Three-Part Harmony

by Angel Payne

  He barely fought back the need to rip up the bushes. Instead, scraping a hand across his skull and forcing himself to breathe, he wheeled back toward the house. The whole time, he prayed the conclusion to which he’d leaped was mercifully wrong.

  * * * *

  He was more right than he’d wanted to be.

  He stood next to Kress in the mansion’s security room, watching the man’s rage climb to match his as they watched the footage they’d prayed not to find from the perimeter cameras. The video, pulled straight from his nightmares, showed a rag-doll-limp Dasha being carried past the pool, through the orchard, and out the front gate. Seconds later, an Escalade pulled up, black as the ninja outfit of the bastard who dumped her into the backseat. He hopped into the front; then the car took off.

  “Son of a bitch.” Moridian let out a guttural snarl. Then he bellowed, loud enough to shake the windows, “Stratham! Parker! You got here five minutes ago. Why aren’t you on the line to Atlanta PD yet? I also want all traffic-light footage within a five-mile radius taken between oh-four-hundred and now. I want it now!”

  David wished for his own excuse to tear off the roof, verbally or otherwise. Looking at that bastard’s hands on Dasha, grabbing her ass to secure her better on his shoulder, handling her like a fucking commodity, made him long to wrench the monitor off the wall and hurl it out the window. Instead, he funneled his energy into trying to determine what had happened. Where the hell had a mistake been made? More importantly, who’d made it?

  “He knew the code,” he stated. “Am I right about that? If the guy forced the gate—”

  “This place would’ve lit up like the Fourth of July.”

  “So he found a way to get the code.”

  “Yeah.”

  “The code we changed yesterday morning?”

  The agent’s whole stature seethed a silent yes. “The only people who had it except us were key players from the CNN crew and the senator’s entourage.”

  “So he found a way to get onto one of those teams.” Frustration chewed its way through his gut. “But we checked every single credential. Everyone on those lists was cleared. No psychological blips; not even a goddamn therapy session on their records.”

  Kress went suddenly still. His brow furrowed. He scrubbed his unshaven jaw and gazed harder at the monitor. Then punched the Back key. “This behavior,” he muttered. “It doesn’t add up.”

  David forced himself to peer at the same image. It was the shot of their ninja friend about to slip out the mansion’s service gate with Dasha. “What do you mean?”

  “He’s carrying her like a tackle dummy.”

  He snorted. “Thanks for the four-one-one.”

  “No, no. Don’t you see? It doesn’t fit. If this was our demented fanboy, he’d be pulling a Romeo Montague. He’d be cradling her like a lover.”

  Now David held back from tossing his friend out the window. “The bastard left a dead bird in her luggage, Moridian. He’s not sane. He wants to kill her.”

  “Because he thinks he’s worshipping her by doing so. ‘Dasha dies and saves us all.’ That’s the kind of statement you give to a martyr or a lover.” He stabbed a finger at the monitor. “This bastard…he’s delivering a product, not stealing away with a woman he’s obsessed with.”

  “Which means…what? The real lunatic is still out there, and this guy is another crazy cocksucker?”

  If it was possible, Kress’s face contorted harder. It looked like the agent’s tickle had turned to bile. “It means we might have been looking in the wrong direction the entire time.”

  “Shit.” Nausea took the wheel in his own stomach now. “You mean…maybe there never really was a lunatic. That the note and the dove in Miami—”

  “And maybe even our friend Mr. Smith in Atlanta,” Moridian finished. “All part of something else. Something clearly designed to make us look at the loony-tunes fans and the fringe society elements, instead of—” He interrupted himself with his own confused frown. “Instead of what? Damn it, that’s the piece we’re missing.”

  The nausea turned into dread now. “Fuck,” David spat.

  The meaning in his voice wasn’t lost on his friend. “What?”

  He forced his jaw to unclench so he could get out the words. “The senator… He’s been heading up this development task force in Iraq. It was designed to open up the commerce possibilities between us and them. They apparently love us for it, but—”

  “Not everyone else in the region would,” Kress filled in once again. “Or anyone over here who shares those world views.” As long as they were voicing their worst fears, David went on. “And if one of them got onto the senator’s team and had access to all his daughter’s information—”

  “Stratham!” Moridian cut him off with another shout. “Let Parker continue the light checks. I want you to check the location of every member from Senator Moore’s team who was here yesterday. Where are they right now, what are they doing, when they last took a shit. Everything!”

