Twisted Shadows

by Patricia Potter

  What was unwinding might turn out to be one of the biggest scandals yet.

  She turned the television off.

  And waited.

  Nate knew something was wrong when five o’clock slipped by, then six. A judge would be punctual. Even a crooked one.

  The note to McGuire had told him to meet Merritt at the cabin at five. It had instructed him to rent a car and gave directions to a public booth where there would be a phone call and further directions.

  Nate called Merritt on the cell phone.

  “McGuire answered the call at the service station,” Merritt said. “But he hasn’t shown up.”

  “Jack Maddox?”

  “He’s prowling the woods with Simon. He lost McGuire in the traffic.”

  That, Nate knew immediately, was where they’d made their mistake. But there hadn’t been enough of them to go around.

  Nate swore. “McGuire’s probably on his way to the airport. Something must have spooked him.”

  “You’re alone?”

  “In here, I am.”

  Nate knew tiny television cameras and recording devices had been planted throughout the house and even outside.

  Merritt hesitated. “Could they know about the house where you’re staying?”

  Nate’s worry exactly. “Simon didn't think so. I was damned careful when I brought you back here, and there’s no way McGuire could know about Simon.”

  Or was there? He had asked Gray to check out the two men. Had someone picked up their trail? Someone with better resources than their own?

  “Get back here,” he said. “If they get Sam and her mother, they can bargain for the gun.” He hung up.

  The cabin was at least an hour away.

  He looked outside again. It seemed peaceful enough. He checked the locks and security system. He thought about leaving the house, but he suspected that if he was right, they would be surrounded. If they left in a car, they would be even more vulnerable.

  They were safer here.

  “What is it?” Samantha said.

  “Our judge didn’t show.”

  “Then why did he come to Chicago?”

  “More communication. More opportunities to find us.”

  “And you think they have?”

  “I think it’s possible.”

  “But Simon was so sure it was safe.”

  “There’s always a way to find someone if you have sophisticated equipment, and I called Gray to check on Maddox and Simon. Someone might have picked up on that and found one or the other.” He looked out again. “Get your gun,” he said. Then he looked at Patsy Carroll. “Do you have a weapon?” She shook her head.

  “Call the police,” he said. “Tell them we’re using a friend’s house and there could be a burglar.”

  He wasn’t going to take any chances this time. To hell with the consequences. She went to the phone in the house and lifted the receiver. “It’s dead.”

  He took Simon’s cell phone from his belt. A squealing noise. “Someone’s blocking calls.” He swore under his breath.

  He looked out and saw a shadow among the trees. If he could see one, others were out there.

  Suddenly the lights and power went off. It was not yet dusk and he could still see, but no electricity meant the alarm system was off, too.

  He blamed himself for being a fool. He should have seen it coming.

  Samantha had retrieved her gun.

  “Mrs. Carroll, pull out the sofa and get behind it. Samantha, you cover the back.”

  He turned back to watch from the side of the window. Why in the hell hadn’t he kept someone else with him? They had all been so sure they were safe here, that McGuire would go after the most immediate danger: Merritt. Evidently McGuire still considered the Carrolls more dangerous. But why? The gun was of no use without a body.

  And the body had disappeared. That was the one part of the equation that never made sense.

  Unless… unless that was why Paul Merritta wanted to see his daughter. To give her the one last piece to safeguard her. The location of a body long missing.

  The sound of breaking glass came from a bedroom. He wouldn’t make the mistake of going there. The intruder would have to come through the hallway. He moved to the side of the window just as the glass broke. A silencer. Then another muffled sound. They were trying to keep him occupied.

  He moved quickly in front of the window and fired three shots at the direction from which the shot had seemed to come. Noise. He needed lots of noise now. Noise to arouse the neighbors and prompt them to call the police.

  “Nathan!” Patsy Carroll’s voice.

  He whirled around and saw someone emerge from the hall. He fired and the man went down.

