Cold truth

Chapter 5

Mason made it to the lobby when his cell phone rang.

"Hi, Lou. It's Abby Lieberman."

Mason caught her long bomb in stride, scooted into the end zone untouched, and dropped the ball on the ground like it was a routine play. "What's going on?" he asked, as if he'd expected her to call all along, though he hurried outside to make certain the cell-phone gods didn't drop her call.

"Listen, I'm really sorry about last night. I behaved very poorly. I hope I didn't ruin Harry's party."

"Not a chance. Besides, you can't apologize when a client has an emergency. It's good to be needed."

"You're too nice, especially since I didn't have a client emergency. I made that up. That's why I'm apologizing and that's why I want to buy you dinner tonight if you're free. I want to tell you the real reason I left."

Mason had a fleeting image that he'd run his touchdown into his own team's end zone. That would fit with everything else he'd learned today. Gina Davenport and her daughter both go through windows to their deaths. Dr. Gina's charitable foundation supports Sanctuary, the not-so-safe haven where Gina's daughter killed herself. Centurion Johnson and Terry Nix give creeps a bad name. David Evans, whom Mason just clipped for more than half a million dollars, not only represents Gina Davenport, but manages twenty million of her dollars. Mason's newest client, who may be charged with murdering Gina Davenport and who is one brick short of a load, goads him into suspecting her parents or brother killed Gina.

So he shouldn't have been surprised when a woman whom he met for five minutes-not long enough to know but long enough to love-asked him out to dinner. Not so she can propose to him, but so she can explain why the mention of Gina Davenport's murder sent her running for cover. Mason accepted her invitation, certain he would end up with food poisoning for dessert.

"Sure. That would be great. Where and when?"

"Metropolis Grill in Westport. Seven-thirty. See you then."

Trent Hackett handed Mason a key before Mason had a chance to introduce himself. They were in Trent's office, a sparsely furnished windowless room tucked behind the elevators, illuminated by fluorescent tubes in an open ceiling panel.

"Arthur called. Said to give you a key to Davenport's office," Trent said. "That's a passkey. The cops took all the extra keys to Gina's office."

"Not that it matters, but how do you know I'm the guy who's supposed to get the key?"

Trent looked up from his computer, his complexion a pale wash of monitor blue and fluorescence, his small frame made smaller by the low chair he was sitting on. "You're you," he told Mason, swinging the monitor around.

The screen was filled with a photograph of Mason taken when he'd been trapped in a burning building. He was grasping steel security bars covering a window that kept the bad guys out and the good guys flame-broiled. A bystander took the picture and the Kansas City Star ran it.

"Too bad you don't have the color version," Mason said. "I look good with red in my cheeks."

Trent tapped a few keys and Mason watched his image transformed from black and white to color. The metamorphosis continued as digitized flames rose in the background, melting his face and unveiling a banner that read Welcome to Hell.

"I'm thinking of doing a whole line of electronic greeting cards if real estate doesn't work out. What do you think?" Trent asked.

"I think you're lucky your mother loves you and your father signs your paycheck. I also think I'd like to know where you were Monday night when Gina Davenport took her trip to the other side."

Trent spun the monitor back, punched the escape button on his keyboard, and stood up. He was scrawny, made more so by his buzz cut, elongated neck, and thin face. Though he pushed his spine up and his round shoulders back, he was still the geek who never got the girl.

"That's the problem with you lawyers. No sense of humor."

"Try me. Say something funny," Mason said.

"Okay. My sister's a lying, paranoid slut."

"Not funny," Mason said.

"Not funny," Trent agreed, "but true."

"Doesn't matter and doesn't answer my question," Mason said. "Where were you Monday night when Gina Davenport was murdered?"

"I told the cops. I don't have to tell you," Trent said. "And don't lose the key. It'll cost you twenty-five bucks."

"Shame you didn't get Dr. Gina's window fixed," Mason said.

"Why? That's what insurance is for."

"Wrong. That's what the penitentiary is for. See you at the family reunion."

Mason chided himself for getting into a smack-talking match with Trent Hackett. Trent was a slacker with no place to go except home, where Mason bet he spent Monday night alone watching pay-per-view porn until his wrists got tired. Pimping Mason was Trent's way of flexing, and Mason knew better than to flex back.

