Dead Again: A Romantic Thriller

by Cooper-Posey, Tracy

  “I know who you are,” Peter told him.

  “Yes, I know you do,” Sophie said. “I’m putting it out on the table where we can all see it. I’m through with secrets for tonight.”

  My, my. This should be interesting. “I’m listening,” he said.

  “Jack needs to reach a district attorney in Chicago. He needs to do it without running the gantlet of flunkies and secretaries. And he needs to do it without going through public telephone networks.”

  Peter had just finished reading all the law reports on the Callahan case and all the documents surrounding Jack’s part in it. The name came easily. “You’re talking about Lionel Dempsey, aren’t you?”

  Her eyes narrowed a little. “You’ve covered some ground,” she remarked.

  Peter considered it, looked at Jack. “You’ve got a challenge there,” he acknowledged. “I don’t envy you.”

  “You don’t have to envy him,” Sophie said. “Because you’re going to phone Dempsey for him.”

  The grin came by itself. He looked at her, feeling the warm mirth in his chest. “I am, huh?” He glanced at Jack, saw his speculative gaze on Sophie and realized that he didn’t have anything to do with this. This was all Sophie’s running.

  Sophie was watching him, waiting for his attention to return to her. “If you don’t, Peter, I’m going to contact the mayor and tell him how you set that kid up to hold up my store.”

  A frisson of shock touched him. He couldn’t help it. His gaze slid to Jack, who was closing up his own unhinged jaw. Jack shook his head and Peter understood. He hadn’t told her.

  “Don’t look at Jack,” Sophie snapped. “Jack has nothing to do with this. I haven’t told anyone about the store thing and at the moment it’s just you and me. That’s the way it’ll stay if you help me with this.”

  He straightened up from the doorframe. “Why the hell should I? So you get to ride off into the sunset with the other guy?”

  Her eyes were focused on him, pulling him in. It was uncanny the way she was growing bigger in his mind. He outweighed her by nearly a hundred pounds, stood over her an extra twelve inches but she was holding her ground.

  “Is that what you’re going to bring it down to? Childish spite?”

  He could feel his cheeks warming.

  She held up a hand, motioning for him to stop, before he’d even opened his mouth. “Look,” she said quietly. “I know you’re not a bad guy, Peter. Not really. No one makes chief without some sort of ability. But this thing with me…it’s gotten away on you somehow. I can see how that might happen. It’s twisted your vision and made you do things that you probably wouldn’t do under normal circumstances. You probably know yourself that it’s getting out of hand. I think you got scared over the robbery thing. I think you know it’s gone too far.”

  He stared into her eyes and could feel the loosening in him, the relief, as she named the black thing that had been gnawing at him these last few weeks, that in moments of clarity he wished he could reverse some of the things he’d said and done. But it was too much to expect him to acknowledge it.

  “Don’t handle me,” he said. “You think I don’t know when someone’s trying to manipulate me?”

  “Dammit it, Peter, I’m giving you a second chance, you thick, stupid idiot!”

  There was a tiny sound from Jack. He whipped his head around to look. Jack was studying her, admiration plain on his face. He was even nodding a little. He looked at Peter. “She means it,” he said simply.

  Peter snorted. “Who the hell says I need a second chance?”

  “You do. In your heart, you know it. I’m telling you that every stupid thing you’ve done the last few weeks, all the unethical, tyrannical and downright illegal things you’ve done will be forgotten. Wiped clean. They never happened and I’ll swear that on my deathbed. You and I are the only ones who know about most of it. And I will forget it happened.”

  “And what about him?” Peter said, pointing.

  “He can speak for himself.”

  Jack spread his hands. “Already forgotten.”

  “If I help you with this DA.”

  Sophie studied him for a long moment. “No, it doesn’t depend on whether you help me or not. It comes gratis. Just because I feel like giving you the break. Whether you help me, or not, is entirely up to you. But I would like it if you chose to help.”

