Secretive (2 page)

“Really?” Helen’s raised eyebrows disappeared under her bangs. “Seriously?”

“Yes. I’ll
seriously
consider it.”

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Friday, the second week of November

Cape Town

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V
ICTOR Costa sipped his cappuccino as he studied the view from the hotel balcony. He sat almost motionless, except for the small movement of the cup to his lips, absorbing the heat of the sun on his face and torso like a lizard sunning on a rock. The constant exposure to the sun had lightened his close cropped sandy-colored hair so that the tint of gray was barely noticeable. His flat face, with its thin lips and narrow nose that barely broke the plain of his cheekbones, had tanned and darkened, highlighting his pale gray eyes.

He liked to spend his mornings on the balcony. Table Mountain with its dark gray cliffs rose sharply in the distance, hedging in the city of Cape Town, a jumble of buildings and palm trees, which spread across the valley and down to the waterfront. There was something comforting about the view. The flat, mesa-like mountain looming over the city reminded him of Mt. Vesuvius, and, while the busy city below the mountain wasn’t Naples, at least they did know how to make decent coffee.

Heels cracked sharply on the tile floor, then Anna dropped into the seat beside him. “Do you know how hot it is?” she demanded, flicking her head to the side, throwing her long fringe of dark bangs out of her eyes. “Eighty-eight degrees,” she said. “In November! At,” she paused to consult the diamond-studded watch he had given her, “eight-thirty in the morning.”

“In November, it is not warm like this in...Virginia?” he asked. It was a little game they played. When he met her two years ago on a beach on the French Riviera, she had been wearing a slip of fabric shaped into a bikini and had refused to tell him where she was from. Her accent marked her as American, but she wouldn’t provide any specifics, saying it was better that way. Of course, Costa had her investigated and knew that Anna Whitmore had grown up in Illinois with two older brothers, had attended college in Washington state, and then worked in computer technology for a firm in California where she had an affair with her married boss. She’d come to the Mediterranean after the boss broke off the affair. When Costa offered her a job, she’d taken it and hadn’t returned to the States since.

“No. Wrong again,” she said with a smirk then returned to her previous topic. “It shouldn’t be this hot so late in the year. It’s not right.”

“Then you will be glad.” He set his cup in the saucer with a click. “We are leaving.”

“Now?” She tensed.

“No, there is no rush. Later, this afternoon.”

She leaned over the arm of the wicker chair, her delicate eyebrows drawn tight over her narrowing brown eyes. “Ernesto heard something, didn’t he?”

Costa shrugged one shoulder, then waved his hand at the iPad she held in her lap. “
Prego
,” he said, indicating he was ready to begin.

The corners of Anna’s lips tightened. He could tell she was displeased that he wouldn’t say more, but she tapped the screen and went through the business items that needed his attention. He relaxed in the chair, dealing with the issues while he admired the way her skirt molded to her thighs.

“Last thing,” she said, consulting the notes on her calendar. “It has been six months since Jack Andrews was seen.”

Costa’s lazy gaze had been meandering up her hips to the triangle of deep brown skin at the “v” near the collar of her shirt, but at her words, his light gray gaze snapped to her face. “Nothing?”

“No sightings. Not in Italy. Not in the States. He really must be dead.”

He turned and stared at the water. “No matter,” he said after a moment. “There is still the girl. She will have to do.” Costa had waited long enough for this investment to payoff. If Jack Andrews wasn’t available to be the scapegoat, his ex-wife would do just as well.

“What would you like me to do?” Anna asked.

“Nothing yet,” Costa said. He would take care of it. He would put the plan in motion himself on Monday.

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Tuesday, the third week of November

Dallas

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Z
OE saw the silver car out of the corner of her eye and knew before her careful second glance that it was the same one she’d seen earlier that morning in the parking lot of the grocery store. She forced herself to keep up the same leisurely pace down the driveway. As she opened her mailbox and grabbed the stack of junk mail, she ducked her head and snuck another glance through the curtain of her hair as it fell forward.

Same crack in the upper corner of the windshield. The bright Texas sun, still warm at the peak of the day despite the November date, glinted on the jagged fracture that tilted up and down like a line graph. She paced slowly up the driveway. The papers wrinkled in her tight grip, her heart hammering as if she’d just jogged around the neighborhood.

