The Lazarus Trap (10 page)

“Val doesn't even have a safe.” Don came in with a trash bag full of papers. “All the interesting stuff was in a shoe box on the closet's top shelf. Have a look at this.”

Terrance turned his flashlight onto the paper in Don's hands. “A false birth certificate?”

“Unless he's done a name change and forgot to tell us.” Don shook his head. “He'd use the birth certificate to apply for a passport, right? Looks like our guy was getting ready to fly.”

Terrance read the name on the birth certificate. “Jeffrey Adams.”

Don shone his flashlight down on the photograph dangling from Terrance's hand. The picture was of a laughing infant, held by an adult excluded from the frame. “That Val's kid?”

Terrance stared out at the night and declared, “Mine. The child is mine.”

Saying it often enough almost made it so.

THE NIGHT ACTED AS AN AMPLIFIER TO THE STREET'S ENERGY. Everything outside Val's hotel was louder, faster, harsher. He walked back the three blocks to the cyber café. Cars cruised the avenue, their salsa rock and hip-hop punching the air with pneumatic fists. Val was just another solitary guy walking the concrete in search of his fix. Just another mark.

Val reentered the café. A spiky-haired youth with spiderwebs tattooed on both forearms had replaced the young woman. The guy accepted Val's deposit and directed him to a computer without seeing him at all.

Val went to the
Yahoo.com
Web site. The screen address had come back to him while he had been seated in the hotel lobby. Just another shard of memory, another fleck of another guy's past. Val punched the button for e-mail retrieval, then typed in his screen name and password.

A long sweep of e-mails filled the screen. Val went through them carefully. The names and the messages formed imperfect mental fragments. Some e-mails asked him to get in touch with them if he was able. Most held the formal air of concerned business colleagues. After reading each one, Val hit the “keep as new” tab, so there would be no record of his having stopped by for a read. What he found there revealed no reason to go back.

Then a screen name leapt out at him. She used her own name, of course. Audrey d'Arcy. A very direct woman, surrounded in Val's mind by candlelight and sorrow of his own making.

Val hit the key to open her e-mail.

My beloved Valentine,
    
I can't believe this time you've left me for good. Now
I'm alone and sinking inside the void where a heart used to
be. Asking questions to a night that threatens to swallow me
whole. I prayed for nothing more than to connect with you.
Why was I doomed to fail with the one man I ever truly
loved . . .

Val masked the letter and glanced around. No one paid him any attention. He stared at the front window and the night beyond, seared by her words.

He rose to his feet and went back to the counter. “Can I print something out?”

The guy still refused to glance his way. “Dollar a page.”

“Fine.”

The server keyed his register. “Just hit print. The pages come out back here.”

Val returned to his keyboard and clicked on the print button without looking directly at the letter. He wanted to read the rest of what Audrey had to say. He had to. But not now.

Val stood by the register, keeping himself close enough to ensure the clerk would not take time to read. But the guy showed no more interest in the pages than he had in Val. Val paid and returned to the computer and began the process of shutting down.

The screen showed an instant-message e-board. The message struck him with five furious bullets.

You vile, despicable, evil worm.

The return address was the same as the letter stowed in his pocket. Before he could gather himself to respond, Audrey shot another assault.

Here, let me help. You stole Val's password in one of your noc-turnal forays. And now you're checking things out. Making
sure there's nothing to tie you to your appalling deeds. But I
know. I know.

Val felt the yawning gap of all he wanted to leave behind. The prospect of becoming reconnected kept him unable to respond.

The screen blasted through one more blow.

Murderer.

Val took a sharp intake of breath. His hands moved from his heart's volition. He typed in,
It's me, Audrey.

He sat and waited. He could see her now, the strong features and piercing ice-blue gaze. The hair of burnished copper, which she hated because of its impossible waves. The direct manner of speech, the overlarge mouth, the features that were sparked to animation by the slightest hint of emotion.

Like the anguish he had caused her any number of times.

The screen remained blank. So he typed in,
Really. It's me.
Val.

Another long pause, then,
You're not dead?

The world thinks so. I intend to keep it that way.

The screen slapped him again.

Oh, Val, Val, you terrible beast of a man, I have wept for twenty
solid hours. Couldn't you possibly have let me know? Is that so very
much to ask?

Audrey, I've had an accident. I—
She broke through with yet another question.
Where are you?

New York.

You can't possibly.

Yes.

Val, listen to me. Hide yourself.

You are the only person who knows I'm alive.

You have to get out of there. Out of the country, if possible. Come
here, if you can, but don't travel under your own name. Can you do
that?

