Phillip Margolin - Lost Lake

“It’s one-thirty in the morning, Ms. Kohler,” Randolph answered, fighting to sound civil. “Would you please call me at work?”

“Who got to you?”

“I will not continue this discussion at this time.”

“Was it my father? Did someone from the government visit you? Did someone threaten you or buy you off?”

“I rejected your book because of insufficient documentation, Ms. Kohler. There was nothing sinister about the decision.”

“You don’t expect me to believe that?”

Vanessa heard a sigh on the other end of the line. “I don’t know how you got this number, but a call at this hour is a violation of my privacy. I am going to end it in a moment, but, since you insist on knowing, not only have you failed to verify your rather dramatic claims, but your past makes it highly unlikely that any publishing house would give them any credence.”

“My past?”

“Your mental history, Ms. Kohler. And now I must hang up. I have a hard day tomorrow and I need my sleep.”

“Who told you I was hospitalized, who told you that?”

But Vanessa found herself talking to a dead line. She slammed down the phone, redialed, and got a busy signal for her efforts. She was about to throw the phone at the wall when the front door opened and Sam Cutler walked in carrying his camera equipment. He was dressed in jeans and wore a tight black T-shirt under a windbreaker.

Vanessa was five-ten. Sam was a little taller-and solid, while Vanessa verged on anorexic. He was a few years older than Vanessa, and his gray-streaked brown hair was receding up front.

Sam stopped in his tracks and Vanessa froze, arm cocked, the phone a moment away from destruction. Sam saw the manuscript on the coffee table.

“A rejection, huh? I was going to hide it until I came home. Then I got a call and forgot.”

The arm holding the phone dropped to Vanessa’s side. “Someone got to the editor. I’m sure of it.”

“How do you know that?” Sam asked, keeping his voice neutral because he knew that the slightest sign of doubt where this subject was concerned could push Vanessa into an uncontrollable rage.

“He knew I was hospitalized. How did he find out about the sanatorium if someone didn’t tell him?”

Sam crossed the room. He knew better than to try for physical contact now. He hoped that standing close would calm her.

“Maybe there was something in the papers,” he suggested. “Your father is big news right now. There might have been a sidebar about the family.”

Vanessa shook her head vehemently. “They want to discredit me. There’s no way they’re going to let this get out.”

“Who is ‘they’?” Sam asked, knowing that he was treading on thin ice.

“My father, the military, the CIA. You don’t think they were all involved? Once the truth gets out, Watergate will look like a tea party. They can’t afford to let the public get even a hint of what I know.”

Sam had been down this road before. “If that’s true, why hasn’t anyone tried to kill you?” he asked calmly. “Why hasn’t anyone stolen your manuscript? You haven’t made a secret of what you’re doing. Everyone knows about your book. You even tried to interview that guy at the CIA, and nothing happened.”

Vanessa glared at Sam. “You don’t understand how they work. They could steal my manuscript, but they know I’d just write the book again. Besides, my attorney has a copy. And killing me would let everyone know that I was telling the truth.”

“Everyone who? Come on, Vanessa. I respect what you’re trying to do. I know you think you’re right, but most people who know about this…Well, they don’t believe it. And the CIA could make your death look like an accident, if they wanted to. You know that. No one would think you were killed to suppress your book. People would think you were the victim of a hit and run or had a heart attack or something like that.”

Vanessa slumped down on the couch. “You’re right,” she said. She sounded very tired. “Randolph is right.” She closed her eyes and laid her head back. “I’m an ex-mental patient and I don’t have a shred of evidence that proves that the Unit ever existed. There never was much evidence, anyway-just a few sheets of paper, and they’re gone.”

“You look all in, babe. Let’s get to bed. You’ll think better in the morning. You’ll figure out what to do when your mind is clear.”

“He’s going to win, Sam. He always wins and he’s going to win again. I can’t stop him, I never could. No one can.”

Vanessa’s hands curled into fists and her eyes snapped open. A vivid anger was sizzling in them.

“Do you know how my father made his bones in the intelligence community?”

“No, I don’t.”

“Think about this. Daddy was promoted very rapidly starting in early 1964, right after the Kennedy assassination.”

Sam’s mouth gaped open. “You don’t think…?”

“I think my mother knew. I think that’s why he killed her, to keep her from telling the truth about who was really on the grassy knoll.”

“Did your mother tell you she thought that…?” Sam couldn’t even finish the sentence.

“She was always upset on the date of Kennedy’s death. When I asked her why, she would never tell me. And she looked scared to death if I asked while my father was in the room.”

“Ah, Van,” Sam said, dropping onto the couch beside her and wrapping an arm around her shoulder. “You’ve got yourself in a knot. You’re not thinking straight.”

Vanessa’s rage disappeared as quickly as it had appeared. She laid her head on Sam’s shoulder and started to cry.

“I hate him, Sam. I hate him. I wish he were dead.”

Ami Vergano grabbed her purse and locked the front door. Ryan stuffed his baseball in his mitt and charged toward the station wagon. Ami froze with her hand on the doorknob, wondering if she’d turned off the living room lights. Electricity cost money she couldn’t afford to waste. Then she remembered the bag with Ryan’s snacks. She reopened the door and dashed into the kitchen.

“We’ll be late, Mom,” Ryan yelled anxiously, reminding Ami of something she knew already. She was still wearing the navy blue pantsuit and powder-blue shirt she’d worn at work because she had not had time to change. A client had kept her on the phone forever and she’d had to drive home like a lunatic in order to get Ryan to his Little League game on time. Being a professional woman and a single mother sucked, but she wasn’t a trust fund baby, she had to pay the bills. And Ryan made all the running around and stress worthwhile. Every time she started to feel sorry for herself, Ami looked at her son and realized just how lucky she was, despite everything that had happened.

When she graduated from law school, Ami had never imagined herself living a frantic existence on the edge of financial ruin. She was married to Chad Vergano, the love of her life, and had just been hired by a small Portland firm. When Ryan was born, her future looked rosy. But life has a way of playing tricks on us. When Ryan was five, Chad died in a freak bicycling accident. They had only a small life insurance policy, and neither of their parents was well off, so Ami had to depend on her salary at the firm. Then the firm disintegrated. Unable to find work with another firm because of a horrid economic climate, Ami had been forced to hang out a shingle. She had friends who fed her work, and she was starting to build a clientele, but the demands of parenting made it tough to take on any case or client that would require too much of her time. This meant living on a shoestring budget and praying that she would never get sick.

Ami shut the front door and got into the car. “Let’s go,” Ryan shouted impatiently as she fastened his seat belt. Daniel Morelli hopped into the back. As the adult, he should have been sitting beside her, but Daniel had turned out to be a gentle, considerate soul who knew that Ryan liked to sit in front and pretend to be the man of the house.