by EC Sheedy
“Seems like God was otherwise occupied last night,” Tommy said, looking away for a moment and swallowing hard.
“Tommy, I—” She had no idea what she was going to say, and was glad when he cut her off with a shake of his head.
“It’s okay.” He coughed and rolled his head, an obvious effort to leave the emotional part of this meeting behind.
Tommy Black was in his early fifties, a slight man with a thin face and graying hair above his temples, good-looking in a slick Las Vegas way. His claim to fame was a computer for a brain, an invisible set of X-ray eyes that could spot a bad play at a table in the next town, and some supposed heavyweight connections here and in Los Angeles, that everyone who knew Tommy thought were more boast than beef. Add to that he had a soft spot for Phylly that went way back and got softer with every “no” she said to him. April had asked Phylly once, why she didn’t take Tommy up on his offer, and Phylly said, “I love the guy, all right, but the thing is he doesn’t need it. He loves himself enough for both of us.” But despite his amorous intentions and Phylly’s lack of them, they were friends, Rusty their bond. Rusty . . . April took a deep breath and wiped away her tears with the napkin Joe had given her.
He put his hand on her shoulder and squeezed. Oh, how she wanted his arms around her, but now wasn’t the time or place.
Tommy coughed a couple of times, as if to clear his throat. “Like I said, I’ve got to go—meeting the cops at the hospital—so I don’t have a lot of time.” Tommy looked at Joe, raised a “who’s-he?” brow in April’s direction.
“This is Joe Worth,” she said, hesitated, then added, “Phylly’s son.” Weird how saying it aloud made her feel as if she were whistle-blowing a state secret.
“Yeah?” He studied Joe, his eyebrows raised. “Didn’t know she had a son.”
“Not surprised,” Joe said.
“You look like her some. Around the eyes.”
Joe said nothing.
“You helping to look for her?” he asked.
“Yes,” Joe said, adding as if to forestall further questioning, “I’m sorry about your sister. That’s rough—and damned ugly.”
Tommy nodded, his face grim. “It’ll be someone else’s ugly, real soon. I’ve already made the calls. Important people. Whoever killed my sister is going to pay. Big time.” Even in grief, Tommy puffed up.
April knew he was referring to the so-called mysterious sources he was always going on about. But as there was nothing to be said in reply to his threat, idle or otherwise, both she and Joe let it pass. “You said you heard from Phylly,” she said, thinking it best for Tommy if she led the conversation away from Rusty.
He nodded. “Sit down.” He gestured at the chairs around the table. They all sat, and he pulled one of his business cards from his pocket. “She must have had her radar on or something, because she called the business, looking for Rusty, less than five minutes after I’d told Leanne about Rusty’s passing.”
To April the word “passing” jarred, much too serene to describe what happened to Rusty. The word made it sound as if she’d died quietly and at peace instead of screaming for a last breath while her murderer held a pillow to her face. April shuddered.
Tommy went on, “When Leanne filled her in, Phylly called me. Crying about being sorry, going on about how it was all her fault. No idea what she was talking about. But this is where she called from, said something about getting on a ferry.” He passed the card across the table and flipped it over. There was a telephone number and an address on the back. “That was maybe an hour ago tops. I had one of the security guys run a check on the number. It’s a payphone in a place called West Vancouver. In British Columbia. Very ritzy, he says.” He looked at April. “The place mean anything to you?”
“No.” She shook her head, studied the number as if it were a sonar blip. It remained meaningless.
Joe looked at the card and frowned, but said nothing.
“So . . .” Tommy drawled, leaning back in his chair. “My sister gets herself killed because some creep is after Phylly. That right?” He looked mean and angry.
April didn’t know what to say, wasn’t sure of her truths. “It’s a possibility, Tommy. We don’t know for sure.”
“I’m thinking we do know,” he said. “According to Phylly, the creep’s name is Henry Castor.” He looked at her hard, searching for confirmation.
She shook her head. “I’ve never heard of him.”
“What about Allan? Victor Allan?”
