Just Evil (7 page)

She’d painted the outside a warm gold, the trim a cool red.
With no yard to speak of, she’d taken advantage of the tiny courtyard at ground
level and set out Adirondack chairs to watch the waves. She’d lined the
red-tiled steps leading up to the front door on the second level with colorful
pots containing an assortment of blooming flowers and fragrant herbs. She’d
fixed the little house up and made it a home, the first real home she’d ever
had. After the last couple of hours, she couldn’t think of a single place she’d
rather be right now.

And then there was the man sitting next to her. He’d rushed
to her defense. It had been wonderful to watch. She did her best to tamp down
the feelings he always managed to bring out.

“Are you okay?” he asked quietly.

She gave him a weak smile, and opened the car door. “I’m
fine. Want to come in?”

“Sure.”

The minute Kit opened the front door Pepper jumped two feet
off the floor to greet her with a sloppy, wet tongue.

Jake followed her and the dog into a small but tastefully
decorated rectangular living space with walls painted buttercup yellow and
floors of polished hardwood. The space felt cozy, homey. Pepper ambled off to
his bed in front of a rounded kiva fireplace in the corner. To complete the room,
two red loveseats sat facing each other separated by a blanket box that doubled
as the coffee table.

Jake looked around. She’d taken advantage of every square
inch of space by turning the area underneath the staircase going up to the
third floor into her office. Here a mahogany desk held an assortment of books,
a laptop computer, and a printer.

It was then Jake noticed the framed artwork on the walls.
Her work, he realized, staring at the signature and a collection of beach
scenes done in everything from acrylics to watercolors to charcoal. He’d known
she could draw and paint. When she’d been younger she’d always taken the time
to create her own funny little greeting cards to hand out. But the paintings on
the walls showed real talent.

An old upright piano in the far corner of the room caught
his eye. He went over and started thumbing through several sheets of music
messily propped up and remembered one musical recital in particular from the
past. Alana had shown up and embarrassed Kit with a slew of insults in front of
everyone. She’d been drunk..

Jake racked his brain. A lot of Kit’s past clicked into
place. Had Alana ever had a good word for her daughter?  Skimming through the
stack of music, he finally found what he was looking for. “I always liked
this.”

Kit walked over to the piano. “Let me guess.” Without even
glancing at the sheet music he held in his hand, she sat down and began playing
Cliffs of Doneen
. She smiled broadly, and added, “You and my father.”

But after a brief rendition she abruptly stopped and headed
for the kitchen. “I need coffee. What about you? If St. John has his way, my
arrest could be imminent. Perhaps I should plan on getting blitzed tonight.”

Following her, he laughed. “Not a good idea. You want to
talk about it?”

She didn’t have to ask what he meant. “No.”

Just then the phone rang. One glance at caller ID told her
the call was from someone at BBG&G. “Great. Just what I need. Jessica
already told the police I did it. She isn’t my favorite person to talk to right
now.” She let the answer machine take the call.

Seconds later, Connor Boyd’s authoritative voice held court
in the small house as his message filled the air. “Kit, we need to talk. I’m
handling Alana’s probate. It seems you’re a very wealthy woman. You’ve
inherited Alana’s entire estate. Call me. I’ve got some papers you’ll need to
sign so we can move this forward.”

Suddenly shaking, she lost control. “God, I can’t handle
this right now. They’ve made a mistake. Alana would not leave me a dime, let
alone her entire estate.”

And one more reason they’ll think she killed her mother,
Jake thought sourly, as he wrapped his arms around her while she cried her eyes
out.

From his vantage point on the beach, he considered Kit
Griffin.

From the beginning, the plan had been for her to get the
blame, at least initially. So far, everything was going according to plan, but
for some reason, for the first time in years, maybe for the first time since
he’d been doing this job, he didn’t like the taste it left in his mouth.

What would they think when the others fell? Would they
figure it out then, let the daughter off the hook? How long would it take the
police to take off their blinders, maybe start thinking outside the box? What
if that didn’t happen?

