Everybody Takes The Money (The Drusilla Thorne Mysteries) (21 page)

Jonathan said nothing.

The sofa I was sitting on had a few years of sun-fading baked into its fabric. His car was at least a decade old. The kitchen floor was linoleum. The accountant wasn’t taking the money.
 

“What’s their hold over you, Jonathan? Help me and I can help you.”

He still had that stupid little twisted grin on his face. “I was going to leave, two years ago.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“The economy sucked, or maybe you don’t remember that.”

“Bullshit,” I said. “That’s not why. They have something on you. What leverage can they possibly have on a middle-class accountant in Northridge?”

He squeezed his eyes shut. “They offered me something my wife and I had been praying for.” Then he opened his eyes, those clear ice-blue eyes, and he smiled. “I wouldn’t change anything. I know what I’m doing”

What the hell. Just like that, I’d lost the connection. He was a million miles away now. “You have to be selfish here. Sabo is a bad guy and he hits back, believe me. Don’t you want to protect your family?” I asked.

“That’s what I’m doing,” he said.

A quiet gasp from the doorway startled me. Alison was standing there, her hand over her mouth. She dropped it, glaring at me. “Leave my house,” she demanded.

“Alison, please,” he said, in a way that definitely made it sound like he wanted to tell her to be quiet, albeit politely. “Come on. Come with me.” He pulled his wife down the hall and through a doorway.
 

Seconds later, Hailey popped out of another doorway. She was in a yellow nightgown with Beauty and the Beast on it, and she had a book in one hand. Her feet made quiet thumps as she padded down the hallway toward the kitchen. Her blonde hair was damp but drying fast, and she wore a big grin on her face.
 

The number one reason you have to keep a leash on toddlers all the time: they move so fast, they’re gone before you think to check on them.
 

She headed straight for me. When she got to the sofa, she pushed the book into my hands and then clambered up on the sofa next to me. She tried to crawl onto my lap, but you never touch other people’s kids without their express permission. Hell, I don’t even like being touched without my express permission, which isn’t that hard to come by — a person simply has to ask. I said, “Hey there, Hailey, why don’t you sit next to me while we wait for your daddy, okay?”
 

Hailey seemed to think this was acceptable, provided I read her book to her. She looked up at me, her brown eyes seeming to take up half her face, and she nodded. Alison and Jonathan started Hailey liking books young. Smart kid. Smart parents.

The book, with thick cardboard pages and cute drawings, was the epic eight-page tale of a duck taking a bubble bath. The words were short but in large type. I ran my finger over the first sentence. “This...is...”

“Dis is Duckie!” she said, impatient with the speed of narration.
 

I was suddenly reminded of all the times Stevie had read the page to me instead of vice versa. At first I had thought my baby sister reading to me was pretty cool. Then I’d been angry about it. Then I’d stopped having reading time with her altogether. “Yes,” I said. “This certainly is.”

“Hailey!” Jonathan said. “You are supposed to be in bed, young lady.” He rushed over and scooped her up, off the sofa and away from me.
 

She squealed with delight. “Airpwane!” she said.
 

“No airplane for you, missie. Time for bed.”
 

I stood up and handed him the book. “I’ll see myself out. She’s adorable. How old is she?”

And then I knew. I knew what their leverage was.
 

“I don’t want to lose her,” Jonathan said.
 

And he was going to throw himself on the mercy of the IRS and try to plea bargain his way out in order to keep from losing everything. Once he lost his CPA license, he was done—not a lot he could do working in the financial sector once that was gone.
 

I thought about Chris McClanahan, and how he was done with being licensed to work in his field too.

Alison stood at the entrance to the living room. I had to pass by her to get out their front door. “Leave my house,” she said, her blue eyes glaring at me. “Leave my house and leave my daughter alone.”
 

My daughter.
 

If I was right, and Hailey was the bargaining chip they had used to keep Jonathan on board, where had she come from?
 

When had Hailey returned to Oklahoma? Right after the show ended…about two years ago. When she would have found out she was pregnant.
 

Courtney…and Jonathan? No. Not possible. Even in a world where people do things they’re not supposed to be capable of all the time, this was a match-up I couldn’t see. Courtney certainly had enough gentleman callers. Perhaps she ended up with a baby she didn’t want, and the man probably responsible for it offered it as a bribe to his accountant, who probably couldn’t afford private adoption. Everybody gets what they want.
 

But now something had gone terribly wrong with this setup. Jonathan was talking to the government. He and his wife have a baby that’s not legally theirs. And now, on top of that, the police were around, looking for answers about Courtney’s murder.
 

Alison was also medium height, like her husband, and athletically built.
 

Kind of like whoever had been on the motorbike that night.
 

“What did Courtney do to you?” I said.

“Get out. Get out! Haven’t you done enough?” Alison said, and she shut the door on me.

It was dark out by the time I finally left the Ricciardis’ house. The street was mostly lighted by the living-room windows of the houses on it. I wondered how long Jonathan and Alison had lived here. Had they had Hailey yet?
 

I sat in my car, exhausted by my day. Hitchcock was doing something so illegal Jonathan had to tell the authorities. In fact, Jonathan was so afraid he thought I might be with the authorities, and someone would have to be extremely paranoid to think that. Even if I didn’t have the story exactly correct, I could make it sound like I knew something about what Hitchcock was doing without bringing Jonathan into it. Better for Hitchcock to think I knew something Roger Sabo might have told me anyhow. Might scare him a little more.
 

I called Stevie to let her know I was on my way home, finally, after a full day spent chasing down the exploiters and the exploited, both on the lower rungs of society and climbing the ladder of stardom. Where exactly did Jonathan fall on that ladder? I wasn’t sure.
 

“When are you coming home?” Stevie said.

“What’s wrong?”

