by Ashlee Price
Langdon had to give that some thought. He turned to stare out the window. “Let’s just hope we get to that kid before he disappears off the face of the Earth.”
“You really think he’ll just crawl into the woodwork like that?”
Langdon looked at me sharply, eyes cold, voice low and steady. “No, I don’t.” But I knew what the alternative was—and that it was the same thing that could be waiting for me and Langdon both.
Murder.
Something occurred to me. “What if the operative is somebody in your own company?” Langdon turned with new interest. “Can you think of anybody who would have been in this for a while, somebody who wants to take over, maybe with a personal grudge?”
Langdon chewed on that, scratching the back of his head. I didn’t like how long it was taking for him to come up with a list of possibilities. “More’n a few, I guess. But like I said, I don’t dip my oars in the company stream, so I’m not prone to that kind of hassle.”
“There are lots of other reasons to want to see your boss go down than just having a broken heart.”
“Then it could be just about anyone,” Langdon said. “When you’re on top, there’s always someone comin’ up behind ya.”
“Whoever it is,” I reasoned, “he’s gotta be working with J.A. But you don’t really think he’d have brought Flynn McGinnis into it? That feels too risky to me. J.A. isn’t a risk-taker.”
“Sometimes you gotta take some risks,” Langdon said, “else the competition takes them first. Anyway, why buy up all that stock under a shell company if he didn’t mean to use it?”
My smartphone rang, and I pulled it out of my purse. “It’s Ricardo,” I muttered, swiping the screen and raising the phone to my ear. “Ricardo, what’s up?”
“How are you, girl? I saw you on TMZ! What is going on in your life, Sher?”
“That’s just what we’re trying to figure out. How’s everything back home?”
“Nuts, honey, that’s how it is. We’ve got paparazzi crowding around in front of the apartment, neighbors are complaining, and I think somebody’s been following me, Sheryl.”
“Following you,” I repeated, flashes of my own frightening moments returning to my mind’s eye. “Are you sure?”
“Pretty sure. He wasn’t a photographer, you can’t miss them. But he skulks around in a pea coat like some government goon or something.”
“A man, and you recognize him?”
“I’m not even sure if it’s one guy or three, Sheryl. But I keep seeing this pea coat popping up. S’freaking me out a little.”
“Okay, um, well, I don’t want you to do anything that’s gonna get you into any trouble, okay? Don’t approach any of these guys, no heroics.”
“Heroics? Sheryl, I feel more like the damsel in distress!”
Langdon looked over with new concern on his face. I said to Ricardo, “Just lay low, and don’t talk to the press either.”
“Oh, um, about that…”
“Ricardo—?”
“I just… I got annoyed, that’s all. But I won’t say another thing, I promise.”
I sighed. “Is it on YouTube?”
After a nervous little silence, Ricardo said, “Half a million hits.”
I ended the call and pulled up YouTube, easily finding a video clip of Ricardo walking out of the front door of our Brooklyn brownstone.
“Sheryl Francis is a dear friend and a wonderful person,” Ricardo said, “and I don’t see why you people are trying to make her look bad. She’s not a dragon lady like you all keep saying! And she is not a slut!”
An unseen reporter asked him, “How do you know?”
“Because we’ve been roommates for years, duh! Also… I am a slut, so I should know!”
The reporters chuckled. “What’s your connection to John Alister?”
“I’m one of the hottest fashion photographers in New York, sweetie. So John and I have crossed paths once or twice. I’ve shot three Powerplay magazine covers.” Ricardo looked right into the camera. “Check me out at ricardotellez.com. I’m available, and my travel rates are very reasonable.”
Langdon took a look for himself. “He’s got a lot of charisma. How’s his work?”
“Good, great eye. He thinks somebody might be following him. And it could be true, Langdon. I… I didn’t want to mention it before, I thought it was kind of silly, but… at one point, back in New York, I felt like I was being followed too. Even on the mountain, I felt like that guy in black was closing in on me.”
