With a staccato beat, the mirror over the fireplace shattered into a million pieces. Glass rained upon the living room floor.
“Angel!”
He shoved her down to the floor. A shadow passed across the balcony. Zach grabbed his gun from the holster on the floor. Rolling onto his back, he kicked the front door open. Bullets flew over his head, hammering the opposite wall. As the door swung back, the bullets ripped the heavy oak off its hinges and sent it flying down the stairwell.
“Angel, get out of here!” Zach shouted. “Crawl out. I’ll cover you. Get to the car and get Anna the hell out of here!”
He fired off several rounds to shield her escape. But Angel couldn’t move, rooted to the floor with fear or perhaps a sense of loyalty that wouldn’t let her leave him in danger.
Suddenly the guns fell silent
A silence broken only by a deep, guttural moan.
“Oh, man, you got me.”
Zach walked out onto the balcony. Angel cautiously stood.
“Dear God!”
Angel leapt to Zach’s side and stared at the collapsed assailant
At first, she didn’t recognize him, and then, when she did, she fell to her knees. Zach yanked off his shirt and knelt down to staunch the blood from a gaping abdominal wound his own bullets had wrought.
“Guy…how badly are you hurt?” Zach begged.
In the glow of sunlight filtering through the green maple leaves, Guy’s face was bleached and bloated.
“It’s over Zach. I’m dead.”
“No, Guy, no, it’s not like that,” Zach said. “You took a hit the day before yesterday. This is just another one. We’ll get a doctor.”
But one glance at the soaked shirt was the horrible confirmation. Reaching under the bandages the doctor had put on him just the day before, Angel’s fingers felt the life pulse of his brother weaken and ebb.
“It’s you or me,” Guy said. “If I had the strength to lift this hand right now, I’d grab my gun and take you down, brother.”
“Why?” Angel was shocked. “He’s always been a good brother to you.”
“Dog-eat-dog world. Zach’s trying to take over the two families,” Guy whispered, staring defiantly at his brother. “And word on the street is that you’ve already gotten satisfaction on a contract for my life.”
“No, Guy.”
“Let me finish. Taking me out so that you can take over. Well, I was frightened at first, but then I knew I wouldn’t go down without a fight. The Martin family’s mine, Zach. You weren’t there to learn the business. I was. I deserve it. It’s mine. I worked for it.”
“None of this is true!” Zach protested. “Guy, I’ve always loved you. We’ve had our disagreements, but I would never put out a contract on you and I don’t want any part of the family business. That’s the truth.”
“Well, the truth doesn’t matter now, does it?” Guy said wryly, touching a weak finger to the thin bubbles of blood that formed on his mouth.
“The truth always matters.”
“And what is the truth? Only that you’re probably better suited. You’re stronger, independent, a clear thinker, courageous. Me? Aw, who am I fooling? Sometimes I’d rather have never been…” He coughed up black mucous that dribbled down his pale shirt. “Have never been who I am…”
“Guy, who told you this about Zach?” Angel begged.
He looked as if he might answer, but then he arched his back, holding out his fingers to Zach, who took them in his sure grip, and, with a gasp, Guy Martin died.
His eyes dulled. His stare hardened. His mouth fell slack.
Zach and Angel looked at each other.
Angel swallowed her horror and revulsion.
“We would never have had a chance to get him an ambulance,” she reassured, soothing the damp tendrils of hair on Guy’s pale forehead. “There was nothing you could have done.”
“I could have not fired,” Zach said, shaking his head. “Angel, I killed my own brother.”
“You didn’t know,” Angel said. “He had come to kill you. Zach, he must have been the one who murdered my parents. And Tony.”
“No, he wasn’t,” Zach cut her off. “I know what you’re thinking, Angel, but Guy wasn’t like that. He didn’t order your parents killed and he didn’t have anything to do with Tony. He was dumb and he was mean sometimes—Lord forgive me for thinking that—but he was never cold-blooded.”
