Run, Girl, Run: A Thriller

by Alex C. Franklin

Some of the liquid sloshed out of the glass as he pointed to the tall, gilded door.

  Nadia slid back on the bed and leaned her head against the padded, satin-covered bedhead. Her eyes followed the sweep of his gesture, taking in the silk curtains, the antique furniture, the original art hanging on the walls, and the artifacts from archaeological digs that he collected as a hobby and stashed throughout the Chelsea loft.

  He knew the world she had been born into was far removed from this and that she had been aspiring to it when they had met by chance, twice in one week, five years prior, as she hung around the lounges of ritzy London hotels hoping to snag some rich old fool. He had rescued her from having to offer up herself nightly to some disgusting, wrinkled geriatric with no redeeming qualities other than a big bank account. No, she wasn’t going to risk this life slipping out of her hands so easily.

  His words had been cruel, and they both knew it.

  He had intended them to sting. Women made much of mere words and he wanted to put her in her place. He would not let her tell him what to feel or how to behave. He was in control here, not her.

  And yet, the last thing he wanted right now was to see her walk out that door. He needed her; that he knew all too well. She had always been evasive about her background, but he knew enough about her absent father, and drug-addicted whore of a mother, and numerous half-siblings to understand how desperately she clung to his world. She was efficient and willing to do anything he required. And when he had studied it in the past, he had realized how cheaply her services had come. Like a typical dumb broad, she hadn’t even considered negotiating a price for anything, and seemed to be content just with living in the style he offered and receiving occasional baubles as gifts.

  “Look, it’s not you, okay?” He puffed and quaffed and paced the room. “Things are just screwed up at the moment.”

  Nadia unfolded her arms. Her face relaxed.

  “Anything to do with that deal with Nazarov and Laschenko?”

  He finished his drink, then poured himself another.

  “They’re being downright asses, for sure. Trying to pressure me to fund a shell company they’ve set up. But that’s not the problem. I can handle them, just fine. They know even if they hold those files, it’s worthless in their hands without me. I’m the only one who can start this new Syron Lake operation.”

  He paced in front of the bed, drawing on his cigarette, unconcerned about the ashes that dropped onto the Persian carpet. If it got ruined, he could always order another one.

  “It’s some bloody official in Canada. Some low-life loser who thinks he can double-cross me.

  “First he agreed to a price to secure the license. Then he turned everything upside down, making damaging public statements about the company. Turns out he wants ten times what he originally agreed to.”

  Greene threw his head back and gulped down his drink. He shook his head as the liquid raged like fire at the back of his throat. He put the glass down and filled it again.

  “I don’t give a damn about the amount. That’s peanuts compared to what this project will yield.”

  Greene walked to the side of the bed and sat. He spoke without looking at Nadia.

  “What concerns me is that he made a deal and broke it. Who’s to say he won’t come back asking for more after this payoff? Let’s say, three, four years down the road, when the mine’s ready to produce, he could try to claw his way back into the picture, threatening to tell all if he doesn’t get another million or two.”

  He felt irritation gush up inside of him, like steam popping the lid on a kettle. Suddenly, he flung the glass across the room. With a crash, it exploded into splinters; the wall darkened where the liquid splashed against it.

  “Damn!” Green yelled.

  He just wanted to just get on with his business. There was a hell of a rough road ahead of him as it was with all the straightforward planning and execution required by a mega mining operation. He didn’t need all of this…this nefarious complication.

  Who did this greedy Canadian loser think he was, throwing up roadblocks in his way? Perhaps the man was contemplating trying to put a stranglehold on him and his company for life.

  Well, he wouldn’t allow that.

  If a heavy hand was what was required, he would apply a heavy hand. He could keep up with the pace of these developments. Despite what Isaac Greene had thought of him, he was up to this task.

  He bent his head and ran his fingers thorough his thick hair. Elbows propped on his knees, he clutched either side of his skull and closed his eyes to focus his thoughts.

  Nadia, who had gasped and cringed when the glass smashed into the wall, now pressed one shoulder against the bedhead and pivoted off it. She walked on her knees over to Greene and pressed herself against his back. She slipped her hand down his shirt, and onto his chest, lingering there to caress the mat of hair.

  Greene leaned toward the bedside table to stub out the cigarette in an ashtray. His motion sent Nadia tumbling to her back onto the bed. He looked at her wide-open eyes, defiant yet inviting.

  The outburst had left him with a racing pulse. But it had allowed him to let off some steam, and he felt much better for it.

  He stroked the bare leg that Nadia extended toward him.

  This time, he would yield.

  Chapter 58

  Sarah Cohen heard a familiar, high-spirited laugh as she walked to her office. The sound came from beyond the corridor, and she stood with her key in the doorknob, waiting for the owner of the voice to appear around the corner.

  “Hey, Spike! Got a moment?”

  Simmons turned away from the two other agents with whom he had been walking. He smiled at Cohen. “For you? Always.”

