House of Secrets - v4

by Richard Hawke

  “And you’re thinking you’d control me with this garbage?”

  Andy went ahead and fished an ice cube out of his glass. Pressing into its natural indentations, he could feel the frozen water giving way to the heat of his fingers.

  “Please,” Hoyt said. “That is way too dramatic, Andrew. Let’s give me some credit here. I don’t happen to care for the direction this country is taking. John Hyland is a smart fellow, and clearly popular. But he’s naive. People seem to like that these days. But naivete and fairy-tale thinking will sink this country and sink it fast. I don’t want that. And I don’t think you want that, either. We need to pull this country back. We need to pull this government back. I want influence, Andrew. I do know a thing or two about what’s best for this country, and I want to contribute.”

  “You want influence.”

  “I want guaranteed influence.”

  “I’m sorry, but I seem to be missing the part where you were elected to do this. By the people.”

  Hoyt looked as if he couldn’t decide whether to laugh or shriek. “Don’t you pretend to be so naive. You know full well how many people actually pull the strings in Washington, and the people have no goddamned clue who they are. If you accept Hyland’s offer, Andrew, you won’t be there by the invitation of the people, either.”

  “But isn’t this all moot, Whitney? I told you, I’ve turned down Hyland’s offer. I’ve pulled my name from consideration.”

  “And you’re going to pick up this phone right now and put it back in! Or you’re going to see the sort of rollout of public disclosures of private behavior that you’ve never seen before. It will be very ugly, Andrew. Devastating. That’s a guarantee. And as for your wife and your daughter…”

  Andy’s voice trembled. Only part of it was anger. “I might not even have a daughter.”

  Hoyt was unmoved. “You have a wife. I happen to feel you still love her deeply. Do you want this for her? Do you really want to spit in that lovely girl’s face like this? You have to ask yourself. What has she done to deserve this?”

  Hoyt stepped back over to his desk. He picked up the phone and offered it to Andy.

  “I know the number by heart,” he said. “I can dial it for you if you’d like.”

  Feeling like a man wearing a dozen lead suits, Andy got himself out of the chair and stepped over to the desk and took the phone from Hoyt’s hand. For the briefest of moments he entertained the urge to pound the phone deep into the older man’s skull.

  Aleksey Titov bounced a pair of kisses off Anton Gregor’s cheeks and took the thug into an embrace.

  “I knew I could count on you, Anton.”

  Gregor had showered and changed out of his bloody shirt. His hair was wet-combed straight back on his head. False modesty floated in his eyes as his ebullient boss fussed over him.

  “I am sorry to take so long,” Gregor murmured.

  Titov waved off the apology. “Not important. This is all good now. Did you have any trouble convincing Mrs. Bulakov to return what is mine?”

  There was a barely audible sound from the area of the stairway, and Titov’s wife appeared. Her long bronze legs seemed to enter the room well in advance of the rest of her. She paused, noting that Titov was not aware of her presence but that his henchman certainly was. She was wearing cuffed white shorts and a mint-colored button-up shirt pulled into a knot at her abdomen. Her bee-stung lips were thick with freshly applied red lipstick and her eyes were dopey with sleep. The eyes landed on Anton Gregor and seemed perfectly content to remain there.

  “Some women are easier to convince than others,” Gregor said, glancing past his boss. “I had no problem with this one, Mr. Titov.”

  Titov nodded tersely. “Good. I will only ask you this. Will we be hearing from Mrs. Bulakov again, Anton?”

  Behind him, Titov’s wife cocked her head. Her eyebrows rose as if tugged by strings.

  Gregor answered, “The woman has no more to say.”

  Titov’s wife made a throat-clearing sound, and Titov spun around. “Gala.”

  “I want to have a party,” the woman announced to her husband. “We’re getting boring. I want to have a party tonight.”

  “Tonight?”

  “Tonight. Tomorrow. I don’t care. Soon. Not next week. We could all be dead next week.”

  “We could all be dead today,” Gregor observed.

