Impasse (30 page)

“Parking,” he said as he passed without breaking stride.

She didn't look up from her phone and didn't follow him.

Dammit.

He'd have to contact her more directly, Stu thought. But when he reached the door, he saw her glance about and begin walking his direction. She'd pretended not to hear him and delayed following so that no one watching would think she was with him.
Smart,
Stu thought, and he exited.

Stu walked slowly, allowing her to follow, and didn't stop until he was in the parking garage with no direct line of sight from the terminal. He watched for her and spotted a man in a black coat. The man turned down his aisle.
He's following me!
The man pulled out an object, and the beep of a nearby Honda Pilot sent Stu into a crouch, ready to flee. It took a moment for him to realize the object the man held was his key fob. The man climbed in, casting Stu a wary glance of his own, and drove off.

I'm jumpy,
Stu thought, but then he'd just killed someone, and someone had tried to do the same to him. Couldn't be too hard on himself for being a bit paranoid.

Audry appeared and, with a deep breath, he presented himself for her inspection. She kept an understandable distance at first.

“Hello, Audry,” he said. Hearing his voice would help, he hoped.

She took a few more steps forward, then gasped and hurried to him, mouth agape and eyes wide.

“Oh my God. It
is
you!” She gave him a huge, unexpected hug. It was a firm, clinging embrace, like that of someone who thought they'd lost a dear friend. When she finally let go, she looked him up and down. “Wow. You look great and like shit at the same time.”

“Thank you for coming.”

“I can't believe this. Holy crap! Pardon me if I freak out a little. What happened? Did you walk out of the wilderness? You must have been snowed in all winter, right?”

“Sort of.”

“How come nobody knows? I've been wondering the whole way to Boston. I almost called my BFF, but you seemed so serious about not telling anyone.”

“Let's talk in the car.”

“Where are we going?”

“Home.”

They found her Subaru, a practical blue thing with all-wheel drive and reasonable gas mileage. Stu offered to drive. Audry told him not to be stupid and to get in, which he did without further protest. She shot him a warning look when they came to the gate, and so he knew better than to offer to pay, but he kept track of the cost, knowing that she was buried in student loans, both hers and her daughter's.

“You know that people think you're dead, right?” Audry began.

“Yeah, somebody already filled me in on that.”

“Things have happened.”

“I figured they would.”

“Stu, you've been gone almost six months. Even your wife thinks you didn't make it.”

“I have some things to fix. I get that.”

“So why aren't you telling anyone?”

“The Yukon Tours pilot left me out there. Until I do some investigating, I don't want anyone to know.” He omitted any talk of Ivan or murder plots.

“Deep undercover, eh? Are we going to sue said pilot?”

Stu looked out the window, avoiding her eyes. “I don't think he's worth suing at this point.”

She accepted it, and him.

He didn't learn much asking her questions. She knew less about his wife than Stu thought she would. Audry was working more hours for Clay, it turned out, but she still only saw him a couple of times per week, and he didn't discuss Katherine. Nor did Katherine come to the firm often—only a few times. Stu wondered if Clay had bought out Katherine's inherited interest in the firm so that she could move on. She wasn't a lawyer, after all. Audry said the name Stark hadn't been removed from the letterhead yet.

They didn't talk clients. There would be time for that later. And Stu spent the remainder of the trip from Boston to New Bedford being peppered with excited questions and recounting wilderness survival stories. It was relaxing, he found, and sort of fun. Her eyes lit up when he described his encounter with the grizzly.

“Not only did you survive six months in the arctic, but you shot a freakin' grizzly? Man, I should have given you more credit.”

“More than what?”

“More than before. You've done some amazing things.”

“I did what I had to do. I'm not proud of it all.”

“If I shot a bear that was trying to eat me, I'd make it into a rug.”

“Or maybe a stupid hat.”

“No! Is that a bearskin hat?”

“Deer actually. It's part of my look-like-shit look.”

“Oh yeah, I said that. Sorry. You really could use a haircut and a shave though.”

