by H. P. Bayne
Dez noted the use of the word “us.” Whether simply a tactic on Paul’s part to elicit a confidence from his father or because Paul actually believed he’d be included in the fallout, Dez wasn’t sure. Truth was, Dez would fight hard to keep Paul from going down with the others, but he doubted it would get to that point.
Dunsmore’s head swivelled, gaze fixing first on Lachlan, then on Dez, before returning to his son. “Have you told these two men about—”
“I haven’t told them anything. They came to me with what they knew. Just as well for you they didn’t go directly to the police. They know everything, Dad. They know about the second son prophesy and all the horrible things done to prevent it. They know about your role in the Lockwood experiments. And they know what an evil son of a bitch Lowell Braddock is. What’s more, they know you’ve been covering for him, probably even using him to your benefit all these years. You’ve got a chance to make it right for yourself, but you need to act fast. Tonight. Now, in fact.”
“Why? What’s happened?”
“Amber Lisoway tried to kill Forbes Raynor.”
Dez watched the construction magnate’s face, studied it for a sign he knew, maybe was even involved in ordering the hit. What he saw was a brief flicker of shock followed by barely controlled rage. “The stupid girl. Why the hell would she do that?”
“If I was to guess, I’d say she was either directed by someone or she took it upon herself to try to elevate herself in the Circle,” Paul said. “The plan seemed to be to kill Forbes to prevent his further involvement in the investigation into Lowell’s wrongdoings. Forbes had been asking around about him recently. It’s likely Lowell got word. Everyone knows Lisoway works on the same unit as Forbes. Wouldn’t be a far stretch for Lowell or someone else to figure out how best to use her to stop him.”
“If you’re suggesting I had anything to do with ordering a hit on a policeman—”
“Did you?” Paul asked.
Dunsmore sat forward rapidly, a snake making a threatening jerk toward a perceived enemy. “No! I didn’t. How can you even suggest such a thing?”
“You’ve been involved in worse. You were on the council when Aiden Braddock’s death was ordered.”
Dunsmore exploded off the chair. “How dare you?”
Dez stood, too, facing the smaller man head on. “Sit down, Mr. Dunsmore.”
“Don’t you dare presume to order me about. Do you know who I am?”
Dez took a step closer, looming over Dunsmore. “Do you know who I am? Aiden was my brother. I know Lowell murdered him. We have proof, and he’ll go down for it. But I swear to God, Dunsmore, I will hunt down every other man or woman who allowed it or had a hand in it. What’s more, Lowell kidnapped my daughter a few hours ago.
“I’m giving you this one chance to fix things. You help me get her back and put Lowell in a prison cell, I might just give you a pass. But if anything happens to her, and you could have helped us and didn’t, you’d better hope to hell you never see my face again.”
Dunsmore’s attempt at a continued glare failed. He placed a hand on the back of the chair he’d just risen from, gripping it as if it was the only thing keeping him rooted to life and sanity.
His voice, when it came a moment later, was quiet, weak. “I didn’t have anything to do with Lowell’s activities.”
“You turned a blind eye, if nothing else,” Lachlan said. “That’s very much a criminal offence, and a serious one given the activities in question are a string of murders dating back almost twenty years. I’d say you should start talking. It will be good practice for what you’re going to tell police.”
Dunsmore’s eyes snapped onto Lachlan. “What makes you think I have any intention of speaking with police?”
“Oh, you will,” Lachlan said. “Because of Lisoway’s actions, the police have hauled in every police officer with ties to the Circle. They’re all being questioned. Your group’s secrets are about to be revealed, and the police have been informed you’re very highly placed within the organization. You’ve got a chance to do some damage control if you come forward of your own volition. Lowell is on their radar and will be solidly in their crosshairs before the end of the night. I have no doubt the two of you came up with some very clever means of hiding your financial support of each other over the years, but there’s always a paper trail.
“Only a matter of time before they find the proof needed to drag you down too. Your business will be gone, your money in the hands of lawyers and people filing lawsuits, and you’ll end up dying alone in a prison cell. It’s over, Ray. You made a deal with the devil and you both lost. Give us and the police the info we need to take Lowell down and help us find that little girl. It’s the only thing that will save you.”
Dunsmore stood still, stare trained solidly on Lachlan as if trying to work out what he’d said. His grip on the chair finally shifted, moving clumsily to the arm rest, which he used to help guide him into the seat. He collapsed rather than lowered himself down, hand now shaking.
It seemed a good time to start recording, and Dez dug the phone out of his pocket and hit the record button on his notes app.
“Just in case you try to avoid talking to the police,” Dez said when Dunsmore gave him a questioning look.
“Before I say anything, I want to know precisely what it is you think you have,” Dunsmore said.
Lachlan took up the call, happily going through all of the evidence they’d accrued against Lowell: evidence from Aiden’s autopsy photos, the discovery of Thackeray’s body with DNA results pending, recorded statements from Gerhardt and Montague, Lowell’s skill with a gun. Lachlan stretched the truth a little on the identity of the masked man in Lockwood, claiming Gerhardt had revealed the man to be Dunsmore. It was a bluff but it proved a good one when an admission from Dunsmore resulted.
