Last Call

"They really serve food here?" said Jack.

"Yes, but only Chinese."

Jack glanced inside again, then back at Andie. "Chinese, huh?"

She smiled. "Gotcha."

"Fu

"It's okay. I've got my anti-PC license. I'm half Native American. Come on. We're eating at the deli right over here."

They got sandwiches and sodas at the counter and found an open booth by the window. Another patron had left a Canadian dollar on the table for the busboy and Jack weighted it down with the saltshaker. Andie squeezed a packet of deli mustard onto her sliced turkey breast, and she was about to start talking business when Jack jumped in and steered the conversation in a more personal direction.

"I'm glad we're doing this," he said.

She looked up from her sandwich. "Doing what?"

It wasn't what she said as much as the way she'd said it, but Jack didn't like the vibe. He could have said what he was feeling – something like, "Getting out together, picking up where we left off last January, giving ourselves a chance to see if we can put aside the fact that I was a total idiot when I called it quits." But something about her body language didn't seem open to it.

"Eating at the deli," he said, "instead of the Laundromat."

"Me too." She took a small bite out of her sandwich and looked out the window.

She was tensing up on him. On the car ride over, Jack had come to the firm conclusion that Andie was interested in him again. The playful little ruse at the Laundromat had only confirmed that belief. He had yet to hear word one from Rene since her return to Africa, and perhaps it was high time to stop fooling himself into thinking that happiness lay across the ocean. Both Theo and Abuela had told him that Andie was for real, but there was more to it than that.

Jack couldn't seem to stop thinking about her.

"Andie, can I ask you something?"

"Huh? I'm sorry. What'd you say?"

"I wanted to ask you something"

"Uh, sure. Go ahead."

She was beyond preoccupied. Either she'd invited him to lunch for personal reasons and completely changed her mind, or she really did have "something important" that needed to be said face-to-face.

"Never mind," said Jack. "What is it that you needed to tell me?

She put her sandwich aside. "Good news and bad news."

"Okay. I'll bite. Let's go with the good news first."

"I've uncovered some information that might help us find who raped Theo's mother."

Jack listened without interrupting as she laid out the events of the last sixteen hours. The Internet made a trip to see the Pi Alpha Delta historian in Ohio u

Jack said, "Probably guests at the strip party but not brothers at the house."

"That was my guess," said Andie. "But we did get a match on the cameraman. His name is Lance Gilford."

"So, when are you going to talk to the esteemed Mr. Gilford?"

"That leads me to the bad news," she said. "I won't be talking to him."

"Why not?"

"Because I can't help you anymore."

"You can't?" said Jack. "Or you won't."

"Can't. It's not my decision."

"Somebody is telling you not to?"

She struggled to put on her business face, the one she always wore when spewing the bureau line. "You have to see this from the FBI's point of view. I was appointed to head up a task force that is looking into the reasons why Isaac Reems was able to escape from jail. From there, I started looking at who killed Isaac. Then it became a question of who tried to kill Theo. The focus then was who killed Theo's mother. Now I'm trying to find out who raped Theo's mother over thirty years ago. I'm out of my jurisdiction here, not to mention way beyond the scope of my original assignment."

Jack drank from his soda. "You buy that?"

"What do you mean?"

"Do you really believe that jurisdiction' and 'scope of original assignment' were the reasons that the powers that be pulled the plug on your investigation?"

"Do I hear another conspiracy theory coming on?"

Jack reached across the table and took a strand of her hair between his thumb and forefinger. The hair was stuck together in telltale fashion.

"I'm not the one who was gnawing nervously on her hair while driving over here," he said.

She lowered her eyes. Busted.

Jack said, "I know you better than you think."

"Ditto."

"So, you must know what I'm thinking," he said.

"I might. Tell me anyway."

It could have gone in a couple of different directions from there. Jack thought for a moment, and then he let go of her hair, sticking to business.

"I think you were getting too close for someone's comfort," he said. "Someone who has a very big secret. And just maybe someone with very big friends."

"Big enough to get me pulled off an investigation?"

Jack settled back into the booth. "That's what I aim to find out."

Chapter 40

Jack didn't bring Theo along for the up-close and personal visit with Lance Gilford. Not because Theo chose to stay behind. In fact, Jack had to enlist the help of both Uncle Cy and Trina to keep him at Sparky's. It was only natural that Theo would want to meet the chump who'd filmed the rape of his own mother. The bottom line, however, was that Jack had gotten Theo off death row once already.

He wasn't sure he could do it again.

Gilford still lived and worked in Miami, and it seemed only fitting that he owned a videography company. It was called Memories, and the hand-painted sign on the storefront window proclaimed "Complete customer satisfaction since 1983" in the recording of life events – weddings, bar mitzvahs, sweet-sixteen parties, and quinceaneras.

They left out sexual assaults.

Bells on the door rang as Jack entered the studio. The attractive young woman at the reception desk looked up from the latest issue of Ocean Drive magazine. Jack assumed that she wasn't just screwing off, that culling through the local see-and-be-seen publications was a way of identifying prominent families and scouting out new business. Gilford's schedule was booked for the day, but Jack had phoned ahead and persuaded the receptionist to squeeze him in for five minutes before the 2:00 p.m. appointment. Jack didn't say what it was really about, and he was counting on more than five minutes once he, Gilford, and Pi Alpha Delta's dirtiest secret were together in the same room.

Jack introduced himself, and the young woman frowned.

"I'm so sorry," she said. "I know I promised to fit you in, but Mr. Gilford still has some important editing to do before his two o'clock. He can't see you today. But I have something next Tuesday or-"

"This can't wait," said Jack.

"I'm afraid it will have to."

Jack mustered up a smile. "Help me out here, okay? This is a surprise. I've got a blast from the past for him, all the way from his college days and Pi Alpha Delta fraternity All I need is one minute.

Slowly, she returned the smile, as if she liked being in on the surprise. "He's in the editing room," she said. She led Jack down the hall, knocked on the door, and opened it.

Before she could speak, Gilford said, "Celeste, I said no interruptions."

Gilford had long gray hair that he wore in a ponytail, and that was about all Jack could see of him. He was seated with his back to the door, and his eyes were glued to the LCD screen and the footage from a client's wedding.

Jack said, "That wouldn't be the Portia Knight wedding, would it?"

The tension in Gilford's neck and shoulders was suddenly visible. He didn't move for several seconds, and Jack wondered if he was even breathing. Finally, he turned in his swivel stool to see who had mentioned Portia's name.