“Yes.”
“Director Wilberforce said that he will be here in about forty-five minutes. He’ll meet us at the Chamber offices.”
We all climbed into a car, Kieran and I taking seats in the back, and drove into the city. For some reason, the men in the front seat seemed to get more and more fidgety. When we reached our destination, the driver practically leaped out of the car, ripped open Kieran’s door, and pulled her out of the car. Holding her tightly, he pushed her toward the building’s door. Durant walked so close to me that he kept bumping into me.
The Chamber offices surprised me. I didn’t expect such a large building in a small city.
“Pretty impressive headquarters,” I said, staring up at six stories of glass and steel.
“It is because of our proximity to the Swiss border,” Durant said. He escorted us into the building and upstairs to a windowed room where they searched Kieran, rather too thoroughly, in my opinion. She didn’t seem to mind, though. I couldn’t hear them, but the expressions on their faces made it seem as though she was flirting with them.
“Is there a place anywhere close to get something to eat?” I asked.
“We have a cafeteria in the basement,” Durant said. “There’s a nice little bistro around the corner that is still open, and a pizza place across the street.”
I didn’t trust Kieran out of my sight. Durant gave me the number, and I ordered two pizzas. I noticed that both the younger investigator and Durant hung around the room where Kieran sat, watching her very closely and repeatedly going in to check on her.
The pizza was different than the pizza in North America, but it was good, and I was starving. When Wil walked in, there was only one slice left. He zeroed in on that slice and reached for it as he said, “Hi, Libby.”
I slapped his hand. “That’s my pizza.” I picked it up and took a bite.
“Well, excuse me,” he said, drawing back.
Pulling the second pizza from under my box, I handed it to him. He opened the box with a big smile.
“You do love me,” he said, leaning over and kissing me on the cheek. He took a slice out of his box and bit off a third of it. I watched him wolf down half of the pizza before he stopped to breathe.
“I take it that you haven’t been eating regularly,” I said.
“Or sleeping. Where is she?”
I motioned toward the room where Kieran waited. Wil looked over, regarded her for a minute, then picked up another slice of pizza.
“Tell me about this deal you offered her,” he said.
“I told her that if she helped us to take Reagan and O’Bannon and cleaned up all the forgeries, she could walk.” I smiled. “I also told her that I would hunt her down if any more forgeries showed up.”
Wil’s expression didn’t change as he listened, and when I finished speaking, he picked up another slice and took a bite. After the pizza was all gone, he said, “Complete cooperation, including testimony. She doesn’t walk until it’s all over.”
I nodded. “But you’ll exonerate her after that?”
“Yeah. We’ll wipe her slate.” He allowed himself a small smile. “The forgeries bother you more than the thefts, don’t they?”
“Yes. I’m not sure why, but the fake paintings make me feel kind of sick to my stomach. I don’t care who owns the originals, although I wish they were all where people could see them and enjoy their beauty. The fakes seem like a perversion somehow. They make me feel the same way as someone stealing food from children. It’s just wrong.” I shook my head. “That doesn’t make any sense, does it?”
“Miss Nelson, you never cease to surprise me. How about we go see what Miss Murphy has to tell us?”
Kieran appeared appropriately nervous when we entered the room and sat down across the table from her. She fidgeted and wrung her hands. Exactly the same behavior as she’d shown when Inspector Fenton and I interviewed her in Vancouver.
Wil laid out the deal as he and I had discussed, then started asking her questions about the Gallery and Boyle, and the relationship between Boyle and Reagan. I found myself distracted by her expressions and body language. Just as in Vancouver, something about her felt off.
And something was causing me a weird kind of discomfort. It wasn’t a sight, or a sound, or a scent, though when I glanced at Wil I saw his nostrils flaring. Then I noticed that his eyes were dilated, even though the light in the room was quite bright. My gaze fell to his lap, and I realized he was reacting to something very strongly. A flash of jealousy passed through my mind, which upset me even more.
