Grace Cries Uncle (25 page)

“Do you have your cell phone?” I asked.

“Not with me.”

I pointed to the back of the house. “Landline in the kitchen.”

Bennett strode through the parlor and out of sight. Chances are he'd left his cell phone in the car with his driver. That man was probably outside right now, waiting patiently, completely oblivious to the commotion inside.

“You foolish twit.” Daisy coughed out the words. She'd managed to sit up, leaning against a nearby wall for support. Her face contorted in pain. “Jim, stay down. Stay down.”

His gyrations had caused him to roll closer. I stepped back, lest he kick out a leg or try to grab one of mine. Seconds later, his face, red with exertion, surfaced from within the folds of his coat. He pushed the fabric away and made a move to stand up.

“Your wife is giving you good advice.” I waved the club. “Don't try it.”

He maintained eye contact as he slowly worked his way to his knees, practically daring me to come at him.

“Stay down,” I said, but another noise caught my attention. A creak from outside, the sound of my front door opening.

The doorknob turned slowly, as though whoever grasped it was being careful not to make noise. “Grant,” I shouted, assuming he was Bennett's driver tonight. “Call the police. Don't come in. Call the police.”

The door flew open. Malcolm Krol stepped in, gun in hand and determination in his eyes. “Where's Liza?” He took several seconds to assess the scene. “Tuen?” he asked when comprehension dawned. “What are you doing here?” His Australian accent was thick with anger.

“Same as you, fool. She tricked us all.”

“Where is she?” He kicked the older man. “Tell me.” I sensed it was confusion more than anger that drove Krol's mental state right now, but the effect on Tuen was visceral. He rolled onto his side, moaning.

Krol faced me. So did his gun. “Where's your sister?”

“Gone. Took the pieces with her.”

I'd started a countdown in the back of my mind. If Bennett had gotten through to the police when I believed he had, we had a chance. As long as Krol didn't get crazy. As long as his trigger finger didn't twitch.

“She's selling them to me, you old moron,” Krol said to Tuen with staggeringly misplaced confidence. “Eric and I had a deal. She's making good on it.”

I inched sideways, out of a bullet's likely path. I still held the Mere club like a bat, but the weapon would be no help against Krol's gun. Even if I managed to get closer, he could blast my brains out before I completed my swing. Speaking loudly so that Bennett would hear and stay out of the room, I said, “Liza is gone, and the pieces are gone with her. The police are on their way. You better run before they get here.”

“Don't try to bluff. I heard you sniveling when I came to the door. Nobody's coming.”

“Take us with you,” Jim Tuen said to Krol. “We will reward you. Forget the pieces. We can revisit that another day.”

“Why would I do that?”

“Together we have more power. Get me and my wife out of here and I will pay you well.”

Krol seemed to be having difficulty understanding.

“The police
are
on their way.” Jim's words came faster by the moment. “Marshfield is here. In back. He called the authorities. Get us out of here, now, and I promise you great reward.”

“Like you promised Soames?” Krol asked. “No thanks.”

Jim's whole body seized up. He bellowed, “Get us out of here, you idiot. Daisy, come on.”

Over the course of her husband's bizarre conversation, she'd managed to get to her feet. “I can't,” she said. Jim started for her.

I'd called the police to my house too many times to not know how long it took them to get there. I hefted the club again. “Don't move,” I warned the Tuens.

“Put that gun down,” Bennett ordered. He stepped into the foyer behind me.

“Tell your girl here to put that club down,” Krol said. He pointed the barrel at Bennett.

I heard sirens. We all heard them. Krol paled.

“They're here,” I said. “You should have run when I told you. Hurry. Go now. Get out.”

“I want the jeweled pieces.” With his arm fully extended he took a step closer to Bennett, pointing the gun at his forehead. To me, he said, “Put down the club.”

“The pieces aren't here. Your only chance is to run.”

“Put down the club. Now.”

I dropped it. Jim Tuen scurried across the bare floor, grabbed it, then wrapped an arm around his wife. “Out the back,” he said to Daisy. “Let's go.”

She cried out as he dragged her forward.

Krol swung his arm to point the gun at Daisy's head.
“I'm not taking the fall for this. No way. I figure as long as I keep one of you alive, I have a bargaining chip. You try to move again, and that chip is cashed. Got it?”

Jim's eyes blazed, but he nodded. Daisy whimpered. He murmured softly into her ear.

“Now you put down the club,” Krol said.

It fell to Jim's feet with a formidable
thunk
.

The Australian raked an appraising glance over all of us. “You,” he said to Bennett. “You're coming with me. You're my ticket out.”

“Not Bennett,” I said. “I'm a better choice.”

“Gracie, no.”

Using his free arm, Krol pushed me aside, taking Bennett by the shoulder. “We're getting out of here,” he said, shoving him forward. “Let's go.”

