The obvious answer was that the boyfriend had checked out and gone home alone. Kate was probably on her way to Mitchell right now, as eager to kiss him hello as he was to return her kiss. There was a way to find out. … Slowly, Mitchell pulled his wallet out of his pocket and removed the slip of paper he’d put there yesterday with the veterinary’s address and phone number on it. Looking at it, he flipped his cell phone open again with his thumb, his heart beginning to beat with dread.
“This is Mitchell Wyatt,” he told the vet when he answered the phone. “I was wondering if Miss Donovan came by to pick up Max yet.”
“Yes, she did. She picked him up several hours ago, and he was very happy to see her. I had all the documents ready that she needed to get him into the States.”
“That’s good …” Mitchell said, his chest constricting in pained disbelief. “Did she bring someone along to help with him?”
“Yes, a nice gentleman.”
Standing beside their car, Childress and MacNeil watched Wyatt’s jet taxiing away from its hangar. Minutes later, it roared down the runway; then it lifted off and vanished swiftly into the darkness, its presence in the sky marked only by tiny flashes of light.
Chapter Thirty
UNLIKE HIS TRADITIONALLY FURNISHED APARTMENTS in Europe, the interior of Mitchell’s plane resembled a luxurious Art Deco living room, and the color scheme of silver, black, and chrome was enlivened with splashes of color from the period art pieces he’d carefully collected. A stylish oyster-gray leather sofa, long enough for him to stretch out on, was positioned between a pair of round end tables with black granite tops and polished chrome lamps in the stepped profile of the Art Deco period.
Two oversize gray leather swivel recliners were across from the sofa. Beyond that was a Macassar ebony desk and credenza where he frequently worked, another row of seats, and a doorway opening into a compact but elegant bedroom-and-bathroom suite.
Normally, when Mitchell boarded for a flight of several hours, he went either to his desk or to the bedroom, depending on the time of day. Tonight, he went straight to the curved ebony bar near the front of the cabin and poured brandy into a crystal tumbler instead of a snifter.
From the sofa, he watched the twinkling lights of St. Maarten vanish; then he stretched his legs out in front of him and lifted the glass of brandy to his lips, eager for the fiery liquid to start dulling the ache in his chest.
He’d turned off the cabin’s lights and switched on a table lamp.
Slowly and methodically, he began reviewing the last three days, searching for some clue that should have alerted him to the fact that he was overestimating the depth of her feelings for him.
An hour later, all he’d come up with were haunting memories of an irresistible redhead with a heartwarming smile who’d kissed him and set him on fire—memories that all led him to the same unanswerable question: How could she have left with her boyfriend, without at least meeting Mitchell at the wharf to tell him good-bye?
How could she have done that when she’d been so candid and brave about her feelings:
I think fate may have intended for us to meet the way we did and to become friends—that it was predestined. … I like you very much, and I think you like me, too. … If I’m going to be disappointed, I don’t want it to happen with you.
Swallowing over the unfamiliar constriction in his throat, he drew a long breath and leaned his head back, willing himself into a state of pleasant numbness where he could think about her without this gnawing sense of bewildered loss. Instead, he remembered the quiet joy of sitting up in bed, drowsy and contented, watching the sunrise together, and the inexplicable pleasure of seeing her hand resting next to his on the table in the casino.
She’d made her decision to stay with her boyfriend, and thanks to his glib description of their “roles” that morning, he was stuck with that decision and bound by the very role he’d described and intended for her boyfriend to play:
As soon as he understands that you’re serious about wanting to be with someone else, he is obliged to accept defeat gracefully and wish you well and then to get the hell out of my way.
About those rules—she’d asked—What would you do if I were to vacillate a little about breaking up with my boyfriend?
Under those circumstances, you would be required to telephone me to tell me that you’re having doubts, and then I would simply switch roles with him.
On his way to the airport tonight, he’d phoned the Enclave to see if she’d left a message for him there, but she hadn’t.
