False Move, page 21
‘Those bastards need to be stopped,’ Lacey said, more forcefully.
Pinky stared down at Grover’s crushed skull, then fingered the wound on his head: he could have suffered a similar fate. ‘They do,’ he agreed.
‘And we will stop them,’ Tess went on. ‘But we won’t get Stella back unharmed if we alert the police to their involvement. Mr Lacey, as horrible as this is, it only confirms how much danger Stella’s in, and we have to think about her first.’
‘I’m thinking about nothing else now.’
‘Good. Now, before we go back to the car, we need to have a look around. This doesn’t look as if the doctor used it as his consultation room …?’
Lacey waved towards the rear of the apartment. ‘Back there. Come on, I’ll show you where he kept his drugs and stuff.’
While Pinky retreated to inform Po of their discovery, she followed Lacey to a small room decked out with a gurney-style bed, a sink, and a brushed-steel worktop above a series of cupboards and drawers. Lacey had lain on the bed only yesterday morning while Grover tended his wounds: the soiled dressings lay on top of an open waste bin nearby. He’d made note of where the doctor kept his supply of antibiotics. He pulled open a drawer, and collected a handful of containers. ‘These are penicillin-based antibiotics,’ he told Tess.
‘They’ll do for now. I need bandages and gauze, maybe some sterile strips because my needlecraft isn’t what it should be. Oh, and see if you can find any painkillers …’
Between them they gathered what she required to field dress both men’s wounds, and they placed them all inside a garbage sack Lacey fetched from the kitchen. They’d taken care only to touch the items they were taking away with them, and Lacey wiped down the handle on the drawers and cupboards they’d opened. ‘Remember to wipe down the doorbell and where you touched the front door,’ Tess advised, as they moved for the front street. They studiously avoided looking at Grover’s corpse again.
‘Don’t worry,’ said Lacey, ‘I knew how to cover up my dodgy behaviour long before you were born.’
She clucked her tongue at his inappropriate choice of words, and walked for the car, carrying the bag of medical supplies while he used his sleeve to wipe down the door.
Pinky was already seated in the back. Po allowed Lacey to squeeze in, before putting back the seat and getting in. Tess took a lingering check of the street. Their visit to Doc Grover’s had apparently gone unobserved, or his neighbours were used to people skulking in and out and barely took note anymore. She slid inside the car, placing the meds at her feet, and once she was settled, Po drove away. They all sat in sullen silence, contemplating the latest turn of events. They were heading out of Manhattan on the Alexander Hamilton Bridge, aiming for the I-95 when Lacey spoke.
‘Someone ought to inform Paul.’
It hadn’t crossed Tess’s mind that Stella’s husband was blissfully unaware of his wife’s predicament. It was best that he was kept in the dark, though. ‘Hopefully we’ll have her safely home again before he finds out. If we tell him she’s been kidnapped, there’s nothing stopping him from alerting the authorities, and we’ll lose any hope we have of saving her.’
‘How’s your mom?’
His question came out of left field and left Tess momentarily dumbstruck. She shifted in her seat, coughed to clear her throat. ‘Why do you ask?’
‘Just wondered if she knew what kind of danger you’re about to put yourself in, on behalf of my kid. If our roles were reversed, I’m not sure I’d like my daughter risking her life for someone she barely knows.’ Again he was wholly unaware of how ironic his choice of words was, but at least his sentiment was genuine.
‘My mom worries about me crossing the street,’ Tess said, and felt an unexpected flicker of fondness for Barbara’s protective ways. ‘I must give her a lot of sleepless nights, because I’ve this tendency to run towards danger.’
Lacey laughed in recognition. ‘Boy, you’re definitely Young Mike’s kid!’
‘Yes,’ she declared. ‘Yes, I am.’
Po squeezed her a smile and a look that said: Great, let’s leave it at that, shall we?
She was happy to lay the question over her parentage to rest … for now. She began delving in the bag of supplies. ‘Po, you might want to find somewhere we can lay low while I stitch them up.’
