Dina couldn't argue. Particularly since protecting her was the reason for the communications blackout. Whatever intervention in her behalf Jack had planned for Monday morning, Belle's murder and Lt. McGuire's presumption of Jack's guilt changed everything.
Lying for investigative purposes was an occupational requirement. From what she'd seen and heard, Jack excelled at it. Where clients were concerned, his code of professional ethics was black-and-white.
"I appreciate your honesty, Ms. Wexler, and your loyalty." Abramson shifted his weight. "But business is business. Do remind Jack, as I said in my last telephone message, I want a final report and the balance of the retainer by five o'clock Friday afternoon."
"That's tomorrow." The purse strap wobbled off her slumping shoulder. If not for that pending homicide charge, she'd confess on the spot. She would anyway and leave out the empty-handed deHaven burglary, except how could she explain having the keys to Jack's office? Let alone why he hadn't surrendered her to the police.
State and city licensing boards weren't big on gray areas, either. Tell Abramson the truth and McPhee Investigations would soon be another empty storefront.
"Please," she said, "give him until Monday. That's one business day from Friday. An extra, lousy twenty-four hours."
"I can't. I've contracted with another investigator. He wants McPhee's notes and the report I've already paid for to avoid duplicating the casework. Assuming any was done."
With that, Abramson turned and stalked off toward a showroom-shiny Mercedes sedan.
"Reports aren't results," Dina called after him. "Bet ya a hundred bucksmake it a
thousand
that Jack's replacement won't catch that burglar by Monday."
The insurance man shot her a look that should have scorched the lettering off the plate window behind her. Anger evolved to circumspection. "You sound awfully sure of yourself, Ms. Wexler."
Once, just once, couldn't she shut her mouth before it got her in trouble? Then again, there were a couple of things of which she was absolutely certain.
"Why wouldn't I be? You fired the best P.I. in town." She jutted her jaw. "Instead of appreciating my loyalty to Jack, maybe you ought to have a little of it yourself."
* * *
Jack braked for a traffic light. Park City had grown since he left that morning. It must have. The drive from the airport to the Wexlers' seemed ninety miles longmost of it still ahead of him.
He scrubbed his face with a hand. His skin felt greasy and parched at the same time. Jesus. What was it about sitting on your duff in an airplane that wore you out? Praying you either survive or croak faster than you can say "Oh, shit" shouldn't drain your batteries to a click above lights-out. His lips hadn't even moved for fear his seatmate would get the wrong idea. Or the right one.
He ought to feel great. He was
this close
to having Carleton deHaven by the
cojones
. Yeah, a couple of sizable puzzle pieces were missing, but the picture was shaping up.
And yeah, he'd wanted deHaven by the
cojones
for years. The guy was a sleaze. A white-collar, rat-bastard con man. Belle was supposed to get wise and get out before the scam collapsed, as they inevitably do. Her calculated, cold-blooded execution, Jack never, ever anticipated.
"I should have." He joined the traffic herd moseying along an asphalt chute. "DeHaven's a flat-out, full-bore sociopath."
He welcomed the adrenaline gates nudging open a crack. Again, he thought of Belle's illicit Marlboro highs. His natural one simmering just slightly cleared his brain and the lethargy weighting his bones.
DeHaven thrilled at the hunt, the chase. Acquisition was the goalpersonally and professionally. Attaining it was like an orgasm. Exultant, powerful, satiating but temporary. Those sensations could be achieved again, maybe exceeded now and then, yet eventually, with nothing else driving them, no emotional connection, the need to hunt, the hunger for the chase must be satisfied.
To plan and execute the perfect murder, outwitting the police and taking down Jack in the process was irresistible. DeHaven would rid himself of a wife he was no longer enamored of and avoid the cost and stigma of another divorce.
Instead of business associates and disciples beginning to question his personal judgment and by association, his financial acumen, he'd be a widower. The "poor man whose wife was murdered" rather than the romantic fool who marries in haste and repents in divorce courts.
Except a perfect murder is a myth, Jack thought. Homicide does go unpunished. Unsolved cases haunt investigators' days and nightmares. Worse and often harder to live with are the acquittals. Insufficient evidence or a jury's belief that "beyond a reasonable doubt" and the misnomer "beyond a
shadow
of a doubt" were synonymous proved it's the world that ain't perfect.
Crimes of passion were generally the ones that wind up in a cold case unit's file drawer. Premeditated murder?
"Mistakes," Jack said. "There are always mistakes. Tiny missteps. Big fuckups. Overthinking it. Overplaying the hand you dealt yourself from a stacked deck."
His chuckle sounded more like a death rattle. "Outfoxing the foxes is a helluva lot harder than it looks, Golden Boy."
Wheeling into a bank's ATM lane, he clamped off the thought that knowing and proving weren't synonyms, either.
The round-tripper to Little Rock had taken a toll on his cash reserves. Bribing rental car clerks in two states cost a friggin' fortune. Especially when it was the fifth and seventh gomers, respectivelyGod forbid it ever be the firstwho coughed up the info Jack sought.
Yancy worked cheap, but yesterday's data mining and Dina's today were rolling up Jack's credit card balances like a space shuttle's odometer. The premium he'd paid for a couple of last-minute airfares, he didn't care to think about.
Or refunding Gerry Abramson's retainer by tomorrow. Every nickel of it. Not a single expense Jack had incurred was billable to National Federated. Mention the burglaries' kennel connection and Abramson didn't need a hired bird to follow the bread crumbs straight to Dina.
"Knowing and proving." Jack pulled another slice of his net worth from the ATM's metal lips. "Without me, Gerry's got
bupkis.
"
The ramifications were still playing Ping-Pong in his head when he parked beside the Beetle in the driveway. The S-10 had commandeered the garage, having more pawnable stuff stowed in it than in the Taurus's backseat.
