Deadly Interest (47 page)

Speechless, I blinked at him.

“
More money,” he said.
“More exposure.”

“
I think I’ve had just
about all the exposure I can take.”

Bass shook his head.
“Hank’s spoken with a few of our consultants already. We’re
thinking you might be our ticket to knocking
UpClose Issues
out of the number one
spot.”

“
You gotta be kidding,” I
said. Then as it hit me, I added, “What about Gabriela?”

“
You’d share feature
stories. We’ll start you out doing a few small
segments.”

“
But,” I felt like I was
sputtering, “what does she have to say about all this?”

“
We haven’t told her,
yet.” He winked at me as he left. “When you get back next week,
we’ll talk.”

Fifteen minutes later, all I had left to do
was my interview with Gabriela. She hadn’t yet shown up, so I
headed to the break room to wait.

William was there.

“
Hey,” I said, moving to
the countertop to pour myself a cup of coffee.

“
Alex,” he said,
half-standing. “How are you? I heard about everything that went on.
Are you okay?”

“
I’m great,” I said. And I
realized that was true. I’d been through trial by fire and my dad’s
constant mantra to “not let little things bother me” suddenly
seemed like the best advice I’d ever received.

“
I’m glad to hear that,”
he said, gesturing me into the seat across from him. “I guess I
missed all the excitement.”

“
I’m sure you had plenty
of your own,” I said, with a light dose of sarcasm. “Just a
different sort.”

He winced at that, changed the subject. “How
come you left that write-up on my desk?”

“
Why, was there something
wrong with it?”

“
No, not at all,” he said,
looking confused. “It’s just that we usually go over them together.
Talk them through. I thought you’d want to do that
again.”

“
It’s all there,” I said.
“And if anything’s unclear, let me know.”

He closed his eyes for a long moment, as
though weighing a momentous decision. “I’m sorry about that mix-up
on the phone,” he finally said.

“
What mix-up?” I
asked.

“
You know, when I called
you the wrong name.”

“
Oh, yeah,” I said, waving
my hand indifferently. “Don’t worry about it.”

“
I didn’t . . .” he began,
then started again. “I wasn’t entirely truthful with
you.”

I canted my head—smiled. “Really?”

He had the decency to blush. “Oh yeah,
well.” He scratched at his eyebrow. He blew out a breath and I
wondered what sort of confession he was about to divulge. Looking
up at me, he squinted, as though anticipating my reaction to his
next words. “She . . . that other person . . . was . . . an old
friend,” he said quickly.

“
An old girlfriend, you
mean,” I corrected.

“
Yeah.” He waited a beat
before continuing. “She was one of the people running the
conference. I had no idea she’d be out there, I swear. But she was.
And we got to talking. It gave us a chance to
reconnect.”

I waited.

Behind me, the coffee maker hissed.

William spoke again. “It was stupid of me to
lie to you. I . . .” He shrugged and grimaced at the same time. “It
surprised me when I realized I’d dialed wrong, and I wasn’t sure
about how things were going to . . .” He stopped himself. “I just
made up the first thing that came to mind.” One side of his mouth
twisted downward. “I’m sorry if I hurt you.”

“
Don’t worry about it,” I
said, feigning lightheartedness.

Another couple of silent seconds passed.

I spoke up. “So,” I said, using his words to
prompt the rest of the story. “You reconnected, huh?”

“
Yeah.”

Rather than endure another long interval of
silence, I decided I needed to know how things stood. “She lives in
San Francisco?”

He nodded.

I kept my voice just this side of chipper.
“And so . . . are you two picking up where you left off?” I knew my
upbeat approach was making this easy for him, but, just like
whistling in the dark, faking composure made it easier for me,
too.

“
I . . .” he said,
hesitating. “Yeah.”

“
Well, then,” I stood,
plastering on a tight smile. “I wish you guys the best. I hope I
get the chance to meet her sometime.”

He nodded, his look inscrutable.

