Chapter 24
Jed
My first stop was at the home address I’d found for Grifo.
It was in Forest Hills, a pricey suburb of Portland.
When I got to the cul-de-sac, I parked outside and walked around it.
Grifo’s house was handsome. Big, modern, lots of glass.
Huge lawn, massive trees. Evidently the cosmetic surgery business paid well.
The house looked abandoned, though. No lights, no cars visible in the garage.
The grass had gotten long and shaggy. Dead leaves had blown across the front entryway, and the side patio, piling up in drifts.
I went up to the front door and gave the buzzer a try, but I wasn’t surprised when no one answered.
Grifo had been spooked away from his own home.
Then again, Boer probably got referred to Grifo by Adriani, so chances were, Grifo had probably worked on people who were on the wrong side of the law before. He had to know the score.
He’d made a shit-ton of money, after all. This was a five-million-dollar house.
I stared up at the house, and heard Freya’s voice in my mind.
The light. Turn it on. Don’t leave me in the dark. Please.
The words kept repeating in my head. Or not exactly the words, but more her tone. The soul-deep desperation behind them. Something about that was all fucked up. Completely wrong. It scared me.
Well, fucking duh. Of course it was all kinds of bad to handcuff a woman to a bed and then leave her there.
There was no way to spin that. It sucked.
Unforgivably. Particularly after she’d helped me out like that.
Stitching together information from my stress nightmares.
I wouldn’t have a plan at all but for her being so fucking brilliant.
But Freya was so tough and fiery, I had expected a different reaction from her. Fury, outrage, vitriol, fireworks. Sarcasm and snark. Me, getting cut down to size.
Not…whatever that was. Not her looking that vulnerable. That scared.
In any case, it made me feel like shit. I had to get this done fast, so I could let her loose and take my medicine, whatever that turned out to be.
If she needed to whale on me, or scream at me, or bash me over the head with a frying pan, fair enough.
I would take it. Hell, I deserved it. Every last blow. I welcomed it.
And this was just the classic problem I had with that woman. Instead of focusing on the task at hand, I was wasting time and energy wallowing in guilt, anxiety, and shame.
And doubt. Always doubt. You think this is safe? Staking me out like a fucking goat for any asshole who comes along?
Damn, the woman had a point. And it made me fucking tense.
The next stop was the cosmetic surgery practice right near Old Town. It was raining by the time I found the place and parked. No umbrella, but it was a short walk.
The place reeked of wealth and privilege. I walked into a great big central lobby with a vaulted ceiling, filled with big exotic potted trees and a burbling waterfall that rushed endlessly down artfully carved blocks of dark stone. Very classy. High overhead.
I walked up to the desk, which was presided over by statuesque blonde trophy receptionist. Her face had that taut, stretched look of someone who’d had some work done, but she was a fine-looking woman. Her desk had a name tag. Ramona.
She gave me a onceover, and I saw her reaction evolve over the course of two seconds.
First, startled appreciation, then her smile faded as she took in the what’s-wrong-with-this-picture details.
Scabs on my cheekbone, the beard, the tattoo on my neck.
Her red-painted lips tightened, sphincter-like.
I couldn’t help comparing that to Freya’s soft, lush, expressive mouth, her blinding grin. Not a fair comparison.
The phone rang, and she put up her finger with a smile.
“Hello, Madden, Grifo, Clark, and Burns, can I help you?” She listened for a moment.
“Oh, definitely. But have the bakery switch the eclairs out for profiterole…yes. And tell Barbara in accounting there will be two catering invoices for the gala. One for the meal, from Highline Catering, and one for dessert, from the Moulin Pastisserie. Did you check on those lactose-free Neapolitan pastries?...yes, I know, but we need one for Rachelle Grifo at table one, and Dr. Maxwell at table seven, as well, and a gluten-free for Charlaine Bristol at table twelve…well, just check on it, Gary, to be sure they’re on top of it! Then call me back! Okay…later, then.”
She hung up, and gave me a tight, professional smile. “Hello. Can I help you?”
“I hope so,” I told her, still humming from having heard the name Grifo mentioned. “I was hoping to speak to Dr. Joseph Grifo.”
Ramona blinked rapidly. “Ah…he’s not working here at the moment.”
“He isn’t?” I asked. “Since when? Where did he go?”
“I’m afraid I can’t give you any information,” she said. “Privacy concerns, of course. But he’s not working at this practice. At the moment.”
“I see. So he’s not in business anymore?”
“Like I said, I can’t tell you.”
Damn, I should have called ahead, made an appointment with these people.
