Killman Creek (Stillhouse Lake Series Book 2) Page 15

  The reason I remember all that so clearly is that he was almost never paying attention, so when he was, when he was really Dad, those were the brightest, happiest days of my life.

  It only occurs to me now that Mom and Lanny were never with us for swimming. It was always him and me. It never occurred to me to ask why.

  Don’t do it, I tell myself again. I’ve been thinking it constantly. Give Mr. Esparza the phone. Or Ms. Coleman. It might help catch Dad and send him back to jail.

  But if I do that, it just means Dad’s one step closer to death.

  I look at Boot. “Hungry?” I’m sort of joking, and sort of not. “Help a fella out?” At least if the dog eats the phone, it won’t be my fault. None of it would.

  He licks his chops and drops his head to my thigh again. Not interested.

  I slip the back open and put the battery in. I turn it on, watching the dancing HELLO, and wait until the screen comes up. You don’t have long, I tell myself. Figure out what you want to do, and do it.

  I don’t want to call him. I’m not ready to call him. It’s too much.

  So instead, I start typing a text.

  hi dad i miss u

  I stare at it for a long time. I can feel Boot’s drool soaking into my pants. It’s getting even colder, and I can see my breath on every exhale. I start counting, one breath for every letter I just typed.

  Then I start deleting.

  hi dad i miss

  hi dad i

  hi dad

  I stop. I should turn off the phone and strip the battery and throw it all away, somewhere into the woods where it’ll get rained on and short out, and it’ll be like I never had it at all.

  I can’t do this. I shouldn’t do this. It’s bad. It’s dangerous.

  But it’s like the impulse to light those matches. This time, Lanny won’t walk in and yell at me to stop before I burn the house down.

  There’s nobody but Boot, gazing up at me with sad eyes.

  I press the “Send” button.

  The second I do it, I know it’s wrong, and I wish I could take it back. I feel sick, and I grip the phone so hard I think I might break it. Turn it off. You have to turn it off. Boot looks at me like he can tell I’m upset; he gets up and sits taller so he can lick my face. I can hardly feel it, but I put my arms around him and hug him, tight.

  He whimpers a little and wiggles in my grasp. I’m going to turn it off and throw it away, I promise, even though I’m not sure who I’m really promising it to. Me? Lanny? Mom? I slide the cover off. I reach for the battery.

  And then it’s too late, because the phone shakes in my hand.

  I let go of Boot, and I open the phone and stare at the words on the screen.

  hi son

  I should throw it away. I know I should. I’m not crazy.

  But just looking at the phone, I can hear his voice. I can feel the way he hugged me on the good days, the days when everything was right. I don’t think about the other days, most of them, when Dad drifted through the house like a ghost and looked at us like strangers. Sometimes, he’d go days without talking to us. Sometimes, he wouldn’t be there at all. Working, Mom always said, but I could feel how worried she was that he wouldn’t come home.

  This message feels like Good Dad. I’m back home, and I’m not scared anymore, and everything is finally . . . safe.

  Just this once, I think. I’ll get rid of the phone tomorrow.

  That’s how it starts.

  11

  GWEN

  After leaving the warehouse, we head back to the coffee shop. Nursing more caffeine, and I ask for a phone book from the counter lady, who gives me a disbelieving look and finally unearths a water-stained copy that must be nearly ten years old from the back of a cabinet. I don’t tell her why I’m such a Luddite, and she doesn’t ask, thank God.

  The directory gives me the phone number and street address for Rivard Luxe.

  I work through six choose-a-number menu options before I reach the cool, disinterested voice of an operator, who calmly informs me that Mr. Rivard is not available for calls. I expect that. I say, “Please send a message to him and ask him if he’s missing an investigator he hired a few months ago. If he is, I’ve found his man. He’s dead.”

  There’s a short silence while the operator parses that out, and she doesn’t sound quite so serene when she replies. “I’m sorry, did you say dead?”

  “Absolutely. Here’s my phone number.” I read it off to her. I’ll have to buy a new disposable after this, but that’s an acceptable trade-off, because I was planning to do that anyway. “Tell him he has one hour to call me back. After that, I won’t answer.”