I tried to isolate what was going on. The feeling I was experiencing was something I’d felt in the car with Kieran and Durant. It was similar to what I’d felt when Jon Cruikshank tried to scan me, but not exactly. Closer to what I had felt from a man named Gustav Alscher, a powerful projective empath who I once met in Chicago. He couldn’t control me, but Wil was susceptible.
I leaned forward. “Kieran, stop it!”
She turned a beatific smile in my direction and batted her eyes. Wil gave me a rather glazed look.
I was tired and not in the mood for games. Grabbing her hair, I smashed her face into the table.
“I said, stop. Now.”
The change in Wil’s demeanor was immediate. He jumped up, upsetting his chair. I saw the glazed look fade from his eyes, to be replaced by a puzzled frown. The bulge in his trousers remained.
“Out,” I said to him. When he simply stared at me, I pointed at the door. “Get out. Now.” I stood, grabbed his shirt, and hauled him toward the door. “Get out,” I repeated. “I’ll explain later.”
I closed the door behind him, then turned back to Kieran. She looked dazed. Her forehead was red, and blood poured from her nose. I stalked toward the table, and she shrunk down in her chair.
Leaning with both hands on the table, I said, “You keep playing games with me, and our deal is off. When I come back, you had better be prepared to explain what you just did. Understand me, Miss Mutant?”
When I joined Wil outside the room, I told him, “You need to assign only female guards for her. No interactions with men at all. If you want to interrogate her, you’ll do it from outside the room.”
“What’s going on, Libby?”
“I’m not sure, but I have my suspicions.” Pulling out my phone, I called Inspector Fenton.
“Hello?” Fenton said when he answered.
“Inspector, this is Elizabeth Nelson.”
“Do you know what time it is?”
“Not really. I’m in France, and I’m not even sure what time it is here. I need to ask you about the informants you uncovered. The Chamber employee, the employee at Feitler’s gallery, the one in your police force. Were any of them women?”
“No, all men.”
“And who recruited them? Who was paying them?”
“No one paid them, as far as we can tell,” Fenton said. “All three were involved with Kieran Murphy. She seems to have a talent for seducing men and getting them to do what she wants. So far, we have six men who have admitted to sexual relationships with her.”
“Thank you, Inspector. Sorry to disturb you.”
“Wait. Miss Nelson—” I hung up on him.
Wil stood watching me, rather impatiently.
“Set up the women guards for her and get a female doctor to see to her nose,” I said. “Then let’s go get a drink and we’ll talk.”
The bartender brought our drinks. I took a swallow of mine and leaned back in my seat, hoping my back and shoulders would relax.
“What’s going on, Libby?” Wil asked.
“Nothing I can prove, but I’ll bet my boobs that she’s a mutant.”
He didn’t say anything for a couple of minutes, just stared off into space. “Okay. Go on.”
“I spoke to Fenton. One of the reasons they think Kieran was at the heart of the art ring in Vancouver is that every time he turned around, he found her as the contact. She’s the one who subverted all the informant
s. Fenton said she was screwing all of them—Boyle she told me about, Reagan I heard her with, one of your people, a guy at Feitler’s Gallery, a cop—and Fenton said there were three more.”
It was Wil’s turn to take a large hit of his drink. “Very busy young lady. So, what does that have to do with her being a mutant?”
“There have always been reports of mutations that cause various hormonal imbalances,” I said. “Some of those have to do with pheromones. Sexual attractants. Genetic femme fatales, you know? When I first talked with Kieran in Vancouver, she implied that Boyle was a mutant who used pheromones to seduce women. She tried to convince me that it wasn’t her fault that she slept with him.”
I chuckled. “She was simply laughing at me by telling me about her own abilities. I also strongly suspect that she’s a projective empath, like Alscher, though not as strong.”
“So, maybe Fenton was right, and she is the kingpin.”
“That’s stretching things. Reagan is twice her age, he’s been a criminal his whole life, and he’s richer than God. She may have used him, but she just took advantage of the situation.”
