by BV Lawson
Chapter 3
After buying the coffee, Drayco and his father sat at a mahogany-and-steel table so small, it was like a child’s toy. They’d chosen a remote corner of the Tex-Mex cafe next to the courthouse to avoid any eavesdroppers, but it didn’t matter. It was later in the day, and they had the place to themselves.
Drayco inhaled the dark-roasted aroma from the java before sprinkling salt into his Styrofoam cup. Most people wrinkled their noses when he did that, but it really did cut the bitterness of the coffee. Brock stared at him, even though he’d seen him perform this ritual many times. He never asked his son about it. One item in a long list of things they didn’t discuss.
Drayco’s mother was another. At least, they hadn’t discussed her in a long, long time. Vague remembrances and snippets from those conversations bubbled up to the surface. “You told me she was declared legally dead.”
“After seven years, the court granted a presumption of death.” Brock took a sip of coffee and winced. “We’ve been through all that.”
Drayco was twelve when they finally had the conversation. He’d wondered how they could do that without a body, a grave, or any kind of proof. Part of him wanted to prove his father and “them” wrong, but the part that hated his mother won. He never pursued it afterward.
Drayco tasted the coffee. Still bitter. He stirred in more salt. “How’d you get the news of her being alive and the murder charge?”
“Not from her. In fact, she refused her phone call privilege. Instead, I got a call from Detective John Halabi of the Arlington County homicide unit. Maura didn’t have many possessions on her, but my name was in her wallet.”
“You’ve talked to her?”
Brock picked at the rim of his cup, creating a mini Styrofoam snowstorm. “I identified her from her mugshot. I have no interest in talking to her. What can she possibly say that would set everything right? To make up for all the pain and suffering she caused?”
That was one item they agreed on, it seemed. “The evidence. Is it conclusive?”
“She was caught standing over the body of the victim, a former TSA agent by the name of Jerold Zamorra, holding the knife that killed him. Her prints are all over the thing. The man was stabbed in the abdomen and the groin.”
“Did she admit her guilt? Or say why she did it?”
“She told the police she stabbed him. But only once. And he was already dead.” Brock gave a small laugh. “Would have expected a better excuse from her.”
“What did the autopsy show?”
“Body’s with the Medical Examiner now.”
Drayco had only seen a few pictures of his mother, ones he rescued from the trash after his father threw them away. They now lay hidden in a photograph album buried under other unused items in his attic, probably as faded as his mental snapshots of her. She was always smiling in those photos, the real ones and the ones in his head.
“Any chance of bail?”
“The arraignment hasn’t been held yet. She’s being kept as a pre-trial detainee because she’s considered a flight risk. Imagine.” The plastic spoon Brock grasped in his hands broke in two with a loud crack that startled both men.
“Where has she been all this time?”
“I have no idea. Mars, Atlantis, Timbuktu, what’s the difference?”
“Are you telling me you aren’t the slightest bit curious about any of this? To find out why she left? Why she never tried to contact us?”
“I’m saying she’s as dead to me now as she was then.”
Brock tossed the broken pieces of spoon on the middle of the table. “Do what you want, son. I’ve told Detective Halabi everything I know about Maura before I married her and after, which isn’t much. I’m washing my hands of the whole thing, and I’d advise you to do the same.”
His father jumped up from his chair, the no-nonsense mask his former FBI colleagues knew so well firmly in place. “After you talk to Halabi, that is. I told him you haven’t seen her since you were five, but he insists. Said to stop by tomorrow morning. The earlier, the better.”
As he turned to leave, Drayco remained planted in his seat, staring at the spoon shards. Brock started to say something, paused, then mumbled, “I’m sorry.”
He left before Drayco could ask what he was sorry about.
Moments after Brock disappeared, Benny and Nelia joined him at the tiny table. Nelia sat across from him while Benny grabbed a nearby chair after snagging a couple of extra cups of coffee. “We’re your new stalkers. We followed you here. You okay, boy-o? You look a little pale.”
“Ghosts will do that to you, or so I’m told.”
