Promised Box Set

by James Kipling

  “For more on what could have caused the plane to go down, we turn now to our aviation expert, former Air Force—“

  The television clicked off and David tossed the remote control onto the bed. He could hear the shower running and hopped into action. He grabbed the bag with the remnants of his granny disguise and took a quick peek in the mirror above the dresser. His lovely companion had done a better job than he’d expected. His dark hair had been noticeably lightened but it didn’t have that forcibly bleached look that screams mid-life crisis – or man on the run. It looked natural and paired with a set of colored contacts, went a long way to altering his appearance with a subtlety that would keep him from standing out. He shrugged several times to loosen his shoulders and pulled down on the overlong sleeves of the two-sizes-too-big shirt. It would help if it were dirtier and more wrinkled but give it a few days and it would be. The jeans were only one size larger than he usually wore and he had to keep pulling them up. He tugged down on the skin of his face, for once grateful to have a little bit of the sag that comes with age.

  The looseness made it look like he’d lost a bit of weight. Perfect. He pocketed the ID on the dresser and the keys beside his companion’s purse, leaving behind a short stack of bills as a thank you. She’d understand. He wasn’t big on goodbyes and she wouldn’t like the kind of goodbye he usually settled for.

  ****

  “I’m sorry. Your call cannot be completed as—

  Lucas hung up and slammed the phone onto the couch cushion beside him. Zoe must have turned her phone off. She was probably getting overwhelmed with people calling to find out what was going on with the crash investigation and offering their condolences. He grabbed his keys from the counter and headed for the driveway. Even though his father had bought the car, it was in Lucas’s name and was one of the few things that hadn’t been seized as part of the investigation into David Warner a.k.a. Allan Peters.

  As he got into the car, Lucas looked up and down the street. Was that black sedan his neighbor’s or was someone watching him? He knew it had been parked in that same spot off and on for the last three days, but couldn’t decide if he was being watched or if he was just paranoid. If they were watching him… He spotted a smear of grease and brake fluid on the floor mat at his feet. He used the toe of his shoe to try and wipe it away but only ground it deeper into the upholstery.

  There’d be time to get the thing washed in a few days. Right now what mattered was Zoe. He swung out of the driveway and headed for her house. He didn’t think she’d be there but maybe Richard would give him a clue as to where she was staying.

  The accident report came on the radio and Lucas turned it up. “Delays related to a single car accident on 85 have been resolved. The driver of the vehicle, whose identity has not been released, has been transferred to San Francisco General Hospital with severe head injuries. His condition remains critical.”

  Lucas turned the radio off. There was a twinge in his stomach that he supposed was guilt though it could just have been that he hadn’t eaten anything in hours. The timing couldn’t have been worse but there was no way he could have known about the plane accident ahead of time.

  And even if there had been a way to know, Lucas doubted he would have done anything differently. He hadn’t exactly been thinking about what he was doing while he was doing it. It was as though no time had passed between the moment that he recognized the only two cars in the moonlit parking garage and the moment he was wiping the brake fluid off the needle-nose pliers and putting them away.

  Lucas was still new to jealousy. He was used to being the one envied, not the one doing the wanted. Well, he wanted plenty; he was just used to being able to get whatever it was through his father’s money or his own personal charms. But Zoe had said ‘no.’ She’d said it so many times, he was beginning to think she meant it. But if she said ‘no,’ then it must be because there was someone else. He knew she loved him; she was just upset over the whole Vegas thing and Lucas was willing to admit, he had royally screwed that up for both of them.

  There was part of him that wanted to make Zoe hurt. But he couldn’t do that; she would never come back to him. Of course, unless what’s-his-name was out of the picture, she wouldn’t come back to him anyway. He thought back to the way it had been when they first met. It was the weeks following her mother’s death and she needed someone to just be there. Thanks to the fact that David had been Steve’s closest friend in the wake of the accident, Lucas was around right when Zoe needed him. He planned on being there for her again now and reminding her of why she loved him in the first place.

