She dropped her eyes to take in her ragged blouse and half-slip. She’d almost forgotten she’d stripped off the skirt and jacket.
“May I ask what’s with the outfit?”
“Oh, Lord. Where do I even begin?”
A smile tweaked the corners of his mouth as he tucked a lock of her bedraggled hair behind her ear. “You’re okay, though?”
She nodded. “I am.”
“Then let’s get you back to Cleveland. I’ve got some serious questions to ask you, young lady,” he said.
“And I think I might have the answers,” she replied.
CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE
THREE DAYS LATER—ELIZABETH
Elizabeth stood on the front porch of Janelle Hooper’s house at exactly the arranged time, fist clenched and ready to knock at the door. After her last encounter with Laney Donohue, Elizabeth had her heart in her mouth. She hadn’t exactly expected friendship after all her foundation had put her through. Hell, she hadn’t expected thanks. After all, she was the one responsible for Kimmy’s care. But she hadn’t expected the blatant fury Laney had cast upon her. She hadn’t expected the hate she’d seen in the girl’s eyes. Now, all she had to do was knock on the door, face the music, and try to make amends. All she had to do was present the offer and leave.
So why was it so hard?
After noting Elizabeth’s hand hovering at the panel, Penny said, “You want me to?” and gestured at the door.
Elizabeth shook her head sharply. “I’m good.” Although she was anything but. All night she’d practiced her speech, framing and reframing the apologies to be delivered to Laney. Telling her how sorry she was, that a simple software glitch had been responsible.
But then the question had rearisen with every rendering: Why hadn’t anyone else caught the glitch? Why did fifteen young people have to suffer?
Swallowing back the bile in her throat, Elizabeth rapped three times on the upper glass door panel and the door opened almost immediately.
Once again, Janelle Hooper stood framed in the doorway, glaring out.
“Wondered how long it was gonna take for you to knock.”
“You knew we were here?” Penny asked.
“Saw your car.” Janelle stepped back, widening the door. “Now you’re here, you might as well come in.”
Elizabeth drew in a breath, held it as she stepped over the threshold. “We won’t stay long.”
“The hell you won’t,” Janelle said, closing the door behind Penny. “I spent all morning making lunch. You can stay, can’t you?”
For a second, Elizabeth blinked in confusion. “Lunch? But…”
Janelle’s expression softened. “It’s all we can do to thank you. Come on in. Laney here has something to say to you.”
Janelle ushered them to the living room where Laney rose from where she’d been seated on the sofa, and was now wiping both hands down the fronts of her jeans in obvious discomfiture.
No eye contact, Elizabeth noticed.
“Mrs. McClaine? Um…first up, I want to apologize to you,” Laney began, and nodded down at the floor.
“Well, go on, get on with it,” barked Janelle. “Lunch ain’t gonna serve itself.”
Laney shuffled awkwardly and cleared her throat. “Ah, yeah. I shouldn’t have been so…”
“Ungrateful,” Janelle butted in again.
Laney gave her a stinging look, but said, “I shouldn’t have been so…ungrateful, when you came all the way over to Boston to find me.” She gestured clumsily, then rubbed her hands together while picking out the right words. “I shoulda been more…well, grateful.”
Elizabeth eased out the breath she’d been holding and crossed directly to Laney. Gently placing one hand on the girl’s shoulder, she ducked her head to catch her eye. “Laney, I came here to apologize to you, to Janelle, and to Kimmy. Over the past few days, I’ve hated myself for what’s happened. I cannot tell you how sorry I am.”
Laney blinked in confusion. “But…shouldn’t I be apologizing to you?”
“What for? I’m the one who put Kimmy into Sunny Springs. I should have investigated other avenues.”
“Yeah, well, if I hadn’t screwed up so bad, she wouldn’t have had to go anywhere.”
“Okay, that’s it,” Janelle butted in, hands spread as if she was parting two adversaries in the boxing ring. “Apologies are over. Mrs. McClaine, Laney here’s got a stubborn streak. Takes after her mom like that.”
