Blood Money (26 page)
Authors: James Grippando
S
ydney Bennett’s pulse pounded, her heart racing at better than two beats per second, her chest heaving as she struggled to catch her breath. Darkness was her friend, really. It made her harder to find. But each night her mind played tricks on her, the slightest noise setting her off in a fit of panic.
She crouched low behind the overgrown bushes, her back to a wall of rough stucco, her knees to her chin, all too aware of the sound of her own breathing.
Quiet!
She was soaking wet, shoeless, and wearing only a T-shirt and underwear. She’d sprinted all the way from the swimming pool, across a parking lot, and down the sidewalk a good two hundred yards before ducking into the bushes. Voices on the other side of the wood fence around the pool area had freaked her out in the middle of an improvised bath. For the past two days she’d been hiding in a vacant townhouse at Whispering Pines, one of those gated communities where all the units looked exactly alike. It was a brand-new development, but not a single one of the three dozen townhomes had ever been occupied. South Florida was littered with empty developments like this one, residential ghost towns, the remnants of a reckless build, build, build spree that had swept developers into bankruptcy, buyers into foreclosure, and big banks into bailouts. Much of Whispering Pines had fallen into disrepair, overrun by weeds and mold. Some units were at least minimally maintained, the owners apparently clinging to the hope that the market might someday rebound, but even after seven broken windows Sydney couldn’t find a single one that had running water. The developer or the bank or whoever owned the property was keeping up the clubhouse, however, so the slightly green pool was her bathtub.
What was that?
She heard the voice again, the one that had scared her off from the pool. A man’s voice.
Merselus?
She couldn’t tell if it was him, but she knew he was after her, that he’d never stop until he found her. The man was relentless. Obsessed. Maybe even crazy. Though he could also be convincing, even charming. He’d certainly fooled Sydney. He had a business card, a résumé, and enough money to rent a private airplane. He also had a plan. He’d led her to believe that the plan was to sell her book, make a movie, and make Sydney Bennett a star. It was all a ruse. If she’d had Internet access in the detention center she could have probably figured out that his talent agency was nonexistent, that he’d never actually sold the books and movies he’d claimed to have sold, that his plan for Sydney was something else entirely.
There it is again!
Sydney held her breath, willing herself into silence. No movement. No sound. Completely still. She knew she could do it. She’d controlled her fears enough to fool him once before.
It had been just their second night together. After a short flight to Palm Beach County, Merselus had taken her to a beach house in Manalapan that, he said, belonged to “a wealthy client” who was discreet enough never to tell the media where Sydney was hiding. It was paradise: her own room, a king-size bed, a view of the ocean, and a private bathroom that was bigger than the cell she’d lived in for the past three years. Merselus stocked the refrigerator with all her favorite food and whatever she wanted to drink. He was a perfect gentleman—until he woke her at three
A.M.
It was as if he’d written a script and somehow expected her to know it. He’d started with controlled aggression, but pure anger took over as she flubbed her next line, didn’t do what he’d scripted, didn’t go wild with excitement, didn’t play the part of the sex-starved jailbird who craved the way he ripped off her panties, grabbed her crotch, and rubbed her raw. The way he squeezed and pulled at the base of her breasts, as if he were trying to rip them from her body. The way he’d tried to force his whole hand deep inside her, as if she were yearning for more than any one woman could possibly handle. And when his other hand slipped up around her throat, she’d managed to strike back with what little nails she had, short prison nails, carving a deep red line across his face. It only made him crazier, angrier, more brutal. Suddenly, both of his hands were tight around her neck, there was no way to breathe, and Sydney was certain that she was going to die as the intense pounding inside her head and unbearable pressure behind her eyes gave way to blackness.
I hear it.
Footsteps on the abandoned sidewalks of Whispering Pines—they were getting louder. Someone was approaching.
Don’t move, don’t run.
It was the same strategy she’d employed in that bedroom in the beach house after she’d regained consciousness—lie there on the bed, completely still, pretending that she’d yet to recover from Merselus and his attack. And then when she was certain that he’d left the bedroom and gone to sleep . . .
Run!
Sydney leaped from her hiding spot behind the bushes and started to sprint down the sidewalk. A scream cut through the darkness, and Sydney ran even faster. There were footsteps behind her, but they were fading, not following. She stopped and turned.
What the hell?
She narrowed her eyes, struggling to see in the moonlight. It was kids—some punks on summer vacation looking for a secluded place to share a bottle of vodka and have a party.
Sydney hunched over, hands on her knees. She was exhausted, tired of running, tired of living in fear of Merselus, tired of taking baths in a fucking green swimming pool.
She caught her breath, stood up, and headed back to the pool area to collect her dirty clothes.
Girl, you gotta find a pay phone.
J
ack stared at the television screen, speechless. The
Faith Corso Show
had reached a new low, if that was possible. Still, Jack had to dig very deep inside himself even to begin to feel sorry for Ted Gaines.
“He deserves it,” said Andie.
They were watching together on the couch, Andie leaning against his shoulder.
