by Kara Lennox
Hudson nodded. The only other person he knew who might understand what he was feeling was Liz. But so far they’d failed to reestablish the rapport they’d enjoyed Saturday night. He still didn’t like that she’d deceived him about her true identity. The whole evening had been based on falsehood. She’d been curious about him, she’d said.
Her idle curiosity had landed them in a lot of trouble.
“If you want someone to go with you—you know, watch your back—I don’t have anything else hanging. I’ve never been a cop or anything...”
Hudson laughed. “No, you’re just a mixed-martial-arts champion. Weren’t you on the Olympic team or something?”
“No. No. Well, maybe. The judo team is looking at me, but the next Olympics is a long time from now.”
“I’d be pleased to have you watch my back.”
“Let’s go, then.” Mitch packed up his laptop in about five seconds flat. “I’ll take my work with me, in case we have some downtime. Or in case you need some quick research.”
* * *
ELIZABETH HADN’T FUSSED so much since the first time she had a boy over when she was thirteen. What was his name? Oh, yeah, Hank. Hank Balducci. She’d made sure the house was immaculate, she’d worn her cutest new summer shorts outfit, brushed her hair out long and loose rather than plaiting it into its usual braid, and she’d laid out a selection of videos for them to watch, movies she thought Hank might like, with sports themes or car chases. She’d even asked Mrs. Ames to help her bake brownies.
She’d imagined she might get her first kiss that night. But her father had imagined something completely different. From the moment Hank arrived, her father had watched them like a tiger watching a couple of young zebras playing together. He’d glowered at Hank until the poor boy could barely string two words together coherently.
There’d been no movies, no brownies. After thirty minutes he’d mumbled some excuse about his mother needing him at home and he’d sprinted for the door.
Elizabeth had been furious with her father, but he had soothed her by explaining that he’d only been trying to protect her, that she was at a vulnerable age and boys would always be trying to take more than she wanted to give and that this boy, in particular, was not good enough for her.
“His father works at the DPS,” her father had spat out, as if a civil-service job were on a par with being an ax murderer. “His mother works, too. Retail.” Again, as if that was a bad thing. “I send you to school with the kids of the most prominent families in Houston, and you make friends with the scholarship student? Someday, Elizabeth, you’ll marry a senator’s son. You can’t go wasting yourself on the Hank Balduccis of the world.”
He’d offered to take her out for ice cream, but she was still mad, and she stayed mad for weeks. Her anger hadn’t brought Hank back, and it hadn’t stopped her father from interfering again, although the next time, he’d done it on the sly.
Although circumstances were nothing like when she was thirteen, and Hudson was coming over not for any social reason, she felt that same silly sense of giddiness. When she arrived at her father’s home after work, she’d finished cleaning up the mess left by the cops. Mrs. Ames had been working on it, too, returning items to the drawers where they belonged, replacing cushions onto the furniture. But she’d left early today—and who could blame her? Elizabeth swept, vacuumed and dusted.
When the house was immaculate, she changed out of her stale work clothes into a cool sundress and sandals, telling herself she wasn’t primping, merely getting comfortable. But then, why had she spent so long in front of the mirror, giving her hair that casual “I just quickly pinned it up” look that took twenty minutes, thirty pins and a curling iron to produce?
God, what was she thinking? Hudson Vale might be a tasty morsel, but that train had left the station. She’d seen the way he’d looked at her when she’d admitted lying to the police, and it wasn’t the way a man looked at his lover.
From the start, she’d shown him her worst side. First, she’d acted like a trashy, easy pickup who’d dumped her own date and who couldn’t even bother to exchange last names before jumping into bed. Then she’d run away without saying goodbye, and on top of everything else, she’d been lying to him the whole night. Her explanation had sounded lame even to her—as if she’d viewed Hudson as an interesting case study, a fascinating specimen. Her attraction to him was real, but would he ever believe that?
