Deadlock

by Catherine Coulter

  I’m sure you remember the story I told you when you were a child. So many versions of how Nate and I managed to steal the evil sheikh’s treasure. I tried to make it more exciting each time with ever more outrageous adventures, so you would remember it. The story was a tale for a child, but the bearer bonds are real and will soon be in your hands to do with as you wish. What you already know, what you’ve kept secret, will lead you to their hiding place.

  I have done what I can to be sure no problems arise no matter how many years pass before you read this letter. Surely the bonds will have been forgotten, so you needn’t worry about cashing them. There is so much good you can do with that money, Rebekah. But in any case, it is your decision.

  I have loved you from the moment I first saw you squalling in the nursery at the hospital. I hope you will remember me fondly despite what I felt I had to keep from you. I’ve always thought life is an incredible gift, regardless of its unexpected tragedies. My life has been blessed by a profound joy bestowed upon me, namely you. Of course, I don’t know how or when I will die, but I will leave this earth with only one regret—that I let down my friend Nate. I hope I have a chance to ask him to forgive me.

  Live happily, Rebekah, and try to live honorably.

  Your loving father,

  John Clarkson

  61

  Rebekah blinked back tears and read the letter again, more slowly. All those wasted years when he was in the sanitarium, all the lies and deceptions that had molded her life. When she finished reading the second time, all she could think about was that her mother’s name was Constance. She looked mutely up at her husband, unaware tears were slowly running down her face.

  Rich pulled her against him, his voice warm against her cheek. “Don’t cry, sweetheart. May I read it?”

  She couldn’t speak, only nodded and swiped her hands over her eyes. “What he wrote—I loved him so much, it got to me. Yes, read it, Rich, you’ll see.”

  He hugged her again, took the pages from her hands, and stepped away. She expected to see concern in his eyes as he read, and she did, but she saw something else, too. Eagerness? Barely banked excitement? She swiped her hand across her eyes, turned to the fireplace, and stuck out her hands to warm them, but there was little warmth, only her mother’s name. Constance Riley. She felt like a blind person suddenly granted sight, but what she knew now gave her no comfort. Gemma had murdered Nate and gotten away with it. Her father and Nate had stolen ninety million dollars in bearer bonds. And her mother—no, not her mother; Caitlin was her half sister. Nothing she’d believed was real. She couldn’t take it all in. No wonder Gemma had her attacked to get her hands on those bearer bonds. She was nothing to Gemma. She waited, watched her husband’s face as he read the letter again, just as she’d done.

  Rich looked up from the letter, and said, his voice gentle, honest, “Listen to me, Rebekah. John Clarkson loved you more than anyone in this world. Never forget that. And he tells you everything in this letter. He would have told you years ago if he could, when he thought you were old enough to know. He was trying to protect you.”

  “Yes,” she said finally, her voice flat, “he would have told me himself. When I was eighteen? Twenty-one?”

  Rich looked down at the pages again and slowly shook his head. “I never doubted he was brilliant at getting whatever he thought was right. He was a man I admired. What he writes, Rebekah, it’s hard to take in, to believe. What he and Nate did, taking that money, he actually believed he’d done an honorable thing, the right thing. He thought it was justified.”

  She said in the same flat voice, “Even if that’s true, he and Nate still stole a fortune in bearer bonds, and they kept it. He knew Gemma killed Nate and said nothing, hid the knowledge away. And he regrets Nate didn’t get justice because of the agreement he made with Gemma? It was his doing, though Nate was the man he professed to love from boyhood. What kind of man was he, really?”

  “I agree with you. There was no justice and never will be for Nate. Still, your father and Nate managed to steal ninety million dollars meant for Iraqi militias, and no one else was ever the wiser. Remember, Rebekah, he didn’t spend the money; he hid it. He left it for you to decide what to do with it.”

  At her silence, he continued, “He gives you the name of your birth mother, Constance Riley.” He smiled at her, stroked her arm. “Do you think you might be half Irish?”

  What a thought for Rich to have, as if it were important. She looked up at him, saw his half smile. He was only trying to make her feel better. So she smiled back at him. “Maybe,” she said.

