The Gray Zone (25 page)

The heater clicked on, and a gust of warm air whooshed out of the ceiling vent. Even in the dark, Jake saw Kelly jump.

She shivered in the thin shirt. “I didn’t kill Porter.”

Jake’s eyes were hard as he scanned her face, searching for the familiar expression that he had learned to recognize in the faces of the guilty. It wasn’t there. He was looking at a wounded animal caught in a hunter’s net.

Kelly was silent for the rest of the heater’s cycle. It shut itself off with a soft
click-thud
.

Jake ground his cigarette into an ashtray. “You left,” he said simply. “Without a word—”

“I was on my way to see my kids, but I realized it could ruin everything.” She paused. “I do the disappearing act when I need to think … I came back … is that okay?”

Jake must have moved first, because he reached her while she was still in the chair. Kelly was ready for him, though, so their movements seemed simultaneous. His lips found her mouth, her tongue, her throat, her shoulder, her breasts. Together they melted to the floor, part ocean, part chocolate. Their clothes tore off easily, without words. They devoured each other. And when Jake finally entered her, it was like he was fucking every woman in the world at once, but for the first time—like losing his virginity with Aphrodite. Not a shred of gray matter left in his head. He couldn’t bring Porter back, but maybe together they could turn the page and start living in the now. Although he knew neither he nor Kelly was the kind of person who was capable of fully trusting anyone, he was hooked.

For Kelly, it was all part of the seduction. Their union was a coffin slamming shut. Porter had been in every corner of her mind, but now he was the past. She was on the grass side of the grave, not the dirt side, and she had found another man among the millions, a man who was capable of loving her in spite of her mottled and illegal past, or maybe—and this was something Porter never could have done—
because
he understood and embraced her past.

* * *

The first light of morning found Jake and Kelly huddled together on the couch, relieved and yet frightened.

Kelly murmured, “Who are they going to believe? A bank president or a bank robber?” As Jake rubbed her shoulder, she continued, “This is what I meant when I said he’s dangerous. We can’t trust the cops or the U.S. attorney. He intends to incriminate me. I’ve got to do this in my own way.”

Jake didn’t answer, just kept his arm around her shoulder. After a few moments, he moved his mouth close to her ear and whispered, “Why didn’t you tell me you knew Stacy Steingart?”

Kelly pulled back in surprise. “What are you talking about?”

Jake stood up and walked over to his jacket, which lay among the other clothes strewn on the floor. He showed Kelly the picture.

“Where did you get that?” she asked angrily.

Jake just raised his eyebrows.

Kelly threw up her hands in defeat and turned away. “I didn’t want you to think I had anything to do with the murder. I should have told you.”

“What do you know about her?”

“She didn’t talk much. She was distant and sort of mean. We all avoided her. Even the Gordons kept at a distance and didn’t touch her.”

Jake came back to the couch, handing Kelly the T-shirt she’d been wearing and a blanket from the back of a chair. He pulled on his jeans and then helped wrap her in the blanket, like you would a child.

“I have to tell you something,” he said gently. She looked at him, her green eyes reflecting a combination of trust, apprehension, and questions and evasions of her own.

“I’ve just come from seeing Cheryl Gordon.” Kelly started, but Jake held up his hands. “Hear me out. I found some information in public files about the Gordons and Steingart, and then I got the classified files that confirmed it. Were you aware that Stacy was raped when she was sixteen? And there was a suspicion that Gary Gordon had done it?”

“You saw Cheryl Gordon?” Kelly said slowly, then nodded. “It was an awful time at the house. Worse than usual.”

Jake grimaced. “I had to see her. A hunch. I forced her to give me more details. I don’t know how to say this.” Gently, he brushed some hair out of her eyes. “They, the Gordons, were taking money from someone who was paying to keep Stacy over the weekends. Basically, they turned her into a sex slave.”

Jake watched a cloud slide over Kelly’s face. He pressed on. “I pushed Cheryl Gordon to the wall, and she admitted that the man who paid them to take Stacy was Gillis.”

Kelly looked confused. “Cheryl Gordon … she knew Gillis?”

They sat in silence for a moment as Jake watched the awful realization arise in Kelly’s eyes. When she finally spoke, it was as if she was detached and alone. “Meeting me in the alley was premeditated.”

