Suspicion of Deceit (34 page)

She turned a corner and opened the door to the carpeted administrative area. Surprised, she found Nolan himself in the boardroom. He and Rebecca Dixon sat talking in one corner, each in a modular upholstered chair. Nolan sat back with his legs casually crossed. Rebecca perched forward, making notes.

Facing the door, Tom Nolan noticed Gail first and broke off in the middle of a sentence. His pale brows rose a fraction. Rebecca smiled at her. "Hi, Gail. Come in. Tom's giving me some ideas for a fundrais-ing party before opening night—a lecture about the opera, the story behind it. He's an angel, donating his time like this."

Nolan waved away the compliment. He remained seated, his eyes shifting upward as Gail crossed the room. "Are you here for the board meeting?"

Gail glanced at Rebecca. "No, I came to pick up some papers."

"Tom, I need to talk to Gail for a minute."

"Not to be rude," he said, "but how long will this take? We need to finish so you can present this to the board in half an hour—"

"I can't stay," Gail said, "My daughter's expecting me at her soccer game."

Rebecca reached over to pat his arm. "Sit right here. We'll go out to the lobby."

"Please, don't bother." Nolan pushed himself out of the chair, his long, lanky frame seeming tó rise in stages. "I've got to speak to the conductor about something. We're rehearsing with the orchestra tomorrow." At the door he said to Gail, "What did you think of the press conference?"

"You were great."

"Now what do we do?"

She turned her hands palms up. "I'm filing the lawsuit tomorrow at ten. If I hear from the city before that, hooray, but I'm not holding my breath."

Rebecca waited for him to go, then closed the door. She was Madame President tonight in a navy pinstripe jacket and white turtleneck. Her shoes were two-tone lace-up oxfords that Gail had seen at Nieman-Marcus for three hundred bucks and promptly put back on the display table.

"How did it go after I left last night?" Gail asked. "Tom told me that Octavio Reyes walked out. Did Lloyd get a chance to talk to him first?"

"Yes. We'll see if it does any good." Distracted by other things on her mind, Rebecca strode toward the conference table, where a big Louis Vuitton tote bag lay on its side. She rummaged through it, pulling out some membership brochures, a notebook, and file folders that pertained to the opera. "I wrote down the names of our guests last night, as you asked me to."

"What do you think?" Gail asked.

"I think you're crazy, but I'm nobody's judge of sanity. By the way, I had the appointment with Char-lene Marks today. Thanks for recommending her. She's a bitch, just what I need." Finally a stack of three or four small mailing envelopes came out of the tote bag, and Rebecca straightened the prongs that held the first one shut. "I told Charlene everything— I hope you don't mind. It will take me a few days, but by the weekend, I'll be staying with some friends in Ft. Lauderdale. This morning I went into Lloyd's study. He keeps it locked, but a long time ago I found the key and made a copy. It pays to know your husband's assets. Don't forget that after you're married. I made copies for the attorney, and thought, well, let's just see if there's anything Gail could use. Anything related to our favorite radio host, Octavio Reyes."

Rebecca was speaking quickly, and from time to time she would glance toward the door. She spread out the papers on the conference table. One page contained a list of names written in her slanted script— the men who had attended Lloyd's dinner party last night. She opened two other envelopes and explained what else she had found.

"These pages are from his appointment book, wherever I saw the initials 'O.R.' Some have the phone number. You can check it out. I went back to last summer and forward a month. These pages are the ferry records. You'll see Octavio's name three times. These are from a corporation called DSA—that's Lloyd and two other men—Santangelo and Atkins. They're into hotels. Octavio Reyes is one of the shareholders. Let's see. Here are some letters and notes to or from Reyes. A memo of understanding regarding future investment . . . Dixon Air to provide all air shipment—"

Gail touched the pages as if they weren't quite real. She scanned a letter in which Octavio Reyes stated his intention of providing up to ten million dollars in capital. He didn't have that kind of money. But Ernesto Pedrosa did. She wondered if Reyes planned to wait until the old man was dead or loot his businesses while he was still breathing.

"Rebecca, this is incredible. I could hang Octavio up by the
cojones."

