Alter Ego

by Brian Freeman

  Cab bent over to pick up the plate. Doing so saved his life.

  They were too shocked by the destruction of the car to hear the man sneaking up behind them and swinging a baseball bat at Cab’s head. As Cab ducked, the man missed, and the bat sailed by with a hiss of air only inches above Cab’s skull.

  Maggie screamed a warning. She reached for her gun, but her gun was 2,000 miles away in Minnesota. She dived across the short space and shoved the man’s chest with both hands, but she only bumped him a few inches backward. It was like pushing against a horse that didn’t want to move. She tried again, but he was ready for her. He swatted her off her feet with a backhand thump of his forearm. She landed hard on her back on the pavement, and the pain was like a cattle prod to her neck.

  Cab jabbed a fist at the man’s face. The blow jerked the man’s head back and bloodied his nose. With a grunt, the man swung the bat again. Cab dodged out of the way, but not quickly enough, and the bat hit him in the meat of his upper arm and knocked him to his knees. The man cocked his arms like a baseball player, but before he could take another swing, Maggie scrambled to her feet and threw herself in his face. She wrapped her arms around his back and sank her teeth into his shoulder. He howled in pain and wrenched free, throwing her to the ground again.

  The bat dropped from his hands and rolled.

  It rolled right into Cab’s hands, and he picked it up and got to his feet.

  “Hi,” Cab said to the man.

  Maggie and Cab closed on him from both directions. The man reached for his back pocket, pulled out a knife with a six-inch blade, and slashed the air. Cab swung the bat, and the man jumped back. Cab swung again, and this time the bat caught the metal tip of the knife and sent it flying. The man heard the clatter of the knife and knew he was done. He turned and ran. They watched him go, disappearing into the Naples streets, and they were in no condition to chase him. Cab let the bat fall to the pavement. He grimaced as he rubbed his arm.

  “You okay?” she asked.

  “I’ll live. How about you?”

  “I’ll have a headache tomorrow, but I’ll be fine.”

  He came up to her and touched her back, neck, and hair, looking for blood and tender spots. His fingers were surprisingly soft and graceful. She felt along his arm and shoulder but found no breaks. They stayed close to each other. Their skin was bathed in sweat, and they were both breathing hard. The fight had attracted no attention from Tin City. The two of them were still alone near the warehouse.

  Eventually, Cab separated himself from her and surveyed the wreckage of his Corvette. He walked through the field of glass.

  “Well, it was time for a new car anyway,” he said.

  Maggie laughed, but that sent spasms through her neck. “I don’t suppose this was random.”

  “Oh, no. This was a message. Stay the hell away from Dean Casperson.”

  “Except we can’t prove it.”

  “That might be the one advantage we have,” Cab said.

  “How do you figure that?”

  “He’s arrogant enough to think there’s nothing we can do to him.”

  “So what do you suggest?” Maggie asked.

  Cab didn’t answer. He went around to the back of the Corvette and pried at the damaged trunk, which opened with a screech of metal. He dug inside and emerged with a look of triumph on his face. There was a bottle of wine in his hand.

  “I always keep a bottle of Stags’ Leap in the back for emergencies. Thank heavens it came through unscathed.”

  “You really are something,” Maggie told him. “But you haven’t answered my question. What do we do now?”

  “First we go to my place and open the wine,” Cab said.

  “And then?”

  “You’re not going to like it. Remember, you’re still a cop, but I’m not.”

  “Tell me,” Maggie said.

  “The rich play by their own rules,” Cab replied, “so we need someone who’s willing to beat them at their own game. That’s why I sent Peach up there in the first place. We need to find someone who doesn’t care about the rules. We need someone who’s willing to cheat.”

  25

  Cat parked her Honda Civic in the parking lot of the Ordean-East Middle School. Her car was the only vehicle in the lot in the middle of the evening. She and Curt slipped out into the cold. There was no snow, but the gusty wind down the hill almost stole the gray trapper hat from her head. A recycling bin had been blown from someone’s garage and tumbled down the street; it rattled and rolled around on the asphalt. She shoved her hands into her coat pockets and pointed her face down, and they trudged to the corner.

