The Second Man (15 page)

What the heck is going on?
She glanced down at her nightgown, a sheer blue lace not adequate for her neighbors’ eyes.

She hurried back to her bedroom and grabbed her robe and slipped her feet into sandals. When she got to the front door, it opened.

Max stopped and put his right hand against his chest in surprise. “Whoa, what are you doing up?”

She inhaled sharply. “Sorry I startled you. But I woke up and you weren’t there, so I started checking and . . .”

“I stepped outside for a smoke,” he interrupted. “Couldn’t sleep for some reason. I have one every now and then.” He pulled a lighter and a pack of cigarettes out of his pants pocket. “See?”

But who were you talking to?
She pursued her lips to ask the question, but the realization Max was not going to volunteer the fact he had been talking with the man in the leather jacket stopped her.

Why isn’t he telling me about that? And who was that man?

“You smoke? How European,” she said instead. “Why didn’t you go out onto the back patio?”

“I didn’t want to wake you opening the drapes and the slider, but it seems I did. Let’s go back to bed.” He rested his stubbly chin on the top of her head and put his arm around her. “It’s too early to be up.”

She walked with him down the shadowy hallway, but stopped at the doorway. Her heart pounded. “I saw you talking to someone outside. Who was it?”

“Oh. You did? You should have said something.” He dropped his arm from her shoulders. “It was just a guy. He was walking the neighborhood, looking for his dog.”

“In the middle of the night? Whose car was in the driveway?”

“It was his. He parked there and walked the cul de sac, calling the dog. I came outside as he was coming up the sidewalk, and asked him what he was doing in the driveway.” Max leaned against the doorframe. “This is an odd conversation. I feel like you think I was hiding this for some reason. I didn’t mention it because I didn’t want you worrying.”

“Worrying? What would I be worrying about?”

“That some random guy is parking in your driveway. Your place got broken into a few days ago, so I didn’t want to make a big deal out of it.”

“Okay, got it. So let’s not make a big deal out it.” Jill walked past him into the bedroom.

He followed her. In silence, he pulled off his clothes.

Jill took off her robe and stared at his scarred but powerful body. Their earlier lovemaking had been, if possible, even more satisfying than their first fervent couplings as the newly reacquainted versions of themselves. A few hours ago, she was completely at ease with him.

Safe.

But as she crawled into bed next to Max, earlier doubts she had about certain things burned brighter in her mind.

What do I actually know about this man?

She pulled up the covers as Max embraced her from behind, rubbing his body against her bottom suggestively.

“I want you.” He nibbled her shoulder.

“Go back to sleep,” she murmured. “I need my beauty rest.”

He sighed. “Ah, yes. Tonight we come face to face with the past, and see if we measure up.”

“Measure up?”

“Pass the test. Convince everyone I’m not that terrible guy they thought I was.”

“Is that why you’re going to the reunion?” She turned to him. “Do you care what those people think, people you don’t even remember?”

“I do. It eats at me, what they must have thought of me after I disappeared. How I hurt you. But mostly I care about what you think.” He reached out to touch her face, but stopped, his hand falling to the sheet. “I’m sorry if I’m going too fast, but I’m falling hard for you, Jill.”

Shock raced through her at his words, his sentiments that so clearly mimicked what she had told Carly about her own growing feelings for him. But instead of elation, Jill shut her emotions down.

She needed to think. About a lot of things.

She touched her fingers to his lips. “Good night.” Jill turned over, leaving a space between them, and squeezed her eyes closed, dizzy with conflicting emotions.

This past week, at least six different people from her past had stormed back into her life. The thought of seeing dozens more in the next few days made her feel like she did when she was sick from too many Kirs. Especially as one of them could be a murderer.

But who?

She pressed her hand to her belly and took a deep, steadying breath.

An hour later, as Max snored, Jill knew she was not going to be able to go back to sleep. She crept out of bed, a cold lump of fear coiled in her stomach.

She wasn’t sure what she was afraid of exactly, but she was afraid. With that thought, she shut the door of the bedroom and went to sit alone and stare out at the night.