He’d underestimated Jessica Boyd. And that he would correct.

To get her mind off St. John, Jake took Kit to Pirelli’s
down at the waterfront for dinner. In spite of an overcast evening, they dined
outside in the open air on steak and lobster and were on their third bottle of
wine when Jake insisted, “How about we take a walk on the beach, walk off this
meal, head down to the marina. I’ll show you my boat.”

“You really love that boat, don’t you?”

“It isn’t so much the boat. I like being out on the water.”
How could he explain that, after being the person of interest in a murder
investigation for the better part of a year, he’d needed to make some life
altering changes?

Waking up one day and finding his perfect life wasn’t so
perfect after all but rather an illusion had sent him into a tailspin. The
humiliation of it all had him searching for an outlet where he could lock
himself away from the pressures of his business and forget how he’d fucked up
his life.

Sailing had been it for him.

But he revealed none of that as they left the restaurant and
walked outside into a heavy lingering marine layer. They headed south, toward
the marina. With only streaky bits of lowering sun, the breeze right off the
water made the gray May evening feel chilly. He took one look at the slinky,
form-fitting black dress Kit wore and asked, “Are you cold?”

She shook her head. “I enjoy being outside. When I was a kid
I always hated being cooped up inside. I’m like my father that way. He was an
outdoor kind of guy.”

They’d just reached the outer fringes of the downtown shops
when Kit abruptly stopped and asked in a wobbly voice laced with emotion, “Do
you think you could find out for certain what happened to him? My father, I
mean. Alana told me he died when I was fourteen on location in Spain filming a
western. I always wondered if she told me the truth.”

She saw the questions form on his face. “He and Alana hated
each other. They divorced when I was a baby. There were long periods of time
when I didn’t see him.”

Jake looked out over the water, furrowed his brow. “I could
do a search online, start with the union, the Screen Actors Guild.” When he saw
her puzzled look, he explained, “He had to belong to the union in order to
work. As an actor, they’d keep track of his residuals. Might be a good place to
find out who’s getting what. I take it that’s not you.”

Again, she shook her head.

The implication of it all hit him at once. He suddenly
resented being put in the position of pointing out to Kit the sad possibilities
about this whole thing. “He could have arranged for his residuals to be part of
his estate through his will and the residuals are going to the person named in
the will. Isn’t it possible he might have remarried or for that matter had
other children? Do you have stepsisters or stepbrothers? I’ve never heard you
mention any.”

Looking at the puffy eyes from where she’d cried earlier,
Jake realized talking about this couldn’t be easy. Taking in those sad green
eyes, he wanted to take away the hurt. “This must be difficult for you, but I
don’t know any other way to do this except to strip away the layers one at a
time.”

A tear slid down her cheek. “I don’t care about his
residuals. I got used to the fact that I wasn’t exactly his primary interest a
long time ago. He never mentioned that he remarried or had other kids, but then
he was usually a half a world away. It’s entirely possible he had other
children. Even though, to tell you the truth, I hadn’t considered that
possibility until right now. Alana might have been right. I’m not exactly the
brightest bulb on the tree.”

They stopped momentarily, long enough for him to knuckle the
tear off her cheek. “Get his social security number. I’ll check a little deeper
than just surface stuff, find out more details, maybe even contact the
authorities in Spain for any information they might have about his death. If
you know the name of the film he was working on when he died, maybe we could
find out more, find out who some of the actors were, get in touch with them.
They might remember something.”

Kit looked at him as if seeing him for the first time. He
was willing to take the time from his busy schedule to find something out about
her father. Maybe this man was different from the self-absorbed guy she’d known
for so many years. As they started walking again, she suddenly thought of
something. “Why on earth is your boat docked here instead of Marina del Rey?”

