Double Take

by Catherine Coulter

  Dix could see Christie arguing with Pallack, begging him, then finally, trying to escape him. Only she hadn’t made it. He’d killed her—and he believed it wasn’t his fault.

  Charlotte said aloud what he’d been thinking. “You talk about none of it being your fault, Thomas, yet even now my brother is missing.”

  Pallack said, “I don’t know where David is, I’ve already told you that.”

  “But why would he run, just because the FBI asked him some questions?”

  Makepeace looked from one to the other, and said, a smile on his face and malice toward Pallack in his eyes, “I guess your husband didn’t tell you he asked me to have David killed? Yep, I made the calls.” He snapped his fingers. “And no David.”

  “You bastard!”

  “Go ahead, Pallack, tell her. You might as well.”

  And Pallack yelled at Charlotte, “Let me tell you about that sleazy brother of yours! He knew I’d killed Christie, the bastard had followed me, he confronted me. And then he laughed at me, did you know that? He laughed, then he told me he had a sister who looked just like Christie, who could easily fill Christie’s shoes. He said you had no ties to anyone, and all you wanted from the world was money. Your precious brother and I struck a deal—I paid that mealy-mouthed bastard what he called a finder’s fee. I knew he called you—told you how Christie wore her hair, what color it was, how she walked. I knew you were setting me up, and I wasn’t sure, but when I saw you, I was happy. I felt blessed. Imagine, there were two of you in the world.”

  There was silence, thick and angry. Dix saw Charlotte move closer to Pallack. She was still wearing only that nightshirt, and no one seemed to notice or care. She said right in his face, “You’re lying. Sure, he told me about you, how you coveted me, that you’d give me everything I ever wanted. You know I loved David. You vicious old man—how could you tell Makepeace to have him killed?”

  Makepeace said, “Well, now, you asked, didn’t you? I’m sure all of this was quite cathartic for both of you. But frankly I’m bored. You have exhausted me. It’s getting late, time to take our boy away and make sure he’s underground. As for Julia Ransom, I’ve decided I don’t like our deal anymore, Pallack. I think I’ll plan something special for her, maybe that Semtex, after all, that’d do the trick very nicely.”

  Dix pictured the Sherlock house blowing up—Ruth, Sean, all of them asleep, not expecting any trouble, all helpless. He heard Makepeace walking toward him.

  There was only him, no one else. He readied himself. Makepeace bent over him, grabbed his chin, jerked his face up. “Still woozy, are you? What’s wrong, pretty boy? I didn’t hit you all that hard.”

  Dix gave his arms a final jerk, ignored the flash of pain through his injured arm as the ropes cut their way over his wrists and jerked loose. He jumped to his feet, leaned onto his back leg, and slammed Makepeace in the kidney with the side of his foot.

  CHAPTER 60

  Makepeace made no sound as he stumbled back. An instant later, he whirled and kicked out smoothly. Dix turned fast and Makepeace’s foot struck his hip, not his groin. Dix felt a slap of sharp pain, feinted left, whirled on the balls of his feet, and sent his right foot high into Makepeace’s chest.

  Again, Makepeace made no sound. He landed on his back, rolled once, and came up, panting, his gun in his right hand. It was a .38 and he pointed it at Dix’s heart. “Enough of that, Sheriff. ” He rubbed the heel of his hand over his chest. “You move a whisker and I’ll shoot you right here. It wouldn’t be my problem, you see, just Pallack’s.”

  A shot sounded, deafening in the small space.

  Makepeace flinched. He slowly turned his head to stare at Pallack, his expression bewildered. A dribble of blood snaked out of his mouth. Slowly, the .38 slipped out of his hand and fell on the carpet. He tried to turn, but couldn’t. He crumpled to his knees, then slowly he fell backward, his head striking the edge of Pallack’s desk.

  Pallack pointed the gun at Dix.

  Charlotte said, staring down at Makepeace, “Why didn’t you let him kill the sheriff?”

  Pallack’s face was flushed, his eyes brilliant with excitement. “I figured Makepeace was the most dangerous. No, Sheriff, keep back, don’t try any of your fancy kicks or I’ll shoot you right now. I’ve got to think—okay, the way it’ll go down is that Makepeace tried to kill you and you shot him first.”

