Flash

by Jayne Ann Krentz

  “No.” Todd eyed the screen more closely. “The money was transferred into another account.” He pointed to a string of numbers that followed the record of the transaction. “That one.”

  “I don’t suppose you recognize the number of that account?”

  “No, but it shouldn’t be too hard to get the name on it.”

  “Let’s start with Dixon Haggard,” Jasper said.

  Todd looked thoughtful. “Easy enough to do. Dixon was usually too busy to go to the bank. He often sent Sally. She probably has some of his deposit slips in her desk drawer.”

  The fog that had clouded portions of the scene was finally beginning to clear. Soon, Jasper thought, he would have the whole picture. He was suddenly in a great hurry to get the answers. An unpleasant sense of urgency slid through him.

  He should have come here sooner, he thought. He had the uneasy feeling that his timing was a little off this morning.

  “Get Sally in here,” he said. “Now.”

  31

  Olivia glanced at her watch as she walked across the old, scarred timbers that formed the floor of the cavernous warehouse.

  Bolivar, Bernie, and Matty were late. She had phoned the studio just before leaving the condo and left a message instructing them to meet her here. They were probably still enjoying their morning hit of caffeine and news at Café Mantra, she thought.

  If they didn’t show up in the next few minutes, she would call the coffee shop and tell someone to send the Light Fantastic staff off to work.

  She walked toward the bunting-draped stage and podium. The shadowed warehouse was so quiet that she could hear the creak of pilings and the muffled slap of water beneath the pier.

  She walked up the steps and across the stage to the red, white, and blue curtains that concealed the sound system and the control panel. She glanced up at the heavy, carefully rolled flag overhead.

  Her staff had outdone themselves. It really would have been a spectacular production, she thought. Maybe it wasn’t too late to interest the Stryker campaign. She wondered if she should delay the teardown until she got hold of a Stryker publicist. If she could talk someone into coming down here to the pier for a demonstration …

  The squeak of aging timbers broke into her thoughts. The hair stirred on the nape of her neck. She glanced toward the entrance of the warehouse. A figure stood in the gloom.

  “Bolivar? About time you got my message. But maybe it’s just as well you’re a little late. I’m thinking it might be a good idea to call the folks at Stryker headquarters. I might be able to talk them into using this entire setup.”

  “That’s one of the things I’ve always admired about you, Olivia.” Eleanor Lancaster walked through the shadows toward the stage. “You’ve got your priorities straight. The corpse of my campaign isn’t even cold yet, but you’re already planning to turn a profit on the remains.”

  “Eleanor.” A sizzle of guilt shot through Olivia. Her words had no doubt sounded extremely callous to a woman who had to be very depressed this morning. “I wasn’t expecting you. What are you doing here?”

  “I came to say good-bye.”

  Eleanor stopped at the foot of the short flight of steps that led up to the podium. She gripped the strap of her elegant leather shoulder bag very tightly. Dressed in a fitted red jacket, white blouse, and navy blue trousers, her hair bound sleekly at the nape of her neck, she looked as polished and purposeful as ever.

  The tragic heroine air that had come through so powerfully on television last night no longer radiated from her. In its place was the familiar aura of cool-headed determination and charismatic energy that had made her such a standout in the field of campaigners.

  “I know this has been a very difficult time for you,” Olivia said quietly.

  Eleanor’s smile was devoid of any real warmth. “You have no idea.”

  Olivia was suddenly aware of a hot-cold sensation. An uneasy awareness hummed through her. The energy that always vibrated in the air around Eleanor seemed darker, more intense this morning.

  Instinctively Olivia edged back a step. The movement brought her up against the curtain at the rear of the stage.

  Don’t get paranoid here, she told herself. Stay calm. Eleanor’s a little upset. Perfectly natural.

  She took hold of the edge of the curtain to steady herself. “You know, Eleanor, I have to say I’m a little surprised at how quickly you threw in the towel. I thought you’d stay in the race and fight.”

