The Charity (41 page)

He approached her slowly. He had her cornered, and she knew it. He felt his excitement build as the wench backed up against the bed, turning one shoulder to him for protection. This was good. He wanted to hear her beg for mercy. She would be begging plenty later on tonight, but he wanted to hear her now. This was going to be fun.

Granger brought himself close to Jessica, chest touching her shoulder. He took in every feature of her face and body. He wanted to make it last. His long arm began to wrap around her waist in the same gesture of ownership that had pissed her off in the lobby.

The short shaft of the wire hanger found its mark. He screamed in pain and held his eye where the hanger had lodged. Instantly he thrashed out in anger and agony, one hand gripping the protruding hanger. The other hand unleashed a blow fueled by blinded fear and frustration, catching Jessica in the ribs. The freshly healed bones were still too fragile to withstand such a blast.

Half blind and half crazy with agony, he grabbed at her. White-hot pain ripped deeper into his socket as Jessica batted the hanger.

Sensing a window of mere seconds, she turned her back on him and bolted out the door. The whir of the elevator got louder, a bell signaled its arrival. Granger’s bellows of rage and yearning filled the hall. She dashed for the stairs. Elevator doors whooshed open and in one split second, she saw the same attacker that had killed Gus and had tried to kill her emerge. She closed the stairwell door as soundlessly as she could and flew down the stairs.

She looked through the dingy square window of the door leading from the staircase to the lobby. Two men, dressed similarly in jeans and baseball jackets continuously surveyed the large room and glanced up the street. Jessica continued one more floor down to the laundry and kitchen areas. Ignoring the startled glances of the few workers there, she found the outside door and sprinted down the alley.

“Sir? I’m sorry to disturb you.” The aide approached the old man with his head bowed in respect and fear. He tried to ignore the glaring eyes and held out a portable phone with the antenna extended. “I believe you want to take this call.” As soon as the phone was delivered, the young man hastily retreated from the room.

“Yes.” Magnus answered the phone with little courtesy. Catherine looked up from her embroidery and listened with half interest to his side of the conversation. She could have been wrong, but it looked as if some color drained from her husband’s cheeks.

“Where did you get your information?” There were long pauses in the conversation while he tried to take in all that the phone call had brought him.

“You know I won’t stop at anything until my job is done. What I do saves hundreds of innocent lives. I believe what I have always believed. If one or two Americans get caught in my work, so be it.”

The color returned to his face, and he sat forward in his chair. A calculating grin drew up the corners of his mouth. “I cannot stop what is already in progress. Everything has its price... If that’s what you want... Then you must come work at my side, as it is your fate. You know that blood is what lasts forever. Not love... That is the romantic notion that killed my first wife, remember?” Another pause. “No one will try to kill you. That has been my gift to you.”

The grin grew into a satisfied smile. A plan was laid.

“You must find out for yourself what happened and why. In doing so, you will learn the humanity behind my methods and get to know my loyal soldiers.”
And prove yourself to me
. Magnus clicked off the phone. Catherine looked up at her husband and inquired about the call with a raised eyebrow.

The old man leaned forward and took the chin of his wife lightly into his hand. “I may have solved more problems than I first thought possible.” He kissed her softly and smiled.

“It will feel good to work again with a son by my side.”

Shea’s ear was nearly numb from being on the phone for so long. If he could have fired the entire office support staff in that moment, he would have. Instead, he settled for just his secretary and the receptionist. It was only in an ‘Oh, by the way,’ conversation with his secretary that he discovered that he had over ten messages over the span of three days from someone calling herself Rita Harrison. The secretary even confessed to thinking that the woman who left those messages probably called twenty times a day without leaving her name and was proud of the way she had handled such a pestering bitch. She only mentioned it to Shea in the hopes of getting some acknowledgment of how deftly she handled matters while he was out sick. After all, the woman had not called again in over a day. Shea was not ready to return to work and only hoped that whatever it was that was so urgent with Jessica could wait.

His time spent on research was paying off. The documents he received from the attorney and copied from the Registry presented him with a fairly complete picture. Clearly, Wyeth’s Worldwind Farm was a major piece of the Unity Green empire then and now. Jim Wyeth took definite steps in protecting assets and moving funds into different accounts, but Unity Green frequently lurked in the transfers.

Shea had spent the better part of one day researching money flow into and out of the Wyeth-owned accounts. The fact that the most recent transactions happened close to eight years ago, and other questionable transactions spanned backward to nearly forty years ago, helped his research. Any record of the Wyeth’s bank accounts over seven years old had been boxed up and shipped to secure archival storage in a huge underground warehouse just outside of Boston. Armed with a fake search warrant, Shea pretended to be looking for hidden assets in a contested estate proceeding. Access to all bank records was granted to him without question. He started with the Wyeth accounts. He could then use whatever information he found to trace outward to other parties and other banks.

