Blood Money

by James Grippando

  “Once again, friends, you are watching Breaking News Network, live from the women’s detention center, where we are just moments away from bringing you an exclusive eyewitness account of this very dangerous situation that Shot Mom and her lawyers have created.”

  “That her lawyers created?” said Jack. It was involuntary, and the corrections officer next to him ignored the fact that Jack was talking to a TV.

  “Hello, this is Jenna Smith.”

  The voice from the television was weak and shaky. Alone and on camera was a frightened young woman clutching a BNN microphone. The crowd in the background flashed from red to orange to yellow, as a full complement of swirling lights from emergency vehicles bathed the parking lot.

  “Jenna, this is Faith Corso with Breaking News Network. Thank you for joining me. I understand that you were right in the thick of this terrible, terrible mess. Can you tell us what happened?”

  The young woman gnawed her lip, timid in her response. “Uhm, we were, like, it was Celeste and me, and we were just . . . oh, I don’t think I can do this.”

  “Take a deep breath,” said Corso, using the voice of a skilled prosecutor who had comforted countless victims in court. “Who is Celeste?”

  “Celeste. My BFF. We’re roommates at the U. We wanted to go to Club Vertigo. They had this party.”

  “Where is this Club Vertigo?”

  “South Beach. Tonight it was, like, you drink free if you come dressed up. Celeste was so perfect.”

  “Wait a second,” said Corso, her tone no longer so soothing. “You’re saying that a South Beach bar was giving away drinks if you got dressed up?”

  “Right.”

  “Dressed up how?”

  “They had this Sydney Bennett look-alike contest, and—”

  “A look-alike contest?”

  “Mmm-hmm. Celeste should have won first prize, but it was like so rigged, the bouncers wouldn’t even let us in. So we, uhm, decided to come here. We thought it would be funny, you know? And like, all of a sudden, people were screaming, ‘There she is, there’s Sydney!’ It was like people went crazy or something. I got knocked down by some jerk, and then . . . I don’t know. A group of women were screaming about bloody money, and when I tried to get up, somebody bashed me in the arm with a pipe. Maybe a baseball bat—I don’t know what it was. My elbow feels like it might be broken.”

  “Where is your friend Celeste now?” asked Corso.

  “I don’t know,” Smith said, her voice quaking. “I got whacked in the arm, and then I saw Celeste go down.”

  “She got hit?”

  “I’m not sure, I—”

  “Coming through!” a paramedic shouted. A member of BNN’s sound crew pulled the girl aside, and the camera captured a team of paramedics racing past with a woman on a gurney.

  “Celeste!” the woman shouted. “Oh, my God, that’s Celeste!”

  The BNN reporter grabbed the microphone and earpiece, and the young woman chased after the gurney. The reporter didn’t miss a beat, her voice racing with excitement.

  “Faith, that would appear to be the friend identified by our eyewitness as Celeste. I did manage to get a good look as paramedics raced past us with the gurney. An oxygen mask covered the young woman’s nose and mouth, and while I can’t say whether she was breathing or not, she did not appear to be conscious. I hate to speculate, but the paramedic at her side had a defibrillator at the ready, and the entire team looked gravely concerned to me.”

  Corso lowered her head, took a deep breath, and expressed her “heartfelt concern” for the injured young woman, the young woman’s family, and young women everywhere in the world who suffered at the hands of evil, the kind of evil that was personified by people like Shot Mom and her lawyers.

  It was amazing to Jack, the way Corso could turn even a touching expression of compassion into one more shot at her enemy.

  “Mr. Swyteck?”

  Jack turned at the sound of the guard’s voice. “Yes?”

  “Our plan was to bring inmate Bennett down now, but I wanted to advise you that the warden has put your client’s release on hold until further notice.”

  “That’s a bad move,” said Jack.

  “It’s for your client’s safety as much as anyone’s.”

  Jack’s gaze returned to the television. BNN’s coverage had reverted to the aerial view from the helicopter, tracking the ambulance as it left the parking lot.

  “This is already beyond your control. An innocent young woman in the hospital isn’t going to make people calm down.”