  The stretch of road leading up to Zoe’s house was impassable thanks to a multitude of press vehicles. In addition to all the local and state networks, Lucas spotted several national affiliates. There was no way he’d be able to reach her driveway. Even though the reporters were looking for reactions to the death of Steve Dunmore, the appearance of Lucas could easily trigger a shift to the disappearance of his father.

  It was only a matter of time before someone made the connection between the increasingly public manhunt for Allan Peters and his respected alter ego David Warner, especially in the wake of Steve Dunmore’s death. Once the press got wind of that angle, they’d descend on Lucas himself. In the absence of his father, he’d become the target of their ridicule and frustration. They wouldn’t care that he had no idea where his father was or what he’d been up to all those years; they probably wouldn’t believe him.

  Lucas turned away from Zoe’s road and drove one, trying to think of some other way to find her. He decided to go to the Dunmore Corp offices. Given the day’s events, someone would almost certainly be there and they could probably point him in the direction of Zoe.

  He tried calling her again from his cell but there was still no answer. What if he couldn’t find her today? He couldn’t just sit back and do nothing. There had to be something he could do that Zoe would take notice of.

  There were just as many reporters swarming the Dunmore Corp office space as at the Dunmore residence. Once more he drove by, this time turning around and heading home. He would just have to keep calling until he found out she was okay and in the meantime, he would find something to get her attention.

  Chapter 18

  “If you look at this piece here,” the technician said, pointing to a melted piece of metal with her gloved hands. “It’s the same style trigger as the one used here,” she held the photo from the car accident that had killed Allan Peters’ lookalike. Agent Boon leaned closer but couldn’t see the similarities the enthusiastic technician found obvious. He would have to take her word for it.

  “You’re confident then that the plane was brought down by—”

  “One hundred percent. It was no accident. The plane was sabotaged and I’m between seventy-five and eighty-five percent certain it was sabotaged by the same person who rigged this car,” she asserted.

  “Thank you,” Agent Boon said, pulling his phone out and checking for messages as he started walking away.

  “Give me a few more days and I’ll get that number up,” she called after him.

  He thought about calling Zoe Dunmore with the news but thought it would be better delivered in person. The drive would also give him time to figure out how to say what needed to be said. Since the death of her father, he’d been having a difficult time figuring out how to talk to the young woman. It had stung when she’d first accused him and the FBI of letting Allan Peters escape, but the frustration had been more powerful. She hadn’t said much of anything in the wake of the accident, certainly nothing accusatory. And yet, he felt the responsibility stronger than if she had thrown his incompetence in his face.

  They had failed to catch Peters. He had eluded them twice in a week and because of that, Steve Dunmore was dead. Now he had trouble looking her in the eye but he would make himself do it because it only made him more determined to find and arrest Allan Peters.

  The press parted like the Red S
ea to make way for his black SUV, closing back around him as he pulled to a stop in the Dunmore driveway. There was a lull before they began clamoring for a statement, as if they sensed his status as a federal agent even though the vehicle was unmarked and his badge was tucked away in the inside pocket of his suit coat. “Has an official cause for the crash been found?” “Was the FBI investigating Dunmore Corp prior to yesterday’s incident?” “Are you bringing Miss Dunmore in for more questioning?”

  Agent Boon pressed through the journalists seeking sound bites and rang the doorbell. An older man answered the door and made a shooing motion to the pressing groups of reporters. “Back off vultures,” Richard muttered once Agent Boon was safely inside. “If we have anything to say, we know where to find you,” and he closed the door with a firm politeness that only an Englishman could get away with.

  “I don’t know if it will help matters,” Agent Boon told the older man as he led him to his late employer’s study. “But the FBI will be putting out an official statement regarding the crash later today. It should either send them home happy…”

  “Or give them a whole new set of questions to ask each time I answer the door,” Richard finished. “You’re right, it might not help, but at least it will be something new. I’ll have Lizzie make up some snacks,” he told Zoe who was seated at her father’s desk while Mason poked around the bookshelves.

