An ambush of widows, p.24
An Ambush of Widows, page 24
“Not since I didn’t come back for Thanksgiving. Maybe that was a mistake. Maybe it made her more suspicious.”
“Or maybe you’re just another foster kid moving on with her life. They had a total of six of them over the years. The others didn’t come back, did they?”
She shook her head. “The others weren’t there when she lost her husband.”
He took her in his arms and kissed her. She rested her head on his shoulder. “I want her to be okay,” she said. “I can’t make it okay, but…”
“I know. I know.” He held her. “I stopped at LSU before I got here. To see Zach.”
“Is he all right?” They talked once a week at least, and Zach had come twice during the first semester to visit her and Henry. It was only an hour-long drive along I-10.
“Yeah. He’s living with Paul.”
“Oh, no,” she said. “He was staying in the dorm.…”
“Apparently Paul likes having a roommate in the condo that his dad bought for him. So Zach’s moved in.” He shrugged. “They seem fine.”
“Zach can’t be on his guard all the time.”
“Kirsten, let’s say the Fortunatos found out about Larry.” He lowered his voice, even though no one was around. “So what?”
“So what?” Her knees felt weak. “I don’t think they’ll shrug it off.”
“The money is gone. Either they have it, or JJ has it, because we don’t.”
“Or whoever he was giving it to…”
“What, broke into the house and took it? No.” He put his hands on her shoulders. “My point is he was stealing from them, and I don’t think they care if he’s dead or who killed him. His death stopped the stealing. You did them a favor.”
“I did…them a favor.”
“Let’s say JJ goes to them. Says she’s suspicious of you. What are they going to do about it—not that you know where he’s hiding, but that you killed him? Nothing. He was a problem. He’s not a problem anymore.”
“Isn’t the Mafia about honor and blood vengeance and stuff?”
“They’re not the Mafia and I don’t think that applies to their accountants.”
“You think Zach has said something to them?”
“You saved Zach’s life. He’s your brother. Zach would never betray you.” He slid an arm around her shoulders. “I’m just saying, let JJ go on with her life, and we’ll go on with ours.” He paused. She thought he was going to say something else. But he didn’t, not in that moment, talking of dark things, but two days later, at dinner, he told her that he loved her.
39
The past
They graduated college. Henry popped the question. She said yes.
Henry’s mother did a post on her Faceplace page, like an old-fashioned engagement announcement you’d have seen in a newspaper, and described Kirsten as the “daughter of Dr. Erik Plumm of Copenhagen, Denmark, and the late Jacquia Deslatte of New Orleans.” Henry had asked if she wanted to try to contact her father before the wedding, and the very thought made her ill. That Henry’s mother even listed her cowardly father had infuriated her, and despite Brenda North’s apology Kirsten had been at a low simmer of anger for two days.
But it was on Faceplace, and then the phone rang at Henry’s parents’ house and Kirsten answered it as the Norths were outside and she’d just come back in to grab a beer. Booze calmed her, if she didn’t overindulge. Even being next door to the house where it happened made her nervous. The new people living there seemed nice—young family with two kids who would attend St. Gentian. She wondered if it was now haunted as she cracked open the beer. If Larry’s ghost rambled in the attic…looking for the teenagers who ended him when he tried to end them…it made her not want to look out the windows at night.
The phone rang. She answered it. “North residence.”
Silence for four beats, then: “Kirsten?”
“Yes?” She knew who it was.
“It’s JJ.”
“Hi. How are you?”
“I’m all right. Congrats on your engagement.” She paused. “I hope you’re very happy.”
“Thanks, JJ.” She felt she should apologize for not being in touch. But the words wouldn’t come. JJ might be calling in hopes of an invitation. “Are you still in New Orleans?”
“Oh, yes. How is Zach?”
“He’s fine.”
“I wonder…if you and Zach would meet me for a coffee.”
Kirsten said, “Okay,” although she wanted to scream No! “Are you all right?”
