by Jayne, Chris
Going back into the house, for the first time she thought about what she should say to the kids. Obviously, they knew something was wrong; they’d been dragged out of school, with their principal screaming at their mother through a locked door, and taken to a house which was not their own in the middle of the day.
When Lori walked into the family room, Brandon was engrossed in a Disney film Simone had found, but Grace looked up, her eyes wide and apprehensive. “Mommy, are we going back to school now?” she asked. “Why did you say we were going to the dentist? I don’t understand why Mrs. Lomac said to stop.”
Lori picked up the remote and flipped the TV off, intending to talk to both children, but Brandon immediately began to protest. Thinking about it, she turned the movie back on. The last thing she needed right now was to fight with Brandon. She turned to Simone. “Simi, we’re getting ready to leave. Take Sasha out in the back yard, will you? I’m going to talk to Grace for a few minutes.”
Lori drew Grace along with her, out of the family room. “Grace, you know how you always say you want to go visit Auntie Louise?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, we’re going. Right now. Today.”
For a moment, the ten-year-old was quiet. Then she looked at Lori, baffled. “Why are we going right now? Are we trying to get away from Mrs. Lomac?”
“No, we’re not trying to get away from Mrs. Lomac.” Lori suddenly doubted the wisdom of even starting this conversation. “But we’re going to have to drive a long time in the car. A really long time. Longer than we ever have.”
“Further than going to Orlando?”
“A lot further. And we’re taking Auntie Sylvia’s car because the window got broken in my car.”
Grace digested that. “What about Sasha? And Simone?”
“They’re both coming. Everyone’s coming.”
“What about school?”
“You’re not going to school for a while.”
“Well, Brandon will like that,” Grace allowed. “Will we be back in time for me to go to Elizabeth’s slumber party?”
“No, honey. I don’t think so.”
“Mom! I can’t miss Elizabeth’s party. It’s the American Girl sleep-over.”
Lori realized she should never have even tried to explain this to a ten-year-old. She leaned over and hugged her child. “I’ll do my best, Gracie. I promise I will.”
Chapter 12
Saldata
Monday
4:00 PM Eastern Time
Miami, Florida
* * *
The man Lori Dovner knew as Raoul Saldata sat on his shaded veranda, looking at the water, which flowed in the inland waterway in front of his beautiful home. His name was not really Saldata, or Raoul for that matter, but when he’d come to Miami looking for opportunities he understood quickly that a Hispanic name was far more appropriate. One was easily available, along with all the supporting paperwork from an accommodating Colombian official. And this action had a separate benefit, as Saldata also maintained all of his original Albanian paperwork. In an emergency, he could travel completely incognito, using an identity he had not used openly in decades.
Saldata sat, sipped his drink and was very unhappy. He thought about his day, a day on which nothing had gone right, starting from the very beginning. How had the woman even gotten into the house? Maria Rodriguez must have given her the codes. It was the only way, because Saldata knew the gate had been closed. That was too bad; the woman had been reliable and competent, and now he was going to have to find another housekeeper.
How had they not heard the gate warning go off, the buzzer that sounded every time the gate was opened, even by someone with the code? It must have sounded just as the senator let out one of his last screams, and that, Saldata acknowledged, was his own fault. Honest with himself when he made a mistake, he’d personally approved all aspects of the security system. During the testing, he’d wondered if the gate warning, which buzzed only in the kitchen, was a bit on the soft side, but he let it go, and now unfortunately he had proof.
His assistant came out onto the veranda behind him. He’d known his assistant his entire life, they’d been boys together in Albania, but at Saldata’s insistence they never spoke Albanian together, even when they were alone. The assistant’s name had been Geotar but now he was called Garth. “It is finished, boss.”
Raoul Saldata had a special furnace in his basement. So few in Miami had heat, but when Saldata had moved in, a contractor had built the unique furnace, never questioning the explanation that Mr. Saldata missed the smell of wood smoke from his village in the mountains. (Or if the contractor had wondered secretly, $50,000 dollars had a way of tamping down a lot of curiosity.)
All evidence of what had occurred in the Saldata home from roughly 11:00 last night until 10:00 this morning was gone. The chair Senator Michaels had been killed in. The blood-soaked Oriental rug. Of course, the body itself. An entire dining room set had fed the fire. And a cleaning service, whose motto was, “Like it never really happened,” had come and gone, cleaning the entire house top to bottom, even areas where Saldata knew the senator had never ventured. Saldata allowed himself a brief cynical moment of humor at the service’s motto.
Perhaps he should offer to do a commercial for them.
In addition, the things he had ordered had arrived. He now owned a new dining room set, an expensive new oriental rug, even new art on the walls and knick-knacks. Every single thing that had been in the dining room less than twenty-four hours earlier was gone.
The morning had not gotten off to a good start. Saldata had thought he would entertain himself with the senator for at least a few more hours, but that hope was dashed in an instant. As soon as he knew that the caterer had gotten away, he walked back into the dining room and slit the senator’s throat with one sweep of his razor-sharp knife, no different than what his father had done back home in Albania with the hogs they had killed every year.
