The Common Thread

by Jaime Maddox

  Nic smiled as she made her reply, knowing it would please her parents, but more so because she knew it would elicit further debate from Rae.

  “I knew it. I knew you’d be in favor of the move.” Rae slapped her thigh for emphasis.

  Nicole dared to open one eye and kept her voice flat, unemotional. “You’re very annoying, Rae.”

  “You shouldn’t say that until after I’ve gotten you through the front door. Remember, I still have your ticket.”

  Nic bit her lip, suppressing a smile. It was difficult to believe how much she liked Rae, with her keen intelligence, sharp wit, and boundless energy. If she hadn’t been in such a bad mood last night, the evening might not have been a total waste after all. “You’re so very kind to bring me here, Rae,” she said, with an excess of flattery. “I’m so grateful to you. You’re a wonderful person.”

  Leaning back against the bench, Rae looked to the cloud-filled sky and laughed. Nic studied her in this pose. Gazing at the lines of her throat, the curve of her breasts beneath the double layer of shirts, the joy on Rae’s face—the breath caught in her throat. There would be no paucity of debate between them on any subject, but no one could argue one simple point—Rae was a cutie. Blushing at the thought, she cleared a suddenly dry throat and looked away before Rae could notice her flush. No doubt she’d ask Nic what had caused it. Turning to the watch adorning her wrist, Nic said, “It’s time.”

  Silently they walked to the entrance, side by side, and Nic didn’t pull away when Rae gently placed her hand on the small of her back to guide her in the right direction.

  “How would you like to do this?” Rae asked, and Nic understood the question immediately. They only had a few hours. No one could appreciate a museum of this size with a drive-by sort of approach. They’d have to skip total sections. Nic had to decide how to make the most of her time.

  “Since it’s my first visit, I think a walk-through would be great. Next time, after I know what I want to see…” She let the statement hang there, a carrot teasingly dangled in front of Rae, who pounced on it.

  “I can get tickets for tomorrow, if you’re nice to me.”

  “I find it very taxing to be nice.”

  “I got that impression.”

  It was playful banter, and both of them appreciated the change from their prior time together.

  “I can be, though, if I’m sufficiently motivated.”

  “Well, if the Barnes can’t motivate an art lover, nothing can.”

  They presented their tickets and walked through the entrance, and suddenly emotion overwhelmed Nic. Raising her head she saw lights so carefully positioned, heard the crisp, clear echoes of the voices around her, felt the dry, cool air across her forehead. And as she looked at Rae, she noticed, not for the first time, the magnificence of her smile.

  Nic was pleasantly surprised to realize the emotion she was feeling was called happiness.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Impersonating a Fugitive

  “Attorney Chapman’s office, how can I help you?”

  Simon listened to the conversation on speaker, watching from a few feet away as Angelica recited her lines.

  “Hi, this is Katie Finan. Can I talk to Mr. Chapman?”

  “Who may I ask is calling?” the voice on the other end of the phone asked.

  “Katie Finan,” Angelica repeated, more slowly and deliberately this time.

  “And what is this about?” the woman asked.

  Angelica took a deep breath and spoke. “I’m a client of Mr. Chapman, and I need to talk to him about my trust fund.”

  “Hold on, please,” she said.

  Simon sat beside her on the couch and could hear classical music playing as Angelica was put on hold. Smothering the phone in her ample chest to dampen the sound, she whispered to him. “This could be the one. She sounds very uppity. Kind of like Katie.”

  In spite of his growing frustration, Simon laughed. Angelica had the ability to lighten his mood, and at this moment, it was quite dark. He needed to find Katie before she spoke to the police, and the clock was ticking. The longer it took to find her, the better the chance the police would find her first. Given enough time, she might even get scared enough to contact them. If that happened, he was in trouble. She not only knew his name and what he looked like, but she’d seen him at the beach. It wouldn’t take her long to figure out his secret, if she hadn’t already.

