Truth Be Told (Jane Ryland) (9 page)

She extricated Coda from the suitcase, a shred of tissue dangling from one still-extended claw, and closed the top. Jane sat beside it on her bed, and Coda pounced onto her lap.

“Hey, Codarita.” She stroked the cat, head to tail. “Bermuda. Don’t tell.”

The glowing green numbers of the clock on her nightstand clicked ahead. After eight thirty? Jane frowned. Her cell phone was in her yoga pants pocket, silent. Not even a text. Where was Jake?

Coda settled in, purring, nudging Jane with a paw. “I know, cat,” she said. “I’d like some attention, too.”

She
had
gotten attention for today’s story. Victoria Marcotte herself arrived at Jane’s cubicle door, giving an elegant thumbs-up to Jane’s scoop on the Sandovals’ phone call from the police.

Jane stood up so fast Coda hopped to the floor, gave Jane a reproachful sneer, and scuttled under the bed.

At the Sandovals’.
That’s where Jake probably was.

That’d make for some stimulating beach-blanket discussion.

You suspect Elliot Sandoval of murder? she’d ask.

No comment, he’d say.

But Elliot Sandoval wouldn’t—I mean, why would you suspect—did you arrest him? she’d ask.

Jane, he’d say. We agreed. No work talk, no cop shop details, no newsroom stuff, no exchange of information and no speculation. Just two—

—people on a pink sandy beach, she’d say. Pretending to agree.

Because all the while she’d be wondering if she was missing a story.

She opened her suitcase again, reassuring herself. Today was only Monday. Maybe whatever was going to happen would have already happened by Friday, and they could take off into the sunset—well, okay, they’d be flying east, but she knew what she meant. One day at a time.

Maybe by Friday, they’d have all the answers. Jake’s case solved, her story written. No need to worry about all that now.

15

“Game freakin’ over,” DeLuca whispered.

Jake nodded. DeLuca was right. They were both watching Elliot Sandoval confer with the man who’d just arrived.

Rumpled hair, rumpled jacket, briefcase, and big-shot attitude. Smart of the Sandovals to get a lawyer.

Still at the doorway they whispered, heads almost touching, Sandoval pointing to him and D. The lawyer shook his head, slowly, clearly unhappy. The wife sat on the couch, chewing gum, watching.

The new arrival was the same man who’d shown up at the cop shop to see Gordon Thorley. Dispatch had sent Jake and D to Waverly Road, and when they got back to HQ, a snarling Bing Sherrey told them of Thorley’s release. By then, Jake was focusing on their current murder, not the twenty-year-old one. But this guy had been in the interrogation room, no question.

Lawyer.
Not the best news. But not necessarily game over.

“I’m Peter Hardesty, gentlemen.” The man turned to them. “
Detectives,
I should say. Which makes it all the more essential for you to understand that Mr. Sandoval here is my client. Correct, Elliot?”

Sandoval nodded, ruining Jake’s day. Even more.

“Fancy meeting you here.” DeLuca rolled his eyes, not even attempting to disguise it.

“Fancy?” Hardesty seemed confused. “Here?”

“Nothing,” Jake said. He gave D a “shut up” look. Hardesty had no idea they’d been watching and listening, through the one-way glass, during the Thorley interrogation. No need to let this guy in on that bit of intel right now. If they were destined to meet on the Confessor case as well, they could all cross that legal bridge when they came to it.

“However,” Jake continued, by-the-book, “your client is not under arrest in the forty-two Waverly Road homicide. Mr. Sandoval, is there a reason you need a lawyer?”

“If you got nothing to hide,” DeLuca added, “no reason to shell out big bucks for a high-priced—”

“If I’m not a suspect?” Elliot Sandoval took a step forward, a bluster of red starting at his thick neck, the color creeping up his jaw and blotching his cheeks. Even the scalp under his close-cut hair was turning red. “Why are you here?”

The AC kicked on, a dim mechanical roar. From down the hallway, a voice called out. “Who’s here?”

“Nobody, Sis,” Sandoval called back. He opened the front door, and the air conditioner rattled again. “You hear me? Because—”

“Mr. Sandoval?” Hardesty was shaking his head in earnest now. “I must advise you not to say anything.”

“Honey?” MaryLou Sandoval reached out a hand as if her additional protest could stop her husband’s voice. It couldn’t.

“I wanna know,” her husband persisted. “Why are you here?”

