Always Love a Villain on San Juan Island (36 page)

And then a bell rang, kling-klong. What the hell—? He listened. It rang again. The doorbell? He'd never tested it. A third ring. Yes, the door—through the smoked glass, the shape of a person. Who the hell? Probably some religious cult, free copy of
Watchtower
. He went to the door, unlocked, opened it a crack. A young woman; familiar? “Yes.”

Short sleek black hair, a pretty round face. “Frank?”

“Uh, yes?”

“I'm your neighbor. Just up the road, couple hundred yards. Raina.”

A feeling of recognition, he couldn't place it. “Yes?”

“We met last night. At Thor's. Jordan's celebration.”

“Oh. Yes. Hello.” Damn!

“Well, are you going to invite me in?”

“Oh, yeah, well, no, sorry. I'm real busy.” A neighbor, for chrissake. What timing.

“Oh. Okay, didn't mean to disturb you. You painting?”

“No. That is, not at the moment. I'm writing about my painting now.”

“Well, I guess I did disturb, sorry about that. Maybe we'll meet up some other time.”

He gave her his best smile. “Maybe down at Thor's again.”

“I'm a regular,” she said. “So long.” She turned and walked away.

He closed the door and locked it tight. Goddamn it to hell! How unbelievably stupid, showing his face at Thor's. You're an idiot, Fredric-Frank.

Well, it was done. She probably wouldn't come back, not in the next two or three days. After that he was out of here. So was Susanna. In different directions. Which made him both sad and mad. Okay, Fredric, you got yourself into this. Get out of it.

In the kitchen he picked up the ski mask—and threw it against the wall. He glanced at the clock on the wall—11:12. Too early for lunch. Didn't matter, he'd promised her he'd be back down. He knocked as usual on her door and watched her scamper to the bed and sit, baggy shirt and pants again. He unlocked, went in, locked. “Hi.”

“Hi. Glad you came back.”

“Me too.” He walked to the bed and sat beside her. He put his arm around her and kissed her gently. She kissed him back with a greater insistence. He pulled away. “Susanna, I need to talk to you.”

She drew back also, sat up straight and folded her hands primly. “I'm listening.”

“Okay. In a very few days, we're going to release you.”

“When the ransom's been paid.”

“Something like that.” He stopped and stared ahead, not daring to look at her. “Susanna, do you hate me?”

She turned to him and examined his face, disbelief all over hers. “After this morning, you ask that? After the meals we've had together, our talking, you think I could hate you?”

“I've held you captive—”

“For some reason I can't understand and I don't think you understand either. Somebody's controlling you and he's the one I hate. Do you know what you're doing, Frank or Hank?”

Fredric looked away. “No, I don't.”

She reached out and took his hand. “You going to find out?”

“I—I don't think I want to.”

She nodded. “Yeah.”

“Susanna, this is crazy, but once we're out of here, afterward, I want to see you again.” He paused. Say it all, Fredric. “I want to have you in my life.”

She took his chin between thumb and index finger and turned his head to face her. “And what will we tell people when they ask how we met?”

He closed his eyes. Did he understand what she'd just said? “You—you want to know me after these last couple of weeks?”

“Yep.” She let go of his face. “Very much.”

“I may have to go to jail.”

“First of all, I'll never tell anyone you helped kidnap me. And if they find out you were part of it, I'll testify about how you treated me, how you cared for me. They'll have to set you free.”

“Like I should let you free. Right now.”

She took his hand again. “You can't. You've said I'll be released in a couple of days. Let's let this run its course. You don't want your partner out hunting you down. Neither do I.” She stopped, and considered. “That is what's going to happen, isn't it? My release?”

He nodded. “What my partner said.”

“You trust him?”

“Fully on things like this. He's an old friend.”

“So I'll be free and so will you. Then we'll ‘meet' one day soon after I get to my apartment and start up at UW. And we'll see where it goes from there.”

“We can't be with each other till then?”

She drew closer to him and kissed him. “We'll figure a way.”

KYRA AND NOEL
drove away. Toni went upstairs to pack her bag.

In Larry's kitchen, Peter said, “Any coffee left?”

“Should be.” He checked. “Yep.” He poured two.

“Thanks.”

“So. What did you want to talk about?”

“Couple of things. Those three subjects whose dreams you visualized. Was the last one from someone with Tourette's syndrome?”

Larry laughed. “Why do you ask that?”

“Made me wonder if Trevor at the Faculty Club would dream like that.”

“I can't divulge the names of my volunteers. But do me a favor, okay? Don't speculate about it.”

Peter grinned broadly. “I can't. I'm sworn to secrecy about the whole of the session anyway.”

“Less of a secret all the time. And the second thing?”

Peter remained silent for a few seconds, staring at a point over Larry's shoulder. “We've known each other for a good long time, right?”

“No argument.”

“Can I trust you, Larry?”

“I hope so.”

“I'd like to tell you something, which I hope you'll keep to yourself.”

“I'm pretty good at that. But if it's something illegal, I'm not a lawyer or a priest, so—”

“Nothing like that.”

“Okay. Go ahead.”

“When Marianne and I separated—”

“Which as you know made me sad.”

“Me too. Both of us. But I had to leave her.”