  He said thoughtfully, “I remember there were some rumors your father had killed his longtime friend, but very few believed them. But Rebekah, that’s all over, and he’s left it up to you and me, sweetheart, to take the next step. Think, Rebekah, ninety million dollars in bearer bonds, hidden somewhere, and your father writes what you already know will lead you to where he and Nate hid them. It’s the poem. I think if you and I go over the poem again—” He paused, studied her set face. “Rebekah, think of what good we could do with ninety million dollars. You and I can work on it together, leave the FBI out of it, just us.”

  She looked up at him for a moment, then turned away from him toward the sluggish flames. “Zoltan believed the poem was the key to finding the Big Take, but you’ve heard it now and you know as much as I do, which is nothing. And I’ve told you I don’t want to pursue it.” She looked back at his face, the lines softened in the firelight. Such a handsome face, she’d thought when she’d seen him that first time at Lincoln Center. She said slowly, “You really want to find those bearer bonds, don’t you, Rich?”

  He cocked his head at her. “Well, of course. It’s an immense amount of money. As I said, there is so much good we could do with it, you and I. The letter points back to the poem, the answer’s got to be there—” He broke off, stared at the bubble-wrapped package sitting on the coffee table where Rebekah had placed it. “We need to open the package, see what’s inside, see if that key in the poem is in there.”

  “I told you, Rich, I want nothing to do with the bearer bonds.” She picked up the bubble-wrapped package and held it to her chest. “Whatever is inside this bubble wrap is meant for me. Not you. Not us.”

  He grabbed her arm. “Rebekah, how can you think you still need to keep his secrets from me? That man lied to you your whole life, and I’m your husband. If you’re concerned about ethics, what about our vows to each other? I hope you’ll honor those, rather than a child’s promise to a dead man. Give me the package, Rebekah.”

  She shook her head, held the package tighter.

  “Give it to me, Rebekah.”

  She shook her head again. “No.”

  He moved fast, pulled the package out of her arms, and stepped back. He walked quickly to the marquetry table, picked a pair of scissors out of the drawer, and began cutting the bubble wrap, peeling it away. He said without looking up, “There’s no need to get hysterical, Rebekah. We’re only going to see what your dad sent you.”

  He lifted a plaster of paris bust of her father from its nest of padding, held it up to the light. “A bust of your father? Wait, I see now. The poem said the key is in his head.”

  Rebekah said quietly, “The bust is mine, Rich, not yours. Don’t smash it.”

  “That’s exactly what we need to do.”

  “Rich, no!”

  He slammed the bust against the marble apron in front of the fireplace. It shattered loud as a gunshot, spewing up shards of plaster.

  Rebekah cried out, dropped to her knees, and began to pick through the plaster pieces. He saw the key first, leaned down, and grabbed it. “The key was in the old man’s head. How very fitting. Without the poem, we would never have known it was there, and the bust might have stayed whole forever.” He left her there, on her knees, her father’s bust in pieces around her.

  Slowly, Rebekah got to her feet. She watched him examine the key under a table lamp. He looked up, saw her, an
d smiled. “It’s a small brass key, common, nothing on it, no indication what it’s to, maybe a safe-deposit key, but there’s no ID, no serial numbers.” Still smiling, he carried the key to where she stood stiff, so angry she had no words. “Do you know what this key is to, Rebekah?”

  She could make out two tiny wavy lines along the curved top of the key, one red, the other blue, barely visible to the naked eye. She felt her heart leap. She knew, yes, she knew exactly where those bearer bonds were hidden. She looked up at her husband, kept her voice calm, submissive. “It is what you see, Rich, a plain little brass key. I have no idea what it opens.”

  “Another secret inside a secret? That’s a lot like him. Will they ever stop?” He paused a moment, studied her face, studied the key again. He said slowly, “But I don’t believe you, Rebekah.”

  And suddenly she knew, knew it in her heart. “When did Gemma first talk to you, Rich, ask for your help? At the funeral?”

  “What? Are you accusing me of something now? What’s wrong with you, Rebekah?”

