Vendetta (17 page)

He hadn’t known that she’d been buried here. He hadn’t even known if there was a funeral service, if people had come to pay their respects. Or if she had lain, alone, in the cold ground, with no one to mourn her.

Who had arranged for all of it?

He had grieved for days, weeks, and was still grieving. And he had felt so cast out that he hadn’t even thought to see if someone had made arrangements for her.

To the last, I put her third
, he chided himself.

“Someone sent her yellow roses,” Vincent said.
I didn’t send her any flowers at all.

“You found her? I’m sorry, Vincent. This must be difficult.” Cat discreetly cleared her throat. “Did you hear what I said about the inheritance?”

“Yes.” He sensed that she was asking him for information. He had none. “Tori never talked about her mother. She never went to see friends. She didn’t seem to have anyone else in her life.”

That had been the topic of his last real conversation with Tori. She had been lonely, and he had already admitted to himself that they weren’t good for each other. They brought out the beast in each other. Tori relished the sense of power her beast side gave her, which he could understand. Her father had been a domineering bully who had gone so far as to surgically implant a tracker in her arm. She had trouble controlling her beast side because she didn’t really want to control it. Vincent did. He identified with his human side.

The part of him that Catherine brought out in him.

He had been on the verge of breaking up with her, and she had risked her life for him and his friends. Risked it, and lost it.

“So there are yellow roses?”

He examined the bouquet. “Yes, and a card. It says, ‘For Torimacto.’”

“That’s him. That’s close to what he called a pennywhistle. We learned that from our homeless man last night.”

Vincent wasn’t quite following. But he trusted Catherine and if she had just confirmed that these flowers were from Angelo, then he was satisfied.

“Can you take a picture for me? And can you take the card?”

“Sure.”

“I have to go,” she said. “I’ll call you soon. And… Vincent? Thank you.”

“Of course.”

She disconnected. He did as she asked, plucking the card from among the roses, putting it to his nose then slipping it into his pocket. Diabetics secreted an odor that even normal humans could detect. The smell altered depending upon whether they had taken their insulin or not. There was no diabetes scent on the card. Ergo, Angelo had not touched it.

The flowers were wilting, the edges of the petals turning to brown. All things must pass, but Tori had been so young. As she lay dying, she had admitted that her love for Vincent was doomed. He was destined for Catherine, not her. She was glad that she had sacrificed herself so that he could live, and be happy, and be with Catherine.

And now here you are
, he thought. His guilt was overwhelming. Tori was one more example of the danger anyone who got close to him was in. She had paid the ultimate price for knowing Vincent Keller. But worse, she had paid that price with a broken heart. She had died knowing he didn’t love her.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered. And in that moment, he made a vow that he would find this Angelo. To save his own life, yes, but more importantly, to save the young man’s.

Even then, it was as if Vincent’s beast-self ripped free, like a shadow over Tori’s resting place, and protested. It wanted to go after Reynolds.

Not now
, he thought.

He leaned forward and pressed a hand on Tori’s name. Tess had joined him, and she said, “I’m sorry, Vincent.”

“She just didn’t have enough time to get used to her new life. Her world.” He lowered his arm. “We should move on. What’s next for your investigation?” “Well, you heard about the inheritance, right? We need to look more deeply into the McEvers-Windsor-DeMarco connection. So we need to take a look at Claudia McEvers’ apartment. We have an address.”

“I can do that.”

“That’d be great. Then Cat and I can go Turntable. It’s a club.”

“J.T. loves that place. He told me he took you there on a date.”

“Yeah.” She sounded shy, and it made him smile a little. Tess and J.T. were perfect for each other. It was obvious to everyone, including him.

“Okay, so I’ll give you her address,” Tess said. She hesitated. “As usual, we have a lot of stuff going on that we can’t disclose, but we want to find this kid. And we need to do as much of our investigation by the book as we can.”

“I’ll be careful, Tess,” he promised.

“We have to make Angelo our priority, but once we find him, we’ll throw everything we have into finding Reynolds.” She looked at him expectantly. She needed him to promise that he’d stick to their agenda.

