A Rare Chance (24 page)

“I started it. It's—” She shuddered, the wind catching the ends of her hair. “It's not going to be easy. She started it the day she and Joshua met. She does that with a new relationship, as if starting a new journal gives her a fresh start.”

“I'll come back with you. I'll stay with you while you read it.”

“Thank you. I probably shouldn't have come out here, but I knew you'd be here, and kept thinking something might happen.” She shrugged. “You know.”

He grinned, holding her by the elbow. “Yeah, I know. Those Scagliotti genes at work.”

She inhaled. “If Darrow had hurt him…it would have been my fault.”

“You can't think that way,” Cam said softly. “And your father's all right. He's probably got his housemates giving him acupuncture.”

She rallied, smiling. “Yeah, I called. One of them does do acupuncture, but he says he'll stick to food cures. They're down in the kitchen concocting God knows what. You know, I think he kind of likes it there. He's never needed much in the way of creature comforts.” She crossed her arms over her chest, as if hugging herself. “It's cold out here.”

Cam put an arm around her shoulder and drew her toward him, feeling the tension in her body. She wouldn't want to need him. He understood. Needing her was no picnic either. Yet the feeling was there, in him, in her.

“Come on,” he said, “we'll head back to my place. I'll make you dinner, and you can take a look at Lizzie's journal.”

“What about you?”

“If there's anything I need to know, you can tell me.”

She leaned into him, letting him take her weight for a few seconds. For now it was enough. “Thank you.”

 

Darrow figured not shooting Cam Yeager when he'd had the chance would go on his list of things he didn't do that he later regretted. It was getting to be a goddamned long list.

He cut open the used padded envelope that held Lizzie's diary, wondering if Gabriella had been into it. Anything, he decided, was possible with her. Their friendship baffled him. But so did his own friendship with Cam. Saint Cameron, the man on the white horse. Darrow exhaled, suddenly feeling tired.

The journal was one of those fancy blank books available in upscale bookstores, spiral-bound, with heavyweight, acid-free paper. The cover was of a huge sunflower. Opening it, Darrow saw that the first entry was dated a couple of weeks ago, when Lizzie had landed back in Boston with Tony Scagliotti and gone to dinner with the Readings. Her handwriting was graceful and feminine, easy to read.

But first Darrow reached into the big envelope and felt around.

There.

He brought out a smaller envelope, a white business-sized envelope that was unsealed, the ends folded back over a series of Polaroid photographs. There were half a dozen in all. Darrow laid them out on his bed in his room above Joshua Reading's garage. Joshua wanted to talk to him about Cam Yeager, but he'd have to wait.

The photographs were numbered on the back in black marker. Darrow lined them up in order, giving a low whistle in appreciation of Lizzie Fairfax's talents. The photographs together offered a panoramic view of the full array of weapons Joshua Reading had tucked away for his personal use. Grenades, a .50-caliber machine gun, M-60s, a rapid-fire submachine gun, even LAWS rockets and a light antitank weapon not readily available to ordinary citizens.

Each weapon was lethal, each was highly illegal.

Darrow pulled his lamp over, peering closely at the background in the photographs. But Lizzie had focused on identifying the weapons, not where they were stashed. He could make out some kind of wood paneling or perhaps a wall painted in a dark color, a framed picture or painting of some kind of birds hanging above a box of grenades. That was about it.

Even without the arsenal's location, the photographs were a coup. All Darrow had to do was shove them under Joshua's nose and name his price.

Or bring them downtown. Let the police figure out where Joshua Reading had his weapons stashed.

Forget it,
Darrow thought.
You're in way too deep for that kind of thinking.

He returned the photographs to the envelope and set them on his nightstand. He was truly tired. Popping an old man hadn't made him feel any better. Neither, when it came down to it, had pulling a gun on Cam Yeager. Pushing the image out of his mind, Darrow propped up a couple of pillows and lay down on his bed with Lizzie Fairfax's journal.

