by Harlan Coben
Myron nodded.
“So we cleared the floor. And then I saw Old Man Bradford’s so-called security expert. Creepy little guy. Scared the piss out of me. Sam something.”
“Sam Richards,” Myron said.
“Yeah, right, Richards. That’s the guy. He spewed out the same dribble I’d already heard. Girl trouble. Nothing to worry about. He’d clean it up. The girl was a little shaky, but they’d get her patched up and pay her off. It would all go away. That’s how it is with the rich. Money cleans all spills. So the first thing this Sam guy does is carry the girl out. I wasn’t supposed to see it. I was supposed to stay down at the end of the corridor. But I looked anyway. Sam had her wrapped in a sheet and carried her over his shoulder like a fireman. But for a split second I saw her face. And I knew who it was. Anita Slaughter. Her eyes were closed. She hung over his shoulder like a bag of oats.”
Wickner took a plaid handkerchief out of his pocket. He unfolded it slowly and wiped his nose as if he were buffing a fender. Then he folded it up again and put it back in his pocket. “I didn’t like what I saw,” he said. “So I ran over to Roy and told him we had to stop it. Roy said, how would we explain even being here? What would we say, that we were helping Bradford cover up a smaller crime? He was right, of course. There was nothing we could do. So I went back to the end of the corridor. Sam was back in the room by now. I heard him using a vacuum. He took his time and cleaned the entire room. I kept telling myself it was no big deal. She was just a black woman from Newark. Hell, they all did drugs, right? And she was gorgeous. Probably partying with one of the Bradford boys and it got out of hand. Maybe she OD’d. Maybe Sam was going to take her someplace and get her some help and give her money. Just like he said. So I watched Sam finish cleaning up. I saw him get in the car. And I saw him drive away with Chance Bradford.”
“Chance?” Myron repeated. “Chance Bradford was there?”
“Yes. Chance was the boy in trouble.” Wickner sat back. He stared at the gun. “And that’s the end of my tale, Myron.”
“Wait a second. Anita Slaughter checked into that hotel with her daughter. Did you see her there?”
“No.”
“Do you have any idea where Brenda is now?”
“She probably got tangled up with the Bradfords. Like her mother.”
“Help me save her, Eli.”
Wickner shook his head. “I’m tired, Myron. And I got nothing more to say.”
Eli Wickner lifted the shotgun.
“It’s going to come out,” Myron said. “Even if you kill me, you can’t cover it all up.”
Wickner nodded. “I know.” He didn’t lower the weapon.
“My telephone is on,” Myron continued quickly. “My friend has heard every word. Even if you kill me—”
“I know that too, Myron.” A tear slid out of Eli’s eye. He tossed Myron a small key. For the handcuffs. “Tell everyone I’m sorry.”
Then he put the shotgun in his mouth.
Myron tried to bolt from the chair, the cuff holding him back. He yelled, “No!” But the sound was drowned out by the blast of the shotgun. Bats squealed and flew away. Then all was silent again.
Win arrived a few minutes later. He looked down at the two bodies and said, “Tidy.”
Myron did not reply.
“Did you touch anything?”
“I already wiped the place down,” Myron said.
“A request,” Win said.
Myron looked at him.
“Next time a gun is fired under similar circumstances, say something immediately. A good example might be ‘I’m not dead.’ ”
“Next time,” Myron said.
They left the cabin. They drove to a nearby twenty-four-hour supermarket. Myron parked the Taurus and got in the Jag with Win.
“Where to?” Win asked.
“You heard what Wickner said?”
“Yes.”
“What do you make of it?”
“I’m still processing,” Win said. “But clearly the answer lies within Bradford Farms.”
“So most likely does Brenda.”
Win nodded. “If she’s still alive.”
“So that’s where we should go.”
“Rescuing the fair maiden from the tower?”
“If she’s even there, which is a big if. And we can’t go in with guns blazing. Someone might panic and kill her.” Myron reached for his phone. “Arthur Bradford wants an update. I think I’ll give him one. Now. In person.”
