Light in Shadow (18 page)

Ethan grinned. “Hey, you really believe those records Harper makes up for his clients?”

“I do in this case,” Grady said, talking fast now. “The shrink who was treating her at Candle Lake, Dr. McAlistair, confirmed the delusion in some early notes. In fact, McAlistair took a personal interest in the case. Called it an extremely rare example of auditory hallucination.”

“Wow.”

“Listen up, pal, Cleland isn't just crazy—she's dangerous. When she and another patient escaped from Candle Lake, they damn near killed two orderlies.”

“Let me guess, you didn't report the incident to the cops, did you?”

Grady scowled. “Harper wouldn't hear of it. He's real big on keeping a low profile. His clients don't want any publicity.”

“What about the orderlies? Didn't they have some interest in calling in the cops?”

“Nah. Harper made it worth their while to keep quiet. But I'm giving you the facts. The lady's a certified nutcase, my friend. If I were you, I'd cut my losses.”

“Strangely enough, I was just about to give you the same advice,” Ethan said quietly. “Cut your losses and do it fast because if you don't disappear I'm going to the cops.”

“Bullshit.” Grady was triumphant. “You can't prove a goddamned thing. What's more, the Cleland woman won't let you call in the police. She knows that once they find out she's a recent resident of a psych ward they'll contact her family and her doctors. She'll be back in Candle Lake before she knows what hit her. Trust me, she doesn't stand a chance. Harper knows how to manage that kind of situation. Man, he's a pro.”

Ethan shook his head. “She won't be going back under any circumstances. I've got a plan to take out some insurance for her.”

For the first time Grady appeared wary. “How the hell are you gonna keep 'em from hauling her off to the Manor when the good doctors and her dear family all want her put back in a padded room?”

Ethan told him exactly how he intended to keep Zoe out of Candle Lake Manor.

 

The guy was
downright scary. Truax's scheme was breathtaking and damned brilliant.
If he could pull it off.

But after seeing the stone-cold assurance in his eyes, Leon was pretty sure the son of a bitch would manage it.

Leon stood alone in the middle of the motel room and tried to think his way out of the box in which he found himself. You had to hand it to Truax. He'd come up with a hell of an angle. The Cleland woman might be desperate enough and crazy enough to go along with it. Probably wouldn't even see the trap Truax had set for her.

He knew a slicker operator when he met one, Leon thought. Glumly he dug the large bottle out of his pocket, pried off the lid, and poured a fistful of antacid tablets into his palm. When this was over, he'd better see a doctor about his stomach problems. They were getting worse.

He stuffed a fistful of tablets into his mouth and chewed grimly. It was time to change course. Once Truax made his move, everything would start to come apart. Leon wanted to be in the wind before that happened.

He started to pace the threadbare carpet. He needed to come up with plan B and he had to do it fast. He possessed valuable information. If he could not use it to blackmail the Cleland woman, he ought to be able to find another buyer.

There was at least one other person he could think of who might be persuaded to pay big bucks to find out where the crazy lady was hiding. He hesitated to make that call, though. It was one thing to deal with an escaped patient on the run, but the idea of negotiating with the other potential client worried him.

He stopped pacing and looked at the large envelope that sat on top of the small table. It contained the contents of the Cleland woman's file. He had copied every scrap of paper in the original before leaving Candle Lake Manor. The phone number he needed was there.

He walked across the room, scooped up the envelope, and emptied the contents onto the table.

He picked up the sheet of paper that contained the name and address he wanted, studied it for a while, and then opened the file and reread Harper's original intake notes.

. . . Subject is obsessed with the delusion that her husband was murdered by Forrest Cleland. She suffers from severe auditory hallucinations, claiming to sense so-called “screams” in the walls of the cabin where the body was found.

Subject made serious verbal threats to Forrest Cleland and has vowed to destroy both him and the firm of Cleland Cage, Inc. Subject is clearly a danger to others and, in her obsessed, hallucinatory state, very probably to herself, as well. . . .

