“Just a feeling.”
Kelsey sighed and nodded. “So, what do we do, now?”
Ramsey looked perplexed. “About what?”
“Zoë.” His expression suggested that the conversation had truly escaped him. “If she’s not kin from the wrong side of the sheets, I don’t have to put up with her disgusting behavior, but I still feel I owe something to Martha for raising us.” Even though she didn’t have a familial obligation to put up with any more of Zoë’s nudity and vulgar sexual remarks, it seemed wrong to totally shut her out. And it still felt like she was a surrogate sister.
“Just because we found out there wasn’t a genetic link is no reason to toss her away.” His tone suggested otherwise.
ooo
Doran entered Beja Flora’s back door and paused for a moment. Faint strains of classical music drifted from somewhere deep within the house. He quietly closed the door. It amazed him that while the perimeter was so well guarded, he could move around the grounds with relative freedom, courtesy of the snoring gate guard made.
The lock clicked. “So much subterfuge,” Kelsey said.
Doran froze, sweat beading on his spine as he tried to think of a good excuse for sneaking into the house so late. “You know,” she continued, “if we’d had a different father, one who’d talk to us, we’d know the family secrets and not spend half our lives believing a lie.”
Huh?
“Lies, not lie,” a man said. Doran rubbed his temple and told himself he was ten kinds of fool for jumping to conclusions. “Dad must have known what we thought. Makes me wonder.”
Made Doran wonder what they were talking about, too.
“I never thought father cared what I thought or felt." There was a quick rustle of fabric. "He cared about you. You were the son. I was just the girl-child.”
And what a girl.
The conversation drifted from the direction of the kitchen. Doran moved quiet as a cat toward the soft light. He paused long enough to determine that Kelsey and a man were alone. When the man turned his head, Doran recognized Ramsey MacLennan. Hot damn, he’d been trying to find a way to meet him for five months.
Doran melted several feet down the hallway, then returned, making enough noise to advertise his arrival.
Blinking rapidly, he entered the kitchen. Ramsey turned around and Kelsey straightened. Doran smiled, He offered his hand to Ramsey. “Hello, I’m Devlin Doran; Kelsey’s bodyguard.”
“Ramsey MacLennan, her insomniac brother.” The soft grip could have belonged to a woman.
Doran stuffed his hands in his pockets and cleared his throat. “My condolences on your loss.”
“Apparently you understand why I dropped out.” Ramsey gave him a forceful look, which belied the soft palms. “Think you can help me convince my sister to step down and save her life?”
Kelsey surged to her feet and leaned across the polished oak. “I told you then I’m telling you now, I will not quit. Period.”
Ramsey looked at Doran, as if trying to enlist his aid. Doran turned a chair around backwards and straddled it.
Kelsey’s eyes narrowed on Ramsey. “Why should I quit?" she demanded. "He wants me dead whether I run or not."
"That's poppy-"
"My brake lines were cut before I entered the race."
"You were the one making speeches."
"So, I might as well run and try to win. That way, I stand a chance of seeing him and his merry band of creeps prosecuted for Abby and Jenny, but better yet, if I’m elected, I can help everyone by giving them honest representation.” She gave a defiant nod.
“They weren’t trying to kill you.” Ramsey’s voice sounded whisper soft, but certain.
“What do you mean?” Kelsey sat down.
“Don't you remember?” She tilted her head to one side and thought hard, then shook her head. He sighed. “The previous weekend I’d borrowed your car. You almost died in their second attempt on my life.”
Doran looked at Kelsey, wondering if she’d buy her brother’s theory.
“He's not worth it,” Ramsey said.
“Justice is worth it.”
"Haven't you heard?" Ramsey's face contorted. "This is America, everyone is innocent until proven guilty, since he'll never be tried, there will never be any justice."
Doran cleared his throat. “What - who are you talking about?”
“Marvin Frederickson,” the two MacLennans said in unison.
“A criminal, who poses as a perfect citizen,” Kelsey added.
Gooseflesh rippled over Doran as their sheer conviction touched something deep within him. He’d never liked working for the pompous Senator, and hadn't listened to Quinn's insistence that PBCO, not Kelsey’s greenhouse, was the site of the clandestine laboratory. Now, he wondered if failing to acknowledge what his subconscious was telling him might had put them all in danger.
