Passion (In Wilde Country 2)

“I sent him what I know.” Pastore dug a cellphone from his pocket, tapped the screen, tapped it again. “Where she was born, what she did before I married her, stuff like that.” He looked up from the phone. “I just sent it all to you.”

“What for? I keep telling you, I’m no longer your attorney. Even if I were, this has nothing to do with—”

Pastore stood up. “You hear from her, you find her, you bring her to me, pronto. Pronto! You got that?”

Matteo rose, too. “I’m not going to hear from her. I’m not going to look for her. And I don’t work for you anymore, Pastore.” His lips thinned. “I regret I ever did.”

“You’re breakin’ my heart, paesano.” Pastore strolled to the door. “I’ll be waiting for your call.”

“There won’t be any call.”

Pastore swung toward him. “Yeah,” he said, “there will be, unless you’re a bigger asshole than I think.”

Matteo started after him. Then he thought, what in hell for? Pastore’s mind was made up. He’d delivered an edict. Find my wife. Return her to me.

The king had spoken.

Pastore marched out of the office. Matteo sank into his chair. Cristo, what a mess. Yeah, but it wasn’t his mess. It was the Pastores’ mess. Tony and his wife. Ariel.

Ariel.

A muscle knotted in his cheek.

Where could she have gone? She was sick. Confused. Now, she could be anywhere in this unforgiving city, alone, afraid, at the mercy of the scum who wandered the streets, just searching for prey.

“Dammit,” he muttered.

It was not his problem. Definitely, not his problem…but there was no harm in reading the information Pastore had said he’d sent him. He took out his iPhone, called up his mail and yes, Pastore’s message was right on top.

He clicked on it.

A page of data came up.

Ariel Pastore, neé Ariel Bennett, had been born in Muttontown, Long Island. His eyebrows rose. He knew a little bit about Long Island. There were some incredibly rich towns out there, and Muttontown was one of them. She was the only child of Kenneth and Mary Bennett, and she was twenty-six years old.

Twenty-six. She’d looked much older than that the other night. Or maybe she’d just looked exhausted, defeated, unhappy…

Dammit.

He stopped reading, hit a button, hit another, watched Pastore’s email whoosh into cyberspace.

“Janet?” Matteo went to the door. His P.A. looked up from her desk. Her expression gave nothing away. Remarkable, he thought, considering what had just happened. “I just emailed something to you. Print it, please, as soon as you get it.”

She nodded.

“Ah, Janet? About what happened before…”

“I’m glad Mr. Pastore isn’t your client anymore,” Janet said. Then she blushed. ”I know it isn’t my place to say that, Mr. Bellini, but—”

“No. It’s okay.” Matteo flashed a smile. “The truth is, I’m glad, too.

Back in his office, he shut the door, returned to his desk, sat down, tilted back his chair and stared blindly at the ceiling.

Pastore was trying to draw him into this mess, but that wasn’t about to happen. It had nothing to do with him. Yes, but it was natural to feel some concern over Ariel, wasn’t it? She’d looked so vulnerable the other night. So unhappy.

Had she really talked about him afterward? Asked questions about him?

Dammit, what if she had? After all, she’d asked him to help her.

Dio. Back to that.

He couldn’t help either of the Pastores. He wasn’t a physician or a P.I. He was an attorney. A corporate attorney Assisting mentally ill people, finding them, wasn’t what he did.

Matteo steepled his fingers.

There was a light rap at his door. He sat up straight as Janet entered the room with some papers in her hand.

“Here’s the printout of that document, sir.”

“Fine. Thank you.”

She hesitated. “May I get you anything? Coffee? Water?”

“No. No, thanks, I’m good. “

“The courier’s on his way, sir. Mr. Pastore’s files will be gone in just a few minutes.”

Matteo smiled.

That’s the best news I’ve had today. “

“Yessir.”

Janet left. Matteo picked up the report she’d brought him and read through it. It didn’t really tell him much. As Tony had said, he and Ariel had been married a little over a year. Before the wedding, she’d been a dancer, part of a group called the Electric Dance Company.

The Electric Dance Company.

It didn’t take much to figure out what a place like that was all about.

Manhattan had more than its share of so-called gentlemen’s clubs where a fifty dollar minimum was supposed to convince men in three thousand dollar suits that watching women grind against a pole wasn’t down-and-dirty entertainment.

