False Move, page 18
THIRTY-FOUR
Ben Holbrook stared out of the window of his corner office, but was blind to the view across Boston Harbor, his thoughts hundreds of miles away.
‘I had everything set up: how did it all go so wrong?’
He didn’t respond to Clarissa Glenn, too caught up in his own disbelief to offer a solution to hers.
Earlier, they’d both been confident that the Aaron Lacey problem was about to be finalized when Glenn had set up the trap, luring him to Si Turpin’s workshop where a team was already in place to grab him, and whisk him away in a non-descript van retrofitted for purpose. But look at where overconfidence got them.
Everything was spiraling out of control and unless Holbrook got a tight grip on the reins things would only get worse. It should have been an easy enough task to track and silence a washed up ex-cop, except Lacey had continually thwarted all their efforts and was still on the loose, and in possession of the damning evidence of their role in covering up a murder, and the blackmail plot that followed. Complication had piled on top of complication. Lacey must be dealt with, and now Si Turpin was on the run, and even if all the evidence was out of his reach, he could still squeal to the cops. If it were only Turpin’s word to worry about, Holbrook would laugh it off. But after the incident at Turpin’s workshop he’d be hard put to convince the police there was nothing in the guy’s story: it’d put Elite under a microscope. Although he’d managed to hush up any involvement with the violent encounters in Boston, Holbrook had no sway with the NYPD.
Already the NYPD had launched a major investigation into the gun battle on 56th Street, which had culminated in Lacey’s escape, and the burning down of Turpin’s workshop. Grant Aiken, having returned for the rucksack and its contents, then took pains to cover up any forensic evidence inside by setting the place alight. Dozens of witnesses had observed his people make their escape in the two vehicles, a car and the van, and time must now be wasted in getting them out of sight, and his team mobile again. The only saving grace was that Hayden James hadn’t gotten caught up in the clusterfuck, so was still able to move at liberty … That was supposing he couldn’t be tied to the vicious assault on Herbert Grover; the retired doctor’s murder was yet to be discovered, but was inevitable. Hopefully Hayden and Megan had gone unobserved entering or leaving the old man’s home. Initially, Holbrook had been enraged on hearing about Megan’s actions, and demanded to know why she’d been allowed to feed her appetite for violence, but Hayden had explained that to ensure they all escaped prison, they must clean up behind them. This Holbrook accepted begrudgingly, but where must things end? With the deaths of everyone who had the slightest inkling of what was going on. The list was growing longer: Lace, Turpin, Grey, Villere, and Estelle Dewildt, and who knew how many others they’d confided in; even some of their operatives, uninvolved in the original cover-up, were beginning to fill in gaps and coming to their own conclusions.
‘Those bloody private eyes …’
Again, Glenn’s words skirted past Holbrook.
‘Ben? Ben! Aren’t you listening?’
He turned and regarded the austere woman. She sat on a corner of his desk, arms folded across her chest, hawkish nose tilted towards the ceiling.
‘I’m trying to think of a way out of this,’ he snapped, ‘but can’t for all your complaints. For God’s sake, will you just give me a break?’
Glenn pinched her lips, scolded him with her raisin eyes. ‘I don’t appreciate being spoken to as if I’m one of the help,’ she said. ‘I’ve as much at stake in solving our problem as you have, Ben.’
‘So instead of asking why everything went wrong, help me figure out what we should do next.’
‘I think it’s apparent, don’t you?’
‘No.’ Holbrook shook his head. ‘It isn’t apparent to me. Help me out here, Clarissa.’
‘I was offering a solution,’ she said, ‘but you weren’t listening. There’s only one thing more important to Lacey than using the files to extort us: his daughter. We never worked that angle before, because we had no way of contacting him and making our own demands. That, I believe, has now changed. But we must act fast before those bloody private eyes convince Lacey to go to the police. Until we know otherwise, we have to assume the data’s still salvageable and must ensure the devices are destroyed.’
