The Nosy Neighbor (24 page)

Two blank faces stared at him.

“Are you thinking money, records, drugs, an arms cache, what?” Wylie persisted.

The blank faces continued to stare at him.

“Maybe all of the above. Nah, this is about money. If this guy is as global as I think he is, he has to have a home base somewhere. Maybe that house is his home base and, as such, it’s where he keeps his stash, whatever his stash is,” Jake said.

Lucy spoke for the first time. “Do you want to know what I think?”

“Hell, yes,” Wylie exploded.

“This is just my opinion, but I think Jonathan would never hide anything that could aid and comfort him. He’d keep it on his person. I’m talking about his bank records. Anything that could be hidden is on a computer. He carried it with him all the time. Sometimes, when he was in Europe, he would chain it to his wrist. He told me that himself. I think whatever is hidden, if I’m right, and it’s there, is a record of the people he did business with. For want of a better term, his bargaining chip, if things ever went awry. A way for him to cut a deal. I think it was Agent Lawrence who, in one of our very first conversations, said we were talking about billions of dollars. That’s billions with a
b.
In my head, that translates to drugs. What do you think? Am I off the wall here, or does this all make sense to either one of you?”

“Honey,” Wylie said, bending over to hug her, “I think you nailed it.”

Lucy grinned from ear to ear. “We have to call the agents and tell them. Not that they can do anything right this moment, but they can call it in and have other agents look into it.

“Okay, having said all that, Jonathan just wants to kill me because…”

“You upset the little world he created for himself. It’s a vengeance mentality thing with him. You have to pay for disrupting his world. It’s that simple. A little while ago you said to keep it simple.”

Lucy looked from one to the other. She suddenly felt nauseated. When Jake left, Lucy realized that the session was over. She looked at Wylie, a devilish glint in her eyes.

“You know what, Wylie, your dog is the only dog I know who has his own room. He’s got two beds, boxes of toys, and he sleeps with you.”

A grin stretched across Wylie’s face. “It’s called devotion. Now that he has new friends, I’m just someone who makes him meat loaf. I admit, I was a little jealous at first.”

“Really! Me, too. Sadie was always glued to me. I guess it’s a good thing. Hey, you want to mess around?”

Wylie’s eyes almost bugged out of his head. “You mean like…
mess around?”

“Uh-huh. Me, you, together. If you’re too tired…”

“Tired! Who, me? I’m the guy who just had a nap. No sirree, I’m not the least bit tired. I’m up for…what I mean is I’m, ah, yeah, I’m
up.”

Lucy wiggled her eyebrows as she led Wylie over to the fire. “If you’re sure you’re really, you know,
up,
then let’s get to it. Before the fire burns down.”

Wylie was already pulling off his shirt. “I thought you were worried about Jake being in the house.”

“Jake who?” Lucy purred.

Wylie’s sweatpants dropped to the floor. “Yeah, Jake who?” His voice was so hoarse, he had a hard time believing the words came out of his mouth. “I’m ready,” he said, diving onto the pile of quilts Lucy dragged over from the couch. “Let’s do that
thing
we did the last time.”

“Did you like
that?”
Lucy purred.

“Oh, man, did I ever. Hurry up, it’s cold.”

Then she was on top of him, his head clasped in both her hands. She kissed him until his ears turned beet red. Wylie groaned, convinced that kissing Lucy was one of life’s greatest pleasures. He was stunned when she pulled away and stared down at him. “You ready, big guy?”

“Yeahhhh,” Wylie said exuberantly.

“Then, let’s do it. Remember now,” Lucy said, breathing little kisses all over his face, “no screaming, no yelling, no kicking on the floor.”

“I’m not making a promise
like that
!”

“Me either.”

Special Agent Sylvia Connors stared out of the eighteenth-floor window of the Hyatt Hotel in New Brunswick, where she and her two fellow agents had been staying since the onset of the worst storm in a century. In the whole of her career, she’d never felt this hopeless.

