The door to the conference room opened and Sinclair entered. Her cheeks looked flushed and her eyes bright with excite
ment. She held Lisa’s journal in her hand. “Sorry, I’m late. I’ve been working on Lisa Black’s journal, based on the theory that it’s a ROT13 code.”
“And?” Garrison said.
“You were right. That was the code.”
“Good.”
“You won’t believe who she hooked up with last spring.”
Garrison leaned back in his chair, his body tense. Sinclair grinned like a contented cat. “Darius Cross. They were lovers. Here is her March 7 entry from last year.
I had too much to drink and told Darius who I really was. He went ballistic and hit me because I’d lied to him. When I thought he’d hit me a second time I told him The Secret. His face paled. He dressed and left and I never saw him again.
“The Secret. Could it be Kristen’s pregnancy?” Malcolm said.
“Macy said she didn’t think the sorority house fire started by the fireplace,” Garrison said. “Maybe The Secret was bigger than that. Maybe Lisa or one of the other girls set the fire. Maybe Eva Rayburn doesn’t remember killing Josiah because she didn’t.”
“Have a look at the sketch artist’s work,” Malcolm said. He opened a file and slid the sketches across the desk. “The first visitor is clearly Connor Donovan. He was doing a little research on his story.”
Garrison studied the very accurate sketch. “Let’s hope the other sketch is as accurate.”
Malcolm pushed it toward Garrison. “Hard to say.”
This guy had a beard and glasses but his face was small, even delicate. “I feel like I’ve seen this picture before, but I can’t place him.”
Malcolm nodded. “I had the same feeling.”
Garrison’s mind flipped through the facts of the case. “Remember the bartender at Moments mentioned that Lisa’s older boyfriend had a driver?”
Malcolm nodded. “Sure.”
“Let’s assume the older boyfriend was Darius and the driver was his.”
Malcolm snapped his fingers. “Drivers hear a lot.”
Garrison rubbed the back of his neck. “Rokov, see if you can track down this driver. Let’s see what light he can shed on this family.”
Kristen woke in stages. At first she thought she’d had another bad dream about her baby. She dreamed about him a lot lately. His cries filled her nightmares and she always found herself searching the darkness for him. But no matter how much she called out to him or how many bargains she made with God, she never found the boy.
But as she opened her eyes, she knew immediately that something was terribly wrong. She lay on a concrete floor and thick chains held her hands and feet to the ground. In the far corner a darkened figure sat next to a hearth where a fire blazed.
Panic burned through her body. She tugged at her chains, testing, hoping she’d be free and discover this wasn’t real. The rattle of the metal links echoed in the room.
The figure didn’t turn but stoked the embers of the fire. “Good, you’re awake. And just in time.”
Chapter 19
Tuesday, April 11, 11:15 A.M.
The sketch Garrison faxed to the pub last night still niggled Eva’s mind as she flipped the sign from CLOSED to OPEN. She’d not recognized the man but sensed he was no stranger either.
Damn. She rubbed her eyes as the first customer of the day sauntered through the front door. She recognized him. Stan. A regular, he always showed up for lunch before eleven-thirty. And each day he ordered the same thing: turkey, with white American cheese on white bread, chips on the side, soda with no ice.
Stan nodded and came into the pub, taking his regular seat. According to King he’d been coming here for over a decade. Since she’d been serving him, he sat in the same booth.
Eva filled a glass with soda and set it in front of him. “Morning, Stan. You want the usual? ”
“Morning, Doris.” He stared at his cola. “Yep. I’ll have the regular.”
“Great.” Relief washed over her at the normalcy of the moment. He treated her today just like he had yesterday. Nothing had changed.
She put in his order, and then seated a few more customers. No one said anything about the article and she started to believe that maybe, just maybe, she could stay under the radar. Maybe no one cared about her past.
Eva set Stan’s turkey sandwich in front of him and refilled his glass with cola from a pitcher.
Instead of diving into the meal as he always had, he stared at it and his brow furrowed.
“Something wrong, Stan? Did I put the chips in the wrong place?”
He continued to stare at his plate. “So is what the papers say true?”
And so it began. She’d resolved this morning when she’d read the article that she’d not lie about her past. “Some of it.”
“What was it like in jail?”
She kept her shoulders relaxed. “Not the kind of place I ever want to go back to.”
He rotated his plate so that the chips shifted from four o’clock to seven o’clock. “How do I know you haven’t slipped poison into my food?”