“Ghosts, shmosts. You got a real-live woman claiming to be your long-lost mother, but we don’t know it’s her. Could be some ploy.”
Nelia swept the broken spoon and Styrofoam flakes into a napkin that she folded into a neat square. “Stolen identity rings are big business. And they particularly target identities of the deceased.”
Benny nodded. “Nelia’s right. Another scam. What did Brock say? Did he talk to this imposter?”
“He refuses to talk to her. Says he doesn’t care if it’s her or not.”
“He may not have the luxury, he should know that. The police’ll push him to do it, at any rate.”
Drayco nudged the sugar container over to Benny, who dumped half of it into his coffee. Coffee-candy, as Drayco called it. Drayco said, “You know Brock. Stubborn as a mule. No, that’s too ordinary and clichéd for him. More like as stubborn as the Ebola virus.”
Nelia tentatively reached out and placed a feather touch on his arm. A simple gesture, yet it felt like a shot of pure adrenaline. “What are you going to do? Will you go and see her?”
“I suppose it depends on what the DNA tests show. If this woman is not my mother,” his tongue tripped over the word, “then the police don’t need me. And if it is her ... I don’t know. Guess I’ll do whatever is required to assist the police on this. And maybe that’s all.”
Benny squinted his right eye, making the eyepatch on the other rise an inch. “I hate to remind you bad things come in threes, what with this news and your case hearing. You should hit the hay early. Safe and sound at home.”
Drayco didn’t look at Nelia and bit his tongue to retort that Benny wasn’t good at counting. No, seeing Nelia wasn’t so much a bad thing as a ... what? Confusing thing? Painful thing? Awkward thing? Then it hit him—if he ignored the hair-color difference, Nelia bore a slight resemblance to the woman from those fading photos in his attic.
Chapter 4
For once, Drayco thought Benny had an excellent idea. Hay-hitting never sounded so good. It was strange enough being on the wrong side of the bench during the hearing, but the whole recounting of the warehouse fire and Gilbow’s death was far worse. As if his subconscious hadn’t already punished him the past few months with a series of violent dreams—dreams of being trapped in a fire that made him wake up sweating.
He wasn’t sweating now as he made his way to his car in the twenty-degree weather. Fortunately, the forecast for snow had been downgraded, and he was able to make a stop by a florist on the way back to his Capitol Hill townhome.
Would Darcie like the roses? Or was that too flashy? He popped himself on the side of the head. This was Darcie he was talking about, definitely roses. The more expensive, the better.
Flowers ordered—with a very high same-day delivery fee added—he headed home under the dark, moonless sky for time alone with his piano and a glass or two or three of Riesling before bed. Just as he stepped across the threshold, he got a whiff of coffee. And was that garlic bread he smelled?
He dropped his coat on the wingback chair near the door, grabbed a baseball bat from the umbrella stand, and strode into the kitchen. Darcie Squier greeted him with a glass of red wine and a kiss. “You’re early. No problem. The food won’t take long.”
Drayco lowered the bat. After eying the smoke detector and not seeing any signs of Darcie’s usual burned cuisine, he said
, “How did you get in?”
“Your lovely neighbor, Mrs. Chapman. She’s seen me here enough I was able to con her into letting me in. You told me you gave her a key in case of emergencies. And this was an emergency. Well, a Valentine’s Day emergency. And I’ve seen you punch in your code.”
Drayco made a mental note to change his security codes. And ask for his key back. “You didn’t tell me you were coming. I wired some flowers to Cape Unity.”
Darcie opened the oven and pulled out an aluminum-foil container, kicking the door shut behind her. “I knew you couldn’t come to me with your board hearing and all. So, I came to you, instead.”
He pinched the bridge of his nose. So much for being alone with his piano and his thoughts. “It was sweet of you. Truly. But I’ve had a horrible day. Not sure I’ll be great company.”
“Nonsense. What could possibly be so bad it would ruin the most romantic day of the year?”
“Finding out your mother has risen from the dead and was arrested for murder.”
