by Nora Roberts
“Hold on.” He held up both hands as she unbuttoned her suit jacket. “If I’m reading this correctly—and stop me anytime if I veer off—you think that Angela was blackmailing me. Have I got that part?”
Marching to the closet, she yanked out a padded hanger. “I said I wouldn’t intrude if you didn’t want me to. I was being reasonable.”
“You certainly were.” He came over, clamped his hands on her shoulders and steered her rigid body to a chair. “Now sit down. And tell me why you think I was being blackmailed.”
“I went to meet Angela that night because she said she knew something about you. Something that could hurt you.”
He sat himself then, on the edge of the bed, as a new kind of fury ate at him. “She lured you to the studio by threatening me?”
“Not directly. Not exactly.” She dragged a hand through her hair. “There was nothing she could tell me that would change my feelings for you. I wanted to make sure she understood that. That she left us both alone.”
“Deanna, why didn’t you come to me?”
She winced from the simple, rational question. “Because I wanted to handle her myself,” she shot back. “Because I don’t need you or anyone running interference for me.”
“Isn’t that precisely what you misguidedly tried to do for me?”
That shut her up, but again, only for a moment. It was, she knew, master interviewer against master interviewer. And it was a competition she didn’t mean to lose. “You’re evading the issue. What would she have told me, Finn?”
“I don’t have a clue. I’m not gay; I don’t use drugs; I’ve never stolen anything. Except a couple of comic books when I was twelve—and nobody could prove it.”
“I don’t think this is funny.”
“She wasn’t blackmailing me, Deanna. I had an affair with her, but that was no secret. She wasn’t the first woman I’d been involved with, but there haven’t been any deviant sexual encounters I’d want to hide. I don’t have any ties to organized crime, never embezzled. I’m not hiding any illegitimate children. I never killed anyone.”
He broke off abruptly, and the impatient amusement drained out of his face. “Oh Jesus.” He brought both hands to his face, pressing the heels to his eyes. “Jesus Christ.”
“I’m sorry.” Competition forgotten, she sprang up to go to him. “Finn, I’m sorry, I should never have brought it up.”
“Could she have done that?” he said to himself. “Could even she have done that? And for what?” He let his hands drop, and his eyes were haunted. “For what?”
“Done what?” Deanna asked quietly, her arms still around him.
Finn drew back, just a little, as if what was working inside him might damage her. “My best friend in college. Pete Whitney. We got hooked on the same girl. We got drunk one night, really plowed, and tried to beat the crap out of each other. Did a pretty good job. Made sure it was off campus. Then we decided, hell, she wasn’t worth it, and we drank some more.”
His voice was cool, detached. His newscaster’s voice. “That’s the last time I’ve been drunk. Pete used to joke that it was the Irish in me. That I could drink or fight or talk my way out of anything.” He remembered the way he’d been then—angry, rebellious, belligerent. Determined to be absolutely nothing like his chilly and civilized parents. “I’m not much of a drinker anymore, and I’ve figured out that words are generally a better weapon than fists. He gave me this.” Finn tugged the Celtic cross out from under his shirt, closed his hand around it. “He was my closest friend, the closest thing to family I ever had.”
Was, Deanna thought, and ached for him.
“We forgot about the girl. She wasn’t as important to either of us as we were to each other. We killed off another bottle. My eye was swollen up like a rotten tomato, so I tossed him the keys, climbed into the passenger seat, passed out. We were twenty, and we were stupid. The idea of getting into a car filthy drunk didn’t mean anything to us. When you’re twenty, you’re going to live forever. But Pete didn’t.
“I woke up when I heard him scream. That’s it. I heard him scream and the next thing I remember is waking up with all these lights and all these people and feeling as if I’d been run over by a truck. He’d taken a turn too fast, hit a utility pole. We’d both been thrown from the car. I had a concussion, a broken collarbone, broken arm, lots of cuts and bruises. Pete was dead.”
“Oh, Finn.” She wrapped her arms around him again, held on.
“It was my car, so they figured I’d been driving. They were going to charge me with vehicular manslaughter. My father came down, but by the time he got there they’d already found several witnesses who had seen Pete take the wheel. He wasn’t any more or any less dead, of course. It didn’t change that, or the fact that I’d been drunk and stupid, criminally careless.”
He tightened his fingers around the silver cross. “I wasn’t hiding it, Deanna. It’s just not something I like to remember. Funny, I thought about Pete tonight, when we walked into Angela’s funeral. I haven’t been to one since Pete’s. His mother always blamed me. I could see her point.”
“You weren’t driving, Finn.”
“Does it really matter?” He looked at her then, though he already knew the answer. “I could have been. My father gave the Whitneys a settlement, and that was pretty much the end of it. I wasn’t charged with anything. I wasn’t held responsible.”
He turned his face into Deanna’s hair. “But I was. I was just as responsible as Pete. The only difference is I’m alive and he’s not.”
