by CJ Lyons
"You couldn't have known who he was or what he was going to do," she protested, defending JD better than he could himself.
"I saw him, Julia. I knew he was doing something creepy. I even saw the car he drove—a white Honda Accord. I watched him leave and I didn't tell anyone. Then he went and killed all those kids but I could have stopped him. I should have stopped him."
She held him tight as his shoulders heaved with the effort not to break down and cry. "All I can think about is the faces of those kids—it could have been my little brother. The police came by my house a few days later, said Kenny had been in the pictures they found. That creep was taking pictures of my kid brother. What if he'd gone after Kenny? All because I was too lazy to stop him."
"You were only thirteen then, the police probably wouldn't have listened to you anyway. Besides what would you have done? Followed him on your skateboard?" Julia's voice was calm, soothing. The voice of reason he'd been searching for for two years.
"I don't know," he admitted. "In my dreams, I clobber him with my board, pin him down, hold him until Hal Waverly or one of his men can come. People cheer and give me a big medal." Not to mention kisses from beautiful girls.
"In my nightmares," he continued, determined to tell her the whole truth, "I watch him drive off and too late I realize Kenny's in the back seat, pounding on the window, trapped. And I run and I run and I can never catch them."
"But those are just dreams. They don't mean anything. In real life, there's no way you could have known he was getting ready to hurt anyone. He was just a creepy grownup and you were glad to see him leave."
JD blew his breath out and relaxed in her embrace. She smelled so good—how did girls do that? Like fresh rain and vanilla. He raised his face, nuzzled her neck, drinking in her scent.
"So that's why you want to figure out what's making these lights? To make sure no one else gets hurt?" Julia's voice now held a trace of pride.
JD pulled away just far enough to look into her face, to confirm that she wasn't making fun of him. Far from it, she gazed at him with a wide smile accompanied by a look of admiration.
"Something like that," he mumbled, not sure what to make of this girl who didn't call him a fool like the rest of his world did.
"Wow. I mean, everyone else is just wondering about stuff like their music or clothes, stuff that means nothing but you—wow. JD, you're like a real hero. You think about what's really important."
Before JD's stunned brain could formulate an answer, Julia had her arms wrapped around his neck and her lips clamped over his, smothering him in a breathless embrace. She tasted just as good as she smelled. He returned her kiss and dared to part his lips against hers, inviting her.
Julia responded eagerly and soon he couldn't remember why he'd been so nervous.
Sam watched as Sarah stared down at him. She'd changed. Lost weight, but somehow it didn't make her look skinny or weak. Rather it had defined her muscles, made her look strong, capable of anything. He searched her face, saw the purple circles etched below her eyes, eyes that used to light up whenever they looked at him but now were narrowed with loathing.
As if the mere sight of him made her sick. "Don't look at me like that," he pleaded.
"Don't look at you?" Her voice took on a brittle edge ready to splinter into a thousand pieces. "I don't even know who you are. I gave you six years of my life, I gave you a son—"
Her voice broke and so did something inside of him. It was as if a sliver of glass had pierced through his scar, stabbing and twisting in his gut, leaving wickedly sharp shards in its wake.
Sarah stood, head bowed, arms wide open in surrender—or defeat. Sam couldn't bear to look at her. That wasn't his wife, his Sarah. She never gave up. Never.
Moonlight reflected from her tear-stained face, giving her a ghostly glow. She swiped at her eyes with the arm of her fleece jacket. But the tears didn't stop.
Spears of pain spiraled into his heart, making it hard for him to breathe. He'd done this to save her, to save Josh, but his actions had killed the woman he loved. Or at least part of her. He pulled his knees to his chest and looked away.
"Tell me, Sam," she commanded, her voice a strangled whisper barely able to penetrate the empty night air between them. "Tell me everything."
He took a breath, surprised himself by not exploding with the pain that sliced through his body, then took another. Still alive. Couldn't get out of it that easily. That was Stan, always looking for the easy way out.