“Good question, sir,” Jake said. If they could get this guy talking, maybe they could elicit some information before this interloper lawyer killed the deal. “Let me ask you—”

“We’re done here, Detectives,” Hardesty said. “You know your way to the door.”

*   *   *

“It’s so dark inside. Are you sure we should go in?” Lizzie peered through the open front door into the gloom, seeing an entryway, a breakfront maybe, and a kitchen in the distance.

“Where’s your sense of adventure?” Aaron closed the door behind her, nudging her out of the way. He touched her, so carefully, so tenderly, it seemed she could feel the outline of his hand on her back, escorting her inside.

Oh-
kay.
She could handle herself perfectly fine, thank you very much, even after two glasses of rosé. Or was it three? She was overthinking again, making too much of it. She turned to him, trying out a brave and
adventurous
smile.

He was tucking a ring of keys into his pocket, its jangling the only sound in the stillness of the empty house on Hardamore Road. She’d never heard of this address, but she only handled the pending foreclosures, not the past ones. It was still furnished, in a haphazardly random way, like someone had to leave in a hurry. Which, she suspected, they did. A shame she couldn’t have given the owners another way out.
The Liz treatment.

“I’m working late, right? That shows how diligent I am, right?” Aaron was saying. “This is my REO, the bank owns it, and I’m only checking whether it’s ready for the next step.”

“Next step?” It felt like trespassing. But if Aaron had the keys, she supposed he was correct, it was okay. She shook off her dumb unease. Funny kind of date. But this was their profession. Something in common. Something they already shared.

“Property removal,” Aaron said. “Maybe a call to the deputies to get rid of this abandoned stuff. Maybe a lock change. But someone’s gotta look at it firsthand, right? Take responsibility? Can’t let these things just sit here. Ever since that girl got killed, trying to get inside a foreclosed house last week. You hear about that? The press went crazy.”

Lizzie remembered that, for sure. She’d crossed her fingers it wasn’t an A&A foreclosure. The bank grapevine soon reported some lawyer was already suing the bank, calling the empty house an “attractive nuisance,” charging it hadn’t been properly secured and had led to that poor girl’s death. It was a mess, a potentially expensive mess. But, at least, not A&A’s mess.

“Sure, of course I heard.” Lizzie stood in the sweltering entryway as Aaron paced off the living room, opening drawers and the glass doors of the breakfront. She realized she’d crossed her bare arms, as if she had a chill.
Silly.
No air conditioning, and the thick air weighed heavy in the half-light. It was after nine, she knew, and even though the electricity was on—Aaron had flipped the lights, and a few fixtures still had bulbs—it was still disturbing. Haunting. The vacant living room, abandoned, half-empty, with only the things people had left behind. Tweed couch, cushions sprung and askew, a scatter of pillows, mismatched armchairs. A discolored rectangle on the hardwood floor—someone had taken the television.

“Kitchen,” Aaron said. “Back in one minute.”

The place reeked of sadness. And loss, and defeat. She tried to reassure herself, get tough, thinking about what was on her computer. This is why she did what she did. This shouldn’t be happening. She would do her best, her little part, to stop it. Not enough to change the whole world, that was impossible, but enough to change
some
people’s worlds. She couldn’t do too much, she couldn’t help everyone; at some point the numbers would not support her. But she could do something.

“Wanna wait for me in the living room?” Aaron said, reappearing. “I have to go upstairs and check the windows, then look in the basement, make sure no assho—sorry, I mean, jerks—have ripped out the copper pipes.” He waved toward the couch. “Have a seat.”

“Oh, no thanks, I’m fine standing here,” Lizzie said. She was part of this, in a way. Her bank now owned this house. Her bank had taken money every month from whoever once lived here, until the money ran out and they realized that for some reason—a disaster, or a firing, a calamitous health issue, or some horrible miscalculation—they couldn’t pay anymore. They’d signed a contract, a legal document. To the bank, it was a binary issue. You could pay, or you couldn’t. If not, thank you so much and good-bye.

Too late for her to help whoever had lived here, whatever struggling family had lost at life roulette.

Real estate, Aaron called it. This was the real part she didn’t like.

“Suit yourself,” Aaron said. “Two seconds.”

He grabbed the banisters, one hand on each side, and took the stairs two at a time. Upstairs? She imagined two bedrooms, maybe three, and a bath or two. All the ghosts of whoever lived here seemed to taunt her. All the memories, wisps lurking around every corner. Kids taking first steps, and bringing finger paintings home from school, and birthday parties, and prom snapshots in front of that fireplace.