Gabriela poked her blond head into the break
room right then, and wiggled her perfectly manicured fingers my
direction. “Alex,” she called in a singsong voice. “We’re ready for
you.”

Lucy and I drove to Navy Pier Tuesday
morning. As we strolled along the perimeter promenade, I
experienced a peculiar gladness in my heart that she’d chosen the
pier for our first outing. Being here with her, in the daylight,
helped to dilute my recent memories of my date with David
Dewars.

Still, after lunch at McDonald’s, when she
and I climbed aboard a Ferris Wheel car, I was struck by the
promise I’d made to David less than a week ago to ride it with him.
This morning I’d gotten an update on his condition. Paralyzed
permanently from the waist down. He’d require years of physical
therapy. Most of those years would likely be spent in prison..

“
Whoa,” Lucy said, as our
car cleared the base area. We sat opposite one another, on molded
plastic seats inside big enough to hold at least six people. These
cars reminded me of Alpine ski-lifts, with doors on either side,
and enough ceiling height to allow me to stand upright.

The young guy who’d helped us get in,
slammed our car door shut and locked it. “Have a nice ride,” he
said as we drifted upward.

The wheel itself never stopped moving;
passengers loaded and unloaded at snail speed. Lucy sat back,
wide-eyed, her hands pressed against the seat at her sides, as if
to steady us.

I slid back in my own seat and watched her
across from me. We rose up, very slowly, to breathtaking views of
Chicago’s skyline with the sun bright overhead, but still not
enough to warm this cold day. I blew out a cloud of breath, and
smiled.

Maya and George, not surprisingly, had both
agreed to be part of my feature story. Maya was already back home,
and though bandaged and a bit bruised, she was eager to get the
truth out and start her search for a new job.

And my good friend, George, had discovered a
key piece of information I’d never thought to look at.

Even though David was
indeed the largest shareholder of Banner Bank, he wasn’t the
majority
shareholder,
like I’d been led to believe. He held only twenty percent of the
stock. So, even though the embezzlement hurt the bank’s bottom
line, he was still clearing more than enough to make the effort
worth his while. The bank wrote off bunches, got the tax benefits
of doing so, and David was, in essence, stealing profits from the
other shareholders who owned the remaining eighty percent of the
stock.

Nice work, if you can get it.

“
You having fun?” I
asked.

Lucy nodded with vigor, then shot me a
panicked look when the small movement caused the car to rock. “This
is the most fun I’ve ever had.”

I doubted that, but I didn’t doubt her
sincerity.

She was quiet for a long moment. “I told you
about Bobby, right?”

“
Yep.” I made myself
smile, even though I worried for her and her latest love. “I can’t
wait to meet him this weekend.”

“
Me too.”

She was quiet again.

I looked out over the city below.

“
Alex?” she
said.

I pulled my attention away from the gray
buildings, bright sky, and sparkling water below. “Yeah?”

Her eyes had welled up, and she stared at me
over twin pools of blue. “I would miss you if you got killed.”

The simplicity of her words caught me with a
sting to the back of my throat. Moving slowly, so as not to upset
the car’s balance, I took her hands in mine. “I’m here for you,
Lucy. I’ll always be here for you.”

She sniffed, then jolted up suddenly to wrap
me in a bear hug that made the car rock. We both yelped at the
sudden swinging, and Lucy sat back in her seat, laughing. “Wow,
that was scary,” she said.

“
Yeah,” I
agreed.

She had no idea.

And thank God for that.

* * * * *

“
How did it go?” I asked
Dr. Hooker.

We’d stopped by his office later that
afternoon. Lucy was trying to decide which of the many tea
offerings she wanted to try. “Blackberry sage,” she finally
decided, holding up a round teabag in delight.

“
Help yourself,” Hooker
said. He’d pulled over a third chair and as Lucy fixed herself tea
I watched to make sure she didn’t spill the scalding liquid on
herself as he brought me up-to-date.

