Square in the Face (Claire Montrose Series) (19 page)

Chapter Twenty

With only her elongated shadow for company, Claire made her way up Forty-fifth Avenue, past parked cars and still sleeping houses. She was trying a new tack that she had read someone - was it the Australian Boyscouts? - used to cover a lot of ground without growing fatigued: alternately walking fifty paces and then running fifty. In her case, the running portion was more like a slow jog, but still, it felt like progress. Claire welcomed the feeling of accomplishment, as slight as it was. If only she felt she were getting closer to finding Lori’s daughter. The only avenue that remained unexplored was the Price’s child. But if their daughter turned out to be a dead-end, too, then that meant the Lieblings’ dead child was also Zach’s sister.

And what about Ginny? Claire had called the girl’s apartment again yesterday, but her voice mail was still full. She and Charlie had discussed whether it was worthwhile to break in again, but decided against it. Deep down, they both knew things would look the same as they had before. Ginny’s mother must be in a panic now.

The fifty paces Claire was supposed to walk had gone by too quickly, and now it was time to run again. She shuffled along, enjoying the promise of an unusually clear February morning. Whoever had platted this part of Southwest Portland had laid it out on a perfect east-west grid. Her shadow was straight ahead of her, and when she turned the corner onto Pendleton it stayed close by her side. Charlie and Max had still been asleep when Claire slipped out the door. It was still too early for there to be many people up and about. From the buds of her earphones, Tori Amos sang to Claire, her voice beguiling and fierce. She turned the Walkman up a tick louder. This early in the morning, she figured there wasn’t any traffic to worry about.

When black-gloved hands grabbed her from behind, Claire didn’t even have time to scream. Her heart flopping like a fish, she stumbled and nearly fell. One hand was clamped over her mouth, while a muscular arm wrapped itself around her shoulders too tight for her to move her arms. Claire gagged and twisted silently, the meaty taste of leather filling her mouth. She had started carrying the bottle of Dog B Gon in the Tune Belt that held her Walkman, but her attacker held her so tight that there was no way she could reach it.
 
Something raked over the back of her head and down, snagging several strands of her hair. She realized her attacker was pulling off her headphones with his teeth. Claire felt soft fabric and hot breath against her cheek, smelled peppermint. So even rapists used mouthwash. Then a voice hissed into her ear.

“Be quiet and I won’t hurt you, ‘kay? But if you scream” - the hand pressed down harder across her mouth and Claire stilled herself, thinking hard. The hand relaxed a bit. Charlie had shown Claire a few of the moves she had learned in her “Self-Defense for Seniors” class. Claire could gouge her heel down his shin and stomp it on his instep, a move that was, unfortunately, much more effective in high heels than in rubber-soled Nikes. Like a piston, she could drive her elbow back into his solar plexus - but he was pressed so close to her there would be little momentum. Or Claire could try to bite his palm as hard as she could through the leather, and hope to buy herself a second or two in which to scream. But the neighborhood lay so still around them. Would anyone even wake to hear before her attacker’s broad hands tightened on her throat? Or would the sound be integrated seamlessly into a dream, only half-remembered when the police came to ask about the broken body found in the gutter next to the yellow recycling bins?

It only took a few seconds for Claire to consider and abandon her options. At the same time, she was sizing up her assailant. The harshness of his words was tempered by his Southern-tinged drawn-out vowels. He was about Claire’s height, five-ten, but far bigger., pumped up, so he was probably her age or younger.
 
In addition to the gloves and the knitted ski mask she could feel against her cheek, she’d caught a glimpse of Levis and Nikes. Since this was the unisex casual outfit of Portlanders, it didn’t serve as much of a clue. Even though she couldn’t see his skin, she’d lay money that he was white.

“I’m just going to say this to you once. Don’t go poking your nose where it don’t belong. See that car coming toward us?” he asked, and he swung her around so that she was facing the direction of traffic.
 
