Payback Read online

  Luke shrugged. “Those videos never struck me as proving very much. All you saw was a masked person—you couldn’t even determine male or female—pushing something onto a boat deck.”

  “Not something. The guy was clearly wheeling body bags.”

  “Okay, body bags. But they were zippered shut, for heaven’s sake! They could have contained anything from dirty laundry to the Russian Imperial crown jewels.”

  “Yep, you’re right, they could,” Anna said crisply. “But the cops believe those bags contained the bodies of Ron Raven and the woman who’d been with him in the hotel room and they’re most likely right. After all, the cops found traces of blood in various places on the boat and you yourself told me a reputable lab used DNA testing to confirm that the blood belonged to Ron Raven. DNA matches don’t lie, Luke.”

  “I understand that. I’m not disputing that the DNA evidence confirms the blood on the boat deck was Ron’s.”

  “Well, there you are.”

  “The fact that a lab established the blood was Ron’s doesn’t tell us anything about how the blood got onto the boat,” Luke pointed out. “If I took a vial of your blood and dripped it across the floor of my bedroom, it doesn’t mean you’re dead or even that you were in my bedroom. A DNA match would simply prove that the blood on my bedroom floor was yours.”

  “And this is relevant to Ron Raven’s murder because…?”

  “Because we have no clue if Ron was dead or alive when his blood ended up on the deck of that stolen yacht.”

  “What exactly are you suggesting?” Anna’s gaze focused on him with new intensity. “That Ron and some unknown woman faked their deaths convincingly enough to persuade the entire Miami police force they’d been murdered? Good grief, Luke, get a grip.”

  “I just saw Ron, so that’s what must have happened.” Luke knew he sounded as stubborn as he felt. “It would have been easy enough for Ron to cut himself and sprinkle blood to fake a shooting.”

  “It wouldn’t have been easy at all.” Anna shook her head. “There was a lot of blood. We’re not talking about Ron pricking his finger. We’re talking lots and lots of blood, in a spatter pattern that suggested he’d been shot.”

  “If Ron had a good reason to disappear—and presumably he did—he might have been willing to sacrifice a pint or two of blood.”

  “You’re forgetting something important—the police identified his murderer.”

  “Yeah, so they did.” Luke’s voice was heavy with sarcasm. “And we all know the cops have never pinned a murder on the wrong culprit.”

  Anna turned her left hand palm up and wiggled her fingers. “Okay, on this side we have weeks of intensive professional investigation and a ton of forensic evidence suggesting Ron Raven was murdered in his hotel room by a man who’d already committed other murders.” She turned over her right hand. “On this side we have the fact that you saw somebody who looks like Ron Raven eating dinner in Cousin Bruno’s restaurant.”

  She tilted her head in exaggerated perplexity. “Hmm…let’s see. Which theory should we go with? Is Ron dead or alive? Gee, I can’t imagine.”

  Luke leaned across the table. “Stop being a smart-ass and explain to me what we know about Ron Raven’s disappearance that makes it impossible to believe the guy faked his own death.”

  “I thought I just did that, but I’ll do it again.” Anna ticked off on her fingers. “There was enough blood in Ron’s hotel room to suggest he was seriously injured. Ditto for his female companion. In that same hotel room, the cops found DNA from a convicted felon who’d already spent years in prison for murdering two other people. So we have two bleeding victims and a known killer in the same hotel room. Plus there’s been no activity at any of Ron’s bank accounts since the day he disappeared. If he faked his own death, he walked away from a load of money. Why would he?”

  “Because he was a bigamist and his life was getting complicated?”

  “He’d been a bigamist for decades,” Anna retorted. “Neither of his wives suspected anything.”

  “Maybe he left for financial reasons, then.”

  “He wasn’t under any unusual financial pressure. Everyone agrees Raven Enterprises was profitable at the time he disappeared.”

  Luke pushed back his chair, giving in to a burning need to do something more productive than argue the odds with his sister. Or maybe he just didn’t want to acknowledge the logic of his sister’s viewpoint. “I need to talk to the server who waited on Ron Raven.”