Chapter 15

“Professor Millard, you look lovely, especially your necklace.” Jill gave the slight woman a hug, intercepting her at the doorway of the main room at Hill House, where St. John’s reunion cocktail party was in full swing.

“It’s my very favorite piece,” Professor Millard replied, rubbing the heavy coral and turquoise beads with her gnarled fingers. “I feel the sunshine in the stone, no matter how cold it is outside.”

“Well, it’s spectacular.” Jill nodded toward the party. “Shall we go in? There are over eighty of your old students here. It’s a huge turnout.”

Millard clutched Jill’s arm. “Is the handsome Max Kallstrom with you?”

“Yes. He’s at the bar with Carly and Hamilton.” Things had been strained between them this morning, and again this evening when she picked him up at the hotel.

Jill knew Max was perplexed at her reaction to his statements. She was too, she realized, but her skittishness had more to do with all the things she knew but could not share with him. “Do you want me to go get Max for you?”

“No, I want to talk to you alone about something before we go into that mob. Can you come outside on the porch with me for a moment?”

“Certainly.” Jill linked arms with the professor and walked out onto the rustic veranda. They were three thousand feet up in the mountains and the sunset was melting into the ocean thirty miles away.

They sat in chairs at the end of the porch.

“I was visited by two men from the government yesterday,” Professor Millard began. “In my office. Very officious pair, grey suits and wing tip shoes. I felt for a moment like I was back at Berkley in the 1960s and about to be arrested.”

“You were arrested at Berkley?”

“Of course. Twice. But that’s a story for a different day.” Millard leaned closer to Jill, peering toward the main entrance of the restaurant as if checking to be sure they were alone. “They asked me about several students in your class. But there were three in particular whose student files they wanted to see. Your ex, Andrew Denton, Eddie Fitzhugh, and Max.”

Jill felt as if she could not move. Andrew said he was working for the government.
Why would the FBI be interested in his file? And what did it mean that they wanted Max’s records?

“They specified those three men?”

“Yes, and they were also very interested in my personal correspondence the past few years with Max.”

“How did they know about that?”

“I have no idea, but one can assume he’s under some sort of surveillance. I told them in no uncertain terms that they would need a warrant to access student information. And then I answered a few innocuous questions and they left.” Millard snorted. “I peered out the window and saw them out in the parking lot. They stopped to speak with another man, a red-haired guy on a big motorcycle. He kept waving his arm up at the school, as if he were pointing at something.”

“A motorcycle?” The one she had seen more than once this last week flashed in her brain, the red-haired man from last night looming in her memory. “Did it have a blue flame stenciled on the side?”

Millard shrugged. “I don’t remember for certain. I thought I better tell you this as you have been dragged into the orbit of two of those men. Do you know Eddie Fitzhugh?”

“He was the athletic star, right?”

“Yes. Basketball and track. Remarkably handsome. A stud, I think you girls would call him. He’s a banker of some kind now I think.”

“Really?” Jill’s eyes widened. Another man in finance. “I didn’t know Eddie that well. He wasn’t in the group I ran around with.”

“Poor you.”

Jill smiled. “He was pretty hunky. Didn’t I hear he married someone famous?”

“A model. French, I think.”

Another connection to Paris
.
Could Eddie Fitzhugh be the man Ben Pierce had run into in Paris,
Jill wondered nervously. “How predictable for a jock, huh?”

“Yes. At least when he was 20. I was hoping he would mature.” Millard leaned toward her. “How are you and Max getting along?”

“It’s complicated, if you want to know the truth,” Jill said. “I don’t know if I trust myself yet to say what I’m feeling is for the man in front of me, or the guy I used to love.”

“Go slow with him, Jill. I find Max much changed. Much more melancholy,” Millard coughed. “What do you make of the feds’ request?”

“I’m shocked, I guess. Who exactly were they? F.B.I.?”

“Their badges identified them as ATF agents. They said they were attached to a task force investigating multi-national financial crimes. When I asked why those three students were of interest to them, they told me they couldn’t answer my questions, thanked me, and left.”

