Low Pressure

Chapter 5

There was barely a heartbeat between Van Durbin’s question and Dent’s comeback.

Bellamy answered neither of them and instead demanded of Van Durbin, “What are you doing here?”

“Free country.” He looked beyond them at the building’s glass facade. “So this is the family business’s headquarters.”

“Is that a question? If so, I believe you already know the answer.”

He flashed his smug grin. “What gave me away?”

Her repugnance plain, she sidestepped him. “Excuse us.”

But he was persistent. “I only need a moment of your time. Pretty please? It’s been a few weeks. We have a lot to catch up on.”

The night she’d fled New York, an international rock star had been found dead in his Manhattan hotel suite, the apparent victim of a drug overdose. Speculation over whether it had been a suicide or a tragic accident had dominated the scandal sheets like EyeSpy for days.

That story had shortly been followed by a supermodel’s claim that an “unnamed member” of the British royal family had fathered her twins. The allegation was exposed as a publicity stunt intended to jump-start her flagging career, but it had kept the Van Durbins of the world busily hopping between continents to hound their prey.

Bellamy had thought that while he was occupied covering these stories, his interest in her would have waned if not altogether died. His showing up here today demonstrated that he wasn’t finished with her yet.

Trying not to give away just how upsetting his reappearance was, she said coldly, “We have nothing to talk about,” and stalked past him.

Dent followed more slowly. He was eyeing Van Durbin with distrust and disdain, and Bellamy hoped he wouldn’t do or say anything to fan the columnist’s curiosity. She was relieved when he fell into step beside her without incident.

However, Van Durbin wasn’t about to give up that easily, especially not after tracking her all the way to Texas.

“There’s going to be an update about you and Low Pressure in my column tomorrow,” he said. “Despite your inexplicable shunning of publicity, the book is still topping the best-seller lists. Care to comment?”

Over her shoulder, she said, “You know my policy regarding your column. No comment.”

“You sure?”

The taunting note in his voice was enough to bring her around to face him. He was tapping a pencil against his notepad with an air of self-satisfaction.

“True or false?” he said. “You returned to Texas to nurse your father through his final days.”

She started to lash out at him for asking such an insensitive question. But she reconsidered, believing that if she gave him something, he might be satisfied enough to leave the subject alone.

“My father is undergoing treatment for a malignancy. That’s all I’m willing to say on the subject, except for this: While he’s ill, I hope you’ll respect my family’s privacy.”

“Fine, fine,” he said, making a notation on his pad.

“Now beat it.” Dent hooked his hand around Bellamy’s elbow and steered her toward the parking lot.

“Just one more question?”

They kept walking.

“Did they send the right guy to the pen for murdering your sister?”

Bellamy came around so quickly she stumbled against Dent.

Van Durbin leered. “I’m gonna pose that question in my column tomorrow. Care to comment?”

“Olivia?”

She disconnected her phone and turned toward Howard’s hospital bed. “I’m sorry. I didn’t think I was talking loud enough to wake you.”

“I wasn’t really asleep. Just resting.”

He fought sleep because he feared he would never wake up. He wanted to escape the pain and desert the body that was cannibalizing itself, but he wasn’t ready to die quite yet. Before he let go, there were troubling issues he wanted settled and disturbing questions he wanted answered.

“Who were you talking to?”

“Bellamy.”

“Was she at the office?”

“She’d finished there and said to tell you that everything is in order.” Taking his hand, she pressed it between hers. “I’m afraid she saw through your ruse.”

“I knew she would. But I also knew she would go along with it to spare me.”

“You’re trying to spare each other, and each of you knows it.”

“I don’t want her here, watching me die.” He squeezed her hand with as much strength as he could muster. “I don’t want to put you through that, either.”

She sat on the edge of the bed and leaned down to kiss his forehead. “I’m not leaving you. Not for a second. And if I could fight this thing bare-handed, I gladly would.”