One strand of her hair kept falling in her face—not in a good way—and she finally gave up on it. This was ridiculous.
She’d instructed Hudson to enter the estate from the rear alley entrance, because a couple of news vans were parked outside the front gate.
At precisely seven her cell phone rang; she’d programmed the back gate buzzer to signal her phone. She pushed the appropriate code, then walked downstairs, through the living room, kitchen and out to the garage to greet her guest.
Her intention was to be friendly but professional. No sense him knowing how much she regretted her recent actions. How much she wished they’d met under different circumstances. No sense looking more pathetic than she already did.
Hudson’s now-familiar 280Z swung into view along the back driveway, then whipped into an empty slot in the four-car garage. Her own car and her father’s Range Rover occupied two more slots. His Cadillac Escalade, which had been found not far from where his body was discovered, was still being processed by the police.
She’d have to dispose of his two vehicles somehow. Who would want to buy a murder victim’s car? She supposed there were car liquidators who could find a buyer.
Hudson climbed out from behind the wheel and she waved a greeting. That was when she realized he wasn’t alone; Mitch was riding shotgun.
Good, that was good. She’d been dreading the inevitable awkward alone moments between herself and Hudson. With Mitch as an unwitting chaperone, she could relax a bit.
“I brought Mitch in case there’s any computer stuff,” Hudson explained as Elizabeth led them into the house.
“Oh, dear, I might have saved you a trip, Mitch,” she said. “The CSI guys took Dad’s computer.”
“He only had one?” Mitch asked.
Elizabeth shrugged. “How many does one person need?”
“At least two, if he’s involved in criminal activities,” Hudson replied. “It’s like having two sets of books. One is the official record, kept squeaky clean. The other houses the real details, and it’s kept somewhere safe. Most likely with instructions given to a close confidant that it be destroyed if anything happens.”
“I’m not sure my father had any close confidants.” Elizabeth led them back through the kitchens, retracing her steps through the dining and living rooms to the other wing of the house, where her father’s office was located. “He didn’t trust anyone. Well, maybe the housekeeper. But I can’t see Mrs. Ames destroying evidence. She’s painfully honest.”
When they arrived at the office, Hudson whistled low. “They really did a number on this place.”
“How can you tell?” she asked. “I thought I’d straightened up pretty well.”
“I can smell the fingerprint powder. Obviously used with abandon.” He ran his index finger along the edge of an open drawer, pulling back a smudge of black powder. “Okay if I look around?”
“That’s what you’re here for.”
Hudson examined the contents of a few drawers, opened the credenza. He turned the office chair upside down, peered under the desk and peeked under the mouse pad. He methodically searched every corner of the room, even going so far as to examine the undersides of the potted plants’ leaves and inside the globes on the chandelier.
He paused in front of a small, freestanding safe next to a file cabinet where her father had kept important papers. He’d given her the combination years ago.
“I opened it for the cops,” she said. “They took everything, but I think it was just stuff like his passport and birth certificate, maybe some papers relate
d to my mom’s disappearance. I know he always kept that stuff where I couldn’t see it.”
Hudson frowned at the safe. “Is this it? The only safe?”
“Again, how many safes does one man need...? Oh, I get it. One to keep the innocent documents, another to store the stolen jewels and securities.”
“Your father stole jewelry and securities?” Hudson obviously still hadn’t figured out her sense of humor, which could erupt at odd moments, usually when she was nervous.
“That was just a figurative example, but I personally wouldn’t be too surprised. He had very little respect for the law. He cheated on his taxes, fixed speeding tickets for his buddies, frequented prostitutes—”
“He what?” Hudson almost exploded.
“He hired call girls. They used to come to the house all the time. He thought I wouldn’t figure it out—claimed they were regular dates, you know—but it was kind of obvious.”
“That would have been some valuable knowledge to have,” he said. “When he was questioned after his arrest, he claimed he would never pay for sex.”
