by Kay Hooper
“Dinah is dead.”
That’s what I keep telling her. Faith felt a bubble of hysterical laughter rise in her throat, but managed to swallow it. “Yeah, well. The last time she warned me, she was right.”
“The last time?”
Faith wasn’t surprised that his face was masklike in its stillness. “Dinah told me in a dream that somebody was trying to get into my window. When I woke up, someone was.”
“You know very well that had to be your subconscious, Faith. The noise you heard while you were sleeping found its way into your dreams, that’s all.”
“Probably,” she agreed. “So I have to wonder, Kane. I have to wonder what I’ve seen or heard that convinced my subconscious there’s another body out there somewhere.” She returned her gaze to the television screen. “Unless I know there is, of course.”
“How could you?”
“Exactly. How could I?”
Like Dinah’s, Faith’s apartment felt too empty, and Faith wasted no time in searching for her watch. But it was nowhere to be found.
“You know, now that I think about it,” she said to Kane, “I don’t think there was a watch among my things when they gave them back to me in the hospital.”
“It could have been destroyed in the accident,” he pointed out.
“Yes … But how many people do you know who have only one watch? Especially a woman. They’re cheap accessories.”
Kane helped her search a second time, but there was no watch in the apartment. They found a small trinket box containing a few pairs of earrings, long and jangly with brightly colored stones and crystals. Faith reached up absently to touch her earlobe, finding the simple pearl stud there a far more restrained style.
“Dinah’s,” Kane said. “She kept a few pairs at my place, in a box in the linen closet.”
Faith stared at him, horrified. “You mean I just—took them? God, Kane, I’m sorry. I hadn’t even realized—”
“Don’t worry about it. I doubt it would bother Dinah, and it doesn’t bother me.”
But she knew it did bother him, and that she had unconsciously aped Dinah in yet another way definitely bothered her. She brooded about it all the way out to the construction site, even more unnerved when she realized that at some point in the last twenty-four hours, she had, without even noticing her actions, polished her fingernails again.
With Dinah’s red polish.
The building inspector was surprised that Faith didn’t recognize him; they had, after all, worked in the same city office for months. He was also surprised to learn of her accident, which told Faith he hadn’t felt enough interest in her to notice her absence.
Since it appeared that the morning’s weather report had been accurate, and distant rumbles of thunder promised more than just rain, Kane and the inspector wasted no time in going down to the half-finished lower levels of the Ludlow building to look at the foundation.
Faith remained outside. She stood, actually, between the building and the gate, beyond which their car and driver waited, and the restless bodyguard paced.
What is his name, anyway? she wondered for the first time. Kane had called him something, but for the life of her she couldn’t remember what it was. She supposed bodyguards grew accustomed to being ignored; if they did their job well, they were supposed to be virtually invisible to the people they guarded—or so she assumed.
A sudden gust of wind stirred her hair and chilled her despite her sweater and jacket, and she thrust her hands into her pockets. In the right pocket, she felt a thin, flexible piece of metal, and her fingers probed it curiously. There was something familiar about—
“God, I’m wearing her jacket again,” she muttered to herself. “And I didn’t even notice.”
It scared her, made her feel she wasn’t in control.
She turned her back to the building and hunched her shoulders against the growing chill. Richardson was just coming through the gate, apparently having paused to reassure the bodyguard that he was no threat. He came straight down the rutted track toward her.
The grim look on his face made her heart sink.
“Where’s Kane?” he asked when he reached her.
“Around back with the inspector, checking out the foundation. What’s happened?”
He studied her, seemingly weighing her, then said bluntly, “We’ve found another body.”
Faith thought the world tilted. But the dizzy sensation passed quickly. “Do you know who it is?”
“That’s why I’m here.” Richardson nodded toward the building. “It’s the foreman of the construction crew supposed to be working here. Jed Norris. He was shot. Two bullets to the back of the head. But this one is easy to figure out. We have the gun. It’s registered to Jordan Cochrane.”
Richardson thought Faith was nuts when she insisted they take further steps to identify the body. He pointed out that there had been a driver’s license on the body and that two of his co-workers, including his boss, Max Sanders, had identified the body. Norris had had no family in the city to perform the gruesome duty.
“Fingerprints,” she said. They were back in Kane’s apartment, and she was walking the floor, more agitated than Kane had ever seen her. “You can check his fingerprints.”
Richardson grimaced. “The body’s been out in the woods for a couple of days at least, and the animals have gotten to it. Getting fingerprints might not even be possible.”
“You have to try. Please. He’s not who you think he is.”
“I have a victim,” Richardson said, counting off on his fingers. “I have a murder weapon. I have a suspect. My job is to gather up all three and present the evidence to the D.A.”
Softly, Faith said, “And I’m telling you that neither you nor the D.A. will ever understand why that man was killed until you know who he really was.”
Richardson looked at Kane, who said, “Max says Norris worked for him only a little over a year. References were local and he knew his job, so Max never looked deeper. Maybe we’d better.”
“What do you expect to find?” Richardson asked them both.
