I sighed. "I almost hope that means you're taking the car hostage pending payment of your bill. Otherwise, I believe we've already had this conversation, and--"
"And you're taking the Jetta. For now. I accept that decision, even if I think it's foolish. This"--he dangled the keys--"is temporary. We're going for a ride."
"We are?"
"I have a long night ahead of me. I'd like a coffee, and I suspect the Maserati will get me one faster than the Jetta."
I could have pointed out that the short walk to the house would get him one even faster. As might his own car, waiting in the drive. But I looked at the keys, considering. He dangled them again, as if to say, "You want this--I know you do."
"When's the last time you took it out?" he asked.
My smile evaporated. "Not since my dad--"
Gabriel cut in before I could go there. "Then you should take it for a spin. Cars like that shouldn't be left in storage. It causes mechanical issues. With brakes and tires and engines and such."
My smile returned. "You have no idea what you're talking about, do you?"
"Not a word."
This wasn't about getting a coffee. It was about getting me out of my post-Pamela funk. So I took the keys and waved him to the passenger seat.
CHAPTER SEVEN
I put the top down and whipped along my favorite roads, ones where the danger--of cops or traffic or, most important, kids--was minimal and I could put the hammer down and go. People used to joke that I'd inherited my father's love for fast cars. Some of my earliest memories were of being out with him in this very car, me in my booster seat, straining against the harness like a dog with its nose out the window, feeling the rush of wind, closing my eyes and imagining I was flying.
It was a rush like no other. Okay, when I was seventeen I discovered a rush I liked just as well, but that's altogether different. Or maybe not so different--the adrenaline rush, the descent into the absolutely physical, where nothing else mattered except what I felt. And what I felt was glorious. That evening, it knocked every vestige of hurt from my brain, and when I grinned over at Gabriel, he granted me a rare smile in return.
After about twenty minutes of roaring around, I slowed and said, "There's a place up here where we can grab you a coffee."
"Does it have your mochas?"
"Nope. Straight-up coffee, which is fine--"
"Go someplace else, then. Get your mocha. We have time."
Another grin for him before I veered around the corner and sped off again.
--
After we got our coffees, Gabriel suggested we walk for a bit to stretch our legs. Stretch his legs, I'm guessing--my dad was six-two, and I remember him complaining about the Spyder's lack of legroom.
"Can I ask what Pamela talked to you about?" I said as we set out. "She said some things that made me worry it might not be a business chat."
"It was. She hired me back."
I stopped short. "Really?"
"Moreover, she will complete payment of her past-due bill first thing tomorrow, along with a sizable retainer."
I gaped at him. Pamela had money--a healthy inheritance--with nothing to spend it on. Yet she hadn't paid her initial bill. She claimed Gabriel screwed her over, but I suspect after their falling-out over the failed appeal she'd known withholding payment was the best revenge. That was why Gabriel came to me in the first place, hoping to recoup his losses. She'd been slowly paying him back as he'd helped me. Now, minutes after claiming she was still lawyer-shopping, she'd not only hired him but repaid him?
"You know your mother and I don't get along," he said.
"To put it mildly."
"But I do feel the need to give her some credit here, and say that I think this is her way of apologizing for lying about the omens. That does not excuse the lie but proves she isn't actively trying to thwart you, Olivia. Pamela and I have our differences, but I don't question her attachment to you. If she won't speak of the omens, she has a reason. I agree, however, that despite her olive branch here, you are correct to refrain from visiting until she agrees to discuss it. But it is an olive branch. She knows you want me on this case."
"But she also knows she'd be an idiot not to hire you back. She was just toying with you."
"Yes, she would have eventually rehired me. Then we'd have spent a week dickering, as I insisted on repayment and a retainer. The fact she offered both willingly indicates it is an apology to you."
"Okay."
"It also means I can put you to work on her case. It will be part of your job with me. A large part once the police investigation slows and I begin the appeal in earnest. At that point, you may find it difficult to continue at the diner--"
I shot him a look.
