That Summer Night (Callaways #6) (18 page)

"A family trait."

He tipped his head. "True."

"Speaking of Robert's illustrations, we should probably look at the notebook again," Shayla said.

"I've been studying the drawings all morning." He retrieved the notebook and opened it on the table between them. "Something has been bothering me."

"What's that?"

"See the number on the house?"

"One-forty-six. Is that your address?"

"That's the thing. It's not the address. We lived at four-twenty-three. Robert drew all the other details exactly right, almost as if he had a camera, and there's no way he forgot our address, so why change the number?"

She stared at the sketch with a puzzled frown. "It doesn't seem like an idle mistake," she said slowly. "Unless Robert was trying to elevate the story from the real world into the fantasy world. Is there anything else that's off?"

He flipped through the pages. "Here's Razor on a football field with the number eighteen on his back. If we go with your theory that Razor is me, then why not put number sixteen on his back which was my number?"

She looked up at him. "You're fixating on the numbers. Why?"

"Because I don't remember the numbers being there before, and because I don't think Robert would put numbers into the drawings unless they meant something." He turned to another page. A futuristic car was taking flight over a cityscape of tall buildings. There was a man in the car, but only the back of his head could be seen. "The license plate here seems to jump out of the sketch."

"XKJ413," she said. "That doesn't mean anything to you?"

"No."

"What if you put all the numbers in the book together?" she suggested. "Do you have a pen?"

He handed her a pen and watched as she jotted down all the numbers in the notebook.

"We get 1, 40, 6, 16, 4, 1, 3. A sequence of seven numbers," she said. "That could mean anything."

"Or nothing."

"It could also be nine numbers if we turned 40 into a 4 and a zero." She bit down on her bottom lip as she thought. "Or the letters could also stand for numbers."

It was a great idea. He shouldn't have been surprised at her quick mind, but he was.

"X would be 24, K would be 11 and J would be 10," she said. "Now you have a sequence of ten numbers." She frowned. "But I still don't know what that would mean. Are there any other letters in the sketches?"

"I wasn't looking for letters, but that's a good idea."

As she flipped through the notebook, he said, "You're pretty good at this, Shayla."

"We'll see. I used to like to make up secret codes. It was a game Colton and I played, sometimes to bug our older siblings. We'd write messages to each other in code so no one would know what we were talking about. It used to bug the crap out of my oldest sister, Nicole, especially when she was babysitting."

"Maybe your code cracking skills will come in handy now."

"I suspect your skills are far more developed than mine."

"I know something about cryptography, but it wasn't my specialty. One of my friends is a genius at it. He's working on Matt's team now. Maybe I should have him look at the sketches."

She set the notebook down. "We can talk to him after we talk to Lisa. You haven't forgotten that you're going to see your ex, have you?"

"No, I haven't forgotten. And it's not me, it's we."

She frowned. "You don't think it would be better to go alone? You might have personal things to discuss."

It might be more productive, he thought. It was possible Lisa would be more forthcoming if it were just him. On the other hand, she might fall into hysterics, start to cry, and want to talk about the past, and he didn't want to go there, so he'd take his chances with Shayla.

"We're going together," he said decisively. "Lisa and I have nothing personal to talk about. She might not even remember me. She's obviously fallen for two other guys since we were together."

Shayla shook her head. "Lisa might have cheated on you, but there's no way in hell she ever forgot you."

* * *

"Lisa finally found a man wealthy enough to give her the house of her dreams," Reid said, as he parked his beat-up truck in front of the three-story house in San Francisco's exclusive neighborhood of Presidio Heights a few minutes after eleven o'clock in the morning. He couldn't believe he was about to see the woman who had stabbed a knife in his heart, then twisted it a little. He could still remember the look in her eyes when he'd stumbled upon her and Robert. There had been no shame, only anger, defiance, as if he'd somehow driven her to do what she did. He'd never been able to make sense of that look.

"It's a nice house," Shayla said quietly.

"What am I doing here?" he murmured.

"You're trying to help your brother."

