Deceived (Private Justice Book #3): A Novel (19 page)

“Fine. I’ll let it stand.” She edged past Nancy and started toward her office.

“Good. Are you ready for your next client?”

“Yes.” Her cell began to ring as she approached the door, and she increased her pace. “Give me five minutes for this call.”

“Will do.”

Kate rounded her desk and dug her cell out of the purse on her credenza. The number was unfamiliar, but she recognized the Rochester exchange.

John’s office manager, responding to her email.

Stomach knotting, she circled back to close her door and said hello.

“It’s Barbara. Can you talk?”

“Yes. Are you on your cell?”

“I am—like you asked. I didn’t look at my personal email until I got into the office this morning, and I had to wait for a break to duck out and call you. Your request to use my cell rather than the office phone was intriguing. What’s up?”

Kate sat and gripped the arm of her chair. “I have a favor to ask.”

“Name it.”

“Not so fast. This might be a little dicey.”

“Coming from you, I doubt that. You and John were the most aboveboard people I ever met.”

“I hope you still feel that way after this request.”

“Now you’ve really piqued my interest.”

Kate took a deep breath and plunged in. “I can’t tell you the details yet, but a strange situation connected to John’s accident came up a couple of weeks ago and I’m trying to check out a few things. I know patient information is sensitive, but it’s very important for me to find out whether a boy named David Sanders was ever seen by John. In all likelihood it would only have been a consultation or two, since the boy lived out of state. So
I was thinking that if he wasn’t a patient, you could just tell me no, right? And if he was, a simple ‘no comment’ wouldn’t break any rules, would it?”

As the silence stretched between them, Kate’s fingers began to tremble. Heart thumping, she carefully set her coffee down before she spilled it all over the file on her desk.

This had been a bad idea.

“Look, I’m sorry, Barbara. I don’t want to put you in an uncomfortable—”

“Hold on a minute. No apology necessary. I was thinking through your proposition. I know you wouldn’t ask if this wasn’t important, and handling it the way you suggested shouldn’t be an issue.” A few seconds of silence ticked by. “I’ll tell you what. I’ll do some digging on that name as soon as I get a chance and text your cell with a no or a no comment, like you suggested. How’s that?”

Closing her eyes, she exhaled. “Perfect. I can’t thank you enough for doing this.”

“Not a problem. But down the road, I’d like to hear what’s behind it.”

“If things turn out the way I’m beginning to think they might, you’ll be one of the first to know.”

“Fair enough. Now it’s back to work for me—and for you, I’m sure. Watch for my text.”

“Count on it.”

For a long moment after the line went dead, Kate held the phone in her hand. She needed a minute to psyche herself up for the intense hour to come. Her clients deserved her total focus.

But it wasn’t going to be easy to concentrate today.

Finally, with a sigh, she dropped the cell into her purse. She’d have to do her best to put speculations out of her mind.

And try not to worry about where they went from here if Barbara’s answer was no.

E
lk Café. If you can shoot it, we can cook it. How can I help you?”

At the booming female greeting, Connor stifled a chuckle and eased the phone back from his ear. Already the Philipsburg eatery was living up to the down-home image on its website. That should increase the odds the woman would be receptive to his friendly Texan pretext and tell him what she knew about Sanders.

“Howdy, ma’am. I’m hoping you might be able to help me out with some information.”

“I’ll do my best, sweetie. Hang on a sec.” When she spoke again, her voice was muffled, as if she’d covered the mouthpiece with her hand. “Wally! You workin’ on JoJo’s order? That tour bus is stoppin’ by the mine this morning, and he’s gettin’ antsy.” An even more muffled male voice spoke, the words indistinguishable, then the woman was back. “So what can I do for you?”

Connor leaned back in his chair, propped his ankle on his knee, and delivered the speech he’d prepared. “Well, I may be passin’ real close to Philipsburg in a couple of weeks, and I was hoping to meet up with an old high school buddy of mine. Last I heard, he lived in your neck of the woods. I can’t find a phone
listing for him, so I googled the town and saw your place. It sounded real friendly, and I thought someone there might know how I could reach him.”

“We do see most of the locals on a regular basis, since we’re the best restaurant in town. A word to the wise—our sapphire omelet is to die for. People come from as far away as Butte and Missoula to order it, and we run it as a special on Sunday mornings with a side of hash browns and homemade sausage. You remember that if you get out our way. What’s this guy’s name?”