Chapter Eleven
Doran felt like he’d pulled an all-night stakeout, instead of a half night. He settled onto the stiff-backed office chair and sipped coffee thick enough to cut. Quinn raised the remote control, which he'd specially built so he could rule his domain. Pointing it, he pushed a button; the thick, ivory drapes closed to block the morning sunlight. Lowering it, he keyed in the video player. As the picture came into focus, wind gusts from the approaching storm bounced a Styrofoam cup across PBCO’s shadowed parking lot. Lightening flashed in the distance. "One-thousand-one, one-thousand-two," Quinn softly counted. Doran glanced at this partner. He grinned. "I was timing the storm. Thunder hit at 7 seconds." Doran nodded and watched the vacant parking lot. As promised, thunder rolled.
"That was thrilling," Doran said. "You got anything interesting off the tap on Kelsey's phone, yet?"
Quinn grinned and paused the tape, then keyed on the audio system. "Rams, get over it," Kelsey said."
"The nights are the worst." Ramsey's voice sounded slurred over the speakers.
"I've noticed."
"I can't live without Ab-n-Jen."
"Yes, you can. You just need to realize that you can, decide that you will and quit drowning your sorrows. Lucky needs you."
Quinn flicked off the recording and gave him a triumphant look. "They're cagey, but we'll crack the code."
"What code?" Doran asked.
"The drug names for one abengin has to be an anagram for something and she tells him that the cartel needs him."
"You think Lucky is a code, too?" Quinn nodded. Doran laughed. Quinn glared at him. Doran sobered. "Lucky is a pet rabbit with big enough ears to make belong to some sort of retro elephant."
"You going soft of the MacLennan’s?"
Doran shook his head.
Quinn reactivated the image of the closed factory with the remote in his hand. He pressed another key. 11:59 appeared in the lower corner of the screen. "My informant mentioned that the meeting would take place at midnight. With the storm that close and no one there, I'd decided to give it a half-hour; if no one showed, I was going to go home and get a decent night’s sleep."
Headlights flicked off as a white Mercedes crept into the parking lot. Like a ghost, it moved from shadow to shadow then finally disappeared in the deep darkness cast by a magnolia. Over the recording, Quinn hummed softly as the angle of the camera shifted and focused on the license plate. As the numbers came into focus, Doran leaned forward. Even without checking his list, he knew the plate belonged to Ramsey MacLennan.
“Gotch’a,” Quinn chortled.
A man stumbled out of the driver’s seat, tugged his wide brimmed hat down to combat the wind and turned up the collar of his trench coat. The furtive figure peered into the gloom. Satisfied that no one could observe him, he limped toward the building, relying heavily on a brass-topped cane.
Lightening flashed.
The man lurched, twisted, knocked his hat backward and landed hard on his injured leg. Thunder boomed just as the residual light dimmed. The man shuddered and the first large drops smacked the asphalt. He hurried to the building a
nd disappeared inside.
Quinn whistled softly. "Was that worth getting up for or what?"
"Oh, yeah." He wondered why Quinn seemed inordinately proud of the tape.
Happiness sparkled in Quinn's eyes. "This is the point when I phoned you."
The gimp let himself into the factory. Clouds skimmed across the sky, as if fleeing from the wind. Doran’s eyelids felt heavy, but he fought the urge to close them and looked around the room Quinn had created for himself. A long U-shaped work area, perfect height for Quinn’s wheelchair, clung to the wall on three sides of the room. Monitors and corkboards covered the wall above the white Formica countertop. The lower half or the cork was covered with printouts and photos. Underneath, the counter, dozens of drawers contained the tools electronic bits that Quinn used so effectively.
The speakers in Quinn’s surround-sound system rumbled. Doran looked back at the screen. Another vehicle was moving through the parking lot. He sat straighter and took a sip of the mud-thick coffee.
On the screen, the dark van moved deep into the shadows. Quinn vibrated with anticipation. Doran scratched the back of his neck and wished he’d had another hour of sleep. The screen brightened and thunder boomed.
