The smile quickly died on her lips. “I thought it was all a joke. I didn’t really buy any of your story that day you came to my door.”
“Most people don’t believe it.”
She nodded. “Do you like what you do?”
“Private investigation?”
“Connecting people with inheritances.”
Nick leaned his head back and thought about that one. A week ago his answer would have been a resounding yes. Now it seemed ridiculous to even ponder the question.
“I did once,” was all he could manage.
Several minutes passed as both of them were lost in private thoughts. Nick’s focus centered on Rose. And Matt Von Rohr. He closed his eyes and wished he could turn back the clock. He thought back to his conversation with Alex by the Hudson River. He had done a wonderful job of justifying the break-in of Gerald Jacobs’s home. His words had swayed Alex rather quickly. We’re not hurting anyone. We’re just taking a little look around. He shook his head. Considering where they were now, perhaps he should have given a hell of a lot more thought to that rationale.
He reached up and directed a stream of cool air in his direction. The close quarters of the cabin were starting to make him feel claustrophobic, like an animal in a slowly compressing cage.
Jessica suddenly leaned over and touched his arm.
“Listen,” she whispered, cognizant of the close quarters of the cabin. “I don’t really care about finding out answers to all this. If you can find a way to get me this inheritance, I’ll sign your contract. I don’t care what it takes—just find a way. I know the kind of things you’re capable of, and it won’t bother me. Just do what you need to do.”
Nick thought for a moment, then turned to her. “What do you mean by that? What I’m capable of?”
“You know what I mean. You’ll do whatever it takes to get this money, and that’s fine if it gets us out of this alive.”
Nick wasn’t sure how to take these comments. He leaned over to her. “You don’t know me,” he said softly. “You don’t know what I’m capable of or what I’m not capable of.”
“I think I know you enough,” she said, placing her drink aside and reaching to the floor. She brought the newspaper to her lap. It was a current edition of the San Francisco Chronicle, and it was neatly folded into a tight square. Nick felt his mouth go dry as he read the headline.
Outside, the sky was clearing, and glimpses of France were now visible below, dark blotches of brown and green through a haze of scattered clouds. The flight attendants were making their rounds and collecting empty breakfast plates. Jessica waited until they had privacy again before speaking.
“I knew something wasn’t right when we left out of Philadelphia instead of JFK,” she said calmly. “When I first saw that headline in the terminal, I walked outside and flagged a taxi. But something stopped me from getting in.” She lowered her voice to barely a whisper. “You’re right—I don’t know you. But I do know what happened to my brother, and I know what happened out at my home yesterday.”
“Jessica—”
She silenced him with a finger to her lips.
“In light of all that, I’m going to give you a chance to offer your side. I want the truth, okay? Personally I couldn’t care less if you’re a thief—I’ve seen so much crookedness among lawyers that I’ve gone numb to it. What I need to know is whether or not you’d actually shoot a cop.”
Nick stared at her and tried desperately to formulate his response. He was angry with himself for allowing himself to be blindsided. He knew he should have come clean right from the start.
“Okay—the truth.” He lowered his voice appropriately. “I’m guilty of all counts—except for the attempted murder charge. This all started when my partner and I paid a county official ten thousand dollars to see the Jacobs file before any other heir finders could get to it. I don’t apologize to anyone for that. That’s how it is in this business. Right or wrong, that’s how it works.” He took a breath. “The burglary charge: technically, yes—I committed burglary. In reality it was nothing of the sort. I admit illegally entering Holtzmann’s home, but all I wanted to do was find clues about the old man’s family, and that’s exactly what I found. I know that doesn’t justify it in the eyes of the law, or the eyes of anyone for that matter, but—”
“Where does the cop fit into this story?” she asked.
“I had nothing to do with that. You wouldn’t be sitting here right now if you believed that. There was someone else in that house, Jessica. I saw him. For Christ’s sake, I was hiding under a damn grand piano when he walked in, gun out. Someone must have been watching the house when I went in. They must have come in to take me out.”
