David Baldacci - Split Second

He touched her cheek and turned her face to his. "So why didn't you?"

"Why didn't I what?"

"Ask me to marry you?"

"I was planning to but something happened."

"What was that?"

"Clyde Ritter's getting killed."

Now King looked away. "Damaged goods?"

She touched his arm. "I guess you really don't know me very well. It was a lot more than that."

He looked back at her. "What do you mean by that?"

Joan looked more nervous than King could ever remember. Except on that morning, at 10:32, when Ritter had died. She slowly reached into her pocket and pulled out a piece of paper.

King unfolded the paper and read the words there.

Last night was wonderful. Now surprise me, wicked lady. On the elevator. Around 10:30. Love, Sean

It was written on the stationery of the Fairmount Hotel.

He looked up to see her staring at him.

"Where did this come from?"

"It was slipped under the door to my room at the Fairmount at nine o'clock that morning."

He stared at her blankly. "The morning Ritter was killed?" She nodded. "You thought I wrote this?" She nodded again. "All these years you thought maybe I was involved in Ritter's death?"

"Sean, you have to understand, I didn't know what to think."

"And you never told anyone?"

She shook her head. "Just like you never told anyone about me on that elevator." She added quietly, "You thought I was involved in Ritter's death too, didn't you?"

He licked his lips and glanced away, his features angry. "They screwed us both, didn't they?"

"I saw the note that was on the body found in your house. It clearly implied the person was behind the Ritter assassination. As soon as I read it, I just knew we'd both been used. Whoever wrote the note that was slipped under my hotel room door pitted usagainst each other in a way that guaranteed our silence. Or at the very least would have cast suspicion on one or both of us. But there was a difference. I couldn't reveal the truth because then I'd have to tell what I was doing on that elevator. And once I did, my career was over. My motive was selfish. You, on the other hand, kept silent for another reason." She placed a hand on his sleeve. "Tell me, Sean, why did you? You must have suspected I was paid off to distract you. And yet you took the full blame. You could have told them I was on that elevator. Why didn't you?" She took a long, anxious breath. "I really need to know."

The jarring sound of the cell phone startled them both badly.

King answered it. It was Michelle calling from the house.

"Kate Ramsey phoned. She has something important to tell us. But she wants to do it in person. She'll meet us halfway, in Charlottesville."

"Okay, we're coming in now." He clicked off, took the tiller and silently steered the boat back. He didn't look at Joan, who, for once in her life, had nothing to say.

They met Kate Ramsey at Greenberry's coffee shop in the Barracks Road Shopping Center in Charlottesville. The three bought large cups of coffee and took a table near the back of the room, which only had a few patrons in it this time of night.

Kate's eyes were puffy, her manner subdued, even deferential. She fingered her coffee cup nervously, her gaze downcast. She looked up in surprise, however, when King pushed a couple of straws toward her.

"Go ahead and make your right angles. It'll calm you down," he said with a kindly smile.

Kate's expression softened and she took the straws. "I've been doing that since I was a little girl. I guess it's better than lighting up a cigarette."

"So you had something important to tell us," said Michelle.

Kate looked around. The person closest to them was reading a book and scribbling some notes, obviously a student on a deadline.

She said in a low voice, "It's about the meeting my father had that night, what I was telling Michelle," she explained with a glance at King.

"It's okay, she filled me in," he said. "Go ahead."

"Well, there was something else he said that I caught. I mean I guess I should have told you before, but I really believed I must have misheard. But maybe I didn't."

"What was it?" asked King eagerly.

"It was a name. A name I recognized."

King and Michelle exchanged glances.

"Why didn't you tell us that before?" asked Michelle.

"Like I said, because I couldn't believe I'd heard right. I didn't want to get him in any trouble. And my father secretly meeting with a stranger late at night and his name coming up-well, to a fourteen-year-old girl it seemed bad. But I knew he'd never do something illegal."

"Whose name was mentioned?" asked King.

Kate took a very deep breath. King noted that she was now bending the straws into knots.

"The name I heard the man say was Thornton Jorst."

Michelle and King once more exchanged a significant glance.

"You're sure," said Michelle. "You heard him say Thornton Jorst?"

"I'm not one hundred percent certain, no, but what else could it have been? It's not exactly a name like John Smith. It sure sounded like Thornton Jorst."

"What was your father's reaction to that name?"

"I couldn't hear that clearly. But he said something like it was risky, very risky. For both of them."

King thought about this. "So the other man wasn't Thornton Jorst-that seems clear-but they were talking about him." He touched Kate on the shoulder. "Tell us about Jorst's relationship with your father."

"They were friends and colleagues."

"Had they known each other before coming to work at Atticus?" asked Michelle.

Kate shook her head. "I don't think so, no. If they did, they certainly never mentioned it. But they were both in college in the sixties. People went all over the country doing insane things. It's funny, though."

"What is?" asked King.

"Well, sometimes it seemed to me that Thornton knew my mother better than he knew my father. Like they'd met before."

"Did your mother ever mention that they had?"

"No. Thornton came to Atticus after my parents did. He was a bachelor, never really dated that I could tell. My parents were very friendly with him. I think my mother felt sorry for him. She would bake him little things and take them over to him. They were good friends. I really liked him. He was almost like an uncle to me."

Michelle said slowly, "Kate, do you think your mother-"

Kate interrupted her. "No, they weren't having an affair. I know I was very young back then, but still I would have known."

King didn't look convinced but said, "The man who met with your father, he mentioned your mother, Regina?"

"Yes. I'm assuming he must have known one or both of my parents. But look, I really can't believe Thornton is mixed up in any of this. He's just not the type to run around with guns plotting to kill people. He didn't have my father's genius or his academic credentials, but he's a good professor."

King nodded. "Right, he didn't have your father's brains or Berkeley Ph.D. background, and yet they ended up at the same college. Any idea why?"

"Why what?" Kate had assumed a defensive tone.

Michelle said, "Why your father wasn't teaching at, say, Harvard or Yale. In addition to his Berkeley career, he authored four books that I was told were easily in the top ten in their field. He was a serious scholar, a real heavyweight."

"Maybe he simply chose to go to a smaller college," said Kate.

"Or maybe there was something in his past that precluded him from being called up to the academic big leagues," remarked King.

"I don't think so," said Kate. "Otherwise, everybody would know."

"Not necessarily. Not if it had been expunged from his official record, but certain people in the very cliquish world of academics were aware. And they might have held it against him. So heended up at Atticus, which probably felt lucky to have him, warts and all."