  Titov’s wife considered the man. “That’s true. Maybe we should have a party every night, just in case.”

  Titov spoke sharply. “Go upstairs. We can have your party tonight. We can buy you a new dress.”

  Gala Titov showed the men her toothy smile. “Lucky me.” She turned and left the room like a woman walking on stilts.

  Titov phoned his client.

  “I have it.”

  The two had already agreed on the new price. When the client asked about the others who had been in possession of “the materials” over the past several weeks, Titov replied, “All this has been taken care of. You have nothing to worry about on this.”

  “That’s good.”

  They set the time for the handoff. Four o’clock. They didn’t need to go over the details on the phone. The client fully suspected that Titov’s phone was not clean, and for his part, Titov had no reason to think otherwise. The details for the handoff had been covered weeks ago.

  Aleksey Titov explained the arrangement to Gregor. He concluded, “You don’t see him, he doesn’t see you. Except maybe your back.”

  Gregor understood.

  Titov fished a cigarette from a silver box on the glass coffee table. “Please don’t you get silly ideas, Anton. The client will call me as soon as he has the materials. If his call is not what I expect, please believe me, you will not make it back into the city with your eyes open. You understand this?”

  Gregor understood. He pulled his car keys from his pocket. “Thank you, Mr. Titov. Everything will be fine.”

  Gregor left the house and Aleksey Titov climbed the stairs to his bedroom. His wife was already in bed, a travel magazine propped on her bare breasts.

  “I don’t like that man,” she lied.

  Titov snuffed out his cigarette in the ashtray on his side of the bed and began to unfasten his belt.

  The magazine slid to the floor.

  “Let me.”

  The woman’s torso twisted beneath the sheets. Her long arms came toward her husband like a pair of eels.

  Andy was giving her images.

  Christine didn’t want them, but she had no choice in the matter.

  They were tawdry. They were images of a man she thought she knew… and of women whose faces Christine did not want to imagine. But he was making her do just that. He was making her look at them all.

  In its way, it was practically a joke. A whisker away from a big cosmic put-on. Sitting there, unable to move, Christine could have been one of her own cameras. That was the joke. A broken camera, with its shutter jammed open, forcing her to collect image after image. An assault of images. Had she known how, she would have slapped on a lens cover. Or sabotaged the exposure. Or blurred the focus to the point where none of the wretched things that her husband was showing her could be seen.

  But she couldn’t. The images poured out of her husband and completely filled her mind. He gave her names, he recounted dates on the calendar, he rattled off locations. He gathered unconscionable scenes and foisted them onto her and she was helpless against the assault. The worst of them, he saved for last. He filled Christine’s mind with the image of a bedroom, a shattering glass door, a swift and brutal attack.

  And Andy was a part of each image. Her husband’s beautiful face bobbed to the surface of every single picture he was showing her.

  She simply wanted to shriek.

  Clouds were moving in as Anton Gregor took the left exit off the Palisades Parkway and pulled into the defunct gas station. The pumps had been removed more than a decade ago, their rectangular footprints now the home for weeds and cracked pavement. Fade
d white lines on the north side of the absent pumps delineated parking spaces for about a dozen cars. A green Dodge compact was parked there. So was a Mercedes: cream-colored, with thoroughly tinted windows.

  Gregor pulled in next to the Mercedes and cut his engine. He removed a small gift-wrapped box from the glove compartment and set it on the passenger seat. Gregor thought that the gift-wrapping was a pretty stupid touch. But that was Titov’s touch. Gregor wouldn’t have handled things this way, but he supposed the man could go ahead and be cute if he wanted.

  The former gas station building had been converted into what was advertised as a bookstore. A peculiar location for a bookstore, until one discovered that the inventory was strictly guidebooks of the local area — maps, books about flowers and birds, trail guides. A man and woman who looked so similar to each other that they were either brother and sister or a long-married couple were leafing through several of the slim volumes when Gregor went inside. Gregor picked up the first book his fingers reached, and he leafed through the pages, paying absolutely no attention to the contents. He was listening for the sounds of car doors. He heard one closing, and then some twenty seconds later the same sound again, though this one was decidedly more elegant.

