Dark Room

  “Big-time. Arthur and me. We never missed a movie when he was a kid. Now we have the whole DVD collection.”

  “Me, too,” Jonah replied. “Q’s my favorite. Talk about a genius—his gadgets are too cool. And Bond masters every one of them. That guy’s good at everything. He never screws up. And he’s never a klutz.” A rueful grin. “A lot more like the congressman than like me.”

  “You’re a special kid, Jonah,” Lenny retorted. “Just take a look around and see how many people feel that way. Then maybe you’ll believe it.”

  With that, he plunked down the bag on the table near Jonah’s bed. “Rhoda packed everyone’s favorites. Pastrami, liverwurst, onion and mustard for the patient—along with a quart of her matzo-ball soup, of course. Roast beef with the works for Ed. And chopped liver and corned beef for Nina.” He unpacked each foil-wrapped sandwich, one by one. “There’s also sides of coleslaw, potato salad, and Rhoda’s noodle pudding and chopped liver. Plus a nice, plain sponge cake and a not-so-plain chocolate cake. And last, a variety of Dr. Brown’s sodas—cherry, cream, and root beer. Did I leave anything out?”

  “Yeah,” Lane said drily. “The fifty Bar Mitzvah guests who go along with it.”

  Lenny grinned, not the least bit put off by the comment. “So we overdid a little. It’s good for them. Especially Jonah. He needs his strength.” A questioning glance in Jonah’s direction. “What’s the latest from the doctors?”

  “I have a lacerated spleen. It’s better than a ruptured one but not as good as an untorn one. We don’t know yet if I’ll need surgery or if it’ll heal itself. In the meantime, the doctors are keeping an eye on the internal bleeding to see if I’ll need a transfusion. The problem is, I have a rare blood type.”

  “That’s not a problem. That’s what parents are for.” Lenny waved away the obstacle as he continued to try fitting all the food he’d brought on the table. “They’ll get tested and whichever one of them has your blood type will donate as much as you need.”

  “I wish it were that simple,” Nina murmured.

  Lenny’s brows drew together. “It’s not?”

  “I’m adopted,” Jonah informed him. “So neither of my parents is AB negative. Almost nobody is. The doctor told me that only half of one percent of the world is AB negative. So we’re trying to find my birth parents.”

  “Well, if being adopted means getting parents like yours, then I’d say you’re a lucky guy. As for that malarkey the doctor handed you, AB negative’s not so rare. I have it, too.”

  “Really?” Nina jumped on that. “Lenny, if that’s true, would you mind being tested to see if your blood and Jonah’s are compatible?” Seeing Jonah’s mortified expression, she hurried on. “Honey, we’re not discontinuing the search for your birth mother. We’ve already contacted the adoption agency to see what our options are. But if you should need blood before we find her, then at least your father and I could rest easier.”

  “I’d be glad to help,” Lenny said. “But first I better talk to my cardiologist. He can talk to your doctor, make sure it’s okay for me to donate blood to Jonah.” A grimace. “I’m probably worrying too much. But better safe than sorry. I’ve got this thing with my heart. Atrial fibrillation—a big name for a not so big problem. I’m on medicine called Coumadin. It thins my blood, keeps it from coagulating. But, hey, blood is blood, right? And obviously Jonah’s and mine are premium specimens, being that they’re so rare.” He finished setting up lunch, then straightened and gave Nina a comforting look. “I’ll make that call right away, and let you know what happens. If the doctors give the okay, I’ll be back here later today with my sleeve rolled up.”

  “Thank you so much,” Nina said fervently.

  “You want to thank me? Eat your sandwich. When I come back to give blood, I expect to see every drop of that food gone.”

  LANE WAS A BLOCK away from home when his cell phone rang.

  He glanced down, saw his father’s number on the display.

  “Hey,” he greeted. “I’m about to walk in my front door. I’ll check on Morgan, then fire up my equipment and get started on the negatives.”

  “That’s not why I’m calling,” Monty replied tersely. “I located Margo Adderly and tapped out on what she has to offer.”