  He shook his head and sighed. “You give me no choice, put that way. What do you want me to do?”

  She turned to Jack. “What is the backdoor you wanted to use?”

  He looked around the office, searching. “You’ve got a national law enforcement directory somewhere?”

  Understanding blossomed. Peter nodded. “I know what you want,” he said and went to get it.

  Sophie found she could step back and let Jack take over after that, for he and Peter started conversing using terminology that she couldn’t follow. Even Jack sometimes faltered and would question Peter on the definition before they’d be at it again, hammering out a strategy.

  Finally, Peter went to his desk and pulled one of two phones closer to him. “It’s a direct line,” he told them. “All the others are logged.”

  Jack sat on the opposite side of the desk, the directory open in front of him.

  “You’re not going to get anyone at this time of night in Chicago, anyway. It’s one in the morning there,” Peter said, checking his watch.

  “There’ll be night clerks. There always are,” Jack assured him.

  Peter sighed. “What’s the number, then?” He punched in the number Jack gave him and listened. “Hi, this is Peter Gallenson, police chief in Serenity Falls, Montana. Yep, Montana. Sure.” Peter gave him the phone number to the sheriff’s office and hung up.

  He hung up and both he and Jack sat back.

  “What’s happening?” Sophie asked from her post by the door, puzzled by their satisfaction over a call that went nowhere.

  “They’ll go and verify Peter is who he says he is and that the phone number he gave them is legitimate. Then they’ll phone back,” Jack said.

  “And that’s going to happen every time?”

  “Unless we start talking to people in the DA’s office,” Jack said. “Then it gets a bit more complicated, because they don’t follow security procedures this way.”

  “This is what you meant by it being easier if you’re on the job?”

  He nodded and went back to waiting. Sophie checked on Morgan and Georgia but they were deeply asleep. The phone rang while she was out there and she hurried back to Peter’s office to hear him saying, “Home phone for the District Attorney. I have to reach him tonight. Yes, Lionel Dempsey.”

  There was another long wait, with Peter listening. “I’ll take her number then. Sure.” He scribbled on the pad in front of him. “Thanks.” And hung up.

  “Who could they give you?” Jack asked.

  He looked at the pad. “Francine Holin. She’s an ADA that’s down there a lot.” He picked up the phone again and shot Jack a sour look. “We’re going to be waking a lot of people up tonight.” He started dialling.

  “It’s better that way. They’ll be sleepy and off their guard and we don’t have to work past the baffles to get to them.”

  It took six more phone calls, including two to the same person, because the first referral they tried wasn’t answered. Most of the phone calls were met with sleepy disbelief, rapidly changing to hostility, to reluctant cooperation when Peter explained who he was. The last call was to an assistant district attorney that Jack knew.

  Peter sat listening in silence for a few minutes. Then he stabbed the mute button and held the phone away from his ear and looked at Jack. “We could be here all night with this guy and he won’t run out of breath and he won’t give us Dempsey’s phone number, even though he knows it.”

  “That’s Eddie Smith for you,” Jack said.

  “Do you trust this guy? Is he on the right side?”

  Jack hesitated. “Yes.”

>   “Right.” Peter jabbed at the mute button again and listened for a minute longer. “Just lemme get a word in here for a second, Mr. Smith and we can finish this off and you can go back to sleep. Does the name Jack Laubreaux mean anything to you?” He nodded as he listened. “Okay, that’s the reason I have to speak to Dempsey. Tonight. Yes.” He started scribbling. “Thank you.”

  He hung up and sat back, grinning.

  “You got it,” Jack said.

  “Smith figured it was just a phone call. If I was a crank, Dempsey would be pissed at being woken but that was all the harm I could do.”

  Jack gave a big gusty sigh and reached for the phone. Peter pushed it over a little but held on to it. “Put it on loud speaker,” he said.

  “He won’t talk if he thinks someone besides me is listening.”

