Kitabı oku: «Payback»

Jasmine Cresswell
Payback

For Alexander, always in my heart…

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Epilogue

One

Herndon, Virginia, October 3, 2007

Luke Savarini took a second bite of the lobster ravioli, just to be sure he hadn’t judged too hastily. He’d been right the first time, he decided, letting the flavors dissolve on his tongue. There was too much oregano, and the sauce splashed over everything was weighted down with excess cream.

Anna, his sister, watched his reaction and then gave a crooked smile. “Not up to scratch, huh? My veal is okay, but not spectacular. Want to taste?”

“I’ll take your word for it.” Luke put down his fork, pushing away his heaped plate. With all the food there was in his life, he avoided eating anything he didn’t completely enjoy. His waistline and his taste buds both thanked him.

“Why did you insist on bringing me here, Annie? You’re not usually a fan of second-rate Italian.”

“The restaurant is owned by Bruno Savarini. He’s a cousin of ours, sort of. His grandfather and our great-grandfather were brothers.”

Luke rolled his eyes. The most remote and fragile twigs of the family tree all made perfect sense to his sister, whereas he had his work cut out simply keeping track of the names and birthdays of his six nieces and nephews.

He mentally reviewed the vast clan of Savarini cousins. “Okay, I’m working hard, but I can’t place a Cousin Bruno.”

“He’s Great-Uncle Joe’s grandson. You must have run into each other at a wedding.”

Luke grinned. “Yeah, but that’s almost the same as saying I’ve never met him. Can you ever recall a Savarini wedding with less than two hundred relatives milling around and at least half of the men singing ‘O Sole Mio’ at the top of their lungs?”

Anna returned his grin, tacitly acknowledging the cheerful mob scenes that passed for family gatherings in the Savarini clan. “Bruno had his sixty-fifth birthday last month. He’s short and stocky, with brown eyes and an olive complexion—”

Luke laughed. “Well now, that narrows it right down. Short, stocky, brown eyes. I guess only ninety percent of Savarini men fit that description.”

Anna tried to look severe. “Just because you’re a six-foot, gray-eyed genetic freak, there’s no need to get snooty. Anyway, I brought you here because Bruno plans to retire as soon as he can find a buyer for his restaurant. He has crippling arthritis and he only comes into the restaurant occasionally nowadays. You’d be astonished at how much better the food tastes on the days when he’s here.”

“I wouldn’t be astonished,” Luke protested. “I’m a chef, remember? I know just how much difference it makes when you have somebody talented in charge of the kitchen.”

“The restaurant is in a fabulous location,” Anna continued as if he hadn’t spoken. “The decor is attractive and the kitchen is state-of-the-art. And Bruno has plenty of loyal customers. Look around you. The place is full. That’s pretty good on a Wednesday, especially since we’re eating late.”

Far from looking around the restaurant, Luke’s gaze fixed on his sister with suddenly narrowed focus. “Wait. I must be slow on the uptake tonight because I’ve only just realized why we’re here. You want me to buy this place, don’t you?”

Anna had the grace to blush. “Well, you’re a chef. You own restaurants. Bruno wants to retire and he’s our cousin. It seems a natural fit.”

Luke felt a surge of affectionate exasperation. It was a familiar sensation in Anna’s vicinity. She was a brilliant physicist, working for a government agency that she claimed was part of the Department of Education, although he’d believe crayfish grew on trees before he believed that. He loved her more than any of his four other siblings, which was saying a lot. But whereas she found quantum mechanics and string theory simple concepts, the economics of running a family business had always dangled far beyond her ability to grasp.

He took a sip of Chianti and then toasted his sister with the glass. “I appreciate your good intentions, Annie, but I can’t just randomly acquire restaurants all over the country. I live in Chicago, remember?”

“News flash. Have you noticed there must be thirty flights a day between Chicago and Washington, D.C.? A thousand miles isn’t so far.”

Luke laughed, genuinely amused. “From your perspective, maybe. That’s what comes of working all day with astronomers who consider Alpha Centauri to be practically banging on the back door because it’s only a billion miles away—”

“You’re missing several zeroes,” Anna said. “And it is banging on the back door as stars go.”

“Yeah, well, that’s my point, Annie. A billion or a gazillion, it’s all in a day’s work for you. However, when you’re running a restaurant, a thousand miles is a long way. You need to be on the spot so you can keep an iron grip on quality control, not to mention you have to be on hand to step in whenever there’s a crisis.”

