Blood Always Tells, Hilary Davidson [good book club books .txt] 📗

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After they parted ways in the middle of the afternoon, Desmond found the narrow ribbon of road that eventually curled back to the highway. He didn’t mind driving, but he regretted not flying. He would have been so grateful to soar into the sky, abandoning the dark, muddy earth of the Poconos for the clear promise of the darkening blue of the horizon. He was never disappointed when he abandoned the ground.

Instead, he was earthbound. He turned on Francis Johnson again, but the music didn’t match his mood. The triumphant, uplifting notes of “Johnson’s March” spiraled around him, and he couldn’t keep up. Finally, he turned it off and drove in silence. What passed through his head, twisting around like a Möbius strip, was a faint echo of his mother’s voice. There’s nothing you can do, she said. Let go. The memory could bring him to tears if he allowed it. But his eyes remained dry and steady on the horizon. The uneasiness that dogged even his quietest days, brushing against his brain with the featherlight whisper of a breeze, was turning into a hurricane now. Deep down, he didn’t trust the cops to do their job. Westergren was a good man, but he was a neophyte and could be smacked down quickly. Desmond’s apprehension wasn’t only about how the police would look at the case, but how a prosecutor would view it. Anyone who wanted to play devil’s advocate would have a field day with the facts. There were two dead victims, but no smoking gun. How did you prove that the killer knew about the defective furnace? That was an inspired choice as far as murder weapons went. He was glad Gary was rich and white, because that would mean the case couldn’t just be swept into the gutter. Dominique was a celebrity in fashion circles, so there’d be media attention, but he expected gawkers who wanted to exploit a tragedy.

He parked his car at New Jersey’s Newark Airport—he knew from experience driving into Manhattan was a hopeless, pointless task—then hopped a train to New York. When he checked his voice mail at home, there was message from Dominique’s best friend, Sabrina. “Hey, Desmond, I’m sorry to bother you, but I’ve been trying to reach Dominique since yesterday morning. I don’t want to be a worrywart, but she went away for the weekend with Gary, and I… I’m just a little concerned. Can you let me know if you hear from her? Thanks.”

He knew he had to tell her the awful news, but he wasn’t ready to do that. While he wrestled with his impulses, he received a text from Westergren. We found the van. He dialed the cop with a steady hand that belied his emotions. Westergren hadn’t said anything about finding the mysterious Max, only the vehicle.

“You got my message?” Westergren was as excitable as a puppy.

Desmond could picture the young man as he spoke. His enthusiasm crackled through the line. “Where was it?”

“A campground a few miles from the house. Get this: the whole thing wreaks of bleach.”

“He scrubbed it out?”

“Yeah. We’re going to check it for prints and stuff, but I don’t know how much there is left to find.” Westergren paused. “This Max guy did a pretty good job of cleaning up.”

He did, Desmond agreed mentally. Whatever else Max was, he was a professional.

Chapter 25

By the time Desmond arrived at Penn Station at six Sunday evening, he had a hotel reservation set up and a line on Thomas Klepper. If Dominique had been beside him, she would’ve teased him about his ruthless efficiency. You don’t care about looking at the sunset unless you’re flying toward it, she’d once claimed. She wasn’t wrong. It was a character flaw he acknowledged. He couldn’t sit calmly and appreciate a thing for what it was. He needed to know its purpose and its trajectory. In the cockpit, whether you were flying on instruments or visual flight rules, you were watchful every moment. In the air, that made sense. On the ground, it worked against him.

Tom Klepper hadn’t been hard to find. Thanks to Google, Desmond even had a photo of the man. Klepper resembled a bullfrog with a low brow, eyes that popped out of their sockets, and a broad, mushy jawline. He was an attorney with an office in the Empire State Building, which Desmond knew sounded fancier than it actually was. Gary Cowan had spent half an hour on the phone with Tom Klepper on the day he died. Desmond wanted to know about that conversation.

He walked from Penn Station to Grand Central, zigzagging up from west Thirty-Fourth Street to East Forty-Second, casting suspicious glances at the Empire State Building on the way. The Grand Hyatt Hotel was, to Desmond, a place that resembled Tartarus, the Roman version of hell, teeming with lost souls, each one a mini-Sisyphus weighted down by giant shopping bags. But he had one positive association with the place: it was where he and Dominique had stayed when he brought her to the city to launch her modeling career. Desmond had disapproved of every part of his sister’s plan, arguing that with her excellent grades and drive to succeed, she belonged in college. But she’d made up her mind. She wanted to be at the center of the universe, which meant Forty-Second Street to her. The hotel rose above the specter of Grand Central Terminal, much to Desmond’s dismay and Dominique’s delight.

After he checked in, he took an elevator up to the eighteenth floor. His cramped cell boasted a king-size bed, which he was glad to see, even if he was certain his six-foot-three frame wouldn’t fit comfortably if he tried sitting at the tiny desk. He washed his face and changed his shirt. He’d packed an overnight bag before he left Hammond, but that wouldn’t keep him going for long. He was going to need some clothes if he planned