Jeff Abbott - A Kiss Gone Bad

Kathy said, ‘I don’t know what you mean.’

There’s several different ways this can play out,’ Whit said. ‘Pretty much all of them involve me calling the police. And me calling the FBI. What happens between now and then will make a big difference.’

‘Look, I just work here, okay? I just do what I’m told.’ She kept her voice hushed, accustomed to talking around the napping old. She glanced at Corey, propped up in the bed, eyes shut, breathing slowly, abandoned to a world of his own.

‘Just following orders? That didn’t work at Nuremberg, why do you think it’s gonna work here?’

‘What do you want?’ she asked.

‘I want to know how this man got here.’

Kathy swallowed. ‘John’s been here at least five years. I don’t know much about what happened to him.’

‘John?’

‘John Taylor.’

‘I think his name’s Corey Hubble.’

‘I said I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

‘I want to see his files. Go get them and bring them back here.’

‘I can’t do that.’

‘I can either tell these folks you attempted to extort money from Pete to reveal his brother’s whereabouts, or I can tell them you discovered this man’s real identity and sought to help his brother find him. Your choice.’

Kathy Breaux stood and said, ‘I’ll be right back, then.’ She hurried out the door.

Whit got up and went to Corey’s bedside. He took Corey’s hand; it was limp and bony and pale. Someone had created a new identity for him. Someone had financed his care all these years. That narrowed the suspects considerably. He had trouble visualizing Junior filling out insurance forms for a guy he turned into a vegetable.

It had to be the Hubbles. He tried not to think of Faith’s face on the pillow next to him, smiling, tracing his lip with her fingernail.

‘Hey, Corey,’ Whit said quietly. Corey gave no answer. A thin dribble of drool collected in the chapped corner of his mouth, and Whit wiped it away.

‘I don’t suppose you’re gonna tell me what got you here,’ Whit said.

Corey kept his silence. The vicious trench of scar on his head looked like a bullet wound, long healed. Corey had been shot. The bullet must have obliterated his mind but not his functions, trapping him in this limbo.

If someone had tried to kill him, why keep him alive? Attempted homicide made no sense. It must have been an accident. But then why the secrecy? Because the accident and its circumstances, if revealed, must threaten someone powerful.

He searched Corey’s room: neatly folded sweats from Wal-Mart, white tube socks, vanilla-scented hand lotion, an uncracked Bible. In the back of the closet lay a plastic bag of new sweats, also bought at Wal-Mart, a sales slip still inside. Paid with cash, but bought twelve days ago. He figured that was a Monday, an exact week before Pete’s death.

He had no idea about Lucinda’s schedule, but it would be easy enough to find out if she was out campaigning and where she was. Or where Faith was. He pocketed the receipt from the clothes bag, careful not to get his own prints on it.

So what did he owe Faith? A consideration phone call? Honey, I’m about to reveal to the press that your long-missing brother-in-law isn’t so missing anymore. You want to tell me what you know before I call the cops?

If he cared for her, he owed her this. Didn’t he?

Corey lay in the bed like a broken dream.

Not yet, he couldn’t call her. He would need more proof. Fingerprints. Dental records. The business of proving who lay in this bed meant more than simply picking up a phone and summoning the press. They wouldn’t run a story without harder evidence, and he had none.

Gooch came back into the room. Whit tucked Corey’s cool hand back under the sheets. Corey moaned, rasped, a shuddery breath.

‘Any trouble?’

‘Nope. The local drugstore sells them.’ Gooch produced a cheap disposable camera from the bag and began to snap photos of Corey from various angles. Whit had thought it an appropriate precaution. He told Gooch what Kathy had said.

‘So what are you thinking?’ Gooch asked.

‘I think Lucinda put him here.’

Gooch gave him a disbelieving squint. ‘I don’t like her, but if her child was hurt, she’d want him taken care of.’

‘He is taken care of. And his brother tracked him down here – he at least was in contact with this nurse here – and dies.’

‘You’re suggesting Lucinda killed one son because he found out about her other son.?’

‘I don’t know. And that missing girl, Marcy Ballew? She worked here, then she vanishes from Port Leo. She has to be connected to this somehow.’

‘Consider this,’ Gooch said. ‘Kathy knows that John Taylor really is Corey Hubble, long-missing son of a prominent politician. Maybe she wants to sell that information to Pete. And maybe the Ballew girl was in on the scheme. She goes to Port Leo to deal with Pete, loses her wallet, and ends up missing or on the run.’

‘If Pete thought Corey was in this town, why not just come here and get him and publicize the hell out of it? It doesn’t make sense,’ Whit said.

‘Maybe he didn’t know. She’s calling him from little Missatuck, Texas. Corey’s in Deshay, Louisiana. God only knows what story she told him.’ Gooch finished his roll of film.

Whit ran a finger along the burr of hair and scar along Corey’s scalp.

‘So you think Lucinda shot her own kid and set him up here?’ Gooch asked.

‘No,’ Whit said, ‘I think Delford Spires shot him.’

‘Why would Delford shoot a teenager?’

‘Before he disappeared, Corey told Marian Duchamp that he was going to kill Delford Spires. I think Delford and Lucinda were involved – he is still extraordinarily protective of her – and Corey found out. That weekend he vanished, I think he headed north to Houston, to the conference his mother was attending. Suppose Delford’s shacked up there with Lucinda. Corey finds them, there’s a fight, the gun goes off. Corey’s wounded.’

They would rush him to a hospital,’ Gooch said.

‘You’d think. But maybe Delford’s worried he’ll lose his job. Maybe Lucinda’s worried about the political ramifications of her lover shooting her son. Obviously they chose another route.’

‘How would they have taken care of him, though, if he’d been shot?’

‘She’s an RN. I saw her diplomas in her office, it got mentioned a lot in the papers when she first ran for office and she was big on health care, nursing home reform.’ He shook his head. ‘I don’t know, Gooch, but this is Corey, and he got here with a new identity.’

‘So how would this Kathy have found out about Corey?’ Gooch asked.

‘A Web site about Pete Hubble included a picture of Corey and the number to Pete’s answering service – sort of an on-line milk carton. Kathy might have seen that and realized she was sitting on a financial opportunity.’

A jowly man with reddened cheeks and wispy blond hair stormed into the room. He wore a short-sleeve button-down shirt crisp with starch. A succession of chins nearly hid his tie’s knot.

‘I’m Felix Duplessis, the chief administrator here. Who the hell are you people and why are you terrorizing my staff?’ he demanded.

‘We’re not terrorizing anyone,’ Whit said mildly. ‘I’m Judge Whit Mosley, from Encina County, Texas, and this is my associate, Leonard Guchinski.’

‘A judge?’ Duplessis blinked. ‘One of our nurses said you’re bothering this patient.’

‘Good,’ Whit said. ‘It’s about time someone bothered about him.’

‘I’m asking you to leave.’

‘We’re not going anywhere,’ Whit said. ‘This man has been missing for sixteen years and he’s just been found, and we’re calling the police and the FBI.’