By then, they were passing signs for the Bronx Zoo, and the cloverleaf with the Bronx River Parkway: he took the turn, hoping to find somewhere secluded in the park where they could clean up and plan. Minutes later he parked the muscle car beneath a shady canopy of trees at a far corner of the zoo’s parking lot, next to the Bronx River. At that time of day there were few other visitors to the park, and most of those had parked their cars nearer the entrance, so they were secluded for now. They’d taken a chance their wounded passengers would attract attention at the entrance barrier, but the young attendant had delivered her chirpy greeting by rote and didn’t as much as glance in the back when Po paid admission for four adults.
He stepped out and folded the front seats down so Tess could climb in and work on her patients. He smoked, brooding over what was destined to follow, as he stood watch, prepared to deter any passing visitors from getting too close. Tess was too absorbed applying sterile strips to Pinky’s head wound to notice when her cell phone rang. It was tucked under the folded seat back, on Tess’s chair. Po went to the open door and peered in at it, reading the caller ID.
‘You might want to answer that, Tess,’ he said.
‘Who’s calling?’
‘Well, if my eyes ain’t deceiving me,’ he said with a sardonic smile, ‘it’s Pinky.’
THIRTY-NINE
‘I bet receiving a call from a dead man gave you a moment’s pause?’ Hayden James stood on the tarmac of a private airstrip in New Jersey, supervising as Megan Stein and Vera Seung assisted their hostage up the steps onto Elite’s corporate jet. It had been moved from La Guardia in anticipation of receiving an unwilling passenger; it would’ve been difficult getting Stella past security at the major airport, especially in her tranquilized state.
‘You stole our friend’s cell,’ Tess Grey said accusingly.
‘He didn’t need it anymore, but I needed a way to contact you.’
‘My number’s in the book.’
‘Yeah, but ringing you from your dead buddy’s phone ensured I got your attention. Now listen up.’
‘No, you son of a bitch! You listen up. Things have gone too far. It has to stop!’
‘You’re emotional,’ Hayden said, his voice dripping with mockery, ‘and understandably in light of losing dear, dear Pinky, not to mention your client. So I expected a little churlishness from you, but I won’t allow you to dictate to me. Do you hear me, Miss Grey? I’m the one who says what is and what isn’t going to happen.’
She countered him immediately. ‘Here’s what will happen: more people will die. For what reason? So that a sexual deviant gets away with murdering his own sister, and Ben Holbrook continues growing rich? You know that’s not how this is going to end. If you live to see the end of this, it’ll be from a prison cell.’
Hayden chuckled. ‘You seem very sure of that.’
‘I am. What other way is there for this to end up?’
‘You give me Aaron Lacey, I will give back Stella, and we all walk away. Cutter’s secret doesn’t come out, Elite keeps making money off him, and I disappear with a big fat bonus for services rendered. There might be something in it for you too: if you keep your mouth shut, you can go back to chasing philandering husbands in Maine. You don’t bother them and Elite leaves you and Stella alone.’
‘Once upon a time a deal might’ve been on the table, but not after people have died.’
‘You’re upset about your pet homo?’
‘Buddy,’ Nicolas Villere interjected. ‘For that comment alone I’ll happily kill you.’
‘Was hoping you were listening in. I’ve nothing personal against your pal, he gave his best and I respect him for that. It’s why I ended him without any unnecessary suffering.’
‘That won’t stop me from killing you.’
‘You can try. Pinky tried and you’ve seen where it got him.’
‘Did Herbert Grover, a sick old man with only weeks left to live, also try to kill you?’ Tess posed.
‘Oh, so you’ve found the good doctor, have you? Stands to reason, I heard from some of my guys that Lacey wasn’t looking too good when you snatched him from them: I genuinely didn’t think Lacey would go back to that quack or I’d have waited there for him. But no, to answer your question, Miss Grey, Doc Grover’s death wasn’t on me.’
‘You might not have personally killed him,’ Grey said, ‘but you gave the order.’
‘I followed an order from my superior. It’s what good soldiers do.’
‘You’re not a soldier, you’re a murderous son of a bitch,’ Villere snarled.
‘Takes one to know one,’ Hayden replied, then as an addendum, ‘if you really intend keeping to the threat you just made.’
‘I don’t make threats lightly.’
