Suspicion (17 page)

  "Sure." In a much better mood now, Alison took a healthy bite of her hamburger. After a while, she looked up, her expression serious again. "Mom, have you ever thought of remarrying?" she asked.

  Although startled by the directness of the question, Kate welcomed it. Maybe now, the two of them could clear the air about what was truly bothering Alison. "Remarrying?" she repeated in a light tone. "No, I haven’t. Why do you ask?"

  "Is that because deep down you still love Daddy?"

  Oh, God, she should have seen that one coming. There had been many hints in the past year, but nothing quite as forward as this, at least not since Eric had announced his engagement to Megan. It wasn’t Mitch Calhoon personally Alison was worried about, it was any man who threatened a possible reconciliation between Kate and Eric.

  "Do you still love him?" Alison pressed.

  Remembering her numerous lectures about always telling the truth, Kate knew that a tactful but honest answer was the best way to handle this question. "A part of me will always love your father, Alison. For the simple reason that he is your father. But if by loving him you mean the way a woman should love a man, then no, I don’t. Not anymore."

  The gray eyes filled with disappointment. "What if he still loves you?"

  "He doesn’t. He’s engaged to Megan now and I’m sure they’ll be very happy together."

  "But what if Megan doesn’t want him anymore?"

  "That’s something they’ll have to work out together, darling, without outside interference, without anyone telling them what to do."

  Alison picked up a French fry and looked at it. "By anyone, you mean Abigail?"

  Kate smiled. "Yes, I mean Abigail."

  For the first time since their outing had begun, Alison laughed. "She’s kind of scary, isn’t she?"

  "She can be." Kate remembered the way she and Abigail had clashed at Douglas’s house. "If you let her."

  Suddenly, Alison turned in her chair and glanced around the crowded room.

  Kate followed her gaze. "What is it, baby? Did you see someone you know?"

  Alison shook her head. "No, but…" Looking puzzled, she shot a quick glance at the door, which had just closed. "I could swear someone was watching me."

  Kate put her fork down. Suddenly uneasy, she let her gaze sweep over the room. No one seemed to be paying any attention to them. A quick glance out the window and into the street revealed nothing out of the ordinary. "Did you actually see someone?" she asked, trying not to let Alison sense her fear.

  "I’m not sure. It was more like a feeling." Shrugging with the insouciance of the young, she turned to face Kate again. "I guess I was wrong." She laughed. "Maybe that horror movie Melissa and I watched together the other night is still on my mind. It had this thing-part man and part beast-stalking young girls and-"

  "Alison," Kate said sternly, "you know I don’t want you to watch those films. They give you nightmares."

  "Oh. Mom. I don’t have nightmares anymore. I’m thirteen."

  Kate danced around the room again. Had someone really been here, watching them? Or was Alison’s reaction simply the product of a young girl’s fertile imagination? Her first impulse was to take her daughter back to Potomac, to the safety of Douglas’s well-protected home. But if she gave in to her fears, she would be disappointing Alison, who expected to go shopping for new boots after lunch. She couldn’t do that to her. Not when they were finally starting to get along.

  After taking Alison back to the Fairchilds’ at four o’clock that afternoon, Kate made a small detour and stopped at the police department, hoping Mitch Calhoon was on duty.

  As usual, the place was like a zoo, with phones ringing off the hooks, detectives scrambling to answer calls, and suspects being brought in, sometimes against their will, for questioning.

  Mitch sat at his desk, talking on the phone while he shuffled through a file. The sleeves of his dark blue shirt were rolled up to the elbows, revealing sinewy forearms Kate tried hard to ignore. She had barely pulled her gaze away when he looked up. He grinned and waved her in.

  By the time she reached his desk, he had hung up the phone and was standing. "Kate. What a pleasant surprise. Please sit down. Can I get you anything? Coffee? A soft drink?"

  "Nothing, thank you. I can’t stay long." She came straight to the point. "Did you know that Chuck Winslow was killed last night?"

  He shot her a quick glance. "How did you find out about that?"

  "I tracked him down in Myrtle Beach and found Cora preparing for his funeral."

