Chasing Shadows

2

Claire’s wounded arm hardly hurt at all, that is, until she tried to move it or her shoulder. Then, too, she was on pain pills. Despite this accident—this assault—she was blessed it wasn’t worse.

They had her sitting up in the hospital bed. No cast, since the bullet had missed her bone. Only one of the three major upper arm muscles had been impacted. In the ER while she was sedated, they’d given her a transfusion, probed for and extracted the bullet, irrigated the wound and put her back together with some sort of blue adhesive and a bandage, all supported by a pink sling, no less. The doctor had said her skin would get sticky and itchy but should heal well.

“I see you’ve finished your breakfast. Feeling reasonably okay?” the nurse named Mandy said as she swung the tray table aside and took Claire’s temperature again with an electronic thermometer. Why did doctors, nurses and dentists always start to chat or ask a question when they had something in your mouth?

“Mm-mm,” Claire said.

“Good. We gave you a tetanus booster in your right arm if that’s a bit sore. Sometimes in the panic and pain in the ER, memories can be strange and I know you missed your dosages of meds before we realized you were narcoleptic. You really should wear a bracelet with that info. Your sister had to tell us, you know.”

“Mm-mm.”

Actually, that was a good suggestion, so maybe something positive would come from this mess. She’d been so sedated that she didn’t recall much either from the ER or last night. But she didn’t want to be explaining to people what a NARC bracelet around her wrist meant. The fewer people who knew she was narcoleptic, the better. Thank heavens, she hadn’t had one of her terrible dreams from being even slightly off her meds but she just bet it was the hospital sedation that had saved her from that. Regularity of her meds, her naps and daily stimulants were essential.

Taking the thermometer out of her mouth and squinting at it, Mandy said, “Good, no fever. Now, before we release you later today, I want to warn you not to be upset by major bruising. Your skin will be black and blue like crazy, following lymphatic channels under the skin, maybe looking like a series of stripes.”

Claire heaved a huge sigh. “A small price to pay, considering my client was killed. He’s Jewish, so his wife will want to bury him soon. He has two adult children. I’m so sorry for all of them.”

“They won’t be burying him before the next sunset. An autopsy. Standard procedure for a—a tragedy like this.”

Claire nodded and sniffed back the urge to cry, for Fred, for herself. Dreadful, the thought of a physical autopsy, instead of the psychological ones she specialized in.

Someone called out in the hall, and she jolted. Pain shot into her shoulder. That sound was hardly like a gunshot, but it brought it back. But no way was she going to suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder, not with everything else she’d been through.

She asked Mandy, who was typing into her small laptop, “Do they know if I’ll need physical therapy to get everything working again?”

“To be decided in a week or so. The Tylenol 3 with codeine you’re on should handle the pain if you don’t use the arm much, but Dr. Manning has also written a prescription for stronger stuff, should you need it. With the powerful meds you take, remember, use the stronger pain meds sparingly, if possible. And no driving for a while.”

Claire sighed again. “I’m used to that, off and on, though I’ve been cleared to drive again recently since I have my narcolepsy meds calibrated just right. Cab fares add up. I can’t have my family always running me around as if I were a kid. And, yes, I’ll be careful. Believe me, I always am. I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. I think the shooter meant to hit Fred, or even someone else nearby.”

“I think that’s what you told the officer who questioned you last night.”

“Oh, right. That’s vague, but I remember it. Not the same man who was guarding my door. It was a detective working on Fred’s murder. I wish I could have helped him.”

“If you don’t mind me asking—well, I’ve never come across someone with narcolepsy before, only read about it in textbooks. The meds keep it under control? Do you have cataplexy, too, lose muscle control when you wake up or get emotional? Do you think that’s why you fell to the ground so fast?”

“I have mild cataplexy that’s controlled by one of my medications. I think I fell to the ground because the bullet spun me around—maybe instinct to get down. Unless I get overly tired or overly excited, the meds plus a mini-nap or two and stimulants like caffeine, even in the form of chocolate, work wonders. I’ve had the disease since eighth grade, and it took a while for it to be diagnosed. It was really hard going when I was a kid. I had terrible nightmares, actually thought I was haunted by ghosts. People thought I was lazy or stupid. I took some ribbing—bullying.”