"Is that really why I'm here?"

"I thought it was." She gave him a thoughtful look. "If you don't want to talk to her, Reid, I'll do it. She called me a few days ago. It would make sense that I'd come here out of concern, that I'd have questions."

Shayla was throwing him a lifeline, and he almost grabbed on to it. But he'd never been a coward in his life, and he wasn’t going to start now, not with Lisa. She'd been in the wrong, not him. "No, I'll do it. I know which buttons to push."

"Do you want to do it alone? Just in case things get personal, and you don't want me to hear what she has to say?"

"There's nothing you haven't heard already." He shot her a quick smile. "We're a team, Doc."

"Okay, I've got your back."

"Appreciate that."

They walked up the meticulously landscaped drive to the front door. Reid rang the doorbell, holding his finger down for an extra second.

A moment later, the door opened, and the woman he'd almost married stood right in front of him. It was the closest he'd been to her in almost eight years, and it felt strange, almost like a dream. She hadn't changed much. She was still attractive, although her brown hair was mostly blonde now, setting off her dark brown eyes. She was thin, and judging by the yoga pants and tank top she wore, she still liked to work out.

Lisa's jaw dropped when she saw him, her eyes widening with disbelief, followed by wariness. "Oh, my God! Reid! What are you doing here?"

"I want to talk to you," he said.

"Has something happened to Robert?"

"Why would you ask that?" he countered.

"Because I can't think of any other reason why you'd come to see me after all these years."

He couldn't either. "Yes, it's about Robert."

"He's not…"

"Not what?"

"I don't know. I just have the feeling something terrible has happened to him." Lisa's gaze moved to Shayla. More surprise registered in her eyes. "Shayla. You're with Reid? I didn't know you two knew each other."

"It's a recent acquaintance," Shayla said. "Can we come in?"

Lisa hesitated and then stepped back. "Of course."

"Is your new boyfriend here?" Reid asked as he walked into her beautiful home.

"No, he's golfing," she said, an edge to her voice.

Reid was happy to hear that. He wanted to talk to Lisa away from Hal. In fact, he'd like to keep their conversation private, but he doubted Lisa would do him any favors.

"Your house is beautiful," Shayla murmured, as they followed Lisa through the entry into the large living room, the windows of which looked out on the San Francisco bay. The room was so big there were actually two seating areas. Lisa took them to the one closest to the window, a trio of couches that faced the amazing view.

"I recently redecorated," Lisa said as they sat down. "Hal was living like a bachelor. Everything was dark and heavy and completely wrong for the room." She stopped abruptly. "But you don't want to hear about that."

"Not really," he said.

Lisa clasped her hands together, her fingers playing nervously with what appeared to be at least a three or four carat diamond ring. When she saw his gaze move to her hand, she said, "We got engaged two weeks ago."

"It's certainly bigger than the one I gave you."

She stared back at him, and for a split second he thought he saw a flash of regret, but maybe he was imagining things.

"Do you want to talk about the past?" she asked. "Because you never have before. I tried a long time to set things straight with you, but you would never talk to me. You wouldn't answer my letters, my emails, my phone calls."

"You make it sound like there were thousands," he said with a frown. "You called twice. You sent me two emails. And then you married my brother. What the hell was there to talk about?"

She paled at his harsh words. "Fine, then let's leave it alone."

"That works for me."

"Great," she said, a hint of the old defiant Lisa in her expression now.

"What do you know about Robert's disappearance?" he asked.

"I know that no one has heard from him since the trouble in Colombia." Lisa's gaze moved to Shayla. "You haven't heard anything, have you?"

Shayla shook her head. "No. Can I use your restroom?"

"It's down the hall, second door on the left."

"Thanks, I'll be right back," Shayla said.

So much for having his back, Reid thought, but it was just as well. Shayla couldn't lie very well, and if Lisa started grilling her, she'd probably fold within two seconds.

"What's wrong with Shayla?" Lisa asked.

"She's worried."

"I think she's in love with Robert. She was just waiting for us to get divorced so she could get him for herself."

