Uncharted Waters

by Rosemary McCracken

  “Gabe’s at the front door,” she said to us. “Let him in, Sam. And no tricks. I have a gun pointed at Pat.”

  Rigid with fear, Sam pushed herself off the window ledge, and left my office. Becca remained seated across from me. There I was with a telephone on the desk, and my cell in my pocket. Two phones, but no chance of calling for help. I almost smiled at the irony.

  “Becca, I asked for Michelle Blake at your condo building. Wouldn’t the reception desk know you as Rebecca Quincy?”

  She gave me a cat-like smile. “I set that up before your first visit,” she said. “I told the desk that my sister, Michelle Blake, was staying with us. And if anyone arrived asking for her, they should call our unit.”

  “Again, you went to a lot of trouble for me.”

  Sam returned to the office. Gabe was right behind her with a gun in his hand. A third gun. How many guns did this couple have?

  He waved Sam into the chair beside Becca. “Get what you came for?” he asked his wife.

  “Pat hasn’t seen the e-mails,” she said. “Or so she claims.”

  He groaned. “Becks, everything you do has to be done in Technicolor. Fake kidnappings and shoot-outs. And now you’re waving a gun around in here. Don’t you realize that, thanks to you, we have a lot more to worry about than a few e-mails?”

  Becca recoiled as if he’d slapped her. “Everything I did, I did for you.”

  He turned to me. “So where are the e-mails Becca asked you about?”

  “I have Dean’s business correspondence,” I lied, “but no messages from you.”

  He stepped behind my desk and looked at my screen. “Becca, come over here and go through the stuff on this computer. Pat, get out of that chair.”

  Sam shot him a quick look, then wrapped her arms around her torso.

  The e-mails he was looking for weren’t on this computer, but I didn’t want Becca going through my client files. “There must be something in those e-mails that implicates you,” I said to Gabe. “Were you discussing your latest scam?”

  “Don’t tell her, Gabe,” Becca said.

  “Shut up!” he snarled at his wife.

  My cell phone rang in my pocket.

  Gabe swung his attention back to me. “Give it here.” He held out his hand.

  I glanced at the phone as I took it from my pocket, and saw Hardy’s name on call display. I pressed the Power button and raised the phone as if to answer the call.

  “Put it down,” Gabe ordered.

  I quickly thumbed Power Off on the phone menu, then tapped OK to turn off the phone.

  Gabe snatched the phone from my hand. “Who was calling?”

  “My housekeeper.”

  He glared at the screen. Then he dropped the phone on the floor and stomped on it. “No more interruptions.”

  “Babe, let’s get out of here,” Becca said.

  “Shut up!” He ran a hand through his thinning hair. “Pat, out of that chair. Becca, take a look at her computer.”

  “She doesn’t have the e-mails,” Becca said. “We’re wasting time here.”

  “Keep your trap shut and do as I say.”

  “Why don’t we—”

  Gabe struck Becca with the back of his hand. She cried out and dropped her gun.

  “No discussion, no arguments,” he growled. “Understood, or do you need another reminder?”

  Her eyes simmered with anger, but she nodded. She retrieved the gun and massaged her face.

  Gabe pointed to the door at the back of my office. “Fire escape’s through there?” he asked me.

  “Don’t go, Pat!” Sam cried.

  He turned to me. “One last chance to give me those e-mails.”

  “I don’t have them,” I said.

  He waved me from behind my desk with his gun. “Move!”

  “Let Pat go,” Sam said. “Let her walk down the fire escape and go back to her family.”

  “It’s too late for that,” Gabe said. “There’s no way to keep her from talking about this.”

  I met Sam’s eyes as I got out of my chair. I wanted to tell her that she was a good kid, but all I could do was give her a quick nod. I hoped she’d understand.

  “Open it,” he ordered when we were standing in front of the door to the fire escape.

  I pushed the crash bar.

  “You’re going to climb up on the railing and take a big jump. A harried financial planner who couldn’t take the stress.” He nudged my back with his gun.