Zoe slammed the kitchen door behind her, dropped the crumpled flyers on the island, and climbed the stairs two at a time, barely pausing at the top. She hadn’t been upstairs in six months, not since she’d returned from her unscheduled trip to Italy last April. At that time, she and Jack had been living in the same house. Their short-lived, impulsive Vegas marriage had fizzled, and they’d divorced, but they couldn’t sell the house, so they’d divided it into his and hers sections.

Jack had lived upstairs and survived with a mini-fridge and a hotplate. Zoe had taken the downstairs guest bedroom and used the kitchen island as her freelance office. They had had separate lives: Jack had his start-up business in green energy, GRS Technology, and Zoe had her freelance copy-editing work plus a commercial property management gig and several dog-walking regulars. It had almost been like living in a duplex, minus the dividing wall.

But then Jack’s business partner was murdered and Jack had disappeared. Things had gone downhill from there. Hard to imagine it getting worse, but it had. Millions of dollars went missing from GRS accounts and it looked as if not everything in the company had been on the up-and-up. Initially, the police thought Jack was dead, but when his body wasn’t discovered, they changed their working theory from “missing, presumed dead,” to “alive, presumed involved, if not guilty of murder and theft.”

After racing halfway across the country to find answers, Zoe had discovered Jack was alive and that he’d skipped over several not so minor details from his past, including his former employer, the Central Intelligence Agency.

When the dust settled, Jack had been cleared of the murder and the money had been returned to the business account, which was now frozen while the FBI investigated a scam that had been run through GRS. Zoe had last seen Jack diving into a Venice canal in pursuit of the man who murdered his business partner. The other man had been found, but there had been no sign of Jack, dead or otherwise.

For six months.

Except for a sketch that had been mailed to her after she returned from Italy, Zoe hadn’t heard anything, but because of the sketch she knew he was out there. She couldn’t explain it, not even to Helen. She just
knew
it. She figured he was waiting for the investigation to end. Once his name was cleared of fraud charges, Zoe knew Jack would return. In the meantime, she’d been living in suspended animation, waiting.

And now he had shown up. He must have heard something about the fraud case. Maybe it was closed? Strange that she hadn’t heard anything, though.

Jack’s room was dusty and she could see the evidence of the police search that had precipitated her flight from Dallas six months ago. Drawers hung open, clothes were scattered over the floor and piled on the bed, and papers tilted in stacks on the small desk in the corner. Zoe hadn’t bothered to look around here herself after she returned. Helen had kept an eye on the house and told her that the police had searched first, then the FBI. Zoe had the itemized list of the things they’d taken—Jack’s laptop, several boxes of files related to GRS, and, curiously, his four-cup coffeepot. If there was anything interesting to be found, Zoe was sure they would have discovered it.

Zoe twitched back the curtain. Through the bare branches of the cottonwood tree that towered in front of the window, she could see the silver car. It made sense that he’d be cautious. Caution was one of his hallmarks. He’d survey the situation, get the lay of the land. Jack wasn’t one to rush into things.

She spotted a shadowy figure in the driver’s seat and a smile curled up the corners of her lips. She should be angry, she knew. Six months and not a word. Not a
single
one, but she wasn’t mad, not right this second, anyway. Right now, she was relieved.

She’d seen plenty of evidence that Jack could take care of himself, but there had been that niggling worry at the back of her mind, which she’d refused to acknowledge, that something might have happened to him. The figure shifted in the car, and the strong sunlight hit a patch of hair.

Zoe’s smile faded. Jack’s hair was dark, not light.

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M
ORT didn’t recognize the number on the display of his office phone. “Special Agent Vazarri,” he said, continuing to read the file spread across his desktop. After a second, he looked up. “Come again?”

He swiveled toward his younger partner. Greg Sato was on the phone, too, setting up a dinner date. Sato leaned back in his chair, one elbow propped on the chair arm as he twirled his gold pen through his fingers.

Mort caught Sato’s eye and pointed to the phone. “New development. Jack Andrews case.”

Sato’s feet hit the floor. He ended his call and moved to Mort’s desk.

“Are you sure?” Mort asked the caller. “Okay, send me whatever you
do
have.” He slapped his phone down and said to Sato, “The money’s gone.”

Sato’s dark eyes narrowed. “How much?”