“They may very well try to kill you.”
“That’s where you come in,” Myron said.
Win smiled. “Bitching.” His word of the week.
They turned onto Route 80 and headed east.
“Let me bounce a few thoughts off you,” Myron said.
Win nodded. He was used to this game.
“Here’s what we know,” Myron said. “Anita Slaughter is assaulted. Three weeks later she witnesses Elizabeth Bradford’s suicide. Nine months pass. Then she runs away from Horace. She empties out the bank account, grabs her daughter, and hides out at the Holiday Inn. Now here is where things get murky. We know that Chance Bradford and Sam end up there. We know they end up taking an injured Anita off the premises. We also know that sometime before that Anita calls Horace and tells him to pick up Brenda—”
Myron broke off and looked at Win. “What time would that have been?”
“Pardon?”
“Anita called Horace to pick up Brenda. That had to be before Sam arrived on the scene, right?”
“Yes.”
“But here’s the thing. Horace told Mabel that Anita called him. But maybe Horace was lying. I mean, why would Anita call Horace? It makes no sense. She’s running away from the man. She’s taken all his money. Why would she then call Horace and give away her location? She might call Mabel, for example, but never Horace.”
Win nodded. “Go on.”
“Suppose … suppose we’re looking at this all wrong. Forget the Bradfords for the moment. Take it from Horace’s viewpoint. He gets home. He finds the note. Maybe he even learns that his money is gone. He’d be furious. So suppose Horace tracked Anita down at the Holiday Inn. Suppose he went there to take back his child and his money.”
“By force,” Win added.
“Yes.”
“Then he killed Anita?”
“Not killed. But maybe he beat the hell out of her. Maybe he even left her for dead. Either way, he takes Brenda and the money back. Horace calls his sister. He tells her that Anita called him to pick up Brenda.”
Win frowned. “And then what? Anita hides from Horace for twenty years—lets him raise her daughter by himself—because she was scared of him?”
Myron didn’t like that. “Maybe,” he said.
“And then, if I follow your logic, twenty years later Anita becomes aware that Horace is looking for her. So is she the one who killed him? A final showdown? But then who grabbed Brenda? And why? Or is Brenda in cahoots with her mother? And while we’ve dismissed the Bradfords for the sake of hypothesizing, how do they factor into all this? Why would they be concerned enough to cover up Horace Slaughter’s crime? Why was Chance Bradford at the hotel that night in the first place?”
“There are holes,” Myron admitted.
“There are chasms of leviathan proportions,” Win corrected.
“There’s another thing I don’t get. If the Bradfords have had a tap on Mabel’s phone this whole time, wouldn’t they have been able to trace Anita’s calls?”
Win mulled that one over. “Maybe,” he said, “they did.”
Silence. Myron flipped on the radio. The game was in the second half. The New York Dolphins were getting crushed. The announcers were speculating on the whereabouts of Brenda Slaughter. Myron turned the volume down.
“We’re still missing something,” Myron said.
“Yes, but we’re getting close.”
“So we still try the Bradfords.”
Win nodded. “Open the glove c
ompartment. Arm yourself like a paranoid despot. This may get ugly.”
Myron did not argue. He dialed Arthur’s private line. Arthur answered midway through the first ring. “Have you found Brenda?” Arthur asked.
“I’m on my way to your house,” Myron said.
“Then you’ve found her?”
“I’ve be there in fifteen minutes,” Myron said. “Tell your guards.”
Myron hung up. “Curious,” he said to Win.
“What?”
And then it hit Myron. Not slowly. But all at once. A tremendous avalanche buried him in one fell swoop. With a trembling hand Myron dialed another number into the cell phone.
“Norm Zuckerman, please. Yes, I know he’s watching the game. Tell him it’s Myron Bolitar. Tell him it’s urgent. And tell him I want to talk with McLaughlin and Tiles too.”