“I do not,” she said, but the grin said something else.
“Quit arguing. We only got so much time before Katarina has to leave.”
“She’s leaving?” asked Penny.
Laney replied. “In two hours. They’re sending her back home.”
“Where is she now?”
“She’s upstairs with Kimmy. She’s helping her get into her best dress for lunch.”
“Then let’s get this over with,” Elizabeth said, and drew a nervous breath. “Laney, I’ve made arrangements with the trust, and we can offer you a place for you and Kimmy. The rent is low, and it’s in a good neighborhood near a workshop she can attend. And I know,” she quickly added before Laney could interrupt, “this will still be tough, so I can put together a package so you can work and have someone caring for Kimmy when you’re not home.”
No one replied for the longest time.
Then Janelle said, “They’re staying with me.”
“Janelle told me we can stay as long as we need,” Laney said. “But thank you.”
“The offer for funds for additional care still stands,” Elizabeth said. “But I’m so pleased for you all.”
Almost at once, footsteps on the stairs drew their attention and there they were—Kimmy dressed in a blue wrap-around dress and makeup, Katarina in a black skirt, loose-fitting cream blouse and shawl. Despite the drab colors, she still radiated beauty and vitality.
Kimmy wrapped both arms around Katarina’s waist and hugged her. In response, Katarina pulled her in, kissing her on the head.
A grin broke across Kimmy’s face as she gazed up in idolization. “Wendy.”
“I keep telling you, her name’s Katarina,” Laney said.
“Wendy,” Kimmy insisted.
“Okay, have it your way.”
“Right,” said Janelle. “Looks like we’re all here. Who’s hungry?”
Penny blew out a breath and turned to Elizabeth. “Don’t know about you, but I could eat a horse.”
“Well, thankfully, I think my appetite just came back,” she replied.
***
Cleveland Clinic Hospital
He loathed hospitals. He’d been in too many to count. This time was no different. Confidence, that was the key. You walk with the right kind of confidence, no one sees you. Smiling, he glanced up at the security camera set high on the wall overlooking the corridor. Didn’t matter. By the time anyone had noticed, he would have walked right out of here and disappeared into thin air. Not a soul would know where he went.
Despite the pain across his shoulders, he turned the last corner and strode down the corridor, past doctors and nurses, visitors with faces etched with grief. As far as they were concerned, he was just another of them—invisible against the backdrop of their own anguish. Halfway along, he checked the sign to his left, indicating wards and room numbers.
Almost there.
When he came to the door, he peeked through the glass window set in the upper half. There she was, sitting next to the bed, her face impassive, unreadable.
Perhaps sensing his presence, she looked up, gave him the briefest tilt of her head, permission to enter. Flicking a glance along the hallway each way, he pushed open the door and stepped inside.
For one long moment, he stood with his hands clasped loosely in front of him, waiting while her eyes went back to her husband.
Not one sign of emotion. Not one jot of sorrow. Only that same dead-eyed stare of disappointment; of utter hatred.
Without a word, Celeste Hendry got up, gathered
her purse and left without a backward look.
The moment the door hissed closed, he lifted the lapel of his jacket and took out the syringe. Moving quickly now, he uncapped the needle and laid it on the bed while he disconnected the IV line from the lure in the back of Kyle’s hand.
Kyle’s eyes flickered open and his head turned on the pillow. The moment their eyes met, realization and panic flared. A terror-ridden glance down at his hand told him everything.
As Kyle’s questioning gaze rose to his again, he pressed hard on the plunger and the solution flooded Kyle’s veins.
Kyle flinched. “Why?”
A thousand replies flooded his mind, but he didn’t offer one. Betrayal was betrayal in any man’s language. Kyle of all people should have understood that.
Without offering a word, he tucked the syringe back in his jacket pocket and left the room.