“So what happened?”
“I’m not entirely sure what happened. Right when I’m running away through the backyard, a police car pulls up to the house. The person who came in looking for me must have shot the cop when he realized he was going to get caught inside. That’s my guess anyway.”
Her eyes were skeptical. “So you’re innocent. That’s asking me to believe a lot.”
“I just told you I’m not innocent. But I didn’t shoot anyone.”
“You’ve been framed then—by the FBI, of all people.”
“That’s exactly what I’m saying. The only reason I’ve been accused of this is because they wanted me off this investigation and I wouldn’t get off. Kill a cop? Come on. I used to be a cop. My father was a cop. Don’t look at me like this is so far-fetched, either, not after everything else that’s happened. You know what happened to Matt, you know what happened to my secretary, and you know what almost happened to the two of us.”
She rolled her head back and stared at the ceiling. He reached into his coat pocket and found something he had been saving for just that moment.
“I’d like to show you something now, if I may. As a matter of fact, I’ll read it for you: ‘Mysterious Apartment Explosion Kills Two.’ One guess whose apartment that was. My secretary walked into the middle of it with a key I had given her. Yeah, I get to live the rest of my life knowing I sent her there.” He took a moment to calm himself, to make sure his voice wasn’t getting too loud. “You were right next to me running through that field, Jessica. Call me dishonest, call me a thief, but I’m no murderer. You would’ve turned around and ran at the airport if you really thought that.”
She closed her eyes. “I don’t know what to think anymore.”
“You have to believe me.”
“Well, you’ve got me there,” she said. “There’s no one else to believe in.”
The private investigator’s office was on 100th Street. It was housed in a dirty gray building that was tattooed with spray paint and mildew, and almost all of its first-floor windows were cracked and covered with gray electrical tape. The building looked more like a tenement than a place of business.
Alex studied the address and again felt confused. With so many private investigators to choose from in New York, she had difficulty imagining why a millionaire would enlist the services of one in such a sorry part of East Harlem. But then again, there was nothing about Gerald Jacobs that wasn’t bizarre.
The yellow pages ad for Demello and Blount, Private Investigators, offered a wide spectrum of investigative services, everything from promiscuous involvement to domestic deceit to decoy services, whatever that was. The old standbys of surveillance and missing persons were “specialties.” Asset recovery was even mentioned. A jack-of-all-trades, Alex thought—offering every service under the investigative sun, probably excelling in none. “State licensed,” the ad proudly proclaimed, as if this were something unique and confidence inspiring.
Their suite was located on the second floor. She knocked on the thick wooden door, waited a moment, and entered cautiously.
“Hel-lo?” she ventured.
She looked around. The office was threadbare—a couch, a chair, two dented file cabinets. Several stacks of full cardboard boxes were propped up against a wall. A tel
ephone and computer sat on a cluttered desk. High-tech private investigation.
“Anybody here?” she asked.
She approached a door, opened it, and surveyed the second bare room. A large desk sat in the back. A waste-basket lay on its side in the middle of the floor, a pile of crumpled-up papers spilling from its mouth.
She returned to the front room and immediately felt uneasy. The office was too still, its isolation a bit unnerving. She was glad she had brought the pistol. She stepped toward a leaning stack of boxes and looked inside. A coffeemaker, a tape gun, an answering machine wrapped up in its own cord. Someone was either moving in or hitting the road.
She lifted the top box off the stack, placing it on the ground. The box beneath it was a jumble of papers—bills, company invoices, surveillance reports. She randomly picked through a few of them. Seeing little of interest, she approached the file cabinet. Empty drawers gaped at her.
She cupped her chin in her hand and thought. The entire building was dead quiet. The only sound was the heater hissing weakly from the other room. She slowly turned her head. A heater? She pulled the gun free. It was seventy-five degrees outside.