Briefly, Mitchell considered the possibility that her disappearance was a sophomoric attempt to prove she could make him jealous enough to come after her. If so, she wasn’t the woman he thought she was.
He knew how to find her—she wasn’t lost to him. If she wasn’t listed in the phone book, he could trace her through her father’s newspaper obituary.
Several times he considered the possibility that something dire had happened that made her leave without a word.
Each time, he squelched that thought, along with the temptation to use it as an excuse to find her. She’d had the time, and the presence of mind, to pick up a stray dog at the vet. She’d intentionally left him to wait at the wharf.
The telephone on the table beside him began ringing and he ignored it.
“Why isn’t he answering the damned phone?” Matt Farrell asked his wife. Shoving his hands into his pockets, he turned and gazed out the living room windows of their penthouse apartment overlooking Lake Shore Drive. “I know he’s on the plane.”
Meredith laid aside the agenda she was supposed to be preparing for the next board of directors meeting of Bancroft & Company, a chain of luxury department stores founded by a Bancroft ancestor, and which she now headed. “He’s probably in bed,” she said, but Matt heard the apprehension in her voice, and he remembered something that made Mitchell’s situation seem less grim. “Speaking of that …” he said, and raised his brows, letting the sentence hang unfinished.
Meredith studied his expression but couldn’t connect it with anything other than possibly a hint that they should go to bed, which seemed unlikely given his urgent need to contact Mitchell and warn him that police on two continents were searching his apartments. “Speaking of what?” she prompted finally.
“Speaking of Mitchell being in bed,” Matt provided unhelpfully.
“Yes?” she said in smiling exasperation when he merely lifted his brows and left her hanging again, without any information.
Satisfied that she was fully engrossed in this new topic, he said, “When Zack called tonight to tell me Mitchell’s apartment in Rome was being searched, he also mentioned that Mitchell had phoned him earlier today from St. Maarten with a very interesting request—It seems that Mitchell has met someone down in the islands, and since he needed to come back here to be with Caroline and Billy for a few days, he wanted to be sure the lady would have a very pleasant time cruising the islands on the Julie while he was in Chicago.”
Tipping her head to the side, Meredith looked at him, puzzled. “That doesn’t sound particularly significant.”
“That’s not the significant part. The significant part is that Mitchell intended to fly back to the islands every night to be with her on the yacht. Hence,” he finished, with satisfaction at his wife’s look of surprised interest, “the connection between Mitchell being in bed on the plane and this discussion. I’m thinking maybe she’s with him and that’s why he hasn’t answered my calls. Her name is Kate, by the way.”
Meredith’s smile faded and so did Matt’s, for the same reason. “I hope she’s on the yacht and not on the plane,” Meredith said, putting both their thoughts into words. “It would be awful for him if she’s there and the police are waiting to talk to him when the plane lands, like Zack thinks is going to happen.”
“Zack may be leaping to conclusions,” Matt replied, walking toward the telephone.
“But you don’t think he’s leaping to conclusions
, do you?”
“No.” He hesitated, reluctant to worry her, but unwilling to lie to her.
Meredith wasn’t certain what to expect. Years before, Matt had watched his friend Zack Benedict get wrongly convicted of murdering his actress wife, and the bitter experience had left both men intensely mistrustful of the criminal justice system. As a result, Matt had already arranged for his chauffeur to be ready to head for the hangar at O’Hare with two attorneys from the law firm that handled both Matt’s and Mitchell’s corporate affairs in Chicago.
The telephone next to the sofa began ringing again, and Mitchell ignored it, but very few people had the plane’s phone number, and all of them were important to him for one reason or another. Since the brandy he’d been drinking had only made him sink deeper into a state of confused longing for Kate, he finally reached for the telephone to give himself a distraction. “Whoever you are,” he said aloud when he answered, “you’re persistent as hell.”
“It’s Matt,” his friend said after a startled pause. “Zack called an hour ago to say the police were swarming all over your apartment, searching for something. He also said your assistant in New York called because NYPD was searching your New York apartment.”
