by Stephen Frey
“Shut up, will you? And forget the deadline.”
“What?”
“I can’t talk too long right now, but don’t worry about the deadline. I’ve bought you some extra time.” He was breathing hard into the mouthpiece.
“Do you want the world to find out what happened to me? Is that what it is?”
“Stop questioning my loyalty, dammit,” he said angrily. “Here’s what you’re going to do. Are you familiar with the Worthington Valley?”
“Of course.”
“How about the Stenersen Farm Store?”
“You mean the little country shop out on Falls Road?”
“Yes. It’s at the intersection of Shawan and Falls.”
“I know.”
“Meet me there in two hours.”
“David, tell me what this is about,” she begged.
“I can’t. Just be there. And for Christ’s sake, don’t go outside of wherever you are until you come to meet me. Don’t leave that room until then. When you do leave, be very careful. They’re probably everywhere.” He paused for a second. “And come alone. You can’t trust Todd. I mean that.”
“David!” But he was gone. Jesse’s hand shook wildly as she pressed down the receiver button to access a new dial tone. She punched his office number again, but this time the phone rang four times until his voice mail message answered.
“I got the number!” Finnerty frantically jotted down the telephone number from the caller ID liquid crystal display. It sat on one corner of the huge conference-room table, connected to the phone in David’s office. “We’ll have the exact location of the call’s origin in ten minutes.”
“Make it five.” Webb drew on the cigar. “There’s no way David could know about us hooking this thing up to his phone, is there, Jack?”
Finnerty shook his head.
The knock on the conference-room door was loud, startling Webb, Finnerty, and Mohler.
“See who it is.” Webb ordered Mohler to the door.
When Mohler reached the door, he opened it just a crack. “Oh, hello. Come in.”
“Thanks.” David moved into the doorway. “She called.” He directed his words at Webb. It was an indication that he now considered Webb his leader.
“Excuse me.” Elizabeth squeezed past David and left the room.
“Certainly, Elizabeth.” He stepped farther into the room to let her out.
Once in the hallway, Elizabeth moved quickly away from the conference room toward her office, murmuring the numbers she had seen on Finnerty’s notepad over and over. Everything had spun out of control so quickly, faster than she could ever have anticipated. She had given Webb and Mohler information at the end of the last sanctum meeting out of a survival instinct. She had seen them talking and been afraid they were discussing her. Afraid that they had found out about her treason, and were planning her untimely demise. So she had told them about how she had pushed David into getting close to Jesse because of her suspicion that Jesse was somehow involved. And about a man named Todd Colton. They had promised no harm would come to Jesse, but now they were going back on that promise.
Elizabeth moved into her office, closed the door, picked up the phone, and quickly dialed the memorized number. She had to do this. Otherwise Jesse wouldn’t be in the land of the living much longer. Then there would be no living with herself.
“Hello.”
“Jesse, it’s Elizabeth Gilman.” She did not await a reply. “Get out of wherever you are. They know where you are.”
Jesse raced for the door. David. He had set her up again. Don’t leave the room, he had said. Of course. So she would be a sitting target. She threw open the door. “Oh, God!” Someone was standing in the motel doorway. Instinctively she covered her face.
“What’s wrong?” He saw her animal fear instantly. The fear of one being hunted.
“Todd!” Jesse clutched her chest, then fell into his arms. “I’m so glad it’s you.” She caught her breath. “They’re coming. We’ve got to get out of here.” She grabbed him by the wrist, pulling him away from the door and out into the parking lot toward her rental car.
“Where are we going?”
“I’ve got to get something from my mother’s house. It’s time to end this once and for all.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” He stopped her as they reached the line of cars.
“Elizabeth Gilman just called me. She’s the woman who recruited me at Sagamore.”
“I remember.”
“She said they’re coming. That somehow they found me here at the motel. We’ve got to get out of here. Come on!”
“All right. I’ll follow you in my car.”
