Jan Coffey Suspense Box Set: Three Complete Novel Box Set: Trust Me Once, Twice Burned, Fourth Victim

by Jan Coffey

  “I…I have to get my things out of your place.”

  “I’ll bring them over.”

  “I don’t think that’s such a good idea.” She balled up the tape and went inside.

  “Then you can come over and pick them up yourself.”

  “I…” She tried unsuccessfully to blot his image from her mind. “I don’t think that’s a good idea, either. How about if I send a cab over? If you wouldn’t mind sending them back—”

  “Forget it. I’ve decided to hold everything hostage.”

  She found herself smiling.

  “So when is the big day?” he asked.

  “I don’t know. Maybe tonight or tomorrow. They’re calling me about it. Which reminds me, I should get off the phone.”

  “I’ll let you go,” he said after a long pause. “I miss you.”

  Sarah heard him disconnect before she had a chance to answer. She walked to the terrace and looked out where she’d seen him standing, but all that remained were rocks and the rolling sea. She leaned against the door with the sea air around her, daring herself for a moment to dream.

  A moment was all she had until the ringing of the phone again reminded her of what lay ahead.

  ~~~~

  Agent Hinckey was sitting in the passenger seat of the Range Rover when Owen got back to his car.

  “Make yourself right at home,” Owen muttered under his breath as he got in. “No sense locking anything in this neighborhood.”

  “How about rolling down the windows? I’m cooking in here.”

  Owen shook his head, but turned the key and opened the windows. Fresh salt air immediately swept through the car.

  Hinckey loosened his tie. “How is she doing?”

  He ignored the question and instead let his temper show. “Your guys are not doing a damn bit of good sitting where they are. Anyone can stroll up the Cliff Walk and get inside her place without the slightest trouble.”

  “We offered to have someone inside with her, but she refused. Don’t worry, we’re watching the terrace door, too.” Hinckey waited until a trio of elderly birdwatchers hiked past the car. “We’re also having Rutherford watched. He even looks this way, and we pull her out.”

  Owen wished the words would ease his fears, but they didn’t.

  “The reason I’m here…” The agent waited until he had Owen’s attention. “After talking to Sarah and Judge Arnold, we’re still having a hard time tying up all the loose ends of this thing.”

  “You haven’t arrested the big guy yet. What do you expect?”

  “Somehow I doubt he’s going to be tremendously helpful in providing detail.” Hinckey shook his head. “And with the two hit men dead, we’ve been left with a lot more guesswork than I’m comfortable with.”

  He faced Owen, who settled back into his seat.

  “Sarah told us she took a certain letter by mistake from a safe-deposit box. Arnold tells us that he put that letter in there a long time ago to protect himself against Rutherford. Now, the judge was upset when he realized the envelope is gone, but he didn’t come right out and ask Sarah what she did with this envelope.’

  “Okay, now Rutherford knows the judge is holding something that incriminates him. But then Avery Van Horn dies, the safe-deposit boxes get shuffled, and Rutherford somehow learns that the evidence incriminating him in his wife’s murder is missing. That’s question number one, but let me push on.’

  “So Rutherford hires his own thugs to go and take care of the two people who had access to the safe-deposit boxes, and I’m guessing with specific instructions to bring back whatever it was that the judge was holding. Ed Brown, the bank officer, is almost killed and his place is ransacked. And this other woman, Tori Douglas, who is staying at Sarah’s, gets shot in the face. They check the condo, but find nothing.”

  Hinckey watched the cars on the road for a while.

  “Now this is where things really get shaky for me. Why the hell would those two killers take Sarah’s body to the judge’s boat and leave all that stuff for us to find? And what made these guys tap Hal Van Horn’s phone?”

  “Hal’s phone was tapped?”

  “Yes, it was. That’s how they could intercept her in Wickford on her way back from the airport. Now going back to Hal, why the hell did he lie to Archer about not checking his messages? We’ve talked to his secretary, and she thinks that he was checking his phone messages since Sarah’s alleged murder.”

  “Maybe he had something to worry about.”