Outside, the waves were kicking up with the wind, slapping against the rocks in no rhythm that he could distinguish. He didn't know where Joshua Reading was, never mind that keeping track of him was probably a smart thing to do. Darrow hoped the sick son of a bitch stumbled into the ocean and drowned. Maybe he could help him along.
This way, Joshua, my man…. Whoops.

He maneuvered his lamp so the bulb shone on the first page of Lizzie's diary.

S
tretched out on Cam's leather couch, snuggled under a chenille throw, Gabriella read page after page of her photocopy of Lizzie Fairfax's meandering journal. At first she had difficulty concentrating. When they'd arrived back on lower Pinckney and she had checked in with Scag, irritating him, Cam had sat her down with a roast turkey sandwich and a tall glass of iced tea and told her he'd heard rumors that Joshua Reading had put together his own private arsenal of illegal weapons.

“What do you mean, illegal weapons?” Gabriella asked. “Unregistered revolvers, stuff like that?”

Cam shook his head. “Not according to rumor. We're talking more like grenades and fully automatic weapons.”

“Machine guns?”

“Possibly.”

“When did these rumors start?”

“They've been circulating for a while, apparently, but after the kidnap attempt they heated up.” His gaze rested on her, his sea-blue eyes softening a little. He was in his cop mode, alert, on edge. “This could all be pure nonsense.”

With a small nod, Gabriella acknowledged that she understood. She would not get ahead of herself. One step at a time. She would be logical, methodical, thorough. “I know I've only been at TJR Associates a year, but Joshua's never given any indication he knows anything about weapons or even cares about them. I would have guessed he doesn't even own a revolver.”

“What about Titus?”

“The same. They're just not your basic macho, gun-wielding types.”

Cam gave a grim smile. “I know what you're saying, but some of ‘your basic macho, gun-wielding types' are also some of the most responsible gun owners. It's dangerous to stereotype.”

“I'm just saying guns of any description are not a big topic of discussion at TJR Associates. I haven't heard
any
of these arsenal rumors about Joshua. Not even a whisper. But if they're true,” she added thoughtfully, “do you really think Pete Darrow could be blackmailing him?”

“What I think doesn't matter.”

So Cam asked her to stay alert for any mention of weapons in Lizzie's journal. As Joshua's fiancée, Lizzie might have heard something, seen something. Joshua might even have openly discussed a passion for weaponry. Or she could have discovered something that would point to the whole thing being a frame-up on Pete Darrow's part. Plant the rumors, plant some evidence, and make Joshua Reading pay rather than risk the notoriety and uncertainties of trying to clear his name.

Gabriella assured Cam she would keep her eyes open.

Each entry was handwritten, legible if not always neat, meticulously dated. Some entries were just two or three sentences. One was just one word:
Heaven!
Others went on for pages.

Gabriella couldn't help feeling like a voyeur, poring over her best friend's most secret thoughts, her most private activities. Many passages she skimmed. They were of no importance to anyone but Lizzie herself. But others she made herself read, knowing that Pete Darrow, with the original in his possession, would do the same.

I hate what I'm becoming. I have to get out.

Pete Darrow makes me nervous. I wonder if Joshua was too quick to hire him. I heard him tonight. I couldn't sleep and I was walking the halls, and I heard Darrow skulking about. Was he spying on Joshua and me? But why? I can't stand this!

Her heart pounding, Gabriella was tempted to call Cam over. But she decided to read further first.

I can't believe it. I won't! Why would Joshua have illegal weapons? It can't be true. Joshua doesn't care anything about guns. But I know what I saw. Maybe they're Pete Darrow's? Is he using Joshua?

This last entry was toward the end of the journal. Gabriella marked the page and continued. Cam had cleaned up the kitchen, taken a shower, and now sat in a chair opposite her, drinking a beer. She wondered if he could sense her tension and despair, her deep concern, even fear, for her friend. Every page only further confirmed just how desperate Lizzie had become. Gabriella held her own reactions in check. If only she'd known. If only she'd pushed Lizzie harder to confide in her about the true nature of her relationship with Joshua Reading.