His sister wasn’t ready to give up. “But you have three restaurants in the Chicago area already, and you can only be in one of them at a time. And they’re doing so well…”

Luke mentally crossed his fingers; he was superstitious where his restaurants were concerned. “You’re right, Luciano’s is succeeding beyond my wildest hopes. And part of the reason the restaurants are doing well is because they’re all in the Chicago area. Where I live.” And where he was already working a minimum of sixty hours a week.

She sighed. “I hoped that the lure of opening a restaurant in the D.C. area might be enough to tempt you to visit more often. I miss you, Luke, much as I hate to admit it, seeing as how when we were growing up you were a totally annoying snot.”

He raised his eyebrow. “Me? A snot? You must have me confused with one of your other brothers. Tom, maybe. He has major league snot potential.”

She shook her head. “Uh-uh. No confusion. I’m talking about you.”

“How quickly good deeds are forgotten.” Luke gave an exaggerated sigh. “What about the time I saved you from being discovered with the captain of the baseball team in Mom and Dad’s whirlpool tub? When you were both naked, no less. I figure that ought to have earned me at least a decade or two of gratitude.”

“My God, Robert O’Toole and the hot tub.” Anna’s expression was suddenly arrested. “I’d forgotten about that.”

“If Dad had found the two of you, trust me, it would be one of your more vivid teenage memories.”

She chuckled in wry acknowledgment. “Love is weird, isn’t it? For two whole months I was convinced my life would be over if Rob didn’t ask me to the senior prom. And I haven’t given him a single thought since the day I left for college.”

“He would be devastated to hear that,” Luke said dryly. “Rob definitely fancied himself.”

She gave a nostalgic grin and her gaze became wistful. “Damn, I miss you, Luke. Are you sure you don’t want to reconsider buying Bruno out?”

Luke quelled a moment of temptation. “I wish, Annie, but I’m already stretched way too thin, time-wise. I’m sorry.”

She gave a resigned shrug that didn’t quite conceal her disappointment. “Oh, well. It was worth a try.”

He leaned across the table and briefly rested his hand on his sister’s. The movement shifted his perspective and his gaze happened to land on a couple seated at the table closest to the entrance. The man’s back was turned toward their table, but as Luke watched, the man laughed and reached out to put his arm around the woman’s shoulder so that Luke glimpsed him in profile. The man listened to his companion for a moment, and then laughed again at whatever she had said. A sudden lull in the noise allowed Luke to hear the sound. It was teasing and low, a throaty chuckle. It was also eerily familiar.

Shock momentarily froze Luke in his seat. Then he jumped to his feet, grabbing his chair just in time to prevent it toppling over. “Be right back,” he told his sister, moving swiftly toward the couple.

“Luke, what’s wrong? Where are you going?”

He didn’t answer, partly because he was having a hard time catching his breath, partly because he was focused with hypnotic intensity on the couple by the door. The man must have sensed that he was being observed. He glanced up and his head jerked in visible shock. He immediately rose to his feet, putting his hand in the small of his companion’s back and hustling her toward the exit. She followed without a word of protest, oddly compliant.

A waiter carrying a heavy tray crossed Luke’s path, obscuring his view. He wished he could push the waiter violently aside, the way they did in the movies, and to hell with the food arrayed on the tray. But the habit of deferring to a server carrying dishes was ingrained and Luke skirted the waiter, losing another crucial few seconds in his journey toward the exit. He had to excuse himself twice to an oblivious woman whose chair stuck far out from the table, forming an impromptu barricade. When he’d negotiated that obstacle, he squeezed past the two final tables separating him from the hostess station and reached empty floor space. The man and his companion were nowhere in sight.

Luke ran outside, cursing himself for having wasted too much time being polite. Why hadn’t he just elbowed and shoved his way across the dining room, and to hell with flying dishes? Unfortunately, the parking lot was crowded and he couldn’t immediately spot the couple. Dammit, surely there hadn’t been time for them to drive off?

The lot served several specialty stores in addition to Bruno’s restaurant, and there were at least a dozen people strolling around, as well as a van pulled up to the curb, collecting trash. Although the lot was rimmed by lights, the humidity was high and there was a slight mist hanging in the night air, making it frustratingly hard to see. Luke finally picked out his quarry simply because the man was running, his companion jogging awkwardly in his wake, hampered by her high heels.

