When the elevator doors opened, I stared wildly into the darkness of the apartment.
“There you are. I was….” Greg’s voice went still. “Nicci, what the hell is going on?” He moved out in front of the elevator doors. “Why is Simon here?”
Greg was wearing a pale blue polo shirt and a pair of jeans. I was surprised to see a man who usually presented himself in such a formal manner dressed so casually. In that instant, the differences between Greg and Simon became glaringly obvious. Greg had learned to have a life beyond his work as a purveyor of secrets, whereas Simon had never been able to separate his life from his organization.
Simon lifted the gun out from behind the black purse on my shoulder and pointed it at Greg.
Greg’s black eyes widened with surprise as he took a step back. “What in the hell do you think you’re doing, La Roy? You know better than to pull some stunt like this on me. I have connections. I know the same people you know and they will be furious that you went—”
“Shut up, Gregory,” Simon snarled. “You stole all of those connections from me. All of those fancy friends you have were once my friends. Don’t think those nasty little rumors you have spread about me over the years have not gotten back to me. I know about all of the deceptions you have created in hopes of destroying me.”
Greg raised his eyes from the gun and stared at Simon. “I never had to tell lies about you,” Greg admitted with a slight grin. “Anyone who has ever worked with you, or for you, knows everything I said was the truth. You’ve got a lot of enemies Simon and not a single friend.”
“You would be nothing without me, boy,” Simon challenged. “When we met, you were selling yourself to wealthy housewives because your brother had cut you off from the family trust fund.” Simon nodded to me. “Our Gregory was working as a male prostitute when I first met him at a party. I took him away from all of that. I educated him. I taught him about wine, music, clothes, food, and art.”
Greg took an angry step toward Simon. “I’m the one who taught you about art, you pompous ass. You think you own everyone. You never owned me, Simon.”
“You betrayed me!” Simon shouted as he raised his gun to Greg. “I gave you everything and you went behind my back and started your own network of spies. You hurt my reputation and my bottom line, Gregory.”
Greg snickered. “What really bothers you Simon is that I became your equal. No, I became better than you, and you can’t stand to see anyone beat you at your own game.”
“You could have been so much more. You could have been my masterpiece, but instead you turned out to be my greatest disappointment, Gregory.” Simon aimed his gun at Greg and fired.
Greg was thrown back as the bullet tore through the center of his chest. He struggled for several seconds to keep his feet beneath him, but then he fell forward and his body hit the floor with a dull thud.
I made a move toward Greg, but Simon quickly lifted his cane, blocking my way. “Don’t even think about helping him. I know your training as a nurse may be hard to overcome at times like this, Nicci, but try.”
The elevator suddenly hummed to life behind us. Simon heard it too and turned back to the silver elevator doors. He glanced nervously around the room and spied Greg still lying on the floor. Greg Caston was barely breathing and a trickle of blood had started flowing from the corner of his mouth.
“Either our David has arrived, or that tree trunk of a security guard is coming up because he heard the gunshot.” Simon removed the gray jacket covering my bound wrists and tossed it to the floor. “Go and sit in the chair over there.” He waved the gun at a pair of soft leather chairs next to Greg’s motionless body. “Don’t give me a reason to shoot you, Nicci,” he angrily warned.
I slowly made my way across the living room toward the leather chairs. As I walked cautiously around Greg’s lifeless form, I noted the pale color of his skin and the glassy look in his eyes. I immediately knew Greg Caston did not have long to live. I ached to offer him some assistance. But as I glanced back at Simon, I could see the man’s dark eyes watching my every move. I took my seat and felt the heavy black purse fall away from my shoulder and onto the chair. I stared anxiously at the elevator doors directly ahead of me. I had never been one who had believed in prayer prior to that moment in my life. But I suddenly found myself silently praying to the forces above for a little divine intervention.
At that moment the elevator doors opened and David appeared before me.
He stepped from the elevator and looked frantically about the room. “Nicci?” he called out to me.
