There was a sudden flurry of activity in the water. Bubbles burst to the top as Spocatti and Alex surfaced, their dark hair as slick and as shiny as seal skin. While Alex gasped for air, Spocatti swam calmly behind Celina and lifted her up so she could get a more sturdy grip on the wooden bench.
He turned to Alex. “Go to the shore and get something to cut the rope with. If we don’t do something soon, the weight of the anchor and the pressure on her legs will cut off her circulation.”
Alex shook his head. “I’m not allowed to leave. It’s against regulations.”
“Fuck regulations,” Spocatti said. “If we don’t do something soon, this woman will be in serious trouble.”
Alex glanced at Celina and saw that she was having difficulty breathing. A mixture of fear and exhaustion was stamped on her face. He looked at Spocatti. “Why don’t you swim to shore?” he said. “I’ll stay with her.”
“I can’t swim to shore,” Spocatti said. “I’ve hurt my leg.”
“It was fine a moment ago.”
“That’s where you’re wrong, pal. I twisted it when I fell. I just don’t show pain as easily as you do. Now, either move your ass and get something to help this woman, or we’ll see you in court.”
The two men stared at one another. Then Alex made his decision and dived beneath the surface, leaving Spocatti alone with Celina.
He swam in front of her. “Do you have any feeling left in your legs?”
“Some,” she said. “But they’re tingling. And they’re colder than the rest of me. What happened?”
“My guess is that while you were struggling to free yourself from the rope, the anchor shifted off something—probably a ledge—to a deeper part of the river. Until it reaches solid ground, the weight is going to continue to pull you down.”
“How far down.”
He didn’t answer. Instead, he looked up at the rope that was secured to the raft. Although slightly frayed and swollen with water, the rope looked solid enough. “As long as this rope is attached to the raft, you aren’t in danger of sinking too far beneath the surface. Certainly no more than a foot.”
“I can drown in a foot of water,” Celina said.
“That’s true,” Spocatti said. “So if I were you, I wouldn’t let go of the bench.”
He glanced down at the water, then briefly at his watch. Alex had been gone a little over a minute. “Can you move your legs at all?” he asked.
She tried, then shook her head. “The anchor’s too heavy.”
“All right, then,” he said. “I’m going under to see if I can alleviate some of the pressure. Just hold on.”
Celina nodded and watched him dive below the surface.
She waited, her grip becoming weak on the wooden plank, her body shivering. She wondered what Jack was doing and hoped that he was all right and not thinking the worst. She wondered where Alex was and how much longer he would be.
She was lifting herself up to get a more secure grip on the bench when a tremendous pull came on her legs, straining all muscles, causing something in her right knee to give.
She gasped.
Her hands scrambled not to lose their grip on the bench and she screamed. There came another pull on her leg. And another. Celina fought each one, her entire body straining, adrenaline surging. It was the fourth and most brutal tug that cracked the wooden plank she was holding onto.
Spocatti surfaced, pocket knife in hand.
Reaching above Celina’s head, he grabbed the rope, severed it with the knife and then followed Celina as she plummeted like a rock to the river’s mucky bottom.
* * *
When the bouncing finally slowed, Jack pulled himself up, released the nylon strap with one hand while holding onto the cord with the other and dropped into the river, where he immediately kicked off his shoes so he could swim.
His head light from the fall, he treaded water, the current pulling him downstream while he tried to make sense of his surroundings. He looked around and saw that he was about ten meters from the raft. He swam as quickly as he could toward it—and saw that the raft was floating downstream.
Jack looked about him. In the distance, moving toward shore, he saw Simpson’s assistant struggling against the current.
There was no sign of Celina or the man who had jumped first.
He lifted his head from the water and shouted after Alex. “Where are they?”
Alex turned. He spotted Jack in the water, surprise crossed his face, then he glimpsed the bungee as it was being lifted to the bridge. “They’re under the raft,” he called—and only then did he notice that the raft was drifting downstream.
He stared after it, the confusion in his eyes gradually giving way to fear. There was no sign of Celina or the man who told him to come to shore. No sign of them at all.
At the same moment Jack disappeared beneath the surface, Alex dived.
* * *
Celina struggled as she sank.
Arms flailing, fists striking blows on Spocatti’s flesh, she struggled, the need to breathe rising, becoming paramount.
Eyes wide open in fear, she was aware of a flurry of bubbles racing past her, the river’s increasing debris as she neared bottom, and Spocatti as he fastened around her legs the rope he just severed from the raft.
The anchor struck bottom with a muffled thud. Celina looked down through the swirling murk, grabbed a handful of Spocatti’s hair and began pulling. She wanted to hurt him, stop him, kill him. She tried to dig at his eyes, but Spocatti twisted wildly to the right and his hair slipped through her weakening grasp.
Celina looked up as he kicked away.
She didn’t understand any of this. She didn’t understand why he wanted her dead.
Her chest ready to explode from lack of oxygen, she bent to release the rope. Her hands and fingers grasped and pulled and tugged.