“Stop!” Luke yelled, ignoring the interested stares of passersby. “Stop, for God’s sake! Ron Raven, is that you? Ron, stop!”

The man didn’t answer. If anything his pace got faster. The woman, indifferent to the damp pavement, tugged off her shoes and ran barefoot across the lot.

Luke tore down the aisle of parked cars, catching up as the man clicked the car locks with his remote and slid behind the wheel of a silver-gray Mercedes. Ron, or his look-alike, didn’t even wait for his female companion to get into the car before turning on the ignition. He was already backing out of his parking space before she closed her door, and long before she could have latched her seat belt.

Luke gave a final burst of speed and caught up with the couple. He stood behind the car, waving his arms. It was impossible for the driver not to have seen him, but the car continued to back up.

Jesus! The guy was going to run him over if he didn’t move, Luke realized with a flash of total incredulity. At the last minute, he had no choice other than to jump to one side. Without a backward glance, the driver swung around on squealing tires and dashed for the exit.

“That man sure was in a hurry.” A middle-aged woman stared at the disappearing Mercedes, her frown disapproving. “Crazy drivers. He could’ve killed you. If he keeps driving like that he’s going to cause an accident for sure. You okay?”

“Yes, thanks.” Luke realized just in time that if he could get the license plate number, the police would have a way to track down the owner. “Excuse me. Really, I’m fine.”

He squeezed between two parked cars and dashed into the next aisle where he had a better view of the Mercedes racing toward the exit. It was a Virginia plate, he saw, with the license number AB7 4K3. Or maybe it was 4K8. He squinted, trying to confirm one number or the other, but the plate was dirty, the night dark, and the car was rapidly receding. The Mercedes sped down the block and made a sharp left turn at the first corner. Luke was a fast runner, but he knew he didn’t have a chance in hell of catching up with it. He reached into his jacket and pulled out his Palm Pilot, jotting down the license plate numbers before he could forget them.

When he realized he’d been staring at the empty road for a full minute, he walked back into the restaurant and wove his way around servers and crowded tables, returning to his sister. His legs felt surprisingly shaky and he slumped into his seat, breathing hard. Anna started to lecture him, but changed her mind when she got a good look at him.

“What is it?” she asked. “For heaven’s sake, what happened just now? Are you okay?”

“I’m not sure.” He reached for his wineglass and then pushed it aside and took a gulp of water instead. He put the incredible truth into words. “I think I just saw Ron Raven.”

Two

“Who is Ron Raven?” Anna’s forehead wrinkled in puzzlement and then she gave a jolt of surprise. “You mean the Ron Raven? The guy from Raven Enterprises who bankrolled your first restaurant and then turned out to be a bigamist?”

“Yes, that’s who I mean.” Luke tried not to sound impatient. “I just saw him. He was over there, eating dinner with some woman.”

Anna’s eyes widened in shock. “But you can’t have seen him—he’s dead! He died in Miami this past spring.”

“Supposedly.”

“What does that mean, supposedly? Ron Raven was murdered, and so was the woman who was with him in his hotel room the night he disappeared. We talked about the murder a half dozen times already. Good grief, Luke, you can’t have forgotten! There was a ton of stuff about Ron Raven on TV. It turned out he had one wife in Chicago and another in Idaho—”

“Wyoming,” Luke corrected.

“Right, Wyoming. He also had three kids. Two with the Wyoming wife, and another with his wife in Chicago. They’re all grown-up, of course.”

“Anna, I know all this stuff—”

“We talked about seeing his children on TV.” Anna shoved a swathe of shiny, dark brown hair off her forehead, oblivious to Luke’s answers. “They were all disgustingly attractive, although they didn’t look much like one another. And one of his children was in the news recently. Ron’s son. I don’t recall his name, but he’s a celebrity lawyer in Denver.”

“Liam Raven. I wouldn’t exactly call him a celebrity, although he’s tried a couple of notorious cases.”

“I didn’t mean he was famous,” Anna clarified. “I meant he works for famous people. He defended the mayor of Denver’s wife when she was accused of murdering her husband. That was just a couple of months ago, wasn’t it?”