Leon put down the notes and popped a few more tablets. The reason he was reluctant to make the pitch to his one other potential target was simple. He knew enough about Ian Harper's business style to suspect that there was a good chance the patient had told the truth. It was very possible
that the Cleland woman was right about her husband having been murdered by the CEO of Cleland Cage.

Leon would have preferred not to do business with a guy who was capable of putting a bullet in the brain of someone who got in his way. But he no longer had any choice. Truax had seen to that.

Time was not the only thing that was running out fast, Leon thought. His supply of cash was dangerously low. He'd cleaned out his bank account before he left, but that had only netted him a few hundred bucks.

He had lived on the corporate credit card and his own personal plastic until he'd arrived in Whispering Springs. After that he'd used his hard-earned cash to pay for the crappy motel room and the fast food that was killing his stomach. No telling when Harper might get suspicious and take a notion to trace him via the credit card records. A motel charge popping up from Whispering Springs, Arizona, would be the same as sending Harper a telegram informing him that he was not in L.A. looking for the Cleland woman.

He could try pawning the ring, but he knew enough about pawn shops to realize that he wouldn't get anywhere near its real value.

It had all looked so easy back at the start. He would get in and get out with the payoff from the Cleland woman before anyone back at Candle Lake knew what had happened. He had pictured himself living on a beach in Florida or some island in the Caribbean before Harper even realized he'd been hosed.

But Truax had just screwed things up royally.

The story of his life, Leon thought. There was always someone around who couldn't wait to screw him.

If he was to salvage anything out of this, he had to take some risks. He'd have to put the squeeze on Forrest Cleland before the guy discovered that Truax was about to outmaneuver him.

The burning sensation in his chest was worse than it had ever been. The pills weren't doing a damn bit of good. He
reached for the bottle of liquid antacid that sat on the dresser, opened it, tilted it, and drank deeply.

When the fire in his chest eased a little, he pondered his priorities. One thing was crystal clear. He could not hang around this fleabag motel now that Truax had made him.

He needed some more cash to blow town, and he needed it fast. Luckily he had planned for this contingency.

“What is it?
What's happened?” Kimberley Cleland asked.

She sat tensely on the sofa and watched Forrest put down the phone. Something was very wrong. She could see that in his face. He rarely displayed strong emotion of any kind, but whoever he had just finished talking to had managed to anger him. She could tell because he looked even more cold and controlled than usual and that was saying something.

Forrest was fifty-one and very much in his prime. He had the kind of good bones that would draw the eyes of men and women alike until his dying day. At six-foot-four, he possessed a physical presence that did great things for hand-tailored suits. Together with his natural charisma and authority, that presence also helped him keep his board of directors and the members of a constantly feuding, bickering family in line. Most of the time.

She was his second wife. Three years ago when she had married him, she had made the mistake of thinking that his
seemingly bottomless well of cold control was a reflection of his strength. Somewhere along the line she had discovered the enormity of her mistake. Forrest was not strong. He was cold-blooded.

She had been wrong about him. He did not really love her. He had married her because she came from the right social world and because she had the right social connections and because she was attractive and because she was eighteen years younger than he was.

When she hit forty, he would probably trade her in on a newer model. Maybe she wouldn't even last that long. Lately she'd sensed that he was getting restless. She wouldn't be surprised if he was having an affair. He'd had one with her before he'd divorced his first wife.

“That was a man claiming to know the present whereabouts of Sara Cleland,” Forrest said evenly.

She stared at him, jolted out of her thoughts. “What on earth?”

“He offered to sell me the information for a considerable sum.”

“I don't understand. Sara's at Candle Lake Manor.”

“According to the man on the phone, she hasn't been there for the past year.”

“But that doesn't make any sense. We've been paying the bills. She has to be at Candle Lake.”

“There's one way to find out if she's there or not.” Forrest reached into the slim briefcase at his feet and retrieved a small handheld computer. He punched a button and studied the screen for a few seconds. Then he reached for the phone again.

He spoke briefly to whoever answered at Candle Lake.

“I don't care if she's in a therapy session,” he snapped. “Get her on the phone.”

There was another tense silence.

“Let me speak to Harper,” Forrest said in his executive office voice. “Now.”

