Nate finally arrived at the house and stopped dead, practically making skid marks in the pavement. It hurt his feet, and Nate distantly realized that his shoes were back on the beach. It didn’t matter. He crept to the front door, praying that it wouldn’t be locked, and quietly turned the brass handle. The door glided open on well-oiled hinges, and Nate left it open behind him. He snuck over to the door to Conrad’s office, off the main entryway, and put his ear against the wood. There was some talking, and then Nate heard Lena make a surprised noise and he turned the knob and ran again.
She was alive, thank God, and he felt a crash of relief before he realized that she had her gun out and was pointing it at Starla’s brother, who was pointing a gun at Lena, too. Conrad swung the gun towards Nate for a second, and his stomach churned up into his throat.
“Hey, asshole,” Lena said quietly, staring at Conrad. She seemed so calm. “He’s a kid, and he’s unarmed. POINT THE GUN AT ME!”
The anger in her voice made Conrad startle, and he twisted his body back to point the gun’s muzzle at Lena. Nate took a step farther in the room, unsure of what to do.
“Nate, take three steps backward and leave this room,” Lena said evenly.
Conrad opened his mouth to say something, but Nate said it first. “I’m not leaving you.”
Her smile was grim. Not even a smile, really. “I was afraid you might say that. Then go over there and get down behind that bookcase.”
Nate crouched down and duck-walked past the two of them, staying out of the line of fire. He squatted down behind a large oak bookshelf, keeping an eye on Conrad.
“So, Conrad, what’s your plan now?” Lena asked. “I already know that you killed Jason and why, so the only sensible thing is to turn yourself in.”
“I didn’t kill him,” Conrad hissed at her. Nate saw that he was trying to look dignified, but his eyes were wild.
Lena somehow shrugged without moving the gun at all. “Had him killed, then.”
“I didn’t do that either,” Conrad growled. “I just...thought about it.”
Lena raised her eyebrows skeptically. “You just thought about it?”
“I—I hired a guy, okay? We had a plan, I gave him the money, and then he just—” Conrad’s voice was getting panicky and fast, and his face was tomato red. Nate could hardly understand what he was saying. “He left town!”
Lena’s jaw dropped open. “Conrad. Tell me you didn’t pay him the whole amount up front.”
Conrad’s face darkened even further, practically purple now. “His wife said he went to Canada! How the fuck was I supposed to know? I’d never paid someone to kill a guy before.”
A quick, bright laugh escaped from Lena’s lips. “But if you didn’t kill him,” she pointed out, “Why are you pointing a gun at me right now?”
Conrad looked at the pistol in his hands, as if it had just sprouted out of his fingers. “I—I panicked,” he mumbled. “There’s a paper trail...the cash I took out for him...” He trailed off, waving his free hand helplessly.
Nate glanced back at Lena, saw her studying the other man. Finally, she said. “My gun’s getting heavy, Conrad. What do you say we lower them at the same time, nice and slow, while we finish our conversation?”
Conrad licked his lips and nodded, a little gratefully. Nate watched him as he slowly put the gun down.
“Let’s say I believe you,” Lena said to Conrad. “But Jason was killed. So how do you know your guy didn’t come through after all?”
“Because,” Conrad cried, “He was supposed to let me know it was going to happen so I could make sure I had an alibi. It was just dumb luck that I was out of the country!”
“Why did you want to kill my dad?” Nate said quietly. It was the first time he’d spoken since he’d refused to leave the room. He hadn’t wanted to remind either of them that he was still in there, but he needed to know the answer.
Conrad’s eyes narrowed at him. “Your dad was an asshole, kid. That slime went around showing off his affairs, right in front of my sister’s nose. You’re better off with the dying one.”
Nate saw surprise bloom on Lena’s face. “You knew? You knew about Nate and Tom?”
Conrad snorted. “Of course I knew. I knew everything about that piece of trash.”
Lena tensed. “You could have stopped all of this by telling Jason about Nate’s situation.”
Conrad shrugged, completely unrepentant. “I assumed that he knew, and was laying the groundwork to move back. And dump my sister, or worse, drag her along with him. This was much better.”