Anna’s sense of time, like her sense of distance, worked better on the astronomic scale, but in this instance she was more or less correct. “Yes. The mayor of Denver was murdered back in August.”

“I watched some of the TV coverage because of the connection to Ron and your restaurants. Liam Raven got the charges against the mayor’s wife dropped before she ever came to trial.”

“Liam must be good at his job. Ron was good at his job, too.” Luke gave an ironic shrug. “I guess professional competence runs in the Raven family.”

“You can’t get away from news items about the Ravens these days.” Anna leaned back in her chair, nursing the last of her wine. “I saw a picture of Ron’s Chicago wife in a magazine at the dentist’s office last week.”

“Avery Raven.”

Anna wrinkled her nose. “Avery Fairfax. That’s the name she goes by these days, apparently. She was attending an opera performance to benefit abused wives, which struck me as somewhat ironic given her personal situation.”

“Or perhaps just very brave,” Luke suggested.

“Maybe.” Anna sounded unconvinced. “Avery’s beautiful, but I saw her interviewed on Larry King and she struck me as a real snob. The sort of woman who has her initials embroidered on her underwear and would never leave the house without wearing her pearls.”

“Is that how she struck you? In the clips I saw of her after Ron died, she looked pretty much shell-shocked to me.”

Anna shrugged. “That, too, I guess. Anyway, the point is you must have been mistaken about seeing Ron Raven.” Her voice took on a hint of amusement. “He’s six months dead, which kind of rules out the possibility that he was eating dinner here at Bruno’s.”

Luke suspected he was being foolishly stubborn, but he fought against Anna’s simple logic. “The cops never found Ron’s body, or the body of the woman who was in the hotel room with him. Who’s to say he’s really dead?”

“The entire world, except you.” Anna frowned, amusement vanishing. “The only reason the cops didn’t find any bodies is because the killer took a boat miles out to sea and tossed them into the Atlantic. You saw those chilling security videos of the murderer using a dolly to wheel the bodies onto a yacht. The video was on every TV channel and in every newspaper. You couldn’t avoid the clips even if you wanted to.”

Luke shrugged. “Those videos never struck me as proving very much. All you saw was a masked person—you couldn’t even determine male or female—pushing something onto a boat deck.”

“Not something. The guy was clearly wheeling body bags.”

“Okay, body bags. But they were zippered shut, for heaven’s sake! They could have contained anything from dirty laundry to the Russian Imperial crown jewels.”

“Yep, you’re right, they could,” Anna said crisply. “But the cops believe those bags contained the bodies of Ron Raven and the woman who’d been with him in the hotel room and they’re most likely right. After all, the cops found traces of blood in various places on the boat and you yourself told me a reputable lab used DNA testing to confirm that the blood belonged to Ron Raven. DNA matches don’t lie, Luke.”

“I understand that. I’m not disputing that the DNA evidence confirms the blood on the boat deck was Ron’s.”

“Well, there you are.”

“The fact that a lab established the blood was Ron’s doesn’t tell us anything about how the blood got onto the boat,” Luke pointed out. “If I took a vial of your blood and dripped it across the floor of my bedroom, it doesn’t mean you’re dead or even that you were in my bedroom. A DNA match would simply prove that the blood on my bedroom floor was yours.”

“And this is relevant to Ron Raven’s murder because…?”

“Because we have no clue if Ron was dead or alive when his blood ended up on the deck of that stolen yacht.”

“What exactly are you suggesting?” Anna’s gaze focused on him with new intensity. “That Ron and some unknown woman faked their deaths convincingly enough to persuade the entire Miami police force they’d been murdered? Good grief, Luke, get a grip.”

“I just saw Ron, so that’s what must have happened.” Luke knew he sounded as stubborn as he felt. “It would have been easy enough for Ron to cut himself and sprinkle blood to fake a shooting.”

“It wouldn’t have been easy at all.” Anna shook her head. “There was a lot of blood. We’re not talking about Ron pricking his finger. We’re talking lots and lots of blood, in a spatter pattern that suggested he’d been shot.”

“If Ron had a good reason to disappear—and presumably he did—he might have been willing to sacrifice a pint or two of blood.”

“You’re forgetting something important—the police identified his murderer.”

“Yeah, so they did.” Luke’s voice was heavy with sarcasm. “And we all know the cops have never pinned a murder on the wrong culprit.”