  A fall from the second floor might not kill me, but I wasn’t about to find out. Running was a better option. I didn’t think Gabe would shoot me; a bullet in my back would not look like suicide.

  I stepped onto the landing, and spotted Jared unloading boxes from a white van. “Jared!” I cried.

  “Hey, Pat!” he called back. “Working on a Sunday?”

  “Same as you, neighbor.”

  “Get back in here,” Gabe whispered from the doorway.

  Gripping the edge of the door with both hands, I spun around and slammed it into Gabe. He cursed and dropped his gun on the landing.

  I sprinted down the stairs. “Run!” I yelled to Jared. “Get inside the store.”

  On the pavement, I glanced up at the landing. Gabe was propping the door open with his leg and stretching out an arm to reach his gun. I saw him grasp the weapon.

  Jared pulled me into the back of the bookstore. I heard the fire-escape door slam shut above us.

  Sam was up there alone with two armed fugitives.

  ***

  I had just filled Jared in when I saw Hardy striding down the alley. I opened the bookstore door and waved at him.

  “What’s happened?” he asked, hurrying over to me.

  I told him that the Quincys were in my suite with Sam, and that they had both had guns.

  “This the bookstore?” Hardy asked. He ducked inside without waiting for a reply.

  I followed him over to the counter where Piers was stationed. Piers looked startled to see us.

  Hardy kept going through the store, and out the front door. Through the large front window, I saw a police cruiser pull up in front of him. Hardy held up a hand in greeting, then returned to the store and locked the door. He headed back to the rear door.

  A woman who had been examining a book put it back on the shelf and ran behind the counter.

  I returned to the back door. Outside, two cruisers were stationed in the alley.

  “Sam have a cell on her?” Hardy asked when he saw me in the doorway.

  “She always carries one.”

  “Try calling her. And do it inside.” He motioned for me to get back into the store.

  I hurried over to the counter where Jared had joined Piers. The woman was seated on the floor sipping from a paper cup of water.

  “Okay if I make a call?” I asked the guys.

  They both nodded. Piers slid the phone across the counter.

  “Tell Sam to leave by the back door, and walk down the fire escape,” Hardy said behind me. “When we give the word, the Quincys will come out, and lay their firearms on the landing. Then they’ll walk down the stairs with their hands in the air.”

  Sam answered after two rings. “Hello?” Her voice sounded small and shaken.

  “You okay?” I asked.

  “I guess.”

  I passed on Hardy’s message.

  “They’ll never go for that,” she said.

  The line went dead.

  Through the front window, I saw two more cruisers on Bloor Street. Uniformed officers had cleared pedestrians off the sidewalks and set up roadblocks to keep traffic off that section of Bloor. One officer was carrying a megaphone.

  I returned to the back of the store.

  Hardy was talking to uniformed officers in the alley, his back to me. I slipped outside, and over to the patio behind the building next door. From behind a trellis, I had a good view of our fire escape and metal door.

  “Rebecca and Gabe Quincy,” a man’s voice boomed
over a megaphone, “open the door to the fire escape and let Samantha Reiss come out.”

  A minute or so later, the metal door opened. Sam stepped out, looking terrified. Becca and Gabe were right behind her. “We have guns on her back,” Gabe called out.

  “Lay down your firearms!” the megaphone boomed.

  The trio moved down the narrow stairs. They formed a tight triangle, with Sam in front, Gabe behind her right shoulder and Becca behind her left. I could see their guns pressed into the small of Sam’s back.

  “Back off if you don’t want Sam to get hurt,” Gabe yelled.

  “Lay down your firearms. At once!” the officer with the megaphone called out.

  My heart was thudding in my chest. Sam had to come out of this alive.

  Two uniformed officers with drawn guns positioned themselves at the foot of the fire escape. Two others took up positions on either side of the stairs.

  “Drop your firearms!”

  “Get away from the stairs, or Sam dies!” Gabe shouted.

  The officers backed slowly away, keeping their guns trained on the Quincys.

