The Hill (16 page)

“Connie, Jim.” Jonathan shook her hand, but Judd had turned
away and was strolling toward a rack of flyers.

“We have all our listings over there, but I have the Sunset
ones in this book.” He patted the white three-ring binder in his hand. “House?
Town house? Condo? The Sunset has them all and parking to boot.”

“We're looking for a detached single-family home.”

“We have several of those.” Jonathan placed the binder on a
table and flipped it open. He shifted his gaze to Judd, now standing back and
staring at some banner on the wall. “Sir, would you like to have a look with
your wife? If anything interests you, I'd be happy to take you out for a
showing.”

Judd pointed to a sign hanging above a desk, crepe-paper
streamers on either side of it. “Who's Cynthia?”

“What?” Jonathan's brow wrinkled and he darted a glance at
London.

“Cynthia.” Judd leaned forward and tapped the sign so that it
swayed over the desk. “It says, ‘Welcome back, Cynthia.' Is she an agent
here?”

“Uh, yes. Cynthia Phelps. Do you know her?”

London took a few steps toward Judd and could feel the tension
vibrating from his tightly coiled body. What was he getting at? Was he just
fishing?

“I know someone who knows her. She just got out of the
hospital, didn't she?”

London's breath quickened. Did Judd know something?

Jonathan joined them, the binder held open in his hands. “She
did.”

Judd turned, a fake smile on his face. “Is she here?”

Jonathan's shoulders sagged with the realization he might be
losing some customers to Cynthia. “She's not here. Actually, she's taking some
time off. She left town. Didn't Cynthia leave town, Lori?”

The woman called from her desk. “Yes. She's taking a break for
a while.”

Jonathan blew out a breath and hugged his binder. “She'll be
gone for some time.”

“But she was here.” Judd flicked the welcome-back banner with
his finger. “She came back to the office.”

“Yes.” Jonathan cocked his head. “We had a little homecoming
party for her when she got out of the hospital. Did you speak with Cynthia
before? Had she shown you any properties? Because I can pick up where she left
off.”

“Was she in the office last week?”

“Sir.” Jonathan placed the binder back on the edge of the desk
and folded his hands in front of him. “Cynthia is not here, but I can help you
with your needs.”

“She was here last week, wasn't she?”

The question sounded innocent enough, and Judd's voice, low and
smooth, didn't contain a hint of a threat or violence, yet Jonathan's eyes
bulged from their sockets and he stammered.

“I—I'm going to have to call the police if you don't
leave.”

“The police?” London stepped between the two men. “There's no
need for that. My husband knows Cynthia and thought we could work with her.
That's all.”

Lori had risen from her desk, clutching her phone. “Why are you
asking about Cynthia? She's been through enough.”

Judd held up his hands. “I know. I know she has. My brother
told me what happened to her. Ryan Brody's my brother, the guy who found her
that day and helped her. I'm sorry. I didn't realize she worked here, and when I
saw her name it sort of jogged my memory. My brother would want to know that
Cynthia's okay. That's all.”

London looked from Judd to the two Realtors, not knowing what
to believe. Where had this all come from?

Jonathan leaned against the desk and licked his lips. “She's
okay. That's all we can tell you.”

“Fair enough. I'll let my brother know.” He took London's arm
and steered her out of the office with two pairs of eyes burning into their
backs.

Judd marched her across the street, and when they hit the
sidewalk, she jerked her arm away from his hold. “What the hell was that all
about? Who is Cynthia? Was all that true about Ryan? What happened to her?”

Looking up and down the street, Judd said, “We need to find a
place to talk.”

“Coffee place around the corner. I saw it when we rode up.”

They found the coffeehouse and grabbed a table by the window
after placing an order.

“This is crazy.” Judd ran his hands through his hair.

She snapped her fingers in front of his face. “Let me in on the
crazy.”

“Cynthia Phelps, aka Cookie Crumb, was a hooker who knew my
father twenty years ago.”

London widened her eyes.

“Not that way. He'd arrested her pimp or something. Anyway,
Cookie was the last person to see my father alive. She saw him jump from the
Golden Gate Bridge.”

“What?”

“Ryan looked her up when he and Kacie Manning were working on
that book together. They talked to her once, and when they went back to see her,
someone had beaten her to a pulp. She went into a coma.”

“And you think Cynthia's the one who called Rick and bribed him
to give that job with Bunny to you?”

“It's obvious, isn't it? Bay Realtors didn't ring a bell with
me, but Ryan told me Cynthia was a Realtor and she'd been attacked at a house
she was showing in the Sunset. When I saw that sign with her name, it
clicked.”

“Why would Cynthia do that?”

“Ryan felt that Cynthia knew something. She was too afraid to
talk to him and Kacie, and then someone made sure she couldn't talk to
them.”

“Did she contact Ryan when she came out of her coma?”

“No. Ryan kept calling the hospital until one day he called and
they told him she'd been released. The police had spoken to her, but she claimed
she couldn't identify her assailant.”

The barista called out their names and Judd jumped up to get
their drinks.

London took a sip of her coffee and then traced around the edge
of the lid. “Instead of telling you what she knows about your father, she
arranged to throw us together. That way nobody needs to know she talked to
you...or me.”

“Dr. Patrick, Cynthia Phelps, Marie Giardano—anyone who knows
anything about what happened twenty years ago is a target.”

“Who are Dr. Patrick and Marie Giardano?”

“Dr. Patrick was the department psychologist who saw my father
after his partner was killed, which we now know was a setup. Before Sean had an
opportunity to question him, he had a heart attack and died.”

London gasped. “These people are serious. And Marie?”