She was cranky, out of sorts, and was rapidly becoming angry at her colleagues’ callous attitude toward Lucy Baker. Attribute it to her background, training, expertise, whatever, she knew Lucy Baker had told them the truth. Mason and Lawrence thought otherwise.

Sylvia clenched her teeth as she picked up her conversation with her colleagues. “She’s in grave danger. I’m telling you, she’s Banks’s victim. You two know squat about women.”

“Get off it, Connors. She’s in this up to her eyeballs. Did you really expect her to admit to anything? She’s a lawyer, for God’s sake. She loves that word
allegedly.
She was marrying the guy. We went along with you when you demanded a handwriting expert to verify her signature. The proof came back positive. It’s her damn signature. She’s in it right down to her toes, so cut us some slack here.”

“There are all kinds of ways to coerce a signature out of someone. Trickery is something Banks probably excels at. She probably thought she was signing something else the way a lot of people do when their intended or their spouse asks them to. I’ve done it, and don’t tell me you haven’t either. Your wife says, sign the tax form, and you sign it because she’s the one who took everything to the accountant, then picked it up because you were too damn busy, and all she wants is the refund, and the sooner the better.”

“Then that makes her a lousy lawyer in my opinion,” Agent Lawrence said, speaking for the first time.

Sylvia eyed her two weary colleagues, knowing she looked as awful and as tired as they did. The three of them had been wearing the same clothes for almost three days. The storm had caught them all unawares, and they’d been lucky to secure the suite of rooms, with Lawrence sleeping on the sofa, Mason on a roll-away, the bed falling to her. For that she was grateful.

They’d been sniping at one another for the past twenty-four hours, ever since the call came through alerting them to Banks’s arrival at Kennedy Airport and the fact that he had disappeared. Mason punched his fist into the pillow he’d been sleeping on. His face was full of anger. “Tomorrow is Thanksgiving,” Mason said. “My wife is going to have a fit when I don’t make it home. We have a thirty-pound bird and are expecting twenty-two people.”

Sylvia Connors sniffed. “I think your wife and kids will be eating that bird by themselves. There are no open roads. And just to keep the record straight, we have a woman’s life at stake here, and showing up for a turkey dinner seems kind of insignificant compared to that. I think Lucy Baker would agree.”

Agent Mason had the grace to look embarrassed.

Agent Lawrence frowned as he clicked on his cell phone. “It’s dead,” he said, disgust ringing in his voice. “And the charger is in the car, probably frozen. Mason’s went out last night. How’s yours, Connors?”

“The battery is low, but it’s still working. If I’m lucky, ten, maybe eight minutes of airtime. For now, we use the hotel phones.”

Lawrence walked over to the window. His voice was almost a whisper, when he said, “It looks like the end of the world out there. What’s that saying, ‘not fit for man or beast’?”

“I assume the beast you’re referring to is Leo Banks. No sane person would be out in that…that…
stuff.
When this case is wrapped up, I’m putting in for a transfer to San Diego. They have almost perfect weather,” Mason said.

“Why are you so certain Baker is clean on this deal, Sylvia?” Agent Lawrence asked.

Senior to her two partners, Sylvia locked her gaze on Mason first, then Lawrence. “No cold, hard facts if that’s what you mean. I agree that everything points to her as being his partner, but it’s more than that. I saw the way her eyes kept going to that pile of wedding invitations. We destroyed her world. We barged in there and ripped it up one side and down the other. She had no clue. And, do you remember Conover telling us she was wearing this sparkler on her ring finger that was as big as a headlight? When we saw her, she wasn’t wearing it. That means she took it off because of what she was told about her fiancé. I’ll bet you lunch at Burger King that she hasn’t put it back on, either. See, that’s what you have to understand about women. Unless she can be certain we have the wrong man, unless we can prove without a doubt to her that the guy she was planning on marrying is not a global crook, that ring is never going to see the light of day again.

