Paradox

by Catherine Coulter

  But he couldn’t forget Agent Porto. He hadn’t wanted to kill him. Let him wake up and find Octavia Ryan gone. What could he do? He didn’t know who Victor was, hadn’t seen his face. Victor had wanted to leave him in that cottage, but Lissy reminded him he couldn’t. Porto could wake up, and he knew too much. She kept at him, telling him over and over Savich would figure out it was him. It was her idea to leave him in that closet. Let the big guy suffer. Let him realize he’s going to die and there’s nothing he can do about it. She’d taken the agent’s gun from Victor once already, used it to try to kill Savich and Sherlock in Peterborough. When was that? Tuesday? Yesterday? Victor shook his head. He felt a moment of disorientation and panic. He stopped cold, squeezed his head between his hands. Where was he going? What was he doing? He felt a sharp slice of bitter pain, then everything righted. Had Lissy voodooed him? Now, there was a thought. If she could, he wouldn’t put it past her, to punish him for leaving her in the car, keeping her from having her fun.

  Victor waited a few more minutes. Everything seemed quiet. He hadn’t heard or seen anyone. Lissy was snuggled back in the car, waiting for him, maybe asleep. He left the road and walked slowly and carefully across the spongy forest floor, grateful for the thick tree branches overhead. He stopped when he reached the back of the Smiley house. He’d thought he’d be pleased to see the place where he’d spent the happiest months of his life, but what he saw was dilapidated wood that needed painting, a trash-strewn yard, and a moldy tire hanging from the lower branch of an ancient oak tree. He remembered pushing Lissy in that tire, remembered her screaming at the top of her lungs, and her mother yelling at them, “Stop that hootin’ and hollerin’!” He remembered he and Lissy had stopped, and they’d wandered into the forest, only holding hands until they were sure her mom couldn’t see them, then made love in the cool shade of an oak tree, its branches canopied overhead, the air warm on their young bodies, a perfect afternoon. He sighed and kept his eyes open for any sign something wasn’t right. He looked into the kitchen window, saw no one there. The house was empty.

  Then Victor saw something, a movement, a shadow.

  He held perfectly still, barely breathing, something he’d learned in that hospital so the crazies, the bullies, the predators wouldn’t notice him. After a while they hadn’t, for the most part. He’d become an expert at stillness. He’d also learned not to speak to Lissy when any of them came around, only fade slowly into a wall.

  He saw movement again in the kitchen window, then a man, a big man dressed in a white shirt with his sleeves rolled up, doing something at the sink.

  Victor knew the man was an FBI agent. He also had no doubt Savich had sent this agent, probably two or three of them, to wait here for him to show up. How had Savich known Victor would drive on to the Smiley house, after the debacle in Winslow? Did he also guess he would come back for the money? He cursed himself for the big mistake he’d made with that waitress, that cute little Cindy, who turned out not to be a wimp but a ballbuster, literally. She’d given them away. Winslow was too close to her, too close to Fort Pessel. Yeah, he’d screwed up, wanting to make Lissy jealous so she’d appreciate him more, not rag on him so much, and look what had happened. If Lissy had killed her, that would have been okay. No one would have known it was them, but Cindy escaped. They’d taken off like bats out of hell, his heart yammering in his chest for a good fifty miles. As for Lissy, she’d bowed over with that kick to her belly. She’d cried at the pain and raged at her failure, blaming him, of course, because she was the one who’d had to shoot at Cindy and she’d hurt too badly to aim properly, and the girl had gotten away. He’d do things differently if he could, and wasn’t that always the problem with the past? You looked at it over your shoulder and knew you couldn’t change it.

  How many agents were here? He kept his eyes on the man in the kitchen. He saw him turn and speak to someone else. So there were at least two agents? Did the local police chief have deputies doing drive-bys?

  What to do?

  Victor waited until it was dark, past nine o’clock, when the crickets were loud and steady. It was cooler, finally. No lights went on in the house, but Victor saw flickers, knew the agents were awake, watching, waiting.

  It was time to get Lissy’s pain pills, then he’d decide what they’d do next. If she continued to refuse to tell him where the money was hidden, screw it, he’d drive away. He wouldn’t take her to kill Buzz Riley.