Obligingly, a deep maroon sports-utility vehicle appeared at the crest of the hill. The driver was a white man, that much Claire was certain of, wearing a Blazer ballcap pulled low. He drove toward them, fast, his headlights on bright. Claire braced herself as she felt the hands holding her shift. Was he going to launch her into the road? “Do you know how easy it’d be to arrange an accident for you?” The car blew past, and then braked to a fast stop behind them. Realizing she was safe for the moment, Claire took a shaky breath through her nose. “Wouldn’t it be a shame if that little stereo of yours got you killed? People would think you’d gotten so into the tunes that you forgot to look where you were going. Do you want that to happen to you?”

Under the restraining yoke of his hand, Claire shook her head.

“Then leave it be!”

And suddenly the pressure was gone and he was running away from her. She turned in time to see him jump into the car. She memorized its details even as it squealed away from her. A maroon Range Rover, brand new by the looks of it. Clean all over - except where someone had smeared thick mud on the license plate.

Fueled by adrenaline, Claire ran the rest of the way home. She didn’t notice her ankle, didn’t notice anything at all, so eager was she to get in the house and lock the door behind her.

She found Charlie hand-squeezing orange juice for breakfast. Her friend calmly listened to Claire’s story. Max was still asleep. Instead of looking frightened, she looked fully alive. Claire realized that her friend missed taking part in the hunt. “Who do you think hired these men to warn you?”

Claire had thought of nothing else while she ran the three miles home. “The best candidate has to be Dr. Bradford. There are at least two reasons he wouldn’t want me looking into things. One, offering very private adoptions makes him a lot of money.
 
If people started to get worried that he wouldn’t be able to guarantee privacy, they would go someplace else. The second reason is Ginny. What happened to her? Maybe the reason St. Vincent’s doesn’t have a record is because she died. The Portland medical establishment is probably willing to look the other way as long as Dr. Bradford’s meeting a need and greasing everyone’s palms in the process - that old victimless crime thing. But if it turns out that a woman died at his clinic - that’s a different matter. They would probably come after him, if only to save face with the public.”

“Don’t forget that there are other candidates, Claire. What if the Lieblings found out that you were asking about what happened to their children, and they really did kill one or both of those little babies?
 
Or what about that woman you attended high school with?”

“Cindy? But her kid’s not Lori’s. Why would she bother with me?”

Charlie shook her head gently. “Remember what you told me you said to her as you were leaving?”

Claire flashed back to Cindy, shocked into silence. “You mean when I told her I was with the IRS? Wouldn’t hiring two guys to threaten me be over-reacting?”

“I understand that real IRS agents do not even use their true names, for fear of retaliation.”

Claire considered it, then shook her head. “I can’t seriously picture Cindy having someone come gunning for me. And how would the Lieblings even know who I am? My car wasn’t parked in their neighborhood, and I never gave their neighbor my name. I still think it was Dr. Bradford.” A shiver drew up her shoulders as she remembered his ice-blue eyes. If Ginny were dead, then he would stop at nothing to cover that up.

“Will you do what the man asked? Leave things be?”

Claire looked at her friend and shook her head. “How can you ask me that? If we don’t find Zach’s sister, he will die. I can’t give up until I see if the Price’s daughter is Lori’s child.”

Charlie patted her hand gently. “Don’t forget, even if we do find his sister, there is only a one-in-four chance they will match.”

“But it’s the only chance Zach has.” Claire said. She went in the other room, picked up the phone and dialed the Price’s number. Again, she got nothing but the answering machine. Frustrated, she left a brief message begging them to call her about a matter of life and death. But as she hung up the phone, she had the feeling it was all for nothing.

Chapter Twenty-one

The phone rang just as Claire was quietly closing the door to the guest room. Max had just fallen asleep, and needed to stay that way, so she pounced on the phone even before the first ring was over.

“Claire, it’s Dante. Why haven’t you called me back? I’ve been worried about you.”

The sound of his voice touched her, but she refused to acknowledge that it did. Instead of answering him, she asked a question of her own. “How was Ant’s birthday party? Did all your planning pay off?” Her tone underlined the word
planning
.

