LuAnn rubbed the hair out of her eyes. “So what do we do?”
Charlie gently took one of her hands. “You do nothing. You let old Charlie see what he can find out. We’ve been in tight places before. Right?”
She slowly nodded and then licked her lips nervously. “But this might be the tightest one of them all.”
Matt Riggs walked quickly up the steps of the old Victorian with a wraparound porch that he had meticulously restored over the last year. He had had a few years of carpentry and woodworking experience before coming to Charlottesville. They had been pursuits he had taken up to alleviate the stress that had come with what he used to do for a living. He wasn’t thinking about the graceful lines of his home right now, however.
He went inside and down the hall to his office, for his home also housed his business. He shut the door, grabbed the phone, and placed a call to an old friend in Washington, D.C. The Honda had D.C. tags. Riggs was pretty sure what running the license plate would reveaclass="underline" either a rental or stolen. The BMW would be another matter. At least he would find out the woman’s name, since it had suddenly occurred to him on the drive home that neither the man calling himself Charlie nor the woman had ever mentioned it. He was assuming the last name would be Savage and that the woman in the BMW was either Lisa Savage’s mother or perhaps, from her youthful looks, an older sister.
A half hour later he had his answers. The Honda was indeed a rental out of the nation’s capital. Tom Jones was the name of the lessee and he had rented the vehicle two weeks ago. Tom Jones! That was real clever, Riggs thought. The address he had for the man would be as phony as the name, he was certain. A total dead-end; he had expected nothing less.
Then he stared down at the woman’s name he had written on a piece of paper. Catherine Savage. Born in Charlottesville, Virginia. Age: thirty. Social Security number had checked out, current address was correct: Wicken’s Hunt. Unmarried. Excellent credit, no priors. No red flags at all in her background. He had a good slice of her past right there in his hand in less than half an hour. Computers were wonderful. And yet...
He looked at her age again. Thirty years old. He thought back to the house and substantial grounds, three hundred acres of prime Virginia real estate. He knew the asking price for Wicken’s Hunt had been six million dollars. If she had struck a wonderful deal, Ms. Savage could conceivably have gotten it for between four and five million, but from what he heard the renovation work had easily run to seven figures. Where the hell does a woman that young get that kind of money? She wasn’t a movie star or rock star; the name Catherine Savage meant nothing to him, and he wasn’t that far out of the loop on popular culture.
Or was it Charlie who had the bucks? They weren’t husband and wife, that was clear. He had said he was family, but something was off there too. He leaned back in his chair, slid open a drawer of his desk, and popped a couple of aspirin, as his neck threatened to stiffen up again. It could be she had inherited serious family money or been the extraordinarily rich widow of some old duffer. Recalling her face, he could easily see that. A lot of men would shower her with everything they had.
So what now? He looked out the window of his office at the beauty of the surrounding trees with their vibrant fall colors. Things were going well for him: An unhappy past behind him; a thriving business in a place he loved. A low-key lifestyle that he figured would add lots of quality years to his life. And now this. He held the piece of paper with her name on it up to eye level. Despite having no material incentive to care at all about her, Riggs’s curiosity was at a high pitch.
“Who the hell are you, Catherine Savage?”
Chapter twenty-five
“You about ready, honey?” LuAnn peeked in the door and cast her gaze fondly on the back of the young girl who was finishing dressing.
Lisa looked around at her mother. “Almost.”
With a face and athletic build that mirrored LuAnn’s, Lisa Savage was the one immovable landmark in her mother’s life.
LuAnn stepped into the room, closed the door, and settled on the bed. “Miss Sally says you didn’t eat much breakfast, are you feeling all right?”
“I have a test today. I guess I’m just a little nervous.” One result of having lived all over the world was that her speech carried myriad traces of the different cultures, dialects, and accents. The mesh was a pleasing one, although several months in Virginia had already started to graft upon Lisa the beginnings of a mild Southern inflection.
LuAnn smiled. “I would’ve thought that by now, after so many straight A’s, you wouldn’t get so nervous.” She touched her daughter’s shoulder. During the time spent traveling, LuAnn had thrown every ounce of energy and a great deal of money into reshaping herself to be who she had always wanted to be, which was as far from Southern white trash named LuAnn Tyler as she could get. Well-educated, able to speak two foreign languages, she noted with pride that Lisa could speak four, as much at home in China as in London. She had covered several lifetimes in the last ten years. With this morning’s developments, maybe that was a good thing. Had she run out of time?
Lisa finished dressing and sat down with her back to her mother. LuAnn picked up a brush and started doing her daughter’s hair, a daily ritual between the two that allowed them to talk and catch up with each other.
“I can’t help it, I still do get nervous. It’s not always easy.”
“Most things worthwhile in life aren’t easy. But, you work hard and that’s the important thing. You do your best, that’s all I’ll ever ask, regardless of what your grades are.” She combed Lisa’s hair into a thick ponytail and then clipped on a bow. “Just don’t bring home any B’s.” They both laughed.
As they walked downstairs together, Lisa looked over at her mother. “I saw you talking to a man outside this morning. You and Uncle Charlie.”
LuAnn tried to hide her apprehensiveness. “You were up? It was pretty early.”
“Like I said, I was nervous about the test.”
“Right.”
“Who was he?”
“He’s putting up the security fence and gate around the property. He had some questions about the plans.”
“Why do we need a security fence?”
LuAnn took her hand. “We’ve talked about this before, Lisa. We’re, well, we’re very well-off financially. You know that. There are some bad people in the world. They might try to do things, to get money from us.”
“Like robbing us?”
“Yes, or maybe something else.”
“Like what?”
LuAnn stopped and sat down on the steps, beckoning Lisa to join her. “Remember how I’m always telling you to be careful, watch out for people?” Lisa nodded. “Well, that’s because some bad people might try to take you away from me.”
Lisa looked frightened. “I’m not telling you that to scare you, baby, but in a way I guess I do want you to be concerned, to be aware of what’s going on. If you use your head and keep your eyes open, everything will be fine. Me and Uncle Charlie won’t let anything happen to you. Mommy promises. Okay?”
Lisa nodded and they went down the stairs hand in hand.
Charlie met them in the hallway. “My, don’t we look extra pretty this morning.”
“I’ve got a test.”
“You think I don’t know that? I was up last night until ten-thirty with you going over the stuff. You’re gonna ace it, sure as anything. Go get your coat, I’ll be out front in the car.”