“I don’t doubt that.”

For a moment they were quiet, gazing into each other’s eyes and pretending that their tears weren’t tears of despair.

He didn’t doubt her absolute love and devotion. Not today, and not on the day they’d stood at the altar in the company of their children and recited their wedding vows. The day they’d united their families, their lives, had been one of the happiest of his life.

They had met a year earlier at a black-tie fund-raising event. He was a major donor who was being recognized that night for his generosity. She was a volunteer checking people in as they arrived.

As she’d passed him his table-assignment card, she’d remarked on his bow tie being askew.

He patted it awkwardly. “I don’t have a wife to check these things for me before I leave the house.”

“My late husband thought I was pretty good at straightening his tie. May I?” She hadn’t been flirtatious or inappropriate in any way as she came around to the other side of the table and efficiently adjusted his tie. Then she’d backed away and smiled up at him. “It wouldn’t do to have an honoree with a crooked bow tie.”

He would have enjoyed continuing their conversation, but he was summoned into the banquet hall, where the program was about to begin. He didn’t see her again that night.

It took him a week to work up the nerve to call the charity office and ask for her name. During the seven years since his wife had died, he’d dated occasionally. A few of the women he’d taken out he’d also slept with, although never at home, where Susan and Bellamy were under his roof.

But he hadn’t fallen in love until the night he met Olivia Maxey, and it had been an instantaneous and hard fall.

Later, she’d confessed that it had been the same for her. Referring to her husband as “late” had been calculated to let him know she was available. “The most courageous thing I ever did in my life was step around that table to straighten your tie. But I simply had to touch you, to see if you were real.”

After a year of courtship, they had married.

He didn’t fear death, especially. But he couldn’t bear the thought of leaving her. He had to clear his throat before he was able to speak. “What else did you and Bellamy talk about?”

“Oh, she asked if I’d managed to get any rest last night. She wanted to know—”

“Olivia.” He spoke her name quietly, but in a way that chided her for attempting to keep something from him. “I’m not that drugged. I sensed your distress when you were talking to her. What’s happened?”

She sighed a concession and looked down at their tightly clasped hands. “That horrid reporter—”

“Rocky Van Durbin? He can’t be dignified with the title ‘reporter.’”

“He ambushed Bellamy as she left the offices.”

“He’s in Austin? I thought she’d outrun him, that we were through with all that.”

“Unfortunately, no. She’s still on his radar screen. In his column tomorrow, he’s going to pose a question to his readers. And to hers, in a sense.”

“What question?”

“Was the right man punished for killing Susan? Did they get the right guy? Words to that effect.”

He digested that, then sighed heavily. “God knows what kind of offshoots of discussion that will produce.”

“It was bad enough when Bellamy’s identity was revealed.” For weeks after the disclosure they’d been plagued by telephone calls asking them for comments and interviews. Several regional reporters had even shown up outside their estate and at their business offices. They’d declined all requests and eventually had handed the responsibility of fielding them over to their attorney.

“What I hate most,” she said, “is that our lives will once again be on review in that horrible tabloid.”

She left the bed and, clearly too agitated to sit down, paced the narrow space in front of the window. “Lyston Electronics was touted by the secretary of commerce as a model corporation. Where was Van Durbin then? Or when you instigated the profit-sharing program for every employee? None of that made headline news.”

“Because that’s not scintillating subject matter.”

“But the circumstances surrounding Susan’s killing are.”

“Tragically.”

“To us, yes. To everyone else, it’s entertainment. And from now on, the Lyston family will be remembered only for that salacious murder in Austin.” She began to cry in earnest. “I feel like the foundation of our life together is crumbling beneath me. It’s more than I can handle right now.”

He patted the side of the bed and coaxed her to come back to it. She went to him and leaned down to rest her head on his shoulder. “You can handle it,” he said gently. “You can handle anything. And what you’ll be remembered for is having been the most loving, wonderful, beautiful wife any man could have dreamed of. Making you my wife and mother to my girls was the smartest decision I ever made.” He turned his head and kissed her hair. “This will go away. I promise.”