  The brother-sister/husband-wife duo left the ersatz bookstore, and Gregor had the place to himself. There was a wooden box mounted on the wall where people could leave money for any of the materials they took with them. An honor system. Only twenty-five miles outside the big bad city. Gregor considered smashing the box and taking whatever money was in it, if only to keep people from developing too much false hope in mankind.

  But he didn’t.

  The green Dodge was pulling back onto the parkway. A light rain had begun to fall. Gregor left the little building with his head lowered and got back into his car. The gift-wrapped box was gone. In its place was a bulging green daypack. Gregor zipped it open just enough to confirm its contents. He started up the car and reversed out of his parking spot, pausing to flip on his windshield wipers. He could see from the Mercedes’ tailpipe that the car was idling. The windows were as black as ink. It could have been anyone from Santa Claus to the Easter Bunny sitting in there watching him — he knew he was being watched. Gregor flashed his headlights at the car, twice. Maybe Santa Claus would think there was some sort of code he was supposed to have been told. Mess with him a little.

  Gregor swung the wheel to the right and pulled onto the parkway ramp. He glanced in his side-view mirror. The rain was falling more heavily, steel pellets lacing straight down. The Mercedes had not budged. Maybe the Easter Bunny was busy oohing and aahing over his little gift.

  Christine had the sense to come in out of the rain.

  The trees at the edge of her father’s property had stood by in silence as she sobbed. They had known her as a baby and a young girl and an adolescent, but nothing in that history approached the enormity of sorrow that spilled from the woman.

  Raindrops began hitting against the high leaves of the trees. With the water chasing her, Christine ran across the lawn back toward her father’s house and all the uncertainties that awaited her. She crossed along the side of the house and entered through the front door, to find Jenny emerging from the hallway bathroom.

  Christine asked, “Where’s Andy?”

  “I don’t know. I was just in the kitchen making up a stew. Are you in the mood for cutting vegetables?”

  “I don’t think you want me handling sharp objects right now.”

  Christine headed up the stairs, peeled off her clothes, and took a shower. The water assaulted her skin. Hot enough was not hot enough. Mist curled over the frosted glass confines and brought the small room to a state of near invisibility. Before she was done, her chest heaved violently and a whole new set of tears spilled out, mixing with the water circling down the drain.

  When she was dressed, she walked into Peter’s old bedroom. Lillian was sitting on the bed, up against the headboard, leafing through a photo album. She closed it gently.

  “I have to get out of here,” Christine said.

  “Here?”

  “This house. My skin. I’m going to kill someone. I’m going to break something.” She ran a hand through her wet hair. “I’m going to explode.”

  Lillian set the photo album aside and swung her feet to the floor. She was studying her daughter closely. “I know the feeling. Come on. I’m sure there’s a car around here we can steal.”

  She slid off the bed and slipped her feet into a pair of moccasins.

  “This is good. There are a few things I’ve been needing to tell you.”

  As far as Megan was concerned, Brian Armstrong should have been pulled from the field the moment word came in of his fellow agent’s murder.

  Megan knew only too well the mind-sets that kicked in as the result of a colleague losing his life in the line of duty. The Three Rs: Regret. Revenge. Recklessness. She didn’t want any of those mind-sets anywhere near the Robert Smallwood manhunt. There was a child involved. The price was too high.

  “Unacceptable,” she said flatly to Malcolm Bell. “I can read this guy, Captain, and I’m telling you, it’s not good. He was barely keeping his cool before Taylor caught it. I don’t want to be taking part in a damn blood hunt.”

  The conversation was taking place in Bell’s office.

  “Nobody wants a blood hunt,” Bell assured the detective. “I was on the phone with Armstrong’s boss just an hour ago, and he’s gotten it straight from the director himself. And now it’s coming from him to me to you, Detective. The world’s watching. We want precision here, not a pool of blood.”

