Most Wanted (37 page)

“My God, are you hit?” she cried.

He looked down in surprise, nearly swerving off the road before righting the steering wheel.

“I didn’t feel anything.”

“Keep driving!”

She turned sideways in her seat and tugged on his shirt with both hands, pulling it up to expose his abdomen, slightly sticky with blood, but smooth and unmarred. She ran her hand around his belly, and he drew his breath in sharply.

“I think the blood must be from the dog. You’re fine.”

After a few minutes, he pulled off the road into the parking lot of an old metal-sided diner.

“Here we are.” He nodded toward the diner. “I hear the blue plate special is good. Get me one to go.”

As he leaned across her and pushed open her door, the inch of space between their bodies seemed to vibrate like a magnetic field. She wondered if she would ever see him again. Her suspicions about him temporarily forgotten, she stepped down, her legs shaky as her feet touched solid ground, and looked back up at him for a long second.

“Please. Be careful,” she said.

“It’s nice to know somebody cares.” He flashed a gorgeous smile and winked at her, then slammed the door and backed up. She watched until the now battered Hummer disappeared from sight.

DOLAN REED WAS NO STRANGER TO THE CONCEPT of suicide. He was one of those oversize personalities who couldn’t tolerate defeat. And while his lack of scruples meant he rarely lost in business, in his personal life he hadn’t been so lucky. Rejection sent him spiraling into paroxysms of self-pity, which in turn provoked thoughts of sucking on a tailpipe or rigging up a noose. When life slapped him, rather than accepting the insult, he preferred the thought of telling life itself to fuck off. Especially if he could go out in a way that would hurt the one who spurned him. Hurting Sarah. That was the main thing on his mind right now, as he sat at his desk contemplating death. His
and
hers.

Sarah deserved to die. There was something wrong with her, some black hole in her heart that shocked the conscience. Even he could see that. What she’d done to him was but one small success in a long and distinguished career of shattering lives. He wasn’t the first, but he could make himself the last. Wouldn’t be difficult to arrange. He had a shotgun in the country that would do the job nicely. If you planned to kill yourself, the logistics of taking someone else with you were tremendously simplified. No need for tiresome details like escape routes and alibis.

So that was the plan. Two loud blasts in the middle of the office in the middle of the afternoon. Lots of ugly publicity. He only wished he had copies of the videos Sarah had made of them. He’d leave them playing silently on a large monitor facing the door, the first thing people would see as they entered. Oh, his wife would love that. Hah, the bitch! She’d be so humiliated in front of her society friends. The tapes would bother her much more than his death. The more he thought about it, the more the videotapes seemed essential to the plan, a sort of fabulous, graphic suicide note. The absence of that one special touch would spoil the whole effect. And not only because of his wife either, but because he wanted Sarah exposed for the two-faced, low-life whore she was.

When he couldn’t think of a way to get his hands on the tapes, though, he considered whether there might not be another path to revenge. He would regret giving up the sensual pleasure of blasting a hole in Sarah’s chest wide enough to rip her heart out through. Yet wasn’t that approach a bit garish, a bit lacking in finesse? Surely he, with his first-rate mind, could come up with something cleverer, more devious. Something designed to make her suffer more exquisitely, and for longer.

Then he remembered. Of course. Yes. How perfect. He chuckled to himself. He had tapes of his own he could use. Sarah wasn’t the only one skilled in the discreet art of electronic surveillance. Dolan’s office was rigged with a recording system Richard Nixon would have envied.

Extracting a small gold key from the pocket of his suit jacket, he knelt in the well under his desk and pulled up a piece of the custom-dyed Stark carpeting, exposing a small trapdoor. He unlocked it and reached his arm in, pulling out a manila envelope, then covered everything back up. A moment later he was seated at his desk, having selected and cued up a particular tape on the elaborate sound system concealed within his credenza.

He had to fast-forward a bit to get to the spot he wanted.

“
…never do anything of the sort
!” he heard his own voice saying. Why did he always sound so fucking nasal?