  “Damn right, he did. We’ve traced a number of phone calls that he made to Frankie O’Neal in the month prior to his stabbing. One of them took place the night of Sarah’s arrival. Another one occurred moments before he went out to meet her on the night that he was stabbed.” The agent’s eyes were eagle sharp when they turned on Owen. “From pictures, Sarah has already identified Frankie as the man who made the other attempt on her life in the Van Horn mansion. So what the hell was the connection between Hal and Frankie and Rutherford? Where they all connected? Or were there two different parties closing in on her?”

  Hinckey stopped and waited.

  “I’m an actor.” Owen eyed the agent. “Do you want my professional opinion?”

  “No. I want to know what the hell Jake Gantley told you when you visited him at the ACI this past weekend.”

  “Work stuff.” Owen shook his head. “Sorry Hinckey. Can’t help you there.”

  “Don’t get cute with me, Dean. We know Jake and Frankie were somehow both in this. We know Jake was on a furlough the afternoon that Tori’s murder took place. We can tie him into it with our eyes closed.”

  “I’m sure you can. And that’s why you’re talking to the wrong guy. Jake is a deal maker. Why don’t you talk to him?”

  “You know, I can have you arrested for withholding evidence.”

  “It won’t wash. I’m a producer. I hold interviews with dozens of Jake Gantley types every year. They’re all essentially liars, but my interest is in finding material for my show. I don’t have the resources or the interest to separate the truth from the fiction in what these people tell me. And I’ve made it company policy not to run to you guys every time we hear a weird story.” He shrugged. “These people have plenty of time on their hands to think up some pretty wild stories. As far as I am concerned, they could all be feeding me piles of shit. So long as it doesn’t smell too bad, I’ll buy it.”

  At seeing the frustration on the other man’s face, Owen gentled his tone. “You guys have your methods. But I’ll give you a piece of advice regarding Gantley. He has an incredible ego. Treat him like he’s John Dillinger, and you’ll get your answers cheap.”

  Chapter 32

  On Wednesday morning, the sun was already hot when Sarah took a cab from her condo to the Bellevue Avenue mansion of Senator Rutherford. It was a short ride, but her mind was racing.

  She’d had a call from Judge Arnold on Tuesday night advising her of the time and place of the meeting. The two of them hadn’t said much on the phone. Despite their four years of working closely together, these past five days had created a chasm that she knew would never be bridged.

  Sarah still had the extra file that she’d taken out of Rosen’s briefcase in her possession. The contents of the file were a life story of Hal from his early years in high school and college up to the present. The file contained dozens of investigative reports, all done with a focus on Hal’s lifestyle, on his vices, and on his friends.

  And all of it had been conducted on behalf of the judge.

  Hal was far from being a saint, and Sarah had always known it. But these reports made him look far worse than she had ever imagined. Summaries of his gambling, drinking, drugs, and spending habits. Photocopies showing astronomical credit card debt. More graphic and much more damning were the photos of Hal’s sexual dalliances. There were at least a dozen pictures of him with various young women, sometimes with more than one, often in compromising positions, and sometimes in very public places. It was the pictur
e of a self-indulgent spendthrift, a confirmed hedonist. It was the picture of a life out of control. It was a depiction that Avery would have found appalling, to say the least.

  None of this was crushing for Sarah. From the beginning of her relationship with him, she’d known that Hal was very much a product of his wealthy upbringing. So there were no real surprises there. And interestingly enough, she realized that even after seeing all those photographs, she had not come close to feeling the way she had when she’d discovered that picture of Owen and Tori together.

  The dates on the reports went way back, but what had bothered Sarah the most was the fact that Avery had been copied on everything that was injurious to Hal’s image. One could easily argue that Judge Arnold had been making certain for a long time—from the time Hal was in prep school—that Avery should see her son as lacking the character and the responsibility needed to handle the demands of such a huge inheritance.

