KIN (22 page)

What if I called?

What if he answered?

She struggled to remember what had become of Daniel's cell phone during the attack. Panic had blinded her, of course. She'd only been aware of the impossibility of what was happening, sure, right up until Katy was stabbed, that it had all been some kind of sick joke. She did not recall seeing Daniel reach into his pocket for his phone, and later, did not see their attackers take it.

But she'd heard it ringing.

In her prison, as the strength tried to leave her, consciousness flickering like a candle flame in a draft, she'd been pulled back into the cold horror of her circumstances by the distant sound of a computer circuit's attempt to replicate Mozart's "Symphony Number 9"—the familiar sound of Daniel's phone as someone tried to call him. Then his agonized scream had drowned it out.

Claire peeled the protective plastic away from the page of the photo album, and gently removed the yellow slip of paper. She held it in her trembling hands for a moment, then looked at the photograph of her dead boyfriend.

I loved you
, she said.
Did you love me?

She had only memories from which to draw an answer, but even they betrayed her, for Daniel had never told her he'd loved her, and so she would never know.

Unless she asked.

She turned her head.

The phone, girly pink like the rest of the room, sat on her nightstand, silent.

Don't be silly
, she cautioned herself.
This is madness
.
It won't do anything but aggravate the pain.
She smiled grimly at that. She could not imagine a pain worse than this, no suffering worse than that of the sole survivor.

She pushed the photo album aside, eased herself across the bed, and picked up the phone, then set the number beside it, under the tasseled pink lampshade.

Her heart began to race.

What am I doing?

Carefully, breath held, she dialed.

The digits, registering as dull beeps in her ear.

Silence. The faint hum of the connection racing through space, running through wires. Then silence again. Time seemed to stretch interminably.

Stop now while you still—

A crackle, a click...

Then the connection was made.

Claire's stomach contracted. She thought she was going to be sick. Bile filled her mouth as panic seized her.

Stop this. Stop this now, oh Jesus what am I doing?

Beep beep. Silence.

Beep beep. Silence.

She imagined the sound of Mozart, playing his music with none of the beauty or fervor or passion it had been written to convey.

She imagined hearing it out there in the night, a thousand miles away and yet still audible, carried to her by her desperate need to hear it, to know her boyfriend was alive and would answer at any moment.

Beep beep. Silence.

Then Kara at the door, gently easing it open, her look of concern quickly turning to curiosity as she stepped inside.

"Claire?"

No. Go away.

Beep beep. Silence.

"Claire? Who are you calling?"

"No one. I'll..."

Kara approached her, slowly, but urgently.

It will ring out
, Claire knew.
I'll hear his voice on the message service and it will kill me.

But what she heard was: Beep beep.
Click
.

She felt every hair on her body rise, began to tremble uncontrollably.

Kara: "What's wrong?"

From the phone, silence, but it was not dead, not empty.

Someone had answered.

Someone was listening.

-19-

Despite the fact that he was in his late fifties and had recently buried his only daughter, the man who answered the door was well dressed and healthy looking. He wore a light blue shirt with the top button unfastened, and a pair of dark pants, the creases sharp above a freshly polished pair of shoes. His dark hair had been recently barbered, and was streaked with gray, which made him look distinguished rather than old.

"Yes?" he asked.

"Mr. Kaplan?"

A curt nod. "Who are you?" He looked slightly annoyed as he appraised the man on his stoop, as if Finch had pulled him away from an important business meeting or a football game.

"My name is Thomas Finch."

"Finch?"

"Daniel's brother."

Anyone who believed the theory that death forged a bond between those left to grieve had obviously never met John Kaplan. With a sigh he stepped back into the hall. "I suppose you want to come in?"

"I won't take up too much of your time," Finch said and entered the house.

Everything about the Kaplans spoke of money: from the gleaming silver Mercedes in the driveway and Tudor house set at the end of a long winding flower-bordered drive, itself a half-mile from the main road, to the sprawling yards, which looked vigilantly maintained, as if Kaplan feared his competitors would take the first trace of overgrowth as a sign of weakness. And then of course, there was John Kaplan himself. As he led him through a short, oak-paneled hallway with polished floors, Finch detected an air of intolerance about the man, as if he reserved his interest only for people who could benefit him or his bank account. He wondered if what he had come to say might change that, but then for a man supposed to be grieving, Kaplan looked awfully composed.

The hall ended and opened out into a large foyer stuffed to bursting with vegetation. Planters hung on chains hung from the vaulted ceiling, spidery green legs trailing down to meet the explosion of growth from what looked like a variety of wild and frenzied shrubs anchored in a huge rectangular marble tomb. Tall thin plants with glossy spade-shaped leaves and bamboo sticks lashed to their stems stood guard in the corners, struggling upward to where a segmented glass window threw squares of light against the wall.

Kaplan didn't spare the jungle a glance as he turned left into another narrow hall. Finch followed close behind.

"Take a seat," John said, as they entered a small but impressive lounge. In here sat a brown leather armchair, positioned at a right angle to a matching leather couch, as if the Kaplan's interior decorator had aspirations of becoming a psychiatrist, or specialized in decorating for them. Sports and hunting magazines sat in a tidy pile atop a glass coffee table. The walls were lined with oak bookshelves, but Finch didn't bother to scan the titles. He wasn't much of a reader, and doubted anything he'd see there would be of interest.

