“That’s what we think. My informant told me Trotta’s either going to get the money back from the wife, or take her out, too—reinforce that message he sent by killing Lamont. Rumor has it this time it won’t be a clean kill. According to my source, if he doesn’t get the money, Trotta’s going to make sure everyone knows that the wife suffered for her husband’s sins.”
George shook his head. “This is a technique that wasn’t touched on in The One Minute Manager. Control through fear of hideous death.”
He glanced at the stage. It was still empty. There was usually a ten-minute break between dancers, which gave him about seven minutes before Kim came on.
“My plan is to pull Alessandra in,” Nicole told him. “Have Trotta think she’s gone into the Witness Protection Program, then let slip her location. We’ve got enough leaks in the local police department—we can make it look unintentional. And when Trotta sends his men to hit her, we’ll be ready for ’em. With luck, we’ll have him on conspiracy and attempted murder in just a few short weeks.”
“And you think Alessandra Lamont’s going to go along with this?” George asked.
Nicole shook her head. “No. We can’t tell her what’s going on. We don’t know the extent of her connection to Trotta. We don’t want her thinking she might have a better shot at surviving by trying to prove her loyalty to him and then blowing our setup.”
George nodded. “And the reason you couldn’t wait until Monday to tell me all this …?”
“Word on the street is that Trotta’s given Mrs. Lamont a deadline. My guy wasn’t clear on exactly how long, but I’m guessing it’s only a matter of days. I need you to go out to her house, tell her what we know about Trotta, and scare her to death.”
Alessandra was scared to death. Her heart was pounding so loudly, it seemed impossible that Michael Trotta couldn’t hear it. A million dollars. Griffin had stolen a million dollars.
The dog, Pinky, was back on his feet.
“But I don’t know where the money is,” she said. “Griffin and I were getting divorced. He wasn’t even living at home. For all I know, he already spent it.”
Michael looked at Ivo. “Did I say I was looking for excuses and complaints?”
“No, sir. You are looking for the money Griffin Lamont stole.”
“As far as we can tell, Griffin took the money almost an entire year ago,” Michael told her. “Early last April. At that time, he was still quite happily married to you.” He stood up. “You’ve got forty-eight hours to find that money, Mrs. Lamont. I suggest you go straight home and get to work.”
“But—”
Ivo’s hand came down on her shoulder. She looked up, and he shook his head at her. It was just a slight movement. Right, then left, then back again. She closed her mouth.
Michael took the dog’s chain leash from the man who was holding it. “Do you know how long it would take for a dog like Pinky to tear apart a person who’s about your height and weight?” he asked.
Fear caught in Alessandra’s throat and she shook her head, soundlessly. No, she didn’t know. A million dollars. If Griffin had spent all or even some of it, she’d never be able to repay it. Not a chance.
Michael smiled, the same smile he’d given her after handing her a drink at his Christmas party. “Neither do I,” he said. “But if you don’t return my money within forty-eight hours, we’re all going to find out.”
The music started to play, loud and pulsating, and George looked at his watch. It was four minutes early. Kim was starting her dance four minutes early. Shit. He slid down off the bar stool. “Maybe we should go find Harry, so you can tell him everything you just told me.”
But then the stage lights came on, and George knew just from looking at Nicole that Kim had come out onstage. She looked at Kim, looked at him, looked back at Kim.
“Jesus,” his ex-wife said. “She looks just like me.”
George snorted in disbelief the way Harry always did, successfully putting just the right amount of disdain into his voice. “She does not.”
“She most certainly does, too.”
He turned and watched Kim, squinting slightly as if trying to see the resemblance between the stripper and his ex-wife. On stage, Kim wriggled out of her skirt, revealing a very, very small thong bikini. She turned to give the audience a better view of her rear end as she danced.
“No, she doesn’t,” he lied. “Well, aside from the fact that you’re both women, and you’re both about the same height …”
“We both have short brown hair, cut almost exactly the same way, and virtually the same facial features. God, George, she could be my twin.”
