by Nora Roberts
“Okay. Okay, sit down, the pair of you,” Brooks ordered. “And tell me what the hell you’re doing here at two in the damn morning.”
“The thing about it is, Brooks, I’m supposed to kill you.” Ty wrung his ham-sized hands. “I ain’t gonna.”
“I’m relieved to hear it. Sit the hell down.”
“I didn’t know what to do.” Ty sat on the couch, hung his head. “Once I started thinking past the whiskey, I still didn’t know. So I called Lindy, and he got me sobered up some, talked it all through with me. And he said how we needed to come tell you. Maybe Lindy could tell you some. I don’t know how to start.”
“Drink some coffee, Ty, and I’ll get it rolling for you. Seems like Lincoln Blake’s wife left him.”
“When?” Brooks frowned as he picked up his own coffee. “I just saw her this morning.”
“At the church, yeah. I heard about that, expect most everybody has by now. That’s what did it, to my way of thinking. What I hear is after they got home, she just packed up a couple suitcases and walked out. Ms. Harris’s granddaughter Carly was out and about, saw her putting the suitcases in the car and asked if she was going on a trip. Ms. Blake says, just as calm as you please, how she’s leaving her husband and never coming back. Just got into the car and drove off. Seems like he holed up in his study the rest of the day.”
“That can’t have set well,” Brooks commented. “Blake’s pride already took a hard hit this morning.”
“Earned it, didn’t he? Anyways, Birdie Spitzer does some for them, and isn’t one for gossip, be why she’s hung on to the job, you ask me. She told me herself. I guess this was too juicy a grape not to squeeze some. Said there was some hollering, but there’s some hollering per usual in that house, from him, anyhow. Then the missus left, and he shut himself up. Birdie knocked on the door sometime later, to see if he wanted his supper, and he yelled out for her to get the hell out of his house and not come back.”
“Blake fired Birdie?” Surprised, Brooks raised his eyebrows. “She’s worked in that house for twenty years.”
“Twenty-four, she says, come August. Guess that’s another reason she carried the tale to the diner. She doesn’t know if she’s got a job or not, doesn’t know as she wants it, should he expect her back, even so.”
“Now he’s alone,” Abigail said quietly. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t interrupt.”
“That’s all right, and you got the truth of it. He’s alone in that big house with his son in a cell and his wife gone. Speculating, I’d say he sat and brooded some on that, and came to the conclusion the reason for his situation rested right here on Brooks.”
“That’s an inaccurate conclusion based on faulty criteria,” she began. “Mr. Blake’s conclusion, I mean, not yours.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Lindy grinned. “That’s a pretty way of saying he’s full of shit, if you don’t mind plain speaking.”
“No, I don’t. Yes, he’s full of shit.”
Brooks took a sip of coffee, shifted his attention to Ty. “How much did he pay you to kill me, Ty?”
“Oh, well, God,” Abigail managed, and surged to her feet.
“Relax, honey, Ty isn’t going to hurt anybody. Are you, Ty?”
“No, sir. No, ma’am. I come to tell you. Lindy said that was best, so here I am.”
“Tell me what happened with Blake.”
“Okay. See, he called me out there, to the house. I ain’t never been in there, and it’s sure something. Like out of a movie. I thought maybe he had some work for me, and I could sure use it. He had me come right into that study of his, and sit right down in this big leather chair. Offered me a drink. I said no, thanks. But he just poured it, set it there beside me. My brand, too. I got a weakness, Brooks.”
“I know it.”
“But I haven’t had one drop since you arrested me, God’s truth, not till tonight. I was kinda nervous, sitting there in that fancy house. He kept saying how one drink wouldn’t hurt me. I was a man, wasn’t I? I didn’t take it.”
“All right, Ty.”
“But he kept saying it, and saying how he had some work, but he didn’t hire pussies, and what was that word I told you, Lindy?”
“Eunuchs. Fucker—sorry, more plain speaking.”
“I agree with your opinion,” Abigail told him, then looked at Ty. “He tied your weakness to your manhood, and tied both to your desire for work. It was cruel and manipulative.”
“It made me mad, but it felt true when he said it. How you tried to make me feel less of a man, Brooks, and how you humiliated me, and castrated—he said you’d castrated me, and it made me feel bad. Mad, too. And that glass of Rebel Yell was right there. I only meant to have the one, just to prove I could. But I had another, and I guess another after that.”
Ty’s eyes filled, and when he lowered his head, his shoulders shook.
Abigail rose, left the room.
“I just kept drinking, ’cause the glass was right there, and it never seemed empty. I’m an alcoholic, and I know I can’t have one drink and not take another.”
Carrying a tray of cookies, Abigail came back in. She set the plate on the table.
As he watched her take one, pass it to a teary Tybal, Brooks thought he loved her more than breath.