“Oh yeah, this worked out great,” Lena said sarcastically. “And you did a just super job of hiring someone else to do the unpleasant part. But if you didn’t kill Jason Anderson, who did?”
The voice came from the doorway. “That would be me.”
37. Something You Still Need
I went still, looking at the doorway. The face was unfamiliar, but I recognized the gravelly voice. The man who had attacked me in LA was standing in the doorway looking like a frickin’ gunslinger, with a pistol in each hand. As he stepped into the room, he made sure that one was pointed at Conrad, and the other at my head. The guy was six feet tall, and from the neck up he was homely as sin, with a long hooked beak of a nose, ears that stuck out, and a long thin neck. It didn’t match the rest of him, which was muscled and lean, despite his age, which had to be a little over fifty.
I realized that he couldn’t see Nate, who was still hiding behind the bookshelf. “Put the gun down slowly,” he ordered. I complied, setting the gun on the carpet by my feet. It took some effort, and didn’t look particularly graceful, but I managed to get it there without falling on my ass.
“Who the fuck are-” Conrad boomed, and the shooter barely glanced at him as he pulled a trigger, shooting Conrad in the heart. Conrad tippled forward, splaying across the desk.
“That guy gets on my nerves,” he told me calmly.
I swallowed, forcing myself to keep my eyes from darting over to Nate. “I can see that.”
“What? No smart remark this time? No taunt?” the shooter asked smugly. He had come all the way into the room, nearly behind the desk, and I could see him nudge at something with a foot, glancing down quickly. Making sure Conrad was dead.
“I can see why you have a mask, with a face like that. You should consider wearing it all the time, just for aesthetic purposes.”
“That’s better.”
“I’m assuming you plan to kill me.”
“You’re correct,” he said calmly. “It’s your own fault, though. I warned you to back off.” Raising his voice a little, he added, “And you can come out too, kid. I heard you from the hall.”
I kept my eyes on the shooter. Nate didn’t move. That’s my boy. “Kid, if I have to come looking for you, I’m gonna put a bullet in her shoulder first.”
Nate stood up, looking deathly pale, but defiant. “I’m here,” he said.
“Go stand by your friend,” the guy ordered. “Keep your hands away from your body.”
When Nate and I were side by side the shooter put one pistol in a shoulder holster, keeping the other one trained on me. “Now, let’s see,” he said thoughtfully. “Conrad pulled a gun, intending to kill you and the kid so that the kid wouldn’t horn in on the inheritance. You shot first, but he shot a moment later, killing both of you.” The shooter nodded to himself. “Yeah, it works.”
Shit. “Nate’s got nothing to do with this,” I protested. “He’s just a kid.”
The shooter tut-tutted at me, shaking his head. “That’s not gonna fly any more, Selena. You let him tag along on your case, squired him all over Chicago. What did you think was going to happen?”
“Let him go,” I pleaded. “He’s not going to be able to identify you.”
“Lena,” Nate muttered, “Who is this guy?”
The shooter gave me a sardonic look, challenging me to be smart enough to figure it out. The look reminded me of someone, and suddenly the last
few pieces fell into place in my mind. “Nate, meet Mason Taper’s partner.”
“Very good,” the guy said approvingly.
“Except Taper never killed women or children,” I added. “And this guy has no problem with it.”
He didn’t like that at all. “Do you think this is how I wanted this to go?” he demanded. “I’m a soldier, not a monster. I tried to get you to drop the investigation, didn’t I?”
“What’s your name?” I asked. The shooter gave me a withering look. Okay, so we weren’t going to be friends. “I think I’m going to call you Ricardo. You look like a Ricardo.”
An anxious chuckle escaped Nate’s lips. It’s good to have a sidekick. I glanced quickly at the clock on the wall. How long would Starla and the kids wait at the beach before they came to check on us? Maybe when Ricardo heard Starla come in he’d be distracted enough for me to rush him. But Ricardo read my mind again. “If you’re waiting for the bimbo, forget about it.” He pulled a small rectangular object out of his pocket and held it up. It was a sleek black iPhone. “Conrad just texted her to say you all needed some more time together and maybe she could take the kids for ice cream.”