“And he was,” Langdon said. “S’not much doubt about that.”
“And now Ricardo? Is he in some danger… because of me? Langdon, we can’t let that happen! He’s my best friend.”
“You think J.A. would have you tailed? Why?”
I could only shake my head and hold my hands over my face. “I don’t know, Langdon, I… it must have something to do with this deal he’s cooking up.”
“Must have,” Langdon agreed. “The question is what, and what are we going to be able to do about it?”
I had to add, “If it isn’t already too late.”
Langdon turned to me. Our eyes locked together and his hands cupped mine. “It’s never too late, Sheryl. As long as you and me are together, it won’t ever be too late. Before I met you, it was as if I wasn’t really living. I only started living when you came into my life.”
“I feel the same way, Langdon. I always did and I always will.”
“Then it’s not too late, Sheryl.” The helicopter shook harder, metal screaming and twisting, the rotor spinning faster. “We’re only just beginning!”
I knew he was right. I felt that we were unstoppable together, that fate or destiny or whatever they call it had brought us together for a reason, and that it still lay ahead of us. We were off to accomplish great things, and nothing and nobody was going to be strong enough to stand in our way.
A loud clack shot through the cabin and a bolt of panic raced through me. The noise was followed by a second one, even louder, and a loud, regular grinding sound began growling out of the rotor above of.
I looked at Langdon, and I could tell by his expression how frightened my own was. He was trying to be calm, but even he was worried—and that had me absolutely terrified.
Chapter 18
The helicopter started to swerve and turn as the stabilizer in the rear overcompensated and threatened to send the bird into an uncontrollable tailspin. I threw myself into Langdon’s arms, pushing my face into the nape of his neck.
“Langdon, what’s happening?” But I realized instantly that he didn’t know any better than I did, and all I could do was guess. Is this sabotage? Did John Alister plan this all along? Was this his way of taking care of Langdon Cane from the very start? Could he be that clever, that devious, that… evil?
But I already knew the answer to that.
Unless I’ve become too much of a liability. Could it be that by winding up in the public eye, I’ve inadvertently gotten myself and Langdon and our poor pilot murdered?
Langdon and I clung to one another as the bird struggled to stay airborne. My heart was pounding in my chest, pushing my blood through my veins to the point of bursting them. My muscles were tight, my tendons stretching, my body shaking as the helicopter went into what seemed to be its death throes.
The cabin stank of gas fumes, and I knew it could erupt into a ball of fire at any second, incinerating us instantaneously.
I looked up at Langdon, and he looked down at me. We didn’t speak; there was no time and no need for words. But I could see in his eyes and feel in his arms that he was at peace, that he was ready to accept death without regret, even if being by my side brought it upon him so tragically young. Langdon had everything in life and even more, but when he looked at me with that calm smile, I knew he was disinterested in the luxuries of his fabulous lifestyle and ready to turn his back on all of them if I couldn’t be by his side.
And I could no longer imagine life without La
ngdon, so the only regrets of my last moments in the world were that I’d brought death to the only man I would ever love, that the price he had to pay was so terribly steep and so seemingly certain. I’d have thrown myself out of that helicopter and to my death if I thought it would have saved Langdon.
But neither of us had that choice or that chance.
The helicopter shook, and I could feel us descending. Langdon and I strapped ourselves in, though it struck me as futile. I looked out the window to see the city getting bigger fast as we sank toward it, spinning and shaking. The harbor and the docks kept replacing one another in the window as the pilot tried to keep the forced landing steady, safe… survivable.
Langdon and I held hands in those last few seconds, each of us holding so tight that we nearly became a single person. It was as if our flesh were melding, our bones conjoining.
I whispered to him, “Just you, just me.”
“Just us,” he said, his eyes fixed on mine as the ground raced up in the window outside.
We hit with a hard crunch of bending metal and shattering glass. The engine was grinding above us as waves of energy pushed up against the bottom of the crippled copter. The rotor groaned and smoke wafted around the outside of the cabin.
