Smoke in Mirrors (22 page)

“You think so?”

“I can see Thomas doing the same thing under similar circumstances. Heck, when you think about it, he
is
doing the same thing because he’s committed to helping Deke.”

“What this boils down to is that all I can do is stand back and wait until Deke gets the answers he needs. But what if he never finds those answers?”

“I don’t see why you have to be passive in this. Maybe you should take some steps to get Deke’s attention.”

“How?”

“I’m not exactly an expert.” Leonora smiled. “But I know one I can call for advice.”

A short time
later, she went up the steps of Thomas’s cottage and knocked on the front door. It opened almost at once.

Wrench bounded out, an old yellow tennis ball in his mouth. He placed it at her feet and sat down proudly, prepared to have his gift appreciated.

“Thank you, Wrench.” She bent to pick up the tennis ball. “It’s lovely.”

Wrench looked pleased. She tugged gently on his bent ear.

“Don’t know where the hell he got that,” Thomas said. “I’ve never played tennis in my life.”

She straightened when she saw him looming in the hallway. His hair was damp from the shower. His bare shoulders seemed to stretch from wall to wall. He had a towel wrapped around his waist.

Just a towel. It rode low on his hips and left a great deal of him exposed.

And here she had been fantasizing about a bathrobe. Obviously she lacked imagination.

“Come on in. I was about to make some breakfast.” Thomas gave her a slow, sexy smile. “What brings you calling at this hour?”

“I was out for my morning walk. Thought I’d see if you were an early riser.”

“I am, as a matter of fact. Goes with having a dog.” He stepped back to allow her inside. “I just got out of the shower.”

She looked down at the towel he had wrapped around his waist. “I noticed.”

“I was hoping you would.” He grinned and pulled her into his arms. “I don’t generally answer my door draped only in a towel, you know.”

She flattened her palms on his chest and wiggled her fingers in the crisp curling hair that covered him there. “You went to all this trouble just for me? I’m very flattered.”

“Would you like to come back to my bedroom and help me finish getting dressed?”

“If you feel you need help selecting your attire, I would be only too happy to assist. I have a good sense of color and style.”

“This must be my lucky day.” He scooped her up in his arms and started down the hall. “Thing is, I’ll have to take off the towel before I can put on any clothes.”

“Of course you will.”

“You know,” Thomas
said a long time later, “if you’re going to make a habit of walking past my house every morning just in time for breakfast, maybe you should think about spending the nights here. Be a lot more efficient.”

She watched him ladle the steaming oatmeal he had
just finished preparing into two bowls. “I like to walk in the mornings. Good exercise.”

He wondered if he had been a little too subtle. He didn’t do subtle well. He decided to try again, keeping it light but a bit more to the point.

“If it’s exercise you’re after, I would be happy to provide you with the type we just had in the bedroom on a daily basis,” he said.

“It did get my heart rate up a bit. But I’m not sure sex is a substitute for aerobic walking.”

Maybe he was still erring on the subtle side.

“Okay, I’ve got another idea.” He put the bowls of oatmeal on the counter and opened the container of brown sugar. “How about I spend the nights at your place and then we both walk back here for breakfast every morning? Think that would work?”

She opened the refrigerator and took out the carton of milk, keeping her back to him. “Sounds a lot like moving in together.”

“You’re not ready for that, I take it?”

She closed the refrigerator and turned around. Her expression was very serious. “I don’t think we should rush things, Thomas. They’re already moving fast enough.”

“Right. Wouldn’t want to move too fast.” Probably trip and fall flat on his face.

He sat down by the counter. Leonora slid onto the stool beside him and picked up a spoon.

“Maybe we should talk about how we’re going to handle Julie Bromley,” she said.

Okay. No one had to hit him over the head with a two-by-four to drive home a point. She wanted to change the subject. Right now.

“How about the good cop, bad cop routine?” he suggested.

“I don’t know. Neither of us are cops.” She wrinkled
her nose. “Besides, everyone who watches television knows that trick. Hard to believe that sort of elementary psychological manipulation would work in real life.”

“Are you telling me that you actually doubt the truth of what you see on television?”

