To Trust a Stranger (37 page)

“Oh no you don't.” He caught her hand, slamming on the brake at the same time. The Blazer screeched to a halt in the middle of the parking lot. Removing her” hand from the keys but keeping his hold on it, Mac turned on her. His expression was grim.

“Just so there's no mistake,” he said in a lethal drawl that left her in no doubt that he teetered on the brink of losing his temper, too, “I think you should know that I'm having a bad day here. I didn't get any sleep last night. I got Maced this morning. I got soaked with a hose. I'm starving. I may be suffering from an overdose of caffeine. This damned case is a riddle, and I've got a pounding headache from trying to solve it. I think I'm catching a cold, thanks to your air-conditioning. I've spent the entire day in a dress shop listening to a gaggle of women think up ways to fool us poor men about the size of every female body part under the sun. And I've had to put up with your piss-poor attitude throughout. Tonight I have a ton of work I have to do, and I also need food and sleep. None of these things can happen while I'm chasing around the countryside after you. Which means that you're coming with me. And I don't want to hear another word about it. Am I making myself clear here?”

“If I don't show up for supper, my mother will call the police,” Julie said, snatching her hand from his.

“Told her about Sid's take on till death do us part, did you?”

He took his foot off the brake. The Blazer was moving once more. “If by that you mean, did I tell her about your ridiculous idea that Sid's hired a hit man to kill me, no, I did not. I didn't want to worry her.”

They were on the street now, moving toward the expressway.

Glowering at Mac, Julie pulled on her seat belt. It would be stupid to die in an accident just to prove she could.

“Did you ever think that you might be endangering your family by being with them? Whoever our hit man is, he's obviously not all that careful about who he kills. If they're with you when he comes for you, he might get your mother or sister too-or instead.”

The thought was so appalling that Julie was left with nothing to say. “Give me your phone.” her voice was sulky.

He passed it to her. She shot him a look chock-full of loathing.

Then she punched in the number.

“Mama? It’s Julie. I’m not going to make it home for supper. I'll talk to you later. Love you. Bye.” She punched the disconnect button and puffed out her cheeks in a relieved sigh. “I got the answering machine, thank goodness.”

“Does your mother scare you that much?” Mac sounded amused. “She'll scare you too,” Julie said with relish. “She blames you for ruining my marriage, and nothing I say can convince her otherwise. She wants to meet you.”

“She sounds about as amenable to reason as you.”

Josephine chose that moment to climb into Julie's lap. Distracted, Julie scratched behind her ears, then stroked her coat as she settled down with obvious contentment. Thank God for Josephine. Josephine was better for the nerves than Valium.

“So, what do you want for dinner?” Mac asked with a half-smile after a moment.

Julie scowled at him. “My mother's tuna casserole.”

“Great. I feel like pizza, too. That way I can eat while I work.”

He picked up his cell phone and punched in some numbers. “McQuarry and Hinkle.” Julie had heard that voice before. She realized that it belonged to Rawanda, Mac's assistant.

“Order pizza. One with everything, and one with-” Mac glanced at Julie inquiringly.

“Vegetarian,” she said, only because she was really hungry and feared what she would be forced to eat if she didn't.

Pizza was way too fattening to be one of her diet staples. Pizza was also right up there with chocolate as one of her true loves.

“Veggies only,” he repeated into the phone, and hung up.

They were on the expressway now, heading toward Charleston.

Traffic was moderate. In the distance, a mountain of purple clouds rolling over the bay promised rain later. Rain was a good thing, because It would usually cool things off for a few hours. It was also a bad thing, because after the initial relief the humidity would only get worse.

Julie said nothing for the duration of the drive, and Mac, after a glance at her face, didn't say anything either.

When he finally parked, it was in an alley that ran through the middle of a block of small, not especially prosperous-looking office buildings.

“Now be nice,” he said. “These people are putting themselves at risk to help keep you safe.”

Julie glared at him. “I'm always nice. Unless I'm lied to. Or lied to and used. I have to admit, that tends to take away from my nice.”

Mac laughed, and got out of the car.

When he came around to her side, Julie, holding Josephine, got out too. She didn't seem to have much choice.

