Love Remains (27 page)

She endured the small talk with Dennis’s acquaintances, glad to know that the writer was going to give the performance a glowing review in the weekend-wrap-up section he wrote.

Ten minutes later, she found Caylor in the lobby and told her the plan for supper. “I couldn’t believe it when I saw you sitting beside a
gorgeous
man once the house lights came up. I almost fell over when I was doing my bow. I’ve been dying to ask—who is he? Where did Flannery find him? And does she know any more like him?”

Zarah laughed, even as heat flooded her face. “Well…he and Flannery grew up together—same schools, same church—but she didn’t find him for me. I found him for myself—when I was seventeen.”

“When you were…oh.
Oh
.” Caylor’s perfect, full lips fell open wider than Zarah had ever seen. “You mean—
that
was Bobby Patterson? And you were
sitting next to him?
Oh my goodness. Please tell me he’s going to be at the restaurant.”

“He’s going to be at the restaurant.”

“Then what are we standing around here for?” Caylor grabbed her arm and dragged her down the hall to the room that served as the women’s dressing room. She yanked her wig off then grabbed a pot of cold cream and slathered it liberally all over her face.

Zarah found a metal folding chair and carried it over beside the table at which Caylor sat, wiping the cold cream and stage makeup off.

“Can you unzip me?”

Zarah complied. Within just a few minutes, Caylor was back in her street clothes and—with just a bit of powder, mascara, blush, and lip gloss—ready to go.

“Why don’t you ride over with me—parking’s always a mess at the mall on Saturdays.” Caylor hung her costume on the rolling rack, set the wig onto the foam head form, and grabbed her purse from one of the lockers along the back wall.

“Okay.”

“Great. Because I want to hear how you came to be sitting beside him today.”

Zarah told Caylor everything her friend didn’t already know about Bobby—from their talk Wednesday night to his visit to the museum yesterday, as well as his reaction to Senator Warren’s untimely
interruption. But even having to circle the parking lot at the mall a couple of times until someone finally pulled out of a parking space didn’t give Caylor any time to ask questions.

The restaurant was much more crowded than Zarah had expected for four o’clock on a Saturday afternoon. The hostess led them back to their grandparents’ table—a round table which had room for only five people.

“They had to separate us to two tables, Zarah,” Kiki said. “Robert is at another table just there.” She pointed to the bank of booths to her left.

Zarah turned around and Bobby waved from the end unit. Zarah looked back at her grandmother. Kiki’s expression seemed a bit too innocent to be believable.

She grabbed Caylor’s arm as Caylor moved toward the booth. “I’m sitting next to
you
not
him,”
she whispered.

“As if I’d embarrass you like that.” But from the guilty grin on Caylor’s face, the romance novelist had been planning to do just that.

Bobby stood as they approached the table—hoping Zarah would choose to slide into the seat he’d just vacated?

She slid into the empty seat across from him. “Bobby, this is Caylor Evans, one of my best friends.”

“Nice to
finally
meet you.”

“Likewise.” He shook hands with her, an amused frown crinkling his eyes. “How tall
are
you?”

Caylor laughed. “Without heels, I’m six feet tall. But”—she looked down at her feet—”I like my fancy shoes.”

Zarah hadn’t noticed until he mentioned it, but in her high-heeled sandals, Caylor was almost the same height as Bobby.

Caylor slid in next to Zarah, who used the menu to shield her once-again burning face at Caylor’s emphasis on
finally
getting to meet Bobby. As if Zarah talked about him all the time.

Caylor advised them on certain menu items, and they all agreed to
order something different and exchange tasting samples.

Once they’d ordered and the drinks had been served, Caylor folded her arms on the table and leaned forward. “So, Bobby, what did you think of the performance?”

Zarah cringed. Would he sugarcoat his reaction to it for Caylor’s sake?

“The performances were great, from what I could tell—but I have a limited experience with live theater. Your accent was spot-on.” Bobby added artificial sweetener to his iced tea.

“Ach, ye ken the Irish accent, do ye?”

He smiled. “I had a good friend out in California who was from Limerick. Your accent sounded a lot like his.”

Caylor beamed. “I spent a few months in Dublin when I was working on my master’s degree. My next-door neighbor was from Limerick.” She reached across Zarah for the salt and shook it over her small beverage napkin before placing her glass back down on it. Zarah did the same—to keep the napkin from sticking to the glass once it got damp from the glass’s condensation.

“So other than my accent, what did you think of the performance? Don’t beat around the bush, Agent Patterson. I’ve heard you can always be counted on for your candor.”

“Are you sure you want to know my candid opinion of the musical? I’ve already said I liked the performances.”

“But I have a feeling there’s more you aren’t saying.”

Bobby’s gaze flicked to Zarah. She shrugged. If Caylor was going to press for his real opinion, who was Zarah to keep him from giving it?

“Who was your favorite character?” Caylor prodded.

“Well…in the beginning I had high hopes for the girl—Marian?”

Caylor nodded. “My character’s daughter.”

“She seemed to be the only person in that town who had any sense whatsoever. But then when she fell for that man’s charms, I lost all respect for her.”

Zarah’s careful focus on Caylor’s face was bountifully rewarded by
Caylor’s unguarded, surprised reaction. “What?”

“So I’d have to say the anvil salesman—though he was a royal jerk—was my favorite character when all was said and done. Because even though his motivations were selfish, he wanted to see justice done.”

Caylor looked at Zarah. “He’s joking, right?”

Zarah grinned and shook her head. “Nope.”

Bobby pushed his tea back and leaned his elbows on the table, hands clasped. “What is it with women and con men, that they just can’t resist them?”

