Suspicion (34 page)

  Kate shook her head. "I can’t. This case has turned into a complicated cat-and-mouse game, and until I know who the players are, I can’t afford to endanger anyone else." She gave her a tired smile. "It’ll be over soon, Frankie. Until then, bear with me, will you?"

  Not waiting for an answer, she picked up the phone and dialed Mitch’s number again.

  The lobby of the Europa Hotel was a breathtaking blend of gold silk, gleaming chandeliers and polished marble floors in various shades of gold. In the center of the room, a huge Christmas tree decorated with old-fashioned ornaments twinkled with hundreds of miniature lights.

  Dazzled by the opulence surrounding her, Alison felt her mouth open. Everywhere she looked, she saw attractive women in fur coats, small groups of businessmen

  with cellular phones to their ears, foreigners dressed in the costumes of their native countries. One could spend an entire day in the lobby alone and never be bored.

  But she hadn’t come here to admire the elegant crowd. She had come here to solve a mystery. And if she didn’t get to it right away, she wouldn’t make it back to Melissa’s house in time to meet Joseph.

  Pulling her gaze away, she followed the signs that said Elevators. Once there, she was faced with her first hurdle. To reach any of the four penthouse apartments, all of which were on the eighth floor, a special key was required. Unfortunately, the key to penthouse 4 didn’t fit. Which meant she had to find the stairs and climb all the way up.

  After circling the lobby three times and getting disoriented, she finally located a door that said Stairs, opened it and started climbing.

  It was one-thirty by the time she reached the eighth floor. A little out of breath, she started walking down the carpeted hallway. As she passed penthouses 1 and 2, she admired the elegant decor, the small gilded tables, the Chinese urns filled with golden orchids, the silk-papered walls. Whoever designed this hotel must love gold.

  As she reached penthouse 3, Alison stopped abruptly.

  Inside the apartment, someone, a woman, had just spoken her mother’s name.

  Startled to have heard Kate’s name spoken with such anger, Alison approached the penthouse door. But as she pressed her ear to it, straining to hear more, the rest of the conversation came out in disjointed sentences she couldn’t piece together.

  Her heart pounding at her audacity, she gripped the knob and turned it, half-expecting to find the door locked. To her surprise, it wasn’t.

  Holding her breath, she let herself in. From the foyer, which looked like a small replica of the elegant lobby below, Alison had a broad view of the next room where a woman in a black suit was talking into a cordless phone.

  "You want facts?" she asked as she paced. "I’ll give you facts. Jarvis just called. Mitch Calhoon was here. He knows that Bruno is the man who tried to kill him last night. And somehow he’s found out he works for me… How the hell do I know how he found out?" she exploded after a brief pause. "He’s a cop, isn’t he?…Yes, yes," she added impatiently as she continued her nervous pacing. "Jarvis is stalling him, but for how long? Calhoon isn’t stupid. And he sure isn’t patient."

  There was another pause, but whoever was at the other end of the line apparently failed to reassure the woman. "I’m not the one who fouled things up, you idiot. You are. If you had let me kill Kate Logan when she started

  to poke her nose into my business, we wouldn’t be in this mess right now…"

  Startled by what she had just heard, Alison backed away-right into a table. She quickly regained her balance but wasn’t fast enough to catch a vase that had begun to tilt. Horrified, she watched it crash to the floor.

  Before she could make a run for the door, the woman had come out of the other room. "Not so fast, young lady." She grabbed Alison’s arm and pulled the girl around to face her. "Who the hell are you?"

  "You’re hurting me!"

  The woman shook Alison’s arm. "If you don’t tell me who you are and what you’re doing here, I’ll show you the true meaning of hurt."

  Alison swallowed the lump that had formed in her throat. "My name is Alison. Alison Logan."

  The woman briefly closed her eyes. "God Almighty." As if she was trying to compose herself, she took a long breath and expelled it slowly. "How long have you been eavesdropping?"

  Trembling from head to toe, Alison shook her head. "I wasn’t eavesdropping. And I didn’t hear anything. I swear."

  "You little liar." The woman shook her again, harder this time, causing Alison’s head to bob back and forth. "Who the hell do you think you’re kidding? What are you doing here? Who sent you?"