My heart sank, but I wasn’t done yet. “You haven’t shot us yet, so I’m assuming there’s something you still need from me,” I said evenly.
“I want the rest of the screenplay, all the notes,” he snapped. “And I want to know how Anderson found out about me.”
That was actually a good question. My thoughts flew, putting pieces together as fast as I could. “Taper told him,” I said softly. “He told Jason about having an accomplice.”
Ricardo shook his head, not believing me. “Thirty years in prison, and Mason’s never said a word about having an apprentice. Why would he start now?”
“Because he really hated Jason,” I said aloud. “He thought Jason was a slimy little worm, for offering to use Taper’s history with his father to sell a screenplay. Taper couldn’t touch him from prison, but he knew that if you found out about the screenplay, you would do it for him.”
Ricardo was still for a moment, digesting this, and then he let out a bark of laughter. “That’s just like him,” he said, shaking his head. “The old man was bored in prison, so he sets up a little game. Either I kill the obnoxious dickhead for him, or the obnoxious dickhead makes a pile of money making Mason a household name. And Mason wins either way.” He had relaxed his arm to his waist, keeping the gun pointed at us, but now he extended his arm again. “And the treatment?”
“What treatment?” I said innocently.
Fast as a snake, he darted forward and smacked me across the face, immediately returning to his spot next to the desk. Nate stepped forward but I snagged his wrist and clamped on, dragging him back to stand next to me. “Ease up, tiger,” I said to Nate. “It’s in my bag,” I told Ricardo, pointing to the messenger bag that had fallen off the couch and onto the floor when I’d stood up to face off against Conrad.
Ricardo eyed me, with my big pregnant belly, and then Nate, and decided I was the lesser threat. He pointed the pistol at Nate’s forehead and said to me, “Get it out.”
I sighed and laboriously lowered myself to the floor, making a big production of how difficult it was. It wasn’t much of a stretch. I dug through the bag and found the folded script treatment from Starla. One shot at this, Lena. I tossed the folded papers on the desk between us.
Ricardo glared at me. “That’s your big plan? Make me reach for the paper so you can, what? Attack me while I’m still holding a gun on you and you’re six months pregnant?” He shook his head in mock disappointment. “I expected better of you. Pick it up and walk it to me. Slowly.”
I shrugged, stepped forward, and picked up the paper. To stall Ricardo, I said, “You should know that I’ve read through the whole thing and there’s no mention of an accomplice.” I took a slow step toward him. And then another. When I was close enough to extend my arm and hand him the papers, I elected to inch just a little closer instead. I held out the script treatment, putting on my best poor-scared-female expression. Which wasn’t much of a stretch, either. If this didn’t work...
Ricardo looked at the papers, and out of the corner of my eye I saw the barrel of the gun drift just a little bit away from Nate. That was the moment I wanted. I thrust the papers at his stomach–and buried Conrad’s bronze letter opener right in the guy’s belly.
Ricardo let out a howl of pain, moving the gun toward my head, but I had already pulled out the letter opener with a vicious twist, and he stumbled to keep his balance. The gun went off, and a slug buried itself harmlessly in the crown molding. “Nate, get help!” I yelled, and the kid took off running for the door. I darted in the opposite direction, staggering to my feet and grabbing the desk on Ricardo’s other side, so that he had to choose between turning toward Nate or turning toward me. He picked me, but by the time he swung his gun hand around again I was ready.
I leaned left, grabbed the table with my free hand for balance, and flailed my right leg up, kicking him dead-on in the wrist. I was gonna owe Danny an apology. Ricardo cried out as the gun went flying out of his hand, and I remembered the letter opener still in my left hand. I lurched forward and stabbed his hand as hard as I could with the blade, pinning it to the desk. That should even up the mobility problem a little.
Ricardo screamed with pain, but I was too big and clumsy to get back out of his way fast enough, and and he managed to throw a great roundhouse to my neck with his left hand. I flinched away from it it, curving my body so the punch pushed me inward toward his chest. Pain radiated through my neck as I fumbled his second gun out of his holster. Just as I pulled it out he threw a wild backhand that knocked the gun out of my hand and sent me on my ass. Ricardo turned to the desk and pried the letter opener out, blood still streaming down his front from my first stab. He took one halting step toward me, eyes wild, blade held high, but by then I had scooted on my butt all the way over to the Browning. I turned the muzzle and shot him twice in the head.
