by Stephen Frey
“What? Of course,” Gavin retorted angrily. “Why would I lie about something like that?”
“I don’t know.”
“You’re being ridiculous, Conner. Go get some rest. You’re just tired.”
“Yeah, maybe. One more thing.”
“What now?” Gavin snapped, his irritation boiling over.
“About a year ago you bought your wife a one-way ticket to Miami. Why did you do that?”
Gavin’s eyes flashed to Conner’s, a strange smile playing across his tanned face. “What?”
“Last July, you bought Helen a one-way ticket to Miami. You booked her on a United flight from LaGuardia to Miami. But you didn’t buy a return ticket. You bought yourself a return ticket, but you didn’t buy her one.” Conner spotted Gavin’s fingers curl tightly around the arms of the chair.
“What are you talking about?” Gavin asked nervously. “I didn’t do that.”
“Yes, you did. I checked your expense files at Phenix. It’s very clear.”
“I must have put the return trip on another credit card.”
“I suppose you could have. But that would seem like a strange thing to do. Don’t you think?”
“What’s this all about?” Gavin demanded, standing up.
“It’s just that I had a long time to think about this thing while I was driving up here from Washington.”
“Yeah. And?”
Conner hesitated. “It’s hard for me to believe Paul Stone could pull it off by himself. Without you at least figuring out what he was doing.”
The veins in Gavin’s neck began to bulge. “Conner, you better be careful what you—”
“Then I remembered something Liz said to me yesterday. She said that a couple of times over the last year and a half she and her roommate had to clear out of the apartment because Paul had warned them you were coming down to Miami.”
“So?”
“But then I thought about your expense files again. You’ve been going to Miami at least once every few weeks since about six months before Helen died. Sometimes more often than that. That’s a lot more thana couple of times in the last year and a half.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“And I thought about how it didn’t bother you that Paul was having an affair with Rebecca. How you blessed that affair, so to speak. ‘Got Rebecca for Paul,’ I think you told me. So I couldn’t understand why you’d care if he was keeping a couple of strippers in Miami. It didn’t fit.” Conner stared straight at Gavin. “Then it hit me. Paul didn’t set up this thing with Global Components. You did. You saw it as a way to make a lot of money fast. A way to get yourself out of a financial hole you dug by starting Phenix Capital.” Conner’s eyes narrowed. “How long have you been seeing Ginger?”
Gavin gritted his teeth. “You son of a bitch. You don’t know what you’re talking about. How can you accuse me of this? After all I’ve done for you?”
“Don’t deny it, Gavin. I know everything. Liz told me.”
It had become clear to Conner as Liz was telling him how men were always trying to impress her at the club. Trying to make themselves seem different from all the rest. It was Gavin who was behind everything, not Paul. Paul was just the errand boy.
Liz had denied it at first. So Conner had forced her face down toward the scalding water again. With no intention of actually pushing her head beneath the surface, but Liz hadn’t known that. All she knew was that she’d screwed him. And she was petrified.
She’d admitted everything as he’d held her face two inches from the water’s steaming surface. Gavin had met Ginger one night at the Executive Suite about eighteen months ago, and they’d begun a torrid affair. Gavin had lavished her with gifts, then encouraged her to move into his condominium. And allowed Liz to move in as well when Ginger had asked. When Conner let Liz up from the tub, she’d shown him the love letters Gavin had written Ginger, stashed in a shoe box in Ginger’s closet.
A few months after Gavin and Ginger had begun seeing each other, Liz had overheard the Global Components executives bragging about the fraud while she was with them at the Executive Suite. And she had approached Gavin about it on one of his trips to Miami. Gavin and Liz had hatched the plan to manipulate Conner into finding out exactly what was going on at Global. Not Paul and Liz.
“You’ve been having an affair with Ginger for more than a year,” Conner said quietly. “I saw the letters you wrote her. Liz showed them to me. Which is why you murdered Helen. Helen wasn’t going to just step aside and let you have your fun. Not after all those years. She suspected something. She didn’t know where or with whom, but she had a feeling.”
