home yet, you could go inside and wait for her,” she added.

  “Thank you very much.” Paris was already making a left turn in accordance with Kimberly’s directions. She suddenly realized she didn’t want to end this first conversation with her mother yet. Holding her breath with uncertainty she said, “Do you think I could come over and see you later?”

  A teary laugh escaped her mother. “I’ve been waiting for thirty years to hear you say that. You . . . you won’t forget?”

  “I promise I won’t.”

  • • •

  Minutes later, Paris found Sloan’s house. A light was on inside, and a plain white, late-model car with an unusual license plate that read BHPD031 was parked in the driveway.

  Certain that BHPD stood for Bell Harbor Police Department, Paris found a parking spot on the street in front of the house, grabbed up her purse, and got out of her car. The wind had picked up, and a few raindrops spattered the driveway. Although night had fallen, the street seemed safe and well-lit. Her plan was to knock on the door, tell Sloan what was going to happen, and then drag her out of that house immediately. Paul could take care of the rest.r />
  The plan seemed perfectly sensible and easy to accomplish, yet the closer she got to the front door the more uneasy she felt. She stepped onto the porch and lifted her hand to knock; then she hesitated for another look around. Across the street on her right, the beach was partially lit by large mercury-vapor lights on tall posts, and the light was bright enough to illuminate a female figure walking quickly along the sand in the distance and then breaking into a run. Paris recognized her and was so relieved and happy that she called out to her without thinking about the noise of the wind and surf.

  “Sloan—” Her greeting turned into a muffled scream as the door suddenly opened, a hand clamped over her mouth, and she was dragged inside.

  51

  The threat of rain that had made Sloan break into a run turned out to be little more than a few raindrops, and she changed her pace to a slow walk. Normally the ocean soothed her; it sang to her, but since she’d returned from Palm Beach, she’d found no consolation there. Before she went to Palm Beach, she’d loved her quiet hours alone at home. Now she couldn’t stand to be there, either.

  Bending down, she picked up a smooth round stone; then she wandered back toward the waves, and with a flick of her wrist, she tried to make it skip across the water. It should have skipped; instead it hit the water and sank. Because of the day she’d had, this seemed absolutely fitting.

  She’d gotten home at a little after three o’clock and spent most of the intervening time sitting on an outcropping of rock to the north of the picnicking area.

  She’d watched clouds roll in and obliterate the setting sun while she tried to hear the music. On still evenings, the sea played Brahms lullabies to her; on stormy nights it was Mozart. Since she’d come back from Palm Beach, the music was gone; now the sea harangued her; it gave her keening sounds and bleak whispers that plagued her even in her sleep.

  It complained to her that her great-grandmother was dead but her killer was free. It whispered to her that she had loved and lost because she’d let everyone down. It counted off her losses with each pitch and toss of the waves. Edith . . . Noah . . . Paris . . . Courtney . . . Douglas.