Sin And Vengeance

by West, CJ

  The fleshy man from the blue sedan stood and argued with the young woman behind the desk. He gestured excitedly, while the woman calmly shook her head from side to side. He wasn’t giving up, but the woman smiled past him and greeted Deirdre, ending their conversation. The man snatched his plastic key off the counter and trudged out to his car, obviously frustrated with her answer.

  “Checking out?”

  Deirdre nodded and handed the woman her room key.

  The woman slid the key into the reader, and typed a few keystrokes.

  “Was everything ok, Ms. Evans?”

  “Fine.”

  She pressed a few more buttons and stepped to the printer, which seemed to have a malfunction of some sort. Deirdre’s heart pulsed steadily faster as she watched the woman look helplessly at the machine as if it might heal itself. After days hiding in the tiny room, she felt exposed in the open lobby. She cut her eyes from entrance to entrance then hastily back to the woman, who was now frowning and punching buttons on the control panel.

  Acutely aware of each passing second, Deirdre turned her back to the desk and surveyed the lobby. The faux-marble floor tiles were arranged in an X that marked Deirdre’s location. Beyond them, the carpeted sitting area was vacant. A movement in the opposite corner drew her eyes to the plastic branches of a faux hibiscus. A cluster of leaves danced to the currents of an overhead fan. To her right, the maid wheeled her cart down to another guestroom door. Nothing else moved until finally the inkjet sputtered to life.

  Deirdre retrieved six hundreds and placed them on the counter before the clerk let go of the statement. She signed a hurried scribble and left eighty two dollars and fifty one cents for a tip.

  The heavyset man returned, clumsily tugging a large wheeled suitcase through the doors. Too uncouth for a hired killer, she decided. She continued the length of the hall, seeing no one but the maid delivering toiletries and towels.

  The chrome grill of the Volvo faced her from the parking lot. Charlie flicked the lights and she rushed out to join him. She heaved her bags onto the leather back seat, slammed the door tight as a vault, and hopped up front. She nearly threw herself over the console to wrap her arms around him. No matter what had happened between them or what Henri thought, she’d never been happier to see a man in her life.

  Charlie kissed her and slipped a hand free to shift into drive. Deirdre took her cue and eased back enough so he could maneuver.

  “Ok?”

  Deirdre could only imagine how frightened she looked. “Better now.”

  The car turned toward the highway. Charlie got on heading west.

  “Where are we going?”

  “Home.”

  “You’re kidding!”

  “I’ve got to take care of the winery.”

  “Are you nuts? He’s already killed Henri and Monique. Screw the winery, let’s drive West! Drive until you make the border. Further is better.”

  “Dee, stop. It’s me he wants. I can’t leave. Who knows what he’ll do to my parents’ winery?”

  “And what good is the silly winery after you’re underground?”

  “Listen. My parents will help. Certainly we’re safer as a team.”

  She wished she could whisper to him about TJ. He would change direction, turn away from his home, while the marine lay awaiting Randy.

  “No worries. It’s ok.”

  Deirdre shut tight her eyes then palmed a short prayer for TJ.

  Chapter Thirty-six

  Video cameras were aimed toward the scorched-to-ruin house across E. Agawam Street. Expensive, TJ imagined, a home system of appreciable value. He crept, circling low to the arborvitaes. Avoiding notice, he stood facing the rear bulkhead. Alone still, he worked his finger nervously inside, underneath, searching, probing the rim for a way to jam his lever in. At once it opened, unlocked, yawning wide. Measuredly easing along on the stairway, his .45 drawn, he came down to the gray masonite door. Easily it opened. Idling along a rock hard cement wall, he wanted to burst in, but stood in total silence for the wail of the alarm. Utter quiet.