Once the bird came to a rest, Langdon asked me, “Are you alright?” I nodded as we tried to pull our seat belts open.
The pilot came out from the cockpit. “Get out now!”
I pulled at my seat belt, but the lock was jammed. “I can’t get loose!”
The pilot said, “We’re gonna blow!”
Langdon pulled a jackknife out of his pocket and, holding the blade, threw the handle out in a single swift motion, flipping it up and catching it before slashing the seat belt in front of me. The strap pulled away and Langdon pulled me to my feet. We ran with the pilot out of the helicopter, my feet scrambling beneath me as Langdon pulled me along. The sudden cold of the New York night braced me, pulling me out of the heat. We ran, heads low as fire trucks approached from the other side of the dock.
The helicopter exploded behind us, sending a wave of hot energy pounding into us from the rear. We were pushed forward and I fell to the cold, greasy concrete, the explosion ringing in my ears.
Langdon and the pilot pulled me back to my feet, and we stumbled a bit further before turning to see the copter sitting there engulfed in flames. Any evidence of sabotage was almost certainly being incinerated—along with our chances of success or possibly even our survival.
***
Sherman Mathers shook his head, leaning back in a creaky little chair in his moldering little office. Phones rang from the bullpen outside, a dozen muttered conversations filling the big room. “If he did try to kill you, which sounds unlikely, that isn’t my department. Try the FBI down the hall.”
Langdon waved him off, sitting next to me in one of two small chairs facing the agent’s desk. “They’ll never bite on that without proof, mate.”
I added, “And violation of federal trade restrictions is your department, isn’t it?”
“I thought something might jog your memory,” he said with a snide tone, shaking his head at some information he was reserving for himself. “So what have you got?”
“He’s been buying up shares in Langdon’s company, AussieGarb, and right now he’s got somebody back there trying to buy out a big enough chunk of his board of directors to launch a hostile takeover.”
Sherman sat there, decidedly unimpressed, one eyebrow raised. “That it?”
“That’s not enough?”
Langdon said, “He wants to start a third company to… ah, what’s the point?”
“There isn’t one,” Sherman said. “Look, I’ve been going after people like John Alister for twenty years, and I’ve been on him personally for almost ten months. But we got nothing, okay? Squat, bupkis!”
“But this shell corporation—”
“There’s nothing criminal about it unless he’s doing something illegal with it, and buying stock ain’t illegal. Anyway, I’m telling you, the Alister Fashions investigation has been shut down.”
“Shut down.” Langdon repeated. “You mean bought off. How much did you get?”
“I don’t like what you’re insinuating.”
Langdon huffed. “I didn’t think I was insinuating anything.”
“We’ve got very limited resources here, okay? This is the government. They don’t give us any time or money or cooperation. What kind of help did we get from anybody at Alister Fashions? Zero. Now it’s too late. You two wanna be heroes? Go volunteer at Habitat for Humanity. But as far as this office is concerned, there is no Alister Fashions.”
I said, “What about all that crap about doing the right thing, about stopping people like him from abusing the system?”
“Sorry, sweetheart, but people like that are the system. So if you two are done standing there with your self-righteous glowering, maybe I could get on with my job and actually do some good for somebody.”
Langdon and I could only turn to one another, agreeing without words that we needed to pick a different direction and do it quickly.
***
I wasn’t that comfortable admitting that I knew where Flynn lived. But I’d told Langdon, and the rest of the world, that I’d dated him just once, so it wasn’t that big a deal. I didn’t like the knowing little glances Langdon kept shooting me as we stood in his apartment hallway, but I knew he was only teasing me, and I tried not to let it bother me.
Flynn opened the door, but as soon as he saw us, his eyes went wide and he tried to slam the door shut. Langdon stuck his boot into the doorway to stop him, and the door swung ajar as Flynn backed up into his little apartment and we stepped in uninvited.
