The Hill

by Carol Ericson

  “You don’t have to hold my calls. Put him through when he calls again. That’s one of my favorite charities.”

  “I will. He’s been trying just about every hour.”

  Judd mumbled, “He must really want your money.”

  “Thanks, Celine.” London snapped the door to the office closed. “I don’t mind. It’s one of the good charities—low overhead, very few administrators, does a lot for kids around the world. It’s easy to get people to donate to a cause like that.”

  “You—” he kissed her on the tip of her nose “—could get people to donate money for snowboards in the Sahara Desert.”

  “It’s easy to get other people’s money for causes. Besides, you never know when you might need a snowboard in the desert.” She rolled the leather chair to the side and ducked under the desk.

  “What are you doing under there?”

  “There’s a floor safe under the desk. That’s where my dad stashed his laptop.”

  “There’s gotta be something more on there than company financials if he went to that much trouble to conceal it.”

  “That’s what I think. That’s what I’ve been telling you.” She pulled out the laptop and stationed it on the desk. She slid a glance toward Judd as he pulled up a chair. She could show him the pictures after they went through the rest of her father’s files.

  She attached a mouse to the side of the laptop and powered on the computer. “I already searched for Brody, police commission, Phone Book Killer.”

  “Let me have a look at some of the folders and see if anything jumps out at me. Also, if the file or folder doesn’t have that specific name, the search may not find those terms in the text. There’s a program you can install to block that kind of text search.”

  “You see? That’s why I need your help with this.”

  They worked side by side, heads huddled together over the laptop. A lot of the files they went through were duplicates of the ones on her father’s desktop work computer.

  “I don’t know.” She massaged her temples. “Maybe he just used this as a backup in case the other one went down.”

  “You already have an automatic backup on the desktop computer. I checked that out when you were in the board meeting.”

  The telephone on the desk buzzed, and London pressed a button. “Yes?”

  “It’s that man again from Global Giving.”

  “I’ll take it. I could use a break anyway.” The line clicked once and London punched the speaker button while she drew her hands across her face. “Hello? This is London Breck.”

  An electronically altered voice intoned over the line, “And this is your guardian angel.”

  She dropped her hands. “Excuse me? Are you calling from Global Giving?”

  “I’m calling to give you a piece of advice, London.”

  Judd’s entire frame went rigid beside her.

  “Who is this? What are you talking about?”

  “I think you know what I’m talking about. I’ve been trying to get this message to you ever since your father died.”

  “What do you want? Just come out with it. What is it you want from me?”

  “I want you to keep your mouth shut, go about your business and spend your billions of dollars on shoes and trips to the French Riviera.”

  “You don’t want me taking over as CEO of Breck Global Enterprises?”

  “I don’t give a damn what you do, just stop looking into the Brody case. Everyone knows Brody’s innocent now, so drop it.”

  “Why was he set up? Why was his partner murdered?”

  The man on the phone whistled and it sounded like a buzz saw. “You know a lot, don’t you? That’s why it’s time to stop looking for Operation Phoenix. Is Brody with you now?”

  She glanced at Judd and he shook his head.

  “No.”

  The man chuckled. “We could’ve settled this with you a long time ago if my guys had been able to get close to you, but Brody prevented that from happening. Relentless—just like his old man. You never should’ve hired Judd Brody. You hired him to protect you, and he ended up putting you in more danger.”

  Judd’s hand jerked and the mouse slipped from the desk.

  “Well, I did hire him, and he’s going to continue to protect me from your goons, and we’re not going to stop. We’re not going to stop until we find out what happened twenty years ago.”

  Judd had retrieved the mouse and was busy tapping the keyboard and clicking through files.

  The man’s voice sliced through the line like a cold blade. “Oh, but you are going to stop, London, or you’re going to be very sorry.”

  “Let’s see, you tried to snatch me twice, broke into my place, set fire to the unit next door, beat up my driver and killed a security guard at my building. I’m not quitting.”

  “Maybe we can’t get to you as long as Brody is in the picture, but we can get to others.”

  A chill snaked up her spine. “What others?”

  “Check your cell phone, London.”

  She scrambled for her purse and pulled out her phone. A text message with an attachment had come through. Judd hovered over her shoulder, and with trembling fingers she tapped the message to open it, and then tapped the picture attached to the message.

  Maddie’s face filled the screen. They had her daughter.

  “Just one other, London, and we’ve already done it. We have your daughter, and we’re prepared to do whatever it takes to stop you.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  London choked and lunged for the phone. “What have you done with my daughter? Where is she?”

  The line had gone dead, and Judd raked a hand through his hair as if to clear the confusion in his brain. A daughter? London had a daughter?