“Who would tell him that you have a contract out on him?”
He pressed Guy’s eyelids shut and murmured a quick but solemn prayer. When he looked up into Angel’s eyes, his face was grim and hard.
“Get Anna and drive away,” he ordered. He stood and picked his shoulder holster from the floor. “Call the police in half an hour from a pay phone. Tell them there’s a body here and go to the airport. I’ll meet you at Terminal B, by the luggage carousel. If I’m not there by noon, get on a plane. Go anywhere in the world. But don’t come back.”
“You don’t think you’re coming with me, do you?”
He picked up several bullet casings and headed down the hall into the bathroom.
“I’m not sure,” he called back, over the roar of the water rushing into the sink.
Angel eased herself out from under Guy’s limp weight She found Zach as he came out of the bathroom, wiping the traces of blood from his hands.
He brusquely passed her and snagged a clean shirt from the top dresser drawer.
Then he checked and reloaded his gun and strapped on his shoulder holster.
“We’re going with you,” Angel said. “Wherever you’re headed.”
“No way.” He shook his head, shoving the desk drawer closed. “This is a man’s job.”
One look at his steel gray eyes persuaded her that chiding his sexism wasn’t an option.
He brushed past her and she followed him into the living room. He put on his jacket, stared long and hard at the balcony, the cool early summer wind wafting the light curtains like the hems of angels’ gowns. The living room floor was covered with broken glass and splattered blood; his brother’s body lay quietly on the edge of the glass doors to the balcony.
“I swear to you, Guy,” he whispered as Angel stood behind him. “I swear to you, Guy, I will not let him get away with this.”
“What do you mean ‘him’?” Angel cried.
But he had already swept out of the apartment. Angel grabbed her purse and followed him down the stairs. An old woman in the apartment across the hall opened her door, peered out and then slammed her door shut.
“I’m going with you!” Angel repeated.
At the bottom of the stairs, he glanced back at her.
“Zach, I’m not being left behind!”
From the distance, they could hear a police siren. Another neighbor’s door opened and then abruptly closed. They both knew they didn’t have a lot of time.
“They’ll take me in,” she observed. “Even if they don’t think I’m to blame, they’ll hold me. Think what they’ll do to Anna. O’Malley would be just the kind to rip the head off the Barbie doll and make Anna talk.”
He stared out at the sidewalk, the reflection of a squad car’s cherry lights dappling the dark underbellies of the leaves.
“Come on!”
He held the glass security door for her and they ran up the block to his Camaro.
“What’s going on?” Anna asked.
“Nothing, Anna,” Zach said. “Did you see Guy around here?”
“No, was he supposed to be here?”
“No, honey, just wondering.”
With a shared glance, Angel and Zach agreed not to say anything to her about Guy’s fate. There would be time enough for that later.
“Where are we going?” Angel asked as he started the engine.
“Where it all began,” he said, glancing in the rearview mirror as he eased the car out of its parking slot. A police car screeched to a halt in back of them, but Zach drove slow and sure to avoid undue attention.
They weren’t there when O’Malley arrived, sweeping into the apartment with a drab raincoat and the smell of tobacco.
They weren’t there when O’Malley saw Guy’s body, when he stumbled and complained to the officer who helped him to his feet that his damn blood pressure pills were giving him trouble.
They weren’t there when he reached down to touch the cool, dry skin of Guy’s face.
They weren’t there when O’Malley walked out to the edge of the balcony and closed his eyes against the brash sunlight.
It only lasted a moment, his dizzy spell. Then he gruffly demanded a cell phone and called his office.
“Has she left yet? No? Well, put her on the phone,” he said. “Jeanne? I’ve got something to tell you. Sit down, please.”
Chapter Seventeen
The red Camaro pulled onto Lake Shore Drive, passing the towering luxury lakeside apartment buildings and the vast greenery of Lincoln Park.