  “You haven’t got a clue, have you?” Eleanor opened her purse and reached inside. “You have no concept of the damage you did.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “You’re quite right. I could have won the election if I’d stayed in it.” Eleanor removed an object from her shoulder bag. “But you made that impossible. You screwed up everything, Olivia. Every single plan I had so painstakingly made. And now I have no choice but to disappear.”

  Light glinted dully on the pistol in her hand.

  Olivia stared, unable to believe what she was seeing. She swallowed and tightened her grip on the curtain.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she whispered. Bolivar and the others would be here any minute, she thought. All she had to do was keep Eleanor occupied until they got here. “You could have been the next governor of this state. You might have been president in a few years.”

  “Yes.” Eleanor smiled again and started up the steps. “Yes, I most certainly would have been the next governor, and I could have gone all the way to the White House. But that is no longer possible, thanks to you.”

  “Why do you keep blaming me for your problems?”

  “There are others who deserve blame, of course. But no matter how I look at the situation, I realize that you are at the heart of it. And so it is you who will pay.” Eleanor sighed. “Unfortunately, I don’t have time today to take my revenge on Sloan, although, perhaps, at some point in the future, I may get an opportunity to do so.”

  “Revenge for what, Eleanor?”

  “Where to begin?” Eleanor pursed her lips. “Shall we start with the fact that your uncle left only forty-nine percent of Glow to you instead of the entire business?”

  “What does that have to do with anything?”

  “I thought you were smarter than this, Olivia. Use your head. I had a choice of several highly experienced campaign consultants. Why do you think I chose one who lacked a track record?”

  “Todd?”

  “It wasn’t just his policy ideas that interested me, you know.” She chuckled. “It was the fact that, through you, he was connected to Glow, Inc. A company that stood to make a great deal of money during the next decade.”

  Understanding hit Olivia in a sickening wave. “And you’re going to need a lot of money if you go for the White House, aren’t you? For God’s sake, don’t tell me you somehow arranged for Uncle Rollie to die in that balloon accident?”

  “No.” Eleanor’s laugh was deep and throaty. “I saw no need to take that risk. After all, he was a very old man. He was bound to drop dead or retire soon. Either way the company was supposed to come to you. I didn’t know about his arrangements with Jasper Sloan until after his death.”

  “None of us did. Are you telling me that you expected me to finance your political career?”

  Eleanor shrugged. “You have a reputation for seeing the possibilities when it comes to other people’s futures. Look at what you did for Logan Dane and Crawford Lee Wilder. And you do have a thing about taking care of family.”

  Olivia was incredulous. “You figured that if you married Todd, I’d feel obliged to help finance your political aspirations? For his sake?”

  “Why not? You would be ensuring Todd’s future, not just mine. Your brother would have been famous. The Chantry family would have been connected to the White House, to power. What sister wouldn’t have financed that kind of career?”

  Olivia stared at her. “Eleanor, for a smart woman, you amaze me. That is some of
the craziest logic I have ever heard.”

  “No, it wasn’t crazy. But if the plan had failed, I had a fallback position.” Eleanor came to a halt next to the podium. “If you had not proven cooperative, I would have arranged to get rid of you. In which case control of Glow, Inc., would have gone to Todd.”

  Olivia could not catch her breath. Eleanor was right. Todd was the only other person in the Chantry family who could have handled Glow, and everyone knew it. Even if she had arranged for shares in the company to go to every member of the Chantry clan, she knew her relatives would have left the running of the business to Todd.

  “But it didn’t happen that way,” Olivia pointed out desperately. “My uncle took on a partner. Sloan now owns controlling interest in Glow.”

  “Yes. That was a shock. I tried a quick, surgical strike to get rid of Sloan while he was out of the country. I thought that any investigation of a deadly accident involving a tourist would be superficial at best on that backwater island.”

  “You tried to murder Jasper?”

