by Davis Bunn
Gerald let himself out the back door and came to stand beside Val. Gerald had dumped the contents of Terrance’s laptop into his own computer, then he and Val had worked in tandem for three frantic hours. Now his voice carried the grainy tension of a quest unfulfilled. “Further north they refer to such hills as fells. It’s a good Gaelic-sounding word, that. The fells. Brings to mind all sorts of dark and craggy depths. Places where evil might thrive unobserved.”
Bert and Dillon let themselves out the kitchen door and padded over to stand beside them at the fence. Bert said, “You might as well go ahead and say it.”
Gerald said, “All we have to show for our efforts is a long string of numbers belonging to a file named after this bloke here.”
“That’s something, right?” Bert searched both faces with frantic concern. “One of you tell me we’re closer to getting the lady back.”
When Gerald merely rubbed his tired eyes, Val explained, “It’s something. But not as much as we hoped. My guess is, Terrance set up the accounts in my name so the U.S. authorities can track how the money flowed, maybe even get a figure on what’s sitting over there. But that’s it. Jersey banking laws make Switzerland’s system look like fishnet.”
“You guess,” Gerald quietly scoffed.
But Val was seeing anew how the file with the numbers had been set up. It was marked simply as Haines. “Terrance can claim they found the account numbers in searching me out. That’s why he can carry them like this, to show the authorities. But they’ll have some prearranged electronic signal for moving the money on. That’s what we didn’t find. I should have figured Terrance would set up firewalls.”
Bert complained, “You lost me back there around the first word.”
“Maybe they set up a secure Web site somewhere. One way in, one out. He brought the computer because there’s a signal embedded in here that opens the electronic door. We have no idea where to look on the Web. He could have this thing hidden anywhere. A server for the phone company in Tasmania, an insurance group in Shanghai, anywhere at all.”
“Without the codes and the address, we’re lost,” Gerald said. “I say it’s time we called in the police.”
“Absolutely,” Val said.
Dillon pointed out, “If we do, mate, they’re bound to discover your role in all this.”
“If you’re hesitating on my account, forget it,” Val said.
Gerald said, “So maybe we should arrange a trade. You for her. The one thief within reach for Audrey.”
“I’m ready,” Val said. Meaning it.
“No, mate,” Bert decided, shaking his entire upper body. “We can’t do that.”
“Why not?” Gerald’s voice was flat as a cop’s.
“They’ll murder the bloke. You know that same as me.”
“So what do you think they’re doing to Audrey?”
Bert sneered. “You’re telling me it’d be right to feed the bloke to the lions?”
“If it saves Audrey, absolutely.”
Val backed away from the three men. “I’m the one who brought this down on you people. I’m the reason the bad guys have Audrey. I’ve made a total mess of everything.”
“What about your plan?” Bert said.
“Will you just listen to the man!” Gerald snapped. “We can’t access the computer codes!”
“Your plan,” Bert insisted to Val. “The one you were thinking of back before we hit the hotel.”
“It could still work. Maybe. I’m not sure of anything anymore except that first you need to decide whether it’d be better just to offer me up for her.”
A silhouette appeared in the kitchen doorway. Arthur d’Arcy held himself canted slightly to one side. He pushed futilely at the back door and then turned away. Val started back for the house.
Gerald shouted, “We’re not finished here!”
Val kept going. A gale-force wind blasted out of nowhere. Thunder tore shreds from the feeble sunset. When Val let himself in through the door, Arthur d’Arcy was seated at the kitchen table. Arthur looked once in Val’s direction, then planted his elbows on the table and placed his face in his hands. The motions of a defeated man.
Val understood perfectly how he felt.
The kitchen held a sulphurous odor. Far more than coffee had burned down to sullen residue. Val poured a second mug. The coffee was black as pitch and smelled charred. He doubted very much that Arthur would notice. Val set the mug down by the old man’s elbow and took the chair on the table’s opposite side.
