The FBI Thrillers Collection: Vol 11-15
Page 100
“Most of the ICU saw him,” Joanna said. “He was fantastic. I can’t wait for him to get together with Autumn.”
While Sherlock told them another Sean story, Savich thought about things. He realized that even his gut now accepted that Autumn would live. She would be herself again. But the other, her incredible gift—since she’d been shot, he’d picture her in his mind many times every day, but he couldn’t reach her. Nor had she called to him. It would be nice, he kept thinking, to speak to Autumn, no matter where she was, just to know how she was doing, what she’d done that day.
Would Autumn tell Sean about her gift? Would she be able to speak to Sean? Who knew? Sean was his son, after all. But the question now was, and he hated even to consider it, would she still have her ability at all?
Savich said, “The evening Sean was on TV, it was next to impossible to get him to bed. He was so high, I had to pull him off the ceiling. His grandmother—my mom—didn’t help. She was stuffing him with brownies she’d brought over, telling him he was the next Matt Damon.” Savich grinned. “I’ll bet he’s missing all the attention, with only Gabriella for a slave until we get home. I understand, though, that his best friend, Marty, from right next door, isn’t happy with him. She called him a show-off, said he should have talked about her on TV, since she’s been his friend all these years, and he was boring.”
Ethan returned with three coffees and a cup of tea, four fat bagels, and a dozen packets of cream cheese and butter. He grinned. “Ambrosia for the arteries.”
Joanna was smiling as she spread a thick coat of cream cheese on her bagel. “Do you know, this is the first time in a week I’ve been hungry?” She took a huge bite. “Ah, that tastes nearly as good as you do, Ethan…” Her voice dropped off, her face turned red.
Ethan laughed at her. It sounded so sane, so normal.
Joanna cleared her throat. “I have always blushed. It is my curse, along with my freckles. Dillon, you were talking about Victor Nesser?”
“Well, not really.”
“Who cares?” Sherlock said, and poked him in the side. “Tell Joanna what’s going to happen to Victor.”
Savich said after he’d sipped the lovely Lipton tea, “Marvin Cutler, Esquire, from L.A., has taken Victor’s case pro bono. He announced to a dozen cameras and fifty reporters that he’s putting together a team and—har, har—he is doing this for the public good, not for the publicity. He’s claiming Victor was Lissy’s puppet, a slave under her control, and he only did what she forced him to do. It was Lissy who did all the killing.
“He’s also saying the FBI brutalized Victor, even shot him in the foot for the fun of it after they’d captured him, and the poor young man will limp badly for the rest of his life.”
“Fact is,” Savich continued, “I’m doubtful Victor will go to court when the DOJ prosecutors present all the evidence to Victor’s dream team. I’m thinking Victor will agree to life without parole rather than risk being tried in Virginia where there’s the death penalty. That’s where Lissy shot both a father and mother to steal their car. The mother died.”
Sherlock said as she broke off a piece of bagel, “We heard yesterday that Victor is refusing to eat, refusing to talk, refusing even to see his lawyer. I’m thinking he’s grieving for Lissy. What was between the two of them, no matter how twisted and perverse, it was strong and deep. She was the center of his life. I don’t think he knows what to do or think or how to act without her. Was Victor the center of Lissy’s life? Maybe so. Dillon suggested they put him on a suicide watch.”
Ethan said, “A DEA friend of mine told me Lissy Smiley was buried yesterday beside her mother in Fort Pessel, Virginia. He said the local media plastered a photo of Lissy all over the TV, from back when she was ten years old and looked adorable. The media never fails to astonish me. They go after a criminal tooth and nail until the criminal is captured. Then they do a one-eighty and scream it’s not his fault, point to all the dreadful things that happened in his childhood, how society failed him, blah, blah.”
Savich was chewing on his bagel as he listened. He looked across the small table at Joanna and Ethan, the two of them sitting close together, their arms touching, their body language screaming intimacy. A blind man could see it, and it had all come about in only a couple of weeks. He was looking at two people who’d battled death together and beat the odds, their child with them. Yes, he thought, Autumn was their child now. He wondered when Joanna and Ethan had realized their future was together. All he knew was that when they left the hospital, Autumn between them, they’d be a family. Would they all go back to Titusville and move in with Big Louie, Lula, and Mackie? He asked Ethan, “Who’s taking care of your critters?”