“We’re good,” he said.

Except… none of this was good.

T
he snow had begun to fall in earnest, and the road conditions as the drifts piled up urged Gabe to drive slowly. Celeste was about to answer his question about Muirfield, and his heart was pounding in anticipation. She knew something. She hadn’t asked him what “Muirfield” was or told him that she didn’t know. She was thinking it over.

“My father had some documents about Muirfield,” Celeste said, “that I happened to read. I know it was a classified government experiment that resulted in the deaths of an entire unit of Special Forces soldiers from friendly fire. The government hushed it up and there have been all kinds of wild rumors ever since.”

Stunned, he realized that her account could be one interpretation of what had happened. Substitute “friendly fire” for “on orders from their superiors” and you had
exactly
what had happened.

“Were any of those rumors described in the document you happened to read?”

“I’m not ashamed that I pried,” she said defiantly. “He keeps so much from me. I should be more in the know. Ignorance leaves me utterly defenseless in situations like this. And it puts him at risk.”

“Well, sometimes people have an overprotective streak,” he said. “We want to look out for the people we love. It’s an instinct.”

“It’s demeaning.”

She sounds like Catherine
, he thought. It was, in his mind, a flattering comparison.

He changed the subject. “So what kind of experiment was it?”

“Soldiers were given a drug that was supposed to heighten their reaction times. The Special Forces troops were returning from a firefight and the other soldiers weren’t expecting them. They opened fire and gunned them down.”

Was it possible that Muirfield had lied to the secret society about the fate of Vincent’s platoon? Did Cavanaugh Ellison actually believe that story? Or did Celeste’s father plant misleading information for her to find to keep her out of this most dangerous loop?

Or was this a
different
failed experiment?

His mind boggled. He tried to figure out a logical path through the forest of lies. What if Cavanaugh had been deliberately kept in ignorance all these years? Was it possible that his delay in Miami was engineered so that he couldn’t attend the gala?

“Why did you ask me if I know about Muirfield?” she asked.

“Reynolds, the man who escaped from Rikers, has admitted that some aspects of the experiments—” Gabe decided to leave open the possibility of other experiments “—were not sanctioned by the Pentagon and that a number of government officials conducted them anyway. He was one of those people. He killed at least three men to keep the secret from getting out.”

Hitching a breath, she smoothed her hair away from her face. “Do you think that’s what’s going on? Reynolds broke out of Rikers to kill my father to keep him silent?”

“Why warn him by leaving the pin behind?” Gabe asked.

Her eyes widened. “By accident? Or to flush Dad out? To make him run? So he could go after him?”

“Reynolds couldn’t know that he would do that. It would make more sense to break out without telegraphing his plans. We can ask your father when we see him.”

Gabe wondered if Ellison himself had orchestrated this entire escapade, possibly out of revenge for Gabe’s busts at the gala. Leave the pin knowing that sooner or later the DA’s office would examine the evidence… and that Gabe would figure out how to trace him?

What if I didn’t? Would he have a plan B? Would he risk his daughter in a scheme like that? What if she’s in on it? What if she’s steering me right into a trap?

He had quietly placed his Beretta under his seat. He was glad of that now. He couldn’t connect the dots and that made him anxious. His entire life had been a strange journey made in deepest secrecy and punctuated by instances when all was revealed. He was the king of spin, a skill that had helped him survive and made him an excellent ADA, not because he spun the truth during criminal cases but because he could anticipate how the attorneys for the accused would attempt to spin their defenses.

“I just wish he would answer his phone.”

“Me, too,” Gabe said. As far as they could ascertain, Ellison hadn’t moved since they had called, going on over six hours ago. Gabe was concerned. It could mean he was hunkered down, safe and sound.

Or that he was dead.

After a few minutes, she said, “It seems off that we haven’t reached Preston yet. Can your driving directions be wrong?” Before he could protest she picked up his phone, which had been resting in one of the car’s cup holders, and stared at the little map in the window. “Your bars are low. It’s probably the snow.”