“No.” She shook her head. “That Corvette would stand out like a beacon. We’re both going in my car.”
“Okay. But let me get something from the Corvette first. Bring the rental around.”
Jesse turned and sprinted to the rental, started it, backed out of the spot, and whipped it quickly behind the Corvette. Todd hopped in and threw the overnight bag he had retrieved from the Corvette into the backseat. As the passenger door slammed shut, Jesse gunned the engine, and they squealed out onto York Road and sped north.
Minutes later, Gordon Roth guided his car into the space Jesse’s rental had vacated, jumped from the car and ran to the door number they had specified. He burst in, but was back out in a second.
From the summit of a small hillside overlooking the motel, Jesse watched the assassin through Todd’s binoculars. Elizabeth had saved her life. Slowly Jesse allowed the binoculars to drop from her eyes.
“Can you see anything?” Todd stood next to her, squinting down at the motel.
“Yes,” she said quietly. “We just made it. That guy who came into the Mercantile Bank branch when I met David is down there right now.”
“David set you up, didn’t he?”
Jesse nodded.
“I knew he was no good that day I met him outside your office,” Todd muttered. “Mr. Limousine,” he sneered.
“Come on. Let’s go.” Jesse handed Todd the binoculars and started back to the car.
Gordon Roth stood before the open motel-room door, scanning the parking lot. Jesse Hayes was gone, obviously tipped off just in time. Suddenly his eyes spotted a familiar sight—the battered white Corvette owned by Todd Colton, the same car he had seen at the farmhouse yesterday when he had killed the two mobsters and temporarily saved Todd’s life.
Chapter 33
“Mom! Mom, wake up!”
Connie’s eyes fluttered open. She looked up at Jesse for a moment, then moaned loudly.
“What’s wrong?” Jesse knelt down on the bed and held a hand to her mother’s forehead. “Are you sick?”
“Oh, God. I feel like I’m going to throw up.” Connie sat up and put a hand over her mouth. “The last thing I remember, someone was holding something to my face. The fumes were horrible. I passed out.”
“What?”
“Yes.” Connie glanced at the doorway. “Todd, could I have a drink of water?”
“Sure.” He disappeared around the corner.
“Are you all right, Mom?”
“Other than my stomach, I’m fine.” She smiled weakly. “I’m a tough old bird.”
Todd returned quickly with the water and handed Connie the glass.
“Thanks, dear.”
“Sure, Mrs. Schuman.”
This on top of everything else, Jesse thought to herself. “It must have been a robbery. I didn’t notice anything missing when we came in, but I wasn’t looking, either. We’ll have to . . .” Suddenly she stood up and raced from the room.
“Jess, what’s the matter?” Todd called after her.
“I’ll be right back!” Jesse sprinted down the hallway to her old room and yanked open the closet door. A wave of relief spread through her body when she saw the IRS bag exactly where she had left it. She reached up with both hands and pulled the bag down. Her fears were back instantly. The bag was much
too light. She unzipped it and peered inside. Everything was gone. Whoever had attacked her mother had been here for one thing. The information in the bag.
Slowly she walked back to her mother’s room.
“What’s wrong, Jesse? You look like you just lost your best friend.”
“It feels like I did, Mom.” Suddenly she noticed that her mother was alone. “Where’s Todd?”
“He said he was going downstairs.”
There was only one option left, Jesse realized. And it wasn’t a very good one. “Mom, I have to go. I’ll stay until the ambulance gets here to take you to the hospital.”
“I’m not going to any hospital.”
“Yes you are. There’ll be no argument.” Jesse turned and headed out of the room and down the stairs, then walked quietly through the first-floor hallway to the kitchen. She stood in the kitchen doorway for a moment watching Todd as he talked on the phone with his hand cupped over the mouthpiece.
Todd saw her, said a quick good-bye to the person at the other end of the line, and hung up. “Is your mother feeling better?”