  “It’s all over, Pallack,” Dix said, not moving a hair. “You kill an assassin and the law won’t put the needle in your arm. Kill me and you’ll go down hard. They’re getting closer, you don’t have much time. Can’t you hear them coming?”

  Pallack froze at the sound of sirens in the distance.

  Rage pumped through Dix as he stared at the mad old man. “You killed my wife, killed her because she wouldn’t leave me or her boys. Do you know how insane that is?” Dix lurched to the side, and drove his foot toward Pallack’s right arm, but Pallack jumped back and fired. The bullet went wide, and slammed into the dark wood wainscoting.

  Pallack made a strangled noise, and ran out of the study.

  Dix grabbed his Beretta from the desktop and ran after him.

  Pallack fired again. Dix felt a bullet fly past his head and slam into the wall, and he hit the floor. He heard Pallack run all out, pause a moment to jerk open the front door, then he was through it. He jumped to his feet, saw Charlotte, white-faced, hugging herself, and left her standing next to her husband’s desk, Makepeace’s body close to her foot.

  The sirens were close now.

  Dix ran out the Pallack front door to see a metal door slam shut at the end of the short hallway. He jerked open the heavy door and ran up the dozen concrete steps to a small square landing. He shoved open the steel-reinforced roof door, fell back when a bullet caromed off it.

  Dix yelled around the door, “Pallack, the cops will shoot you for sure if you go down those fire stairs. Give it up, it’s over now. You can still come out of this alive.”

  He heard Pallack breathing hard, and wondered if he was going to have a coronary. He eased out from behind the door onto the roof, six stories up. Pallack was standing at the edge, looking down, his knees pressed to the roof guard, his gun dangling loose in his right hand.

  Dix heard voices from the street, recognized Savich and Ruth.

  “Give it up, Pallack,” he said again. He raised his gun and began walking toward Pallack.

  Pallack slowly turned to face him. He didn’t look at all worried. He still held his gun at his side. He smiled. “You had a beautiful wife, Sheriff, but in the end, she wouldn’t have me.” He laughed. “She told me about you, about her sons, on and on trying to convince me to let her go, until—I’ve got to admit it—I lost it.” He shrugged. “She was blind to what I could give her.”

  Dix’s finger was trembling on the Beretta trigger. It would be so easy, he knew, the slightest squeeze, the small buck of recoil, and it would be over.

  “You insane old man—you killed my wife because she looked like your damned mother. She was just a face, nothing more to you.”

  “I told you, it was an accident.”

  Dix knew he didn’t have much time before cops poured out the roof door. If he was going to kill Pallack, he would have to do it now. He leveled his Beretta at Pallack’s chest. “Do you know how long I’ve been trying to find her? Can you even begin to imagine how much I hate you?”

  “So? A sheriff is going to shoot me in cold blood?”

  “If I shoot you, Pallack, it will be an execution.” His finger tightened on the trigger. In that moment Dix felt something warm and soothing touch him. He knew it was something outside himself, but it didn’t matter, it gave him balance and understanding, and it gave him hope. His breath slowed. He lowered his Beretta. “No, I don’t want your blood on my hands. Drop the gun, Pallack, now, or I’ll have to shoot you.”

  Pallack laughed. “I knew you wouldn’t shoot me, Sheriff.”

  “The sheriff won’t need to, Thomas.”

  D
ix whirled around to see Charlotte standing just inside the roof door behind him, her nightshirt blowing around her legs. In her hand she held Dix’s two-shot derringer. “There are two bullets in my gun, Thomas.”

  “Shoot him, Charlotte! It’ll be self-defense. He’s insane with grief, came here because he believed I killed his wife—”

  “Shut up, Thomas. But you can put your gun down, Sheriff, won’t you? As I said, my little gun has two bullets. They’re for you, Thomas.”

  “No, Charlotte, don’t—”

  She spoke right over him—“You vile old man, you had David killed. You had my brother killed.”

  “I had no choice, do you hear me? He called me, hysterical, yelling that the FBI had come to see him, asking him all their questions about Christie, and he wanted money or he’d tell them everything. I had no choice, dammit, it wasn’t my fault. I couldn’t let him live.”

  Charlotte pulled the trigger.

