The separation didn’t bother Peter, who had always found his father too much of a goody two-shoes—which was ironic, Peter said, but declined to elaborate. Instead, he went on to say that he felt sorry for his mother. She had deserved better.
When Derek asked him to elaborate on that, Peter sent him a come-on-man-use-your-imagination look that gave Derek and Sabrina the direction they needed.
“Women,” Derek announced once they’d raced back to the airport and caught the first flight to Boston. He kept his voice low, his head close to Sabrina’s as the plane took off. “We figured it was either booze, drugs, gambling or sex. I suppose sex makes sense.” When Sabrina arched a brow his way, he said, “It’s the most Boy Scout–type vice of the four.”
“Not alcohol?”
“Nah. It’s too visible. If you go into a bar and get drunk, people see.”
“No one sees a thing if you get drunk at home,” Sabrina pointed out.
“Ah, but an alcoholic can’t limit his drinking to home. An alcoholic loses control. That’s the nature of the beast. He may start at home, but before he knows it, he’s drinking at the office, at restaurants, private dinners, parties. Word spreads.” He raised his eyes to find the flight attendant, quite appropriately, offering them drinks. Both he and Sabrina settled for Cokes, and as soon as the steward had moved on, he leaned close again. “The same thing is true, to some extent, for both drugs and gambling.”
“Drugs, okay. I agree there,” Sabrina said after some thought. “Gambling is something else. We’ve assumed that there was never a money problem, but can we do that? The house in Lake Forest was beautiful, and I’d venture to guess that the townhouse in Washington was, too. There were probably luxury cars and designer clothes—the works. But what if Ballantine was a gambler and had lost just enough money to have everything mortgaged to the hilt?”
“If that was the case, it would have taken more than one, or two payoffs from Noel Greer to make things right. And people would have known—bookies, bankers, the executor of Ballantine’s estate. Chances are slim that his widow would be living as she is now if Ballantine had come that close to the edge.”
“But she said she couldn’t abide infidelity. If Ballantine’s weakness were women, wouldn’t his wife have divorced him?”
“You’d think that, wouldn’t you,” Derek murmured, momentarily distracted. Then he said more clearly, “That could have been Greer’s handle. Ballantine loved women. His wife would have divorced him if she knew. There would have been scandal. Bad press. Tarnish on the badge. Blackmail.”
Closing her eyes, Sabrina rested her head back against the seat. “If his weakness was women, and the press never caught on, he must have been very discreet.” She opened her eyes to Derek’s. “If so, we have our job cut out for us. To be very discreet means to cover one’s tracks, and if the tracks are covered, how does one go about locating the women with whom a man who died six years ago may have had affairs? I take it that is what we have to do.”
As a writer of nonfiction, Sabrina knew how to do research. There was a fine line, though, between research and investigation. Having crossed it, they were on Derek’s turf.
Derek confirmed it. “We have to verify that there were, in fact, women—and I’m assuming it in the plural, since one woman, a long-standing mistress, would have been far less spectacular in terms of any scandal that Greer might have threatened to create.”
Sabrina made a face. “You know, when it comes right down to it, even the idea of legions of women isn’t all that scandalous. We’re not talking the Dark Ages here. Six years ago, even ten or twelve years ago is well into the sexual revolution. Would the fact of Ballantine’s womanizing really have been enough to give Greer that powerful a tool?”
“Ballantine was a justice of the Supreme Court. Justices of the Supreme Court are supposed to have whistle-clean images. Ballantine did. He might have been embarrassed to the point of resigning if there’d been a scandal.” He took a breath. “Then again, you may be right. That’s why we have to find one of those women. At the least she could give us insight into the man at his most vulnerable. At best she could lead us to the files.”
“If they exist.”
“They exist.”
“But why do you think one of his women has them?”
“No one else seems to.”
His gray eyes held a challenge, but Sabrina had no better suggestions. “So how do we find the women?”
Releasing his seat belt, Derek stretched. In doing so, he very casually skimmed the faces of the people across from and behind them. The only one who looked at all familiar was the man sitting two rows back. Derek was sure he’d been sitting two rows behind them on the flight out—which said nothing but that a businessman who had the same schedule as they had preferred sitting in front of the wing, as they did.
Settling into his seat again, he said by Sabrina’s ear, “Let’s assume the scene of the crime to be Washington, since that’s where Ballantine was during those lonely times when his wife was in Lake Forest. We know that they had a townhouse on Embassy Row.”
“He wouldn’t have dared bring a woman there, would he? If he wanted to ensure secrecy, there are other more sensible sites for a tryst. Like a hotel.”
Derek nodded his agreement. “It’s done all the time. He takes a room under a phony name, makes a call, gives the woman his room number, and she visits him, with the public—and his family—none the wiser. Justices of the Supreme Court don’t have the kind of memorable faces that politicians who run for office have. Without their black gowns, they blend into the crowd.”
“That could spell trouble for us. Do we try to find the hotel first?” Sabrina asked.
“The woman, I think. A woman.”
“But how?”