  “We’ll just have to wait and see.”

  “Wait for what? An hour from now the bars will start closing. A hundred thousand drunks will be looking for something to do, someplace to be. And how much longer before the insanity out there spreads to your overcrowded population in here? These walls aren’t soundproof. This craziness is contagious, even if you’ve never heard of Sydney Bennett.”

  The guard didn’t answer, but he was seasoned enough to know that prison uprisings weren’t just for men.

  Jack said, “I’ve had enough of the Sydney Bennett circus. I’m betting you have, too. Tell the warden I need to see her. My client and I are leaving. Tonight.”

  Chapter Six

  Behind the detention center, bathed in the yellow glow of high-security sodium lights, a Miami-Dade ambulance backed all the way up to an entrance for Authorized Personnel Only. There was barely enough room for the door to swing open. Two corrections officers practically launched Sydney over the bumper and onto the gurney. Jack followed, and the double doors slammed shut. With no siren, emergency lights off, the ambulance pulled away from the building, through the employee parking lot, beneath the expressway, and eventually onto Seventh Avenue.

  “Stay down,” the paramedic said. It was just three of them in the rear. Sydney lay motionless on the gurney. Jack kept low, seated on the floor next to the paramedic in the jump seat.

  The risk of being spotted by anyone on the street was minimal. The small rectangular windows on the rear doors were tinted to near blackout. Every few seconds, with each streetlamp they passed, a weak flash of light pierced the darkness inside the vehicle.

  “How did this get so screwed up?” Sydney muttered.

  Jack had already explained. He took her question as rhetorical, or perhaps she was soul-searching about her life in general.

  The ambulance would take them directly to Opa-locka Executive Airport. That was the deal Jack had struck with the warden—who, as it had turned out, was more than eager to get “the Shot Mom problem” off her watch, pronto. There had been no need for Jack to tip his hand and explain that the need to get Sydney released on schedule wasn’t just about public safety and prison riots. The flight plans were in place, and special arrangements had been made for a two A.M. takeoff. Sydney’s parents stood to lose thousands of dollars if the chartered plane didn’t leave on schedule.

  Sydney sighed in the darkness. “I thought you knew what you were doing, counselor.”

  “Hard to foresee a mob attack on a Sydney Bennett look-alike,” Jack said.

  “I bet it’s all a publicity stunt. Five hours from now she’ll be on the Today Show with her lawyer grabbing her fifteen minutes of fame. Taking my time slot, no less. Little bitch.”

  The paramedic grumbled in the darkness. “For your information, that young woman will be lucky to be alive in the morning.”

  The prognosis cut through Jack like razor wire.

  “Oh,” said Sydney, “and I suppose that’s my fault, right?”

  “Sydney, please stop talking,” said Jack.

  “Why should I? You know I’m right. The prosecutor will write a book and blame me. The investigators and psychiatrists will do the talk shows and blame me. Faith Corso will do a two-hour special during prime time and blame me. They’ll all blame me, and they’ll all get rich. Why shouldn’t I get rich?”

  Jack was officially over her. “Sydney, shut up.”

  The ambulance
stopped. The driver got out, walked around the back of the vehicle, and yanked open the doors. Jack climbed out and helped Sydney step down. Before Jack could even thank them, the paramedics jumped into the front seat, and the ambulance pulled away.

  Opa-locka Executive is a three-runway facility that serves as a designated reliever for nearby and much busier Miami International Airport. Jack had flown into Opa-locka only once in his life, years before on a private plane with his father. Upon their descent, then Governor Swyteck had commandeered the microphone and subjected all twelve passengers to a narrated, bird’s-eye tour of Hialeah, a largely Hispanic community south of the airport, a city with numerous points of interest but which also ranked as the most densely populated U.S. city without a skyscraper. Harry Swyteck was a veritable walking encyclopedia of Florida history, and he’d recounted with particular interest that Opa-locka Executive was just north of former Miami Municipal Airport, where in 1937 Amelia Earhart had begun her ill-fated journey around the world, never to be heard from again.

  Jack thought his client could have taken a cue or two from Amelia.

  “This way,” said Jack, leading her toward the gate.

