The corner of an envelope protruded from a side pocket of the bag. Jared recognized it as the one he’d found on his pillow back in Ashley. He remembered sliding it into the pocket on the way to the airport.
He assumed it was from his father, a preamble to their talk the afternoon he’d found it. Jared tore off the end and pulled out a single sheet of bond paper.
The familiar sweep of Jessie’s handwriting flowed across the page. The note was short, neither formal nor intimate, a kiss on the cheek from a departing friend.
She was quitting. She would wait until Jared returned from Athens to help shepherd the clerk on the summary judgment motion, but that was all. The note was polite but without sentiment or explanation.
Jared lay back on the hard pillow. What explanation did he need anyway? This shouldn’t be a surprise; even his father warned it was going to happen. He tried to muster self-righteous anger, but couldn’t.
He’d taken her daily optimism and energy for granted ever since he jumped ship from Paisley. Since they both jumped ship, he reminded himself.
He could email her today’s news about Cory, but it wouldn’t make a difference. Maybe he could talk her out of leaving when he returned. But that also seemed unlikely. This wasn’t just about another potential Wheeler case failure. It was about the forces that drove him all the way to Athens to run down a witness, using borrowed client funds.
On the wave of his disappointment about Jessie, he also felt again the lingering guilt about his father. It had haunted Jared since their most recent argument, and despite great effort, he’d been unable to banish the last words his father had spoken that night. All the truisms he had adopted about the man were slipping from his grasp and Jared had begun to wonder why he clung to them so fiercely. In the wake of their disintegration, Jared also wondered, for the first time, how long he could go on punishing the man.
He drew a photocopy of the deposit slip from his bag. He’d brought it to show Cory, if necessary, to convince her to testify. He held it over his head, traced its edges with his eyes. Over the past two months, he’d memorized every contour and detail of the slip. The border near the top center was wider than elsewhere. The lettering was slightly askew, as though the paper had been inserted hastily. The last two digits of the deposit number were faintly smudged. The amount was ten million, three hundred fifteen thousand, four hundred dollars and no cents.
He’d handled this badly with Jessie. Maybe with his father too. He no longer knew if this fight was about the money, Paisley, his father, Erin—or all of them. But he knew he couldn’t leave this fight behind and run away from Ashley again.
He let the sheet flutter to the ground and looked around the room absently. It’s emptiness felt . . . right.
34
The pot was taking forever to boil, so Jessie leaned down and squinted. The gas light was out. She scraped a wooden match across its box and held the flame to the burner until it fired up again with a pop.
Four days had passed since Jared left, and it was only this morning that Jessie received the first news from him. It was a text message dated the day before saying he’d found the hostel where Spangler was staying.
There was no mention of Jessie’s note.
She’d expected some response to the news that she was quitting. His silence was the most powerful sign of how far they’d grown apart—or how much Jared had changed.
She’d resisted an urge to text Jared herself—at least to find out what was going on in Greece. She hadn’t. This wasn’t her fight anymore. He had broken the rules and lied to her. And now he was letting her go without a word. He wasn’t the man she’d thought him to be.
“Jessie?”
It was Rachel, working at her laptop on the living room couch. She’d told Rachel it was okay to work at her own apartment, but the clerk insisted on working at Sam’s house during the day. Frankly, she was underfoot, but Jessie guessed it was her call.
“Yes.”
“Did Jared send word on whether he found the witness at that hostel?”
“Nope.”
Rachel asked hourly. Jessie had shared the news about finding Cory’s hostel, but the clerk kept badgering for updates. Since she hadn’t finished a draft of the memorandum for Jared’s review, what did it matter?
The pilot light was out again. Jessie dropped the matches on the stove in disgust, turned off the burner, and headed down to the basement.
Angry as she was, Jessie was still being paid and time passed more easily if she kept busy. Downstairs, she looked at the two unopened boxes stacked against the “unfinished” wall. Jared would want to review those himself, as he had the rest.
So what. Jessie pulled the first of the two boxes from the wall and began to thumb through the pages.
Forty-five minutes later, she found something. It was just a simple sheet of paper, a routine bank memorandum about acquiring computer supplies, dated from the mid-1990s. She nearly passed it by, but something about it caught her attention, and she read it more carefully.
As much as she told herself this wasn’t her concern anymore, she felt a surge of excitement. It was not a “smoking gun,” but definitely interesting. She headed upstairs to make a photocopy.
35
It was nearing seven a.m. when Jared rolled wearily out of bed, dressed, and headed to the showers. He’d slept little and poorly. The hot water coursed over his back, coaxing life into his limbs. Back in the room, he dressed, slipped on his jacket and gloves, and walked down the hallway toward the front foyer.
There was no one at the lobby desk. The door to the hostel was propped open, and a cold breeze whistled through.
Jared stepped outside and coughed as he sucked in chilled air tainted by the ubiquitous odor of diesel fuel. Sunlight had not yet peeked over the surrounding buildings and hills to the narrow street. Several storekeepers, bundled in sweatshirts and gloves, were already setting up displays each direction from the hostel.