Mort used the hunt-and-peck method of typing to bring up his email account and log in. “All of it. The GRS account has been cleaned out.”

“That’s impossible,” Sato said. “That account is frozen.”

“I know.” Mort pushed the monitor so the overhead florescent lights didn’t glare on it. “But there it is.” He tapped the screen. “Zilch.”

Sato whistled. “Computer trail?”

“They’re working on it.”

Sato leaned against a nearby desk and crossed his arms. “There go your last few weeks. No coasting into retirement now.”

Mort shrugged. “Didn’t think that would happen anyway.” He was scheduled to retire December thirty-first.

Sato pointed his chin at the computer monitor. “How long ago did it go missing?”

“Yesterday. Seven p.m.”

“We’d better pay the ex-Mrs. Andrews a visit.”

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T
HE frigid wind sliced across the back of Anna’s neck. She shivered and turned up the collar of her coat. This was more like it. It should be cold during the holidays. She needed to buy a scarf at the market. And gloves, she thought happily, as she cupped her pink fingers around the lighter to protect the flame as she lit a cigarette. Her thick black hair was cut in a severe stacked bob that ended above the nape of her neck. The sides that framed her face were cut on a diagonal, leaving the left side longer than the right. She took a long drag on the cigarette and paced a few steps farther from Ernesto, who was waiting near the car.

They were driving to a nearby city for dinner, and Victor had been held up by a phone call. She ambled a few more feet along the thick stone wall, her boots squishing down into the moist decaying leaves and pine needles that lined the side of the road. She slipped her cell phone out of her pocket, dialed, and placed it to her ear. It rang twice, then Wade answered.

“Are you in position? Were you able to get there?” Anna asked. It was the first moment she’d had alone since the long flight from South Africa. She glanced over her shoulder. Ernesto stamped his feet by the car door, blowing out clouds of white air. No sign of Victor.

“Course. No probs,” said Wade. “So you think this will work? He’ll really pay up?”

“Yes, it will work. He needs her to take the fall. Otherwise, it all comes back on him.”

“So, when should I do it?”

There was a murmur of voices behind her. She made a show of taking another long drag on the cigarette. She kept the phone hidden under her swath of hair. “Now. Do it now.”

She dropped her cigarette and ground it out with the toe of her polished boot while slipping the phone into her pocket.

She turned, climbed the small incline to the car, a smile on her face. “All ready?”

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I
T wasn’t Jack. Zoe backed away from the window and sat down on the corner of the bed. She’d been so excited, so sure it was Jack.

Maybe her instincts were way off, and he wasn’t ever going to show up. She’d thought a lot about Helen’s “intervention.” Maybe Helen was right and Zoe needed to move on, stop waiting for Jack. He hadn’t made any promises, just said that he would see her again and that was vague at best.

This waiting around thing was new for her. Helen had once said Zoe had the attention span of a puppy. She’d been joking, but Zoe knew there was an element of truth in that statement. She constantly shifted things around in her life—whether it was hobbies, boyfriends, or jobs. She’d never liked status quo and made sure her life was always vibrant. At least, that’s how Zoe saw it. Helen would say Zoe never finished anything and had zero patience. But she had been content to wait for Jack.

During these last months, she had pictured herself as a Penelope-like figure, waiting loyally. But at what point did waiting stop being faithful and become pathetic?

There was no guarantee Jack would come back. Even though he had always come through in the past, that didn’t mean he would now. Maybe it was time to approach things differently. Zoe wasn’t ready to go so far as a beach vacation, but she needed a new perspective, a more realistic perspective.

She looked back to the window. She’d try and sort out those thoughts later. Right now, she needed to figure out why someone had followed her from the grocery store then parked and watched her house. Maybe her past experiences had made her paranoid, but she wanted a closer look at the person in the car.

She stood, pulled her cell phone from the back pocket of her jeans, turned on the camera, and zoomed, but the person had leaned back into the shadows. The image was too fuzzy to distinguish any details.

She pursed her lips to the side, wishing Jack liked to hunt. If he did, he’d have binoculars. Her favorite step-dad, Eric, had been outdoorsy and loved fly-fishing, hunting, and riding horses. There had always been a set of binoculars around the house when Eric had lived with them. Unfortunately, Jack’s sports of choice were running and martial arts.

