Briefly, Mitchell considered the possibility that her disappearance was a sophomoric attempt to prove she could make him jealous enough to come after her. If so, she wasn’t the woman he thought she was.
He knew how to find her—she wasn’t lost to him. If she wasn’t listed in the phone book, he could trace her through her father’s newspaper obituary.
Several times he considered the possibility that something dire had happened that made her leave without a word.
Each time, he squelched that thought, along with the temptation to use it as an excuse to find her. She’d had the time, and the presence of mind, to pick up a stray dog at the vet. She’d intentionally left him to wait at the wharf.
The telephone on the table beside him began ringing and he ignored it.
ISN’T HEanswering the damned phone?” Matt Farrell asked his wife. Shoving his hands into his pockets, he turned and gazed out the living room windows of their penthouse apartment overlooking Lake Shore Drive. know he’s on the plane.”
Meredith laid aside the agenda she was supposed to be preparing for the next board of directors meeting of Bancroft & Company, a chain of luxury department stores founded by a Bancroft ancestor, and which she now headed. ’s probably in bed,” she said, but Matt heard the apprehension in her voice, and he remembered something that made Mitchell’s situation seem less grim. of that . . .” he said, and raised his brows, letting the sentence hang unfinished.
Meredith studied his expression but couldn’t connect it with anything other than possibly a hint that they should go to bed, which seemed unlikely given his urgent need to contact Mitchell and warn him that police on two continents were searching his apartments. of what?” she prompted finally.
of Mitchell being in bed,” Matt provided unhelpfully.
?” she said in smiling exasperation when he merely lifted his brows and left her hanging again, without any information.
Satisfied that she was fully engrossed in this new topic, he said, Zack called tonight to tell me Mitchell’s apartment in Rome was being searched, he also mentioned that Mitchell had phoned him earlier today from St. Maarten with a very interesting request— It seems that Mitchell has met someone down in the islands, and since he needed to come back here to be with Caroline and Billy for a few days, he wanted to be sure the lady would have avery pleasant time cruising the islands on theJulie while he was in Chicago.”
Tipping her head to the side, Meredith looked at him, puzzled. doesn’t sound particularly significant.”
’s not the significant part. The significant part is thatMitchell intended to fly back to the islands every night to be with her on the yacht. Hence,” he finished, with satisfaction at his wife’s look of surprised interest, connection between Mitchell being in bed on the plane and this discussion. I’m thinking maybe she’s with him and that’s why he hasn’t answered my calls. Her name is Kate, by the way.”
Meredith’s smile faded and so did Matt’s, for the same reason. hope she’s on the yacht and not on the plane,” Meredith said, putting both their thoughts into words. would be awful for him if she’s there and the police are waiting to talk to him when the plane lands, like Zack thinks is going to happen.”
may be leaping to conclusions,” Matt replied, walking toward the telephone.
you don’t think he’s leaping to conclusions, do you?”
.” He hesitated, reluctant to worry her, but unwilling to lie to her.
Meredith wasn’t certain what to expect. Years before, Matt had watched his friend Zack Benedict get wrongly convicted of murdering his actress wife, and the bitter experience had left both men intensely mistrustful of the criminal justice system. As a result, Matt had already arranged for his chauffeur to be ready to head for the hangar at O’Hare with two attorneys from the law firm that handled both Matt’s and Mitchell’s corporate affairs in Chicago.
THE TELEPHONE NEXTto the sofa began ringing again, and Mitchell ignored it, but very few people had the plane’s phone number, and all of them were important to him for one reason or another. Since the brandy he’d been drinking had only made him sink deeper into a state of confused longing for Kate, he finally reached for the telephone to give himself a distraction. you are,” he said aloud when he answered, ’re persistent as hell.”
’s Matt,” his friend said after a startled pause. called an hour ago to say the police were swarming all over your apartment, searching for something. He also said your assistant in New York called because NYPD was searching your New York apartment.”
Mitchell straightened slowly to an upright position. are they searching for?”
assistant said the search warrant was for a man’s outdoor coat or jacket, black in color, and any item of apparel with buttons bearing a particular symbol on the back. The cops had a picture of the symbol. I have no idea what the Italian warrant was for, but Zack faxed me a copy of it.”
it to me,” Mitchell said, as anger began to replace some of the desolation he was feeling. He listened to Matt struggle through the Italian words, mispronouncing most of them. ’s what they’re looking for,” Mitchell said, halting Matt’s recitation.
is it?”
man’s black outdoor coat or jacket, and anything with buttons bearing a particular symbol.” Standing up, Mitchell ran his hand around the back of his neck. have no idea what this is about.”
and I both think it’s related to the discovery of your brother’s body.”
Mitchell shook his head in denial. nephew said the police already have a confession from an old drunk on a neighboring farm.”
’s what the police told your nephew, because that’s what they wantyou to think,” Matt argued. to me very carefully, because I’ve been through this before, and I know how the police operate. The searches of your apartments are occurring immediately after the discovery of your brother’s murdered body, which undoubtedly means you’ve become a suspect in his death. If so, the police want you back in Chicago, where they can either question you or arrest you. I think they’ll be waiting for you when your plane lands, and so does Zack.”
He paused, waiting for that to sink in, before he continued, ’ve phoned Levinson and Pearson and put them on standby to meet you at your plane. Joe O’Hara is ready to leave with the car and pick them up as soon as you give me the go-ahead. Zack disagrees with this plan. He doesn’t think you should land in Chicago at all. He thinks you should land somewhere else, out of U.S. jurisdiction tonight; hire criminal defense attorneys tomorrow; and then let them arrange with Cook County for you to voluntarily return. Zack is probably right.”