Love Vs. Illusion

by MJ Rodgers

  “Did anyone else see or hear anything?”

  “No one else was around. I checked with the people in the restaurant after I called the police and paramedics. Many admitted to hearing the shots and then the cars speeding away.”

  “Did these people come out? See or hear anything else?”

  “No. Like typical Seattlites, they were more interested in their food. The paramedics pronounced Klamm dead at the scene. The killer had to have known where Klamm would be. He was obviously waiting for him.”

  “What about the business associate Klamm was supposed to meet at the restaurant?”

  “I asked everyone in that restaurant. They all denied knowing Klamm. The guy kept all of his meetings in his head, never wrote any of them down. He told Eloy and me that first night that he did it to protect himself.”

  “From what?”

  “He didn’t say. I assumed from someone finding out about who his clients were and the business deals he was in. The man was paranoid about them. It wasn’t until the detective sergeant assigned from the precinct arrived at the scene tonight that I found out what was really going on with Mitchell Klamm.”

  “What do you mean, what was really going on?”

  Piper’s lips pushed together so hard the blood drained from them. “Klamm was fibbing in A.J.’s office last Friday, Adam. It seems he’d been getting threatening calls all right, but there was nothing anonymous about them. He knew exactly who they were from.”

  “Who?”

  “Klamm refused to even tell the police. When he went to them demanding protection, all he would say was that the person threatening him was someone he had put a deal together for, but that the deal had gone sour and the guy had lost a lot of money. The guy demanded Klamm compensate him with the money Klamm made on the deal. When Klamm refused, the guy said he was sending out a hit man to take care of him.”

  “And after such a threat, Klamm still refused to tell the police who the person was or allow them to put a trap on his line?”

  “Yes.”

  “How did Klamm expect the police to protect him if he wouldn’t cooperate?”

  “That was the police reaction. They wished him good luck in staying alive and launched him out the door.”

  “And he ended up landing on the doorstep of A. Justice Investigations, where not only would he not cooperate, but he wouldn’t even tell you the facts he’d shared with the police.”

  “That about says it, Adam. As usual, A.J.’s gut feelings were right. We never should have taken Klamm on as a client. There was no way we could adequately protect him without knowing the facts. I wish I had just stayed in the office and attended to those damn files. I wish A.J. wasn’t—”

  Piper bit her bottom lip as her words ended abruptly.

  Adam rested a hand on Piper’s. “If A.J. really hadn’t wanted to make Klamm a client, she wouldn’t have.”

  “I keep telling myself that, but—”

  “You know it’s true. Since A.J. was apparently all right when she went after this hit man, how was it that she got shot?”

  Piper sighed deeply. “We’re not sure. The police mounted a manhunt for her and the hit man as soon as I called and told them what went down. Then, an hour later, A.J. suddenly turned up outside the emergency room entrance, passed out on the pavement, a trail of blood leading from her Jeep in the parking lot.”

  Hope rose in Adam’s chest. “So she was in good enough shape to drive?”

  “The doctor found a piece of her shirt around the wound at her waist and another strip above the wound in her arm. They were probably the only things that kept her from bleeding to death. There was no way to tell how far she’d driven. The only clue as to where she might have been was her clothes. They were soiled with moist earth and dead leaves.”

  “She hasn’t regained consciousness to tell anyone anything?”

  “No. The police are standing right outside where the doctor is working on her now, waiting to see if she will. Of course, all they want to know is if she got a good look at the shooter.”

  Adam stared at the cream-colored waiting-room wall and said the kind of reassuring words he knew they both needed to hear.

  “She’s a fighter, Piper. She’s had to be. She’s faced worse than this. And she’s beaten it. She’ll pull through.”

  “She’s not the kind to talk about herself,” Piper said, “but I’ve sensed she has that kind of strength in her that only evolves from having overcome an enormous struggle. What was it?”