Jared wished he could crawl out of his own skin. The day already felt ragged and bleak. His powerlessness to deal with Jessie—or to ensure Cory’s return to Minneapolis—wore at his stomach like acid.
There was a kiosk a block away that he’d passed the day before. Jared headed there now for some breakfast.
This was a bustling intersection, full of small sedans and motorbikes crawling to work through stop-and-go traffic. The vendor was busy with people lined up to buy pastries and coffee. Jared joined the queue of businessmen in dark suits and fashionably dressed women, puffing clouds of breath into the cold air as they waited their turn.
Jared bought a coffee and a kataifi—a pastry he’d discovered since his arrival—filled with walnuts and glazed with honey. He turned to make his way back up the side street toward the hostel.
As he neared the doorway, Jared lowered his head to sip the coffee—then sensed movement and jerked back. A brown leather jacket brushed past him through the door, the man muttering a grunted “excuse me” as he turned away up the street.
Jared could feel spilled coffee soaking through his glove. He set the cup and bagged pastry on the hostel’s front counter, searching around for a napkin or towel. The clerk was still absent. Jared removed the wet glove, crammed it into a pocket, then looked over the counter.
A plain manila envelope sat on the empty desk below. “Cory Spangler” was printed on its side in block letters.
Jared stared at the package. There wasn’t an address on it, only Cory’s name. Who would deliver something to Cory in Athens?
He felt a spike of concern about her intentions. Had she ordered a ticket to leave town? Rented a car? Jared looked around the vacant lobby, then slipped the envelope under his arm and headed to his room.
Seated on his bunk bed, Jared weighed the envelope in his hands. It was light and thin. Other than Cory’s name printed in black marker, there was nothing else on its surfaces.
He shrugged off a lingering uneasiness and tore open one end of the envelope. Tipping it over, an eig
ht-by-eleven sheet slid out. It looked and felt like photographic paper, with one side glossy white and the other shiny blue. No images were apparent on either side.
Jared looked more closely at the blue side. The coloration, he saw, was caused by a thin plastic film, like Saran wrap, that covered one side of the sheet and overlapped on one edge.
He knew he had already gone too far to return the package: he’d sort that out later. Jared gripped the edge of the film with his thumb and finger and gently peeled it back.
An image, like a poor photocopy, was arranged on the white background beneath the plastic. It had the rough appearance of a newspaper article and accompanying photograph.
The photograph was a picture of Cory; it appeared to be the same senior class photo Jared had used to identify her. Underneath the image was a typed headline in bold letters:
Local Girl Dies in Accident Before She Can Testify in Bank Trial
Jared looked more closely and saw a date under the headline. It was the date the trial was scheduled to start in the deposit slip case.
The setup of images and typing was crude, as though it was assembled hurriedly. That didn’t reduce the impact.
The air left him like a kick to the stomach. He felt a rush of conflicting emotions but knew he needed to do something. He stood and paced the tiny room. He would find the desk clerk and ask who’d delivered the envelope. They would call the authorities, trace the paper.
Would Sidney Grant do this—over a civil lawsuit? Who should they tell? The American Embassy? Athens police?
The door handle was in his hand before it struck him—he shouldn’t even have the package. It was left for Cory.
He pulled in a deep breath. It was time to slow down here. He couldn’t talk to anyone until he’d shown this to Cory. And if he did that, what would she want to do? Call the police?
Probably not. She’d want to go away.
Jared fixed his eyes on the images. If he showed this to Cory, she would leave. And he would lose her. The case. Everything.
The images blurred. Jared blinked to clear his eyes; looked more closely. Something was wrong with the paper. The images seemed—less distinct. Was it the light? He held the page closer to his face.
No. The images were disappearing.
The words and photograph faded softly away, as though sinking back into the page, until Jared’s eyes ached from trying to hold them, and he was staring at a surface of unblemished white.
He turned the paper over, then back again. He raised it closer to the overhead light; back down onto his lap. He drew a finger over the face of the page. No lines, bumps, or indentations—no hint of the images remained.
They were gone.
Sidney Grant couldn’t do this. Someone would do it for him. An expert in threats and hiding their trail. Maybe in carrying out those threats. They were trying to shut Cory up. Could they know that Jared had already found her and extracted a promise to return with him?
What did they expect to happen now?
Jared leaned back onto the bed; he felt the envelope under his palm and the contour of something remaining inside. He picked it up and shook it over the bed until the object fell out.
It was a railroad ticket from Athens to Venice for one. It departed this afternoon.
36
Cory came out of the hostel door smiling, her compact luggage backpack settled across her shoulders. Sitting at the café where he’d first seen her, his stomach raw from his third cup of coffee for the morning, Jared dreaded her approach.
He had to tell her. He couldn’t tell her.
“Indecision is the stepchild of weakness,” Clay had said, waving his cigar like a conductor before an unseen orchestra. It was one of their midnight sessions in the midst of a trial, when even the cleaning staff had wearily finished with his office and moved on.
“It is my experience that any decision is usually better than none at all. Indecision can stem from an unwillingness to accept the possibility of error. Or,” he had said, cocking an eye in Jared’s direction, “a simple refusal to accept what must be done.”
