Chapter 21
CHAPTER
Jordyn
Present
DRIVING NORTH FROM the Albany–Rensselaer train station after the day trip into Manhattan, Jordyn followed the directions in her GPS to the law office of Arnold Van Ness.
She’d taken the first available Amtrak out of Penn Station for her return, but even so, she would barely make it to the legal firm before five PM.
She hoped that Arnie kept regular hours or this visit to see him would be wasted.
And she really needed answers about Tara’s appointment with him before her death.
She remembered the video call with her friend the day Tara had planned to see him about the partnership agreement.
She had seemed unusually down that day, making a comment about trusting fewer than half the people in her life.
If only Jordyn had known that danger had been lurking close to Tara.
She wished she could go back in time and ask her more questions. Find out all the reasons why she felt like she couldn’t trust her own friends. Her own mother.
Although at least the meeting with Lauren had shed some light on that relationship.
“Your destination will be on the right,” the GPS informed her belatedly, at the same moment she spotted the Van Ness Associates sign on Route 9.
Slamming on the brakes, she just barely made the turn into the parking area.
The two-story commercial building seemed like an unusual spot for a law firm with a dry cleaner and a cupcake shop downstairs but what did she know?
The address wasn’t even technically Saratoga.
Her location told her she was in a town called Malta.
As she locked up her vehicle, her cell phone vibrated with a call.
She double-checked the caller ID since Ezra had stepped up his efforts to get in touch with her, leaving panicked warnings on her voicemail since he was convinced she’d somehow end up dead or jailed for her efforts to investigate Tara’s death.
And maybe he had a point given the threatening note on her vehicle. She had no intention of sharing that with Ezra, but she would be more vigilant about her personal safety for sure.
This incoming call was from Natalie, however. She hit the button to accept even as she strode toward the office building.
“Hey there. Any news?”
“Not about the anonymous note,” Natalie began. “And my official advice to you about that is to go to the police.”
“I’m not ready to do that just yet.” Jordyn had wrestled with the idea herself. But she also didn’t want to blow her cover to the book club, and she worried that getting the cops involved would do just that. “What else do you have for me?”
“I spoke to a detective who was willing to share more about the paint chip the medical examiner found embedded …” Natalie paused a moment. “That is, the chip recovered from the hit-and-run scene. It’s a very common black metallic paint used on two brands of luxury vehicles.”
Jordyn swallowed hard, knowing that Natalie had tactfully refrained from referencing where the paint chip had been discovered on Tara’s battered body.
Her mangled legs? Her shattered hip? The visceral pain Jordyn felt in empathy for Tara’s final minutes of life was very real, even if it didn’t compare to what her friend had experienced.
Jordyn shivered from more than the brisk autumn wind.
“Have you checked the color against all the vehicles owned by book club members when Tara was killed?” She lowered her voice as she reached for the office door and found it unlocked.
Stepping inside, she shrugged out of her jacket in the bright reception area with a couple of barrel chairs and a sleek front desk that remained vacant.
Behind the desk, the Van Ness name had been spelled out in large letters on a marble wall. Off to one side, an open door led to a connecting hall where she guessed the individual offices must be located.
“Three so far. Kaitlin Teal had an SUV that color then, although she did not renew the registration for it this year. And Fatima’s daughter Sareena has one that’s still on the road. I’ve seen that vehicle myself, and it doesn’t show any signs of damage, but they could have had it fixed.”
“You said there were three?”
“The motor vehicle department shows that Luke has two SUVs registered for commercial purposes by his business. One of those is listed as having black paint, but I haven’t actually seen either of them for myself to verify.”
“Maybe because one of them was totaled when he hit Tara? Or he disposed of it afterward so the crime couldn’t be traced to him?” The possibility that they were closing in on answers sent a zing of anticipation through her.
Then again, a vehicle registered to Luke’s business didn’t necessarily mean he’d used it himself. The driver could have been his wife or his lover. Had he been sleeping with Gina Vallot a year ago? Or someone else? Because once a cheater, always a cheater.
