He grinned at me. “Hi, Charley.” He closed the big front door and joined us around the couch. To Harry he said “You really should keep your doors closed when you’re harboring a possible fugitive, sir.” And to Jack, “Is that bad enough to need a doctor?”
Jack looked at Gordon, who narrowed his eyes and shook his head. “No.”
“Fugitive? What do you mean fugitive?” I demanded.
Mike gestured toward Jack’s shoulder. “I’m guessing that wasn’t the only shot fired in Mill Valley last night.”
“How did you know it was Mill Valley?” Cece spoke up suspiciously.
“It’s all over the news.” He looked at her. “You must be the girl in question.” He held out his hand. “Glad you’re all right.” She extended her hand automatically, and they shook. “What do you say we go scare up some coffee?” She nodded mutely and followed him to the kitchen.
Harry watched his daughter walk away. “Well I’ll be damned.” He turned to Brenda. “Are you all right? Do you need anything?”
She smiled weakly. “A hot shower and a week of sleep.”
“The first shouldn’t be a problem. Come with me.” As Harry led her out of the room Brenda looked over her shoulder to shoot me a “should I?” look. I gave her a “go ahead” wave.
“How would you feel about a painkiller?” Gordon asked Jack.
“Not yet.”
“Don’t be silly,” I said, sitting next to him, out of Gordon’s way, and reaching for his hand. “At least have a slug of whiskey and a bullet to bite on.”
Jack smiled. “That’s my girl.” He squeezed my hand, then just about wrenched it off as Gordon started cleaning the wound and assessing the damage.
“Could have been a lot worse,” he summarized after a few minutes of swabbing and probing, enough to cause a fresh sheen of sweat to appear on Jack’s face. “A couple of stitches wouldn’t be out of place.”
“Later,” Jack said. “When you can give me something for the pain. Just bandage it up for now, okay?” Gordon looked like he was going to argue, then shook his head and reached for a stack of gauze pads. Jack took a deep breath. “Right now I want to hear what Cece can tell us, before she’s had a chance to sleep off any interesting details.”
“Not fucking likely,” Cece said, carrying a tray of mugs into the room. Mike followed her with an enormous coffee pot. I know I swore off the stuff in the oleander bushes, but to hell with that. I reached for a mug.
Harry returned without Brenda. He threw an oversized gray tee-shirt in my direction and I quickly put it on. He spoke to Cece. “Do you think you can talk about it?”
“Hell yes.”
“I’ll get some breakfast,” Gordon murmured, and slipped away.
Cece told us pretty much the same version of things she’d related to Brenda and me back in the basement. Jack and Mike stopped her frequently to ask for details about Tom Nelson. They probed her for an exact description, including voice characteristics and any mannerisms she could remember. There wasn’t much. He’d told her he was thirty-eight, and a doctor who’d graduated from Harvard Medical School.
“That part checked out,” Harry volunteered. Cece gave him an accusing look, and he protested, “Of course I checked him out! You think I’m going to let you shack up with someone you just met and not verify a few facts?”
“How did you verify them?” Jack asked, before they could open up an old argument.
“Hmm? Oh.” Harry broke off a staring contest with his daughter. “I used McIntyre and Zipfel. They did some sort of Internet search.” McIntyre and Zipfel was the firm of private investigators that Harry regularly used for background checks. He had a different agency entirely for tailing people and tapping phones, and yet another for providing security.
Jack and Mike exchanged a look. “Simple,” Mike said.
“Excuse me?” I asked. “What’s simple?” Mike was beginning to get on my nerves. I kept forgetting he was in the room and then jumping when he spoke.
“Simple enough to hack into the Harvard registrar and add a name and a degree,” he explained.
“That’s simple?” Harry seemed shocked.
“For the right guy, yeah.” Mike nodded.
I could see that McIntyre and Zipfel were in for a Harry-style ass-kicking at some point in the not too distant future.
“What else did you find out about him?” Jack asked.