“Somebody else,” Faith said.
Kane shrugged. “All I know is that the foreman of my construction crew turning up dead just as a building inspector informs me that somebody deliberately sabotaged the project sounds extremely convenient.”
“How far does it put you off schedule?”
“Off schedule?” Kane laughed without amusement. “Guy, the sabotage is in the foundation, and the inspector tells me it sure as hell can’t be patched. It was a subtle job but damned thorough. The whole structure is undermined. We’ll have to pull it down and start over. That’s if the project can even continue, and I don’t know that it can.”
Standing by the piano and staring down at the ivory keys, Faith murmured, “Want to guess who’s going to get the blame?”
Kane nodded and told Richardson, “Max got me on my cell phone on the way back here, and he’s already covering his ass, saying somebody obviously hired Norris to sabotage the building and then killed him to wipe out tracks. He doesn’t know about your suspect yet, but his theory could still hold together. And if it happened that way, Norris just might be more than he appears to be.”
“Who would want to sabotage an office building? Why would Jordan Cochrane, for God’s sake?”
“I don’t know, but it has to be tied in with the rest of this, Guy. Dinah was out there at the site the day before she vanished. Cochrane’s name has already turned up more than once, since he owns the warehouse where we believe Dinah was held. And so far, nearly everything we’ve found ties in to construction in some way. Including the names on that list.” He had told Richardson about that as soon as they had arrived at Kane’s apartment.
The detective sighed. “Shit. All right, I’ll put the forensics team to work to get us a useable print. But, listen, I meant what I said about you staying away from the men on that list, Kane. If they are being blackmailed it’s because they’ve done something
they want to keep secret—so they’d be really pissed if you came stomping into their lives yelling about it. Are we clear on that?”
“We’re clear.”
“As for Cochrane, his people claim he’s out of town, and has been for days, but they don’t seem to know just where he is. Sounds to me like he slipped his leash, but we’re checking on that. Maybe he’ll have an alibi, and maybe the alibi will hold up. But it’s my job to figure that out. Let me do my job, all right?”
“Just move fast, Guy.” Kane’s gaze was on Faith. “I don’t know how much more of this we can take.”
“I’ll be in touch,” Richardson said as he left.
When Kane returned from showing the detective out, Faith was sitting on the piano bench. Her fingers rested lightly on the keys, unmoving. He thought she looked bewildered, lost somehow.
“Who would want to sabotage an office building?” she asked slowly. “Who’d have something to gain?”
“I don’t know. It’s intended to be leased mostly by the city, but privately owned. There’s a large group of investors, and they stand to lose a bundle if the project stalls too long or gets canceled outright.”
She took her fingers off the keys abruptly and turned to face him. “The men on that list—are any of them investors in the project?”
“I didn’t recognize any of the names—but there are a lot of investors. Wait.” He got on the phone to his office, and within an hour they knew that Jordan Cochrane, through an investment company he partially owned, was in for a substantial sum in the Ludlow project.
Kane said, “It looks like so much of his personal capital is tied up in the project that if it goes bust, so will he.”
Faith thought about that, then shook her head. “This doesn’t make sense to me. Maybe Cochrane held Dinah captive in his warehouse. But only if he’s the blackmailer instead of being blackmailed himself. Maybe he shot Jed Norris after ordering him to sabotage the building. But why? You just said he stands to lose an incredible amount if that building isn’t completed on time.”
“It doesn’t make sense at all,” Kane agreed reluctantly.
“We need to talk to him.”
“We won’t get a chance unless we find him before the police do.”
“Do you think he really is out of town?”
“He seems to be out of touch.”
Thoughtful, Faith said, “The report Tim left here after he brought me back from Haven House, the one he worked up on Cochrane—I glanced at it last night.”
“And?”
Faith went over to sit on the couch and began to leaf through the pages. “I remember reading something about Cochrane that made me wonder.…”
Kane joined her on the couch. “What?”
“He has a condo right here in Atlanta with the ownership run through so many holding companies it’s sheer luck Tim found out it was his. Now why do you suppose Mr. Cochrane feels the need for a cozy little place with its own private entrance barely five miles from that big mansion of his?”
“Keeping a mistress?” Kane guessed.
Faith sent him a quick smile. “That’s what occurred to me. The information here says he’s been married for nearly twenty years to a fine, upstanding Catholic woman who’s on record as saying in no uncertain terms that divorce is an evil practice of the state and that those whom God hath joined together—”
“Are together forever.”
“Exactly. And when she married him, she brought along a very nice little contribution to the family war chest. Something in the neighborhood of five million dollars. Add in a budding political career …”
“Maybe he’s being blackmailed about a mistress and has to pay up in order to keep his fine upstanding wife from finding out and his political aspirations going up in smoke?”
“It seems possible, doesn’t it?”
“I’d say so.”
“And I’m willing to bet the police won’t have this information for a while. Will Richardson be furious at us if we talk to Cochrane before he does?”
“Furious,” Kane said, but in a tone that said he didn’t give a damn. He was smiling.
