by Anita Meyer
“Leave me alone, Jeff. I don’t have time to argue with you. I have to find those ledgers.”
* * *
“Well, make her change it again!” Arthur roared, his voice bouncing off the office walls. “I want her on that stand.”
“And you think I don’t?” Jeff retorted. “She needs to go through this. She needs a sense of justice. She’ll never have closure on her brothers’ death if she doesn’t.”
“Closure?” The veins on the old man’s neck stood out against his pale skin. “Closure? You were hired as her bodyguard. Not her shrink. Three months ago she would have walked through hell and back to put Davis away. Now the D.A. is threatening to subpoena her as a hostile witness. You want to explain that, doctor?”
“Davis got to her, Jeff said. “Somehow, someway, that bastard got to her.”
“And what? Paid her off?”
“No way. She’d never take his money. She’d rather see him rot in hell.”
“Then he’s got something on her. He’s blackmailing her.”
“With what?” Jeff countered. “She’s got nothing. You’ve got her business partner in protective custody, and she doesn’t have another soul in the world.”
Arthur stroked his chin. “Except you.”
“That’s crazy.”
“Is it?” He looked Jeff slowly up and down. “Exactly what’s going on between you two?”
Jeff spoke through clenched teeth. “That, Arthur, is none of your business.”
Arthur surged to his feet. “The hell it isn’t. I’ve been working too many years to nail this guy. This case is on the line, and I’ll be damned if I’ll let you blow it. Now, I’m asking you straight out. Are you involved with her?”
Jeff dropped into a chair. The final piece clicked into place. He already knew how Caroline felt about brothers getting hurt. And he had ample reason to believe her feelings for him went a whole lot further than that. It wouldn’t take much for Davis to capitalize on it.
“Yes,” Jeff said quietly. “We’re involved.”
Arthur leaned back in his chair. “Then the only way she’ll get on that stand is it you’re out of the picture.”
Apprehension coiled in Jeff’s stomach. “Meaning what?”
“Meaning, if Caroline thinks you’re…gone…she’ll get on that stand and tell the whole world everything she knows.”
“Are you crazy? If anything happens to me, Davis loses his leverage. He’ll come after her for sure.”
Arthur grinned. “She’ll take the stand in forty-eight hours. Davis doesn’t have time to make a move, and even if he did, Mac and an army of handpicked men will be there to protect her.” Arthur rubbed his hands together. “Her testimony will break the jury’s heart.”
“And what about her heart?” Jeff asked. “Do you have any idea what this will do to her? What you’re asking me to do to her? I won’t be a part of it and that’s final.”
Arthur looked fondly at Jeff. “I’m sorry, son, but you don’t have a choice.” He punched a button on his phone and three armed men entered the room. “Take him out,” Arthur ordered. “The Lazarus Plan begins now.”
Caroline rubbed her eyes and looked at her watch. Time was slipping away and still she’d found nothing. She sat on the floor in the middle of her parents’ room, surrounded by photos and mementos and memories. Her father had kept everything her mother ever touched, ever wore, ever admired.
She traced her mother’s face in a worn photo taken of the family when Caroline was about six. Father, mother, brothers—all gone. She was totally and completely alone.
“You’re not, you know.” Mac lounged against the doorjamb, watching her.
“Not what?” she asked. She pulled the puppy out of a box and put the photo inside.
“Alone. You got us. Me and the dog…Arthur and Gran…Jeff.”
She cast him a sideways glance. “You psychic or something?”
“Nah.” He grinned. “You’re just an easy read.”
“Gee, thanks.” She finished packing the box and taped it closed. If she was that easy a read, no doubt Mac would see right through her question, but she asked it anyway. “Where’s Jeff? I haven’t seen him all day.”
“He had a meeting with Arthur. He left right after breakfast. Told me to keep an eye on you.” Mac winked broadly. “Nice change of pace. Usually I get all the grunt work.”
The phone on the night table rang and Mac picked it up. “Hello?”
Caroline jumped to her feet. “Is it Jeff?”