‘Good then I can count on you coming to Boston to find me. You too, Miss Grey, and, oh, don’t forget the main man. That’s the deal: bring Aaron Lacey and any evidence he still has to me, and I’ll let his daughter go. As for the rest of us … well, we’ll have to see how things play out, won’t we?’
‘We need some time,’ said Grey. ‘Lacey isn’t fit to travel, and seeing as you had his doctor killed I’m going to have to patch him up first.’
‘Don’t bother. Dead or alive, get him to me. I’m happy either way but I want to see his body and the USB sticks. You have four hours to get to Boston.’
‘We need more time than that.’
‘I’m not giving it to you. Four hours, y’hear, and the clock starts ticking now. And don’t lose your phone; I’ll be calling you back on it with further instructions. Oh, and need I add—’
‘Don’t worry,’ Villere interjected again. ‘I don’t want any witnesses to our next meeting, least of all the cops.’
‘Good man, I’m happy to hear we’re on the same page.’ Hayden pondered a moment. ‘I assume you’ve already left Grover’s place, so there’s no need to send a team there. You can also be assured that you won’t be troubled on the road to Boston. I expect a similar level of cooperation from you. Do not report the deaths of Grover or your friend to the NYPD. If I hear you’ve involved the cops, the deal’s off and Stella will disappear. If that makes you think I’ll lose leverage over you, consider again.’
He ended the call.
Megan was watching him from the jet’s doorway. Her dark eyes glistened in anticipation.
Her psychotic nature had caused him undue complication. Stamping Grover to death had helped calm her murderous rage, but only slightly. He’d taken the opportunity away from her to kill Pinky when he’d smashed the man’s skull in with the skillet, otherwise there could have been another corpse with the tell-tale marks of her boot heels all over it. As it was – as long as Grey and Villere didn’t report the deaths and point an accusatory finger at Elite – they should remain unconnected when the police got round to investigating them. He couldn’t count on the private eyes staying quiet, particularly since they’d lost one of their own, so it had become imperative that they were silenced as resolutely as he planned for Lacey. Pinky died during a fight to the death, his slaying was unavoidable, but in hindsight allowing the woman to beat the old man to death was a massive mistake: Grover could have been compelled through fear to keep schtum, and allowed to slip quietly into death when his illness took him.
However, in a way, Megan had also helped simplify matters in his mind, as had Tess Grey’s recent assertion that this could only end with him dead or behind bars. Despite the pains Ben Holbrook was going to, there was no possible way now that Jon Cutter’s secret could be protected, or Elite’s, specifically Hayden’s, part in the cover-up. Too many people were involved now; too many loose ends. Holbrook’s people could hunt down and kill the key players, but who knew how many others had been reached out to in the meantime? Si Turpin was on the run and could finger them all. Stella was married to a businessman who’d demand answers, Grey and Villere had connections to a specialist inquiry firm up in Portland, Maine, and Grey, he’d learned, had siblings who were active law enforcement officers, who would push for an investigation into their sister’s disappearance. For all he knew Grey had already confided in one or all of the above and Elite couldn’t stop them all. While everything was being blown all out of proportion, Megan’s question to him earlier had helped clarify his intention.
She’d asked if he had a contingency, perhaps an escape plan to a country with no extradition treaty with the US. He hadn’t answered, only used her concern to help motivate her, but the answer was yes. He’d planned his escape ever since the day Holbrook had him dredge Carly Cutter’s body from her brother’s swimming pool. He knew as he lifted her dripping from the water that somewhere down the line covering up her murder would come back to destroy them all. A secret was never safe when more than one person knew about it. Since that day, he had been preparing for when Cutter’s sin would explode in their faces, and sure as shit that fuse had been lit the second Mathers failed to take out Aaron Lacey with his first bullet. In the past few days things had gotten more out of control, and he was under no illusion, the situation was going to grow worse. He’d gladly commandeer the jet and force the pilot to fly him somewhere south of the border and put the whole damn mess behind him, but for two reasons. First, he hadn’t been kidding when he told Grey and Villere he had a fat bonus coming. Though he’d stashed money away in offshore accounts, when he disappeared he wanted enough money to maintain a lifestyle worth running away to, and his bonus promised him that. To earn it though, he had to kill Lacey and get back the evidence. Second, ever since they’d met gazes across Copley Square, he knew a final confrontation with Nicolas Villere was in his stars, and who was he to deny fate? He’d purposefully goaded a reaction from Villere by his comments about Pinky, because he wanted to end things with him before he ran: the lack of extradition treaties meant fuck all to a vengeful man, and Hayden had no intention of constantly watching over his shoulder for when Villere inevitably came to even the score. During their confrontation Pinky warned him against the type of enemies he was courting, but Hayden knew. He’d already decided that Villere wasn’t a cold-blooded murderer, but he was vengeful, and Hayden had bought his sincerity when Villere said he didn’t make threats lightly.
