House of Secrets - v4

by Richard Hawke

  Christine was shaking her head. “I don’t… None of that’s ringing any bells.”

  “How about Mr. Foster? Is he there with you?”

  “No. Andy’s… I don’t think he’s gotten up yet.”

  There was a pause on the line. Christine smiled wanly at Jenny and shook her head slightly. No Michelle.

  “Mrs. Foster,” Megan said. “I’m going to ask you to have your husband give me a call as soon as he’s up.”

  “Would you like me to go get him now?”

  “There’s no need for that. I’ve got plenty to occupy myself here. But… well, when he does get up, you can ask him if he has any knowledge of this man Smallwood. And something else. Both Smallwood’s cousin and the woman we found in the van, they worked together here in the city. They worked for an organization called Masters and Weiss. Public relations work. Are you familiar with this company, Mrs. Foster?”

  “Well, yes. They handled much of my husband’s campaign last year. You’re saying both these women worked for them?”

  “I’m just trying to piece things together, Mrs. Foster.”

  Christine moved away from the counter and dropped into the chair opposite Jenny.

  “Tell me more, Detective.”

  Irena Bulakov waited on the corner of 110th Street and Lenox Avenue, on the northern end of Central Park. She stiffened as a mounted policeman on a chocolate-brown horse passed behind her on the gravel path just inside the park, then glanced furtively around as the animal continued by. The helmeted policeman turned his head in her direction, but his eyes were hidden by a pair of aviator sunglasses. Irena could not swear he was not looking at her.

  Ten minutes later a blue Toyota pulled over to the curb. Irena pushed aside an open map as she got into the passenger’s seat. Her first thought was that the policeman on the horse would circle back and see this mummy at the wheel of the car and gallop over to investigate.

  “Drive!” she gasped, pulling the door closed.

  Leonard Bulakov offered his sister-in-law a smile. “And today, a redhead. I cannot keep up with you, Irena.”

  He checked the mirror and pulled out into traffic. His bandaged right hand participated minimally with the steering. He gestured with his elbow, indicating the map.

  “I have put a circle around Greenwich. You must help me to get out of the city. I think this is the hardest part.”

  Irena clawed the map onto her lap. She repeated to Leonard what she had said to him on the phone earlier that morning.

  “I have to do this, Leonard.”

  Leonard spoke soothingly, switching lanes to move past a stopped taxi. “I know, I know. You do not have to feel bad.”

  “They have stolen the daughter of this woman. She is a little seven-year-old girl. I want this woman to have her daughter back home. I have to do this for her, Leonard. I must.”

  “Yes, yes.” Leonard’s hand crossed the seat and landed on the map. “It’s good. You are a good woman. We will do this.”

  Irena was gripping the blue flash drive in both her hands, so tightly that her palms were moist with heat. The golden stone. Was the golden stone going to bring the little girl home to her mother? Irena would be so happy. This would be today’s definition of heaven.

  A small circular island appeared. In the middle was a statue of a man standing next to a piano. Leonard frowned, then found the lane that guided him partway around the circle. He cut back to the outside lane and veered off onto the street to his right just in the nick of time.

  Behind the Toyota, two car lengths back, the driver of the black Explorer muttered as well, jerking the wheel to make the sudden turn.

  “Shit.”

  A crackling voice sounded over the speakerphone under the dashboard. “What’s going on?”

  Anton Gregor wished his boss would just leave him to do his job. But the man was anxious.

  “Nothing,” Gregor said.

  The phone crackled again. “Where are they going?”

  Even two car lengths back was too many. Especially in the city. They weren’t going to notice him on their tail.

  “I don’t know yet,” Gregor said, tipping the wheel to the left. There was so much horsepower at his command he felt he could bring his vehicle to pounce right on top of the little blue car if he wanted to. Who knew? Depending on the destination the two Bulakovs had in mind, maybe this is exactly what he would do.

  “They are going nowhere, Mr. Titov,” Gregor said. “I promise you this.”

