Blind Faith (35 page)

"He wasn't proud of me!" The light swung wildly. "He was screwing behind my back."

Kelly stopped abruptly, though not because of what Enrique had just said. She didn't give a damn about his love life. In front of her lay an open grave. Beside it was a pile of dirt with a shovel stuck into it.

"Oh, my God."
Her stomach flip-flopped. Inside the hole she could see part of a trench coat, a pant leg, the point of a shoe.
A briefcase.

Nausea rose to her throat and for a moment she thought she was going to throw up.

"What's the matter, Brenda Starr?" Enrique put the lantern down on a tree stump. "Never seen a corpse before?"

She turned then. "What about you, Enrique? How many have you seen? How many people have you killed in cold blood?"

"You've got a big mouth, Kelly."

"Doesn't it bother you? Don't you think about it sometime? Have nightmares at night?"

"Shut up and get in the grave."

Kelly sucked in a breath. He was going to bury her alive. He was going to make her lie on top of a dead body and then shovel the dirt back on.

The thought made her gasp for air. She wouldn't do it. He would have to kill her first.

The sound of a car engine approaching broke the silence. She saw Enrique tense
,
then relax as the sound faded away.

"I said, get in the grave," Enrique repeated. "Or would you prefer I put a bullet through your leg?" Kelly's mouth was dry but she kept on talking. "Did you warn Steve you were going to kill him?" she taunted.

"Were you looking into the eyes of the man you loved when you plunged that knife into his chest?"

He was beginning to crack around the edges. Could he be feeling guilty about killing his lover? Had her stab in the dark hit a pressure point?

Aware she had nothing to lose, she pushed harder. "Do you ever wonder what went through Steve's mind in that last moment? The fear he must have experienced?
The sense of betrayal?"

In the glow of the lantern, she saw his face contort in pain. She gave one more jab. "Did you watch him die, Enrique?"

"Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!" The gun still in his hands, Enrique covered his ears.

In the half second it took him to realize that was a mistake, Kelly yanked the shovel from the pile of dirt and swung it at Enrique's head with brute force.

The heavy blade caught him on the right temple. Blood gushed from the wound, streaming down the side of his face, his jacket.

He just stood there, looking half-dazed and surprised, as though he hadn't expected her to do that.

The gun was still in his hand. With what seemed like a monumental effort, he turned it back toward her.

Oh God. She hadn't hit him hard enough.

Words she couldn't understand spewed out of his mouth. Without warning, his legs folded under him and he fell like a disjointed puppet. The gun slipped out of his grip and dropped to the ground, but Kelly didn't dare pick it up, not yet.

When he remained motionless for several seconds, she edged away from him, circling the grave.

In the distance, the sound of another car grew closer, louder. Bright headlights tore through the trees. She ran for cover, afraid Ward had come back.

Nick was running toward her. Another man was with him, running just as fast. Behind them, a police cruiser had come to a stop.

With a strangled cry, Kelly ran into Nick's arms.

Forty-Four.

The ballroom of the Bellevue Hotel glimmered with hundreds of lights, and was made even more brilliant by the glittering, bejeweled audience attending this special evening.

The dinner was over. So was the presentation of the Benjamin Franklin Award. The man of the hour stood at the podium, holding the inscribed plaque and preparing to deliver his acceptance speech.

From the threshold, Kelly watched him for a moment,
then
started walking toward him.
Nick and two uniformed officers behind her.
As all eyes turned in their direction, she recognized several dignitaries-the mayor, a
Pennsylvania
senator,
several
heads of corporations--people gathered to honor a man who only two hours ago had left her to die.

Shortly after her rescue.
Captain Cross had given Nick his badge back and told him to handle Ward Sanders's arrest any way he saw fit. Nick had immediately turned to Kelly. "We can do it two ways. Quickly and discreetly, sparing Ward any public
embarrassment,
or we can do it right now at the
Bellevue
, in front of his peers. It's your call."

