BAD DEEDS: A Dylan Hunter Thriller (Dylan Hunter Thrillers)

by Robert Bidinotto

  “So it appears.”

  He couldn’t resist. “What’s the matter? Did this month’s boyfriend get tired of you?”

  Her hand, wiping her cheek with a small towelette, paused in mid-stroke. She met his eyes in the mirror and a slow leer formed on her face. Then she rose, pirouetted in her bare feet to face him, and untied the belt of her silk robe. With a little shrug, she let it slide off her shoulders to the floor. She stood there, tanned and insolently naked. And laughed at him. Her breasts, taut and high, jiggled a bit with each laugh, but nothing else on her did—the result of long hours with personal trainers and tennis instructors, half of whom he was certain she was screwing. He noticed a small new bruise low on her belly. She spun again, a half-turn, and he saw two more on her ass. She ran her hands down her hips and, turning her head only, looked at him over her shoulder coquettishly.

  “Do you really think any man would get tired of me?” she said, her voice low. “Have you, Senator?”

  He felt himself stirring, in spite of himself. He was used to wielding power over others. He hated himself for her power over him.

  “You goddamned slut,” he said, his voice tight.

  She turned again to face him. Ran the tip of her tongue around her lips. “You love the fact that I’m a goddamned slut.”

  It was true, dammit. Images from their vacations floated up from memory, occasions when they experimented with threesomes and foursomes, in delicious anonymity … obscene images of her with other men, other women …

  He swallowed and said, “Knock it off. We’ve got to talk.”

  She pouted, then bent over slowly to pick up the robe, making a show of it.

  He sat on the edge of the bed. “Have you read the papers this weekend? Heard the news?”

  She laughed. “I’ve been busy.” She resumed her primping at the vanity.

  “Well, while you were screwing your brains out, we were getting screwed in other ways.” He told her about the vandalism at Capital Resources Development and the insurance cancellation. Her mocking expression vanished and grew solemn. “As a partner with Gavin’s wife, Emmalee, you two are on the hook for the loss.”

  She whipped around on the stool. “I am?”

  “All right. We are. You, legally, but me financially. Yes, we had to put the investment in your name, but it’s my money at risk. And that’s on top of the hits our CarboNot stock has taken this month. The bottom line is that we’re stretched really tight right now.”

  “How tight?”

  “Tight enough that we have to start watching our spending around here. At least until that EPA hearing is behind us and the moratorium finally issued. Once fracking is finished, our CarboNot stock will soar again.”

  “But what happens now with Capital Resources?”

  “For the moment, we’ll have to eat the loss of the facility and operate out of rented offices. But after the moratorium, the company will be able to buy up property deeds at fire-sale prices from all the holdout owners in the Allegheny. Then, within the next six months, CarboNot will announce its surprise plans to build its new alternative energy project up there. All sorts of workers and service businesses will have to move into the area. At that point, the property values will shoot sky high. And whatever land we don’t sell to CarboNot directly, for its windmills and solar panel field, we can sell off at a big profit to developers. We’ll make a killing.”

  She swallowed more of her drink. “It all sounds good … Speaking of killing: that poor scientist you told me about, the one who got himself blown up a couple weeks ago. Is there any more news about that?”

  “Horrible, isn’t it?” Conn stared at his shoes and shook his head. “My sources say the cops have questioned some local fracking protesters. But they aren’t sure those people are involved. From a message sent to the media, it seems that it was some ‘animal rights’ group that targeted him—not for his work on fracking, but for past product testing he did using lab animals.”

  She paused while applying eyeliner. “Well, I don’t like how they test cosmetics in the eyes of rabbits, either; but murder? Goddamned mental cases.”

  “You can say that again.”

  “Well … how is his death going to affect all this?”

  “Ironically, out of that tragedy at least some good will come. Now, the fracking company that hired him can’t challenge the scientific grounds for the moratorium. And without any challenge, the EPA moratorium is as good as granted.” He looked up at her. “So, from the perspective of the greater good, that finally will open the market to give alternative energy a chance. Which will mean a brighter future for the planet.”