Kimberley got up with a jerky movement and went to
the liquor cabinet. She poured herself a shot from the first bottle that came to hand without even looking at the label and listened to the rest of the one-sided conversation in growing panic.

“Don't give me that bullshit about her fragile mental condition,” Forrest said softly. “You've lost her, haven't you? How long has she been gone?”

Kimberley took a long swallow and stared unseeingly at the sweeping view of San Francisco Bay. What she really needed was one of the little pink pills she kept in her medicine cabinet, but she did not dare take them in front of Forrest. He would see it as a sign of weakness even though he was the reason she had been forced to ask her doctor for the prescription.

Forrest hung up and looked at her across the width of the room his first wife had decorated.

“She's gone,” Forrest said flatly. “Harper admitted as much. His story is that she managed to slip away a few days ago and that she has been located. He claims that he sent some people to pick her up and that there's nothing to worry about.”

“Then it will be okay. Everything will be fine once they have her back at Candle Lake.”

“I'm not so sure of that.” Forrest got to his feet. “I'll give Harper twenty-four hours. If he doesn't have Sara back by tomorrow, I'll take matters into my own hands.”

“You're going to deal with that person who just called? The one who offered to sell you the information about Sara?”

“If necessary. One way or another, Sara has to be found and returned to Candle Lake as soon as possible. I can't risk having her show up at the annual board meeting.”

Kimberley noticed that her hand was shaking. She lowered her half-finished drink with great caution and set the glass down on top of the lacquered cabinet. “Do you really think she'd have the nerve to turn up at the meeting?”

“She's crazy, remember? She thinks I murdered Preston. Her goal is to destroy me and the company. Yes, I think
she'll show up unless we get her back into Candle Lake.” Forrest picked up the briefcase and started toward the door. “I'll be in my study.”

Kimberley watched him walk away from her. It reminded her of the way her father had always walked away when she needed him, the way everyone walked away from her. She tried another swallow of whiskey. The expensive liquor tasted like acid.

“You told Leon
Grady you were going to do what?”

Zoe was so stunned that she could barely get the words out of her mouth. It was as if her tongue had just short-circuited. Her brain, too. She stared blankly at Ethan, who sprawled in her client chair, glancing occasionally at his watch. He was making no secret of his impatience to leave. A busy man who had things to do and people to see.

“You heard me,” he said. “I told Grady that we're going to get married.”

She pulled herself together with a tremendous effort.

“Why?”

“I thought it was obvious.”

“No,” Zoe said through her teeth. “It is not obvious. Try explaining it to me in short, single-syllable words.”

“Don't worry, most of the words I know are short and single syllable. Okay, here's my thinking on this. You told me that the shares you inherited from Preston are now in a trust that you can revoke at will.”

“Yes.”

“Your goal is to materialize unannounced at the annual board meeting, paperwork revoking the trust in your hand, and proceed to vote your shares in such a manner as to force the hostile merger of Cleland Cage, right?”

“Yes.”

“But if you get picked up by the jolly munchkins from Candle Lake before the annual meeting, your big plans go down the toilet.”

“I hired you to keep that from happening, remember?”

“I'm doing my best, ma'am. But in my professional opinion, marriage would buy you a hell of a lot of insurance. It would, in fact, render the entire concept of returning you there null and void.”

The logic finally started to sink into her bemused brain. “Because as my husband, you would be able to vote my shares,” she said slowly. “You could vote them according to my wishes and achieve the same results.”

“True, but practically speaking, it's a whole lot simpler than that. As your husband, I become your new next of kin. I could override any medical decision that Forrest Cleland or anyone else might try to make for you, including commitment to a psychiatric hospital.”

“Of course,” she whispered. “I never thought of that. Even if they managed to haul me back, you could spring me.”

“Right. But I don't think it will come to that. I'm betting that once the word gets out that you're married, everyone involved in this thing will give up on their plans to keep you locked up and slink away into the night.”

“You're serious, aren't you?” she said finally.

“When I'm working, I'm always serious. The quickest, cleanest way to do this is to catch a flight to Vegas late this afternoon.” He shot another glance at his watch. “We'll get married there tonight and return to Whispering Springs tomorrow.”

