by Bryan Koepke
“Ahhh!” Reece yelled, pulling free from the dream. He rolled left to right like a child trying to shake off a nightmare. He felt the hot sting of tears on his cheeks. “Fuck!” It was all so real.
“Reece, Reece. Wake up.”
He heard his name and wondered who’d said it. There was someone next to him. He could feel the warmth of a hand on his shoulder. He rolled onto his side and opened his eyes. The smell of woman’s lilac perfume pleased him.
“Reece, are you okay? Did you have a nightmare,” Marie said as she ran her hand over his forehead and through his bangs.
“Marie?”
He blinked at the light as he focused on her face. Her warm hand was on his head, in his hair. It felt good, but the dream was still there. He felt sad. He fought to keep the tears from coming, but after reaching up to his eye realized it was too late. He pushed up off the mattress to sit up in bed.
“Are you okay?” Marie said as she scooted sideways into the bed and wrapped an arm around his back.
“I’m sorry. Did I wake you?” Reece said.
“It’s okay. You’re awake now. Whatever you were dreaming is gone.”
He could feel the warmth of her thigh next to his calf. She pulled away and the light next to the bed came on.
“Oh, you poor dear. You’re crying,” she said, coming back to him and wrapping both arms around him.
“Yeah, he said, embarrassed that he’d yelled out in his sleep and now she’d seen the tears. Until now the only person he’d shared his dream with was his shrink back in Denver.
“Do you want to talk about it?” Marie said as she continued to run her hand through his hair. “It’s okay. I went through an awful time with my dreams when Karl first left me for another woman.”
“Talking doesn’t help,” Reece said dejectedly.
“It’s about your mother, isn’t it?”
“My mom, how’d you guess?”
“You called out her name,” she said.
“I did?” Reece said, irritated.
“It’s okay to talk about it, Reece. Sometimes we feel like we have to keep all of our pain secret.”
“Yeah, it was a scary dream,” Reece said. He didn’t want to tell her, but the words just came. “I have a recurring dream about the night my mother died.”
“I’m so sorry for your loss, Reece,” she said, getting up off the bed and walking over to the bathroom. He stayed there in the bed and for the first time remembered he was naked underneath the covers. He wondered if he had time to make a sprint to his jeans, but she turned back toward him.
“Are you thirsty? Would you like me to get you some water?” she said, walking out of the bathroom with a wet washcloth.
“No, I’m not thirsty.”
She threw the covers, partly open exposing his naked hip, and she crawled underneath the sheets so that she was beside him. “Here, this will help your eyes,” Marie said, handing over the warm washcloth. Reece rubbed his eyes with it, not knowing what else to do.
“Here, let me help you,” she said, taking the washcloth, folding it into fourths, and laying over his eyes. Here, lie back.”
Chapter 18
The next afternoon after dropping Marie back at her house Reece pulled his rented truck in front of the motel in the small village of Tarbert. He was eager to continue reading through the documents they’d taken from Thomas Billington’s apartment.
Reece reached over toward the back and took hold of his camouflage backpack. While unzipping the front compartment, he thought about what he and Haisley had talked about the night before. With any luck his friend would find something on Rhodes’ computer while doing his forensics.
He thought about the document in the first file folder he’d read earlier. The first page had a list of employees who were sent a memo, and the item included Ian Drae, Henry Rhodes, and several other names Reece couldn’t yet connect. It was a notification that Draecon International had successfully purchased Woodbine Chemical Company dated May 5, 1979.
Henry Rhodes. I wonder if that’s Karl’s father? Interesting.
The slam of a car door broke his concentration. A woman had come down the hallway that connected the rooms within the motel. She looked severe to Reece with her thick short-cropped black hair and ultra fit body. The woman wore form-fitting black yoga pants and a black leather jacket. He watched as she slid into the front seat of the Fiat. A burble of exhaust came out the tailpipe of the car. It was running, but what was she waiting for?
Maybe kids. No, someone who looks like that doesn’t have kids. She looks all business.
The woman’s head was tilted down like she was reading something on her lap. Ah, I don’t have time for this. Reece got out the truck with his backpack in his hand and headed for his motel room. After passing through the short tunnel that lead to a U-shaped area with two floors of rooms, he shoved his key into the door of number 7 and entered.
The first thing that caught his attention was that the drawers of the hotel desk were all hanging open. The hinged doors to both closets were wide open. Someone’s been in here looking through my stuff.
Reece went over to the queen-sized bed, pulled the covers off, and slipped his hand underneath the mattress. The green file folder was gone.
*
If the woman in the Fiat stole the file from his room she’d have the choice of leaving the village by only two routes – highway A83 north or south. Reece was guessing she’d gone north.
The vibrate mode of his phone in the pocket of his bomber jacket caught his attention, and he hit the brakes at the intersection of A83.
“Yeah.”
“Mr. Culver. This is Officer MacDonald. I just got off the phone with your friend Haisley Averton. He gave me your number.”
“Yeah,” Reece said thinking so what?
“I was wondering if you could swing by my office at the police station in Tarbert today?”
