Jake took a right turn, preoccupied. His theory made sense because it answered some of the questions he’d had earlier, like why was Kathleen running alone so late at night? Maybe it wasn’t unusual for the track team, but what if Kathleen was using running as a pretense to get out of the house at night? What if she was going to Dolomite Road to meet someone, in a car? But who was she meeting? Someone whom Kathleen was keeping a secret, probably from her mother, if she was meeting him in a car.
Jake turned right and joined the traffic on Concordia Boulevard. Ahead lay the manicured main entrance to the corporate center, with its varietal grasses in mulched beds, around the brown sign that read CONCORDIA CORPORATE CENTER, HOME TO AMERICAN BUSINESS! Underneath that was a listing of corporate tenants; Brej Construction Management, Moxico, LLC, Valley Tech, SMS, Goren’s Janitorial, Branson Hospitality Services, with a subhead that read FORTUNE’S 100 BEST COMPANIES TO WORK FOR! He scanned the list as he approached, thinking that the most likely person to know about the lovers’ lane on Dolomite Road was someone who worked at one of these businesses. He reached the entrance and on impulse, turned right into its campus.
If he got lucky, he’d spot a dark BMW with an HKE license plate.
Chapter Thirty-nine
Jake cruised the parking lot and scanned a row that held a gray Toyota, a lemony VW Beetle, a white Acura, and an older brown Honda, his thoughts churning. If Voloshin had discovered that Kathleen was meeting a lover, he could have become jealous, even angry. What if Voloshin had tried to blackmail her lover, the way he tried to blackmail Jake? Voloshin could have threatened to tell the man’s wife, if the man was married, or to tell Kathleen’s mother, or even the authorities, because Kathleen was underage. The lover would be guilty of statutory rape if it came to light that he’d had sex with Kathleen.
Jake surveyed the parked cars, cruising past the bumper stickers and decals. MY CAT CAN BEAT UP YOUR HONOR STUDENT, a navy blue Nittany Lion, a white circle for Academy of Notre Dame de Namur, an oval 13.1 decal, and a puzzle piece for Autism Awareness. He didn’t see the BMW yet, and his head was full of questions. What if Voloshin had tried to blackmail the BMW driver, but unlike Jake, the man hadn’t come up with blackmail money? Or what if the man in the BMW had been the one who murdered Voloshin?
Jake’s fingers clenched around the steering wheel, and he drove down one line of parked cars, then the other. The police would have seen the bulletin board in Voloshin’s apartment, unless the killer took it. He assumed for a moment that the killer took the bulletin board, along with the laptop and phone, then he rejected that as highly unlikely. If the killer were a burglar, no burglar would take a bulletin board, and it would attract attention to be hurrying from the apartment with a large, unwieldy bulletin board.
Jake spotted BMWs, but they were the wrong color, too, so he drove on, mentally testing his theory. The killer could have gotten away with taking only the photo of the sedan parked on Dolomite Road, but that was unlikely too. The photo was half-hidden and someone who committed murder would be in a hurry to escape. Jake drove preoccupied past USPS mailboxes, FedEx, DHL, and UPS drop-offs, and the endless signage that replaced trees; THIS IS A TOBACCO FREE WORKPLACE, SPEED LIMIT 10, UNAUTHORIZED VEHICLES TOWED AT OWNER’S EXPENSE, ADDITIONAL PARKING ON OTHER SIDE OF BUILDING, ALL VISITORS PLEASE CHECK IN AT 200 CONCORDIA PARKWAY.
Jake navigated to another section of the parking lot and surveyed the cars, but they seemed to recede into the background as he realized something awful. If the killer looked inside Voloshin’s computer and phone, then he would know what actually happened the night of the accident on Pike Road, that he and Ryan were responsible for Kathleen’s death. And the killer would also know that Jake was being blackmailed, too. The police had said that they had seen evidence that Voloshin was setting up an offshore account.
Jake felt a new tingle of fear, and another set of questions rushed at him. If the killer had feelings for Kathleen, he could want revenge on those responsible for her death. What if the killer decided to come after Ryan? Or him, or Pam? Jake had to find out who killed Voloshin, so he could protect his family. His troubles weren’t over with Voloshin’s death, they were just beginning. Whoever the killer was, he was a lot more dangerous than Voloshin.
Jake headed down another aisle of cars and checked each one, redoubling his efforts. Who was the killer? How did Kathleen find him? If her mother didn’t know about him, did any of her friends? How could such a nice young girl be mixed up with somebody ruthless enough to stab a man to death? Suddenly his phone started ringing, and he checked the screen. It was Pam calling, and he picked up. “Yes?”
“Listen, I don’t have much time. We’re on break during oral arguments.” Pam’s tone was clipped and professional. “I just spoke with Ryan. He called me.”
“Okay, what’s up?” Jake sensed Pam was telling him that Ryan called her, not him, as if they still were playing tug-of-war with their son.
“There’s a memorial program tonight at school for Kathleen. The team is going, and he has to go with them.”
“Oh no.” Jake pulled over and parked, so he could focus. “That’ll be tough for him. Can’t he get out of it? Can’t we say he got sick again?”
“No. He has to go. We have to go, too. He’ll need the support. You have to leave work early. The program starts at six thirty.”
“Okay, fine.” Jake didn’t bother explaining that he wasn’t at work. “But honey, listen, we have to settle this. I can’t move out now. You have to let me stay home.”
“No I don’t. Get a hotel room. No one has to know. We’ll keep it a secret. You’re good at that.”
“Pam, I don’t think you and Ryan should be alone in the house right now. It’s not safe.”
“You’re just saying that because you don’t want to break up.”
“That’s not true. I’m saying it because you could be in danger. So could we all. The more I think about it, the more I worry that whoever killed Voloshin could come after us—”
“I thought you were worried about the police. Now a murderer’s coming after me? What is this, scare tactics?”
“No. It could happen, babe. I looked at those pictures you took and I figured out that Kathleen was meeting someone in secret. I’m thinking he’s the guy who killed Voloshin—”
“So what are you saying? I need a bodyguard?”
Jake hadn’t gotten that far in his thinking. “You might—”
“Oh, great! Of course we can’t go to the police, or Ryan goes to jail. My son goes to jail!”
“That won’t happen.”
“What do we do then? Got any ideas?”
“We can talk about it tonight. I need you to be careful. Keep an eye out when you’re driving or when you—”
“Jake, if you’re trying to scare me into staying in this marriage, it won’t work. You don’t understand the damage you’ve done. You don’t get it.”
“We can fix it. I can fix it.”
“No we can’t,” Pam shot back. “I didn’t go outside the marriage because I wanted to, I went out because I had to. I’m not proud of it, but it is what it is. And we gave it a shot, which you totally destroyed. I’m making myself crazy, going over it and over it in my head. If we had broken up, you wouldn’t have been in the car Friday night with Ryan. None of this would have happened.”
“You can’t think that way. You don’t know that—”
“Yes, I do. Get your head out of the sand, Jake. It’s over. It has to be. We can’t go back, we just can’t. I can’t. I’m done. I can’t forgive you, ever. I want a divorce.”
“Babe, listen, I love you, and no matter what problems we’re having, we have to get through this together. Even tonight, we have to put up a united front, for Ryan’s sake.”
“You’re saying that for you, not for him.”
“No, I’m not. You know this is killing him, and we have to make sure he keeps it together. He’s cutting classes, getting high, messing up in basketball. God knows what he could do next. He needs us both—”
“You’re shameless! Since when are you so sensitive to our son? Since he started taking your side? Since he decided I’m the bad guy?”