Holbrook nodded. Turpin had allegedly input a malware programme into the devices in Lacey’s possession, but they only had the conman’s word to go on: they couldn’t be certain he hadn’t made up the lie when confronted by Glenn, his way of wheedling some cash out of them for helping to trap Lacey. Vera Seung had recovered one thumb drive, which was yet to be tested, but according to Turpin, he’d given another two copies and the original back to Lace: any, or all of them, could still be a viable threat to Elite.
Holbrook phoned Hayden.
‘Bring the daughter here, and if anyone gets in your way, take Megan’s lead and shut them up permanently.’ He waited until he received Hayden’s affirmation, then added, ‘The instant she’s in your hands let us know and we’ll contact her father, oh, and Hayden, time is against us.’
‘On it.’ Hayden’s reply was clipped, but held a great deal of promise: Holbrook should have lifted the non-combat constraints he’d placed on his right-hand man from the beginning. He had tired of third-party interference: Grey and Villere wouldn’t have lived to snatch Lacey out of his team’s hands if he’d sent Hayden to that crummy motel instead of trusting to local hoodlums to get the job done. Even if some miracle had saved them, those meddling PIs wouldn’t have survived a second confrontation if he hadn’t forbidden Aiken and the others from shooting to kill. His original order didn’t extend beyond Lacey, but they couldn’t know he’d have happily rescinded the order when it came to those two assholes. He wouldn’t make the same mistake again.
‘Have the New York team take care of Turpin; we can deal with Grey and Villere once they bring Lacey to us in Boston,’ he added.
THIRTY-FIVE
‘You can get off me now.’ Lacey wasn’t exactly a small guy, and Tess was smothered. He was furnace hot and his clothing damp with sweat: his odour was unhealthy. She pushed and squirmed, so she could shift around on the bench seat. He hissed and groaned, the act of any movement an intense labor. Tess sat, squashed into one corner while he manually dragged one of his legs off her. She pushed her hair into some semblance of order, ran her palms over her face, looked at something sticky on her palms.
‘Blood! Were one of you hit?’
‘Stung by a bit of flyin’ glass, but I’m good,’ Po reported, then with a grumble, ‘can’t say the same for my ride.’
She studied the man beside her. He sat with his head thrown back, eyelids squeezed tight, gasping for air. The ordeal had taken a lot out of him. His hands were clasped above his right hip. Blood leaked between his fingers. Tess almost lunged on top of him this time.
‘It’s OK,’ he croaked and fended her off with the gentle shove of his shoulder. ‘It’s an old wound; things just got a bit too strenuous back there …’
‘Let me see,’ Tess leaned over him a second time, reaching to move his fingers aside.
‘Don’t worry about me, I’ll be fine, just need …’ He halted, looking at her for the second time with confusion. ‘Who are you people anyway? For a second back there I thought you were—’
‘Stella,’ said Tess, and felt the blood rush to her head.
‘Yeah, you look a bit like my daughter.’
‘We’re private detectives. We were hired by Stella to find you,’ said Tess.
‘Yeah?’ Again he studied her closely. ‘But that doesn’t explain why you look so familiar. Who are you?’
Before he could ask more, Tess peeled away his fingers and saw that beneath his jacket his shirt was sopping with blood. He immediately clamped his hand in place once more, and turned so he could regard her again. ‘I can see you’re not really like my Stella, the resemblance is only passing, and I guess I wouldn’t have noticed at all if she hadn’t took to dyeing her hair the same as you.’
Tess’s colouring was natural, but she wasn’t offended. And he had a point; with her natural auburn hair, Stella’s passing likeness to her would be greatly diminished. Had she, as her mother more or less pointed out, been seeing patterns where none existed? It wasn’t something she wanted to go into right then. ‘We have to stop the bleeding,’ she directed at Po.
‘Can’t help you from up here, unless you want me to pull over?’
‘No, keep moving.’ It was imperative that they put some distance between them and 56th Street: in fact, now Lacey was in their hands they should head directly to the nearest police station, but neither of them had suggested it yet. Plus, Lacey would be in disagreement, and she didn’t want a wrestling match with him if he tried to escape the confines of the car.