"I said, 'at that point.'" He slowed at the corner, hand going against my back as if to stop me from running into nonexistent traffic. "I even qualified it with 'may.'"
I shook my head. He wanted me to quit the diner, namely so I'd be at his beck and call for research. I refused so I wouldn't be beholden to him for my entire income.
As we walked, we discussed our next move on the Larsens' case.
My birth parents had been convicted of killing four young couples in what was presumed to be some kind of ritual. The murders themselves had been swift strangulations. No sex. No torture. No sign that the victims even had time to realize what was going on. It was only after their deaths that those "ritualistic elements" took shape. Five things had been done to the corpses. A symbol had been carved into each thigh and another painted with woad on the stomachs. For the women, a twig of mistletoe pierced the symbol on their stomachs. They all had a stone in their mouths and a section of skin removed from their backs.
As we'd discovered, the last victims--Jan Gunderson and Peter Evans--definitely hadn't been killed by the Larsens. Peter had learned that his father was involved in MKULTRA--mind control experiments for the CIA--in the fifties and sixties. Now, MKULTRA was a matter of public record, and while Will Evans would have hated for Peter to find out, it wasn't exactly a state secret. What was a secret was the fact that Evans had continued the work with his old mentor, Edgar Chandler. Chandler had left the CIA but was still working on creating a mind control drug for his pharmaceutical firm, by means that I suspect were less than legal and certainly less than ethical.
According to Chandler, Peter had threatened to expose their experiments, and his father killed him. Then Peter's girlfriend, Jan, showed up and Evans killed her, too. Being an expert in serial killers and having full knowledge of the recent crimes from a police friend, Evans had staged the bodies to match my parents' other alleged victims.
Is that what really happened? I'm not sure. There's a reason I did my master's thesis on Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. I'm drawn to his greatest creation because I understand how Sherlock Holmes thinks--logic over emotion. But there's a place for intuition there, too--not surprising given Conan Doyle's own interest in the supernatural. I'd spent enough time with both Will Evans and Edgar Chandler to know that Evans was, basically, a good man. Chandler was not.
When Gabriel and I started investigating, Chandler had taken control of the situation. In the twenty years since Peter Evans's murder, he'd actually found a way to do what the CIA could not--formulate some kind of drug that controlled the actions of others. He'd used it to kill two potential witnesses. Except Jan's senile father and Peter's drugged-out old friend weren't really witnesses at all. Murdering them had just been an excuse to test his product. Then he used it to kill Evans himself, robbing Evans of the opportunity to tell his side of the story.
I suspect Evans had made the mistake of calling Chandler when Peter found out. I suspect Chandler was responsible for Peter's and Jan's deaths. Will Evans may have played a role, but I would like to believe he did not murder his own son. Maybe, then, I'm a little bit sentimental after all. Whatever the exact answer, there is no doubt that one of them--Chandler or Evans--murdered the two, and my parents did not. Chandler had provided enough evidence for t
hat.
Our investigation would slow while the police investigated Chandler's claims. As a defense lawyer, Gabriel acted as if he had nothing but disdain for the police, but as a shrewd investigator himself he did respect their abilities and the tools they had at their disposal. He'd let the police investigate, assimilate what they learned into our research, and then jump back in.
As Gabriel mentioned talking to the police, I thought of something else he needed to speak to them about. Just before Will Evans died, he'd shown me old photos of Gabriel's mother. Dead on a coroner's table. Gabriel was supposed to go to the station and identify the pictures. Confirm Seanna was dead--that she had been dead since she'd left him, since he'd presumed she abandoned him. I thought of asking if he'd done that and, if not, reminding him of my offer to go along. I didn't. Couldn't. The night was going well, and that was sure to ruin it. So we continued talking about the case.
Though we'd wait for details from the police investigation, we wouldn't stop work entirely. We'd solved Peter's and Jan's murders by focusing on them. Now I'd do the same with the other six victims, researching them as people, not numbers in a serial killer's tally.