Gavin stared intently at Conner for several moments, then sank slowly back into his chair and ran his hands through his gray hair.
“Liz Shaw overheard those executives from Global Components talking about the fraud they and the accountants were committing in Minneapolis. They were bragging their asses off because they were drunk and they wanted to impress a beautiful woman, even if she was a stripper. They never thought a stripper would be able to take advantage of what she overheard.”
“No, they didn’t,” Gavin agreed, his voice barely audible.
“They had no idea her roommate was having an affair with one of the biggest names on Wall Street. Even if they had, they would have had no idea how far that man would go because they wouldn’t have known what sorry financial shape he was in.” Conner shook his head. “But that’s what made you such an incredible investment banker. You’d do whatever you had to do to get a client. So executing this scam involving Global was nothing for you. Even if it involved screwing a young guy who thought you walked on water,” Conner said bitterly. “You convinced Liz to seduce me. You faked her murder. Then you sent one of your ex-FBI boys in to chase me through the subways of New York, even shooting me in the arm just in case I had any doubts about how real the whole thing was. Then you sent a man who claimed to be a private investigator to scare the shit out of me. To make me take action to save my own ass. You even brought back Amy Richards to really throw me off my game. Had Paul tell her I was having an affair with Mandy so she’d watch me every minute of the day. All to get me to find out what was going on at Global Components.”
Gavin nodded slowly as he stared down at the grass. “Yes.”
“How did you kill Helen?” asked Conner directly. “Did you take her out on a pleasure cruise under the guise of reconciling, then push her overboard? You feed her to the sharks?”
Gavin dropped his face into his hands. “Yes,” he admitted.
“Then Ginger and Liz could live in the condominium and not have to worry about a surprise visit from her.”
“Helen was going to divorce me. I couldn’t have that.”
“So you made up a phony story about a sailboat accident off Shelter Island for the cops. But why did you tell me about it? I would never have asked about it. Butyou brought it up.”
“I thought you’d relate to it because of everything that had happened to your mother,” Gavin mumbled. “I didn’t think you’d check it out.”
“You probably didn’t think I’d check out your expense statements either. Buying that one-way ticket for Helen was so stupid, Gavin. You’re usually much smarter than that.” Conner shook his head. “But why me, Gavin? Why didn’t you have Stone go down to Baker Mahaffey himself? Why didn’t you have him go see Glen Frolling?”
“We wanted to keep our distance from the situation in case something went wrong.” Gavin looked up at Conner, glassy-eyed. “I knew you would figure it out if I gave you the right incentive. You’re one of the most capable people I’ve ever met.”
“Then you should have known I’d figure out what you and Liz were doing. What was really going on here.”
“Yes,” Gavin agreed, beginning to sob. “I should—”
“You have no idea what’sreally going on ,” a voice behind Conner said.
Conner spun around. Paul Stone stood a few yards
away, aiming a revolver at him.
“Hello, Conner,” Stone said calmly.
“Put the gun down, Paul!” Gavin shouted, standing up. “It’s over. I can’t take it anymore. Put it down.”
“No,” Stone snapped. “I think Conner got what we needed when he was in Washington. Didn’t you?” he asked, nodding at Conner. “Where’s the binder?”
How could Stone possibly know about the binder? “What the hell are you talking about? I don’t know anything about a binder.”
“Don’t lie to me.”
“They were going to throw you to the wolves, Paul,” Conner said quickly. “Gavin and Liz were going to pin the insider trading rap on you if things got tough.” That was why Liz had protected Gavin right up until she thought Conner would actually push her face into the steaming water. She assumed Gavin was a better risk than Paul in a tight situation. She had it all figured out. “They were gonna throw you out like yesterday’s garbage.”
