Crash And Burn

by Fern Michaels

  Maggie raised her hand. “The racetrack would be my first suggestion. I forget which guy owns it, but there are bleachers that can accommodate a lot of people. I think it’s Eli Rook. That’s in case we want to invite all four hundred women to see the grand finale, which I happen to think is a good idea. I also have an idea about that. We’ll need Abner’s expertise again to hack into the reservation list for the weekend reserved for Eli Rook. That might take some doing, calling all of the names and canceling the reservations without Rook’s knowing. We’ll have to have people in place to take over the racetrack that weekend. His weekend is the last one in the month, right, Nikki?”

  “Yes, that’s right. How do we handle phone calls to Rook or the firm? We can’t have anyone getting in touch with Rook, or any of the others, before we make our move. Can we black out their phones somehow?” Nikki asked.

  “Avery will handle all that,” Charles said. “How long will it take you, Avery?”

  “If I put all my operatives on it, two days at the most.”

  “Abner, how long for you to do all you have to do?”

  “I’m just one guy. Two, three days. Depends if I run into trouble,” Abner said.

  “How should we go about notifying the wives of the people on the client list who got swindled in their divorces? That might take some time. People move away, don’t leave forwarding addresses, that kind of thing,” Charles said.

  “That’s where the client list comes in. We hack the husbands’ records, and somewhere in their files will be the wives’ addresses. They won’t always be current, but we can use their Social Security numbers to track them,” Avery said.

  “We girls can do that,” Annie said. “So we’re talking a week here, give or take a day or so, right?”

  The others agreed, which meant it was now carved in stone. One week of information gathering before the Chessmen were punished for their misogynistic, evildoings.

  Jack laughed out loud. “They sure won’t see this coming!”

  “Clear something up for me, because I want to make sure I understand all of this,” Espinosa said, speaking for the first time since they had all gathered. “Are we saying that Nikki’s new associate, Amy Lambert, who is Bradford Holiday’s adopted daughter, is also the birth daughter of Layla Pyne, also known as Starry Knight, who owns the Daisy Wheel? And both don’t know, at this point in time, that they are mother and daughter, right?

  “If that’s what we’re saying, that means the Chessmen as a group, or at least one of them, raped Layla Pyne twenty-seven years ago, and they have kept it a secret all these years. Right?”

  “Yes,” Charles said.

  “What about the Speaker of the House? Was he involved?” Espinosa asked.

  “We believe so,” Charles said.

  “Well, then, have you given any thought to how you are going to get him out to the racetrack at the end of the week? He doesn’t usually attend those weekend retreats. At least I didn’t see any mention of it in anything I read,” Jack said.

  “I think we can cover that with all the high-tech gurus we have working for us. He’ll be sent a text from the Chessmen ordering him to join them that particular weekend. A command performance, so to speak,” Annie said. “He won’t dare be a no-show. When they say to jump, the Speaker says how high. I don’t see a problem.”

  “I’m clear on it all now.” Alexis squeezed Espinosa’s hand to show she thought he was right to clear things up in his mind.

  “So, are we pulling an all-nighter, like back in the old days, or are we calling it a night and picking up in the morning? If my opinion counts, I’m for the all-nighter,” Maggie said, excitement ringing in her voice.

  “I second that,” Ted said, loving the eager smile he saw on Maggie’s face.

  “An all-nighter it is then,” Charles said. “The boys and I will go down to the war room. You ladies can keep the dining room. I know you’re all itching for us to leave so you can plan on how you’re going to make those men pay for all their wrongdoing.”

  “Dear, you are so astute sometimes, you amaze me,” Myra said sweetly as she kissed her husband’s cheek. “Go, go, shoo! You boys do what you have to do, and we’ll do what we do best.”

  “And that would be . . . ?” Charles called over his shoulder.

  “You don’t want to know, dear. Truly, you don’t,” Myra said softly.

  Charles shuddered. His wife was right; he really did not want to know.

