by Thomas Kies
I was stunned into utter silence. The matter-of-fact way he was talking gave me the creeps.
“I heard my mother’s screams. At first, I was paralyzed, frozen with terror under the covers of my bed. Then I couldn’t stand hearing her entreaties anymore. I ran to the kitchen and found the meat cleaver she had used that evening to cut up the lamb my father had purchased in the market. I ran with the cleaver into my parents’ bedroom. There I found my father’s body, lying in his own blood, on the floor and a strange man, a big man, pants down around his ankles, grunting on top of my mother like a farm animal.”
He stopped talking for a moment and stared off into space. I glanced at the four men standing behind him. I didn’t know if they’d heard this story, but their faces registered total disinterest. They were focused only on the doorway behind me that led to the outer dining room.
I whispered, “What happened?”
His eyes snapped back to me. “I severed his spinal cord with the cleaver. It was instinct. I didn’t know how to properly kill a man. He didn’t die immediately. But his body ceased moving. His brain couldn’t talk to his body. The man’s head was cocked to one side, so I slowly crept up, still clutching the cleaver, so that I could look into his eyes. I was both horrified and fascinated. His lungs had stopped accepting air, and his heart, separated from the brain, had stopped pumping. The man was dying.”
He took a healthy swallow of his wine. “I watched his eyes go from terror, knowing he was about to die, to acceptance, and then his life drained from his body and his eyes became empty.”
“How did you feel?”
A tiny smile played on his lips. “I learned at that early age just how much I enjoyed revenge.”
I was nearly overcome with a shudder of revulsion. I stifled it with a swallow of vodka. “Is that when your mother smuggled you out of the Soviet Union?”
He nodded in acknowledgment. “Nine months later, Bogdan was born, a child made from that unholy union between my mother and Satan. My mother raised him as she raised me. And to me, he wasn’t my half brother. He was my brother.”
His face turned deadly serious. “That’s why it’s most important for you to find Merlin Finn.” He pushed the thick envelope he’d taken from his suit coat and pushed it across the table.
I looked down at the simple white package. I didn’t touch it. “What’s that?”
“Fifty thousand dollars in cash.”
“For what?”
He was silent for a moment. Then, “For finding my brother’s remains.”
I shuddered again, took a sharp intake of air. “I can’t accept that.”
He scowled. “Of course you can.”
“It wasn’t anything that I did. Someone texted me where…” I stopped in midsentence. “Where…?”
His face softened. “Where Bogdan’s body had been left.”
I nodded.
“Was it Merlin Finn? The one who sent you the text.”
“Yes.”
He considered that for a moment, then continued. “Nonetheless, you were first on the scene. The money is yours to do with as you please. It will come in handy raising a teenager, yes?”
The envelope remained untouched on the table in front of me.
Yes, the money would come in handy.
Valentin leaned forward. “I’m upping my offer to a hundred thousand dollars.”
“What? I’m sorry, what? Did I miss something?”
“That’s what I’m willing to pay you to find Merlin Finn.”
I let that soak in, thinking about what that kind of money could do. Help send Caroline to college. Buy a new car.
When’s the last time you took a vacation, Genie?
I put that aside and asked another question. “Do you know a man named Charlie Tomasso?”
Valentin slowly sat back. “Why do you ask?”
“His wife came to see me this morning. She’s worried about him. She said he used to work for Wolfline.”
“An unsavory employee who Wolfline recently laid off.”
“He’s been missing for five days.”
He eyes narrowed. “When Mr. Finn found a way to escape from his incarceration, Mr. Tomasso smelled a business opportunity and sought employment with the Brotherhood. Last I heard, Mr. Tomasso is running drugs and prostitutes in New Jersey.”
I wanted to ask if Valentin thought Tomasso had anything to do with the death of his brother. But I was hesitant, worried that Tolbonov might wonder how much Mrs. Tomasso knew.
“Eric Decker says you’re going legit.”
Valentin raised an eyebrow. “Officially, my interests in Wolfline Contracting have always been legitimate, in spite of what the FBI thinks. I was never involved with the day-to-day operations.”
“Mr. Decker says the new name is Wolfline Management.”
He slowly nodded. “We’re changing the corporate policy and expunging any unsavory individuals who might have been employed by Wolfline Contracting.”
“Keeping your diamond business?”
A small smile played on his lips. “Yes, it will always be my passion. But I will need to focus on Wolfline’s newest endeavor.”
“What’s that?”
“An urban mall. We’re building the Sheffield Meridian.”
I felt a shot of adrenalin pulse through my limbs. “Wyatt Investments hired you to build their mall?”
He placed his hands flat down on the tabletop. “It’s a six-hundred-million-dollar project. As you can see, I will be very busy for at least two years, just on this project alone.”
I glanced back down at the untouched envelope in front of me.
Valentin saw that my attention was drawn to the money hidden inside. “One hundred thousand dollars, Miss Chase. In addition to what’s in that envelope. Find Merlin Finn.”