"She's not in love with Robert," he said, ignoring the little sting Lisa's words had created.

Lisa shrugged. "It sure seemed that way to me."

"It's not." If he had to choose someone to believe, it was going to be Shayla, not Lisa, who'd already proved herself to be a liar. "I understand that Robert and Hal have been fighting the last few months," he said, trying to get the conversation back on target. "Hal wants to cut Robert's funding."

"That's not personal," she said. "Hal is in charge of keeping the company in the black, especially with a possible merger in the works. Robert's research has had good results, but lately there have been problems. Hal thinks that Robert has lost it a little bit, that he's been distracted and disorganized and things are falling through the cracks. He's been making mistakes, costly ones." She paused. "I think Robert was really upset by our divorce, and maybe he hasn't been paying attention to his job the way he should have been."

It all sounded so logical and reasonable and yet completely implausible. "Robert is a lot of things, but he's not disorganized, and he doesn't make mistakes, not when it comes to his job."

"How would you know that, Reid? You haven't seen him in almost a decade. And the fact that you're defending him actually sounds kind of ludicrous to me." Lisa gave him a speculative look. "It's Shayla, isn't it? She's convinced you that Robert is somehow being maligned by the very company that has made his research possible for so many years."

"Shayla hasn't said that at all," he replied. "She's just concerned about Robert's welfare. She was in Colombia when the clinic was attacked. She didn't see Robert get on the plane. She's worried he didn't make it out. She thought you were worried, too, when you came to see her."

"I was worried. I still am. I don't care what Robert has done or not done, I don't wish bad things for him. The whole company is concerned for his welfare. Hal asked me to check in with Shayla, to see if she had any information that would be helpful to finding him. I thought if he would contact anyone, it would be her. She's been his friend for a long time, and Robert doesn't have that many friends. You know how he is, he gets tunnel vision, and he forgets about people, which doesn't make him a great friend or a great husband."

"You knew that before you married him."

She stared back at him. "I did."

"Why did you do it, Lisa?"

She drew in a shaky breath. "So we are going back there."

He hadn't wanted to, but somehow that's where they'd ended up.

"I panicked," Lisa said. "The week before the wedding you were gone a lot. You were getting ready for your deployment. Robert was around. We spent some time together. He listened to my concerns. He seemed like the only person who understood how scared I was."

"That you'd end up a poor soldier's wife?" he asked harshly.

"That," she admitted. "But mostly that I'd end up a widow like my mom."

"Mostly?" he challenged. "I think the money had more to do with it than anything else."

"It had something to do with it, of course. I like money. I like living well. And as our wedding got closer, the idea of living on an Army base in some small shack with people I didn't know started to feel a little too real. I couldn't be that girl who just waited for her man to come back. I was in love with you, but you were going to be gone."

"Why didn't you tell me that?"

"I was afraid you'd talk me into marrying you anyway. I was in love with you, Reid. I was caught in the romance of us. I knew I had to do something that would make you hate me. That's the only way you'd walk away from me. It had to be something unforgiveable."

"And Robert was happy to go along."

"Robert was drunk," she said. "I got him drunk and then I took him in the coat room and started kissing him."

He held up his hand. "That's enough. I don't need to hear more."

"Robert was really sorry," she said. "So was I."

"You didn't look like it. You were so defiant, so in my face about it. I think it was the first time I saw the real you." He paused. "When did Robert figure out who you really were?"

"I was a good wife to Robert."

"Until you met someone better, someone richer."

"And someone who's around. I thought when I married Robert that I'd be the doctor's wife, that I'd be part of the country club, that we'd have beautiful parties and a wonderful life. But Robert started traveling, too. He would go to the other side of the world for months at a time. He was always in pursuit of new plant compounds to use in his research. He didn't want to go to the club or play tennis or have parties. I was alone, just the way I would have been with you. But Hal is at home. He likes the things I like. We're very compatible. And we're going to be happy. This one is going to stick." She blew out a breath, then said, "Don't ruin this for me, Reid."