The guard at Bradford Farms shone a flashlight into the car. “You alone, Mr. Bolitar?”
“Yes,” Myron said.
The gate went up. “Please proceed to the main house.”
Myron drove in slowly. Per their plan, he slowed on the next curve. Silence. Then Win’s voice came through the phone: “I’m out.”
Out of the trunk. So smooth Myron had not even heard him.
“I’m going on mute,” Win said. “Let me know where you are at all times.”
The plan was simple: Win would search the property for Brenda while Myron tried not to get himself killed.
He continued up the drive, both hands on the wheel. Part of him wanted to stall; most of him wanted to get at Arthur Bradford immediately. He knew the truth now. Some of it anyway. Enough to save Brenda.
Maybe.
The grounds were silk black, the farm animals silent. The mansion loomed above him, floating almost, only tenuously connected with the world beneath it. Myron parked and got out of the car. Before he reached the door, Mattius the Manservant was there. It was ten o’clock at night, but Mattius still displayed fall butler garb and rigid spine. He said nothing, waiting with almost inhuman patience.
When Myron reached him, Mattius said, “Mr. Bradford will see you in the library.”
Myron nodded. And that was when someone hit him in the head. There was a thud, and then a thick, blackening numbness swam through him. His skull tingled. Still reeling, Myron felt a bat smash the back of his lower thighs. His legs buckled, and he dropped to his knees.
“Win,” he managed.
A boot stomped him hard between the shoulder blades. Myron crashed facefirst into the ground. He felt the air whoosh out of him. There were hands on him now. Searching. Grabbing out the weapons.
“Win,” he said again.
“Nice try.” Sam stood over him. He was holding Myron’s phone. “But I hung it up, I Spy.”
Two other men lifted Myron by the armpits and quickly dragged him into the foyer and down the corridor. Myron tried to blink out the fuzzies. His entire body felt like a thumb hit with a hammer. Sam walked in front of him. He opened a door, and the two men tossed Myron in like a sack of peat moss. He started to roll down steps, but he managed to stop his descent before he hit bottom.
Sam stepped inside. The door closed behind him.
“Come on,” Sam said. “Let’s get this done.”
Myron managed to sit up. A basement, Myron realized. He was on the steps of a basement.
Sam walked toward him. He reached out a hand. Myron took it and pulled himself to his feet. The two men walked down the steps.
“This section of the basement is windowless and cement-lined,” Sam said. Like he was giving a house tour. “So the only way in or out is through that door. Understand?”
Myron nodded.
“I got two men at the top of the steps. They’re going to spread out now. And they’re pros, not like that Mario asswipe. So no one is getting through that door. Understand?”
Another nod.
Sam took out a cigarette and put it between his lips. “Lastly, we saw your buddy jump out of the trunk. I got two marine sharpshooters hidden out there. Persian Gulf War vets. Your friend comes anywhere near the house, he’s toast. The windows are all alarmed. The motion detectors are set. I’m in radio contact with all four of my men under four different frequencies.” He showed Myron a walkie-talkie of some kind with a digital readout.
“Different frequencies,” Myron repeated. “Wow.”
“I say all this not to impress you but to stress how dumb a flight attempt would be. Do you understand?”
One more nod.
They were in a wine cellar now. It smelled as robust and oaky as, well, a perfectly aged chardonnay. Arthur was there. His face was skull-like, his skin drawn up tautly against his cheekbones. Chance was there too. He was sipping red wine, studying the color, trying very hard to look casual.
Myron glanced about the wine cellar. Lots of bottles in crisscrossed shelves, all tilted slightly forward so the corks would remain properly moist. A giant thermometer. A few wooden barrels, mostly for show. There were no windows. No doors. No other visible entranceways. In the center of the room was a hefty mahogany table.
The table was bare except for a gleaming set of pruning shears.
Myron looked back at Sam. Sam smiled, still holding a gun.
“Label me intimidated,” Myron said.
Sam shrugged.