“I’ll never understand cruel people. I think they’re insecure and strike out at others to make themselves feel better, stronger than someone else.”

“I usually hide my disease from people, because it’s hard for people to trust you when they expect you to just fall asleep at any moment—be out of it,” she admitted, more to herself than to Mandy. Here she was talking freely with a nurse about the nightmare of her life, and she’d kept it from her own husband. She pictured Jace—the handsome blond, athletic, perfectionist Jason Andrew Britten—shouting and stomping around when he finally found her stash of hidden meds and learned what they were for.

“Sorry,” Mandy said. “That must have been really tough.”

Claire whispered, “I never expected to end up in the hospital where my diagnosis would matter. It helps now, to talk about it with someone—someone who understands, like the doctor who eventually helped me. My sister and parents knew, too, but no one else.”

Mandy patted her good shoulder and they were silent for a moment. “By the way,” Mandy said, “there’s major coverage of the shooting on TV and in the papers, even national. It’s in USA TODAY and I caught a story on Good Morning, America before I left the house. ‘Fatal courthouse shooting... Man supposed dead for two years now out of the grave and into prison for fraud,’ that kind of thing. What a way to be famous, huh?”

Claire just rolled her eyes. Suddenly, they were the only part of her that didn’t feel sore. “Is the police officer still outside my door?” she asked as Mandy typed something else into her laptop.

“A new one this morning. Just until they catch the killer,” she said as she went out and left the door ajar.

The killer. She’d been shot by a killer. Hard to believe. Poor Fred and his family. But had one of Sol Sorento’s family been the shooter? Of all the interviews she’d done to try to figure out if Sol was dead or alive, not one of his family or friends had seemed like a killer, even if some of them were temperamental and deeply distressed. But losing hope of a fortune, with Sol going to prison and others up for perjury, their lives ruined, who knows that desperate people couldn’t turn deadly? But that was all she’d been able to give the detective when he’d questioned her.

A knock on her door interrupted her agonizing. A middle-aged, bald and bulky officer stood there with a huge bouquet of red roses in his hands. “For you, with a visitor, if you’re up to it, Ms. Britten,” he said. “It’s been cleared.”

Her first thought was that Darcy and Steve should not have bought expensive roses, even if they were supposed to be from Lexi. Maybe they’d even brought Lexi! Surely, Jace hadn’t sent the flowers, though Darcy said she’d call him.

“Yes,” Claire told him. “Yes, of course, they can come in.”

But it wasn’t her family. It was a senior partner of Markwood, Benton and Chase, Attorney Nick Markwood, not decked out in his lawyer suit but in gray casual slacks and a bright blue golf shirt. He took the roses from the cop and came in to sit in the chair beside her bed, laying the bouquet beside her sheet-covered leg. Like an idiot, she hoped her hair looked okay. At least she had a robe over this stupid-looking hospital gown.

“I know that officer,” he said. “I asked him not to say it was me, or I figured you might not see me. We were adversaries, and I know you probably hate me for grilling you the way I did. But I have a proposal—a job offer—if you’ll just hear me out.”

“I don’t hate you, and I want to thank you for helping me yesterday. They gave me a transfusion, but it could have been worse if you hadn’t stopped my bleeding.” Still, she thought, that didn’t mean she trusted him. But if he was going to offer her a job at that prestigious law firm...

“Okay, here’s the deal,” he said, crossing one ankle over his other knee. “I intended to talk to you about this just before you were shot. I could use your help immediately on an important issue in St. Augustine.”

“St. Augustine? Do you have an office there? With this situation—I have a young daughter, too—I can’t really work outside this area.”

“I need your expertise and talents and so does an innocent woman who’s a friend of mine. If we don’t move fast, she may soon be indicted for murder. Her mother is dead, and the daughter’s innocence hinges on whether the death was an accident, suicide or murder. It will not only impact her, but the state of Florida. Needless to say, I’ll make it worth your while. I’d like to retain you as a consultant, have you conduct some interviews on-site there. We need to prove that her daughter did not commit murder.”

“If it were a local case, maybe, but St. Augustine’s about as far as you can get within the same state. As I said, I have commitments here.”