Harry thought. “No marriage records. No criminal records. They didn’t check his job history, so I don’t know where he worked before the rehab center—”
Cece cleared her throat. “About that…”
We all looked at her.
“He didn’t exactly work there.” She looked up at the beamed ceiling.
“What in the hell do you mean he didn’t work there?” Harry sputtered, but Jack held up his hand to quiet him.
“Cece, he was a patient?” I suggested.
She nodded.
“And you let Harry think he worked there when you told him the guy was a doctor,” Jack continued.
She nodded again, then turned to face her open-mouthed father. “Well, what was I going to say? That he was a junkie? It happens to a lot of doctors, you know!”
“Right, except he wasn’t a doctor,” Mike pointed out.
“And probably wasn’t a junkie,” Jack agreed.
Cece seemed frozen in mid-protest. “Then why?…what?…”
“Are you suggesting,” I asked, “that this guy checked himself into a rehab just to meet Cece?”
Neither my husband nor his know-it-all friend answered.
“No,” Cece said. “It was all a setup?” She raised her voice. “Answer me!”
“It’s possible,” Jack said.
None of us spoke until Cece uttered a heartfelt “Bastard!”
***
When the rest of the group went to the dining room in search of Gordon and breakfast, I went upstairs to see how Brenda was doing. I found her coming out of one of the guest rooms.
“Brenda!” I could hardly believe it was her. “You’re gorgeous!”
With her hair uncharacteristically loose and hanging luxuriously down her back, and her face flushed from a hot shower, she looked positively glamorous. She was wearing a form-fitting silk robe that hugged her curvy figure. It was green and blue and violet, patterned in peacock feathers, and the colors were perfect on her.
“Well, I admit it’s a little more…something…than what I normally wear,” she said, looking down at herself. “Is it too tight?”
“It’s perfect!” Why did she always hide her body under drapey folds of fabric and oversized sweaters?
She grinned. “Harry left it out for me in the guestroom for after my shower. Along with these.” She stuck her foot out from beneath the robe to reveal purple feathered mules. She giggled. “I feel like a Chinese princess.”
“You look like one,” I agreed. “How are you feeling?”
“Famished! Is there anything to eat?”
“Come with me. Gordon—and I’m beginning to suspect he’s actually Clark Kent—has been up to something in the kitchen.”
***
In between mouthfuls of huevos rancheros and corn muffins, we told Cece what had happened in her absence.
“You mean you didn’t even notice I was gone for six days?” she interrupted the narrative.
“Well, it’s not like you stay in touch!” Harry said defensively. “If I called in the cavalry every time you didn’t pick up the phone we’d be in a constant state of alert around here!”
“Well if you didn’t attack me every time I talked to you, maybe I’d want to call more often!”
They glared at each other.
Lovely. I changed the subject by asking Jack the question that had been bothering me since the ransom drop. “How did you know where the exchange was going to be? How did you know to be hiding in the trees?”
He and Mike exchanged glances, and again I felt a wave of irritation. Mike seemed to kn
ow more about what was happening to my family than I did.
Jack cleared his throat. “They gave us two hours’ notice for the drop. As soon as they told us where it was supposed to be I called Mike and we came up with our plan.”
“Why?” Brenda asked. “Why didn’t you think they’d bring Cece? Why did you think you’d need to follow them?”
“Good question.” Harry looked at her approvingly.
Mike answered. “It wasn’t enough money.”
“That’s for damn sure,” Cece agreed. “Six hundred thousand!” She snorted and pushed her plate away from her. She’d hardly eaten anything.
Jack continued. “We suspected it wasn’t about the money. It seemed to be more about…” he faltered.
“Fucking with my head,” Cece finished for him.
Jack nodded briefly. “And Harry’s. All of ours.”
Mike spoke up. “Kidnapping isn’t really about the victim, usually. They’re just, um, a tool that’s used to get the ransom. A cause that’s used to create an effect.”
Mr. Sensitivity didn’t seem to notice Cece flinch at being called a “tool.” He went on. “But in this case the desired effect doesn’t seem to have been the money.”
