Tail Spin ft-12

by Catherine Coulter

  Quincy said, “Yeah, right, making a fool of Laurel for fifteen years! I never liked it. I knew what people were saying about you behind their hands. But Father used to laugh when he’d hear gossip about your mistresses, about your barhopping, your partying with hookers in this little bungalow, not even five minutes from where you lived with my sister. Did you laugh with him, Laurel?”

  She said, her voice light, “I’ve always loved the theater.”

  Sherlock felt her cell vibrate again. Dillon, it had to be Dillon. He’d come, she knew he’d come.

  Stefanos turned to Rachael, smiled down at her. “You have no idea what he’s talking about, do you?”

  “I only know you’re a philandering jerk.”

  Laurel said, “But that’s only what everyone was supposed to believe. Stefanos’s reputation as a womanizer—that was my father’s idea. He got a real kick out of building that reputation for my dear Stef.”

  Stefanos picked it up. “It worked to our advantage, what with business associates believing I was nothing more than a simple-minded playboy he’d bought for Laurel. I got so many of those old jackasses to invite me to their weekend retreats where they paraded their mistresses about, talked openly about the women they were screwing, about this business expansion or that merger. They couldn’t imagine I was a threat to them. All the booze, the sex, the stupid schemes. I recorded all of it, even managed to videotape some of it when those old codgers came over to my own little place here. They loved all the red velvet. They never saw the cameras. The old man was very pleased. He enjoyed watching the films I made.”

  Laurel said with a smirk. “Business took a marked upswing.”

  “I haven’t done so much of that now that the old man’s dead,” Stefanos said. “It was getting tiresome.”

  Laurel said, “Before Daddy became really ill that last time, he told me what Jimmy had done. He asked me to promise I would never allow anyone to find out. He was worried because he said Jimmy had this tender girl’s conscience, he hated to say it out loud since Jimmy was his oldest son, but the truth was the truth. He’d bred a weakling. Jimmy had all our mother’s flaws. It shamed him.”

  “Dammit, Laurel, our old man was nuts. You know what else? I think he turned on Jimmy when he broke away to run for the Senate. You know why—it was Jimmy’s idea, not his. He hated that he couldn’t control Jimmy, hated that Jimmy wouldn’t do what he told him to.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Laurel said. “Not now. When he was dying, he asked me again to promise, to accept it as my responsibility. And so I did.”

  Quincy said, “And look where that’s led. Jimmy’s dead. Greg Nichols is dead. These two bitches will shortly be dead, and we’re fighting for our lives here.”

  A lot of bodies piling up around you, aren’t there, Laurel? Rachael held very, very still.

  Stefanos looked at his wife’s white face. “The promise you made to your father was honorable, Laurel. As to what he really was, it no longer matters, just as you said. It’s only us now, and we will do what we must to survive. To win.”

  Laurel said, passion thick in her voice, “Daddy mattered. He mattered more than anyone.” She walked over to Rachael and went down on her knees beside her. “After Daddy died, your mother thought she could cash in at last, make her move, and so she sent you to the senator, and that ridiculous fool decided you were a gift from the gods.”

  “He adopted the bitch,” Quincy said. “I couldn’t believe he did that, and so fast.”

  “Yes, well, Jimmy never cared about money, now did he?” She looked up at her brother. “In the end, he didn’t care about the family, either. He became a threat to us.” She touched her fingers to Rachael’s cheek. “And now you will die in a car accident, just like he did, and we will survive.”

  Laurel got slowly to her feet, strode over to where Stefanos was standing next to the fireplace. Without her shoes, she looked smaller, a frumpy, heavyset matron in fishnet stockings. She looked tired, old, her lipstick long gone, a spiky band of coarse hair hanging along her cheek.

  Stefanos took her hand, kissed it, then smoothed his thumbs over her eyebrows. “All will be well now, matia mou. Quincy and I will take the ladies to the agent’s car and send them on their final journey. The FBI will howl and bitch, but what can they do? They have no proof against us. They have suppositions, they have a wish list, but nothing our lawyers can’t handle.”

  Stefanos turned to look at Rachael and Sherlock. A dark brow went up. “Time to see if there’s an afterlife, ladies,” he said, and raised his .38.

