by Molly Greene
She fought and cried out and tried to cling to the leg of a cart, but it was pulled across the floor with her.
“Shut up.”
Bree squeezed one eye open.
Taylor Vonnegon’s secretary stood before her, holding an ugly revolver. “Do exactly as I say.” She flicked the gun toward the ceiling and back.
“Get up.”
Bree stood.
“You’ve drawn my son’s attention,” she said. “And that will not do.”
“Son?” Bree shook her head slowly, trying to understand. “Are you talking about Taylor? Did he make you bring me here?”
“This is for his own good,” the woman said. “I’ve always known what’s best.”
“You killed Andrew Ducane.”
She scowled. “He thought Taylor was here at the house one weekend and stopped by to say hello. We had the basement door open. He saw us inside but left without a word, then later confronted me and threatened to expose the operation if I didn’t help him.”
A smile spread slowly across her face.
“He was tired that day at the office. I was serving drinks, and he asked for a Pepsi. Since he was dragging his heels and hadn’t done himself in like I’d planned, I decided it was time to help him along.”
“The glass on the floor.”
“Andrew was a simple-minded, arrogant child. He didn’t know who he was manipulating. I went along with his demands because it suited me.”
The smile turned her face into a cunning mask.
“My name is Patience for a reason.”
Chapter Forty
Within half an hour Gen, Mack, and Garcia were back on Elergene’s roof, this time waiting on a police helicopter.
“Are you sure about this?” Garcia asked. “We don’t have time to spin our wheels.”
“Positive,” Gen replied. “Patience uses the Tiburon house, not Yates. And I bet Vonnegon knows that.”
The minute his high-powered attorney arrived, he had demanded Vonnegon be granted protection from prosecution in exchange for revealing what he knew. When they left, the lawyer was still screaming for immunity and calling on every federal and political tie Elergene had.
And before he stopped talking, Vonnegon had assured them that the nature of his government contract was something he would never share. Knowing they’d shield their own interests, his lawyer lobbied for the feds to roll in and take over the case.
It worked.
But even though they’d been elbowed out, they had to find Bree. Vonnegon insisted he did not know where she was.
“So once Ducane was familiar with the company’s grow op, he came up with the idea of producing a concentrated drug.” Garcia talked while he paced along the roof’s retaining wall. “And somehow he got Patience to teach him and Catherine how to find the mushrooms.”
He stopped. “Where’s that damn pilot?”
Mack took up the thread. “Patience must have known the kid was going to put the company at risk, so she went along.”
Gen finished the thought. “And she made a little mistake when she ID’d something in the woods. The kids ended up growing poison, and Andrew distilled the product and dosed himself. Or did he? What about the glass Bree saw in the office that night?”
“What about the guys who threw Bree out of the boat?” Garcia ticked off the list on his fingers. “What about the Mill Valley garage clean-up? Where is Yates? We don’t have a lot of answers.”
“We may never get them now,” Mack said.
“We can assume,” Gen added, “that Yates figured out Patience and Ducane were cooking up something that wasn’t legit. He burgled Ducane’s lab to find out what it was, because the investigator he hired wouldn’t agree to do it.”
“Maybe Vonnegon was tired of cleaning up after his mother,” Garcia added. “He just might have found a way to use her.”
Gen shook her head. “Would he give her the okay to murder someone?”
“He might not have had to,” Garcia replied. “He could have known she’d go there and just left her alone to implode.”
Mack nodded. “If Mommy gets rid of Ducane, his hands aren’t dirty. He doesn’t have to lift a finger, and he doesn’t have to pay the price.”
“If Vonnegon could be that calculating, I’ve been a fool.” Gen’s voice held a tinge of disgust. “And he could come out of this as clean as a whistle.”
Mack put a hand on her shoulder. “People still surprise you.”
“Yeah, they do,” Gen replied. “And right now I’m thinking how normal my family is and how much I take them for granted. I need to call my folks when this is over.”
“Let’s find Bree so she can call her family, too.” Garcia’s voice was grim.
* * *
The chopper angled in and landed. Garcia barely gave them time to buckle up before he circled his hand and the pilot lifted off, pounding out over the bay toward Tiburon.
The smell of the sea was sharp and strong. The sun was still out, creating a false sense of calm, as if the world was right-side up. Below, the swells looked placid and benign, almost welcoming. It was the kind of day to picnic on a cliff overlooking the ocean, not look for bodies floating in it.
Gen’s eyes swept the water as they passed, wondering if this was the path Bree had taken on her midnight swim. God help her if she was in the water again.
They set down on the lawn inside the perimeter fence. Gen ducked beneath the spinning rotors and ran to the front with Mack on her heels. He covered her hand when she began to batter the heavy door with her fist.
When he whispered, “Take it easy,” she recognized the futility and stopped.
Garcia came up behind them with his phone to his ear. They heard the shrill ring of a hard line echo inside. Ten rings later, he ended the call and pulled a big brass house key from his pocket, then slotted it into the expensive Baldwin lock. They pulled their weapons and held them at the ready.