  Adjusting to little light inside, he saw a glaring uncomfortable void. A shiny furnace, sprinkler controls, a heavy gray electrical box retreated awkwardly away. In the vast dank room, he needed a home gym, nuclear target range, any use to fill the storage area. In three days since he started watching, he saw Randy leave daily. He knew the house might be a sty upstairs, and it might be empty, but it wasn’t vacant. The emptiness did explain why Randy left his doors unlocked. There was nothing to steal.

  TJ stalked underneath the wooden stairs and examined the crisscrossing wires stapled to the floor joists overhead. Two thin wires disappeared into the ceiling on either side of the door at the top of the stairs. The door was alarmed and there was probably a control panel on the opposite side. He considered staying in the cellar until Randy came home and turned the alarm off, but there was no place to hide and the house was so big, he might not hear Randy come in. He chose to climb the stairs and rush to the panel, hoping to guess the code. If he couldn’t shut it off, he’d run out the way he came and try again tomorrow. He’d be gone before anyone saw him.

  He hesitated a few seconds at the top of the stairs, listening through the door then he burst through and stood in a wide hall that split the house. No sirens wailed, not even a beep indicated he’d entered. The panel was just inside the door where he expected it. The display indicated “Ready.”

  How odd to have such an expensive alarm system and leave it turned off and the house unlocked. TJ flashed looks all around thinking he’d walked in on Randy while he was home. He’d seen him drive off an hour ago and it was unlikely he’d be back soon, but still he was unsteady.

  TJ skulked around each corner expecting to find Randy waiting for him. It would have been easy for Randy to sneak back in, but he couldn’t know TJ was stalking him. The house was silent and everywhere TJ looked, he found it empty. The McLaren was in the garage, but the grey box van was gone. TJ assured himself he was alone. Randy was out.

  He relaxed, studying the house now, calculating the best ambush point. With so many entrances and so many rooms, any ambush was a gamble. He found himself in the widest part of the kitchen facing the garage door, three steps from cover. Randy would park and walk through that door on his way in. He did it every day and this was the ideal spot to take him.

  If TJ sprung at the right time, he’d catch Randy in the middle of the floor. He could get off two or three shots before Randy could duck for cover, but if TJ popped up late and missed his chance, he’d be trapped behind the island. Randy could counter from the dining room, the foyer, or the hall. TJ couldn’t know for sure if he’d be armed. He could fight it out from behind the island or run for the garage.

  After studying the angle of the island to each of the three openings, he realized a good combat shooter could move to the foyer and keep him pinned until the police arrived. He moved on down the hall looking for other options. Nothing seemed promising until he turned a knob and found the door locked. It wasn’t one of those cheap push-button locks any six-year-old can pop open and walk in on his parents in the bathroom. TJ had to use his picks and it took him a few seconds to get it unlocked. Inside was a study lined with empty bookshelves. A desk on the near wall supported three television monitors cycling through a series of views around the house. The house across the street appeared from three different angles and then the kitchen, the cellar and the hall. TJ had passed those cameras without seeing them. He realized with a start that the expensive cameras outside were just for show. The real security was inside.

  This system could have already notified the police. He’d been in the house five maybe six minutes. The police would take ten, fifteen at the most. He eyed the door, but didn’t bolt. If those cameras took his picture, he couldn’t risk finishing this job. He couldn’t even contract it out. The police would be all over him.

  He began searching for a recorder. He yanked open a set of false drawer-fronts and found a
computer with green lights flickering. The wireless keyboard was in the top drawer and a tap brought a password prompt up on one of the monitors. TJ guessed—Randy, Black, Marston, Charlie, winery—and then stared at the screen. He was no computer expert and seeing how far Randy had gone to secure his home, guessing the password was going to be impossible.

  He turned his attention to the monitors, following their cables into the desk. Down on his knees, he stuck his head in alongside the computer and felt around in the darkness to where the cables came down from above. They attached into the computer along with dozens of the thin wires he’d seen in the basement.

  The images were somewhere on the computer and the best way to keep them from the police was to smash it and throw it in a landfill. He yanked out the wires one-by-one, rendering the motion sensors, door and window alarms, and the cameras useless. He pulled the remaining cables and hefted the machine onto his shoulder.

