Dragon Moon (32 page)

“Yeah, sure,” Ian says, a pink flush blossoming on his usually pale face. Hands shaking slightly, he gathers up the papers, drops some as he jams them in his briefcase. “The fact he promoted you to equal status with me wouldn't affect your judgment, would it, Rita?” The thin man picks up the papers he dropped, throws them in the briefcase, slams it closed, gets up, walks past us to the door and turns.

“I have no idea what the hell is going on, but I'm not about to make a fatal mistake here,” he says. “Whichever of you is the real Peter, I want you to listen to me closely. There is no reason for you to take any action against me. All I've done is to follow the orders which a man, who I thought was Peter DelaSangre, has given me. I had nothing to do with deciding to fire Claudia. I had no involvement in the attack on Arturo and no knowledge of who did it, either before or after the fact.”

Tindall opens the door. “Whatever is going on here is none of my business. None!” He looks at me, then at Derek. “What I'm going to do now is leave and go home. I'm going to take a few days off while you all work this out. By the time I come back, I hope the two of you will have decided just which one of you is the real Peter. I'll be delighted to follow that Peter's instructions, whichever one of you it turns out to be. Unlike this one here” — he nods toward Rita — “I'm unwilling to risk my life gambling on one side or the other. I wish you both the best.”

I grin as the door closes. “He couldn't have covered his ass any better,” I say.

“Now what?” Derek says.

“Now I want my son back. Now you should leave,”
I mindspeak.

The other Peter laughs out loud.
“Why should I, old man? I like it here.”
He glances toward Rita.
“She's wonderfully helpful and damnededly good in bed too. So bloody good, I've managed not to feed on her so far.”

Chloe says,
“If it comes to a fight, Derek, you have to know I'll be with Peter. You can't defeat us both.”

Both Rita and Claudia look confused. They have no idea we're communicating. To them, they're just watching people changing expressions, laughing, frowning, smiling inexplicably. Virgil Claypool shows no expression whatsoever, his eyes hidden from sight by his sunglasses.

“So you're going to kill me, both of you together?”
Derek says, grinning.

“Not if we can avoid it,”
I say.
“I just want my son back — soon. And I want you to go back to Jamaica.”

“Sorry, old man.”
Derek shrugs.
“Can't do. You know, if I come home empty-handed, Pa will kill me.”

“We'd be willing to help you out,”
I say.
“I wouldn't mind arranging to send some money to Claypool's for all of you every year.”

“Why bother with that when we can have it all?”
Derek's smile widens.

The anger that I've kept within me, heats my face, makes my jaws clench. I want to slash out, slice Derek's smile away.
“Then you'll leave us no choice. We will have to kill you.”

The mindthought isn't Derek's. I look at Virgil Claypool. He smiles as he removes his sunglasses. Chloe gasps, says, “Pa!” and I find myself staring into Charles Blood's cold, hard, emerald-green eyes.

29

“What the hell is going on here?” Claudia Gomez says, reaching into her purse. She pulls out the Desert Eagle and snaps off the safety, her words and the click of the safety lever breaking the silence in the room.

“Relax, Claudia,” I say. “Nothing bad's happening — yet.”

“Should I put the gun away?”

I shake my head. “Point it at him.” I nod my head toward Virgil Claypool. “If I tell you to shoot, kill him.”

The Latin girl nods. “But I wish some of you would say something. It's real creepy, all of you making faces at each other, nobody talking. It's like being with a bunch of deaf people — without the signing.”

“Just go with it, Claudia. It's never going to be explained.”

“Whatever you say, Peter.”

I look at Charles.
“That's a Desert Eagle semiautomatic. It fires fifty-caliber magnums — more than enough power to penetrate your skin, even if you were in your natural form. There are nine rounds in the magazine. If she empties the gun at you and Derek, most probably neither of you will survive,”
I mindspeak.

“Then, without us to release him or bring him food, your son will starve to death,”
Charles says.
“Don't you think I know you've had to be in contact with him? If you could have found him, you would already have rescued
could have found him, you would already have rescued
him.”
He flashes a cold smile.
“He could be starving within yards of you and you still wouldn't be able to find him.”

“Pa! That's Elizabeth's child,”
Chloe says.

The Jamaican shrugs.
“And you're my bloody daughter. Tell me you care what happens to me and Derek. Your poor ma. You took all her herbs and potions. You stole her book! How do you expect her to get on without it?”

“So we have a standoff,”
Charles Blood says.
“There still is the matter of the treasure.”
He glances at Derek.
“My useless son assures me it's nowhere to be found.”

A flush rises on Derek's face and Charles laughs.
“We could trade Henri for that. We could give you and Chloe a chest of gold too and let you go on your own way. You could choose to live somewhere else. That way no one need be hurt.”

“How can we know we can trust you?”
I say.

{
No, Peter!
} Chloe mindspeaks to me, her thoughts masked. {
He'll kill you after he gets the treasure.
}

{
I know that,
} I say. {
But we need time to find Henri.
}

Charles Blood says,
“And how do we know we can trust you to stay away? In the end, all any of us can do is trust and be ready to respond if that trust proves unwarranted.”

Rain splatters on the conference room's window. I look out. The sky which, was so clear such a short time ago, is now turning into a solid gray quilt of angry clouds. The wind gusts outside, rattling the windows, and I wonder if this could be the first outer band of the storm. I stare past the boats — bobbing and dancing, tugging at their lines in the marina — to the murky, whitecapped waters beyond.

“The treasure's on the island,”
I say.
“But there's a hurricane coming soon. I can show you where it is once the storm's passed.”

“Show me now,”
Charles Blood says.

