Stranger on the Shore - lanyon Josh (лучшие книги читать онлайн бесплатно TXT) 📗

It was almost a relief to put the journal down and leave for his lunch date.

Angelina’s turned out to be a family-owned restaurant in a mostly residential area. On the exterior it looked like any cozy brick and white clapboard house. The interior consisted of three dining rooms, a fireplace and a very nice bar, all warm and pleasantly furnished in cherry wood and old-fashioned wallpaper. But the real attraction was the fantastic fragrance of basil, oregano, garlic, onion and meats braised in wine wafting through the building.

Diana was waiting for him in the bar, sipping a glass of red wine. Her hair was pulled into a casual updo that looked stylish on her. She wore a short shift with an ugly purple-and-yellow print, and somehow that looked great too.

“Hey there! You found it.” Her smile was a less guarded version of Pierce’s white blaze. “Did you want a drink?”

Griff ordered a Peroni from the bartender. The beer arrived in a pilsner glass. Diana touched her glass to his. “Cheers. I’m glad you came.”

“Well, it would be hard to resist a hook like that,” Griff told her.

Diana laughed, sounding nervous, but the waitress arrived at that moment and they were led to their table.

There followed the rituals of napkins and menus. The waitress reappeared and Diana ordered the field green salad with Portobello mushrooms and parmesan. Griff ordered the chicken Caesar.

The waitress thanked them, took their menus, and departed. By then Griff was wondering if he’d made a mistake in coming out to lunch.

“How was last night?” Diana inquired brightly. “Did you enjoy yourself?”

“Yeah, sure,” Griff said cautiously, hoping this wasn’t about to get very weird.

“I’m glad. Pierce is...difficult.” She smiled ruefully. “He doesn’t trust very easily.”

“He’s not in a trusting line of work.”

“No. True.” She chuckled. “And neither are you.”

“True.” He’d never really thought about it that way before.

Her lip curled. “You’ve probably heard the whole story right? I’m sure Muriel was only too happy to fill you in.”

Griff said cautiously, “The whole story?”

Diana stared at him and then her cheeks turned pink. Even in the soft lighting he could see she was blushing. “Me and my big mouth. Just forget I said anything.”

“Okay,” Griff was now totally confused. And embarrassed, although he wasn’t completely sure why.

Diana took a sip of her wine. She set the glass down with a decisive click. “Forget I said anything but if you want to see Pierce again, you’ll have to initiate it. Take my word for it. He doesn’t.”

“He doesn’t what?” Griff asked, wondering if he had fallen asleep reading Gemma’s journal and was still sprawled on the sofa in the guest cottage snoring.

Diana groaned. “I’m making this worse and worse,” she said. “I could tell he was interested, that’s all. From the minute you showed up at Winden House. He was irritated, but in a good way. And it’s been a while. Not since he was irritated, but since he was interested. A really long while. And you’re obviously nice.”

“I am?”

“Anyway, you’ll be desperately relieved to hear this is not why I dragged you out in the rain.”

“It’s not raining.” Griff instinctively glanced at the large picture window. Was it his imagination or was the slate-colored sky starting to sag?

“It’s going to.” She stopped as their salads were delivered. There was another pause for sprinkling ground pepper and reordering drinks.

When they were alone again, Diana said, “What I told you on the phone is true. This isn’t something that is going to change anything for anyone, which is why it never came out before.”

Griff restrained himself to an even, “Go on.”

Diana sipped her wine, took another bite of salad, clearly working herself up to it. He controlled his impatience the best he could, eating his own salad, not rushing her, not letting himself wonder about whatever this big mystery was with Pierce—and why someone else would have to do all the running.

Diana said suddenly, “Brian had this little boy crush on Pierce. It was very cute. It really was. He adored Pierce. If Pierce was around, that was it. Nobody else was in the room. He was always trying to drag Pierce off to see something or to play with him.”

“He was four.”

“I know. He was a baby. But he was smart and he really was so cute.”

“Right.” He could tell from the alarming shininess in Diana’s eyes that there was bad news ahead.

“And Pierce was fourteen. He was like an adult compared to Brian. So of course he wasn’t always patient.”

“Of course,” Griff said. There was a cold knot in his stomach. He could picture half a dozen horrific scenarios, a careless shove, a push down the stairs... Kids were so easily broken. And so frighteningly unaware of the fact.

“He wasn’t a monster or anything. Don’t think that. Mostly he was good with Brian. It was sort of sweet. Anyway, that night Pierce and I were in Gemma and Matthew’s bedroom watching TV. The nursery was right next door.”

“I know.”

“Pierce said you did.” She sighed and fortified herself with another sip of wine. “Brian must have heard us because he snuck out of bed and came into the room. That was about eleven-thirty or so.”

“How long was he in there with you?” Griff watched her expression closely.

“Maybe ten minutes. Not very long. Pierce wasn’t in a patient mood that night. He didn’t want to be there at all. But our parents made him go because I wanted to. I wanted to see the costumes and the decorations. I loved Gemma. I wanted to see her in her dress.” Diana smiled faintly at some long ago memory.

Griff was mentally calculating. This news narrowed the window of Brian’s kidnapping by over ninety minutes. How could anyone think that this was not relevant information? Surely it would have been easier to track individual people’s movements if the time frame was significantly reduced?

“Who knows about this?”

“We told our parents, of course. And Dad told Jarrett. They both agreed it had no bearing on the case.”

Griff stared at her in disbelief. “So the police didn’t even know?”

“Johnson had no alibi for the entire night. It changed nothing for him. And Dad and Uncle Jarrett both agreed that they didn’t want Pierce and me subjected to questioning, maybe even put on the witness stand.”

“Your dad’s a lawyer. He knew you wouldn’t have been put on the witness stand. You’d have made a deposition in a nice private legal office.”

It was hard to keep his anger banked down. The Mathers and the Arlingtons had taken it upon themselves to keep vital information from law enforcement. Okay. Maybe not vital information, because it was true that Johnson had no alibi for the entire evening. Ultimately, it probably wouldn’t have changed Johnson’s fate. But it might have made it easier to narrow down possible accomplices.

And besides, it wasn’t up to the Mathers and Arlingtons to decide what information to withhold from the police.

It was that arrogance, that blindness to all interests but self, that he so detested in people of their class.

Diana was saying, “Pierce and I agreed we would never tell anyone. Never speak about it again.”

“Why?” He couldn’t help it. He lost patience. “If nobody thought it was relevant, why was it hushed up all these years?”

“Partly because the Arlingtons are afraid some bleeding heart liberal organization is going to take up Johnson’s cause, and they’ll grab on to any excuse to let him off the hook.”

Maybe he deserves to be let off. He managed to keep from saying it aloud. After all, Johnson wasn’t an innocent bystander. He had deliberately taken advantage of the Arlingtons’ fear and desperation in his attempt to extort millions of dollars. Also, by placing himself in the middle of the search for Brian, he had derailed the hunt both for the real kidnapper and for Brian. So no, Johnson had to bear responsibility for his own actions.