  The most recent letter in the file was the most incriminating of them all. In this, the investigator notified the judge that, as requested, a fresh set of the older prints had been mailed to Avery on a specified date. Sarah remembered the date; it was two months prior to Avery’s death—the very time when she’d insisted on changing her will yet again.

  Sarah couldn’t understand any of these people. She’d lost the respect she once held for Judge Arnold. She disliked Hal for giving in and becoming what his stepfather expected him to be. And she felt sorry for Avery, a woman who had allowed herself to be manipulated for all of her life.

  The cab came to a stop before the iron gate of the mansion, and Sarah paid the fare and got out. She was ready to go and get this thing done with. She was ready to get on with her life.

  As always, the grounds of the estate were meticulously groomed. The short walk up the drive gave Sarah a chance to clear her mind of everything but what she was here to do. After ringing the front entrance bell, she was surprised to see Edward North answer the door. She had met Rutherford’s young chief of staff a few times. Most recently, they’d exchanged a few friendly words at Avery’s funeral. But she hadn’t expected him to be letting her in.

  “Am I early?”

  “Not at all. Please come in.”

  Sarah followed the younger man through the large entry foyer and a maze of elegantly furnished rooms and hallways. Though she tried not to let her nerves get the better of her, there was clearly no one else around. How easy it would be for these people to get rid of her here on the spot. They arrived at a closed set of double doors.

  “Please make yourself comfortable in the library. The senator will be right down, and Judge Arnold called to say he is on his way.”

  Sarah went inside and the door closed behind her. Left alone, her immediate reaction was to look for some avenue of escape. Two large glass windows on either side of a pair of French doors looked out over an extensive terraced lawn. Small, formal gardens graced each level with flowers and greenery. Beyond the lawns, she could see the fence that separated the estate from the Cliff Walk. From there, it was a sheer drop to the sea.

  Though it was cool in the mansion, she was sweating. She unbuttoned the jacket of her white silk suit and, in an effort to calm her nerves, looked at the impressive collection of books covering the walls. The smell of freshly brewed coffee wafted from a hot plate stationed on a side table under one of the windows. A silver tray of pastries sat beside a number of delicate gold-rimmed cups.

  She studied the symmetrical arrangement of two leather chairs around a small leather sofa near the fireplace. Her attention was drawn to a large mahogany desk across the room.

  Reaching inside her shoulder bag, Sarah touched the single tape for assurance.

  She didn’t have to wait much longer. Voices could be heard coming down the hallway. A moment later, the door opened, and she gathered herself as Judge Arnold and Senator Rutherford entered the room together.

  “Sarah!” The senator’s greeting was welcoming, as if nothing at all was wrong in the world. The judge, on the other hand, only nodded vaguely in her direction before walking toward the coffee pot.

  “I was just asking the judge here about this mystery meeting you’ve requested for this morning.” He led her to a leather chair. “He tells me he doesn’t know anything about it, except that you had to talk to both of us at the same time and that it was quite urgent.”

  “It is,” she announced. “But I need both of you to be a part of this discussion, for there is no sense in belaboring the issue.”

  Her barb was directed at Judge Arnold, who continued to stand with his back to them.

  “Charles? Are you planning to join us?” Rutherford called to him.

  Scowling, the judge sat. Taking a deep breath, Sarah looked from one man to the other.

  “As you both know, I came across a certain document while I was transferring some of Avery’s belongings to a new safe-deposit box. Now, the action of taking possession of the document occurred by accident and with no malice intended. And as you also now know, I left for Ireland having no idea of the chaos that remained behind.”

  “Before you get too far into this,” Rutherford interrupted, “I don’t know what document you’re talking about. This is all very new to me.”

