by Lauren Carr
Swallowing, Simon backed up.
Bill Clark shook his head at his campaign manager’s retreat. “You know what the problem is with having a dog run for mayor, O’Callaghan?”
“No, tell me.”
“Dogs have a way of just running off and disappearing without a trace,” Clark said.
“Don’t even think of going near our dog,” David said.
With a knowing laugh, Bill Clark sauntered across the lobby and down the hallway toward the banquet room with his entourage surrounding him. Mac and David caught sight of Hap and Bernie trailing behind them.
“Where are they going?” Mac asked as the elevator doors opened again.
“I don’t know, but we don’t have time to babysit them,” David said.
Using his key pass, Mac took David into his private penthouse suite and out onto the balcony, where they had a bird’s-eye view of the rose-garden maze.
David called Sheriff Turow. “When you get your eyes on Cassandra, let us know what she’s wearing so that we can guide you through the maze.”
“They’re going to bump into each other at the entrance and then make their way inside and away from everyone to talk,” the sheriff said. “Hope Braxton can hold it together.”
“He should be able to,” Mac said when he heard him on the speakerphone. “He was a winning quarterback. They’re trained to keep their cool when things get tough.”
They heard the sheriff sigh. “You didn’t hear him in the car on the way here.”
In the background, Roxie Greyson said, “Don’t worry. I’m all wired up and ready to go. If he starts to flake out, I’ll take care of things.”
“Braxton is at the meeting place,” the sheriff said.
After realizing that he was only barely able to pick out Nathan Braxton at the entrance of the maze, Mac went inside the penthouse and returned a moment later with opera glasses.
“Terrible thing, when your eyes get old,” David said with a chuckle.
“Don’t be a smartass.” Mac pointed down to the entrance of the maze. “There’s Braxton.”
Pointing out a woman in a form-fitting red dress, David said, “There’s Cassandra Clark.” Then he said, “I wanted so much to tell Clark that his own wife wants him dead.”
“If this goes down right, he’ll find out soon enough.”
“Nathan, why’d we have to meet?” Bill Clark’s wife asked in a harsh whisper. “I told you this morning—” She stopped.
Through his opera glasses, Mac saw her looking around at a group of noisy young people leaving the maze.
Starting to set, the sun was casting the garden in a golden glow. In a matter of minutes, the seven-foot-tall rose bushes and thick vines were forming long, eerie-looking shadows throughout the maze.
“I talked to someone, and—”
“Not here.” Cassandra entered the maze. Seeing that Nathan wasn’t following her, she turned around. “Come on. Follow me.”
“They’re going in,” Mac said.
“You called it right down the line, Mac,” the sheriff said. “You predicted she’d want to meet the hour before the town-hall meeting in the garden, and that’s the way it’s going down. Try to keep your eyes on them, and I’ll do my best to have some of my deputies nearby.”
“She’s spooked,” David said. “I can see it from here.”
Cassandra led Nathan Braxton to the far end of the maze and then turned down two different corners to take them to a bench. “What is so important that we had to meet?” she asked. “I told you this morning that for this to work, we can’t see or speak to each other, or the police will get suspicious.”
“Salma Rameriz saw you in the hotel lounge putting moves on the piano player the other night,” Nathan said.
David nodded his head. “Actually, it wasn’t Salma Rameriz but the bartender. We had to check to see if she had an alibi for the time of the murder.”
“Since she has an alibi then she couldn’t have committed the murder,” Mac said while Nathan rambled on.
“The police said that Nancy was killed between midnight and one o’clock,” Nathan said. “The same time you were groping the piano man. That means that you couldn’t have killed Nancy. You only told me that you did so that I’d kill your husband for you.”
Cassandra stammered when she said, “I-I didn’t tell you that I killed her. I t-told you that I had her killed for you. Do…do you really think that I’d be stupid enough to do it myself? Suppose…suppose someone had seen us together. I would’ve immediately ended up being suspect number one. So I hired a guy to do it for me.”
There was silence.
“Ask her how much she paid, Nathan,” Sheriff Turow said from his hideout in the van.
“How much?” Nathan’s voice trembled.
“How much what?” Cassandra asked.
“How much did you pay him?”
“Five thousand dollars,” Cassandra said. “Half up front, and the rest, I paid him yesterday morning.”
“Why didn’t you just pay him five thousand dollars to kill Bill for you if that was who you wanted dead?” Nathan asked.
“Good question,” Mac said.
After several start and stops, she finally answered him. “Because we agreed to swap murders. That way, the police would never catch us.”
Mac was shaking his head. “If Cassandra’s ultimate goal was to have her husband killed, why not hire a hit man to kill him while she established an alibi instead of hiring a hit man to kill Nathan’s wife and then telling him what she’d done—”
“Which was a huge risk, because how could she have been certain that he wouldn’t go to the police?” David finished.
“Which he did.” Mac picked up the cell phone. “Turow, tell Nathan to ask her if the hit man told her about how the murder went. Specifically, tell Nathan to ask her if his wife suffered when he drowned her.”
“Gotcha,” Turow said before relaying the question.