  She looked up into his face. She saw impatience, calculation. She said slowly, “You and I talked much more about my father and his stories after he died. I thought you were being thoughtful and supportive, because I was grieving for him. I’ve been quite an idiot, haven’t I? Gemma knew I would never tell her, but she knew you from way back in the nineties when you interned for my father. Did she see you as a kindred spirit, smart enough, sly enough, to help her find that money without my even knowing about it? Is that what you did to me, Rich?”

  He fanned his hands in front of him, a gesture meant to reassure. “Whatever Gemma did, sweetheart, you mustn’t ever doubt I love you. I asked you to marry me because I wanted you in my life forever, and I still do.”

  “You can’t hide talking with her, Rich. There’ll be phone records, emails.”

  “I’m not going to hide anything, Rebekah. Yes, Gemma did call me, told me about what one of the private duty nurses had told her about this poem you’d recited to your dad. Listen to me, Rebekah, Gemma knew you would never talk to her about it, and she doubted you’d say the poem again to anyone. And yes, she assured me a great deal of money was at stake. She didn’t know how much, but she thought it was immense. Believe me, I thought long and hard about what to do, and in the end I decided it was in everyone’s interest to find that money. It’s meant for you, Rebekah, all of it.”

  She said dispassionately, “The séance with Zoltan, that would have been Gemma’s idea. But I remember how supportive you were when Zoltan asked to see me. I was expecting you to resist my going, but you didn’t; you encouraged me. You knew, didn’t you? You knew Gemma hired Zoltan to try to manipulate me into believing I was speaking to my dead father, in her ridiculous living room.”

  “You never spoke of the poem, and Gemma believed Zoltan could convince anyone of anything. I saw no harm in it, though I warned her you have no belief in the occult, mediums in particular.”

  “Zoltan didn’t believe I’d return, but I told you that, Rich, that same night. And the very next day, those two men tried to kidnap me. Was it you who hired those men so they could force me to tell them?”

  He looked appalled, angry. “Listen to me, that’s crazy. I love you. I’m your husband. I never hired anyone to kidnap you. I had nothing to do with that. I knew nothing about it, and after I found out what happened, I called Gemma. She denied it. All right, I didn’t believe her. But you can believe this. I told her if anything like that ever happened again, I’d tell you everything. You’re my wife. I protected you.”

  “You said you didn’t believe her, yet you still didn’t tell me?”

  He said nothing. Rebekah looked at the face of the man she thought she loved, and now that face was someone else entirely, a stranger, a lying stranger.

  “And then Zoltan was attacked, after the FBI was onto her. Which of you arranged for her to be shot?”

  Was that fear in his eyes? He was shaking his head at her, back and forth, thinking hard, she could see it, and when he finally spoke, he sounded horrified. “Not me! You must stop this now. I knew nothing about that Zoltan shooting. Nothing. What I’ve done, what I’ve tried to do, has only been in your own interest. All right, in both of our interests.”

  She marveled at him. Which were the truths, which were the lies? She no longer cared. He’d betrayed her, the man she’d given her love, her future. He’d betrayed her with Gemma. He’d betrayed her for money. There was simply nothing more left between them.

  “Give me the key, Rich. It’s mine, not yours. If you don’t, I will tell Agent Savich what you’ve done, how you schemed to steal that money and failed. He’s very good. He’ll find a way to connect you to those crimes, you and Gemma both. Can you imagine the headlines when Congressman Manvers is indicted?”

  “I want you to tell me what this key belongs to, Rebekah.”

  “What I know or don’t know about that key is no longer any of your concern.”

  He cursed in a low voice, threw the key at her. It fell on the sofa beside her. “Keep the bloody thing. I don’t care. I was an idiot to get involved in any of this with Gemma. An idiot. But if you accuse me to Savich, I will tell the world your father, the esteemed Congressman John Clarkson, stole ninety million dollars from the government. Your daddy doesn’t deserve to be remembered as a criminal, does he?”

  She saw the banked rage in his eyes fade the moment he realized they were deadlocked.

  He gave a bitter laugh and shrugged. “You do know where the bonds are, don’t you?”

  She said, “I want you to leave the house now. No, I don’t want your house. I’ll move out tomorrow. But I want you to leave now.”