April’s mind numbed, and the hair on her arms stood straight and icy, as if chilled by a sudden wind. She couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe.
Victor Allan . . .
She knew the name all right—he was the man who the black-eyed man had taken her to for shipment. She hadn’t heard the name aloud for over twenty years. Back then, Phylly said it was a game and they both had to play. They’d pretend the bad man didn’t exist, that he’d never been real—and the first one to ever speak his name again would lose the game. Phylly had given her a big hug, told her if she played the game good enough, she’d make “nasty, mean old Victor go so far away he’d never come back.” Then, Phylly told her, she’d never have to be afraid again.
April had played the game with a vengeance since she was nine years old. And while she’d never forgotten the black-eyed man, she’d pushed Victor Allan—and his camera and ugly instructions—out of her universe.
Pretend he doesn’t exist. . .
“You okay?” Joe whispered from beside her, his deep voice laced with curiosity and concern.
She blinked, swallowed, and looked at him. He was blurred around the edges. She blinked again. “Yes . . . yes, I’m fine.” She shifted her hazy gaze to Tommy. “Where did you get that name?”
“Phylly said Castor worked for Allan,” Tommy said eying her closely. “I take it you know this Victor guy. So who the hell is he?”
“Yes, I . . . know him. From a long time ago. He was a—” What was he? She couldn’t think, her mind blocking the reloading of the nightmare, the blanks, surges, and confusion of it—the terror. A chill shimmied up her neck, and she barely suppressed a shudder. Who was Victor Allan?
Victor was a fiend.
A stranger. Terrifying. Smiling. He’d given her cookies. A peanut butter sandwich. A big room. A giant bed . . .
He’d smiled at her, started taking pictures . . . asked her to take all her clothes off. When she’d said no, he’d reached for her, torn her shirt. . .
She’d bitten him. Hard as she could. There’d been blood. Then she’d kicked him where Gus told her it hurt a guy the most.
He’d thrown her in a dark room filled with bottles. Left her forever. Hungry. She’d been so hungry. Then he’d come back for her.
She’d tried to kick him again. No use.
He’d beaten her, cut her lip, stripped off her clothes—and she’d cried, and cried, and—
April touched her mouth, felt the blood, the hot thickness of her lip today as if she were back in that room. As if Victor stood looking down at her . . . panting. Glaring. Pulling off her clothes. The flash and click of the camera. His sick and terrible pictures. Then he’d tossed her back in the basement—she’d skinned her knee, but could only feel it, not see it, because he’d unscrewed the lightbulb, so she’d be in the dark.
Two days later Phylly came and took her away. And the forgetting game began.
When she didn’t answer, Tommy sounding impatient, said, “He was what? What were you going to say, April?”
She rubbed at her tight throat, all the words bunched up in there like living things in a sealed coffin. She coughed, brushed her hair back—got a grip. “Victor Allan was an old boyfriend of Phylly’s. Phylly called him the Titanic of her mistakes. He was from Seattle.”
Beside her Joe muttered a curse, shook his head.
She knew what she’d said sounded ugly, but it was the truth, and this wasn’t the time for lies or pretending—no matter how well they’d worked in t
he past.
Pretend he doesn’t exist. . .
“Yeah, well now he’s a very dead old boyfriend,” Tommy said.
“What?” She was still trying to put herself in conversation central, trying to connect fully. A glance at Joe’s questioning eyes told her she wasn’t doing so well, and the ache in her stomach confirmed it. She flattened a hand over its tension, the threat of nausea. Phylly was right, she should never have said his name. He was back. Victor Allan was back. She looked away from Joe, to Tommy. “What did you say?”
“I’m saying, somebody beat the crap out of him, then put a few bullets in him for good measure.” Tommy picked up the coffee mug in front of him, downed it, and stood. “Phylly figures it was this Castor character, and that now he’s after her.”
“That doesn’t make sense.” April looked up at him, not trusting her legs enough to stand. Tommy couldn’t know, but there was no reason for anyone associated with Victor to come after Phylly, not after all this time. If anything it was dangerous and would stir up things best left unstirred.