  Simon was running out of ideas. Katie hadn’t been home since the shooting; no one except the police had been in the house since they’d encircled it with yellow police crime-scene tape early that morning. A boy watching the house had been given a crisp fifty-dollar bill to watch the place, and Simon was confident that if Katie showed up there, he’d know it. Another hired hand had spent the day watching the clinic where she worked, and he too reported no signs of her. The police were there, though, staking out the place. Her kids hadn’t gone to school, and they weren’t in the church basement, where senior citizens helped working moms by babysitting a few hours each day. No one on the streets had seen her. It was if she’d disappeared. Not an easy task, with two kids in tow.

  Now Simon was using his last lead, doing the methodical type of work that made him so dangerous. There was just a sliver of hope, just a possibility it would pan out, but he was nothing if not a dreamer. Dreams pulled him up and out of the ghetto and made him a success. Whenever someone told him he couldn’t do something, it made him all the more determined to succeed. Now it seemed Katie was destined to escape him, and he rededicated himself to finding her. And he would.

  Katie was due to collect her trust fund. Billy had told him it would be only two more days until he had the money, and after a few hours of sound sleep in his comfortable bed, Simon had awakened, showered, and traveled back to the city. His Lexus was safely parked in the garage, and his Ford sat in the driveway in front of the house he shared with Angelica.

  During the drive, the idea had come to him. Since following the kids hadn’t worked, he decided to follow the next best thing—the money. It always came down to money. Katie wouldn’t walk away from that kind of cash. Staking out her lawyer’s office was the best way to track Katie down.

  Simon was now faced with another problem. He had a wonderful plan but no way to execute it. He had no idea who Katie used to manage her legal matters. She’d once mentioned the name of her high school, and he knew the lawyer who’d helped her in the past had an office somewhere in Katie’s old neighborhood. So, he and Angelica had spent their morning driving around that area, looking for lawyers’ offices in Northeast Philly, driving up streets and down alleys, into and out of strip malls, pulling up to marquees in front of office buildings to read the lists of tenants. They’d literally found the names of hundreds of lawyers but had no idea which one, if any, represented Katie.

  Angelica had logged their names in a notebook, and after a few hours of driving they’d settled onto the couch at her house and began the tedious process of calling each name on the list. She made the calls, posing as Katie, while Simon sat nearby, listening on speakerphone, looking up numbers, and crossing names off the list. Between busy phone lines, time spent on hold, and lunch breaks at the offices, they’d made it through only three-quarters of the list, and it was already three in the afternoon. If Katie had panicked and gone to his office first thing in the morning, Simon was already too late. He was hoping she would have called to make an appointment, though, and he’d catch her in the afternoon or even the next day.

  “Ms. Finan?” The voice returned to the line, interrupting the classical music.

  “Yes?”

  “Ms. Finan, we can’t find a record of you having been our client. Are you sure you have the right office? Or could you have used another name, perhaps a maiden name?”

  “No, no other name. I’m sorry. I must be mistaken,” Angelica lied for the hundredth time that day and disconnected the phone. “Fuck, Simon. What if she has an alias?”

  He studied the ceiling
as if it held the answer he needed, ran his fingers through his hair, and massaged the back of his neck. “Shit,” he answered after a moment. An alias hadn’t occurred to him. Once again, Angelica amazed him. Was Katie Finan her real name, or one she’d taken on the streets? Lots of people had street names. Most people knew him as Simon Simms, and he had no idea who’d started calling him that, or why. Yet it had stuck.

  Could Katie have taken Billy’s name? Many women assumed the name of the man they lived with, often legally changing it without going through the wedding that usually accompanied such dramatic action. He thought of Katie, defiant and cocky, and doubted she would have. Hell, she hadn’t even given Billy’s kids his last name. She’d told Billy she wasn’t giving them his name until he started acting like a father and earned the right. The little brats were named Finan, just like her. A smile appeared on his face and he explained his logic. “It’s definitely Finan.”