Val tasted his own mug. “Apparently the fight with Terrance jostled my brain. Things are coming back to me now.”
There was no sign from Arthur that he had heard at all.
“I remember everything. Well, not everything. But enough. I remember why I sent Audrey away. Right now, that’s pretty much all that matters.”
“I long to forget.” Arthur did not raise his face from his hands. The words came out malformed, shards of trauma and regret. “My entire life has been quilted together from horrific errors. I should never have married Eleanor. But I was convinced my love was great enough for the two of us. I should have fought my father’s decision. I should have . . .”
Val sipped his coffee and waited the man out. The voices out back had gone silent. The only sounds were the tick of the kitchen clock and distant thunder.
Arthur went on, “Everything Terrance accused me of was true.”
“Partly,” Val corrected.
Arthur lifted his head. He blinked slowly, having difficulty placing the man across from him.
“Partly true,” Val repeated. “Finding his enemy’s weakness and attacking hard are Terrance’s trademarks.”
“His enemy,” Arthur croaked. “What a dreadful legacy I’ve created.”
“What about Audrey?”
“They have her.”
“That’s not your fault. If you want someone to blame for that particular calamity, you’re looking straight at him.”
But Arthur was too lost in self-remorse to accuse anyone else. “I thought giving my family peace and harmony and stability was doing right by them. But that was what I wanted. Not them. They wanted . . .” He dropped his face back into his hands. He might have finished with the word “everything.” But Val could not be certain.
The clock on the wall above the stove sounded like a pick working at the wound on Val’s temple. Chipping away at his composure, exposing the bubbling fear that threatened to erupt at any time. They had Audrey. He had looked into the faces of four of them, Terrance and the woman and the two bruisers, and he knew them for killers. Val wanted to grab the clock and fling it onto the stone floor and stomp it to bits.
“Fourteen months after my wife left me for Terrance, I met Audrey,” Val went on, his voice steady. “She showed me the same talent as her brother, only in reverse. Terrance hunts out weakness to attack. Audrey seeks only to help. She is the most giving person I’ve ever met. The most loving. I saw it even then. But I couldn’t accept it. Back then I woke up every night drenched in rage. I couldn’t see further than wanting to tear a man apart with my own bare hands.”
Val looked down at his hands. He was amazed to find that they were not trembling. He could remember now what it was like, walking into the bathroom at one or two in the morning, knowing he would not return to sleep. Living on three or four hours of sleep a night because that was all he could have. All he would ever have. His bathroom was like the rest of the house, empty of life. Even when he was there. Two o’clock in the morning was a terrible time to face the fact that he had lost everything. All because of one man. His hands had trembled then. He would wash his face and clench his fists and press them to his forehead, trying to cram the rage and the hatred all back inside where it lay hidden during the day.
“Audrey arrived in Florida a week after I learned Terrance was stripping the pension funds. I had not slept in seven nights. I never knew a man could live without sleep. All I could think of was, how was I going to catch Terrance
red-handed? If I blew the whistle too early, the fund would collapse and pull the company down with it. And Terrance would escape free and clear. And I wasn’t going to let that happen. I was going to bring him down. I was going to crush him.”
Val was lost in a morass of remembrances. The kitchen’s sulfurous odor was identifiable now. It came from himself and the rage he had refused to let go. “Audrey caught me at my weakest. All she wanted was to give me hope in the future. I see that now. But at the time, I thought she was asking the impossible. She wanted me to forgive Terrance.” The words were almost too large to fit inside his mouth. “She gave me an ultimatum. Give up the hatred, or her.”
He could hear Audrey’s voice so clearly she might as well have been seated there beside him. He felt anew her intense longing to reach him. To turn him. “She told me the only way forward was to release my desire for vengeance. Otherwise I would serve a life sentence, trapped in a prison of my own making.”