“Ha! If I’d known that was his defense, I would have come forward.”
“Really? You’d have sold your old man up the river?”
She paused a fraction of a second before answering. “No, maybe I wouldn’t have. I talk a good game, but in the end, despite his character flaws, I didn’t hate him.”
“But you really didn’t get along with him.”
Mitch had wandered into another room, so he couldn’t hear their conversation. Otherwise, she might not have been quite so frank. “We barely spoke. I hung up when he called, and I publicly snubbed him. It was the only way I could keep him from trying to run my life.” She didn’t sugarcoat her feelings in front of Hudson. He had a vested interest in protecting her from prosecution; if she went down, so did he.
Hudson looked as if he wanted to pursue the matter, but she didn’t. He must have sensed her reluctance, because he moved on to other matters. “There’s no other safe in the house?”
“Well, there’s the quintessential wall safe behind a painting.”
“I wish,” Hudson said. This time he thought she was kidding when she wasn’t.
“No, really. We have a wall safe behind a painting. It was there when my father bought the house, and unfortunately, the combination was lost even before that. We’ve never used it.” She led Hudson into the living room, where Mitch had already pulled back the oil painting of a ballerina to reveal the old-fashioned safe—with what looked like the modern addition of an electronic keypad of some sort.
“Oh, very good, Mitch.” Hudson nodded his approval, then turned to Elizabeth. “Do the cops know about this?”
“I saw no need to mention it, since I...I didn’t think there was any way to get it open. But that...” She leaned closer. “That keypad doesn’t look old at all.”
Hudson and Mitch exchanged a look.
“Oh, come on, there’s nothing in there. Are you going to tell me you guys know how to crack a safe?”
Hudson grinned. “I bet you a dollar Daniel knows a safecracker.”
“No need for that. Not yet, anyway.” Mitch fetched his suitcase full of goodies, then sifted through various esoteric-looking electronic devices until he found the one he wanted. “This might take a while. Y’all can carry on about your business.”
Taking the hint, Hudson and Elizabeth wandered into the kitchen. Elizabeth mindlessly went to the fridge, hunting for something to drink. “Before you ask, I’m afraid we don’t have any Mountain Dew.”
Hudson laughed. “I am capable of drinking something else. But that’s okay—I’m not thirsty.”
She settled on a bottle of mineral water for herself. She unscrewed the top and didn’t even bother with a glass, just chugged right out of the bottle.
Elizabeth couldn’t deny she was a bit shaken by the discovery that her father had been using the old safe. “I don’t know why I’m surprised about anything my father did at this point.” She leaned against the island, resting her elbows on the cool marble top. “What do you suppose we’ll find in there?”
“Evidence of some criminal enterprise is my guess. Maybe he was blackmailing someone, and they killed him rather than paying up.”
“I can’t see my father blackmailing someone. I mean, he’s ruthless enough to do it, but it’s not like he needed the money.”
“Are you sure? A lot of rich people lost a lot of their wealth in the recession. How did your father get rich, anyway? Just from lawyering?”
“He inherited a good chunk of it. Then, in the eighties during the telecom boom, he started investing. He owned the majority of a small high-tech company that hit big, eventually got bought by a huge conglomerate. He liked to brag that he got out at just the right time. Since then he’s dabbled in different ventures, but mostly he bails out companies in trouble in return for a huge ownership stake. He saves the company then forces a sale. It’s a nasty business.”
“Is he a tech guy? He knows computers and such?”
She shrugged. “He always bought the latest and greatest, most powerful computers. Whether it was a prestige thing, or he really knew how to use them, I’m not sure.”
“Does he have high-tech friends?” Hudson seemed to be more than casually interested in this aspect of her father’s life.
“I don’t know. Why is this important?”
“Something weird happened a little while ago. Mitch hacked into a police database, and we found what looked like the tattoo of the guy who shot at me—a tiny thumbnail photo. But the actual record was missing, and Mitch said it looked like the work of a hacker.”