  “Okay, then. Who’s next?”

  “Seven-four-two,” he said, and rattled off the next numbers on the list without hesitation. He’d come this far, and he refused to stop until he’d contacted every lawyer they’d found. If they all turned out to be dead ends, he’d go back and hunt for more prospects. He wouldn’t stop until he found the man, or found Katie, whichever came first. Instead of fatigue, Simon felt a renewed energy as he watched Angelica. They were going to find her, and when they did, Simon would take much pleasure in putting a bullet right between her eyes. And then, perhaps, he and Angelica could come back here and spend the afternoon in the big bed whose corner he could just see from his space on the couch.

  He heard her begin her well-practiced recital and listened hopefully for the response of the woman who’d answered the phone.

  “Oh, hello! You’re not calling to cancel, are you? He just called me and said he’s on his way. Court ended a little late today.”

  Simon used his hand in a slashing gesture across his throat, and Angelica disconnected the call. It was a lawyer on Fordham Street, a man named Bruce Smick. It would take them twenty minutes to get there, if they had the unreliable cooperation of commuter traffic.

  “What’s the plan?” she asked.

  “We go there, and I shoot her.”

  Wearing a conservative blue suit with a white shirt and bright-blue tie, he certainly didn’t look the part of a man on a mission to kill a woman. And that was exactly why he thought he’d get away with it.

  Angelica’s floral halter dress, pink sandals, and costume jewelry made her look presentable for just about anything that didn’t require formal wear. “Okay, I’m ready,” she said.

  “Let’s go.” Simon stood, and Angelica was right beside him as they walked through the door.

  *

  Phil Young leaned over a well-tended patch of garden and pulled an imaginary weed from the bed of petunias in which he was kneeling. The garden was in front of the house two doors down from the law offices of Bruce Smick, and Phil had been on his knees for a half an hour, patiently awaiting Katie’s arrival. If someone was watching, his cover would be blown. Although he was dressed appropriately for yard work, wearing Bermuda shorts and a golf shirt, the apron he wore to conceal his gun made him look absolutely ridiculous. It hadn’t taken him long to remember why he didn’t do undercover work anymore. Not routinely, anyway. But Katie Finan and the Billy Wallace murder were anything but routine. Phil wanted to be on the scene, directing the action, making sure it went as planned.

  Just to keep up appearances, he unwound the hose and stepped closer to the house’s foundation, pretending to work on what would appear to be a leaky connection. It was bad luck that Mr. Smick had opened his office on this residential street, where they had absolutely no options for cover. He leaned against the duplex and removed his hat, wiping sweat from his brow. That action wasn’t part of his act. He was sweating his ass off in the sun. More luck, that the front of the house had full afternoon sunshine. God, he hated undercover work. Another hour of this and they’d be taking him to the ER for heat stroke, and his investigation would be in ruins. Two more years, he told himself. Two more years until retirement.

  After his meeting with Nicole at the station that morning, Phil had been quite intrigued to learn that she shared not only an astonishing resemblance to the fugitive Katie Finan, but her birthday as well. Reading through Katie’s file, he hadn’t been able to find much information about her family, but it was quite obvious that the women were twins. And after his conversation with the doctor, he knew she had no clue about it. How odd that they should come together under such strange circumstances. He’d done a little digging but came up empty. The house at the address Katie had listed on her most recent arrest record had burned a few years back and was now a crumbling mess awaiting the wrecking ball.

  He tried another tactic. On each of the occasions she was arrested, the same attorney had come to her defense. Half an hour later, Phil was sitting across from him at his office on Fordham Street.

  Like most lawyers, Bruce Smick wasn’t very forthcoming with information about his client. When Phil told him he thought Katie was in danger, Smick offered to pass that warning along to her—if and when he talked to her. Phil had spent nearly a half hour learning absolutely nothing, and the man had practically thrown him out of the office so he could make it to court on time. Then, though, Phil’s luck in the search for Katie Finan had changed.

