by Steve Richer
White stuffing exploded out of the sofa but it didn’t faze Bailey. She rose and pulled the trigger. She noticed that the room around her was messy. There were pizza boxes and beer cans. The one thing that was weird was the couple of dry cleaned clothes that were still on hangers, in plastic. There were another couple of shots.
Jesus, how many rounds was that? In the commotion, she had forgotten to count hers as well as his. When there was a brief lull, she decided to do a tactical reload.
She reached for a magazine at her waist, her eyes still facing forward, just above the couch. But she wasn’t fast enough.
The man took the opportunity to run out of the kitchen. He was heading for the open front door.
“Stop!” she screamed.
She knew that he wouldn’t though. The gun still not loaded, she sprung up and jumped on the suspect, tackling him.
They both fell hard against the dining room table. The corner was rounded but it hurt like hell as it struck Bailey just above her hip. Most of all, it made her lose her weapon.
“You bitch!” he yelled, having dropped his own gun.
She had a thousand questions for him but they would have to wait. For the time being she had to stay alive.
She got on top of him, punching him in the face. But he was stronger and pushed her off. It was his turn to hit her, this time in the stomach. It took her breath away.
The guy struggled to get up but she took hold of his ankle and yanked back. He fell face forward, landing with a thud. She hoped the downstairs neighbors would hear and call the police.
The man gnarled and slid closer. He straddled her body and without a second thought he curled his fingers around her throat. He pushed on her trachea and it horrified her that he knew what he was doing.
She didn’t have long to live.
Bailey couldn’t think, she couldn’t breathe. There must have been a dozen counter moves to do in a situation like this but at the moment she couldn’t think of a single one.
It couldn’t end like this. What would everyone think? She had failed her career, she had failed her job and client. Her obituary would be depressing. Her life would’ve been nothing but a waste.
She flopped underneath this killer, counting down the seconds until she died.
Desperately, she felt around her for a weapon. She could feel only the dusty hardwood floor under her fingertips. But there had to be something she could use!
“Die, you bitch…”
That’s what was going to happen, she just knew it. Her lungs were on fire. Soon her brain would shut down. What was the point of having ambition, life goals, when you only ended up dying in a shitty Brooklyn apartment?
Her fingers encountered something at last. It was soft, it crackled under her touch. She realized it was a pair of pants or shirt from the dry cleaner. It was useless.
But no, maybe it wasn’t!
She grabbed hold of it, taking big handfuls to get it closer. As she reached the top, she found that it was still on the hanger. It was a metal hanger!
With the dexterity that only someone who was about to be murdered could muster, she wrangled the hanger out of the garments and thrust the makeshift weapon upwards, hook first.
The pointed end went straight into the man’s right eye.
“Aaaahh!” he cried.
Her adrenaline reaching record highs, Bailey continued to push until she felt half of the hook disappear into his flesh, piercing right into his brain. Blood gushed out, showering her chest and face, and still she didn’t stop.
But the man stopped screaming when she made a final twist with the wire hook. He stopped moving. As soon as she eased up the pressure, he fell sideways onto the floor. He was agape. Dead.
She sat up and rubbed her throat, struggling to catch her breath. For some reason she gave a short nervous laugh before fighting back tears. Having cheated death was a euphoric sentiment and she wasn’t quite sure how to feel.
She thought about the neighbors again. If people had heard the gunshots and the fight, maybe the police were on their way. At first she thought this was a good thing until she realized it would only hinder her progress. She would be detained and Detective Munson would put her in the same boat as Lawson, just another suspect in a major New York crime spree.
Bailey had to get out of here fast.
She climbed to her feet and went to the corpse. She pawed his pockets until she found his wallet. His name was Lawrence Hyden. The ID didn’t give her much information. Looking around the apartment, she could tell he was single. On the floor, having fallen from the table was a set of keys and on one of them she recognized a car logo.
Not having time to search the place before the police showed up, she picked up her Glock, holstered it after reloading, and jogged out, wiping the blood off her face as she did so. It was with a sigh of relief that she didn’t find any gawkers in the hallway or down the stairs.
She clicked the button on the fob, her head swiveling left and right as she went down the sidewalk. At last, she heard the doors of a sedan get unlocked. This was Hyden’s car. She went in.
She looked through the glove compartment. A flashlight, the owner’s manual, a screwdriver. On the floor was another dry cleaning ticket. Geez, this guy was obsessed with clean clothes.
Then she spotted something interesting. On the dashboard was an aftermarket GPS. She switched it on and her stomach fluttered when she saw that the device memorized recent trips.
“Come on,” she whispered as she scrolled through the dates.
An address kept coming back. She pulled out her phone and brought up a map, switching to the satellite imagery. The place was a warehouse. It had to be their base of operations.
It was where it was going to end.
Chapter 32
“Whoa,” Lawson exhaled, leaning into the plushy chair.
