Her 24-Hour Protector

by Loreth Anne White

  “Sara Duncan was not your mother.”

  He stared at her blankly.

  She inhaled. “I’d really prefer you to sit, Lexington.”

  “Right about now, I really don’t want to sit.”

  She nodded, turned away from him, looked down on the activity on the Strip thirty-three stories below. “It’s been such a long time, so much in between. A lifetime really.” She paused. “I had a one-night stand, Lexington. Just over thirty-five years ago.”

  Roman Markowitz had called Frank Epstein immediately upon encountering Special Agent Duncan in the private elevator. Epstein’s driver had rushed Frank back to his hotel. He now sat in his private viewing room, watching the video feed into his own penthouse apartment. Markowitz stood at his side.

  “You think he recognized you?” said Epstein, eyes glued to the monitor.

  “Not a chance. He has no idea who I am.”

  Epstein nodded his head. “Keep it that way.”

  “How do you want to play this?”

  Epstein studied his beautiful wife. “Let’s hear what she tells him and see how he reacts. We’ll take it from there,” he said quietly. “What happened the other night with the tail on the Rothchild heiress by the way?”

  “We lost her in a car chase. Someone else was following her. Caused the freeway pileup.”

  “You see who it was following her?”

  “Negative.”

  “Interesting,” Epstein mused.

  “What does your one-night stand have to do with Sara Duncan?” Lex wasn’t sure he wanted to hear what was going to come out of Mercedes Epstein’s mouth next.

  She ignored his question. “It was a crazy, impulsive and very dangerous thing to do, because I had recently married Frank, and Frank was a very, very possessive man.” She was quiet for a few seconds, staring down at the tiny cars far down in the street. “I’m sure you know the rumors about Frank in those days.”

  She spun round suddenly. “I fell pregnant that night, Lexington. And do you want to know what the irony is? The irony is that Frank has always been unable to sire children. As much as I needed to hide the affair, I couldn’t even begin to think of passing off my baby as his. And I couldn’t get rid of my unborn child. It was not in me to do so.”

  Nausea rose in Lex as the meaning behind her words burrowed into his brain. “Who…did you have this affair with? Who was the father of your child?” His voice came out hoarse.

  “A man by the name of Tony Ciccone. He worked for Frank. He was—”

  “I know who he was.”

  Pain twisted into her features, and her eyes glimmered. “Tony told me to get rid of the child. He said Frank would murder us both if he found out, and I believed him. But I could not go through with an abortion. I…” Her voice hitched. “I…I just couldn’t.”

  Lex didn’t trust himself to speak.

  “So I arranged to go on an extended tour. I was a dancer back then, and Frank was very busy with a major project at the time and wanted to keep me happy. He’d have given me the world if he could. He has given me so much—”

  “The baby?”

  She moistened her lips, nodded. “I timed my tour so that I could carry my child to term, and I gave birth in secret, where Frank wouldn’t find out.”

  “A boy.”

  “Yes,” she said quietly. “And I named him Lexington.” Her eyes misted over, and her voice grew thick. “I named him for my hometown in Kentucky because I had a desperate need to root my son with some part of myself, my history, before I had to give him away.”

  Lex ran his hands over his hair. Feeling hot. He needed air. He needed to get the hell out of this place. He didn’t want to hear what he was hearing. Didn’t want to believe it…couldn’t process it. “I…I am that son.”

  She nodded. “I entrusted you to Sara Duncan’s care.”

  “You gave me to Sara Duncan?”

  “She was a good person, Lexington. And she needed the kind of money that Tony and I could give her to do this for us.”

  He closed his eyes for a moment. This woman was trying to tell him that he—a federal law enforcement agent—was the son of one of the most notorious and violent gangsters in the country? That she was his mother?

  Right about now, he needed a drink. No, he needed to get blind freaking inebriated. He needed to smash something. Disbelief, anger—he couldn’t even articulate what—was building like a Molotov cocktail inside him. But he remained rooted to the spot. It was like watching a train wreck, the train wreck of his life, and he couldn’t tear himself away.

  “Tony Ciccone is—”

  “Your father.”