  She said first thing when he opened the car door, You’ve been gone forever, Victor. Hours and hours. You’ve been watching the house, haven’t you? They’re here, aren’t they? The Feds are here, waiting for us?

  “Yes, they’re here. Don’t worry about it, not yet. Now it’s finally dark and the pharmacy is closed. Remember, Lissy, you stay in the car when we get there. I’ll get the pills.”

  But if Old Lady Kougar comes in like she did last time, you’ll need me.

  “No, I won’t, not this time. Stay in the car.” Okay, he’d give it one last try. “It’s time to fish or cut bait. If you tell me where the money’s hidden, not only will I let you kill Buzz Riley, I’ll buy you your little red Fiat.”

  All right, I’ll think about it. Maybe I do know, but don’t screw up this time, Victor. I really want that red Fiat.

  68

  * * *

  CHIEF TY CHRISTIE'S OFFICE

  WILLICOTT, MARYLAND

  THURSDAY

  Sala was leaning back, his head pillowed in his arms, his feet propped up on Ty’s desk. “All right, let’s pull out the puzzle pieces we found today and see if we can fit them together. We’re getting there, Ty. I can feel it.”

  Ty took a sip of her coffee, set the cup down precisely in the middle of her desk, eyed Sala’s big feet, and smiled. She ticked off on her fingers. “We checked out the people who moved to Haggersville within a year of Mr. Henry’s murder. There were seven families we spoke to but found nothing to tie them to LaRoque. Three of the families had accounts at Mr. Henry’s bank, but by then he’d already put Calhoun in charge. None of them had even met him before he was killed. They’d heard about his murder, of course, but there was no reaction at all among any of them that rang false.”

  Sala said, “Those are the negatives, Ty. Let’s put it out there: we already know about one person who moved to Haggersville not much longer than a year before his murder—Susan Sparrow. I know you think she’s in the mix for it, because”—he counted off on his fingers now—“we saw her on the videotape with a whole lot of other people at the post office the morning Leigh was hit on the head. She didn’t lie about being there, because we didn’t ask her, but why didn’t she mention it? Leigh thinks she heard high heels before she was struck down, so it was probably a woman. And Susan Sparrow was one of the people who dealt with his supposed cremation.”

  “But we have no motive,” Ty said.

  “Patience, Chief. You know I asked Dillon to set magic MAX into running a deep background search on Susan after we spoke with her. He left Ollie Hamish, his second in command, on the task before he and Sherlock left for Fort Pessel. Savich thinks Victor went back there.” At the mention of Victor’s name, Ty saw him stiffen up. She stood and walked over to him, lightly rubbed his shoulders. Odd, but he relaxed almost immediately.

  “So we wait to hear from Ollie?”

  He nodded.

  She sat back down behind her desk. “Okay, let’s say it was Susan who followed Leigh and hit her on the head. Where does that get us? We have Susan and the belt buckle in the lake. What’s the connection?” She began tapping her fingertips on her desktop. “Why hasn’t Ollie called?”

  He started to tell her to be patient again, when his cell rang. “Speak of the devil, it’s Ollie.”

  He put his cell on speaker. “Glad to hear from you, Ollie. We’ve been going round and round here. Tell me you’ve found something.”

  “Yeah, I’ve got two things for you, actually, one of which will blow you away. We texted pictures of the belt buckle to
our liaison at the Israeli embassy. He forwarded them to a friend who’s worked for years at the Holocaust Museum. The friend remembered it, knew the artisan’s brother quite well. He recalls the brother crafted it for an Israeli colonel, and he was surprised it ended up in the States. He’s contacting the family for us, trying to find out how it could have gotten here. I might have more for you on that tomorrow.