Anna turned her left hand palm up and wiggled her fingers. “Okay, on this side we have weeks of intensive professional investigation and a ton of forensic evidence suggesting Ron Raven was murdered in his hotel room by a man who’d already committed other murders.” She turned over her right hand. “On this side we have the fact that you saw somebody who looks like Ron Raven eating dinner in Cousin Bruno’s restaurant.”

She tilted her head in exaggerated perplexity. “Hmm…let’s see. Which theory should we go with? Is Ron dead or alive? Gee, I can’t imagine.”

Luke leaned across the table. “Stop being a smart-ass and explain to me what we know about Ron Raven’s disappearance that makes it impossible to believe the guy faked his own death.”

“I thought I just did that, but I’ll do it again.” Anna ticked off on her fingers. “There was enough blood in Ron’s hotel room to suggest he was seriously injured. Ditto for his female companion. In that same hotel room, the cops found DNA from a convicted felon who’d already spent years in prison for murdering two other people. So we have two bleeding victims and a known killer in the same hotel room. Plus there’s been no activity at any of Ron’s bank accounts since the day he disappeared. If he faked his own death, he walked away from a load of money. Why would he?”

“Because he was a bigamist and his life was getting complicated?”

“He’d been a bigamist for decades,” Anna retorted. “Neither of his wives suspected anything.”

“Maybe he left for financial reasons, then.”

“He wasn’t under any unusual financial pressure. Everyone agrees Raven Enterprises was profitable at the time he disappeared.”

Luke pushed back his chair, giving in to a burning need to do something more productive than argue the odds with his sister. Or maybe he just didn’t want to acknowledge the logic of his sister’s viewpoint. “I need to talk to the server who waited on Ron Raven.”

“The server who waited on Ron’s look-alike,” Anna corrected.

He ignored her reproof. “Sorry, Annie, I won’t be more than a minute or two. Choose something decadent for dessert, okay?”

Luke made his way across the room and stood quietly while the young woman served entrées to a party of five businessmen. He stopped her as she hurried back toward the kitchen, glancing at her name tag as she whisked past.

“Hey, Merrie, I’m sorry to delay you, but my name’s Luke Savarini. Bruno Savarini is my cousin.” He nodded across the room toward Anna. “And that’s my sister, Anna. You might recognize her since she’s one of your regular customers.”

“I’m sorry. I’m new here.” The server smiled, trying not to look as impatient as she undoubtedly felt. “Anyway, it’s great to have you with us, Mr. Savarini. I hope you and your sister are enjoying your dinner.”

“It was delicious, thanks.” Luke usually had a difficult time lying about food. This time, he barely noticed. “You’re the server for this table near the door, aren’t you?”

Merrie glanced to the empty table he was indicating and nodded. “Yes, why? Is there a problem?”

“Not at all.” She already seemed on the defensive, Luke thought. He needed to reassure her that she wasn’t about to get into trouble. “The thing is, I believe I saw an old friend a few minutes ago. He’d been eating at this table but he left before I managed to catch his eye.”

“I’m afraid I can’t help—” Now that she knew she wasn’t facing a reprimand, the server was visibly itching to get away.

Luke stepped in front of her, debating whether a healthy tip would make her more forthcoming. He decided against the tip, afraid it might be such an obvious bribe that she would clam up even more. “My friend and I lost track of each other when he moved to the D.C. area six months ago. I wondered if he was a regular here at the restaurant.”

“I wouldn’t know. Sorry, Mr. Savarini. Like I said, I’m new. I only started last week and I’d never waited on him before, that’s for sure.”

“Did he pay by credit card? If so, could you tell me his name? That would help me to confirm it really was my friend.”

Merrie wasn’t stupid. Her smile vanished. “I’m sorry, sir, but I can’t give out personal information about one of our customers. As it happens, though, the guest you’re inquiring about paid in cash. In fact, he left without even waiting for his check. He just dropped a bundle of twenty-dollar bills on the table, but it was more than enough to cover his bill. Now, if you’ll excuse me, we’re really busy and I need to get back to work.” She walked away before Luke could ask any more questions.

“Well, that got me precisely nowhere,” he said to his sister, sliding back into his seat. “The server admitted the guy didn’t wait for a check. He simply left a stack of twenty-dollar bills on the table to pay for his meal. As the owner of three restaurants, I can tell you that almost never happens.”