“The difference is, you were given a second chance and he wasn’t.” She closed her hand over his, so that they both held the cross. “I’m so sorry, Finn.”
So was he. He’d spent his adult life making himself into the man he was, as much for Pete as for himself. He wore the cross every day as a talisman, yes, and as a reminder.
“Angela could have dug up the facts easily enough,” Finn said. “She could even have made it appear that the Riley money and power influenced the outcome. But she would have blackmailed you, not me. She’d have known if she’d come to me, I’d have told her to take out an ad.”
“I want to tell the police.”
He eased her back on the bed so that they were curled together, wrapped close. “We’ll tell them a lot of things. Tomorrow.” Gently, he tipped her face toward his. “Would you have protected me, Deanna?”
She started to deny it, but caught the gleam in his eye. She knew he’d recognize a lie. “Yes. So?”
“So, thanks.”
She smiled as she lifted her mouth toward his.
Not so far away someone was weeping. The tears were hot and bitter, scalding the throat, the eyes, the skin. Photographs of Deanna looked on, smiling benignly at the sobbing form. Three candles tossed the only light, their flames, straight and true, highlighting the pictures, the single earring, the lock of hair bound in gold thread. All of the treasures on the altar of frustrated desire.
There were stacks of videotapes, but the television screen was silent and dark tonight.
Angela was dead, but still that wasn’t enough. Love, deep, dark and demented, had triggered the gun, but it wasn’t enough. There had to be more.
The candleglow shot the shadow of a form hunched into a ball, racked with despair. Deanna would see, had to see that she was loved, cherished, adored.
There was a way to prove it.
Finn would have preferred to handle the interview alone. Jenner would have preferred to do the same. Since neither of them could manage to shake the other loose, they drove to Beeker’s office together.
“Might as well make the best of it,” Jenner said. “I’m doing you a favor, Mr. Riley, letting you tag along.”
That statement earned Jenner a frigid stare. “I don’t tag along, Lieutenant. And let me remind you that you wouldn’t know about Kate Lowell or Beeker if we hadn’t come to you with the information.”
Jenner grinned and rubbed his chin, which he’d nicked shav
ing. “And I get the feeling you wouldn’t have come to me if Miss Reynolds hadn’t insisted.”
“She feels easier knowing the police are on top of things.”
“And how does she feel about your being involved in the investigation?” Silence. “Doesn’t know,” Jenner concluded. “As a man married thirty-two years last July, let me mention that you’re skating on thin ice.”
“She’s terrified. And she’s going to continue to be terrified until you have Angela’s killer under wraps.”
“Can’t argue with that. Now, this Kate Lowell business. Being a reporter, you might not agree, but I think she’s entitled to her privacy.”
“It’s tough to argue for privacy when you make your living in the public eye. I believe in the right to know, Lieutenant. But I don’t believe in blackmail, or in poking telescopic lenses into someone’s bedroom window.”
“Got your dander up.” Pleased, Jenner scooted through a yellow light. “Me, I feel sorry for her. She was a kid, probably scared.”
“You’re a soft touch, Lieutenant.”
“Like hell. You can’t be a cop and be a soft touch.” But he was, damn it. And since it embarrassed the hell out of him, he took the aggressive route. “She still could’ve killed Angela Perkins.”
Finn waited as Jenner doubled-parked, then flipped the officer-on-duty sign over on the dash. “Entertain me.”
“She argues with Angela at the hotel. She’s fed up with Angela, enraged at being made to suffer for something that happened when she was still wet behind the ears.”
“There’s that soft touch again. Keep going,” Finn prompted as he climbed out of the car.
“She’s tired of Angela holding it over her head and threatens her. She hears the maid in the bedroom so she leaves. But she follows Angela to CBC, confronts her in the studio, murders her. Then Deanna comes in, and she gets creative. She’s been in films for years. She knows how to set up a camera.”
“Yes.” There was a quick, nippy breeze that smelled of the lake. Finn drew it in, the easy freshness of it as they crossed the street. “Then she decides to disguise her motive by going public with exactly what she killed Angela over. Better the world knows she’s an unwed mother than a murderer.”
“It doesn’t play,” Jenner concluded.
“Not for me. If Beeker has half the dirt Kate thinks, we’ll have a dozen more scenarios by dinnertime.” They walked into the office building, Jenner flashing his badge at the security guard in the lobby.
Upstairs, Jenner scanned the wide corridor. The oil paintings were originals and very good. The carpet was thick. Tall, leafy plants were tucked into niches every few feet.
The doors of Beeker Investigations were glass and whispered open into an airy reception area complete with a tidy miniature spruce for the holiday season.
A trim, thirtyish brunette piloted a circular reception desk fashioned from glass blocks. “May I help you?”
“Beeker.” Jenner offered the receptionist his ID for inspection.
