by Vicki Hinze
“I heard you say Nora’s been abducted.” Sara sat on the edge of the sofa and clasped her hands in her lap, her back stiff. “Do you think they … hurt her?”
They, not he. “It doesn’t appear so.”
She swallowed hard. “It’s NINA, Jeff.”
He took a risk. “I’m leaning in that direction.”
Sara looked him right in the eye. “That wasn’t a question.”
His heart rate sped. “Are you ready to tell me what you’re keeping from me?”
Her gaze shifted to the floor. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Apparently, not yet. Disappointed, Jeff waited. Silence was a powerful tool. She’d fill it with something. Hopefully, some insight.
“Where’s Beth? She and Nora are so close. She’s got to be frantic.”
“She’s with Joe. They’re checking something for me.”
“I hurt her, Jeff. She’s the sister of my heart, and I’ve hurt her badly.” Tears glossed Sara’s eyes. “She’ll deal with whatever comes—Beth always deals with whatever comes—but I told her to stay away from me for a while. I’m not strong like her. If she’s close, I’ll never stand on my own feet, and I really need to do that right now.”
“Because of Robert?”
Sara hesitated. “Partly, but not just because of him.”
A crack. Finally. “Why, then?”
“It’s time.” She looked from the floor back to him, a wealth of sadness in her eyes.
He let the silence stretch between them, then tried to prepare her. Did she have her inhaler? He didn’t see it. “You know Robert’s dead, right? The blood—”
“I know that amount of blood loss makes survival impossible.”
“Keep that in mind with what I’m about to tell you.” He waited for her nod, then went on. “A man named Paul Clement claims he has proof Robert is alive. He wants a million dollars for it.”
A sharp breath escaped her. There was no joy, no upset, no other visible sign of any emotion. Just the sharp breath. “Do you need your inhaler?”
“No. I’m fine.” Her hands stayed folded in her lap. “Who is Clement?”
“We don’t think he’s credible. No one has unearthed even a remote connection.”
“A scam artist.” She frowned. “Do you think Robert’s alive?”
Jeff didn’t hesitate. “With forensics verifying the volume of blood and that it was Robert’s? No, Sara, I don’t.” He clasped her hand. “I don’t see how he could be.”
She squeezed his hand tight, but her voice sounded weak. “I’m not so sure.”
Her hand was ice-cold, but her breathing was steady. “Why?”
She covered their clasped hands with her free one. “I’d tell you, but then they’d probably kill you.” A tear trickled down her cheek.
Beth was right. Sara was keeping secrets. Deadly ones. “Do you trust me, Sara?”
“Yes.”
“Then be honest with me.”
The war raging inside her showed in her swift expressions. “I can’t. I want to, but … Don’t you see? I’d just be replacing leaning on Beth with leaning on you. I have to lean on me.”
“I understand what you’re saying, but this isn’t the time to stand alone.” She was wrong. “We’re dealing with NINA. You know more about that organization than I do. I shouldn’t have to remind you what they’re capable of doing and how far they’ll go to get what they want. Villagers have been put in lethal jeopardy twice in the past week. Nora’s missing and Clyde Parker is dead.”
“Don’t you think I know that?” She let out a charged sigh. “They could have killed everyone at Roxy and Harvey’s ceremony—and, I suspect, at Robert’s funeral, if you and Mark hadn’t intervened. I know what they’re capable of doing. Believe me.”
The truth slammed into Jeff and he stilled. “What have they done to you?”
No answer.
“Sara?” He clasped her hand. “I can help. But I need to know the truth. Nora’s life could depend on it.”
Sara slumped, seemed about to reveal what she’d hidden, but a second later stiffened, eased her hand from his and said … nothing.
Jeff prodded, tried every technique in law enforcement and in his personal repertoire. He pleaded, coerced, and even begged, but Sara still held her silence … and took off her shoes.
Jeff looked down at her feet. Swollen. Bruised and battered. Shock pumped through his chest and fell to outrage. He took a moment to reign in his temper, another to bury it, and then finally looked up at her. “Who?” He didn’t trust himself to say more.
Tears spilled down her face. “Robert.”
Jeff opened his arms. She leaned into them and wept.
17
Midflight, Beth looked over from the right seat to Joe, piloting the plane. “This trip—Robert’s parents—it’s the other case you were talking about when you came to see Sara as Boudin.”
“Yes.”
“Are you going to tell me about it?”
“I am, but first I need processing perspective.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Sara. I need to get inside her head.”
“Good luck.” Beth sighed.
“Just give me your impressions on her behavior lately.”
“I’ve told you most of it already,” Beth said. “In a word, she’s acted bizarre.”
“In what way?”
“You know about the terrace messenger.”
“I do?”
“No games, Joe. I know he was you.”
“How? You never saw me.”
He was worried his disguise had failed. “Smell. Your skin has a distinct smell. Your cologne has a distinct smell and your mints have a distinct smell.”
“I can’t do anything about the skin, but the cologne and mints—I’m as hooked on the mints as I used to be on cigarettes.”
It was chewing gum, then mints. “Might consider letting them go. You don’t need them anymore.”