“That’s not true,” Gavin spoke up. “I would never do—”
“Shut up, Gavin,” Stone snapped. “I know exactly what you’re capable of. Remember, I’ve been with you for a long time. I’ve seen you in action. You’re a cold son of a bitch.” He smiled. “Fortunately, I’ve picked up a few things along the way. I have my own escape hatch.”
Conner’s eyes flashed to Stone’s. Suddenly he realized how Stone could know about the binder.
Stone closed one eye and held the gun out, both hands wrapped around the handle. “You know what it is, Conner? You know what it all really boils down to?”
Conner glanced at the gun. It wasn’t shaking at all. Stone was dead calm. A bad sign. “What?” he asked, taking a step back, worried that he’d underestimated the man.
Stone stepped forward. “The fact that I just can’t stand you,” he said, squeezing the trigger.
The bullet entered Stone’s head behind the right ear, shattering his skull. He toppled forward, dead before he even hit the ground.
“Oh, Jesus!” Gavin shouted, taking cover behind a chair. “What the hell is going on?”
Conner saw the three men spill out of the mansion, one right behind the other. The little bald one, then the two bigger ones. The two bigger men were carrying rifles. They were the same men Conner had seen at Baker Mahaffey a few hours ago. He bent down and quickly grabbed Stone’s revolver, then took off toward the ocean.
“Stop!” Lucas yelled as he reached the spot where Stone’s body had fallen. “Stop!”
The two bigger men were racing toward the dunes, going after Conner.
“Don’t bother,” Lucas called to them as they looked back. “We have what we need.”
Hootie Wilson handed Bennett the marble notebook as they sat on the porch of the Middleburg house. It was going to be nice living in splendor again, Wilson thought to himself. Not in the one-bedroom, starkly furnished apartment he’d been forced to go home to since the divorce had become final. “I think this is what you want.”
Bennett grabbed the notebook. “What about the woman?” he snapped.
Wilson shook his head. “She’s got a big problem with the D.C. bar association. Which I’m taking care of. Besides, she doesn’t really give a shit about this Lucas character, anyway.”
Bennett stared at Wilson for a few moments, unconvinced. Then he glanced down and rifled through the notebook, his blood pressure rising as he reached the end. “Goddamn it!” he roared.
. . .
Conner moved into a grove of trees, sucking air. That was the fastest two miles he’d ever run. It seemed like he’d lost them. Now he needed to find help. He was about to start moving again when his cell phone rang. Jackie’s cell number appeared on the screen.
“Jackie?”
“Conner Ashby?”
Conner’s eyes narrowed. It wasn’t Jackie. “Who is this?”
“Doesn’t matter. What matters is that you need to get your ass back to Gavin Smith’s place right away.”
“Why would I do that?”
“If you ever want to see Jackie Rivera alive again, you’ll get back here.”
“What the—”
“You can thank your old friend Amy Richards for giving us Jackie. We sure did.”
24
Jackie sat on the couch of the mansion’s living room. The same couch Mandy Stone had been sitting on when Conner had gotten to the mansion early last Thursday morning. Jackie was staring straight ahead, her lower lip trembling. They’d gotten her at seven o’clock this morning. Forced her into their car as she’d been coming out of her apartment to go to work.
“Let her go,” Conner demanded. He was sitting beside Jackie on the couch. “She doesn’t know anything.”
“I understand that,” said Lucas calmly, standing a few feet away. One of the other two men stood beside him, pistol drawn. “I want the binder you took from Baker Mahaffey.”
“What does she have to do with a binder?” Conner asked, wishing they hadn’t frisked him and found Stone’s revolver.
“Nothing.”
“Then why is she here?”
“I want the binder,” Lucas repeated. “You give it to me and she goes free.”
“I don’t have the binder,” Conner said truthfully. On his way from Washington this morning, he’d stopped at the Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, Greyhound bus station. He’d rented a small locker there and stored the binder inside.
“Where is it?”
“I don’t know.”
Lucas nodded at the other man. He yanked Jackie off the couch by her wrist. She screamed as the man spun her around, wrapped one forearm tightly around her neck and put the gun to her head.
