The Constantine Conspiracy (16 page)

Outside the panic room, Officer Wilson’s radio beeped and he clicked the receiver for the incoming message.

“We got the go-ahead to clear the panic room,” squawked a captain from the downtown station. “And the code is now available. The display is behind a stone shaped like a rose in the base of the waterfall.” He gave directions and Wilson found the rock and pressed and the display appeared.

“You ready for the code?” the captain asked.

“A pen,” Wilson whispered to Turley. “Write this down.”

Turley searched his pockets, came up with his notepad, and flipped it open. Wilson repeated the code as he received it and Turley scribbled it down.

“Hold the intruder there until the chief arrives,” the captain said when he finished. “He’s on the way.”

Wilson signed off and faced his partner. “You ready?” he asked.

“Maybe we need more backup,” Turley suggested.

Wilson weighed the idea, then hit his radio and ordered four more men to the scene. “Better safe than sorry,” he told Turley.

“My sentiments exactly.”

Shannon’s heart raced as she watched Turley and Wilson waiting for their backup. They’d have her in custody in a few minutes; a recipe for bad things for a lot of people.

She needed a way out but didn’t see one.

Unsure what else to do, she focused again on the video, deleting it from the television, then emailing the copy she’d made to the phone from which Rick had called her. A text message accompanied the video. One word—
gelato
. Then she erased the video and the text message from her phone.

Four more cops showed up outside the panic room while Shannon quickly searched the desk, shelves, and cabinets for a weapon but found none. Another idea came to her. Wouldn’t a panic room have an escape route? Like a rabbit warren? Flee in one side, flee out another.

The cops punched in the code as Shannon re-inspected the room, her fingers hurriedly checking the walls for crevices, hidden panels, secret displays. Finding nothing, she squeezed into the bathroom and locked the door behind her. Seconds later, she heard voices in the outer room, then fists pounded on the door, and she almost gave up. Her hands reached to open the lock, but then her eyes landed on the toilet paper holder, a brass stand about three feet high with a round bottom fitted into a cupped area in the floor, a reasonable weapon if wielded with a little surprise and a lot of force. She pulled the toilet paper off the stand, slipped the stand out of the floor indention, and lifted it like a baseball bat, the round end a weighted club.

Legs spread, feet firm, she braced for the cops. Her vision landed at the spot where the stand had stood. A small digital display, inlaid in the stone floor, blinked back at her. She bent to it as the cops pounded on the door. A door hinge snapped.

Her fingers trembling, Shannon punched in the code that opened the panic room but nothing happened. Another door hinge popped. Giving up on the code, Shannon dropped the toilet lid and climbed onto it, her weapon poised over her head. The toilet moved and she almost toppled off but then steadied herself.

The toilet quivered slightly, then shifted downward, the floor underneath it sliding away into a barrel-sized hole like a slow elevator. Startled, Shannon balanced herself better and placed the toilet paper stand back over the digital display as her body slowly disappeared. Lights flipped on in the tubular passageway into which she dropped. Within seconds, her head slipped below floor level and a floor, now her roof, shifted into place overhead. The toilet descended at least twenty feet, slowed, and settled.

Breathing heavily, Shannon hopped off the toilet lid and peered around. A concrete tunnel, about four feet wide and six feet high, led off into a shadowy passage, lit about every thirty feet with a yellowish glow. Above her head, Shannon heard feet pounding the floor. Calming herself, she brushed down her skirt, smoothed back her hair, then dashed away down the corridor.

18

T
he message tone on Tony’s cell phone sounded and Rick quickly checked the inbox—a video and a text message. He checked the text first and read one word—
gelato
.

He slammed his fist into the bed where he sat, his every fiber fighting against the course of action he’d agreed to with Shannon if he got this word. He wanted to go after her, to speed to his family estate, rush to the panic room and haul her out. But they’d decided that made no sense if somebody discovered her. If captured, they’d agreed that she’d send him the prearranged message and he’d drive to a predetermined location and wait for her there. So, no matter how much he hated it, he needed to do just that.