“Yes. I just want to talk…about something maybe we should have talked about before.”
I put this behind me. I’m happy. I’m finally happy and I have a good life ahead of me and now you call me.
“Um, okay, when?” She suspects. She knows something. But there was no evidence to be found. So it was just a coffee, and maybe she just needs to talk about Larry. To someone who knew him. Kirsten told herself she could do this.
“Tomorrow. Café Duris?” It was a cool little coffee place not far from the microbrewery.
“Sure,” she said.
“Say around eleven, before lunch? Would that work?”
“Sure, JJ. I’ll see you then.”
“Do you want me to go with you?” Henry asked.
“No. She said me and Zach.”
“I could come and sit nearby.…”
“Quit trying to fix it, Henry.” She put her hand on his cheek. She didn’t know she could love another person this much.
“Okay,” Henry said. “I just…”
“I can handle seeing her. Maybe she just wants to wish me well to my face.”
“Then she would have asked for me and you, not you and Zach.”
The thought was unsettling. “I’ll be fine.”
“What does Zach say?”
“He told me he’ll be there.” She hadn’t seen Zach in a month. She talked to him on the phone, but the Fortunatos kept him busy on the weekends. She was afraid to ask what they had him doing.
“All right. But if she accuses you, admit nothing. Nothing. We stick with the story.”
“I don’t need you to tell me that.”
“I’m sorry.” He hugged her. She hugged him back.
You can do this, Kirsten thought. It’s just coffee. She has no proof.
Café Duris had outdoor seating, and it was a fine spring day in New Orleans. She parked in a lot two blocks away and walked to the café. JJ was already there, sitting, a cappuccino in front of her. Zach wasn’t there yet. She had told him to get there early so she wouldn’t have to be alone with JJ, and of course he wasn’t here.
Put on your smile; make this work, Kirsten thought. She waved at JJ, went inside to the counter, got a coffee, and then went out onto the patio.
“Hi,” JJ said.
“Hi,” Kirsten said. She set down her coffee and wondered if she should hug JJ, but JJ made no move to stand so Kirsten sat down.
“Where’s Zach?” JJ asked.
“We didn’t come together.…He’ll be here in a minute. You look good.” Which JJ didn’t; she looked like she hadn’t slept much, frazzled. But JJ nodded and gave an awkward smile and said, “Thanks.”
“How have things been going?” Kirsten said. “Henry said you were still fostering.”
“Oh. Sort of. Just once more. Not again.” She cleared her throat. “I’m happy for you and Henry.”
Maybe this was nothing more than wrangling a wedding invitation, Kirsten thought, and just saying hello. She didn’t want to invite JJ, but she also didn’t want to raise questions among Henry’s parents’ friends by not inviting her. “Thank you. I need your new address to send you an invitation.” There, done; she couldn’t fight with herself anymore about it.
“Oh. That’s kind of you.” She bit at her lip. “Is Zach still friends with the Fortunatos?” Something in her voice. Worry. Concern.
“Yes. He’s been working for one of their real estate companies during the summers.”
“I guess he’ll go to work for them now?”
“Yes. I think so.”
“Be nice if you talked him out of that.”
“You know what he’s like. I can’t.”
“And you and Henry? You’re staying here?”
“Henry and I both got jobs here, so we’re lucky.”
“Good. Congrats.”
“Are you still at the microbrewery?”
“Oh, yes. They can’t run the place without me.” She sipped at her coffee. “The police don’t have any new information in Larry’s disappearance. I thought you should know that.” Then her gaze met Kirsten’s.
“I’m sorry.” She didn’t know what else to say.
“It’s strange how he could just vanish so thoroughly. I don’t know how he’s managed to stay under the radar for four years.”
What was she to say to this? Did she honestly believe he was still alive? Or was this just a test to see Kirsten’s reaction? Kirsten took refuge in her coffee.
