Page 27 of Cruel Dreams

Patty searches my features, and Max nudges her along, sliding the glasses off my face. “Stella Mayfair. I recognize you now. You’re supposed to be dead. I saw the news clip and watched Zane Maddox speak to the reporters outside the hospital.” Her eyes widen. “Your death was a hoax.”

Zane’s going to be pissed.

“In the past five years, a lot of things have been,” Max says.

Patty presses her lips together, assessing us. Wondering just what the fuck is going on. Her curiosity wins, and she nods. “Fine. But if this bounces back to me, I’ll deny it with every breath I have. There are already rumors there’s a snitch in the building, and I’m not getting messed up in this.”

“We’re not going to say anything,” Max says, standing.

She walks around her desk, and I trail behind them into the bright hallway. A man wearing a navy suit frowns at us, but Patty ignores him.

“That’s Roscoe. He despises me,” she whispers, leading us down the corridor. She stops in front of a door marked Audio Room and uses a key attached to a springy cord fastened around her wrist that I didn’t notice before.

“Why?” Max asks.

“He hates his job, but I find it fascinating. I spend hours analyzing black box voice recordings. It’s how I know we have the Maddoxes’ flight recording to begin with. Roscoe sits in his office and binges Netflix between crashes. I do my job because I think one day I’ll make a difference. Today may be one of those rare days.”

The audio room is tiny, and the overhead light flickers, casting dim shadows in the corners. A silver laptop sits on a small conference table.

Wiggling the mouse, Patty wakes up the computer. “Voice recorders capture the last two hours of a flight. In this instance, I think you’ll need to listen to only the last half an hour or so.”

“No one spoke for an hour and a half before that?” Max asks skeptically, settling at the table.

She sucks in a breath. “You’re right, only Kagan and Lark were on that flight. Kagan made a few business calls, and Lark napped. At least, that’s what she told Kagan she was going to do, then she didn’t speak until Kagan told her to answer her phone. Listen for yourself.”

I sit next to Max, and Patty passes us Bluetooth headphones. Max and I adjust them over our ears, and Patty waits until we both nod at her to continue. She cues up the recording and presses a button. Suddenly, Kagan’s voice and a constant buzz of static fills my ears. He’s muted but clear, like the recording has been stripped to subtract background noise.

Max stares at the floor, listening, concentrating. It sounds like Kagan is completing a business deal. His deep baritone zips along my skin, and I think that’s how Zane is going to sound in twenty years. Strong, confident, but compassionate. He ends the call inquiring about the man’s wife, and he asks what he can do to help. The request brings me back to when I was keeping track of the RSVPs for Zane’s party and Zarah telling me to order a gift for guests who couldn’t attend due to their baby’s difficult birth. I think of warning off Max, and I’m ashamed I stuck my nose where it doesn’t belong.

Caught in my reverie, I miss the ending of the phone call, and Kagan saying, “Richard” jolts me back to the audio room. My lips pop open in surprise. In all this, Denton never mentioned hewas one of the last people to speak to Kagan Maddox before his death.

The recording doesn’t pick up the other side of the conversation, of course, and we don’t hear Denton’s response.

“He’s not going for it,” Kagan says, then silence.

“I wanted Zane and Zarah in on it,” he continues, stops. Then, “Clayton said he won’t commit because of prior obligations, and we’ll look for other donors. He’s never had a problem throwing money at something like this before, but perhaps this particular venture doesn’t interest him.”

I don’t understand what they’re talking about. It sounds like Kagan was exploring charity work of some kind and wanted Zane and Zarah to be involved, but Zane never said anything to me. What kind of project was Kagan looking into that he needed and wanted Clayton Black’s help? Kagan Maddox could fund anything alone, but then Kagan answers my question.

“Ash and Zarah will end up getting married. Lark doesn’t like the idea, but that kid is in love. It would be a nice legacy to leave to our grandkids.”

Ash had even Kagan fooled. Maybe Zane wasn’t as gullible as I thought. If Zane trusted Ash as much as Kagan seems to have trusted Clayton, it was no wonder Zane wouldn’t listen to me.

Max is still staring at the floor.

Kagan’s voice is muffled in places, and so far, we haven’t heard Lark speak.

“No, I don’t mind. He’s a little rough around the edges, but so is Zane. Zarah’s young, and Lark won’t let her marry until she’s twenty-five. We’ve talked about that, but he’s a good kid and he can ask on her twenty-third birthday. He adores her—I can see it when they’re together. He’ll wait through a two-year engagement. Especially if they have permission to live together, and I have no problem with that.”

Max stiffens. He doesn’t like hearing about Zarah marrying another man. I wonder how Zarah and Ash’s relationship would have worked out had Kagan and Lark survived or if the plane hadn’t crashed at all. Ash wouldn’t have been able to hide his cruelty for long. Eventually, his true colors would have come out.

“When I get back to the office, we’ll discuss it further. Hold down the fort.”

For a few minutes there’s nothing but silence, and then we hear Kagan’s voice again. “Lark, your phone.”

“Hmmm?” Had her voice been any lower, the hum would have been lost in the static, but her pure soprano is smooth and gentle and rises just enough above the buzz.

“Your phone.”

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