Flight

She laughed, clearly delighted. “Well, who knows, right?”

Their orders arrived. It wasn’t hard to see the way to her heart, so as soon as the waiter walked away, Frank said, “Trent Randolph must have been the envy of every man on campus.”

“Oh, yes. But I didn’t do so badly, either. He was a handsome man, but he wore glasses — not real thick ones, but still, most girls didn’t notice him. To be honest, he was a big old clumsy geek when I met him. A chemistry major — and a computer freak!”

Let her keep talking, he told himself.

“My mother thought he’d never go anywhere, but I guess I showed her, didn’t I? He had a quality about him that I saw right away. He was smart, he was ambitious, and he was — oh, a leader. And after I had a chance to teach him not to wear such dumb-looking outfits and got him to start wearing contact lenses — let me tell you, there was a bona fide hunk underneath that geek.”

“He was lucky to have your help.”

“Damned straight he was! I was no small part of his success. And what does he do? Has himself some midlife crisis and runs off with the first bimbo to lean her tits over his mouse pad.”

Frank recalled the scant information in the files about Trent Randolph’s girlfriend. Another person who had been overlooked by the investigation — she had been dumped by the man not long before the murders. Trying to learn more while letting Tory believe he was sympathetic, he asked, “This home wrecker worked in your husband’s office?”

“No, but he met her there. Some blond bimbo from an import business. Tessa. As in she had him by the Tessa- ticles. He walks out after seventeen years of marriage to chase after a woman who wasn’t all that much older than Seth. It broke the kids’ hearts. When I think of what we did to them… not knowing…”

She fell silent and tears began rolling slowly down her face. He offered her a tissue, and she took it with a muttered thanks. For the first time since he sat down across from her, he thought she might be thinking of someone other than herself. An unconcealed, sudden sadness had taken hold of her, and he found himself feeling relieved that perhaps she was not as utterly self-involved as he had thought her to be. He did not admire her, or even like her, but sorrow softened her.

She drew a hiccuping breath and said, “Do you have children, Frank?”

“No, I don’t.”

“If I had known what was going to happen to them… I’m not sure I would have — no, that’s not true. I don’t regret bringing Seth and Amanda into this world. Not for one minute. That would be like — like making their deaths all that mattered. And that would mean I had let their killers win, do you see?”

“Yes, I think I do,” he said, beginning to see the fighter in her and wondering if Trent Randolph had perhaps once loved her for more than her beauty.

She wiped at her eyes, studying him. “I believe you do. So you see, that’s why I make such a damned nuisance of myself as far as the police in this town are concerned. I have hated two names for the past ten years: Philip Lefebvre and Whitey Dane. They robbed me in the worst way. I thought Tessa Satel had robbed me of my husband — but that was nothing — I think Trent and I would have patched things up, given a little more time. But Whitey Dane robbed me of all the time I ever could have had to do that, and took Trent away from me in a way that made Tessa look downright charitable. And he robbed me of my daughter, and ultimately arranged to rob me of my son. He took my future.”

“You got to know Phil Lefebvre?”

“Lefebvre,” she said with disgust. “I suppose I should feel relieved, knowing that Seth’s murderer crashed his plane while he was trying to run away — and that his ass has been rotting on some mountainside all this time — which is almost enough to make me think about getting religion, because if that isn’t divine justice, I don’t know what is. But… but… it didn’t feel as good as I thought it would. And I think that must be in part because he still got away with destroying evidence and letting Whitey Dane roam around free as a damned bird.”

“Did he ever mention—”

“But that’s not the worst thing he did,” she interrupted. “You know what he did? Lefebvre allowed Seth to think of him as his friend. His friend! My son loved that man. Loved him. He’d rather have Lefebvre there than me — Seth made that plain enough. I understood. After the terrible things Seth went through on that boat, my son was scared. Who would protect him? Lefebvre. The man who had saved his life. The man who was in there, day after day, gaining Seth’s trust. Comforting him, helping him, talking to him. Seth didn’t care what he went through in that hospital as long as his good friend Lefebvre was there at his side.”

She leaned over the table and said angrily, “I would have to have Detective Lefebvre come back to life and kill him again and again and again and again to feel any better. Because I trusted him, too. And no one — not even Trent and his bimbo — ever betrayed my trust more terribly.”

She sat back suddenly and gave a short laugh. “I haven’t let you ask me a damned thing, have I? Go ahead — what can I tell you?”

“That last time you saw Lefebvre, was he agitated?”

“To say the least. He talked about leaving — I heard later that he spread some story around the police department about seeing a friend, but the friend didn’t know anything about it. Seth panicked, begged him to stay.”

“He communicated with Seth using a computer?”

She nodded. “I still have it.”

“You have it?” he asked, startled. He was sure he had seen the computer listed as evidence. “I thought—”

She blushed. “Well, Dale got it for me. I mean, he asked for it for me, and they released it to me. There were no fingerprints on it — at least not ones that could have proven anything — and everything was erased from it. But it was — I don’t know, the only way I could communicate with Seth during that time when it was just the two of us. My link to him. I wanted to keep it.”

“Has anyone used it since the night Seth died?”