I looked back up into Valentin’s dark eyes. “And then what?”
His face clouded over, and his heavy eyebrows knitted together. “Justice, Miss Chase. Justice.”
Chapter Thirty
“Did he buy you lunch?” John peeked over at me while he drove.
Initially, when we slid into the car in the parking lot of the restaurant, neither one of us said a word, waiting until we were well underway and the restaurant was in our rearview mirror.
I replied, “He offered. I don’t think either one of us was hungry.”
“How about now?”
I could use a drink.
“I should eat. There’s a Burger King on the way. Stop at the drive-through?”
“Ugh. Can’t we do better than that?”
“Penny’s Diner is on the way back to the newspaper. Want to stop there?”
“Sure, Penny’s Diner. Sounds like a plan.” He took a left onto Route 1 and asked, “What are the takeaways from your meeting with Tolbonov?”
“You first.” I wanted to hear his impressions. Even though he hadn’t been in the room with us, I knew that John had a keen sense of observation.
“I don’t know if you can ever call someone like Tolbonov frightened, but he’s clearly rattled.”
I listened as we passed businesses decorated with bright holiday lights and holiday sale signs in their windows, stores filled with shoppers readying themselves for Christmas morning.
John continued. “He held the meeting at Quattro, a restaurant that Wolfline owns.”
“You looked that up before we got there?”
“While we were there. Tolbonov’s goons thought I was checking my Twitter feed. And I’m sure you noticed that there were no windows in that building except in the front, and those blinds were closed.”
“I noticed.”
“Three guys, heavily armed, met us at the door. How many in the room with you?”
“Four more.”
John took a right onto East Ave
nue. “Tolbonov isn’t taking any chances.”
I shuddered, recalling the charred remains of Bogdan Tolbonov floating in the dark waters of Groward Bay. “He had to identify what was left of his brother. Nobody wants to take any chances. The diner is just up the street.”
“What did the two of you talk about?”
“There, pull into the parking lot. He repeated what Eric Decker had told me. That Wolfline is going legit.”
I glanced over just in time to see John roll his eyes. He smirked. “I wish I could believe that.” John pulled in and parked between two SUVs. “If they’re not killing people or cheating them or selling them, then what’s Tolbonov planning to do?”
Before I opened my door, I said, “For starters, he’s been contracted to build the Sheffield Meridian.”
John shook his head in disbelief. “What’s the price tag on that?”
“Six hundred million.”
He cocked his head. “I don’t know. It doesn’t feel right.”
We both got out of the car at the same time, went up to the restaurant’s doorway, and let ourselves in. Immediately, we were immersed in the warm atmosphere and soft sounds of diners clinking cutlery against their plates and subdued conversation. The place smelled of bacon, frying hamburgers, onions, and coffee.
We were led to a booth by a woman in her fifties, hair done up on her head with bobby pins, dressed in denim skirt, white blouse, blue apron, wearing a tiny replica of a holiday wreath pinned to her chest. She handed us menus and asked if we wanted something to drink.
John ordered coffee.
I hesitated. Seeing John’s face, I asked for coffee as well.
“What else did Tolbonov want to talk to you about?”
“He tried to give me an envelope stuffed with fifty thousand dollars cash.”
“Why?”
“For finding Bogdan’s body.”
He stared at me for a moment, judging me.
“I didn’t take it.”
He rested his chin in his hand, elbow on the tabletop. “Journalistic integrity?”
I shook my head. “I know a lot of reporters who subsidize their newspaper paycheck by working as private investigators. Mostly background checks. Kind of what you do for Lodestar?”
He gave me a mysterious grin. “Then why didn’t you take the cash?”
“It’s blood money, John. One person I don’t want to climb into bed with is Valentin Tolbonov. Going legit or not.”
He looked relieved.
I added, “He wants to sweeten the pot. He offered me another hundred thousand if I find Merlin Finn for him.”
“Are you going to do it?”
I watched as the waitress carried two steaming cups of coffee up the aisle, heading in our direction. “If I find Merlin Finn, I’m telling the cops where he is.”
John’s face clouded, and I suddenly recalled how Finn had tortured and killed his ex-wife. John growled, “Not if I find him first.”
* * *
As we finished up our lunch and I stabbed the last chunk of blackened chicken from my Caesar salad, John’s phone rang. He glanced at the screen. “It’s Shana. I’ll just be a minute.”
I watched as he slid out of the booth and headed for the alcove at the front door, away from folks who might overhear his conversation. It gave me a chance to wonder what kind of man he really was. What did I really know about him?
He was once a New York cop and now worked for Lodestar Analytics doing opposition research for politicians, and political parties and doing background checks on CEOs. Here, he’s my bodyguard.
What else does Lodestar do?
Something I should know more about before I take the job with them.
I knew that John did pro bono work for the Friends of Lydia. I found that dangerously attractive.
And he was.
Dangerously attractive.
I recalled seeing him standing in the dark living room last night wearing only his boxer shorts. His body was chiseled and muscular, his chest moderately hairy, his waist trim.
