Читать книгу The Real Allie Newman - Janice Carter - Страница 9

FOR A MOMENT Allie was swept back into the Cataraqui River, the roaring in her ears just as it had been that day. The man’s lips were moving, but whatever he was saying was obliterated by a thunderous noise. Her mind flashed to Harry Maguire shouting at her over the boom of rushing water. But now, all she could do was stand absolutely still, frozen by the implication of what she’d just heard.

“I don’t understand,” she said, her voice foreign to her ears.

“It’s a long story,” he began. “Perhaps we could go somewhere?”

Allie thought of Susan, waiting at the farmhouse, anticipating a cozy evening together. That would be impossible now, Allie realized.

“I’ve got to call Susan and let her know I won’t be coming tonight. She’s expecting me.”

“Fair enough. I can wait.”

Allie looked from his face to the receipts now squeezed into a ball in her hand. She tossed them onto the counter. “I’ll be right back,” she said, and marched to the office at the back of the store.

Fortunately Susan wasn’t the prying type. She accepted Allie’s explanation that something had come up with her usual grace. Allie promised to call her first thing in the morning, grabbed her backpack and returned to the front of the store. She’d had a crazy hope while she was on the phone that the guy might have taken his wild story and disappeared. No such luck.

He was standing in front of the naturopathic medicines. “You take any of this stuff?” he asked.

“Not really. But you didn’t come here to learn about holistic medicine, did you?”

He stifled a grin. “Where would you like to talk?”

“There’s a coffee shop down the street,” she said, and led the way out of the store, stopping to lock it behind them.

“I was thinking of someplace more private,” he said as they started down the street.

Allie cocked her head, looking up at him. “Such as?”

“The park by the water. Or my hotel room. I’m staying at the Ramada down by the marina.”

Your hotel. Yeah, right. “The park,” Allie said. “But first I want to pick up a coffee, if that’s okay.”

He nodded. “I could use one, too.”

They reached the coffee shop and went in to order. When the coffee came, he swiftly handed the clerk a large bill to pay for both, and Allie muttered a grudging thank-you as she headed for the door. He seemed to get the message she wasn’t interested in small talk and remained silent for the rest of the walk down Princess to Confederation Park on the waterfront. Allie headed for a bench in the sun, facing the water, and sat down without a backward glance.

“Is that Lake Ontario out there?” he asked, setting his backpack on the grass at his feet as he sat down beside her.

“The St. Lawrence River. The lake starts farther down that way,” she said, swinging her arm across his line of vision to the west. “See the outline of those islands? The biggest one is Amherst and the lake officially starts there.”

“So where are the famous Thousand Islands then?”

She squinted at him. “You’re not from around here, are you?”

“Nope. First time in these parts, though I’ve been to Northern Ontario.”

Allie frowned. “Are you American?”

“Is it that obvious?”

“No. Usually I can pick out Americans right away because of their accent. But you don’t have one.”

“Maybe not, but you do.”

The grin took at least five years off him, Allie thought, which would put him in his midthirties. It also made him, as Beth might say, unforgettable in the looks department.

“Something wrong?” he asked.

She shook her head. “No, just…uh…wondering why an American has something to tell me about my mother.”

He liked that she got straight to the point, dismissing any attempt at niceties. “Right. Let’s get to it, then.” He flipped the plastic tab on his coffee cup and took a long swallow before turning to look at her.

“As I said before, I’m a private investigator. Here,” he said, pulling a slim leather billfold from the inside pocket of his jacket. He flipped it open and withdrew a business card, which he handed to Allie.

“Not long after that article about you in People magazine came out, I was contacted by a man in Grosse Pointe, Michigan. His name was George Kostakis and he was acting on behalf of his great-uncle, Spiro Kostakis.” He paused, watching her face for any hint of recognition and, when none came, went on. “He told me that you looked just like his second cousin, Katrina Kostakis.” Joel took another sip of coffee and studied Allie’s face in profile.

She was listening attentively, frowning slightly in concentration but giving no suggestion that the names meant anything at all to her. But Joel noticed her tapping his business card against her other hand until she tucked it into the pocket of the windbreaker she was wearing. Anxiety level increasing? he wondered.