“Greg Sanders. He has a little boy who’d be about seven now. I heard he lost his wife a few years back.”

“Hmm. Not a regular here, that’s for sure, but the name does seem familiar. Hold again for a sec.”

As she once more covered the mouthpiece and called out a question about Sanders, Connor frowned. Bad news if Sanders’s name wasn’t ringing any bells. The woman sounded as if she knew most of the residents.

Leaning forward, he reached for the slip of paper containing the number of the family-owned grocer. If this call went nowhere, the store was next on his list.

“Sweetie, did he work for Patrick Lodge?”

Connor grabbed his pen and jotted down the name, his adrenaline spiking. “I don’t know who he worked for out there. He used to be in construction, but with the economy and all, he could have changed businesses. Unless this Patrick Lodge owns a construction company?”

“No. He’s some big-shot executive with an aerospace company in Seattle. I think I know who you’re talking about, though. Quiet guy, fortyish, kept to himself. He did have a little boy, and I’m pretty certain his first name was Greg, but I can’t vouch for the last name. He never came in here that I recall, but I saw him around town a few times through the years.”

“That could be him.”

“If it is, I’m afraid you might be too late. Mr. Lodge and his family eat here whenever they’re at their vacation house. They’re partial to those omelets I told you about. Anyway, on their last visit he said he was looking for a new live-in caretaker for his place.”

“How long ago would that have been?”

“Oh, three, four months ago, I’d say.”

The timing fit.

“So much for meeting up with an old buddy—unless Mr. Lodge mentioned where Greg went?”

“Not that I recollect. But he did say he was sorry to lose him, so I expect he was a reliable worker. You might try calling him in Seattle, if he’s in the phone book. He’s real down-to-earth and a wonderful family man. His wife is the sweetest little thing, and his teenagers are as polite and well behaved as I’ve ever seen. I know he’d be happy to talk with you about your friend.”

“I may give him a call.”

“You do that, sweetie. It’s always good to reconnect with friends from the past.”

“Thanks for all the information. And if I get to Philipsburg, I’ll stop by and try one of those omelets.”

“You won’t be disappointed, I can promise you that. I’ve been here fifteen years, and I’ve never heard a complaint. You ask for Belle if you come in and I’ll see you get the VIP treatment.” A male voice called her name in the background. “Gotta run, sweetie. Breakfast traffic is pickin’ up. Good luck.”

Once the line went dead, Connor swiveled toward his computer and typed Lodge’s name in the browser, along with the words aerospace and Seattle.

Multiple hits showed up, and he worked his way through them—including interviews from the Missoula and Butte newspapers in which Lodge waxed poetic about the beauties of Montana and his two-hundred-plus-acre spread a few miles from Philipsburg. Lodge was, indeed, an aerospace executive,
though not with one of the bigger players in the industry. He sounded more like a smaller subcontractor. That should make him more accessible.

First, however, a call to the grocery store was in order. Since the woman at the diner hadn’t been able to verify the last name of Lodge’s caretaker, better to nail the ID before contacting the executive.

Picking up the phone again, he tapped in *67, as he’d done with the diner call. Blocking caller ID might be overkill, but someone in Philipsburg could know that 314 wasn’t a Texas exchange. No sense raising any red flags.

“Garrison’s.”

Another woman—but this one didn’t sound as approachable as Belle.

After greeting her, Connor laid on the Texas charm again and launched into a repeat performance of his spiel, ending with a recap of his conversation with the woman at the diner. “She wasn’t sure my friend was the one who worked for Mr. Lodge, so before I go bothering an important man like him, I was hopin’ to verify that the Greg she thought she remembered was the one I’m trying to find. If he lived in the area, I figured he might have come to your store now and then.”

“You say you’re a high school buddy of his?”

Definitely more cautious than the woman at the diner.

“Greg was one of my best friends back in those days.” Greg Martinelli, not Sanders, but no need to pass that on.

“Well . . . I don’t usually give out information on my customers, but I can’t see any harm in this. His last name was Sanders, and he did work for Mr. Lodge. I guess he was here about three years, give or take a few months. But you missed him. He moved away back in the spring. Came in and settled up his account—not that there was much to settle. I think he did most of his shopping in Butte or Missoula.”

In other words, the man made himself scarce in the small town closest to his home, where people might ask questions. Behavior consistent with someone who wanted to stay under the radar.

