“It was supposed to look like an accident, and it was time-sensitive,” Dax said. “There were many better ways to do that than what he chose. He brought a brawler’s touch to a finesse job.”
“Just go find that fucking phone, and maybe I’ll have more patience for your input in the future,” Gerry said, frustration getting the better of him now, partly because the kid wasn’t wrong and partly because he didn’t understand one crucial element of the deal—Gerry had spared Dax’s life. The German had been very clear that anyone involved with hitting Oltamu needed to be expendable. Carlos, already a risk to Gerry on other matters, had thus been ideal for the job. But Dax could’ve gone too. Should have, in fact, by the terms of the deal.
But he was too promising.
If I can own one of them, Gerry thought, visions of the Blackwell brothers coming back to him, it will be worth it. If he grows into one of their kind, and he is all mine, loyal to the throne and not just the checkbook, then he will certainly be worth the trouble.
The kid stood without being told they were done. For a moment, Gerry thought about ordering him to sit his ass back down, but what was the point?
“Go on,” he said, and he waved at the door. “Get me the phone. It’s an iPhone, but it has no signal. That’s all I know. If the phone puts out a signal, it’s the wrong one.”
Dax Blackwell didn’t move right away. Instead, he stood there looking at Gerry, and then he said, “The phone is one problem Carlos left behind. There might be another. Do you have an opinion on that yet?”
He meant the girl, of course.
“She’s as good as gone, is my understanding.”
“That’s enough?”
“She’s brain-dead. And even if she wakes up, what’s she gonna say?”
“You don’t know,” Dax said. “That would be precisely my concern.”
Gerry flushed and swung his feet down.
“I understand my fucking liabilities, son. I don’t need your assistance with the big picture. I need you to bring me the phone. Now get out of here and do it.”
He didn’t like the way the kid studied him and then nodded and turned away as if he’d seen something in Gerry’s anger that interested him.
No, it was more than interest, Gerry thought as he stared at the closed door, Dax Blackwell’s footsteps reverberating across the tiled floor on the other side. That expression hadn’t been one of intrigue or curiosity but something deeper, something darker.
Like whatever he’d seen in his boss had made him hungry.
“He’s just a kid,” Gerry said aloud. The words echoed in the empty room, and when they bounced back at him, they weren’t reassuring. He sounded nervous, sitting in his own office and talking about his own employee. What in the hell was that about?
About the kid’s old man and his uncle, of course. Jack and Patrick were long gone, yes, but they cast long shadows too, a pair of dark smiling ghosts.
The best hitters you ever saw. So trust the kid, Gerry thought. At least a little longer. He was a beta-Blackwell. But if he bloomed? Well, then.
Wouldn’t that be something.
15
Dax had spent an hour the previous night listening to the idle chatter in Tara Beckley’s hospital room, enough time to confirm both that they’d kept his flowers and that she remained mute, but each day had the potential for new blessings, as the Team Tara Facebook page reminded him that morning, and so he checked back in after leaving Gerry Connors’s office.
The recorder he’d placed in the flower vase was of excellent microphone quality but he was disappointed with its computer interface and mobile options. He had to use the web browser to log in, and then he had to sort through multiple files that captured dialogue exchanges of longer than two minutes. He wished he’d used a better system, but Tara Beckley was only of value-added potential for Dax; she wasn’t a threat. With threats, you spared no expense. The microphones he had planted in Gerry’s office, for example, were cutting-edge, and he’d paid accordingly.
He sat in his car and updated himself on A Day in the Semi-Life of Tara Beckley. He listened to her mother talk endlessly and aimlessly, scrolled past that, found the same with the sister, and then some nurses chattering, and then…
What was this?
“Abby’s an investigator. She tells me she’s working on your behalf.”
That was the sister talking. The investigator, when she spoke, sounded nervous. Well, no surprise there—Tara’s empty-eyed stare and those tubes could be unsettling to some. Dax doubted many people had given her the kind of deep eye contact that he’d offered.
The investigator blathered on awkwardly, not saying much of interest, but then the sister said something that made Dax sit up straight.
“Nobody talked about her phone until your boss called.”
Her phone? Well, now. The investigator might be more interesting than Dax had thought.
He listened through more chatter, the investigator agreeing that Carlos Ramirez was at fault—apparently she didn’t yet know that Carlos was also in the morgue—and then carrying on about how she didn’t like Carlos’s story. Dax had to give her some credit for this because she seemed to understand the physics of it all in a way the police hadn’t, and thus she got what a colossal disaster Carlos Ramirez had been. Time-sensitive, make-it-an-undeniable-accident instructions be damned; Carlos had picked an awfully dumb way to go about the hit. Perhaps he hadn’t cared because he knew he’d be out of the country by the time anyone showed real interest. That was fine, but the mess he’d made of things reflected poorly not only on Carlos but on Gerry Connors. And since Dax worked with Gerry, there was the risk of contamination. The Blackwell brand could be damaged before he’d had a chance to re-introduce it if Gerry stumbled. You had to be careful who you worked for in this business. Independent contractors are not immune to the perils of poor management, his father had told him often.