‘I’ll be fine,’ Lacey reassured her. ‘It’s just a coupla stitches that’ve come loose. Once my heart stops beating a mile a minute the bleeding will stop.’
Tess moved his hands again. ‘Let me see.’
‘You’re a doctor or somethin’? No, you said you were a PI. Leave me be, and I’ll be OK.’ He jammed his hands on the wound again, applying pressure. Fresh beads of sweat broke out under his hairline and ran down his forehead.
‘You look as if you’ve got a fever. When were you wounded?’
Lacey shrugged her question off.
‘It was up in Boston, right? Before you escaped Elite the first time.’
‘Uh, so you know about those A-holes, then?’
‘We know everything,’ she lied. She still had misgivings about more than her parentage: could they be harboring a murderer? Fleetingly, she checked for his pistol, but he must have dropped it when scrambling aboard. By pretending to know everything already, he’d be more inclined to elicit the answers she wanted rather than if interrogated. She changed the subject. ‘If you were shot more than a week ago, you could be incredibly sick by now. How long have you been feverish like this?’ His odour was sickly sweet. ‘Is your wound infected?’
‘I just saw a doctor yesterday, and everything was fine. I think I’ve just overexerted myself since then … against his advice.’ He offered a faint grin of self-admonishment, then laughed, and aimed his next comment at Po. ‘Us guys, we never are very good at taking instruction, right? Especially if it means admitting we aren’t as young and fit as we used to be.’
‘That ain’t a conversation I want to be part of, bra,’ Po replied sardonically.
Tess rested the back of her hand on Lacey’s forehead, forcing him to shy away before relenting again.
‘You’re on fire.’
‘I was just surrounded by four bad guys with guns, and barely escaped with my life. Stands to reason I might be a little hot.’ Again he tried to fend her off gently, but Tess was persistent. She tugged at his collar and found another wound, this one a slice in the flesh that had already been sutured, and scabbed over without any apparent complications.
‘Have you any other wounds I’ve missed?’ she asked.
He touched his side. ‘This is a through and through. Exit wound’s in my back, but far as I can tell it’s OK.’
‘We need to check. But we can’t do it here, we’ll have to find somewhere I can have a look without attracting any attention.’
‘I’ve told you I’m fine. Look, thanks for saving my ass back there, but if you just let me off at the next corner, I’ll take care of things from there.’
His instruction didn’t deserve an answer.
Tess glanced at the passing street signs, but couldn’t immediately get her bearings, and then it struck her. Po had taken them across Midtown and then north. She recognized the trees and raised flowerbeds of Park Avenue: they were approaching the bridge over 42nd Street on the approach to Grand Central Station. It was a location she knew more these days from movies and TV programs than from any childhood memory. The elevated road swung to the right, towards the towering ebony glass structure of the Grand Hyatt Hotel, before turning left and following the contours of the world famous train station to an underpass, before they exited onto a continuation of Park Avenue. Long before that, she understood Po’s destination.
‘We can’t return to Stella’s yet,’ she reminded him.
‘Not going to.’ It was feasible her apartment was under surveillance and showing up there with Lacey might encourage an all-out siege. After what had recently happened at 56th Street the Elite team might not be as keen to hold fire, especially as it was only Lacey they needed alive. ‘But I want to get us close. Call Pinky, will ya, and tell him to get ready to move Stella outta there.’
Lacey bolted upright. ‘My daughter has nothing to do with this!’
‘That was before,’ Tess replied, understanding Po’s concern. ‘Now they know for sure that you’re in New York, and you’re with us, they’ll be looking everywhere connected with us too, and they know we’re working on Stella’s behalf.’
‘Those sons of bitches better not harm my daughter … dammit! Why’d Stella have to stick her nose in my business and involve you guys? I tried to keep her out of this—’
‘By not letting her know you were even alive?’ Tess set her jaw. ‘Don’t be so damned selfish! What kind of daughter would she be if she didn’t look for you?’