“I think so.” She stared at him, considering whether to ask who he had called. “As soon as the ambulance gets here, we’ve got to get to the Stenersen Farm Store over in the Worthington Valley.” She had told Todd about David’s instruction to meet him there as she and Todd drove to her mother’s. She had said she wouldn’t go near the place. But now the information in the IRS bag was gone and everything had changed.
“What the hell’s going on?” Webb barked into the phone.
“I went to the Towson Motor Inn, to the room Finnerty said the call had come from, but they were gone,” Roth yelled, clutching the cellular phone in one hand and the steering wheel in the other as he guided the car up Interstate 83 north from Baltimore. “It looked like they cleared out of there pretty fast. I swear to you, Carter, I was at the motel within four minutes of Finnerty’s call.”
“I’m sure you were.” He pounded his fist on the table. This damned Hayes woman was always one step ahead. His eyes narrowed. And there was probably a good reason for that, he suddenly realized. “Where are you headed now?”
“To the Worthington Valley.” Roth smiled as he whipped past two cars as though they were standing still. “I’ve got good news. Our boy called me. Jesse Hayes is going to be out at a little store in the valley.” Roth checked his watch. “And in about twenty minutes she’s going to be dead.”
The Worthington Valley lay thirty miles north of Baltimore. Its rolling grasslands were home to Thoroughbred horse farms and sprawling apple and peach orchards. The Stenersen Farm Store sat nestled in the midst of the beautiful valley in a grove of huge oak trees at the intersection of Shawan and Falls roads. Shawan Road ran east and west, through the length of the valley, while Falls snaked out of the forest covering the valley’s south side. It was the primary thoroughfare for city dwellers visiting the picturesque area on weekends.
For generations the Stenersen family had owned thousands of acres of the valley, their property stretching out in all directions from the intersection’s four corners. The main house, a huge stone mansion, overlooked the intersection from high atop a hill to the northeast. From this vantage point the family could look out over its expansive orchards and the store at the bottom of the hill. On weekends the small clapboard store would be mobbed, but on a weekday there were typically only a few shoppers, which was the case today.
“Do you know what kind of car David drives?” Todd asked as Jesse guided the rental into the store’s gravel parking lot.
“Yes, a black BMW. It’s right over there.” She motioned at the sleek car, gleaming in the brilliant noon sun, parked directly in front of the store.
“He certainly isn’t trying to hide the fact that he’s here. But I don’t see him.” Todd scanned the lot as Jesse backed the vehicle in between two other cars parked against a tall rail fence behind which several horses grazed. “We’ve got to be careful. This could be a trap, Jess.”
“But as you said, he’s made the car obvious. He’s not trying to hide his presence.”
“Don’t be fooled. Remember, he told them you were at the Towson Motor Inn just an hour ago. He sent that guy to kill you.”
A gentle breeze swept Jesse’s hair across her face as she stepped out of the car. Tall oaks spread their limbs over the store like a canopy. Their leaves were just beginning to take on a hint of fall luster. Behind a stone fence to the right of the store was an apple orchard, the trees laden with fruit almost ready to be harvested. And to the left of the store the lush pasture rolled away from the fence up a hill to the mansion atop the rise.
Jesse removed her sunglasses and peered into the darkness of the orchard grove again. Something in there had caught her eye, but as she looked again she saw nothing. It was just her imagination working overtime, she told herself.
“Jess.”
She turned to Todd. “What?”
“There he is.” Todd pointed to the store’s front doorway. David calmly walked out through it with a brown paper bag in his arms.
David waved as he saw them. He placed the bag on the BMW’s hood and jogged toward them. Twenty feet away, he stopped, sensing that he wasn’t welcome to come closer as Todd stepped forward. “Hi, Jesse,” he said.
“Hello,” she answered coldly.
David glanced warily at Todd, then back at her. “Jesse, I need to talk to you alone, without him. Come with me to my car. I’ve got something to show you.”