Jill’s mouth went dry. Millard had not been told, evidently, that an ex-student of hers had been murdered. “Are you going to tell the guys about this? Max at least?”

“I don’t think it’s wise. I assumed Max was targeted because of his work in bonds and investments and such, and because he lives in Europe. But as for Andrew, what exactly is your ex is up to these days?”

“He works as some kind of security consultant.” Jill wrung her hands together, wishing she could confide all that Andrew had told her last week about Ben’s murder.

“Andrew’s a strange one,” Millard opined. “I saw him for the first time in years last night, but when I said his name, he peered at me as if he didn’t know who I was. He apologized later and said he had a lot on his mind.” She leaned closer. “Do you think he’s still involved with drugs? He strikes me as someone who is hiding something. I know that look, as I have a lot of experience with that myself.”

She reached into her pocket and handed Jill a thumb drive. “I need your help. I checked through the admission records after the G-men left. Scanned in all the paper file information we had about those three. I want you to look through them and see if there is anything that strikes you as strange.”

Jill’s hand trembled. “Like what?”

“Did you know Andrew was adopted? The information was included in his health records along with his allergy to certain foods. Or that Max’s father was evidently an employee of the Swedish government in some capacity? There was a letter from the Ambassador’s office in Max’s admission report explaining that personal contact data for his parents was not to be included in any permanent record. There was only a government address in Stockholm.”

“No. I didn’t know any of that.” Max had told her a few days ago about his father traveling a lot for work, but he had not explained it was for their government.

“I don’t think either of those things are alarming,” Millard continued, “but before I give any one a heads-up about the feds, I’d appreciate your take. Fitzhugh was rumored to be involved in something illicit with a professor, but nothing came of it, according to a letter from the athletic director. If you don’t see anything of concern, then I’ll tell each of them about my visitors.”

“Okay. I’ll do it tonight and give you the thumb drive back tomorrow morning.” Jill’s pulse pounded.

“There you are! I’ve been looking for you two.” Max’s voice cut through the dark as he walked up behind them. “What are you up to? Plotting to overthrow the talent show assignments?”

“Hi, Max.” Jill stuck the computer stick in the pocket of her silk jacket.

“Women are always plotting something when they sit and discuss men,” Professor Millard answered calmly. She stood and took Max’s arm, her gold embroidered tunic gleaming in the shadows. “Let’s go get fortified, Maximilian. I have the feeling it’s going to be a long night.”

“Are you coming, Jill? Carly asked me to come and find you.” Max’s smile was smooth, but his eyes were wary.

“Yes.” The thumb drive felt heavy as a lead bar in her pocket.

She followed behind the pair, her mind a tangle of anxiety about Max, secrets from the past, and a red-haired man on a motorcycle who seemed to be circling closer and closer for no good reason she could imagine.

“Well, that went about as well as I thought it would.” Carly was sitting with her feet pulled up under her on the sofa.

Hamilton sat beside her, his tie off, holding a glass of Scotch. “I actually had fun,” he said. “What about you two?”

Max glanced over at Jill. “I enjoyed myself. Once we got through the cocktail party and settled into dinner, I felt a lot more comfortable.”

“You did great fielding all the questions,” Carly said. “I would have screamed if I had to tell the same story ten times in two hours.”

“I’m getting good at it,” Max said.

“Yes, you’re very smooth,” Jill said.
Too smooth?

Max frowned as if he read her mind.

The four were ensconced in Carly and Hamilton’s luxurious hotel suite. It was nearly midnight. They had gone from the cocktail party to dinner with two other couples, both of whom had been very interested in hearing all the details about the return of Max Kallstrom more than anything else any one had accomplished in the years since college.

“Did you enjoy catching up with old friends, Jill?” Hamilton asked, his eyes intense as he stared at her.

“I did. Everyone looks great. I guess it’s because they’re all dressed so nicely, and don’t have that goofy college hair thing going on.” She took off her jacket and folded it over her purse.