The door creaked inward. A clock ticked like a time bomb somewhere in the depths. Garcia pushed through, followed by Mack. “Mrs. Vonnegon? It’s the police. We need to talk.”
A look passed between Garcia and Mack, the kind of silent communication that develops between people who work well together. Mack pressed Gen’s shoulder against the living room wall and held his palm in front of her face in the universal command to stay put. She shook her head. His eyes narrowed. He wasn’t going for it.
She stayed.
The men split up and padded through the house. Once they were out of sight, Gen wheeled around and went back into the sunshine, then past the house and along the west wall. The side door into the garage was unlocked. A Lexus SUV was parked inside, but not much else.
A stamped concrete path snaked along the foundation, and she followed it. At the bottom, a basement walkout faced with a massive metal-clad door was fitted with a trio of locks. Even in this ritzy neighborhood, that much security seemed a little over the top.
She rattled the knob. Nothing. She put her ear to the door and called out, “Bree?” She rattled again, and this time yelled in the loudest voice she could muster, “Bree!”
The faintest whisper on the wind made her turn and run toward the cliff. The sound she’d heard wasn’t coming from inside.
The path led to a platform that canted over the ocean, encased with wrought-iron fencing. Gen ran onto the deck and leaned over the rail. The waves boiled white far below and crashed against the rocks.
A stairway was pinned to the cliff, invisible from above. At the bottom was an open cabin cruiser, hidden in a natural bowl. At the front of the boat a woman was hunched over the console. Bree was in it, too, but she was looking up at the deck.
When she saw Gen, Bree screamed and brandished her cuffed hands above her head, as if she was reaching out to her. The woman started the engine, turned long enough to backhand Bree, then swung the boat out into the bay.
A shout came from behind. Mack and Garcia slammed through the basement door. Gen screamed Mack’s name,
and they raced toward the cliff.
“Bree and Patience.” Gen stabbed a finger at the water below. “Bree’s hands are tied.”
Garcia’s jaw turned to steel as he peered over the side. “Let her go, Mrs. Vonnegon. It’s over,” he yelled. His voice was raw.
Patience raised her gun and fired.
They ducked and retreated, and Garcia turned, bent at the waist, and raced back to the house. “I’ll tell the pilot to follow.”
Mack pulled Gen farther back. “Stay away from the edge, she’s got nothing to lose. We found a body in there.” He hooked his thumb toward the house. “It looks like Yates, decomposing in the mulch.”
But the high whine of the motor drew them both back to the rail. Bree and Patience sped away, headed out into open water.
Chapter Forty-One
Bree wiped blood from the cut on her cheek and watched Gen’s body on the hillside deck grow smaller. She dragged in a lungful of salt air, then leaned back and looked at the sky.
The sun was as warm as her mother’s smile. The sea spray felt as it had years ago on that last trip to Angel Island. With her face tipped toward the clouds, she could pretend she was on the ferry with her mom’s hand clasped around her own.
Bree had seared the image of Lilia Butler into her memory. She wouldn’t forget again.
But when she lowered her eyes, the woman she saw bore no resemblance to the mother who had cherished her. Bree squeezed her lids shut and begged Lilia to give her strength, the kind she’d shown when she was dying. She found what she needed.
“Where are you taking me?”
Patience shot a dismissive glance over her shoulder, then looked forward again without a word.
Bree gazed at the water and gauged her options. She could jump in the ocean and swim like last time, but it was full daylight. Patience might not hesitate to use the gun.
She could wait to discover their destination. But out here it was just the two of them, and the odds might not be so good when they got wherever they were going.
If they were going anywhere together. The woman might just be planning to kill her and dump her overboard.
If Mack and Garcia were with Genny, they’d try to find a way to stop her. But if they boarded another boat and ditched this one, the police would have no way to know where she’d been taken. If Patience had a plan, she might be able to make this boat disappear, and her along with it.
There was only one thing Bree could do.
She rose to her feet and stepped forward, then dropped her bound hands over Patience Vonnegon’s head and shoulders. She pulled her arms tight.
The gun clattered to the deck.
Bree pitched sideways and took an enormous breath of air just before they hit the water.
Chapter Forty-Two
Bree held tight as they descended. Patience began to struggle right away, but despite her efforts, the pair dropped into the depths. She soon grew frantic, tearing at Bree with her fingers, until Bree lifted her arms and pushed off of Patience with a foot in the small of the other woman’s back.
Then she kicked out of her shoes and slipped off her jeans, watching from below as Patience whipped her hands toward the sky and scrabbled upward.
Bree made for the surface. As soon as her head broke water she could tell Patience was in trouble. She was panicked, grunting and gasping for air and flailing her arms like a child.
Patience Vonnegon couldn’t swim.
The boat was gone. Bree pivoted in a circle in time to see a helicopter rise from the cliff and swing out toward them. She ignored Patience’s senseless windmilling and stretched an arm over her own head to signal they were there. The pilot didn’t see her. The empty cabin cruiser was speeding away into the bay, and the chopper followed its wake toward deep water.