He had trouble imagining Ariel Pastore on stage at a place like that, but he wasn’t a kid. The woman he’d met didn’t have to resemble the woman who’d stripped for a living. The old saying was true: you really couldn’t judge a book by its cover.

Besides, what did it matter? She was Tony’s choice, not his, and Pastore was the kind of man who’d frequent strip clubs. He’d have been a sucker for the Madonna-whore thing she’d undoubtedly projected.

Forget the claim that he’d met her at a charity function. He’d met her over a bottle of vastly overpriced champagne and, if she really was originally from Muttontown, she was certainly not from the part where houses sold in the nosebleed millions.

Matteo scanned the remaining pages.

She’d started behaving strangely a few months ago. There were notes from a doctor. She was in good health physically. Emotionally, she suffered from anxiety disorder. From depression. From addiction to an endless list of medications. More recently, she’d begun having delusions.

Matteo stopped reading, propped his elbows on his desk and rubbed his hands over his eyes.

And now, she was missing.

Missing. Alone and sick and probably frightened…

Not your problem, Bellini.

Right. It wasn’t.

Matteo put the report aside, reached for one of the documents on his desk that awaited his attention, and got to work.

* * *

He worked through lunch and through most of the afternoon.

It was all pro forma stuff. A good thing, because he had difficulty concentrating. He kept thinking about Ariel Pastore. Her delicacy. Her fear because, yes, what he’d sensed and seen in her was fear.

At four o’clock, he shoved aside the papers he’d been reading.

It would be dark soon. Where was she? Was she someplace safe?

He got to his feet and paced his office. If—if—you wanted to look for someone who was missing, how would you go about it? He knew a couple of private investigators. He’d used them, from time to time, to get information he needed in dealing with a client. Did they deal with missing persons? He could call one. Just to ask some questions, not because he was going to get involved in trying to find Ariel Pastore…

Brrring.

The bleat of his cellphone startled him. He picked it up, looked at the caller ID. Unknown caller from an area code he’d never heard of.

Pastore, probably, somehow blocking his name.

Matteo considered ignoring the call, but Pastore would only try reaching him again.

“Listen, Tony,” he said as he answered the phone, “I have had enough of—”

“Is this Matteo Bellini?”

Not Pastore. The voice was wrong. Was it a salesman who’d somehow gotten hold of his number? Spam was the last thing he needed now.

“Look, pal, whatever you’re trying to sell me—”

“Mr. Bellini, this is Dr. Charles Stafford. I’m a neurologist on staff at Lake Serene Hospital.”

Matteo blinked. “Lake Serene Hospital?”

“Yes. Lake Serene, New York. We’re a town in the Adirondack mountains.”

Matteo’s mind whirled. He didn’t know anyone in upstate New York. Like many of his fellow urbanites, New York pretty much meant Manhattan and maybe, on occasion, parts of Brooklyn.

The name Lake Serene did ring a bell. The winter Olympics, maybe, years and years ago? But why would an upstate hospital phone him? A solicitation for funds? He contributed to a lot of charities. The list probably included a couple of medical centers here in the city. Maybe they shared their donor lists…

“Mr. Bellini?”

“Yes. Yes, I’m here.”

“We admitted a patient a few hours ago, Mr. Bellini. A young woman. She was in an automobile accident.”

“Who is it?” Matteo said, shooting to his feet. “Bianca? Alessandra? Emily? Jaimie? Lissa?”

“She told us her name is Ariel.”

Matteo blinked again. “What?”

“That’s all we have, sir. Her first name. She had no ID, but there was an envelope in her pocket filled with cash. Your business card was in it, as well.”

Matteo shut his eyes, saw himself slipping his card into Ariel Pastore’s hand.

“Mr. Bellini?”

“Yes. I’m here, doctor. I’m trying to…” He cleared his throat. “How badly was she hurt?”

“Well, she’s conscious. She suffered some cuts and bruises, a fractured wrist, and a concussion, but all in all, she’s doing very well.”

“And she has no ID?”

“None. As I told you, she says her name is Ariel.”

“She says…” Matteo frowned. “What does that mean, she says her name is Ariel?”

There was a second of silence. “She has amnesia, Mr. Bellini. She doesn’t remember anything but her first name. That’s not altogether uncommon in cases of grade three concussions.”