  “The server who waited on Ron’s look-alike,” Anna corrected.

  He ignored her reproof. “Sorry, Annie, I won’t be more than a minute or two. Choose something decadent for dessert, okay?”

  Luke made his way across the room and stood quietly while the young woman served entrées to a party of five businessmen. He stopped her as she hurried back toward the kitchen, glancing at her name tag as she whisked past.

  “Hey, Merrie, I’m sorry to delay you, but my name’s Luke Savarini. Bruno Savarini is my cousin.” He nodded across the room toward Anna. “And that’s my sister, Anna. You might recognize her since she’s one of your regular customers.”

  “I’m sorry. I’m new here.” The server smiled, trying not to look as impatient as she undoubtedly felt. “Anyway, it’s great to have you with us, Mr. Savarini. I hope you and your sister are enjoying your dinner.”

  “It was delicious, thanks.” Luke usually had a difficult time lying about food. This time, he barely noticed. “You’re the server for this table near the door, aren’t you?”

  Merrie glanced to the empty table he was indicating and nodded. “Yes, why? Is there a problem?”

  “Not at all.” She already seemed on the defensive, Luke thought. He needed to reassure her that she wasn’t about to get into trouble. “The thing is, I believe I saw an old friend a few minutes ago. He’d been eating at this table but he left before I managed to catch his eye.”

  “I’m afraid I can’t help—” Now that she knew she wasn’t facing a reprimand, the server was visibly itching to get away.

  Luke stepped in front of her, debating whether a healthy tip would make her more forthcoming. He decided against the tip, afraid it might be such an obvious bribe that she would clam up even more. “My friend and I lost track of each other when he moved to the D.C. area six months ago. I wondered if he was a regular here at the restaurant.”

  “I wouldn’t know. Sorry, Mr. Savarini. Like I said, I’m new. I only started last week and I’d never waited on him before, that’s for sure.”

  “Did he pay by credit card? If so, could you tell me his name? That would help me to confirm it really was my friend.”

  Merrie wasn’t stupid. Her smile vanished. “I’m sorry, sir, but I can’t give out personal information about one of our customers. As it happens, though, the guest you’re inquiring about paid in cash. In fact, he left without even waiting for his check. He just dropped a bundle of twenty-dollar bills on the table, but it was more than enough to cover his bill. Now, if you’ll excuse me, we’re really busy and I need to get back to work.” She walked away before Luke could ask any more questions.

  “Well, that got me precisely nowhere,” he said to his sister, sliding back into his seat. “The server admitted the guy didn’t wait for a check. He simply left a stack of twenty-dollar bills on the table to pay for his meal. As the owner of three restaurants, I can tell you that almost never happens.”

  “Let it go, Luke.” His sister handed him the dessert menu. “The reality is that Ron Raven is dead and you saw somebody who looked like him.”

  “The man recognized me,” Luke said. The more he replayed the incident in his mind, the more convinced he became that he’d seen Ron Raven, not some look-alike. “He knew I’d recognized him and he bailed without even waiting for his check. Then he damn near ran me down in the parking lot in order to avoid talking to me. If it was somebody who just looked like Ron, why was he so anxious to avoid me?”

  “Because you made him
nervous the way you were obviously pursuing him?”

  “No.” Luke gave a decisive shake of his head. “He ran because he recognized me. Then he dropped a pile of cash on the table to cover his bill because he hoped to get out of the door before I caught up with him. And it worked.”

  Luke knew he was being obstinate, but the sound of Ron’s laughter and the tilt of his head had seemed familiar even before he’d glimpsed the man’s features full face. A stranger might happen to look like Ron. What were the odds that the same stranger would also sound like him and have similar mannerisms?

  Anna was silent for a moment, finally giving real weight to the possibility that her brother had seen what he claimed. “If that man was Ron Raven and he recognized you, that means he hasn’t lost his memory….”

  “I agree.”

  “But if Ron isn’t suffering from memory loss, he’s deliberately hiding. That can’t be good, especially for his families.”

  Luke shrugged. “His wives and children already know Ron was a liar and a cheat. How is it worse for them to know he’s a live scumbag as opposed to a dead one?”