It had been the last insult to a ravaged body; unlike the hogs which, fighting for life, typically kicked and convulsed for a minute or more, the senator died almost instantly.
Saldata and his two assistants had managed to get the body, the chair, and the rug down to the basement within three minutes after the woman, her back window shattered, drove away. Then he had called another guest from the previous night’s party and reported a break in. That guest made a few calls and a detective, backed up by five patrol cars, were at Saldata’s door within ten more minutes. During those intervening ten minutes, Saldata had stripped naked, put every article of clothing he was wearing into a plastic trash bag and spent a full five minutes in a scalding hot shower. By the time the detective entered Saldata’s home, the dining room table was back where it belonged, and unless someone had very sharp eyes, who would see that there were nine chairs where there should be ten? A bowl of decorative fruit in a crystal bowl was replaced neatly on the table, and the table was set for one: ready for breakfast. The broken glass from the woman’s car window had even been swept out of the driveway and discretely hidden in the mulch.
Helpfully, they answered the detective’s questions. Saldata, just emerging from his morning shower, had not even seen her, but the bodyguard did not recognize her. They did not know how she had gotten past the gate. His bodyguard, who slept in the pool cottage had surprised her in the kitchen and fired at her car when she sped away. Yes, of course Mr. Saldata’s bodyguard had all the proper concealed carry permits. Nothing to see here.
“Did Mr. Saldata have security cameras?” the detective had asked.
Yes, but so unfortunate! The system was just being redone with a new and much higher end technology. In fact (Mr. Saldata snapped his fingers for emphasis) perhaps the culprit was someone from the security company. Someone who knew the cameras were temporarily down.
The detective, after one final glance around the immaculate house, promised to check with the security company and left.
Then Saldata got his first surprise. He
called his former dinner guest back expecting an update, and, against all odds, the woman had not called 911. For the briefest moment he had felt relief, elation even, and then reality had intervened. She should have called the authorities. Anybody would have after what she had seen, and there was no possibility she’d missed it. He’d seen the stark horror wash over her pretty face and knew that, from where she stood in the kitchen, her line of sight into the dining room had been, unfortunately, perfect.
He had no way of knowing whether she’d already heard the carefully scripted news reports before she got to his house. He even had no way of knowing whether she actually recognized the senator. Saldata had barely seen her the prior night, as she had only come out of the kitchen once, to greet him and review the dining room, and that was before the guests arrived. He had to assume she did know who the senator was, though. Saldata recognized initiative and this young woman had a very successful company. He didn’t know exactly what the dinner last night had cost, but he guessed it was more than many families lived on in his home country for a year. A person didn’t achieve that without having, as they said here in America, “something on the ball.” He had to operate under the assumption that she had been aware that one of his dinner guests was Senator Michaels, and that there was at least the possibility she realized that the screaming man in the chair this morning was also Senator Michaels (or at least what was left of him.)
So why hadn’t she called the authorities to report what she had seen?
The first possibility was that one of the bullets Garth had fired had hit her, injured her, and that somehow, she had reached someplace safe and then quietly bled to death. Messy, but not a catastrophe. With quick decisive intervention, that could be covered up once her body was discovered, if it were even connected to him, and it might not be if she were halfway across Miami. The second possibility, however, was much more ominous. She’d concluded within seconds that calling the authorities was dangerous, that what she’d seen was a death sentence, and she made the conscious decision not to call, to run instead.
Saldata wondered if she had also recognized his other dinner guest. That would be a true catastrophe. There would be now a witness who could place both the senator and the assistant chief of police in Miami in the Saldata home, and knew that the story put out in the media about a carjacking was a lie. And really, not one person, but three, because Saldata had to assume that the caterer would tell her helpers what she’d seen, what she knew.
That wasn’t a catastrophe. That was a nightmare.
As soon as Saldata had realized all of these possibilities, he had sprung into action. He placed yet another call to his other dinner guest, ignored the man’s frantic “you can’t keep calling me like this,” explained the situation in no uncertain terms, and got things moving. His assistant by now had produced the notes on the caterer: her name was Lori Dovner and her company was Top Hat Catering. Within moments they knew where she lived, and a unit had been dispatched to her house.
Within minutes more they knew no one was home and an all points had been put out for the two vehicles listed with the motor vehicle department as belonging to her: the Range Rover they knew she was driving as well as another, a small Toyota. It wasn’t at her house, so someone must be driving it. A housekeeper or an employee of the business? Or, for a second, he couldn’t think of the English word, and then it came to him: nanny.
Dovner was a young woman, the right age to be a mother. This meant at least the possibility of children in school. Of course, they could be too young for school and in day care instead, or they might attend one of the many fine private schools in Miami, but the public school was a good starting place. It was easy to figure out which school her children would attend based on where she lived and within moments, they knew they had guessed correctly.
