Ransom Beach (Stephanie Chalice Thrillers Book 2)

by Lawrence Kelter

  "The hell is that?" I asked.

  Lido shook his head. "No idea, no warning lights," he said as he scanned the dashboard.

  And then I found my brain. I reached into the glove box and retrieved Ambler's PDA. I had stowed it in there, having decided that it had outlived its usefulness. The damn red blip was flashing. Lido saw it too. "Keep rolling, it's up ahead." The pulsing grew faster as we closed in on the target. A house on our right was clad with asphalt shingles. The red light went solid as we approached it. "This is it."

  Lido pulled to the curb. We got out and waited for Reddy to join us. I held up the PDA so that he could see the GPS grid. "Solid red."

  "Q-logger?" he asked.

  I nodded.

  "I'll instruct the men. You think the hostage is in there, yes?"

  "Yes."

  "Excellent." He turned and issued instructions. Plainclothes cops joined us immediately. "Thirty seconds," he said. "I want to make sure we're in position behind the building."

  I hated the idea of waiting but understood that Reddy was right. I checked Thorne's Cartier watch. What can I say, the proper accessories are important. Ten seconds passed, then twenty. The dial was coming up on thirty seconds when Reddy pulled the radio from his ear.

  "All set," he said.

  We raced up the steps. The house was three stories high. There was no lock on the front door. We entered cautiously and began looking around. Our guns were drawn. The first level was silent, only two doors—both seemed quiet. We moved up the steps.

  There were two doors on the second level as well. A bald man in sweatpants and a muscle shirt stood in front of one of them, pointing up the stairs to the top level. I looked up the staircase to where he was pointing—I saw that a door was smashed in, just barely covering the entrance. "Thanks. Go inside," I whispered to him. I pointed the smashed door out for Lido and Reddy. Ambler had just arrived and was rumbling up the stairs toward us.

  We were positioned on either side of the door within seconds. The small landing was silent, dead silent. "Police!" I shouted. "Come out, unarmed." There was no response. I waited ten seconds and then nodded to the boys. Lido stepped up and kicked away the shattered door. It fell with a thud on the floor. I slid into the apartment. There was no sign of movement as I entered. Two steps more and I could see it all. Davis Mack was dead at one end of the room, a dead woman at the other. Was this her? Was this the woman that had brutally murdered Helen Gillette and kidnapped Manny? Money was spread across the bed.

  No sign of Manny.

  My heart sank. I could see clearly into the empty bathroom from where I stood. There was one closed door on the other side of the room leading to...it had struck me odd that there was a bed in the main living space and then it hit me and I began to feel optimistic. Lido was now in the apartment, as was Ambler and Reddy. They followed my gaze to the single unopened door. I moved to the closed door and pressed my ear to it—silence. I had my LDA in one hand as I turned the doorknob with the other.

  Manny was sitting in the dark, shaking and frightened in his wheelchair. He shuddered as I flipped on the lights. At a glance he appeared to be unharmed. I checked and cleared the closet before kneeling in front of him. He was terrified but what would you expect? "It's alright, Manny," I said. "Everything is going to be alright." I wasn't sure how much he understood but after a second he turned toward me as if sizing me up and then turned away. I no longer looked like Celia Thorne but something about my appearance must have struck a chord.

  I stayed with him until the paramedics arrived.

  Forty-five—RESTLESS

  I had hoped for a night of unbridled passion followed by a complete and uncompromising sense of calm. I got neither.

  We had stayed at the latest crime scene well into the wee hours. By the time Lido and I got home, the sun was crowning over the skyscrapers and our plans for a night of raucous sex had to be put on hold, replaced with the desperate need for a few hours of rest. It had been a long time since I'd enjoyed the caress of Lido's taut flesh and was hungry for him. But that would have to wait. Not long mind you, just until I had the strength to stand up.