Jake nodded, his hand gently reaching out for hers.

“He … he must’ve known all about me. He must have seen me at the Gordons’. He knew who I was.”

Jake tried to take Kelly in his arms, but she pushed him away. She opened her mouth but no sound came out.

“Kelly,” pleaded Jake. “I’m here. I will do everything I can to …”

Kelly wasn’t listening. She seemed to have drawn a curtain around herself. “He’d been watching me ever since I was at the Gordons’.” Kelly looked at Jake with an expression of pure disbelief.

Jake could only nod his head. “I’m so sor—”

Their conversation was violently interrupted by forceful pounding on the front door.

“FBI!” BELLOWED A LOUD VOICE. “WE KNOW NATALIE St. Clair is in there. Come out immediately with your hands up! Your coconspirator Stacy Steingart is dead! Don’t try anything foolish!” Jake grabbed Kelly’s arm and pulled her down the hallway toward the bedrooms. Stopping in the guest room, he grabbed a pair of her jeans and threw them at her.

“Put these on,” he whispered. While she pulled on the pants, he slid open the door to the master bedroom balcony and stepped outside. The street below him was ten stories down. Jake looked up. A utility ladder attached to the building led to the rooftop pool. It was just to the side of the balcony. If they could just reach it …

“Ready,” she said, at his side. Her duffel bag was strapped over a shoulder across her chest.

Jake shook his head
no,
but Kelly was firm.

“We might need it,” she said. “Trust me.”

There wasn’t time to argue. Jake heard the pounding of a
battering ram on the front door. The FBI were starting to break it down.

“This way,” he urged, pushing Kelly to the corner of the balcony and closing the door. “I’ll go first.”

He swung one leg over the balcony railing, reaching with his foot for the ladder. When he touched metal, he hooked his foot around the side rail and, holding on to the balcony edge with both hands, whipped his other leg to join the first, forming a bridge with his body between the balcony and the ladder. He did his best not to focus on the street below.

“Go across,” he ordered Kelly.

As lightly as a cat, she leaped up onto the balcony railing and, using the building wall as a support, sidestepped across Jake’s back until she reached the ladder. As soon as her hand touched the rail, she pulled herself onto it and scrambled up.

“Keep going,” grunted Jake. “Wait for me up there.” He couldn’t see, but he could hear her disappearing up the ladder. With extreme concentration, he looped his feet around each other, the ladder rung between them. He took a deep breath and then pushed off with his arms as hard as he could, tucking his head down to his chest. The momentum carried him toward the ladder while his feet held. He grabbed the first rung he could and hung there for a moment, upside down, his feet still looped around the rung and his hands holding on several rungs down. Quickly, he straightened himself around and shimmied up the ladder.

Kelly was waiting.

“Amazing,” she murmured as he grabbed her hand and led her around the pool. A door next to the elevator opened onto a staircase. Jake led her down eleven flights of stairs, into the basement. Slowly he opened the door into the parking structure. Through the slit he saw two FBI agents standing next to his car. Carefully, slowly, he closed the door again.

He ran up the stairs and peered out onto the main floor. Only one FBI agent was standing next to the big potted palm tree by the elevators.

Jake barely had time to think. Relying on the animal part of his brain, instinctively following what it told him to do, he pressed his keys into Kelly’s hand.

“When the guys by the car leave, drive it out of the lot. The gate opens automatically. Meet me at Second and California. Drive East on California.” Kelly nodded and dashed down the stairs.

Jake waited until he was sure she was in place. Then, steeling himself, he burst through the door into the main lobby. Sprinting across the tiles, he barreled toward the agent, reaching out to push over the palm tree as he passed. His strength and momentum toppled the tree, and the sound of its crash reverberated throughout the lobby. The agent was surprised, but as Jake sped out the front doors he heard the man call on his radio, “He’s here! I need backup in the lobby.”

Jake didn’t look back. He vaulted over a planter and ran as fast as he could, praying that the guys in the parking garage would respond to the backup call. He ducked into an alley and ran down between the Dumpsters, listening for footsteps behind him. As he zigzagged through the neighborhood, he tried not to think of what would happen if they caught Kelly. His career might be in shreds, but her whole life was on the line. So as he crept under an overgrown camellia tree on the southwest corner of Second and California, and heard the familiar rumble of his Mercedes coming up the street, he was both relieved and grateful.