  The trio stopped when they reached the bottom of the stairs. Gabe said something to Becca and Sam, but I couldn’t hear what it was.

  Suddenly, Becca pushed Sam forward. “Run, Sam, run!” she cried.

  Sam half-ran, half-stumbled toward the police officers.

  Becca twisted around and fired at Gabe. His face contorted in a mixture of fury and pain. He clasped his left thigh, dropped to his knees on the pavement, and fired two quick shots at Becca. Blood blossomed on her chest as she fell.

  Gabe remained on his knees, grunted and toppled forward, his gun falling from his hand.

  With a cry of anguish, Sam ran to her sister. She knelt over her, keening her grief.

  Two officers bent over Becca. One of them pulled Sam to her feet, and led her to a police cruiser. I caught a glimpse of her stricken face as the vehicle drove away.

  A siren sounded. An ambulance sped down the alley. Paramedics lifted Gabe onto a stretcher and whisked it into the ambulance. Becca was placed on another stretcher, and covered with a sheet.

  I ran out from behind the trellis. Hardy came over to me and put an arm around my shoulders.

  Chapter Forty-six

  Sam’s desk was empty when I arrived at the office the next morning. I hadn’t really expected her to show up for work, but the empty desk told me that she was devastated by her sister’s death.

  She burst into the suite in the middle of the morning, and headed straight for my office. “I told you something was off with that woman,” she said. “Mindy Manuel is a fraud.”

  “You’ve warned me about Mindy.” I rose from my chair. “Sam, I am so sorry about your sister.”

  Her face twisted in pain, and she flung herself into a chair in front of my desk. “Becca saved me. She told me to run, and now she’s…gone.”

  Becca had defied Gabe so her sister could get away. She knew he’d be furious with her, which gave Sam a chance to run to safety.

  I went over to Sam and placed my hands on her shoulders. “Becca loved you,” I said.

  Sam bowed her head, and wept softly

  “Shouldn’t you be with your parents today?” I asked.

  “They’re making funeral arrangements. I might as well be here, because I’d just be stressing out at home.”

  I didn’t think she’d be up for much work, but I decided to let her try. “You can start on the newsletter,” I said. “I’ve e-mailed you the articles and the photos to run with them. Upload them onto the newsletter template and trim the articles to fit.”

  I returned to my desk, but she lingered in the chair. “How is Mindy?” she asked.

  “She’ll be fine. Her sister told me a friend is picking her up at the hospital this morning.”

  “Watch out for her, Pat.”

  I shook my head sadly after she left my office. I had no illusions about Mindy; she was out for herself, and no doubt was up to something with Ben. But Sam was demonizing her so that Becca appeared justified in shooting her. Misplaced family loyalty, but it was Sam’s way of grieving for her sister.

  ***

  Sam looked up from her screen when I returned from lunch. “Cool article on passing a vacation home to the younger generation.”

  “Thanks.” I’d wrestled with that piece for days, and I was pleased that she liked it. The longer I worked with Sam, the more I valued her opinion in the office. But outside the office? The less said about that the better.

  “No appointments this afternoon,” she said. “When are you leaving for Markham?”

  She must have read my mind, because I’d been thinking of dropping in on Mindy. “Soon,” I said.

  “Be careful. Mindy was cozying up to Dean. Coming by the office after I left for the day.”

  I thought of what Hardy had said about Mindy visiting Dean’s office in the late afternoons. “She must have become his client,” I said.

  “Then why hadn’t he put her on his client roster? Started a file on her?” She lowered her voice. “A few days before Dean was killed, Giorgio asked me about the new girl at work. He said a woman had been coming to the building after I left. When I asked him what she looked like, he described Mindy to a T.”

  I mulled this over when I was back at my desk. Giorgio had told the police that a woman who looked like Mindy had been visiting Dean. And when the police followed that up with Mindy, she had admitted she had visited Dean’s office a few times, that they were going through the know-your-client process.

  Sam had withheld information from the police—again. I groaned and closed my eyes.

  When I opened them, she was standing in front of my desk. “You’re wondering why I didn’t tell the police about the woman Giorgio saw,” she said.