He stared at the computer monitor but wasn’t seeing much. The spreadsheet was nothing but mumbo-jumbo. It wasn’t what was important though. No, what mattered the most was that his father was involved in whatever the hell was going on. Somehow he had the answers and he’d never told him anything.
A small part of him felt vindicated. He was making progress. Bailey had uncovered this Corpora Z crap and they’d both had a sense that it was linked to the murders and blackmail. Now he had proof right in front of him.
He missed John terribly. It was only starting to sink in that he’d lost his best friend. What kind of screwed up world were they living in anyway? Contrary to what his mother had said, he didn’t deserve this. He had never done anything so bad that it could ever end up in murder.
Yet John had paid the price.
Lawson felt tears well up and he took a deep breath to stifle them. They would never again go out drinking together. They would never again talk about girls, or sports, or fly to Vegas on a whim to party with strippers and blow a fortune at the blackjack tables.
John had been one of the few people he’d ever confided in. For ten years, he had shared secrets with him. He had always been so understanding, so supportive. He was the brother he wished he’d had.
Maybe he should have beaten him up with a baseball bat as requested, Lawson mused. If only he had followed directions instead of going off the handle, John would still be alive.
The only silver lining in all this was that his friend didn’t have any family to mourn him. His mother had died years ago and he’d never known his father. Sometimes Lawson envied him for that. There was no one to disappoint when you didn’t have family.
He felt guilty about not calling his girlfriend to offer his condolences. He’d never met her and wasn’t sure how serious they were, but he thought of himself as an inadequate friend by not contacting her. It was another reminder of this whole tragedy.
He looked at the gibberish on the screen again. John would have known what this meant. Okay, maybe not but he would have known what to do next. He’d been the smartest person he knew. Shit, he’d been his lawyer! He would have known exactl
y how to proceed with this new information.
He supposed he could tell Weibel – he eventually would as they prepared for trial – but for the time being it was just another piece of an ever-expanding puzzle.
With a sigh, Lawson turned to the right. On the sideboard were crystal decanters. He realized he hadn’t swallowed a drop of alcohol since Christmas Eve. This had to be the longest stretch of sobriety he’d ever experienced since high school. His mouth felt dry and he absentmindedly licked his lips.
Until today, he had never wondered if he had a problem. Did he? Was he an alcoholic? He’d always chalked it up to his lifestyle, to the Hollywood scene. Parties were boring when you were sober. It took all his willpower not to get up and pour himself two inches of bourbon.
For some reason, he didn’t want to actually do it. He felt he needed to do this sacrifice to honor John. His best friend had died because of him so the least he could do was punish himself in some small way. More than that, Lawson wanted to know if he really had a drinking problem. Perhaps he did. Perhaps he could overcome it too.
He wouldn’t have a choice if he was convicted and went to prison, he thought with a morbid chuckle.
His phone rang and he reached into his pocket. It had to be Bailey or Midori because they were the only ones with this new number. However, the caller was labeled anonymous.
Fuck me, not again.
“Hello?”
“Hi, Lawson. How was prison? Make any new friends?”
“You son of a bitch! How did you get this number?”
“By being smarter than you,” the computer-altered voice said.
“What do you want? Haven’t you done enough to me already? You killed my best friend!”
Lawson stood up and started pacing, his eyes seeing nothing.
“We’re down to the home stretch, buddy. There’s just one last thing before I leave you alone forever.”
“Like hell.”
“It’s really simple. You’re going to wire one billion dollars to the Children of Katoga charity. I’m sending you the routing number now.”
“What?” Lawson muttered, confused.
“There’s nothing complicated about this,” the guy said. “It’s the easiest part and I won’t ever bother you again. Send one billion US dollars to this account and it’s over. The catch is that it has to be your money. Not the company’s money, not your family’s money. Yours.”
“This is about money?”
“Well duh! And don’t try to be sneaky trying to send the bank account to the FBI or something. As soon as the money lands in the account, it will be rerouted to seven different offshore companies and banks. Hey, the Children of Katoga is a legitimate 501(c)(3) non-profit, too. If you play your cards right, you can claim a tax break. How about that, buckaroo?”
On the one hand, Lawson was getting excited that he finally knew what this was about and that it was coming to an end. He could have the whole thing done with simply by transferring the money.
Then he thought about John.
There was no way he could reward the man who’d taken his best friend away from him. He glanced at the alcohol again and for the first time in years felt that being sober made him stronger. He gripped the phone tighter, his mind clearer than it had ever been.
This asshole had framed him for murder, had made him commit a felony, had killed his friend. What more could he do to him?
“No,” he said.
“Excuse me?” The killer actually sounded taken aback.
“You heard me, I said no. Fuck off and don’t ever call me again.”
Lawson hung up. At long last he had the upper hand. He looked at the bourbon and considered a drink to celebrate. But no, he could tough it out a little longer.
He left the study intent on gathering his thoughts before calling Bailey with this news. As he reached the living room downstairs, he saw his father enter the penthouse, taking off his scarf and coat.
“Oh good, you’re here.”