  He swore. Violently.

  “Lexington, I know this must—”

  He held up both hands, palms out, keeping her at bay, not wanting to hear more, yet compelled to stay and hear it all. “Just…just give me the facts, keep it simple.”

  She had the audacity to look hurt. “Tony went ballistic when he found out I refused to terminate my pregnancy. He had a terrible temper, and he was convinced Frank would tear him apart limb by limb with his bare hands. I was afraid of Frank, too. As much as I love him, he can be a fearful man when crossed. But I do love him, above all else—”

  “Please, Mrs. Epstein.” Lex couldn’t even call her by her first name now. “The facts.”

  “We paid Sara handsomely to take you as a newborn and to register you as her own child in Reno. She feigned pregnancy while I was away on tour, making herself look progressively advanced. It was a policy of Frank’s that no visibly pregnant women could work his casino floor, and Sara caused a scene over it, as we had planned, and got herself fired. She then left for Reno, where we delivered the baby to her.”

  “The baby,” he said, almost inaudibly.

  “You.”

  “And then?”

  “And then Sara had enough money to buy herself a house and to raise you on her own. We continued to pay her a monthly stipend, cash, organized by Tony. Non-traceable, of course.”

  Apart from the pale-blue Cadillac that came like clockwork to their house. “Who brought her the cash each month?”

  “Jackie Winston, a man in Tony’s employ.”

  “Did this Jackie Winston work for Frank Epstein as well as run personal errands for Tony Ciccone?”

  “Why do you ask?”

  “Just answer the question.”

  “Yes, he did work for Frank, but Tony put Jackie on a separate payroll as well. Frank didn’t know this. You see, Tony was trying to coax several of Frank’s men over to his side at that time. Frank and Tony were in a battle over…certain things in their…business relationship.”

  That would explain the frontline logo on Winston’s blue Cadillac. “Do you know who killed my mother, Mrs. Epstein?” He couldn’t not think of Sara as his mother. As far as Lex was concerned, she was the beautiful young woman who had held him, loved him, laughed with him, praised him when he came home from school with good marks. Made his lunches, found Mr. Teddy when his bear got lost…held him tight when he was sad. He didn’t give a rat’s ass what anyone said—Sara Duncan was his mom. And no one was his father. Not as far as he was concerned.

  “I don’t know who killed her, Lex,” she almost whispered. Fear, or some other emotion darkening her eyes and blanching her skin.

  “Don’t lie to me. Not now.”

  “All I can tell you, Lexington, is that it was one of Tony’s henchmen who did it, one who routinely handled Tony’s dirty—or as he called it—wet work.”

  The one with a raspy voice who was inside this casino hotel this very minute. Still alive and kicking while his mother had been stone-cold dead for thirty years.

  She inhaled shakily. “The first I heard of Sara’s death was when I opened the newspapers the morning after she was killed. I called Tony right away. As I mentioned, this was at a time when Frank and Tony were having a very serious falling out. Frank was insisting Tony return to Chicago, and Tony was refusing. It made for some very bad blood.
Frank, however, had the upper hand…it’s a long story, but Tony figured he was going to get leverage by sending someone to kidnap you, and he was going to hold you—and me—ransom to get me to twist Frank’s arm. He said if I failed to change Frank’s mind, he was going to deliver the kid—you—to Frank in person. You were going to be the living flesh and blood proof of my infidelity and how I’d cheated him all those years.”

  Mercedes took a deep swallow of water, and Lex noticed her hands were trembling. “It…it was a really foolish thing for Tony to do, but he was growing more and more irrational, and violent, and the excessive drinking and drugs he was taking didn’t help.” She hesitated, looked Lex directly in the eyes. “If you know who Tony Ciccone was, Lexington, as you say you do, then you’ll know the history and the rumors that circulated around him. You will know what people say he did. Frank needed to distance himself from all that, because he ran a clean operation.”

  Like hell. Lex glared at her. “Go on.”

  “But the kidnapping went wrong. Sara apparently hid you and shot and injured Tony’s man, and he fled when he heard the police coming.”

