Playing Dead Part 4

"Back home."

"From where?"

He knew all about how she'd found him-she'd stopped for gas, the snow was coming down harder, she feared she wouldn't make it back to her cabin before her road became impa.s.sable, even with four-wheel drive. She saw what she thought was an angel, did a double take, and saw him lying in a ditch. He'd crawled out, trying to make it to the road, but pa.s.sed out.

But she'd never told him why she was three hours from home, or why she was driving in the storm, or where she was coming from.

"On the anniversary of my son's murder I visit his grave. In San Diego," she whispered. "For the last twelve years. I've never told anyone."

"No one? Not your family?" She spoke to her mother every Sunday afternoon. It was a formal, one-sided conversation, with Nelia cutting it off after ten minutes.

"My ex-husband knows. He found me at Justin's grave the third year I went." She looked down at their clasped hands. "I swore him to secrecy. He owed me. Like Lydia, he was having an affair. But unlike you, I knew about it and didn't care. I didn't love him. Never had. We married because of Justin . . . and we divorced when we no longer had him." Her voice cracked. "I want you to reclaim your daughter, Tom."

"Nelia." He kissed her hand, squeezed it. "I couldn't have made it this far without you. I'm going to make Claire listen. I didn't have time to tell her everything Oliver told me. I need to go to her house and-"

"Her house? That's not a good idea. You said yourself you saw one of the FBI agents in her neighborhood yesterday."

Mitch Bianchi. He'd been at the Starbucks kitty-corner to Claire's house yesterday morning. Tom had considered approaching him. After all, Tom had saved the FBI agent's life during the raid on Blackie Goethe's gang.

But he'd decided against it. He needed more information before talking to anyone in law enforcement, even Bianchi.

"Tom? Let me go to Claire."

"I don't want anyone, even Claire, knowing you're helping me. You may not care, but I won't let you risk anything more than you already have. Please. I don't want to worry about you, too."

"I need to do something!"

"You can. Talk this out with me as I write a letter to Claire. Help me find a way to convince her in writing what I failed to get across today in words."

FIVE.

Claire was certain that Oliver Maddox was some piein-the-sky liberal public defender wannabe who'd encouraged her father's hopes of getting away with murder.

What she should do is contact the FBI and inform them her father had made contact. Or maybe phone Bill and Dave Kamanski. They'd know what to do. Both cops, they had told her more than once that all she had to do was call if she needed anything.

She didn't want to drag them into it. The Kamanskis had been her only family since her father's arrest. Dave was the big brother she never had, and Bill . . . she had often wished he was her father. Because she hated the real one who was sitting on death row.

Actually, she didn't hate him, and that's why she felt so miserable much of the time. She wanted to hate him. She wanted to hit him, yell at him, throw things at him for killing her mom, for ruining their lives. Making her sit through a public trial for weeks, through his sentencing. It had been the worst time of her life. From the minute she saw her mother's dead body, and knew her dad had shot her, to when he was sentenced to die, it had been h.e.l.l.

Guilt twisted in Claire's heart. She'd spent more time over the last fifteen years trying to hate her father for his crimes than mourning her mother's death. She'd been so angry with her mom about the affair, furious that she could be so selfish as to hurt the family. And then she was gone. Claire never had the chance to talk with, argue with, love, or hate her mother. It was so much easier to focus on the trial and hating her dad than it was to focus on the pain and guilt over her mother's murder and remembering every fight, every disagreement she and her mother had shared. She wanted to go back and tell her mother she loved her.

A part of Claire wanted Maddox to be right. She had believed for so long that her father was a killer, but she never stopped loving him, even when she wanted so much to hate. It had made his crimes that much harder to accept, and transformed her love into confusion and misery.

The only really good thing in her life right now was Mitch Bianchi. She'd been moving from guy to guy for so long without any commitment that having someone sort of steady was nice. More than nice. He was the s.e.xiest, safest guy she'd ever dated. A writer, perfect. She didn't want to think about her long history with other underachieving men. She shrugged it off whenever Dave Kamanski teased her about the "dumb blonds" she dated: good-looking men who didn't tax themselves mentally, often not holding down regular or "normal" jobs.

Mitch was different. He was surprisingly smart. He didn't seem like she'd imagine a writer to be, but he did have a way with words. And he was so hot, so s.e.xy, his body hard as a rock. He worked out, and they had spent many hours together playing racquetball on the weekends. He didn't let her win and he played hard.

And d.a.m.n, he looked doubly hot when he sweated in his cutoffs and faded T-s.h.i.+rt.

