Winner Take All

by T. Davis Bunn

  He dropped his hammer into the pan and said, “I’ll just go see if they’ve got the scanner free. We’ll want to have a look inside, make sure they didn’t scramble you with that blow.”

  Marcus did not speak until they were alone. “I don’t know what to do anymore.”

  It was all the impetus she required. Understanding what Marcus needed and giving it to him was such a rush. She had never known anything like this before. The concept itself jarred against all she had known, all she saw herself as being.

  None of those gathered outside knew it yet, but she was about to take control.

  Kirsten pushed herself up from the gurney, then had to stop and wait for the dizziness to pass. She kept her hand on the railing as she rounded the cabinet and pushed through the dividing curtain.

  Everybody in the lobby stopped and stared—police, the DA, nurses, patients, visitors, the works. Everyone save Dale. The big man sat in the far corner, hunched over his hands. His agony was ignored by all.

  She called over, “Dale.”

  He started, dragged from a nightmare he assumed was hidden from all but himself.

  She tried to offer him a smile. It was the least she could do for the man who had just saved their lives. “It’s time.”

  Her fatigue struck more fiercely once she had showered and dressed in clothes from the hospital’s Goodwill closet. She felt divorced both from her surroundings and herself. Time swept past, leaving her stranded. Then the weariness diminished to where she could pull things back into shape once more.

  She was in the middle of talking to Dale and the DA, explaining what they needed, when everything just seemed to shift. The next thing she knew, she was in a police car with Marcus, the siren wailing and the light positioned on the dashboard blinking at her. Calling for her to focus. Only she could not remember how much she had said, or how to fit all the strands together.

  But when they arrived at the airport, a two-prop Cessna was there waiting. The pilot was a young buccaneer equipped with aviator shades and mustache and jacket and grin. Marcus had obviously taken the doctor’s offer of painkillers, because his eyes were dilated and his bearing unsteady as he sat and waited for people to help him rise to his feet.

  When Dale pried himself from the car that rolled up behind them, Kirsten walked over. “You can’t come.”

  Perhaps she had already said the words before and forgotten. Or perhaps it was merely that he trusted her enough to do whatever she required. “All right.”

  “You need to be at home in case they call,” she lied. For an instant she even forgot why it was vital that he not be with them, she was that tired. “We’ll phone as soon as we know something. You have Marcus’ mobile number?”

  “Yes.”

  “One question.” Though her tongue drifted lazily over the words, she managed to ask, “Why did you come looking for us?”

  “You already asked me that.”

  “Tell me again.”

  “I got an anonymous call.”

  She rested a hand on his arm, wishing there were some way to draw strength from him. “Did anything about the voice seem familiar?”

  “She had a cloth or something over the receiver.”

  A woman. Kirsten nodded. “Do you remember anything about the way she spoke, anything odd?”

  “Only that she was very precise. You were in danger. I would find you somewhere around a stretch of very empty beach.”

  Wilma Blain moved up alongside them. “There’s only one beach around Wilmington where you can be fairly sure you won’t find other people. The two islands opposite Monkey Junction are nature preserves.”

  “Folks boat over sometimes for picnics, but it stays pretty isolated,” Dale said.

  “We didn’t want to move out on this,” the DA admitted. “But your man here just wouldn’t let go.”

  Kirsten started to bid the DA a firm farewell, but Wilma Blain halted her with “Don’t you even start on me. I’m going and that’s that.”

  Kirsten had no strength to argue. “Could you please give Marcus a hand?”

  The DA and a policeman both had to help Marcus reach the plane’s rear seat. His hands still looked tortured and swollen. His feet were hidden in oversized sneakers now, but the way he shuffled made it apparent he could not feel the pavement. The pilot was too much a macho player to find any grace in helping an apparent invalid. He leaned against a wing stanchion and gave Kirsten the careful eye. She ignored him until they had Marcus safely stowed away. She knew the pilot’s next move would be to make some smooth offer for her to take the seat next to him, have a chance to see what it was like to do it at fifteen thousand feet. She caught him with a glare so hard he swallowed the grin and the words both. Then she pushed her way past Wilma Blain and took the seat beside Marcus.