“My father didn’t have any real friends, but he knew a lot of people. Whatever had to be done, he always found the right person and hired them. Unfortunately, the cops took everything that had his contacts—his address book, computer. If he had a cell phone when they found him, they probably took that, too. They even took the landline phone on his desk, in case it had some phone numbers stored in its memory.”
“Got it unlocked,” Mitch called from the living room.
“He is good,” Elizabeth marveled as she and Hudson rushed to see what Mitch had uncovered. He stood in his sock feet on the white sofa, his hand on the safe door, looking like a magician about ready to reveal his best illusion.
“I haven’t opened it yet. I thought we should all do it together. Chain of custody and all that.”
Hudson nodded. Elizabeth held her breath. And Mitch slowly swung the heavy safe door open.
“Bingo,” Hudson said softly. Sure enough, sitting inside the safe were a laptop computer and several stacks of paper money, rubber-banded into bundles. Hudson slid his arm around Elizabeth’s shoulders. “Liz, baby, we might be looking at our salvation.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
MITCH TOOK PICTURES while Hudson removed the laptop computer and placed it in a paper bag. None of their careful treatment of the evidence would carry any weight from an official standpoint, of course. Anything he or Elizabeth got close to would be tainted, even with Mitch as a witness.
But that wasn’t the purpose of this exercise. They needed leads that would point them in the right direction. Once they figured out who had really killed Mandalay, Hudson could take it to his lieutenant or the captain. The photos would document his version of events, at least.
Next, with gloved hands, Hudson removed the stacks of cash and placed them in a second bag. Once those were gone, several other items became visible—two passports and a couple of small boxes.
The passports were interesting. One was Venezuelan, for a man named Enrique Zuckas. The picture, though, was of Mandalay. A second passport was from the Cayman Islands. The name was John Weland; the picture was Mandalay’s.
Liz stood by silently watching, her hands locked together, her face pale. She said nothing until Hudson brought out a third passport. This one was also Venezuelan, but the name was Antonia Zuckas. The picture was undeniably Liz. “Oh, my God.”
“I take it you don’t know anything about this?” Hudson asked.
“Of course not!”
“It looks like your dad was preparing to flee the country—with you.”
“Well, he would have had to hog-tie me and drug me. I wouldn’t have gone.”
“Maybe he was just hopeful,” Mitch suggested. “The estrangement with your father—your idea, right?”
“Completely mine,” she answered. “He never understood why I cut him out of my life. He had a peculiar blind spot.”
“Why did you?” Hudson asked. “I don’t mean to be nosy, but I’m trying to understand his mind-set. You said it was more than his refusal to let you go away to college.”
“Was he abusive?” Mitch asked softly. “That’s something I understand.”
“Not in the way you mean. He never laid a hand on me. It was more a case of him wanting to possess me, like a pet or something. He insisted on controlling every aspect of my life—my friends, my clothes, my hair, my diet, the books I read. I mean, right down to the toothpaste I used. No amount of reasoning or arguing could change his behavior, so I left home as soon as I could manage it.”
“You been close to him since then?” Mitch asked, which was the same thing Hudson had asked when he’d learned of the estrangement.
“I’ve seen him. I tried a couple of times to let him back into my life, just a little. But if I gave him an inch, he started trying to take control. One time, he decided he didn’t like the apartment I lived in. So while I was at work, he hired a moving company to relocate all of my belongings to a luxury condo, then acted like he’d done me this big favor. I actually had to get a lawyer involved to get my stuff back. And you can’t believe how hard it is to get a lawyer to go after another lawyer, especially him.”
“Jesus,” Mitch murmured.
Hudson felt for her. He’d always enjoyed a warm relationship with his parents. They were supportive, but never interfering. They were proud that both of their sons had followed in their father’s footsteps but had never pushed them to make that choice.
