Think Twice

Chapter Twenty-Eight

A few minutes later, Jeremy called. “Where are you?”

“I’m at my office,” Myron said. “How about you?”

“At Mom’s apartment,” his son said. “Can you come over?”

“Sure, what’s up?”

“Grace is here.”

Myron tried to conjure up the mental picture: Greg’s current soulmate at the apartment of Greg’s ex-wife Emily. “Grace is at your mom’s place?”

“She just arrived. She’s pretty upset. She says it’s urgent she talk to you.”

No doubt this was about her son Bo. “I’m on my way.”

He called his father’s phone on the way. No answer. He was tempted to call his mom, but Dad had made it clear that was not what he wanted. He didn’t like the idea of keeping the truth from her. When he was growing up, Mom had always seemed the stronger of the two, a force of nature, the one who argued and stood up for you and gave anyone in her way an earful. But Myron also got what his father was saying. There was a fragility there now, one both obvious from her Parkinson’s and one that seemed vaguer to him, something to do with aging and fear and perhaps seeing her own mortality. Either way, Myron was not about to go against his father’s wishes.

When he arrived at the apartment, Emily opened the door. Myron waited for her customary quip, but she looked at him with concern etched on her face. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine, why?”

She put her hand on his arm. “Tell me what happened.”

Seemed it wasn’t just his mother who could read him like a book. “No time now. It’s all okay.” He spotted Jeremy standing behind her, so he politely pushed past her. His son offered him a handshake. Myron took it and resisted the urge to pull him in close, settling for an awkward slap on the shoulder.

Grace Konners had her smartphone pressed against her ear. She turned away from them and kept her voice low. Myron looked a question at Jeremy.

“She’s staying at a hotel down the street under a pseudonym,” Jeremy said.

“And you’ve already met her?”

“Yes. I told you. They visited me when I was in Kuwait.”

Myron looked over at Emily. He remembered how concerned Emily had been, how she didn’t want to get Jeremy’s hopes up before they knew for certain Greg was alive. But he’d known. Jeremy had known for years. Emily met Myron’s eyes and gave a half shrug.

Grace hung up the phone, stood, and moved toward Myron. “Let’s you and me take a walk.”

“Don’t bother,” Emily said, her hand already on the doorknob. “I’ll take the walk. You guys stay.”

She didn’t wait for a reply. She headed out and closed the door behind her.

“You lying son of a bitch,” Grace said. “You sold out my son.”

“That’s not what happened, but we’ll have time for assigning blame later. Right now, we need to contact Joe Turant’s people.”

“That was Bo on the phone,” she said.

That took Myron by surprise. “Is he okay?”

“They haven’t hurt him, if that’s what you mean.”

“Where is he?”

“They’re taking him back to Vegas.”

“But they let him contact you?”

Grace nodded. “They didn’t want me calling the police.”

That made sense, Myron thought.

“And they wanted to assure me that they had no intention of harming Bo.”

“How did he sound?”

“How do you think he sounded?”

“What can I do to help?” Myron asked.

Grace half chuckled at that. She looked over at Jeremy. “Now I know where you get it from.”

“Get what?” Jeremy asked.

“Your hero complex. It’s genetic. Your father — and by that, I mean — this is confusing as hell but I mean Greg — he only cares about us. That’s how most people are. But a few, like you two, insist on helping even if it hurts others. On the surface, you seem the better, don’t you? Sacrificing yourself for others and all that. But you’re not. You need to be the hero.” She turned to Myron. “You found out Greg was alive?”

“That’s what the FBI told me.”

“So you guessed that Greg faked his own death, right?”

“What’s your point?”

“My point is, you realized that Greg had made the conscious decision to let you and the rest of the world think he was dead. And did you then honor his choice? Did you think, ‘Oh, Greg must have his reasons, I shouldn’t interfere’? No. Instead you turned his world upside down trying to rescue him. And now he’s in prison, and a bunch of sadistic mobsters have my son — all because you had to ‘help,’ consequences be damned.”

Myron had had enough.

“Hey, Grace?” he said.

“What?”

“Someone is murdering people out there. You and Greg and Bo are all tangled up in this. So if you’re trying to lay some guilt trip on me—”

“That’s not what I’m trying to do.”

“Then why don’t we instead focus on getting Bo back safe?”

“Did you tell Turant’s men where Bo was?”

