Julie smiled at the realization that he’d expected the call to end like this when he made it, because he’d obviously researched all the logistics already. “One question. Why can’t I meet you sooner?”
“Because I have some details to finalize first.” Julie accepted that, and he continued, “When you leave your house Tuesday morning, don’t take anything with you. Don’t pack a suitcase, don’t do anything to give anyone the idea that you’re leaving. Keep your eye in the rearview mirror and make sure you aren’t followed. If you’re being followed, do some errand or other, then go back home and wait to hear from me again. Between now and then, watch your mailbox closely. Open everything, even advertisements. If there are any changes in the arrangements, someone will contact you either that way or in person. We can’t use your phone at home, because I’d bet my life there’s a tap on it.”
“Who will contact me?”
“I don’t have the vaguest idea, and when he does, don’t ask for identification.”
“Okay,” Julie said as she finished writing down his instructions. “I don’t think I’m being watched. Paul Richardson and David Ingram—the two FBI agents who were here—gave up and went back to Dallas last week.”
“How are you feeling?”
“Wonderful.”
“No morning sickness or anything?”
Her conscience jabbed at her, but she tried to soothe it by not actually lying to him. “I’m a very healthy female. I think my body was made for motherhood. And it was definitely made for you.”
He swallowed audibly at the sexual reference. “Tease me now, and you’ll pay later.”
“Promise?”
He laughed then, a throaty laugh that warmed her, but not as much as his husky words. “I miss you. God, I miss you.” As if he were afraid to let either of them relax too much, he said, “You realize that you won’t be able to say good-bye to your family? You can leave them a letter somewhere where they won’t find it until several days after you’ve gone. After that, you’ll never be able to contact them again.”
She squeezed her eyes closed. “I know.”
“And you’re prepared to do that?”
“Yes.”
“That’s a hell of a way to start a life together,” he said tautly, “tearing your family apart and severing all their connections to you. It’s like inviting a curse.”
“Don’t say things like that!” Julie said, suppressing a shiver. “I’ll make them understand in my letter when I tell them good-bye. Besides, leaving them to go with you is practically—biblical!” To distract both of them from the grim mood stealing over the conversation, she said, “What are you doing now? Are you standing or sitting?”
“I’m in a hotel room, sitting on a bed, talking to you.”
“Are you staying in the hotel?”
“No. I got the room so I could use the phone in privacy and get a decent connection to the States.”
“I want to go to sleep tonight, seeing what you’ll be seeing when you lie in bed. Describe your bedroom to me and I’ll tell you what mine looks like, so you’ll know.”
“Julie,” he said gruffly, “are you trying to drive me to new heights of frustrated sexual desire?”
She hadn’t any such intention, but the notion was gratifying. “Can I do that?”
“You know you can.”
“Just by talking to you about bedrooms?”
“Just by talking to me about anything.”
She laughed then, as easily and as naturally as she’d been able to laugh with him from the beginning.
“What size is it?” he asked with a smile in his voice.
“My bedroom?”
“Your ring finger.”
She drew in a shaky breath. “Five and a half, I think. What size is yours?”
“I don’t know. Large, I guess.”
“And what color is it?”
“My finger?”
“No,” she said with a chuckle, “your bedroom.”
“Smart ass!” he chided, but he answered and his voice got deep. “It’s on a boat right now—teak walls, a brass lamp, a small dresser, and a picture of you I cut out from a newspaper hanging on the wall.”
“Is that what you see when you fall asleep?”
“I don’t sleep, Julie. I just think of you. Do you like boats?”
Julie drew in another shattered breath, trying to memorize each tender thing he said. “I love boats.”
“What’s your bedroom like?”
“Frilly. White ruffles on the bedspread and canopy and dressing table across the room. A picture of you on my night stand.”
“Where did you get it?”
“From an old magazine at the library.”
“You swiped a magazine from the library and cut a picture of me out of it?” he said, trying to sound shocked
“Certainly not. I have scruples, you know. I explained I’d damaged it beyond repair and I paid the fine. Zack—” she said, trying to keep the panic out of her voice, “the janitor is hanging around outside the glass wall. I don’t think he can hear me, but he doesn’t normally just loiter around like this.”
“I’m going to hang up. Keep talking into the phone after I do. Try to mislead him with an innocuous conversation if you can.”
“All right. Wait, he’s walking away. He must have needed something from the cart.”
“We’d better hang up anyway. If there’s anything you need to take care of before you leave, do it in the next week.”
She nodded, speechless with regret at the thought of letting him go.
“There’s one more thing I need to say to you,” he added quietly.
“What is it?”
“I meant every word I wrote in that letter.”
“I know you did.” She sensed he wanted to hang up, and she added quickly, “Before you go, what do you think of what Matt found out about Tony Austin? Even though Matt doesn’t think there’s anything we can do legally, there has to be some—”
“Stay out of that,” Zack warned her, his voice turning icy. “And leave Austin to me. There are other ways to handle him without involving Matt.”
“What sort of ways?”
“Don’t ask. If you have problems with any of the arrangements I’m making for you, don’t look to Matt for help. What we’re doing is illegal and I can’t let him get involved beyond what he’s already done.”
