“So, where to?”
“Let’s try that place Sabrina was living.”
We drove north through the mutie district. Sabrina’s neighborhood looked worse in daylight. I had time to wonder about the ‘friend’ who supposedly owned the house. We hadn’t heard about him from anyone except that vague mention by Clarissa. I pulled out my tablet and logged into my server in Toronto, then did a search on Sabrina’s address in Montreal.
“Wil?”
“Yeah?”
“David Capozzi is listed as the owner of that house.”
“Son of a bitch!” Wil switched on the siren and lights I didn’t know the car had and floored it. That’s when I realized the car wasn’t a normal electric car but a hybrid with a hydrogen-cell engine override. The acceleration pressed me back in my seat.
“Do you understand what the end game is on all this?” I asked.
“No, but I don’t like the feel of it.”
Sabrina’s red sporty car was parked in front of the house. We drove by slowly and parked down the street. Both of us checked our weapons as we got out of the car.
“How do you want to do this?” I asked.
“Can you get in?”
“Of course. Do you want me to break in quietly, or you don’t care?”
He hesitated. “Hell, I don’t know. Can you scout the place and see if you can see anything?”
I blurred my image and raced to the house. The curtains in the front were all drawn, so I hopped over the fence and tried the back windows. All of those curtains were closed, too. I stuck a mic on one of the windows, and thought I heard some kind of movement inside the house, but I couldn’t be sure. There definitely wasn’t anyone talking.
Moving back to the front, I unblurred and tapped the fence, getting Wil’s attention. He turned at the sound, and silently came to me.
“There’s someone in the house, but that’s all I can tell,” I whispered in his ear.
“The front door is steel,” Wil said. “I can kick in a window, but…”
Yeah. Making a dramatic entry through a window rimmed with shards of broken glass didn’t work near as well in real life as it did in the vids.
“Let’s see what the back door offers,” I said.
I stood back as he vaulted over the fence, then we crept around to the back door. It took me about fifteen seconds to get through the door to the screened-in back porch, but the back door of the house was also steel. Although the house looked like all the others on the street, David had made some modifications.
“Wil, David’s dead,” I said. “Who’s going to sue us?”
He grinned back at me. “Can you open it?”
I pulled out the small piece of plastic explosive and a blasting cap I’d taken from David’s apartment.
“Do you know how to use this stuff?”
He gave me a strange look. “You don’t?”
“I never mess with explosives. That stuff is dangerous. I got this from David’s apartment.”
Wil took the small lump of explosive and the detonator. “You stick this on the door and embed the blasting cap in it. But you need some kind of electric charge to set off the cap. Usually there’s a wire and a trigger box.”
I’d seen a roll of wire and some kind of box where I found the explosives. “Do you have any wire in the car? Maybe some of the wiring in Sabrina’s car? I mean, what do we need, twenty or thirty feet?”
“Probably twelve feet will do it. We just have to be out of the blast radius.” He moved away, around the house toward the front. I molded the small piece of explosive between the door and the frame next to the lock, then stuck the blasting cap in it as Wil had described.
He came back in five minutes, carrying a long piece of copper wire.
“Radio antenna on her car,” he said, sticking one end in the blasting cap.
We backed off the porch and knelt down behind the concrete steps.
“How much electricity?”
“Hell, I don’t know. As much of a charge as you can give it, I guess. How are you going to do this?”
I pulled the stun box out of my purse, opened the back, and stuck the end of the wire against the contacts. Then I triggered the box and stuck my finger where the copper wire met the contacts, shorting out the box.
The explosion was deafening.
When the debris stopped raining down around us, I stuck my head up and found the door was open, swinging a little back and forth on its hinges. I leaped up, blurred my form, and charged through the door in a crouch.
The kitchen wasn’t messed up nearly as much as the back porch. I plastered myself against the front wall and glanced at the back door. Wil was there, with only his head and his pistol visible.
“Cover me from there,” I said.
“Right.”
Inching my way forward, I looked around the corner. On the other side of the wall from me was the sitting room. To the right was a short hallway. Coming out of the hallway was a blonde woman covered in blood and holding a Mini-Stealth pistol. Sabrina.
I shot her in the chest and slid down the wall to the floor. Her shot went over my head. I fired again, and so did she. Gathering my legs under me, I made ready to launch myself toward her. Then Wil fired three bullets in quick succession. At least one of them hit her in the head, she spun around, bounced off the wall behind her, and fell to the floor.
Unblurring my form so Wil wouldn’t shoot me, I dove forward, landing on her back and knocking the gun from her hand. I put the muzzle of my pistol against the back of her head and said, “Don’t move.”
Her body seemed to ripple under me, then she swung her arm and hit me in the side. I found myself flying through the air even as my pistol fired. I hit a coffee table, which broke, and slid into a couch, tangled in the pieces of the table.
Wil’s pistol barked twice more, then again.
I heard footsteps pounding toward me, and looking up, saw Sabrina rush past me, open the front door, and leap down the steps toward her car. I crawled to the door, holding my pistol grip with both hands, took aim, and fired. Her right leg collapsed, and she went down.