“Let her down for a minute,” he said, scrounging in the back and coming up with Josephine's leash, which he clipped to her collar. “It seemed like she had to go every five minutes last night, and I'd just as soon not have a repeat.

Julie obediently put Josephine on the ground. She held on to the leash and Mac held on to her with a hand wrapped around her wrist as if he was afraid she might take off running.

“Where are we going, anyway?”

“To my office. I've had people working on this since yesterday. I need to check in, see what they've found out.”

Mac steered her back to the street, around a corner, and across a parking lot toward the third in a row of four nondescript buildings.

“Why didn't you just park in the lot?” Her high-heeled slides weren't meant for lengthy hikes.

“I thought you might feel like getting some exercise.” He grinned at the look on her face. “Actually, I parked back there so that no one could tell we're inside from just driving by. Rest easy, though: By the time we're ready to leave, there will be a vehicle waiting for us right out front. Mother's dropping us off some new wheels. The Blazer's history for the duration.”

“How convenient to know a car thief”

“It is, isn't it?” Mac's office was on the second floor, behind a wooden door with a frosted-glass insert on which was painted in bold black script MCQUARRY AND HINKLE, PRIVATE INVESTIGATORS. The door opened as they reached it, and, glancing inside, Julie realized that its windows overlooked the parking lot and they must have been seen arriving. “Did you time that right or what? Pizza just got here.” Rawanda, looking plumply pretty in tight orange jeans and a purple T-shirt, greeted them at the door. “Whoa, boss, you lookin' rough. What you been
doin
' to him, honey?” “For one thing, she kept me up all night,” Mac replied as he ushered Julie inside, then grinned in response to Julie's outraged look. George Hinkle, neatly casual in a white polo shirt and dark slacks, looked up from where he was working at a computer on a desk near the door and nodded at her. “Hey, Mac. Mrs. Carlson.” There was a fair amount of reserve in his tone as he greeted her, and Julie remembered that he'd been upset about Mac's association with her. He didn't look any happier about it tonight. Which was fine with her. She wasn't sure how happy she was about it herself “Please call me Julie,” she said, then made a wry face. “I'm about to lose the Carlson, anyway. I'm getting a divorce.”

“We heard that,” Rawanda said, shaking her head, in commiseration. “Divorce is a bitch. I've done had two. Didn't make me a dime out of either one, either.”

“You didn't tell me you'd had two.” Hinkle frowned at Rawanda, who looked self-conscious. Clearly there was a relationship between them-of which Mac, who was moving toward the pizza boxes a step ahead of Josephine, seemed to disapprove, if his expression was anything to go by.

“Uh, I might just have forgotten to mention one.” Rawanda's gaze swung to Julie. “You want some pizza? No need to let the boss hog it all.”

“Um, just one slice,” Julie said, following Rawanda as the other woman headed toward where Mac was opening the pizza boxes. A heavenly smell reached Julie's nostrils, making her stomach growl. She realized that, between stress and the press of work, she hadn't eaten anything all day except a glass of orange juice at her mother's that morning and a pair of stray Hershey's Kisses found at the bottom of her work basket at the shop.

“Here.” Mac put a slice of vegetarian pizza on a napkin and passed it to her. A six-pack of Coke had obviously come with the pizza, and he handed her a can. It wasn't diet, which was what she usually drank, but it would do. The whole supremely unhealthy meal would do. Oh, yes, she thought, biting off the tip of her slice and savoring the wonderful flavor, it would definitely do.

“You get that Simmons thing done?” Mac, sitting on a corner of the desk and biting into his own well-laden slice, asked his partner. Hinkle was on his feet now, helping himself to pizza.

“Yeah.” He glanced at Julie, then back at Mac. “You want those pictures, they're on your desk.”

Sinking down on the couch to savor her treat, Julie interpreted the glance that Hinkle had thrown her way to mean that the pictures were the ones he had taken of Sid and Amber.

The thought didn't even hurt.

Mac nodded. “Thanks.” He took another bite. “So what have you got for me?”

Rawanda, her mouth full of pizza, shook her head and said, “Ooh, boy.”

