by Stephen Frey
Lucas sat in his apartment, arms folded across his chest, staring at the virtual chess match on his computer screen. Two more moves to checkmate, and his opponent probably didn’t even realize. Some of these people on the Internet were such rookies.
He leaned back and checked his watch. Quarter of eight. A few more minutes and he’d start his morning routine. Shower, shave, dress, then a twenty-minute walk to the White House. With a stop at Starbucks on the way.
Lucas watched with satisfaction as the opponent’s rook moved exactly as he knew it would. He had a feeling this would be the last morning he followed his routine for quite a while.
6
At noon, Conner was awakened by a well-groomed, silver-haired man. Lunch would be served on the terrace at twelve thirty, the butler informed him. Mr. Smith expected Conner to be there.
Thirty minutes later Conner emerged from the mansion and onto the terrace. It was a wide expanse of neatly manicured grass leading to the ocean, bordered on two sides by tall pine trees. Gavin sat at a round table in the middle of it, reading a newspaper. He was dressed in white, a sweater draped around his shoulders. The temperature had plunged overnight.
Conner walked across the freshly mowed lawn, admiring the setting. This was the life. This was why he worked seventy-hour weeks for a man who defined the worddriven .
“Afternoon, pal.” Gavin folded the newspaper as Conner sat down on the opposite side of the table. “You okay?”
“Fine.” Conner assumed what Gavin really wanted to know was whether he felt like talking any more about Liz. After telling Gavin about her murder, he hadn’t given the old man any details. He hadn’t relayed the fact that the apartment looked as if nothing had ever happened when he’d returned with the cops. Or that Liz’s body had disappeared. It had been enough just to tell someone that she was dead.
“You sleep all right?”
“Sure,” Conner lied. The king-sized mattress had been soft and comfortable, but he hadn’t slept well at all. “Where are Paul and Mandy?” There were only two place settings at the table.
“They left around ten,” Gavin answered. “They had a nasty argument this morning.”
“Sorry to hear that.”
“Mandy’s suspicious about Paul having that affair you and I talked about. At least, that’s what I gathered from all the yelling.” Gavin shook his head. “He accused her of doing the same thing. It sounded like World War Three.”
It occurred to Conner that it would be better for him to volunteer information about his conversation with Mandy than to have Gavin find out about it from Paul. “Mandy asked me about Rebecca while you and Paul were in the study.”
“Oh?”
“She wanted to know if Rebecca was pretty.”
“What did you tell her?”
“I tried to make her sound plain.” Over Gavin’s shoulder Conner saw the butler and a maid emerge from the mansion carrying trays. “I don’t think she believed me. It wouldn’t surprise me if she showed up at Phenix to see for herself. She was pretty worked up.”
“I don’t think she’s ever actually been to our offices. So I wonder how she’d know about Rebecca?”
“Beats me.”
“Do you think Mandy is cheating on Paul, too?”
Conner looked down. He could feel Gavin’s eyes boring into him. “I have no idea. I don’t know her that well. I’ve met her only a few times.”
Lunch was a seafood salad, and Conner dug into the healthy portions of shrimp and lobster. He hadn’t eaten since midday yesterday, and he was famished. Liz had never gotten to order out for that Chinese food.
Conner paused, his fork in midair. Liz was gone.
“You okay?”
“Fine,” Conner answered quietly. It was the second time Gavin had asked a leading question.
“Salad all right?”
And the second time he’d followed with an innocuous question when Conner hadn’t opened up. “Delicious. Thanks.”
Gavin took a sip of iced tea. “Look, I’m sorry about Liz. It’s a terrible thing.” He paused. “And I also know you don’t approve of what I did for Paul. Which bothers me.”
Conner put his fork down and wiped his lips with the napkin. “Arrangements you make for Paul don’t concern me.”
“It’s important that I have your respect.”
“You do. You know that.”