  The Cessna was designed to carry three times their number. Once they powered up and took off, Kirsten fitted a blanket around Marcus. Though she could not hear him, she saw his mouth shape the words, I can’t do this.

  She patted his arm. Said back, Don’t worry. Then she moved to the next row and stretched out as best she could.

  Wilma Blain watched her with a grindingly intense gaze. “Want to tell me what’s going on?”

  “I can’t. Not yet.”

  “You’re going to have to, sister. And sooner rather than later.” When Kirsten merely settled lower into the seat, Wilma went on, “We’ve got APB’s out for Sephus Jones and the German fellow.”

  “Reiner Klatz. My guess is, he’s already left the country.”

  Wilma accepted the news with a careful nod and asked, “Then I’ve got another question for you. Who’s calling the shots here?”

  Kirsten did not awaken until Wilma Blain shook her shoulder. The Cessna’s motors were off. They were stationed on a sun-drenched tarmac. The pilot was gone. Wilma handed her a coffee and said, “Decided to let you sleep as long as I could.”

  The plane was empty save for them. “Where is Marcus?”

  She pointed over her shoulder. “He made a call for a friend to come drive us around. I figured there wasn’t any need to wake you before our ride got here. You ready to go?”

  “Getting there.” She sipped from the Styrofoam cup and willed herself to full alert status. “Thank you for the coffee.”

  Wilma Blain remained where she was, blocking the exit with her bulk. “I’m repeating my earlier question,” she said. “Who is singing the tune we’re all dancing to?”

  “I’m on your side, Ms. Blain.”

  “Maybe so. But my concern is, do you know enough to keep us to the legal straight and narrow?”

  “You’ll tell me if I don’t.”

  “You can count on that.”

  Kirsten set the cup aside. Swept back her hair. Took a breath of the steamy air. Knew she was as awake from this little confab as the day was going to permit. “All right. I’m ready.”

  The section of the airport reserved for private planes was empty save for the car up ahead. A group of pilots and mechanics lolled in the shadows of a distant hangar. Otherwise all the noise came from the commercial jets landing and taking off on the other side of the highway. The shimmering asphalt was an oven set on full broil. Kirsten shielded her eyes, but could not make out the figure behind the wheel. Wilma Blain pointed her to the front passenger seat, then climbed into the rear beside Marcus before she could object.

  Deacon Wilbur smiled at her arrival. “How you doing, child?”

  She resisted the urge to wrap her arms around that corded neck. “It’s so good to see you.”

  “Before we get started,” Wilma interrupted, “I got some questions that need answering. Such as, why do I have a banker’s check sitting in my office safe for five million dollars?”

  Kirsten swiveled around. A single glance was enough to assure her that Marcus was not answering anything. He watched her with a gaze fogged by painkillers and exhaustion.

  “While you’re at it, maybe you could also clear up why you didn’t want Dale
Steadman along on this little jaunt.”

  “I don’t know about the check.”

  Marcus licked his lips, and muttered, “I do.”

  “I’m hoping the rest of the answers will be confirmed at our first stop,” Kirsten continued.

  “And just where might that be?”

  Kirsten directed her answer to Deacon. “The Raleigh offices of Senator John Jacobs.”

  The DA crossed her arms. “I guess I don’t have any trouble with that. Long as you talk along the way.”

  The explanations took them down I-40, along Ridge Road, onto the Downtown Boulevard and the five blocks down Hargett Street to the underground parking lot’s entrance. Wilma did not say a word the entire time. Nor did her gaze move from Kirsten’s face, not even when Marcus attempted his own drifting additions.

  Kirsten waited until Wilma was helping Marcus hobble across the parking lot and into the downtown building housing Senator Jacobs’ regional offices. Then she told Deacon, “I need to thank you.”