I noted the subtle tension in her face, the way her eyes rolled and slid away from mine, and felt the instinct to press her.
“Could I speak to someone who worked with him? Dr. Clark, for instance. The website said he was a close associate of Dr. Grifo.”
“I don’t think that will be possible,” she said. “I doubt he’s available.”
I leaned down over the desk and gave her a slow, dangerous smile. “Why don’t you check and see?”
Her eyes fluttered, and her lips puckered up again. Suddenly, I wondered how I had ever found her attractive at all. She looked drawn, pinched. And scared.
“I’ll just, ah…go and check,” she murmured. She slid her chair back and fled.
Damn. Maybe I’d overdone it. Trying to catch flies with vinegar. Not the first time I’d made that mistake.
Time to get psychologically ready to deal with the police, depending on how much I had spooked her.
I hadn’t done anything, except give her an arguably menacing smile.
And my fake identity as Jay Warren was well developed.
He was a normal, boring, blameless kind of guy.
Not the type to get arrested for assault.
Ramona came back, followed by a tall bald guy with a worried frown on his face. I recognized him from his photo on the website as Dr. Milton Clark, one of Grifo’s partners. He put himself protectively in front of Ramona, making her stumble back.
“Sir, I’m afraid I’ll have to ask you to leave, right now,” he said, in a pompous, self-important tone.
“Are you Dr. Clark? I need to speak to someone who worked with Joe Grifo.”
“Sir, I’m afraid you have to leave.” I sensed an edge of fear in his voice.
Damn. I wondered if they were afraid of Boer, or of Adriani. These people were definitely afraid of someone. They must think I was a mobster. I tried for a friendly smile. “I was hoping to talk to one of the partners. It would be a mistake not to hear what I have to say.”
“They’re all busy,” Dr. Clark said. “Go, or I’ll be forced to call the police.”
I let out a silent sigh. “No need for that,” I said. “Your loss. You folks have a great evening. Thank you for your help.”
Out in the cold rain, I ran to the car, analyzing the relative idiocy of what I had just done. Yes, they were all on edge, which was good to know, but more of a vibe than hard, actionable data. Now I had put them on their guard.
One more door to bang on, and I’d head back to brave Freya’s thundering wrath. I searched on my laptop for the Moulin Patisserie, and found it a few blocks away. It was a high-end bakery, relatively new, which delivered to restaurants and hotels.
I entered the warm, wood-paneled bakery, damp from the rain. The place had a retro vibe, with a soda fountain at the bar, old time stools, a long glass case that displayed a dizzying array of pastries. The smell of sugar and butter was overwhelming.
This time, I turned the collar of my coat up to hide the tattoo and put on my best “don’t mind me” look. I chose a horse-faced girl with a long, tight blonde braid and heavy glasses, and approached her. Her name tag read “Jessalyn.”
“Hi, Jessalyn,” I said. “I’m Mike, from Madden, Grifo, Clark, and Burns. They sent me to tell you that Ramona decided to switch out the profiteroles for the eclairs, after all. Can you note that down on the order? Or is it too late to change it?”
“I don’t think so,” Jessalyn said. “I’ll just go and check, to be sure. They wanted the early delivery, too, right?”
“Yeah. Wait, hold on. We are talking about the Tuesday event, right? The one at the Cloverdale Arms?”
Jessalyn’s eyebrows arched anxiously upward. “Tuesday? I don’t know anything about a Tuesday event. This order is for the gala tomorrow at the Pineview.”
“Oh, yeah! Of course. Sorry.” I waved my hand apologetically. “I get mixed up. Just too many details to keep track of. You know how it is.”
“Oh gosh, I sure do,” the girl assured me. “Tell me about it!”
I took off, waving at Jessalyn through the window, and hustled through the cold, misty drizzle toward the car. It was full dark now, and my urgency to get back to Freya had crescendoed into a wild drumroll of anxiety.
I sped out of the city toward Houlihan’s, windshield wipers squeaking. I might have gathered some info, but at what cost? I still didn’t know, and that drove me nuts.
Damn it. Freya had flung herself into this clusterfuck uninvited. She had no business bitching if things didn’t go according to her plans.
When I got to the final loop of cabins, I turned the last corner, expecting to see light behind the bedroom curtains…and there wasn’t any. The window was dark.
Fuck. I laid on the accelerator, panic stabbing deep into my gut. There was no possible way anyone could’ve found her here. I shoved in the key and slapped the door open, opening my mouth to—
“Aunt Jean!” A panicked, ear-splitting shriek from the bedroom. “Aunt Jean! Aunt Jean! Aunt Jean!”