Ransom Beach (Stephanie Chalice Thrillers Book 2) (13 page)

Her cell phone began to vibrate, dancing across the top of her dresser. A sharp pain hit her in the center of the forehead, brain freeze. The phone rang four times before she answered. "Hello."

The voice on the other end of the line was male. No pleasantries were exchanged. "So?"

Moira
had anticipated the call. She could only put them off for so long—they were already impatient. "Soon."

"What does that mean?"

"Soon," she repeated. "Very soon—as soon as I feel it's safe."

"Need I remind you that you were paid a great deal of money? My benefactors are not as tolerant as I am."

"And I'll be reminding you that you only paid me half." She was angry at herself for the slip up. Her brogue remained well concealed, but the structure of the sentence exposed the roots of her native Irish heritage. Did he catch that? Shit! "And I'll be reminding you..." only a mick would talk like that.

"I don't know how much more time they'll give you."

"They'll give me as much time as I need or they'll get nothing, got it? One more thing—tell them that their down payment is nonrefundable." She didn't wait for a reply. She shut the phone and took another swig of Jack Daniels. "Fuck you and your brother," she said before lighting a cigarette and flopping down on the bed.

The red wig she used to impersonate Helen Gillette at NYU Medical Center was still on her night table. The wig was nothing like Helen's actual hair. The color was brassier and stick straight, whereas Helen's hair was wavy, a color closer to auburn.

Moira
was a natural blonde, but today her hair was jet black. She had dyed her eyebrows and pubic region to match so that she could enjoy a stray hump without answering questions. She twisted her dyed locks into a bun and then slipped on the red wig. "Really, you know Justin Timberlake?" she said, mocking Helen for her
naïveté.
She had been so easy, so thoroughly raw—just the way she liked her pigeons. Helen was the hopeless type, nine to five job, always looking for love and not finding it.
Moira
figured her out in a New York minute.

"Sure, Justin's got something going on tonight. Wanna come?"
Moira
had washed the brogue from her tongue and introduced herself as Randi."

"For real?"

"Sure."

"You're full of shit."

"No, babe—I'm deadly serious."

Moira
had been plying her with drinks and now Helen's judgment was unsound—not that abundant persuasion was required. This was
a once in a
lifetime opportunity.
Moira
could see that the girl's head was in the clouds.

"How do you know him?" she asked, her eyes were wide with excitement.

"I work for BBDO. Ever heard of us?"

Helen squinted at
Moira
as she attempted to summon up the memory—an article she had recently read. "Advertising?" she said, sounding like a game show contestant on the verge of elimination.
Advertising, is that your final answer? Yes, Regis, that's my final answer.

"One of the biggest ad firms in the world. We're setting up the campaign for Justin's upcoming world tour."

"I don't know," she said, biting her tongue. "I start a brand new job in the morning."

"You're kidding, right? You're going to pass on Justin Timberlake just to be bright eyed and bushy tailed in the morning? You can fake it, girl—we all can."
Moira
gave her a suggestive wink.

Helen giggled to appear cool, to be part of the sisterhood of women who could wrap men around their fingers. In truth, she had never faked anything. This girl, Randi, made her feel like more than she was. She became pensive as she weighed the options. "This is amazing. I can't believe I'm going to meet Justin Timberlake." She was bouncing up and down at this point, giddy with anticipation.

The Red Bird Grill was a once trendy restaurant in Manhattan's meat packing district, one that had been frequented by celebrities, but had fallen out of favor in recent years.
Moira
knew this. Helen did not. She ordered double rounds of tequila for both of them. "Here's to Justin," she said, downing the first shot and then the second in immediate succession. Helen did her best to keep up.

Moira
saw that the drink had hit Helen right between the eyes. "You look like you're going to drop, girl. Maybe we should get some food in your stomach before you lose it and climb all over Justin,"
Moira
said, sprinkling her mark with pixie dust.

Helen giggled again. "Do we have time?"