  “Maybe it’s not,” Anna conceded. “But I sure as hell would think long and hard before I went to either of his previous wives and informed them that I’d just seen their supposedly dead husband eating dinner in my cousin’s restaurant. Their most likely reaction is to have you arrested for harassment.”

  “Don’t they have a right to know?” Luke was unsure how he would answer his own question.

  “Know what, precisely?” Anna demanded. “That you think you may have seen a man who looks like Ron Raven, but he left the restaurant before the two of you exchanged a single word? Wow! There’s news to set the blogosphere humming.”

  “I wouldn’t be telling his families I saw a man who looked like Ron Raven,” Luke answered quietly. “I’d be telling them I’m pretty much one hundred percent sure that I saw Ron Raven, alive and in the flesh.”

  Anna drew in a sharp breath, taken aback by his conviction. “You were simply a business acquaintance of Ron’s, not an intimate friend. You probably didn’t meet him more than a couple of times.”

  “Try at least a dozen. Usually one-on-one, and sometimes for meetings that lasted as long as three or four hours. Ron Raven was a hands-on type of investor.”

  “Even so, it was six years ago and you’ve been leading a hectic life ever since then. Memories blur. Impressions get distorted. Plus, you have no idea what sort of people his wives and children are. Do you have the right to mess with the lives of people you’ve never even met?”

  Luke was silent for a long time. This was what came of stubbornly clinging to the notion of privacy in a family where if one person sneezed on Tuesday, by Friday every sibling and ten percent of the other relatives would have called to find out how the guy’s cold was progressing.

  “I have met Ron’s family,” he said finally. “Or at least his Chicago wife and daughter. I know them quite well, in fact.”

  Anna stared at him. She was thirteen months older, which meant that she’d known him for the entire thirty-four years of his existence. Apparently something in his voice had alerted her to the fact that his meetings with Avery and Kate Raven involved more than socializing with the family of the man who’d provided him with investment capital.

  “Define what you mean by knowing them quite well,” she said, in an ominous, older-sister tone of voice.

  Luke cursed silently. If he hadn’t been thrown for a loop by the glimpse of Ron Raven, he would never, ever, have laid himself open to this sort of sisterly scrutiny.

  He tried to speak with brisk indifference. “Kate…Ron’s daughter…is a pastry chef. She was a member of the U.S. team that competed in the Coupe du Monde de la Patisserie last year. The design concept for their chocolate torte was Kate’s and their team took the bronze medal. The French team won, of course—they always do—but the U.S. has never even placed in that competition before. These days, Kate is working as head pastry chef for La Lanterne, the finest bakery in Chicago.”

  He was rather pleased with his casual summation of Kate’s life. All professional accomplishment and nothing personal. Anna, unfortunately, was not deceived. “How long have you been dating her?” she asked. “And how the hell could you have kept quiet about her all those times we discussed Ron’s disappearance?”

  “I’m not dating her.” Under his sister’s unrelenting gaze, he expanded his answer. “Not anymore. We broke up a while ago.”

  “Before her father was murdered?”

  “Yes. A few weeks before, in fact.” To be precise, not long after their argument as to whether Luke respected her professional ambitions enough to take time off from the opening of his newest restaurant to fly to Lyon and watch her compete in the most important contest of her professional life. The preparation and endless hours of practice for the Coupe du Monde were so arduous they had both known Kate would be unlikely ever to enter the contest again. Seven months after their breakup, he was finally able to admit that his decision not to fly to France had probably contributed to the chain of events leading to their final, hideous confrontation.

  Anna looked hurt. “Quite apart from all the times we discussed Ron Raven’s murder, why didn’t you ever tell me you were dating somebody special?”

  Because he’d worked his ass off to keep the affair quiet. Because while he and Kate were dating, he’d been desperate to develop the relationship minus the analysis of his parents, his five siblings and all the assorted in-laws and cousins who might decide to stick their noses into this latest interesting piece of Savarini family gossip. Ironically, the spectacular emotional storm that ended his relationship with Kate had taught him the hard lesson that there were far more ways to screw up a relationship than subjecting it to benevolent interference from a close-knit family.