  “Tell that to Armstrong.”

  “Armstrong’s not mine. You are. So trust me, if William Pierce is weighing in on this from D.C., local FBI is sure as hell listening.”

  “Easy to say.”

  Bell allowed the comment to hang in the air a few seconds. “There are some people who might find that a little belligerent, Detective.”

  Megan responded immediately. “I’m sure there are. There’s not much I can do about that. I’m only trying to do my job. I’ve got concerns, and I don’t think you’d be happy if you only heard them after the fact.”

  “Thank you,” Bell said. “I’ve heard them. And you’ve heard my response. We don’t know what Smallwood wants with this girl, but we do know he’s killed at least three times in the past twenty-four hours to get it.”

  “Plus Joy Resnick.”

  “Plus Joy Resnick. Though how that connects with all the rest of this is something we don’t know yet.” Bell consulted a pad of yellow paper on his desk, tapping the service end of a pencil against it. “Here’s where we are. Suffolk County is out of it at the moment. They’ve been told to stand down. They’re sitting on their thumbs, and you can be damn sure they’re not happy about it. They’ve got three murders in their backyard, including one of their own. We only have the Mann murder. But the prime suspect lives and works in our backyard, and this little girl he has taken lives in our backyard, so we’re leading the investigation. One turf war down. And if you’ve got a hard-on about the FBI, just remember, it’s Washington that bumped Suffolk County out of the picture. We’ve got a U.S. senator in play here. They’re not past lowering the boom on us as well, trust me.”

  Megan saw no need to conceal her smile. “So, that’s what a hard-on feels like. I do believe I’ve learned something here today, Chief.”

  Bell ignored the crack. “Well, learn this, Detective. We need the turf war kept to an absolute minimum. Here’s what I’ve arranged with our federal brethren. Armstrong and his team are taking Smallwood’s work colleagues, his friends, acquaintances, neighbors, drinking buddies, favorite hookers, whatever they find outside his bloodline. You’ve got the family.”

  Megan began to balk, but Bell cut her off. “I didn’t say you want the family. I told you that’s what you’ve got. If you want to spend ten minutes arguing with me, that’s ten minutes you’re wasting that you could be spending looking for t
his creep. Nothing’s going to change the situation. You don’t need to like it, Detective, you just need to do it. I think that’s pretty clear?”

  Megan rose from her chair.

  “One more thing,” Bell said. “Any move on the suspect himself is to be coordinated between us and the FBI. That works both ways. Armstrong doesn’t make a move without you, and you don’t make one without him. Naturally, extreme circumstances are extreme circumstances. Otherwise, you two go after the perp holding each other’s hands. Is that understood?”

  Megan hesitated a moment. “Understood.”

  “Fine,” Bell said. “Go find this creep.”

  Jeffrey Resnick had a one-word assessment of his cousin Robert.

  “Freak.”

  Resnick delivered this verdict to Detective Megan Lamb in a brightly lit waiting room filled with several dozen young girls between the ages of twelve and fifteen, most of them accompanied by their mothers. All of the girls were impeccably perfect — to Megan’s mind, unnaturally so. A perfection of hair, a perfection of makeup, a perfection of calculated poise. With her own unkempt hair and complete lack of cosmetic enhancement, Megan felt like a separate gender altogether.

  “Are we looking for the new Nancy Drew here?”

  Resnick answered, “In fact, we’re looking for Annette Bening’s daughter.”

  “I see.”

  “Or possibly Julianne Moore’s, we’re not sure yet. For that matter, I’ve been hearing Holly Hunter’s name thrown around as well. That’s the nature of the biz.”

  Megan asked, “Could we talk somewhere in private?”

  Jeffrey Resnick gestured at the little beauties. “We’re already way behind schedule.”

  “The nature of my business is to locate your cousin as quickly as I can. I’m sorry if you’re running behind schedule, but your girls are going to have to cool their pretty little feet for a few minutes longer. There’s a child out there we need to find pronto. Let’s get to it.”