“Lowell and Roman Gerhardt were involved in testing a drug that was supposed to benefit Roman’s patients with abilities like Harry Schuster. I invested money in it, thinking it would be of some benefit to people like Harry, and I went along several times to observe.”
“That’s bullshit, and you know it,” Dez said. “My brother was one of the test subjects. It wasn’t intended to help anyone. They were using patients, mind-raping them to learn things. They forced Sully to experience people’s murders, firsthand. He went through everything the victims did, as if it were happening to him. It almost destroyed him. And you knew that because you were there. He told me about you. You watched him suffering, and you did nothing! So why don’t you try again? Tell us what those experiments were really about.”
Dunsmore didn’t answer immediately. Dez had yet to sit down, and the older man had to crank his neck back in order to fix Dez in the heated stare he was mustering now. Dez guessed that look from this powerful and wealthy man had won many an argument over the years.
Not this time. Dez remained where he was, years of pain and loss keeping him rooted solidly in place, staring down on Dunsmore like he was a cockroach he was contemplating crushing beneath a boot. No doubt the president and CEO of Dunsmore Developments had never before backed down.
Today was to be a first.
He signalled the loss by breaking the stare-down first, dropping his gaze to the hands he’d clenched together in his lap. “Several members of the Circle had invested. Lowell came to us a number of years ago, looking for venture capital in the research and development of a drug he believed could, in time, greatly add to our wealth. He kept it to a small number of investors, wanting to keep it from becoming general knowledge. I became the chief investor, and Lowell kept me apprised of development. It was a powerful drug, one that couldn’t be used on regular people—nor was it intended as such. He had something else in mind.”
Dunsmore finally raised his head, meeting Dez’s eye. “Harry had been struggling, going downhill after Aiden’s death. He blamed himself for it, and I believe it drove him mad. He soon became a threat to the group, particularly to those who played a role in di
scussing how best to deal with the prophesy. Understand one thing: I played no role in ordering the boy’s death. My suggestion had been to keep an eye on him, to wait and see where it led. Others—Roman and Lowell in particular—wanted to move on it before the boy became a danger. As you mentioned a few minutes ago, Roman had attempted to kill his own son when he was a young child, believing he could more easily make it look like a natural death. He helped Lowell devise a plan for killing Aiden, one involving the river running behind your family’s house. Lowell was clearly pained by it, but when we learned of the drowning, we knew he’d followed through.
Dunsmore redirected his gaze to Lachlan. “Harry knew about it as only Harry could. He was haunted by it, began speaking of it when in one of his fits. Lowell took it upon himself to silence him, but in a way that ensured he’d remain alive and useful to the Circle. With Roman in charge at Lockwood, they could ensure Harry never again had the chance to speak out of turn or reveal anyone’s secrets, plus they had their first drug trial subject.”
Lachlan sat forward, leather chair protesting beneath him. “What was the purpose of the drug tests if not to help psychic patients?”
“In a word, blackmail. Psychics like Harry, they have ways of learning secrets, and there’s money in secrets. A lot of money, once you learn how to uncover hidden truths. Roman began trying to ferret out which of his patients were simply suffering from a classic mental illness and which were, in fact, in possession of a rare gift. He learned some could read minds, others could see the dead, some could foresee the future. The trick was to be able to point them toward particular targets and then learn what they’d seen while in the drugged state. It wasn’t a simple process, as you can imagine. Often, they’d be locked within their minds while on the drug. We’d have to wait until they returned before learning what they’d seen. And many times, they’d been so shell shocked afterward, trying to get a straight answer from them was like pulling teeth. But Roman was determined. He was still working on perfecting it while Lowell worked with dosages and formulas. Then Roman ended up injected with the stuff. I know it’s been said it was self-administered, but I’m not convinced. I think it was payback, likely someone who went through the experiments, maybe even a staff member he’d angered. Roman had plenty of enemies.”
Dez took a step forward, watched as Dunsmore sat up straight in his chair. “Why didn’t you put a stop to it when you saw what it was doing to people?”
“My intention was to draw out information on those who’d done evil things. Your brother, he was able to connect with people who’d been murdered. All we needed was for him to see the faces of the killers and to be able to identify those people for us. To pick them out of a lineup, so to speak. But he was rarely in a state afterward to be able to pass along useful information. Lowell said he was working on altering the formula in the hopes it would effectively allow people like Sullivan to see things but not feel them quite so heavily—rather like having a nightmare where you see something bad happen to someone else rather than to yourself. I don’t pretend to know what was involved in the research or development. I’m not scientifically minded. But Lowell was certain he could get there. Once he did, he said we could better target those people, the ones who’d harmed others, and draw out their secrets in a way we could use.”
“But not for justice,” Lachlan said. “You didn’t intend to turn them in. You wanted to extort money from them.”
“Money or a service, yes. I’ll admit it. But I’m not ashamed. What’s the difference if someone pays for their crime in a prison cell or by spending life under someone’s thumb? They’d suffer one way or another. The only thing that gives me pause is knowing the people Roman and Lowell used to achieve those ends weren’t willing participants. But they, too, in their own way were providing a service. Had we been able to glean more information from them, we could have solved murders and found missing people in cases that had long gone cold. Would that not have been a form of justice too? Would those psychics we used not have been helping their fellow man by using their gifts?”
