Deception (16 page)

“I’ll check out every possibility,” he said gently. “I promise.”

Appearing to be soothed, she looked at him. “How will you do that? You don’t have the resources you once had as an NYPD detective.”

He smiled, glad that all that resentment hadn’t dulled her thought processes. “I still have a few connections here and there. And I’ve hired a private detective.”

“You’ve what?”

An elderly couple at the next table glanced in their direction, obviously straining to hear more. Dan leaned across the table and spoke in a low, hushed voice. “Relax, Jill. I’ve known Al Metzer for a long time. He’s competent, trustworthy and, above all, discreet.”

“I don’t want him questioning my family. My mother would never stand for it, or my uncle.”

“He won’t He’s helping me check out a few people, that’s all. Right now he’s looking into Mulligan’s background. I expect to hear from him at any moment.” Glancing at the couple across the aisle, he took her hand and squeezed it “Trust me, okay?”

Trusting him was the easy part, Jill thought as she looked down at their joined hands. Even in their darkest moments, she had always been able to count on him, though not always in ways she expected.

What would their life be like, she wondered, if they had stayed married? Would they have children? Would they be feverishly preparing for the holidays right now, hurrying up and down Manhattan in search of the latest toys? Hiding presents under the bed?

She had a sudden vision of Dan hoisting a toddler onto his shoulders as the Macy’s Christmas parade went by. What a great father he would have made, and how strange that he, who loved children so much, had never remarried and started a family of his own.

“You’re doing it again.”

She looked up to find him smiling. “Doing what?”

“Running out on me.”

There was a question in his eyes, but she had a feeling he already knew what she had been thinking. And that worried her almost as much as those crazy thoughts she’d been having lately. “It’s nothing important” She gathered her coat around her shoulders and slid across the banquette, dragging her purse behind her. “Call me as soon as you know something, okay? Right now I have to get to the office and finish a couple of things.”

“I’ll give you a ride back.”

Dan dropped a few bills on the table and followed her out. The holiday season was putting him in a strange mood, and judging from the look on Jill’s face a moment ago, it was doing the same to her.

As they walked to the garage on Fifty-first Street, an item in a store window they passed caught his eye. He glanced at it only briefly, but in a split second his mind had registered every detail.

Jill abruptly turned to look at him. “What’s going on? Who are you smiling at?”

He chuckled. “Nothing. I thought I saw someone I knew.”

The watch on Jill’s wrist read six-thirty when the phone on her desk rang. Knowing Cathie had already gone home, she picked it up on the first ring.

“Miz Bennett,” a low baritone drawled “This here’s Tyrone.”

Jill felt a leap of excitement. “Tyrone. Did you find out something?”

“Sure did. The cab your father took that morning was here today. The driver remembers your father and where he took him, because it was kind of an unusual place for a man to go to.”

Jill’s grip on the receiver tightened. “Where was that, Tyrone?”

“A place called Alternatives, in Fairfax, Virginia,” Tyrone replied. “An abortion clinic.”

Fifteen

The receiver still pressed to her ear, Jill slowly sat down. “Abortion clinic?”

“That’s what the man said.”

Her head swam as she tried to comprehend what she had just heard. “Did the cab wait for my father?”

“Nope. Just dropped him off and drove away.”

“Thank you, Tyrone. I’ll make sure you and your friend get that money I promised you right away. Where should I send it?”

On a pad that lay on her desk, she wrote down the address as well as the address of Alternatives, thanked him again and hung up.

An abortion clinic. With each passing second the words seemed to grow more ominous. She could come up with only one explanation why her father had gone to such a place. He had made someone pregnant—unless the cabdriver had made a mistake, which was entirely possible. After all, it was more than two months since he’d picked up that fare. How many faces had he seen since then? Hundreds?

Picking up the phone again, she dialed her travel agent and booked a flight to Washington, D.C.” for the following morning. Then she called Cathie’s answering machine, leaving a message that she had to go out of town and would be back at three the following afternoon. When she was finished, she called Dan, whom she knew would be helping his mother close the shop, and told him what she had just found out.