Tamping down his frustration, he forgot about the video and grabbed his already-packed shoulder bag, threw it over his shoulder, and rushed from the room. In the parking lot, he flipped everything into the black Nissan he’d bought at a truck stop that morning, then slid into the driver’s seat. On the street, he turned left and peeled away.

For the past two days he’d spent every waking moment alternating between grief over his dad and worry about Shannon Bridge. As the funeral drew closer, he focused more and more on her. Although he saw no better option than sending her to the panic room, that hadn’t settled his fears; one false move, one unlucky mistake, and she could end up in deep trouble. Now it had happened.

The Nissan slipped into traffic on a four-lane highway as Rick reviewed the past forty-eight hours. He and Shannon had talked through a variety of scenarios and made contingency plans for a lot of possibilities. Before she’d left him that morning to dress for the memorial, she had hugged him quickly, and her touch had electrified his skin. The sensation startled him, shook him, made him crazy. He hooked up with all kinds of gorgeous women on a regular basis, kept the private numbers of scores of actresses, aspiring and otherwise, in his Blackberry. But Shannon’s light, wordless touch had jolted him like none of them ever had.

The danger they’d faced together in the past few days had supercharged his feelings about her, Rick had concluded as he pondered the matter. Everybody knew that a common peril bonded people faster and deeper than normal situations. Add his grief on top of the danger and a potent combination emerged—an emotional glue that would have connected him to any woman he encountered at the time.

An ambulance swerved into his lane and Rick braked quickly to miss it, then moved through a red light, onto a ramp, and into traffic on Interstate 85. A fresh idea hit him and he quickly pulled out his phone and dialed Pops’ number. This time his grandfather answered.

“Pops, it’s me.”

“Rick,” Pops said, his tone surprised. “I’m worried sick about you. Called your cell but you left it in Montana; the police there found it. I didn’t know how to reach you.”

“I’m okay, Pops,” Rick assured him. “I called you but didn’t leave a message. I’m sorry I couldn’t attend the memorial.”

“Don’t worry about that right now. Sorry I missed your calls, but things are a zoo around here.”

“The service go okay?”

“Wonderful. People said great things about Steve. He had more friends than I ever imagined, from all over the world.”

“He did like to travel, used to haul me and Mom all over the globe.”

“I know you’ll miss that.”

A short pause fell between them.

“So things are okay at the house?” Rick broke the quiet, fishing to see what Pops knew about Shannon.

“As well as anybody could expect. Your mother attended the private ceremony but didn’t come to the estate afterward.”

“I need to see her soon.”

“That’s a good idea. When will you return? Where are you?”

Rick almost told him, but then hesitated. What if the police had the line tapped? “I have to hurry,” he said. “But I need your help on something.”

“Come home, I’ll take care of everything. It’s tragic about Steve, but he’s been depressed a long time, I’m not really surprised at this. Your mother’s condition hit him so hard, but there’s no reason for this to hang over you any longer. You’re innocent, I know that. Let’s clear this up quickly.”

“You’re assuming a suicide, aren’t you?”

“I don’t know, Rick, maybe he accidentally overdosed. But we’re certain you didn’t do it, right?”

“You never put much stock in Dad—always believed the worst about him.”

Pops hesitated and Rick sensed him fighting to bite his tongue. Rick knew it wasn’t the time to open old family wounds, but today, of all days, he felt the need to defend his father.

“Your mother loved Steve, so did you,” Pops said. “What I thought of him didn’t matter, not to him or your mom.”

“Somebody had him murdered, Pops. I have to find out who.”

“Logic says otherwise.”

“But I saw this guy! I went to visit Mom and this man . . .” He quickly told his grandfather about the intruder at Rolling Hills.

“This is getting way too dangerous, Rick. It isn’t one of your grand adventures.”