Kim moved closer to the edge of the stage and let one of the men slip a dollar bill underneath the string of her panties. She smiled and ran her tongue across her teeth.
Nicole punched him on the arm, hard.
“Hey! What’s that for?”
“It’s for being a sick son of a bitch. It’s for getting off on watching someone you can pretend is me act like some kind of bimbo sex toy.” She was madder than hell. Her lips were so tight, her mouth was ringed with white. “Because that’s what this is about, isn’t it?”
“You are so completely paranoid—”
“You really are threatened by the fact that a woman could be as successful as I am at the game you want to win, aren’t you?”
George rolled his eyes. “Oh, that’s just dandy. Let’s drag this topic back to life.”
“Does this girl know you’re only using her for some kind of twisted revenge?”
“Everything always has to do with you, doesn’t it?” he countered. “Has it occurred to you that the vague similarities—which I still don’t really see—might be a coincidence?”
“No.”
“FYI, although it’s none of your damned business, I’m dating Kim purely for the sex, and she’s well aware of that. The feelings are quite mutual. She happens to really enjoy getting it on with an FBI agent—I don’t know why. In my experience, sex with a federal agent sucks.”
As soon as the words left his mouth, he knew he’d struck her hard below the belt. And for one dreadful second, he thought he’d done the impossible. For one dreadful second, he thought he’d made Nicole Fenster cry.
His words weren’t even true. It wasn’t the sex that had sucked. It was the fact that she was so wrapped up in her job, so intent upon breaking through the glass ceiling, that she didn’t have time for him, for them.
But she didn’t cry. As he watched, she grabbed hold of her composure, the way she always did. God forbid she should ever be mistaken for a real, live, flesh-and-blood woman. Her voice was cool, one eyebrow slightly cocked as she asked, “Did you ever have a heart, George? Or did you simply manage to fool me right from the start?”
“You’re the hotshot agent-in-charge—you figure it out. A good mystery like this is right up your alley.”
“Go to hell,” Nicole said and walked away.
George watched until she went out the door but she didn’t look back.
Onstage, Kim had taken off her bikini top. She’d oiled her body, oiled her perfect breasts, and the lights gleamed off them enticingly. George turned away, heading for the pay phones. He had to call Harry.
The walk back down the corridor was just as endlessly long as it had been going toward Michael Trotta’s office.
Forty-eight hours. A million dollars. Forty-eight hours. A million dollars. The singsong in Alessandra’s head repeated over and over and over and …
A man appeared from around the corner. There was only one turn off the warehouse corridor, and a dark-haired man staggered out of it, crashing into her and pushing her up against the wall.
Alessandra screamed at the sight of the face that was only inches from hers. It was scraped and bloody, battered and scratched, one eye almost completely swollen shut.
He was young and Hispanic, with a pencil-thin mustache beneath his nose and full, high cheekbones. His chin-length hair was parted in the
middle. It was dirty and matted with sweat and blood. His clothes were torn and filthy.
“Help me,” he breathed through swollen lips. “Please. I am Enrique Montoy—”
Ivo grabbed him, smashing his head hard into the wall mere inches from Alessandra. She was close enough to hear his grunt of pain, close enough to see his eyes roll up in his head, close enough to smell the stench of fear and blood and urine.
The man’s hands were cuffed behind his back and he was bleeding from more than the scrapes on his face, she realized with horror. The entire side of his shirt was drenched with bright red blood—blood that now stained her own blouse as well.
Ivo thrust the man toward the two other goons who’d been escorting them back to the limousine. He took Alessandra by the arm and hustled her toward the door.
She couldn’t help but look back.
The guards dragged the beaten man just as quickly in the other direction down the corridor, and as she watched, they opened Michael Trotta’s office door and pulled him inside.
Who was that man?
