Wearing the Spider (A Suspense Novel) (Legal Thriller) (Thriller)

by Schaab, Susan

  “I’m going to be at the Four Seasons with Joe,” she said.

  “Mmmm. This sounds serious.”

  “I hope so.”

  “Can I reach you on your cell?”

  “Yes.” She pulled it out and checked for power. “It’s on.” Then she returned it to its storage pocket.

  Michael agreed to call her if he heard anything. They put in the request for Neeley to meet her downstairs and accompany her to the hotel. She thanked Michael, took her bags and left.

  The unmarked FBI vehicle, a black Dodge Intrepid, was waiting for her in front of the building. A man emerged from the backseat, introduced himself as Agent Bowers, Agent Weber’s partner, and said that Agent Neeley had been detained, but that he and Agent Fisher, seated in the driver’s seat, would escort her to the Four Seasons. He flashed the now-familiar FBI badge with his photo and name and invited her into the backseat, while Agent Fisher got out of the car and loaded her suitcase into the trunk. She hesitated.

  “May I see your FBI badge again?” she asked.

  “Of course,” said Agent Bowers, handing her his badge for inspection. It was in exactly the same format as the badge Agent Weber had shown her and the photograph matched Agent Bowers’s appearance.

  “If you’d like, we can call Agent Weber and he can confirm our identity,” said Agent Bowers.

  “Yes, if you don’t mind, I’d like to do that.”

  Agent Bowers pulled out his cell phone and asked her, “Would you be more comfortable if you did the dialing?”

  “No, that’s okay, but I would like to compare the number you dial to the number he gave me.”

  “No problem.” Agent Bowers smiled. He must be used to nervous witnesses, she thought, as she retrieved Agent Weber’s card from the pocket of her briefcase.

  He punched in each number as she read them off and he showed her the screen, displaying the full number, before connecting the call.

  She nodded her approval so he took the phone back, punched something to initiate the communication, verified the connection and handed the phone to Evie. She took it and held it up to her ear.

  “Weber,” said a voice.

  “Yes, Agent Weber,” said Evie, “this is Evie Sullivan. I’m sorry to trouble you, but I just wanted to confirm that the men here to escort me are—”

  “No problem,” he said. “I understand your reluctance to trust men you’ve never met. I owe you an apology. I’m tied up and Neeley’s been called away on a murder investigation so I asked my partner and a colleague, Agent Fisher, to escort you.”

  Evie listened to the quality and cadence of the man’s voice. He sounded like her memory of Agent Weber when they met, so she thanked him and hung up, handing the telephone back to Agent Bowers with a smile. She slipped into the seat behind the driver’s seat, exhausted.

  She explained that she wanted to be taken to the Four Seasons and she watched Agent Fisher enter the FDR Drive. Agent Bowers, seated next to her, looked through a notepad. She was feeling relaxed now, the FBI would be launching a thorough criminal investigation and she would reclaim her reputation, if not her position, with Howard, Rolland & Stewart. Hopefully, this whole ordeal would soon be over and she could end this chapter in her life. She leaned back against the seat and closed her eyes, falling into a brief sleep, lulled by the hum of the engine and the routine traffic noise.

  Suddenly, she felt herself lurch forward almost touching the back of the driver’s seat. Their car had been bumped from behind while at full speed on the highway. She looked around with horror, grabbing the seat in front of her for stability.

  “What the … !” exclaimed Agent Fisher. He grabbed the wheel tighter and looked intently into his rearview mirror. Agent Bowers leaped over the seat in an astonishing, fluid movement and, from the front seat, began offering his advice on defensive driving maneuvers. Each man kept looking into the rearview mirror repeatedly as they shared their attention between what was in front of them and what was behind.

  Agent Fisher sped up and moved into another lane, shouting back at Evie to secure her seatbelt and hold on. The pursuing car mimicked the lane change and inserted itself behind them. Agent Fisher slowed down slightly, moving gradually toward the slow lane. Another bump, but this one was even sharper—a harder hit. There was no question that it was intentional. Evie’s body shot forward again, straining against the seat belt that held her.

