Dead and Gone (A Thriller)

by William Casey Moreton

  “My only guess is that they were there for you.”

  “Why?”

  “I’m not sure. You are Ellen’s boyfriend and maybe they don’t like you looking for her or asking questions. Easier to put a bullet in your head, make it look like a robbery, and then you are no longer a threat.”

  “What about Terry? Do you believe he fell in the tub?”

  She thought about it for a second. “Maybe. Probably. If so, it wasn’t an accident. If that’s really how he died, he was helped.”

  I nodded. I was convinced that those same two thugs in my apartment had killed Terry, Veronica Wagner, and Ellen. They had been busy boys. I took a sip of bad coffee and set the cup on the table. I started to say something but my iPhone rang. It was in the pocket of my jacket. I fished it out and glanced at the display but didn’t recognize the number. I ignored it.

  “What if Shelby wasn’t involved in any of this?” I said.

  “It’s possible but not likely. He has too much to lose to let so many loose ends be running around out there in the world. He wants to be president but has at least one very significant skeleton in his closet.”

  I opened my mouth to respond but my cell rang again. The same number appeared on my display. I hesitated a beat before answering.

  “Hello?” I said.

  “It’s me,” a voice said. The voice of a woman. A voice I recognized instantly. She sounded small and distant and scared, but there was no doubt in my mind who she was. “I need your help. Please hurry,” she said.

  It was Ellen.

  * * *

  Ellen was on the Brooklyn Bridge. She was exhausted and scared when we found her. She was unrecognizable, having clipped her hair down to a short bob and colored it platinum blonde. I asked about the number she had called from and she quickly explained it was a pay-as-you-go cell she’d purchased at a gas station. She was startled to see Whitney with me. They hugged and cried. They rode together in the backseat as I drove us to the walkup she shared with Jill. The street was quiet and I parked at the curb. We sat in the stillness of early morning for ten minutes, watching the door, paranoid that Shelby might have someone scoping out the neighborhood, waiting for Ellen to return.

  Ellen didn’t have her key so she knocked, hoping Jill might be home. No answer. She used my cell to call Jill, but again no answer.

  “She is so unreliable,” Ellen sighed.

  It turned out we didn’t need a key. The front door appeared to have been forced open and then pushed shut. I turned to the women and touched a finger to my lips in the universal shush sign. I went in ahead of them to make sure the Mexican and his little buddy weren’t inside waiting to start round two. The lights were off and it smelled like something had recently burned on the stove. I held the door for them, then closed it and set the dead bolt. The apartment was quiet.

  “When was the last time you talked to Jill?” I asked.

  “It’s been a few days,” Ellen said. “She is always busy. We usually pass in the night. We aren’t exactly tight.”

  We didn’t find any intruders but Jill was seated on the sofa in front of a flat-panel TV. She had been sitting alone in the dark. She didn’t move. I saw the back of her head above the back of the sofa.

  “Looks like she’s not busy tonight,” I said, gesturing across the room toward the sofa.

  “Hey, girl,” Ellen said, “sorry about the light, hoping you weren’t asleep — ”

  Ellen gasped and jumped back. She had walked around one end of the sofa and halted suddenly. Her mouth gaped open but she couldn’t speak.

  I walked around the sofa and saw what she had seen.

  Jill had a bullet hole in her forehead. She was dead.

  I touched Ellen’s arm as she staggered backward a step. She gasped a second time but it was more like she was struggling for breath. The bullet hole was nearly right between the eyes. Perfectly placed. A single trickle of blood had dried on her face, trailing down her nose, crossing past her lips to her chin. Her eyes were wide open and her lips were parted slightly. Her face seemed frozen in an expression of partial shock, as if she’d realized what was about to happen a fraction of a second too late. She was seated as if watching television, her hair pulled back in a ponytail.

  The seat cushion behind her was spattered with blood.

  “Don’t look at her,” I instructed Ellen. “Go to the kitchen with your mom.”