“No,” Myron said. “You have my word on that.”

It wasn’t a lie. It wasn’t necessarily a full truth. But it wasn’t a lie.

Jeremy pitched in. “Maybe we can help, Grace.”

Grace moved toward the window and looked out over Central Park. “You said someone is out there murdering people. What do you mean by that?”

“You know about Jordan Kravat. You know about Cecelia Callister and her son Clay. There are others.”

Grace turned away from the window. Jeremy looked at Myron.

“What do you mean, others?” Jeremy asked.

Myron moved toward Grace, wanting her to turn and make eye contact. “Joey Turant didn’t grab your son just to get revenge because he testified against him. If he had, your son would be dead by now. He wants Bo to change his testimony.”

“And once he does?”

“What really happened to Jordan Kravat?” Myron asked. “We need the truth now. It’s just us in the room here. I’m an attorney. You can hire me if you want that kind of protection. Jeremy can leave—”

“No,” she said. “I want Jeremy here.”

“Do you need some water?” Jeremy asked her.

“I’m fine, Jeremy.”

“You can trust Myron,” Jeremy said. “Maybe he should have minded his own business or whatever. I get that. But you need to tell us what really happened.”

“Your father,” she said. “He didn’t want you involved in any of this.”

“I know,” Jeremy said. “But it’s too late for that now. You need to talk to us.”

Grace sat down. Jeremy took the seat across from her. Myron stayed standing, trying to move out of her eyesight. Grace clearly trusted Jeremy. She might open up more if Myron faded into the background.

“What Greg and I told you before was all true,” she began. “Donna Kravat’s club got all mobbed up. Jordan was a big part of it. Bo got caught up in it and couldn’t find a way out. It got bad between them. One night, Jord said he had a plan for how to get them both out from under. He said that he still loved Bo and if they could just make this one last move, they’d be free from the mob and could be happy again. I didn’t know any of this at the time. If Bo had come to me, I would have told him not to go that night. And I think even Bo didn’t believe it. By now, he had already decided he was going to work with the cops. We told you this. Bo was going to turn informant. That was his way out.”

Grace looked now at Myron. Myron nodded, keeping his face even. He wanted her to keep talking.

“Some of this is speculation on Bo’s part. So bear with me. As soon as Bo got back to the house that night, he felt like something was wrong. Jord poured them both bourbons. That was the Kravat drink — Jord and Donna are from Louisville and love bourbon. They were big Maker’s Mark drinkers. But Bo... he knew that Jord used to roofie guys at work to make them, uh, compliant. Some customers got off on that. Jord used to joke about it, call it a Gay Cosby. Sick, right?”

“Very sick,” Jeremy said. He leaned forward. It felt odd to see his son in this position, but of course his son was a highly trained military officer. Myron watched in awe and pride but there was also a pain here, pain for what he had missed, pain for what he realized he’d never get back or know.

“So when Jordan wasn’t looking,” Grace continued, “Bo switched their glasses. So if the drink was spiked...”

“I get it.”

“And sure enough, Jordan started getting sleepy. He kept muttering to himself. Bo said at one point Jordan was smiling and his head was lolling back and he kept saying ‘Bye, bye, toe’ and ‘Joey’s coming’ and laughing.”

She sat back now. Her hand fluttered up toward her face. She blinked away tears.

Jeremy’s voice was soft, confident, soothing. “What happened next, Grace?”

“He left.”

“Bo left the house?”

She nodded. “After Jordan passed out from the sedative, Bo left.”

“What time?” Jeremy asked.

“I don’t know. Around midnight maybe? Does that matter?”

“No. Go on.”

“He’d been renting an extended stay on East Harmon Avenue.”

“Okay, so that’s where he went?”

“Yes.”

“And then?”

“He watched TV. He tried to sleep. He called me at one point and said he was scared. I told him to come over and stay with us, but he said he’d be okay.”

“Where were you?”

This was all Jeremy asking the questions. Myron just kept silent and tried to make himself invisible.

“Greg and I were staying at a suite at the Bellagio. We told you before. We’d come to town hoping to help Bo get free before we headed overseas.”

“Right,” Jeremy said. “Of course. Go on.”

“At five in the morning, the police knocked on Bo’s door. They told him Jordan Kravat had been murdered.”

“In court,” Jeremy said, “Bo claimed to have seen Joe Turant leaving the house.”