  As Adam continued to stare at the waiting room wall, his mind replayed the picture of another hospital wall. In front of it lay a little girl in an enormous white sheeted bed, her small, pale lips set with amazing determination.

  “Cancer,” Adam said aloud. “She was in the hospital for a big chunk of her childhood.”

  What he didn’t say, what he couldn’t say, was what it had been like to see her in that bed every day after school, her thin little body racked with pain, but that spark of fight never fading from her eyes.

  He learned a lot about real strength and true bravery watching his little sister battle that terrible discase.

  He’d never forget the delight of anticipation that had covered her face when he’d walk into her hospital room after school. Every day he’d rack his brain to think up some outlandish new story to entertain her.

  And then our history teacher, Mr. Crackabush, came into the classroom dressed in a rusty suit of armor, waving a broken lance and threatening to run through any student who had not completed his homework. It would have probably been a little scarier if the back end of the dairy cow he was mounted on hadn’t let loose then with its own, ah, impromptu threat.

  Of course A.J. knew his stories were gross exaggerations with little, if any, truth to them. But she never showed the slightest sign of doubt. She just laughed in pleasure at every improbable episode. She had a great, deep laugh in that thin little body. He would have said anything—and did—to hear her laugh.

  “Her illness must have been hard on the family,” Piper said.

  Adam’s attention returned to the present and the worried woman sitting beside him.

  “Our parents put on brave faces, but A.J. knew they thought they were going to lose her. She had overheard the doctors telling them no kid as sick as her had ever made it. She confided to me that she was going to prove those doctors wrong. And she did. She has an incredible will to live. It’s what pulled her through then. It’s what will pull her through now.”

  The emergency room doors flew open. Adam was instantly on his feet. Piper rose beside him. They both looked at the doctor’s solemn face as he approached. With every step the doctor took toward them, the icy fingers around Adam’s heart squeezed a little tighter.

  When the doctor finally stood before them, he slowly held out his hand. “You must be Adam.”

  Adam took the doctor’s hand hesitantly, surprised at hearing his name. “Yes.”

  “I have a message for you from an amazing lady,” the doctor said, a small smile finding his lips at last. “As soon as she’s finished with a couple of persistent detectives, she says she’ll be ready to hear one of those outlandish renditions about your day. But she thinks she may have one of her own to beat it this time. The message didn’t make much sense to me. But she said her big brother would understand.”

  Adam smiled as his hand clasped the doctor’s with an energy born of enthusiasm and relief.

  “Yes, I understand,” he said, knowing that his voice was unsteady and tears were in his eyes.

  Chapter Two

  Two Months Later

  A.J. felt the stranger’s penetrating eyes the moment she squeezed into the aisle seat among the packed spectators in the courtroom. The scrutiny had such a palpable presence that A.J. didn’t even have to turn around to know it came from a man sitting on the opposite side in the back row.

  Senses finely tuned from years of experience also told her this wasn’t the typical, automatic male retinal respons
e to a female form passing anywhere in its vicinity. No, this was far more focused than a casual sexual onceover. This was probing on a whole different level.

  A much more intimate level.

  Of course, she knew that for a woman to openly acknowledge such unwelcome attention would only invite more.

  But A.J. thought of herself first and foremost as a private investigator, not a woman. Which was why she did not hesitate to turn around and stare back at him.

  The hot glow within his anthracite eyes was so focused and fierce that A.J.’s whole body jolted at the impact. A primitive warning rumble of impending danger vibrated through her bones.

  He was a rough, mammoth man, with black-sweatered shoulders spreading like heavy branches across the back edge of the courtroom bench. Beneath a dark, unruly mat of hair was a well-lived-in face with skin creased and weathered by elements far harsher than sun and wind.

  A combative smile lifted his rough lips. It told A.J. that when life knocked this man around, he knocked back.

  She knew she had never seen him before; she also knew she would have recognized him anywhere.

  Zane Coltrane. Nicknamed the unshakable shadow by those in the busmess who had reason to know. Zane had founded the Coltrane Detective Agency a mere three years before. Yet from the very beginning, his top-notch team of private investigators had been the only Seattle agency that could give her firm any competition.