  “Agent Moridian.” Another agent stepped up, apparently out of the wall itself. But David recognized him at once. It was Phelps, the peon who’d first grilled Dasha back in Miami. Same scuffed loafers. Same by-the-book gaze. Which in this case, was the virtue that redeemed the guy for his asshole act in Miami. “I’ve already started the job. As soon as you and Mr. Pennington linked the breach back to yesterday’s visitors, I got on the line and began cell location on all the senator’s staffers.”

  Kress expelled an audible breath. “Great job, Phelps. Good thinking.”

  Phelps shook his head. “Only by half. The numbers we’re able to trace all show up at the Four Seasons, where the senator is staying. But there’s at least a half-dozen numbers we can’t trace. They’re secured lines, invisible to us.”

  Before Phelps finished the sentence, Kress started bolting out the door. “Not anymore they’re not.”

  The library was just down the hall. In less than a minute, Kress tore into the room that had been serving as their temporary command center. As David arrived, the agent had already opened Skype on his laptop. “I’m damn glad I told Corso I needed to have at least one way of accessing her,” he clarified.

  They watched, both barely containing their tension, as the call started ringing through. When Corso didn’t pick up the summons after four rings, David backed toward the door. “That’s it. I’m gonna go find D’s phone. The senator’s private line has to be on—”

  On the sixth ring, the call got picked up. But Corso’s features didn’t fill the screen. Instead, a young, sleep-tousled brunette squinted into the camera. “Hello?” she mumbled. Then her eyes opened wider. “Oh! Kress! Hey.” She scraped chunks of hair into her face. “Crap. I look like a toad right now. I didn’t think it would be you. Shit.”

  For a second, David wondered about the woman’s familiar tone. Then he recognized her from dinner last night. Petite. Glasses. Eyes behind those glasses that had clear plans for Moridian.

  “Natalie.” Kress’s response was cordial but complete business. “Where’s Corso?”

  “Uh—who?” The woman’s fuzzy stammer confirmed her flirtations with Kress last night had been given some liquid courage.

  “Crystal Corso.” Moridian stressed every syllable to the breaking point. “Your boss, remember? Isn’t this her Skype line?”

  “Uh…yeah. Um, not here. She told me she’d be getting up early to handle some business with her company in Buenos Aires. She took her right-hand guy, Zack, to help. So, I’m on Skype-line monitor duty.” A sultry little smile crept across her lips. “You maybe wanna come over and—”

  “Buenos Aires?”

  David fired it in unison with Moridian. They exchanged knowing glowers.

  “What company in Buenos Aires?” Kress demanded. Thankfully, the woman was too bleary to notice their uptick of urgency or that she’d just spilled the biggest heap of incriminating shit of the morning. Hell, of the entire investigation.

  “Her dad left it
to her when he died a couple years ago, but she’s a silent partner, because it’s not great for her political rep to have an off-shore business. It’s all boring stuff like shipments and commodities and exports and imports. She calls them a couple of times a month and—”

  “Natalie!”

  The woman actually jumped as Kress shouted it. “Jeez! What?”

  “Listen to me. I need Corso’s cell phone number. Now.”

  It looked like his order penetrated her hangover haze. Until she stuttered, “Kress. I—”

  “Now, damn it! Dasha Moore’s been abducted. Does that part register? The only way we can find her is through that number!”

  The woman blinked. Then her face crumpled, and her lips wobbled. “Oh, Kress. God, I’m sorry. I don’t have it. She changed it yesterday.”

  “What?”

  “She said it was for security reasons, and she’d give me the new number when she got back today.”

  David kicked a dent into the wall while Kress shoved a stack of files to the floor, then disconnected the Skype line without saying anything else to the now distraught Natalie. The guy lurched to his feet, clawing back his hair again, looking as haggard as the woman he’d just switched off. His gray T-shirt looked like a trash bag; the fly of his jeans was barely zipped.