  “And for us.” She saluted him with her glass.

  “Always thinking of yourself, aren’t you, Emmalee? Well, okay, yes—you can relax. From the personal perspective, a year from now we should be in great shape, both financially and politically.”

  She drew the robe open a bit and giggled. “Physically, I am already in great shape.”

  He got up, strode over, and grabbed the glass from her hand.

  “You don’t need any more booze this evening, Emmalee. And please—wear some underwear tonight, for a change. At least pretend to act like a future First Lady, will you? Try to remember that these initial contributions are the seed money for the presidential run. The last thing I need is for my core donors to wonder if there will be any future personal scandals.”

  “Then you’d better keep it in your pants, too, Ash. Like when you’re around that Robin Manes bitch. And I’ve seen how you look at Juanita, too.”

  He turned on his heel and stalked out.

  “But I don’t understand! Why are you shutting me out?”

  Dawn sat on the bed in tears as Boggs stomped back and forth across the threadbare carpet of the dingy motel room, trying not to snap at her, trying to tamp down a raging mixture of exasperation and fury.

  The exasperation was directed at her. Two mornings after the Silva bombing, they had been spooked by the surprise visit to their camp by several cars filled with Pennsylvania State Police detectives. The cops corralled the whole group inside the big tent, then singled them out for individual interviews that took most of the day. He and Rusty had feigned shock; they were used to lying to authorities. But like the rest of WildJustice’s members, Dawn’s shock had been authentic, and they all persuasively pleaded complete ignorance to the investigators.

  But in the days since, she began to look at him strangely, and to ask him more questions about where he was going, what he was doing. She also insisted on coming along with him whenever he and Rusty left the camp.

  Assured by his friend that the EPA moratorium was imminent, Boggs was also told that there was no further need for him to continue their direct action campaign. The man congratulated him: He had fulfilled an indispensable role. Now, they could break camp and go home. Boggs also knew that it made sense not to stick around, with the cops crawling all over the area asking questions.

  Still, he knew from experience that deals in Washington had a way of coming undone. So rather than head back to North Carolina, he told Rusty to drive to D.C. Until the EPA ruled, they would lie low in this New York Avenue dump and await the outcome.

  Which meant that Dawn was now glued to his hip, probing him for more information.

  Which, like the failed Inquirer bombing, left him exasperated.

  But what he had just learned, after going online to the Inquirer website tonight, left him furious. And the fury was directed at his … should he still even think of him as his friend? After tonight’s revelations, he was almost certain that he was being played, perhaps for years.

  Almost certain.

  He had to be sure. It was time they had it out, face to face. And he was just about to send him a text message, demanding a meeting, tonight. But he had made the mistake of telling Dawn that he had to meet with somebody privately.

  “Why do you want me to stay here? Why can’t I go along with you? You keep acting so secretly, Zak.”
>
  He spun to face her. “Look. The meeting is private, just between me and one other important contact. Rusty will drive me there and drop me off; not even he will be involved.”

  “What do you mean—even he? Don’t I matter to you as much as he does?”

  Damn. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it that way. If I could drive myself, I’d leave you both here.”

  “Give me one good reason why I can’t come with you, then, and Rusty and I both stay in the car?”

  He looked at her, feeling helpless at the question.

  “You’ve been acting so damned secretly, for so long! And then after the cops came and …” She stopped. Her red hair fell in tangled strands across her face; her tear-filled eyes looked desperate. “Zak. I love you. I want so much to believe in you, to trust you. But trust is a two-way street. I’ve trusted you all these years. Now you are going to have to trust me.”

  It was unanswerable.

  “All right! All right … Look. I have to meet with this individual alone. You can come along. But you and Rusty have to drop me off, then drive away. I’ll call you when the meeting is done.”