“Where is Brenda?” Arthur demanded.
“I don’t know,” Myron said.
“And Anita? Where is she?”
“Why don’t you ask Chance?” Myron said.
“What?”
Chance sat up. “He’s crazy.”
Arthur stood. “You’re not leaving here until I’m satisfied that you’re not holding out on me.”
“Fine,” Myron said. “Then let’s get to it, Arthur. You see, I’ve been dumb about this whole thing. I mean, the clues were all there. The old phone taps. Your keen interest in all this. The earlier assault on Anita. Ransacking Horace’s apartment and taking Anita’s letters. The cryptic calls telling Brenda to contact her mother. Sam cutting those kids’ Achilles tendons. The scholarship money. But you know what finally gave it away?”
Chance was about to say something, but Arthur waved him into silence. He strummed his chin with his index finger. “What?” he asked.
“The timing of Elizabeth’s suicide,” Myron said.
“I don’t understand.”
“The timing of the suicide,” Myron repeated, “and more important, your family’s attempt to alter it. Why would Elizabeth kill herself at six in the morning—at the exact moment Anita Slaughter was coming to work? Coincidence? Possibly. But then why did you all work so hard to change the time? Elizabeth could have just as easily had her accident at six A.M. as midnight. So why the change?”
Arthur kept his back straight. “You tell me.”
“Because the timing was not incidental,” Myron said. “Your wife committed suicide when she did and how she did for a reason. She wanted Anita Slaughter to see her jump.”
Chance made a noise. “That’s ridiculous.”
“Elizabeth was depressed,” Myron continued, looking straight at Arthur. “I don’t doubt that. And I don’t doubt that you once loved her. But that was a long time ago. You said she hadn’t been herself for years. I don’t doubt that either. But three weeks before her suicide Anita was assaulted. I thought one of you beat her. Then I thought that maybe Horace did it. But the most noticeable injuries were scratches. Deep scratches. Like a cat, Wickner said.” Myron looked at Arthur. Arthur seemed to be shrinking in front of him, being sucked dry by his own memories.
“Your wife was the one who attacked Anita,” Myron said. “First she attacked her, and then three weeks later, still despondent, she committed suicide in front of her—because Anita was having an affair with her husband. It was the final mental straw that broke her, wasn’t it, Arthur? So how did it happen? Did Elizabeth walk in on you two? Did she seem so far gone that you got careless?”
Arthur cleared his throat. “As a mat
ter of fact, yes. That’s pretty much how it happened. But so what? What does that have to do with the present?”
“Your affair with Anita. How long did it last?”
“I don’t see the relevance of that.”
Myron looked at him for a long moment. “You’re an evil man,” he said. “You were raised by an evil man, and you have much of him in you. You’ve caused great suffering. You’ve even had people killed. But this wasn’t a fling, was it? You loved her, didn’t you, Arthur?”
He said nothing. But something behind the facade began to cave in.
“I don’t know how it happened,” Myron continued. “Maybe Anita wanted to leave Horace. Or maybe you encouraged her. It doesn’t matter. Anita decided to run away and start new. Tell me what the plan was, Arthur. Were you going to set her up in an apartment? A house out of town? Surely no Bradford was going to marry a black maid from Newark.”
Arthur made a noise. Half scoff. Half groan. “Surely,” he said.
“So what happened?”
Sam kept several steps back, his gaze moving from the basement door to Myron. He whispered into his walkie-talkie every once in a while. Chance sat frozen, both nervous and comforted; nervous about what was being unearthed; comforted because he believed it would never leave this cellar. Perhaps he was right.
“Anita was my last hope,” Arthur said. He bounced two fingers off his lips and forced up a smile. “It’s ironic, don’t you think? If you come from a disadvantaged home, you can blame the environment for your sinful ways. But what about an omnipotent household? What about those who are raised to dominate others, to take what they want? What about those who are raised to believe that they are special and that other people are little more than window dressing? What about those children?”
