Hot Secret (18 page)

“On my way.”

Duke’s gaze had narrowed at Molly’s end of the conversation. “Not some teenybopper? You wouldn’t do that to me.”

“Actually this fan admires your mind. She’s tackling the rain forest this month.”

Duke sank back in his chair and replaced his sunglasses. “Call me when she gets here. I’m gonna meditate.”

The hum of the air-conditioner had almost lulled Molly to sleep in the couple of minutes it took Liza to arrive. She and Duke compared notes on the environment, mutual friends, and the ozone layer while Molly stared longingly at Liza’s car.

“Why doesn’t your friend just hang out here with me?” Duke finally suggested. “If she doesn’t mind lending you her car, that is. I’ll give her a lift home later.”

Liza tossed the keys to Molly in mid-sentence. “I guess that’s a ‘Yes,’” Molly concluded. “I don’t suppose either of you has a theory about how I should get my own car back to Key Biscayne later?”

“Have the hunk drive it,” Liza said.

“The hunk?” Duke repeated with evident fascination.

“Never mind,” Molly said hurriedly. “I’ll work it out.”

If the look on Michael’s face when he and Jenkins tore away an hour before was any indication, she doubted she could count on
the hunk
for much of anything at the moment.

CHAPTER
FIFTEEN

Before heading back to Miami Beach, Molly decided to make a quick run home to check on Brian. Although Kevin’s mom looked after both boys during the summer, she worried about his becoming in essence a latchkey kid. Fortunately, Brian had become a favorite of Nestor, the condo’s head of security. He was a former Nicaraguan Freedom Fighter, and she knew no harm would come to her son as long as Nestor was on duty.

She pulled up in the circular drive in front of the building and parked the car. Nestor greeted her with a worried look and a barrage of Spanish. The only word she understood clearly was
esposo
.

“Whose husband?” she demanded of the obviously distressed guard. “Not mine? Here?”

“Sí, sí,”
Nestor said. “Senor DeWitt.
Aquí.”

“Oh, dear Lord,” Molly said and took off at a run. What was Hal up to now?

Upstairs she found her son planted on the sofa. A stubborn, sullen expression on his face exactly matched that on his father’s. Hal was pacing, his long angry strides taking him from living room to dining room, from the front door to the balcony’s sliding glass doors.

“Brian, go to your room, please,” Molly said, every muscle in her body tied in knots.

He didn’t waste a second complying, which told her just how tense things had been before her arrival.

“What are you doing here, Hal?” she said quietly, determined to fight the urge to scream at him at the top of her lungs.

He glared at her belligerently. “I came to see my son.”

“Why were the two of you arguing if it was as simple as that?”

“He wanted me to leave with him,” Brian said from the hallway. Obviously he’d never made it all the way to his room.

“Okay, Brian, leave us alone now, will you?”

He looked undecided.

“It’s okay,” she told him. “I promise.”

As soon as she was certain he had finally gone, she whirled on Hal. “Don’t you ever,
ever do
something like this again. If I have to I’ll go to court, have our custody agreement invalidated, and get a restraining order against you.”

“You weren’t here. What the hell difference does it make to you if I spend a few extra hours with my son?”

Molly took a deep breath and tried to calm
down. “If I thought for one minute that was all you’d intended, I would be delighted. Brian would be thrilled.”

“What makes you think it was anything more?” he said sullenly.

“The fact that you came roaring in here on Sunday threatening to take him away. The fact that you usually cancel half the days you’re supposed to spend with him. The fact that you haven’t called him once except on Friday nights to let him know when you’ll pick him up. Should I go on?”

Hal remained stonily silent.

“You don’t want a son,” she said in a low voice. “You want a weapon to hold over my head, and I can assure you, Hal, that I will never, ever allow you to use Brian that way. He’s a great kid and he still loves you. Don’t do anything to cost yourself that love.”

Hal sighed and sank down on the sofa. He ran his hand through his thinning hair. “All this stuff you get yourself mixed up in, it makes me crazy. What’s happened to you?”

Molly regarded him sadly. “I’ve grown up.”

“You consider it grown-up to get yourself involved in two murder investigations within six months?”