“I guess I could,” Reece said, ending the call. He cast a look down A83, but he finally admitted what he’d known all along. She was long gone.
A light drizzle pelted the windshield as he drove into Tarbert. It was obvious to him now that Thomas Billington had been researching Draecon International for a long time. He thought back to what he’d read several nights earlier. He’d found dated notes in the man’s handwriting. What didn’t make sense was why he would have wanted to talk to Karl Rhodes about whatever it was he’d found. When he and Haisley had first questioned Marie Rhodes, she’d said Billington was on his way to interview Karl about Draecon’s financial success. That didn’t fit. Karl was the Chief Strategy Officer for the company, not its CFO. Additionally, his loyalties would be to the company, not to some freelance writer trying to drum up a story, and in doing so tank the company’s stock price or worse.
Reece thought about Marie and wondered what her part was in all of this. Was she just the wife dumped for a younger woman or was there more?
And that green file. What did that contain that was so valuable that the black-haired woman had risked getting caught in a Tarbert motel room?
*
The blower mounted in the far ceiling corner of the Tarbert Police station was doing a loud job of warming the place. Reece took the cup of coffee offered to him.
“What were you doing up in London?” MacDonald said.
“What do you mean?” Reece said, wondering how the policeman knew his whereabouts.
“I got a call about you and Marie Rhodes.”
“You’re having me followed?”
“Not you, her,” MacDonald said, bringing his coffee cup up toward his thick red mustache for a sip. “You and Marie Rhodes got something brewing?”
Reece had a flash of her form-fitting nightshirt. “What?”
“We’ve had a car on that house ever since we saw the name Draecon International on a document from the victim’s SUV,” MacDonald said. “Karl Rhodes is an executive at Draecon.”
Reece suddenly questioned why he’d bothered to drop by th
e Tarbert Police station.
“So, Mr. Culver, do you think it might be possible that Marie Rhodes was having sexual relations with the man that died in that truck?” MacDonald said.
Reece was struck by this remark. He hadn’t considered this angle, even though it now seemed like an obvious possibility.
“Sexual relations?” Reece said, knowing full well what MacDonald said.
“Yes, what if Thomas Billington and Marie Rhodes were having a thing and her husband Karl found out?”
“A thing? You mean an affair,” Reece said, stalling for time. Was that what she did: lure men with the intention of keeping them closer than enemies?
“That kind of stuff happens all the time. Billington was screwing Karl Rhodes’ wife. He got caught, and ‘pop.’”
“Wasn’t it a Russian-made sniper rifle that was used to assassinate Thomas Billington?” Reece said.
“It was, but what do you think? Isn’t that the normal motivation back in your country?”
“Well, I don’t know if I follow your bent about my country. But Billington had a wife and a kid. I doubt he’d have had time to drive all they way over to Tarbert from Glasgow for an affair.”
Reece heard the door open. A young officer poked his head in and then came over to the table where Officer MacDonald was sitting, and handed him what looked like a leather logbook.
“Thanks, Jenson,” MacDonald said, taking the book. He flipped it open and started looking through page by page. “Interesting.” MacDonald looked up. “It says here that you and Mr. Averton accompanied Marie Rhodes and her daughter Elise to Thomas Billington’s funeral. Later you checked into a London hotel, where the two of you spent the night together.”
“So, you are having me followed,” Reece said, his cheeks reddening.
“Like I said earlier, we have surveillance on Mrs. Rhodes.”
“Is she a suspect?” Reece said.
“No, not yet, but I have to be honest with you. I’ve been working this case with Scotland Yard. We rarely see homicide in Scotland, and if it’s linked to Draecon International, well, that’s something I’ll need help with from London,” MacDonald said.
“So you’ve got more information than what you’ve discussed with Haisley the other day?” Reece said. He knew it was a stupid question, but he needed time to think. In a short time he’d gone from suspecting Marie Rhodes of being connected to the murder of Thomas Billington to having feelings for her. It was a bad place for him to be, but he could at least hide those feelings from Officer MacDonald. “Is this suspicion about Marie Rhodes related to the evidence you recovered from the deceaseds’ SUV?”
“Mr. Culver, I’m not in the habit of discussing my investigations with Americans.”
Chapter 19
Julian Cross rose happily from the kitchen floor of the farmhouse on the outskirts of Brussels. He’d gotten to his magic number of three hundred pushups. The exercise felt good, and it helped stave off the boredom he’d been fighting the last few days. He’d never spent so much time waiting for the next assignment, but never had he been on this type of retainer, living in a home provided by his client. Although he’d spent the first couple of nights sleepless, he was easing into a routine that was starting to make him think he’d rather enjoy retirement.
The one need that hadn’t been addressed was sex. He took a seat at the kitchen table and stared down at the scratched wooden surface thinking of his wife’s face, her body, the feel of her soft skin the last time he’d laid his hands upon her. Julian could feel himself getting aroused, excited enough to go out and find a prostitute.
Slowly, he pulled back from the reverie and took the file lying nearby in his hands. He’d found the large manila envelope on his doorstep that morning. He slid out the folded map, then several photographs of a man and a woman playing tennis. In one of the photos the face of the woman had been circled.