He flashed a smile at her and lied through his teeth. “There
was some problem with the boat permit at the time. I thought it would be better
to move the
Sea Warrior
rather than fight with the marina. You know I
stopped by the bookstore a couple of weeks ago when I got back. You’d already
closed up for the day.”  

“Why didn’t you just call me at home while you were here? We
could have gotten together for dinner.”

He raised a brow. “After the chilly reception I got
Saturday, I can just about picture how well that phone call out of the blue
would have gone.”

“Ouch. Direct hit. But it seems I had an epiphany this
afternoon in the form of two police detectives. They didn’t exactly have my
best interests at heart. It reminded me that in a spot like this, a person
can’t have too many friends. And we’re two mature adults who both care a great
deal about Gloria.” It was the wine putting her in such a generous mood.

Deciding that friend was a huge step up, he said, “We’ve
never had a problem being friends, Kit.”

“You can’t say I haven’t tried to be more over the years.”

“Yeah. The timing was always off.”

“For you maybe. Not for me.”

There it was. That reminder that he’d hurt her. He
redirected his focus on getting her to open up since he had to admit he’d never
been curious about her childhood. “Talk to me, honey.”

“What do you want to know?”

“All of it.”

She sighed. He’d just keep bugging her till she did. “Alana
and my father were always at war with each other. Their life—my life— after the
divorce was a war zone. They had no interest in getting along for the sake of a
child, that’s for sure. I don’t think I’ve ever seen two people more opposite
in their approach to life in general or their attitude toward me.

“I see all these horrific custody cases in the news and my
heart goes out to the kids because I’ve been through it, in the trenches,
pulled apart by two people who wanted conflicting things for me.” She shrugged
her shoulders before going on, “I don’t know when their animosity started but
it had to be before I came along.

“Look, growing up with divorced parents was no big deal.
Half the kids I went to school with were in the same boat. Being a product of
divorce was never the issue. These two people were so volatile, sometimes it
seemed as though I was no more than a pawn, something to be fought over, fought
about, and then when one side won, I was quickly cast aside as an afterthought.

“The year I turned five, he petitioned the court for full
custody.” Sadness crept into her voice. “Obviously he gave up the fight. Later
he told me it was because Alana had Jessica on her side and he knew he couldn’t
win, but as I grew older I suspected there was some other reason.”

“Like what?”

She grew quiet, willed the tears away.

As soon as they neared the edge of the water, Jake watched
as she slipped off her shoes and walked along the sand in bare feet.

A light wind off the ocean hit her cheeks as she glanced
upward, deliberately turning her attention to a noisy flock of seagulls that
flew overhead and landed just on the other side of the rocks jutting out into
the ocean. The clouds so thick and full earlier had parted and left huge holes
in the sky so that the stars glittered. She spotted the full moon and sat down
in her good dress.

“How about if we sit here for a while?” Looking up at Jake,
she patted the sand, knowing he was reluctant to sit down in his good clothes.
“It’s not that damp.”

He sensed she somehow thought he was hesitant to sit down
and muss up his clothes, so he followed her lead.

But he couldn’t believe she’d just plop down on beach sand
in that sexy black dress. Claire would have been downright offended if he’d
suggested such a thing. But then he smiled, propped his hands on his knees.

Kit was nothing like Claire.

She took in several deep breaths of ocean air, dug her bare
feet into the cold, damp sand and gazed out into the water, listening to the
sound of the waves. 

Jake sensed the break was significant, that she’d stopped
talking for some reason other than to watch the surf, avoiding the fact that
her father hadn’t fought harder for custody. That much he got from her demeanor
now. But he kept quiet and said nothing, waiting for her to regain some
composure.

When she began talking her voice was so hushed he had
trouble hearing her over the sound of the surf.

“I remember almost every one of his visits. There weren’t
that many really when you add them up over fourteen years.”

The fact that she’d gone in a completely different direction
wasn’t lost on Jake. He wasn’t going to find out tonight why her father hadn’t
fought harder for custody. Hell, maybe she didn’t even know why.