“Faydeen, my dispatcher, moved in right after, well, after Blessed took us away. She said Lula has taken over the roost. Even my black Lab, Big Louie, won’t cross her. Faydeen reported that Mackie, the little wuss, sleeps under her armpit to avoid Lula. She tells him to search out his machismo and stand up to Lula, but Mackie just burrows deeper.”
Savich saw a wonderful picture in his mind. A bachelor party for Ethan at his Georgetown gym with a bunch of hell-raising DEA and FBI guys who would joyfully beat the crap out of each other before eating a dozen pizzas at Dizzy Dan’s. He laughed. Three pairs of eyes fastened on him. Savich cleared his throat. “Just thinking,” he said.
“About what?” Joanna said.
“Sorry, can’t divulge that, national security.”
Ethan laughed. “I’ll make him tell me later, Jo.”
Joanna said, “Do you know Uncle Tollie finally made it back from the Everglades? I spoke to him, and he’s on his way here.” She shook her head and gave Ethan a look. “If it weren’t for Uncle Tollie living in Titusville, I never would have gone there, I wouldn’t have ever met Ethan or you guys or—well, I’m glad he does.”
Ethan said, “Do you know the last thing Autumn remembers clearly is the cave we went to in the Titus Hitch Wilderness?” He paused a moment, played with his coffee spoon. “All of it was such a shock to her, it’s as if she can’t let herself remember yet. I asked her if she called you, Savich, and she said she tried but she couldn’t reach you.”
It was a blow. Savich said, “No memory at all of what she did to Victor and Blessed?”
Ethan shook his head.
“What she did, it was incredible. She saved both Sherlock’s life and mine.”
Joanna said, “It’s hard enough to say it out loud, much less bring myself to believe it, to accept it. How could she have done such a thing?”
Ethan said, “We may never know, but I’ll tell you, in that underground vault of Theodore Backman’s, Joanna and I watched her change. She became so powerful it scared the bejesus out of us. Is her ability gone now? Did she burn out? Maybe so.”
Sherlock said, “As you said, maybe she’s not ready to remember all of it.”
Joanna said, “Autumn will come into her own, whatever that may be. And what does it matter if there won’t be any psychic gifts in her future? I have my child back.”
SAVICH STOOD in the doorway, watching Ethan and Joanna stroke their fingers through Autumn’s hair, lightly touching her cheek.
He saw Autumn open her eyes, beautiful blue eyes that were bright and clear, no shadows of pain anymore. He saw her smile up at her mother and at Ethan. Joanna said, “Dillon and Sherlock are here, sweetie.”
“Dillon’s here? Where is he?”
“He’s standing in the doorway.”
Autumn turned her head, looked at him, and gave him a huge smile. Dillon, she called to him.
Also by Catherine Coulter
The FBI Thrillers
KnockOut (2009)
TailSpin (2008)
Double Jeopardy (2008):
The Target and The Edge
Double Take (2007)
The Beginning (2005):
The Cove and The Maze
Point Blank (2005)
Blowout
(2004)
Blindside (2003)
Eleventh Hour (2002)
Hemlock Bay (2001)
Riptide (2000)
The Edge (1999)
The Target (1998)
The Maze (1997)
The Cove (1996)
Whiplash
Catherine
Coulter
G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS
New York
G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS
Publishers Since 1838
Published by the Penguin Group
Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York,
New York 10014, USA • Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.) •
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Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
Copyright © 2010 by Catherine Coulter
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author's rights. Purchase only authorized editions. Published simultaneously in Canada
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Coulter, Catherine.
Whiplash / Catherine Coulter.
p. cm.
ISBN 9781101457436
1. United States. Federal Bureau of Investigation-Fiction.
2. Savich, Dillon (Fictitious character)-Fiction.
3. Sherlock, Lacey (Fictitious character)-Fiction.
4. Murder-Investigation-Fiction. I. Title.
PS3553.0843W47 2010 2010009114
813'.54-dc22
Printed in the United States of America
1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2
Book design by Amanda dewey
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
While the author has made every effort to provide accurate telephone numbers and Internet addresses at the time of publication, neither the publisher nor the author assumes any responsibility for errors, or for changes that occur after publication. Further, the publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.
Table of Contents
Cover
Title page
Copyright
Acknowledgments
Dedication
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Epilogue
Acknowledgments
I would like to thank:
Lisa Amoroso for yet another incredible jacket.
Karen Evans for her excellent discrepancy-spotting in the manuscript.
Dorian Hastings for all her excellent catches in copyediting.
Chris Pepe for her special enthusiasm about this book.
Erin Vollmer for always keeping all the balls in the air.
