Magic Moment (18 page)

“Tell me, Special Agent Saunders,” she blew up. “Have I done something to personally offend you? Have you and I met before? We were reincarnated, and in a past life I rejected you? Got ahead of you in line at the grocery store? Dropped a frog down your pants as kids? What? Because whenever some grievance befalls me, you’re at the center. Now you’re picking on my husband.”

Saunders, taken aback, rose from his chair. Laura stood before him not as the timid, anxious woman he had ushered from the diner. She displayed her personality’s feisty, fighting side that appeared whenever she was pushed to her limit.

Kevin, having caught up, stood beside his client. “Laura, I’m your attorney. Let me talk.”

“Yes, Miss Roberts. If you have an attorney, I advise you to listen to him,” Saunders said.

“It’s Donovan!” she snapped. “Laura Donovan. Mrs. Chase Donovan.” She took a deep breath, considering the baby. After a calm exhale, she continued. “I’m told you want proof of my wedding to Chase.” She took a paper from her purse along with two snapshots. “Our marriage certificate and two pictures.”

Saunders took the items. The official document stated Laura and Chase’s names, date and place of marriage, appropriate signatures, including officiator and witnesses. Of the snapshots, one showed a black-robed, balding judge pronouncing the couple husband and wife; and the other was a simple photo taken afterwards. The newlyweds smiled, facing one another, arms wrapped around each other. They had held each other so tightly, she remembered. As if each had been afraid of losing the other. This picture was her favorite.

Saunders glanced at the objects and handed them back. “No picture of Donovan kissing his bride?”

Kevin spoke quickly, cutting off Laura’s hostile remark. “My client has provided documentation proving she and Chase Donovan are married,” he said. “You stated you have follow-up questions from your prior meeting. In everyone’s best interest, Special Agent Saunders, I suggest you ask your questions, release Mr. Donovan, and allow my client and her husband to return to their honeymoon.”

There was a long pause before Saunders nodded, indicating the room with the opened door. “In there.”

Laura and Kevin followed the agent into the room, a small dreary, windowless area with a square table and four chairs. Kevin pulled out a chair for Laura. Once she was settled, the two men each took a chair. Kevin sat next to her; Saunders across from them.

“Where have you been, Mrs. Donovan?” the agent asked.

Laura hesitated, guarded more over his reason for the question, than the actual question. “Why?”

Saunders shrugged. “It’s a normal question.”

She glared at the man. “Nothing is normal where you’re involved.”

Kevin cut in. “When you interviewed my client, did you charge her with anything? Advise her not to leave the area?”

“No,” Saunders replied grudgingly.

“In that case, my client has the right to go anywhere she pleases,” Kevin said. To Laura, he whispered, “Tell him where you’ve been.”

Laura lingered with an answer, hoping the pause annoyed Saunders. “Honeymooning on my husband’s boat. We stopped in Sea Tower. It’s a town in Maryland along the Chesapeake Bay. His aunt lives there.” Didn’t Chase tell Saunders? Or had he? And the agent checked to see if their stories matched?

Saunders leaned back. “Laura, I have nothing against you. Honestly. It’s not your life I want to make miserable.”

Her expression twisted in a sneer. “Could have fooled me.”

He ignored the comment. “I suspect some questionable activity at the Donovan warehouse, and I believe you can provide information.”

“What kind of — questionable — activity?” Kevin asked.

Saunders paused. “I’m not at liberty to say. Our investigation remains ongoing.”

“Last time we met, I answered all of your questions truthfully,” Laura said.

However, Saunders asked her the same questions as before, regarding the company’s merchandise and invoices, and Laura gave him the exact same answers. Her temples started pounding.

“How much of our conversation did you tell Chase Donovan?” he asked.

She looked at Kevin, and he nodded for her to answer. “Everything. Chase was as confused as I was. He was concerned over your inquiries, why you were bothering me.”

“Laura, do you know who owns the produce company?”

“Dick Donovan.”

“And his son,” Saunders informed her.

“The corporation papers are only in Dick Donovan’s name,” she said. Both Donovan names were on the warehouse lease, Laura knew, to allow Chase to make maintenance and tenant voting decisions in his father’s absence.

Kevin looked directly at her. “Doesn’t matter, Laura. The business can still be in both names, father and son.”

Laura shot him a stinging glance. “Whose side are you on?”