Wil nodded. “Yeah. That makes more sense.”
“Do you think we can find a room and get some sleep?” I asked. “We can deal with Kieran tomorrow.”
“That, Miss Nelson, is the best idea I’ve heard in days.”
Investigator Myra Madani was tall for a woman, though still shorter than me. She was about forty-five years old, with dark hair and eyes, and built like a truck. Durant introduced her to Wil and me, and said she was an empath. He called her ‘a human lie detector.’
She and I met with Kieran the next morning. Kieran looked like crap, with a large bruise on her forehead, both eyes blackened, and her nose swollen and packed with gauze.
“Let’s start with your mutation,” I said. “Tell us about it.”
Her eyes darted back and forth between Myra and me. We stared back at her without expression and waited.
Finally, Kieran said, “I don’t entirely understand it. I’ve never told anyone about it, and no one has ever examined me. I just know that if I want to, I can have sex with any man I want, and they will do whatever I want them to.”
“Any man? Any time?” I said.
“Yes. Young, old, rich, poor. It doesn’t matter. I could walk out of here and screw Monsieur Durant in the middle of the lobby, and he wouldn’t hesitate. Consequences be damned.”
“And that’s how you controlled Langston Boyle? How you got him to steal for you?”
“Huh? Oh, no. Langston was doing that long before I showed up. Michael just used me to communicate with him. You do know that Michael knew Langston before Vancouver. Michael paid for Langston’s PhD.”
I glanced at Myra, who nodded and said, “She believes what she is telling us.”
“And how did you meet Michael Reagan?”
Kieran sighed. “I met Michael when I was an undergraduate. My parents didn’t have any money, so I worked as an escort to pay for university. He became my sugar daddy, and paid for my graduate degree.”
“When did you learn about your talents?” I asked out of curiosity.
“At puberty. Around fourteen. I couldn’t control it at first, and it scared the hell out of me.”
“When did you start painting for Reagan?”
“The copies? When he set me up in a condo with my own studio in Dublin. I think my style attracted him. He’s obsessed with the impressionists.” She shrugged one shoulder. “He used me, and I used him.”
“Why did you go to Vancouver? Was it because Reagan was living there?”
“Only partly. Michael introduced me to Langston in France. Michael already had the house on Vancouver Island, and he said he could help Langston get ahead at the museum. Langston wasn’t averse to dealing in the shadows. His tastes far exceeded his salary. Michael introduced him to Marian Clark, and Langston hired me. The money we were making was incredible, and Michael was building an amazing collection for free.”
“Was Langston sleeping with Marian?”
“Of course. Langston slept with everyone in a skirt. He slept with every woman on the Gallery’s board of directors.” Her lips quirked into a kind of a smile. “You didn’t believe me about Langston and pheromones, did you?”
I shook my head.
“I wasn’t lying about that,” Kieran said. “I think he and I had the same mutation. Or at least something similar. We drove each other crazy. We had to avoid each other as much as we could. Barbara Willis caught us in his office, and I was afraid she would kill me. She was particularly susceptible to him.” She stopped and seemed to study me. “And you weren’t susceptible at all. Or were you lying?”
“Nope, not lying. He was a handsome man, but not my cup of tea.”
Over the next four hours, Kieran outlined the entire conspiracy and all its players. I let myself fantasize a little. If we could corroborate some of what she told us, we could send half of Vancouver high society to the African salt mines. Of course, that would never happen, but we could use what she told us to coerce the rich into coughing up their stolen treasures.
Kieran verified that O’Bannon killed David Abramowitz and his granddaughter, giving us the day and time. Abramowitz had asked a few too many questions, and Kieran’s boyfriend at Feitler’s Gallery told her about the inquiries. She in turn told Reagan, who dispatched O’Bannon to find out why Abramowitz was curious. That led to the attempt on Danielle Kincaid.
“What about me?” I asked. “I’m sure Reagan wasn’t happy about an insurance investigator showing up.”