I'm very lucky to have you all in my corner. Thank you very much.
To a great group of women:
Ingrid Becker
Lesley DeLone
Karen Evans
Catherine Lyons-Labate
I'm glad you're in my life.
1
STONE BRIDGE, CONNECTICUT
Late Sunday night
Erin used her third-generation lock picks. She knew each one intimately, having successfully, and in excellent time, learned to unlock by the age of six and a half whatever her father hid under her pillow. Her hands didn't shake, though her heart felt like it would pound out of her chest. Crouching in a dark maintenance closet for three hours with two bottles of water and a PayDay candy bar hadn't been fun, but surely it wasn't all that illegal. What she was doing now, though, it was the real deal. She wasn't just twisting the law, she was stomping on it. She was breaking and entering. She could go to jail for the rest of her youth, which would be a real shame since she hadn't yet produced the fourth generation of lock pickers.
It wasn't the first time she'd gone through the back door to make things right for a client, but she prayed with all her heart it would be the last. Maybe if she'd been able to speak to the CEO, Caskie Royal, if only she could have tried to reason with him-no, that was a load of bull.
The lock snicked open. She slid her grandfather's picks back into the pocket of her black jacket, checked the corridor both ways, and opened the door just enough so she could slip inside the CEO's office. She turned on her penlight to get the lay of the land. It was a large square room, business-opulent, she'd call it, with a rich dark burgundy leather sofa, a love seat, and a huge matching chair with ottoman. A fine antique mahogany desk dominated the office. She flicked off the penlight, locked the door, and walked to the wall-wide window behind the desk, to make sure no one was out there. Mr. Royal had a lovely view of a large parklike lawn, now moonlit, lined with plants still bursting with blooms at the very end of summer. The maple and oak woods behind the lawn stretched a good quarter of a mile into Van Wie Park. Since she didn't see a single soul out there, she didn't close the draperies. She stepped to the computer sitting on the big desk and turned it on.
Of course it was pass-coded, but she was prepared for that. Her list had failed her only once, but that was years ago, and she started in on it now. Number 3 on her list-his third wife's birthday, that was the one she was betting on, but it was Number 4-the family dog, Adler, named after Schiffer Hartwin's director, Adler Dieffendorf. She was fairly certain Caskie Royal's boss wasn't aware of this honor-that his namesake was a happy brainless Dalmatian she'd seen belly up, legs waving, on Jane Ann Royal's website. Maybe it meant Mr. Royal had something of a sense of humor, since Herr Doktor Adler Dieffendorf's photo in Schiffer Hartwin's glossy annual
report showed an older man with a lovely head of white hair, a thin patrician nose, and intelligent gray eyes.
She was in. Thanks, Adler.
She began searching his files. She felt queasy and ignored it. Get it done, get it done. If you're caught and go to trial, maybe the jury won't convict you given what these greedy yahoos are doing unless you get a crappy lawyer-there it was, no doubt at all in her mind-a file titled "Project A."
She began reading what were obviously Caskie Royal's notes on what Schiffer Hartwin was doing with the drug Culovort. He'd detailed his instructions complete with a To Do list, all neatly bulleted, beginning with the near shutdown of Culovort production at the U.S. Schiffer Hartwin manufacturing laboratory, Cartwright Labs, in Bartonville, Missouri. Next came instructions to their distribution plant, Rexol, also in Bartonville.
She was so deep into disbelief at what she was reading, it took her a moment before her brain processed the sound of a car driving around to the back of the building, right beneath the big window of the CEO's office. She dashed to the window and looked down to see a big silver Lexus. It was Caskie Royal's car.
What was he doing here, late on a Sunday night?
Doesn't matter, he's here. If he caught her, she'd soon be wearing a neon yellow jumpsuit, PI license or not. She plugged in a flash drive, and ran into another password, this one corporate. He's here, he's here. No choice. She pressed Print File and watched as page after page flowed out of the high-speed printer.
She hadn't checked the file size. What if there were a zillion pages? What if what she needed to have didn't print out in time-no, she had some time, it would be all right. Even Mr. Royal had to stop by the guard in the lobby and sign in before coming up.
The printer stopped. Thank goodness there were only nineteen pages in all. She quickly slid the pages inside her black jacket, zipped it up tight, turned off the printer, slipped the flash drive into her pocket, and closed down the computer. She straightened the chair, checked to see it all looked the way it had when she'd come in, and hurried to the office door to listen. She heard voices at the end of the long corridor. Royal and a woman coming her way.