  Her head fell, and she continued to sob, quietly now. He went to her, sat beside her, put his arm around her.

  “Okay. Take it easy. I’m not trying to shut you out. My contact insists on security, and I’m just trying to protect that. Can you understand my position?”

  She nodded. Looked up at him with eyes trying to believe.

  “Good. Now that that’s settled, I have to go outside and send my contact a text message to arrange the meeting. I’ll be right outside the room, and as soon as I’m done, I’ll be right back.” He gave her a squeeze and a little kiss. Her cheek was warm, wet, and salty. Then he got up and headed outside.

  Avery Trammel excused himself from the elderly couple who had been chatting with him and approached Damon Sloan, who towered over the crowd. Sloan was thumbing his cell phone with a sullen expression.

  “Good evening, Damon.”

  The CarboNot CEO turned to him, startled. “Oh, Avery! Hello. Just give me a sec.” He thumbed a bit more, made a final tap, then pocketed his phone. “There we go.”

  “You looked concerned. Problem?”

  “Oh. No. No more than usual.” He smiled, half-heartedly. “Just texting my broker. While I’m here, I want him to monitor the Asian markets and give me a head’s-up about anything else that might affect our stock price tomorrow. With all that’s happened, I may have to issue some kind of statement first thing tomorrow, to reassure the shareholders.”

  “Of course.” Trammel gestured with his glass of Chardonnay at the well-dressed guests jamming the conservatory and hallways of Conn’s spacious home. “Ash certainly managed to pack them in tonight.”

  “Oh, I don’t think it’s him. I give most of the credit to your wife.”

  Sloan nodded to where Julia Haight was posing for cell-phone photos amid a mob of bedazzled guests. Next to her, doing the same, were two others from Hollywood’s A-list: a distinguished African-American actor and a famous writer-director of blockbuster spectacles. Both were known for doing films with progressive messages. A thin, middle-aged socialite preened nearby, in animated conversation with Emmalee Conn. Trammel had encountered the socialite many times; she ran a Beverly Hills group that enlisted people in the industry to slip environmental themes into movies and TV shows. Emmalee wore a low-cut cocktail dress; she kept running long red nails through her just-got-out-of-bed blonde hair. He wondered if the rumors about her were true. For the sake of Ash’s campaign, he hoped they weren’t.

  “Julia recruited them on short notice to show up here for the photo op with donors,” Trammel answered. “She is helping to line up others to attend his formal announcement fundraiser in Los Angeles next month.” He sampled the Chardonnay; it wasn’t bad. He moved in closer. “Have you been able to take another run at our reporter friend?”

  Sloan’s features tightened. “No. My contacts don’t want to risk anything further after what happened last time … What about you?”

  “I have someone on it. But since your effort, the reporter in question appears to be lying low. So far, the only things that we have learned are, first, that he never actually goes to the newspaper office. Second, his business address is one of those virtual offices downtown; to contact him, you must leave a message there. That is about it. We have not yet been able to discover where he lives, or to learn anything about his past.” He watched Julia hugging a smiling couple while a camera flashed. “It is most curious.”

  “Well, it will be just a few more days till the hearing. If he causes no further trouble, we should be fine.” Sloan craned his long neck even higher to scan the room. “I wonder where Ash has run off to? … Oh, there he is out in the hallway, playing with his phone. Let me see if I can chase him down.”

  Trammel nodded and watched him head off. He wandered toward the corner of the room where the jazz trio played, figuring it would be a good time to check his own messages. He set his glass on a tray next to the gleaming Steinway and pulled out his cell.

  “… As many of you know, I’ve known Ash since he was fresh out of Harvard Law School, and came to us looking for a job.” Gavin Lockwood turned to smile at his old friend, standing beside him. “In those days, he didn’t have much money, and he was loaded down with college loans. But still, he was willing to take a low-paying job in Nature Legal Advocacy. That’s because to Ashton Conn, convictions mattered. His principles always came first.”

