Payback Read online

  Kate wasn’t ready to acknowledge that Luke might have found himself in an almost impossible position. “You should have talked to me,” she said tersely. “Not my mother.”

  Luke’s smile was wintry. “Maybe, but I was never into masochism, Katie. Having my balls cut off and shoved down my throat comes way down on my list of ways I want to spend the morning.”

  Goose bumps erupted all over her arms when he called her Katie, even though the endearment was tucked inside a major insult. She reminded herself that her body was simply responding to ingrained sexual cues after months without sex. In her current celibate state, she could probably watch Patrick Dempsey making out with a TV lover and her hormones would provide the same knee-jerk response. And, watching Patrick, she’d get the sexual buzz without the added insult.

  “For some reason, my mother believes your story about seeing Ron Raven might actually be true.” She hadn’t intended to sound so hostile, but Luke’s presence suffocated her, destroying her good intentions. She struggled to moderate her tone. “My mother asked me to find out if you had any additional information we might be able to hand over to a private investigator in the hope that he would be able to track down the man you saw in Washington, D.C.”

  “Do you believe I saw your father?” Luke asked. His voice was unexpectedly quiet and the question seemed less of an attack, more of a genuine request for her opinion.

  Kate hadn’t yet summoned the courage to examine that question. She’d focused on her mother’s state of mind and Luke’s transgressions mostly because it let her off the hook in terms of her own reaction to the eerie possibility that her father was alive.

  “I’m sure you believe you saw him,” she said finally. Even when she’d first heard the news, she’d never doubted Luke’s sincerity.

  “That’s not what I asked.”

  She shrugged. “You knew my father quite well. I’m assuming the lighting was adequate and you saw him reasonably close up?”

  “Yes.” Luke’s hesitation was almost imperceptible. “I heard him laugh before I looked at him. I was talking to my sister when I heard this familiar sound and I thought, My God, that sounds just like Ron Raven. I glanced up, not expecting to see him, of course, despite the laughter. But there he was. Eating dinner with an attractive, dark-haired woman and looking as if he was enjoying himself. For a couple of seconds, I was literally too shocked to move.”

  The sickness in Kate’s stomach returned with renewed intensity. Hearing Luke describe the incident gave her father’s possible reappearance a reality it had previously lacked. An unwelcome reality, she realized. “There doesn’t sound as if there’s a whole lot of room for you to have made a mistake.”

  “No. Still, I never exchanged a single word with the man and never heard him speak to anyone else. Everybody’s supposed to have a double somewhere in the world. Perhaps I saw Ron’s.”

  She wished she could believe that, but her ability to ignore inconvenient facts wasn’t quite up to the task. “My mother said the man ran away when you tried to approach him.”

  Luke nodded. “He was sitting right next to the door, and I was across the room, tucked into an alcove, with at least half a dozen tables between me and the exit. I chased him into the parking lot, but there was no way to stop him driving off once he made it into his car. I discovered it’s a lot more difficult to catch somebody than it looks in the movies.”

  “I guess you didn’t manage to get the license number of his car as he drove away?”

  “Actually, I did.”

  “You did?” She glanced up, startled. “Could we trace it, then?”

  “I already had a private investigator track it down before I contacted your mother. The car was a brand-new Mercedes, and it was registered to a man called Stewart M. Jones.”

  For a second, Kate was puzzled. Then she realized that—of course—if her father wanted to avoid being discovered he couldn’t go around calling himself Ron Raven. “If you have those vehicle registration details, my mother and I should be able to track the car’s owner back to an address, shouldn’t we? I assume you have to give an address when you register a car in Virginia?”

  “Apparently, yes. But my investigator reported that Stewart Jones sold the vehicle the day after I chased him into the parking lot. What’s more, the address given on the accompanying paperwork isn’t valid.”

  “He gave a fake address?” Kate realized her surprise was misplaced. “Well, of course he would have to, I guess, since he was trying to stop you tracking him down.”

  “The address wasn’t fake in the sense it didn’t exist. It just wasn’t Mr. Jones’s current place of residence. According to my investigator, somebody calling himself Mr. Jones lived at the address for a few weeks back in the summer. But he moved away from that particular location a couple of months ago.”

  She sighed. “In other words, the car is pretty much a dead end in terms of tracking down Mr. Jones.”

  “I’m afraid so.”

  “You clearly believe that Stewart Jones is simply another name for Ron Raven, and that Ron sold his car rather than risk being traced.”

  “Yes, that’s what I think.” Luke shrugged. “But take my opinion for what it’s worth. Not much, according to the cops. They’re convinced Ron is dead and that I’m a crime-scene junkie with delusions of seeing dead people. And they’re the experts, after all.”

  She wished she could dismiss his story as the ramblings of a nutcase, Kate thought miserably, but his information was almost more compelling because he was so willing to provide her with reasons not to accept it. Luke was among the more down-to-earth people she knew, and she simply couldn’t picture him disrupting an enjoyable dinner with his sister to conjure up imaginary visions of a dead man.