Did I expect to find my parents innocent of all crimes? No. But did I hope I would? Of course. So I would investigate to set my mind at ease, and whatever I found, Gabriel could use in his appeal.
When Gabriel's phone buzzed, he took it out and glanced in annoyance at the screen before pocketing it. Three more steps and he yanked it out again, hammered in a quick text, and hit Send hard enough to launch the message into space.
"Client being a pain?" I said. "As a new employee, I can pry now without seeming like I'm prying."
"It simply wasn't the person I'm waiting to hear from. I'm having . . ." He stuffed the phone back into his pocket. "I'm trying to resolve a matter, and the other party won't return my calls." He adjusted his suit coat. "I'll deal with it in the morning."
We crossed the road. A calico cat leapt onto a newspaper box and began washing its ears.
"Storm's coming." I looked up into the clear evening sky, so cloudless I could see the faint twinkle of distant stars through the dusk. "Or not."
"Hmm."
"Either way, we'd better head back to the car."
I started in that direction. Gabriel took a few steps beside me, then glanced back at the cat, still cleaning its ears. He took out his phone again and punched in another text, and we carried on in silence.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Wednesday morning, I drove my newly acquired VW into Chicago for my first day working with Gabriel. His office is a greystone near Garfield Park. A beautiful old building in a respectable but not exactly prestigious neighborhood. I'd expected something flashier--the Jag version of a lawyer's office. He could afford that. So why the greystone? It meant something. With Gabriel, everything means something.
The problem with old Chicago neighborhoods is a distinct lack of parking. Gabriel gets the spot in the narrow lane between his building and the next. I was supposed to park on the street, but I got a call from Gabriel five minutes before I arrived. Apparently, the media had staked out his office hoping for a sound bite on my birth parents' case. I parked a few blocks away, and he picked me up.
There was indeed a news van in front of his building. Gabriel roared past and veered into the parking spot sharply enough to knock me against the door. He paused before pulling up, and glanced off to the left, down the road, as if he'd spotted something.
"There's something I need to do first," he said.
"Okay, let me out here. I'm sure Lydia--"
"You should come with me. We need to talk."
I sighed as the Jag roared back onto the road.
I twisted to face him. "Are you trying to give me whiplash my first day--?"
I caught sight of a familiar figure walking down the sidewalk.
"James?" I said.
Gabriel rammed the car into drive, and it lurched forward.
"Gabriel? Hold on. That's--"
"Reporters. Yes, I see them."
"No, it's James."
He frowned as if he had no idea what I was talking about, and it didn't matter that he still had his shades on and I couldn't see his eyes--I knew that's what he'd spotted a moment ago. James.
"Gabriel, stop the car."
He looked over at me. "Give me ten minutes, Olivia."
"What is going on?"
"Ten minutes. Please."
When I heard that "please," my stomach dropped. I opened the door. The pavement whizzed past.
"Olivia."
I reached for my seat belt. He hit the brakes.
"I can explain," he said.
"Explain what, Gabriel?" I could barely get the words out, my heart pounded so hard. "What have you done?"
I didn't wait for an answer. I got out of the car as James jogged toward us. Thirty years old. Blond hair. Trim, fit, and handsome. Dressed in a suit as expensive as Gabriel's.
James Morgan. My ex-fiance. We were supposed to get married this weekend, actually. I'd realized that yesterday, when my phone sent me a to-do list for the rehearsal party.
Gabriel pulled to the curb and was out of his car before James caught up.
"Liv . . ." James said.
Gabriel stepped up beside me. "If you've come to speak to me, you should have made an appointment." He turned to me. "Would you excuse us, Olivia?"
"Speak to you?" I said. "Why would he--?"
"A business matter," Gabriel said. "It will only take a moment."
"What possible business--?"
"I hired him," James said. "To look after you."
I stared at James. "What?"
"I can explain later," Gabriel said. "I've been trying to contact Mr. Morgan to discuss the matter--"
"What matter?"