As he strode back down the corridor to the exit, the sound of alarms had already set doctors and nurses scurrying. They rushed past him in the hallway, rushing to his aid.
They would never get to him in time.
Kyle Hendry would already be dead.
CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO
LATER THAT EVENING—ELIZABETH
On Elizabeth’s way home from Janelle’s, she’d gotten a phone call from Charles. Initially, she was reluctant to pick it up. Then she thought, What the hell, and hit the answer key.
She’d been ready for the onslaught, ready to defend her decisions, and challenge him on her authority, but from the moment she’d answered, his tone was amiable and calm.
“I’d like to take Holly out to dinner, if that’s okay,” he’d said.
No mention of the past few days. Not a word about her direct defiance of his orders. Just the mild manner, the way he’d always been. So she’d agreed.
Now, here she was at home with Holly kneeling on the sofa by the front window, dressed in her best dress and shoes, and peering out the window waiting for him.
“Where will he take me, Mommy?”
“I think that might be a surprise.”
She chuckled and bounced in excitement. “I like surpwises.”
“So do I,” Elizabeth said, a little skeptically. “Sometimes.”
“Here he is!” Holly shouted, scrambling from the sofa and running to the front door.
Elizabeth followed to where Holly had pulled open the front door and was hopping up and down on the spot as she waited for Charles to get out of the car and stride up to the house.
“How’s my favorite girl?” he asked as Holly threw herself at him, jumping up and down and shouting, “Grampa! Where are we going, Grampa?”
Charles dipped his head to her. “Didn’t your mommy tell you that’s a surprise?”
For a split second, Elizabeth’s heart seized. Surely, he wouldn’t take her away from her now. He couldn’t.
Reading the look on Elizabeth’s face, he smiled. “You don’t have to worry. I’ll have her back by eight.”
Feeling a little foolish, she smiled and shook it away. “I wasn’t. But thank you.” Just as he was about to turn away, she said, “Charles? Any word about Kyle?”
He paused, seemingly subdued by the question, and let his gaze drift to where Holly was already getting into his car. “He died this morning.”
Elizabeth gasped. “Oh my God, I had no idea. I’m so sorry. I thought he was improving.”
He nodded, visually rocked by the loss. “We all thought that. He was a good man, Elizabeth. I don’t know what got into him.”
“We all make mistakes. Are the police—?”
“No,” he interrupted. As if the very thought of sullying Kyle’s reputation drove a dagger into his heart. “They said there’s not enough evidence.”
“What about Laney? She said he locked her in that basement.”
“Katarina said she was willing to testify that he did that to help her. Said he did the same to her.”
“And they believed that?”
He shrugged. “We’ve lost a big part of the company…of the family. I’ve been with Celeste. Naturally, she’s devastated…as we all are.” He turned to her, looked her in the eye. “He was a good friend. I’ll miss him.”
He went to walk away, but she called after him. “Wait.”
He paused, turned.
“Did you mean what you said? That you’d…?” She couldn’t even bring herself to say the words.
But he knew. He walked slowly back to her. “Never. The police were already interviewing us about our connections with Westrum. They were close to arresting him when the body turned up in the dumpster. I was…helping with their enquiries,” he said, quoting the police rhetoric. “I’m sorry I frightened you. I had no other way to keep you out of it.”
“And look how that worked out,” she said sheepishly, just as another car pulled up behind Charles’s.
Charles turned towards the street. “Looks like you have a caller. I’ll see you at eight.”
Elizabeth folded her arms, a little hesitant now, nerves jangling as she watched Charles and Holly pull away, and Lance Delaney walk up the front path, looking after them.
“I guess I can’t pretend I’m not at home,” she said.
“You mind if I come in?”
She stepped back while he crossed in front of her, hands in his pockets and looking around as if he’d never been here before.
Leaning against the open front door with her arms crossed defensively, she said, “You knew all along. You knew that Wendy was an FBI agent, and that Kyle was involved. And you also knew that Gate Westrum was alive and well and happily running a thriving organized crime syndicate over in Boston. Thanks for the heads-up.”