  Ellen was still backpedaling, one slow step at a time. I gripped her forearm. Her mouth was moving soundlessly, like a fish out of water.

  “Don’t look at her,” I repeated.

  The kitchen was tiny, and the dining area bumped out to one side of it was equally small. I pulled out a chair from the dining table for Ellen to sit down on. Whitney ran water into a glass at the kitchen sink and held it out for her daughter.

  “Where have you been?” Whitney asked. “Who did this?”

  Ellen ignored the water. She sat totally still for several minutes, then placed her face in her hands. She was pale and her eyes looked tired and were rimmed with red. She looked like she hadn’t bathed in days. Whitney knelt beside her and cupped both her hands in her own. She smiled up at her daughter, doing her best to offer comfort.

  “It’s okay, you’re safe now,” Whitney said. “What did they do to you?”

  “They were going to kill me,” Ellen whispered, staring at the cheap linoleum at her feet. “I can’t believe they killed Jill.”

  “Who?” I asked. “Who is they?”

  She continued staring at the floor between her feet. She was shivering. “A huge man grabbed me,” she said, again barely above a whisper. “He was Mexican.”

  I exchanged a glance with Whitney. She nodded, her eyes registering that everything was connected and that our suspicions had been accurate.

  “The email you sent the other morning,” I said, seated in a chair in front of her. “You told me not to worry. How did you send that?”

  She took a sip of water. Closed her eyes. Swallowing seemed painful for her. Her eyelids fluttered as she recalled the events of the past few days.

  “They made me do that. They didn’t want you looking for me,” she said.

  “Did they hurt you?” Whitney said.

  Ellen nodded. “But I’m okay.”

  “How did you get away?”

  Her eyes fluttered open as tears streamed down her face.

  “I don’t want to talk about that right now. I’m so tired and scared.”

  I nodded. “We need to get you someplace safe where you can sleep,” I said.

  There was no reason to linger at Ellen’s apartment, and I didn’t feel particularly comfortable returning to my place either. We needed to be someplace where those sadistic thugs couldn’t find us, though at the moment I didn’t have much of a plan. I wondered how long Jill had been sitting there dead staring at the TV in the dark. My guess was at least twenty-four hours. By now she had likely missed some work and any calls from her employer would have gone unanswered. I assumed she had family but Ellen had said so little about her over the past year that I really didn’t know the first thing about her. It didn’t make sense to me why the Mexican and his buddy and had seen the need to eliminate her.

  I turned out the lights and pulled the damaged door shut on the way out and hurried the women back to the Mercedes.

  Ellen put her head in Whitney’s lap in the back seat. Whitney stroked her hair with her hands, staring down at her as lights from traffic streamed through the windows. I took a deep breath. It was a miracle Ellen was alive. I genuinely hadn’t expected to see her again. Not alive, anyway. I could still see her burned-out Acura at the police impoundment lot, and remembered the weedy lot in New Jersey where the car had been found. Then I connected the dots and understood that all of this had happened to protect an elected official. Welcome to American politics, ladies and gentlemen. I felt both sickened and terrified.

  Since Carmen Burgess was staying the night at a hotel, I decided to take Ellen and
Whitney to her apartment on the East Side. It was late and my brain was fried, so that was the best I could come up with on short notice. Hopefully, with some sleep, I’d be refreshed enough to make some wise decisions about how to proceed. I couldn’t afford to get stupid. Stupid would get us killed.

  As I drove I thought about Senator Harris Shelby. I wasn’t terribly interested in politics. Never had been. I had never voted. Call me apathetic, or just pathetic. Call me unpatriotic. I’ve just never been into the drama of it. It’s a soap opera, and I figure it’s all rigged anyway, so why get excited? Both parties piss me off ninety-nine percent of the time, and ultimately all politicians are puppets for big corporate machines. At least that’s my take on it all. I could be wrong, so just shoot me. Anyway, I’d heard his name, and might even recognize his face in passing, but certainly couldn’t have told you a single fact about him.