  "Any particular reason you wanted to see him?"

  She told him about Gina and Lilly knowing each other, something he would find out as soon as he interviewed Shirley Jacob.

  "Are you sure it’s Lilly she saw?"

  "She made a positive ID from a picture we had on file."

  "In that case, I’d better get a statement from Miss Jacob." Reaching across his desk, he wrote something on his daily calendar. "Gina and Lilly," he mused. "What could those two possibly have in common?"

  "That’s what I intend to find out."

  He threw his pen back on the desk. "Don’t do anything foolish, Kate. Winslow was brutally killed last night. If his death is connected to Lilly’s murder, anyone poking his or her nose into the matter could become a statistic, as well."

  "What choice do I have if the police won’t do anything?"

  "Detective Sanford is following every lead."

  "Detective Sanford won’t find anything in Myrtle Beach. You know as well as I do that Winslow’s killer is right here. In Washington."

  "I wish I could do something," Mitch said, looking genuinely sorry that he couldn’t. "But Winslow’s murder isn’t my case. And it’s certainly not my jurisdiction. However, if Sanford’s investigation leads him to Washington, I’ll do whatever I can to help him. Until then-" he shrugged "-my hands are tied."

  He was right, Kate thought. Fighting for Tony’s appeal was her job, not his. His was over. She wasn’t even sure why she had come here, what she had expected him to do, unless… A sudden flush rose to her cheeks. Unless she had been looking for an excuse to see him.

  Mortified at the thought that Mitch may have arrived

  at the same conclusion, she stood up. "I just wanted to make sure you knew about Winslow’s death," she said as much for her benefit as for his. "That’s all." She hooked the strap of her purse over her shoulder. "Let me know if you hear from Detective Sanford."

  She was halfway across the room when Mitch called her name.

  She turned around. "Yes?"

  "Gina Lamont’s funeral will be held on Monday. Prospect Hill Cemetery at ten o’clock. I thought you’d want to know."

  She smiled. "I do. Thank you."

  Today was his daughter’s birthday. Gabrielle Marie Calhoon would have been ten years old. It was hard to believe the child who was still so alive in Mitch’s heart had been dead for three years.

  Mitch picked up the photograph of his daughter from the end table. A knot in his throat, he ran a finger over the glassed-in likeness, the laughing blue eyes, the blond hair so soft and light it seemed to float around her face, the yellow dress he had helped her choose for that picture.

  Sometimes, when he allowed it, the loss was almost palpable. They had been so close, so alike. "Two peas in a pod," his mother used to say.

  He blamed no one for Gabrielle’s death but himself. For all his experience and know-how, he had committed the greatest sin of all-he had acted on impulse. It would have been easy to put some of the blame on Ava, but he tried not to do that. At times, he even thought he should have been more patient with her, more understanding. If he had, they might have stayed married and this senseless tragedy would have never happened.

  But Ava had a restless soul. And she liked expensive baubles-baubles Mitch couldn’t afford on his detective’s salary. And so, when his friend, Randy Vargas, had approached him with an offer to join his private investigative agency, Mitch hadn’t been able to turn it down.

  Vargas World Wide Investigations was based in Laurel, Maryland, and specialized in locating and rescuing kidnapped children all over the world. It was a risky, high paying job that required guts, expertise and long absences from home. That’s the part Mitch hadn’t been fond of, especially after Gabrielle was born. Ava didn’t seem to mind. Between her daily gym classes, her hair appointments and shopping, she had kept herself busy.

  It wasn’t until he came back from an assignment earlier than expected one day and found Ava in the arms of another man, right there in their own house, that Mitch realized what a sham his marriage was.

  Ignoring his wife’s pleas for another chance, he had filed for divorce immediately.

  Because of his frequent absences from home, the court had awarded custody of Gabrielle to Ava, a decision Mitch had appealed to no avail. Two months after the divorce was finalized, Ava married some thug, a man Mitch was certain had ties with the mob, and moved to California.

  Mitch had tried to fight the move, claiming the three thousand mile distance made it impossible for him to visit his daughter on a regular basis. But when Ava had showed up in court with three of the country’s most powerful attorneys, he hadn’t stood a chance.