“Cassie,” Nathan said in a gentle tone, “This guy you hired, did he tell you how he killed Nancy? Did she suffer? Did your hit man tell you how long it took for her to actually drown to death?”
“He told me it took a few minutes,” she said. “She put up quite a fight, but he’s a big guy. It wasn’t hard for him to overpower her and to hold her under the water until she died. That was about all he told me.” Then a note of excitement came to her tone. “When are you going to kill Bill?”
“Like I said, I made a couple of phone calls, and I have someone who can do it,” Nathan said.
“When?”
“We have to work out a few details,” Nathan said.
“Payment, for one,” Roxie said.
The undercover officer had climbed out of the back of the surveillance van to join them in the garden.
Cassandra audibly gasped upon seeing the paid assassin in the flesh. “This isn’t very smart—meeting me like this. If you get caught—”
“I don’t get caught.” Roxie set her foot up on the bench next to the nervous woman. “I’m a highly trained professional.”
“And very expensive,” Nathan said. “That’s what we need to talk about. Madam X here is very expensive, and I need to know how much you’re willing to pay.”
“Me?” Cassandra said. “I expected you to—”
“Why would I pay to kill your husband?”
“I paid to kill your wife,” Cassandra said.
“Only five thousand dollars,” Roxie said. “I charge twenty thou in advance.”
“Bill isn’t worth twenty thousand!” Cassandra shouted before catching control of herself.
“Suit yourself.” Roxie dropped her foot to the ground. “I’m out of here.”
“Wait!” Cassandra turned to Nathan. “If you don’t pay her to do it, I’m going to go to the police and tell them
that you told me that you were going to have your wife killed.”
“Why would they believe you?” Nathan asked.
“Bill has a lot of unsavory friends,” Cassandra said. “He’ll get them to put pressure on the police and the prosecutor and force them into arresting you.”
“All on your word,” Nathan said with distaste.
“It shouldn’t be hard for me to find someone who’ll say that he saw us together and that we were having an affair. That you wanted Nancy out of the way so that you could be with me.”
“If I do this,” Nathan said, “it will be a onetime thing. Twenty thousand. Your husband will be dead, and we’ll never see or speak to each other ever again.”
“Deal,” Cassandra said.
Nathan reached into his inside breast pocket and took a thick envelope out of it. He handed it to Cassandra, who held it out to Roxie.
Instead of taking the money, Roxie asked, “When and how do you want it done, Ms. Clark?”
“Can you do it tomorrow night? Bill will be giving a speech before a big crowd with a lot of journalists,” Cassandra said. “I’ll be there. There’s a balcony at the back of the auditorium. You can shoot him from up there.”
“What if there are spectators in the balcony?” Roxie asked.
“Pu-leeze!” Cassandra said. “Don’t let the big phony fool you. Take a look at the pictures on his media page. You’ll notice that there aren’t any room shots of the crowds. It’s because there aren’t any crowds. Bill’s goons push everyone up close to the stage to make it look like the room is packed.”
“Any other special instructions for this hit?” Roxie asked. “Like a specific number of bullet holes?”
“How many bullets have you got?”
“You really don’t like him, do you?” Roxie said.
“Have you ever met my husband?” Cassandra asked. “If the sex were halfway decent, I could stand it. He’s practically impotent. I only married him for his money. Never expected the tightwad to bitch every time I spend a dime.”
“Any other instructions?” Roxie asked.
“After you shoot him, I’m going to run out and throw myself on top of his dead body, and it should make all of the major newscasts.”
“Ah, I understand completely.” Roxie took the envelope from her. “A dead impotent husband with a big inheritance is worth millions. A dead impotent husband with a big inheritance and fifteen minutes of fame? Priceless.”
Cassandra let out a deep breath and smiled broadly. “Thank you so much.” She let out a squeal of delight. “I can’t wait.”
“Neither can I,” Roxie said while stuffing the money into the inside breast pocket of her leather vest. “There’s just one more thing.”
“What’s that?”
“You’re under arrest.” Roxie took her police shield out of her pocket and held it up for Cassandra to see.
Chapter Twenty-Three
“Nigel, please exclude my prints from the sample, and run the rest through the federal database,” Murphy said after lifting the thumbprint left by Andrew Collins off of the screen of his cell phone.
With a “Yes, Murphy,” the computer went to work.
Murphy and Gnarly were on the ground floor of the Faraday-Thornton home in the room that was the smart house’s brain and heart. When it had originally been constructed in the 1990s, the corner efficiency apartment had been intended to be a servants’ quarters. Built into a hillside and with only two small windows, the area consisted of a bedroom, a bathroom, and a kitchenette. The owners prior to Murphy and Jessica had rented the space to a college student.
Murphy had realized that since it had a separate entrance, with the proper reinforcement, it would make a perfect panic room, which could prove to be useful in his line of work. The space was also secure enough to weather a tornado or another natural disaster.
The original glass in the windows had been replaced with specialized bulletproof glass. Those in the room could see outside, and sunlight could shine in, but no one outside could see into the room. The door had been reinforced with secure fingerprint- and retina-scanning locks. Only Murphy, Jessica, Tristan, and other family and friends who had been cleared by Nigel could open the door.