“Are you okay?” Wil asked from above me. I looked up and discovered he was standing next to me, pistol aimed at the woman on the ground in the front yard.
“I think so. I don’t think I caught a bullet, anyway.”
“I’m going to go cuff her,” he said. “Cover me.”
“Oh, no. Don’t get anywhere near her. Just shoot her in the other knee.”
He started forward, and I grabbed his pants leg. “Hey! I’m serious. If she gets her hands on you, she’ll beat the shit out of you.”
I took a deep breath and felt the ends of my broken ribs grind together.
He took out his phone and made a call, then issued a series of orders.
“Just watch her,” I said, pulling myself to my feet. I actually felt better standing up than I did lying down, but ‘better’ was a marginal thing.
Dreading what I was going to find, I traced the blood trail into the back of the house. We had interrupted Sabrina in the act of dismembering her twin sister in the bathtub. I braced myself and untied a plastic garbage bag. Sonia’s head was inside. My stomach rebelled, but since I still hadn’t eaten after our flight, nothing came up.
I walked back into the living room, and gritting my teeth, bent down and picked up Leslie Desroches’s final masterpiece—the silver flying woman—out of the table’s wreckage. It didn’t appear to be damaged, so I cradled it in my left arm and carried it out into the front yard.
“You know, I’ve seen a lot of awful stuff in my life,” I told Wil. “It still always amazes me how many kinds of evil people dream up.”
“She killed her own sister?” Nellie asked. “How could someone do that?”
“I think she hated Sonia,” I said. “Sonia got the rich parents, while Sabrina got shipped off to the younger brother, who was just a working manager.”
We were in Nellie’s sitting room partaking in a bottle of th
e hotel’s best Irish whiskey, paid for by Entertaincorp. My ribs were bound tight, and I’d taken a couple of shots of local anesthetic to dull the pain. The whiskey was taking care of the bump on my head and the various minor scrapes and cuts resulting from my collision with the coffee table.
“So, she killed Morgan so that her sister would inherit, and then she could kill Sonia and take her place?” Tom asked.
“I don’t think that was the original plan,” I told them. “Sabrina filched a couple of diamonds from David Capozzi and took them to a gemologist she knew. The guy thought they were a little too perfect and sent them off to a lab that determined they were man made. She contacted Morgan and demanded money, or she’d blow the whistle on his whole scheme. He laughed at her and said no one would ever believe her over him. They argued, and she skewered him with that spear. From that point, things spun out of control. The idea of killing Sonia and taking her place evidently occurred when Sonia refused to split the inheritance with her. Sonia just offered her a few million to go away.”
“Well, what happens now?” Tom asked.
“We’re still trying to locate Michael Morgan,” Wil said, picking up the bottle and refilling my glass before he topped off his.
Chapter 32
Nellie’s engagement in Montreal started off well, and ended spectacularly, with the final weekend so crowded they set up a tent outside in the parking lot to handle the crowd. The following day, on the boat to Quebec City, Richard called her to announce that the corporate powers had approved her spring European tour.
Le Château Frontenac in Quebec City was the fanciest hotel Nellie or I had ever stayed at, and that was saying a lot after Le Reine Élizabeth in Montreal. Both were owned by Entertaincorp, which had bought all the historic Canadian Grand Railroad Hotels dirt cheap back during the Troubles. At that time, the corporation planned on becoming an entertainment and resort monopoly, but later focused their strategy more on the entertainment sector. As a result, they had sold all their hotel and resort properties with the exception of the absolute top tier.
Located within the historic district's Upper Town, it sat on a hill high above the river, and its eighteen stories gave it a commanding presence, visible for miles. Sailing on the river, it was the first thing we saw as we approached the city.
When we checked in, a member of the events staff approached us.
“Miss Barton? I’m Emil Rantaine. While the porters deliver your luggage to your room, I’d like to go over some of the changes to your schedule.”
“Changes? Such as?” Nellie asked. I could see the worry on her face.
“Yes, Monsieur O’Malley has decided that instead of performing Sunday evening at Le Sommet, you’ll be playing at Palais Montcalm from eight o’clock until ten thirty.”
Emil’s accent was a little thick, and Nellie gave me a confused look. I spoke in French to him, and then he switched back to English.
“Forgive me, Mademoiselle. I should have explained. Palais Montcalm is Quebec City’s foremost concert hall. It seats over a thousand people.”
“Concert hall?” she stared first at him, then at me.
“You hit the big time,” I said with a chuckle. “You want me to tell him you’d rather play in a dive bar?”
“Oh, hell, no! Don’t you dare!”
“There is also the gala Thursday night,” Emil continued.
“Gala? What’s a gala?” Nellie’s expression mixed panic with curiosity.
“A reception in the Grand Ballroom here at the hotel,” he answered. “It’s invitation only, of course, at a thousand credits a head, and the proceeds go to charity. It’s like a fancy cocktail party from seven until ten. You will perform between eight and nine.”
“We weren’t informed of this,” I said. “Mademoiselle Barton will need a new dress. I assume arrangements for a fitting have been made?”
“No, but I shall do so,” Emil said without missing a beat.