“I hear you’re being released later today. I’m sure you’ll want to get home to your daughter, but can we meet to talk this over again soon, and I’ll give you more details? I saw your physician in the hall, and he said not to stay long right now.”

Her eyes widened and her lower lip dropped before she got hold of herself. The reach of this man amazed her. He knew the cop on her door; he’d consulted with her doctor. Wasn’t anything about her condition or release privileged? Was this master manipulator the kind of client she could trust? She really should not have trusted poor, dead Fred Myron, either. But, she sure needed that job, and this one could be an entrée to others. It sounded high-profile.

“Claire, could I pick you up tomorrow and take you over to Lake Avalon midday? I’ll bring lunch. We’ll talk, so I can explain everything. The case, the people—your fee, of course. Unless you’d rather not go out into open spaces right now.”

“I’m not going to cower under my desk. Besides, those bullets surely weren’t meant for me. Really, I don’t have any enemies...not someone who would do that.”

Just yesterday, she would have said this man was her enemy from his trying to tear her testimony to shreds. She shouldn’t trust him now. No way she was going to leave Southwest Florida to work for who knew how long in the northeastern part of the state. She might as well be going to Alaska for all she knew of that area. And this was something that would affect the entire state? This guy was good with words, with convincing people, but not her.

“I don’t really want to do profiling of possible murderers,” she told him. “That can be tricky and dangerous. That’s what you’re looking for, isn’t it, I mean if it’s an alleged murder? In Lifeboat versus Sorento, I was only trying to establish that Sol Sorento was alive. I turned up nothing to prove his friends and family wanted him dead or would have committed murder.”

He put both feet on the floor and his elbows on his knees as he leaned closer and fixed her with his riveting, silver stare. “Think of it this way then. I’m not asking you to profile a murderer, but a victim. Surely, this woman’s daughter would never have hurt her. The deceased had panic attacks and was on powerful meds, so maybe she accidentally or intentionally overdosed. It would be what you called on the stand a forensic autopsy. I want you for this. And then we’ll go from there.”

I want you... And then we’ll go from there... And the woman had panic attacks...powerful meds... Claire closed her eyes for a moment. She felt for this poor dead woman and her daughter. And, she hated to admit it, but she was moved by Nick’s passion for this case.

She amazed and scared herself by saying, “Call me first. But why don’t we meet at your office?”

“This is ex officio, not under the aegis of the firm. It’s a kind of charity I sponsor, a low-profile company I call South Shores that only takes on certain suicide-versus-murder cases.”

Now she was sure she was crazy to even talk to him about this. But she was curious, too, totally tempted—not by his charisma, of course—but by the mystery of what he’d shared so far.

“I’ll call tomorrow morning,” he said, standing. “I have your number from your website.” He lifted his hand and walked out, probably trying to leave before she had time to change her mind again.

At least, she’d only agreed to hear him out. Too late she realized she’d been gripping the florist paper wrapped around the rose stems. She crinkled it so tight she’d stuck her thumb with a thorn. All she needed was to lose more blood, even a drop. And was it an omen?

She had to admit she wasn’t doing well lately choosing clients. Nick Markwood fit the description of something Claire’s mother, who always had her nose in a book, had said about romantic poet Lord Byron: mad, bad and dangerous to know.

* * *

“Darcy, thanks so much for bringing Lexi and me home, but you don’t have to stay,” Claire told her younger sister that afternoon when they got back from the hospital. “You’ve gone above and beyond the call of duty.”

“Not duty, big sister. Love. Love is the key, like in that song our munchkins keep playing over and over. I swear, I’m going to scream if I hear it one more time.”

They hugged—that is, Claire hugged her one-armed and Darcy encircled her very gently, before they sat at Claire’s kitchen table. Darcy had driven her home with Lexi and her own four-year-old Jilly in the car. Lexi had cuddled up to Claire the whole way in the backseat, and she’d managed lots of hugs despite her sore arm.

It was a Saturday, and Darcy’s husband, Steve, was at their house with their six-year-old son, Drew. The girls were in Claire’s living room, playing the song “Let It Go” from Disney’s Frozen over and over.

Frozen, Claire thought, that’s how she felt. Like her wounded arm was frozen to her side, like her thirty-two years of life were frozen and on hold. Like her feelings for Jace were frozen. She shuddered, remembering how horrible it had been when she used to lie awake and feel frozen for a few minutes, unable to move, helpless...