  Just as he had closed the door behind him and walked into the reception area, the office telephone rang. “Hold on, Ms. Finan,” the receptionist said. “I’ll see if he can talk to you.”

  Phil had wasted no time after that, and a large group of police officers was now scattered about the neighborhood awaiting Katie’s arrival. They were jogging, pushing strollers, cleaning gutters, and painting a house across the street. In addition, four uniformed officers were inside the dentist’s office in the other half of Smick’s building. Fortunately for him, the dentist had taken this beautiful Wednesday afternoon off to play a round of golf.

  The receiver in Phil’s ear crackled to life as he fiddled with the hose. “This is Left Field to all players. Opposing pitcher just pulled into the back garage.”

  Phil glanced at his watch. It was half past three; Smick was back from court, where he’d been all day. Since they didn’t know his schedule, they’d been on the scene since noon. Turning and leaning so he wouldn’t be seen, Phil replied. “This is the Manager. All players be alert. Opposing Catcher should be along any minute now.”

  Stepping back onto the sidewalk, he began the slow process of rewinding the garden hose. Hyperaware, he noticed the black Ford slow down as it passed him heading toward Pennypack Park. A dozen officers noticed it as well, and his ear buzzed as they all reported in with descriptions of the female driver and her male companion. Phil pretended to stretch and watched as the car made a U-turn at the intersection and then came back and pulled to a stop in front of the lawyer’s office. A man stepped out of the vehicle.

  He was tall, dark, and well dressed in a business suit, carrying a briefcase. As Phil bent to tie an already double-knotted running sneaker, the man surveyed the street, then gracefully covered the length of sidewalk and disappeared through Mr. Smick’s front door.

  Everything about the guy was suspicious. The way he’d checked out Smick’s office from the street. How he’d checked out the sidewalk as he exited the car. How the car was waiting for him at the end of the road, instead of in the parking area to the rear of the office. None of those things might mean anything, but the hair standing on the back of Phil’s neck told him that wasn’t the case.

  This, he hadn’t expected. He’d laid this trap to catch Katie, and it seemed another fish was swimming toward it. Who was this guy? Phil wasn’t sure he had the time to figure it out before Katie arrived, and he sure as hell didn’t want him in the office when they took her into custody. He suspected she was unarmed and harmless, but he’d learned the hard way not to take chances.

  As Phil knelt with shoelaces in han
d, debating his next move, his radio came alive again.

  “This is Short Stop. A red Jeep in the alley looks like a match for Opposing Catcher. She’s the passenger. An unidentified female’s driving.”

  “Block the alley in both directions,” Phil barked into his microphone as he stood, walking quickly along the sidewalk toward Bruce Smick’s front door.

  “This is Short Stop. The Jeep is parked. Both women are exiting the vehicle.”

  “Move in,” Phil ordered. He hadn’t planned to pounce on his prey like this, but with the unknown element added by the unidentified male in the office, he couldn’t afford to wait.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Try, Try Again

  “It’s cold in here,” Katie observed as she led Jet through the basement of her attorney’s office. They’d entered through the rear door, the same one Katie had used with her mother years before when visiting to settle her grandmother’s estate. Parking was available in the rear that the front didn’t offer.

  Bruce Smick had been her mother’s friend, a classmate from high school, and that should have made her more comfortable with him. Instead, she felt ashamed that he knew the troubles that Margaret Finan’s daughter had gone through, as if Katie’s behavior reflected badly on the memory of the woman he knew. For that reason, unless she needed his help to escape the confines of jail, she’d avoided him over the years. In fact, the last time she’d been in this office was to pick up the last of her college tuition money before Chloe was born.

  “We’re below ground. It’ll be better on the first floor,” Jet said, pulling Katie closer and rubbing her arm a vigorously as they headed up a flight of steps to the main level.

  Katie paused on the landing and leaned into Jet for a hug. “I’ll be so happy when this is over.”