I sighed.
In another lifetime, perhaps?
The last time I’d been with anyone, it was a one-night stand with a sleazy actor. My sexual appetite, usually very healthy, had been at a low point after that.
Maybe a romp in the hay with John Stillwater is just the thing I need?
But the look on his face when he talked about having first crack at Merlin Finn was startling. Was he capable of taking matters into his own hands and exacting revenge for the death of his ex-wife?
Isn’t that a normal reaction?
I sipped my coffee and watched him walk quickly back up the aisle, his phone in his hand. He sat back down. “Change of plans. I’m going to have to leave you on your own. One of Shana’s snitches said that Merlin Finn is personally supervising a shipment of guns and drugs coming up from Philadelphia. She and I are going to check it out. Since Finn is nowhere near here, you should be okay without someone hovering over you.”
I smiled, both relieved and a little anxious. Merlin Finn scared me plenty, but having John around 24/7 was getting on my nerves, no matter how cute he was wearing only his boxers. “So you won’t be camping out on my couch tonight?”
“Nope. Mind if we swing by your place so I can get my overnight bag?”
“If I’m going solo, I’m going to need my car anyway.”
He surprised me when he reached out and took my hand. “Look, if we weren’t sure that Finn was nowhere near you, we wouldn’t leave you on your own. Don’t go anywhere without your phone and your GPS tracker.”
At the mention of the tracker, I recalled the curious way Valentin Tolbonov had studied it.
Anything Valentin Tolbonov does creeps me out.
Still feeling the warmth of John’s hand atop my own, I asked him a question. “What are you going to do with Finn once you catch up to him?”
I was chilled by his words.
“Justice. All I want is justice.”
The similarity and irony in the words and tone with what Tolbonov had said only an hour before weren’t lost on me.
Chapter Thirty-One
It only took him a few minutes to pack, and then, just as he was getting ready to leave, it felt awkward. We’d been through a lot in a very short time. Shake hands? Hug?
John picked up his small suitcase, and then, clasping my shoulder, he leaned in and kissed me on the cheek.
Sweet.
“You need me, call.”
I smiled. “You too. Good luck.”
And then John and the Mustang were gone.
My ten-year-old Sebring was like an old, comfortable friend, but as I slid behind the wheel, I missed the new leather smell of Shana’s car. The same leather smell I noticed in her dungeon. Sexy. Thinking about it gave me another tiny sexual thrill.
I put it out of my mind and started for Lockport, about a half hour away.
The town’s main industry was the prison. It housed five hundred inmates and, with over one hundred and fifty men and women working there, it was the town’s largest employer. It was a high-security facility holding some of the worst of the worst in the entire state.
Which was why when Merlin Finn found a way out, it threw the town into turmoil.
Federal and state investigators crawled in like cockroaches, asking questions, doing background checks, questioning everyone from the guards to the customers of the coffee shop just up the road from the main gate.
Merlin Finn had somehow managed to punch through a wall, climb up through a narrow air vent using ripped bed sheets as rope, and then impossibly cut through four layers of metal grating to reach the roof. He climbed down the outside of the building, chopped through the perimeter fence, and disappeared into the night.
The investigators were convinced that Finn had he
lp getting the tools he needed and the time required to make his escape. How had he managed to elude the security cameras? Where did he get the cutting tools?
Speculation fell immediately to the guards. When questioning them proved fruitless, it fell to peripheral employees—members of the teaching, medical, and kitchen staffs.
That was a dead end.
Was the Brotherhood so powerful within the walls of Lockport Correctional Facility that it could produce or steal everything needed to bust out their leader?
That was what the investigation concluded.
But now, there I was on the road going east along the coast of Long Island Sound, nearly to the border of Rhode Island, because the supervisor the night of the escape, Leon Dempsey, was missing.
Maybe Finn’s escape wasn’t as clear-cut as everyone thought. While I drove, I broke the law and called the prison using my cell phone. I was amazed when I was able to score an appointment with the warden, Paul Fisher. To his credit, he wanted to get out ahead of any publicity fallout that might come from the guard’s disappearance.
We met at his house, not at the correctional facility. I didn’t mind, because prisons make me feel claustrophobic. And if I’m anywhere near the general population, even though we might be separated by bars, their leering eyes and lascivious expressions and catcalls give me the heebie-jeebies.
You can’t blame them. They’re men, and many of them haven’t been with or seen a woman in a very long time. A tall blond with long legs, even though covered up in a parka, jeans, and boots, is a lovely, teasing novelty.
Fisher lived in a two-story Tudor about a mile from the facility. The expansive lawn was completely covered with snow, but I could still spot landscaping and shrubbery around the periphery of the house.
He must have been waiting for me, because he opened the door just as I was trudging up the stone steps. “Careful. I put some salt down, but those steps are still slick.”
I smiled and held out my gloved hand. “I’m Geneva Chase with the Sheffield Post.”
He frowned momentarily. “Oh, I thought you were with the Hartford newspaper.”