White Lies
White Lies
Linda Howard
Contents
Chapter One
In ranking the worst days of her life, this
one probably wasn't number one, but it was definitely in the top three.
Jay Granger had held her temper all day, rigidly
controlling herself until her head was throbbing and her stomach burning. Not
even during the jolting ride in a succession of crowded buses had she allowed
her control to crack. All day long she had forced herself to stay calm despite
the pent-up frustration and rage that filled her, and now she felt as if she
couldn't relax her own mental restraints. She just wanted to be alone.
So she silently endured having her toes
stepped on, her ribs relocated by careless elbows, and her nostrils assailed by
close-packed humanity. It began to rain just before she got off the last bus, a
slow, cold rain that had chilled her to the bone by the time she walked the two
blocks to her apartment building. Naturally she didn't have an umbrella with
her; it was supposed to have been a sunny day. The clouds hadn't cleared all
day long.
But at last she reached her apartment, where
she was safe from curious eyes, either sympathetic or jeering. She was alone,
blessedly alone. A sigh of relief broke from her lips as she started to close
the door; then her control cracked and she slammed the door with every ounce of
strength in her arm. It crashed against the frame with a resounding thud, but
the small act of violence didn't release her tension. Trashing her entire
office building might help, or choking Farrell Wordlaw, but both those actions
were denied her. When she thought of the way she had worked for the past five
years, the fourteen-and sixteen-hour days, the work she had brought home on the
weekends, she wanted to scream. She wanted to throw something. Yes; she
definitely wanted to choke Farrell Wordlaw. But that wasn't
appropriate
behavior for a professional
woman, a chic and sophisticated executive in a prestigious investment-banking
firm. On the other hand, it was entirely appropriate for someone who had just
joined the ranks of the unemployed.
Damn
them.
For five years she had dedicated herself to
her job, ruthlessly stifling those parts of her personality that didn't fit the
image. At first it had been mostly because she needed the job and the money,
but Jay was too intense to do anything by half measures. Soon she had become
caught up in the teeming rat race—the constant striving for success, for new
triumphs, bigger and better deals—and that world had been her life for five
years. Today she had been kicked out of it. It wasn't that she hadn't been
successful; she had. Maybe too successful. Some people hadn't liked dealing
with her because she was a woman. Realizing that, Jay had tried to be as
straightforward and aggressive as any man, to reassure her clients that she
would take care of them as well as a man could. To that end she had changed her
habits of speech, her wardrobe, never let even a hint of a tear sparkle in her
eyes, never giggled, and learned how to drink Scotch, though she had never
learned to enjoy it. She had paid for such rigid control with headaches and a
constant burning in her stomach, but nevertheless she had thrown herself into
the role because, for all its stresses, she had enjoyed the challenge. It was
an exciting job, with the lure of a fast trip up the corporate ladder, and for
the time being, she had been willing to pay the price.
Well, it was over, by decree of Farrell
Wordlaw. He was very sorry, but her style just wasn't "compatible"
with the image Wordlaw, Wilson & Trusler wanted to project. He deeply
appreciated her efforts, et cetera, et cetera, and would certainly give her a
glowing reference, as well as two weeks' notice to get her affairs in order.
None of that changed the truth, and she knew it as well as he. She was being
pushed out to make room for Duncan Wordlaw, Farrell's son, who had joined the
firm the year before and whose performance always ranked second, behind Jay's.
She was showing up the senior partner's son, so she had to go. Instead of the
promotion she'd been expecting, she'd been handed a pink slip. She was furious,
with no way to express it. It would give her the greatest satisfaction to walk
out now and leave Wordlaw scrambling to handle her pending work, but the cold,
hard fact was that she needed her salary for those two weeks. If she didn't
find another well-paying job immediately, she would lose her apartment.
She had lived within her means, but as her
salary had gone up so had her standard of living, and she had very little in
savings. She certainly hadn't expected to lose her job because Duncan Wordlaw
was an underachiever!
Whenever Steve had lost a job, he'd just
shrugged and laughed, telling her not to sweat it, he'd find another. And he
always had, too. Jobs hadn't been that important to Steve; neither had
security. Jay gave a tight Tittle laugh as she opened a bottle of antacid
tablets and shook two of them into her hand. Steve! She hadn't thought about
him in years. One thing was certain, she would never be as uncaring about
unemployment as he had been. She liked knowing where her next meal was coming
from; Steve liked excitement. He'd needed the hot flow of adrenaline more than
he'd needed her, and finally that had ended their marriage. But at least Steve
would never be this strung out on nerves, she thought as she chewed the chalky
tablets and waited for them to ease the burning in her stomach. Steve would
have snapped his fingers at Farrell Word-law and told him what he could do with
his two weeks' notice, then walked out whistling. Maybe Steve's attitude was
irresponsible, but he would never let a mere job get the best of him.
Well, that was Steve's personality, not hers.
He'd been fun, but in the end their differences had been greater than the
attraction between them. They had parted on a friendly basis, though she'd been
exasperated, as well. Steve would never grow up.
Why was she thinking of him now? Was it
because she associated unemployment with his name? She began to laugh,
realizing she'd done exactly that. Still chuckling, she ran water into a glass
and lifted it in a toast. "To the good times," she said. They'd had a
lot of good times, laughing and playing like the two healthy young animals
they'd been, but it hadn't lasted. Then she forgot about him as worry surged
into her mind again. She had to find another job immediately, a well-paying
job, but she didn't trust Farrell to give her a glowing recommendation. He
might praise her to the skies in writing, but then he would spread the word
around the
New
York
investment-banking community that she didn't "fit in." Maybe she
should try something else. But her experience was in investment banking, and
she didn't have the financial reserves to train for another field.