"Have at it," she said, "but it won't do any good. The exiles in general are so angry at Tom that Octavio could retract everything he ever said, and it wouldn't make any difference. Gail, you'd better not read all this now. We don't have time."

"Of course." They gathered the papers and folded them into the envelopes. Gail said, "I promise you, Rebecca, this will not be made public. I refuse to put you in jeopardy."

"Thanks, but I don't worry too much about Lloyd finding out. That man always lands on his feet." She put a hand on Gail's arm. "How did the photos come out? Did you get them developed?"

"Mine are useless, and yours, I am sorry to say, are gone. I saw Felix Castillo last night on the island. I put the film in my bag after you threw it to me. Then Felix appeared and dragged me into some bushes claiming a security guard was coming. Later on, I couldn't find the film. I know he took it, the bastard. I didn't see any security guard."

Twirling her gold chain around one finger, Rebecca said, "Why was he there?"

"Anthony hired him to follow Octavio. That tells me where the film is."

She twisted the chain the other way. "He used to be a Cuban agent. What if he still is?"

"No," Gail said. "Anthony would know if he were, believe me."

"I used to think that a lunatic exile murdered Seth, but whoever shot him was ice cold. The police don't have any leads. The man got away so cleanly. What kind of person could do that?" Rebecca looked at Gail. "I'm going as crazy as you, aren't I? You got me started with all this talk of spies."

Before last night, Gail would have dismissed this suggestion at once. Anthony trusted Felix Castillo, and therefore so did she. She did not know why Anthony had maintained a friendship with Castillo, but the fact remained, this was a man who had shot a young woman in cold blood.

"Maybe it isn't so crazy," she said. "Felix Castillo is capable of murder. Last night he admitted what he did to Emily Davis."

Rebecca stopped twisting her gold chain. She seemed to freeze into position staring at Gail.

"I'm sorry," Gail said. "I didn't mean to bring it up."

"Felix said ... he did it?"

"Yes. I wouldn't have asked him, but you told me last week that the rebel leader didn't do it. Anthony said Felix did. I wanted to be sure, so I asked Felix." Gail's words became slower. "And ... he admitted it. Why are you looking at me like that?"

Rebecca laughed and put a hand on her forehead. "I'm sorry. Oh, Gail."

The room seemed to tilt. Gail put both hands on the table. Better to turn around now and walk out. A person didn't have to know everything.
Some things,
Anthony had said,
cause more hurt than illumination.

Rebecca leaned against her shoulder and put an arm lightly around Gail's waist. "Listen to me. You can't hate him for it. I did, for a long time. It was horrible and ruthless, what he did, but I'm alive because of it. When Pablo came to interrogate Emily, he thought we were protecting her. Pablo said we had to prove we weren't working for the CIA. If one of us executed the spy, he would let us go. His men were armed with rifles. He tied her hands with electrical wire and made her kneel, and he held onto her hair. She was crying. Pablo took his gun out of his holster and told one of us to take it. Oh, Gail, this is so hard."

She pressed her cheek to Gail's and closed her eyes. "I didn't want to tell you. Anthony knew what would happen. They would have tortured her before they killed her, and they would have done the same to us. We were such fools. Such children. I've been hiding all my life, you know that? Seth is gone now. I miss him, but oh God, he was such a reminder of everything I wanted to forget. Charlene Marks told me today, Get out, start a new life. I'm going to do it." She hugged Gail, laughing softly. "Expect a postcard from Hong Kong."

They remained still for a few seconds. Someone was knocking on the door. As if waking, Rebecca looked around. "Tom."

Gail nodded. "I have to go." She picked up the envelopes from the stack of folders on the table.

When Rebecca opened the door, Tom Nolan stood there with a sour expression. "Excuse me for interrupting, but we don't have much time."

"I'm sorry, Tom." Gail looked over her shoulder. "Good night, Rebecca."

"Call me," Rebecca said.

"Gail!" Tom Nolan came a few steps after her. "Felix Castillo never showed up. That guard down there is going to escort me home. I wouldn't bother you with this, but you hired Felix. I think we should find someone else."

"Fine. I'll see about it tomorrow morning, before I go to the courthouse."

He gave her a guilty smile. "I'm sorry for adding to your problems. Go home, get some rest."

"Good night," she said.