When Kelly pulled the car to the side of the road, he jumped in, and they sped off toward the freeway.

* * *

The Grande Colonial in La Jolla had beautiful suites. Tiled bathrooms, luxurious beds—it was the destination of choice for Californian lovers who wanted to spend a weekend pretending they were at an old-world European mansion.

That was not the type of accommodation Jake and Kelly found themselves in. Watching them arrive, disheveled, at close to five in the morning, the hotel clerk had assigned them a crummy room down a long flight of stairs on a hill below the hotel. The carpets smelled of mildew; the bed lacked a headboard. Jake and Kelly didn’t care. They locked the door, pushed a bureau in front of it, and climbed under the covers, falling into two hours of exhausted sleep.

When Kelly woke, Jake was sitting up in the bed next to her, murmuring into his cell phone. He smiled at her and stroked her cheek. She smiled back. He said good-bye to the person on the phone and hung up.

“Joyce says Kevin and Libby are fine. They miss you, but they know you’re coming back and that you love them. Of course Holly is still with them.”

Kelly simply said, “Thank you.”

“She also says I’m in a lot of trouble,” he grinned. “Law Boy is having a shit-fit.”

Kelly was nonetheless concerned. “That can’t be good.”

“It’ll be okay,” said Jake in a nonchalant tone that didn’t fully reveal how he felt. “
We’ll
be okay. I’ve been thinking about what we’ve got to do. Gillis is a major sponsor of a residential group home for foster kids, but there’s no way he’s suddenly become an angel. Something must be up with that place.”

Kelly nodded.

There was a knock at the door.

“Room service,” said a man’s voice.

“I thought we both could stand to eat something.” Jake looked through the peephole before sliding aside the bureau and opening the door.

“No, that’s alright, I’ll take it,” he said to the bellhop, handing him a five-dollar bill and closing the door firmly behind him. He set the tray in the middle of the bed and removed the covers from the plates.

“Now eat,” he insisted.

Kelly obeyed. The food tasted wonderful. They ate in companionable silence.

When they were done, Jake squeezed her hand. “Let’s get down to business. I’ve got a friend who runs a charity that sets up foster children with mentors. She’s the real thing—ethical, principled. Works tirelessly for those kids. I thought we could call her and see whether she has some ideas on how to find the weak points in Gillis’s nonprofit records.”

Kelly nodded. Jake dialed the number and put the phone on speaker. When he got through, she heard a woman’s voice, warm and friendly.

“Jake, darling, how have you been?”

“Same as always. Trying to keep the justice system on its toes.”

“It’s a little early for that this morning, isn’t it?”

Jake chuckled. “Sorry to call so early, Deanne. I have a friend on the line who is researching the foster care system in the United States. She’s committed to exposing the truth to the media. I hope you don’t mind.” He raised his eyebrows questioningly at Kelly, who smiled and nodded.

“Hello, Deanne,” said Kelly. “I’d be grateful for any help you could give me. Basically, I’m looking at the reasons that the federal government, state government, and various Child Protective Services
departments are on a mission to reduce the number of kids included in the foster care system, while the number of kids in trouble with the authorities and on probation is on the rise.”

“Right. Well, one problem is that even in the best residential group homes, there’s a revolving door of staff. To the kids, everyone telling them what to do is a stranger. They know that everyone is paid to be there, and they trust no one. The idea was to place as many kids as possible in kinship care.

“But it’s a business on the back of kids. Those designated level 5 through level 14 bring in $5,000 to $14,000 per month. Taxpayer dollars. Once a kid is placed with a family member, the costs are reduced and there is more chance for permanence. But support services have been cut, and many kids fall back into the system, more damaged and hopeless than before. That’s why some resort to committing felonies.

“What my foundation does is match foster children with mentors, people who pledge to be a stable part of the child’s life for as long as that child is in the system. In an ideal world, these relationships lead to adoptions, and sometimes they do. But mainly we try to put one caring adult, a constant presence, in these children’s lives—a person who is not getting paid to spend time with them.