Tell No One

Still staring at the TV screen, she felt the tears start welling up.

“And Dr. Beck is still at large tonight?”

“Yes, Terese. The police are asking for the public’s cooperation, but they stress that no one should approach him on their own.”

Chatter followed. Meaningless chatter.

She turned away. Rebecca. Oh God, not Rebecca. And she’d gotten married. Had probably picked out dresses and china patterns and done all those things they used to mock. How? How had Rebecca gotten tangled up in all this? Rebecca hadn’t known anything.

Why had they killed her?

Then the thought hit her anew: What have I done?

She had come back. They had started looking for her. How would they have gone about that? Simple. Watch the people she was closest to. Stupid. Her coming back had put everyone she cared about in danger. She had messed up. And now her friend was dead.

“British Airways Flight 174, departing for London. All rows may now board.”

There was no time to beat herself up. Think. What should she do? Her loved ones were in danger. Beck—she suddenly remembered his silly disguise—was on the run. He was up against powerful people. If they were trying to frame him for murder—and that seemed pretty obvious right now—he’d have no chance.

She couldn’t just leave. Not yet. Not until she knew that Beck was safe.

She turned and headed for an exit.

When Peter Flannery finally saw the news reports on the David Beck manhunt, he picked up the phone and dialed a friend at the D.A.’s office.

“Who’s running the Beck case?” Flannery asked.

“Fein.”

A true ass, Flannery thought. “I saw your boy today.”

“David Beck?”

“Yeah,” Flannery said. “He paid me a visit.”

“Why?”

Flannery kicked back his BarcaLounger. “Maybe you should put me through to Fein.”

35

When night fell, Tyrese found me a room at the apartment of Latisha’s cousin. We couldn’t imagine that the police would unearth my connection with Tyrese, but why take the chance?

Tyrese had a laptop. We hooked it up. I checked my email, hoping for a message from my mysterious mailer. Nothing under my work account. Nothing under my home account. I tried the new one at bigfoot.com. Nothing there either.

Tyrese had been looking at me funny since we’d left Flannery’s office. “I ask you something, Doc?”

“Go ahead,” I said.

“When that mouthpiece said about that guy being murdered—”

“Brandon Scope,” I added.

“Yeah, him. You look like someone hit you with a stun gun.”

It had felt it. “You’re wondering why?”

Tyrese shrugged.

“I knew Brandon Scope. He and my wife shared an office at a charitable foundation in the city. And my father grew up with and worked for his father. In fact, my father was in charge of teaching Brandon about the family holdings.”

“Uh-huh,” Tyrese said. “What else?”

“That’s not enough?”

Tyrese waited. I turned to face him. He kept his eyes steady and for a moment I thought he could see all the way to the blackest corners of my soul. Thankfully, the moment passed. Tyrese said, “So what do you want to do next?”

“Make a few phone calls,” I said. “You sure they can’t be traced back here?”

“Can’t see how. Tell you what, though. We’ll do it with a conference call to another cell phone. Make it that much harder.”

I nodded. Tyrese set it up. I had to dial another number and tell somebody I didn’t know what numbers to dial. Tyrese headed for the door. “I’m gonna check on TJ. I’ll be back in an hour.”

“Tyrese?”

He looked back. I wanted to say thanks, but somehow it didn’t feel right. Tyrese understood. “Need you to stay alive, Doc. For my kid, see?”

I nodded. He left. I checked my watch before dialing Shauna’s cell phone. She answered on the first ring. “Hello?”

“How’s Chloe?” I asked.

“Great,” she said.

“How many miles did you walk?”

“At least three. More like four or five.” Relief coursed through me. “So what’s our next—”

I smiled and disconnected the phone. I dialed up my forwarding buddy and gave him another number. He mumbled something about not being a goddamn operator, but he did as I asked.

Hester Crimstein answered as though she were taking a bite out of the receiver. “What?”

“It’s Beck,” I said quickly. “Can they listen in, or do we have some kind of attorney-client protection here?”

There was a strange hesitation. “It’s safe,” she said.

“I had a reason for running,” I began.

“Like guilt?”

“What?”

Another hesitation. “I’m sorry, Beck. I screwed up. When you ran like that, I freaked out. I said some stupid things to Shauna, and I quit as your attorney.”

“Never told me,” I said. “I need you, Hester.”

“I won’t help you run.”

“I don’t want to run anymore. I want to surrender. But on our terms.”

“You’re not in any position to dictate terms, Beck. They’re going to lock you up tight. You can forget bail.”

“Suppose I offer proof I didn’t kill Rebecca Schayes.”

Another hesitation. “You can do that?”

“Yes.”

“What sort of proof?”

“A solid alibi.”

“Provided by?”

“Well,” I said, “that’s where it gets interesting.”

* * *

Special Agent Carlson picked up his cell phone. “Yeah.”

“Got something else,” his partner Stone said.

“What?”

“Beck visited a cheap mouthpiece named Flannery a few hours ago. A black street kid was with him.”

Carlson frowned. “I thought Hester Crimstein was his attorney.”

“He wasn’t looking for legal representation. He wanted to know about a past case.”

“What case?”

“Some all-purpose perp named Gonzalez was arrested for killing Brandon Scope eight years ago. Elizabeth Beck gave the guy a hell of an alibi. Beck wanted to know all about it.”

Carlson felt his head doing a double spin. How the hell …?

“Anything else?”

“That’s it,” Stone said. “Say, where are you?”