Clay Strong was now sitting in a building adorned with his name, surrounded by associates whose first and last thought each day was how to impress him. The man had launched Jared into this orbit and then radioed him that there would be no life support. What use was his advice to Jared now?
As Cory neared, the debate that consumed him all morning would not relent.
If he told her, she’d bolt. And his case would collapse.
“You’re up early, Mr. Neaton.”
“Yeah. I’m still a little jet-lagged, didn’t sleep well.”
If he kept the package in his pocket to himself, maybe it would be fine. Maybe it was a joke—by someone at her college.
“Well, I’m going to try to see the things I haven’t caught in Athens yet.” She paused. “Do you want to join me?”
No college kid could have done this.
“Uh . . . I see you’ve got your luggage.”
“Yep. I was going to leave you a note if I didn’t see you, to tell you that we could just meet at the airport. But if we stay together today, we could just head to the airport together when we’re ready.”
It was a bluff then. No one would hurt someone over a civil lawsuit.
But look what his father did for tens of thousands of dollars. What more would someone do for ten million? Was Sidney Grant capable of this? He didn’t know anything about the man.
“Mr. Neaton? Do you want to join me?”
This was still manageable, though. He’d contact Marcus once Cory was back in Minnesota, tell him his client had gone nuts. Marcus would call Grant and his “expert” off. The Paisley lawyer wouldn’t risk his bar license over a crazy client.
Jared’s stomach was still knotted as he answered, “All right. Let me get my bag.”
“What is Erin Larson like?”
They sat for an early-afternoon break in a different café back near the hostel they’d left in the morning. In the hours since, they had traveled a serpentine route through alleys and shops, art galleries and T-shirt kiosks, ruined temples and the original Olympic Stadium.
Jared had listened as Cory chatted. She spoke sparingly at first, then more comfortably—especially about her travels. He worked hard to appear relaxed and interested. But he felt neither.
“Erin is a very sweet person,” Jared answered. “You remind me of her.”
Her cheeks flushed. “The night at the bank, Mr. Larson seemed worried about me. I think he was embarrassed at how Mr. Grant was acting. It made me wonder what his daughter was like.”
Jared’s stomach still ached. Cory was a witness, not a friend. He didn’t want to get to know her. He wanted her back in Minneapolis, her deposition done. Then he’d figure out how to make this right.
“I didn’t know him, but Mr. Larson seemed like a good man too,” Jared replied.
The waitress returned with their tea. Jared silently dipped the folded bag into his cup, watching the steaming water darken.
Cory fidgeted with the cup in her hands. “Mr. Neaton, I heard about the lawsuit from Mom awhile ago, and I recognized Mr. Larson’s name and everything.” Her voice was apologetic. “I didn’t tell anybody because—well, I just thought it would all get taken care of.”
“No one likes to get involved in these things, Cory,” Jared answered automatically. “You couldn’t know how important that night was.”
Cory nodded listlessly.
“Do you ever feel like moving back to Ashley?” she asked.
Jared thought an immediate no, but held that back. “I don’t think about it much,” he responded. “I’ve moved on.”
Cory nodded in agreement. “I’m not going back. At least I don’t think so. I want to go to grad school in psychology. Maybe work in the Twin Cities. But”—she paused—“I do miss it when I’m gone for long. The people mostly.”
They finished their tea and slung their backpacks to leave. It was getting lat
e, and they’d need to head to the airport soon. Cory had seen the Acropolis once before, but asked if they could return to the hill topped by the Parthenon for a final visit. Jared agreed.
The paths leading to the Acropolis gate were long and steep, especially with the burden of their backpacks. Despite the cold, Jared began to sweat. At last, they reached a spot where paths diverged, a sign showing that one headed toward the Areopagus while another angled upward toward the Acropolis. The Areopagus, Cory explained, was where Paul of Tarsus preached in the first century. In the other direction, she went on, near the top of the Acropolis path, was a final staircase that passed through a gate leading to the plateau occupied by the Parthenon and other Greek monuments.
This junction was busy with passing tourists, most heading toward the Acropolis. Jared looked up at the steep climb of that path.
He felt no draw to the attraction today. His time with Cory had only heightened his unease—he felt nearly sick now—and he just wanted to get to the airport. “Cory, you go ahead. Come join me over there when you’re done,” he said, pointing in the direction of Areopagus.
He could tell that she was disappointed, but Cory only nodded as they parted.
The Areopagus was a rocky outcropping roughly a quarter mile away from the Acropolis across a shallow valley filled with trees and bushes. Jared found a spot near the highest point of the rocks and eased his backpack onto the ground. The sun was warmer up here, and the breeze felt good after the walk.
People milled around the hilltop, some in guided groups, others singly or in pairs, taking pictures or reading books. Jared pulled his digital camera from his bag and turned toward the Acropolis. Across the valley, the final carved steps were visible, rising to the gate. Jared turned on his camera and pointed it in the direction of the steps.
The sun was bright now. As his lens opened, Jared pressed his eye to the viewfinder and zoomed onto the figures climbing the steps. After a moment, Cory entered his view, treading doggedly upward, her red backpack clear even amidst the herd of tourists.
The Deposit Slip Page 21