Chewy and Yoda liked him. Funnily enough, that made Claire a little less comfortable. She was growing attached to Mitch, and she didn't want to get close to anyone. Her life was a mess. She was a mess. But she didn't want to get rid of him, either.

There was no way she was dragging Mitch into this situation. She didn't want him being charged as an accessory or hara.s.sed by the FBI. She was going to have to figure out what to do about her father's contact on her own. She didn't believe her dad, but she wondered if he had actually convinced himself he was innocent. Or maybe . . . he was.

Her stomach churned, the latte turning sour. What would it hurt to talk to Oliver Maddox again? Find out exactly what he'd been feeding her father? Maybe then she could convince her dad to turn himself in. She didn't want him gunned down or arrested in a big standoff. She was tough, she'd withstand the media scrutiny, the way her life would be turned upside down like it had been after the prison break. She'd avoided more reporters than cops that awful week in January . . .

She didn't want him to die. Not like that.

What do you want? Him to die by lethal injection? Does that make it better?

She had time before she had to meet her vet. As always, Claire's curiosity bested her. She tried the private phone number Oliver Maddox had left her four months before. Voice mail picked up.

"Mailbox is full. Please try your call again later."

The Port of Sacramento was halfway between the Rogan-Caruso offices downtown and UC Davis. She might as well head to the university and try to track down the law student. Maybe find out that he was no longer a law student, that he'd moved cross-country and taken up medicine.

For fifteen years she'd believed her father had killed her mother. And the guilt remained after all these years. That it was her phone call to her father about her mother's affair that had started the time bomb that ended with two dead lovers and a man on death row.

She might as well have pulled the trigger herself.

Claire stifled a sob as she pulled in to a parking s.p.a.ce in the UC Davis visitor parking lot ten minutes later. She slammed the Jeep into park and banged her head on the steering wheel as if that could force the memories from her mind and the stench of blood from her senses. If she hadn't called her father to rat out her mother's infidelity, her mother would be alive and her father would never have gone to prison. They might have divorced, they might have hated each other, but they would both still be in her life.

When Oliver Maddox came to her to ask her to help with an appeal of her dad's case, she rejected him immediately. She'd been at the trial. She'd walked into the house only minutes after her father killed two people. Maddox said, "There's a chance your dad was framed. And I think I can prove it."

Was she willing to go through it all again on "a chance"?

She'd be lying to herself if she said Maddox's visit hadn't given her more than a few sleepless nights. What did he know? Why was he doing this? But when she found out he wasn't working with the Western Innocence Project, was just a law student, she'd discounted everything he'd said. One more lying fraud in the world, why was she surprised?

She banged her head one more time and wished she could just forget she'd seen her dad.

He'd looked old. Sad. Defeated.

She couldn't be wrong about that day. She wasn't wrong. She'd heard her mother and Chase Taverton alive having s.e.x, called her father, and less than twenty minutes later walked in and they were dead. Who else could have gone into the house and killed them during that short time? Without her or her father seeing anyone? Without leaving any evidence?

She'd been a coward. If she had walked in on them, her mother's lover would have been long gone before her father came home. If Claire had had the courage to confront them herself, she'd never have had to call her dad.

She jumped out of her Jeep and started across the UC Davis campus. She was a proud college dropout after three semesters. College hadn't been one of Claire's wisest choices. Not because she couldn't make the grade-she'd dropped out with a 3.7 GPA-but because she'd hated college almost as much as she'd hated high school. The interpersonal drama irritated her and she tended to get into trouble because she s.h.i.+ned the light on truths that people preferred to keep hidden. "Playing nice with others" had never been high on her to-do list. Why play nice when everyone lied?

Five minutes later, after a brisk, head-clearing walk, she stepped into the main administrative office building and said to the secretary, "My name is Claire O'Brien and Oliver Maddox contacted me about an appeal he's working on."

Everyone lied. Even she did. She was quite good at it when she was searching for the truth.

The secretary's eyes widened. "Recently?"

"A few months ago."

Her face fell. "Oliver is no longer here."

"He transferred?"

"No. He's missing. No one knows where he went."

"When?"

"End of January. I don't know the exact date. His girlfriend filed a missing person report with both campus security and Davis police."

Oliver had been missing since January? Claire asked, "Do you know where I can find her?"

The receptionist frowned. "We can't give out private information."

"What about her name? I'm an alumna, I can get her contact information from the student directory." She showed her Davis ID, glad she'd always kept it in her wallet.