  The computer beeped and its fan kicked into a soft whir as Simmons entered the room.

  “Can you shut the door behind you,” Cohen said, her face taut.

  Simmons raised his eyebrows as he complied. That was unusual, he thought. He couldn’t recall any time before that he’d been in Cohen’s office when the door was not open.

  “What you got for me?” He sank into the chair at the side of her desk.

  “First, remember that hearing that Magrelma’s Canadian subsidiary was supposed to be involved in?”

  “The one about the spill?”

  “Yes, that one. It’s turned out to be about the breached dam. But, originally, it was just about whether the company would hand back its license and turn over the property to the authorities.”

  “What about it?”

  “When Mahler was alive, the company had instructions to give up the site. At the hearing, though….”

  “They changed course?”

  “One hundred and eighty degrees. Surprised everybody it seems.” Cohen handed Simmons printed sheets. “These are from the local newspaper’s website. They went big with the story.”

  Simmons stroked his chin as his eyes scanned the sheets. “Hmmm. So the argument in the Monte Carlo bar takes on a new significance.”

  Cohen tapped the point of a pen on her note pad and stared at Simmons.

  He looked up from the printouts. “So you’re thinking Mahler didn’t support Greene’s plan to hold on to the property, so Greene got rid of him.”

  “Seems plausible.”

  “But I don’t get it,” Simmons said. “Why would Greene kill Mahler just so they could continue to maintain a toxic dump?”

  “No, it doesn’t make much sense, does it.”

  “There has to be more to this. Something we can’t see.”

  “Maybe there isn’t.”

  “What do you mean?”

/>   “What if it’s just pure coincidence that the two men had this argument just before Mahler’s death?”

  “Coincidence?”

  “Yes. What if someone else was responsible for taking Mahler out, and Greene just got lucky; he no longer had an obstacle blocking his plans for the property, whatever those plans might be.”

  Simmons scratched his head. “I don’t know, Sarah. I don’t like it when you fall back on coincidence as the basis for your theories. Labeling something as a coincidence is such a cop out.”

  Cohen tilted her head and let her jaw hang as she narrowed her eyes.

  Simmons didn’t like the look. It usually meant she was hopping mad. He hunched his shoulders. “What?”

  “Spike Simmons, I seem to recall that someone — who will go unnamed — shot down the notion that the Syron Lake dam might have been deliberately breached by referring to the incident as a coincidence.”

  “That was completely different.”

  “How so?”

  “There was bad weather. Nobody has control over that. A storm blowing through in the midst of our murder investigation, now that’s what you call a coincidence.”

  “You should look up the word in the dictionary sometime, buddy. It’s not as limited as you seem to think.”

  “I know what the word means.”

  “But you just–”

  Simmons raised his hand to stop Cohen. “Look, let’s just face it, Sarah. We’re flopping around here with this case like fish out of water. We’re coming up empty and it’s driving both of us crazy, and we’re just getting on each other’s nerves at this point.”

  They both sighed.

  “I guess you’re right.” Cohen folded her arms. “It’s pretty frustrating to have not cracked this thing already.”

  “What are the guys on the ground saying these days? Have we got anything more solid on Fran Mahler?”

  Cohen shook her head.

  Simmons thought he saw her body stiffen. Her eyes glanced up at the closed door, then met his.

  “Talk to me, Sarah. What’s on your mind?”

  Cohen took a deep breath.

  “Everything related to the suspects tied to Magrelma has been leading nowhere. So I did some further digging, Spike.”

  Simmons leaned forward in his chair in response to Cohen’s lowered voice.

  “Angela Roseau–”

  Simmons sat back up again. “Don’t go there, Sarah.”

  “Will you at least hear me out?”

  Cohen’s eyes shone with determination, and Simmons sighed.

  “I got bits of info from obituaries of Mahler’s first wife and of his father-in-law; of Roseau’s people, too; plus, wedding announcements; society page stuff from New York and Louisiana; profiles of all these people; news stories…. I checked it all. I think I pretty much know what went on there.”

  Simmons leaned back and folded his arms.

  “At the time she and Mahler got engaged,” Cohen said, “Roseau was an articling student at one of the most prestigious New York law firms. Got in on her own brilliance it seems, because she had no ties in New York, so, likely, no strings to pull. Back then, her stepfather was just an assistant to the Louisiana governor. This was a couple of years before he ran and himself became the governor.

  “Mahler, on the other hand was an up-and-coming business hotshot. Magrelma already had some success under its belt, and looked poised to prosper. Mahler proposed to Roseau on August 28, 1985, and from what I can make out, they remained engaged for under two months.”

  “Any idea why?”

  “Money.”

  Simmons splayed his hands for an explanation.

  “Mahler’s eventual father-in-law was a very wealthy industrialist. He was an ailing widower who had one surviving child, a daughter who’d taken care of him for years. Late thirties. Older than Mahler. They were married before the year was out. The father-in-law invested a pile of money into Magrelma. Died about ten months later, a couple of weeks after Mahler’s first child was born.”