  “You can use the handset. The loud speaker is one way. He won’t know you’re using it.” Peter tipped his head to one side. “You and I, we’re never going to like each other but we’re both on the job and I can help. Two heads are better than one. I should listen to what he has to say.”

  Jack nodded and Peter let the phone go. He skidded the pad across the desk and leaned back in his tilting chair.

  Jack dialled and turned on the loud speaker. The phone rang a few times, then the answering machine kicked in. He hung up and dialled again. “Heavy sleeper,” he commented.

  This time the phone rang about four times and was picked up. There was heavy fumbling, then a sleepy, cranky, “Hello?”

  “Lionel, I need you to wake up and listen. Do you recognize this voice? Does it sound familiar?”

  “What the hell… Do you know what time it is?”

  “It’s about three a.m., Chicago time,” Jack answered. “I don’t want to give you my name unless I have to. Do you remember my voice?”

  “It sounds familiar. Where did you get my number?”

  “Eddie Smith.”

  “You woke him too?”

  “I’ve woken a few people tonight—there’ll be speculation tomorrow in the office but they weren’t told it was me, except Eddie—and I trust him enough to keep his mouth shut about that.”

  “Yes, I believe I know who you are, now. You’re dead.”

  “That’s right.”

  “French Canuck bastard.” There was no insult in the tone, just a statement of fact.

  “Yes.”

  “Prove it.”

  She could see Jack’s eyes close as he thought it through.

  “You’ve got a big red Irish Setter called Einstein. Dumbest dog that ever lived, would trip over its own tongue running to greet you.”

  Dempsey was cautious. “And…”

  “She almost knocked me out one day. I was playing catch with your kids out the back and she decided she wanted the ball. Took my feet right out from under me. Took me five minutes to get my breath back and she just sat there licking my face. You were laughing so hard you spilled beer all over your pants.”

  “Okay, you’re who you say you are. You’re in trouble, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Bad?”

  “Very bad.”

  “Tell me.”

  “I know who Silent Knight is.”

  The silence was thick this time. Sophie thought she could hear Dempsey’s mind whirling.

  “Who?” he said at last.

  “Isobel Van Allen.”

  “What? Are you crazy?” the speaker squawked.

  Even Peter sat up in a hurry, surprise skittering across his face.

  “Izzy is the goddamn governor of the State of Indiana!” Dempsey protested. “She’s one of the most active anti-crime politicians out there, in either camp. Jack, you’re nuts!”

  “You know I’m not. Besides, you hate her guts, so don’t give me any of that noblesse oblige shit. Will you hear me out?”

  “Not on this phone. I have another line out in the cabana.”

  “By the pool, where your daughter lived for a year?”

  “Yes. That’s the one. It’ll take me a few minutes. I want to pour myself a stiff drink on the way out there. Give me a number.”

  Jack reeled off the number and hung up. He pushed a hand through his hair. The hand was shaking. Sophie went and stood behind him and rested her hands on his shoulders. He gripped one of them tightly.

  Peter was watching him. “He’s right. You’re fucking nuts if you think Van Allen is…what, after you?”

  “She and the entire Callahan operation, which she controls,” Jack said calmly.

  “Out of your tree,” Peter muttered.

  “Then you’d better listen to the next call too,” Jack said.

  “I’d turn down first row tickets at the super bowl for this. I’m not going anywhere.”

  * * * * *

  It took ten minutes for Dempsey to phone back. “You’re a long way from home,” he said when Jack picked up.

  “I’ve been farther.”

  “And you’ve made interesting friends.”

  “You looked up the number.”

  “Of course.”

  “Good.”

  “Okay. I’m listening. This had better be worth freezing my ass off, I warn you.”

  “You’ll have forgotten the cold when we’re finished,” Jack promised. He began with a summary of his last seven years, starting with the hit man in Miami. Then he gave Dempsey the details of the last few weeks. Dempsey asked few questions on the way through. He would have known more to start with.