She stepped to the doorway cautiously. The hissing was faint, irregular. She entered the room slowly. It seemed to be coming from directly behind the desk, a place she felt fairly certain there was no heater. She drew nearer, squinting in anticipation. She extended the gun with both hands and stepped around the desk.
“Oh God.”
The man was lying on his back. He was wearing a button-down shirt and black jeans, and what was left of his face pointed to the ceiling. His nose had been crushed, his jaw hung open and slightly askew. The entire face was a swollen, bloody pulp. Alex felt herself tremble as she heard his breath leave his throat. She slowly knelt down to him.
“Can you hear me?” she asked.
One eyelid slowly opened halfway. The whiteness of the eye stood out like an island in a sea of red.
“Listen to me,” Alex said, touching his hand. “I’m calling you an ambulance. Just hold on. Help will be here very soon.”
She started to stand, but the man gripped her hand with just enough strength to hold her there. The eye remained half open, focusing on nothing.
“Are you Demello?” Alex asked.
The voice was barely audible. “Part . . . part . . .”
“His partner,” she repeated. “You’re Blount. Where’s Demello?”
The eye closed. “Dead . . .”
“Who killed him?”
“Old man . . .”
“Old man? Jacobs?”
“They . . . killed . . . him too. . ..”
Blood was dripping steadily from his nose and one of his ears. A checkered pattern was visible on half his face—the imprint of someone’s heavy boot.
“Lie still,” said Alex, removing her phone.
“Pictures . . .”
Alex paused, then tilted her head to him.
“They want . . . pic . . . tures . . .”
Alex removed one of the Jacobs pictures she had brought along. She placed it in front of his face.
“These pictures?”
“Yes . . .”
“Do you know who these people are?”
“Jacobs . . .”
“Yes. And the others? Do you know the others?”
His throat made a gurgling sound and he coughed weakly.
“State . . . Street . . .”
She leaned toward him. “State Street?”
“Swan . . .”
Alex’s eyes widened. “Are you talking about Albany?”
“Yes . . . near . . . the park . . .”
She stood and dialed 911.
“Yes, I need an ambulance at 198 East 100th Street. I have a man here bleeding to death. . .. He’s in unit 206 . . . Yes, 206. You need to hurry—he’s in very bad shape. . .. A friend . . .”
She bent down to him, touching his hand again.
“Help is on the way,” she said. “You need to just hold on.”
His eye slowly rolled over to her. Alex swallowed a knot in her throat. The paramedics would be able to do very little once they arrived. She reached out her hand and traced a small cross on his forehead. She then wiped the doorknobs and file cabinets clean and left.
CHAPTER
23
THE TAXI WOUND endlessly through the mountains, and as the road finally began its descent the sparkling surface of Lake Geneva eased into view. With the snow-tipped mountains and the shimmering crystal of the lake as borders, Geneva appeared more resort town than busy metropolis. Tiny white-sailed boats dotted the surface of the lake like hundreds of swans at rest.
Nick didn’t notice the surrounding beauty. He was studying a map of the city and planning the day’s agenda. The layout of the city seemed bizarre, a maze of twisted side streets feeding from a dozen main thoroughfares. He wasn’t surprised—foreign cities were always that way. Paris, Sydney, Copenhagen, Naples—they had all been geographically perplexing to him. He would find his way around somehow.
He glanced over at Jessica. She was leaning forward in her seat, appreciating the sights in spite of herself. Despite the revelations of the flight, he felt the air had been cleared. Her defenses, strangely enough, seemed a bit lowered, and he was hopeful they would get along better now. They had to. Their agenda the next twenty-four hours required it.
