Fool Me Once (10 page)

After Olivia introduced herself, she was stunned to discover she was talking to the owner, Miki Kenyan, herself. She quickly stated her business while the detective took notes.

“Thanks, sweetie. That should do it. I'll get back to you tomorrow or maybe later this evening. Now, I'll need your credit card number. One last thing, do you prefer e-mail or phone contact?” Olivia said either was fine and rattled off her credit card number and expiration date.

The detective signed off by saying, “I'll be in touch, sweetie. Sit tight. TPDA guarantees results.”

Olivia dusted her hands. Done.

Now she turned her attention to some housekeeping chores—washing and changing sheets and towels, cleaning the bathroom and building a fire in the great room, running the vacuum. Next she made herself lunch, then played with the dogs for a while before heading to the office. Before she sat down, she raced back to the kitchen to take out a frozen meat loaf and set it on the counter to thaw partially. Her dinner taken care of, she returned to the office and turned on the computer. Then she turned it off. She didn't want to work on the computer; she wanted to start reading Adrian Ames's diary.

With a shiver of apprehension, she picked up the leather-bound burgundy diary and flipped through the pages, noting there were more blank pages than pages with writing on them. She licked her dry lips as she settled down to read Adrian Ames's small, cramped writing.

The book was old, the pages yellowed. The leather felt dry and was cracked in places. It was, after all, forty years old. She read the first entry.

Olivia read the entry several times. Allison Matthews, as she had been then, hadn't used the word
robbery
or
bank
once. Not spending money for five years could mean a number of things. So what if she said she was the smartest of the three? Maybe she was. So what if she convinced them to go along with her plan? The entry didn't say what the plan was. Waiting five years to spend money could be as simple as waiting for money to gather interest. Spending hours talking about spending the money could be considered girl talk. The fact that there was no date on the entry could mean it was written at any time, not necessarily prior to the bank robbery.

Olivia turned the page to read the second entry.

So they “did it,” and the girls didn't so much as twitch. “Did it” could mean a thousand different things. Allison had nerves of steel. They were going to celebrate, and she was blowing off a date with Olivia's father. Nothing incriminating here. Not talking about something for five years could refer to a secret other than a bank robbery.

Olivia walked to the kitchen and turned on the oven. When the oven buzzer pinged to announce the temperature, she prepared the meat loaf and slid it in. Then she carried a can of soda pop back to the office.

The third entry was interesting. Short but interesting.

“You were one ugly person, Allison Matthews,” Olivia snarled, tossing the diary across the room. The dry pages parted from the leather binding and scattered all over the floor. With no dates, how was she going to put them back in order? “Who cares,” she snarled again as she gathered them up in a bunch.

Olivia read other entries, all boring, about Allison's job, Dennis's late hours, keeping house, and grocery shopping. Then she read the entry concerning her. Her tongue was dry. She swigged from the soda can, the soda dribbling down her chin.

Olivia placed the loose pages on the desk. She reached for a tissue. She was an
it.
Allison Matthews Lowell thought of her as an
it
.

“Damn you! Damn you!” Olivia said, breaking into sobs. “Damn you to hell!”

O
livia woke with a start, all four dogs on the bed nudging her to get up. She rolled over and groaned. She didn't want to get up. She wanted to stay under the warm covers and forget about all the bad dreams she'd had, one after the other, during the long night. As she swung her legs over the side of the bed, her head started to pound.
Damn, now I have a headache.

Tying the belt to her robe, she shuffled through the house to the sliding glass doors to let the dogs out. There was a light dusting of snow on the patio. Such a long time till spring and warm breezes! The temperature gauge said it was thirty-seven degrees outside. It felt colder. Before she made coffee, she turned the thermostat to eighty.

It. She was an it. Olivia started to grind her teeth in anger. If Adrian Ames had been standing in front of her at that moment, she'd have punched her silly. Where was it written that a person had to love her mother? Nowhere, that's where. The title of “mother” came biologically, but love for a mother had to be earned.

The last cheerful plop of the water dripping into the pot alerted Olivia that the coffee was done. She poured a cup, swallowed some Tylenol, and sat down just as the phone rang. Her voice turned surly when she recognized Clarence's voice. Before he could say anything more than hello, Olivia said, “Look, Clarence, I'm sorry I called you and asked you to find those addresses for me. It was wrong. I wouldn't want some agent giving out information on me. Let's just forget it. I had a temporary lapse of good judgment.”

Olivia listened as Clarence prattled on about everything and nothing. He didn't even accept her apology. “I'm heading out of town for a full-blown audit. A big one, Ollie. I might even get a big promotion on this one. I'm just calling to tell you I won't be able to make dinner this week.”

“Fine. I have to go now, Clarence. Say hello to everyone at the IRS for me.” Before he could comment, she hung up the phone. It rang almost immediately. Thinking it was Clarence calling her back, she let it ring four times before she picked it up. It was the detective agency.

Olivia looked at the clock, surprised to see that it was only a quarter after nine. The detective was on the ball. They made small talk until Miki Kenyan got to the point. “Okay, I just sent you an e-mail and a fax. We found Jillian Davis Laramie in Woodbridge, New Jersey. We're still working on Gwendolyn Nolan with all the many different names. I expect to have something for you later today.”

“You actually found one of them! Do you have any details?”

