by Nancy Bush
If he yanked back the draping covers she would be exposed and then . . . what? She had no alternate plan.
Except screaming. Screaming for all she was worth.
He took a step inside, then a second. A moment’s assessment. She was dizzy with fear.
Then, in the hallway, another sound. Strolling footsteps making no effort to disguise themselves. Some employee working graveyard, heading down the hallway. Had that person heard her call? God, she hoped so!
The man in her room—she was pretty sure it was a man, though she had no reason to know—took a couple of steps. She envisioned him peering out the door, waiting for the employee to disappear. Her own pulse was damn near deafening her. Over its roar she heard those casual footsteps approaching, then . . . no, no, no! They were growing fainter! The person had turned down some other hallway or gone into some other room.
Oh . . . God . . . oh, God . . .
The man exhaled softly, tensely. Then to Jules’s relief he tiptoed back out. Was he leaving? Or, was he just checking to make sure he was still safe?
Her head pulsed with the stress and her shoulder ached.
Jules stayed where she was, not trusting that he’d truly moved on. Time passed.... She was nearly frozen with fear. An hour must have gone by.
Finally she dared peek around the bedclothes to realize he was gone.
* * *
Her cell phone vibrated on her nightstand in the darkness. Quickly she swept it up, holding her breath.
“Bridget?” his voice asked.
She glanced to the other side of her bed, then back to her cell where she saw the time. A little after midnight. The moon was high in the sky and a finger of moonlight slipped through the curtains, making it easy to see as she tiptoed out of the room and gently closed the door behind her. “Is it done?” she asked softly.
“Two things,” he said tightly. “One. The only way into the hospital is through Emergency, this time of night. I went in and made it without being seen, but I didn’t have the room number, only the floor.”
“And?”
“She wasn’t in any of the rooms I went into.”
“What do you mean?”
He snorted in disbelief. “What do you think I mean? She wasn’t there. Not on the fourth floor. There was one guy walking around beside the nurse’s station, and I almost shit myself when he came down the hallway. I’m probably on every fucking camera, too.”
“You were seen?” Her voice was a choked screech.
“Hoodie covered me and I kept my head down, but if that fucking orderly or nurse, or whatever the hell he was, had seen me, he would’ve thought it was weird. And there was a nurse coming, too. I had to get the hell out.”
“You promised you would take care of her!” she hissed, infuriated and scared. “You promised!”
“I know . . . but we’ve got something else anyway.”
“What do you mean?”
“The man has another problem he wants us to take care of.”
“Oh, fuck.” She could feel herself going into the danger zone and held on to her cool with an effort. “Julia will recognize you. You’ve got to take care of her tonight!”
“I’ll take care of her when she’s at home, and anyone else who gets in the way.”
“Oh, big man.”
“Yeah, big man,” he agreed, ignoring her sarcasm.
“And what about that . . . Cardaman note Sam Ford was talking about? You took it, didn’t you?”
“Shut up and let me tell you about this new job.”
“You took it! Why? This is exactly what I’m talking about when I tell you to stop going rogue. Stick to the plan. Now you’ve made Sam Ford suspicious!”
“I didn’t know he was going to be there, did I? I just saw the note and took it, so there wasn’t any evidence left. You’re the one always bitching about loose ends!”
“Fuck you, Tom.”
“Fuck you, Bridget.”
They were both breathing hard. She wanted to reach through the phone and wring his worthless neck.
“The man’s offered an extra piece. One hundred thousand dollars in cold hard cash. No banks. No IRS. No nothing.”
“Yeah? What do you have to do for it?”
“We have to remove an obstacle. The kind we like to remove.” A smile crept into his voice.
“Who’s the mark?” she asked, unable to stop herself, then, “No, don’t tell me. I don’t want to know.”
“Yeah, you do,” he chuckled. “It gets you going like nothing else.”
“Fuck you,” she said again, and clicked off in disgust.
But she did have that jazzy little buzz going, he was right about that. Made her want to click her fingers and dance around a little. Made her want to screw.
