When I was a child, I met an author at City Lights Bookstore who’d written a young adult novel I loved. I can’t even remember the title, but I recall a quote from the book: “Belief creates its own reality.” The heroine’s father says it to explain what he calls his daughter’s overactive imagination. As it turns out, she’s not making anything up. She simply sees more than most people do. She’s able to get at the truth beneath the truth.
To peel back the layers.
The media spins the holiday shooter, as they call him, as a disturbed young man seeking attention. The explanation is simplistic. I doubt anyone in any agency now hunting him believes it. While some members of the press may be trying out that story on a gullible public, a handful of reporters will dig deeper. What will they find? What false evidentiary trail has been built in advance of the digging?
I have no proof Daniel Guzman is Victor Kemp’s son. I’d never seen the man with the gun before; at least I don’t think so. He did look familiar, but my memory might be playing tricks on me.
Even if he were Kemp’s son, who’s to say he had it in his head to kill me? Perhaps he really was aiming at Annie. He may have learned she was his half-sister and resented her legitimacy. Not unheard of. Even if I were the one he wanted dead, why wait until now? What motivated him? Misplaced sense of duty? Delayed revenge? It seems a stretch.
Most notably, Guzman’s actions were so reckless as to be the work of an amateur. No one connected to Victor Kemp, including the man himself, would have sanctioned, let alone ordered, such a crazy stunt. Yet Daniel Guzman’s disappearance has been nothing short of masterful. He’s vanished without a trace. That suggests he had expert help. Which then begs the question: was the shooting a diversion? If so, what is the main event? Nothing else has happened, although the principals are being watched by a protective detail for the time being.
My efforts to sort through and arrange the puzzle pieces have given me a headache. I hoist myself up from the breakfast table where I’ve been worrying a piece of toast as thoroughly as I’ve worried my mind. I need to stay sharp. Michael is being released from the hospital this morning. He requires daily interaction with a nurse for another week or two as well as six weeks of physical therapy.
Initially, the doctors suggested a care facility, but I couldn’t bear the thought. At the same time, we knew we couldn’t properly accommodate his needs in our small flat. Tommy and Maggie generously proposed their townhouse. We demurred. Neither Brian nor I believed taking Michael back to the scene of the crime makes sense.
Enter Brian’s place of employment. Not the university but rather Her Majesty’s Secret Intelligence, which has come through in fine fashion. Apparently, SIS maintains a high-end safe house for valued assets inside a well-maintained and well-guarded luxury highrise. While it might not suit the requirements of a Russian oligarch or a Saudi prince, it’s surprisingly spacious and perfect for our needs.
Our temporary home has two bedroom suites, one at each end of the flat. The den doubles as a guest room. There’s a library, a small front sitting room, an alcove with a table that seats six or eight, and an open kitchen outfitted to impress a professional cook. The windows are double-glazed and likely impenetrable. You can’t exactly air out this place. Nor is there a balcony. We do have a private lift and access to a lovely walled garden at ground level. The building even boasts a fitness room and small pool.
We’ve managed to snag Nancy Okorie for a week of private duty nursing. Without a doubt, the pay is part of the appeal. I like to think she also enjoys working with a young patient with Michael's determination. Kate is staying in the den for a while. She’ll eventually join Michael in the master suite, but who knows when that will be? In the meantime, she’s arranged to work remotely for a week or two so she can help Nancy oversee her fiancé’s recovery.
Brian thinks it’s a splendid idea. “Between those two women, he’ll not be able to slack off,” he chuckles. “They’ll have him running laps if he’s not careful.”
He won’t be in danger, I think, noting the watchful eyes of the men and women placed unobtrusively around lobby. What happens when we leave, though? I keep those observations to myself.
We hoped to get Michael checked out before his birthday, but what with the holidays and all we had to settle for a celebration in the hospital. I wouldn’t have predicted we’d be there rather than in Wales. Then again, I didn’t know if my son would even see his twenty-eighth birthday.
Today I’ve hired a van with a driver who can double as a bodyguard. Michael, Kate, and Nancy are waiting at the entrance as we pull up. Kate and Michael have already taken care of the paperwork. He’s even managed to sign himself out. He looks so weak sitting in the wheelchair, wrapped in scarves and a blanket. At the same time, he desperately needs a shave.