  "N- no one. I…" As the woman started to drag Alison into the living room, the key she was still holding fell to the floor.

  "Well, well, what have we here?" The woman bent to retrieve the key and studied it through narrowed eyes. "Where did you find this?"

  Alison was too terrified to lie. "In my grandfather’s

  desk. His name is Douglas Fairchild," she said, hoping the woman would recognize the name and be too impressed to hurt her. "He’s a famous attorney."

  "I know who he is." She put the key in her pocket. "You didn’t answer my question. What are you doing here?"

  "I was bored." Alison felt her teeth chattering. "So when I found the key in my grandfather’s study, I thought I’d come here and…and see what room it belonged to."

  "And on the way, you decided to let yourself into my penthouse and eavesdrop on my phone conversation."

  "I didn’t mean to," Alison cried. "I heard my mother’s name and…" Too late, she realized her mistake. Shrinking back against the wall, she threw a desperate glance toward the front door. It seemed miles away. "I didn’t hear anything else. I swear. Just her name. That’s why I came in. I thought…I thought maybe she was here-"

  "Shut up." The woman’s voice had changed. It was no longer angry, or even afraid. It was cold, empty of all feeling. Still holding Alison’s arm, the woman walked over to a desk and pressed a button. "Bruno," she said, leaning over an intercom, "come to my penthouse immediately."

  A few minutes later, a huge man dressed in black came in. He was the ugliest, scariest man Alison had ever seen in her life. His head was completely bald, showing unsightly brown warts, and his face was covered with thick acne scars. Small, expressionless eyes stared at her.

  "This is Alison Logan, Bruno," the woman said. "Kate Logan’s daughter."

  The man gave Alison a dirty look. "What she doing here?" He had a low, gruff voice that made him even more menacing.

  "The little brat was snooping. And as a result, she heard too much."

  "What she hear, Maddy?"

  Maddy. Alison tried to remember if her grandfather had ever mentioned someone by that name before, but couldn’t. She was too scared to think clearly.

  The woman waved an impatient hand. "I’ll tell you later. Right now, you need to get out of town. And you’re taking the brat with you."

  "Where am I going?"

  "The senator’s cabin." Maddy walked over to a desk and took a set of keys from a drawer. As the man she called Bruno started to take them from Maddy’s extended hand, she grabbed his wrist and held it. "Watch her closely, Bruno. She’s a tricky one." She released her hold and let him have the keys. "If she tries anything…" She tugged on the French cuffs of her white blouse and skewered Alison with an icy look. "You know what to do."

  With a smile that looked more like a sneer, Bruno put the keys in his pocket.

  "And be sure to stay under the speed limit," Maddy continued. "The last thing we need is for some cop to stop you for speeding and find her in the back seat." She glanced at her watch. "I’ll call you later with further instructions."

  "Okay, Maddy." Still smiling, he closed his huge hand around Alison’s arm.

  "I’m not going anywhere!" Alison screamed, trying to pry her arm free. "And you can’t make me. I’ll scream and scream-"

  She never had a chance to finish. Bruno backhanded her so hard, she felt her eyes roll inside her head and then the world faded to black.

  Sean McKackney was sweating profusely as he dialed his father’s office on Capitol Hill at two o’clock that same afternoon. The shit had just hit the fan, and he was right in the middle of it. Unless the old man could perform some sort of miracle, by the time the six o’clock news came on, they’d both be behind bars.

  "This is Dr. Sean McKackney," he said to his father’s secretary when she answered the phone. "I need to speak to my father right away."

  "I’m sorry, Dr. McKackney." The woman’s voice had a cultured Boston accent. "Senator McKackney is on his way to the White House to meet with the president. I don’t expect him back until late afternoon."

  Late afternoon. All hell would have broken loose by then. "I need to speak to him now." Aware that his voice was quivering, he tried to level it. Later, the woman might remember his panic and report it to the police. "It’s an extremely urgent matter." There, that was better.

  "I’m sorry. Doctor. The senator left strict instructions not to be disturbed-under any circumstances. Would you like to leave a message on his voice mail?"