  “It crossed my mind.”

  “I didn’t want to call attention to myself after I hadn’t reported finding Dean.”

  “The police know about Mindy coming to the office. Giorgio told them.”

  She gave a mirthless chuckle. “So I needn’t have worried. They knew about her all along.”

  “Did you ask Giorgio if he saw this woman on the afternoon Dean was killed?”

  She shook her head. “No, but I’m sure the police did.”

  I had another question. “Why did you supply Gabe with patient names after…what he did to you?”

  She closed her eyes for a few seconds before speaking. “I did it for Becca. I knew she’d want me to help her husband.”

  ***

  A display of pumpkins and purple mums on a hay wagon caught my eye on the outskirts of Markham. I stopped and bought a bouquet of fall flowers in the garden shop behind the wagon.

  Ben’s Lincoln was parked in Mindy’s sister’s driveway. So he was the friend who had picked Mindy up at the hospital.

  I rapped the knocker on the front door. I waited, then rapped a second time, before Mindy opened up. Her arm was in a sling, and her long hair was disheveled. Her eyes widened in surprise when she saw me.

  “Something to cheer you up.” I held up the flowers. “How are you doing?”

  “Happy to be out of the hospital.”

  “Can I come in for a minute?”

  She seemed to hesitate, then held the door open. I followed her to a family room at the back of the house, where Ben lay sprawled on a sofa.

  He straightened up when he saw me. “Our financial advisor has arrived.”

  That got under my skin. Along with seeing him completely at home on that sofa.

  Two mugs sat side by side on the coffee table. “Some tea?” Mindy asked me.

  “No thanks.” I slapped the flowers down on the table. “Take a seat, Mindy.”

  Ben slid back down on the sofa. Mindy perched on its edge. I took the armchair across from them.

  “You heard about Becca?” I asked.

  “On the news last night,” Ben said. “There was a confrontation with the police. Becca was killed, and Gabe was woun
ded and is in custody.”

  “I can’t feel too badly about Becca,” Mindy said. “She tried to kill me.”

  “Why did she shoot you?” I asked.

  “I wish I knew.” She closed her eyes. Ben leaned over and put an arm around her shoulders.

  She gave me a wobbly smile. “She may have been aiming at someone else.”

  “Probably me.” Ben grinned. “I canceled my property listing.”

  He was turning a horrible situation into a joke. Suddenly, everything that rankled me about Ben rose to the surface.

  “Why didn’t you return to Cosi Fan Tutte?” I asked.

  He did an exaggerated double-take.

  “You received a text, and left the theater,” I said. “You didn’t return until the curtain went down.”

  “They wouldn’t let me in. The performance had started.”

  “Liar,” I fired back. “The boxes in the opera house have their own entrances. You can come and go as you like.”

  The expression on his face told me nothing.

  “You were gone for over 90 minutes,” I went on. “On the evening that Riza was murdered.”

  He glanced at Mindy, who nodded. “Mindy sent me a message,” he said.

  “Mindy, who you met briefly on one occasion, just had to speak to you,” I said.

  “Shall I tell Pat what was on your mind?” he asked her.

  She frowned and gave her head a slight shake.

  “Dean and I had a sideline Mindy wanted in on,” he said. “She insisted on meeting me that evening to tell me what she could bring to the table.”

  I leaned back, my mind clicking away. Gabe was in custody, so even with Mindy’s help, Ben might not be able to keep running his sideline.

  “Tell me about this sideline,” I said, not really expecting him to do what I asked.

  “Gabe came up with the idea.”

  “That involved having your targets take money out of their homes. Money you would invest for them.”

  Ben gave me a sunny smile. “And we persuaded Dean to join us.”

  “How?” I asked.

  “Over the years, I steered a few of my well-heeled friends his way,” Ben said. “I told him it was time to return the favor. If he didn’t, we’d expose Lukas’s financial blunders, which would tarnish the Monaghan name and ruin Lukas. Dean dragged his heels, but he went along.”