“The report is sketchy. It's all in the e-mail. If you want us to do a more thorough background check, it will cost. Read the report, and get back to me. If you take the Metroliner from Washington, D.C., you can be in New Jersey in three and a half hours. It's a forty-minute flight to Newark. I'll get back to you later today.”

Olivia leaned back in her chair. Her headache was just a dull throb. She hoped with a shower it would disappear completely. A fresh cup of coffee in hand, she made her way to the office, the dogs following. She took a moment to watch them. How happy the little pack was. They all got along, played and tussled and even looked out for one another. She still had no clue which Yorkie was Cecil.

When she clicked on her e-mail, there it was,
TPD Agency@earth link.net
. She read all eight lines:

Eight lines.

Olivia blinked. She'd hoped for more. But, she'd hired the agency to find Jill, and that's what they'd done. No telephone or e-mail address meant a face-to-face meeting was called for. Well, she could do that. She could leave in the morning and come back the same day. Her father's buddy down the street would come in and let the dogs out. Alice liked Tom Hutchins, a retired mailman, because he always carried treats in his pocket when he stopped by. If Alice liked him, so would the others.

Woodbridge, New Jersey. A long way from Ole Miss for Allison Matthews's friend.

Olivia swiveled her chair around so she could watch the dogs growling over a pull toy. Her gaze settled on the diary. She needed to continue to read it. She had to finish it before she went to New Jersey, but first she needed to take a shower and get dressed for the day.

An hour later, dressed in jeans, a shell-pink sweater, and ankle-high boots, Olivia made her way to the kitchen, where she scarfed down a toasted bagel and a container of yogurt. She definitely needed nourishment before tackling the leather-bound diary with Adrian Ames's secrets.

It.

The phone on the desk pealed to life. Olivia looked at it long and hard. A client? Jeff? She yanked at the receiver and brought it to her ear. She heard her father's cheerful voice. The headache that had almost been gone started to pound behind her eyes. “What's up, Ollie?” It was the way he started all his phone calls.

“Stuff,” was always her response.

“Details, please.”

“Well, I went with Jeff Bannerman, Cecil's handler, to your wife's estate. We almost got mauled by a vicious dog. There's a caretaker there. We opened the safe, and there was a diary, photocopies of the bearer bonds the trio stole, and a few other things. We took the pictures, the photocopies, and the diary. I read some of it last night. She referred to me as an
it
. Did you know that, Dad?”

“Yes. It was a long time ago, Ollie.” How defensive her father sounded!

“I hired a private detective to locate Jill and Gwen when my own search didn't pan out. The detective called a little while ago and said they found Jill in New Jersey. So far no luck on Gwen.”

“I assume you're going to talk to her.” It sounded like a statement, but it was really a question.

“How did she get my baby bracelet, Dad? I thought you said she didn't want to see me. Me, the
it
.”

“I don't know, Ollie. Maybe the nurse gave it to her. All I know is when I picked you up, you weren't wearing it. I asked. The nurse just looked befuddled. I even panicked, wondering if I was taking the right baby home. But then I realized I had the right baby because you were the only girl baby in the nursery. The other four were boys.” “How's your charter going?”

“Fine. They're booking again in September. I have to run, Ollie. They're waiting for me to shove off. They want and expect their money's worth. I love you, kid, and don't you ever forget it.”

This was where she was supposed to say, “I love you, too, Dad,” but she didn't. Instead she broke the connection. She picked up the diary and started to read.

The most meaningful entry other than the hit-and-miss one-liners dealt with the distribution of the loot.

The entries afterward were sporadic, dealing with adapting to her name change, her move away from the Winchester area, which she said was a good thing. Her first sale, her excitement.

The years fast-forwarded with nothing even remotely interesting. There was a brief mention early on about Gwen's wedding announcements. A terse one-liner summed that all up.

Olivia flipped through the pages. She sat up straighter in her chair when she saw a paragraph that referred to her.

Olivia winced.
The girl
sounded a tad better than
it
.
Dammit, I will not cry
. She jumped up and ran to the kitchen. She eyed the coffeepot but decided she had enough caffeine in her to take her through the day and opted instead for a can of apple juice. Her mouth felt like cotton, her eyes dryer than sand. She struggled with herself to take deep, calming breaths. Finally quieting down, she told herself that she needed to finish reading the diary so she could move on.

The next entry that had any meaning to her was one written after her college graduation.

Olivia cringed into herself. “You bitch!” she yelled, seething with anger.

Flipping the pages, she saw bank account summaries, brokerage accounts, then this entry:

Gwen asked for a loan. That had to mean she went through her share of the money. How weird was that? Olivia couldn't help but wonder how Jill had done with her share.

More meaningless entries, most of them dealing with foreign imports, new products—and then the ultimate betrayal. A longtime loyal member of Allison's staff had been caught with his fingers in the till:

“Well,
hot damn. Serves you right, you sanctimonious bitch. And I bet you didn't call the cops, either. You handled it yourself. It figures—no cops for you, Adrian Ames, you thief,” Olivia muttered.

More blank pages.

Olivia clenched her teeth when she read the next entry.

Olivia bit down on her lip. To the best of her knowledge, she'd never been an embarrassment to anyone.
Way to go, Adrian. You bitch!

No more entries for years. Then the big one. Olivia's eyes widened.

Another entry.