  I should have been enveloped with a complete feeling of satisfaction but I woke up feeling creepy after about ninety minutes of restless sleep. I could only remember the last part of my dream. In it, Manny was looking at me as he did when I'd discovered him hours earlier. He was staring at me, looking at me with his strange, detached stare. I'd never met him before and didn't know what to expect. He was helpless and frightened, displaying all the emotions I expected from an autistic child that had been through hell.

  I should have been down for the count but the harder I tried to sleep, the more my mind flooded with the details of the case. I couldn't get the crime scene out of my head, the two dead bodies lying on the floor of the apartment, Davis Mack and the yet to be identified body of the woman he had presumably shot. How had she gotten the drop on Mack? She had hit him twice, knocking him down and killing him. Somehow, he had managed to get off a fatal shot of his own, one bullet that tore straight through her heart, but the blood spatter pattern was wrong. It was low on the wall behind her, as if she had been shot after she was already down. It just didn't feel right and I kept asking myself about the woman's accomplice.

  Ernie, the street kid, had said that a man and a woman had been together when the Cintas uniform truck was deposited in the garage in Washington Heights. Ernie offered little description about the male. Could it have been Mack? Had he been part of this from the start? His involvement certainly would have tied up lots of loose ends. He knew Manny's routine. He recovered the stolen truck. Somehow, he had found his way to the crime scene. Yes, it all fit together nicely and I had to consider his possible implication in the abduction but my gut was telling me it was wrong. You have to know people, who they are and what makes them tick. My take on Mack was that he wasn't a kidnapper. I'm sure lots of people would tell me I was wrong. Mack had come from the street, a down and out boxer with a glorified security job. The argument would go against him. They'd say he had a chance at big money and he took it. They'd make him look bad and I just knew he wasn't.

  There was too long a lag in time between the first two shots and the third. How did a mortally wounded man get the drop on his attacker? I could have been off. The sequence of events could have been nothing like I imagined it, but I'd seen too many crime scenes to make such a dramatic mistake. If they'd traded a bullet each and the woman fired a second round from ground level, there should have been two spatter patterns behind Mack: one at chest level and one near the ground. But the two spatter patterns I saw behind Mack were just inches apart, both roughly chest-high. No, there had to be more. There had to be someone else in the room. I'd bet my pension on it.

  Mack's assailant was nothing like I expected, but then again they never were. What does a murderer look like? There was no answer to the question. This woman, whoever she was, was young and pretty, with little makeup and a ponytail. At least that was today's version. I doubted she ever looked the same way twice. I wondered if she was the one that had fired at me in the catering hall. It wouldn't be difficult to determine. All we had to do was match the slugs in Mack's chest to the slug in the basement of the catering hall. Who was she and what was her story? Why had she turned to murder and kidnapping? We found her naked and dead. Not a lot to go on but we would, over the next several days weave the threads together.

  Manny was safe.

  No matter how many times I thought about it, the idea kicked back at me.

  Why was she naked? Had she stripped off her clothes in order to startle Mack? Perhaps she was hiding in the bathroom and had come out firing. There was a lot to figure out.

  Why was Mack dressed as a homeless person? It was obvious that he was acting undercover. He had managed to tail this woman from the ransom drop on Long Island to her apartment in the city. He had succeeded where we had failed. He had passed the Louis Vuitton duffle bag to Officer Riker and instructed him to
call me at once. That alone established innocence to some degree.

  Had the woman betrayed him? Had she attempted to cut him out? It too was a possibility but not one I was comfortable with. Was this out of revenge? Was Mack getting even over getting the shaft? Would he kill for it? Perhaps I wasn't as far along as I thought.

  Lido was out of it, sawing logs as it were, making lots of noise for someone who swore he never snored. I was exhausted and uncomfortable about the doubts I had over the case's resolution. I tossed and turned and couldn't get comfortable. I watched Lido sleep for a few moments. I just loved the feeling of having him home and back in my bed.

  I quietly slipped out from under the blankets.

  I made a pot of strong coffee. I was somewhere between confused and brain dead and needed stimulants badly. I sat down at the kitchen table, sipping coffee and waiting for the cobwebs to clear. I began going through the case from the very beginning, from Manny's abduction at NYU Medical Center to the stolen truck and its recovery. Stop there. Suddenly, a flash of light, not one but several, like a computer download into my brain, it all began to click. They were only hunches, but they were hunches I felt good about and couldn't wait to check out.