  “Now for the blockbuster: MAX’s background check on Susan Sparrow. On the surface, everything seemed normal, a woman born Susan Ann Hadden in Nashville, Tennessee, thirty years ago. An only child, middle-class parents, nothing until her parents were killed in a small-airplane accident when she was fifteen years old and she was adopted by the mother’s sister and her husband. Both her aunt and uncle died when she was seventeen, left her enough money to attend college at Purdue, where she majored in business, made good grades. She had a solid employment history, worked in Saks management in Chicago, then moved to Haggersville, met and married Landry Sparrow. She’s been active around town, raising money for the hospital, and is apparently well liked.” He paused and said, “MAX went deeper and found that Susan Hadden Sparrow never existed. She’s a legend, a fiction created some twelve years ago. There’s no record of her parents, no record of an aunt or an uncle, no record of an adoption. We don’t know who and what she was before she became Susan Hadden. She was savvy enough to hire someone to fill in the details of her life well enough to make it all seem real.”

  Ty pumped her fist in the air. “You didn’t hit gold, Ollie, you hit platinum. Oh yes, I’m Ty Christie, police chief in Willicott. So, who is she? Who is Susan Sparrow?”

  “We have no idea.”

  Ty said, “That snazzy FBI facial recognition program, could you run Susan through it? We might get lucky.”

  “Already did. Sorry, guys, nothing there. If she did do something criminal when she was a teenager and was arrested, her photo should have been in the database, unless it was sealed by the court. I couldn’t find her. But you do have enough to take her in for questioning. I’ll follow up with you tomorrow about the belt buckle.”

  When he’d clicked off, Sala said, “The only reason for her to re-create herself is if she had something to hide, something that could ruin her life, maybe someone else’s life. Maybe something criminal. Or was she running from someone who scared her so badly she had to disappear her old life completely? Or what? Get sent to jail?”

  Ty sighed. “Why did she move to Haggersville? And what did it have to do with Mr. Henry? And she attacked Leigh Saks because she was afraid of what Leigh would tell the hotline about the belt buckle? It belonged to an Israeli colonel. How did the colonel’s belt buckle get to Mr. Henry? It’s all about the dratted belt buckle, Sala. It’s at the core of all of this. If we find out why, we’ve got our motive.”

  Sala said, “But that’s the point. We still have no motive and no proof. If we confront her with what we know, she could run.”

  “As of this afternoon, she was keeping all her appointments, working at the crematorium, business as usual. It wouldn’t be easy, packing your suitcase while your husband is standing at your elbow, wondering what’s going on.”

  “We need something more to hold her on,” Sala said.

  Ty thought there was something more she did know, something important, but she couldn’t quite grasp it. She had to settle, maybe get some sleep.

  69

  * * *

  Ty was sitting on the top stair of the massive staircase at Gatewood mansion. She heard voices from downstairs, from the living room, a shout of laughter. She wanted to walk downstairs and join them, wanted to get closer because they were enjoying themselves so much. But she couldn’t move. She tried again, heaving with the effort, but it was like some great force was holding her in place. She felt something that made her afraid, saw something dark casting shadows on the high ceilings downstairs in the entrance hall, darkening its corners. She didn’t know what it was, but she knew it was evil. And it was coming closer, to her and to the happy voices talking and laughing. She wanted to warn the voices, but she still couldn’t move. She tried to shout to them to run, but nothing came out of her mouth. She covered her eyes with her fists, wishing she could will herself away from there because now she was so afraid, she was scared to even breathe. She felt movement beside her and would have screamed if she could. She opened her eyes and saw a pretty young girl standing over her on the staircase. She wasn’t looking at Ty but down the stairs, and she seemed focused on the laughing voices, just as Ty had been. Ty said, “I wanted to go down and laugh with them, but now I know there’s something evil down there. It won’t let me move. Will it let you move? Can you warn them?”

  “I can move, but it doesn’t matter, not now. You’re right, he’s here. They’ll all be dead soon.” She paused, cocked her head. Ty felt the evil coming toward them.

  “No!”

  “Ty, wake up!”

  Now the pretty young girl was huddled down above her, her back pressed against the staircase wall. Then she ran, up the stairs to the third floor.

  “Ty, come on, wake up!” He shook her shoulders, and she moaned, convulsing with fear, trying to pull away.

  “He’s coming, he’s coming! But I can’t see his face! Why can’t I see him?”