Not this time.
"My name's not Sam," he started, talking to the shadows before him.
"It's not—" Her exhalation of frustration circled through the clearing. "Then who the hell are you?"
"My real name is Stan Diamontes. I was—I am—a lot of things. I liked to surf, I liked to write songs, I picked up girls on the beach when the waves were slow. I didn't like to work, but my dad wouldn't pay for college unless I majored in something marketable so I have a degree in accounting."
Her footsteps scuffed through the dirt as she spun around. "You're an accountant? You can't even balance our checkbook."
"I didn't say I enjoyed it. But actually I was—am—pretty good at it. Not the adding machine bookkeeping stuff, but the computer stuff. Moving money around, making it work for you, hiding it." He almost smiled, remembering his "perfect" crime. A victimless crime since he replaced all the money he borrowed from Korsakov's accounts, just not the interest he earned from it. Well, all but that last few million—the money that had allowed Alan to track him.
He almost choked on his frustration. All he'd wanted was to protect his future—and now all that he wanted for his future was in danger because of that one decision. An image of what Korsakov would do to Josh and Sarah if he ever got near them swamped his vision. Fire lanced along his scar. Turning his head away, he took shallow breaths through his mouth, swallowing bile.
"So who did you make all this money work for?" Sarah asked, her voice closer now.
Sam swallowed once more before he could trust his voice. "A guy named Korsakov. He wanted to break into the film biz, bad. Was determined to be the next Tarantino. He had money but he needed it—ah—legitimized before he could use it for his production company."
"Legitimized? You mean laundered. So this guy Korsakov, what was he really? A drug dealer?" She paced across the clearing, her head swinging, scanning the woods surrounding them, a caged animal searching for an escape.
Sam couldn't keep his eyes off her, watching as she regrouped. Her head was high now, there was no air of defeat around her. Instead she seemed to radiate a heat, white hot fury.
"Drugs, prostitutes, smuggling, gambling." He shrugged. "Any and all of the above."
With a sudden, quick movement, she spun in her tracks and came to a halt a few feet in front of him. Her glare blazed through him like a flash of lightning.
"You worked for a drug dealer and a pimp?"
"No. I worked for a guy whose family happens to be part of the Russian Mafia. They're the drug dealers and pimps. Although Korsakov is the most dangerous of the bunch. I didn't know it at first. By the time I did, it was too late. I was in too deep."
She leaned forward, impaling him with her gaze. "Excuse me, but it seems you found a way to get in deeper. And to take your son and me down with you."
He flinched at her words. Not because of her sharp tone, a tone he'd never heard from her before, but because of the truth it carried. "It wasn't supposed to be like this."
"It? What it?"
"My life, you, Josh—none of it was meant to happen this way. I had a plan."
"You had a plan?" Her laughter was shrill, a hairbreadth away from hysteria. Sam watched her with concern. She stood rigid, hands curled into white knuckled fists, her mouth tight with anger. "And just what was this grand plan of yours, Stan?"
He hated hearing his old name, hated even more the way she spat it out as if it had a bad taste. Hated that she of all people would ever know the truth about his life
.
Kneading his side, fingers probing his scar as if seeking answers from an oracle, he tried to find the words to answer her.
"It all began eight years ago. I was twenty-seven and still living like a kid. No worries, no responsibilities, no plan—no need to plan. And then I watched a man die."
CHAPTER 28
Most of the people aboard United flight 803 from LAX to JFK slept. Not Grigory Korsakov. He'd had more than enough time to sleep during the past seven years. He wasn't about to waste another second to dreamland.
Not when he was about to make all his dreams come true.
"You know what really kills people in prison, Dawson?" he asked the grey-suited lawyer sitting beside him. The babysitter his uncle had sent along. As if even his own family no longer trusted Grigory to play by the rules.
Dawson didn't bother to cover his yawn as he pried his bleary eyes open and focused on Grigory. "Fights?"
"No. Boredom. Sheer boredom."