“I refuse,” Bennett said.

“Don't make me shoot you.”

Outside people yelled and—for the first time in my life—I was thrilled to distinguish Flynn's voice above the fray. “Police. Hands on your heads. Everyone. We're coming in.”

“I'd think twice if I were you,” Krol shouted back. He lifted the gun above his head, pointed it to the ceiling, and squeezed the trigger. The shot made me cry out and cover my ears. Everyone froze.

“You can't escape.” Flynn's voice was muffled by the ringing in my ears. “Put down your weapon. Now.”

“Don't try to come in here,” Krol replied, “or the next one goes into someone's head.” He pointed the gun at Bennett.

I screamed. “No!”

“Take it easy.” Flynn's voice rose, but he spoke calmly. “We only want to talk to you.”

Krol smirked. “I thought they might.”

Although I could make out what Krol and Flynn were saying, the aftermath of the shot still dampened the sound; it was like listening to a conversation from underwater.

Daisy Tuen's knee had swollen up to nearly twice its size;
her anger, however, had grown exponentially. She shook her fist at Krol's chest. “You've ruined everything.”

Krol answered, keeping his gun trained on Bennett. “For you, maybe. Not for me.”

Daisy grimaced with fierce determination. She surprised me—and Krol—by launching herself at the man, fingers crooked like claws, raking his face. At the same moment, Jim Tuen, in a single, fluid motion, snagged the Mere club from the floor to swing it against Krol's skull. The moment the jade cracked bone, Krol's sympathetic muscle response kicked in. He squeezed off another round. And then he fell, senseless, to the floor.

Jim Tuen whipped off his booties, shoved them into his coat pockets, and shouted for his wife to do the same. He peeled off his purple gloves and grabbed my arm, spinning me to face him. “Tell the police that Krol held us all captive. Tell them nothing about our connection to the jeweled key. I will make it worth your effort. I will take care of you. You have my solemn oath.”

His words barely registered. I wrangled free of his grasp and ran to Bennett, who lay bleeding on the floor. “No,” I cried. “No, no.”

I paid no attention to anything else around me. All I cared about was getting medical assistance for Bennett. Flynn and Rodriguez had had the foresight to call for an ambulance when they'd first arrived; paramedics rushed in almost immediately.

“Bennett, stay with me, okay?” I knelt next to him, holding his right hand as the professionals moved in to stanch the blood. There was so much everywhere, I couldn't tell where he'd been hit. “It's going to be okay.”

Bennett's eyes shone with pain and he pressed his lips together. “Tell them,” he rasped. “Tell the lawyers that I want—”

“You're going to be fine.” My words choked out, uneven and hot. “Do you understand?”

“If . . .” He grimaced, then shut his eyes.

My heart dropped to my stomach. “Bennett . . .”

He sucked in a shallow, ragged breath.

It wasn't until Rodriguez pulled me to my feet that I
realized the paramedics had been talking to me. “We need to transport the patient,” one said.

“Keep thinking positive,” the chubby detective whispered into my ear. “He's in good hands.”

As they loaded Bennett onto the stretcher, I watched for signs of life—a blink, a breath, a reaction to pain. He was pale. Too pale.

“I need to go with him.” I pulled away from Rodriguez. “I
am
going with him.”

Rodriguez didn't argue. “We'll need a statement from you later.”

I turned to survey the scene. Bennett couldn't die. Not here. Not in my house. And yet . . . A hard, hot ache rose up in my throat. This was the house his father had purchased for my grandmother. This was where our blood connection had first been established. This story had come full circle. I held a hand to my mouth, and fought the anguish building in my heart.

Another set of paramedics tended to Daisy Tuen. Jim rushed over, grabbed my limp hand, and held it tight. “We send our best wishes with you for Mr. Marshfield,” he said before lowering his voice. “Please remember my promise.” He raised our joined hands and made malevolent eye contact directly over them. “We will be a friend to you forever if you are a friend to us now.”

I shook my hand free.

“I have your promise then?”

Without answering, I turned and walked out into the frigid night, realizing I hadn't thought to grab a jacket. Rodriguez lumbered after me, my down coat in his hands. As he placed it around my shoulders, he said, “You need anything Grace, you let me know.”

“I do, Detective,” I said. “Don't believe a word Jim and Daisy Tuen tell you. Let Agent McClowery know that they are Mr. and Mrs. X.”

Rodriguez looked confused. “Mr. and Mrs. who?”

“Get McClowery here, pronto.”

“He's interrogating Eric. Doesn't want to be interrupted.”

“Tell him the Tuens are Mr. X. But before you do, surround my house and don't let the two of them out of your sight.”

