The Final Twist

by Jeffery Deaver

  Really remarkable.

  “There was a passenger in the seat before me, one of Devereux’s dates.”

  “She got tagged too but there was plenty to go around.” Russell added, “He maybe brought her along so you wouldn’t be suspicious.”

  “You’ll have to dump your jacket and jeans. Dry cleaning doesn’t kill them. Your boots’ll be okay.”

  So Devereux had indeed been lying. Braxton and Droon knew about his meeting and had arranged for the dust in anticipation of it.

  Well, Shaw himself hadn’t been the model of honesty with the billionaire.

  Shaw went into the bedroom, stripped and tossed his clothes into a garbage bag—the second set of clothing he’d lost in the space of twenty-four hours. He changed into new jeans and a black polo shirt, untucked to keep his Glock concealed.

  He found his brother on the phone. Russell nodded to a spot by the door and Shaw dropped the bag there. When he disconnected, his brother said, “I’m going to swap out the SUV. There’s a place in South San Francisco we use. I’ll take care of this.” He picked up the bag. “I’ll let you know if Karin gets anything on Blond.” With that, he was out the door.

  He didn’t bother to call the management of the Pacific Heights residence. Shaw was sure that there was no maid service in this particular building at this particular time of day. The woman in the hall was no maid, but a BlackBridge employee.

  The brothers could now return to the safe house on Alvarez Street. Why not? They weren’t at risk any longer, since Devereux, Ian Helms and Braxton had the document in the plastic frame.

  And what was happening with the vote tally now?

  Shaw guessed it was already en route to Sacramento, probably via private helicopter or jet. The legal department of the state assembly would be gearing up to consider how to handle an issue that none of them had ever had to face in their collective years as legislators: a century-old amendment to the state constitution that allowed corporations to hold public office. There would be the matter of authentication and a flurry of behind-the-scenes meetings. Shaw had no doubt that Devereux was pulling strings and disbursing cash to key players in the legislative and judicial branches of government. Wielding threats too. BlackBridge would be putting its skills at blackmail and extortion to work to gin up support for the amendment.

  He sat down at his laptop. A fast search of the internet revealed that Devereux, the governor, and the chief justice of the California supreme court played golf together with some frequency, and Banyan Tree employed one of the largest lobbying firms in the state.

  He wondered what the reaction would be—in California, the United States, the world.

  The intercom buzzer hummed. Police, canvassing after the shoot-out? Had somebody followed him from the Steelworks club last night?

  “Yes?”

  “Mr. Shaw?”

  “Who’s this?”

  “Connie . . . Consuela Ramirez. Maria Vasquez’s my dear friend. I’m Tessy’s godmother. I’m sorry to trouble you. Can I see you for a few minutes? I won’t be long.”

  He hit the entry button, then pulled his jacket on and lifted his shirt hem over the gun’s grip. He could draw faster this way, rather than the two-step, which involved lifting a garment with one hand and drawing with the dominant. Sometimes seconds mattered.

  He wasn’t, however, too concerned. BlackBridge and Devereux had the document. Why draw attention by racking up bodies? Besides, the visitor had dropped Tessy’s and her mother’s names.

  When the doorbell rang, he looked through the peephole and noted a dark-haired, attractive woman in her early thirties. She was in a nicely cut business suit. For some long seconds, Shaw watched her dark eyes through the lens. If she were with anyone, not visible, she would have glanced to the side. This did not happen.

  Finally he let her in, tugging his shirt back down over his weapon.

  “I’m Colter.”

  They shook hands.

  “Would you like to sit?”

  She picked the couch and Shaw a nearby chair. He detected an ambivalent floral scent, not jasmine, not lilac, not rose. Pleasant, though.

  “Only a minute of your time.”

  “Please.”

  “Maria told me what you did. You saved Tessy’s life.” Her voice was breathless. “I don’t know what we would have done . . . if . . .” She choked back a sob and wiped at her eyes, which were tearing. She looked in her purse.

  Shaw asked if she wanted a tissue and she nodded. He got her a napkin from the kitchen.

  She dabbed and tried to wipe the damaged mascara, much as Vasquez had done in her Tenderloin apartment. “Maria said you were a kind man. You would not take any money, the reward.”

  “She told me her situation, being laid off. I don’t need the reward. I sometimes do that in my business.”

  More often than Velma Bruin liked.

  “I don’t have any more money than she does, but I do have this.” She opened her purse and handed him a black velvet bag. “This was a gift from my mother. Diamond and gold.”

  Shaw looked inside and shook out a necklace. It was a flower petal, a rose, he thought, with a diamond set in the center.

  “I can’t take this.”

  A firm smile crossed her face. “In this life, Mr. Shaw, there is not much good. I would say good with a capital ‘G,’ you know. I think good must be rewarded. I could not sleep if you didn’t accept it. You saved my goddaughter’s life.”

  He had received stocks and bonds on his reward jobs, in lieu of cash. Original art too. Never jewelry.

  He hesitated. “Then thank you. I will.” He put the piece back in the bag and slipped that into his jacket pocket.

  And walked her to the door.

  She turned. “One favor? Maria’s proud. She would be embarrassed if she knew what I did.”

