Perfect (Second Opportunities 2)

"Where is Zack Benedict?" a woman in a green string bikini called to her friends, without realizing Zack could see and hear her. "I've been here all day and I still haven't laid eyes on him. I'm starting to think he's a legend who doesn't exist." It wasn't surprising she hadn't seen him, since this wing of the house was off limits to all but Matt and Meredith Farrell. They were Zack's only actual houseguests, the only people he permitted into his inner sanctum. For that reason, he scowled when he heard another woman's voice calling from the hallway just beyond the solarium, "Hey, has anyone in here seen Zack?" He was going to have to put in an appearance out there, he realized, or that chant, which had been escalating for the last hour, would continue unabated until someone came to find him.

Behind him, Meredith Farrell's soft, cultured voice laughingly said, "Have you seen Zack Benedict?"

"No, I'm afraid not," Zack joked, politely coming to his feet.

"Everyone seems to be looking for him," she teased, putting her hand in his outstretched palm.

Zack leaned down and kissed her cheek, slightly startled by the instantaneous affection he'd felt for Matt's wife. Until he actually met her two days ago, Zack had been inclined to dismiss most of Matt's praise of his wife as uncharacteristic infatuation, but having met her, he was completely impressed. Meredith Bancroft Farrell had the poise and beauty that the society columns always credited her with, but none of the cool hauteur Zack had expected. Instead, she had a gentleness, a gentility, and an unaffected warmth that both disarmed and touched him. "I hear," he confided, "that Benedict is an antisocial sort who doesn't particularly like big, sprawling parties very much, at least not this one."

She sobered, her eyes searching his. "Really? Why do you suppose that is?"

He smiled and shrugged. "I guess I'm not in the mood right now."

Meredith considered bringing up Julie Mathison, as she'd considered often during the last two days, but Matt had not only asked, he had instructed her not to mention Julie's name. "Am I interrupting your work?" she said instead, glancing at the thick folders on the table beside his chair.

"Not at all, I'd enjoy the company." Zack looked around her for the Farrells' enchanting two-year-old daughter, who he rather hoped would come flying into the room with her usual demand for a hug from him. "Where's Marissa?"

"She's having a tea party with Joe before her nap."

"The little flirt," he said, glancing toward the antique Sevres china tea set he'd had his housekeeper put on the coffee table a while ago, "she promised to have a tea party with me!"

"Do not even consider," Meredith warned, "letting Marissa touch those exquisite cups. Lately she seems to think you drop teacups on the floor when you're finished."

Matt strolled in on the end of that conversation looking rested, relaxed, and amused. "She obviously does that because I told her she's a princess. Which she is. Where's Joe?" he added. "I need to send him—"

As if the mention of the good-natured chauffeur's name had conjured up the man, Joe O'Hara strode purposefully into the solarium, but he wasn't smiling. "Zack," he said, "your housekeeper just stopped me in the hall. It seems you've got yourself a visitor who flashed his badge at her and put her in a tizzy. He's FBI. Name's Paul Richardson. She put him in the library."

Swearing under his breath at the thought of having to talk to an FBI agent, Zack started out of the room,

"Zack?" Matt called behind him. When he turned, Matt asked, "Alone? Or with witnesses?"

Zack hesitated, "Witnesses, if you don't mind."

"Are you up to this, whatever 'this' is?" Matt asked Meredith.

She nodded and they both caught up with Zack, walking alongside him down the long hall and into the mahogany-paneled library.

Rudely ignoring the tall, dark man who'd been looking at the books on the shelves, Zack waited until Matt and Meredith were seated, then he sat down behind his desk and snapped, "Let's see your identification." The FBI agent, who Zack had already recognized from Mexico City, removed a leather case from his inside jacket pocket and held it out. Zack glanced at it and then at him. "It's a lousy picture, but it looks like you."

"Let's skip the games," Paul countered with equal discourtesy, testing for the best way to deal with his adversary. "You knew damned well who I was the minute you saw me just now. You recognized me from Mexico City."

Benedict dismissed that with a shrug. "Either way, I have no intention of speaking to you or anyone else from the FBI without the presence of my attorneys."

"This isn't an official visit, it's a personal one. Furthermore, you don't have to say a word. I'll do all the talking."

Instead of inviting him to sit down, Benedict inclined his head slightly toward a chair in front of his desk. Squelching his annoyance at the tone the meeting had already taken, Paul sat down, put his briefcase on the floor beside him, and opened the locks. "Actually, I'd prefer to discuss this in private…" he said, glancing over his shoulder at the man and woman watching him from the sofa, identifying them at a glance, "…without Mr. and Mrs. Farrell present."

"What you would 'prefer' is of absolutely no interest to me," Benedict said. Leaning back in his leather chair, he picked up the gold pen lying beside a tablet on his desk, rolling it between his fingers. "Let's hear what you have to say."

Hiding his mounting temper behind a coolly polite facade, Paul said, "I will begin by reminding you that you are in an extremely vulnerable position regarding the kidnapping of Julie Mathison. Should she decide to press charges against you, there's an excellent chance she could put you behind bars for what you did to her. For purely personal reasons," he added pleasantly, "I would thoroughly enjoy prosecuting that case."

He watched Benedict's expressionless face, and when he saw no reaction at all to his jibe, Paul tested out a tone of genuine courtesy. "Look, in return for my personal guarantee that she will not press charges against you, all I ask is that you give me five minutes and agree to listen to what I have to say."

"Was that actually a polite request I just heard from you?"

Paul squelched the urge to smash his face. "Yes."

Benedict glanced at his watch. "In that case, you have four minutes and fifty seconds left."

"I have your word to let me finish?"

"So long as you can do it in four minutes and forty seconds." The gold pen began to tap on the pad in a clear indication of impatience, and Paul said curtly, "So that you don't doubt my credibility or the validity of my information, I want you to understand that I was in charge of your case. I was in Keaton while she was in Colorado with you, I was there when she returned, and I am the one who had her put under constant surveillance when we left Keaton because I had a hunch she would try to get to you or you to her. I am also the one she called on the night before she was to join you in Mexico City. Now," Paul said, his voice gaining emphasis as he came to the point he needed to make "despite what you think and how the media has made it sound, I also know beyond all doubt that Julie did not agree to join you in Mexico so that she could entrap you and hand you over to us. The truth is that my office did not know anything about her plan to join you until the night before she was supposed to do it. She finally panicked and called me for two reasons: Three days before she was to leave, she went to visit your grandmother, Margaret Stanhope, out of some hare-brained notion of healing old family hostilities for your sake. Instead of accomplishing her goal, she was shown proof that you'd confessed to the accidental killing of your brother, and she was further informed by your grandmother that she herself believed you'd deliberately murdered the boy and later your wife."