The room was suddenly, terribly silent, and I could hear the ringing in my ears.
To my own surprise, I burst into tears. I laid back and let the tears fall, fighting the adrenaline that still coursed through my blood, and felt for the baby. Between the fall, and the stress, and the fight....she wasn’t moving. I felt like my entire body had hardened into stasis, unable to resume until I felt something from her.
That was how Nate found me, a few minutes later: lying on my back in front of the desk with tears drying on my cheeks and a dead body cooling beside me. I could hear the sharp wail of police sirens in the distance. Someone had heard the gunshots.
“Lena?” Nate yelped from the doorway. He ran to crouch next to me. “Are you okay? What happened? Lena!”
“Shhhh,” I said, holding up a hand and staring at the ceiling. “Wait.” There was another long, empty moment, and then I felt it again: the faint, cheerful kick coming from inside. I smiled at Nate, who was looking at me the way you look at a crazy person. “There,” I said happily. “Now it’s over.”
38. The Worst Thing
Nate came rushing in a moment later, with no regard to his personal safety, of course. I tried to get him to turn back right away, so he wouldn’t see the dead guy, but it was too late. I told him to get my bag for me, and out in the hall I called Cristina. The police were at the door by the time I hung up.
Only fifteen minutes into making our statements, Cristina burst through Conrad’s front door and threw her arms around me, a very uncharacteristic move for Cristina. I breathed in her familiar perfume-and-blood smell, and she finally pulled back to fuss at the two uniforms interviewing us. She had no jurisdiction here – Malibu has its own sheriff’s department – but that didn’t stop her from snapping, “Can you not see that this woman is pregnant? Get her into the living room! Give her a chair!” It made me smile, and I was grateful.
Another half an hour after that, after I’d been through the story two more times, I saw the flash
of headlights through the living room window as Starla pulled into the driveway, home from her ice cream trip with the kids. I was sitting in an armchair, while Nate was being interviewed on the couch, but when we saw the headlights he met my eyes in a panic. “What do we say?” he mouthed. I suddenly wanted to be anywhere else, but that wouldn’t have been right. It was my case and I was finishing it. I pointed a finger toward myself. I’ll handle it.
“Lena?” Starla said hesitantly, stepping into the living room a moment later. “What’s going on? They said that Conrad...but that can’t be true, can it?” Tears started to slip down her cheeks. On the couch, Nate stared miserably down at his hands, and the two uniforms found a reason to study their pads. Cristina looked steadily at me and nodded, giving me permission to explain.
“I’m sorry, Starla, but Conrad is dead,” I said gently. “The shooter came here to kill Nate, and me, and he thought Conrad was in the way.”
The police officer who had been asking me question raised his eyebrows slightly, knowing that that wasn’t the whole story. It was close to the truth, though, and I didn’t see why Starla needed to know that her brother had paid someone to kill her boyfriend.
“Everyone’s dying,” she whispered. Starla crumpled to the floor, right there where she was standing. “Oh, God,” she said softly, after a long pause. She looked lost and small. “How did I get here?”
I was at a loss, and nobody else said anything. Then Nate got up from the couch and stepped silently over to where Starla sat. He sank down on the carpet next to her and quietly took her hand, holding it on the floor between them. And they just sat there like that, until one of the cops bustled in and broke the spell.
After that, Nate and I spent a miserable day and a half in LA, talking to cops and lawyers and even a Malibu assistant district attorney. They let us take a break long enough to call Tom and Toby and my dad to let everyone know we were fine, and then it was right back to the questions. I knew they were pushing us because we were from out of town, and once we got back to Chicago it would be a lot harder to follow up, but it was still exhausting. It annoyed everyone that Nate and I didn’t know who Conrad had hired to kill Jason, but after hours of interviews they all had to admit that we probably weren’t holding anything back.
The Big Keep: A Lena Dane Mystery (Lena Dane Mysteries) Page 23