“Could be dangerous, all right.” He fished a couple from his shirt pocket and put them in a pouch near his hip. “Guess it’s time.”
Beth smiled and stroked his arm. “You know Sara warned me to protect myself and SaBe from her, and to protect her from herself, if I could.” When he nodded, Beth went on, hoping to convey everything in some semblance of order he could grasp. “The really bizarre stuff started at the river, when we were making the money drop for Robert’s abduction. She admitted she was hiding something but wouldn’t talk about it. I tried everything, even guilt, but she’s nothing if not stubborn. Still, I got the feeling she was trying to protect me and SaBe.”
“From what?”
“I don’t know for sure. But she worked too hard at keeping whatever this is to herself for it to be about anyone but Robert. We talk about everything but him.”
“Robert?”
“I know. I was shocked too. I didn’t know it then, but Henry Baines—SaBe’s senior legal advisor—called me after the mattress blood matched Robert’s. I said I hadn’t gotten Sara to sign the agreement to keep Robert out of SaBe, and I was glad I hadn’t had to have that conversation with her. He was surprised.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know exactly—yet.”
“He wouldn’t tell you?”
“Couldn’t, legally.”
“Did you ask Sara?”
“No, too much happened. I had the agreement with me, and I was going to ask her to sign it, but then Robert got abducted and—”
“I get it. Lousy timing.”
“Exactly.” Her seat belt dug into her side. Beth adjusted it. “Then Sara started saying such odd things, like she wished she could go back to the way things were—”
“Were, when?”
“In context, I’d have to say to a time before Robert.”
Joe spoke to the tower and made an altitude adjustment. “So was she planning on leaving him?”
“I didn’t think so, and neither did Henry, b
ut now, I don’t know.”
“What’s changed?”
Beth wished she could avoid sharing this, but holding back anything from Joe could do more harm than good. Nora could pay the price. “Remember the bad check incident I told you about? Where Robert had moved Sara’s money and she didn’t know it?”
“Yes.” Joe grimaced. “Frankly, I’m surprised she’d give him control.”
“I was too. Sara and I respect our money. We’ve worked hard to earn it.” Beth thought a second. Stilled. Money. Of course. “Can I make a phone call from here?”
“Sure.” He passed her his red phone. “Use this one. It’s secure.”
“Not a security violation, right?”
“No, I’ve got global clearance.” He grinned. “I don’t do space.”
“Glad to hear it.” She dialed Henry Baines’s cell.
“Baines.”
“Henry, it’s Beth.” She waited for him to stop fluttering. He’d heard about the near-miss cemetery attack. “Henry, listen to me. I need information now.”
“But Nora is missing. She’s a village institution. People are swarming the streets.”
“She’ll be okay.” Beth prayed it was true. “Mark, Ben, and Jeff are searching and the Crossroads staff is helping.”
“Sara won’t take my calls.”
“She’s a bit out of sorts, Henry. Considering everything, I’m sure you understand.” Beth was losing patience. Help me. Henry chattered on, talking about everything and everyone at once. “Henry, stop.”
Silence.
“I need to know something that’s none of my business but it could help solve all of this.”
“All right. Just don’t ask me to violate my ethics.”
“You know I admire your ethics, but right now, my concern is saving Nora’s life. So bear that in mind.”
“I understand.”
“After the check incident at the bank, did Sara take precautions to protect her assets from Robert?”
He hesitated. “What kind of precautions?”
“Financial ones?” She took a stab at where Robert would be most apt to strike.
“Yes.”
Beth’s heart beat hard and fast. “What precautions did she take?”
“I can’t answer that. It’s definitely a violation—”
“Henry, Sara’s in trouble and I’m trying to save her life as well as Nora’s. If I fail because of what you didn’t tell me …”
“She signed an agreement to keep Robert out of SaBe.”
“Why’d you prepare another at my request then?”
“Because clearly she hadn’t told you she’d done it, and I hoped maybe she would.”
An opportunity to be honest with Beth. “Did she do anything else?”
“She moved all her money—I don’t know where—and she put Robert on an allowance. It goes directly into an account that is only in his name. There is a POD listed on it, however.”
“What’s a POD?”
“Payable on death.”
“Who is the beneficiary? Sara?”
“Actually, no. You are, Beth.”
“Me?” Shock pumped through her body. “Why would Sara put me on Robert’s account?”
“She didn’t, he did.”
“Why?” She was the last person Robert would want to have anything from him—unless …
“I don’t know. I assumed the two of you had some agreement.”
“No, we don’t have an agreement. I didn’t know it.”
“Then his actions are irrational.”
Apparently, not to Robert. “Does Sara know this?”
“It’s doubtful. His money is automatically deposited on the first of each month. The statements go directly to him. Sara provides the funds but is in no way personally involved. Margaret monitors the transfers and his financial activity. She might be able to tell you more.”
“Just so I’m clear,” Beth said. “Sara hid her assets from Robert.”
“That’s correct. And she wrote him out of her will, though he doesn’t know that.”
“Are you sure?”
“Positive. I’m holding the original, and if Robert Tayton knew he wasn’t getting a dime, he’d be pounding on my desk and making Sara miserable.”