“Katrina was the only child of Spiro Kostakis, George’s great-uncle and patriarch of the Kostakis clan in Grosse Pointe. George said that there’d been a granddaughter— Elena—who’d disappeared from the family home when she was only three. Spirited away, apparently,” Joel added, wanting to give some benefit of doubt for Allie’s sake, “by her father, one Eddie Hughes—Katrina’s husband and Elena’s father.”

At that, Allie’s head turned his way, her expression almost challenging him. “So far I get no connection to me, other than the fact that I coincidentally resemble this woman—what was her name again?”

“Katrina Kostakis. Or Trina, as she was sometimes called.”

“Was?”

“She’s dead. Killed in a car crash twenty-six years ago.”

“And she is—was—supposed to be…”

“Your mother,” Joel said softly, keeping his gaze on her face.

Allie broke eye contact first, turning her gaze toward the water. But not before Joel caught the devastation in her face. He stared bleakly at the water, too, hating himself for what he’d said. What he still had to say.

“My father’s name was Rob Newman,” she said, her voice low and hoarse. “Rob Newman.”

Joel sighed. He rose from the bench, strode over to a garbage can and chucked his empty coffee cup into it. She watched him as he leaned over, picked up his pack from the grass and unzipped an outer pocket. He pulled out an envelope and paused, noticing the slight trembling of her chin. But when she tilted her head, defiantly raising her face to his, Joel flicked open the envelope and withdrew the photograph, handing it to her in a swift movement that caught her unawares. She fumbled, letting it float to the ground.

He started to bend down for it, but she beat him to it, sweeping up the picture and bringing it to the tip of her nose as if inspecting it through a magnifying glass. Then she leaped to her feet and, clutching the photo in her right hand, began to jog across the grassy park lawn to the sidewalk beyond.

“Hey!” Joel shouted, but she didn’t turn around. It seemed as if she increased her stride at the sound of his voice. She was running now, dodging the busy traffic to cross the road, and heading down a side street. Joel swore. He swung his small pack over a shoulder, grabbed the one she’d left behind and took off after her. Though judging by her pace, he doubted he’d catch up to her.

He was about half a block behind and starting to sweat with the extra load of packs, while she seemed to be just getting into a rhythm, loping ahead of him as effortlessly and gracefully as an antelope. He swore, realizing how all of those postponed sessions at the fitness center were working against him. When she turned right at Wellington, he slowed down, knowing where she was headed. Her apartment.

Allie, once inside her apartment, knew exactly where to look. Whisking the photograph from the journal in her desk drawer, she charged back down the stairs and onto the front porch. Her heart was pounding against her ribs, but she knew it wasn’t from the run. That had scarcely raised a sweat.

The private investigator hadn’t fared as well, she noted. His breath sounded ragged, as though he were barely holding himself together. Although he didn’t appear to be on the verge of total collapse, his eyes were beginning to get that wild look that unfit people sometimes get when their bodies are screaming at them to stop. She waited on the top step while he got his breathing under control.

“I guess you recognized the photo,” he finally said.

At least he had some sense of humor. “I have the same one,” she said, extending her right arm. “At least, part of it.”

He took the fragment of photo from her. “You must be—what? About two when that was taken?” he asked.

“I think so.”

“And the other half? Do you know—”

“Who snipped my mother out?” Allie shrugged. “Dad, I guess. I found that in his papers after he died. At the time, it was just another reminder that he wanted to forget my mother. Maybe he did it out of love for me—wanting to protect me from questions he couldn’t answer,” she added.

The P.I. was heading up the steps now, standing so close she could feel the heat from his run still evaporating off him. Allie instinctively backed away.

“Or maybe he just didn’t want you asking any questions, in case you stumbled on it one day. You have to admit, the resemblance is—”

“Striking,” Allie put in.

“Which is why your grandfather was certain you were Katrina’s daughter.”

Allie waited a moment, letting that register. “So now what?” she asked, striving for calm.

“There’s more,” Joel said. “My client—your grandfather—has a proposal for you, so to speak. We’ll need somewhere quiet to talk.”

The roaring in her ears came back and with it, a surge in blood pressure. Allie covered her face with her hands. She didn’t want to hear or discover anything more. Enough was enough. She breathed deeply, using her tented hands to ease the hyperventilation. That is, until they were gently lifted up and away, and folded into Joel’s as he pulled her closer.

“I know,” he murmured, his breath whispering across the top of her head. “It’s all too much to take in. You just want me to go away so you can get back to your life.”