“You'd really do this for me? Marry me just to keep me safe for the next six weeks?”

“You got a better idea?”

“Well, no, but this seems a little extreme.”

“Hey, it's no big deal. Trust me, I've been married lots of times.”

No big deal.

“I suppose you do qualify as an expert in the field,” she said neutrally.

“Right. I'm an expert. After the annual board meeting, we'll get a quickie divorce and life will go back to normal.”

She cleared her throat. “You make it sound so easy.”

“It is easy.”

She rubbed her temples. “I'm touched, really I am, but I can't allow you to do this.”

“Why not?”

She frowned. “Because it's too dangerous, of course.”

“I'd like to say that danger is my middle name, but it's not. Relax, this'll work. You'll see.”

She shook her head. “I can't let you do it. In essence you'd be putting yourself into the same situation that Preston was in. Don't you see? Forrest killed Preston. Who's to say he wouldn't try to murder you, too, if he thought that you were standing in his way?”

His mouth curved. “You really mean that, don't you? You're worried about me.”

“As the saying goes, you don't have a dog in this fight, Ethan. I don't want the responsibility of putting you in mortal danger.”

“You hired me to take care of a blackmail problem,” he said gently. “Let me do my job.”

“I won't let you take the risk.”

“As your husband, I won't be at risk in the same way that Preston was.”

“What do you mean?”

“One dead husband who was apparently the victim of an armed burglar can be explained,” he said. “A second dead husband at this point would arouse suspicion and invite a lot of questions. Trust me, that is the last thing Forrest will want if he is trying to fend off a takeover. He needs the full support of his board and all of the major shareholders he can get on his side.”

He had a point, but she was reluctant to admit it.

“The most likely scenario is that Forrest will try to buy me off when he finds out I'm married to you,” Ethan said.

“Hmm.”

“It's the only approach that would make sense.”

“And if he does try to buy you off?” she asked. “What will you tell him?”

Ethan got up, walked to the desk, and flattened his hands on the surface. He leaned in close. “I will tell him to go screw himself.”

“Ethan—”

“Come on, let's get moving. It's going on one o'clock. I'll drop you off at your apartment. You can pack a bag while I take care of some loose ends at the office. I'll pick you up at three-thirty and we'll head for the airport. There are dozens of flights all day long to Vegas, and they take only about an hour. The time change is in our favor.”

“What loose ends?” she demanded, struggling to hold on to at least one rational thread.

He shrugged. “There are a few things I want to do before we leave town.”

She hauled her ultramarine blue tote out from under the desk and got slowly to her feet. “Such as?”

“I'm going to line up someone to keep an eye on Arcadia while we're out of town.”

A new rush of anxiety stopped her in her tracks. “Do you think she's in danger?”

“Probably not. Leon Grady never mentioned her.” Ethan was at the door, holding it open. “And I'm inclined to agree with her that the hacker who sold your file to Grady would have offered to sell hers as well if he had it. But I'd rather be safe than sorry.”

“I understand your concern, but I think you'd better check with Arcadia before you hire a bodyguard for her.”

“Arcadia strikes me as a smart lady. I don't think she'll go stubborn on me.”

“Unlike me, you mean?”

“You are a smart lady, too,” he said a little too smoothly.

“But stubborn?”

“Very.” He looked at her. “You going to walk out of here on your own two feet or do you want to be carried out?”

She raised her chin, clutched her tote very tightly, and marched toward the door with as much dignity as she could summon. “There is one very important little fact that you seem to be forgetting more and more often lately.”

“What's that?”

“I'm the client.” She poked a finger at his chest as she went past. “You work for me, Truax. That means I give the orders.”

“Oh, yeah.” He closed and locked her door. “I knew that.”

 

“Getting married again,
huh?” Singleton leaned on his counter and regarded Ethan with a meditative expression. “If you'd given me a little notice, I could have organized a bachelor party.”

“I appreciate the thought,” Ethan said. “Tell you what, you can buy me a beer when I get back from Vegas.”

“Sure. Look, I can follow your reasoning here, but I gotta tell you that marrying the client is a little over the top, even for an ace private detective like you.”