He had everything he needed from the woman, but just to play the pretext to its logical end, he asked the obvious follow-up question. “I don’t suppose he said where he was going.”

“He didn’t offer, I didn’t ask. Patrick Lodge might have a forwarding address, if you want to track him down.”

“I may do that. Thanks a lot for your help.”

As the line went dead, Connor rocked back in his chair. Talking to Lodge carried some risk. If, by chance, the man had formed a friendship with Sanders and still kept in touch, he might mention the inquiry. Plus, as a savvy executive, he would likely be cautious about giving information to a stranger—unless that stranger had some credentials that merited trust.

Like a Secret Service background.

No pretext for this one, Connor decided, although he’d keep the details of the case vague—and ask the man for his discretion while the investigation was under way.

But he had some groundwork to lay before he placed that call.

Rolling toward his keyboard, he grabbed his phone en route and entered the name of the man’s company in the browser. After tooling around the corporate website, he located the basic email format and the main corporate phone number.

Ten seconds later he had the operator on the line.

“I need to verify an email address for one of your employees. For some reason, I’m having problems getting it to go through.” He rattled off his best guess.

“You forgot the dot, sir. It’s Patrick dot Lodge.”

“Ah. No wonder. Thanks for your help.”

Setting the phone on his desk, he composed his email. Keeping the inquiry general, he referred the man to the Phoenix
website, where he could verify the firm was legit, and asked him to respond ASAP with a convenient time to call.

Then he dug back into the data the information broker had sent after his 2:00 a.m. request, mining it for any nugget he might have missed.

Because more and more, he was beginning to believe that the strange story Kate had told him that first day in this very office was more true crime than fantasy.

No.

As Kate stared at the single word in the text from Barbara that must have come in during her last meeting, her heart sank.

John had never seen David Sanders as a patient.

So much for Connor’s theory.

Now what?

Appetite fleeing, she shoved aside the tuna salad sandwich she’d retrieved from the fridge in the break room and pulled the folder with the age-enhanced photo of Kevin out of her desk drawer. Usually she suppressed the temptation to look at it until the end of the day. Only then did she allow her hope to surface. To let herself believe that maybe, just maybe, her future might be different than the one she’d resigned herself to when she’d moved to St. Louis. That a miracle could happen and she’d once again hold her cherished son in her arms.

Now that dream was crumbling.

If they couldn’t find a connection between Sanders and her husband or son, there was no motive. And the most obvious connection had been the medical one Connor had suggested. What else could it be, given the distance between the two cities?

Her gaze traced the features of the little boy in the age-progressed photo, pressure building behind her eyes. She should never have let herself get carried away. From the beginning, the
odds against this investigation leading to a reunion with her son had been astronomical. But while her mind had accepted that, her heart had stopped listening to logic. She’d even begun to imagine how it would feel to pull her son into a hug and hold him tight. To plan for the professional support he would surely need as he transitioned from the only life he could remember to a new one with his real parent. To look forward to the day when her world was placid and she could watch her son grow into—

A knock sounded on her door, and she swallowed. Took a deep breath. “Yes?”

Nancy stuck her head in, glancing at the sandwich as she spoke. “Your twelve-thirty is early. She hoped you might take her a few minutes sooner because she needs to run her daughter to the doctor. Why don’t I give you five to eat that?” She gestured to the tuna-filled croissant.

Kate shook her head and rewrapped her lunch. “I’ll finish it later.”

“It doesn’t look like you even got a start.”

“My eleven o’clock ran long.”

“You know . . . you need to use a timer, like those high-priced psychiatrists do. Want me to put that back in the fridge for you?”

“If you don’t mind. Thanks.” Kate handed over the sandwich.

As Nancy disappeared out the door, her phone pinged.

Another text from Barbara.

Odd.

She leaned closer to read the brief note.

Call me on my cell after work.

Her heart skipped a beat.

Had the receptionist found some connection after all?

No way to know for at least six hours, given her back-to-back appointments and the extra session she’d squeezed in after hours with Diane Koenig.

It was going to be a long afternoon.

When Patrick Lodge hadn’t returned his call by three-thirty, Connor wrote him off. It was a common problem with people who were big shots—or thought they were. If he needed him, he’d find a way to make contact.

In the interim, it was time to regroup with his colleagues and compare notes.

Rising, he gathered up his files and started for the door—just as the phone began to ring.

He paused . . . then circled back.

The caller ID area code was Washington state.

Maybe Lodge had come through after all.