He was so close to her any passerby would have thought they were about to kiss. For a second he seemed almost like an old friend—there to give comfort and refuge. Then she remembered why he was really there and eased her hands out of his clasp, stepping back at the same time.

“Yes,” Allie said. “I do, so why don’t you go and let me get back to my life?”

“Too late, isn’t it?” He shook his head. “I’m sorry, but you’re never going to be able to go back.”

“Of course I am. I’m a very determined person when I want to be.”

“I know,” Joel conceded. “Otherwise you wouldn’t have rescued that man and his dog.”

That made her pause. Most people gushed about her bravery when all along, Allie had known the force that drove her into the icy Cataraqui twice had been something different. Instinctively she’d known that there was no way she was going to let Harry Maguire and Jeb die.

“And that very determination,” she said, her voice rising, “will see me through this…this situation.”

“If you were the kind of person who didn’t care about others, you might pull it off. But I suspect that even if I leave without telling you the rest of the story, you’ll always wonder. That unavoidably huge question of why your father ran away from his wife and family—and abducted you—will hang over you the rest of your life. You know it and I know it.” He turned to descend the porch steps.

“Wait!”

He paused.

Allie was back in the icy Cataraqui again. Only this time, she herself was being swept downstream with no hope of rescue in sight. “You’d better come upstairs,” she murmured, turning away from him so he couldn’t see her face.

SHE WAS EITHER a minimalist or unsentimental, Joel instantly decided, surveying her second-floor apartment. Throw in neat freak, too, he mused. No knickknacks to collect dust, not that a speck of it would be allowed to linger. The clean, crisp style of the decor matched her physical self—unadorned, tidy and in spectacular condition.

Joel repressed a smile. He sounded as if he was composing ad copy. But really, he was relieved that she seemed to be a no-nonsense kind of woman. More than likely, he’d be spending quite a few hours with her in the days ahead, and he dreaded the possibility that she might be overly emotional about everything she was about to learn. It was hard enough juggling the various roles he’d assumed without having to worry about Allie Newman’s state of mind.

“More coffee?” she asked, closing the apartment door behind her.

“Uh, sure,” he said, not really wanting another coffee so soon but anxious to postpone the inevitable. She headed into the hall—toward the kitchen, he guessed—and he took the opportunity to check out the small living room that overlooked the street. A faded plump sofa in front of the bay window had a worn but comfy air. He almost felt like sinking into it, putting up his feet and having a snooze.

Joel scanned the pine bookshelves lining the wall opposite the window. If he hadn’t already known she was some kind of college professor, he’d have concluded so after one glance at the titles. Many were familiar—classics that he’d once stacked on his own shelf years ago as a college undergrad.

“You take it black, right?” she called out.

She must have noticed his preference at the coffee shop earlier. Following her voice along a dark, wood-paneled hall, he appeared in the doorway of a medium-size, old-fashioned kitchen.

“Yes, thanks,” he said.

Her head shot up from pouring coffee into two mugs. “I didn’t hear you coming down the hall.”

He took the mug she held out and shrugged. “Professional habit, I guess.”

One corner of her mouth seemed to twist under as she muttered, “Yeah,” and after splashing some milk into her own coffee, led the way back to the front of the house.

Joel glanced left and right along the hallway. There were two closed doors and an open one leading into a sunlit bathroom. “You live alone?” he asked.

“Yes.” She sank into the sofa and propped her feet on a coffee table stacked with magazines, books and what appeared to be exam papers.

Joel settled into a black leather armchair adjacent to the sofa. No roommate. That was good. No complications.

“Nice place,” he remarked. Then, nodding to the pile of papers, he asked, “Are those exam papers?”

“Yes.”

He went on, unfazed by her terseness. “You a teacher or something?”

Her sigh echoed in the room. “I’m sure you know all about me, Mr. Kennedy. Shall we get to why you’re here?”

“Joel,” he murmured, flashing what he hoped was a placating smile. “High school?” he ventured, pushing her just a tad more.

“I teach math at Queen’s—it’s a local university.”

“Ah! Professor?”