  …

  A pumpkin beetle somehow made its way through the camouflage netting into one of Randy’s childhood haunts, now rebuilt as a low-slung observation post. The insect buzzed in Randy’s ear, touched down on his neck, and folded its wings. Randy plucked it and let it scuttle around his palm for a few seconds. He placed it on a slender stick and watched the bug tote its orange shell away.

  Randy re-focused his attention outside.

  The foliage was bursting so thickly that Randy had had to trim several branches to maintain a clear line of site to the three buildings he watched from this spot. Even so, his hideout was invisible from the winery. Everyone who came here was drawn to the expanse of vines on the lower side of the road. Few bothered to gaze up the slope into the trees and to those who did, Randy’s hideout appeared to be a decaying brush pile.

  When the S80 pulled up the drive, Charlie and Deirdre barely glanced in his direction. He watched the car turn away and park in front of Charlie’s house less than a hundred yards away. He smiled as Charlie held open the damaged storm door for Deirdre and followed her inside. With any luck Charles and Elizabeth would arrive before nightfall.

  Randy’s pager buzzed for the fifth time in as many minutes. He unclipped it from his belt and scrolled through the messages.

  Bulkhead access

  Cellar door

  Inside garage door

  Kitchen motion sensor

  Study

  Invalid console password

  Invalid console password

  Invalid console password

  Invalid console password

  Invalid console password

  The bald man who’d been poking around the house for the last few days had finally gotten up the nerve to go inside. He’d found the security system and no doubt he’d realized his picture had been taken a dozen times.

  Thunderheads were blowing in from the west. The one thing he couldn’t control was about to fall into place.

  The game was on.

  Chapter Thirty-seven

  Charles sat with his back to the window watching his wife of twenty-four years hold herself turned away from him in such an unnatural position she’d be sore in the morning. Her half of the eight-passenger limousine was crowded with hostility, bitterness, and betrayal seated all around her. She scowled hotly at the passing scenery, fuming with disdain. She hadn’t uttered a word in four hours and he wondered how she would react if she ever learned about all his dealings.

  To keep her safe, he’d endure her venomous looks. They were nothing compared to the hatred that seethed from Oliver Joyet when Charles last faced the boy years ago. Infuriated by the injustice he’d witnessed, Oliver glared with vengefulness at the unpunished criminal before him. That vengefulness had driven him to collect contaminated bottles and take a picture that could bring Charles to his knees. The boy should have used the money to find peace rather than revenge. Charles hoped his hatred would be his undoing.

  The limo turned off the highway and sped south down route 88, a corridor cut straight through a vast expanse of forest from route 195 to the ocean. Charles relived the despair he felt on his first trip down this road. Laid-off from a management job years earlier, Charles had plunged into winemaking. He’d enthusiastically cleared twenty acres and planted fifty, but the grapes he chose failed to sufficiently ripen two out of three years. The family’s resources had dwindled almost to nothing and he compounded his problems with mistakes in the winery that made his scarce grapes into undrinkable wines.

  It was then that Charles started looking for help. He learned of the Joyets’ winery just twenty miles away and that they’d successfully harvested the same grapes that had failed him year after year. He offered a partnership; a sharing of vineyard and winery expertise in exchange for his management help. The Joyets agreed and Charles rushed to learn how to save his struggling business. Unfortunately, the Joyets’ secret proved to be something Charles couldn’t duplicate—the Atlantic Ocean. The Joyets planted their vines within three miles of Buzzard’s Bay. The cool ocean water meant spring temperatures came later. Their buds broke at a time when the new leaves were safe from late frosts. The summer and fall were breezy and mild and the grapes steadily ripened on into November. In winter, the ocean water, now warm, protected the vines from the harsh temperatures and deep snows that blanketed Charles’ crops further inland. Charles became desperate.