Mac shook his head and mouthed the word “Arthur.” “What’s up, boss?” he said into the phone. A moment later his face and voice sobered. “Let me write it down.” Caroline dug out a scrap of paper and a pencil and handed them to him. “Go ahead,” Mac said. She watched as he jotted something on the paper. “Got it,” Mac said. “I’ll be there as fast as I can.” He hung up the phone and raced downstairs.
“It’s about Jeff, isn’t it?” Caroline asked, right on his heels.
“Lock the doors,” Mac said. “All of them. Set the alarm. Stay away from the windows. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
“Forget it,” she told him, her hand on the knob of the front door. “I’m going with you.”
“You can’t,” Mac insisted. “You have to stay here.”
“Something’s wrong,” Caroline said. “Don’t insult my intelligence by trying to deny it. I know this city inside and out.” She pointed to the paper in Mac’s hand. “I can be there before you figure out whether you want the Holland Tunnel or the Brooklyn Bridge.”
Mac fingered the paper. “Okay,” he finally said. “Here.”
She read the address. “This is in Jersey—the warehouse district. What’s he doing there?”
Mac shrugged. “Only one way to find out.”
Fighting the traffic and a growing sense of fear, Caroline maneuvered the car through the city. On the east side of the Hudson, in Manhattan, real estate was at such a premium that the old warehouses had been torn down or converted to residences. But on the west side, in Jersey, from Liberty State Park to Bayonne, the waterfront was dotted with warehouses—some in use, many abandoned.
They pulled up in front of a seedy, run-down brick building about three stories high. Some of the windows and doors had been boarded up, others had been ripped open again. Weeds grew around the outside and spray-painted graffiti covered much of it.
Mac let out a long, slow whistle. “Not the safest place in town.”
Caroline forced a smile. “Not the worst, either. Believe me.” She set the brake, then double-checked the address. “They don’t exactly mark the buildings, but by the process of elimination, I’m pretty sure this is it.” She reached for the door handle, but Mac grabbed her arm.
“Stay here. Lock the doors and wait for me. Anyone bothers you, put it in gear and go.”
She laughed. “Not a chance and you know it.”
Mac returned her grin. “Hey, it was worth a try.” He checked his gun, then squeezed her hand. “C’mon, then, let’s go.”
They hadn’t gone more than a few steps, when a figure waved to them from a half-boarded window upstairs.
“It’s Jeff,” Caroline said. She waved back, then cupped her hands around her mouth to shout to him. Her words were drowned by a booming explosion that shook the ground. Smoke billowed from the windows. Two more explosions went off in rapid succession, sending fire and flaming debris into the air. The old building trembled and she watched in helpless terror as Jeff disappeared from view.
“No!” she screamed. “No-o-o-o-o!”
Chapter 18
Dear God, no!
“Jeff!” she screamed. “Jeff!” She raced for the door, but Mac’s strong arms held her back. “Let me go! Let me go!”
“No, Caroline.” His voice was thick. “We’d never make it.”
She turned on him, beating his chest with her fists. “We’ve got to get him out. You can’t just let him die!”
Sirens echoed in t
he distance, offering help that was too far away and too late in coming.
“We’d better get out of here,” Mac said.
“No!” Caroline cried. Scratching and clawing, she tried to break free, tried to get into the inferno that had once been a warehouse.
A fire truck arrived, sealing off the area, pushing them back to the street.
“Jeff’s in there,” she sobbed. “Please, get him out. Please!” Hysteria set in. She could feel it take control of her mind, turning her tears into near laughter.
“Look at me, Caroline.” Mac grabbed her by the forearms and shook her hard. “Look at me! The police will be here any minute. They’ll want answers. Answers we don’t have. We’ve got to leave.”
A crowd had gathered—street kids, transients, the media. Someone stuck a microphone in Caroline’s face.
“Do you know who was in there? Is this one of Augie Davis’s warehouses? Does this have something to do with Davis’s trial?”
