by Rachel Ford
Josh must have heard it too, because he joined them. “What did you find?”
“Look at this,” she said, pointing to one of the rows. “It’s a transaction on the tenth, for a hotel stay in New York City. Twenty thousand dollars.”
Josh whistled. “Jesus. That’s a little upscale for a charity, isn’t it?”
“You’re not kidding,” Nancy agreed. “But look at the name.”
“Kate Dallas. She runs ECF, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Nice gig, if you can get it, I guess,” Josh said, shaking his head.
“It’s not just that.” Her tone was growing more animated as she spoke. “This says it was for a charity gala that night. But Kate Dallas wasn’t in New York City on the tenth.”
Alfred frowned. “How do you know?”
“Because she was at the London premiere of Fire Fell.”
Josh’s eyes widened. “That’s right. You showed me the pictures of the red carpet that night.”
Nancy was nodding excitedly. “Everyone was talking about the surprise appearance of Pteropine Guy.”
“I remember. Because it meant he’d be in the next movie.”
“Exactly.”
Very vaguely, Alfred remembered having had this conversation with Nancy. “Pteropine Guy? He’s another superhero, right?”
“Yes. He and Swell Dude form BLAB for Justice.”
Alfred blinked. “What?”
“It’s their superhero group: Band of Loosely Associated Buddies for Justice.” He felt an eyebrow creeping upward. Nancy shrugged. “It’s meant to be funny.”
“It’s not.”
“That’s not really the point,” Josh interjected. “The point is, Dallas was there, in London. Not in New York City.”
“Then that’s a fraudulent charge,” Alfred realized.
“Exactly. And so is this one. And this one. All of these.” Nancy was pointing to a set of charges related to that stay, ostensibly payouts to a local charity.
“She’s embezzling,” the taxman said. “She’s embezzling from her own charity.”
Nancy laughed excitedly. “This has to be it. This has to be what I found the first time. The other me, I mean.”
Josh grinned. “Dammit, Nance. Good work.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
“Okay. So we know Dallas is embezzling, and that she’s willing to kill to stop herself from getting caught.”
“And she’s got a mole in the IRS,” Alfred put in.
“And an assassin on the payroll,” Josh agreed.
“How do we take her down, though? I mean, I can bring this to Caspersen right now. That still doesn’t get the assassin off our trail.”
“No. As long as she’s free, you’ve still got a target on your back, Nance,” the marine said.
“We can’t prove anything about the assassin, either,” Alfred mused. “Because we’d have to try explaining the spacetime field generator.”
“You can’t do that,” Josh put in. “Once people realize that’s possible, other companies will develop it. Who knows what kind of chaos would ensue.”
“Agreed,” Nancy nodded. “We have to keep the device a secret.”
“Which means, other than the guy this morning, we’d have no way of knowing there’s someone after us.”
“And no way to prove the attack this morning was related to Dallas.”
“Which means we’re going to have a hell of a time proving that Dallas actually is willing to kill to keep her secret.”
“I think,” Josh said, “the best thing we can do is get you out of here. Go talk to your boss, tell her your suspicions about Walker and what you found on Dallas. Even if we can’t prove the assassin piece – yet – she’s going to have less reason to kill you once the cat’s out of the bag.
“But we know there’s an assassin here, and with crowds like this, he could be hiding anywhere. And he’s getting desperate, as evidenced by the assault this morning. So the longer we stay, the more danger you’re in.”
Nancy’s face fell. “Leave?”
“What else can we do, babe?” Alfred reasoned.
“Sorry, Nance,” Josh said. “I wish I had a better answer. But you’re not seeing much of MarvelousCon holed up in your room anyway.”
Despite her disappointment, Nancy concurred. So, they packed their bags. “Don’t worry, babe,” Alfred said. “There’s always next year.”
“After this?” She shook her head. “It’s probably the end of MarvelousCon. Hell, it’s probably the end of MDC.”