“This isn’t about sides,” Kevin said. “My job is to represent you. Advise you and look out for your interest. Not your husband’s. He has his own attorney.”

“Listen to your attorney, Laura,” Saunders said with a triumphant chin tilt. “Everything the Donovans have, they own together. The business. The fancy house in the suburbs. Their bank accounts. Their cars. Everything is in both Donovan names. Even Chase’s boat.”

“You have evidence?” Kevin asked.

A phone sat on the table. Saunders pushed a button and spoke into the speaker. “Bring me the Donovan File B.”

Laura felt dizzy. She had been too anxious to eat lunch, and her stomach was queasy.
Donovan File B
indicated more than one Donovan file. Was there a separate file entirely on Chase? Kevin seemed to surmise where Saunders’ implications were leading. The fact Laura was clueless frightened and unnerved her.

A dark haired woman in her late fifties, wearing a black tailored skirt and jacket, brought in a manila folder. She handed it to the agent. Saunders looked through the contents before sliding the opened folder across the table. Both Laura and Kevin examined the papers together. Tax returns for The Produce Market, bank statements, deeds, and titles, including the title for
Madre
, all in the names of Richard Chase Donovan, Jr. and Richard Chase Donovan, III — Dick and Chase Donovan.

Saunders leaned forward and rested his folded arms on the table. “Your husband doesn’t own a thing by himself, doesn’t have a personal pot to piss in. If the Donovan business went down the tubes today and all the assets seized, your husband would be flat broke. Left without a cent.” The thought of Chase being penniless seemed to make the agent happy.

Despite the churning in her stomach, Laura held her own with Saunders. “Are you saying my husband married me for my money?” she asked caustically. “I’m not exactly an heiress.”

Saunders pursed his lips, then spoke. “What I’m trying to tell you is we’ve launched an investigation into Donovan business dealings. And your husband may have his hand in the cookie jar, so to speak. Isn’t it rather advantageous to suddenly marry a woman we bring in to help us gather evidence?”

Kevin’s tone was even. “How about bringing evidence against Chase Donovan, rather than your speculation, to the table?”

Saunders paid the attorney no mind, and continued. “Laura, how did you and Chase come to marry? Did you have some dates? Where did he take you? How long were you seeing each other? Whose idea was it to marry?”

Laura remained quiet. Her brain beat against her temples.

Saunders persisted. “You and Chase are both Catholic, right? No church. No priest. No fancy gown. Why not, Laura? Who put together your wedding?”

Laura wasn’t surprised to know Saunders was aware of Chase’s religion, but hers? What else did the agent know about her? The sudden wedding? Did he know the idea belonged to Chase?

She clutched her stomach.

“Every woman wants the long walk up the aisle, her girlfriends as bridesmaids, right, Laura?” Saunders prodded.

Her fingertips brushed her throbbing temples. “That never mattered to me,” she whispered.

The agent went on. “You’re wearing jeans at your wedding, not even a dress.”

Laura remained silent, feeling her insides knot. A cold sweat tickled her brow.

Saunders snickered. “To top it off, you went and got yourself pregnant.”

“You’re out of line,” Kevin said in the same tone of voice a television district attorney would call out, “objection.”

Saunders ignored Kevin. “Laura, what do you intend to tell your kid about Mommy and Daddy’s wedding day?”

She stared at the agent, the knot in her stomach crawling upwards. He made her relationship with Chase sound sneaky, dirty, and underhanded. “I need to use the ladies room. I feel sick.”

She thought Saunders’ face held genuine concern as he spoke into the telephone speaker, calling for a woman named Judy. Judy, the woman who had brought in the folder, escorted Laura.

The facilities were across the corridor from Saunders’ office. Laura declined Judy’s offer to stay, insisting she only needed a short break. The woman hesitated, but eventually left.

Laura stood over the toilet, and eventually, the urge to vomit passed. She washed her hands and patted her face with cold water, the icy wetness a cooling relief.

She understood Saunders’ insinuation. Whatever criminal Dick Donovan was a party to, Chase was also.

Laura cringed. She hadn’t heard Dick’s end of the telephone conversation with Chase on
Madre
. That exchange had led to a marriage proposal.

Being their bookkeeper, Laura hadn’t paid much attention to the relationship between Chase and his father. Not until her current state of affairs did she became aware of tension between them. That animosity apparently bore no interference where money was concerned. Or was their dissension a ploy for her benefit?