"Home sweet home." Jack's breath caught. A four-letter word that packed that kind of a punch was usually profane, not profound. "Jeezus Louiseus." He slammed the car door. "Trot down to Arkansas for half a day and you come back the friggin' marshmallow man."
"You're home!" Dina's happy voice turned the corner of the garage a beat faster than she did. Her million-watt grin, that mop of hair flying every which way, the leap into Jack's arms, laughing and strangling him simultaneously, he hadn't let himself dream about.
"So is the kitchen on fire?" he teased. "Or are you just kinda glad to see me?"
No answer. No chance to. Not with his lips impulsively covering hers, then their tongues touching, savoring, exploring
until Jack had to stop, had to pull away, before his knees buckled and the impact with the driveway killed them both.
"Uhhh," she moaned, sliding down till her feet touched ground. "Whew, boy."
"Yeah," he sighed. "What you said."
Wobbling back a little, she looked up at him with a mixture of "Wow," trepidation, and "Well, maybe one more in case that was a fluke." He knew, because he was thinking it, too. And it scared the hell out of him.
"That wasn't supposed to happen," she said.
"Bound to, eventually." His casual shrug felt like a muscle spasm. "This, uh
"
Friendship
didn't sound right.
Relationship
didn't, either, somehow. Maybe because Jack detested it.
Attraction?
So last week.
Conspiracy?
Not.
"This connection between us," he finally said. "It was there at the get-go. For me, anyway."
"Except it's backward," she said. "Usually, if you like somebody, like I think we like each other, you go out, get to know each other better, then if you hit a rough patch, you fix it, or you say, 'Gosh, that was fun while it lasted,' and forget it."
Jack scratched his head, not disagreeing with her, but uncertain if this was one of those times when a wise man should, or suffer the consequences.
"We," Dina went on, "started with the rough patch. The more we get to know each other, the rougher it is, and no matter how much we like each other, we can't fix it, and we can't just forget it, and 'Gosh, that was fun while it lasted' is"
Jack shut her up the only way he knew how. He relished the softness of her lips, the taste of her, the feel of her lithe little body curving into his.
This time when they parted, he cradled her face in his hands. "I don't know how to fix all of it. There's no guarantee I can fix any of it. But forget it? Uh-uh. Whatever happens, happens, but I'm not walking away. Not now, not ever."
"Even if"
He pressed a finger to her lips. "Even if."
19
H
arriet looked at Dina, then to Jack and back again. "I don't want to know."
"Know what, Mom?" C'mon, Dina thought. Ask me why I have this loony grin on my face. Why inside, it feels like I'm balanced on one tiptoe on the rim of a volcano.
"Why it took you ten minutes to fetch McPhee in here." She muttered something ending in "broad daylight" and went back to watching TV and stroking Phil's head.
"Do you want to hear about Jack's trip?"
"Not especially." There was petulance in her voice and a tremor.
"Are you all right?"
"Not especially." Harriet bowed her back, as she sometimes did when angina tightened her chest and radiated downward. "Got me a gas pain that won't quit, thanks for asking." Her mouth pursed. "And that's all it is, so quit fussing and leave me be."
Her skin was neither flushed nor a porcelain grayish-blue. Respirations were shallower and quicker than Dina's, normal for Harriet. Scrutinizing every twitch and sniffle would irk a raging hypochondriac. If her mother weren't inclined to brave acute symptoms and complain about minor ones, Dina wouldn't hover so much.
Particularly now. Stress was exacting a toll on them all. Harriet's resiliency was already compromised.
In the dining area, Dina nodded Jack away from the chair nearer the wall he'd gravitated to for meals. It was the only one with a direct, diagonal bead on her mother. He was perfectly capable of monitoring Harriet himself, except he didn't have Wexler radar or years of experience recognizing the blips.
Dina also knew Harriet's silent Maydays when she saw them. A tissue dabbing sweat at her temples and mouth signaled a blood-sugar slide or chest pain. Her knuckle pressing up the oxygen cannula meant breathing difficulty. Fingers flexing, her feet tapping under the throw indicated tingling, numbness or cold associated with poor circulationalso symptomatic of respiratory distress.
The reported discomfort probably was just indigestion, Dina thought. Real or a sly insult to my cooking, as opposed to Chef Boy-ar-McPhee's. Why live in peace and harmony, when you enjoy being the stick poking a hornet's nest?
From the paper grocery sack Jack retrieved from the trunk, he took out two beverage cans clad in foam cozies. An eyebrow crimped as he held out one to Dina. "Beer?" he mouthed.
First he kisses her till her toes curl under, then he smuggles in beer disguised as sodas? And not the four-bucks-a-sixer brand she'd buy in November, refrigerate outside behind a bush and make last until March.
Dina felt her mother's sidelong squint at the tabs' merry pop-
whissh.
The container's coved top and gold band above the cozy was identical to a soda can. The escaping foam was thicker and frothier than a cola, but it slurped the same.
Only better. Way and wonderfully better.
Harriet was again entranced by
City Confidential,
though the volume was muted enough to eavesdrop. Dina slid the can across the table and bumped Jack's. "To whatever happens."
He winked, then drank to it. "That's the spirit."
A cold beer and a sit-down evidently took precedence over his changing clothes. The only concessions to comfort were draping his suit coat over another chair, a loosened tie and collar button.
The ceiling fixture's glare wasn't flattering to anyone, but scored every crease and the marionette lines in Jack's face. Sleep didn't cure that kind of tired, but counting back, Dina realized he hadn't had a full, dreamless night's rest in a week.
She smiled to herself. If the beer didn't knock him out, other prescription remedies were at her disposal. He might even thank her for it someday. If he ever figured out she'd drugged him.