Despite the fact that the comic empire’s financier had put out a hit on her life, Nancy seemed deeply affected by the thought. Alfred wrapped an arm around her. He couldn’t begin to understand her sorrow, but he didn’t like to see her sad. So he trotted out a tried and true platitude: “I’m sure it’ll work out.”
“I can’t believe Kate Dallas would be a killer,” she said. “I mean, she always seemed like such a good person. Always giving back, always caring.”
Again, Alfred found himself at a loss for a response, so he relied on another cliché. “You never can tell.”
Josh rolled his eyes, saying to Nancy, “She was good at what she did. She fooled a lot of people.”
“Yeah.”
“But who knows, MDC may survive without her,” he continued. “I mean, she’s just the money behind it. But Ashworth’s got plenty of money of his own now. Miller’s a respected director. They’ve got a lot of star power, especially with Becket as Swell Dude.”
Her expression brightened. “That’s true.”
“It’ll be a scandal, but the studios would be crazy to give up on those movies. Not with the kind of money they bring in.”
Nancy smiled. “You know, you could be right.”
“See?” Alfred put in. “Like I said: it’ll all work out.”
“Okay, is that everything?” Josh asked.
“I think so.”
“It’s all I can see,” Alfred agreed.
Slinging a bag over his back and carrying one of the suitcases, he said, “Alright, then, let’s head out.” They waited until he confirmed the path was clear, and Alfred got the remaining suitcase. Nancy got the door behind them.
Josh walked with an alertness that rather unnerved the taxman. The tense posture, the careful movement of the other man’s eyes, impressed upon him the full weight of the peril of their situation. He felt his stomach tense, and his legs tremble.
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, he thought. But, unlike the creator of that verse, Alfred could not claim to fear no evil. On the contrary, his eyes darted up and down the hall in search of that shadow of death.
A door opened in the distance, and he felt his heart leap into his mouth. But then a pair of voices, high and raised in laughter, reached his ears. A moment later, he spotted two female forms decked out in elaborate cosplay, with great swaths of colorful fabric trailing behind them. They seemed to him almost like an amalgamation of giant, rainbow-colored peacocks and medieval warriors. Another time, he might have wondered what in all creation they were supposed to be.
Today, though, he wiped his sweating palms against his pants legs and carried on.
They passed a few more cosplayers on the way to the elevators. These costumed forms passed them laughing and smiling, enjoying the day’s promise. He watched the grinning, painted faces pass by with a kind of disembodied curiosity. He had the sense that he was on the way to be slaughtered, but first treading through a gauntlet of hyaenas.
They reached the elevator bank and were joined as they waited by some kind of space ninja cosplayer. “Morning,” a voice, muffled through the wearer’s face shield, greeted.
“Morning,” Alfred said glumly.
All four of them piled in together into the empty cab, and Josh pressed the button for the lobby.
The doors closed, and Alfred felt Nancy take his hand. He glanced over to see her flash him a smile. He smiled back. Maybe it was being safe
ly out of the open; maybe it was just knowing that Nance was at his side. But the taxman felt his anxiety lessen.
For about two and a half seconds, anyway. That’s how long it took him to catch sight of the space ninja’s reflection in the polished steel elevator cab, reaching for one of the fake weapons strapped to his chest.
Except, Alfred realized as the other man drew the silenced pistol and levelled it at him, it was no fake weapon. “Nance!” he yelled, pivoting as he did so, so that his body was between hers and the shooter’s. “Look out.”
The taxman wrapped her in his arms, and pressed his eyes closed. The assassin had found them. He was going to die; he knew that. But the overarching thought in his mind as he waited for the bullets that would end his life to tear into his back was that he hoped he’d be able to remain on his feet long enough for the elevator to reach the lobby. Long enough for the doors to open. Long enough for Nance to have a chance to run.
He heard Josh shout behind him. He heard a shot ring out, terribly loud in the confined chamber. He heard Nancy cry in alarm, and he pressed her closer. Still, for a moment longer, he kept his eyes closed. He didn’t want to see his death coming.