Gavin gazed toward the beach, watching the waves roll in beneath the gray sky. “Most men are weak when it comes to women, Conner. They can’t control themselves. Some stupid instinct makes them risk family and career just to enjoy a beautiful female body for one night. It’s something I can’t relate to. I was married to my wife, God rest her soul, for thirty-four years, and I never cheated. I was never eventempted to cheat.” He looked back at Conner. “Unfortunately, I think I’m in the minority. Based on what I hear, it goes on a lot. I don’t know. Maybe it’s just nature’s way of ensuring the survival of the species. Don’t think of Paul as a bad person. He simply has the same needs many other men have.”
There was no point in talking about it anymore. “It’s like you said before, Gavin. You have a firm to run, and Paul is a senior person at the firm. Someone you’re counting on to generate income. If he’s distracted, his performance suffers. You can’t have that.”
“But there’s more to it than that, Conner. Like I told you, I’m loyal. Maybetoo loyal. But that’s how I’ve been throughout my career. How I’ve been throughout my life. I can’t change who I am now. I’m too old. I have to decide who means more. A man who’s been with me for over a decade, or a woman I barely know. A woman who isn’t giving Paul what he needs.”
The only thing Paul Stone needed was a hole to slither into at night. “I’m not going to endorse what you’re doing, Gavin. It isn’t right, and it’s that simple.”
“I’m helping a friend, pal. The way I may need to help you.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“A woman was murdered in your apartment last night. I’m sure the police consider you a suspect. Don’t kid yourself on that one. Oh, they consoled you while they were wheeling her body out the door on the gurney. But don’t let yourself believe for a second that they aren’t going to want to ask you more questions. They’re paid to provide prosecutors with the most likely suspect.” He pointed at Conner. “But I’ll tell you this. If they come to the wrong conclusion, I’ll do whatever I can to help you. I’ll call in favors from people I know downtown. I’ll run my own damn investigation if I have to. You’re more than an employee to me at this point, Conner. You’re a very good friend.” He paused. “Almost a son.”
Thunder rumbled in the distance. “You won’t have to run an investigation,” Conner assured the old man, glancing up at a wall of clouds scuttling in from the south. “The police won’t be calling me in for questioning.”
“Don’t be naive,” Gavin warned. “I have some experience in these matters.”
“You don’t understand.” It was time to tell Gavin the whole story. After all, there was always a chance that the guy who’d broken in last night might show up at Phenix. It wouldn’t be difficult for him to track Conner to the firm if he’d seen the Phenix logo on the notebooks. It was unfair not to give Gavin an opportunity to take precautions. Maybe even request a resignation.
“I haven’t told you everything, Gavin.”
“Clearly.”
Conner put his napkin down. “After that e-mail comes last night, I go out to pick up a pack of smokes for Liz. When I get back, my place looks like a tornado hit. I go into the bedroom and Liz is on the floor, dead. There’s blood everywhere. Next thing I know, there’s this guy in the living room staring at me. He pulls out a gun, and I end up hauling my ass out the bedroom window and down the fire escape with him right behind me. He’s shooting, and he nails me once.” Conner pointed at the fresh tape he’d wrapped around the wound. “I lose him in the subway; then I find a couple of cops to go back to the apartment with me and chec
k out what happened. I tell them the place has been destroyed before we get there, but I don’t tell them about Liz. It’s a tricky situation.”
“Why is it tricky?”
Conner rubbed his thumb across the bottom of his front teeth, feeling the one that was slightly chipped. The result of a bad fall on the Pipeline. “She was engaged.”
“Engaged?”
“Yeah, to some prick at Morgan Sayers. I’m surprised that guy who tailed Liz and me for you didn’t dig that up.”
“Me, too. Usually he’s very thorough.”
The mental alarm went off again. As it had last night in the squad car when Gavin had mentioned leaving a message on the apartment answering machine. “Here’s the thing. When I get back to the apartment with the cops, the place looks like nothing ever happened.”