“That...” She stopped, took a deep breath. “That wasn’t true. They made him say that.”

“Who is they?”

“The police, the district attorney... I don’t know. One of them, all of them. Once the DNA tests came back tying the murder to Joey Turant, the cops went nuts. They’d been trying to nail Joey for so long and now they had the goods. But the DNA wasn’t enough. All science and no emotion or something like that. They wanted to make sure it was a slam dunk. So they went back to Bo. They wanted him to testify that he’d witnessed Turant leaving the house that night. When Bo said he didn’t want to, they added threats. They’d tell Turant that he cooperated. They’d prosecute Bo on the lesser charges they had on him before all this. So really, what choice did my son have? You tell me.” She looked up at both men. “What else could he have done?”

“Nothing,” Jeremy said. “Your son had no choice.”

“He didn’t want to testify.”

“I understand.”

“And remember,” she said. “Turant did kill Jordan Kravat. The cops made that clear. It wasn’t like he was putting an innocent man away. They had the evidence. There was no doubt in anyone’s mind.”

Jeremy nodded. “Okay, so let’s skip ahead to a few minutes ago. You talked to Bo on the phone?”

“Yes.”

“And?”

“And he’s with Joey’s people. They want him to tell the truth to the press. Show the corruption of the police. And if he goes public, they promise not to hurt him. And yes, I believe them. If they hurt him now, then the police can claim Joey the Toe forced him to change his story.”

Myron couldn’t tell whether this argument was coming from a place of hope or reason. She seemed to be trying to convince herself, which made total sense. But so did the argument. Win had said something similar. Bo changing his testimony would only work for Joey Turant if Bo stayed alive, healthy, and did not appear to be under duress.

A phone buzzed. Jeremy grabbed it, looked at the screen, frowned.

“Everything okay?” Myron asked.

“Fine. But I need to take this. I’ll be back in a second.”

He headed into the other room, leaving Myron and Grace alone.

For a moment they both looked away. Myron felt awkward standing there. He wasn’t sure what to do here, so he stayed quiet.

“He’s a good man,” Grace said. “Jeremy, I mean.”

Myron nodded.

“As soon as I called him about his father, he caught the next flight out. He was here in three hours.”

They sat in uncomfortable, heavy silence.

Then she said, “I know biologically he’s your son.”

Myron didn’t reply.

“I know what you and Emily did,” Grace said with something approaching disgust in her voice. “Greg just told me a few days ago.”

Myron said nothing.

“That crushed him, you know. It took Greg a long time to get over the trust issues.”

Myron kept quiet.

“I’m talking about how you and Emily slept together the night before the wedding.”

“Yeah,” Myron said, “I kinda guessed that.”

“I’m not saying what Greg did in response wasn’t wrong—”

“Hey, Grace?” he said for the second time today.

She stopped.

“I’m not rehashing the past with you, okay?”

Myron stepped away and tried his father’s phone again. This time it was answered on the second ring by his mother.

“Your father is fine,” Mom said. “It’s a broken nose.”

“Where is he?”

“He’s still with the doctor. But he’s fine. And the nose? It’ll have a new bump. Don’t tell him, but I think it’s kind of sexy.”

“I bet it is,” Myron said.

There was a pause.

“Mom?”

“What’s going on, Myron?”

“What do you mean?”

“I tell you it looks sexy, you usually say something like ‘I don’t need to hear this’ or ‘Ew, Mom, stop.’”

Man, Dad was right about how well she could read him.

“He broke his nose,” Myron said. “I’m worried about him. Did he fall? Did he hit his head? Make sure the doctor checks for a concussion. Is someone there to help you guys? Not just Cousin Norman. Call Aunt Tessie too. Also I want you guys to hire a nurse.”

“A what?”

“A nurse. Just to stay the night.”

“Do you know how expensive a nurse is?”

“I’ll pay.”

“Thank you, Daddy Warbucks, but I don’t want a stranger staying in my house.”

“They wouldn’t be a stranger—”

“And I’m supposed to entertain now too?”

“A nurse, Mom. I said a nurse, not a houseguest.”

“Speaking of which, the house is a mess. Your father is a slob. I don’t want a strange nurse just coming over—”

“Okay, fine, no nurse. I’ll call Aunt Tessie and—”

“Already done. We have plenty of help. Too much, in fact. Speaking of which, Tessie just arrived. I’ll call you later.”