  Andy was not in bed. Christine glared at the indentation left by his head on the pillow. She fought back an almost overwhelming impulse to attack the pillow.

  As Christine emerged from the bedroom she nearly ran into her mother, who was coming down the hallway from Christine’s old room. Lillian was wearing a green silk robe that rode tightly on her hips.

  “Well if it—”

  Christine silenced her with a look. “Not now.”

  She found him out in the gazebo, seated up on the railing. He was talking on his cell phone, but he disconnected the call as she approached.

  “Fergus,” he said, by way of explanation.

  Christine stopped at the lip of the gazebo. One thing Andy Foster never looked was frail. He exercised. He was smart about what he ate. His varsity quarterback good looks were always robust. But right now he looked bad. His pallor was not all that far from the pale gray of his sweatshirt. His eyes were red-rimmed from lack of sleep and as puffy as Christine had ever seen them. The sight brought a pause to Christine. But only long enough for her fury to gather force.

  “I don’t care who you’re talking to! What are you doing, hiding out here?”

  “I was just calling Jim. I thought it better if I conduct business away from the house.”

  “Business.” Christine injected bile into both syllables.

  “This isn’t easy, Chris. I’m… I’m trying to do all the right things.”

  Christine stepped up into the gazebo. “What aren’t you telling me?”

  Andy parroted the question. “What am I not telling you?”

  Christine was struggling to keep herself under control. “About Michelle. About her kidnapping. You know more about this than you’re telling. I demand to know what it is!”

  “What do you think I know?”

  She wanted to hurt him. She wanted to throw herself at him and dig her fingernails into his skin. She took a breath. “I just got off the phone with Detective Lamb. They know who took Michelle.”

  Andy slid off the railing. “Who is it? Who has her?”

  “He has ties to Masters and Weiss,” Christine said. “He has murdered two people who worked there. One of them was his cousin.”

  “His what?”

  “It was Joy Resnick, Andy.”

  She watched her husband closely for his reaction to the name. Christine had met Joy Resnick on any number of occasions during the course of the campaign. The two had even embraced on election night. Andy’s gaze remained vacant.

  Christine continued. “The police are saying it was Joy’s own cousin who murdered her. It was something like a week or so ago. Out on the island. The woman they found in the van yesterday was her assistant.”

  “Joy Resnick’s cousin murdered her?”

  “Did you know about that? That Joy Resnick had been murdered?”

  Andy hesitated, which was answer enough for Christine.

  “This man killed two more people last night,” she said flatly. “Two men, Andy, including one of those FBI men who were at our apartment. Damn it, this is about you, Andy. This is—”

  Andy started forward. “We’ve always known—”

  “No! If you take another step, I’ll kill you, I swear.”

  “Chrissie—”

  Christine’s foot stamped down hard against the wood floor.

  “Don’t say anything, Andy! You’re going to lie, I can tell. I don’t want to hear it. There’s something bad here. Really bad. Lillian picked up on it right away.”


  “Chrissie, please. Your mother?”

  “Don’t go bad-mouthing her, Andy! It’s time out on Lillian bashing. We’re not playing that game. Though frankly, I don’t know what game we are playing.”

  Andy took another step forward. As he did, Christine moved backward. She held up a warning finger to her husband, and he froze where he was.

  “If you touch me right now, Andy, I promise, I will hurt you. Our daughter is in the hands of a killer. Okay? Is that getting through to you? This man is killing people, Andy, and he’s got Michelle. Nothing else matters. I don’t matter and you don’t matter. It’s our daughter. Nothing else. Detective Lamb says that now that they know who they’re looking for, she thinks they’ll locate him quickly. All I’m saying to you is that if you know anything that can help them find her…”

  She let the sentence go unfinished. She turned abruptly and left the gazebo. Andy watched her as she made her way across the grass. Halfway to the house she broke into a run. Even from where he stood, Andy could hear her sobbing. By the time she had disappeared through the sliding glass doors, he was on his phone.