  I used my iPhone to Google an image of him. That was all it took. In an instant it was clear. Whitney was telling the truth. Shelby was the mirror image of Terry. Different hair styles, yes. Slight weight difference, sure. Other than that, bam! No other evidence was needed. Those two men had to have been separated at birth. My mind was again officially blown.

  “I can’t believe it,” I said, unintentionally speaking out loud.

  “What?” Whitney asked from the back.

  I held up the iPhone so she could see the image.

  “Told you,” she said.

  “How did I not know about this? You’d think I didn’t own a TV or watch CNN.”

  “Terry’s birth parents wanted this buried deep. Deep enough to go away forever. I’d say few people on earth knew anything about the brothers. They ran with some very influential social circles. This was the kind of secret they couldn’t afford for their peers to be aware of. It would have made them outcasts.”

  I could see in the mirror Whitney still stroking Ellen’s hair. Ellen’s eyes were closed like she was asleep. What was my next move? Given the events of the past few days it seemed unlikely that Shelby’s people would rest until all the loose ends were dead. They clearly weren’t taking any chances. That meant we needed a good safe place to hide until I could figure out how to deal with this. My first instinct was to call Detectives Curry and Ballard, but I decided to hold off for now. I needed time to process some of the data I’d been force-fed over the last few hours.

  I was living in a fog. Sleep deprived, stressed out of my mind, spinning out from the crazy events of the week, including Veronica’s death and unexplained disappearance, Terry’s death, Ellen’s disappearance and sudden reappearance. Not to mention the sudden development of Terry having a sibling, and the fact that his identical twin was apparently campaigning for the presidency. I couldn’t remember my last meal. My blood sugar was low and I could feel that my tank was near empty. I was buzzing from the coffee but there was not enough fuel in my system to keep my body running.

  Herb let us into Carmen’s apartment. I was familiar enough to show Whitney and Ellen inside and get them situated in one of the guest bedrooms. I chatted with Herb for a few minutes in the hallway, then returned to find Ellen in the fetal position on the bed with her head on a pillow and Whitney spooning her. Both of them were already asleep.

  I ventured to the kitchen and stood with the refrigerator door open, my stomach growling. I stood at the counter next to the kitchen sink with my snack, which included a bottle of Heineken. The blinds were open over the sink. I stared across the city. My eyes were heavy. I was fading. So I staggered to a sofa and laid down. I was instantly out but was quickly awakened by the cell phone. I glanced at the display but again didn’t recognize the incoming number.

  “Hello?” I said.

  “I got your number from Perez.”

  My brain was fuzzy and so nothing was registering.

  “Do I know you?” I asked.

  “This is Chandler,” the male voice said.

  The name bounced around in the fog for a beat or two until I managed to do the basic math. Then my eyes snapped open and I sat up like I was on fire. Chandler was the young man from the security video.

  “OK,” I said, “I’m glad you called.”

  The line was silent for a long moment. I listened hard for the sound of him breathing.

  “I only want to talk,” I said. “You’re not in any sort of trouble.”

  “Why would I be in trouble?”

  “Why did you run?”

  Again, another lengthy silence.

  “Chandler, are you there?”

  His voice was filled with trepidation and sounded distant.

  “Yes, I’m still here.”

  “Good. Listen, I’m just worried about my friend.”

  “I don’t know anything about your friend.”

  “I’m not sure I believe that, Chandler. After all, you ran away like the building was on fire, and now you’ve called me at a very odd hour. Those kinds of things lead me to believe that you might be able to help me.”

  “I…I don’t want trouble.”

  “Would you be willing to meet me?”

  “We have to do it on my terms.”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Tomorrow night,” he said.

  “Perfect.”

  “Do you know the Broadhurst Theater in Times Square?”

  “I can find it.”

  “I’ll leave a ticket at the box office for the eight o’clock show. Find your seat. Then at eight-thirty go to the men’s restroom downstairs and lock yourself in the furthest stall from the door. Be there alone.”

  “OK.”

