Private Entrance (The Butterfly Trilogy) (42 page)

     "Have a seat, please. What can I do for you?" Dr. Friedman felt as if she
had already met this man. Her patient, Francesca, spent most of her sessions talking about her father. And she had heard about him around town. Michael Fallon was as handsome in real life as in his news photos, and the charm was everything others said it was. But there was more—just sitting in the chair opposite her, he exuded power, it seeped from his pores as sweat did on other men. She wondered what he was like in bed.

     "I have to tell you," he said, laughing nervously, tugging at his French cuffs. "I wasn't picturing a beautiful woman when I found out my little girl was going to a shrink. I had someone older in mind, you know, plainer. If you don't mind me saying, you are quite a looker, doc."

     Rachel wondered if it were an act, the self-consciousness, but she was flattered all the same.

     "And smart, too," he said, whistling at all the diplomas. "Me, I never finished high school." He blushed. "It's about my daughter, doc. I'm worried about her."

     Dr. Friedman said nothing.

     "I know she's been coming here—"

     "She told you that?"

     He reddened and laughed self-consciously. "I had her followed. I'm her father. I protect her. She was going somewhere once a week, regular as clockwork, and I got worried, you know. When I was told she was seeing a shrink—pardon me, psychologist, it scared me. Is she all right?"

     "I'm sorry, Mr. Fallon, but that is confidential. I cannot divulge what is said between me and a patient."

     "Are you sure? I am her father. And I'm just worried. I mean, you don't have to give me details, just, you know, the general topic she came to you about."

     She gave him a reassuring smile. "Speak to Francesca yourself. I have a feeling she would welcome it."

     He looked around the office, fingers tapping on the arm of the chair. "I don't know. I have a feeling she isn't telling me something. She's getting married tomorrow."

     "It's in all the papers."

     "Big wedding," he said with a grin. "For my little girl. Maybe you could
just let me look at her files? You wouldn't exactly be
telling
me anything, would you?" He winked. "You know, our little secret?"

     "My files are confidential as well, Mr. Fallon."

     He nodded. "I understand. A father can't help trying." He fell silent, fingers tapping the arm of the chair, emerald pinkie ring catching the overhead light. His eyes grew shadowed and unreadable and Rachel felt a small excitement spark within her. She had been trained to be impervious to the manipulative tactics of patients, had years of experience dealing with people from the very timid to the extremely aggressive. But Michael Fallon eluded categorization. She felt the woman inside herself step around the clinical therapist and cross her legs in a way that made her skirt rise above her knee and catch his eye. She looked at him expectantly. She suspected he was unpredictable. It excited her.

     "Thanks for your time," he finally said, rising. "I just thought I'd try, but I respect that you have to protect the privacy of your patients. Say, that's a beautiful painting. Is it real?"

     "Yes."

     "Must have cost a fortune. I take it business is good?" He held up a hand. "Not that you're in business. You're a doctor, you help people. Now me," he spread a hand on his chest, "I'm a businessman. And business is good, if I may brag a little here. As a matter of fact, I'm expanding. Diversifying, they call it."

     She walked him to the door, liking his tallness, his expensive scent, the self-mocking laugh. "What are you diversifying in, Mr. Fallon?" Surprised to find herself disappointed that the meeting was so short.

     "The carpet cleaning business. No, seriously. I'll show you." He opened the door to the outer office and beckoned to a thick-bodied man, who slipped in and closed the door behind himself. "Tony," Fallon said, "give me some of that carpet cleaner. Maybe the doc here would like a piece of the action, you know, invest in my new company."

     The man reached into his overcoat and produced a small bottle of brown liquid. "Now this," Michael said, unscrewing the cap, "is the strongest, most efficient carpet cleaning solution in the world. Gets any stain out. You see that spot there?"

     She looked down, frowning. She saw no spot. The carpet was new.

     "Watch this," and he dribbled a few drops to the floor.

     Smoke and an acrid smell rose up. Dr. Friedman jumped back, looking in shock at a black hole sizzling in the wool.

     "What the heck?" Mike Fallon shouted at the other man. "You brought the concentrated formula. We've ruined the doctor's carpet."

     "It's all right," she said, waving a hand in front of her face, the smell was so strong.

     "I am so sorry, doc. This stuff has to be diluted before you put it on the carpet." He waved the bottle around and Dr. Friedman took another step back. "The base of this solution is acid, it'll eat through anything, even human flesh. You have to be sure you don't get it on your skin because you'd be disfigured for life. Let me buy you a new carpet," he said with a disarming smile.

     Rachel Friedman hung in a frozen moment, looking into Mike Fallon's charming and handsome face, at the bottle of acid, at the large man blocking the outer door.

     "What an impression I've made," Fallon said as he screwed the cap back on and handed the bottle to his companion, shaking his head. "I come here to ask about my daughter and end up ruining your carpet. Let me replace it, please."

     His eyes remained on her, the smile was still there, but now it sent a cold chill through her.

     Taking another step back from Michael Fallon, sudden fear squeezing the breath from her lungs, she said, "The carpet is fine, please don't worry."

     "Worry, that's all I do these days. Francesca getting married and all."

     "Mr. Fallon, now that I think about it, I don't think it would do any harm for you to look at your daughter's file..." she said, cursing herself for her cowardice and for taking on as a patient the daughter of a mobster. She would call Francesca first thing in the morning and recommend she see someone else.

     "Thanks, doc," he said as he accepted the files. "Let's you and me have dinner together sometime. What do you say?"