“That's what Zoe said.”

“She's not keen on this plan?”

“I had my hands full talking her into it. She was afraid that she would be putting me in danger.”

“And you told her that danger was your middle name, right?”

“How'd you guess?”

“I saw the movie.”

“It's a cool line and I've waited all of my professional life to use it, but unfortunately, she was not in a mood to buy it. I had to fall back on reason and logic.”

“Don't you just hate when that happens?”

“Yeah. I pointed out that the probability that Forrest Cleland would take the risk of murdering two of her husbands was real low.”

Singleton took off his glasses and started to polish them with a cloth. “You think it's all that low?”

“Sure.” Ethan lounged against the counter. “But enough about me. Let's talk about you. What have you got for me?”

Singleton replaced his glasses. “Not much, I'm afraid. As far as I can tell Candle Lake Manor is a legitimate private hospital that is wholly owned and operated by Dr. Ian Harper.”

“How'd he get enough money to buy his own hospital?”

“He did it the old-fashioned way. He married it.”

“Wife?”

“Elizabeth Pangbourne Harper was a spinster most of her life. She inherited a fortune and used it for good works. She was fifty-four when she married Harper. He was forty-two. That was eleven years ago. She died three years later. Heart attack.”

“Convenient. Harper got her fortune?”

“Not all of it. A good chunk went to various charities.” Singleton consulted some notes. “But he got some of it, and he also got Candle Lake Manor. By catering to a wealthy clientele who will pay dearly for privacy and by steering clear of insurance and government funding, he has evidently found a way to make the place quite profitable.”

“A real entrepreneur. Staff?”

“About what you'd expect. Orderlies, aides, housekeepers, kitchen crew, and some security personnel. Turnover seems to be high.”

“What about the medical side?”

“As far as I can tell, there's only one full-fledged psychiatrist on the payroll, Dr. Venetia McAlistair. She oversees a small number of so-called therapists. Most of them don't have much in the way of degrees or experience. High turnover in that group, too.” Singleton looked up from his notes. “Given the piss-poor patient to medical staff ratio, I've got a hunch that Candle Lake Manor relies heavily on pharmaceuticals to treat the patients.”

Ethan nodded. “Drugs are cheaper than doctors, and
Harper seems to be a guy who keeps an eye on the bottom line. Anything else?”

“That's about it except for the fact that, as far as I can tell, none of the patient history or billing records are online.”

“You'd expect that from a place that sells the promise of privacy and a very low profile. What about Cleland Cage? Anything new there?”

“Just what you already know. Third-generation commercial real estate development and investment company. Because it is a closely held corporation, there's not much news in the financial press. But there have been rumors that the company has had some serious financial problems lately because of some outstanding debt accrued after it acquired a smaller outfit a couple years ago. Forrest Cleland has been struggling to fight off a hostile takeover from another large development operation for the past year. Big decisions are expected at the annual board meeting next month.”

“What about the Merchant?”

“A very secretive type, our Merchant. I used the code that Arcadia provided, though, and I dropped a name. He responded.”

“Yeah? What name did you drop?”

Singleton shrugged. “I mentioned the think tank I worked for a while back. He recognized it and was suitably impressed. Reacted like he considered me a sort of peer or colleague. At any rate, he refused to believe that he had been hacked. Takes a lot of pride in his security. But he assures me that he's looking into the matter and that he'll get back to me.”

“All right.” Ethan pushed himself away from the counter and went toward the door. “If you get more, you know where to reach me.”

“Sure. Congratulations on your forthcoming marriage, by the way. You know what they say.”

Ethan paused in the doorway and looked back over his shoulder. “No, what do they say?”

“Fourth time's a charm.”

“That's good to hear.”

He went out into the hall and climbed the steps to the upper floor. He let himself into his office, sat down behind his desk, and reached for the old-fashioned file in which he kept important phone numbers. He flipped through the cards until he found the one he wanted.

Harry Stagg answered on the first ring. “Stagg Consulting.”

“I need a baby-sitter for a woman in Whispering Springs and I need him ASAP. Like tonight. You available?”