  But when he spoke again, the agent was completely confident of every syllable. Most importantly, he knew Kress was willing to put his life behind each word.

  “All right. We’re gonna have to do this the hard way. Which means we have to do it right, every second of it, the first time.”

  “I’m in,” David told him.

  “Damn straight you are,” the agent answered. “Now go find D’s phone. It’s time to tell the senator the truth about his adorable little Crystal.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Sweet little Dasha. Sweet little Dasha.

  She moaned, fighting her way back to the dream. Mom was singing to her, making the tune a little half whisper so she’d fall asleep, but she giggled, trying to stay awake.

  Sweet little Dasha.

  The dream grew fainter. And she couldn’t see Mom anymore. And her head felt like a gigantic, pain-filled boulder. “Don’t go,” Dasha begged the dream, only to wonder why her tongue wouldn’t cooperate. Cotton lined the inside of her mouth. Dirty cotton. She just wanted to go back to sleep…

  “You’re awake.”

  Definitely not Mom. It was more like a school nurse with a thermometer caught up her butt, crossed with Crystal “I’m-Too-Perfect-For-My-Pants” Corso.

  “Well. I was hoping you’d stay a good little pseudocorpse, but so be it. Soon enough for the real thing.”

  Dasha forced an invisible crowbar beneath her eyelids. It took a couple of seconds more for her eyes to fully focus.

  When she did, she wished she hadn’t.

  It was Crystal. The woman wore a silky ivory turtleneck and matching cashmere pants, which seemed a ridiculous outfit, given the surroundings. The place looked like a man-cave designed by Davy Crockett, with dark wood walls crossed by heavy timber support beams, a stacked stone fireplace and accents of iron and steel everywhere. A real bearskin rug lay underfoot; the animal’s head had been mounted on the wall just before the entrance to the black granite kitchen. Sure, because that was appetizing.

  All of those observations faded when Dasha’s gaze fell to the pine dining table in front of her. Red candles, yet to be lit, rimmed three sides of it. They surrounded a surface upon which thousands of pictures and photos had been dumped.

  Thousands of images…of her.

  “What…the…?” Even her whisper sledgehammered her brain. Surely, she imagined the sight. Time to rub away the sleep completely.

  Not happening. She couldn’t raise her hand. Or any part of her arm. She looked down to discover all four of her limbs bound to the dining chair by tight rope gauntlets. Her torso was also secured, the ropes wrapped just below her breasts. They dug in so tightly, breathing felt like pushing on a wall.

  She repeated, with deepening outrage, “What…the…?”

  “Relax,” Crystal crooned. She added with a slick smirk, “Darling.”

  The utterance put an icy edge on Dasha’s fury. The woman’s voice was a verbal scalpel, slicing with deep deliberation. I’m in control now, it said. And there’s nothing you can do about it.

  Sure enough, as Dasha’s mind shifted beyond first impressions, she noticed a couple of discerning—and disturbing—elements about this place. Beyond the cabin, she heard only the wind in trees, some small creatures scampering, the tap of a woodpecker. She smelled pine and sap. A forest. And not a pretty, pseudowilderness-at-the-edge-of-town deal either. They weren’t in Atlanta anymore, Toto.

  “Shit.” It sounded lonely and defeated, instead of the terror now beating her blood. “Crystal, why—” She shook her head, unable to voice the truth that teased, hideous and ugly, at the edge of her conscious. But she fought to force it out. “Is this—are you—”

  “Have something you want to spit out? Or do you just want to shut up and keep still, as I’ve always preferred you?”

  Though Crystal’s tone still dripped honey, Dasha was certain the woman meant to suffocate her remaining courage with it. And perhaps, a couple of weeks ago, Crystal would’ve succeeded. The Dasha of that time would’ve likely succumbed to the role of petrified kidnap victim and fought to bargain with Corso for her life. But not now. She’d confronted so much about herself in these last weeks, stripped clean of her pretenses and excuses for honesty, just as her body had been stripped by two of the most generous men she’d ever known. For the surrender of her body, she’d been given emotional and physical ecstasy beyond the bonds of words. And for the honesty of her spirit, she’d gotten even more. She’d gotten back her father.