  Through the trees on the other side of Fourth Street, she could barely make out the corner of the red brick wall protecting the estate that Dean Casperson was renting. The wall followed Hawthorne Road up the hill. The intersection of the two roads was empty. They had the neighborhood to themselves.

  “So now what?” Curt said.

  Cat tapped her foot on the sidewalk as she thought about what to do next. “Do you think we can climb that wall?”

  “I could boost you up. You should be able to reach the top.”

  “Well, let’s see if anything’s going on over there first,” she said.

  Cat headed diagonally across the intersection under the glow of a streetlight. She was on the other side of the street from Casperson’s mansion. It was dark here, sheltered by tall bushes. She took deep steps through the snow toward the corner house, which was a white Colonial with a green roof. Curt stayed close behind her. They followed the walkway in front of the house, crossed a plowed driveway, and ducked quickly through the snow in the open yard until they reached the next house. They took shelter behind a tall arborvitae.

  From there, they had a vantage across the street to the gated driveway at Casperson’s estate. Lights glowed on either side of the brick columns. A sedan was parked on the street, and its windows were clouded with steam. Every now and then they could see an arm wipe the front window. A guard was watching the gate.

  “I don’t think he’s going to invite you inside, kitty cat,” Curt said.

  Cat unzipped her coat and grabbed the binoculars that hung around her neck. She put them to her eyes and focused on Casperson’s estate. The angle was wrong to see the house. She could make out the curving driveway and the detached garage, but a stand of evergreens blocked all the windows.

  “What can you see?” Curt asked.

  “Nothing. This isn’t working.” Cat tapped her foot impatiently again. “What if we sneak into the house that Haley Adams used? She had a view into Casperson’s place. You said you got in there when you were looking for the telescope, right?”

  “I barely got out, too. They’ve got private security checking on the place now.”

  Cat frowned. She noted the time on her watch and peered through the binoculars again.

  “It looks pretty quiet over there,” Curt added. “There’s no party tonight. I’d know.”

  “Let’s give it a few more minutes.”

  “Okay, but if we’re out here much longer, it’s going to take a blowtorch to thaw out my junk.”

  Cat giggled. “You’re on your own with that.”

  They stayed where they were, shivering in the cold. The night was silent. Across the street, Casperson’s place remained peaceful. No cars came and went; no one approached the gate. She began to think that Curt was right and Dean Casperson was spending the evening alone.

  At ten o’clock, she decided it was time to go.

  They backtracked through the snow, but before they broke out of the bushes, headlights shone from the southern direction on Hawthorne Road. Cat held up a hand to stop Curt where he was. She watched as a white limousine glided up the hill from the lake and stopped in front of Casperson’s estate. The security guard got out of the sedan and checked the car and then pushed a button to open the metal gate. The limo backed up, navigated the tight turn, and then drove inside and parked near the front door.
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  “Hang on,” Cat said. “Who is that?”

  She scrambled to focus the binoculars. Inside the gate, it was almost impossible to see details. Then, as the rear door of the limousine opened, she saw someone get out. Just one person. The glow from the interior light of the long sedan was enough to make out the face, and Cat recognized her.

  It was Aimee Bowe.

  Aimee stopped outside the car as if frozen. Her long coat draped to her feet. Her hair blew across her face. Oddly, she looked back toward the gate and the darkness, almost as if she were staring directly at Cat. There was no way she could see her, but Cat felt as if their eyes had met. In her imagination—and it had to be her imagination because she was too far away—she thought she saw Aimee’s lips moving. Sending her a message.

  Save me.

  Aimee walked around the car to the front door, which was open for her, and then disappeared inside the house.

  “I have to get over there,” Cat said.

  “What? Are you kidding, kitty cat?”