  SIXTY-TWO

  Savich saw the woman’s deathly white face the instant before he would have slammed into the driver’s side of her Chrysler. He turned the Porsche’s steering wheel hard to the left, pumped the brake, fed in a bit of gas, and that magnificent machine responded perfectly, but the road simply wasn’t wide enough.

  The Porsche came to a stop, the front wheels dangling over a ditch.

  The ancient Chrysler slowly moved forward again. Savich looked up to see the woman give him the finger. He laughed, couldn’t help it.

  Jack was cursing as he opened his door and looked out. “Well, the damned ditch is only six feet deep. We’ve got to get the Porsche out of here fast, Savich.”

  Savich carefully opened the driver’s door and eased out. “Stay put, Jack, we’re a bit wobbly.” He dialed 911, asked for immediate assistance. He punched off, punched in Sherlock’s cell. She didn’t answer. He looked around, watched at least six cars roll by, people looking, but nobody stopped. Savich raised his face. “Where’s a cop when you need one?”

  Time, Jack thought, time was running out. Savich dialed Sherlock’s cell once again.

  There was no answer.

  SIXTY-THREE

  Rachael said, “There’s something I don’t understand. When you broke into my house, you weren’t there to kill me, were you? I mean, there was no reason any longer. You took a huge risk.”

  Stefanos said, “We needed to replace the forged will with the will the senator had made and told you about. When we believed you dead in Black Rock Lake, disappeared forever, it was all much simpler. The forged will was in place—with no mention of you. You know the rest of it. We had to salvage what we could. We had to protect ourselves. But it didn’t work out, did it? Why the hell did you scream? I was nowhere near you.”

  Rachael said, “I was having a drowning nightmare, thanks to all of you.”

  The ropes on Sherlock’s wrists split apart. Her wrists hurt, her hands were numb.

  She didn’t look at Rachael. It was all on her, no one else.

  Stefanos said, “All right, no more talk. Quincy, let’s get this over with. We’ll haul them out to the car. Don’t you move, Agent, or I’ll kill you here.” And he raised his .38.

  When he bent over to grab Sherlock’s feet, she kicked him hard in the chest. He couldn’t yell, he had no breath. He fell backward, grabbing his chest, and the .38 flew out of his hand. Sherlock flipped open her Swiss Army knife and sliced through the ropes on her ankles in a single motion.

  She heard the .38 hit the carpet but didn’t know where it landed. There wasn’t enough time. Quincy was on her, yelling, hitting her, then his hands were around her neck. She sent the back of her hand into his Adam’s apple. Quincy fell back, gagging, clutching his throat.

  Sherlock rolled over to Rachael, flicked the knife over the ropes tying her ankles, then sliced through the ropes on her wrists.

  Laurel was moving, fast, but Sherlock didn’t stop, she couldn’t stop.

  “That will be quite enough.”

  Rachael was finally free. They both looked to see Laurel holding Stefanos’s .38. Sherlock said right in Rachael’s face, “Get out of here. Now.” She rolled upright and threw her knife at Laurel.

  The knife went deep into Laurel’s shoulder and she screamed.

  “You bitch.” Tears streamed down her face as blood flowed down her chest. Laurel made a strange growling sound, and pulled the tri
gger.

  Sherlock felt the sharp punch of the bullet. She wanted to pull the knife out of Laurel’s shoulder and slam it into her black heart. But she knew she couldn’t do it. She was on her knees, couldn’t seem to stand. She stared at Laurel, and fell onto her side.

  Was that Rachael yelling? At Laurel? “You bloody bitch! That’s it, I’ve had it with you, do you hear me?” She heard a door slam in the distance, fast footsteps, heard a struggle, then Rachael screaming, “I’ve got the gun! Quincy, Stefanos, don’t you two move! No, wait, move—I want to wipe you off the face of the earth! You murdering bastards, you murdered my father!”

  Even though she couldn’t move, Sherlock heard the sound of men’s voices, then Quincy yelling. Why? Maybe to save himself from Rachael?

  Sherlock smiled. One of the men’s voices was Dillon’s. He’d taken his time, but he was here now. Finally he was here. She heard Rachael shouting, heard Dillon’s voice, quiet and close. Everything was all right now.