“Hardly. But someday perhaps. I haven’t done my doctoral thesis yet.” She stretched forward to set her mug on the coffee table, brought her feet back to the floor and sat up straight. “Now, about my mother…”

“Right.” Joel leaned over and set his half-empty mug on the floor. “As I said, your father’s real name was Eddie Hughes. Thirty-two years ago he married Katrina Kostakis, the only child of Spiro and Vangelia Kostakis. Apparently Katrina had always been fragile, and shortly after your birth, she spiraled into a serious postnatal depression. From what I’ve been told by the family, she kept this a secret for quite some time, but when you were just a year old or so, it was evident that Katrina had problems. She was put on antidepressants and they seemed to help for a bit. Then—” he paused, noting how Allie’s eyes seemed to disappear into her face at each new sentence “—she began to drink. You can imagine how things became much worse very quickly.”

Allie’s face paled.

Joel hesitated. “Do you want me to get you something? A glass of cold water?”

She waved a limp hand. “No, just continue. But thanks, anyway.”

He was beginning to wish he had a cold drink right then himself, though water wasn’t what he had in mind. “Adding to the equation was the fact that Eddie—your father—worked for Spiro in a fairly high managerial position.”

“Managerial? My father? He was, like, the ultimate hippie,” Allie said. She shook her head. “This is all too much. What kind of business does this Spiro operate?”

“Your grandfather has a number of enterprises. I did some checking on him after he first consulted me. He has a chain of Greek restaurants in Michigan, along with a few importing-exporting companies. Some corporate real estate.”

“So what part did my father supposedly manage?”

There was more than a hint of disbelief in the question. Joel knew enough to make his answer vague. “I’m not really sure, to be honest. Just before he took off, he was being touted as Spiro’s new right-hand man.”

Allie frowned. “Then why would he take off?”

Joel leaned forward in the chair, sensing he’d hooked her at last. She was starting to ask important questions. “I was told there was an argument between Spiro and Eddie about handling some business deal. Spiro made some comment about Eddie not being any more adept at managing his own marriage. Eddie blew up and implied that the marriage wasn’t going to last the year, anyway. Then Spiro reminded him that he had enough connections—politically and legally—to ensure that Eddie would walk away from the marriage with nothing, not even visitation rights to his daughter.”

Joel waited for a reaction, though none came. Instead, he saw that she’d been drawn completely into the story as if it was a tale about some strangers, not her own family. He went on. “Eddie replied that Katrina would never get custody of you, given her depression and alcoholism.”

“That’s true, I’m sure,” Allie put in.

“Perhaps, but Spiro made it clear that he and your grandmother would sue for custody and would have no problem getting it.”

“So he ran off with me,” she whispered.

“Apparently.”

Allie sat staring into space, imagining a tableau of how it might have been, trying to put faces on the people whose names she was hearing for the first time. Then her eyes must have focused, for she realized she was looking directly at Joel Kennedy. If only her mind would focus, as well, so she could decide which of the thousand questions clamoring inside to pose first.

“How did you get this information?” she asked. Not a great question, she knew at once, but a start. And it seemed to take him aback, because he blinked a few times before replying.

“From Spiro at our first meeting. I also interviewed a few people who worked with Eddie at the time. Also, your aunt—Ephtimea, or Effie—provided some background.”

“My aunt?”

“Well, I guess cousin, or second cousin is more like it. She was married to Spiro’s nephew, Tony. Their two sons—George and Christopher, or Christo—work for Spiro.”

“A real family enterprise,” she mused.

“A wealthy and powerful family enterprise,” Joel added.

He must have picked up the bitterness in my voice, Allie thought. All those years when the only blood relative she had was her father. “How can you be sure this Spiro’s account is true? My father isn’t here to defend himself.”

“I don’t think you should take this as an indictment against your father. You lived with him all these years—you know what kind of man he was.”

Allie felt the sting of tears in her eyes. She did know. He would never have run away unless he was desperate or feared for her well-being. In that case, she reasoned, Spiro Kostakis must be a man to be wary of. But she wasn’t about to reveal that thought to the investigator who’d been hired by Kostakis to find her.

“Precisely,” she said. “Which leads me to the next point—why did he hire you to find out if I was his granddaughter now? It’s been twenty-seven years.”

“Until that magazine article appeared, your grandparents and mother believed that you and Eddie were dead.”

Allie stared at Joel, unable to speak, trying to absorb what he’d said.

“The night Eddie disappeared with you, the police set roadblocks and searched for hours. In the early hours of the morning, Eddie’s car was discovered partly submerged in the Detroit River. Divers went in and found suitcases of clothing, including clothes belonging to a child, toys, Eddie’s wallet and personal papers. Even money. He’d cleaned out his joint bank account before leaving. Days later the search was called off, though Spiro had private investigators continue for a few months. By then Katrina’s condition had deteriorated so much that Spiro devoted his efforts to getting her well.”