  “There’s going to be trouble. I know it.”

  Cat didn’t wait for Curt. She took off running. She bounded downhill through the snowy front yards to the intersection. At the corner, she crossed the street and ducked inside the trees that sheltered the wall surrounding Casperson’s estate. The top of the wall was more than a foot over her head.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” Curt asked, arriving behind her.

  “Help me get over the wall.”

  “You sure about that? This is a bad idea.”

  “I’ll be careful,” Cat said, “but I have to make sure Aimee’s okay.”

  “I don’t know. I’m already pushing my luck with the cops. If they catch me inside, I’m screwed.”

  “You stay here,” she told him. “I’ll go.”

  Curt heaved a sigh of resignation, and Cat kissed his cheek in gratitude. He squatted in the snow and laced his gloved hands together to form a step. Cat put her boot on his hands, and he hoisted her up until she could grab the top of the wall and swing her other leg over the mortar. She straddled the wall and stared down at the other side, where the ground looked far away.

  She was about to jump when headlights swept across her body like a searchlight. Quickly, she flattened her torso along the top of the wall, and Curt took cover among the pines. Looking back, she spotted the white limousine silently disappearing through the intersection and continuing down the hill.

  It didn’t slow down. No one had seen her.

  Cat called to Curt in a hushed voice. “Wait for me. I won’t be long.”

  Before she could lose her nerve, she swung her leg to the other side of the wall and leaped down.

  She landed, lost her balance, and fell. When she got up, half her body was white with snow. She shook as much as she could from her clothes and then followed the wall uphill toward the estate. Ahead of her, the gables of the house loomed between the trees. Squares of yellow light dotted the windows. She was approaching from the back, and she veered away from the brick wall to get closer. The trees ended at a landscaped courtyard fifty yards from the house. She saw a stone fountain that was dormant for the winter. A wrought iron table sat in the center of a circular patio with a large pancake of snow on top of it. Deer and rabbit tracks dotted the gardens.

  She felt exposed as she crept through the courtyard to the house, whose two wings were connected at a right angle by a rounded turret that looked like something from a castle. A huge bay window in the south wing overlooked the courtyard, and lights were on inside. She stayed low, and when she reached the window, she poked her head above the frame to peer inside. Just as quickly, she ducked back down. Jungle Jack was stretched across a leather sofa, his face only inches from the glass. If he’d glanced left, they would have been staring at each other. Cat shrank down against the rear wall. She could hear the noise of the television inside, but one glance had told her that Jack was alone in the room.

  Where was Dean Casperson?

  Where was Aimee?

  She backed away from the window and made her way around the turret and along the perpendicular wing that was closest to Hawthorne Road. Most of the lights were off. She followed the side of the house until she reached the driveway, where she could see the main gate and the detached garage. She waited, then tiptoed in hushed steps past the double front doors to the far side of the estate. She looked back at the gate. The guard outside wasn’t visible on the street.

  The wind was in her face, cold and loud. The tall evergreens swayed. Despite the chill, her nervousness made her sweat. She continued around the corner of the house, where she was sheltered by the walls on both wings. The asphalt driveway curved beside her. On the second floor, twelve feet over her head, she saw lights. Behind the sheer curtains, a silhouette moved in and out of view.

  It was Aimee Bowe.

  Cat needed to see into that room. She spotted a white catering van parked near the back doors of the south wing, and the top of the van was only a few feet below the roofline of the house. She crept down the driveway until she reached the van. The rear door of the house was open. She could hear voices inside and smell the yeasty aroma of bread baking. The front of the van faced her. She put a boot on the bumper and climbed up the hood to the top of the vehicle, wincing as the steel of the chassis shuddered loudly under her feet. The roof was just above her, but the angle was sharp, and the shingles were covered with snow.