  “What did Myra mean?” Dennis asked. His voice was so jittery, the parade to the war room stopped in midtrek.

  “What did I tell you about asking questions like that, kid?” Harry said, eyeballing the young reporter.

  Dennis squared his shoulders. “It’s what I do, Harry. I’m a reporter. I ask questions. What’s wrong with that?”

  “Nothing is wrong with that when you ask the right questions. You asked the wrong one just now. From here on in, it’s NTK. What that means is when the ladies want you to know, they will tell you. Give it up, kid.”

  Dennis grimaced when he saw the others glaring at him, especially Ted Robinson, his idol. “Okay, Harry.” He might not ask any more questions, but one way or another, he was going to find out the answer to his question. The thing was, would he be able to handle the answer? Then he remembered the promise he had made to himself never to piss off Harry.

  * * *

  It was day three when Myra slipped into her coat to head to Annie’s to pick her up. Their destination: the Daisy Wheel. She turned around and looked at Lady, who was staring mournfully at her. “I won’t be gone long. We’ll go for a nice long walk when I get back. Stay alert.”

  Lady barked softly to show she understood, then lay down on the carpet by the sink, which gave her a clear view of the back door and the TV monitor overhead.

  Ten minutes later, Myra pulled her car to a stop at the foot of Annie’s long driveway, surprised to see her friend waiting for her. Annie hated the cold.

  “Took you long enough,” Annie grumbled. “Do you have everything? Are you sure you didn’t forget anything?”

  “Annie, I have everything you said I needed, in that envelope, right there beside you. I’m not sure we’re going to be making a case. We’re simply going to tell her we know her secret and that that secret is safe with us. We’re going to show her a picture of her daughter. To be honest, that’s as far as I got in my thinking. We aren’t even sure she won’t kick us out and refuse to talk to us. Even though it’s early, she doesn’t start serving till four o’clock, and there are still going to be people there, the sous chefs, the food-prep people, and, of course, the waitstaff.”

  “We send them all packing and put a sign on the window that says it’s closed. How hard is that to do?”

  “Annie, we’re not going there to start a war. We’re going there to talk. TALK.”

  “See, Myra, that’s where you’re wrong. She has to know right from the git-go that this is the end of the road for her. The truth is, I think the poor soul will be relieved. If we’re right on all of this, imagine carrying all that baggage all these years with no end in sight. I say we shut it down and hope she falls into line. I have my gun, so wipe that look off your face.”

  “Oh, good Lord. Please promise me you won’t shoot up the place.”

  “Are you out of your mind, Myra? I would never promise something like that. If you keep arguing with me here, I’ll end up shooting you.”

  Myra clamped her lips shut. The rest of the trip into town to the Daisy Wheel was made in silence as Myra paid attention to her driving, and Annie read through the contents of the manila envelope in her hands.

  “Myra, how do you really feel about all of this?” Annie asked quietly.

  “In the beginning, not so good, but the more we found out, the more my thinking changed. The things and the lengths people will go to for money boggle my mind. Lawyers are supposed to be held to a higher standard. Look at Nikki and Alexis, not to mention Jack and Lizzie. They care about the clients. Not a
bout the money. They care about justice and what’s fair. Do you have any idea how much pro bono work her firm does? Half of all her business. She never told me that, Jack did.

  “Then you see those Chessmen and how they operate, and it sickens me. So, to answer your question, I am good with all we’re doing. And doing what we’re about to do might bring peace and closure to many who, otherwise, would never get it. For starters, Starry and Amy. Anything else? We’re almost there. We beat the traffic, but it’s going to be a bear going home.”

  “Think kitty cat, not bear. I’ll be driving on the way home, Myra.”

  And that was the end of that.

  Eight minutes later, Myra parked her car in the Daisy Wheel’s oversized parking lot. She looked around and saw only seven cars. The staff’s vehicles, she presumed. “I say we head to the kitchen entrance. The door will probably be open, so the workers can toss the trash when it piles up. You okay with that, Annie? No guns!”

