The Dirty Secrets Club (45 page)

He dropped it and ground it under his heel. "Now your phone."

She held it out. "Just wand it. Don't squash it."

He held it under the scanner. The signal squeaked. He took out the battery and hurled it over the rail into the riptides below.

"Satisfied?" Jo said.

He put the scanner away. "You think you're a genius, don't you? The puzzle mistress, mind-fucker extraordinaire. You're an amateur."

"You had me going, I'll admit," Jo said. "The grieving ex. Confused about why Callie turned a law school bullshit session into the real deal. In fact, you and she were the first two members of the club, weren't you?"

"Are we going to have a pissing contest to see who's got the other's number? I can piss a whole lot farther than you. Even if you are a black widow." He leaned on the fence. "You'll never prove it. There's no mention of my name in Callie's files. She certainly didn't have my resume in her desk. You're guessing."

"You know that for sure, do you?"

He turned and smiled, like a lizard. "She never put my name in the files. Because she loved me. She loved fucking me too much."

"Did she know you were blackmailing the other members?"

His smile stayed icy, but his eyes withdrew.

"I noticed something," she said. "In Scott Southern's suicide note, in Xochi Zapata's video, in the rant Perry Ames shouted at me the other night—and in what Geli Meyer talked about in her confession. At some point, they all talked about blackmail."

He stared out over the headlands.

"Pray even talked about extortion being used to fund club members' businesses and IPOs," she said.

His smile was diminishing. He looked as cold as an ice pick.

"You forced Xochi Zapata and William Willets to rob Perry Ames. That was not only a dare, but the price of keeping their secrets," she said.

"This is bullshit."

"Members gain status by pulling stunts and getting away with them. That's what you decided to do to me, the first day we met. You decided to play Truth or Dare with me. Now that I look back, it was obvious. You practically shoved information about the DSC at me. You faked a tantrum at Callie's and handed me the 'welcome to the club' note in a way that made it look totally innocent. Then at the Fairmont, you flat-out handed over her notebook with all the rules in it."

He tried ignoring her. She tilted her head. "How much did it cost you to find out how my husband died—some Google research and a few bribes?"

He refused to look at her. "You'd be surprised how cheaply people will sell information. Gossip. Secrets. They love it. They'll practically give it away."

"How much for the claim I killed my husband?"

"Forty bucks, plus a Maserati polo shirt. Guy was a former civilian dispatcher for the Air National Guard."

She felt a sour taste in her mouth. Hurting people was a cheap commodity. "Originally I thought by sending the note, you were trying to scare me into stopping my investigation. It was getting too close to you. But that was exactly backward. You tried to tell me as much about the Dirty Secrets Club as possible, from the very start. You were dancing in the fire, giving me Callie's notebooks. You wanted to see if you could slide by right in plain view. But then you went farther. You gave my name to Pray."

He stared at his shoes. He seemed inordinately pleased by how shiny they were.

"How did you do that?" Jo said. "Just tell me that."

He slid a glance her way. "You know you'll never prove a thing, don't you? I'm golden. Nobody's going to touch me."

"So tell me. I'm dying to know."

"Insatiable curiosity, is it?"

"Professional hazard. Nature of the people who become shrinks."

He smiled. "I'm the one who tapped Susan—I mean Xochi Zapata—into the club. Why do you think that is?"

"You tell me."

"Venture capital is the grease that drives business in Silicon Valley." He swept an arm out, showing Jo the glorious panorama. "From San Francisco down to San Jose, the entire tech industry slides on money. And I'm the one who provides it. No matter what. If we need bucks to get a deal going, I get it."

"Raising money isn't always clean, is that what you're saying?"

"You actually look at the dank underside of people's minds, and it doesn't occur to you that money is dirty, too?"

She kept her face neutral. "You wanted funds for your business, didn't you? You raised it by blackmailing other members of the club."

"Imagination is my strong suit."

"Do tell."

"It was a perfect setup. Get all these rich thrill seekers to join the club by telling us their secrets. Then blackmail them. I recruited them, bilked them, and then moved them on up to a higher level, where they got a cut of the proceeds by blackmailing the next round of new members."

"A pyramid scheme."

"I like the classics."

The wind twisted her hair. "And when Perry Ames applied to join, you tried to blackmail him. And he was the wrong guy."

"Yeah, that one didn't go as well as it could. A lowlife gambling promoter, I should have known he was trouble. Though I did get the money."

"Were you there, Greg? When William Willets nearly killed Ames?"

"Of course not. He never knew I was involved in that. I'd had Xochi and Will set up the meeting. My name was never mentioned to him."

"You're the one Pray's been after all along."

He smiled. "He wants the name of the man who ordered the robbery. He never knew he killed the people who could have given it to him. He killed Willets and Xochi, and burned the trail to me."

"Perfect."

"It is, isn't it?"

"Did you ever feel bad about stealing his money and letting him be garroted?"

"Feel bad about exterminating a cockroach? Why should I?"

"And then poor Xochi couldn't keep quiet, could she? She was a compulsive babbler. Once she was in the club, she leaked information to people she shouldn't have. Word got out on the street, didn't it?"

"So we didn't bat a thousand with our membership drive. That problem's solved."

"You actually think the DSC is going to keep going? You're planning your next membership drive to replenish the ranks?"

"Why not? Nobody's going to believe you. You're a weak woman who killed two people through medical incompetence. You have no proof of anything you're hearing today. And if for some reason anybody does believe your incredible tale, I'll explain that I came to you in confidence, for therapy, and you're breaching your professional obligations. No reputable psychiatrist reveals what their patients tell them. You'd lose your license."