It had been years since he’d taken out a female target, but he’d never had a problem performing the job. He studied the woman’s face, her body, and the way she wore her hair. Why would his client want to take out this fussy, proper secretary?
From what he’d learned on the two occasions he’d met face to face with his client, he knew the man was trying desperately to protect something he’d spent years of his life building. There was more to it than just personal pride. To Julian it seemed like he wanted to protect the thousands of people employed at Draecon International.
He knew he was out of step with his normal routines. Julian had been calling home as often as he could. He was planning to make this client his last. The one thing he didn’t know was how many more lives he’d be paid to end before the contract was finished.
Julian peeled open the large map of the complex. The rooms were housed within two stories in a large “H” pattern with tennis courts in the middle. A room number was circled and a name was written in red ink on the large second-floor suite. Below and a few hundred feet nearer to one of the tennis courts a second number was circled and a second name was written in blue ink.
From what he’d read the name in blue was to be spared. The target was in red. He picked up the stack of prints and looked through them one by one. The twosome would be visiting to play tennis. He wondered about the close proximity of the couple’s rooms. Are they lovers or merely friends that share the common love of tennis?
Reaching down into the false bottom of the ammo can, Julian pulled out his favorite weapon for close work, a Sig Sauer P226 Mk25, the same firearm purportedly used by the U.S. Navy Seals. He held it up, aiming at the lit red button on the display of the oven. The lasagna he’d prepared earlier was baking inside, and he was beginning to feel hungry. The smell of melting mozzarella and ricotta cheese mixed with the sauce was strong. He’d learned the recipe from an Italian roommate in the armed forces.
Julian turned the gun and eyed the little white naval anchor painted onto the barrel just beyond the P226. What he liked most was its fifteen-round clip. There were cooler handguns like the EAA Witness Elite Gold Team Handgun, but for Julian the P226 was tops. It had the right feel, weight, and capability.
He’d already rehearsed the kill in his mind, but in a well-populated tennis complex, any number of circumstances might force him to stray from the plan. With fourteen extra rounds in the magazine and a backup clip in his jacket pocket he’d have the capacity to take out his target.
Chapter 20
Reece leaned back into the overstuffed chair. After receiving a call from Marie Rhodes earlier that day, he’d stopped off at the liquor store before driving over. Maybe a few bottles of wine would shake loose how she felt about Thomas Billington.
“So tell me about your father,” Marie said, handing over a glass of red wine from a bottle she’d selected from the wine cellar. Reece thought it was classy of her to open her own wine instead of using the bottle he’d just handed her.
“There’s not much to tell,” Reece said.
“Where does he live? Is he in Denver or in another part of the States?
“My folks used to live in St. Louis—that is, before my father…” Reece stopped mid sentence. Was killed. “Would you like to have a fire? Seems kind of cool in here,” he said, rising from his chair and walking across the room. The fireplace screen was heavy and it seemed like it had been cemented in place by a large amount of ash. That bozo Karl Rhodes probably never took the time to clean it. Reece pulled the stout wrought iron fencing away from the brick-lined firebox, and hoped she wouldn’t ask any more questions about his deceased parents.
Reece knew he was thinking with his heart, not his head, but he didn’t think that Marie was capable of murder. The night before in the hotel, she’d consoled him after he’d cried out from that dream. Would a killer show that much compassion?
Plus, there was too much evidence pointing to a cover-up at Draecon International. He didn’t know whether or not Karl Rhodes was a part of the scheme, or how much love for him Marie still harbored. If she were behind Billington’s
death, Reece was in a bad spot. There, all alone in the big house, she could easily pull out a gun and take him out.
The fireplace tools in an ash can looked like they hadn’t been used in months. The interior of the firebox was half a foot high with thick gray and black remnants from past fires.
“Your father. You were saying something about him, Reece?”
“Yeah, he died too.”
“Oh, you poor thing, I’m so sorry. Talk about putting my foot in my mouth,” she said.
“No, to answer your question it wasn’t an accident. A mobster killed him during an investigation.”
“Oh dear, how dreadful,” Marie said, coming over. “Your glass is empty. Can I refill it?”
“Certainly, as long as you’re planning on joining me,” Reece said, eyeing her glass and noting that she hadn’t touched it. Who was plying whom with liquor? He watched her take a long sip, walk over to the antique liquor cart, and swipe the bottle of red she’d opened earlier.
After setting two large logs down with one in the back and one in the front of the fireplace he lined the gap in between with four sheets of crumpled up newspaper. Next he made a crisscross pattern with small dry twigs, breaking several so that they were all about a foot and half long. On top of the mess of sticks he set a piece of split wood. On top of that piece he laid a second log at a forty-five degree angle.
“Matches? Or a lighter?” Reece said.
“Matches? Oh, they’re on top of the mantel.”
Reece rose out of his squat, and ran his hands along the top brick shelf above the fireplace until he felt a box of matches. He pulled out a single wooden stick and flicked the end of it with his fingernail igniting the slender match into a blaze of white and orange.
“Wow, where did you learn to that?” Marie said.
What, the match trick? I guess I picked that up back in my Air Force days.”