For a hick insurance investigator, Abby was surprisingly astute. She was also scared, it seemed, which was interesting. Information and fear didn’t go together in Dax’s mind—knowledge was power, the cliché promised, and so far in his young life, he’d found that to be true. Then why was this woman so nervous?
Probably it was Tara’s dead-eyed stare. Abby the investigator kept pushing, though, almost grudgingly, as if she couldn’t help herself.
“And one of these,” Abby said, and there was a rustling sound, “belongs to him. Unless the salvage guy kept it or sold it already. Neither would surprise me.”
“I’ve wondered about her phone,” Shannon said.
Dax Blackwell rewound and replayed that portion.
16
Another advantage of the train—beyond the fact that it didn’t make her heart thunder or her vision blur white in the corners—was that Abby could work while she traveled.
She typed up the details of the visit with Shannon Beckley (and Tara Beckley, though that felt more like a visitation, a respectful glance into the casket) on her laptop while the Downeaster rattled back north. Or, as befitted its name, back down east, a term that referred to prevailing summer winds along Maine’s coast. In most places in America, down meant “south,” but in southern Maine, down took you north.
The visit had been as pointless as Abby had promised Hank it would be—nothing that she couldn’t have accomplished with a phone call. And yet she found herself more invested in the work because she’d made that pass by the casket, glanced down at the beyond-reach Tara Beckley in her comatose state.
Those eyes. Her eyes looked so damn alert…
But Abby knew they weren’t. She’d been through that cruel illusion before.
Luke was famous for his face, but the audience didn’t understand that his eyes were what made his face work. They were so alive, penetrating and laughing and alive. There was a reason he’d moved so quickly from sending in his head shots to getting auditions to being offered lead roles in blockbuster action films, and, yes, some of it was talent, and, yes, some of it
was his physical beauty, but Abby knew the secret was his eyes.
When they made love, he kept his eyes closed. When they made love, she wanted to see him. Finally, one night, when he was on top of her and inside of her but somehow still absent, she’d put her hands in his hair and tugged his head back and said, “Look at me.”
He’d opened his eyes then, and even in the darkness she’d felt that strange, powerful energy, the unique sense of life that came from within his gaze. They’d finished together, face-to-face, clenching and shuddering and gasping but never breaking eye contact, the best sex of her life by far.
“I like to see you,” she’d whispered, and she bit his shoulder gently.
He’d laughed, the sound soft and low in the room, and said, “I’ll remember that.”
And he had. He always had.
That made those moments in the hospital even crueler.
Her phone rang, pulling her thoughts away from Luke. It was Hank, calling from the office. Abby answered just as a couple seated beside her burst into laughter.
“Where are you?” Hank asked.
“Headed back.”
“Who’s in the car with you?”
“Nobody.” She grimaced and tried to shield the phone from the sound of the voices.
“Then who am I listening to in the background?”
“I’m on the train,” Abby admitted.
“The train? Why in the hell would you take the train to Boston?”
“It gives me time to work.”
“You turn a six-hour day into ten or twelve hours so you can buy time to work? I know you’re a product of Biddeford public schools, Abby, but that is really bad math.”
Hank had gone to Thornton Academy in Saco, which was a public school for some local residents but an in-demand private boarding school for the rest of the world, and he liked to wear it as a badge of honor. He rarely mentioned that he’d dropped out of community college shortly after his stint at Thornton.
“Funny,” Abby said. “But I’ve got the report caught up, and I dealt with the sister and saw Tara, so I checked all the boxes you needed.”
“Great. But you’ve got a big one unchecked that is going to stay that way—Carlos Ramirez isn’t talking to you.”
“Finally got smart enough to hide behind a lawyer?”
“Nope. He’s dead.”
“What?”
“Yup. Bullet to the brain.”
“Suicide,” Abby said, less a question than a statement, because it seemed to make so much sad sense—Ramirez knew he was looking at prison time, and he hadn’t been able to bear that prospect.
“Nope. Caught two shots down in Brighton in the passenger seat of a stolen car. I just heard the news. Guess they found him yesterday, last night, something. But he was murdered, so whatever trouble we thought he had over that accident might have been only the surface. I wonder if they checked that van for drugs. Just because his blood was clean doesn’t mean he was, know what I’m saying?”
The train clattered and swayed as Abby held the phone to her ear without speaking.
“Crazy shit, right?” Hank prompted.
“Yeah. Crazy.” Abby wasn’t sure why the news bothered her so much, why she couldn’t view it with the detachment that Hank did.
“Whatever closure Oltamu’s family might’ve felt from watching that guy go to jail is gone now, and that’s a problem,” Hank said. “Maybe they look elsewhere for it and sue the school. Meanwhile, my trusty investigator is worried that Ramirez didn’t get his facts straight when he talked to the police, which will not make the liability folks happy. Can you get yourself in line with his statement?”
“No.”
“Excuse me?” Hank sounded stunned.
“I think he lied.”
“He took the blame! Why in the hell would he lie to take the blame?”
“I have no idea, Hank, but I’m sure that he didn’t tell the truth. I don’t care if it was because he lied or because he was confused, but he did not tell the truth. That isn’t good news for your client either way.”
