Emily Locke 01 - Final Approach

behind me, but I was too worn out to turn.
    “I’m sorry about yesterday,” Vince said. I was thankful not to be facing him. “When you said you were down here helping a friend, and had lied about a new job, you left out a few important details.”
    There was a light quality to his voice. My throat was too tight to answer.
    He continued, “I’m not a part of that, you know. I’m nothing like her.”
    My eyes stung. I told myself it was still too early to trust him enough to explain about Mattie’s case and the boat accident. That’s when I realized I was still thinking of it as an accident. Like David, I struggled with my own form of denial. I wasn’t strong enough yet to think in terms of my husband’s murder.
    I sniffled and folded my arms, my back still turned. “Why’d you come here today?”
    He moved up beside me. I was careful to keep my eyes forward. Vince rested his hands on the railing.
    “The short answer is, to find out what David knew.” His tone was quiet. He took a breath and started again. “Trish is a time bomb. I know that. I also watch the news. I didn’t like what I saw this morning, particularly the part about the missing plane. I called David. He was worried sick because Trish didn’t come home last night. He doesn’t even
know
her. The woman he sleeps with is an actress and a fraud.”
    He drummed his thumbs on the balcony railing and continued. “Her brother has a rap sheet a mile long. And she’s doing worse things, I think, but has no record at all. Never anything to call her on. To me, that’s scarier. You’ve seen her. Appearances are deceiving.”
    I remembered her beautiful smile in the picture on Scud’s laptop.
    “Years go by with no consequences,” Vince was saying, almost musing, “and it seems she gets bolder. I hooked her up with Rick and Marie. Figured a new job around nice folks would be a step toward a cleaner life, but…” He didn’t bother to finish.
    I listened, curious about the references to her earlier crimes. It wasn’t clear if he knew exactly what those crimes were, but either way I was disappointed and angry he hadn’t intervened somehow. If he’d ever bothered to follow through with his hunches and turn her in at any point along the way, Eric Lyons might be alive. Casey might be home.
    “I have a question for you now.” He placed a hand lightly on my shoulder, encouraging me turn toward him. I did the best I could, but had no courage for eye contact.
    “You know things about Trish I’m learning for the first time,” he said. “She’s the reason you were at the drop zone this week.”
    I nodded.
    “The time you spent with me, was that to get leads on Trish?”
    The shaky breath I heard after his question told me those words hadn’t come easily.
    I looked up at him. “I didn’t know you were related until yesterday.”
    His expression brightened almost imperceptibly.
    I added, “You might have mentioned that earlier.”
    He smiled then, a genuine smile like the ones I’d enjoyed all week. I feared that in the lightness of the moment, he might try to hug or kiss me, or do some other demonstrative thing to confuse me even more. I copped out and shifted my eyes toward the parking lot again, turning my face away from him. I wasn’t feeling the same closure to our conversation.
    “I need to know the truth, Vince,” I said, my mind still on my little girl. “How much of this did you know? Did you ever cover for her?”
    He didn’t answer, but I heard the door open behind me. By the time I turned around, the door to David’s apartment was closing between us.

Chapter Thirty-three
    Jeannie sidled up to me at the balcony railing. She’d come out so quickly after Vince left me there, I wondered if she’d been watching the door. Almost as swiftly, she lit a cigarette.
    “I thought you two would be out here forever.” She took a draw on her Salem Light. Its tip flared.
    She turned her head to exhale and let the cigarette rest between her fingers.
    Jeannie’s smooth, ivory hands were so beautiful they even made a cigarette look tolerable. I’d watched her smoke enough to know something here was different.
    “You’re usually a better actress.”
    She rubbed what must have been a stiff spot on her neck. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
    “You never wait this long before the second puff. I can tell you’re fake-smoking, using it as an excuse to be out here.”
    She waved the smoldering tip in front of my