  “Don’t try anything stupid or I’ll run and you’ll never hear from me again.”

  “I give my word.”

  “That means nothing to me.”

  “I’ll be there.”

  “I don’t trust you.”

  “You called me.”

  He didn’t respond but his breathing was pronounced. He sounded winded.

  “I’m just…I haven’t slept well since it happened,” he said.

  I absorbed his words and immediately replayed them in my head. I haven’t slept well since it happened…

  Since what happened?

  I had a million questions and it was tempting to start asking some, but I didn’t want to spook the rabbit again, so I decided to cool my jets for the moment and exercise some patience. So I bit my tongue.

  “I’ve had nightmares,” Chandler said. “Can’t get it out of my head. I just want you to know I’m not a bad person.”

  I was hanging on every word. “I know you’re not,” I said, feeling like a crisis negotiator trying to talk a jumper off a ledge. “You did the right thing calling me.”

  “I’m scared.”

  “It’s going to be okay, Chandler. I promise.”

  Another lengthy silence.

  Then a whisper. “I’m scared.”

  I bit down on my tongue again.

  Then the line went dead.

  CHAPTER 30

  At two in the morning, Dexter left his hotel room wearing a blue track suit. He looked like a man heading out for a late night jog. He wore Nike running shoes and a headband and wore the hood of the track suit pulled up over his head. He took the elevator to the top floor, then took a flight of stairs to a door with access to the roof. Everything he needed for the task was already hidden on the roof.

  His duffle bag was tucked away safely out of sight between two huge air conditioning units. He leaned in to lift it out, then hurried to the shadows to prep for action. The beauty of the way he had planned this was that it required such minimal equipment. This would be a streamlined operation. He squatted behind an L-shaped brick wall, the city lights sprawling out in every direction. He peeled off the track suit to reveal that he was wearing all-black Spandex, from head to toe. He dumped a bundle of climbing rope and a glass cutter from the duffel and then stuffed the track suit inside. He stowed the bag back between the air conditioning units, then carried his gear to the edge of the building an
d gazed over. Beyond the narrow ledge was a hair-raising drop. Dexter was not fazed by heights. He went about his work with no fear of falling. On the contrary, he was stoked to finally be carrying out his plan.

  He fastened one end of the rope around a metal post on the roof and then let the rest of the rope drop over the side of the ledge. It fell into darkness below. He buckled into the climbing harness and tested that the rope was secure around the post. He pulled a black knit ski mask down over his face and wore leather gloves to complete the look. The sky was clear and the warmth of the day still lingered.

  Dexter clipped the line through an aluminum carabiner attached to the harness and shouldered a sleek pack onto his back. Then he stepped up onto the ledge and gazed at the emptiness before him. Adrenaline coursed through his body. The moment was exhilarating. He turned his back to the open space and began the long, slow descent down the side of the building. His equipment functioned flawlessly. He knew precisely how far below him the senator’s room was and navigated carefully to not overshoot it. He was meticulous, moving hand over hand, a single step at a time, patient and cautious.

  Most of the rooms had been dark for hours. The rope fed smoothly through the harness as he controlled it with practiced fingers. The senator’s window was only three floors down now. His pulse began to rise. He turned his head slightly to one side and glanced at the world below. A moment later he paused next to a tall window and glanced up to check his count. Yes, he was certain this was the one. The drapes were open. He cupped his gloved hand against the glass and peered inside. The lights were off and there was no visible movement. The senator would be in bed asleep. Exactly as planned.

  Dexter used the cutting tool with a suction attachment to score the glass. He turned it several times, careful to not make a sound. Then a circular section of the glass lifted away with the rubber attachment and he was able to put a hand through the hole to unlatch the window. The window opened with only a minor sucking sound around the seal. He held his breath as he swung his legs through and eased down to the carpet. He left the rope hanging free and gently eased the window shut. The hotel suite was dark and still. He removed the gun from his hip and slipped silently into the bedroom where the senator would be sound asleep.