  “No guns, no pearls!” Annie did a pretend lunge to snatch at Myra’s pearls, but Myra danced away in the nick of time.

  “Okay, okay, but you only use it to threaten if it even comes to that.”

  “Whatever you say, Myra,” Annie said sweetly. “All right . . . we’re here. Do we knock or just barge in? I’m all for the element of surprise myself.”

  “Then let’s do it!” Myra had to use all her weight to open the heavy steel door, but she managed. Annie brushed past her to the surprise of the staff at their workstations. “We need to see Starry. Like right now! Where is she?”

  A tiny girl wearing an apron, which was six sizes too big for her, pointed to the meat locker.

  “Fetch her, please,” Myra said. The little girl scurried off to return with Starry, who was holding a box labeled FRESH SALMON CUTLETS. She set it down on one of the counters and wiped her hands on her apron.

  “What are you doing here? Guests are not permitted in the kitchen. It’s too early for dinner. We don’t open till four. Even if we’re friends, I cannot allow it, ladies.”

  “Starry, listen to me. You need to send all these people home. You need to put a sign on the door saying you’re closed because of a family emergency. Please do not make this more difficult than it already is.”

  “I’ll do no such thing. I don’t understand. I thought we were friends. You can’t come in here and tell me what to do. The answer is no.”

  “Now, Myra?” Annie asked.

  “Not yet.”

  “Then let me put it to you another way, Layla. We need to talk, and the only way we can do that is if you do what I asked.”

  Starry Knight’s face turned ashen. She wobbled on her feet as she struggled to remain erect. She nodded. “Donna, put a sign on the door. Make it look pretty. Say we’re closed until further notice because of a family emergency. The rest of you, go on home. You will all be paid double time for tonight and for every day we remain closed. Plus a bonus. Don’t worry about this, I’ll clean it up, but, Steve, please take the salmon back to the meat locker. Make sure all the lights in the dining room are off. But leave the light on over the door so customers can read the sign. Connor, disconnect the phone at the desk. Hurry, please.”

  It took a full forty minutes before the Daisy Wheel was on full lockdown and the last car driven out of the parking lot.

  Myra fingered her pearls as she watched Starry trying to pull herself together. Annie was making coffee and having a hard time of it with the massive machine.

  Myra was relieved when she saw the color coming back to Starry’s cheeks.

  “How did you find out?” Starry whispered.

  “Through your daughter. By the way, she looks just like you, Starry. She’s a beautiful young woman. She’s a lawyer and is married to a very rich man, a man who made it on his own, and who just happens to be the son of the Speaker of the House.” Myra felt herself start to choke up at what she was seeing on Starry’s face. She was the dying woman in the desert who had suddenly found all the water in the world in the person of her daughter.

  “You actually know my daughter? You’ve seen her?”

  “No, Starry, not personally, but my adopted daughter is a lawyer, and your daughter applied for a job with her firm. Annie, please show Starry a picture of her daughter.”

  Annie opened the manila envelope and drew out a picture of Amy Lambert. She handed it over to Starry, who started to cry and couldn’t stop. “She does look like me. She really does. I’ve looked and looked for her, but no one would tell me who they had given her to. I begged and pleaded, but they wouldn’t tell me. I’ve been searching for her all these years. Where is she? I have to see her. Please, you have to help me.”

  “Starry, we don’t know where she is right now. You need to sit down. Annie, please get us all some coffee while I explain about Amy to . . . to her mother.” Starry went limp and almost fell off the chair she was sitting on at Myra’s words.

  “Tell me,” Starry whispered. Myra told her everything she knew.

  “Now it’s your turn. Tell us everything, then we’ll tell you what our game plan is,” Annie said as she patted Starry on the back.

  “You have most of it. I was raped by four guys, camp counselors, from one of the education camps. They were drunk. Actually, there were five of them, but one just turned tail and ran, even when I pleaded with him to help me. It was a nightmare, something no woman should ever have to go through. When it was over, I was so battered and bruised, I had to roll down to the pond and soak. I stayed in the water for hours.