  Oh, sure, wouldn’t that be great? "Dad, Jarvis called. Calhoon’s figured out everything--from the phony alibi to Gina’s murder. He’s pressuring Jarvis to arrest Bruno, and there’s a strong possibility that Maddy will be brought in for questioning, as well. If she talks, we’re finished."

  "No, thank you. I…I’ll call back later."

  With a hand he couldn’t stop from shaking, he dropped the phone back into its cradle and fell back against his chair. What now? From the tension he’d heard in Lieutenant Jarvis’s voice, the situation had reached a critical point. The man was doing his best to stall Calhoon, but

  at the same time he was demanding to know who the hell Bruno was.

  His legs unsteady, Sean stood up, walked over to a cabinet that was filled with liquor and imported mineral water and splashed some Scotch into a glass. He wasn’t supposed to drink before surgery, but what the hell, he thought, looking at his hands. Shaking the way he was, he’d never be able to hold a scalpel anyway. He would have to let someone else do the procedure.

  The liquor went down his throat like liquid flame. But it felt good. In a minute or so, he’d be able to think rationally.

  He glanced at the mirror above the cabinet. He looked awful. He was white as chalk, and he had dark smudges under his eyes from all the sleepless nights he had spent since Calhoon’s visit a week ago.

  He took another gulp of the Scotch. He had to collect himself. He couldn’t let the staff see him looking like this.

  Holding the glass against his chest, he walked back to his desk. All right, what was the worst possible scenario? Maddy, whom he had called a little while ago, had assured him that Bruno was safely out of the area. But even if that moron was caught and confessed to the murder of the two women, Maddy would deny any involvement. Who were they going to believe? A convicted criminal with the IQ of a pea, or a respected, upstanding member of the community?

  Maddy was a tough broad. There wasn’t a cop in the world who could make her do something she didn’t want to do.

  Was there?

  With a hand that was marginally steadier, he brought the Waterford tumbler to his lips again. There was nothing

  more he could do right now except wait and see what happened next.

  And hope to God that his faith in Maddy Mays was justified.

  Sitting at his desk, with his shirtsleeves rolled up and his tie undone, Chief of Police Steve Landers leaned back in his chair, steepled his fingers in front of him and gave Mitch a long, hard look. "Are you telling me that Lieutenant Jarvis is a dirty cop?"

  "That’s what I suspect, sir." Not having been invited to sit down, Mitch remained standing. "Although I have no proof other than the facts I have just stated."

  Landers, obviously shaken by what Mitch had told him, bobbed his head a few times. "And you’re sure about this Bruno Yager? He was the man who attacked you last night."

  "Yes, sir. He’s been positively identified. Detective Spivak saw the crime lab report and so did Lieutenant Jarvis. Shortly after that, the lieutenant sent Spivak to investigate a shooting at Lafayette Park, but when Spivak was delayed, Lieutenant Jarvis refused to send someone else to arrest Yager."

  Mitch had waited outside Jarvis’s office for exactly ten minutes before asking his former boss to send someone else to the Europa. When he refused, Mitch had gone straight to the top.

  Suddenly, Landers stood up and started rolling down his sleeves. "I’ll have to get Lieutenant Jarvis’s version on this," he said, buttoning a cuff. "You come with me."

  The first thing Alison was aware of when she finally woke up was a tremendous headache that began at the base of her neck and wrapped around her skull like a vise.

  The second thing she was aware of was snow falling down, sticking to the car windows.

  Afraid to move for fear her head would split open, she remained perfectly still, moving only her eyes. She was in the back of a car, a smelly car, and Bruno, the animal who had hit her, was driving.

  Where was he taking her?

  The woman’s words came back to her. The senator’s cabin.

  Alison knew only one senator-Sander McKackney. He was an old friend of her grandfather’s, and he owned a hunting cabin somewhere in the mountains. Her father had gone hunting with him a few times before finally giving up the sport.

  But why was Bruno using the senator’s house? How did he even know about it?

  Being careful not to make a sound, she pushed herself up on one elbow. Lying on the console between the two front seats was a cellular phone. Closing her eyes, Alison said a silent prayer. She couldn’t do anything now, but maybe later, once they arrived at their destination, she would have to find a way to get to that phone.