  Then another shot from outside the window passed just inches from Patsy Carroll and drove into a wall. She stood there, a butcher knife in her hand. She obviously was as careless of her own safety as her daughter.

  Still carrying the knife, she went close to the man lying in the hall. “He looks dead.”

  A shot came from the back, and another one.

  “Sam? Are you all right?” he yelled.

  “Yes. He’s crawling away.”

  That made three attackers down at least.

  The sound of sirens pierced the air.

  Nate saw a shadow disappear within the trees. He went to the back where Sam stood, holding her gun. A man dressed in camouflage was trying to get up from the ground.

  “Go see about the man in the hallway,” he said. “I’ll take care of this one.”

  She nodded.

  Nathan went to where the man writhed on the ground. He tried to grab the automatic beside him, but Nathan lacked it away.

  “The judge can’t help you now,” he said.

  “What judge?” The man looked totally blank.

  “Who sent you?”

  The man didn’t say anything, just moaned in agony.

  Nate pointed his gun at the wounded man, ignoring his gasp of pain and the way he clutched his leg. “No one will know whether or not it was self-defense, if I shoot,” Nate said.

  “Anna,” he said. “Anna Merritta.”

  thirty-three

  Word of Anna Merritta’s arrest and the Chicago shoot-out leaked through local law enforcement agencies, and enterprising reporters milked all their sources for information. Sam’s and her mother’s lives were being dissected across the country. So was every detail about the Merritta family.

  Nick had demanded that the funeral be postponed until he and Sam returned to Boston the day after the shooting. At least the publicity would discourage attendance, Sam thought. The feeding frenzy of the local and national media would keep the infamous away in droves.

  Not many of Paul Merritta’s associates wanted to bear the scrutiny of hordes of federal agents and members of the press after newspaper headlines detailed the arrest of Anna Merritta and the attempted murder of Paul Merritta’s wife and daughter, supposedly killed in an accident three decades ago.

  Sam didn’t want to consider what it would mean to her life, her mother’s life and their gallery. Nothing would ever be the same for either of them.

  But they were alive. And Sam was determined that they would stay that way.

  She also had something she’d thought she would never have. Even if it never came to anything more, she and Nate had experienced something grand and glorious. She didn’t like to think about the future. He was FBI inside and out, despite his protestations. And now she was the notorious daughter of a mobster. That was obviously a career breaker.

  After the shooting, her mother had answered the police’s questions, then they had been released. Patsy disappeared with Simon—a matter of leverage, Simon and Nate said, with federal officials. They didn’t dare play all their cards at once—and in the open—until they knew for sure if there was a leak in the Bureau.

  Sam and Nate had gone straight to the FBI offices in Boston. She stared blandly at his immediate supervisor as he tried to take over and patr
onize her. She had never liked men who automatically treated women like the nearest footstool.

  “I’m sorry, Agent Barker,” she said evenly, surprising herself as well as Nate. “But I won’t talk to anyone but the Agent in Charge. Nate tells me his name is Richard Woodward.”

  Barker looked at Nate, who shrugged, but Sam would have sworn she saw his mouth twitch as he glanced down at his shoes.

  Barker gave her another condescending smile, a sure sign he was going to treat her like a piece of furniture again.

  She lifted her chin a notch as she continued to stare at him. “Richard Woodward or no one,” she said quietly.

  Barker spun on his heel and stiffly walked to the door, ordering his secretary to show them to Woodward’s office.

  “Did you forget that he is armed?” Nate asked as they entered a larger reception office.

  “I try very hard not to think of things like that when I’m being a feminist,” she replied. “And I also knew I had you at my side,” she added with a quick smile.

  A secretary said they would have to wait a moment. In a moment, Agent in Charge Richard Woodward appeared in the doorway. “Nate, I understand you’ve had a few interesting days.”

  Nate turned to Sam. “This is Samantha Carroll. She won’t talk to anyone but you.”

  Woodward raised an eyebrow. “And you didn’t have anything to do with that?”