“He was cruel to you,” she said. “He should be ashamed of what he did to you.”
“I kept drinking, and getting mad. He kept talking about what Brooks’d done, making me look weak and gutless in front of my own wife, how he was trying to run this town into the ground. Look how Brooks’d framed his son. Something had to be done about it.
“He kept talking, and I kept drinking. He said what was needed was somebody with guts and balls. He asked if I had guts, if I had balls. Goddamn right I do, that’s what I said. Maybe I’d just go kick your ass, Brooks.”
Ty shook his head, hung it again. “I’ve been going to meetings, and I’ve been going to group. I’m getting to understand when I’ve been drinking I just want to go beat hell out of something. I hurt Missy ’cause of it. And between what he said and the drink, I was wound up good and proper. It seemed like a good thing when he said how ass kicking wasn’t enough. It had to be permanent. You’d killed my manhood, that’s what you’d done. The only way to get it back was to kill you. Since he’d be grateful, he’d give me five thousand dollars. Like a reward, he said. He gave me half of it there and then.”
“He gave you money?” Brooks asked him.
“I took it, too. I’m ashamed to say, it was cash money and I took it. But I didn’t keep it. Lindy’s got it. What he said—Mr. Blake said—to do was go on home, get my gun. How I oughta wait till after dark, sit on out here, on the road. Then I oughta call you up, tell you there was trouble. And when you drove out, I’d just shoot you. I went home to get my gun. Missy wasn’t there, as she’s over to her sister’s. I got my rifle, loaded it up, too, and I started thinking why the hell wasn’t Missy home. Started thinking she’d earned herself a couple good smacks. I don’t know how to explain, but I heard myself thinking those things, and it made me sick. It made me scared. I called Lindy, and he came over.”
“You did the right thing, Ty.”
“No, I didn’t. I took the drink. I took the money.”
“And you called Lindy.”
“You have an illness, Mr. Crew,” Abigail said. “He exploited your illness, used it against you.”
“Lindy said the same, thank you, ma’am. I’m ashamed to tell Missy. She’s still some pissed at you, Brooks, but she’s glad I’m not drinking. Things are better with us, and she knows it. She’ll be more pissed if you put me in jail. Lindy said you wouldn’t.”
“Lindy’s right. I’m going to need the money, Lindy.”
“It’s locked up in my truck.”
“And I’m going to need you to come in, make an official statement, Ty.”
“Missy’s going to be pissed.”
“I think she might be a little pissed about the drinking, but when she hears it
all, start to finish? I think she’s going to be proud of you.”
“You think so?”
“I do. I’m proud of you. I’m glad you didn’t try to kill me.”
“So’m I. What’re you going to do, Brooks?”
“I’m going to put all this together, all right and tight, then I’m going to go arrest Blake for solicitation of murder for hire of a police officer.”
29
THE NEXT STEP, ABIGAIL THOUGHT, WHEN SHE GOT HOME from taking Bert to Sunny. It felt strange, and a little sad, she realized, to walk into the house without Bert. It’s just for a short time, she reminded herself. A quick trip—that changed everything.
When Brooks came home, they’d drive to the airport, take the private plane to Virginia, check into their two rooms. She’d have plenty of time to set up the cameras and video feed.
Plenty of time to obsess, worry, overthink, if she let herself.
So she wouldn’t. She focused on the task at hand and began to transform herself into Catherine Kingston.
When Brooks arrived, he called out, “Where’s my woman?” and made her smile.
She was someone’s woman.
“I’m upstairs. Is everything all right?”
“As it can be. Blake’s got his lawyers scrambling, and I expect a deal’s coming along. He might even slip out of this, seeing as Ty was admittedly impaired, but even so, he’ll be done in this town. I don’t expect …” He trailed off as he got to the doorway and saw her.
“I repeat, ‘Where’s my woman?’”
“It’s a good job,” she decided, studying herself in the mirror.
The hairstyle and the careful makeup sharpened the angle of her jaw. Contacts darkened the green of her eyes. The careful padding transformed her from slim to curvy.
“They’ll probably ask the hotel for any security feeds, once they know the hotel. We’ll be in by then, but they’ll run them to see when I checked in, and if I came alone. That’s the reason we take separate cabs from the airport, have different check-in times.”
“You look taller.” Eyeing her, he walked over, kissed her. “Definitely taller.”
“I have lifts in my shoes. Just an inch, but it adds to the illusion. If any of this leaks to one of Volkov’s moles, they shouldn’t be able to match me. Abigail’s not in the system, and that’ll make it very hard to connect Catherine Kingston or Elizabeth Fitch to Abigail Lowery. I’m ready whenever you are.”
“I’ll get the bags.”
He’d never flown private, and decided he could get used to it. No lines, no delays, no crowds, and the flight itself smooth and quiet.