  “Did this…man survive his gunshot injury?” Lex asked, seeing in his mind a replay…the checkered pants, the man’s hairy hands, the glint of the knife. His mother’s blood.

  “I don’t know.”

  “You’re not telling the truth.”

  “I have nothing I want to hide, Lexington. I am telling you this because I need to. I am ill—seriously ill—and the prognosis is grave. I might have only days left, weeks at the most. When things start to go wrong in my body, it will be fast. My husband doesn’t know I am sick. He doesn’t know any of what I am telling you.”

  “Then why are you telling me.”

  “I need to,” she said simply. She walked across the room, almost took a seat on a white chair, but restrained herself from showing weakness. Instead she forced her spine straight again. A proud woman, no doubt, but now that Lex looked carefully, under it, he could see a frailty. Under her artfully applied makeup was a face that was pale. Sick.

  “When you approach the end of life, Lexington, and you look back over all that you have done…I…I just need to make peace with my God.” Her eyes glimmered again. “And to do this, I needed to see you, to look into the eyes of my son, and to tell you the truth. It’s my atonement. My absolution. This one thing I must do before I pass from this world.”

  “So it’s for your own satisfaction. Because it’s clearly not for mine.”

  “The truth, Lexington, it sets one free.”

  “And this truth of your affair, what do you expect it will do to Frank?”

  “You don’t need to tell him,” she stated.

  “So the truth sets only certain people free?”

  She said nothing.

  Lex walked to the window, looked down at the city of sin and light. Of illusions, deception. Of promise, fate, fortune. And ruin.

  “Will you tell him?” she asked very quietly.

  “I’m a federal agent, Mrs. Epstein. You’ve just told me who is behind the unsolved murder of a woman. It’s a thirty-yearold cold case that could now, finally, find its way to closure. Frank will become part of that investigation, given his alliances with Ciccone, and the fact he is your husband.”

  “Frank had nothing to do with Sara’s murder.”

  “He did, Mrs. Epstein. He was the target of the kidnapping attempt that went wrong. He was the reason for it all.”

  “And who would you see prosecuted at the end of it?” she asked. “Exactly who would stand trial—a dead man?”

  “Justice must be done.”

  “Tony Ciccone is dead, Lexington. Gone. There’s no one to arrest, no one to try in court. No need to bring it all up.”

  “It never ceases to amaze me,” Lex said slowly, “how the Epsteins, the Rothchilds, the Schaeffers of this world truly think the rules apply differently to them—that you’re somehow above it all.”

  She glanced at the street way below. “We are above it, Lexington,” she said softly. “It’s the way the world works. Money is power. Especially if you know how to use it.”

  “Like Frank does.”

  “Yes, like my husband. And all you will do is hurt him if you tell him about my infidelity. And he has infinite—and I mean infinite—power to hurt you back.”

  “A threat?” Lex snorted derisively. “You have this desperate need to tell me that I am your son, to atone with your God, but you must threaten me at the same time?” He spun, strode toward the exit. “You people make me sick. Besides, you have no proof you are my mother. I have no reason to believe it.”

  “DNA will prove—”

  “There’s no way in hell I’m taking a DNA test to find out you are my mother.” He stalked into the lobby, rammed the elevator button.

  “Would it help if I told you where Tony Ciccone’s body is?” she called out.

  Lex froze. He turned slowly, stepped back into the living room. “How do you know where he is? Did Frank kill him?”

  “I did. I shot and killed the father of my child.”

  Lex stared at her, heart pounding. “Why?”

  “Because of what he did to Sara,” she said, the steel returning to her eyes, her neck corded tense. “And because his henchman allowed you to witness the horror. Because he allowed my son to become an orphan. The remorse, the guilt, it has been horrific to bear. It’s why I have always supported the Nevada Orphans Fund, Lexington. And until you left Reno, I always knew where you were. And then when I saw your name in the paper in connection with the Rothchild homicide case, I knew you’d come back to Nevada.”