Her reproach was double-edged, but it was only Po who caught it. He shot her a glance in the rear-view mirror that asked: Do you really want to go there? She seethed for a second longer, then gave a subtle shake of her head. Now was not the time. Lacey didn’t want to broach the subject either. He felt under his shirt, moaning at what he found. His fingers came away scarlet to the knuckles. Tess cast around, seeking something to use as a bandage: their overnight bags were in the trunk, there was a towel in hers. But while they were moving, she didn’t want Po to stop so she could fish it out. She struggled out of her jacket, and then yanked off her shirt. Down to her bra, she wadded up her shirt, and forced it under Lacey’s hands. ‘Keep pressure on that.’
Lacey ogled her. Not in any lascivious manner. She was baring more flesh than she’d have liked, but Lacey’s gaze didn’t stray inappropriately: he’d centred his attention on her face. He continued appraising her as she worked back into her jacket, and zipped it up. She returned his stare, her mouth pinched.
‘You’re Mikey Grey’s grandkid,’ he said. ‘Young Michael’s your dad.’
‘Yes,’ Tess confirmed. It was strange hearing her father referred to as ‘young’, when her brother was known as Michael junior, but she guessed it was a generational thing to Lacey who’d worked alongside ‘old’ Mikey. ‘I’m his daughter.’
‘Jeez, that explains everything.’ He nodded his head in satisfaction. ‘Why I thought you looked so familiar.’
Tess waited, dreading what might come next.
‘You know something, Tess … or is it Teresa?’
‘Tess.’
He smiled. ‘Not into all that formal stuff, eh? I’m surprised, ’cause right down to your mannerisms you’re the spitting double of your mom.’
She exhaled sharply.
‘Barbara was a beautiful woman,’ he offered, unaware that it wasn’t what she wanted to hear, quite the opposite. ‘You look very much like she did when I knew her.’
‘How well did you know her?’
She sensed the tensing of Po’s shoulders. It didn’t affect his driving. He’d slowed as he negotiated the traffic towards the Upper East Side: the last he wanted was to attract the attention of a passing patrol car. The bullet hole in the windscreen was small, and could be explained away as the result of a flying stone, but coupled with the hole in the trunk, and the buckled hood, a nosey cop might deem the car unroadworthy, inviting a closer inspection. The bloody hole in Aaron Lacey wouldn’t be as easily explained. He kept quiet, keeping a lookout as he drove, but Tess was aware he was listening keenly.
‘You probably don’t remember much. You were a little girl when I worked with Mikey, but I was a friend of the entire family. I was more of an age with your parents, so we hit it off. Your grandfather was like my mentor; he had twenty years on me so I’d more in common with Young Mike. We used to party, y’know, your dad and mom, me and Stella’s mom.’
She didn’t want to acknowledge his words, certainly didn’t want to imagine what he meant by ‘party together’.
‘It was a real shame what happened to your dad. Sheesh! Bowel cancer, what a horrible way to go.’ Lacey shook his head in genuine remorse. ‘Must’ve been really hard for your mom to watch him go through that.’
‘It was difficult on all of us.’
‘I’d say.’
‘Keep the pressure on that wound,’ she instructed, ‘and tell us instead what the hell we’re dealing with here.’
‘I thought you knew everything …’
‘We know you stole something from your employers, and they’re very determined to get it back. We know one guy already paid with his life, and the way things are going there could be more people hurt. We just risked our lives for you back there, and I want to know it was worth it.’
‘You’re wondering if I’m really the bad guy?’ He wheezed in laughter, the action painful. ‘Depends on your perspective, I guess.’
Po was growing restless. ‘As much as I’d like to hear yours, bra, there’s somethin’ you gotta do first, Tess. Call Pinky.’
He was right. The operation to capture Lacey had gone wrong for them, and the Elite team would’ve been forced to make their escape before the police arrived on the scene, but it was odd’s on they were already reorganizing for another attempt at bringing him in. Po’s driving had put them ahead of the game, but they wouldn’t be far behind. If this were her op – and she had the same lack of scruples – she’d go after someone important to him next. Up until now Stella had largely been left alone, but she was a pawn to be shifted. To Lacey she said, ‘If ever your daughter’s going to be safe again, you’re going to have to tell us the truth.’ She left it at that, and took out her phone from her jacket pocket.