  “It was almost dawn when I made my way to the house, where my mother was dying. She knew, even in her condition, that something bad had happened to me. I told her everything, how they jibber-jabbered among themselves, laughing and hooting and hollering. She told me to write it all down, because I kept repeating it to myself, over and over, during the attack. I thought it was some kind of code that college boys used among themselves. I still don’t know what it means.

  “My mother died the next day, and we buried her in our cemetery. Just a wooden cross to mark her grave. Mama left everything to me. I didn’t care about Trinity or the money. Then I realized I was pregnant. I wanted to kill myself, so the elders watched over me day and night. When I delivered the baby, it was taken away immediately, and the birth was never mentioned again. I never knew what they did with her. All I knew was I had a baby girl. I didn’t recover as quickly as the elders thought I should. I was weak, anemic. It took a good seven months before I felt anywhere near human. I stayed on at Trinity for another six months before I made the decision to leave. I told the others, and they fought me, but they couldn’t stop me. There was a lawyer in town whom Mama used to handle my father’s estate. Mama said my father was very rich, and we would never have to worry about money. I asked the lawyer for some money to start off my new life. I made him promise not to tell anyone where I was, and because he was a lawyer and ethical, he kept the promise. Anytime I needed money, he would send it to me in care of general delivery, wherever I was.

  “I just bummed around, from menial job to menial job, until I started to work at a restaurant and found out how much I liked cooking. Sometime during the second or third year, the lawyer got in touch with me and said he had an offer on my property. The sum was so staggering, I said yes. I knew I would never ever go back there. I told him to give the others whatever they needed to live out their lives, and he did that. The rest was mine to do whatever I wanted.”

  “Believe it or not, we are pretty sure that the boys who raped you are the ones who bought your property, Starry.”

  Starry nodded. “That makes sense, I guess. Lock up the scene of the crime. Years later, when I felt I was ready, I bought this building and had it renovated for the Daisy Wheel. The rest you know.

  “That’s it all in a nutshell. I was never able to find the boys who raped me, never able to find my daughter. I just resigned myself to this way of life. By the way, this getup I’m wearing, that’s not me these days.”

  With a
flourish, Starry whipped off the long-haired wig and tossed it across the kitchen, the crown of flowers losing their petals in the process. Myra and Annie watched in amazement as Starry ripped at the white gown she was wearing over khaki slacks and an Izod T-shirt. “That outfit was just a gimmick, and since it worked, I stuck with it. I always hated it because it reminded me of that night. I guess, for some crazy reason, I was punishing myself.

  “From what you said, I guess you know who those four college boys were?”

  Myra and Annie nodded.

  “Tell me.”

  “I think you know, Starry. You just don’t want to believe it or bring it out in the open. It was the Chessmen and the Speaker of the House. I don’t know which one ran off, only you would be able to identify him. I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that the jibber-jabber, as you put it, which they were hooting and hollering about in their drunkenness, was chess moves. Show me or write down what you remember,” Myra said.

  Starry got up and ran over to her little desk in the corner for a pencil and paper. She wrote down the letters and numbers just as she remembered them: “qg4+qg6” and “bf7 bxf3.”

  Annie’s eyes narrowed as she stared down at what Starry had written “You were right, Myra, chess moves. We’ve got them! We’ve, honest to God, got those bastards.”

  “Now you lock up here. First, though, we have to decide what to do with all this prepped food. Then you are coming with us. Can you call some shelter to come and pick it all up . . . like now? We’ll help you pack it up. I think you should give it all away for now, all the meat in the locker and all that stuff in those six refrigerators. Do you agree?”

  Starry nodded.

  “Tell me, why the name Starry Knight?” Annie asked.

  “The sky that night had a million stars winking down on me. I used to like to lie in the water and stare up at them and dream all kinds of dreams. Knight because it happened at night. I just did not want to ever forget. It’s that simple.”

  Annie and Myra nodded. It really was that simple.