“She's the longtime records clerk at the department, friends
with both my mom and dad back in the day. Any time any of my brothers came
around to request the old files to look into the case, she got very nervous,
until she just disappeared a few months ago.”

“Is she...?”

He lifted his shoulders. “We don't know. She took off with her
purse and passport, packed a bag, and disappeared. I hope to God she's okay and
just keeping a low profile until this business all blows over.”

“When will that be?” London bit the tip of her fingernail,
holding her breath.

“When we solve the mystery and find out what happened twenty
years ago. You're not going to be safe until that time, either. Someone out
there is always going to be worried about what your father told you or what he
left for you to discover.”

“He should've just come clean instead of leaving me cryptic
notes from the grave.”

“He had to have known that he was putting you in danger.”

“Wouldn't be the first time my father failed me.”

“Join the club.”

She covered his hand. “Your father didn't fail you, Judd. He
got caught up in something that spiraled out of his control. His partner was
murdered, he was being set up as a serial killer—maybe he thought he'd spend the
rest of his life in prison for crimes he never committed.”

“So you kill yourself? You give up?” He rubbed the hard line of
his jaw. “It can't be that easy to set someone up for crimes he didn't commit,
unless...”

“Unless what?”

“Unless you're privy to information and resources that would
allow you to do something like that.”

“Like the police?”

Their eyes met and London's heart hammered so hard she thought
it might jump out of her chest onto the table.

Judd nodded. “And the police commission.”

“We need to go through my father's files on the laptop, and,
Judd—” she tapped the back of his hand with her fingertips “—we're not
alone.”

“What does that mean?”

“Think about it. Cynthia successfully engineered a meeting
between us and someone left that newspaper clipping on your bike. Someone in the
know wants us to find the truth. That ex-con stepped forward. Even my father is
trying to speak out.”

“Then let's go search that laptop.”

London hugged Judd around the waist all the way back to the
financial district. Whatever happened between them once this was all over, she'd
have no regrets. She loved Judd, but she recognized a fellow free spirit when
she encountered one. If he went his own way in the end, she could live with it.
She'd loved and lost before. It had left a gouge in her heart, but she'd
survived it.

He parked in front of the building and they took the elevator
up to the BGE offices. London waved at Celine in the outer office.

“I wasn't sure you'd be in today, London. Do you want me to
schedule any meetings for you while you're here?”

“No. Judd and I are going to do some work in my office for a
while.”

“Should I hold your calls? Someone's been trying to reach you
all morning, some guy from the Global Giving Foundation.”

“You don't have to hold my calls. Put him through when he calls
again. That's one of my favorite charities.”

“I will. He's been trying just about every hour.”

Judd mumbled, “He must really want your money.”

“Thanks, Celine.” London snapped the door to the office closed.
“I don't mind. It's one of the good charities—low overhead, very few
administrators, does a lot for kids around the world. It's easy to get people to
donate to a cause like that.”

“You—” he kissed her on the tip of her nose “—could get people
to donate money for snowboards in the Sahara Desert.”

“It's easy to get other people's money for causes. Besides, you
never know when you might need a snowboard in the desert.” She rolled the
leather chair to the side and ducked under the desk.

“What are you doing under there?”

“There's a floor safe under the desk. That's where my dad
stashed his laptop.”

“There's gotta be something more on there than company
financials if he went to that much trouble to conceal it.”

“That's what I think. That's what I've been telling you.” She
pulled out the laptop and stationed it on the desk. She slid a glance toward
Judd as he pulled up a chair. She could show him the pictures after they went
through the rest of her father's files.

She attached a mouse to the side of the laptop and powered on
the computer. “I already searched for
Brody, police
commission, Phone Book Killer.
”

“Let me have a look at some of the folders and see if anything
jumps out at me. Also, if the file or folder doesn't have that specific name,
the search may not find those terms in the text. There's a program you can
install to block that kind of text search.”

“You see? That's why I need your help with this.”

They worked side by side, heads huddled together over the
laptop. A lot of the files they went through were duplicates of the ones on her
father's desktop work computer.

“I don't know.” She massaged her temples. “Maybe he just used
this as a backup in case the other one went down.”

“You already have an automatic backup on the desktop computer.
I checked that out when you were in the board meeting.”

The telephone on the desk buzzed, and London pressed a button.
“Yes?”

“It's that man again from Global Giving.”

“I'll take it. I could use a break anyway.” The line clicked
once and London punched the speaker button while she drew her hands across her
face. “Hello? This is London Breck.”

An electronically altered voice intoned over the line, “And
this is your guardian angel.”

She dropped her hands. “Excuse me? Are you calling from Global
Giving?”

“I'm calling to give you a piece of advice, London.”

Judd's entire frame went rigid beside her.

“Who is this? What are you talking about?”

“I think you know what I'm talking about. I've been trying to
get this message to you ever since your father died.”

“What do you want? Just come out with it. What is it you want
from me?”

“I want you to keep your mouth shut, go about your business and
spend your billions of dollars on shoes and trips to the French Riviera.”

“You don't want me taking over as CEO of Breck Global
Enterprises?”

“I don't give a damn what you do, just stop looking into the
Brody case. Everyone knows Brody's innocent now, so drop it.”

“Why was he set up? Why was his partner murdered?”

The man on the phone whistled and it sounded like a buzz saw.
“You know a lot, don't you? That's why it's time to stop looking for Operation
Phoenix. Is Brody with you now?”

She glanced at Judd and he shook his head.

“No.”

The man chuckled. “We could've settled this with you a long
time ago if my guys had been able to get close to you, but Brody prevented that
from happening. Relentless—just like his old man. You never should've hired Judd
Brody. You hired him to protect you, and he ended up putting you in more
danger.”