“Phylly ever make sense?”
April didn’t reply. “Did she say where she was going, Tommy? Give you any names?”
“No. Just gave me some bull about how she was going where she couldn’t be found for a while. That when she figured things out, she’d be back. Said it was safer if you didn’t know.” He nodded at the business card in April’s hand. “If I were you, I’d start there. And while you look for Phylly, I’ll be looking for Castor.” He stopped again and sealed his lips into a straight seam. “But right now, I’m going to take care of my sister. Then it’s back here to get someone to cover my tables for a few days.” He turned away, took a few steps, and turned back. “You find out anything, I want to hear it. We straight on that?”
April nodded.
When he was gone, Joe sat down again in the seat opposite her. “Look at me,” he said.
“What?” she said, deeply mired in the muddy thoughts of the past and still trying to climb out. Weak and shaky, she met his speculative gaze, and took a couple of deep breaths.
“You don’t just look like you’ve seen a ghost, you are one—ever since you heard the name Victor. And considering I’m on this roller-coaster ride with you, maybe I should hear about him.”
The fear kicked in. She couldn’t say his name. She wanted to go back to being nine years old, pretending Victor didn’t exist—which, if Tommy was right, he didn’t. Not anymore. Being dead made things final—and made the job of burying him even deeper a whole lot easier. Deny, deny, deny . . .
“April, talk to me.”
“There’s no connection—” There can’t be, not after all these years. Impossible. “It’s been too long.”
“You’re not making sense. What’s too long?” His blue eyes settled on her with laser intensity.
Deny, deny, deny. Her chest knotted and she could barely breathe. “Victor Allan”—the name dried her lips as it passed over them—“was the man in the house Phylly took me from.” She swallowed, kept her eyes locked to Joe’s. “But that was over twenty years ago. And with Victor Allan dead”—this time the name came easier—“it doesn’t make sense that someone is looking for her now—not about that”
Joe went silent for a time, then said, “‘That’ was kidnapping a child with the intention of selling a child outside the country—and God knows what else. And given there’s no statute of limitations on kidnapping, my guess is Allan’s murder has made someone very, very nervous.” He leaned forward. “You’re sure you don’t remember this Castor guy?”
She shook her head. “No.”
“But you do remember the man who brought you to Allan’s house, right?”
“Yes.”
“Then Phyllis must remember him, too.”
April saw where his thoughts were taking him. He was thinking she was a threat to someone, particularly the man who’d brought her to Victor. “No. She never saw him. Phylly came to the house over a week after he took me there.”
“So that makes you the only one to have seen him.” His jaw flexed and firmed. “Tell me everything you can remember.”
She didn’t want to, didn’t want to remember. She forced herself. “When he took me to the house that night—I saw Victor give him a briefcase—money, I presume now, and the second he had it he headed for the door, and—”
“Go on.”
I’d forgotten. How could I forget? “He looked back at me, I remember. He’d tied me to a chair . . . He said—”
“What?” he urged, when she didn’t finish.
She couldn’t finish because the memory was resurfacing from the deep place. Buried there along with Victor Allan’s name and those ugly days in his basement. Phylly called it the dung heap of memories; to April it was more of a black hole. But she’d never forget the man’s hard, tight face; it was burned into her. She’d know him instantly. His face was fixed, flat—like plastic—except for the one moment before he walked out the door, when he’d looked at her— “He said, ‘Sorry, April girl,’” she blurted, the words rushing out of her on a heavy breath. “Yes, that’s what he said, ‘Sorry, April girl.’ I remember being surprised he knew my name.” And the way his faced changed when he said it. “Then he left. I never saw him again.”
Joe let out a disgusted breath. “Sweet guy. A briefcase full of cash and five cents worth of conscience.”
“Either way, Phylly never saw him. So she’s no threat to him.”
Joe went very still. “No, but you are. Which means whoever’s after her is trying to find you.”
April gaped at him. “You’re crazy.”
“Makes perfect sense to me.”