  At two A.M. the 1,800-acre facility was mostly dark and quiet. The major exception was the U.S. Coast Guard Station, one of the busiest in the country, which was abuzz with activity of some sort that required a helicopter. It had nothing to do with Sydney, though it was not beyond the realm of possibility that it involved a future client of Jack’s. The only other sign of life was the Piper aircraft on Runway 1, lights on and twin engines running.

  “Thank God they’re here,” said Sydney.

  Jack and his client were still outside the security gate, about twenty yards away from the plane. A man stepped out from behind the tail. Jack had been expecting to meet Geoffrey Bennett, but this man was much younger.

  “That’s not your father,” said Jack.

  “Nope.”

  “Who is it?”

  Sydney turned and looked him in the eye. “Are you jealous?”

  “That’s a really stupid thing to say. Who are you flying with?”

  She paused, as if savoring the fact that her lawyer wasn’t in on the family secret. “I know you don’t approve, Jack. It probably even makes you feel a little better about yourself to think that tonight’s screwup killed any chance I had at a movie deal or book. For sure, the TV shows tomorrow were supposed to be all about where am I, what am I doing, when will I talk. Now it’ll be nonstop from the hospital about some stupid girl and her costume party. But it’s just a hiccup. She’s either going to get better . . . or not. Whichever way it cuts, the spotlight will swing back to me. Whether you like it or not, this is going to make me a rich woman.”

  “Don’t kid yourself. That young woman is in the hospital tonight because people thought she was you. Doesn’t that tell you something?”

  “Yeah. Avoid angry mobs. Got it covered.”

  “No, you don’t. The world of public opinion is not a courtroom. There are no rules. You, Sydney, are the hunk of bloody meat in the shark tank.”

  “You underestimate me.”

  “You underestimate fame.”

  “Fame,” she said, a wry smile of satisfaction cutting across her lips. “I really am famous, aren’t I?”

  Jack’s gaze shifted again to the man waiting by the plane. “Is that guy with an entertainment agency?”

  “You could say that,” said Sydney.

  “Well, that’s just beautiful.”

  “You got a problem?” she said.

  “Sydney, the trial’s over, the cameras are off, and if you’re smart, you’ll thank God you’ve been given a second chance and live your life. Going out of your way to stay in the limelight is a huge mistake.”

  She extended her hand, and Jack shook it. “Thanks for everything,” she said. “And thanks in advance for not writing a book of your own about this case.”

  “You definitely don’t have to worry about that.”

  “I know. Because if you do, you’ll be all over the X-rated chapters of mine.”

  “Are you actually threatening me?”

  She flashed one of those pouty, bad-girl looks that had generated so much ink in the tabloids. “And people thought you were representing poor, indigent me for free.”

  Jack just shook his head. “Honestly, Sydney, I wish I had a REPLAY button so you could hear how ridiculous you sound. You act like someone who thinks she’s living in a reality-TV show. Stop trying to be someone you’re not.”

  She leaned closer, her eyes narrowing. “I really don’t like threatening you, Jack. But I am deadly serious. It’s my story. Not yours. Not the judge’s. Not the prosecutor’s. Mine.”

  “All true,” said Jack. “But here’s the thing: You’re the only one who wants it.”

  “We’ll see about that.”

  Jack wanted to drill some sense into her, tell her to wake up. But there was only so much he could do. “There’s probably not another person on the planet who would admit this, but a part of me actually feels sorry for you.”

  “Whatever. Good-bye, Jack.”

  She turned and headed for the plane, gaining speed with each footfall on the asphalt, and finally breaking into a run. She threw herself into the arms of the man who was waiting. Jack watched for a minute, until the embrace broke and they climbed into the plane together. He had no idea where Sydney was headed. No idea who had come to get her.

  The engine revved, and the plane started down the runway.

  Jack wondered if he would ever see her again. He thought about Emma, thought about the Sydney look-alike in the hospital, thought about the devastated parents who had just gotten the dreaded phone call and learned that their beautiful daughter would be “lucky to be alive in the morning” . . . and he wondered if Sydney even cared.

