Alafair Burke

by Ellie Hatcher 03 - 212 (v5)

  “No.”

  “Stop lying. Miranda withstood a lot more than this, but in the end, she couldn’t take anymore. She called you, Stacy Schecter, the ‘honest and attractive brunette.’ You were the one who was there.”

  “No.”

  “Admit you were there, and I’ll do it.”

  “Fine, I was there.”

  “Then tell me what you heard. Tell me.”

  Silence. Then a whimper. “I don’t know. I told you. It was Heather. The girl on the news. Tanya Abbott.”

  This time the sound wasn’t a whimper, but a wail.

  “I was in Afghanistan, Stacy. I learned these moves from watching men trained by Al Qaeda. Men who worked for the Taliban. Stop lying.”

  “I’m not lying.”

  “You are saying that name because you’ve seen the missing girl on the news. Tanya Abbott’s picture has been plastered across the city all week.”

  “I swear. It was her.”

  Ellie pressed her back against the wall outside the door, trying to process the conversation. She’d been right. Dillon was trying to find the woman from the 212 that night. But he didn’t know it was Tanya Abbott. He’d started with Katie Battle. Katie had led him to Stacy. And now he was convinced that Stacy was lying because, as far as the public knew, Tanya Abbott was the girl who’d gone missing after her roommate was stabbed.

  Ellie reached into her pocket for the compact and then used her index finger to slowly widen the crack in the basement door. She crouched toward the floor and slipped the mirror into the crack above the stairs, adjusting the mirror to view the activity in the basement below.

  The glass was tiny. Four inches at best. She made out isolated images, like the staccato flashes of a strobe light. She saw enough to know it was bad. Stacy on her side, her bent legs pulled behind her. Arms over her head. Her face against the concrete floor at Dillon’s feet. Dillon bent over her contorted body. And the whimpers.

  Ellie was startled by a sound behind her. Her instincts pulled her to the right one hundred and eighty degrees, her Glock held steady in front of her. The garage door through which she’d entered pushed farther open.

  She stepped to her right toward a closed door farther down the hallway and smelled the familiar scent of laundry. She held the mirror in front of her to watch the garage entrance.

  But where she expected to see Sam Sparks stood her lieutenant, Robin Tucker, her own Glock at the ready.

  Ellie slowly peered around the corner and, when she caught Tucker’s eye, raised her left index finger to her lips. Tucker nodded. Ellie watched as her lieutenant took one careful step after the next, making her way down the hall toward her. She pressed her back against the wall on the opposite side of the basement door. She was still catching her breath, but the two of them now had Dillon’s exit straddled.

  Ellie glanced at her watch. Where was backup? And did she really want it after all? If they stormed the house now, Dillon might panic and take Stacy out immediately. Or they’d be looking at a hostage situation in which Dillon had nothing to lose and nothing to gain either.

  The voices continued downstairs.

  “I was in the NYPD, Stacy. And I still have sources. In fact, I’ll let you in on a little secret: I have a near, dear friend in the department who absolutely adores me. Tells me everything I need to know. If Tanya Abbott were the girl I was interested in, I think she would’ve mentioned it. Think of another story, Stacy.”

  Ellie stole a glance at Tucker, who swallowed and blinked a couple of times before returning Ellie’s gaze. Based on that very brief change in her expression, Ellie guessed that something inside her lieutenant had broken as she realized the truth about her role in Nick Dillon’s life.

  Her attention was pulled back to the basement by more sounds—sobs followed by a thud and then a moan.

  “You might not care about this, Stacy, but I mean it when I say, I take no pleasure in this. I’m not some rapist or sadist or sex-crazed killer. All I want is information.”

  She heard Stacy’s pained voice, but could not make out the words.

  “I’m sorry. I don’t believe you. How about I show you what I can do with a pair of pliers? I’m walking out to the garage, and when I get back, you’re going to start telling me the truth.”

  In the reflection of the mirror, she saw Dillon turn toward the staircase and tuck his handgun into his waistband. Ellie jerked her arm out of view and pulled her body farther from the basement door, waving two fingers at Tucker to indicate that she should reposition herself farther down the hallway. Tucker took two steps to her left and raised her eyebrows to signal she was ready.