The music of Mozart flooded the corridor when Gail pushed open the door. A harpsichord, then strings. The brass came in. Tympani. Such divine precision, every note exactly where it should be. Human affairs were never so perfect. Anthony had seduced Emily— if it had been seduction—after an affair with Rebecca. But whose fault was that? Rebecca had wanted him. Seth had forgiven. Or perhaps he hadn't. In Los Pozos they had all stumbled into a swamp of arrogance and jealousy. A power struggle between the men. The project stalled for lack of funds. The women hating each other. Then Emily hating Anthony for not begging money from his grandfather to buy her a plane ticket home. And all culminating in tragedy, with a burden of guilt for every one of them to carry back. Every one but Emily. Anthony had put a bullet in her brain. Or maybe not. Maybe Rebecca had been lying. Somebody was, that much was perfectly clear.

In her car, Gail stuffed the envelopes into her purse and counted only three of them. There had been four, she was certain. She turned on the interior lights, looked inside them. The copies of pages from Lloyd Dixon's appointment book were missing.

Grabbing her purse, she locked the car, then sprinted across the parking lot. She told the guard, "I was just here. I left something in the boardroom."

"Yeah, okay. Go ahead." He waved her ahead and went back to his newspaper.

The music faded out again as Gail hurried along the corridor and pushed through the door to the offices. She wanted to retrieve the envelope before one of the board members due to arrive at eight o'clock picked it up and looked inside, wondering what it was. The consequences of that made her shudder.

She heard Thomas Nolan's voice, but it seemed to come from farther along the hall. Lights were on in the lobby. She could see the reception desk, a chair, a vase of flowers. Tom Nolan and Rebecca had to be just out of sight around the corner.

Nolan laughed at something. Then he said to Rebecca, "You take care. I've got to be going now."

Gail went inside the boardroom. The envelope was there on the table. She had missed it before among Rebecca's other papers. She folded it and stuck it into her purse with the others.

Stepping into the hall, she automatically looked toward the lobby.

Time expanded, and what happened next seemed to take forever. A brilliant white light, too sharp and brilliant to be real. Everything making weird shadows. A shadow cast by the clock on the wall. The looming shadows of the vase of flowers. The light seemed at the same instant to go through her and lift her into the air.

The brilliance turned physical, a force that hurled her into the wall where the corridor turned. She observed all this as if detached from it. She saw in the same split second a desk tumbling across the lobby. A body hitting the wall. Dimly it registered in Gail's mind that she didn't know who it was. The front of it was gone, nothing left but red.

A crash of glass.

A billow of black with tongues of red and orange boiling toward her, then an icy feel on her face and arms.

Snow floated down. Bits of white falling from the ceiling, gently drifting. White fog everywhere. She couldn't see past her knees.

She heard Tom Nolan say again,
I've got to be going now.

We'll have to use the understudy.

He isn't good enough for this role.

Slowly she slid over to the carpet, and seemed to keep falling and falling, spiraling downward until everything went white.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Faces floated like untethered balloons. Mouths opened and sounds came out. Gail could not understand them. Didn't care to. Lights flashed in her eyes. Dimly she was aware of pain, but the pain was separate from her body. Then it settled down on her like a heavy beast with claws. She escaped into whiteness, felt nothing. Hands prodded. She heard voices in the distance. Saw a woman with red hair. Her mother, she thought. Tried to speak, but her mouth wouldn't work. She drifted, then woke. Saw two images, couldn't bring them together. A man's face came closer. Dark brown eyes. She felt her hand being lifted, felt the warmth of his lips. Heard him saying her name.

Too hard to keep her eyes open.

Gail found herself flat on her back in a hospital bed, feeling like someone had dropped her over the side of a building. She saw Anthony slumped in an armchair by the window, eyes closed, head propped on his fist, the shadow of beard on his jaw. The curtains were drawn, but bright sunlight leaked through.

A small cool hand touched her face, and she turned her head. Her mother smiled down at her. "Welcome back." She kissed Gail's cheek. Smoothed her hair.

With great effort, Gail said, "What time is it?"

"Almost nine in the morning. Anthony and I have been here all night. I called him. You don't mind, do you? He fell asleep a little while ago. I took a nap earlier."