  “I see. And . . . your name?”

  “Miss Smith,” I say. “One hour. Understand?”

  “Yes, Miss Smith. I’ll see he gets the message right away.”

  She sounds off balance enough that I believe her. I hang up and raise my eyebrows at Sam, who nods. We’re well aware that he could do a variety of things, including calling the Atlanta police, and we’re fully prepared to ditch the phone into the trash the second we see a cruiser. We watch the comings and goings of patrons. Nobody pays attention to us. The hot topics are, as in most coffee shops, schoolwork, writing, politics, and religion. Sometimes all at once.

  Ten minutes later, my phone rings. “Please connect me to Miss Smith.”

  “I’m Miss Smith,” I tell him. “Who’s this?”

  “Ballantine Rivard.” He has a southern accent, but it isn’t Georgia. It’s an unmistakable Louisiana drawl, rich as cream sauce.

  “And how can I be sure it’s you, sir?”

  “You can’t,” he says, and he sounds amused about it. “But since you reached out to me, I suppose you’ll have to take your chances.”

  He’s right. I can’t prove I’m talking to the right man, but what choice do I really have? “I want to talk to you about the man you hired. The one who’s gone missing.”

  “The dead man, according to your discussion with Mrs. Yarrow.”

  “Yes,” I tell him. “He’s dead. I can tell you what I know, if you meet with us.”

  “If you knew anything at all about me, you’d know I don’t meet with anyone.” He still sounds polite, but there’s a new firmness. I can sense I’m losing him. “Please call the police with your story, Miss Smith. I have no money for whatever scheme you’re—”

  “I’m not looking for money,” I interrupt him. I decide to take a chance. “I’m looking for Absalom. And I think you are, too.”

  There’s an electric silence that stretches on forever before he says, “You have my attention. Talk.”

  “Not on the phone,” I say. “We’ll come to you.”

  Sam is watching me intently, coffee forgotten now. He’s as surprised as I am that the great Ballantine Rivard returned my call, and that he’s still on the phone.

  “You’ll be thoroughly searched,” Rivard says. “And you’d best not be wasting my time, or I promise you, I’ll have you arrested without a second thought. Do you understand?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then come to the Luxe building, downtown Atlanta. I assume you are in town?”

  “Yes.”

  “And what are your real names? The ones on your identification you will be showing my people?”

  I don’t like doing it, but he’s right; I’m going to have to show ID. “Gwen Proctor,” I tell him. “And Sam Cade.” I know that he’ll have minions Googling us in seconds, providing him with a complete dossier of every news report ever written about Gwen Proctor, and Gina Royal. It’ll be a thick enough file. Sam’s will be far thinner.

  If he recognizes the name, he doesn’t show it. “You’ll leave everything with security. Phones, tablets, computers, notes, paper, clothing. We’ll give you something temporary to wear. If you don’t agree with those conditions, don’t show up, Ms. Proctor. If you do, I’ll see you promptly at one thirty.”

  That doesn’t leave us much time. We’ve left Lustig, or rathe
r, he’s gone off to do what he needs to do. He didn’t ask what we intended to get up to the rest of the day. That might have been a mistake on his part.

  I say goodbye and hang up, then put the phone on the table between us.

  “You got us an invitation to the Ivory Tower,” Sam says. “My God.”

  “To what?”

  “That’s what they call the Luxe building,” he tells me. “Rivard’s been living at the top of it for twenty years now. Hasn’t left it in a while, especially after his son’s death.”

  “How did his son die?”

  “Suicide,” Sam says. “Broke Rivard’s heart, according to the tabloids.”

  “Oh, and you read the tabloids?”

  “I’m as weak as the next guy when it comes to celebrity gossip.”

  “I’m not judging,” I say, and for the first time, I feel a real smile forming. “So you’re the Rivard expert of the two of us. What do you think will impress the man?”

  Sam sips coffee. “Honesty,” he says. “And I think you’ve already got that part down.”

  “Glad you think so. They’re going to strip-search us,” I say. He chokes on his coffee. “Just being honest.”