With a sudden feeling of panic, she realized
that she was thirty years old and had no idea what she was going to do with her
life. She didn't want to spend the rest of it making deals while living on her
nerves and an endless supply of antacid tablets, spending all her free time
resting in an effort to build up her flagging energy. In reacting against
Steve's let-tomorrow-take-care-of-itselfwhile-I-have-fun-today philosophy, she
had gone to the opposite extreme and cut fun out of her life.
She had opened the refrigerator door and was
looking at her supply of frozen microwave dinners with an expression of
distaste when the doorman buzzed. Deciding to forget about dinner, something
she'd done too often lately, she depressed the switch. "Yes, Dennis?"
"Mr. Payne and Mr. McCoy are here to see
you, Ms. Granger," Dennis said smoothly. "From the FBI."
"What?" Jay asked, startled, sure
she'd misunderstood. Dennis repeated the message, but the words remained the
same.
She was totally dumbfounded. "Send them
up," she said, because she didn't know what else to do. FBI? What on
earth? Unless slamming your apartment door was somehow against federal law, the
worst she could be accused of was tearing the tags off her mattress and
pillows. Well, why not? This was a perfectly rotten end to a perfectly rotten
day.
The doorbell rang a moment later, and she
hurried to open the door, her face still a picture of confusion. The rather
nondescript, modestly suited men who stood there both presented badges and
identification for her inspection.
"I'm Frank Payne," the older of the
two men said. "This is Gilbert McCoy. We'd like to talk to you, if we
may."
Jay gestured them into the apartment.
"I'm at a total loss," she confessed.
"Please sit down. Would you like
coffee?"
A look of relief passed over Frank Payne's
pleasant face. "Please," he said with heartfelt sincerity. "It's
been a long day."
Jay went into the kitchen and hurriedly put on
a pot of coffee; then, to be on the safe side, she chewed two more antacid
tablets. Finally she took a deep breath and walked out to where the two men
were comfortably ensconced on her soft, chic, gray-blue sofa. "What have I
done?" she asked, only half-joking. Both men smiled. "Nothing,"
McCoy assured her, grinning. "We just want to talk to you about a former
acquaintance."
She sank down in the matching gray-blue chair,
sighing in relief. The burning in her stomach subsided a little. "Which
former acquaintance?" Maybe they were after Farrell Wordlaw; maybe there
was justice in the world, after all. Frank Payne took a small notebook out of
his inner coat pocket and opened it, evidently consulting his notes. "Are
you Janet Jean Granger, formerly married to Steve Crossfield?"
"Yes." So this had something to do
with Steve. She should have known. Still, she was amazed, as if she'd somehow
conjured up these two men just by thinking of Steve earlier, something she
almost never did. He was so far removed from her life now that she couldn't
even form a clear picture in her mind of how he'd looked. But what had he
gotten himself into, with his driving need for excitement?
"Does your ex-husband have any relatives?
Anyone who might be close to him?"
Slowly Jay shook her head. "Steve is an
orphan. He was raised in a series of foster homes, and as far as I know, he
didn't stay in touch with any of his foster parents. As for any close friends—"
she shrugged "—I haven't seen or heard from him since our divorce five
years ago, so I don't have any idea who his friends might be."
Payne frowned, rubbing the deep lines between
his brows. "Would you remember the name of a dentist he used while you
were married, or perhaps a doctor?"
Jay shook her head, staring at him. "No.
Steve was disgustingly healthy." The two men looked at each other,
frowning. McCoy said quietly, "Damn, this isn't going to be easy. We're
running into one dead end after another." Payne's face was deeply lined
with fatigue, and something else. He looked back at Jay, his eyes worried.
"Do you think that coffee's ready yet, Ms. Granger?"
"It should be. I'll be right back."
Without knowing why, Jay felt shaken as she went into the kitchen and began
putting cups, cream and sugar on a tray. The coffee had finished brewing, and
she transferred the pot to the tray, but then just stood there, staring down at
the wafting steam. Steve had to be in serious trouble, really serious, and she
regretted it even though there was nothing she could do. It had been
inevitable, though. He'd always been chasing after adventure, and unfortunately
adventure often went hand in hand with trouble. It had been only a matter of
time before the odds caught up with him.
She carried the tray into the living room and
placed it on the low table in front of the sofa, her brow furrowed into a
worried frown. "What has Steve done?"
"Nothing illegal, that we know of,"
Payne said hastily. "It's just that he was involved in a... sensitive
situation."
Steve hadn't done anything illegal, but the
FBI was investigating him? Jay's frown deepened as she poured three cups of
coffee. "What sort of sensitive situation?" Payne looked at her with
a troubled expression, and suddenly she noticed that he had very nice eyes,
clear and strangely sympathetic. Gentle eyes. Not at all the kind of eyes she
would have expected an FBI agent to possess. He cleared his throat. "Very
sensitive. We don't even know why he was there. But we need, very badly, to
find someone who can make a positive identification of him." Jay went
white, the ramifications of that quiet, sinister statement burning in her mind.
Steve was dead. Even though the love she'd felt for him had long since faded
away, she knew a piercing grief for what had been. He'd been so much fun,
always laughing, his brown eyes lit with devilish merriment. It was as if part
of her own childhood had died, to know that his laughter had been stilled.
"He's dead," she said dully, staring at the cup in her hand as it
began to shake, sloshing the coffee back and forth.