If whatever criminal activity the Donovans were involved in was ready to surface, what better way for Chase to keep track of Laura’s visits to the FBI than by marrying her? Better yet, keep her away altogether with a boat ride down the Atlantic. The law stated a wife couldn’t testify against her husband, and Laura would never send her child’s father to prison.

Chase was an attorney, a non-practicing one, but one nonetheless. He was aware of loopholes. What better insurance to keep Laura quiet than to be her child’s father? Hadn’t he continuously insisted she was aware of what the FBI wanted, but just couldn’t recall? He had been trying to get her to remember. She assumed to help her, but perhaps to help himself. She recalled Saunders prodding her into the back of a car.
That was the kid
, he had said referring to Chase. While Saunders had been watching Dick Donovan, had he kept his eyes on Chase, too?

Perhaps Chase’s kindness was no coincidence. He was smart where women mattered, conscious of pushing their appropriate buttons. Laura had been vulnerable, and he pushed hers, making her depend on him. To even fall in love with him.

Perhaps it wasn’t fate that had Chase showing up to save her. He had devised a way to silence her without killing her.

Chase tossed his long legs over the side of the bunk. He hadn’t slept during the night, but merely switched his stares from ceiling to wall. He was accustomed to a thicker, firmer mattress, and the narrow cot was missing the luscious body he had enjoyed holding against him. Until his wife, it had never occurred to Chase that a woman curled around him in sleep was so pleasant. He closed his eyes, feeling Laura’s soft, silky breast brush up against his arm, wishing she were real and not just a memory. Chase didn’t need to make love to his wife to be satisfied; feeling her sleeping pressed against him was just as gratifying.

Ned’s accusations popped into his head. Disgusted and angry — additional reasons sleep had eluded him — he remembered why he had given up the law. One became suspicious of everything and everyone, even a wife he loved.

Being the only prisoner in the cellblock did have some advantages. Hearing the clang of the steel door opening, Chase knew he was getting a visitor.

Ned peered through the bars. “You gotta admit this sure ain’t the Four Seasons.”

Chase stood up, stretched his arms overhead and eased out the kinks. He walked to the cell door. “Welcome to my humble abode.”

“You’re mighty comfortable,” Ned said with a dry grin. “Such a shame. They’re doing the paperwork to spring you.”

“Laura?” Chase asked anxiously.

Ned nodded. “She was here. Kevin Woolfe, the attorney I got her, told me she showed up with your marriage certificate, and a couple of photos.”

“She met with Saunders? How’d it go?”

“I wasn’t asked to sit in, and you know Kevin can’t discuss anything with me. You’ll have to talk to your wife. Your Aunt Lonnie’s with her,” Ned added.

Relief flooded Chase; thank God for his aunt. “I hoped Laura wouldn’t travel alone.”

“Listen, they couldn’t wait for you,” Ned said. “Laura felt sick with Saunders. Kevin said she was as white as a sheet.”

Chase muttered a curse aimed at Saunders. “Did Aunt Lonnie take her to the hospital?”

Ned waved the concern away. “Chase, I got kids, been through this three times. When women get pregnant, they eat, sleep, puke, and cry about their hormones. Laura’s fine.”

Chase’s spirits perked. Yeah, Ned had been through this pregnant thing multiple times and with happy, healthy babies and a healthy wife being the result. What better person to ask for advice on mood swings, hormones, pregnancy sex … inquire delicately, of course. But this didn’t seem like the time or place. The conversation could wait until Chase was out of here and assured Laura was okay.

“By the way, they’re at Laura’s condo,” Ned said. “You married a woman you’re barely acquainted with. Do you know where her condo is?”

“The Square.” Laura had a condominium in the stylish Rittenhouse Square section of the city. “She gave me her key in case I planned to stay in Philly overnight. But Saunders took care of my lodgings.”

“Detaining you, the interrogation, Saunders and his pompous routine was bull.” Ned’s lips twisted in a sneer. “Let me know if you want to file anything against the creep.”

“This was more Saunders’ game playing, another fishing expedition.” Chase ached to put his arms around his wife. He never realized missing another human being hurt so much. “I’m too tired and hungry to figure out what’s going on at the warehouse, and I’m not putting Laura through any more stress.”