No Witnesses

NINE

“This is the last time,” Owen Adler whispered in the dark, the bed and the houseboat shifting imperceptibly. On Sunday mornings, Lake Union was active early. Seaplanes and outboard engines competed noisily in the distance. “It really is. It has to be.” His voice was sad.

“I know.” Daphne rolled over, pressing her bare chest against his and curling onto him like a snake onto a branch, and kissed Owen wetly on the mouth. “I hate it,” she confessed. She knew that this time it was for real-with her being police, they could not risk violating the demands. Maybe, she told herself, it helped explain why the sex had been lifeless. Maybe it offered her a way for her to win access to his files.

She told him. “I would like to take a look at your files. The New Leaf contamination you told us about.”

“Tap will help you with that.”

She did not want to involve Howard Taplin, or any other Adler employee; she did not want any filters between her and the information. And besides, she thought, such involvement presented too great a risk. “The thing is,” she explained, “within your company Howard Taplin is as high-profile as you are. If he goes requesting a bunch of files, and the blackmailer is an insider, we take too big a risk that he or she might cotton on to police involvement. And I imagine that if Taplin gets a file himself rather than asking his secretary for it, that would raise as much suspicion.”

“Probably right.”

“And now that this person has proved what he’s capable of, I have no desire to test his threat of killing hundreds. We can’t afford any hint of our involvement in the investigation.” She allowed this to sink in and suggested, “I was thinking I could go in after hours. Nice and quiet. All alone, when no employees are around. Get what I need, make copies, and get out.”

“Whatever you want.” He held her tightly, and she could feel his fear in the embrace.

“I want it over,” she said.

A long time passed before he said, “You don’t expect something like this. And when it comes you wonder why you ever bothered with any of it. A month ago you and I were so close, and now I feel a distance in you-I feel your professionalism. Not that I’m complaining. You can’t believe what a relief it is to have you working on this, to have the police finally involved-despite the threats. I waited too long. I made mistakes-and I do not want to hear you blame yourself again-that’s not what I mean. Belief in my own instincts is what built this company. When those instincts fail you, it rattles the foundations.”

“Self-doubt is destructive. You can’t dwell on it.”

“You can’t help but dwell on it,” he said.

Wind whistled through the houseboat. Sometimes that noise sounded peaceful to her, but today it sounded ominous. She heard a light chop striking the pier, and in the distance the hum of traffic on the interstate. “Do you think it’s an employee?” she asked.

“I’m afraid it’s one. There’s a difference.” He added, “And it frosts me, because as cliched as it sounds, we’re a family, and this kind of betrayal is the worst kind imaginable. But the evidence certainly seems to point that way.”

“I think it’s connected to New Leaf-to these salmonella poisonings,” she told him. “That’s the psychologist speaking,” she said.

“I’d like to run away with you,” he confessed. “Leave it all. Wake up on some island and make love and drink beer.”

“You’d last about two days. When was the last time you took time off?”

“That’s what I mean.”

“You don’t know how to take time off.”

“You could teach me.”

She wormed her way fully atop him, and slid slowly against him until he was aroused. “We could teach each other,” she said.

“I’m a quick learner.” He kissed her, and she felt herself responding to him. There were times he made her body feel seventeen again, the way it reacted. Her desire had little to do with penetration or friction-she wanted inside his skin, she wanted some kind of union with his soul. It was a feeling she did not fully understand, and that somehow made it all the more attractive to her. Too often she understood too much.

She said, “Quickness is not something that could be stuck on you. You are anything but quick.”

“Do you honestly think I would choose work over you?”

“I’m not sure it’s your choice. A person’s behavior can change-but I’m not sure the person ever does.”

He took the lobe of her ear in his lips and nibbled there. “I’ll send you flowers every day,” he promised. “And every day I’ll wish I were here. And as soon as this is over, I’ll leave Corky with Mrs. Crutch and we’ll hole up in a hotel somewhere and make up for lost time.”

“That’s quite an incentive program.”

They made love after that-a quiet, peaceful union that made up for their earlier frenetic effort. There was nothing frantic about it, but instead it felt to her that they briefly found one another-purely-the way she hoped for.

Her dreams were peaceful for the first time in weeks, and when she awakened he was gone, having left behind a heart drawn in lipstick on the bathroom mirror, and the scrawled words, “Miss you already.” There had been a time, in her early twenties, that such sugary sentiments would have provoked an uncomfortable reaction in her, but on this day, both older and wiser, she relished them: There was nothing quite like the feeling of being wanted and needed.

She decided not to clean the mirror until this investigation was over-her own childish reaction. This would serve as her reminder, her purpose.

In the kitchen she found his master key and his note to her explaining the Mansion’s security system, including the code needed for the keypad. She picked up the key and it felt cool in her hand.

As it warmed, she felt convinced of its importance.