  “What for, daughter?”

  She reached over and settled her hand upon his own. His palm was hard as dry leather. “Everything.”

  He peeled away the present with his gaze and stared into her recent past. “This has been a testing time for you.”

  Kirsten swallowed down the heat of weary sorrow. She made do with a nod.

  “I been through some tough things in this life. Believe you me. And when they’ve bent me and broken me and sent me crashing down onto my knees, I’ve found God waiting there, ready to make me strong.”

  She squeezed his hand, then released it. “I better go.”

  “The good Lord wasn’t drawn to us on account of how righteous we are. You hear me, child? He didn’t come down to this earth because we were good. Or whole. Or strong. He came because we needed him.”

  Marcus could see their state reflected in the receptionist’s expression. Kirsten was dressed in a stained denim skirt and torn black workout shoes with laces of different colors. Her top was an East Carolina warm-up jersey that almost swallowed her. Her hair, dried to the consistency of winter straw by the night and the day, was flung about her head like a frayed halo. She walked straight to the receptionist and declared, “We are here to see Brent Daniels.”

  “Do you have an appointment?”

  “No.”

  Her gaze shifted from Kirsten to Marcus to Wilma and back again. “I’m sorry, but Mr. Daniels’ schedule is very tight this week.”

  “Just the same.” She brushed the strands from her forehead, and the gesture revealed her fragile state. “Perhaps Mr. Daniels might find a couple of minutes for us.”

  “I don’t think—”

  “Tell him we are here with the Wilmington DA, and are on our way to the district court to give evidence in a murder trial. A trial that will have a direct bearing on Mr. Daniels and Senator Jacobs.”

  The silence lasted long enough for two heads to pop out of neighboring offices. The receptionist lifted the phone. “Who did you say you were?”

  “Kirsten Stansted.” She walked back over and seated herself between Marcus and Wilma. When attention turned away from them, Kirsten said to the DA, “I need your help.”

  “Is that a fact.”

  “All I want is for you to go along with me on this.”

  Wilma tightened down. Gaze, arms, perch on the seat. “Go along.”

  “If I step over the line, jump on me. But until then, back me up. Please.”

  Wilma Blain was in no mood to promise a thing. Kirsten turned to Marcus and tried to soften. “You still with us?”

  “Barely.”

  “You could go wait—”

  “No.”

  She nodded. Started to take his hand. Retreated. Sighed softly. Then straightened. Being hard and strong for them both. Which was good.

  The senator’s chief local aide came scooting around the corner and skidded to a halt at the sight of them. “Ms. Stansted? I’m sorry, I wasn’t expecting—”

  “Five minutes,” Kirsten said, pushing herself to her feet. “Now.”

  Marcus made it down the hall with Kirsten on one side and Wilma on the other. His feet throbbed in harmony to the rest of him. He wore a band of white for a skullcap, an apostate’s dunnage for all the wrongs of a long and bitter era. He entered the senior aide’s office and let them settle him into a chair, content to have Kirsten think on his behalf. Kirsten’s determined assurance was a balm to his badly scattered brain. He found a strange comfort in the need and remedy both.

  Brent Daniels was a chubby bundle of nerves, unable to halt his little dance behind the high-backed executive chair. “I can’t say it was a great move out there, scaring my receptionist with accusations of tie-ins to a murder investigation.”

  “I need some answers.”

  He tried hard for a smile. “We’re not in the Q&A business here.”

  Kirsten waved a careless hand to the chair on Marcus’ other side. “Wilma Blain is the Wilmington DA, up here on the case involving the murder of Erin Brandt. You remember her.”

  “So?”

  “So we want to know how you learned about the abduction of Celeste Steadman.”

  “Easy enough. That was headline news.”

  Marcus spoke for the first time. “Dale Steadman’s firing was. The article only gave a single sentence to the abduction and Dale’s recent divorce.”