“What, no hello for me, my boy,” Simon declared as he walked up to David. “Goodness, Gerard really did beat the blazes out of you.” Simon inspected David’s bruised face. “No matter, when we get home I will make sure you get the best of care. Soon you will look like my old David again,” he assured him.
David spotted me in the apartment and I could see the relief wash over him. Then he saw Greg Caston lying on the floor next to me.
“What have you done, Simon?” David shouted.
Simon pointed his gun at David. “I have done what anyone does with a mosquito that tries to suck the blood out of you. I swatted it away,” he proudly proclaimed.
David motioned to me. “All right. I’m here now, Simon. Let Nicci Go.”
“Let her go?” Simon laughed. “Are you insane? Of course I am not going to let her go. I am going to keep her to make sure you never run away again.”
“I won’t run away,” David avowed. “If you let her go, I will go back to New York with you for good. But Nicci has to be set free. I won’t let you make slaves out of both of us, Simon.”
Simon shook his head while keeping the gun aimed at David. “Very noble, David, but I am afraid I cannot trust you. The girl will be my guest for as long as I deem it necessary. There is no compromise here. And I have already found the perfect substitute for her. She is ready and waiting in the trunk of my car.”
David stared into the little man’s face. “What are you talking about, Simon?”
“I have a replacement for Nicci. Just like I found a replacement for you after that idiot Fagles shot you. Once we have dumped the girl in my trunk into the Mississippi River, then all three of us can return to New York. One happy family.”
I felt my stomach rise up in my throat at the thought of what Simon proposed. My mind raced. There had to be something else we could do. There had to be some way we could stop him. And then I caught sight of Greg Caston’s body beside me. He had stopped breathing and his eyes had a dull, glazed over look. He was dead. He had become yet another victim of Simon’s obsessive jealousy. I raised my head from Greg’s corpse and looked up at David. I felt the tears of disappointment fill my eyes. I wanted our happy ending. We deserved our happy ending. A man like Simon La Roy could never be allowed to win.
David’s eyes found mine. “Nicci, do you trust me?”
I stared into David’s face and nodded my head. “I trust you, David,” I replied, fighting to hold back my tears.
“Well, congratulations, David,” Simon extolled. “You finally won the little vixen’s trust. A shame it’s too late to do either one of you any good.”
David smiled. “Is it?”
“Silly boy, she is just a phase. I didn’t create you to see you waste your life on some leggy girl,” Simon remarked. “Time to go, Nicci,” he called out to me.
Simon was pointing his revolver at me. I slowly rose from my chair while keeping my bound wrists in front of me.
Off to my side, the emergency exit door unexpectedly flew open.
“Nicci, get down!” David’s voice echoed throughout the penthouse.
Shots rang out around me. I reflexively sank to the floor and covered my head. I heard a stifled cry and careened my head around to see where the noise had come from. I saw Simon holding out the gun before him as he tried to return fire. What struck me at that moment was the look of pure horror on Simon’s face as the bullets ripped into his flesh. He
fell to his knees as he got off one shot from the .38 revolver in his hands. Then he pitched forward, slamming his face into the shiny hardwood floor.
I raised my head in the direction of the emergency exit door to see a blur of dark blue heading into the room. I watched as Dallas went over to Simon, kicked the gun away from his hand, and reached over to check his pulse.
A pair of long arms quickly wrapped around me.
“Are you all right?” David asked, breathing hard against my cheek.
I pulled back from his embrace. “I’m fine. Are you all right?” I eagerly examined his bruised face. When I looked down, I saw the Smith & Wesson compact pistol in his hands.
“You had a gun?”
David placed the pistol on the floor next to him. “Hidden behind me in the waistband of my pants.” He desperately began pulling at the rope around my wrists.
I spied a small splatter of blood on his white shirtsleeve. “Are you hurt?”
He untied the rope and then threw it to floor. “I’m fine, Nicci. It’s Simon’s blood, not mine.”
Cleveland came running through the emergency exit door with his gun at the ready.
“Shit!” Cleveland cursed. He immediately went across the room to Greg Caston’s body.
