I.L. Wolf - Her Cousin, Much Removed

by I. L. Wolf

  “Palint. Shane Palint, and he’s serving a life sentence for a murder you helped to commit. That poor associate you were screaming at, you’d left the marriage out on purpose. And now that I know all of this, you’re really going to kill me.”

  His head barely moved up and down in a nod, his eyes unwavering as his lips twisted with contempt.

  “You never had any intention of letting me leave today.”

  “That’s not strictly true,” he said. “If you’d brought the documents like a you were supposed to—”

  “You would have taken them and killed me anyway,” she said.

  He laughed again, and it made her want to tear the skin from her body. “That’s true. You’re a little sharper than you look. But since you didn’t know about the animals before coming downstairs to the grotto—”

  “You honestly call this the grotto?”

  “What else could you call it? Since you seemed so surprised by the animals, it’s pretty clear you don’t have them. And if you don’t have them, no one has them. Which means we’re clear.”

  “We’re?”

  “Me and Sway.”

  “Huh,” she said, moving backward as slowly as she could. She checked the walls, she glanced down the hall, and there was nothing she could even throw at him to slow him long enough for her to get upstairs. Each inch she took backward, he matched her coming toward her.

  “You’re wrong there,” she said. “The police have the documents.”

  His eyes narrowed. “I don’t believe you,” he said.

  “They do. And they know I’m here.”

  “Now I know you’re bluffing,” he said. “No one knows you’re here.”

  “You can’t possibly know that.”

  “Can’t I?” he said.

  “I have the stamp,” she said. The words seemed to have a magic effect, stopping him where he stood.

  “What did you say?’

  “I said I have the stamp. The notary stamp with my name on it that was used for the ShamCorp papers. You know. The one that ties Delenda to your law firm. The one that ties ShamCorp to you.”

  “On you? Because that means my day just got all the better. I tried to get it from that assistant of Delenda’s, but all those police outside your building—”

  “That was you too? You beat up Billie? How deranged are you?”

  “I don’t think it’s kind to call someone deranged,” he said. “Give me the stamp.”

  “Sorry,” she said. “I can’t.”

  “I can take it after, you know.”

  “After?”

  “Don’t make me explain it to you again,” he said. “It’s a lucky thing your aunt doesn’t actually care for you that much, it won’t be quite as sticky as Delenda.”

  “Sticky?”

  “Once she had the proof that Delenda was her daughter…well, never mind, it’s not important now.”

  “It sounds important.” Finally, Venetia spotted a small button, colored to look like the rest of false rock, planted in the wall. As slowly as she could, she edged toward it.

  “Delenda was greedy and wanted to know things that weren’t for her to know,” he said, “especially once she found out Sissy was her mother. And that protective thing. Delenda protective when there was money to be made seemed so unnatural.”

  Venetia wanted to steer the conversation back to the one thing she had that he might want. “So she knew what she was doing with the stamp?”

  “Yes, the stamp. Give it to me. If you try to be cute about it, well, you know how that turned out for Delenda.”

  She gave up a silent thanks to the little voice that had insisted she leave it behind. “I don’t have it on me,” she said.

  “What do you mean?” The color returned to his cheeks and spread to his forehead, this time turning a deep shade of red.

  “It’s not here,” she said. “And if I disappear, it will be the first thing the police get. And, with the documents, it’s all they need, given the account’s in Delenda’s name and has me working at your firm.”

  “It’s funny, your aunt said that you weren’t terribly bright. I’ll admit that’s a little smarter than I would have expected from you.”

  “Thanks,” she said. She was nearly at the button, and now, closer, she could see it wasn’t so much a button as a switch with a top part, a middle neutral and a bottom part. “That’s a strange compliment under the circumstances.”

  “Maybe we can make a deal after all,” he said. “Tell me where it is, and you could get in on the action.”

  “There’s a problem with that,” she said. “What’s to stop me from telling Sissy everything?”

  “She won’t believe you,” he said, “she adores me.”

  “There are at least a dozen men who thought the same thing,” she said, “not to burst your bubble.” She was next to the switch. She couldn’t stall anymore because eventually he was going to decide she wasn’t worth the trouble. Besides, she hadn’t gotten the chance to tell anyone that the falsified stamp was bonded by Bloaerd’s firm.

  She needed one more stunner comment, one that would get him thinking long enough for her to hit the switch and try to make her move. “So you’re the one who was threatening Sissy and Dane? I thought you loved Sissy.”

  “I do,” he said, “and nothing made her cling tighter to me than the fear of someone being after her, of her needing me to protect her.”

  “From you,” Venetia said. “I’ll remind you, protect her from you. Did you do that to Sissy’s face?”

  He froze. “Do what?”

  “Beat her up. Over the documents.”

  “Sissy? I’d never touch her. I love her. Who was it? Was it Dane? I’ll kill him.” Something passed over his face, and then he chortled to himself, the sound cold off of the artificial walls. “Oh wait. Check.”

  As fluidly as she could, Venetia hit the bottom part of the switch with the palm of her hand, turned and darted toward the glass door. There was a dull hum of a motor starting, and glass wall descended slowly into the floor.