For a time they clung to one another. He said all the things he knew she wanted to hear. He told her that Van Durbin and his ilk would soon be exploiting someone else’s personal tragedy, and that, until then, they would rely on each other for support as they always had.

Eventually she sat up and blotted her eyes. “There’s something else. I hesitate to tell you because it’s almost as upsetting as the business with Van Durbin.”

“What could be that bad?”

“Bellamy is with Denton Carter.”

He hadn’t seen that coming. He’d been as shocked and put off as Olivia when Bellamy informed them that she had booked a flight with him. Some situations were best left alone. But, after sensing the animosity on both sides, he’d thought yesterday’s flight would be the last they saw of him.

“By ‘with,’ what do you mean, exactly?”

“I shudder to think. She told me that Van Durbin had confronted her and Dent as they left our building. I think it was a slip of the tongue, because her voice skipped and then she went on talking in a rush and didn’t mention him again.”

He pressed her hand reassuringly. “There could be a simple explanation for why he was there. Something about payment for yesterday’s charter, maybe. Don’t borrow trouble.”

She gave him an odd look.

“What?” he asked.

“You said those very words to me when Susan started going out with him and I wanted to put a stop to it. I didn’t have to borrow trouble, Howard. He is trouble, and I still blame him for what happened to our daughter.”

“That ought to hold her.” The locksmith tested the newly installed lock on the utility room door, then moved aside and invited Dent to test it for himself.

Satisfied, he nodded. “Thanks for coming out so soon. What’s the charge?”

Dent paid him in cash and tipped him ten bucks for treating the repair as an emergency. After seeing the locksmith on his way out the back door, he went into the living room, where Bellamy was in conversation with the two police officers who had responded to their summons.

She was sitting on the sofa; the officers were standing amid the boxes of knickknacks and books she still hadn’t unpacked. Dent, who had an ingrained aversion to cops, didn’t venture any farther into the room but propped his shoulder against the door frame, which was a good observation point.

He had followed Bellamy home from Lyston Electronics, keeping one eye on the road and the other on his rearview mirror. He didn’t believe Van Durbin had followed them, but he probably didn’t need to. Surely EyeSpy had a battalion of underpaid Internet geeks doing research and electronic investigative work. Finding out Bellamy’s new home address would have been duck soup.

When they reentered her house and saw again the evidence of last night’s intruder, Dent had said, “With Van Durbin in town, you’ve got more to worry about than media coverage of this. Call the police.”

She’d capitulated without further discussion, apparently having seen the wisdom of having the break-in on record. Two uniformed officers had arrived a few minutes later. They’d questioned both of them, walked through every room of the house as well as the backyard, poking about. They’d called in another officer to dust for fingerprints. He’d already come and gone.

The questions being put to Bellamy now were similar to those the sheriff’s deputy had asked of Dent earlier at the airfield, the implication being that the vandalism was retribution for something she had done.

“Have you had any cross words with a neighbor? Maid? Yardman?”

She shook her head no.

“Co-worker?”

“I don’t have co-workers.”

One of the policemen looked over at Dent. “You said you followed her home last night?”

“I flew her to Houston and back yesterday. She left something in my airplane. I was returning it to her.”

He nodded and, with one eyebrow eloquently arched, exchanged a meaningful look with his partner. Going back to Bellamy, he said, “We, uh, took the pair of underwear for evidence. Using a personal garment like that to paint the words on the wall… Well, ma’am, it suggests the perpetrator has, uh, intimate knowledge of you.”

“Or he’s read my book.”

One’s face lit up and he snapped his fingers. “I thought you looked familiar. You’re that author.” To his partner, he said, “She’s famous.”