Val saw her face again, the flame he had extinguished burning so strongly it illuminated his own heart. “But I wouldn’t let go. I couldn’t see beyond my hatred for Terrance. I knew it was consuming me, and I didn’t care.”
Val raised his gaze. Arthur had lifted his head free of his hands. Bert and Dillon were stationed by the rear door. The three men watched him with knowing eyes. Val swallowed against the hurt and the helplessness. “I’d made my choice. I wasn’t going to be one of the good guys anymore. Audrey accused me of allowing Terrance to remake me into himself. She was right.”
From behind him Gerald said, “So you sent her away.”
Val nodded to the accusation in Gerald’s tone. “Audrey never told me to stop going after him. But she wanted me to do it for the right reasons. To save the pension. To protect the company and the employees. But that wasn’t enough for me. I wanted . . .”
“Vengeance,” Arthur murmured.
“Everything,” Val said, shamed by his confession. “I wanted it all.”
“You wanted back what the man had stolen.” This from Bert. “Audrey knew you couldn’t have it. She offered you something else. You turned her down.”
“Guilty,” Val said.
Gerald came around to look Val in the eye. “Explain to me why you didn’t go to the authorities as soon as you knew the money was missing.”
“If I couldn’t pin the loss on Terrance, from inside the company and knowing the books as I did, no outside examiner would find enough to put him away, much less recoup the losses. I couldn’t blow the whistle until I had both hard evidence on Terrance and knowledge of where the funds had been hidden. But the more I looked, the more I realized . . .”
Gerald gave him a tight moment, then pressed, “What?”
“I realized the only way to track him was to put myself in his shoes.”
“You mean steal funds yourself.”
“That’s right.”
“Sounds very convenient to me.”
“Gerald, mate, give it a rest.”
“No, it’s okay. He’s right.” Val stared at Gerald but saw only the past. “It wasn’t Terrance that I first discovered at all. There was a woman in my department, Marjorie Copeland was her name. She had a severely disabled son and no life whatsoever. The last person you’d expect to be caught dipping. She revealed that she had found out someone else was taking huge sums. She was three years from retirement, and her son could not survive without her pension. I started looking and discovered she was not only right, but it was far worse than she had thought. Enough had been stolen to bring down the entire company. I knew it was Terrance. But I couldn’t prove it.”
Bert was growing impatient. “So you went after him by following his tracks. Sounds simple enough.”
But Val kept his gaze on Gerald, his judge and jury. “It started off that way. But I knew the life Terrance had stolen from me was gone. Demolished. So I decided to take my own share of the pension, expose Terrance, and disappear.”
Gerald repeated, more softly this time, “So you sent Audrey away.”
“My life was over. I wanted to leave and never come back. I wanted to start over and do right all the things that had come out so wrong the first time.”
He stopped then. And sat listening to his past and the ticking of the clock.
Gerald still challenged, but the heat was absent. “You said you have a plan.”
Val took a breath, and stared into his dimly lit future. “That’s right. I do.”
TERRANCE D’ARCY PACED A DARKENED BEDROOM. THE ROOM’S only illumination came from a cheap bedside clock radio and light slipping beneath the closed door. He heard soft voices somewhere in the distance. His two suitcases lay open beside the bed with his clothes heaped on top. Such disorder would normally have sent him into a tailspin. Right now, however, he had more pressing issues on his mind.
When they had returned upstairs after the attack, Loupe had explained in his mildest voice that their struggle had attracted the wrong sort of attention. He asked if Terrance would temporarily relocate to their rented cottage. The silken voice had left no room for complaint. The police would be coming around, asking questions. Bound to happen, what with five of them involved in a dust-up in the hotel lobby and Terrance brawling in the lift.
His jaw throbbed where Val had struck. His body felt stiff with hints of pain yet to come. The bedside clock taunted him with red eyes that blinked out the minutes. He turned on the overhead light. Still the darkness would not go away. He was desperate for answers and had no one with whom he could talk. Wally had remained at the hotel. Don was still not answering his phone. But Terrance’s mind was such a muddle he needed someone to help him strategize.