“I’ll come with you,” he offered.

“No, Dan, that’s not necessary. I’m only going there and back. There’s absolutely no danger. I’ll call you when I get home.”

Before he could argue, she hung up.

As Dan slowly put the receiver back in the cradle, Angelina, who was busy scrubbing the already immaculate counters in the back storeroom, looked at him. “Was that Jill?”

“Yes.”

“You look worried, Danny. What is it?” He tried to brush her concern aside. “Nothing.” “Don’t give me that. I could hear the worry in your voice just now. And I overheard you and your brother talking last night after dinner. Why didn’t you tell me you were investigating Simon’s death?”

“I didn’t want to worry you. And I wasn’t entirely sure there was something to investigate.”

“And now you are?”

Rather than answer the question, he braced his shoulder against the doorjamb and folded his arms across his chest. “Can I ask you something?”

She started to put the utensils she had used during the day in their respective places. “Of course, you can.”

“What did you think of Simon, Ma? I mean, did you like him?”

If she thought the question strange, she didn’t show it. “Yes, I liked him. It was hard not to. He was always in a good mood, he joked around and he never treated me or your father as anything but his equals.” She looked up in the distance for a moment before returning to her task.

Because Dan knew that his mother’s intuition was almost as keen as his own, his curiosity was instantly aroused. “What is it, Ma?”

“I’m not sure. I don’t quite know how to put it.” She dropped a handful of clean silverware into a drawer. “At times I felt sorry for him.”

“Sorry for Simon?” Dan had never thought of his ex-father-in-law as a man who inspired pity. “Why?”

“I always had the feeling he wasn’t completely happy, that something was missing from his life.”

“Did he ever say anything to make you feel that way?”

“Not exactly, but he always seemed to be talking about the things he hadn’t done yet rather than what he had already accomplished. He was always afraid there wouldn’t be enough time to do it all, that he was growing old too fast.”

“Lots of men fear old age, Ma.”

“Not like Simon.” She untied her apron and tossed it in a hamper. “One time, he told your father and me that having young people around him made him feel vital, strong, capable of doing anything. That’s when I started feeling sorry for him. He had everything a man could want, a lovely family, a successful business, fame, wealth, and all he wanted was to be young again.” She shook her head as if the logic of that thought escaped her.

Worried about getting old. That was another side of

Simon he hadn’t known about. Could that fear be the reason he’d had an affair with a woman twenty-five years his junior? Dan gave a mental shrug. It was an interesting facet of Simon’s character, but hardly a solution to his murder.

Unless, Dan mused, Amanda had found out about the affair and in a moment of rage had killed her husband. It was a wild idea, but considering he also suspected Vivian Mulligan, it was just as conceivable for a jealous wife to have killed her cheating husband as it was for a mistress to do the same. Maybe more so.

“Why did you want to know what I thought of Simon?” Angelina asked.

“He was a complex man. And you’re a sensible woman. Your thoughts gave me a new insight on him, and that’s always helpful.”

“Good. Now maybe you can do something for me.”

“Uh-oh.”

“All I want is for you to bring Jill over for dinner. I know she’ll probably want to spend a quiet Christmas at home with her mother this year, but what about this Sunday? We’d all love to see her and I’m sure the boys would enjoy meeting her.”

“She won’t come, Ma.”

“How do you know? You haven’t asked her yet.” She took a quilted gray jacket from a hook on the wall and slipped it on. “I think being around happy, noisy, well-adjusted people is just what the girl needs to lift her spirits.”

She was probably right, Dan thought. Sunday dinners at the Santinis used to be a ritual when he and Jill were married. An only child, Jill had loved the warm atmosphere, the laughter and the loud, heated discussions as they passed the homemade pasta around the table.

Looking back, he couldn’t remember a time when his young bride had looked happier. “All right, I’ll ask her.”

As predicted by the TV weatherman, snow had begun to fall over northern Virginia a little after midnight, just as Cynthia Parson was finishing her shift at Alternatives, the abortion clinic where she had worked for the past seven years.