  “A secret, sure.”

  She shook his hand with both of hers. “Good, with a capital ‘G.’”

  57

  Colter Shaw had returned to Hunters Point.

  He was all too aware that the clock was counting down on the SP family’s murders, and could think of nothing else to do. Kevin Miller, the O.G. with the Hudson Kings, had told him that crews from Salinas were making forays into this part of Hunters Point.

  For two hours he canvassed people on the shabby streets, flashing Blond’s altered picture and asking if anybody knew him.

  He wanted to believe that somewhere here was a lead to the identity of the family that BlackBridge had targeted to die.

  A belief that was stubbornly, however, not becoming a reality.

  As he walked back to the Yamaha, chained to a light pole in a large, deserted parking lot, he spotted some construction workers, jeans and T-shirts, tan or gray jackets. They’d just finished boarding up a building to the north side of the lot, the direction where the city proper lay. It was impossible to tell from the faded paint on the side of the place what the single-story structure might once have been. It seemed to say fresh eggs though that seemed plain odd.

  He waved and walked toward the workers along the waterfront. He noted that the bay near the shoreline was coagulated with grease and probably toxic runoff from the old shipyard. He could see, far away, the massive battleship turret crane, an unobstructed view, and even from this distance it was impressive, a monument to ingenuity and muscle and industry.

  The Egg building was masterfully sealed. Substantial plywood boards and many Sheetrock screws had been involved. Maybe the place had fallen into the hands of crack or meth users and the owner wanted to secure it permanently.

  Shaw walked up, smiled and nodded.

  The six men, half of them Anglo, half Latino, glanced his way, then their eyes slipped to the asphalt.

  “You work around here mostly?”

  One of them said, “The Point, Bayview.” The others re
mained cautious. Was he a cop? Immigration and Customs Enforcement?

  “By any chance, you seen this guy? He was a buddy of mine in the Army. He’s gone missing.”

  Offering his phone, Shaw continued to spin his tall tale. “Got into some drug trouble and ended up in Hunters Point somewhere. I want to find him, get him some help.”

  They seemed to buy his story. All looked at the picture, then at one another, but finally shook their heads. Shaw’s sense was that they—unlike him—were being honest.

  He thanked them and they piled into the vehicles and drove out of the parking lot, leaving the whole area deserted, except for Shaw.

  It had been a long shot. As he walked back to his bike he wondered, Who are you, SP? And who are the children? How many? Were they sons, daughters, both? What was there about the gangs in Hunters Point that was central to your death sentence?

  Questions, questions, questions . . .

  And Colter Shaw was filled with anger that he couldn’t seem to get a single answer.

  He pulled on his helmet, started the bike, tapped it into gear and eased forward. He accelerated and was about a hundred feet from the exit when a battered gray pickup truck shot out from between two small, abandoned warehouses and aimed right for him, speeding with a gassy roar.

  The Ford bore down on him at thirty, forty, fifty miles an hour. He had no choice but to brake and spin the bars. The pickup passed within two feet of his front fender.

  Shaw tried to steer into the skid, but like much of the parking lot the surface here was sand and disintegrated asphalt. The Yamaha went down and he tumbled off with the bike pinning his right leg and arm under its two hundred pounds of metal. Not a huge weight but he could get no leverage to rise or to reach his weapon.

  Which he now saw he needed.

  The driver and the passenger had climbed from the pickup and were walking toward him.

  Shaw recognized them.

  The BNG gangbangers he and Russell had relieved of their drugs, money and guns in the TL yesterday.

  They reached under their untucked shirts and pulled out their new weapons and approached the bike.

  58

  Ang malaking tao,” Red Shirt muttered.

  White Shirt laughed. “Hindi ganoon kalaki ngayon.”

  Which got a smile in return.

  They were thirty feet away. Shaw struggled to shift the bike. It moved a bit, an inch.

  Two inches.

  Then the skinny men were twenty feet away. “Hey, asshole? Where what you stole?” The accent was thick, the words nearly imperceptible.

  “Yeah, where?”

  Just a little more and he could grab the Glock. A round was chambered, no safety to click. Point and shoot: the proud legacy of this brand of weapon.

  Shaw muscled the bike a little farther off himself. Two more inches.

  Come on, push it, come on . . .

  Fifteen feet away.

  He touched the grip of his weapon.

  With one finger.

  The men stopped. One whispered to the other. They shared another laugh.

  Now two fingers.

  White Shirt pulled a knife out of his pocket. It was spring operated and he flicked the black blade out.

  Shaw thought: Insert, twist . . .

  “I don’t have the drugs here. I can get them,” he said, stalling for time.

  His fingers closed around the weapon’s grip.

  “Where?”

  “They’re back there.” Shaw gestured toward the Egg building.

  As they looked, he shouldered the bike up and crouched. The two BNGs turned, guns rising. Shaw’s did too. He’d take one out at least, but where would the other one shoot him to wound. Maybe just to wound. They would really want their drugs back.

  Weapons rose, fingers on the triggers . . .

  At that moment a roar filled the parking lot.

  It was a car engine. The vehicle was coming from the side, behind the Egg building.