Terrance stopped his pacing and stared at the side wall. To even consider such a move revealed just how frantic he had become.
Terrance stripped off the clothes trashed by his battle with Val. From the pile on the floor he selected a freshly starched shirt. A navy suit of finest gabardine with a slight hint of charcoal pinstripe. Baume et Mercier watch. Gold stud cufflinks. Donning the only armor he possessed.
He exited the room. Two of Loupe’s men were seated at the kitchen table. They greeted his appearance with vacant gazes. “Everything all right, Mr. d’Arcy?”
“I just wanted to speak with my sister.”
“Mr. Loupe didn’t say nothing about that.” The two men exchanged glances. “Think maybe we should call it in?”
“Look here. I was the one who ordered her brought in. She’s my sister. If she is going to tell anyone where Haines is, it will be me.”
The men looked doubtful but did not stop him as Terrance walked to the other bedroom and opened the door.
Audrey was handcuffed to a bedpost. She had risen to a seated position at the sound of his voice. She greeted him with, “I wouldn’t dream of telling you anything.”
Terrance gently shut the door. He picked up the room’s one chair and carried it to her side of the bed. Audrey drew her legs up under her at his approach, as though fearful of contamination. “There is nothing I could possibly say of any help to you,” she said.
Terrance opened the window wide. The mist floated in, and the room’s air chilled. But it was his only hope of not being overheard. Audrey watched his movements but made no protest.
He lowered himself into the chair. He steepled his fingers. He spoke the words, “I am trapped.”
Audrey remained motionless, her gaze guarded.
“I have only just realized how serious the situation has become. I don’t know what to do.”
“And you’re asking me? For advice?”
“Help me strategize, and I will see that you are immediately freed.” It was a lie, of course. But it was all he had. “I will set you and Father up in luxury and comfort for the rest of your days.”
“You must be in far deeper than I thought.” Audrey untangled her legs, and slid over. The handcuff rattled against the bedstead. “Brother, look at me.” She waited through the long moment it took for Terrance to lift his
gaze. “You have been trapped all your life.”
“You don’t understand.”
“On the contrary. I understand all too well.”
“Could we please dispense with the self-righteous claptrap for a moment? I am in very serious trouble here.”
“Of that I have no doubt.”
“You have remained persistently determined to misunderstand everything I am and do.” Terrance felt the exasperation of centuries. “Why I came in here is utterly beyond me now.”
“Because you’re desperate. Because you have nowhere else to turn.”
“You needn’t sound so pleased.”
“As a prisoner counselor, I deal with people in your situation day in and day out. The only difference is, they are wearing the cuffs. And their jailers are not normally in suits. But I have seen this situation more often than you can imagine. So I shall make things easy for you. You are completely trapped. You have nowhere to go. All your normal maneuverings have brought you nowhere but down into a pit of your own making.”
He felt the old anger surge. “You and I are more alike than you ever imagined. You take precise aim for the jugular. Perhaps it’s a family trait, one that passed over our dear father’s generation.”
“Don’t you dare speak of him. Don’t you dare.” She stopped, pushed herself back. “Terrance, I have only one hope to offer you. One answer. One way out of the misery you have created for yourself and for everyone around you.” She wiped a hand across her face. Plum-colored caverns had been excavated below her eyes. “Why did you come in here?”
A puff of wind blew night mist over them both. “You’re right, of course. I shouldn’t have bothered.”
“No, no, that’s not what I meant. You came in here looking for answers, isn’t that so?”
“Clearly none of those you have to offer.”
Terrance heard the phone ring in the distance. A moment later, one of the guards opened the door and announced, “The boss wants a word. In person.”
“But it’s four in the morning.”
The guard shrugged. “The boss never was much for sleep.”