The final entry mentioned nothing of her decision to cancel her engagement and offered no hint of where she'd gone.

When she had finished, Gabriella dropped the copied pages onto the floor beside her and stared up at the ceiling, tears streaming down her temples and into her hair. Oh, Lizzie, she thought. Sweet, ever-hopeful Lizzie.

“Are you all right?” Cam asked softly. He'd put some blues music on in the background, never once disturbing her while she'd read her friend's diary.

Gabriella nodded, willing herself up into a sitting position. She brushed away her tears. They were an indulgence, she decided. Crying wasn't going to help Lizzie Fairfax. “I marked several passages you need to read. It seems Joshua's into weaponry. Pete Darrow must be blackmailing him.”

“I'll look at the passages. Is there anything you want to talk about?”

All of it, Gabriella thought. The whole damned sick mess. She inhaled, keeping a fresh wave of tears at bay. “I suppose you've seen a lot during your years in the police department.”

“It comes with the job,” he said. She could feel his eyes on her, could feel his empathy for her despair over her friend. “Look, let me get you a beer. Relax a bit. Then—”

“No. It's okay. I…” She paused, pulling the scattered bits and pieces of her thoughts together. “If what Lizzie has written here is true—if it's not something she made up to titillate or shock—then she and Joshua have a bizarre, sick relationship based on cruelty and obsession.”

“Do you believe it to be true?”

“Yes,” she said without hesitation. “Yes, I do. Lizzie has a history of getting involved in obsessive relationships. She finds it thrilling to be the center of a man's attention—to make him the center of
her
attention. She knows it's not healthy, and we used to talk about it.”

When her voice trailed off, Cam said, “Before you abandoned Scag—where was it?”

“Peru.”

“Right. Lizzie sprung you both from jail. She continued to hang in there with him even after you left.”

“From Miami,” Gabriella said. “Always from Miami. She never dipped a toe into the action, so to speak. She looks to Scag as a sort of father figure—her own father was remote, disengaged. Scag has his points, but he's no Ward Cleaver himself.”

The muscles of her neck and shoulders had stiffened, resisting all attempts to loosen them with neck and shoulder rolls. Finally she gave up. She'd just be stiff.

“Lizzie so desperately wants to love and be loved,” she went on. “For a long time she didn't even realize her behavior was self-destructive. She thought that's what a relationship was
supposed
to be like. Sometimes she couldn't even eat. Well, I'm not going to analyze her. I'm her friend, not a psychiatrist, and it wouldn't be fair. She's a wonderful person, Cam. Fun and compassionate and creative—”

“You don't have to convince me, Gabriella.”

“She deserves happiness. She's had so many really lousy relationships.”

“Was she happy with Joshua?” Cam asked quietly, none of his cop-intensity coming through. But Gabriella knew he had to be impatient. He would want to get to guns, blackmail, the depths to which his own friend had sunk.

She considered his question, then nodded. “Initially, I think she really was happy. She saw Joshua as she wanted to see him. Lizzie has an amazing ability to see the world through rose-colored glasses. It can be a real asset at times. She's
never
cynical. Anyway, she wanted Joshua to be her knight in shining armor. And so he was.”

“For a while,” Cam added.

“I get the feeling from what she writes in her journal that her impression of him wasn't just her doing—the result of her romantic fantasies clouding her judgment. Joshua played a role too. He played her knight.”

The blues CD came to the end. Another CD started. Dave Brubeck. Gabriella listened for a moment, trying to dispel some of the more lurid images of Joshua and Lizzie swirling through her mind.

“Lizzie describes some of their sexual encounters in her journal,” Gabriella went on, avoiding Cam's eyes, feeling as if she were betraying her friend. Snitching. Talking out of turn. And yet she trusted Cam, needed his unique perspective, his professionalism. “She doesn't call what she and Joshua did together ‘lovemaking,' and neither would I. He was into hurting her, and she let him. She trusted him at first, rationalized their encounters as the mere acting out of sexual fantasies. She thought it was all sort of thrilling, arousing, naughty—a way of breaking the rules. She convinced herself Joshua would never cause her real pain.”