But it was no use. Spocatti had bound her legs together too tightly. She couldn’t loosen the rope. In one terrible, outraged scream, she jerked upward and released what oxygen was left in her lungs. A furious whirlwind of bubbles hurled forth from her mouth and spun to the surface.
And then she inhaled, reflexively, filling her lungs with a horribly wet coolness.
Celina choked, sucked in more water, and her hands began clawing at her throat as every muscle, as every sense, rejected what she’d just done. I don’t want to die!
But the choking ended. Fading images turned to black, her eyes saw nothing and she started to list in the wavering current.
* * *
As Jack swam down, down toward the muffled scream, he glimpsed to his right a streak of black, a flurry of white and the rapid scissoring of legs.
For an instant, his gaze lingered on the departing figure and the maze of bubbles that spiraled in its wake. Then he continued downward, the need to breathe rising, his concentration focused and intent.
It was Celina’s hair Jack noticed first.
Fanning out in a half-circle, the light blonde was in sharp contrast to the river’s dark, mucky-brown bottom. Reaching out a hand, he grabbed hold of her arm and lifted her to the surface.
Tried to lift her to the surface.
Her body was unusually heavy, unusually still. As hard as he tried, as hard as he kicked, he could only lift her a few feet off the river’s bottom.
He swam down so they were facing each other and he noticed in horror that her mouth and eyes were open. Every part of his body rejected what he saw before him. Celina’s mouth hung slackly. Her eyes were frozen in sightlessness. She was staring at something that wasn’t there.
He needed air. In one last attempt to lift her to the surface, he put his arms around her…and felt the rope that was secured to her legs.
He glanced down, saw the rope, saw the anchor lying on the pebbly muck, and knew. Knew.
His chest was on fire. If he didn’t get air soon, he felt sure his lungs would burst. He bent down and worked on the rope—his hands pulled, pried and searched.
But it was no use. No matter how hard he tried, he could not loosen the rope. He could not free her. He could do nothing for her now and it tore him apart. This was his fault. This had been his idea.
With one brutal thrust off the river floor, he hurtled to the surface, kicking furiously, wildly—and leaving Celina behind in a whirlpool of bubbles.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
The first thing George Redman thought when he returned from his run in Central Park and saw the crowd of reporters gathered outside his building on Fifth Avenue was that someone must have leaked another story about the takeover of WestTex Incorporated—this one probably pertaining to his new partnership with Chase.
During the past week, the press had been relentless. They phoned, they emailed, they Twittered and they even sent notes via messenger in an effort to obtain interviews. One particularly aggressive reporter somehow slipped past security and stormed his office, demanding that his stockholders deserved to know why he wanted to take over a shipping company whose stock had plummeted since the wars in the Middle East.
It was as exhausting as it was stressful and George had had enough. They might be bitching now, he thought, but it won’t be long before they’re saying how they had faith in me all along.
He slowed his stride, considered taking one of the side entrances, but thought better of it. Each entrance would be covered by a group of reporters, word would be texted in seconds of his whereabouts and he would be surrounded in spite of his efforts. And so he quickened his pace, readied himself for the assault, determined to get past them and through the doors and into his penthouse as soon as possible.
It was a female reporter standing at the rear of the crowd who first spotted him. George watched her turn to the cameraman at her right and say something in a sharp voice. By the time the man had his video camera on his shoulder, three dozen other reporters were charging forward, microphones and cameras raised, faces set in determination….and some other emotion George couldn’t define.
They enveloped him in waves, first from the front, then from the sides and back. Strobes of light went off like exploding stars. George squinted from the glare and hurried forward. All week long he had increased security around himself and taken precautions against this very thing happening. But this morning, he thought he would be able to sneak out without incident. A nice jog in Central Park was all he wanted, with no one but himself and the trees and the other joggers for company. Naive, he thought.
He listened, but couldn’t distinguish what the crowd was saying. The roar of questions was too loud, too fervent for him to decipher, but not once did he hear mention of WestTex.
Confused, he pushed toward the doors and heard Celina’s name mentioned once. Twice.
He shouldered his way past a reporter, striking him by accident in the chest and he heard the man say that he was sorry. So very sorry.
For being in my way?
George turned to the crowd. Lightning seemed to light the morning sky as seventy cameras went off in rapid succession. Traffic slowed on Fifth as curious drivers tried to see what was unfolding in front of his building. Horns blared. Someone shouted something from a passing car.
A chill raced up his spine—something was wrong. The reporters were silent, expectant, their eyes searching his. They were just standing there, waiting for him to say something, although he didn’t know what.
It was the man he had struck in the chest who broke the silence. “I think I speak for all of us, Mr., Redman, when I say how sorry we are.”
“For what?” George said. “Sorry for what?”
Glances were exchanged.
The reporter who stepped forward now took a step back.
Beyond the crowd, two police cars pulled to the curb. Although there were no accompanying sirens, their lights were flashing.
“Would one of you please tell me what is going on here?”