Lawson shrugged. “Where else am I gonna be?”
“Listen, son,” David began as he marched toward him. “You shouldn’t have touched my computer.”
“What? How do you know about that?”
“You have to stop looking through my computer and into Corpora Z.”
“Again, dad, how the hell do you know I used your computer?”
“Please, just trust me, okay? There are things nobody can know about.”
“No!” Lawson shouted, grabbing a pillow from the couch and throwing it so hard that it knocked a Ming vase off its pedestal, breaking as it hit the floor. “Enough with all these goddamn lies!”
“Son…”
“Stop this shit, dad! You’re involved, I know that now. Fred Keeling, Addie Burgess, they were both involved with Corpora Z and now I know you have files about that on your computer too. So please cut the bullshit, all right? Addie was killed. What are you doing? Are people after me to stop you? Is that it?”
David winced as if this whole conversation was physically painful. “Lawson, please, I can’t…”
“You can’t help your own son understand why his life is being turned upside down? I didn’t do anything. I never did anything to deserve all this.”
“I can’t say anything, I’m so sorry.”
David’s eyes watered and he sat on the edge of the couch, rubbing his hands on his knees. Lawson had never seen him so pathetic, so helpless. Elizabeth walked into the living room but again she stayed on the sidelines, her demeanor cold and distant.
“Tell me what’s going on. I’ve been charged with murder, my best friend is dead, and the only person who knows anything is my father and he won’t talk. Take your fucking responsibilities for once, dad!”
“It’s secret.”
“Tough shit. How can you do this to your own son? I’m facing life in prison here and I want to know what part you played in it.”
David looked up and shook his head. “None. This has nothing to do with it. It’s…”
“What?”
“Corpora Z was set up for the US government.”
This was the last thing Lawson expected to hear. “Excuse me?”
“I can’t go into details, okay? A few months back, someone from the government – the CIA, I think – approached me, wanting help to take over a company in Luxembourg. It had to be done in secret because they are part of a conglomerate and one of their subsidiaries is developing a new weapons system about to be sold to rogue states.”
“Jesus…”
“We could have done it openly through our own defense division but the government wanted to keep it secret so that we could monitor where the technology was sold. This would give us the intelligence edge, it would safeguard national security. I enlisted Fred Keeling’s fund to help me with this and had Addie Burgess act as go-between. They were both innocent. I swear none of this has anything to do with what’s happening to you.”
Lawson exhaled and ran one hand through his hair. The truth was great to finally hear but it annihilated all his leads. It’s was dead end. It couldn’t be related to the blackmail. He was back at square one.
The phone rang again and without thinking he answered. But before saying anything, he decided to put the call on speaker. He wanted both his parents to know what he’d been dealing with this week. They had to understand the gravity of the situation.
“What the hell do you want?”
“Have you had time to relax, Lawson. Our conversation wasn’t over. It’s unfortunate you chose to end the call.”
“And it’s unfortunate your mother didn’t have an abortion, you cocksucker.”
“The rules are the same,” the man said. “You transfer one billion dollars to the Children of Katoga aid organization right now, from your personal fortune.”
“Oh yeah? And what if I don’t?”
“Then Penny will die.”
“What? Who the hell is Penny?”
There was gentle laughter on the other end of the
line. “Penny is your daughter, Lawson.”
Chapter 33
Bailey still wasn’t under arrest. It was a good start.
In fact, she hadn’t encountered any police cars since leaving Hyden’s apartment. Either no one had heard the scuffle and gunshots or the majority of the NYPD was still off duty for the holidays.
She didn’t stop to count her blessings and pressed ahead. As she drove to the warehouse address she had memorized by now, she called her friend Jasmine Needham. If she didn’t trust New York’s finest to believe her and help her, then perhaps Jasmine would. More importantly, she could urge federal agencies to help.
Except that Jasmine said no.
First of all, this case was political because of the wealthy family. As much as the Winslows were able to regularly curry favor, this was one of those times where the people in power were battening down the hatches. They were going into survival mode.
Nobody was willing to stick their neck out in case it turned against them in the future. No one wanted to be the person who had gone to bat, using their influence to help a murderer, if it ended up that the young man had done it after all.
In addition, this whole case was a jurisdictional quagmire. Jasmine insisted there was nothing she could do at Homeland Security, nor could she think of a federal agency that would be able to pull strings.
“You don’t understand,” Bailey screamed into the phone as she sped up through a yellow light. “I have these bastards in sight. I know where they’re hiding. I just need help to take them down right now before they get away.”
“I’m so sorry. No feds are gonna get involved in this, certainly not in the timeframe you’re talking about. Your best bet is to call the NYPD.”
The same police department that didn’t believe her or Lawson? Fat chance. She was on her own.
She terminated the call and focused on the road. It was all right, she’d been on her own for a long time. She should be used to it by now, she thought.
She glanced at the GPS map on her phone and slowed down as the address loomed. She parked on a small deserted street and came out of the car.