“But things escalated,” Cam said.

Gabriella sighed, fatigue descending over her like a damp, irrepressible fog. “It got to the point where he did hurt her and she wanted to be hurt. She hated herself for what she was doing, letting him do,
wanting
him to do. And she was terrified—sickened—at the thought of anyone else finding out.”

“You?”

She sank against the couch, willing herself not to cry. Her eyes burned. She thought of Lizzie and hoped she really was in Paris. But she doubted she was. “She was afraid of hurting and disappointing me. Joshua's one of my bosses. After what had happened between her and Scag, she wanted things to work out with him.”

“So when things started falling apart, she couldn't bring herself to tell you. She didn't want her souring relationship with Joshua to backfire onto you.”

“I wish she'd told me,” Gabriella said, looking away from Cam, listening to the jazz, trying to overcome her own sense of despair. Feeling sorry for herself—or Lizzie—wouldn't do anyone any good. “I wish she could have believed I wouldn't have judged her. But I can't say I wouldn't have. She needed a friend.”

“And she had one.” Cam leaned forward on his chair, some of his natural intensity returning to his eyes. “When she decided to take off, she called you. Maybe she didn't tell you anything not just because she was embarrassed but because she wanted to protect you. She knows you need your job, especially with Scag back, and that her disastrous relationship with Joshua would only hurt you. Maybe she was trying to be
your
friend.”

She shrugged. “You could be right. I'm just so worried about her. She has this notorious dramatic streak, but I don't think that's what this is about. I think Lizzie's way, way over her head.”

“Any guesses on why she left the diary with you?”

“It's her ticket out of her relationship with Joshua,” Gabriella speculated. “He doesn't want to let her go. He likes the idea of a Lizzie Fairfax on his arm. Maybe he even thinks he loves her. And she's afraid of him—afraid of herself with him. She knows she's under his spell. So she leaves the diary with me as a kind of collateral: If he doesn't let her go, she'll take it public, or take it to Titus. She'd be humiliated too, but she doesn't have as much to lose as Joshua does.”

“But it's a last resort. She's hoping she won't need to go public.” Cam thought a moment, settling back into his battered leather chair. “Think she threatened Joshua with it?”

Gabriella shook her head. “Not Lizzie. That's not her style. If he knows about Lizzie's journal, she didn't tell him. Not voluntarily, anyway. He would have had to find it and confront her with it. He wouldn't sit tight and let her call the shots. I just can't see it. Not after what I read. If Joshua knows about Lizzie's journal, he'd do anything to get hold of the thing and burn it.”

“Now Darrow's got it,” Cam said.

“Do you think he'll turn it over to Joshua?”

“You've read it. What do you think?”

“If Darrow's blackmailing Joshua, there's plenty in Lizzie's diary he can use. But I don't know that they won't both work together to find her. Lizzie suspects enough, she could hurt Darrow too, if in fact he's guilty of anything.”

“Or wants to be,” Cam said, getting to his feet. “I suggest we find Lizzie before either Joshua or Pete does.”

Gabriella rose too, feeling unsteady, shaky. It was dark outside, the wind howling, a sudden, heavy spring rain beating against the windows. Down in Cam's basement apartment, she could hear raindrops splattering on the road and sidewalk. She felt comfortable there, unwilling to leave.

“Tell me about Pete Darrow,” Gabriella said, going behind the breakfast bar into the small, tidy kitchen.

Cam slid onto one of the bar stools. He seemed to understand what she was asking. “Pete Darrow. Hell, we were partners. He's intuitive and naturally skeptical, two qualities that give him a knack for ferreting out people's dirty little secrets. It was often a help on a case. You may not have experienced this yourself, but people want to trust Pete. Here's this good-looking cop who'd risk his life to save someone in danger, has in fact done just that on a number of occasions. He's courageous and fair-minded. He's never liked seeing innocent people hurt.”