  She braced her gloved hands against the gutter, hoping it would hold, and slithered awkwardly from the van to the roof. The wind was fierce there, making it hard to keep her balance. She stood up and put one foot in front of the other like a high-wire artist as she marched through the snow along the very edge of the roof. The drop to the ground loomed beside her. Her boots struggled for traction. It was twenty dangerous feet to the corner, but when she got there, she had a perfect view into the second-floor room in the next wing.

  The curtains were drawn, but they were sheer, and when she lifted the binoculars to her eyes, she could see clearly. The large room was a study decorated in dark wood and leather, with a fire roaring in a stone fireplace on the far wall. She saw a wet bar glistening with mirrored shelves and crystal. A brass chandelier hung from the ceiling. The heavy walnut door near the fireplace was closed, but another door on the adjoining wall was open, and Cat could see a bedroom beyond the doorway.

  There were two people in the room: Aimee Bowe and Dean Casperson.

  Aimee sat on one end of the leather sofa. She had a glass of white wine in her hand, but she held it uncomfortably, and her legs were pressed stiffly together. She wore an orange blouse, black slacks, and sky-high heels. Dean sat across from her, on the other side of a Persian rug, in a wing-backed chair. He wore a heavy Nordic-style sweater and khakis. His legs were crossed, and he looked completely at ease. He sipped his drink from a lowball glass. His face had a casual smile, and he seemed to be doing all the talking.

  Nothing was happening between them.

  It looked innocent.

  Where Cat stood, the wind gusted. She squatted and shoved a hand through the snow to the roof tiles to keep her balance. Under her boots, the snow was melting, making it slippery. She couldn’t stay up there much longer.

  What she saw through the binoculars was two actors talking. Nothing more. Yet Cat didn’t like it. It was Aimee’s face that bothered her. It seemed almost vacant, as if she weren’t tracking on whatever Dean was saying. Her eyes had a strange distance. Minute by minute, as Cat watched, Aimee grew increasingly detached from reality. Her eyes opened and closed in slow, lazy blinks. Her head lolled. Dean talked as if he didn’t notice that something was wrong, but to Cat it was obvious.

  Then the wineglass tipped and fell from Aimee’s hand.

  Aimee didn’t even seem to notice that it had happened. Wine soaked her slacks; the glass broke into pieces on the hardwood floor. At first she didn’t react at all. Then she put both hands on either side of the sofa and tried to get up, but as she di
d, she fell back. She looked dizzy and confused. Across from her, Dean got up. He didn’t jump up in alarm or concern; he simply walked over and sat down next to her. His hand reached to her face and touched her cheek.

  For Cat, the whole thing was a slow-motion horror.

  She stood on the roof, paralyzed. She had to stop this, but she didn’t know how. Before she could decide what to do next, her phone rang, startling her with the loud noise of “Uptown Funk.” It was her ring tone for Curt; he was wondering where she was. She reached for her phone, but as her body twisted, she lost her balance. Her feet spilled out from under her, and she toppled backward. She hit the roof, then slid past the gutter with a cloud of snow, and she was airborne.

  She couldn’t help it. She screamed. She dropped twelve feet and landed in a drift that broke her fall, but the wind couldn’t cover the noise. Behind her, near the van, she heard footsteps and shouts. Looking up, overhead, she saw Dean Casperson peering out the window into the darkness and barking into a phone. Cat scrambled to her feet and ran. She tore around the curving driveway toward the front of the house, but when she saw the gate, she also could see the security guard outside. He bellowed at her to stop. The gate was opening; he was heading toward her.

  Cat switched direction. She barreled into the woods, bounding through the snow like a frightened deer. She could hear the guard behind her. She didn’t dare look back; she just ran. The tree branches ripped at her arms and poured snow into her face. She slipped, got up, slipped, and sprinted again. She zigzagged through the woods until she reached the brick wall on the perimeter of the property, but the wall was keeping her inside now. There was no way to climb. No way to escape.

  She ran parallel to the wall with nowhere to hide and nowhere to go. Then, like a miracle, she saw the corner where she’d jumped down into the snow. And there was Curt, on top of the wall, waiting for her.