“I mean, he loved me, I thought he loved me.…”
Kirsten wanted to say the comforting words. She needed to say them for the story. “He did.”
“He didn’t love me as much as I thought…he…Oh, there’s Zach!” She waved and Kirsten turned and saw Zach about two blocks away, walking fast because he was late and JJ said, “He’s gotten even bigger.”
And he had, and instead of his typical baseball cap and shorts and T-shirt he was wearing all black, the black dress shirt and the blazer tight across his frame, and his thick hair grown long and slicked back, dark glasses on.
They had…changed him. Deeper than the clothes. She could see it in the arrogant way he walked, the way his gaze shot around, surveying his surroundings, and then his stare found her and he gave this little half smile that seemed like a distant echo of the boy who saved her a place at lunch, who told her she was, in every way that mattered, his sister.
The boy she’d killed a man to save.
That boy was gone.
“Oh, Zach,” she whispered to herself.
And then there were two loud pops, and she saw Zach doubling over and running and it was only when the car coming up the street accelerated like crazy and roared past them and JJ screamed that Kirsten realized it was gunfire.
And that someone was shooting at Zach.
And he was shooting back, crouched behind a parked car, aiming at the car as it sped away from them.
The car was gone and Zach looked at her. Making sure she was all right. Kirsten bolted from the patio to him. “Are you okay? Are you hit?” She felt along his chest, his shoulders.
“No. I’m fine.” He stilled her hands, put the gun in the holster under his jacket. His gaze shifting past her to see if the danger was returning for a second try.
“Why is someone shooting at you?” she screamed. She couldn’t even begin to talk about him returning fire.
“I don’t know. I don’t know.” He was shaken and Kirsten hugged him. He didn’t hug her back.
“What do they have you doing? What?” And she didn’t even have to say their names: the Fortunatos.
“I need to get out of here,” he said. “I can’t be talking to cops right now.” And he hurried away, not the way he’d come, but walking onto a side street, vanishing from sight.
Kirsten watched him go. She turned back and walked to where JJ stood by their table, her face pale with shock.
“Is he all right?” JJ asked. A crowd was gathered in front of Café Duris now that the shooting had ceased. Talking and pointing at where windshields in parked cars had been starred, someone calling the police and trying to describe the shooter’s vehicle. Kirsten couldn’t have told anyone what car it was or what the driver looked like—she’d seen a flash of dark glasses and a baseball cap, the window lowered, but nothing helpful that registered.
“He doesn’t know why anyone would do that,” Kirsten said to JJ. Her voice was hoarse.
JJ grabbed her arm and hustled her away from the crowd. All the way to the street corner where Zach had turned and gone from sight. JJ was shaking. “You tell him…not to work for the Fortunatos. They’re…Tell him, don’t do it.” Her voice was jagged. “He should leave New Orleans. Maybe you both should.”
“Why?” she asked JJ. “Why should I leave?”
“Nothing good will come of this. Just go. Put distance between yourself and them.”
“I’m not leaving. No one is chasing me out.” She couldn’t leave Zach…not because of this. And her life with Henry was here.
JJ blinked for a moment. “Okay, then. Good-bye, Kirsten.” She turned and hurried away, just as the NOPD cars were pulling up.
Kirsten watched her leave. She walked away too; she didn’t want to be pointed out as a witness who had spoken to the target, the police figuring out the man she rushed to comfort was her foster brother, and that they were the former foster children of a missing CPA who worked for a criminal syndicate.
She had her wedding to plan.
Kirsten kept her word and invited JJ to the wedding, but she didn’t respond or come. Kirsten suspected it was because Steve Fortunato and his wife and Paul were going to be there (Zach begged and insisted and she gave in); and someone told her at the wedding that JJ had left town. She had taken the advice she’d tried to give Kirsten.
Kirsten hoped she found peace.
Zach was her choice to walk her down the aisle. They stood in the church foyer, alone for a moment, about to head down, her a sudden bundle of nerves, Zach calm.
