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Witt was growing irritated. “Tell me why I should pay you when the government and the police seem to be baffled?”
Phelps’s expression changed slightly and Witt was reminded of a wolf with his nose to the wind, scenting a wounded doe. “Simple. You want her found.”
“And you can do that?” Witt settled back in his chair. Maybe there were more layers to Phelps than met the eye.
“If I don’t, you owe me nothing besides my retainer.”
“Of ten thousand dollars.”
“Cheap, isn’t it?” He set his untouched coffee on the edge of Witt’s desk. “All I ask is that your family comes clean with me. No secrets. No lies. No skeletons tucked into closets.”
“Fair enough. You can question everyone here while we’re still in Portland, but you may as well know that I’m moving them—even the older kids—to the ranch near Bend. I’m not going to chance losing another one. Zachary—” He scowled when he thought of his middle son. Always the rebel. Always cocksure. Always in trouble. “—he’s going first, but he doesn’t know it yet. The rest of the family will follow in a couple of weeks. So you’d better start with him.”
“He’s the one with the phony story about the hooker.”
Witt’s back went up. “The story was true. The police talked to the girl…Sophia something or other.”
“Costanzo. I already spoke with her.”
Witt moved the unsmoked cigar from one side of his mouth to the other. “What’d she say?”
“Same thing she said to the police. Not much. Gives your kid his alibi, but I have the feeling she’s lying.”
“A feeling?” Witt was skeptical.
“Believe me, she’s not telling everything she knows.” He smiled grimly. “But that won’t be a problem. I’ll handle her. And as for Zach, I’ll talk to him, see what he says—maybe he’ll slip up. I’ll catch everyone else before you send them packing.” He pulled out a notepad from the inner pocket of his jacket, scribbled quickly, then frowned slightly, wrinkles lining his brow. “What about your wife? Can I reach her here or is she going to the ranch with your kids?”
Witt hesitated just a second. He’d been wrestling with this decision, but he couldn’t put it off any longer. She needed to get away. “Katherine will be at the ranch.” Why sending her to central Oregon was a relief to him, he didn’t understand, but he hoped the change of scenery would do her some good.
Phelps cocked his head at an angle. “And you?”
“I’ve got a business to run, Phelps.” Already the man was getting on his nerves. “You can reach me here.”
“Good.” Phelps folded his hands over his thickening girth. “There’s only one thing I want from you, Danvers, and that’s honesty, from you and your family.”
“You’ve got it,” Witt agreed, anxious for the interview to be over. This blend-into-the-woodwork guy was giving him a case of the creeps, but Witt needed him. He needed someone to help him find London. The police were beginning to look like a bunch of bumbling idiots and the FBI wasn’t any better. A darkness settled into his soul and he wondered if he was being punished. He didn’t much believe in God, though he attended church, but he’d committed more than his share of sins.
“But maybe you don’t really get it,” Phelps said, cutting into his thoughts. He leaned forward and pinned Witt with eyes that had suddenly come alive. “If I find out that a member of your family is behind this, then I expect to be paid anyway.”
“You will be,” Witt agreed, though his collar seemed to tighten around his throat like one of those chains you slip around the neck of a guard dog.
Phelps managed a phony grin and Witt felt as if he’d pulled on that invisible chain. “Good. Just so we understand each other.”
10
A dry wind blew across the stubble of the fields, bringing dust and chaff and the thin smell of diesel from the tractor rumbling along the hillside beyond a ragged copse of pine trees. Digging in the heels of his boots, Zach stretched the barbed wire between the posts, his muscles straining with the effort. Sweat stained the red bandanna he’d rolled and tied around his head. The sun was relentless, but Zach didn’t care.
“Hang in there,” Manny, the ranch foreman called. “Hold tight and I’ll tie ’er off.”
For the first time in weeks, Zach felt free. His wounds had nearly healed and he loved the ranch, three thousand acres northwest of Bend in central Oregon. Sheltered by the eastern foothills of the Cascade Mountains, the Danvers spread stretched as far as the eye could see. Unlike the brick-walled fortress of the Danvers home in the west hills of Portland, the Lazy M was wild and open and touched the vagabond spirit of Zach’s soul.
He’d been sent here just after being interrogated by Roger
Phelps, some sort of private eye his father had hired. The detective was patient, talking slowly, luring Zach into saying things he hadn’t intended. Zach had left the interview feeling as if Phelps considered him a prime suspect in London’s kidnapping. He’d thought about telling the truth, but couldn’t see what good it would have done to rat on Jason about the whore. Who cared? One incident wasn’t related to the other. Zach had his own moral code, loose though it may be. One thing he never did was snitch.
After the interview with Phelps, he’d been shipped out here. Witt had figured that long hours working on the ranch, bucking hay, stretching fence line, herding cattle, and wearing himself out in the saddle would be good for him, better than the dreaded boarding school that had been a constant threat ever since London had disappeared. Witt had told his son that he thought the endless hours of work would keep him out of trouble, and Zach hadn’t argued. He’d wanted out of the house, away from the suspicious glances thrown in his direction by everyone in the family, far from the distraction of his stepmother and nowhere near the cops. Jack Logan, like Roger Phelps, seemed to think he was guilty of all kinds of crimes.
If they only knew.