And he liked the wide leather chairs positioned so he could face Abigail—or Catherine, he supposed—and the way the light played over her face as they winged north.
“They’ve started a fresh file on Cosgrove and Keegan,” Abigail told him, as she worked her laptop. “They’ve applied for warrants to monitor their electronics and communications. They may find something. Cosgrove especially tends to be careless. He gambles,” she added, “both online and in casinos.”
“How’s he do?”
“He loses more than he wins, from what I’ve gathered through his finances, and his gambling pattern, it was the gambling—and the losses—that allowed the Volkovs to pressure him into working for them while I was under protection.”
“Gambling problem,” Brooks speculated. “And he caves when pressured. How would he respond to an anonymous source claiming to have information about his connection to the Volkovs?”
She glanced up, tipped down the large framed sunglasses she’d added to her illusion. “That’s an interesting question.”
“If he folds under pressure, blackmail might push him into making a mistake.”
“He’s not as smart as Keegan, which is why he hasn’t moved up the ranks as smoothly, I believe—in the marshals or the Volkov organization. I calculated the Volkovs would have eliminated him by now, but apparently he’s seen as having some value.”
“Have you ever done any fishing?” Brooks asked her.
“No. It appears like a tedious pastime or occupation. I don’t understand what fishing has to do with Cosgrove or the Volkovs.”
He pointed at her. “First, I’m going to take you fishing sometime, and you’ll see the difference between restful and tedious. Second, sometimes you hook a little fish and it can lead to a bigger catch.”
“I don’t think … oh. It’s a metaphor. Cosgrove is the little fish.”
“There you go. Hooking him might be worth a try.”
“Yes, it might. Greed responds to greed, and his primary motivation is money. A threat, something with just enough information that proves the source has evidence. And if he uses his electronics or phones to communicate, they’d have enough to question him.”
“Which could lead to that bigger fish. And it’d add more weight to your testimony.” He held out the bag of pretzels he opened, but Abigail shook her head. “What’s your bait?”
“Because you need bait to hook even a little fish.”
With a nod, he bit into a pretzel. “Wait till you drown your first worm.”
“I don’t even like the sound of that. However, there was a woman in witness protection after testifying against her former boyfriend, a low-level gangster involved with the Volkovs’ prostitution ring in Chicago. She was found raped and beaten to death in Akron, Ohio, three months after the conviction.”
“Was Cosgrove her handler?”
“No, he wasn’t assigned to her, but everything I was able to gather at the time pointed to his being the one to pass her information on to his Volkov contact. I know enough to compose a believable and threatening message.”
“Another pebble in the river.”
“What river? The one with the fish?”
Laughing, he gave her foot a bump with his. “Could be, except if we were sticking with that metaphor, you don’t want to be tossing any pebbles. Might scare those fish away.”
“I’m confused.”
“In this metaphorical river, we toss the pebbles because we want a lot of ripples.”
“Oh. A pebble, then.” She considered this for a moment, then began to compose.
Anya Rinki testifies against Dimitri Bardov. July 8, 2008. Enters the Witness Protection Program. New ID: Sasha Simka. Transferred to Akron, Ohio; employed as sales clerk at Monique’s Boutique.
Case assigned to Deputy U.S. Marshal Robyn Treacher. Case files accessed by William Cosgrove October 12 and 14, 2008—no log-in or official request for same on record.
Copy of e-mail from personal account of William Cosgrove to account of Igor Bardov, brother of Dimitri, sent October 15, 2008, attached.
$15,000 deposited in account for William Dwyer a/k/a William Cosgrove on October 16, 2008.
Anya Rinki, a/k/a Sasha Simka, found raped and murdered October 19, 2008.
This data will be e-mailed to Administrator Wayne Powell within forty-eight hours unless you agree to a payment of $50,000. Details on the remittance of same to be given in the next communication.
“I think that’s a nicely formed pebble,” she said, and turned the screen so Brooks could read it.
His smile spread slowly before he shifted his gaze from the screen to her face. “Good shape, good weight. You had all those dates in your head?”
“They’re accurate.”
“What’s the content of the e-mail you’re going to attach?”
“It said: ‘Sasha Simka, Akron, 539 Eastwood, Apartment 3-B.’”
The smile faded as Brooks eased back from the computer screen. “So Cosgrove killed her for fifteen thousand.”
“Yes, not personally beating her to death doesn’t make him any less responsible. I believe he’ll respond to this. I believe he’ll agree to pay. As soon as I know the surveillance is in place, I’ll send it.”
“What did they pay him for you?”
His tone, hard and cold, had her taking a moment to shut down her laptop. “He owed fi
fty thousand in gambling debts. Ilya bought—they’re called markers—he bought Cosgrove’s markers, then used the debt to threaten him.”
