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“Where are you?” Gordon asked.
“Nevada.”
“What? I thought you’d be on a plane to Iowa the second we hung up two days ago.”
Preston couldn’t fly, not with a gun. And, considering what he planned to do, it made little sense to go to Iowa without it. “I don’t fly,” he said, choosing to let Gordon believe he had an aversion to leaving the ground. He used to fly all the time, but that was when he had a home and a family and didn’t live out of a van and travel with a loaded weapon.
“So are you on your way there?” Gordon asked.
“I am. It should only take a couple more days.”
“Wendell’s finally set up his practice again. He’s probably not going anywhere real soon.”
“Not unless someone tips him off that I’m coming.”
“Who would do that?”
“Exactly,” Preston said. He figured Vince felt safe now and had decided to put down some roots—which was why he believed it was wiser to go there prepared. As much as he craved getting hold of the man he held responsible for Dallas’s death, he didn’t want to blow what could be his only chance at a confession.
“By the way, you’re one hell of…sly dog…know that?” Gordon said.
Gordon’s voice had started cutting in and out, but Preston managed to decipher his words. “How so?”
“…you kidding? I made fifty-thou…stock tip you gave me. Thanks, man.”
Preston stretched out his legs and crossed them at the ankles. “I guess I should’ve taken my own advice.”
“You didn’t?”
“I bought into something a little more volatile. The gamble didn’t pay off.”
“How much…you lose?”
Preston did a quick calculation in his head. “Seventy, give or take a few thousand.”
“Seventy thousand dollars?”
That came through loud and clear. “Could’ve been worse. Fortunately, I got conservative at the last minute.” The waitress came to collect his money, and he gave her a polite smile.
She smiled back, a little more meaningfully than he’d expected, and he shifted his gaze away so she wouldn’t get the wrong idea.
“You don’t care?” Gordon said, their phone connection improving. “You’re not freaking out about losing that much money?”
“As long as I have enough to get by, it’s all numbers on a spreadsheet to me.”
“With…We’re…”
Preston held the phone closer to his ear. “What?”
“I said with a dollar sign attached! We’re not playing with fake money here, pal. I’d have a heart attack if I ever lost that much. And if the heart attack didn’t kill me, Pamela would.”
“Yeah, well, I don’t have a wife to worry about anymore, remember?” Preston said.
Gordon fell silent. For a second, Preston was afraid he’d put them both in an awkward position by apologizing for the blunder. But he should’ve known better. Gordon wasn’t that stupid.
“I have something new for you,” he said, simply changing the subject.
Preston wiped the condensation from his water glass. “What’s that?”
“Wendell and his wife…divorcing.”
“You say they’re divorcing?”
“Right. Your old pal is losing his wife.”
It couldn’t be. Joanie had always thought Vince walked on water. After Dallas’s funeral, when Preston had confronted them with his suspicions, she’d been vehement in her defense of Vince. How can you say such things? You son of a bitch! I thought you were our friend.
The two couples had been friends. Close friends. At least until Preston had voiced the terrible questions and doubts that had been consuming him, along with his grief. At that point, Vince and Joanie began playing the martyr. After everything we’ve been to each other, how can you turn on us?
Easily. He could do it because no friend meant more to him than his son, and he needed answers.
But they’d only used Preston’s accusations to make him look irrational. “It’s the grief,” they muttered to anyone who’d listen. For a while, Preston wondered if he was irrational, if he just wanted someone to blame for his loss. While he was doubting himself and fighting to save his own marriage, the Wendells had sold their house and moved away—with no forwarding address. Gordon had eventually found them in Fallon, but by the time Preston had arrived, they were already gone.
“I’m not sure they’ll go through with it, of course,” Gordon was saying. “But they filed a month ago.”
“How’d you find out?”
“Hey, don’t you watch TV? I’m a P.I. I can dig up anything, remember?”
Preston chuckled, but he was so busy trying to work out what Joanie’s defection might mean that he didn’t see the tall, dark-haired man who’d entered the restaurant until that man was standing in front of him.
“Excuse me, amigo. I’m sorry to bother you, but I have a quick question, if you don’t mind.”
Surprised by the interruption, Preston glanced up, and the man immediately shoved a photograph under his nose.
“Have you, by chance, seen my wife? Or my son?”
Preston stared dumbly at an image of Max grinning for the camera, and a much more sedate-looking Emma. Max’s smile appeared to be authentic, but Preston could easily guess that the slight curve of Emma’s lips was for the camera alone.
When he lifted his eyes to the clean-shaven man who had to be Manuel, he fought the urge to let his hands curl into fists. Manuel had called her his wife, but according to Emma they’d never married.
“I’ve got to go,” he told Gordon. “Thanks for the info. Call me if you find anything else.”
Arranging his expression into one of concern, Preston hung up and accepted the picture Manuel held out to him. It was slightly bent, as though it had been carried in a wallet of some sort, but it certainly wasn’t torn and shabby. Like Manuel’s blue fitted shirt and black slacks, there wasn’t a crease in it.
Preston noted the expensive sunglasses hooked into the opening of Manuel’s shirt, the thick gold medallion around his neck and the mammoth diamond ring that glittered on his little finger, and decided he definitely had an uptown flair. Manuel had even splashed on cologne—more than anybody should have the right to wear. Preston could barely stand it.
Evidently, Max’s dad took “dressing to impress” to a whole new level.