Abuela
was in the kitchen cooking enough
ropa vieja
to last him six months.
“I need to call the Laramores,” said Jack. “They need to know the adoption is public.”
“Try to make Mrs. Laramore see it as a positive,” said Andie. “I know this is something they didn’t want blasted all over the television. But it needed to come out, after the accusations Ted Gaines made against her.”
“That’s the way to spin it, I guess.”
“Don’t think of it as spin. You’re just doing the best you can.”
“Thanks.”
Jack reached for the phone, then paused. Andie herself had been adopted, and even though they’d talked about it before, Jack had been reluctant to mix the Laramore situation with hers. But any insights into shortcuts on finding a birth mother would be useful at this point.
“I have this long-shot theory about Celeste,” he started to say, but it was interrupted again by what was becoming a familiar string of profanities with rhythm—Theo’s ringtone. Jack still had his phone. He picked it up and checked the number.
UNKNOWN
, the screen said, which gave Jack even more reason to answer.
“This is Jack.”
“It’s me,” she said, and he knew immediately it was Sydney.
“Are you on a cell?” he asked.
“No. Pay phone.” Jack could hear the traffic noise in the background.
“Do you have a cell?” he asked.
“Yeah. Merselus gave me an iPhone when he met me at the airport, but I’m sure that’s just so he could listen to every call I make.”
“That’s perfect.”
“No, it’s not perfect,” she said, her voice trembling. “I don’t even turn the damn thing on because I know he can track me with GPS.”
“Listen to me, Sydney. I’m going to put Andie on in a minute. She can tell you how to disarm the GPS tracking. And then you’re going to turn that phone on.”
“What? No! He is going to find me, and he is going to kill me!”
“Merselus is not going to find you. We are going to find
him
.”
“How?”
“You need to do exactly what I tell you to do,” said Jack.
A
t eleven
P.M.
Jack was pacing across the rug in his family room, ready to leave the house, waiting for the cell phone to ring.
“You don’t have to do this,” said Andie.
If it were about Sydney, Jack would have agreed with her. But it was about putting a stop to the guy who had left Celeste in a coma, strangled Rene, and threatened his grandmother. The plan wasn’t to get Sydney her life back. It was to catch a killer.
“Yeah, I do,” said Jack.
Sydney’s iPhone from Merselus was the key. All of her calls to Jack over the next ninety minutes would be from that phone to Theo’s cell. Using Jack’s cell wasn’t an option, as suddenly having a conversation with Sydney on a line that Jack had essentially abandoned after Rene’s murder would have surely raised suspicions in Merselus’ mind. It was enough that Sydney’s iPhone was infected with spyware, and the FBI had the technology in place to confirm that someone was actively monitoring the call in real time. And then they would know that Merselus was taking the bait.
At five minutes past the hour, Theo’s cell rang. The intent was for the ensuing conversation to be for effect only, tied loosely to the script that Jack and Andie had worked out in advance. The less Sydney said the better, and Jack crossed his fingers in hopes that she didn’t screw it up. He put the phone on speaker so that Andie could hear.
“Did you make a decision?” said Jack.
“Yes.”
“When can we meet?”
“Slow down,” said Sydney. “Just so we’re clear, I’m not saying for sure that I’ll testify in court. I’m not promising I’ll even go to court.”
Jack stopped pacing and bit back his anger. Just ten seconds into the implementation of the plan and Sydney was already ad-libbing.
She really does think she’s a freakin’ movie star.
“That’s fine, Sydney. I just want us to get together and talk. When can we meet?”
“Tonight.”
“Okay. Let’s meet at—”
“At eleven thirty, Bayfront Park, in front of the central fountain.”
That wasn’t Jack and Andie’s plan, but Sydney hung up before Jack could respond. Jack put the cell phone away, looked at Andie, and said, “She’s following her own script.”
“She obviously doesn’t trust you,” said Andie.
“Or anyone else, I would imagine.”
Andie’s cell rang. It was her tech agent. The call lasted less than a minute, and then she shared the news with Jack.
“Sydney’s call to you was monitored,” she said.
“At least something went as expected,” he said, alluding to the curve Sydney had thrown them about the meeting place.
“The FBI can work with her ad-libbing,” said Andie. “But that doesn’t mean you have to, Jack.”
Jack thought about it. “If Merselus wanted me dead, I’d already be dead.”
“That’s one way to look at it. But this is not without risk. Merselus could figure out that you’re trying to set him up and retaliate. He could come around to the view that you’re the only thing standing between him and Sydney and decide it’s time to take you out. Any number of things could go wrong.”
“Are you trying to talk me out of this?”
“I want you to go in with your eyes open.”
Jack weighed it another minute, his gaze drifting down the hallway and coming to rest on the door to the guest bedroom, where
Abuela
lay sleeping. “What am I supposed to do, wait for my grandmother to end up like Rene?”
Andie didn’t answer.