  Pallack’s gun went flying as he grabbed his shoulder and staggered back. For several seconds, Dix thought he was going over the roof guard, but Pallack managed to jerk sideways and fall to his knees. Dix saw blood flowing through his fingers from the shoulder wound.

  Pallack raised pain-glazed eyes to his wife. “You bitch! You’re nothing without me, nothing!”

  She fired again, but she missed.

  Dix heard Charlotte crying as he leaped at Pallack. He slammed his fist into his jaw, felt it break. Dix hit him again, knocking him down on his back, and straddled him, grabbing his shirt collar. He brought his head up and slammed it down on the rough stone roof. “You murdered my wife! What kind of insane monster are you?”

  He hit him again even though Pallack was nearly unconscious, and moaning, and then Dix lowered his own head, and started to cry.

  He felt a hand on his shoulder. “He’s unconscious, Dix. You can stop now.”

  A woman’s voice. He turned to look up into Ruth’s face. “He killed Christie.”

  “Yes, I know.”

  Dix looked over to see Sherlock cuffing Charlotte Pallack’s hands behind her.

  The roof filled with people. He heard Savich’s voice, heard Cheney speaking to Frank Paulette on his cell. And Julia was there, telling a uniformed police officer that Xavier Makepeace was dead, in the study, and that he was the one who’d been trying to kill her.

  Dix said to Savich, “Pallack had David Caldicott killed. Charlotte didn’t know about that.” He hated to say it because he knew she was an accomplice to everything else Pallack had done, but he added, “Fact is, Charlotte shot Pallack.”

  Charlotte said calmly, “By shooting him I saved your life, Dix. If we can make a deal, I’ll tell you all about what Thomas has done. I’ll tell you where Christie Noble is buried.”

  “You don’t know,” Dix said slowly.

  “Oh yes, I do. My brother told me. David said he followed Thomas several times to her grave. David said Thomas spent hours there, sitting on the ground beside her, ranting and raving at her.” She smiled. “I’ll even testify against him.”

  Ruth said, “You’re a regular Mother Teresa, aren’t you, Charlotte? ” She held out her hand to Dix and pulled him to his feet. “Come on, Dix, it’s over.”

  EPILOGUE

  SAN FRANCISCO

  Cheney and Julia stood side by side on the Marin Headlands looking down at the Golden Gate Bridge, watching thick gray threads of fog weave through the suspension cables. They both had on their leather jackets and gloves. A sharp wind was whipping Julia’s hair around her face.

  “I’d like for you to stay in San Francisco, Julia,” Cheney said. “With me. I’ll bet we can find a nice house that’ll suit us.”

  She cocked her head to one side, tapped her fingertips to her chin. “Say, is that a proposal?”

  He looked surprised. “You know, I hadn’t started out with that particular objective, but I guess that’s how my brain wanted it to come out of my mouth. Goes to prove I should trust my brain. I’m crazy about you. What do you say, Julia? Will you marry me?”

  He saw a leap of excitement in her eyes, felt his smile ready to split his face, but what she said was, “That’s a huge thing you’re saying, Cheney. You’ve never been married before. I have, two times, and neither had a good result. We haven’t had what you’d call a normal dating relationship, let alone a single date, other than that one wild time in the Sherlocks’ gym—well, I’m thinking maybe we should take our time, let things settle down some more—”

  He laid his hands on her shoulders. “Look at me, Julia. Yes, look at me. You can see what I’m feeling for you right on my face. When something’s right, it’s right. I know it is. Do you?”

  She chewed on her bottom lip a moment, looking away from him. Just when his anxiety level was nearly in the stratosphere, she looked up at him and gave him a big smile. “Yes, oh boy, yes, I’ll marry you. You can forget what I said, that was just depressing maturity and common sense leaking out of my mouth.”

  “Is that a note of sarcasm?”

  “Maybe. Now, Cheney, are you willing to accept my psychic friends without rolling your eyes? Can you restrain yourself?”

  “Even with Bevlin?”

  “Especially with Bevlin. He’s still becoming who he’s supposed to be, trying to fine-tune his gift.”

  Cheney rolled his eyes, then saw the smile she was trying to hide.

  “I saw that,” he said.

  “I can’t help it.”