“Dammit, Hal, I don’t go out searching for dead bodies. But when something like these murders happens, I’m going to do whatever I can to see that the killer is caught.”

“That’s why we have police, or hadn’t you heard? Maybe that’s the real truth. You’ve got the
hots for that Cuban cop who was hanging around here on Sunday.”

“Whether I do or don’t is none of your concern. Now, if you don’t mind, I need to spend a few minutes with Brian before I go back to work. You can let yourself out.”

With that she left him where he was sitting and went to Brian’s room. She found him staring at a video game on the TV screen. Some kind of ooze was swallowing up the good guys and her son was doing nothing to stop it. She sat down beside him.

“You okay?”

“I guess.” He looked at her solemnly. “He wanted me to go home with him. I told him I couldn’t, not without asking you.” Tears welled up in his eyes. “I don’t have to go, do I?”

“Of course you don’t have to go. Not today. But your father does love you. Sometimes he just doesn’t see how to let you know that. Can you try to remember that and give him a chance?”

“I love him, too, but not when he acts all crazy the way he did today.”

“He did that because he was worried about you and mad at me.”

“Why?”

“He thinks because Greg Kinsey was killed that you might be in danger too.”

“That’s dumb.”

“I know that and you know that, but your dad worries. Remember how you used to be scared of the dark until he showed you that there was nothing hiding in the closets or under the bed? We need to
show him that the things he’s scared about aren’t there either. Okay? Can you help me do that?”

He swiped his tears away with the back of his hand. “Has he gone?”

“I think so.”

“Can I go to Kevin’s now?”

She ruffled his hair, which was about as much affection as he would allow these days without squirming. “You bet,” she told him. “I’ll try to get home early. We’ll order a pizza.”

“Neato,” he said, his grin back in place. “See you, Mom.”

“Yeah, see you.”
I love you
, she said to herself.

•   •   •

A half hour later Molly stood outside Jenkins’s office and tried to work up the courage to knock on the door. Not only did Michael look busy, he looked angry. Either the papers in front of him didn’t contain the information he’d hoped for or it was worse than he’d expected. She figured it was a toss-up as to which it was. The only way to find out was to go inside.

She opened the door and stepped into the cramped room. “Should I go or stay?” she asked when he finally looked up.

“Stay,” he said grimly. He waved in the general direction of a chair buried under layers of files.

“Wasn’t the report what you’d hoped it would be?”

“It’s interesting,” he said, tossing it over. “Take a look.”

Surprised, Molly took the faxes and began to
read through them. They were the investigator’s reports on Jeffrey Meyerson. While they didn’t offer anything concrete to prove that he hadn’t sneaked into town, shot Kinsey, and then feigned a much later arrival, they also shot the hell out of the theory that he’d latched on to Veronica for her money.

Jeffrey Meyerson owned enough property in Beverly Hills, Santa Monica, and Malibu to support a hundred households in lavish style. He’d inherited some, parlayed his investments into a level of wealth that few men even imagined, and shared his bounty with half the charities in Los Angeles. He had an apartment in Rome, another in Paris, one in London, and an entire floor in a co-op facing Central Park in New York.

According to half a dozen bankers, real estate experts, and civic leaders, the only tarnish on Meyerson’s glittering record was a brief bout with an addiction to pain-killers prescribed following a particularly nasty bumpy landing of his private plane. He’d considered that a warning and had sold the jet thereafter and booked himself into first class on commercial flights. His most recent had been on Saturday night into Miami.

He had never dabbled in Hollywood’s riskiest business, films, until this past year when he’d taken a gamble on a small studio that reportedly insisted on a high level of artistic integrity.

Molly glanced up. “Let me guess. That studio was financing this picture for GK Productions.”

“Bingo.”

“Is that how Veronica got the part?”

“Les says everyone at the studio is very tight-lipped about which came first, the financing or Greg’s casting of Veronica.”

“It would devastate her to discover that he only hired her to please Jeffrey.”

“And we don’t know that’s what happened. Care to make a few calls to your contacts and see what the scuttlebutt is?” he asked.

“Vince won’t like it.”