  She heard Dillon step onto the first stair. The stride of his feet against the steps continued unbroken. The basement door began to open. Dillon stepped into the hallway.

  “Freeze,” she yelled. “Down on your knees. Hands up. Hands up.”

  She’d replay the next milliseconds in her mind’s eye countless times. What had she seen? Had Dillon’s hands reached for his weapon? Had they reached over his head as she’d commanded? Had they moved at all? The subtle movements of a man’s body in less than a second’s time, when he was surprised to see her, and when she feared for her safety, could never fully be reconstructed.

  She knew with certainty, however, what happened a second after Dillon first spotted her outside the doorway. She heard the blast of gunfire—two shots—and saw Dillon fall to his knees, red stains blossoming at his stomach and on the collar of his light blue dress shirt. She saw him look up to her in confusion as he fell to the ground. And then she saw his eyes move from her to Robin Tucker, whose Glock was still raised, ready to fire again if necessary. Dillon’s own weapon was at his waistband. Ellie bent over his limp and bleeding body and removed it to be safe.

  She heard the faint sound of multiple sirens in the distance.

  “He reached for his gun,” Tucker said, reholstering her Glock. “Don’t look at me like that, Hatcher. He reached. You saw it. Didn’t you see it? Tell me you saw that. He would’ve killed us.”

  Then came the first of the many times Ellie would try to replay that partial second—that tiny gap of time between the opening of the basement door and the sound of Tucker’s shots. Maybe Dillon had reached for his waist and Tucker simply had a better view from her position. Or maybe he hadn’t, but would have half a second later if Tucker hadn’t fired. All Ellie knew was that she hadn’t seen his hands move. She also knew that her beliefs about what she’d actually seen didn’t really matter.

  Dillon was a killer. She, Tucker, and Stacy were alive. Ellie was raised by a cop. She knew how this worked. As far as the official record was concerned, Dillon had reached for his weapon. Tucker would say so. So would Ellie. And, from the looks of the blood beginning to pool on the floor beneath him, Dillon wouldn’t be around to give his side of the story.

  Her lieutenant still seemed to be processing what she’d just done as Ellie stepped around Dillon’s body. “I was outside,” she said. “Down the street. Watching. I saw him come with her. I thought—I thought he was fooling around. And then the unis knocked and left. And then you showed up, ran off, and came back again. When I saw the broken window, I realized—Hatcher, what am I going to say?”

  “He reached for his gun.”

  “But I was here. At his house. I was watching him.”

  Ellie was already taking the basement stairs two at a time. She could tell from the approaching sounds of sirens that backup would be there soon. “You were coming over to surprise him. It’s fine. Call dispatch,” she yelled. “Have them send two ambulances.”

  Stacy let out a sob when she saw Ellie turn the corner toward her.

  “Is he gone?”

  Her words were strained as she struggled to control her breath. Her ankles and wrists were bound together at the small of her back in a complex tangle of black nylon rope. Ellie relieved some of the pressure from Stacy’s limbs by supporting the weight of her bent legs in her own hands.

  �
�We need a knife. Tucker, can you hear me? Find a knife.”

  Her lieutenant descended the stairs seconds later wielding a ten-inch chef’s knife. Stacy’s body stiffened at the sight.

  “Shh,” Ellie said, reaching for Tucker’s extended hand. “It’s okay now. He’s dead.”

  She sawed at the rope, freeing Stacy’s hands and feet. Stacy’s weight dropped limp against the concrete, and she began to cry.

  “Thank you,” she wailed between sobs. “Oh, my God. Thank you.”

  Ellie crouched on the floor beside her, rubbing her shoulder as Stacy’s breath started to return to normal. She heard Tucker’s footsteps on the basement stairs and then in the living room above her, followed by heavier footsteps and the sounds of police radios. The backup had finally arrived.

  “The cavalry’s here,” Ellie said, tugging the hem of Stacy’s dress over her bare thighs. “Let’s get you put together.”