The air was scented with pine and the freshwater breeze off Lake Michigan. The North Avenue beach was packed, even though it was a weekday.
Zach gripped the covered steering wheel with his left hand and stared impassively at the traffic.
His right hand clung to Angel’s, and sometimes, as his mind wandered to what he was about to do, he would tighten his fingers until she winced. Then he would back off and remind himself to stay focused.
On these few precious minutes with Angel.
Because he had no idea what was coming next, but he knew it wouldn’t be good.
In twenty silent minutes, he passed the curving ravines of Glencoe’s outer limits. The sun scattered jewellike sparkles across the lake’s waves and through the maple and birch branches.
He pulled up the gravel-covered circular driveway to his parents’ home and raked a tired hand through his hair.
“What are you going to do?” she asked, her face etched with tension.
He didn’t answer the question.
“Go upstairs and pack up anything Anna wants to take with her. Try to make it carry-on because I don’t want to waste time at check-in. Trust me, Angel, please trust me. I’m not ordering you around, I’m desperate for your help.”
She looked at him thoughtfully and then nodded.
“Anna, come on, honey. We’re going to pack up some stuff for the plane ride.”
“Don’t go into the conservatory,” he warned. “I have business to take care of.”
ZACH STRODE INTO the octagonal conservatory filled with the purple and white orchids that were his father’s passion.
The air was sweet—too sweet—and sticky with the scent of orchids. The glass walls were foggy with early-morning condensation. Palm leaf and lemon grass reached to the tin ceiling. Terrazzo glistened beneath Zach’s blood-splattered shoes. Water gurgled from a fountain of cherubs and brilliant orange goldfish wavered near the mossy bottom.
Zach used rudimentary sign language to tell Inga to clear out. Which, mercifully, she did—padding out silently in her crepe shoes.
His father’s wheelchair faced the bluff overlooking the lake.
Recovering from a violent coughing fit, Guy Martin, Sr., barely inclined his head toward his younger son.
“I was wondering when you would come,” he wheezed.
“You’re a monster,” Zach said, sitting on the granite bench in front of his father.
“Maybe I am,” his father conceded with a labored lift of his shoulders. “But you always see things as so very black-and-white.”
Zach’s voice dropped to a murderous calm. “There is no gray on this one. You arranged the deaths of your best friend and his wife.”
“He wasn’t my best friend.”
“He was your only friend. You arranged the death of his son. You set up your eldest son to be killed by his younger brother—that’s me—but I bet you would have settled for vice versa.”
His father propped himself up on one elbow and craned his neck forward to confirm the news.
“Guy is dead?”
“By my own hand.”
“Dear God,” he said with only a touch of squeamishness. “But you survived.”
“Yes.”
“You should know I wouldn’t have settled for vice versa.”
Zach recoiled. “You’re a monster. You fed Guy that talk about me putting out a contract on him, didn’t you?”
“So I did. If you were a real man, it might have been true.”
“And you arranged for the death of your friend.”
His father shook his head. “Tony, Sr., was no friend of mine,” he corrected. “He would have ordered a hit on me if he thought it would be good for his business.”
“His wife…?”
“Antoinette I feel bad about,” Guy conceded. “She was a good woman. An innocent woman. Antoinette’s death was a mistake. Not my mistake, you understand. The gun I hired admitted a mistake, but said it was difficult to get a clear shot She usually came out of the car last, after her husband. It was a habit that she should have kept.”
“Who is Marcus Jones?
“I have no clue.”
“The hit man. I heard a tape of him.”
“Must have been Rocco doing one of his famous impersonations,” Guy said.
“Why would he do that?”
“Tony would tell him to do it. Rocco is a man who likes to be told what to do.”
“Who was the hit man?”
His father chuckled. “The hit man was a woman.”
“A woman?”
“I’m a great believer in equal opportunity. She came very well recommended. Absolute pro. And she’s got a great rear.”
Zach didn’t rise to the bait
“All right, what about Tony, Jr.? Was that done by your pro?”