She put it back, and when they stopped to get something to eat and stretch their legs, Gabe checked the Internet for dings on Reynolds’ APB and possible leads in Ellison’s disappearance. He couldn’t connect; the signal was too weak.

Gabe put his phone in his pocket as Celeste sighed and hung up her phone again. As they sat facing each other in the booth of a diner that had once been a railroad car, the flicker from a pear-shaped glass candleholder caught the gems in her earrings and necklace and sent scintillating sparks over the walls. They ordered hamburgers and beers and a basket of fries, and as the other diners watched the news, they moved from talking about their mission to inconsequential topics such as the snow and the stories unfolding on TV.

A man from Con Edison, the energy company, named David Whiteside was being interviewed about the blackout. Gabe couldn’t hear what he was saying, but he took note of the name. He wanted to find out who had engineered the blackout, and why. Whoever extracted Reynolds had known it was going to happen. Had someone made it happen specifically for them? He tried to look up Whiteside using his cell but he still had too few bars.

Then he and Celeste opened up a little bit about themselves and their childhoods. Cavanaugh Ellison had made no secret of the fact that he had wanted a son. Old-fashioned in the extreme, he had tried to force Celeste to take ballet and horseback riding lessons. She had rebelled and become a martial artist.

“I actually thought about doing cage fighting,” she said, and they both laughed.

“My adoptive parents were equally indulgent,” he said. It wasn’t true, but he wished it were.
I spent half my childhood beasting out, and the other half hiding who I was from the rest of the world.

“
Indulgent
,” she protested. “But I just said—”

“That you have four black belts.” He raised a brow. “He might have preferred that you take dance lessons, but he didn’t prevent you from doing what you wanted.”

“Only because he
couldn’t
,” she said with a flash of fire in her eyes, and then she laughed a little. “I’ve never thought of it that way. But you’re right.”

She leaned across the table and brushed her lips with his. Neither one of them closed their eyes and she kissed him again. As she tilted her head, he felt himself stir.

Be careful, Gabriel
, he ordered himself. But Celeste was so beautiful and, truth be told, the prospect of a little danger and mystery was exciting. He wasn’t married, or even spoken for. Did it make sense to carry a torch for a woman who actively hated him?

He returned Celeste’s kiss. Her lips were smooth and promising, like fine wine. Her fingers slid across the table and entwined with his.

“This feels good,” Celeste breathed. “I’m attracted to strength, Gabe. But so few people are really strong.” She gave his hand a waggle. “It’s not just muscles. It’s attitude.”

“You were playing quite the shrinking violet back at your house.”

Catlike, she moved her shoulders. The long hours in the car had also taken a toll on him and he stretched a little.

“I do that so they’ll underestimate me. I’ve lived a sort of double existence for as long as I can remember. Surely you know what that’s like.”

That threw him. Did she know about beasts? He almost sat back as if to put up a protective barrier, but he stopped himself in time.

“Meaning…?” he asked silkily.

“Handsome, by-the-book ADA by day, vigilante by night.”

Vigilante
. Surely she had plucked that word out of thin air. She wasn’t trying to send him a message about Vincent or Gabe’s place in his world.

Was she?

“You look… uneasy,” she ventured.

He thought fast. “Apparently I’m only handsome when I’m an ADA.”

“Oh, now you’re fishing for compliments. You already know you’re extremely handsome, Gabe.” She struck a pose. “Do you see yourself as the arm candy of a rich young socialite?”

“No. The companion, perhaps. I think I should mention that I have means. I grew up in a wealthy family and my parents have both passed on. I’m certainly not in your league financially, but I’m quite comfortable.”

She dropped the pose. “That’s wonderful to know.”

He thought of all the pictures that had accompanied the articles about her father. In none of them had Celeste been pictured with anybody her own age. She must be lonely.

He was, too.

They got back on the road and it was dark by the time they reached Preston, a little village near the Canadian border that signaled the end of diners, gas stations, fish bait, and paved roads. Celeste made him go slowly so she could get out of the car and look for landmarks. Snow flurries obscured her vision and even more time elapsed as they worked their way to the lake house.