“Are you two all right?” Dallas called out, as he came over to us.
David nodded to Dallas. “We’re fine,” he informed him. David eyed Simon’s body on the floor beside us.
“He’s dead. I hit him three times before he went down,” Dallas reported.
“Who shot Mr. Caston?” Cleveland tersely probed from across the room.
“I watched as Simon killed him,” I answered.
“I knew there was somethin’ funny about that little guy,” Cleveland voiced. “You guys weren’t kiddin’ when you told me he was up to no good.”
I gazed up at Dallas. “Simon killed Jenny Ryan, too. Her body is in the trunk of an old blue Monte Carlo Simon parked downstairs. He was going to replace her for me and make everyone think I was dead.”
“The sick bastard,” Dallas whispered.
“Is there anyone else in the apartment?” Cleveland demanded.
“I don’t think so,” I told him.
“I’d better go and make a sweep upstairs just to make sure.” Cleveland headed for the stairs.
The tall security guard disappeared into the first bedroom on the second floor. I took a breath and started to feel the shakes settle over me.
“Nicci?” I heard my uncle’s voice from the emergency exit doorway.
“I’m fine, Uncle Lance,” I called out. I looked over at David, and whispered, “You brought him here?”
“He wouldn’t let us take his car without him.”
Uncle Lance kneeled down beside me and wrapped his arms around me. He kissed my forehead. “Jesus Christ, kid! When I heard the gunshots downstairs I thought I had lost you.” He nodded to Dallas. “Spy boy here made me wait at the bottom of the stairs until he gave me the all clear.”
Dallas lowered his eyes to him. “Which I never did Lance. So why are you up here?”
Uncle Lance frowned up at him. “Like after all that gunfire I was going to stay down in the lobby and twiddle my thumbs.”
Dallas scanned the room. “Looks like a hell of a mess. How are we going to explain this? And these,” he stated, holding up his Sig Sauer P226.
“I’ll tell the police what I saw,” David pronounced as he stood from the floor. “Simon had his gun aimed at her and threatened to kill both of us. You guys came in and stopped him. It was self-defense.” He reached over and pulled me up next to him.
“A witness statement from a guy who has been dead for three years?” Dallas eyed him skeptically. “I don’t know which is going to be harder to explain you or the gun I shot Simon with.” He tucked his gun in the front waistband of his jeans.
Uncle Lance nodded. “He’s right. We’re in post Katrina New Orleans, David. The police, as well as the justice system here, are about as skittish as a high-strung racehorse. They’re looking to prosecute anyone they can get their hands on.”
David’s eyes swerved from Uncle Lance to Dallas. “Then what do we do?”
Dallas pointed to David. “You need to disappear.”
“I’ve got somewhere I can go.” David put his arm around my waist. “I’ll take Nicci with me.”
“Good idea,” Dallas agreed. “Simon could have already made arrangements to have something happen to her. I’ll need to get to New York and make sure it’s safe for both of you.”
Uncle Lance sighed. “That settles it then. Nicci’s gonna have to disappear.”
The three men just stared at each other. I observed their unspoken communication with a sinking feeling of dread.
Dallas studied Simon’s body. “We have someone who can take her place.”
“Who?” Uncle Lance questioned.
“There’s a girl’s body downstairs in a blue Monte Carlo,” Dallas explained to Uncle Lance. “The girl looks a lot like Nicci.”
“She got any ID on her we can use?” Uncle Lance pressed.
I nodded to the chair where the black purse had fallen from my shoulder. “Her purse is over there. Her jacket is by the elevator doors. What are you going to do?”
Uncle Lance said nothing and went over to the brown leather chair. He began rummaging through Jenny Ryan’s oversized black purse.
David gently turned my face to him. “Nicci, to make sure you are safe, really safe, you need to disappear. You will have to take on a new identity. You will need to become Jenny Ryan.”
“What! I can’t disappear! I have a life and a new book coming out next month. I don’t want to be her! To act like her and…to talk like her. I can’t!”