  It was not quite 8:00 AM here but it was past the noon hour in London, certainly a suitable time for placing a phone call overseas. I tiptoed over to the bed and gave Lido a kiss on the forehead while he slept. He didn't budge. He wouldn't remember that I had kissed him when he awoke in the morning, nor would he remember that I took my phone into the bathroom, sealed the door, and called Nigel Twain.

  Forty-six—THE MORNING AFTER

  Lido asked me how I'd slept and I told him fine although it was total bull and I was pretty sure he knew it. I had returned to bed after calling Twain in London and had fallen asleep instantly, but all told I had logged in less than three hours and was not feeling all that great.

  "So what's going on?" he asked. Lido kissed me on the lips. He had far more energy than I did, I could see that at a glance. He was probably hoping for a fast glass of freshly squeezed me, and a skillet full of girlfriend over easy, but my mind was millions of miles away—well more accurately several miles away, somewhere north of Central Park, but it's just an expression, right?

  I was in the mirror, making up my face. My eyes were red but I knew they'd clear sooner or later. I threw a bottle of Visine into my bag just to play it safe. "Jesus, I look like a train wreck."

  Lido was quickly dressing. Ambler had taken down The Faith and was on his way over to pick up Lido for the questioning. The High Coptic had a lot of questions to answer. He was an accessory to Manny's kidnapping and a conspirator in the murder of Carl Lapsos, Celia Thorne's servant. Dr. Zaius had taken a plea, dumping heavily on The Faith's highest and holiest man.

  "You're the most gorgeous train wreck I've ever seen." There was another kiss and then another but it stopped there. I would've gladly gone the distance but my mind was roaming like a free range hen. Lido must have felt that in my kiss and backed off. "To be continued," he said, flashing a sexy smile.

  "Definitely." I grabbed Lido's necktie and pulled him back. I put everything I had into it and kissed him hard on the lips, hard enough to make him think about me all day—or so I hoped. He looked at me like he was going to tear my robe off. A long minute passed. He finally sighed. "Tonight," I said and gave him one for the road. He took it and reluctantly left.

  I finished dressing and went downstairs to retrieve the unmarked.

  I had decided not to join Lido and Ambler on their particular quest for justice. I had other matters on my mind. I was convinced that we hadn't gotten to the bottom of Manny's kidnapping. I had lots of cards left to play and as you know, bluffing just ain't my thing.

  The unmarked was parked near the corner. The rain had stopped. It wasn't frigid or windy, just seasonably brisk with bright sun. I almost enjoyed my walk to the car. I wanted to talk to Ernie again but it was too late to catch him before school so I had time to do a little thinking, head down to the house and start my paperwork. Sonellio was a stickler for details and liked the reports filed promptly.

  My feelings about paperwork could be summed up in the following words: it sucked. It was my least favorite part of the job and the one aspect of it that I handled poorly. Instead of racing through it and getting it over with, I dragged my heels—several trips to the coffee pot, more idle chatter with fellow law enforcement officers than was necessary and daydreaming up the kazoo. But as you know, I'm at my best when my mind is free to roam—and roam it did. I thought about the case's every detail and finally the pieces, like the tumblers in a safe, began to drop into place. I made another call to Europe and one to the crime lab. It was far-out thinking that I wouldn't discuss until I had more facts, but once I knew the right questions to ask, the rest was easy.

  Sonellio arrived late. Atypical behavior for the boss but he was grinning from ear to ear. He gave me a head nod, indicating that he wanted me in his office. I got up and followed him.

  I closed the door behind me as he pulled off his overcoat. He looked even thinner than the last time I had seen him and carried his left shoulder lower than the right. I didn't like what I saw but as I said, the man was happy. He looked like he had a lot to say, so I wasn't going to give him the third degree.

  "You're late."