"Well, since you're an alum." She walked over to a file cabinet and flipped through some folders. Pulled one, wrote information on a sticky note, and handed the note to Claire.

Tammy Amunson, Clark Hall #25A.

Beneath was a phone number.

"She lives on campus?"

"Yes."

Claire glanced at her watch. She might have time to talk to her, if she could find her now. Clark Hall wasn't far. "Did Oliver have an advisor?"

"I'm sure he did, but I don't have those records here. I can have someone call you with the information later today."

"That's okay, thanks."

Claire didn't push it. Oliver's girlfriend might know, and if she didn't Claire could go to the law school herself. The fewer people who knew she was looking for Oliver, the better.

She left the administration building and walked briskly while dialing Tammy's number. A sleepy voice picked up. " 'ello."

"Tammy?"

"No, it's Jennifer. Who's this?"

"Claire. I'm looking for Tammy."

"Wednesday . . . she has biology at some G.o.d-awful hour. She's out at 10:30."

"At Messenger?" It helped having a familiarity with the campus.

"Yeah."

"Who does she have?"

"Oh, G.o.d, I-Thompson."

"Thanks."

It was nearly 10:30 now. Claire had no idea what Tammy looked like, but she hightailed it to Messenger Hall where the science labs were. She put her blazer back on to look more professional, even though it was far too hot for a jacket. She brushed her hair as she walked, glad that she'd left her backpack in the car. Backpack said student, not private investigator.

Claire mentally thanked her boss at Rogan-Caruso for urging her to get her PI license. With it came official-looking doc.u.mentation, when all being a PI really meant was using common sense.

The first student she asked about Professor Thompson's cla.s.s gave her the room number, and Claire walked into the cla.s.sroom three minutes before cla.s.s was over. She marched up to the front and the professor-an older, gray-haired woman with a stern face-frowned at her. Claire didn't falter. She showed Professor Thompson her PI license and whispered in her ear, "Name's...o...b..ien. I'm looking into the disappearance of a student here, Oliver Maddox. I was told his girlfriend Tammy Amunson was in this cla.s.s."

The stern face softened, and the professor glanced at a blonde in the front row. "Tammy, you may leave with Ms. O'Brien."

Tammy looked skeptical and a bit skittish, but she gathered her things and followed Claire from the cla.s.sroom.

"Hi, Tammy, I'm Claire, a private investigator looking into Oliver's disappearance. You filed the missing person report, correct?" She showed her the license, but pocketed it quickly. If Tammy knew what Oliver was working on she might connect Claire's name with her father and become suspicious.

"You haven't found him yet?"

"No. Let's go outside and talk."

They sat on a bench a ways from the main doors and Tammy said, "I'm so worried about Oliver. Something was wrong, but he didn't want to talk about it."

"Let's start at the beginning. Why did you file a missing person report in the first place? How long had he been missing?"

"The last time I saw him was January 20. It was Sat.u.r.day night and we had a date. He'd been so busy I-" Tears sprang to her eyes. Normally, when a woman started crying, Claire became suspicious. Girls used tears to get any number of things they wanted, or to avoid getting into trouble. But watching Tammy-her demeanor, her posture, the way her hands clenched and unclenched her biology book-Claire decided the emotion was authentic.

"It's okay," Claire said, not sure how to console her. Claire never cried. Especially in public.

"I told him I was going to break up with him if he didn't spend more time with me. That was awful of me, I know, but I missed him, and I missed us."

"What was he working on that kept him so busy?"

"He's a third-year law student. He had a full schedule, plus he was working on his thesis." She paused. "You know, I told all this to the police when I filed the report. Did you talk to them?"

"Yes, but they're not actively looking for Oliver. It's been nearly four months, it's a cold case. And he's an adult." Though Claire hadn't actually talked to the police yet, it was sad but true that the missing persons department in many cities was understaffed. Children were, rightfully, given priority. And while the police always looked into a disappearance, the more time that pa.s.sed, the colder the case got.

Several tears escaped and Tammy wiped them away. "That doesn't seem right."

"It's not," Claire agreed. "What was Oliver's thesis on? I have down that he was working on something for the Western Innocence Project. Could he have left to do research? Maybe not told you?"

Tammy looked down. "Oliver lied about that."

"Excuse me?"

"He wasn't working for the Western Innocence Project. That's his dream job. Oliver is so compa.s.sionate. That's why I love him. He cares so much about people and doing the right thing. Sometimes too much."

"Why would he lie?"