[Elizabeth McClaine 03.0] A Stolen Woman

by Catherine Lea

  That dashing smile flashed again.

  “Well, of course I know of Sunny Springs. As I imagine you’re fully aware, I have many investments in that, and a number of other such establishments.”

  “Then you may know of the young woman Elaine was searching for—the nurse aid—brunette, green eyes. Very beautiful. She was going by the name Wendy O’Dell.”

  A bemused expression accompanied by the shake of his head. “I’m sorry, Mrs. McClaine, but I know of no such person.”

  “Then I’d be grateful if you asked someone here. Perhaps Elaine came and no one told you.”

  From the look on his face, Westrum obviously wasn’t used to being challenged.

  Reaching for the phone on the table next to him, he said, “If you would care to wait just one moment.”

  After a few sharp words in what Elizabeth assumed might be Albanian, he hung up. Almost at once, a knock came at the door and a heavy-set man in a suit and tie entered the room.

  Westrum turned to him. “Can you tell me if a young woman arrived here?”

  Without even acknowledging Elizabeth’s presence, he said, “No.”

  “Thank you. You may go.”

  The man left, quietly backing out of the room and pulling the door closed with him.

  “Then what about the young woman she was searching for—the one who worked for your establishment, Sunny Springs? Wendy O’Dell?”

  “Wendy…? I don’t believe I know of such a woman.”

  “I believe she was working at Sunny Springs, the facility for the disabled in Cleveland.”

  He searched the room, incredulous. “But why would she come here?”

  “I don’t believe she came of her own accord. She was taken. And coincidentally, the man who picked her up answered to your description. Down to the ring on your finger.”

  Again, he opened his hands, his expression now a picture of bemused innocence. “Then I can only assume that somewhere in Cleveland I have a doppelganger—that is the expression, I believe? Because my employees here will tell you that the only time I left Boston was to attend your party. And I returned immediately after.”

  “And you’re quite sure you didn’t pay a visit to Sunny Springs on the day of your arrival? Perhaps it slipped your memory. Because my contact tells me that Mrs. Stanford, the admissions manager, pointed you in her direction.”

  “Perhaps if you ask this Mrs. Stanford exactly what time this person was there, I would be more than happy to provide proof of my whereabouts at the time.”

  I’ll bet you could, thought Elizabeth.

  Tiring of these games, she said, “I’d be happy to ask Mrs. Stanford, but unfortunately, someone murdered her.”

  This time a look of mock surprise. The widespread hands again. Fake innocence radiating from every pore. “I’m so sorry to hear that. But I’m afraid I knew nothing about Mrs. Stanford’s unfortunate demise. And I know nothing about this girl. I’m sorry, Mrs. McClaine, but it would appear you made this journey for nothing.”

  “Then perhaps, before I go, you wouldn’t mind telling me who invited you to my party.”

  Westrum didn’t even blink. But in the matter of a heartbeat, his charming, amiable façade chilled into something else. In that split second, he morphed into the real Gate Westrum: the cold, calculating snake hidden beneath the layers of money and charm.

  “That would be a business associate, whose name I’d rather not mention, Mrs. McClaine. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have urgent business to attend to.” He got to his feet, indicating their meeting was at an end.

  Elizabeth also got to her feet. If Gate Westrum thought he could outdo her, he had seriously underestimated her determination.

  Because on the ride to this den of corruption and filth, she’d discovered she had one more arrow in her quiver.

  And now she meant to use it.

  CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

  DAY THREE—6:23 PM—ELIZABETH

  “Guess who I just met?” Elizabeth told Penny on the phone, then glanced up to see if the cab driver had heard.

  At their last stop, she’d asked him to drive around the block a few times until she came out. It was just as she’d just exited the front door that he’d driven by, so she’d flagged him down. Now she was in the back seat, on her way to the next destination. Suddenly aware that he could hear every word, she lowered her voice to a whisper. “Our undead guest, Gate Westrum.”