"Sure. Boredom starts the fights." Typical lawyer, Dawson always had to have the last word.
Korsakov looked out his window into a black emptiness. "Know how I fought the boredom?"
"Directing plays for the prison drama society?" There was no mistaking Dawson's tone of disgust. Evidently, word of Grigory's "entertainments" had made it back to the family.
Even those diversions had grown weary after a while. Nothing to compare with the dramas played out in his mind. Intimate explorations of the human psyche. All starring Stan Diamontes.
Grigory had almost wet his pants when Logan told him Stan had a wife and kid. Too bad Stan and the kid were gone. But that still left the wife…
His palm grew sweaty as it clenched the armrest. A small noise caught in his throat.
"Grigory, you know what your uncle said. The family doesn't want any more trouble or," Dawson's tone grew sharp, "embarrassment."
"If my father was still alive—"
"Your father's dead, your uncle is in charge now. And he considers you a liability."
"No one felt that way when I was making them money."
"They lost all that money and more when they had to close down operations after your arrest. Business is going well now and your uncle doesn't want anything to jeopardize that."
Grigory slit his eyes, glancing at the lawyer with disdain. He was an artist stranded among money-grubbing pagans. They'd never understood that—no one did.
"Now, what's this town you wanted to buy property in?"
Grigory's smile bared his teeth. "Hopewell? It's up in the mountains. Very peaceful and quiet. I'm going to be able to do some of my best work there."
Sarah's sharp intake of breath echoed through the clearing. Sam couldn't sit still any longer. He stood and paced to the edge of the overhang. Moonlight glittered off the dark water of the reservoir nestled in the folds of the mountain. Below the dam, the lights of Hopewell twinkled like beacons surrounded by dark forest.
Sam gathered his strength and told his story. Speaking to the empty air before him was easier than facing her. "Alan was my roommate in college. He was the ambitious one, made it through law school, worked in corporate law long enough to realize there were easier ways to make money than toadying to partners and left to set up his own practice—with a very specialized clientele."
"Crooks?"
"Not all of them. More like independent financiers who weren't afraid to gamble if it meant a large return. Power brokers. Producers, agents—the men behind the scenes of Hollywood. He hired me to help skirt any tax issues. At first it was all legit—questionable maybe, but nothing illegal. It was kind of fun, outwitting Uncle Sam at his own game, using his own rules against him. Then Alan began to deal with people who liked to play with higher stakes. People with very large sums of money."
"People like your Russian." Sarah's disdain colored her voice.
"Yeah. People like Korsakov. I should have just walked away, but it was kind of…intoxicating. Seeing how far I could push the edge. And then, all the sudden I was over the edge and I didn't even know it." He turned to her, she had crossed to the center of the clearing, was closer than he'd expected. The moonlight danced around her and he wondered for a moment if this wasn't all some kind of dream.
Nightmare was more like it.
"When I realized what was going on, I was going to call the cops. But before I could, Korsakov invited me to his house for dinner. Feast, really. Like something out of a movie—caviar and champagne, truffles, vodka, a parade of beautiful women, gold platters. Then he took me to another room for dessert."
He fell silent and turned away once more, gagging as he remembered what that "dessert" had consisted of. The edge of the cliff was so close, he was half-tempted to step over, fly away—except the next stop was the dam about 500 feet below. He cleared his throat and gathered his courage. He had to tell her everything, prepare her for what had to happen next.
"There was a man waiting for us. He was tied to a chair, stripped naked. Bruised up, a wild look in his eyes, his voice was hoarse from screaming. He kept asking us who we were, what we wanted, why him. I tried to run, but Korsakov's men held me in place, made me watch as Korsakov ignored the man's pleas for mercy and tortured him. He kept up a running commentary on the history of each technique, who invented it, modifications he'd made, the success rate."