“
Diana took the news
amazingly well,” he said. “I talked to her yesterday, before she
was discharged. I thought that, just in case the revelation caused
her a relapse, I’d rather she be in a hospital environment. She’s
home now, and she called her mother. Theresa’s traveling from Iowa
as we speak.”

“
Do you think that on some
level, she suspected that Mrs. Vicks was her
grandmother?”

Hooker shook his massive head. “No. She was
completely surprised. In a case like this I might expect her to
harbor some anger, some bitterness for not being told the truth
sooner.” He gave a big-bodied shrug. “But, rather than resent her
mother and Mrs. Vicks, Diana is moved by the fact that her family
cared enough about her to protect her.”

I leaned forward, craning my neck to check
on Lucy again. She’d finished steeping the tea and moved to join
us, walking slowly, concentrating on the mug so as not to
spill.

“
What about Barton? How
does she feel about him having been her father?”

“
That one, and the
circumstances that surrounded her birth, are a couple of the issues
we still need to work through,” he said. “But in time, I’m
convinced Diana’s going to shine. She’s making great strides
already.”

“
And Laurence Grady?
What’s going to happen with that situation?”

Hooker’s smile split his face into a
contagious grin. “I’m a psychiatrist, not a clairvoyant. Only time
will tell on that one.” He shrugged again, his eyes serious. “I can
only promise you that Diana won’t have to handle it alone.”

* * * * *

Friday afternoon, as Lucy and I headed back
to the house after a day of shopping and browsing up in the Long
Grove historical village, my low-fuel indicator lit up.

“
There’s a Gas City,” Lucy
said, pointing down the street.

I nodded and Lucy grabbed my arm. “This is
the place with the really good Slushies. Can I get one?”

I looked at her as I started to pull in.
“It’s cold outside. How can you want to drink a Slushie in this
weather?”

“
Look out,” she
said.

I turned just in time to see this red
Firebird stop short. We’d both been heading for the same gas pump,
and I covered my mouth when I realized how close we’d come to
hitting one another.

The Firebird driver, a big guy, sent me a
furious look, but swerved over to a different pump. I shrugged,
pulled up to pump eleven, and grabbed my credit card.

Just before I ran my card through the
machine, I realized that I had to go inside to the convenience
store anyway to buy Lucy’s Slushie. I shook my head, mumbling about
the cold and how it felt more like January than March, as I pulled
open the door to the warmth of the mini-store for Lucy’s drink and
to pre-pay for gas.

Inside, an elderly gentleman wearing a plaid
flannel jacket, leaned up against the protective glass window,
talking to the cashier behind it. He had on a baseball cap, its
brim pushed high over wiry white hair.

“
Yeah,” I heard him say to
the girl behind the glass, “my son lives out of town, you know.
He’s got a real nice family and a real important job. And every
year he sends me a Christmas card and tells me all about it.” The
guy nodded, staring out at the dark night, oblivious to the girl’s
pained looks of boredom.

Her dark brown eyes implored me to
interrupt, but I had a mission. I headed over to the Slushie
machine and poured a big cup of blue mush. The old guy continued to
drone on about his son’s life and how exciting it was. I heard him
mention the Christmas card again. This was March and he was waxing
poetic about a Christmas card?

I thought about Lucy. When she was back at
the residence for special folks, next week, would she be telling
everyone her memories from home like this fellow did? My heart went
out to her, and to the old man, too.

The fellow whose car I’d nearly hit had come
in, too. He stood next to the old guy, shooting impatient glances
between the two people waiting to pay.

I came up behind them all, Slushie and
credit card in hand.

The old man ran a finger underneath his
reddened nose, continuing with a sniff, “And my son writes
everything that he’s done for that entire year on the card, and,
boy, does he write good, too. And I take my time reading it so I’ll
know what he’s been up to.” He shifted position, a wistful smile on
his face. “I really look forward to getting that Christmas
card.”

Suddenly becoming aware that others waited
in line, he moved aside. The dark-eyed girl asked Mr. Firebird,
“May I help you?”