"You'll have a drink," Kaplan said, and although it sounded more like a statement of fact than a request, Finch nodded and took a seat on the couch. The cushions yielded beneath him with a soft hiss. The lounge smelled faintly of cigar smoke.

"Scotch?"

"That'd be great, thanks."

As Kaplan poured the drink from a crystal decanter into two smoked glass tumblers, Finch wondered how rehearsed and tired this whole practice was for the guy. How many people interested or connected in some way to the murders had stopped by here to console, or seek comfort in a kindred spirit over the past couple of months? Finch envisioned Kaplan leading the latter kind to this room, perhaps with the intent to numb them enough with alcohol that they'd be left with the false impression that he had somehow eased their pain for a time.

Kaplan set Finch's drink down on the coffee table, then took a seat in the armchair. He sighed and took a sizable draw from his glass before studying his guest. "So, Mr. Finch. What can I do for you?"

Finch sat forward and clasped his hands. "I'm here to talk about what happened to the kids. To my brother, and your daughter, and their friends."

"Why?"

"Because we need to."

"I disagree."

"That so?"

"It is."

"Well if it's all the same—"

Kaplan sat back and crossed his legs. He held up his glass, examining its contents as if it was something he had never seen before. "Mr. Finch—"

"Thomas."

"All right, Thomas. It's not my intent to be rude—though you'd be far from the first person to leave this house with such an impression of me—but I'm a busy man. If you've come here to reminisce about how great our kids were and how they had such a good time together, and to tell me as if it's breaking news how goddamned awful it was what happened to them, I'm afraid all I can say is amen to it all and see you out. Does that seem cold?"

Finch set down his drink. "Until I can see my breath, I'll give you the benefit of the doubt."

Kaplan smiled tightly. "I have to meet with my attorney at noon, Thomas," he said, making the name sound like punctuation, "so the sooner you cut to the chase, the better your chance of a less terse reception."

"I'm here to tell you my plans, so you know what they are, and to hear what you think. Maybe even to get your blessing."

"Almost sounds like your asking for my daughter's hand," Kaplan said. "But as you know, I'm all out of those. My wife will be coming on the market soon though, if you're interested."

That explains the attorney
, Finch thought, his estimation of Kaplan dropping the longer he listened to the man speak. There was no emotion in his voice, none at all. Even the words he chose—
I'm all out of those
—suggested a man who either wasn't too torn up about his daughter's death, or wasn't yet fully aware of it, his mind protected from the horror by an impenetrable wall of shock. But
no
, Finch decided. This didn't look like shock. The man appeared fully in control, and eerily calm.

"I'm sorry to hear that," Finch said.

"Don't be," Kaplan replied with a dismissive wave of his hand. "This has made an addict out of her. If she's not popping Valium, she's out fucking the gardener. This has been a long time coming. At least something good came of Katy's death."

Finch frowned, embarrassed by the man's candor, and quickly scooped up his drink.

"See your breath yet?" Kaplan asked, amused.

Finch ignored him.

"My wife and I haven't loved each other in over ten years. In all that time she stayed with me for my money, fully aware that if we divorced she'd stand to get very rich very quickly and have her freedom on top of it. I stayed with her for Katy. But now Katy's gone, and I can afford to lose millions."

"Why?"

"Are you married?"

"No."

"Then you don't yet know what it's like to have the person you swore to love until the end of your days become your enemy overnight, to watch them with other men as they plot to destroy you. In my line of work, you expect to come up against predators and backstabbers every single day. But you expect to leave it there when you come home. Instead, it becomes everything. You get paranoid and you seek out the only thing you've got left. For me, that was my Katy. She resisted every effort Linda made to corrupt her. She stayed loyal to me, and I loved her for that."

He leaned forward and put down his drink. "Now she's gone, so what else is there to lose? Money? I can afford to lose it if it means getting that bitch out of my life. The only reason to keep this pretense, this
sham
, going is dead and buried."

"And what about you?"

He seemed surprised by the question, but considered it. After a moment he sighed. When he sat back again, the cuffs of his pants rode up a little and Finch noticed something odd. Despite the man's apparently flawless dress and perfectly manicured appearance, his socks didn't match. It seemed significant somehow, as if he was being shown the man's true nature, a glimpse behind the facade at the frightened and slowly crumbling creature that cowered behind the armor.

"I'll do what I always do," Kaplan replied. "Persevere."

Finch imagined this man at night, alone and weeping, his eyes bloodshot from a cocktail of barbiturates and alcohol as he looked down at a picture of his daughter. Even when he'd professed his love for Katy, his voice had retained the same lack of emotion that seemed to characterize him, but Finch was no longer so sure that's who he really was. The other parents he'd met had all displayed the expected pallor and vulnerability that death leaves in its wake, and he had recognized it as an accurate reflection of his own, but though Kaplan stood out in his apparent callousness and calm, Finch guessed that, even though it might take a year, or ten years, sooner or later the grief would claim him, if it hadn't already. And the longer he looked, the more he saw in Kaplan's eyes the defiance, the struggle to remain standing as currents of suffering tried to sweep his legs out from under him.

"So, what's your plan?" he asked Finch, after a moment of contemplating something beyond the arched window at the far side of the room.

Finch drained his glass. "I'm not letting it go," he said. "What they did to the kids. I'm not letting it die."

"Is that so?"