His blood pressure shot up at the memory of this argument. God, he’d hated Jed. Hated him, and found his murder gratifying in the extreme. Dolan had been sitting in his big leather chair, just as he was now. Jed sat across from him, smug in a perfectly tailored, five-thousand-dollar Brioni suit. Dolan remembered just
itching
to take a crowbar and bash Jed’s handsome face to a bloody pulp.

“
Unfortunately, Dolan, you’ll find it’s necessary to protect your interests
,” Jed’s recorded voice had said.

“Twenty percent for nothing? That’s outrageous. Go fuck yourself! Get out of my office!”

“
My silence is not nothing. It’s highly valuable, a bargain at twice the price
,” Jed had said smoothly. That phony-baloney baritone of his. So fucking full of himself. “
With what I know about the transaction and my contacts in the U.S. Attorney’s Office, you’d be risking a nice long jail term, Dolan
.”

“You’re bluffing. I don’t think you have a fucking clue what went on with Securilex.”

“Oh, really? I understand how the stock was manipulated better than you do. Would you like a summary?”

Dolan punched “stop,” his chest heaving with fury. To his chagrin, Jed had proceeded to outline the transaction in minute detail. Looking back, of course, he realized Sarah had double-crossed him, had divulged everything to Jed. At the time he’d been positively flummoxed about that. Had no idea how Jed had found out. Never suspected her for an instant. He had to hand it to her—the girl was a truly gifted double agent. She put Mata Hari to shame. And, if he had anything to say about it, she’d meet the same fate as the famous spy. Death, ultimately, but only after a long and harrowing prison sentence. He’d get her convicted for Jed’s murder. This tape was the means to accomplish that. He fast-forwarded and hit “play.”

“
Of course
,” Dolan had protested to Jed, “
what you’re suggesting puts Sarah van der Vere at terrible risk. You realize that? She’ll be the innocent victim in all this
.”

“Hardly innocent. Sarah’s getting caught would be regrettable. She’s a charming young woman. But I always say, don’t do the crime if you can’t do the time.”

Dolan hadn’t known then that Jed was fucking Sarah. The conversation was all the more remarkable now, in light of that knowledge. Jed hadn’t cared about her in the least. All the damage he’d done, and he never even cared.

“
Oh? I guess you don’t practice what you preach, then
,” Dolan had said sarcastically.

“What are you talking about? I had no role in Securilex.”

Dolan felt a vein in his temple pulsing as he checked himself from shouting at Jed. Throwing all the dirt he knew about him in his smug fucking face. Because Dolan knew a lot. Jed had been a thorn in his side for long enough that he’d taken steps. Had him followed, investigated. He knew about the money laundering for sure. The rest, he guessed at. But he didn’t say anything just then. Wouldn’t be good poker.

“So you’d let Sarah be ruined? Arrested, even?”

“
Cost of doing business
,” Jed said with a nonchalant shrug.

“
Well
,” Dolan said, “
I’ll let her know you feel that way
.”

He never had, but he could say he did. Yes, it would do nicely. An excerpt of that tape, a few doctored e-mails, and a long, confessional suicide note from him. Presto, Sarah had motive. Jed had threatened to expose her, ruin her career. Sarah had come to Dolan seeking advice. Against his better judgment, he’d helped her arrange the murder. That last part would be more difficult to fake. He knew very little about murder contracts. But he kept a highly proficient private investigator on retainer. The man, to be effective, naturally had underworld contacts. He could surely provide sufficient insight to manage that aspect of it.

Dolan nodded grimly to himself, finally satisfied with the plan. He would spend the day preparing his package for that prosecutor. Put it in the overnight mail. Then drive out to the country later this afternoon and eat his shotgun for dinner. All the while crowing over the thought of Sarah’s getting arrested. His only regret would be not witnessing it himself. But he could imagine the scene vividly enough. After all, he knew what Sarah looked like in handcuffs.

SOPHIE CHO PUSHED THE BABY STROLLER DOWN A pathway darkened by an overhang of lush late-summer trees. With the sun high overhead at eleven o’clock, it was ninety degrees in the shade in Central Park. The air smelled of ozone and baking pavement; the pathway was completely deserted except for a professional dog walker escorting a lethargic group of terriers and poodles. She wondered where the experienced mommies went on a stifling morning like this. They had a secret gathering spot, she was sure—an air-conditioned museum perhaps, or a coffee shop.

