The Wrong Man: A Novel of Suspense (15 page)

“Thanks, Dara, but I don’t mind handling it. I’ll be here until just before seven.” However, even as she said the words, a ping sounded on her phone, indicating a text. With a start she saw it was from X.

“Need to meet at nine instead. Same place.”

That didn’t sit well with her. It meant waiting even longer, but at least she’d have more time if Avery ran late. She texted back “okay.”

After Dara and Baby took off, with Baby whispering for Kit to call her after the meeting, she paced the office, waiting for Avery. It wasn’t until a quarter to seven that the buzzer rang.

“
Sorry
,” Avery blurted into the intercom, sounding more irritated than apologetic. “Traffic’s a bitch.”

A few minutes later she swept into the office in a cloud of fragrance that hinted at rose petals and bitter orange. Her look was more subdued than usual: the humidity had knocked some of the volume out of her hair, and, probably because of the off-site meeting with her staff, she was dressed simply in black leggings, black booties with heels, and a long, taupe-colored sweater.

Kit turned over the three boards to her, which had been carefully wrapped by Dara, and though she knew Avery was probably in a hurry, she updated her briefly on the progress she’d made scouting for not only major pieces but also lamps and accessories.

“Will it all be ready by the beginning of summer?” Avery asked.

“Yes, most of it, as long as I can order the fabric right away. I’ve lined up a painter for you, and he’s going to start next week, so I’ll work with your assistant about securing access. I’ll be driving down there every week to supervise.”

Avery smiled. “Fabulous. Now I just have to meet a new man to invite for the weekends.”

“Just give a few parties this summer and ask people to bring along some men you haven’t met. Those billowing curtains I promised you are going to be pretty seductive.”

Avery smiled. “I’m counting on it. But look, I’d better dash.” No sooner were the words out of her mouth than the rain finally
arrived, and Kit and Avery turned in unison to the sound of it pelting against the window glass.

“You’ll never find a cab now,” Kit said. “Let me order you an Uber.”

“I’ve got a car,” Avery said, as if it would be ludicrous to think otherwise. “But what I desperately could use is an umbrella. I’ve got to run in and out of a few places.”

“Let me grab you one.”

Kit reached into a basket in the entranceway, found a small fold-up umbrella and handed it over. Avery looked at it glumly.

“Maybe I should bag the stops,” she said. “It’s so damn windy out, I’m going to get drenched even with an umbrella.”

“Do you want my trench coat?” Kit asked, making sure the reluctance didn’t show in her voice. She hated to part with the coat, but she also didn’t want to leave a client in a jam.

“You sure? I could send it over by messenger tomorrow.”

“Of course.” Kit tugged her tan trench coat off the peg and passed it to Avery, who momentarily set the boards down before slipping into the coat and tightening the belt around her. “I’m dying to hear what you think about the boards.”

“Well, I’m dying to see them. I’ll be in touch.”

Kit opened the door for her and Avery hurried out.

For the next two hours Kit tried to busy herself with work. Thirty minutes before she was due to leave, she changed into jeans, boots, and a khaki green jersey top. She stared at her reflection in the mirror. The color of the top played off her eyes in a way someone couldn’t help but notice.

Oh, that’s hilarious, she thought. She was going to meet a man who had imperiled her life and she was subconsciously trying to dazzle him. She nearly tore off the top and wiggled into a black knit turtleneck instead. Just before it was time to go, she threw on an old rain slicker. With her trench on loan, that was the best she could do at the moment.

Outside her building she paused in the doorway for a minute, more fraught with nerves than she’d even anticipated. The heavy rain had stopped but there was a light drizzle now, and the air was misty. She glanced up and down the wet streets, making certain no one suspicious was lingering nearby. And then she took off, checking several times over her shoulder on the short walk to Jacques.

The restaurant was a French bistro with cracked plaster walls, a tiled linoleum floor, and faded red toile curtains. It was half empty tonight and Kit immediately spotted Kelman, sitting alone against the back wall. She drew a breath at the sight of him. As if sensing her presence, he looked up, met her eyes, and rose. Just as he had when she’d crossed the restaurant in Islamorada.

Reaching the old wooden table, she slid into a chair across from him. He was dressed in black jeans, a stone-colored T-shirt, and his black leather jacket.

“What would you like to drink?” he asked, sitting back down again. He had a mug of beer in front of him, the outside of the glass wet with condensation.

“A white wine,” she said.

It was hard to believe that two weeks ago she had sat with him on that lovely candlelit terrace with the dark bay as a backdrop. And that she’d toyed in her mind with all sorts of possibilities: that he might kiss her later, that she would see him back in New York, that something would develop between them. But nothing, nothing like this.

A waitress took the order and Kelman didn’t speak again until she returned with the wine.

“I’m glad you reached out, Kit,” he said finally.

His tone had shifted since Sunday; gone was the hostile edge. Clearly he’d given up on the notion that she had a devious agenda. Still, she would need to be careful.

“You said that you had information that could benefit me,” she said. “I’m ready to hear it.”

“Frankly, I’m still surprised you decided to meet. On Sunday, the only thing you seemed interested in was getting me out of both your apartment and your life.”

“What choice do I have?” she said, feeling a swell of indignation. “I’m scared and I need your help.”

“I
want
to help. I realize you’re in this mess because of me.”

“And what
is
the mess exactly? I deserve to know.”

“Okay. But I need you to realize that I’m in a highly volatile situation and there’s a chance you’ll be in even more danger because of what I have to tell you.”

Her body tensed from dread.
Was
he involved in something highly illegal? She had to know, one way or the other.

“Consider me warned,” she said.