“Conner!” she yelled.
Conner leapt up off the couch, but the man turned the gun on him.
“Sit down, Mr. Ashby!” Lucas ordered.
Conner sank slowly back to the couch. He could see the terror in Jackie’s eyes, but there was nothing he could do.
“Now,” Lucas said deliberately. “Where’s the binder?”
Then Lucas’s cell phone rang.
Lucas glanced at the phone’s tiny screen. It was Brenda, calling from her cell phone. He’d seen the number yesterday afternoon when she’d called to ask him to meet her at the Washington Monument. He turned away from Ashby, Jackie Rivera, and the man holding the gun. “Hello.”
“Lucas! Lucas!”
“What is it, Brenda? Calm down.”
“Lucas, I gave that notebook you asked me to keep to the managing partner of my law firm. Somehow he knew about it. He wanted it. He made me give it to him.”
“It’s all right, Bren. Don’t worry.” It was exactly as Lucas had anticipated. Franklin Bennett had coerced her. Bennett had something on her and she’d been played. But it was just like a chess match, and, fortunately, Lucas had expected this. And done something about it.
“I’m sorry, Lucas!” Brenda cried at the other end of the line. “Don’t hate me, please don’t hate me.”
“I don’t hate you.” How he could he? She was calling to warn him of what she’d done. And she was riddled with guilt. She cared after all. “Everything’s going to be all right.”
“Lucas, I— Oh, Jesus Christ, I— Please don’t—”
Lucas heard a blast at the other end of the phone. Then silence. Then muffled voices in the background.
“Brenda!Bren! ”
Then the connection went dead.
The world turned red in front of him. He never should have done this. He should have stayed in his quiet little world. He never should have listened to Cheetah. He should have known better. He should have tried to avoid disaster one more time. But now it was too late.
He’d outplayed Franklin Bennett, but maybe that didn’t matter. Maybe there were only degrees of losing in this match. Lucas snapped the cell phone closed and slipped it back in his pocket. There was only one thing left to do.
Conner watched the little bald man slip the cell phone back in his pocket.
“What now?” t
he man holding Jackie demanded.
“We kill both of them,” Lucas responded. “That was the order.”
“But we don’t have the binder yet,” the man protested, dropping the pistol from Jackie’s head for a moment.
Lucas lunged at the man just as he lowered the gun.
Conner was off the couch instantly, racing toward the struggle. Reaching them just as the gun exploded. Lucas and Jackie tumbled away, falling to the floor.
Then Conner was on the man with the gun, grabbing his wrist and pointing the gun toward the ceiling. It exploded twice in rapid succession, showering the room with plaster as the bullets slammed into the ceiling. Conner nailed the man with a quick right to the chin, and he tumbled to the couch. He tried to get up, but Conner was on him again immediately. Delivering two more wicked blows to his face. The man collapsed, unconscious.
Instantly there was the explosion of another gunshot and the whine of a bullet. The second man who had accompanied Lucas from Washington stood in the living room doorway, aiming. Conner dived for the gun on the floor, grabbed it, raised up, and fired twice. And the man in the living room doorway tumbled backward.
Conner raced to where the man lay, clutching his stomach and moaning. He picked up the second gun and turned around just in time to see the little bald one pull himself to his feet and stagger forward, his white shirt covered with blood. After a few steps, he collapsed to the floor.
Conner crawled quickly to the little man’s side. He’d saved Jackie’s life. Conner had no idea why. But he had, and that was all that mattered. “Stay still, I’m going to get you an ambulance.”
Jackie was just picking herself up from the floor. “I’ll call one, Conner,” she said, hurrying to a phone on a table.
“You’ve got to get out of here,” Lucas gasped. “More people will be here soon.” He reached into his jacket pocket. “Take these,” he murmured.
These were the last ten pages of the marble notebook. Pages Lucas had ripped from the notebook before giving it to Brenda. In the end, he’d outplayed Franklin Bennett—but died doing it.