Hinkle took a bite out of his own pizza slice, then slid a sideways glance at Julie before replying. “The Rand Corporation is the parent company for all kinds of business enterprises. Some of them seem legitimate, or at least they perform real services, like All-American Builders or Sweetwater's. Others appear to be dummy companies used to move assets and money around, kind of like a shell game. Bottom line is, Rand Corporation is definitely mob-affiliated, if not mob-controlled. Julie's father, Mike Williams, drew a steady paycheck from the Rand Corporation for eleven years, ending in January 1987. He was listed as a transportation specialist, which 1 interpreted as a truck driver. Most of the personnel records have some sort of notation about the reason employment with the company ended-retirement, resignation, termination. His paychecks simply stopped being issued. No reason given.”

“The same month Daniel and Kelly Carlson disappeared,” Mac said. “All right, what's the connection?”

“That I don't know,” Hinkle said. “At least, not yet.” Mac looked thoughtful. “Mike Williams stopped working for Rand Corporation in January 1987, but he was still alive. He was seen again after that date.”

“He didn't die until 1992,” Hinkle said, confirming Mac's words.

Mac's gaze moved to Julie. “Didn't you say that you saw your father off and on until you were fourteen, and then he dropped out of your life for a few years? When did you see him again?”

Julie took a swallow of Coke. Even after all these years, she didn't much like talking about the father who'd been pretty much a non presence in her life. “I was nineteen. It was right before I won Miss South Carolina.” Mac got an arrested expression on his face. “Didn't you say you met Sid right after you won that?” Julie nodded. “I need you to tell me everything you can remember about your father, all the way up to your last meeting with him. Can you do that?”

28

JULIE JUST LOOKED AT MAC for a moment without replying. Suddenly the slice of pizza she had just polished off felt heavy as lead in her stomach. She wished, vainly, that she hadn't eaten it.

“I think Mr. Hinkle-”

“George,” George interjected.

“George, then. I think George was right. I think my father was a truck driver. At least, there was a time when he was always saying he'd do this or that with us-Becky and me-when he got off the road. And he was on the road a lot.” She paused, her eyes meeting Mac's as she took a deep, and, she hoped, unobtrusive breath. “I really don't know that much about him. He and my mother divorced when I was two. He was her second husband. She had four others after him. Men are-they used to be-kind of disposable for her. He never came around much, although Mama would call him sometimes-” Telling this was hard, she discovered, harder even than she had expected: it was way too personal; if Mac had not held her gaze, giving her a lifeline to grab on to, she would never have gotten so much out. “-when she needed money. When he had it, he would give it to her. I got the impression he didn't have it a lot.”

“He dropped out of your life entirely when you were fourteen?” Julie nodded, and swallowed. Mac got up from the desk and came to crouch in front of her, taking her hands. Julie's fingers tightened around his almost convulsively.

“Can you tell me about the last time you saw him? I think it might be important.”

It was clear from his expression that he realized this was a difficult subject for her. His silent support strengthened her. She forgot that he had lied to her, had used her, and that there had been an ulterior motive to his friendship from the beginning. All she knew was that every time, when she had needed him, he'd been there for her-just as he was there for her now. She looked into his eyes, locked her gaze on his, and, reluctantly, cast her mind back ten years.

“Mama and Becky were both gone somewhere-I don't remember where now, but I do remember I was alone. It was just getting dark, and I was sitting in the living room of our trailer-we lived in a trailer, Mama and Becky and me- hemming a dress I meant to wear in the Miss South Carolina pageant and watching something on TV and there was a knock on the door. I got up to answer it, and there stood Daddy, just as big as Ike. I hadn't seen him in about five years, and we Just looked at each other for a minute, and then he said howdy, Becky and I kind of laughed and said Fm Julie and he said oh, of course and how you doing and that sort of thing. He came on in, but he seemed teal uncomfortable-well, I was uncomfortable, too, because I didn't know him very well, even if he was my father, and he didn't even know me well enough to tell me apart from Becky. Anyway, we visited for a little while-I can't really remember what we talked about, but nothing very much. Like I said, it was kind of awkward, and he seemed kind of on edge, like he was anxious to go.”