“Like I told you Sunday, I worked at Ithaka as a portfolio manager. After about four years, I decided to leave—the place was no longer a good fit for me for a variety of reasons. So that I wouldn’t lose my bonus that year, I decided to hand in my resignation after the first of the year, though just knowing I’d be resigning was a relief. And then, right before I left, something happened.”

He took a swig of beer and when he pulled the mug away, she saw that his expression was grim.

“One day, purely by accident, I stumbled on the fact that some serious illegal trading had gone on in the firm about six months previously. It involved our holdings in a pharmaceutical company that was testing an experimental drug for leukemia.”

He was speaking in a hushed voice, and Kit leaned in closer to hear, to try to fully fathom what he was telling her. She’d assumed for days that X was an identity thief and a con artist, and now the truth, if it
was
the truth, was totally different. It felt like being a passenger in a car that had flipped over on its hood,
and trying desperately to figure a way out when everything was upside down.

“These illegal trades—they hadn’t aroused any suspicions up until then?” Kit asked.

“Apparently not, and I knew I had to report what I’d discovered to the SEC. I’m not trying to paint myself as some hero, but the whole thing disgusted me. I had my suspicions that even the head of the company might be involved.”

Wainwright.
She thought of the power that emanated from his pores, the way he’d pressured her into coming to the office.

“Wait,” Kit said. “Was Matt the one doing the illegal deals?”

Kelman shook his head adamantly.

“No, no. It was two other portfolio managers—Gavin Kennelly and Tom Lister. At some point Kennelly and Lister apparently approached a doctor who was on the board monitoring trials for this leukemia drug. It’s okay for portfolio managers to use doctors as consultants, but it’s not legal for a doctor to share confidential information or for anyone at a firm to accept it. But over time they corrupted the guy, paid him to tip them off about the findings.”

“And you learned all this how?”

“The doctor’s in his eighties and he’s losing it a little. One day in January he called the office and mistakenly ended up with me instead of Gavin Kennelly. Maybe the receptionist just heard him say the name wrong. But as soon as he started talking to me, it was clear that he was waiting for a final payment that was due him. He never realized he was talking to the wrong guy. I just played along.”

“How did you figure what the payment was for?”

“First I researched the doctor’s background and saw his connection to the drug. Then I started digging. I have a pretty strong tech background, and before I got promoted to portfolio manager I helped design the database and the user interface. I
got into the system and saw that we’d dumped all the stock we had in the pharmaceutical company about a week before it was announced that the drug wasn’t going to pan out, which prevented about 150 million dollars in losses. I put what I found on the flash drive.”

It sounded credible on the surface but she’d believed Kelman in the past, and look where that had landed her.

“Kit, I deceived you in Florida, but this is the truth,” he added, knowing exactly what was in her mind.

“So where does Healy fit into this?”

“After I saw what had happened, I asked Matt about it. He’s a buddy of mine, and I thought he might have had his own suspicions since he was friendlier with Kennelly than I was. All he knew was that Kennelly had seemed preoccupied lately. The main thing we wondered was whether the CEO was involved because the numbers seemed too big for him and the compliance officer not to have noticed. I was on my way out the door at that point, so Matt said he’d do some of his own probing. Once we knew more, we could go to the authorities.”

“Funny you found time to slip off and get a tan in the middle of all of this.”

“My trip wasn’t about that. Right after I left Ithaka, my doorman tipped me off that for a couple of days he’d seen the same guy take off from across the street the minute I left the building. I figured that the firm might have gotten wind of my snooping and had hired a private detective to see what I was up to. Insider trading convictions mean big fines and long prison terms and the last thing they would have wanted is me blowing the whistle. Matt suggested I lay low and crash at his pad, which I did for a few days, but in the end I decided it would be smarter to leave town until we were ready to pull the trigger. I drove down south, paid cash for everything, and checked into the hotel with a credit card Matt loaned me for that purpose.
When I met you, I gave you Matt’s name because that’s what I was going by at the hotel. After I called you, I figured I could explain the situation back in New York.”

“And you were really coming back the week we met?”

“Yup. I was going to ditch the rental car and fly this time—Thursday morning. Matt hadn’t had any luck, and I thought it was stupid to wait any longer. It was probably crazy to call you that day, but I wanted to see you again. At the time there didn’t seem to be any harm in having you come to his apartment.”

She stared at the table, not wanting to meet his eyes. If the comment about wanting to see her again was a tactic to make her lower her guard, she refused to bite.

“But when your plans changed, why not call me?” she demanded. “Why let me bungle my way through that encounter with Healy?”

“After I left the Keys, I rented an apartment for a couple of nights in Miami, an Airbnb thing. On the night before I was headed back, I woke to the sound of a prowler in the living room. I tried to fight him off, but he clocked me and managed to take my laptop, phone, iPad, anything that might hold data. I’m pretty sure the guy must have been hired by Ithaka. Up until that point, I didn’t know how far they would go to protect themselves.”

“And the magic pen?”

“They didn’t get it. It was on my bedside table, and as far as I knew at the time, it was still the right one. After that night I was scrambling. It didn’t seem smart to go back to New York then. I’d tossed your card and programmed your info into my cell so I didn’t have it anymore. I had the same problem with Matt’s cell number. I finally reached him Friday morning and explained what had happened.

He looked pained as he uttered Matt’s name, as if the death was still weighing on him. But she wondered if it could all be an
act in order to keep her quiet. Matt had been up to something and he’d tried to throw Garrett under the bus. What if he and Garrett had been partners on the insider trades and had decided to quit the firm while they were ahead. They might have eventually ended up at cross-purposes, one threatening to betray the other. There was still a chance that it had been Garrett who had killed Matt.