  Now here he was, the man behind the formidable reputation that had painted him larger than life. A.J. had expected to be disappointed when she finally came face-toface with the Zane Coltrane. She was not.

  She had satisfied herself as to his identity. She should break off the eye contact and look away.

  But she did not look away.

  There was something about that smile and the hard glint in his dark eyes that sent an uncharacteristic quiver through her midsection.

  Why was her major competitor treating her to such a focused appraisal? And what was he doing at this trial? Had Coltrane been hired by the plaintiffs in this case?

  “Well, if it isn’t Ariana Justice,” Willy Greene called in greeting as he suddenly ambled up and stopped smack dab in the middle of the courtroom aisle, completely blocking her view of Zane.

  A.J. frowned as she stared at Willy’s round, shiny face. Few people outside her family had ever heard her full name, and those who did knew better than to call her by it.

  “It’s A.J.,” she corrected Willy for the umpteenth time.

  “Oh, yeah. Sorry,” Willy said, not sounding sorry at all. “Don’t know why you don’t like Ariana, though. I remember I used to say the same thing to your folks before they retired. Ariana is such a pretty name, I told them. Why doesn’t your daughter like it? Now if her first name was Gorda or Hortense, I could understand using initials, but-”

  “So, how’s it going, Willy?” A.J. asked deliberately to stop the flow of the speech she’d heard far too often and appreciated less with every subsequent recitation.

  Fortunately, Willy was easily distracted. “How’s it going? Couldn’t be better. Things are really cooking.” It never ceased to amaze A.J. that Willy could still wear a cheerful expression despite the thirty years he had spent on the seediest side of private eyedom—catching adulterous mates in the act.

  “I guess I should’ve asked you right off how you’re doing, Ari…uh, A.J. I mean considering and all. Must be, what, two months now since you got shot up?”

  A.J. mentally winced at the reminder. It wasn’t a time in her professional life that she was particularly proud to remember. Unfortunately, it wasn’t one she could easily forget.

  “About two months,” she agreed.

  “I read all about the case in the newspapers, of course. To think the guy’s own brother sent a hit man out to get him, and all over some money deal between them that went bad.”

  Willy paused as his chubby hands busied themselves trying to stuff his shirt inside the hefty fifty-inch belt holding his trousers in place. “Just like Cain and Abel. Real sad business. At least you got that hit man, Wessel. You must’ve heard that the police figure he popped off at least a dozen other people before he got Klamm.”

  “I heard,” A.J. said.

  “So, you healing okay and all?”

  She patted her right arm and side. “Barely a twinge.”

  “Well, good to see you back on the P.I. scene. Although it sort of surprises me to find you involved in this case.”

  “I’m not involved,” A.J. said. “Just playing spectator today. What’s your connection?”

  “I’m doing the legwork for Gael Elling, plaintiffs’ attorney.”

  “Well, if you’re working for the plaintiffs’ attorney, what’s Zane Coltrane doing here?”

  “Coltrane? He’s involved in this?”

  “Can’t imagine why else he would be sitting over there.”

  Willy swung around to follow the direction of A.J.’s pointing finger as his eyes scanned the crowd.

  “Where? I don’t see him.”

  “How could you miss him?” A.J. rose and leaned around Willy’s generously endowed frame to point Zane out.

  But, curiously, she couldn’t. The seat that he had occupied only a moment before was now being claimed by a sixtyish woman wearing an early spring dress and last year’s matching straw hat.

  “He’s gone,” she said, feeling a small frown forming between her eyebrows. “That’s strange.”

  Willy swung to face her. “Probably just wandered into the wrong courtroom.”

  A.J. didn’t think Zane Coltrane was the kind to wander into—much less sit down in—the wrong courtroom, but she didn’t argue with her portly P.I. friend.