“In addition, an engagement ring is a commitment. Lucy Baker is no longer committed. The commitment ceased the day Conover and his partner talked to her. Bottom line, she’s telling us the truth, and we have to protect her.”

Both agents stared at Sylvia, aware of her past record and her climb up the ranks. She had more citations than the two of them put together, and that’s why she was the leader of their team. Both men shrugged. It was as much as she was going to get from either one of them.

“Assuming you’re right,” Mason said grudgingly, “how the hell did he get here from New York. Everything is shut down tight. Where is he holed up?”

Connors ran her fingers through her thick hair. She realized she needed a haircut. “If I knew that, I’d tell you. I’m assuming a hotel or motel somewhere. There are a hundred or so from Newark down to Edison. The only thing that gives me even the littlest bit of comfort is that Lucy Baker is at Wylie Wilson’s house. There’s another man there, too, some academic. And, let’s not forget the dogs. Dogs are a powerful deterrent to someone with evil intentions.”

“We’re powerless to do more than we’re doing, which is nothing,” Lawrence grumbled. “The switchboard here at the hotel is swamped. I’ve been trying for hours to get an outside line. There’s no way to check the hotels and motels. If we knew which hotel or motel he was staying at, we might be able to figure out how he could get to Baker’s house from there. We’re five to seven miles away. He could be less than a mile away. If he’s desperate, he might take a chance on foot. Tell me what you want me to do, Connors, and if I can do it, I will. If you’re right, I don’t want to see her harmed or killed. I’d like a notch in my belt by apprehending him. Hell, who wouldn’t?”

Sylvia Connors looked down at her Ferragamo shoes, then over at the other agents’ feet. Both wore tasseled loafers. Their clothing was winter clothing but not blizzard attire. There was nowhere they could pick up suitable outerwear, not at that point in time. Three raging cases of pneumonia coming up.

“The weather report said the snow was to stop around midmorning. I have an idea. Mason, I want you to go down to the desk, ask for the manager, tell him when the snowplow comes through, we want to be on it. See if you can make arrangements for the driver to drop us off at a spot where the Edison plows can pick us up. They have to pay attention to the request, we’re FBI. If necessary, we’ll commandeer the plow.”

Lawrence looked across at Sylvia, a new respect showing in his gaze. “Good idea. Guess that’s why they pay you the big bucks.”

Sylvia Connors snorted. Overworked and under-paid was more like it. “It’s the only thing I can think of. Just keep trying for outside lines and check the hotels and motels. Check the ones closest to where Baker lives. Better yet, go down to the manager’s office and, unless there is some kind of emergency, take over the phones. I don’t think they’ll give you any trouble. If they do, come and get me. Since it’s my turn at the shower, I’ll be doing that while you do what you have to do.”
God, I hope there’s some hot water,
Sylvia thought as she made her way to the bathroom.

Inside, after she locked the door, she sat down on the edge of the tub and dropped her head into her hands. She was worried witless about Lucy Baker. And, right then, there was nothing she could do about it. Not until the storm abated. She hoped that wouldn’t be too late.

She’d tried hard during the initial meetings with the lawyer to be cool and professional, almost to the point of not caring. It was a facade, though, because her stomach had churned, her heart had pounded, and her head throbbed. Because…once, light-years ago, she’d been in a similar situation.

During her senior year at Northwestern University, she’d worked at a bank part-time as a teller. Within a month of starting work, she’d met Daniel Westport, a suave, preppy young man going for his master’s. So, he’d said. Like everything else he’d told her, it was a lie. His name wasn’t even Daniel Westport, and he wasn’t a student. The truth was, he’d said a lot of things. Things she’d loved hearing. His only flaw as she saw it back then was his obsession with the banking profession. He’d ply her with wine until her tongue loosened, and she’d answer all his questions without a second thought.