  “We’re paid to give careful attention to the local press. That’s the nature of politics.”

  “Then here’s another one,” Kirsten said. “How did you come to know about Erin Brandt being outside Germany? And here’s another. The London embassy staffer said you had called him to report that Erin Brandt was departing London early to return to Düsseldorf. Who was feeding you this information?”

  Brent Daniels began beating a nervous drumbeat on the back of his seat. Clearly this was the question he had been dreading. “I’m totally unable to respond.”

  “Then I’ll make some points for you. All you have to do is let me know if I’m moving in the right direction.” She hurried along, not granting him a chance to object. “You were contacted by someone from outside the senator’s constituency. A woman by the name of Evelyn Lloyd. She offered to make a huge donation to the senator’s war chest. She had some serious connections with the Washington crowd, and knew precisely how to channel the funds so they would go directly from her account to yours.”

  The hammering of his hands gradually halted along with his breathing. He even stopped blinking. He stood and he stared. On Marcus’ other side, Wilma Blain leaned forward and gave Kirsten a squinty-eyed inspection.

  “Evelyn Lloyd told you that she shared your aims. She was deeply concerned over the abduction of American children and their illegal transport to Germany. She wanted to see it stop.” Kirsten gave him a moment to respond. “How am I doing so far?”

  The aide said nothing.

  “Perhaps you would rather we subpoena the senator and formally request his presence in a court of law.”

  The surprise was not merely in the threat, but the fact that it came from Wilma Blain. The aide looked pinned by his own fear to the rear wall of his office. “No.”

  “Then answer the lady’s question.”

  Kirsten held the DA’s gaze for a long moment, drawing strength from the act.

  “I can’t.”

  “No problem.” Wilma made as if to rise. “Maybe you better call the senator and let him know we’ll be serving a subpoena on him and you both this very afternoon.”

  “Wait, no, that can’t happen.”

  “Can and will, sir. Can and will. Unless, of course, you care to respond.”

  Brent Daniels pulled out his chair. Lowered himself by the arms. Took the motions in the careful stages of the ailing and defeated. “It wasn’t like Ms. Lloyd was coming to us with something out of left field.”

  “You were already involved in the action,” Kirsten offered.

  “Absolutely. This was a cause close to t
he senator’s heart.”

  “So she was seen as an ally,” Kirsten continued. “Then she returned with news about what you thought would be the high-profile case you’d been searching after. Something so big it would attract the international press, and maybe even stimulate the German parliament to take action.”

  Wilma Blain let out a low chuckle, almost a hum. She leaned back in her chair and gave Kirsten a look of pure approval.

  “Only this case blew up in your faces.”

  “Did it ever,” the aide muttered.

  “You and the senator took great pride in the fact that you had remained in the background, doing little more than making a few calls that could easily be denied.”

  Brent Daniels stared at her. “How did you know?”

  “I didn’t.” She moved to help Wilma Blain lift Marcus from his seat. “Until now.”

  Once they were back in the car, Kirsten said to the DA, “Could you call Judge Sears and ask if we might stop by?”

  This time Wilma did not hesitate. When she was done, Kirsten reached across the seatback and asked, “Can I use your phone?”

  Kirsten obtained the number from New York directory assistance. The phone was answered on the first ring. “Evelyn Lloyd, please.”

  “Whom should I say is calling?”

  Kirsten recognized the precisely superior tone. “You know exactly who this is.”

  A fragment of hesitation, then, “I beg your pardon?”

  “First of all, I want to thank you.”

  “What on earth for?”

  “Saving our lives. Secondly, I want to check some facts.”

  “I am still waiting,” Evelyn Lloyd replied, “to learn whom I am addressing.”

  “You knew something was wrong when you learned about Kedrick selling his hotels. He had to have something serious going on for him to want that much money at this point in his life.” When Evelyn did not respond, Kirsten added, “Did you know he’s purchased Dale’s house with the remaining funds?”