     The limousine came to a halt in front of the church and Mike Fallon made a dramatic ascent up the stone steps, making sure everyone saw. Inside, he eyed the confessional booth warily.

     When he was a child his mother had forced him to go to Confession every Saturday night so he could take Communion the next morning. She never knew it, but little Mikey Fallon always lied to the priest. He couldn't tell him the truth, could he, and risk the man ratting on him to his mother or, worse, to the cops? When he was eighteen he stopped attending church altogether, and only started going back after Francesca was born. Even then, he never again went to Confession.

     But now it was necessary. Tomorrow Francesca was going to have the biggest goddam Catholic Mass wedding there ever was, and how would it look, all the Catholics heading down the aisle to take the wafer while the father of the bride sat like a sinner in the pew? Of course, confession had changed since he was a kid—now it was called celebrating the sacrament of Reconciliation—but he still had to go through with it. Others were waiting to go in, mostly the older generation who didn't trust a confession that didn't go through a priest. If his mother were still alive, she would be among them, kneeling, a scarf covering her head. But Lucy was dead. Fallon had received the call from Miami the night before—Lucy had suffered what appeared to be a heart attack.

     The secret of his father's identity had died with her. But at least it also meant Francesca would never learn the truth, and protecting Francesca from his past was what Michael lived for.

     When it was his turn, he parted the curtain and entered the stuffy little box, waited tensely, and when the panel slid open and he saw the vague outline of Father Sebastian, Mike Fallon crossed himself and whispered, "Bless me Father for I have sinned. It has been forty years since my last confession. These are my sins."

     The night before, Fallon had done what he considered a fair and frank examination of his life. And everything he had done, was for Francesca. Would the priest understand that? If you did it for your child, was it still a sin? "I missed a coupla of Sundays at church. I cursed a few times. I might have taken the name of the Lord in vain now and then, but only because I
was pushed to it." Of the rest of his sins—stealing, fornication, lying, murder he made no mention. Those were all business anyway.

     His cell phone rang. "Pardon me, Father," he muttered, and took the call.

     "Jesus," he said out loud in the confessional. Abby Tyler had contacted him. She wanted to meet.

     The conversation was brief. He said he would take his private jet. After ringing off, he placed a call to a contact who in turn was to get in touch with Fallon's man inside The Grove, canceling their contract. Fallon had decided to take care of things himself. The same way he was going to take care of the Vandenbergs.

     Then he called McCarran Airport and told them to get his jet ready and to page the pilot. Michael wasn't even going back to the Atlantis. He wanted to get this last loose end taken care of.

J
ACK WANTED TO BE WITH
A
BBY MORE THAN ANYTHING AT THAT
moment. To hold her, kiss her, tell her how grateful he was. A partially written letter to Nina lay on his desk. Not perfect, but it was a start. But more than that, to tell Abby he wanted
her
in his life. But she was enjoying a reunion with her daughter and he didn't want to impose.

     As he dismantled his archery equipment and packed it away, he thought about the future and how everything had changed. He was flooded with new emotions that he needed to think about and sort through. Jack knew he was not the same man he was when he had arrived at The Grove five days ago, but he had lived for so long with pain and rage that he didn't know how to let go of them. Even after starting the letter to Nina, there was still something inside him he couldn't exorcise. Somewhere along the way, anger had become his blood and vengeance his breath. So he would go home, come to terms with Nina's death, and think about what to do next. Probably turn in his badge and his gun, then take over ownership of Crystal Creek Winery. He would invite Abby to come and stay...

     There was so much he wanted to share with her, his past and his passions, and to learn about her, the rest of her story after the birth of her child in prison, how she had managed to get acquitted, what it had felt like to be exonerated after such an ordeal.

     Amazing woman! She had re-awakened his dream to own a vineyard. The first thing he was going to do when he got back to LA was call Crystal Creek Winery and see if it was still for sale. If not, he would find another one, or start his own. It felt strange and good to have a future again, and something to live for.

     As he polished the bow grip—he didn't need the fingerprints any more—he listened to the wind beyond his door. It was already blowing strong and the day was young. And then he heard another sound: his fax machine. It had hummed to life and now a printed sheet was coming out.

     It was a note from his friend at Forensics: "Your intuition about the towns of Abilene and Tyler was an inspiration, Jack. My search brought up Tyler Abilene, born in Abilene, Texas in 1938, who in turn gave birth to a daughter in Little Pecos in 1955—Emily Louise Pagan. The dates and other details match. You aren't going to believe it, Jack. Your pigeon's got a price on her head."

     A second sheet came through—an FBI Wanted poster for a girl named Emily Louise Pagan.

     Jack stared in shock. The picture was of a sixteen-year-old girl, but the resemblance was there. And the description of her hobbies—horticulture and gardening. And then he read the rest...

     He felt the world tilt around him as the words
lies
and
betrayal
thundered in his mind.

     Abby hadn't told him the whole story! About setting the prison on fire, escaping in a stolen car, killing two people in the commission of a liquor store hold-up. She had conveniently left all that out while pretending to be honest with him.

     He cried out. It felt like a sledgehammer against his chest. Jack wanted to put his fist through a wall. He had fallen for the oldest trick in the book: being seduced by a pretty face. The old rage and bitterness, not far below the surface, flared up, hotter than ever.

     He came to a grim decision. He had no choice. She was a fugitive at large. And he was a police officer.
Graduation day at the police academy, his badge newly pinned to his uniform, hand raised as he recited the words of the policeman's oath to protect, serve, and uphold the laws of the people and city of Los Angeles.

     Strapping on his gun and badge, he folded the wanted poster into his pocket and went out into the wind in search of Abby.