Zoe galloped downstairs to her room and pawed through her dresser until she found her digital camera. Its zoom wasn’t much better than the one on her phone, but after she returned upstairs, she did manage to capture two grainy photos of the figure.

She used the review feature on the camera to enlarge the figure. Definitely a man, she decided as she studied the silhouette’s broad shoulders. His hair looked blond and a little on the bushy side, but in the shadows she couldn’t distinguish anything else. She snapped a wide shot of the car as well then a close-up of the license plate.

Suddenly, she felt a bit silly. What was she doing? It wasn’t as though she’d be able to find out who owned the car, and it was probably all a coincidence. People sat in cars on neighborhood streets all the time. He could be waiting for a friend, or maybe he pulled over to make a phone call. Maybe he was lost and reprogramming his GPS. There were a hundred different things he could be doing.

Zoe watched for five more minutes. The car didn’t move. She blew out a breath. Well, there was one way to find out if the guy in the silver car was interested in her or if it was a coincidence. She needed to run over to the office park where she owned two business suites and see if a bathroom repair had been completed.

Like all contracting jobs, this one was running behind. So far, the contractor’s mom had been hospitalized and his grandmother had died. Zoe was thinking of demanding a note from the doctor and/or priest if anyone else got sick or transitioned to the great beyond.

Originally, her Aunt Amanda, who believed real estate was the only worthwhile investment, had owned the business suites. Zoe had acted as property manager each winter when Aunt Amanda went south to Florida. When Aunt Amanda moved to Sarasota full-time, she gave the properties to Zoe, calling them an early inheritance. Zoe had protested, but her aunt had said, “God knows, my sister will never have anything to leave you, despite her grand plans. Trust me, take the real estate. Diamonds may be a girl’s best friend, but real estate ain’t bad either.”

That had been five years ago, and Zoe had come to agree with her aunt. It was the income from the office suites that had paid the house note during the last six months. Thank goodness she’d been able to rent both offices. A freelance photographer who made realtors and business execs look good in brochures and on billboards occupied one. It was the other office Zoe had been worried about. Infamous death didn’t exactly enhance a property’s appeal.

But mellow, soft-spoken Sam Clark hadn’t minded. Zoe had debated not telling him about the office’s somewhat grisly history in order to get it rented, but she couldn’t do it.

At their first meeting, when she saw him across the parking lot, she’d assumed he was quite a bit older than she was because of his white hair, but as she closed the distance, she realized he was young, probably no more than thirty with a thick head of dark hair going prematurely white.

He’d been wearing a T-shirt that read, “Music Addict,” along with a pair of cargo shorts and thick-soled Newport sandals. A small wooden cross hung from a leather strip around his neck, and several woven bracelets bracketed his diving watch. He ran a business called Encore, which bought and resold used musical instruments. He’d started the business in California, but was expanding to Texas because of the “more favorable business climate,” he’d said on the phone when Zoe first talked to him.

As she showed him the office, he hadn’t said much, but he’d flashed a smile in her direction a time or two, almost shyly. He moved through the office suite in a patient, methodical way, not saying much. He had a quietness, a self-possessed aura that almost made Zoe nervous. The less he talked, the more she did.

Sam had been pacing off one of the offices when Zoe had finally said, “There was a murder here, in this room...in case that sort of thing bothers you.”

Sam paused, ran one hand over the mostly dark stubble that covered his cheeks, as he looked over the room. He nodded a few times, then finally said, “New carpet?”

“Yes,” Zoe said, a bit uncertainly. It was the last comment she’d expected.

“And pad?”

Zoe cleared her throat. “Yes. I had the whole thing redone. New paint, carpet, and padding.”

His solemn face creased into a smile that reached up to his warm brown eyes. “Just kidding with you there. In general, I find murder unsettling, but I couldn’t resist. You looked so worried.”

Zoe let out a laugh. “It does make it a hard sell. Anyone who knows about it...well, once they see which office it is, they’re out of here.”

“It does explain why the price is so good. I need to expand, and it appears this is the only office space in the whole Metroplex that I can afford, so I guess I can’t be squeamish.”

Zoe angled her head at him as she asked, “You really won’t be uncomfortable?”

“No, I’m not superstitious, and since this seems to be a gang-free part of the city, I’m assuming that it wasn’t a drive-by shooting. The likelihood of it being repeated is low?”