I shake my head.
“Not until I know my son's safe. You can arrange to have someone bring him to a neutral place. I'll send Claudia there. We can use our cellphones. Your people can release him to her at the same time as I show you the treasure.”

Charles nods.
“Let's do it now.”

Smiling, I say,
“Derek, look out the window. Your pa wants you to take him to the island now.”

Derek gets up, walks to the window, stares out at the churning water, the pitching boats, and blanches.
“Pa,”
he says.
“The boat would have a bloody hard time of it. There's no harm in waiting for a day or two.”

“It's just a damned storm!”
Charles says.
“I've flown in worse.”

“No problem, Pa.”
Derek grins. He walks over to Rita, kisses her on top of her red hair. “Rita dear, I need you to do me a favor. Will you?”

“Of course, Peter,” she says.

“I need you to go visit Henri now.”

She nods.

“Bring your cellphone, of course, and your gun.”

Rita smiles. “I always do.”

“It's a smaller gun than that.” Derek points to Claudia's Desert Eagle. “But” — he shrugs — “Henri's just a small boy.” He looks in Rita's eyes. “I'm going to call you every six hours, starting at noon. If you don't get my noon call, shoot him. If I don't call at six, shoot him. Until I phone and tell you everything's okay — anytime I miss calling you every six hours, anytime, shoot him. But if I call and tell you to bring him to Claudia, I want you to do that as quickly as you can.”

“Okay,” Rita says. She checks her watch. “I should go now, so I can be in place for your first call.”

Derek looks at me. “Okay?”

I nod.

She gets up and leaves the room. “See, Pa,” he says, smirking, clearly pleased with himself. “Now there's nothing they can do to us, nothing they can try without risking the boy's death.”

At Derek's insistence we sit in the conference room and wait. After a half hour, he takes out his cellphone, dials a number. “Are you there?” he asks. He nods, says, “Good,” and disconnects.

“No one interfered with her,” he says to Charles.

“Then, if no one objects, we have to go secure our boat,” I say. “Once the hurricane has passed, we can meet and discuss how to exchange the treasure for my son.”

Charles Blood nods. Derek forgets his role as Peter, says out loud, “Jolly good.”

As soon as we get in the elevator and the doors close, I turn to Claudia. “Tell me someone followed her.”

The Latin girl shakes her head. “Someone followed Tindall and someone will follow those two upstairs, but I never assigned anyone to Rita. I never thought she'd go anywhere important without Tindall or the other Peter. I knew she was a no-good bitch. I just didn't think she was an important no-good bitch.”

“You knew?”

Claudia nods. “Shit, I should have known better. So much has been going on, I forgot to tell you. Remember when you asked me to check out her story about Tindall keeping on with that development?”

I nod.

“Tindall was telling the truth. The whole thing was dead. Rita was playing you and Pops.”

“I guess I'll have to apologize to Ian the next time I see him.” I shake my head at the thought of it. “It looks for once that a Tindall has been falsely accused.”

“It appears a Santiago is our problem now,” Chloe says.

Claudia nods. “And we don't know very much about her at all.”

“But,” my bride says, “didn't she have to fill out paperwork when she applied for work at LaMar? Wouldn't that help?”

“Some,” Claudia says. “I need to talk to Lisa Stanwell, my pop's secretary. She's the only one at the office I know I can count on. But with Pop out, she only comes in after lunch.” Claudia takes out her phone and begins to dial.

“So who are you calling now?” Chloe says.

“I told my people to check on LaMar and Tindall property near South Miami Avenue and the river. I think I should have them check for Santiago property too.”

“Of course,” I say.

I welcome the rain that soaks us on our walk back to the SeaRay. I welcome the wind that assaults us, the cold chill that penetrates to my bones. If my son must suffer, why shouldn't we?

Chloe and Claudia walk in silence beside me, their heads bowed against the wind, their clothes soaked and plastered to their bodies. I'm sure, like me, their thoughts center on how to save Henri. I'm sure, like me, they've found no solution.

Even in the marina, the water has come alive. The boat heaves and bucks in its slip like a wild horse newly restrained, and we have to time our jumps onto the SeaRay to avoid injury. Once aboard, Claudia throws open the hatch and we scramble below.

We have to brace ourselves to stay upright against the boat's sudden movements but, still, the warmth and quiet of the cabin are a relief after the wind and rain outside. Rather than going forward to the privacy of her berth, Claudia strips off her own wet clothes as soon as we enter the cabin, dialing her phone, barking orders, asking questions as she grabs a towel and dries her tanned, naked body.

The girl seems too busy to care about our presence. Still, I look away from her nudity. Chloe, however, stares at Claudia's body. I prepare for another jealous comment, or at least a catty one. But instead, my bride shrugs, strips off her wet clothes, and begins drying herself too. When I make no motion to do the same, she looks at me. “What's the matter? Would you rather stand there dripping?”

The three of us use up every dry towel on the boat, but within minutes we're all dressed in sweatshirts and jeans, Claudia already opening a few vents before the cabin becomes too oppressively warm.

“Tindall owns nothing near South Miami Avenue,” the Latin girl says. “Neither does LaMar Associates. I left a message on Lisa Stanwell's voice mail. I'm waiting for her call back and for a report from my people on any property Rita Santiago, or someone close to her, may own. I also told one of my men, Umberto, to go get Dad's Hummer out of the garage and bring it to the marina. This way, as soon as we hear something, we can get going, no matter what the weather.”

Chloe looks at me, her eyebrows raised.

“It's the civilian model of an army vehicle,” I say. “It costs a fortune. I thought Arturo was nuts when he bought something so ugly. It's wide and squat, like a smashed Land Rover on steroids but it can handle almost any terrain or any weather. If we need to go anywhere today, we'll be glad to have it.”