A Rush to Violence (25 page)

* * *

At the street corner, Camille pulled out her cell to see if there were any messages, but there were none.

She called Emma again, but there was no answer, just her voice mail, which Camille already had populated with messages. Frustrated, she clicked off her phone and shoved it in her pocket.

She was angry. She was scared. It was getting late. Too much time had passed. Increasingly, her worry was turning to panic. When she was young and with Sam, panic never was part of the equation. They had each other. They always were in control. But this was different. This was personal. She felt as if she had no control. This was her daughter and the need to protect her was all-consuming.

Where are you?

Sam reached out and took her by the hand, an unexpected gesture of concern that she welcomed. His hand was large and rough, just as she remembered. He squeezed hers and in spite of herself, she squeezed back. When they were together sixteen years ago, any kind of affection was confined to the bedroom. He never would have crossed that line in public, regardless if it was about their daughter. He said he’d changed. Had he?

“Why did you say that Harvey’s lie was safe with you? What was he lying about?”

“Anastassios Fondaras never gives private dinners, unless private means he’s serving five hundred people or more. I can’t imagine him doing something intimate to help anyone, even if it was one of the Redmans. His time is too important to him. He uses that yacht to impress and to court business opportunities, not to throw a little dinner because Leana Redman is opening a hotel.”

“He never said the party was little.”

“True. But he also never corrected me and said he
wasn’t
lying.” She shrugged. “Who knows? Maybe there is a party. I hope Tyler is having the time of his life.”

They kept walking.

“You’re not in this alone, you know?” he said. “I can feel you, just as if it was twenty years ago. I know you’re worried and you have every right to be. But you need to know that even though I’ve never met my daughter, I’m committed to finding her before she does something reckless.”

“
If
she hasn’t already done something reckless.”

“Right now, there’s nothing we can do if she has. What we need to do is get to her and prevent her from doing something else, if that’s even the case.”

“Killing them—that’s what she has in mind. She’s convinced that all of them are involved. But I’m not sure whether that’s true. It might only be some of them. One of them. Two of them. All of them. That’s why I wanted to confront them. If any of them lie to me, I’ll know it.”

“We need to get in front of this and move faster than we are now. Where is the next closest house?”

“Laura’s.”

“Then we go there. Here. Give me the duffel bag. You’ve been carrying it long enough. Come on. Just give it to me.”

She gave it to him.

“We’ll find our daughter,” he said.

“We’ll find Emma,” she corrected him.

“Fine. We’ll find Emma. But can you give me a break? I’m not the person I used to be. Neither are you. Give me a chance to prove it to you.”

She wanted to, but it was too late. Her wall went up. Before it went any further, she had to stop this now. She let go of his hand and looked at his face in the changing colors of the night. “Just listen to me for a minute. You hurt me once, but I can’t let that happen again. OK? I can’t. If you think that what’s happening now is going to lead to a situation where we get back together, I need you to know that’s not an option. I can’t take that risk again. I appreciate your help tonight, Sam—and I mean that—but my focus is on my daughter. I raised her by myself and I will find her by myself if I have to. The fact of the matter is that in spite of the fact that I still love you, I don’t trust you. I can’t let you burn me again. Are we clear?”

He didn’t answer directly. “I still want to help.”

“Then help. But do so knowing that anything between us is off the table.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

From the Chens’ office, Marty Spellman sat listening to his wife grill Eliot Baker, Kenneth Miller’s longtime lawyer and confidante, over a speaker phone in the next room. Her pointed questions and the controlled heat in her voice were clipped and intense. It wasn’t often that he had heard her in action as a reporter, but when he did, she never disappointed him.

“I need to know a few things, Eliot,” she said. “First, did Kenneth Miller have an appointment with you on the day he died or did he call you that day or the day before, demanding to see you first thing?”

Marty waited for an answer.

“He called me the night before.”

“Why?”

“At that point, I didn’t know why.”