She passed a copy of Low Pressure to the one who hadn’t recognized her. “It’s a murder mystery. Fact based. The victim was my sister. Her underpants became a key element of the investigation.”

“Any idea what was meant by the warning?”

“Isn’t the meaning obvious?” Dent said impatiently. “She’s in danger from this guy.”

Neither officer acknowledged his remark, but one of them asked Bellamy if she’d received similar threats or warnings. She told them about the rat and the break-in of her car.

“Did you report these incidents?”

“No. They were dissimilar. Different states. I thought they were random. But after this, I believe they could all be related, and the common denominator is my book.”

“Why do you think that?”

“Timing, for one thing. Nothing like this happened to me before the book was published. Besides, I can’t think of anything I’ve done to elicit this kind of malice.”

After a considerable pause, and another glance toward Dent, one of them said, “Maybe it doesn’t have anything to do with your book. Could someone in your personal life bear you a grudge? An ex-husband? A boyfriend you’ve recently broken off with? Anybody like that?”

Dent was interested to know the answers to those questions himself.

“My ex lives in Dallas,” Bellamy told them. “Our divorce was amicable. He’s remarried. I just moved here from New York. I haven’t been seeing anyone.”

“What about up there?”

“No. Only in the most platonic sense.”

The two exchanged another look and seemed to agree that they had covered everything. “We’ll put your house on a drive-by list. Our patrols will keep a close eye on it. Call us immediately if anything, even the smallest thing, happens.”

“Thank you, I will.”

“You should look into getting an alarm system installed.”

Bellamy told them she would do that, then got up to walk them out. As the officers went past Dent, they tipped their hats, but their expressions didn’t leave him with a warm fuzzy. They left with a promise to report back to Bellamy if their investigation led to an arrest.

“Hell will freeze over first,” Dent said after she closed the door behind them. “But at least there’s a police record of the break-in, and they might’ve lifted his prints. Considering the mess they made, I hope something comes of it.”

He ran his finger through the smudge that had been left on the newel post, then wiped it on the leg of his jeans. “The deputy also dusted my airplane. If this piece of shit is ever arrested, they’ll be able to connect him to both crimes and maybe even to the delivered rat.”

“Maybe we should have told them about your airplane.”

“And get into all that history?” He shook his head.

“I didn’t want to, either.”

“Let them nail a suspect first. Then we can connect the remaining dots for them.”

She folded her arms across her middle and hugged her elbows as she looked up the stairwell in the direction of her bedroom. “I was really coming to like this house. Now it’s been tainted.”

“It’ll clean up. But what about your landlord? Should you notify him?”

“He’s absentee.”

“Out of town?”

“Afghanistan. When he was deployed, his wife went to stay with her folks in Arizona. I leased for a year. I see no need to worry them. I’ll cover the charges.”

He took a business card from his shirt pocket. “The locksmith’s brother-in-law does make-ready cleaning on houses and apartments. Painting included. For a fair price and a signed copy of your book, he’ll have the house looking like new. And I was told that for next to nothing he’ll install an alarm system.”

She took the card. “I’ll call him.”

“First, come into the kitchen.”

“What’s in there? More damage?”

“No. I’m hungry.”

Five minutes later they had assembled a lunch of peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches and glasses of iced tea. He ripped open a bag of Fritos he’d found in the pantry, and when she declined the chips, he dug in.

Around a bite, he asked, “Any word from Houston?”

“I called Olivia on the drive here. Daddy opted for another round of chemo. They’re clinging to the hope it will do some good.”

“Did you tell her about your house?”

“No, I didn’t want to add to her worry. I did tell her about Van Durbin, though. I hated to, but at least I prepared them. They won’t be caught off guard by his column tomorrow.”

“Tell her about my airplane?”

“No.”

“So, as far as she knows, we parted company after we landed last night.”

“Actually, when I told her about being accosted by Van Durbin, it slipped out that you were with me.”