  She felt cold suddenly, but it didn’t matter. Dillon would see to things. She closed her eyes and let her brain shut down.

  SIXTY-FOUR

  Savich lightly rubbed his fingers along her palm. He hated that her beautifulhand was limp, the flesh flaccid. But he’d put cream on her hands and they were soft. Two days, two whole days since that crazy woman shot you. Two days, but at least you’ll live. I’ve prayed so much I’ll bet God has closed down the switchboard. Do you know how close Laurel came to killing you? Jack was squeezing your side so tight you’re still bruised.

  Savich looked up to see Mr. Maitland standing quietly in the doorway.

  “The pain was pretty sharp so they gave her some more morphine,” Savich said. “She’s out. Before she closed her eyes, she asked me if she’d gotten Stefanos’s ribs. I told her three of them were busted, that he was hurting pretty bad. She said her aim with her Swiss Army knife wasn’t what you’d call real accurate—small wonder since it isn’t made for throwing. I told her Laurel wasn’t feeling too hot, either, and wasn’t it better that she’d stand trial and lose everything?

  “Then she told me she really doesn’t need her spleen. I agreed. What was a spleen in the face of all the problems in the world? She was out again before she could laugh.”

  Both of them considered this.

  Maitland said, “We’ve got Brady Cullifer in a stylish orange jump-suit in a nice cell. He’s demanding to make a deal, ready and willing to roll big on Quincy, Stefanos, and Laurel because he claims he never killed anyone. The prosecutors—particularly Dickie—want him to sweat big-time before they offer him anything.”

  Savich said after a moment, “That shoot-up we had in the Barnes & Noble in Georgetown—Sherlock was so angry at me because Perky could have killed me. To preserve my marriage, I let her throw me around at the gym.”

  He sighed. “Now, look at her, flat on her back, minus her spleen, and I’m the wreck.”

  “It’s over now, everyone’s alive, and all your agents are working double to cover your cases for you. We’ve got auditors going over all the Abbott corporation books. Be interesting to see what we find.”

  Savich thought about it for a moment, then said, “There’s something I should tell you about the senator.” And Savich did, every detail of what happened eighteen months before.

  Maitland said, “Thank you for telling me, Savich.” He sighed. “I know none of us want it, but it’s going to come out anyway at the trial. Hell of a thing. I am sorry about all of it.”

  There was a light rap on the door. A nurse stuck her head in. “Agent Savich? Your mother-in-law begged me to come in and pull you out of here so she can see her daughter.”

  Savich kissed Sherlock’s mouth, straightened, and said, “Okay, she can have five minutes.”

  The nurse smiled at him.

  Maitland said, “They’re all here—your mom, your boy, your sister, your in-laws from San Francisco, half the unit. I wonder when Director Mueller will show up. We even have some media. No, don’t worry, we’ll deal with them when the time comes.”

  Maitland closed a big hand on Savich’s shoulder. “When Sherlock wakes up, you’ve got to bring Sean in to see her. He’s scared, but he’s doing okay.” He looked back at Sherlock. Her brilliant red hair spilled onto the white pillowcase, but her face was still pale, too pale.

  He wondered when Savich was going to tell her that Sean’s terrier had chewed up her best and only pair of fancy high heels, the ones she’d worn at the Jefferson Club.

  SIXTY-FIVE

  Jamaica

  Four days later

  Savich and Jack made their way along the limestone cliffs to the narrow promontory where a man wearing baggy shorts, sneakers, and a Redskins T-shirt sat next to a mango tree, his arms around his knees, staring out over the water.

  The spot wasn’t civilized and touristy like Negril, the closest town. The air smelled wild, the winds blew fiercely, the land baked hot and dry, and the cliffs rose a good seventy feet above the blue blue water that dashed against black rocks below, spewing white foam upward, the sound mesmerizing.

  He didn’t move, didn’t say anything, didn’t acknowledge them when Savich sat down on one side of him, Jack on the other next to an ackee tree, although they both knew he’d heard them coming over the loose rubble that crumbled toward the cliff.

  He said, “I wondered when someone would come. Are you CIA or what?”

  “I’m Special Agent Savich, FBI, and this is Special Agent Jack Crowne.”