“But I’m telling you,” Darcy went on, “that you are out of your everlovin’ mind if you even hear out Superman Lawyer, man of steel, able to leap tall buildings in a single bound. You need your rest, not some new assignment gallivanting all over the state.”

“I didn’t say I’m taking him up on it. I only agreed to a chat, across the Trail at Lake Avalon. You know I can use the money from a new assignment, and I need to build the reputation and publicity for Clear Path. I have big plans for it, not just to be the only Certified Fraud Examiner for consult or hire, but to have a staff.”

Darcy rolled her eyes. She’d heard all that before. “One more warning,” she said, then took a sip of the strong tea she’d fixed for the two of them. “I’m telling you, Nick Markwood’s a ladies’ man. He’s not married, shows up in the society pages all the time with a string of different, beautiful women. Last week it was some ‘Stomp in the Swamp’ dance for an Everglades reclamation charity. Can’t recall if that was in the newspaper or that glitzy mag Naples Illustrated.”

“Everglades reclamation? Well, see? A lot of charities are worthwhile. Besides, he needs a high profile to be a rainmaker for his firm. But—what? Stop looking at me like that. You think this request for my help is a come-on? I hardly move in his circles. He has some friend who’s in trouble, and he was impressed with how I handled the Sorento interviews, that’s all.”

Claire amazed herself to be defending Nick. No way was she admitting to Darcy that this assignment was not actually for his law firm, but for a sort of secret charity. Actually, didn’t his dedication to such causes mean he was a nice guy after all? But she was too tired to argue that now.

“Okay, okay,” Darcy said, looking hurt. She ran her fingers through her pixie-cut hair.

When Darcy got emotional, it had always seemed to Claire that her freckles popped out. Her hair had never been as red as Claire’s, and her eyes were blue, but anyone could tell they were sisters.

“Listen,” Claire told her, “I know I pay you next to nothing for child care, but I want to thank you again for all you’ve done for me and Queen Alexandra in there.” She nodded toward the door to the living area. “You’ve been a second mother to her, and Jilly’s like a sister. It should be the older sister taking care of the younger, but you’ve always been the steady one. You’ve stuck with me through—through everything.”

“Well, with a hard-driving, hard-drinking traveling salesman father and our nearly unresponsive mother, we needed to hang together, that’s all.”

“It isn’t all.”

Darcy’s lips crimped into a smile, and she crinkled her nose. Here came her make-light-of-their-sad-childhood routine when Claire had always wanted to psych it out. Darcy had majored in elementary education at Florida State while Claire had immersed herself in linguistics and psychology there.

“I mean,” Darcy went on, “maybe you should just psychoanalyze me and be done with it. How many girls do you know who were named for someone’s favorite male character in an English novel of manners, no less? At least she didn’t name me Mr. Darcy. How did you ever escape with Claire?”

They held hands across the corner of the table. Darcy managed a smile, but Claire blinked back tears. “Remember, I got Claire from ‘Clair de Lune’—Claire de Looney.” They smiled at one of their old childhood jokes. “But I have to admit—” Claire went on as their daughters’ song floated in again with both girls singing along “—I still prefer the Hans Christian Anderson story The Snow Queen to Disney’s rendition of it in Frozen. What did she not read to us when we were growing up? At least we had that. You do remember that fairy tale is about two sisters who learn to stick together?”

Pieces of the lyrics floated in again, maybe the tenth time it had been played. The words of the song about the past being in the past and wanting to move forward, despite being unsettled in one’s heart...

Maybe, Claire thought, as they rose and went to join their girls, that song that was driving them crazy was exactly what she needed to hear.

3

“Let’s sit at the picnic table over there,” Nick suggested as they got out of his black BMW at Sugden Park just across US 41 from where Claire lived. The traffic sounded muted here. It seemed like another world.

He carried a cooler and a tartan blanket, no less, when the temperature must be in the high eighties. She couldn’t wait for the weather to break to the clear coolness of autumn days, but the oppressive humidity and the cloudy sky seemed appropriate somehow. She was sure she would—at least should—turn him down.