The choice had been so easy. A charged silence fell over the room as Kelly continued to approach the podium. Even from this distance, she could see the color on Ward's face drain, his lips flutter as if he was trying to say something but couldn't get the words out.

She kept walking, her eyes upon the man on whom
Philadelphia
had just bestowed its most prestigious award. A few feet from him, she stopped.

"What's the
matter.
Ward? You look as if you've seen a ghost."

He glanced behind her, then over his shoulder, where two more uniformed officers had appeared.

"If you're looking for a way out, don't bother. There isn't any."

Close by someone grabbed her hand. Kelly looked down and saw Cecily.

Her face was white, her tone an angry whisper. "Kelly, for God's sake, what are you doing?"

Kelly's gaze shifted calmly from Cecily to the man sitting next to her.

Monroe Sanders was watching her intently. He had never felt one way or another about Kelly. She was just a friend of Cecily's niece, nothing more. Tonight, though, his expression was one of clear hostility. She was the enemy who, for reasons still unknown, had come to disrupt their charmed lives.

Kelly left Cecily's question unanswered and returned her attention to Ward. "Why don't you tell these good people what you've been up to?"

she
said quietly. A deadly silence had fallen over the room. "I would, but you're so much better at telling stories than I am.

"Tell them how you lured me into the Pinelands this evening and ordered your butler to kill me because I knew too much. Tell them how you and
Syd
Webber had Jonathan Bowman killed because he, too, knew too much."

A gasp rippled across the room. Heads bent toward each other. "And while you're at it, tell them who you really are. Tell them you're not the generous, honorable, upstanding Philadelphian you pretend to be, but a corrupt, untrustworthy, ruthless swindler who's in bed with the mob."

Behind the podium.
Ward remained frozen, his expression a mask she couldn't read. It didn't matter. She knew that this public humiliation was a crushing blow from which he would never recover.

It was a small payback for what he had done to Jonathan and Victoria.

"Too bad your timing was so poor. Ward," she said, managing a condescending smile. "If you hadn't been so greedy and eager to make one more million or two, you'd already be on that tropical island you bragged about."

As she saw him glance down at the plaque, she remembered what he had told her about the award being the one thing--the only thing--he could really call his own. Now he would have to give it back. How fitting.

The silence grew oppressive as each guest waited for the conclusion of this high-powered drama. They would have to witness it without her. Her job here was done. Kelly didn't want to look at Ward's face a second longer.

She turned in time to see Nick nod at the two officers.

"Ward? Ward had Jonathan killed?"
Victoria
stared at Kelly in horrified disbelief. "It can't be true. It's a mistake. Tell me it's a mistake."

Her grief at the news that her husband was dead had been painful to watch, difficult to soothe. Clinging desperately to Kelly, she had cried endlessly, while upstairs Connie and Gino did their best to entertain an unsuspecting little girl. Cecily was at the police station, intent on hearing her husband's confession with her own two ears, although Ward still wasn't talking.

Sitting in the Sanders' living room, Kelly shook her head. "It's not a mistake. I'm so sorry,
Victoria
. I kept hoping that things would turn out differently."

"I don't understand.
Ward, of all people.
I trusted him. So did Jonathan."

"It all boiled down to money." Kelly repeated what Ward had told her at the cabin, adding details she and Nick had learned later.

"If it's any consolation," Kelly continued, "Ward will be facing several charges--conspiracy to commit murder, conspiracy to attempted murder, tax evasion and conspiracy to illegally transfer a total of twenty seven million dollars of undeclared money from the
U.S.
to the
Cayman Islands
."

Victoria
's expression turned savage. "I wish you had killed him, Kelly.

I wish that shovel had split his skull in two, instead of just giving him a concussion."

She closed her eyes and let out a long breath. "That's all right. I'm sure he'll get the death penalty. And when he's executed, I want to be there. I want my face to be the last thing he sees before he dies."

