When All The Girls Have Gone(38)

"I never got around to sending a bill," he said. "Not that I had planned to send one."

"Ah. Pro bono stuff." Charlotte smiled. "Like a lawyer, you do some jobs for free. I suppose it's a private investigator's version of charity work. That is very nice of you."

"Just to be clear, I am not in the charity business."   





 

"Oh."

Max hesitated. "This was . . . personal."

"I don't understand. Why did you drop the case if it was personal?"

Once again she was sure he was going to refuse to answer.

"Hey, it's not like you haven't learned a heck of a lot about my personal life recently, partner," she said.

She was a little surprised when the tactic worked. Max set his glass down, leaned forward and folded his arms on the table. There was a dark, disturbing intensity in his eyes.

"You really want to hear more about my personal life?" he asked.

She refused to be intimidated. "Yes, I do want to hear about it."

"Fair warning. It's boring."

She smiled. "You're talking to the other plodder on this team, remember?"

Max contemplated her for a long moment.

"All right, I'll try to keep this short and simple. I told you my mother was a single mom."

"Right."

"She was a single mom by choice. When she decided to have a child, she used the services of a sperm donor clinic. I'm the result."

Charlotte gripped the stem of her wineglass. "I see."

"I grew up knowing that my father was an anonymous file in a clinic database."

"But eventually you went looking for him, didn't you?"

"Think so?"

"I know you well enough to know that is exactly what you would do. What's more, I'm willing to bet you found him, because you are very good at what you do."

"It's true what they say, you can find anyone online these days. So, yes, I found him."

"When?"

"A few years ago, right after I got the job with the profiling agency. I guess I had some vague idea that he might be interested in meeting me. I e-mailed him."

"How'd that go?"

"Not well. He e-mailed me back and accused me of stalking him. He said he had legal documents making it clear that he had no obligation to me and that if I ever contacted him or anyone in his family he would contact a lawyer."

She thought she had been prepared for anything in the way of an unhappy ending to the story, but she was stunned almost speechless.

"That was-" She could not find the right words. "Awful."

"No, it was clarifying. I had my answer. I promised myself I would never contact him again."

"Does he have other children?"

"A son and a daughter," Max said. "And they're not kids. They're adults now."

"Which means that you have a half brother and a half sister."

"Biologically speaking, yes. One of the sons is an executive in the family business, a commercial real estate development company in Portland. The daughter is an interior designer, a very successful one, I might add."

"In other words, your siblings are both entrepreneurial."

"You could say that."

She smiled. "None of the apples fell very far from the tree, did they?"

Max unfolded his arms and picked up his glass. "Meaning?"

"Meaning you and your half sibs seem to have a lot in common."

"No," Max said. He set the glass down with great precision. "We don't. We have nothing in common. They both went to private schools and graduated from very good colleges. They're both successful in their careers. The son is married with a son of his own and the daughter has recently become engaged. I got my education in a war zone followed by some community college classes, followed by a few years spent hunting human monsters, followed by a failed marriage. I am now starting over as a private investigator who is just beginning to make enough money to pay the mortgage on a house that needs a lot of expensive work done."

"Here's the way I see it," Charlotte said. "You have established your own business and in time it will be successful because you are smart and you are good at what you do. You are showing the same entrepreneurial spirit that your siblings have demonstrated."

Max gave her a pitying look. "Just when I conclude that you are not nearly as naïve as everyone seems to think you are, you go and prove me wrong."

"I think that is an insult, but I will pretend I didn't hear it. Let's get back to this case you say you dropped. What does it have to do with your family history?"

"If I tell you, will you let the subject go?"

"Depends," she said crisply. "I make no promises."

Before Max could respond, the waiter returned with the crab cakes. When they were alone again, Charlotte picked up her fork.

"Talk to me, Max," she said. "After all we've been through together I deserve some answers."   





 

"What the hell," Max said.

"That's the spirit."

He ignored that. "After I got that e-mail from Decatur telling me to stay out of his life I respected his privacy. But from time to time I sort of checked in from afar. I swear I didn't stalk the family, but it's easy enough to keep track of business news."

"So when Decatur's name showed up in the press, you read the articles. That's not stalking. That's plain, old-fashioned curiosity. You've got a biological link to that family. You've got every right to be curious."

"Trust me when I tell you that Davis Decatur would not agree with you."

"Decatur." She frowned. "Why does that name sound vaguely familiar?"

"I told you, Decatur is in commercial real estate. He's a developer. The firm has been successful-very, very successful. They've handled some major projects here in Seattle as well as down in Portland."

"That explains it. I've seen the name go by in the press occasionally, too."

"For the most part the news that shows up in the business media is pretty ordinary stuff-ordinary for a highly successful firm, that is. But about three months ago, Decatur's daughter-"

"Your half sister."

Max exhaled slowly. "Her name is Brooke. She got involved with a hedge fund operator named Gatley. Simon Gatley. Now they're engaged. The name rang a bell and not in a good way. I took a look at him online."

"This isn't going to end well, is it?"

"No. I've got evidence that Gatley is a very sharp scam artist. He's been conning people since college. Amazingly good at it, too. Right now he's operating what looks like a Ponzi scheme. Not his first. It's eventually going to come crashing down, but meanwhile, he is moving his clients' funds into his own offshore account."

"You tried to warn your father-Davis Decatur-didn't you?"

"It was a stupid thing to do," Max said. "I couldn't warn Brooke. She doesn't know I exist. She'd probably think I was the real scam artist. So, yeah, I e-mailed Decatur and suggested that he have his financial and legal people take a close look at Gatley. I got an e-mail back informing me that if I made another attempt to contact anyone in the Decatur family, I would be looking at charges of malicious harassment."

"You did what you could to warn Decatur about Brooke's new boyfriend. Decatur chose to dismiss your warning. So now you've decided to drop the case?"

"There's not much else I can do." Max exhaled slowly. "That last e-mail I got a few minutes ago was just more confirmation that Gatley is a con man."

"You know," Charlotte said, "some people might see this scenario as a nice example of karma. Decatur ignores you for your entire life and now he's going to pay a price."

"Yeah." Max ate some of his crab cakes. He did not look enthusiastic.

"But you hate knowing that Gatley is using your half sister to get close to the Decatur family in order to get his hands on their money."

"Pisses me off that he's going to get away with it. Don't ask me why."

"You don't have to explain why it pisses you off," Charlotte said. "It's perfectly obvious. It's your family that's going to get hurt."

"It's not my family. There's a biological connection, but that's it."

"Fine. It's a biological connection. But after the fallout comes down on the clan, there is an innocent person-your half sister, biologically speaking-who is going to be left with an enormous load of guilt. She'll probably be convinced that the disaster was her fault because she's the one who brought the snake into the family circle."

"Assuming there is a disaster. It's possible someone will figure out that Gatley is bad news before things go south."

"Two words: Bernie Madoff. He managed to con people for years-some of them were very smart people. You and I both know you can't give up. We need a plan."

Max raised his brows. "What's this we stuff?"

"We're partners, remember? Don't worry, we'll come up with an angle."

"Be sure to let me know when inspiration strikes. Meanwhile, we've got other priorities."

"Victoria."

"Right."

"Where do we start?"

"After dinner you're going to water a friend's plants."





CHAPTER 44




An hour later Charlotte stood in the hallway outside of Victoria's condo and watched Max do something she was pretty sure was highly illegal to the lock on the door.