  The sedan swerved and slid, skidding and squealing its tires, as the speed angled the body first right, then left, and back again like a delinquent carnival ride. Through a heroic series of measured maneuvers, Agent Fisher managed to control the errant vehicle and ease it over toward the rightmost lane.

  After shouting for Evie to get down, Agent Fisher began loudly reciting his rearview mirror observations, including the number of men in the pursuing car, their descriptions, the license plate and make of the vehicle and a chronicle of movement. As Evie crouched in the seat, she guessed that they must be following FBI procedure and were in the process of preserving information on a recording device hidden in the car.

  Evie peeked over the top of the front seat and saw Agent Bowers draw his Glock 9mm pistol and point it out the passenger window, as Agent Fisher turned the car onto a ramp and began exiting the highway. When Evie felt the car slowing down and realized what they were doing, she began yelling, “No! No! Don’t stop! Keep driving! Please! Keep going!” She was still stealing looks over the seat and watched Agent Bowers lean out the window, his Glock in hand. He seemed poised to jump out of the car and confront their pursuer.

  Evie, stretched herself sideways across the back seat, but her seatbelt was still fastened so the range of her movement was limited. Faced with a choice of freeing herself from the restraint or trying to locate her cell phone, she chose first to reach down into her briefcase in search of her BlackBerry. It had fallen out of its pocket during the car’s extreme zigzagging and her hand searched blindly for it in the other areas of the case and in the floor of the backseat.

  Agent Fisher had ignored her protestations and continued slowing the vehicle, finally inching to a stop on the shoulder to the off-ramp. Evie flipped the latch on her seatbelt, releasing it, and crouched on all fours down on the floorboards. Her hand found her BlackBerry and she began scrolling for Joe’s number as she glanced upward over her shoulder. Men were shouting around her and car doors flew open.

  She heard a man yell, “Freeze, FBI!” several times and for a moment she was confused because the voice sounded far away. Had the agents left her alone to confront their pursuer? She glanced down to see if her call had connected and for a fraction of a second, she puzzled over the phone’s dark display screen. Flipping the phone over in her hand, a chill ran through her with the reality that the battery was gone. When did that happen and who … ?

  In the same moment, she realized her BlackBerry’s power source was missing, her peripheral vision caught Agent Bowers flying back over the seat toward her. Before she could gather her thoughts or say anything, he grabbed her under the arm, jerked her upward and pointed his Glock at her head, yelling in the direction of the back window, “Get the fuck away from the car or I’ll waste her right here.”

  35

  Evie winced with pain from the physical force, and whispered, “You’re not FBI,” almost to herself. She looked out through the rear window of the vehicle and saw Agent Neeley, with a bandage on his head, and another man she didn’t recognize. Both men were standing in a shooting posture pointing their guns at the car where a man, who she now knew was not an FBI agent, still held her immobile.

  A muffled shot rang out and she realized that this man had tilted the gun’s barrel, now fitted with what looked like a silencer, a few inches backward and squeezed off a round just behind her head. The discharge sounded like a muted dart whizzing through the air. There is no silence more intense than the few seconds after a gunshot. Even a muffled one.

  Only a second or two crept by in slow motion as Evie simultaneously pier
ced the silence with a scream, which ricocheted around inside the automobile before reaching the agents’ ears, and glanced down frantically searching for her BlackBerry. The sudden yank of her body had knocked the device out of her hand and it was on the floor of the backseat. In her panic, she’d forgotten it had no power.

  At the sound of the shot, Agents Neeley and Flynn had backed away from Evie’s vehicle and had taken positions behind their open car doors, waiting for another opportunity to make a move.

  The man who had grabbed Evie, still held her by the upper arm, despite the downward turn of her head and he once more jerked her upward to get a better hold on her. The other man had been somewhere outside the car during the shot, but he slid back into the driver’s seat and said, “Tire’s losing air, Dennis. Musta hit something when we exited.”