He would. “Was she divorcing him?”
“Sara?” He harrumphed. “Sara would never divorce. You know that.”
Poor Sara. All her dreams of a family of her own again shattered. “I didn’t think so.”
“I have to say though, she created as much distance between them as possible.”
“Is there anything else—anything at all—that might be important to know?”
“Not to my knowledge. But talk to Margaret. She might know things I don’t.”
“I will. Thank you, Henry.” Beth ended the call and looked at Joe. “Sara cut Robert off. She put him on an allowance.”
“Ouch.” Joe winced. “I’m sure that didn’t go over well. Not with his lifestyle.”
“She changed her will and hid her assets. Even Henry doesn’t know where she put anything.” Beth’s stomach fluttered. “Sara mentally divorced him. Why would she do that? Family means everything to her, so she had a strong reason.” Beth dialed the phone.
“Who are you calling now?”
“Margaret.”
“Sara’s not going to tell the cloud queen things she wouldn’t tell you.”
“No, but the cloud queen is sharp and she does things Sara needs doing as part of her job. She might have picked up on something.”
“Make it quick. It’s nearly time to descend.”
Margaret answered the phone. “SaBe.”
“It’s Beth, Margaret. I’m pressed for time and I need information fast. What do you know about Sara’s financial relationship with Robert?”
“Beth, that’s private.”
“I’m trying to keep her alive.”
“Literally or figuratively?”
“Two attacks and who knows what else. There’s nothing figurative about it.”
“He’s tried everything under the sun to find out where her money is, but he hasn’t done it. She put him on a fixed income, and he is raging about it. That’s why he went to New Orleans to talk to a publisher about his book. He’s trying to earn some cash. Novel concept, eh? To work for a living like the rest of us?”
For Robert it was novel. “Do you know there’s a POD on his account?”
“Yes. But I don’t know who it is.”
“I just found out that it’s me. Why would he do that?”
“I don’t know. Maybe punishing Sara for cutting him off? She’s done a lot of strange things lately, Beth. It’s hard to say what she’s thinking.”
“What kind of strange things?”
“I’ve told you most of this. For months she’s refused to talk to anyone from Quantico. She has me screen her e-mail and forward her personal stuff to a separate account—she won’t check any of the other accounts—and anything from Quantico is rerouted to you. She won’t take their calls either—no contact whatsoever.”
“She’s been hiding from Quantico for months?” Afraid, Beth looked at Joe, saw her reaction reflected in his eyes. “I thought that had just started since the club attack.”
“Months. She’s not hiding exactly. More like disassociating. We never say no to any government entity, of course, but everything goes to you. She specifically instructed me that she didn’t want to know anything on anything about any of it—not Quantico, not our clients, or even SaBe business. She hasn’t been in the lab in weeks.”
“She’s been there. I’ve seen her.”
“You’ve seen her in her office, not in the lab. She stays holed up there.” Margaret sounded so worried. “And, Beth, she gave me some documents too.”
Sara avoiding the lab? She had to be miserable to do that. “What kind of documents?”
“Ones giving you and Henry her full authorization to do whatever you want with the company.”
&nbs
p; Beth shoved her hair back from her face. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Sara wouldn’t let me. She said if anything came up where you needed them, then I was supposed to give them to you and Henry together—so you’d be witnesses for each other that the documents were authentic. She had me notarize them.”
The more Beth heard, the more afraid she became. “Anything else?”
“Just that I talked to your mother. She tried to reach you earlier but couldn’t. I haven’t been able to either, and I’ve tried every fifteen minutes since I got off the phone with her.”
Every fifteen minutes. What was so urgent? “Sorry. About what?”
“Your mother is really worried, Beth. She’s convinced Sara’s in some kind of trouble.”
“Does she think it’s personal or professional?”
“She thinks Sara’s bent on keeping you out of it. That’s all she knows.”
Now her mother had picked up on this too? Definitely confirmation. “If you find out anything else, let me know.”
Joe touched her arm. “You need to end the call, sha.”
Descent time. “I’ll call back when I can,” Beth told Margaret. “Grill my mom a little. Tell her it’s vital.”
“I will.”
Beth passed the phone back to Joe, told him all she’d learned.
“Avoiding Quantico for months.” He rubbed his neck. “Confirmation someone’s trying to force her to share what she knows.”
Beth’s heart thundered. “NINA is after Sara and using Robert to get to her.”
“Maybe.” Joe mulled a moment. “Or maybe Robert is working with NINA and they’re both after info from her.”
“You think Robert’s hooked in with NINA too?” A shudder rippled through Beth.
“I don’t know—yet. If Sara’s nipped his fiscal wings, he could be an outsider wanting to have something to sell. NINA would certainly buy.”
He’d do that. Beth didn’t doubt it for a second. “Oh, Joe. Either way, Sara’s in a world of hurt. We need to warn Jeff.”
“As soon as we land.”
Beth reeled. “They’ll kill her. She’s resisted them, but they have to know if abducting Robert didn’t work, nothing will. They’ll kill her and use him to get what they want.”