  “What the hell are you doing?” Bloaerd said as he dove for the switch, his eye on the level of the glass partition as it got lower and lower. “It’s dan—” is as far as he got before she got to the door, slamming it shut behind her, hoping, given the key, that it locked from the outside. She wasn’t going to wait around to find out. Taking a quarter-second to get her bearing, she sprinted back down the hall and to the stairs. She heard the door of the cave-room fling open, the sound of the motor echoing off of the low ceilings and the tanks. Hoping he’d stayed behind long enough to give her enough of a lead to find an exit, she raced up the stairs and stood in the mudroom.

  There were three doors, one on each of the walls. One looked like an outside door, and she pulled on the knob. The deadbolt was locked, she needed the key. She’d have to get to the front. As she passed the basement stairs again, she glimpsed Bloaerd, nearly at the bottom step. She flung the door closed, jamming her thumb on the button lock. She’d just made it to the far end of the kitchen when the sound of him throwing his body against the flimsy door got her to pick up the pace.

  She whacked the swinging door to the dining room, toppling the heavy wooden chairs as she went, hoping they’d slow him when he got past the basement door, which, judging by the sound, would give at any moment. Finally she found the foyer and sprinted down the stairs to her car, locking it as soon as she got to it.

  And then she remembered the iron gate. There it stood, closed, in front of her. She’d never drive through it, and the high hedges on either side had thick, tree-like roots. She was trapped.

  Chapter 30

  Almost as though she summoned him with the thought of no escape, Bloaerd appeared in the doorway, his arm cupped against his body. At least it looked like he hurt himself getting out of the basement, Venetia thought with a hint of satisfaction.

  Their eyes met. He looked at the closed gate and his left eye narrowed as the left half of his mouth curled. He
knew he had her.

  Venetia looked around the car, but she had nothing she could use to ward him off. Even injured, she wasn’t sure she could take him physically, he was a man solid from decades of racquetball.

  He started down the stairs, and she did the only thing she could think to do. She shoved the horn down, and it brayed in a long, solid stream, the obnoxious sound echoing in the quiet suburban stillness. Keeping her hand where it was, she hit the panic button on her fob, and the lights flashed and the noise intensified, intermittent and completely impossible to ignore. As she watched, the front door on the house across the street opened. And then the neighbor to right poked her head out of her front door to see the source of the commotion.

  “Turn it off,” Bloaerd mouthed. Venetia shook her head.

  “Walter?” said the next door neighbor, a well-dressed woman in her sixties who had to shout to be heard over the din, “is everything all right?”

  “Fine,” he said, his eyes firmly on Venetia. “Just fine. My guest seems to have accidentally hit her alarm.”

  The woman smiled and started back into the house. Venetia saw her chance of escape fading. “Excuse me,” she shouted, turning off the alarm. The silence loudly rebounded.

  “Yes?” said the woman.

  “Walter didn’t seem to know, maybe you do. Where’s the nearest grocery store?”

  “Oh men,” said the woman. “You go down to the end of the street, make a right, take a left at the first light, and then a right at the next one. Can’t miss it.”

  “Thanks,” she said. “I figured I’d stop there on the way home.”

  The woman smiled. “Always easiest,” she said.

  Walter stood on the steps, still watching Venetia, waiting, it seemed for the woman to go inside.

  “Do you expect her to drive through the gates, Walter?” the woman said. “Let the girl out. If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were some kind of maniac, keeping her locked up there.” She laughed. Walter didn’t. Her expression changed a hair, but enough for him to notice. He joined in.

  “Of course, yes, the gates, you get so used to something, you forget it’s there,” he said. He disappeared, and the gates, mercifully, opened. Venetia grinned, giving the neighbor a friendly wave out of the window.

  “Thanks,” she said, pulling out slowly. Bloaerd glared at her in her rearview mirror and then disappeared inside.

  She dialed 911, not even risking stopping to dial, and drove, her heart racing so wildly she could barely breathe. When she reached the police station, her pulse started to slow down. It wasn’t until they assured her that Walter Bloaerd was safely ensconced in a cell, deep in negotiations with a state’s attorney and his own lawyer, that her intake of oxygen returned to anything resembling normal.

  “Bloaerd?” said Detective James when they’d finally settled at his desk. “Are you sure?” She pulled out her cell phone and tapped the recorder app. There he was, talking about Delenda. “Nice to see you figured out how to work it.”

  “Not to mention solving your case for you,” she said. “At no small risk.”

  “Yes, about that, don’t ever go to the animal-filled lair of a killer without, you know, letting people know where you are.”

  “To be fair, I didn’t know it was animal-filled. And I only thought he might be a killer when he started talking. Before I got there, my money was still on Sway.”

  “Yes, Sway.” He took her phone. “There’s definitely a good shot at conspiracy there.”

  “Hey,” she said. “I need that.”

  “Evidence,” he said. “We need the recording and the pictures. Especially the frogs.”

  “How soon until you know if the poison in the chocolates is really from a frog? Can you imagine?”

  “Now that they know what they’re looking for, I don’t think long,” he said. “You know it’s not enough to get Shane Palint out of jail. Not yet. But the info on the contract kill will help. It does corroborate Shane’s version.”