  “So, he is alive and well.”

  “Very much so.”

  “Then how can the cops not know that?” Penny asked, incredulous. “How can Jennifer Reels have not figured that out? And how can the guy be happily tripping all over the country and no one knows? It just doesn’t make sense.”

  “Preaching to the choir here.”

  “And how come if our airport security is so great, with all their fingerprinting and iris scans at every international airport, why haven’t they picked him up when he came in?”

  “Exactly the same thing occurred to me. Then again, maybe they have. Let’s face it, it’s probably not the Cleveland cops or the Boston police who are watching him. It’ll be the FBI.”

  “Or the CIA,” Penny said solemnly.

  “Could be.”

  “They could be waiting for bigger fish. You could be walking straight into Organized Crime Central. You could wind up arrested as one of their cohorts. Or worse. You could wind up one of their victims. Stay right out of there, Elizabeth. Believe me, if these people are half as bad as Delaney said, you need to keep right away.”

  “Believe me, I don’t intend to get involved. And I don’t intend to wind up dead.”

  “So, where are you now?”

  Elizabeth turned to the window where the passing streets of beautiful Victorian homes had turned to cityscape: tall buildings and traffic lights, neon flashing over street-level stores and restaurants.

  “The cab driver knows of two other places where Laney could have gone. I’m following up on an old hotel that’s owned by the same syndicate. He says it’s a known brothel with an illegal high-roller casino in back.”

  Penny sounded like a horrified mother. “So, what did we just talk about? You said you’re not getting involved.”

  “I’m not getting involved.”

  “And how are you planning on getting in there? Wearing a halter top, a pair of Daisy Dukes, and six-inch heels?”

  “Not a plan. The heels would kill me,” Elizabeth replied. “Don’t worry, I’ll think of something.”

  Penny’s voice rose even higher in shock. “And once you’re in, how do you plan to get out? Elizabeth, these are known criminals and you’re walking right into their domain. Turn around, right now. Go somewhere safe. Then call the cops. Tell them there are two missing women and you believe they’re in one of these places.” The line went silent. “Are you listening to me?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “Then just do as I say. Turn around and leave. Right now.”

  The cab slowed and pulled into a parking slot. The driver turned to speak over this shoulder. “We’re here. The North City Club.”

  Elizabeth ducked to view the building in its entirety. Twenty-odd stories. Gray concrete construction. “Listen, I’m here now. It would be stupid to turn around at this point.”

  “Seriously, Elizabeth. There is no sane reason you should go into that place.”

  “All I plan to do is ask if they’ve seen Laney. I promise I won’t do anything more than that. If I get the feeling she’s here, I’ll consider my next move. If they say they’ve seen her, I’ll leave.”

  “Either way, call me before you do anything else, okay? Don’t go anywhere or do anything without consulting me first.”

  Elizabeth smiled. “Yes, boss. Give me fifteen minutes.” She hung up.

  Across the street through floor-to-ceiling glass doors she could just make out a dimly lit reception area. Faded gold lettering over the doorway announced the building as The North City Hotel.

  Elizabeth peere
d back and forth down the narrow street. Cars were parked on either side. Nowhere were there available slots. “Drive around the block until I come out,” she said to the driver. “I won’t be long.”

  ***

  The Associate

  What the hell did Westrum think he was doing?

  After Elizabeth left, he’d remained sitting outside the Hyde Park address waiting for Westrum to head back to the North City. That was the only way this plan was going to work. So, he’d called him.

  “Where are you now?” he’d demanded. “Do you still have Elaine Donohue in the Studio like I asked?”

  Westrum had hesitated before replying. Not because he didn’t know. A clear warning lay in the silence. You’re on thin ice, it said.

  He didn’t care. All he needed to do was ensure the murdering bastard got back to the North City Hotel, back to the Studio behind that ugly freezer door. All he had to do was have the girl in there with him. Then he’d head straight over and complete the task.