Bennett's stretcher was being lifted into the back of the ambulance. I hurried across my snowy front lawn so they wouldn't leave without me. Over my shoulder I shouted to Rodriguez, “Trust me.”

*   *   *

I sat alone in the surgical waiting room, staring at the pastel painting on the wall across from me. Great horizontal swaths of pink and purple gave the illusion of a sunset over a sand colored foreground. In essence, the framed art was an image of nothing. Soothing blandness, I decided. A wholly appropriate choice for placement here.

The bullet had gone through soft tissue on Bennett's left side. He'd suffered extensive blood loss, but no major organs had been hit. His advanced age worked against him, but I hoped his fitness level and the paramedics' quick response would work in his favor.

I stood, stretching my back, as I'd done twenty times so far. There was no music piped in here, no one else waiting for updates on a loved one, and the dog-eared magazines piled in the corner didn't interest me. This place was quiet. Too quiet. Except for the occasional squeal of carts rolling by or murmurs from the nurses' station in the next room, the place was silent.

When I heard Rodriguez ask for me, I hurried out to meet him. Flynn was there, too. They both looked exhausted.

“How you doing, Miz Wheaton?” Rodriguez asked. “How's the boss?”

“I don't know.” My words were weak and shaky.

Flynn scowled away. I didn't understand until he waved. “Over here,” he said.

Frances hurried over, her brows halfway up her forehead. “You left me there, with no word. Nobody told me anything until I finally got through to these two.” She thrust a hand out. “And now this.” She glared at me. “What do you have to say for yourself?”

I shook my head.

“Where's Hillary?” Frances asked.

“I called her.” Gesturing vaguely toward a courtesy phone the hospital had set up for those, like me, without a cell phone, I added, “I called Bruce and Scott, too. And Tooney.”

She crossed her arms. “Hillary ought to be here.”

“I'm sure she will be.”

Rodriguez cleared his throat. “We have a few questions for you, Miz Wheaton. You up for it?”

I gestured into the quiet room and its army of empty chairs. “Have a seat.”

*   *   *

After I told Rodriguez and Flynn everything I knew—Frances peppering us with questions throughout—I demanded a few answers of my own. “I assume this means you know who killed that fake FBI agent.”

Flynn scratched the top of his head where pale fuzz was beginning to soften the shine. “McClowery will probably have a cow to hear us talking about this outside the station, but . . .” He gave an exaggerated look around the room. “Do you see anyone listening in?”

“Let him complain,” Rodriguez said. “Go on.”

Flynn continued. “When Eric disappeared, the Tuens sent Ochoa—our victim—to find him. Ochoa figured he could use Liza to get to Eric. He traced her here to Emberstowne. No one knew she'd stolen the missing jeweled pieces, though. Everybody thought Eric still had them.”

“Ochoa got here well before Liza did,” I said. “He had to know she wasn't here yet when he came to talk to me.”

Rodriguez nodded. “Ochoa's dead, so we can't know for sure, but our best guess is that's why he posed as FBI. He wanted to enlist your help so that you'd lead him to Liza.”

“If he'd have found her, you would have been spared all this trouble,” Frances said to me. “And the Mister wouldn't be up in surgery right now.”

“That's one way of looking at it,” Flynn said. “Incidentally, Malcolm Krol is dead. But I'm assuming you knew that.”

“I suspected. When Jim Tuen cracked him in the head with that club . . .” I shuddered.

“That dirty, rotten man, asking you to cover for him and his wife,” Frances fumed. “I can't believe the nerve.”

Rodriguez gave her a patient smile. “Since we can't question Krol, either, we're going to have to wait for forensics to tell us if he's Ochoa's killer. But I'd put money on it.”

Flynn leaned in. “It's a free-for-all down at the station. McClowery and his FBI team have taken over the place. We've got Eric and his girlfriend singing on the Tuens, Liza negotiating for leniency by spilling on Eric, and the Tuens themselves holding tight to the story that they were merely innocent bystanders and it was Krol behind everything all along.”

“McClowery is in his glory,” Rodriguez said. “Never seen such a happy Fed.”

The sound of heels hammering against the tile floor alerted us to Hillary's arrival seconds before she rounded the corner. Her pretty face was pink with exertion, her usually perfect hair mussed from sleep. “How is Papa Bennett?”

As though in answer, a doctor
whoosh
ed through the far glass doors. Her scrubs were stained, the surgical mask loose around her neck.

“You can all go home,” she said as she peeled off her latex gloves.

I sucked in a terrified breath and gripped the chair's arm. “No,” I cried.

“That's not what I mean,” the doctor said quickly, holding her hand up. “I meant to say that he's fine. Mr. Marshfield is stable. He's heavily sedated, however, and will likely remain so through the night. Go home, get some rest, and you can be here when he wakes up.”

I dropped my head into my hands. “Oh, thank God.”