Julie suppressed a shiver at his ominous tone. “Say something sweet before you hang up.”
“Something sweet,” he repeated, his voice softening. “What did you have in mind?”
She was a little hurt when he seemed unable to think of something, and then he said with a smile in his husky voice, “I am going to bed in exactly three hours. Be there with me. And when you close your eyes, my arms will be around you.”
Her voice dropped to a shaky whisper. “I love that.”
“They’ve been around you every night since we parted. Good night, sweetheart.”
“Good night.”
He hung up and at the last minute, Julie remembered his instructions about carrying on an animated conversation. Rather than fake one, which she didn’t think would be as convincing, she called Katherine and managed to talk to her for thirty minutes about anything and everything. She hung up and tore off the sheet of paper with Zack’s instructions written on it, then she remembered seeing a mystery on television where the case was solved by the imprint of the handwriting on a tablet, so she took the tablet, too.
“Good night, Henry,” she called cheerfully.
“Good night, Miss Julie,” he said, shuffling off down the hall.
Julie left by the side door. Henry left by the same door three hours later, after he made a collect call to a phone number in Dallas.
53
JULIE TOSSED AN OVERNIGHT CASE in the back of her car, glanced at her watch to make certain she still had more than enough time to make her noon flight, and went back into the house. As she was loading her breakfast dishes
into the dishwasher, the phone on the wall rang and she picked it up. “Hi, beautiful,” Paul Richardson’s voice was warm and crisp, an odd combination, Julie thought. “I know it’s short notice, but I’d love to see you this weekend. I could fly in from Dallas and take you to dinner tomorrow night for Valentine’s Day. Better yet, why don’t I fly you here, and I’ll cook?”
Julie had already decided that if she were actually being watched, an “innocent” trip like the one this weekend might actually fool her spies into letting down their guard. “I can’t, Paul, I’m leaving for the airport in a half hour.”
“Where are you going?”
“Is that an official question?” Julie asked, cradling the phone between her shoulder and chin and rinsing out a glass.
“If it was official, wouldn’t I be asking it in person?”
Her instinctive liking and trust of him warred with the wariness Zack made her feel, but until she actually got into her car to leave Keaton for the last time, it seemed wisest and easiest to stick completely to the truth. “I don’t know whether you would or not,” she admitted.
“Julie, what can I do to make you trust me?”
“Quit your job?”
“There has to be an easier way.”
“I still have some things to do before I leave. Let’s talk about this when I get back.”
“From where and when?”
“I’m going to visit a friend’s grandmother in a little town in Pennsylvania—Ridgemont, to be exact. I’ll be home late tomorrow.”
He sighed. “Okay, then. I’ll call you next week and we’ll make a date?”
“Mmm. Fine,” she said absently, pouring detergent into the dishwasher and shutting the door.
Paul Richardson hung up the phone in his office, placed a second call, and waited for the answer, drumming his fingers on his desk. He snatched the phone on the first ring, and a woman’s voice said, “Mr. Richardson, Julie Mathison has reservations on a flight out of Dallas connecting through Philadelphia to Ridgemont, Pennsylvania, on a commuter flight. Will you need any further information?”
“No,” he said with a relieved sigh. He got up, walked over to the windows, and frowned at the scanty weekend traffic moving down the Dallas boulevard. “Well?” Dave Ingram said, coming in from the adjoining office. “What did she tell you about the suitcase she put in her car?”
“The truth, damn it! She told me the truth, because she has nothing to hide.”
“Bullshit. You’re conveniently forgetting that phone call from South America she waited for at school the other night.”
Paul swung around. “South America? Have you gotten a trace then?”
“Yep, five minutes ago. The call she got came through a hotel switchboard in San Lucia Del Mar.”
“Benedict!” Paul said, his jaw tightening. “What name did he register under?”
“José Feliciano,” Ingram said. “That arrogant son of a bitch actually registered as José Feliciano!”
Paul stared in disbelief. “He’s using a passport with that name?”
“The clerk at the desk didn’t ask for a passport. She thought he was a native. Why not, he’s dark, he had a Spanish name, and he speaks Spanish—helpful when one lives in California, no doubt. He has a beard now, by the way.”
“I take it he’s already checked out?”
“Naturally. He paid in advance for one night and was gone the next morning. The bed in his room wasn’t used.”
“He may go there again to use the phone. Put the hotel under surveillance.”
“That’s taken care of.”
Paul walked back behind his desk and sank into his chair.
“She talked to him for ten minutes,” Ingram added. “That’s long enough to make plans.”
“That’s also long enough to talk to someone she feels sorry for and to reassure herself that he’s all right. She has a soft heart and she believes the bastard is a victim of cruel circumstances. Don’t forget that. If she wanted to join him, she’d have left Colorado with him.”
“Maybe he wouldn’t agree to take her along.”
“Right,” Paul said sarcastically. “But now, after weeks without seeing her, he’s suddenly so crazy about her, he’s going to come out from under cover and come after her.”