  Once she realized her tormenter had hung up, she grabbed the phone and threw it off the desk. She screamed and pushed the laptop, but Judd collected her hands in his.

  “Shh. It’s going to be okay.”

  “Is everything okay, London?” Celine tapped on the door.

  She called out in a clear voice, “Nothing serious.”

  Then she turned a tear-streaked face ravaged by grief toward him. “It won’t be okay. It can’t. He has my daughter.”

  He cupped her face with his hands. “Tell me. Tell me about your daughter and we’ll get her back.”

  She drew in a shuddering breath that racked her entire body. “She’s eight. I had her when I was a teenager. My father forced me to give her up—no...I gave her up willingly. He didn’t have to force me. She was an inconvenience to me at that age. I got pregnant in Italy. Maddie’s father was a race-car driver. He—he died in an accident, and my father instructed me to leave the country without telling Paulo’s family.”

  She started sobbing and couldn’t continue.

  He swept away her stream of tears with this thumbs. “So you did the right thing and adopted her out to a loving family. Is she here in the city?”

  “Yes, but you heard him. They have her. They must’ve found out about her from my laptop, the laptop they stole from my condo. I had pictures of her on that computer.” She turned her father’s laptop toward her. “And here. My father had pictures of her, too. I couldn’t believe it when I saw them. He must’ve had someone taking pictures of her all along, but he never showed them to me. He must’ve figured I didn’t care.”

  “Maybe he didn’t want to upset you.” He rubbed a hand down her arm, wishing like hell he could take away the pain
etched into grooves on her face.

  “Can you verify her...kidnapping with her parents?”

  “I’m not in touch with them. If I tell them now this is all my fault, that they lost their daughter because of me, they’ll hate me. Besides, you saw her picture. She was holding a copy of today’s newspaper. They have her.”

  He pulled her head against his chest. “You didn’t do anything wrong, London. He’s not going to hurt Maddie. If he did, he’d have no leverage over you. He’s just showing you that he can get to her.”

  Judd stopped stroking her hair, and a deep worry permeated his bones.

  London looked up at him. “What’s wrong? If I don’t pursue this anymore, they’ll leave her alone, right?”

  He brushed her hair from her damp face and stared out the window. “Twenty years ago, when my father was going through hell, my brother Eric was kidnapped.”

  London sniffed. “He survived.”

  “He did. At the time, people said it was a sympathy ploy and a diversion for my father. They believed he planned the kidnapping himself.”

  “No parent would do that.”

  “It was the same as your daughter, London. They were proving to my father that they could get to his family. He knew. He knew he was being set up and he knew who was responsible. That’s why he never said anything. They threatened us. They threatened his family. It’s the same despicable bunch now.”

  Her hands fisted in her lap. “How are we going to get her back? How are we going to stop them?”

  “We’ve got to put an end to this right now.” He wiped her face with his T-shirt. “He made a mistake. He gave something away—Operation Phoenix.”

  “What is that?”

  “Look.” He tapped the laptop, bringing it to life. “I searched for Operation Phoenix while he was talking to you and got some hits.”

  London trapped her hands between her knees. “I’m afraid to know.”

  “No, you’re not.” He rubbed her back. “I know you want to get that little girl back to her family.”

  She squeezed her eyes shut and drew in a deep breath as if she were drawing upon some well of strength to face her fears.

  He started opening the files and folders, and they began to piece together the story of Operation Phoenix.

  “These figures are bad.” She poked at the monitor. “BGE was facing some lean times twenty-five years ago, and then like magic our fortunes turned around.”

  “Look at these shipments.” He ran his finger down the columns of a spreadsheet. “Pharmaceuticals, methylene.”

  She leaned closer. “BGE hasn’t been in pharma for years.”

  “It looks as if this is where it started, London, but there doesn’t seem to be any target location for these shipments.”

  “So where did all that methylene go?”

  It took them skimming through a few more files, but Judd found what he was looking for. “Bogus companies, bogus addresses. All this methylene was ending up on the street as crystal.”

  “Meth?” She folded her arms across her stomach. “You mean BGE was supplying drug dealers. We made hundreds of millions of dollars from these shipments.”

  “That’s what it looks like. My father and his partner must’ve suspected something when this stuff started showing up on the streets.”

  “I think I’m going to be sick.” She cupped her hands over her mouth and nose and took deep breaths in and out. “I can’t believe my father would do this.”

  “He may not have known.” He flicked his finger at the monitor. “Look at all these scanned invoices. That’s not your father’s name, unless he used his middle name or something for signing off.”

  She squinted at the screen. “That’s my uncle Jay’s signature.”

  “Is that Niles’s father?”