“And you're going to tell me why.”

“It's what I don't want you to mention to anyone.”

“I can promise that.”

“Larry, I'm pretty sure I'm gay.”

Larry studied him, head, chest, waist, legs, feet. “Let me assure you, you're at least bisexual.”

Peter shook his head. “It wasn't working anymore with Marianne.”

“I'll leave you to testify to that.”

“I've not been with a man. Yet. But I'm, uh, extremely attracted to Noel Franklin.”

“Strange things happen between people. I'm extremely attracted to Toni deBourg.”

“I guessed. About my attraction to Noel . . . you're not surprised?”

“I'm too old for surprises. I hope the two of you get along very well.”

“Larry, you're great. I just needed to—to say this aloud.”

“I presume you've mentioned it to Noel?”

“Yes, of course.” Peter's cell phone rang. He looked at the call display. “I need to take this.”

“Privately. I understand.” Larry took his coffee to the living room.

Peter spoke into the phone. “Hello Jordan.”

“Uh, hi. Got a minute?”

Jordan Beck sounded hungover. Talking slow, measuring each word. Celebrated late last night? “Sure. Go ahead.”

“Last night, after you left Thor's, this guy came in and we got to talking. My group and I, we were partying a little.”

“Yes?”

“We got to know him because he was asking about Susanna. Rossini.”

“Okay.”

“Seemed like a nice guy, we told him what we could.”

“Who was he?”

“Frank. Can't remember a last name.”

“So why was he asking?”

“Said he was a friend of a friend of Susanna's cousin Trent who was at Reed College with her, and if Frank ever got to San Juan he should look her up. Said they'd have a lot in common.”

“Anything else?”

“That's about it. Except I'm still worried about her. You have a chance yet to talk to her father?”

“Yeah, in fact he was at that meeting. He says she's off camping in the Cascades—no way to contact her, should be back soon, she's off to UW in September.” Why was he prattling so?

“I hope she's okay. You can get hurt in the mountains, too.”

“I'm sure she's all right.”

“Okay, thanks. Talk to you.”

“Bye.” He ended the call. Then immediately made another.

Raoul had just returned to his hotel room when his phone rang. He noted the display. The boss. “Hello . . . Come on, we've talked about that; you said you only wanted to scare him. I can't help it if they're still here . . . Wait, slow down . . . What do you mean, wrong? . . . But how can that be? . . . Well, I agree there . . .” He waited and listened hard. His face drained of color. He said, “Hold on, hold on . . . That's pretty extreme . . . You really think that's necessary? . . . Okay, I'll call him . . . Yes, right away . . . How should he deliver it? . . . Yeah, I guess, that'd work . . . Of course I'll let you know when it's done.”

He pressed End. Well, isn't this a piece of shit. Who would have thought? The boss had talked with headquarters. No news there; that happened every day. But this time the word was that the Visualizer algorithms didn't work—just so much formulaic misdirection. So the boss was furious—nobody likes being made a fool of. Raoul had brought the algorithms along with the other stuff from that PO box. After careful examination the pronouncement had come: It's the real thing. And now this reversal. Good reason to be furious. Nearly three weeks of setup, all for naught. So the boss wanted revenge, and right away. Revenge that would put some real pressure on Rossini. Raoul could see that was necessary, but like this . . . He knew it had to happen. But how the hell to make Fredric do something like that?

And he was still pissed off that the bomb didn't scare the detectives away.

Raoul needed to think, hard and long.

Peter had given Noel a key to the condo. He and Kyra would drive there to debrief and plan. As they turned onto Little Road, Noel's phone rang. He reached into his pocket and brought it out. Kyra grabbed it away from him. “Don't talk and drive. Hello?”

“Oh, I thought I had Noel Franklin's number.”

“You do. This is Kyra. Hello Peter.”

“My voice, or my name on the screen?”

“Both actually. Noel's driving but he can call you back when he stops. Oh, he's pulling over now.”

“That's fine, I can tell you both this.”

“Go ahead.”

“Just had a call from Jordan Beck, the non-plagiarist. He said someone at Thor's last night was asking about Susanna Rossini.”

Noel tried to pull the phone from her but she pushed him away.

“Who was it?”

“Name was Frank. Said he was a friend of a friend of a cousin of Susanna's, Trent somebody.”

“What else did he say?”

“That's about it. Mainly he asked questions. Jordan and his friends did most of the talking. Is this of any importance?”

“Hard to say. Think he'll go back to Thor's today?”

“You'll have to ask Jordan. Hold on, I'll give you his number.” Peter did.

“Thanks, Peter. Anything else?”

“That's all I know. Tell Noel to call me when things slow down a bit.”

“Will do. See you.” She gave the phone back to Noel.

“He didn't want to talk to me?”

“Later. Call him. This was business. He wanted to talk to Triple I.” She told Noel what Peter had said.

“Hmm. Be good to have a chat with this Frank.”

“How can we track him down, do you figure?”

“If we had his last name, there'd be the San Juan phone book.”

“Yeah, if. Peter said Jordan didn't know it.”

“The cousin, Frank's friend? Cousin makes him a nephew of Larry Rossini. Bet cousin Trent would know how to locate Frank.” He found Rossini's last call and tapped the number.