  By the time he’d finished, he’d be rid of the pair of them. Then he could leave his life of boredom. He could leave his dreary hag of a wife. What did he need her money for? He’d saved enough of his own. From today, he’d have a whole new life and a whole new identity. He’d be spending every day with Katarina, lavishing her with gifts. Loving her the way she deserved.

  But Westrum’s presence at the Beaconsfield had been a problem. No way could he go in and take Katarina. Not with Westrum there. He’d have to wait until they were safely out of the way before he could do that.

  “What time will you be back at the North City?” he asked.

  The sound of a closing door, and the hiss of a breeze into the phone. “I’m on my way now. This had better be worth my time.”

  He peered through the branches of the shrub to see the asshole and his entourage descending the front stairs of the brothel and heading to the car.

  “Oh, believe me,” he said, shrugging back out of sight and returning to the waiting cab, “you’ll think all your Christmases have come at once.”

  CHAPTER FIFTY

  DAY THREE—6:23 PM—LANEY

  Laney felt like she’d been locked in this cage for weeks. Her knees had gone numb and her back ached. Added to that, her face had ballooned out and throbbed from where Fatso had hit her back at the first basement. She kept pressing her fingers to her swollen cheek to see if it still ached. Which it did.

  Still on her elbows and knees, she dropped her head, with forehead on her hands, and closed her eyes. “Listen, I’m dying of thirst here,” she told Fatso, then looked up.

  His irritation was obvious. He’d been pacing the floor, checking his watch every few seconds. This time he huffed aloud, then went across to the surgical trolley where he moved a couple of items. Then he picked one up, holding it high as if to check his reflection in it. When his phone rang, he dropped the instrument back on the trolley with a clatter, and fished the phone out of his pocket. He listened, then spoke a few words and hung up.

  Suddenly he seemed more animated. Whoever was on the phone must have given him an order. As he ambled over to her, he dug a keyring from his pocket, scrambled through it to find the small gold key, then bent to unlock the cage door.

  “At last,” she sighed. “You’re letting me go, right?”

  After removing the padlock, he yanked the cage door open and stood back. “Boss is coming. Get out.” He stepped forward to grab her.

  “Wait, wait! I can get out on my own.”

  He paused, straightened, and stepped back again. “Then hurry.”

  Slowly, she crawled backwards out of the cage and climbed painfully to her feet using the frame of the cage to steady herself.

  Fatso pointed across the room to where the manacles dangled from bolts on the tiled walls. “Over there.”

  “You are shitting me.”

  “Move!”

  Her shoulders fell. “Oh, c’mon! What am I going to do? Attack you? Overpower you?”

  He pointed. “Go!”

  Groaning like a reluctant teen, she shambled across to the manacles and stood against the wall. He snapped a pair of bracelets onto her wrists, and two thick leather cuffs onto her ankles. Once she was secured, he sauntered across to the freezer door, moved up the few steps, and unlocked the padlock.

  “I can never understand why guys like you do this shit,” she told Fatso. “It’s not like you’re getting paid, is it?”

  He slipped the lock from the handle and opened the freezer door, seemingly ignoring her. But she could feel the tension crackle in the room; could feel him listening. This was his Achilles’ heel. She’d learnt all about it in prison. Not from any book, either. From Julie Hester and her dirty fighting tactics. It was only now she was realizing how much she’d learned. So she tried again.

  “This guy Jerko can’t go on forever, you know. You’re in America. We have laws.”

  A soft snort from Fatso as he descended the stairs again.

  “You wanna wind up in an American prison the rest of your life? Shit,” she muttered. “Better you than me. Being shut up all day like that just about sent me batshit crazy. And I was only inside for, like, six months. And that was in a women’s prison,” she told him pointedly. “Imagine how bad a men’s prison is.”

  “What do you want?” he asked her with his arms wide. “You think if you talk I will let you go? Answer to Njerku when he gets here?”

  Frantic to keep the conversation going, determined to use everything she had, she said, “I could help you.”