  She wasn’t about to let that go now. She wasn’t about to let either David or Kress down now. Or Dad.

  She leveled an unblinking glare at Crystal. “It was you, wasn’t it? You sent the text to everyone, back in Miami. You’d have the security clearance to get all the addresses, so you did. And then—”

  “Don’t be ridiculous.” Crystal strode to the stove, lifted a lid on a pot, and stirred the savory-smelling stuff inside. “As if I have time to blast texts to all those idiots.” She flashed another demure smile. “I had Zack do it, of course. That’s what he’s there for.”

  Dasha’s blood turned to ice. She thought about those terrifying hours, after the texts had hit everyone’s phones. The confusion in everyone’s eyes. The fear and the uncertainty, some even wondering if one of their own was responsible until she’d found the mutilated dove atop her suitcase, and they all realized only an outsider could be that sick.

  “I don’t understand.”

  “What?” Crystal rolled her eyes. “Oh, come on. You do remember Zack, my personal assistant? Cute little hipster type, would do anything for me and your father?”

  “No,” Dasha snapped. “I don’t understand…why.” She stared at the witch who stood there so serene again, brewing her damn stew…undoubtedly laced with arsenic. “I’ve done nothing to you. So why did you go through all that? Send the texts…and the dove…and what about the shooter at the mall? Did you sic Zack on him too?”

  “I’m not a complete monster, Dasha.” She set the lid back on the pot with a hard clang. “Mr. Smith and his rifle were a fluke we didn’t expect. Granted, a fortuitous fluke, but—”

  “A fluke?” She really struggled to breathe now. Her nervous system pulled a wild ride between the horrified ice and now an inferno of outrage. “A fortuitous fluke? People could’ve been killed. Do you understand that, you half-baked psycho-bitch?”

  Crystal wheeled on her. The ladle in her hand became a gavel, pounding the counter. “I. Am. Not. A monster!” She grimaced at the stew spatter art she’d inflicted on her perfect pants. “Everything I did—everything!—was for your father. Damn you! Don’t you understand? I did it for the great politician he can become!”

&nbs
p; “Really?” Dasha found her quiet sneer easy to achieve. “Enlighten me on that.”

  “You stupid girl. As far as your star has risen, it amazes me you don’t get this.” Crystal crossed her arms and leaned against the wall. She stood right under the bear head.

  Sometimes, irony did have a sense of humor.

  “Fine.” The woman rolled her eyes and huffed. “Here’s your enlightenment, dear. The party came to your father about the possibility of the presidential bid. We’d only just started playing around with the idea. But we needed some publicity in Florida, something to see how your dad’s rep would track there. You happened to be in Florida, with your tour.” The woman’s flawless Revlon brows arched. “Yes. For once, you were in the right place at the right time.”

  Dasha ignored the slam. “So you staged the texts and the stalker-style stuff, knowing it would land my name in the local press?” She gave a snort of her own now. “Okay, that’s a big stretch. The FBI told us they didn’t talk to anyone about the case. And I believe them.”

  “And we wouldn’t have it any other way,” the woman assured, going velvet cool once more. “Controlling the information leaks is key on a project like this, n’est-ce pas, cherie?”

  Dasha didn’t give her the satisfaction of rising to the bait. Besides, the more Crystal relaxed, the more she turned back to the stove, which meant the opportunity to visually sweep the room for a means of escape. But damn, there weren’t a lot of possibilities. An idea occurred. Loosen the ropes by tipping herself over? Hop the chair backward to the large oak chest behind her, and hope one of those drawers contained cutlery?

  She’d already noticed the hefty chopping knife on the counter. Its blade was littered with diced vegetables. Dasha swore that if Crystal tried another “darling” or “cherie” with her, she’d get that thing somehow and add the woman’s guts to the mess.

  Crystal stirred her pot and continued. “Now, the fact that Ambrose Smith took it upon himself to expand the case so publicly…that was certainly an unexpected twist.” She actually chuckled then, shaking her head in wonderment. “Talk about accelerating the process!”