But the fact that it hadn’t already arrived with that first shot, nor in the interval afterward, gave rise to a curiosity that overpowered fear. He opened one eye a sliver, then entirely. Then he opened the other.
Josh Stevenson was grappling with the space ninja over the gun. Nancy pulled free of Alfred, moving to intervene; but as soon as she neared, the two men shifted positions, and Josh’s back was to her. She stood back.
They crossed from one side of the elevator to the next rapidly. Alfred screamed as the gun went off again, and darted aside as the two men tumbled toward him and Nancy.
“Josh!” she called.
“Sugar cookies,” Alfred said.
The marine seemed to be getting the best of the fight, for he’d pressed the space ninja into a corner. Another shot fired, and the ninja extricated himself from the corner.
“Fudge muffins.”
Finally, an eternity later it seemed to the taxman, the elevator reached the lobby. Josh stumbled out, pulling the assassin with him by his gun hand. Another shot sounded, and Alfred heard glass shatter in the distance.
Screams ripped through the lobby, and the crowd parted before the two men. The marine warded off a punch, and then, swift as lightening, flipped the ninja. Alfred heard a terrific cracking of bones and tearing of tissues, and a scream of agony.
The gun flew to the ground several feet away. Josh yanked off the space helmet, unmasking the assassin. It was, Alfred saw, the same man who had knocked on his door with towels earlier in the morning.
And yet, it wasn’t him. But it is. He had the same square jaw, the same blue eyes, the same muscular neck and murderous gaze. But he was blonde, now, and his hair was cut in a different style.
This time, he saw what Nancy had seen earlier. He knew this face.
“Oh my God,” she said behind him. “It’s Swell Dude.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
It seemed a dam of activity had broken with the gunshot. Visitors poured out of the convention center in a panicked flood.
Still, there were those who remained, phones out, filming the entire spectacle. Josh took charge, directing foot traffic away while Nancy called the police. Convention center security arrived before the officers, and so did Rick Ashworth and Kate Dallas.
They’d been, Alfred found out later, in the middle of a session a few rooms down when the shot rang out. At the time, all he knew was that he held Dallas responsible for his and Nancy’s near death. “You!” he spat out as she approached.
“Oh my god,” Ashworth said. “What happened? Chris, are you okay?”
Chris Becket was whimpering in a heap, clutching with his left hand at his right wrist – which was bent into a shape Alfred had never before seen human bones manage.
“He tried to kill us,” Nancy declared.
One of the convention center security personnel said, his voice low, “Witnesses are telling me Mr. Becket was the shooter, ma’am.”
“Chris? A shooter?” Kate was astonished. She turned to the actor. “Chris, what’s going on?”
Becket, meanwhile, threw a poisonous gaze in her direction. “Go to hell.”
Josh glanced toward the doors as sirens sounded in the distance. “Good. The police will be here soon.”
Kate Dallas’s attention, though, was still on the actor. “Chris, what the hell is going on? Is what they’re saying true? Did you bring a gun? Did you try to shoot people?”
“He did,” Josh said.
Nancy and Alfred confirmed this, with the taxman adding, “Your minion’s going to spend the rest of his life in jail, Ms. Dallas.”
The words coincided with the flash of blue and red lights outside the door. Chris Becket’s injured expression turned into a scowl, and then a snarl. In a flash, he was on his feet, racing for the gun that still lay on the floor among broken glass.
Josh dashed for the actor. Rick Ashworth yelled, “Kate, lookout: gun!” And Alfred and Nancy moved to each other’s sides. But the marine reached Becket before there was any need for further heroics on anyone’s part.
Officers arrived to find a reasonably tranquil scene: a gawking crowd, a few gaping executives, and the shooter subdued and pinned to the floor by Josh.
Nancy, meanwhile, turned to Kate Dallas. “It wasn’t you, was it?”
The entrepreneur blinked. “Wasn’t me who what?”