A warm Gulf breeze rippled the man-made lake that was set back a mile or so from the shore. The park service was giving kids waterskiing lessons today, and several small sailboats zigged and zagged across the surface. The screech of ospreys sailing overhead reminded her of the drone in the sky at the courthouse.

Then, high above the lake, she saw there was a drone, a white one, hard to see in the sun against the sky. She’d read those might be used to spray for mosquitoes, but surely over the Everglades, not in a populated locale like this. She scanned the area to see who might be controlling the drone. Maybe the man way down where the bike trail disappeared into the woods.

She watched Nick flap the blanket over the worn wooden surface of the picnic table. He took soft drinks—with plastic glasses and ice—and two plastic deli cartons out of the cooler. Plastic utensils, napkins, dark rolls and tiny tubs of butter. She saw everything was from Wynn’s, a market uptown she loved but usually avoided because she’d walk out of there with a bill twice what she’d intended.

“Lobster salad,” he said, sitting across from her with his back to the lake, when she was hoping he’d sit beside her so he didn’t seem to be interrogating her. She was really sensitive about body language, and his said impatience and controlled aggression right now. Worse, since his back was to the sun, he took off his sunglasses and regarded her with those disturbing silver-gray eyes. “Hope lobster’s okay.”

“Great. I’d eat that even if I had no hands instead of just one that’s working well. So how is the state of Florida involved in this St. Augustine situation, other than, if your friend is indicted, she’ll go on trial there?”

“So you have been thinking about this case. Good sign.”

“Maybe, but I’m not ready to sign up.”

“Let’s not do a contract per se, except for this.”

He fished a piece of paper out of his shirt pocket, unfolded it and turned it toward her. He was eager now, in a hurry. And he had not answered her question.

She took off her sunglasses to read the paper better. It was not a contract but an offer letter, for two hundred dollars an hour for interviews! And fifty dollars for “general consultation” time! She’d never earned more than seventy-five dollars for an entire interview. It also offered a daily rate of three hundred dollars while in St. Augustine (St. Johns County) and someplace called Palatka (Putnam County) to be paid weekly to her account. Her stomach cartwheeled as she read on. If she helped his South Shores company prove that Jasmine Montgomery Stanton did not murder her mother, Francine Montgomery, there was a $10,000 bonus. He’d signed the paper and had it dated and notarized.

She just stared at the document at first, a forkful of lobster salad halfway to her mouth. She put the fork down and stared into his intense gaze. He moved across from her to block the sun from streaming into her eyes.

“This means a lot to you,” she said, her voice almost a whisper. “You said she—this Jasmine—was a friend. Is that why?”

“It’s not the only reason. Through South Shores, I usually take cases in which I believe a so-called suicide or accident is actually a murder. I don’t want to sway what you’ll find out but I don’t think this woman would kill herself. She was influential in St. Johns County, owned Shadowlawn Hall, one of the largest pre-Civil War plantation houses in the area—not a working plantation anymore but a real historic and cultural treasure. It’s been handed down in her family for generations. For financial reasons, she came to the difficult decision to either deed it to the State of Florida or auction it privately. But her daughter Jasmine disagreed with letting it go from the family, despite the financial crunch. I’m convinced Jasmine did not kill her mother, so someone else did. People who knew the deceased are the ones who need to be deposed—I mean, interviewed.”

“And Jasmine herself, of course.”

“Indirectly. She’s been through hell with the authorities, and they still may indict her. She has a small staff and there is at least one other acquaintance who needs to be interviewed.”

“Then let me start briefly with you, since you know her well enough to be quite assertive that Jasmine is innocent. She and her mother did have a disagreement on the fate of the property, which some could construe as a motive for murder.”

“See, I knew you were good. But it isn’t like that,” he insisted, hunching forward. “She loved her mother. I’ve known her—both of them—for years. Francine was a friend of my father, which makes this case more important to me. He thought the world of both of them.”

“I read your father started your law firm.”

“True.”

She’d thought a slight change of subject would calm him, but he seemed even more agitated. And she needed much more information than he seemed willing to share. He gripped his plastic fork so hard he snapped it in half. He sighed deeply, frowned and put the fork down.

“After founding the firm,” he told her, “Dad got into some real estate investment problems that ruined his reputation, but this isn’t about him.” He narrowed his eyes. “So, have you been reading up on me like I have on you?”