  Sophie had heard it only an hour or so ago and found she was watching Peter for his reactions to the unfolding story. He was following it carefully. When Jack came to the part where the trace on his assumed name had tipped off Isobel, Peter blinked. He reached for the bottom drawer of his desk and pulled out a half-pint flask of Jim Beam, cracked the seal on it and drank a good mouthful.

  “It’s a good assumption that if anyone was going to put a watch on my records, it would be the Silent Knight and who should pop out of the woodwork when the alarm is tripped but Isobel?” Jack finished.

  “And that was five days ago?”

  “Yes.”

  “You didn’t take off again?”

  Sophie felt him squeeze her hand. “There are complications. I can’t run. Not this time.”

  “So, it’s turn around and bite back?”

  “I know who I’m fighting now, sir,” Jack said.

  “You haven’t offered me one shred of proof, yet.”

  “But you know I’m right.”

  “I can’t investigate a governor based on gut instinct,” Dempsey pointed out.

  “But you’re going to, anyway,” Jack said, sounding totally confident.

  “Damn your eyes, yes. A little private poking until I have something concrete to go on. It’ll be difficult, as she’s not in Illinois but…oh hell. Let me tell you something about Eddie Smith whom you woke earlier tonight. There were always murmurs about Isobel—you couldn’t even call them rumours or gossip because it wasn’t more than hints. But Eddie knew something. Now, I don’t know if she made a pass at him, or if she turned him down, or how it even works with those sort of people but Eddie never liked her and never trusted her. He flatly refused to work a case with her in second chair.

  “I asked him what he had against her and he wouldn’t say but five minutes later we were talking when she walked by and he muttered something about a castrating bitch with a whip. I laughed at the time. Everyone knew Isobel could be intimidating and intimidating woman tend to be denigrated by those they step on. But Eddie just shook his head and went back to work. It wasn’t until much later that I remembered Eddie had never worked with her. Not directly, not even in committee.” His sigh came through the speaker clearly. “So here I sit on a pink princess chair that’s too narrow for my middle-age spread, considering taking on the governor of Indiana.”

  “Check your records on Callahan first. See if Michael’s sexual preferences were ever put on record. And be careful,” Jack said. “She’s got i
nformation sources you wouldn’t believe. If she rigged an alarm system on the national database, you can trust that she’ll have alarms on other vital systems, like the computer networks at the office. You hit the wrong button, she’ll know you’re on her trail.”

  “I can take care of myself. I’m more worried about you, my boy. I can’t bring you in yet.”

  “I know. I’ll just have to duck and dodge until you do. Just don’t make it too long.”

  “I won’t. I’m going to hang up now. Is there a way to contact you?”

  Jack looked at Peter, who nodded.

  “Use this number,” Jack said. “Speak only to Peter Gallenson.”

  “He’s the chief there, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Merry Christmas, Jack.” Dempsey hung up.

  “So it is,” Jack said, sounding surprised.

  Chapter Twenty

  “Jack, get in here!”

  Sophie’s scream had him running before his brain had processed the message. It wasn’t until he hit the door into the lounge that he realized she’d used his real name.

  Oh well, no help for it now.

  She was standing in front of the TV, her big eyes filled with tears. She silently pointed.

  Jack turned.

  Images of ambulances, police cars, yards of yellow barrier tape. At the top of the screen, a familiar skyline he’d seen hundreds of times.

  Chicago.

  “...had been Assistant District Attorney for ten years, running some of the most high profile cases seen this century. He was the lead attorney on the Patrick Callahan trial, which put one of Chicago’s most notorious modern-day crime bosses behind bars. Building on that success, he ran for public office, trading in his assistant title for the hot seat. He won the race for District Attorney in 1998 and had served continuously until his death. Lionel Dempsey leaves behind a widow and three adult children. Police at this time have no leads.”

  The images were replaced by the studio anchors, smiling and assuring their audience they’d be back after this quick message, while snow and static buzzed the picture.