  She took her seat and shoved aside all her questions about the elusive P.I. to focus on the questions generated by Willy’s involvement in this trial.

  “Isn’t this case a little out of your unfaithful-spouse specialty, Willy?”

  “Nah. I’m good for anything that’s got a domestic angle. Although I have to admit the slant on this one was new even to me. You in on the particulars, A.J.?”

  “All I know is that a couple of husbands are mad at my brother’s client, Lex Linbow, and the theme park Linbow runs called Fabulous Fantasies.”

  “Mad is putting it mildly. The husbands, Harper and Temark, are suing the place for alienation of their wives’ affections. Although I guess it’d be more accurate to say their ex-wives’ affections.”

  “Wait a minute. These men are blaming an amusement park because their wives left them? The judge must be out of his mind to let a case like that come to trial. I always knew His Honor Todd Butz was a bit pompous, but I never thought he was a fool.”

  “Yeah, I admit that when Elling first called me and laid out the particulars, even I didn’t think we had a prayer.”

  “And you think you do now?”

  “You just watch and listen, A.J. This case has a very interesting aspect to it. Given a little luck, Elling could whip your brother’s butt.”

  “Not even given a big miracle,” A.J. said with a knowing smile.

  “All rise and come to order,” the bailiff announced as the short, squat Judge Todd T. Butz exited his chambers and took the bench.

  Willy waved a quick goodbye and scrambled forward to claim the position saved for him just behind the plaintiffs’ table.

  As A.J. rose with the rest of the courtroom, she switched her attention to the back of her brother’s head of straight black hair and impeccable dark blue suit.

  There were men as tall as Adam Justice in the room, as well-groomed, as well dressed, but A.J. knew her brother would always stand out. Adam’s bearing and aura of authority said that he was the one to watch in any crowd.

  Next to Adam, his client, Lex Linbow, looked short and sloppy. Linbow was a medium-framed, bespectacled man, somewhere in his early forties with light brown frizzy hair that stuck to the top of his head like an oversize Brillo pad.

  On Linbow’s right stood his corporation
attorney, Sherman Scrater, a tall, slim, fiftyish man with straight thick gray hair and bony, nervous hands that flitted constantly at his sides.

  As everyone resumed their seats and the court clerk’s monotone voice began to read the announcements for Harper and Temark vs. Fabulous Fantasies, A.J. found herself once again puzzling over the reason for her brother’s cryptic call of the night before.

  “A.J., sit in on my court case tomorrow,” Adam had said immediately after she had answered the phone.

  “The Fabulous Fantasies case?”

  “Yes.”

  “Tomorrow will be the third day of the trial. I know nothing of the particulars. How could I be of any help?”

  “A.J., just be there. Please.”

  Please was not a word A.J. was used to hearing from Adam. By the time she had gotten over the shock of it, the other end of the telephone line was nothing but dial tone.

  The unusual telephone conversation had been a surefire way to guarantee that A.J. would be in court the next day as he requested.

  She could never resist a mystery.

  “Ms. Elling, are you ready to proceed?” Judge Butz asked the plaintiffs’ attorney.

  His question brought A.J.’s attention to the trial.

  “Yes, Your Honor,” Attorney Gael Elling responded. “I call my client, Bruce Harper, to the stand.”

  A short, muscular, thirtyish man with no neck, a copious crown of medium brown hair and a large, beaky nose rose from his seat at the plaintiffs’ table. He hopped up on the stand and raised a shaky hand to be sworn in. His movements reminded A.J. of a furtive sparrow unsure of the dangers lurking in unfamiliar territory.

  While Bruce Harper went through the formality of promising to tell the truth and stating his name and address for the record, A.J. studied his lawyer.

  Gael Elling was a partner at the small law firm East and Elling, new on the Seattle legal scene but already earning a name for itself by pulling off some unexpected wins.

  Which was the reason A.J. was studying the attorney. A P.I. was only as good as the knowledge she possessed, and A.J. never missed an opportunity to add to hers.