  “I appreciate the effort you put into tracking down the man you saw,” she said finally. “It sounds to me as if it really could be my father, so it’s probably just as well you didn’t manage to catch up with him.” She forgot for a moment to hide her feelings and allowed bitterness to seep into her voice. “I don’t see how it can bring my mother anything but grief to have proof that her lying, cheating husband is alive.”

  “Ron left behind three children as well as two wives,” Luke said, his voice still quiet. “What does it say about his relationship with them…with you…if he’s determined not to be found? Don’t let him off the hook, Katie. You deserve better from him. For that matter, so do your half brother and sister.”

  The absolute last thing she wanted was for Luke to be kind or sympathetic. Kate could feel her composure fraying by the second, unraveled by his gentleness. This would be an excellent moment to make her escape, she decided. So far she and Luke had managed to avoid inflicting serious bodily harm on each other, which had to be a good thing. Not to mention a precarious thing. It would be smart not to tempt fate.

  “You’re right.” She inclined her head in acknowledgment. “If my father is alive, he has a lot to answer for. Except that I’m not sure I care enough to ask the questions. Right now, I feel he doesn’t deserve that much attention from me.”

  “What about your half brother and sister?”

  “I don’t know. I haven’t found the courage to meet them yet. Fortunately for me, I was in Europe when Adam brought Megan to Chicago after they got married.” She stopped abruptly. This was getting too personal again. “Anyway, thanks for all you’ve done, Luke. Sorry about the earlier hostility. I was worried about my mother and took out my worries on you.”

  She dredged up a bright, meaningless smile, just to show that they were both grown-ups, and that this was a business conversation despite the intensely personal nature of the topic. “Would you give me the name of the detective you used to track the vehicle registration tags? If my mother should decide to pursue an investigation, it only makes sense to build on the inquiries you’ve already made.”

  She felt Luke’s gaze rest on her face, but she avoided looking up. She was getting the same shaky, desperate feeling that had affli
cted her in the weeks immediately after she learned Ron Raven had been murdered. She despised herself for still caring about her father, but she could only hide her emotions, not banish them. Luke had always been able to see through her protective barriers more easily than other men and that was a problem, given how badly she wanted to keep her feelings to herself. With all the evidence they already had of Ron Raven’s deceptions and double dealings, it was humiliating to go to pieces over the fact that her father apparently cared about her even less than she’d previously realized. She didn’t want Luke to know how…abandoned…she felt at this moment.

  Thankfully, he made no more personal comments. “The investigator I used is called George Klein,” he said. “George is ethical, efficient and easy to work with and I’m happy to recommend him. If you decide to go ahead with an investigation, let me know. I have a couple of other tips that might help. Or they might be completely useless. To be honest, my guess is that your father has already moved on to a different city. He most likely ditched the Stewart Jones identity at the same time as he sold the Mercedes. He’s a man accustomed to planning ahead, so he would have had another identity already waiting for him to step into.”

  “I’m sure you’re right.” The restaurant business stayed afloat on illegal immigrant labor, and Kate was all too familiar with how easy it was to buy fake documentation. If dishwashers with no education and no English language skills could get themselves all the papers they needed, it would presumably be child’s play for her father to acquire however many new identities he might want or need. Even in a post 9/11 world, as long as you weren’t trying to get into a secure building or fly overseas, a fake ID could take you almost anywhere you wanted to go.

  Luke pushed a pile of papers to one side and picked up a business card. “I intended to give your mother George’s card this morning, but in the end it didn’t seem appropriate. She was too upset.” He held out the card and Kate concentrated on taking it without touching even the tip of his fingers. She tucked it into her purse, repeating her thanks.

  She was so relieved that their meeting was over that she looked up to say her final goodbye without paying proper attention. She’d gone through their entire conversation without actually meeting Luke’s eyes. And then, in the final seconds, she was careless enough to blow it.

  His gaze locked with hers and he said her name, just once. She could have sworn she detected a note of yearning in his voice. They were separated by the width of his desk, but the space between them filled instantly with emotions woken from an uneasy seven-month slumber. The weight of issues left unresolved became heavier and more oppressive as they stood there, unable to look away from each other.

  Like the rumble of distant thunder moving ominously closer, Kate realized that desire was fermenting beneath all her other feelings and had been ever since Luke walked out of the kitchen and into her line of sight. One wrong move on her part and the background rumble would become a crashing, foreground crescendo.

  Luke saved her from making a move that she would inevitably have regretted later. “How is Michael?” he asked.

  The thunder exploded directly overhead, flattening every last trace of desire and leaving her shaking with rage. “Michael is well,” she said, surprised that her brain and vocal cords were capable of working in synch to produce coherent words. Actually, for all she knew, Michael could be dead. More likely, he was exercising his sexual charms on some blond wannabe starlet, his usual quarry.

  “Thanks again for the information about my father. Goodbye, Luke.” She turned and walked out of his office, almost running across the dining room to the safety of the exit. Were there really a hundred miles of carpet for her to navigate? It sure felt like it.

  She knew she ought to be grateful for the salutary reminder of exactly why she loathed Luke Savarini. Give her a couple of hours and she’d undoubtedly get there. Right now, though, she wasn’t sure what hurt more: the fact that her father might be alive, or the fact that her relationship with Luke was incontrovertibly, hopelessly dead.

