Raising The Stakes. Sandra Marton

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ ought to do was drag this son of a bitch attorney out of his seat, do it fast, before he knew what was happening, and beat the crap out of him—but that wouldn’t get him what he wanted. The question was, what would? The thing to do was calm down and think. What would soften up a hotshot lawyer? A little hearts and flowers, maybe. Yeah. A sad story, complete with violins. That might just do it.

      “Okay,” Harman said. He wrapped his hands around his cup and looked down into its murky depths. “I’m gonna tell you the truth, Baron. I don’t talk about it much ‘cause it near to kills me to do it, but my wife run out and left me four years back.”

      “Ah. That’s rough.”

      “It is, for a fact.” Harman lifted wounded eyes, locked them on Gray’s. “She was everythin’ for me, you know? I loved her like I never loved another woman. But she weren’t no good. She catted around, paid no mind to her wifely obligations or to our son.”

      That did it. He saw the lawyer’s eyes go dark.

      “She had a child?” he said.

      Harman pulled a sad face. “Oh, yeah. A little boy. Sweetest thing you can imagine, but she didn’t give no more thought to the kid than she did to me.”

      “You mean, she didn’t take the boy with her when she left you?”

      Harman didn’t even blink. “No.” Violins, sad stories and a leap to abandoned babies the lawyer had taken all by himself. Fine. Whatever would work. “You can see why I don’t talk about it much.”

      Oh, and it was working. Baron was nodding in agreement, clearly thinking bad thoughts about a woman who had slept around and dumped her kid. Well, the sleeping around part was surely the truth, and there wasn’t a way in hell Baron would ever find out she’d taken the boy with her.

      Harman took out his wallet. “See this?” He took out a dog-eared photo of a woman with a baby in her arms and pushed it across the table. “That’s what she left behind. That innocent babe. Boy’s seven now an’ there’s times he still wakes up in the middle of the night, cryin’ for his mama.”

      It was the perfect touch. The lawyer was staring at the picture as if it was the Madonna and child.

      “Yeah.” The attorney cleared his throat. “So, where is she? Where’d she go?”

      “If I knew, don’t you think I’d have brought her back?” Harman’s mouth twisted. “Teach her a lesson for walkin’ out on me?” He saw the way Baron’s head came up. Dammit. He’d overplayed his hand. “I mean, I’d tell her how much she hurt me. How I still love her. How I miss her. How I ‘spect her to keep the promises she made when we was married, is what I’m saying.”

      “The bottom line is that you don’t know where she is, do you, Kitteridge? That’s what I’m saying.”

      Harman smiled slyly. “I don’t, no. But I bet a hotshot lawyer like you got ways to find her.”

      “Maybe, but I’ll need your help.”

      “Anythin’ I can do, you just ask.”

      “You said she catted around. How about the names of some of the men she slept with?”

      “Don’t actually got names. She was sneaky.”

      “Well, how about places she’d been and liked, that she might have gone back to?”

      “She never went nowhere. Not that I wouldn’t have taken her, if she’d been a good woman, but—”

      “Places she talked about visiting,” Gray said impatiently. “Nothing? Come on, man. Think. Didn’t she ever look at a picture in a magazine or someplace on TV and say how much she’d like to go there?”

      “If she spent time on such things, she was smart enough not to let me know. Wastin’ time makes the devil happy.”

      Gray started to answer, thought better of it and, instead, took his wallet from his back pocket. Coming here had been pointless. He’d wasted two days and he didn’t know anything more about where to look for Dawn than when he’d started. The only thing he’d learned was that her husband was the shithead Ballard said he was, and that Dawn wasn’t much better. She’d slept around, run off, abandoned her child… So much for the lure of Nora Lincoln’s sad eyes and defiant chin, or for the fact that he’d thought he’d seen those same eyes, that same chin, in the photo Harman had shown him.

      “Well, thanks for your time, Kitteridge.” Gray dropped a five-dollar bill on the table. “I’ll give you my card. If you think of anything that might shed some light on your wife’s whereabouts…”

      “Wait just a damn minute, Mr. Lawyer.”

      Gray looked up. Kitteridge flashed a smile as phony as the wood graining in the plastic tabletop.

      “I mean, you ain’t just gonna run off, are you? Now that I told you about my wife, surely you can tell me what her grandpa left her, right?” Harman looked around, then hunched his shoulders and bent over the table. “It’s only right and proper I should know. For the sake of my son, you understand?”

      Gray had an answer ready but he made it look as if he didn’t. “Well,” he said slowly, “I suppose it’s okay, all things considered.”

      Harman licked his lips. “How much?”

      “He didn’t leave her money.”

      “He didn’t… Ah. I got it. He left her a house, right? What do you call it, real estate?”

      Gray tried to look soulful. “No,” he said, “no real estate. Actually your wife’s grandfather died broke.” Was it a lie? Maybe. Then again, maybe not. But the answer would defuse Harman’s curiosity. That was what counted.

      “Broke?” Harman’s eyes narrowed. “Give me a break, Baron. You want me to believe you come here to tell my wife her grandpa didn’t leave her nothin’?”

      “I didn’t say that.”

      “Yeah, you did. You just told me the old man died broke.”

      “But he did leave her something. A music box.” That part had come to him just this morning. He thought it sounded pretty good.

      Harman’s face was a blank. “You’re shittin’ me.”

      “I guess it had sentimental value to him. It’s a nice music box, actually. Walnut, with mother of pearl inlay and a revolving dancer on the—”

      “You want me to think you come all the way here to tell my wife she inherited a music box?” Harman said in a soft, ominous voice. “I guess you think I’m pretty stupid.”

      “I don’t have any opinion of you,” Gray said pleasantly, lying through his teeth as he got to his feet. “You’re right about one thing, though. Given a choice, I sure wouldn’t have come all the way here but, as my client’s representative, I’m obligated to fulfill his wishes. He stipulated that I was to locate his granddaughter and give her the box. That’s what I’m trying to do.”

      “Yeah. Sure.”

СКАЧАТЬ