“Blame it on me. Besides, he’ll like it even less if we don’t solve this case in the next day or two.”

Molly tried to determine who might know more about how the financing for
Endless Tomorrows
was arranged. Laura Crain would doubtlessly know. So would Daniel Ortiz. Unfortunately, they were both on hand and still considered suspects. She doubted they’d want to chat about Meyerson’s role in GK Productions.

Unofficially, though, one person in L.A. might talk. Greg’s agent, the man who’d put the deal together. Alan Nivens had the hottest agency in town at the moment. He liked to boast of the deals he made, and Greg had been one of his most shining success stories. Molly had met him once on a trip to the Coast and knew he had been influential in convincing Greg to film in Miami.

She flipped open the thick address book she kept in her purse and dialed his number. His secretary put her right through.

“Alan, I’m so sorry about what happened to Greg,” she said.

“I know you are, babe. I’m devastated. Everyone
out here’s in mourning. Do the cops know any more?”

“They’re working on it. You could help them out, though.”

“Anything, babe. Name it. I won’t rest until I know Greg’s killer is in jail.”

“What do you know about a man named Jeffrey Meyerson?”

“Social bigwig, charities, real estate,” he said without an instant’s hesitation. Then more cautiously, he asked, “How’d his name crop up?”

“I hear he bankrolled this picture.”

Now Alan did pause. “Where’d you hear it?”

“It doesn’t matter. Is it true?”

“He put some money in it, yes.”

“Before or after Greg cast Veronica Weston?”

Alan chuckled. “I knew I liked you, babe. You are one very smart cookie.”

“Come on, Alan. Quit the flattery and tell me.”

“Meyerson and Weston are an item. Everyone out here knows that.”

“Is that why Greg cast her?” she repeated.

She heard Alan’s fingers drumming on his desk.

“Absolutely not,” he said finally, a little too emphatically. “He liked her work, or at least that’s what he told me. I couldn’t shake him on it. Meyerson got into the act later. Much later, as a matter of fact. Greg didn’t want to go to him at all, but Veronica insisted when she realized the picture might not get made.”

“Thanks,” she said. “I’ll keep you posted on the investigation.”

“They gonna release Greg’s body soon? We want to schedule a memorial.”

“I’m sure his family will be contacted as soon as the police say it’s okay.”

“He has no family. They should call me. The kid was like a son to me. I’ll take care of the arrangements.”

Since Alan Nivens wasn’t much more than ten years older than Greg, Molly doubted the sentiment, but she didn’t call him on it. “I’ll see that the police are told,” she said.

“Told what?” Michael wanted to know as soon as she’d hung up.

“That Alan wants to be notified when Greg’s body can be released. He wants to schedule a memorial service.”

“Should be in a day or two. What else did he have to say? I gathered from what you said he knew about Meyerson’s involvement with the film.”

“He swears the appeal to Meyerson was a last-ditch attempt to salvage the film. Veronica insisted on asking him, reportedly against Greg’s wishes. No one else wanted to play, probably because of Veronica’s reputation for drinking, although Alan didn’t come out and say that.”

“So Jeffrey didn’t demand the casting as part of his agreement to finance?”

“Alan swears hiring Veronica was Greg’s decision and that it came prior to the contact with Meyerson. He doesn’t know why Greg insisted on it so stubbornly.”

While they both tried to figure out the implications
of the report and what Molly had learned earlier from Duke, the phone rang. As Michael listened to the caller, only a slight widening of his eyes gave any indication that he found what was being said to be fascinating.

“Well?” Molly demanded the minute he’d hung up.

“Just wait.”

“For what?”

Before he could respond, the fax began spewing out pages. Michael picked them up and started to read. His blank expression didn’t give away anything. It was driving Molly nuts.

“Are you going to share or am I going to have to rip those pages away from you?”

Michael stared at the report for another full minute before tossing it over to Molly. “See what you make of this.”

“What?”

“Just read it.”

The investigator had faxed a report from a private hospital about a hundred miles north of Los Angeles. It was dated slightly more than thirty-one years earlier. The name on the top meant nothing to her.

“Who on earth is Francine Weatherly?”