Why?

The answer was slow in coming.

Because my brother thinks he has killed you. And if he learns
you're alive, he will try again.

AS THEY DROVE AWAY FROM VAL'S, TERRANCE TURNED HIS CELL phone back on. The message signal began flashing almost instantly. Terrance scrolled through a number of calls from financial players. He said, “Two o'clock in the morning and I'm still fielding calls from Wall Street.”

“Bound to happen. People wired into breaking news want to check our pulse before the markets open.” Passing headlights reflected off Don's face as if his features were sprayed with oil. “I'm thinking we should head back to the office, camp out there.”

Terrance gave a mental shrug. He would not sleep much wherever he lay down. He continued to scroll through his messages, then stopped. He recognized the former policewoman's voice with the very first word. “I got something with explosive potential. Call me.”

He pressed the phone to his chest. How should he play this? He had seen Don at work. But he was not Don.

“What's up?”

“Wally wants a word.” He pushed the redial button.

She answered on the first ring. “Don?”

“No. Terrance here.”

“A change like this,” the woman declared, “is a very bad idea.”

Suzanne Walton had been a highflier in the Baltimore police force until Internal Affairs caught her taking a bribe from a local vice czar. The woman loved to gamble beyond her means. The woman also lost. The money had to come from somewhere. Because she was one of the first women to earn a detective's shield, the force had let her quietly resign.

“We don't have any choice,” Terrance replied.

“Explain that one to me.”

There had been nothing the press could pin a story on. Which of course was what the Baltimore police had wanted. But they let word slip out quietly. When Don had come up with the idea of hiring Wally Walton, it had taken Terrance's sniffer hounds less than a day to come up with the goods. Walton was dirty. The Baltimore authorities had spread the quiet word far and wide. Walton was bad news.

Terrance replied, “Things are in motion now. The exec who actually pulls the corporate strings has to be the key player.”

“Meaning Don Winslow.”

Don stopped at a traffic light and stared at him. Terrance said to the phone, “That is correct.”

“So he won't have time for me.”

“Precisely. Plus, one of us must stand watch over Jack Budrow. I can't. He despises me.”

“Why?”

“I've never quite been able to figure that one out.”

“This way you're talking,” Wally said. “Does this mean you're going to play it straight with me?”

“I can't think of any other way to work this through.”

She mulled that over, then decided, “I guess I can live with that.”

“So what do you have?”

“Maybe nothing. You haven't heard anything from Haines, have you?”

Terrance's chest was clutched by a titanium vise. “What?”

“Val Haines,” she repeated. “Any word from the guy?”

“You have got to be joking.”

Don was watching Terrance now more than the road. “What's going on?”

Terrance waved him to silence as the woman continued. “Like I said, it's probably nothing. But he didn't spend the night in the hotel.”

Terrance turned his face to the side window, concentrating fully. “Are you sure?”

“I got a couple of friends on the force up here. You'll be hearing from somebody later today. The official word is, the guy is history. But they went into the hotel yesterday afternoon and found that the guy's bed wasn't touched.”

The car turned into the office building's parking garage and halted in the executive space. Don cut off the motor. And waited.

Terrance was unable to move. “This is confusing.”

“Maybe not. You told me the guy was a night creature.”

“Yes.” Terrance laid his forehead upon the cold glass. “Particularly when he's up there.”

“Right. So maybe he got lucky. Found himself a more pleasant place to sleep.”

His thoughts emerged in congealed lumps. All the documents had been structured to point at Val as the thief. Outside counsel and the auditors had been brought in. The files were now in the hands of the authorities. The scheme was in public play. Terrance forced himself to straighten. There was a damp spot where his forehead had rested on the glass. “We have to be certain.”

“NYPD is setting up a citywide alert.”

“They can't find him.”

“Yeah, well, like I said. Most likely he's not anywhere to be found.”

“No. You don't understand.” Terrance's breath was so constricted he could only find air for one word at a time. “The authorities
cannot
find Val Haines.”

WHEN VAL REENTERED THE HOTEL, THE CLERK WATCHED HIS approach with an impersonal gaze. Vince's hair was cropped as close to his head as his graying goatee. The bones of his temple, jawline, and cheeks were as pronounced as his steely muscles. His skin was pocked from beneath his left eye to his ear, like he had been whipped with a chain or scarred by buckshot. He wore a dark-gray suit and a white shirt, with a tie as matte-black as his eyes. The muscles of his thick neck formed a slanted decline to massive shoulders.