  “You can play dumb, if you want to, Senator, but it serves no purpose here.” She met him eye-to-eye. “You can hear my proposition regarding what I want in exchange for a certain incriminating letter and tape, or I can hand these pieces of evidence over to the police. I am certain they’ll be more than a little excited to learn what they contain.”

  “Well, your intention of blackmailing us is clear enough, Ms. Rand, but I don’t believe I am the originator of these documents.” He gentled his tone. “Certainly you don’t expect me to bargain for something, when I have no clue what it is. So if you would be kind enough to tell me what it is exactly that you have.”

  She nodded. “I have in my possession a letter written in Judge Arnold’s hand. In the text of this document, there are three references made. The first one pointed me to a dead-file location at our office’s storage facility, where I was able to retrieve a tape of a conversation made eighteen years ago. In this tape, you, Senator Rutherford, make a plea to your then-partner to come and help you…as you have just accidentally killed your wife in the hotel room you were staying at in Philadelphia. The second item in the letter is the location of where the judge indicates that the two of you buried your wife afterward. Strawberry Mansion Bridge. Do I need to continue?”

  “That’s all a lie.” Rutherford turned sharply to Arnold. “Julia ran away. There were witnesses who saw her leave the hotel and get into a cab.”

  “I did mention that there are three items listed on the letter, didn’t I?” Sarah interrupted. “The third note made by Judge Arnold is in reference to a junior attorney named Andrea Beck, a woman with similar coloring to your wife. Ms. Beck was, by the way, also attending that conference in Philadelphia that same weekend. As the judge indicates in the letter, Ms. Beck willingly put on your wife’s clothes, answered to your wife’s name, and essentially aided and abetted you in staging a scene where a number of hotel employees could testify later that your wife left the hotel the next morning under her own volition, without you.”

  Sarah could see the senator’s complexion begin to pale beneath his tan.

  “Unfortunately,” she continued, “Andrea Beck was killed during a burglary in her apartment three months after your wife’s disappearance.”

  Rutherford walked to his desk and took the seat there. His hands were steepled before him.

  “Go on.” he said quietly.

  Sarah tried to contain her own anxiety. “I spent the last few days making phone calls and reading some archived newspapers issues about Andrea Beck’s case…which, by the way, is still open. What I found most interesting was the similarity in the method in which we were both murdered.” She stared at Rutherford. “Shot in the face. Did you use the same people to do the job, Senator? Or is that simp
ly a mandatory requirement for an array of contracted hit men?”

  “Why did you have Andrea killed, Gordon?” The judge’s voice was a low, accusing growl. “She believed you when you said the whole thing was an accident. She wasn’t going to tell a soul about it.”

  “Shut up, Charles.” Rutherford snapped. He turned his glare on Sarah.

  “Nice try, Ms. Rand, but you don’t have a thing on me.” He stood up. “And it would have been wise, young lady, to check your facts before you dragged your little ass in here. Those storage files were burned to ashes this past weekend. There is no way you could get anything out of there.”

  She smiled. “You are quite wrong, Senator. Not about the fire Sunday, which I know you paid to have set. Fortunately, I took the tape on Thursday… the same day that one of your paid henchmen mistakenly stabbed Hal instead of me.”

  “I still say you are bluffing.” He pressed a button on his desk. “I had nothing to do with my wife’s disappearance.”

  Sarah reached for her briefcase and took out a tape, holding it in the palm of her hand so that both men could see it.

  “Then I guess you won’t be wanting this?”

  At that precise moment, a tap on the library door was followed by the entrance of Edward North. “Did you need something, Senator?”

  “Yes.” Sarah saw Rutherford open a drawer in his desk and pull out a pen and a pad of paper. “Come and sit here and take some notes. Miss Rand was just getting ready to explain to us the terms of her blackmail.”

  Startled, North nonetheless walked in and went to sit in the chair Rutherford vacated. The senator joined Arnold and Sarah. “May I examine this tape?”

  Her fingers closed around the tape. “Although this is a duplicate, I would prefer that you not listen to it. At least, not until we’ve discussed the terms of our deal.”