“I didn’t have anything to do with that. I didn’t kill him and I didn’t pay to have him done.”
“I don’t believe you.”
His father shrugged. “It’s part of an everyday struggle. A business struggle.”
“And Guy?”
“Him I don’t care about.”
“You don’t care about your own son?”
His father coughed and Zach reflexively fixed him a glass of water. Recovering, his father muttered a curse. “He wasn’t my son,” Guy Martin said, finding a place for his glass on the tray table crowded with prescription bottles, paperbacks and tissues. “You’re my only son. And this, all of this,” he crowed, gesturing to the lake that stretched out before them. “This, my son, is your birthright.”
“Guy isn’t your son?” Zach demanded.
Guy, Sr., squeezed a breath from the inhalator. “No,” he grunted.
“Not my brother?”
Guy sucked in more medicine. He shook his head.
“Half brother?” Zach guessed.
Guy, Sr., dropped the inhalator and took several labored breaths before looking at his son. “Yes, but not of my blood. Considering you’re my child, you’re awfully dense.”
Zach ignored the insult “How did it happen?”
“Your mother’s a tramp.”
“Try better language.”
“Have it your way. Your mother dated both of us, me and Sciopelli. They broke up abruptly. I thought I had triumphed by winning her from him. We married immediately, me congratulating myself on my victory at love.”
“It sounds more like war than love.”
“It was a little of both. Anyway, I didn’t pay too much attention to the exact date of Guy’s arrival—he was early but your mother and I had been intimate. I didn’t even imagine that she could have betrayed me. Times were good and we made money, all of us—Tony made sure to put a lot of money into my pockets. I thought he was doing it because we were friends.”
“What changed?”
“It all changed when the shopping mall contract with the Winnetka Village trustees came up, and I found out the horrible truth.”
“What truth?”
His father wheezed uncomfortably and reached for the
inhalator.
“Guy had been screwing up on a lot of jobs and I was too sick to handle the business. When the shopping mall came up, Tony, Jr., fought hard to have the Martin company cut out of the deal. Even out of the very lucrative trucking operation. The empty truck operations.”
“Drugs?”
“Don’t be so prissy. We simply used trucks that had been used to cart materials for shipping other items that weren’t government approved. Let’s not have the drug argument again, all right?”
“Fine. Just tell me—then what?”
“Then Tony, Sr., explained to Tony, Jr., that Guy was ‘protected’ and that Guy would always work Sciopelli jobs, would always be taken care of. As family. He didn’t come right out and say he was Guy’s father, but the message was there. Tony, Jr., went ballistic and came to me with the truth.”
He started to cough.
Zach handed him a tissue.
“Thanks. I was stunned and didn’t believe it at first But I thought about it and realized it must be so. The poor kid felt as betrayed as I did.”
Zach had trouble thinking of Tony, Jr., as a “poor kid.” He had always seemed older than his years. On the other hand, he hadn’t deserved to die. Or had he?
“Did you talk this over with Mother?”
His father eyed him coldly. “I could have talked to her a lot better if I didn’t always have you looking over my shoulder.”
“You won’t raise a hand to her—or let anyone else,” Zach said. “That’s always been the deal. It doesn’t change now. Even now.”
“Always defending her. Well, it doesn’t matter. I stopped paying the tab for Anna’s occupational therapy to put the squeeze on her.”
“That’s unfair.”
“It doesn’t violate our agreement—that I not lay a hand on either of them.”
“Did you go back to paying?”
“Yes, after your mother admitted last month Guy wasn’t mine—that was enough proof for me that Tony, Sr., had been duping me all those years.”
Zach did little to hide his revulsion.
“And you had your friend killed because of something that happened over thirty-five years ago?”
“He betrayed us. All of us. Tony and I agreed to have his father killed. Tony wasn’t any happier about the situation than I was,” Guy Martin protested.
His Betrothed Page 14