  It’s not quite a prison search—I’ve had plenty of experience—but Rivard’s people are clearly serious about their work. Our phones are taken. Backpacks, including my laptop and our phones. We’re asked to strip to our underwear, searched, and then allowed to put on some dark-blue velour tracksuits in just the right sizes with RIVARD LUXE embroidered in gold thread over a crest on the front. Not quite business casual, but I’m willing to bet that they’re exorbitantly expensive. Matching slippers, and they’re so comfortable it’s like walking on clouds.

  We go up in a private elevator that looks salvaged from the height of the Gilded Age, a work of art in itself. A security man rides up with us and hands us badges on black cords. “You’ll need to wear these at all times,” he says. “Stay inside the designated areas. If you go beyond those, the badges will sound an alarm.”

  “And how will we know where the designated areas are . . . ?”

  “Assume you should ask before you go anywhere at all,” he says. He looks like a former military man, one with a fairly high rank, too, and he’s used to being in charge. I glance over and see that Sam is fidgeting with the zipper on the front of his tracksuit. This is not his kind of outfit. He sees me looking and shrugs.

  “I feel like a Russian mobster,” he says.

  “Wrong shoes,” Mr. Security says, and I have to laugh. Then I have to consider how many of that type he’s ushered up here.

  We arrive at a large, round entry hall. One end of it is crusted in a multicolored glass window, a mix of modern and deco, which shows a man reaching up toward the sun. It’s a mesmerizing piece of art, and it’s enormous. Worth, I presume, several million dollars. Or ten or twenty thousand of these tracksuits we’re wearing. I’m not sure just how Rivard counts money.

  Our security guard leads us forward through a grand double-doored entrance, into another room that I suspect only exists for circumstances like this: meetings with strangers. It’s built to impress. There’s no desk, but there’s a vast view of the city, obscured today by low, wispy clouds. Three grand sofas are set in a triangle, with a table in the middle. The security man takes up a post near the wall and crosses his hands in front, looking like he can stand there for the next ten thousand years, and Sam and I wait, not sure where, or if, we should sit.

  Ballantine Rivard rolls in exactly on time. His wheelchair is a marvel of aesthetic design, and it moves almost silently, except for the slight hiss of tires on the thick carpeting. In person, he looks younger than his pictures, and he’s changed out the black-rimmed glasses for a pair with a slightly blue tint to the lenses. Frameless. They make him look like he’s about to go Formula One racing.

  Ironically—or not—he’s wearing the exact same tracksuit we are.

  “Sit, sit,” he says, giving us an impartial smile. “Gwen Proctor. Samuel Cade. Don’t stand on ceremony.” His honeyed tones don’t fool me. This man didn’t get to the top of this tower by being charming.

  Sam and I sink down on the sofa, which feels brand-new. Not many people get to sit here, I think. We’re rare exceptions, coming here at all.

  “Can I offer you a drink?” He doesn’t look behind him, but as if on cue, an impeccably dressed man in a tailored blue business suit walks in, carrying a silver tray loaded down with drink choices. Every one of them is alcoholic, and above my wildest dream budget.

  “Scotch would be fine,” Sam says, and I nod. Rivard wants to be hospitable, and we’ll sip for courtesy.

  The Scotch, of course, is heaven in a glass. I try to keep the sips shallow.

  “Now,” Rivard says, as he’s given his own glass, which the man in the suit has mixed with expert ease from three different liquors. “You have news of this investigator.”

  “I’ll tell you what we know, but it needs to be private.”

  Rivard’s eyes lock on me through the blue-tinted glasses. “Mr. Chivari. Mr. Dougherty. Please leave us.”

  The man in the blue suit does it without hesitation or question, but the security man says, “Sir, wouldn’t you rather I stay—”

  “Out, Mr. Dougherty. You may wait just beyond the door. I will be fine.” There’s a set to Rivard’s jaw now, and a faint flush working up through the pallid skin of his neck, though his voice remains calm and slow. Dougherty gives us both a last, unhappy look, and then closes up the door after himself. “All right. We’re alone now. And I can answer you without filters. Now. Tell me how you happened to find this man.”

  “You mean, Mr. Sauer?”

  His eyes flicker just a little, but what it means, I don’t know. “Yes. Where did you find him?”