  She inhaled deeply. “Then I saw your name on that bachelor auction list, and I…” Her voice faded and tears began to stream down her cheeks. “It’s why I came to see you with my own eyes and why I bid on you that night. I pushed the bidding sky high because…because I couldn’t stop myself. I wanted that young Rothchild heiress to know just how much my boy was worth, and I wanted the orphans fund to get as much of her cash as she could give.”

  Lex shook his head, staring at the woman who said she was his mother.

  “You can’t put a dollar value on a person, on a baby.”

  “This is Vegas, Lexington. People can buy what they like.”

  Including a fake mother.

  “Where’s Ciccone’s body?” he said coolly. “What did you do to him?”

  Mercedes steadied herself by reaching for the back of a chair. “When I read about Sara’s murder in the paper, I phoned Tony right away, and I learned what he’d done. I set it up to meet him at a place in the desert, an isolated spot that Tony and I had been together before, a ghost town where they used to mine silver. I said I had something important to tell him about Frank, and that I was worried about being followed, so he had to be careful not to tell anyone or bring anyone. He trusted me, Lexington. Tony, in his way, adored me, and he had no idea just how much hatred he’d put into me. I shot him, out in that desert. I rolled his body down the mine shaft. He didn’t see it coming.”

  The words of the Lucky Lady psychic sifted into his mind. A past…death…buried in the Mojave sands…sands of time…death to be avenged…

  Lex tried to swallow, trying to absorb what she was telling him—that she knew the answer to a mystery that gripped the nation thirty years ago, that she had killed a notorious Vegas gangster…and that gangster was his father.

  “Why should I believe this?”

  “Because I’ll tell you exactly in which mine shaft you will find Tony Ciccone’s remains, if there’s anything left of him.”

  “Then, Mrs. Epstein, I’ll see that you are brought in and charged with homicide.”

  A sad smile curled over her mouth. “I very much doubt, Lexington, that I will live long enough to see that.”

  “Where’s the body?”

  “At a small ghost town thirty miles southwest of Vegas, down a shaft in the old Conair silver mine. There’s a main headframe, easy to spot. Nex
t to it is an old metal-sided building. If you go about two hundred yards east of that, you’ll find another shaft opening covered with a metal grate. He’s down there.”

  Lex studied her. This woman, this proud Vegas matriarch, an ex-showgirl, was supposed to be his mother and a cold-blooded murderer?

  “Why’d you sleep with him, with Ciccone?”

  “It was a wild time, Lexington. We were all young, flush with cash, liquor, drugs. We felt like gods. We were gods, in our world. Las Vegas was our oasis, our desert kingdom. And Tony was rough, sexy. He had an edge that women liked. You have his Mediterranean complexion—”

  Lex shot up his hand. He didn’t want to hear that he resembled Ciccone in any way whatsoever. “One thing I still don’t understand is that you have so much to lose by telling me this. And so little to gain. Why? Why tell me at all? Maybe you’d have done me a favor keeping quiet.”

  She shook her head. “I don’t think you’ll ever understand just how much I have gained, Lexington. Looking at you, right here, in front of me, in my home. My son. Whom I have thought about every waking day for thirty-five years. It clean broke my heart, Lexington, to hand over that small, warm bundle the day I gave birth. I have never, ever felt so proud as when I bore you into this world. The sky had never looked brighter, and I had never grasped so keenly the meaning and sense of life.” She wavered. “And I’ve never, ever felt so lonely, so hollow and empty, as when I had to place you into the hands of another woman.”

  Lex scrubbed his hand hard over his brow. Crap, this was a messy tangle of love, adultery, murder, and revenge—old Las Vegas mob-style. And the only reason he’d stumbled upon this dark and dirty truth about his own past was because Harold Rothchild’s old connection with Frank Epstein had led him here.

  “…there are still people in town who will go to great lengths to ensure that the past stays where it belongs—buried. You go trying to mess with that, and you’re looking to be messing with some real bad ghosts…”

  Yeah, well now he knew just how bad those ghosts really were.

  “What is your illness?” he asked calmly.

  “An advanced form of leukemia. When my system starts to fail, it will be very fast. And it could happen anytime. Today. Tomorrow, next week.”