  “He didn’t,” Sam confirmed.

  He gave her a long, level stare, then grinned. “I like her. Come with me.”

  Sam felt immense relief that he wasn’t holding her demand against either Nate or herself. The man definitely did not fool around.

  Once inside, Nick didn’t bother with preliminaries. “Listen to this tape first,” he said.

  He ran the tape of Nick’s phone conversation with McGuire and injected their suspicions at strategic points in the dialogue. He also told Woodward he suspected leaks in the Bureau and had for a long time.

  “The wounded suspect in Chicago said there had been four of them,” Nate said as he punched the off button. “He also said they had expected only two women. He was angry at being lied to and ready to turn against Anna Merritta. In his world, being lied to was obviously a far worse sin than murdering women. Attempted murder will put her away for a long time.”

  But the judge had remained a problem.

  Woodward was skeptical but obviously interested. “Why,” he asked, “would McGuire want the gun so damned bad that he would risk going to Chicago and then not even make the meet?”

  “I think he meant to make it, and had second thoughts,” Nate said. “Either that or he heard from someone in the Bureau or from the family that Anna had also sent out a team of assassins. Maybe he thought the Merrittas would take care of the problem for him. It affected them, too, of course—”

  “But if there’s no body, there can be no comparison with bullets from the gun registered to or used by McGuire,” Woodward protested.

  Nate shook his head. “There has to be something. My best guess is a body. We think it’s possible that’s what Merritta wanted to tell Samantha. He might have thought that knowledge would provide some protection. Now we can only hope that he wrote it down somewhere where she can find it.”

  “A hell of a long shot,” Woodward said. “McGuire never admitted to anything on those tapes. They only cast suspicion toward him. That might destroy his nomination, but we sure as hell won’t get an indictment on that.”

  “We have an eyewitness in Patsy Carroll,” Nate reminded him.

  “It’s not enough in this case and you know it,” Woodward shot back. “The defense will paint her as the embittered wife with an ax to grind against the family. But I’m still listening. You have more?”

  “No,” Nate said reluctantly. “But Merritta wanted to see Miss Carroll for some reason. Anna may know more, too. She had to get information from someone about our being in Chicago, and I suspect that someone was the judge. Maybe through Victor. Maybe through someone here at the Bureau. I’m sure McGuire wouldn’t have personally included her. He wouldn’t want anyone else to know what happened, but I wouldn’t preclude Victor as a conduit of information. If so, she might know more than she thinks she knows and be willing to make a deal.”

  “If she’s not afraid to go against a federal judge,” Woodward said. “And we’re going to need one hell of a lot of evidence to try to indict a sitting judge, especially one with McGuire’s reputation.”

  Nate nodded. “I’m hoping the will produces something. If either Sam or Nicholas inherits, we can gain access to all of Merritta’s records.”

  Woodward raised an eyebrow. “Nicholas Merritt?”

  Nate looked at Sam, then back at Woodward. “Yeah,” he said. “He’ll cooperate.”

  “You’ve changed your mind about him?”

  “He gave us the information about McGuire. It paralleled what we had. I believe him.”

  Woodward’s gaze went from Nate to Sam and back again. “We’ll wait to see what’s in the will. In the meantime, we’ll begin a discreet probe of Judge McGuire. We’ll want to talk to your mother, of course.”

  That had been Sam and Nate’s ace in the hole. Simon had taken Patsy to a small Pennsylvania town until Sam and Nate summoned them.

  “She’ll be here if Mr. McLean stays on the case,” Sam said.

  Woodward took a sip of coffee from a mug he lifted from his crowded desk, then directed his attention to Nate. “I don’t think so. Because of the shooting in Boston, he’s on temporary desk duty, and Agent Barker has filed a complaint against him.”

  “If he doesn’t stay with the case, you will never get the gun. Or find my mother. She remained lost for thirty years. She can do it again.”

  “You and your mother are material witnesses,” Woodward said. “We can hold you, if not your mother.”