  The smiles vanished from the men’s faces and they spun around, lifting the guns.

  But they were too late.

  The white Chevy Impala slammed into them at speed. One flew against the wall and the other caromed off the hood. They lay still, eyes closed, though breathing.

  The car skidded to a stop.

  Shaw glanced at the driver, getting out, the blond woman in sunglasses and baseball cap. So she had swapped out the green Honda.

  She pulled the glasses off and looked at Shaw.

  He squinted. “You?”

  59

  He knew her name only as Adelle.

  Or more formally, Journeyman Adelle.

  “Are you all right?”

  Shaw ignored the scraped knee. It was bleeding. Not bad.

  He nodded, scanning the area for other hostiles. He saw none. He pulled off his helmet. Shaw walked to the BNGs and collected their guns. He put them into one man’s shoulder bag and set it by the motorcycle. He looked the men over. Neither was bleeding badly.

  She glanced at the two Filipinos. Her gaze was clinical. Emotionless.

  The woman, late twenties, had been a member and employee of the cult in Washington State where he had met Victoria Lesston—the cult he was just telling his brother about the charismatic—and dangerously narcissistic—clan leader had brainwashed her, and her fellow followers. She came to believe that if she were to kill herself, she would be reunited in the next life with her young daughter, who had died several years earlier.

  There was no one near enough to have seen the incident. But they’d have to clean up quickly. He sent Russell a text telling him he was needed urgently, giving the GPS coordinates. He concluded:

  Déjà vu alley two days ago, near library. Two injured this time.

  Need Karin/Ty with van.

  The reply was nearly instantaneous.

  K.

  Slipping his phone away, Shaw said to her, “Thank you.”

  She nodded, still seemingly indifferent to what she’d just done. He wasn’t surprised at her reaction, nor with the vehicular assault in the first place. When he’d first seen her, last week, she had observed with no emotion the brutal beating of a reporter by the sadistic head of the cult’s security department. Shaw could still picture the three dots of the man’s blood on her blouse.

  She walked the fifteen feet to the water’s edge and looked down. He joined her. He had plenty of questions, of course, but remained silent for a moment. Then:

  “You got rid of the Honda.”

  She nodded. “You spotted me. I had to.”

  “So. How’d you get to San Francisco?”

  After a moment she said, “At the camp? I talked to Journeyman Frederick and found out who you really were, that you’d been after this reward for Journeyman Adam, some crime they said he’d done. You were with him when he graduated.”

  The cult’s troublingly sanitized term for suicide.

  “He told me you had Adam’s notebook and that you were going to give it to his father, Mr. Harper. I drove to his shipping business in Gig Harbor and waited for you.”

  Shaw couldn’t help but appreciate her clever, industrious detective work. And as for following him to San Francisco, if you’re going to be tailing a vehicle, when your subject is driving a thirty-foot motor home, your job is pretty damn easy.

  “I was going to kill you. I didn’t have a gun. But I had my car. I was going to drive you off the road. I felt you ruined my life. You destroyed it. Everything he taught about coming back, it seemed so true. I believed it.” A sigh. “I remembered her face, her laugh, her little fingers—Jamie’s. My daughter’s . . . And all I could think was that you took away my chance to see her again. I wanted you to die. I was working up my courage. A couple times I almost hit you.”

  “Eli did nothing but lie to you, to everybody. He wa
nted money and he wanted sex and he wanted power. Trying to sell immortality. It was all fake.”

  “I know that now. Maybe I knew all along.” A sad smile. “Eli was pretty sharp. You can’t prove what he taught us doesn’t work.”

  This was true. The only way to know for certain if there was an afterlife was to die, and nobody was going to send back social media pix from there, confirming the theory.

  “The nails you threw into the street. You learn that from Journeyman Hugh?” The cult’s head of security.

  “He said we needed to know how to stop enemies coming after us.”

  “Why the change of heart, Adelle?”

  She blinked, maybe at the use of her given name alone. In the cult you always used a prefix: at first “Novice,” then “Apprentice” and finally the coveted “Journeyman.”

  Shaw had no idea what her last name was. Withholding those from members of the cult had been a way for the leader to control his sheep.

  “I can’t really say. Maybe . . . Eli’s spell wore off.”

  She’d hesitated again before mentioning the cult leader’s name. It was a serious breach of the rules to fail to refer to him as “Master Eli.”

  She turned her eyes his way. “I kept thinking, you had to die . . . But I couldn’t get out of my head that you helped people. You saved lives. Hugh and Eli would have poisoned them. And you nearly got killed . . . So I couldn’t hurt you. It would just be wrong.”

  Noise from the highway. A Lincoln Navigator appeared, paused and then drove to where Adelle and Shaw stood. Russell got out.

  “This is Adelle. Russell.”

  They nodded to each other and Russell looked over the BNGs. “How’d they make you?”

  “Been here, asking about Blond. Maybe word got back.”

  Now the same white van Shaw remembered from several days ago pulled up, and Karin and Ty got out. The other group ops weren’t present. Ty assessed one of the injured Filipinos and gave him an injection.

  Shaw stirred.

  Russell said, “Just a painkiller.”