  His head snapped back, incredulous. “Help me? How do you help me?”

  Was that a crack in his armor? Was he seriously asking her how he could get out of this? If she had a plan?

  If so, she had to keep him talking, find what to work on. After racking her brain for an answer, she ran with, “Do as I say, and you could get out of this clean as a whistle.”

  Cynical amusement. “Sure I could.”

  “I’m serious.”

  Chuckling. “Sure you are.”

  “I know how you could walk away—no one would even know you’d been here.”

  He took a few steps closer, eyes narrowed, head tilted. But the amusement had gone.

  “So, tell me big plan.”

  “Okay. But you gotta undo these first.” She shook the manacles.

  “No. You don’t need hands. You talk with your mouth. Then maybe I let you go.”

  “Okay,” she said again, feverishly searching for anything that resembled a sensible solution. “How about you turn state’s evidence?”

  He blinked at her in either confusion or disbelief.

  She held her breath, then said, “You know what that is, right?”

  No reply, just a dubious glare.

  “You turn yourself in, then give the police what they want in return for your freedom.”

  He chortled. “Yes, of course that will happen.”

  “I’m serious. You think the cops won’t be after him? A place like this? They’ll be all over his ass. He probably doesn’t even know.”

  Still grinning and nodding, but no response.

  “You have one chance to do this. Just one. You could walk away. Go have a normal life. You wanna live like this forever?” She shook the manacles, indicating the room. “You wanna be one of Jerko’s minions for the rest of your life? He doesn’t even pay you,” she added.

  The grin evaporated and his expression cooled.

  “All you have to do is let me go. I could tell the cops you helped me.”

  “No. I let you go, then I never see you again. Njerku ask me, ‘Where is she? Why do you let her go?’ What do I say?”

  Was he serious? Was he feeling out the plan? Searching for an alternative? Or telling her it was out of the question?

  She had to test it out.

  “Then come with me,” she said, kicking herself and mentally running through snap follow-up plans to turn him in to the police. “I’m serious. I’ll go straight to the cops, tell t
hem what I know. All about Jerko. About all this shit. I’ll tell them he kills people. That he’s got all these girls held prisoner. I can tell them he brings them in from other countries and uses them for his brothels. He’d be in prison for the rest of his life. He’d never, ever get out. And if you’re worried, seriously, you could just disappear. Walk out of here and I won’t even mention you.”

  Was she winning him over? Could she see the cogs turning behind those greedy little eyes? Weighing up the possibility, perhaps?

  She was about to go in for another attempt when his phone rang again. She grunted in frustration as he lifted it and turned away. At the snapped comments she could hear coming across the line, her hopes rose again. In response, his voice rose too, long sentences delivered in vitriolic streams. Maybe he’d told Jerko to go screw himself. Maybe he was about to cut a deal with her; to run with her, turn state’s evidence.

  He stabbed the screen of the phone to end the call, then turned to her.

  “Boss is here.”

  She shook her restraints. “Please, just cut me down. It’s not too late.”

  “For me, it is not too late. But for you, my friend, I’m sorry. This is the end.”

  ***

  The Associate

  He’d given Westrum a head start, timing it so that he himself would have made it out to the North City Club, then ridden the elevator to the nineteenth floor before the bastard turned up. He had to be sure Westrum and the Donohue girl were in the same place. Those were the two birds. One stone and he’d be rid of both of them. If he timed it right.

  So as the cab slowed in front of their destination, he sat up, craning to see over the driver’s shoulder. No sign of Elizabeth. Thank God. There was no way she would have known about this place. But he’d worried, all the same.

  “Go down into the parking garage. It’s at the end of the block,” he said.

  The driver maneuvered past the front entrance of the building to where a ramp led down into the basement parking, hit the turn signal, and slowed. A couple of cars passed and he swerved across the street and down the ramp to where a keypad was mounted on a pole in front of a heavy grille door.