“Mr. Beeker is in conference, Lieutenant. Will one of his associates be able to help you?”
“Beeker,” he said again. “We’ll wait, but I’d buzz him if I were you.”
“Very well.” Her friendly smile chilled a few degrees. “May I ask what this is in reference to?”
“Murder.”
“Nice touch,” Finn murmured when they wandered over to the deep-cushioned chairs in the waiting area. “Real Joe Friday stuff.” He took another look around. “Very elegant surroundings, for a P.I.”
“A couple of clients like Angela Perkins means this guy nets in a month what I do in a year.”
“Lieutenant Jenner?” The receptionist, obviously miffed, stood in the center of the room. “Mr. Beeker will see you now.” She guided them through another set of glass doors, past several offices. She knocked lightly on the door at the end of the hall, and opened it.
Clarence Beeker was like his office, trim, subtly elegant and serviceable. He stood, a man of average height and slim build, behind his Belker desk. The hand he extended was fine-boned.
His hair was graying dashingly at the temples, and he had a finely drawn face that was more handsome with the lines and crevices etched by time. His body was obviously trim beneath his Savile Row suit.
“Might I see some identification?” His voice was smooth, like cool cream over rich coffee.
Jenner was disappointed. He’d expected Beeker to be sleazy.
He examined the shield after slipping on silver-framed reading glasses. “I recognize you, Mr. Riley. I often watch your show on Tuesday nights. Since you’ve brought a reporter along, Detective Jenner, I assume this is an unofficial visit.”
“It’s official enough,” Jenner corrected. “Mr. Riley’s here as a special liaison of the mayor’s.” Not by a flicker did Jenner or Finn react to the glib lie.
“I’m honored. Please sit. Tell me what I can do for you.”
“I’m investigating Angela Perkins’s murder,” Jenner began. “She was a client of yours.”
“She was.” Beeker settled behind his desk. “I was shocked and distressed to read about her death.”
“We have information leading us to believe that the deceased was blackmailing a number of people.”
“Blackmail.” Beeker’s graying brows rose. “It seems a very unattractive term to be connected to a very attractive woman.”
“It’s also an attractive motive for murder,” Finn put in. “You investigated people for Miss Perkins.”
“I handled a number of cases for Miss Perkins over our ten-year association. Given the nature of her profession, it was advantageous for her to be privy to details, backgrounds, the personal habits of those she would interview.”
“Her interest, and her use of those personal habits, might have led to her death.”
“Mr. Riley, I investigated and reported for Miss Perkins. I’m sure you understand both those functions. I had no more control over her use of the information I provided than you do over the public’s use of the information you provide to them.”
“And no responsibility.”
“None,” Beeker agreed pleasantly. “We provide a service. Beeker Investigations has an excellent reputation because we are skilled, discreet and dependable. We abide by the law, Detective, and a code of ethics. Whether or not our clients do so is their business, not ours.”
“One of your clients got her face shot off,” Jenner said shortly. “We’d like to see copies of the reports you wrote for Miss Perkins.”
“I’m afraid, as much as I prefer to cooperate with the police, that would be impossible. Unless you have a warrant,” he said pleasantly.
“You don’t have a client to protect, Mr. Beeker.” Jenner leaned forward. “What’s left of her is in a coffin.”
“I’m aware of that. However, I do have a client. Mr. Gardner has this company under retainer. As the deceased’s husband and beneficiary, I am morally bound to accede to his wishes.”
“Which are?”
“To investigate his wife’s murder. To be frank, gentlemen, he’s dissatisfied with the police investigation to date. And as he was my client during his wife’s life, and continues to be after her death, I can’t ethically turn over my files without the proper warrant. I’m sure you understand my position.”
“And you’ll understand mine,” Finn said pleasantly. “Liaison or not, I am a reporter. As such, I have an obligation to inform the public. It would be interesting to inform the public of the kind of work you did for Angela. I wonder how many of your other clients would appreciate that connection.”
Beeker had stiffened. “Threats, Mr. Riley, aren’t appreciated.”
“I’m sure they’re not. But that doesn’t make them any less viable.” Finn glanced at his watch. “I think I have enough time to squeeze in a quick feature on the evening news. We’d be able to do an in-depth version tomorrow.”
Jaw clenched, Beeker lifted his phone, buzzed his secretary. “I’ll need
copies of Angela Perkins’s files. All of them.” He cradled the phone again, linked his fingers. “It will take a little time.”
“We’ve got plenty,” Jenner assured him. “While we’re waiting, why don’t you tell us where you were on the night Angela Perkins was shot?”
“I’d be happy to. I was at home, with my wife and my mother. As I recall, we played three-handed bridge until about midnight.”
“Then you won’t object to us questioning your wife and your mother?”
“Of course not.” Though he wasn’t pleased at being outmaneuvered, Beeker was a practical man. “Perhaps I can offer you gentlemen coffee while we wait for the files?”