“As Ms. Barton’s bodyguard, I shall also require a fitting. Please schedule that as well.”
“Certainly.” He glanced up at me. “I believe that’s everything. I’ll send a full schedule to your suite, and if you have any questions, do not hesitate to call for me.”
“My God,” Nellie breathed as we made our way to the elevator. “You handled that like a pro.”
“All you have to do is remember the snootiest bitch with a broomstick up her ass that you’ve ever met, and act like she would if she had a spark of decency and intelligence,” I replied. “I went to school with a lot of them.”
“Miss Nelson,” a woman behind the check-in desk called. I walked over, and she held out a package. “This was left for you. Please sign for it.”
I eyed it warily, then turned to Tommy. “Can we get that thing scanned?”
“No problem.” He waved a couple of security guys over, who ran a portable security scanner over it. X-ray and substance scan revealed nothing poisonous or explosive.
“Looks like jewelry,” one of the guys said.
I signed for it and took it up to Nellie’s suite. She was beaming.
“I’ll bet that handsome man of yours finally got some sense,” she said. “He’s really nice, but he needs to understand that presents are important, even if you can afford to buy your own jewelry.”
I wasn’t listening. When I opened the J. Morgan box inside the wrapper, I found a delicately-wrought necklace, bracelet and earrings. The pendant stone in the necklace was about ten carats, a blue brilliant-cut diamond that knocked my eyes out. Four more stones half that size, and then another two about two carats, all circled with half-carat white diamonds set in yellow gold. I knew it was Lesley Desroches’s work before I even turned it over to see her mark.
“Oh, my God,” Nellie breathed.
I opened the card.
Thank you. A
“Who is A?” she asked.
“Alonzo.”
I thought her eyes would fall out of her head.
With David dead, and Benito and his other sons headed for the gallows, Carmine Capozzi was in a difficult position. Alonzo Donofrio had wasted no time making Carmine an offer that he dared not refuse, buying Capozzi’s legitimate businesses and taking over the illegal rackets in Montreal.
I had known that refusing to take money to kill David would put Alonzo in my debt, but in a subtle way. I never expected a ‘thank you’ like that.
We had all eyes on us when we arrived for the gala, and not just because Nellie was the star of the evening. I was used to people staring at either Nellie or Wil, as they were usually the most beautiful woman or man in any room. When the two of them were in close proximity, the effect doubled.
Richard O’Malley beamed. A fiftyish, balding, slightly overweight businessman, he loved the attention when Nellie was on his arm. As for me—tall, gangly, ragamuffin that I was—I basked in the knowledge that every woman in the place hated me because I was with Wil. He was exquisite in a tux—tall, graceful, handsome, with manners and sophistication that screamed class.
We had just snagged our first glasses of champagne when I turned and found myself face-to-face with The Dragon Lady. I don’t know who was more shocked, but the expression on her face reflected my stunned feeling. We hadn’t seen each other in person since I was eight years old. I was actually surprised that she recognized me.
I took a deep breath and tried to look nonchalant. “Hello, Grandmother. What a pleasant surprise.”
She gave me a good looking-over—the dark blue silk designer gown which set off my new diamond jewelry, fancy hairdo, and the gorgeous hunk on my arm.
“Hello, Elizabeth. You seem to be doing well,” she said.
“I am. Wil, let me introduce my grandparents. My grandmother, Eleanor O’Riley Nelson, and my grandfather, Patrick Nelson, retired Executive Vice President of Findlay Corporation. This is my fiancé, Wilbur Wilberforce, Director of Security for the North American Chamber of Commerce.”
“I’m very pleased to meet you,” Wil sai
d, with a half bow.
Grandmother about swallowed her teeth. She recovered well, but I saw both my grandparents’ eyes widen. They would have been unsurprised if I introduced Wil as a gangster or a mid-level manager of Toronto’s waste-treatment plant. I did my best to maintain a bland expression.
As we made our way across the room, Wil muttered, “Fiancé? When did I say yes?”
“If I was ever deranged enough to ask, you’d have to be suicidal to say no. I don’t take rejection well. What I didn’t want was them thinking you were paying me.”
“Ah.” He was quiet for a bit, then said, “I thought you were estranged from your mother’s family.”
“She is,” I answered. “I am kind of by extension. This is the first time I’ve seen them in almost twenty years. They did pay for my school and university, though. I think my grandmother couldn’t stand the thought of me becoming a whore and sullying the family name. That’s why the lie tonight. I didn’t want her to wonder.”
“Isn’t your mother’s name Nelson, also?”
“Yes, but I think the idea that Mom’s profession might be hereditary instead of a personal choice would be too much for Eleanor to handle.”
Wil almost spewed his drink but managed not to embarrass himself.
A few minutes later, a couple approached us. The man looked vaguely familiar, good-looking with an impressive shock of black hair. The woman on his arm was a dark-haired beauty who radiated sophistication in an understated white and gold gown.
“Director Wilberforce?” the man asked, extending his hand. “I’m Michael Morgan. I understand you’ve been trying to contact me. May I present my wife, Fiona? We’ve been on our honeymoon and rather lost track of the outside world for a while.”
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