Trent's charm was enough to make Mason wonder whether Trent took advantage of the cracked window in Gina Davenport's office to throw her through it. Though Mason had no idea why Trent might have killed Dr. Gina, or for that matter, why the police thought Jordan killed her. Suspicion, he realized, often lurks outside reason.

Mason took the day's only good news to the bank and deposited David Evans's check. He called the office, and Mickey told him that no clients were threatening to sue him for malpractice.

"Prosperity at home and peace abroad. I'm running for another term," Mason told Mickey. "See you tomorrow."

Instead, Mason ran five laps around Loose Park, the city's premier green space two blocks from his house, dodging moms, strollers, and lovers. He took Tuffy with him, leaving her on a long leash secured to a tree. Tuffy sniffed at the squirrels and rolled on her back so kids could rub her belly, grateful that she didn't have to run along with Mason. A couple of hours later, showered, shaved, and clad in casual cool, he left for dinner with Abby.

Westport first made its name as a trading post, then as a Civil War battleground, before being reborn as Kansas City's trend-barometer. From head shops in the sixties, it spawned bars in the eighties, before settling into baby-boomer hip in the nineties. Like boomers who thought they looked younger than everyone else their age, Westport was certain it looked better than the rest of the city.

Metropolis took hip and hung it on the walls, seasoning the food and mixing the drinks in a laid-back, eclectic blend of fanciful colors and offbeat flavors. Abby was waiting for him at a table in the window alcove at the front of the restaurant. Mason entered from the back, standing in the hallway next to the kitchen, watching her as she watched the street, giving his heart a reality check.

Mason saw a thoughtful, graceful woman with a dancer's elegance, comfortable with herself. He saw all this in her easy, ordinary gestures-sipping from her wineglass, leaning back in her chair, ignoring a stray bang that dangled over her eyes. He also saw an edginess she couldn't suppress when the front door of the restaurant opened, a burst of voices bringing her upright as she searched the incoming customers for him, her smooth brow creased with anticipation, then slack with disappointment when he wasn't there.

All of her-her ease, her elegance, her edginess- captivated him. He knew that he was reading too much into the moment, as he had the first moment he'd seen her, but he didn't care. That was how she affected him.

Mason wove between tables, smiling when she looked his way, having caught him in the corner of her eye as he approached. She offered her hand and he took it hostage again with both of his, wondering if doing so would become a ritual, tying them together like a secret. He held it long enough to feel her strength, resisting for an instant when she took it back.

"Hey," she said.

"Hey, you," he answered.

"Picking up where we left off?" she asked, a small smile answering her question.

"Why give up such a good start?" Mason asked.

"You are confident, aren't you?"

"You think we can talk in questions all night?"

"Do we get a prize if we do?"

"You won't stop first, will you?"

"You'll get the wrong idea-that I give up too easily-won't you?"

"I don't think you ever give up," he said.

She cocked her head, widening her smile. "Thank you."

"You're welcome."

"Stop it!" she said, not meaning it.

"Certainly."

"You're obnoxious," she said, still not meaning it.

"Unavoidably," he said.

"And unmanageable," she added.

"But domesticated, and done. Are you hungry?"

She took a deep breath. "No. I thought I was. I thought I could do this over a nice dinner and a good bottle of wine, but I can't."

"Do what?" Mason asked as his own appetite slipped away.

"You don't know me at all, Lou," she began. "I own my own business-Fresh Air. I'm a public relations consultant. I polish corporate images, manage bad news."

Mason shrugged. "That's nothing to be ashamed of," he joked. "That's Mickey Shanahan's died-and-gone-toheaven dream. I'm surprised he hasn't already proposed."

Abby clenched her jaw. "Claire warned me you would be like this."

"Like what?" Mason said, palms up in protest.

"She said you would fall in love with me at first sight and dazzle me with one-liners."

"It's on my business card," he said.

Abby withheld her smile. "I saw Sherri Thomas's report on Channel Six last night. She said the police suspect a woman named Jordan Hackett killed Gina Davenport and that you're representing her."