Quinn paused the tape, turned and glared at Doran. “Don’t act so excited. Here I catch MacLennan sneaking into PBCO in the middle of the night – this is a company they own through a whole string of fronts, so obviously don’t want themselves associated with it." His lips compressed into a thin line."
"Sorry, I was out scouting the hedges until about 2 a.m."
"If the tapes haven't rung your bell so far, this should." Quinn pressed play. On the screen, a dark van stopped. Doran feigned interest, then a diminutive passenger with a distinctive gait got out. He jerked. Coffee slopped on his wrist. He moved toward the screen for a better look. "Dear Lord," Doran exclaimed, “that’s Ling!”
Quinn beamed. “I knew you’d love my film.” When Quinn stopped the tape on Ling’s face, they both stared at the image. The only contacts Ling made personally were with the top echelon of his operation. Had Wilting Wesley suspected or even known this backwater berg was a major entry point for Ling’s poison when he transferred them here? A thousand questions circled like vultures through his mind, but he couldn’t articulate a single one. Doran, still speechless, turned to Quinn. His partner gripped the denim covering his now useless legs, lifted, then let the shrunken limb fall.
Quinn’s smile was sheer malice. “I want Ling more than I want my next breath. Who’d of thought your damned bullheadedness to get the MacLennans would net us the Godfather of Drugs. If it hadn't been for your insistence about them, I'd never have followed up on that lead. Okay, now that Ling and his two thug-appendages are inside, I’ll fast-forward it.” He restarted the tape. The time read 3:14. Doran looked watched the screen, while Quinn gloated. “Damn.” Quinn hit his useless leg. “I take the tip and see Ramsey-boy arrive and think my day is made. Then Ling comes and it’s like we’ve just won a hundred-million-dollar lottery.”
Doran’s racing heart stilled. “Ramsey left after 3?”
“Yeah, Ramsey.” Quinn looked at him as if he had the intelligence of a rock. “Ramsey MacLennan.”
His bad feeling was getting worse. “When did you see him arrive and how long did he stay?”
Quinn consulted his notes. “Arrived 11:48 p.m. left 3:48 a.m. Shit! Dev, what’s wrong?”
“It wasn’t Ramsey.”
Quinn’s mouth flattened. “Of course it was.” Doran shook his head. Quinn grabbed the remote and rewound the tape.
“Trust me,” Doran said. “I know for a fact that Ramsey MacLennan was sitting in the kitchen of Beja Flora two-fourteen a.m.”
Quinn shook his head.
“I was talking to him and he'd been there so long that his cocoa was petrifying.” Quinn rewound the tape and stopped the picture on the lightening-lit face. “Can you magnify the face?” Quinn hit several buttons as if they were the enemy. Doran suspected the hard plastic was a substitute for his skin. Slowly, the murky face took up the screen. Quinn smacked several more buttons and the black and white image began to clarity. Both men leaned toward the screen, unwilling to believe their eyes as Senator Marvin Frederickson’s face materialized. “Crap,” Quinn said. “What the hell was he doing there?”
“Either setting us up or setting up the MacLennans. Maybe both.” Quinn looked like he was torn between murder and mayhem. To relieve suppressed energy, he propelled his wheelchair back and forth through the tight space. “Did you find it odd that he picked us to get the goods on his wife’s supposed affair?” Doran asked. Quinn frowned then shrugged. “I mean, all she does is sit home night after night and drown herself in scotch.”
“Your point being?”
Only one scenario made sense. “What if the senator heard about the bounties Ling has on us and has been stringing us along until he figured out a way to collect it.”
That stopped Quinn’s fidgety movements. They stared at each other; possibilities and scenarios tumbled through their minds so fast that verbalizing them were impossible. “Fine,” Quinn said, “lets say that Frederickson somehow meets Old Ling and hears your scalp is worth five mill. It doesn’t take too much of a leap to realize the Senator is money hungry, but how would he learn about PBCO or get a key to it?”