Darcie almost dropped the pan in her hands, but Drayco rescued it in time. “She’s still alive? That’s awful.” She stood there a moment, then grabbed a couple of plates and served up the lasagna. Drayco spied a takeout bag from Luigi’s Primo Pasta on the counter.
“Not quite the response I expected from you.”
“Not awful she’s alive, I suppose. But after turning her back on her family decades ago. I mean, why now? Unless she’s dying and trying to make amends.”
“People don’t usually try to make amends by killing a government employee.”
“She murdered somebody? Oh, God, that is awful. Too bad she didn’t stay missing.” Darcie balanced the plates of lasagna in her hands. “Ever wonder if your mother abandoning you makes it harder for you to trust women? Because I’ve wondered that.”
He glared at her. “Are you my shrink now?”
After putting the lasagna on the table she’d set with red placements and candles, she grabbed his hand and pulled him after her. “Eat. You’ll feel better on a full stomach.”
He wasn’t hungry but didn’t want to offend her after all the trouble she’d gone to. Luigi’s had the best Italian around, and it wasn’t as difficult a task to wolf down the meal as it would have been otherwise.
She hopped up from the table to grab something out of the refrigerator and put it on the table. “For the pièce de résistance,” she opened the lid. “Tiramisu. They say it’s an aphrodisiac.”
She winked at him, then put her hands on the zipper of the dress she wore. It wasn’t her usual getup, hardly form-fitting and more like a tent. The reason became clear when she pulled down the zipper and let the dress fall to the floor. “And if the tiramisu doesn’t do it, maybe this will.”
She wore what resembled a red ribbon, with thin straps over the shoulders, bows that barely covered her breasts, and a strap hanging down just below her navel. And that was all. “Aren’t you going to unwrap your present?” She winked at him.
Maybe it was the pent-up anger from long-simmering emotional fires, maybe it was the stress of the hearing, maybe a little of it was seeing Nelia unexpectedly. But he did more than unwrap Darcie. He picked her up and carried her to the bedroom, removed his clothing in seconds flat, and proceeded to engage in some of the most torrid and rough sex of his life. Not thinking, not feeling, not caring, just primal and raw.
Afterward, Darcie rolled on top of him and nibbled on his neck. “If this is what having your mother return from the dead does to you, I take it back. It’s not awful at all.”
He lay there, staring at the ceiling, barely feeling Darcie’s presence. The sex hadn’t helped his frustrations one bit. He should grab a block of C4 and go blow up something instead.
She poked his shoulder. “Tell me what you’re thinking, darling.”
“Your flowers are going to be pretty sorry looking when you return home.”
“We’ll get more. Nothing lasts forever.” She slid out of bed, and he heard her going downstairs. When she returned, she had the tiramisu in hand. “And this won’t last much longer if we don’t eat it now.”
“Not sure I have the appetite for it.”
“Well, I sure do.” She dipped into the creamy cake with her finger and smeared some on his body in various sensitive places. He relaxed and gave in to his fate of becoming her dessert, banishing thoughts of the photos in his attic and of their subject, now locked firmly away in an Arlington detention facility.
§ § §
The observer put down the infrared binoculars on the passenger seat, then grabbed some seeds from a plastic bag and popped them in his mouth. As he chewed, he watched the townhome across the street, but there was no new activity inside or out. The light in the upper window switched off, making him smile.
He picked up his cellphone. After thumbing the screen over to the phone list, he pressed the first entry and then said to the voice on the other end, “Scott Drayco is at his townhome with a brunette.”
He listened for a moment then repeated back what he heard. “Darcie Squier? Is she a problem? No? Okay, then. One less person to follow. What about Drayco? I think he’s settled in for the night.”
After more instructions, he replied, “A sound plan. I’m getting too old to use a car headrest as a pillow all night, anyway—get a crick you wouldn’t believe. I’ll keep an eye on Drayco when he meets with that Arlington cop tomorrow. And good night to you, too, boss.”