  “So, something of an old-fashioned, arranged marriage then.”

  Cohen nodded. “Looks so. And Mahler dumped Angela Roseau when this deal came along.”

  Simmons stared at Cohen.

  “It must have been devastating for her,” she said.

  Simmons shook his head. “Who says she didn’t dump him? Or that something else wasn’t the cause of the break-up?”

  Cohen stared back. She formed her lips as if to say something, but paused.

  “Well,” she said, eventually, “probably only the two of them will ever know what went on, exactly. But backing out of an engagement is not something a woman would normally do. Women are socialized to see marriage as their crowning achievement, as the apex of their existence.”

  “You don’t believe that crap do you?”

  “As a modern woman, of course I don’t. But Angela Roseau is from a time when that kind of thinking was more prevalent. With that kind of social pressure, a broken engagement would have been a devastating slight, especially in the social circles that Roseau and Mahler ran in, back then in New York.”

  “No doubt it would have been embarrassing.”

  “Spike, you’re probably underestimating Angela Roseau. Women are not all sugar and spice, you know. There’s something to be said about that old line that hell hath no fury–”

  “Like a woman scorned.” Simmons shook his head. “You keep harping on that. But if you’re going with that theory — and I’m certainly not encouraging you in that — why now? Why after all these years would Angela Roseau take revenge on her ex-fiancé?”

  “Could be that she never had the means to before.” Cohen shrugged. “This is what, her second year as Secretary of State? Sure her husband is from old money, and, sure he was a congressman for one term. And, yes, she’s been working her way up as a State legislator and then congresswoman for the last two decades. But that doesn’t mean she had ready cash lying around to pay for this kind of hit all those years.”

  Simmons tapped his shoes on the floor and stared at them.

  “Listen, Spike, as Secretary of State, she’s now in a position of immense power. She has access to information and resources that few can even dream of.”

  Simmons stood up. “She’s also in a position to have both our heads.”

  Cohen’s eyes followed him, back and forth, as he paced her office, his face taut.

  “I’m not much into politics,” Simmons said, “but even I have heard that she’s not one that you mess with lightly. Our entire–”

  “Which just strengthens my point.”

  “Yes, but my point is that just one word from Angela Roseau could be all it takes to put an end to both our careers.”

  “Look, it’s our job to explore every plausible theory, no matter who it points to.” Cohen made imaginary quote marks above her head. “You know, ‘without fear or favor.’ Right?”

  “Yes, but I can’t go to Director Hutton with this, Sarah.” Simmons let out a burst of air, which rumbled past his lips. “I can’t go dragging the name of one of the top members of the Administration into this murder investigation. Not based on a few old newspaper clippings that you’ve cobbled together.”

  Cohen raised her eyebrows and shrugged.

  “No,” Simmons said, dropping back into the chair with a sigh. “We’ve got to come better than this.”

  Chapter 59

  Thursday, December 16

  It was early afternoon and the tall buildings of Bank Street channeled a bitter Arctic blast straight down Otta
wa’s main thoroughfare. It felt like the wind jabbed a thousand needles into my face. I was relieved to push past the revolving door and step into the warmth of the building where I would find the offices of Kobec, Crayton & Vohles.

  But I was also nervous. This was the eight law firm that I would be approaching to ask if they would launch a class action lawsuit on behalf of the residents of Syron Lake.

  The seven others I had tried before had courteously taken my phone calls and had asked me to send further information by email. Then they had all written me back saying the law firm would not take on the file, but that they encouraged me to seek legal representation as soon as possible, if I intended to pursue the matter. No explanation given.

  Unlike those previous others, when he first called after hearing my voicemail asking if his firm would look at our case, Randy Vohles had requested to meet me in person. He had even offered to reimburse my “reasonable travel cost” to Ottawa as he couldn’t make it up to Syron Lake to see me.

  Perhaps it was because my approach to him had been different to the one I had tried with the others.

  I had prepared a thirty-five-page backgrounder on the Syron Lake Resources spill, including the history and geography of the town and the company’s mining operations, as well as all the information I could get my hands on about the spill itself and the dangers of radioactive material to human health.

  This had gone out to all the previous lawyers; but I guessed at the weakness of the case from their perspective. How could they prove that the health of the surrounding communities had indeed been imperiled by this specific release of contaminants?

  It was, again, that lack of resources to make scientific arguments that undermined the little guy. The corporate titans could then say if you can’t prove there’s been harm, then we’re not liable and don’t have to compensate you.

  This time, when I wrote to Kobec, Crayton & Vohles, I added the suggestion that the class seek compensation for harm done to property values.

  Contamination of the environment, or just the mere possibility of it, would certainly make a house or commercial building less valuable. This was the fear that had stirred up Mayor Demetriou enough to send him flying to my door the day after the elections.