  He glanced over his shoulder for one last look as the plane left the runway, the taillights disappearing into the night.

  Not a chance.

  Chapter Seven

  It was nine P.M., and Theo was working both sides of the big U-shaped bar. Even on a Sunday evening, Cy’s Place oozed that certain vibe of a jazz-loving crowd. Creaky wood floors, redbrick walls, and high ceilings were the perfect bones for Theo’s club in the heart of Miami’s Coconut Grove. Art nouveau chandeliers cast just the right mood lighting. Crowded café tables fronted a small stage for live music.

  Cy’s Place was special in Jack’s book. It was the club Theo had always dreamed of owning, and on these very barstools, at the grand opening, sparks had begun to fly for Jack and FBI agent Andie Henning. They’d talked and laughed till two A.M., listening to Theo’s uncle Cy give them a taste of Miami’s old Overtown Village through his saxophone. A few months later, on the second anniversary of Jack’s thirty-ninth birthday, Jack had put a ring on her finger. More than a few pages had flipped on the calendar since then, and still no date for the wedding.

  But that was another story.

  “Nacho?” asked Theo as he set a heaping plateful on the bar in front of Jack.

  “Thanks, man.”

  Jack was starving. Since “not guilty,” he’d been paying the sole practitioner’s price for a monthlong trial and countless missed deadlines. He’d caught a few hours of sleep after dropping Sydney at the airport and then headed to the office. Not until he smelled the nachos under his nose did he realize that he’d forgotten to eat since breakfast. He was snagging a fourth chip before Theo could get one.

  “Dude, you took the Bacon nacho,” said Theo.

  “There’s no bacon on these nachos.”

  “Not bacon, Bacon. It’s the nacho that can’t be touched without stealing the cheese from all the other nachos, the nacho that—in a weird, culinary, six-degrees-of-separation way—connects to every other nacho on the plate. The Kevin Bacon nacho.”

  “Sor-ree,” Jack said as he put it back.

  “You can’t put it back!”

  “What do you want me to do?” Jack asked, strands of gooey c
heese hanging over the edges of his chip.

  A thirsty customer at the other end of the bar signaled for two beers. Theo stepped away to serve him, carrying on loud enough for Jack to hear him say, “Can you believe that skinny piglet over there took my Bacon nacho?”

  Jack’s phone chimed with a text message. It was from the other half of the Sydney Bennett defense team. Name of Sydney look-alike is Celeste Laramore, Hannah’s text read.

  The victim’s identity had been withheld since the attack. Jack texted back: How do you know?

  Turn on F Corso. Dunno how she always gets it first.

  The thought of more Shot Mom was enough to bring up his Bacon nacho, but he reached over the bar, grabbed the remote, and tuned to BNN. It was a split screen, with Faith Corso in the studio talking to a BNN reporter who was standing outside the lighted entrance to Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami. Cy’s Place was too noisy for Jack to hear, but the closed captioning sufficed. In fact, seeing the printed white letters scrawl against the black banner gave the word even greater impact.

  COMA.

  It felt like a punch in the chest. Suddenly, the closed captioning was garbling every other word. Jack reclaimed the remote and raised the volume. The TV was annoying to the couple seated next to him at the bar, but the TV was competing with crowd noise and music, and the report was wrapping up, so he begged their pardon and cranked it up.

  Corso asked, “Is the young woman showing any signs of alertness?”

  “Not to my knowledge,” the reporter said. “As I said at the top of the report, this is late-breaking news. We are told that Celeste Laramore’s parents arrived from out of town early this morning, but virtually no information had been released about the young woman’s condition until just a few moments ago.”

  “What a horrible, horrible thing for those parents,” said Corso. “Tell me this: Do we have any further information on who might have done this?”

  “Faith, that is an equally startling part of this development. After BNN broke the news that she is, in fact, in a coma, I immediately followed up with contacts at Miami-Dade Police. While no one in the department is speaking on or off the record about a possible suspect in this attack, sources who would talk to BNN only on the condition of anonymity did provide a shocking insight into how Celeste Laramore ended up outside the women’s detention center last night dressed like Sydney Bennett.”