James turned to me. "After we talked the last time, I spoke to him, hoping to contact you. He convinced me not to."
"What?"
Gabriel's face stayed expressionless. "If you failed to provide him with your new contact information, I could presume you didn't wish to speak to him. I merely reiterated that--"
James stepped toward him. "You told me she needed time to herself and I should respect that, but in the meantime, since I was obviously concerned, you would act as go-between."
"I did not say--" Gabriel began.
"You agreed to persuade her to speak to me while monitoring the situation."
I gaped at Gabriel. "You told him--?"
"No, he misunderstood the nature--"
"There's no goddamned misunderstanding, Walsh," James said. "You promised to persuade Liv to speak to me. And you promised to look out for her. For a fee."
I stared at Gabriel, and as I did, I knew James was telling the truth. Of course he was. James always did . . . and Gabriel did not. Yet I still stared, looking for something--anything--in Gabriel's face to tell me this wasn't true.
"It wasn't quite like that," Gabriel said finally.
"Not quite like that?" I said. "What part's wrong? The one where you took money to act as a romantic go-between and did nothing? Oh, no, wait--you did do something. When I flirted with Ricky Gallagher, you did your damnedest to stop it."
"Who's Ricky?" James asked.
"Or was it the part where you came crawling back after I fired your ass? When you acted like you really wanted to work together again, while all you were really thinking about was the money James was paying you?"
"Olivia, you know that isn't--"
"At Evans's house, you said you would have left me in that basement."
As I spoke the words, I could smell the place--the slightly musty stink overlaid with lemon laundry detergent and blood. Gabriel's blood. He'd been badly injured, and we'd escaped to the basement, only to discover he wouldn't fit out the window. He'd told me to leave him. When I refused, he said if the situation was reversed, he'd leave me, and I'd told him it didn't matter. I would stay. I had stayed.
I continued. "But you wouldn't have abandoned
me to my fate, would you? Because you were being paid to protect me."
"That's not--"
"The whole goddamned time, you were being paid to protect me!" My voice rang out along the street, and James moved forward, his hand going to my arm, but I stepped away and looked at Gabriel. "That's why you stayed the other night. Why you were so goddamned insistent that I get a security system, and I thought, I actually thought . . ."
I couldn't finish. I wouldn't humiliate myself like that.
"Olivia." Gabriel lowered his voice. "I can explain this. Give me five minutes. Please."
"This is why you offered me the job, wasn't it? Here I thought I'd accomplished the impossible. I'd impressed Gabriel Walsh. But that wasn't it at all. You offered me that job so you could keep pulling in a paycheck from James, because you hadn't finished your task. You hadn't earned the bonus for getting us back together."
"No, Olivia. No. That is not--"
"Is he lying?" I said. "Look me in the eye and tell me you did not agree to protect me."
"Yes, I did, but that is not why--"
"Don't." I turned to James. That's when I saw the reporting crew. Thirty feet away. Taping us.
Gabriel noticed them. "Let's go talk--"
"I don't have anything to say."
I started walking away. Gabriel continued trying--give him five minutes, let him explain. He wouldn't raise his voice, though, not with a camera crew right there, and as soon as I was out of earshot, he went silent.
"Come this way," whispered a voice at my ear.
I looked over, and it took a moment to focus and realize James was beside me. Oh God, James . . .
"This way," he said again, hand on my elbow.
The camera crew was bearing down now. They hadn't dared approach with Gabriel there, but this was James Morgan, perfectly civilized, perfectly polite, perfectly unlikely to right-hook them if they got in his face.
"Mr. Morgan?" one called. "Ms. Jones?"
"Not now, please." James put his arm around me and steered me across the road, calling to them, "This is a private matter. Thank you."
The crew followed, the reporter calling questions. Shoes clomped on the pavement.
"Ms. Jones isn't giving interviews," I heard Gabriel say. "If you would like to speak about the developments in Pamela Larsen's case, I can spare a minute."