  Jim Fergus answered on half a ring.

  “Andy, What’s going on?”

  The senator spoke tersely. “Call Hyland’s people. I’m not taking the job.”

  He disconnected the call before Fergus could reply. The phone was already vibrating by the time he slipped it into his pocket. He ignored it.

  Irena was musing again about her two nonexistent children. The twins. There really wasn’t any reason why they wouldn’t be able to be friends with the little girl she and Leonard were going to help rescue. Was there? They were smart as whips, the both of them, and attractive, so why not? The little girl’s mother would be so grateful to Irena.

  Of course, not everything was going to be good. The golden stone was going to help the girl come back home, but it was also going to present a very big problem for the girl’s mother and father. The father was not a good man. But things were going to happen to him. Probably he would have to go away. Irena stared out the windshield at the passing buildings and imagined the bad man going far away, hopefully with an idea to make himself better. She thought of Dimitri. Maybe Dimitri was also far away somewhere trying to become a better person again.

  Maybe.

  Irena continued to clutch the flash drive in her hands. They should have been out of Harlem by now, but Leonard was already lost. He told her he must have missed the road that led to the bridge out of the city.

  “We can find the highway another way,” he assured he. “At least we are still going north. We are fine.”

  The map was open on Irena’s lap. The city of Greenwich was in a circle of red Magic Marker.

  The twins would like to live in this Greenwich, Irena thought. It is safe there and very rich. It must be very pretty. She imagined the bad father going away and his wife inviting Irena and the twins to stay with her. The newspaper said that she was waiting in her father’s mansion for her daughter to come home safely.

  Mansion.

  Dimitri would have been so happy for Irena to be living in a mansion. The twins would enjoy living in one. Irena closed her eyes. She saw a beautiful oblong swimming pool, surrounded by Greek columns. She saw herself on a telephone next to the pool, talking with a handsome movie star who was insisting on coming over.

  “But I am married.”

  “No, you’re not. Your husband is gone.”

  “But all those beautiful women.”

  “Bah. They have no brains. You are a beautiful woman, Irena. You have beautiful eyes.”

  “I have to make dinner for the twins.”

  “No, you don’t. I will fly the twins to Paris on my airplane. I am friends with a famous chef there. It will be an adventure for them.”

  “Well…”

  “And we can be alone, Irena.”

  “Well…”

  “We can make each other happy.”

  Irena opened her eyes. Harlem was so ugly compared to her new life. She decided this was her last time ever in the city. Maybe she could arrange for a cozy cottage near the mansion, for Leonard, who had been so dear and so kind.

  The light at the next intersection turned from yellow to red, and Leonard pulled to a stop. Irena shifted toward him and placed a hand lightly on his arm. She was about to speak when she noticed the black car behind them had pulled up very close and put its hazard lights on. A man was getting out of the car and coming over to Leonard’s side. Instinctively, Irena squeezed the golden stone even tighter. The moment had arrived. Her life was changing.

  The man pulled open the door behind Leonard and got into the car. He had a hard but handsome face. It was a familiar face. He gave Irena a sexy smile.

  He placed the barrel of a gun against the back of Leonard’s head.

  “Turn here.”

  The light went green, and Leonard did what he was told. He took a right turn onto a narrow street.

  “Pull over,” the sexy man said. “There.”

  Leonard pulled over next to a wooden fence that fronted a vacant lot.

  “Turn off the car.”

  Leonard did. The man ran the tip of his tongue over his lips. He leaned back as far as he could and squeezed the trigger of his gun. The sound of the gunshot was much softer than Irena would have thought. A simple pop. A spray of red splashed across the windshield, and Leonard fell forward onto the steering wheel.

  Irena was back in her dream. The twins were already on their way to Paris. In a fancy jet plane. They were many miles above the ocean. They were safe.

  The man in the backseat spoke.

  “You have something for me.”

  Irena raised her closed fist and then relaxed her fingers. As the man reached over the seat and took the golden stone from her, she turned to face him. She noted that his eyes were the same cold blue as the water in her fancy swimming pool.