A gurgling sound came from behind and Bree swung back in time to see Patience’s head go under. She dove and caught her by the hair, then hauled her back to the surface. Patience sucked in a lungful of air and grabbed at Bree, then tried to climb up her body to safety.
“If you kill me, Patience, you’ll die, too,” Bree cried, then fought free and moved away to tread water. “Do what I say and you won’t drown.”
“Help me!” Patience gasped, then swallowed a mouthful of ocean and went under again.
When her face popped up, Bree said, “Turn over and stop thrashing. Put your head back and look at the sky. You’ll float. You just need a little help from your arms.”
Patience ignored her and continued to gasp and bob and dunk and rise above the swells. Bree swam over and grabbed her by the hair, careful to keep out of reach. She began to kick hard, towing Patience along on her back. The woman pulled in deep, shuddering breaths and slowed the hysterical movement of her arms.
“You see?” Bree swam a few more yards. “I’ll keep you alive in exchange for answers. Why did you bring me up here to Tiburon?”
Patience was silent.
Bree released her hair.
The woman immediately resumed the fight to stay afloat. “Don’t let me go,” she begged, then went under once again.
Bree grasped her hair and towed her to the surface. Patience went still and tried to regulate her breathing. The frigid water was taking its toll by then, and they were both shivering like trapped mice.
“Where were you taking me?”
“To another boat.”
“What made you think you’d get away with it, that no one would find out it was you?”
“It didn’t matter. I was leaving the country.”
“How? With the men who took me before?”
“Something like that.”
“The grow room up there. You were making poison, weren’t you? For those men.”
Patience didn’t reply. Bree released her and she gasped, “Yes! Yes, I was. I used Ducane’s grow system to perfect my own method, then distilled the poison. I sold it to an interested party.”
“How would you know the kind of people who would buy something like that?”
“I work at Elergene. Our government contracts put us in contact with counterintelligence. I was approached by someone who knew what we were doing and paid me for my skills.”
“Taylor knows, doesn’t he?”
Patience shook her head a little too fast. “He’s not involved.”
“He knows, Patience. I think he fell just a little bit in love with me and started to have second thoughts. Why did you do it?”
“Because I could.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“Abraham and I were together from the age of fifteen. We used to talk about how we’d get even.”
“With who? You were kids, you couldn’t mean it.”
“I wanted to kill my father.” Patience heaved a half dozen breaths in and out. “We grew up in the woods. We knew the plants. And we thought about how we could use what we knew to get ahead.”
“And did you?”
“We had s strategy before Abraham got the job at Elergene. But then he met Nadine, and he saw an easier way.”
“And that way didn’t include you.”
Patience began to cry. “So I carried out our plan.”
“And you used it to kill Abraham, didn’t you? But he was old enough that nobody suspected, so you got away with it.”
“That’s right, I killed him. He deserved it, he abandoned me,” she shrieked. “So I found people who needed my talents, and I used them. I did it for my son. And then my son met you, and it began all over again. He was going to abandon me, too.”
The helicopter dipped low in the sky beyond them, hovering above the water. It soon skipped higher and turned sharply back, executing a slow zig-zag pattern as it rumbled toward the houses on the cliff. They’d discovered the boat was empty, and the pilot was doubling back to find them.
“What about the book of poisonous plants?”
“Russell suspected. He was grabbing at straws, that’s all. He didn’t know for sure.”
“How could he stay at
the house up there and not know?”
“The system is fully automated. The doors are impenetrable. I made sure we never crossed paths.”
“So you set it up to look like he was involved. So he would take the fall.”
Bree raised an arm and flapped like a madwoman as the helo traced a path overhead. It slowed and descended. Eric was in the passenger seat. His expression was frightening, but it eased when she gave him a thumbs up. He reciprocated, then turned his head and spoke to the pilot.
His window opened and he yelled above the scream of the rotors, “Coast Guard is on their way.”
Bree nodded that she understood.
Once again, Patience began to cry. This time her sobs where laced with anger, and they wracked her body as though she was being shaken like a tree in the grip of a high wind.
Chapter Forty-Three
The Coast Guard picked them up fifteen minutes later, gave them blankets and dry clothes, then delivered Patience straight into the back of a waiting black-and-white.
Bree was released. They made sure she was all right, then boarded the chopper and headed for the city. Mack was quiet on the return trip. Gen wondered what was on his mind, but she didn’t ask him to share.
When they got back to the station they heard Vonnegon was downtown with his lawyer and a pack of government officials, giving a statement.
Bree put Patience’s confession on record, verifying that Vonnegon’s mother had admitted to killing Ducane. “She told me she added the poison to his drink that afternoon. He must have taken the glass back to his office, and it ended up on the floor. Patience disposed of it before the police showed up.”
After that, things got ugly.
It didn’t take more than an hour for Garcia to call them all into a conference room and report that he and Hackett had been pushed out. Somebody higher up in the food chain had intervened. The detectives had been told to turn over the file and stop working the case. The Elergene incident would be handed off, and the new custodians had already thrown up an impenetrable wall.