“His supposedly estranged sister?" Doran ventured. An 'ahha' feeling tingled his spine and he had to move, so he got up and went to the coffeepot. "I got the feeling from Kelsey that there was no love lost between her and her step-mother. Assuming Jacquelyn and Winston knew what could be going down, it'd explain their sudden interest in sailing the South Pacific. Can’t beat that for an alibi." Yet it didn't explain everything.
Quinn scowled. "You make sense, but there are way too many holes. Like does she hate her step kids enough to sail off and let them take all the heat? If so, she's gotta know all about the drug lab." Quinn's mouth flattened and he pressed some buttons. A moment later a printer hummed to life and began printing Frederickson’s face. "What about Winston? Does he know his kids are being set up?"
Doran pursed his lips and frowned. “Beats me." He drank the last gulp of the vile coffee, then filled his cup. "What if the MacLennans learned we’d discovered their drug operation?" His fingers drummed against the Plexiglas pot as he tried to recall when he'd first heard the rumor that Frederickson, not the MacLennan’s was the power behind the local drug operation.
"Frederickson versus MacLennans aside, my guess is that whoever is pulling the strings knows exactly who we are because they're part of Ling's network," Quinn said.
"Agreed."
"The question is: what's really going on."
"True, again." Doran scowled. "For the case of debate, let's assume it's still the MacLennans." Quinn raised a brow and looked at the monitor. "I know, but they're smart and I've never liked asshole politicians, so it's too easy to see him as scum."
"You mellowing toward MacLennans after spending one night under their roof?"
"No." Doran slugged down a gulp of Quinn’s so-called coffee. "Since Ling is part of this, there's a good chance he's here to personally pay off whoever cashes us in."
"That's a bet I'd make, too."
Doran grabbed the still-damp print. "Okay, are the MacLennan’s setting us up to get millions tax free or do they want to end our investigation?“
"Why not both? Whatever their plan, it's not working - you're Ramsey's alibi and I’m there to finger the senator."
"True, except you were supposed to do exactly what you did: identify Ramsey. I don’t think that bolt of lightening or my walking into the kitchen was expected," Doran said. He frowned. “Okay, how about this: MacLennan’s rumor about Frederickson is true. He's the one who contacted our firm.” He scowled. “And Kelsey's lab proved to be a red herring."
"Go on," Quinn said.
"I'm trying to think this through." And he was getting more confused by the minute.
"I've always accepted t
he fact that the MacLennan’s could simply be dups. You're the one that's been fixated on them." Quinn gestured toward the printout. "Can we assume that the good senator has known Ling for a while?"
Doran sat back down. "What are you getting at?"
"Can you think of any other reason why ‘the wise one’ would leave the door open?" Quinn ran the tape forward, then slowly played the portion where Frederickson went inside. He tapped the screen. “If you don’t know someone and plan to meet them somewhere in the middle of the night, wouldn’t you wait in the parking lot? Or at least by the door?” Doran nodded. “But he went in, acting like good ole Ling would know exactly where to go.” Quinn fingered the fabric covering his thighs. "I don't want to get ambushed again. We need to weigh everything before we do anything. Frederickson virtually ordered me to go to PBCO last night.”
“The question is did he know for certain you were there.”
Quinn shook his head. "I was careful."
"But we can't be positive," Doran said. "What if Frederickson is the link and he's using his sister to set up the kids without Winston's knowledge? What if Frederickson wants two things: the money and an uncontested election?"
"The plates on the car were Ramsey's if the lightening and wind hadn't-"
"Exactly!" That’s an incriminating bit. Either Frederickson swiped the car, switched the plate or somehow had duplicates made. For certain, Ramsey didn’t loan him the vehicle. "Faking the limp was a nice touch." Doran frowned. “Do you recall which car MacLennan totaled?”
“The white Mercedes.”
“That's what I thought, so he is starting to make mistakes.”
"He'd have gotten away with it, if you hadn't been so determined to nail them." Quinn snickered at his own pun.
"I am not sleeping with her,” Doran said. “I'm using your plan and it's working brilliantly. Oh, and Ab-n-Jen were Ramsey's wife and kid. He was whining about them dying, not talking about drugs."
Quinn raised a brow. "While trying to expose them, you seem to be exonerating them."
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