  Lockwood let the applause go on as his eyes roved across one hundred twenty smiling faces, many of them familiar to him, all of them high rollers. For his part, Conn looked uncharacteristically serious, his head down. Clearly, this was an emotional moment for him.

  “I don’t have to repeat what others here have already said about his many accomplishments in the years since.” He paused to look pointedly around the conservatory. “I am delighted that he has since found ways not only to pay off those college loans, but to acquire a few well-earned toys. In fact, he promised to give me a ride in the one sitting outside the front door.”

  Everyone laughed heartily and clapped. A brief, uneasy smile passed over Conn’s lips.

  “So it gives me great pleasure to introduce the man of the hour: the environmental movement’s greatest champion in Washington—and our next President of the United States: Ashton Conn!”

  The applause echoed off the marble floor and the walnut wainscoting. Lockwood moved to the side of the room to watch Ash, with Emmalee holding his arm, step to the center of the room. The jazz trio struck up a rendition of “It’s Not Easy Being Green,” which prompted gales of laughter. Conn grinned and pointed at them, making a shooting gesture with his forefinger and thumb.

  Lockwood watched as his old friend and colleague began his speech. It was clear that the weight of the occasion was upon him. He seemed subdued, his voice soft enough that Lockwood had to cock his head to hear.

  But almost immediately he heard the pinging of an incoming text message on his phone. A couple of people nearby frowned at him. He mouthed “Sorry,” then hustled to a nearby doorway and out into the hall. He pulled out the cell and saw who it was from. He would have saved it for later, but the subject line said Urgent.

  He tapped the message. Read it.

  Felt his blood run cold.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  Rock Creek Park cuts an elongated swath of nearly three square miles in northwestern Washington, separating the upscale suburbs of Chevy Chase from those in Silver Spring. From the National Zoo to its south, the popular wooded camping and recreational area runs north along the creek from which it takes its name. Beach Drive, a paved two-lane road, parallels the stream through most of the park.

  At two a.m., Rusty drove them into the park from the east, on Military Road. He then turned north onto Beach Drive. In about half a mile they passed a small stone structure on the right, a public restroom facility. A few hundred feet further they crossed the creek ove
r a little bridge at a place called Milkhouse Ford. Just beyond that, a narrow paved road on the left, like a long driveway, angled back toward the creek. It dead-ended in a thick tangle of trees near the water, a spot virtually invisible from the main road.

  “Stop here,” Boggs snapped. Rusty pulled into the end of the driveway, up to a metal barrier that prevented further entrance. “I’ll walk in from here and wait for my contact to show. Turn around and go wait back at that outdoor restroom we passed, just on the other side of the bridge. I’ll call you on my cell when we’re finished. Don’t come back before then.”

  “Man, you’ve been awfully touchy tonight, Zak,” Rusty complained. “What’s going on?”

  Boggs spoke through clenched teeth as he opened the door. “I need to find out tonight if somebody has been playing us all for suckers.” He slammed it shut behind him.

  Dawn watched him stalk off down the path into the distant trees. Weeks of gnawing anxiety, the sense that something was terribly wrong, had only intensified in the hours since Zak sent the text message. He had come back into the room and flopped onto the bed. He lay there with his arms crossed, his dark eyes fixed unblinking on the ceiling, his dark expression forbidding any questions. From time to time, he would mutter something to himself.

  She had never seen him like that. It scared her.

  Especially in combination with everything else that had been happening this past month. His eager violence at the fracking office and the diner. His secret absences and whispered conversations with Rusty. That mysterious bag that he sometimes carried off—but which he never brought back to their tent or motel rooms.

  Where did he keep it hidden? Why? What was in it?

  She didn’t want to think about the bombing death of that scientist. Or the cops showing up and questioning them all. But mainly about Zak insisting that she lie to them, assure them that they’d all been together in the camp that night … the same night that he told her that he and Rusty had gone to meet with a cell in Warren.