The pantry off of the kitchenette was stocked with enough food to feed four people and two dogs for a week. There was a queen-sized pullout sofa bed and a full bath.
The space was also home to the computerized communications command center in which Nigel’s server was based. Nigel had been installed and was monitored by a federal security agency, so Murphy and Jessica’s home was able to send and receive data instantly through control panels on computer tablets stationed throughout the house, guesthouse, and garage.
While away from home, Murphy or Jessica could contact Nigel via an application on their cell phones. For example, if a visitor arrived at their house before they did, they could instruct Nigel to open the front gate, turn on the lights, and even pop open the front door and tell their guest to make himself at home. Unlike the application on Jessica’s phone, the application on Murphy’s secure phone was a classified one through which he could give Nigel instructions to check for information in the Phantom’s federal database.
Inside the command center, they could see every room and around the grounds on a bank of security monitors. With the main control panel, they were able to turn on and off lights and to adjust the temperature. They could even turn on water faucets, fireplaces, and various appliances, including televisions and sound systems. While Jessica was able to instruct Nigel to start her bath and to adjust its temperature and jets, she wished she could somehow have the computer take the dog food out of the cupboard and put it in the dogs’ bowls—or maybe make the bed in the morning.
Also included in Nigel’s command center was a small forensics lab in which Murphy and Jessica, who was pursuing her doctorate at Georgetown University, could do a basic analysis of evidence.
Like the fingerprints of strangers visiting friends at the hospital.
Tawkeel Said had wasted no time and had called Murphy on his secure phone to tell him that he had never seen Andrew Collins before in his life. Tawkeel reported that Collins had confirmed that he was from the CIA and had been sent from security to debrief him—and that he’d wanted to know what had happened in the days leading up to his capture and during his time with the terrorist cell.
“I got the feeling he was digging to see if I knew who had blown my cover,” Tawkeel said. “I told him what I told the other security people who debriefed me: I don’t know. They’re going to make me the scapegoat on this. They’re going to say it’s my fault that my handler was captured and killed. My career with the agency is over.”
“Not if we have anything to say about it,” Murphy said.
While Nigel ran the fingerprints through the federal database, Murphy rolled his desk chair over to where Gnarly was curled up in what had been Jessica’s chair the few times she’d visited the command center. Gnarly had climbed up into the chair and had tightly curled his hundred pounds of bulk so that he could fit onto the seat. Not quite fitting, one of his hind legs spilled out and hung in the air.
Despite his reclined position, the dog was alert. His head was resting on the arm of the chair; his eyes were moving around the room, taking note of the constantly changing images on the computer monitors; and his ears were twitching to and fro with every noise made by the devices.
“So who do you like in the upcoming presidential election?” Murphy asked Gnarly.
The German shepherd raised his head up from his paws and stretched his neck. Then he shook. Spencer trotted into the room and stopped in front of Gnarly’s chair to gaze up at the big dog in complete adoration.
“Murphy,” Nigel said over the chaos. “I got a match on the fingerprints you had me run through the federal database. Do you want me to send a report to CO?”
“Yes, Nigel,” Murphy said.
Still confused about the disembodied voice, Gnarly cocked his head. Spencer yapped to demand that he direct his attention toward her instead of Nigel.
“CO is on the line for you, Murphy.”
Gnarly’s sigh reminded Murphy of when he was a child and would have to stop what he was doing to play with a younger sibling. Slowly, the German shepherd unfolded himself to ease out of the chair and left the room. Delighted, Spencer bounced out after him.
Murphy whirled his chair around to face his commanding officer on the web cam, which was transmitting her image from a remote location that could have been anywhere in the world. All he could see on the monitor was her head, and her eyes were hidden behind dark glasses. Her hair was pulled back and hidden under a blue hat.
“Lieutenant, Nigel just sent me a report on a thumbprint that you lifted from someone who visited Tawkeel at the hospital today.”
Murphy was reading the report that Nigel had displayed on the computer screen for him. “He said he was State Department—the division chief from where Tawkeel worked. He said that his name was Andrew Collins and that he’d been sent to debrief him.” Reading the name and the title on the report, Murphy felt his jaw drop.
“Andrew Collins was one of the aliases used by Newt Wallace when he was out in the field several years ago,” CO said.
“Wallace is the executive director of operations in the CIA,” Murphy said. “That’s pretty high up. This guy made like he was midlevel management. What interest would he have in Tawkeel?”
“Newt Wallace’s mentor is Camille Jurvetson, the director of operations at the agency,” CO said. “She’s been on the fast track through operations since joining the agency a little over twelve years ago. She has a reputation for being able to extract or piece together valid information to make strategic movements that her colleagues can’t. Last week, that SEAL strike on the Afghan terrorist compound that took out the third-ranking leader of ISIS? Jurvetson deduced that location by piecing together reports and satellite images. She’s so good that she’s on the short list for one of the presidential candidates to be appointed director of the CIA.” She paused and then said, “Newt became her lapdog about seven years ago. Every step she’s taken up the ladder, she’s brought him along.”