Mac shoved the reporter aside and put his arm around Caroline, pulling her close. Pushing through the growing crowd, he ushered her into the car and drove away.
Caroline stood in the middle of the attic playroom. Her mother had never made it into this room. She’d lived in the house only six months, and was confined to her bed the entire time.
But for those six months, the attic had been Caroline’s refuge.
A place to run to when she was all alone. A place to hide when the doctors came. A place so high up that no one could hear her cry.
She walked around the room picking up pieces of her life. A doll given to her by her mother. A book of poems from Alden. A stuffed animal from Brian. She sat in the old rocking chair and held the items in her arms. Rocking them back and forth. Gifts from the ones she loved.
Jeff hadn’t given her anything tangible. No trinket to hold and caress and keep safe. But he’d given her the happiest days she had ever known. Would ever know.
Tears bathed her soul as she wrapped herself in the memories. She loved him. More than she had ever thought possible. And he was gone.
Mac rapped softly on the open door. “Caroline?” He flipped on a light, pulling her out of the darkness. “I brought you some tea.” He set a little breakfast tray on the floor next to her chair, then stooped in front of her.
Caroline looked down at him. “Did they…did they find anything?”
Mac shook his head. “Not yet.”
“Then there’s still hope. Maybe he got out.”
Mac forced a smile. “Maybe.” He squeezed her shoulder.
“I’ll be downstairs. If you want anything, just…”
She didn’t try to stop the tears that flowed down her face. “I just want him.”
“I know, kiddo. I know.”
The tea grew cold as she rocked and rocked. Back and forth, trying to make sense of a senseless tragedy.
What was it Davis had said? “Your father loved your mother very much.”
Through the murky haze of pain, she finally understood. Understood that her father’s actions were born of love. Love for her mother. How desperately he must have wanted to help her, make her well, keep her safe. And so he became involved with a monster.
Just as she had.
Love makes people do all sorts of unpredictable things.
Like keeping the truth from the one you love.
All the things she’d never told Jeff echoed inside her head like a Greek chorus gone mad. She loved him more than life itself. All she had ever wanted was to keep him safe.
And she had played right into Augie Davis’s hands.
Davis understood the power of love. He had twisted and warped the most blessed emotion to his own advantage. But she would see to it that he never did it again.
She would start by testifying tomorrow and put Davis away for whatever length of time the court would allow. And then she’d spend the rest of her life looking for evidence to put him away forever. But that was tomorrow.
Today, all she could do was cry.
Laying aside the childhood toys, she pulled a huge book from the bookshelf and carried it reverently back to the rocking chair. It had been Brian’s. She rubbed her fingers over the gold lettering on the cover—”Photo Album.”
She remembered clearly the day Brian had gotten a camera. He had run around the house snapping away, shooting three rolls of film in ten minutes, then was furious to discover it would take days to develop his pictures.
When the photos arrived, their father gave Brian a special antique album to keep them in. There were no self-adhesive plastic pages that you pulled apart and slapped together. These pages were large and cream-colored, like in a scrapbook, and Brian had used little gold tricornered pieces to affix the pictures to the page, and then had scribbled a caption under each of them in his own childish hand.
Caroline opened the book and smiled. On the front page was a picture of her and Alden—from the neck down. There were lots of pictures like that, cropped off or out of focus. The memories resurfaced as she turned page after page. An embarrassed Alden running in his underwear. Caroline doing a “Look, Ma, no hands!” on her bicycle. A listing Christmas tree that had crashed in the middle of the night, convincing Caroline there really was a Santa Claus—albeit a clumsy one.
She laughed and turned another page. A pure white accounting sheet stared back at her. It was covered with entries and numbers, all in the meticulous handwriting of a bookkeeper—her father.
Her lip quivered and her fingers trembled as she touched the paper. Quickly she turned the page. Once again Brian’s ridiculous photography greeted her. She looked back, thinking she had been dreaming, but no, it was there. A white ledger sheet buried among the cream ones.
She turned the pages as fast as her shaking hands would allow. Photos, photos, photos—numbers. Photos, photos, photos, photos, photos—numbers.