  She leaned back, her hands wrapped around a comfortingly warm mug of tea. “How long, exactly, do you think it’s going to take Bloaerd to try to make a deal that will implicate Sway? I’d bet they’re talking witness protection already.”

  “He’s killed at least one person.”

  “Two. He definitely killed Dane. He said so. And he admitted he helped kill Brenna, too, so that’s at least conspiracy, even if he didn’t pull the trigger. And then there are the chocolates he sent you. He’s been busy.”

  “We don’t have a weapon yet, you can’t know for sure he killed Dane.”

  “He killed Dane, I’m telling you. Listen to the recording, he basically admitted it. And he attacked Billie.”

  “He might get a nicer jail by turning on Sway, but he’s not getting a new life. Unless you count going from attorney to jailhouse lawyer. Assuming he keeps up the practice. He can interpret the documents on the plate though, so there’s value in that.”

  “Look at you, about to bring down Alden Sway.”

  “Please,” he said, “the feds will never let me. They’ll be taking the case away at any moment. He’ll go down on the federal indictment for the exotic animal trafficking, and the murders will all be considered part of the conspiracy.”

  “Venetia?” she heard the unmistakable sound of Aunt Sissy’s voice tearing its way through the police station. “Venetia,” she said again.

  “Oh man, I think that in all the times she’s been angry with me, she will never have been quite so. No doubt she’ll find a way to blame me for the plight of her dear Walter.”

  “Venetia,” said Sissy, now directly behind her.

  Venetia closed her eyes, opened them again and mouthed “Did she hear me?” Cadby James shrugged.

  “Venetia, stand up.”

  With a silent sigh, she heaved herself to her feet and turned around, almost losing her balance when Sissy threw her arms around her. “Thank goodness you’re alright,” she said. “I had no idea that man was such a brute. No idea at all. And he told me he’d already filed for divorce.” She let go, pushed Venetia away, looked her up and down, and pulled her in again. “And what did he do to your clothes?”

  “That’s how they were to start,” she said.

  “Those poor, poor animals.” She deposited Venetia back to the vicinity of her chair. “I want that man prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.”

  “That’s the plan, Ma’am,” said Detective James, “that’s the plan.”

  “Sissy, what happened to the bruise on your face?” Even without her sunglasses, there was no trace of the black eye she’d had at the shop.

  “It was makeup, only makeup. I thought the threat of violence to your beloved aunt might motivate you to get the documents. But then poor Dane really did turn up dead…”

  “Thanks to your boyfriend,” Venetia said.

  “Walter? Killed Dane? No, that can’t be right. Though what can you know about a man who would be willing to rip defenseless creatures from their homes and put them on some kind of sick private display? To think how he kept them like that, and got others for other people. To hunt down like…like, well, not like the magnificent animals they are. Or were. And how he killed my own daughter.”

  “How do you know all of that, Aunt,” she caught the searing look, “Sissy?”

  “Everyone knows it. It’s all over the news,” she said.

  “How?”

  “How should I know? That Tipsy Nightingale is everywhere with it. What a ridiculous name for an adult woman,” Sissy said, “Tipsy Nightingale.”

  “How did she know?” said Venetia. She yanked her purse onto her lap and raked through it, looking for her box of mints. She really needed a mint, but it was an elusive little box. She pulled out the pad, a compact, Billie’s phone and Tipsy’s pen.

  “You found it,” said Brooks from over her shoulder.

  “Billie’s phone? I never lost it. Where’d you come from?”

  “Cadby called me,” he said. />
  “Now he’s Cadby?” she said, looking from one to the other.

  “I hear we might be close to nailing Sway for Brenna. And I heard you had a lot to do with that. Thank you.” He extended a hand, and she shook it solemnly. “And no,” he said, “not the phone, the recorder.” He took it off the table and unscrewed it, revealing a USB. “See?” he said, pointing to a tiny circle in the clip of the pen, “here’s the lens.”

  “The recorder?”

  “The café video,” he said.

  “Tipsy took that video?” Venetia said.

  “That’s who had the pen?” said Brooks.

  “How didn’t you know? You’re the one who hacked the video.”

  “I didn’t ‘hack’ the video. That’s not a thing. It sends the video every so often automatically by itself. I hacked into that transmission, that’s all.”

  “It sends its own video? How?” She picked it up and turned it over, as though it could tell her itself.

  “What century do you live in?” said Brooks. “Yes. That’s what it does. It’s wireless.”

  “And you didn’t know it was Tipsy?”

  “No,” he said, “it sends it to a cloud server, so it could have belonged to anyone.”

  “A cloud server? Now you’re making stuff up.”

  “Someone please enroll this woman in a class at a community center,” said Brooks. “Or an online class. Though I’m not sure about that, given the problems she’s having now.”

  “Thanks,” she said. “So Tipsy was able to monitor my exchange with Bloaerd? And she didn’t bother to try to help me?’

  “That does seem problematic,” said Detective James.

  “She may not have gotten the data until after it was over,” Brooks said, “in all fairness. It depends on when it’s scheduled to download, and how often.”