  “Already?”

  “Yeah. All it took was a simple Web search.”

  “So she’s in D.C.?”

  “Yup. Six feet under.”

  THIRTY

  Barbara Stevens came into the office on Sunday specifically to meet with the private investigator Morgan had hired. She’d never met with a PI before, nor had she ever been put in the position of compromising the confidentiality she offered her clients.

  But this time was different. This time it meant trying to catch a killer—Lara’s killer.

  For that, she’d push her ethics to the limit. She wouldn’t blindside her client. She’d contact her, ask for her understanding—and an explanation. Then she’d act accordingly.

  When Barbara had reached Morgan last night to set up this meeting, Morgan had told her about the events of the past week. So Barbara had a pretty good idea which client it was.

  Consequently, she’d come in early to review the particular file she had in mind. Then she’d make the necessary phone call.

  It never dawned on her that the client in question would call her first.

  AN HOUR LATER, Monty bounded up the front steps to the Healthy Healing Counseling Center. He rang the bell, and Barbara Stevens let him in immediately, introducing herself and taking his coat. She seemed warm, gracious, and terribly troubled—especially when her gaze shifted to the Tyvek in his hand.

  “I appreciate your seeing me on a Sunday,” Monty began. “I wouldn’t have barged in on your day off if this wasn’t so important.”

  “Actually, your timing is perfect. A client of mine just arrived. She’ll be joining us for this meeting.”

  “Huh?” Monty stared.

  “Trust me, Detective. She’ll be able to answer your questions far better than I. Ironically, you were next on her call list. I saved her the time and trouble. She needs you as much as you need her. Come. She’s waiting in my office.”

  Mystified, Monty followed Barbara through the reception area and to the adjacent office.

  He walked inside and did a double take as the tall, slender woman in the chair adjacent to Barbara’s desk rose, raking a hand through her red-gold hair and regarding Monty with wide, frightened eyes.

  “Hello, Detective,” Karly Fontaine said. “I’m so glad you’re here. I was about to call you when Barbara told me you two had an appointment. So I raced over. I desperately need your services. I’ll pay you whatever it takes.”

  The Karly Fontaine standing in front of Monty bore little resemblance to the polished executive he’d met with at the Lairman Modeling Agency. Her face was devoid of makeup, her hair was simple rather than styled, and she wore a casual fleece sweatsuit and sheepskin boots. She looked ten years younger, and like a lost girl.

  “You want to hire me,” Monty replied, purposely remaining detached until he’d assessed the situation. “That’s unexpected. But judging from what Ms. Stevens just told me, we have a common interest. Which, to me, can only mean that your sudden desperate need for my help has some connection to Monday’s hit-and-run.”

  “Not just to the hit-and-run—to the entire investigation you’re conducting for Morgan Winter.”

  “Very cryptic. You’re going to have to do better than that if you want me to take on your case. I’m a full-disclosure kind of guy.”

  “Good. Full disclosure’s what I need, along with a private detective who’s smart enough, good enough, to offer protection and resolution.” Karly folded her arms across her breasts, rubbing her shoulders as if to bring warmth back into them. “I’ll start out by saving you the trouble of questioning Barbara about that Tyvek you’re holding. I sent it to Morgan. The business card’s Lara’s. The note, she wrote to me. And the Post-it, I wrote to Morgan
. You’re welcome to compare handwriting samples, if you don’t believe me.”

  One of Monty’s brows rose. Definitely a revelation he hadn’t expected. But one look at Karly’s face was all it took to convince him. “I believe you. I have a ton of questions, but I’ll start with the simplest. If Lara’s note was meant for you, then who the hell’s J?”

  “I am.”

  “Janice is the name we assigned to Carol—excuse me, to Karly—when she came to Healthy Healing and to Lara’s shelter,” Barbara explained. “That’s how we protected our clients. We never used their real names in our files.” She gestured for Monty to take a seat. “Since this is obviously going to take a while, I brewed a pot of coffee. Would you like some?”