She screamed and laughed and cried all at the same time. Mac burst into the room, his face drained of color. She knew he feared for her sanity. But she couldn’t speak. Instead, she thrust the book into his hands.
Comprehension flooded his features. “My God, Caroline, you did it! You found it!”
They sat on the floor and inspected the sheets. Six pages. Six precious pages detailing Davis’s connections to members of a drug cartel. Money that passed through a dozen hands, a dozen dummy companies before reaching South America.
“A scrapbook,” Mac said. “Who would have thought to look in a damn scrapbook? The color and size of the pages are so close, you’d never notice it.”
Caroline looked from the book in Mac’s lap to the bookcase. “Mac…”
He followed her gaze to the top shelf where another dozen photo albums sat—all identical. Their eyes met and held, then they scrambled to their feet and began yanking the books off the shelf.
Minutes later they sat sprawled in a sea of ledger sheetsthin pieces of paper that connected Augie Davis to gunrunners, racketeers, prostitution, and gambling.
“It’s over,” Caroline said, tears running down her cheeks. And soon their souls would be laid to rest—Alden’s, Brian’s…and Jeff’s.
She was on the stand for four grueling days. Although Caroline was worn down to the point of collapsing, her testimony was nothing short of stirring. The defense would spend the next week or two presenting its case, but everyone in the D.A.’s office and the police department said a conviction would be sure and swift. And armed with Donald Southeby’s account sheets, police and prosecutors brought a host of new charges against the mob boss and dozens of his acquaintances, including the cop who had been on Davis’s payroll. Facing lengthy jail terms, a few turned state’s evidence, further incriminating the kingpin. Davis’s entire empire lay in shambles.
Caroline sat in the stripped-down library of her father’s home. She hadn’t been near her own apartment or The Coffee Café in months. Now it was time. Time to put the For Sale sign in the yard, lock the front door, and walk away. It was time to return to her old life—her
life before Augie Davis.
And before Jeff McKensie.
The brownstone was cold and empty and Caroline drew her jacket around her shoulders. Cold and empty. A fitting description of the way she felt.
Trailing her fingers along her father’s desk, she moved to the window. The day was gray and rainy, weather that mimicked her mood. Fall was coming. The leaves were dying, becoming brown and shriveled. Another sentiment that suited her just fine.
Somewhere down the street, a dog barked and she thought of Mac and the puppy. Mac had been a pillar of strength, never leaving her side. She had tried to convince him to go to his grandmother, that she needed him far more than Caroline did. But he refused, saying only that this was what Jeff would have wanted.
And now Mac was gone, too. He had left for the airport about an hour ago, taking the dog with him.
A shiver racked her body. Maybe someday she’d feel warm again. But she doubted it. The cold was too deep, the emptiness too vast.
A single tear ran down her cheek and plopped on the windowsill. “Goodbye, Jeff,” Caroline whispered. “I love you.”
“I love you, too, Bright Eyes.”
“Oh, please, God, no.”
A sob tore from her soul and she clamped her hands over her ears. Not this. Not his voice. For months she had lived with her brothers’ voices echoing in her head, hearing them when she least expected it. Sometimes they were a guiding force, but more often than not, they simply deepened her pain. She didn’t think she could bear the torment of hearing Jeff’s voice day after day.
“I’m here, Caroline, really here.”
She shook her head, her hands still covering her ears. “No,” she cried. “Go away. Please, just leave me alone.”
“Caroline.”
A hand touched her shoulder.
“Look at me,” the voice said.
Slowly she turned around. Like an apparition, he stood before her. His thick blond hair fell across his forehead—just as she remembered. His deep blue eyes were filled with promise—just as she’d dreamed. With one shaky hand, she reached out and touched the solid wall of his chest. A small cry escaped her lips. Her fingers moved of their own accord, touching, exploring his face, his neck, his arms. Tears streamed down her cheeks. “This isn’t a dream,” she sobbed. “You’re alive. You’re really alive.”