“He didn’t tell you why?”

“He didn’t and I certainly didn’t question him. He might have been a close friend, but he was my client first, and considering who he was, I didn’t question him. If anything, I was at his beck and call. If he wanted to see me at three in the morning, I would have made that happen. We both know why. Having Kenneth Miller as a client elevated me. He helped to make my career into what it is today. Obviously, I’d be a fool not to meet with him when he wanted to meet with me. In this case, it was nine that morning. Sharp. I had to clear the books, but I was ready when he walked in.”

“What did you see when he walked in?”

“What do you mean?”

“Was he agitated? Calm? What was his mood?”

“Kenneth Miller was always cool. Few things rattled him. But I knew him well enough to know when something was pressing and had to be dealt with quickly, which was the case that day.”

“Which leads me to this question. Why did it take you twenty-seven minutes to approve the changes in his will? That seems like a long time to me, especially since you considered yourself ‘at his beck and call.’ You yourself said that you didn’t question Miller. So, why did you sign his changes nearly thirty minutes after he brought them to you? Were there that many changes to the will?”

“You’ve misinterpreted me. Just because I never questioned him doesn’t mean that I didn’t advise him when I thought it was appropriate.”

“Did you advise him that morning?”

“That’s confidential.”

“Oh, please. At this point, we’ve set fire to client confidentiality and shoved it over a cliff. Just answer the question, Eliot. Did you advise him that morning?”

Nothing.

“All right. How badly do you want to be profiled by me?”

Silence.

“Because I have a feeling that my reach will be as important, if not more important, than your lucrative association with Kenneth Miller, which for the most part ended with his death. In fact, we both know how important I am to you now. Especially now. I was planning on changing things up a bit. Earlier, we discussed profiling your next case. But now I think the story should focus on why Kenneth Miller chose you to represent him. We’ll talk about your long working relationship and your collaborative successes. That’s going to translate into you nailing prestige clients who didn’t even know you represented Miller. It’s money in the bank, Eliot, and a lot of it. Seven figures of it. Likely more. So, I’ll ask again. What did you advise him on?”

“He made a change to his beneficiaries.”

“And that change was adding Pamela Decker?”

“How did you know?”

“It’s the logical choice. Who is she?”

“I’d rather not say.”

“Why stop now? Who is she?”

He paused and Marty could feel him weighing his options. “She was his mistress,” Baker finally said.

“His mistress?” Jennifer couldn’t keep the surprise from her voice. She recovered before she spoke again. “For how long?”

“I’m not sure. He first mentioned her to me about ten years ago. I’m not sure when the affair began. But I know they were seeing each other up until the day of his death.”

“Did she know she was a beneficiary?”

“She knew. He called to make an appointment with me because of a conversation they had the night before. He was nearing eighty. Pamela Decker is thirty-nine and she was getting concerned about her future. Miller had no plans to marry her. He liked things the way they were. She didn’t. She wanted marriage and stability. If this was as far as it was going to go between them, she didn’t want to waste what was left of her youth on not finding a man who would be there for her.”

“Who would
provide
for her.”

“Whatever. To be fair to her, they were together for nearly ten years, Jennifer. She was committed to him, her concern was reasonable and Kenneth knew it. If he wanted her, he’d need to take care of her.”

“He’d have to
buy
her.”

“He didn’t see it that way.”

“Did she know where he placed her in the will?”

“No.”

“So she didn’t know that before she received a dime from his estate, every Miller needed to be six feet under first? Is that true?”

“That’s true.”

“That’s pretty cold on his part.”

“Not really.”

“Why’s that?”

“He asked me to send her a check. Something to help her get through should he die because he thought it was only fair. He was getting older. He knew he was putting her at the bottom of his beneficiaries. He wanted to make sure she was protected and so he did.”

“How much protection was in that check?”

“Twenty million dollars’ worth.”

“That should take her to her grave.”

“Don’t count on it.”