Mitchell straightened slowly to an upright position. “What are they searching for?”
“Your assistant said the search warrant was for a man’s outdoor coat or jacket, black in color, and any item of apparel with buttons bearing a particular symbol on the back. The cops had a picture of the symbol. I have no idea what the Italian warrant was for, but Zack faxed me a copy of it.”
“Read it to me,” Mitchell said, as anger began to replace some of the desolation he was feeling. He listened to Matt struggle through the Italian words, mispronouncing most of them. “That’s what they’re looking for,” Mitchell said, halting Matt’s recitation.
“What is it?”
“A man’s black outdoor coat or jacket, and anything with buttons bearing a particular symbol.” Standing up, Mitchell ran his hand around the back of his neck. “I have no idea what this is about.”
“Zack and I both think it’s related to the discovery of your brother’s body.”
Mitchell shook his head in denial. “My nephew said the police already have a confession from an old drunk on a neighboring farm.”
“That’s what the police told your nephew, because that’s what they want you to think,” Matt argued. “Listen to me very carefully, because I’ve been through this before, and I know how the police operate. The searches of your apartments are occurring immediately after the discovery of your brother’s murdered body, which undoubtedly means you’ve become a suspect in his death. If so, the police want you back in Chicago, where they can either question you or arrest you. I think they’ll be waiting for you when your plane lands, and so does Zack.”
He paused, waiting for that to sink in, before he continued, “I’ve phoned Levinson and Pearson and put them on standby to meet you at your plane. Joe O’Hara is ready to leave with the car and pick them up as soon as you give me the go-ahead. Zack disagrees with this plan. He doesn’t think you should land in Chicago at all. He thinks you should land somewhere else, out of U.S. jurisdiction tonight; hire criminal defense attorneys tomorrow; and then let them arrange with Cook County for you to voluntarily return. Zack is probably right.”
Mitchell stood up, walked over to the bar, and put his glass down on a tray. “I’m not going to run for cover. I’ll call Levinson and tell him to find out who is in charge of this fiasco. Levinson can then let this person know that I’m aware of what’s going on and that I’m still going to land at O’Hare. That may not convince the police that I’m innocent, but it will at least give me the enormous satisfaction of embarrassing them.”
Despite the grimness of the situation, Matt Farrell chuckled. “And then what?”
“Then the police can either rush out to grab me at the airport, or they can let Levinson arrange for both of us to stop by in the morning for a civilized discussion. Personally, I hope they choose the second option.”
Mitchell phoned Dave Levinson at home and told the attorney what he wanted him to do. He hung up, glanced at his watch, and realized it was still set for St. Maarten time. With his thumb and forefinger, he pulled out the stem to set the time back two hours, and reality struck him with painful force: less than sixteen hours ago he’d been lying in bed watching the sunrise over the Caribbean with Kate snuggled up beside him, telling him a funny story about how she got the “dent” in her chin. Before he’d finally fallen asleep, he’d decided they would dine aboard the yacht tonight and go for a starlight cruise.
Instead of that, she was in Chicago with a man she preferred to Mitchell, and he was trying to avoid being arrested for the murder of a brother he had loved.
Forcing Kate out of his mind, Mitchell got up and headed to the bedroom to shave and change clothes. From now on, he needed to concentrate solely on dealing with the police and helping Caroline and Billy through the ordeal to come. Kate was gone. It was over. Finished. She and their brief affair had to be put away now. Mentally, Mitchell forced her out of his consciousness and shoved her into a dark cubbyhole from which she couldn’t escape or come back to haunt him. Compartmentalizing was one of his greatest talents; it was a survival technique he’d developed as a boy, and it had served him extremely well.
In the bedroom, he pulled off his shirt; then he went into the bathroom, opened a cabinet, and took out a razor and shaving cream. He smeared lather on his face, picked up his razor, and started shaving beneath his chin.
His traitorous mind conjured up an image of Kate from this morning. She was looking at him in the mirror, hiding a smile, trying not to look as if she was deriving pleasure from the casual intimacy of watching her lover shave. Beneath the lather, he’d been hiding a smile of his own, because he was experiencing a similar pleasure from having her watch him.