  "Dock me," he said playfully.

  "You're interrupting my paperwork."

  He chuckled. "Get real. Ha...don't get too full of yourself. I'm still the boss." He hung his coat on the hook behind the door. "Park it, Chalice." We dropped into seats opposite each other. Sonellio opened his mouth to speak but paused. He grinned again and then looked directly at me. "You know where I've just come from?"

  "Barbershop? You look pretty snappy."

  "No, wiseass, his Honor the Mayor's office. Celia Thorne called him at 6:00 AM, lauding the performance of Detective Stephanie Chalice. Raved about the way you solved the case."

  "I didn't so much solve the case. It sort of solved itself. I just walked in and picked up the pieces. To be honest, I'm not sure I'm satisfied with the outcome."

  "Still playing around with that coconspirator angle?"

  "Yeah."

  "What about Davis Mack? He was in all the wrong places at all the right times—had a history of offenses."

  "That's an easy dart to throw—Mack's a big target. You can throw it almost anywhere and still hit the bull's eye. All of his offenses were youthful and all smalltime. I don't peg him for kidnapping or murder."

  "Not so, he confessed to the murder of Luis Reyes. How do you know it stopped there? How do you know Mack's not the one that put it all together, set up Reyes to drive the decoy vehicle and punched his ticket?"

  "It's not him."

  "Yes, Chalice, I know you're infallible, but at the moment he's our most likely suspect. It all gels nicely when you throw Mack into the mix. I'm not ruling him out and I don't think you should either."

  "I won't...for the moment anyway."

  "Yeah, well, a moment's about all the time you have."

  I could see that Sonellio had something on his mind from the moment he walked in. I wasn't quite ready to be assigned a new case. "Can't you give me a little time? I'll jump on another case in a few days. Just let me tie up the loose ends."

  Sonellio pursed his lips. "This is not the kind of assignment you'll want to pass up."

  Okay, well I was curious now, damn curious. I waited for Sonellio to put his cards on the table. Either way, nothing was going to stop me from seeing the current case through to the end. "What's going on?"

  "Thorne is flying to Paris this evening. She hasn't taken Manny back there since he arrived in the states and feels a trip to his old village will go a long way toward resetting his thermostat. Capiche?

  "And?"

  "And Thorne has requested that you and Lido accompany them to provide security." He grinned. "Don't drink too much wine."

  I understood that this was not a security detail but rather
a very extravagant perk. Still, it was way down on my list of priorities. "You're shitting me."

  "The mayor won't take no for an answer. Thorne's one of his biggest supporters. You and Lido leave for Paris tonight. Thorne's taking the corporate jet."

  "It's not a good time. I need to—"

  "I know, I know, loose ends. Well, you've got the rest of the day, honey. Manny's home safe and the kidnappers didn't get a plug nickel. Thorne's thrilled and the mayor's ecstatic. I've got goose bumps myself. At this rate you'll have my job in six months."

  "Not interested. A trip to Paris sounds great. I'll go as soon as I'm satisfied that the case is closed."

  "Chalice, are you really going to pass up Christmas in Paris?"

  Christmas in Paris, with all that was going on I'd completely forgotten that Christmas was just days away. Somehow I'd blotted out the crowds and festivities that precede the arrival of Saint Nick. Wow, Christmas in Paris and with Lido to boot. Under any other circumstance I'd jump at the chance but now...I was about to decline the invitation again when I heard another tumbler drop into place. Suddenly a trip to Paris made all the sense in the world. "Okay, I'll go." God, I had a lot to do and very little time to accomplish it in. Fortunately, Lido and I had discussed Europe recently—we both had passports. We were thinking more along the lines of Greece than Paris but what the hell? If all went right, I'd be able to pull the threads of the case together and drink French Champagne at the same time.

  Sonellio rolled his eyes. "Look, kiddo, don't be a horse's ass. Sorry, did you say okay?"

  "Yeah, I'll go. I'll call Lido. I'll miss the family but hell, a free trip to the city of lights...like you said, I'd have to be crazy to pass it up."