Without thinking, Faith reached out and with the backs of her fingers stroked gently down his cheek.
Kane froze for an instant, then jerked back his head and said something violent under his breath. His eyes were hot and angry and bewildered.
Faith felt a jolt of pain. But then scenes flashed through her mind, countless moments when Dinah had touched him just that way.
“Kane, I—”
He stood up and left the room.
Faith was conscious of her heart beating quickly. She stared at her hand, at the oval nails that were polished red. She hadn’t realized she was holding her breath, but now let it go in a ragged sigh.
She had forgotten. In the excitement of fitting puzzle pieces together, she had forgotten what this was really all about. She had forgotten her blank past. She had forgotten blackmail and torture and death.
She had forgotten Dinah.
Consciously, she had forgotten.
Whispering even though she was alone in the room, Faith said, “Dammit, Dinah. It’s getting harder and harder to know where you end and I begin.”
FIFTEEN
The bodyguard was not happy when he was ordered to stay in the car with the driver once they reached Jordan Cochrane’s secret condo.
“Mr. MacGregor, you hired me to protect the two of you and I can’t—”
“I know, Sam, but we can hardly take you with us into a private home and then expect the man to talk to us. Don’t worry, we’ll be all right.”
Sam. So that’s his name.
“At least take my weapon,” Sam said.
“I’m armed. You stay here.”
“Yes, sir,” Sam replied reluctantly.
The first drops of rain fell as Faith and Kane went up the secluded walkway to the condo. Even though it was only about four o’clock, it was already getting dark.
“I didn’t even know you had a gun,” Faith murmured.
“I know how to use it, so you don’t have to worry about that.”
They were, Faith thought, being very polite. Both of them were acting as though nothing had happened between them, as though this tension didn’t exist. But it did. And for an instant as Kane rang the doorbell, Faith was tempted to suggest that they leave right now, that they let the police do their jobs and find out whether Jordan Cochrane was villain or victim. But then the door was opening, and it was too late.
“Cochrane. I’d like to talk to you,” Kane said.
The man in the doorway was in his forties, handsome in a dark, rather saturnine fashion, and completely unsurprised by their arrival on his doorstep.
“I see.” His voice was matter-of-fact, betraying no concern or animosity.
But there was something, Faith thought, something she felt more than heard or saw. Then his gaze focused on her, and she heard Kane introduce her, saw Cochrane’s polite nod.
“Come in,” he said.
Kane was visibly wary as they stepped into the elegant foyer and watched Cochrane close the door behind them. He led the way to a comfortable living room where a cheerful fire burned in the fireplace. He used a dimmer switch to brighten several lamps, then invited them to sit down and offered drinks or coffee. A wineglass on the coffee table was evidence of what he’d been drinking.
Faith wasn’t terribly surprised when both men remained on their feet. Echoing Kane’s refusal of refreshments but a bit more politely, she sat down on the long couch where she could see both men.
Watch. Listen.
The abrupt return of the voice in her head was eerie, especially since it had been absent—except in her dreams—since she had learned of Dinah’s death. But all Faith could do was obey it, settling back with a pretense of relaxation.
Cochrane said, “Would you mind telling me how you knew I was in town?”
“Lucky guess,” Kane answered.
“I see. And how
you found out this condo belonged to me?”
“Good research.”
Cochrane’s slanted brows drew together, lending him a distinctly ominous expression. “May I ask why you were researching me, Mr. MacGregor?”
Faith heard his question echoed by the faraway sound of a bell tinkling, but it was such a fleeting thing she wasn’t at all sure of it.
“Because I wanted a few answers.” Kane barely waited for that to sink in before going on. “Your company does own the warehouse at 281 Ivy, doesn’t it?”
“Yes. But it hasn’t been used in months, not since we built a new plant with adequate storage room last April.”
“Then why the guard dog?”
“To protect against vandals, of course. Empty buildings are always targets, you must know that. What is this all about?”
Now.
Faith heard herself ask, “Mr. Cochrane, did you ever meet Dinah Leighton?”
“No.”
He’s lying.
“I don’t think you’re telling the truth, Mr. Cochrane.”
“I can’t help what you think, Miss Parker.”
I came to see him. Here. October eighth.
Faith felt a chill and was surprised she was able to keep her voice steady. “Here. On the eighth of October. She came to see you, Mr. Cochrane.”
Kane said, “That was two days before she disappeared.”
Cochrane didn’t take his eyes off Faith, and it was to her that he spoke, in the matter-of-fact tone of before. “I suppose she told you.”
Had she? Faith didn’t know. She just didn’t know.
But what she said was, “She asked if you were being blackmailed. What did you tell her, Mr. Cochrane?”
At first it seemed he wouldn’t answer, but then he shrugged, accepting something he knew he couldn’t change. “I told her I had been approached by someone demanding money. I also told her it was none of her goddamned business.”
“And she went away meekly?” Faith smiled slightly, aware of that ghostly bell ringing again.
Cochrane’s mouth softened in an answering smile. “Hardly.”
