Sacred

“Two months before the accident,” Trevor Stone said and picked up the photo for a moment. He looked at it, and the lower half of his ruined face spasmed into what I assumed was a smile. He placed it back on the desk, looked at us as we took the seats in front of him. “Do either of you know a private detective by the name of Jay Becker?”

“We know Jay,” I said.

“Works for Hamlyn and Kohl Investigations,” Angie said.

“Correct. Your opinion of him?”

“Professionally?”

Trevor Stone shrugged.

“He’s very good at his job,” Angie said. “Hamlyn and Kohl only hire the best.”

He nodded. “I understand they offered to buy the two of you out a few years ago if you’d come to work for them.”

“Where do you get this stuff?” I said.

“It’s true, isn’t it?”

I nodded.

“And it was a rather handsome offer from what I understand. Why did you refuse?”

“Mr. Stone,” Angie said, “in case you haven’t noticed, we’re not the power suits and boardroom type.”

“But Jay Becker is?”

I nodded. “He did a few years with the FBI before he decided he liked the money in the private sector more. He likes good restaurants, nice clothes, nice condo, that sort of thing. He looks good in a suit.”

“And as you said, he’s a good investigator.”

“Very,” Angie said. “He’s the one who helped blow the whistle on Boston Federal Bank and their mob ties.”

“Yes, I know. Who do you think hired him?”

“You,” I said.

“And several other prominent businessmen who lost some money when the real estate market crashed and the S and L crises began in ’88.”

“So if you used him before, why’re you asking us for a character reference?”

“Because, Mr. Kenzie, I recently retained Mr. Becker, and Hamlyn and Kohl as well, to find my daughter.”

“Find?” Angie said. “How long has she been missing?”

“Four weeks,” he said. “Thirty-two days to be exact.”

“And did Jay find her?” I said.

“I don’t know,” he said. “Because now Mr. Becker is missing as well.”

In the city this morning, it had been cold but reasonable with not much of a wind, the mercury hovering in the low thirties. Weather that made you aware of it, but not enough to make you hate it.

On Trevor Stone’s back lawn, however, the wind screamed off the Atlantic and the whitecaps churned, and the cold hit my face like pellets. I turned the collar of my leather jacket up against the ocean breeze, and Angie dug her hands deep into her pockets and hunched over, but Trevor Stone leaned into the wind. He’d added only a light gray raincoat to his wardrobe before leading us out here, and it flapped open around his body as he faced the ocean, seemed to dare the cold to infiltrate him.

“Hamlyn and Kohl has returned my retainer and dropped my case,” he said.

“What’s their cause?”

“They won’t say.”

“That’s unethical,” I said.

“What are my options?”

“Civil court,” I said. “You’d take them to the cleaners.”

He turned from the sea and looked at us until we understood.

Angie said, “Any legal recourse is useless.”

He nodded. “Because I’ll be dead before anything gets to trial.” He turned into the wind again and spoke with his back to us, his words carried on the stiff breeze. “I used to be a powerful man, unaccustomed to disrespect, unaccustomed to fear. Now I’m impotent. Everyone knows I’m dying. Everyone knows I have no time to fight them. Everyone, I’m sure, is laughing.”

I crossed the lawn and stood beside him. The grass dropped away just past his feet and revealed a bluff of craggy black stones, their surfaces shining like polished ebony against the raging surf below.

“So why us?” I said.

“I’ve asked around,” he said. “Everyone I’ve talked to says you both have the two qualities I need.”

“Which qualities?” Angie said.

“You’re honest.”

“Insofar—”

“—as that goes in a corrupt world, yes, Mr. Kenzie. But you’re honest to those who earn your trust. And I intend to.”

“Kidnapping us probably wasn’t the best way to go about it.”

He shrugged. “I’m a desperate man with a ticking clock inside me. You’ve shut down your office and refuse to take cases or even meet with potential clients.”

“True,” I said.

“I’ve called both your home and office several times in the last week. You don’t answer your phone and you don’t have an answering machine.”

“I have one,” I said. “It’s just disconnected at the moment.”

“I’ve sent letters.”

“He doesn’t open his mail unless it’s a bill,” Angie said.

He nodded, as if this were common in some circles. “So I had to take desperate measures to ensure you’d hear me out. If you refuse my case, I’m prepared to pay you twenty thousand dollars just for your time here today and your inconvenience.”

“Twenty thousand,” Angie said. “Dollars.”

“Yes. Money means nothing to me anymore and I have no heirs if I don’t find Desiree. Besides, once you check up on me, you’ll find that twenty thousand dollars is negligible in comparison to my total worth. So, if you wish, go back inside my study and take the money from the upper-right-hand desk drawer and go back to your lives.”

“And if we stay,” Angie said, “what do you want us to do?”

“Find my daughter. I’ve accepted the possibility that she’s dead. I’m aware of the likelihood of that, in fact. But I won’t die wondering. I have to know what happened to her.”

“You’ve contacted the police,” I said.

“And they’ve paid me lip service.” He nodded. “But they see a young woman, beset with grief, who decided to go off on a jaunt and get herself together.”

“And you’re sure that’s not the case.”

“I know my daughter, Mr. Kenzie.”

He pivoted on his cane and began walking back across the lawn toward the house. We followed and I could see our reflections in the large panes of glass fronting his study—the decaying man who stiffened his back to the wind as his raincoat flapped around him and his cane searched for purchase on the frozen lawn; on his left, a small, beautiful woman with dark hair blowing across her cheeks and the ravages of loss in her face; and on his right, a man in his early thirties wearing a baseball cap, leather jacket, and jeans, a slightly confused expression on his face as he looked at the two proud, but damaged people beside him.