David picked up his gun from the floor. “Nicci, you’re only taking her name. You don’t have to act like her. It will only be for a little while. Trust me.”
I gazed into his wonderful gray eyes. I saw the bruise under his right eye and took in the scar on the left side of his face. He had risked everything to be with me. How could I doubt him anymore?
Cleveland emerged from the second floor landing.
“I’ve checked the other rooms,” he announced, coming down the stairs. “So you guys got any ideas ‘bout what we gonna do?”
“We have some ideas,” Dallas said, nodding to the tall security guard. “Some of which you may not like.”
Cleveland holstered his gun. “I’m open to all suggestions. Considerin’ my employment just got terminated, I’ll listen to anythin’ you guys have to offer. As long as there’s somethin’ in it for me.”
“An ambitious man. I like that.” Dallas grinned. “Tell me, Cleveland, have you ever considered relocating to find new employment?”
Cleveland shrugged. “I ain’t got nothin’ keepin’ me in this town no more.”
“Ever thought about New York City? I’m suddenly in desperate need of a good security guard. Great benefits and a very lucrative moving bonus.”
Cleveland gave a big grin. “When do I start?”
“Five minutes ago,” Dallas answered. “We’re going to need some help sprucing up the place. Can you get me some garbage bags, bleach, and paper towels?”
Cleveland nodded.
“How long before anyone would come looking for Caston?” Dallas questioned.
“His executive assistant, Lauren, usually comes by after nine in the mornin’,” Cleveland replied.
“That gives us well into tomorrow before he’s discovered,” Dallas stated. He motioned to Cleveland. “When the police question you tell them that Ms. Beauvoir showed up here alone for her date with Mr. Caston and left a short time later. Nothing appeared out of the ordinary and you had no hint that anything was wrong after Ms. Beauvoir left. All right?”
“Sounds good to me,” Cleveland agreed. He went to the elevator and pressed the call button. “I’ll jus’ go and get everythin’ you asked for.” The elevator doors opened and Cleveland stepped inside.
After Cleveland had left, I turned to Dallas. “What about Simon?”
“I’ll take care of Simon. He needs to disappear, not die, just yet,” Dallas insisted. “It will give me time to get to New York and take over his organization. When the time is right, I’ll make sure his body is found where it won’t be connected to any of us.”
Uncle Lance returned to my side, carrying Jenny Ryan’s black purse in his hands. “She must have had a job at The Carol Robinson Art Gallery on Magazine Street. There are business cards in her purse. She also has some credit cards, a driver’s license with an address uptown, a cell phone, and some keys.” Uncle Lance held out the purse to me. “Take this. I’ll go back to Valie’s and get your purse and wallet. The police will find your ID on her body and assume she is you. Once Billy and I positively identify the body in the morgue as you, Nicci Beauvoir will be dead.” He nudged the purse toward me. “I’m sorry, kid, but it’s the only way.”
I shook my head, refusing the dead girl’s purse. “I can talk to the police. Tell them what I saw. We don’t have to do this.”
Uncle Lance placed the strap from Jenny Ryan’s black purse around my right shoulder. “You can’t say anything, Nicci. You would never be able to explain any of this.” He looked over at Dallas and frowned. “If the girl’s been dead for more than a few hours, we won’t be able to leave her body here. ME will notice the discrepancy. I know the ME, Dan Cantor, pretty well, and I can ask him to overlook a few things, but not that.”
“Perhaps murder suicide?” David suggested, securing his pistol into the waistband of his khaki pants.
“We’ll have to put her in the water. It will make the time of death difficult to pinpoint,” Dallas clarified.
“We can take her to an empty warehouse I know a few blocks from here and put her in the Mississippi River,” Uncle Lance chimed in. “The river is running high and fast with all the spring run-off from up north. It will take the police a while to find her body in those currents. That should give mother nature plenty of time to destroy any incriminating evidence.”
The Nicci Beauvoir Collection: The Complete Nicci Beauvoir Series Page 81