Still, he was becoming a big, big problem. And the Julia Ford issue was getting bigger every day, too. Julia would recognize him. And he would buckle under pressure if he was caught. Right now Julia was still in the hospital, still contained, but what about when she was back on the canal? She would recognize him, for sure. Luckily, Julia still didn’t know that Bridget was involved in the boating accident.
But goddamn, there was no telling what he would do or say if he got caught.
She couldn’t have that. Couldn’t. He was a liability that was growing bigger and bigger every day.
And he was untrustworthy. She wasn’t the only woman in his life, no matter what he said. Or, at least she hadn’t been. Didn’t matter. She was going to have to start thinking in the long term and this . . . this period of lunacy would have to end. She hated the idea of giving up the killings. There was absolutely nothing like it. Nothing. But she was into self-preservation a hell of a lot more than thrills.
Tom’s days were numbered.
She just needed to figure out how to get rid of him . . . after they got the hundred thousand.
Chapter Eleven
Sam strode down the main hall of Sea and Sunset Retirement Living to his dad’s apartment. He knocked on the door and tried the handle. Locked. Knocking louder, he called, “Dad? It’s Sam. You in there?”
There was no answer, so he waited a couple of minutes, wondering if his father was in the bathroom. It was barely seven a.m., a little early for a visit, maybe, but Sam didn’t have time to waste. He was heading to the hospital next, though he knew discharges tended to take a while. No one had given him a time to pick up Jules. For that matter, no one knew he was going to be the one to fetch her.
“Dad?” He rattled the handle.
An older woman with a walker was just coming out her door, and she looked at him askance. “Who are you?” she warbled.
“I’m Donald’s son. Sam.”
“Donald said his son died.”
“His other son. He has two.”
“No, he only has one.” She slowly wheeled herself past him, heading down the hall where he’d just come.
“Dad?!”
“Hold your horses,” came the irked and muffled voice from Donald’s room. About a decade later his father opened the door and Sam stepped inside, closing it behind him.
“What’re you doing here?” Donald asked. “You know what time it is, son?”
“I need to talk to you about Joe, Dad. About his business. What he was doing. You know the financial end of things. You’re the one who got Joe interested in the business in the first place. . . .”
“Hang on there. Don’t blame me. He was always interested in making money.” He trundled back to his chair, throwing over his shoulder, “Can’t say the same for you.”
Sam paced past his father to the far end of the room and looked out the window, struggling to get a handle on his composure. He normally wasn’t so undone, but Joe’s death was a bolt of lightning that kept striking from the sky, catching him unawares and reverberating through him long after he thought the chance of getting hit was over.
In the presence of his father, Sam felt the grip on his emotions start to cave. He bore down on his feelings, aware
that if he succumbed he could break down completely. Only the desire to find out the truth kept him from being overcome by grief. Still, he thought of his brother’s smile, one that had become rarer over the years, and his heart ached. When had that happened? When Joe broke away from the huge firm he’d worked for and went into business for himself? Or was it something else?
“Breakfast is at eight,” Donald let him know.
Sam sat down in the only extra chair in the room as his father worked to adjust his La-Z-Boy recliner. Once Donald was settled, Sam pulled his chair up closer so they were looking at each other, eye to eye. “I need some help, Dad. I need to find out about Joe.”
“Joe?”
“Yes, Joe. Your son. He died in a boating accident the day before yesterday.”
“You told me.”
“Yes, I told you. That’s right. I need you to focus now and tell me about Joe’s business. I’ve talked to some other people, but no one seems to know exactly what was going on.”
He tsk-tsked and waved his finger at Sam. “That’s secret stuff, you know. Other people’s money.”
“You specifically said ‘it’s about the money,’ when we were talking about Joe, and I think you’re right. Joe’s gone, and I’m working on finding out what happened. And to do that, I need to know as much as you do, and probably more, about Joe’s company. A lot of people invested with him, trusted their funds to him.”
“You didn’t.”
“Dad, please. Bear with me.”