  “Then you’ll never find the gun. I don’t trust anyone but Nate.”

  Woodward looked irritated, then shrugged. He turned back to Nate. “All right. But stay out of trouble.”

  Nate grimaced. “I told you we have a leak in the office. We need to keep Sam’s location between you, me and agents I pick.”

  Woodward raised his brows in a way that Sam thought might intimidate a lesser man than Nate. “You choose the detail,” he finally agreed. “I want at least two agents with her all the time.” He leaned forward in his chair. “When can I see Patsy Carroll?”

  “After we know the leak in the Bureau has been eliminated,” Nate said.

  Woodward gave him a hard look. “There’s a murder of a federal agent. Thirty-four years ago or not, we want that case solved.”

  “I do, too,” Nate said simply. “What about Barker?”

  Woodward stared down at his desk, then sighed and nodded. “I hope to hell you’re wrong about the leak, but we’ll keep him out of the loop for now.”

  Satisfied for the moment, Sam and Nate left for the funeral.

  The Merritta family and their retainers crowded into the law offices of Paul Merritta’s attorney after his somber funeral mass and burial.

  Sam watched as each family member settled into chairs placed around the room for the reading of the will. Her mother was not present. She’d had no desire to see Victor and other members of the family who once had made her life a nightmare.

  Feeling oddly detached, Sam wondered if any more of them had deadly intentions. Anna had said nothing since her arrest. Were any of the other family members involved? Either with Judge McGuire or Anna?

  None of them looked at her. Among them, only Nicholas acknowledged her. He had given her an encouraging—and sympathetic—smile, and then found a seat in a corner. Nate stood just inside the door, allowed to remain at her request and, surprisingly, at Nicholas’s demand. His presence had not helped the temperature in the room. Hostility steamed from Victor Merritta and the others.

  As she waited for the attorney to proceed, she thought of the last few hours and the funeral that morning.

  Appr
opriately, it had been a grim and lifeless affair but for the suspicion that rippled through the family in waves. Thankful that she attended the funeral with Nick, she’d walked between her brother and Nate, holding her head high and ignoring reporters’ questions. They had not sat with the rest of the family but several pews back. She said her own prayer, wishing she’d had more time with a very flawed man who, nonetheless, had once loved her mother and herself enough to protect them at risk of his own life should anyone have discovered what he’d done for them…

  Sam noted the expressions of the others in the attorney’s office. Hopeful, fearful, expectant and resigned. Victor and Rich, their wives, Rosa, George, Reggie, and a few more she didn’t know—all beneficiaries, apparently, of Paul Merritta’s will.

  Victor looked years older as he slumped in his chair. He was still under suspicion as an accessory in the murder of the agent three decades ago and also in the substitution of bodies in the auto accident in which Merritta’s wife and daughter were supposed to have died. He’d refused to take a lie detector test but as yet there was no evidence he’d planned, executed or even knew of either. The Boston PD and FBI were not giving up though. He’d been put on notice.

  Her glance moved to George. He looked apprehensive, too.

  She admitted to her own apprehension. Her name—Samantha Carroll—had been on the list of beneficiaries. She knew she didn’t want any part of Merritta’s fortune, and she certainly didn’t want the baggage it carried.

  All she wanted was an explanation of why Paul Merritta had called her here, and the will was her last hope for communication between her and her biological father. Whoever inherited would have access to all of Paul Merritta’s papers, safe deposit boxes, bank records.

  They would have the kind of power that would either be the ultimate protection or the ultimate death sentence.

  The attorney, an older man who put on thick reading glasses, plodded through the preliminaries. Then he got down to the crux of the will. A locked box sat on the side of his desk.

  Pushing his glasses up on his forehead, he fixed each person with a smile. “This is the last will and testament of Paul Merritta. He made it at ten o’clock the night before he died, somewhat secretly, I must admit. I attended him and can attest to his mental faculties. His butler, Reggie, and the cook witnessed the document.