Your son is a man, I remind myself.
He stands on wobbly legs with Kate’s help and favors me with a grin that melts my heart.
Twenty minutes later, we drive up to our temporary home. Michael lets out a whistle.
“Pretty swanky.”
“Your father has pull.”
We get him upstairs. He insists on looking around.
“Enough excitement, young man. To bed.” Nancy points to his room, and her patient complies.
Between the nurse and the fiancée, the care duties are well covered. I’ll have to balance my need to interfere against their impressive competence. Brian says as much as he kisses the top of my head and prepares to head out. I pull on his sleeve.
“I want to know everything you know.”
“I promise.”
~
During my working years, I was ostensibly employed to assess weaknesses and make recommendations. My title was corporate security manager, although I had no one to manage. Because I was young and female, I typed up my own reports as well as the notes at most meetings I attended.
Kemp’s company stayed ahead of the curve in hiring and appearing to promote women in the workplace. In reality, the place was as sexist as any other company at the time, never mind my presumed value to my employer. It took me a dozen years to get a part-time assistant and a private office. Paul Guzman had all of those and more the day he joined the company. Then again, he was the boss’s son.
The advantage of my experience is that I learned the value of personal follow-up. I remember names, faces, birthdays, anniversaries, number of children, kinds of pets, and any significant others who may be important to the people I work or socialize with. I never fail to acknowledge a kindness. If I come off as reserved, I’m nevertheless regarded as well mannered. In this day and age, my approach may seem old-fashioned. I don’t think of it that way. It’s a habit that pays off.
I suppose I have Victor Kemp to thank.
I’m willing and able to spend the day writing to all the people whose outpouring of support has meant so much to Brian and me. It doesn’t feel like a burden or busywork or even penance, as it must to so many people. I'm grateful for the chance to acknowledge the human connection.
What the busywork doesn’t do is address either my anxiety or my simmering fury.
Brian comes home at six, his arms filled with goodies from Harrods Food Hall. It’s just the four of us. Nancy has gone back to her flat, presumably to pull together an overnight bag. She insists on staying with us for tonight, after which she'll turn over the graveyard shift to Kate. Michael’s fiancée appears more than prepared to take her caretaking role seriously. She approves a small glass of craft brew for Michael.
I pretend to eat while watching them all. Michael looks stronger, especially with the indomitable Kate by his side. Brian appears more tired than usual, or maybe he’s preoccupied. I suspect the latter when he looks at me across the table and uses sign language to indicate we need to talk.
After dinner, we send the Kate and Michael to the library, a clubby little room with a huge TV screen tucked behind some shelves. Nancy has returned and is unpacking in the guest bedroom. Both women have agreed on an 8:00 p.m. bedtime for Michael. The poor boy really doesn’t stand a chance.
Brian and I are in our suite at the far end of the flat. We bring our chairs close together. He can’t stay seated. Characteristically and almost comically, he bounces up and begins talking and pacing in front of me.
“There’s no trace of Daniel Guzman. No hints or whispers, nothing except deliberately false leads that have taken investigators nowhere for nearly two weeks. Nothing.”
“Which means?”
He stops and looks me full in the face. “Some of us think maybe Daniel Guzman didn’t disappear on his own.”
“He had help.”
“Not exactly. It’s more like he was made to disappear.”
“Killed, in other words.” I don’t sound at all surprised, which appears to surprise Brian.
“Yes.”
“Because he failed to complete his assignment?”
“Doubtful.”
“Because he attempted an unsanctioned assignment that failed.”
“Yes. And in doing so, he inadvertently brought attention to someone else who didn’t appreciate it. Possibly his father.”
I make to rise out of my chair.
“Hold on, Suzie. I’m talking about Francesco Guzman.”
I sit back down. “Who has also apparently disappeared. And who may not ever have existed.”
My husband kneels in front of me, an oddly romantic gesture. He takes both my hands.
“I know what you’re thinking, Suzanne. Leaving aside the unlikelihood that a man half Kemp’s age could have survived the explosion, there’s simply no evidence . . .” His voice trails off.
No evidence that Victor Kemp is alive and responsible for the disappearance of his own son, the man who shot my son. Nothing to go on, except for the churning in my gut and the buzzing in my brain. Spidey sense.