  “In a deserted warehouse,” I say. I’m willing to let Sam take the lead, but he’s laying back, watching. Absorbing information. “Why did you hire him?”

  “You said the name Absalom,” Rivard counters. “Explain how you know that name, please.”

  I force a smile. “Sure. But first you tell me how you know it.”

  “I’ve had some . . . issues. I’d rather not go into the details.”

  “Did it have to do with your son?” Sam asks, and I ease back to let him take the conversation.

  I think for a few seconds that we’ve lost the old man, that he’s going to summon his men to see us out . . . but Rivard heaves a sigh and looks off into the distance, out at the serene Atlanta skyline. “Yes. It had to do with my son,” he says. His voice has a ring of sadness, and also frustration. “Very much to do with him. I lost him to suicide a few months ago, you know. My fault. It’s not easy, raising wealthy children with a good sense of right and wrong. I should have done better, but that’s my sin, not his. He had drug problems through the years, as I suppose you’re aware; the tabloids covered it with a great deal of glee. He was in and out of treatment facilities . . . not unlike you, Mr. Cade. You also have some hospitalization in your past, don’t you?”

  Sam closes up. I’ve seen it before, this change, but it’s still alarming, as if he’s turned to glass, and only his eyes are still alive. Then the shell breaks, and he says, “I was hospitalized after Afghanistan.”

  “No shame in it, son. A lot of good men come back damaged from war.”

  Sam’s not having Rivard’s honey-coated condescension. His eyes have gone flat and cold. “I was treated for severe depression, and since you’re only discussing it to demonstrate you dug into both our histories, why don’t you just skip to the main course and talk about Melvin Royal?”

  I’m glad he’s countermoved. Hearing him say my ex-husband’s name is a shock, but a bracing one. We’ve just controlled the pacing. And I see Rivard doesn’t care for that much, from the slight tightening of his thin lips.

  “All right,” he says. “Let’s do discuss the invisible serial killer in the room. Melvin Royal is on the loose, everyone is running in terror, and yet you, Gina,
you aren’t hiding. If anyone has cause, one would suppose it’s you . . . unless you have a good reason not to be afraid of him. Which makes me believe that is how you know about Absalom.”

  “Fuck you,” I say, which makes him wince from the incivility of it all. “You think I’m working with my ex? Sincerely, fuck you.” I stand up, set my glass with a thump, and head for the door. Rivard smoothly angles his chair forward to cut me off, and I’m not quite angry enough to punch a rich old man who’s wheelchair-bound. “Move.”

  “I was only seeing your reaction,” he tells me calmly. “I do apologize if you were offended.”

  I’m staring straight into his eyes. “If I was offended? Fuck you and your Ivory Tower power-play bullshit. That sick bastard is hunting me. He’s hunting my children. Either help, or get out of my way. Is that direct enough for you?”

  Behind me, Sam stands, too. I hear his glass hit the table. “We don’t need you,” he tells Rivard. “Go to hell.”

  It’s not quite Fuck you, but I’ll take it. He’s probably thinking about Mike Lustig, and not completely destroying this back channel, but I don’t have any kind of patience. I am incandescent with rage. Melvin’s Little Helper had her day in court, and I’ll be damned if I’ll let anyone say this to my face again.

  Rivard blinks first. “All right,” he says, then moves his chair out of my way. “You’re welcome to leave if you like, I won’t stop you. But I do apologize, Ms. Proctor. That was rude. But I had to be certain you weren’t . . . one of them.”

  “Absalom, you mean,” I say, and he nods. “It was Absalom you were after? That’s who Sauer was looking into?”

  “Yes.” He takes a long breath. “My son suffered from, as they term it these days, affluenza. I would simply call him spoiled. It led to drug and alcohol addiction, which resulted in a variety of problems. All tiresomely predictable. A cliché.” He waves that away. “Absalom targeted him, and they were unspeakably cruel in how they tormented him online. No reason at all. Simply because he was an easy target. Amusement, I suppose.”

  “How did they attack him?” I ask, but I think I already know. He takes another drink, then puts his glass down on the table to join ours. It means he’s surrendering his last defense, I think.