“What does that mean?”

“Let’s just say that Pamela Decker has expensive tastes. From what I know about her, that money might last her two years. Max. For years, he treated her like a queen. Anything she wanted, she got. She’s used to that lifestyle now. And once you’re used to something like that, it’s almost impossible to go back. I’ve seen it too often. As bright as she is—and she is bright—she’s stupid when it comes to handling money. She’ll go through it quickly. She’ll burn through it thinking that somehow more is coming her way.”

“Did you send the check?”

“I sent it the moment he left. You don’t wait when you’re dealing with someone like Kenneth Miller.”

“How long before she cashed it.”

“Next day.”

“Was she afraid it would bounce?”

“I doubt—”

“That was a joke, Eliot. Where does Decker live?”

“In a penthouse on Park.”

“Did he buy it for her?”

“What do you think?”

“Do you have her address?”

He found it and gave it to her.

“Her cell?”

He coughed that up, too.

“So, getting back to why it took you twenty-seven minutes to sign off on the will. What was the reason? How were you advising Miller?”

“He told me he’d be faxing me a letter later that day to add as an addendum to the will. We talked about what he was putting in the letter, which I had no problem with. If he wanted to ream out his adult children from the grave, so be it. I can’t stand half of them, anyway. With the exception of Camille, he hated the rest and he wanted them to know why. I listened to him, which takes time. Then I advised him that perhaps Pamela should take a bit less than twenty million, which seemed high to me, but he was having none of it, so that was that. Add to that a cup of coffee and catching up on some business-related issues, and there’s your twenty-seven minutes.”

“But why the letter?” Jennifer asked. “He still put them in the will, right behind Camille and Emma. What was the point?”

“The letter gave him the last word. He put them in the will because he knew his wife would have wanted it that way. Kenneth Miller might have taken a mistress, Jennifer, but before his own wife died, he was well aware of her own affairs, of which there were many. For years, he was lonely. He met Pamela one night while having a drink at the Waldorf. They got on well, but it took months for him to trust her because Miller tended to trust no one—and for good reason. Still, when he decided that he could trust her, he told his wife about it. Not to hurt her, but to be honest with her in ways that she hadn’t been honest with him. At that point, he hadn’t consummated the relationship with Pamela, but he was about to and he wanted her to know why because deep down, he still loved her. I think that was the turning point in their relationship. It was at that point that Katherine started spending a fortune on the children her husband hated. It was her quiet way of retaliation.”

“Katherine sounds like a peach. Do you think Miller was murdered, Eliot?”

“I don’t know.”

“But what do you think?”

“To my knowledge, nobody knew what was in that will. Nobody knew that it was Camille and Emma first, then the rest of them. So that strengthens the argument for murder. If each of the Miller siblings thought they were being treated equally in the will, then murdering Kenneth would expedite their access to their share of his fortune, even if the others benefited as well. So, could it have happened? Sure. But he also could have just tripped over his dog.”

“Fair enough. But let’s say he was murdered. Who would do it?”

“With the exception of Camille, take your pick. Increasingly, money was becoming tight for each of them because Miller shut them off when Katherine died. But you have to remember the autopsy. It suggested no signs of stroke or heart failure that would have led him to fall down those stairs. Police reports suggest no sign of struggle. Instead, his death was ruled as a direct result of him falling down the stairs and being impaled. It could have been an accident. It really could be that simple. It might just have been his dog.”

“Or it could have been murder. Somebody could have pushed him.”

“Maybe somebody did. I’m not arguing against it.”

“So, what about Decker? Since she was a beneficiary, she was there for the reading of the will.”

“That’s right.”

“And that’s when she found out where she came on the list. At that point, she already was sitting on twenty million dollars. She cashed the check the next day. Money spent on an experienced assassin would mean nothing to her if she knew she would receive hundreds of millions more. So, the question is simple. Would she take the rest of them out to get to that money?”