She looked at the grim set to Ivo’s usually impassive face and didn’t dare ask.
He pulled her out the door and pushed her into the waiting limo, this time following her into the back. He closed the door behind them and tapped on the glass, signaling the driver to go.
As she struggled to catch her breath, as she fought to bring her pulse back down to merely heart-stopping as opposed to sheer mindless fear, Ivo took out a crisp white handkerchief and held it out to her.
“There is blood on your face,” he informed her, pointing to his own cheek.
There was blood on her hands, too, and she wiped herself clean as best she could. Her blouse was ruined, her pants as well. She felt numb and faint. This couldn’t be happening.
Help me, please …
She didn’t want to think about that man, didn’t want to think that someone else might be wiping her blood from their hands in forty-eight hours, after Michael Trotta’s deadline had passed.
She forced herself to stay alert, stay in control. She forced back the tears that were threatening to escape, refusing to give Ivo the satisfaction of seeing her completely crumble. She was all alone, completely on her own. No one was going to save her. If she wanted to be saved, she was going to have to save herself.
She took a deep breath, trying to slow herself down, trying to think. Think.
Okay. Okay. Her options were pretty limited. She could look for the money, and she could either find it or not. And if she didn’t find it, if Griffin had spent it, wasted it, she could die. She would die.
She took another breath.
She could run and hide.
And live the rest of her life looking over her shoulder, afraid that someday Michael Trotta would find her, certain that she’d never see Jane again.
Of course, another option would be to go to the police.
Or she could call the FBI.
She sat back against the leather upholstery. She would definitely set aside her mistrust of law enforcement officials and call the FBI. Harry O’Dell had looked like a man who would know what to do. She’d call him. As soon as she got home.
Maybe she wasn’t as completely alone as she’d thought.
Ivo was watching her, his pale blue eyes intent, as if he were reading her mind. “That man,” he said. “Do you know who he was?”
Alessandra shook her head no, surprised he would talk about it.
“He, too, owes Mr. Trotta a great deal of money,” Ivo told her. “But he made the very big mistake of going to the authorities. You will be smarter than he was, yes?”
Alessandra nodded, her fear tightly lodged once again in her throat. Yes.
Her options had just been reduced to one. She would search for the money and pray that when she found it, it would all be there.
She had no choice.
Three
ALESSANDRA STOOD IN her living room, filled with a rising sense of dread, uncertain where to begin.
She’d arrived home to find the police, warrant in hand, searching her house.
They hadn’t found anything, but she knew that somehow they’d found out about the missing money.
Michael Trotta’s men hadn’t found it. The cops hadn’t found it. How on earth was she supposed to find it? Assuming Griffin hadn’t spent it all. Dear Lord.
She’d had to carry the dry cleaning she’d picked up earlier against her body as she’d come inside the house, hiding the drying blood that had stained her clothes.
If the danger that loomed hadn’t been quite so deadly, she might’ve started laughing. Every piece of clothing she owned had been shredded or stained with blood, except for the few articles she’d had at the dry cleaners: an evening gown, a turquoise silk sheath dress, four blouses, and her floor-length black velvet Christmas skirt.
Out of all of those outfits, the silk sheath seemed least inappropriate for searching a house from top to bottom.
She’d changed out of her bloodstained clothes in the bathroom and wrapped them in plastic, intending to take them to the dry cleaners as soon as possible. They would be permanently stained, but at least she could wear them around the house.
Finally the last of the police had left—empty-handed, thank goodness—and once again she was alone in the house. Work crews had replaced the windows in the first floor, but they’d gone home as the sun began to set.
Forty-eight hours. Forty-two hours now. Dear God.
Alessandra sat in the shambles of the living room and tried to think like Griffin. He had just stolen an exorbitant amount of money from the mob: Where would he hide it?
She’d rearranged the room he’d used as his home office back in December, on the day after he’d moved out. She’d packed up all his books and papers and taken his big wooden bookshelves down to the basement, transforming the room into another guest bedroom.