  She helped Stacy to her feet. She wobbled at first but managed the steps slowly as she held Ellie’s hand for support. Just as she reached the final step, she turned to look at Ellie.

  “I know what he did to Katie. She tried not to tell him who I was. She tried to protect me. I tried at first, but I just couldn’t do it. I told him about Tanya. I told him she was the girl at that apartment that night.”

  Ellie gave her hand a squeeze. “You were strong, Stacy. And Tanya will be okay. He’s gone now.”

  CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE

  9:15 P.M.

  The Maybach slowed in front of the house. Sparks stepped from the driver’s seat just as the EMTs were rolling Dillon’s gurney out the front door. The change in his face from panic to absolute devastation told a story about his relationship with Nick Dillon—the secret that Dillon had killed to protect.

  “Nick,” he cried out. He did not need to see beneath the white sheet to understand the significance of the swarm of police cars and ambulances.

  Ellie and Robin Tucker were standing guard over Stacy Schecter as she sat on a bench on the front porch, an EMT wrapping the lacerations on her wrists and monitoring her for signs of shock.

  “I’ll be all right,” Stacy said, clearly sensing Ellie’s hesitation to leave. Tucker placed a reassuring hand on the woman’s shoulder as Ellie made her way across the lawn.

  By the time she reached Sparks, a uniform officer was holding him back from the cluster of emergency vehicles in the middle of the street. Sparks saw Ellie approaching and held her gaze.

  “Please. Please tell me he’s still alive.”

  Ellie shook her head, and he seemed to collapse against the uniform officer. The confused cop walked him back toward the Maybach, where he rested his weight on the front bumper.

  “No, oh God no.” He placed his face in his hands. “It’s my fault.”

  She stood and let him cry. And talk. He wasn’t in custody. No Miranda warnings were required. And he was about to give them more of a confession than she could ever get through interrogation.

  “I should’ve known. I should have said something. I didn’t know. At first, when Robo was killed, I wondered. But I didn’t know.”

  “He was blackmailing Dillon.”

  Sparks nodded. “It started when Nick was in Afghanistan. Robo found out about Nick—”

  “That he was gay.”

  “It wasn’t about that at first. It was Nick being stupid, shaking down some opium farmer he stumbled on during a security job in Nangahar Province. Robo and his people came through on patrol and found Nick where he wasn’t supposed to be. Nick made up some b.s. story, but Robo figured out what was going on.”

  “You knew about this?”

  “Of course not,” he said, shaking his head. “Not until later. Nick would tell me old stories about cops ripping off dealers, but he always made it sound like he was talking about someone else. Robo made it clear to Nick that he expected a job when he was discharged. By the time that happened, I had convinced Nick to come back to New York. He wasn’t happy about working for me, but it was supposed to be temporary, a way for him to bolster his corporate security credentials without being over in that hellhole. Then he’d move on to another company.”

  “So he hired Mancini?”

  Sparks’s eyes remained glued on the ambulance as Dillon’s body was wheeled into the back. “For a while, things were all right. But then Robo walked in on us once in Nick’s office. It was just a kiss, but still, it was obvious what was going on. Next thing we knew, he was asking for a much better job—well, a non-job really—at an exorbitant salary. I wanted to pay it, but my accounting staff would have asked questions. And Nick, with those cop instincts, said it would never stop. Robo would just keep asking for more. And then May 27 happened.”

  “You had to know it was Nick.”

  “I think I was still in denial about the entire situation. When I got the call about a problem at the 212, I made a point to find Robo to deal with it. It’s like I was trying not to be intimidated. To remind him who he worked for. I had no idea he was the emergency.”

  “But then we told you he’d been killed. The possibility must have crossed your mind.”

  He nodded. “That’s probably why I came off as such a prick that night. Part of me was happy that Robo was dead, but I was so angry, wondering whether Nick was somehow involved. So I asked him, of course. But he swore he had nothing to do with it. He told me how people get killed in these mistaken home invasions. He said it could’ve been a robbery attempt. And I’m sure I wanted those explanations to sound plausible. You don’t want to think the person you love has it in him to do something like that. Then the next thing we know, you’re asking about me and my enemies and my finances. I couldn’t cooperate, but I knew it only made me look guilty.”

