Free Shadow Account by Stephen Frey Page A

straight in the eyes. “You don’t miss anything, do you, Gavin?”
    “No.”
    “You investigated me before you hired me.”
    “Extensively. I keep tabs on everyone and everything that’s important to me. I know exactly what’s going on in Paul Stone’s life, too. I am as prepared as any man on earth. Preparation has been the key to my success, so I won’t apologize for it.” The old man hesitated. “I understand Turner died when he fell down a stairway one night after he was given nothing but a slap on the wrists for killing your mother.”
    Conner swallowed hard. “Why did you ask me the question about wanting to kill someone?”
    “How did it feel when you read the article about Turner? Was it sweet?”
    “Why did you ask me?”
    The old man nodded at the gravestone. “One Saturday morning a year ago, Helen and I were sailing out of the Shelter Island Yacht Club.”
    Shelter Island lay in what was known as the alligator’s mouth at the east end of Long Island. The large bay between the north and south shores.
    “I was tacking in the main channel and Helen slipped off the boat,” Gavin continued. “This young kid zipped by in a speedboat just as she went overboard. He was too close, and he hit her when she came up the first time. It was nine o’clock in the morning and the kid had a blood alcohol content of almost point twelve. He was fifteen years old.
Fifteen
and he was so drunk he could barely tell the coast guard his name when they caught up with him.”
    “I’m sorry.”
    “I wanted to kill him. Some days I still do.” The old man glanced at the tombstone, his eyes growing misty. “I turned around just as the kid ran her down. It was the most horrible thing I’ve ever seen. Some nights I wake up in a cold sweat, thinking I can—”
    “Thinking you can stop it,” Conner finished the sentence. “Thinking you can save her.” He hadn’t witnessed his mother’s death, but for years afterward he would wake up in the middle of the night from a horrible dream in which he saw it happen in slow motion. Saw that it was
about to happen
, but there was nothing he could do.
    “Yes.”
    Conner nodded. “I know.”
    Gavin stared at him for a long time, then patted his shoulder. “I appreciate being able to tell you that. Paul wouldn’t understand.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “Paul’s a shallow man,” Gavin explained with a sigh. “Not a man given to deep thought. I don’t respect him the way I respect you, Conner. Maybe the answer to Paul’s insensitivity is that he’s never had to work for anything. He’s always had money. Not like you and me. Perhaps that’s why he has no tolerance for people unlike himself. He doesn’t understand how hard they’ve had to fight to survive. But I still find his lack of sensitivity distasteful. Sometimes downright offensive.” Gavin nodded at the gravestone. The rain was falling harder now. “You cared for Liz, didn’t you?”
    “Yes.”
    “And you want to find out what happened to her.”
    “I
have
to find out what happened to her. I have to find her killer.” Conner paused. “And I have to protect myself. They might come after me again. It might be better for me to take the fight to them first.”
    Gavin nodded. “All right, I’ll help you. But you have to promise me something.”
    “What?”
    “If you find out anything important, and it looks like things are going to get rough, you’ll let me know so I can bring in law enforcement. You must keep me up to speed on what you’re doing. Do we have a deal?”
    Conner hesitated. “Yes.”
             
    The woman sat behind the dressing room table, admiring herself in the mirror. The sash of the red silk robe had come undone and her chest was partially visible. She reached up and pushed her hair off her shoulders, then pulled the robe down so her breasts were exposed. They were full and firm and she smiled, thinking about how many men had admired them.
    She wasn’t ashamed of the path