Smoke in Mirrors (30 page)

“Huh.” Thomas slowed a little to compensate for the heavy rain and the gathering darkness. “Okay, I can see her trying a little blackmail and getting killed for her trouble. But that still doesn’t explain Alex Rhodes’s connection to this thing. Or the rumors of drugs.”

Leonora fell silent.

They were on Cliff Drive now. Thomas slowed some
more to compensate for the poor visibility. Down below the bluffs the cold, deep waters of the Sound swirled in the darkness.

Lights glared suddenly in the rearview mirror. A car, coming up fast from behind. The lights disappeared when Thomas went into the next curve.

“You know, Rhodes has been in town for about a year,” Thomas said. “Who knows what information he might have picked up from one of his clients? Margaret Lewis and Andrew Grayson can’t be the only two people who had some suspicions about the Eubanks murder.”

“Are you thinking that Alex figured out that Kern murdered Eubanks?” She considered that. “If he did, he might be blackmailing Kern. Maybe he killed Bethany and Meredith when they got too close to the truth to protect his investment.”

“There’s a certain logic to that scenario.”

The lights hit the mirror again, this time with dazzling intensity. He adjusted the glass to deflect the undimmed glare. It didn’t do much good. The big vehicle was closing the distance.

He was getting that weird, hair-lifting-on-the-back-of-his-neck feeling again. He wondered if he was starting to get paranoid.

“What a mess,” Leonora said. “We’ll never be able to prove anything.”

“I don’t know about that.” He checked the mirror again. The car behind him was definitely closer. “Might be some possibilities. Blackmail payments are nothing more than simple financial transactions when you get right down to it. And money always leaves a trail.”

“But how would we find it?”

“Remember that laptop we saw on Rhodes’s desk the day we did our little B and E job at his place? Deke might be able to coax something useful out of that sucker.”

“You’re going to go back inside Alex’s house?” Alarm sharpened her voice. “Thomas, no. My instincts tell me that is not a good idea. Not now. This is getting much too dangerous. We need to talk to Ed Stovall—”

Lights struck the side mirror. Thomas stopped listening to Leonora.

The vehicle that had been closing the distance from behind was pulling out to pass.

“Shit,” Thomas said softly.

Leonora broke off abruptly and whipped around in her seat. “Oh, my God. No one but a drunk or a homicidal maniac would attempt to pass here, especially in this rain.”

“Personally,” Thomas said, “I’m going with homicidal maniac.”

She looked at him. “What?”

He did not respond. They were heading into the very short stretch of straight pavement that ran along the highest point of Cliff Drive.

If it was going to happen, it would happen here, he thought.

The lights in the rearview mirror were as bright as the noonday sun. He did not look at them, but out of the corner of his eye he could detect the bulk of the vehicle coming up on his left.

“Check your seat belt. Make sure it’s tight.”

He did not wait to see if Leonora obeyed. Time had run out. He hit the brakes, feeling for that magical place between a controlled stop and a disastrous skid that would send them over the side.

The dark vehicle on the left swerved violently toward the SUV’s fender, a metal shark swooping out of the night seeking a single, fatal bite.

The sudden deceleration of its prey caught it by surprise. The snapping jaws missed by a heartbeat. It
swerved. For an instant Thomas thought the vehicle might go through the guardrail. It fishtailed wildly. But at the last possible instant the driver managed to recover control.

Thomas caught a glimpse of a black SUV. He watched the taillights disappear around the next curve.

For a few time-warped seconds that felt like an eternity, neither he nor Leonora said a word. They both looked straight ahead to the point where the other car had vanished.

Eventually Leonora turned to him.

“Is this the place?” she whispered.

“Yes.” He accelerated deliberately. “This is the place where Bethany jumped.”

Two hours later
, Thomas sat in the front seat with Deke. They were parked in the trees behind the abandoned cottage, not far from Alex Rhodes’s place. It had stopped raining, but the clouds hung low, an invisible weight pressing down from the night sky.

They had cruised past Rhodes’s house a few minutes ago. There was no vehicle in the drive. The lights were off. It looked like Rhodes was out for the evening.