She now had four guest bedrooms and exactly zero friends.
Forcing those thoughts away, she squared her shoulders and got to work.
“How are you, kitten?”
Kim Monahan closed her eyes and let herself hate Michael Trotta. Over the phone, talking to him was easy. She didn’t have to smile, didn’t have to look at him as if she were dying to unzip his pants. She could seethe with anger if she wanted to—as long as it didn’t ring in her voice. “I’m fine.”
“What have you got for me?”
“Nothing much, but you asked me to call, so—”
“Just tell me what you’ve got, and I’ll decide whether or not it’s nothing much.” There was a trace of that nasty edge Trotta sometimes got in his voice. Kim was glad she was separated from him by forty miles of telephone wire. Although, there were times when forty thousand miles wouldn’t seem far enough.
“All right,” she said evenly. “He made a single phone call last night, got a machine, left a message for Harry. That’s his partner. He was brief, simply said to call him at home. But nobody called back. He called again this morning, connected with Harry, told him he was going to swing by and pick him up, take another trip out to the Island. After he hung up I asked him which island he was going to, and why he had to go there on a Sunday. He didn’t give me an answer.”
George had looked down at her, still naked in his bed, as if he somehow knew she was only there because she was working for Trotta. But he couldn’t possibly know. There was no way he could know.
He wasn’t particularly attractive—not according to her standards. She liked hockey players, football players. Big beefy bruisers with broad shoulders and arms the size of her thighs. George Faulkner was a far cry from that.
His face was handsome enough, in a sort of elegant way—if you liked pretty men. He was tall and graceful, with long tapered fingers and nails that were better manicured than hers.
She should’ve hated him, the way she hated Michael Trotta, the way she often hated herself.
But he had a certain gentleness about him. A kindness. And when he laughed,
when his eyes lit up with amusement, she didn’t think about the fact that his shoulders weren’t particularly wide or that his biceps weren’t the biggest she’d ever seen in her life.
And no, he didn’t know she was working for Trotta. That had been her own guilt she’d seen reflected in his eyes.
“What time did he leave his apartment?”
“A little after nine.”
“Stay close and keep in touch. Don’t go anywhere,” Trotta told her and hung up.
“Where would I go that you couldn’t find me?” Kim asked the empty line.
“If you light that cigarette,” Harry said, getting into the car, “I’ll kill you.”
George reached for the car lighter. “You know, you’d get a lot further if you started using words like please and thank you.”
“Please don’t make me fucking kill you. Thank you.”
George put the lighter back. “Much better.” He pulled out into the Sunday morning traffic, slipping the unlit cigarette into his shirt pocket. “Is there a reason you look as if you haven’t slept since I dropped you home Friday night?”
Harry closed his eyes, slumped in his seat. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
“If it has to do with a woman, it’s okay—you can look as tired as you want.”
Harry kept his eyes tightly shut. “Take the Cross Island down to the Southern State. The L.I.E.’s already backed up.”
“I take it that’s a no—no woman is involved.”
“Please just shut the fuck up. Thank you.”
“You’ve been working the street for far too long,” George said cheerfully. “You need to buy a thesaurus and find yourself a new favorite word.”
Harry didn’t answer.
“Either that,” George hypothesized, “or you’ve got to get laid—get your mind off the subject. I happen to know that Kim has a friend who—”
Harry gave up. “I got to my room night before last,” he interrupted, “to find my answering machine completely filled with messages from Shaun.” The first of the messages had been old—dated back almost two months ago. His first thought had been God, had it really been that long since he’d called his kids? But he knew it had. He dreaded calling home. It was too hard, even now, two years later. “He didn’t say what was up, just ‘It’s Shaun again, call me.’ It was late, but I thought someone would be up in the house, so I called.” The time difference made it earlier for them. “No answer. Machine wasn’t on, nothing.”
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