“I’ve been alone all day,” she said. That surprised me. I’d left Stevie alone for days at a time in Las Vegas and she’d been very happy. But now— --

“You haven’t seen Gary?” I asked.

“He’s out with Randi,” she pouted. “I didn’t want to cook for just myself.”

While Stevie’s words floated over me—after the day I’d had, it was hard to concentrate on the minutiae of Gary’s new relationship—Jonathan left his house and got back into his Prius.
 

“Something’s come up,” I told my sister. “I won’t be driving straight home.”

I followed Jonathan down Tampa Avenue, to the point where I thought he was heading straight back to work. But then he turned and headed west.
 

He pulled into the strip mall where Hitchcock Christian Financial Counseling center was. He parked in front. I drove past, then came back and parked half a block away. Night in Los Angeles never means things are completely dark, and a line of shops after hours was no different. There were security lights, street lights, lights from passing cars, and the general light pollution bouncing off the night sky. Jonathan’s car was empty by the time I settled into my parking space.
 

He walked out holding another cardboard document box. He put it in the back of his car.
 

And he headed back in.

Twenty minutes later, another box.
 

And another one.
 

Maybe he hadn’t known what was going on at the financial counseling center.
 

Or maybe he thought it was something different than what I’d told him. Like, financial shenanigans he could deal with. But when I’d mentioned the women...

Interesting.

*
 
*
 
*

I came home late, feeling exhausted, depressed, afraid, and achy.
 

I’m not especially well-equipped to feel any of those things.
 

My body hurt all over, and bruises from my fight with Roger Sabo on Sunday had bloomed all over my body. I’d driven more miles today than I had in a very, very long time. I hadn’t eaten. My sister was unhappy because our perfect little domestic setup had gotten discombobulated and it was purely my fault.
 

I opened the gates to Gary’s estate and took the gravel road to the back of the guest house. The motion sensor lights flicked on as I passed them. I parked by the door to the one-car garage we used and got out of my car, feeling slow, tired, and hurting all over. I stopped to stretch before opening the door into the guest house’s kitchen.

Which is why I wasn’t prepared for the man who rushed out of the thick twine of bougainvillea leaves that cascaded down the side of the garage. He pushed me against the side of my car and socked me in the stomach once, very hard. I careened forward and he yanked me back, hard, pressing my head against the driver’s side window.
 

Roger Sabo.
 

“Leave me the fuck alone,” he said.
 

I took a deep breath. Then I hooked my foot behind his knee and knocked him off-center, but not enough to get any serious leverage on him. He pushed my face against the glass harder.
 

“I should kill you right now,” he said. “Stop following me. Stop asking questions. Stop talking to people about me. And don’t call the police about tonight. If you do, I’ll know. Do you understand?”

I nodded. And tried not to shudder as he leaned in close to my ear.

If he reached for any of my clothing I was going to fight him until one of us was dead.
 

“Why were you there that night? Did you bring the killer to find her?” he asked.

I stared straight ahead, at the garden hose storage reel on the side of the house.

He pushed me against the car again before he reared back and let go.

“Not a word,” he said.

I stayed by the side of my car until I could move without screaming. I told myself he’d jumped me and I didn’t have any warning. I told myself that if it had gotten more dangerous I would have fought. I told myself that crying was a perfectly reasonable reaction to what had just happened.
 

By the time I went into the house, I had calmed down. There was no use being hysterical in front of my sister. The house was dark, with the windows lighted up from the spotlights in the garden. I walked through the dark house, not surprised Stevie wasn’t waiting for me. She knew better than to get anywhere near the sounds of a fight.
 

At the bottom of the stairs I called out, “Stevie,
alles ist ganz okay
.”
 

After a few seconds, the door to her room cracked open. Then she came running down the stairs.

“You’re crying,” she said. Which was odd. I thought I’d stopped.
 

“I’m okay. He didn’t do anything.” Well, other than increase the likelihood of internal bleeding, perhaps.

“Dru, you have to call the police.”
 

I shook my head. “This man,” I started. “Stevie, I’m a little scared.”

“I’m a lot scared.”

What was it going to take to get him to leave me the hell alone?

“Help me upstairs,” I said.
 

“How did he get in?” Stevie asked.
 

What a good question.

The gates had still been alarmed when I arrived. How the hell had he gotten onto the property? Of course there were ways past the gates, but you’d have to know where the sensors had been installed. Sure, I knew where they were, but Gary had had a very good security system installed after the events of Colin’s death.
 

“You haven’t eaten today, have you?” she said.

My insides were still churning. “I’ll eat in the morning.”

ROGER SABO’S LITTLE visit to our house did not dissuade me from asking questions. In fact, it made it all the more clear I had to push back against this guy, and I needed to do it now. I put on a pair of stretchy capris that allowed me to move, and a short-sleeved blouse that covered most of the damage. I double-checked in the mirror to make sure nothing blue, purple, or green was showing. Putting on nicer, more form-fitting clothes did wonders for my perception of how well I was healing. Then I headed out once again, to Tarzana. I was beginning to hate the San Fernando Valley, all flat and straight-lined and stretching out like carpeting below the 405.
 

As soon as I walked into the offices of Hitchcock Commercial First Construction, I immediately noted all the differences between it and the financial counseling office. This office had air conditioning. None of the salesmen had pencil-thin mustaches. The receptionist was the same woman, Mary, who had been here on Tuesday, when I was here with Courtney. The chairs were comfortable and no one waiting in them was desperate.
 

“Is Greg here?” At this point in our relationship I felt confident we ought to be on a first-name basis.

“He’s very busy today.”

“He’ll want to talk to me,” I said. “It’s about Courtney.”
 

“Today is a bad day,” she said. “Next week—”

“Mary, tell him I’m here.”