Gordon cleared his throat. We all turned to look at him, standing in the doorway to the kitchen. “Speaking of money…This was in the van.” He held up a bag. It took me about two seconds to realize where I’d seen it before.
“The ransom!”
Harry and Mike trampled each other in their rush to take the bag from Gordon and open it. Stacks of cash spilled out onto the breakfast table. We all stared at it, stunned into silence.
When someone finally spoke it was Brenda, sounding like the professor she was, working out a logic problem. “All right. If it wasn’t about the money, what was it about? It seems like everything was orchestrated just to lure us out to Mill Valley to rescue Cece.” She looked at Harry as if struck by a sudden thought. “When they called you, did you ask to send someone else to bring the money or was that their idea?”
As Harry realized the implication of the question his face twisted in anger. “Goddamn! That sonofabitch said I should send someone else! Said he didn’t want me keeling over from a coronary in the middle of everything!” His fist came down on the table. “Goddamn!”
“So,” Brenda cut off what would otherwise have become a full-blown rant. “They got you angry, which distracted you from questioning why they didn’t want you involved. It wasn’t you they were interested in luring, Harry.” Her eyes went to Jack. So did mine. So did everyone’s.
“And another thing,” Brenda continued. “Why did they give you so much notice about the ransom drop? It seems pretty stupid. It gave you enough time to set up an ambush.” She looked around the table. “In the movies they always call the person on a cell phone after he starts driving around.”
“You’re a very bright girl,” Harry said. I did not like the glint in his eye when he looked at her in that robe. “What do you think?” he asked Jack.
“I think they expected to be followed back to Mill Valley.”
His words hung over the table. “Oh, my God!” I remembered. “The note! They told Cece she was going to be rescued!”
Jack nodded. “It was all a little too easy. They let us take her.”
In response I looked pointedly at his bandaged shoulder. They hadn’t let us take her without a fight.
“Although I’m not sure they counted on the full force of the rescue team,” Mike said, a little too sarcastically for my taste, “until you showed up at the Presidio.”
“You knew?”
“First rule of a stakeout, Charley,” Jack said, his eyes twinkling. “Use the bathroom before you get into position.”
Mike muffled a laugh. “And try to park somewhere other than the middle of the road.”
Brenda’s eyes began to glisten. “It was my fault. I drove and I parked, and it was me you all heard—” She clamped a hand over her mouth.
“You just stop teasing this girl!” Harry ordered, putting a protective hand on Brenda’s shoulder.
“I think they were teasing me, Harry,” I seethed. “Sorry Brenda.”
“Sorry, Brenda,” Jack repeated.
“Yeah, sorry,” Mike said.
“Hello? How about ‘sorry, Charley’?” I turned on Jack. “If you had bothered to tell me one little piece of all of this maybe I wouldn’t have felt I had to follow you! Did you ever think of that?”
“Sorry, Charley.” His mouth twitched. Bastard!
“By the way,” Mike offered, “you really were good at tailing me all over town, Brenda. I didn’t notice a thing until we got to the Presidio.”
“Really?” She looked pleased, then startled. “Oh, I need to go get my car! What time is it?” She put her napkin on the table and started to rise. “I have a class at two.”
“Um, Brenda, about your car…” Mike said.
“What?” Then she registered his tone of voice and repeated “What?” with dread.
“I was in position down the road from the house, and I saw you guys in the van on your way back here at dawn.”
She looked baffled. I suppose I did too.
“Jack and I were in contact until he changed into the goon’s clothes and went down to the basement,” he confessed. “He’d told me to wait there.”
I looked at Jack. “I couldn’t risk the other guy seeing the cell phone.” Of all the things he could have explained, that wasn’t high on my list.
“So you saw us in the van,” I prompted Mike.
“Right. And I wanted to give you a few minutes to make sure you weren’t being followed.” He looked at Brenda. “Which is when I saw your car. With five guys crammed into it.”