  At first, judging from Gabrielle’s letters and phone calls, the child seemed happy. Then one day, she called him. At the sound of her frightened voice, a chill went through him. When she told him that Paul was mean to her and sometimes hit her and locked her in a dark closet, he had wanted to kill the bastard.

  He had done something very stupid then, something he had been trained never to do, something he would regret

  for as long as he lived. He had taken off, alone and without a specific plan, to rescue his daughter.

  The house where Paul, Ava and Gabrielle lived was perched on the top of a mountain outside San Luis Obispo and was built like a fortress. But that didn’t stop Mitch. There wasn’t a house in the world he couldn’t enter.

  After a two-hour climb through a thickly wooded area, he finally reached the property. With the aid of special infrared glasses, he was able to get through the perimeter security system undetected. Then, using a rope he had tied to a tree, he climbed over the stone wall and dropped into Paul’s backyard.

  A big security guard carrying an Uzi stood under a sequoia tree, lighting a cigarette. Without a sound, Mitch attacked him from behind. Momentarily dazed, the guard went down, but not before spraying a round of bullets into the gravel walk.

  The racket brought everyone who was inside the house out to the yard. As Mitch scooped up the Uzi, he saw his daughter, and his heart jumped into his throat. He had no idea how she had managed to slip away from her nanny, but there she was, hiding behind her mother, looking small and frightened.

  As Paul started to reach for his own gun, Mitch took aim and hit him in the arm. Then, taking advantage of the chaos the incident created, he scooped up his daughter, unaware that a second armed guard was coming around the corner.

  As Mitch hoisted his precious cargo over the wall, another shot rang out.

  And hit Gabrielle in the back, killing her instantly.

  Crazy with grief and rage, Mitch charged his daughter’s killer like a mad bull, taking him down and nearly beating

  him to a pulp. It had taken Paul and the other guard more than five minutes to pull him off.

  Nothing had mattered after that-not the conviction of Paul’s bodyguard for the murder of his daughter, and not the fact that the police had found a kilo of cocaine in the house and arrested Paul.

  Mitch had faced some serious charges himself-breaking and entering, assault with a deadly weapon and attempted kidnapping. Fortunately, the San Luis Obispo’s D.A., who had been investigating Paul for years, but had never been able to make any charge against him stick, had been grateful enough to let Mitch go.

  Two weeks later, despite Randy’s protests, Mitch had resigned from Vargas World Wide, convinced he was no longer qualified to save and protect children. He had, in his own words, become a liability.

  Gabrielle’s birthdays were the hardest, for him and for his mother, who now lived in Florida. Knowing she was expecting his call, he put his daughter’s photograph back on the table and picked up the phone.

  "…though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death…"

  A pale December sun had broken through the thick gray clouds, wrapping the cemetery in a light that was as dismal as the day itself.

  Gazing at the plain, unadorned casket that stood beside the freshly dug grave, Kate listened as the preacher spoke of eternal life.

  Although she hadn’t known Gina Lamont, she felt an inexplicable sadness for the woman. Except for herself and Mitch, who stood beside her, only two people had come to say their final goodbyes-Brad Carpenter and a woman dressed in black. No one else was here for

  her- no family, no lover, certainly not any of the men whose lives Gina Lamont had touched.

  Kate’s gaze came to rest on the woman. She was in her early to mid-forties, pleasantly round and relatively attractive from what Kate could see. She had brassy blond hair she wore in a dated Farrah Fawcett do and a generous mouth painted a vivid shade of red. Oversize sunglasses concealed the rest of her face.

  Kate leaned toward Mitch and spoke in a hushed tone. "Who’s the woman?"

  Hands folded in front of him, Mitch followed her gaze. "Her name is LuAnn Chester."

  "Friend of Gina’s?"

  "She used to be-years ago."

  "How come you know about her and I don’t?"

  He gave her a smile. "Cops have connections, too, you know." He returned his attention to the minister. "Actually, she was one of the few names in Gina’s address book, along with Brad’s, and a few others who lost track of Gina years ago."