Now, as she drove home at the end of her four-to-midnight shift, the snow intensified, making visibility more difficult. Flipping her windshield wipers to high, she leaned forward, her eyes narrowing as she concentrated on the dark road ahead. She hated to drive at night, and liked it even less in bad weather.

When the Conti Farms sign came into view, she sighed with relief. Her turnoff was just beyond that. She wouldn’t be late after all and Vera wouldn’t have to worry about her.

God bless the woman, Cynthia thought as she slowed down to negotiate the turn. Not only did she take care of Molly as if she were her own daughter, she fussed over Cynthia as well, always worrying about her, getting dinner started, dispensing advice, just as Cynthia’s mother used to do.

Until she found Vera, Cynthia had never imagined entrusting her precious little girl to anyone other than the girl’s father. But when Collin, who had run his computer business from home, had died so suddenly a year ago last Thanksgiving, she’d had no choice but to find someone to help her with Molly.

Of all the baby-sitters Cynthia had interviewed for the job, only Vera had shown the patience, love and understanding needed to care for a child suffering from separation anxiety disorder.

Molly’s illness had begun shortly after Collin’s death. Terrified at the thought that Cynthia would die as well, the six-year-old had suddenly refused to go to school or leave her mother for any length of time. Every time Cynthia attempted to go to work, Molly would become so hysterical that the neighbors would come out in the street, wondering what Cynthia was doing to her child.

The therapist she had selected, though highly competent, had told Cynthia that for his sessions to be successful, he had to see Molly at least three times a week. But when the medical insurance for Molly had run out shortly after Thanksgiving, Cynthia hadn’t been able to pay for the therapy on her own.

Even with the double shifts she volunteered for a couple of times a week, her salary barely covered her living expenses and the debts she and Collin had accumulated over the years.

And then two weeks ago, everything had changed. The cell phone she always kept near her rang just as she turned onto Elbow Lane, cutting short her thoughts. Worried something might be wrong with Molly, she picked it up. “Hello?”

“Cynthia, it’s Jack.”

Cynthia’s heart did a somersault. The man she knew as Jack Smith was the last person she had expected to hear from this evening. As far as she knew, her obligations to him had been fulfilled, and if she never saw or heard from him again, that would be just fine with her.

“Cynthia, are you there?”

“Yes.” She cleared her throat. “Is something wrong?”

“You could say that.”

Cynthia groaned.

“Relax, it’s only a mild setback, nothing you can’t handle.”

“Why don’t you let me be the judge of that?” Half a block from the cul-de-sac where she lived, she stopped her Ford wagon and turned off the lights. If she went any closer to her house, Vera might see her through the window. “What happened?” she asked. “Did someone find out about me?”

“Not you specifically, just the clinic, and that Simon Bennett was there on October 3.”

“Oh, God.” Something icy settled in the pit of her stomach. “Who is it? The police?”

“Simon’s daughter. Her name is Jill Bennett.”

“Great.”

“Listen to me. When she comes to see you tomorrow morning, all you have to do is deny that Simon Bennett was ever there. And don’t give her any of that doctor-patient privilege crap—it’ll only make her more suspicious. Tell her you’ve never seen the man or heard the name.”

He made it sound so easy. He wasn’t the one who had to live with the lie and the fear every day. He wasn’t the one they would be questioning. “What makes you think she’ll believe me? If she’s got that far, she can’t be stupid.”

“Far from it. But all she knows is that her father came to the clinic. Be convincing when you tell her he didn’t and she’ll leave thinking whoever gave her the information made a mistake.” He paused. “I’m a little worried about your boss, though. What do you think he’ll do if she questions him?”

“You don’t have to worry about Dr. Laken. He’s a fanatic about that doctor-patient privilege information you have so little regard for.” She couldn’t help the dig. “His entire reputation depends not only on his skills but also on his discretion. Without it’ he might as well close the clinic. No one would ever trust him again.”

“Good.”

Cynthia’s hands tightened around the steering wheel. “I don’t know if I can do this. Be questioned, I mean. It wasn’t part of the deal.”

“Pull yourself together,” he said sharply. “You don’t want to screw up now. You know what will happen if you do.”