Judith McNaught (65 page)
Authors: Perfect
"They've been around you every night since we parted. Good night, sweetheart."
"Good night."
He hung up and at the last minute, Julie remembered his instructions about carrying on an animated conversation. Rather than fake one, which she didn't think would be as convincing, she called Katherine and managed to talk to her for thirty minutes about anything and everything. She hung up and tore off the
sheet of paper with Zack's instructions written on it, then she remembered seeing a mystery on television where the case was solved by the imprint of the handwriting on a tablet, so she took the tablet, too.
"Good night, Henry," she called cheerfully.
"Good night, Miss Julie," he said, shuffling off down the hall.
Julie left by the side door. Henry left by the same door three hours later, after he made a collect call to a
phone number in Dallas.
Julie tossed an overnight case in the back of her car, glanced at her watch to make certain she still had more than enough time to make her noon flight, and went back into the house. As she was loading her breakfast dishes into the dishwasher, the phone on the wall rang and she picked it up. "Hi, beautiful,"
Paul
Richardson's voice was warm and crisp, an odd combination, Julie thought. "I know it's short notice, but
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I'd love to see you this weekend. I could fly in from Dallas and take you to dinner tomorrow night for Valentine's Day. Better yet, why don't I fly you here, and I'll cook?"
Julie had already decided that if she were actually being watched, an "innocent" trip like the one this weekend might actually fool her spies into letting down their guard. "I can't, Paul, I'm leaving for the airport in a half hour."
"Where are you going?"
"Is that an official question?" Julie asked, cradling the phone between her shoulder and chin and rinsing out a glass.
"If it was official, wouldn't I be asking it in person?"
Her instinctive liking and trust of him warred with the wariness Zack made her feel, but until she actually
got into her car to leave Keaton for the last time, it seemed wisest and easiest to stick completely to the truth. "I don't know whether you would or not," she admitted.
"Julie, what can I do to make you trust me?"
"Quit your job?"
"There has to be an easier way."
"I still have some things to do before I leave. Let's talk about this when I get back."
"From where and when?"
"I'm going to visit a friend's grandmother in a little town in Pennsylvania—Ridgemont, to be exact. I'll be
home late tomorrow."
He sighed. "Okay, then. I'll call you next week and we'll make a date?"
"Mmm. Fine," she said absently, pouring detergent into the dishwasher and shutting the door.
Paul Richardson hung up the phone in his office, placed a second call, and waited for the answer, drumming his fingers on his desk. He snatched the phone on the first ring, and a woman's voice said,
"Mr.
Richardson, Julie Mathison has reservations on a flight out of Dallas connecting through Philadelphia to
Ridgemont, Pennsylvania, on a commuter flight.
Will you need any further information?"
"No," he said with a relieved sigh. He got up, walked over to the windows, and frowned at the scanty
weekend traffic moving down the Dallas boulevard.
"Well?" Dave Ingram said, coming in from the adjoining office. "What did she tell you about the suitcase she put in her car?"
"The truth, damn it! She told me the truth, because she has nothing to hide."
"Bullshit. You're conveniently forgetting that phone call from South America she waited for at school the other night."
Paul swung around. "South America? Have you gotten a trace then?"
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"Yep, five minutes ago. The call she got came through a hotel switchboard in San Lucia Del Mar."
"Benedict!" Paul said, his jaw tightening. "What name did he register under?"
"José Feliciano," Ingram said. "That arrogant son of a bitch actually registered as José Feliciano!"
Paul stared in disbelief. "He's using a passport with that name?"
"The clerk at the desk didn't ask for a passport. She thought he was a native. Why not, he's dark, he had a Spanish name, and he speaks Spanish—
helpful when one lives in California, no doubt. He has a
beard now, by the way."
"I take it he's already checked out?"
"Naturally. He paid in advance for one night and was gone the next morning. The bed in his room wasn't used."
"He may go there again to use the phone. Put the hotel under surveillance."
"That's taken care of."
Paul walked back behind his desk and sank into his chair.
"She talked to him for ten minutes," Ingram added.
"That's long enough to make plans."
"That's also long enough to talk to someone she feels sorry for and to reassure herself that he's all right.
She has a soft heart and she believes the bastard is a victim of cruel circumstances. Don't forget that. If she wanted to join him, she'd have left Colorado with him."
"Maybe he wouldn't agree to take her along."
"Right," Paul said sarcastically. "But now, after weeks without seeing her, he's suddenly so crazy about
her, he's going to come out from under cover and come after her."
"Shit," Ingram bit out, "you'd do it. Your ass is already on the line with the man upstairs over your continued defense of that woman, and you still fight for her. She lied through her teeth about what went on in Colorado. We should have read her rights and hauled her in…"
Paul forcibly reminded himself that Ingram was his friend and that most of the other man's anger stemmed from worry for Paul. "There's a little matter of reasonable grounds for suspicion," he reminded
Dave tightly. "We didn't have that, let alone any proof."
"We do as of five minutes ago when we got the report on that phone call!"
"If you're right about everything, she'll lead us straight to Benedict. If you're wrong, we haven't lost anything."
"I ordered her put under constant surveillance before I came in here, Paul."
Clamping his jaws together, Paul bit back a senseless and wrongful protest at Dave's action, but he said through his teeth, "May I remind you that
I'm
in charge of this case until I'm taken off it. Before you do
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another damned thing, you clear it with me. Got it?"
he snapped.
"Got it!" Dave shot back, just as angrily. "Did you find out anything else about the car that was parked out in front of her house last week?"
Shoving a report across the desk at him, Paul said,
"It was rented in Dallas from Hertz by Joseph A.
O'Hara. Chicago address. No record. He's clean as a whistle. Employed as a chauffeur/bodyguard by the Collier Trust."