  The wind kicked up and Julia hugged him closer. She said between kissing his neck and jaw, “You’ll admit, won’t you, that at least Kathryn acts pretty normal, some of the time.”

  “Okay, maybe.”

  “That’s because she thinks you’re hot, and doesn’t want to scare you off. Or maybe it’s Savich she thinks is hot, hard to tell. But me, I’d take you any day.”

  He cupped her face in his hands and kissed her. “I’d take you any day too. I could offer her Savich, but I think he’d hurt me.”

  She kissed his ear.

  Cheney said, “I called my folks, you know, told them about you.”

  “Oh dear, I hadn’t thought of your family yet. You got a big one?”

  “Oh yeah, three brothers, two sisters, a dozen nieces and nephews and my parents, of course, and none of them are very good at minding their own business. But my family will adore you, Julia, fold you right into the mix, whether you want that or not, and begin meddling immediately—career decisions, vacations, where we’ll spend Christmas, where our children should go to school—won’t ever stop, even if we move to Alaska. Once you’re married to me, your privacy is over. Can you live with that?”

  “That sounds wonderful. They don’t know much about me, do they?”

  “No, but when they find out, they’ll cheer you for being such a heroine.”

  Julia saw a couple of tourists in jeans and short-sleeved T-shirts, trying to brave the cold wind, shivering violently. She should tell them the sun would come out, maybe, but instead, she threw back her head and broke into “Tomorrow.” Several more shivering tourists standing some twenty feet away turned and listened. When she finished, they applauded. She gave them a small bow and waved.

  She said, “The district attorney called me today. Are you ready for this, Cheney? Fact is, he apologized. He’s got a truckload of proof against Thomas Pallack, and with Charlotte more than eager to testify against him, I know he meant it.”

  No matter how many apologies the D.A. gave Julia, Cheney would still like to smack him in the chops.

  “I’m big with the paparazzi again, for a short while anyway. They photographed me at my house speaking to one of the insurance people.”

  “So long as they don’t trail you to my condo, we’re safe.”

  She sighed and snuggled in close. The wind died down as the fog thickened, the tops of the bridge towers nearly covered now. She was sorry, but there was no chance of sun today. They both shivered at the sight of two lone sailboats on a broad reach, heeling sharply.

>   “There’s no more beautiful place on earth,” she said, “even if you freeze half the summer.”

  He smiled, felt happy enough to burst with it. Not all that long ago he’d gotten himself a date on a Thursday night for the Crab House on Pier 39. He hadn’t gotten his cioppino, he’d gotten Julia.

  Fate was something he marveled at, but accepted. As for the local woo-woo wizards, he imagined it would always be hard not to roll his eyes. He pictured Bevlin Wagner in his slipping towel and grinned.

  He said, “Let’s go brew some coffee and talk about that new house we’re going to find.”

  MAESTRO, VIRGINIA

  It was easy to dig Christie’s grave. Bobby Ray Parker and Lynn Thomas hadn’t used equipment, no need. In the early morning hours beneath a soft steady rain that had begun the previous evening, they’d shoveled deep and deeper still and the earth was still damp and yielding. They spoke of Christie Noble, her kindness, how she’d yelled her head off at her boys’ games, and how sometimes life was just too bitter to bear, and it wasn’t fair, now was it? But at least she’d finally come home.

  Four hours later, Dix stared at that massive wet black mound of rich earth, at the three red roses laid carefully atop it, and felt pain like a gash to his heart.

  He held his boys’ hands, theirs squeezing his hard during Reverend Lindsay’s brief graveside litany, his deep quiet voice somehow reaching to the last person in that crowd of at least five hundred people, all of whom had come directly from the memorial service at the First Presbyterian Church of Maestro to Penhallow Cemetery, to attend Christie Holcombe Noble’s interment next to her mother.

  Dix looked over at Lone Tree Hill, at the single oak, an ancient sentinel, keeping vigil over the rolling hills and the row upon row of graves. Its leaves were greening up nicely. Suddenly the sun came through the clouds, blurring through the gentle rain, and he saw raindrops sparkle fiercely on the oak leaves. He squeezed his boys’ hands and slowly they raised their heads and looked to where he nodded, toward that old oak, at the sunlight coming through the rain. He heard Rob sigh, felt both boys move closer against him.