“Let it go, Luke.” His sister handed him the dessert menu. “The reality is that Ron Raven is dead and you saw somebody who looked like him.”

“The man recognized me,” Luke said. The more he replayed the incident in his mind, the more convinced he became that he’d seen Ron Raven, not some look-alike. “He knew I’d recognized him and he bailed without even waiting for his check. Then he damn near ran me down in the parking lot in order to avoid talking to me. If it was somebody who just looked like Ron, why was he so anxious to avoid me?”

“Because you made him nervous the way you were obviously pursuing him?”

“No.” Luke gave a decisive shake of his head. “He ran because he recognized me. Then he dropped a pile of cash on the table to cover his bill because he hoped to get out of the door before I caught up with him. And it worked.”

Luke knew he was being obstinate, but the sound of Ron’s laughter and the tilt of his head had seemed familiar even before he’d glimpsed the man’s features full face. A stranger might happen to look like Ron. What were the odds that the same stranger would also sound like him and have similar mannerisms?

Anna was silent for a moment, finally giving real weight to the possibility that her brother had seen what he claimed. “If that man was Ron Raven and he recognized you, that means he hasn’t lost his memory….”

“I agree.”

“But if Ron isn’t suffering from memory loss, he’s deliberately hiding. That can’t be good, especially for his families.”

Luke shrugged. “His wives and children already know Ron was a liar and a cheat. How is it worse for them to know he’s a live scumbag as opposed to a dead one?”

“Maybe it’s not,” Anna conceded. “But I sure as hell would think long and hard before I went to either of his previous wives and informed them that I’d just seen their supposedly dead husband eating dinner in my cousin’s restaurant. Their most likely reaction is to have you arrested for harassment.”

“Don’t they have a right to know?” Luke was unsure how he would answer his own question.

“Know what, precisely?” Anna demanded. “That you think you may have seen a man who looks like Ron Raven, but he left the restaurant before the two of you exchanged a single word? Wow! There’s news to set the blogosphere humming.”

“I wouldn’t be telling his families I saw a man who looked like Ron Raven,” Luke answered quietly. “I’d be telling them I’m pretty much one hundred percent sure that I saw Ron Raven, alive and in the flesh.”

Anna drew in a sharp breath, taken aback by his conviction. “You were simply a business acquaintance of Ron’s, not an intimate friend. You probably didn’t meet him more than a couple of times.”

“Try at least a dozen. Usually one-on-one, and sometimes for meetings that lasted as long as three or four hours. Ron Raven was a hands-on type of investor.”

“Even so, it was six years ago and you’ve been leading a hectic life ever since then. Memories blur. Impressions get distorted. Plus, you have no idea what sort of people his wives and children are. Do you have the right to mess with the lives of people you’ve never even met?”

Luke was silent for a long time. This was what came of stubbornly clinging to the notion of privacy in a family where if one person sneezed on Tuesday, by Friday every sibling and ten percent of the other relatives would have called to find out how the guy’s cold was progressing.

“I have met Ron’s family,” he said finally. “Or at least his Chicago wife and daughter. I know them quite well, in fact.”

Anna stared at him. She was thirteen months older, which meant that she’d known him for the entire thirty-four years of his existence. Apparently something in his voice had alerted her to the fact that his meetings with Avery and Kate Raven involved more than socializing with the family of the man who’d provided him with investment capital.

“Define what you mean by knowing them quite well,” she said, in an ominous, older-sister tone of voice.

Luke cursed silently. If he hadn’t been thrown for a loop by the glimpse of Ron Raven, he would never, ever, have laid himself open to this sort of sisterly scrutiny.

He tried to speak with brisk indifference. “Kate…Ron’s daughter…is a pastry chef. She was a member of the U.S. team that competed in the Coupe du Monde de la Patisserie last year. The design concept for their chocolate torte was Kate’s and their team took the bronze medal. The French team won, of course—they always do—but the U.S. has never even placed in that competition before. These days, Kate is working as head pastry chef for La Lanterne, the finest bakery in Chicago.”

He was rather pleased with his casual summation of Kate’s life. All professional accomplishment and nothing personal. Anna, unfortunately, was not deceived. “How long have you been dating her?” she asked. “And how the hell could you have kept quiet about her all those times we discussed Ron’s disappearance?”