“Well—”

“Besides, our goal isn’t to manipulate Julie Bromley with clever psychology.”

“No?” She raised her brows. “What is our goal?”

“To scare her into telling us the truth.”

“Oh, right. Got it.”

“I didn’t steal
anything,” Julie shrieked. “I swear it. I just looked at some of your stuff, Miss Hutton, that’s all, honest.”

Thomas winced and glanced uneasily at the wall that divided Julie’s apartment from the one next door. The off-campus building had been constructed as student housing and it was obvious that no one had worried much about sound insulation.

Julie’s small studio apartment was crammed with the clutter of student life. There were several oversized cushions and a single chair. The bed was unmade. A half-full bag of potato chips was propped against the computer. Textbooks and a couple of notebooks were scattered across the desk. The closet door was open. Thomas could see several pairs of shoes and boots tumbled on the floor. A red leather jacket hung over the back of a chair.

Julie had looked startled to find them in the hall outside her apartment, but she had allowed them inside without protest. She had been drinking a can of cola and had tentatively offered her visitors some. The idea of drinking pop at that hour of the morning sent a shudder through
Thomas, but he had declined politely. Each to his or her own source of caffeine, he thought.

Leonora had explained in a very firm voice that they needed to speak with her about an important matter. Julie had backed down in the face of an authoritative adult.

Her initial nervousness had turned to outright alarm when Leonora had confronted her with the information that she had been seen sneaking out of the library office. Panic had set in immediately. After a weak stab at denial, she had plunged straight into mitigating circumstances.

Leonora had been right. Julie wasn’t what anyone would call a hardened criminal.

“I realize you didn’t take anything.” Leonora sat in the chair at the desk. “But I want to know why you searched my satchel. I’m sure you can understand my concern.”

“I was just curious, that’s all,” Julie said sullenly.

“About what?” Leonora asked.

Julie twisted restlessly on her chair. “I dunno.”

Thomas decided it was time for him to play his part. He had been standing silently at the window, letting Leonora handle the interrogation, waiting for his cue.

He faced the girl. “What did you tell Alex Rhodes about the results of your search?”

Julie froze, a terrified rabbit confronting a predator. Being the bad cop wasn’t as much fun as the television shows made it appear, Thomas thought. Especially when the victim was only nineteen years old.

But her reaction told him that he had hit the nail on the head. He had to keep going forward or risk giving her time to recover and think up a story.

“I saw you at Rhodes’s place yesterday afternoon,” he said. “That would have been after you went through Miss Hutton’s things. You were obviously reporting back to him.”

“I didn’t . . . I didn’t—” Julie’s face crumpled. Tears slid down her cheeks. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Look,” Thomas said. “We don’t give a damn if you’re sleeping with him. Speaking as an official adult, I’ve got to tell you that I think it’s a mistake, but—”

Julie clamped both hands into fists and shot to her feet. Her face flushed with outrage. “I’m not sleeping with Mr. Rhodes. Who told you I was? It’s a lie.”

“Rhodes has a thing for attractive students. But that’s your problem, not ours.”

“I am not sleeping with him, damn it,” Julie stormed. “He’s old. Why would I want to go to bed with a guy who’s almost forty? I love Travis. We’re going to get married as soon as we graduate.”

“Sure,” Thomas said.

It occurred to him that he was damn close to forty himself and getting older by the minute. He wondered if he looked old to Leonora.

“It’s the truth!” Julie was shouting now.

“That’s enough, Thomas.” Leonora rose from her chair, plucked some tissues from the box on the desk and crossed the small space to where Julie stood trembling. “I think Julie is telling us the truth.”

She put the tissues in Julie’s hand and gently eased her back down into the cushion.

“It is the truth,” Julie sobbed into the tissue. “I swear I’m not letting that old dude screw me. Jeez. I can’t even imagine getting into bed with someone his age. It’s disgusting.”

“Take it easy,” Leonora said gently. “We know you’ve been to see Alex Rhodes and we know you searched my satchel. We think there’s a link between those two facts and we’re trying to figure out what it is, that’s all. We’re a little worried, you see.”