“Shit,” Ingram bit out, “you’d do it. Your ass is already on the line with the man upstairs over your continued defense of that woman, and you still fight for her. She lied through her teeth about what went on in Colorado. We should have read her rights and hauled her in . . .”
Paul forcibly reminded himself that Ingram was his friend and that most of the other man’s anger stemmed from worry for Paul “There’s a little matter of reasonable grounds for suspicion,” he reminded Dave tightly. “We didn’t have that, let alone any proof.”
“We do as of five minutes ago when we got the report on that phone call!”
“If you’re right about everything, she’ll lead us straight to Benedict. If you’re wrong, we haven’t lost anything.”
“I ordered her put under constant surveillance before I came in here, Paul.”
Clamping his jaws together, Paul bit back a senseless and wrongful protest at Dave’s action, but he said through his teeth, “May I remind you that I’m in charge of this case until I’m taken off it. Before you do another damned thing, you clear it with me. Got it?” he snapped.
“Got it!” Dave shot back, just as angrily. “Did you find out anything else about the car that was parked out in front of her house last week?”
Shoving a report across the desk at him, Paul said, “It was rented in Dallas from Hertz by Joseph A. O’Hara. Chicago address. No record. He’s clean as a whistle. Employed as a chauffeur/bodyguard by the Collier Trust.”
“Is that a bank?”
“There’s a Collier Bank and Trust in Houston with branches scattered around the country.”
“When you called her just now, did you happen to ask Little Miss Muffet about her visitors from Chicago?”
“And alert her that she’s being watched, so you can accuse me of favoritism again?”
Ingram breathed a heavy sigh and tossed the report on O’Hara back onto Paul’s desk. “Look, I’m sorry, Paul. I just don’t want to see you destroy your career over some broad with big blue eyes and great legs.”
Relaxing back in his chair, Paul eyed him with a grim smile. “You’re going to have to beg her forgiveness on your knees someday, or we won’t let you be godfather to our first baby.”
With a harsh sigh, Ingram said, “I hope the day comes when I have to do that, Paul. Honest to God, I do.”
“Good. Then keep your damned eyes off her legs.”
* * *
Julie finished tidying the kitchen, got her coat from the closet, and was ready to leave for the trip to Pennsylvania when there was a knock at her front door. With her coat over her arm, she answered the knock and stared in surprise at the sight of Ted and Katherine standing side by side. “It’s been a long time,” she said with a delighted grin, “since I saw you two standing together on anyone’s front porch.”
“Katherine tells me you’re leaving for Pennsylvania to play goodwill ambassador or some damned thing for Zack Benedict. What’s the idea, Julie?” he demanded, walking past her into the house with a guilty-looking Katherine trailing behind him.
Julie shoved her coat aside and looked at her watch. “I have less than five minutes to explain it, although I thought I already explained it to Katherine last night.” Ordinarily Julie would have taken serious exception to their interference in her life, but the knowledge that she’d be leaving them both forever in a few days banished whatever resentment she felt. Without rancor, she said, “Although I love seeing the two of you together again, I wish you’d find some common cause for it other than ganging up on me.”
“It’s my fault,” Katherine said quickly. “I saw Ted in town this morning, and he asked about you. You didn’t tell me your trip was a secret . . .” she trailed o
ff.
“It’s not a secret.”
“Then explain to me why you’re going,” Ted insisted, his face taut with worry and frustration.
Closing the door, Julie absently shoved her heavy hair off her forehead, trying to think what to tell them. She couldn’t explain that she was superstitiously troubled by Zack’s remark about their marriage being cursed from the beginning because of the heartache it would cause. On the other hand, she wanted to tell them enough of the truth so that they’d remember this and it would help them understand everything and forgive her more quickly later. She looked from Katherine’s worried face to Ted’s annoyed one and said haltingly, “Do you believe in the saying that things go on as they begin?” Katherine and Ted exchanged blank looks, and Julie explained, “Do you believe in the idea that when things begin badly, they tend to end badly?”
“Yes,” Katherine said. “I think I do.”
“I don’t,” Ted said flatly, and what he said made Julie suspect he was thinking about his marriage to Katherine. “Some things that begin beautifully have rotten endings.”
“Since you’re determined to meddle in my life,” Julie said, amused, “then I think I have the right to point out that, if you’re referring to your own marriage, the real problem is that it has never ended. Katherine knows that, even if you refuse to face it, Ted. Now, to finish answering your question about my trip to Pennsylvania in the minute I have left before I leave: Zack was raised by his grandmother, and he parted with her under very ugly circumstances. Nothing else in his personal life has gone well since then. He’s in danger now, and he’s alone, but he’s starting a whole new part of his life. I’d like him to have luck and peace in that new life, and I have a feeling—call it a superstition, if you prefer—that, maybe, if I mend the bridges he burned a long time ago, he’ll have that at last.” In the blank silence that followed her announcement, she watched both of them struggle to find an argument and fail, so she reached for the door. “Remember that, will you both?” she added, fighting to keep the emotion from her voice and disguise the import of her next request. “In order to be truly happy, it helps so much to know your family wishes you well . . . even if you don’t do the things they’d like you to do. When your own family hates you, it’s almost like a curse.”