Gavin’s jaw went slack. “Oh, come on. Maybe you were just—”
“And Liz’s body is gone.”
“Gone?”
“Gone. Like I told you, there’s a lot of blood on the floor when I find her, but there isn’t a trace of it when I get back there with the cops. I get down on my hands and knees after they leave and I search the floor, but I can’t find anything. It’s as if she had never been there,” he said, his voice hushed. Except for her engagement ring in the sugar bowl.
Gavin raised both eyebrows. “That’s hard to believe.”
“So you don’t?”
Gavin put his hands up. “It’s just an incredible story.”
Thunder rumbled again. Louder this time. “The question is, what do I do now?”
“Don’t go to the cops,” Gavin advised quickly. “If you walk into a precinct babbling about some woman being murdered in your apartment, they’ll suspect you immediately. I’m telling you, pal. Even if there isn’t a body.”
“But I have to find out what happened to her.”
Gavin folded his arms. “No you don’t.”
“Excuse me?”
“Let her go.”
“What?”
“You’ll find someone else. A guy like you always does. You need to stay as far away from this as possible.”
Conner had heard stories of how cold Gavin could be. But he hadn’t experienced it until now. “This coming from a man who was devoted to one woman for thirty-four years? I can’t believe you’d say that.”
“You’re talking about mywife , pal.”
The tops of the tall pines swayed against a sudden gust of wind. “Liz and I were close,” Conner said quietly.
“She was engaged. Isn’t that what you said?”
Conner nodded.
“If you were so close, why didn’t she break off the engagement?”
Typical Gavin. Straight to the heart. “You don’t understand. There were extenuating circumstances.”
Gavin smirked. “There arealways extenuating circumstances. No offense, pal, but I don’t like what I hear about this woman.” He paused. “Are you absolutely sure she was dead?”
Conner’s eyes raced to the old man’s. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Just a question.”
“She was dead,” he said firmly. “I’m sure.”
Gavin glanced up at the threatening sky. “Walk with me, Conner.”
They moved across the grass, side by side, toward one of the tallest pines. Its lower branches had been cut away, forming a small archway. Beneath the branches was a marble gravestone with the nameHELEN inscribed on it.
“My wife,” Gavin murmured, stopping a few feet away. “I didn’t want her in a graveyard beside someone she never knew. I wanted her here with me. I loved her so much.”
“I know,” Conner said.
The rain began to fall, rustling the trees.
“Have you ever wanted to kill someone?” Gavin asked, staring at the tombstone.
Conner glanced up from the brown needles covering the grave. “What?”
“Have you ever been so angry, you thought you could actually take another person’s life?”
Thunder rumbled again. The storm was coming in off the ocean, and it was close. The gentle shower would soon turn into a downpour. “Yes,” Conner admitted.
“Frank Turner?”
Conner shut his eyes. Nine years ago a man named Frank Turner was driving his SUV home from his country club. Blind drunk after nine beers. He’d run a red light at forty miles an hour and broadsided Conner’s mother, shearing her tiny Toyota in half and killing her instantly. Making her almost unrecognizable at the morgue.
Turner came away from the crash with a few stitches in his forehead and a manslaughter charge. Seven months later the judge sentenced him to nothing but probation and community service. There was no justice from the system for the poor. Things hadn’t changed in a thousand years, and Conner was convinced they never would.
A few minutes after the trial Conner had found Turner chuckling with his slick-haired attorney in a parking garage connected to the courthouse. Laughing about how smoothly the whole thing had gone. It had taken four troopers on their way to traffic court to keep Conner from tearing Turner apart.
A week later Conner found the upscale neighborhood where Turner lived, and the office building he owned a few miles away. A month after that a small article appeared in a local newspaper describing how Turner had slipped down a stairway outside that office building late one rainy night. And how he’d died several days later from complications brought on by the severe head injuries suffered in the fall.
“Yes,” Conner said tersely. “Frank Turner.” He looked the old man straight in the eyes. “You don’t miss anything, do you, Gavin?”