“Escort services. High-priced call girls. Society prostitutes who know all about discretion. Ballantine probably used a phony name, so we’ll have to get a picture to show around.” He frowned off into the sky that was getting darker as they headed east. “If this were three years ago, I’d have gone to the studio files and had his picture in a minute.”
“It’ll take us a little longer than that, but not much,” Sabrina said. “One of the biographies I bought had a section with pictures. We could either copy one, or if we’re worried about copyright infringements we could just carry the book around.”
Derek took her hand. Her fingers seemed more slender than ever. He ran his thumb over the gold band that marked her his. “I knew there was a good reason why I brought you along.” He paused, studying her face now. “Feeling okay?”
“Uh-huh.”
“You look tired.”
“I always look tired.”
“You do not. Just lately.” He dropped a kiss on her nose. “Beautiful but tired. I’m working you too hard, I think.”
She sputtered out a soft laugh. “That’s a good one. I haven’t done a stitch of hard work in weeks, and you’re worrying.”
She was right, Derek realized. It was precisely because she hadn’t done a stitch of hard work in weeks that he was worrying. He could understand that she was under some strain; he could see her struggling with it at times; but the strain wasn’t that great—certainly nowhere near the kind she’d had with Nicky. Still, she was tired. If he didn’t see an improvement soon, he was going to insist she see a doctor.
* * *
They spent another ten days in Vermont before setting out again—partly to give Sabrina time to recoup her energy, and partly to do the same for Derek. He joked that he was feeling his age, but the fact was, the farmhouse had come to represent a haven. Neither the thrill of the chase nor the knowledge that he was working toward the revenge he’d dreamed about for better than two years could totally sustain him—and that came as something of a shock.
He’d thought himself driven. He’d thought, not so long ago, that nailing Noel Greer was critical. He still felt it important, but critical? No. Some things mattered more. Like Sabrina. Like the time he spe
nt with her, the conversation, the laughter, the shared feelings. Like their visits with Nicky. Like the farmhouse.
After only three days in Chicago, he found that the clean air of Vermont, the quiet nights, the sense of security were precious.
Not that those ten days found him idle. He spent hours with Justin and Ann reviewing the progress they’d made, plotting strategy, dictating directions, discussing the basic principles of investigative journalism. With the help of Justin, J. B., a local plumber and an electrician, he shaped the better part of a small kitchen and a second bathroom from the space that remained in the barn.
And he took care of Sabrina when she developed a mild case of the flu, which he guessed accounted for her fatigue. She fought him at first. She wanted to be up and around, supervising what was being done in the barn, baking, even writing—for she had started to write, or, more accurately, make extensive notes on their search for the Ballantine files. When she was beset by intermittent spells of nausea, though, she yielded to Derek’s urging and went to bed.
As luck would have it, just when Sabrina was beginning to feel better, her parents flew East for another surprise visit, the first such one since her marriage. That night, lying in bed, she tried to explain her tension.
“There are times when I feel like a coin, with two distinct sides. There’s the side represented by Mom and Dad, the side that is creative and artistic and imaginative. I’m a loner on that side, because the kind of work they do—and J. B., too—calls for a solitary existence. Then there’s the other side, the one which is me with you up here. It doesn’t want a solitary existence. It likes having people in the barn and good smells coming from the kitchen and a fire in the hearth when we’re coming home.”
She grew quiet for a minute, then said on a mildly plaintive note, “Why do I feel torn like that, Derek? Why can’t I simply accept the fact that I’m different from my parents? I have so much more than they have, in many ways. But still they make me nervous when they come.”
Derek had been nervous himself, far more so than he wanted to acknowledge. He’d been justified in it, he supposed. Amanda and Gebhart Monroe had done little to hide their scrutiny of him. But after an afternoon and an evening of it, he’d grown defiant. To hell with them, he’d decided. If they didn’t like him, tough. So he’d dropped all formality and begun to challenge them—subtly, but they’d seen it. Strangely, they’d backed off.
“I’m not sure,” Derek began slowly, “that there really are two sides to the coin—or if there are, that they’re as different as you think them.”
Sabrina tipped her head on his shoulder to study his face in the dim night glow.
“I think,” he went on, “that the issue is strength. That’s the key. That’s what your parents have, it’s what you respect. And it’s what they’re looking for in you, me, us. A commitment to what we want in life.”
“I want you. I’ve never been committed to anything more, but still they make me feel like I’m doing something wrong.”
Derek didn’t respond at first. When he did, it was with a certain sadness. “Maybe it’s not your parents, Sabrina. I watched them today, watched them closely. They were wary of me, but other than that, they seemed pretty comfortable here. Maybe it’s not them, but you. They represent something you want—or value—in life. When you’re with them you miss whatever it is that is missing. Is it the writing?”
Sabrina’s first instinct was to argue that Derek’s analysis was wrong. But it wasn’t. So she said, very softly, apologetically, “Maybe.”
“Maybe it’s living up here.”
“But I love living—”
“Shhh. I know you do. But this isn’t New York or San Francisco. You can love living up here but still feel a void.”
“That’s not it,” she said with conviction.
“Is it Nicky?”
“It’ll always be Nicky.”