  He left Agent Boon at the door looking in. “Agent…” Zoe said, moving to get up only to sit wearily back down in the chair. “I’m uh… I’m drafting a statement… for the company,” she said with difficulty. Though she had reached a point where she could control the tears, her eyes had acquired the permanent damp sheen of grief. “Please, interrupt.”

  “I thought it would be better to tell you in person rather than call,” he began.

  “Whatever it is, it’s good you came,” she said with a half-assed smile. “I’m still waiting for my replacement phone to arrive. I’m not sure the courier they sent was brave enough to make it past the horde outside.”

  “Oh,” Agent Boon said with an awkward nod. In many ways the toughest part of his job was dealing with victims and their families. You could never tell how someone would take the different kinds of loss he dealt with daily. He’d seen people more visibly devastated by the loss of wealth than loss of life. Tell a woman her husband was dead and she might nod with resolve, tell her he spent every cent they’d saved before he died and she might call the dead man names, burst into tears, or try and strike the messenger.

  “I received confirmation that your father’s plane was indeed tampered with,” he said slowly and deliberately, staring at a loose seam in Zoe’s chair just a few inches from her left ear “It is the professional opinion of our technician that a device was placed aboard the plane with a delayed timer so that it was only triggered after the pilot retracted the landing gear. The relay mechanism is very similar to the one used by Allan Peters in the vehicle that was used to kill his lookalike.”

  “A device?” Mason asked with a hint of derision. “You mean a bomb.”

  “Yes. Mr. Dunmore’s plane was brought down using a bomb,” Agent Boon was forced to admit.

  “Thank you,” Zoe said. “For letting me know. I mean… it’s what we thought, isn’t it? That Uncle David was behind it all…”

  “The new information confirms my suspicions, yes,” Agent Boon nodded. “I promise you, Miss Dunmore, we will find this man and bring him to justice.” He didn’t know when, but he felt it in his bones. “Now, I should be going. You have my number,” he said, moving back out of the doorway into the hall. “If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to call. It’s my direct line, so you won’t have to worry about getting through to me.”

  “I’ll walk you out,” Mason offered, giving Zoe a quick squeeze on the shoulder.

  Mason closed the door behind him leaving Zoe alone in her father’s large home office. She had thought that coming home would be difficult and in many ways it was. But it was also comforting. He was dead but surrounding by his things, by the smells she associated with him, he wasn’t completely gone.

  At the same time, something else was bothering her. She hadn’t been able to get in touch with Aiden. She’d finally caved after they recovered her father’s body and asked Mason to borrow his phone. Taking it to the privacy of the ladies’ room, she’d only reached Aiden’s voicemail where she left a rambling and incoherent message that she knew would require a call back if only for translation. When she and Mason arrived back at her house that night and found that Aiden hadn’t called, she tried his cell again. She called and left voicemail messages until she had filled his inbox. She eventually tried calling his house but there was no answer there either. It was as though he had vanished.

  So much for being there for her no matter what. There has to be an explanation, she told herself over and over. He wouldn’t leave without saying goodbye and certainly not after my father just… The more time that passed without word, the angrier and more hurt she became. Had he just been using her after all? Had he only been interested in getting between her legs or getting his job back? She couldn’t imagine what he would have to say at work the next morning – was it really almost Monday already? – but knew it would have to be good.

  She was pretty sure she’d heard from every single employee at Dunmore Corp in the last thirty-six hours, even the cleaning staff. Every single one of them had said something nice about Steve Dunmore, though only a handful of them knew him well enough to call him more than just a boss. Given the way Aiden clearly looked up to his late father’s best friend, she would have expected to hear something from him. But there’d been nothing.