The cramped living room was filled with cardboard boxes, taped up and addressed to Los Angeles, California.
Pricey, I thought to myself. He must have gotten a payoff.
Langdon said, “Nice to see ya again, mate. Lookin’ good.”
“Stay away from me,” Flynn said, holding his hands up to keep us back.
“Take it easy, pal,” Langdon said. “We’re just here to talk a bit, yeah?”
“I don’t like talking to you,” Flynn said.
“Or you’re not allowed to,” I said, stepping in front of Langdon. “We need answers, Flynn, and we know you’ve got them.”
“I’ll scream,” Flynn said, backing himself toward the window and the fire escape beyond. “This time I’ll sue, I really will.”
“I’m not gonna hurt you, mate. But I think if you were gonna sue me, you’d be suing me right now.”
I added, “But you can’t do that, Flynn, you can’t and you won’t, and we all know it.”
Langdon added, “And we know why, mate. Because you’re in John Alister’s back pocket.”
“I… no, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Alright, mate,” Langdon said, “that’s fine. We thought you might wanna talk to us directly, but if you’d rather contend with the Australian government—”
“The—? What? No, wait, what’re you talking about?”
Langdon broke a smile. “Yer talkin’ to an official Good Will Ambassador for the great country of Australia, pal.”
I said, “Langdon, really?”
“That’s right, for the United Nations an’ all. It’s mostly a ceremonial position, for publicity, things like that. But that still makes me a national representative, and assaulting me the way this red rascal did could constitute an act of war!”
Flynn’s green eyes shot around the little apartment as if he was looking for an escape and knowing he wouldn’t find it. Even the window and fire escape provided little opportunity, and he seemed to know it.
“I don’t know anything.” Flynn said. “Like I told Alister, I don’t know a goddamned thing!”
Langdon asked, “Told him when?”
“Lots of times over the past week. He kept coming to visit me in the prison hospital, asking about you two, if I was
working with you. He thought we set this all up to sue him or something.”
“Yeah,” I said, “his wife shared that theory with us.” Giving it a little more thought, I reasoned out loud, “So that’s where he’s been popping out to.”
Langdon asked Flynn, “How much did he pay you?”
“For what?”
“To come at us in the park, mate!”
“Nothing, I… he didn’t have anything to do with that.”
I asked, “Then why would he be paying you?”
“He… he wanted to settle the whole thing, didn’t want me to sue him.”
But I pressed the point. “Sue him for what? Langdon’s the one who punched you. Why would Alister be worried that you’d sue him?”
“He just didn’t want the publicity one way or another.” Flynn’s voice cracked. “At least, that’s what he said. I dunno, what do I care? A hundred grand’s a lot of money, and thanks to you I didn’t have a job!”
Langdon shook his head. “That don’t ring true, mate. Why would Alister care if you sued me or not?”
“I dunno, man! Just don’t hit me, please don’t!”
“I’m not gonna bloomin’ hit ya, mate!”
“I might,” I muttered. “Who’s the other person in on all this?”
Flynn looked at me with a confused cock of his head. “I don’t know who you mean.”
“Alister’s gotta have an operative,” I said, “and we all know he’d never have used you. You were a pawn, Flynn, but we’re looking for the bishop, the queen—”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about!”
Langdon rolled his eyes. “Who is Alister working with outside the company?”
“I really have no idea what you’re talking about,” Flynn said, still recoiling. “But why don’t you go down to Rikers and talk to Lisa Ling? She was the one fucking him, not me. Maybe she knows!”
***
I hated going to places like Rikers Island, but of course they’re designed that way. Every moment was meant to be torture, to break a person down both physically and mentally. It seemed cruel, but it was hard to deny that a lot of the people there probably deserved to be there. Maybe they had to be broken down and rebuilt before society could trust them again. I’d never given much thought to the penal system before, but now in just a short time I’d been exposed to it from almost every angle, and it was opening my eyes to a world of suffering and pain. It made me glad I’d been spared for as long as I had been.