"Is that a bank?"
"There's a Collier Bank and Trust in Houston with branches scattered around the country."
"When you called her just now, did you happen to ask Little Miss Muffet about her visitors from Chicago?"
"And alert her that she's being watched, so you can accuse me of favoritism again?"
Ingram breathed a heavy sigh and tossed the report on O'Hara back onto Paul's desk. "Look, I'm sorry, Paul. I just don't want to see you destroy your career over some broad with big blue eyes and great legs."
Relaxing back in his chair, Paul eyed him with a grim smile. "You're going to have to beg her forgiveness
on your knees someday, or we won't let you be godfather to our first baby."
With a harsh sigh, Ingram said, "I hope the day comes when I have to do that, Paul. Honest to God, I do."
"Good. Then keep your damned eyes off her legs."
* * *
"Katherine tells me you're leaving for Pennsylvania to play goodwill ambassador or some damned thing for Zack Benedict. What's the idea, Julie?" he demanded, walking past her into the house with a guilty-looking Katherine trailing behind him.
Julie shoved her coat aside and looked at her watch.
"I have less than five minutes to explain it, although I thought I already explained it to Katherine last night." Ordinarily Julie would have taken serious exception to their interference in her life, but the knowledge that she'd be leaving them both forever in a
few days banished whatever resentment she felt.
Without rancor, she said, "Although I love seeing the two of you together again, I wish you'd find some common cause for it other than ganging up on me."
"It's my fault," Katherine said quickly. "I saw Ted in town this morning, and he asked about you. You didn't tell me your trip was a secret…" she trailed off.
"It's not a secret."
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"Then explain to me why you're going," Ted insisted, his face taut with worry and frustration.
Closing the door, Julie absently shoved her heavy hair off her forehead, trying to think what to tell them.
She couldn't explain that she was superstitiously troubled by Zack's remark about their marriage being
cursed from the beginning because of the heartache it would cause. On the other hand, she wanted to tell them enough of the truth so that they'd remember this and it would help them understand everything and
forgive her more quickly later. She looked from Katherine's worried face to Ted's annoyed one and said
haltingly, "Do you believe in the saying that things go on as they begin?" Katherine and Ted exchanged blank looks, and Julie explained, "Do you believe in the idea that when things begin badly, they tend to
end
badly?"
"Yes," Katherine said. "I think I do."
"I don't," Ted said flatly, and what he said made Julie suspect he was thinking about his marriage to Katherine. "Some things that begin beautifully have rotten endings."
"Since you're determined to meddle in my life," Julie said, amused, "then I think I have the right to point out that, if you're referring to your own marriage, the real problem is that it has never ended. Katherine knows that, even if you refuse to face it, Ted. Now, to finish answering your question about my trip to Pennsylvania in the minute I have left before I leave: Zack was raised by his grandmother, and he parted with her under very ugly circumstances. Nothing else in his personal life has gone well since then.
He's in
danger now, and he's alone, but he's starting a whole new part of his life. I'd like him to have luck and peace in that new life, and I have a feeling—call it a superstition, if you prefer—that, maybe, if I mend the
bridges he burned a long time ago, he'll have that at last." In the blank silence that followed her announcement, she watched both of them struggle to find an argument and fail, so she reached for the door. "Remember that, will you both?" she added, fighting to keep the emotion from her voice and disguise the import of her next request. "In order to be truly happy, it helps so much to know your family wishes you well … even if you don't do the things they'd like you to do. When your own family hates you, it's almost like a curse."
When the door closed behind her, Ted looked irritably at Katherine. "What the hell did she mean by
that?"
"I thought the logic sounded pretty clear," Katherine said, but she was frowning at the odd tension she'd heard in Julie's voice. "My dad's a little superstitious, and so am I. Although the word
curse
seemed a little strong."
"I'm not talking about that. What did she mean when she said our marriage isn't over and you know that?"
During the last weeks, Katherine had watched Julie courageously confront the FBI and the rest of the world, openly expressing her faith in Zack Benedict's innocence, even though he'd rejected her love and
hurt her terribly in Colorado. During that same time, Katherine had managed to put herself in Ted's presence a dozen times while they both coached Julie's students' athletic games, but in dealing with him,
she'd carefully hidden her deeper feelings and tried only to overcome his hostility. Originally, she'd convinced herself that the best way to handle Ted and accomplish her goal was with a slow, cautious, step-by-step strategy, not an open admission of feelings. Now as she looked at the man she loved, she
faced the fact that it was fear of being hurt, of being made to feel like a fool, and of having her hopes shattered once and for all that had been dictating all her actions. She knew he was seeing another woman regularly and that he'd been seeing even more of her since Katherine had returned to Keaton, and it was
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belatedly obvious to her now that all she'd really accomplished with him was a sort of armed truce; his
feelings toward her hadn't changed, she'd simply forced him with her constant presence to mask his contempt behind a coolly polite facade.
She was afraid she was running out of time, afraid she'd lose her nerve if she didn't tell him now, and afraid she was going to make a fatal blunder because she was so desperate and so nervous that she was going to unload everything on him at once.
"Are you thinking about your answer or studying the shape of my nose," he demanded irritably.
To her horror, Katherine felt her knees begin to shake and her palms perspire, but she lifted her eyes to
his cool blue ones and said bravely, "Julie thinks our marriage isn't over because I'm still in love with you."
"Where would she get an asinine idea like that."
"From me," Katherine said shakily. "I told her that."
Ted's brows snapped together and he raked her with a contemptuous glance that made her flinch. "You told her you're still in love with me?"
"Yes. I told her everything, including what a pitiful excuse for a wife I was and about how—how I lost our baby."