“You also said I looked great.”

“Yeah, that too.”

“What did you mean?”

“Hmmm.” She looked him over, recklessly ignoring the road. “You've obviously trimmed down, and you don't look so soft anymore.”

“Soft?”

“Desk job. You had soft hands. Now you have calluses, strength, some color in your cheeks. And the way you carry yourself has evolved.”

“How's that?”

“I dunno. Alert. Upright. Not slouching around like a dog trying to avoid getting whacked with a newspaper. More like, if I were a bear, I'd think twice before eating you.”

 

CHAPTER 36

When they pulled up to Stu's house at eight p.m., he felt an overwhelming sensation that he didn't belong. Something had changed. About him. About the house. Nothing he could put his finger on. A new planter on the porch? A garden hose off its hook? Maybe his beard.

“You okay?” Audry asked.

“I haven't practiced what I'm going to say to Katherine.”

“You don't need practice, you dork. Just hug her and be you.”

“All right. I'm going in.”

“Will you wave once you're safely settled?”

“Like a grade-school kid?”

“Humor me. I'm a parent.”

“Okay, sure.”

“Don't get into a long make-out session and forget me.” She smiled.

“I won't forget you.”

Stu thanked her again and went around to the sliding glass back door. The lights were on upstairs. His keys had been a casualty when he'd abandoned half his gear at the small cabin, but he knew how to lift the sliding door off its track and move it aside.

The living room was dark, and he stumbled into the couch before he decided to switch on the light. He blinked. The furniture had been moved. In fact, it wasn't the same furniture.

“What the hell?”

He felt a presence and looked up. A small boy of perhaps five years stood on the stairs, staring at him. Stu didn't recognize him.

“Who are you?” the boy said.

“I'm Stuart,” Stu said stupidly. “I live here. Who are you?”

“I'm Johnny. I live here.”

Stu was stumped for a moment. Then the foreign furniture and the presence of the boy came together to make sense.

“Well, this is a funny situation, Johnny. Where is the woman who lived here before you?”

“She went to the beach.”

“The beach?” It took him a moment.
Ahh, the beach house from the e-mails
.

Just then a man appeared with a baseball bat—a nice one from the look of it. Stu could almost read the name of the Red Sox player who'd signed it. The man grabbed the boy and shoved him up the stairs.

“What's going on?” a female voice called down.

“Get back upstairs, hon! And call the cops! A transient has wandered into our house!”

The man was scared. Stu could see it. A rabbit. To him, Stu was a predator that had wandered into his hutch. But trapped animals were dangerous, especially when protecting their young. A badger that wasn't quite dead had torn the sleeve of Stu's coat to ribbons a month earlier. He'd had to duct-tape it back together, and was lucky he didn't have to do the same to his arm.

The man advanced, cocking the bat behind his head. He caught a ceramic lamp on the backswing, disintegrating it with a loud
crash
. It was clear the man had no idea who Stu was, and Stu didn't enlighten him. Given that Stu still did not know what the hell was going on, and he was now adding breaking and entering to his criminal r
é
sum
é
, the idea of revealing himself to a complete stranger seemed worse than ever.

“Sorry, wrong house,” Stu said. He walked calmly toward the door but didn't turn his back, and he remained ready to bolt. A man in his own house could pound an intruder to pulp with a bat and no jury would ever convict him, even if the intruder were fleeing.

Once outside, Stu ran to the Subaru and slid into the passenger seat. Audry stared at him expectantly.

“Go,” he said.

“What happened?”

“New owners. It's probably better if they don't get your license plate.”

“Oh. Jeez.” She started the car.

Stu buckled in. “They were, however, nice enough to tell me where Katherine is. Do you have Internet access on your phone?”

A quick search for
beach house
in Katherine's e-mail account revealed an address, and he punched it into the phone's GPS.

The drive was short, and soon they were pulling up to another home, only this one was on the South Dartmouth waterfront and had an expensive stamped-concrete driveway. Audry turned off the headlights, and they sat in the darkness of the moonless night.