The razor slipped, and he swore as he grabbed for a tissue.
Levinson called back just as Mitchell finished buttoning a fresh shirt and tucking it into his trousers. “I couldn’t find anyone who knows anything about the search warrants or who’s in charge of the investigation into William’s death,” he said. “The investigation used to be headed up by a Detective MacNeil, but he’s away on special assignment. Since nobody seemed to know anything, I decided to go straight to the top and phoned Gray Elliott, the state’s attorney, at home.
“Gray and I had an interesting chat in which I did all the talking and he did all the listening. In fact, I wasn’t sure whether he knew anything about the investigation until the end of our conversation. I’m now convinced he’s handling it personally.”
“Why is that?” Mitchell asked, irritated by the lack of solid information.
“Because at the end of our conversation, he said to tell you, ‘Welcome back,’ and to have a pleasant evening and that he’s looking forward to getting to know you better at eleven-thirty tomorrow morning.”
“I gather that means I’m not going to be met by the cops when I land?”
“Coming from Gray, that could just as easily mean, ‘Please continue to cherish your false sense of security, and land that damned plane at O’Hare, where I can impound it.’ Either way, you can count on being interviewed by the police at eleven-thirty tomorrow morning, with or without spending the night in jail first.”
“In that case, you and Pearson should meet me at the airport when we land,” Mitchell said curtly.
To Mitchell’s surprise there was only one vehicle waiting for his plane when it taxied to the hangar, and it was a limousine with Pearson and Levinson in the backseat and Matt’s chauffeur at the wheel.
“My chat with Gray obviously convinced him that you’re not going to try to evade being questioned,” Levinson said as they pulled onto the expressway ramp.
In the front seat, Joe O’Hara was watching the rearview mirror. “We’re being tailed,” he said. “Two cars. Do you want me to try to lose them?”
>
“Absolutely not!” Pearson said.
Chapter Thirty-one
“BE NICE TO HIM, LUCY,” KATE MURMURED SLEEPILY. “Max doesn’t know the bed is for cats only.” Reaching out, she pulled the hissing cat away from Max, who’d unknowingly violated Lucy’s territory by resting his head on the comforter. She settled the gray cat on the pillow next to hers and turned her face toward the nightstand. The clock stared back at her. It was eight-thirty.
Kate closed her eyes, trying to return to the peaceful amnesia of sleep, but a few minutes later she gave up, shoved back the covers, and climbed wearily out of bed. “How did you sleep?” she asked Max. He wagged his tail in response, and she smiled, ruffling his fur. “You have to learn to get along with Lucy and Ethel,” she said as she paused to scoop Ethel off her dresser and give the tabby a hug.
Max followed her into the kitchen, and she let him out into the fenced yard of the little house she rented in an old, partially restored Chicago neighborhood near where she used to work. He trotted outside onto the frozen ground and sniffed the snow; then the unfamiliar cold penetrated his fur and he beat a hasty retreat back to the house.
Kate pretended to ignore him as she made coffee. “Please let him be easy to housebreak,” she prayed to no one in particular. Her belief in the power of prayer, which had undergone fairly wide swings throughout her life, was at a record low after her night on the beach with Mitchell Wyatt.
Watching him swimming toward her under a blanket of bright stars and sensing her father’s presence so close to her had been the most moving, mystical experience of Kate’s life—proof at last that there really was a Divine Presence, a Grand Plan, just as her uncle, the priest, had always insisted. Maybe he was right, Kate decided as she listlessly spooned coffee into a filter. If so, then based on her own recent experience, the Divine Presence had a cruelly perverse sense of humor and His Grand Plan needed drastic revision.
While she contemplated those weighty matters, coffee brewed and Max went out into the yard again, where he made use of all three catalpa trees. Kate let him back inside and congratulated him on a job well done with as much enthusiasm as she could muster; then she poured herself a cup of coffee.
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