Mason softened his tone. "Abby-"

She interrupted. "Lou, please don't talk to me about privilege and confidentiality. I've spent my life living with secrets."

Mason had also watched Thomas's broadcast, despite his promise to ignore it. He paused and nodded. "Okay. I am representing her and she may be a suspect. What's that got to do with you?"

Abby drew another deep breath, gripping the table with both hands. "Jordan Hackett may be my daughter."

Mason had prepared himself for every possible permutation of Abby's involvement in Gina Davenport's murder-patient, suspect, friend of the victim-but not this one. Abby's squared shoulders rolled inward, her well-toned arms quivered, her eyes pooled. Mason didn't know if it was true, but he felt Abby's torment that it might be.

Neither Jordan nor her parents had said that she was adopted. He wouldn't have cared because it wouldn't have mattered. He would learn the root of Jordan's emotional problems if she was charged with murder. Adoption was an unlikely source. Adopted kids look for their birth parents. They don't kill their therapists.

"Is that why you called Claire?"

Abby nodded, the moment of confession passed, and she rallied. "I didn't know about Jordan at first, just Gina Davenport."

"I don't get the connection," Mason said.

"I got a telephone call last Friday from a woman who didn't identify herself. She said if I wanted to find my daughter to call a number." Abby reached into her purse for a yellow Post-it note and handed it to Mason. "816555-2319," she recited.

Mason asked, "Whose number is it?"

"Gina Davenport's."

"You spoke with her?"

"She identified herself when I called. I'm the same way. I always answer the phone with 'It's Abby.' She said, 'Dr. Davenport.' I told her who I was and how I had gotten her number. She went ballistic, said she didn't know anything about my daughter and that if I called again she would sue me for harassment."

Mason said, "You've left out one pretty important piece of the story."

"I know. The part about having a daughter. I was seventeen and stupid. I thought it was love at first sight. I gave my baby girl up for adoption."

"Had you tried to find her before last Friday?"

Abby wiped her hands and eyes with a napkin. "No. Being an unwed mother was my first experience with public relations. I grew up here. My parents were mortified when I got pregnant and sent me to live with an uncle in St. Louis until I had the baby. They told everyone I was enrolled in a school for gifted children. I came home after graduation."

"Did your parents get over it?"

"They moved away. We don't talk much. Their story became my story. I went to school, went to work, pretended it didn't happen. I refused to read stories about women who searched for the children they gave up. It wasn't about me. Then I got that phone call and I couldn't pretend anymore."

"So you called."

"When I'm helping a business manage a crisis, I focus on proportional response. Gina Davenport's response was way out of proportion, which made me think she was lying."

"What did you do next?"

"Nothing. I didn't know what to do. Claire and I worked together on a fund-raiser last year. I called her after Gina was murdered. If there was a connection between Gina and my daughter and someone murdered Gina, my daughter could be in danger too. I asked Claire to help me find my daughter and she invited me to dinner."

"She was fixing us up. I'm surprised she didn't do it before."

"She tried. I was with someone," Abby said.

"Timing is everything. Why do you think Jordan may be your daughter?"

Abby looked at her hands for an answer, then straight at Mason. "In my business, I go with my gut. I size up people and problems for a living. I couldn't attribute the anonymous phone call I got to a bad joke. The woman who called me knew I had given up my daughter for adoption. She wanted me to think that Gina Davenport knew where my daughter was and she wanted me to call Gina. Gina's reaction didn't make sense to me unless she did know something. Then Gina was killed and a girl the same age as my daughter was named a suspect. It's all I have to work with."

"Have you told the police?"

Abby bit her lower lip. "Yes. The detective was very polite, but I think I just made her more suspicious of Jordan."

"The phone call and Davenport's murder were certainly a jolt, but I still don't understand why my involvement upset you so much."

Abby blushed, her eyes pooling again. "You said you were defending someone who might be charged with Gina Davenport's murder. My feelings about my daughter were so close to the surface after all these years, I guess I overreacted the same way Gina overreacted to my phone call."

"Is that all?"

"No," she answered, dipping her head before looking at him again. "Love at first sight hasn't been kind to me."

Mason reached across the table, wrapping his hand around hers. "Why don't we start with dinner and see how that goes before we worry about dessert."