“Are you going to tell me what happened at the café?” She thought asking him right now, in this moment, might throw him off guard.
His gaze held hers. “I honestly don’t know what happened,” he said, and for a moment she believed him.
He hugged her and said, “Be happy. I want that for you.”
“Be safe,” she said. “I want that for you.”
“You’re my sister,” he whispered.
“Not really.”
“Always really.” He kissed her cheek.
She wondered if he had a gun on underneath his tuxedo jacket. She hugged him back; he didn’t.
“Don’t cry,” he said. “It’s a happy day.”
“One tear is not crying.” She wiped at her cheek quickly, and it was gone.
He gave her his arm and they started walking forward, surrounded by the music and the beaming smiles of the guests. And Henry, the handsomest man in the world to her, waited for her at the altar.
During the large number of toasts at the reception, Steve Fortunato wished her and Henry every happiness. She smiled and sipped the champagne. She looked for Zach. When she spotted him, she saw Paul Fortunato whispering in his ear, Zach nodding and smiling.
They went on a cheap honeymoon cruise out of New Orleans, and that night lying next to her husband, Kirsten thought, God shuts a window and opens a door. Her old life was finished; her new life could start now.
40
Morgan fell asleep on the couch.
“So,” Kirsten said. “Let’s figure this out.”
Flora had wiped away her tears and Kirsten could see a new resolve on her face. But how far would she go? If Kirsten killed the person who was framing Flora, it wouldn’t help Flora unless there was evidence of the frame as well. Kirsten pushed the thought away. First things first. Step one: find the killer.
Flora followed Kirsten to the penthouse office. Kirsten had used the inside of the closet door, which could be closed and therefore hidden, to reassemble her printouts and notes so she could look for connections. Articles and photos of Adam, of Flora. She put the news accounts of her husband’s murder in the middle.
Flora silently studied the printouts. “This is what you think is interesting about me?”
“It’s what the world says about you. Why did you give up journalism?”
“It made Adam uncomfortable.”
“So?” You have no idea how uncomfortable Henry could make me, she thought. Try falling totally in love with a guy who can hide a body at age eighteen with the cool of a serial killer. “He could have adjusted.”
“I know,” Flora said. “I think I liked the theory of journalism more than the practice. That you could coolly gather the facts and tell the story. I was good at it, but there’s so much…bull you run up against, especially as a woman. I never thought I’d let a husband—oh, ‘dictate’ isn’t the right word—let’s say influence my decision so much. I had been doing business reporting and after I met Adam everything seemed like a possible conflict of interest. He might invest in a competitor of someone I wrote about, or hire away a CEO I’d profiled…and it just seemed easier in that moment to make a change. I got the job running PR for the foundation. And then when the founder retired, I got the top job.” She sighed. “I always wondered if it was because I was really good at my PR job or that I had money—Adam’s money—and therefore more connections.”
“I’m sure you were good at your job,” Kirsten said. It seemed the right thing to say.
“I’m not sure I was. Writing for online, the level of burnout is extreme. I felt like the quality was dropping. I was a hard worker, but I was supposed to be doing in-depth stories and fast web stories. My new editor had TV anchor experience and no print. I had specific experience writing about medicine and business and I got taken off those beats. He wanted me to write about the social stuff, local Austin tech millionaires doing good, profiles of how they were changing the city. It got tiresome. I lost my energy, my appetite for it. And Adam talked me into leaving it at the right time.” She swallowed. “I used to think when Morgan got older I’d go back to it. Maybe start a magazine or a news website, something niche but that I could grow. Something of my own.”
“Look,” Kirsten said, pointing at one of the pictures she’d found. A photo of Flora when she was writing for the Austin paper, following the governor of Texas as he stormed away from a podium, asking a question, caught by a photographer in a moment of intensity. She was going to get her answer, Kirsten could tell. Flora’s face was softer, less severe than now, less of a mask.