“Sully always used his gift to do things like that—willingly,” Dez said. “You forced it on him. You made him go through things no human being should ever have to endure. Don’t make this out like you’re some fucking saint, like these psychics were sacrificing for the greater good. You weren’t doing this for justice. You were trying to line your own pockets.”
“Desmond,” Lachlan said, tone a quiet warning. Dez forced back everything else he wanted to say. Lachlan was right. They needed Dunsmore to go to the police. Convincing him of the severity of his crime wasn’t going to compel a confession from him when it came time to face the music in an interview room.
Dez took the hint and returned to his spot on the couch, closer to Dunsmore’s current position while maintaining a level where he could fire off heated looks like bullets.
Dunsmore met his eye. “I can appreciate why you’d be angry.”
“Good. So what are you going to do about it?”
“I don’t see I have much choice.” He turned next to Paul. “If I’m going to speak with police, you’re coming too.”
“Of course, I’m going,” Paul said. “That was my plan all along. I’m not doing this to corner you, Dad. I’m giving you a chance to do the right thing, to maybe come out of this with something left to your name. You might even get some public points out of this for coming forward and turning over evidence on people who would be otherwise untouchable.”
Dunsmore nodded, then returned his gaze to Dez. “I would help you find your daughter if I could, but I don’t know where he would have gone, if not to his estate.”
“He was there,” Dez said. “By the time we got there, he’d taken off.”
“Then, I’m sorry. I don’t know.”
“Is there another Circle member whose home they might have access to? Maybe somewhere out of town?”
“If he would have come to anyone within the Circle, it likely would have been me.”
“Maybe he still will,” Lachlan said. “If I can arrange it, will you agree to keep your phone with you and answer any calls that might come from Lowell? You didn’t do much to protect Aiden, but you can help Kayleigh.”
Dunsmore’s face took on a hard cast. “You can believe this or not, but what happened to Aiden Braddock never sat well with me. If there’s something I can do to prevent a similar tragedy, I will. Call your police contacts. I’ll speak with them.”
Dez pulled into the loading zone outside the front doors of police headquarters and pushed the stick into park.
“You’re not coming in?” Paul asked Dez from his spot in the backseat next to his father.
Dez ducked his head, leaning into Lachlan’s space to peer up at the building. Staff Sergeant Duncan McPhee was visible, waiting to greet Ray Dunsmore the moment he walked through the front door. Duncan had been planning on going to meet Sully at the Schusters, but the moment Lachlan had called with news of Dunsmore’s impending statement, Duncan had reassigned himself. This would be one of those rare occasions when the head of Major Crimes would take an interview himself.
Dez liked the idea. Duncan could be a stick in the mud, but he was as solid an investigator as they came. The only better interviewer Dez could imagine was sitting next to him right now.
“I need to go inside with them,” Lachlan told Dez. “I’ll have to get them filled in with full detail on what we’ve pulled together so far. That should buy at least a couple more hours for you to find Kayleigh. In the meantime, I’ll ensure someone notifies you if Lowell tries to get ahold of Ray for assistance.”
“Thanks, Lachlan.”
The Dunsmores climbed out, but Lachlan didn’t immediately move. He studied Dez, opened his mouth and took a breath as if to speak, then closed it again.
Dez read the man’s intended comment. “Don’t worry, boss. I’ll be careful.”
Lachlan offered him a smile, as real a one as he’d quite possibly ever worn. “I get why you’
re not coming in with us, but don’t take any risks, you hear me? Drive around and look, but if you see anything, wait until you can get someone there as backup—your brother at the very least.”
Dez smiled back but didn’t comment further as Lachlan climbed out. He didn’t want to answer directly, couldn’t bring himself to lie to a man he’d come to respect so highly.
Because Dez knew if he found Lowell, nothing in the world could compel him to wait. Not if wasting even one moment meant he lost the chance to save his little girl.
25
Sully sipped at the hot coffee Eva had bought him from a drive-thru.
He shivered, taking what warmth he could from the steaming liquid as Eva drove them along snow-covered streets toward the Schusters’ house.
The drive was silent, moods tanked and thoughts too dark to share. The night was wearing on, and so far, Kayleigh still seemed to be miles too far to locate.
Sully did his best to focus, to see past the dread that threatened whatever stability he had left inside him. He felt like he was on a tightrope, balancing precariously while, beneath him, Thadeus waited like a great, open-mouthed crocodile, eager to devour him. Sully had a plan, or as much of one as anyone had at the moment. If only he could communicate with Harry, they stood a chance at finding Kayleigh. Lowell had so far managed to stay a step ahead, but if Harry’s precognition allowed him to see twelve steps ahead, Sully could reach Lowell’s next destination before the man had even contemplated it.
Or so he hoped. Hope was just about all he had left.
The house was ahead now, coming into view through the blowing snow, which fell in large flakes—the kind that graced the covers of Christmas cards and climactic scenes in romance movies. Any other day, in any other situation, it would have been pretty.