“And while I’m at it, maybe I should tell the Laramore family that I have to drop their case against BNN because it could be dangerous to find out who grabbed their daughter by the throat. And I can just keep using Theo’s cell for the next six months while the FBI monitors my private phone lines, I can send Max to go live permanently with the Kayal family, and I can just forget about ever taking another walk from my office to Theo’s bar unless I want to get choked by some psycho jumping out of the bushes.”
“It’s maddening, I know.”
“Way beyond maddening,” said Jack.
“So, it’s a go?”
Jack started toward the front door. “Yeah,” he said as he grabbed his car keys from the hook on the wall. “Let’s do this.”
J
ack reached the park about ten minutes early, not quite eleven twenty.
As the name implies, Bayfront Park abuts Biscayne Bay in downtown Miami. Biscayne Boulevard, the city’s widest thoroughfare, borders on the west, separating thirty-two acres of greenery, walkways, and serenity from the sheer face of the towering Miami skyline. To the south is the high-rise hotel from which the big glowing orange drops every New Year’s Eve—which Jack and Andie had learned the hard way was the perfect place for folks who hate cold weather but love that Times Square feeling of ringing in the new year while drowning in a sea of loud, drunken strangers.
“I see you,” said Andie, her voice somewhat mechanical sounding in his earpiece. Jack did not reply; he had no microphone, as moving his lips could have tipped off Merselus that he was wired for communication.
“Walk a little slower if you can hear me,” said Andie. She was confirming his reception.
Jack slowed as he approached the Flagler Street entrance to the park’s main east-west axis. The central fountain was in sight and due east, halfway between him and the shoreline. The Miami Dade Courthouse was a short ride away on the elevated Metromover. Over the years, in many a trial, Jack had strolled past the park’s central fountain on his way to the beach chairs on the shoreline, where he would consult with passing dolphins and manatees on what verdict his jury might return.
“Okay, we’re good,” said Andie. “Keep moving.”
Jack resumed walking at his normal pace. Each step took him deeper into the canopy of tall trees and farther away from the urban glow of the office towers behind him. Soon he was entirely dependent on the moon and the streetlamps that lined the walkway to break the darkness. The amphitheater was up and over the embankment to his left, as was the Feng Shui Garden. Jack stayed on course, walking directly toward the fountain. It was quiet at this hour, essentially an oversize concrete bowl of motionless water on an enormous circle of coral-stone pavers in the dead center of the park.
“Stop,” said Andie.
He did. Jack was standing on the outermost ring of stone pavers that encircled the fountain. A string of park benches ran along the outer perimeter. Jack counted five homeless people asleep on the benches.
He wondered if one of them was Merselus.
Jack’s phone rang. The tech agents had rigged it so that Andie could hear.
“Answer it,” said Andie.
Jack took the call, expecting it to be Merselus. It wasn’t.
“Meet me on the platform at the Bayfront Station,” said Sydney.
Jack turned around. Miami’s Metromover was an elevated tram system that wound through downtown and the financial district. Jack could see the Bayfront Station from where he was standing, but this wasn’t part of the plan at all.
“What?” he said.
“You heard me.”
“Sydney, what are you doing?”
“Bayfront Station. Eleven forty-five.”
The call ended. Jack checked the time. He had fifteen minutes—enough time, but none to waste. He walked while waiting for Andie’s instructions.
A
ndie moved into reactive mode. She and her tech agent were inside an FBI special communications van, which was parked at ground level inside the garage at One Biscayne Tower, directly across the boulevard from the park. Two tech agents in the field were feeding her live-streaming video from surveillance cameras. She radioed position one on the rooftop.
“Novak, can you get Bayfront Station from your current location?”
“That’s affirmative,” he said.
She knew position two—one of the “homeless” on a park bench near the central fountain—would be useless in his current location. She radioed him with instructions: “Hernandez, relocate to the top of the embankment at the amphitheater. You will be eye level with the Bayfront Station platform.”
“Roger that.”
She checked the map on the computer screen. No changes to perimeter control were required—the same streets and alleys were implicated. The ground team, however, required adjustment. Andie started with the undercover agent who was dressed, wigged, and made up to resemble Sydney Bennett—the bait to draw out Merselus.
“Pederson to Bayfront Station. Eleven forty-five arrival.”
“Roger,” came the reply.
The rest of the ground team also needed adjustment if they were going to be in position to move in when Merselus showed his face. There were two more homeless guys, a touristy couple strolling in the park, a guitarist with a plate of coins sitting outside the entrance to the Metromover station.
“Position three, to south entrance of Bayfront Park; position four, to bus stop at Flagler; position five, to corner of Southeast Second Street; position six”—the guitarist—“stay exactly where you are.”
Andie checked the computer screen one more time. The final relocation was critical, and it took her tech agent a minute to compute the angles and come up with a clear line of fire for her sniper.
“Haywood,” she said into her radio. “Rooftop, Edison Hotel. Friedman will meet you at the service elevator at the back of the building.”
“Roger.”
Andie switched to another frequency for the final instruction.
“New destination is covered, Jack. Proceed to Bayfront Station.”