  The only thing she knew with certainty was that one way or another, this had been a hell of a rotten day.

  Seven

  H e was a stupid, dumb fuck. And that was the polite way to describe himself, Luke thought bitterly. Ignoring the buzzer and the blinking lights that warned him a major crisis had just occurred in the kitchen, he tore through the dining room in search of Kate. He caught up with her outside, where she was handing her parking ticket to one of the valets.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, putting his hand beneath her elbow and propelling her away from the curious ears of the college kids working the valet station. “Katie, look at me, for God’s sake. What I said—it was stupid. I couldn’t handle the way I was feeling, so I made the first comment that came into my head.”

  “If that’s supposed to make me feel better, it doesn’t.” Kate disengaged her arm and half turned so that she didn’t have to look at him. “What does it say about us if the first thing that pops into your head is an image of me with Michael?”

  She was so far off the mark Luke might have found her misconceptions funny in different circumstances. The first thing that had popped into his head when he saw Kate tonight had nothing to do with Michael. Not a damn thing. His first thought had been simply that she was so beautiful it hurt him to look at her. His next couple of hundred thoughts had been variations on the theme of how badly he wanted to take her to bed. His question about Michael had been a desperate attempt to stop himself from doing something insane like lunging across the desk, grabbing the lapels of her sexy black jacket and kissing her senseless.

  At one level, you could say his move had succeeded brilliantly. The chances of him and Kate ever having sex again had just sunk to several levels below the possibility that the Cubs would win two World Series in a row.

  Hey, congratulations, moron! You won the pissing contest. Feeling good about your victory?

  “I wasn’t trying to hurt you.” Admitting the truth was fairly easy since he had nothing much left to lose. “I lashed out at you to protect myself.”

  “I know. I do understand, Luke. I understand all too well.” She tilted her head to look up at him, her spectacular blue eyes more sad than angry. “That’s exactly why we should keep out of each other’s way, because when we’re together, that’s what we do nowadays—we lash out and hurt each other. You look at me and all you see is one unbearable image—Michael…your best friend…lying next to me in bed. I look at you and see the man who always—always!—put work ahead of our relationship, however much I needed you.”

  Luke forced himself to shut up and think before speaking. Okay, so Kate was equating two things that in his book didn’t begin to balance out. Yes, he’d failed to put in an appearance when she was competing in an important culinary contest, but that hardly ranked up there in the sin department alongside her decision to have sex with Michael, former high school buddy and fabulously wealthy commodities broker.

  For the first time since the two of them broke up, Luke recognized it was a zero-sum game to get dragged into an argument about who was more of a workaholic and who had been more at fault. He didn’t change his opinion that Kate’s betrayal had been worse than his, but he at least managed to avoid pointing out how despicable her infidelity had been.

  How much her infidelity had hurt him, he finally admitted.

  “We messed up in the spring, Katie, both of us. But that’s past and there’s plenty of blame to spread around. Right now, I’m thinking I’d like the chance to redeem my share of the screwup.”

  “How? By rolling back time?” Her question seemed sad rather than sarcastic. “That would be quite a trick if you can pull it off.”

  “If we concentrate on the future, the past doesn’t have to control us.”

  “There is no we. We don’t have a future, Luke.”

  “No, I guess we don’t, not as a couple. But we have a shared interest in finding out who it was I saw in Herndon.”

 
“Why do you care if Ron Raven is alive or dead? He’s nothing to you.”

  “That’s not true. Ron Raven is the man who made my dreams possible. I owe him. And I’m the person claiming he’s alive. I need to find out if I’m right.” He reached out, the gesture instinctive. He was smart enough to let his hand drop without touching her. “Let me set up a meeting in George Klein’s office and we can talk to him together. Bring your mother if you want, or not, if you would prefer the two of us to handle the nitty-gritty of the investigation.”

  Kate still didn’t look directly at him. “It’s my mother’s decision whether to pursue an investigation, not mine.”

  “You never used to duck the difficult issues,” he said softly. “Yes, it’s your mother’s decision, but it isn’t hers alone. There’s your father’s family in Wyoming to consider. And then there’s you.” He wasn’t entirely sure why he was pushing to get involved in the search for Ron Raven, but he had a gut-level feeling that fate was holding up a billboard-size placard informing him that there are no coincidences in life and that he’d seen Ron in his cousin’s restaurant for a reason.

  “Be honest about what’s at stake here, Katie. Even if you’re prepared to give Ron a free pass on his bigamous marriage to your mother, you can’t ignore what supposedly happened in Miami last May. If Ron wasn’t the victim of a brutal murder, then he almost certainly faked his own death. He sure as hell owes you an explanation for that.”

  “You think?” Kate’s smile was ironic, but for the first time that night, he sensed it was also genuine. Her smile changed to a sigh. “You’re right, I suppose. I can’t just ignore what you saw. We need to find out whether my father’s alive.”

  “I understand it’s a messy situation that might be difficult to resolve. What I don’t understand is why you’re so reluctant to make the attempt. How is it better to live with the mess? Do you just keep walking around it and pretending it’s not there?”