“But there’s more. What is it, sweetheart?”
“I don’t know.”
“There is something.”
“I don’t know.”
“There is something.”
“I don’t know.”
“Maybe you want something I can’t give—”
“No!” She lifted herself above him. “You give me everything, Derek. I love you. I don’t want anything else.” Her voice died, leaving the vehemently spoken words hanging in the air. A moment later they dropped. A moment after that, she sank back to the bed.
Derek gathered her close, and the strength of their love, the shared warmth, the heat of their passion was enough to push doubts and worries aside for a time. But only for a time. Because things were happening to Sabrina’s body that weren’t about to stop.
* * *
The day after Amanda and Gebhart left, Sabrina and Derek set out for Washington. Derek concentrated on escort services, Sabrina on dating clubs. Together they even visited singles’ bars. But after five full days, they came up empty-handed. No one recognized the man in the picture they showed.
Claiming that he needed a breather to think out the next step, Derek insisted they return to Vermont even when Sabrina protested. He was worried about her. She was thinner than ever and too pale. He knew she wasn’t sleeping well because he spent many of his own nights awake.
Something was disturbing her, and he sensed that it went beyond his war with Greer. He was hoping that the farmhouse would allow him enough quiet time with her to worm out the source of that disturbance.
As it happened, he had cause for added disturbance himself. During the flight home, he spotted the same man who had been on their plane to and from Chicago. Possibly a coincidence, he told himself, but that was before he watched the man leave the airplane. Over the years, Derek had found that simple observance of people could often provide information that questions could not. In this case, it was the ease with which the man lifted his briefcase. Derek would have sworn it was empty.
Loath to worry Sabrina with this latest possible twist, he was totally nonchalant in the frequent glances he tossed toward his rearview mirror once they left the airport. He was grateful he’d chosen to fly in and out of Boston, rather than one of the smaller airports nearer the farmhouse; the greater the distance, the more time to lose a tail.
But there was no tail, at least not one that he could see. And when he glanced at Sabrina, he realized that his nonchalance had gone unnoticed. Her mind was miles away.
Later he would wonder why he hadn’t asked her there and then what was wrong. He had her alone and unoccupied. She couldn’t get up and leave the car or distract herself otherwise—not that she’d ever done that when he’d wanted to talk, but he was anticipating the worst.
In hindsight, he supposed that was why he hadn’t asked—precisely because he was anticipating the worst. He didn’t doubt for a minute that Sabrina loved him, but that didn’t preclude the possibility that she regretted who he was and what he’d involved her in. It was possible to love someone and still want to move in different directions; and he could live with that, as long as the direction she wanted to move in didn’t take her away from him.
So, since he wasn’t sure he’d like her answers, he didn’t ask. And by the time they arrived at the farmhouse, the opportunity was lost.
Maura was there. That meant nonstop chatter for the remainder of the day, which would have been all right had not the chatter revolved around where Derek and Sabrina had been and what they’d been doing. Derek tried to accept that, as Sabrina’s agent, Maura had just cause for interest. Still, he was uncomfortable. Maura annoyed him, it was as simple as that.
Justin, it turned out, was on the road conducting interviews for the story on fraudulence in psychiatry for which Derek had given him the names of several solid contacts. Ann was holding down the office end, though she wasn’t doing it alone, since J. B. was a frequent presence in the chair beside her desk. And as it happened, the next morning the barn contingent was augmented even further when three of Derek’s past team members—friends
of Justin and Ann who’d obviously been tipped off by the pair—arrived intent on joining what they referred to as Derek’s Institute for Investigative Journalism. Derek protested that there was no such institute, then proceeded to spend the day discussing story ideas, technique and marketing strategies. When he emerged from the meeting, there was a color on his cheeks that hadn’t been there before.
The color faded, though, when Maura took his arm and drew him into the living room that night while Sabrina and the others were talking over the last of three huge pizzas.
“I think I’ve done something terrible,” she said, and he realized that her usual frenetic energy had taken a turn toward agitation. Her eyes were skittish, and there wasn’t the slightest hint of the smile that was usually in open possession of her features. “It’s about Richard.” She paused and frowned, then raised worried eyes. “I’m not sure how to say this.”
Derek had trouble mustering much sympathy. In fact, he had trouble believing her. She’d never been at a loss for words before. The best he could do was to remind himself that she was his wife’s best friend and bite his tongue.
“Is there—have you ever noticed—” She took a breath and tried again. “Have you ever been aware of—”
“Spit it out, Maura.”
“Noel Greer. What you’re doing could ruin his career. I’d think he’d do just about anything to make sure you don’t succeed.”
“Could be,” Derek said with caution, momentarily forgetting his personal feelings for Maura as he waited to hear what she had to say.
“In the course of your … work … on this case, is there a chance that you’ve been followed?”
Derek felt the beginnings of an awful suspicion tugging at the back of his mind. “Why do you ask?”
She swallowed. “The pictures your friend Jason brought—the ones of him and the others with Greer that Greer had autographed—there was another man in one of them.” She clasped her fingers tightly. “It was Richard.”
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