“Joe was good to you, Sammy. He left you everything. And his wife. He left you his wife, too.”
That was just crazy, about leaving Jules to him, and the rest, what he’d heard at the party from Hap, he’d dismissed as speculation or gossip.
Sam shook his head, frustrated. “You mean, he left his wife everything. I’m not a part of his will.”
“How do you know?”
“Dad, Joe and I weren’t . . . I will be meeting with Joe’s lawyers. Jules needs to see them, and I’ll take her. She’s just not ready yet.”
“Well, then you’ll know.”
“Does the name Cardaman mean anything to you?” Sam asked, hanging on to his patience with an effort.
“Ike Cardaman.” He snorted. “He was running that Ponzi scheme before he got caught. Yeah, I know him. He in jail?”
“Yes. I believe so.”
“He talked your brother into some stuff he never shoulda got into. He put investors’ money into Capitol College, that online one, y’know? Then the government shut ’em down, stopped the student loans. It was all a racket. No money from the government, so the college goes belly-up and who’s left holding the bag?” Donald was getting riled up as he jabbed a gnarled finger at Sam and answered his own question. “Joe’s investors, that’s who. And who’re they blaming? Joe, that’s who. Luckily Joe’s smart. He had ’em diversified, his investors. Capitol College was just some of it. He was trying to get all the money back for ’em. But that damn whistle-blower brought it all down. Joe had to defend himself, but people were really mad.”
“What about Summit Ridge, in Salchuk?”
“Everybody moving to Salchuk,” Donald said on a sigh.
“I ran into Hap—Walter Hapstell Junior—and he said he and Joe were working on a deal to buy those houses from whomever’s holding them.”
“Cardaman’s houses?” He looked at Sam like he’d lost his mind. Bushy eyebrows drew together. “Bah. That’s gonna be years. Government’s gotta untangle all Cardaman’s messes and put on a trial. Too long to wait. Houses’ll be termite dust by then.”
“It sounds like it’s Hap’s big deal.”
He flapped a hand at Sam, as if wanting him to stop talking. “He wants to get into Salchuk before it’s too late, but it’s already too late for Summit Ridge. Salchuk’s supposed to be the next big deal on the coast. Been a sleepy little town far too long. Got a great, private beach. Might be that it’s the big money maker. I put some money there, too, through your brother.” He paused, his face clouding over. “Where’d you say Joe was?”
Sam didn’t answer. He just couldn’t get caught in that kind of loop with his father. “Did Joe ever tell his investors to go with Cardaman?”
“Nah . . . Joe just inherited some clients who’d invested with Cardaman.”
“He inherited them?”
“They were all real upset ’cause they’d lost money with Cardaman and they wanted Joe to save ’em.” A frown line etched deeply between Donald’s eyes. “Maybe Julia knows.”
“Was Julia that involved in the business? I thought she just worked part-time.”
“Mighta been they were her dad’s clients,” he mused. “That St. James . . . stupid man.” He shook his head. “What a way to go. Couldn’t swim and jumps into the Columbia.”
“You think Julia knew about all this?” When she could remember things . . . Sam reminded himself grimly. Dealing with Dad’s altered reality and Julia’s loss of memory was only making things more difficult.
“Ask Joe,” Donald said. “He’d know.”
Sam gazed at his father in consternation. “Joe’s gone, Dad. The Derring-Do was set on fire and Joe didn’t survive. He drowned. And you know what they’re saying, Dad? That Joe burned his own boat. That he purchased the gasoline that was spilled on the boat and set fire to it. They’re intimating that he committed suicide and that he tried to take Jules with him.”
Donald reared back as if Sam had hit him. “Get outta here!” he roared.
“I didn’t say it, Dad. That’s just what the sheriff thinks. And I’m going to prove him wrong.”
“Those assholes don’t know what they’re talking about!” He tsk-tsked his finger in front of Sam’s nose. “Your brother was a good man. A good man.” Donald’s eyes began watering and he reached for a tissue on the table beside his chair.