  “If we’d opened your books, we would have found the payments to Prestige Parties,” Ellie said. “Eventually we would have asked the right question and figured out you were the one client of theirs who really was aboveboard.”

  “Lots of pretty girls to walk the red carpets with me. Nothing more, nothing less. And I truly didn’t think I had any information that would help you, or I would have turned it over. I believed Nick. And then you showed up at the Four Seasons last night.”

  “We said something that made you realize there was more to it.”

  “You told me that Robo had been with a woman from the service the night he was killed. It was too big of a coincidence. Robo didn’t know about the escort service, but Nick did. I realized that Nick had set him up.”

  Ellie remembered Genna Walsh’s description of her brother and husband snickering about Robo’s “sure thing.” She imagined Dillon pretending to cede to Mancini’s demands, throwing in all the corporate perks for good measure.

  “So you drove here after we confronted you at the Four Seasons.”

  He nodded. “Nick looked me in the eye and told me all over again that he didn’t do it. I could tell something was wrong, but I just didn’t want to believe he had that kind of evil in him. I said that to him, you know. I walked out on him and said, ‘You better be telling the truth, because whoever would do something like that is evil.’ Those were the last words I ever spoke to him. He tried to talk to me today outside the office, but I just got into my car and told the driver to leave. Nick did it, didn’t he? He killed Robo.”

  “We think he also killed a woman named Katie Battle. He brought another woman here tonight named Stacy Schecter, but she made it.”

  “No. No, he would never—”

  “He lied to you. I’m sorry.” Fifty-year-old men don’t suddenly go from shaking down Afghan opium farmers to murder to torture. Just as Dillon had managed to fool Sam Sparks for eight years, he had hidden inside the NYPD for twenty.

  “But, why? Why would he hurt these women? What did they have to do with Robo?”

  Ellie explained how Katie Battle was supposed to be Mancini’s date the night he was killed, but then the trick had been passed off to Stacy Schecter and then ultimately to Tanya Abbott. “We obv
iously have some loose ends to tie up, but it looks like Nick was trying to find the witness he’d left behind.”

  A flash of recognition passed through Sparks’s glazed eyes. “Nick was the one who wanted us to press for information about the woman who was Robo’s date that night.”

  “A woman named Tanya Abbott,” Ellie said.

  “The girl from the news?”

  She nodded.

  “But she’s missing.”

  “She was attacked earlier in the week. Her roommate was killed, and she’s been on the run ever since.”

  “And you think Nick did that too?”

  “We don’t know,” she said. “Based on some of the things he said to the woman he kidnapped tonight, we don’t think he knew about Tanya Abbott.”

  “And if he didn’t know about her—”

  “Then he’s not the one who went after her and her roommate.”

  “That’s not much consolation.”

  She watched him fall into silence—leaning against the Maybach’s gleaming hood, alone, staring at the ambulance as the engine started and strangers carried away the body of his dead partner. She could feel sympathy for him now, but none of it changed the fact that he had played a role in Dillon’s violence. She finally had to speak.

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Sparks. Perhaps it’s cruel of me to say this right now, but when Mancini blackmailed you, why didn’t you just call his bluff?”

  He shook his head as he wiped away a tear from his left cheek. “There’s more to it than just being outed. People would’ve started asking questions about the women. The escorts, the money—”

  He cut himself off, but Ellie finished the thought for him. “You used a corporate card. And if that had come out, your investors might have asked about other expenses as well. My guess is, they would have found some other creative accounting? The Maybach. Maybe a little too much spending given the current economic climate?”

  She took Sparks’s sad nod as resignation, his financial concerns now eclipsed by Dillon’s death. “My entire corporate existence is linked to this image of unapologetic consumption. The truth is, I don’t have as much as the world thinks.” He fought the quiver of his lower lip. “Financing? Advertising? All gone if the world knows Sam Sparks is just another overleveraged developer, and a poof at that. And, even so, I was still tempted. I would have let Robo scream all of it from the rooftops.”