“Hmm. I wonder which upset her most, knowing that you’d been bushwhacked, or that I was at your side.”

“Don’t be provoking, Dent.”

“I haven’t provoked anything. Yesterday I was completely professional, but your stepmother has always treated me like a turd in the punch bowl, a contaminant, and yesterday was no exception. Not that I fucking care.”

“That’s the very attitude that’s provoking.”

He could’ve said more on the subject of Olivia, but decided against it. The woman’s husband was dying, after all. Besides, he’d never lost sleep over what Olivia Lyston thought of him, and he didn’t intend to. “How’d she take the news about Van Durbin’s upcoming column?”

“Unhappily.” She pinched off a morsel of bread crust and rolled it between her thumb and finger, studying the forming ball of dough. “I can’t say that I blame her for being upset.”

“If you didn’t want to upset your family, you shouldn’t have published a book that aired their dirty laundry.”

She looked at him with asperity. “I told you why I wrote it.”

“Yeah, so you could make a bad period in your life tangible, then wad it up, throw it away, and forget it. Good therapy for you, maybe. But it sucks for everybody else involved. Why didn’t you pour your heart out in a journal, then lock it up and throw away the key, or bury it in the backyard, or drop it into the ocean? Why’d you have to turn your therapy into a best seller?”

Pushing his empty plate aside, he placed his forearms on the edge of the table and leaned across it toward her. “Those of us who lived the story are a bit vexed to find ourselves in your spotlight, A.k.a.”

She came out of her chair. “So you’ve said. I don’t need to hear it again.”

He stood up and rounded the table to stand toe-to-toe with her. “Yeah, you do. Because somebody has moved past vexed. He’s good and truly pissed off. And he’s gonna be even more pissed off when it comes out tomorrow that maybe the case wasn’t as tightly sewn up as believed. Susan’s murder is going to be given a good, hard second look. I’ve got a hunch that’s not going to sit well with whoever scrawled that warning on your wall.”

She was staring up at him in defiance and denial of every word.

“You think I’m wrong?” he asked.

She opened her mouth to speak, but suddenly the starch went out of her. She lowered her head and rubbed her temples with her fingertips. “I wish you were, but I don’t think you are.”

He backed down. “Okay,” he said in a softer voice, “who’s the mystery guest?”

“I don’t know.”

“You need to find out before his little pranks turn really ugly.”

She lowered her hand from her face and looked up at him. “Brilliant idea. How do you suggest going about it?”

“We start with the people who were directly involved. Begin with the key players and work outward, eliminating them one by one, until the son of a bitch is left standing, exposed.”

“We? What about the police?”

“Do you think Starsky and Hutch there are going to go digging into an eighteen-year-old murder case?”

“They investigate cold cases.”

“Not after the culprit has already been caught and convicted.”

“Convictions are overturned all the time.”

“But they’ve got to have a compelling reason to reopen the case. Can you provide them one?”

She shook her head.

“Right. My opinion? They’ll wait until you’re physically assaulted and/or dead before they take the threat seriously, because they probably concluded that it had something to do with me. And you believe I’m right. If you didn’t, you would have spilled the whole sordid story to them while they were here. You saved yourself the breath because you have no more faith in their getting to the bottom of this than I do. And I have none. Which leaves it up to us.”

“What do you know about police work?”

“Only that I don’t trust it.”

“You would drop everything and—”

“I’m grounded, remember? I’ve got nothing else to do. Besides, I have a vested interest in finding this jerk. And when I do, for what he did to my airplane, I’m going to bash in his skull.”

“Lovely. Do you expect me to be your accomplice?”

“Get this straight.” He took a step, bringing them closer. “I don’t play nice, Bellamy. I never have.”

After a taut moment, she broke his hard stare. “All right. For the time being, at least, we’ll help each other. But where do we start? Who do we start with?”

He went to the chair she’d left empty moments earlier and held it for her. “We start with you.”