Sam silently measured his father. Was a good man . . . Throughout their conversation Donald Ford had been remarkably “sane.” Yes, he fell into forgetfulness, but he seemed to be getting the information overall. He wondered, again, just how much of his father’s dementia was manufactured.
Yeah, but you think everyone’s faking what they know.
He tried to hold on to his patience. “Look, Dad, I don’t think my brother tried to kill himself, but I don’t think his death was an accident. I think it’s connected to Joe’s financial dealings. A lot of people invested with him, and I want to know about the ones who lost money, who maybe blamed Joe. I want to know who among them would kill him over it.”
His father slowly sat back in his chair. “You need to talk to the whistle-blower.”
“You brought him up before. Dennis Mulhaney?”
His father squinted at him. “You know him?”
“I heard he left Joe’s company.” He didn’t add that Mulhaney had been missing for six weeks, according to Phoenix Delacourt.
“He worked for Joe . . . and Hapstell. Said he was gonna tell everybody they were crooks. They said fine and he quit, all mad. Joe said he kept going on and on about them hooked in with Cardaman, but it wasn’t true.”
The Cardaman file. Maybe it wasn’t true.... Sam sure hoped it wasn’t true.
His father blinked a couple of times, then shook his head in frustration. “Why’d you come by again?” he asked. “It wasn’t just to talk about money, was it?”
Sam tamped down his frustration with an effort. “We were talking about Joe and his investment company.”
“Uh-huh. Joe always protects his customer,” his father said with a sage nod of his gray head. “That’s why everybody invests with him.”
Donald was looking at the clock and clucking his tongue, so Sam let him get up and ready for breakfast. Though he had cognitive difficulties, Donald was a fairly young man for the clientele at Sea and Sunset; he brought the mean age way down. But he’d been eager to move in, so here he was.
He walked with his father down the hall toward the dining area, then peeled off at the main set of doors
and pushed his way outside, heading to his truck. He dialed the sheriff as he climbed inside, but learned from Brenda, the dispatcher, that Vandra wasn’t around. Could someone else help him?
“What about Detective Stone? He there?”
“I can put you through.”
Stone sounded distracted when he answered, so Sam just started right in. “I’m trying to reach the sheriff. Joe didn’t burn that boat. I don’t care what the kid . . . Mayfield . . . said.”
“You see Mayfield yet?” Stone asked.
“That’s on today’s agenda.”
Stone exhaled slowly and said, “Vandra won’t appreciate me giving you Mayfield’s name. He doesn’t like family interference during an investigation.”
Sam sensed something in Stone’s tone, a dissatisfaction, maybe? Definitely a caution. “Why’d you give it to me, then?”
“We could use more people looking into what happened, family or otherwise. Just my opinion.”
And you and Detective Dunbar have had your hands tied by the sheriff’s assertion that the fire was set by Joe.
“Who interviewed Mayfield?” Sam asked. “Was it just Vandra?”
“Yep.”
“Is that usual? For the sheriff to conduct investigative interviews?”
“We all do the same work.” The answer was short, his tone cool. Whatever Stone felt, he was keeping it to himself, but Sam sensed the detective thought there was more to be learned.
“I’ll call you after I see Mayfield,” Sam said, wondering if he could fit that in before picking up Jules. He needed to call the hospital and get some kind of idea about the anticipated time of her release. He also still needed to pick up that burner phone for Jules, since she was in no condition yet to fight it out with her cell phone carrier.
Staring through the dusty windshield, he placed the call to Tillamook Hospital, and after being routed around for a while, learned that Julia Ford was unlikely to be released before eleven. That gave him some time, so he hung up, fired up his truck, and drove to Seaside, where he purchased the disposable cell phone. Then he headed back down the coast. He put a call in to the marina, hoping to catch Mayfield and risking a ticket while he drove, as his Bluetooth wasn’t working. Maybe the kid would be at the marina this early, or maybe not. Sam’s nebulous plan had always been to just show up and take the kid unawares, make him tell his story without any rehearsal. But a call to the marina would at least tell him if Ryan Mayfield was on the premises.