Until the day the bank was robbed while she was working. The three robbers wore ski masks. Everything had been synchronized down to the last sync. They knew where all the security buttons were, knew the backgrounds of the employees, knew where the vault was. In short, they knew everything because she’d told him, albeit unwittingly, never suspecting a thing. What she’d never been able to put behind her was the senseless killing of the guard by the front door, an older man due to retire in less than six months.

Until the police showed up at her apartment and started asking questions, she’d been just like Lucy Baker, she didn’t know anything, didn’t suspect a thing, never knew her fiancé had a past, or that he’d changed his name. She’d been in love.

She left her job at the bank and started to waitress at a cocktail lounge. The tips were better, and she wasn’t home in the evenings. As hard as she tried, she couldn’t regain the old feeling she’d had with Daniel. He sensed it, and he also sensed her aversion to being touched by him. She did her best to break it off, even moved from her apartment to one with two other young women.

Daniel had started to stalk her. She bought a gun, enrolled in martial arts classes, but she was still fearful. The day she couldn’t take it anymore she went to the police and told them she suspected Daniel was the brains behind the robbery, but that she didn’t know if he was the one who killed the guard or not. She didn’t stint on what she considered her involvement either.

Two attempts on her life later, she’d cut and run, Daniel on her trail. One of the detectives, a fatherly man, had been watching over her, on his own time, unbeknownst to her until that fateful day. Five more minutes and she would have been dead, a victim of a random shooting. That fatherly detective with honed instincts had fired off a shot and killed Daniel. Now when she thought about it, she didn’t know who was more stunned, the detective or herself. She learned later that it was the first time the detective had ever fired his gun. He’d called her girlie when he put his arms around her. Even now, she remembered how he’d trembled and yet he’d tried to calm her down, turning her face away from the man he’d killed who had been intent on ending her life.

Five minutes.

Every year, from that day on, no matter where she was, no matter what she was involved in, she flew back home and took Detective Janson to dinner on December 17.

Not only did she owe her life to Detective Donald Janson, she owed her career to him as well. He was the one who persuaded her to apply to the FBI when she graduated from Northwestern third in her class. Every time there was an award ceremony, he was in the front row, cheering her on. As an orphan, it meant the world to her.

Right that instant, she’d give anything to have enough minutes on her cell phone to call him. She’d tried earlier to get through the switchboard, but was unsuccessful. She just wanted to talk over the case with him, to see if he had any insights she might have missed.

Donald Janson was the one who taught her to go by her gut instincts. That’s half of all investigative work. Screw the manual, screw procedure, go with your gut instinct. Later, you can worry about the manual and procedure.

It wasn’t that she ignored the manual and procedure. She stayed true, playing by the rules but always with a clear understanding that if her gut instinct reared up, that’s what she paid attention to.

It was in high gear now. She knew that Lucy Baker was
that
close to having her life snuffed out.

“Not if I can help it,” she muttered as she stepped under the shower. The water wasn’t hot, it wasn’t warm, but it wasn’t freezing cold either. She hoped she could work up a lather with the hotel shampoo.

The only thing that consoled Special Agent Sylvia Connors, even a little bit, as she stood under the shower was, if she couldn’t get to Lucy Baker, neither could Leo Banks. “Wherever you are, Leo Banks, I’m coming after you, so watch out,” she murmured to the cool spray beating on her body. “I’ll find you, too. You can count on it.”

•   •   •

Spiros Andreadis, aka Jonathan St. Clair, aka Leo Banks, prowled through Nellie Ebersole’s house searching for clothing. He’d slept for five hours and woke when it was dark. His body ached from head to toe. The medicine cabinet held a variety of headache tablets. He gulped three Advils and washed them down with ice-cold water. He didn’t feel one bit better. On top of his aches and pains, he had a thundering headache.

Hoping food would ease the pounding in his head, he rummaged till he found a pound cake in the freezer and a package of freeze-dried coffee. He devoured the whole cake, which he spread with strawberry jam that he found in a kitchen cabinet, and consumed the contents of the four-cup coffeepot. An apple pie was thawing on the kitchen counter. For later.