“I get that, but I won’t leave things like they are. Somebody murdered Dad, might do the same thing to someone else. We can’t just let the killer slide, can we?”

“Did anybody but you and Rebecca see this man at Rolling Hills?”

“I don’t know. He should be on surveillance there, perhaps you can check.”

“I’ll do that. Did he confess that he killed Steve?”

“Not exactly, Pops, but he did it. Why else was he there?”

“That’s a good question. Why was he there?”

Rick passed a car but kept the Nissan under the speed limit. “My guess is he came after me, wanted to tidy up his work from Montana.”

“If so, that’s all the more reason to return home. You need protection. We’ll hire bodyguards, go to the police, make sure you’re safe.”

Rick slipped back into the right lane as he weighed his options. Pops made a good case. But then he thought of Shannon’s warnings about the authorities. “Not yet, Pops,” he concluded. “Somebody needs to find who hired this guy and I’m not confident the police are up to the job. They like things neat, easy. A professional hit man takes them way beyond their comfort zone.”

“Look,” Pops offered. “You come to me, I’ll throw my weight around, force the authorities to keep the investigation open, not jump to any conclusions about Steve, you either for that matter.”

“That’s a good offer, Pops, thanks. Let me think about it.”

Rick heard a siren, checked his rearview mirror and saw a blue light flashing. “I need to hang up,” he said.

“You said you needed my help on something.”

Rick hesitated, suddenly unsure about asking him to check on Shannon. If the cops found out she’d gone there for him, they’d push her hard, hold her until she confessed what she knew.

“It’s okay, I’m fine,” he finally said.

“Bring yourself home, Rick, we’ll find the murderer, I promise you.”

Rick pressed the gas and the Nissan bolted forward.

“Perhaps I wasn’t always fair with your dad,” Pops continued. “But that’s past us, nothing I can do to change it. You’re most important to me now.”

The police car drew closer. Rick wondered how they’d traced him. Tony’s cell phone? The seller of the Nissan? Either way, he needed to get off the phone and the interstate. He wheeled to an off ramp and the blue light followed. “I’ll be back in touch!” he shouted to Pops over the siren.

“Home, Rick, it’s your only chance!”

Rick shut off the phone and whipped off the ramp, the cop car giving chase. He sped past a row of cars, wheeled left, and gunned it through a red light. The cop fell behind as he slipped more cautiously through the traffic signal. Rick swerved right into a mall parking lot and under a deck. The police car disappeared in his rearview mirror. Rick slammed the car to a stop, grabbed his bag, and jumped out. The police car poked its hood under the deck and drove slowly toward him, but then a potato chip truck darted into its path and Rick sprinted past a crew of startled teenagers.

Twisting quickly, he saw two cops rush from their car, their weapons trained on him.

“Hold it!” One of them shouted at him, but Rick ducked behind a support beam, then rushed to a door twenty feet away.

“Hold it or we’ll shoot!”

Rick’s heart thumped loudly, but he believed he heard a bluff in the policeman’s voice so he scrambled to the door and flung it open.

The cops rushed after him just as Rick slammed the door, hustled down a set of stairs, and rushed past a group of elderly shoppers, their tottering steps aided by an assortment of walkers, canes, and wheeled contraptions. The cops appeared on the landing, their weapons ready, but the crowd prevented them from firing, and Rick ducked to an exit on the other side of the garage. Seconds later, his face splotched with sweat, he spotted a city bus and hopped on it as it pulled away.

19

T
he tunnel beneath the Carson Estate reached an end and a set of stairs beckoned upward, but Shannon paused to take a breath before climbing them. Fear coursed through her veins—for herself, for Rick, for everybody she loved and everything she believed in. Until she’d actually seen the video in the panic room, she’d held out hope that she was wrong, that her leaders were mistaken, that her mission to Montana had been nothing more than a cautionary diversion. But now she knew otherwise and she had to tell Rick so he would know it too. How would he react? Would he believe her? Would he make the right choice if he did?