Joel’s account of their flight was so vivid that for a moment, Allie forgot the larger implication of the whole disappearing act. That it had all been a lie—a deliberate hoax. She felt light-headed and disconnected. While she was attempting to keep herself from being carried away in this wave of new information, she had not noticed that Joel had vanished and returned, and was now handing her a glass of ice water.

She drank slowly, letting the cool liquid soothe the drumming in her head and the heat in her face. When she finished, she set the glass down and looked at Joel. There was concern in his face, and for the first time since she’d met him, she liked him. Not his story, she quickly added to herself, but him.

“My father must have been very afraid to pull off something like that,” she finally said.

“He obviously felt he had no choice,” Joel said.

She thought for a long moment before asking what she knew she had to learn. “And my mother?”

“Grew more despondent. Stopped taking her medication. Drank more. The police report of her car crash a year later was inconclusive about the cause.”

“So it might have been an accident or…or not,” Allie murmured.

“Yes.”

She knew then she needed to be alone. “If you don’t mind…” she said, standing up.

Joel got up, too. “There’s something more. I might as well tell you all of it right now.”

Allie didn’t have the energy to protest. She simply stared at him, wishing he’d disappear himself.

“After your aunt showed the People magazine article to him, Spiro was determined to find you. Also, there were circumstances that prompted him to rush more than he might have.”

“Circumstances?”

“A few years ago Spiro was diagnosed with leukemia. None of the traditional treatments have worked. His only chance of surviving another few years is a bone marrow transplant.” He waited a moment. “George and Christo aren’t a match,” he prompted. Then, “You’re his only living blood relative.”

Allie sat back down.

Joel sat down on the sofa next to her. Allie flinched at his closeness, though she knew he meant to be sympathetic. Still, the one person in the world she wanted at her side right now was buried in a cemetery on the outskirts of town. It had been months since she’d felt such a pain of longing for her father.

Joel Kennedy’s revelations magnified not only her loss but the futility of ever knowing the truth. No matter how much more information came her way in the days ahead—and she knew now she wasn’t going to shake off this whole thing anytime soon—she’d never be able to hear her father’s own account.

Unless Susan knows something. The thought of her stepmother distracted her from Kennedy’s announcement. “You haven’t approached Susan, have you? About any of this?”

“Susan?”

“My stepmother!”

He grabbed her hands, which she was waving in front of his face. “No, Allie. I wouldn’t do that. This is your—”

“Problem.”

He pursed his lips as she pulled her hands free. “I’m only the messenger, Allie. None of this is my doing, either.”

Again Allie got to her feet. She needed to get the whole rotten business over with. “Tell me what this…this Spiro Kostakis wants of me.” She stood on the far side of the coffee table opposite him, her arms folded across her chest.

“He wants you to come to Grosse Pointe, to meet the rest of the family and to undergo a test to see if you’re a bone marrow match.”

“Hah! Not a lot to ask, is it, from someone I’ve never met? From someone who threatened to take me away from my father?” Allie heard her voice border on hysteria, but she felt powerless to stop herself.

Joel was on his feet at once, inches from her face and clutching her upper arms as if to keep her grounded. “You need to be alone, to take all of this in and to decide what you plan to do. You have complete control over this, Allie. Whatever happens is up to you. If your answer is no, then I’ll be driving out of Kingston ten minutes later.” He paused, lowering his voice. “Talk it over with Susan if you want to. If you decide yes, then I’m hoping you’ll be willing to drive back to Michigan with me. Or come on your own. Whatever. Just remember that none of this has to diminish your memory or feelings for your father in any way. And it shouldn’t. It seems to me he did an admirable job of raising his daughter.” With that, Joel brushed past her.

Allie heard the door close behind him. She felt herself sinking slowly back to earth, relief at Joel’s departure snapping every taut nerve in her body. And yet, she thought, sagging into the sofa cushions, his hands had been warm and comforting. If he’d held on a millisecond longer, she knew she’d have gratefully leaned into his arms, too.

She lay back into the indentation he’d just left and stared at the ceiling. Gradually her mind regained control of her body as she decided her first move had to be to talk with Susan, but that would have to wait until morning.