"But then George came along," she said, the sadness leaving her face. "She started dating George Afton. They were married when I was twelve. He was older than she, a coach at a private academy in Sacramento, and we moved there. It was a coeducational academy, but boys and girls had separate classes. Ryder didn't like that, she didn't like any of the rules. She didn't like wearing a uniform, didn't like being separated from the boys. I liked it all-the rules made me feel safe, as if someone cared about me."
Tears glistened in her eyes. "George was the first person who ever stood up for me after Dad died." She found a tissue in her pocket, was silent a moment, shook her head with embarrassment. "He defended me against Ryder and against Mama. He made Ryder back off, and he showed me how to stand up for myself." Joe could see this wasn't easy for her. "He taught me how to get back at Ryder, to give as good as I got. He showed me how to do that quietly if I could, or," she said, grinning, "sometimes, not so quietly."
She sipped her drink, leaning comfortably against Mike when he put his arm around her. "When George entered our lives, Ryder started treating me with some respect. It didn't make her like me more, but it got her off my back."
She gave him a wry smile. "She's never forgiven George for that change in me. She's never forgiven me.
"George tried to help Ryder, too, tried to get her interested in something that would deserve all her abundant energy. But it never happened. All she cared about were boys, clothes, movie magazines-she had a terrible hunger for surface pleasures, a voracious hunger for glitz and glamour."
Lindsey looked down again at her hands, as if only they were neutral, offering a calm focus. "It's a waste. Ryder's beautiful, but what's come of it? She's not happy, far from it. And I'm not happy when I'm around her. I wish she hadn't come back here, I wish she'd stayed in L.A. "
"She came because of Ray Gibbs?"
Lindsey nodded.
"And your opinion of Gibbs?"
"Oh, that he's…an opportunist." She looked at Mike intently, then burst out laughing. "The guy's a sleaze. What else could you call him?"
Mike laughed, and touched her cheek. "That wasn't a pleasant childhood. After your father died, you were lucky to have a second chance, lucky that George came along."
She looked grateful for his understanding. "George's friendship meant everything to me, he showed me the strength to grow up without losing myself. Without going off the deep end and getting into trouble."
Mike looked at her for a long moment. She had tears glistening again, and she leaned into him. "It's silly to be so emotional," she said, "after so many years. I just…I guess I'm easily undone, just now."
He kissed her and held her. Embarrassed, Joe Grey dropped off the chair and padded silently out of the room, heading upstairs to his tower, to the cool, empty, impersonal winds of the roof. Private was private, he was not a voyeur.
But even so, he spent the next week listening to Mike's side of their increasingly romantic phone calls, watching Mike dress to take Lindsey out, or watching the two of them cook dinner together in Clyde's comfortable family kitchen, laughing and easy with each other. Who knew a romance could progress-or be rekindled-so quickly?
But they had been very close once. And he had to wonder if this reawakened romance was indeed mutual. Or if Lindsey, despite what seemed to be her genuine and honest caring for Mike, despite her quiet charm and the touching account of her childhood, was only putting Mike on, winning him over again after their long separation-winning the law to her side.
No one could be sure, yet, that Lindsey Wolf wasn't simply a very good actor. No one could be certain that she hadn't killed Chappell.
The most obvious scenario was that she'd found out he'd taken another woman with him to Oregon, had followed them in a rage and shot him. Or shot them both.
If so, where was the woman's body? Or had she not been shot, but escaped, seen the shooting and run?
And where did Lindsey dispose of the gun? He thought she wasn't bold and arrogant enough to have kept a murder weapon that could easily lead back to her.
Had she buried it in that Oregon forest, thinking it would never be discovered? And then, ten years later when she read that the body had been found, she'd panicked? Afraid of what the cops might find, had she, with practiced innocence, contacted Detective Garza wanting to learn what the department knew or guessed? Wanting to know if Oregon had any evidence pointing to her? Wanting to know if she should run, but at the same time hoping to charm and distract the law? But that would be foolish, and would take more brassy nerve than Joe saw in Lindsey. If, indeed, he was seeing her clearly.
And what if Lindsey hadn't killed Chappell, but had received that letter? What if she'd suspected Chappell was in danger but hadn't gone to the law, if she'd simply let the murder happen? If so, then wasn't she as guilty as the killer, when that letter, in the hands of law enforcement, might have saved Chappell's life?
One minute the tomcat had the gut feeling that Lindsey, despite her gentle charm, was lying, that she'd known for ten years that Chappell was dead. And the next minute he wanted badly to trust her and thought it more likely that Ryder had forged the letter, that maybe Ryder, or Ray Gibbs, had killed Chappell.
And, sprawled among the cushions in his rooftop tower, Joe thought the quickest way to find out was to move in with Ray and Ryder. Play lost kitty. Move in as a homeless stray, get cozy with them, listen to their conversations, toss their condo, see what he could learn.
Right. Get cozy with Ray Gibbs and Ryder Wolf. Play up to Gibbs, and Gibbs snatches him up and rings his little cat neck, or tries to. And for all he knew, Ryder could be just as vicious.
But what the hell, he was a big, strong tomcat. Those two sleazeballs couldn't intimidate him. And it might be interesting, doing the lost kitty act.
He had soon talked himself into it, soon felt okay with the deception. "A piece of cake," he said later when he told Dulcie his plan.
"Are you out of your furry mind? Move in with Ryder Wolf and Ray Gibbs? That Gibbs is a creep, Joe! He was Chappell's business partner. He could be the killer, he might have had plenty of reason to kill Chappell." They were crouched on Dulcie's roof, watching for wood rats on the hill behind the house, speaking softly so as not to draw the attention of Wilma's neighbors.
"He could have had something crooked going with the business," Dulcie said, "and Chappell found out." Her green eyes narrowed. "Do you know what went on in the firm, back then? Have you bothered to research that?"
"If Gibbs had anything to do with Chappell's disappearance, Dulcie, the cops would have found out ten years ago. I read the file. Gibbs was the first one they looked at, the business partner, the possibility of embezzlement. Don't you think they looked? A detective and Chappell's trust officers went over all the books and found nothing."
"But-"
"And Gibbs wouldn't have killed him to inherit Chappell's half of the firm," Joe added, licking his paw. "That all went to Chappell's mother, Gibbs didn't get a cent."
"But maybe Gibbs didn't know that."
"He had to know, it was all in the corporate papers. And two years before Carson disappeared, when Chappell and Gibbs caught one of their accountants embezzling funds, Gibbs went right to the law and to the newspaper. Laid it all out, furnished the DA with enough evidence to convict the employee, cooperated in every way."
"Maybe that was a setup, to make Gibbs and the firm look good."
Joe sighed. "Harper investigated it himself. In Harper's report, they were squeaky clean."
Dulcie flicked her tail. "I still don't like you moving in with them, pretending to be a helpless stray."