“I’m not sleeping with Mr. Rhodes,” Julie mumbled dejectedly into the tissue. “I’m working for him.”

Thomas stilled. Leonora must have sensed that he was about to pounce. She shook her head silently in warning. He hesitated and then reluctantly subsided.

Annoyed at having his prey snatched out from under his paw, he turned back to the window.

“It’s all right, Julie,” Leonora murmured behind him. “We understand. It was a job. That’s different.”

Thomas kept quiet. He turned around again, in time to watch Leonora pat Julie in a comforting, almost maternal manner. Not just playing good cop, he realized. There was genuine empathy in her stance and the way she touched the younger woman.

“We need the money,” Julie whispered in a broken voice.

“You and Travis?” Leonora pressed.

“Travis’s grades haven’t been so good lately. His dad’s threatening to cut off his tuition and expenses. Travis can’t make enough with his part-time job as a gardener to cover his rent and fees and stuff.”

“So Rhodes offered you some extra cash for going through Miss Hutton’s things, is that it?” Thomas asked.

His voice must have been a little rougher than he had intended. Julie flinched visibly. Leonora gave him another repressive glare.

“He said he just wanted to know if Miss Hutton was a legitimate librarian.”

“There’s such a thing as an illegitimate librarian?” Thomas asked.

“He said he was concerned because at the last campus where he worked he remembered hearing about a phony librarian who used fake credentials to get into the rare book archives and steal some really valuable old books. He said the description fit Miss Hutton. But he told me
that he didn’t want to get her in trouble unless she really was a phony.”

“He sent you to get a look at my identification?” Leonora asked.

Julie sniffed. “He just wanted to get your social security number or a credit card number so he could check it out on his computer to make sure you were who you said you were.”

“Just doing his civic duty, is that it?” Thomas said.

“I told you,” Julie muttered. “He didn’t want to get Miss Hutton in trouble unless she was a real phony.”

“A real phony.” Leonora handed Julie a fresh tissue. “An interesting turn of phrase.”

Thomas looked at Julie. “Did you give Miss Hutton’s social security number to Rhodes?”

“No. I couldn’t find it.” Julie blew her nose into the new tissue.

Thomas exhaled slowly. Maybe this wasn’t going to turn out so badly.

“So I gave him her driver’s license number instead,” Julie concluded.

“Shit,” Thomas said.

Leonora frowned.

Julie jerked violently.

“Anything else?” Thomas asked.

Julie swallowed. “Well, I also found a couple of credit cards, so I gave him those numbers, too.”

“Shit,” Thomas said again. “Little Miss Helpful.”

“I thought I was helping Mr. Rhodes catch a book thief,” Julie added. “I thought I was doing the right thing.”

“Good to know that folks like you and Alex Rhodes are out there making the world safe for scholarly research.” Thomas leaned back against the edge of the window and folded his arms. “All right, Julie, pay attention. Here’s
what you are going to do. You will not have any more contact with Rhodes. Is that clear?”

Dismay widened her eyes. “But he still owes me another fifty bucks. He promised to give me two hundred altogether and I only got one hundred and fifty so far.”

“The thing is, if you try to collect your money, some people might not understand that you were just holding down a part-time job. The cops, for instance, might get the wrong impression.”

“Cops?” Julie looked horrified. “What wrong impression?”

“They might be excused for thinking that you were aiding and abetting an identity thief.”

“But I didn’t steal anything.”

“Julie, you’re pushing the envelope with the naïve innocent act. Everyone knows that identity theft is big business and a serious crime. A social security number unlocks all the doors and, given a driver’s license and a credit card or two, it’s not that hard to get it.”

“But I told you, Mr. Rhodes was just making sure that Miss Hutton was for real.”

“Is that right?” Thomas asked. “And what makes you think that Alex Rhodes is for real?”

Julie stared at him, obviously staggered by the implications of that question.

“You mean that Mr. Rhodes is . . . you mean that he may be a criminal? But he’s like a doctor or a shrink or something.”

Her voice had risen to such a shrill pitch Thomas was surprised that the window behind him did not shatter.