One thing was certain. Whatever was going on at Worldwind Farms, Jim Wyeth had been in it up to his neck.

“You’re not going fast enough! Run faster! Can’t you hear them?”

“Jessie, you can help me.” Erin’s voice floated above the water and mist.

A deeper voice drifted past her ear. “It’s up to you.”

Rough hands moved along her body. “You’ve unly gut a wee bit o’ time left. Enjoy it.”

The hands felt down the inside of her thigh.

Jessica forced herself up through layer after layer of fitful sleep. The images stayed close by, ascending with her. Soon, the voices and the mist were gone, just the hands, groping her body as she curled tighter into a ball, remained.

Her eyes opened wide, and she turned over to face her attacker. She grabbed the thin wrists and twisted outward with all of her strength. The rage and fear which ran through her gave her grip additional power. The body the wrists belonged to sank to its knees.

“Ouch! Hey! Let me go! Please! You’re breaking my arms!”

Jessica felt the arms begin to shake. Without loosening her grip, she took a good look at the figure before her. The arms belonged to an old man, maybe seventy years old. His long white hair had yellowed with dirt and sun. The weathered face was crisscrossed with deep crevasses. Long stubble stabbed its way through the surface of his chin. The face was frozen in an expression mixed with fear, pain, and oddly, strength. Jessica looked carefully again into his eyes. Her gaze was met with a cloudy, gray stare of exhaustion and old alcohol.

“Hey! I don’t mean you no harm. If someone sees us like this, they’ll kick us out for good, don’t you know that?” The gray eyes left her gaze only long enough to look around the nearly empty room.

She let her hands relax, but not completely. “What the hell were you trying to do?”

“I... I’m sorry. I seen you on my way out. You don’t look like the kind of person who would sleep in a shelter. I... I thought you got money or food on you. I’m sorry. I don’t mean you no harm.”

The man rubbed his wrists released from the vise-like grip of the woman. He was taken totally by surprise at the speed and strength of her reaction. Many people in a shelter are too weak from hunger, sickness, or are too tired from a hard life to react that fast and that forcefully. He was right. She probably never spent a night in a homeless shelter in her life. Definitely not the type. She was too aware, too energetic. But her face told more of the story. It was discolored and swollen, and she had more bruises on her chest and arms.

The old man and the young woman assessed one another openly, surrounded by row upon row of army-issue cots. Brown and muddy green blankets were tossed in piles around the room. Women, some young, but most old before their time, sat hunched over on the edge of their cots or moved around the facility. The center of the room was divided by a long muslin curtain in an attempt to provide privacy between the sexes. The old man was on his way out the front door when he saw the young woman curled up on a cot in the front row. No one paid any attention to him as he quickly patted her down in his search for cash or valuables. Now his impulsive action rooted him to the floor.

Jessica freed the man from her attention and scanned the room instantly. She was lucky to find the place last night. She did not dare check into a hotel, and this shelter kept her off the streets. The volunteer at the door told her the shelter was full for the night because the frigid temperatures and bad weather had forced everyone off the streets. After looking at her face more carefully, the young man asked her what had happened. Jessica indicated domestic abuse. She figured she must have looked pretty terrible, because she was ushered to the last available cot.

Before sleep finally transported her away from the unfamiliar sights and sounds of the shelter, she laid, wide eyed. Listening. Most of the people using the shelter for the night were asleep, taking comfort in the soft beds and warmth the shelter afforded them. Others moaned and cried out at their own demons and delusions. A woman sobbed. A man shouted something about the media controlling his mind. Jessica tried hard to push all of it out of her head.

“Look, I’m outta here.” He dropped his head and turned away.

“Hey, wait a second.” There was something about the old man that caught Jessica’s attention. “What’s in your hand?”

“What? Nothing.” He began to walk faster.

“Give it to me,” she demanded as she whirled the man around by his arm.

The old man wavered. “I... I don’t have anything of yours.”

Jessica squeezed his arm tighter. She kept her voice low to avoid notice. “
Give it to me
.”

“Ouch! Okay! Okay! Here! Take it.” He thrust the lighter back into her outstretched hand. “I didn’t take it from you. It was on the cot beside you.”

That was too close. She released him with a little push and turned to leave. She was halfway down the aisle when she heard him say, “You’re one of them, aren’t you.”

“What did you say?”

“You’re one of them. I figured you musta made a mistake, and they taught you a lesson. That symbol on the lighter, you know?”

“You don’t know anything. Forget you ever saw me or the lighter.” She pushed past the shaking man.