“I can explain, Elizabeth.”
Before he could, she said, “And what about the girl in the cemetery? I suppose you’re also going to tell me you knew all along who she was?”
Delaney paused a moment, looking around while he gathered his thoughts and figured out which accusation to address first.
“We found a notebook under the girl’s body, so yes. We figured out pretty quickly that she’d escaped from the Boston brothel and come searching for Katarina.”
“Well, that was convenient.”
Shuffling as he held back the caustic answer she’d been expecting, he mildly said, “We think it must have dropped out of the pocket of whoever dumped her.”
“And who do you think dumped her?”
He blinked at her a long while, then said, “There’s evidence to suggest it was Kyle Hendry.”
“I don’t believe it. He would never have killed her.” Although from what she’d seen now, the conviction in her voice was lacking.
“Elizabeth, I don’t have enough evidence to prove what he did or didn’t do. The man is dead. There’s no point in pursuing it now.”
Elizabeth frowned down, wondering how so many people got it so wrong.
“What was this all about, Lance? Okay, so I know it was about Gate Westrum trying to avoid arrest and keeping his businesses going, but why murder Velma Stanford? Who was the body in the dumpster that was supposed to be Gate Westrum?”
“Velma’s husband was admitted to a private hospital. She couldn’t afford the fees and rather than take him somewhere else, she found another way to pay.”
“Blackmail?”
“We believe she discovered the secret behind why Kyle turned up with Katarina, trying to hide her. Velma agreed. And suddenly she realized she had a potential income source and she wasn’t about to let that go. It was only when you started asking questions, she knew she couldn’t stop you.”
“So she set her sister, Jennifer Reels, onto me.”
“Like you said, it’s an old and well-established method of deflecting a line of enquiry.”
“And the body? The one in the dumpster?”
“A college graduate who got himself into too much debt. Gate murdered him and used the opportunity to stage his own death.”
“But you weren’t fooled, of course.”<
br />
“Oh, he did a great job. We have no dental records to identify him, and somehow, he’d managed to evade arrest so supposedly we didn’t even have his prints on file.”
“Except…?” Her eyebrows went up.
“At immigration. Last time he entered the country.”
“So, you knew right off the bat it was a set-up.”
He shrugged. “Soon as we started asking questions, we had the FBI on our doorstep, warning us off the case.”
“Would have been great if you’d been able to tell me.”
“Wouldn’t it, though?” he said with a sardonic smile. “But then, would you have listened?”
She hugged herself and dropped her head, not quite knowing where to go with this. Not knowing how to keep the connection that was forming. A connection different from the one they’d had when he’d arrived. This one was something new. A closeness she hadn’t had with him before.
“So, I guess that’s it.”
“I guess so.”
She drew a breath and glanced past him and out the open door. “So. What about…?” She gestured awkwardly between them.
“Us…?” he said.
She looked up, straight into his eyes.
He gestured back to the street. “I see Holly’s out.”
“Gone to dinner with Charles. Be at least a couple of hours, I guess.”
“I see. Then, why don’t you and I see what we can work out?”
She nodded. “We could. Where do you think we should start?” she asked.
“How about at the beginning?” he asked.
She nodded. “I think that works for me. I’ll put the coffee on,” she said, and closed the front door.
THE END
Read an excerpt from the first book in the McClaine and Delaney series of thrillers by Catherine Lea
THE CANDIDATE’S DAUGHTER
CHAPTER ONE
DAY ONE—2:24 PM—KELSEY
Six years old. Even from here the kid looked small for her age.
Kelsey lowered the binoculars and squinted off down the street.
“Is that her?” Lionel asked and reached back. Kelsey handed him the binoculars while Matt shifted forward in his seat and rested both arms across the steering wheel, his attention on the child.
[Elizabeth McClaine 03.0] A Stolen Woman Page 30