  “Yes.” She gripped the edge of the desk. “Are you trying to tell me my uncle Jay engineered the setup of your father and his partner because they found out about his side business? My uncle died years ago, after my father pushed him out of the company. So who’s been stirring up trouble since then? Who’s been trying to keep your brothers from discovering the truth? And who has Maddie?”

  “Niles is the obvious suspect. And if that’s the case, I don’t believe he’s working alone.” He tapped the desk with the end of a pen. “He’s a member of the Bohemian Club up on Nob Hill, isn’t he?”

  “Y-yes. I just told you the other day that my father was a member, too, and Uncle Jay.”

  “I’ve had clients who were members. One tried to blindfold me when he took me there, but I pointed out I wouldn’t be able to do my job blindfolded.”

  “So they allowed a nonmember into the club? Did you witness any of their silly rituals?”

  “He invited me in as a guest, which is allowed, and there were no rituals that night. But I did get an eyeful.”

  “Is it true there are nude, masked women lounging around the club?”

  “Not that night, but I did see a few city movers and shakers, including a couple of high-ranking police officials. Anyone else may not have recognized them, but since my brother is a detective I knew who they were.”

  “What are you implying, Judd?”

  “I’m connecting the dots. Your father’s company was involved in illegal activities, whether he knew about those activities or not, and there had to be a lot of cover-up of those activities. Your father was also a big supporter of law enforcement. He was on the police commission.”

  “It’s like we said before—who else but the police would be able to plant that evidence on your father? Who else could get to so many people so easily? But who do you think is involved? It can’t be the chief of police. He’s relatively new to the city.”

  “But there are others. Others who were around then and are around today. Others who don’t want any of this to come out, any more than Niles does.”

  He reached for his cell phone. “I’m calling my brother Sean. He’s been on his leave of absence long enough. We need his help.”

  “And what about Eric? You said he worked on the FBI’s child-abduction task force. He was abducted himself—probably by these same people.”

  “I think Eric’s in D.C., but he’ll come out for this.” He snapped his fingers. “And Ryan. I’m calling him down here from Crestview. He knows Cynthia. He spoke to the real Phone Book Killer. We’re going to put this together, and we’re going to get Maddie safely home to her family and ensure her future security and yours.”

  She grabbed his hand and squeezed it so hard he heard his bones crack. “I gave her up to give her a secure life. As her birth mother, I owe her that.”

  “They won’t hurt her. If they do, they know there’s nothing stopping you from spilling everything you’ve discovered. They won’t risk that.”

  “But once they find out we know it all, every sickening detail, they’ll have nothing to lose by hurting her.”

  “Look at me.” He took her chin between his fingers and stared into her green eyes, glassy with fear. “Nothing is going to happen to you or Maddie, not as long as I have breath in my body.”

  “When do you think he’s going to call back?”

  “When he’s good and ready. That’s the point, to show his strength and power. But we have work to do in the meantime.”

  * * *

  LATER THAT NIGHT, back at her place, London paced the floor, cupping her phone in her hands. Judd’s two brothers in California, Sean and Ryan, were already on their
way to the city. Ryan might have already arrived. And Eric was taking the first flight out of D.C. Judd’s plan had to work. She hadn’t given up her baby all those years ago only to put her in mortal danger now.

  The company she’d been trying so hard to be worthy of now sickened her. She wanted to believe it was all Uncle Jay’s doing. It hadn’t been too long after Joseph Brody’s suicide that Spencer had pushed Jay out of BGE. If her father had been completely complicit in the illegal activities, he wouldn’t have been able to do that. Jay wouldn’t have allowed it. Her uncle probably would’ve used her father’s involvement to gain a bigger foothold in the company—for himself and his son.

  She had to hang on to that.

  The phone vibrated in her hand and she checked the display. She nodded at Judd and put the phone on speaker.

  “Hi, Niles. Thanks for getting back to me.”

  “Of course. You piqued my curiosity.”

  “I want you to come to my place so I can talk to you face-to-face and give you some paperwork, but the upshot is I want to step down as CEO of BGE.”

  He sucked in his breath, and his excitement was palpable over the phone. “I’m having dinner near Union Square. I can be there in a jiffy.”

  She ended the call and pocketed the phone. “So he’s on his way.”

  “He’s gonna wish he’d stayed in Union Square.” Judd’s eyes narrowed and the menace rolled off him in waves.

  They finalized their plans and Judd relocated to the burned-out unit next door while she waited for Niles’s arrival.

  London paced the room until the buzzer on her intercom filled the room. “Yes?”

  “What do you mean, yes? It’s Niles.”

  “Okay, I’m letting you in, but you still need to check in with the security guard in the lobby—new policy.”

  She waited a few seconds and slipped out of her place. She jogged down the hallway and tapped once on the door to the empty unit.

  Judd let her in. “Are you ready?”