The taxi moved along the northern edge of Lake Geneva and entered the city center. For a bustling financial center, it was hardly what Nick had expected. No glass and chrome towers in sight, just beautifully restored old buildings, Gothic structures with wooden shutters and sharply pointed spires. Fashionably dressed pedestrians filled colorful outdoor cafes lining spotless streets. This was a financial center utterly different from New York City and San Francisco; a business mecca of quiet confidence, of hidden fortunes in underground vaults, of forgotten secrets. Nick was eager to get started.
He consulted his tourist guide. He had used Michael Collier’s line of credit to book them a room at the Beau Rivage, one of the finer hotels in Geneva and a minute’s cab ride from the banks on the Place Bel-Air. Nick scanned the inside of the hotel approvingly as they registered. With its dark wood paneling and tasteful furnishings, it reflected Old World elegance, understated and comfortable. The staff seemed unobtrusive but attentive.
Their room was as nice as he had expected for the money. It was elaborately decorated with a fireplace and a sweeping view of the lakefront. The snow-flecked peaks of the Alps were visible from the window. Jessica lingered by the sill and seemed to be quietly admiring the view.
“It’s three o’clock,” Nick said, finding the phone directory. “We have plenty of time to get to your bank before closing time. First I need to fax something from the hotel lobby, though.”
“What are you sending?”
“I’ve arranged for a local PI to do address checks on some people we may be visiting later today if we have time. I need to get him the list of names I want checked.”
He walked behind her and gazed down at the water. The lake was dark blue and had lost its glare beneath a suddenly overcast sky.
“The hotel is wonderful,” she said, turning back to the room.
“Compared to what we’re used to. Too bad we’re not here to enjoy the sights. You ready?”
Her nod was a bit hesitant.
“Let’s just move along quickly,” Nick said, approaching her. “I prefer if we stick to the side streets, where there’s less foot traffic. The less people we come across, the better. We’re probably safe here, but no sense in taking crazy risks.”
He held the door for her and silently considered the absurdity of his statement. The entire trip was a crazy risk. What was even scarier was the utter lack of a contingency plan. If they walked away from Geneva empty-handed, he couldn’t see anywhere else left to turn.
The weather was not unlike a typical summer day in western San Francisco. A gray-white sky, so thick and choked with clouds that
it took an extra moment just to find the sun. The air was a pleasant seventy degrees, but it felt colder because of the breeze coming down from the mountains.
They caught a taxi and were taken over the river to the south side of the lake. Jessica was questioning their latest driver about every monument they passed, and he was more than happy to play tour guide as they crossed the final bridge over the Rhone River. They reached the Rue de Rhone and went east along the river until reaching the Place Bel-Air. Nick paid the driver, and then they were just another two faces among the crowd on the boulevard. The cobblestone street was teeming with pedestrians browsing back and forth between the boutiques and outdoor cafes, and the two of them passed through the crowds, quickly finding the safety of an adjoining side street.
The bank of Hahn and Konauer was actually behind the Place Bel-Air, about three hundred yards from the river. It was a small yet secure looking two-story building sandwiched between an art store and a bakery. The first-floor windows were tinted and allowed no view inside. A gold-plated doorbell button was inlaid into the door frame. If not for the bronze address number, Nick would have seen no indication at all that this was indeed their bank.
“Here we are,” he said. “I think.”
Jessica backed up several steps into the street and surveyed the building. It looked as if it could house any of a hundred different businesses, and a bank wouldn’t even be on the list. Nick stepped forward and pressed the doorbell. He glanced at her and could see his own tension mirrored in her face.
After a moment, the door swung inward with a shrill buzz. Nick stepped to the side and let Jessica enter first. A man in slacks and a white button-down was waiting. Nick noticed the pistol at his side.
“May I help you?” he asked, his French accent thick.
Nick answered, “We’d like to view the contents of a security box held here.”
The man studied the two of them briefly before turning to a desk behind him. He picked up a phone and continued to watch them.
Nick glanced around. This still looked nothing like a bank. It was one room with a desk and a narrow carpeted corridor leading to another door. The walls were white and completely bare. The property looked vacant.
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