She laughed. “You’re kidding, right?”
His lips flattened. “Serious as a heart attack.”
She stared at him, waiting for him to crack a smile or show her this was a joke. But when he only projected seriousness, her anger rose. “Look, if you don’t want to eat,” she said as she reached for his plate.
“I didn’t say that.”
“Then what are you saying?” Anger now tugged at her insides.
“I’m just saying, I got to be careful if I’m dealing with an ex-con. That is what they call you people, right? Ex-cons?”
“There a problem here?” King said as he dried his hands on his apron.
“There’s no problem,” Eva said.
Stan shrugged. “I just asked about the morning article. Didn’t expect her to get so prickly about it.”
King planted a meaty fist on his hip. “You got a point to make, Stan?”
Stan arched a thin eyebrow. “You know you have a murderer working for you.”
King’s expression turned fierce. “Stan, you aren’t one to hold someone’s past against them, are you? Yours is a bit colorful.”
Stan stood, his thin body stiff and awkward. “I may not be perfect, but I ain’t no murderer. And I don’t like the fact that a murderer is serving me.”
Eva could see King’s temper rising. “Stan, if I were going to poison you, don’t you think I’d have done it by now? ”
King’s eyes flashed with outrage. “Poison!”
Stan shrugged. “Maybe, maybe not.”
Eva smiled. “I’m not going to poison you or anyone else. I do need to take orders at table six and seven. Now, if you don’t need anything else, I’ve got to get moving.”
As Eva moved away, Stan said, “I don’t know if I trust that girl. ”
King waved Stan away as he scooped up his plate and headed back to the kitchen. “Shut up, Stan. And get the hell out of my place.”
Fifteen minutes later after Eva had taken orders and refilled drinks, she pushed through the kitchen door and moved over toward King as he dropped the basket of fries into the hot oil. “There are a lot of people like Stan, King. And most won’t be as up-front as Stan is. They might want to get another morbid look at That Waitress at King’s but they’ll stop coming.”
“Screw ‘em.”
“Easier said than done.” Suddenly a deep weariness settled in her bones. Would this follow her all her life or would the day come when no one cared? “I’m worried about Bobby. This is going to draw the attention of Social Services.”
King pulled out a chef’s knife and started to carve a turkey. “I’m his foster parent, not you. It shouldn’t be a problem.”
“If Connor Donovan keeps writing his articles, then it could be a huge problem. Ten years ago, he built a career on my case.”
“It will blow over. ”
King sounded so confident, as if he could weather any storm. But she wasn’t so certain. His profit and loss margins on the resta
urant were slim and if he lost even a handful of regulars he’d soon be in the red. “Maybe I should move out for a while. Until the media stuff blows over.”
King glared at her. “No. This is your home. We will get through this.”
We will get through this. That was the last thing Angie had said to her a decade ago. Angie had underestimated how much damage Donovan could do.
A horn blared outside. Eva pushed open the swinging door and through the front window saw a news van trying to find parking. Her thoughts turned to Deacon. For reasons she couldn’t explain, she trusted him and sensed he might be able to help in some way.
“This will not turn into the nightmare it did a decade ago.”
Donovan’s article had generated a great buzz. Already, he spun ideas for the follow-up piece, which his editor had scheduled for the Sunday edition. If he played it right, this story would grab the attention of national television news, which could very well lead to a book deal. Eva Rayburn had launched his career and now she was going to save it. She was the gift that kept on giving.
Like the series a decade ago, he’d portrayed Eva as a femme fatale, a woman who’d do anything to break free of her foster care roots. Now he’d suggested that she might have returned to the area to get the revenge on the women who’d testified against her.
As he sipped his coffee, he contemplated getting an agent and a book deal. Fans already wanted to know more about Eva, and if Connor didn’t get her story, another reporter would. But so far, he’d had no luck getting her on the phone at King’s and King had threatened to break his kneecaps if he showed his face again at the pub. There had to be another place he could ambush her. He was a fast talker, he could be charming and he just needed to get her alone when she didn’t have her defenses in place.
His phone rang and he picked it up on the second ring. “Donovan.”
“This is Eva.” Her voice sounded soft, barely a hoarse whisper.
He sat forward in his chair, his heart pounding furiously.
“You’ve been trying to call me.”
“I sure have. I really want to interview you. And I’m sorry about the other night. I had no right to ambush you like that.”