“Don’t do it, Jess,” Todd said quickly. “You know he works for them. He’s on their side. It’s a trap.”
“You don’t know what the hell you’re talking about,” David snapped. “I know about you, pal.”
“You don’t know anything.”
Todd made a move toward David, but Jesse caught him by the arm. “Why can’t you bring whatever it is here, David?”
“I need to talk to you alone. Come on, Jesse.” David was insistent. “It’s important.”
She began to answer, then out of the corner of her eye noticed a figure walking slowly toward them from the store, little more than fifty feet away now, a large bag obscuring the figure’s face and upper body.
David turned his head, following Jesse’s gaze. From where he stood he could partially see the face behind the bag. Instantly, he took a step back.
Slowly the figure came closer, and then suddenly Jesse recognized the limp. She had watched that limp after the man had almost run into her that day coming out of her office at the branch, supposedly on his way to Sara’s office. Jesse knew exactly who this was. She didn’t need to see the face.
She tried to point and scream, but the scene suddenly became surreal, and she seemed caught in a nightmare, her actions slowed by some unseen force and her voice muted. She became acutely aware of every movement, because Todd, David and the approaching figure all seemed to be going in slow motion.
As a primal scream finally tumbled from her mouth, the bag fell away from the man’s face to the ground, spilling its contents of fruit. David brought his hands up before him, turned and fell to the ground. Todd lunged against the car next to the rental as the man brought a handgun up and fired. The slug smacked the rail fence behind them as Jesse threw herself to the ground, and suddenly everything accelerated to real time.
Jesse scrambled on her hands and knees toward the fence, then jumped to her feet and began running, hunched over at the waist, in the tight space between the cars and the rail fence. Horses in the pasture behind the fence bolted in different directions at the crack of another gunshot, and an instant later one of the Thoroughbreds stumbled to the ground, the victim of a stray bullet. It kicked savagely for a moment, then lay still.
Jesse sprinted wildly on, racing past the last parked car, then past the storefront and behind David’s BMW to the low stone fence in front of the apple orchard. She threw herself over it, vaguely aware of several more pops from the gun, and landed on her hands, arms and chest.
And then Todd was next to her, prone on the ground. He had followed her down the line of cars to the fence and tumbled over it just a second after her.
Jesse was on her feet again instantly, crouched behind the stones. They couldn’t stay here. The man would be on them in no time. She grabbed Todd’s arm as he reached inside his shirt and into the shoulder holster for his .38. “Come on, Todd!”
“One shot,” he snarled, rising up behind the rocks as he withdrew the gun. “Just one shot.”
“No!” She tried to pull him back down, but it was too late.
The slug tore through the right side of Todd’s chest before he could even aim, spraying blood on Jesse’s blouse and jeans. The powerful impact threw Todd backward, and the .38 flew from his grasp into a thick clump of bushes. For a moment Jesse considered going after it. But what if she couldn’t find it? The assassin would be over the fence and she’d be defenseless—and dead.
Todd struggled to his knees, holding his right side with his left hand as blood poured down his shirt. “Go, Jess! Get out of here!” he yelled.
“No!” She raced to him, grabbed his left wrist, and began pulling him back into the thick grove of trees. “I’m not leaving you.”
“I can’t run.” He coughed, spitting blood.
“Come on!” she screamed, grabbing and pulling at his thick wrist until he made it to his feet and began stumbling into the dense underbrush after her.
She ran frantically through the low hanging branches, leading Todd deeper into the orchard, hoping to lose the assassin she knew was tracking quickly behind them. Todd tripped over a downed branch as he struggled to follow her, falling heavily on his side, screaming as he went down, giving away their position.
Jesse stopped, turned and pulled him to his feet again.
“I can’t keep going, Jess,” he gasped, collapsing back to one knee. “Save yourself.”
“You’re going to make it.” His face was already ashen from the loss of blood and she had no confidence he would survive, but she had to keep helping him on. She couldn’t leave him here. He would be killed.