It made a cockeyed kind of sense, but not enough for April to swallow his logic whole. “But why? Why after all this time would the guy be worrying about me? He doesn’t know who I am, what I am, or where I am. Nor I him. Why would he take the risk of stirring things up?”
“Maybe somebody did the stirring for him.”
Click. Her heart staggered in her chest. “Someone who knew about Phylly stealing me from Victor.” She swallowed. “This Henry Castor person.”
He nodded. “The guy was in business with Victor Allan, cut from the same cloth. Which means he’s probably figured out a way to turn Victor’s loss—you—into a profit for him. If he can find you.”
“And he thinks the person most likely to help him do that is—”
“Phyllis Worth. She’s a means to an end, April. Not the main target.”
Like Rusty. Rusty was a means to an end, too. Oh, God. When she thought of Phylly in danger—again—because of her, panic kicked in. She jumped to her feet, almost knocking the table over in her haste to . . . do something. Anything.
Joe stood beside her. “Easy,” he said.
She picked up the business card Tommy had given her, clutching it as if it were a connecting cord between her and Phylly. Then she waved it at Joe. “We’re going to visit a telephone booth.”
Joe eyed the card then her. “That’s brilliant—as long as she etched the next clue in the glass.”
“It’s a start,” she said.
“So’s a laxative—and we all know how they finish up.”
“This isn’t funny, Joe.”
“No, it’s not, but be reasonable. That phone booth could be in the middle of nowhere.”
He was right. She was stubborn. “Phylly doesn’t do nowhere.”
“And even if it isn’t, who the hell is going to remember a woman making a phone call?”
On that point he was wrong. “A six-foot tall, blond and beautiful woman, with a fan tattooed on her ankle and five diamonds studs in each ear? A woman who doesn’t know how to walk without her stilettos?”
Joe looked annoyed. “Okay, maybe it’s a possibility, but all she did was use the damn phone. It’s not like she pitched a tent in the parking lot. She’ll be long gone.”
“You don’t know that.”
He went quiet. “What I know is th
at Phyllis Worth isn’t the only one in danger here, and that Castor wouldn’t waste his time looking for her if he knew where he could find you”—his eyes fixed on hers, held—“a fact that makes me very unhappy with said Mister Castor or any other asshole who has you in his sights. I won’t have you hurt, April. You got that?”
“Joe, you don’t have to—” She wasn’t sure what she was going to say, but she knew it had something to do with her taking care of herself, as she’d always done. But something in his face stopped her.
Ignoring her hesitation, he went on, “I also know Phyllis is self-protective enough to look out for herself—until she gets to wherever she’s going—which I doubt is a phone booth in a place called West Vancouver. Tommy did say something about her getting on a ferry, remember?”
She eyed him, calmer now, but irrationally irritated by his cool common sense put in a place where hers should have been. She was also a bit flustered at her reaction to his stern gaze and concern for her. The thing was she wanted Joe to look out for her—and she wanted to look out for him. She had a dim idea what that meant, but now wasn’t the time to figure it out. “You’re right,” she said, trying not to sound grudging. “We have to talk to Cornie—see that postcard.”
Joe nodded toward the bar’s entrance. “Speak of the devil.”
Chapter 18
The entrance to the bar was nothing more than a yawning gap that led to the casino room floor. April followed Joe’s nod to see Cornie walking into the bar—as if it was legal—at age fifteen.
April shot to her feet.
“Cornie, what are you doing here?” She took the girl’s arm, hustled her out of the bar, and towed her down an aisle lined on both sides with slot machines. “You know damn well you’re underage.”
Joe followed a step or two behind, but was wise enough to say nothing.
When they’d cleared the casino, and were standing off to the side of the hotel reception area, April was still gripping Cornie’s arm; she shrugged her off.
Joe glanced at both them in turn, and said, “I’ve got some calls to make, so I’m going upstairs.” Another quick glance at April, and he added. “If you need a bodyguard, to protect you from Miss Cornelia Worth”—he smiled briefly at both of them—“you know where to find me.” He headed for the elevators.
