The Garden of Betrayal - Lee Vance [0]
Restitution
For Cynthia, Zoe, Nikki, and Matthew
Contents
Cover
Other Books by this Author
Title Page
Dedication
Epigraph
Prologue: New York City, 2003
Part 1 - Seven Years Later
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Part 2 - Three Days Later
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Part 3 - Nine Months Later
Chapter 45
Acknowledgments
A Note About the Author
Copyright
Judas, his betrayer, knew the place because Jesus and the disciples went there often. So Judas led the way to the garden …
JOHN 18:2–3
PROLOGUE
New York City, 2003
Snow settled on a dark, open-air parking lot. A large man wearing slick leather shoes and a new camel-hair overcoat shuffled carefully across the slippery surface, arms extended for balance. He kept his head down, cognizant of the security camera on a tall pole at the far end of the lot. The red BMW was parked where it was supposed to be, and the freshly cut key opened the door with ease. Still warm, the engine started instantly. Driving slowly across the lot, the man edged the car into traffic beneath a pink neon motel sign. He turned right and then pulled up to the curb. Two more men wearing navy watch caps and oilcloth jackets opened the rear doors and got in, sinking low in the seats.
“Nice coat,” one sneered at the driver. “Looks real good on a putz like you.”
“Somebody owes me three hundred bucks,” the driver replied irritably. “The only use I got for this thing is to shammy the car.”
“Knock it off,” the third man ordered. He mumbled slightly, speech impeded by a decade-old facial burn that had left him with a shiny, puckered band of grafted skin stretched taut from the corner of his mouth to his right ear. “Take Tenth all the way, and don’t speed.”
“We got diplomatic plates,” the driver said. “We can do whatever we want.”
“You’ll do what I tell you,” the scarred man said. “Don’t speed.”
“Stop,” Claire said, lifting her hands from the piano’s keyboard for the fifth time in as many minutes.
Kate lowered her violin. Dark like her mother, and still carrying her baby fat at ten, she looked like a sullen Raphael cherub.
“Play it for her again, please, Kyle.”
Kyle turned from the living-room window, where he’d been watching snow swirl through the treetops in Riverside Park below. He was tall for a twelve-year-old, and had his own violin cradled in his arms. Looking from his mother to his sister, he saw Kate’s lower lip protruding tremulously, the way it always did when she was getting upset.
“I’m kind of hungry,” he said. “Maybe we should take a break.”
“I’d like to hear Kate play this passage correctly first,” Claire insisted. “You’re neither of you babies anymore.”
Kate drew back her arm and threw her violin bow the length of the room.
“I don’t have to practice all night just because you’re angry at Daddy,” she shouted, bare feet booming on the parquet floor as she stomped away.
Claire closed her eyes and exhaled loudly. Kyle took a step toward her and then glanced after his sister. Yolanda was in the front hall. She was dressed to go home, with a brightly patterned scarf tied over her hair, but she pocketed her gloves with a sigh and started after Kate, motioning for Kyle to go to his mother. He nodded gratefully and turned away.
Claire was slumped forward from the waist, forehead touching the music on the rest. Ebony hair, gathered in a bun, shone blue above her delicate neck. Setting his violin aside, Kyle moved behind her and began massaging her shoulders gently, the way he’d seen his father do.
“There’s no reason for you to cancel your performance,” he said. “You’ve still got