“Tried to kill us.”
Kate’s eyes widened, and even Alfred was moved by her surprise. “What?”
“Where were you on September tenth of last year, Kate Dallas?”
She frowned. “London. What does this have to do with anything? And who are you people?”
Alfred intervened here, drawing his badge. “Alfred Favero, with the IRS.” He left out the part about being an analyst. For some reason, civvies tended to be less impressed with the term analyst than agent, as if there was something more impressive about being a field monkey than doing the actual work of finding the bad guys. So neglecting to mention his job title, he allowed Ms. Dallas to draw whatever conclusions she would.
And she drew exactly the one he wanted. “I’m sorry, Agent Favero, I don’t understand. What is the IRS doing here?”
“Someone is embezzling money from ECF,” Nancy put in.
“Embezzling? No, that’s not possible. We only work with people we absolutely trust.”
“People like Chris Becket?” she asked pointedly.
Kate pressed her fingers to her brow. “I…I still can’t believe Chris tried to kill people.”
“Were you in New York City last September tenth?”
The entrepreneur frowned, then shook her head. “No, that would have been the London premiere of Fire Fell.”
“You billed ECF for a twenty-thousand-dollar hotel stayover. And made tens of thousands of dollars in donations that day,” Nancy said.
Kate Dallas was shocked, and Rick Ashworth wrapped an arm around her protectively. “What the hell are you talking about?” he asked. “That’s insane.”
“I didn’t bill anything,” she protested.
“I looked at your audit. That’s only the beginning of the suspect charges. Tell me, was the new face of ECF allowed to bill the charity?”
“Of course. Chris has been working with us for years.” Kate’s face fell. “Oh God. You’re saying…Chris was embezzling? All this time?”
Nancy nodded. Alfred asked, “It was the actor?” He was almost as surprised as Dallas.
“That’s the reason Chris Becket tried to kill us. When we found out what he was up to.”
“Oh God,” Kate said again. “I don’t believe it.”
Shouting, meanwhile, temporarily distracted them all. Becket was being hauled out of the lobby, while just about every cellphone in the building was trained on him. He was swearing and threatening the police. “I’ll su
e this goddamn city dry, you fuckers.”
Now, officers headed toward them. “Well,” Nancy sighed, “this is going to be a lengthy explanation.”
It was, and it was primarily her who made it. Alfred and Josh attested to the pieces they knew – the killer who had shown up at their room, the elevator ride from heck, and so on. But Nancy pieced the final bit of the puzzle together.
It had been Chris Becket who was embezzling. It was Chris Becket who tried to kill them, not only twice in a day, but in all those other timelines too. “Except the first ones,” she confided to Alfred and Josh.
“What?”
“Back home. I don’t think those were Becket.”
“Well, who then?”
“I think it was Walker. Even if Becket could have just dropped everything to play assassin – and a movie star’s schedule can’t be that flexible, especially right before MarvelousCon – he wouldn’t have been close enough to get me within a few hours of opening the file.”
“No,” Alfred mused. “I guess not.”
“And not only that, Walker would know what I was looking at. If I googled the premiere, for instance, to make sure Dallas was in those photos? All of that traffic would have been captured by the firewall, and he could have seen it. That’s why he didn’t try to kill me when I just glanced at the file – because he knew I didn’t find anything that raised my suspicion – but did when we looked too closely.”
This was Greek to the taxman, or as good as. Josh seemed to be following more closely, though. “That son-of-a-bitch.”
“Biscuit,” Alfred reminded him.
The marine ignored him. “But if it was Walker, not Becket, that means he’s going to get away with it.”
“No, even if Becket doesn’t turn him in, Caspersen’s going to have his history crawled over with a microscope. He’s going down.”
“I mean about the murders. Those all happened in alternate timelines. There’s no way we can prove it. Which means that even though Walker would have killed you if he could have – did, in those alternate timelines – he’s going to get away with it scot-free.”