  “There was no point in talking to you about Kate. It wasn’t serious and we didn’t date all that long.” Eight months wasn’t very long, he soothed his conscience, so he wasn’t exactly lying. Luke hurried on, dodging more sisterly questions. “The thing is, I do know Kate and her mother well enough to be fairly sure that if Ron Raven is alive, they would want to hear about it.”

  A gruff, rumbling voice greeted them from across the room, saving him from further cross-examination. Thank you, Jesus.

  “Anna, mia piccola, come stai, carina?”

  “Bruno! Che sorpresa piacevole! Sto bene, grazie. E tu?”

  “Eh, cosi, cosi. No, no, don’t get up, Anna.” Cousin Bruno squeezed her shoulder. “What a treat to find you here! I’m glad I decided to stop by the restaurant after my daughter dragged me to the movies. We saw this horrible, boring movie about blowing up cars. If there was anything more to the plot, I must have missed those two lines of dialogue.”

  Anna laughed and stood up to hug him, ignoring his command. “Bruno, stop complaining. You know you love movies with lots of car chases.”

  “Yes, providing there’s a plot squeezed in between the chases.” He patted her shoulder. “You should have told me you planned to eat here tonight. I would have skipped the movie and been here to welcome you both.”

  “I wasn’t sure what our plans would be. Luke’s only in town for twenty-four hours. By the way, do you remember my brother, Luke?”

  “We never met.” Bruno shook hands. “But I ate at your restaurant last year when I was in Chicago. Luciano’s on Chestnut. I inquired after you, Luke, but the sous-chef told me you were at one of your other places that night. You can be very proud of what you’ve achieved with Luciano’s. The meal my brother and I ate was spectacular.”

  “Thank you. It’s a relief to know you were there on a night when we didn’t screw up.”

  “Somehow, I get the impression that you and your team don’t screw up very often.” Bruno pulled out a chair and sat down. “Well, I can’t compete with Luciano’s—we don’t even try to cater to that level of sophistication—but I’m proud of the desserts we make here. What can I get the two of you? O
ur tiramisu is made from an old family recipe handed down by my grandmother, and it’s the best ever, if I do say so myself. The panna cotta with caramel sauce is mighty fine, as well. We use buttermilk in addition to the cream and it’s not as bland as the traditional recipe.”

  “I love your amaretto ice cream,” Anna said. “It’s my personal favorite.”

  “Then amaretto ice cream it shall be for you, cara.” Bruno gave her hand a fatherly squeeze. “Luke, how about you?”

  “The panna cotta would be great,” he said. “I’ve never made it with buttermilk and it sounds interesting.”

  Their desserts arrived along with tiny cups of aromatic espresso and Luke chatted politely with his cousin, who seemed both a kindly man and an experienced chef. Maybe the ravioli has just been an unfortunate exception to generally good food, Luke mused. The panna cotta was certainly first-rate, and the buttermilk made for an intriguing variation on an old standby.

  Bruno excused himself to have a word with his staff, and Anna worked hard to keep Luke from reverting to their previous conversation about Ron Raven. Since Luke was working equally hard to prevent her picking up their conversation about Kate, the atmosphere around the table was unusually strained. They were both relieved when Bruno returned after a few minutes and sat down across from Luke.

  “Merrie, one of our servers, asked me to give you this,” he said, handing Luke a thin, crumpled credit card receipt. “She said you were inquiring about a couple that was seated at one of her tables. Apparently, they left this behind.”

  Luke picked up the flimsy slip of paper. “I appreciate Merrie thinking of me. But she told me that couple paid their bill in cash.”

  “They did. This isn’t one of our charge slips,” Bruno said. “If it was, I couldn’t pass it on. But Merrie found it tucked in among the stash of twenties they left behind to pay their bill. She was about to toss it away when she saw me ordering your desserts and realized you really are my cousin. Since this charge slip is nothing to do with us or the meal they ate here, and there’s no way to return it to the couple, I figure there’s no harm in handing it over to you. Merrie says you were interested in this man.”