“No, it sure isn’t.” Hank groaned. “Are you positive his version doesn’t hold together?”
“Yes. And somebody is going to notice eventually, so we’d better warn people before that happens.”
“Shit. You’re ruining this, Abby. It was so damn simple! Wreck, fatality, confession, and then the guilty dude’s dead! That’s as clean as they come.”
That’s why this news bothers me, Abby realized as the couple next to her laughed loudly in her ear again. Ramirez being killed makes it even cleaner.
“Let’s talk it over when I get back,” she said. “Something’s wrong here.”
“You sure know how to spoil a good thing.”
“Come on, Hank, you’re an investigator! Where’s your detective’s gusto?”
“Gimme a break. I hold that friggin’ PI license only as a necessary credential to support my career as a bullshitter.”
“But this could be a break in the case. That should make your day.”
“I’ve never desired to break open any case that wasn’t filled with beers.”
“Maybe you’ll be able to do both for a change.”
“Wouldn’t that be something,” Hank said dismally.
“Chin up,” Abby said. “You might be a hero when this is all done. Get the key to the city or something.”
“I got plenty of bowling trophies, thanks. Come by the office and we’ll talk, all right?”
“It’ll be late by the time I’m in.”
“Because you took the friggin’ train. Meanwhile the Hellcat’s sitting out back.”
Abby didn’t respond, and Hank sighed and said, “We’ll catch up in the morning, then. And I’ll start looking for a new employee. ‘Wanted: slow learner with lack of ambition.’”
When they ended the call, Abby didn’t put her phone away. She sat there for a while as the couple beside her laughed again, that wonderful oblivious-to-everything-else laughter that came when you were so locked in with another person that the rest of the world was only peripheral. She wanted to glance at them but didn’t want them to catch her staring, didn’t want to intrude on that moment. Good for them if they had that connection. Hopefully they could keep it.
She found Shannon Beckley’s number and called.
“This is Abby Kaplan. I’m the one who—”
“I know who you are; I saw you less than two hours ago. What do you need?”
“Have you heard about Carlos Ramirez?”
“Heard what about Ramirez?”
“That he’s dead. He was murdered.”
Abby didn’t think it was easy to knock Shannon Beckley off her stride, but this seemed to do it. Abby heard her take a sharp breath before she said, “You’re serious.”
“Yes. Shot to death in a stolen car. I wanted to let you know.”
“Why?” Shannon asked, and it was a damn fine question. Abby hadn’t put the answer into words yet, not even in her own mind, but now she had to.
“Whatever Tara saw might be important,” she said.
“Dangerous for her,” Shannon answered. “That’s what you mean.”
“I don’t know. But I won’t rule it out. Listen, I’m not trying to scare you; you’ve got enough to be scared of right now. But Ramirez lied to the police. I’m sure of it. And now he’s been murdered.”
“It was just a car wreck,” Shannon said, but she wasn’t arguing. She said it in the way you did when you wanted to make something big small again.
“Maybe.”
There was a moment of silence, and then Shannon Beckley said, “What are you thinking?”
“Nothing. I just wanted to let you know that this had—”
“Bullshit. You’re looking at it differently than everyone else. You didn’t believe him, and now that he’s dead, you think that means something. So let me ask again, please—what are you thinking?”
Her tone was no longer combative or even commanding. It was
lonely.
“When she comes out of it,” Abby said, “be careful about the people who are around when she’s asked about the accident. Be careful who asks her about it.”
“When she comes out of it,” Shannon said softly. “I like your confidence.”
“She’s in there,” Abby said. “I’m almost positive.”
“Yeah? The doctors aren’t. So how do you know?”
“Because I’ve seen someone who wasn’t. There’s a difference.”
I’m almost positive, she repeated to herself. But of course she wasn’t. Not now when she said Tara was still in there and not back when she’d said Luke no longer was.
17
It wasn’t yet five o’clock, but Savage Sam Jones figured you didn’t always need to go by the book, certainly not at his age, and so he opened a PBR well before he locked the gates at the salvage yard. It was a quarter past four and he was hungry as well as thirsty and he wanted a slice or two of pizza from the corner store, but right now it would be the old, dried-out shit left over from lunch. For the good pizza, he’d have to wait until five.
Might as well wait there as here, he thought.
He’d closed the door to his office and turned to lock it, and he was standing with his keys in one hand and a beer in the other when he heard the car pull in.
Son of a bitch. There was business after all.
He left the keys in the door, set the beer down on the step, and walked toward the gate as a young guy stepped out of a Jeep and gazed at the place. That wasn’t uncommon; teenagers were always coming around. They were young enough to still have an interest in working on their own cars, and they didn’t have the money for new parts.
“Come on in, but don’t forget it’s gettin’ on toward closing time,” Sam hollered.
“It’s not even four thirty.” The kid said this in an amused voice, not confrontational, but still, it riled Sam. Who gave a damn what a kid thought closing time should be?
“Like I said,” Sam told him drily as he picked up the PBR can. The kid watched him and then smiled, like he’d just learned something that pleased him.
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