“How did you know about “ - Dante interrupted himself. “You’ve been talking to sara, haven’t you?” What did Claire hear in his voice? Was it a sudden understanding that sara had worked to undermine Claire confidence - or was he simply hesitating because he had been caught?

“Only while you were in the shower.” Claire had meant to make a matter-of-fact statement, but she knew her voice betrayed her.

“She answered my phone?” Dante’s tone was annoyed now. “What have you been thinking? Claire, she showed up at my door right after I’d run six miles. I didn’t want to sit there shvitzing.”

“Shvitzing?”

“Sometimes I forget you’re not from around here. Shvitz is Yiddish for sweat.” As if Claire needed another reminder that she and Dante were from totally different backgrounds. “Don’t tell me you’re feeling threatened by sara, of all people.”

Claire stated the obvious. “You used to date her.”

“That was over three years ago, and we only went out for about a month. We’ve known each other since we were teenagers, but it was clear once we started seeing each other that we had different priorities in life.” Dante sighed. “I’m going to have to talk to her. It’s been pretty obvious that she’s jealous of you, but this is going too far.”

Claire softened a bit. “You sound like my mom when kids used to tease me in high school. She tried to tell me they weren’t really mean. They were just jealous.”

“Well, maybe they were. Have you considered that? A beautiful girl with red-gold hair like an angel’s and a mind as smart as the devil’s? That would be enough to make most people jealous - or nervous.”

Claire was surprised to find that she believed Dante far more than she ever had her mother. “And what do I make you?” she asked.

“Nervous, definitely nervous. Especially when you get that frosty tone in your voice.” There was a seductive pitch to his voice that made Claire’s bones melt, even if part of her still had trouble trusting his version of her. “You’re a woman to be reckoned with, Claire Montrose.”

Claire told Dante everything that had happened in her search for Lori’s daughter. The only part she left out was the threat from that morning. If she told him, she was afraid he would insist that she take her assailant’s advice and stop looking for Lori’s daughter. And there was no way she could do that, not when one possibility still remained, not when she still might be able to save Zach.

As soon as she hung up the phone, she dialed Amanda’s number again. This time Claire got a live voice, not a recording.

“Yes?” The voice was distinctive, husky and slow. The kind of voice that some women were blessed with, and others acquired through copious amounts of whiskey and cigarettes. Claire was willing to bet this voice was the real thing in all senses of the term.

“Amanda Price? Mandy Price?”

“Who’s calling, please?” The woman’s voice had grown guarded.

“My name is Claire Montrose. I left a message with you earlier, but you haven’t returned my call.”

“I’m sorry, but I’m afraid I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Amanda sounded genuinely in the dark, but then again, she was an actress, wasn’t she?

“I need to meet with you to discuss a matter of great personal importance.”

“Exactly what do you mean?” Each word was clearly enunciated, separated by a beat of time.

“I know the truth about your daughter and how you got her. I need to talk to you about her.”

“How did you get this number?” Her voice was sharper now, angry - but was she also afraid?

“That doesn’t really matter, does it? “ Claire said. “I don’t want to harm you in any way, or reveal your secret, but I do need to talk to you.”

“If you want to talk to someone so badly, you can talk to my lawyer.”

“I’m sure you would rather this would kept between us,” Claire said. “Does your lawyer know that Dr. Bradford
sold
you a baby?”

There was a hesitation, then Amanda rapped out, “How much do you want?”

Claire found herself shaking her head, even though the other woman couldn’t see her. “I’m not looking for money.
 
I just need to talk to you.”

“No. It’s simply not possible.”

No talk of lawyers now, Claire noted. “If you force me to, I could go to
Stop the Presses
. I know the main reporter there.” Claire really did, having given the woman the big break that had catapulted her into a Lucite anchor’s chair.
 
“I’m sure she’d be very interested in your story.”

There was a long pause that Claire made no rush to fill.
 

When Amanda’s voice finally came, it was so soft that Claire had to strain to hear it. “If you came tomorrow, I could see you.”