“Not yet, but you’re not exactly a private person around here.”

“No, but I’m a deeply concerned person. Claire, I need your help on this. Maybe on other cases, too. I saw how damn good you are. Besides being a Certified Fraud Examiner, I see on your website you’ve trained to be a Forensic Document Examiner, too. I don’t think any forgeries are involved with this case, but that could be important for the future.”

The future, she thought. We’re already talking about a future?

“You’re strong,” he went on, “but you can come off as gentle and nonthreatening. There’s something about you people like and trust, but you’re wily and clever in psyching out and piercing through their armor of lies. Let me ask you the same question I overheard a reporter ask you. Besides verb tense and body language, how do you psych people out?”

She nodded, on familiar ground now, even though she was well aware he’d shifted the conversation from himself. She took a bite of the lobster salad—delicious—though she wasn’t tempted to take a second one right away because he was asking her about her passion. People. People who built walls the way her parents had, people who could help or hurt others and too often did the latter.

“To summarize six years of working my way through college with a double major in psych and English, here it is. When people are lying, they seldom refer to themselves and they tend to talk around direct action. They don’t say, ‘I unlocked the door,’ but ‘The door was left unlocked.’ They speak evasively, try to answer a question with another question like, ‘Why in the world would I kill my own brother?’ They use you’ve-got-to-believe-me language with oaths or vows like ‘I swear,’ or ‘God as my witness.’ They either leave out details or talk too much, often off the subject. So in court, as you saw in the trial, explaining this as I testify makes me an expert witness—hopefully a credible one who can sway the jury.”

“As I’ve seen close up and personal,” he said. He nodded and rapped the table with his knuckles. “You should have gone to law school. And that psyching people out is the way I’m trying to learn to think. Maybe after this St. A case, you can do a workshop for my associates at the firm.”

“I’d rather do that than go to St. Augustine, Nick, because I should stay home. Besides, my sister and doctor will have a fit if I go with this shot-up arm over three hundred miles away anytime soon. You said soon, right?”

“Are the terms suitable?” he countered, pointing at the paper still open before her.

“Oh, yes,” she said. “And evasive people sometimes counter a question with another question.”

“Touché,” he said. “I need to know you’re on board before I tell you everything. Some of this is privileged. But I should have said the offer includes room and board. We’ll be staying at the Bayfront Hilton in St. A. It’s a drive from Palatka and Shadowlawn, but we’ll need our creature comforts. I’ll drive you there, get you settled, help set up your interviews, introduce you to the right people, then be in and out.”

“You’re assuming I’m going with you.”

“Aren’t you? Jasmine needs your help. Shadowlawn Estate does—I do.”

“I’ll need a doctor there to check my arm if it takes over a couple of days.”

“No problem.”

“Nick, there is a problem. It’s leaving my daughter behind for a while, even though my sister’s family is great to her. I need to know exactly how I’ll get around if you’re not there since I can’t drive safely right now with one arm. I can dictate into a computer, but can’t use a keyboard easily without two hands. In short, I’ll need some sort of transportation and digital backup.”

“Heck,” he muttered.

“What? You didn’t think of that?”

“No, Heck—Hector Munez, goes by Heck. He’s my South Shores geek genius. I plan to set things up with you, run you around, but he’ll be available to help you with anything digital and drive you if I’m not there for a while. I’ll have you meet him before we head out tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow? I couldn’t!”

“Day after tomorrow at the latest. I’ll make things work out for the best. You’ll see.”

The sun came out from the clouds and blazed brightness and heat on them. Their gazes snagged and held. Mad, bad and dangerous to know...

But shouldn’t she tell him her other caveats? Not that she had trouble even dressing herself, couldn’t so much as hook a bra, but she’d get around that somehow. He needed to know that, like some darned little kid, she needed her naps, that she had to get her sleep at night. She absolutely had to calibrate and balance her meds. She had hidden all that from Jace and, since he was gone so much—actually, was so self-centered—she had managed for a while. But all that had caused her downfall, the blowup between them. But this was just a business deal, not a life shared.

“I’ll do my best to give you an answer soon,” she heard herself promise him.

“Your best is all I’m asking.”