“Probably having a couple of drinks at the pub in town,” Deke said. “Maybe getting sloshed. That near miss must have freaked him out. From what you told me, it sounds like he almost went over the edge when you did the sudden slowdown thing. Maybe he’s thinking about how close he came to getting killed instead of killing you.”

“I hope the bastard is having some shaky moments,” Thomas said.

“You’re sure it was Rhodes? There are an awful lot of dark SUVs and four-by-fours in this town.”

“Can’t be absolutely positive, but you’ve got to admit that the list of potential suspects is pretty damn short.”

“Could have been Osmond Kern,” Deke said. “He owns a dark-blue SUV, I think. And if Andrew Grayson is right, he’s capable of murder.”

“Maybe. But my money’s on Rhodes.”

“That’s because you’re pissed at him for the way he came on to Leonora and maybe arranged for you to get beaten up last night.”

“Okay, so I’m a little biased.” He opened the door. “Ready? Let’s get this done and done fast, just like we promised Leonora and Cassie. We go in. You download whatever you can get off that laptop and we get out.”

“And if I can’t get through his personal security?”

“We take the whole damn laptop. Hell with it. Let him go whining to Ed Stovall about a stolen computer.”

“Right.” Deke got out on his side and zipped his jacket. “This should be interesting.”

They started into the trees, heading toward the dark house at the end of the lane.

Leonora sat in
the booth across from Cassie, a cup of very weak tea in front of her. The young man behind the bar had done his best, but there wasn’t much anyone could do with a poor-quality tea bag and water that hadn’t even been brought to the boiling point. Not that it mattered, she thought glumly. She couldn’t concentrate well enough to taste anything right now. All she could do was worry about Thomas and Deke.

The Wings of Fire Pub and Restaurant was crowded with a mix of students, faculty and townsfolk, seeking warmth and companionship on a damp, chilly night. Onstage a small group of musicians crafted mellow jazz.

Cassie picked up her bottle of designer water and poured the contents into a glass that was filled with ice. “I’m not sure how I feel about being packed off here to
wait while our men go charging into the wilderness to do manly stuff.”

“I know how you feel. But you’ve got to admit, Thomas had a point when he said that it would be ridiculous for all four of us to tromp through the woods to Rhodes’s house. Of all of us, he and Deke are the ones who have the best shot at accomplishing something useful tonight. Thomas knows about money stuff and Deke knows computers.”

“I’m not arguing the logic of the decision. I’m just not real happy about it, that’s all.” Cassie helped herself to a pretzel from the small dish that sat on the table. She chewed for a while and then swallowed and leaned forward. “Do you really think it was Rhodes who tried to run you and Thomas off that road tonight?”

Leonora shuddered. “Rhodes or Kern. It had to be one of them. My money’s on Rhodes. I think Kern is too far gone into the bottle to be able to drive that skillfully.”

Cassie’s face tightened with anxiety. “This is so very weird. I hope we’re not all experiencing some form of mass hallucination here.”

“Is there really such a thing as mass hallucination?”

“Sure. Happens all the time. Plenty of incidents of it recorded throughout history.”

“Terrific.” Leonora sipped tea. “Something else to worry about.”

Neither of them spoke for a while. The music seemed to grow louder. So did the crowd.

“One good thing is coming out of all this,” Cassie said with a determinedly upbeat air. “Deke is changing. He talked to me about his relationship with Bethany for the first time.”

Leonora patted her arm. “That’s good.”

“He’s been twisted up with guilt because three days before she died, he had asked her for a divorce.”

“I got it. So when the verdict of suicide came down, he really took it hard.”

“Yes. He didn’t believe it. More to the point, he couldn’t
allow
himself to believe it because that would have meant he might have been the one responsible for triggering the act.”

“Nasty stuff.”

Cassie nodded. “It’s been eating him up inside. But he’s moving past it now. Thanks to you.”

“I had nothing to do with it. And neither did you or Thomas. Deke is saving himself. When it comes to this kind of thing we can all hold out helping hands to each other, doctors can supply some very helpful medications, but in the end, each of us has to have the will to swim to shore on our own. No one can carry another person. Not for long, at any rate.”

Cassie made a face. “That’s a very Darwinian view of life, isn’t it?”