  Eleanor smiled grimly. “Unfortunately, Dixon failed me on that occasion. I did not want to risk another attempt here in Seattle during the campaign. There was too much media attention focused on all of us. I decided to wait until after the election before making another move to get rid of Sloan. But things got complicated. First Gill tried to blackmail Dixon—”

  “And then Todd decided he didn’t want to marry you after all.”

  “Thanks to you.” Eleanor’s fingers tightened on the gun. “You talked him out of it, didn’t you?”

  “He made his own decision.”

  “Bullshit. You ruined that plan, too, just like you ruined everything else.”

  “Why do you keep blaming everything on me?”

  “Because other than myself, you were the most powerful piece on this damned chessboard.” Sudden rage infused Eleanor’s voice. “You were the only one I worried about. Everyone else could be managed.”

  “The way you managed Dixon Haggard? You used him all along, didn’t you?” Olivia whispered. “You took advantage of his obsession with you. I’ll bet you convinced him to murder your husband, didn’t you?”

  “Dixon is a fool, but he has one great attribute. He is blindly devoted to me.” Eleanor smiled tightly. She had the rage back under control. “Unfortunately, now that he has been arrested, I can no longer depend on that devotion. His lawyer has advised him to stop talking, of course, but sooner or later, Dixon will say something to implicate me. He won’t be able to help himself.”

  Olivia clenched the curtain. “That’s the real reason you terminated your campaign, isn’t it? You’re going to disappear because you’re afraid that Dixon will break down soon and tell the cops that you used him as a hit man.”

  “There is absolutely no proof that I had Dixon get rid of Richard or that I sent him to Pelapili to try to take out Sloan, but once he starts talking, I will be ruined.”

  “So you’re on your way out of town, is that it?”

  “Yes. I cleaned out the campaign bank account late yesterday afternoon before the press conference. My flight to the Caribbean leaves in an hour and a half. I doubt if anyone will find your body until this afternoon. By that time I will be safely out of the country.”

  Olivia took another step back. “My staff is due here at any minute.”

  “When I saw you leave your condominium building this morning and walk toward the waterfront, I assumed you would be coming here to dismantle the stage and props for the fund-raiser. So I called the Light Fantastic studio.”

  “What did you tell my staff?”

  “I said that I was the receptionist at the Lancaster campaign headquarters. I told the young man who answered the phone that you were there at headquarters talking to your brother and that something had come up. I said you had asked me to call your office to cancel all of your morning appointments.”

  “But Bolivar will know to go ahead with the teardown,” Olivia warned.

  “Whoever took the message was very helpful. He asked if he and the others were to go ahead with the project here at the pier. I told him you said to wait until later today.”

  Olivia took one last small step back and came up hard against the control panel. She put out a hand to steady herself.

  Eleanor raised the pistol and aimed it at her heart.

  “It’s Dixon Haggard’s account, all right.” Todd’s jaw tightened angrily. He studied the deposit slip he held. “I can’t think of a single good reason why two thousand dollars from the campaign fund would have been transferred into his personal account.”

  “I can.” Jasper gazed at the glowing computer screen. “Two thousand dollars would have covered the cost of a flight out to Pelapili, a rental car, and a couple of days in a hotel.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I’ll explain later.” Jasper reached for the phone and started to dial the number of the Light Fantastic studio. “Get on the other line. Call Lancaster. Make certain she’s still at home.”

  “She won’t pick up the phone. She’s screening her calls.”

  “Tell her it’s urgent.” Jasper listened to the ringing on the other end of the line. “Tell her a big donor just called and promised to arrange for a new infusion of cash. That should get her attention, if she’s there.”

  “Are you nuts? What’s going on here?” Nevertheless, Todd reached for the phone. He dialed quickly, listened impatiently for a few seconds, and then spoke. “Eleanor, if you’re there, pick up. You won’t believe what just happened. Money is flowing into the campaign.”