Either way, maybe the SUV that killed Tara had been sitting in Sophie Durand’s garage all this time.
“Hello?” A man’s voice called to Jordyn from the back of the building, reminding her of the business at hand. “Can I help you?”
Jordyn spoke quickly into her phone. “Gotta go, Natalie. I’ll call you back in a few.”
After she disconnected, she edged past the reception desk to search for the speaker.
“Hello? I’m looking for Mr. Van Ness?” She peered into the first empty office and then the second.
By the time she reached the third office, the voice sounded much closer.
“We close at five. It’ll have to wait until morning.”
Jordyn rapped her knuckles on the partially open door. Heard the heavy sigh before the voice spoke again.
“Come in, then.”
She stepped inside the space where a live-edge slab conference table took up half the room while a heavy cherry-colored desk dominated the other. Bookcases stuffed full of volumes alternated between windows looking out on three sides of the building.
At the desk, a distinguished-looking man old enough to be a grandfather worked at a laptop, a pair of wire-rimmed glasses perched halfway down his nose.
A gray suit jacket hung on a valet stand near the desk so the attorney could work in his shirt sleeves.
Jordyn admired the fancy French cuffs on his shirt, the silver cuff links glinting in the overhead lights.
“I apologize for bothering you so late in the day,” she began, waiting for him to look up or acknowledge her in any way. “But I hoped you could answer a couple of questions I have about a friend who used your services last year.”
That finally snagged his interest. Glancing toward her, he tugged off the glasses and set them on the desk.
His shrewd dark gaze took in her disheveled appearance from the long day of travel, her hair in a messy ponytail and her sweater sporting a coffee stain at the hem.
She was pretty sure his assessment didn’t miss the small divots above her top lip and near one eyebrow from healed-over piercings.
“I’m afraid that my business with other clients is protected by attorney-client privilege, Ms.…”
“Sorry. I’m Jordyn Lawson.” Surging forward, she extended her hand.
Arnie Van Ness’s gaze dropped briefly to the labyrinth tattoo on her forearm before he stood to shake her hand.
She’d been so careful to keep that hand-done tattoo covered by a sleeve whenever she was around the book club crew, but it had been such a long day, she’d grown careless.
“I understand that you might not be able to share much, but the client in question was murdered a year ago, so there might be some leeway with the privacy expectation.”
“Murdered?” The lawyer reached for his jacket and slid an arm into each sleeve, almost as if a lifetime of habit wouldn’t allow him to take a meeting without being in the proper uniform. He sure wasn’t showing any sloppy teenage tats. “I don’t take those sorts of cases—”
“It was technically a hit-and-run that’s still under investigation, so there has been some debate about whether or not the death was accidental.
My friend had a meeting with you to set up a partnership agreement,” she explained, hoping to jog his memory.
Hoping he would feel compelled to answer her questions if he understood her desperation.
“She was killed less than a week later.”
The older man snapped his fingers. “You mean Randall Hughes’s daughter. Tara. Please, have a seat.” He gestured to the conference table.
“Yes. Tara called me shortly before she met with you.” Jordyn lowered herself into one of the cushy chairs on wheels at the table. “Do you recall going to her home one evening last fall?”
“I did make the trip out there. I don’t normally make house calls, but a request from Randall Hughes is an exception.
I was happy to meet his daughter wherever she chose.
” Arnie took the spot at the head of the table, his expression lost in thought.
“But you should know that meeting never happened.”
“Excuse me?” Jordyn distinctly remembered Tara ending the call because her doorbell rang.
They had been on a video chat, so she had witnessed her friend descending the stairs to answer it.
“Yes, I recall it quite well, Ms. Lawson, since I’m rarely stood up these days, you see.” He gave her a small smile, a hint of his charm from another era apparent as he winked at her. “When I arrived at the address Miss Hughes had given me for our meeting, Tara was not there.”