Moira
checked her watch. "We've got an hour. They're sending
a limo
to pick me up at ten."

"Yeah, okay. Sure."

Moira
told the bartender to add the liquor tab to their dinner bill. She dropped a twenty and led Helen toward the rear of the restaurant.

Moira
ordered steak, rare. Helen, ditto, because she wanted to be like her newly found friend, the cool girl that was about to hook her up with a pop star.

"Where's your new job?"

"NYU Medical Center."

"Nurse?"

"I'm a physical therapist," she said, doing her best to grind the raw meat into a digestible lump.

"I'll bet you're good with your hands."

Helen shrugged. "I don't know...I guess."

"Justin's a massage freak. Maybe..." She smiled. Judging by Helen's shit eating grin, she knew further embellishment was unnecessary. She licked her knife clean and placed it on her dinner plate. "We'd better get the check," she said, checking her watch. "The car's picking us up out back. The less attention the better, right?"

A quick gasp. "Will Justin be in the car?"

Moira
gave her another suggestive wink and then asked for the check.

"Let me get that," Helen said. "It's the least I can—" She was diving into her bag when
Moira
placed a hand on hers to stop.

"Expense account."

"No, please. I want to, really."

"You sure? It won't be cheap."

"Positive, Randi. You've been so nice."

Helen cringed when she saw the bill. She handed her MasterCard to the waiter and picked up the three hundred dollar tab. She was going to be late on the rent once again. I don't care, she said to herself. She was so excited she could burst.

They rose and
Moira
directed her toward the rear exit.

Moira
stood in the alley with her hands thrown upward in exasperation. "I told that asshole not to keep me waiting. I swear I'm going to can his lame ass." She craned her neck, looking down the alley to see if the
limo
was coming.

Helen did the same. She turned to stare down the alley just as
Moira
drove the steak knife into the back of her neck, severing the brainstem. Helen dropped to the ground as if she was a puppet whose strings had just been cut.

Moira
checked the alley in both directions—deserted. There hadn't been
a limo
back there in years. She took Helen's purse, hefted her lifeless body into the dumpster, and headed back into the restaurant.

Randi today, Helen tomorrow—Helen's mama, lots of sorrow. She was grinning as she walked through the door.

The table she had
just
shared with Helen had not yet been cleared. She placed the steak knife on the table, atop her dirty dish, and then once again disappeared.

All Carl knew about the woman was her name, cell phone number, and that she had guaranteed delivery of the boy.

She said her name was Black and admitted from the very beginning that it was an alias, merely a label for him to use when addressing her. A strong feeling of dread swept through Carl after hanging up the phone. Black was becoming more and more difficult with each conversation. In each exchange she volunteered less information and now was saying almost nothing, only that he needed to wait and that she would deliver Manny when she felt it was safe for her to do so. It cut against the grain of everything he believed in as a man and a cleric. He'd spent years acting the role of a servant, humbling himself before the cosmetics queen...and now he was doing the same with Black.

His blood was on fire as he dropped into a chair to contemplate the situation. He had risked everything for this moment and now he was almost certain he had made a dire mistake. His judgment had been clouded by the authority with which Black had presented herself. She was the architect of the plan, a plan well beyond the scope that he was capable of devising or carrying out. She was a retired federal agent who had been involved in numerous kidnappings and was familiar with the FBI's resources and procedures. She had been resolute in her presentation, stating that she could deliver the boy and evade the intense investigation she knew the FBI and local authorities would bring to bear. Carl had volunteered information about Manny's schedule, the times of his physical therapy appointments as well as background information on Davis Mack from
Celia
Thorne's personnel files. Now, however, in the aftermath of the abduction, Black had given less information with every exchange. Carl felt positive that she was stalling.

Why,
he
wondered. Was she bidding him out for the highest price? Did she still have him? Why was she stalling? Emanuel Nazzare was the solution to The Faith's troubles, to centuries of religious repression by the Catholic Church. He held the information that would once and for all establish the legitimacy of the Gnostic faith and vindicate it of all the Church's allegations.

