The Deposit Slip (25 page)

C
ory came out of the hostel door smiling, her compact luggage backpack settled across her shoulders. Sitting at the café where he’d first seen her, his stomach raw from his third cup of coffee for the morning, Jared dreaded her approach.

He had to tell her. He couldn’t tell her.

“Indecision is the stepchild of weakness,” Clay had said, waving his cigar like a conductor before an unseen orchestra. It was one of their midnight sessions in the midst of a trial, when even the cleaning staff had wearily finished with his office and moved on.

“It is my experience that any decision is
usually
better than none at all. Indecision can stem from an unwillingness to accept the possibility of error. Or,” he had said, cocking an eye in Jared’s direction, “a simple refusal to accept what must be done.”

Clay Strong was now sitting in a building adorned with his name, surrounded by associates whose first and last thought each day was how to impress him. The man had launched Jared into this orbit and then radioed him that there would be no life support. What use was his advice to Jared now?

As Cory neared, the debate that consumed him all morning would not relent.

If he told her, she’d bolt. And his case would collapse.

“You’re up early, Mr. Neaton.”

“Yeah. I’m still a little jet-lagged, didn’t sleep well.”

If he kept the package in his pocket to himself, maybe it would be fine. Maybe it was a joke—by someone at her college.

“Well, I’m going to try to see the things I haven’t caught in Athens yet.” She paused. “Do you want to join me?”

No college kid could have done this.

“Uh . . . I see you’ve got your luggage.”

“Yep. I was going to leave you a note if I didn’t see you, to tell you that we could just meet at the airport. But if we stay together today, we could just head to the airport together when we’re ready.”

It was a bluff then. No one would hurt someone over a civil lawsuit.

But look what his father did for tens of thousands of dollars. What more would someone do for ten million? Was Sidney Grant capable of this? He didn’t know anything about the man.

“Mr. Neaton? Do you want to join me?”

This was still manageable, though. He’d contact Marcus once Cory was back in Minnesota, tell him his client had gone nuts. Marcus would call Grant and his “expert” off. The Paisley lawyer wouldn’t risk his bar license over a crazy client.

Jared’s stomach was still knotted as he answered, “All right. Let me get my bag.”

“What is Erin Larson like?”

They sat for an early-afternoon break in a different café back near the hostel they’d left in the morning. In the hours since, they had traveled a serpentine route through alleys and shops, art galleries and T-shirt kiosks, ruined temples and the original Olympic Stadium.

Jared had listened as Cory chatted. She spoke sparingly at first, then more comfortably—especially about her travels. He worked hard to appear relaxed and interested. But he felt neither.

“Erin is a very sweet person,” Jared answered. “You remind me of her.”

Her cheeks flushed. “The night at the bank, Mr. Larson seemed worried about me. I think he was embarrassed at how Mr. Grant was acting. It made me wonder what his daughter was like.”

Jared’s stomach still ached. Cory was a witness, not a friend. He didn’t want to get to know her. He wanted her back in Minneapolis, her deposition done. Then he’d figure out how to make this right.

“I didn’t know him, but Mr. Larson seemed like a good man too,” Jared replied.

The waitress returned with their tea. Jared silently dipped the folded bag into his cup, watching the steaming water darken.

Cory fidgeted with the cup in her hands. “Mr. Neaton, I heard about the lawsuit from Mom awhile ago, and I recognized Mr. Larson’s name and everything.” Her voice was apologetic. “I didn’t tell anybody because—well, I just thought it would all get taken care of.”

“No one likes to get involved in these things, Cory,” Jared answered automatically. “You couldn’t know how important that night was.”

Cory nodded listlessly.

“Do you ever feel like moving back to Ashley?” she asked.

Jared thought an immediate no, but held that back. “I don’t think about it much,” he responded. “I’ve moved on.”

Cory nodded in agreement. “I’m not going back. At least I don’t think so. I want to go to grad school in psychology. Maybe work in the Twin Cities. But”—she paused—“I do miss it when I’m gone for long. The people mostly.”

They finished their tea and slung their backpacks to leave. It was getting late, and they’d need to head to the airport soon. Cory had seen the Acropolis once before, but asked if they could return to the hill topped by the Parthenon for a final visit. Jared agreed.

The paths leading to the Acropolis gate were long and steep, especially with the burden of their backpacks. Despite the cold, Jared began to sweat. At last, they reached a spot where paths diverged, a sign showing that one headed toward the Areopagus while another angled upward toward the Acropolis. The Areopagus, Cory explained, was where Paul of Tarsus preached in the first century. In the other direction, she went on, near the top of the Acropolis path, was a final staircase that passed through a gate leading to the plateau occupied by the Parthenon and other Greek monuments.

This junction was busy with passing tourists, most heading toward the Acropolis. Jared looked up at the steep climb of that path.