Sarah made a choking noise from behind him. He felt his words tumble out, he was so eager to finish. "I begged Korsakov to stop. He demanded an oath of loyalty to him and I gave it to him. I would have done anything to stop the screaming—well, almost anything. He handed me a gun, told me to go ahead, shoot the poor bastard, put him out of his misery. Held my arm to steady my aim. Told me it was the only way to end the suffering, that I'd be doing the man a favor."
He had to stop, his teeth were chattering too hard for the words to come out. He pulled his arms around him, goosebumps lined up along his arms. Then he felt her warmth as she added her arms to his, turning him into her embrace. He let her hold him until his shivering stopped.
"What happened?" she whispered.
He kept his face buried in her neck, refusing to release her. "I couldn't do it. I couldn't shoot him. So Korsakov took a plumber's torch and used it to burn out the guy's eyes. He must have hit an artery or something, because all this blood came gushing out and then he was dead."
His head ached with the memory of the awful silence that had descended over the room. A silence broken too quickly by Korsakov's laughter.
"I asked him who the man was, what he'd done to deserve such punishment. Korsakov told me he had no idea. The guy was someone they pulled off the street. Just to impress me with how seriously they took an oath of loyalty." His mouth was parched, he swallowed but his throat was dry and scratchy. "So that's when I came up with my plan. I began collecting information about Korsakov's activities and building a new identity for myself in Canada. When I had everything I needed, I went to the FBI. After Korsakov was convicted, they sent me here. Stan Diamontes accountant to the mob and world class snitch became Sam Durandt, mediocre song-writer and insurance salesman."
"You never told me." She pulled away from him, her expression clouded. "You let me believe…you brought a child into this world, knowing that someday we might all be in danger because of your past." Anger edged her voice once more. "Sam, how could you not tell me?"
"I wanted a new life, a new beginning. For us all. I was planning to tell you as soon as I had a new identity set up for you."
A frown wrinkled her forehead. "New identity? From the FBI?"
"No. I knew sooner or later Korsakov would get out of jail. So I set up an escape route. New passport, driver's license, even medical card, work history. Meet Samuel Deschamps, Canadian citizen."
"Deschamps?"
"When Josh came, I set up an ID for him too. It's easy for a baby. I used to take him across the border while you were working, he's even had several checkups by a pediatrician in Canada. But, after 9/11, I couldn't get a new passport or anyt
hing for you—at least nothing that was good enough to risk your life on."
"So you planned this? You took Josh and ran, left me behind? Why? How? There was all that blood and Damian Wright confessed. Sam, what the hell happened?"
CHAPTER 29
Caitlyn opened the first box of files and sat at the table while Hal freshened their now-cold coffee. He brought the mugs over and sat beside her, a stack of papers piled before them. She kicked her shoes off and kneeled on her chair so that she could sort the papers into categories.
Hal licked his fingers clean of white powder. "Spilled the sugar. You want any in yours? Sorry, I don't have any milk."
"Black's fine. I've found the evidence reports and crime scene photos. See those blood smears? Those belong to Richland. Looks like he hit his head on that big rock, rolled around a bit."
"That's what you said happened to Wright. Then he dragged Sam's body away and took Josh. But if Richland was sent to kill Sam, why hide the body? And what did he do with Josh?"
Caitlyn pursed her lips, her thumb massaging her palm. Wow, still no headache, she could definitely get used to this. Just the faintest pressure behind her eyes, easy to rein in. "That's the big question, isn't it?" She glanced at him, his eyes bright as they met hers. "Maybe Richland didn't kill Josh? Maybe he and Sam are both still alive?"
Hal sucked in his breath, his right eye twitching as he pulled back. "No," he said, shaking his head. "Sam wouldn't do that, not to Sarah. He'd never betray her like that, steal her son away. Look at all that blood. It'd be a miracle for anyone to survive that. Not to mention having enough strength to kill a federal marshal and dispose of his body."
"You're right, Sam couldn't have moved Richland." She frowned, staring at the photos. It was a hell of a lot of blood, but it was also raining—could have been diluted. Still, there was no way, unless— "Maybe Sam had an accomplice?"