She had stuck the thumb drive into her clutch, and was nervously worrying for the hundredth time what she would find on it tonight.

“I enjoyed Eddie Fitzhugh and his wife. He was fun, like in the history class I took with him.” Hamilton reached his arms above his head to stretch. “But boy, can he drink. I think he downed four scotches after dinner.”

“He didn’t drink at all in college.” Jill smiled.

“I bet he’s worried about Molly,” Carly said. “A model’s life must be pretty exciting, full of travel and men dying to hit on her.”

“I thought Molly seemed very much in love with her husband,” Hamilton said. “She listened intently to him while he was regaling all of us with his stockbroker victories. If Eddie’s worried, it’s about something other than his wife’s fidelity.”

Eddie had given them a long history of how he went from ex-jock to vice-president at a major American bank.

Another classmate to wonder about,
Jill thought. “Susan and Cheryl were certainly interesting. We’ll have to go to their art gallery in Los Angeles. Who knew they were gay?”

“I did,” Carly said. “Well, I knew Susan was, because she kissed me once, but Cheryl was a surprise.” She grinned at Max. “Cheryl couldn’t take her eyes off you in college. She was always mooning around after you on campus, if I remember right.”

“Susan kissed you?” Jill was surprised. “When?”

“It was nothing.” Carly grinned. “Lots of people kissed me.”

“Max spurned Cheryl and she became a lesbian,” Hamilton deadpanned.

“Hamilton!” Carly shook her head.

“I was kidding. Relax.” He patted her leg. “And I agree that you were very compelling, Max, relating your amnesia story. It must be very strange, seeing people who know you, but you don’t remember a thing about them.”

“It wasn’t a story,” Carly snapped. “Honestly, sometimes you say things that imply hurtful things, Hamilton”

The other three turned to her in surprise.

“I know what Ham meant.” Max raised his eyebrows. “It is strange. As if I’m an imposter in my own life.”

Jill blinked, uncomfortable with that image.

“But the best part,” Max continued, “was I have found everyone very kind. No one treated me rudely, or pressured me for more details, except for Marissa Pierce. When I offered my condolences again about her brother, she launched into another round of questions as to why I didn’t come back to California and reconnect with my friends once I’d recovered.”

“What happened to her brother?” Hamilton said.

“Oh, didn’t Carly tell you?”

“No,” Carly said. “We spent the evening trying to get our cranky baby to sleep. I didn’t fill him in on much.”

“I remember those days.” Max smiled.

“So what happened to Ben?” Hamilton asked again.

“Marissa told us last night that her brother was killed in a hotel fire in France a few months ago,” Jill replied.

“Tragic,” Max cut in. “She said she’s very upset about a lack of accountability as to the circumstances of his death. I asked what she meant, but she didn’t elaborate. I’m assuming she meant his family was having trouble with an insurance settlement.”

Carly and Jill exchanged looks.

“That’s tough. Ben Pierce was a good chap,” Hamilton said.

“You knew Ben?” Carly said.

“He was the RA for my dorm during my sophomore year. He was a good guy, gave us idiots a lot of leeway when we broke curfew and got stoned.”

Jill was surprised Hamilton had led such a wild life. “Did you keep in touch with Ben after college?”

“No. No, I never saw him after I left for London. Why do you ask?”

“I was just wondering. Max said he thought he met you once, at a meeting in Switzerland. So it’s a big world, but a very small one, too.”

“What meeting was that?” Hamilton asked Max.

“The World Bank conference three years ago.” Max wrinkled his brow. “I thought I met you at a dinner the Brazilian ambassador held at the embassy.”

“Nope. Wasn’t me. I didn’t attend that meeting in Switzerland.”

“Didn’t you?” Carly said. “When I was pregnant. I thought you went to Geneva that fall?”

“No. I think I can remember where I was, Carly. Which might be more than you’ll be able to say if you keep sucking down wine like it was orange juice.”

This exchange changed the dynamic in the room. Jill opened her mouth to say something, but Max cut her off.