  Dennis turned his face toward the front seat in an abrupt movement and cursed. They sat for a few seconds, nobody moving and then Dennis transferred his Glock to the hand he’d used to hold on to Evie, reached over with his free hand and pulled the handle on the back seat’s door. He pushed it open with his foot. In the instant he let go of her, Evie lunged for the opposite door, reflexively clawing at it with both hands. It was futile she knew because Dennis was reaching for her again, but it was an automatic move to buy time.

  “Okay!” he screamed, after yanking her back over to his side of the seat. “I’m really gonna kill her if you don’t do what I say.” He touched the warm silencer-covered barrel to her temple once again as he spoke, and his fingers dug into her arm, determined to maintain their control of her.

  “Drop your weapons and move away from the car,” Dennis barked at the agents, still visible in positions behind their doors.

  “Give us the girl and we’ll let you walk,” Agent Neeley shouted back.

  Dennis chambered another round and abruptly jerked Evie sideways, making her cry out in fear and pain. A few tears started to well up in her eyes and she held her breath. Agents Neeley and Flynn reacted by throwing up their hands.

  “Don’t hurt her,” Neeley yelled. “Okay, we’ll do what you ask.”

  Neeley and Flynn slowly began to move away from the car with their hands in the air.

  “Throw your guns DOWN!” screamed Dennis.

  The agents complied and continued their slow, backward steps away from the car. Just then, police sirens could be heard, increasing in volume as they neared the location.

  “We’ve got to get out of here,” bellowed Dennis at the man in the front seat. They each quickly heaved themselves out of the car, the driver pointing his gun at the FBI agents as Dennis pulled Evie out through the door.

  “Don’t forget to get her stuff,” said Dennis. He half-dragged Evie along toward the real FBI vehicle, her muscles straining in the opposite direction to break free. When they reached their destination, Dennis shoved her into the back seat and re-aimed his gun, now pointing it at the unarmed FBI Agents.

  Standing guard, ready to shoot if either FBI Agent made a move, the driver now lowered his gun, gathered Evie’s possessions from the trunk and the floor of the back seat and deposited a bullet into a tire of the abandoned vehicle for good measure. He walked over and dumped his load into the getaway car. Then he walked around, closing its doors and headed to the driver’s seat.

  “Cover me,” Dennis said, prompting the man, in tag-team fashion, to turn his attention and his gun back in the direction of the agents. Dennis pulled a bag from a pocket inside his jacket. He released his grip on Evie as he tore open the bag. She made another lunge outward to try and open this second car door, just as a hand holding a cloth, moist with some kind of chemical, covered her face. There was a wetness to the darkness and it had a distinctive odor that she didn’t recognize. She felt some of the moisture enter her mouth and there was a slightly sweet taste that she pushed away with her tongue.

  She fought violently with her arms while listening to the agents screaming at them from their positions ten feet or so from the car. For a moment, she successfully pushed away the arm and the malevolent cloth. In the next moment her nose, in a heightened state, documented a half-dozen smells … the idling engine, the body odor of her abductor, the smell of the chloroform-laden cloth and the musty smell of the interior of the FBI vehicle. She saw an iridescent array of color and the combination of the visuals and the smells overwhelmed her. That maelstrom of sensations was the last thing she remembered until she woke up in a semi-dark room with a raging headache.

  It was a struggle to open her eyes. Even the tiniest amount of light caused a searing pain in her head, but she blinked and tried to move. A chill was followed by a wave of nausea. She put a hand to her face and there was heat coming off her skin. As if in a different reality, she could hear muffled Manhattan street noise—traffic, honking, laughing, yelling, footfalls, machinery and the vibration from the subway. She had no idea how long she had been unconscious, where she was or who had put her there.

  She looked up at a series of darkened recessed light fixtures and tried to focus on the detail. For a few seconds, what she was seeing was as indecipherable as a torn and weathered billboard. Her mind processed the residual images that remained from before she’d lost consciousness. A man, a cloth over her face, some kind of chemical, the smells, a gun shot, the shuffle to change cars. She began to move slowly and realized that she was lying on a very large four-poster bed.