Kelly looked down at their interlaced hands. "That's not going to happen,
Victoria
.
At least not in
Pennsylvania
."

"He and his attorney worked out a deal with the D.A. Enrique will tell all he knows about
Syd's
illegal dealings, on the provision that the
Commonwealth
of
Pennsylvania
agrees not to seek the death penalty. Of course, he's still facing a murder charge in
Nevada
, and whether the
Las Vegas
courts will agree to the same deal is another matter."

"I hope their D.A. doesn't."
Victoria
picked up a photograph of Jonathan from the table beside her and ran her fingers lightly over the glass.
 
"Jonathan never went to
Miami
, did he? And he wasn't involved with
Magdalena
."

"No. That little brainstorm was engineered by Ward and
Syd
so the suspicion would be diverted from them. Enrique is the one who flew to
Miami
on Monday, using Jonathan's driver's license for identification.
 
Apparently he managed to look enough like Jonathan to pass through inspection. Meanwhile, in
Miami
,
Magdalena
was buying the cooperation of her former boss at Salamander. You might like to know that she's been found at her aunt's house in
Puerto Rico
and is now in custody. So is the owner of Salamander."

"But the photo on her mantel ... the snuff bottle ..."

That had been one of the first questions Kelly had asked Nick when he had finished interrogating Enrique in his hospital room. "Enrique borrowed Cecily's keys, without her knowledge, of course, let himself into your house and searched through your photo album until he found exactly what he was looking for. Another friend in
Miami
did the rest."

"He took some risks there. Do you remember a woman by the name of
Mrs.

Cartright
?
She came into your shop on Friday afternoon."

Victoria
nodded. "Yes, very well. She was interested in that Louis XIV clock I had in the window, but when I showed it to her, she said it wasn't exactly what she wanted. She stared. "That was Enrique?"

"Yes. In the time it took you to remove the clock from the window display, he had already stolen the bottle. He knew he needed something small that could easily be transported. The snuff bottle was perfect.

Later, he called
Magdalena
and told her to find some miniature bottles for her phony collection. She did, and the stage was set."

"And Jonathan's trench coat?"
Victoria
blinked away new tears.
"His briefcase?"

Kelly wished she didn't have to go into those gruesome details, but as long as
Victoria
wanted to hear them, she had no right to withhold that information. "Enrique put them in the grave earlier this evening, when he reopened it."

Victoria
was silent for a moment, still struggling with her emotions.

"Very well.
As it turned out, when Enrique arrived in
Las Vegas
the first person he befriended was one of Tony
Marquese's
men. Enrique was broke and in bad need of a job, so with his new buddy's recommendation, he became a collector for
Marquese's
loan-sharking operation--an operation
Marquese
owned in partnership with
Syd
Webber. That's how the two of them became acquainted. Later,
Syd
gave Enrique his first break as an impersonator and their friendship was sealed. Nick didn't elaborate, but I think Enrique continued to work for
Marquese
in one capacity or another even after he became famous. There's a dark side to Enrique that could only be satisfied by committing acts of violence.

Marquese
and
Syd
saw that and used it to their advantage."

As all the pieces slowly fell together,
Victoria
let out a long sigh.

"So those allegations about
Syd
being connected to the mob were true after all. Jonathan thought they were the fabrication of jealous competitors."

"They weren't. The competition may have tried to use the information to their advantage, but they didn't make it up.
Syd
fooled everyone, even the Casino Control Commission. It wasn't an easy thing to do, but
Marquese
knew enough people to make that happen."

Victoria
took a tissue from the box Kelly had brought earlier from the bedroom and folded it in two, then in four. "I want
Syd
to pay for what he did, Kelly."

Kelly looked away.

"Kelly?"
Victoria
frowned. "He will pay, won't he?"

"Not exactly."

"Why?
Because of his high-powered friends?
His battery of attorneys?"

She gave a fierce shake of her head. "They're not going to bail him out this time, Kelly. I won't let them."

"
Syd
is gone,
Victoria
."