  The car turned off route 88 and acre after acre of vines came into view. These vines had tempted him to take what he could not build. The choice had brought prosperity for fifteen years, but now it threatened to tear his family apart.

  Charles shuddered and checked his watch. Two o’clock.

  When the limo turned past the Marston Vineyards sign, Charles was disappointed to find the “Open” flag missing. He wondered how many sales had been lost due to Charlie’s carelessness. He considered stopping to put out the flag himself, but decided to let Charlie do his own work.

  Nine hundred feet down the drive, the shattered glass in the storm door told of the shenanigans that went on when Charles was away. Charlie was still treating the business like some government entitlement that would be there whether he tended to it or not. Randy’s car was nowhere in sight, but the slovenly mongrel couldn’t be far away. Hadn’t the encounter with Lieutenant Laroche taught Charlie anything? Charles had given everything to build a legacy for his family and his only son treated it with such indifference. If he only understood the sacrifices he’d made.

  The limo drove another hundred feet and parked at the main house. Charlie appeared in his doorway and crossed the lawn with Deirdre following close behind. Elizabeth donned a smile, eager to leave the car and meet her son. Charles waited for the driver to hoist the bags from the trunk, paid him, and joined Elizabeth, Charlie, and Deirdre on the lawn between the two houses.

  “Forget something today?” Charles asked.

  Charlie stared back like a fourth-grader who’d mislaid his homework.

  “The flag… out front. It’s Tuesday afternoon, aren’t we open?”

  “Sorry.”

  The apology lacked the remorse Charles expected.

  “Who’s in the gift shop?”

  Charlie’s head wobbled noncommittally.

  “What’s going on with you, Charlie? Didn’t your meeting with that gendarme teach you anything? Look at you. It’s two o’clock. We’ve probably missed two dozen sales today and you’re in the house doing God knows what, with a woman you barely know. There’s plenty of time for that after dark. Sebastian’s been whining about the workload for a month. If you want to work here so bad, I suggest you grow up and shoulder some responsibility.”

  Deirdre stepped back looking for a place to disappear.

  “It’s not what you think,” Charlie said.

  The broken glass caught his attention again. “What about your storm door? I suppose that had nothing to do with that scum I told you to get rid of.”

  Charles didn’t wait for a response. He honed in on Deirdre instead. “What about you? Aren’t we paying you to work in the vineyar
d?”

  Deirdre blushed. “I took the day off, sir.”

  “Seems there’s a lot of that going around,” he fumed.

  Deirdre’s expression hinted at a larger story, but Charles wasn’t interested in explanations. He pointed toward the bags at the edge of the lawn. “Do something useful, Charlie. Bring your mother’s bags in.” He turned and stormed off, collecting his own bags before lumbering toward the house.

  Charlie stepped up, hugged his mother, and did what his father asked. As he lifted two heavy bags, he turned to Deirdre, who showed no signs of following him inside. “I’ll be right back.”

  Moments later, Charles opened the garage door and sped away in his BMW 760i, headed for the bank.

  …

  Elizabeth watched the BMW turn onto the main road with a faint chirp as the rear tires reached the pavement. She reached out a hand to corral Deirdre toward the house. “Sorry, dear. He’s had a very long trip.”

  Deirdre fell into step. “No offense taken, Mrs. Marston.”

  “Call me Elizabeth, or Liz if you like.”

  Deirdre was the first woman Charlie had spent time with since Julie left him. She wasn’t sure which hurt her son worse, knowing he’d limp forever, being left out of the NFL draft, or losing Julie. It was a lot for a young man to take at once. Now that she saw him happy, Elizabeth wasn’t going to let her husband interfere. Let them have their fling. The age gap would push them apart soon enough.

  Charlie met them on the front steps.

  “Thanks for bringing my things in.”

  “Sure, Mom.”

  “Are you all right? You look a bit pale.” Charlie usually handled his father’s outbursts well, but he seemed off. “Your father didn’t mean anything. He’s had—”