Dorian put the iPad aside, sat down, put one leg over the other and leaned forward.
“You know what you have to do,” she said.
“Have someone approach them in person, on my behalf?”
“You’re close,” she said.
Miles furrowed his brow. “What?”
She sighed. “It should be you.”
“Me?”
“I know you’re used to delegating pretty much everything, but there are some things you can’t fob off on someone else. If someone’s going to come out of the blue to tell me who my real father is, well, I think maybe it ought to be my real fucking father.”
Miles appeared thoughtful. “Yeah.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah, you’re right. I can’t ask someone else to do this.”
Dorian nodded. “Good. Because if you were going to ask me, I’d have said no.”
“I guess to do that you’d need to be in a higher pay grade,” Miles said, and let loose a short laugh.
Dorian said nothing.
“Anyway,” Miles said, “if I’m going to go face-to-face with them, I’m not sure approaching them on their home turf is best. There might be other family there. Away from home would be better. Maybe at work, or catch them on a lunch break?”
“I think you’ll have to play each one by ear. And there’s going to be some travel involved. There’s that one woman in Paris. I can charter a private jet for those.”
“Sure.”
“And the closer ones, I can get Charise, seeing as how you handed the Porsche off to Gilbert.”
“He told you?”
“I saw him come to work in it. If you’ve got any other Porsches you’re giving away, I’d be willing to help you with that.”
“Okay, get in touch with Charise. And of course you’ve got pictures of them all?”
Dorian gave him a duh look.
“If it was me,” she said, “I’d start with Chloe Swanson, the one in Providence. She’s the closest. Good way to get your feet wet. If the personal approach goes south, you fine-tune your approach before you go on to the next one.”
“Chloe Swanson,” Miles said, more to himself than Dorian. “Have I got a surprise for you.”
Fifteen
New Haven, CT
The funny thing was, Caroline had actually run into that alleged hit man one day, several months after the trial where he was found not guilty, and a few weeks before she learned about Miles’s diagnosis.
She was at a Starbucks, paying for her caramel latte, when she turned around and bumped into a man waiting for his hot chocolate. He was tall with short brown hair, high cheekbones, a strong jaw. He was wearing a long cashmere coat and a pair of dark brown leather gloves. He looked, at a glance, like someone out of a Hugo Boss ad.
“Sorry,” she said. “God, I nearly got some foam on you.”
“It’s okay,” he said, rearing back, looking down at his coat. “No harm done.” He reached around her for his hot chocolate. Caroline noticed the name PETE written on the side of the paper cup.
Pete was about to turn and head for the door when he stopped and gave Caroline another look.
“Have we met?” he asked.
She said, “I don’t think so,” but that was before she gave him a closer look. “Wait a minute. I think...” And then her face broke into a nervous grin. “Oh my, I do remember.”
He grinned slyly at her. “Okay, maybe you should fill me in.”
But she shook her head, as though she suddenly realized she was wrong. “No, no, I’m mistaken,” she said. “We haven’t met.”
“Maybe not met, officially, but I do recognize you,” he said.
“No, really, I—”
He snapped his fingers with his free hand. “I know now.” He smiled. “At my trial. You’re the court stenographer.”
Caroline swallowed, hard. “Um, that’s, I think that’s possible.” She laughed nervously. “I do believe I remember you.”
She remembered everything about him. Especially the part where he had winked at her during the proceedings. The small, electric thrill it had given her.
But Caroline wasn’t quite feeling that now. Right now she was feeling more like she might lose control of her bladder.
This man was a killer.
“I’m sorry,” the man said as if reading her thoughts. “I’ve made you ill at ease. That wasn’t my intention.”
“It’s okay,” she said. “It’s just not every day you meet—”
She stopped herself.
The man smiled. “A hired killer? You do recall that I was acquitted, don’t you?”
“Of course, yes, I remember,” Caroline said. “I suppose I should offer congratulations? I mean, it’s a little late, and it really wouldn’t have been appropriate to say anything at the time.”
He said, “There’s a void for Hallmark to fill. ‘Congratulations on Your Acquittal.’ Or, in your case, belated congratulations.”
Caroline’s eyes were fixed on his. There was an almost hypnotic quality about them. No, that was pushing it. But the man did have a certain charm. How did you make conversation with someone who, allegedly, had been hired to kill another man’s wife?The charges were dismissed, of course. Didn’t she have to give him the benefit of the doubt? But what about that star witness who never showed up? Did Pete here have a coworker somewhere out there who’d made that person disappear?
And by the way, her recollection was not that his name was Pete, but something else. Was it Paul? Patrick? No, wait, it was something altogether different. Something French or Italian? No, not something foreign, but it was longer than most names. A name with a hard edge to it. Something like—
Broderick!
She was sure of it. So why was he telling the Starbucks barista that his name was Pete?
All those thoughts ran through her head while she pondered what to say, but it was Pete/Broderick who came to the rescue.
“Would you like to sit down?” he asked her.
“Would I what?”
“Would you like to join me?”
Before she could think of a reason to say no, she said, “Sure. Why not.”
He found them an empty table in the corner, very delicately cleared away some dirty cups and, with a napkin, swept some muffin crumbs off it.
As Caroline sat down, she could feel her heart racing. What the hell am I doing? she asked herself.
This is not a good idea.
“It makes me crazy when people leave the table a mess,” he said. Having cleared away the crumbs, he was now wiping up a small coffee spill with a paper napkin. “That’s better.” He balled up the napkin and pitched it in a nearby garbage can.
He sat down across from her and smiled. “It’s nice to see you again.”
“I don’t remember your name being Pete,” she said. “It’s Broderick.”
He smiled, pointed a finger at her. “Very good. Especially given all the names you must hear in any given week.”
“So why...” She pointed to the cup.
“Oh,” Broderick said, and grinned. “You’re suspecting something sinister. That I go around using a fake name. You know how much trouble baristas have with the name Broderick? Trying to write it on the paper cup? First, they’re not sure they heard you right and ask you to repeat it or spell it. Or they just scribble ‘Broad Bricks’ or, one time, ‘Broad Dick.’ I swear.”
Caroline found herself giggling.
“The other thing is, there’s not enough room on the cup to write my real name. Hence, Pete.”