  There was still no answer at Light Fantastic. Was that good news or bad news? Jasper wondered. Maybe the entire staff was with Olivia, in which case she would be safe.

  Or maybe she was alone. His insides fused.

  A familiar, slightly breathless voice answered. “Light Fantastic. This is Zara. Can I help you?”

  “Zara, it’s Jasper. Did Bolivar and the team go down to the warehouse to meet Olivia?”

  “No, Olivia sent a message telling us to delay the teardown.”

  “Damn.” Jasper tossed the phone aside and started for the door.

  “Eleanor’s still not picking up.” Todd dropped the phone into the cradle. “Hey, where are you going?”

  “The warehouse.” Jasper zigzagged through the crowded outer office, ignoring the startled looks from the staff.

  “Why?” Todd hurried after him. “What the hell is going on here?”

  Jasper slammed through the front door and out onto the sidewalk. “You told me yourself that any check or transfer of an amount over two hundred dollars in that account had to have Eleanor Lancaster’s written approval, right?”

  “Right.” Todd followed Jasper to the Jeep. “What about it?”

  Jasper yanked open the door on the driver’s side, slid behind the wheel, and shoved the keys into the ignition. “So if I’m right about Dixon having used that money to fly out to Pelapili, then we have to assume that Lancaster sent him out there. She would have been the one who authorized the transfer of funds that enabled him to go.”

  “Why would she do that?” Todd closed the passenger door as the Jeep leaped away from the curb.

  “I’ll tell you on the way down to the waterfront.” Jasper ran the red light at the intersection.

  A litany started up in his brain. It pounded through his veins. I won’t be too late. I can’t be too late.

  But his timing was off. He could feel it in his bones.

  Olivia abandoned the frail hope that Bolivar, Bernie, and Matty would burst through the door to unwittingly rescue her. The pistol in Eleanor’s hand did not waver.

  “You know, Eleanor, you really would have made an interesting governor.”

  “I would have made a great governor.” Rage leaped in Eleanor’s eyes. “And an even greater president. This state needed me. This country needed me. But now, because of you, everything is finished.”

  Olivia gathered herself. “I
always say, give the client what she wants. Eleanor, I want you to know that we at Light Fantastic had planned a really spectacular finale for the fund-raiser. I’d hate for you to leave town without seeing that you got what you paid for.”

  She swept out a hand and hit a row of switches on the control panel.

  Martial music swelled suddenly, surging through the speakers on either side of the stage. Drums thundered. Horns blared. The exhilarating strains of a hundred-voice chorus filled the warehouse.

  —Sweet land of liberty

  The roaring music shattered Eleanor’s focused determination for an instant. She flinched.

  “Shut that off.” Her gaze shifted wildly toward the nearest speaker.

  Olivia dove off the back of the stage. She landed heavily on a tangle of electrical cords.

  “Damn you, this country needed me,” Eleanor screamed.

  Red, white, and blue light blazed in the cavernous gloom of the warehouse. Sprawled on the nest of cords, Olivia looked up and saw the huge flag unfurl in all its glowing majesty.

  —Land of the pilgrims’ pride

  Eleanor came to stand at the edge of the stage. She peered down, searching the gloom for her target.

  Olivia rolled off the pile of cords and threw herself headlong beneath the stage. The lights of the flag created a dazzling glare that cast her hiding place into dense shadow. She could crawl out on the opposite side near the steps.

  She paused when her hand touched a length of metal on the floor. One of the structural pieces left over from the construction of the some-assembly-required platform overhead. She picked it up.

  Another scream, this one of fear rather than rage echoed through the warehouse. Eleanor must have finally looked up and seen the descending flag, Olivia thought.

  But it was too late. There was a shuddering crash on the floor of the stage as Eleanor, scrambling to get out of the way, lost her balance and fell.

  Olivia crawled out from under the stage, metal bar in hand. This would be her only chance to try to get the gun away from Eleanor.