Brenda’s mouth made an O.
“I followed them across the bridge. They went to the Marina Green, where they transferred to another car. I hung back and followed them, but the early morning commute was pretty heavy by then and…I lost them.” He grimaced. “In the financial district.”
“So my car is at the Marina Green?” Brenda asked.
“Uh, no,” Mike said. “I went back there, thinking they might have left something in it, and it was gone.”
“Gone?” she said faintly.
“Whoops,” Cece said.
“What do you mean, gone?” I demanded. “If all five guys were in the second car, who could have…”
Mike shrugged.
“My purse was in the car.” Panic was beginning to surface in Brenda’s voice. “My wallet, my keys—I left them in the ignition—everything!” She looked at me wildly. “My students’ papers! I graded them on Saturday and had them in the car to hand back today! What am I going to do?”
“It’s okay, it’s okay,” I assured her, lying. I got up and took her hands in mine, looking into her eyes. “It’s okay. I’m sure all of your students did their papers on computers, and have backup copies, right?”
She calmed a little. “Probably.”
“And we can start making phone calls about your license and credit cards, and everything else you had in your wallet, right?”
She gave an exhausted moan. “Right.”
“And I’m sure we can find a locksmith to make you some new house keys. And I’m sure the school has duplicates for your office, right?”
“Um, about that…” Mike began.
I whirled at him. “Mister, you are parked on my last nerve. Stop saying ‘um’ and spit it out!”
“I don’t think it’s a good idea for her to go home,” he said.
I looked at him, then at Jack. “Jack?”
“They have her wallet, which has her address, and they have her keys.” His voice was perfectly calm, but the look he gave me was filled with meaning.
“Goddamn!” Harry exploded. “Gordon! Get me a phone!” he hollered, then asked Brenda, “What’s your address? I’ll get security over there this minute. Don’t you worry about a thing. Gordon!”
Brenda looked daz
ed. She sank back into her chair.
Gordon appeared with a phone and Harry’s address book. “Here you are, sir.” Then he turned to me. “And if you’ve finished your breakfast, Mrs. Fairfax, perhaps you’d let me take a look at that lump on your head. Then—” he eyed Jack— “time for those stitches, I think.”
I was pulled away and fussed over, then I stayed with Jack while Gordon stitched his wound. When I returned to the dining room I found Harry holding Brenda’s hand and speaking softly.
“Charley,” Brenda greeted me, “Harry thinks I should stay here for a while. What do you think?”
I looked at my uncle. Certainly it sounded like it might be dangerous for her to go home, but I wondered if another kind of danger lurked for her here. “Why don’t you stay at the hotel with us?” I suggested.
She looked horrified. “You’re on your honeymoon!”
Somehow I suspected the honeymoon was over.
“You and Jack should stay here, too,” Harry said. “I’ve called in a security firm to stand a twenty-four-hour watch. That hotel isn’t nearly as safe as here.”
“Nevertheless,” I said icily.
He held up his hands. “I won’t try to force you. God knows you’re a grown woman now, and make your own decisions.”
“Harry, I’m way too tired for this right now. Jack needs to rest, and so do I. How about we sleep for a few hours and talk about it then?”
He grunted. I took it for agreement.
“Brenda,” I asked, “what about your class this afternoon?”
“Harry talked me into calling in sick,” she said, with a trace of guilt.
“They won’t miss her for a few days at that girls’ school,” Harry said confidently.
“Women’s college,” Brenda corrected him.
“Sure.”
We went back to the great room, where we found Mike and Jack in conference. “I’m outta here,” Mike said. “I didn’t find anything in the van, so I’ll take it somewhere, make sure it’s clean, and dump it.”
“Make sure it’s clean?” I asked.
“The police are looking for it. A neighbor saw it pulling out during all the shooting.”
Oh.
“I hardly think they’ll be looking for a bullet-riddled van in this neighborhood, but we might as well be on the safe side. And we want to make sure if they do find it, none of your prints are in it.”
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