“Minuscule. Non-existent, in fact. It was a situation related to the former occupants and that’s over,” Zoe said, feeling only a tad guilty for not mentioning that her ex-husband had been one of the prior tenants and the fraud case was still under investigation, but she shook it off. He didn’t need to know that detail.

He’d moved in the next week, paid his rent on time, and never complained. So when he called and said there was a water leak in the bathroom, Zoe had immediately called in a plumber and had it fixed. The repair hadn’t taken long; it was retiling the back wall that was dragging on forever. Zoe wanted to keep Sam happy, and if that meant she had to get in there and tile the back wall of the bathroom herself, she’d do it.

She retraced her steps downstairs, wound a lightweight yellow scarf around her neck, and gathered her sunglasses and the new leather messenger bag that she’d bought after returning home from Italy. Her old bag hadn’t survived the trip. Her new one wasn’t broken in and didn’t have the worn patina of the original, but she was working on it. She normally didn’t spend much money on clothes or accessories as her no name blue-and-white striped shirt and jeans showed. But the messenger bag was essential, a business expense she reasoned when she shelled out the money for it. It would last for years—as long as she kept it away from Venetian canals.

Fortunately, she and Helen were close to the same size, and Helen was a clotheshorse. Zoe happily recycled Helen’s cast-offs, especially enjoying the shoes, like today’s calf-length low-heeled boots in nut brown. It really wasn’t cold enough for boots, but Zoe couldn’t resist wearing them. The first break of the season-long humidity called for a celebration and wearing boots seemed exactly the right way to mark the occasion.

Zoe stepped outside, appreciating the deliciously crisp air as only someone who had lived through the muggy heat of a Dallas summer could. Her phone rang as she walked to the car. Her mother. She considered not answering it, but while calls from her mother were rare, when Donna decided it was time for a chat she was as persistent and focused as one of the dogs Zoe walked regularly, a toy poodle named Lulu, who strained on the leash all the way around the block. Lulu had no idea where she was going, but she was determined to get there as soon as possible.

“Hi, Mom,” Zoe said as she slid into her Jetta and slammed the door. “Can’t talk long, I’m on my way to the office suites.” It was always good to establish her escape route upfront. It lowered expectations for a long chat.

“Darling! You picked up.” Donna’s husky voice managed to sound both surprised and accusing at the same time. “It doesn’t matter if you don’t have a lot of time. I’m only in town for a few hours anyway.”

Zoe had backed out of the driveway and was keeping an eye on the rearview mirror to see if the silver car followed her, but at her mother’s words, she forgot to watch the mirror. “You’re here? In Dallas?” Had her mom arrived, intending to spend Thanksgiving with her? No, surely not. Donna hated Thanksgiving. Staying a size two was one of the main focuses of her life. She didn’t enjoy any activity or holiday centered around food. When Zoe was a kid, they’d either ignored Thanksgiving Day all together, or she and her current step-dad had take-out from the grocery store deli while Donna nibbled on a salad.

“Yes, that’s what I said. Now, I’ll wait for you at baggage claim D16.”

“Are you here for an audition?” Since abandoning Dallas for Southern California the day after Zoe’s high school graduation, Donna hadn’t returned for a visit. Zoe had a horrible thought. Tryouts for the Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders weren’t this week, were they? Surely not. Wrong season. Please be the wrong season.

“No,” Donna said, her voice thick with amusement. “No one auditions in Dallas. At least, not for anything significant. I’m on a layover. My plane for New York leaves at five.”

Zoe suddenly remembered the silver car and checked her mirrors, afraid she’d missed seeing whether or not it followed her, but there it was, moving along in the wake of a cream-colored SUV two cars back.

“Baggage Claim, D16,” Donna repeated. “I suppose you still have that rickety little car?”

“I’ll be in the Jetta, yes.”

“Too bad I don’t have time to rent a limo,” Donna said under her breath.

Zoe adjusted her driving plan in her mind. Driving to the airport would take her away from the office suites, but it would certainly make it clear if the silver car was interested in her or if it was simply a coincidence that it had followed her route.

“I’ll see you in about thirty minutes,” Zoe said and quickly hung up before her mom could make some convoluted plan like renting a stretch Hummer limo—probably in hot pink—on a whim.