  “Rebekah, you have to believe me—”

  “Do you know, I’m understanding Beck better with each passing minute in your company.” She didn’t look at him again, walked out of the living room, her head held high, carrying the small brass key and her father’s letter, and climbed up the wide staircase.

  She heard the front door slam. She slowly walked back down the stairs and turned the dead bolt, remembered Beck, sighed, and flipped it off. It didn’t matter if Rich came back. What could he do?

  When she stepped into her bedroom, she looked toward the bed where she’d slept beside her husband for six months, a man she’d married and trusted, counted on. She looked at her father’s letter again. Life is an incredible gift, regardless of its unexpected tragedies.

  A gift. Perhaps someday she’d believe it. She looked down at the key and smiled.

  62

  D.C. JAIL

  THURSDAY AFTERNOON

  Agent Dillon Savich, Agent Pippa Cinelli, Chief Matthew Wilde, and federal prosecutor Sonja Grayson sat in the small conference room and watched two guards bring in Marsia Gay, one holding each arm. Her wrists were pressed together with flex-cuffs. She stopped in the doorway and looked at each of them in turn. “What’s all this? All the top guns here to visit me? To bring me news? Good news, I hope. And who are you?”

  “I’m Chief Wilde of St. Lumis, Maryland. I believe you’ve visited my town.”

  She shook her head at him. “Sorry, never had the pleasure.” Her smile stayed fixed as she turned to the prosecutor. “I suppose you’re here, Ms. Grayson, to tell me I’m not going to trial? Not enough proof, is there? Poor Veronica. Does anyone know who attacked her? Such a pity. Of course, since I’m innocent, it will mean justice for me. When will I be released?”

  Sonja said, “We’ll talk about your legal status in a moment, Ms. Gay. First, Agent Savich wants to speak to you.”

  “Sit down, Marsia,” Savich said.

  The guards sat her down, placed her hands on the table in front of her. She said to Savich, “Isn’t life strange, Agent Savich? You simply never know when misfortune will befall you. Me, being here, you, with that fire at your house? I have to say, in all fairness, what you did to me, putting me here, was worse.”

  Savich studied her face, saw the banked excitement in her eye
s. Yes, Marsia thought she was about to waltz out of here. “I’d like you to hear what Agent Cinelli has to say. She was in St. Lumis to investigate the red boxes you had sent to me, the ones containing pieces of a puzzle depicting Major Trumbo hanging out of a burning hotel window.”

  “Sorry, Agent Savich, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  Savich continued over her, “Agent Cinelli worked with Chief of Police Matthew Wilde.” He nodded to Pippa.

  Pippa said without preamble, “Ronald Pomfrey and his mother, Lillian Trumbo, told us what happened that night in Ronald’s cabin in the Poconos, where you witnessed Ronald stab Major Trumbo in the back. They’re more than willing to testify against you.”

  There was not a single sign Marsia found this news upsetting. She even smiled. “Of course I know those people. I dated Ronald briefly when we were in school. But I have no idea what they’ve been saying to you.” She tried to rise, but a guard pushed her back down. She smiled up at the guard. “Sorry.”

  Pippa said, “We know you dated Ronald Pomfrey in your first year at Maryland Institute College of Art. He thought you loved him, you were planning to move in together, but by the time you first showed him your black heart that night in the Poconos, it was too late for him.

  “When Ronald and Mrs. Trumbo realized Major Trumbo was dead, you watched them try to figure out what they should do. You must have despised their shock, their dithering, their horror at what had happened. You bided your time, took pictures of his body without their knowing it, and you told them you knew exactly what they should do. You told them to bury the major’s body where it wouldn’t be found and forget him, go about their lives. They could say he died of a heart attack, pretend they’d had his body cremated. Otherwise who knew what would happen to them?

  “You were careful not to help them bury the major’s body. You stood back and filmed it all. After that, it would look like they’d simply murdered him, no matter what they claimed. You sent Ronald some of what you’d filmed, and they’ve been paying you ever since to keep it secret. You were careful not to empty the well. Besides, you thought you might need them, use them, someday. And you did.”