  “The tallest mug you’ve got, thanks.” Monty sank down into a chair, still studying Karly. “Lara Winter helped you. How? Were you being abused?”

  “All my life,” Karly replied, in the flat tone of someone who’d survived hell and been numbed by it. “Starting with a string of men who locked me in my room while they had a great time with my mother. And leading up to a sick bastard of a stepfather who sexually abused me from the day he married my mother when I was eleven, to three years later when he tied me up and raped me.”

  Monty took the mug of coffee Barbara handed him with a nod of thanks. He was far from immune to Karly’s story. But he’d seen this sick, vile pattern too many times in the past to be shocked. “Did your mother know?”

  “What do you think?”

  “I think she either looked the other way and said nothing, or accused you of lying and maligning her loving husband.”

  “The latter,” Karly supplied. “I had to get out. So I ran away and came to New York.”

  “But the baggage came with you.”

  “Right. I managed to find every screwed-up guy in the city. I constantly reduced myself to the role of victim. It was a vicious cycle, one I couldn’t seem to break, which brings us to the point of this discussion. When I was sixteen, I reached an all-time low in my self-destructive spiral. I fell for a very charismatic, very powerful, very married older man. Talk about getting in over my head. But he was so good to me, so tender. He treated me like I was the most special woman on earth. To me, it was true love. To him, it was a hot, convenient affair.”

  “To me, it was rape in the third degree,” Monty commented. “You were underage.”

  “I know. But I didn’t want to bring him up on charges. I wanted him to love me. Now I understand how stupid that was. But back then, I thought we had a future, that he’d eventually leave his wife for me. I was a starstruck child. My only defense is that I wanted him, desperately, and he said he wanted me. I would have done anything for us to be together.”

  “And then he dumped you.”

  “Not just dumped me. Lied to me, paid me off, and ultimately threatened me. When it was just me whose well-being was at stake, I did what I had to and stayed away. But now it involves someone more important than me—my son. I won’t let anything happen to him.” Karly sank into a chair, pressed a trembling hand to her head. “I thought I’d already paid for my stupidity. But now I’m paying all over again, only worse. The whole damn scenario’s come back to haunt me. And the paradox is, the same man who can hurt my son might be the only one who can help him.”

  Monty held up a deterring palm. “Back up. So you had a child with this guy. And he obviously didn’t break out the champagne when you told him you were pregnant.”

  “Hardly. He gave me ten thousand dollars, told me to get an abortion, head to the West Coast, and go to the modeling school I’d dreamed of attending.”

  “So you took the money and did as he asked—except that you didn’t have the abortion.”

  “That’s where Lara came in. I met her at a coffee shop, and before I knew it, I was spilling my guts to her. She convinced me that I had options. I could have this baby, get the help and support I needed, and either raise it myself or give it to a loving family. Before I decided, I made one more attempt to convince the baby’s father to accept us, either to become a family or to make us a part of his life in some capacity. He nearly burst a gut. He grabbed me by the shoulders, stared me down, and demanded to know who’d been putting ideas in my head. I fell all over myself, but I didn’t tell him anything. Not that he believed me. He threatened to make me wish I was never born unless I followed through with our original agreement—including staying away from my newfound confidante and severing all contact with my current life once I left town.”

  “Sounds like a real sweetheart.”

  “I was scared to death. I promised to do as he asked. And I planned to. I even went to the clinic. But I couldn’t go through with it. It was my child growing inside me. So I went back to Lara one last time. She helped me. She introduced me to Barbara, and Barbara made arrangements for me to stay in a wonderful pregnancy care center until the baby was born, after which he’d be adopted by a loving family through a reputable adoption agency. Part of me wanted to keep him. But after the miserable childhood I’d had, I wanted more for him than a destitute, psychologically screwed-up single mother who was still a kid herself. So I gave him that chance. After he was born, I stayed in New York only long enough to finalize the adoption. Then I got on a plane for L.A. and made a fresh start, knowing my baby was doing the same.”

  “And that was just shy of seventeen years ago. What made you come back—just the career move?”