“She couldn't afford this,” Stu said.

But the e-mails clearly said she'd bought the house, and they'd provided the address. Katherine had even gabbed at length about how she was furnishing the place. But it didn't feel right. Stu had never believed in karma, but if he had, he would have said this place felt more wrong than the stranger-occupied home he'd just been chased out of.

Which leaves me nowhere,
he realized. And he suddenly felt as homeless as he looked.

Audry waited while he just sat and stared.

“This is the place, right?” she said finally.

“The black Cadillac in the driveway isn't hers. She drives an old Corolla.”

“It has a garage. Or maybe she upgraded the car, too.”

“I'm just a little gun-shy after the baseball bat incident, okay?”

“Then peek in a window.”

“The windows all face the water.”

“Go around.”

“Trespassing.”

“God, don't be such a lawyer.” Audry threw off her seat belt and got out of the car.

She was around the corner and headed for the back of the house before Stu could get out of the car.

“Wait up.…”

He caught up to her as she was shinnying up the lattice to the deck.

“Are you crazy?” he whispered. “Someone will see you.”

Audry whispered back. “The lights are on inside. We can see in, but the glare will keep anyone from seeing out.”

Then she was on the deck. Stu rolled his eyes and climbed up after her. When he pulled himself onto his belly on the composite decking, she was frozen in a crouch in front of two all-glass French doors. A single overhead light inside illuminated the sparse bedroom, and Stu followed Audry's gaze like a fellow moth staring into a flame.

Katherine was nude. Spectacularly nude. She stood in the center of the room, her clothes puddled on the floor. Stu's heart leaped into his throat.

“Wow,” Audry whispered, “she's in great shape.”

Stu had the sudden urge to pound on the glass, to go to her, to take her in his arms and have her right then. Probably on the floor. But something stopped him—the same feeling of not-rightness he'd felt in the driveway.

In his moment of hesitation, the door to the bedroom opened and Clay walked in.

He was dressed. Well dressed. Tie and slacks with expensive leather shoes. He smiled, and Katherine returned his smile with a nod. She didn't hide her naked body.

Audry laid a hand on Stu's shoulder. “Oh God, Stu, I'm so sorry. I didn't know.”

Stu steeled himself for their embrace. But Clay didn't take Katherine in his arms or begin to undress himself. Instead he simply inspected her. She allowed it, turning to present her body from several angles. Then Clay was directing her. After the brief examination, he gave her a firm swat on the rump and pointed to the bed. Katherine didn't protest. Instead she walked to it, leaned over, and put her hands on the mattress. It was carnal, animal—arousing, even. Again, Stu felt the urge to get in there and claim her. But he had to process things first.

Audry tugged on Stu's sleeve. “Stu, let's go. You don't want to see this.”

Stu shook her off. “It's okay. She thinks I'm dead. She's lonely. I get it.”

I can deal with this,
Stu told himself. He'd spent six months eating rabbit and drinking boiled water.
I killed a freakin' bear.
He could handle this, he thought. He even felt the familiar old instinct to forgive.
Once I get things sorted out, it's all going to be okay.

Then another man walked into the room.
What the hell?

He was about sixty and wore a thin robe. No shoes. No socks. No pants. He looked at Clay, who nodded toward Katherine.

Stu recognized him at once. Joseph Roff. The police called him Big Fish, because he ran a crew in New Bedford and had a penchant for fishing. He'd never been prosecuted in Bristol County, but he routinely posted bail for several local frequent fliers—smugglers, small-scale loan sharks, Oxy peddlers, and the like—his crew, his “school of small fry.” Roff managed his interests through intermediaries and lived in Providence, which put him beyond the reach of the county. New Bedford cops didn't have the resources to launch an extended investigation into organized crime that would require a multijurisdictional sting. And Roff's little fish lurked below the level of offenses that the Feds cared about. So no federal prosecution either.