  With the office to herself, Zoe found herself reaching for the landline phone again. She still hadn’t talked about it with Mason but it was only a matter of time. Dialing the number from memory, Zoe summoned up all the indignation and anger she could must only to find it wasn’t enough when the answering machine beeped.

  “Hello again. It’s Zoe, calling for Aiden. I know you’re probably tired of hearing from me. I’ve called a lot the last two days and I swear, I’m not trying to be clingy or pushy or anything. I don’t usually call anyone this many times in a whole month but…” her voice began to crack as a sob worked its way through her chest and up into her throat. “You said… that you would… be here and… I believed you. Maybe I shouldn’t have… but I did. So if you really want me… to go away then please, tell me… I don’t care if you don’t do it to my face… Just pick up, please,” she paused, praying simultaneously for him to answer and for the line to stay quiet. It was silent. “Fine, then, you know… I guess I’ve got my answer. I just want you to know… this, what you’re doing… It’s completely shitty and… and… Fuck you.”

  She slammed the receiver down and fought the immediate impulse to call again and leave an apology that would pick up right where the last message left off. What if he had picked up? She’d gotten so used to him not answering, she wasn’t sure what she would say to him if he did or if he finally called her back. Her first instinct would almost surely be to hang up and it was exactly the kind of impulse she had a tendency to act on. But the second or third time, when they actually got to talking, what would she say? She supposed it would depend on what he had to say for himself, though her imagination wasn’t up to inventing the kinds of excuses that would lead to her forgiving him.

  That’s enough about Aiden, she thought, leaning back in the leather computer chair. The seat didn’t quite fit her rear; it had melded itself to the larger shape of her father’s derriere. She looked to the sheet of paper on the desk in front of her.

  “Dunmore Corp is deeply saddened by the loss of it founder and president, Steve Dunmore, in an accident that can only be described as a tragic waste. Our thoughts and prayers are with Steve’s family and friends, as well as the families of the pilot and crew…” She picked up the pen, prepared to make another mad slash through the text.
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br />   Me. I’m basically writing that I feel sorry for myself, Zoe realized. But isn’t it true? Just when everything was starting to make sense again, when things were finally straightening out… She sighed and closed her eyes, breathing in the hints of Scotch and cigars that clung to the walls of the room. Help me, Daddy. I’m not ready.

  ****

  Mason reached out an arm and slowed the retreating FBI agent. “There’s something – or should I say someone – else I’m worried about.” He spoke quietly and glanced over his shoulder to be sure the door to the study remained shut. “One of Dunmore Corp’s employees, Aiden Butler – I believe you met him. Zoe has been trying to get in touch with him but can’t get through. He was rather close to Mr. Dunmore as well, so his silence since the accident…”

  “Butler? Yes, I – wait, his parents were killed in the same accident that killed Mrs. Dunmore,” Agent Boon recalled. “That could be cause for concern. Allan Peters could have a reason for targeting Mr. Butler… Although, taking the time to go after Steve Dunmore was more risk than I would have thought Peters was willing to take. Still, I’ll look into it; send an officer to Butler’s house to see if he’s there.”

  “Thank you,” Mason said with genuine relief. “But please, don’t mention anything to Zoe. I know she’s worried but given the situation… I don’t want her jumping to conclusions before we have any real answers.”

  “Understood. I didn’t realize Miss Dunmore and Mr. Butler were close.”

  They had reached the front door and Agent Boon could hear the reporters on the other side chatting as they waited for someone to arrive or emerge. He wondered what the rate was for a photo of the grieving daughter who was almost assuredly the company’s new president.

  “I’ve only gotten to know Aiden in the last few weeks. I understood from Mr. Dunmore that he and Zoe played together a bit as children but were only just starting to reconnect,” Mason said stiffly, doing his best to avoid just how close he suspected his friend had and Aiden had gotten in the last few days. Zoe had a pretty good excuse for not telling Mason about what he very strongly suspected had happened between her and Aiden, but Mason was familiar enough to pick up on the implication, even in Zoe’s grief-stricken state.