  She moved each of her limbs and discovered that no part of her body was bound, but every part of her ached. Her eyes were instinctively drawn toward the only source of light coming into the room. It was a lone window with opaque or glazed glass near the ceiling. Light was seeping through the glass, but there was no ability to discern anything on the other side. She sat up and carefully stretched. What kind of drug or chemical had been on that cloth? She had never felt this bad that she could remember.

  There was silence in the near; in the far there were still the sounds of her city—if she could just figure out how to get out there to it. She forced herself to stand, separating herself from the surface of the bed, using the headboard to steady herself. She walked toward the bedroom door and opened it. She was looking into a large room with high ceilings. It was ornately decorated and massively framed oil paintings covered the walls. If she’d paused and really focused on them, she would have recognized the artistry of Picasso, Renoir and Andy Warhol. She seemed to be in a large loft. She wondered if she was in SoHo.

  She slid her aching body into the room in slow, silent increments. As she looked around, she wondered about her suitcase, briefcase and BlackBerry, but knew they were probably in the hands of Dennis or whoever hired him. Her head was spinning, aching. Her lungs suddenly felt as if they were being pressed into nothing. Her throat burned. Her eyes teared. Her stomach was knotted and twisted, and she wondered if what she was feeling could possibly be the after-effect of that chemical-soaked cloth.

  The temperature in her body vaulted between hot and cold and she felt herself shake. No one was in the apartment that she could see or hear. She saw the front door and with labored steps, headed toward it, but fainted in the middle of the cavernous room, falling into a nightmarish sleep punctuated by sounds and fears and chills.

  ~~

  “Your girlfriend’s all over the papers,” said Ariel as she stood in the living room of Joe’s suite at the Four Seasons. She threw down a stack of newspapers on the coffee table. “They’re making her into a publicity torpedo aimed at Senator Arbeson’s re-election campaign,” she said. She spread out the periodicals and read out loud, “Senator Arbeson’s Marriage Jeopardized by Secret Mistress, Girlfriend of Senator Arbeson in Hiding, New York Law Firm Associate Disappearance Linked to Senator.”

  “Is it possible she could be in hiding of her own volition?”

  “Ari, she was chloroformed and kidnapped. This impotent asshole, Agent Neeley, saw the whole thing.”

  “Joseph, you’ve got to get yourself under control. You said the man was knocked cold. Didn’t he say tha
t because they didn’t kill her, she was being taken for some purpose and that after that purpose was fulfilled, she might be let go?”

  “I think he was just saying that to try to mitigate my anger over his incompetence. What kind of ineptitude does it take to lose a government witness?”

  “Wherever she is, if she has any idea what’s going on in the press, wouldn’t she want to lie low? Even if she has been let go, she might want to hide out until this blows over.”

  “She’d be in touch with me.”

  “What if there was something between her and the Senator? In the past, I mean. I wouldn’t blame her if there was. He’s a very sexy man. She may not have felt comfortable telling you about it, given the circumstances.”

  Joe stared at his sister with a scowl on his face.

  “This issue of Spellbound! from September 12th has a detailed story about an alleged affair between an associate of Howard Rolland and the Senator. There’s a re-print of a photograph from New York Magazine that shows Senator Arbeson with his arm around a woman who looks a lot like Evie.”

  “Ari, you’re speaking about the woman I love. Evie is not the girl in that photograph. She did not have an affair with Senator Arbeson. I can’t believe you’re willing, along with the majority of the partners of her firm, to believe the worst about her.”

  “Joseph, I’m your sister, and I love you. I’m just trying to get you to think about this in an objective way, exploring all the possibilities. I really do like Evie. I’ve come to think of her as a friend, but are you sure she’s told you everything? It’s not that hard to imagine Senator Arbeson coming on to her. She’s a beautiful girl.”

  “This is a case of mistaken identity. It’s a mistake. Her identity has been stolen and manipulated, and now the press has joined in. I have a pretty good idea who set it up.”

  “Then why wouldn’t her firm put out a statement refuting the implication?”