“Con men?” Caylor took a moment to process the appellation. “Ohh. I think I know what you’re getting at. It’s the same kind of fascination as with ‘bad boys’—I see it all the time with my students. Instead of going for the nice, steady, quiet, studious boy, they go for excitement, believing they can reform him. Then, one of two things happens: Either she gets her heart broken when he doesn’t change his ways, or he does change and becomes a quiet, steady guy, and she leaves him for the next bad boy to come along.”

“So which of those two scenarios happens to the characters in this story?” Bobby leaned back as the server brought their food. Caylor didn’t answer until after she’d said a quick blessing for them.

“That’s the best thing about romances. You can close the curtains at the kiss and leave the reader—the audience—with the fantasy of a happily-ever-after ending.” Caylor cut off a chunk of her Chicken Costoletta, dumped it onto an unused bread plate, and handed it to Bobby.

Zarah decided to try another tactic. “He went and faced his accusers, and they forgave him. So why shouldn’t he have a chance at a new life? Doesn’t everyone deserve that chance?”

The intensity in Bobby’s eyes when he looked at her sent goose bumps scurrying all over her again. “He only went before his accusers in
that
town. What about all the other people he scammed in all those other towns? The ones he bragged about? They’ll never get justice.”

Somehow, Zarah had the feeling Bobby was no longer talking about the musical but about something much more personal. And she inexplicably feared his quest for bringing someone to justice had something to do with her.

Chapter 20

B
obby stared at the forensic accountant. “What do you mean, ‘his financials are clean’?”

“I mean Dennis Forrester’s financials are clean. I’ve examined everything, every account, every real estate transaction. It’s all legal, all aboveboard. I’m telling you: There is no evidence of any illegal, illicit, or even questionable activity that I can find.” Jill dropped the thick file on Bobby’s desk. “I’ve included a list of several individuals and businesses Forrester has conducted real estate transactions with. Maybe that will be helpful.”

Bobby rubbed the back of his neck. “Thanks, Jill.”

She gave him a sympathetic grimace and left his office.

So Dennis Forrester was clean. While that might make his job and the investigation more difficult, it also meant it would likely be much easier to prove Zarah’s innocence if he could determine that no one at the commission was involved.

“Hey—I just saw Jill leave.” Gage entered the office and dropped into the spare chair. “Tell me she finished Forrester’s financials.”

“She did.” Bobby rested his hand on the folder.

Milligan came in, pushing a chair in front of him.

“Close the door, please.”

As soon as Milligan settled into his seat, Bobby filled them in on what Jill had told him. “So we need to move from box one to box two.” He turned his chair to face the whiteboard on the side wall of the room.

In the very middle of the board was a green box with Dennis Forrester’s and Zarah’s names written in it. A larger red box around the green one contained a few dozen names of known associates and business contacts—of Dennis Forrester’s. Not even Gage and Milligan had been able to find anyone Zarah was connected to who might be involved in the scam.

They went through each name one by one, having split them evenly among the three of them to start the background research. Milligan, who had the best handwriting, made notes on the board—and started a third box surrounding the first two, in which he wrote the names of people and businesses connected to those in box two, but not to Forrester or Zarah.

Bobby leaned—carefully—back in his chair and took in the scope of what was taking shape on the board.

“What’re you thinking, boss?” Gage looked up from the paperwork he’d strewn about him—on the floor, on Milligan’s chair, and on Bobby’s desk.

“I think we’re casting too wide a net. We need to look at anyone who is currently or has been previously employed by the commission. Interns, part-timers, too. Whoever is behind this has access to detailed information about how the commission works. They also have to be able to somehow work the system to keep stringing the commission and the judicial system along so that the injunctions stay in place long enough for the value of the land to drop.”

Milligan moved down to the right end of the board and drew a new, small box. In it he wrote
MTHPC
. He drew a second, larger box around it. “Who do they work with to halt construction on these land parcels? Where does their funding come from?”

“The courts, the city council, and the state senate,” Bobby answered automatically.

Milligan erased the single framing box and drew three separate boxes, connected to the first with lines, writing
Courts, City Council
, and
State Senate
in them. “Now we need the names of everyone they deal with in those three places.”

“I’ll take the state senate committee.” Now Bobby wouldn’t need to think up an excuse for running a full background check on Senator Warren.

“I’ll take the city council,” Gage volunteered.

“And I guess that leaves me with the courts.” Milligan wrote his name in the orange box.

“Since I’m out of town all next week, let’s reconvene on Friday afternoon and see where we are.” Bobby turned to put the folder containing Dennis Forrester’s financial information into the lateral file behind his desk.

As soon as his agents left, he turned to the computer and typed
Todd Warren
into the search system.

He hadn’t mentioned it Saturday, in talking about the musical with Zarah and Caylor, but the character of Harold Hill reminded him powerfully of Todd Warren—not just because the kid playing the flimflammer had looked something like the state senator. Or was it merely because the way that the fictional con man flirted with the pretty, naive piano teacher had been very much the same way Warren had flirted with Zarah?

The computer started spitting back tons of information—much of which Bobby had already found online in his brief search of the public Internet over the weekend. While it worked, he accessed the state government’s Web site and found and printed the list of the senators who served on the committee that oversaw Zarah’s agency.

On the left-hand end of the whiteboard, he wrote each of the nine names, four of them in each of two columns, and Todd Warren’s name in a separate third column with plenty of space for writing notes on all of Warren’s suspicious activities he was certain to find.

He reached for the ringing phone without looking at it. “Patterson.”