  Sala shook her once again, harder this time. Ty snapped awake, her vision blurred, her brain churning. Slowly, the pretty girl faded away, the terrifying blackness faded away. The laughter and voices were last, but then they too disappeared, leaving only Gatewood, standing gray and tall and empty on Point Gulliver, in a soundless world. Ty sucked in air. She stared up at Sala, his face dim in the night. She recognized his scent, his voice, and quieted. She whispered, “He killed them, Sala, and there was nothing I could do, nothing she could do.”

  She was icy to the touch, and Sala imagined her pupils were dilated from the shock of it, the fear. He grabbed up the single blanket and wrapped it around her, then pulled her against him, rubbed his hands up and down her back. “You’re all right, you’re okay. You had a doozy of a nightmare, sounded as dramatic and scary as any of mine. That’s right, Ty, take slow, deep breaths. I’ve got you.”

  She whispered against his neck, “Sala?”

  “I’m here.”

  Slowly Ty pulled back. She was still breathing hard, almost panting, remembering the awful fear, the helplessness.

  “Who killed them, Ty? Who were they?”

  Finally, she began to calm. She said, “I was at Gatewood, Sala, sitting on the landing stairs, and they were downstairs laughing and talking. I wanted to go down and be with them, but I couldn’t move, and I knew something was holding me there. I couldn’t escape it. Then a blackness came, and it spread all over the house. And she was there, and she knew as well as I did it was coming. Then she ran away to hide.”

  As she spoke, the girl’s words were beginning to blur and fade away. Ty leaned against him, finally felt her breathing even. Sala said nothing more.

  She said against his shoulder, “Sala, before I went to sleep, I was thinking about Gatewood, and I could see the outline of the belt buckle in the water off the end of the dock. And the bones, stretching out, almost to infinity. Then I dreamed I was there, Sala, and the girl at Gatewood was there, too—I know who she was.” And Ty told him the story every citizen of Willicott knew, a terrifying story still told to keep the kids away from Gatewood. “She was only fifteen when a madman murdered her father, her mother, her brother, stabbed them and threw their bodies off the Gatewood dock into Lake Massey. They couldn’t find her body, though, and some people came to believe she’d murdered them and run away after stealing the money her father kept in his safe.”

  Sala said, “But she survived.”

  She settled against him again, nodded against his neck. “Tomorrow morning, before we go back to Haggersville, I want to make a stop at Charlie Corsica’s house. I think we’ve found her.”

  70

  * * *

  KOUGAR'S PHARMACY

>   FORT PESSEL, VIRGINIA

  THURSDAY NIGHT

  Victor drove with his lights off into the narrow alley beside Kougar’s Pharmacy, pulled up close to a dumpster he knew was always there, and turned off the engine. It was dark as a pit. One thing you could count on in Fort Pessel—when the sun went, most everything closed down. Even the single movie theater only opened its doors on Friday nights. Of course, the bars outside Fort Pessel were always alive with lights and music. Here in town, near midnight, there were only the streetlights on low wattage, hardly even a car.

  He sat quietly for a few minutes, feeling the pervasive heat build inside the car with the AC off. He thought about what he would do now, with the FBI agents at the Smiley house. He had a feeling the bank robbery money could be somewhere near the old, long-unused well, about thirty feet south of the house. But he couldn’t be sure, and he couldn’t think of anyplace else to look. If only Lissy would simply tell him. It pissed him off she didn’t trust him enough, and look what he was doing for her. Stealing more drugs so she would feel better, and yes, finally stop complaining about the staples digging into her belly.

  He’d been extra careful this time, even driven by Mrs. Kougar’s house on Nob Tree Hill to make sure she was home. Her lights were on, and her lame-butt ancient light blue Impala was in the driveway. Still, he’d waited until he’d seen her shadow moving around upstairs.

  He was all set. Break in, fill a Ziploc bag with pills, drive out of the alley, a clean getaway. No worries about an alarm. Before he got out of the car, he said again, “Stay here and out of sight, Lissy. There’s no need for you to come in.” He prayed she’d listen. He didn’t want to have to deal with her craziness tonight, her endless criticism, her trying to give him orders.