Family. That was why she’d gone into banking. To please the father who’d never read her homework, never put her drawings on the fridge, never seemed to care if she was happy. She’d inhabited an emotional black hole after her mother died. And now she—well, she’d grown up, despite it all. Future so bright—

“Hey, Lizzie!” Aaron’s voice from upstairs. “Come up here!”

Aaron.
Two glasses of wine, the heat, the empty house. This afternoon in her office at the bank, the real life of the regular Lizzie, seemed far away.

Aaron appeared at the top of the stairs, trotted halfway down, held out a hand.

“Lizzie?”

He wasn’t wearing his jacket anymore. He’d loosened his tie, rolled up his sleeves.

It
was
hot in here. And, she had to admit, there was no one handsomer than Aaron Gianelli.

“Lizzie,” he was saying. He took another stair step down, closer to her. “Come on. Come up here. With me.”

16

Finally.
Jane’s annoyance evaporated the instant her cell phone rang
. Blocked,
her caller ID said.

“Hey—” She stopped herself from saying “sweetheart.” She was so sure it was Jake, the words almost escaped, but of course, it might not be him. “I mean, this is Jane.”

She put the phone on speaker so she could multitask, getting some pepper jack and a thing of Brie out of the fridge.

“Miss Ryland? This is Elliot Sandoval. Again. Sorry to bother you at home.”

“Oh, hey, Mr. Sandoval, no problem.” She projected her voice as she grabbed a cheese board and tried to peel the plastic wrap from the gooey ripe Brie. When Jake got here, they could have it with some crackers and wine. And talk about lovely Bermuda. “The story worked fine, thank you. Ah, listen, Mr. Sandoval? I know you told me the officer who called didn’t give you a victim’s name—that’s correct, right?”

“No,” the fuzzy voice came from the speaker.

“Okay,” she said. Had to make sure. She scrabbled in the utensil drawer for a ceramic-handled cheese knife, leaning toward the phone. “You said the police were coming to your house. Did they? Do you remember their names? They’re gone now, right?”

“They did,” he said. “And they are. Gone. That’s why I’m calling. I’m here with—”

The doorbell. Coda dashed through the kitchen and streaked down the hall, a flash of calico. Silly cat hated the doorbell. It chimed again.
Jake.
Had to be.

“Mr. Sandoval? Can you hang on one second? Someone’s at my door. I’m going to put the phone down, forgive me, but don’t hang up. I’ll be right back.”

This would be a juggle. But she’d manage it somehow.

She punched her cell phone off speaker, left it on the counter. Touched her hair as she ran to her front door, stopped, took a breath. Wiggled her shoulders. After all this time, she was still nervous every time he arrived. But he shouldn’t know that.

She yanked open the door. “Hey, swee—”

*   *   *

“Hey, you swee.” Jake leaned in, gave Jane a brief kiss on the cheek. His black T-shirt was a mass of damp wrinkles, his jeans grimy, he needed a shave, and he was the bearer of bad news. He had to admit he was still damn nervous around her, though he tried not to show it. Did she want him as much as he wanted her? Would that change after he told her? “Sorry I’m late, Jane, but D and I had to—”

“I’m on the phone,” she was saying. “In the kitchen. Grab the couch, I’ll be back in a sec. Wine glasses are on the coffee table.” He took in her black stretch pants, Cubs T-shirt, bare feet. He’d allowed himself to imagine her in a bathing suit. Too bad that reality wasn’t gonna happen now. He’d have to tell her. Soon.

He was screwed. Doomed by a guy confessing to murder. Doomed by a probably guilty contractor protected by a hotshot lawyer. And doomed because the woman he loved—yes, he did—was probably, within the next half hour, going to kill him.

He collapsed onto the couch, moving over the spread-out pages of the morning paper and a couple of striped pillows to make room.

Worse, tomorrow the news would be full of the Waverly Road homicide. Everyone clamoring for answers and an arrest, like they were for Lilac Sunday. The public had no idea how difficult it was to close cases, even when you had a semi-suspect. Everyone watched TV, so now they all expected loose ends to disappear after fifty-two minutes. PR had already fielded a raft of questions from reporters, prodding them for “updates” on the dead woman. What if there were no frickin’
updates
? They were doing all they could.