Nobody said anything. There was the sound of car doors being slammed shut. At the same moment George saw Jack Douglas leave one of the police cars—face drawn, clothes rumpled—a voice from the back of the crowd said: “It’s Celina, Mr. Redman. We thought you knew. She drowned earlier this morning. Her body was sent to the Medical Examiner’s Office on First.”
And the frenzy began.
* * *
The silence in the room was deafening.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Redman.”
George squeezed Elizabeth’s hand harder, drawing on it for strength, but finding little there. Her hand was as cold as the ice in her stare. Her breathing was uneven. She learned the news only moments before he, Jack and the police stepped into the penthouse.
George found her in the second-floor living room, the phone on its side and next to her feet. Her face was pale as talc. Her eyes burned with an odd mixture of emptiness, sorrow, rage and disbelief. Helen Baines was still calling her name into the phone, still asking if she were all right, when George bent to pick it up.
He released his grip from her hand, put his arm around her and pulled her close to him. He kissed her and said they would get through this. It was one of the few lies he had ever told her and not for one minute did Elizabeth believe it. Her face crumpled, she glared at him through tears and then looked at the detective who was sitting on the sofa opposite them.
“I’m sorry,” he said again.
“I want to know what happened,” she said to the man in a thick voice. “You tell me what happened to my daughter.”
Lieutenant Vic Greenfield, the detective assigned to the case, glanced at George, saw that he also was ready for answers and stood. “She was bungee jumping with Mr. Douglas—”
“I know that,” Elizabeth said sharply. “Celina and I talked about it at last night’s party. I told her that I thought it was a foolish idea. I told her I didn’t want her to do it, but she said she had no choice.”
Her eyes hardened on Jack, who was sitting across the room, running a hand through his hair. Although his face was flushed, his eyes wet with grief, Elizabeth saw no remorse on the man’s face, only her own anger and loss reflected on it. “She said she had no choice because she made a deal with Mr. Douglas that she would do it. My daughter never backed down on her word, Lieutenant. Not ever.”
“Perhaps you should know that Mr. Douglas himself nearly drowned while trying to save your daughter’s life. If it weren’t for a man by the name of Alex Stevens, he wouldn’t be sitting here right now.”
Elizabeth gave the detective a look of loathing. “That would suit me fine, Mr. Greenfield. As far as I’m concerned, he’s responsible for her death.”
“Elizabeth,” George said.
“It’s true.”
“It’s not true. You know how Celina was.”
“If she hadn’t gone with him, she would be alive now.”
“This was an accident.”
“No, it wasn’t,” Jack said from across the room. “It was murder.”
Elizabeth looked at Jack at the same moment Isadora, the family cat, strolled into the living room and began washing herself in a slim band of sunlight. She gave the animal a look as gray as driftwood and said in a low voice to Jack, “What did you just say?”
“I said it was murder.”
Before anyone could speak, the Lieutenant intervened and told George and Elizabeth everything. He told them about Celina’s jump, how she was lowered successfully to the raft and how the raft capsized when the first jumper—a man they had not yet identified and were still searching for—apparently slipped and fell, sending all aboard into the water.
He told them that by struggling to stay afloat, Celina’s legs got tangled in the rope secured to the raft’s anchor. He told them about Jack’s efforts to save her.
Although George listened, hearing every detail of his daughter’s death and the attempt to rescue her, he found it difficult to concentrate. He was numb. He was not sure how much more of this he could take. The pressure and the grief and the anger building within him were beginning to take their toll. His daughter w
as dead. Celina was murdered. It all seemed unreal to him. Just yesterday they were together. She was vibrant and excited by what was happening in the company and by what was happening in her life with Jack.
Now she was gone. Somebody stole her from him.
From the bottom of his gut, his fury took control of him. He had power and he would use that power. Some of his closest friends were the leaders of countries. His daughter was dead, but he was alive and with his contacts, with his billions, he could make his enemies tremble.
Looking hard at the Lieutenant, he said, “I want to know what happened to the son of a bitch who’s responsible for this.”
“We’re still looking for him, Mr. Redman.”
“You mean to tell me no one standing on that footbridge saw him swim away from the raft?”
“That’s correct,” he said. “We questioned the witnesses, but there was so much confusion, no one could recall seeing anyone swim away. Many thought he also drowned.”
“Well, he didn’t,” George said. “He’s out there right now—free. And I want him caught. Do you understand me?”
The Lieutenant’s jaw tightened. “Of course, Mr. Redman.”
George’s stomach felt as though someone had driven nails into it. “Whoever rigged those spotlights with explosive is the person responsible for my daughter’s death.”
“We can’t be sure of that,” the man said guardedly. “But we’ve considered it.”
“You’re telling me you don’t see the parallel?”
“Until we have more information, it’s under consideration.”
“Here’s something else to consider,” George said, rising from his seat. “I’ve been waiting weeks for you to find out who was behind those explosives, but you’ve come back with nothing. Not one thing. Tell me why.”
The Fifth Avenue Series Boxed Set Page 27