Kieran shook her head. “No, he wasn’t. But Boyle had a partner we didn’t know about, and O’Bannon got shot when he killed Boyle. He was in bad shape. Almost died, which I doubt anyone but Michael would have mourned.”
For the first time, I learned that I had shattered O’Bannon’s left shoulder, and put a bullet into his left lung. That corroborated what the innkeeper had told me. The fact that he still managed to reach his car and drive to a place Reagan’s men could pick him up said a hell of a lot about how tough he was. Then he survived me shooting him again. I wondered if I should buy some silver bullets.
As it turned out, the combination of the news about the Vancouver Art Gallery and the news that O’Bannon was alive and traveling to Reagan’s Castletown House was what spurred Kieran to run.
“With the scandal breaking, and the Chamber looking for me,” Kieran said, “I became a liability. I didn’t have to worry about Michael or any of his men killing me, but O’Bannon is immune. When I heard that he was coming to Celbridge, I assumed Michael called him to take care of me.”
“Immune to your charms? Your pheromones?” I asked.
“Yes. O’Bannon is strange. He’s some kind of mutant, and I never got a rise out of him. He goes for either a certain type of woman, or pre-pubescent boys.” An expression of disgust crossed her face and she shuddered. “I don’t know what happens to his lovers, but Michael said something once. He said that Gavin isn’t ever in a hurry. I don’t know what all that applies to, and I sure as hell didn’t ask. I just know that his women are there for a while, then they disappear, and no one ever sees them again.”
“O’Bannon and Reagan have worked together a long time?”
“They’ve known each other a long time. Someone told me that they were kids together, but Michael is twenty years older than Gavin.”
When we finished, I said, “You’ll be coming back to Ireland with us.” Kieran nodded. “Wil said that you’ll be kept until we manage to bring Reagan and O’Bannon down.”
“Good luck keeping Gavin in a cage,” Kieran said. “You need to stake him in the heart and cut off his head.”
I didn’t say anything, but that made more sense than anything else she’d told us.
Chapter 24
The Chamber jet dropped out of the clouds over the Irish Sea, and we could see the coast of Ireland ahead of us. The battering the plane had taken while descending thr
ough the clouds intensified, and I silently cursed Wil for talking me into flying.
I had to admit that the private airplane was comfortable. Sitting in overstuffed chairs situated around coffee tables with a side table next to each chair was a lot better than being crammed into a tiny seat with no legroom and fighting for elbow space with the person next to you.
And it was fast. We covered the distance from Eastern France to Dublin in a fraction of the time trains and ferries would have taken. But trading speed for the prospect of an imminent death wasn’t looking like a good bargain. The winds bounced the plane around like a madman’s idea for a carnival ride.
“Are you okay?” Wil asked. He should have suspected I wasn’t—by the white-knuckles of my left hand holding the armrest, or by the fact I was crushing his hand with my right.
“You’ll pay for this,” I said between clenched teeth.
“We’ll be down in a few minutes,” he said.
“That’s what I’m afraid of. They say most passengers survive until the plane hits the ground.”
A glance out the window showed a fishing trawler below fighting its way toward the shore through whitecaps taller than the ship. We had hit the storm just after passing over one of humanity’s greatest monuments to stupidity. Much of Paris was still intact outside of the areas where the bombs had exploded. The jihadis had set off a dozen incredibly dirty bombs, and the radiation levels were so high that scientists declared a fifty-mile exclusion zone around the city. The Mona Lisa still sat in the Louvre, but it was suicide to visit the museum.
The storm itself was the remnant of a hurricane that had ravished the east coast of North America. It hit the west coast of Ireland with one hundred twenty-five miles per hour winds and buckets of rain, but the pilot assured us that the flooding in Dublin didn’t extend to the airport.
I think the Irish pilot’s definition of flooding was different from mine. The plane splashed down and sent a huge wave of water flying up past the windows as we taxied into the hangar.
“Home sweet home,” I said to Kieran as the plane came to a stop.
Chameleon's Death Dance Page 17