Megan continued to stare.
He walked towards her, and she stirred at the top of the steps, tempted to go inside but also expectant. Maybe she wanted him to tell her she was right, maybe he should tell her to get the hell away as quickly as possible, maybe she would refuse until Lacey was dead: she too was a vengeful thing. So he didn’t bother with a warning.
‘Everything ready?’ he asked.
She thumbed towards the cabin. ‘Everyone’s onboard, and Vera’s guarding the bitch. We’re just waiting on you, Hayden.’
‘Then let’s get moving.’
She didn’t clear the doorway. ‘I should warn you, boss; some of the team are uneasy about being kept in the dark.’
‘They have their instructions; they know what happens next. They growing squeamish all of a sudden?’
‘It isn’t that they’re afraid of the situation, Hayden: I think they’ve shown that already. It’s more about the pay-off.’
‘They want more money? Yeah, well they’d better form a queue … behind me.’
‘It’s not about their fee. It’s how far they should risk their lives when they aren’t trusted.’
‘They wouldn’t be on my team if I didn’t trust them.’
Megan shook her head, eyes tilted down. ‘You know what I’m talking about, Hayden.’
‘You’re having second thoughts, too?’
She raised her head, shook it emphatically. ‘I told you already, I’m with you till the end.’
Hayden sneered. ‘Till Lace’s end, you mean.’
‘Yeah, I want to see him dead, and I’d like to be the one to pull the trigger. My reason is personal, but the others want to know what they’re fighting for, considering Lace was once one of us.’
‘And I’ve told you before, none of you need to know. In fact, you should be relieved you’ve no idea what’s on those files. Otherwise it’d be you guys going to your executions instead of Lace.’
‘So it’s that old cliché?’ She smiled conspiratorially. ‘You’d tell us, but then you’d have to kill us, huh?’
‘Do I look as if I’m kidding?’
Megan checked out the cold promise in his eyes.
‘No, boss, I can see you’re deadly serious.’
‘Good. Now let’s go.’ He waved her ahead of him, and this time she obeyed. He entered the cabin, watching the others raise quizzical eyebrows at Megan, only for her to shake her head. She found a seat and slumped into it. Hayden briefly met each of their gazes. Nobody pushed him for an answer, and he knew they wouldn’t because he’d pitched his voice to Megan so all onboard had heard. Each of his team had picked window seats where they could stretch out and grab some sleep on the short flight home, except for Vera Seung who had taken an aisle seat. Next to her, Stella Dewildt was crammed against the window – the blind down – her chin resting on her chest. The sedatives given to her would ensure she slept through the flight to Boston, and probably for a few hours after. Hayden studied her for a moment. She was a good-looking woman, and from what he’d observed of her to date, a good person who didn’t deserve this. It was a shame she had to die, but her death wasn’t on him. He took a second look around the cabin. All of you, he thought, could die because Lace couldn’t keep his fucking nose out of Elite’s business. He mentally shrugged off any concern, because that wasn’t on him either.
FORTY
‘He’s keeping us moving so we can’t think straight,’ Po said, smiling at the thought. They had left the parking lot at the Bronx Zoo shortly after Hayden James ended the call, Po driving just a shade beneath the posted speed limit though he was severely tempted to put his foot down. Still, having only made one brief stop at a Fed-Ex office in Eastchester, they’d picked up I-95 and the Wilbur Cross Parkway and were now two hours closer to Boston and still on schedule to meet Hayden’s timescale. ‘He knows we’ve barely slept, have an injured man onboard and are unarmed, and doesn’t want us rectifying our situation. He’s gonna be pissed when he finds out he underestimated us.’