The ancient scrolls did not mention Nostradamus by name. They spoke instead about the seer of one thousand teachings. Nostradamus had scripted nine hundred forty-six quatrains, one hundred written for each of ten centuries save one. The Faith held that the prophet had not failed, that he had fully written one thousand quatrains, but that fifty-four had not been published. These missing quatrains represented prophecies for events that would justify the existence of the Gnostic faith and put it on equal footing with Catholicism.

But they were gone.

The belief was that the Catholic Church had stolen the controversial prophecies and destroyed them, destroyed them forever. The Faith was doomed, relegated to the shadows forever, condemned in exile.

Until something miraculous occurred.

Word had spread about the existence of a child, the last known descendant of the great prophet, a child who was a vessel for his teachings, a child that held the power to set them free.

Carl had been charged with the great responsibility. He had held the station of cleric for more than ten years and was worthy in the eyes of those who practiced The Faith. He was the one who discovered Black and sold the plan to the High Coptic and his fellow clerics. The cost was enormous for an organization as modest and repressed as The Faith, but Carl was persistent. The prize well justified the expense. Moreover, it would elevate Carl within the echelon of The Faith, well beyond that of any other cleric, superior even to the High Coptic himself.

Carl checked his watch. It was almost 2:00 PM. In an hour he'd have to report back to Thorne's penthouse and assume his subservient role. He was off between the hours of eleven and three daily and on Sundays. He was only alive when he was away from her, free to visit the temple and renew himself by submersing himself in The Faith. He had been a member of the order since he was a boy, back in his hometown in Greece, where he could practice the Gnostic faith without calling attention to himself or his family, but here in the

United States, The Faith was thought of as evil, a discipline akin to devil worship and needed to hide beneath a veil of secrecy.

The temple was a modest brownstone with no markings on the outside. The placard alongside the door buzzer read only G. Nossa. Beyond the locked outer door lay the temple, The Order of the Spiritual Alternative, The Faith.

The basic doctrines of the Gnostic faith were diametrically opposed to that of Catholicism. Gnostics believed that God was a lazy and wanton master and that humans were base creatures, taken to selfishness, creatures willing to succumb to temptation. They believed that man must struggle from birth to death to finally reach a higher level of spiritual enlightenment before moving to the next life.

The door to Carl's small study opened slowly. He watched it open, sitting quietly while the elderly High Coptic entered.

"What news have you of The Key? Your fellow clerics and I have the highest expectations of you. Is the time at hand?"

"Soon."

The High Coptic squinted, his expression showing that he was dissatisfied with Carl's answer.

"Very soon," Carl added without hesitation, knowing the High Coptic's ability to sense emotion. He had anticipated the visit and prepared his response well in advance of the elder's arrival. "Final preparations are being made now. We shall have The Key."

"I am pleased. I will tell the others that we will soon have cause to rejoice." The High Coptic turned immediately. "Please forgive the intrusion. I leave you to enjoy the privacy of your thoughts. You do a great service for your brethren. I will see to it that you receive a reward commensurate with the sacrifices you have made for The Faith."

"I do without question, oh exalted one, for The Faith is the air that I breathe."

The High Coptic grinned and then left the room, pulling the door closed behind him.

Carl sank back into his chair and covered his eyes to mask his shame.

We found Tully waiting in attendance as we entered the morgue.

Helen Gillette's body lay on the cold examination table, waiting for the autopsy to begin, waiting to contribute information that might lead us to her murderer and from there to Manny Nazzare. The end game as it were, the one she had unwittingly surrendered her life for. She had been identified from her employment records.

Tully looked somber. He turned to face us upon hearing the door open. He shook his head woefully. "Foul play,
mon.
Foul play." He turned away, busily gathering instruments for the procedure. Facing away from us I could still see that he was shaking his head. Tully's normally sunny disposition was hidden behind a layer of sorrow.