“As the evolutionary biology types are so fond of pointing out, all of us are descended from folks who did whatever they had to do in order to survive.” Leonora paused. “Funny that you would use that phrase, though.”

“Darwinian?”

“Yes. Andrew Grayson used it this afternoon to describe life in the academy.”

“Well, you’ve got to admit that
Darwinian
is certainly one word for academic politics.”

“True, but until I talked to Grayson this afternoon, I never took the law of publish or perish quite so literally.”

“We still don’t know for sure that Kern committed murder.” Cassie broke off abruptly when a shadow fell across the table.

Leonora followed her gaze.

“Leo,” Kyle said with a hearty enthusiasm that rang painfully false. “I’ve been looking for you. Where have
you been? I called your house several times, but you never answered the phone.”

“I’ve been busy all day, Kyle.”

“That so?” He grinned pointedly at Cassie. “Going to introduce me to your friend?”

“This is Kyle Delling,” Leonora said. “He’s in the English Department at Piercy. Kyle, this is Cassie Murray. She has a yoga studio here in Wing Cove.”

“A pleasure.” Taking the introduction for an invitation, Kyle slid into the booth. He slipped an arm around Leonora’s shoulders in a cozy, familiar manner. “Just to put you in the picture, Cassie, Leo and I are more than good friends. We used to be engaged.”

“I see.” Cassie looked at Leonora. “Has he met Thomas?”

“He met Thomas.” She smiled very sweetly at Kyle. “You remember Thomas, don’t you, Kyle? That man in my kitchen this morning? The one who looked like he’d been in a fight?” She glanced at her watch. “He should be here any minute.”

Kyle tensed and then promptly removed his arm from her shoulders. He shot to his feet and gave both women a brilliant smile.

“What’s everyone drinking?” he asked. “I’m buying this round.”

“Tea,” Leonora murmured. “Thank you.”

“Water.” Cassie held up the bottle so that he could read the label.

“Got it. Be right back.” Kyle plunged into the crowd.

Cassie looked at Leonora.

“Your ex-fiancé?”

“Yep.”

“I’ve got an ex-husband,” Cassie said thoughtfully. “In my experience, exes of any kind don’t tend to hang around unless they’re after something.”

“He’s after something,” Leonora said.

“You?”

“No. He’s seeking a more durable relationship than the one we had.”

“That would be?”

“Tenure.”

He was sweating
. Again.

It had been a near thing on Cliff Drive this evening. He was still jittery from the close call. He paced the front room, thinking about how he had almost lost control and plunged through the guardrail.

Had Walker gotten a good look at the SUV? Didn’t matter. It was black, just like a hundred other SUVs in town. Luckily, he had remembered to tape the license plate.

He’d parked the vehicle in the trees out back just in case. He didn’t want Walker to drive past tonight, see it in plain view and maybe start to wonder. Out of sight, out of mind. Maybe.

The jumpy feeling was really getting to him.

He glanced at the Rolex. His new client would be here at any minute. He tried to focus on that. She was spectacular. Blond. Great tits. Reminded him a little of Meredith.

No, don’t think about Meredith. Everything had started to go wrong after Meredith.

Think about the new client.

He crossed the room and pulled the black velvet away from the mirror. Had to set the stage.

This past-lives regression-therapy stuff worked like magic. Once a client was convinced that she had had an affair with a dashing highwayman or a medieval warrior in a previous life, it was only a short step to convincing her that the best way to get rid of stress in this life was to
relive the previous sexual experience. With a trained stress counselor, of course.

He needed the sex tonight. It would relax him. Get rid of some of the tension left over from the screwup on Cliff Drive. Tomorrow he would worry about finding another way to get rid of Thomas Walker. The SOB was proving hard to kill.

Maybe it was a sign. He’d had enough experience to know when it was time to bail out of an operation. Maybe he had pushed his luck far enough in Wing Cove. Murder wasn’t his forte, anyway. He had never tried it until now and it was obvious he didn’t have a talent for the business. He was a con man, not a killer.

That thought steadied him. It was time to get out. The scam and the drugs had been profitable, but nothing lasted forever.

The phone rang. He did not pick it up.

Whoever was on the other end hung up without leaving a message. Probably a cold call.