  “If you’re asking if a part of me wanted to be closer to my son, I don’t know. I didn’t think so at the time. Carol Fenton no longer existed. Karly Fontaine had been offered a fabulous career opportunity, and took it. If there was more to it than that, it was subconscious. But once I got back to New York, yes, the memories swamped me. I started wondering, aching, feeling a sense of emptiness that made me want to reach out and know my child. I had no idea if he and his family were even still living here. I called the adoption agency to see what I could do. I also met with Barbara; that’s the meeting I was racing to when that van hit Rachel Ogden. But my hands were tied. Given his age, he’d need parental consent to initiate any contact with me. And even that would be limited.”

  “You implied your son’s in trouble.” Something about this story was bugging Monty. “Is that why you wanted to hire me—to find him?”

  “No. I’ve already done that, as of a few hours ago. Actually, he found me, or rather, his adopted parents did. He’s in Maimonides Medical Center. He was rushed in with a ruptured spleen. He needs a transfusion. They called the adoption agency in the hopes of finding a biological parent. The agency called me. They knew how eager I was to connect with my son, that I would have done anything to help. But he’s got a rare blood type and I’m not compatible.”

  Jonah. Monty’s coffee mug paused halfway to his lips. Her son was Jonah.

  “I’ve got to contact his biological father,” Karly was continuing. “I’m the only one who knows who he is. But I’m terrified. The hospital said he could be cross-matched anonymously, but if word leaked out that he had a bastard son—” Her voice broke. “If he could hurt me before, he could destroy me now. Me and our son. He’s so entrenched in the public eye, he’s got the media in his face, and his future on the line. He stands to lose way too much, both personally and politically.”

  “Jesus,” Monty bit out, his mug striking the table as the ugly reality clicked. “Your son’s father is Arthur Shore.”

  “You got it, Detective.”

  Monty sank back in his chair. The ramifications, the timing, it was all flashing through his mind, one prospect after another. There was no way Arthur knew he had a kid. If he did, he’d have taken some sort of protective, probably legal action, as soon as he found out. But he did know about the pregnancy, and that was one scandal Elyse and her father might not have tolerated.

  Karly had left town just a few months after Lara and Jack were killed. In light of what Monty had just learned, that timing no longer seemed coincidental.

  “Did you know L
ara Winter had been murdered before you left New York?” he asked.

  “No.” Karly shook her head. “I was in a pretty isolated environment during my stay at the pregnancy care center. I had in-house counseling and childbirth lessons, made half-assed plans for modeling school in L.A., and mostly fought depression. I’m sure everyone purposely kept the news of Lara’s death from me. And I never tried to contact her—not after Arthur’s threats.”

  “When did you find out?”

  “Last week. When I read about the wrong man being convicted of the double homicide. I saw Lara’s name, and I felt ill. I also saw Morgan’s name, and I realized that the woman I was working with at Winshore was Lara’s daughter. I don’t know how I could have missed it; they look so much alike. Probably the reason I never made the connection is that I never knew Lara had a child. We didn’t discuss her personal life; only mine.”

  “So first you found out Lara had a child. Then, when you and I met to discuss the hit-and-run, I told you that that child was raised by the Shores. No wonder you were so thrown.”

  “I was shocked. Once I realized what a major role Arthur played in Morgan’s life, it struck me that maybe he knew I was back in town and that I was a Winshore client. That scared the hell out of me. Especially after you pointed out that I could just as easily have been the victim of that hit-and-run as Rachel. If I was the intended target, maybe Arthur was trying to scare me out of town. I know it sounds irrational, but I freaked out. I actually considered resigning my new position and heading back to L.A. The last thing I wanted was trouble. I had a new name, a new look, and a new life. I never thought I’d see Arthur Shore again, much less this.”

  Monty’s forehead creased as he assessed Karly’s statement. Something still didn’t fit. “If your only fear was for yourself, why did you send this package”—Monty held up the Tyvek—“to Morgan? And why did you warn her not to trust anyone close to her? Obviously, you meant Arthur. Did you suddenly decide he might hurt her?”