A few more quick calls and then another nasty surprise. She’d picked her kids up at the school only seconds before the police arrived.
Raoul Saldata rarely became what the Americans referred to as “flustered,” but so shocked was he by this information that he actually had to sit down. This American, a woman who was really no more than a cook, had deduced within seconds of seeing a senator near death, within minutes of being chased and shot at, that she was in danger and was better off not calling the police. Then she anticipated that they would make a move on her children and got to the school before the authorities. She also had, apparently, turned off her cell phone and not gone back to her home.
In spite of his fury, Saldata was intrigued. He had had little use for women in his life beyond the obvious one, but occasionally he had thought he would like to have sons. He remembered she had reddish brown hair and clear white skin, so different from the solid Albanian women of his youth, and he liked that. He would catch her, of that he had no doubt, but he allowed himself the brief fantasy that he might keep her awhile. If she proved cooperative, and he knew she would be very cooperative as long as he also kept her other two children alive, perhaps she might even give him that son.
Chapter 13
Deacon
Monday
6:00 PM Mountain Time
Hobson, Montana
* * *
Deacon pushed back from the rickety table in Lou and Roger’s kitchen. As an officer in the Navy, he was entitled to live off base, in his own apartment. Most of the married men did, but Deacon saw no point in it. On base housing for a single officer was still fairly nice, like a small apartment. He could eat at the chow hall, and while the food wasn’t wonderful, at least he didn’t have to cook it. Once or twice a month, if he wanted something nicer, he hit a steak house or one of the good seafood restaurants that abounded in the Norfolk/ Virginia Beach area.
Pushing back from his sister-in-law’s table, though, he realized how long it had been since he’d had a real home cooked meal. The pot roast, mashed potatoes, rich beefy gravy and all the fixings had been a lot like what his and Roger’s mother used to make. Still, he couldn’t enjoy it fully. With what Roger had told Deacon about his financial situation, Deacon wondered if they could even afford to feed him. He’d find out more tomorrow and see what he could do to help. Knowing his brother, if Roger was asking for a loan, things must be desperately dire.
“Mommy made an apple pie,” five-year-old Tony announced. The happy announcement was ruined, however, by Tony’s next innocent sentence. “Mrs. Calvi let us come and pick apples. We picked all morning and we only had to give her half.”
That confirmed it. If Lou, who was now seven months pregnant, was out there picking apples on someone else’s farm for a fifty / fifty split, his brother was having a hard time putting food on the table. Deacon met his brother’s gaze. “That’s nice, Tony. Did you help?” he asked, his voice even, without dropping his brother’s eyes.
The boy nodded seriously. “Yup. And I got two whole wushels and hardly any of them had worms.”
“Bushels,” Roger corrected.
“Bushels,” the child repeated. “Two whole bushels.”
Lou slipped into her place barely managing to manipulate her belly around the table. Deacon could hardly help but wince, looking at her. Only seven months? To his eye, she looked gigantic. How could she be like this for another two? He’d been through a lot as a Navy Seal, but having to carry what looked like a squirming basketball on the front of your body for months still looked horrific.
Lou served a small portion of pie to Tony and an even smaller portion to three-year-old Hannah, who still sat in a highchair, then served herself and the two men. “I’m sorry we don’t have any ice cream to go with it.”
“It’s fine, Lou. My God, I couldn’t eat ice cream anyway.”
Roger put his fork down, looked at his brother, his jaw set hard. “You asked what you could do to help.” He gestured around the kitchen, which opened to a small living room. It was completely devoid of furniture. “The night we left, we packed kitchen stuff, some of the clothes, my tools, but we had to leave all of the furniture.”
&n
bsp; “And my racing car bed,” Tony piped up, between bites of pie. “It’s red and has stickers.”
“Yeah,” Roger agreed. “And your racing car bed. But we’re going to get it back, buddy. I promise.” Roger looked back at his brother. “I want to rent a truck and go get our things. We still have a washer, a drier, and a nice fridge there. Almost all the furniture.”
Deacon nodded; it was obvious they needed furniture. His sister-in-law had shown him to the room in the three-bedroom house he’d be using. It had been furnished with an air mattress and nothing else. “When were you thinking about doing this?”
“Wednesday,” Roger answered.
“Why haven’t you gone before now? If you have every legal right to get your things, why wait?”
“Legal right is one thing, but if Willie tries to get aggressive, I don’t want to be there alone with Lou.”
Deacon was liking the sound of this less and less. “Roger, I definitely have certain skills, but if ten guys come at us with guns, there’s nothing I can do.”
“He won’t. There are still way too many good people in Bowenville who’ve invested their life savings to live there who have no idea what might be going on. Willie might show up with one of his goons and get verbally nasty, but he’s not going to risk an all out confrontation when he’s in the wrong. I’ve paid every penny of my mortgage and community fees, everything. We have every legal right to move back in tomorrow. That’s one of the reasons we’re having such a hard time making it here. I’ve kept up the mortgage payment at Bowenville and I’m paying here every month.”