He rang off and flipped through the photos on his sim card. Lots of Draycos—both of them—also Benny Baskin, the brunette, of course, then Drayco’s neighbor, and Nelia Tyler. He stopped on that one. The brunette was a looker, all right, but if he were Drayco, he’d be banging Tyler. He’d always been a sucker for the whole beauty-and-brains combo.
With one last look at Drayco’s window, he started up the car and pulled out of his parking spot. He flipped the radio to a station playing folk music. Sounded like the Wemyss Weavers playing a Scottish ballad. A good omen.
He hummed along as he cranked up the heater and drove down the street with regular glances in his rearview mirror. You could never be too careful, even with the night on your side.
Chapter 5
Friday, February 15
A young female sergeant chewing cinnamon gum nonstop ushered Drayco into a small office half-way between neat and cluttered. The papers on the tan-speckled laminate desk formed perfect rectangular monuments. But books on a corner shelf teetered at skewed angles, with more crammed into charcoal plastic bins on the floor. A bipolar office.
It looked like every diploma, degree, or award Detective John Halabi ever received hung on the walls in matching gold frames. Drayco missed his friend Sheriff Sailor’s wall-mounted fish with the piranha teeth. Hell, he missed Sailor.
A man with short-cropped black hair who sported a purple paisley tie breezed into the room and parked in the black leather chair behind the desk. He motioned for Drayco to take a seat in the only other chair in the cramped space then stared at him for several moments before speaking. “Glad you could come so early this morning. Looks like you survived your board hearing yesterday. Those things can be brutal, can’t they?”
And the gloves were off. Halabi knew, and he wanted Drayco to know—you’re under suspicion and I don’t trust you. Drayco replied, “Not any more than that Markson abduction case you worked last year.”
The detective’s appraising scan of Drayco morphed into a full-fledged study. Now he knew Drayco had researched him, too, learning about the controversial outcome of the Markson baby’s kidnapping and the resulting lawsuit, eventually thrown out.
Halabi opened a desk drawer and whipped out a file. “Both you and your father are former FBI agents turned crime consultants. Work on cases together?”
“Rarely.” Halabi either didn’t notice or didn’t acknowledge the edge in Drayco’s tone. Time to focus on something calming, like a Chopin nocturne. Or puppies and kittens.
“Your mother disappeared
a little over thirty years ago when you were five, is that correct?”
“She abandoned us, yes.”
Halabi opened the file. “You had a twin sister.”
“Casey died of leukemia when she was twelve.”
Halabi nodded. “And your mother didn’t contact you in all this time?”
“No, she didn’t. I thought she was dead.”
Drayco tried to read the upside-down text in the file. “Did you find out where she’s been? An arrest record, perhaps?”
“We haven’t learned anything. It’s as if she dropped off the grid thirty years ago.”
“Brock said you found a paper in her possession with his name inscribed. Was there anything else?”
“A fake driver’s license using the alias of Maura McKewen. Not too far off from her maiden name, McCune. Also some Tic Tacs, fifty dollars, and possibly a house key. And there was another piece of paper that spells BRISBANE in all caps. Your father didn’t know what that means. Do you?”
“Other than the city in Australia, no.”
“We’re contacting Australian law enforcement. Guess this means we can count on the FBI to get involved. Seeing as how she’s the ex-wife of an ex-higher-up FBI agent, the mother of another, and this may involve international ties.”
Drayco drummed his fingers on the armrest of his chair and took pleasure in the clacking sound. “The victim, Jerold Zamorra, was a former TSA agent. Any ties between them?”
“I doubt it was random. We’ll find out, sooner or later.”
“Brock told me the victim was stabbed in the groin and upper body—was it the chest or back?”
Halabi frowned. “The front, meaning—”
“He was facing his killer. Any defensive wounds?”
“No, so he likely knew the murderer. It appears the first knife blow made him trip and fall backward, and he hit his head. Or so it appears from bits of tissue and skull we found on the kitchen cabinets. We don’t have full autopsy results.” Halabi closed the file when he saw Drayco looking at it.