He felt no draw to the attraction today. His time with Cory had only heightened his unease—he felt nearly sick now—and he just wanted to get to the airport. “Cory, you go ahead. Come join me over there when you’re done,” he said, pointing in the direction of Areopagus.

He could tell that she was disappointed, but Cory only nodded as they parted.

The Areopagus was a rocky outcropping roughly a quarter mile away from the Acropolis across a shallow valley filled with trees and bushes. Jared found a spot near the highest point of the rocks and eased his backpack onto the ground. The sun was warmer up here, and the breeze felt good after the walk.

People milled around the hilltop, some in guided groups, others singly or in pairs, taking pictures or reading books. Jared pulled his digital camera from his bag and turned toward the Acropolis. Across the valley, the final carved steps were visible, rising to the gate. Jared turned on his camera and pointed it in the direction of the steps.

The sun was bright now. As his lens opened, Jared pressed his eye to the viewfinder and zoomed onto the figures climbing the steps. After a moment, Cory entered his view, treading doggedly upward, her red backpack clear even amidst the herd of tourists.

He zoomed out slightly to take a picture. As he steadied, a man wearing a brown jacket stepped into the field.

Jared’s mind flashed to the hostel door and the man in the brown leather jacket who’d brushed hurriedly past. It was, he recalled, just moments before he’d found the package.

The jacketed man on the Acropolis was twenty steps below Cory, separated by a mass of other tourists ascending to the gate. His face was forward, his head covered by the hood of a gray sweatshirt he wore beneath the jacket.

It was a common color and material, Jared told himself. He’s just another tourist climbing the stairs to the Acropolis.

But the man was matching Cory’s slow progress up the stairs, step by step. Then his head looked up in her direction.

Jared scrambled up, grabbed his pack, and pushed past a tour guide, rushing toward the stone steps that descended the Areopagus back to the crossroads where they had parted. Moments later, he turned to follow her route onto the path that rose toward the Acropolis.

The backpack became a boulder as he trotted heavily up the slope. His legs leadened and his pace slowed, despite the urgency pounding in his temples.

The Acropolis steps, lost from view when he left the Areopagus, were visible again just ahead. The cluster of tourists working upward toward the gate was denser than when Cory had ascended, and Jared slowed to an agonizing crawl at the base of the stairs.

He looked up. Cory and the man with the brown jacket were not in sight.

Ten minutes were gone before Jared passed through the final gate, emerging onto the plateau of the Acropolis. The surface of the hill was gravel and sand, bracketed at its center by the Parthenon on the right and a smaller marble monument to the left. The largest group of people were gathered around the base of the Parthenon, but the entire plateau was occupied by tourists and guides.

Jared scanned the crowd from where he stood. Cory’s red backpack was nowhere to be seen.

With growing panic, he started down the middle of the plateau, craning his head back and forth as he went. The sheer number of tourists and variety of clothing and backpack colors made him despair of finding her. A park guard was smoking at the near corner of the Parthenon. He considered asking for help, but worried about the time needed to explain.

He was nearing the far edge of the plateau, beyond the Parthenon. Here, the partial foundation of a new building jutted from the ground, surrounded by an earthmover and other idle equipment. A few remaining historic plaques dotted the narrow space in front of him.

A glimpse of crimson caught Jared’s eye, and he forced his drained legs to move in that direction. It was a backpack, but the figure wearing it was only partly visible behind a group of Japanese tourists. He saw the tour guide wave and point away, and the group shuffled off in unison.

The tourists gone, Cory was standing alone, reading a plaque. Jared felt a flood of relief.

She turned and smiled in surprise as Jared approached. “Mr. Neaton—you’re all red. You decided to come up after all?”

Sweat coursed down his forehead. Staring at the young woman, he felt the hidden package in his pocket pressed against his drenched shirt, and the relief washed away in a cascade of shame.

“What is it, Mr. Neaton?”

Jared opened his mouth to speak—when he saw movement in brown. He looked across Cory’s shoulder to a man passing by on the edge of a moving throng striding toward the Parthenon. The man’s eyes were hidden beneath the dark lenses of sunglasses.

As the mass of people reached the edge of the Parthenon, the man’s head turned toward Jared and Cory. Then he was gone from sight behind the marble structure.

On the breast of the man’s brown leather jacket, clear in the afternoon sun, was the dark flowing stain of Jared’s spilled coffee.

The honks of bustling taxis on the adjacent street made hearing difficult, while the flow of people passing Jared at the entrance to the Athens train station made him feel like a stone caught in the race of a rushing stream.

Cory’s face was flushed and perplexed. “I said I was okay coming home to testify.”

Jared shook his head. “Like I said, the text I got while you were on the Acropolis showed I’ve got it covered now. No need to interrupt your trip.”

Jared’s gaze swept past Cory, at the cabstands and passing people.

“What are you looking for?” she asked.

“Nothing, Cory. Thought I saw someone I recognized. Stupid, I know.”