The wind shook the Monterey pines. "Why did you pass my name around to the members of the club? Did you really want to egg me into joining?"

"No. You don't have the juice. You couldn't cut it."

"So by giving my name to Pray, you thought you might even lure Pray into killing me, solving your problem for good. Of course, you were also exposing yourself to the risk that I or the cops would trace things back to you."

"But that was my challenge. It was all part of the fun." He smiled. "Just like meeting Pray before he went after you was part of the fun. David Yoshida was the one who had lured him into applying to join the club—so he just thought I was Callie's ex, nothing more."

"You wanted me to die an equivocal death. That's why you told Pray and Skunk not to shoot me. You wanted it to look like an accident."

"I figured suicide would be too much trouble to arrange." The smile was chilly. "Equivocal death. Irony is a big thing with me. We don't have enough irony in America."

He laughed. "Don't you see? You have no proof. You have nothing."

"Having fun bragging to me?"

"It ain't bragging if you really done it."

"You really took the club and ran with it, didn't you?"

"Callie had a good idea. It took me to fine-tune it. She was judgmental and straightforward. I can see around corners."

"How entertaining for you."

His smile was becoming broader. "This is really getting your goat. There's no chance I'll ever be prosecuted. No evidence to link me to Perry Ames. Xochi might eventually have told, but she's dead. It's a foolproof setup."

"Maybe this is a good time to tell you, Greg. You're so shit-hot on secrets. I know something you don't."

" Yippee-kay-fucking-yay."

"You and Callie spent all the years you were divorced trying to destroy each other, didn't you? It's not that hard to figure out. Everything you've said tells me you had a destructive obsession with each other. Sexual and emotional."

He said nothing.

"You said she punished people. You meant she punished you. And you punished her. Did she know you'd turned the DSC into your own private blackmail operation?"

"She must have realized it the night she died."

He was so self-satisfied, so angry, so full of hubris, that she wanted to retch. She kept her face calm. "That was how you were secretly punishing her."

He smiled. Jo let him enjoy the moment.

"Callie had a secret, too. Something that's going to punish you permanently. The Dirty Secrets Club is a sting operation."

His head tilted, just slightly.

"That's right," she said.

Jo watched his mouth curl, his diaphragm catch, as though he'd just choked on a lump of meat. He backed up and caught his breath, trying to right himself.

His lips drew back. "I'll come after you anyway. I'll get you. So you won't do it. The only way to stop me would be to kill me, and you don't have the guts."

The sun glinted from the ocean. She didn't move. "You're right, I won't. I took an oath. It's a bitch on days like today, but I abide by it. First, do no harm."

He sneered. "Jesus Christ. Quilt it on a sampler and sing 'God Bless the USA.' Fuck you. I took no oath."

Twenty yards down the path, Gabe Quintana stood up from the park bench where he was sitting. He strolled toward them, removing an earpiece from his iPod.

"Excuse me," he said.

Harding didn't look at him. "Get lost."

Gabe stopped two feet from Harding. "I'm sorry, sir, but I couldn't help hearing what you said to the lady."

"Fuck off."

"No."

Harding looked at Gabe and did a double take, sensing an undercurrent of violence.

"I said, I heard everything. And I'm not barred from backing Dr. Beckett up."

Harding's mouth pinched.

"And I happened to be recording dictation on my iPod. My mike may have picked up what you were saying."

"Listen, pal, you don't—"

"And nothing, repeat, nothing bad is going to happen to this woman. Because I also took an oath. That Others May Live. That means Jo. And I'll kill you to make sure I keep that oath."

Gabe stepped closer and lowered his voice. "Pray went after my daughter with a Molotov cocktail. But you're leaving here alive. Think about how lucky that makes you."

Harding looked down.

Jo turned to go, and turned back. "One last thing. I think you lost this." From the pocket of her peacoat she took out a baseball. "I don't know how it got in Skunk's Cadillac, but you had to have had a part in it." She tossed and caught it, and turned it over in her hand. "Willie Mays. My expert says it's the ball from the 1954 Series. Worth over a hundred thousand dollars. I don't know how you'll fence it on eBay to fund your next deal, but good luck."

She turned toward the cliff and threw it over the fence, a high arcing fastball that sailed into the blue and down toward the rocks.

"Jesus Christ. You bitch—"

He vaulted over the fence, ran to the drop-off, and began scrambling down the cliffside.

Jo called after him. "I'll see you in court, Mr. Harding."

She saw his manicured hands and shining Rolex claw at the dirt as he bumbled his way down. She and Gabe watched until he disappeared. They turned and walked away.

A hundred yards down the path, she said, "May I borrow your phone?"

He handed it to her. She called Amy Tang, who was down the street having coffee at the Seal Rock Inn.

"All yours," Jo said.

She handed the phone back to Gabe. "What were you recording on your iPod, the Beatitudes? Blessed are the peacemakers?"

"John Wayne. Grab 'em by the balls, and their hearts and minds will follow."

They walked farther. He said, "When do you think he'll figure out you bought that baseball at Manny's Sporting Goods this morning and signed it yourself?"

They kept walking.

"You're smiling," he said.

She was. She felt the sun on her face, the breeze caressing her hair, the day spreading before her. A weight was gone from her shoulders.

"Tell me?" Gabe said.

She heard the roar of the sea behind her.

"Is it a secret?" Gabe said.