“No.”
“You investigated me before you hired me.”
“Extensively. I keep tabs on everyone and everything that’s important to me. I know exactly what’s going on in Paul Stone’s life, too. I am as prepared as any man on earth. Preparation has been the key to my success, so I won’t apologize for it.” The old man hesitated. “I understand Turner died when he fell down a stairway one night after he was given nothing but a slap on the wrists for killing your mother.”
Conner swallowed hard. “Why did you ask me the question about wanting to kill someone?”
“How did it feel when you read the article about Turner? Was it sweet?”
“Why did you ask me?”
The old man nodded at the gravestone. “One Saturday morning a year ago, Helen and I were sailing out of the Shelter Island Yacht Club.”
Shelter Island lay in what was known as the alligator’s mouth at the east end of Long Island. The large bay between the north and south shores.
“I was tacking in the main channel and Helen slipped off the boat,” Gavin continued. “This young kid zipped by in a speedboat just as she went overboard. He was too close, and he hit her when she came up the first time. It was nine o’clock in the morning and the kid had a blood alcohol content of almost point twelve. He was fifteen years old.Fifteen and he was so drunk he could barely tell the coast guard his name when they caught up with him.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I wanted to kill him. Some days I still do.” The old man glanced at the tombstone, his eyes growing misty. “I turned around just as the kid ran her down. It was the most horrible thing I’ve ever seen. Some nights I wake up in a cold sweat, thinking I can—”
“Thinking you can stop it,” Conner finished the sentence. “Thinking you can save her.” He hadn’t witnessed his mother’s death, but for years afterward he would wake up in the middle of the night from a horrible dream in which he saw it happen in slow motion. Saw that it wasabout to happen , but there was nothing he could do.
“Yes.”
Conner nodded. “I know.”
Gavin stared at him for a long time, then patted his shoulder. “I appreciate being able to tell you that. Paul wouldn’t understand.”
“What do you mean?”
“Paul’s a shallow man,” Gavin explained with a sigh. “Not a man given to deep thought. I don’t respe
ct him the way I respect you, Conner. Maybe the answer to Paul’s insensitivity is that he’s never had to work for anything. He’s always had money. Not like you and me. Perhaps that’s why he has no tolerance for people unlike himself. He doesn’t understand how hard they’ve had to fight to survive. But I still find his lack of sensitivity distasteful. Sometimes downright offensive.” Gavin nodded at the gravestone. The rain was falling harder now. “You cared for Liz, didn’t you?”
“Yes.”
“And you want to find out what happened to her.”
“Ihave to find out what happened to her. I have to find her killer.” Conner paused. “And I have to protect myself. They might come after me again. It might be better for me to take the fight to them first.”
Gavin nodded. “All right, I’ll help you. But you have to promise me something.”
“What?”
“If you find out anything important, and it looks like things are going to get rough, you’ll let me know so I can bring in law enforcement. You must keep me up to speed on what you’re doing. Do we have a deal?”
Conner hesitated. “Yes.”
The woman sat behind the dressing room table, admiring herself in the mirror. The sash of the red silk robe had come undone and her chest was partially visible. She reached up and pushed her hair off her shoulders, then pulled the robe down so her breasts were exposed. They were full and firm and she smiled, thinking about how many men had admired them.
She wasn’t ashamed of the path she’d chosen. She’d simply made the most of a bad situation—and what God had given her. Done what was necessary to escape a dusty, west Texas trailer park. Left her mother and two sisters behind at sixteen with $107 in her purse and a few clothes in an old Samsonite suitcase. Uncertain of where she was going or how she was getting there. Now she had almost a hundred grand in a Miami bank. She’d come a long way from west Texas.
But she wasn’t satisfied. A hundred grand wasn’t nearly enough. She wanted more.Deserved more, dammit. The plan had to work. Failure wasn’t an option.
The knock on the door was barely audible over the grinding music in the background. “Hey!”