She was heading for a sculpture she’d noticed and admired many times in the past, a whimsical brass rendering of Alice in Wonderland characters that she’d often seen covered in small, climbing bodies. She’d imagined herself there, shouting at a child who had her hair, her eyes—be careful, don’t fall. But as she wilted more with each step and Maya began to fuss, she knew she’d made a bad choice. That sculpture was best on a clear, cool day. Going there in the heat, like so much else in her life these days, was a mistake.

Dead calm, without the slightest stir of breeze in the trees. Sophie leaned down into the stroller and blew lightly on Maya’s face, earning a delicious giggle for her troubles. How could she possibly run away to Vancouver and leave this baby behind? Melanie’s job was so demanding, and her marriage was on shaky ground. As time went on, Aunt Sophie’s role in the little girl’s life would grow and grow. She imagined buying her clothes, taking her to tea at the Plaza, listening to her childish confidences. Giving up those dreams would feel like ripping her fingernails from her flesh. Yet she’d reached the point where she saw no other way out.

Maybe if she’d told Melanie that first night, when Jed was murdered and the fire broke out. Then it wouldn’t seem so much like she had something to hide. But would that have made any difference? Either what she did was a crime or it wasn’t. She didn’t know the exact legal answer to that question. The only person she could think of to ask was Melanie. But asking, of course, would reveal her secret, and then Melanie would never let her care for Maya again. Yet if she ran to Vancouver, she wouldn’t see Maya anyway. She just went around and around in terrible circles.

She reached the sculpture and took a seat on a bench, lifting Maya out of the stroller to sit on her lap. As she’d feared, they were the only ones here today. The sun beat down on her head as she pulled out a bottle filled with a mixture of one part apple juice to two parts water, exactly as Melanie instructed. She’d measured it out with great care. She held it for Maya, who began to suck happily, oblivious to the heat now that she was enjoying her favorite treat.

“Good girl. See, look over here, Maya. See all those funny critters? Aunt Sophie’s going to tell you a nice story about them. Once upon a time, there was a little girl named Alice.”

They were no longer alone. A young man came and sat down on the bench opposite. She smiled at him, proud to be observed mothering this child, wondering if he had children, too. Because, despite his intimidating appearance—he had small, cold features and multiple tattoos—he seemed to listen to the story with great interest.

THEY EAT LUNCH EARLY IN COW TOWN, MELANIE thought grimly, taking a seat on a red leatherette stool at the counter of the metal-sided diner. It wasn’t even eleven-thirty, and all the tables were occupied, the patrons an odd mix of farmhands and flamboyant city types in fashionable outfits. The smell of frying bacon hung in the air, overpowering and unpleasant on a scorching day. A tired-looking waitress with bluish hair slapped a menu down in front of Melanie. Having just been shot at, Melanie was hardly in the mood to eat, but she didn’t think the waitress would take kindly to her sitting there without ordering. Her handbag was where she’d left it, on the floor of Dan’s car. If he didn’t come back for her, she’d be stranded with no money and no identification.

She ordered egg salad on whole wheat toast and an iced tea, then sat waiting for it to come, spinning back and forth on her stool like an anxious child. She could barely keep her body still. The possibility that the informant might shoot Dan flooded her thoughts, making her crazy with worry. She’d seen so much tragedy in the space of a few days—Jed Benson, then Rosario, then Jasmine, now Amanda. She’d kept going by focusing on getting Slice, on locking him up for the rest of his life. But now, thinking of Dan O’Reilly lying broken and bleeding on the ground, she came undone. Even if he was—maybe, possibly—involved in a string of brutal murders. Even if he’d lied to her. Even if nothing more ever happened between them.

She checked her watch again. How long should she wait before she asked to use the diner’s phone to call 911? He’d been gone only ten minutes. Dan was an FBI agent, after all. Presumably, if he needed reinforcements, he’d have the sense to call them in. Then again, maybe not. She knew him well enough to imagine he’d be touchy and secretive about soliciting help. The Bureau bred that in its agents, playing things close to the vest. Plus, she thought grimly, there was always the chance he wouldn’t call the police because he was really one of the bad guys.