  “We are alone,” she said. She was surprised and delighted by her own husky whisper.

  The man smiled at her again. He placed the barrel of his gun against Irena’s temple.

  “You’re cute.”

  The FBI director was out of the car before it had even stopped moving. William Pierce chucked the White House security guard on the shoulder as he strode past the small gatehouse, his black briefcase swinging high in his other hand.

  “Everything good?” Pierce asked.

  “Yes sir, Mr. Director.”

  “Good.”

  Pierce entered the White House at a clip and was met just inside the door by the president’s chief of staff. Ron Abbey fell in beside the director.

  “The president appreciates your rearranging your schedule on such short notice.”

  “He’s the boss,” Pierce replied brusquely.

  Pierce barely broke stride. His gait was powerful and self-aware. As the two rounded the corner at the end of the hallway, Pierce remarked, “I hope you’ve all enjoyed your honeymoon. That’s clearly over.”

  “We’re fine,” Abbey said. “Nobody’s naive about any of this, least of all the president. We’re staying out ahead of matters.”

  The two approached the president’s outer office and Abbey reached for the door. Pierce stopped him, placing a hand against his chest.

  “I think that will be all, Ron.”

  Abbey balked. “I’m in this meeting. We all need to go over—”

  The director stopped him, patting his hand reassuringly against the chief of staff’s chest. “Don’t you worry. Your boss and I will sort all this out. Why don’t you run off and go see your little friend over at Commerce?”

  Abbey was taken aback. “My—?”

  “It’s Gleason, if I recall. Janet?”

  “How do you…?”

  The chief of staff broke off his question. The director’s smile could not have been more unctuous. He tapped Abbey again on the chest. More firmly.

  “Your boss and I have a lot to discuss, Ron. You go on. We’ll be fine.”

  The custo
m of the handshake originated as a mutually accepted means for two persons who were meeting to determine if either of them was carrying a weapon — most often a knife — attached to his forearm, hidden by his loose sleeve. Thus the handshake’s original form, the clasping of hands accompanied by a second hand-grabbing hold farther up the arm. A little trust went only a little way.

  As President Hyland came around from behind his large desk to greet his FBI director, this factoid darted through his mind. The president’s eyes followed the director’s briefcase as it came up and landed heavily on the desk. In this town, that was where the weapons were usually hidden.

  Pierce took a seat as Hyland returned to his chair. “I’m going to be blunt with you, Mr. President.”

  “By all means, Bill. Speak freely.”

  “I don’t mean to come off like a diva,” the FBI director continued. “But it’s a little disconcerting to be ordered to run what is essentially an errand.” He indicated the briefcase. “There is nothing here that your people haven’t already pored over this past week.”

  Hyland balled his hands together and leaned back in his chair. “Well, there sure as hell ought to be.”

  Pierce frowned. “What is that supposed to mean?”

  “It means that when I authorize the FBI to provide my staff with a full and factual report on someone, what I expect is a full and factual report.”

  “You’ll have to excuse me, Mr. President, but I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “I’m talking about my being summoned to Whitney Hoyt’s home three days ago to be told that there’s too much dirty laundry hanging on John Bainbridge’s line for him to be my next vice president. I’m talking about why such information would be in a file folder in Governor Hoyt’s hand and not in one in my hand, placed there by your office.”

  Pierce allowed the question to settle before replying. “I’m supposed to respond to that?”

  “Damn right you are.” Hyland came forward in his chair. “I’m going to appreciate it if you don’t take me for a fool, Bill. New kid on the block doesn’t mean stupid kid on the block. You’re so good at what you do and you’ve got so much support out there, I couldn’t dump you even if I wanted to. And I don’t want to. I’m not going to ask you to convince me that Whitney Hoyt can get his hands on information that your office can’t. I’d be asking you to convince me that you don’t know how to run the show, and that’s patently ridiculous. You’ve got the show down pat.”