“Yes. That was my assignment. After I arrived, I was called and told the assignment was canceled and to write my final report.”
“Do you think he died by accident?”
His voice was soft. “No. I think I was not supposed to be there to witness anything.”
Shock thrummed through Perri’s chest. “Laurel killed him?”
“Or had him killed. But I had zero proof. Zero.”
“Did you see any signs he was suicidal or depressed?”
“I would find it depressing if my wife paid a guy to follow me around. He was up to nothing. No other women, no drugs, nothing illegal. He went to his office—he was starting up a business for tax preparation, I think, a chain of those offices—and then he went home. He went to his daughter’s events at school and sometimes he drove his daughter and her friends around. He went to his uncle’s house because he’d inherited it and had some remodeling done and was getting it ready to put on the market.”
“And after his accident you didn’t go to the police?”
“No.” He cleared his throat. “I hadn’t even heard about his death. The next day there was a box, like I’d ordered books online, at my office door. Inside was thirty thousand in cash.” He looked away from her. “The cops didn’t think it was murder. Suicide or accident. So I kept my mouth shut. My parents…they don’t have much retirement savings. So. I stayed quiet.” Shame colored his voice. “This is all going to come out, isn’t it?”
“And then it was just coincidence my husband and I hired you to investigate the Nortons’ daughter?”
“Your husband told me he knew I did good work and could be trusted. He didn’t want to say who had recommended me to him.” He bit his lip.
She kept very still, but her mind raced. “OK. I want you to think. You said you had to purge anything regarding Cal from the reports at the request of Laurel. Did you follow Brent Norton anywhere else? Any other place?”
“If you want to tell the cops about me, fine. Go ahead. My folks needed the money. They can come after me, not them. They didn’t know. My brother and sister both died young and I’m all they’ve got.” Now his whisper had grown into a growl of defiance.
“I don’t care about that right now,” Perri said. “Was there any other place Brent went?”
“He went to Houston once—I had an associate of mine follow him from the airport there, but it was a meeting with an investor. Then once he went alone, here, to a marriage counselor. Alone. You know, like maybe asking if he needed to get counseling, which I could have told him yes for free. That was it.”
“All right…”
“Oh. Yes. Because I had to cut it. He went to your family’s lake house.”
“To see my husband?”
“No. Alone.”
The kids. The kids had gone to the lake house, according to Jane’s account of that night. “And he did what?”
“Walked around it. There was a satellite dish off the roof he looked at. He seemed to be waiting. Then a man came. I didn’t know who he was, but anything connected to Cal wasn’t to go into the file. The lake house was his, so I didn’t take notes to put into the report. They talked, briefly, and then they both left.”
“Who was this man?”
“I don’t know.”
“You didn’t take a picture?”
“No. It wasn’t to go into the file.”
“Do you remember the license plate, the car?”
“No.”
“You said you took those spreadsheets from Brent.”
“I broke into his office once. The spreadsheets were there, on his desk, along with some notes in his wife’s handwriting. I know it was hers because she wrote me checks. I made copies of both.”
“What was in her handwriting?”
“A long web address, very random. Like the kind you wouldn’t ever accidentally type. And some code. I think it must have been to access something on the web.”
“Did you try?”
“Yes. I got a ‘denied permission’ page. Got no farther. And then after I got that money and gave it to my parents, I didn’t ask questions about Brent Norton anymore. And you and I never had this conversation, Mrs. Hall. I need to go tend to my dad now. He gets confused.” He got up to go inside. “I would leave this alone. Nothing points to any crime, except someone bribed me to stay quiet, and what’s done is done. You might not like where an answer leads you.”
He shut the door on her as she sat unmoving on his porch.
The lake house. Kamala had gone there; the kids had gone there; and Brent Norton had gone there. Something was there, the key to all this.
52
KEVIN TEXTED JANE: I am still to meet your mother at her charity office; closed today, so will be private. Please remember everything that has happened is for the best.
Jane had the photo of her mother and Cal. She had, in her pocket, the other scraps that came from her father’s file: the paper with the long-coded numbers and letters that seemed to lead to a hidden website, the folded spreadsheets. She didn’t know what they meant, but she was going to give them to Trevor to keep for her, in case this went wrong. Because they could not be explained, they had to be part of the explanation of the mystery that lay at the center of her life. Her mother had loved her, and taken care of her, and written about her in ways she wished she hadn’t, but now Laurel had lied to Jane, and the truth had to be brought to light.
Trevor picked her up a bit before two. He was in jeans and a dark T-shirt that was tight on his strong frame, and the shirt said SECURITY in big yellow letters on the front; he wore dark glasses. He did look intimidating. But he greeted her with a smile. A big, slightly goofy smile. Like the world might be OK.
“You took being my badass sidekick seriously,” she said.
“I worked as a bouncer on Sixth Street for about ten minutes, but I’m not really a night person,” he said.
They parked across the street from her mother’s office. Her mother’s car and another car were already there. “Is that car Kevin’s?” he asked.
“I guess.”
“Do you want me to come with you?”
“Yes.”
“This is kind of personal, Jane. If you decide you want me to leave, to have privacy with her…”
“I know. But she loves her audience. This time I pick the audience.”
“This is going to be brutal if your mom tells him to write up commitment papers.”
“I’ve had a lot of brutal in the past week. It’s about to get brutal for her.” I don’t know if I can do this. What am I suggesting to my mom? That she had an affair and then my dad died? In an accident or suicide or…? She couldn’t think that next, inevitable thought. She couldn’t. She felt feverish, sick. But it would have to be done.
They walked toward the office. She didn’t know why but she reached out for Trevor’s hand. She squeezed his hand and he squeezed back.
She stepped into the office. Her mother stood in her private office’s doorway, Kevin sitting in a chair, looking miserable…and two large men in suits and sunglasses, hands folded in front of them, waiting like sentinels.
Jane laughed in disbelief.
“My apologies, Jane,” Kevin said. “I had to tell her.”
Her mother gave her a pitying smile. “Sweetheart, I’m sorry about this.”