  The man still didn’t move. He said, “Tourists dive off the cliffs at Negril, but not here. All those rocks below, sticking up like black teeth, and there are more hidden below the surface. They’d tear the flesh off your bones even if you managed to miss the others.”

  Savich looked at the young man’s profile, dark complexion, thick straight black hair, a nice, wholesome-looking man who resembled his father, but he couldn’t be completely sure because they hadn’t yet seen him full face.

  Savich said, “We haven’t told your father and mother that you’re alive and well and living in Jamaica.”

  Jean David Barbeau finally turned to face him. He did indeed look a great deal like his father, but, unlike his father, he didn’t look ghastly pale from grief, his dark eyes weren’t desolate and empty. He looked calm, almost indifferent, as if he didn’t care they were there, and it was all over for him. He said, “How did you find me?”

  Jack said, “Since your body was never found, I started thinking about the speedboat that rammed the boat you and your father were in, and why was it there exactly. The reports stated the boat’s name was River Beast. I checked into it and discovered the owner had a nephew who attended Harvard with you. Don’t think he rolled on you easily. We brought young financial analyst David Caldicott to the fifth floor of the FBI building, scared the crap out of him, and he finally admitted that he’d helped you stage your suicide.”

  Jean David said, “David called me last night, told me how you threatened him, his parents, said he had to, no choice. He was sorry.”

  “I know,” Jack said. “We gave him the phone.”

  Jean David’s head whipped up at that. “Why?”

  Savich said, “To triangulate your location. We wanted to know if you really were where Caldicott said you were.”

  Jack said, “We found out you have a passport under your mother’s maiden name. You used it to come here, the day alter you tried to kill Dr. MacLean in Washington Memorial Hospital.”

  “I was afraid you’d accuse my father of that.”

  “Didn’t fit,” Savich said. “You’re a young man, you move like a young man, and your father isn’t a young man and no way could he move the way you did on the hospital security video. You had us chasing our tails there for a while, but then again, you’re quite the student of strategy, aren’t you, Jean David?”

  His laugh was ironic. “Yeah, that’s me, the strategic expert. I always was smart; people used to tell me so in school and at the CIA. My bosses wer
e grooming me because of my brain, but I’ll tell you, when it came to what was really important to me, my brain didn’t count a damn.”

  “You’re talking about Anna Radcliff,” Savich said.

  “Yes, Anna.”

  “Her real name is Halimah Rahman, not Anna,” Savich said.

  “No, damn you, her name is Anna. That bastard MacLean told you her name, didn’t he? And that’s how you got her.”

  Savich said, “Dr. MacLean said your father had mentioned an Anna. It wasn’t difficult to find her and a half dozen of her terrorist friends.”

  Jean David’s voice shook a bit. “If only she’d listened to me. I told her Dr. MacLean was blabbing about us. I told her she had to leave the country. I swore I’d join her, but she didn’t leave.”

  He looked off into the distance, but Jack didn’t think he was admiring the Caribbean. Jean David said, “You know, I still think of her as Anna. That’s how she introduced herself to me in that coffeehouse in Cambridge.” He gave a sharp laugh, pointed to the single petrel swooping down to the surface of the water. “I know her real name is Halimah, but to me she will always be Anna. She confided in me, praised me, was interested in me, interested in what I thought. And she was so damned beautiful. I fell for her, fell hard. The sex was great, but you know, it was how she spoke to me, how she listened to me, laughed with me, admired everything I said. I fell completely in love with her.”

  He turned to look at a huge cormorant that had entered the scene, not six feet from the petrel, hovering a dozen feet above the water, lazily scouting lunch. He spotted a surface fish and dove clean and straight. “I’ve watched him before,” Jean David said. “He’s really good. He’s smart. See, that’s a wrasse he’s got. He never misses.”

  ‘Your parents are a mess,” Savich said. “As Agent Crowne said, we haven’t told them you’re alive.”

  “Yes, well, I did what I could, now didn’t I? My father was planning to send me into hiding, God only knows where. He kept making excuses for me, saying it wasn’t my fault, it was this evil woman’s fault, and what did it matter anyway since it was only a bit of American intelligence gone awry. I’m French, he said, who cares?